Article ID: CBB107142269

Sexual Division and the New Mythology: Goethe and Schelling (2020)

unapi

The new mythology for which the German Romantic period called was not envisioned as antithetical to empiricism or experiential/experimental knowledge, but rather as emerging in dialogue with it to form a cultural foundation for such inquiry. Central to the mytho-scientific project were problematic theories of sexual division and generativity that established cultural baselines. This article examines the mythological investments of two influential thinkers of the period—Goethe and Schelling. It then analyzes Goethe’s unique merger of mythological approaches to sex and generation with empirical observation in The Metamorphosis of Plants. It next traces Schelling’s expansion of Goethe’s theories of nature beyond their empirical justifications to develop a metaphysics of sexual differentiation. Finally, the article illuminates Goethe’s final reply to the sexual dynamics of Naturphilosophie at the end of his life, through the analysis of a single poem, “Finding Again,” in the collection God and World. Ultimately and in spite of its empirical commitments, Goethe’s more flexible view of sexual correlations would lose ground to the powerful metaphysical mythology of sexual opposition as both scientific and cultural bedrock.

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Authors & Contributors
Goldstein, Amanda Jo
Adler, Jeremy
Beyer, Wilhelm Raimund
Carlson, Charles Royal
Dudley, Will
Erpenbeck, John
Journals
Goethe Jahrbuch
Acta Baltica historiae et philosophiae scientiarum
History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Journal of the History of Biology
Philosophia Naturalis
Science and Education
Publishers
University of Chicago Press
University of California, Berkeley
New York, City University of
Texas A&M University
Acumen
Ashgate
Concepts
Romanticism
Science and literature
Poetry and poetics
Science
Literary analysis
Reproduction
People
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von
Blake, William
Darwin, Erasmus
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Kant, Immanuel
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century
Enlightenment
Places
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
United States
Scotland
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