Arbeit, Identität und Leben in Biographien barocker Autoren. Adam Olearius und Johann Christian Günther

The two biographical novels about the baroque authors Adam Olearius (1599-1671) and Johann Christian Günther (1795-1723): A turbulent life. Adam Olearius. A court scholar from Gottorf by Erich Maletzke (2011), and Henning Boëtius' Beauty of desolation (2002, first edition 1987) deal with work and unemployment as two categories dominating the life and identity discourses of both poets, within the frame of the literary biography. By dealing with the question of how such different vitae – a successful and unsuccessful one in the baroque sense – have their influence on identity and life the following article is focusing on the aesthetic representation of work as an identity factor in both biographical novels.