Chrestomathy

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A Chrestomathie ( Greek χρηστομαθία to χρηστός Chrestos , German , useful ' and μανθάνω mantháno , with the infinitive aorist μαθεῖν Mathein , German , learning' ) is a compilation of texts or text extracts - mainly of prose  - to didactic purposes and thus "a preform of today's reading books ”.

Chrestomathy can be distinguished from the generic term of anthology by this didactic aspect . The term comes from classical antiquity . Texts have been identified by teachers with the letter χ ( chi ) for chrestós when reading, as useful works for students. The term chrestomathía appears in two works by Eutychios Proklos , each preserved as a fragment - not to be confused with the famous philosopher of the same name: Chrestomathia grammatica and chrestomathia poetica . In German-speaking countries, the scientific and academic use of the term for the period since the 18th century is well documented.

Text collections created in a chrestomathy are often used for learning languages, with the texts being progressively arranged according to their foreign language level of difficulty. Beyond foreign language or literary purposes, however, chrestomathies have also been compiled for the areas of economics , education , philosophy - or specialties such as an Aztec chrestomathy. Occasionally the term is used in the more general sense of text selection or anthology or blossom harvest .

Examples of some major chrestomathies

  • Silvestre de Sacy : Chrestomathie arabe. Ou extraits de divers écrivains arabes, tant en prose qu'en vers, à l'usage des élèves de l'école spéciale des langues orientales vivantes. Impr.impériale, Paris 1806 ff.
  • Alexandre Vinet : Chrestomathie française, ou choix de morceaux tirés des meilleurs écrivains français. Ouvrage destiné à servir d'application méthodique et progressive à un cours régulier de langue française. Three volumes. Neukirch, Basel 1829 f. ( first and third volume of the original edition as well as from the second edition, 1836 ibid, volumes 2 ( archive.org ) and 3 ( archive.org )).
  • Bernhard Dorn (Ed.): A Chrestomathy of the Pushtū or Afghan language, to which is subjoined a glossary in Afghan and English. Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg 1847.
  • Caspar Decurtins (Ed.): Rhaeto-Romanic Chrestomathie . Twelve volumes and one supplementary volume. Junge, Erlangen 1891–1919 (as a facsimile with index in 15 volumes, newly edited by Octopus-Verlag and Società Retorumantscha, Chur 1982–1986).
  • Henri Sensine: Chrestomathie française du XIX e siècle. Volume 1: Prosateurs . Payot, Lausanne 1898; Volume 2: Poètes. Payot, Lausanne 1899.
  • Frido Mětšk : Chrestomatija dolnoserbskego pismowstwa. Pokazki z dolnoserbskeje literatury w imperialistiskej Nmskej [Chrestomathy of Lower Sorbian literature ]. Three volumes. People and Knowledge, Berlin 1956 f .; second edition: Domowina, Budyšyn 1982.
  • Bruno Lewin : Japanese Chrestomathy. From the Nara period to the Edo period. Two volumes. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1965.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otto Ferdinand Best : Handbook of literary technical terms. Definitions and examples. Revised and expanded edition. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1994, p. 100; Gero von Wilpert : Subject dictionary of literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 231). 8th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-23108-5 , p. 134; Helmut Hiller, Stephan Füssel : Dictionary of the book - with online update -. Seventh, fundamentally revised edition. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 78. Brigitte Mattausch: Chrestomathie. In: Goethe dictionary . Volume 2: B – instruct. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1989 ( dictionary network ).
  2. ^ Günter Häntzschel: compilation . In: Natalie Binczek , Till Dembeck, Jörgen Schäfer (Hrsg.): Handbook Media of Literature. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2013, pp. 260–265; P. 260.
  3. ↑ See, for example, a selection of both prosaic and poetic texts: German and Latin Chrestomathy for Use in Schools and High Schools. Philipp Heinrich Perrenon, Frankfurt / Leipzig 1772 ( digitized version of the BSB ); or from a single poem : The Little Messiad . A heroic chrestomathy drawn from Klopstock's Messiah and annotated with the most necessary notes for use in schools. Belongs to the general school encyclopedia. Schulbuchhandlung, Braunschweig 1795 (=  Encyclopedia of German Sample Fonts for Use in Schools. First part) ( digitized version of the SBB ).
  4. ^ Günther Schweikle, Irmgard Schweikle (ed.): Metzler Literature Lexicon. Keywords for world literature. Metzler, Stuttgart 1984, p. 78.
  5. ^ Berthold Riese : Aztekische Chrestomathie (collection of Aztec texts with translations and comments); quoted from: Berthold Riese: Aztec creation and tribal history. Lit, Berlin 2007, p. 192. See also: Aztekische Chrestomathie . ( Memento from October 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ; PDF: 45 kB). Table of contents from autumn 2006
  6. ↑ See for example Jürgen Kuczynski : Bourgeois and semi-feudal literature from the years 1840 to 1847 on the situation of the workers. A Chrestomathie (=  The history of the situation of the workers under capitalism. Volume 9). Academy, Berlin 1960.