“I Step Up to the Altar … and Read from Sacred Homer”: Reading Practices of Homer and Nature Mysticism in the Time of Goethe
Keywords:
German literature, literary reception, literary interpretation, antiquity, Homer, Homeric epics, nature mysticism, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang vonAbstract
This article deals with “nature mysticism” in German romanticism. It argues that reading practices of ancient literature, especially reading practices of Homer, substantially influenced romantic understanding of antiquity and modernity. This is demonstrated by discussing reading and writing practices of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his relation to broader intellectual debates in German romanticism. Furthermore, the paper deals with a general characteristic of romantic movement, i.e. the understanding of antiquity as an expression of naturalness and modernity as a break away from the primordial oneness with the nature.References
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