New publication: Cornelia Zumbusch: Romantische Thermodynamik Dichtung, Natur und die Verwandlung der Kräfte 1770-1830

30 September 2023

When speaking of the power of poetry, usually strong effects or creative potentials are meant. Guided by natural philosophical concepts of force, Herder, Goethe, and Hardenberg, on the other hand, ask about the forces behind the forms. They cast the activity of poetic imagination not as an autonomous creation, but as a constant exploitation of something that already exists. The notion of the whole of nature as a dynamic equilibrium of beings, common in the 18th century, forms the background to this idea. Images for the power of transformation are provided by metabolic processes such as consuming, breathing and burning. How does the new conception of poetic force between 1770 and 1830 relate to the concept of energy in early thermodynamics? And what role played the arrival of the steam engine and the fossil combustion culture, registered by the mining experts Goethe and Hardenberg? Cornelia Zumbusch addresses these and related questions in the fifth volume of the series »Imaginarien der Kraft« published by De Gruyter.

Cornelia Zumbusch: Romantische Thermodynamik. Dichtung, Natur und die Verwandlung der Kräfte 1770-1830. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2023. 476 pages. ISBN (hardcover): 9783111252971, ISBN (eBook): 9783111253206.