Completed shortly before Professor Stern's death in 1991, this book studies works by twelve major writers of German modernism, including Thomas Mann, Musil, Brecht and Rilke, in relation to the history of the twentieth century. It explores the theme of the "dear purchase," an ideal of moral strenuousness and sacrifice seen as characteristic of Germany after Nietzsche, and reveals the underlying flaw in this notion as a self-justifying value. Finally, it juxtaposes Mann's Felix Krull and Kafka's story "Josephine" as a deliverance from the value-system of the title.
Completed shortly before Professor Stern's death in 1991, this book studies works by twelve major writers of German modernism, including Thomas Mann, ...
Although the importance of the interplay of literature and philosophy in Germany has often been examined within individual works or groups of works by particular authors, little research has been undertaken into the broader dialogue of German literature and philosophy as a whole. This study offers six chapters by leading specialists on the dialogue between German literary writers and philosophers through their works.
Although the importance of the interplay of literature and philosophy in Germany has often been examined within individual works or groups of works by...
The Bildungsroman--the story of the development or formation of a young man--is the most famous German contribution to the European novel. In this study Michael Minden offers detailed readings of some of the best-known novels in the German language, from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre to Mann's Der Zauberberg. Taking account of contemporary literary theory, Minden uncovers aspects and motifs that subvert traditional ideas of the Bildungsroman, and raise questions about the function and status of literature.
The Bildungsroman--the story of the development or formation of a young man--is the most famous German contribution to the European novel. In this stu...
Bertolt Brecht, one of the most influential European playwrights of the twentieth century, was also a poet of distinction. This volume is the first comprehensive study devoted to his most important collection of political poetry, the Svendborg Poems. The contributors analyze Brecht's work critically and historically, discussing it in relation to questions of poetics, political commitment, exile, propaganda, rhetoric, and the scope and limitations of political poetry. Links are also drawn with the work of German, Soviet and English poets of the period, and with later German poets.
Bertolt Brecht, one of the most influential European playwrights of the twentieth century, was also a poet of distinction. This volume is the first co...
This book focuses on Hugo von Hofmannsthal's intense, lifelong concentration upon a single cohesive set of poetic, philosophical and ethical concerns, a quality of his work which has been neglected in the bulk of existing scholarship. Professor Bennett examines Hofmannsthal's work in the context of literary theory and the history of philosophy, referring especially to Nietzsche, German Idealism and the poetics of German Classicism. He identifies three principal areas of concern to Hofmannsthal: the theory of genre, the question of the role of literature in society and the search for a...
This book focuses on Hugo von Hofmannsthal's intense, lifelong concentration upon a single cohesive set of poetic, philosophical and ethical concerns,...
The beginnings of psychology are usually dated from experimental psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis in the late-nineteenth century. Yet the period from 1700 to 1840 produced some highly sophisticated psychological theorising that became central to German intellectual and cultural life, well in advance of similar developments in the English-speaking world. Matthew Bell explores how this happened, by analysing the expressions of psychological theory in Goethe's Faust, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and in the works of Lessing, Schiller, Kleist and E. T. A. Hoffmann. This study pays special...
The beginnings of psychology are usually dated from experimental psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis in the late-nineteenth century. Yet the period...
Inventing Our Selves proposes a radical new approach to the analysis of our current regime of the self, and the values of autonomy, identity, individuality, liberty and choice that animate it. It argues that psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy and other "psy" disciplines have played a key role in "inventing our selves," changing the ways in which human beings understand and act upon themselves, and how they are acted upon by politicians, managers, doctors, therapists and a multitude of other authorities. These mutations are intrinsically linked to recent changes in ways of understanding and...
Inventing Our Selves proposes a radical new approach to the analysis of our current regime of the self, and the values of autonomy, identity, individu...
