Goethe Etc. The blog from 'Goethe Girl'
By Worth Attention on 02-Dec-11 11:57:39 AM
'Goethe Girl' writes of herself:
Among the scholarly subjects on which I am working are the pre-Kantian sublime in German letters and "world literature." The latter was a term Goethe began to use in the 1820s. Most people today think of world literature as meaning "multicultural" works or as the best works of literature from Homer to the present. Goethe, however, meant something different with the term, and I have been writing literary essays on it. I was chair of the Columbia University Seminar on 18th-Century European Culture from 2002 until 2010. I edited a series of papers that originated in talks at the Seminar, on the historical origins of free speech in the 18th century. It will be published this fall by Bucknell UP: "Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea."
From the blog of October 30, 2011 entitled 'Goethe and world literature'
I have not stopped blogging, but matters close to home have kept me otherwise occupied. God willing and the creeks not rising, however, I will travel to Chicago this coming Thursday to attend the triennual conference of the Goethe Society of North America, where I will be chairing a panel on the above subject. My thoughts are also turning to my long-delayed essay on Fritz Strich and the "prehistory" of his study of world literature. For today, let me note two things concerning this prehistory.
First, though Strich's study (Goethe und die Weltliteratur) appeared in 1946, he had begun reflecting on the subject much earlier, as can be seen in an essay that appeared in 1927. The essay emerged from a lecture he gave in London in 1926, in which he addressed Germany's place among the nations.
Read more at http://goethetc.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html
See also the blog of November 20, 2011 'Goethe on sacred art'
