Weimar Classicism is a German literary and cultural movement, whose
practitioners established a new humanism, from the synthesis of ideas
from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment.
The Weimarer Klassik movement, lasted thirty-three years, from 1772 until
1805, and involved intellectuals such as Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Johann Gottfried
Herder, Friedrich Schiller, and Christoph Martin Wieland; and then was
concentrated upon Goethe and Schiller during the period 1788–1805.
Development = Background =
The German Enlightenment, called “neo-classical”, burgeoned in the
synthesis of Empiricism and Rationalism as developed by Christian Thomasius and
Christian Wolff. This philosophy, circulated widely in many magazines and
journals, profoundly directed the subsequent expansion of German-speaking
and European culture. The inability of this common-sense
outlook convincingly to bridge “feeling” and “thought”, “body” and “mind”, led to
Immanuel Kant's epochal “critical” philosophy. Another, though not as
abstract, approach to this problem was a governing concern with the problems of
aesthetics. In his Aesthetica of 1750 Alexander Baumgarten defined
“aesthetics”, which he coined earlier in 1735, with its current intention as the
“science” of the “lower faculties”, which earlier figures of the
Enlightenment had neglected. It was no inquiry into taste — into positive or
negative appeals — nor sensations as such but rather a way of knowledge.
Baumgarten's emphasis on the need for such “sensuous” knowledge was a major
abetment to the “pre-Romanticism” known as Sturm und Drang, of which Goethe and
Schiller were notable participants for a time.
= Cultural and historical context = Following Goethe's competition with and
separation from Wieland and Herder, the movement Weimar Classicism is often
described to have occurred only between Goethe's first stay in Rome and the
death of Schiller, his close friend and collaborator, underrating especially
Wieland's influence on German intellectual and poetic life. Therefore,
the Weimar Classicism could also be started with the arrival of Wieland and
extended beyond Schiller's death until the death of Wieland or even of Goethe
himself. In Italy Goethe aimed to rediscover
himself as a writer and to become an artist, through formal training in Rome,
Europe's 'school of art'. While he failed as an artist, Italy appeared to
have made him a better writer. Schiller's evolution as a writer was
following a similar path to Goethe's. He had begun as a writer of wild, violent,
emotion-driven plays. In the late 1780s he turned to a more classical style. In
1794 Schiller and Goethe became friends and allies in a project to establish new
standards for literature and the arts in Germany.
It was named in light of the four authors’ immense significance, and, more
particularly, of Goethe's and Schiller's, both of whom resided in the
Duchy of Saxe-Weimar at this time, hence the toponymic “Weimar Classicism”.
Responding to Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s Gedanken über die
Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerie und Bildhauerkunst and
Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, Goethe and Schiller developed a literary
pursuit and praxis of the imitation of ancient Greek, classical models, a
veritable undertaking of socio-cultural reformation through aesthetic
conceptions and values, where organic wholeness and harmony were of central
inspiration and importance. By contrast the contemporaneous and
efflorescing literary movement of German Romanticism was in opposition to Weimar
and German Classicism, especially to Schiller. It is in this way both may be
best understood, even to the degree in which Goethe continuously and
stringently criticized it through much of his essays, such as “On
Dilettantism”, on art and literature. After Schiller's death, the continuity
of these objections partly elucidates the nature of Goethe's ideas in art and
how they intermingled with his scientific thinking as well, inasmuch as
it gives coherence to Goethe's work. Weimar Classicism may be seen as an
attempt to reconcile—in “binary synthesis” — the vivid feeling
emphasized by the Sturm und Drang movement with the clear thought
emphasized by the Enlightenment, thus implying Weimar Classicism is
intrinsically un-Platonic. On this Goethe remarked:
Centrally, the conception of “harmony” — as it was earlier accepted as a
fundamental element in Greek culture by German Classicism—profoundly embedded
within Weimar Classicism, which developed during a period of social
turmoil and upheaval, is neither an aim toward Platonic perfection nor, as
promoted by the German Romantics, toward universality, which was systematized
later by G. W. F. Hegel. In fact, it is the sole expression of a particular’s
singular imperfect integrity.Similarly, Goethe held that the two polarities of
classicism and romanticism may be employed in a work of art by means of
excellence and discretion, and that the naïve and sentimental forms of poetry,
which are displayed by classicism and romanticism, respectively, remain within
a relation of mutual dependence according to which they are limited.
The Weimar movement was notable for its inclusion of female writers. Die Horen
included works by several women, including a serially published novel,
Agnes von Lilien, by Schiller's sister-in-law Caroline von Wolzogen.
Other women published by Schiller included Sophie Mereau, Friederike Brun,
Amalie von Imhoff, Elisa von der Recke, and Louise Brachmann.
Between 1786 and Schiller's death in 1805 he and Goethe worked to recruit a
network of writers, philosophers, scholars and artists to their cause.
This alliance later became known as ‘Weimar Classicism’, and it came to form
a part of the foundation of 19th-century Germany’s understanding of itself as a
culture and the political unification of Germany.
Aesthetic and philosophical principles Similar to the binarity noted above is
Schiller's treatment of Formtrieb and Stofftrieb when the two of them, via
reciprocal coordination—in a “proto-Hegelian” dialectical
fashion—give birth to Spieltrieb, that is to say, the aesthetic par excellence.
