Christa Wolf Research Articles

Ist eine Medea ohne Kindermord überhaupt denkbar? Medea-Morphosen bei Euripides und Christa Wolf. Oder: Freispruch für Euripides

The aim of this study is to discuss the significance of the child-murder for the Medea myth. For this purpose two of the most important adaptations of the myth are examined: Euripides’ tragedy and Christa Wolf’s novel (1996). The study attempts to shed new light on the invention of this mythologeme by Euripides. Contrary to the acceptance of the majority of the researchers this study assumes Euripides' Medea is not just a bourgeois marriage drama, but a political and social sketch of the microcosm of the Polis. Using various „messages in a bottle “Euripides succeeded in emphasizing on the needs of the suppressed ones and opening a new perspective for the female element. While however in the male tradition, from Euripides to von Trier, the suppressed comes to the light as cruelty, Wolf suggests another model of feminity. As a result her protagonist does not need the childmurder any longer. The myth is not a context, but a frame. Therefore all versions belong to the myth. In a time characterized by violence and fear, Wolf turns the attention to the origins of violence by setting other priorities, while telling the story of a person, which frightens both men and women.

Women Writing Greece: Essays on Hellenism, Orientalism and Travel by Vassiliki Kolocotroni, Efterpi Mitsi

MLR, 105.2, 2010 509 Women Writing Greece: Essays onHellenism, Orientalism and Travel. Ed. byVassi liki Kolocotroni and Efterpi Mitsi. (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, 118) Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. 2008. 257 pp. 52. ISBN 978-90-420-2481-6. The basic successful claim of the eleven contributions gathered in this volume is thatGreece in themodern period has and has had the potential to complicate our notions of colonial and postcolonial writing patterns and their academic study. The long-drawn-out establishment of the new Greek nation state in the 1820s and 1830s, a process especially rich in complexity when itcomes tonegotiating Greece's position on amovable spectrum between several imperial spheres of influence, East andWest, allowed Greece as a distinct site of travel to offernew commentary on questions of travel, writing, and empire: 'Women travellers in Greece find this ambiguity [of the nation] particularly compelling, and, as this collection of essays illustrates, they observe and respond to the actuality of "new Hellas" in distinct ways' (p. 5). The assumption is that travelwriting, especially when arising from an imperial context, is linked to amasculine gender position of the traveller's superiority that inpractice may well be complicated and engage with 'feminization', of the traveller asmuch as of the other who is encountered, innew and subtle ways?a theoretical nexus that is explored especially in the contributions of EfterpiMitsi and Vassiliki Markidou dealing with Elizabeth Craven and Hester Stanhope respectively, as well as Christina Dokou's piece on theAustralian writer Gillian Bouras. Aside from the traveller's superiority, it is the link between Hellenism and nor mative gendered assumptions about civilization, Europeanness, and itsorigins that makes Greece such a privileged site for the scholars gathered here.While this is an important point (Maria Koundoura's contribution isparticularly fineas it links that theme to specific notions of literary realism), there is also a risk in some contributions of isolating and praising some of thewoman travellers' ambivalent statements about Greece and their 'eccentric writing' as a form of feminist em powerment and critique avant la lettre:the discourse ofHellenism itself in relation tomodern Greece is a complex one, and descriptions ofGreece that seem to defy an assured traveller's stance or focus on the alienation provoked by an encounter with Greece often have just asmuch precedent inmale travelwriters. One of thebenefits of thevolume is certainly itschronological rangewell into the twentieth century, including pieces on travellingwomen scholars of themodernist era (Martha Klironomos), theAmerican reformer Eva Palmer (Artemis Leontis), the contemporary writer Gillian Bouras (Dokou and Helga Ramsey-Kurz), as well as comparison between theAmerican writer and poet Patricia Storace (who is, in a nicely Freudian slip of proof-reading, renamed Penelope Storace in the introduction) and the East German writer Christa Wolf (Asimina Karavanta). At the same time, one of the greatest paradoxes of the book is the gap that remains between, on the one hand, a sophisticated, theoretical appeal to the 'no madic' strategies which many of thewomen presented here explored in order to 510 Reviews face, to sustain, and to articulate otherness, including their own, and, on the other hand, a strict adherence to a by now very well-established set of critical termino logy and arguments on gender, imperialism, and travelwriting, thatmakes many of the contributions seem like a conclusion, rather than an invitation to new work on women writing Greece. Princeton University Constanze Guthenke La Reception de Shakespeare en Allemagne de 1813 d 1850: propagation et assimi lation de la reference etrangere. By Christine Roger. (Theatrica, 24) Bern: Peter Lang. 2008. xxx+488 pp. 80.30. ISBN 978-3-03910-422-2. Christine Roger startsby asking the rhetorical question why anyone should want to concentrate on the critical reception of Shakespeare inGerman-speaking Europe during a period which on the surface looks like a time of dearth after thehighlights of the eighteenth century. The answer lies in thedensity and vitality of the reception during a time of complex transition. The focus of the book is at times extended to take in the years before 1815 (especially in respect of translation) and the second half of the nineteenth century (especially in relation to publication history), but its originality...

Rewriting Kassandra: Christa Wolf's re-visioning of the myth

ABSTRACT This article focuses on Christa Wolf's re-reading and rewriting of the Cassandra myth in her novel Kassandra. Her Kassandra (the German spelling) differs radically from the character Aeschylus had created; he regarded Cassandra as a prophet of doom, romanticising the Trojan War and the male protagonists such as Achilles and Agamemnon. Therefore, Wolf deconstructs and reconstructs the prehistoric myth in such a way that blatant patriarchal misrepresentations of the female are made evident. Ultimately, Wolf also exposes the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as security state through writing about the corruption in Troy. Wolf calls herself a ‘daughter of Kassandra’, and the meaning is two-tiered: first, like Kassandra, she did not want to acknowledge that the GDR had turned into a security state (she was under surveillance by the Stasi for years) just as Kassandra did not want to acknowledge the truth about corrupt Troy. Second, Wolf regards herself as having to tell Kassandra's truth centuries later...

