Poetry in the Age of Enlightenment
• A very brief pre-history: Renaissance and
Barock
• Introduction into some of the main authors,
their jobs and places where they lived
• Comments on the poems in the handout
• Discussion of basic themes dealt with
• Some basic ideas about metric and rhyme
issues
• Recommended reading for the seminar
The different movements within the literature of the 18th century
A very brief Pre-History
• Age of the Renaissance (15th/16th century)
• heliocentric view of the world
• observation of nature instead of faith
• at the same time: Age of Reformation
• the belief becomes a means of an argument
• protestant churches established
• the 30jähriger Krieg (1618-1648)
• devastating effects for mainland Europe
• stabilisation needed: the absolute monarch as
a new model for dealing with the turmoil (he, not
the nobility, not the churches ran the state from
then on)
The Baroque Era (17th century)
• absolutism deals with the public sector, the
political issues and tries to guarantee a peaceful
environment for trade and commerce
• the private sphere is the sphere of the bourgeois
• acting as merchants (economical strengthening)
• family structure (nuclear / core family)
• development of thinking
• development of the educated ‘classes’
• in jurisdiction, administration, education
• later in the 18th century the private sphere starts to
reclaim political influence since the bourgeois
merchant and the educated classes are gaining more
and more self-confidence
One of the most famous Baroque authors
Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664)
• from Silesia (Schlesien)
• studied and taught at Leiden
• 1647 back to Glogau in Silesia
• as a lawyer of the Landstände
“Es ist alles eitell”
• sonnet, alexandrine verses (stress
on formality, contrasts)
• theme: vanity (die Eitelkeit)
• intention: in favour of ‘nature’ as
something eternal (instead of
religion) in the historical turmoil
Barthold Heinrich Brockes
(1680-1747)
• Hamburg, from 1720 onwards
member of the Senate
• popularizer of new natural
history in his 9 volumes of
Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott
• writing according to the
paradigm of ‚Physikotheologie‘
• Verstandesaufklärung
“Die kleine Fliege”
• simpler in metre: trochaic verses with 4 stresses; lack
of rhyme pattern
• didactic poem: logic argument instead of symbolic
formula
Albrecht von Haller
(1708-1777)
• born in Bern
• medic and doctor, teaching at the
Göttingen for 17 years (medicine and
botany)
• nobleman since 1749, returning to Bern
• known for his lengthy poem Die Alpen
• tends to slightly depressive moods in
his sentimental poems (Empfindsamkeit)
“Trauer-Ode”
• stanzaic pattern; iambic verses with 4
stressed syllables, strictly alternating
• shift towards depiction of experience
and feelings (own life)
• stressing grief, pains, relationship
Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim
(1719-1803)
• studied at Halle, lived in Halberstadt
(Prussia)
• secretary of the cathedral chapter
(Domkapitel) at Halberstadt
• admirer of Frederik the Great
• cult of frienship and sociability
• patron of up to 20 poets and authors
• Anakreontik movement in literature
“Anakreon”
• no rhyme scheme; iambic
• playful dealing with a sujet (Wein,
Liebe, Gesang)
• stressing the sheer joy of life
Friedrich von Hagedorn
(1708-1754)
• born in Hamburg
• studied at Jena
• secretary of the Danish
ambassador in London; admirer of
English literature
• secretary of the „Company of
Merchants Adventurers of England“
at Hamburg
• member of the pseudo nobility at
Hamburg: Stadtpatriziat
• Rokoko-literature
“Der Tag der Freude”
• light tone, alternating rhyme, iambic (4 stresses)
• use of images and formulas (Phyllis)
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
(1724-1803)
• born in Quedlinburg
• studied theology at Jena and
Leipzig
• lived at Zürich, Kopenhagen
(honorarium of the Danish king),
and Hamburg
• one of the first professional
writers in Germany
• best known for his Messias and
his odes and hymns
• religious and sentimental poetry
(Empfindsamkeit)
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
(1724-1803)
Homework for the next meeting: Concentrate your reading
very much on the two poems by Klopstock in your reader.
• What is different with Klopstock’s poems compared to the
earlier ones?
• Find out something about the metre, rhyme, stanzaic
patterns.
• Write down what you think is the theme of the two poems.
• List and try to explain key terms within both poems.
• Explain why you find it difficult to understand the poems.
Recommended reading-list for this topic
• Hansers Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, Vol. 3
(München, Wien: dtv, 1984)
• theme of nature, Brockes (pp. 551-556)
• Hagedorn and Haller (pp. 560-564)
• Gleim and Anakreontik (pp. 564-568)
• Bürgertum and lyrical poetry, the paradigms of being
a poet (pp. 569-576)
• Klopstock (pp. 585-591)
Further readings
• W.A. Bruford, Germany in the Eighteenth Century: The
Social Background of the Literary Revival (Cam-bridge:
University Press, 1965) [943.05 BRU]
• Victor Lange, The Classical Age of German Literature.
1740-1815 (London: Arnold, 1982) [830.96 LAN]