Evelyn K. Moore Libros

The goal of this book is to ascertain Lessing's views on argumentation and rhetoric. I intend to establish that these views constitute a systematic and coherent theory and to argue that for Lessing rhetoric in argument can yield philosophical truth. Analysis of Lessing's views also sheds light on the general significance of rhetoric in the 18th century. The denial that rhetoric has claims to truth is a long-standing prejudice of Western thought. This position is evident in Kant's rejection of rhetoric in philosophical discourse. But in my view, the situation in the 18th century in Germany was somewhat more complex. Rhetoric did not die a quiet death but was very much alive in polemical tracts, and Lessing was a pivotal figure in a culture dominated by argument and disputation. I asked myself why and how this polemical age came to an end and how does the rejection of polemics by the 19th century affect our understanding of the 18th century? In the Introduction, I address some of these questions and establish a historical framework for the development of polemics in the 18th century. Another reason this polemical age has traditionally been seen as problematic for the scholars of the period is because argument, disputation and debate cannot be submitted to the same easy analysis as the systematic treatises produced at the end of the century.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a dominant figure in European literature and intellectual life, was the creator of a new and influential visual culture. This volume investigates a new science of perception through an exploration of his autobiographical works, novels and writings on optics. The psychoanalytic approach taken in this study focuses on central acts of perception and the role of vision in Goethe as key to the formation of identity. By addressing the impact of visuality on the act of writing, new interpretations of his most important works emerge through analysis of subject formation in the autobiographies, The Italian Journey and Poetry and Truth. Further, the relationship between the self and the gaze plays a central role in the semi-autobiographical works, The Elective Affinities, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, as well as Color Theory. In exploring the question of identity and identification within a Lacanian framework, The Eye and the Gaze offers an innovative approach to biography, autobiography, and narrative.

Poets, painters, philosophers, and scientists alike debated new ways of thinking about visual culture in the long eighteenth century. The essays in 'The Enlightened Eye' demonstrate the extent to which Goethe advanced this discourse in virtually all disciplines. The concept of visuality becomes a constitutive moment in a productive relationship between the verbal and visual arts with far-reaching implications for the formation of bourgeois identity, pedagogy, and culture. From a variety of theoretical perspectives, the contributors to this volume examine the interconnections between aesthetic and scientific fields of inquiry involved in Goethe's visual identity. By locating Goethe's position in the examination of visual culture, both established and emerging scholars analyze the degree to which visual aesthetics determined the cultural production of both the German-speaking world and the broader European context.