Ungastliche Gaben

The publication of the »Xenien« (1796) by Goethe and Schiller not only triggered one of the greatest scandals in German literary history; the advent of the xenion also established a form of literary dispute that systematically violated existing aesthetic and communicative norms. The history of this »accursed genre«, attempted here for the first time, also extends into the present. Other authors using the form include Hölderlin, Kleist, Herwegh, and Bobrowski. Like their predecessors these writers employed the xenion in literary disputes as well as in their adversative engagement with Weimar classicism and the reception accorded to it.