Andreas Gryphius Research Articles

Schauplätze des Künftigen

Abstract The subject of this article are spatiotemporal manifestations of the future as they are formed in various genres of German-language Baroque literature. Using three examples – pastoral (Martin Opitz), religious poetry and hymns (Anna Ovena Hoyers), as well as Trauerspiel (Andreas Gryphius) – the authors examine how imminent, expected, planned, anticipated, or feared states are explored in 17th-century works, i.e., how they are composed processually and medially, and which spaces and places they occupy in each genre.

Pomiędzy życiem a śmiercią. Czas przemijania i przejścia w „Holy Sonnets” Johna Donne’a i "Pierwszej księdze sonetów" Andreasa Gryphiusa

The article focuses on a comparison of selected pieces of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets and Andreas Gryphius’ First Book of Sonnets as examples of meditatio mortis. It presents the similarities of form and content between these two cycles, and traces possible inspirations for their creation in the analysis of both poets’ religious pathways, facets of their biography with accentuation of experiences of death and transience, and their interest in spiritual and carnal processes accompanying the last moments of existence.

Plays on Plot of Tamerlane and Bayazet on Russian Stage of Late 17<sup>th</sup> — Early 18<sup>th</sup> Centuries: Northern European Sources

The article is devoted to the little-studied Northern European sources of Russian plays on the plot about Tamerlane and Bayazet of the late 17th — early 18th centuries. The material was the play “Temir-Aksakovo Action” in 1675, a not preserved version of the play of the early 18th century “The Clear History of Tamerlane, the Tatar Khan how he defeated Saltan of Tursk Bayazet”, plays from the repertoire of “English comedians” of the 17th century, plays by the German playwright Andreas Gryphius and the English playwright Nicholas Roe. It is shown that the interludes of the play “Temir-Aksakovo Action” could be taken from the little-known play “The Comedy of Tamerlane”, staged in Nuremberg in 1667. Analysis of the play by German playwright Andreas Gryphius “The Armenian Leo” in 1656 makes it possible to talk about general formulas in constructing the theme of the overthrow of tyranny, the baroque theme of the mutability of life in the German and Russian drama of the 17th century. The play “The Clear History of Tamerlane ...”, staged at the court of Peter I in the 1700s, has been brought into consideration. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the typological commonality of the Russian play with the play by the English playwright Nicholas Rowe “Tamerlane” in 1701, containing real historical allusions to the present.

„Du rotziger Blasebalckemacherischer Dieb! Solst du mich dutzen?“ – Funktionen des Personalpronomensduin Gryphius’ „Peter Squentz“

AbstractThis paper examines the variations and functions of the deictic address pronoundu(you) in the satirical Baroque drama “Absurda Comica. Oder Herr Peter Sequentz” written by Andreas Gryphius. Two types of address forms dominate in the drama, which vary in a highly systematic way. The most common one is the honorific formihr‘you’, which appears in addresses to humans of equal social status among both craftsmen and nobles. The more intimate pronoundumainly occurs when the characters address themselves, their body parts or feelings and deities. Even lovers use the polite pronounihr; they switch todusolely when the beloved one is either absent or dead. In addition, there is a switch toduwhen the characters get into a quarrel, which illustrates the well-known connection of address pronouns to the expression of social deixis and politeness as well as the local, context-sensitive mechanisms of pronoun choice. Finally, generic uses ofduare restricted to proverbs in the drama.

