(, ; usually translated as "storm and stress")E.g. HB Garland, Storm and Stress (London, 1952); German Drang, cognate with English throng, has the sense of "impulse, urge, pressure, stress; longing, desire". was a proto-Romanticist movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The period is named after Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play of the same name, which was first performed by Abel Seyler's famed theatrical company in 1777. Seyler's son-in-law Johann Anton Leisewitz wrote the early and quintessential Sturm und Drang play, Julius of Taranto, with its theme of the love triangle and conflict between two brothers and the woman which they both love.
Significant figures were Johann Anton Leisewitz, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, H. L. Wagner, Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, and Johann Georg Hamann. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller were notable proponents of the movement early in their lives, although they ended their period of association with it by initiating what would become Weimar Classicism.
History Counter-Enlightenment
French neoclassicism (including French neoclassical theatre), a movement beginning in the early Baroque, with its emphasis on the rational, was the principal target of rebellion for adherents of the Sturm & Drang movement. For them, sentimentality and an objective view of life gave way to emotional turbulence and individuality, and Age of Enlightenment ideals such as rationalism, empiricism, and universalism no longer captured the human condition; emotional extremes and subjectivity became the vogue during the late 18th century.
Etymology
The phrase first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seyler's Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft and published in 1776.Karthaus, Ulrich: Sturm und Drang. Epoche-Werke-Wirkung. München: C.H.Beck Verlag, 2. aktualisierte Auflage. 2007, S. 107. The setting of the play is the unfolding American Revolution, in which the author gives violent expression to difficult emotions and extols individuality and subjectivity over the prevailing order of rationalism. Though it is argued that literature and music associated with predate this seminal work, it was from this point that German artists became distinctly self-conscious of a new aesthetic. This seemingly spontaneous movement became associated with a wide array of German authors and composers of the mid-to-late Classical period.Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T. V. F. (eds.). (1993). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton: Princeton University. p. 1.
came to be associated with literature or music aimed at shocking the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion. The movement soon gave way to Weimar Classicism and early Romanticism, whereupon a socio-political concern for greater human freedom from despotism was incorporated along with a religious treatment of all things natural.Pascal, Roy. (April, 1952). The Modern Language Review, Vol. 47, No. 2. pp. 129–151: p. 32.
There is much debate regarding whose work should or should not be included in the canon of . One point of view would limit the movement to Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, and their direct German associates writing works of fiction and/or philosophy between 1770 and the early 1780s.Pascal, p. 129. The alternative perspective is that of a literary movement inextricably linked to simultaneous developments in prose, poetry, and drama, extending its direct influence throughout the German-speaking lands until the end of the 18th century. Nevertheless, the originators of the movement came to view it as a time of premature exuberance that was then abandoned in favor of often conflicting artistic pursuits.Heckscher, William S. (1966–1967) Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 1, No. 2. pp. 94–105: p. 94.
Related aesthetic and philosophical movements
As a precursor to , the literary topos of the existed among dramatists beginning with F.M. Klinger. Its expression is seen in the radical degree to which individuality need appeal to no outside authority save the self nor be tempered by rationalism.Leidner, Alan. (March 1989). C. PMLA, Vol. 104, No. 2, pp. 178-189: p. 178 These ideals are identical to those of , and it can be argued that the later name exists to catalog a number of parallel, co-influential movements in German literature rather than express anything substantially different from what German dramatists were achieving in the violent plays attributed to the Kraftmensch movement.
Major philosophical/theoretical influences on the literary Sturm und Drang movement were Johann Georg Hamann (especially the 1762 text Aesthetica in nuce. Eine Rhapsodie in kabbalistischer Prose) and Johann Gottfried Herder, both from Königsberg, and both formerly in contact with Immanuel Kant. Significant theoretical statements of Sturm und Drang aesthetics by the movement's central dramatists themselves include Lenz' Anmerkungen übers Theater and Goethe's Von deutscher Baukunst and Zum Schäkespears Tag (sic). The most important contemporary document was the 1773 volume Von deutscher Art und Kunst. Einige fliegende Blätter, a collection of essays that included commentaries by Herder on Ossian and Shakespeare, along with contributions by Goethe, Paolo Frisi (in translation from the Italian), and Justus Möser.
In literature Characteristics The protagonist in a typical Sturm und Drang stage work, poem, or novel is driven to action—often violent action—not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, but by revenge and greed. Goethe's unfinished Prometheus exemplifies this along with the common ambiguity provided by juxtaposing humanistic platitudes with outbursts of irrationality.Alan Liedner, p. 178 The literature of Sturm und Drang features an anti-aristocratic slant while seeking to elevate all things humble, natural, or intensely real (especially whatever is painful, tormenting, or frightening).
