830 Literaturen germanischer Sprachen; Deutsche Literatur
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In this contribution I shall be interested, among other things, in finding a place for the European phenomenon of the ›Speculum humanae salvationis‹ within German literary history, which will inescapably involve revisiting the unfashionable discussion of date and origins. I also intend to ask about the place of this text in the ‘didactic’ literature of the Middle Ages. Is a religious text structured according to sacred history didactic? Much didactic poetry is in the vernacular: What does it mean that the ›Speculum‹ was composed in Latin? And what place should be accorded to its vernacular reception? The ›Speculum‹ is inscribed within a set of oppositions that would appear to be recurrent in the didactic literature of the later Middle Ages: Latin and vernacular, verse and prose, words and pictures, religious and profane, moral
teaching and devotion, clerical and lay. In view of its exceptionally broad transmission in the German lands, both in Latin and in vernacular reworkings, is it possible to describe this text so that it takes a place within a larger picture? In some respects it may stand at a threshold in the history of European didacticism.
Research has contended youth is an "invention" of the 18th century. This thesis does not contest the fact that youth was already known and accepted as a stage in life even earlier. Certain basic anthropological patterns of youthfulness, for example nonchalance, instability, recklessness, exaggeration, bashfulness looking forward to the future and the ability to make friends have been rhetorically implied, repeated and cited as a matter of course since the time of Aristoteies. The pointed thesis that the concept of youth only arose in the 18th century accentuates that youth as an autonomous way of life is a characteristic of the Modern Age.
Wozu Dichter?
(2010)
Goethe's Tasso is no "Dichter in duerftiger Zeit." He is rather duerftig himself, unbalanced and impulsive in the extreme. In fact, in an annoyed moment, the diplomat Antonio sees him as a useless and pampered brat and undiplomatically says so, triggering a fateful sequence of events that generate a seemingly unstoppable momentum.
In view of the tremendous success of Victor Klemperer's diaries testimoning his personal experience as a Jew in Nazi Germany, this article discusses the specific contribution of witness literature to the knowledge of history. During the Holocaust period, in the face of death, true historical knowledge was essentially reduced to personal experience. Klemperer's clandestine journal exposes how the collective trauma affected everybody through the daily speech patterns, dictated by the Nazis' appropriation of the German language. In this memory of Alltagsgeschichte as a critical history of language can be seen the specific contribution of Literature of testimony. The function of Klemperers chronicle of 'Lingua Tertii Imperii' to develop the readers linguistic sensitivity, in order to enable them to reappropriate their language.
There are many aspects of Haas' life and experiences in India which deserve greater attention. I would like to refer briefly only to his attempts as a litterateur to come to terms with 'India' as presented in his autobiographical recollection and to some comparative cultural reflections in his essays. Like all reconstructions his autobiographical recollection of India is also a construct in which the site of India as a place of exile is justified by an achieved awareness between conscious individual choice and inevitability. An individual acts out a personal history, the prefiguration of which he only becomes aware of in the form of a subsequent epiphanic realization. Given Haas' literary background, it is not surprising that this is articulated through a literary association.
Through an examination of Joseph Roth’s reportage and fiction published between 1923 and 1932, this thesis seeks to provide a systematic analysis of a particular aspect of the author’s literary style, namely his use of sharply focused visual representations, which are termed Heuristic Visuals. Close textual analysis, supplemented by insights from reader-response theory, psychology, psycholinguistics and sociology illuminate the function of these visual representations. The thesis also seeks to discover whether there are significant differences and correspondences in the use of visual representations between the reportage and fiction genres. Roth believed that writers should be engagiert, and that the truth could only be arrived at through close observation of reality, not subordinated to theory. The research analyses the techniques by which Roth challenges his readers and encourages them to discover the truth for themselves. Three basic variants of Heuristic Visuals are identified, and their use in different contexts, including that of dialectical presentations, is explored. There is evidence of the use of different variants of Heuristic Visuals according to the respective rhetorical demands of particular thematic issues. It has also been possible to establish synchronic correspondences between the different genres, and diachronic correspondences within genres. Although there are examples within the reportage where the entire article is based on an Heuristic Visual, the use of Heuristic Visuals cannot be seen as a key organizing principle in Roth’s work as a whole. As his mastery of the technique reaches its highest point in the early 1930s, Heuristic Visuals are often incorporated into the reconstruction of a complete sensory experience. Analysis of Roth’s heuristic use of visual representations has led to important insights, including a reinterpretation of the endings of Roth’s two most famous novels: Hiob and Radetzkymarsch.
Informed by scholarship on systems of ethnography, on animal studies as well as on German (post)colonialism, this article argues thus principally that Brehm's increasingly popular tales of exotic locales, soon included in high circulation magazines such as "Die Gartenlaube", in the end stand out not so much for their cultural engagement and educational-formative representation of human Otherness and difference. Instead, what makes Brehm's works most remarkable is their simultaneous and until now unnoticed popularization of non-human animals - both exotic and domestic - as part of a discursive formation of 'Germanness' and a European self-understanding. This article highlights in this context the extent in which readers find themselves wondering, given the sheer abundance of animal observations alongside a pervasive absence of humans, whether Brehm's travels constitute a failed foray into ethnography; or whether he intentionally shifted the narrative emphasis from humans to animals in order to strategically stage his explorations as a preparatory text for audiences of his later animals tales. What will ultimately be revealed in place of such seeming opposites is how the modes of perception of a German audience for both Brehm's human and animal subjects were affected through his works by almost interchangeable modes of ethnographic and zoographic representation. As a result, Brehm's works raise central questions about the synchronic and diachronic reception of his views on animals as humans and vice versa, all of which culminated in a distinct sense of superiority shared by Brehm and a receptive German audience. What impact this perception may then have had on ensuing German discourses on race, nation, and colonial expansion will be a final consideration of this article as it looks at Brehm's contemporary relevance in widely publicized events in Germany and the United States.
This paper is part of a broader research project, which involves the Brazilian Portuguese translation, with notes and commentaries, of the 'Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker' (On Music and Musicians) by the German composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856). In such a study, located on the border of language, literature, and music, methodology gains a double significance: firstly, the nature and extent of the incursions through fields which are autonomous in themselves, but connected in the document to be translated, not only requires unity, but also reveals the gaps the translator is exposed to; and secondly, the methodology not only defines the scientific premises of the work, but also brings to light its ethical dimension. With this in mind I have chosen a methodological approach which works in two complementary ways, with the act of translating always being the point of departure and arrival: (1) from the experience of translation and the identification of gaps and problems, followed by the registration of the first notes and comments, through systematic research in connected areas; and (2) the opposite way: from the research in related fields back to the translation and to the editing of notes and comments. Each step of the process is carefully registered, as well as the different versions of the translated text. Allowing methodology to take precedence is therefore an act of self-exposure and defense: on the one hand, it is a means of assuring visibility for the translator; on the other hand, it secures concrete parameters for judgment both by readers and critics.
This study analyses five British translations of Bertolt Brecht's 'Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder'. Two of these translations were written by speakers of German, and three by well-known British playwrights with no knowledge of the source text language. Four have been produced in mainstream British theatres in the past twenty-five years. The study applies translation studies methodology to a textual analysis which focuses on the translation of techniques of linguistic "Verfremdung", as well as linguistic expression of the comedy and of the political dimension in the work. It thus closes the gap in current Brecht research in examining the importance of his idiosyncratic use of language to the translation and reception of his work in the UK. The study assesses the ways in which the translator and director are influenced by Brecht's legacy in the UK and in turn, what image of Brecht they mediate through the production on stage. To this end, the study throws light on the formation of Brecht's problematic reputation in the UK, and it also highlights the social and political circumstances in early twentieth century Germany which prompted Brecht to develop his theory of an epic theatre. The focus on a linguistic examination allows the translator's contribution to the production process to be isolated. Together with an investigation of the reception of each performance text, this in turn facilitates a more accurate assessment of the translator and director's respective influence in the process of transforming a foreign-language text onto a local stage. The analysis also sheds light on the different approaches taken by speakers of German, and playwrights creating an English version from a literal translation. It pinpoints losses in translation and adaptation, and suggests how future versions may avoid these.
Theodor Fontane's representation of monuments in the "Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg"
(2013)
Theodor Fontane was a passionate visitor of historical monuments, and his text "Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg" entail many references to sculptures, obelisks, churches, and museums. Fontane's description of monuments represents a specific view on history, which undermines a teleological perspective on the past. The article shows that Fontane's monuments embody eschatological, allegorical, and arabesque interpretations of the past, which in turn poetizes and de-historizes history.