Eduard Mörike - Ästhetik und Geselligkeit

Even today, Mörike (1804-1875) is still not accorded the attention he deserves, not least because of the difficulty of relating him to the major tendencies of the 19th century. He is not an intellectual like Heine. He did not intervene in the major political debates of his time. We find little trace in his works of economic or social upheavals. He did not rebel against the dominance of the great German classics. He has nothing of the iconoclast about him. In his works apparently insignificant things attain significance. They are incorporated into the process of aesthetic reflection and set off against concrete features of his life-world. Accordingly, 'aesthetics' and 'sociability' are mutually productive, the one being a reflection of the other.