Abstract
ABSTRACT This essay examines firework scenes in Matthias Claudius and Goethe, reading them in the context of a historical shift in the function of popular spectacles: from the representative role of fireworks in the ancien régime, to their broad availability as commodities in modernity. Claudius portrays that cultural change vividly and as the miniaturization of luxury. In Die Wahlverwandtschaften, meanwhile, the newly domesticated art of firework displays illuminates the link between the fashionable ‘little luxury’ and modern ephemerality. Thus, the following argues that literary representations of luxury around 1800, and of fireworks in particular, are examples of an ephemeral and increasing consumer culture at the time, and reflect contemporary accelerated temporalization. Moreover, the discussion of Goethe allows us to draw a line from Die Wahlverwandtschaften to his concept of the Veloziferisches, as well as making reference to other major works (‘An Schwager Kronos’; Faust).
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