German Literature Commons^™

Pantomime: The History And Metamorphosis Of A Theatrical Ideology, Karl E. Toepfer

Open Educational Resources

This book offers perhaps the most comprehensive history of pantomime ever written. No other book so thoroughly examines the varieties of pantomimic performance from the early Roman Empire, when the term “pantomime” came into use, until the present. After thoroughly examining the complexities and startlingly imaginative performance strategies of Roman pantomime, the author identifies the peculiar political circumstances that revived and shaped pantomime in France and Austria in the eighteenth century, leading to the Pierrot obsession in the nineteenth century. Modernist aesthetics awakened a huge, highly diverse fascination with pantomime. The book explores an extraordinary variety of modernist and postmodern …

Eine Berühmte Menschliche Beziehung: Charlotte Von Stein Und Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Hans-Wilhelm Kelling

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No abstract provided.

“’To Abuse And Enjoy’: Frankenstein And German Literature”, Carol A. Leibiger

Posters and Presentations

No abstract provided.

An Artist As Soldier: Seeking Refuge In Love And Art, Barbara S. Heisler

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

At the center of this book are the World War II letters (Feldpostbriefe) of a German artist and art teacher to his wife. While Bernhard Epple’s letters to his wife, Gudrun, address many of the topics usually found in war letters (food, lodging conditions, the weather, problems with the mail service, requests for favors from home), they are unusual in two respects. Each letter is lovingly decorated with a drawing and the letters make few references to the war itself. In addition to many personal communications and expressions of love for his wife and children, Epple writes about …

To See For Herself: Maria Sibylla Merian’S Research Journey To Suriname: 1699-1701, Catherine Grimm

Resources

No abstract provided.

Frauen In Der Deutschen Literaturgeschichte: Die Ersten 800 Jahre. Ein Lesebuch, Albrecht Classen

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No abstract provided.

Bekenntnisse Einer Schönen Seele, Von Sich Selbst Geschrieben, Friederike Helene Unger

Resources

No abstract provided.

Neidhart: Selected Songs From The Riedegg Manuscript: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Mgf 1062, Kathryn Starkey, Edith Wenzel

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

The medieval German poet called Neidhart is one of the most important poets of his time. Set in the village among peasant maidens and their boorish male counterparts, Neidhart's satirical songs stand in marked contrast to courtly love song and enrich our understanding of medieval literary culture. This book presents for the first time annotated English translations of a substantial collection of songs attributed to this prolific poet. Its source is the thirteenth-century Riedegg manuscript, the oldest extensive collection of songs attributed to Neidhart. This book presents a representative survey of the songs in order to make this material accessible …

Reconsidering The Emergence Of The Gay Novel In English And German, James P. Wilper

Purdue University Press Books

In Reconsidering the Emergence of the Gay Novel in English and German, James P. Wilper examines a key moment in the development of the modern gay novel by analyzing four novels by German, British, and American writers. Wilper studies how the texts are influenced by and respond and react to four schools of thought regarding male homosexuality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first is legal codes criminalizing sex acts between men and the religious doctrine that informs them. The second is the ancient Greek erotic philosophy, in which a revival of interest took place in the …

Sophie Discovers Amerika : The Digital Companion, Michelle Stott James, Rob Mcfarland

Resources

Dear Readers:

The following collection of texts has been edited by Alec Down as a companion to our anthology of articles titled Sophie Discovers Amerika: German-Speaking Women Write the New World (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2014). Our anthology of articles takes on a fascinating corpus of literature: in their explorations of the Americas over the past 300 years, German-speaking women have written poetry, novels, screenplays, dramas, erotica, and scientific treatises about many different places in the New World, from Brazil to California, from Canada and Mexico to Argentina.

For obvious reasons, we were not able to include the original primary …

Die Deutsche Frau: An Anthology Of German Women's Writing, Alec Down

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With a pressing need for an anthology of women writers in the field of German literature, where women authors have been consistently excluded from the canon (Blackwell 1990), I have selected fifteen texts, which are grammatically and linguistically appropriate for third-year level German classes. I have assessed the selected texts based on their literary quality, the views and ideals depicted and the educational and cultural value that text may have for the student. I have selected a wide range of texts, including short story prose, poetry, dialogued plays, letters and essays, thus providing the reader with an assortment of different …

Ladies, Whores, And Holy Women: A Sourcebook In Courtly, Religious, And Urban Cultures Of Late Medieval Germany, Ann Marie Rasmussen, Sarah Westphal-Wihl

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

This sourcebook presents editions and translations of seven fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts that advance our understanding of gender, sexuality, and class in the late medieval German-speaking world. Three of the translated texts are fiction. Additionally, there is a religious treatise, a religious legend, an inventory of books, and a legal document. While each of these texts is instructive in and of itself, they gain in complexity when brought into dialogue with one another.

