La consapevolezza del lascito. Prospettive storiche e nuove linee di ricerca sull’archivio letterario in area tedesca

This paper revolves around the heuristic category of Nachlassbewusstsein, i.e. one writer's consciousness about his or her future literary estate, which has become prominent in current German archival studies. Through a broad diachronic overview on different conservation practices from Schiller to Grünbein, the article traces the evolution of German writers' attitudes towards their own manuscripts. This evolution is marked by two theoretical essays by Goethe and Dilthey which paved the way for the formation of literary archives in Germany, as they pointed out for the first time the hermeneutic relevance of writers' drafts, notes, diaries and letters for philology.