Abteilung Werke IX: Kleine Prosaschriften
The first edition faithful to the original, this volume includes the collection of essays On Language and the Art of Poetry, which illuminates the guiding ideas behind Klopstock’s short prose writings. However, its thematic spectrum is broader, ranging from theology, ethics, poetics, and meter. The afterword explains the chronological arrangement and principles of textual criticism used in this edition.
The apparatus volume records relevant transmissions, informs readers about the genesis and constitution of texts, and documents text-relevant witnesses by the author and his contemporaries, as well as variants and interpretations of different versions. The commentary identifies some of the similarities in Klopstock’s oeuvre; in the afterword, this takes place in a concise form.
