Unit 2
Enlightenment to Restoration
After the Thirty Years' War had come to an end in 1648, several dynasties vied for predominance in Europe, first
and foremost the English and French Kings, including Louis XIV (1638-1715). German Kings, like Prussia’s Frederick
the Great (1712-1786), and Austrian Emperors like Maria Theresa (1717-1780) from the House of Habsburg, as
well as smaller kingdoms and principalities competed for influence and dominance in Europe as well as in the new
world. In 17th-century France, the “Sun King” and “absolute monarch” Louis XIV epitomized the power of such
dynasties, and his court set the standard for all strata of society. In 18th century Europe, the nobility acquired
limited political and cultural sovereignty, and embraced a form of “enlightened absolutism” in alliance with
bourgeois (middle-class) commercial interests. Court splendor permeated all aspects of Baroque life and letters
culminating in Rococo architecture, Enlightenment philosophy and theater, as well as fashion, folklore, and
literature.
Illustration 1. The Inauguration of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia, painted by Valery Jacobi
in 1757. Russia was ruled by the German-born Empress Catherine the Great (1729-1796), who espoused the
principles of “enlightened absolutism.” Like the Prussian King Frederick the Great or the Austrian monarch Maria
Theresa, these Enlightenment era empresses and kings promoted the arts, sciences, and education, as well as
various degrees of religious toleration, freedom of the press, free speech, and the right to own private property.
Under their reigns, massive migrations of peoples and goods travelled across Europe, Russia, Asia, and the
Americas, whose migrant experiences, letters, and literary accounts shaped intercultural contacts and commerce.
Unit 2 of this course focuses on the Enlightenment movement, which emanated from England and France and
reached central Europe and Russia during the 18th century, and developed into a more radical Storm and Stress
movement in Germany around 1770. It later gave way to German Classicism with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
and Friedrich Schiller at the literary helm. The impact of revolutionary movements in America and France, and
Germany’s defeat in the Napoleonic Wars in 1806 radically changed the social and political landscapes in the
German-speaking countries. Emperor Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815 terminated the revolutionary fervor
of the early 1800s, and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 put an end to the French Revolution, the reign of terror, the
Republic, and Napoleon’s vision of a greater Europe.
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Cardinals, conservatives, and aristocrats like Talleyrand, Count Wellington or Count Metternich’s promoted the
dynastic Restauration of Europe’s old monarchial order, which occurred side by side with the Industrial Revolution
and its radical transformation of the economy. It was also the age of Romanticism in literature, art, and music. The
readings focus on the Enlightenment and its efforts to liberate society from late medieval scholasticism, and on
science and technology as seen through the eyes of Germany’s premier scholar and mathematician in 1696,
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz. Goethe’s contemporaries, the philosophers and poets Immanuel Kant, Friedrich
Schiller, Sophie von La Roche, and Madame de Stael introduced their views of German and European civilization,
with special emphasis on Weimar Classicism, music, and the intercultural history of Germans, Jews, Austrians,
Swiss, and their European neighbors.
Contents of Unit 2
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Enlightenment 2.1
o 1700-1830 Science and Technology 2.2
o 1800 Classical Music 2.3
o Enlightenment to Classicism 2.4
1749-1832 Age of Goethe 2.5
o Kant, Schiller, and Weimar 2.6
o French Revolution and Holy Roman Empire 2.7
1813-1815 German Wars of Independence 2.8
Restoration and Romanticism 2.9
Online GER 216 Civilization Studies Resources 2.10
Illustration 2. Market square with the Cranach-House (center, 1552) in the German city of Weimar, where the poet
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) worked and lived most of his life
Readings of Unit 2 (ca 59 pages)
1. Leibnitz, 1696, Human Understanding 3 pages
2. Beaumarchais, 1778, Figaro 2 pages
3. Lessing, 1779, Nathan 11 pages
4. Mozart, 1791, Magic Flute 1 page
5. La Roche, 1796, Sternheim 5 pages
6. Kant, 1784, What is Enlightenment? 7 pages
7. Goethe, 1795, Novellen, Unterhaltungen, Emigrants 10 pages
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8.
9.
Stael, 1814, Germany 10 pages
Blumenthal, 1998, Invisible Wall, Rahel 10 pages
Go to Unit 2.1
Unit 2.1
Enlightenment
The term Enlightenment refers to the trends in thought and letters in Western Europe as well as the colonies
during the 18th century. In Germany, the phrase was frequently employed by writers of the period itself, convinced
that they were emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a new age illuminated by reason, science,
literature, education, art, and a respect for humanity.
The origins of the Enlightenment trace back to the 17th century and the Baroque era. They included the works of
philosophers and mathematicians like René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza in France and Holland, and the political
scientists Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in England. Equally important was the intellectual self-confidence that
emerged in the 18th century, engendered by new discoveries in the sciences, together with a sense of global
awareness and the exploration of new worlds.
Illustration 3. Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780), Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Archduchess of Austria.
When the Emperor Charles VI died without a male heir in 1740, the political struggle between Austria and Prussia
escalated. Not only Prussia, but Bavaria and France both objected to Austria’s Habsburg princess Maria Theresa
succeeding to the imperial throne of the Holy Roman Empire. This unleashed the War of the Austrian Succession,
from which five great European powers emerged and now struggled to assert their own dynastic interests: England
and France clashed over their colonial territories overseas, and from 1756 to 1763 Austria and Prussia fought a war
over the province of Silesia located in today’s Poland and the Czech Republic. Following this Seven Years' War
Austria, Prussia and Russia joined forces to direct their expansionist policies against Poland.
