A New History of German Literature » (New Edition)

David E. Wellbery is LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor, University of Chicago.

Judith Ryan is the Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Harvard University.

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht is Albert Guérard Professor of Literature at Stanford University.

Anton Kaes is Chancellor Professor of German and Film Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

Dorothea von Muecke is Professor of German Literature at Columbia University.

The revolutionary spirit that animates the culture of the Germans has been alive for at least twelve centuries, far longer than the dramatically fragmented and reshaped political entity known as Germany. German culture has been central to Europe, and it has contributed the transforming spirit of Lutheran religion, the technology of printing as a medium of democracy, the soulfulness of Romantic philosophy, the structure of higher education, and the tradition of liberal socialism to the essential character of modern American life.

In this book leading scholars and critics capture the spirit of this culture in some 200 original essays on events in German literary history. Rather than offering a single continuous narrative, the entries focus on a particular literary work, an event in the life of an author, a historical moment, a piece of music, a technological invention, even a theatrical or cinematic premiere. Together they give the reader a surprisingly unified sense of what it is that has allowed Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, Luther, Kant, Goethe, Beethoven, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Jelinek, and Sebald to provoke and enchant their readers. From the earliest magical charms and mythical sagas to the brilliance and desolation of 20th-century fiction, poetry, and film, this illuminating reference book invites readers to experience the full range of German literary culture and to investigate for themselves its disparate and unifying themes.

Contributors include: Amy M. Hollywood on medieval women mystics, Jan-Dirk Müller on Gutenberg, Marion Aptroot on the Yiddish Renaissance, Emery Snyder on the Baroque novel, J. B. Schneewind on Natural Law, Maria Tatar on the Grimm brothers, Arthur Danto on Hegel, Reinhold Brinkmann on Schubert, Anthony Grafton on Burckhardt, Stanley Corngold on Freud, Andreas Huyssen on Rilke, Greil Marcus on Dada, Eric Rentschler on Nazi cinema, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl on Hannah Arendt, Gordon A. Craig on Günter Grass, Edward Dimendberg on Holocaust memorials.

Osman Durrani - Times Higher Education Supplement

The table of contents reveals about 250 short chapters, each located in a specific year. This was done to facilitate what Walter Benjamin described as a 'tiger's leap into the past,' in which the singularity of a literary event is decisive while what is typical is left to one side. The consequence is the fracturing of the received canon into a kaleidoscope of magical moments...As an editorial achievement, this volume sets uniformly high and innovative standards.

