The aims of this module are: to provide an introduction to the intellectual and literary currents that shaped German culture in the second half of the eighteenth century as it emerged as a national culture of European significance; to provide an introduction to the ways in which individual works of literature can be read and interpreted in relation to the larger social, political and cultural context, via the study of selected representative texts from the period 1770-1786; to provide an introduction to the skills needed for a critical interpretation of works from the main literary genres (poetry, narrative prose, drama).