ABSTRACT This article reconstructs and contextualizes the development of the Vehmic Court motif in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German literature by examining both canonical texts, such as Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen and Kleist’s Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, and works commonly classified as Trivialliteratur. As a popular subset of Ritter- and Geheimbundliteratur, Secret Tribunal fiction from the Age of Goethe has generally been considered by critics as a merely entertaining genre. A more probing inquiry, however, reveals that the historical material was used to add to historical and political knowledge, to sensitize readers to questions of law and legal process, and to reflect on the problematic nature of human justice.

中文翻译：

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“您秘密审判的法官”：歌德时代的法院的文学表征

摘要本文通过考察歌德的Götzvon Berlichingen和Kleist的DasKäthchenvon Heilbronn等规范文本来重构和关联18世纪末和19世纪初德国Vehmic Court母题的发展，并将其通常归类为Trivialliteratur。歌德时代的秘密法庭小说作为Ritter和Geheimbundliteratur的受欢迎的子集，通常被评论家视为仅仅是一种娱乐类型。然而，一个更具探索性的调查表明，历史材料被用来增加历史和政治知识，使读者对法律和法律程序问题敏感，并反思人类正义的问题性质。