DOI Artikel:
Szybisty, Tomasz: Between light and shadows: reflecting on varied conceptual perspectives on the peculiar lambency suffusing gothic churches as evidenced by German literature from the latter decades of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51154#0007
6
on the one hand the accounts may have reflected the actual
first-hand impressionistic observations of the writers, on
the other hand, such witnesses could very well have been
swayed by contemporaneous prevailing rhetorical tropes
and turns of phrase employed for the sake of verbalizing
culturally recognizable associations. The provenance of
such conceptual or cognitive mannerisms may have been
bound up, for example, with the description of the Divine
Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, or it may even have
lain in the metaphysics of light propounded by St Augus-
tine or Dionysios Areopagitis,3 with such hypotheses ac-
quiring much plausibility given that a couple of centuries
later the very same interiors inspired different character-
izations, dominated rather by references to paucity of light.
Admittedly, that later perception of Gothic architec-
ture may have been conditioned by developments in Re-
naissance and Baroque architecture, with a simultaneous
trend towards ever-brighter standards for the illumina-
tion of interiors. In the era of the Enlightenment, the de-
liberate, increasingly ‘dark’ portrayal of the Middle Ages
was underpinned by factors relating to symbology - light,
by dint of emblematizing the new epoch and symbolizing
rational understanding,4 was in a sense commandeered’
by the believers of the new rational creed, and henceforth
had to be prevented from being attributable to a period
deemed to have been dominated by ignorance, oppression
and religious superstition. A case in point here is the com-
ment passed in 1790 by Karl Ludwig von Knebel, a poet
and friend of Goethe: he was genuinely looking forward
to the expansion of the revolutionary upheaval in France,
as in a letter to his sister he made disparaging reference
to ‘the Gothic shadows’ (gothische Finsternisse), which to
his mind symbolized the restriction of the freedoms pos-
sessed by the individual.5 Interestingly, as aptly noted by
Elgin Vaassen, the philosophy of Enlightenment was not
only bent on blowing away the cobwebs of spiritual dark-
ness, but also addressed itself to the brightening up of ac-
tual interiors.6 This rationalist campaign led to the remov-
al or destruction of many a stained-glass window panel
in churches, either due to their poor state of repair or
because it was a popular belief that the stained glass was
3 The perception of light in the Gothic era has been succinctly pre-
sented and richly referenced by E. Kozina in “‘Lauteres Gold
wie durchsichtiges Glas” (Offb 21,21). Einige Überlegungen zum
Lichtbegriff in der Zeit der großen Kathedralen, Österreichische
Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege, 65, 2011, no. 1/2, pp. 28-
34-
4 K.E. Becker, Licht - [L]lumière[s] - Siècle des Lumières. Von der
Lichtmetapher zum Epochenbegriff der Aufklärung in Frankreich,
Cologne, 1994.
5 Karl Ludwig von Knebels letter to his sister Henrietta, Jan. 11th
1790, in Aus Karl Ludwig von Knebels Briefwechsel mit seiner
Schwester Henriette, Erzieherin der Prinzessin Karolinę von Sach-
sen-Weimar-Eisenach (1774-1813). Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Hof-
und Literaturgeschichte, ed. by H. Düntzer, Jena, 1858, p. 107.
