This study explores the concept ofStimmungin literary and philosophical texts of the modern age. Signifying both 'mood' and 'attunement',Stimmungspeaks to the categories of affective experience and aesthetic design alike. The study locates itself in the nexus between discourses on modernity, existentialism and aesthetics and uncovers the pivotal role ofStimmungin 19th- and 20th-century European narrative fiction and continental philosophy. The study first explores the philosophical and aesthetic origins and implications ofStimmungto, then, discuss its role in the narrative fiction of three key authors of modern literature: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard. These readings demonstrate a significant shift towards an aesthetic of affective intensity and immediacy, in which the experience of the reading process takes centre stage as each author develops an aesthetic philosophy ofStimmungin their own right. Through its focus on the concept ofStimmung, the study thus unearths a fundamental link between existentialist concerns and narrative practice in modern literature. | Aesthetic And Philosophical Reflections On Mood by Birgit Breidenbach, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters