Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Alt History (Towards an Alternative History of the Age of Goethe)
Période du rapport: 2023-09-01 au 2025-08-31
The period between 1770 and 1830 is widely considered to be the canonical period of German literature and philosophy. The works of Goethe, Schiller, Kant und Fichte—among others—form the retrospective narrative
of literary and philosophical history. The project critically re-examined how the core canonical period of German literary and philosophical historiography (1770-1830) and the conventional narrative of the development of a national literary and philosophical culture came to be. In doing so, I re-considered fundamentally what is understood by both literature and philosophy. The project, carried out at the at the University of Verona under the supervision of Prof. Laura Anna Macor in the Department of Human Sciences, has allowed me to prepare a book chapter and further archival/primary materials that take into account the modes of literary and intellectual sociability that allowed canonical narratives in the period to develop (in philosophy: Idealism from Kant to Hegel; in literature: Weimar Classicism. What has been insufficiently accounted for in scholarship is how and why particular canons emerged - not just as a post hoc rationalisation by literary historians and historians of philosophy - but at the time when texts were first circulated, read, recited, and performed. Through a series of small-scale case studies, including the philosophical work of Rahel Levin Varnhagen and the literary practices of Friedrich von Matthisson, I sought to reconstruct the development of literary and intellectual sociability in the core canonical period of German literature and philosophy.
of literary and philosophical history. The project critically re-examined how the core canonical period of German literary and philosophical historiography (1770-1830) and the conventional narrative of the development of a national literary and philosophical culture came to be. In doing so, I re-considered fundamentally what is understood by both literature and philosophy. The project, carried out at the at the University of Verona under the supervision of Prof. Laura Anna Macor in the Department of Human Sciences, has allowed me to prepare a book chapter and further archival/primary materials that take into account the modes of literary and intellectual sociability that allowed canonical narratives in the period to develop (in philosophy: Idealism from Kant to Hegel; in literature: Weimar Classicism. What has been insufficiently accounted for in scholarship is how and why particular canons emerged - not just as a post hoc rationalisation by literary historians and historians of philosophy - but at the time when texts were first circulated, read, recited, and performed. Through a series of small-scale case studies, including the philosophical work of Rahel Levin Varnhagen and the literary practices of Friedrich von Matthisson, I sought to reconstruct the development of literary and intellectual sociability in the core canonical period of German literature and philosophy.
I undertook primary and secondary research over the course of the fellowship, looking at Rahel Levin Varnhagen's philosophical writings in her notebooks. This resulted in a book chapter that is in press, and which I was invited to conribute by the editors. The work involved a thorough examination of Varnhagen's diaries and notes, the manuscripts of which are held in Krakow, but have been published as a critical edition with the academic publisher Wallstein, and so I was able to consult the published edition. I then surveyed the relevant secondary literature on Varnhagen, which focuses on her extensive correspondence, but less on the notes and aphorisms which, although published in part during her lifetime, have not been the subject of sustained scholarly attention. This allowed me to re-examine the primary material with contextual detail - on Varnhagen's reading preferences, her intellectual interests - and position her in the book chapter as an autodidactic and dialogic thinker, drawing some inspiration from the German Idealist tradition, but with a marked tendency towards metacritical concerns (how does philosophy work; should it be systematising or not). The resulting work is therefore a sustained survey of Varnhagen's philosophical engagement.
I also undertook archive work in Dessau-Roßlau on the papers of Friedrich von Matthisson, which proved so extensive as to necessitate a further visit: the papers in Dessau-Roßlau comprised some 1,000 letters, as well as diaries. In a three-week research stay, I was able to survey the letters and record them (to be transcribed from German cursive at a later date; simultaneous transcription would have made a survey of the material impossible in the time given), and I will return to read through the diaries in due course. I also consulted the archive of the Gleimhaus in Halberstadt, which includes letters between Matthisson and Ludwig Gleim, a prominent literary patron and poet of the eighteenth century. I also worked on invited papers on philosophical reviews in the eighteenth century, with a focus on Christian Garve, as well as the reception of the literary character Werther, sensibility, and masculinity in the nineteenth century. These will, in due course, be published as book chapters in edited volumes.
I also undertook archive work in Dessau-Roßlau on the papers of Friedrich von Matthisson, which proved so extensive as to necessitate a further visit: the papers in Dessau-Roßlau comprised some 1,000 letters, as well as diaries. In a three-week research stay, I was able to survey the letters and record them (to be transcribed from German cursive at a later date; simultaneous transcription would have made a survey of the material impossible in the time given), and I will return to read through the diaries in due course. I also consulted the archive of the Gleimhaus in Halberstadt, which includes letters between Matthisson and Ludwig Gleim, a prominent literary patron and poet of the eighteenth century. I also worked on invited papers on philosophical reviews in the eighteenth century, with a focus on Christian Garve, as well as the reception of the literary character Werther, sensibility, and masculinity in the nineteenth century. These will, in due course, be published as book chapters in edited volumes.
As part of the project, i have written a book chapter that offers a detailed examination of Rahel Levin Varnhagen's engagement with philosophy, focusing on her dialogic use of the aphoristic form. Varnhagen is only just starting to be considered a philosopher, so this is a significant contribution to a nascent field. In addition, I have gathered substantial material for an article on Friedrich von Matthisson's transnational literary networks (this will require further research, as the primary material frequently consists of unpublished manuscripts dispersed among different archives). Once completed, this article will offer the first extensive study of literary cultures of sociabilty, not just in the German context, but also extending to Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, and England, and will offer a nuanced account of the functions in particular of poetry in the period.