In 1801, the German physicist and philosopher Johann Wilhelm Ritter discovered ultraviolet radiation during electrical experiments in Jena, Germany. Using silver chloride, a chemical that darkened when exposed to light, Ritter demonstrated that invisible radiation existed beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum, a region he called "deoxidizing rays." This discovery in Jena, made using equipment connected to voltaic piles, revealed that the electromagnetic spectrum extended far beyond human vision and was intimately connected to electrical phenomena.

Ritter was a central figure in Jena Romanticism, the literary and philosophical movement centered on Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, and the journal "Athenaeum," and his scientific work was deeply intertwined with Romantic literary theory. His discovery that invisible rays surrounded and penetrated the visible world became a powerful metaphor for the Romantic conviction that reality extended far beyond surface appearances. Ritter's fusion of scientific experimentation with Romantic philosophy in Jena exemplified the German Romantic ideal of the poet-scientist who could perceive the hidden unity of all phenomena, an ideal that profoundly influenced European literary culture.