J. P. Stern - Böcker

Originally published in 1971, this book outlines the period of Germany’s belated industrial revolution and suggests why German literature does not, before the 1880s, contribute to the tradition of European realism. It considers the alternatives to realism offered in three genres of drama, poetry and prose fiction. The book closely analyses specific texts, both in the original and in translation, with comparisons with non-German works.

Originally published in 1971, this book outlines the period of Germany’s belated industrial revolution and suggests why German literature does not, before the 1880s, contribute to the tradition of European realism. It considers the alternatives to realism offered in three genres of drama, poetry and prose fiction. The book closely analyses specific texts, both in the original and in translation, with comparisons with non-German works.

First published in 1973, On Realism is a comprehensive introduction to the complex problem of literary realism. Written from both a critical and philosophical perspective, the book brings together the concrete study of literary cases and the conceptual analysis of the terms used in describing them. It uses examples drawn from a wide range of European literature and engages in philosophical discussion to argue for a richer and freer sense of the concept than was more commonly in favour at the time of writing. The book describes the literary forms of realism as an art of the 'middle distance' and sets out its character and value against alternatives and distortions - symbolism, naturalism, socialist realism, faits divers, and the literature of language consciousness. On Realism will appeal to those with an interest in literary history, the history of literary theory, and literature and philosophy.

First published in 1973, On Realism is a comprehensive introduction to the complex problem of literary realism. Written from both a critical and philosophical perspective, the book brings together the concrete study of literary cases and the conceptual analysis of the terms used in describing them. It uses examples drawn from a wide range of European literature and engages in philosophical discussion to argue for a richer and freer sense of the concept than was more commonly in favour at the time of writing. The book describes the literary forms of realism as an art of the 'middle distance' and sets out its character and value against alternatives and distortions - symbolism, naturalism, socialist realism, faits divers, and the literature of language consciousness. On Realism will appeal to those with an interest in literary history, the history of literary theory, and literature and philosophy.

Professor Stern seeks to expose the roots of the Hitler myth. He performs thoroughly and brilliantly the examination that Kenneth Burke saw as a crying need on the brink of World War II. The questions Professor Stern asks are fundamental and still of the first importance in our own society. How could a predominantly sober, hardworking, and well-educated nation be persuaded to follow Hitler and his inhuman and destructuve program? What was the source of his immense popularity? Why were his public utterances so powerfully persuasive? What were the shared assumptions behind 'The Final Solution,' Operation Barbarossa, 'The Night of the Long Knives'? Professor Stern has done a pioneering study of the rhetoric of Nazism, a rhetoric that coupled words and action. He examines the speeches, writings, and conversations of Hitler and places them in the context of traditional beliefs of the society into which Hitler, the 'ideal outsider,' made his way. With terrifying logic his career emerges as the creation of a man who translated the private sphere of sentiment into the public sphere of political action, the will to power into a weapon of mass hypnosis.

This book studies individual 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. In this context, it considers the renaissance of German poetry after 1900, the impact of the War of 1914, its aftermath in uncertainty and relativism, and attitudes to the Hitler period, and finally juxtaposes Mann's Felix Krull and Kafka's story Josephine as a deliverance from the value-system of the title. The Introduction, partly autobiographical, traces J. P. Stern's preoccupation with this interpretation of his material in many of the books he published (especially those concerned with Nietzsche and Hitler), and pays tribute to Wittgenstein's influence on his thinking.

This is a reissue of Professor Stern's distinguished study of German prose from the death of Goethe to the heyday of the Wilhelminian Empire. Professor Stern argues that nineteenth-century German prose is characterized by a particular combination of the prophetic and the archaic, of the existential and the parochial, and is only partially and sometimes not at all related to the social and political realities of the age. In this sense, German literature of the period stands apart from the main stream of European realism and has, for that reason, received little attention from the common reader outside its own country. The book contains studies of Goethe, Grillparzer, Büchner, Schopenhauer, Heine, Stifter and Fontane, all of whom re-interpreted the world from points of view other than that of the common and commonly explored social certainties of their age. Consequently, Professor Stern suggests alternative criteria to the common notion of realism with which to asses their work.

Conrad's great novel is a rich study not only of a typical South American country, but of the politics of any underdeveloped country, and for this reason it is permanently topical. Ian Watt addresses Conrad's concerns when writing the work, and provides an accessible introduction, taking account of background, history and politics, and reception and influence.

Dr Wood traces in detail the frequently paradoxical development of themes and situations introduced in the opening chapters and lays stress on the novel's intricate writing. He places the book in its historical, intellectual and biographical context and examines its reception by writers as various as Stendhal, George Eliot, and Tolstoy.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is perhaps the most important landmark of the so-called 'Boom' in contemporary Latin American fiction. Published in 1967, the novel was an instant success, running to hundreds of editions, winning four international prizes, and being translated into 27 languages. In 1982, its author received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Michael Wood places the novel in the context of modern Colombia's violent history, and helps the reader to explore the rich and complex vision of the world which Garcia Marquez presents in it. Close reference is made to the text itself (in English translation), and there is a guide to further reading.

