Jan Philipp Reemtsma on Christoph Martin Wieland – innovator, enlightener, writer, journalist, political animal, judge of character, "inventor" of "Weimar Classicism".
Monday, 02. October 2023, 19:00 – 20:00 h
At Literaturhaus Zurich, Limmatquai 62, 8001 Zürich
Modern German literature began with Christoph Martin Wieland (1733–1813). He not only inaugurated it himself with his works, but he was also the "inventor" of what we now call the "Weimar Classicism".
With this long-awaited biography, Jan Philipp Reemtsma frees Wieland from the long shadow in which Goethe and Schiller placed him. His "Wieland" is exciting and fulminant, a Germanic stroke of luck, for it gives us back a classic without which the transformation of German literature into one before and one after Weimar cannot be adequately understood. Reemtsma's book "Christoph Martin Wieland. Die Erfindung der modernen deutschen Literatur" (Christoph Martin Wieland. The Invention of Modern German Literature ; C.H.Beck) was nominated for the prize of the Leipzig Book Fair 2023.
Jan Philipp Reemtsma is Professor of "Neuere Deutsche Literatur" (Modern German Literature) at the University of Hamburg. His biography of Christoph Martin Wieland, written in collaboration with Fanny Esterhazy, was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2023 in the non-fiction/essay category.