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Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self
From the best-selling author of The Invention of Nature comes an exhilarating story about a remarkable group of young rebels--poets, novelists, philosophers--who, through their epic quarrels, passionate love stories, heartbreaking grief, and radical ideas launched Romanticism onto the world stage, inspiring some of the greatest thinkers of the time.
When did we begin to be as self-centered as we are today? At what point did we expect to have the right to determine our own lives? When did we first ask the question, How can I be free? It all began in a quiet university town in Germany in the 1790s, when a group of playwrights, poets, and writers put the self at center stage in their thinking, their writing, and their lives. This brilliant circle included the famous poets Goethe, Schiller, and Novalis; the visionary philosophers Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel; the contentious Schlegel brothers; and, in a wonderful cameo, Alexander von Humboldt. And at the heart of this group was the formidable Caroline Schlegel, who sparked their dazzling conversations about the self, nature, identity, and freedom. The French revolutionaries may have changed the political landscape of Europe, but the young Romantics incited a revolution of the mind that transformed our world forever. We are still empowered by their daring leap into the self, and by their radical notions of the creative potential of the individual, the highest aspirations of art and science, the unity of nature, and the true meaning of freedom. We also still walk the same tightrope between meaningful self-fulfillment and destructive narcissism, between the rights of the individual and our responsibilities toward our community and future generations. At the heart of this inspiring book is the extremely modern tension between the dangers of selfishness and the thrilling possibilities of free will.
When did we begin to be as self-centered as we are today? At what point did we expect to have the right to determine our own lives? When did we first ask the question, How can I be free? It all began in a quiet university town in Germany in the 1790s, when a group of playwrights, poets, and writers put the self at center stage in their thinking, their writing, and their lives. This brilliant circle included the famous poets Goethe, Schiller, and Novalis; the visionary philosophers Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel; the contentious Schlegel brothers; and, in a wonderful cameo, Alexander von Humboldt. And at the heart of this group was the formidable Caroline Schlegel, who sparked their dazzling conversations about the self, nature, identity, and freedom. The French revolutionaries may have changed the political landscape of Europe, but the young Romantics incited a revolution of the mind that transformed our world forever. We are still empowered by their daring leap into the self, and by their radical notions of the creative potential of the individual, the highest aspirations of art and science, the unity of nature, and the true meaning of freedom. We also still walk the same tightrope between meaningful self-fulfillment and destructive narcissism, between the rights of the individual and our responsibilities toward our community and future generations. At the heart of this inspiring book is the extremely modern tension between the dangers of selfishness and the thrilling possibilities of free will.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published September 13, 2022
About the author
Andrea Wulf
12 books814 followersAndrea Wulf is a biographer. She is the author of The Brother Gardeners, published in April 2008. It was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and received a CBHL Annual Literature Award in 2010. She was born in India, moved to Germany as a child, and now resides in Britain.
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April 13, 2023So far I have only been once to Jena -to change trains. As far as I could work out from the timetables I needed to go to the train station of Jena Paradise to make my connection so I walked from one station to there carrying a pack on my back on a hot summer's day. There was a long wait for the train so I set in an Italian restaurant nursing a cheap glad of red wine, since I ate a four seasons pizza in my memory it seems like I sat there for a long time, at least a year, but eventually my train arrived and departed only to immediately stop at the station I had originally come from.
This book centres on intellectuals, mostly literary figures, who lived in the small university town of Jena around the year 1790, the book mostly ends in 1806 with the defeat of the Prussian army at the battles of Jena and Auerstadt which had a impact on the university, but the lives of most of the characters are sketched in until their deaths.
The argument of the book is that this group, which Wulf refers to as the Jena circle, was central in developing a conception of the individual and individualism which has become ubiquitous in the cultures of the WEIRD countries. Wulf doesn't persuade me of that, and I think that if you wanted to prove that, one would need to write quite a different kind of book.
Sill, long before this book was written I have been hugely interested by the generation that was affected by the French Revolution so this book was an easy winner for me that I would invariably feel positively about. Still I find that I can agree with most of the reviews here? Some find it gossipy & indeed it is, I notice that I described Wulfs book about Alexander von Humbolt as vivacious and maybe that is a slightly more upbeat way of saying the same thing. I never felt that the second half of the subtitle was born out but presumably it is meant to appeal to a broader audience then a book advertising itself as a group biography of German early Romantics.
The centre does not hold in Wulf's book, or rather it wobbles about, the Schlegel brothers & their spouses, Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, and Friedrich Schelling are at the core of her interest, but she starts off with Schiller and Goethe, the young Hegel pops up too, the Humbolt brothers play their part, Herder looks on, Kant is off stage, but always on the mind - and that is perhaps the issue. The notion of the individual they develop is not an invention but a development from Kant and significantly is in dialectic with political developments - specifically those following on from the storming of the Bastille.
This is a book above all about relationships, on the positive side how good chemistry between individuals, thinking here of elective affinities, has extremely positive results - the classic example being Schiller and Goethe inspiring each other to renewed creativity, but also the impact of bad chemistry - and there was something amiss in the Jena circle because its duration was a matter of months and marked by fallings out and jealousies as much as invention and productivity.
The book is much like Young Romantics with with a twist of intellectual history - but on a scale to be intimidated by, there are just a few pages that attempt to do some heavier lifting, I felt the idea of the invention of individuality was the weaker part of the book to the point that if you happened to be studying these individuals at school or university level you would find it distinctly under powered - though if you were teaching these individuals you might well find this an enjoyable source of colourful anecdotes to drop into a lesson.
Wulf's final point is that there is a tendency to equate individualism with selfishness, but at the turn of the eighteenth into the nineteenth century the association was very different because the context was of the ancien regime and the tendency in pre-Napoleonic Germany towards cameralism and intense management of the state and its subjects for instance the young Schiller was recognised as a promising youth as a school boy and educated by the Duke of Wuttenberg to become a doctor in order for him to serve in the Ducal army sawing off legs and treating soldiers for venereal disease, Schiller however had no interest in being a doctor, he wanted to write poetry. In the world of the ancien regime it didn't matter what you wanted, what counted was what the ruler wanted from you, thus for Wulf the Jena circles' interest in individualism was revolutionary - each person through self-expression is working to overthrow the Bastille. Every where is always the 14th of July. The downside is that when two of the circle get to Paris they find that post revolutionary France is not going to inspire a federated union of European small states that pursue the maximalisation of individual liberties but is a mobilising Imperial power no less coercive than it's ancien regime predecessor.
Wulf traces the impact of the Jena Circle as it spread internationally most importantly through Madame de Stael's Germany. ... With notes and appendices by O. W. Wight. , which because Napoleon was annoyed by her thesis first was published in Britain, but also more diffusely through Coleridge and other English language writers.
This is a very nice, if belated companion to Penelope Fitzgerald's novel the blue flower.
This book centres on intellectuals, mostly literary figures, who lived in the small university town of Jena around the year 1790, the book mostly ends in 1806 with the defeat of the Prussian army at the battles of Jena and Auerstadt which had a impact on the university, but the lives of most of the characters are sketched in until their deaths.
The argument of the book is that this group, which Wulf refers to as the Jena circle, was central in developing a conception of the individual and individualism which has become ubiquitous in the cultures of the WEIRD countries. Wulf doesn't persuade me of that, and I think that if you wanted to prove that, one would need to write quite a different kind of book.
Sill, long before this book was written I have been hugely interested by the generation that was affected by the French Revolution so this book was an easy winner for me that I would invariably feel positively about. Still I find that I can agree with most of the reviews here? Some find it gossipy & indeed it is, I notice that I described Wulfs book about Alexander von Humbolt as vivacious and maybe that is a slightly more upbeat way of saying the same thing. I never felt that the second half of the subtitle was born out but presumably it is meant to appeal to a broader audience then a book advertising itself as a group biography of German early Romantics.
The centre does not hold in Wulf's book, or rather it wobbles about, the Schlegel brothers & their spouses, Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, and Friedrich Schelling are at the core of her interest, but she starts off with Schiller and Goethe, the young Hegel pops up too, the Humbolt brothers play their part, Herder looks on, Kant is off stage, but always on the mind - and that is perhaps the issue. The notion of the individual they develop is not an invention but a development from Kant and significantly is in dialectic with political developments - specifically those following on from the storming of the Bastille.
This is a book above all about relationships, on the positive side how good chemistry between individuals, thinking here of elective affinities, has extremely positive results - the classic example being Schiller and Goethe inspiring each other to renewed creativity, but also the impact of bad chemistry - and there was something amiss in the Jena circle because its duration was a matter of months and marked by fallings out and jealousies as much as invention and productivity.
The book is much like Young Romantics with with a twist of intellectual history - but on a scale to be intimidated by, there are just a few pages that attempt to do some heavier lifting, I felt the idea of the invention of individuality was the weaker part of the book to the point that if you happened to be studying these individuals at school or university level you would find it distinctly under powered - though if you were teaching these individuals you might well find this an enjoyable source of colourful anecdotes to drop into a lesson.
Wulf's final point is that there is a tendency to equate individualism with selfishness, but at the turn of the eighteenth into the nineteenth century the association was very different because the context was of the ancien regime and the tendency in pre-Napoleonic Germany towards cameralism and intense management of the state and its subjects for instance the young Schiller was recognised as a promising youth as a school boy and educated by the Duke of Wuttenberg to become a doctor in order for him to serve in the Ducal army sawing off legs and treating soldiers for venereal disease, Schiller however had no interest in being a doctor, he wanted to write poetry. In the world of the ancien regime it didn't matter what you wanted, what counted was what the ruler wanted from you, thus for Wulf the Jena circles' interest in individualism was revolutionary - each person through self-expression is working to overthrow the Bastille. Every where is always the 14th of July. The downside is that when two of the circle get to Paris they find that post revolutionary France is not going to inspire a federated union of European small states that pursue the maximalisation of individual liberties but is a mobilising Imperial power no less coercive than it's ancien regime predecessor.
Wulf traces the impact of the Jena Circle as it spread internationally most importantly through Madame de Stael's Germany. ... With notes and appendices by O. W. Wight. , which because Napoleon was annoyed by her thesis first was published in Britain, but also more diffusely through Coleridge and other English language writers.
This is a very nice, if belated companion to Penelope Fitzgerald's novel the blue flower.
October 30, 2022
The prologue is selling The Magnificent Rebels as a story of ideas, at least as much as the story of people. And it's true that ideas of German romantics are explored here to some extent, certainly more than in most popular bios, and yet first and foremost this is a very gossipy book about the everyday lives of its famous protagonists, with all their love affairs, and squabbles, in all their enthusiasm and imperfection. For an accessible primer on the far-reaching ramifications of the romantic idea of self I would recommend Adam Curtis' series The Century of the Self. It should be taken with a pinch of salt, like all of his work, but it does what Andrea Wulf doesn't deliver. The fact that Romantic Nationalism, especially of its German variety, has contributed greatly to Nazism and all kinds of far-right movements also shouldn't be overlooked. Still, it's a great story that I quite enjoyed and would recommend to anyone new to the period.
June 4, 2023
With the torch of genius, they penetrate the soul
Today, we live in a world where we as individuals have to tiptoe a thin line between free will and selfishness. Self-determination and narcissism. Empathy and righteousness. Underpinning everything we do are two crucial questions: who am I as an individual and who am I as a member of a group in society.
We take our individuality for granted. It may sound strange to us, but there was a time when philosophers and thinkers argued that the world was controlled by a divine hand, and ruled by God's absolute truths. Humans could not make or shape them.
It was at a time when their lives were ruled by monarchs and leaders who controlled many aspects of their lives. In their minds, a person should be self-determined, never letting himself be defined by anything external. For 10 years, as this group of thinkers was living together in the small town of Jena, they were the nexus of Western philosophy. In this 10 years, they were shaping the modern mind.
The story takes place against the background of the French Revolution. This revolution declared all men (and women?) equal, suggesting the possibility of a new social order founded on the power of ideas and freedom. The French Revolution lit a fire that awakened the ideals in the thinkers in Jena.
The 'Jena Set', as Andrea Wulf describes them, placed the self, the Ich, at the center of this new philosophy. It imbued the self with the most thrilling of all ideas: free will. It was a liberation of the individual as it was a rebellion against the despotism of the state. This radical new concept of an unfettered self carried the potential of a different life. A revolution set on by philosophy.
Magnificent Rebels captures that moment in history when a cluster of intellectuals, artists, poets and writers come together at a particular time and in a particular place to change the world.
It describes the lives and relations of the persons who comprised the 'Jena set': August Schlegel, a translator, writer and critic, and his wife Caroline. Friedrich, August's younger brother and his partner Dorothea. Friedrich Schelling, the poet Novalis and Fichte, the philosopher who created the concept of Ich and who taught in Jena. And Goethe, who played an important role in the background.