Schiller's elementary attitude toward art is given in “What Difference Can a
Good Theatrical Stage Actually Make?”: = Concepts =
These are essentials used by Goethe and Schiller for which it is necessary to
understand the course of their project. Three key-terms:
Gehalt: the inexpressible “felt-thought”, or “import”, which is
alive in the artist and the percipient that he or she finds means to express
within the aesthetic form, hence Gehalt is implicit with form. A work’s Gehalt
is not reducible to its Inhalt. Gestalt: the aesthetic form, in which
the import of the work is stratified, that emerges from the regulation of
forms abstracted from the world or created by the artist, with sense
relationships prevailing within the employed medium.
Stoff: Schiller and Goethe reserve this for the forms taken from the world or
that are created. In a work of art, Stoff is to be “indifferent”, that is,
it should not arouse undue interest, deflecting attention from the aesthetic
form. Indeed, Stoff needs to be in such a complete state of unicity with the
Gestalt of the art-symbol that it cannot be abstracted except at the cost of
destroying the aesthetic relations established by the artist.
In sum, Gehalt and Stoff must coalesce through the creative, aesthetic
potential of the artist as a means to manifest Gestalt whereby all faculties
converge within the percipient who may thereby participate in apperceptive
aesthetic imagination in lieu of the artist's artistic imagination.
Primary authors = Wieland =
Christoph Martin Wieland was the first writer to arrive in Weimar. In 1772 he
was called by the widowed Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, then regent of
the Duchy Sachsen-Weimar, to educate her son. Weimar remained Wieland's home
until his death. Here, in 1773, he founded Der teutsche Merkur, which under
his editorship became the most influential literary review in Germany.
= Herder = 1776, one year after his arrival, Goethe
arranged that Herder was called to Weimar, whom he had admired already in
his Strasbourg years. = Goethe and Schiller =
Although the vociferously unrestricted, even “organic”, works that were
produced, such as Wilhelm Meister, Faust, and West-östlicher Divan, where
playful and turbulent ironies abound, may perceivably lend Weimar Classicism
the double, ironic title “Weimar Romanticism”, it must nevertheless be
understood that Goethe consistently demanded this distance via irony to be
imbued within a work for precipitate aesthetic affect. This, similar to what
Schiller wrote of Bürger's poetry, partly explains the varied nature of the
works they both produced in a considerable light and how it is they
can sometimes escape the most exacting of categorizations. The vast array of
writings themselves, other than being solely literary pursuances or distichs,
include scientific, philosophic, and aesthetic disquisitions and periodicals
as well. Schiller was remarkably prolific during
this period, writing his plays Wallenstein, Mary Stuart, The Maid of
Orleans, The Bride of Messina and William Tell.
Primary works of the period = Christoph Martin Wieland =
Alceste, Die Geschichte der Abderiten,
Hann und Gulpenheh, Schach Lolo,
Oberon, Dschinnistan,
Geheime Geschichte des Philosophen Peregrinus Proteus,
Agathodämon, Aristipp und einige seiner Zeitgenossen,
= Johann Gottfried Herder = Volkslieder nebst untermischten anderen
Stücken Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der
Menschheit Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität,
Terpsichore, Christliche Schriften,
Metakritik zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft,
Kalligone, = Johann Wolfgang Goethe =
Egmont Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung
Stella. Ein Schauspiel für Liebende Iphigenie auf Tauris
Torquato Tasso Römische Elegien
Venezianische Epigramme Faust. Ein Fragment
Beiträge zur Optik Der Bürgergeneral
Reineke Fuchs Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten
Das Märchen, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre
Faust. Eine Tragödie Novelle
Hermann und Dorothea Die natürliche Tochter
Die Wahlverwandtschaften = Friedrich Schiller =
Don Karlos, Über den Grund des Vergnügens an
tragischen Gegenständen, Augustenburger Briefe,
Über Anmut und Würde, Kallias-Briefe,
Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen,
Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung,
Der Taucher, Die Kraniche des Ibykus,
Ritter Toggenburg, Der Ring des Polykrates,
Der Geisterseher, Die Bürgschaft,
Wallenstein Das Lied von der Glocke
Maria Stuart Die Jungfrau von Orleans
Die Braut von Messina Das Siegesfest
Wilhelm Tell “(William Tell”, stage play, 1803/04)
Die Huldigung der Künste Demetrius
= By Goethe and Schiller both in collaboration =
Die Horen Musenalmanach
Xenien Almanach
Propyläen See also: works by Herder, works by
Goethe, and works by Schiller. Influence
Weimar Classicism's two most notable exponents, Goethe and Schiller,
especially influenced later Germans where their works have been read and
studied by fellow playwrights, and also philosophers: Hegel, Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche. Musicians were inspired to compose for the works of these writers:
Ludwig van Beethoven, Paul Dukas, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Carl Friedrich
Zelter. Through the efforts of Scotsman Thomas Carlyle, who translated some of
these works and wrote a biography of Schiller, they became more accessible to
the English-speaking peoples in the mid-19th Century.
Some of Goethe's ideas in the Theory of Colours have impacted scientific figures
such as Charles Darwin. Goethe's color spectrum is still used.
Selected literature = Primary =
= Secondary = See also
Notes External links
= Primary sources = “On the Sublime” by Schiller
“Introduction to the Propyläen” by Goethe
= Other sources = Weimar Classicism in Literary
Encyclopedia Klassik Stiftung Weimar
Goethes Allianz mit Schiller Der späte Goethe
Centre for Intercultural Studies—Ernst Cassirer and Weimar Classicism
English Goethe Society Goethe Society of North America