Scottish political ideas in eighteenth century Germany

This thesis examines the reception of the works of Adam Ferguson, a major thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment, by a range of German readers in the late eighteenth century. It provides a survey of Ferguson's main political ideas, and argues that many of his prominent German readers did not come to terms with them. The thesis contrasts the political realities and concerns of Ferguson's Scotland with the profoundly different political concerns of his German readers, and their often vague and inaccurate ideas of Scotland, and of the British constitution. Their documented responses to Ferguson's works are brought as evidence for a cumulative and complex case of misreception. The terms in which Ferguson expressed his political ideas can be fruitfully analyzed as a political language, a vocabulary of recognizable and mutually complementing political terms. After a close examination of this particular vocabulary, the thesis proceeds to show in detail how Ferguson's German translators, commentators, reviewers and readers unwittingly dismantled this vocabulary, lost or ignored its republican and activist elements, and sometimes shifted it into other vocabularies which were far removed from the author's political intentions. However, the differences between the individual readers are emphasized, not only with respect to their varied intellectual backgrounds and works, but also touching on their personal profiles as readers and thinkers. The thesis aims especially to highlight three aspects of this Scottish- German encounter: the capacity of Ferguson's texts to be removed from their contexts and misread; the failure of civic humanist ideas to make a serious entry into German political discourse; and the merits of close textual analysis for supporting a type of explanation, which may supplement or counter-balance other explanations, about the limited effect of "imported" political ideas in eighteenth-century German discourse.</p

From the hills of the Caledonians: National identity in Scotland and Germany in the late 18th century

During the last three decades of the eighteenth century German men of letters sensed that they had something to learn from their Scottish counterparts about the forging of a cultural and linguistic identity. By the second decade of the nineteenth century the pupils had far outstripped the teachers and were already embarked on a quest for a full blown national identity. The Scots, by contrast, had completed a long and complex process of disowning their memory of a distinct Scottish sovereignity, discarding the intellectual apparatus that might have supported it - national myths, separatist historical scholarship and the ideas of uniqueness and superiority. The fate of James Macpherson's Works of Ossian (1765) serves as an illustration of these contradictory developments. In Scotland the success of Ossian was shortlived as the complexity of Scottish enquiries into history and society stretched far beyond Macpherson's idealized Highland world. Scottish historiography and political theory dispensed with the indigenous and ethnic dimensions essential for the emergence of Romantic nationalism. For many continental readers Ossian provided a model for their own search for a national identity through the revival of the indigenous cultural legacy. The German quest for a politically distinct national identity rose to pre-eminence in social and political discourse. By the early nineteenth century the Enlightenment affinities beween Scottland and Germany had given way to profoundly different political and cultural agendas. In Scotland the future was soundly British, Scotland's past had become the stuff of folklore, while Germany's past was being recast into a new form of national self-assertion.During the last three decades of the eighteenth century German men of letters sensed that they had something to learn from their Scottish counterparts about the forging of a cultural and linguistic identity. By the second decade of the nineteenth century the pupils had far outstripped the teachers and were already embarked on a quest for a full blown national identity. The Scots, by contrast, had completed a long and complex process of disowning their memory of a distinct Scottish sovereignity, discarding the intellectual apparatus that might have supported it - national myths, separatist historical scholarship and the ideas of uniqueness and superiority. The fate of James Macpherson's Works of Ossian (1765) serves as an illustration of these contradictory developments. In Scotland the success of Ossian was shortlived as the complexity of Scottish enquiries into history and society stretched far beyond Macpherson's idealized Highland world. Scottish historiography and political theory dispensed with the indigenous and ethnic dimensions essential for the emergence of Romantic nationalism. For many continental readers Ossian provided a model for their own search for a national identity through the revival of the indigenous cultural legacy. The German quest for a politically distinct national identity rose to pre-eminence in social and political discourse. By the early nineteenth century the Enlightenment affinities beween Scottland and Germany had given way to profoundly different political and cultural agendas. In Scotland the future was soundly British, Scotland's past had become the stuff of folklore, while Germany's past was being recast into a new form of national self-assertion