After previous studies have concentrated on the strategies of monumentalization in the autobiographical texts of Goethe and in the editions of Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland, research will now shift its focus from the authors' orientation toward posterity to their conceptual prerequisites (Study 1: Artistic Productivity: From Genius to Master) and to their contemporary collective environment (Study 2: Collaborators in Building the Monument Goethe). The studies are based on the hypothesis that a new type of literary author, established through the specific characteristic of artistic productivity, is an essential component in creating the monument of a classical, national author. For their concept of poetic productivity Goethe and Schiller not only refer to literary and aesthetic traditions (e.g., different concepts of the poet: poeta vates, poeta doctus, Originalgenie ) that were already widely discussed and reconfigured during the Enlightenment era. In addition, ideas from Goethe's scientific research (productivity of nature) and Schiller's philosophical considerations (intellectual autonomy) are now included at significant points. Thus, Goethe and Schiller are extending the Enlightenment concept of the author that was founded primarily on anthropological and aesthetic assumptions and transfer it to the classical mirror-image conception of production and reception aesthetics. The process of art declaring its autonomy that is related to these developments can therefore also be regarded as an enlightenment process continued by the poet which refers to the poet himself and to the principles of his actions: Seen in this light, the autonomy of art is not based on a random act of self-empowerment by the artist (the genius), but is rather founded on the natural and philosophical conditions of artistic productivity per se.
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