German Literary Salons 1770-1830

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Gerhart Hoffmeister (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.2: German-language Writing and Culture: Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, 800-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Domains

Organisations and institutions (arts& culture)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1770-1830

Places

Austria (Location)
Germany (Location)

Resources

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Recommended Reading

Although the term

salon

was not applied to literary assemblies until the early nineteenth century (Madame de Staël, 1807), actual meetings of the elite of society for the purpose of intellectual exchange have been a cultural phenomenon of significance in Europe since the Renaissance, with prototypes going back to Pericles’ times (Aspasia’s circle, ca. 440 B.C.). Baldassare Castiglione (1498-1529) memorialized the regular assemblies attended by the nobility and the intelligentsia at the court of Federico da Montefeltre at Urbino in his famous book

Il Cortegiano

[

The Gentleman

, 1518], a manual that sets forth norms of courtesy to be observed in cultured society. Among the Renaissance precursors of the later salons proper are the Neoplatonic Academy in Florence (1459), the studio of…

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1650 words

Citation: Hoffmeister, Gerhart. "German Literary Salons 1770-1830". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 February 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1713, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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