TRADUÇÃO COMO ESTRATÉGIA DE ENSINO DE LITERATURA GERMANÓFONA: VERSÕES BRASILEIRAS DE UM SONETO ALEMÃO

Este artigo aborda a aplicação de exercícios de tradução ao ensino de literatura germanófonano Curso de Letras Alemão-Português da UFC. Em primeiro lugar, exercícios de tradução, entendidoscomo estratégias de ensino-aprendizagem no âmbito da literatura, são examinados à luz dasorientações do Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para as Línguas (QECR) e, em seguida,comparados com resultados de outros autores (BISCHOF et al., 2003; HÄUSSERMANN; PIEPHO,1996; KÖNIGS, 1981). Em uma outra etapa, esses fundamentos teóricos são conectados comaspectos práticos do ensino de literatura germanófona, aplicando-os ao soneto barroco alemão Esist alles eitel (1637), de Andreas Gryphius, e sua tradução em português brasileiro feita por oitoestudantes da UFC. Trata-se de traduções literais e/ou recriações literárias, visando a mostrar queesse tipo de exercício pode contribuir: a) como estratégia metodológica para diminuir a heterogeneidadeno tocante à competência linguístico-cultural germanófona na sala de aula; b) como formade utilizar a tradução visando a uma análise integral do texto; e c) como forma de sensibilizar osestudantes para a importância da tradução literária na formação de professores de alemão comolíngua estrangeira (ALE). Considerando-se as interseções existentes entre a formação de professoresde ALE e seu acesso à literatura germanófona, é possível concluir que exercícios de tradução literáriapodem gerar ganhos de conhecimentos interdisciplinares envolvendo língua, cultura, teorialiterária e o próprio ato de traduzir, aqui também entendido como recriação.Palavras-chave: Ensino de literatura. Exercícios de tradução. QECR

“Далеке дзеркало”: 1618–2018 – відгомін Тридцятилітньої війни в новітній німецькомовній літературі

The article is dedicated to the historical phenomenon of Thirty Years’ War in its literary interpretation. This historical event remains an important component in the collective cultural memory of Germans. Thirty Years’ War is still considered one of the most brutal wars in German history. In connection with its 400th anniversary, relevance is given to historical researches in which the Thirty Years’ War is presented as a “distant mirror” which enables a better understanding of conflicts and threats to modernity. In this context the proposed study treats literary sources about Thirty Years’ War as an original artistic phenomenon with profound history and specific interpretation of this historical event depending on a certain age. Naturally, the baroque period of this literature stands out – till this day our idea of the catastrophe of Thirty Years’ War is shaped by such works as Simplicius Simplicissimus by H. J. C. von Grimmelshausen or the sonnet ‘Tears of the Fatherland’ by Andreas Gryphius. Baroque literature was exceptionally political, raising the problems of religion, propaganda, refugees, relations between the government and its subjects, between civilians and the army men. It told about the fight for public opinion which was conducted using all possible publicist and literary means, “about the superior right to interpret an event” which confirmed a well-known statement that the first casualty of War is Truth. However different “the individual truths” about the war were of those whose statements were recorded in literature, Grimmelshausen’s statement about the war as “a terrible and merciless beast” remains the most important. All texts about Thirty Years’ War have a different expression of the same characteristics – embodiment of the esthetics of murder and different forms of violence. That is why in the research the Thirty Years’ War is perceived as a significant historical and literary experiential model which enables direct cognitive access to modernity which is proven by such novels as Munin or Chaos in the Head („Munin oder Chaos im Kopf”, 2018) by Monika Maron and Daniel Kehlmann’s Tyll („Tyll”, 2017). Contemporary novels are analyzed through the prism of history textualization theory which erases the borders between historiography and artistic literature. As a result, it is claimed that in these works Thirty Years’ War is presented as a textualized network of connections which enables construction of historical experience. Yet, it is discovered that a person is unable to learn from history. The only ironic lesson is the creative position “chaos in the head” and “fool” as a survival strategy.

Introduction: Exploring the Multifaceted Faces of Punctuation

This special issue of Studia Neophilologica offers on its cover a reproduction of a sonnet by the German Baroque poet Andreas Gryphius (1616–1664). We will discuss this sonnet in some detail to hig...

