Inventing the Baroque
Inventing the Baroque
A Critical History of Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Debates
This chapter first considers the ways in which Benjamin read the Silesian plays precisely not as the “tragic dramas” of John Osborne's English-language translation, but rather as “mourning-play” texts that differed significantly from ancient tragedy in Benjamin's mind. It then examines the art historical debates pertaining to the Renaissance and the German Baroque and how they articulated a new periodicity of style that involved the collectivity of the nation in important ways. The chapter next turns to contemporary definitions of a specifically literary German Baroque by critics Fritz Strich and Arthur Hübscher. Their discussions mirrored the art historical conversations by striving to locate the essence of a German literary tradition in an autonomous national sensibility and canon of forms. Benjamin's Baroque dipped into and was part of these several discussions of the Baroque as a “heroic” national age.
Keywords: tragic dramas, mourning-play texts, ancient tragedy, art historical debates, German Baroque, German literary tradition, Benjamin's Baroque
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