tour enlightenment and classic s
Goethep
latz
Enlightenment and the Classical Period –
Traces of Two Inseparable Epochs in Weimar
6 Herderplatz 14
City Church of St. Peter and Paul 4
05.2013 |
Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Visitors’ Information Office tel +49 (0) 3643 | 545-400
Herder monument 5
German National
3
Theatre
Theaterplatz
7 Weimar City Castle
traße
ts
Mark
1 Luther
memorial plaque
2
Wittumspalais
Markt
8 Duchess Anna Amalia Library,
Study Centre
Schille
rstraße
Frauenplan
Steu
Platz der
Demokratie
10
Duchess Anna
Amalia Library
Liszt School of Music Weimar 9
e
ben
Seifengass
stra
ße
and
Ackerw
11 Wielandplatz
When one comes to Weimar, one usually looks for traces of
the “Classics”. The purpose of this theme tour is to make clear
that one will also inevitably encounter the Enlightenment in
the process.
While the Enlightenment is a contemporary self-description,
the term Classic was attributed at a later time; the use of the
term German or even Weimar Classics did not begin until 1835
by the first specialists in German studies. When Goethe, later
dubbed “classic”, arrived in 1775, the “Enlightener” Wieland was
already there, and he by far outlived the “classic” figures Herder
(died 1803) and Schiller (died 1805). Schiller became acquainted
with antiquity through Wieland, and Goethe valued him as a
critic and lively spirit. Herder, moreover, shared his scepticism
of the French revolution.
However, our path will not be limited to encounters with
famous spirits. We want to discover Weimar’s educational history, to understand the enlightened love of antiquity, and to confront ourselves with the humanistic ideal of the 18th century –
and at the same time discover the timeliness of the central
questions and visionary ideals of enlighteners and classics.
Tour duration
ca. 1.5 h (does not include tours of the buildings)
Tour length
ca. 1.3 km
Tour stops
1 Luther memorial plaque on the former Franciscan
monastery
2 Wittumspalais (Widow’s Palace)
3 German National Theatre (former Court Theatre)
4 City Church of St. Peter and Paul (Herder Church)
5 Herder monument
6 Herderplatz 14 (former Wilhelm-Ernst-Gymnasium)
7 Weimar City Castle (former Residence Castle)
8 Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Study Centre
(former Red Castle)
9 Liszt School of Music Weimar (former Duke’s House)
1o Duchess Anna Amalia Library
11 Wielandplatz
Current opening hours, prices and tours at
www.klassik-stiftung.de/en/service/visitor-information
tour enlightenment and classic s
1
Luther memorial plaque (“Am Palais”)
A Glimpse of Enlightenment – the Reformation
Near the corner of the former Franciscan church (built in 1480),
looking towards the gateway to the Wittumspalais, a memorial
plaque recalls the overnight stay (1518) of Martin Luther, who
had already been here in 1517 and returned to Weimar again in
1521. This building, which served various purposes after the monastery was secularised, became the home of the first German
orchestra school (founded in 1872) in 1874; today it belongs to
the Liszt School of Music Weimar.
There are convincing reasons in terms of cultural history and
memorial culture to begin a thematic tour on Enlightenment and
Classics at the memorial plaque for the Reformation: Luther’s
translation of the Bible at Wartburg Castle was the birth of high
German, the future lingua franca of German scholars and increasingly of the broader population. The protestant appreciation of
writing and language as one of the paths to God marks the beginning of German piety towards literature and culture. Protestants
were to be able to read solely for theological reasons – and in
fact, the Reformation was a catalyst for the expansion of education during the early modern age. Religious ideas about education would later fuel the religious attitude towards art of the classical period.
The new Lutheran piety relied on the emancipation of laymen and attempted to find a new relationship between knowledge and faith, reason and inner self. By means of independent
reading, the discussion about God’s word within the congregation
and a traditional clerical and critical attitude, Protestants were
more likely than Catholics to learn to cultivate doubt. All of these
are prerequisites for the approaching Enlightenment culture.
The nationally inspired recording of cultural history in the
19th century drew a clear connection between the “hot-headed
Luther” and the “hot-headed Schiller”, from the insubordinate
spirit of the Reformation to the self-critical rationality of the classics. The seed of the Weimar Classics’ ideal of the personality was
seen – not that incorrectly – to be the culture of Protestantism’s
inner-self. Wittenberg – Wartburg – Weimar was the name of the
glorious trilogy of German sophisticated culture, and many popular travel guides constantly connected these locations of the
Reformation to the Classics. Luther and Goethe served as the title
for many a ceremonial speech and for numerous national inspirational texts of the time.
