New, specially commissioned essays on representative works of 19th-century German realism.
This volume of new essays by leading scholars treats a representative sampling of German realist prose from the period 1848 to 1900, the period of its dominance of the German literary landscape. It includes essays on familiar, canonical authors -- Stifter, Freytag, Raabe, Fontane, Thomas Mann -- and canonical texts, but also considers writers frequently omitted from traditional literary histories, such as Luise Mühlbach, Friedrich Spielhagen, Louise von François, Karl May, and Eugenie Marlitt. The introduction situates German realism in the context of both German literary history and of developments in other European literatures, and surveys the most prominent critical studies of ninteenth-century realism. The essays treat the following topics: Stifter's Brigitta and the lesson of realism; Mühlbach, Ranke, and the truth of historical fiction; regional histories as national history in Freytag's DieAhnen; gender and nation in Louise von François's historical fiction; theory, reputation, and the career of Friedrich Spielhagen; Wilhelm Raabe and the German colonial experience; the poetics of work in Freytag, Stifter, andRaabe; Jewish identity in Berthold Auerbach's novels; Eugenie Marlitt's narratives of virtuous desire; the appeal of Karl May in the Wilhelmine Empire; Thomas Mann's portrayal of male-male desire in his early short fiction; and Fontane's Effi Briest and the end of realism.
Contributors: Robert C. Holub, Brent O. Petersen, Lynne Tatlock, Thomas C. Fox, Jeffrey L. Sammons, John Pizer, Hans J. Rindisbacher, Irene S. Di Maio, Kirsten Belgum,Nina Berman, Robert Tobin, Russell A. Berman.
Todd Kontje is Professor of German at the University of California, San Diego.
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 9781571134455
Number of pages: 420
Weight: 630 g
Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm
This outstanding collection of essays on the writing of this period provides an excellent overview of this great age of fiction. The contributors are among the very best of German literary critics.... - CHOICE
The volume's contribution in documenting current scholarly trends in a field that, according to Kontje, suffers from a 'bad reputation,' is great: it opens new windows onto neglected areas of consideration. - GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW
...notable for its welcome focus on national identity and on marginalized voices... - GERMAN QUARTERLY
These essays are all excellent studies that should stimulate renewed interest in 19th-century German realism. - MONATSHEFTE
Major figures of realism are treated - Stifter, Freytag, Raabe and Fontane - but also lesser-known names such as Mühlbach, Louise von Francois, Spielhagen, Auerbach, and even Karl May, author of Winnetou, in connection with German emigration to the United States.... - ETUDES GERMANIQUES
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