Stolberg's Journey to the Romantics
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Eleoma Joshua. Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg and the German Romantics. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005. 206 pp. $44.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8204-7186-0. Reviewed by Robert S. Bledsoe Published on H-German (January, 2007) To the adage that the winners write history, This material is followed by chapters on Stolberg's one might want to add a corollary that, at least in theory of poetry, his poetry, his account of his literary history, the winners are written about journey through Italy and his conversion to more often than the losers. Friedrich Leopold Catholicism. The frst chapter reminds us that Graf zu Stolberg is one of the losers. He is perhaps Stolberg was not only an enthusiastic member of best remembered for a few poems penned while a the Göttinger Hainbund, but also published essays member of the Göttinger Hainbund and the per‐ on his aesthetic ideas, dramas, a novel and an ac‐ sonal affront he took at some of the zingers sent count of his travels through Germany, Switzer‐ his way in the Xenien (1796) by Friedrich Schiller land, Italy and Sicily. Stolberg also translated a and J.W.G. Goethe. Joshua wants to reestablish an number of works from the Greek, most notably awareness of Stolberg as a consequential fgure in some of Aeschylus's tragedies, which expanded the German literary landscape at the end of the the number of texts available in translation to the eighteenth century by focusing on his significance German public. Later in his career Stolberg pro‐ for early German Romantics. Recent studies by duced a notable history of Christianity, Geschichte Gert Theile and Dirk Hempel have paved the way der Religion Jesu Christi (1806-18). for this reevaluation, and Joshua considers her Joshua's discussion of Stolberg's theory of po‐ work as a continuation of these studies, as well as etry focuses on four essays published from 1777 an extension and clarification of the works on and 1782: "Über die Fülle des Herzens" (1777), Stolberg and Romanticism by Leo Scheffezsck and "Vom Dichten und Darstellen" (1780), "Über die Pierre Brachin.[1] Ruhe nach dem Genuß und über den Zustand des Joshua has divided the book into fve chap‐ Dichters in dieser Ruhe" (1780) and "Über die ters. The frst chapter gives an overview of Stol‐ Begeisterung" (1782). Joshua concludes that Stol‐ berg's life and writings, as well as a survey of sig‐ berg strove to link a pietistic notion of enthusiasm nificant research on Stolberg and Romanticism. with the Platonic tradition and developed a poet‐ H-Net Reviews ics that placed "the emotions, the heart, and the led to his rejection of Greek art as both the epito‐ soul at the centre of poetic creativity" (p. 41), me of beauty and a viable model for his Christian while still offering "an outwardly focused and contemporaries. Joshua's argument that Stolberg's productive expression of poetic feeling" (p. 50). stance was a positive alternative to Goethe and Joshua offers a nice review of Stolberg's poetics, Schiller's classicism is intriguing. Furthermore, and points to clear connections between Stol‐ she points to interesting parallels between Stol‐ berg's thinking and Romantic poetic theory. How‐ berg's views and those advocated by the early Ro‐ ever, she is not able to establish that the early Ro‐ mantics on classical art and the painting of mantics engaged in a significant manner with Raphael. Nevertheless, I am not convinced, when these essays. Joshua, who usually makes cautious and judicious The third chapter is much more successful in judgments, claims that Stolberg was "both a seis‐ establishing connections between Stolberg and mograph and a catalyst of a new aesthetic and re‐ early Romantics. Here Joshua is able to show that ligious ideal" (p. 126). A better contextualization Novalis and Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder con‐ of Stolberg's contribution to the general debate on sidered Stolberg a canonical author and viewed classical sculpture and aesthetics might have his poetry as a model for their own work (p. 67). helped clarify Stolberg's role. Joshua wisely does not claim that Stolberg was in‐ On the other hand, Joshua does a good job of strumental in their development; yet she is able to contextualizing Stolberg's conversion to Catholi‐ document that both engaged intensely with Stol‐ cism