The Feeling of the Form (Paperback)

Joseph R. Metz

ISBN 10: 1501783599 / ISBN 13: 9781501783593

Published by Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2025

About this Item

Paperback. The Feeling of the Form explores the concept of Einfuehlung - the projection of human feelings and life into inanimate forms - developed by German aesthetic theorists in the late nineteenth century. The word would be translated into English as "empathy" and migrate in meaning from the aesthetic to the interpersonal sphere. Combining close analysis and cultural "para-history," The Feeling of the Form reads literary texts by Georg Buechner, Adalbert Stifter, and Rainer Maria Rilke alongside philosophical texts by Robert Vischer, Vernon Lee, and Theodor Lipps to uncover the often-uncanny intersections of aesthetic and interpersonal empathy.Traveling both backward and forward in time from the 1873 invention of Einfuehlung, Joseph R. Metz traces the diverse and multidirectional exchanges among subjects and objects, feelings and forms, and selves and others that together yield an expanded understanding of Einfuehlung, empathy, and the connections between them. In its surprising juxtapositions, The Feeling of the Form also shows how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century texts prefigure a wide array of later thought, including affect theory, "other minds," artificial intelligence, object-oriented ontology, and cinema and video game aesthetics. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781501783593

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Feeling of the Form (Paperback)
• Publisher: Cornell University Press, Ithaca
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501783599
• ISBN 13: 9781501783593
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The Feeling of the Form explores the concept of Einfuehlung―the projection of human feelings and life into inanimate forms―developed by German aesthetic theorists in the late nineteenth century. The word would be translated into English as "empathy" and migrate in meaning from the aesthetic to the interpersonal sphere. Combining close analysis and cultural "para-history," The Feeling of the Form reads literary texts by Georg Buechner, Adalbert Stifter, and Rainer Maria Rilke alongside philosophical texts by Robert Vischer, Vernon Lee, and Theodor Lipps to uncover the often-uncanny intersections of aesthetic and interpersonal empathy.

Traveling both backward and forward in time from the 1873 invention of Einfuehlung, Joseph R. Metz traces the diverse and multidirectional exchanges among subjects and objects, feelings and forms, and selves and others that together yield an expanded understanding of Einfuehlung, empathy, and the connections between them. In its surprising juxtapositions, The Feeling of the Form also shows how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century texts prefigure a wide array of later thought, including affect theory, "other minds," artificial intelligence, object-oriented ontology, and cinema and video game aesthetics.

About the Author

Joseph R. Metz is Associate Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Utah.