Open Access

Dana Janetta Dogaru

• Joachim Wittstock presents three outstanding personalities from the Transylvanian Saxon and Romanian past – the theologian and reformer Johannes Honterus, the Saxon count and Royal Judge Johann Zabanius Sachs von Harteneck, and the Walachian prince Constantin Brâncovean – from very new, innovative and surprising points of view by combining fact and fiction in a subtle way. A special feature of Joachim Wittstock’s approach is the matching of form and content, naturally with varying emphasis on language construction or topic composition in the three pieces of prosa. In terms of the content, the author combines a circular perspective with a parallel one, thus creating a distinct up- and- down pattern. Linguistically, Joachim Wittstock uses cultivated everyday speech laced with telling word play, proverbs and idioms, foreign and archaic words, to ev oke the historic atmosphere of the past and making subtle political connotations. The unpretentious but deliberate syntax, with its most noticeable structural parallelism, sustains the author’s intentions. Joachim Wittstock encourages thought, not only about the contents, but especially about how we can improve things nowadays, about the responsibility that we have for our actions.