Textkritische Werkausgabe
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Edited by:
Until now, there has been no complete critical textual edition of the works of Günther, after Carl Enders was unable to realize his publishing plans and since Wilhelm Krämer’s edition remained incomplete. The new edition takes all of the works of the great Silesian poet into consideration, including their preliminary stages and fragments. The commentary section provides detailed explanations of the textual legacy and dissemination, including musical settings of the poetry and translations. The occasions and dates for writing the poems are discussed, and difficult sections are explained. Thus, literary critics and friends of literature will at last have a secure foundation for interpreting the texts.
This edition includes manuscripts (re)discovered in Breslau and elsewhere, the contemporaneous collected editions, later transcriptions, and the Nachlässe of the scholars Enders and Kräme. The poems, letters, and the school dramas are arranged according to their periods of creation as well as traditional genres. The volume includes the original version of the Latin texts and a German translation, a catalog of variants, and commentary.
This volume presents 196 poems, letters, and drafts dating from the final 21 months of Günther’s life. During this time, Günther wrote new derisive verses, panegyrics, and wedding verses; spiritual poems for a devotional setting; and his well-known self-justification letter to his father. Despite illness and exhaustion, Günther was able to maintain his poetic sensibility, his role as learned poet, and his clever wit.
The documentary volume offers a complete reproduction of the autograph versions, duplicates, and single reprints of Günther's poetry, thus providing a clear impression of the works and their rare textual sources. Of the documented reprints and collected manuscripts, only a third have survived, and of the printed works, many have been preserved in only a single copy. Transcriptions are included.
