GRMN 700-301: "A Turn to 'Die Sinnenwelt' in AW Schlegel's Die Gemaelde"

Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - 9:00am to 10:30am

Margaret Strair

Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Pennsylvania

440 Williams Hall

Margaret will be presenting a paper, entitled "A Turn to ,Die Sinnenwelt' in AW Schlegel's Die Gemälde."

This paper explores the significance of the ,,Sinnenwelt," a term that emerges in a key moment in Schlegel's Kunstgespräch, Die Gemälde, as an initial locus involved in viewing works of art. Understood through competing models of vision and aesthetic perception in the period around 1800 from Goethe and the early Romantics, Schlegel's specific deployment of the term restores an interest in the materiality of works of art and the immediate and empirical nature of such an encounter. In establishing works of art as objects of the ,,Sinnenwelt,"  the agency Schlegel allows them prior to the performances of ekphrases in this text forces us to reconsider the relationship between imagination and perception.

There are no pre-circulated readings for this meeting.