Research Catalog
Pretexts for writing : German Romantic prefaces, literature, and philosophy
- Title
- Pretexts for writing : German Romantic prefaces, literature, and philosophy / Seán M. Williams.
- Author
- Williams, Seán M. (Seán Martin), 1985-
- Publication
- Lewisburg, Pennsylvania : Bucknell University Press, [2019]
- ©2019
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 19-6248 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- xi, 261 pages; 23 cm.
- Summary
- "Around 1800, print culture became a particularly rich source for metaphors about thinking as well as writing, nowhere more so than in the German tradition of Dichter und Denker. Goethe, Jean Paul, and Hegel (among many others) used the preface in order to reflect on the problems of writing itself, and its interpretation. If Sterne teaches us that a material book enables mind games as much as it gives expression to them, the Germans made these games more theoretical still. Weaving in authors from Antiquity to Agamben, Williams shows how European-and, above all, German-Romanticism was a watershed in the history of the preface. The playful, paradoxical strategies that Romantic writers invented are later played out in continental philosophy, and in post-Structuralist literature. The preface is a prompt for playful thinking with texts, as much as it is conventionally the prosaic product of such an exercise"--
- "In this incisive, original book, S. Williams reads prefaces to German literature and philosophy around 1800 as pretexts for writing, examining three of the most remarkable preface-writers of that era--Goethe, Jean Paul, and Hegel--in the contexts not only of German, but also European print culture, thought, and literature"--
- Series Statement
- New studies in the age of Goethe
- Uniform Title
- New studies in the age of Goethe.
- Subjects
- German literature
- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832
- Prefaces
- Jean Paul, 1763-1825
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831 > Criticism and interpretation
- LITERARY CRITICISM / European / German
- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832 > Criticism and interpretation
- LITERARY CRITICISM / Gothic & Romance
- Criticism, interpretation, etc
- 1700-1799
- Prefaces > History and criticism
- German literature > 18th century > History and criticism
- Jean Paul, 1763-1825 > Criticism and interpretation
- PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics
- Genre/Form
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-253) and index.
- Contents
- Introduction: What prefaces are not : pedantic notes -- Chapter 1. Goethe : a playful and resistive set of preface strategies -- Chapter 2. Jean Paul: autoprefacing -- Chapter 3. Hegel : prefatorial polemic becomes philosophy.
- Call Number
- JFE 19-6248
- ISBN
- 9781684480531
- 1684480531
- 9781684480524
- 1684480523
- LCCN
- 2018030779
- OCLC
- 1038489198
- Author
- Williams, Seán M. (Seán Martin), 1985- author.
- Title
- Pretexts for writing : German Romantic prefaces, literature, and philosophy / Seán M. Williams.
- Publisher
- Lewisburg, Pennsylvania : Bucknell University Press, [2019]
- Copyright Date
- ©2019
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- New studies in the age of GoetheNew studies in the age of Goethe.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-253) and index.
- Chronological Term
- 1700-1799
- Research Call Number
- JFE 19-6248