Von der formalen Soziologie zur formalen Literatursoziologie: Georg Lukács

The paper reconstructs a crucial moment in the history of literary studies: the transference of formal sociology, as developed by Georg Simmel around 1900, into literary studies by his pupil, the young Georg Lukács. First, formal sociology will be explained in order to outline the ways in which Lukács adapts it. Then the formal method Lukács developed will be illustrated using the drama as an example. Finally, the paper will analyze Caroline Levine’s highly acclaimed study Forms (2015) in the context of the history of the formal method outlined, and briefly discuss the impasse in which this method currently finds itself.

Geist oder Gesellschaft. Über die Konstruktion sozialer Akteure in der Literaturwissenschaft in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts

In the first decades of the 20th century, literary studies in the history of ideas (Geistesgeschichte) experimented with sociological and socio-historical perspectives and concepts in search of a stable basis. In doing so, it reacts to the problems of historical-philological research that focuses on social aspects of literary change. In the competition for the sovereignty of interpretation, holistic(national, ethnic) concepts also prevail against empirical findings.

Literatursoziologie als Kunstsoziologie und die Rolle des Ästhetischen. Beobachtungen zur Disziplinentektonik im ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts, am Beispiel Heinz Sauermanns und René Königs

This paper explores the sociology of art as a subfield of disciplines other than sociology in the first few decades of the 20th century. Special attention is paid to the so-called “allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft” as a conceptional framework for the sociology of art, as described by Heinz Sauermann and René König. It is argued that notions of the artwork’s aesthetic properties, traditionally subject to philosophical aesthetics, co-determine the scope and range of sociological approaches to art. This is also the case with the sociology of literature.

Verhandlungen über eine Soziologie der Literatur auf den Deutschen Soziologentagen 1926 und 1930: Hanna Meuter, Leopold von Wiese und Erich Rothacker

The article examines the relationship between young sociology and the approaches of a sociological contemplation of literature, which is constituted in a movement of delineation motivated not only in terms of content, but also in terms of discipline and institution. This is exemplified by selected contributions to the German Sociologists’ Days (Deutsche Soziologentage) in 1926 and 1930, which present innovative (Hanna Meuter), and central (Leopold von Wiese, Erich Rothacker) positions in the contemporary debate on the sociology of art.

‚Arbeit an den Sachen selbst‘. Zu Praxis und Programmatik der Literatursoziologie Karl Viëtors

This article focuses on Karl Viëtor’s (1892–1951) literary-sociological oriented Baroque research and follows its development up to a generalized literary-sociological research program. Viëtor defines his stance on the sociology of literature by distancing himself from two strands of thought: on the one hand, from different versions of “Geistesgeschichte” (represented e. g. by Fritz Strich, Oskar Walzel, or Emil Ermatinger), and, on the other hand, from various materialistic positions based on the base/superstructure-model (such as those by Franz Mehring or Karl August Wittfogel). First, I will examine Viëtor’s unpublished lecture History of German Literature in the Age of Baroque (Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im Zeitalter des Barock, 1922/1923 until 1937), which is his repository for his baroque publications in the 1920 s, that also inspired in-depth research conducted by his students. Secondly, I will analyze Viëtor’s Program of a Sociology of Literature (Programm einer Literatursoziologie, 1934), a critical examination of relevant contributions by Erich Rothacker and others, both from bourgeois and Marxist backgrounds. In this text, Viëtor outlines the sociology of literature in two ways: as a sociology of literary life and as a sociology of literary works.

Die frühe Soziologie und die Literatur. Untersuchungen zur Soziologie von Max Weber

The present study shows that in the sociology of Max Weber three ways of using literature can be observed: (1) literary sociological theses, (2) literature as reference, and (3) literature as illustration.

Zwischen Geschichtswissenschaft, Volkskunde und ‚Philologie‘. Zur Protosoziologie der mittelhochdeutschen Literatur (1895–1930)

According to widespread prejudice, it was only about 1900 that the influence of society on literature became an important scholarly issue. On the contrary, it will be demonstrated that, since the beginnings of its literary history, the literature of the Middle Ages has been discussed within its social context. At the same time, it will be shown in this article that between 1895 and 1930 some exceptional figures, in particular, Paul Kluckhohn and Edward Schröder, though representing the intellectual atmosphere of their time, nonetheless contributed to the development of a method of correlating medieval society and literature that until today remains of more than historical interest.

„Ein Unbekanntes ist nur der Geschmack“. Zu Levin Ludwig Schückings literatursoziologischem Ansatz

The article reconstructs Levin Ludwig Schücking’s History of Taste as a method of writing literary history. Moreover, it lays out, for the first time, the cultural and literary-political dimensions of his approach by considering the context of the history of literary studies comprehensively. The article demonstrates how Schücking refers to sociology in a twofold manner: as a way of scholarly thinking that is related to certain methodological techniques, and as a way to overcome the “crisis of modernity” manifested in the rift between authors and readers in literary life.

Dichtkunst als Soziologie? Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Schiller

Ferdinand Tönnies’ relationship to the sociology of art and literature was ambivalent and contradictory. On the one hand, the consideration of art and literature plays a role in Tönnies’ theoretical works. On the other hand, in the founding years of sociology, he was opposed to an independent sub-discipline in the sociology of literature because he feared for the unity of the discipline. All the more interesting is the fact that Tönnies repeatedly published on poets and poetry. In addition to articles on Theodor Storm, there are several studies on Friedrich Schiller as a poet and theorist, which show the sociologist as a reader and interpreter of literature. This paper attempts a critical review and classification of these works by Tönnies against the background of the political debate about Schiller in the Schiller anniversary year of 1905.