Gefühlskultur in der bürgerlichen Aufklärung

In the second half of the 18th century, the aesthetics of sensibility was the motivation for organized opposition to the 'cold' rationalism bound up with the name of Johann Christoph Gottsched. With recourse both to ancient and humanistic concepts of love, friendship, and sensibility and to medical and anthropological theorems on sensualism, there developed after 1740 a body of writings that have traditionally been designated as representing a 'culture of sensibility' referred to in German as Empfindsamkeit. In 14 studies, the contributors to this collection investigate the concepts behind the phenomenon of 'feeling-oriented' sociability, discuss examples from different literary genres, and engage with the contemporary reception accorded to the culture of sensibility.