Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism

Explores the philosophical contributions and contemporary relevance of early German Romanticism.

Often portrayed as a movement of poets lost in swells of passion, early German Romanticism has been generally overlooked by scholars in favor of the great system-builders of the post-Kantian period, Schelling and Hegel. In the twelve lectures collected here, Manfred Frank redresses this oversight, offering an in-depth exploration of the philosophical contributions and contemporary relevance of early German Romanticism. Arguing that the early German Romantics initiated an original movement away from idealism, Frank brings the leading figures of the movement, Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis), into concert with contemporary philosophical developments, and explores the role that Friedrich Hölderlin and other members of the Homburg Circle had upon the development of early German Romantic philosophy.

Manfred Frank is Professor of Philosophy at Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany. He is the author of many books, including The Subject and the Text: Essays in Literature and Philosophy. Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. She is the coeditor (with Jorge J. E. Gracia) of Latin American Philosophy for the Twenty-first Century: The Human Condition, Values, and the Search for Identity and translator of The History of Philosophy in Colonial Mexico by Mauricio Beuchot.