Nature after Romanticism. Literary explorations of the natural world in the works of Heine, Lenau, and Droste-Hülshoff
<p>During the Biedermeier period, literary representations of nature came to incorporate perspectives from the increasingly dominant natural sciences alongside the aesthetic conventions concerning the depiction of nature inherited from the late eighteenth century. </p> <p>In a co...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | German English |
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2020
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| Summary: | <p>During the Biedermeier period, literary representations of nature came to incorporate perspectives from the increasingly dominant natural sciences alongside the aesthetic conventions concerning the depiction of nature inherited from the late eighteenth century. </p>
<p>In a comparative study, the following thesis investigates how three of the period’s most prolific writers, Heinrich Heine, Nikolaus Lenau, and Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, explored the natural world through a variety of literary forms and modes of expression. Although the concept of nature took on different functions within the literary oeuvre of these three writers, we are able to see similarities emerge in the way they forged intertextual connections with their Romantic predecessors. The period typical focus on historicity brought forth a literary style that was rich in allusions to an aesthetic tradition of representing nature, which was now being recontextualised. Thus, literature and nature alike appeared historically layered, heterogeneous, and even disharmonious, creating a contrast to the holistic concepts of nature and the Kunstideal prevalent at the turn of the century. </p>
<p>Through a close-reading of literary works that dealt explicitly with the relationship to nature, my analysis has retraced intertextual relationships as well as references to contemporary scientific, philosophical, theological, and political discourses. By investigating how Heine’s early prose showed nature and society as intertwined, how Lenau’s poetry radically questioned the possibility to have an aesthetic experience of nature, and Droste-Hülshoff juxtaposed scientific, aesthetic, and theological concepts of nature within her writing, we can see the multi-facetted character of literary concepts of nature in the 1820s to 1840s emerge. </p>
<p>By taking into consideration the embeddedness of these popular works of literature in their contemporary social context, the following thesis also seeks to understand how a changing relationship between nature and art reflects the new role of literature in a bourgeois Wissensgesellschaft.</p>
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