Project Details
Projekt
Undetermined baroque poetry. Poetic and confessional ambiguity in Silesia as cultural dynamic factors of a new German poetry (1620-1742)
Applicant
Professor Dr. Jörg Wesche
Subject Area
German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
Term
from 2018 to 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 322729370
The project is set in Early Modern times. It turns to the question what effects the very special diversity and dynamic of religious politics in the duchy of Silesia deployed on German baroque poetry. In the systematic context of the research group "Ambiguität und Unterscheidung: Historisch-kulturelle Dynamiken" the field of interaction of poetical and confessional ambiguity stands in the centre of interest. The exploratory interest focusses on the main agents of Silesian poetry (besides Opitz especially Andreas Gryphius, Hoffmann v. Hoffmannswaldau, Daniel Caspar v. Lohenstein, Johann Christian Hallmann, Benjamin Neukirch und Christian Gryphius). The textual output of these authors comprises a wide range of different sorts of literature which incorporates lyric, dramatic and panegyric forms. Closely tied to this is baroque poetics. The text corpus provides the fundament to display in detail how means of expression and pragmatic aims of ambiguity are discussed in order to get a binding norm. As a result, the spaces and margins of ambiguity and their progression in a historic understanding are contoured.Given the fact that the interplay between poetic and confessional ambiguity provoked by such uneasy times generated the incomparable success of Silesian poetic productivity makes one ask in the next step how this could spark other regional poetic movements on German speaking territories. From the higher perspective of literary history there will be a close review of (i) the one-sided perception of the Silesian poetic reform as a decidedly protestant literary programme, (ii) the latent determination of religiously intervening Baroque poetry as confessional polemics as well as (iii) the prevailing description of sectarianism being moulded as a process of consolidating religious differences.The research results of this project are documented by two forms which build on one another: 1.) A data base in the shape of a thesaurus with comprehensive comments makes accessible all types of ambiguity in books on poetics in Baroque times; this will produce an unrivalled, substantial contribution to fundamental research. 2.) The principal investigator compiles all documents identified into a monograph, presenting it analytically according to the scientific problem and evaluates it from the perspective of literary history.
DFG Programme
Research Units
