Friedrich Sengle

Friedrich Sengle (born November 14, 1909 in Thalassery , Kerala , India ; † March 14, 1994 in Seefeld , Upper Bavaria ) was a German philologist and literary historian .

Life

Friedrich Sengles father Paul (1870–1932) was a missionary for the Basel Mission in British India , where Friedrich was born. According to his father's wish, he should study theology at the Evangelical Monastery in Tübingen , but then decided on German, English and history in Tübingen (1928/29), Berlin (1929–1931), Frankfurt am Main (1931) and again Tübingen, where he passed his teaching degree in 1933 and then worked as a teacher. He obtained his doctorate in 1936 in Tübingen. phil. and became assistant to his doctoral supervisor Paul Kluckhohn at this university .

Since 1937 Sengle was a member of the NSDAP ; In old age he distanced himself from an anti-Semitic-tendentious essay on Ludwig Börne that was written at that time . From 1939 to 1945 he was a soldier and at that time wrote a study on German historical drama with which he completed his habilitation in Tübingen in 1942 . After 1945 he was a private lecturer in Tübingen , and since 1949 an adjunct professor . From 1951 he was associate professor in Cologne , full professor in Marburg in 1952 , in Heidelberg in 1959 and from 1965 until his retirement in 1978 in Munich . Since 1965 he was a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences . In 1968 he was elected a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

Friedrich Sengle was buried in 1994 in the Old Evangelical Cemetery in Seefeld-Hechendorf.

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As a literary historian, Sengle rejected positivist as well as Marxist positions. He criticized irrationalism for the preference for pathetic and tragic literature, instead advocating the ironic style. In his inaugural address in Heidelberg (1959) he advocated the unity of literary history and criticism.

His main focus was on German literature from 1750 to 1850. After his dissertation on Goethe's relationship to drama (1937), he published a socio-historical biography of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( Das Genie und seine Fürst , 1993) and an anthology with essays and essays. An introduction to Goethe's life and work based on lecture manuscripts was published from the estate. In his three-volume main work, the Biedermeier Period (1971–1980), he corrected the previous image of this period as a transition period and presented it as an independent and original literary epoch.

In 1976 Sengle co-founded the “ International Archive for the Social History of German Literature ”, of which he was co-editor from 1976 to 1983. Jost Hermand , Georg Jäger and Manfred Windfuhr are among his most prominent students. At the end of 1994, the Heinrich Heine Institute in Düsseldorf took over Sengles extensive estate.

Biedermeier period

In the three volumes of his magnum opus “Biedermeier Period”, Sengle starts from the idea of ​​an era as a coordinate system of the directions / currents present. For the presentation of the Biedermeier period, the task is to first determine all literarily relevant directions and currents that form the coordinate system of the Biedermeier period (vol. 1) and then the literary forms (vol. 2) and the exemplary poet personalities (vol. 3 ) to be classified in this coordinate system. Of the 15 writers to whom monographic sections are dedicated in the third volume, six ( Franz Grillparzer , Nikolaus Lenau , Johann Nestroy , Ferdinand Raimund , Charles Sealsfield and Adalbert Stifter ) come from the Habsburg-Austrian area, which shows Sengles special relationship to Austrian literature and Literary studies shows.

Directions

For the late 18th and early 19th centuries, German literary history traditionally worked with a sequence of “pairs of opposites” (with the addition of the youth movement of Sturm und Drang in the 18th century): Enlightenment / Sensibility , Classical / Romantic , Biedermeier / Young Germany followed by the age of realism . According to Sengle, the conventional Biedermeier / Young Germany scheme is not sufficient to describe the Biedermeier period: “It is necessary to list further directions [...]. The Biedermeier and Young Germany capture only a part of the literature that appears to us poetically valuable or historically interesting in the Biedermeier period ”. Sengle therefore introduces further directions, so that his coordinate system for the Biedermeier period ultimately includes more than ten directions. These include, for example, Weltschmerz , the Young Hegelians and the spiritual restoration as a church counter-movement against the tendencies of atheism and materialism. The majority of the newly introduced coordinates, however, concern the continuation of previous "directions" in the form of traditions. This includes Sengle: Baroque tradition, Enlightenment tradition, Rococo tradition, sensitivity tradition, Sturm und Drang tradition and romantic tradition. In addition, there are "attitudes" that can appear again and again in different forms, such as B. Idealism and Classicism (as art movements that are based on antiquity or refer to ancient models).

Classification of the poets in the directions

The different directions of an epoch provide the coordinate system "which allows the historian to determine the historical place of the individual writer more closely". Not a single writer will stand exactly on one of the lines, i.e. only represent one direction. The place of the individual writer is rather in the free space between the lines. Sengle also takes into account the individual development of the respective writer as well as regional differences (e.g. Austrian and Swabian Biedermeier).

In Volume 3, The Poets , Sengle classifies individual writers as follows:

• Grillparzer : Beginnings as a romantic romanticist, then between Biedermeier and classicism (“classicistically reshaped Biedermeier”).
• Ferdinand Raimund : between Biedermeier emotional culture and Weltschmerz.
• Johann Nestroy : "belongs to the late phase of the baroque tradition".
• Adalbert Stifter : Participation in the “sensitive Weltschmerz” in youth. then before 1850 the epitome of Biedermeier, after 1850 "classicistly reshaped Biedermeier"
• Mörike : Structural change, first Weltschmerzpoet, then “classicistic turn” to “cheerful master of the late Biedermeier”.
• August Graf von Platen : at the beginning of his works “romantic” forms; Middle: dramatic attempts that z. Some of them are already oriented towards antiquity; Late period: full training as a “classicist”.
• Nikolaus Lenau : the "classic of Weltschmerz".
• Gotthelf : a representative of the spiritual restoration.
• Annette von Droste-Hülshoff : "is more central in Biedermeier than most poets of their time"; stands in the field of tension between secular and spiritual Biedermeier.
• Immermann , Willibald Alexis , Charles Sealsfield : Intermediate position between Biedermeier and Young Germany.
• Justinus Kerner : "somewhere between Weltschmerzpoeten, Swabian Biedermeier and [...] romantic tradition".
• The old Tieck : “Salon writer” between Biedermeier and de-demonized romanticism.
• Varnhagen , Nicolai , Voß : Representatives of the "late enlightenment" (Enlightenment tradition).

Example Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine is an interesting figure in relation to the classification in the coordinate system of the Biedermeier period . According to Sengle, Heine shows “deep roots in the past”; that is, it is related to almost all directions of time. Sengle assigns it according to the following criteria:

• Young Germany : If you want to grasp Heine in his focus, “you have to see him as the spiritual leader of the Young Germans”.
• Weltschmerz : Heine's basic structure is contradiction and ambivalence; thus he fits into the turmoil typical of the time (Weltschmerz): “For his time, Heine is the German Byron”.
• Biedermeier / Sensibility : On the one hand, Heine was successful with the general public precisely because of its sensitive Biedermeier elements; on the other hand, constant parody of sensitivity.
• Classicism : Heine rejects the "art period" that was under the sign of Goethe.
• Enlightenment tradition : Heine belongs to the ranks of the “great polemical minds of the 18th century”, above all Voltaire, the “prince of mockers”.
• Romantic tradition : Heine as the “last romantic”, the “last forest song of romanticism”; but here too parody, disillusionment, exposure of romanticism.
• Baroque tradition : the old metaphysical scheme of the world as a theater of fools and infirmary; Style: spirit of the old emblematic.
• 18th century joke culture that emerged in the Rococo (joke style: hyperbolic, irony, satire, parody); Heine as "Napoleon of the joke".

Sengle determined the dominant directions for Heine in his conclusion as follows: As a contemporary he was the spiritual leader of the Young Germans. In terms of literary history, his work can be classified as an unsolved attempt to convey romance (enthusiasm) and enlightenment (irony), which is evident in his central figure of thought of “breaking illusions” (romance / sensitivity and its constant parody / disillusionment).

Evaluation of directions

Sengle represents the unity of literary history and literary criticism, i. In other words, the history of literature requires an evaluation of the individual directions and writers. This will be shown in the following using the two poles of the time, the Young Germans and the Biedermeier poets, as well as the following epoch of the realists.

