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).