From the Editor
Emil Staiger, Grundbegriffe der Poetik. (1946)
Heinz Schlaffer
Fritz Breithaupt
Heinz Schlaffer and Fritz Breithaupt start this new section of Monatshefte with their readings of one of the most influential texts in post-war German Germanistik, Emil Staiger's Grundbegriffe der Poetik. Staiger was a leading figure of "werkimmanente Interpretation" until the late 60s of the previous century. Heinz Schlaffer represents the generation that grew up with Staiger's paradigm, Fritz Breithaupt is a member of the generation that was told not to care about Staiger. They are here paired, inaugurating the new column with their points of view. (HA)
Wilhelm Heitmeyer
Tolerance as Risk
Friedemann Weidauer
When Bobos Meet Bhabha: Do Minority Literatures Challenge the Concept of National Literatures?
Texts by minorities have been absorbed with relative ease into the canon of texts marketed by bookstores and taught in schools and colleges. But behind this welcome development hides a growing rift between what the educated elites read and cherish and what happens to members of the same minorities at the lower levels of the educational system where many of them are stuck in remedial writing courses. Thus, culture in industrialized countries is split between those who appreciate the “hybrid” language of minority writings and between those who struggle to master the standard language of the country they live in. The essay investigates the preference of the “new ruling class” for “hybridity” in literary texts and music, and offers via the concept of “transnational diasporas” an explanation why the by far greatest number of people belonging to minority groups remain completely untouched by these cultural trends. (FW)
Lucinda Martin
Female Reformers as the Gate Keepers of Pietism: The Example of Johanna Eleonora Merlau and William Penn
The article demonstrates that outsiders wishing to break into the German religious scene in the late seventeenth century concentrated their energies mainly on Pietist women, revealing that contemporaries recognized these women as leaders of the reform movement. After tracing the attempts of English Quakers to spread their religion to Germany through contacts with female activists, the article turns to the correspondence of the Quaker leader, William Penn (1644–1718), and the Pietist activist, Johanna Eleonora Merlau (1644–1724). A close reading of a newly discovered letter from Merlau to Penn provides new insights into her role in early Pietism and also reveals a significant Quaker influence on her thinking. The article concludes that, through female reformers like Merlau, the English dissidents were able to impact significantly on German Pietism. (LM)
Birgit Tautz
“Ein wunderbares morgenländisches Mährchen von einem nackten Heiligen:” Autopiesis of World, Rhetoric of “the Orient”
This article revisits Johann Heinrich Wackenroder's fairy tale “Wundersames morgenländisches Mährchen von einem nackten Heiligen” in the context of other pieces from his Herzensergiessungen and Phantasien. I argue that the fairy tale's self-proclaimed rhetoric of the “Orient,” while inevitably linked to autopoiesis, depends on its engagement of the Enlightenment tradition that perceived Asia as text and that presumed a unity of the world. What distinguishes the fairy tale from this tradition is its use of visuality and aurality; images are erased through listening in the process of poetic production. This 'sensual field,' the article argues, defines the autopoietic act, which emerges as the new universal idea of Romanticism. (BT)
Klaus Plonien
Von Jena über Heidelberg nach Dülmen. Die Krise 'ästhetischer Subjektivität' bei Clemens Brentano in der 'Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem schönen Annerl'
Clemens Brentano is considered the embodiment of the “homo poeta” in German Romanticism. Like no other writer of this period, Brentano created for himself an aesthetic subjectivity that perpetuated an ongoing existential and poetic crisis. This paper examines the transitional point in Brentano's aesthetic existence, which is marked by the famous “Kasperl” novella. A critical discussion of Karl Heinz Bohrer's term “aesthetic subjectivity” provides an understanding of Brentano's poetic transition. A close reading of the novella guided by recent developments in systems theory and its application in literature demonstrates that Brentano attempted a revision of and a search for possibly overcoming his poetic agenda and thereby also his existential crisis. However, this attempt remains within the medium of literature and therefore, instead of breaking away from this medium, falls back upon itself and as a result, Brentano created “just” another interesting piece of literature. (KP)
Frank Finlay
“Ein krampfhaftes Augenzumachen”: Heinrich Böll and the Literaturbetrieb of the Early Post-war Years
This paper draws on archive material from Heinrich Böll's Nachlaß to discuss the encounters of a writer of the “young generation” with the Literaturbetrieb between 1945 and 1949, a period to which recent anniversaries and controversies have brought renewed attention. Böll's correspondence with editors sheds light on the material conditions in the publishing industry in the western zones of occupation and the impact of the Currency Reform of 1948. These letters also reveal the importance of Böll's editors' perceptions of public taste, particularly the diagnosis of an increasing antipathy to literary portrayals of the War. The impact of prevailing conditions in the literary market-place on discursive aspects of Böll's writing is then explored with particular reference to the genesis of his first two books for Friedrich Middelhauve Verlag, Der Zug war pünktlich (1949) and Wanderer, kommst Du nach Spa… (1950). By way of conclusion, it is argued that socio-economic and political factors might be accorded a more differentiated place within the overall context of the “literary field” in which Böll operated. (FF)
German Studies Association (GSA) 27th Annual Conference Call for Papers