One of the basic assumptions and beliefs common to philosophers and intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment,
and perhaps the most important was an abiding belief in the power of human reason. The sciences were shaped by
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Isaac Newton's discovery of universal gravitation and Gottfried Leibniz' contributions to mathematics and physics.
Leibnitz proposed that if science could service humanity to unlock the laws of God's universe, science could also
discover the laws of nature, society, and government.
Illustration 4. The Zwinger Pavilion in Dresden, one of the grand masterpieces of Baroque architecture in
Germany, was built by Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, begun in 1711. The Enlightenment Age came to assume that
through the use of reason, future progress would be possible — progress in knowledge, in technical achievement,
and in higher moral values. Through proper education, economic and scientific progress, humanity itself could be
altered, its nature changed for the better.
German enlightenment thinkers placed a great premium on the discovery of truth through the observation of
nature, rather than through the study of authoritative sources, such as Greek philosophy and the Bible. Although
they saw the church—especially the Roman Catholic church—as the principal force that had enslaved the human
mind in the Middle Ages, most Enlightenment thinkers did not renounce religion altogether. They opted rather for
a form of Pantheism or Deism, accepting the existence of God and of a hereafter, but rejecting the intricacies of
the Christian Bible or any other theology. The Enlightenment promoted the broad development of human
aspirations, but believed that morality should not be centered on the next life, but rather on the means of
improving this life. Critical thinking took precedence over religious speculation. According to the German
philosopher Immanuel Kant (Unit 2 Text), the motto of the age should be "Sapere aude! Dare to know."
Go to Unit 2.2
Unit 2.2
Science and Technology
Science and technology were the driving forces behind Europe's belief in the power of enlightened thinking and
the progress it produced. Isaac Newton's scientific rationale had bolstered the Enlightenment's claim that progress
was assured if secular governments ran social and political affairs, not the clergy or the church. Ever since Newton
(1643-1727) published his works, Europeans felt comfortable with this notion of an ordered, mechanical, and
material universe that was set into motion like a clockwork, by God, and then left to run by itself operating
automatically, with the help of human engineers. This established Newtonian paradigm described the universe as a
smooth running machine, following rational laws, which offered a very reassuring outlook, one that most
Europeans still shared until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
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Illustration 5. The photograph shows the old entrance to the University of Göttingen, one of the leading centers of
humanist learning in Germany. Europe had about 105 universities and colleges by 1700. North America had 44,
including the newly founded Harvard and Yale. University students were generally males from affluent families,
seeking a career in medicine, law, or theology. The universities existed primarily to educate future physicians,
scientists, lawyers, academics, and members of the clergy.
Universities, academic societies and learned academies were the backbone of the scientific revolution that altered
human perceptions of society, nature, and the universe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The advancement of the
sciences went hand in hand with its popularization among an increasingly literate and educated population. The
Philosophes in France introduced scientific information through publications like their Encyclopédie and similar
dictionaries which summarized the Enlightenment’s entire body of knowledge. Well written articles explained
advancements in medicine, mathematics, and physics, including discoveries of distant lands, nature, and science,
such as the emerging discipline of chemistry, as well as magnetism, and electricity.
Illustration 6. Title page of the Encyclopédie. The structure that Denis Diderot and other editors and publishers of
the Encyclopédie used to organize their knowledge diagrams included three main branches: memory, reason, and
imagination.
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Illustration 7. The German artist David Redtel illustrated tomato plants from the Americas, entitled "Red Apples
from the New World” found in Johannes Kentmann’s Book of Herbs (Kräuterbuch). The German scientist Johannes
Kentmann (1518-1574) was born in Dresden, and studied in Leipzig and Wittenberg. He migrated to Bologna, Italy,
where he earned a doctorate degree in medicine and surgery. After his return to Germany, Kentman wrote on
many scientific subjects. The Book of Herbs shows a systematic arrangement of approximately 600 illustrations of
trees, bushes, domestic and wild plants, executed by David Redtel. See Image of title page at the Saxon State
Library and the Library of Congress.
Illustration 8. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) was an accomplished scientist and naturalist, whose far-reaching
travels informed her illustrations of plants and insects, and established her among the foremost scientists in the
emerging discipline of entomology. Merian’s most innovative documentations involved the metamorphosis of the
butterfly.
The mobility of people and goods across continents and oceans greatly increased from the 17th to the early 19th
century due to more accurate navigation and transportation tools, the pursuit of scientific and commercial travel,
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and the exchanges of artists, entertainers, merchants, and markets. Outward migrations from the Holy Roman
Empire, primarily to southeastern Europe, Russia, and the United States involved millions of people of all origins,
ages and backgrounds, who resettled with their families or alone abroad or overseas.
Explorers and naturalists were the undisputed globe trotters among the Academies of Arts and Sciences in Europe,
with women leading the way. Enterprising and adventurous, artists and scientists like Maria Merian and her
daughters raised the artistic standards of natural history illustration and helped transform the field of insect
studies. The French-American naturalist and bird painter John James Audubon (see the painting of Audubon by
John Syme in 1826) achieved great recognition for his work The Birds of North America (1827–1839), one of the
finest ornithological documentations completed in the United States. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)
belonged to a group of pioneer scientists and natural historians, who mapped the globe and its flora and fauna.
Illustration 9. A portrait of Alexander von Humboldt, painted in 1806, shows the naturalist and geologist on an
Latin American expedition. About nature and its harmony and diversity, Humboldt wrote in 1814: "Nature herself
is sublimely eloquent. The stars as they sparkle in firmament fill us with delight and ecstasy, and yet they all move
in orbit marked out with mathematical precision."