They loved, they squabbled and feuded and they divorced. Andrea Wulf magnificently captures their lives and the 18th century they lived in. In passing, aside from all the philosophy and ideas, you also learn a lot of those conditions that defined the century: the diseases, the incompetent doctors, the sudden deaths of both adults and toddlers and the Napoleonic wars. Andrea Wulf spins a lively yarn of the birth of ideas and feelings we today take for granted.
Read more of my reviews here
Today, we live in a world where we as individuals have to tiptoe a thin line between free will and selfishness. Self-determination and narcissism. Empathy and righteousness. Underpinning everything we do are two crucial questions: who am I as an individual and who am I as a member of a group in society.
We take our individuality for granted. It may sound strange to us, but there was a time when philosophers and thinkers argued that the world was controlled by a divine hand, and ruled by God's absolute truths. Humans could not make or shape them.
A person should be what he is - FichteWhen did we first ask the question: how can I be free? Andrea Wulf found the answer to these questions in the small German town of Jena, for it was here that in the last decade of the 18th century a group of novelists, poets, literary critics, philosophers and playwrights who placed the self at the center of the stage of its thinking. The impact was seismic, their idea's spreading into the world and into our minds.
It was at a time when their lives were ruled by monarchs and leaders who controlled many aspects of their lives. In their minds, a person should be self-determined, never letting himself be defined by anything external. For 10 years, as this group of thinkers was living together in the small town of Jena, they were the nexus of Western philosophy. In this 10 years, they were shaping the modern mind.
The story takes place against the background of the French Revolution. This revolution declared all men (and women?) equal, suggesting the possibility of a new social order founded on the power of ideas and freedom. The French Revolution lit a fire that awakened the ideals in the thinkers in Jena.
The 'Jena Set', as Andrea Wulf describes them, placed the self, the Ich, at the center of this new philosophy. It imbued the self with the most thrilling of all ideas: free will. It was a liberation of the individual as it was a rebellion against the despotism of the state. This radical new concept of an unfettered self carried the potential of a different life. A revolution set on by philosophy.
Magnificent Rebels captures that moment in history when a cluster of intellectuals, artists, poets and writers come together at a particular time and in a particular place to change the world.
It describes the lives and relations of the persons who comprised the 'Jena set': August Schlegel, a translator, writer and critic, and his wife Caroline. Friedrich, August's younger brother and his partner Dorothea. Friedrich Schelling, the poet Novalis and Fichte, the philosopher who created the concept of Ich and who taught in Jena. And Goethe, who played an important role in the background.
They loved, they squabbled and feuded and they divorced. Andrea Wulf magnificently captures their lives and the 18th century they lived in. In passing, aside from all the philosophy and ideas, you also learn a lot of those conditions that defined the century: the diseases, the incompetent doctors, the sudden deaths of both adults and toddlers and the Napoleonic wars. Andrea Wulf spins a lively yarn of the birth of ideas and feelings we today take for granted.
Read more of my reviews here
February 15, 2024
It seems that, among other things, our contemporary literature has inherited from German romanticism a fragmentary writing style as an alternative to a straightforward storytelling. Another big thing, it seems, is autofiction. Yes, it is at minimum that old. With their obsession with “self” as a philosophical object they’ve brought this into the literature as well. Not always but sometimes it was on the level bordering self-obsession. So next time if one complains about “navel gazing” in a book, we all know whom to blame:-)
Another take from this book for me was additional appreciation for the development of medicine in the last 200 years or so. The child mortality and the life span of those people were horrible, even if all of them stem from a privileged background in case of this story. The exception were though notable: Goethe lived until 83 and Schlegel and Schelling - almost to 80.
The book is devoted to so-called Jena’s circle. The author uses the word “set” to compare and contrast with Bloomsbury set and alike. A few women, including Caroline Schelling played a very significant role in the intellectual development of the set and they are duly presented in the book.
It is a narrative non-fiction and i personally did not appreciate the style of writing: all historical figures are presented as if they are characters in fiction with passages referring what they were thinking during their walks, talks and travels in carriages etc. For example:
“Each would remember the next four days as some of the most extraordinary and creative of their lives.”
And there are numerous instances like this. I’d rather avoid such intimacy and pathos in a historical writing unless “each of them” subsequently have written a testimony to this fact. However, the style might amplify the book’s appeal for the wider audience. And the book is certainly an easy digestible read on a difficult topic.
Another take from this book for me was additional appreciation for the development of medicine in the last 200 years or so. The child mortality and the life span of those people were horrible, even if all of them stem from a privileged background in case of this story. The exception were though notable: Goethe lived until 83 and Schlegel and Schelling - almost to 80.
The book is devoted to so-called Jena’s circle. The author uses the word “set” to compare and contrast with Bloomsbury set and alike. A few women, including Caroline Schelling played a very significant role in the intellectual development of the set and they are duly presented in the book.
It is a narrative non-fiction and i personally did not appreciate the style of writing: all historical figures are presented as if they are characters in fiction with passages referring what they were thinking during their walks, talks and travels in carriages etc. For example:
“Each would remember the next four days as some of the most extraordinary and creative of their lives.”
And there are numerous instances like this. I’d rather avoid such intimacy and pathos in a historical writing unless “each of them” subsequently have written a testimony to this fact. However, the style might amplify the book’s appeal for the wider audience. And the book is certainly an easy digestible read on a difficult topic.
January 24, 2023
Fascinating book by historian Andrea Wulf. In Magnificent Rebels (2022) Wulf sketches the formation and disappearance of what she calls the Jena Set, and what later historians would call (early) Romanticism.
The name Jena Set derives from the German town Jena, laying in (then) Duchy of Saksen-Weimar, where in July 1794, on a hot summer day, the already famous Johann Wolfgang von Goethe met Friedrich Schiller. This would signal the start of a lifelong intellectual and personal friendship.
Jena was a small university town which consisted of 4.500 inhabitants - of which nearly 1.000 would be students. This was a brewing, competitive and exciting environment for these two bright minds. Around Goethe and Schiller there gradually amassed a group - first Johann Gottlieb Fichte would join as a university professor, then the Schlegel brothers and Novalis, and finally the Von Humboldt brothers, Schelling and Hegel would all join this network of intellectuals. Some would stay for short intervals, others would remain in Jena for years to come.
Around 1803 the Jena Set was pretty much dissolved, many of its former members involved in intellectual fights or romantic rivalries. The most important years (1794 - 1801) would see the origin of a whole new way of looking at the world, at humanity, at science and philosophy - basically at everything. Pivotal in this transformation was Fichte, who adopted Kant's philosophy in order to develop his own Ich-philosophy - the self as the foundation of reality. Schelling would then offer his own Naturphilosophie and Hegel would later on reject both Fichte and Schelling's systems and develop his own, much more influential, philosophical system.
One of the most important characteristics of this new movement, apart from their insistence on the Ich as a metaphysical and moral starting point, was the continuous and fragmentary development of their ideas. Philosophers like Fichte and Schelling would endlessly revise their original publications, adding layer upon layer of new ideas throughout the years. This chaotic and endless process of becoming was mirrored in their views on art - for example the Schlegel brothers would, in their own publication Athenaeum, break with conventional, (neo)classical formats and pursue a course of fragmentation, disorder and reveling in personal experiences.
Wulf brilliantly paints the lives and experiences of all those involved in the Jena circle, showing us a complex network of even more complex and many times very troubled personalities. The infamous fight between Schiller and Friedrich Schlegel, with Goethe caught up in the crossfire, would be the first rift to occur. Then, there were the continuous fights of Fichte with basically anyone - the man wasn't afraid of insulting his masters, colleagues and friends alike - as well as the endless love affairs (e.g. between Schelling and Wilhelm August Schlegel's wife) which would many a time lead to broken bonds and souring relationships.
In the end, when Napoleon's army plunders and destroys Jena in October 1806 - with Hegel barely being able to sent his only manuscript of Phenomenology of Spirit to his publisher in Bamberg - the definitive, and symbolic, end of the Jena circle is a fact. Symbolic, because already in the years prior to October 1806 the circle was practically dissolved. Its members having almost all fled to different parts of Germany or different countries entirely. The way Wulf describes these latter years is very touching and stirs a nostalgic fire in the reader's chest.
In all their diversity, and in all the diversity in their ideas, the Jena circle (or early Romanticism) has to be understood against the background of the French Revolution. Most of its members (except Goethe) were fervent adherents of the Revolution. They saw the developments in France as promising seeds of a brighter future, a future in which humanity would be free and self-determined. Schiller's essay on the role of art in bridging passion and reason in mankind, Fichte's Ich-philosophy, the Schlegel's attack on the conventions and their colleagues in contemporary art, Novalis' passionate poetry - all have to be understand as them being in dialogue with the current ideas and developments.
Almost 30% of this book consists of notes, bibliography and sources. This shows the sheer amount of work Wulf has put in researching and writing this book. Her intricate knowledge of all the details in the lives of the personalities she sketches shows how gifted a historian she is. On the one hand she writes Magnificent Rebels as a novel, making it a very entertaining and easy-to-read book; on the other hand she is able to interweave the most complex theoretical discussions in this over-arching narrative, making it easier for readers to understand the ideas of people like Kant, Schiller, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc.
The only reason why this book doesn't get a five star rating is that it's slightly too long. It could have done with one or two chapters less (especially on the final years of the Jena circle). Near the end I felt I was growing more impatient and would have appreciated a more concise approach. Nevertheless, this minor nuisance can not and should not diminish the fun I've had reading Magnificent Rebels. Clearly a recommended book for anyone interested in the period, Romanticism and/or the personalities involved.
The name Jena Set derives from the German town Jena, laying in (then) Duchy of Saksen-Weimar, where in July 1794, on a hot summer day, the already famous Johann Wolfgang von Goethe met Friedrich Schiller. This would signal the start of a lifelong intellectual and personal friendship.
Jena was a small university town which consisted of 4.500 inhabitants - of which nearly 1.000 would be students. This was a brewing, competitive and exciting environment for these two bright minds. Around Goethe and Schiller there gradually amassed a group - first Johann Gottlieb Fichte would join as a university professor, then the Schlegel brothers and Novalis, and finally the Von Humboldt brothers, Schelling and Hegel would all join this network of intellectuals. Some would stay for short intervals, others would remain in Jena for years to come.
Around 1803 the Jena Set was pretty much dissolved, many of its former members involved in intellectual fights or romantic rivalries. The most important years (1794 - 1801) would see the origin of a whole new way of looking at the world, at humanity, at science and philosophy - basically at everything. Pivotal in this transformation was Fichte, who adopted Kant's philosophy in order to develop his own Ich-philosophy - the self as the foundation of reality. Schelling would then offer his own Naturphilosophie and Hegel would later on reject both Fichte and Schelling's systems and develop his own, much more influential, philosophical system.
One of the most important characteristics of this new movement, apart from their insistence on the Ich as a metaphysical and moral starting point, was the continuous and fragmentary development of their ideas. Philosophers like Fichte and Schelling would endlessly revise their original publications, adding layer upon layer of new ideas throughout the years. This chaotic and endless process of becoming was mirrored in their views on art - for example the Schlegel brothers would, in their own publication Athenaeum, break with conventional, (neo)classical formats and pursue a course of fragmentation, disorder and reveling in personal experiences.
Wulf brilliantly paints the lives and experiences of all those involved in the Jena circle, showing us a complex network of even more complex and many times very troubled personalities. The infamous fight between Schiller and Friedrich Schlegel, with Goethe caught up in the crossfire, would be the first rift to occur. Then, there were the continuous fights of Fichte with basically anyone - the man wasn't afraid of insulting his masters, colleagues and friends alike - as well as the endless love affairs (e.g. between Schelling and Wilhelm August Schlegel's wife) which would many a time lead to broken bonds and souring relationships.
In the end, when Napoleon's army plunders and destroys Jena in October 1806 - with Hegel barely being able to sent his only manuscript of Phenomenology of Spirit to his publisher in Bamberg - the definitive, and symbolic, end of the Jena circle is a fact. Symbolic, because already in the years prior to October 1806 the circle was practically dissolved. Its members having almost all fled to different parts of Germany or different countries entirely. The way Wulf describes these latter years is very touching and stirs a nostalgic fire in the reader's chest.
In all their diversity, and in all the diversity in their ideas, the Jena circle (or early Romanticism) has to be understood against the background of the French Revolution. Most of its members (except Goethe) were fervent adherents of the Revolution. They saw the developments in France as promising seeds of a brighter future, a future in which humanity would be free and self-determined. Schiller's essay on the role of art in bridging passion and reason in mankind, Fichte's Ich-philosophy, the Schlegel's attack on the conventions and their colleagues in contemporary art, Novalis' passionate poetry - all have to be understand as them being in dialogue with the current ideas and developments.
