Science, Philology, and the Evolution of Lexicography

Although the German term Wissenschaft can be dually translated as either “science” or “scholarship,” it is as a scientific undertaking, rather than a literary one, that the dictionary can be best understood; in turn, its understanding will contribute to our knowledge of the history of science. In the Grimms’ time Wissenschaft was not bound to particular subject-matter, but was rather a general idea that knowledge needed to be produced as part of an on-going process grounded in empirical research and attention to historical developments, rather than deduced through a logic extending from assumed constants (Farrar Reference Farrar and Crosland1976; Knight Reference Knight and Crosland1976; and McClelland Reference McClelland1980).

This “ceaseless pursuit of new knowledge” went hand-in-hand with continuing changes in the nature of graduate education in German universities (Shaffer Reference Shaffer, Cunningham and Jardine1990, 51). Most notably, Göttingen's establishment of the academic seminar in 1738 (often conducted in the German vernacular as opposed to Latin) reflected a profound shift in the university's function – from that of dispensing knowledge, to training students in the methods of knowledge production (McClelland Reference McClelland1980; Farrar Reference Farrar and Crosland1976; Turner Reference Turner, Bollack and Wismann1983). These developments stemmed from the (traditionally inferior) philosophical faculties and encompassed a wide range of subject areas and appealed to the expanding German middle-class (Bürgertum) (Ben-David Reference Ben-David1971; Farrar Reference Farrar and Crosland1976; McClelland Reference McClelland1980).

With the continued extension of these reforms, German Wissenschaft flourished throughout the nineteenth century as scientific methods were applied to a widened range of phenomena. The educational emphasis on creative discovery paralleled a metaphysical view of the natural world as involved in a continuously unfolding process. This presented a challenge to rigid classificatory schemes and the Newtonian view of a clockwork universe mechanically and repetitiously reproducing itself (see, for example, Mead Reference Mead and Moore1936 and Craig Reference Craig1987). Moreover, this metaphysical shift demanded an epistemological shift: “knowledge, like the world, was coming to be seen as caught in the process of development” (McClelland Reference McClelland1980).

Along with other social changes throughout Europe, these changes in Germany amplified the notion that intellectual contributions were potentially infinite – a particularly astute observation might bear as much weight on a society's knowledge base as a hefty philosophical treatise. Around the world, renewed and emergent studies in biology, botany, geology, and geography took hold – each emphasizing inductive observation attuned to history, comparison, interconnection, and processes of change (Whewell Reference Whewell1837). The expansion and qualitative shift in scientific thought during the nineteenth century – sometimes referred to as a “second scientific revolution” – was notably maintained by educational institutions that more greatly facilitated scientific community, communication, and accumulation (Kuhn Reference Kuhn1961; Hahn Reference Hahn1971). But, as several scholars have argued, this rethinking of the natural world was in tandem with, if not preceded by, similar changes in how the social world was perceived, and it was initially humanistic investigations into law, language, and history that dominated the seminars at the new universities (Ben-David Reference Ben-David1971; Turner Reference Turner, Jahnke and Otto1981). In particular, Sprachwissenschaft (also known as comparative philology, linguistic philology, and later, linguistics) advanced rapidly in the beginning of the nineteenth century and bore early hallmarks of modern professionalization, such that “after 1810 it [the general public] frequently associated philologists with egotism and arrogance” (Turner Reference Turner, Bollack and Wismann1983, 468).

While words were the primary unit of analysis for these linguistic researchers (explored in terms of their varied and changing parts of speech, meanings, spellings, and pronunciations), the understanding of language was a means, and not an end in itself. Along with law, folklore, religion, poetry, songs, art, and architecture, language was a social artifact whose scientific study, it was hoped, could shed light on processes of social change, stability, cultural consciousness, and national identity (Aarsleff [1967] Reference Aarsleff1979). These concerns weighed heavily on the minds of Europeans in turbulent times marked by expanded access to information and education, increased global connections, expanded rail and postal service – all amidst the backdrop of colonialism, the American and French revolutions, and the Napoleonic wars. To quote Geoffrey Galt Harpham: “given the magnitude of the questions it addressed and the commitment it demanded of the scholar, philology came to be respected, at least in Germany and France, as the highest form of modern scholarship, the vanguard discipline of modernity itself” (Harpham Reference Harpham2009, 39–40). Thus, to ignore or deride the scientization of humanistic scholarship is to severely understate the immediately pressing realities that scholars of the nineteenth century sought to address, and the cautious hopefulness attached to the scientific potential of fields like comparative philology.

In addition, the philologists of this era had influence that spread not only into the intellectual history of the nascent social sciences, but arguably underpinned evolutionary thought and natural selection in biological science. Tom Shippy notes that “philology was, for a time . . . literature, history, sociology, and anthropology at once” (Shippy Reference Shippy2003b, 21). Contemporary linguist Sheldon Pollock proclaims that: “Philology in Europe was at its zenith one of the hardest sciences on offer, the centerpiece of education, the sharpest exponent if not the originator of the idea of ‘critical’ thinking, and the paradigm of other sciences such as evolutionary biology” (Pollock Reference Pollock2009, 931). It should be noted that this scientization of philology did not follow from an assumption that language was a wholly “natural” phenomenon bound to externally-operating natural laws (Christmann Reference Christmann, Poggi and Bossi1994). History, agency, interdependency, and contingency all figured into its models, but this was increasingly the case in studies of the natural world, as well. Paul Salmon (Reference Salmon1974) and Stephen Alter (Reference Alter1999) have separately suggested that the broad appeal of and public acquaintance with the new philology made the genealogical implications of comparative biology and natural selection more palatable and imaginable to the public and scientists alike.

