Pietism and German Literature in the 18th Century

Entirely within the Lutheran tradition, Pietism cultivated language also with regard to poetry and literature. Its most significant contribution to German literature was spiritual poetry, which was characterised by its depth of feeling and linguistic power. In addition, individual accounts of life and experiences were written and collections of exemplary biographies of Pietists were published. These works, together with the devotional literature published by Pietists, dominated the German book market in the first half of the 18th century.

This literature, which focused on introspection and emotions, produced its own language with special terminology and semantics, which found its way into German literature from Sentimentalism, through Sturm und Drang, to Romanticism. In terms of content, 18th century German literature was also strongly influenced by Pietism, with its emphasis on emotionality. After all, the important German literary figures in the 18th century all had a Protestant upbringing, and many also came from Protestant parsonages or Pietist families.

Quote from the Germanist Heinz Schlaffer

»So what, then, could be the new, the own language of German literature? A language that was neither past nor literature: that of Protestant religiosity, especially in the form of Pietism, which [...] had empowered every member of the congregation and not only the pastor to discuss religious questions. Empowering everyone, enabling many to speak and write was the first condition for the emergence of a literary epoch in Germany’s bourgeois age. The Protestant language, insofar as it was transposed into the foreign, almost hostile territory of fine literature, was at once familiar and new: familiar because [...] the pupils of pious congregations had heard or read it from childhood.«