Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: History Is Personal
- Prologue: Original Attributes, 425 B.C.–A.D. 1765
- I L'Âge des Ombres, 1765–1790s
- II Textual Salvation from Social Degeneration, 1790s–1808
- 3 Hindu Predecessors of Christ: Novalis's Shakuntala
- 4 Reconcilable Indifferences: Schelling and the Gitagovinda
- 5 Fear of Infinity: Friedrich Schlegel's Indictment of Indian Religion
- III Alternate Idealizations, 1807–1885
- Epilogue: Destinies Reconsidered, 1885–2004
- Conclusion: The Intersection of the Personal, the Philosophical, and the Political
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Hindu Predecessors of Christ: Novalis's Shakuntala
from II - Textual Salvation from Social Degeneration, 1790s–1808
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: History Is Personal
- Prologue: Original Attributes, 425 B.C.–A.D. 1765
- I L'Âge des Ombres, 1765–1790s
- II Textual Salvation from Social Degeneration, 1790s–1808
- 3 Hindu Predecessors of Christ: Novalis's Shakuntala
- 4 Reconcilable Indifferences: Schelling and the Gitagovinda
- 5 Fear of Infinity: Friedrich Schlegel's Indictment of Indian Religion
- III Alternate Idealizations, 1807–1885
- Epilogue: Destinies Reconsidered, 1885–2004
- Conclusion: The Intersection of the Personal, the Philosophical, and the Political
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The counter-Enlightenment that set in immediately after the French Revolution grounded a critique of modernity that has since branched off in different directions. Their common denominator is the conviction that loss of meaning, anomie, and alienation — the pathologies of bourgeois society, indeed of post-traditional society generally — can be traced back to the rationalization of the lifeworld itself.
— Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action (1981)Jena's Indophilia and European Translations of Abhijñānaśākuntalam
YOUNG INTELLECTUALS THROUGHOUT EUROPE enthusiastically greeted the French overthrow of absolutism in 1789. The political upheaval seemed to provide, among other things, for an additional stimulus to accelerate the ongoing drive toward emancipation from all conventional rules in the arts. Many German critics and poets agreed that mechanical rules such as the Aristotelian unities in drama, which the Elizabethans had cast aside in the late sixteenth century, stifled creativity. Inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, young German writers would attempt to develop new forms that embodied the issues of their generation. The Early German Romantics' subsequent rejection of Robespierre's terror following the revolution did not distract them from their task of regenerating literature, society, and religion. After the influences of the Sturm und Drang, Fichtean idealism, and developments in Indian studies that we have discussed, the political events of the period influenced the core convictions and poetic manifestations of the Romantic Movement: the French Revolution (1789–99), Napoleon's conquest of Germany (1806), and his fall from power as certified at the Congress of Vienna (1815).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Indo-German IdentificationReconciling South Asian Origins and European Destinies, 1765–1885, pp. 75 - 88Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010