Weimar Classicism

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Simon Richter (University of Pennsylvania)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Domains

Movements, styles and periods (literature)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1786-1805

Places

Germany (Location)

Weimar Classicism is one of the more disputed periods of literary history. The distinction of also possessing a classical period was first arrogated for German literature in the nineteenth century under the pressure of strong national feeling. German classicism purportedly extended from Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) to the death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), including some seventy years of literary production. Of course, this was a stretch by any precise definition of classicism, and the assertion of a German Classicism of this kind won no international recognition. Matters were further complicated by the fact that the putative German Classicism coincided with a succession of acknowledged European and German literary …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2766 words

Citation: Richter, Simon. "Weimar Classicism". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 September 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1476, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Weimar Classicism

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback