Description
Book SynopsisThis
Festschrift for Ronald Speirs, Professor of German at the University of Birmingham, contains twenty-four original essays by scholars from Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Norway. Between them they encompass the entire modern period from the later eighteenth century onwards, and focus on a wide range of German-speaking environments. Several essays throw new light on authors to whom Professor Speirs himself has devoted particular attention (such as Brecht, Thomas Mann, Nietzsche, and Fontane), whilst others discuss writers such as Lenz, Büchner, Böhlau, C. F. Meyer, Keyserling, Jahnn, and Huch. Above all, however, the contributions address the complexities of writing in ideologically diverse contexts, including the Third Reich and the former German Democratic Republic. This interplay between text and context is the cornerstone which links all the essays, as it has consistently informed Ronald Speirs’s own work – which combines a scrupulous attention to textual detail with an acute awareness of the socio-political milieux and philosophical influences that shape creative literature.
Table of ContentsContents: Rosemary Ashton: Thomas Mann, Thomas Carlyle, and Frederick the Great – Alan Bance: ‘Use Well the Interval’: Thomas Mann’s Essay ‘Der alte Fontane’ and the Topos of Old Age – Michael Butler: Literature and the Politics of Exile: The Case of Bernard von Brentano – Helen Chambers: The Child Bride: Engagements 1890s-style in Fontane, Böhlau, Ebner-Eschenbach, and Huch – Bill Dodd: ‘... dem Kaiser gegeben was des Kaisers ist’: Walter Benjamin’s Reading of Dolf Sternberger’s ‘Tempel der Kunst’ (1937) – Elystan Griffiths/David Hill: Drafting the Self: The Poet as Reformer and Performer in J. M. R. Lenz’s
Berkaer Projekt – Hans H. Hiebel: Zweistimmige Sätze: Büchners
Danton’s Tod – Martin Kane: ‘Er spielt ein so verwickeltes Spiel’ (Wilhelm Liebknecht). Literary Representations of the Association between Ferdinand Lassalle and Otto von Bismarck – John Klapper: Encouragement for the ‘Other Germany’? Stefan Andres’s Publications in the
Krakauer Zeitung 1940-1943 – Tom Kuhn: Three Models of the Poem–Picture Relationship in the Work of Bertolt Brecht – Richard Littlejohns: In the No-man’s-land beyond Biography: Dr Cake, Mozart, and Other Cases – Nicholas Martin: Thomas Mann’s
Mario und der Zauberer: ‘Simply a Story of Human Affairs’ – Jochen Meyer: ‘Man zerlegt den Elefanten, aber man sieht ihn nicht’. Hans Henny Jahnn, Oskar Loerke und ein Debüt – John Osborne: Equivalence, Parallelism, Reflection: Burckhardt, Hodler, and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer between Historicism and Modernism – Rolf Parr: Soziale und naturale Grenzziehungen in Eduard von Keyserlings Roman
Wellen (1911) – Philip Payne/Malcolm Spencer: Approaches to Robert Musil’s
Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß – J. M. Ritchie: Max Zimmering’s
Unfreiwillige Weltreise – Beatrice Sandberg: Schweizer Autoren im Abseits? – Mary E. Stewart: Seeing with New Eyes: Vision and the Short Story in German Naturalism – Martin Swales: Brecht and the Onslaught on Tragedy – Dennis Tate:
Böhme[n] am Meer, ‘Bohemien mit Heimweh’: Franz Fühmann’s Competing Identities and his Tribute to
Tonio Kröger – Wilfried van der Will: Nietzsche and Wagner: The Fate of a Friendship and the Project of Cultural Renewal – Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly: Representations of the Heroic Maiden. Eleonore Prochaska in Nineteenth-Century German Literature – John White/Ann White: Mi-en-leh’s Progeny: Some of Brecht’s Early Theatrical Parables and their Political Contexts.