Almost 30% of this book consists of notes, bibliography and sources. This shows the sheer amount of work Wulf has put in researching and writing this book. Her intricate knowledge of all the details in the lives of the personalities she sketches shows how gifted a historian she is. On the one hand she writes Magnificent Rebels as a novel, making it a very entertaining and easy-to-read book; on the other hand she is able to interweave the most complex theoretical discussions in this over-arching narrative, making it easier for readers to understand the ideas of people like Kant, Schiller, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc.
The only reason why this book doesn't get a five star rating is that it's slightly too long. It could have done with one or two chapters less (especially on the final years of the Jena circle). Near the end I felt I was growing more impatient and would have appreciated a more concise approach. Nevertheless, this minor nuisance can not and should not diminish the fun I've had reading Magnificent Rebels. Clearly a recommended book for anyone interested in the period, Romanticism and/or the personalities involved.
February 19, 2023
13th book for 2023.
This book offers a glimpse into the the lives of the early Romantics, a group of literary figures who were active in the small university town of Jena in the late 18th Century. The group sought to create a new, comprehensive system of thought that could unify different areas of inquiry such as aesthetics, literature, and philosophy. The Jena Circle was also associated with the development of the idea of "absolute spirit," which emphasized the interconnectedness of the universe and human consciousness. The Jena Circle played an important role in the development of German philosophy and the German Romantic movement,
Some of the main actors in the group were:
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Goethe was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the German Romantic movement. His contributions to literature and philosophy were wide-ranging and included works such as "Faust" and "The Sorrows of Young Werther." Goethe collaborated with several members of the Jena Circle, including Friedrich Schiller.
* Friedrich Schiller: a poet, playwright, and philosopher who was associated with the development of the German Romantic movement. His works, including "Wallenstein" and "On the Aesthetic Education of Man," were known for their poetic and philosophical depth. Schiller collaborated with several members of the Jena Circle, including Goethe.
* August Wilhelm Schlegel: a philosopher, literary critic, and translator who was associated with the development of Romanticism. His translations of Shakespeare's plays are still regarded as some of the best in the German language. Schlegel collaborated with his wife, Dorothea Veit, who was an accomplished writer and intellectual in her own right.
* Friedrich Schlegel: a philosopher, literary critic, and translator who was the brother of August Wilhelm Schlegel. He was known for his interest in the concept of irony and for his contributions to the development of Romanticism. He collaborated with his wife, Dorothea Veit, and with his brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel.
* Johann Gottlieb Fichte: a philosopher who developed the idea of the "Wissenschaftslehre," a theory of knowledge and metaphysics that emphasized the importance of human agency and freedom. He was married to Johanna Rahn, who was an important figure in her own right and was known for her literary talents and intellectual pursuits.
* Caroline Schlegel: also known as Caroline Schelling, was an accomplished writer and intellectual who made important contributions to the German Romantic movement. She was an advocate for women's rights and was one of the first women in Germany to earn a university degree. She was married to August Wilhelm Schlegel, but her ideas and work were often overshadowed by her husband.
* Novalis: a poet and philosopher who is known for his work "Hymns to the Night." He was engaged to Sophie von Kühn, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 15. Novalis was associated with the development of the German Romantic movement and was known for his innovative and imaginative approach to poetry and philosophy.
The book, unfortunately, falls short of providing a proper analysis of the group's ideas—and is more focused on personal relationships and scandals. Who knew how many polyamorist relationships were taking place back then?
And while the epilogue attempts to discuss the impact of the Jena Circle on future thinkers, it takes a very rosy view of the groups impact, failing to mention or explore the disturbing fact that their work found fertile ground with the Nazis in the 1930s.
Overall, this book is disappointing for its lack of depth and critical analysis. It offers little beyond surface-level gossip and does not do justice to the important historical and literary movement it purports to cover. There is no there there.
3-stars
This book offers a glimpse into the the lives of the early Romantics, a group of literary figures who were active in the small university town of Jena in the late 18th Century. The group sought to create a new, comprehensive system of thought that could unify different areas of inquiry such as aesthetics, literature, and philosophy. The Jena Circle was also associated with the development of the idea of "absolute spirit," which emphasized the interconnectedness of the universe and human consciousness. The Jena Circle played an important role in the development of German philosophy and the German Romantic movement,
Some of the main actors in the group were:
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Goethe was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the German Romantic movement. His contributions to literature and philosophy were wide-ranging and included works such as "Faust" and "The Sorrows of Young Werther." Goethe collaborated with several members of the Jena Circle, including Friedrich Schiller.
* Friedrich Schiller: a poet, playwright, and philosopher who was associated with the development of the German Romantic movement. His works, including "Wallenstein" and "On the Aesthetic Education of Man," were known for their poetic and philosophical depth. Schiller collaborated with several members of the Jena Circle, including Goethe.
* August Wilhelm Schlegel: a philosopher, literary critic, and translator who was associated with the development of Romanticism. His translations of Shakespeare's plays are still regarded as some of the best in the German language. Schlegel collaborated with his wife, Dorothea Veit, who was an accomplished writer and intellectual in her own right.
* Friedrich Schlegel: a philosopher, literary critic, and translator who was the brother of August Wilhelm Schlegel. He was known for his interest in the concept of irony and for his contributions to the development of Romanticism. He collaborated with his wife, Dorothea Veit, and with his brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel.
* Johann Gottlieb Fichte: a philosopher who developed the idea of the "Wissenschaftslehre," a theory of knowledge and metaphysics that emphasized the importance of human agency and freedom. He was married to Johanna Rahn, who was an important figure in her own right and was known for her literary talents and intellectual pursuits.
* Caroline Schlegel: also known as Caroline Schelling, was an accomplished writer and intellectual who made important contributions to the German Romantic movement. She was an advocate for women's rights and was one of the first women in Germany to earn a university degree. She was married to August Wilhelm Schlegel, but her ideas and work were often overshadowed by her husband.
* Novalis: a poet and philosopher who is known for his work "Hymns to the Night." He was engaged to Sophie von Kühn, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 15. Novalis was associated with the development of the German Romantic movement and was known for his innovative and imaginative approach to poetry and philosophy.
The book, unfortunately, falls short of providing a proper analysis of the group's ideas—and is more focused on personal relationships and scandals. Who knew how many polyamorist relationships were taking place back then?
And while the epilogue attempts to discuss the impact of the Jena Circle on future thinkers, it takes a very rosy view of the groups impact, failing to mention or explore the disturbing fact that their work found fertile ground with the Nazis in the 1930s.
Overall, this book is disappointing for its lack of depth and critical analysis. It offers little beyond surface-level gossip and does not do justice to the important historical and literary movement it purports to cover. There is no there there.
3-stars
March 22, 2024
In junior high were you ever entitled to a lunchroom seat at the pinnacle of adolescent success better known as the Cool Kids' Table? Me neither. What Andrea Wulf has offered us in this book is a look at the small university town of Jena, which for a few short years at the end of the eighteenth century served as the CKT of the German Enlightenment. She presents a collective biography of sixteen people who spent much or all of their time in Jena during this period and who challenged and collaborated with each other in philosophy, poetry, literature and other academic pursuits. They included Goethe, Hegel, Schiller, Humboldt and a number of lesser known persons who became the leading lights of European intellectual life; all of this happening during a period when the ideals of the French Revolution were being trampled under the boots of Napoleon.
It seems that when they were not translating Shakespeare into German, writing literary classics, changing philosophical paradigms, or lusting after their colleagues' significant others, these people were writing letters to each other, as well as to various third parties, and it is primarily from these letters that Wulf has pieced together the story of what she calls the Jena Circle of Friends (not to be confused with the Jennifer Aniston group). The inhabitants of the late 18th century used letters to keep in touch with each other, much as we in the 21st century use Facebook, however the Jena group did not limit their missives to smiling kids and cute cats. These people bared their souls to each other to the point that some readers might consider Too Much Information.
Eventually, however, this collection of big egos began to rub against one another in the wrong ways. NBA fans will be aware that sometimes having too many superstars on your team can lead to condition often shorthanded as "not enough balls on the court". Professional jealousies festered, friends feuded, spouses separated, and everyone went their separate ways, leaving Jena for greener fields. But it was fun while it lasted and Wulf's descriptions left me with the thought that maybe those at the Cool Kids' Table did have better things to do than talk about me.
It seems that when they were not translating Shakespeare into German, writing literary classics, changing philosophical paradigms, or lusting after their colleagues' significant others, these people were writing letters to each other, as well as to various third parties, and it is primarily from these letters that Wulf has pieced together the story of what she calls the Jena Circle of Friends (not to be confused with the Jennifer Aniston group). The inhabitants of the late 18th century used letters to keep in touch with each other, much as we in the 21st century use Facebook, however the Jena group did not limit their missives to smiling kids and cute cats. These people bared their souls to each other to the point that some readers might consider Too Much Information.
Eventually, however, this collection of big egos began to rub against one another in the wrong ways. NBA fans will be aware that sometimes having too many superstars on your team can lead to condition often shorthanded as "not enough balls on the court". Professional jealousies festered, friends feuded, spouses separated, and everyone went their separate ways, leaving Jena for greener fields. But it was fun while it lasted and Wulf's descriptions left me with the thought that maybe those at the Cool Kids' Table did have better things to do than talk about me.
April 29, 2023
I picked this up because I’m interested in the period (late 18th and early 19th century) and it’s the first popular history work I’d found set in Germany during that time rather than just England and France. And in that sense it was quite interesting—the fractured government of the Holy Roman Empire meant that each tiny principality could go its own way, within limits, giving rise to the freethinking university at Jena which is the focus of this book. For a few years around the turn of the century, leading thinkers gathered there and socialized together, and it’s these people and their relationships that are the focus of this book.
The only major player I had heard of was Goethe (author of Faust and Sorrows of the Young Werther); Kant is an influence but not in residence, while Hegel shows up once most of the others have moved on. Other players include poets, literary critics, and philosophers representing the birth of the Romantic movement (most of whom were named Friedrich). The writers wanted to integrate everything: science and art, nature and the self. The philosophy I’m afraid I don’t quite understand based on this book; it feels like an extension of Descartes, positing the self and from there the world, but doesn’t get much detail here.
At any rate, it was interesting to read about a setting I was unfamiliar with, and thinkers I didn’t know much about, and the author has clearly done a ton of research. Writers make great subjects for a biography because they tend to write a lot, and therefore we know a lot about them, their lives and their foibles. These people had a lot of foibles and their lives were fairly interesting: virtually everyone’s love life is unusual in one way or another, whether they were practicing open marriages or proposing marriage to 12-year-olds (this is perhaps not quite as creepy as it sounds as the couple never made it to the altar and so their relationship was presumably never consummated, but at any rate no one at the time seems to have found it nearly as objectionable as Goethe formalizing his relationship with a working-class woman).
Unfortunately, this is a hard one to recommend. It’s a group biography but it’s overwhelmingly focused on the few years these people were all involved with each other, relegating their earlier and later lives to a few quick paragraphs. And those few years are not always the most interesting: when they got along, everyone hung out having animated intellectual discussions for which the author would clearly have given her eyeteeth to be present, and when they didn’t they descended into endless drama which the author relates in great detail, and all this makes up most of the book. Wulf also doesn’t really bother to defend her claim that their thinking changed the world forever, which is not particularly convincing—they clearly did influence later English-language Romantic writers, but there’s no evidence for the claim that the concept of the primacy of the self was their invention (indeed, I followed this up with another book on the topic which traces that straight back to ancient Greece).
Overall, I thought this could have been shorter, with the interpersonal drama condensed, and its grandiose claims either argued more seriously or removed. It was still interesting enough though, and worth a look if you’re interested in the lives and careers and friendships and unconventional romances of the early German Romantics.
The only major player I had heard of was Goethe (author of Faust and Sorrows of the Young Werther); Kant is an influence but not in residence, while Hegel shows up once most of the others have moved on. Other players include poets, literary critics, and philosophers representing the birth of the Romantic movement (most of whom were named Friedrich). The writers wanted to integrate everything: science and art, nature and the self. The philosophy I’m afraid I don’t quite understand based on this book; it feels like an extension of Descartes, positing the self and from there the world, but doesn’t get much detail here.
At any rate, it was interesting to read about a setting I was unfamiliar with, and thinkers I didn’t know much about, and the author has clearly done a ton of research. Writers make great subjects for a biography because they tend to write a lot, and therefore we know a lot about them, their lives and their foibles. These people had a lot of foibles and their lives were fairly interesting: virtually everyone’s love life is unusual in one way or another, whether they were practicing open marriages or proposing marriage to 12-year-olds (this is perhaps not quite as creepy as it sounds as the couple never made it to the altar and so their relationship was presumably never consummated, but at any rate no one at the time seems to have found it nearly as objectionable as Goethe formalizing his relationship with a working-class woman).