Mother's Care?: Models of Motherhood and their Ethical Implications in Post–WWII German Literature

This article compares early texts from feminist ethicists (Nel Noddings and Sara Ruddick) that focus on care and/or mothering as the basis for ethical models with literary works by two German authors (Christa Wolf and Ingeborg Drewitz) that challenge these models and reveal their structural problems. Although the literary works appeared generally shortly before the feminist scholarship, they all participate in a discussion of how women's experiences as mothers and caregivers can and/or should factor into the construction of ethical models. Furthermore, the conflicts that come to the fore in the literary texts foreshadow the directions that feminist ethicists themselves went in a continuing dialogue about feminist contributions to the study of ethics. Specifically, the article 1) explores how these two authors illustrate the potential problems with an ethics based either on "maternal thinking" or on a more abstract notion of caring; 2) discusses the directions in which their work points us; and 3) uses feminist scholarly discussions on ethics as conceptual tools to illuminate more fully the central conflicts in the literary texts themselves.

Greek tragedy and the politics of subjectivity in recent fiction

This article attempts to foster interest in the under-researched area of the relationship between ancient Greek tragedy and recent fiction, while demonstrating the complexity of the practice of research into classical reception through a particular case study. It identifies a cluster of characteristics shared by some important and politically engaged works of fiction, dating from the late 1970s, which use Euripidean tragedy in order to draw attention to the epistemological issue of narrative control. These include novels by Imre Kertész, Ismail Kadare, Christa Wolf and Barry Unsworth. It is argued through comparison with mid-twentieth-century manifestations of Greek tragedy in fiction, which focused on ontological concerns, that in a new development tragedy is used to read history epistemologically and ethically ‘against its grain’ in the Benjaminian sense.

Reden vom Ende: Studien zur kulturellen Selbstbeschreibung in der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur by Edgar Platen

MLR, 104.1, 2009 283 Clearlythis volumepresents a variety ofviewsonReinhardJirgl, and itraisesas manyquestionsas itanswers. Indoingso,however, it provides uswithnewanden lightening analyses ofJirgl's texts, someof whicharesignificant inpointing towards optimistic elements withintheoft-noted pessimism ofhiswork.Thispublication offers essentialinsight intoJirgl's work,both thematically and structurally, and is highlyrecommended toall thoseinterested in thefield ofcontemporary German literature. BANGORUNIVERSITY ANNA SAUNDERS RedenvomEnde:Studien zurkulturellen Selbstbeschreibung inderdeutschen Gegen wartsliteratur. By EDGAR PLATEN. Munich: iudicium. 2006. 196 pp. ?20. ISBN 978-3-89129-925-8. EdgarPlatenisanexpert on all things liminal, aswellasbeingresponsible for a four volumeseries entitled'Darstellung vonZeitgeschichte indeutschsprachiger Gegen wartsliteratur' (Munich:iudicium, 2000-07). InRedenvom Endehe turns hisatten tiontoaparticular kindof,andqualityin, boundaries. And theexamples headduces arebyReinhard Lettau, Gunter Grass,KatjaLange-Muller, andGerhard Knopf Inhis invaluable'Vorbemerkung' hebrings hisownwise transnational perspec tivetobearon theterminal rhetoric sobelovedofcommentators on contemporary German literature.He is able to show that the rhyme of 'Ende' and 'Wende' is a merelylocalphenomenon, andonemoreoverthatisnot restricted totheevents of 1989and following. Themuch-vaunted'endofhistory'isseen inall itshistorical contingency and reimagined forthe German contextas a leave-taking fromthe generation of theeyewitnesses; a jostling for control overdiscourse;a disaffection withperiodization andwith standard assumptions about therelationship between politicsand culture; and a gradualtransition ofa relatively familiar (anddecidedly anti-apocalyptic) kind.Ina similar vein,the plethora ofaftermaths sooften evoked inour fortuitously millenariancontextiseffectively reducedto twofigures whose long pedigrees areproperly stressed: thesimulacrum and the hybrid. The texts singled outfor specialstudy havebeencarefully chosentoexemplify and amplify thepoints made in theintroduction. Lettau'sZur FragederHimmelsrich tungen, datingsignificantly from 1988,demonstrates theabsurdity ofanyrhetoric predicated on a distinction between East andWest, andwith itthe ColdWar, the Wende, and thatversion of history ofwhich Francis Fukuyama posited the putative end. The laterwork of Gunter Grass is seen as valetudinarian not only in a way appropriate to the generation of fathers and grandfathers, but also in a broader politicalandaesthetic sense. ZungezeigenandTotes Holz areshowntobeprogram maticallyhybrid, enactinga silence which iscompounded of theineffable and the unspeakable. With Grass,moreover, Platenintroduces a form of finality oddlynot theorized inhis introduction: thegradualor threatened destruction byhumanity of itshabitat and its future through pollution or nuclear fallout. Lange-Muller's Die Letzten, setinanEastGermanprintworks, articulates both Norbert Bolz's 'Ende der 284 Reviews Gutenberg-Galaxis' andan 'Abschied vonderDDR', butalso a lossoffixed identities underglobalization and thecontingency of textitself. And finally Knopfs Piranesis Traumfittingly etches outfor us the endofendingsinaworldofimagined simulacra. Platen,though, neverreducesthesetexts tothestatus ofmere examples.Instead he analysesthem on their own terms, evenat therisk ofoccasionallyseemingto losesight ofhisnarrower end.Hence this book canbe recommended notonlyto thoseintrigued by itsculture-historical theme, but also to those with a particular interest inanyor allof theauthors discussed. QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ROBERT GILLETT Briickenschlage: DDR-Autorenvorund nachderWiedervereinigung. ByASTRID KOHLER. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht. 2007. 255 PP. ?29.90. ISBN 978-3-525-20853-3. This isa study that has taken Wolfgang Emmerich's plea forthe'Wahrnehmung von DDR-Literatur alsLiteratur'(Kleine Literaturgeschichte derDDR (Leipzig: Kiepen heuer,1996),P. 27) toheart. A volumeexploring prose texts pennedbothbefore and after theWende by seven of theGDR's more 'unbequem[ ]' (p. lo) authors, it rejects a politically situated reading of their work infavour ofone premissed upon theautonomy ofaesthetic endeavour. The resultisa studythatestablishes literary continuities whichKohlerclaimsbridgeanysocio-political changesthatthereader may associate with the demise of theGDR. Be it the questions thather authors ask, or thenarrative strategies they use,Bruickenschlage positions GDR writersas agents inanongoing'Gesamtwerk' (p.17),boththeir ownand that ofGDR literature more broadly. As thetitle of the volumeindicates, theauthors consideredinthisstudy(Christa Wolf,Klaus Schlesinger, UlrichPlenzdorf, Irina Liebmann, Christoph Hein,Angela Krauss,andKerstin Hensel)may havebegun their publishing careersduringthe lifetime of the GDR, but they have,inaddition,foundsuccess withinunified Ger many.Thevolumeisstructured chronologically (accordingtoageofauthor ordate offirst publication), witheachchapter also offering 'Langsschnitte' (p. 16) through thework of each writer. Given the biographies of several of the study's authors, a number ofthechapters have muchgroundtocover.In thecaseof Wolf,for example, almostthirty years of writing published duringthe GDR, together with twelve years ofpost-Wende work,aredealtwith infewer thanthirty pages.Thus,althoughthe volume'sscope is impressive, somepreparatory reading may be necessaryforthe readerlessfamiliar with thetexts orauthors considered. In summarizing thevolume'sfindings, twokeydynamicsemerge:at a chapter level, Kohler identifies what she terms the'wiederkehrend[e] AblaufeundGrund strukturen' (p.213) that bind thepre-andpost-Wende workofherauthors. Texts arepositionedas linked, forexample, by recurring thematic preoccupations(e.g. Hein's 'Zivilisationskritik' (p.214)); bycharacterization (e.g.Plenzdorf...