Therefore, rather than passing judgment on whether the activities of Jacob Grimm and other nineteenth-century philologists “really were” science, it must be recognized that in their time their researches were highly valued and philologists closely associated with and identified with prominent scientists of their day. Additionally, to speak, as Pollock does above, of philology's evolutionary paradigm is a testament to the work of Jacob Grimm himself. Shippy claims that Grimm's multi-volume text, Deutsche Grammatik, was “for the humanists what Origin of Species was for the life sciences” (Shippy Reference Shippy2003a, 16).

Over its several editions beginning from 1819, the Grammatik offered a synthesis of historical empiricism and comparative analysis in language studies, drawing attention to grammatical structures, shifting patterns of inflection, spelling, and word development. Although its focus was on Germanic languages, the Grammatik offered a general theory of quasi-cyclic processes of expansion and contraction (Koerner Reference Koerner and Antonsen1990). Grimm's work thus set out possibilities for inferential reconstruction of ancient texts, of dead and hypothetical languages, and consideration of how the pace of linguistic change might be shaped by geographic distribution. For instance, the languages of more isolated communities found in islands and mountainous regions were seen as potential repositories of past linguistic links (Versteinerungen, literally meaning “fossils”) in the genealogy of a language. Studies of dialects, then considered vulgar and improper, were also advocated, along with medieval rhyming and alliterative poetry to capture past phonetic usage. Altogether, these sources presented a linguistic landscape shaped by gradual semi-autonomous change (as opposed to willful design) and blurry taxonomic boundaries. As an 1827 review of Grimm's Grammatik noted: “languages are to be viewed as natural bodies which form according to distinct laws. An internal living principle carries through their development and gradual decay . . . and to ends which were not originally intended” (Bopp 1827, as cited in Delbrück Reference Delbrück1884).

However, Jacob Grimm and his brother, Wilhelm, were not interested in language merely for its own sake, but above all for what it offered as a means to empirically address questions of social change, diversity, and unity. Language was seen as representative of the shared cultural and intellectual spirit of a people (Volksgeist), and its study could reveal a shared national consciousness. Thus, for the promise they offered, the Grimms’ researches across law, literature, language, and folklore were aligned with their interest in a unified German nation.

Emergence of the Grimms’ Dictionary

The significance and prestige of the Grimms in the scientific sphere of a not-yet-unified nineteenth-century Germany is not to be understated, though is often overlooked. The Grimms embraced their scientific identity and were recognized as serious and progressive scientists on an international level (Ganz Reference Ganz1973; Wyss Reference Wyss1979; Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980; Crane Reference Crane2000). They spoke several languages, hosted scholars and salons in their home, worked as librarians and professors, and were revered by leading natural and historical scientists of their day, including the Humboldts.

Roughly on par with their scientific standing was their status, particularly Jacob’s, as leading political figures (see Holly Reference Holly and Kirkness1991 for an overview). The young Jacob Grimm attended the Congress of Vienna and served as an envoy in France to recover German books taken during the Napoleonic wars and French occupation. In 1846 and 1847 the brothers attended the first and second Germanist assemblies, in fact, Jacob presided over them. The assemblies brought together scholars of German history and language to address and assert their responsibility to the national public sphere and towards forging a national identity. Jürgen Habermas ([1998] Reference Habermas and Pensky2001) offers an overview of the assemblies, the Grimms’ roles within it, and their historical significance as a hybrid political/academic organization. Furthermore, in 1848 Jacob was a member of the Paulskirche Parliament in Frankfurt am Main (historically dubbed “the professors’ parliament”), which aimed to draft a constitution for a united Germany.

In fact, it was a political act that would launch the dictionary, the first preface of which begins: “even scientific endeavors in which it is necessary to strike deep roots and reach widely, depend on external circumstances” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, I). With this, Jacob Grimm is referring to events in Göttingen in 1837. It was in November of that year that Ernst Augustus – the recently installed King of Hanover, of which Göttingen was a part – abrogated an 1833 state constitution put into effect by his predecessor, William IV. Dismayed by the King's actions on grounds that it broke an earlier oath to which all citizens had sworn, on November 18^th seven professors at the University of Göttingen wrote and signed a protest letter charging the King with an illegal act and refusing their allegiance. Jacob and Wilhelm were among the seven, all of whom were soon removed from their posts at the university. For additionally having printed and distributed the protest letter, the 52-year-old Jacob was further singled out for immediate exile from Hanover (Kemble Reference Kemble1838 features an English translation of the letter; see also Kemble Reference Kemble1840, Grass Reference Grass2010, and Kraus Reference Kraus2013 for further details of the event and its aftermath).

The event would color the motivations for the dictionary project and be a testament to the Grimms’ increasingly outspoken views on the roles and responsibilities of the academic researcher in modern society. It was with the desire to put their views into practice, as well as their new-found leisure and loss of income, that the brothers were compelled to take on the task of creating an historical-dictionary of the German language. On March 3^rd of 1838 the project was proposed to them by Karl Reimer, co-owner of Weidmann publishers together with his brother-in-law, Salomon Hirzel. It was accompanied by an appeal and offer of assistance from the eminent philologist Moritz Haupt. The rough plan was for a collaborative work (Gemeinschaftsarbeit) “to apply the findings of historical language research to the living language” under the oversight and arrangement of the Grimms (Haupt to W. Grimm, 3 March 1838, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 54). Haupt pledged his assistance and asserted his belief that the project could not succeed without the Grimms at the helm:

The terms allowed the Grimms considerable discretion to do the work as they saw fit and it was promised that the project should not interfere with their other research. Jacob was hesitant at first, but with Wilhelm's coaxing became downright enthusiastic about the prospects of the dictionary. By the end of the year he exclaimed it would be “the fruit of our banishment, which we lay upon the altar of the Fatherland” (J. Grimm to J.M. Kemble, 1 December 1838, as translated by and cited in Wiley Reference Wiley1971, 169).