Go to Unit 2.3
Unit 2.3
Classical Music around 1800
The newly established colonies overseas and new middle class patrons in Europe were replacing monarchial
cultures as well as church influences as the main sponsors of the arts. Classical music elevated the tuneful and
elegant but impersonal style of music popular among Baroque and Rococo composers to new heights of creativity
that culminated in Viennese Classicism in the 18th century. Habsburg Vienna emerged as the capital of a new
musical movement.
The formalized and often soulless compositions of the Rococo salons and chamber music pavilions left little scope
for musicians, conductors, and composers to express their personality. A first and radical attempt to reform the
prevailing opera genres by the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck (1717-87) paved the way for the blossoming of
classical music in Germany and Europe. For the first time, instrumental music became more important than vocal
music. New, classically balanced composition soon emerged involving illustrious musicians like Joseph Haydn,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven.
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Illustration 10. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the opera Magic Flute as a musical embrace of the
Enlightenment. It was premiered in Vienna in 1791 at the suburban Freihaus-Theater. Mozart conducted the
orchestra. The author of the opera’s libretto, Emanuel Schikaneder himself played “Papageno”, while the “Queen
of the Night” was sung by Mozart's sister-in-law Josepha Hofer. The photograph here shows Laure Meloy as
“Queen of the Night” in the English Touring Opera's performance of Magic Flute. Photo © 2009 Robert Workman
Vienna Classicism
The so-called Viennese Classicism (1770-1820) came at a time of radical political and social changes in Europe. The
French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars changed the face of monarchial domains on the continent. While the
American Revolution, the signing of the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights shaped the Enlightenment’s ide of
democracy. The German middle classes enjoyed rising economic and political power, which manifested itself not in
cultural revolutions like Storm and Stress but also in market aspirations, educational ventures, and creative literary
and artistic activities. The classical period saw the rise of a culturally active public sphere in support of socially
engaged art, theater, and music. Beaumarchais’s drama the Marriage of Figaro, and Mozart’s opera The Magic
Flute are among the masterpieces of classical music and Enlightenment literature (see Unit2 Texts).
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91), the child genius from Salzburg, performed his first concert at the age of six.
Mozart spent his childhood and youth on musical tours throughout Europe, playing before some of the most
important monarchs and personages of his time. But employed as the choirmaster of the Bishop of Salzburg, who
did not recognize his genius, Mozart’s financial situation was always quite precarious and unpredictable. He spent
the last decade of his life in Vienna without a fixed income, and frequently in lack of necessities for his well-being,
which makes his musical achievement even more remarkable. He wrote a total of 600 compositions including the
operas Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and the Magic Flute, as well as scores of symphonies, concertos, sonatas
and sacred music, such as his last, unfinished work, the Requiem.
Illustration 11. Opera House in Berlin. From roughly 1770 to 1820, musicians as well as architects and artists
transformed the heavily ornamented styles of the Baroque and later the Rococo periods. They embraced clean,
harmonious and uncluttered musical styles that could foster classical artistic revivals. See music links below
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Among the first successful freelance composers of classical music was Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Born in
Bonn, he learned composition as a pupil of Haydn. When Beethoven had already become well-known, difficulty
with his hearing and emotional hardship threw him into despair. From 1816 onward he could only communicate
with guests and visitors to his house in Vienna through “conversation books” in which questions and answers were
written. His Ninth Symphony, an arrangement to Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” portrayed Beethoven’s strong
belief in the free-roaming ideals of the Enlightenment tempered by classical reason.
The one composer of Viennese Classicism that was actually born in Vienna was Franz Schubert (1797-1828). Over
a period of only eleven years, Schubert produced an enormous output including chamber and orchestral music,
religious masses and dances and nine complete symphonies. His opus of over 600 song cycles such as A Winter’s
Journey (Die Winterreise) which heralded the beginnings of the romantic period in German music.
Illustration 12. This painting from the late 18th century shows Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart attending a reception at
a Freemasons' lodge in Vienna, ca. 1784. In the foreground are prominent aristocrats and sponsors of the arts and
music. On the bench on the right side probably Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart became a Freemason in 1784.
See Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria.
Go to Unit 2.4
Unit 2.4
Enlightenment to Classicism
The emphasis of Enlightenment philosophers, mathematicians, musicians, writers, artists, and those that traveled
throughout Europe promoted the freedom to think, write, and publish, resulting in a breath-taking array of literary
narratives, scientific essays, and knowledge-based encyclopedia that educated the public as well as the courts.
Enlightenment literature captured the public’s imagination with novels like Rousseau’s education of Emile (1796)
or Voltaire’s learned travels in “Candide (1778) or Madame de Stael’s account of German civilization in her
intellectual memoir of Germany (1814). In German, Aufklärung was the term for the current of thought, reason,
compassion, and egalitarian politics which dominated much of central Europe during the middle of the 18 th
century, called the Age of Reason in France, and the Enlightenment in England. Essentially, Aufklärung meant the
application of human reason to every sphere of inquiry. Enlightenment philosophy and literature tended to be
critical toward monarchial traditions, medieval emotions, irrational prejudice, or anything irrational just as it
tended toward an optimistic view of humans and their ability to improve themselves through talent, education and
skill.
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Illustration 13. This is a 1856 engraving of the playwright Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-81) and the poet Johann
Caspar Lavater at the home of the German-Jewish philosopher and political publicist Moses Mendelssohn in Berlin
in 1763.
Enlightenment writers like Gottsched, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Kant and LaRoche exposed, criticized or satirized the
“un-enlightened” follies of their fellow men and women. Enlightened kings like Frederic the Great, who called
himself the “first servant” of the Prussian state, regarded it as their duty to govern efficiently and fairly, with
tolerance toward other religious and social groups and cultures, “in the interests of all”. Enlightened philosophers
like Immanuel Kant analyzed methods of thinking and knowing as they applied to human affairs, morality, and the
law.
