Philosophy, Letters and the Fine Arts in Klopstock's Thought

This study proposes an important revision of the textbook view of Klopstock as a pre-Romantic figure; it emphasizes the continuity of his thought with that of the classical tradition. Drawing in part on unpublished sources, Dr Hilliard demonstrates the thoroughly humanist cast of Klopstock's reflections on the arts and sciences, both in the priorities he establishes and the specific arguments he uses, which are largely derived from a fund of rhetorical commonplaces. The author also indicates the importance of these commonplaces for Klopstock's poetic theory and for the poetic works themselves. This study will thus be of particular interest as a contribution to the growing literature on rhetoric in the eighteenth century.