Boethius and No End in Sight

Previous scholarship has not considered the continued interest in the philosophical teachings by Boethius (d. 525) by early modern thinkers and poets. This article traces the continued flood of translations and editions of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae in Germany far into the seventeenth century and then unearths links between his philosophy and the sonnets by Andreas Gryphius and the epigrams by Johann Scheffler (Angelus Silesius). At first sight, we might not even recognize Boethian ideas in their poems, but the close analysis of images and concepts formulated in these German Baroque texts demonstrate strong similarities. Considering that Boethius was one of the important school authors even in the seventeenth century, it does not surprise us to discover direct echoes of his ideas in these literary reflections.

The Tragedy of Leo Armenius: Gryphius, Music, and the Divine Telos of History

Although seventeenth-century German poet and dramatist Andreas Gryphius revered science and the new empiricism, he also believed that God was behind the events of history. The problem of how to voice this belief without compromising the objective representation of history in his Trauerspiele (“mourning plays”) led to a strategy of bifurcation: the realistic plot exposition was framed by interpretive Reyen, choruses in which the deeper allegorical meaning of events was explicated. That the Reyen were sung, whereas the rest of the drama was spoken, bespeaks Gryphius's investment in common notions of music as partly spiritual in nature, but in his tragedy Leo Armenius he also appropriated current poetic ideas that identified music's transcendent qualities with pure, nonverbal sound. The employment of a divinely “pre-semantic” poetic Klangmalerei within the rationally governed structures of verse enabled Gryphius to voice something of the hidden divine hand behind history without compromising the written record. This belief in the power of sound per se to signify higher things would inform later extra-poetic developments, including notions of the sublime and the ineffable in German instrumental music of the Romantic era.

Heilung des Wahns durch den Wahn

Andreas Gryphius’ Cardenio und Celinde is a ghost story which at the same time is also a psychological healing story and one of theological conversion. Both stories would not have been possible had the technical preconditions offered by Baroque theater not been available to let ghosts appear on stage with public appeal. For analyzing the entertaining function of these ghosts the mentioned three levels provide orientation. This article will therefore examine psychology (1), then turn to theology (2) in order to finally address the technical preconditions of their presentability (3).

Friedensgesänge 1628–1651: Musik zum Dreissigjährigen Krieg. Werke von Johannes Werlin, Sigmund Theophil Staden, Melchior Franck und Andreas Berger by Stefan Hanheide (review)

MUSIC FROM THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR Friedensgesange 1628-1651: Musik zum Dreissigjahrigen Krieg. Werke von Johannes Werlin, Sigmund Theophil Staden, Melchior Franck und Andreas Berger. Herausgegeben von Stefan Hanheide. (Denkmaler der Tonkunst in Bayern: Neue Folge, Bd. 22.) Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel, 2012. [Pref. in Ger., p. ix; introd. in Ger., p. xi-l; sources and statistics in Ger., p. li-lxxviii; crit. report in Ger., p. lxxix-civ; texts, p. cv-cxviii; facsims., p. cxix-cxxxiv; scores, p. 1-118. ISMN 979-0-00480293-9; pub. no. SON 252. i152.]The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) was a tragic period in German history. Numerous military conflicts played out in rotation across the German landscape, leaving a swath of death and destruction unmatched in scope until the twentieth century. Complete cities were razed, untold thousands died at the hands of rapacious mercenary armies, while countless others succumbed to starvation and disease. The lyric poet Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664), who in 1636 knew his homeland only a battleground, described the atrocities in grim detail in his sonnet Threnen des Vatterlandes. The country was impoverished, and everywhere the arts suffered never before. Heinrich Schutz, the Electoral Saxon Kapellmeister in Dresden, in the dedication of his Kleine geistliche Konzerte (1639) lamented the woeful state of music and the arts as if suffocated under military arms and trampled in the mud (A Heinrich Schutz Reader: Letters and Documents in Translation, ed. Gregory S. Johnston [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013], 111). Once-illustrious court ensembles that had previously performed lavish works for multiple choirs of singers and instrumentalists were reduced to faint shadows of their former glory. Other courts and towns were forced to disband their Kapellen and civic ensembles altogether. Publishers who were able still to produce music in print were few in number, and faced chronic shortages of paper and customers. One hoped and prayed for the return of peace and prosperity.The music contained in the present volume reflects this hope for peace, represented by the works of four composers from southern Germany and what is modern-day Bavaria: the Lindau Kantor Johannes Werlin's Irenodiae Oder Friedensgesang (1644), the Nuremberg organist and composer Sigmund Theophil Staden's Musikalische Friedensgesange (1651), the Coburg Kapellmeister Melchior Franck's Suspirium Germaniae Publicum (1628), and a concluding ten-voice Da pacem Domine (1635) by Andreas Berger, Kapellmeister to Graf Ludwig Eberhard von Oettingen. The first two works are significantly more ambitious in scope, whereas the latter two are modest compositions published individually. Together, though, especially if one pays particular attention to the texts, they reveal an optimism for a better future, if not in this world then in the next.At more than 250 pages and printed in large format (27 cm x 34 cm), this is a critical edition ideally suited initially for scholarly study, but the works inside deserve to be heard. The front matter, running to 134 page in length, is exhaustive, rich in information, painstaking in detail, and abundantly referenced throughout. The first 60 pages or so are devoted to biographical entries on each of the four composers, the general historical background and context of the music, the origins and specific occa- sion of the works, full transcriptions of title pages and dedicatory poetry and texts, the authorial sources of the poetic texts, and issues of genre and formal characteristics of the compositions. It is also in these pages that the editor elaborates in great detail on aspects of the musical style and the original printed edition: notation, time signatures, barlines and other indications of meter, tempo indications, slurs and ties, accidentals, mode, and so forth. Statistical data on text, metric changes, voicing, mode, ambitus, and even whether or not the basso continuo part includes a textual incipit occupy a further fifteen pages of fine print (pp. …

The Cambridge Introduction to German Poetry by Judith Ryan (review)

Reviewed by: The Cambridge Introduction to German Poetry by Judith Ryan Charlotte Melin The Cambridge Introduction to German Poetry. By Judith Ryan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. x + 238. Cloth $72.00. Paper $25.19. ISBN 978-0521687201. Conceived as a German studies approach to poetry, Judith Ryan’s solidly planned introduction is a reader-friendly history of literature designed for student audiences, yet also rewarding material for scholars and others interested in the lyric genre. Ryan, of course, is one of the leading authorities on German poetry and the depth of her knowledge in this area indelibly shapes the chapters, which deftly combine interpretations of poems in literary context with thoughtful treatment of historical connections and aesthetic movements. Thus, for example, in a chapter examining poetic roles in early poetic texts, Ryan begins with close readings of several works written in Middle High German to set the stage for analysis of the problem of poetic persona. The chapter concludes with an insightful discussion of the romantic nostalgia for all things medieval and Paul Celan’s appropriation of this tradition in the poem “Matière de Bretagne.” Other chapters have a similarly ambitious scope, reflecting Ryan’s obvious conviction that poetry functions as a dynamic site of knowledge production where issues of representation, subjectivity, ethics, and discourse abound. The volume is organized into thematically focused chapters that proceed overall in a chronological sequence through German literary history. An introductory chapter (“Exploring the Poem”) provides several models for how to approach a poem through different entry points or perspectives. Here Ryan describes poems as puzzles, emphasizing the openness of the interpretive process by displaying how varied approaches yield different readings of texts. Following the second chapter on “Poetic Roles in Early Song-Lyrics,” Ryan turns her attention to “Devotional Poetry,” “The Rhetoric of Passion,” “Classical Antiquity and Modern Experience,” “Romantic Poetry and the Problem of Lyric Unity,” “The Self and the Senses,” “Modernism and Difficulty,” “Poetry after Auschwitz,” and finally “Political Poetry.” Poems discussed in the volume are quoted in full text version and accompanied by an English prose paraphrase. The close readings Ryan performs of these examples are impeccably done and a pleasure to read—striking illustrations of how to interpret the complex interplay of form and meaning in works of the lyric genre. Some of the most compelling interpretations of individual texts explore the work of poets who have long occupied Ryan’s research (like Rainer Marie Rilke), but the readings of other poetry offer rich insights as well. Refreshingly, the volume incorporates a generous sampling of examples prior to the age of Goethe, including poems by Paul Fleming, Andreas Gryphius, and Walter von der Vogelweide. In addition to poets [End Page 407] whose work certainly would be expected in such a volume (from Goethe, Brentano, Eichendorff, and Heine to Benn, Brecht, and the postwar generation that includes Bachmann, Celan, Enzensberger, and Sachs), work by many other poets appears as well. An emphasis is placed on the lyric genre tradition, which means predominantly short poems with strong aesthetic orientation, thus Hofmannsthal, Hölderlin, Mörike, and Trakl receive treatment, alongside less conventional selections by Günter Grass, Ulla Hahn, and others. Poetry scholars will be pleased with the breadth of the selection, though likely to notice that it follows implicit criteria that no doubt reflect the pragmatic limitations that such a project faces in terms of space and inclusiveness. Ryan has, for example, written about the tradition of the long poem in German literature, yet wisely elects to exclude it from the present volume, mentioning for instance Durs Grünbein’s poetic cycle Porzellan: Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt (2005) only briefly. Likewise experimental poetry, performance works, and multimedia productions, which play an increasingly important role in poetic discourse of the twenty-first century, are not a part of this survey. Faculty teaching courses about poetry would presumably find it useful to supplement this textual presentation with audio and visual materials found, for example, at the curated website Lyrikline.org. They would also be well advised to consult the growing body of research on teaching poetry in foreign language courses, including the forthcoming 2015 American Association of University...

