ABSTRACT
Violence has become a prevalent topic as never before in the study of history and the humanities. An experiential perspective of war—initially developed by specialists of the First World War in Britain, France and increasingly in Germany over the past few years—the experience of and coming to terms with physical violence occupies a central role. The sensation of being at the mercy of violence was experienced as both real and overtly threatening—even by those contemporaries who themselves did not fall victim to it. One of the most poignant examples of this collective, yet highly individual and virtually corporeal, sense of victimhood in the face of omnipresent violence is articulated in the poetry of Andreas Gryphius. The art and literature documenting the Thirty Years War, the aesthetic of violence is especially relevant. Millenarianism spread to the Baptists and afterward largely to non-conformist groups in revolutionary England during the seventeenth century. Reconstructing the experiences of violence presents several methodological problems.