As a political refugee in Kassel when the project was proposed, Jacob was clearly charged by the Göttingen events with fervor for creating a dictionary that could culturally unify Germany in a way that German politics of the day, with its competing interests and egos, had hindered (Mellor Reference Mellor1972; Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980). Since at least the late eighteenth century – notably in the thought of Johann Gottfried Herder – it had been supposed that if German unification could not be achieved politically that inroads could at least be made culturally through its more-or-less shared language and literature. What made the Grimms’ take on this unique was that they thought scientific methods could approach the task. And so while the dictionary was intended to be of value to comparative philologists around the globe, it was also to be a scientific work for the German people – and the Grimms saw these aims as being fully reconcilable.

Goals and Planning

The Grimms were given considerable discretion in formulating the work's plans, goals, and organization. They had originally planned to take up alternating alphabetical volumes, but ultimately Wilhelm would only write the volume for the letter D – finishing shortly before his death in 1859. Jacob's work ended upon his death in 1863, while within the letter F.

As Alan Kirkness (Reference Kirkness1980) documents, the main excerption program began as early as 1838 and ran until 1847. Just over one hundred contributors helped to submit slips of word usage culled from German texts. They were asked to provide each of their excerpted words on a small slip of paper with the word underlined. Contributors could expect to be paid, and were to send their batches of slips to the Weidmann publishers in Leipzig. The slips accumulated there over several years before being alphabetized and then sent to the Grimms’ home for processing.

It was originally expected that it might take until the end of 1839 (roughly a year and a half after the excerption program began) for a thorough reading of the relevant German texts following this collaborative scheme, but the time-span would be revised many times over. Throughout the early 1840s the brothers were still occupied with recruiting and orienting collaborators and chasing up those who never delivered on their early promises. In 1847 the work of alphabetizing and assembling the submitted materials finally began, but in 1852 a public appeal was issued for new readers to fill out remaining gaps in coverage (Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980).Footnote ⁵

In the preface to the first volume, Jacob aimed to cast the idea of a dictionary, particularly a Wörterbuch (literally meaning word-book), entirely in line with the innovative, systematic, and scientific model he put forth. It would be distinguished by orderliness, comprehensiveness, etymological data, and arrangement of “significant and permeating contrasts between the old and the new time” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, ix). With regard to comprehensiveness, Grimm eloquently states: “with this new philology all tongues of the earth stand equal and none may be scorned, just as all words belong and are entitled within the dictionary. To strive for comprehensive accumulation and treatment is thus the first requirement for a dictionary” (ibid., x). Along with this, Jacob argued that a dictionary “suppresses no unpleasant little word,” nor aims to conceal them or attach greater weight to nobler words, as was done by Johann Christoph Adelung's German dictionary, which held the most prominence at the time. He asserts that a Wörterbuch is not supposed to be a “moral-book (Sittenbuch), but a scientific one – a fair undertaking for all purposes” (ibid., xxxiv). Though he did not believe Adelung's dictionary met these criteria, Grimm did express pride that Adelung's dictionary was one of a long line of German dictionaries that emerged outside of official public impetus, as he believed the constraining nature of France's Dictionnaire de l’académie “stood foreign to the true idea of a dictionary” (ibid., viii).

Defining the German Language

Despite Jacob Grimm's talk of unmitigated comprehensiveness, he approached the dictionary-making like an enlightened gardener tending to the nourishment, invigoration, and development of the living German language. He made several decisions about the words and phrases he deemed most rooted, most complementary, and least intrusive to the linguistic whole. He thus circumscribed multifaceted conditions for a word's admittance, which would be justified in the preface alongside his proclamations of comprehensiveness.

For instance, from the outset it was intended to only take up the German literary terrain ranging from Luther to Goethe, or roughly the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries. Jacob Grimm defined this as the linguistic era of “New High German.” Part of the reason for this relatively narrow range was the socio-linguistic relevance that Grimm attributed to the new period. He claimed that with Luther's Reformation and the printing press the German language achieved a uniformity and basis for unity across regions as never before, and was ushered into a period of linguistic expansion and creative expression.

The dictionary was also to be selective in its inclusion of foreign words. Jacob Grimm believed that “all languages, so long as they are healthy, have a natural proclivity to keep out the foreign. . .or at least to balance them with the domestic elements” (ibid., xxvi). Grimm's rationale was to suggest that users opt for words rooted in the German language wherever possible, even if this meant rehashing old and lesser-used German synonyms for foreign words in popular currency. This practice was often brought into the brothers’ writings and everyday correspondence – to such an extent that a 1980 printing of Jacob's unpublished third preface required German-to-German translations (Denecke Reference Denecke and Kirkness1980). Grimm's reasoning seems to hearken back to the linguistic ideas put forth in his first volume of the Grammatik, in which he imagines a garden of words growing together, but the potential that some foreign words might “with stepmotherly preference encourage certain plants and neglect others” (Grimm, J. 1818, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 42–43). Nevertheless, Grimm recognizes that some words of foreign origin ought to be rightly permitted within the dictionary, stating:

Couching his reasoning in the rhetoric of organicism, Grimm saw his approach as opposed to purist attempts to overhaul or re-write the language. Purism was predominant among other nineteenth-century German lexicographers, such as Joachim Heinrich Campe, Johann Gottlieb Radlof, and Christian Wolke, who attempted to rid the language of all foreign words, or rationalize it according to an imposed grammar. In his first preface Jacob often spoke out against this trend, once stating: “without feeling true joy at the beauty and abundance of our language itself, this irritating purism strives to hostilely pursue and exterminate the foreign, where it is even aware of it, and it forges its inept weapons with crude blows” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, xxviii). Grimm furthers the industrial analogy in contrast to his organic one by speaking of the purists’ tendency to “weld” (schweißen) together artificial compounds. He once even went so far as to equate these lexicographical trends with the Reign of Terror in France (see Wyss Reference Wyss1979). This was consistent with Grimm's view that, while linguistic change is natural and can be catalyzed, sustainable change cannot be effected by force. Grimm felt that the right way to curtail the spread of the foreign was through gradual change and that it lay in increasing pride in the domestic language.

The intent to cultivate words deemed most “rooted” in the German language also seems to have guided Grimm's decision to ignore much of the recent literature of his time. Upon criticism, he conceded to underemphasizing his contemporary era, but with justification. He frequently stated that he found many of his contemporaries to be too “pedantic,” or as Grimm opines to a dictionary contributor: “even famous new poets have not been very potent in our language and get by with a limited vocabulary” (J. Grimm to Goedeke, 16 September 1838, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 77). He thought too many writers in his age were dependent on the use of learned concepts that were thus detached from the material world and the sensory experience of it. This was contrasted against those who used the German language in “more natural, lively, unreflective, pure, and folk-like (volksmäßige)” ways (Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 14). Among the more recent German authors, Jeremias Gotthelf, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and above all, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, were the most revered by the Grimms for their linguistic creativity and willingness to tap into the historical depths of the German language.

The brothers’ patriotism and reverence for the past should not imply that they wished to turn back from modernizing and globalizing trends, and along with it, the growth of mass education. The Grimms often presented themselves as citizens of the world involved in a global scientific endeavor. They spoke several languages, pursued studies on cultures other than the Germanic (Serbian was a specialty of Jacob’s), corresponded with and hosted many international scholars, and wished for their dictionary to make an impact in academic circles outside of Germany – just as they likewise pinned many hopes on its national use. They believed that language study might ultimately reveal more similarities than differences across peoples, noting in the first preface that “the German language hangs in a chain that is connected with most European languages, then still leads back to Asia and directly up to Sanskrit, which itself reaches Zend and Persian” and that

The Grimms’ intentions to make the dictionary internationally accessible would be clearly evident in the presentation of its content, which was a source of much criticism from their countrymen.

What the Grimms feared was that Germany was not culturally united enough to resist being increasingly affected by globalizing trends, and that broad educational standards could inadvertently hinder linguistic development. They were vigorously opposed to the “intolerable constraint” of the French Academy's fixing of the French language, and were not averse to the kind of linguistic innovation that language purists and more conservative scholars, such as Adelung, might deem crude or grammatically incorrect (ibid., viii). They heralded the playfulness of poets, whom they saw as providing expression to common and new experiences, and as agents of social change. But, in keeping with Jacob's theories of cyclic expansion and contraction in the language, they saw their current era as one of linguistic contraction – as Wilhelm Grimm explained to Karl von Savigny: “with the new writers the language contracted in a tight circle of convention” (W. Grimm to Savigny, 2 April 1839, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 94). This was coupled with unprecedented international exposure and influence, and a weak German presence in the international arena. The confluence of these factors would have been seen by the Grimms as potentially damaging or perilous to the survival of the German language, and with it, German culture and the identity of a people. Therefore, the remedy, delivered by way of the dictionary, was to expand the German language from within, with reference to its own history, emphasizing the connections between the ideas the words conveyed and their material roots (see Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, iii). They imagined it being a place where poets in particular would find inspiration for their expression, thereby recovering and disseminating long-lost words or creating new appropriations.

Presentation and Style

As outlined by Ladislav Zgusta (Reference Zgusta1986), when the first installment of the Wörterbuch (A-Allverein) came to be published in May of 1852, each entry included the headword, its grammatical category and gender, and a sparse indication of meaning – which was most often just its Latin equivalent. This was sometimes followed by cognates (usually in Dutch, but sometimes in older Germanic or other Indo-European languages such as French), and illustrative quotations in chronological order from the oldest to the most recent. The entry also included a lengthy section on etymology and explanation, though most conspicuously, the dictionary did not always (or systematically) offer explicit definitions. The work was also typographically distinguished by its use of the lower-case for German nouns, and it refrained from using the old black letter font that was then still common among German publishers.

These trends would continue throughout Jacob's other volumes, but perhaps what is most distinct about his work is its inconsistent treatment of entries throughout. As Noel Osselton points out, the amount of material per entry seems to expand with each volume, but in general there also seem to be arbitrary differences in how the entries are treated. For example, the dates of quotations are not always given, or sometimes not precisely. Chronological sequence is not always adhered to, and there seems to be no rule indicating when or why pronunciation, synonyms, compounds, or variant spellings are given. This inconsistency also carried over into the etymological discussion. As Osselton states, “for each of these words Grimm thus battens on that single point in historical development which he judges to be the most interesting – in one case, morphology, in the other, syllable stress” (Osselton Reference Osselton and Mugglestone2000, 63).