Luther as a monk, 1520
Y
2
Wittumspalais | 30 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
2
Wittumspalais (Widow’s Palace)
Centre of the Weimar “Court of Muses”
Using the foundation walls of the former Franciscan monastery,
the Saxon-Weimar Minister Jakob Friedrich von Fritsch built his
city castle here from 1767 until 1769, into which the custodian
regent Anna Amalia moved house after the castle fire (1774) and
established her widow’s residence beginning in 1775.
During the following years, during which further remodelling took place, the palace became a central venue of the legendary Weimar Court of Muses. The fact that busts of Voltaire and
Rousseau are displayed in the festival hall points to the resident’s
central cast of mind, and also to the fact that the Enlightenment
in Germany would have been unthinkable without the impulses
delivered by French culture. Quite the child of her era, a self-confident woman of the ruling class and a highly aristocratic daughter of the best lineage, Anna Amalia opened up her house to many
enlightened spirits of the time. These included Christoph Martin
Wieland in particular, along with the critical theologian Herder,
Goethe and Schiller of course, and many other important figures.
The history of the Wittumspalais makes a particularity of
German cultural history clear: The culture of critical attitudes
towards politics and nobility in the enlightened bourgeoisie
develops in the residence cities (not only in Weimar) and emerges
in the dialogue between the two leading social classes. The opportunities and the limits of the cultural uprising associated with the
Enlightenment and the classics lie very close together. Particularly in Germany, it was the friction between social classes that
caused the Enlightenment to falter.
The consequences of the Enlightenment are apparent in the
uses of the Wittumspalais following Anna Amalia’s death (1807):
Up until 1848, the freemasons’ Lodge Anna Amalia zu den drei
Rosen held their meetings here, as well as the state parliament
between 1833 and 1848; beginning in 1848 the educational club
“Lesemuseum” (reading museum) resided here with its library.
The house wasn’t restored and furnished as a museum until
1870/71, when a national memorial site for the Weimar Court of
Muses was sought in the context of the foundation of the empire.
Thus, here we also find the mixture of authentic objects and later
museum presentation typical for Weimar.
Wittumspalais with garden, around 1840
Y
3
German National Theatre | 70 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
3
German National Theatre
A Court Theatre as a “Moral Institution”
Many times, Anna Amalia took the short walk from the Wittumspalais to the National Theatre – or to its predecessor – when she
did not use the port chaise that can still be seen in the entry hall
of her city palace. She was a theatre enthusiast and most likely
supported the Weimar stage as the court theatre, which was also
open to the citizens free of cost, for two reasons:
Firstly, the theatre was – for aristocrats and commoners
alike – a place for distraction and entertainment. It served to
divert attention from the boredom of court life or everyday worries. However, the other motive for ducal patronage and public
interest in the stage coincides more with the context of this tour:
The enlightened 18th century had discovered the theatre as a
“moral institution” (Schiller), thus as a venue and a medium of
public enlightenment. Not only was a “civilizing” effect on the
individual member of the audience desired, but also an educational influence on the audience as a whole. Central values and
ideals of the Enlightenment – tolerance, mutual consideration,
curiosity, rationality, morale, personality, education – were able
to develop a much deeper effect being artistically and dramatically presented on the stage, than in the course of a pedagogical
and moral education based on reason.
In addition, the emphasis was put on the formation of an
identity through “great drama” in the development of a “German
national character” that was considered a prerequisite for the
political unification of the “cultural nation” of Germany – which
was then realised under completely different circumstances and
with other motives in 1871. Aesthetic development of a nation:
exactly that was the idea of a German National Theatre that was
founded in the mid-18th century and lasted until the 20th century.
Today’s theatre building was dedicated in 1908 and received
its name in January 1919 from the director of the time, Ernst
Hardt. This modern artist, citizen and democrat wanted to use
his theatre to educate the young German democracy’s citizens,
who were so desperately needed. Hardt also believed in the basic
conviction of the enlightener Schiller, who vested his hope in the
“aesthetic education” of the human being and firmly believed
“that it is beauty, through which we walk to freedom”.
