German Studies Association

Review
Author(s): Jonathan Sperber
Review by: Jonathan Sperber
Source: German Studies Review, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Oct., 1994), pp. 569-570
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the German Studies Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1431908
Accessed: 17-05-2015 22:35 UTC

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BOOKREVIEWS

569

uncoveringand demonstratingGoethe'suniqueessayisticexpertise,Burgard
respectfullyplacesGoetheas a noteworthyessayistalongwithhis eighteenthcenturycontemporaries.A valuable source of informationon eighteenthto research,thisbook
centurycriticaldiscourseandan innovativecontribution
well
and
is
worth
the
excellence
priceof the cloth
representsscholarshippar
edition.
LORIWAGNER,University
of Pennsylvania
TheGenesis
andRomanticism:
FrederickC. Beiser.Enlightenment,
Revolution,
1790-1800. Cambridge,Mass., and
of ModernGermanPolitical Thought,
London:HarvardUniversityPress,1992. $45.00.
InEnlightenment,
FrederickBeiseroffers
Revolution,
andRomanticism,
a detailedinvestigationof Germanpoliticalthoughtin the era of the French
Revolution.Choosinga broadspectrumof subjects,fromthe JacobinGeorg
Forsterto theconservativeFriedrichGentz,andworkingfromanequallybroad
spectrumof genres,seekingoutpoliticalideasin thephilosophicaltreatisesof
KantandFichte,thenovelsof FriedrichJacobiandChristophWieland,andthe
journalismof C.F.NicolaiorA.L.Schl6zer,Beiserengagesin thecloseanalysis
of texts,strivingto elucidatea consistentargumentin each, and to show the
interactionsbetween them. Reminiscentof the internalistapproachto the
historyof ideas,thisprocedureshunsmorerecentmethodologicaltrends,say
fromdeconstructionist
literarytheoryor fromthe socialhistoryof ideas.
The centralfocus of the author'sinvestigationis the impactof the
FrenchRevolutionon the Enlightenmentconceptof the primacyof reasonin
humanaffairs.Dividingcontemporary
Germanauthorsintothreemaingroups,
liberals,romantics,and conservatives,Beiserexaminescarefullya varietyof
individualresponsesto therevolution:
amongothers,Kant'sandFichte'sefforts
to reconcilean Enlightenedliberalrationalismwith the radicalreign of the
Jacobins,Schiller'sassertionof the primacyof the aestheticin creatinga
workablepoliticalorder,ortheromanticandconservativeemphasis-albeitin
of reasonto traditionandempirical
quitedifferentways-on thesubordination
historicalexperience.
The close readingsof the differentauthorsoffered by Beiser are
interestingandgenerallyconvincing,the discussionsof theideasof Fichteand
Forsterparticularlyoutstandingfor clarity of elucidationand richnessof
explanation.However,the general categoriesBeiser uses are not entirely
of a limitedroleforthestate
convincing.Hisdefinitionof liberalsas supporters
(16) seemsdubious,especiallyas he admitsthathis liberalthinkersgenerally
opposedlaissez-faireeconomics,andsomeevenhadnascentsocialistleanings.

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570

GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW

His definition of conservative, on the other hand, lumps together a very

heterogeneous mixture of late adherentsof Enlightened absolutism, admirers
of the English political system, and supportersof a stdndischregime. These
questionable categories are particularlyproblematic in a book claiming to be,
as the subtitle states, about the "genesis of modem German political thought."
An additionalproblemwith the book is its lack of engagement with the
existing scholarly literature.Except for the works of Klaus Epstein and Franz
Valjavec, Beiser cites virtually nothing written after the 1930s. Had he
consideredthe writingsof Karlvon Aretin,HenriBrunschwig,LeonardKrieger,
Reinhart Koselleck, or Rudolf Vierhaus-to name just a few-he might have
avoided wasting his time attacking old, long-refuted ideas, such as the notion
that German thinkers of the 1790s were fundamentallyapolitical, and placed
his excellent detailed analyses in a broader scholarly context.
JONATHAN SPERBER, Universityof Missouri,Columbia
Azade Seyhan. Representationand its Discontents. The Critical Legacy of
GermanRomanticism.Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1992. Pp. 187.
Cloth $35.00. Paper $16.00.
In her book on the criticallegacyof early GermanRomanticism,Azade
Seyhan sets herself a twofold task: first, to remind the readerof the prehistory
of the more recent crisis of representationin the humanities, and secondly, to
demonstratethat the Romantics'preoccupationwith representationconstitutes
the characteristicmode and temperof modernity.Seyhan suggests that in early
German Romanticism philosophy and literaturebecame inextricablybound up
with each other. Intensifying Kant's and Fichte's search for the ultimate
foundationof knowledge, FriedrichSchlegel and Novalis were led to focus their
attention on the nature of representation (Vorstellung,Darstellung). Since,
according to Kant, the powers of the mind fail when confronted with the idea
of infinity, the Romantics replaced the activity of the understanding(Verstand)
with the free play of the imagination. Representationalknowledge, which had
been based on the correspondencetheory of truth,has become a question of the
free play of art.
Throughout her study Seyhan juxtaposes the Romantics' conceptual
and literaryvocabularywith currentconcernsin literarystudies."Representation
and History,"for example, demonstrates in a manner reminiscent of Hayden
White or Michel de Certeau how the Romantics' understandingof time and
historyrejectstraditionalconceptions of representingthe past as present.On the
level of rhetoric, the notion of temporality figures prominently in the "twin
tropes of Romantic writing: allegory and irony"(67). Making use of Paul de

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