Aesthetic Paganism in German Literature

Harvard University Press has partnered with De Gruyter to make available for sale worldwide virtually all in-copyright HUP books that had become unavailable since their original publication. The 2,800 titles in the “e-ditions” program can be purchased individually as PDF eBooks or as hardcover reprint (“print-on-demand”) editions via the “Available from De Gruyter” link above. They are also available to institutions in ten separate subject-area packages that reflect the entire spectrum of the Press’s catalog. More about the E-ditions Program »

The “Age of Goethe,” marked by a reaction against traditional Christian beliefs, drew much of its inspiration from an ideal of aesthetic paganism that emphasized the centrality of human dignity and achievement. Largely derived from Winckelmann’s idealized interpretation of Hellenistic art, the concept of German paganism held a revelatory force for such writers as Hölderlin, Lessing, Humboldt, Schiller and Goethe himself. Henry Hatfield’s sympathetic, but not uncritical, examination of the German literature of this period provides a perceptive, informative account of one of the chief phases of European intellectual development.