Morality was among the most operative literary and artistic agendas of the Enlightenment, and middle-class
morality in particular. Poets and playwrights like Gotthold Ephraim Lessing interpreted morality and religion in
terms of the education of mankind toward ever higher levels of justice, knowledge, and liberty. Lessing was more
than an enlightened proponent of reason, he also advanced the Enlightenment’s optimistic emancipation of
human intelligence and reason. He presented a balanced worldview about the contest among religions in his
drama Nathan the Wise (see Unit Text). The play is in accordance with Enlightenment principles and pleas for the
peaceful coexistence of religions. It is a parable whose theme had appeared in many forms and places before,
most notably in Boccaccio’s Decamerone collection of Italian novellas four century earlier (1353).
Among the poets and playwrights of the time, Sophie von La Roche stands out as the first woman writer whose
best-selling novels sustained her literary salon as well as her family’s pietistic lifestyle. Following a brief
engagement to the writer Martin Wieland, Sophie entered a “marriage of convenience” (Vernunftsehe) in 1753
with Georg Michael Frank, and adopted the name Sophie von La Roche (see Unit Text).
La Roche’s family brought Sophie into contact with the court and its refined society, and created an environment
in which the author’s intellectual and literary abilities could flourish. The publication of The History of Lady Sophia
Sternheim (Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim) in 1771 proved to be a watershed moment for late 18th
century women’s literature. La Roche’ narratives successfully established popular models for writing and
publishing, which led to a marked increase in women’s commercial successes writing epistolary novels for a
growing market of readers eager to follow the intriguing narratives into her marriage.
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Illustration 14. The novelist Sophie von La Roche (1730-1807) was a pioneer of women's literature in Germany.
Few authors had more literary success and commercial influence than Sophie von La Roche, whose epistolary
novel The History of Lady Sophia Sternheim paved the way for a whole new genre of prose written by and for
women.
Developing almost in opposition to the Enlightenment was a young protest movement in Germany that called itself
Sturm und Drang or “Storm and Stress” with an emphasis in literature on individualism, nature, and social justice.
Storm and Stress adapted and extended the basic ideas of early 18th-century liberty and rationalism. Discussions
on natural law, constitutional government, politics, and the morality of the middle class, especially those of
women, shaped the minds of many university students and future leaders in the arts and sciences before the
French Revolution.
Storm and Stress refers to a 20-year period of great literary, musical, cultural, and social activism from
approximately 1770 to 1790. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, a strong proponent of the Storm and Stress movement,
called it a “literary revolution.” It was a brief but highly productive period of late Enlightenment culture in
transition to the classical age of German literature, when Weimar emerged as the new humanist center.
The pronounced anti-feudal opposition of middle-class youth and intellectuals established the social foundation
for the Storm and Stress movement, which pushed the Enlightenment into a more radical phase. The economic
expansion of the middle class, the strengthening of its social ties with artisans and peasants, and political selfconfidence sharpened the historical and cultural contradictions between bourgeois business interests and controls
exercised by Germany’s noble elites. Passionate calls for the emancipation of peasants and for overcoming
Germany’s social, political, and cultural fragmentation inspired the best works of “Storm and Stress” literature in
the 1770s. Eloquent pleas in support of the American Revolution also ranked high on the literary agenda.
Germany’s literary awakening occurred at the time of the American Revolution, and intense political and
philosophical debates involving legitimate calls for political independence and the abdication of absolute
monarchs. This revolutionary atmosphere greatly inspired and motivated young artists and intellectuals who
carried the message throughout Europe. The free migration of Storm and Stress literature, books, ideas, and
practices anticipated and amplified the demands for equality, liberty, and justice emanating from the French
Revolution in 1789.
At that time in Germany, a new center of culture and civilization developed in a small principality and town called
Weimar in the State of Thuringia (Classical Weimar - World Heritage Site). Weimar’s contribution as a center of
German Classicism in art, architecture, literature, and philosophy was formidable as it attracted the best minds of
Germany and Europe. The city’s cultural life was marked by diversity and innovation which created and fashioned
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German consumer culture, bourgeois taste, theater, and poetry of Germany’s classical age.
Illustration 15. Weimar’s Courtyard of the Muses, painted by Theobald Freiherr von Oer in 1860, commemorating
Weimar’s heritage as a mecca of German Classicism in literature and the arts. The writer Friedrich Schiller reads in
the gardens of Tiefurt Castle in Weimar. Amongst the audience on the far left (seated) are the poets Wieland and
Herder, while Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is standing on the right in front of the pillar.
The city became the adopted home of the leading characters of Weimar Classicism, foremost among them Goethe
and Schiller. A century later, the city became birthplace of the Bauhaus movement, founded by Walter Gropius,
with artists Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, and Lyonel Feininger. Today, many places in the city
center have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Go to Unit 2.5
Unit 2.5
Age of Goethe
German literature, architecture, science, and music from the 1780s to the 1830s influenced German and European
culture like no other period in history. It fell within the lifetime of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and other great
intellects and writers of the age including Friedrich Schiller, Rahel Varnhagen (1771-1833), Bettina von Arnim,
Hölderlin, Chamisso, and Kleist, who placed their literature within the philosophical and political movements of
Storm and Stress, Classicism, and Romanticism, thus coining the 19th century image of Germany as a “nation of
poets and philosophers (Dichter und Denker).”
