Critical Edition and Commentary of Julius Wilhelm Zincgref's Works, Vol. V/2: Political Publications in German

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dirk Niefanger
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2015 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 261398176

In the historical-critical edition, the German-language political publications of Julius Wilhelm Zincgref are to be scientifically edited and comprehensively commented upon for the first time. The prominent writer from Heidelberg belongs to the direct environment of Martin Opitz and was thus at the centre of the efforts for literary reform around 1620/30. During his time, he was one of the most important writers to convey literary forms from the more progressive Romance cultures to the still underdeveloped German-language educational literature. The corpus comprises short texts on different, usually contemporary topics of public interest that examine political and military events as well as cultural and social processes in the early years of the Thirty Years' War - descriptively, satirically, polemically, and also persuasively. These texts reflect the political dimension of Zincgref's work, which has been insufficiently acknowledged so far in previous research. The flyers and pamphlets document the views of a writer at the threshold between the late humanist and early baroque periods on key events of his time - a writer who, unlike most of his canonized (that is to say, Lutheran) contemporaries, represents a decidedly reformed view of matters. In contrast to conventional contemporary pamphlets and similar smaller publications, Zincgref's Politica were widely received during his time, which also resulted in multiple (sometimes many) editions and changes to content and format. Zincgref's Politica span a wide range of literary genres and processes as well as early journalistic methods of representation and rhetorical patterns that were at the disposal of a formally educated writer established in the scholarly world. Their poetic impact was calculated and used to further informative, polemic and persuasive ends. Due to the density of allusions in these texts, detailed commentary and contextualization is needed, which requires not only expertise in literary history but also special historical knowledge. Methodically, the editorial project will be based on the three DFG-funded volumes of the edition published so far. A new approach is the use of stilometry, opening up the possibility of attributing unauthorized writings to an author with greater accuracy through quantitative stylistic analysis. The use of this computer-aided process (in collaboration with the University of Würzburg's Department of Computer Philology and Modern German Literature) has a pioneering character insofar as its effectiveness has not yet been tested on texts from the early modern era.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Institution: Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg ; Institut für Deutsche Philologie ; Lehrstuhl für Computerphilologie und Neuere Deutsche Literaturgeschichte
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Werner Wilhelm Schnabel; Professor Dr. Theodor Verweyen