Wilfried Barner

Mit Beitragen von Wilfried Barner, Jutta Limbach, Ernst Gottfried Mahrenholz, Jorn Rusen, Ernst Tugendhat und ErnstPeter Wieckenberg versammelt das Heft die Vortrage, die aus Anlass des 275. Geburtstages von Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in der Augusteerhalle der Herzog August Bibliothek Aufklarung im 21. Jahrhundert zum Gegenstand nahmen. Es wurde ein "Gesprach in Stationen" daraus, das angesichts der fortdauernden Bedeutung religioser Sinnstiftung fur die Kulturen der Menschheit gerade die Frage nach dem Verhaltnis von Vernunft und Religion einerseits und nach subjektiver Wahrheitsgewissheit und objektivem Geltungsanspruch andererseits thematisiert. Dabei konnte und musste immer wieder an den Positionen Lessings angeknupft werden, auf die auch im internationalen Wissenschaftsdiskurs Bezug genommen wird.

First published in 1970, this book takes a close look at the frequently identified 'rhetorical' features of German Baroque literature in terms of their historical foundations. The perspective is European throughout. The theoretical grounding in Antiquity and humanism (rhetoric, poetics) has already been closely analyzed, so the emphasis here is more on roots of the phenomenon in the 17th century educational system: Protestant schools of a scholarly bent, Jesuit colleges, aristocratic upbringing, teaching at universities. A specific social and educational frame of reference is thus reconstructed, aiding the interpretation of 'rhetorical' Baroque texts, be they plays and poems or sermons and novels.

With reference to selected examples, the volume highlights various aspects of literary studies since the Age of Humanism, concentrating on the history of its institutions, the contest between rival methodologies and the 'difficult'question of pluralism. Over and above the kind of perspective customarily taken on the discipline, the volume trains its sights on the academic precursors of literary studies in the earlier stages of Humanism. With reference to various examples it points up the creative tensions existing between influential individual scholars and the various 'schools'. A section of the book is given over to studies designed to trace the genesis of the present-day pluralism that many find so disconcerting. An attempt is also made to contribute to ongoing historically oriented reflection on method and methodologies via provisional resumes."