Jena 1800

"An exhilarating account of a remarkable historical moment, in which characters known to many of us as immutable icons are rendered as vital, passionate, fallible beings . . . Lively, precise, and accessible." -Claire Messud, Harper's

Around the turn of the nineteenth century, a steady stream of young German poets and thinkers coursed to the town of Jena to make history. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had dealt a one-two punch to the dynastic system. Confidence in traditional social, political, and religious norms had been replaced by a profound uncertainty that was as terrifying for some as it was exhilarating for others. Nowhere was the excitement more palpable than among the extraordinary group of poets, philosophers, translators, and socialites who gathered in this Thuringian village of just four thousand residents.

Jena became the place for the young and intellectually curious, the site of a new departure, of philosophical disruption. Influenced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, then an elder statesman and artistic eminence, the leading figures among the disruptors-the translator August Wilhelm Schlegel; the philosophers Friedrich "Fritz" Schlegel and Friedrich Schelling; the dazzling, controversial intellectual Caroline Schlegel, married to August; Dorothea Schlegel, a poet and translator, married to Fritz; and the poets Ludwig Tieck and Novalis-resolved to rethink the world, to establish a republic of free spirits. They didn't just question inherited societal traditions; with their provocative views of the individual and of nature, they revolutionized our understanding of freedom and reality.

With wit and elegance, Peter Neumann brings this remarkable circle of friends and rivals to life in Jena 1800, a work of intellectual history that is colorful and passionate, informative and intimate-as fresh and full of surprises as its subjects.

The Morning After 3

PART I: The Unfinished Revolution
A Philosophy Takes the Continent by Storm
Venturing into Freedom: Madame Böhmer Dips Her Toe into the Revolution
Best Regards, Your Outside World: Fichte, Schelling, and the I
Much Ado: The Era Onstage
The Dresden Pause for Artistic Effect: In the Arms of the Madonna

PART II: The Gift of a Year
The Most Beautiful Chaos: Lucinde, or the Audacity of Love
The Imagined Subject: Fichte Before the Law
Helping Hands: To the Moon and Back
To Schlegel or to Be Schlegeled: Literary Devilries
The Old Man from the Mountain: In Paradise with Goethe
Intermezzo: A Century Deferred
History Is Made: Schiller and the Storming of the Salana
Vexing the Evangelists: Novalis and the Religion of the Future
Rulers Without a Realm: The Family of Glorious Outlaws

PART III: Restless World Spirit
Gardeners and Scholars: Speculations over the Abyss
Leaden Times: Schelling Under Fire
Hegel and the Nutcrackers: Philosophy Is Not for Mindless Munching
Kant in Fifteen Minutes: Germaine de Staël Extends an Invitation
Clearing New Ground: In the Mine of Poetry

The Night Before

Life Paths: What Became of Them
Chronology
Notes
Bibliography
Index