The age of Goethe went beyond the Enlightenment's affirmation of science inasmuch as it ascribed to science only
a peripheral position in relation to the ultimate questions of life. It insisted upon the value of genuine emotions,
spirituality, religion, and the imagination in face of the limitations of reason. Impulse, instinct, genius, and intuition
acquired considerable significance as the links that connected humans with divine nature. The ideal of the classical
age, understood as Humanität or "humanness", was that of the fully developed personality in which intellect and
emotion, mind and body, will and soul could coexist within a harmonious and classical balance. Three phases may
be distinguished in the evolution of this new outlook: Storm and Stress, Classicism, and Romanticism.
Nature, genius, and originality were the slogans of the Storm and Stress movement. The pronounced anti-feudal
opposition of middle-class intellectuals established the social foundation for Storm and Stress, which pushed the
Enlightenment into a more radical phase. The economic expansion of the middle class, the strengthening of its
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social ties with artisans and peasants, and political self-confidence sharpened the historical and cultural
contradictions between bourgeois business interests and controls exercised by Germany’s noble elites. Passionate
calls for the emancipation of peasants and for overcoming Germany’s social, political, and cultural fragmentation
inspired the best works of Storm and Stress literature and art in the 1770s. Eloquent pleas in support of the
American Revolution also ranked high on their humanist agenda.
The book that brilliantly captured the Storm and Stress resentments against aristocratic authority and social
discrimination was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s best-selling autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of
Young Werther (U2 Text), published in 1774. The story involves a young man who loves his friend’s betrothed and
later wife, and is loved in return. Werther, loyal to his friend, respects the marriage but suffers greatly in the
process. Werther confides: “Nature has formed nothing that does not consume itself, and every object near it: so
that, surrounded by earth and air, and all the active powers, I wander on my way with aching heart; and the
universe is to me a fearful monster, forever devouring its own offspring."
Illustration 16. Illustration from Goethe’s autobiographical novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Weimar Classicism or Neoclassicism. The German philosopher and cultural historian Johann Gottfried von Herder
and his doctrine of Humanität, or “humanness” in which intellect is reconciled with emotions and the soul became
fundamental to the aesthetics of German (Neo) Classicism that flourished under Goethe’s management of the arts
and sciences in Weimar near Dresden. The call for a harmonious balance of genius and self-discipline was lacking in
Storm and Stress art and literature, which soon exhausted itself in narcissistic reflections. A more constructive and
practical understanding of moral idealism and human progress in history appeared in the literature of Goethe and
Schiller, as well as in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Classical German literature, philosophy, arts and sciences
tried to redefine the values of social justice, liberty, self-determination, freedom of the press, and social activism,
which were rendered acute by the impact of the French Revolution in 1789.
The Weimar poet Friedrich Schiller believed the antagonism between collective and individual, duty and inclination
could be resolved once morality became "second nature," and this could best be achieved through the “education
of mankind” and the production and contemplation of art and the sublime. The humanities and the arts thus
acquired a primary humanizing function, and a socially responsible aesthetic. Bildung or education was one of the
major objectives of the German (neo) classicist movement.
The decade around 1800, when Goethe and Schiller were working in close friendship in Jena and Weimar, marked
the culmination of Classicism. The German poet and history professor Friedrich Schiller provided the theoretical
basis and defined the aesthetics of the movement. The theater director and cultural magistrate Johann Wolfgang
Goethe implemented and thereby revolutionized dramatic literature and impacted the performing arts across
Europe. With Goethe’s encouragement Schiller focused his philosophy on education, poetry and drama. Between
1798 and his death in 1805, Schiller wrote a series of classical dramas that are among Germany's greatest: the
Wallenstein trilogy, The Maid of Orleans, Maria Stuart, The Bride of Messina, and Wilhelm Tell, the Swiss
revolutionary and republican.
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Illustration 17. The neoclassical structure of “The German National Theater and State Orchestra Weimar” built in
1908 is linked to the great humanist history that reflects Weimar's central role in German civilization (Deutsches
Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar). The theater is today’s successor of the “Weimar Court Theatre”,
where Goethe once worked as director. It has been rebuilt to host important political events, including the
formation of the first German Republic, also called Weimar Republic, in 1918.
The intercultural universality of the Age of Goethe is also reflected in the works of other great artists and writers
such as Karl Philipp Moritz and his works on aesthetics and mythology, or the psychological novel Anton Reiser
(1785-90); the physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who wrote on the English artist William Hogarth or the poet
Heinrich von Kleist, Germany's greatest master of classicist and romanticist poetry and prose.
The supreme work of Goethe's later years, Faust, became Germany's greatest contribution to world literature. The
first part of the drama was published in 1808, and sets out with Faust's desperate search for enlightened
knowledge, an amoral pact with Mephistopheles, abuse of the innocent, and Gretchen’s fall from grace that form
the corner stones of the drama. The second part, published in the year of his death in 1832, illuminated Faust's
redemption as an upright human being, which he aimed to achieve through artistic self-control, moral activism,
and the scientific pursuit of progress. The doctrine of the fulfillment of life through selfless scientific striving for
human justice and progress as revealed in the activist drama Faust became the hallmark signature of Goethe’s
Age.
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Illustration 18. Marguerite Gérard, portrait of the French writer and cultural critic Madame de Staël and her
daughter around 1805. Madame de Staël visited Germany and published a famous essay about her encounters
with the leading figures of Goethe’s Age.
Daily life for women in the early 1800s was that of many obligations and few choices. After women married, any
inheritance belonged to their husband. Upper- and lower-working class women, and underclass women and
paupers lived very different lives than their counterparts among the middle-class or the nobility. Deprived of
education, the employment options available to women were mostly geared toward domestic service and farming
jobs, or work as seamstresses, washer women, and maids serving wealthy residents. Orphans, spinsters, and older
women sometimes had to rely on relief organizations to make a living. If women had little or no inheritance to look
forward to, they had to begin working at a very early age. On the other end of the social spectrum, women born
into wealthier or more prestigious families were able to buy distinguished clothes that consisted of “laces, corsets,
veils, and gloves so that their bodies were properly covered”. Women of the nobility often received large
inheritances from their fathers. They were often courted by men of high standing who wished to increase their
own wealth. Although women were not allowed to attend high schools or universities, upper-class women were
able to receive a liberal arts education in private, consisting of the study of literature, writing, languages, music,
and arithmetic at their homes or palaces with nannies or tutors.
