Within the alphabet of facts and fictions. The encyclopedia as literature
Final Report Abstract
Reference works such as lexicons, dictionaries and encyclopaedias have been organised alphabetically since the early modern period. Contrary to the obvious normative tendencies of the format, it has also been defined as an open, anti-systematic space of thought in terms of the theory of knowledge. Satirical dictionaries and literary encyclopaedia novels also bear witness to the fact that the encyclopaedia format not only liberates thought, but can also become aesthetically productive. Since the Enlightenment, the arbitrary ABC order has been functionalised in a striking way for criticism, polemics - and for avant-garde artefacts (in the 20th century, for example, prominently by Ror Wolf alias Raoul Tranchirer in the eight volumes of his Enzyklopädie für unerschrockene Leser, 1983–2014). The project aimed to systematically analyse such literary lexicographies against the background of the history of the lexicon. The monograph Enzyklopädische Fantasien by Monika Schmitz-Emans, published in 2019, made it necessary to reaccentuate the project. In addition to Schmitz-Emans' extensive presentation of material, exemplary studies on the precise lexicographical techniques of representation now seemed particularly important. With this in mind, work was carried out on two areas in particular: In a first study, I used entries from Ror Wolf's alphabetically lemmatised book Raoul Tranchirers Bemerkungen über die Stille (2005) to work out how the musical-performative language itself - occasionally almost contrary to the supposed content - becomes the most important level of literature there. For a word art interested in sound and rhythm in this way, the arbitrary organisational format of the lexicon is obviously particularly well suited because it can be understood as a constructivist framework. Secondly, I researched the processes of representation in factual lexicons. Particular attention was paid to narrative passages that depart from the descriptive style to be expected in lexicons. I have read Pierre Bayle's programmatically ‘disorganised’ (cf. Neumeister 1995) Dictionnaire historique et critique (1695/1697) in exemplary readings, especially in the update by his translator Johann Christoph Gottsched (1741–1744), as an enterprise that on the one hand opens up an open space for thought and communication, but on the other hand also aims to narrate and entertain (cf. Bayle's preface) - a concept that Gottsched not only adopted, but also actively pursued, as I have pursued in exemplary analyses.
