Age of enlightenment

The literature of the Enlightenment are commonly associated with works that were created 1720-1800 and consciously or unconsciously represent the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment. In many languages, the metaphor of light is used for this epoch (English Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Enlightenment French, Polish Oświecenie ). The major literary project of the era was created in France in 1750 Encyclopédie. Many thinkers of the Enlightenment were the same writers.

• 7.1 Poetry
• 7.2 prose
• 7.3 Drama
• 7.4 Philosophical Literature

General

In the time of the early Enlightenment, the bourgeoisie began his rise within the absolutist state. The literature turned to a bourgeois audience, rather than continuing to praise the prince, so that developed due to the new forms of literature.

The literature of the Enlightenment had primarily an educational function and called the " moral improvement " of man. With her ​​mind she builds on the revived by the Renaissance ancient ideals and perspectives. Especially the educated and wealthy bourgeoisie sought to free themselves from the dogmatic teachings of the Church and the " spiritual paternalism " by the authorities to initiate an " emancipation of thought". The elliptical motto Voltaire Ecrasez l' infâme was already known throughout Europe during his lifetime, which he referred to both the institution of the Church as well as superstition.

Classification

The Enlightenment can be considered as a period of transition between the Early Modern and Modern. This is applicable to a large extent in the literature. The normative poetics lost its dominant position. As a result of intensive reception of Shakespeare lost the classical classification of the theater in high ( tragedy) and low genre ( comedy) in importance. In France, mainly originated by Pixérécourt the melodrama as a popular entertainment theater. The theater itself became more and more a bourgeois institution.

The literati emancipated themselves from their (usually aristocratic ) clients and later became independent entrepreneurs. They used since not only the needs of the European courts, but a market for readers, which is determined as other markets by the law of supply and demand. A serious change experienced the ' literary public ' since the publication of literary magazines. These ' emerging ' public but was still heavily controlled and restricted by royal or princely censorship. Only the relaxation of censorship in 1740 in Prussia by Frederick the Great made ​​the work of writers and journalists a bit simpler (see Berlin Enlightenment ). By reading clubs, reading societies in lending libraries and coffee houses also works for a wider circle was open to the public. France continued the established in the 17th century tradition of literary salons, which were now significant for the philosophical and political debates of the Enlightenment.

Motto

As a motto of enlightenment Immanuel Kant called the Horace: " Sapere aude " and translated it as " Have courage to use your own understanding. " ( Lit.: " to know Wage " )

Enlightenment in Germany

The most important author of the early Enlightenment in Germany was Christian Gellert Fear God with his fables, a literary form that flourished at this time, because it was well suited for the implementation of the didactic intention of the writer. The most important figure in the literary life was Johann Christoph Gottsched. His most important work represented a collection of plays, which he published under the title of German theater. His attempt at a Critische poetry before the Germans ( 1730) was based on the French classic, especially on Boileau's L'Art poétique ( 1674). With its dramatic theory has influenced decisively the emergence of classical German drama, but was also criticized from many sides. The Dying Cato from 1732, his attempt to write a rule drama, is considered a failure. Gottsched organized the German translation by Peter Baylens historical and critical dictionary ( Leipzig 1741-1744 ). He also campaigned for a unified German high-level language.

Significant suggestions involved the German literature of the Enlightenment in France. Schiller and Lessing translated works by Denis Diderot. Goethe used a creative crisis for the translation of the following works: Tancred and Mahomet, both of Voltaire ( 1802), and Le Neveu de Rameau of Diderot ( 1804). For the dissemination of the ideas of the Enlightenment, secret societies also put partially as the Illuminati.

Literary forms

An important characteristic of the literature of the Enlightenment, the game is known literary forms and their development and advancement. Downright revolutionary was Beaumarchais ' The Marriage of Figaro (1778, premiere 1784), in which the servant contrary to previous literary and social conventions, takes the lead role.

Prose

Also new is the appreciation of prose: Montesquieu took the form of the epistolary novel in his Lettres persanes, 1721 The two protagonists of Persia allowed him a new perspective on French society with corresponding critical distance..

In the novel island rock castle, its four parts appeared in 1731 and 1743, Johann Gottfried Schnabel combines the genre of Robinson Crusoe with the draft frühauf clarify opinionated, pietistic dominated society utopia and fierce criticism of conditions in Europe at the beginning of the 18th century. 1748 appeared Gellert's novel family life of the Swedish Countess of G ***.

