The Topography of Modernity Series editor: Peter Uwe Hohendahl, Cornell University Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought publishes new English- language books in literary studies, criticism, cultural studies, and intellectual history pertaining to the German-speaking world, as well as translations of im- portant German-language works. Signale construes “modern” in the broadest terms: the series covers topics ranging from the early modern period to the present. Signale books are published under a joint imprint of Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library in electronic and print formats. Please see http://signale.cornell.edu/. The Topography of Modernity Karl Philipp Moritz and the Space of Autonomy Elliott Schreiber A Signale Book Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library Ithaca, New York Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library gratefully acknowledge The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University, for support of the Signale series. Copyright © 2012 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2012 by Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schreiber, Elliott, 1969– The topography of modernity : Karl Philipp Moritz and the space of autonomy / Elliott Schreiber. p. cm. — (Signale : modern German letters, cultures, and thought) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-5178-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8014-7808-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Moritz, Karl Philipp, 1756–1793—Aesthetics. 2. Aesthetics, Modern—18th century. 3. German literature—History and criticism. 4. Arts, Modern—18th century—Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series: Signale (Ithaca, N.Y.) PT2435.M3Z877 2012 833'.6—dc23 2012032277 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fi bers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For my mother, Mona Espy Schreiber and in memory of my father, Eugene Joseph Schreiber What he enjoyed most of all was to burn down a city built out of little paper houses and afterwards contemplate the remaining heap of ashes with solemn gravity and melancholy. Indeed, when a house actually did burn down one night in the city where his par- ents lived, he felt, despite his terror, a kind of secret wish that it might be a long time before the fi re was extinguished. This wish was not at all based on schadenfreude, but arose from an obscure pre- monition of great changes, emigrations, and revolutions, in which all things would assume a very different shape and the previous uniformity would end. Das allergrößte Vergnügen machte es ihm, wenn er eine aus kleinen papiernen Häusern erbauete Stadt verbrennen, und dann nachher mit feierlichem Ernst und Wehmut den zurückgebliebenen Aschenhaufen betrachten konnte. Ja als in der Stadt, wo seine Eltern wohnten, einmal wirklich in der Nacht ein Haus abbrannte, so empfand er bei allem Schreck eine Art von geheimem Wunsche, daß das Feuer nicht sobald gelöscht werden möchte. Dieser Wunsch hatte nichts weniger als Schadenfreude zum Grunde, sondern entstand aus einer dunklen Ahndung von großen Veränderungen, Auswanderun- gen und Revolutionen, wo alle Dinge eine ganz andre Gestalt bekommen, und die bisherige Einförmigkeit aufhören würde. — Karl Philipp Moritz, Anton Reiser Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Shifting Perspectives 1 Part I The Spaces of Art and Myth 1. Toward an Aesthetics of the Sublime Augenblick: Moritz Reading Die Leiden des jungen Werthers 15 2. Beyond an Aesthetics of Containment: Trajectories of the Imagination in Moritz and Goethe 36 Part II The Spaces of Cognition and Education 3. Laying the Foundation for Independent Thought: Enlightenment Epistemology and Pedagogy 63 4. Thinking inside the Box: Moritz contra Philanthropism 81 Part III The Spaces of the Political and the Individual 5. Raising (and Razing) the Common House: Moritz and the Ideology of Commonality 105 6. Pressing Matters: Moritz’s Models of the Self in the Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde 131 Conclusion: Moritz’s Inner-Worldly Critique of Modernity 154 Bibliography 161 Index 171 Illustrations 1. Title-page engraving by Harry John Penningh in Part 3 of Anton Reiser 4 2. Frontispiece in the museum catalog of Ole Worm 74 3. Engraving in Johann Bernhard Basedow’s Elementarwerk, pl. 48 75 4. Engraving in Basedow’s Elementarwerk, pl. 8 77 5. First copperplate in the Kinderlogik 89 6. Fourth copperplate in the Kinderlogik 96 7. First fi eld of the fi fth copperplate in the Kinderlogik 127 8. Title-page engraving in Anton Friedrich Büsching’s Magazin für die neue Historie und Geographie 155 Acknowledgments This is a book about