The Practices of the Enlightenment: Aesthetics, Authorship and the Public by Dorothea E. von Mücke (review)

Dorothea von Mücke’s fascinating new book, entitled The Practices of the Enlightenment: Aesthetics, Authorship, and the Public, highlights the close connection between religion and the Enlightenment in the formation of modern European literature during the eighteenth century. Von Mücke sheds new light on the importance of religious practices, especially those of the Pietist tradition, as a starting point of Enlightenment thinking with regard to aesthetic experiences. In three highly interwoven chapters, von Mücke shows how various aspects of religion lead to enlightenment thoughts and literary discourses, such as the self, the rise of genius and the modern author, as well as to enlightenment practices like writing and reading. While it is already well-established that religion and the Enlightenment did not in fact contradict each other, throughout the book von Mücke shows in great detail how religious practices built the ground for the emergence, historical development and intersection between aesthetics, authorship and the public. Von Mücke sets out to show “that neither a radical empiricism nor a radical antireligious position can account for all the important elements of the enlightenment” (XVIII), and this she accomplishes in a sometimes surprising, but always convincing manner.

The first part of the book, “The Birth of Aesthetics, the Ends of Teleology, and the Rise of Genius,” focuses on subjectivity in Pietist meditational practices, especially with regard to nature. This culminates in the concept of the original genius, which reflects upon the relationship between nature and art by mobilizing the creative force of nature itself. According to von Mücke, different practices of attention devoted to pure contemplation enabled the radical rethinking of the nature of aesthetic pleasure. This contemplation led to a new kind of pleasure beyond self-interest, laying the groundwork in turn for Kant’s “disinterested interest” as the basis of Enlightenment aesthetics. A main example of this development, cited by von Mücke, is Johann Arndt’s devotional guide, Vom wahren Christentum (On True Christianity), first published in 1605 and disseminated through numerous editions and translations throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Interestingly, Arndt’s book does not require a linear reading, nor does it culminate in a particular message; instead, it presents a wide range of images that open up a kind of gallery as an invitation to individual meditation. Arndt’s use of images is clearly intended to strengthen the individual believer while weakening the position of the church. Other examples discussed in this chapter belong to literature and aesthetic theory, including Shaftesbury, von Haller, Lessing and Goethe. They, too, focus on the recipient and demand attention for natural phenomena, thus leading to the secularization of religious experience. Regarding the concept of genius, the main transformation of the traditional discourse lies in the notion of nature as a creative force. In what follows, we find closer examinations of Herder, Young and Goethe demonstrating that nature becomes “the model for radical innovation” (76). According to von Mücke, it is Goethe’s discussion of the Strasbourg Cathedral in On German Architecture which clearly shows that art takes over the role and function of religion by strengthening the sense of the self. While the aesthetic experience of art can be traced back to religious practices, it itself is secular.

In part two, “Confessional Discourse, Autobiography and Authorship,” von Mücke draws a line from confessional discourse in the seventeenth century to autobiographical writing in the eighteenth century. It is the genre of autobiography that leads to establishing the writer as an individual authority. In this context, she begins by showing how Johanna Petersen drew on spiritual forces to define her role as an author of devotional literature. In the next chapters, von Mücke discusses two different models of authorship, namely Rousseau and Goethe. In Rousseau’s Emile and in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, both authors change religious forms and issues into modern literature. Furthermore, in...