Cupid and Psyche in Germany, 1750–1850

Abstract Cupid and Psyche, made accessible to Germans by Rode’s translation of 1789, was received as a fairy tale (the Brothers Grimm), while its presumed ‘Greek’ origin was studied by Classicists (Herder, Moritz). Both poetry and prose treatments combined the heroine’s romantic characteristics with Platonist views in a fairy-tale veneer. Romantic epics focus on Psyche’s sensitive experience; Anacreontics (Gleim, Jacobi) idealized Psyche as their poetic muse and idealized beloved. Psyche becomes the incarnation of the ‘beautiful soul’ (Goethe). The tale of Cupid and Psyche particularly influences the content, structure, and form of the newly developing genre of the novel (Wieland, Goethe, Brentano, von Arnims, Brunnow). Dramatic adaptations range from comic singspiele to tragic reimaginations (Wagner picks up several Cupid and Psyche motifs). Psyche’s flexibility as a symbol and plot element often led to a doubling of characters, which covers all aspects, death and immortality, poetic inspiration and maiden-like innocence, scholarly learnedness and female-oriented writing and readership.