German Romanticism

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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German Romanticism (1790s-1850) was at the center of a worldwide renewal movement that affected national literatures from central Europe to North and Latin America and profoundly altered the worldview and even the lifestyle of the people. Among leading intellectuals in various disciplines who received lasting impulses from Romanticism are Karl Marx (

Das kommunistische Manifest

, 1848, with Friedrich Engels); Richard Wagner (1813-83); the lawyer Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779-1861); and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). It is hardly feasible to present an all-encompassing definition of Romanticism in all its different manifestations at diverse times and places, be they regional, national, or international. Many definitions and explanations have been proposed, but none has been universally…

3918 words

Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "German Romanticism". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 December 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1353, accessed 03 October 2024.]

1353 German Romanticism 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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