6 E. Vaassen, Bilder auf Glas, p. 27 (as in note 1).
responsible for the obfuscation of the interior and stultifi-
cation of the faithful. The latter opinion can be found, for
example, in a statement delivered in 1790 by Rev. Joseph
Felician Geissinger from Freiburg im Breisgau.7
By the same token, however, the metaphoric invest-
ment of the Gothic style with darkness turned out to be an
exceptionally efficacious strategy for the evocation of that
frisson of emotion which underpinned the eighteenth
century aesthetics of sublimity.8 That fashion was trans-
planted from British literature, and the trend is exempli-
fied by the local emulation of British graveyard poetry’,
where Gothic buildings or ruins were pressed into service
with the express brief of affording that eerily atmospher-
ic backdrop. A work that perfectly illustrates this lyrical
bandwagon in Germany is the elegy Wb bin ich? - in Ein-
siedeleyen written by the young Herder, probably after his
father died in 1763.9
The medieval architecture in Herder’s elegy, enhanc-
ingly enveloped by sombre, dim shadows, is one of the
numerous staple elements of the scenery which medi-
ate the emergence of this uncanny sense of otherworld-
liness. What is more, in fact, it was the Gothic buildings
themselves that singlehandedly succeeded in providing
the pièce de résistance of any evocative setup. The con-
summate crystallization of such sufficiency comes cour-
tesy of the genre of gothic novels which Norman Holland
and Leona Sherman christened with a term that hits the
nail on the head, and with a flourish, too: ‘woman plus
habitation’,10 with the designation being mandated by the
authors’ contention that medieval buildings featured in
these literary works tend to lend themselves as a frame-
work for the rise of turbulent emotions, commission of
crimes and appearance of ghosts. Securely ensconced in
this same lineage is Christian Heinrich Spieß ’s Das Pe-
termanneken, a 1791 novel which was very popular with
Goethe’s contemporaries. The plot of the novel is set in
the thirteenth century. The main character, Rudolph, the
7 Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg im Breisgau, ms. 498: Joseph Feli-
cian Geissinger, Abschriften von Epitaphien oder Grabschriften,
welche in Unser lieben Frauen Münster, der Pfarrkirche zu Frey-
burg in dem Breysgau befindlich seynd..., p. 74 (manuscript scan:
http://dl.ub.uni-freiburg.de/diglit/geissinger1787, retrieved 21 Ja-
nuary, 2019). I wish to express my gratitude to Dr Daniel Parel-
io from Corpus Vitrearum Deutschland for bringing the passage
to my attention.
8 See among others: H. von Trotha, Angenehme Empfindungen.
Medien einer populären Wirkungsästhetik im 18. Jahrhundert vom
Landschaftsgarten bis zum Schauerroman, Munich, 1999, passim.
9 J.G. Herder, Sämtliche Werke, ed. by В. Suphan, vol. 29: Eigene
Gedichte, ed. by К. Redlich, Berlin, 1889, p. 230; cf. P. Frankl, The
Gothic. Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Cen-
turies, Princeton, i960, pp. 419-420; W. Dobbek, Johann Gott-
fried Herders Jugendzeit in Mohrungen und Königsberg 1744-1764,
Würzburg, 1961, pp. 62-64.
10 N.N. Holland, L.E Sherman, ‘Gothic Possibilities’, New Literary
History, 8,1977, no. 2, p. 279.
on the one hand the accounts may have reflected the actual
first-hand impressionistic observations of the writers, on
the other hand, such witnesses could very well have been
swayed by contemporaneous prevailing rhetorical tropes
and turns of phrase employed for the sake of verbalizing
culturally recognizable associations. The provenance of
such conceptual or cognitive mannerisms may have been
bound up, for example, with the description of the Divine
Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, or it may even have
lain in the metaphysics of light propounded by St Augus-
tine or Dionysios Areopagitis,3 with such hypotheses ac-
quiring much plausibility given that a couple of centuries
later the very same interiors inspired different character-
izations, dominated rather by references to paucity of light.
Admittedly, that later perception of Gothic architec-
ture may have been conditioned by developments in Re-
naissance and Baroque architecture, with a simultaneous
trend towards ever-brighter standards for the illumina-
tion of interiors. In the era of the Enlightenment, the de-
liberate, increasingly ‘dark’ portrayal of the Middle Ages
was underpinned by factors relating to symbology - light,
by dint of emblematizing the new epoch and symbolizing
rational understanding,4 was in a sense commandeered’
by the believers of the new rational creed, and henceforth
had to be prevented from being attributable to a period
deemed to have been dominated by ignorance, oppression
and religious superstition. A case in point here is the com-
ment passed in 1790 by Karl Ludwig von Knebel, a poet
and friend of Goethe: he was genuinely looking forward
to the expansion of the revolutionary upheaval in France,
as in a letter to his sister he made disparaging reference
to ‘the Gothic shadows’ (gothische Finsternisse), which to
his mind symbolized the restriction of the freedoms pos-
sessed by the individual.5 Interestingly, as aptly noted by
Elgin Vaassen, the philosophy of Enlightenment was not
only bent on blowing away the cobwebs of spiritual dark-
ness, but also addressed itself to the brightening up of ac-
tual interiors.6 This rationalist campaign led to the remov-
al or destruction of many a stained-glass window panel
in churches, either due to their poor state of repair or
because it was a popular belief that the stained glass was
3 The perception of light in the Gothic era has been succinctly pre-
sented and richly referenced by E. Kozina in “‘Lauteres Gold
wie durchsichtiges Glas” (Offb 21,21). Einige Überlegungen zum
Lichtbegriff in der Zeit der großen Kathedralen, Österreichische
Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege, 65, 2011, no. 1/2, pp. 28-
34-
4 K.E. Becker, Licht - [L]lumière[s] - Siècle des Lumières. Von der
Lichtmetapher zum Epochenbegriff der Aufklärung in Frankreich,
Cologne, 1994.
