Feeling and classical philology : knowing antiquity in German scholarship, 1770-1920 /
Nineteenth-century German classical philology underpins many structures of the modern humanities. In this book, Constanze Güthenke shows how a language of love and a longing for closeness with a personified antiquity have lastingly shaped modern professional reading habits, notions of biography and...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge ; New York :
Cambridge University Press,
[2020]
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| Series: | Classics after antiquity.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Nineteenth-century German classical philology underpins many structures of the modern humanities. In this book, Constanze Güthenke shows how a language of love and a longing for closeness with a personified antiquity have lastingly shaped modern professional reading habits, notions of biography and the self-image of scholars and teachers. She argues that a discourse of love was instrumental in expressing the challenges of specialization and individual formation (Bildung), and in particular for the key importance of a Platonic scene of learning and instruction for imagining the modern scholar. The book is based on detailed readings of programmatic texts from, among others, Wolf, Schleiermacher, Boeckh and Thiersch, to Dilthey, Wilamowitz and Nietzsche. It makes a case for revising established narratives, but also for finding new value in imagining distance and an absence of nostalgic longing for antiquity. |
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| Physical Description: | xviii, 223 pages ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-219) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781107104235 1107104238 |