THE FREEDOM OF A PLAYWRIGHT: STURM UND DRANG AESTHETIC INNOVATION THROUGH A LUTHERAN LENS

Abstract

This article builds on a passage from Johann Georg Hamann's Fünf Hirtenbriefe das Schuldrama betreffend (1763) to argue that the discourse on the rules of dramatic composition in the Sturm und Drang is shaped by an implicitly Lutheran logic of Christian freedom. That means that rather than emphasising the transgression of established rules, Sturm und Drang writers, like Luther's free Christian, sought to replace obedience to lower-level laws with submission to a higher principle. This Lutheran reframing of the Sturm und Drang revises the conventional understanding of the Sturm und Drang writers as literary revolutionaries and brings their aesthetic programme much more closely in line with their moderate political views. Moreover, in stressing the Lutheran underpinnings of Sturm und Drang aesthetics, this article also calls into question the established view that the theological aspects of Hamann's aesthetics are without parallel in the Sturm und Drang proper. At the centre of the Lutheran reinterpretation of the Sturm und Drang in this article stand analyses of J. M. R. Lenz's Anmerkungen übers Theater, Johann Gottfried Herder's ‘Shakespear’ and Johann Wolfgang Goethe's ‘Zum Schäkespears Tag’ and Götz von Berlichingen.