Goethe – Form, Gattung und Zeit

Overview & Synopsis

How does the interplay of form and time shape Goethe’s dramatic, lyrical and narrative texts? This volume provides answers to this question. Johann Wolfgang Goethe transcends the understanding of form prevalent in his time. In his scholarly and literary works, he takes established forms, transforms them and modernises them. The authors examine how the interplay of form and time shapes dramatic, lyrical and narrative texts. The backdrop to this is a new formalism, which no longer conceives of form as the opposite of content, but rather as the possibility of content, idea, function or freedom. Whilst form and time have already received considerable attention, the interplay of form and genre has been less extensively researched. Although literary forms are almost always identified with generic forms, the theoretical premises for this still require clarification. It is at this point, if not before, that Goethe comes into play. The points of connection for the relationship between form and genre are numerous. They range from the ‘natural forms of poetry’ to the long list of genres that Goethe employs.