Literary Studies

Literary Studies is a Berlin journal of literary criticism whose successive issues chart the work of the Archimboldi scholars and, in its forty-sixth number, make their disagreements visible. The journal is more than a venue for individual scholarship: its Archimboldi monograph assembles critics who have studied the elusive writer from different angles, and its contributors’ alignments help form competing interpretive groups.

The journal and its contributors

The three critics Jean-Claude Pelletier, Manuel Espinoza, and Piero Morini had each previously published in Literary Studies. In Number 44, Espinoza wrote about the idea of God in the work of Archimboldi and Unamuno. Morini’s contribution in Number 38 addressed the state of German-literature instruction in Italy. Number 37 carried Pelletier’s overview of the most important twentieth-century German writers in France and Europe, a piece that provoked protests and even a couple of scoldings. The journal thus registers not only their common interest in Archimboldi but their distinct scholarly subjects and public disagreements.

Number 46 and the Archimboldi divide

Number 46, a monograph devoted to Archimboldi’s work, is singled out as especially consequential. Its contents mark the formation of two opposing groups of Archimboldi scholars: Pelletier, Morini, and Espinoza on one side, and Schwarz, Borchmeyer, and Pohl on the other. The division is not merely a later description of scholarly loyalties; the issue itself gives the developing field a visible point of convergence and contest.

Liz Norton’s contribution made that alignment more complicated. Pelletier considered it brilliant, Espinoza found it well argued, and Morini called it interesting. Her essay independently supported the theses of the three friends, cited their work on several occasions, and showed close familiarity with studies and monographs they had published in specialist journals or through small presses. Its agreement was therefore grounded in engagement with their scholarship, not in anyone’s request or intervention.

A scholarly connection before a personal one

The three men knew little about Norton beyond her teaching German literature at a university in London and the fact that she was not yet a full professor. Pelletier considered writing to her but did not; Espinoza then asked whether they should make contact, and the two sought Morini’s view. Morini declined to comment. Literary Studies had brought their work into relation with Norton’s, but the journal itself did not settle how that intellectual affinity might develop beyond the page.