While Friedrich Schleiermacher’s place in the modern study of religion is well-established, his original contributions to aesthetics, and the close interconnections of aesthetics with religion in his writings, have received significantly less attention in English-language scholarship. This session draws upon the recent critical edition of Schleiermacher’s writings on aesthetics to explore his distinctive understanding of art and religion, and the various points of connection between his reflections on aesthetics and his better-known theological works. It centers especially on Schleiermacher’s novel reflections on music in both his theological writings and his writings on aesthetics, and on the significant links between music and religion in his thought.
The paper will discuss Friedrich Schleiermacher’s views on music as expressed in his Lectures on Aesthetics (1819-33), and compare them with his lectures on practical divinity and other writings. Schleiermacher perceived an organic link between music and religion. In On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799), he used the term “music of religion” when discussing the nature of his religious feelings, and described a “language of the heart” that linked human and religious affections. The paper will also discuss Schleiermacher’s views on music in the context of German Romanticism in his efforts to explain the centrality of music and religion.
| Jonas Lundblad | jonas.lundblad@teol.lu.se | View |