135045 VO Literary Cross-Currents (VO): The literary knowledge of Goethe's time (2020S)

The lecture is dedicated to the early period of literary studies and in particular comparative literature in the German-speaking world for the years 1770-1830, the period of transition from sensibility and the Enlightenment to Romanticism and Classicism. The term is used here primarily because of Goethe's authorship of the term "world literature". The emergence of modern philologies almost automatically, at least in a close causal relationship, also led to the differentiation of comparative literature. Herder, J.E. Schlegel, Lessing and Eschenburg, then A.W. and Friedrich Schlegel, Mme de Staël as well as Ludwig Tieck and, of course, Goethe, were the most important figures in their conception. However, the lecture does not primarily follow a person- or author-related approach, but proceeds systematically, epistemologically and praxeologically. It traces the genesis of international literary studies in the various fields of activity, publishing, translation, library and university of the time. In addition, the forms of mediation of international literature are presented and central texts, e.g. the epoch-making Schlegel lectures, are analyzed in detail.