Go to Unit 2.6
Unit 2.6
Kant, Schiller, and Weimar
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Illustration 19. Main National Archive of Thuringia in the city of Weimar (Neo Renaissance, see Thüringisches
Hauptstaatsarchiv). The small town of Weimar In Saxony became a great center of humanist learning and culture
before 1800. Famous teachers and writers, like Christoph Martin Wieland, who was invited to come there in 1771
as a tutor of a young prince, Carl August. When August took over as ruler at the age of 18, he invited the poet and
lawyer Johann Wolfgang Goethe to become an administrator for the city.
In Weimar, Goethe did quite well as the city’s main magistrate, especially in the fields of education, economics,
finance, literature, theater, and the visual arts. In 1776, Herder, a celebrated German thinker, was made head of
the main church in Weimar, and in 1786 Schiller arrived as a professor teaching history in the nearby University of
Jena. On the eve of the French Revolution most of the greats in the golden classical age of German literature, art,
and architecture had assembled in Weimar and contributed to its humanist aura.
Illustration 20. Weimar’s Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Thuringia assembled a major collection of Germany’s
Enlightenment and Classical literature (Der Rokokosaal).
Aesthetics emerged as a distinct discipline in the course of the Enlightenment and its philosophy and psychology.
The ethical implications of aesthetics were the dominate motive in the elaboration of the beauty and purpose of
art. An educational approach to the arts and an empirical psychology in the portrayals of literature, painting,
sculpture, and the performing arts characterized Schiller’s work. It is complemented by Kant’s emphasis on ethics
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and the betterment of human nature. For both, art results in an inner understanding or feeling which generates
significant educational insights. Kant in The Critique of Judgment sees art and aesthetic experiences as vehicles of
moral and political education which provide humanity with integrity and imagination that enable us to flourish. Art
educates and lifts humanity to higher levels of civilization.
Goethe’s literary masterpiece, Faust, was characterized by the author himself in a published conversation with a
good friend, Eckermann (1836) as involving a dramatic journey "from heaven through earth to hell, and back to
heaven." The Faustian hero stands as the representative of humankind, yearning for knowledge and experience,
facing obstacles and temptations, and enlisting the help of a witty and smart Mephistopheles to advance the
earthly pursuit of happiness. Faust’s moral failures frequently make him a villain rather than a hero, while the
play’s purported villain, the sly Mephistopheles, appears as a very appealing and sarcastic character.
Illustration 21. Mephistopheles, Gretchen and Faust adorn an American MGM film poster for the silent film Faust
by F.W. Murnau (1926). Mobilizing all the cinematic resources of the Ufa Studios in Germany, Murnau created a
grand illusion of Goethe s tragedy, which ranks with the film Metropolis among the great achievement of German
film in the Weimar Republic.
Go to Unit 2.7
Unit 2.7
French Revolution and Holy Roman Empire
The influence of the French Revolution was strongly felt in northwestern Germany. But in Prussia and eastern
Europe as well as in southern Germany and Austria there was little sympathy for the violent political upheaval in
France. The revolution's concepts of natural law, the social contract and its radical implications derived by John
Locke and Rousseau had more intellectual than political appeal, and found fewer followers in Germany. Unlike
France, it was argued, Prussia and Austria were governed by enlightened monarchs who did not subject their
peoples to political abuses so prevalent under the old French regime. Most Germans were quite content to have
the revolution stay west of the Rhine River.
The German reaction was also driven by a response to Napoleon Bonaparte's wars of aggression rather than the
export of revolutionary ideologies or republican strategies. Many Germans considered the Napoleonic wars as a
threat, and the unwanted social and political fallout of the French Revolution. The struggle against Napoleon's
reforms, therefore, also became the fountainhead of a patriotic liberation movement in Germany
(Befreiungskriege, Freiheitskriege) that heralded the beginning of a new tide of nationalism and chauvinism.
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Illustration 22. The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin was built between 1788 and 1791 by Carl Gotthard Langhans,
whose architectural vision was inspired by the gateway structure to the Acropolis in classical Athens, the
Propylaea. In 1806, after Napoleon's crushing defeat of the Prussian armies in the battles of Jena and Auerstädt, he
rode in triumph into Berlin passing under the city's proud symbol, its Brandenburg Gate. The four-horsed chariot or
“Quadriga” on top of the gate caught Napoleon's particular attention. He gave orders for the sculpture to be
dismounted and brought to Paris. After Napoleon's defeat in 1814, and the arrival of Prussian forces in Paris, the
statue was taken back to Berlin, where it became a symbol of German freedom and identity.
Paradoxically, Napoleon's defeat of Germany in 1806, his dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, and his
occupation of Germany and Austria was as exploitive as it was civilizing. On the one hand, there were requisitions,
raids, and political persecutions. But Napoleons occupation also brought an end to absolutist governments and
feudalism in central Europe. Among the most emancipatory outcomes of the occupation was the freedom of
worship for Jews in Germany, and the adoption of the Code Napoleon and its modern laws. In this sense, the
legacy of the French Revolution in Germany encompasses both liberalism and nationalism, two opposing
ideologies, which shaped much of 19th-century European politics and culture.