5 Karl Ludwig von Knebels letter to his sister Henrietta, Jan. 11th
1790, in Aus Karl Ludwig von Knebels Briefwechsel mit seiner
Schwester Henriette, Erzieherin der Prinzessin Karolinę von Sach-
sen-Weimar-Eisenach (1774-1813). Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Hof-
und Literaturgeschichte, ed. by H. Düntzer, Jena, 1858, p. 107.
6 E. Vaassen, Bilder auf Glas, p. 27 (as in note 1).
responsible for the obfuscation of the interior and stultifi-
cation of the faithful. The latter opinion can be found, for
example, in a statement delivered in 1790 by Rev. Joseph
Felician Geissinger from Freiburg im Breisgau.7
By the same token, however, the metaphoric invest-
ment of the Gothic style with darkness turned out to be an
exceptionally efficacious strategy for the evocation of that
frisson of emotion which underpinned the eighteenth
century aesthetics of sublimity.8 That fashion was trans-
planted from British literature, and the trend is exempli-
fied by the local emulation of British graveyard poetry’,
where Gothic buildings or ruins were pressed into service
with the express brief of affording that eerily atmospher-
ic backdrop. A work that perfectly illustrates this lyrical
bandwagon in Germany is the elegy Wb bin ich? - in Ein-
siedeleyen written by the young Herder, probably after his
father died in 1763.9
The medieval architecture in Herder’s elegy, enhanc-
ingly enveloped by sombre, dim shadows, is one of the
numerous staple elements of the scenery which medi-
ate the emergence of this uncanny sense of otherworld-
liness. What is more, in fact, it was the Gothic buildings
themselves that singlehandedly succeeded in providing
the pièce de résistance of any evocative setup. The con-
summate crystallization of such sufficiency comes cour-
tesy of the genre of gothic novels which Norman Holland
and Leona Sherman christened with a term that hits the
nail on the head, and with a flourish, too: ‘woman plus
habitation’,10 with the designation being mandated by the
authors’ contention that medieval buildings featured in
these literary works tend to lend themselves as a frame-
work for the rise of turbulent emotions, commission of
crimes and appearance of ghosts. Securely ensconced in
this same lineage is Christian Heinrich Spieß ’s Das Pe-
termanneken, a 1791 novel which was very popular with
Goethe’s contemporaries. The plot of the novel is set in
the thirteenth century. The main character, Rudolph, the
7 Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg im Breisgau, ms. 498: Joseph Feli-
cian Geissinger, Abschriften von Epitaphien oder Grabschriften,
welche in Unser lieben Frauen Münster, der Pfarrkirche zu Frey-
burg in dem Breysgau befindlich seynd..., p. 74 (manuscript scan:
http://dl.ub.uni-freiburg.de/diglit/geissinger1787, retrieved 21 Ja-
nuary, 2019). I wish to express my gratitude to Dr Daniel Parel-
io from Corpus Vitrearum Deutschland for bringing the passage
to my attention.
8 See among others: H. von Trotha, Angenehme Empfindungen.
Medien einer populären Wirkungsästhetik im 18. Jahrhundert vom
Landschaftsgarten bis zum Schauerroman, Munich, 1999, passim.
9 J.G. Herder, Sämtliche Werke, ed. by В. Suphan, vol. 29: Eigene
Gedichte, ed. by К. Redlich, Berlin, 1889, p. 230; cf. P. Frankl, The
Gothic. Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Cen-
turies, Princeton, i960, pp. 419-420; W. Dobbek, Johann Gott-
fried Herders Jugendzeit in Mohrungen und Königsberg 1744-1764,
Würzburg, 1961, pp. 62-64.
10 N.N. Holland, L.E Sherman, ‘Gothic Possibilities’, New Literary
History, 8,1977, no. 2, p. 279.