THE DISENCHANTMENT/RE-ENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD: AESTHETICS, SECULARIZATION, AND THE GODS OF GREECE FROM FRIEDRICH SCHILLER TO WALTER PATER

This article charts part of the literary genealogy ofMax Weber'sclaim that modernity is defined by the ‘disenchantmentof the world’. It clarifies the relationship between Weber's disenchantment diagnosis and thegods-in-exiletheme as variously rendered byFriedrich Schiller, Heinrich Heine, andWalter Pater. It also sheds light on current debates aboutsecularization, particularly on the extent to which the concepts of the ‘pagan’ and the ‘aesthetic’ tend by turns to enable and to destabilize secularization narratives.