Unravelling Romantic Communication. Correspondence Networks of Early Romanticism

Presentation at the I2SC Lecture Series, Saarland University (June 28, 2024).

The Early Romanticism in Jena and Berlin is considered the outstanding intellectual revolution of young German authors and scholars at the turn of the epoch around 1800. The group operated publicly and dispersively, yet network-forming; they reflected and practised "Geselligkeit," for example, through the communication form of letters. For the analysis of these epistolary communication processes among these authors, scholars, intelligentsia, and the people connected to them, the project aims to build up a database that consists of the letters exchanged among the key protagonists of Early Romanticism (such as, among others, Friedrich, Dorothea, August Wilhelm, and Caroline Schlegel, Novalis) and their correspondents between 1790 and 1802, covering various 'prehistories' up to the dissolution of the Jena Circle.

Using methods from knowledge management and network research, the project draws on additional data sources, e.g. the Integrated Authority File (GND) of the German National Library, to work towards a holistic picture of the relationships between those actors, the flow of knowledge and influences, informal and formal collaboration processes between them. By analysing communication networks, we aim to highlight important actors, identify groups and their formation processes, search for signs of loss or (re-)establishment of contact as well as set all these factors in a temporal and comparative context. Ultimately, through these results we intend to get a better understanding of knowledge transfer and production in the Romantic circle.