Colleagues,
I am working on a paper on the dialogue in vernacular German language
learning, but have been asked by the editors to give a nod towards other
types of dialogue around in Germany in the Renaissance and beyond. I am
familiar with the use of disputation-type dialogues in Reformation
pamphlets and of the dramatic dialogues written by Hutten and Sachs, for
instance.
However, there is another type of dialogue which Burke (1989) calls the
"conversation", in which "the meaning develops out of the interaction
between the different characters, and the dialogue comes to an end rather
than a conclusion" - a definition which sounds like it includes the
Ciceronian dialogue. Apparently the form was used (in Italy, for instance)
to discuss "politics and ethics, religion and the arts (including music),
language and literature".
Here I am completely stuck, I do not know of any German examples of this
type, nor I am even sure where to go looking. I'd be grateful for
1- any examples of this type (if they exist), and
2 - any examples of the Bakhthinian approach to dialogicity being used to
deal with Renaissance dialogues (or later). I can think of some such
approaches to dialogue in Midle High German, but that is the best I can
come up with.
Yours, out of depth,
Nicola McLelland
Dr. Nicola McLelland
Dept. of Germanic Studies, Trinity College, Dublin 2, IRELAND
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Tel. 00 353 1 608 1894
Fax. 00 353 1 608 3762
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