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Lessings Bucherwerbungen: Verzeichnis der in der Herzoglichen Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel angeschafften Bücher und Zeitschriften 1770-1781 by Paul Raabe, Barbara StrutzLessings Büchernachlaβ: Verzeichnis der von Lessing bei seinem Tode in seiner Wohnung hinterlassenen Bücher und Handschriften by Paul Raabe, Barbara Strutz

2008; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 103; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mlr.2008.0082

2222-4319

H. B. Nisbet,

German Literature and Culture Studies

886 Reviews Steinsdorff thenofferssomething refreshinglyconcrete, namely a draft letter(hitherto unpublished) by Bettine von Arnim from I847 toGraf Arnim-Boitzenburg asking that he support a project to cultivate and process flax.Although the project came to nothing, and the letterwas most likelynever even sent, Steindorff's commentary builds up a rich and fascinating picture, both ofBettine's tireless activities and of the broader socio-political circumstances of the decade. This is a real highlight of the volume. The section ends with a piece by Jochen Strobel, one in a series of articles by this scholar on the theme of nobility, on the transformations of this idea in thework ofAdam Muller and Achim von Arnim. The final section, on relations between the arts, begins with a learned but in conclusive Festvortrag by Hans Joachim Kreutzer comparing Klopstock's Messias and Handel's Messiah. H. B. Nisbet gives a typically lucid discussion of Lessing's Laokoon, showing how an unclarity in his use of the concept ofNachahmung would have made it impossible forLessing tocomplete thework on thebasis of the concepts with which he started. This article will need to be widely read. Richard Littlejohns surveys theAurora motif inRomantic literature and painting. In a comparison of two texts byArnim about Raphael and Rembrandt, Peter Philipp Riedl shows that the author did not view these two artists, as later critics would do, as practitioners of two irreconcilable types of art. Rather, he sees them as complementary partners, who merely approach the taskof the 'Vergeistigung' of sensible experience indifferent ways. Nicholas Boyle next examines a drawing byGoethe thathas hitherto been inter preted as a stage design fora production ofMacbeth. Against this, ina bravura display of historical scholarship, Boyle establishes that it is a design for a play by Zacharias Werner and pinpoints thedate of composition to March I8o8. Finally,Helmut Pfoten hauer examines themotif of the state between sleeping and waking and its relation toRomantic ideas on painting. While he begins with theHerzensergieJ3ungen,most of the article is about Hoffmann's Die Elixiere des Teufels,whose narrative structure he shows to be influenced by the relevant debates. The figure of Peter Schonfeld appears significant here as representing the principle of narrative confusion against thenarrator's efforts tobring thenovel to a logical conclusion. All inall, then, thevolume contains a variety of stimulating and sometimes brilliant scholarship. There isno risk that it will gather dust on the library shelf. QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, CANADA DAVID PUGH Lessings Bucherwerbungen: Verzeichnis der inderHerzoglichen Bibliothek Wolfenbiittel angeschafften Buicher und Zeitschriften I770-I78I. Ed. by PAUL RAABE and BAR BARASTRUTZ. Gottingen: Wallstein. 2004. 374 pp. ?49. ISBN 978-3-89244 830-3. Lessings BuichernachlaJ3: Verzeichnis der von Lessing bei seinem Tode in seinerWoh nung hinterlassenenBucher undHandschriften. Ed. by PAUL RAABE and BARBARA STRUTZ. Gottingen: Wallstein. 2007. I69 pp. E28. ISBN 978-3-8353-0157-3. Chronic financial difficulties compelled Lessing to sell his library of over 6,ooo vo lumes in three auctions between I768 and I770. Since none of the auction catalogues survives, information on his reading before I770 is confined to books and authors mentioned in his writings and conversations, although he undoubtedly read many more. In the two volumes reviewed here, Paul Raabe and Barbara Strutz throw new lighton theworks he read or consulted from 1770 onwards. They include (in the first volume) nearly I,ooo titleshe acquired, fromhismeagre allowance forpurchases, for the Wolfenbiittel libraryduring his tenure as librarian from 1770 to I78 I, and (in the second volume) nearly 6oo books andmanuscripts found inhis house afterhis death, MLR, 103.3, 2oo8 887 including books of his own and others borrowed from the library and other sources. The information in question is compiled from abbreviated and often cryptic inven tories in the library's archives, painstakingly reconstructed, with fullbibliographical details, by the present editors. There are some surprises, and a few long-standing mysteries are resolved. The first volume testifiestoLessing's polymathic interestsand enlightened policies as librarian. He acquired works in fourteen languages for the library, some of them recent works ofmajor importance, such as Adelung's German dictionary, Samuel Johnson's English dictionary and edition of Shakespeare, the first German transla tion of theKoran (by D. F Megerlin...