Beyond Theory
Subtitle: eighteenth-century German literature and the poetics of irony
By: Benjamin Bennett.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Ithaca
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 354
ISBN-13: 9780801428418
Subjects: German literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism.; Irony in literature.
Description: In a book of rare breadth of vision, Benjamin Bennett offers a new interpretation of the eighteenth century. Undertaking nuanced re-evaluations of Goethe, Herder, Holderlin, Kleist, Lessing, Schiller, Nietzsche, and Kant, as well as many other poets and philosophers, Bennett seeks to trace the process by which modernity was formed in eighteenth-century German thought.

The particular importance of German literature, he maintains, lies neither in its content nor in anything that might be termed style or spirit. Rather, its significance rests primarily on the radically subversive irony of its poetic discourse

.

Applying the insights of twentieth-century theory and philosophy, Bennett offers close readings of Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, Holderlin's "An die Parzen," and Lessing's Laokoon, and he explores in detail the significance of Jewry in German dramatic discourse. The experiential German writing of the eighteenth century, he demonstrates, was grounded deeply and productively in irony, not subject to dissipation in mere ironic play.

Bennett perceives that many of the questions posed by eighteenth-century discourse - such as the difference between thought and language, the nature of the social, or the origin of the individual in the communal - remain current for us today. Beyond Theory is sure to provoke thought and stimulate debate among Germanists, comparatists, literary theorists, and others interested in the cultural history of eighteenth-century Europe.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [xi-xiii]) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : The new and the original eighteenth century; title: The new holy scripture of humanity : the reader of the novel and the mission of the genre in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre; title: Hölderlin's "An die Parzen" : poetry as a game in society; title: Lessing's Laokoon : the poetics of experience; title: Ironic conversation and the communal soul : Goethe on and in language; title: Instability and irony : the real eighteenth century; title: The genres of mind and contract : the theater, the novel, and the Jews; title: Conclusion: The use and abuse of the eighteenth century