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The Aesthetic Revolution in Germany refutes the stereotypical image of Germany as the country of romantic but unworldly poets and thinkers. In 1750, an aesthetic revolution takes place in Germany, at the beginning of which stands J.J. Winckelmann. The romantic movement (Schiller, Hölderlin, Kleist) paves the way for this aesthetic revolution, which Heine is one of the first to criticise. Since then, criticism has never fallen silent. Opposing the rationalisation of the world (Wagner), the aesthetic revolution climaxes in the philosophy of Nietzsche. During the 1920s and 30s, it becomes a conservative revolution (George, Spengler, Th. Mann, Benn) and fails inevitably. Beckmann and M. Walser show that particularly after 1945 the aesthetic perspective is still necessary.
List of contents
Birth of the aesthetic man: J.J. Winckelmann - Romantic rebellion - Critical voices - From Heine to Lukács - Aesthetic revolution versus mechanistic world view: Schiller, Hölderlin, Kleist, Wagner - Nietzsche as culmination of the aesthetic perspective - Conservative revolution (George, Spengler, Mann, Benn) - The aesthetic revolution after 1945: Beckmann, M. Walser
About the author
Meindert Evers was assistant professor at the University of Nijmegen, NL. He has published numerous articles and books (e.g. on Proust) in his specialist area of European culture and intellectual history. He lectures on topics of European cultural history at the Zentrum Seniorenstudium of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.
