Incommunicability, it would seem, was invented [in the eighteenth century] in order to take the banality out of mediocrity. It was incommunicability that enabled normal people in the literature at hand to come up with a story which others could find interesting.
Luhman Love as Passion
What characterizes an epoch need not therefore necessarily be 'new' in the sense of appearing for the first time. Epochal signification may very well be connected with famous figures who are only now being moved into the centre of the historical stage.
N. Luhmann Love as Passion. The Codification of Intimacy