This textbook series is ambitious in scope. It provides concise and lucid introductions to major works of world literature from classical antiquity to the twentieth century. It is not confined to any single literary tradition or genre, and will cumulatively form a substantial library of textbooks on some of the most important and widely read literary masterpieces. Each book is devoted to a single work and provides a close reading of that text, as well as a full account of its historical, cultural, and intellectual background, a discussion of its influence, and a guide to further reading. The contributors to the series give full consideration to the linguistic issues raised by each text, and, within the overall framework of the series, are given complete freedom in the choice of their critical method. Where the text is written in a language other than English, full account is taken of readers studying the text in English translation. While critical jargon is avoided, important technical terminology is fully explained and thus this series will be genuinely accessible to students at all levels and to general readers.

The tradition of the German novel, before the emergence of its 'classic' writers in the first half of the twentieth century (Thomas Mann, Kafka, Hesse, Musil), does not have an assured place in the canon of European literature. Not that it has wanted for spirited advocates; but, despite all efforts, it has remained firmly on the periphery. The one signal exception is Goethe's novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers usually rendered as 'The Sorrows of Young Werther'. Werther was an extraordinary and immediate bestseller both in Germany and abroad.

In her introduction to this brilliant and outrageous literary landmark, Anne Barton places Don Juan within the context of Byron's life and reading, and offers an interpretation of the poem which demonstrates its underlying coherence and artistic integrity, despite Byron's mischievous protestations to the contrary. A long chapter on the reception of the poem considers some of the attempts to imitate or continue it, using them to define what is fundamental to Byron's own handling of the Don Juan legend.

This critical introduction to Gulliver's Travels aims at giving a fresh and impartial account of the world-famous satire. It characterises the significant historical and literary background to the work, and explores the text itself in the reading order intended by Swift. It gives proper attention to Swift's narrative and stylistic art, and to the experience of the reader, which have tended to be neglected in the course of prolonged academic arguments over interpretation. It also discusses the relation of the four parts of the Travels to one another. A final chapter sketches the fictional aftermath of the Travels from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.

Stendhal's great novel The Red and the Black, published in 1830, is seen as one of the most distinguished monuments of literary realism. In this introductory study, Stirling Haig shows how this realism derives from the incorporation of both history and legal reportage into the novel, and how it combines autobiography with mimesis. Professor Haig locates the novel in the context of Stendhal's own experiences as a Commissariat officer in the Napoleonic army, journalist, opera-lover, salon dandy and traveller in Italy and Restoration France, and highlights the constant inter-penetration of personal, documentary, and fictional elements in Stendhal's writings.

A comprehensive introduction to Middlemarch, offering both general information and an original interpretation. It pays considerable attention to the intellectual and social context surrounding Middlemarch, and situates the work within nineteenth-century traditions of the novel in England and Europe. Karen Chase gives particular emphasis to the Woman Question in Middlemarch.

This study focuses on the Bible as a landmark of literature, showing both how it has influenced writers through the ages and how it in turn has been influenced by contemporary literature. It describes what is known about the historical context of the documents, the changes of interpretation they have undergone over the centuries, and the problems and influence of various translations, ranging from Tyndale to the Good News Bible.

This is the first critical study of Sons and Lovers to engage with the new Cambridge edition, which prints for the first time the whole text that Lawrence wrote, restoring the substantial cuts made by the first editor. Michael Black gives special attention to the genesis of the book - the writing and editing process, where first Jessie Chambers and then Edward Garnett made decisive interventions that have deeply affected our view of the book. He then analyses the book in detail, dwelling on the structure as it is now revealed. Finally, he relates Sons and Lovers to Lawrence's other works, and traces the history of its receptions.

In Doctor Faustus, his last major novel, Thomas Mann attempted to interpret and judge Germany's role in European culture and history since the Reformation. Through the figures of the solitary avant-garde composer, Adrian Leverkühn, and his often bemused biographer Serenus Zeitblom, Mann explores Germany's self-understanding and self-assertion. The novel intermingles fiction and history in a narrative that combines complex psychological analysis, virtuoso stylistic parody and vivid evocation of atmosphere and milieu. Michael Beddow analyses the structure of the plot and explores the significance of its chief historical, theological, psychological and musical themes. He considers Mann's understanding and modification of the Faust tradition, his thematic and formal indebtedness to Nietzsche and his interest in Adorno's neo-Marxism. The study concludes with an account of the work's generally hostile reception in defeated Germany.

