The Dear Purchase
A Theme in German Modernism

This book studies works by twelve major writers of German modernism in relation to the history of the twentieth century.

J. P. Stern (Author), Nicholas Boyle (Foreword by)

9780521024402, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 March 2006

468 pages
21.7 x 14.2 x 2.8 cm, 0.603 kg

'… [a] matchless analysis of German Modernism.' The Times

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.

Foreword by Nicholas Boyle
Editor's preface
Introduction
1. The theme
2. Reality
3. Relativity
4. The Great War
5. The purchase of poetry
6. Rendering account
7. A deliverance of sorts
8. Postscript: the divided self
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]