Papinianus on the stage: A martyr of law or a modern model?

This paper discusses Andreas Gryphius’s tragedy (Grosmutiger Rechtsgelehrter oder Sterbender Aemilius Paulus Papinianus: Trauerspiel) about the death of Papinianus, the famous Roman jurist of the Late Classic era. The author analyzes the historical context of the death of Papinianus in detail, and he also examines how Gryphius used the historical sources and his poetic imagination in writing his drama. The second part examines Gryphius’s ideas about the law and state and argues that he followed Jean Bodin’s teaching when he declared that the sovereign is bound by divine law and natural law. Additionally, the author also discusses the message of this 17th century drama for the contemporary lawyers. His main argument is that the exemplum of Papinianus encourages modern lawyers to create their professional value system and to insist on it conscientiously.

Trauerspiel und Offenbarung: Apokalyptik als Reflexionsfläche ästhetischer Theorie in Andreas Gryphius' Catharina von Georgien

This article explores the extensive use of apocalyptic imagery in Andreas Gryphius' drama Catharina von Georgien. The author argues that in this play, Gryphius uses apocalypticism not only as a literary tool to demonstrate the futility of all worldly things, as was common in baroque literature, but also as a medium of reflecting about and illustrating drama theory. As Gryphius describes how drama can facilitate a deeper understanding of the world and the self, he refers to mystical concepts such as imitatio and unio, thus establishing a theory of drama which closely links not only aesthetics and apocalypse, but also aesthetic and mystical experience. Thus drama itself turns into a genuine apocalypse, whose purpose it is to facilitate transcendent experience.

Den bogstavelig død. Det neobarokke vanitasmotiv i Durs Grünbeins "I provinsen" (1999)

THE LITERAL DEATH. THE NEO-BAROQUE VANITAS MOTIF IN “IN THE PROVINCE”This paper investigates the use of Baroque imagery in the cycle of vanity poems “In the Province” (OIn der Provinz”) (1999) by the German poet Durs Grünbein (1962-). GrünbeinOs poetics revolves around a notion of human life as essentially material and physical. In his treatment of death, this point of view connects him with Baroque vanity poetry following the tradition of Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664). On the basis of a concept of a transhistorical Baroque discourse, I discern a negotiation of Baroque tropes in the poems, focusing on the use of antithetical, analogical, and allegorical figures, as well as an objectifying gaze similar to that of the Baroque vanitas painting. Shifting the metaphysical framework of the historical Baroque to a predominantly physical one, Grünbein reinstates the value of the individual in its bodily existence, thereby reinterpreting the meaning of the OvanityO of material things. Comparing this formal remodelling to the postmodernist and modernist Neo-Baroque concepts, I argue that a reading of Grünbein’s vanitas can be used in a new conceptualization of the Neo-Baroque, which I term ‘dialogical’.

