This is the first book to describe German literary history up to the unification of Germany in 1990. It takes a fresh look at the main authors and movements, and also asks what Germans in a given period were actually reading and writing, what they would have seen at the local theatre or found in the local lending library; it includes, for example, discussions of literature in Latin as well as in German, eighteenth-century letters and popular novels, Nazi literature and radio plays, and modern Swiss and Austrian literature. A new prominence is given to writing by women. Contributors, all leading scholars in their field, have re-examined standard judgements in writing a history for our own times. The book is designed for the general reader as well as the advanced student: titles and quotations are translated, and there is a comprehensive bibliography.
This is the first book to describe German literary history up to the unification of Germany in 1990. It takes a fresh look at the main authors and movements, and also asks what Germans in a given period were actually reading and writing, what they would have seen at the local theatre or found in the local lending library; it includes, for example, discussions of literature in Latin as well as in German, eighteenth-century letters and popular novels, Nazi literature and radio plays, and modern Swiss and Austrian literature. A new prominence is given to writing by women. Contributors, all leading scholars in their field, have re-examined standard judgements in writing a history for our own times. The book is designed for the general reader as well as the advanced student: titles and quotations are translated, and there is a comprehensive bibliography.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
List of contributors; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. The Carolingian period and the early Middle Ages (750-1100) Brian O. Murdoch; 2. The high and later Middle Ages (1100-1450) Nigel F. Palmer; 3. The early modern period (1450-1720) Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly; 4. The German enlightenment (1720-1790) Ruth-Ellen Boetcher Joeres; 5. Aesthetic humanism (1790-1830) Nicholas Saul; 6. Revolution, resignation, realism (1830-1890) Gail Finney; 7. From naturalism to national socialism (1890-1945) Ritchie Robertson; 8. The literature of the German Democratic Republic (1945-1990) Helen Fehervary; 9. German writing in the West (1945-1990) Moray McGowan; Select bibliography; Index.
