Tra scienza e letteratura. I “Briefe aus England” di G.C. Lichtenberg nel Deutsches Museum

Between 1776 and 1778 Heinrich Christian Boie edited the magazine Deutsches Museum – at first with Christian Wilhelm von Dohn and then alone. Between 1789 and 1791, he continued to edit a new version titled Neues Deutsches Museum. This is a very important and interesting German magazine because of its literary, philosophical and political articles, as well as articles about physics, botany, astronomy and natural sciences. In 1776 and 1778 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, a scientist, writer and professor of experimental physics at the University of Göttingen, published his “Briefe aus England” in Deutsches Museum. These letters can also be seen as innovative essays on theatre and represent a productive medium of cultural transfer in a double direction: not only from England to Germany, but also from Germany to England. The success of these texts is due to the very particular style in which they are written. Lichtenberg is a scientist who engages in observations, precise experimentations and testings. For this reason, “Briefe aus England” can be defined as letters-essays in the literal sense of the word, because here the theatre is described as a scientific process. It is in this context that the frequent repetitions trying to test and confirm the Lichtenberg’s hypothesis in issues on theatre can be explained.