Genius aesthetics

The literary term genius aesthetics describes a certain, historically locatable attitude to literary and artistic discourse around the concepts of authorship and artistry . Descriptions of genius aesthetics consider the creative author or artist as an independent subject who rules over his work. They were particularly popular in the literary epoch of Sturm und Drang (also genius period or genius period , approx. 1767–1785), in which the concept of the original genius emerged as a paradigm of the primordial and independently creative man. An original genius was a writer or artist who, independently of cultural traditions , referred to nature in a direct and subjective way and recreated it ( William Shakespeare , then rediscovered, was considered to be the prototype of this model of artistry , although he mainly drew his material from history) .

The aesthetic of genius is to be thought of as a countermovement to the baroque and classicist rule poetics , which provided rules and practical information on the production of art as well as fixed, timeless standards for the assessment of artistic works: In the 1770s, rule poetics was in the form of Johann Christoph Gottsched's attempt at a critical one Poetry before the Germans (1730) influential. The aesthetic discourse of Sturm und Drangs had a particular effect on literary romanticism and modernism ; Genius aesthetic ideas can still be found today, although the term genius , which is used today, is related to genius aesthetics, but not to be used synonymously.

As a countermovement to the Baroque , the aesthetic of genius has a general cultural connection to the pre-classical music , which developed further in music from around 1780 to the Viennese classic and in literature around 1800 to the Weimar classic .

literature

• Günter Peters: The torn angel. Aesthetics of Genius and Literary Self-Expression in the Eighteenth Century . Metzler, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-476-00501-1 .
• Jochen Schmidt: The history of the genius idea in German literature, philosophy and politics 1750-1945 . Winter, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-8253-1700-5 .
• Christina Juliane Fleck: Genius and Truth . Tectum-Verl., Marburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-8288-9075-6 .