The young Germans

Sengle considers the Young Germans (with the exception of Heine, whom he counts among the “true masters”) to be of secondary importance as poets in the strict sense, as the following quotes show: “In fact, my section on the Young Germans reveals the agony I experience when I read so much Young German narrative prose suffered ”. "The literary quality certificate (regarding the young Germans) is still pending". What Sengle criticizes the Young Germans is that they “get stuck in the negation”. They are a pure opposition movement against the Restoration without any positive force of their own. At the time of the “student revolution” at the German universities (around 1968) the direction was revalued: the appearance of the epoch designation “Vormärz”, Heine and Büchner overrepresented in research, combined with a “defamation of the main conservative tendency” (restoration) as petty-bourgeois Dem replies Sengle that the historian has to be objective; he shouldn't limit himself to his favorite writers.

The assessment of individual writers among the Young Germans corresponds to this negative overall assessment:

• Karl Gutzkow : "is typical of the spirit, style and tactics of the young Germans". "Wally, the Doubtler" (1835): poetically weak, "a bad and in every way tactless novel"; Conclusion on Gutzkow: deservedly forgotten
• Theodor Mundt : The novel “Madonna, or: Conversations with a Saint” (1835) is “aesthetically inadequate”; the “term tendency poetry often means nothing more than that the narrator is incapable of aesthetically realizing what is thought”.
• Heinrich Laube : “limited ability to tell a story that is rich in content and easy to understand”; better in drama.
• Ludolf Wienbarg : “Later he did what is always best for secondary poets. He said goodbye to poetry ”.

The Biedermeier poets

The Biedermeier poets are not as strongly negative as the Young Germans. "There is good literary-historical evidence for the fact that the constant negation is more beneficial for secondary than primary poets". “Productive spirits cannot live in negation for a lifetime”; "The poetic creation of the world seems to depend on a, as always limited, 'yes to the world'". Stifter's novellas and the two novellas by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and Mörike (Die Judenbuche, Mozart on the trip to Prague) occupy an increasingly secure place in German national literature and soon also in world literature.

Sengle exemplifies the opposition between world negation and world affirmation with various examples. Pastor Gotthelf wrote his best novels, the Uli-Romane, in the pre-March period (before 1848). The almost fanatical denial that emerged in his post-March novels (after 1848) has shaken his reputation as a great narrator, as "Homer". Conversely, the trend lyricist Gottfried Keller from 1845 cannot yet be imagined as the narrator of “Romeo and Juliet in the village”. It was likely that the liberal basement needed the encouragement of a more liberal age (after 1848) to mature into a great narrator. In retrospect, the criticism of the University of Göttingen in Heine's “Harzreise” is extremely funny, but one does not get a positive image of the important teaching facility, as great storytellers could create. It remains with the roughly drawn caricature, Heine remains “stuck in the negation”.

The realists

With the realists, according to Sengle, Germany reaches the literary level of the Western European nation-states; the poetry of the realistic generation in Germany corresponds to the standard of world literature. The second half of the 19th century is characterized by the intensification of the antagonism between Christianity and atheistic currents, which reject the existence of a supernatural world. The "yes to the world", the transfiguration principle of bourgeois realism, results precisely from the fact that the world is the only remaining authority. While Sengle, in his relationship to the poets of the Biedermeier period, is concerned with historical distance, his “love and admiration belongs to the great realistic poets” (Keller, Raabe, Fontane). For him, the “greatest master among the German-speaking realists” is Gottfried Keller. Sengle speaks of the "incomparable freshness" of the people of Seldwyla . and counts the Green Heinrich in the first version from 1854, because of its still largely unconscious imagery, to the purest works of symbolic realism.

Sengles view of history

Sengle's view of history is essentially based on two basic assumptions. First: History can only be adequately operated on the basis of large amounts of material (collection of mass data). Second: History has to be reconstructed from this mass data by the historian.