The story of hopeless love and eventual suicide presented in Goethe's sentimental novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774) is an example of the author's tempered introspection regarding his love and torment. Friedrich Schiller's drama, Die Räuber (1781), provided the groundwork for melodrama to become a recognized dramatic form. The plot portrays a conflict between two aristocratic brothers, Franz and Karl Moor. Franz is cast as a villain attempting to cheat Karl out of his inheritance, though the motives for his action are complex and initiate a thorough investigation of good and evil. Both of these works are seminal examples of Sturm und Drang in German literature.
The absence or exclusion of women writers from accounts of Sturm und Drang can be taken as a consequence of the movement's and the period's masculinist ethos or as a failure of more recent literary criticism to engage with literary works by women—such as Marianne Ehrmann—that might merit inclusion.Ruth P. Dawson, The Contested Quill, pp. 230-237 and passim
Notable literary works Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): Zum Shakespears Tag (1771) Sesenheimer Lieder (1770–1771) Prometheus (1772–1774) Götz von Berlichingen (1773) Clavigo (1774) Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774) Mahomets Gesang (1774) Adler und Taube (1774) An Schwager Kronos (1774) Gedichte der Straßburger und Frankfurter Zeit (1775) Stella. Ein Schauspiel für Liebende (1776) Die Geschwister (1776) Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805): Die Räuber (1781) Die Verschwörung des Fiesko zu Genua (1783) Kabale und Liebe (1784) An die Freude (1785) Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751–1792) Anmerkung über das Theater nebst angehängtem übersetzten Stück Shakespeares (1774) Der Hofmeister oder Vorteile der Privaterziehung (1774) Lustspiele nach dem Plautus fürs deutsche Theater (1774) Die Soldaten (1776) Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (1752–1831): Das leidende Weib (1775) Sturm und Drang (1776) Die Zwillinge (1776) Simsone Grisaldo (1776) Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794): Lenore (1773) Gedichte (1778) Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande, Feldzüge und lustige Abenteuer des Freiherren von Münchhausen (1786) Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (1737–1823): Gedichte eines Skalden (1766) Briefe über Merkwürdigkeiten der Literatur (1766–67) Ugolino (1768) Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788): Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten für die lange Weile des Publikums zusammengetragen von einem Liebhaber der langen Weile (1759) Kreuzzüge des Philologen (1762) Johann Jakob Wilhelm Heinse (1746–1803): Ardinghello und die glückseligen Inseln (1787) Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803): Fragmente über die neuere deutsche Literatur (1767–1768) Kritische Wälder oder Betrachtungen, die Wissenschaft und Kunst des Schönen betreffend, nach Maßgabe neuerer Schriften (1769) Journal meiner Reise im Jahre (1769) Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache (1770) Von deutscher Art und Kunst, einige fliegende Blätter (1773) Volkslieder (1778–79) Vom Geist der Hebräischen Poesie (1782–1783) Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–1791)
In music
The Classical period music (1750–1800) associated with Sturm und Drang is predominantly written in a minor key to convey difficult or depressing sentiments. The principal themes tend to be angular, with large leaps and unpredictable melodic contours. Tempos and dynamics change rapidly and unpredictably in order to reflect strong changes of emotion. Pulsing rhythms and syncopation are common, as are racing lines in the soprano or alto registers. Writing for string instruments features tremolo and sudden, dramatic dynamic changes and accents.
History Musical theater became the meeting place of the literary and musical strands of Sturm und Drang, with the aim of increasing emotional expression in opera. The obligato recitative is a prime example. Here, orchestral accompaniment provides an intense underlay of vivid tone-painting to the solo recitative. Christoph Willibald Gluck's 1761 ballet, Don Juan, heralded the emergence of Sturm und Drang in music; the program notes explicitly indicated that the D minor finale was to evoke fear in the listener. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 1762 play, Pygmalion (first performed in 1770) is a similarly important bridge in its use of underlying instrumental music to convey the mood of the spoken drama. The first example of melodrama, Pygmalion influenced Goethe and other important German literary figures.Heartz, Daniel and Bruce Alan Brown. (Accessed 21 March 2007). 'Sturm und Drang', Grove Music Online, "http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html?section=music.27035"
Nevertheless, relative to the influence of Sturm und Drang on literature, the influence on musical composition was limited, and many efforts to label music as conforming to this trend are tenuous at best. Vienna, the center of German/Austrian music, was a cosmopolitan city with an international culture; therefore, melodically innovative and expressive works in minor keys by Haydn or Mozart from this period should generally be considered first in the broader context of musical developments taking place throughout Europe. The clearest musical connections to the self-styled Sturm und Drang movement can be found in opera and the early predecessors of program music, such as Haydn's Farewell Symphony. Beethoven, Weber, and even Schubert have elements of Sturm und Drang.
Haydn