Even today, Morike (1804-1875) is still not accorded the attention he deserves, not least because of the difficulty of relating him to the major tendencies of the 19th century. He is not an intellectual like Heine. He did not intervene in the major political debates of his time. We find little trace in his works of economic or social upheavals. He did not rebel against the dominance of the great German classics. He has nothing of the iconoclast about him. In his works apparently insignificant things attain significance. They are incorporated into the process of aesthetic reflection and set off against concrete features of his life-world. Accordingly, 'aesthetics' and 'sociability' are mutually productive, the one being a reflection of the other."

The significance of Stefan George (1868-1933) in the history of modern German poetry is not in doubt. So far, however, research on his work has concentrated on the earlier half of his production, up to and including ADer Siebente RingA, to the relative neglect of the poetry that makes up the later stages of his oeuvre. This later work is notable for the challenging way it addresses topics such as sexuality, religion, poetology, and politics. This volume assembles the papers delivered at the Stefan George colloquium in Bingen am Rhein in December 1998.

Literature is not only polyvalent and enigmatic, as the prevailing theoretical paradigm in literary studies insists. For all its polyvalence it is still experienced as meaningful and significant because it is determined, aesthetically remarkable and rule-bound. In this sense it can be seen as having major similarities to ritual, can indeed be described in terms of ritual activity. Ritual, after all, is an aesthetically contoured, symbolic action designed for repetition, and as such has retained its fundamental importance in human life to this day.

The volume presented here is a collection of the contributions to an authora (TM)s colloquium with Walter Burkert, which was held in November 2007 in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld. Well known experts looked in detail at the work of the internationally renowned scholar of Greek. In his epochal cultural-scientific studies focusing on the origins of human co-existence in rites, on violence, sacrifice, guilt and horrific scenarios of death, Burkert approached questions of biological behavioural research, anthropology and aggression theory, and developed an enormous intellectual impact that reached beyond classical and religious studies.

The social power of rituals is a function of their aesthetic fascination; the one is unimaginable without the other. In modern German literature, Stefan George's works (1868-1933) represent the most significant and consistent case of a ritualistic aesthetic. Indeed, the indissoluble unity between George's work and his life can be reconstructed in terms of the category of ritual. George's entire oeuvre is something akin to one huge transition ritual opening up German lyric poetry to the traditions of aestheticism and symbolism. His literary rituals proved their cohesive potency early on in connection with the master/disciple nature of his famous "Circle." They were of decisive importance for the major impact that George had on literature, politics and academe in Germany, an impact that has only just begun to be fully appreciated and examined.

Manner and mannerism are closely related, not only by their etymology. The terms allude to the pragmatics and performativity of the aesthetic. A mannerist work of art is the product of a 'mannered' act by which an artist intervenes in social and cultural constellations. The mannerist demonstrates not merely aesthetic artistry but also acts in a 'mannered' way. Thus mannerism gives us the opportunity of discussing the extent to which aesthetic concepts can be reformulated in social terms and social concepts in aesthetic terms. The volume brings together the papers presented at a conference held at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre of Bielefeld University in 1998.

Modern aesthetics is the product of a process of segregation. Works of art are something necessarily distinct from that which merely Afinds the dubious acclaim of the crowdA (Schiller). All the way up to Adorno and beyond, this postulate asserted itself successfully. Any blurring of the boundaries between art and kitsch was pilloried as sacrilegious, as if art were a locus of something akin to theology. For that precise reason post-modernism has displayed provocative zest in dismantling such a categorization. Kitsch is the frank and unashamed expression of a need for emotional appeal and immediately appreciable meaning and significance. As such it cannot but represent a major provocation for an aesthetic modernism that has pinned all its allegiances to the ubiquity of absurdity, meaninglessness, loss, mourning, and melancholy.

The cult status of literary figures and their adulation are phenomena that have been with us since antiquity. In many ways, the 19th century continues in this tradition. But for bourgeois society the attitude to authors also takes on a specific, identity-forming significance in its own right. 19th century author adulation concentrates cultural and social forces. The study of attitudes to authors invites inquiry into the pragmatics and performativity of the aesthetic dimension, issues that have attracted substantially increased attention over the last few years.