Jena 1789-1819: Ideas, Poetry and Politics

OERGEL, MAIKE

Abstract

Jena philosophy, historicism, and literature energized nineteenth-century European intellectual life. Their key concerns were time and meaning, quintessentially Romantic, but they seemed to come into particularly sharp focus in the historically oriented aspects of Hegel’s and Schelling’s philosophies along with Schiller’s and the Schlegels’ aesthetic and intellectual histories which represent one of the fonts of German Historicism and the historical school. What went on in Jena in the two decades between 1789 and 1819 is ultimately ‘bigger’ than the Jenaer Romantik. Philosophy, literature, and history inform each other to create a powerful new intellectual impetus. But politics, which looms so unavoidably large over everything that occurs after 1789, is never far from their thoughts and often prompts their ideas. A developing sense of a modern German identity was finding expression in a new philosophy, literary theory, and understanding of history as well as new political structures.

Citation

OERGEL, M. (2016). Jena 1789-1819: Ideas, Poetry and Politics. The Oxford Handbook of European Romanticism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696383.013.12

• Publication Date: May 2, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jul 18, 2016
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Book Title: The Oxford Handbook of European Romanticism
• Chapter Number: 12
• ISBN: 9780199696383
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696383.013.12
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1114715
• Publisher URL: https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696383.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199696383-e-12
• Additional Information: Oergel, M. (2016). Jena 1789–1819. In P. Hamilton (Ed.), Oxford Handbooks Online. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696383.013.12