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The life of the gentry is one long Sunday, they live in fine houses, wear elegant clothes, have over-fed faces and speak their own language; but the people lie before them like dung in the fields. Behind the plough go the peasants, but behind the peasants go the gentry, driving them onThe Hessian Messenger 1834
What Was the Enlightenment? The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in Europe during the 18th century that led to a whole new world view.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT • During the 18th century, certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to enlighten them. Voltaire Rousseau Locke Diderot
Enlightenment Thinkers • These thinkers believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world.
According to the 18th- century philosopher Immanuel Kant, the “motto” of the Enlightenment was “Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own intelligence!” (Kant, “What Is Enlightenment?” 1784) Immanuel Kant
The Scientific Revolution The Enlightenment grew largely out of the new methods and discoveries achieved in the Scientific Revolution The equatorial armillary, used for navigation on ships
Enlightenment Principles • Religion, tradition, and superstition limited independent thought • Accept knowledge based on observation, logic, and reason, not on faith • Scientific and academic thought should be secular A meeting of French Enlightenment thinkers
The Declaration of theRights of Man • Adopted by National Assembly in 1789 • “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”
Middle Class Resentment • The middle classes--the bourgeoisie--were painfully aware that they were paying taxes to support a fabulously expensive aristocracy which contributed nothing of value to society.
Impoverished Masses • They were to find ready allies in France among the impoverished masses who realized that they were paying higher and higher taxes to support the lifestyle of the idle rich at Versailles.
Heritage of the Enlightenment • Today the Enlightenment is often viewed as a historical anomaly – a brief moment when a number of thinkers infatuated with reason vainly supposed that the perfect society could be built on common sense and tolerance, a fantasy which collapsed amid the Terror of the French Revolution and the triumphal sweep of Romanticism.
Heritage of the Enlightenment (2) • Religious thinkers repeatedly proclaim the Enlightenment dead. • Marxists denounce it for promoting the ideals and power of the bourgeoisie at the expense of the working classes. • Postcolonial critics reject its idealization of specifically European notions as universal truths.
Neoclassic Ideals • Neoclassical Ideals dictated how plays were written and produced • All drama must teach a moral lesson • Unities • Unity of Time • Dramatic action should not exceed 24 hours • Unity of Place • One location only • Unity of Action • One central story – no subplots • Decorum • All characters should behave in ways based on their gender, age, profession, social status • Verisimilitude • All drama must be “true to life” • NO ghosts, apparitions, or supernatural, fantastical events or things • Genres • Tragedy only about royalty • Must end badly/tragically • Comedy only about common people • Must end happily • NEVER mix comic elements and tragic elements
Romanticism • “Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.” Georges Sand • “It is emotion recollected in tranquility.” William Wordsworth
Romanticism • Stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror, and the awe experienced in confronting the sublimity of nature • Rejected the neoclassical rules • Actually they rejected all artistic rules, suggesting that genius creates its own rules • More interested in creating mood and atmosphere than developing believable plots or depth of character • Did not believe in purity of genre • Considered all subject matter appropriate for the stage • Patriotism, nationalism, revolution and armed struggle for independence became popular themes in the arts of this period • Romantic hero was frequently a social outcast who quested for justice, knowledge, and truth
Romanticism in Art • Music • Ludwig van Beethoven • Frederic Chopin • Literature • Edgar Allan Poe • Nathaniel Hawthorne • Emily Dickinson • Lord Byron Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya
Romanticism • Spontaneous personal emotion and its expression; irrationality • History and nostalgia for the past • Death, mystery, the supernatural • Exoticism and celebration of romantic love • Enthusiasm for nature • Artist as individual • - free spirits, apart from the masses • - no longer craftsmen serving society but free spirits expressing their own souls with a genius not granted to the common run of humanity
Francisco Goya Dona Teresa Sureda c. 1805 (110 kB); Oil on canvas, 119.8 x 79.4 cm (47 1/8 x 31 1/4 in); National Gallery of Art, Washington
William Blake Pity, 1795
William Blake"I do not behold the outward creation... it is a hindrance and not action." The Whirlwind of Lovers c.1826 Birmingham Art Gallery
Theodore Gericault French (1791-1824) The Raft of the Medusa, 1819
Caspar David Friedrich German (1774-1840) The Cross on the Mountain Kunstmuseum at Dusseldorf
Caspar David Friedrich German (1774-1840) Morning 1821; Oil on canvas, 22 x 30.5 cm; Niedersachsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover
18th –19th c. German Romantic Theatre • “Stürm und Drang” • Looked to Shakespeare for models • Sweeping historical and tragic dramas • Began to emphasize historical accuracy in costumes and settings • Improved theatrical effects -- footlights, revolving stages, theatrical machinery • Goethe and Schiller
Lift up your eyes and count the tiny number of your oppressors, who are strong only because of the blood they suck from you, and because you submissively lend them the strength of your arm... I say unto you: he that raises the sword against the people shall perish through the sword of the people. Germany today is a place of carnage: soon it will be a paradise. The German people are one body, you are a limb of that body. It matters not which part of the seeming corpse first begins to twitch. When the Lord gives you a sign through the men whom he uses to lead the peoples from servitude to freedom, then rise up, and the entire body will rise again with you.The Hessian Messenger 1834
Woyzeck: ... Morality don’t get much of a look in when our sort gets made. We’re flesh and blood after all. Us lot don’t have a chance in this world or the next; if we ever got to heaven I reckon we’d have to help with the thunder... If I was a gent with an ‘at and a watch and a nice smart coat and could talk all posh, I’d be virtuous alright. Must be a nice thing, sir, virtue.
GEORG BÜCHNER • Born 1813 in Goddelau, Hesse • 1831 - Studies medicine in Strasbourg - suffers from menengitis • Becomes politically engaged whilst at college • 1834 - writes Hessian Messenger • 1835 - Danton’s Death • 1836 Lectures on Cranial Nerves and begins Woyzeck • Dies 1837 in Zürich of Typhus. • 1879 - Woyzeck Published • 1913 - First performance of Woyzeck
Woyzeck: Doctor, have you ever caught sight of the other side of nature? Sometimes when the sun’s up high in the middle of the day and it seems like the world is bursting into flames, this terrible voice starts taking to me. Doctor: Woyzeck, you’ve got an abberatio!... You’re an interesting case, Woyzeck, an interesting case. You’’ll be getting a bonus. Keep at it. Show me your pulse. Splendid!
The real Woyzeck? • 1830 - Johann Diess murders Christiane Reuter • Diess visits inn, takes victim for walk in country, returns later for knife • Involvement of army officer/child born out of wedlock
The real Woyzeck? • 1821 - Johann Christian Woyzeck (ex-wigmaker) Kills Johanna Christian Woost. • Victim suspected of infidelity, involvement of a drum major, repeated stabbing of victim • Real Woyzeck heard voices • Believed Freemasons were after him
Woyzeck: A sin so big and fat. It stinks enough to drive the angels out of heaven. Such a red mouth, Marie. No blisters on it? Goodbye, Marie, you’re as beautiful as sin. Can mortal sin be so beautiful?
The real Woyzeck? • Legal question - was the perpetrator of sound mind? • Buchner asks are people truly in control of their actions? • Are we driven by inner compulsions or outside circumstances?
Policeman: A good murder, a proper murder, a lovely murder, as lovely a murder as anyone could wish, we’ve not had a murder like this for years.
Is it a play? • There is no complete version of the script • Three rough manuscripts exist all with different scene sequences • Buchner did not number the drafts or the pages • No title or list of characters • Several passages are smudged and impossible to read
