The series "QUELLEN UND FORSCHUNGEN ZUR LITERATUR- UND KULTURGESCHICHTE" (Sources and Research in the History of Literature and Culture) is an established feature among the renowned publications for German Literary Studies. Edited by Mark-Georg Dehrmann and Christiane Witthöft, the series presents examples of high-quality scholarship examining literary texts in conjunction with historical cultural phenomena.
This study treats a central complex of issues which have hitherto received little attention from Goethe scholars, namely the question of the conception and position of the subject in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novels and shorter narrative pieces. In his study the author combines approaches from the history of ideas and poetology in a systematic way and succeeds in demonstrating that the question of the ego, its identity and boundaries is a recurring problem in Goethe's writings, and one that he obviously did not succeed in resolving; at the same time he shows that Goethe's figures, with their internal breaks, already display clear features of the modern subject.
Stefan Keppler, Freie Universität Berlin.
"Ein ausgezeichnetes Buch!"
Benedikt Jessing in: Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 1/2008
"[...] bemerkenswerte Darstellung."
Martin Bollacher in: Germanistik 1-2/2007
"Die Untersuchung eröffnet ideengeschichtlich und poetologisch neue Forschungsperspektiven."
Klaus-Detlef Müller in: Goethe-Jahrbuch 123/2006
