Kontexte und Kontextrelevanzen in der Literaturwissenschaft

What is it about?

Although working with contexts is one of the most basic operations of literary criticism (and particularly of cultural literary studies) there is still a definitive shortage of theoretical reflections on this question. My essay will first examine the traditional context-model of concentric circles (1), then consider the different functions which contexts can have in (cultural) literary studies (2), and discuss how contexts can be selected and how their relevance can be evaluated (3). The last section will try to add at least some practice to these theoretical consideration by looking at two examples (by Schiller and Novalis) from the cultural and literary history of the dream (4). Though much of my argument will be as general as possible, my essay will also try to close a gap which I, personally, have found particularly frustrating in recent debates on the methodology of literary criticism: There is a flagrant disregard of positions which try to situate and understand texts historically within their culture and time and to avoid any form of anachronistic actualisation. They are not discussed as a method in its own right, there is not even a commonly accepted term for them, they rather seem to be beneath contempt – yet they obviously play an important, maybe even a dominant, role in the mainstream of literary studies. If this should be due to a particular theory abstinence on the side of historicist literary critics, it would be high time for them to end it as historical literary studies are as worthy as needy of theoretical reflections.

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