The Topography of Modernity

Front matter

Karl Philipp Moritz and the Space of Autonomy

Elliott Schreibe

THE TOPOGRAPHY or MODERNITY signale modern german letters, cultures, and thought

Part I The Spaces of Art and Myth

1. Toward an Aesthetics of the Sublime Augenblick: Moritz Reading Die Leiden des jungen Werthers 15

2. Beyond an Aesthetics of Containment: Trajectories of the Imagination in Moritz and Goethe 36

Part II The Spaces of Cognition and Education

3. Laying the Foundation for Independent Thought: Enlightenment Epistemology and Pedagogy 63

4. Thinking inside the Box: Moritz contra Philanthropism 81 Part III The Spaces of the Political and the Individual

5. Raising (and Razing) the Common House: Moritz and the

Ideology of Commonality 105 6. Pressing Matters: Moritz's Models of the Self in the Magazin zur

Erfahrungsseelenkunde 131 Conclusion: Moritz’s Inner- Worldly Critique of Modernity 154 Bibliography 161

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Title-page engraving by Harry John Penningh in Part 3 of Anton Reiser 4

2. Frontispiece in the museum catalog of Ole Worm 74

3. Engraving in Johann Bernhard Basedow’s

Elementarwerk, pl. 48 75 4. Engraving in Basedow’s Elementarwerk, pl. 8 77 5. First copperplate in the Kinderlogik 89 6. Fourth copperplate in the Kinderlogik 96 7. First field of the fifth copperplate in the Kinderlogik 127

8. Title-page engraving in Anton Friedrich Biisching’s Magazin fiir die neue Historie und Geographie 155

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is a book about institutions, and I am appreciative of the support of two in particular that have helped make it possible. The Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, provided substantial financial support for my research. Vassar College granted me a generous stipend through the Louise Boyd Dale Fund for Research Assistance that enabled me to complete the present book.

A number of people at both Indiana and Vassar have also been instrumental in the development of this project. Fritz Breithaupt, Andreas Michel, Bill Rasch, and Marc Weiner are remarkable teachers and mentors. I am particularly indebted to Fritz, not only for introducing me to Moritz, but also for his sustained engagement with this project, and his boundless critical acumen and generosity. Bill’s courses were pivotal intellectual experiences that helped lay the theoretical groundwork for this book. My work was also enriched through courses with Oscar Kenshur and through vibrant discussions in the Eighteenth-Century Reading Group, the precursor to the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University. I am grateful as well to friends from my graduate student days, many of whom are now valued colleagues in the profession.

At Vassar, I am fortunate to have such supportive colleagues in Silke von der Emde and Jeffrey Schneider. Along with Andrew Bush, Susan Hiner, Joshua Schreier, and Eva Woods, they gave me astute feedback on several portions of my manuscript. Both in and beyond her capacity as Director of Faculty Research Development, Maria Höhn has been a constant source of encouragement. An exceptional former student, Sasha H. Steinberg, assisted me with editing an earlier version of this manuscript, as well as with translating the German quotations into English.

This book has benefited greatly from numerous colleagues who have shared insightful comments on conference papers and articles that have grown out of it. These colleagues include Hans Adler, Eric Denton, Matt Erlin, Richard T. Gray, Jonathan Hess, Edgar Landgraf, Horst Lange, Christine Lehleiter, Karl-Heinz Maurer, Joseph O'Neil, Simon Richter, Patricia Anne Simpson, Jill Suzanne Smith, and Christian Weber. My fellow Moritz enthusiast, Anthony Krupp, has been an inspiring interlocutor over the years. I wish to thank him and David Wellbery for organizing and hosting a stimulating conference on Moritz at the University of Chicago in 2006.

My sincere thanks to Peter Uwe Hohendahl and the editorial board of Signale, and to the two anonymous readers of my manuscript for their incisive comments. Marian Rogers copyedited the manuscript with great care and insight. Kizer Walker, the managing editor of the series, has been helpful at every step.

xii Acknowledgments

A portion of the introduction to this book first appeared in PMLA 27.1 (January 2012): 95-96. Chapter 1 first appeared in The Enlightened Eye: Goethe and Visual Culture, ed. Evelyn K. Moore and Patricia Anne Simpson (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 193-217. A condensed version of chapters 3 and 4 originally appeared in Karl Philipp Moritz: Signaturen des Denkens, ed. Anthony Krupp (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 103-30. Chapter 6 first appeared in Goethe Yearbook 11 (2002): 133-58. I am grateful to the two journals and to Rodopi Press for their permission to reprint these texts.

I wish to thank the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Princeton University Library, the Rare Book Division of the New York Public Library, and the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago Library for their permission to reproduce the illustrations in this book.

I am grateful beyond words for the support of my family, especially that of my wife, Julie, and my parents, to whom this book is dedicated. I continue to be sustained by the love and encouragement of my father, who passed away while my manuscript was in its final stages. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to Jonathan for teaching me each day anew the joy of play.

THE TOPOGRAPHY or MODERNITY