Unfortunately, this is a hard one to recommend. It’s a group biography but it’s overwhelmingly focused on the few years these people were all involved with each other, relegating their earlier and later lives to a few quick paragraphs. And those few years are not always the most interesting: when they got along, everyone hung out having animated intellectual discussions for which the author would clearly have given her eyeteeth to be present, and when they didn’t they descended into endless drama which the author relates in great detail, and all this makes up most of the book. Wulf also doesn’t really bother to defend her claim that their thinking changed the world forever, which is not particularly convincing—they clearly did influence later English-language Romantic writers, but there’s no evidence for the claim that the concept of the primacy of the self was their invention (indeed, I followed this up with another book on the topic which traces that straight back to ancient Greece).
Overall, I thought this could have been shorter, with the interpersonal drama condensed, and its grandiose claims either argued more seriously or removed. It was still interesting enough though, and worth a look if you’re interested in the lives and careers and friendships and unconventional romances of the early German Romantics.
April 4, 2023
Read for the Booktube prize. Full review in April
I hesitate to review this book as I know I can not do it justice. It was my number 1 pick out of the 6 I read. It is a history but it was anything but dry. I did listen to it some and read some and read while listening. It was so much more than I expected. It is the history of a very important group of German philosophers in the late 1700's. Sounds pretty boring right? So I thought since last year the BookTube Prize had me reading The Enlightenment which covers the Age of Reason. Well as boring and overwhelming as I found that book this book was entirely different. This gave such a human edge to these people, who they were, who they loved, messy details of their lives and thoughts. If you have any interest in learning about the Romantics, think Goethe, Schlegel, Fichte, Schiller and Caroline Schlegel a wonderful woman who I was previously unaware of. This is a wonderful book.
I know these are old dead white guys and for that many young people see little reason to read or learn little about how they helped create some of today's thinking but there is so much here to be appreciated about Nature, the environment, love, and who is the self and how what they talked and wrote about influenced later writers and poets like Thoreau, Blake and even today such as the poet Mary Oliver.
I loved this history and this author's writing so much, really it read like historical fiction (the best compliment I can give to a non-fiction book) that I ordered the author's previous, The Invention of Nature about Alexander von Humboldt, who was only touched lightly in this book. Am anxious to get to that one.
Unfortunately this one did not move on to the quarterfinals. Can't quite believe it but not totally unexpected. All reading tastes are not the same.
I hesitate to review this book as I know I can not do it justice. It was my number 1 pick out of the 6 I read. It is a history but it was anything but dry. I did listen to it some and read some and read while listening. It was so much more than I expected. It is the history of a very important group of German philosophers in the late 1700's. Sounds pretty boring right? So I thought since last year the BookTube Prize had me reading The Enlightenment which covers the Age of Reason. Well as boring and overwhelming as I found that book this book was entirely different. This gave such a human edge to these people, who they were, who they loved, messy details of their lives and thoughts. If you have any interest in learning about the Romantics, think Goethe, Schlegel, Fichte, Schiller and Caroline Schlegel a wonderful woman who I was previously unaware of. This is a wonderful book.
I know these are old dead white guys and for that many young people see little reason to read or learn little about how they helped create some of today's thinking but there is so much here to be appreciated about Nature, the environment, love, and who is the self and how what they talked and wrote about influenced later writers and poets like Thoreau, Blake and even today such as the poet Mary Oliver.
I loved this history and this author's writing so much, really it read like historical fiction (the best compliment I can give to a non-fiction book) that I ordered the author's previous, The Invention of Nature about Alexander von Humboldt, who was only touched lightly in this book. Am anxious to get to that one.
Unfortunately this one did not move on to the quarterfinals. Can't quite believe it but not totally unexpected. All reading tastes are not the same.
February 28, 2023
In the introduction, Andrea Wulf states that she has been trying to understand "why we are who we are". She has also realised that it is not enough to look at the connections between us and nature, but that she needs to look at us as individuals - when did we begin to be selfish and expect self-determination and freedom. Wulf apparently found her answers in the doings of the small University town of Jena in the mid-1790s. This is a well written and engaging history book that examines the shaping of modern philosophy in a small town in Germany, where a group of talented people lived, interacted, discussed, socialised, had personal dramas, fought, made love, and ended up producing something that is greater than the sum of their individual contributions. As a biography, the book examines the relationships and habits of this group in minute detail (it sometimes comes across as a soap opera sans the multiple murders, demonic possession and repeated resurrections), within the political context of the era. The development of various philosophical ideas are discussed where relevant, but not in any great depth. The epilogue is particularly interesting in terms of applying the philosophies developed over 200 years ago to our lifestyle today. I enjoyed this book, but I still much prefer The Invention of Nature, probably because my interests align more with those of Alexander von Humbolt than with a group of philosophers.
August 25, 2022
Long time ago I got a grant to study German in Stuttgart. Stuttgart is not the hometown of German Romanticism but it's a place where there's a lot of memories of Hegel and Schiller.
This book was fascinating as it's well researched but never dry or dull. You meet the early German Romantics and you can feel their charm and their strength.
I'm not one of their fan but I would have like to live in Jena at the beginning of XIX century.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
This book was fascinating as it's well researched but never dry or dull. You meet the early German Romantics and you can feel their charm and their strength.
I'm not one of their fan but I would have like to live in Jena at the beginning of XIX century.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
November 17, 2022
Goethe, Schiller, die Schlegels, Schelling, Fichte, die Humboldts, Tieck, Novalis, Hegel - die Versammlung von deutschen Intellektuellen in Jena von 1794 bis zur Schlacht bei Jena 1806 - und ein kurzer Ausblick auf die Auswirkungen ihrer Schriften auf die weitere Literaturgeschichte. Eine Zusammenführung von Biographie, Werksgeschichte und Geistesgeschichte. Informativ und lesbar.
Read
July 22, 2022Obviously on one level all biographies take place in the same shared world, but this feels a lot like an expanded universe for Wulf's earlier, excellent biography of Alexander von Humboldt. Who does feature here, but is very much the expensive guest star, turning up "driven by fretful energy as if chased by '10,000 pigs'" (no mere 30-50 feral hogs here), enlivening Goethe more than the animals on whom the pair of them delightedly experiment, and as such, deeply pissing off the resentful Izzy Hands of the piece: "Alexander would never accomplish anything great, Schiller wrote, because he was interested in too many things." That so, Schiller? How many penguins are named after you, then? Oh? How about squid? Yeah, thought so. Loser. But as I say, that's very much a guest spot; the Humboldt who plays an ongoing role is his brother, Wilhelm, one of a few figures here who aren't necessarily major players in their own rights – someone who wasn't that brilliant a writer, but who'd ask the right questions, make the right connections, to enhance the work being done by those around him. Brian Eno's term 'scenius' doesn't appear in Magnificent Rebels, which is probably for the best, but encapsulates its theme – those moments when a group of talented individuals convene, interact, argue through the night, probably fuck, and end up producing something greater than the sum of the parts. But for Wulf, while the Jena set who kicked off Romanticism in Germany can be compared to the likes of the North American Transcendentalists or the Bloomsbury Set, they're even more important. In a personal foreword she argues, convincingly, that compared to the pre-Jena world where your ruler could decide your residence, your faith, your job and even your relationships, "We still think with their minds, see with their imaginations and feel with their emotions." Too few of us, you might reply, but it's true at least to the extent that the retrograde scum have learned to talk in the language of rights and conscience even as they subvert them.
What really impresses, though, is that where that open investment could easily have kicked off a personal journey kind of book, Wulf thereafter ducks behind the curtain, serving as an expert but invisible guide to the people among whom she takes us. She explains why it was Jena specifically where this all happened – how while it still felt mediaeval in terms of architecture, being in the centre of Germany made it a crossroads, and in turn how while France, Spain and England had colonies, and America the West, "everything in Germany was small, splintered and inward-looking" – but this coming with the result that Germans had more appetite for travelling in words; as the 18th century closed, it was the world's most literate country, which combined with population size to make for "the German book trade enjoying a market four to five times larger than that in England". And then, back to Jena specifically, how the large proportion of students made it bohemian by default: "a staggering quarter of all births in Jena were illegitimate, compared to just two per cent elsewhere in the German territories." Also, more leeway, so people in trouble elsewhere in Germany gravitated there; four different duchies had to agree on rules, making them tough to enact and enforce. This in contrast to England's two hidebound universities, or the horribly practical 'ecoles speciales' with which revolutionary France had replaced its own. Whereas in Jena, well: "'A person,' the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte shouted from the lectern during his first lecture in Jena, 'should be self-determined, never letting himself be defined by anything external'." Fichte, by this account, is the knot around which the rest of the group aggregates, and if you look at that statement and consider its implications inhumane, then you're not wrong. But compared to some of the nastier turns libertarianism has taken, or the witless celebrity philosophers of subsequent ages (and yes, I'm still laughing at Jordan Peterson's meat coma), it was at least a necessary corrective to a society where the default expectation was that you be a good little cog in the machine and – the big difference to now – not pretend otherwise. Nevertheless, some of Fichte's limitations were clear from the off; even his fans admitted the writing wasn't as good as the lectures, and it's not just the modern or British reader who might be inclined to take the piss; Goethe would begin letters "Dear non-Ich'. On top of which, because apparently the world only has one university story, Fichte had to contend with fratboy bullying and mean girls ignoring his unfashionable wife. Regarding whom, it's worth noting that the whole self-determined Ich bit was strictly for guys, with women still firmly in a helpmeet role as far as Fichte is concerned. Quelle surprise, you might say, especially since it's the 1790s, but one of the things Wulf is great at bringing out is the gradations in thinking within the set, the amount on which they disagreed, even during the period when they were palling around together. That might apply to ethics, as here with feminism, or with free love, where some were fine with it, some weren't, and of course some were up to a point but come on lads, a joke's a joke... It might apply to philosophy in its more abstruse reaches, Goethe the realist arguing with Schiller the idealist; or to personality, the former "easy going, intuitive and relaxed", the latter tense and given to overthinking. And crucially, these are not discrete categories; the beliefs and the manner and the ways of living their lives all bear on each other, all adding up to precisely that unconstrained selfhood which so fascinated them. No detail which might express that is too small, right down to the immaculate handwriting of August Wilhelm Schlegel versus the tumbling script of his brother Friedrich. Differences which, while times were good, helped all of them to firm up their thoughts and the expression thereof.
Speaking of the Schlegels, though; they were among several participants here where I knew the name, and that was about it. Possibly because it's one of the few to appear in Monty Python's song but not Bertrand Russell's History. So I hadn't even known there were two of them, or three if you count Caroline Bohmer-Schlegel-Schelling, sometime romantic interest of both brothers, and a key player here both intellectually (she didn't publish under her own name, but her contributions as writer and editor were invaluable) and, for better and worse, socially. Another is Novalis, and if Humboldt is the big star popping up here to give the franchise a boost, Novalis is very much the supporting character whose crazy antics prove so popular with the audience that they keep being brought back, always guaranteed to be having a normal one. We first meet him as his fiancee Sophie awaits medical attention from one Dr Stark, who would never tell people in advance when he was operating (lest they worry), had no idea about germs or disinfection (because who did?), and thought half a dozen leeches up the bum would generally do the trick. He was the best medic in the region. When Novalis met Sophie, she was 12, which even at the time was thought to be pushing it; and when Stark's ministrations unaccountably failed to save Sophie, Novalis took the obvious course of action and tried to top himself, except that he concluded guns, poison &c were for lightweights who didn't really mean it, so he was going to commit suicide using only the power of his mind. Despite that not working out, we subsequently find him attempting to concoct the chemical cure for physicality – which, charitably, probably didn't seem much madder at the time than some of Humboldt's electrical explorations; the difference is, Novalis still sounds just as bonkers now. At one point he plans on "spending his entire life working on one novel – never completed, forever being written, infinitely evolving", something a few writers have done, but seldom deliberately; instead he comes out with Faith And Love, by which "the Prussian king had been so confused that he couldn't work out whether to censor it." Here he talked about the Dark Ages as not in fact a dark age like you think, aaaaaah, but a time of light since lost, "a spiritual community 'which paid no attention to natural borders'. Certainly a take on mediaeval history, isn't it? And yet, like the proverbial stopped clock, it was Novalis who spotted the loneliness of Fichte's Ich, the way that he ignored love, which turned the Ich into a You (and yes, the mixed English/German there is a little inconsistent, but perhaps because Wulf is herself (at least) bilingual, in her telling it works).