Fewrige Freystadt: Erste Neuedition seit 1637. Text und Materialien by Andreas Gryphius, Johannes Birgfeld

266 Reviews furthermore, students' knowledge ofMHG is declining. (Indeed, students' know ledge of any kind ofGerman isdeclining, so thateditions ofMHG textswith English translations such as that planned by Kathleen Meyer (see Kragl, pp. 799-800) are becoming evermore common.) In volume IIKragl presents his editorial principles (pp. 797-830), gives a detailed description of themanuscripts and fragments (pp. 830-96), and has also produced a thorough, critical, and lucid-in short,very useful!-overview of research on Lanzelet todate, though he consciously refrains fromofferinghis own full interpretation of the work (pp. 897-1020). Finally, he provides a useful commentary on the text (pp. IQ7 1 I280). In sum, this is an extremely useful and eminently usable contribution to Lanzelet scholarship. UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM NICOLA McLELLAND Fewrige Freystadt: Erste Neuedition seit I637. Text undMaterialien. By ANDREAS GRYPHIUS. Ed. by JOHANNES BIRGFELD. (Fundstiicke, 4) Hannover: Wehrhahn. 2006. lvi+ 194 pp. o20. ISBN 978-3-932324-38-3. On the night of 8-9 June i637 a fire,starting in a bakery, swept rapidly through the Silesian town of Freystadt (present-day Kozuch6w), leaving a trail of destruc tion. One of the first witnesses was a Lutheran pastor, Paul Gryphius, brother of the twenty-year-oldAndreas Gryphius, who had seen his firstpublished collection of poems, theLissaer Sonette, appear earlier in the year.The young poet was living nearby, at the house of his employer and patron Georg Schonborner, and itwas ap parently at the latter's insistence thathewrote a response to thedisaster, published as Fewrige Freystadt. As he relates the events of thatnight inhis opening prose account, Gryphius pauses to lament the loss of private libraries, to take in an example ofma ternal love in a swallow's vain attempt to rescue her young from the flames, and to reflecton the spiritual lessons tobe gleaned from the catastrophe. The textconcludes with an appeal forhelp to theHabsburg Emperor, and is followed by a long poem in alexandrines, going beyond amere versification of thepreceding prose. Johannes Birgfeld's critical edition draws on two copies of the I637 Lissa publica tion (bothwith marginal corrections which Birgfeld attributes toGryphius) and a fair manuscript copy of the text,again apparently inGryphius's hand. It is supplemented by a general introduction, helpful textual notes, reproductions ofmanuscript pages, and a concluding analysis. Birgfeld makes accessible one ofGryphius's longest prose works, a text which has not been reprinted since i637. The edition contextualizes such poems as the 'Grabschrift' for Gryphius's niece Marianne, whose mother went into labour as the flamesbegan todevour the town ('Gebohren inder Flucht I umbringtmit Schwerd und Brand'), and sheds interesting lighton thepoet's earlywriting career. The edition has twoweaknesses. The firstisstructural.While the long introduction allows Birgfeld toprovide very thorough background information, it involves him in a certain amount of repetition and distracts from the text itself. The second concerns the target readership. Birgfeld acknowledges that this is likely tobe specialists in the fieldof seventeenth-century German literature,but he none the less hopes to appeal to a more general reader,who may have come across 'Tranen des Vaterlandes' or 'Es ist alles eitel' in school or university anthologies. To this end, he provides an introduction toGryphius and to the troubled situation of Silesia in theThirty Years War which is too basic for the book's probable readership, and which leads him to unnecessary exaggerations, forexample his insistence thatcomparing the manuscript and printed copies gives insight into 'das fastkriminalistische und iiu3erst spannende Handwerk der Literatur', or the rather laboured linkbetween the textand Descartes's MLR, I03. I, 2oo8 267 Discours de lamethode, which was published inLeiden on the day of the fire.This edition is, in reality,unlikely to find itsway onto the shelves of the general reader whom Birgfeld courts through his hyperbolic claims, but itwill certainly be useful for thosewith an academic interest in the literatureof thisperiod. KING'S COLLEGE LONDON ANNA LINTON The Reception ofEnglish Puritan Literature in Germany. By PETER DAMRAU. (MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 66; Bithell Series ofDissertations, 29) Leeds: Maney. 2oo6. Vii+214 pp. ?35; $82. ISBN 978-I-904350-38-5. The central claim of thisLondon Ph.D. thesis is thatBritish Puritan literature had a significant impact on...

