Lessing And The Enlightenment
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Lessing and the Enlightenment
Author: Henry E. Allison
language: en
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Release Date: 2018-01-29
Although only one aspect of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's diverse oeuvre, his religious thought had a significant influence on thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and present-day liberal Protestant theologians. His thought is particularly difficult to assess, however, because it is found largely in a series of essays, reviews, critical studies, polemical writings, and commentary on theological texts. Beyond these, his correspondence, and a few fragmentary essays unpublished during his lifetime, we have his famous drama of religious toleration, Nathan the Wise, and his philosophical-historical sketch, The Education of the Human Race. In these scattered texts, Lessing challenged the full range of theological views in the Enlightenment, from Protestant orthodoxy, with its belief in Biblical inerrancy, to a radical naturalism, which rejected both the concept of a divine revelation and the historically based claims of Christianity to be one, as well as virtually everything in between. Since he refused to identify himself with any of these parties, Lessing was an enigmatic figure, and a central question from his time to today is where he stood on the issue of the truth of the Christian religion. Now back in print, and with the addition of two supplementary essays, Henry E. Allison's book argues that, despite appearances, Lessing was not merely an eclectic thinker or intellectual provocateur, but a serious philosopher of religion, who combined a basically Spinozistic conception of God with a sophisticated pluralistic conception of religious truth inspired by Leibniz.
Lessing and the Enlightenment
This essay collection grew out of a Hofstra University conference on the life, works, and influence of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, the eighteenth-century German playwright, critic, and philosopher who essentially established a new national literature in Germany during the Enlightenment. The volume is divided into two main sections, in which various scholars confront and reevaluate two contrasting aspects of Lessing's character; the irrational poet and the rational thinker. In the first section, Lessing's aesthetics are discussed. His link to English literature, as well as his influence upon the then emerging novel, are the subject of special consideration here. In the second section, Lessing's philosophical connection to traditions such as utopianism, classical republicanism, and eighteen-century humanism is discussed. Also considered are Lessing's intellectual connections with Rumanian literature; feminist and other ideological interpretations of his works; and his relation to some of his contemporaries. An introductory article stresses current and future trends in Lessing scholarhip.
Lessing and the Enlightenment
This essay collection grew out of a Hofstra University conference on the life, works, and influence of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, the eighteenth-century German playwright, critic, and philosopher who essentially established a new national literature in Germany during the Enlightenment. The volume is divided into two main sections, in which various scholars confront and reevaluate two contrasting aspects of Lessing's character; the irrational poet and the rational thinker. In the first section, Lessing's aesthetics are discussed. His link to English literature, as well as his influence upon the then emerging novel, are the subject of special consideration here. In the second section, Lessing's philosophical connection to traditions such as utopianism, classical republicanism, and eighteen-century humanism is discussed. Also considered are Lessing's intellectual connections with Rumanian literature; feminist and other ideological interpretations of his works; and his relation to some of his contemporaries. An introductory article stresses current and future trends in Lessing scholarhip.