The German noun Innerlichkeit (roughly “inwardness”) is a word specific to the late early modern period, even though innerkeit was already used by Meister Eckhart in the early 14th century for the “inner self” [3. 419]. Klopstock used the word for the first time in 1779 for a poetic technique (Poetics) that brings out the authentic, innermost nature of an object. After 1787 Goethe also used it to denote the inner nature of an individual or nation [12]. Later it was used esp…