Bavarian-Austrian Dialect Literature before 1800

These days, it is commonly forgotten that Bavarian-Austrian dialect art flourished in elite culture and even more in popular counterculture before 1800. Emperor Leopold I., Mozart, and both Haydn brothers composed (sometimes original) texts in dialect; peasant jesters played on professional and amateur stages, the people were brought into line by the ruling class or called to resist them with propaganda written in dialect, and, since the early 17th century, areas of taboo were especially prone to finding artistic expression in the common language of the people. Many of these vernacular works once exceeded the representative works of the contemporary literary canon in publicity, popularity and effectivity. But only a few like Mozarts bawdy lied cited in the title survived to this day in disguise. Bavarian-Austrian Literature before 1800, an outcome of two FWF-projects (Dialect cultures I+II, 2010-2016), intends to make this amazing variety of forms and modes of operation visible again. In eight chapters, the most important, predominantly unpublished texts from our database (http://gams.uni-graz.at/context:dic) and their authors are presented, contextualized, and related to current research fields using an interdisciplinary approach. Exemplifying the aesthetic potential and advantages of dialectal art in its historical contexts, the book is not only a study, anthology or collection of source material, but also a brief cultural history of the Austro-Bavarian region from the middle of the 17th to the end of the 18th century. Above all, however, it brings a literature into focus, which has so far been more or less neglected by research.