Themes and Structures: Studies in German Literature from Goethe to the Present

Abstract

Stephan, Alexander, ed. Themes and Structures: Studies in German Literature from Goethe to the Present. A Festschrift for Theodore Ziolkowski. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1997.332 pp. $75.00 hardcover. There may be few American Germanists more worthy of a Festschrift than Theodore Ziolkowski. His prolific scholarship and careful mentoring of students have long and profoundly enriched the field of Germanics. The essays in this volume, like those of the honoree, address important scholarly issues in a carefully argued manner and are written in lucid, cohesive prose. Presented in chronological order, the essays, written by Ziolkowski's former students, deal with a very wide range of topics and writers from the Age of Goethe to the present. Atherton interprets the ambiguity of Winkelmann's edle Einfalt and stille Grosse through reference to the competing aestheticliterary and art-historical contexts available to Winkelmann at the time. Wetzels provides instances of the popularization of physics as it is carried out between a mentor and his female pupil. In a fine analysis of the various occurrences of Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen, Muenzer elaborates the classical Goethean hermeneutic, which brings the voice of into the conversation of mankind such that the core of the familiar is passed into the frame of discovery. Herbst argues that Goethe was a more systematic, serious and sympathetic observer of the contemporary political scene than he is often given credit for. Mayer delineates F. Schlegel's failed attempt at a new cosmography that could reconcile idealism and Christianity in Theorie der Entstehung der Welt. Finger presents a sensitive and technically sound reading of the poetry of Rickert as it was set to music by Schubert, Schumann and Mahler. Hanson explores how the mystical blend of physics and metaphysics in Steffens's thinking finds its way into Tieck's Runeberg as the individual quest for permanence. In a fascinating reading of Keller's Romeo and Julia, Johnston relates how the would-be painter Keller structures his tale and reveals his characters' emotional states through the application of Portal's classic nineteenth-century study of color, De couleurs symbolique (1837). Tatar reveals that not only Jack the Ripper in his murder of Lulu, but also the playwright Frank Wedekind in his relationship with his wife Tilly, provide both a critique of the repressive social structure and also a reinforcement of the social order and preservation of gender hierarchies. Providing evidence from medieval sources, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, internal acoustical and stylistic analogies, Tunstall concludes that Hofmannsthal's Die Beiden is a symbolic reflection of the canzone form. …