Poetry Project: Irish Germanists Interpret German Verse by Florian Krobb , Jeff Morrison (review)

ii 14 Reviews of officialdocuments. A detailed reading of subtexts in Semprun's works is followed by an insightful interpretation of Weiss's Der Schatten des Korpers des Kutschers as an early example of an aesthetic of submerged remembering and indirection. The inclusion of both non-German-language writers and marginalized figuressuch as Backer, Achternbusch, and even Walter Kempowski, who have not received the detailed attention they deserve, is extremely laudable. However, Dunker's theoretical exposition is not always as sharp as one might wish: for instance, in the introduction he follows all too readily Hayden White's assertion that the formal characteristics of high modernism offerthe only prospect of an adequate representation of the Holo? caust (p. 18). In his summary Dunker then claims that the metonymic discourse and symptomatic narratives that are the focal point of his study should be understood as examples of postmodern writing and as a result of the moral turn of postmodernity (p. 293). Surely a brief reflection on the categories of modernism/postmodernism in the context of the historicizing of the Holocaust would have been warranted at some p>6int.Nevertheless, with its emphasis on detailed readings and literary contextualization Dunker's book makes a much-needed German contribution to the ongoing debate about 'writing on how to write about Auschwitz'. University College Dublin Anne Fuchs Poetry Project: Irish GermanistsInterpret German Verse. Ed. by Florian Krobb and Jeff Morrison. (British and Irish Studies in German Language and Literature, 25) Oxford, Bern, and Berlin: Peter Lang. 2003. 276 pp. ?29. ISBN 3-90676645 -4. These forty interpretations of German poetry from Andreas Gryphius to Durs Griinbein reflectthe growing involvement of the authors with poems of their choice. As the introduction explains, many ofthe poems were written in reaction to situations of social or historical crisis. Timeless themes are included, and a few experiments ap? pear among several traditional forms. The editors hope to encourage more reading of poetry, and this aim is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of the texts followed by prose translations. Eoin Bourke contributes seven items, Joachim Fischer, Florian Krobb, Beate Dreike, Sabine Egger, and Gert Reifarth two each, all other authors each a single interpretation of about six pages. The overall quality is high, sometimes exceptional, and always interesting. The poems are seen in context, and the contribu? tors provide just enough technical analysis to show the uniqueness of each example. From the fifteeninterpretations of pre-twentieth-century poems the reader gains insights into the effectsofthe Thirty Years War (Gryphius), peasant faith(Claudius), the interplay of nature and the individual (Klopstock) and of nature and art (Goethe), and a vision of the loss of self despite a serene natural background (Holderlin). Two interpreters give Goethe's 'Gingo Biloba' informative and personal treatment. Chamisso's 'Der Invalid im Irrenhaus' is revealed as a complex and ambiguous ex? pression of outrage, the historical reception of Hoffmann von Fallersleben's 'Lied der Deutschen' is traced, and Droste-Hulshoff's 'Am Turme' presented as an expression of the author's painful conflict between passive acceptance of her role and her urge for independent action, while in her 'Der Knabe im Moor' psychological sufferingis foregrounded. Weerth's 'Deutscher und Ire' represents early Marxism pointing an accusatory fingerat Britain forsocial conditions in Ireland and Germany. The incendiary quality of Heine's depiction of revolution and his 'Jammertal' are revealed in their bleakness and use of stylistic disruption. Kempner's 'Drei Schlagworte' merits inclusion for its historical documentation of a woman's struggle in the nineteenth century. In contrast, Fontane's dramatic 'Die Brucke am Tay' is shown still to be unsettling and relevant today. MLRy 99.4, 2004 1115 An original reading of Rilke's 'Der Pan ther' as a text constructed over what it does not say is one of the highlights in the book. More detail on the potentials of the rhythmic patterns, especially when the poem is read aloud, could have given further sup? port. Lasker-Schuler's 'Mein Volk' and Stefan George's 'Der Widerchrist' provide an effectivecontrast in message and style, with texts and interpretations equally compelling . The varied moods and styles of Expressionism are seen in Van Hoddis's 'Weltende...

