Lexicon of world literature
The Lexicon of World Literature , which was published from 1963 by the Germanist Gero von Wilpert , is one of the most extensive and recognized German-language literary lexicons . It contains information on authors and works in world literature .
The 4th edition, published in 2004, contains 12,000 articles on authors (and anonymous works) of world literature, which are divided into three volumes. The first volume deals with around 3,000 German-speaking authors and is an expansion and revision of the German Poet's Lexicon, which was also published in three editions by the same publisher. The second and third volumes deal with foreign language authors. The aim was to take into account all epochs and cultures. The texts were created with the collaboration of more than a hundred experts.
The author biographies consist of a brief curriculum vitae, followed by a literary historical classification and evaluation of the work and a list of works and secondary literature. There are no pictures at all. In the previous editions, the Wilpert also consisted of a second part with entries on individual works of world literature, each consisting of information on the date of origin and publication as well as translations, followed by a review (unlike the author's articles, signed by name) and sometimes a short list of secondary literature . The publisher initially left it open as to whether the 4th edition will also receive such a second part. The third edition of the author's section, published in 1988, has 11,000 author articles, the works section appeared in 1993. According to the self-description (preface to the third edition), the Wilpert is “the most comprehensive work of its kind in German”, which is what the author would like -Part should still apply today in the 4th edition. However, with around 4800 entries, the works part does not come close to Kindler's literary dictionary. A paperback edition of the 3rd edition of Kröner was published in 2004 by dtv with the bibliographical data: Lexikon der Weltliteratur , Ed. Gero von Wilpert. Among employees numerous Specialist, DTV, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-423-59050-5 .
A CD-ROM version of the 3rd edition was published in the Digital Library series by Directmedia Publishing . A comparable reference work that is restricted to German-speaking authors and is more comprehensive in this area is the literary dictionary by Walther Killy .
literature
- Peter Goßens: The world literature dictionary. For a new edition of a classic. In: Comparative literature 2005/2006. Yearbook of the German Society for General and Comparative Literature Studies. Heidelberg: Synchron, 2006, pp. 140-147.
See also
- Writers - References to other author dictionaries
- List of specialty encyclopedias
Web links
- Review of the volume of works of the 3rd edition