Given the vague guiding framework concerning the choice of words for inclusion, there were considerable grey areas easily open to varied interpretation. How does one decide, for instance, if a coinage is not strongly rooted to a material notion to sustain its long-term survival, or if a technical term had achieved literary currency, or if a foreign term was complementary or threatening to the lexicon? Judgments needed to occur on a case-by-case, or rather, word-by-word basis. There was no simple rule that could be clearly specified, leading analysts and critics of the dictionary, then and now, to view its included inventory as haphazard or biased.

Finally, aside from its multi-faceted inconsistency of format, the etymological and explanatory sections perhaps most distinctly illuminate Grimm's take on the kind of information he was providing and how it was to be used. With his etymological analyses, Jacob Grimm engages the reader with lengthy, complex, philological explanations tracing the sense of a word or phrase as it developed from its historical roots – occasionally veering into outright, and sometimes absurd, speculation (Bahr Reference Bahr and Kirkness1991; Zgusta Reference Zgusta and Kirkness1991; Osselton Reference Osselton and Mugglestone2000). For instance, he ponders whether the German noun “Arm,” meaning an anatomical arm, is in some way related to the German adjective “arm,” meaning “poor,” stating: “how sensitive would that language appear to be in which the poor person [der arme] is the one whom compassionately, lovingly receives and embraces in one's arms [die arme]” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, as cited and translated in Zgusta Reference Zgusta and Kirkness1991). He likewise offers far-reaching views on the relation between “Bauer,” peasant or farmer, and “Baum,” tree.

Grimm also tends to make use of tentative and vague modifiers (“it could be,” “perhaps,” “probably,” “it appears”), often speaks in the first person, and openly reveals his self-conscious uncertainties (Püschel Reference Püschel and Kirkness1991). Ulrich Püschel argues that, what Grimm terms “explanation of meaning” (Bedeutungserklärung), should rightly be thought of as “discussions” (Erörterung), through which Grimm's voice never strikes an authoritative or prescriptive tone, but a discursive one, and is expressly personal while implicitly assuming the reader as a participant (Püschel Reference Püschel and Kirkness1991). Moreover, and consistent with the domestic scene laid out in his preface, Jacob Grimm “talks to his readers” and “his verse is set out as verse” with a readable flow with transitional words like “therefore” and “furthermore” connecting his thoughts (Osselton Reference Osselton and Mugglestone2000, 64). This style is distinctly distinguished from the skeletal outlines of descriptive and depersonalized information we have come to expect from a dictionary.

Reception and Defense

By all indications and advice of their colleagues, the Grimms believed the time was right for applying the insights of philological scholarship to German lexicography. Pride in the work enveloped Jacob and the publishers as the copy for the first installment went to press in 1852, and praise began to pour in from the onset of its release. Kirkness characterized the initial media reception as “lively and overwhelmingly positive, even somewhat gushing” (Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 139). For instance, one reviewer found in the Wörterbuch that:

Another would enthuse of the dictionary that “nowhere does it seek a rigid exclusionary formalism, a schematic constriction and oppression, but rather an animated view into the working of the all-constituting, never-ceasing spirit of the language (Sprachgeist)” (M. H. 1852, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 176). Others emphasized the national character of the work and its testament to German scholarship, even French reviews heralded the patriotic character of the dictionary (see Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 211).

In private correspondence with Jacob, Hirzel exclaimed that the work was “the greatest literary undertaking of the century,” and an astonished Reimer said that “the work that comes out of your hands alone would be a challenge for an entire academy” (Hirzel to J. Grimm, 18 May 1852, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 139; Reimer to J. & W. Grimm, 5 July 1852, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 150).

The praise, which even Grimm felt was too superficial, didn't last long. The most serious condemnations leveled at the work called out against content that was not comprehensive, and which appeared too Protestant, too scholarly, and too inconsistent (see Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 168–218, for the strongest criticisms and the Grimms’ responses). The critiques accumulated all the while over the course of two years in which Jacob had yet to publish a formal preface to any of the initial installments. When he did finally publish the preface, Jacob emphasized that one of the aims of a dictionary is to make a clear boundary around the German language “even if its borders are blurred every now and then” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, xxvii). With this he doesn't give in to the claims of lacking comprehensiveness, and instead stresses finding what is common to the language across regions, and definitive of its unique sound and structure. He recognizes that the boundary he draws doesn't naturally exist in itself, but that philological research could best identify the language's most distinct essence. He even imagines the dictionary functioning like a clock for the whole of Germany (a significant analogy in an era when train networks compelled the standardization of time across entire regions) “furnished for the use of the common man with the same precision that is desired by the astronomer; and if it is to be generally used, there is no alternative to a scientific one” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, xiv). On points where he concedes that the dictionary is lacking, he attributes it to the natural limitations of the collection process and varied skills across the excerptors; he notes that this is correctable over time and engrained into the scientific method of the work.

German Catholics were outspoken about what they saw as Protestant bias within the dictionary, which excessively cited selections from Luther (see Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 179–81). They also took offense to commentary offered with the word Ablaß, religious indulgence, which stated: “chiefly it connotes the churchly forgiveness of sins through money, which the reformation triumphantly fought against” (Grimm, J. 1852, as cited in Kühn Reference Kühn and Kirkness1991, 115). To these critics, Jacob's preface states:

Of the commentary the dictionary offered for Ablaß, Grimm maintains that it related to the utterances of Luther concerning abuses of the indulgence, and which the Catholic Church itself had conceded to and condemned.

