Project Description

»Propylaea. Research Platform on Goethe's Biographica« is a cooperative project of the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz, the Klassik Stiftung Weimar/Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, and the Frankfurter Goethe-Hause/Freies Deutsches Hochstift, Frankfurt am Main.

The aim is to develop an integrated research platform on Goethe's biographica as well as to continue and complete the historical-critical editions of Goethe's letters (GB), Goethe's diaries (GT), the Regestausgabe of letters to Goethe (RA), enriched by a full text edition, (link to the current online version) and the edition of Goethe's »Begegnungen und Gesprächen«. Goethe's life testimonies provide information about his intellectual environment and the mutual impulses that were exchanged between the actors in Weimar, in the German-speaking countries, in other European countries, and beyond, at a time when Europe and the entire world were undergoing elemental change. Compared to the print editions, the online availability opens up a significant new research potential, since for the first time testimonies of the various source genres, each with different communicative dimensions of action, are blended into one another. This results in numerous new insights for Goethe research as well as for historiographical research and research in the history of culture and science with regard to the period from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century.
The platform is designed to integrate additional source material and scholarly findings in a variety of ways, thus offering research on Goethe and the Goethe period a unique opportunity for a sustainable central forum in the digital age.

PROPYLÄEN-Website: www.goethe-biographica.de