Heróis a contrapelo: lampejos do gênio na escrita dos jovens Goethe e Schiller

Abstract

The Sturm und Drang period, the first literary style genuinely German, emerged in the second half of the 18th century, turned the literary emancipation of Germany possible and introduced in that country the concept of original genius. As from the discovery of the English genius Shakespeare s works (enabled by Christoph Martin Wieland s translations), the Germans came across the model of literary revolution they needed to establish the basis of German s literary originality. Basing themselves on Shakespearean dramatic structure, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller worked out their first plays (works that are the focus of the present research): Götz von Berlichingen and The robbers respectively. The present thesis intends therefore to analyse the above-mentioned works, considering the concept of original genius. But foremost the factors (as much as the rise of the English novel) and writers (as Gothold Ephraim Lessing, Johann Jakob Bodmer, Johann Jakob Breitinger, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Wieland and Johann Gottfried von Herder) that cooperated for the establishment of the ingenious era in Germany are examined