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1
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

2
The different movements within the literature of
the 18th century
3
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)

4
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

5
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

6

• 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

7

• 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

8

• 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

9

• 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)

10

• 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)

11

• 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 Klopstocks 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.

12

• 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