The Death of Rhetoric and Emergence of Romantic Eloquence in Germany. The Revolution of Discourse – from Kant to Political Romanticism (1790–1815)

Abstract

By questioning the cultural crisis in Germany at the end of the era of enlightenment and the beginning of Romantic period,  the paper aims to present the reader with new perspectives on the issue from the angle of so-called ‘death of rhetoric’ and emergence of modern, ‘communicational’ eloquence. The rejection of rhetoric tradition at that period actually illustrates a great political and cultural turmoil in Germany of the time, which is under the influence of the French revolution and still feels the consequences of the Napoleon regime, which leads, between the years of 1790 and 1815 to an ever increasing inclination of the philosophy towards the politics. Kant’s attitudes and his critique of the rhetoric in his text titled Kritik der Urteilskraft and the political Romanticism of Adam Muller in his book titled (1816), his rehabilitation of eloquence, philosophy of antinomy and mediation, through popular philosophers and Scottish Enlightenment, his variation of the statute of the rhetoric, confirm that it was a transitory period between two paradigms. Political Romanticism is born out of an attempt of rehabilitation of the rhetoric in the context of restoration, the period which gives birth to national identities, as well as affirmation of German intellectuals and establishment of the rhetoric in general. This movement will eventually lead to a communicational modernity based on the concept of Gadamer and Habermas, while in France there still prevail Foucaltian discourse of the break with rhetoric tradition. Therefore, there is a conclusion that in Europe there is a structural shift of periods of break and continuity, a critical rhythm in which a discursive phenomenon has the central position and plays the role of a mediator.