German Fiction Research Articles

МЕТАФОРИЧЕСКОЕ МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЕ ВОЙНЫ В ДИСКУРСЕ ХХ ВЕКА (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ РУССКОГО И НЕМЕЦКОГО ЯЗЫКОВ)

The context of cognitive linguistics is characterized. The concepts of conceptual metaphor, metaphorical modeling, and non-expert conceptualization of war are introduced. Metaphorical models of war in the Russian and German fiction are analyzed. Universal and nationally specific representations of the war metaphor are identified.

Дометрические меры длины в произведениях русских и немецких писателей и их перевод

The aim of the study is to typologize the translation of the names of pre-metric units of length in Russian and German fiction by identifying common semantic transformations. The scientific novelty of the study lies in examining pre-metric units of length in the genetic, semantic and functional aspects. At the genetic level, the role of the anthropometric factor in the formation of such names is confirmed. At the semantic level, the commonality of transformational processes in the history of education and functioning of the vocabulary under consideration is investigated. At the functional level, translation techniques are analyzed in relation to the words selected for analysis in a broad literary context. A comprehensive study of this kind, combining the importance and mutual influence of all these levels, is being carried out for the first time. As a result, the commonality of semantic transformations in the sphere of the vocabulary in question (from the metonymic process, which virtually forms this lexical group, to the metaphorical process defining their new, abstract meaning) and, in particular, its inclusion in the processes of phraseologization are confirmed. The study also reveals how and to what extent the variety of translation modes reflects the semantic nuances of the vocabulary under consideration.

Traumatic (Self) Exile: Narrative Marginalization in Recent and Postwar German Fiction

This article examines representations of migrants in Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2015 novel Gehen, Ging, Gegangen and Bodo Kirchhoff’s 2016 novella Widerfahrnis. I locate these texts in historical and literary contexts, the roots of which can be traced to the first generation of postwar German literature, particularly the works of Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass. In both Grass’s and Böll’s postwar fiction, German experiences of the war and its aftermath are foregrounded, and focus is placed on German postwar trauma, while the Jewish victims of the Holocaust remain in the background. This article proposes a thematic continuum between the postwar texts of Böll and Grass and the more recent novels Gehen, Ging, Gegangen and Widerfahrnis: in each literary era, the experience of the white German male is foregrounded, effectively erasing the experience of marginalized figures.

СПЕЦИФИКА WENDELITERATUR (ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ «ПОВОРОТА») В ОБЪЕДИНЕННОЙ ГЕРМАНИИ

When studying the literature of the united Germany, the question arises whether such texts as J. Sparschuh’s “The Room Fountain” (1995), Ch. Wolf’s “What Remains?” (1990), G. Grass’s “Wide Field” (1995), “My Century” (1999), T. Brussig’s “Sun Alley” (1999), L. Seiler’s “Star 111” (2020), and other numerous works reflecting an entire era, can be categorized under the same term. Since the end of the twentieth century, German-language literary scholarship has repeatedly referred to the concepts of ‘Wenderoman’ and ‘Wendeliteratur’ (the novel of the “era of the turn” and the literature of the “turn”) as part of this subject matter. However, so far there is no worldwide practice of using these concepts as literary terms in the study of twentieth-century German fiction. Within the framework of this article, we assume that despite the authors’ belonging to different generations, their experiences of living in the GDR or the FRG, and the heterogeneity of the genres in which they wrote, their novels have much in common and are in need of a unifying terminology. The theoretical part of the article also includes a discussion of whether the word ‘Wende’ can be the carrier of the main ideas of artistic texts, devoted to the search for national identity, and also deals with the history of the political concept of ‘Wende’. Considering the concept of ‘Wendeliteratur’ as a term, we summarize the works of Germanspeaking researchers in this field and make an attempt to derive a general definition and criteria of literature of the “turn”, questioning about what texts and what authors comprise ‘Wendeliteratur’, and according to what principles they can be attributed to it. As a result of a comparative typological analysis of three selected works (the novella “Ribbeck Pears” by F.K. Delius (1991), the novel “The Tower” by U. Telkamp (2008) and the novel “Crusoe” by L. Seiler (2014)), we demonstrate the parallels, linking the key images, the overlapping leitmotifs, similarities in artistic techniques and choice of themes, the particular trends of artistic thinking, typical for the ‘Wendeliteratur’ (literature of the “turn”).