Court Theatre, view around 1800
Y
4
City Church of St. Peter and Paul | 350 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
4
City Church of St. Peter and Paul
“Herder Church” with a View of Herder’s Tomb Slab
The significance of the theologian and philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) for Weimar and German culture is underlined by the fact that today’s City Church of St. Peter and Paul,
completed around 1500, is called the Herder Church by Weimar’s
natives and guests alike, as well as today’s square named after him
(up until 1850: Potters’ Market) and the monument in his honour
erected there in 1850. Herder had come to the city on the Ilm
river in 1776 upon the recommendation of Wieland and Goethe.
Born in Mohrungen in eastern Prussia, Herder had become a
teacher and minister at the cathedral in Riga after completing his
studies in Königsberg and soon succeeded in becoming one of
the leading theoreticians of the German Enlightenment. With his
concentration on the literary contributions of commoners and
the emphasis on individual poetic productivity, he inspired the
literary revolution of the Sturm und Drang, and not the least of
which the young Goethe, with whom he had met in Strasburg
(1770). Herder’s idea of humanity, for him certainly inspired by
his Christianity, his persevering efforts to promote tolerance and
humanity among individuals, peoples and cultures made him a
mentor for a cosmopolitan national mentality that was curious
about what is “different” and “foreign” that inspired other thinkers and writers of his time. Schiller’s pathos for mankind and
Goethe’s idea of “Weltbürgertum” (world citizenship) were also
nourished by Herder’s intellectual impulses. His ideal of mankind initially made Herder an admirer of the French revolution,
but he then just as quickly became an unyielding critic of revolutionary terror. He shared this position with the “classics” Goethe
and Schiller as well, with whom he had a tense relationship,
which became more distanced in his later years.
As an enlightened Christian and theologian, Herder was
confronted with an existential problem that has occupied both
enlightened and educated people up until the present day: To
bridge over or even close the crevice that had cracked open
between faith and knowledge, religion and science, heart and
intelligence because of enlightened rationality and religious critique. The iconography on Herder’s tomb slab in the central nave
of “his” church points to this intellectual and moral problem:
the sun depicted there symbolises Christ and the illumination
of the Enlightenment, while Herder’s motto “Liebe – Licht –
Leben” (Love – Light – Life) names values of both Christianity
and the Enlightenment.
Johann Gottfried von Herder, post hum portrait from circa 1816
Y
5
Herder Monument | 15 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
5
Herder Monument
Christian, Humanist and Enlightener – Johann Gottfried Herder
At the middle of the 19th century, both the court and Weimar’s
educated society felt that they must take better care of the memories of the classics than they had in the past. The most important
protagonists and witnesses of that “golden” age were long dead,
or were passing away, one by one. Now began the time of monuments and consciously founded memorial venues.
Interestingly enough, it was Johann Gottfried Herder – and
not one of the “Dioscuri” Goethe and Schiller – for which Weimar’s first public monument in memory of the classical period
was erected. Already in 1844, for the 100th birthday of the theologian and philosopher, the Freemason lodges in Darmstadt and
Weimar had suggested this kind of memorial. During the revolution year 1848, the model was created in the workshop of the
Munich sculptor Ludwig Schaller (1804–1865). The position of
the head, arms and legs are reminiscent of the antique statue of
Sophocles in Rome. On 25 August 1850, Herder’s 106th birthday,
the monument was ceremoniously unveiled – and the Potters’
Market became the Herder Square.
The engraving on the pedestal, “Von Deutschen aller Lande”
(“from Germans of all states”) honours the national integration
figure Herder while also making clear that the “nation of culture”
also evoked by Herder had not yet become a political union in
the year 1850.
A more radical German nationalism that still made reference
to Herder but had long since abandoned his fundamental attitude of humanism and tolerance, added another facet to the
meaning of the Herder monument: directly across from the
Herder monument there is a bust of Ohm Krüger in the facade
of a residential and commercial building (Putz und Modewarenhändler Adolph Winkler). Krüger was the fanatic leader of the
Boer rebellion and the first president of the Boer state in South
Africa (1882). As an enemy of the British, the nationalist Germans
deemed him their friend.
Now, therefore, the enlightened theorist of a tolerant national
consciousness is face to face with the radical representative of an
aggressive, racist nationalism, thus symbolising the spectrum of
possibilities for national sentiments even nowadays.
