German Literature of the Twentieth Century: From Aestheticism to Postmodernism

Abstract

Part 1 Before 1945 - Modernism and Modernism delayed: inventing master maps - Modernism - the first decade of the 20th century - Aestheticism - Impressionism and Symbolism, the 1910s -the first phase of avant-garde literature - Expressionism and Dada, the 1920s - high Modernism and the second phase of the avant-garde - Surrealistic elements and new objectivity imposing a total map - Fascism - the literary continuum - from anti-Modern to Modernist voices, the national Socialist literary canon - the uneasy voice of reactionary traditions, Modernist literature - the many voices of defiance. Part 2 After 1945 - Modernism revisited and Postmodernism: defining local maps - the second phase of Modernism - 1945-1949 - the immediate postwar years - defining different traditions in East and West, the 1950s - Modernism or Formalism - nonconformist literature in the West vs. Socialist Realism in the East, the 1960s - change in literary awareness -politicization in the West and emancipation of subjectivity in the East adding partial maps - elements of - Postmodernism - the 1970s - increasing plurality - new sensitivity in the West and continuing emancipation in the East, the 1980s - new confusions -resurgence of storytelling and converging literature in East and West, the 1990s - a new order of things - German issues and global themes in German-language literature.