Poetry as a Genre of Participation in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals

Objective

The project “Submitting Poetry: Periodicals as Media of Participation” (SUBPOETS) reconsiders nineteenth-century print culture through the lens of participation. The overall objective is to systematically investigate how non-canonical, amateur, and not-yet-established authors participated in the German literary public sphere of the long nineteenth century. Its central hypothesis is that poetry functioned as a key genre of participation within an increasingly professionalised and market-driven literary field. Culturally ubiquitous, easily recirculated, and accessible across social and gender boundaries, poetry was deeply rooted in everyday cultural practices. SUBPOETS therefore approaches nineteenth-century German poetry as a popular genre embedded in daily life rather than an elite form of art. Periodicals—including annuals, serial anthologies, and newspapers—were the primary publishers of nineteenth-century German poetry. By cultivating submission-based content strategies, periodicals turned consumers into producers: Printed media not only created spaces for literary expression, social visibility, and cultural community but also capitalised on the desire for participation in these communities through print. By combining literary analysis, media history, and gender studies within an innovative framework informed by interdisciplinary periodical studies, SUBPOETS seeks to fundamentally reshape our understanding of nineteenth-century German print culture. Its ambition lies not only in addressing disciplinary blind spots but also in rethinking the history of cultural participation as a crucial dimension of the modern media economy.