L’enérgeia dell’organismo letterario. Goethe, Venezia e i prodromi della Gattungstheorie morfologica

The first months of 1790 mark a milestone in Goethe’s morphological method. During this period, the poet appears to have developed a growing interest in the domain of infusoria and invertebrates, part of which were collected under the label of ‘zoophyte’. Those creatures provided an excellent case study for the investigation of the autopoietic energy of living organisms. At the same time, the poet began the composition of the Venetian Epigrams, a collection distinguished by a protean transformation of both its poems and its overall organisation. The article analyses the influence of invertebrates, in particular the freshwater polyp, on the genesis of the VE through a detailed account of Goethe’s sources, letters, scientific annotations and the close reading of some of the earlier epigrams, dedicated to the acrobat Bettine. Furthermore, Goethe’s comparison between the combinatory potential of the freshwater polyp’s self-structuring ontology and the similarly malleable form of the epigram appears to give rise to broader considerations regarding the poet’s theory of literary genres.