2017: Dokumentation von literarischen Lutherbildern zwischen 1517 und 2017 in fünf Reihen (review)

The goal of this series, published under the guidance of Hans-Gert Roloff, is to document the literary treatment—and transformation—of the historic figure Martin Luther. In total, the series plans facsimile publication of seventeen representative works from 1520 to the present containing new introductions and notes written by specialists in the field. The series is divided into five sections: sixteenth century (eds. Roloff and Anne Wagniart); seventeenth century (ed. Jörg Jungmayr); eighteenth century (eds. Sabine Gruber and Ralph Zade); nineteenth century (eds. Gerd-Hermann Susen and Edith Wack); twentieth–twenty-first centuries (ed. Andreas Keller).

The literary afterlife of Luther is unique: no other figure in German literature has experienced such a mass of literary documentation through the centuries. The purpose of the series (seventeen volumes are planned) is to document how widely different authors saw and interpreted the man and his ideology. It is important to note that the series does not attempt to differentiate works on the basis of their presumed literary value. Rather, it aims to publish works that are largely forgotten or neglected in order to provide disparate views of Luther over the centuries since his death.

It is noteworthy that the institution of the Lutheran Church has generally ignored this body of literature—all the more reason to provide it now. In fact, the Lutherhandbuch 2017 provides precious few references to "Lutherbilder und Memorialkultur." Luther scholarship has hardly made note of the numerous literary works on Luther. One Luther specialist writes: "Von den Lutherdramen, den Lutherromanen und den Luthergedichten . . . ist kein Stück in den Kanon der deutschen Literatur eingegangen" (Hartmut Lehmann, Luthergedächtnis 1817 bis 2017, 2016). Indeed, recent Luther scholarship in general has neglected the literary treatment of Luther. Yet, in the nineteenth century alone almost fifty Luther dramas appeared; in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries a like number of literary texts in all genres were published. In the new series under review, the following works among others are planned for the period of the nineteenth century: Zacharias Werner, Martin Luther, oder Die Weihe der Kraft: Eine Tragödie (1807); August Trümpelmann, Luther und seine Zeit (1869); Adolf Hausrat, Pater Maternus: Roman aus dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert (1898); Heinrich Schwerdt, Aus alter Zeit: Zwei Wartburggeschichten. Martin Luther (1858); Anton Ohorn, Es werde Licht: Historischer Roman (1886); several works treating Luther and music; works on Luther as poet; and nine works on Katharina von Bora—some written in the eighteenth century.

The plan to publish facsimile editions of works of all genres about Luther, showing him from the most disparate viewpoints, is clearly a scholarly desideratum. The five periods are each edited by specialists. A total of seventeen volumes (several multivolume) will appear in coming years, many of them containing multiple related works. As of August 2018, two works have been published: The first is Memoria Lutheri, edited by Hans-Gert Roloff and Anne Wagniart, containing a chapter on the "Luther-Bild in Texten des 16. Jahrhunderts," and a variety of works memorializing the death of Luther, including a text written by his wife Katharina Bora; Luther's own "Testament (1542)"; "Totenpredigten auf Luther gehalten in Eisleben"; "Melanchthons Mitteilung von Luthers Tod"; "Philipp Melanchthons Historia Lutheri"; and "Trauergedichte auf Martin Luther" (selection), which includes eulogies by Hans Sachs, Melanchthon, Georg Fabricius, and David Zöpfel.

The second work, published in 2018, comprises Levin Schücking's three-volume novel Luther in Rom (1870) edited and with a foreword by James Hardin. A useful "Luther in der Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts" by Gerd-Hermann Susen and Edith Wack introduces this edition. Luther is described in the novel, as in numerous paintings, as the very prototype of the upright German. "Der junge Mönch sah mit seinen festen und gedrungenen Gestalt, seinem dicken blonden Kopfe, seinen derben Zügen . . . ganz wie ein Deutscher aus"(33). But his characterization, as well as his intellectual growth in Rome, is refined and softened through descriptions of...