In France, the contes philosophiques ( philosophical tales, short novel) were discovered by Voltaire ( Candide, 1759) and D. Diderot as a new narrative form. With Rousseau's Confessions ( "Confessions ", 1765-70, published posthumously from 1782 ) created one of the first modern autobiographies. 1771 published Louis -Sébastien Mercier anonymously the first utopian science fiction. In L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais he compares the absolutist monarchy with a free society, in which recognition is not based on inherited privileges, but the merits. Goethe later assumes the form of the epistolary novel in his Werther, 1774th

Pioneering prose works in Germany were the Bildungsroman history of Agathon ( 1766/67 ) by Christoph Martin Wieland and the psychological novel Anton Reiser ( 1785/86 ) by Karl Philipp Moritz. Children 's literature published Christian Felix Weisse. The most successful and widely read works of fiction of the 18th century originated in England. These were designated as a Novel.

Drama

Most authors and works of the French theater of the Enlightenment are now advised more or less forgotten. Only pre-revolutionary Beaumarchais comedy The Marriage of Figaro is still popular due to the witty character of Figaro and by the operatic version of Mozart. To escape censorship, Beaumarchais moved the action of the play to Spain, but the parallels to the Ancien Régime were clearly for everyone. Also the performance ban of the king could not prevent the success of the work. The servant as representatives of the Third Estate just know to counteract to feints and resourceful the Count's plans and shows so clearly his moral superiority.

The most important poetics of the theater again goes back to Denis Diderot Discours sur la poésie dramatique ( 1758). His preface to Le Père de famille situates the theater of the future between classical tragedy and comedy. Diderot called a drame bourgeois - a bourgeois drama with ordinary protagonists.

In Germany, Lessing created by his plays, including Emilia Galotti (1772 ), the new literary genre of the Civil tragedy. It corresponds in shape ( no verse text ) content and the identification and presentation needs of the increasingly educated, financially and politically potent yet insignificant bourgeoisie. The impotence of the bourgeoisie and the arbitrariness of the nobility in the 18th century had, inter alia, Schiller's father experience as an advertising officer in the service of the Duke of Württemberg, who possessed freely of his citizens and sold them as mercenaries to England, to finance his elaborate court life. Schiller eluded known this paternalism in 1782 by flight. This contemporary conflict between the bourgeoisie and nobility is later in his play Kabale und Liebe (1784 ) in the center. In contrast to Lessing but took Schiller not a historical material as a template, but situate his play without a time at the court of a German prince. In his presentation, the theater as a moral institution considered (1784 ), he underlined the enlightened possibilities of theatrical institution. Interestingly, he used for the light metaphor: " The theater is the Community channel in which thinking of that part of the people, improve the light of wisdom flows down and spreads from there to milder rays through the entire state itself. The fog ... the barbarism of the dark superstition disappears, the night gives way to the victory of light. "

Poetry

The courtly poetry was already at the beginning of the 18th century and thus much more likely to be replaced in poetry, as in the epic or the drama. The Poetry of Enlightenment had a large variety of shapes; they ranged from thoughts lyric, didactic poems about odes and hymns to ballads.

Literature and Art Criticism

Since the 17th century, the art and literary criticism developed. Diderot was with its saloons 1759-1781 to new impulses.

Storm and stress

In the German literature can be found with the " Sturm und Drang " end of the 18th century, an influence of Rousseau flow of enlightenment before. Representatives of this literary period were, among others, the young Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, the " alteinhergebrachten " social conventions criticized and wanted to bring down. The small but significant difference to the " Enlightenment", however, is that the basis of pure reason is to be driven by emotional and passionate action on.

Occult literature

The term " occult literature " is understood here as a collective term for the traditional at that time "secret knowledge" that includes everything after former view is not "natural " can be explained. The spectrum of traditional, widely held beliefs unfolds in an almost boundless literature in various forms. There are the numerous collections of everyday superstition: advice on how to use the magic practices such damage spells and their prevention, reports of psychics and telepathic action at a distance, the so-called " materializations " in spooks and ghosts, spells and love spells and finally the influence of natural phenomena (as an example: the eskimos can with magical rites produce storms).

Although the number of relevant literature accounts for some hundred titles in this time, today's research on education literature has hardly taken note of this area. The reconnaissance themselves have more or less ignored at the beginning of the era these works. They were, in their opinion a popular, best, popular philosophical " literary underclass" whose function is to maintain an unenlightened consciousness. Only through the often poorly happy struggle for the liberation of the spirit of this tradition forced it comes after the turn of the century to serious confrontation, are intensively discussed in the article and in the fight against the spirit of enlightenment. Now enter the " higher-ups " in the fight against the brainwashing one (even Kant expresses itself ). How wide is the confrontation at the end of the century, clearly shows J.Ch. Adelung history of human folly or biography of famous black artists (Leipzig 1787-1789 ), which includes at least seven thick volumes.

With the advent of romantic tendencies, the situation is exacerbated, not always in favor of the Enlightenment (cf. Jean Paul's assessment of these phenomena ).