Epoch (literature)
A literary epoch is a stage in literary history . The name comes from the Greek word epoché , which means "cut". The idea of literary epochs is based on the assumption that it can make sense heuristically for works that fall in a common period of time to be formatted by certain “separating events” or “epoch thresholds” ( Hans Blumenberg ) (for example, Goethe's work “after Schiller's death “) And have similar stylistic and formal characteristics to give an underlying common ordering principle.
Questions about the designation, assignment of works and timing
One difficulty is a chicken and egg problem that arises in the selection of the material: Do you assign authors to an epoch because they are representative of the “spirit of the time” and not exactly original, or do you already have a concept of an epoch in Head, and then has appropriately selected authors represent them? What can be “representative” if minority literature is always excluded through the formation of canons?
The theoretical origin of the epoch terms is very different: from the history of religion ( Reformation , Counter-Reformation ), from political history ( Restoration , Vormärz , Wilhelminian style ), from art history ( Baroque , Biedermeier , Expressionism , Art Nouveau , New Objectivity ); Derivations of people (especially in the Anglophone world: Elizabethan , Victorian literature; but also: Goethe time ; "Post-Hegel's death"), contain an implicit value judgment ( aestheticism , mannerism , Biedermeier, decadence ), or arise through relativization of already existing epoch terms ( Postmodern ).
Several of these terms can compete for a single period (for example Art Nouveau and Impressionism ); conversely, a term can encompass several periods of time (for example Mannerism can be seen as the final form of the baroque or as the end of the realistic narrative tradition at the beginning of the 20th century). Different cultures can designate different periods of time with apparently epochs of the same name (the restauration age in Great Britain lasts until the 18th century, while in the German-speaking area the restoration period ends in 1688). The term Renaissance also describes a cultural development that encompasses all of Europe (and America) actually includes all artistic, social and economic areas. The situation is different with the term baroque, which originally meant a style designation in architecture and the visual arts, but was eventually transferred to other arts as well. Enlightenment refers to a development based on the history of ideas, especially a philosophical one.
Epoch terms can represent timeless criteria and at the same time denote a fixed historical section (this is how Hesse's prose is called (new) romantic; however, romanticism in the narrower sense only refers to literature from 1790 to 1830). A distinction must be made between epochs that are characterized by the self-designation of contemporaries (programmatic epochs such as Expressionism) or that arose through subsequent reflections on the history of literature (such as the Baroque); here one has to distinguish between epoch and "epoch consciousness" ( Reinhart Koselleck ).
A difficult problem for research is the time limit of an epoch, its duration. What criteria can be used to determine when, for example, the Baroque era ends and the Enlightenment begins? It is important to find out whether established norms or literary conventions are losing their influence at a certain point in time or whether they are clearly broken with and thus something new arises from this break that also becomes the norm again. These changes do not necessarily have to be of an aesthetic nature, but can be associated with a changed worldview or with political and economic developments.
Positions according to which there is a certain naturally necessary development process of the epochs (e.g. the scheme Baroque - Enlightenment - Classical - Romantic ; or Ernst Robert Curtius ' thesis that epochs of Classical and Mannerism replaced each other again and again) are no longer represented .
Deterministic history steleologies
Deterministic historical steleologies, which were also applied to literature, had an impact that should not be underestimated, especially in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
According to the statement, cultural developments are becoming more short-lived; The national, the social and the religious give them strength above all in Germany. Counter-movements follow each epoch climax - a very tangible example of how the history of the epoch makes political statements. Out: Dr. E. Brenner, Deutsche Literaturgeschichte , 13th edition, 122–131. Thousand. With a colored supplement (Wunsiedel / Wels / Zurich, 1952).
Features of the epochs of German literary history
Up to modern times
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epoch |
background |
Motives of the artist |
Stylistic features of the epoch |
Representative |
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Early middle ages750-1050 |
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High Middle Ages1050-1250 |
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Late Middle Ages1250-1470 |
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Humanism and renaissance1470-1600 |
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reformation1517-1648 |
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Baroque1600-1720 |
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enlightenment1720-1800 |
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sensitivity1740-1790 |
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storm and stress1765-1785 |
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Lyric:
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Weimar Classic1786-1805 |
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romance1793-1848 |
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Biedermeier1815-1848 |
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Young Germany and Vormärz1825-1848 |
For historical information, see Biedermeier |
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realism1850-1890 |
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From the modern age
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epoch |
background |
Motives of the artist |
Stylistic features of the epoch |
Representative |
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naturalism1880-1900 |
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Heimatkunst / Impressionism1890-1910 |
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Modern1890-1920 |
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expressionism1910-1925 |
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Avant-garde / Dadaism1915-1925 Futurism, Dadaism and Surrealism (according to Peter Bürger ) understood themselves as avant-garde movements . |
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Literature of the Weimar Republic1918-1933 |
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Literature in the time of National Socialism , exile literature and internal emigration1933-1945 |
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Post-war literature / rubble literature1945–1960 / 1990 |
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Literature of the FRG1950-1990 |
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Advanced literature (only in the GDR)1950-1960 |
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Arrival literature (only in the GDR)1960-1971 |
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New subjectivitysince 1970 |
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Postmodern / contemporary literaturesince 1980 |
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literature
- Reinhart Herzog , Reinhart Koselleck (ed.): Epoch threshold and epoch consciousness (= poetics and hermeneutics. Vol. 12). Fink, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-7705-2390-3 .
- Reinhart Koselleck: Past future. On the semantics of historical times, 2nd edition. (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft. 757). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-518-28357-X .
- Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht , Ursula Link-Heer (ed.): Epoch thresholds and epoch structures in the discourse of literature and language history (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft. 486). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-28086-4 .
- Klaus-Michael Bogdal , Kai Kauffmann, Georg Mein : BA German studies. A textbook (= Rororo 55682 Rowohlt's Encyclopedia ). Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-55682-1 , pp. 66-69 (introduction).
- Stefan Sonderegger : Old High German Language and Literature. An introduction to the oldest German. Presentation and grammar. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-017288-7 .
- Eckhard Meineke, Judith Schwerdt: Introduction to Old High German . Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2001. ISBN 3-506-97006-2 (UTB ISBN 3-8252-2167-9 ).
- Eric Achermann : Epoch names and epoch terms - prolegomena to an epoch theory. In: Zeitwende - German studies on the way from the 20th to the 21st century. Files of the X. International Germanist Congress Vienna 2000. Ed. By Peter Wiesinger . Vol. 6. Epoch terms. Limits and possibilities . Supervised by Uwe Japp , Ryozo Maeda and Helmut Pfotenhauer . (= Yearbook for International German Studies . Series A. Congress reports. Vol. 58). Lang, Bern 2002, pp. 19–24.
- Eric Achermann: Do eras exist? In: Epochs . Edited by Peter Strohschneider and Friedrich Vollhardt . In: Mitteilungen des Deutschen Germanistenverbandes 49/3 (2002), pp. 222–239.
Web links
- Literature epochs from the Middle Ages to post-war literature.
- All literary epochs from the baroque to the present.
- Interactive overview from the baroque to the present.
- Overview of German literary epochs from the Renaissance to post-war literature.
- Olaf Simons: The Mechanics of Epochs, Visual Literary History (1) ( Memento from April 28, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )