Sturm and Drang

''Sturm und Drang'' (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The period is named after Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play of the same name, which was first performed by Abel Seyler's famed theatrical company in 1777.

The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of ''Sturm und Drang''; other significant figures were Johann Anton Leisewitz, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, H. L. Wagner, and Friedrich Maximilian Klinger. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller were notable proponents of the movement early in their lives, although they ended their period of association with it by initiating what would become Weimar Classicism.

History

Counter-Enlightenment

French neoclassicism (including French neoclassical theatre), a movement beginning in the early Baroque, with its emphasis on the rational, was the principal target of rebellion for adherents of the ''Sturm und Drang'' movement. For them, sentimentality and an objective view of life gave way to emotional turbulence and individuality, and enlightenment ideals such as rationalism, empiricism, and universalism no longer captured the human condition; emotional extremes and subjectivity became the vogue during the late 18th century.

Etymology

The term ''Sturm und Drang'' first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seyler's ''Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft'' and published in 1776. The setting of the play is the unfolding American Revolution, in which the author gives violent expression to difficult emotions and extols individuality and subjectivity over the prevailing order of rationalism. Though it is argued that literature and music associated with ''Sturm und Drang'' predate this seminal work, it was from this point that German artists became distinctly self-conscious of a new aesthetic. This seemingly spontaneous movement became associated with a wide array of German authors and composers of the mid-to-late Classical period.

''Sturm und Drang'' came to be associated with literature or music aimed at shocking the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion. The movement soon gave way to Weimar Classicism and early Romanticism, whereupon a socio-political concern for greater human freedom from despotism was incorporated along with a religious treatment of all things natural.

There is much debate regarding whose work should or should not be included in the canon of ''Sturm und Drang''. One point of view would limit the movement to Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, and their direct German associates writing works of fiction and/or philosophy between 1770 and the early 1780s. The alternative perspective is that of a literary movement inextricably linked to simultaneous developments in prose, poetry, and drama, extending its direct influence throughout the German-speaking lands until the end of the 18th century. Nevertheless, the originators of the movement came to view it as a time of premature exuberance that was then abandoned in favor of often conflicting artistic pursuits.

Related aesthetic and philosophical movements

As a precursor to ''Sturm und Drang'', the literary topos of the ''Kraftmensch'' existed among dramatists beginning with F.M. Klinger. Its expression is seen in the radical degree to which individuality need appeal to no outside authority save the self nor be tempered by rationalism. These ideals are identical to those of ''Sturm und Drang'', and it can be argued that the later name exists to catalog a number of parallel, co-influential movements in German literature rather than express anything substantially different from what German dramatists were achieving in the violent plays attributed to the Kraftmensch movement.

Major philosophical/theoretical influences on the literary ''Sturm und Drang'' movement were Johann Georg Hamann (especially the 1762 text ''Aesthetica in nuce. Eine Rhapsodie in kabbalistischer Prose'') and Johann Gottfried Herder, both from Königsberg, and both formerly in contact with Immanuel Kant. Significant theoretical statements of Sturm und Drang aesthetics by the movement's central dramatists themselves include Lenz' ''Anmerkungen übers Theater'' and Goethe's ''Von deutscher Baukunst'' and ''Zum Schäkespears Tag'' (''sic''). The most important contemporary document was the 1773 volume ''Von deutscher Art und Kunst. Einige fliegende Blätter'', a collection of essays that included commentaries by Herder on Ossian and Shakespeare, along with contributions by Goethe, Paolo Frisi (in translation from the Italian), and Justus Möser.

In literature

Characteristics

The protagonist in a typical ''Sturm und Drang'' stage work, poem, or novel is driven to action—often violent action—not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, but by revenge and greed. Goethe's unfinished ''Prometheus'' exemplifies this along with the common ambiguity provided by juxtaposing humanistic platitudes with outbursts of irrationality. The literature of ''Sturm und Drang'' features an anti- aristocratic slant while seeking to elevate all things humble, natural, or intensely real (especially whatever is painful, tormenting, or frightening).