City Church of Saint Peter and Paul with Herder Monument,
after 1850
Y
6
Herderplatz 14 | 25 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
6
Herderplatz 14
Wilhelm-Ernst-Gymnasium (Wilhelm Ernst High School)
To the right of the Herder Church is the second oldest wrought
iron fountain in Weimar (after the Goethe Fountain) that was
also re-named in 1850 to the Herder Fountain. It stands in front
of the building of the former Wilhelm Ernst High School (now
used by the Volkshochschule), which was founded in 1712 by the
Weimar duke (1662–1728) of the same name. The building was
one of the city’s post-reformation school buildings.
The history of this school in the 18th and early 19th century
is closely intertwined with the four protagonists of the “classical
period” who worked here as teachers and counsellors and at the
same time belonged to the intellectual network of the residence
town: the archaeologist, writer and editor Karl August Böttiger
(1760–1835) came to Weimar in 1791, upon Herder’s recommendation, to be appointed as the director of the school. The writer
Johann Carl August Musäus (1735–1787) was appointed as a
pages’ tutor in Weimar in 1763; beginning in 1769 he taught
Ancient Languages at the high school and belonged to Anna
Amalia’s round table. His Volksmärchen der Deutschen (German
folk fairy tales) (1782/86), which inspired the Grimm brothers
decades later in their collection of old fairy tales and legends,
are still renowned today. The philologist and literature historian
Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer (1774–1845) was appointed by Goethe
to be the private teacher for the latter’s son August and quickly
became the “Poet Laureate’s” good friend. Beginning in 1812, he
was a high school professor and librarian, and in 1838 he became
the head librarian. Riemer is also closely connected with the history of the Weimar library; he also became renowned as an editor of Goethe’s works. Finally, the poet and ancient philosopher
Johann Heinrich Voß (1779–1827) must be mentioned, who
throughout his life stood in the shadow of his father of the same
name (1751–1826).
As different as the details about these four personalities are –
their lives and work stood for the close relationship between the
German Enlightenment and the Weimar Classics. They mark the
transition and the penetration in both directions of both phases
of German and European cultural history. In addition, in spite of
the differences in biographies and age, they were united by their
respect for antiquity, and its reception in Weimar’s “classical”
period would have been unthinkable without Böttiger, Musäus,
Riemer and Voß.
Johann Karl August Musäus, around 1784
Y
7a
Weimar City Castle: The Gentzian Staircase | 170 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
7a
Weimar City Castle: The Gentzian Staircase
Jewel of Classicism
Klassik is a word that is only used in German, however the phenomenon belongs to European classicism, the flow of thought
and style that is a part of and an expression of the Enlightenment, with the reception of classical antiquity in its centre.
For Germany this means the reception of the artistic products
of antique Greece in particular, which had been commonly
perceived through the eyes of Johann Joachim Winckelmann
(1717–1768) since the mid-18th century.
When entering the Weimar Castle Museum, the representation rooms on first (USA: second) floor allow a glance at an
architectural jewel of German classicism, the Gentzian Staircase,
named after its architect, Heinrich Gentz (1766–1811). The catalogues of the antique architect Vitruvius, the plans of the renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and individual Palladian mansions and palaces of the enlightened English aristocracy were
the direct stylistic models for the staircase.
The representative stairway is basically an ensemble that
Gentz planned in a constant dialogue with Goethe and Carl
August. The pictorial programme of the two central wall friezes
shows the duke as the leader of the muses (Musagetes is one of
Apollo’s epithets) and the duchess as the caring mother of the
country portrayed by the mythological figure of Demeter. Larger
than life-size statues of Athena, Dionysus, Artemis and Hermes
show the presence of antique divinity or at least the contemporary enthusiasm for the same. Further, the apotheosis of the duke
(i.e. Carl August) to Zeus above the entrance to the reception
room is eye-catching. The social classes of soldiers, peasants and
citizens pay him tribute, and he grants them his noble care in
return. This antique pictorial programme celebrated the good
duke (an ideal of the Enlightenment) as the “father” of a well
organised, flourishing and artistically ambitious common folk,
as Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach presented itself –in which there was
consequently no need for a violent upheaval of political conditions. Thus, it is not surprising that the Gentzian Staircase has
been interpreted as an anti-revolutionary architectural ensemble.
Gentzian Staircase, around 1830
Y
7b
Weimar City Castle: Festival Hall | in this building
tour enlightenment and classic s
7b
Weimar City Castle: Festival Hall
Ducal Splendour with Cosmopolitan Intentions
By leaving the staircase, proceeding through the reception room
and turning right, one enters the castle’s festival hall, and the
impression of being in “classical Weimar” is even more intense.