Introduction
David E. Wellbery

744
The Charm of Charms
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

Circa 800
The Carolingian Renaissance
Karl Maurer

Circa 830
Heroic or Vernacular Poetry?
Theodore M. Andersson

847, October
A Vernacular Gospel Harmony
Wolfgang Haubrichs

930
Old Norse Literature
Carol J. Clover

1027, August
Monastic Scriptoria
Stephan Müller

1074-1119
The Mystical Exposition of a City
Anselm Haverkamp

1147
A Cosmological Vision
Amy M. Hollywood

1150
Anthropology of the Crusades
Udo Friedrich

1157, March 22-31
Imperial Spin Control
Sean Ward

Circa 1170
Phantom Ladies
Eckehard Simon

1172, January
Religious Devotion and Courtly Display
Dieter Kartschoke

Circa 1175-1195
The Archpoet and Goliard Poetry
Sean Ward

1177-1197
A Satire of Courtly Literature
Helmut Puff

1184, Whitsuntide
The Courtly Festival
Horst Wenzel

1189
Hartmann's Poetry
Thomas Bein

Circa 1200
Contagious Violence
Jan-Dirk Müller

Post 1200
A Literary Language?
Orrin W. Robinson

1203, Summer
Salvation through Fiction
James A. Schultz

1203, November 12
Singer of Himself
Peter Gilgen

Circa 1210
Love Exalted
C. Stephen Jaeger

Circa 1230
The Dual Economy of Medieval Life
Peter Strohschneider

1250
World History as Legitimation
Gert Melville

Circa 1260
Spiritual Drama in an Urban Setting
Johannes Janota

Circa 1265
A Vision of Flowing Light
Amy M. Hollywood

1275, January 16
Truth and Fiction
Thomas Bein

1300
Poetry, Teaching, and Experience
Max Grosse

1329, March 27
Mysticism and Scholastic Theology
Rochelle Tobias

1346
Acknowledging the Divine
Niklaus Largier

1354
The Emperor and the Poet
Jeffrey T. Schnapp

1382
The Emergence of Yiddish Literature
Marion Aptroot

Circa 1400
The Culture of the Book
Tracy Adams and Stephen G. Nichols

Circa 1401
A Dialogue with Death
Christian Kiening

1437
The Beginning of Modern Thinking
Joachim Küpper

1442, May
Poetic Transformations of the Self
Wernfried Hofmeister

Circa 1450
Fastnachtsspiele
Eckehard Simon

1457
An Information Revolution
Jan-Dirk Müller

1478
Fortunatus Maps the World and Himself
Debra Prager

1492, November 7
The Ship of Fools
Helmut Puff

1500
A Philosophical Rascal?
Paul Oppenheimer

1500
A New Science of Beauty
Doris Mc Gonagill

1515, Ash Wednesday
A Cobbler-Poet Becomes a Master Author
Marisa Galvez

1515-1517
The Mysteries of the Kabbalah and the Theology of Obscure Men
Anthony Grafton

1522
Martin Luther and the Whole Man
Lisa Freinkel

1523
Luther's Bible and the Emergence of Standard German
Orrin W. Robinson

1537
The Image of the Word
Joseph Leo Koerner

1551
Make Poetry, Not War
Jan Ziolkowski

1557
A German Mamluk in Colonial Brazil?
Luciana Villas Bôas

1570
Ethical Utopianism and Stylistic Excess
Niklaus Largierand Karen Feldman

1594
Highlight of the Yiddish Renaissance
Marion Aptroot

1596, December 18
To Explore the Secrets of Heaven and Earth
Dorothea E. von Mücke

1600
Signatures of Divinity
Michel Chaouli

1609
Jesuit Theater and the Blindness of Self-Knowledge
Christopher J. Wild

1622-1624
Conversation, Poetic Form, and the State
Rüdiger Campe

1638
Sense and Intellect
Richard E. Schade

1647
The Dramaturgy of Travel
Elio Brancaforte

1647
Anatomy and Theology, Vanity and Redemption
Christopher J. Wild

1657-1686
Poems as Way-Signs
Emery Snyder

1662
Learning and News in the Baroque
Emery Snyder

1666, February
"Commit your way to the Lord"
Dorothea E. von Mücke

1670
Hermaphroditism and the Battle of the Sexes
Klaus Haberkamm

1670
"The Entirety of Scripture Is within Us"
Dorothea E.von Mücke

1670
Natural Law
J. B. Schneewind

1689-1690
The Baroque Novel and the Romance Tradition
Emery Snyder

1690
Life's Balance Sheet
Jeremy Dauber

1710
"The Case of God Defended"
Haun Saussy

1729
A Scientist and Poet
Helmut Müller-Sievers

1735
Aesthetic Orientation in a Decentered World
Jochen Schulte-Sasse

1750
Reading for Feeling
Klaus Weimar

1758
Questioning the Enlightenment
Carol Jacobs

1765, February 8
"Educating Paper Girls" and Regulating Private Life
Chris Cullens

1767
A Woman's Design on Soldiers' Fortune
Helmut J. Schneider

1768, June 8
Becoming Greek
Suzanne L. Marchand

1773, July 2
Wieland's Cosmopolitan Classicism
Walter Hinderer

1774, January-March
Pathologies of Literature
David E. Wellbery

1775
Taking Individualism at Face Value
Fritz Gutbrodt

1778, February
The Confusions of Genre
Andreas Huyssen

1781, 1810
From Enlightenment Universalism to Romantic Individuality
James A. Steintrager