Some of the most scathing remarks against the dictionary critiqued its highly technical and scholarly traits. Particularly under attack was the lack of discrete definitions, or rather, the Latin and foreign translations often misunderstood to stand in for a definition. Alongside this, the inconsistent format of the entries and the technical details of Jacob's explanation and etymology sections were further viewed as alienating to the lay reader. Daniel Sanders and Christian Wurm were especially pressing along these lines. Sanders critically asked: “is it really necessary for one to know Latin in order to understand German? And thus is there really no other means of education (Bildung) than the so-called scholarly (gelehrt)?” (Sanders 1852, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 187). Likewise, Wurm exclaimed that it was “ultimately not a dictionary for the German people (Volk), it's hardly for the educated part of them” (Wurm 1858, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 247).

When the dictionary's first preface finally appeared in 1854, Jacob had much to say about its perceived scholarly attributes. He reiterates his intention that, while the dictionary conveys information that is of use to even the most learned, it is also for all levels. He believed each reader brought a little bit of skill to the text, and through one's natural inclination and pleasure, “competency with the dictionary would increase through use itself” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, xli). In defending the dictionary's lack of explicit definitions, Grimm further stresses that “it cannot be the intent of a scientific work, which also pursues higher goals, to guide them [the readers] through all steps” (ibid.). Grimm also makes a case for finding the definitions offered by the lexicographical works of Adelung and others as unnecessarily long-winded and prone to confusion (for instance, in defining a table, Tisch, as a four-legged thing, or a raised surface). He further argues that the delimited boundaries of meaning presented in other dictionaries was potentially constraining to the future whims of the language and were an indication of the dictionary-maker's own arrogance and unappointed judgment; he thinks the scientific research philologist should occupy the pages with better things. Grimm makes it clear, however, that the Latin and other foreign translations he offers are not meant as a substitute for definitions, which he assumed could best be inferred from the quotations evidence, but rather they are offered as a means to point to similarly-corresponding concepts dating back to an earlier time. He specifies that the translations are not meant to exactly correspond, nor are they to be seen as exhaustive of a word's definitive essence or its ultimate, material point of origin (Reichman Reference Reichman and Kirkness1991). They can at most only reveal “the first crop from the field of the language, where the stalk would be cut at the soil, [whereas] linguistic research must still more deeply penetrate and extract the roots as well” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, xlvi). Thus, the Latin is merely to complement the multifaceted information presented in each entry, and especially to ensure that foreign scholars could make use of the work. He asks, “what would it achieve by refusing an aid that is offered by the most familiar and fixed languages?” (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854, xl).

In the conclusion to the preface, without specifically naming Sanders and Wurm, Grimm states:

The Grimms’ Dictionary in the Intellectual Climate of Romanticism

The Grimms’ approach and their endeavor to cultivate public sensitivity to the language was ultimately lost on nineteenth-century critics who were accustomed to prescriptive styles of lexicography. By more modern standards, contemporary critics also came to see the dictionary as a fundamentally flawed piece of scholarship, deemed too normative, lacking objectivity, and smothered by its attempts to achieve multiple competing aims and appeal to too many audiences (see Mellor Reference Mellor1972; Kühn Reference Kühn and Kirkness1991; Horlitz Reference Horlitz and Kirkness1991). But while it can be acknowledged that the work was by no means a success, it wasn't because Jacob failed to abide to an absolute standard of objectivity, or that his attempt to address multiple audiences was inherently untenable. Grimm's vision and actions proceeded fairly in line with the influence of Romanticism.

It takes no stretch of the imagination to categorize Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm within the Romantic era of nineteenth-century Germany. This is not only on account of their popular folklore collections and interest in literary expression (the German noun Roman means a work of fiction), but it is also suggested by their personal associations with the likes of Bettina von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, who themselves were close associates of the Grimms’ literary hero, Goethe. However, their association with the scientific strain of Romantic thought is not well-illuminated, and there are many characteristics of the dictionary and its production that suggest the influence of romanticist notions of knowledge, its attainment, and purpose.

It should first be noted that Romanticism, particularly in its German birthing ground in the years straddling the beginning of the nineteenth-century, did not constitute a self-contained and coherent movement. Several scholars find it inaccurate and imprudent to suggest as such (e.g., Knight Reference Knight, Cunningham and Jardine1990; Richards Reference Richards2002; Zajonic Reference Zajonic, Seamon and Zajonic1998; Craig Reference Craig1987). In many ways a shared spirit of critique and self-development limited the extent of coherence across the thinkers, tinkerers, and artists commonly identified with the era, among them: Herder, Goethe, the Humboldts, the Schlegels, Fichte, and Schelling. Kant's later writings, in particular his Critique of Pure Judgement, are also sometimes credited with fueling aspects of Romantic thought. But however dissimilar its individual minds may be, historically the Romantic era presents a combination of ideas and ideals that do not exist in either the former era of Enlightenment reasoning and Newtonian science, or the positivist and pragmatist views fomenting towards the latter part of the nineteenth-century. Edward Craig sees the romanticists straddling “a bridge, in which the chief characteristics of the flanking epochs were for a time closely united” (Craig Reference Craig1987, 10). However, for the sake of operational traction, this analysis will identify romanticist science as characterized by its metaphysical emphasis on organic unity and historical process, a purposive inclination to (pro)creative action, and an epistemological privileging of subjective perception coupled with a deeply-held faith in inter-subjective congruence. My characterization is largely derived from the scholarship of Mead (Reference Mead and Moore1936), Craig (Reference Craig1987), Nicolson (Reference Nicolson1987), Richards (Reference Richards2002), Holland (Reference Holland2009), and Tresch (Reference Tresch, Aubin, Bigg and Sibum2010 and Reference Tresch2012), along with edited collections by Cunningham and Jardine (Reference Cunningham, Jardine, Cunningham and Jardine1990) and Seamon and Zajonc (1998).

