Osman Durrani

This title provides an exploration of the way Faust has achieved iconic status in modern culture by examining in his image in literature, theatre, film, art.

Icon of Modern Culture

Faust

"This book examines four pivotal works by leading twentieth-century German novelists to reveal the intimate connections between literary fiction and social reality. The moral and political disorientation of Alfred Doblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz, the cultural sterility and stifling bureaucracy of Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, the paralysing effect of a nation's past in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, and the latent violence underpinning Gunter Grass's controversial study of the sexes in The Flounder: each text contains a wealth of material on the social, intellectual and moral climate in Germany at the time of writing, and places uncomfortable home truths before the modern reader."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Images of the German Nation in the Modern Novel

Fictions of Germany

Julian Preece

Reisende durch Zeit und Raum

Most of the chapters in this volume were delivered as papers at a conference on the same theme held at the University of Kent in April 2002. The essays collected here, by scholars from the UK, Ireland, Germany, and the US, address a topic of fundamental concern across all the disciplines engaged with the study of contemporary Germany: the evolving relationship between urban and rural space, the metropolitan centre and the provincial Heimat. The volume identifies and investigates a number of recent trends: the emergence of 'eco-literature', the renaissance of writing - in prose and verse - inspired by the new Berlin, the realignment of regional sensibilities, which is complicated by the troubled tradition of Heimat in all its literary manifestations, and the continuing disjunctions between East and West. Individual essays engage with the work of established writers (Günter de Bruyn, Hubert Fichte, Peter Handke, WG Sebald, Siegfried Lenz, Martin Walser, and Elfriede Jelinek) and emerging talents (Georg Klein, Christof Hamann, Ludwig Laher, and Arnold Stadler).

Cityscapes and Countryside in Contemporary German Literature

The German Historical Novel / Der Deutschsprachige Historische Roman

Travellers in Time and Space / Reisende Durch Zeit Und Raum

Ingo Cornils

In November 2002, an international conference was held at the Institute of Germanic Studies in London in order to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Hermann Hesse's birth. Twenty distinguished speakers from North and South America, Russia, Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom attended the three-day conference with the specific aim of exploring the continuing importance of this widely read German-language author. This volume brings together the various responses to the complex challenge that Hesse, whose sheer success is sometimes seen as detracting from his status, presents to literary scholarship around the world. The author's current image among readers and scholars is approached from several distinct thematic and theoretical perspectives, with the objective of providing a concise overview of current research. The volume offers new readings of a number of Hesse's seminal works and makes a significant contribution to academic research into his past and present standing as a global icon. As the title suggests, the focus is on 'Hermann Hesse Today'. The book investigates his current significance for a modern readership, taking account of his importance in the lecture theatre and classroom, the multi-facetted applicability of his moral, ethical and aesthetic concerns in the context of a fragmented world, and the continuing relevance of his writings. With the ever-increasing importance of modern preoccupations such as the ecological movement or the growth of the internet, a fresh look at Hesse's works is long overdue. The most obvious sign of this is the appearance of a definitive, historical-critical edition of his works (prose, poetry, and literary criticism), which will give access to much hitherto unpublished material and stimulate fresh debates on an author who ranks among the best-known and most influential figures of the twentieth century. This volume will be of interest to teachers of German in higher education and their students as well as researchers and the general readership that continues to take an interest in Hesse on both sides of the Atlantic.

Osman Durrani

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