SOURCE: "Matthias Claudius and Science: A Foot-note on an Eighteenth-Century Figure and Theme," in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 102, No. 3, April 1987, pp. 655-62.

In this essay, Rowland explores Claudius's interest in science and its thematic expression in his writings, and positions him in the Enlightenment tradition.

The use of science as theme and motif in German literature has been studied systematically for only two literary periods. Walter Schatzberg has examined the Enlightenment through 1760, while Alexander Gode von Aesch has investigated Romanticism.¹ Scholarship has yet to inquire thoroughly into the intervening time and, indeed, will still require specialized discussions before a synthetic treatment can be undertaken.² Matthias Claudius is one of the writers who have not yet been considered in this context. The present note is therefore intended in part to help prepare the way for a comprehensive study of the subject.

Claudius is typically portrayed as standing to the...