This book project sets out to describe the systematic foundations of an aesthetics of distinctness in rhetoric, poetics and art theory leading up to the 18th century. Close studies of the literary works of Georg Büchner and Adalbert Stifter point out the

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The reconstruction of an aesthetics of distinctness - following the relevant discussions from antique rhetoric (Aristoteles, Cicero, Quintilian) through logic, rhetoric and poetics of the early Enlightenment (Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, Gottsched, Breitinger) leading up to the aesthetic discourse in the second half of the 18th century (Baumgarten, Meier, Kant) - serves to identify a specific notion of postromantic poetry, which is equally entertained in the literature of Georg Büchner and of Adalbert Stifter, regardless of their obvious differences in political conviction and aesthetic attitude. Conforming to models of representation developed in the natural sciences their writing answers new claims of clarity and objectivity. The apparent artlessness, leading to Büchners quasi anatomical rendering in accordance with the constraints of scientific autopsie and resulting in Stifters obsessive accuracy in describing objects, is characterized by a disturbing excessive quality. This „too much“ not only irritated aesthetic expectations of the contemporaries, it also enlarges the range of possibilities given to an art after the alleged end of art. Placing Büchner´s and Stifter´s literature within the scope of an aesthetics of distinctness aims at reassessing their significance in the history of ideas. Exposing their roots in the 18th century´s epistemic system helps to understand both authors as heirs of the enlightenment, working towards a critical modernism by reshaping the rationalistic tradition.