The Cambridge History of German Literature

A history of German literature to 1990, written from a post-Reunification standpoint.

Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly (Edited by)

9780521785730, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 June 2000

632 pages
23.4 x 15.7 x 3.6 cm, 0.945 kg

'… the first complete German literary reference work of its kind covering the most current trends in contemporary literature and criticism into the 1990s, The Cambridge History of German Literature is surprisingly lucid, readable, and accessible to beginning and advanced literary scholars.' BBR Gazette

This book describes German literary history up to the unification of Germany in 1990. Contributors, all leading scholars in their field, take a fresh look at the main authors and movements, and also ask what Germans in a given period were actually reading and writing, what they would have seen at the local theatre or found in the local lending library; it includes, for example, discussions of literature in Latin as well as in German, eighteenth-century letters and popular novels, Nazi literature and radio plays, and modern Swiss and Austrian literature. A prominence is given to writing by women. The book is designed for general readers as well as students and scholars: titles and quotations are translated, and there is an extensive bibliography.

List of contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. The Carolingian period and the early Middle Ages (750–1100) Brian O. Murdoch
2. The high and later Middle Ages (1100–1450) Nigel F. Palmer
3. The early modern period (1450–1720) Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly
4. The German enlightenment (1720–1790) Ruth-Ellen Boetcher Joeres
5. Aesthetic humanism (1790–1830) Nicholas Saul
6. Revolution, resignation, realism (1830–1890) Gail Finney
7. From naturalism to national socialism (1890–1945) Ritchie Robertson
8. The literature of the German Democratic Republic (1945–1990) Helen Fehervary
9. German writing in the West (1945–1990) Moray McGowan
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]