From conversation to discipline and beyond: A cultural history of early Germanistik (1790--1850)

By focusing on relations between those who speak about German literature, this study presents a history of early Germanistik anchored in German literary culture. Discourse on German identity and gender, conflicting notions of science, the political and intellectual relationship between France and Germany, political history, and German literary culture merge in a portrayal of the early history of Germanistik. The analysis centers on a number of spaces: the salon, the university, and the literary journal. Close readings of texts representative of these spaces serve to destabilize notions of strict borders defining the academic discipline.; This focus on spaces indicates not only spatial movement, but also movement through time. The movement from the salon to the academic discipline points to historical change within German literary culture. The observations of Henriette Herz, an encounter between Carl Lachmann and the salonniere Amalie Helvig, and the reflections of Heinrich Laube on the occasion of Rahel Varnhagen's death indicate a perception in 1820s and 1830s Berlin that an exclusive scientific discourse had replaced the ostensible openness and inclusivity of Enlightenment Berlin. A text representative of salon culture, Germaine de Stael's De l'Allemagne, and the critical reception it received in Germany illuminate the difficulty German salonnieres faced within intellectual culture around 1814. Carl Lachmann and his specialized method of textual criticism came to prominence in the climate that disadvantaged the salons.; By Contrast, in 1819 Basel Karl Sartorius received a professorship for German literature predicated on the notion that the duty of a teacher and scholar of a national literature was to reach out to non-academic citizens. The idea that the study of literature should have relevance beyond the walls of the university was the focal point of the critique that Young German literary critics leveled at the notion of science and philology practiced at universities in 1830s Germany. The textual analyses in this study question the absence of Young German literary criticism, Karl Sartorius, and the salon culture from the narrative of Germanistik history.