The Education of the Human Race: Lessing, Freud, and the Savage Mind

The rationalist fantasy of the Enlightenment is the myth of the nonviolent origins of virtue, typically represented through the image of rational birth. This myth falters when Odoardo Galotti, invoking the second birth of reason, kills his daughter. This article examines Lessing's Die Erziehung...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Calhoon, Kenneth Scott 1956- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell 1991
In: The German quarterly
Year: 1991, Volume: 64, Issue: 2, Pages: 178-189
Further subjects:B Girard, René (1923-2015)
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:The rationalist fantasy of the Enlightenment is the myth of the nonviolent origins of virtue, typically represented through the image of rational birth. This myth falters when Odoardo Galotti, invoking the second birth of reason, kills his daughter. This article examines Lessing's Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts-essentially a treatise on the phylogeny/ontogeny distinction-in terms of a recuperative rationalist gesture that continues to inform Freud's oedipal theory as well as Claude Lévy-Strauss's understanding of the "cerebral savage." These theories are not treated as methodological frameworks for reading Lessing but rather as evidence of the tanacity of Enlightenment desires, which are already problematized by texts like Emilia Galotti.
ISSN:1756-1183
Contains:Enthalten in: The German quarterly
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.2307/407077