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Chapter 3 - German Literature and Religion 1700–1770

The Shock and Normalization of the Infinite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2019

Ian Cooper
Affiliation:
University of Kent, Canterbury
John Walker
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
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Summary

This chapter explores a crucial transition in the understanding of infinity during the eighteenth century. Originally a divine attribute, against which the finite is reduced to insignificance (e.g., in Baroque poetry), the infinite becomes a feature to be embraced within the finite world itself. Together with developments in science and mathematics (e.g., the invention of the calculus at the end of the seventeenth century), other cultural spheres played a crucial role in normalizing the ‘anomaly’ (T. S. Kuhn) of the infinite. Chief among them were ‘physico-theology’ and religiously inflected poetry (especially Heinrich Brockes), which celebrated the divine within the grandest and minutest aspects of creation, and Pietism, which explored feelings of the sublime in nature and the soul (especially Friedrich Klopstock).

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Chapter
Information
Literature and Religion in the German-Speaking World
From 1200 to the Present Day
, pp. 85 - 121
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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