A language rarely rich, precise and lively: Jan Philipp Reemtsma’s major new book about Christoph Martin Wieland and the invention of modern German literature.
From
Thomas Steinfeld
If, starting from Weimar, you follow the course of the Ilm in a north-easterly direction, after a hike of a good two hours you will come to a village called Oßmannstedt. There isn’t much to see there, apart from a partly late-Gothic church and a baroque, recently renovated manor with a small park. The poet Christoph Martin Wieland bought the farm and land in 1797 in the hope of being able to become a “poetic country squire” based on the ancient model.