Hartung-Gorre
Verlag
Inh.: Dr. Renate Gorre D-78465 Konstanz / Germany Fon:
+49 (0)7533 97227 Fax:
+49 (0)7533 97228 www.hartung-gorre.de |
S |
January/Januar
2008
GERMANISTIK
IN IRELAND
Schriftenreihe
Volume 1
2008
Prose Pieces
Irish Germanists Interpret German
Short and Very Short Stories
1st edition/1. Auflage 2008, 242 pages/Seiten, €
20,00. ISBN
3-86628-185-4
ISBN-13: 978-3-86628-185-1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Florian Krobb and Jeff Morrison
German Short and Very Short Prose: Introduction................................ 7
Jeff Morrison
Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Johann
Wolfgang Goethe:
Two
Italian Anecdotes............................................................ 19
Rachel MagShamhráin
Georg Christoph
Lichtenberg: Sudelbücher (1765-1799)..................... 29
Sascha Harris
Friedrich Hölderlin: Über Achill (1799).............................................. 39
Eoin Bourke
Johann Peter Hebel: Unverhofftes Wiedersehen (1810)..................... 47
Jochen Bedenk
Heinrich von Kleist Baxer Anecdote (1811)....................................... 59
Siobhán Donovan
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: Der alte Großvater und der Enkel /
....... Die Sterntaler
(1812)............................................................... 69
Florian Krobb
Theodor Storm: ‘Dree to Bedd’ (1845).............................................. 81
Florian Krobb
Marie von
Ebner-Eschenbach: Die Brüder (1909).............................. 89
Karl-Bernhard
Bödeker
Franz Kafka: Vor dem Gesetz (1915)................................................ 99
Arnd Witte
Franz Kafka: Auf der Galerie (1918).............................................. 111
Noel Deeney
Klabund: Die heiligen sieben Schläfer (1921)................................. 119
Valerie Heffernan
Robert
Walser: Lange wohnte sie nun schon
....... im
Turm der Geduld (1929).................................................... 133
Hans-Christian Oeser
Bertolt
Brecht: Wenn die Haifische Menschen wären
(1948).......... 141
Regina Standún
Jeannie Ebner: Fortschritt (1956).................................................... 151
Una Carthy
Heinrich Böll: Redensarten (1957)................................................... 159
Regina Standún
Helmut Qualtinger: Die Ahndlvertilgung (1958)............................... 169
Eoin Bourke
Heinrich Böll: Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral
(1963)....... 177
Moray McGowan
Günter Kunert: Das Bild der Schlacht am Isonzo (1964)................. 191
Hans-Walter
Schmidt-Hannisa
Elias Canetti: Die Brotwahl (1968).................................................. 199
Andreas Stuhlmann
Günter Eich: Ein Nachwort von König Midas (1968) ..................... 209
Eoin Bourke
Stella Rotenberg: Chronik (1986).................................................... 223
Carmel Finnan
Peter Bichsel: Das Lob der Armut (1991)........................................ 233
List of Contributors......................................................................... 242
Review in Germanistik in Ireland, Yearbook 2008, Vol.
3, pages 201-203
Jeff Morrison and
Florian Krobb (eds.): Prose Pieces: Irish Germanists Interpret
German Short and
Very Short Narratives. Konstanz:
Hartung-Gorre, 2008 (=
Germanistik in Ireland, vol. 1). 242 pp. ISBN
978-3-86628-185-1.
Short and very
short forms of prose writing play a significant role in the rise of literary
modernism in German, Austrian and Swiss literature, subverting existing genre
conventions, transforming established modes of writing and creating an entirely
new field of competing and overlapping sub-genres and traditions as a crucial
site of literary innovation. Since the seventeenth century, short prose often undercuts
the distinction between high literature and pragmatic forms of writing while
also exploring – and increasingly combining – poetic, narrative, essayistic, descriptive,
reflexive, and diaristic techniques. While some sub-genres (such as the aphorism,
the prose poem or the short story) have attracted quite extensive research, scholarship’s
traditional focus on more established larger genres (such as the novel), invested
with more ‘cultural capital’ (Bourdieu) in aesthetic debates and academic criticism,
is reflected in a general lack of research in the field of short prose genres. It
is in this context that Morrison’s and Krobb’s collection of readings of
narrative short prose pieces by Irish Germanists makes a significant
contribution to international German Studies.
