Project Status: Complete

A site about the influences, context and life of Luise Kulmus (Gottsched), an 18th German poet who played a significant role in bringing the ideas of the English Enlightenment to Germany. The site also contains texts and letters by Kulmus.

Katherine Goodman studies the 18th c. poet Luise Kulmus (Gottsched), viewing her as an exemplary figure of the German Enlightenment. Kulmus, born in Danzig, married Johann Christoph Gottsched, an important figure in the German enlightenment who was influenced primarily by French culture and reflected its style and ideas. To help counter this image of the German Enlightenment Goodman presents Kulmus, who grew up in Danzig, a major seaport with strong trading and intellectual ties to England and Holland. Luise Kulmus had access and was open to ideas from England much earlier than many in the interior of Germany. The advent of German interest in English literature is routinely dated at around 1750, but Luise Kulmus brought her interest into her marriage with Gottsched in 1735. Throughout the remainder of her life (until 1762) she worked full-time at his side and introduced works of the English Enlightenment (Addison, Steele, Pope) to German audiences (by translating them and reviewing them in her husband's periodicals).

STG put together an experimental digital monograph to present Goodman's research on Kulmus. Text documents such as her letters and juvenilia were marked up using XML according to the TEI guidelines. We also devised a simple hypertextual structure to guide readers along Goodman's arguments, as well as allow them to explore the information on their own.

This project focuses on the young Kulmus through her and her husband's writing. It contains short essays and notes by Goodman herself as well as images from the period.

Social and Intellectual Context of Luise K. Gottsched is a project of German Studies

Contributors to this project include Carole Mah (STG), Elli Mylonas (CDS), Julia Flanders (STG), Kay Goodman (Faculty lead)