Der Welsche Gast (The Italian Guest), Marion Gibbs

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

Friedrich Neumann described Thomasin's Der Welsche Gast as a linguistic phenomenon without comparison within the corpus of German literature of the Hohenstaufen period. In the didactic literature of the time, Der Welsche Gast does indeed occupy a unique position. . . . [It] betrays the heavy hand of the clerical moralist who moves from providing the younger members of his audience with a primer for proper social etiquette in his early verses to a meticulous analysis of what he clearly viewed as the appropriate ethical code for the nobility of his time, often presented against the backdrop of a thundering …

A Voice For Sophie's Daughters, Lisa Ann Jackson Thomson

Resources

In European libraries, students and professors discover works by largely forgotten German women. Then they give the works an audience the authors never imagined. The story and background of Sophie: A Digital library of Works by German-Speaking Women.

‘Die Seele Sehnte Sich Hinaus In Den Schnee’: The Meaning And Function Of Outside Space In Bettine Von Arnim’S Die Günderode, Catherine Grimm

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Bettine von Arnim’s Die Günderode is the second of her autobiographically inspired works of epistolary fiction, based on correspondences and memories of key figures from von Arnim’s youth.i Published in 1840 the text is usually read as an idealized depiction of 19th century female friendship and companionship. Lorely French states, for example, that “recent studies have recognized Die Günderode as the most communicational of Arnim’s four epistolary books”, while Edith Waldstein observes that “such cooperation, mutual respect, reciprocal enrichment and love are characteristic of the relationship between these two women and distinguish it from all other friendships portrayed in Bettine …

Doppelganger, Dreams, And Delusions: A Freudian Reading Of Marie Eugenie Delle Grazie’S Der Schatten, Jared Löhrmann

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Marie Eugenie delle Grazie’s drama Der Schattenpremiered in 1902 in the Hofburgtheater, Vienna’s most prestigious stage at the time. The play deals with the poet Ernst Werner and his encounter with a character called “Der Schatten”. The Shadow is Werner’s double, meaning that it looks like the poet, but it does not have all of the abilities of a human. Although the idea of a double or “Doppelgänger” is ubiquitous in the literature and art of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, delle Grazie approaches the topic from a different angle. Many contemporary columnists, however, criticized her drama; to them it lacked depth …

Not Another Grim(M) Tale: The Rights Of Passage In Marie Von Olfers’ “Little Princess”, Bernadette H. Hyner

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If we accept, as Edward Said suggests, that the terms authorship and authority both emphasize a writer’s capacity to establish an alternative discourse, control, and preserve it, then Marie von Olfers is best remembered as a tale spinner who redrafts conventional gender designations in her fairy tales. Specifically, her narrative “Little Princess,” published in 1862, presents alternative interpretations of female agency and sisterhood, while it also debases traditional concepts of family. Von Olfers’ unusual reading of these topics suggests that she construes family and rites of passage in response, perhaps even in opposition, to her male predecessors’ more traditional approach …

Gender - Art - Science: Elsa Bernstein's Critique Of Naturalist Aesthetics, Astrid Weigert

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Elsa Bernstein (1866-1949) was a successful playwright at the turn of the last century whose works Wir Drei (The Three of Us, 1892), Dammerung (Twilight, 1893) and Maria Arndt (1908) are generally categorized as Naturalist dramas. Of those dramas, Dammerung was the most successful and received critical praise after its performance at the Freie Bühne Berlin, where, under the directorship of Otto Brahms German audiences were introduced to dramas by Ibsen, Hauptmann , and Holz Schlg to name a few of the best-known Naturalist dramatists. My approach to Bernstein's dramas and, for the purpose of this paper, in particular to …

History As Literature, Graeme Dunphy

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

This volume presents excerpts and translations of three thirteenth-century South German verse chronicles: Rudolf von Ems's Weltchronik, the anonymous Christherre-Chronik, and the Weltchronik of Jans Enikel. These three works are close in language, in date, and in conception, yet they also differ significantly, representing the perspectives of three distinct sections of medieval society: courtly, monastic, and urban. The excerpts have been chosen from the beginning of Rudolf's chronicle, the middle of the Christherre-Chronik and the end of Enikel, so that taken together they give something of an impression of the chroniclers' arrangement of material in a continuum from …

Ava's New Testament Narratives: "When The Old Law Passed Away", James A. Rushing Jr.

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

Ava is the first woman whose name we know who wrote in German. She wrote her poem - or poems - on the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ sometime early in the twelfth century, no later than 1127. It seems certain that she was a layperson, and her work reflects a level of learning that raises all sorts of interesting questions about the education of the laity, especially the education of lay woman, and about the nature of authorship in the Middle Ages, generally and particularly in medieval Germany.

The Education Of Women: Ideas And Vignettes, Heather Pitts

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Looking at German girls and women in the eighteenth and even the nineteenth century, we see that most of them received very little formal education. Reading and writing and a basic, broad education were typical. In the higher social classes, girls learned conversational French, social dancing, and enough piano and voice to accompany or sing at parties. Young women were trained to become wives and mothers. For the lower-to middle-class women this meant learning household management and the raising of children, although lower-class women did it all themselves, whereas middle-class women delegated some of the work to servants and oversaw …

Malwina As A Female Heroine, Sharon Stamps

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This story, Die Brunnengäste, was actually an intriguing, entertaining read. I read in anticipation along with the characters who waited to discover the reason for Malwina and Adelbert's secret marriage. Although the resolution of the story didn't match the action-packed movie "thrillers" of today, it satisfied me and was believable. Since I enjoyed the story, there are several things that I can think to write about. As I began the story, Malwina seemed a little like Jutta in Jenseits der Mauer, in the descriptions by others. As it progressed, I found less correlation between the two. I would like to …

Rahel Levin Varnahagen: Harnessing The Ability To Become, Mareena Smith

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Rahel Levin Varnhagen: Influence of a Jewess on German Romanticism. Life is not always a box of chocolates, especially if one is part of a marginalized race, religion or gender. Since all three apply to Rahel Levin Varnhagen, one can easily imply that she did not live an easy life. She was raised as a Jewess in a time when Jews were welcome in society but not yet fully integrated into it. As a woman she was limited to a particular lifestyle as well, and yet she took advantage of her surroundings to make a place for herself in the …

Literary Skinheads? Writing From The Right In Reunified Germany, Jay Julian Rosellini

Purdue University Press Books

"Literary Skinheads? is a very nuanced, meticulously researched and vividly written study of a series of important debates in German literary circles since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rapid political transformations that have accompanied German unification. No other book in the English-speaking world offers such a comprehensive survey of the legacy of radical conservative ideas in German political life. Rosellini not only offers trenchant interpretations of major political controversies of the last decade in Germany, but he also provides the necessary background information needed to make sense of these important public debates." Elliott Neaman, author of …

Sovereignty And Salvation In The Vernacular, 1050-1150: Das Ezzolied, Das Annolied, Die Kaiserchronik, Vv. 247-667, Das Lob Salomons, Historia Judith, James A. Schultz

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

These texts will be of interest because they represent a kind of writing - at the intersection of ecclesiastical and secular power, drawing on the whole range of medieval Latin learning, yet written in vernacular verse - that is not found elsewhere in the European Middle Ages. In addition, they may be of use in teaching since, although relatively short, they illustrate a great number of characteristic medieval ways of writing and can be linked to a number of quite remarkable historical figures.

Casanova's Homecoming [Casanovas Heimkehr], Mark Axelrod

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The Babel Guide to fiction in translation reviews and lists novels and short stories available in English. This chapter discusses Arthur Schnitzler's Casanova's Homecoming.

Aladdin's Problem [Aladins Problem], Mark Axelrod

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The Babel Guide to fiction in translation reviews and lists novels and short stories available in English. This chapter discusses Ernst Jünger's Aladdin's Problem.

Man In The Holocene [Der Mensch Erscheint Im Holozän], Mark Axelrod

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The Babel Guide to fiction in translation reviews and lists novels and short stories available in English. This chapter discusses Max Frisch's Man in the Holocene.

Concrete [Beton], Mark Axelrod

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The Babel Guide to fiction in translation reviews and lists novels and short stories available in English. This chapter discusses Thomas Bernhardt's Concrete.

Im Nonnengarten : An Anthology Of German Women's Writing 1850-1907, Michelle Stott James

Resources

The female-authored stories collected in this anthology originated during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time that witnessed some of the most significant changes ever experienced in European society: the rise of industrialism and the decline of the agrarian state; the decline of the aristocracy; a growing awareness of the plight of the underclasses; the new ideas of thinkers such as Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud, whose theories revolutionized the way humans understood themselves and their relationship to their environment; the beginnings of the Women's Movement and the accompanying gains in mobility, political rights, and educational and professional …