On the ambivalence of discursive compound contraction in Modern German

The present study focuses on the contraction of German compounds with an identical component in different text genres. Two approaches to the process of compound contraction are discussed: the first which tends to treat it as a syntactic phenomenon, and the second which tends to understand it as a morphological phenomenon. Examples from contemporary German fiction, press and legislation are classified in order to illustrate the ambivalence of compound contraction between phrase formation and word formation. Omission or use of the article as well as various types of asymmetry in contracted structures, possibility to insert additional lexical elements and integration of contracted structures into further processes of word formation are specifically addressed in the research.Contracted constructions can demonstrate asymmetry according to the degree of expression-side compression, in terms of speech affiliation of determinating components, with respect to structural complexity, semantic actant type and status of determinating components. In the latter case, it concerns functioning of separated noun components and autonomous adjectives as equivalent attributes for the common main component.The results show that each approach is justified with regard to different aspects of compound contraction, provided due attention is paid to the fact that contraction can be realized to some extent variously in different genres.

The Cold War and Return Migration: The West German Response to Yugoslavia's Efforts to Influence its Workers Abroad

Every state that signed a labour-recruitment agreement with West Germany attempted to exert influence over their citizens who lived in West Germany. But because most of the states with which West Germany signed agreements – with the exception of Italy – were ruled, at least for a time, by dictators or military juntas, the efforts by sending states to influence their citizens abroad at times proved problematic for the democratic and liberalizing West German state. This article examines West Germany's response to Yugoslavia's efforts to ‘govern the seventh republic’, that is, to exert a profound influence upon its citizens in West Germany. It focuses on the establishment, operation, and West German response to Yugo Clubs, institutions with which Yugoslav officials sought to bind their citizens more tightly to the Yugoslav state. This history represents, in some ways, a distinctive case, because Yugoslavia was the only communist state with which West Germany signed a labour-recruitment agreement. Shifts in the Cold War context, and especially the rise of détente and Willy Brandt's new Ostpolitik during the late 1960s, are thus critical to understanding West Germany's response to Yugoslavia's efforts to influence its citizens abroad. During the 1960s, West German officials, fearing a communist infiltration, resisted Yugoslavia's efforts to assert influence over Yugoslav labour migrants. But with the emergence of détente in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, West German officials supported Yugoslavia's attempts to influence Yugoslav guest workers, even when some troubling aspects of these efforts came to light. Finally, some German officials supported the clubs because they believed they would keep Yugoslav guest workers closely linked to their homeland, thereby increasing the likelihood that they would eventually return home. This belief, in turn, supported the West German fiction that it was not a land of immigration.

Functioning and Role of Conversational Means in German Fiction for Children and Youth

Functioning and Role of Conversational Means in German Fiction for Children and Youth

Sociolinguistic aspects of “friend - foe” opposition (Based on modern German fiction)

Sociolinguistic aspects of “friend - foe” opposition (Based on modern German fiction)

THE CONCEPTUAL FIELD „GLÜCK“ IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE DISCOURSE

