830 Literaturen germanischer Sprachen; Deutsche Literatur
Refine
Year of publication
- 2010 (21) (remove)
Document Type
- Report (15)
- Part of a Book (3)
- Article (2)
- Doctoral Thesis (1)
Language
- English (21) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (21)
Keywords
Institute
- Extern (1)
Rezension zu Rainer Maria Rilke's The Book of Hours. A New Translation with Commentary. Translated by Susan Ranson. Edited with and Introduction and Notes by Ben Hutchinson. Camden House. Rochester New York. 2009. XLIV + 240 S.
The political, the urban, and the cosmopolitan : the 1970s generation in Romanian-German poetry
(2010)
This study is an introduction to the body of work produced by the German poets who were born during or after World War II in Romania and whose almost simultaneous debut lies in the relatively liberal period 1965 – 1971. Helped onto the Romanian-German literary scene by a propitious environment and informed by the socialist ideology they were born “into,” the poets born between 1942 and 1955 formed a remarkable generation unit which sought to significantly renew German-language literature in Romania. Rejecting identification with the insulary Romanian-German communities, the young poets strove to create a socially and politically relevant verse expressing an urban and cosmopolitan attitude. The growing nationalist rhetoric and isolationist stance of Romania's regime and the material and psychological hardships endured by its population through the 1970s and 80s forced the generation to revise its incipient enthusiasm for Romanian socialism. Increasingly, the poets' work came to depict the threatened existence of the German minority and the harsh general living conditions in Romania and to provide an alternative to the absurd official proclamations of a “golden age” under Ceauşescu, despite the poetry's growing reliance on obscuring literary techniques. The emigration of most of the generation members in the mid to late 1980s brought about the eventual unravelling of the generation unit and marks the end of my study. By following the evolution of three themes – social and political engagement, the German minority, and the urban environment – which define the poets as a generation throughout their literary careers in Romania, the analysis illuminates not only the generation's development from identification with Romanian socialism and rejection of the German minority to criticism of the country's policies and a renewed interest in the fate of the German community but also the changing possibilities and limits of literary expression under communism. In addition to providing an introduction to the body of work created by the 1970s generation in Romania, the study also expands the understanding of German literature in the 20th century by providing new material on literature written under totalitarianism and of intercultural German literature.
The three 'Materialienbände' - 'Schnitte'; 'Rom, Blicke'; and 'Erkundungen für die Präzisierung des Gefühls für einen Aufstand' - that Rolf Dieter Brinkmann produced in the early 1970s have, in the last decade, gradually come to be recognized as central statements of a radically new cultural formation. A peculiar feature of this recognition, though, is the relative puzzlement that lingers over the question as to the 'form' of these volumes. That the three objects resist generic classification is by now a truism of the Brinkmann literature; yet even the construction of a cultural field within which the volumes might be compared to other works has remained elusive. The essay that follows, based largely on a reading of 'Rom, Blicke', is an attempt to construct precisely that cultural field.
Herder's concept of a national literature [...] serves as a differential category formulated in opposition to the concepts generated by universalistic rationalism and the Classicist aesthetics which is based on it, this being an aesthetics which is incapable of accommodating cultural difference. Thus Herder's concept is to be read – primarily as one looking for ways of conceiving cultural difference syncronically as well as diachronically.
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 essay examines the differing contexts and modes of encounter with Islamic culture in the travel writing of two contrasting women, the Prussian Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn and the Austrian Maria Schuber: both travelled to and wrote from the Middle East in the 1830s and 1840s and published their letters as collections. The encounters both women had with Islam were conditioned, at least in part, by their respective stance on religion, issues of gender and social class, and by the obligations of patronage and the expectations of distinct readerships. Whilst both women can be seen to write about Islam as a religion and culture defined by its difference to Christianity, both can also be seen in differing ways and to differing extents to represent Islam and Muslims as simultaneously belonging to a universal and inclusive notion of humanity and human religion. Thus, without embracing high philosophical discourse of Kant or Hegel, both women can be seen to demonstrate cosmopolitan impulses towards Islam, although these jostle for ascendancy with a more Eurocentric, Christian and indeed völkisch vision of the relationship between cultures.
Do you know what I think? asks Adrian Leverkuehn. "Musik ist die Zweideutigkeit als System." Music is Janus-faced by its very nature. It can move and paralyze. "What passion cannot music raise and quell," exclaims John Dryden in his Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687. Music is an expert in the use of opiates, asserts Settembrini in The Magic Mountain, and Nietzsche speaks of her dual, intoxicating and befogging, nature. Shakespeare's Desdemona "will sing the savageness out of a bear" (IV, i) and the merchants in Novalis' Heinrich von Ofterdingen tell the story of another Orpheus whose song so charms a sea "monster" that it saves the singer's life and returns his treasure to him. John Dryden's Thimotheus "to his breathing flute and sounding lyre, could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire" (Alexander's Feast, 1697). "Musica Consolatrix" and "Musica Tremenda". She is the "Mysterium tremendum et fascinosum" in Kleist's novella about the power of music. While English late 17th and early 18th century literature offers a particularly rich harvest of poetry celebrating the contradictory qualities, or effects, of music, there is in fact testimony to this at all stages of our tradition.
A single mother and her grown children. A team now. The fathers have come and gone and are barely remembered. These are her children. By contrast, Matthew (27; 56) identifies an anonymous woman as "the mother of Zebedee's children." We'll talk about it, for what it may mean. More important is the fact that this group is headed by a dominant female. Let's see if it makes a difference. Demian, as you'll remember, was the product of matriarchy, as it were, and seemed to be none the worse for it. It wasn't even worth mentioning. Fifty years later, Edgar Wibeau of Plenzdorf's The New Sorrows of Young W. (1972), a modern version of Goethe's bestselling novel Werther written 200 years earlier, and one of the most brilliant pieces of theatre post-Brecht, does find it worth mentioning. He is "sick & tired" of being paraded as living proof that "a single mother can successfully raise a male."
At the beginning of The Judgment, we find Georg Bendemann, who has just finished a letter to his friend in Russia, reliving once more the agonizing decision to write the letter in the first place. The decision had not been easy. Like many of Kafka's characters, Georg Bendemann is obsessed with the idea of analysis, with the painstaking exploration of all sides of a given issue. "What could one write to such a man without hurting him?" had been the question. "On the other hand, by writing only casual gossip or not at all one would doubtless increase the friends isolation" had been the counter-argument. What follows now is an exercise in looking at alternatives that spawn new alternatives that leaves the reader dazzled. Each conclusion is in turn explored to its possible opposite implications, which are in turn qualified, which leads to more questions followed by more partial conclusions plus qualifications thereof. The process could continue ad infinitum, in fact, has gone on for years--we are merely presented with a condensed version of it.
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.