Galdos's four-part Fortunata and Jacinta (1886-7), the masterpiece among his almost 80 novels, tells the turbulent story of two women, their husbands and their lovers, set against the intricate web of dynastic alliances and class contrasts of Madrid in the 1870s. In this new critical introduction Professor Turner provides information on the history and social life of the times, and analyzes Galdos's theory of realism, his powerful use of imagery and metaphor to express the reality of social, mental and moral conditions, and the artistic merits of his narrative style. The book contains tables illustrating the complex family relationships fundamental to the structure of the work, and a chronological summary of the plot, as well as a detailed guide to further reading.

Scott's Waverley (1814), set in and around the Jacobite Rising in the Scotland of 1745-6, was the first historical novel in world literature. Innovative and humane in its plot, rich in social detail, and truly international in popularity, it not only launched a genre, but also became a landmark in literary realism, in historiography and in bookselling. In this study, Richard Humphrey traces and accounts for the text's impact on historical fiction and shows its originality in tackling the manifold issues of rebellion and warfare, separatism and union, prejudice and cultural tolerance. He sets Waverley in its social and literary context, provides detailed analysis of key portions of the text, and offers guidance on further reading.

This is a radical introduction to the Life of Johnson. It discusses the main structural, dramatic, historical and imaginative aspects of the work, and establishes its intellectual contexts: Hume's philosophy, earlier biographical writings by Boswell, and the French and German Enlightenment and romantic traditions. Professor Clingham offers an account of the Life based upon reassessment of the nature of biography, of Boswell's style and thought, and of Johnson's own works. As he examines the Life's complex psychological, emotional and artistic facets, a fresh picture of Boswell as biographer emerges. The book also provides a table of the principal scenes and conversations in the Life, as well as a chronological table of Boswell's life and times and a guide to further reading.

This book offers a variety of approaches to Zola's masterpiece, published amid considerable controversy in 1876-7. L'Assommoir (the tale of a Parisian washerwoman who after a hard life turns to drink and dies in abject poverty) is analysed as a social and political novel, as a representative work of literary naturalism, and in the context of its repercussions in the history of the novel. Professor Baguley investigates its complex and sometimes ambiguous themes, its literary structures and its technical innovativeness. He provides a synthesis of the best research and criticism of the novel together with insights into its interpretation. The biographical and historical context is given, and there is a guide to further reading.

This is a lively and readable guide to Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse Eugene Onegin, a landmark of European Romanticism, and arguably the best of all Russian poetry. Professor Briggs addresses the question of how such remarkable poetry can have been composed about a rather banal plot, and considers the form of the work and its poetic techniques in detail. He offers fresh interpretations of the characters and events of the poem, and sets it against its European background. He discusses its influence - notably Tchaikovsky's operatic version - and points to its life-affirming philosophy and spirit of joyfulness. The book includes a chronological chart and a guide to further reading.

In Boccaccio's innovative text, ten young people leave Florence to escape the Black Death of 1348, and organize their collective life in the countryside through the pleasure and discipline of story-telling. David Wallace guides the reader through their one hundred novelle, which explore both new and familiar conflicts from private and public spheres of life with unprecedented subtlety, urgency and humour. He emphasises the relationship between Decameron and the precocious vitality of Florentine culture in Boccaccio's time. He also discusses gender issues and the influence of the text particularly on Chaucer and the novel.

This introductory study presents Racine's Phèdre as the culmination of French classical tragedy. It situates the play in its historical, literary and theatrical context, shows its thematic relationship with other tragedies of Racine, and sketches its influence on later writers in a variety of European languages and its place in the evolution of European sensibility. The structures and the language of the play are closely analysed, and the major characters are studied in action. Full weight is given to the ancient classical background and to the mythological content of the play. A chronological table provides an overview of Racine's life and times, and there is a guide to further reading.

This book offers a concise introduction to Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan. The work is approached both through its context and through a close reading of key passages of the text. The contextual reading compares Gottfried with his predecessors Beroul, Eilhart and Thomas in order to reveal his independent response to the problems and possibilities with which he was confronted by his material. The close textual reading builds up a distinctive interpretation of the work, in which particular attention is paid to Gottfried's reworking of literary tradition, his use of religious analogies, and his awareness of the fictive potential of literary language. A concluding chapter examines Gottfried's medieval reception through the work of his continuators, Ulrich von Turheim and Heinrich von Freiberg, and the Herzmaere of Konrad von Würzburg.

This book studies individual 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. In this context, it considers the renaissance of German poetry after 1900, the impact of the War of 1914, its aftermath in uncertainty and relativism, and attitudes to the Hitler period, and finally juxtaposes Mann's Felix Krull and Kafka's story Josephine as a deliverance from the value-system of the title. The Introduction, partly autobiographical, traces J. P. Stern's preoccupation with this interpretation of his material in many of the books he published (especially those concerned with Nietzsche and Hitler), and pays tribute to Wittgenstein's influence on his thinking.