Three renowned architects – once again along with Goethe –
were involved in its planning and completion between 1792 and
1804: Johann August Arens (1757–1806) from Hamburg, the
Wuerttemberg-born Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret (1767–1845),
who had been close to the German artists’ colony in Rome for
many years and finally Heinrich Gentz (1766–1811) from Berlin.
In our context it is of primary interest that the interior architecture of this central ducal representation room sometimes
explicitly and sometimes subtly reflects the openness for and
curiosity about other cultures, typical of the classical period. Corresponding to the Doric entrance scenario of the staircase, Gentz
planned an Ionic portico here similar to Vitruvius’ Egyptian porticos. The griffin frieze around the top of the room is Roman,
while the lion figures on the fireplaces are Egyptian – however
this kind of animal figure was once brought into the mansions
and stately homes of central Europe via Rome. The fascination
of Egyptian art at that time was its “simplicity”, and at the same
time it was believed that the origin of all antique figures was
on the banks of the Nile River. But another architectural detail
shows that a different interpretation is possible. Above the two
lions, stylised cuneiform inscriptions are emblazoned on plaques,
drawing our attention to Mesopotamia and its cultural influences
on Europe.
The large windows of the adjacent mirror gallery open out to
the park and the Ilm river meadow, enabling nature and culture
to take up an appealing dialogue. The elaborate wall decorations
in the gallery recall Roman examples, not the least of which was
the ornamentation found in the newly excavated homes in Pompeii and Herculaneum around 1800.
Thus, the festival hall can be interpreted as the personification of the “classical” idea of “world citizenship” that in turn was
based on the enlightened ideal of “cosmopolitanism”
“cosmopolitanism”, for which
Wieland wrote and argued throughout his life. For Goethe, “world
citizenship” meant possessing great curiosity about other cultures
and developing it during the course of one’s own life – an attitude that seems everything but out-dated.
Festival Hall, around 1830
Y
8 + 9
Liszt School of Music Weimar | 200 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
8 + 9
Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Study Centre and Liszt School of Music Weimar
Red Castle and Duke’s House: Homes for the Free Drawing School
The 18th century is known as the Age of Enlightenment and at
the same time as the Century of Education. Both attributions are
less due to the contemporary ideal of the educated duke than to
the fact that the bourgeoisie had become both the supporter and
the target group of a revolutionary idea of education obligated
to the philosophy of the Enlightenment and pedagogical philanthropy. This implied that the acquisition of cultural heritage
does not take place by learning and studying alone, but also with
the aid of a concrete outlook and practical activity. In particular,
this demand applied to the aesthetic and artistic education of
human beings.
It was the Weimar entrepreneur Friedrich Justin Bertuch
(1747–1822) who presented the plan for a drawing school to Anna
Amalia in 1774. Normal citizens were to be offered free lessons in
drawing, etching and painting and the curriculum was to be
expanded to include courses on anatomy, mathematics, building,
mythology and antique studies. The first director of the new educational institution was the painter and etcher Georg Melchior
Kraus (1737–1806), whose oeuvre includes a large part of the preserved pictorial memory of the Weimar Classics. The Free Drawing School, not officially closed until 1930, and existing as a private institution again today, found its first home from 1781 until
1807 in the Red Castle, and until 1816 the Duke’s House served as
its domicile.
This representative building (now the home of the Liszt
School of Music Weimar) is located exactly across from the City
Castle; the Red Castle (today the Study Centre of the Duchess
Anna Amalia Library) is between them. It was built as the residence of Duke Johann Wilhelm’s widow, Dorothea Susanne
(1544–1592) in 1574/76, and was augmented by the one-story
courtyard enclosure planned by the classicist building master
Clemens Wenzeslaus Coudray in 1820, in front of which a fountain with a copy of the famous Ildefonso-Group is located. Construction of the Duke’s House was begun on Anna Amalia’s initiative in 1770; after the castle fire it served as the primary
residence for the ducal family. The square in front of it was renamed Platz der Demokratie (Democracy Square) in 1945. This
name recalls the fact that in the 19th century the state parliament
of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, and beginning in 1920 (until its dissolution in 1932), that of the democratic state of Thuringia held
their sessions at the Duke’s House.
