A Spectrum of Belief: Goethe's `Republic' versus Newtonian `Despotism'

Abstract

This paper offers a contextualized study of Goethe's Zur Farbenlehre. Goethe's work on colour theory did not merely depict his disdain for the Newtonian doctrine of light and colours: it illustrated his opposition to two extreme forms of politics apparent during the first decade of the nineteenth century - unenlightened despotism and anarchy. Goethe's prismatic games offered a more accessible epistemology to a wider audience. Hence, he linked what he considered to be the closed circles of interpretation of Newtonianism to Catholicism and the Illuminati. He wished to establish a `republic of colour theory' in order to subvert the hegemonic control which the Newtonians had established in optics. By using both the prismatic games and the history which Goethe himself provided in Zur Farbenlehre, this paper offers an account of how political narratives shape the meaning of experiment.