Von einem aufklaererischen zu einem fruehromantischen Geselligkeitsmodus: Die Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten von Goethe

This essay concentrates on a close reading of the Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten, the contribution Goethe wrote for Schiller's Horen 1794, and analyzes the description and meaning of the rituals of Eighteenth century's forms of sociability – the so called Geselligkeit - presented in this prose work. After evaluating the way in which scholars have treated this theme until now, this essay tries to sketch a new way of reading it and suggests leaving the traditional interpretation of sociability in the Unterhaltungen as a narrative frame and considering it a central aim in the Unterhaltungen and an expression of the transition from an Enlightened to a Romantic era also caused also by the epochal change of the French revolution. In this new interpretation Geselligkeit in the text anticipates positions and theorizations of the Pre-romantic circles like Jena that at the end of the Eighteenth century consistently changed forms, contents and aesthetics of sociability. This interpretation is supported by a detailed analysis of textual quotations and also of their context.