Historia Literaria. Organisation, Interpretation, Retention, and Transmission of Knowledge

The Historia literaria – the history of letters – was in the late 17^th and throughout the 18^th century a prominent and highly successful medium for the organisation, interpretation, retention, and transmission of knowledge.

This is demonstrated both by the numerous compendia on the history of letters as well as by the establishment of Historia literaria as an academic subject. The purpose of the Historia literaria was – as almost unanimously agreed upon in the learned world – the extensive recording of the erudite knowledge acquired by men, and this from its outset to the present. 

Christoph August Heumann describes the Historia literaria in this sense, with the virtually classic and for a long time binding formulation “Narratio de ortu et studiorum progressu literariorum ad nostram usque aetatem”.

As part of a long perpetuated self-reflection, which drew its inspiration from the methodological and programmatic aspirations and intentions of this particular era, a variety of histories of letters, different in both form and content, emerged. They were intended as introductions for young students, as reference for scholars or as edifying literature for a not necessarily academic readership interested in learning. Virtually every author of such handbooks justified his own undertaking by claiming the inadequacy of all previous publications. In this way, the Historia literaria developed into a very varied genre of the history of knowledge, which offered the possibility to reconstruct in detail the changing epistemological self-understandings of an era.

The project will investigate the peculiarities, both in form and content, of the Historia literaria and its development, as well as study its methodological assumptions and its objectives in terms of scientific policies. Special attention will be paid to the end of the Historia literaria, which was initiated in the second half of the 18th century, and to which the question of the discursive continuance of its initial ambitions is connected. The project is a continuation of work already begun with other individual studies and which it intends to bring to completion with a monograph.