Cosiness

Coziness , pronunciation ^{? / i} derived from mind , is a subjectively felt state of well-being, triggered by subjectively determined material reinforcers and / or situations. The word Gemütlichkeit is also used in English and French ( la Gemütlichkeit ). The opposite term is 'uncomfortable'.

Cosiness characterizes a person-friendly, warm atmosphere and environment in which one feels comfortable. It is characterized by balance , security, freedom from conflict and carelessness. It brings calm to the hectic pace. Coziness doesn’t tolerate excitement, arguments, or worry. It is also incompatible with simultaneous hard work, which can lead to comfort, but is not itself. In art, the depiction of comfort or freedom from conflict can appear kitschy .

etymology

The term cosiness initially meant "full of mind". The Moravians used the term in their writings at the beginning of the 18th century to mean cordiality . It got a new meaning in the Biedermeier period ; During this phase, comfort became a fashionable term in the sense of comfort , but critics such as Joseph Görres also brought it into connection with nationalism and German foolishness . Cosiness therefore also got a negative connotation in the sense of indolence and lack of courage .

Many intellectuals also criticize the coziness as an example of a deceptive idyll. In literary works, such as by Ödön von Horváth ( Stories from the Vienna Woods ) and Helmut Qualtinger ( Der Herr Karl ), the typical “ Viennese cosiness” was unmasked as lying and underhanded.

The writer Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807-1887) spoke in his two-volume work Auch Eine (written in the 1850s) disparagingly of the "Vettermichelsgemütlichkeit".

Only in Danish and Norwegian does “hyggelig” have a roughly analogous term to German “cozy”.

Others

The drinking song A toast to cosiness - it is often played or sung at Oktoberfest - has helped spread the term internationally.

Well known in the German-speaking world is the song Probier's mal mit Gemütlichkeit from the Walt Disney film The Jungle Book . The phrase became a catchphrase ; the song was covered several times.

In 1973 an English tourist sued his tour operator because his package tour to the Swiss Alps did not include the 'comfort' announced in the advertising brochure. The case is known in the UK as "Jarvis v Swans Tours Ltd".

See also

• The cozy ones
• Quality time
• Try coziness
• The cozy Saxons
• Deadline - No more cozy

literature

• Brigitta Schmidt-Lauber: Comfort. A cultural studies approach . Campus, Frankfurt am Main and New York 2003, ISBN 3-593-37363-7 .
• Klaus Heinrich : Gemütlichkeit , in: German keywords. Notes and Essays, ed. v. Horst Kurnitzky and Marion Schmid, Frankfurt / Main 1984, pp. 47-53. ISBN 3-8015-0197-3
• Peter Melichar : Comfort or the will to abstraction , in: Memoria Austriae, ed. v. Ernst Bruckmüller, Emil Brix and Hannes Stekl, Vol. 1, Vienna 2004, pp. 271-300. ISBN 3-486-56838-8

Web links

Wiktionary: Gemütlichkeit  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ^ Adolf Storfer, Words and Their Fates, Berlin 1935, p. 153 f.
2. ↑ More details in the English Wikipedia: Jarvis v Swans Tours Ltd (English)