Philosophy and German Literature, 1700–1990

Philosophy and German Literature, 1700–1990
Author: Nicholas Saul
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2002-05-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139431544

Although the importance of the interplay of literature and philosophy in Germany has often been examined within individual works or groups of works by particular authors, little research has been undertaken into the broader dialogue of German literature and philosophy as a whole. Philosophy and German Literature 1700–1990 offers six chapters by leading specialists on the dialogue between the work of German literary writers and philosophers through their works. The volume shows that German literature, far from being the mouthpiece of a dour philosophical culture dominated by the great names of Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger and Habermas, has much more to offer: while possessing a high affinity with philosophy it explores regions of human insight and experience beyond philosophy's ken.


Philosophy and German Literature, 1700-1990

Philosophy and German Literature, 1700-1990
Author: Nicholas Saul
Publisher:
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2002
Genre: German literature
ISBN: 9780511068577

Although the connection between German literature and philosophy has often been emphasised in relation to particular texts, little research has been undertaken into the broader dialogue between the two. This edited collection offers six chapters by leading specialists on the interplay between the work of German literary writers and philosophers.


The Novel in German since 1990

The Novel in German since 1990
Author: Stuart Taberner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2011-09-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139499882

Diversity is one of the defining characteristics of contemporary German-language literature, not just in terms of the variety of authors writing in German today, but also in relation to theme, form, technique and style. However, common themes emerge: the Nazi past, transnationalism, globalisation, migration, religion and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and identity. This book presents the novel in German since 1990 through a set of close readings both of international bestsellers (including Daniel Kehlmann's Measuring the World and W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz) and of less familiar, but important texts (such as Yadé Kara's Selam Berlin). Each novel discussed in the volume has been chosen on account of its aesthetic quality, its impact and its representativeness; the authors featured, among them Nobel Prize winners Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek and Herta Müller demonstrate the energy and quality of contemporary writing in German.


Modern German Literature

Modern German Literature
Author: Michael Minden
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2013-04-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0745657257

This accessible and fresh account of German writing since 1750 is a case study of literature as a cultural and spiritual resource in modern societies. Beginning with the emergence of German language literature on the international stage in the mid-eighteenth century, the book plays down conventional labels and periodisation of German literary history in favour of the explanatory force of international cultural impact. It explains, for instance, how specifically German and Austrian conditions shaped major contributions to European literary culture such as Romanticism and the ‘language scepticism’ of the early twentieth century. From the First World War until reunification in 1990, Germany’s defining experiences have been ones of catastrophe. The book provides a compelling overview of the different ways in which German literature responded to historical disaster. They are, first, Modernism (the ‘Literature of Negation’), second, the literature of totalitarian regimes (Third Reich and German Democratic Republic), and third the various creative strategies and evasions of the capitalist democratic multi-medial cultures of the Weimar and Federal Republics. The volume achieves a balance between textual analysis and cultural theory that gives it value as an introductory reference source and as an original study and as such will be essential reading for students and scholars alike.


The Literature of German Romanticism

The Literature of German Romanticism
Author: Dennis F. Mahoney
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2004
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1571132368

Sharply focused essays on the most significant aspects of German Romanticism.


Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Philosophy

Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Philosophy
Author: Sarah V. Eldridge
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2020-06-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019085927X

In the decades after its publication, Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship served as a touchstone for such major philosophical and literary figures as Schopenhauer, Schleiermacher, and Schlegel, and was widely understood to be one of the greatest novels of the German canon. But in the decades and centuries following, the attention it has received in both disciplines has diminished in comparison to either Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther or his Elective Affinities. This volume follows the impetus of its early respondents to examine deeply what exactly Goethe's long and complicated novel is doing, and how it engages with problems and themes of human life. An interdisciplinary group of eminent scholars grapple with the novel's engagement with central philosophical questions such as individuality, development, and authority; aesthetic formation and narrative (and human) contingency; and gender, sexuality, and marriage. That these questions and their working-through in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre are in tension with one another speaks ultimately to how literature explores philosophical questions in ways that are open-ended, creative, and contain potential for new and different solutions to living with them. This unique philosophical approach to the form and purpose of a literary masterpiece illuminates new inroads into a novel at once famously complex and influential, and into the projects of one Germany's greatest writers.


Gypsies and Orientalism in German Literature and Anthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century

Gypsies and Orientalism in German Literature and Anthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century
Author: Nicholas Saul
Publisher: MHRA
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2007
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1900755882

An apparently nomadic diaspora nation of Indian provenance, the Gypsies are present with notable frequency in Germanic literatures from Wolzogen and Brentano to Stifter, Keller, Storm, Raabe, Jensen, Saar and Thomas Mann. Against the background of the still officially unacknowledged Romany Holocaust, Saul analyses in a series of close interpretations the stations of the literary construction of the Gypsy prior to the human disaster. The book's synthesis of scholarship in cultural, social and institutional history, the history of ideas and literary history will appeal to the scholarly community across traditional disciplinary boundaries, and will also serve as a valuable introduction for students from diverse fields.


German Literature: A Very Short Introduction

German Literature: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Nicholas Boyle
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2008-02-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0191578630

German writers, from Luther and Goethe to Heine, Brecht, and Günter Grass, have had a profound influence on the modern world. This Very Short Introduction presents an engrossing tour of the course of German literature from the late Middle Ages to the present, focussing especially on the last 250 years. Emphasizing the economic and religious context of many masterpieces of German literature, it highlights how they can be interpreted as responses to social and political changes within an often violent and tragic history. The result is a new and clear perspective which illuminates the power of German literature and the German intellectual tradition, and its impact on the wider cultural world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.


A Companion to the Works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

A Companion to the Works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Author: Barbara Fischer
Publisher: Camden House
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2005
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781571132437

One of the most independent thinkers in German intellectual history, the Enlightenment author Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) contributed in decisive and lasting fashion to literature, philosophy, theology, criticism, and drama theory. Lessing invented the brgerliches Trauerspiel (bourgeois tragedy) and wrote one of the first successful German tragedies as well as one of the finest German comedies. In his final dramatic masterpiece, Nathan der Weise, he writes of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, of religious tolerance and intolerance and the clash of civilizations. Lessing's dramas are the oldest German theater pieces still regularly performed (both in Germany and internationally), and both his plays and his drama theory have influenced such writers as Goethe, Schiller, Hebbel, Hauptmann, Ibsen, Strindberg, Schnitzler, and Brecht. Addressing an audience ranging from graduate students to seasoned scholars, this volume introduces Lessing's life and times and places him within the broader context of the European Enlightenment. It discusses his pathbreaking dramas, his equally revolutionary theoretical, critical, and aesthetic writings, his original fables, his innovative work in philosophy and theology, and his significant contributions to Jewish emancipation. The volume concludes by examining 20th-century reception of Lessing and his oeuvre. Contributors: Barbara Fischer, Thomas C. Fox, Steven D. Martinson, Klaus L. Berghahn, John Pizer, Beate Allert, H. B. Nisbet, Arno Schilson, Willi Goetschel, Peter Hyng, Karin A. Wurst, Ann Schmiesing, Reinhart Meyer, Hans-Joachim Kertscher, Hinrich C. Seeba, Dieter Fratzke, Helmut Berthold, Herbert Rowland. Barbara Fischer is associateprofessor of German and Thomas C. Fox is professor of German, both at the University of Alabama.