And so the larger than life cast gather, their foibles (to Goethe's understandable dismay, Schiller kept a drawer full of rotting apples in his desk, finding the scent inspirational) magnified by the quiet, agrarian Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. The ultimate small-town scene, in other words, though one must remember this was a very different Germany, with Prussian, military Berlin considered "a cultural and intellectual wasteland" (Humboldt, a native, described it as a "dancing carnivalesque necropolis", which sounds awesome to me, though apparently was not intended as a compliment). In Saxe-Weimar things were very different, thanks in large part to Duke Carl August as mostly supportive overlord, not least in beginning as a fan of Goethe and going on to make him both a privy councillor and a mate. Goethe in turn serving as an elder statesman to the Schlegels, Schiller et al, not least in being the one who tried his best to remain on good terms with all sides when, as inevitably happens, the break-up begins. Because just as biographies only ever end one way, so too group biographies. OK, maybe one of two ways for the group ones, but neither is good, and in some ways death is less dispiriting. There are deaths here, which do much to seal the dissolution, but by that point the fellowship is already broken, the Schlegels and Schiller having spectacularly fallen out, not least over the periodical Horen, which first crystallised the group and then fractured it. Arguments grow more bitter, then multiply; things are said which can't be walked back. By the turn of the century everything is going wrong, in ways very reminiscent of the cocaine phase that afflicts the successful in more recent years, despite the fact cocaine wasn't really a thing in Europe yet. Fichte finally pushes the local spirit of toleration too far; Schelling demands to be allowed to review his own work, because who could be better placed to assess it? Friedrich Schlegel in particular becomes a monstrously fat, rude bullshitter, getting advances for work never delivered, sponging off long-suffering friends, even falling out with his brother over a borrowed house trashed by wild parties. The chapter covering events in the year from Spring 1801 is titled "When philosophers start eating one another like starving rats", if anything too kind a description of the increasingly abstruse and vicious rows between Fichte and Schelling, the only note of levity provided by the title of Fichte's A Report Clear As Daylight (which, spoiler, wasn't). By the time letters are insinuating that "as a friend it is my duty to warn against those who are not true friends", these supposedly great minds might as well be telling each other "Too many snakes out there hun". And of course, it echoes, because biographer's hindsight reminds the reader that we each have times, seldom noticed as they happen, that will be the last we speak to a dear friend, and who among us can't feel for Caroline, years later, when she writes "What I miss, and Schelling too, is how every night the door would open and we would see a couple of familiar faces."
But of course, just because a scene is over, doesn't mean people won't still be trying to get involved, and if Goethe was the forerunner, the hopeless latecomer here is Hegel, turning up in 1801 after the party is over. To some extent it's unclear why he even bothered; the others may have had their differences, but when Wulf says Hegel had decided it was "time to rid philosophy of enthusiasm, imagination and feeling", surely that's the opposite to what the Jena group were about? This is a man who, travelling through the Alps, wasn't interested in the grandeur of the landscape, only the mechanics of making Swiss cheese – and understand when I scorn this that I have been reading Magnificent Rebels in tandem with A Cheesemonger's History Of The British Isles. Hegel is also notable as giving us the most spectacular expression of a subplot which runs through the book for ages before finally seizing the foreground. Because as you may recall, there were a few other things happening in Europe as the 18th century gave way to the 19th. And indeed, the book trailed this early on with Caroline imprisoned on account of her dalliance with the French Revolution. A movement whose ideals many of the Jena thinkers supported, but of course it wasn't long before those ideals were a little dimmed by the torrents of blood, and as has been the case with intellectuals and revolution ever since, there was some difficulty in deciding how much that mattered. Similarly, just as purported friends of liberty frequently seem to find themselves wanking over murderous strongmen, so a lot of these people who should have known better seemed to celebrate Napoleon far too ardently for far too long. For some, he had brought back law and order after the anarchy into which the Revolution had descended; for others, he was an eleutheriarch. Few of them seemed to twig that in fact, he was just the bad old absolutism come round again in a slightly different outfit. Eventually, in scenes which I would have found heavy-handed in fiction, Jena is overwhelmed by more soldiers than the whole pre-war population of the province; the parks where the friends walked are denuded, the rooms in which they held their salons become field hospitals. Hegel barely saved the manuscript of his Phenomonology Of Spirit from the wanton destruction Napoleon's men unleashed in Jena, which preceded a new era of militarism and censorship. Despite all of which, said book hailed Bonaparte as ushering in a new epoch of liberty, an "end of history" which should surely see Hegel as permanently and universally mocked as his heir Fukuyama. But hey, Fukuyama still gets pundit gigs too, somehow, so what do I know?
Despite that ignominious ending, though, something survived. Not all of it good – Fichte promoting a German national Ich instead would have dire consequences over the next couple of centuries. But that central if sometimes hard to define notion of Romanticism, of perceiving the world as a whole, much as Humboldt was doing with ecology – those seeds would bear fruit. After centuries in which Shakespeare was often subject to Procrustean revisions because he breached supposed laws of drama, the Jena set provided crucial intellectual backing for the notion that his "victory of free nature over the rule" was the heart of his greatness, not a flaw in it. Coleridge, who had tried to visit Jena but mucked up his budget, would play a key role here, contenting himself with ripping off whole chunks of the group's writing instead, something of which Hawthorne and Poe were also guilty. After Friedrich and Schlegel had done some judicious tidying of Novalis' work and legacy, he would provide a template for the doomed young genius. Entertainingly, Wulf puts much of the responsibility for this dissemination with August Wilhelm who, after he finally split up with Caroline, demonstrated that some people never learn by once again getting himself into the orbit of someone impossibly demanding from whom he wasn't getting any, the glamorous, exhausting Mme de Stael. Whose writings about the group, despite Napoleon's attempts to destroy them (such a great liberator!), were key in bringing them to the attention of a world beyond the now-devastated small town where they once argued, loved and wrote.
(Netgalley ARC)
What really impresses, though, is that where that open investment could easily have kicked off a personal journey kind of book, Wulf thereafter ducks behind the curtain, serving as an expert but invisible guide to the people among whom she takes us. She explains why it was Jena specifically where this all happened – how while it still felt mediaeval in terms of architecture, being in the centre of Germany made it a crossroads, and in turn how while France, Spain and England had colonies, and America the West, "everything in Germany was small, splintered and inward-looking" – but this coming with the result that Germans had more appetite for travelling in words; as the 18th century closed, it was the world's most literate country, which combined with population size to make for "the German book trade enjoying a market four to five times larger than that in England". And then, back to Jena specifically, how the large proportion of students made it bohemian by default: "a staggering quarter of all births in Jena were illegitimate, compared to just two per cent elsewhere in the German territories." Also, more leeway, so people in trouble elsewhere in Germany gravitated there; four different duchies had to agree on rules, making them tough to enact and enforce. This in contrast to England's two hidebound universities, or the horribly practical 'ecoles speciales' with which revolutionary France had replaced its own. Whereas in Jena, well: "'A person,' the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte shouted from the lectern during his first lecture in Jena, 'should be self-determined, never letting himself be defined by anything external'." Fichte, by this account, is the knot around which the rest of the group aggregates, and if you look at that statement and consider its implications inhumane, then you're not wrong. But compared to some of the nastier turns libertarianism has taken, or the witless celebrity philosophers of subsequent ages (and yes, I'm still laughing at Jordan Peterson's meat coma), it was at least a necessary corrective to a society where the default expectation was that you be a good little cog in the machine and – the big difference to now – not pretend otherwise. Nevertheless, some of Fichte's limitations were clear from the off; even his fans admitted the writing wasn't as good as the lectures, and it's not just the modern or British reader who might be inclined to take the piss; Goethe would begin letters "Dear non-Ich'. On top of which, because apparently the world only has one university story, Fichte had to contend with fratboy bullying and mean girls ignoring his unfashionable wife. Regarding whom, it's worth noting that the whole self-determined Ich bit was strictly for guys, with women still firmly in a helpmeet role as far as Fichte is concerned. Quelle surprise, you might say, especially since it's the 1790s, but one of the things Wulf is great at bringing out is the gradations in thinking within the set, the amount on which they disagreed, even during the period when they were palling around together. That might apply to ethics, as here with feminism, or with free love, where some were fine with it, some weren't, and of course some were up to a point but come on lads, a joke's a joke... It might apply to philosophy in its more abstruse reaches, Goethe the realist arguing with Schiller the idealist; or to personality, the former "easy going, intuitive and relaxed", the latter tense and given to overthinking. And crucially, these are not discrete categories; the beliefs and the manner and the ways of living their lives all bear on each other, all adding up to precisely that unconstrained selfhood which so fascinated them. No detail which might express that is too small, right down to the immaculate handwriting of August Wilhelm Schlegel versus the tumbling script of his brother Friedrich. Differences which, while times were good, helped all of them to firm up their thoughts and the expression thereof.
Speaking of the Schlegels, though; they were among several participants here where I knew the name, and that was about it. Possibly because it's one of the few to appear in Monty Python's song but not Bertrand Russell's History. So I hadn't even known there were two of them, or three if you count Caroline Bohmer-Schlegel-Schelling, sometime romantic interest of both brothers, and a key player here both intellectually (she didn't publish under her own name, but her contributions as writer and editor were invaluable) and, for better and worse, socially. Another is Novalis, and if Humboldt is the big star popping up here to give the franchise a boost, Novalis is very much the supporting character whose crazy antics prove so popular with the audience that they keep being brought back, always guaranteed to be having a normal one. We first meet him as his fiancee Sophie awaits medical attention from one Dr Stark, who would never tell people in advance when he was operating (lest they worry), had no idea about germs or disinfection (because who did?), and thought half a dozen leeches up the bum would generally do the trick. He was the best medic in the region. When Novalis met Sophie, she was 12, which even at the time was thought to be pushing it; and when Stark's ministrations unaccountably failed to save Sophie, Novalis took the obvious course of action and tried to top himself, except that he concluded guns, poison &c were for lightweights who didn't really mean it, so he was going to commit suicide using only the power of his mind. Despite that not working out, we subsequently find him attempting to concoct the chemical cure for physicality – which, charitably, probably didn't seem much madder at the time than some of Humboldt's electrical explorations; the difference is, Novalis still sounds just as bonkers now. At one point he plans on "spending his entire life working on one novel – never completed, forever being written, infinitely evolving", something a few writers have done, but seldom deliberately; instead he comes out with Faith And Love, by which "the Prussian king had been so confused that he couldn't work out whether to censor it." Here he talked about the Dark Ages as not in fact a dark age like you think, aaaaaah, but a time of light since lost, "a spiritual community 'which paid no attention to natural borders'. Certainly a take on mediaeval history, isn't it? And yet, like the proverbial stopped clock, it was Novalis who spotted the loneliness of Fichte's Ich, the way that he ignored love, which turned the Ich into a You (and yes, the mixed English/German there is a little inconsistent, but perhaps because Wulf is herself (at least) bilingual, in her telling it works).
And so the larger than life cast gather, their foibles (to Goethe's understandable dismay, Schiller kept a drawer full of rotting apples in his desk, finding the scent inspirational) magnified by the quiet, agrarian Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. The ultimate small-town scene, in other words, though one must remember this was a very different Germany, with Prussian, military Berlin considered "a cultural and intellectual wasteland" (Humboldt, a native, described it as a "dancing carnivalesque necropolis", which sounds awesome to me, though apparently was not intended as a compliment). In Saxe-Weimar things were very different, thanks in large part to Duke Carl August as mostly supportive overlord, not least in beginning as a fan of Goethe and going on to make him both a privy councillor and a mate. Goethe in turn serving as an elder statesman to the Schlegels, Schiller et al, not least in being the one who tried his best to remain on good terms with all sides when, as inevitably happens, the break-up begins. Because just as biographies only ever end one way, so too group biographies. OK, maybe one of two ways for the group ones, but neither is good, and in some ways death is less dispiriting. There are deaths here, which do much to seal the dissolution, but by that point the fellowship is already broken, the Schlegels and Schiller having spectacularly fallen out, not least over the periodical Horen, which first crystallised the group and then fractured it. Arguments grow more bitter, then multiply; things are said which can't be walked back. By the turn of the century everything is going wrong, in ways very reminiscent of the cocaine phase that afflicts the successful in more recent years, despite the fact cocaine wasn't really a thing in Europe yet. Fichte finally pushes the local spirit of toleration too far; Schelling demands to be allowed to review his own work, because who could be better placed to assess it? Friedrich Schlegel in particular becomes a monstrously fat, rude bullshitter, getting advances for work never delivered, sponging off long-suffering friends, even falling out with his brother over a borrowed house trashed by wild parties. The chapter covering events in the year from Spring 1801 is titled "When philosophers start eating one another like starving rats", if anything too kind a description of the increasingly abstruse and vicious rows between Fichte and Schelling, the only note of levity provided by the title of Fichte's A Report Clear As Daylight (which, spoiler, wasn't). By the time letters are insinuating that "as a friend it is my duty to warn against those who are not true friends", these supposedly great minds might as well be telling each other "Too many snakes out there hun". And of course, it echoes, because biographer's hindsight reminds the reader that we each have times, seldom noticed as they happen, that will be the last we speak to a dear friend, and who among us can't feel for Caroline, years later, when she writes "What I miss, and Schelling too, is how every night the door would open and we would see a couple of familiar faces."
But of course, just because a scene is over, doesn't mean people won't still be trying to get involved, and if Goethe was the forerunner, the hopeless latecomer here is Hegel, turning up in 1801 after the party is over. To some extent it's unclear why he even bothered; the others may have had their differences, but when Wulf says Hegel had decided it was "time to rid philosophy of enthusiasm, imagination and feeling", surely that's the opposite to what the Jena group were about? This is a man who, travelling through the Alps, wasn't interested in the grandeur of the landscape, only the mechanics of making Swiss cheese – and understand when I scorn this that I have been reading Magnificent Rebels in tandem with A Cheesemonger's History Of The British Isles. Hegel is also notable as giving us the most spectacular expression of a subplot which runs through the book for ages before finally seizing the foreground. Because as you may recall, there were a few other things happening in Europe as the 18th century gave way to the 19th. And indeed, the book trailed this early on with Caroline imprisoned on account of her dalliance with the French Revolution. A movement whose ideals many of the Jena thinkers supported, but of course it wasn't long before those ideals were a little dimmed by the torrents of blood, and as has been the case with intellectuals and revolution ever since, there was some difficulty in deciding how much that mattered. Similarly, just as purported friends of liberty frequently seem to find themselves wanking over murderous strongmen, so a lot of these people who should have known better seemed to celebrate Napoleon far too ardently for far too long. For some, he had brought back law and order after the anarchy into which the Revolution had descended; for others, he was an eleutheriarch. Few of them seemed to twig that in fact, he was just the bad old absolutism come round again in a slightly different outfit. Eventually, in scenes which I would have found heavy-handed in fiction, Jena is overwhelmed by more soldiers than the whole pre-war population of the province; the parks where the friends walked are denuded, the rooms in which they held their salons become field hospitals. Hegel barely saved the manuscript of his Phenomonology Of Spirit from the wanton destruction Napoleon's men unleashed in Jena, which preceded a new era of militarism and censorship. Despite all of which, said book hailed Bonaparte as ushering in a new epoch of liberty, an "end of history" which should surely see Hegel as permanently and universally mocked as his heir Fukuyama. But hey, Fukuyama still gets pundit gigs too, somehow, so what do I know?
Despite that ignominious ending, though, something survived. Not all of it good – Fichte promoting a German national Ich instead would have dire consequences over the next couple of centuries. But that central if sometimes hard to define notion of Romanticism, of perceiving the world as a whole, much as Humboldt was doing with ecology – those seeds would bear fruit. After centuries in which Shakespeare was often subject to Procrustean revisions because he breached supposed laws of drama, the Jena set provided crucial intellectual backing for the notion that his "victory of free nature over the rule" was the heart of his greatness, not a flaw in it. Coleridge, who had tried to visit Jena but mucked up his budget, would play a key role here, contenting himself with ripping off whole chunks of the group's writing instead, something of which Hawthorne and Poe were also guilty. After Friedrich and Schlegel had done some judicious tidying of Novalis' work and legacy, he would provide a template for the doomed young genius. Entertainingly, Wulf puts much of the responsibility for this dissemination with August Wilhelm who, after he finally split up with Caroline, demonstrated that some people never learn by once again getting himself into the orbit of someone impossibly demanding from whom he wasn't getting any, the glamorous, exhausting Mme de Stael. Whose writings about the group, despite Napoleon's attempts to destroy them (such a great liberator!), were key in bringing them to the attention of a world beyond the now-devastated small town where they once argued, loved and wrote.
(Netgalley ARC)
June 24, 2023
3.5/5
Depois de ler o belíssimo "The Invention of Nature" de Andrea Wulf senti vontade de continuar a ler Wulf e como "Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self" (2022) era o seu último livro, resolvi lê-lo de seguida. Interessou-me particularmente o subtítulo "the Invention of the Self", querendo acreditar que Wulf se centraria nessa discussão. Contudo não é disso que a autora nos fala. "Magnificent Rebels" usa como personagem principal a pequena cidade alemã de Jenna, e a sua Universidade, que em finais do século XVIII se tornaria no centro de ideias que viriam a definir o movimento hoje referenciado como Romantismo. Em Jenna conviveram alguns nomes de referência clássica como Goethe, Fichte, Novalis, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, os irmãos Humboldt, os irmãos Schlegel e Caroline Schelling. Wulf dedica-se a dissecar os principais ideais, conversas e afetações de cada um destes autores, tentando apresentar o "Círculo de Jenna" ao nível do "Círculo de Viena" ou da "Escola de Frankfurt".
Continua no blog: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
Depois de ler o belíssimo "The Invention of Nature" de Andrea Wulf senti vontade de continuar a ler Wulf e como "Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self" (2022) era o seu último livro, resolvi lê-lo de seguida. Interessou-me particularmente o subtítulo "the Invention of the Self", querendo acreditar que Wulf se centraria nessa discussão. Contudo não é disso que a autora nos fala. "Magnificent Rebels" usa como personagem principal a pequena cidade alemã de Jenna, e a sua Universidade, que em finais do século XVIII se tornaria no centro de ideias que viriam a definir o movimento hoje referenciado como Romantismo. Em Jenna conviveram alguns nomes de referência clássica como Goethe, Fichte, Novalis, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, os irmãos Humboldt, os irmãos Schlegel e Caroline Schelling. Wulf dedica-se a dissecar os principais ideais, conversas e afetações de cada um destes autores, tentando apresentar o "Círculo de Jenna" ao nível do "Círculo de Viena" ou da "Escola de Frankfurt".
Continua no blog: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
January 23, 2023
Schiller, Schlegel, Schelling, Fichte, Novalis und viele andere Dichter wie Philosophen. Von allen habe ich schon mal etwas gehört und mich mit deren Werk vereinzelt auseinandergesetzt. Dies jedoch immer unabhängig voneinander. Daher war ich sehr überracht, herauszufinden, dass sie alle nicht nur zur gleichen Zeit am gleichen Ort waren, sondern aktiv eine Gang gebildet hatten.
Andrea Wulf erzählt die Geschichte hinter den Gedichten, Romanen und philosophischen Abhandlungen. Schauplatz ist die kleine aber liberale Universitätsstadt Jena im 18. Jahrhundert. Anhand von zahlreichen Briefwechseln, Tagebucheinträgen und anderen historischen Quellen, erzählt Wulf wie viele berühmte Dichter und Denker zusammen kamen, sich gegenseitig inspirierten, und sich zu dem machten, für das wir sie heute wahrnehmen: Lichtgestalten der deutschen Kulturgeschichte. Obwohl der inhaltliche Fokus auf der Bildung der deutschen Ich-Philosophie (Fichte) und Romantik liegt, schreibt die Autoren ausführlich über persönliche Hintergründe, Verhältnisse, Zerwürfnisse, sowie das alltäglich, typisch menschliche hinter den großen Namen der Geschichte. Dadurch wirken diese deutlich persönlicher und man gewinnt ein lebevolles Verständnis für den Kontext hinter den literarischen und philosophischen Werken.
Allerdings fand ich die persönliche Perspektive etwas über das Ziel herausgeschossen. Manchmal hätte ich lieber mehr von den Theorien gehört und weniger über Streiterein zwischen den Protagonisten. Daher hatte ich zuweilen das Gefühl, dass sich in einer Geschichte voller Details aus dem Leben, der angestrebte Bezug zur Gegenwart wie Gesellschaft verliert. Der Epilog versucht zwar in wenigen Seiten die Bedeutung der "Ich-Philosophie" zu betonen, aber da jedoch hauptsächlich persönliche Lebensumstände thematisiert wurden, wirkten diese Bezüge etwas aus dem Himmel gegriffen. Dennoch bin ich froh, die Geschichten hinter der Geschichte erfahren zu haben! Wulf hat exzellente Quellenarbeit und Recherche betrieben und so eine lang vergange Zeit, die heute nur noch in Büchern, Fragmenten und Worten erhalten geblieben ist, durch einen ansprechenden Stil zum Leben erweckt.
Andrea Wulf erzählt die Geschichte hinter den Gedichten, Romanen und philosophischen Abhandlungen. Schauplatz ist die kleine aber liberale Universitätsstadt Jena im 18. Jahrhundert. Anhand von zahlreichen Briefwechseln, Tagebucheinträgen und anderen historischen Quellen, erzählt Wulf wie viele berühmte Dichter und Denker zusammen kamen, sich gegenseitig inspirierten, und sich zu dem machten, für das wir sie heute wahrnehmen: Lichtgestalten der deutschen Kulturgeschichte. Obwohl der inhaltliche Fokus auf der Bildung der deutschen Ich-Philosophie (Fichte) und Romantik liegt, schreibt die Autoren ausführlich über persönliche Hintergründe, Verhältnisse, Zerwürfnisse, sowie das alltäglich, typisch menschliche hinter den großen Namen der Geschichte. Dadurch wirken diese deutlich persönlicher und man gewinnt ein lebevolles Verständnis für den Kontext hinter den literarischen und philosophischen Werken.
Allerdings fand ich die persönliche Perspektive etwas über das Ziel herausgeschossen. Manchmal hätte ich lieber mehr von den Theorien gehört und weniger über Streiterein zwischen den Protagonisten. Daher hatte ich zuweilen das Gefühl, dass sich in einer Geschichte voller Details aus dem Leben, der angestrebte Bezug zur Gegenwart wie Gesellschaft verliert. Der Epilog versucht zwar in wenigen Seiten die Bedeutung der "Ich-Philosophie" zu betonen, aber da jedoch hauptsächlich persönliche Lebensumstände thematisiert wurden, wirkten diese Bezüge etwas aus dem Himmel gegriffen. Dennoch bin ich froh, die Geschichten hinter der Geschichte erfahren zu haben! Wulf hat exzellente Quellenarbeit und Recherche betrieben und so eine lang vergange Zeit, die heute nur noch in Büchern, Fragmenten und Worten erhalten geblieben ist, durch einen ansprechenden Stil zum Leben erweckt.
December 8, 2022
Ein richtiges Highlight zum Jahresende 👌
January 14, 2023
El libro está muy bien documentado y recoge con maestría el ambiente de esa época. Presenta a los personajes precursores y partícipes del romanticismo desde diversas perspectivas, y es ahí donde se me ha hecho bastante tedioso terminar su lectura. La parte académica, que analiza sus ideas, sus perspectivas filosóficas, la elaboración de los conceptos en aquel contexto social, está muy bien desarrollada. Por otro lado tenemos un fondo de tramas sociales, cotilleos, amistades y enemistades que se me ha hecho especialmente aburrido. De hecho estuve a punto de dejar su lectura. Es un buen libro, sin duda, pero no para mí.
November 8, 2022
I dissent--I really don't care about these people on this level, and frankly, I don't like them. Wulf concludes with a kind of, sort of critique of the Jena romantics, but basically it's all adulation, and the more individualistic and 2022 they are, the more adulation they get. You want polyamory? You're great. You want to hang out with your wife, and your wife to hang out with you? You're not. Yawn.
There's not enough on the ideas and art to really make the case the book is trying to make, and there's far too much he-said, she-said. I don't understand why people say Wulf 'brings history to life,' perhaps because I don't need it brought to life in this way.
Perhaps the best analogy here is Hamilton, the musical: sure, you can cherry pick facts about someone to make them seem relevant and interesting, and that will be a fun story, but ultimately, there's a lot more going on than Wulf chooses to show us. And if you want history to be brought alive, might I recommend Penelope Fitzgerald's 'Blue Flower,' instead?
There's not enough on the ideas and art to really make the case the book is trying to make, and there's far too much he-said, she-said. I don't understand why people say Wulf 'brings history to life,' perhaps because I don't need it brought to life in this way.
Perhaps the best analogy here is Hamilton, the musical: sure, you can cherry pick facts about someone to make them seem relevant and interesting, and that will be a fun story, but ultimately, there's a lot more going on than Wulf chooses to show us. And if you want history to be brought alive, might I recommend Penelope Fitzgerald's 'Blue Flower,' instead?
Read
November 26, 2022Reading this takes me back to freshman year of college, when I was in a liberal arts seminar that concentrated on the late 18th and early 19th centuries; we read Faust, Schleiermacher, Kant, Hegel, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Blake... I remember being attracted to the aphorism and the fragment as literary styles, mainly because it didn't require finishing any thoughts! This was an enjoyable connection of all those half-remembered texts, and it would have been wildly enjoyable at the time to have a vivid description of how all those guys were hanging out, discussing, feuding, and the brilliant women that were erased from the published record.
