The Dedication in German Literature since 1800. History, Aesthetics and Theory of a Literary Practice.

• Applicant: Dr. Hannah Markus
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2019 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 421182324

The research project develops a comprehensive analysis of printed dedications, their functions and developments, in German literature of the 19th and 20th century. Currently, research on dedications has flourished internationally as well as interdisciplinarily: As paratexts, dedications form an interface between an author, the main text of his work, and its recipient. They therefore hold the promise of new insights in regards to history of literature, contemporary history and reception theory. The project submitted systematically links these aspects that so far have at the most been reviewed separately, and hence provides the international research on dedications with essential new impulses. It combines an ample historical approach that for the first time is based on a broad data collection with philological case studies that analyze the praxis of dedicating as a literary technique and as an significant element in an author’s poetics. On the one hand, the proposed monograph reconstructs the development of dedicating as a literary praxis that is still relevant today in German literature with its epochal and socio-historical characteristics since 1800. This part is based on a statistical survey for the years 1800 to 1899, supplemented with a sample from the 20th century focusing on the 1960s. On the other hand, it demonstrates the paradigmatic relevance of its aesthetic function in literary texts. Analyzing the diverse functions of dedications in regards to economy (forms of patronage), reception theory and strategies in forming an oeuvre (Werkpolitik) from 1800 to 1999, the monograph fills a striking academic void in German literary studies. The praxis of dedicating in German literature after 1800 is determined historically and aesthetically as well as typologically. It therefore allows subsequent research projects to link to its results and use them as base for further analysis of dedications in new contexts (e.g. research focused on different historical periods or language areas, or in musical studies, history of art and history of science). Consequently, the project submitted can serve as a theoretical model for paratext studies due to its innovative combination of procedures from Digital Humanities with classical hermeneutic philological methods. The data sets collected for the historiographical part of the project will be made publically available for subsequent research via the open access document server at the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung. The comprehensiveness of the master data and the meta data collected also makes them useful for research focusing on aspects beyond dedications.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants