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...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1991
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| In: |
The German quarterly
Year: 1991, Volume: 64, Issue: 2, Pages: 178-189 |
| Further subjects: | B
Girard, René (1923-2015)
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| 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. |
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| ISSN: | 1756-1183 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The German quarterly
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/407077 |