Sturm und Drang

Sturm und Drang (German, “storm and stress”), German literary movement (about 1765-1785) that arose in reaction to traditional authority and the prevailing formality of literary style. Stimulated by the ideas of the contemporary French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, and under the direct influence of Johann Gottfried von Herder, certain youthful German writers began to emphasize, instead, subjective emotion and the spontaneity of the creative act. Elements of Sturm und Drang are found in works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, notably the play Götz von Berlichingen (1773; trans. 1799), and the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774; trans. 1779), and Friedrich von Schiller's plays, especially The Robbers (1781; trans. 1800), as a prelude to Romanticism.