Culture and Identity: Historicity in German Literature and Thought 1770-1815 by Maike OergelNationalism versus Cosmopolitanism in German Thought and Culture 1789-1914: Essays on the Emergence of Europe by Mary Anne Perkins, Martin Liebscher

Abstract

MLR, I03.2, 2008 58I Culture and Identity: Historicity inGerman Literature and Thought I770-I8I5. By MAIKE OERGEL. Berlin: de Gruyter. 2006. viii + 300 pp. ?78. ISBN 978-3-I OI8933 -9. Nationalism versus Cosmopolitanism inGerman Thought and Culture 1789-I9I4: Es says on theEmergence ofEurope. Ed. byMARY ANNE PERKINS and MARTIN LIEB SCHER. Lampeter: Mellen. 2oo6. 320 pp. ?24.95. ISBN 978-o-7734-5523-8. The period covered inMaike Oergel's study coincides largelywith what Reinhart Koselleck has termed the Sattelzeit. In the context of transition indicated by this designation, Oergel draws particular attention to the central aspect of the emergence of a universal consciousness of thehistoricity of all human existence, as expressed in such seminal textsasHerder's Briefwechsel ziber Ossian, Schiller's Uber die dsthetische Erziehung desMenschen and Uber naive und sentimentalischeDichtung, as well as in several of the Schlegel brothers', Fichte's, Schelling's, and Hegel's writings. Oergel traces how, in literary theory, the awareness of thepassing of time as constitutive for thehuman condition arose out of thenecessity to define the relationship between the ancients and themoderns, and within themodern period between contemporaries and their forerunners (such as Shakespeare). The desire to abstract general laws on thedirection of history from theanalysis of literaryhistory (from the alleged ideality of ancient 'origins' to a potential recreation of the ideal on a higher level in the future) produced a general sense of historicity thatwas to become one of the intellectual signatures of the 'historicist' nineteenth century. In her study,Oergel also reconstructs themanifestations of a historicist consciousness in thephilosophy of Idealism, in the more nationalistic applications of the early nineteenth century (ofFichte and others), and in Goethe's WilhelmMeistersLehrjahre and Faust I. The choice ofGoethe's works is quite original considering that-in contrast to Schiller's historical dramas-they have not been studied as exhaustively asmanifestations of a historicist consciousness. The investigativemethod adopted here, namely a very focused and detailed close reading of thepertinent texts,yields concrete insights into the reasoning thatproduced thisepoch-defining sense of historicity.Regrettably, however, itprevents Oergel from relating her findings towider historical, social, and cultural (literary) contexts. A sizeable body of scholarlywork on the intellectual environment of these issues (on the development of historiography, forexample) has accumulated in recent times,but it is not engaged with here. Neither are explanations offered for the upsurge inhistorical awareness at thisvery point in time (such as the impact of theFrench Revolution that forced thinkers to redefine their role as historical subjects or agents; such as the ge neral 'secularization' ofworld-views in thewake of theEnlightenment). Significantly, one of thepremisses ofOergel's approach is toemphasize the intellectual unity of the epoch in question when the differentmaterials analysed and the differentpositions adopted still contributed to a common current-that of defining human experience inhistorical categories. Unfortunately, however, the insistence on literary-historical categories (Sturm undDrang, Classicism, and Romanticism) somewhat distracts from this important ambition of thebook. None the less, the study allows the reader to trace in considerable detail the development of 'historicist' thought before the establish ment of 'Historicism' as a leading paradigm of thenineteenth century, including the emergence of central concepts on thehistoric mission of theGermans as Stammvolk Europas and Kulturnation during the firstdecades of thenineteenth century. This isprecisely the juncture where the second volume connects to the first. That the collective German self-definition in history which Oergel identifies became in creasingly tainted by nationalistic sentiment is the central assumption of the volume edited byMary Anne Perkins andMartin Liebscher. In the 'longnineteenth century', however, German nationalism constituted itself in a rapidly 'internationalizing' (or 'Europeanizing') world. The dialectics of this tension demand a differentiating ap 582 Reviews proach that acknowledges an ambivalent (as opposed to an unequivocally hostile or exclusive) relationship between German and non-German (here primarily Euro pean) culture. Such differentiation isnot always present. For example, the firstessay attempts to postulate 'cosmopolitan' continuities between Kant's 'weltbiirgerliche Absicht' and Goethe's concept of 'Weltliteratur'; yet implicit inboth notions was an assumption of superiority, namely in the claim that theGermans were destined to be the avant-garde of any prospective 'Volkerbund' and that their language should form the vessel of 'Weltliteratur'. Further contributions to...