Goethe's essays have been culled for their literary, aesthetic, and scientific content, by the textuality and their location at the nexus of genre and literary history have not received the critical attention they deserve. In Idioms of Uncertainty, Peter Burgard analyzes the rhetorical strategies, structure, and style of pivotal essays and relates them to the essay traditions as represented by Montaigne and Johnson. By formulating the critique of systematic philosophy inherent in the essays and by investigating their participation in the principal aesthetic dialogue of the age—the Laocoön debate, which spanned nearly half a century—Burgard situates them in the context of eighteenth-century critical discourse.
Furthermore, by disclosing the connection between the anti-systematic, dialogic impetus of Goethe's essayism and the theme of community in his literary works, Idioms of Uncertainty both draws out the broader social implications of the essay and shows how the analysis of Goethe's work in the genre can illuminate his entire oeuvre.
In the course of the study Burgard articulates a theory of the essay as a genre by drawing on twentieth-century theoretical perspectives for his exposition of Goethe's textual strategies: theories of the essay from Lukacs, Bense, and Adorno; the textual theories of Bakhtin, Kristeva, Barthes, and Derrida; and Rorty's notion of literary-philosophical conversation. Idioms of Uncertainty thus holds interest for those concerned with genre theory and literary theory in general; and through its challenging of clichés about German literature at the time it assumed international significance, the book will be useful not only for Goethe scholars but also for scholars of the eighteenth century across disciplines and national boundaries.

Idioms of Uncertainty: Goethe and the Essay

Literature & Fiction

Burgard, Peter J.

Essays & Correspondence

Penn State University Press

Goethe's essays have been culled for their literary, aesthetic, and scientific content, by the textuality and their location at the nexus of genre and literary history have not received the critical attention they deserve. In Idioms of Uncertainty, Peter Burgard analyzes the rhetorical strategies, structure, and style of pivotal essays and relates them to the essay traditions as represented by Montaigne and Johnson. By formulating the critique of systematic philosophy inherent in the essays and by investigating their participation in the principal aesthetic dialogue of the age—the Laocoön debate, which spanned nearly half a century—Burgard situates them in the context of eighteenth-century critical discourse.Furthermore, by disclosing the connection between the anti-systematic, dialogic impetus of Goethe's essayism and the theme of community in his literary works, Idioms of Uncertainty both draws out the broader social implications of the essay and shows how the analysis of Goethe's work in the genre can illuminate his entire oeuvre.In the course of the study Burgard articulates a theory of the essay as a genre by drawing on twentieth-century theoretical perspectives for his exposition of Goethe's textual strategies: theories of the essay from Lukacs, Bense, and Adorno; the textual theories of Bakhtin, Kristeva, Barthes, and Derrida; and Rorty's notion of literary-philosophical conversation. Idioms of Uncertainty thus holds interest for those concerned with genre theory and literary theory in general; and through its challenging of clichés about German literature at the time it assumed international significance, the book will be useful not only for Goethe scholars but also for scholars of the eighteenth century across disciplines and national boundaries.

What is the Baroque? Where did it come from and where did it go? Why do we have to ask these questions? Because art historians seem largely satisfied with their answers and most scholars of German literature are not satisfied, yet have stopped asking. This book discerns in the Baroque an aesthetic phenomenon that crosses both media and national boundaries in its celebration of excess and its disintegration of system, unity, and identity. The compositional principles and theoretical implications of the Baroque, as it first arose in Italian art, find expression in German poetics, drama, poetry, and narrative - expression accessible only through resolute close reading. Readings of Bernini, Borromini, Velazquez, Rubens, Fracanzano, and de Hooch precipitate readings of Opitz, Gryphius, Fleming, Zesen, Hoffmannswaldau, and Grimmelshausen, demonstrating that seventeenth-century German literature both is Baroque and confirms what the Baroque is.

Baroque: Figures of Excess in Seventeenth-Century European Art and German Literature

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Brill U Fink

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Books by Burgard, Peter J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Burgard, Peter J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Idioms of Uncertainty: Goethe and the Essay

Idioms of Uncertainty: Goethe and the Essay

Baroque: Figures of Excess in Seventeenth-Century European Art and German Literature