Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676). Critical, annotated hybrid edition of all lyrica

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Stefanie Arend; Professor Dr. Johann Anselm Steiger
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 507060552

Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676) is one of the most fruitful authors of the Baroque Age. In the seventeenth century, no other sacred poet in the German language area has had such an enduring and profound impact. Ever since their inclusion in church services among various Christian confessions – through congregational hymns and in the tradition of sacred musical performances – many of Gerhardt’s hymns became and remain still today the most well-known texts of all Baroque authors. Gerhardt research, to which belong the disciplines of literary studies, music history, hymnology, and historical theology, has been very active. No other early-modern hymnwriter, aside from Martin Luther and Johann Rist, has been so thoroughly studied as Gerhardt. Therefore, it is all the more pressing that there is still no edition of Paul Gerhardt that even partially meets the current philological and editorial standards. Filling this glaring lacuna leading up to the 350th year of Gerhardt’s death (2026) should be seen as a top priority of the interdisciplinary community of early-modern research. The goal of the project is, in four volumes, to produce a comprehensive, critical, and annotated hybrid-edition of Gerhard’s complete poems (German and Latin) including the music texts in their original settings. During the second phase of funding that is requested here, the third volume will be completed and the fourth volume containing Gerhardt’s casual poems will be prepared. A research team stands ready that pools together literary-historical, historical-theological, and editorial-philological expertise and already possesses years of experience working together. The edition will be made available in a printed version as well as in an electronic version through open access. The latter will provide users with a variety of additional resources (for example, links to electronically available sources and reference works, embedded facsimiles) and search capabilities. The Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt will see to the long-term storage of the digital edition as part of their digital library.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants