Goethe's Concept of the Daemonic
After the Ancients
Angus Nicholls
For Plato, the daemonic is a sensibility that brings individuals into contact with divine knowledge; Socrates was also inspired by a "divine voice" known as his "daimonion." Goethe was introduced to this ancient concept by Hamann and Herder, who associated it with the aesthetic category of genius. This book shows how the young Goethe depicted the idea of daemonic genius in works of the Storm and Stress period, before exploring the daemonic in a series of later poetic and autobiographical works. Reading Goethe's works on the daemonic through theorists such as Lukács, Benjamin, Gadamer, Adorno, and Blumenberg, Nicholls contends that they contain arguments concerning reason, nature, and subjectivity that are central to both European Romanticism and the Enlightenment.
ANGUS NICHOLLS is Claussen-Simon Foundation Research Lecturer in German and Comparative Literature at the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations in the Department of German, Queen Mary, University of London.
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DETAILS
328 pages
Size: 9 x 6 in
13 digit ISBN: 9781571133076
Binding: Hardback
First published: 01/May/2006
Last printed: 01/May/2006
Price: 75.00 USD / 40.00 GBP
Imprint: Camden House
Series: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture
Subject: German Literature
BIC class: AVH
STATUS: Available
Details updated on 01/12/2008
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Contents
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Introduction
| 1 | |
The Ancients and Their Daemons
| 2 | |
The Daemonic in the Philosophy of the Sturm und Drang: Hamann and Herder
| 3 | |
Romanticism and Unlimited Subjectivity: "Mahomets Gesang"
| 4 | |
Werther: The Pathology of an Aesthetic Idea
| 5 | |
Kantian Science and the Limits of Subjectivity
| 6 | |
Schelling, Naturphilosophie, and "Mächtiges überraschen"
| 7 | |
After the Ancients: Dichtung und Wahrheit and "Urworte. Orphisch"
| 8 | |
Eckermann, or the Daemonic and the Political
| 9 | |
Epilogue: Socrates and the Cicadas
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Reviews
Nicholls's excellent monograph must surely be the most comprehensive and the most analytic discussion of the daemonic to date....Nicholls has provided a study that is...truly inspiring. JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES
Nicholls outlines with unusual erudition and broad knowledge of the subject matter the tension between the subjective and objective in Goethe's concept of the demonic. GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW
[A] well-thought out and well-written book. Nicholls is able to summarize the vast corpus of Goethe scholarship, while at the same time offering new interpretations of several well-known works. NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Nicholls argues that the daemonic is not simply of bibliographical significance but was a philosophical concern for Goethe which he brought to bear on a range of contemporary debates.... [T]he concept of the daemonic deserves attention in our time when rationality is in crisis. FORUM FOR MODERN LANGUAGE STUDIES
In this solidly researched book, which represents a significant contribution to our understanding of `Goethe's concept of the daemonic,' Nicholls offers the reader many stimulating insights and viewpoints. GOETHE JAHRBUCH
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