Online Commentary for Michael Ende's "The Neverending Story" (“Die Unendliche Geschichte”)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Boyken
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 560640447

The project aims to create an online commentary for Michael Ende's novel "The Neverending Story" (“Die Unendliche Geschichte”). The project is linked to the emerging research on Ende. Currently, there are no full historical-critical editions of Ende's texts. This, however, seems to apply to German children’s and youth literature as a whole. From a text-genetic perspective, the initial focus is to document an to take stock of various drafts and versions. This will include an inventory of relevant estate materials, a passage and subject commentary, an analysis, and the presentation of the reception history. At a broader level, the project addresses desiderata in German children’s and youth literature research: it will reflect and test standards for commented digital editions of children’s and youth literary texts. The project will give insights on how to create scientifically useful and digitally accessible commentaries on copyrighted texts. In this sense, the project can also offer an answer to the question of how to handle contemporary literary texts with copyright protections within the framework of digital edition and commentary projects.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Klaus Müller-Wille