Organicism presumes deep-rooted interdependency – that parts cannot be understood apart from the whole, and that changes in one element are bound up with the trajectories of all others. This is evident in Grimm's frequent borrowing of ecological and horticultural analogies – such as rootedness, mutual development, and complementarity – in his understanding and explanation of language formation and adaptation, and likewise, in his disdain for the seemingly artificial shaping of language by purists and pedants. But, this type of concern with organic unity and fear of interference does not imply that the Romantic scientist sought to abstain from action that might alter social or natural environments. In fact, whereas Enlightenment thinkers sought all-governing laws, the Romantics viewed a self-organizing world in constant motion, of autonomous but interdependent agents – including humans – continuously acting and being acted upon. This supposed the opportunity for human creation and alteration of the environment, but was coupled with cautious recognition that actions can have unforeseen consequences (Knight Reference Knight1986; Tresch Reference Tresch2012). It is in this sense that Grimm's language science and disdain for prescriptive lexicography can be reconciled with the “language planning” apparent in his dictionary volumes (Ganz Reference Ganz1973; Zgusta Reference Zgusta1986, 87). It is likely that Grimm honestly believed that his dictionary selections, while not perfect, were not truly arbitrary, rather, that they followed from his perceived organic unity of the language. But, fearing the loss of such unity, organicism also implied that the language scientist might act as a diagnostician who could discern the health of the organism and provide treatment – in this case, offering the dictionary as a means to revitalize the language by reviving the historical roots of words and meanings.

These were not hard and fast characteristics, but required attunement to an unseen and indescribable animating “spirit.” Grimm used the term Bildungstrieb to describe this shaping force in linguistic development, a term then associated with the physiological studies of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (Grimm, J. Reference Grimm1854). To perceive such an enigmatic essence required repeated experience, shifting perspective, adaptation, and imagination – akin to an artist or artisan's practiced intuition, tacit mastery, and moments of epiphany or aperçu (Nicolson Reference Nicolson1987; Jardine Reference Jardine, Jardine, Secord and Spary1996; Schaffer Reference Schaffer, Cunningham and Jardine1990; Zajonic Reference Zajonic, Seamon and Zajonic1998; Holland Reference Holland2009). Running counter to the Enlightenment emphasis on systematic and externally-directed reason, in the Romantic world of organic interconnections, the object of study could not be understood apart from the examining subject. Understanding was thus a product of communion between the self and the phenomenon – or more precisely, a reunification – through a process Goethe deemed “participatory consciousness” (Mead Reference Mead and Moore1936; Knight Reference Knight, Cunningham and Jardine1990; Morgan Reference Morgan, Cunningham and Jardine1990; Cottrell Reference Cottrell, Seamon and Zajonic1998). It is in this sense that the “genius” commonly heralded in the Romantic era was “understood not as a peculiar capacity possessed by a creative artist, but as the power which possessed him” (Schaffer Reference Schaffer, Cunningham and Jardine1990, 83). The imaginative Wissenschaftler possessed by this power was deemed to have “a special communicative capacity and function,” destined to teach others by guiding the learner through their “same train of experience” (Shaffer Reference Shaffer, Cunningham and Jardine1990, 42).

This epistemological framework falls under Allan Megill's classification of “dialectical” objectivity, “which holds that objects are constituted as objects in the course of an interplay between subject and object; thus . . . the dialectical sense leaves room for the subjectivity of the knower” (Megill Reference Megill and Megill1994, 1). This logic is repeatedly evident in the making and defenses of the dictionary. For instance, in one letter towards the end of his life, Jacob Grimm says of the dictionary: “It has been my work, and my idiosyncrasies, with their virtues and errors, are imprinted within it” (J. Grimm to Hirzel, 18 February 1863, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 261). But despite any shortcomings, Jacob appeals to readers to recognize his selfless passion and the unmatched extent of his expertise and experience as an indicator of his qualifications to lead the task. His first preface closes with the following remark:

This logic is also upheld by at least one dictionary reviewer, who gushes:

Appropriate to this logic, it applies not only to Grimm as an author-editor, but also is embedded in the overarching vision of the dictionary and the brothers’ understanding of how it would develop. The importance of cultivated sensibility and tact was emphasized throughout the word-extraction program. The brothers would each abstain from specifying precise and thorough guidelines and stated a preference that contributors apply their own judgments. For instance, in an exchange with a new contributor, Jacob expresses his belief that, given the contributor's familiarity with the old and new language, he should find the work easy. Jacob offers him a couple lines of instruction on how to fill out the forms, advises that more is better than less, and proceeds with vague guidelines to give regard to words of lexical and grammatical significance, and those deemed most potent or forceful (gewaltig) in the language. Grimm then concludes, “but with you I can spare myself all such instruction” (J. Grimm to Bach, 29 August 1838, as cited in Kirkness, 90–91). Wilhelm showed similar proclivities, a fairly standard orientation letter of his ended with “the tact to search out what's important is essential, of which you cannot be lacking, since you have already and of your own pleasure been devoting yourself to the German language” (W. Grimm to Schulze, 5 December 1838, as cited in Kirkness Reference Kirkness1980, 92).

