Problematics of the canonization in literary history from the Middle Ages to the present. The case of Erasmus Widmann as an example - The victimization of a poet oddly situated between epochs, cultures, and religions

The question of what constitutes the literary canon continues to vex us. This article highlights some representative cases from the Middle Ages, the Baroque, the age of the Enlightenment, and the twentieth century. The focus rests on the recently rediscovered seventeenth-century poet and composer Erasmus Widmann, whose works deserve to be included in the canon, or at least into our literary history, if that does not represent the canon already. As this article indicates, the quest for what makes up really "good" or important literature continues.