The story of hopeless love and eventual suicide presented in Goethe's sentimental novel ''Die Leiden des jungen Werthers'' (1774) is an example of the author's tempered introspection regarding his love and torment. Friedrich Schiller's drama, ''Die Räuber'' (1781), provided the groundwork for melodrama to become a recognized dramatic form. The plot portrays a conflict between two aristocratic brothers, Franz and Karl Moor. Franz is cast as a villain attempting to cheat Karl out of his inheritance, though the motives for his action are complex and initiate a thorough investigation of good and evil. Both of these works are seminal examples of ''Sturm und Drang'' in German literature.

The absence or exclusion of women writers from accounts of ''Sturm und Drang'' can be taken as a consequence of the movement's and the period's masculinist ethos or as a failure of more recent literary criticism to engage with literary works by women--such as Marianne Ehrmann--that might merit inclusion.

Notable literary works

*Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832):
** ''Zum Shakespears Tag'' (1771)
** ''Sesenheimer Lieder'' (1770–1771)
** ''Prometheus'' (1772–1774)
** ''Götz von Berlichingen'' (1773)
** ''Clavigo'' (1774)
** ''Die Leiden des jungen Werthers'' (1774)
** ''Mahomets Gesang'' (1774)
** ''Adler und Taube'' (1774)
** ''An Schwager Kronos'' (1774)
** ''Gedichte der Straßburger und Frankfurter Zeit'' (1775)
** ''Stella. Ein Schauspiel für Liebende'' (1776)
** ''Die Geschwister'' (1776)
*Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805):
** ''Die Räuber'' (1781)
** ''Die Verschwörung des Fiesko zu Genua'' (1783)
** ''Kabale und Liebe'' (1784)
** ''An die Freude'' (1785)
*Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751–1792)
** ''Anmerkung über das Theater nebst angehängtem übersetzten Stück Shakespeares'' (1774)
** ''Der Hofmeister oder Vorteile der Privaterziehung'' (1774)
** ''Lustspiele nach dem Plautus fürs deutsche Theater'' (1774)
** ''Die Soldaten'' (1776)
*Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (1752–1831):
** ''Das leidende Weib'' (1775)
** ''Sturm und Drang'' (1776)
** ''Die Zwillinge'' (1776)
** ''Simsone Grisaldo'' (1776)
*Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794):
** '' Lenore'' (1773)
** ''Gedichte'' (1778)
** ''Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande, Feldzüge und lustige Abenteuer des Freiherren von Münchhausen'' (1786)
*Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (1737–1823):
** ''Gedichte eines Skalden'' (1766)
** ''Briefe über Merkwürdigkeiten der Literatur'' (1766–67)
** ''Ugolino'' (1768)
*Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788):
** ''Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten für die lange Weile des Publikums zusammengetragen von einem Liebhaber der langen Weile'' (1759)
** ''Kreuzzüge des Philologen'' (1762)
*Johann Jakob Wilhelm Heinse (1746–1803):
** ''Ardinghello und die glückseligen Inseln'' (1787)
*Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803):
** ''Fragmente über die neuere deutsche Literatur'' (1767–1768)
** ''Kritische Wälder oder Betrachtungen, die Wissenschaft und Kunst des Schönen betreffend, nach Maßgabe neuerer Schriften'' (1769)
** ''Journal meiner Reise im Jahre'' (1769)
** ''Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache'' (1770)
** ''Von deutscher Art und Kunst, einige fliegende Blätter'' (1773)
** ''Volkslieder'' (1778–79)
** ''Vom Geist der Hebräischen Poesie'' (1782–1783)
** ''Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit'' (1784–1791)

In music

The Classical period music (1750–1800) associated with ''Sturm und Drang'' is predominantly written in a minor key to convey difficult or depressing sentiments. The principal themes tend to be angular, with large leaps and unpredictable melodic contours. Tempos and dynamics change rapidly and unpredictably in order to reflect strong changes of emotion. Pulsing rhythms and syncopation