Klassizismus

Klassizismus, the imitation or cult of the literature, art, and thought of classical antiquity. The Middle Ages concerned themselves with classical formal conceptions only in a Latin context; the vernacular writers were attracted by classical subjects, especially the Aeneid and the story of Alexander the conqueror (see Heinrich von Veldeke and Alexanderlied). The first, and perhaps most thoroughgoing, movement of classicism in Germany is a part of the European florescence of Latin literature in Humanism (see Humanismus). The 17th c. and early 18th c. in Germany adopted classicism through the medium of French classicism. The classical phase of Goethe and Schiller (see Klassik, Deutsche) is a landmark in German classicism, and the work of Hölderlin is one of its greatest individual achievements. Later examples of classical poetry are chiefly isolated experiments, in which Mörike, J. Weinheber, and R. A. Schröder were notably successful. A remarkable feature of German classicism is the success with which the hexameters and distichs of the Ancients, and even Greek trimeters, all based originally on quantity, have been adapted to the accentuated system of German verse. That German classicism has continued well into the 20th c. is shown by G. Hauptmann's Atriden-Tetralogie, the four plays of which were published under separate titles between 1941 and 1948.