Inspiration Bonaparte?: German Culture and Napoleonic Occupation

Description

Two hundred years after his death, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) continues to resonate as a fascinating, ambivalent, and polarizing figure. Differences of opinion as to whether Bonaparte should be viewed as the executor of the principles of the French Revolution or as the figure who was principally responsible for their corruption are as pronounced today as they were at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Contributing to what had been an uneasy German relationship with the French Revolution, the rise of Bonaparte was accompanied by a pattern of Franco-German hostilities that inspired both enthusiastic support and outraged dissent in the German-speaking states. The fourteen essays that comprise Inspiration Bonaparte examine the mythologization of Napoleon in German literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and explore the significant impact of Napoleonic occupation on a broad range of fields including philosophy, painting, politics, the sciences, education, and film. As the contributions from leading scholars emphasize, the contradictory attitudes toward Bonaparte held by so many prominent German thinkers are a reflection of his enduring status as a figure through whom the trauma of shattered late-Enlightenment expectations of sociopolitical progress and evolving concepts of identity politics is mediated. Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Seán Allan and Jeffrey L. High Part I. Napoleon: Art, Literature, and Occupation 1: Prelude-Pre-Occupation Bonaparte: Historical and Literary Conquerors in Schiller's Life, Thought, and Works Jeffrey L. High 2: Schiller's Johanna and Collin's Bianca as Women('s)-Liberators in Anti-Napoleonic Drama Rebecca Stewart 3: Friedrich Hölderlin, the French Revolution, and Napoleon: Politics, Poetry, Philosophy Laura Anna Macor 4: The Anecdote on the Battlefield: Napoleon-Kleist-Kluge Christian Moser 5: "Der große Schauspieler, Napoleon Buonaparte": August von Kotzebue's Antitheatrical Politics Elystan Griffiths 6: An Ingenious Tyrant: The Representation of Napoleon Bonaparte by German Women Writers Elisabeth Krimmer 7: Icons of Resistance: Kleist, Le Musée Napoléon, and Queen Luise of Prussia Seán Allan Part II. Napoleon: Political Science and Natural Science 8: The European Machine God: The Image of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Political Writings of Jean Paul Helmut J. Schneider 9: Saul Ascher's Napoleon Bernd Fischer 10: Napoleon's Campaigns: Models for "French" Revolutionary Science Abroad and at Home? Mary Orr 11: Napoleonic Occupation and the Militarization of the Sciences: The Case of Johannes Scherr and the Zurich Polytechnic Andrew Cusack Part III. Inspiration Bonaparte: German Receptions from Vormärz to the Present 12: "We are all possessed!" Napoleon and Inspiration in German Naturalist Drama Michael White 13: Arnold Schoenberg's Setting of Byron's Ode to Napoleon: Fighting Hitler's Regime in Byron's and Beethoven's Wake Wolf Kittler 14: The Emperor's Clothes: Napoleon as a Screen Icon Susanne Kord Notes on the Contributors Index