Karl Philipp Moritz, Complete works. Critical and annotated edition, vol. 3; Theoretical writings on art and literature

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Martin Disselkamp
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 507012920

Volume 3 of the Critical Karl Philipp Moritz Edition contains Moritz’s theoretical writings on art and literature. These include his seminal contributions to aesthetic theory, which formulate the idea of the self-referential work of art and elucidate its consequences, namely, Versuch einer Vereinigung aller Künste und Wissenschafte unter dem Begriff des in sich selbst Vollendeten (An essay to subsume all arts and sciences under the concept of an object completed in itself); Ueber die bildende Nachahmung des Schönen (On the formative imitation of the beautiful); In wie fern Kunstwerke beschrieben werden können (To what extent can works of art be described); and Ueber die Allegorie (On allegory). In addition, the volume features a number of shorter essays on art and literature, most of which were originally printed in journals; and other independent publications: Versuch einer deutschen Prosodie (An essay on German prosody, edited by Lars Korten): a polemic treatise directed at Joachim Heinrich Campe on the relationship between author and publisher: Vorbegriffe zu einer Theorie der Ornamente (Preliminary thoughts on a theory of ornamentation): and Vorlesungen über den Styl (Lectures on style). Moritz’s essay “Die metaphysische Schönheitslinie" (The metaphysical line of beauty), which belongs thematically to this group of texts, was published in 1793 in the anthology Die große Loge (The great lodge: contained in voiume 6 of the critical edition from 2013). Several shorter texts related to the range of topics covered in volume 3 will appear in volume 13. which documents Moritz's activities as a member of the Berlin academies.The series of writings collected in volume 3 begins in 1785. Most of them, however, were written during and after Moritz’s trip to Italy (1786-1788). They present the author in a new role: known previously for his writings on topics that included pedagogy, linguistics, and psychology, and for his Reisen eines Deutschen in England {Travels, Chiefly on Foot, through Several Parts of England) and his autobiographical novel, Anton Reiser, Moritz appears here as a theoretician of classicism. Writing from this position, Moritz grapples with the traumas that marked his own biography, with questions posed by rationalist philosophy, and with an art and literary scene in this midst of transformation. He also responds to contemporaneous developments in the natural sciences. From the perspective of cultural history, the volume presents Moritz at the center of Berlin’s burgeoning heyday at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, documenting a dose connection between Moritz’s publications on art and his activity as professor for the theory of fine arts at the Berlin Academy of Arts from 1789.The essays and independent writings that will be published in this volume have already been shaped by a history of editions. This edition offers a critical apparatus that establishes the edited texts while tracing connections to other prints

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants
• Participating Person: Dr. Lars Korten