Go to Unit 2.8
Unit 2.8
German Wars of Freedom 1812-1815
Since the Holy Roman Empire’s and Prussia’s crushing defeat in 1806 , German writers and intellectuals such as
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Ernst Moritz Arndt, and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn were speaking out against the French
occupation of Germany. They called for far-reaching military and political reforms, and a joint effort by all Germans
to eject the French military.
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Illustration 23. This drawing from approximately 1811 shows one of the earliest Gymnastics Fields or Turnplatz in
Germany. The climbing frame with the attached ladder illustrates one of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's gymnastics
inventions to popularize physical fitness. The first open-air gymnasium (Turnplatz) opened in Berlin in 1811, and
Jahn’s physical education movement spread rapidly, and inspired a broad segment of the population. Young
Germans began to regard themselves as practitioners of a patriotic guild for the emancipation of Germany, their
“fatherland”.
Like many other Germans and Austrians, the educator and rebellious patriot Friedrich Ludwig Jahn brooded over
the humiliation of his country by Napoleon. Jahn conceived and promoted innovative new ways to restore the
spirits of his compatriots. It involved outdoor sports, physical education, and gymnastics in particular. Jahn was not
alone in his pursuit to establish a liberated German nation. He played an inspiring role in the formation of patriotic
student fraternities, or Burschenschaften, and the emerging notion of a pure “German culture” captured many
conservatives and liberals alike. Jahn himself made a major contribution to the “Freedom Wars” (Befreiungskriege,
Freiheitskriege) of 1813-15 by actively supporting an effective first-strike military unit, the legendary “Lützow Free
Corps”.
Illustration 24. The anonymous painting from 1900 shows the Lützow Free Corps (“Lützows wilde verwegene
Jagd”) in the Freedom Wars 1813-15. The voluntary unit of the Prussian army fought against French forces in the
Napoleonic Wars. They became widely admired as the “black hunters” ("Schwarze Jäger"), and known for their
courage and bravery. The special unit blended soldiers from diverse social strata, including students, academics,
craftsmen and laborers from all over Germany, who volunteered to fight against French occupation forces, and for
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a free and united Germany. Their enthusiasm inspired generations of 19th-century German patriots and
intellectuals to pursue the formation of a free republic. The Freedom Wars included the battles of Lützen, Bautzen,
Dresden and the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, which was the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, and the largest in
Western history before the First World War a century later.
Smaller uprisings against Napoleon’s occupation of central Europe had already broken out in Hesse in 1809. In
Tyrol, and the Austrian heartlands, freedom fighters under the militia leader Andreas Hofer had fought and died in
a fierce rebellion. History was on their side. The damage that was done to Napoleon Bonaparte ‘s Grand Army in its
invasion of Russia in the winter of 1812 provided an opening, which motivated Prussian King Frederick William III
to send his troops into war against France in March 1813. Prussia’s hour of need brought out of retirement a grand
old military master, General Blücher. He was 71 years old when he rejoined his duties, and he executed them again
with excellence and distinction. He commanded the Prussian army in an epic victory against Napoleon at the
“Battle of Nations” in Leipzig, Saxony, in October 1813 (Völkerschlacht), and finally at Waterloo in 1815.
Between 1800 and 1815, some two-and-a-half million soldiers fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and the loss of life
amounted to as many as two million, including the casualties of the 1812 Russian winter campaign. Some
estimates suggest that over one million died in Russia alone.
These far-reaching military and political events at the expense of France confirmed Prussia's status as one of the
great European powers: Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Britain, all of whom had joined forces to topple Napoleon by
1815. Blücher’s victories gave Berlin proper status in the Congress of Vienna, where the Prussian King was
represented by his Chancellor, Prince von Hardenberg. The reformer’s hardline diplomacy brought Prussia new
territory in the west, reaching up to and beyond the River Rhine. It firmly established the Prussian kingdom as the
greatest power of northern Germany, ready now to contest Austria for the leadership of all German-speaking
states. Read more
Go to Unit 2.9
Unit 2.9
Restauration and Romanticism
The Congress of Vienna (Wiener Kongress) was a gathering of European diplomats and ambassadors chaired by
Count Metternich in Vienna from 1814 to 1815. The objective was the settlement of all issues resulting from the
French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The Congress set in
motion a restoration or Restauration of pre-revolutionary boundaries in Europe after the Age of Napoleon.
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Illustration 25. The map shows Europe’s national boundaries set by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The four
victors - Austria, France, Russia and the United Kingdom - agreed on the Restauration of Europe’s old regimes,
which put an end to any alliances spawned by the French Revolution. For an animated map entitled “Europe and
the Congress of Vienna 1815-1848, click here.
The continent's political map was redrawn and established old boundaries and new spheres of influence through
which Austria, Britain, Russia and France could broker local and regional problems. The Congress was the first of a
series of international meetings during the 19th century that forged peaceful solutions through the balance of
power in Europe. If one nation threatened to overwhelm the others, the remaining countries banded together in
diplomatic and military alliances, privileging conservative and dynastical interests at the expense of liberalism and
social reform movements. Metternich’s Concert of Nations modeled a 19th-century dynastic version of 20th-century
global organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations.
After a period of political successes, the Restauration began to weaken as the common goals of the dynastic
powers were gradually replaced by shifting economic rivalries and colonial enterprises. The revolutionary
upheavals of 1848 and the peoples’ demands to unify countries along boundaries of national heritage unraveled
the Concert. In the second half of the 19th century, nationalist movements caused the outbreak of local conflicts,
including the Crimean War (1854–56), the Italian War of Independence (1859), the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and
the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71).
