The Origins of Modern Critical Thought: German Aesthetic and Literary Criticism from Lessing to Hegel

This exceptional 1988 book provides a comprehensive anthology in English of the major texts of German literary and aesthetic theory between Lessing and Hegel.

David Simpson (Edited by)

9780521359023, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 October 1988

460 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.67 kg

Originally published in 1988, this book provides a comprehensive anthology in English of the major texts of German literary and aesthetic theory between Lessing and Hegel. It represents a one-volume compendium of the three-volume set of German Aesthetic and Literary Criticism published by Cambridge University Press in 1984 and 1985. The texts contained in this volume are crucial to an understanding not only of the Romantic period itself, but also of the foundational concepts and arguments of literary theory. An exceptional resource, this book will be indispensable to literary theorists, philosophers, political scientists, and anyone else interested in the contributions of Romantic aesthetics to nineteenth-century and later theories of social organisation.

Citations and abbreviations
A note on selections and translations
Introduction
Part I. Lessing: 1. From Laocoon
2. Letter to Nicolai
Part II. Herder: 3. Extract from Correspondence on the Ossian and the Songs of the Ancient People
5. Extracts from Shakespeare
Part III. Kant: 5. Selections from the Critique of Judgement
Part IV. Schiller: 6. From On the Aesthetic Education of Man
7. From On the Naive and Sentimental Poetry
Part V. Friedrich Schlegel: 8. On Incomprehensibility
9. From Critical Fragments
10. From Athenäum Fragments
11. From Ideas
12. From On Goethe's 'Meister'
13. From Letter About the Novel
Part VI. Fichte: 14. From On the Nature of the Scholar
Part VII. Schelling: 15. Conclusion to System of Transcendental Idealism
16. From Philosophy of Art
17. On Dante in Relation to Philosophy
Part VIII. A. W. Schlegel: 18. From Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature
Part IX. Novalis: 19. Monologue
Part X. Goethe: 20. From Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
21. From Winckelmann
Part XI. Jean Paul Richter: 22. From School for Aesthetics
Part XII. Solger: 23. From Erwin
Part XIII. Schopenhauer: 24. From The World as Will and Representation
Part XIV. Hegel: 25. From Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art
Notes
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Literature: history & criticism [DS]