“Wilde Wünsche”: The Discourse of Love in the Sturm und Drang

Summary

Love is a central theme in the literature of the Sturm und Drang. Modern criticism has recognized the importance of the role played by love in the formation of the modern middle-class identity that evolved during the period of transition between feudal society and the beginnings of modern society, and the high point of this transitional period was, it is now agreed, the eighteenth century. This transition is characterized by the emergent cultural dominance of the middle class with its emphasis on individual achievements, on rational conduct, on the desire for self-determination, and on a specific ideal of the family. It is especially the last point, the creation of what Lawrence Stone has termed the “companionate marriage,” founded on a new notion of love “as an intensified affective bonding,” that is important for the discourse of love in the Sturm und Drang. This new ideal, described in the classic studies by Lawrence Stone and Edward Shorter, represents a paradigm shift to which literature made an essential contribution. As we shall see, the literature of the Sturm und Drang embraces love as a central aspect of bourgeois identity driving the modernization process, while also pointing to the internal contradictions and the difficulties associated with this transition. In particular, the tension between socialization within one's family and its value system and the pursuit of individual wishes and desires, between the pull of community, on the one hand, and individualism, on the other, occupies the imagination of Sturm und Drang authors.