The editors’
primary ambition, however, is more pragmatic. Drawing on the experience of
teaching German literature at Higher Education level and targeting undergraduate
students of German as well as non-professional readers of German literature,
they draw on the expertise of Irish German Studies to present a series of chapters
on selected short prose pieces from the late eighteenth century to the early 1990s,
engaging readers in the close reading of these texts and introducing them to the
academic study of literary works, and of the historical, literary and cultural issues
which they raise. All chapters follow roughly the same pattern. They include the
full text of the prose piece discussed in the German original as well as in an English
translation, then they offer introductory and contextual information on the author
and the piece, present close textual analysis, and develop aspects of an academic
discussion of relevant themes, techniques, traditions and/or contexts with some
selected reference to research (listed in short bibliographies). Conceived as a
text-book and taking Morrison’s and Krobb’s Poetry Project: Irish Germanists
Interpret German Verse (2003) as a model, the volume thus also showcases
Irish German Studies, combining contributions from a range of institutions and
from both established scholars and early career researchers or teachers.
The focus on
narrative reflects a tradition in short prose editing for the purpose of
teaching; anthologies of short prose by German publishers targeting German
Alevel students (such as Reclam and Klett) also concentrate on narrative. Interestingly,
however, the texts selected by Morrison’s and Krobb’s contributors often
reflect the overlap between narrative and other forms of short prose writing in
the works of modern authors, taking textual analysis to key problems in the discussion
of modern short prose at large. In terms of historical range, the volume starts
with Winckelmann and Goethe in the late eighteenth century and covers the nineteenth
century, modernism, and the post-1945 period with a number of authors and
chapters each, while the contemporary period is only given two pieces and could
have been represented more strongly. The choice of authors includes some of the
leading figures in short prose writing, such as Lichtenberg, Kleist, Hebel,
Robert Walser, Kafka, Canetti and Eich, while some equally important writers in
the field (such as Altenberg, Musil, Benjamin, Kaschnitz, or Botho Strauß) are
missing. However, readings of pieces by less prominent authors of short prose
(such as Klabund, Qualtinger or Rotenberg) are in themselves evidence of the
richness of the field and open up interesting avenues of both literary and
cultural discussion. The volume is particularly successful in exploring the ‘calendar
story’ (Kalendergeschichte) and its legacy, a genre which epitomizes the
close relationship between specific forms of short prose and the media in which
they are published, as discussed in the editors’ introduction. The calendar
story also questions the boundary between ‘high’ literature and popular forms,
as does the fairy tale (Märchen), which also features prominently and
illustrates the significance of oral traditions for short prose, highlighted by
the editors.
Similar to poetry,
very short pieces of prose lend themselves naturally to the approach chosen in
this volume, i.e. the combination of close readings of individual pieces with a
selective discussion of wider themes and contexts. Some contributions are particularly
successful in using this format, at times taking this text-book approach to
research level. In the first chapter, Morrison’s discussion of two Italian anecdotes
by Winckelmann and Goethe raises key issues in German Classicism, highlighting
the significance of aesthetic experience in late eighteenth century thought.
Bedenk’s reading of one of Kleist’s famous anecdotes combines in-depth textual
analysis with cultural contextualization (the history of the duel and sports), exploring
Kleist’s central theme of epistemological crisis. Bourke uses Hebel’s miniature
novella Unverhofftes Wiedersehen, the most famous version of the Falun mining
incident, as an example of the calendar story while also highlighting the fascination
of recurring motifs in literary history. In Donovan’s discussion of two of the
Grimms’ fairy tales, explicit reference to literary sources and to changes in narrative
culture achieve a similar sense of literary experiment and historical development.
Krobb’s chapter on a small story by Storm returns to the calendar story and
uses references to Greek philosophy to raise awareness of the significance of
cultural history and context for the reading of literature.
Arguably, short
prose is particularly suitable material for introducing students to the
academic study of literature at university level. This edited volume presents a
largely successful collection of case studies for the teaching of German
literature in the English-speaking world. It also ties in with recent German
attempts at more systematic research in the structure and history of short
prose at large.
Dirk Göttsche
(Nottingham)
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