Clio the Romantic Muse: Historicizing the Faculties in Germany by Theodore Ziolkowski (review)
2006; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 101; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mlr.2006.0287
ISSN2222-4319
Autores Resumo282 Reviews readers, including feminist critics, with food for thought. The book's unwillingness to engage gender theories can be argued with, but it does pose the question whether scholarship on images of femininity is well served by the formulaic dichotomies that have tended to define so much of it. Readers who believe that the business of scholar? ship is to raise questions rather than answer them, to complicate matters rather than resolve complications, will find Kollmann's study accomplishing both. University College London Susanne Kord Clio theRomantic Muse: Historicizing theFaculties in Germany. By Theodore Ziolkowski . Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press. 2004. xii + 215 pp. $35; ?20.50. ISBN 0-8014-4202-8. Clio theRomantic Muse completes Theodore Ziolkowski's tetralogy of books on Ger? man Romanticism. Like its forerunners, German Romanticism and its Institutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), Das Wunderjahr injena (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1998), and Berlin: Aufstieg einer kulturellen Metropole um 1810 (Stutt? gart: Klett-Cotta, 2002), it is remarkably well informed and highly readable, and it casts new light on Romanticism; for that movement is seen from a new and reveal? ing perspective. Ziolkowski subtly examines the four traditional university faculties with particular regard to the new University of Berlin, founded in 1810, which soon became the model for higher education in Germany, and not only in Germany. He emphasizes that in each faculty a new approach was pioneered by leading scholars, all of whom historicized their work. The historical foundations were laid by Barthold Georg Niebuhr, not a professional scholar, in his path-breaking lectures on Roman history. For the firsttime a scholar sought to base his work on the close study of the documents of the relevant period and not merely produce an elegant, even powerful, account, as Voltaire, Hume, and Gibbon, for instance, had done. But Niebuhr's work was also suffused by his aware? ness of the crisis that affected Europe once the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution as well as the new conception of the distinct nature of German culture had made their mark. The ground for the new thinking had been laid by Herder, Fichte, and some other writers. First Ziolkowski concentrates on philosophy. Although not ignoring Fichte and Schelling, he writes at length about Hegel, in his time the most influential philosopher in the University of Berlin. By a remarkable tour de force he provides a lucid, readable account of that most difficultphilosophical work, Hegel's Phanomenologie des Geistes, and emphasizes its impact on later philosophical writings, which has been substantial, even if it never became the only or even the dominant force in philosophy. Whether the consequences of Hegelianismhave always been healthy and whether Hegel's style need have been so impenetrable are, of course, matters of dispute, to say the least. In theology, Schleiermacher's Uber die Religion (1799) is analysed in detail as the striking example of the approach which changed the nature of Protestant theology. For Rudolf Haym, a fine nineteenth-century literary historian, it was 'the true manifesto of Romanticism'. In law, Friedrich Karl von Savigny is the pivotal figure. Law in German was in a rather chaotic state. Savigny's historical approach, culminating in his Geschichte des Romischen Rechts im Mittelalter (1815-31) and his other writings, changed the intellectual scene. 'Naturphilosophie' as advocated by Schelling and the interest aroused in various sciences such as biology, physiology, morphology, and pathology enticed medicine, the fourth faculty,away from the mechanical approach and brought together the separately practised branches ofmedicine, clinical medicine, surgery, and obstetrics, creating the modern view that the whole human personality has to be understood ifhealing is to be effective. MLR, 101.1, 2006 283 In his conclusion, Ziolkowski shows how the Romantics, prompted by the crisis of their age, looked at the world in a new way and used a historical approach to counter its dangers. Considering their response could help us to cope with our present-day global problems. Regrettably, no brief summary can do justice to this valuable and learned book. University of Bristol Hans Reiss Eichendorff: Der Dichter in seiner Zeit. Eine Biographie. By Gunther Schiwy. Mu? nich: Beck. 2000. 760 pp. ?101.50. ISBN...
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