Gespenster und Gelehrte - Die ästhetische Lehrprosa Georg Friedrich Meiers (1718-1777)

Yvonne Wübben examines a tract on ghosts published in 1747 by the Enlightenment figure and aestheticist G.F. Meier from Halle. She reveals the topical conditions behind its creation, together with its function of bundling
knowledge. The study shows how aesthetics in Halle reacted to an empiricisation of knowledge. Reports of ghosts provide an opportunity to reflect on experience and to make a stand against the >New Sciences< in the market-place of knowledge. Evidence of the patterns of reception developing here can be traced in literary authors (Goethe, Schiller).


Yvonne Wübben, Freie Universität Berlin.