Ingo Breuer
Zeitschrift des Verbandes Polnischer Germanisten, Zeszyt 2 (2014), 2014, s. 103-116
https://doi.org/10.4467/23534893ZG.14.005.2927The international research on letters and the epistolary culture is constantly growing, but there are still many unchartered territories. This also applies to the letters of the German author Georg Büchner. For considering to which extend these letters contain conventional or innovative/critical contents, it is important to take into consideration the contents as well as the form of the letter. Two examples will be given: (1) Descriptions of landscapes are highly conventional in (travel-) letters of the 18th/19th century, so here the significance of idyllic landscapes and sublime mountains in literature, arts, and culture is described in order to highlight the hidden political as well as individual message of his letter to his fiancé. (2) Even more conventional is the rhetoric of letter writing in the 19th century. It is therefore necessary to consider the information which is given by the choice of paper and ink and by the topology of the letters, i.e. the distribution of text and ‘empty rooms’ on the paper. We find the letters conventional to a high degree but there are also breaches of the conventions in both fields which shed some new light on the epistolography of a political author.