Here's my completely subjective ranking of who seems the most-to-least pleasant to hang out with from the Jena set:
-Goethe
-Alexander von Humboldt
-Caroline Schlegel
-Novalis
-Schiller
-August Wilhelm Schlegel
-Dorothea Veit-Schlegel
-Schelling
-Fichte
-Friedrich Schlegel
Here's my completely subjective ranking of who seems the most-to-least pleasant to hang out with from the Jena set:
-Goethe
-Alexander von Humboldt
-Caroline Schlegel
-Novalis
-Schiller
-August Wilhelm Schlegel
-Dorothea Veit-Schlegel
-Schelling
-Fichte
-Friedrich Schlegel
Read
October 4, 2022Finished Magnificent Rebels last eve. Inchoate mind-body turmoil all night. Wulf is brilliant, meticulous, all embracing. She becomes the history she is writing, drags the characters, still arguing, loving & fighting into the 21st C. A novel deep dive into who we are.
Also this: That Old Scrap Again
In the 16th century, my ancestors fled their homes in Friesland, the Netherlands and Northern Germany. Over the next few hundred years, they wandered sporadically, seeking protection and shelter, across northern Europe, ending up, in the 18th century, in the Ukrainian part of Catherine the Great’s empire. Having emerged from the “left wing of the Reformation”, and having championed individual choice in the face of Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and Kings, My Anabaptist ancestors became closed communities within which individual choice was discouraged. They fled Stalin’s Empire in 1926, arriving in Canada with little but a head full of ideas.
I grew up in a household driven by ideas. My father had a PhD in Anabaptist History. My brother got a PhD in European History of Ideas, and developed a career investigating the “emergence and transformation of historical consciousness in Western cultures over the past two centuries https://history.washington.edu/people.... He created and directed a program on comparative history of ideas at the University of Washington. He also received a MacArthur genius grant for his work. It was against this background that I attempted to define myself through experience. Dropping out of university after one year, I vagabonded around the world—Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, places about which I had no idea. I wrote mostly poetry & fiction, and nonfiction that swung from one wild extreme of ideas (Maoism, dogmatic Christianity) to another (nihilism, anarchism), unable to make sense of the chaos around me.
That Old Scrap Again (from Endangered Species, Turnstone, 1988)
After hearing Pat Lane advocate heart over mind at the Blue Mountain Poets’ Festival in the summer of 1980
The heart pleads she begs
she hammers at the door
Old noggin coconut dictator
will not let her out
Her arterial hand
like a prehensile tail
snakes out between the bars
drags herself all rage and bloody
tears on to his sleeve
He grabs her by the logic
That old scrap again
How they go at it
the heave of love and the thrust
of death commingled
the body exploding to a thousand bits
in the dust gone to see
The crows scatter in a cloud
The cloud contracts to feed
I need them both the heart’s witch
and the brain’s petty tyrant
There’s a Nazi in the bowels
of my good Germanic soul
He will blow off the brain
He will strangle the heart
He will kill one of them
to better rule the other
Old heartless nut headless pump
let us become a Canada
impossible joined
by the crotch of our ventricles
It is our only defence
against the murderous discipline
All my life I have attempted to make sense of my experiences by stuffing them into ideas & fameworks, like clothes into a suitcase. No matter how I sat or jumped on the ragged, worn suitcases, they were never quite big enough. I became a veterinarian (experience) and then an epidemiologist (ideas), worked in communities around the world (experience), struggled with new frameworks to understand those experiences (ecosystem approaches to health, One Health).
I am now, later in life, back to something resembling poetry and collective story-telling nonfiction as epidemiology.
Thank you Andrea Wulf, for helping me, if not to make sense to my life, at least to understand where this chaos that is me (Ich!) comes from.
Also this: That Old Scrap Again
In the 16th century, my ancestors fled their homes in Friesland, the Netherlands and Northern Germany. Over the next few hundred years, they wandered sporadically, seeking protection and shelter, across northern Europe, ending up, in the 18th century, in the Ukrainian part of Catherine the Great’s empire. Having emerged from the “left wing of the Reformation”, and having championed individual choice in the face of Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and Kings, My Anabaptist ancestors became closed communities within which individual choice was discouraged. They fled Stalin’s Empire in 1926, arriving in Canada with little but a head full of ideas.
I grew up in a household driven by ideas. My father had a PhD in Anabaptist History. My brother got a PhD in European History of Ideas, and developed a career investigating the “emergence and transformation of historical consciousness in Western cultures over the past two centuries https://history.washington.edu/people.... He created and directed a program on comparative history of ideas at the University of Washington. He also received a MacArthur genius grant for his work. It was against this background that I attempted to define myself through experience. Dropping out of university after one year, I vagabonded around the world—Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, places about which I had no idea. I wrote mostly poetry & fiction, and nonfiction that swung from one wild extreme of ideas (Maoism, dogmatic Christianity) to another (nihilism, anarchism), unable to make sense of the chaos around me.
That Old Scrap Again (from Endangered Species, Turnstone, 1988)
After hearing Pat Lane advocate heart over mind at the Blue Mountain Poets’ Festival in the summer of 1980
The heart pleads she begs
she hammers at the door
Old noggin coconut dictator
will not let her out
Her arterial hand
like a prehensile tail
snakes out between the bars
drags herself all rage and bloody
tears on to his sleeve
He grabs her by the logic
That old scrap again
How they go at it
the heave of love and the thrust
of death commingled
the body exploding to a thousand bits
in the dust gone to see
The crows scatter in a cloud
The cloud contracts to feed
I need them both the heart’s witch
and the brain’s petty tyrant
There’s a Nazi in the bowels
of my good Germanic soul
He will blow off the brain
He will strangle the heart
He will kill one of them
to better rule the other
Old heartless nut headless pump
let us become a Canada
impossible joined
by the crotch of our ventricles
It is our only defence
against the murderous discipline
All my life I have attempted to make sense of my experiences by stuffing them into ideas & fameworks, like clothes into a suitcase. No matter how I sat or jumped on the ragged, worn suitcases, they were never quite big enough. I became a veterinarian (experience) and then an epidemiologist (ideas), worked in communities around the world (experience), struggled with new frameworks to understand those experiences (ecosystem approaches to health, One Health).
I am now, later in life, back to something resembling poetry and collective story-telling nonfiction as epidemiology.
Thank you Andrea Wulf, for helping me, if not to make sense to my life, at least to understand where this chaos that is me (Ich!) comes from.
January 1, 2023
wonderful book!!!!!
September 2, 2023
LIES DIESE REZENSION ZU ENDE. DU GLAUBST NICHT WAS NOCH PASSIERT!!
Das Thema hat mich eigentlich gar nicht interessiert. Nach der Lektüre dieses Buches interessiert es mich sehr und ich habe Lust mich mehr mit den beschrieben Personen und der Epoche auseinanderzusetzen.
Inhaltlich: könnt ihr der Buchbeschreibung entnehmen.
Sehr gut geschriebenes Sachbuch, bei dem man aber Bezüge zu den behandelten Personen entwickelt, wie bei einem Roman. Es werden einige Personen behandelt, allerdings nur so viele, dass man sie alle im Kopf behalten kann. Man lernt die Charakter-Eigenschaften, Talente, Ideen, Ecken und Kanten sowie Besonderheiten über die Personen kennen, die als die "ErfinderInnen" der Romantik angesehen werden und auf Grund welcher Deutschland als das Land der "Dichter und Denker" bezeichnet wurde.
Um die Good-Reads-Freundschaften zu intensivieren spielen wir nun eine Runde 3 Wahrheiten eine Lüge zu den Inhalten dieses Buches. Kommentiert was die Lüge ist:
1) Der Umgang zwischen den Dichtern und Philosophen zwischen 1795 und 1805 lässt sich mit Deutschrap von 2008-2014 vergleichen.
2) Wilhelm von Humboldt (Gründer Uni Berlin) lebte in einer offenen Ehe.
3) Fichte hat einen seiner Studenten angeschossen, als er nachts an seinem Haus randalierte.
4) Goethe und Schiller waren absolute BFs 4 life.
Unter denen die richtig abstimmen, wird ein einmaliger Preis ausgelost!
Das Thema hat mich eigentlich gar nicht interessiert. Nach der Lektüre dieses Buches interessiert es mich sehr und ich habe Lust mich mehr mit den beschrieben Personen und der Epoche auseinanderzusetzen.
Inhaltlich: könnt ihr der Buchbeschreibung entnehmen.
Sehr gut geschriebenes Sachbuch, bei dem man aber Bezüge zu den behandelten Personen entwickelt, wie bei einem Roman. Es werden einige Personen behandelt, allerdings nur so viele, dass man sie alle im Kopf behalten kann. Man lernt die Charakter-Eigenschaften, Talente, Ideen, Ecken und Kanten sowie Besonderheiten über die Personen kennen, die als die "ErfinderInnen" der Romantik angesehen werden und auf Grund welcher Deutschland als das Land der "Dichter und Denker" bezeichnet wurde.
Um die Good-Reads-Freundschaften zu intensivieren spielen wir nun eine Runde 3 Wahrheiten eine Lüge zu den Inhalten dieses Buches. Kommentiert was die Lüge ist:
1) Der Umgang zwischen den Dichtern und Philosophen zwischen 1795 und 1805 lässt sich mit Deutschrap von 2008-2014 vergleichen.
2) Wilhelm von Humboldt (Gründer Uni Berlin) lebte in einer offenen Ehe.
3) Fichte hat einen seiner Studenten angeschossen, als er nachts an seinem Haus randalierte.
4) Goethe und Schiller waren absolute BFs 4 life.
Unter denen die richtig abstimmen, wird ein einmaliger Preis ausgelost!
April 10, 2023
Me tope con este libro sin querer, no lo buscaba pero menos mal haberlo encontrado. En contraportada pone “La aventura filosófica de un grupo de jóvenes rebeldes, el Círculo de Jena, que dio lugar al Romanticismo y a nuestra compresión moderna de la libertad.” Esto me valió para comprarlo pues este periodo me resulta realmente interesante. La ultima década del sigo XVIII y el principio del XIX es una época de cambio, esta marcada por la revolución francesa y por el final de la ilustración y principio del romanticismo. Cuenta como Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, los hermanos Schlegel y Schelling entre otros interponen los sentimientos y emociones a la razón de la ilustración, como estos héroes se ganaban su vida dando seminarios en la universidad de Jena, las reuniones que tenían hasta altas horas de la noche comentando sus teorías filosóficas, arte, discutiendo sobre la revolución francesa, la libertad…como se empujaban los unos a los otros, como el trabajo de uno hacia que otro trabajara disciplinas con las que no estaban familiarizados como: teatro, poesía, investigaciones científicas, traducciones de Shakespear, el Quijote…Es un libro que a su vez me ha motivado a mi a leer mas sobre esta época tan revolucionaría en Europa sobre el “yo” y la libertad. Quiero remarcar que me ha dejado flipado el trabajazo de investigación que ha hecho la autora Andrea Wulf, que mediante cartas de los protagonistas, artículos de periódicos y mas documentos narra la historia de estos extraordinarios hombres y mujeres que admiraba y ahora venero.
June 7, 2023
Kurzweilig und spannend, bestens recherchiert, schreibt die Autorin über Leben und Werk der Personen, die heute als zum Jenaer Kreis gehörend gesehen werden. Die Epoche der Frühen Romantik mit ihren Ideen, Auswirkungen auf unser Weltverständnis.
Alles interessant, auch die Bezüge zur Geschichte, vor allem die Französische Revolution mit ihren Folgen fuer Europa. Spannende Portraits von Frauen aus dem Bildungsbürgertum dieser Zeit.
Dass es sich bisweilen wie ein Gesellschaftsroman las, wo es sich doch um ein Sachbuch handelt, fühlte sich für mich immer wieder irritierend an.
Alles interessant, auch die Bezüge zur Geschichte, vor allem die Französische Revolution mit ihren Folgen fuer Europa. Spannende Portraits von Frauen aus dem Bildungsbürgertum dieser Zeit.
Dass es sich bisweilen wie ein Gesellschaftsroman las, wo es sich doch um ein Sachbuch handelt, fühlte sich für mich immer wieder irritierend an.
December 8, 2022
El círculo de Jena hecho novela: esto es lo primero que se me viene a la cabeza para describir "Magnificos rebeldes".
Pero no, esta no es literatura. Es otro gran ensayo biográfico de Andrea Wulf, la misma hechicera que nos encanto con "La invención de la naturaleza" y "En busca de Venus".
Hechicera, sí. A pesar de las claras connotaciones negativas que tiene este adjetivo, fue lo primero que también se me vino a la cabeza al pensar Andrea Wulf, una autora capaz de convertir biografías de personajes de hace más de 200 años, en verdaderas aventuras humanas. Es justo esto lo que ha hecho nuevamente con "Magníficos rebeldes".
Debo confesarles que al principio tenía mis reservas con el libro. Al leer su descripción no encontré nada familiar para mí, un personaje, una obra. Excepción hecha, por supuesto, del gran Wolfgang Goethe, autor del que desafortunadamente no he leído nada todavía pero al que he visto mencionado y citado en muchos libros (incluyendo "La invención de la naturaleza" de la misma Wulf).
