On 8 May, Eötvös Loránd University will award an honorary doctorate to Professor Jürgen Paul Schwindt of Heidelberg. The scholar, who maintains close relations with the scientific community in Budapest, is one of the most original thinkers in classical philology, who attracted international attention with his radical reinterpretation of Augustan poetry. His work is at once rooted in the tradition of rigorous textual analysis and in brave theoretical innovation. We interviewed him about his career, research, and the stakes of philology.

You studied Greek, Latin and Indian Philology. How did your scholarly interests develop, leading you to choose Latin literary studies?

I would be lying if I claimed that Latin literary studies had been the obvious choice for me from the beginning. As a student, I found Greek literature infinitely more fascinating. As for the study of Indian literature in all its branches, it seemed to me at the time that almost everything still remained to be done. It was a biographical contingency that led me—through the kind mediation of my doctoral supervisor Otto Zwierlein—to Latin literary studies. The University of Bielefeld, where I held my first teaching position, only offered a programme in Latin. I quickly became aware of the enormous scope for development within the field.

The study of Augustan poetry lies at the centre of your work. Where do you see the greatest challenges in understanding this literature?

Augustan poetry is, without doubt, among the most complex bodies of literature in the world. Some twenty years ago, I observed in it something I have come to call the ‘athematic disposition’ of these texts. Their authors rely less on themes than on the smallest and most delicate linguistic operations, which allow us to see the world—as we think we know it—anew. For far too long, we have read these texts politically, expecting to find in them answers to the great questions of their time. And yes, we do find answers—but not in the way one might assume. 

The political dimension of these texts often lies precisely in their resolute refusal to sing the grand song of power and the powerful. 

Instead, we hear the distinctive tonal sequences of an orchestra organised, as it were, dodecaphonically: I call this ‘fragmentation of politics’. It is my firm conviction that, notwithstanding all the efforts of recent decades, we are still very much at the beginning when it comes to interpreting Augustan poetry. We may look forward to many—no doubt striking—discoveries.

You direct the International Coordination Centre for the Theory of Philology in Heidelberg. How do you see the relationship between philology and theory?

Classical Philology has long—far too long—operated below the threshold of general visibility when it comes to theoretical questions. And yet it offers the very best conditions for a form of theoretical work grounded in close textual observation. I have spent half my life encouraging younger scholars to tackle the task of theory formation. Not all of them have prevailed. The hurdles are considerable. Instead of drawing on its own immeasurably rich resources, Classical Philology, internationally—and that is to say, almost everywhere—tends to follow in the wake of contemporary trends. 

Philology is a theoretical discipline, but one that, as I understand it, derives its insights above all from its engagement with texts. 

It is here that, at times, it arrives at forms of understanding that philosophy, with its all too often merely instrumental relation to language, will not readily attain.

Which philologists and theorists have influenced you most?

You may have noticed that the names of theorists are a rare exception in my work. I read theoretical texts, too, as if they were so-called primary texts—that is, radically (Creuzer, Kant, Schlegel, Böckh, Wilamowitz, Foucault). All the fuss surrounding schools of thought and intellectual lineages is not really my concern. Accordingly, I also encourage the students entrusted to me for a time to remain critical of all authorities (myself very much included), wherever and however possible, and to stand on their own feet as soon as they can. And they are able to do so once they have refined the techniques of reading to the full extent of their abilities. 

The technical mastery of the discipline is the indispensable precondition for any serious theoretical ambition. 

And since everyone reads differently, my students, too, differ so markedly in character and temperament that one might hardly suspect that they belong to the same intellectual school.

How did you come to be the initiator of the Heidelberg Master’s programme in comparative literature?

I have never sought, in terms of academic politics, an alignment with General and Comparative Literary Studies. The comparative dimension was inherent in the very nature of the material we were working on. I have, however, always felt it to be a serious shortcoming that the University of Heidelberg, with its outstanding tradition in the field of comparative literary studies (Curtius, Gundolf), had long remained blind to this area. After two unsuccessful attempts in the 2000s and early 2010s, it finally proved possible, a little over ten years ago, to reestablish comparative literature through a collaboration between my chair in the Faculty of Philosophy, colleagues from the Faculty of Modern Languages, and the University of Jewish Studies. The Heidelberg Master’s programme in Classical and Modern Literature is the only German comparative literature course that requires more than a superficial engagement with the classical languages and literatures. My own teaching in comparative literature, however, reaches back much further—to the mid-1990s, when I taught two unforgettable semesters of lectures on ‘Metaphor and Myth’ with Karl Heinz Bohrer at the University of Bielefeld. I have always been grateful that in my early years I had the good fortune to encounter many gifted comparatists. Besides Karl Heinz Bohrer, I would mention Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Werner Hamacher and Barbara Vinken. With these people I shared and continue to share a long-standing friendship.

You have maintained close ties with Eötvös Loránd University. What characterises this cooperation?

My chair maintains a wide range of connections with institutions across Europe, North and South America. 

Yet I have always experienced my relationship with my Budapest colleagues as particularly close and fruitful.

 I was fortunate enough, soon after my appointment to Heidelberg, to come into contact with several outstanding representatives of Hungarian Latin studies,

and not long thereafter to meet my closest Budapest colleague, József Krupp, as well as his teacher, Balázs Déri. Krupp’s brilliant doctoral defence at ELTE has remained vividly in my memory. At the same time, I became acquainted with the leading figure of comparative literature in Budapest, Ernő Kulcsár Szabó, and his gifted students. From these connections arose the publication of an unusual edited volume, Kulturtechnik Philologie, which appeared in 2011 in my Heidelberg series Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften. A highlight of our cooperation was a conference on Horace’s Ars poetica, organised by Attila Ferenczi in September 2012, which brought together some of the world’s foremost specialists on Horace. If I were to characterise my Budapest colleagues briefly, I would emphasise their intellectual depth, their methodological rigour, their stylistic elegance, and the great generosity with which they received their foreign colleague. Over the years, however, József Krupp in particular has become for me a valuable guide to the treasures of Hungarian literature and culture. The literature he recommended to me, with his inimitable discretion, has enriched my life.

Would you like to tell us something about your current research?

My research extends across three fields which, as will readily be seen, are intimately connected at their core. First, there is a literary history of intensity, which I explore in three as yet unpublished volumes on Catullus, the great unfinished poet of the late Republic. Second, there is a monographical project, Radical Politics: Footnotes to Virgil’s Aeneid, an athematic reading of this central work of Roman literature. And third, there are preparatory reflections for a study entitled What is ‘Dark Humanism’? Or Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Genealogy of the Human Concern. An insight into this last line of enquiry—which has pressed itself upon me through engagement with recent research in ethnology, anthropology, and religious studies—can be gained from my upcoming lecture in Budapest, which treats the question under the heading of a ‘Forensic Philology’. 

Forensic philology is driven by a spirit of discovery and participation. It prescribes nothing to anyone. 

It serves no institution; its domain is the arenas, the fora, the halls – the squares, the streets and the alleyways which man inhabits and where the word resides. The public sphere is its house. It is, as it were, indoors out of doors. I look forward to discussing these and other philological questions more frequently in Budapest in the future, a city of spectacular polyglot tradition, which seems to me no less devoted to language and literature today than it has always been.