1782
Anton Reiser, Case History, and the Emergence of Empirical Psychology
Andreas Gailus

1784, October 12
The Universal and the Particular
Hansjakob Werlen

1785, August
The Limits of Enlightenment
Frederick Beiser

1786, September 3
Self-Censorship and Priapic Inspiration
Hans Rudolf Vaget

1788
A Snapshot of Civil Society
Isabel V. Hull

1789, June 2
The Disciplines of Attention
Lorraine Daston

1790
The Experience of Freedom
Paul Guyer

1791, September 30
Beyond Language
Karol Berger

1792
Identity and Community

1792, August 26
An Aesthetic Revolution
Klaus L. Berghahn

1796, April
The "German" Shakespeare
Michael Eskin

1796, 10 June
An Alien Fallen from the Moon
Paul Fleming

1796-1797
A New Program for the Aesthetic Education of Mankind?
Eckart Förster

1799, June
Holistic Vision and Colonial Critique
Luiz Costa Lima

1800
Intimations of Mortality
Michel Chaouli

1800, January
The Emergence of Literary History and Criticism
Bianca Theisen

1804
The Night of Imagination
Elizabeth Bronfen

1804, May 18
The Subject and Object of Mythology
Kelly Barry

1805, Summer
Homer between Poets and Philologists
Glenn W. Most

1806
Die Hermannsschlachtand the Concept of Guerrilla Warfare
Wolf Kittler

1808
Poetic Revolution
Rainer Nägele

1815
Folklore and Cultural Identity
Maria Tatar

1818
The Occult, the Fantastic, and the Limits of Rationality
Dorothea E.von Mücke

1824, October 2
Heine's Versatility
Susan Bernstein

1826, November 30
Art between Muse and Marketplace
Cordula Grewe

1828, Winter
Hegel's End-of-Art Thesis
Arthur C. Danto

1828, November
Schubert's Political Landscape
Reinhold Brinkmann

1831, July 21
Faust and the Dialectic of Modernity
David E. Wellbery

1833
Writing between Genres and Discourses
Barbara Hahn

1834
Viennese Biedermeier
Hinrich C. Seeba

1835
The Guillotine as Hero
Harro Müller

1835, December 10
Emancipation and Critique
Peter Uwe Hohendahl

1837, August 4
Crimes of Probability
Anette Schwarz

1848, February
The Reinvention of a Genre
Hans Martin Puchner

1848, September 12
Marginality and Melancholia
Chris Cullens

1848, October 11
Tales of a Collector
Eva Geulen

1853
Aesthetic Salvation
David E. Wellbery

1855
German-American Literary Relations
Werner Sollors

1860
A Model for Cultural History
Anthony Grafton

1865, Summer
Unruly Children
Anthony Krupp

1867
Intimations of Mortality
Kenneth S. Calhoon

1876, August 17
Wanting Art
David J. Levin

1882, August 26
Nietzsche and Modernity
Robert B. Pippin

1888, June
Germany's Heart of Darkness
Judith Ryan

1895
Apparitions of Time
Kenneth S. Calhoon

1897
Stefan George and Symbolism
Robert E. Norton

1899, August 6
The Dream as Symbolic Form
Stanley Corngold

1902, October 18-19
The Limits of Language
Reingard Nethersole

1905
Eroticism and the Femme Fatale
Maria Tatar

1906
An Alpine Vegetarian Utopia
Peter Wollen

1910, January 27
Urban Experience and the Modernist Dream of a New Language
Andreas Huyssen

