The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel

The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel provides a broad ranging introduction to the major trends in the development of the German novel from the 1890s to the present. Written by an international team of experts, it encompasses both modernist and realist traditions, and also includes a look back to the roots of the modern novel in the Bildungsroman of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The structure is broadly chronological, but thematically-focused chapters examine topics such as gender anxiety, images of the city, war, and women’s writing; within each chapter, key works are selected for close attention. Unique in its combination of breadth of coverage and detailed analysis of individual works, and featuring a chronology and guides to further reading, this Companion will be indispensable to students and teachers.

• Contributions are provided by acknowledged specialists on one of the most important literary traditions of the twentieth century • Examines literary, historical and cultural contexts for the German novel • The volume is well supported by a detailed chronology and bibliography

Chronology; Preface; A note concerning translations and bibliographical data; 1. The German novel in the long twentieth century Graham Bartram; 2. Contexts of the novel: society, politics and culture in German-speaking Europe, 1870 to the present Lynn Abrams; 3. The novel in Wilhelmine Germany: from realism to satire Alan Bance; 4. Gender anxiety and the shaping of the self in some modernist writers (Musil, Hesse, Hofmannsthal, Jahnn) Ritchie Robertson; 5. Franz Kafka: the radical modernist Stanley Corngold; 6. Modernism and the Bildungsroman: Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain Russell A. Berman; 7. Apocalypse and utopia in the Austrian novel of the 1930s: Hermann Broch and Robert Musil Graham Bartram and Philip Payne; 8. Images of the city Burton Pike; 9. Women writers in the Weimar era Elizabeth Boa; 10. The First World War and its aftermath in the German novel Michael Minden; 11. The German novel during the Third Reich Ronald Speirs; 12. History, memory, fiction after the Second World War Dagmar Barnouw; 13. Aesthetics and resistance: Böll, Grass, Weiss J. H. Reid; 14. The kleiner Mann and modern times - from Fallada to Walser Anthony Waine; 15. The ‘critical’ novel in the GDR Patricia Herminghouse; 16. Identity and authenticity in Swiss and Austrian novels of the postwar era: Max Frisch and Peter Handke Michael Butler; 17. Subjectivity and women’s writing of the 1970s and early 1980s Allyson Fiddler; 18. The German postmodern novel Paul Michael Lützeler.

\'German scholars and those with an interest in German literature in translation will find this Companion both readable and informative about the key themes of literature in German since the late nineteenth century.\' Reference Reviews

\' … there is much food for thought here. The contributors\' enthusiasm sends one out to explore or rediscover many brilliant and important novels. Every librarian and every academic in the field should be ordering this book, and every student asking for it in her Christmas stocking.\' MLR