Lecture – Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and theInvention of the Self

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Forget Paris…the real Revolution in the 1790s happened in Jena, a quiet German university town where the unlikely revolutionaries were not soldiers or politicians but poets and playwrights (Goethe, Schiller and Novalis), philosophers (Fichte, Schelling and Hegel), literary critics (the contentious Schlegel brothers) and scientists (Alexander von Humboldt). And at their heart was the formidable and free-spirited Caroline Schlegel. The Jena Set were the first Romantics. And their unconventional lives were laboratories for their radical ideas – about the creative power of the self, the aspirations of art and science, nature and the true meaning of freedom.

Best-selling author Andrea Wulf takes us on a vivid journey through a remarkable period that changed the way we think about ourselves and the world in this lecture on her book, Magnificent Rebels.

Presented with the generous support of The Halle Foundation and in partnership with the Goethe-Zentrum Atlanta.