Bithell Series of Dissertations
June 15, 2006
This is the first monograph on the work of Joseph Roth (1894-1939) to be
published in English by a British-based academic, and should prove useful both
to those with a specialized interest in Roth,. whose novels and journalism
continue to gain admirers around the world, and to those interested more
broadly in an extraordinarily rich period in twentieth-century European
culture. It serves both as an introduction to the early part of a body of work
whose variety and volume were for many years overshadowed by the reputation of
the historical novel Radetzkymarsch (1932), and as a reassessment of
Roth's writing, both of fiction and of journalism, within the modern tradition.Thematic chapters present a detailed contextual survey of Roth's...
January 4, 2006
In the structuring of literary texts that refer extensively to previous
texts ('intertexts'), one issue is paramount: the space accorded to the reader.
In entering into the intertextual debate, the reader is called upon to
corroborate both the authority of the text being read and the power of literary
continuity that the earlier intertext embodies, and to assert his or her
independence from this same authority in the very act of responsing
individually to its multiple significations.
This study of four contemporary literary texts, all very distinct in form and
method, analyses the dynamic relationship between reader, text and intertext
and suggests that it is in the effectiveness of this manoeuvring, by and of the
reader, that the...
August 4, 2005
The eighteenth century saw the first significant phase of cultural
interchange between Britain and Germany. This study examines the part played in
this process by women writers, who were entering the literary world in large
numbers for the first time. It asks whether women - as readers, translators and
authors - were particularly receptive to the work of other women, and whether a
cross-cultural female literary tradition emerged during the period. The study
offers a detailed case-study of the German writer Benedikte Naubert, now known
for her collection of fairy-tales but also a prolific novelist. It looks first
at Naubert's engagement with English literature, that is to say at her numerous
translations of English novels, and at the ways...
November 26, 2003
The question of maternity is crucial for feminists, to whom it represents
both challenge and inspiration, as it is for many thinkers engaged with the
issues of agency, corporeality, and ethics. This examination puts forward the
idea of a 'maternal performativity', drawing on the work of Judith Butler and
numerous other feminist theorists, to offer new ways of looking at 1970s and
1980s literary texts by ten German-speaking women writers, including Barbara
Frischmuth, Elfriede Jelinek, Irmtraud Morgner, and Karin Struck. It argues
that as yet, maternal agency has not adequately been theorized - a project
which is urgent, given the traditional view in Western culture of the mother as
passive - and suggests that Butler's notion of...
December 12, 2001
In his final 'Q-Tagebuch' report to Hedwig Müller dated 19 December 1935
Tucholsky declared: 'Daß ich mein Leben zerhauen habe, weiß ich. Daß ich nicht
allein daran schuld bin, weiß ich aber auch. Mein Gott, wäre ich in Frankreich
geboren...!' Combining biographical investigation with an analysis of
Tucholsky's published journalism, this study sets out to assess the
significance of the contact with France and French culture in Tucholsky's life
and work. It shows the extent to which he was influenced by the French cultural
and intellectual tradition, and by his first-hand experience of France. It
provides new insights into Tucholsky's life in France, notably his involvement
with French freemasonry and the importance of his contacts in...
June 7, 2000
This study aims to shed light on the relationship of writers with power in
East Germany by setting their work in the context of Soviet and SED German
policy after 1945. Peter Davies provides an analysis of the politics of German
division as it affected visions of German national identity within the East
German artistic community, and shows how this can give us a profound insight
into contentious questions of artistic 'decadence' and 'conformity'. The second
part of the study develops these ideas through a series of case studies of
important individuals such as Johannes R. Becher, Peter Huchel, Bertolt Brecht
and Hanns Eisler, analysing the complexities of their relationship with the
power structures and ideology of the East German state in...
December 16, 1997
Hugo von Hofmannsthal had a lifelong fascination with the 'theatrum mundi'
topos. Judith Beniston analyses his changing responses to it against an
unfamiliar backdrop - the revival of Catholic drama which, from the 1890s
onwards, accompanied the rise of Austria's Christian Socialist party. The
solipsism of 'Jung Wien' and the conservative modernism of the Salzburg
Festival are juxtaposed with the career of Richard von Kralik (1852-1934), the
key figure in Austria's Catholic literary culture from 1890 to 1934. This study
offers close readings of Das kleine Welttheater and Das Salzburger
große Welttheater and explores the ramifications of the fascination with
the notion of Welttheater which Hofmannsthal and Kralik shared. In
juxtaposing...
February 9, 1996
The premise of this book is that the theme of being and meaning in Thomas
Mann's novel tetralogy Joseph und seine Brüder unites the novel's stylistic and
thematic structure. The author demonstrates persuasively how these leading
ideas are worked out in detail, pervading plot-structure, symbolism,
characterization and narration. Through a subtle series of analyses - of the
concepts of time and identity underlying the novel, its image-patterns, the
changing psychology of its characters, above all Joseph's process of
individuation and the narrator's changing behaviour - patterns of overlap and
discrepancy between being and meaning are brought out in such a way as to unite
many parts of the novel into an overall coherent structure of meaning....
December 1, 1995
Wieland's translations of Horace's Epistles, neglected until
recently, demonstrate his skill in overcoming the bipolar relationship implied
in the very idea of translation. Thanks to a strong, cosmopolitan
fellow-feeling with the ancient poet, Wieland made judicious editorial choices
in the areas of diction, prosody, layout, typography and scholarly apparatus.
This most flexible of translators avoided collapsing the distinctions between
his own world and Horace's, and achieved true communication with Horace, while
simultaneously drawing the contemporary German reader into the dialogue.
Translation techniques employed by Wieland's contemporaries are also discussed
here, as well as Horace's reception during the period, and the tensions...
July 3, 1995
This is the first study to discuss the affinity between Grass's complete
works and baroque literature. Grass's employment of baroque literature is of
particular interest because it takes up a tradition from which German
literature has long broken away. Alexander Weber's argument moves from an
outline of general thematic parallels in the early works to an analysis of the
conscious use of baroque literature in Der Butt and Das Treffen in
Telgte. He offers both a close reading of Grass and general reflections on
how a past literary tradition can be adopted by a modern writer. The study
focuses on the themes of vanity, carpe diem, and Senecan Stoicism in
the early works; it discusses parallels between the rhetorical structure of the
courtly-...