Poetic Jurists, Geniuses in Office, Romantic Bureaucrats: Administration and Poetry in Early Modern Germany

PROF. ALBRECHT KOSCHORKE
Poetic Jurists, Geniuses in Office, Romantic Bureaucrats: Administration and Poetry in Early Modern Germany

 

Abstract

According to Nicholas Boyle’s Very Short Introduction (2008) two things can be said about German literature before 1800. First: Early modern German literature is above all a Protestant phenomenon. Second: It is mainly written by civil servants.

 

Putting Protestantism aside, the lecture will ask: What are the effects on the institution of civil service when an important part of the personnel clings to literary ambitions? In other words, the question is not only: What does bureaucracy do with poetry? But also: What does poetry do with bureaucracy?