Goethe. Letters. Historical-critical edition

• Applicant: Dr. Bernhard Fischer
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2003 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5398653

The historical and critical edition of all Goethe letters is one of the scholarly long-term projects being carried out by the Goethe and Schiller Archive (GSA) of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. It aims to replace the famous Weimar edition of Goethe letters (WA) eventually, which was published 100 years ago. This new edition is one of the main philological tasks of the Archive, which owns the majority of the letters. It closes a significant gap in scholarly research on Goethe and provides sources essential to the understanding of the Goethe-Zeit. The project is aimed to publish all letters written by Goethe we know of (i. e. about 15.000). In addition to the printed edition (intended to be the primary form of presentation) there will also be an electronic edition using the same data basis and presenting digital copies of the autographs.Given the number of letters and considering the new-found material, we estimate that the new edition will consist of 36 volumes (edition and annotation). Both the literary and the critical volumes are scheduled to appear at the same time. Since 2008 four two in one volumes of the historical-critical edition of Goethe letters have been published, received by the academic community as the beginning of one of the most ambitioned philological undertakings of the past decades and as a benchmark for future editions of letters. During the proposed funding period, editors will edit and for the first time comprehensively annotate Goethe letters from 1797 (vol. 10 I/II) based on the manuscripts. As UNESCO added Goethe literary estate to its Memory of the World Register in 2001 the publication of Goethe letters in a scholarly edition fulfils an obligation to this.A Commission for structural development being assigned by the German Science Council recognised the editions of the Goethe and Schiller Archive as outstanding projects of source-related Goethe studies. They were explicitly recommended for further sponsorship. The German Science Council confirmed this positive assessment with its evaluation in autumn 2011.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Dr. Elke Richter