RADICAL ENLIGHTENMENT IN GERMAN LITERATURE 1771-1811 BY ADAM D. CHAMBERS ...

228 Pages·2013·1.35 MB·English

by  Ellen Dennis

RADICAL ENLIGHTENMENT IN GERMAN LITERATURE 1771-1811

BY

ADAM D. CHAMBERS

DISSERTATION

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in German
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2013

Urbana, Illinois

Doctoral Committee:

Professor Carl Niekerk, Chair
Associate Professor Stephanie Hilger
Associate Professor Laurie Johnson
Associate Professor Anke Pinkert
Associate Professor Bruce Rosenstock
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ABSTRACT
The Enlightenment was an intellectual and social movement that had a profound impact
on the development of Western society, yet its complexity and impact on literature are not often
fully understood. The values of freedom, equality, and brotherhood as well as the rise of the
roles of reason, science, and tolerance are products of the European Enlightenment, but the
Enlightenment has become a villain blamed for abuses against many of those same principles by
many scholars. It is therefore important to understand what the Enlightenment was, and what its
true legacy is. This study makes use of recent research on the Radical Enlightenment by
Princeton historian Jonathan Israel and others to investigate if German literature of the late
Enlightenment supports the idea that the Enlightenment is better understood as having a Radical
and a Moderate side. The following works of German literature serve as primary historical
evidence in considering Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment hypothesis: Lessing’s Nathan
der Weise, Schiller’s Die Räuber, Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, La Roche’s
Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim, and Kleist’s Die Verlobung in St. Domingo. Each work
is examined for an exchange of Radical and Moderate Enlightenment ideas regarding specific
philosophical issues discussed in each work such as religion, politics, nature, aristocratic
privilege, and race, among other topics. This study discusses the recent hypothesis of a
prominent intellectual historian, as well as scholars from other fields, while also investigating
closely the discussion of important philosophical issues in German literature of a time that
brought Western society many of the values it still holds today.
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For Mark
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ……………………………… ………………………………………….…...1
CHAPTER 1 – NATHAN DER WEISE, LESSING …………………………...........................17
CHAPTER 2 – DIE RÄUBER, SCHILLER …………………………….............................…..58
CHAPTER 3 – DIE LEIDEN DES JUNGEN WERTHERS, GOETHE …................................99
CHAPTER 4 – GESCHICHTE DES FRÄULEINS VON STERNHEIM, LA ROCHE ……...138
CHAPTER 5 – DIE VERLOBUNG IN ST. DOMINGO, KLEIST ………………………......173
CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………………..210
BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………………..218
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INTRODUCTION