No Escape?: Goethe’s Strategies of Self-Projection and Their Role in German Literary Historiography

ACCORDING TO HAROLD BLOOM, every Goethe text, however divergent from the others, bears the mark of his unique and overwhelming personality, cannot be evaded or deconstructed. 1 While Bloom is concerned the force of Goethe's personality as it manifests itself in his works, the impact of his personality on German literary historiography is no less remarkable. To take but one example of his enduring iconic status, the successful Deutsche Literaturgeschichte by Wolfgang Beutin et al. - in its seventh expanded edition - conveys the essence of its subject matter by depicting the head of Goethe as the sole image on the front cover.2 Unscathed by the Death of the Author, Goethe the man continues to be at the centre of German literary history. On the back cover we find some also-rans: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Annette von Droste-Hulshoff, Bertolt Brecht, and Christa Wolf. While these authors contribute to the project of German literary history as exemplary participants who are subject to the changing forces of literary taste and perhaps political correctness (Wolf has displaced Wolfgang Borchert3), Goethe endures as the embodiment of all that is most valuable in over a millennium of writing in the German language. In the following, it be assumed that Goethe's role in German literary history is not just the result of his literary and their reception by later scholars, but also the consequence of his strategies of self-projection. It is well recognized that Goethe a master in the art of projecting his poetic genius and that Germanistik highly receptive to his own accounts of the emergence of his works, to the point of tending to construct a normative aesthetics for German literature on that basis.4 The purpose here is not to rehearse these insights, but to examine the strategic significance of the metaphors Goethe selected in projecting his poetic persona, and to consider their legacy and implications for German literary historiography. Cognitive linguistics has demonstrated the mental and emotional force of linguistic metaphor, showing the systematic connection between conventional metaphors and the conceptualization of the objects and processes they refer to.5 Goethe's choice of metaphors in explanations of his personal creativity and his role in the development of German literature can shed light on the mechanisms by he constructed German historiography in his image, and used conventional metaphors of the time to project originality, and independence from convention. Discussion must be selective and highlight the metaphors by Goethe shaped his roles as origin, goal, and liberator of German literature. The power of these metaphors continues to be evident in recent accounts of literary history, raising the question whether they can be evaded in favour of different metaphors that might yield alternative histories. Goethe's consummate skill as a poet made him a master of metaphor, that most poetic of techniques for stimulating the reader's imagination. This mastery is already evident in the whole range of genres in which he published influential works during the early 1770s, in Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, in Gotz von Berlichingen, and in his lyric poetry. It is no less evident in his comments about his own processes of creativity, as emerges for example in a letter to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi written in 1774. Goethe uses resonant metaphors to project his creative talents: Sieh lieber, was doch alles Schreibens anfang und Ende ist die Reproducktion der Welt um mich, durch die innre Welt die alles packt, verbindet, neuschafft, knetet und in eigner Form, Manier, wieder hinstellt, das bleibt ewig Geheimniss Gott sey Danck, das ich auch nicht offenbaaren will den Gaffern u. Schwazzern.6 Goethe can here be seen to develop his creative potential by taking heed of arguments such as Young's injunctions to the poet: dive deep into thy bosom and Reverence thyself'1 His explanation of the creative process by means of the metaphor of reproduction indicates that he is moving in the orbit of the debate about imitation that had gained prominence in the seventeenth century with the Querelle des anciens et des modernes. …

Shifting Perspectives: East German Autobiographical Narratives before and after the End of the GDR

A striking feature of today's German literature is the survival of an East German subculture characterized by its authors' self-reflexive concern with their own lives, not only in texts labelled as autobiography, but also those in the more ambiguous territory of what Christa Wolf has called subjective authenticity. Dennis Tate provides the first detailed account of this phenomenon: its origins in the 1930s' exile debates, its evolution during the GDR's lifespan, and its manifestations in the work of five East German authors still widely read today: Brigitte Reimann, Franz Fuhmann, Stefan Heym, Gunter de Bruyn, and Christa Wolf.Tate shows how the preoccupation with self arose from the unusually turbulent circumstances in which this generation has lived. Having succumbed early to the temptation to simplify their life stories for misguided educational purposes, these authors have repeatedly reconstructed their personal and political identities as their perspectives on the past have shifted. Tate shows the importance of viewing their autobiographical writing as a multilayered historical process, exposing problems with canonical accounts of East German literature and enabling texts published under GDR censorship to be properly appreciated for the first time. Dennis Tate is Professor of German Studies at the University of Bath, UK.

