Full Description
Dying with an Enlightening Fall is a study of a critical but under-examined moment in German intellectual history. David Pickus encourages readers to discover the connections between the tumultuous events in Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the critical self-perception of Germany's first generation of truly modern writers. At the same time that the Polish Republic of Nobles was annexed by its neighbors, the German Enlightenment reached its apex. Pickus claims that Poland's manifest failure to adapt to Europe's changing conditions, and its subsequent fall, made Poland a lesson in failure in the eyes of German thinkers. Poland allowed German intellectuals to formulate modern sensibilities; it became a necessary foil, defining what the modern age should be by what it was not.
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction: What Is Polenliteratur and Why Study It?
Chapter 2 Poland's Function
Chapter 3 Poland's Dysfunction
Chapter 4 Both and Neither: The Triumphs and Trials of Polenliteratur in the Mid-1790s
Chapter 5 Joachim Christoph Friedrich Schulz and the Vice of Poland
Chapter 6 Salomon Maimon: The Copernican Revolution's Sans Culottes
Chapter 7 Johann Gottfried Seume: Political Indignation and Personal Resentment
Chapter 8 Conclusion
Chapter 9 Bibliography
Chapter 10 Index
Chapter 11 About the Author
