Kein Folientitel

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Drama in the Age of Enlightenment

• Definition of periods within the Enlightenment
• Life of Lessing (brief summary)
• Drama before/since Lessing (referring back to
  Gottscheds Sterbenden Cato)
• Plot of Miß Sara Sampson
• Family structures
• Introduction into the 1st act

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Recommended Reading

• Jochen Schulte-Sasse, Poetik und Ästhetik
  Lessings und seiner Zeitgenossen, in Hansers
  Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, Vol. 3
  (München / Wien 1980), pp. 304-326.
• Jochen Schulte-Sasse, Drama, in Hansers
  Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, Vol. 3
  (München / Wien 1980), pp. 423-499, esp. Lessing
  pp. 450-452, 456-465.
• CD-ROM, see Lessing, Selected Bibliography

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The different phases within the Enlightenment

• 1720-1755 Frühaufklärung rationalism
  (Verstandes-aufklärung), Gottsched
• 1750-1770 empfindsame Hochaufklärung unity of
  brain and heart (Vernunftsaufklärung), Bodmer und
  Breitinger, Klopstock, Lessing
• 1770-1790 Spätaufklärung

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• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
• (1729-1781)
• born in Saxonia (Kamenz)
• 1746-48 studied theology, then medicine at
  Leipzig
• 1748-67 mainly Berlin F. Nicolai and M.
  Mendelssohn
• 1767-70 dramaturg at Hamburg (Hamburgische
  Dramaturgie)
• 1770-1781 Librarian at Wolfenbüttel

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• Lessings main works
• till 1755 plays in the Classicist French
  tradition
• 1755 Miß Sara Sampson - first German
  bürgerliches Trauerspiel
• 1766 Laokoon oder Über die Grenzen der Malerei
  und Poesie
• 1767 Minna von Barnhelm oder Das Soldatenglück
• 1767/69 Hamburgische Dramaturgie
• 1772 Emilia Galotti
• 1779 Nathan der Weise - first German blank verse
  drama, model for the later German Classicist
  plays

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• German Drama before Lessing
• tragedy Haupt- und Staatsaktionen - nobility,
  Ständeklausel, necessity of a Fallhöhe
• comedy Verlachkomödien - lower classes
• alexandrine based
• strict keeping to 3 unities time, place,
  action/plot (Zeit, Ort und Handlung)
• within the Enlightenment
• teaching morals according to Tugend- and
  Lasterkatalog
• the means elios and phobos (Aristotle) fear
  and terror (Angst und Schrecken) in tragedies

Gottscheds Der sterbende Cato (1732)
TEXT
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• German Drama since Lessing
• tragedy Bürgerliches Trauer-spiel - touching
  domestic drama, mixed characters, gleiche
  Ranghöhe mit Publikum
• comedy Ernste Komödie - noble and bourgeois
  characters
• prose play
• 3 unities only as a matter of Wirkung (time,
  place,) action/plot (Handlung)
• Creating Sensibility as the purpose of a
  bourgeois tragedy
• the means the compassion a tragic action
  should produce in an audience - Furcht und
  Mitleid, Katharsis as Reinigung der
  Leidenschaften, not von den

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• Plot of Lessings Miß Sara Sampson and its
  function (1755)
• quite a simple one, small amount of characters
• this leaves room for dealing with conversation
  as a means of solving conflicts
• stress on dialogue instead of stress on action
• Mitleidsästhetik make the audience becoming
  affected not teaching them a morale, but giving
  them the experience of a social order to be
• Moralisierungsprogramm to educate all classes
  within society according to the compassionate
  ideal of family life and thus to establish a
  paradigm for social and political change - belief
  in humanity das Allgemeinmenschliche

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• Lessings Miß Sara Sampson is an example for a
  whole series of plays in the 1750s and 1760s with
  its basic formula
• Das Trauerspiel erfüllt seine Bestimmung,
  nämlich unsere Fähigkeit, Mitleid zu fühlen, zu
  erweitern, indem es die Vollkommenheit im
  Unglück, den tugendhaften Menschen im Leiden
  zeigt (Lessing on Nicolai, 13. Nov. 1756, und an
  Mendelssohn, 18. Dez. 1756).
• Karl S. Guthke, Das deutsche bürgerliche
  Trauerspiel, 4. Aufl. (Stuttgart Metzler, 1984),
  p.52.

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• Das ganze Haus
• all generations, servants under one roof
• Allianzehe - a political, economic ratio
  behind each and every marriage
• affection, desire, lust outside the marriage
  intrigues
• nobility
• children care by nannies
• Mätressenwesen
• liaisons

• Die bürgerliche Kernfamilie
• parents and children only under one roof
• Liebesehe - love and compassion for a once
  chosen lifelong partner
• idea of Sittlichkeit and Moral, strict moral
  codes
• bourgeois family
• father working outside the house mother house
  keeping and children feeding
• growing importance of children and their
  attitudes
• idea of education
• family becomes the raw model for social (and
  political) life

Pic Pic Pic
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• Further readings
• W.A. Bruford, Germany in the Eighteenth Century
  The Social Background of the Literary Revival
  (Cam-bridge University Press, 1965) Lib. 943.05
  BRU
• Victor Lange, The Classical Age of German
  Literature. 1740-1815 (London Arnold, 1982) Lib.
  830.96 LAN

• Homework
• Read Lessings Miß Sara Sampson, focus on the
  Erster Aufzug and Scenes Iii and IIii.We will go
  through the first act in class, scene by scene
  and will highlight the important topics and
  positions. To prepare this, for Act I and Scenes
  IIi and IIii
• Find out about topics and key terms for each
  scene. How are the topics developed from one
  scene to the other?
• Define the social position the different
  characters have. Try to find out when characters
  are not acting according to their social roles.