Genie und tragische Kunst: Karl Philipp Moritz und die Ästhetik des 18. Jahrhunderts (review)

328 Book Reviews kunst-Aufsatz, Götz von Berlichingen, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers sowie eine Reihe von Gedichten vorgesteUt. Ein besonderer Vorzug dieses Arbeitsbuches ist seine leichte Lesbarkeit . Karthaus enthält sich jegUchen Imponiervokabulars; seüi lobenswertes Credo in diesem Punkt lautet: "Wissenschaftüchkeit bekundet sich nicht Un Gebrauch schwer verständlicher und ausgefallener Fremdwörter und nicht Un Bau langer und vielfach verschlungener Sätze, sondern Ui der Klarheit der Gedanken" (11). Ein detaüliertes Literaturverzeichnis, das selbstverständüch keine VoUständigkeit beanspruchen kann, sowie ein Namensregister beschlie ßen dieses nützliche, anregende und willkommene Buch. Smith College Hans Rudolf Vaget Alessandro Costazza, Genie und tragische Kunst: Karl PhUipp Moritz und die Ästhetik des 18. Jahrhunderts. Ricerche di cultura europea / Forschungen zur europäischen Kultur, ed. Ã-talo Michèle Battafarano, vol. 13. Bern, BerUn, Frankfurt/Main, New York, Paris, Vienna: Peter Lang, 1999. 500 pp. This is the second of two volumes devoted to Karl PhUipp Moritz's aesthetics. In the first volume, Schönheit und Nützlichkeit: Karl Philipp Moritz und die Ästhetik des 18. Jahrhunderts (see my review Ui Goethe Yearbook 9, 418-20), Costazza investigated the pre-ItaUan Moritz, elements of his social thought, and the relationship between his aesthetic thought and the eighteenth-century tradition from Wolff/Baumgarten to Mendelssohn and Sulzer. Moritz's aesthetic thinking was refined and deepened during his stay in Italy from 1786 to 1788. Rightly or wrongly, his post-Itaüan aesthetics have often been seen through the lens of the Goethean influence supposedly exerted on him whUe Ui Italy and Goethe's comments on theü relationship Ui his own Italienische Reise, where he also reprinted a core section of Moritz's treatise Ãœber die bildende Nachahmung des Schönen. Goethe may or may not have contributed to Moritz's profound Uiterest Ui Greek and Roman mythology, which can be considered a fruit of his ItaUan experience, but Moritz's most striking insights into mythology and art can surely be considered essentiaUy his own. In the present volume Costazza is concerned with interpreting Moritz's mam aesthetic treatise, Ãœber die bildende Nachahmung des Schönen, of 1788, in the Ught of his conception of mythology, especiaUy as first put forth in 1791 Ui his Götterlehre oder mythologische Dichtungen der Alten. Until the 1960s most scholars who dealt with the bildende Nachahmung sought to interpret it Ui the Ught of their understanding of Moritz's reUgious convictions, mainly with reference to Pietism/quietism and mysticism. Since then there has been a more sustained effort to understand Moritz's aesthetics within the framework of eighteenth-century phUosophical thought, with special reference to problems going back to Leibniz's theodicy (and there seems now to be Goethe Yearbook 329 wide-spread agreement that Moritz's aesthetics indeed belong largely Ui the tradition of thought about theodicy), but there have remained a number of loose ends. Costazza's work is a significant contribution to resolving some of these problems. As is weU known, Moritz's theory of genius works with the concepts of "Tatkraft," "BUdungskraft," and "Empfindungskraft." "Tatkraft" is a power of activity inherent in aU humans—when present Ui high degree without "BUdungskraft" it expresses itself Ui action. It goes without saying that ''Empfindungskraft" is necessary for creativity. The artist must first feel or experience intuitively (Ui analogy to God's instantaneous and complete knowledge of things) a whole, overcoming the limitations of the Uidividual (principium individuationis) before becoming creative through his/her "BUdungskraft," which operates, according to Moritz, Ui imitation of Nature's mode of creating. The person with the highest degree of "BUdungskraft" can, as a smaU god, create a work, which mirrors the whole of the universe. The person with a high degree of "Empfindungskraft" but with Uisufficient "BUdungskraft " to accompany it wiU be driven to seek to create a work which can never become perfect. This person is the dUettante, who yet can develop the abiUty to appreciate art to an extraordinary degree and become the perfect connoisseur or recipient. In the first part of the book Costazza deals with these aspects of creativity and the problematic of the Uidividual vis-à -vis God and the Creation...