The Impatient Muse: Germany and the Sturm und Drang
Far from being a forerunner of Weimar Classicism or an addendum to the Enlightenment, the Sturm und Drang is best seen as part of an autonomous culture of impatience — as literature in which Germans, frustrated with their fragmented land, simulated a sense of power and effectiveness that political realities did not afford. This impatience drove not only authors and the characters they created; it also drew in German audiences and readers ready to partake vicariously in national sentiments that they otherwise could not have experienced.

Alan Leidner sees Lavater’s work as a model for dealing with a limiting culture, Goethe’s Werther as a subtly arrogant figure, the drama of the Kraftmensch as a literature legitimizing the violence of its protagonists, the famous split in the Urfaust as the result of Goethe’s resistance to the impatience that led many writers to fabricate a German nation that did not exist, and Schiller’s Die Räuber as a liberating ritual that allowed German audiences to enjoy temporary feelings of national community. He concludes his study with an analysis of J. M. R. Lenz, whose texts recoil unequivocally in the face of the impatient muse.
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The Impatient Muse: Germany and the Sturm und Drang
Far from being a forerunner of Weimar Classicism or an addendum to the Enlightenment, the Sturm und Drang is best seen as part of an autonomous culture of impatience — as literature in which Germans, frustrated with their fragmented land, simulated a sense of power and effectiveness that political realities did not afford. This impatience drove not only authors and the characters they created; it also drew in German audiences and readers ready to partake vicariously in national sentiments that they otherwise could not have experienced.

Alan Leidner sees Lavater’s work as a model for dealing with a limiting culture, Goethe’s Werther as a subtly arrogant figure, the drama of the Kraftmensch as a literature legitimizing the violence of its protagonists, the famous split in the Urfaust as the result of Goethe’s resistance to the impatience that led many writers to fabricate a German nation that did not exist, and Schiller’s Die Räuber as a liberating ritual that allowed German audiences to enjoy temporary feelings of national community. He concludes his study with an analysis of J. M. R. Lenz, whose texts recoil unequivocally in the face of the impatient muse.
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The Impatient Muse: Germany and the Sturm und Drang

The Impatient Muse: Germany and the Sturm und Drang

by Alan C. Leidner
The Impatient Muse: Germany and the Sturm und Drang

The Impatient Muse: Germany and the Sturm und Drang

by Alan C. Leidner

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Overview

Far from being a forerunner of Weimar Classicism or an addendum to the Enlightenment, the Sturm und Drang is best seen as part of an autonomous culture of impatience — as literature in which Germans, frustrated with their fragmented land, simulated a sense of power and effectiveness that political realities did not afford. This impatience drove not only authors and the characters they created; it also drew in German audiences and readers ready to partake vicariously in national sentiments that they otherwise could not have experienced.

Alan Leidner sees Lavater’s work as a model for dealing with a limiting culture, Goethe’s Werther as a subtly arrogant figure, the drama of the Kraftmensch as a literature legitimizing the violence of its protagonists, the famous split in the Urfaust as the result of Goethe’s resistance to the impatience that led many writers to fabricate a German nation that did not exist, and Schiller’s Die Räuber as a liberating ritual that allowed German audiences to enjoy temporary feelings of national community. He concludes his study with an analysis of J. M. R. Lenz, whose texts recoil unequivocally in the face of the impatient muse.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781469656724
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 05/01/2020
Series: University of North Carolina Studies in Germanic Languages and Literature , #115
Pages: 168
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.39(d)

About the Author

Alan C. Leidner is associate professor of modern languages at the University of Louisville.
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