How have time and prose been related since 1750? And do they become productive in literary theory as mutually defining poetological and epistemological concepts? The latest book by Michael Gamper (Research Area 4: “Literary Currencies”) contributes to the theory and history of prose by describing key aspects of the temporal aesthetics embodied in unbound language from the eighteenth century to the present day. Prose is here considered as a literary category independent of its definition by genre, genre rules or narrative techniques; rather, it is understood as a variable form of art and communication characterised by the dynamic and idiosyncratic development of forms by means of prosodic and grammatical structuring. Across five chapters on rhythm, description, aesthetic temporality, experimentation and everydayness based on texts by Klopstock, Herder, Flaubert, Stifter, Valéry, Stein, Mayröcker, Handke and Lotz, among others, time emerges as an aesthetic dimension of prose in its double structure of successiveness and recursiveness.

Michael Gamper. Zeit der Prosa. Literarische Zeitästhetik ab 1750. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2025 (open access).