The Merchant in German Literature of the Enlightenment

John Van Cleve analyzes the influence of the merchant class on what Leo Balet termed the 'Verburgerlichung' (the 'becoming middle-class') of German literature during the eighteenth century. He describes the origins and development of the class and examines its successive images in works by Haller, Schnabel, Borkenstein, Luise Gottsched, J. E. Schlegel, Gellert, and Lessing. Between the years 17…