Oliver Grütter
Oliver Grütter is a scholar of German literature whose research focuses on the Early Modern period as well as the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Since 2025, he has been a Research Assistant in the Department of German Studies at the University of Tübingen and an associate member of CRC 1391 “Different Aesthetics.” His dissertation, published as a monograph in 2023, examines poems and poetry cycles inspired by experiences of illness and investigates the factors underlying the proliferation of such texts between approximately 1490 and 1720. Alongside widespread diseases such as the syphilis epidemic, the study identifies Protestant medical theology as a key factor contributing to the emergence of illness poetry and situates it within a humanist practice of confessional self-care.
In addition to the intersections of literature and theology, his research interests include the enduring legacy of antiquity and classicism, as well as literary exchanges and intersections between Asia and Europe.
Oliver Grütter has held research affiliations at the University of Zurich, Kyushu University, and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He also serves on the advisory board of the Hölderlin Society.
Current Research Project
Classicism and Contemporaneity: The Affordance of Antiquity around 1800
In literary studies, Classicism has generally had a rather poor reputation. Although the imitation of classical models in art and literature had exerted considerable influence since the Renaissance, it increasingly came to be viewed with suspicion as an epigonal, regressive, and ultimately restrictive movement. In a seminal study, Eliza Marian Butler even described Classicism as »Tyranny of Greece over Germany« (1935). My research project seeks to challenge this narrative by examining a representative group of authors from the ›Sattelzeit‹ (the transitional period between 1750 and 1830): Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Johann Wolfang Goethe, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Eduard Mörike. Rather than viewing Classicism as an anachronistic movement, the project approaches it as distinctly contemporary. To this end, it investigates the social contexts, everyday practices, and specific problems that shaped and informed literary production during this period. The central argument is that the imitation of classical models does not constrain artistic expression but, on the contrary, opens up new possibilities for articulating particular representational needs. Methodologically, the project draws on two key concepts. The first is the heuristic distinction between the autological dimension of a text, which concerns technical skill and artistic craft, and its heterological dimension, which focuses on its ›Sitz im Leben‹—that is, its embeddedness in a specific social and historical context. The second is the concept of affordance, originally developed in design theory, which I use as a framework for understanding classical models in terms of the possibilities they offer and the creative potential they make available. By reappraising Classicism as a productive engagement with cultural heritage, the project opens up new perspectives on the history of literary creativity.
Research Foci
Early Modern Literature: Humanism, Baroque, Enlightenment | 18th Century | Literature and Theology | Reception of Antiquity and Classicism | Asian German Studies (20th Century)
