Alle soglie della modernità. Forme paratestuali nella Deutsche Klassik

In the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller, many letters – private epitexts according to Genette (Seuils) – focus on engravings for magazine covers («Horen», «Musen-Almanach», «Propyläen»). The link between the chosen images and the contents of the periodicals, the format and quality of the reproductions, the type of paper used, printing costs, become decisive factors in the design of these magazines and offer interesting insights into the authorial epitexts. The essay investigates, in addition to the letters, Goethe’s and Schiller’s theatrical works; their authorial epitexts can be read as a philosophical manifesto of German Classicism, and their reinterpretation in this perspective, and in connection with other paratexts, may help to reconstruct a more dynamic and livelier image of Weimar Classicism than that which has been consolidated in the canonized ‘iconography’.