Verse Techniques in Translation. The Internationalization of German Poetics and Occasional Poetry of the 17th and 18th Century

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jörg Wesche
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 405031812

The project surveys the transfer of European verse techniques into German poetics and occasional poetry in Early Modern Times. For the first time, an international and chronologically comprehensive perspective which comprises the centuries of Baroque and Enlightenment is taken. By means of analysing the processes of transfer of foreign poetic regulations and model texts into the German poetic system it is possible to reconstruct the details of how a new poetic language becomes established.The objects of investigation are poetic textbooks and didactical compendia of writing poetry. These compendia have drawn only very insufficient scientific attention up to now. To get insights into poetic practices the project compares the poetic output of two centres of occasional poetry in the 17th and 18th century: Breslau and Zurich. This makes it possible to get insight into a most important genre and its relevance in the discussion about European and global rhythms.The popular tongues in Europe were tangent with one another and the correspondent domains expanded in the era initiated with Opitz’ Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey, articulating a very Baroque stance towards poetry, up to the turn of the century around 1800 when classicism reached its peak according to historic understanding of the time. In this process the European languages get into a situation of distinctive competition. Especially in the 17th and 18th century the oratio ligata provides space to translate poetologically symbolic systems of rhythm, beat and rhyme. With respect to the growing globalisation the German verse system in the 18th century gets manifold trans-European impulses that research has not analysed up to now.The processes of translation will be scrutinized mainly on the level of printed characters. Also included is the medial transfer on the level of musical characters as well. By using specific forms of verse and stanza in lyrics certain foreign melodies are implied. This project forms an integral part of the first section Zeichensysteme und mediale Transformationen. First of all it comprehensively asks for model techniques and texts of other cultures of languages that get incorporated into the vast stock of forms in German poetic language. On a broad basis the project will reveal how contemporaries came to understand that the poetological knowledge of foreign languages, activated in the process of translation, fundamentally helps creating the German ‘Lyrik’ as a new genre of poetry. From a cultural patriotic stance the result is interpreted as a paramount achievement. Research results will be documented by (i) compiling a repertorium of the international sources of German poetic compendia and poetic textbooks of the 17th and 18th century as well as (ii) a study of the internationalisation of verse language in the period of investigation. Methodologically the innovation lies in tying together the analysis of translation and verse history within a socio-historic context.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 2130: Cultures of Translation in Early Modern Times