Sp¹taufkl¹rung-Rethinking the Late Eighteenth Century in German Literary History

Carl Niekerk, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Critical discussions about the literary historiography of the late eighteenth century have often focused on the so-called Classical period1 of German literature. There seems to exist a consensus that the concept has outlived its usefulness. Nowhere are the normative and exclusionary aspects of literary history more visible than in the German construction of a literary Klassik in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Most literary histories seem to agree that the period, sometimes also referred to as Weimarer Klassik, comprises the work of only two authors, Goethe and Schiller-a rather unique phenomenon in the literary history of any nation.2 In addition to such exclusivity, the period is meant to be a highpoint of German literature.