- Cf. H. H. Borcherdt, Schiller und die Romantiker, Stuttgart, 1948. pp. 5–10; Paul Kluckhohn, “Schillers Einfluß auf Novalis” (Euphorion) Dichtung und Volkstum, XXXV, 1934. F. Hiebel (Novalis, University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures, No. 10, Chapel Hill, 1954, pp. 39–41) suggests that the political ideas of the Aesthetic Letters influenced Novalis's political thought, but his argument is rather vague.
- Cf. W. Witte (“Law and the Social Order in Schiller's Thought,” Modern Language Review, L, 1955) who convincingly disposes of the contention that Schiller's political thinking is discontinuous.
- Cf. W. Witte, ibid.
- Cf. my article, “Kant and the Right of Rebellion,” Journal of the History of Ideas, XVII, 1956, for more detailed treatment of, and literature on, Kant's political thought.
- Kant was to some extent aware of these needs. Cf. for instance, H. J. Paton, “Kant on Friendship,” Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 42, 1956.
- Cf. Paul Böckmann (“Politik und Dichtung im Werk Friedrich Schillers” in Schiller Reden im Gedenkjahr 1955, Stuttgart, 1956, especially pp. 206 ff.) who discusses the tension between the human and political demands made upon an individual.
- Cf. Ilse Appelbaum-Graham, “Reflection as a Function of Form in Schiller's Tragic Poetry,” PEGS, N.S. XXIV, 1955.
- Cf. E. M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby (ed.), Kabale und Liebe, Oxford, 1944, and Cf. Ilse Appelbaum-Graham, “Passions and Possessions in Schillers' Kabale und Liebe,” German Life and Letters, N.S., VI, 1952.
- Ilse Appelbaum-Graham argues this point quite forcibly (“Reflection as a Function of Form,” ed. cit. p. 4 f.).
- Cf. André von Gronicka (“Friedrich Schiller's Marquis von Posa,” Germanic Review, XXVII, 1951) who makes precisely this point.
- Cf. Letter to the Prince of Augustenburg, 13 July, 1793 (Jonas, III, p. 329).
- The most detailed commentary is Wilhelm Böhm's, Schillers Briefe Uber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen, DVJS, Buchreihe n, Halle, 1927. It is not always sympathetic to Schiller, but contains a valuable summary of previous discussions of the treatise.
- Cf. L. A. Willoughby, “Schiller on Man's Education to Freedom through Knowledge,” Germanic Review, XXIX, 1955, p. 167.
- Cf. for instance R. Leroux, “Schiller Théoriticien d'Etat,” Revue Germanique, XXVIII, 1938.
- Schiller does not make it clear whether he is writing of historical or logical stages in the development of political life, but, in fact, his argument makes sense in whichever of the two ways it is interpreted.
- Letter to the Prince of Augustenburg, 13 July, 1793.
- Cf. Ilse Appelbaum-Graham (“Reflection as Function of Form” ed. cit. p. 12) who puts forward this view as if it were self-evident.
- But Cf. Melitta Gerhard chiller, Bern, 1950, especially pp. 240–67) who considers them to be identical.
- Cf. Ilse Appelbaum-Graham (“Reflection as Function of Form,” ed. cit. p. 6 f.) whose interpretation of Posa shows this.
- Cf. L. A. Willoughby, op. cit. p. 170. He continues: “The aesthetic experience can produce no single result, neither for the understanding nor for the will; it achieves no specific purpose neither intellectual nor moral. It establishes no single truth. It is, in short, for all these specific purposes a state of indifference and fruitfulness. And without knowledge and action no state can exist.” This, in fact, is the gist of L. A. Willoughby's article.
- Both L. A. Willoughby (op. cit. p. 173 f.) and Melitta Gerhard (op. cit. pp. 396 ff.) make this point.
- Cf. L. A. Willoughby, op. cit. p. 172.
- Cf. Ilse Appelbaum-Graham, “Reflection as Function of Form” ed. cit. p. 9 f.
- Briefe über Don Carlos, Letter VI (Schiller, Werke, ed. L. Bellermann, Leipzig and Vienna, n.d. p. 264).
- Cf. E. L. Stahl (Friedrich Schiller's Drama, Theory and Practice, Oxford, 1954, p. 36), who argues this: “Posa is a noble character, but he is also a tyrant in his dealings with the king.”
- To Goethe, 7 January, 1795.
- Cf. Friedrich Meinecke, Schiller und der Individualitätsgedanke, Leipzig, 1937.
- This term did not find Kant's approval, as his repudiation of Fichte shows (Kant, Werke, ed. E. Cassirer, Berlin, 1912–22, VIII, pp. 515–6).
- The standard work on Novalis's political thought is still Richard Samuel, Die poetische Staatsund Geschichtsauffassung des Friedrich von Hardenberg, Deutsche Forschungen 12, Frankfurt/Main, 1925.
- Cf. my The Political Thought of the German Romantics, Oxford, 1955, for literature on Romantic political thinkers. Of course, the organic theory of the state is not at all new. It goes back at least to Aristotle. Cf. G. Mure, “The organic theory of the state,” Philosophy, XXIV, London, 1949, for a sympathetic account of that theory. Alberth Th. van Krieken (Über die sogenannte organische Staatstheorie, Leipzig, 1873), gives a hostile account, while F. W. Coker (Organismic Theories of the State, New York, 1910) discusses later developments.
- Cf. Theodor Haering (Novalis als Philosoph, Tübingen, 1954, especially pp. 116 ff.) who adopts an almost eulogistic tone and R. Tymms (German Romantic Literature, 1795–1830, London, 1955) who flatly denies his originality as a thinker.
- Novalis, Werke, ed. E. Wasmuth, Berlin, 1943, III, pp. 617–8.
- As Heinrich Simon (Der magische Idealismus, Heidelberg, 1906), does.
- This is Theodor Haering's contention (op. cit. passim).
- Novalis, ed. cit. III, p. 330.
- Novalis, ibid., p. 118.
- Cf. Theodor Haering (op. cit. p. 234) who while appreciating Goethe's power of synthesis and his grasp of the interaction between mind and matter fails to see the difference between him and Novalis. He therefore mistakenly applies to Novalis the findings which, as he notes, E. M. Wilkinson has made in her article “Tasso—ein gesteigerter Werther im Licht von Goethes Prinzip der Steigerung. Ein Versuch zur Frage der kritischen Methode.” (Goethe, N.F. des Jahrbuchs der Goethe-Gesellschaft, XIII, 1951, Weimar, 1952, pp. 33 f.)
- Novalis, ed. cit. III p. 173.
- Novalis, ibid. p. 647.
- Novalis, ibid. p. 104.
- Novalis, ibid. p. 642.
- Novalis, ibid. p. 643.
Publications of the English Goethe Society
Volume 26, 1957 - Issue 1