The structure of the Enlightenment is one of the most disputed topics in intellectual
history, and for good reason: whatever is decided necessarily entails a pronouncement about the
periods preceding it as well as an assertion of influences exercised upon periods to follow. Much
discussion has focused particularly on the question of whether or not one can speak of one, two
or multiple strains of thinking in the Enlightenment. The general consensus presently seems to
be that there is only one strain of “Enlightenment thought,” which stood in opposition to the
conservative forces of absolute monarchy, aristocracy, and church power. Such an
oversimplifying understanding of the Enlightenment does no justice to the diverse beliefs and
goals of those advancing reason's role in society and is likely rooted in a trend that began with
the publication of Dialectic of Enlightenment in 1947 by Horkheimer and Adorno. Dialectic of
Enlightenment is pessimistic about the possibility of human emancipation and progress, and
while it is not anti-Enlightenment per se, it stresses the difficulty the Enlightenment experiences
in practicing effective critical self-reflection. It emphasizes that the ideals of the Enlightenment
can become abusive if proper self-criticism is not exercised while simultaneously acknowledging
the benefits the Enlightenment period brought.
Renewed discussion of the intellectual history of the Enlightenment in response to a half-
century of robust criticism has been initiated in the last decade or so, of which a prime example
is the Radical Enlightenment trilogy by the Princeton historian Jonathan Israel. Israel has
received significant attention and reception in the fields of history and philosophy, but his work
remains noticeably ignored in literary and cultural studies. Israel's work, as well as other
scholarship on the intellectual history of the Enlightenment, should be of great concern to literary
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scholars, one of whose tasks it is to trace intellectual and cultural shifts as they manifest
themselves within literature.
In his books, Israel proposes that there are two major streams of thought within
Enlightenment thinking: Radical and Moderate Enlightenment. Radical Enlightenment thought
wholly rejects the preservation of aristocratic privilege in any form and strives for the
distribution of free education to all people so that ability, and not the accident of birth, may
decide fates. It also demands that reason be applied judiciously in all matters, including
metaphysics, and it prizes the findings of empirical science. The application of reason and
empirical science to metaphysical questions led Radical Enlightenment thinkers both to reject the
question of God's existence as fundamentally unknowable (agnosticism, a term which would not
be termed until Thomas Huxley in 1860) and not to possess a belief in his existence (atheism).
Radical Enlightenment thinkers believed that religious belief was harmful for all members of
society, and that it should ultimately be replaced by a reason-based value and belief system.
Moderate Enlightenment thought values empirical science and a democratization of the
political process as well, at least to some extent, but it characteristically stops short of
encouraging the application of reason to matters of faith for all portions of the population and of
abolishing monarchy entirely. Voltaire, for example (whom Israel holds to be a figure of the
Moderate Enlightenment), argues that religion provides a valuable service to the lower classes,
which lack the sensibility to lead moral lives in the absence of divine reward and punishment.
Connected to this is the Moderate Enlightenment belief in the preservation of privilege for some.
Many thinkers in this strain argued for forms of constitutional monarchy, and for the necessity of
class distinctions. Widespread education was promoted to varying degrees. Moderate
Enlightenment thinkers sought to make society more rational without completely overthrowing
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society's main sources of authority. Frederick the Great, who favored the idea of enlightened
monarchy, and Kant, who criticizes the notion of complete equality in many of his writings, are
examples of Moderate Enlightenment thinking. It is these differences that make Israel's division
a meaningful advance in understanding the intellectual history of the Enlightenment.
Such a compelling new view of the nature of the Enlightenment, if true, would have
significant influence on many aspects of culture, and certainly upon literature. German literature
of the Enlightenment era, particularly the later era in the 1770s and 1780s, does indeed reflect the
differences between Radical and Moderate Enlightenment in a number of works, which shows
that these debates were known widely among Germany's intellectuals. Indeed, Israel provides
evidence that Radical Enlightenment discussions of such works as Bekker's De betoverde wereld
and Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus were known widely not only in the university
setting, but also among the common people to the degree that it filtered down from pulpits. A
large number of works of German literature reflect the penetration of the two “degrees” of
Enlightenment within German society.
Israel’s scholarship on the intellectual history of the Enlightenment does not, however,
stand in a vacuum. Jörg Schönert describes Enlightenment research in Germany in the latter half
of the 20th century with the key words “Historisierung, Politisierung und Soziologisierung,”
beginning in the early 1960s with its focus changing from 1975-1985, and then changing again
after 1985.1 Schönert writes that from the early 1960s to approximately 1975 scholarship
focused on portraying a unified image of the Enlightenment as one period (Schönert 41).
Enlightenment research in the period from the early 1960s to 1975 was very “politicized”
(Schönert 41). Schönert also writes of a “Soziologisierung der Aufklärung” (Schönert 41)

1 Jörg Schönert, “Konstellationen und Entwicklungen germanistischen Forschung,” der Aufklärungsforschung in
Deutschland, ed. Holger Dainat and Wilhelm Vosskamp. Heidelberg, Germany; Universitätsverlag C.
Winter, 1999: 39-48.
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beginning in the mid-1960s and proceeding in part from the reception of the writings of Jürgen
Habermas. As with the aforementioned politicized research, the sociologized research
particularly focused on “jene Momente der Modernität, die bis in die Gegenwart weiterwirken”.2
The period from 1975-1985 is, according to Schönert, defined by the “theoretische Begründung”
and “methodologische Reflexion literaturgeschichtlicher Forschungen” (Schönert 42). Wilhelm
Voßkamp’s studies into the connection between literary and societal history are an example of
this focus.
Concerning the period following the focus on the unity, politicization, methodology, and
periodicity of the Enlightenment, Schönert writes:
Fortschreitend und mit wachsender Intensität seit Mitte der achtziger Jahre setzt
sich in dieser Forschungsrichtung eine kulturhistorische Diversifizierung durch;
unterschiedliche Gegenstände und Problemkonstellationen werden mit
divergierenden Verfahren bearbeitet; sie reichen von psychohistorischen
Konzepten bis hin zu den ‘gender studies’. (Schönert 41)

Corresponding to the rise of multicultural and postmodern approaches to scholarship gaining
speed in the mid-1980s, the Enlightenment was studied from a variety of perspectives and using
many methodologies, and less focus was placed on the articulation of a unifying purpose, effect,
or role of the Enlightenment. The mid-1980s also saw an increased focus on historicizing
Enlightenment research, which was a change from the more ideological focus in the mid-1960s
(Schönert 45).
Schönert’s account stretches from 1965 to 1999, the year his book was published, at the
latest. Shortly thereafter, a new phase in Enlightenment research was begun with the publication
of Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment in 2001. Jonathan Israel was not the first to use the
term “Radical Enlightenment,” although his trilogy is the most substantial and identifiable

