Why Did German Artists Around 1800 Turn to Ancient Greece? | Simon Friedland | First Friday Lecture

How did German writers and thinkers around 1800 come to seek ancient Greece not as a distant historical object, but as a living ideal within art, poetry, ethics, and self-understanding? In this First Friday lecture hosted by the University of Chicago Graham School, Basic Program Instructor Simon Friedland traces the German engagement with ancient Greece from roughly 1750 to 1830, beginning with one of the most influential artworks in the history of German aesthetics: the Laocoön sculpture. Starting from Winckelmann’s famous ideal of “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur,” Friedland shows how a body in pain became central to German classicism’s understanding of beauty, restraint, and the ethical meaning of artistic form. Friedland then turns to Lessing's Laocoön opens onto a broader theory of representation, and the lecture follows the German reception through Schiller's distinction between naïve and sentimental poetry, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Iphigenia in Tauris, and Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea, asking how Greek antiquity became a way of thinking about alienation, truth, recognition, violence, and the limits of harmonious human community. In the lecture’s final movement, Friedland turns to Hölderlin and Hegel, where the Greek world appears not simply as an ideal to recover, but as something historically lost. Greek gods fade, Christian inwardness deepens, and a new historical consciousness emerges in which antiquity becomes both foundational and irretrievable. Across these thinkers, Friedland shows how ancient Greece became a medium through which German culture reimagined art, religion, language, and modernity itself. Key questions explored in this lecture: • How did Winckelmann’s reading of the Laocoön transform suffering into an ideal of beauty and restraint? • Why does Lessing distinguish so sharply between poetry and the visual arts, and what does he mean by the “pregnant moment”? • How does Schiller’s contrast between naïve and sentimental poetry illuminate modern alienation? • What does Goethe’s Iphigenia in Tauris suggest about truth-telling, recognition, and ethical transformation? • How does Kleist’s Penthesilea challenge classical ideals of harmony through violence, eros, and bodily language? • Why does Hegel regard Greek art as both a high point and something fundamentally past? Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction, recording notes, and event opening 00:01:10 The Graham School, the Basic Program, and upcoming events 00:02:42 Introduction of Simon Friedland 00:03:24 Lecture begins: Germany and ancient Greece around 1750–1830 00:07:37 Winckelmann, Laocoön, and “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur” 00:13:15 Lessing’s Laocoön: poetry, painting, and the pregnant moment 00:18:50 Schiller on naïve and sentimental poetry 00:24:18 Goethe’s Iphigenia in Tauris: truth, recognition, and civilization 00:35:08 Kleist’s Penthesilea: violence, desire, and linguistic intensity 00:40:27 Hölderlin, prosody, and the afterlife of Greek antiquity in German poetry 00:52:01 Hegel on Greek art, inwardness, and historical consciousness 00:55:54 Q&A begins: Lessing, Munch, and beauty versus horror 01:03:35 Q&A: slavery, colonialism, classics, and romanticism 01:10:18 Q&A: language, German identity, and national culture 01:15:58 Closing thanks and final applause About the Speaker Simon Friedland joined the Basic Program instructional staff in 2023. He received his Ph.D. in 2021 from the University of Chicago in German Studies, with a dissertation entitled, “The Pulse of Prosody: Versification and Antiquity in the Age of Weimar Classicism.” From 2021-23, Simon was a Humanities Teaching Fellow at UChicago. Simon is a graduate of Reed College. While a student, Simon spent one year in Berlin at the Freie Universität. About the Basic Program The First Friday Lecture series is presented by the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. The Basic Program is a four-year certificate program for intellectually curious learners who want to read and discuss the Great Books in a serious, welcoming community. Through close reading and weekly conversation, students engage works of literature, philosophy, history, and social thought by authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Shakespeare, Woolf, and Morrison—guided by outstanding instructors, with no prerequisites, tests, papers, or grades. Offered online and in person, the program invites adults from all backgrounds to deepen their thinking and join a lifelong community of readers. Learn more at https://graham.uchicago.edu/program/basic-program-of-liberal-education/ About Graham The Graham School brings the best of the University of Chicago to lifelong learners seeking discovery and discernment. Through programs in the Great Books, the liberal arts, and advanced leadership, we welcome learners who seek to deepen their understanding of the world and lead examined lives of purpose. Learn more at https://graham.uchicago.edu