Brückenschläge: DDR-Autoren vor und nach der Wiedervereinigung by Astrid Köhler

284 Reviews Gutenberg-Galaxis' andan 'Abschied vonderDDR', butalso a lossoffixed identities underglobalization and thecontingency of textitself. And finally Knopfs Piranesis Traumfittingly etches outfor us the endofendingsinaworldofimagined simulacra. Platen,though, neverreducesthesetexts tothestatus ofmere examples.Instead he analysesthem on their own terms, evenat therisk ofoccasionallyseemingto losesight ofhisnarrower end.Hence this book canbe recommended notonlyto thoseintrigued by itsculture-historical theme, but also to those with a particular interest inanyor allof theauthors discussed. QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ROBERT GILLETT Briickenschlage: DDR-Autorenvorund nachderWiedervereinigung. ByASTRID KOHLER. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht. 2007. 255 PP. ?29.90. ISBN 978-3-525-20853-3. This isa study that has taken Wolfgang Emmerich's plea forthe'Wahrnehmung von DDR-Literatur alsLiteratur'(Kleine Literaturgeschichte derDDR (Leipzig: Kiepen heuer,1996),P. 27) toheart. A volumeexploring prose texts pennedbothbefore and after theWende by seven of theGDR's more 'unbequem[ ]' (p. lo) authors, it rejects a politically situated reading of their work infavour ofone premissed upon theautonomy ofaesthetic endeavour. The resultisa studythatestablishes literary continuities whichKohlerclaimsbridgeanysocio-political changesthatthereader may associate with the demise of theGDR. Be it the questions thather authors ask, or thenarrative strategies they use,Bruickenschlage positions GDR writersas agents inanongoing'Gesamtwerk' (p.17),boththeir ownand that ofGDR literature more broadly. As thetitle of the volumeindicates, theauthors consideredinthisstudy(Christa Wolf,Klaus Schlesinger, UlrichPlenzdorf, Irina Liebmann, Christoph Hein,Angela Krauss,andKerstin Hensel)may havebegun their publishing careersduringthe lifetime of the GDR, but they have,inaddition,foundsuccess withinunified Ger many.Thevolumeisstructured chronologically (accordingtoageofauthor ordate offirst publication), witheachchapter also offering 'Langsschnitte' (p. 16) through thework of each writer. Given the biographies of several of the study's authors, a number ofthechapters have muchgroundtocover.In thecaseof Wolf,for example, almostthirty years of writing published duringthe GDR, together with twelve years ofpost-Wende work,aredealtwith infewer thanthirty pages.Thus,althoughthe volume'sscope is impressive, somepreparatory reading may be necessaryforthe readerlessfamiliar with thetexts orauthors considered. In summarizing thevolume'sfindings, twokeydynamicsemerge:at a chapter level, Kohler identifies what she terms the'wiederkehrend[e] AblaufeundGrund strukturen' (p.213) that bind thepre-andpost-Wende workofherauthors. Texts arepositionedas linked, forexample, by recurring thematic preoccupations(e.g. Hein's 'Zivilisationskritik' (p.214)); bycharacterization (e.g.Plenzdorf's'Rebellen figuren' (p.214)); bylocation(e.g.therepresentation ofBerlininLiebmann's work); MLR, 104.1, 2009 285 andbynarrative form(e.g. Hensel'suseofdialect).In the volume'sconclusion, the seconddynamicisexplored, namelytherelationships Kohler identifies betweenthe authors surveyed. Isolating a commonquestioning ofestablished modes ofhistory writing(reflected, for example,intherecurrent problematization ofthe photograph as historical medium), a broadengagement with thecomplexities of therelation shipsbetweenindividual and society(seen in a preoccupation withquestionsof subjectivity), and a propensity to intertextuality (acrosstheauthorssurveyed, but alsobeyond), Kohlerpositions herauthors asconstitutive of'eineliterarische Kultur [. .], die nun nicht mehr staatlich und durchauI3ere Grenzen,sonderndurch innerliterarische Verkniipfung definiert ist'(p.215). To conclude:thisis a volume which offers a vigorousdefenceof theaesthetic 'Haltbarkeit' (p.229)ofGDR literature. Theopeningupofwhatfor manyobservers remains a politically andhistorically contingent chapterin German literary history toan aesthetic reappraisal is illuminating. The text'sscopemay be challenging; a broaderintroduction to theauthorssurveyed, aswell as problematization ofkey terms (including theterm'GDRauthor'itself), would havebeenbeneficialinthis respect. However,forthereader seeking toengageindetail withtheaesthetic strate giesthat havecontributed tocontinued scholarly interest in writing byauthors from theformer GDR, thisstudy willproveuseful. UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS JENNY MCKAY Honecker's Children: YouthandPatriotisminEast(ern)Germany, 1979-2002. By ANNASAUNDERS. Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press. 2007. 252 pp. ?50. ISBN 978-0-7190-7411-0. The statedaimof thepresent volumeisan intergenerational comparison ofyouth attitudes totheformer GDR and theunified Germany. Saundersassessesthelong terminfluence ofGDR socialization on identity withinpresent-day Germanyand examinestheextentto which therapidchangesexperienced inEastGermany have led toshifts incivicloyalties andnotionsofpatriotism. The title, Honecker's Chil dren,imposesa ready-made identity on thesocialgroupunderscrutiny; a senseof loyalty and ofbelongingto theformer East is implicit, whichhas thepotentialto undermine theintention of theinvestigation from theoutset. Manifestations ofpatriotism byyoung Easterners areexplored byadopting an in terdisciplinary approachin whichSaunderscombinesthefindings ofherown field work (undertaken inSachsen-Anhalt in2001and 2002)withofficial statistics and established theories. The twogroups which formthebasisofher study are,firstly, thoseyoungadults who were teenagers at thetimeofunification and for whom unification represented a crucialcaesuraintheir biographies, acutely markingthe transition from childhoodtoadulthood, and,secondly, those whowere teenagers at thetime of interview and therefore had little ornopersonalexperience ofthe GDR. Inestablishing thiscontrast, Saundersseekstodemonstrate theinfluence ofGDR socialization, or lackof it, on forming attitudes and identities inthe present. ...

