Enlightenment and Community: Lessing, Abbt, Herder, and the Quest for a German Public

Benjamin Redekop focuses on "the interplay between an emerging yet problematic Publikum and ... [the] pioneering efforts as public writers" (25) of three key figures of the German eighteenth century: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Thomas Abbt, and Johann Gottfried Herder. His stress is upon the problems of emergence, both for the public itself and for the writers who sought to "theorize and shape this entity" (222). Redekop seeks to problematize and revise many key features of the theoretical framework of Jürgen Habermas. Above all, he emphasizes that the German public of the eighteenth century was "very refractory and amorphous" (6) and that characterizing it as a bourgeois public sphere, as Habermas did, commits the error of "impos[ing] latter-day socio-economic categories on early modern historical conditions" (17). Redekop is certainly correct to claim that the German Publikum of the eighteenth century should not be confused with the Bildungsbürgertum of the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century the Gebildeten were, as he aptly observes, "a heterogeneous group united by education and a common orientation towards the arts, education, and enlightened communication and reform" (35). This group's community was "imagined" as much as concrete, that is, it was more a matter of consciousness than of social structure. The central project of the German enlightenment was to create the concept of the public itself and to transform it from a receptive to an active, indeed, adjudicative force.

Redekop, evoking the broader European framework of the Habermas thesis, contends the problems of a specifically German public sphere were severe, and he faults other scholars, such as Hans-Erich Bödeker, for taking its actuality too much for granted. Redekop may err on the other side in presuming that a public sphere as a unified, self-evident cultural form was even true of Britain or France in the eighteenth century. Not only does the evidence point to discontinuities in these contexts, but Redekop's own account of the German case suggests that there were significant unities emerging in that context. Here there is room for scholarly disagreement; Redekop urges caution about how far things had come; others might want to stress that they had nonetheless come far. This reviewer finds Bödeker's presentation of the latter case more congenial.

Redekop stresses the refractory and amorphous state of the German Publikum in order to account for the travails of his three central figures, since for each of them he discerns "a crisis of isolation and a lack of stimulation, support, and a sense of effectiveness" which resulted from "a lack of forum for [their] efforts" (165). Thus, "like Lessing and Abbt, Herder experienced personally the lack of a coherent and developed Publikum and a sustaining role for himself in shaping public life" (171). All three figures "experienced a good degree of loneliness and feelings of isolation and lack of connection to the wider world" (196). This is not to be denied, yet Redekop himself notes that the creation of a public sphere presumes a print culture that of itself individualizes each reader even as it links the reader to an "imagined community." Thus that "the main avenue for making connections and shaping an emerging public was through writing" (196) might be endemic to the public sphere and not unique to its German backwardness. One could easily muster evidence of similar frustrations for authors in Britain or France. Above all, the story of these three public writers, individually and serially, is not so gloomy. To be sure, one can stress the failure of the Nationaltheater and Lessing's isolation at Wolfenbüttel, or Herder's glum times at Bückeburg. But that must be weighed against the indelible image of the public writer that Lessing succeeded in stamping upon the German mind. Similarly, Herder's publications while at Bückeburg and his public career after his move to Weimar argue for a prominence that at the very least tempers the sense of isolation.

Redekop explores the conception and evocation of a German public by each of his three figures, rather than offering detailed analysis of their works or ideas for their own sake. He recognizes that "those who would rather I engaged in intensely abstract philosophical or linguistic analysis of my subjects will be disappointed" (26). He has picked an important theme, and the harvest in terms of understanding driving impulses in the careers of each of the figures and, even more, in what links them together, proves quite significant. At the same time, a certain measure of disappointment does emerge because the works and ideas of the three figures tend to suffer too summary an articulation in order to be gathered up into Redekop's scheme. This disappointment is strongest regarding Lessing and Herder. Redekop is to be commended, on the other hand, for the best treatment of Thomas Abbt in English and perhaps in any language. Redekop's recognition of Abbt's major role in the construction of the Aufklärung is very salutary. He reconstructs Abbt's brief but influential career deftly, laying out the themes and the movement of Abbt's ideas. Redekop's focus here fits his subject most closely because Abbt's whole endeavor centered upon the problem of creating a public sphere in a way that is not entirely true for the more capacious intellectual projects of Lessing or Herder. Placing Abbt at the center of his study highlights both what is common to all of them and exemplary in Abbt. Redekop is certainly correct in stressing Abbt's decisive influence on Herder's project and identity.

In general, Redekop's conception of Herder's project is highly welcome. He writes: "Amid all else, it is clear that Herder was self-consciously engaged in a project of reform and enlightenment indebted to the legacy of 'public writers' - notably Abbt and Lessing-and that he was interested in furthering a kind of writing that would develop the German language in a way that organically enlightened and united all classes into a common Volk, a true German Publikum" (218). That is, "Herder was in fact aiming to inspire a stronger and more unified and educated German public that would be more able to manage its own affairs" (183). Thus Redekop sees himself "bringing Herder, particularly, back into the orbit of the Enlightenment" (28), and indeed, over against Immanuel Kant's ostensibly "subversive" -i.e., politically progressive-theory of publicity, insisting that "if one wants to look for subversion, one should look to Herder" (238). In making the case that Abbt, and in lesser measure Lessing, proved as important for Herder's project as Kant or Johann Hamann, Redekop advances significantly the current scholarly endeavor to right the very lopsided picture of the German Aufklärung perceived through Kantian lenses. At the same time, Redekop's stress on "organic enlightenment" as the essence of Herder's thought seems too formulaic and underdeveloped. The strength of his book is its cautious but convincing narrative of the emergence of a German Publikum through its centrality in the thought and the projects of three key figures of the German Aufklärung. That is insight well worth having.