Georg Melchior Kraus
Y
10
Duchess Anna Amalia Library | 15 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
10
Duchess Anna Amalia Library
The Book Church
The “ancestral house” of today’s Duchess Anna Amalia Library
belongs to the building ensemble at the Platz der Demokratie
(Democracy Square) as well. It wasn’t until the restoration of the
last few years that the origins of the building from the Renaissance were exposed in its entrance hall. Constructed between
1562 and 1565 as a castle, the building was soon given the name
green castle because of its location between the Ilm river meadows and the ducal leisure garden.
Duchess Anna Amalia had the building fundamentally
remodelled between 1761 and 1766 into a library, in the centre of
which one of the most impressive room ensembles of the era of
Enlightenment evolved. This Rococo Hall, primarily designed by
the Dresden architect Johann Georg(e) Schmidt (1707–1774) and
the Eisenach state building master August Friedrich Strassburger
(ca. 1721–1765), is a complete art work consisting of ambitious
interior architecture details, books, pictures and busts.
Not only did the overall aesthetic impression suffice ducal
interests of representation, impressing visitors with its beauty
still today, but the aesthetic presentation also visualizes the basic
idea of enlightened thought on education. Here, artistic and scientific evidence work together; objects that invite observation
could also be researched at the same place. The storage place for
knowledge, the library, is also an art space that aesthetically
teaches and rouses curiosity about the meaning of what is portrayed. Intellectual examples – essential for every pedagogical
process – were visually present; and the time-span of the portrayed figures stretched from antiquity up to the present day
of the 18th and 19th centuries. Furthermore, European spirits
are gathered here in the emphatic sense of the word, such as
Homer and Sophocles, Dante and Voltaire, Goethe, Schiller and
Wieland, Shakespeare and Luther – an ideal Republique des Lettres et des Beaux Arts conjured up by many writers and artists of
the Enlightenment and Classicism and also personified by them.
That the “Weimar Greats” dominate altogether underlines
once again the significance of the Court of Muses and the importance of its bourgeois and aristocratic protagonists within the
cultural memory, not only of the duchy of the time, but very soon
of entire Germany.
Duchess Anna Amalia
Y
11
Wielandplatz | 400 m
tour enlightenment and classic s
11
Wielandplatz
Wielandplatz with Wieland’s former homes
Walking through the Seifengasse (Soap Alley), past the House of
Mrs. von Stein (today the Weimar Goethe Institute), the Goethe
National Museum and the Goethe Residence (which we pass by
only because of time constraints), we arrive at Frauenplan and
from there proceed to Wielandplatz (Wieland Square), which
received its name on the occasion of the erection of the monument there (1857) for Weimar’s greatest and most significant
figure of the Enlightenment.
Christoph Martin Wieland (1733–1813), like Schiller a born
Swabian, had taught philosophy at the university in Erfurt since
1769 and was appointed in Weimar as the princely teacher by
Anna Amalia in 1772. Thus an author came to the city on the
river Ilm, who until then was not only renowned as being a very
well informed admirer of antiquity and a congenial translator of
Shakespeare dramas, but also as an enlightened ducal critic.
Before Goethe and Herder’s arrival, Wieland was the intellectual
central figure of the slowly forming Court of Muses, the friend
and favourite of the duchess, the father of a constantly growing
family and for entire Germany a literary authority, not lastly
because of his position as the editor of the Teutsche Merkur (published beginning in 1773, in 1790 as Der neue teutsche Merkur
Merkur,
ending in 1810). Just as Goethe was an admirer of Napoleon as a
personality, Wieland also belonged to the critics of the French
revolution and its violence.
Intellectually and stylistically committed to the literature of
the Enlightenment throughout his life, Wieland as an attentive
contemporary gave impulses and accompaniment for “Classicism”. Until the end of his life he both supported and criticised
every new generation of writers – including the romantics from
Jena, who sarcastically made fun of him as “Father Wieland” and
“Patriarch of the Court of Muses” (and yet learned very much
from him).
The fact that his monument (by Hanns Gasser, erected in
1857) was the only one available at the end of World War I, when
precious metal was sought for the production of weapons, shows
that Wieland had been continually moved towards the fringes of
German cultural consciousness starting as soon as the beginning
of the 19th century. For many, the “Rococo Poet”
Poet”, “Friend of the
French” “Erotic” and “Flirting Enlightener” no longer seemed to
French”,
fit into a hereditary concept that was nationally radical, but
which had distanced itself just as far from the Enlightenment
and Classicism.
Christoph Martin Wieland