Collection of mass data

Sengle describes the basic problems of historical studies as follows: “Historical structures are [...] always only dominants within numerous contradicting tendencies and traditions. Since there is a counter-citation for every single quotation, one remains in the forecourt of history without a quantitative recording of historical tendencies. ”A comprehensive material base is therefore an indispensable requirement. The "previous literary history" had "built on much too narrow a material basis that allowed any arbitrary interpretation". Sengle therefore not only evaluates primary and secondary literature, but also much unknown material, for example the "Evangelical Church Newspaper", the contemporary "Protestant hate speech" for the "militant spiritual restoration".

The real difficulty, however, is to filter out the “dominant” directions from the mass of available data when classifying a writer historically in the coordinate system of his time (as can be seen in the example of Heine). For this reason, as soon as it comes to the historical classification of a writer, Sengle introduces his train of thought stereotypically with phrases such as: "this difficult question", "this extremely difficult question", "old Tieck, this extremely complicated writer".

History as a reconstruction

The work of the historian must not stop at the “mere unfolding of the masses of matter”, but these masses of matter require a constructive approach, i. That is, the historian has to reconstruct history from the data. This should be explained using the two main directions of the Biedermeier period, the "Biedermeier" and the "Young Germany", as an example.

Research into the literary direction of Biedermeier began around 1910/20 (Paul Kluckhohn). The early Biedermeier research tended to see the quintessence of this direction in the bourgeois or petty bourgeois Biedermeier. From this point of view z. B. the opinion that the tragedy is impossible to get along with the Biedermeier. In order to avoid this problem of the bourgeoisisation of the Biedermeier, Sengle introduced the terms “courtly Biedermeier” and “spiritual Biedermeier”. Courtly Biedermeier includes z. B. high genres (such as ode, tragedy), which are often still in the tradition of the prince prize or prince mirror of earlier times (examples: Platen's ode "To King Ludwig" (1825) or Johann Ladislaus Pyrker's hexametre poem "Rudolph von Habsburg" in honor of the Habsburg dynasty). To the clerical Biedermeier z. B. the renewal of the hymn by Philipp Spitta .

Sengle shows a similar constructive approach in the treatment of “Young Germany”. It starts with the question of who should be counted in the direction of the Young Germans. In contrast to researchers, who tend to expand the direction, Sengle pleads for including only those writers who were affected by the 1835 ban, i.e. Heine, Wienbarg, Laube, Mundt and Gutzkow. Furthermore, Sengle considers whether it would not make sense to introduce “early socialism” as a further separate direction in the coordinate system of the Biedermeier period, e.g. B. for authors like Büchner and Freiligrath. On the other hand, he does not rule out the possibility that future research might include the other opposition groups (Vormärz poets, Young Hegelians, early socialists) among the Young Germans.

The historian must therefore be aware of the fact that he is pursuing a subjective reconstruction of history, just as, conversely, the reader, that when reading a book about history he is faced with a reconstruction of historians.

Overall concept "Biedermeier period"

Sengles overall concept of the Biedermeier period amounts to interpreting the middle of the century (1848/50) as the major transition point from what , ideally , “pre-realistic times” (“Old Europe”) to the “age of realism”. From Sengle's point of view, all writers who were active during the Biedermeier period (1815–1848) belong to “Old Europe”: “All these poets - regardless of whether they were progressive or conservative - were still rooted in the orderly thinking of pre-realistic Europe”. Even Ludwig Feuerbach and David Friedrich Strauss appear in this view only as "inverted preachers", as "pious atheists" and thus belong to "Old Europe".

According to Sengle, the contrast between “Old Europe” (before 1848/50) and “Age of Realism” (after 1848/50) can be characterized as follows:

If Germany was still an agricultural state before 1850, after 1850 the “beginning of the technical age” (railroad, steam engine, factories), a “cold, sober time”, the beginning “age of mass”. Is in the first half of the century still the "persistence of the afterlife religion". to state, so in the second the increased "dismantling of the afterlife religion". In the Biedermeier period, the restoration was the "dominant" trend. With the political restoration (Ancien Régime) the literary restoration was there again: recourse to the 18th century, revival of the rhetoric tradition. This includes a juxtaposition of the various speech attitudes (genera dicendi): narration, commentary, reflection, sermon interludes. This corresponds to a dualistic jumping back and forth between “high style” (pathos) and “lower style” (joke, satire, irony, grotesque). On the other hand, “bourgeois realism” tends to break down rhetoric and to the middle style: there is only one a single speech (e.g. narration), no more mixed styles. The following applies to the rhetoric tradition of Old Europe: the “high style” stylizes upwards, the “lower style” downwards, but the common characteristic is that neither of them is “realistic”. Only the second half of the century, which “only knows this world”, enables consistent individualism and realism. In the days of rhetoric, the tone rhetoric (the high, the scary, the garish, the short, the funny tone, the folk tone, the saloon tone, etc.) was still used in “realism”, the sober one , factual. While the doctrine of affect has been the basis of the sound rhetoric from time immemorial (stillages are derived from human emotions, e.g. an angry person screams), the "Age of Realism" is, compared to it, a cold, sober time and the Style accordingly sober and factual. In this sense, all "contemporary" directions of the Biedermeier period (Biedermeier, Young Germans, Vormärz lyricists, Young Hegelians) still belong to "Old Europe" in terms of their way of thinking.

The "battle for Christianity" runs through both halves of the century. on the one hand the “Christian dam building” against atheism (spiritual restoration), on the other hand the anti-Christian movements. This opposition intensifies in the second half of the century (church versus materialistic science). Everything is heading for the big argument. It seems that "the period is near when the Church of Christ and the kingdom of darkness will be more completely separate and confronted with one another than has ever been the case before" (Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, 1836)

Fonts

• Goethe's relationship to drama. The theoretical remarks related to his dramatic work. (= New German Research. 116). Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1937, also Phil. Diss. Tübingen.
• Wieland. Metzler, Stuttgart 1949.
• The German historical drama. Story of a literary myth. Metzler, Stuttgart 1952. (2nd edition under the title: The historical drama in Germany. History of a literary myth. Metzler, Stuttgart 1969, ISBN 3-476-98988-7 )
• Works on German literature. 1750-1850. Metzler, Stuttgart 1965
• The literary theory of forms. Proposals for their reform. (= Poetry and knowledge. 1). Metzler, Stuttgart 1967. (2nd, improved edition under the title: Proposals for the reform of the literary theory of forms. Metzler, Stuttgart 1969)
• Biedermeier period. German literature in the field of tension between restoration and revolution 1815–1848. Metzler, Stuttgart
  • Volume 1: General requirements, directions, means of representation. 1971, ISBN 3-476-00182-2 .
  • Volume 2: The world of forms. 1972, ISBN 3-476-00242-X .
  • Volume 3: The Poets. 1980, ISBN 3-476-00438-4 .
• Literary historiography without a training assignment. Workshop reports, methodology, criticism. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1980, ISBN 3-484-10398-1 .
• News about Goethe. Essays and lectures. Metzler, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-476-00677-8 .
• The genius and his prince. The history of Goethe's cohabitation with Duke Carl August von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. A contribution to late feudalism and a neglected topic of Goethe research. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1993, ISBN 3-476-00939-4 .
• Continuity and change. Introduction to Goethe's life and work. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0831-6 .
• Modern German poetry. From Nietzsche to Enzensberger (1875–1975). (= Contributions to modern literary history. 179). Winter, Heidelberg 2001, ISBN 3-8253-1116-3 .
• Enlightenment and Rococo in German literature. (= Contributions to modern literary history. 215). Winter, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-8253-5010-X .

literature

• Manfred Windfuhr:  Sengle, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 260 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Manfred Windfuhr: The Sengle estate in the Düsseldorf Heine Institute. 1999. In: Sightings online (accessed on February 15, 2015), pp. 286–288.
• Walter Müller-Seidel: Friedrich Sengle November 14, 1909 - March 14, 1994. In: Yearbook Bavarian Academy of Sciences. 1994, pp. 259-265.

