Description
Book SynopsisMelancholy has become a central theme of German literature since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The rapidly changing sociopolitical circumstances of the post-1989 period and the continued burden of the Nazi past have directly contributed to this upsurge in melancholy themes. This book traces the complex discourse of melancholy in contemporary literature in the work of Monika Maron, Christoph Hein, Arno Geiger and Alois Hotschnig. Focusing on key concepts of melancholy – time, transience, historical dislocation and
posthistoire – the author’s readings reveal the close connection between the body and melancholy from ageing to our gendered relationships with history. This study also emphasizes the relevance of melancholy for current theoretical issues in German Studies, including Heimat discourse, genealogy and transgenerational memory, and postmemory.
Trade Review«Anna O'Driscoll reveals her talent for evoking the melancholy dead zones of the Austro-German literary landscape in her study
Constructions of Melancholy in Contemporary German and Austrian Literature.»
C.E.Findley, Journal of Austrian Studies 49:1-2)
Table of ContentsContents: Melancholy subjectivity in Monika Maron’s
Endmoränen and
Ach Glück –
Endmoränen as a neo-Romantic representation of melancholy – Christoph Hein’s
Frau Paula Trousseau: Art as refuge in the GDR – Divergent conceptions of male and female melancholy in
Frau Paula Trousseau – Arno Geiger’s
Es geht uns gut: A
posthistoire Narrative? – A transgenerational perspective on melancholy loss in
Es geht uns gut – Alois Hotschnig’s
Ludwigs Zimmer: Evidence of a pre-psychological melancholy paradigm – Manifestation of classical humoral theories as well as a Baroque sensibility in Hotschnig’s
Ludwigs Zimmer.
