Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur 1900-1918: Von der Jahrhundertwende bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs by Peter Sprengel

Abstract

II78 Reviews precipitated by the political upheavals of the twentieth century, Hugo Aust suggests that even in their time Viebig's historical novels were already out of date. For read ers in search of a good read in city literature of the past, Viebig's Berlin novels face massive competition from Fontane through Georg Hermann towomen authors of a more modern tendency than Viebig such as Irmgard Keun, Gabriele Tergit, or Vicki Baum. These last have attracted renewed interest in the context of feminist literary history, which might offer another path to rediscovery. In an illuminating survey of awhole gallery of female characters, Bland acknowledges a radical edge inViebig's sympathetic depiction of unmarried mothers, but draws out too the stereotyping ten dencies in the different versions of womanhood Viebig constructs depending on the class, ethnicity, and, most interestingly, also the religion of the character. Here Bland andWojtczak, coming from different angles, detect the ideological vision of a Protes tant German writing about Catholic Polish characters. In an interesting comparison with Stefan Andres as awriter of theMosel region, Guntermann convincingly argues that Heimat discourse offers the context most likely to generate interest inViebig as author of the Eifel novels and stories which explore with liberal openness the impact of modernization upon provincial life. The volume closes with a plea by Hermann Gelhaus for a reissue of Viebig's anti-war novels. UNIVERSITYOFNOTTINGHAM ELIZABETH BOA Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur I900-I9I8: Von der Jahrhundertwende bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs. By PETER SPRENGEL. Munich: Beck. 2004. xiii+924 pp. E49.90. ISBN 3-406-52I78-9. Anyone familiar with Peter Sprengel's monumental history of German literature from I870 to I900 (reviewed inMLR, 96 (200zI), 574) will have high expectations of this complementary volume. Once again, Sprengel offers a virtually comprehensive overview of his period, with deft and subtly personal accounts of innumerable major and minor works. After the introductory 'Portriit einer Epoche', including sections on literary movements, intellectual currents, and the institutions of literature, there are four large chapters on genres (narrative prose, drama, lyric poetry, and non-fictional prose), followed by an invaluable seventy-page account of First World War literature. Inevitably this scheme creates difficulties. While many subsections bear the names of individual authors, there are only a few-mostly those who died prematurely, such as Trakl, Heym, Stadler-whose entire euvre can be discussed. To counterba lance this fragmentation, Sprengel includes many sections and subsections on specific literary types which include enlighteningjuxtapositions. Thus a section 'VomMyste rienspiel zum Stationendrama' links Hofmannsthal's Yedermann with mystery plays by Alfred Mombert and Rudolf Steiner, and, via Kaiser's H6lle Weg Erde, with Ex pressionism. His major chapters also deal separately with Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and while the assignment of Rilke to the Austria he hated could be questioned, Swiss writers are thus ensured generous coverage. They include not only Carl Spitteler (whose epic Olympischer Fruihling is treated sceptically) and Robert Walser, each given his own subsection, but such figures as Jakob Bosshart, Peter Ilg, and Friedrich Glauser, who are so unfamiliar outside Switzerland that none of them makes it into the Oxford Companion toGerman Literature. Regional writers within Germany, such as the Bavarians Ludwig Thoma and Lena Christ, receive less gener ous treatment: to learn about their work one must consult several sections, finding, for example, brief mention of Thoma's socially critical rural novels under 'Heimatroman und Bauerngeschichte' and a paragraph on his Lausbubengeschichten under 'Kinder und Jugenderziihlung'. MLR, 101.4, 2006 I I79 Although this in some ways is best regarded as a reference work, it also provides an individual perspective on the epoch. Sprengel begins with the questioning of author ity in the Empire, the home, and the school. His starting-point is thewell-documented fact of frequent suicides among schoolboys: both Rudolf Ditzen ('Hans Fallada') and Johannes R. Becher attempted suicide in adolescence, and itwas thematized inHesse's Unterm Rad, Emil Strauss's Freund Hein, and of course inWedekind's Friihlings Erwachen (first performed in I906). From there Sprengel moves adroitly to the Ex pressionist critique of the family, to the literature of colonialism, and to the battle of the sexes, though the authors...