¿Qué podría encontrar de atractivo en un libro sobre personajes e historias ajenas a mis saberes y mis quereres?. "La novedad, descubrir una obra nueva, conocer nuevos autores", me dije. Fue así como comencé el libro y mis peores temores se vieron confirmados página, tras de página.
Magníficos rebeldes, como ya habrán leído en la contraportada, es la historia de los mejores años de los autores y las autoras, novelistas, ensayistas, traductoras, filósofas que conformaron el denominado círculo de Jena, una afortunada "alineación de personajes" que se produjo en esa entonces pequeña ciudad del Ducado de Sajonia-Weimar, hoy Alemania. Pero no solo confluyeron allí personajes de la talla de Goethe, Humboldt, Hegel, Schiller, Schelling, Novalis, Fichte, Schlegel (¿reconocen al menos la mitad? ¡pues yo no! o bueno, no antes de leer "Magníficos rebeldes"), intelectuales que, como aprendí de la pluma de Wulf, cambiaron la historia del pensamiento moderno e inauguraron el movimiento intelectual que conocemos como romanticismo. Pero no solo fueron los personajes, también fue el tiempo. La mayor parte de las historias que se desarrollan en el libro abarcan un período de tiempo que va desde 1793 hasta 1807, un período que es claramente reconocido en la historia de Europa por el revolcón social y geopolítico que siguió a la Revolución Francesa (1789) y a las campañas Napoleónicas (¿o es mejor decir "invasión"?) en gran parte de Europa central.
Personajes y tiempo: esta fue la combinación perfecta que creo ese milagro intelectual que los entendidos llaman hoy "el círculo de Jena".
Pero de nuevo: así como este libro no es literatura, no es la novela de las vidas de esos personajes - aunque de ellos se podrían escribir dos o tres novelas en realidad - tampoco este es un libro sobre las ideas que se gestaron en aquellos años. Pero eso es bueno. Ese es el estilo que amamos quiénes con los libros nos hemos convertido en seguidores fieles de Andrea Wulf.
"Magníficos rebeldes" es un libro sobre la vida de los hombres y las mujeres del círculo de Jena. Sus orígenes familiares. Sus periplos en un tiempo convulso. Sus amores y desamores. Sus defectos y sus virtudes. Su amistad y el odio que se profesaron en distintos momentos de su vida. El sexo, la vida cotidiana, los paseos, las casas, los dramas familiares, las enfermedades, etc, etc. Y bueno, las buenas ideas, los poemas (algunos y algunas de ellas fueron los más grandes de su tiempo, cómo no incluir algunas joyas suyas), los edificios de pensamiento levantados por algunos de ellos - nada más pensar en Hegel es intimidante.
Es justamente por eso, porque este libro no solo es sobre la obra de los personajes del círculo de Jena sino sobre su vida, que vale la pena leerlo. En la página 100 ya se me habían pasado todos las reservas que tenía sobre el libro y quería saberlo todo sobre Caroline, Auguste, Christiane, Frederich, August, Wolfgang, Alexander.
Si bien Andrea Wulf no es una autora feminista, o al menos los libros que le he leído no tienen el énfasis reivindicatorio que podrían tener dadas las obvias injusticias que se vivieron en aquel tiempo con las mujeres, me gustó mucho leer de su pluma sobre el papel protagónico que algunas de las mujeres de este libro tuvieron en la revolución intelectual que se gestó en Jena. Es cierto que las obras pasaron de algunas de ellas pasaron a la historia firmadas por sus maridos, pero Andrea logra ponerlas en el centro de la acción; y no solo en el trillado rol de cuidadoras, consagradas amantes, esposas y mamás (que lo fueron también), o peor, en el papel de conspiradoras y chismosas (aunque también lo fueron algunas, como también paso con los hombres de sus vidas), sino en el papel de intelectuales respetadas y queridas, fuentes de ideas originales, revisoras del trabajo de sus pares masculinos, etc.
A quiénes vayan a emprender la lectura del libro les recomiendo especialmente que hagan una copia de los mapas del principio. Intuía que los iba a necesitar, pero solo hasta el final me di cuenta de lo mucho que hacen falta.
Quedo en modo "esperando el próximo libro de Andrea Wulf".
Pero no, esta no es literatura. Es otro gran ensayo biográfico de Andrea Wulf, la misma hechicera que nos encanto con "La invención de la naturaleza" y "En busca de Venus".
Hechicera, sí. A pesar de las claras connotaciones negativas que tiene este adjetivo, fue lo primero que también se me vino a la cabeza al pensar Andrea Wulf, una autora capaz de convertir biografías de personajes de hace más de 200 años, en verdaderas aventuras humanas. Es justo esto lo que ha hecho nuevamente con "Magníficos rebeldes".
Debo confesarles que al principio tenía mis reservas con el libro. Al leer su descripción no encontré nada familiar para mí, un personaje, una obra. Excepción hecha, por supuesto, del gran Wolfgang Goethe, autor del que desafortunadamente no he leído nada todavía pero al que he visto mencionado y citado en muchos libros (incluyendo "La invención de la naturaleza" de la misma Wulf).
¿Qué podría encontrar de atractivo en un libro sobre personajes e historias ajenas a mis saberes y mis quereres?. "La novedad, descubrir una obra nueva, conocer nuevos autores", me dije. Fue así como comencé el libro y mis peores temores se vieron confirmados página, tras de página.
Magníficos rebeldes, como ya habrán leído en la contraportada, es la historia de los mejores años de los autores y las autoras, novelistas, ensayistas, traductoras, filósofas que conformaron el denominado círculo de Jena, una afortunada "alineación de personajes" que se produjo en esa entonces pequeña ciudad del Ducado de Sajonia-Weimar, hoy Alemania. Pero no solo confluyeron allí personajes de la talla de Goethe, Humboldt, Hegel, Schiller, Schelling, Novalis, Fichte, Schlegel (¿reconocen al menos la mitad? ¡pues yo no! o bueno, no antes de leer "Magníficos rebeldes"), intelectuales que, como aprendí de la pluma de Wulf, cambiaron la historia del pensamiento moderno e inauguraron el movimiento intelectual que conocemos como romanticismo. Pero no solo fueron los personajes, también fue el tiempo. La mayor parte de las historias que se desarrollan en el libro abarcan un período de tiempo que va desde 1793 hasta 1807, un período que es claramente reconocido en la historia de Europa por el revolcón social y geopolítico que siguió a la Revolución Francesa (1789) y a las campañas Napoleónicas (¿o es mejor decir "invasión"?) en gran parte de Europa central.
Personajes y tiempo: esta fue la combinación perfecta que creo ese milagro intelectual que los entendidos llaman hoy "el círculo de Jena".
Pero de nuevo: así como este libro no es literatura, no es la novela de las vidas de esos personajes - aunque de ellos se podrían escribir dos o tres novelas en realidad - tampoco este es un libro sobre las ideas que se gestaron en aquellos años. Pero eso es bueno. Ese es el estilo que amamos quiénes con los libros nos hemos convertido en seguidores fieles de Andrea Wulf.
"Magníficos rebeldes" es un libro sobre la vida de los hombres y las mujeres del círculo de Jena. Sus orígenes familiares. Sus periplos en un tiempo convulso. Sus amores y desamores. Sus defectos y sus virtudes. Su amistad y el odio que se profesaron en distintos momentos de su vida. El sexo, la vida cotidiana, los paseos, las casas, los dramas familiares, las enfermedades, etc, etc. Y bueno, las buenas ideas, los poemas (algunos y algunas de ellas fueron los más grandes de su tiempo, cómo no incluir algunas joyas suyas), los edificios de pensamiento levantados por algunos de ellos - nada más pensar en Hegel es intimidante.
Es justamente por eso, porque este libro no solo es sobre la obra de los personajes del círculo de Jena sino sobre su vida, que vale la pena leerlo. En la página 100 ya se me habían pasado todos las reservas que tenía sobre el libro y quería saberlo todo sobre Caroline, Auguste, Christiane, Frederich, August, Wolfgang, Alexander.
Si bien Andrea Wulf no es una autora feminista, o al menos los libros que le he leído no tienen el énfasis reivindicatorio que podrían tener dadas las obvias injusticias que se vivieron en aquel tiempo con las mujeres, me gustó mucho leer de su pluma sobre el papel protagónico que algunas de las mujeres de este libro tuvieron en la revolución intelectual que se gestó en Jena. Es cierto que las obras pasaron de algunas de ellas pasaron a la historia firmadas por sus maridos, pero Andrea logra ponerlas en el centro de la acción; y no solo en el trillado rol de cuidadoras, consagradas amantes, esposas y mamás (que lo fueron también), o peor, en el papel de conspiradoras y chismosas (aunque también lo fueron algunas, como también paso con los hombres de sus vidas), sino en el papel de intelectuales respetadas y queridas, fuentes de ideas originales, revisoras del trabajo de sus pares masculinos, etc.
A quiénes vayan a emprender la lectura del libro les recomiendo especialmente que hagan una copia de los mapas del principio. Intuía que los iba a necesitar, pero solo hasta el final me di cuenta de lo mucho que hacen falta.
Quedo en modo "esperando el próximo libro de Andrea Wulf".
November 24, 2023
Ein wunderbares Buch. Die Geschichte der ersten Romantiker und dem Jenaer Kreis. Viel Biographie von Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, Schlegel, Fichte und Schelling. Eine Lehrstunde in Philosophie, Kunst und Gesellschaft. Sehr unterhaltend und lehrreich.
February 22, 2023
A beauty of a book. Wulf brings the Jena of more than two hundred years ago alive with its intriguing philosophical, relational, and political dynamics. It's a great read for anyone interested in philosophy or history, but it also reads as a cinematic costume drama with all the relationship issues, gossip, vanity and pride that surrounded the 'Jena Set'. It would make an awesome HBO series.
Five stars, minus one for the far too great amount of detail that Wulf supplied. Her research and sources have been meticulous and I am in awe, but still not interested what Goethe's neighbour had for breakfast on Tuesday or what kind colour trousers Friedrich wore when he told Friedrich that Caroline had made a joke about other Friedrich.
Good advice to readers: be sure early in the book to build a mental system to differentiate between all the Friedrichs that have quite similar last names like Schiller, Schelling and Schlegel.
Five stars, minus one for the far too great amount of detail that Wulf supplied. Her research and sources have been meticulous and I am in awe, but still not interested what Goethe's neighbour had for breakfast on Tuesday or what kind colour trousers Friedrich wore when he told Friedrich that Caroline had made a joke about other Friedrich.
Good advice to readers: be sure early in the book to build a mental system to differentiate between all the Friedrichs that have quite similar last names like Schiller, Schelling and Schlegel.
January 30, 2023
Sometime ago I got stuck in my reading. I had started a new job and was working too many hours and couldn't figure out how to fit books in. Then by chance I found a book about Joeseph Priestly and the group of strange folk around him that led to him "discovering" oxygen. That book led me to one about Coleridge (who I never though I would like) and just a whole passel of English Romantics. Their passion and squabling and ridiculous often petty but wonderful proclaiming got me back into reading.
Every one of them loved this Jena group. Obsessed with the German Romantics. After reading this book I can see why. They are all very human..with all that means but how great it is to be able to pin these people down in a time and place for awhile.
Every one of them loved this Jena group. Obsessed with the German Romantics. After reading this book I can see why. They are all very human..with all that means but how great it is to be able to pin these people down in a time and place for awhile.
November 12, 2022
Definitely worth a read!
Für jeden, der aus Jena kommt oder Jena einfach nur kennt oder sich viel oder wenig für die deutsche Literatur, Philosophie und Ästethik um 1800 interessiert.
Romanähnlich beschreibt Wulf die Zusammenarbeiten und Freundschaften (und auch Feindseligkeiten) bekannter deutscher Künstler:innen (Schiller, Goethe, Humboldt, Schlegel, Schelling; unter Einfluss von beispielsweise Kant oder Fichte uvm.), mit Caroline Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling.
Auch wenn das Buch einen mit biografischen Informationen zu den verschiedensten Personen überhäuft, schafft es es doch, dass man dem Geschehen folgen kann.
Für jeden, der aus Jena kommt oder Jena einfach nur kennt oder sich viel oder wenig für die deutsche Literatur, Philosophie und Ästethik um 1800 interessiert.
Romanähnlich beschreibt Wulf die Zusammenarbeiten und Freundschaften (und auch Feindseligkeiten) bekannter deutscher Künstler:innen (Schiller, Goethe, Humboldt, Schlegel, Schelling; unter Einfluss von beispielsweise Kant oder Fichte uvm.), mit Caroline Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling.
Auch wenn das Buch einen mit biografischen Informationen zu den verschiedensten Personen überhäuft, schafft es es doch, dass man dem Geschehen folgen kann.
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