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| Weimar Classicism | |
|---|---|
 Weimar's Courtyard of the Muses (1860) byTheobald von Oer. Schiller reads in the gardens ofSchloss Tiefurt,Weimar. Amongst the audience are Herder (second person seated at the far left), Wieland (center, seated with cap) and Goethe (in front of the pillar, right). | |
| Years active | 1786–1805 |
| Location | Germany |
| Major figures | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe;Friedrich Schiller;Caroline von Wolzogen |
| Influences | Sturm und Drang,Classicism |
Weimar Classicism (German:Weimarer Klassik) was a Germanliterary andcultural movement, whose practitioners established a newhumanism from the synthesis of ideas fromRomanticism,Classicism, and theAge of Enlightenment. It was named after the city ofWeimar in the Duchy ofSaxe-Weimar because its leading authors lived there.[1]
TheWeimarer Klassik movement began in 1771 whenDuchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel invited theSeyler Theatre Company led byAbel Seyler, pioneers of theSturm und Drang movement, to her court in Weimar. The Seyler company was soon thereafter followed byChristoph Martin Wieland, thenJohann Wolfgang von Goethe,Johann Gottfried Herder and finallyFriedrich Schiller. The movement was eventually centred upon Goethe and Schiller, previously also exponents of theSturm und Drang movement, during the period of 1786–1805.
TheGerman Enlightenment, called "neo-classical", burgeoned in the synthesis ofEmpiricism andRationalism as developed byChristian Thomasius (1655–1728) andChristian Wolff (1679–1754). This philosophy, circulated widely in many magazines and journals, profoundly directed the subsequent expansion ofGerman-speaking andEuropeanculture.
The inability of this common-sense outlook convincingly to bridge "feeling" and "thought", "body" and "mind", led toImmanuel Kant's epochal "critical" philosophy.[clarification needed] Another, though not as abstract, approach to this problem was a governing concern with the problems of aesthetics. In hisAesthetica of 1750 (vol. II; 1758)Alexander Baumgarten (1714–62) defined "aesthetics", which he coined earlier in 1735, with its current intention as the "science" of the "lower faculties" (i.e., feeling, sensation, imagination, memory, et al.), which earlier figures of the Enlightenment had neglected. (The term, however, gave way to misunderstandings due to Baumgarten's use of theLatin in accordance with the German renditions, and consequently this has often led many to falsely undervalue his accomplishment.[2]) It was no inquiry into taste—into positive or negative appeals—nor sensations as such but rather a way of knowledge. Baumgarten's emphasis on the need for such "sensuous" knowledge was a major abetment to the "pre-Romanticism" known asSturm und Drang (1765), of whichGoethe andSchiller were notable participants for a time.
The starting point of Weimar Classicism, or the era of German classical literature, was in 1771 when the widowedAnna Amalia invited theSeyler Theatre Company led byAbel Seyler, including several prominent actors and playwrights such asKonrad Ekhof, to her court; the troupe stayed at Anna Amalia's court until 1774. The Seyler Theatre Company was considered "the best theatre company that existed in Germany during that time [1769–1779]"[3] and pioneered theSturm und Drang movement (itself named for a play written for the company) as well as serious German theatre and opera. The following year she invitedChristoph Martin Wieland to Weimar to educate her two sons. Wieland had just published his modern and ironic mirror-for-princes work,Der goldne Spiegel oder die Könige von Scheschian. Wieland became an important friend and collaborator of both Seyler, and laterGoethe.
BeforeGoethe was called to Weimar in 1775 at the age of 26, also as a tutor for princes, he had become the leader of theSturm und Drang movement – named forFriedrich Maximilian Klinger'splay of the same name, written forAbel Seyler'stheatrical company – primarily through his epistolary novelThe Sorrows of Young Werther. With Goethe's move to Weimar, his works steadily matured, aligning more with an aesthetic ideal that approached the content and form of classical antiquity. Pursuing this ideal geographically as well, Goethe traveled to Italy in 1786. In Italy, Goethe aimed to rediscover himself as a writer and to become an artist, through formal training in Rome, Europe's 'school of art'. While he failed as an artist, Italy appeared to have made him a better writer. Immediately after his return in the spring of 1788, he freed himself from his previous duties and met Schiller in Rudolstadt in September. This encounter was rather disillusioning for both: Goethe considered Schiller a hothead of theSturm und Drang, while Schiller saw Goethe's poetic approach in stark contrast to his own.
Schiller's evolution as a writer was following a similar path to Goethe's. He had begun as a writer of wild, violent, emotion-driven plays. In the late 1780s he turned to a more classical style. In 1794, Schiller and Goethe became friends and allies in a project to establish new standards for literature and the arts in Germany.
By contrast, the contemporaneous and efflorescing literary movement ofGerman Romanticism was in opposition to Weimar and German Classicism, especially to Schiller. It is in this way both may be best understood, even to the degree in which Goethe continuously and stringently criticized it through much of his essays, such as "On Dilettantism",[4] on art and literature. After Schiller's death, the continuity of these objections partly elucidates the nature of Goethe's ideas in art and how they intermingled with his scientific thinking as well,[5] inasmuch as it gives coherence to Goethe's work. Weimar Classicism may be seen as an attempt to reconcile—in "binary synthesis"—the vivid feeling emphasized by theSturm und Drang movement with the clear thought emphasized by the Enlightenment, thus implying Weimar Classicism is intrinsically un-Platonic. On this Goethe remarked:
The idea of the distinction between classical and romantic poetry [Dichtung[6]], which is now spread over the whole world, and occasions so many quarrels and divisions, came originally from Schiller and myself. I laid down the maxim of objective treatment of poetry, and would allow no other; but Schiller, who worked quite in the subjective way, deemed his own fashion the right one, and to defend himself against me, wrote the treatise upon 'Naïve and Sentimental Poetry.' He proved to me that I myself, against my will, was romantic, and that my 'Iphigenia,' through the predominance of sentiment, was by no means so classical and so much in the antique spirit as some people supposed.The Schlegels took up this idea, and carried it further, so that it has now been diffused over the whole world; and every one talks about classicism and romanticism—of which nobody thought fifty years ago.[7]
The Weimar movement was notable for its inclusion of female writers.Die Horen published works by several women, including a serially published novel,Agnes von Lilien, by Schiller's sister-in-lawCaroline von Wolzogen. Other women published by Schiller includedSophie Mereau,Friederike Brun,Amalie von Imhoff,Elisa von der Recke, andLouise Brachmann.[8]
Between 1786 and Schiller's death in 1805, he and Goethe worked to recruit a network of writers, philosophers, scholars, artists and even representatives of the natural sciences such asAlexander von Humboldt to their cause.[9] This alliance later became known as 'Weimar Classicism', and it came to form a part of the foundation of 19th-century Germany's understanding of itself as a culture and the politicalunification of Germany.
These are essentials used by Goethe and Schiller:
Although the vociferously unrestricted, even "organic", works that were produced, such asWilhelm Meister,Faust, andWest-östlicher Divan, where playful and turbulent ironies abound,[10] may perceivably lend Weimar Classicism the double, ironic title "Weimar Romanticism",[11] it must nevertheless be understood that Goethe consistently demanded this distance via irony to be imbued within a work for precipitate aesthetic affect.[12]
Schiller was very prolific during this period, writing his playsWallenstein (1799),Mary Stuart (1800),The Maid of Orleans (1801),The Bride of Messina (1803) andWilliam Tell (1804).
See also:works by Herder,works by Goethe, andworks by Schiller.
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