Forces of Nature : Dynamism and Agency in German Romanticism

By the end of the 18th century, notions of "forces of nature" (Naturkräfte) were increasingly discussed across disciplinary bounds: attraction and repulsion, vital forces and electric fluids, formative drives and biological organisms were examined as forces linked to ‘natural’ processes.

German Romantic literature, science, and philosophy – from Schelling and Novalis to Günderrode and Hölderlin – pondered interrelated notions of forces considered as dynamic and continually active in nature – forces which, in turn, also appeared to shape human actions, social structures, and cultural developments.

This volume explores the points of reference for, approaches to, and afterlives of Romantic conceptions and representations of natural forces at the intersection of natural sciences and cultural imaginaries.