Johann Karl Wezel : From Religious Pessimism to Anthropological Skepticism

Brain (German, Northern Illinois University) examines German Enlightenment author Wezel's novel Robinson Krusoe (1779), a satirical, anti-utopian adaptation and continuation of Defoe's novel, and the religious, philosophical, historical, literary, and pedagogical context from which it arose.

He pays particular attention to a gradual progression during the Enlightenment in concepts of history, society, and man, from religious pessimism, to optimistic views based on Providence and on "Enlightened" religion and virtue, and finally to an "anthropological" skepticism.