Famous German Novellas Of The 19th Century

Theodor Storm: Immensee / Adelbert von Chamisso: Peter Schlemihl / Adalbert Stifter: Brigitta ---Theodor Storm (1817 - 88), poet and short-story writer, was born in Schleswig... As early as 1843 he had made himself known as a lyrical poet of the Romantic School, ...but he wrote nothing that excels, in depth and tenderness of feeling, the charming story of Immensee; and taking his work all in all, Storm still ranks today as a master of the short story in Ger-man literature, rich though it is in this form of prose-fiction. (C. W. Bell) --- Peter Schlemihl, one of the pleasantest fancies of the days when Germany delighted in romance, was first published in 1814. The story is a poet's whim. Later writings of Chamisso (1781-1838) proved him to be one of the best lyric poets of the romance school of his time, entirely German in his tone of thought. (Henry Morley) --- Brigitta is usually regarded as an early example of German realism and written by probably the most accomplished Austrian prose writer of the nineteenth century, Adalbert Stifter (1805 - 68)..., an illustration of Stifter's didactic con-cern with inner beauty in contrast to outward appearances... Stifter instructs us in more than inner beauty by demonstrating for us - perhaps unwittingly - that the preferred and positive values of the civilized world are always already informed by their antinomies. (Robert C. Holub in: Brigitta, or the Lesson of Realism)

Georg Lukács was one of the most controversial Marxist philosophers of this century. In this book, however, he appears in another guise: as a literary historian in the tradition of Sainte-Beuve and Belinsky, offering an advanced introduction to one of the richest periods of European literature. These previously untranslated essays - on Heinrich von Kleist, Joseph Eichendorff, Georg Büchner, Heinrich Heine, Gottfried Keller, Wilhelm Raabe, and Theodor Fontane - were written between 1936 and 1950. They illuminate Lukács's enduring love of German literature and his faith in the humanist tradition. In all of them, moreover, he can be seen actively intervening in the cultural debates of the time - on the role of literature, on the literary tradition in society, and on the relationship between literature and politics. Although his defense of realism against the crudities of socialist realism is implicit throughout these essays, Lukács's main purpose was to illuminate the intellectual, historical, and literary context in which these great writers worked, to attain a fuller understanding of what they wrote, and also to settle accounts with contemporary German critics who were attempting to create a fascist pantheon.

New essays providing an overview of the major movements, genres, and authors of 19th-century German literature in social and political context. This volume provides an overview of the major movements, genres, and authors of 19th-century German literature in the period from the death of Goethe in 1832 to the publication of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams in 1899. Although the primary focus is on imaginative literature and its genres, there is also substantial discussion of related topics, including music-drama, philosophy, and the social sciences. Literature is considered in its cultural and socio-political context, and the German literary scene takes its place in a wider European perspective. Following the editors' introduction, essays consider the impact of Romanticism on subsequent literary movements, the effectsof major movements and writers of non-German-speaking Europe on the development of German literature, and the impact of politics on the changing cultural scene. The second section presents overviews of the principal movements ofthe time (Junges Deutschland, Vormärz, Biedermeier, Poetic Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, and Impressionism), and the third section focuses on the major genres of lyric poetry, prose fiction, drama, and music-drama. The final section provides bibliographical resources in the form of a critical bibliography and a list of primary sources. Contributors to the volume are distinguished scholars of German literature, culture, and history from North America andEurope: Andrew Webber, Lilian Furst, Arne Koch, Robert Holub, Gail Finney, Ernst Grabovszki, Benjamin Bennett, Jeffrey Sammons, Thomas Pfau, Christopher Morris, John Pizer, Thomas Spencer. Clayton Koelb is Guy B. Johnson Distinguished Professor of German at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Eric Downing is Associate Professor of German at the same institution.

