Lessing's Laocoon: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason

by David E. Wellbery

This study analyses the emergence of aesthetic theory in eighteenth-century Germany in relation to contemporary theories of the nature of language and signs. As well as being extremely relevant to the discussion of literary theory, this perspective casts much light on Enlightenment aesthetics. The central text under consideration shows that the extended comparison of poetry and the plastic arts contained in that major work of aesthetic criticism rests upon a theory of signs and constitutes a complex and global theory of aesthetic signification. His analysis of Laocoon is preceded by chapters which establish the underlying structure and influence of the Enlightenment metasemiotic - that is, the place and function of the sign concept in the culture of the early eighteenth century. As an important reinterpretation of Lessing's Laocoon and of the development of German aesthetic theory, this book will be of special interest to students and scholars of German literature. Moreover, as a significant chapter in the history of semiotics, it will be read with profit by all those concerned with the history of literary criticism and aesthetic theory.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 29, 1984

About the author

David E. Wellbery is the Kurrelmeyer Professor of German at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Lessing's Laocoon: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason (Cambridge, l984), and the co-editor of several collections of essays.

Reviews

[Karen· · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dense, complex, but well-structured, and I'm glad to say that Wellbery repeats himself, which is just as well, there's so much that I would miss otherwise.
Lessing's philosophy of beauty and art is a classic of the 18th century preoccupation with turning its attention to every aspect of human activity and trying to find its rationale, bend it under the dictates of an analytical approach. Lessing examines the difference between the visual, plastic arts which use natural signs, that is ones that we recognize as having a direct relationship with their significant and on the other hand poetry, which uses arbitrary signs, words whose meaning is a matter of negotiation and interpretation. Wellbery examines Lessing and places him in the context of the time.