Res publica literaria

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Res publica lit [t] eraria , also res publica lit [t] erarum as well as in the variants of the amalgamation of respublica , English Republic of Letters , d. i. the "republic of scholars", "Republic of Letters" or "learned republic" was to the 18th century, the term used for the connection of the international academic life - a phrase addition, mainly in the concept of today scientific community well or German scientific community lives on .

Res publica is Latin and means “state”, with res meaning “thing” or “matter” and publica for “belonging to the people”, “public” - so res publica is literally the “public matter”; the adjective lit [t] eraria can be translated as “belonging to reading and writing” or “writing”.

Up until the 18th century, the res publica literaria included all those who published scholarly publications and all those who were in scientific exchange with one another - librarians , archivists , university professors, historians in public positions, theologians in church offices, private scholars . The term was based on the idea that in the field of science neither class differences nor nationality were important. While monarchies ruled Europe , scholars formed a republic .

Until the 17th century, the most important medium in the exchange of the res publica literaria was the correspondence between the members and the extensive travel. It was customary for scholars traveling around Europe to inquire about the addresses of specialist colleagues in cities where they arrived and to register with them. (It was also common for them to record in travel diaries what impression the visitor made on them - they only knew each other from publications and were now face-to-face, they are often relentless character sketches that are regularly published posthumously to the delight of the Republic of Scholars were).

In the second half of the 17th century, the literary journal was added as a new central medium. The development was significantly supported by the Dutch French language book market, which was oriented towards Europe.

The term res publica literaria became unusable in the 19th century. This has above all to do with the change in meaning of the word literature and the even stronger one of literary . Literature was synonymous with scholarship until the late 18th century. Literary , on the other hand , as it occurs in res publica literaria , today describes texts in which language is used with artistic freedom (see also literary nature ). The old word order or the idea behind it could no longer be understood with the new literary term.

literature