Pietism had a considerable impact on the cultural and social life of eighteenth-century Germany. However, the confrontation between what was essentially a religious movement and the literary world has not been adequately explored. This is particularly true of the negative reaction to Pietism in German literature or «literary antipietism», as it is referred to here. After establishing the background against which literary anti- pietism develops, the book examines those German literary works from the first half of the eighteenth century which portray Pietists in a negative manner and sheds light on the genesis as well as on the public reception of these works. The last chapter dis- cusses the theological basis for the Pietists' opposition to secular literature and the theater, chronicles their efforts in Halle to close theaters and forbid the reading of worldly literature in the schools, and analyzes the Pietists' understanding of the creative process as it relates to literature and the arts.

Pietism had a considerable impact on the cultural and social life of eighteenth-century Germany. However, the confrontation between what was essentially a religious movement and the literary world has not been adequately explored. This is particularly true of the negative reaction to Pietism in German literature or «literary antipietism», as it is referred to here. After establishing the background against which literary anti- pietism develops, the book examines those German literary works from the first half of the eighteenth century which portray Pietists in a negative manner and sheds light on the genesis as well as on the public reception of these works. The last chapter dis- cusses the theological basis for the Pietists' opposition to secular literature and the theater, chronicles their efforts in Halle to close theaters and forbid the reading of worldly literature in the schools, and analyzes the Pietists' understanding of the creative process as it relates to literature and the arts.

This concise historical overview of the existing historiography of women from across eighteenth-century Europe covers women of all ages, married and single, rich and poor. During the 18th century, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, protoindustrialization, and colonial conquest made their marks on women's lives in a variety of ways. Women's Roles in Eighteenth-Century Europe examines women of all ages and social backgrounds as they experienced the major events of this tumultuous period of sweeping social and political change. The book offers an inclusive portrayal of women from across Europe, surveying nations from Portugal to the Russian Empire, from Finland to Italy, including the often overlooked women of Eastern Europe. It depicts queens, an empress, noblewomen, peasants, and midwives. Separate chapters on family, work, politics, law, religion, arts and sciences, and war explore the varying contexts of the feminine experience, from the most intimate aspects of daily life to broad themes and conditions.

By focusing on Luise Gottsched's extraordinary volume and range of translations, Hilary Brown sheds an entirely new light on Gottsched and her oeuvre. Critics have paid increasing attention to the oeuvre of Luise Gottsched (1713-62), Germany's first prominent woman of letters, but have neglected her lifelong work of translation, which encompassed over fifty volumes and an extraordinary range, from drama and poetry to philosophy, history, archaeology, even theoretical physics. This first comprehensive overview of Gottsched's translations places them in the context of eighteenth-century intellectual, literary, and cultural history, showing that they were part of an ambitious, progressive program undertaken with her famous husband to shape German culture during the Enlightenment. In doing so it casts Gottsched and her work in an entirely new light. Including chapters on all the main subject areas and genres from which Gottsched translated, it also explores the relationship between her translations and her original works, demonstrating that translation was central to her oeuvre. A bibliography of Gottsched's translations and source texts concludes the volume. Not only a major new addition to a growing body of research on the Gottscheds, the book will also be valuable reading for scholars interested more broadly in women's writing, the history of translation, and the literature and culture of the German (and European) Enlightenment. Hilary Brown is Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, UK.

This volume is a register and bibliography to the first 20 volumes of the Lessing Yearbook and its supplements, Humanitaet und Dialog, Lessing in heutiger Sicht, Nation und Gelehrtenrepublik, and Lessing und die Toleranz.

First English translation of Gottsched's five original comedies. Luise Adelgunde Gottsched (1713-1762), poet, essayist, translator, and playwright, was regarded during her lifetime as intellectually the most formidable woman in Germany. Together with her better-known husband, Johann C. Gottsched, she crusaded to reform the language and literary taste of the Germans. Frau Gottsched's most important contribution to German literature came in the form of her translations and original comedies in the French classical style. The present volume offers for the first time in English translation Luise Gottsched's five original comedies, including Pietism in Petticoats (1736). The targets of her biting wit are hypocritical religious fundamentalists, the gentry, middle-class social climbers, German francophiles, and pseudo-intellectuals. These witty satires make it obvious why Luise has come to be viewed as the mother of the modern German comedy.