Ausgaben deutscher Literatur des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts

The Complete Works of Christian Weise begin with volume 23, an edition of his "Political Writings," textbooks and non-fiction works for various target groups. The first to be presented are "Der kluge Hoff-Meister" (1676) and "Der politische Academicus" (1684). The former provides an overview of European history since Charlemagne, while the "Academicus" introduces students to the art of independent living and learning.

The thirteenth volume of Rist’s Collected Works concludes the edition with information about the author’s family, his education and career, as well as his circle of friends, and his connections to literary societies. The volume contains a bibliographical register, text commentary on volumes I-XII, a complete register of works, and an extensive register of people and places.

Volume 14 adds the edition of two early and one late play to Christian Weise’s Collected Works: "Die Triumphirende Keuschheit" (Triumphant Chastity, 1668) and "Die beschützte Unschuld" (Protected Innocence, 1673) highlight thematic and dramaturgical resources of Weise’s famous plays for the school theatre of Zittau. "Die Unvergnügte Seele" (The discontented Soul, 1688) mirrors the reassessment of concepts of protestant piety in the later works.

Johann Christian Hallmann translated into German a selection of Francesco Loreadano’s satiric epigrams from the "Cimeterit," which is presented here in the edition of 1684. This volume also contains all of the preserved wedding and congratulatory poems on the basis of the single prints, as well as the panegyric poetry cycles "Silesian Eagle’s Wing" (1672) and "The Triumphant Leopoldus" (1689).

The 12^th volume of Rist’s Collected Works contains poems on the deaths of Martin Opitz and Charles I of England along with 80 other poems – for honor, weddings, funerals – and occasional writings that were not included in Rist’s prepared collections or that were completed after the publication of the “New German Parnassus” (1652).

The eleventh volume of Rist’s Complete Works includes a wide-ranging series of unusual occasional writings by the author, who was greatly esteemed by his peers. These include a eulogy and a libretto to the Ballet for the Prince’s Wedding (1653), a letter of congratulations for the birth of a Brandenburg prince, and a play for printer’s assistants, as well as a secular song collection and a panegyric poem on Denmark.

Zesen’s books of prayers for women were a great success when they appeared in 1657 and subsequently underwent multiple printings. This edition is based on a pirated copy from 1660. Expanded to address male believers, its Biblical prayers and meditations provide orientation and comfort in a great variety of situations, grouped by category.

Johann Rist’s wide-ranging collection The New German Parnassus contains poems and songs for weddings, deaths, coronations, indoctrination ceremonies at the Fruitful Society, birthdays, appointments to office, book publications, the Peace of Westphalia, and some occasional verses from the years 1647 to 1652, along with numerous poems dedicated by friends.

The volume contains Johann Rist’s genealogical “Paean to Emperor Ferdinand III,” a description of the 1648 natural disaster in northern Germany (“Holstein Will Not Forget”), and the first edition of the passion hymns in “Jesus Christ Led to his Suffering and Death.” In 1647, Rist, after being nominated by Harsdörffer, became a member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (“Fruitbearing Society”), where he was known as “der Rüstige,” the lusty.

This commentary to Philipp von Zesen’s Coelum astronomico-poeticum (1662) documents over 3,000 references and citations in the text. This includes not only the authors and the works Zesen cites but also the sources on which he draws. In this way, the volume presents an exemplary picture of the compilatory technique that characterizes a large part of the scholarly writing of the era.

The volume includes Rist’s poetry from 1644 to 1646. In “Strong Shield of God,” Rist shows the power against slander and enmity drawn from his faith. “Holstein’s wretched song of complaint and misery” describes the devastations of the Thirty Years War. “Poetic Setting,” his third collection written in 1646, shows Rist primarily as a casual poet and panegyrist – and, by extension, as a historical raconteur.

This “realities” volume complements the three-volume set Selected Writings of the Straßburg humanist Johannes Adelphus Muling. Each text includes a commentary, a transmission history, and a description of its illustrations. A documents section contains facsimiles of preface dedications, letters, and autograph book lists. Bibliographies, indexes of addresses, authors, and titles, a list of printers, and a reference list concludes the volume.

Edited by Alfred Noe and Hans-Gert Roloff, this volume presents the early poetry of Johann Rist, along with Paul Gerhardt, the most important 17^th century German composers of Protestant Church songs. It fills a longstanding gap in the earlier seven-volume edition of Rist’s Complete Works.

This third volume completes the Latin works of Martin Opitz. It includes writings from the last decade of Opitz’s life (1631–1639) and mainly focuses on the short epic Ratispona liberata, programmatic dedication texts for the author’s key works, and major homages and obituaries to members of the Polish nobility, which Opitz wrote from 1635 onwards, first in Thorn and later in Gdansk.

Thomas Naogeorg is one of the most important writers of the Reformation movement; his writings reflect the societal, literary, and spiritual problems of life during the middle of the century of Protestant Reformation. This first complete edition of Naogeorg's works will assure him a place in the literary history of the 16th century. Each of the original Latin texts is supplemented with a German translation.

Zesen's work deals with the constellations and the legends attached to them. In it, he processes the knowledge of astronomy of his age.
The first volume contains the original Latin text together with a parallel German translation.