Friedrich Friese’s Dialect Comedy of 1687: A Taste of Altenburg School Theatre

The little‐known work of Friedrich Friese, pupil and then teacher at the school in Altenburg during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, displays an interest in the popular culture of his day which he united with pedagogic responsibilities. His interest in the customs of the peasant and artisan classes is reflected in his preference for the comic genre, which traditionally focuses on behaviour and misbehaviour among the lower social levels. Friese’s work offers insights into school thratre in Altenburg, which flourished in the seventeenth century but has as yet attracted little scholarly attention. The school not only put on hitherto unrecorded performances of plays by the well‐known Christian Weise and Andreas Gryphius; between 1660 and 1703 it also presented independent dramas to mark the annual ’Gregoriusfest’. This civic school festival originated in ancient Rome and had many popular elements. Although it was widely celebrated in early modern Germany, celebration in Altenburg was particularly highly developed. Friese prepared several comedies for performance in ’Gregoriusfeste’ as ’Nachspiele’ to the main, more elevated dramatic pieces by the current Rector of the school. The text of his dialect comedy of 1687 is reprinted at the end of this article as a sample of his work and of Altenburg school theatre.

Reading Andreas Gryphius: Critical Trends, 1664-1993

This book traces the widely varying critical reception of Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664), the greatest German poet of the seventeenth century. Although his work was respected in his native Silesia both in his lifetime, and in the years after his death, his reputation was almost eclipsed during the later eighteenth century. However, new interpretations of him by Romantic authors, and an emerging ideological consensus about Germany's national literature, brought about Gryphius' critical rehabilitation and enhanced appreciation of the qualities of his work; being roughly contemporary with great English and French playwrights, his literary reputation became enmeshed in the nationalist and ideological rivalries of Europe. More recently, commentators have concentrated on the unique character of his poetic attitude.In this volume, the authors outline the trends of his reception in German-speaking countries and provide the background for his critical history; an epilogue deals with the question of whether he can be seen as the German equivalent of Shakespeare or Calderon. The book also presents, for the first time in English, extensive excerpts from Gryphius criticism, from contemporary commentators (including those close to the poet) to modern critics such as Walter Benjamin.

Reviews : German Studies Reading Andreas Gryphius: Critical Trends 1664-1993. By Erika A. Metzger and Michael M. Metzger. (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture: Literary Criticism in Perspective.) Columbia: Camden House, 1994. Distributed by Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, Suffolk. Pp. xli + 155. E37.50

Reviews : German Studies Reading Andreas Gryphius: Critical Trends 1664-1993. By Erika A. Metzger and Michael M. Metzger. (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture: Literary Criticism in Perspective.) Columbia: Camden House, 1994. Distributed by Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, Suffolk. Pp. xli + 155. E37.50