Writing the New Berlin: the German capital in post-Wall literature

The wall was still coming down when critics began to call for the great Berlin novel that could explain what was happening to Germany and the Germans. Such a novel never appeared. Instead, writers have created a patchwork imaginary - in the form of about 300 works of fiction set in Berlin - of a city and a nation whose identity collapsed virtually overnight. Contributors to this literary collage include established writers like Peter Schneider and Christa Wolf, young authors like Tanja Duckers and Ingo Schramm, German-Turkish authors Zafer Senocak and Yade Kara, and the Austrians Kathrin Roggla and Marlene Streeruwitz. The non-arrival of the great Berlin novel marks the reorientation in German culture and literature that is the focus of this study: the experience of unification was too diverse, too postmodern, too influenced by global developments to be captured by one novel. Berlin literature of the postunification decade is marked by ambiguity: change is linked to questions of historical continuity; postmodern simulation finds its counterpart in a quest for authenticity; and the assimilation of Germanness into European and global contexts is both liberation and loss. This book pursues a nuanced understanding of the search for new ways to tell the story of Germany's past and of its importance for the formation of a new German identity. Katharina Gerstenberger is associate professor of German at the University of Cincinnati.

On Fools and Clowns: Farewell to the GDR in Two Final DEFA Films: Egon Günther's Stein and Jörg Foth's Letztes aus der DaDaeR

A decade after the epochal political changes in East Germany, a number of important recent publications in Studies have centered on the question of intellectuals and their relationship to political power. East intellectuals and writers in particular had played a very public role in the protests leading to the fall of the wall and the chaotic developments afterwards. However, following the rapidly executed unification, the public indifferently dismissed these writers' dire warnings against the evils of capitalism. The former role models of dissent had now become dethroned-a process hastened by revelations about collaborations with the Stasi by several of the most prominent writers such as Christa Wolf, Heiner Muller, and Sascha Anderson. The early 1990s were characterized by several highly publicized debates about the true nature of literary dissent in the East, the uncomfortable proximity of Geist andMacht, and even the literary quality of the thus far esteemed canon of GDR writings (Gesinnungsasthetik). These debates, largely carried out in the feuilleton sections of Germany's important newspapers, broadened in the mid-1990s to include scrutiny of the public role of West intellectuals, but have returned recently to investigations into the question of political influence and engagement of East intellectuals, and their continued loyalty to some form of socialism as a realistic goal. Wolfgang Emmerich has summarized possible motives for this position: Vielen Angehorigen der literarischen Intelligenz [...] gelang - oder geschah - im Lauf der spaten 60er und 70er Jahre etwas ganz Erstaunliches: Auch als ihre Einstellung gegenuber dem real existierenden Sozialismus als dem falschen, misungenen kritischer und kritischer wurde, hielten sie - nachweislich ungebrochen auf der Basis eines emphatischen Bekenntnisses zum Antifaschismus - an der vertrauten Zuschreibung fest, einer Elite mit aufklarerisch-erzieherischem Auftrag anzugehoren. (Die Risiken des Dafurseins 280) Other scholars, too, have repeatedly emphasized the importance of the antifascist founding myth of the GDR, which became the long lasting ideological superstructure for legitimizing the socialist experiment, and produced what Annette Simon has called a Loyalitatsfalle(qtd. in Emmerich, German Writers 50) for its intellectuals-a litmus test for the right political conviction.1 As David Bathrick has shown, East writers were not only aware of this problem but articulated it as well in their literary works. Reading Christa Wolf's infamous 1990 story Was bleibt with an eye towards the writer's struggle to situate herself [...] in relation to a system within which she is both willing participant and an obj ect of ostracism, Bathrick concludes that the text seeks instead to confront the already internalized discursive 'system' as a functioning and invasive presence in the mental processes of this intellectual's everyday life (151). While much attention has been devoted to the role of literary intellectuals, less has been written about East filmmakers in this context. Two late DEFA films have explored the relationship of Geist and Macht even before the literary controversy broke lose by casting the central oppositional artist as fool and clown, respectively. This article discusses Egon Gunther's film Stein (1991) and Jorg Foth's Letztes aus der DaDaeR (1990), both of which were among the approximately thirty last features bearing the DEFA label. By choosing the fool's or clown's outsider perspective to comment on the lost Utopian project of socialism both films exhibit little faith in the effectiveness of art's pedagogical mission as Emmerich had described it for literary intellectuals. Gunther and Foth both demonstrate in their films a commitment to film as social critique even as they depict how this ambition was in effect thwarted early on in the GDR, leaving the artist the choice between playing the mad fool or the irreverent but ultimately harmless clown. …

Textual Responses to German Unification: Processing Historical and Social Change in Literature and Film (review)

