Fabricating Pleasure: Fashion, Entertainment, and Cultural Consumption in Germany 1780-1830 by Karin Wurst

Abstract

562 Reviews Fabricating Pleasure: Fashion, Entertainment, and Cultural Consumption inGermany T780-i830. By KARINWURST. (Kritik: German Literary Theory and Cultural Studies) Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 2005. xxvi+485 pp. $59.95. ISBN 978-o-8143-3 I3 i-6. This impressive volume represents awide-ranging study of a very timely topic, and it carries this taskout in a very thorough and overall clearmanner. Karin Wurst relates the concepts of pleasure and entertainment, and theirbasis in the desire forconstant change and novelty, to the rise of theGerman bourgeoisie. Refreshingly, thiswider bourgeois public isviewed with sympathy, as its importance in our history isunde niably very great. Rather than being considered cultural dupes, as by the Frankfurt School, or as benighted dilettantes, as theywere described by contemporary promot ers of elitist art such as Schiller and Goethe, this newly growing class is seen to be creating a lifeof beauty, convenience, and comfort for itselfon the basis of an eco nomy of choice. Their activities were instrumental both in spurring on thegrowth of theeconomy and inproviding avenues of self-determination hitherto unavailable in a strongly class-based society.The concept of the individual and of the individual's self development (Bildung) can be understood only when thewhole history of the era is taken intoconsideration: accounts, such asHabermas's, which focus only on high art to the exclusion of other formsof cultural production are ignoringmost of the evidence. Much of the territorycovered is already familiar, butWurst juxtaposes various aspects of culture in away that allows them to illuminate one another. Central toher argument isBourdieu's claim that 'cultural capital' is a prerequisite to social power through 'symbolic capital'-prestige, knowledge, etc. (pp. I8-I 9).Whereas thebour geoisie's wresting from the aristocracy itscultural prestige, moral high ground, and emblematic status as the significant or universally meaningful social group has been recognized for some time by cultural historians, what has not been adequately ad dressed is the later stage when the bourgeoisie began tomake distinctions within itself:as the aristocracy's role as 'other' lost itspower to signify,it was replaced by an 'other' comprising middle-class members who failed to become part of the cultural elite, and the exclusionary principle was 'taste'. Print culture inparticular, including journals and other non-book publications, had allowed the spread of certain kinds of knowledge and engendered desires and ways of thinking thatwere inimical to those who had gained orwere gaining power and wished tokeep it.The cultural elite there forecreated rules to define themselves against those others in their same social class. Discourses on taste and aesthetics pitted themore laboriously acquired pleasures of recognizing theunity of a difficult textor artwork against the immediate gratification offeredby Trivialliteratur or other facile entertainments, which allowed theconsumer to findhimself or herself represented in amainly unmediated fashionwithout calling for the distanced perspective of the expert. Newly created wealth allowed greater purchasing power; the cults of Empfind samkeit and Sturm und Drang encouraged introspection and a focus on the self and the emotions; burgeoning print culture, inparticular publications such as Bertuch's Journal desLuxus und derModen, taught how desires 'ought' to be directed: in short, it instructed the readership in 'taste'.Thisjournal both created and was created by the desire fornovelty and change, forconsumerism, for fashion. The changing work-to leisure relationship in the risingmiddle class (which differed for men at the officeand women at home) created amarket for leisure-time activities, either to fill the empty hours or tocompensate for the self-denying hours of hard work. Leisure and pleasur able activities included reading, but also music, the arts, tableaux vivants, travel, land scape gardens, private gardens. Thus, despite the cultural moguls, in fact a chaotic variety of aesthetically pleasing objects and pleasurable activities were reaching an ever-increasing audience and taking on ever-changing forms.Furthermore, the inter MLR, I02.2, 2007 563 change between 'high-art' activities and 'low-art' ones was actually very fluid,and the rigid binary distinctions generally made indiscussions of the era exaggerate the case. It isdifficult todo thisbook justice in such a short review, forsuch awealth of topics isaddressed in it. In some ways, however, thismight be considered aweakness of the book, for the...