Romanticism: A German Affair - Hardcover

Safranski, Rüdiger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810126532 ISBN 13: 9780810126534

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2014

Synopsis

The renowned scholar Rüdiger Safranski’s Romanticism: A German Affair both offers an accessible overview of Romanticism and, more critically, traces its lasting influence, for better and for ill, on German culture. Safranski begins with the eighteenthcentury Sturm und Drang movement, which would sow the seeds for Romanticism in Germany. While Romanticism was a broad artistic, literary, and intellectual movement, German thinkers were especially concerned with its strong philosophical-metaphysical and religious dimension. Safranski follows this spirit in its afterlife in the work of Heinrich Heine, Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, and through the later artistic upheavals of the twentieth century. He concludes by carefully considering Romanticism’s possible influence in the rise of National Socialism and the student revolt of 1968.

Romanticism: A German Affair is essential reading for anyone interested in the power of art, culture, and ideas in the life of a nation.

About this title

About the Author:

RÜDIGER SAFRANSKI is a distinguished philosopher and writer whose works have received numerous awards and have been translated into nineteen languages. His books published in English includeNietzsche: A Political Biography (2001), Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil(1998), and Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy (1990). He lives in Germany.

ROBERT E. GOODWIN is a member of the faculty of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. He is the author ofThe Playworld of Sanskrit Drama (1998) and the translator of Markus Werner’s novelOn the Edge (2012).

Review:

“Safranski’s Romanticism is overdue—an enlightenedly bright, even cheerful description of a special way of being. It is the novel of the German spirit.” —Der Spiegel



 


“Rüdiger Safranski brilliantly familiarizes us with Romanticism and the Romantic. His terrific book combines philosophical analysis and anecdotes in such a skillful way that we are faced with something rare: fascinatingly told German intellectual history. Thanks to his erudition and linguistic capability, he contrives to open the treasure chamber of intellectual history.” —Die Zeit

About this edition

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0810126532
• ISBN 13: 9780810126534
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 376