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Book Synopsis

The Waiting Water addresses one of the most recurrent and troubling motifs in German Realist literaturedeath by drowning. Characters find themselves before bodies of water, presented with the familiar realm above the surface and the unobservable, uncanny domain beneath it. With somber regularity, they then disappear into the depths. Alexander Sorenson explores the role that these hidden deaths in water play within a literary movement that set out precisely to reveal universal truths about human life. The poetics of submergence, he argues, revolve around two concepts fundamental to Poetic Realismorder and sacrifice.

Focusing on texts by Adalbert Stifter, Gottfried Keller, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, and Theodor Storm, along with material from earlier and later epochs, The Waiting Water shows that the pervasive symbolism of drowning scenes in German Realism, which typically occur in zones of narrative invisibility on the social periphery, reveals the

The Waiting Water

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    A Paperback by Alexander Sorenson

    5 in stock

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      Publisher: Cornell University Press
      Publication Date: Publication Date: 9/15/2024
      ISBN13: 9781501777103, 978-1501777103
      ISBN10: 1501777106
      Also in:
      Literature: history and criticism

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      The Waiting Water addresses one of the most recurrent and troubling motifs in German Realist literaturedeath by drowning. Characters find themselves before bodies of water, presented with the familiar realm above the surface and the unobservable, uncanny domain beneath it. With somber regularity, they then disappear into the depths. Alexander Sorenson explores the role that these hidden deaths in water play within a literary movement that set out precisely to reveal universal truths about human life. The poetics of submergence, he argues, revolve around two concepts fundamental to Poetic Realismorder and sacrifice.

      Focusing on texts by Adalbert Stifter, Gottfried Keller, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, and Theodor Storm, along with material from earlier and later epochs, The Waiting Water shows that the pervasive symbolism of drowning scenes in German Realism, which typically occur in zones of narrative invisibility on the social periphery, reveals the

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