2 Wilhelm Voßkamp, “Probleme und Aufgaben einer sozialgeschichtlichen orientierten Literaturgeschichte des
achtzehnten Jahrhunderts,” Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert als Epoche, ed. Bernhard Fabian and Wilhelm
Schmidt-Biggemann. Nendeln, 1978: 53-69.
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contribution to the term as a talking point on the historiography and reception of the
Enlightenment. Notably, Margaret Jacob’s 1981 The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists,
Freemasons and Republicans was a significant contribution to Enlightenment reception in the
later 20th century. In the preface to the 2nd edition of her work, Jacob compares her work to
Israel’s, the publication of which had brought new attention to hers:
New life has been breathed into the thesis that this book put forward first in
1981…In 2001 Jonathan Israel in Radical Enlightenment (Oxford University
Press) confirmed and expanded the thesis but did so from a very different and
largely idealist methodology. He sees Descartes and Spinoza as progenitors of
the crisis that threatened orthodoxy; I see them as part of the story that must be
understood contextually.3

Jacob understands her work to be descriptive and Israel’s work to be idealist. Israel’s work is
frequently criticized as an idealist, reductive work presenting a pantheon of good guys and bad
guys that hearkens back to a time of inferior methodologies in the field of history: some
examples of criticism include Jeffrey Collins’s review in 2010 the Times Literary Supplement
Spinoza’s Machines, in which he calls Israel’s work “absurd…implausible”4, and Susan James’s
review Life in the Shadow of Spinoza in the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2001, in
which she writes that Israel “press[es] his central claim far too hard…he squeezes his findings
into a philosophical straitjacket that distorts and oversimplifies their shape.”5 Jacob agrees with
Israel’s central thesis about a Radical and Moderate Enlightenment, but she disagrees with his
particular stress on the importance of 17th-century Dutch philosophers, and Spinoza specifically.
I believe it is not as implausible as many critics suggest that an individual man, Spinoza,
could be significantly responsible for the spread of Radical Enlightenment ideas. Individuals and

3 Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment, 1981, 2nd edition. Lafayette, Louisiana; Cornerstone Book
Publishers, 2006: vi.
4 Jeffrey Collins, “Spinoza’s Machines,” Times Literary Supplement, London; News International, 26 Feb 2010.
5 Susan James, “Life in the Shadow of Spinoza,” Times Higher Education Supplement, No. 1518. Oxford; Oxford
University Press, 22 Dec 2001: 31-32.
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their legacy can and have had profound impacts on human history, even if their ideas had been
articulated before or were primarily brought to effect by others: one thinks of religious figures
such as Jesus of Nazareth, Mohammed, or Buddha, or historical figures such as Napoleon, Hitler,
Stalin, or Mao. Had another person stood in the place of those figures, social, intellectual, and
political history might look very different today. Many critics praise Israel’s erudition but
dismiss as absurd his unreserved argument that Spinoza played a central role in the spread of
Radical Enlightenment ideas, but I believe that if the erudition and scholarship is present, an
evidentiary burden lies on other scholars to disprove the specific points Israel makes rather than
on Israel to disprove the notion that, on principle, one man cannot have such a great effect.
Furthermore, it is precisely the presence of so much scholarship that makes the impulse driving
Israel’s project a descriptive rather than prescriptive one: Israel presents an argument from
evidence and he does not dismiss the possibility that Spinoza and his legacy could have had out
of preconceptions about what should be considered possible.
After considering where the Enlightenment came from and why it spread, one may
investigate what goals it had. Pütz sees the Enlightenment as primarily having ethical and
political goals:
Zu den Mitteln der Aufklärung gehören bezeichnenderweise nicht in erster Linie
intellektuelle Fähigkeiten wie Urteilsvermögen, Scharfsinn, usw., sondern
Aktivierungen des menschlichen Willens. Aufklärung entstammt und dient nicht
bloß theoretischer Einsicht, sondern praktischer Entschlußkraft; ihr Antrieb ist
nicht die Logik, sondern die Ethik.6

Pütz’s formulation suggests that the Enlightenment’s “source” (entstammt) and “means” (Mittel)
are a combination of “activations of human will”, “practical initiative”, and “theoretical insight”,
i.e. a combination of political/ethical goals and philosophical/theoretical principles wherein the

6 Peter Pütz, Die Deutsche Aufklärung, 4th edition. Darmstadt, Germany; Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1991:
28.