institutions, and I am appreciative of the support of two in particular that have helped make it possible. The Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, provided substantial fi nancial support for my research. Vassar College granted me a generous stipend through the Louise Boyd Dale Fund for Research Assistance that enabled me to complete the present book. A number of people at both Indiana and Vassar have also been instrumental in the development of this project. Fritz Breithaupt, Andreas Michel, Bill Rasch, and Marc Weiner are remarkable teachers and mentors. I am particularly indebted to Fritz, not only for introducing me to Moritz, but also for his sustained engagement with this project, and his boundless critical acumen and generosity. Bill’s courses were pivotal intellectual experiences that helped lay the theoretical groundwork for this book. My work was also enriched through courses with Oscar Kenshur and through vibrant discussions in the Eighteenth-Century Reading Group, the precursor to the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University. I am grateful as well to friends from my graduate student days, many of whom are now valued colleagues in the profession. At Vassar, I am fortunate to have such supportive colleagues in Silke von der Emde and Jeffrey Schneider. Along with Andrew Bush, Susan Hiner, Joshua Schreier, and Eva Woods, they gave me astute feedback on several portions of my manuscript. Both in and beyond her capacity as Director of Faculty Research Devel- opment, Maria Höhn has been a constant source of encouragement. An exceptional former student, Sasha H. Steinberg, assisted me with editing an earlier version of this manuscript, as well as with translating the German quotations into English. This book has benefi ted greatly from numerous colleagues who have shared insightful comments on conference papers and articles that have grown out of it. These colleagues include Hans Adler, Eric Denton, Matt Erlin, Richard T. Gray, Jonathan Hess, Edgar Landgraf, Horst Lange, Christine Lehleiter, Karl-Heinz Maurer, Joseph O’Neil, Simon Richter, Patricia Anne Simpson, Jill Suzanne Smith, and Christian Weber. My fellow Moritz enthusiast, Anthony Krupp, has been an inspiring interlocutor over the years. I wish to thank him and David Wellbery for organizing and hosting a stimulating conference on Moritz at the University of Chicago in 2006. My sincere thanks to Peter Uwe Hohendahl and the editorial board of Signale, and to the two anonymous readers of my manuscript for their incisive comments. Marian Rogers copyedited the manuscript with great care and insight. Kizer Walker, the managing editor of the series, has been helpful at every step. xii Acknowledgments A portion of the introduction to this book fi rst appeared in PMLA 27.1 (January 2012): 95–96. Chapter 1 fi rst appeared in The Enlightened Eye: Goethe and Visual Culture, ed. Evelyn K. Moore and Patricia Anne Simpson (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 193–217. A condensed version of chapters 3 and 4 originally appeared in Karl Philipp Moritz: Signaturen des Denkens, ed. Anthony Krupp (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 103–30. Chapter 6 fi rst appeared in Goethe Yearbook 11 (2002): 133–58. I am grateful to the two journals and to Rodopi Press for their permission to reprint these texts. I wish to thank the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale Uni- versity, the Princeton University Library, the Rare Book Division of the New York Public Library, and the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago Library for their permission to reproduce the illustrations in this book. I am grateful beyond words for the support of my family, especially that of my wife, Julie, and my parents, to whom this book is dedicated. I continue to be sus- tained by the love and encouragement of my father, who passed away while my manuscript was in its fi nal stages. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to Jonathan for teaching me each day anew the joy of play. The Topography of Modernity Introduction Shifting Perspectives In 1785, the journal Berlinische Monatschrift published a short essay that revo- lutionized aesthetic theory. The work of art, it contends, co mprises a whole that is absolutely complete in itself. That is to say, in contrast to the mechanical arts, works of fi ne art serve no external purpose; rather, each is guided solely by an inner pur- posiveness. Five years before Immanuel Kant’s Third Critique, then, this succinct essay posits the fi rst radical concept of aesthetic autonomy. The author of this essay, Karl Philipp Moritz, was at the time a twenty-eight- year-old writer, editor, and teacher living in Berlin.