Web links

• Anja Höfer : The chameleon that stayed true to itself, A Goethe introduction by Friedrich Sengle. In: literaturkritik.de (accessed on February 15, 2015)
• Harro Zimmermann : Duke and Servant: Serenissimo at your service. Friedrich Sengles study of Goethe and Carl August. In: Zeit online literature (accessed on February 15, 2015)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Manfred Windfuhr: Sengle, Friedrich. In: New German Biography. Volume 24, 2010, pp. 260-261. Online: Friedrich Sengle in the German Biography , accessed on March 8, 2020.
2. ^ Baruch-Börne as a critic of Germany and German poetry. In: The world struggle. 1941, pp. 129-144.
3. ^ Members of the HAdW since it was founded in 1909. Friedrich Sengle. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, accessed June 12, 2016 . 
4. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 198; also quite explicitly in the foreword to vol. 1, p. X
5. ↑ ^{a b} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 198.
6. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, pp. 117f.
7. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 207.
8. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 957.
9. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 1019.
10. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 988.
11. ↑ ^{a b} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 252.
12. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 642.
13. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 888.
14. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 596.
15. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 602.
16. ↑ ^{a b} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 809.
17. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 251.
18. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, pp. 247f.
19. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 525.
20. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 472.
21. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 540.
22. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 510.
23. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 111.
24. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 494.
25. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 521.
26. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 531.
27. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 517.
28. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 501.
29. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 543.
30. ↑ ^{a b} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 1022.
31. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 1065.
32. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 155.
33. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 192.
34. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 1021.
35. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 169.
36. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 177.
37. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 189.
38. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 175.
39. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 171.
40. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 187.
41. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 190.
42. ↑ ^{a b} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 1069.
43. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 1068.
44. ↑ ^{a b} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 1048.
45. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 1071.
46. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 263.
47. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 267.
48. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 307.
49. ↑ ^{a b c d} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, foreword p. VIII
50. ↑ "The material presented by me on the history of rhetoric, poetics and style is largely unknown" (Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, foreword p. XIII)
51. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 145.
52. ↑ Further examples: “the historical place of the Young Germans […] this complicated question” (vol. 1, p. 190); "It is particularly difficult to clearly determine Hebbel's historical location" (Vol. 3, p. 361); "The extremely difficult question of Heine's historical location" (vol. 3, p. 521); "Immermann's position between the directions [...] this extremely difficult question" (Vol. 3, p. 822); etc.
53. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 120.
54. ↑ ^{a b} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 119.
55. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 136.
56. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 139.
57. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 160.
58. ↑ ^{a b} Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 161.
59. ↑ Compare, for example, Joachim Bumke in the preface to Höfische Kultur , Vol. 1 (1986), p. 32: “It is just as unpleasant that individual documents [...] are repeatedly addressed as typical contemporary phenomena [...] Here the subjective character of the Representation most clearly; because it would of course be possible to design a different time picture with the help of other sources ”.
60. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 3, p. 256.
61. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 168.
62. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 64.
63. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 21.
64. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 74.
65. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 129.
66. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 191.
67. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, pp. 594ff.
68. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 142.
69. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 145.
70. ^ Sengle: Biedermeier period. Vol. 1, p. 122.

Remarks

1. ↑ Not all concepts that Sengle introduced around 1970 have caught on. Ten years later (1980) Sengle writes in Biedermeier Period , Vol. 3, p. 647, footnote: "My word" Weltschmerzpoeten ", which was intended as a neutral historical group term, seems to have found little use in German studies."
2. ↑ Sengle regards the Vormärz lyricists as a continuation of the Young Germans, not as a fully-fledged separate direction ( Biedermeier period , vol. 1, p. 201).
3. ↑ The romantic tradition at Sengle goes until 1945 ( Biedermeier period , vol. 1, p. 244).
4. ↑ For the sake of clarity, only the dominant directions are mentioned; there are other influences in almost every poet.
5. ↑ Lenau, like Jeremias Gotthelf, is one of the writers who can most likely be assigned to a certain “line” (direction).
6. ↑ The procedure described by Sengle is somewhat similar to the procedure in homeopathy : First you have to record all of the patient's symptoms, but then for the final assessment of the case you have to determine two or three “guiding symptoms” that make up “the idea of ​​the case” . For Sengle, it would be desirable, albeit utopian, to have a computer program as in homeopathy that contains all the characteristics of all directions and with which one could then generate the classification of a writer in the coordinate system at the push of a button.