Abstract

The 4th Meeting of the International Working Group for Baroque Literature took place in Duke August's Library, Wolfenbüttel, on 23.-28. August 1982, on the subject of "Literature and People in the 17th Century. Problems of Popular Culture in Germany". Experts in literature, history, ethnology, agrarian-, constitutional-, and church history, as well as art and music each tried to get closer to the difficult theme in numerous lectures. Alongside the description of the social condition of the population in Germany and its neighbouring territories, a leading theme was the reflection of the people in the ways of thinking of a culture-producing higher class, and above all, the difference in the production of literature within the different social layers. Religious teaching and instruction through preaching, catechism and pamphlets shaped important elements here. Alongside these there evolved with the instructional literature of the 17th century an early enlightenment form of “useful” writing which could offer help in the secular occurrences of everyday life. Finally the subject of entertaining writings (folk books, droll literature, calendars) was touched on. Even though further research was desirable into the question of which literature, with reference to reading capability, actually reached the individual layers of the population, the conference, amongst other things, reached a substantial degree of agreement about the need to delimit the concept of popular literature and to distinguish clearly between the higher level demands and models on the one hand, and the real situation of the people in the 17th century on the other.

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