German Literature (german + literature)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Antigone and Cassandra: Gender and Nationalism in German Literature

ORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 2 2000
Isabel Capeloa Gil
Stemming from an understanding of literature as a sub-text of culture, created through the circulation of social energies, this paper will discuss how the reception of the Antigone and Cassandra stories in German literature may help understand the nation-building process, particularly from Bismarck's "Grunderjahre" until 1990. Seen as female models in the Western tradition, Antigone and Cassandra derive their particular role in German literature, especially in the 20th century from the coming together of three factors: a sense of decay in the present which leads to the search for cultural models in the past, more specifically in Greek and Roman Antiquity; the "verspätete Nation" complex leading both to a cosmopolitan outlook on the nationality issue, as well as to an identity-reductive conception further represented by the "völkisch" ideology; and thirdly the ideological and utopian projection of the feminine as the "natural" representative of an alternative and purified existence. Since all identity is constructed across difference, this paper argues that Antigone and Cassandra function as gendered nation-building constructions and will show how in literary terms they were used to support and/or reject nationalist cohesion. [source]


Modern Classics: Reflections on Rammstein in the German Class,

DIE UNTERRICHTSPRAXIS/TEACHING GERMAN, Issue 1 2008
Martina Lüke
The decreasing interest in the study of foreign languages forces us to reconsider and re-evaluate new teaching methods and approaches. Nevertheless, the use of music, in particular modern or pop music, for interdisciplinary studies and students' language skills appears to be still neglected. I claim that the lyrics and music of the popular group Rammstein deal with classical German literature and music and therefore should be added to the curriculum. Based on personal teaching experiences while teaching German for a couple of years at both high-school and university level I will provide insight into some aspects dealing with Rammstein in the classroom. [source]


Der Erzähler als ,Popmoderner Flaneur' in Christian Krachts Roman Faserland

GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 2 2002
Anke S. Biendarra
Faserland (1995) exemplifies a new phenomenon in contemporary German literature. It cleared the way for a younger generation of writers and their description of the formerly marginalised experiences of everyday life, whose narratives focus is on the communication between narrator and reader. Hitherto, discussion of this novel has largely concentrated on its connection with ,pop literature', whilst its literary qualities and conceivable links with (post)modern literature have been ignored. Walter Benjamin's typology of the flâneur is used to illuminate the novel's aesthetic strengths, its narrative voice and textual structure. In taking into account historical developments, the interpretation characterizes the narrator as a ,popmodern flâneur', whose gaze no longer falls upon the metropolis but upon a frayed microcosm of German society. It suggests that the narrative report is a fictitious and imagined journey, which reveals itself as the narrator's failed attempt to ascertain a concept of subjectivity. In a world that presents itself as a Vanity Fair, the narrator's language, which retreats to the empty style of a world of commodities, fails. The poetic project of mastering experiences through narrative is equally unsuccessful. [source]


,A Literature of Substitution': Vicarious Sacrifice in the Writings of Gertrud Von Le Fort

GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 2 2000
Helena M. Saward
Vicarious sacrifice and substitution are among the central ideas to emerge in Gertrud von le Fort's prose and verse after her conversion to Catholicism in 1926. The doctrine plays an important thematic role in her writing, but this article will demonstrate how le Fort incorporates its theological ramifications into her fiction as a means of developing a ,sacramental realism' within which divine grace is shown to be at work. A precedent for this is to be found in many writings from the French literary renouveau catholique, thus a treatment of Paul Claudel's drama L'Annonce faite a` Marie (1910) will elucidate an analysis of le Fort's use of the doctrine of substitution, taking her inner emigration Novelle Die Abberufung der Jungfrau von Barby (1940) as a sample text. An appreciation of the workings of substitution is prerequisite to a reading of le Fort's creative work, particularly during her inner emigration in the Third Reich, and to an assessment of her overall contribution to twentieth-century German literature. [source]


Antigone and Cassandra: Gender and Nationalism in German Literature

ORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 2 2000
Isabel Capeloa Gil
Stemming from an understanding of literature as a sub-text of culture, created through the circulation of social energies, this paper will discuss how the reception of the Antigone and Cassandra stories in German literature may help understand the nation-building process, particularly from Bismarck's "Grunderjahre" until 1990. Seen as female models in the Western tradition, Antigone and Cassandra derive their particular role in German literature, especially in the 20th century from the coming together of three factors: a sense of decay in the present which leads to the search for cultural models in the past, more specifically in Greek and Roman Antiquity; the "verspätete Nation" complex leading both to a cosmopolitan outlook on the nationality issue, as well as to an identity-reductive conception further represented by the "völkisch" ideology; and thirdly the ideological and utopian projection of the feminine as the "natural" representative of an alternative and purified existence. Since all identity is constructed across difference, this paper argues that Antigone and Cassandra function as gendered nation-building constructions and will show how in literary terms they were used to support and/or reject nationalist cohesion. [source]


Das Rezept als literarische Form.

BERICHTE ZUR WISSENSCHAFTSGESCHICHTE, Issue 4 2003
Zum multifunktionalen Gebrauch des Rezepts in der deutschen Literatur
Abstract In the medical writing of antiquity the recipe, a basic form of scientific writing, was considered a literary genre with conventions of its own. In texttype-linguistics, however, the recipe plays only a minor role; in studies on the history of literary short texts it is hardly ever mentioned and, furthermore, it has come to the conclusion that the recipe's function has lain solely in the curing of the sick. The present study focuses on the its multifunctional character. A collection of widely scattered and hardly accessible recipes shows that the recipe adopted functions beyond giving technical directives. Its multifunctionality in the German literature of early modern times is manifest in medical and cooking jocular recipes, cooking recipes in minnesang, mock recipes aimed at physicians and astrologers, recipes of spiritual-religious content, recipes containing art and literary criticism as well as recipes in a moral-satirical or a political-agitative vein. [source]