Podcast episode 63: Kristine Palmieri on comparativism

In this interview, we talk to Kristine Palmieri about comparativism in Germany of the early 19th century.

Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

Image credit: Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin

References for Episode 63

Primary Sources (selected)

Bopp, Franz. Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der Sanskrita-Sprache. Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Academie der Wissenschaften, 1827.

Bopp, Franz. Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Gothischen und Deutschen. Vol. 1. Berlin: Druckerei der Königl. Academie der Wissenschaften, 1833.

Creuzer, Friedrich. Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker. Besonders der Griechen. 4 vols. Leipzig und Darmstadt: Carl Wilhelm Leske, 1810–1812.

Hermann, Gottfried. De Mythologia Graecorum antiquissima Dissertatio. Leipzig: Littris Staritzii, 1817.

Hermann, Gottfried. Briefe über Homer und Hesiodus vorzüglich über die Theogonie. Heidelberg: August Oswald’s Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1818.

Jones, William. “The Third Anniversary Discourse, Delivered 2 February 1786: ‘On the

Hindus.’” In The Works of Sir William Jones. Vol. 1. Edited by Anna Maria Jones, 19–34. London: Robinson, 1799. Available online here: https://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil_elib/Jon786__Jones_3rdAnniversaryDiscourse1799.pdf

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. “Sprachwissenschaft: De Originibus Gentium (1700).” In Schriften und Briefe zur Geschichte. Edited by Malte-Ludolf Babin and Gerd van den Heuvel, 354–390. Hannover: Hahn, 2004.

Schlegel, August Wilhelm. Indische Bibliothek. 3 Vols. Bonn: Eduard Weber, 1823–1830.

Schlegel, Friedrich. Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Alterthumskunde. Heidelberg: Mohr und Zimmer, 1808.

Schleicher, August. Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1861.

Whitney, William Dwight. “Strictures on the Views of August Schleicher Respecting the Nature of Language and Kindred Subjects.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 2 (1871): 34–64.

Selected Secondary Sources

Blok, Josine H. “Quests for a Scientific Mythology: F. Creuzer and K. O. Müller on History and Myth.” History and Theory 33, no. 4 (1994): 26–52.

Dunkelgrün, Theodor. The Multiplicity of Scripture: The Making of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Canada, 2024.

Figueira, Dorothy M. “Karoline Von Günderrode’s Sanskrit Epitaph.” Comparative Literature Studies 26, no. 4 (1989): 291–303.

Fornaro, Sotera. “Friedrich Creuzer (1771-1858) à l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.” Flaubert et l’histoire des religions 4 (2010). DOI: 10.4000/flaubert.1212.

Fornaro, Sotera. “Storia della religione antica tra XVIII e XIX secolo, tra Germania e Francia.” In Historiographie de l’antiquité et transferts culturels. Edited by Chryssanthi Avlami, Jaime Alvar, and Mirella Romero Recio, 255–263. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

Koerner, E. F. K.  “Pilot and Pirate Disciplines in the Development of Linguistic Science.” Folia Linguistica Historica 1, no. 1 (1980): 213–224. 

Koerner, E. F. K. “Models in Linguistic Historiography.” Forum Linguisticum 6, no. 3 (1982): 189–201.

Koerner, E. F. K. “Friedrich Schlegel and the Emergence of Historical-Comparative Grammar.” Lingua e Stile: Rivista di Storia della Lingua Italiana 22, no. 3 (1987): 341–365.

• NOTE: Revised or updated versions of all pieces can be found in: Koerner, E. F. K. Practicing Linguistic Historiography: Selected Essays. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub. Co., 1989.

Lindner, Thomas. Indogermanische Bibliothek. Band IV/1: Komposition. Heidelberg: Winter, 2015.

Marchand, Suzanne. Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Marchand, Suzanne. German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

McElvenny, James. “August Schleicher and Materialism in 19th-Century Linguistics.” Historiographia Linguistica 45, nos. 1–2 (2018): 133–152.

McGetchin, Douglas T. Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism: ancient India’s rebirth in modern Germany. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 2009.

Muller, Jean-Claude. “Early stages of language comparison from Sassetti to Sir William Jones.” Kratylos 31 (1986): 1–31.

Palmieri, Kristine. “Philology as a Way of Knowing: Classical Philology in the Reformed German Universities, 1730–1830.” PhD Diss., University of Chicago, 2022. DOI: 10.6082/uchicago.3968. (please contact the author if you want to see the diss. while it is still under embargo).

Palmieri, Kristine. “Berlin as a Philological Site.” In Philological Practices: A Comparative Historical Lexicon. Edited by Glenn W. Most and Martin Kern. Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming.

Paulin, Roger. The Life of August Wilhelm Schlegel: Cosmopolitan of Art and Poetry. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2016.

Pfeiffer, Rudolf. History of Classical Scholarship. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968-1976.

Phillips, Denise. “Francis Bacon and the Germans: Stories from when ‘science’ meant ‘Wissenschaft’.” History of Science 53, no. 4 (2015): 378–394.

Rocher, Rosanne. “Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, Sir William Jones, and Comparative Indo-European Linguistics.” In Recherches de Linguistique. Hommages à Maurice Leroy, 173–189. Brussels: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1980.

Rocher, Rosanne. “The Knowledge of Sanskrit in Europe until 1800.” In History of the Language Sciences. An international handbook on the evolution of the study of language from the beginnings to the present. Vol. II. Edited by Sylvain Auroux, E. F. K. Koerner, Hans-Josef Niederehe, and Kees Versteegh, 1156–1163. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001.

Sandys, John Edwin. History of Classical Scholarship.3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903–1908.

Schwab, Raymond. Oriental renaissance: Europe’s rediscovery of India and the East, 1680-1880. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

Timpanaro, Sebastiano. “Friedrich Schlegel and the Development of Comparative Linguistics in the 19^th Century.” In Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Edited by E. F. Koerner, XI–LVII. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1977.

Trautman, Thomas. “The Lives of Sir William Jones.” In Sir William Jones, 1746 –1794: A Commemoration. Edited by Alexander Murray, 91–122. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Van Hal, Toon. “On ‘the Scythian Theory’: Reconstructing the Outlines of Johannes Elichmann’s (1601/1602–1639) Planned Archaeologia Harmonica.” Language & History 53, no. 2 (2010): 70–80.

Van Hal, Toon. “Protestant Pioneers in Sanskrit Studies in the Early 18th Century: An overlooked chapter in South Indian missionary linguistics.” Historiographia Linguistica 43, nos 1–2 (2016): 99–144.

Van Hal, Toon. “Sprachen, die Geschichte schreiben. Zu Leibniz’ sprachhistorischem Forschungsprogramm und dessen Nachwirkung.” In Einheit der Vernunft und Vielfalt der Sprachen – Beiträge zu Leibnizens Sprachforschung und Zeichentheorie. Edited by Wenchao Li, 177–206. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2014.

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von. Geschichte der Philologie. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1921.

Williamson, George S. The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche. Chicago: Chicago University Press 2004.