Hand in hand with Europe’s Restauration came the Industrial Revolution, and the emergence of Romanticism in
the arts, literature and music. The three-prong developments replaced the classical world view of Weimar
Classicism with a new philosophical outlook that redefined the fundamental ways in which western civilization
perceived itself and the world. The strongholds of Romanticism were in England and Germany around 1800 with
Wordsworth and Coleridge in Great Britain, and Novalis, Eichendorff, Heine, and Chamisso in Germany. See Novalis
aka Baron von Hardenberg’s Hymns to the Night, 1800.
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Illustration 26. Painting by Caspar David Friedrich, Cloister Cemetery in the Snow, 1817-1819. Friedrich was among
the leading visual artists of German Romanticism, are among the most emotionally evocative landscape painters.
His works often show explicitly spiritual and metaphysical vistas filled with lonesome ruins and reminders of the
passage of time. Friedrich was outspoken in his belief that paintings should express higher feelings and concepts,
rather than mere portrayals of nature.
Romantics sought to define their goals through a systematic contrast with the norms of the Enlightenment,
Versailles Rococo, or Weimar Classicism. In its reach beyond the rational and classicist ideals of the Enlightenment,
German Romanticism emphasized a revival of religious sentiments, pietism and medievalism. The movement
passionately asserted artistic freedom from any mechanical or classical "rules". German Romanticism also revolted
against aristocratic, social, and political norms, a reaction against the instrumental thinking of the Enlightenment,
and a protest against the scientific rationalization of nature.
Some critics saw the movement’s turn toward the medieval past and its sense of social and political order as an
attempt to escape the spread of the Industrial Revolution, urban population growth, poverty, and social unrest.
Romantics often felt ambivalent toward the "real" social world around them. They were politically and socially
engaged, but at the same time began to distance themselves from the public, its materialist culture, and its
capitalist endeavors.
The unconventional and non-conformist attitudes underlying Romanticism as an intercultural movement affected
not just literature, but all of the arts, from music and opera to painting, sculpture and architecture. Its reach was
geographically significant, spreading as it did eastward into Russia, and westward to America, where the great
landscape painters of New York’s “Hudson River School" and the migrant artists’ colonies that thrived in the 19th
century were transatlantic manifestations of the Romantic spirit.
Go to Unit 2.10
Unit 2.10
Online GER 216 Civilization Studies Resources
Optional Study Materials and Online Links
GER 216 - German Civilization
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Illustration 27. Sobieski at Vienna by the Polish artist Juliusz Kossak. The painting commemorates the Polish
defense of Vienna in against an invasion by the Ottoman Empire in 1683. The Turks almost captured Vienna, but
John III Sobieski led a Christian alliance that defeated them in the Battle of Vienna which stalled the Ottoman
Empire's hegemony in south-eastern Europe.
Optional Discussion Forum Projects
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Holy Roman Empire 1600-1700
The Great Turkish War refers to a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and contemporary
European powers, then joined into a Holy League, during the second half of the 17th century.
Belligerents
Holy Roman Empire
Tsardom of Russia
Cossack Hetmanate
Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth
Republic of Venice
Kingdom of Hungary
Ottoman Empire
Crimean Khanate
Kingdom of Croatia
Spain
Serbian rebels
Albanian rebels
Greek rebels
Bulgarian rebels
Options of Interest
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Naturalist Alexander Humboldt. Alexander Von Humboldt, Personal Narrative of Travels of the Equinoctial
Regions of the New Continent during Years 1799-1804 (London, 1814).
Wilhelm von Humboldt said this about his brother: "Alexander is destined to combine ideas and follow
chains of thoughts which would otherwise have remained unknown for ages. His depth, his sharp mind
and his incredible speed are a rare combination."
Murnau’s film Faust (see YouTube) 1926
YouTube Opera Talk - Mozart’s Magic Flute
Opera Guide, Synopsis, libretto, highlights
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Opera in a nutshell" Soundfiles (MIDI)
Libretto and English translation from Aria-Database.com
(German) The Magic Flute opera
Madame de Stael, http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/stael.htm and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germaine_de_Sta%C3%ABl
(German) Befreiungskriege on BAM-Portal
(German) »Leipzigs Drangsale« on EPOCHE NAPOLEON
(German) Complete online facsimile of a diary of 1813
German Studies Resources
German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) is a comprehensive collection of primary source
materials documenting Germany's political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present. See
German Historical Institut, Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and Institute for European History, Mainz.
Illustration 28. Foyer in the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar, Germany. It is the oldest German literature
archive with the greatest wealth of tradition. In the 1950s, the archive (see letters) acquired the estates of the
musician Franz Liszt and the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Click to see the collection.
Readings of Unit 2 (ca 59 pages)
1. Leibnitz, 1696, Human Understanding 3 pages
2. Beaumarchais, 1778, Figaro 2 pages
3. Lessing, 1779, Nathan 11 pages
4. Mozart, 1791, Magic Flute 1 page
5. La Roche, 1796, Sternheim 5 pages
6. Kant, 1784, What is Enlightenment? 7 pages
7. Goethe, 1795, Novellen, Unterhaltungen, Emigrants 10 pages
8. Stael, 1814, Germany 10 pages
9. Blumenthal, 1998, Invisible Wall, Rahel 10 pages
Contents of Unit 2
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Enlightenment 2.1
o 1700-1830 Science and Technology 2.2
o 1800 Classical Music 2.3
o Enlightenment to Classicism 2.4
1749-1832 Age of Goethe 2.5
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o Kant, Schiller, and Weimar 2.6
o French Revolution and Holy Roman Empire 2.7
1813-1815 German Wars of Independence 2.8
Restauration and Romanticism 2.9
Online GER 216 Civilization Studies Resources 2.10
End of Unit 2
Go to Unit 2.0
Copyright © 2014 Andreas Lixl
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