1911, January 25
The Agency of the Past
Thomas S. Grey

1912, March
Provocation and Parataxis
Mark W. Roche

1912, June
The Lasciviousness of Ruin
Clayton Koelb

1912, July-October
An Optics of Fragmentation
Charles W. Haxthausen

1912, September
Kafka's Narrative Breakthrough
Judith Ryan

1913, October
The New Thinking
Eric L. Santner

1914, July
Ecstatic Release from Personality
Stanley Corngold

1916, February 5
"The Jingling Carnival Goes Right Out Into the Street"
Greil Marcus

1918, November
War and the Press
Leo A. Lensing

1921, April
Cinema and Expressionism
Anton Kaes

1922, February
Modernism and Mourning
Judith Ryan

1922, July 23
Lion Feuchtwanger's Jud Süss
Mark M. Anderson

1923, Spring
Photography, Typography, and the Modernization of Reading
Brigid Doherty

1924, October
Modernism and Hysteria
Elisabeth Bronfen

1927
The Limits of Historicism
Hans Sluga

1927, March
The Task of the Flâneur
John T. Hamilton

1927, June
The Lesson of the Magic Theater
Janet Ward

1928, August 31
The Urform of Opera
Stephen Hinton

1929, October
Narration and the City
David Dollenmayer

1929, Autumn
A Modernist Thought-Experiment
Burton Pike

1931, January
Irmgard Keun and the "New Woman"
Barbara Kosta

1932
Politics, Technology, and History
Hans Sluga

1935, March
Hitler's Imagined Community
Eric Rentschler

1936, February 27
The Machine Takes Command
Lindsay Waters

1936, May 1
Germans Reading Hitler
Peter Fritzsche

1937, June 30
Spectacle of Denigration
Peter Nisbet

1939, September
The Problem of "Inner Emigration"
Elliot Y. Neaman

1940, Summer
Crisis and Transition
Gertraud Gutzmann

1942-43, Winter
Origins of Totalitarianism
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl

1943, May 23
A Musical Prefiguration of History
Hans Rudolf Vaget

1946, April
Guilt and Atonement
Robert C. Holub

1946/1947
Intellectuals under Hitler
Karlheinz Barck

1947
Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
Andrew Hewitt

1949
History, Evidence, Gesture
Rainer Nägele

1949, October 7
Socialist Realism as Heroic Antifascism
Julia Hell

1952, Spring
Making History Visible
Jennifer M. Kapczynski

1952, Autumn
Poetry after Auschwitz
Stéphane Moses

1953, March 26
Coming to Terms with the Past
Bernhard Siegert

1953, April
A Ladder Turns into a Fly-bottle
James Conant

1958
Politics and Literature
Gordon A. Craig

1962, February
From a Tragedy of Physics to a Physics of Tragedy
Geoffrey Winthrop-Young

1963
Love as Fascism
Mark M. Anderson

1964, April 29
Dramaturgies of Liberation
Rob Burns

1967, June 2
Transformations of the Literary Institution
David Roberts

1968, August 21
Utopian Hopes and Traces of the Past
Julia Hell

1976, November
The Politics of Poetry
David Bathrick

1977, October
Intellectuals and the Failed Revolution
Arlene A. Teraoka

1979
Migrants and Muses
Leslie A. Adelson

1979
The Enigma of Arrival
David Roberts

1981, December 10
The Homecoming of a "Good European"
Maria Louise Ascher

1983
Critique of Violence
Beatrice Hanssen

1983, October 5-25
Anniversaries and the Revival of Storytelling
Jochen Hörisch

1984, September
Homeland and Holocaust
Eric Rentschler

1986, Summer
Democracy and Discourse
Robert C. Holub

1989, February
Remembrance as Provocation
Bianca Theisen

1989, November 9
A Republic of Voids
Edward Dimendberg

1999
The Skull beneath the Skin
Judith Ryan

2000
Spectaclesof Multiculturalism
Deniz Göktürk

2001, December 15
Gray Zones of Remembrance
Andreas Huyssen

Contributors

Index