and especially the response to it. Stolberg's berg's poetry. Joshua offers analyses of three po‐ conversion in 1800 was a topic of general contem‐ ems by Stolberg, "Der Harz" (1772), "Lied eines porary discussion. While the conversion alienated deutschen Knaben" (1774) and "Der Abend" Stolberg from many Protestant contemporaries, (1775), and related poems by Novalis. The analysis especially those who identified with the Enlight‐ shows convincingly that in these early poetic at‐ enment, it brought him into contact with many tempts, Novalis adapts themes, images and lyrical Catholics and numerous Romantics. Joshua is able forms from Stolberg (p. 79). Yet Joshua also makes to show that, while Stolberg's motivations for con‐ the reader aware that already in this early poetry verting were different than those of the Roman‐ Novalis is moving in his own direction; he is not tics, his conversion may well have paved the way so much imitating Stolberg as reworking him. The for their own acts of conversion. Despite in‐ evidence for Stolberg's influence on Wackenroder creased personal contact with the Romantics, Stol‐ is less extensive, but Joshua's conclusions seem berg did not fnd common ground with them on reasonable. aesthetic questions, but he did on political issues. After establishing these connections between Stolberg's turn to Catholicism and conservative Stolberg, Novalis and Wackenroder, Joshua turns politics was motivated in part by the atheism and to a discussion of Stolberg's Reise in Deutschland, secularization of the time, which Stolberg viewed der Schweiz, Italien und Sizilien (1794). In this ac‐ as a threat to the fabric of society. Joshua finds sig‐ count of a trip undertaken in 1791 and 1792, Stol‐ nificant similarities in Stolberg, Friedrich Schlegel berg strove to produce an educational tool for and Adam Müller's political thought: "Their com‐ people who had not seen the sites, rather than a mon ground was the organic concept of nature sentimental portrait of their effects on the travel‐ and society, the paternal state, the reinstatement, er. For Joshua, the most significant contribution of up to a point, of the old social hierarchy of the this travelogue is Stolberg's discovery of melan‐ Middle Ages, and the theory that the social and choly in the ancient classical sculptures, which 2 H-Net Reviews moral disintegration in Europe was directly relat‐ ed to the French Revolution" (p. 157). For Joshua, Stolberg is not a proto-Romantic, but rather a fgure who influenced numerous Ro‐ mantics in significant ways. Wackenroder and No‐ valis reworked Stolberg's enthusiastic embrace of nature and the creative poetic impulse, while his rejection of classical sculpture and his veneration of Raphael and other artists of the Renaissance of‐ fered an alternative to the classical aesthetics of Goethe and Schiller. Finally, his conversion to Catholicism and his conservative political turn in the early nineteenth century brought him into contact with important Romantics and lead to the possibility of more personal influence through personal contact. Joshua does a good job tracing intertextual connections and intellectual parallels. She does not overstate her case for the impor‐ tance of Stolberg in this period; instead, she gives us a more nuanced portrait of the relations be‐ tween Stolberg and the early Romantics than has been available to us previously. Note [1]. Gert Theile, Aufschwung und Refugium: Studien zu Dichtung und geistiger Welt Friedrich Leopold Stolbergs (Stuttgart: Akademischer Ver‐ lag, 1994); Dirk Hempel, Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg (1750-1819): Staatsmann und politis‐ cher Schriftsteller (Cologne: Böhlau, 1997); Leo Scheffczyk, Friedrich Leopold zu Stolbergs 'Geschichte der Religion Jesu Christi': Die Abwen‐ dung der katholischen Kirchengeschichtsschrei‐ bung von der Aufklärung und ihre Neuorien‐ tierung im Zeitalter der Romantik (Munich: Zink, 1952); Pierre Brachin, "Friedrich Leopold von Stolberg und die deutsche Romantik," Literatur‐ wissenschaftliches Jahrbuch_ NF 1 (1960): 117-131. If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-german 3 H-Net Reviews Citation: Robert S. Bledsoe. Review of Joshua, Eleoma. Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg and the German Romantics. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2007. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12777 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 4.