Moreover, the peculiar vision for the work and its discursive style of presentation – as something that would be revered and read through, rather than simply consulted – further conveys this logic of individual engagement. In this case, the dictionary's readers, whether formally trained academics or not, were encouraged to use the work as a sensitizing device to develop their own intuitive knowledge and national consciousness. As his defenses above indicate, Grimm didn't believe that what the text lacked in definitions of meaning, or supplemented with Latin terms and philological theory, would detract from its intended general use. This mirrors Goethe's view that “scientific work needs to be done to be understood” (Amrine Reference Amrine, Seamon and Zajonic1998, 42). In fact, Goethe's 1810 Theory of Color appears to be a similarly-styled text, which, according to Douglas Miller, “constantly reminds us that the reader himself must supply the imaginative power to penetrate the phenomena Goethe has arranged and described” (Miller Reference Miller and Miller1995, xv).

In this view, the individual's mind, body, and labor are necessary for processing observation into knowledge. Nevertheless, the processing power of a single mind and body could only go so far in a lifetime and was likely to be tainted by the physiological or psychological limitations and predispositions of each individual – a claim argued in Kant's Critique of Judgment. Therefore, and in contrast to Kant's idealism, we can see why some Romantic-era scientists concerned themselves with consensus building and collaboration in order to counteract variation, biases and error, to expand on data, and to reach new and more nuanced understanding in order to more closely approach a complete awareness of a true objective reality. We see this in the spirit of collection, cooperation, and synthesis marking the era – in Alexander von Humboldt's network of observers measuring geographic phenomena (see Dettelbach Reference Dettelbach, Jardine, Secord and Spary1996; Tresch Reference Tresch, Aubin, Bigg and Sibum2010), in Karl Friedrich Gauss's method of least squares to mathematically combine diverse astronomical observations, and in the vision for the dictionary as a collaborative and on-going project beyond the life of any single individual (also see Holmes Reference Holmes2008 for examples in British Romantic science). This spirit is expressed by Hans Ferdinand Maßmann, who, upon accepting a role in the dictionary project, enthused to Jacob that the work could become

This romanticist model of intersubjective knowledge production rests on an assumption that multiple minds will tend towards convergence and that knowledge could accumulate in a linear progression towards transcendent Truth. As Craig argues, the romanticists thus sought the final re-convergence of mind and world since the fall; and it was believed that only through “ever-broadening consciousness, ever-increasing knowledge” that the “effects of having eaten of the tree of knowledge” could be corrected and “true grace can be found again” (Craig Reference Craig1987, 143). It is a logic that carries forth the hopes of the Enlightenment and belief in what Megill (Reference Megill and Megill1994) calls the philosophical sense of “absolute objectivity.” It is evident in Kant's notion of the “thing-in-itself,” Goethe's “Urphänomen,” and for Grimm, the notion of a primordial concept “Urbegriff” underlying the development of words (the Latin references in the Wörterbuch were to give the reader a sense of their underlying Urbegriff; see Reichman Reference Reichman and Kirkness1991).

However, in contrast to most Enlightenment philosophy, congruence of minds and world was understood in Romantic thought as the product of a synthesizing process, both within and among individuals. In the course of this process communication difficulties may remain barriers to convergence, which was a theme, and fear, heavily dwelt upon by Goethe (Holland Reference Holland2009). In later years pragmatist philosophy would come to terms with the uncertain possibility of absolute truth and its attainment, but not without noting that the romanticist ideals offered “the expression of a certain hope: that there was such a thing as the ‘final opinion’ in this sense, and that the scientific method was the road that would lead to it” (Craig Reference Craig1987, 257).

This reasoning appears to underscore the hopes Grimm attached to the German Dictionary. At least this optimism seems palpable in the early planning and promotion of the work, but in the course of its making and assembly – through the materials submitted by the roughly one hundred contributors, and recognition of their various idiosyncratic views and approaches – it's as if Grimm comes to realize that consistency of vision and practice are exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to attain. The brothers express surprise when their excerptors request more explicit instruction, and Jacob was frustrated to find the results of the excerption program below his expectations and requiring considerable re-excerption (Nachexcerption) on his part. From a contemporary standpoint, it is certainly peculiar that they set out upon such a large-scale project without a more thorough attempt to standardize contributions and output.Footnote ⁶

But, even the brothers, who had shared their lives, couldn't obtain consistency between the different dictionary volumes each of them wrote. Wilhelm was much more orderly in his presentation and seemed to adhere to a different view of which words best captured the spirit of the German language (see Henne Reference Henne and Antonsen1990; Bahr Reference Bahr and Kirkness1991; Püschel Reference Püschel and Kirkness1991 for commentary on the differences). If Jacob Grimm did take these romanticist assumptions to heart, its unraveling could have simultaneously dashed his hopes for a German nation unified around a shared Volksgeist, and weakened his faith in the promise of empirical scientific methods, and make him unable to trust his own hard-won knowledge. Shortly after Wilhelm's “D” volume went to press Jacob expressed having lost all enthusiasm and hopefulness for the project, only carrying on out of contractual obligation.

To the extent that Jacob Grimm's volumes fulfilled his romanticist vision for the dictionary one can't say the work was a failure; but, perhaps Romanticism failed Grimm. The assumption of mental convergence would increasingly seem untenable or unattainable. On top of this, German university reforms and the growth of the middle-class, both of which corresponded with the ascendance of Romantic thought and science, would continue to press forward in ways that would soon lead to increased competition, segmentation, and standardization of disciplinary tracks (Bontempelli [2001] Reference Bontempelli and Poole2004). These developments undermined the romanticist ideals of dialog and engagement, as well as the genius status and credibility of the individual virtuoso scholar (see Cunningham and Jardine Reference Cunningham, Jardine, Cunningham and Jardine1990; and Shaffer Reference Shaffer, Cunningham and Jardine1990).