‘Nun so legt euch liebe Lieder / An den Busen meinem Volke’: (De-)Popularisierungsdynamiken des West-östlichen Divans im neunzehnten und frühen zwanzigsten Jahrhundert

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay sees Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan in the twofold tension between the cryptic and clarity, exclusivity and popularity that has shaped the reception of the cycle for the last two hundred years. It follows the traces of the lied — defined by contemporaries as ‘popular’ — through the Divan poems and their uses in the nineteenth century and finally examines in more detail the de-popularizing strategies of the major ‘re-discoverers’ of the collection around 1900.