About these documents
Gottsched's
biography: After the death of his wife in 1762
Johann Christoph Gottsched serialized his account of
her life for one of his journals. A revised version of
this biography preceeded the memorial collection of
texts by and for her which he published in 1763. The
early poetry of Luise Kulmus and many of his
epistolary poems to her were taken from this
source.
Juvenalia: Youthful poetry of Luise Kulmus before her marriage
to Johann Christoph Gottsched.
Social
Life: Background on the history of Danzig as well
as its social and political structure
Intellectual Life: Prominent Danzig intellectuals
and important institutions.
Occasional
Poetry: Poetry by Renate Breyne and Luise Kulmus's
uncle, Johann Adam Kulmus
Luise Gottsched's letters [to be added]: In
1771/2 a friend of Luise Gottsched, Dorothea von
Runckel, published a collection of her letters.
Recent discoveries of the originals of a few of
these make it clear that the published versions are
at least sometimes quite different from the
originals. It may have been that Runckel edited the
texts. Or correspondents who submitted them to her
may have edited them. Or her husband may have in
some cases. The letters by Kulmus which appear here
are the "courtship letters" as they appeared in
1771/2. The originals are presumed lost. Of these
we know that even as he courted her, Johann
Christoph Gottsched conceived the idea of publishing
her letters. Luise Kulmus appealed to him not to,
at least not until after her death. In her
introduction to the letters Runckel tells us that
Luise Gottsched had sent her the letters for
publication. However, it becomes clear that the
collection Luise Gottsched sent her expanded
considerably when friends learned of Runckel's
project. In 175 Luise Gottsched wrote Dorothea von
Runckel that she was sending her certain texts which
she had edited. It seems likely that these included
the "courtship letters" and, although the footnotes
in the collection appear to be by Runckel, it also
seems likely that Gottsched herself edited
these.
Johann Christoph Gottsched's poetic
epistles [to be added]: These are taken from the collection of
his poetry published by Johann Schwabe and from his
memorial to her.
|