Reviewed by: Textual Responses to German Unification: Processing Historical and Social Change in Literature and Film Kerstin Gaddy Carol Anne Costabile-HemingRachel J. HalversonKristie A. Foell, eds. Textual Responses to German Unification: Processing Historical and Social Change in Literature and Film. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001. 278 pp. US$ 84. ISBN 3-11- 017022-1. Of the many anthologies and books devoted to literary responses to German unification, this might be one of the best to date. It consists of fourteen articles that span a wide variety of literary and cinematic reactions to the tumultuous developments in Germany after 1989. The anthology is divided into three sections. In the first, “Authors and their Worlds,” each of the five essays deals with a single author and his or her literary response to unification: Helga Schütz, Monika Maron, Günter de Bruyn, Volker Braun, and Thomas Brussig. All these authors come from the GDR, and all, except Brussig, are of the older generation. Even so, they represent different voices from the former GDR, from Maron's harsh criticism of the GDR to Braun's criticism of the West. The authors also use different strategies to deal with their own past in a country that no longer exists and to come to grips with the new Germany. Ann Rider demonstrates that Schütz in her novel Vom Glanz der Elbe is searching for a more balanced relationship between East and West Germany and that the novel rejects a new Germany in which Western dominance and values obliterate everything that once constituted East Germany. As can be expected, Maron, who left the GDR in 1988, does not have such a conciliatory attitude towards the former GDR. Stuart Taberner's article on her works from Flugasche to Pavels Briefe shows that much of her writing is a devastating critique of the GDR. She uses her own troubled experiences in the GDR to create texts that also serve the purpose of liberating herself from her own past. Her fiction can be seen as one example of the sudden increase of autobiographical writing in postunification Germany. James Reece's article on de Bruyn discusses not only theoretical aspects of autobiographical writing but also which roles honesty and memory play in creating a “good” autobiography. Using de Bruyn's theoretical writings on autobiography as well as his two autobiographies, Zwischenbilanz and Vierzig Jahre, Reece shows that a successful autobiography can give reader as well as author new insights on a psychological and historical level. He contrasts de Bruyn's honesty with Hermann Kant's attempts to use autobiographical writing to defend his activities as head of the GDR Schriftstellerverband. In the two remaining articles in this section Rolf Jucker uses Braun's texts to back up his own criticism of western capitalist society, and Rachel Halverson analyzes Brussig's comical best-seller Helden wie wir, concluding that Brussig, even though his novel plays out in the GDR, nevertheless speaks equally to both East and West Germans. The four articles in the second section, “Multiple Voices – Generational Views,” all focus on several authors. In her article on the intellectual opposition to unification, Karoline Oppen examines how Stefan Heym, Walter Jens, and Helga Köningsdorf intervened into the political debate about reunification from the summer of 1989 to [End Page 299] the summer of 1990 and how the media reacted to them. Oppen's thesis is that the West German media succeeded in silencing authors and other intellectuals who voiced opinions different from the mainstream West German opinions. Oppen shows that these attempts to exclude critical authors started long before the well-publicized attacks on Christa Wolf. The media reaction to Heym is particularly revealing. Before the fall of the wall, Heym's critique of the GDR was widely publicized in the West, in particular in prestigious media such as Der Spiegel and Die Zeit. This changed after the fall of the wall. Despite Heym's conciliatory attitude towards unification, he was attacked as an incorrigible socialist, and his articles calling for democratic reform and a fair reunification process were largely ignored, his literary works disparaged. Similar fates befell Jens and Köningsdorf. Alisa Kasle's article views the process...

Kultur als Gedächtnis. Deutungskämpfe im literarischen Feld der Nachwende

Abstract In this article I wish to propose a structure for the literary field of the 1990s. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory, the notion of communicative or cultural memory/memories serves as a means to depict 'groups' or 'generations' of authors. Due to the dominance of the field of literary criticism, the dynamic in the field of literature almost comes to a halt. Although the major debates of the 'Berlin republic' are furnished by writers' biographical or aesthetic >material> (by Christa Wolf, Walser, Grass, Sebald), there are no strategies for making distinctions within the field of literature. There seems to be a need for a more cultural brand of Bourdieu's 'struggles of interpretation'; it is not symbolic capital but symbols of remembrance they focus on. Finally, my original interest seems to weave through the text like a thread: the way West German authors dealt with their East German counterparts, who found 'their' positions in the field occupied.

Before Reproduction: The Distortion of Generation

Jean Baudrillard has posited a theory of ‘the precession of simulacra’, arguing that it is no longer possible to tell the difference between an image and the meaning it purports to represent because technology allows the image to precede its meaning. Christa Wolf, while researching Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays (1984), traveled to Greece and discovered the ways in which language in the rational, Western model of civilization has been distorted. Both Baudrillard and Wolf are disturbed by the ways in which sign systems can be manipulated and generated, and both demonstrate the effect this has in the political and cultural arenas. This analysis intends to show how Baudrillard’s theories play out in Wolf’s narrative, and how Wolf resolves the problems thus posed through the shock of the aesthetic experience, which forces communication while it defies representation.

Practicing Progress: The Promise and Limitations of Enlightenment. Festschrift for John A. Mccarthy by Richard E. Schade, Dieter Sevin, John A. McCarthy

II50 Reviews not yet sufficientlyknown. A good example isKevin Hilliard's noteworthy account of Sophie von laRoche, whose occasional attempts toadapt Richardson's manner toGer man material are particularly interesting; so, too, is the essay on her granddaughter, Bettine von Arnim, by Ursula Hudson-Wiedemann, whose unfortunate and surely unintentional conflation ofPygmalion and his 'idealwoman' provokes a passing smile. Otherwise there is little to smile at, still less to laugh about, in this collection, which becomes evermore serious as the focus shifts toMarie von Ebner-Eschenbach, ably presented by Charlotte Woodford, and Lou Andreas-Salome, the subject of one of thebest-presented pieces in thisvolume, cool, controlled, and lucidly thought out by David Midgley with a clear sense of context and direction. By comparison, Andrew Webber's account of Else Lasker-Schiiler may seem somewhat wordy and opaque, its insights sometimes obscured by all too close exposure to her poems: on closer scrutiny,however, his portrayal succeeds in conveying theoriginality of its subject. The final fourcontributions focus onmore recentwriters. Andrea Capovilla's por trayalof Irmgard Keun makes a persuasive case fora complex author writing during difficult times about theobstacles thenencountered bywomen. The collection, which opened with a somewhat obscure essay byBettina Bildhauer onMechtild vonMagde burg, the thirteenth-centuryBenedictine pioneer ofmystical writing inGerman, is rounded offby accounts of three of the best-known women writers of the post-war period. Stephanie Bird deals with Ingeborg Bachmann, Anita Bunyan with Christa Wolf, while Elfriede Jelinek is considered by Ben Morgan. These will be read with interestand advantage by anyone eager toknowmore about post-war German writing and thewomen who made such an important contribution to it. In her introduction theeditor reminds us that 'theabsence ofwomen from the canon has not gone unno ticed by scholars'. Not by scholars inBritain, at any rate, to judge by the contents of thiswelcome volume. UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL PETER SKRINE PracticingProgress: The Promise and Limitations ofEnlightenment. FestschriftforJohn A. McCarthy. Ed. by RICHARD E. SCHADE and DIETER SEVIN. (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, Io6) Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. 2007. 234 pp. E48; $65. ISBN 978-go 420-2I46-4. Twelve distinguished Germanists, mostly North American, have honoured theEn lightenment scholar JohnMcCarthy with a richly deserved Festschrift. All articles save one are inEnglish, thoughGerman quotations are not translated. Their quality ismostly high, though often one feels an author might have pressed arguments fur ther or exposed them tomore challenges. That, however, would have required the resolutelymaieutic editing which is inappropriate for a Festschrift, where an editor isoften glad to receive contributions at all. The Enlightenment and its reception shade into discussions of 'enlightenment' in general. A central Enlightenment concept, 'Bestimmung', is treated informativelyby Wolfgang Albrecht, who rangeswidely from the theologian Johann Joachim Spalding via Lessing and Mendelssohn to Joachim Heinrich Campe's definition ofwomen's destiny in Vdterlicher Rathfuir meine Tochter and the philanthropic version of 'Be stimmung' formulated in I8 I6 by theex-Jacobin Georg Wedekind. Herbert Rowland summarizes American reviews of thenineteenth-century translations ofLaokoon and Nathan by Ellen Frothingham, and Liliane Weissberg describes how Hannah Arendt extracted fromNathan solutions to specifically twentieth-century problems. Laurie Johnson offersa somewhat under-researched but stimulating account of thephilosophe MLR, I03.4, 2oo8 I I 5 I Don Alfonso inCosz fan tutte. Other essays are on more general eighteenth-century topics: Richard T. Gray on physiocracy, Thomas P. Saine on Lutheran settlers in America, and Simon Richter with awealth of ideas about Goethe's Faust. A broader concept of 'enlightenment' is shown by Robert C. Holub to change into itsopposite inNietzsche as he moves from biology as a means of enlightened planning to an enthusiasm foreugenics that anticipates Nazi excesses. Frank Trommler maintains that the I960s studentmovement derived an enlightened critical attitude fromBrecht and theFrankfurt School; he does not consider that theauthoritarian New Left, with itsbinary opposition of salvific 'rationality' and irredeemable 'irrationality', likewise illustrates enlightenment's transformation into itsopposite. Two essays stand out. Noting that the Enlightenment failed to end witch trials, Susanne Kord examines the trialand execution ofAnna Goldi atGlarus in I782 and suggests a connection between the 'evil eye' ascribed towitches and the 'science' of physiognomy. This fascinating and deeply researched study almost bursts...

