Die Erfindung Des Menschen / the Invention of the Individual

The work presents a comprehensive account of autobiographical writing in Early Modern Humanism. It deals in particular with autobiographical writings in Modern Latin from the 14th cent. until about 1600. The main authors are Petrarch, Alberti, Pius. II, Campano, Erasmus, Eobanus Hessus, Marullo, Cardano, Joseph Scaliger, Lipsius. The work demonstrates how early modern personal representations essentially are not based on fixed identities, but depend on widely differing literary discourses in which self-images are formed in a variable and extremely creative manner.