The project explores the question of why music in Weimar-Jena around 1800 was able to become the central paradigm of art and to replace poetry at the top of the artistic hierarchy. An important reason for this rise is the revaluation of music provoked by the romantic musical tales of, for instance, Tieck, Wackenroder, Heinse and E.T.A. Hoffmann that has already been described by previous research. In these tales music is not only considered language-like but is regarded as virtually having universal language character. On the other hand, and this fact has received only little attention so far, the sensationalistic language reflection of the 18th century shows the tendency to consider language if not "music-like" at least to be closely related to music. With the forced egression from rhetoric and the concept of human being as a product of language ("Sprachgeschöpf"; Herder), language theory ("Sprachdenken") during the second half of the 18th century is confronted with the task of developing new classification systems for language and of reassessing its essence ("Sosein"). The characteristic feature of language as matter and movement that becomes prominent during this revaluation process creates an increasing awareness of the non- and subsemantic phenomena of speech such as rhythm, tone sequence, intonation, sound, etc. which indicate the transition from meaning to presence and which begin to incorporate speech into music. more >>