In the late 18th century, aesthetic and political discourses were indissolubly interlinked. The aesthetic philosophies and literary fictions of authors like Karl Philipp Moritz, Salomon Maimon, Daniel Jenisch, Johann Friedrich Reichardt, or the young Wilhelm von Humboldt are both reflections and normative anticipations of the change from the largely court-dominated residential culture of the epoch of Frederick the Great to the emancipated urban culture of the Age of Reform. The topographical approach adopted in this study makes it possible to situate the discourses examined within the history of institutions and the media, and to understand them as argumentative strategies employed in actual debates. Concentration on one location and one restricted period of time also makes it easier to investigate the issue in a manner that cuts across both the dividing lines usually drawn between history, literature, and philosophy and the definition of epochs normally upheld in discussions of literary and cultural history.