Ethereal romanticism : dynamic materiality in German thought in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation investigates how new scientific developments around the concept of "aether" changed the way German Romantic writers conceived of humans' interactions with nature and how literature and poetic forms are transformed through such changes. From Greek mythology and presocratic theories of nature through Newton's hypothetical space-filling medium to the nineteenth-century electromagnetic and field theories and the emergence of wireless technologies in the twentieth century, aether was one of the most indispensable yet elusive concepts in the history of science. Literary and cultural scholars have usually considered the occult aspects of the term as being most relevant to literary and intellectual history. This dissertation argues instead that Schelling, Hölderlin, Novalis, and Jean Paul Richter use ancient and contemporaneous theories of the fluid, chemical, magnetic, and vibratory interactions of aether to develop materialist conceptions of the human mind and poetry as well as proto-ecological modes of writing. In their scientific and literary thought experiments that center around aether, these writers appeal to nonhuman models, including mythological figures associated with waves of all sorts (light, water, and sound), animals such as the South American electric eel that can discharge electricity in water, and instruments such as the Aeolian harp, which is played by the wind. These experimental poetics with temporary and fluid forms, in turn, help Romantic writers develop dynamic and performative conceptions of matter and non-anthropocentric understandings of the relationship between humans and their environment. This project contributes to the growing scholarship on the relationship between literature and science in German Romanticism and engages in a productive dialogue with contemporary new materialist theories and ecocriticism.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2023; ©2023 |
| Publication date | 2023; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Deniz, Meryem |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Smith, Matthew Wilson |
| Thesis advisor | Smith, Matthew Wilson |
| Thesis advisor | Daub, Adrian |
| Thesis advisor | Eshel, Amir |
| Thesis advisor | Nightingale, Andrea Wilson |
| Degree committee member | Daub, Adrian |
| Degree committee member | Eshel, Amir |
| Degree committee member | Nightingale, Andrea Wilson |
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Humanities and Sciences |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of German Studies |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Meryem Deniz. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of German Studies. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/ms995pw6569 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2023 by Meryem Deniz
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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