Was wird mit uns geschehen? Tagebücher der Internierung 1939 und 1940 by Kurt Stern, Christian Löser

292 Reviews action of theplay is in a small hostelry bringing together a cross-section of citizenry. AsWerner notes, echoes ofHorvath and Fleisser abound with much sexual innuendo, twonear suicides, and characters called Adam and Eva. Following awareness of these threeplays, Welt iiberfuillt has recently come to light inNew York Public Library. By 1933Anna Gmeyner was not inNazi Germany but inFrance with G. W. Pabst. Recent research has demonstrated the extent of her input into the famous mining disaster filmKameradschaft. Werner's treatment ofGmeyner's filmwork with Pabst leads on smoothly into the next phase of her exile life. In Paris Gmeyner, long since divorced from Wiesner, met aRussian philosopher of religion called JaschaMorduch. They married and in 1935moved toEngland. Here Gmeyner worked on filmswith Berthold Viertel, especially The Passing of theThird Floor Back with Conrad Veidt, by then also an exile inEngland, and onViertel's filmversion ofToller's Pastor Hall. Significant toowas herwork with theBoulting brothers. Important though this film work was, itwas as nothing compared to theworldwide success of the Pabst film Kameradschaft, on which she had worked with Karl Otten, Peter Martin Lampel, and Herbert Rappaport. By 1934 the exilejournal Pariser Tageblatthad brought out not aGmeyner play but a narrative work calledMary Anna wartet, in fifteeninstalments. Then inLondon at theFree German League ofCulture Gmeyner read from a novel she had been writing. Manja, einRoman umfuinf Kinder appeared inAmsterdam in 1938.This German ver sionwas immediately followed byAmerican and English editions. Gmeyner's second novel, Cafe du Dome, suffered an unfortunate fate. Itwas published only inEnglish and theGerman original was lost. It is this English version which has now been republished. Where Manja was a so-called 'Deutschlandroman', showing the rise of National Socialism through theperspective of a Jewish girl and her four friends,Cafe duDome isamulti-perspective novel showing the febrile lifeof exiles inParis.Werner sees Cafe du Dome as pointing to something beyond political party concerns to faith, hope, and love. By the end Nadia is 'guterHoffnung': she ispregnant. After thedeath of her husband, Gmeyner continued towrite inEnglish, now mov ing into the literature of comparative religion.Werner lists,but does not discuss in detail, these lateworks, and has an even longer listof novels and plays byAnna Mor duch ofwhich there isno trace.Perhaps there are still Morduch/Gmeyner discoveries tobe made? Altogether Birte Werner is to be congratulated on her immaculate research into thisworthy author. INSTITUTE OF GERMANIC AND ROMANCE STUDIES, LONDON J.M. RITCHIE Was wird mit uns geschehen? Tagebuicher der Internierung 1939 und 1940. By KURT STERN. Ed. by CHRISTIAN L6SER. Berlin: Aufbau. 2006. 231 PP. ?I8.90. ISBN 978-3-351-02624-0. Although the diaries which Kurt Stern kept during his two periods of internment in France (September-December 1939 and May-July 1940) may lack the powerful impact of others from the same period (Christa Wolf rightly speaks inher foreword of 'dieses wenig spektakulare Buch'), they do afford a fascinating insight into the mental landscape of a principled but undogmatic Communist struggling to come to termswith his unjust internment as an enemy alien, with themonotonous realities of camp life,and with alarming political events in theoutside world. Discovered in2000 after thedeath of his wife and now published in theirdaughter's translation from the French original, Stern's diaries reveal that,unlike, forexample, Lion Feuchtwanger, Bruno Frei, and Arthur Koestler, he has surprisingly little to say about living condi tions and the treatment of internees in the camps, in large part no doubt because life MLR, I03. I, 2oo8 293 inBlois, Villerbon, and Albi was far less harsh than inLe Vernet and Les Milles. He is much more preoccupied by the relativelymundane problem of living inuncomfort able proximity to individuals with whom he has little in common and forwhom he often feels unspoken contempt. Keeping a diary provides an outlet for such feelings as well as an opportunity to impose a structure on the otherwise shapeless lifeof an internee by recording and reflectingon his daily thoughts and experiences. The search for intellectual stimulation through intensive reading, piano lessons, chess, the learning of English, and endless discussions is punctuated by a number ofmoral issueswhich focus on lifeoutside the camp and present a...

