The Poetological Frontispiece in 17th Century German Poetry

Specialised research on frontispieces has focused mainly on the fields of natural sciences and philosophy so far, thereby concentrating on three roles: the role of the frontispiece in the construction of visual traditions, its role in shaping the book’s programme and its role in the legitimization of knowledge. Therein, it is usually presupposed that the image is functionally subordinate to the text and should convey the author’s intentions as clearly and vividly as possible. However, it should be discussed on a case-by-case basis, including scientific works, whether frontispieces and title pages primarily have programmatic and apologetic tasks. What about frontispieces that are not at all designed to follow a clear programme? As I will show in this contribution, presupposing the coherence between pictorial iconography and text is misleading, especially for poetry. On the contrary, the interaction of frontispieces with the text’s imagery, i.e., metaphors, allegories, and comparisons, seems specific to the field of literature, and can be significantly more complex than in the field of the natural sciences, for instance. In addition, the aesthetic ideal of ambiguity can hardly be reconciled with the programmatic function traditionally assigned to frontispieces. In the area of poetic fiction, moreover, claims of truth and validity can be suspended, and thus also the task of conveying or legitimizing knowledge. And because the visual images on the frontispieces are so closely intertwined with the linguistic images in the subsequent poetry, it seems to be a mistake to consider frontispieces paratexts. Consequently, the functions of frontispieces for poetry have to be systematically defined in another way

So far, specialized research on frontispieces has focused mainly on the fields of natural sciences and philosophy, thereby concentrating on three roles: the role of the frontispiece in the construction of visual traditions, its role in shaping the book’s program, and its role in the legitimization of knowledge. Therein, it is usually presupposed that the image is functionally subordinate to the text and should convey the author’s intentions as clearly and vividly as possible. However, it should be discussed on a case-by-case basis, including scientific works, whether frontispieces and title pages primarily have programmatic and apologetic tasks. What about frontispieces that are not at all designed to follow a clear program? As it will be shown in this contribution, presupposing the coherence between pictorial iconography and text is misleading, especially for poetry. On the contrary, the interaction of frontispieces with the text’s imagery, i.e., metaphors, allegories, and comparisons, seems specific to the field of literature and can be significantly more complex than in the field of the natural sciences, for instance. Besides, the aesthetic ideal of ambiguity can hardly be reconciled with the programmatic function traditionally assigned to frontispieces. In the area of poetic fiction, moreover, claims of truth and validity can be suspended, and thus also the task of conveying or legitimizing knowledge. And because the visual images on the frontispieces are so closely intertwined with the figurative language in the subsequent poetry, it seems to be a mistake to consider frontispieces paratexts. Consequently, the functions of frontispieces for poetry have to be systematically defined in another way.