A much-needed look at the fiction that was actually read by masses of Germans in the late nineteenth century, and the conditions of its publication and reception. The late nineteenth century was a crucial period for the development of German fiction. Political unification and industrialization were accompanied by the rise of a mass market for German literature, and with it the beginnings ofthe German bestseller.Offering escape, romance, or adventure, as well as insights into the modern world, nineteenth-century bestsellers often captured the imagination of readers well into the twentieth century and beyond. However, many have been neglected by scholars. This volume offers new readings of literary realism by focusing not on the accepted intellectual canon but on commercially successful fiction in its material and social contexts. It investigates bestsellers from writers such as Freytag, Dahn, Jensen, Raabe, Viebig, Stifter, Auerbach, Storm, Möllhausen, Marlitt, Suttner, and Thomas Mann. The contributions examine the aesthetic strategies that made the works sucha success, and writers' attempts to appeal simultaneously on different levels to different readers. Bestselling writers often sought to accommodate the expectations of publishers and the marketplace, while preserving some sense ofartistic integrity. This volume sheds light on the important effect of the mass market on the writing not just of popular works, but of German prose fiction on all levels. Contributors: Christiane Arndt, Caroline Bland, Elizabeth Boa, Anita Bunyan, Katrin Kohl, Todd Kontje, Peter C. Pfeiffer, Nicholas Saul, Benedict Schofield, Ernest Schonfield, Martin Swales, Charlotte Woodford. Charlotte Woodford is Lecturer in German and Directorof Studies in Modern Languages at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Benedict Schofield is Senior Lecturer in German and Head of the Department of German at King's College London.

"The Lady with the Toy Dog," "Goussiev" and other famous tales by Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). -- Time's revenges or the irony of satisfied desires are treated in "The Lady with the Toy Dog." Yet one cannot say that Chekhov himself is "disillusioned." His sense of spiritual beauty is too strong; and his depth of acceptation of life's pattern forms an aura enveloping his subject. This spiritual aura hovers about it and enwraps the gloomiest, greyest, most sardonic facts of life; death itself cannot diminish it. Examine "Goussiev," a sketch of the death of two worn-out soldiers on board a steamer, when returning from the East, a sketch that is so "modern" in its all-embracing outlook and bold acceptations as to shame nearly all our writers of today. It is so humanly broad, so tender, so infallibly true in its spiritual lightings, and it conveys the mystery of nature and all its transitory processes with sharp precision.

"What we find in the insane asylum of 'God's Beloved' are strange human communities, presented in the characteristic atmosphere of their milieu. Kellermann was a seeker after new forms of expression for psychical reaction; but he presented himself as a pure nature of great delicacy and lucidity." (Kuno Francke)

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (1825-1898) was a poet and novelist, born in Zürich, Switzerland. Meyer was preeminently the artist among German novelists; his style is polished and finely balanced; his scenes are delineated with infinite care, and his subjects always have a certain inner harmony with the spirit of the author's own time. In "The Monk's Marriage" Meyer reached the highest development of the "frame-story." It has been universally admired for the genius and audacity of its invention, for its artistic elaboration, and for the wonderful pen-portrait of Dante, "the wanderer through Hell," whose personality dominates the whole story as he narrates it. This introduction of Dante was a bold stroke, justified only by success. The plot of the tale itself is based upon an account (in Machiavelli's "History of Florence") of a family feud which began the bitter factional strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines in Florence. The frame is a masterpiece, generally more admired than the story. The tale is characteristically Italian, with its sudden changes of fortune, the breathless development of the plot, the volcanic outburst of passion. The plot, one of the few in Meyer's works in which love is the dominant note, is well developed and told with consummate art. The language is noticeable for its stately dignity, such as befits the character of the narrator, the great Dante. The story has one of "those murderous finales which are Meyer's delight," as Gottfried Keller once wrote to Theodor Storm. And yet, The "Monk's Marriage" ranks as one of the best, if not the best, of Meyer's Novellen.

Franz Grillparzer (1791 - 1872) was an Austrian dramatic poet. "The Jewess of Toledo" may perhaps be said to mark the climax of his productive activity. Written in 1851, it was first performed in Prague in 1872, after Grillparzer's death. It is an eminently modern drama of passion in classical dignity of form. The play is properly called "The Jewess of Toledo"; for Rachel, the Jewess, is at the centre of the action, and is a marvelous creation – "a mere woman, nothing but her sex". The King of Castile, however, though relatively passive, is the most important character. He is attracted to Rachel by a charm that he has never known in his coldly virtuous English consort, and, after an error forgivable because made comprehensible, is taught the duty of personal sacrifice to morality and to the state.