Sidonia Hedwig Zäunemann - crowned poetess of the early Enlightenment

The Thuringian poet Sidonia Hedwig Zäunemann (1711-1740) is one of the Poetae Laureati honoured by German universities for her poetry and scholarship. Under what conditions did she live and write, primarily in Erfurt? Zäunemann's writings testify to her great literacy, she is familiar with both contemporary and ancient literature, without it being known what education she was able to acquire under what circumstances and what access she had to books and thus to the knowledge of her time. The project focusses on Zäunemann's 'networks of relationships', her personal environment in Thuringia, especially in Erfurt, Jena and Ilmenau, as well as her contacts with the court and the Dukes of Saxony. The correspondence she conducted with other scholars in Hamburg and Wolfenbüttel is correspondingly important. The findings and results are to be published as part of a monograph.