Dimensions of Engagement: Politics and Aesthetics in Heinrich Böll's Early Fiction

The due proportion of political engagement and aesthetic autonomy has been a hotly contested issue in German literature since the end of World War II. At its most conspicuous the dispute was carried out in the form of Literaturstreite, extensive public debates among authors, critics, and scholars, which included, for example, the struggle over aesthetic autonomy vs. Socialist Realism during the formalism debate in 1949 and 1950, the conflict over aestheticism vs. engagement in the Zurcher Literaturstreit in 1966 and 1967, the 1968 debates on the death of literature, and the inter-German Literaturstreit following Christa Wolf's Was bleibt in 1990.1 Literaturstreite have served as a workable forum to periodically re-negotiate the spectrum of possible positions on the relationship between the political substance of literature on the one hand, and its aesthetic value on the other. More importantly, their regular recurrence in the public arena, rather than only in the limited realm of literature or the academy, underscores how charged the issue has been-no matter how disparate the opinions in various instances of Literaturstreite, none of these debates would have occurred without a general consensus that the status of the political in literature was a matter of crucial importance. The fundamental question at the root of the dispute has been, and remains, how much political engagement aesthetic distinction can bear. Or asked in reverse, to what extent autonomous art2 can be political. Although this was not a new question in the post-World War II era, it gained heightened significance in the immediate postwar years. At a time when German identity was at stake along with peace and stability in the region, many writers reflected on the possibilities for literature to contribute to the constitution of a new Germany. As Ralf Schnell suggested, it is therefore impossible to understand the development of contemporary German literature without an acute conception of its formative stage in the mid to late 1940s. Developments during the formative years of postwar German literature foreshadowed fairly accurately the concurrent power and impotence of literature in the German public arena (Schnell 71-72), as well as the ongoing debate on the role literature could play in the realm of politics. For example, the 1947 pan-German Schriftstellerkongress assembled writers across the spectrum of postwar literary production-avantgardists, realists, exiles, inner emigres, conservatives, communists, luminaries, and neophytes-because they believed that a single-language culture could help surmount the political divisiveness of the time. Writers who attended the Schriftstellerkongress were deeply invested in the idea that literature could and should have an impact on the socio-political sea change that was taking place. Yet at the same time it was precisely the profound disagreement over how literature could aid the construction of a unified and peaceful Germany that led to the ultimate failure of the Schriftstellerkongress project (Schnell 74-75). One strand of writing that emerged in this precarious and complex postwar climate is particularly noteworthy for embracing socio-political and ethical concerns while preserving the aesthetic integrity of the literary word. In effect, it conjoined political engagement and autonomous aesthetics. The reliance on a distinctly literary idiom prevented a mimetic reproduction of reality along with its discursive rules. By suspending the rules of non-literary discourse, such writing expanded the possibilities of unconventional political thought. Moreover, it opened new modes of relating to the realm of the political, thereby enabling a unique form of criticism. In a recent study on literatur als Widerstand Bertram Salzmann demonstrated that authors as diverse as Use Aichinger, Ingeborg Bachmann, Max Frisch, Wolfgang Hilbig, Giinter Kunert, Siegfried Lenz, Peter Weiss, and Christa Wolf concurred in their commitment to a form of nonconformist literature whose critical potential rested first and foremost in its aesthetic form (331, 335). …

The elsewhere of a “state poet”: ideological collapses and identitary construction in Christa Wolf’s work

L’article retrace l’evolution de l’œuvre de Christa Wolf sous l’aspect de l’integration de l’ailleurs involontaire qui lui fut impose en 1990. Rien ne semble predestiner la « poetesse d’Etat » de la RDA a s’interesser a un ailleurs en dehors de ce pays dans lequel son œuvre est si solidement enracinee. La rupture ideologique due a la disparition de la RDA l’a pourtant precipitee dans l’ailleurs de l’Allemagne reunifiee dans laquelle elle peine toujours a s’integrer. L’experience de l’ailleurs est ainsi devenue constitutive de son ecriture qui, depuis la querelle litteraire de 1990-1993, s’est entierement tournee vers la (re)construction de son identite.

Dichter als Propheten

In two central texts of the GDR literature of the eighties, there appear prophetic figures: in Christa Wolf 's {! Kassandra} (1983) and in Franz Fühmann's {! Vor Feuerschlünden. Erfahrung mit Georg Trakls Gedicht} (1982), in which Kassandra is a seer and Trakl is described as a prophet. These texts show a parallelization between the narrators and their exemplary and ideal figures, which is remarkable for a partially non-fictional and autobiographical literature. This allows to draw conclusions about the author's self-concept regarding their authorship and literature: My hypothesis is that this self-concept is a compensation of a loss of importance and meaning that arose from growing conflicts with those in power: Like their figures, literature as a whole is becoming prophetic and the authors martyrs in that they abandon the belief in their agency. At the same time, these texts preserve the utopian perspective that characterizes the GDR literature since the fifties. Thereby, the religious topoi play two roles: to criticize those in power and to enhance the value of literature and their figures, by letting them suffer and die.

Tragedy, Modernity, and Terra Mater: Christa Wolf Recounts the Fall

Research Article| August 01 2007 Tragedy, Modernity, and Terra Mater: Christa Wolf Recounts the Fall Kate Rigby Kate Rigby Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google New German Critique (2007) 34 (2 (101)): 115–141. https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-2007-005 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Kate Rigby; Tragedy, Modernity, and Terra Mater: Christa Wolf Recounts the Fall. New German Critique 1 August 2007; 34 (2 (101)): 115–141. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033X-2007-005 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsNew German Critique Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. New German Critique, Inc.2007 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Articles You do not currently have access to this content.