'Jena 1800' by Peter Neumann
In 1800 Jena was a German village of only 4,000 souls, but as a university town, half of them were faculty, students and their spouses including many of the leading artistic, scientific and philosophical lights of German-speaking Europe. Written like a novella but grounded in footnotes, Jena 1800 by German poet-essayist Peter Neumann recreates the heady environment in flowing, literate prose. Goethe was a frequent visitor to Jena and was the sun around which everyone revolved, including August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich and Caroline Schlegel, Dorothea Schlegel, Ludwig Tieck, Novalis, Friedrich Schilling—a concentration of writers and rebels comparable to San Francisco in the Beat era. Many of the names will be unfamiliar to contemporary audiences but the story of their friendships and rivalries will pull readers along through their discussions of nature, humanity and new worlds to come.