Martin Opitz (1597–1639), poet, literary reformer, diplomat and cultural politician, is known as the “Father of German Poetry”. As an important representative of Late European Humanism he did in fact write a large proportion of his works in Latin, a fact of which hitherto little account has been taken. The present edition publishes all his Latin texts, including numerous newly-discovered writings; they are translated and provided with a detailed commentary and thus made available to scholars from a variety of disciplines.

Martin Opitz (1597–1639), poet, literary reformer, diplomat and cultural politician, is known as the "Father of German Poetry". As an important representative of Late European Humanism he did in fact write a large proportion of his works in Latin, a fact of which hitherto little account has been taken. The present edition publishes all his Latin texts, including numerous newly-discovered writings; they are translated and provided with a detailed commentary and thus made available to scholars from a variety of disciplines.

This is the first critical edition of Ringwaldt's complete works (1530/31-1599). It contains an orthographically revised authentic text and documents all extant variants of the original texts. The documentation of the text is supplemented with an account of the history of the texts and their composition, their reception over time, and explanatory notes. This edition provides the material base for the academic treatment of the author's works and research into them.

This factual volume brings to a conclusion more than 35 years of work on the Travelling Theatre Edition as part of the Editions of German Literature series. A comprehensive and detailed introduction presents the most important research aspects together with notes on the sources and a selected bibliography and illustrations. The main part of the volume is given over to commentaries on sections of the plays from the five volumes, consisting of an introductory characterization of the relevant text followed by a line-by-line commentary on the problems of content and language posed by the individual passages.

Volumes 17 to 19 of Christian Weise's Complete Works present what are known as his political novels. The novels are highly significant for the history both of the genre and of society. Weise composed them as symbols of his political philosophy and wrote them for the training of the new caste of bourgeois officials, who had to behave 'skilfully' - i. e. 'politically' - in the service of the courts. The four novels are of central importance for Middle German literature in the second half of the 17th century.

Volumes 17 to 19 of Christian Weise's Complete Works present what are known as his political novels.The novels are highly significant for the history both of the genre and of society. Weise composed them as symbols of his political philosophy and wrote them for the training of the new caste of bourgeois officials, who had to behave 'skilfully' - i. e. 'politically' - in the service of the courts. The four novels are of central importance for Middle German literature in the second half of the 17th century.

Volumes 17 to 19 of Christian Weise's Complete Works present what are known as his political novels. The novels are highly significant for the history both of the genre and of society. Weise composed them as symbols of his political philosophy and wrote them for the training of the new caste of bourgeois officials, who had to behave 'skilfully' - i. e. 'politically' - in the service of the courts. The four novels are of central importance for Middle German literature in the second half of the 17th century.

Wickrams Losbuch (1539), das diesen Titel erst seit 1559 führt, ist eine Parodie auf die beliebte Gattung der Losbücher und in seiner Art ein bemerkenswertes Zeugnis der Buchkultur der Frühen Neuzeit. Über 25 nachweisbare Auflagen bis ins frühe 18. Jh. bestätigen Beliebtheit und Erfolg der Konzeption. Die vorliegende wissenschaftliche Edition bietet den philologisch-kritisch erarbeiteten Text und eine umfangreiche Dokumentation der Textgeschichte. Die Ausgabe folgt in nötiger Umsetzung den Intentionen der editio princeps und enthält sämtliche Illustrationen und deren Varianten.

Die Ausgabe unterscheidet sich in struktureller Hinsicht und in den mitgeteilten editorischen Beigaben von der alten Ausgabe, die seinerzeit Johan von Bolte veranstaltete.

Innerhalb der deutschen Cats-Rezeption nimmt die hier neu edierte, umfangreiche Übertragung durch Philipp von Zesen einen bedeutenden Platz ein. Beverwijcks Schat der Gesontheyt erschien zuerst 1636 in Dordrecht und wurde bald zum Bestseller. Dazu haben u. a. die Hunderte von Gedichten beigetragen, die Jacob Cats beigesteuert hat. Das Buch war mit seinen medizinischen Ausführungen und Erklärungen aktuell. Insbesondere stieß es wegen des praxisorientierten Horizonts auf großes Interesse.

Zesen hat das vollständige Werk übertragen, also auch alle Beiträge von Cats. Eine vergleichende Analyse von Vorlage und Übersetzung erbringt für den Fragenkreis der interkulturellen Perspektive hochinteressante Ergebnisse: Zesen versucht durch Auflockerung des Metrums und eine Reihe von rhythmischen Verbesserungen die Monotonie des Catsschen Metrums aufzulockern. Die Metapher erhält größeres Gewicht. Insgesamt transferiert Zesen die Verse seiner Vorlage in eine deutsche Poetik. Schließlich berücksichtigt Zesen den anderen kulturellen Hintergrund seiner deutschen Leser und ändert seine Vorlage behutsam dort, wo sie ihm allzu direkt und drastisch oder auch zu sehr auf niederländische Eigenarten bezogen erscheint.

The volume contains the comedy Die Böse Catharine ('Wicked Catharine') (1705) and the Singspiel Die betrübte und getröstete Galathee ('Galathee depressed and comforted') (1673). The edition of Die Böse Catharine is based on the manuscripts, that of Galathee on the first printing. The volume is completed with a complete account of the textual history of the works, the editors' necessary interventions and a comprehensive listing of the textual variants.