The present paper pays a special attention to such terms as “concept” and “conceptual field”, which play an extremely important role in understanding the processes of conceptualization of the reality in human cognition. The interpretation of the conceptual field as a fixed grouping of typologically and semantically homogeneous and hierarchically arranged concepts is substantiated in the study. The principles of modeling the conceptual field “Glück” in the German language discourse are considered. The means of verbalization of the concept “Glück”, namely a set of nominal lexemes for designating positive emotions (the lexeme “Glück” and its synonyms registered in the texts: Glück, Freude, Geschick, Heil, Hochgefühl, Schwein, Segen, Wonne) are under investigation. Based on the analysis of collocations of positively marked emotive nouns with verbs that cover certain areas in the conceptual field under study, the structure of the conceptual field “Glück” in the German language discourse is modeled. The conceptual areas constituting the core, the near and the far periphery are outlined. The degree of connection between different conceptual areas is determined and the areas exhibiting strong, medium or weak connection are found. Correlations between the conceptual areas have been established, each of which, forming figures of various configurations, is considered as a single conceptual complex. The use of methods of structural linguistics in the study of conceptual processes made it possible to obtain relevant objective data on the actualization of the emotional concept “Glück” in the German fiction of the 20th century. In summary, the author’s interpretation of the term “conceptual field” is suggested, which is defined as a set of conceptual spheres (areas) connected by systemic, interrelated and complementary relations, which is represented by the lexical field units (words) and within which units of the lexical level function and realize their meanings. The structure of the conceptual field “Glück” has been determined. The following conceptual areas constitute the core: “verbs of movement and displacement”, “verbs designating occurrence or appearance” and “verbs of spatial localization”. The near periphery is formed by: “action verbs”, “relational semantics verbs”, “stative, processual verbs”, “verbs of being”, and “verbs of mental and social actions of the subject.” The far periphery includes the following conceptual areas: “verbs of sounding and onomatopoeia”, “characterization verbs”, and “modal verbs”. Key words: concept, verbalizers, correlation analysis, conceptual field, conceptual area, core, periphery.

In Modernist “School for Fools”: The Topics of Writing and Apprenticeship in German and Russian Fiction of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century

The article suggests a comparative analysis of the modernist writing and apprenticeship topics in German and Russian fiction of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Writing is considered to be calligraphy, a writer’s craft, the character’s existence as a scriptor, a form of escapism, a (neo)mythological ritual of destruction and renewal of language and the world. Apprenticeship is explored in its connection with rhetorical culture of imitation and forms of rebellion against it, be it rebellion against the bourgeois society (R. Walser, H. Hesse, T. Bernhard) or the Soviet school and Social Realism (S. Sokolov, M. Shishkin). The literary tradition serves here as an object of imitation and/or deconstruction. This ambivalent attitude takes the form of irony, buffoonery, foolishness, schizophrenia and is rather often represented in the doppelganger motif. The study uses cultural-historical, comparative, narratological methods, leitmotif analysis, etc. The authors identifies new typological links between German and Russian literature.

Keywords, Structures of Feeling, and the Novel

Keywords, Structures of Feeling, and the Novel

On The Question Of The History Formation Of Uzbek-German Literary And Cultural Relations (1960-1975)

The productive value of a literary work depends on its functioning. The very development of national literatures is impossible without interrelationships with other literatures, mutual influence and mutual redemption, the study of interethnic literary contacts has acquired special significance and relevance. Literary ties between Uzbekistan and Germany have their own history and interesting facets of modern interaction. German fiction is well known in Uzbekistan. The interaction and relationship of literatures are associated with the cultural and economic interaction of peoples.

Precedent hagionyms as means to verbalize the concept 
 of FAITH/UNBELIEF in contemporary German novels

The article analyses the use of precedent proper names of biblical origin from contemporary German novels through the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The precedent hagionyms are seen as markers of the religious mindset and a means to verbalize religious involvement and the linguo cultural concept of FAITH/UNBELIEF. The precedent hagionyms in artistic discourse are used denotatively, in comparative constructions, and as part of biblical phraseology; they act as means of expressing figurative and value components of the concept of FAITH due to their strong implicational features. When used denotatively, the hagionyms manifest not only their nominative identifying function but a characterizing one as well, since every such hagionym is supported by a precedent, either an event or a text. Phraseological units containing hagionyms act as reference models for evaluation of current events, phenomena or states; they are also used humorously and ironically and as such demonstrate scepticism and negative attitudes of the speaker towards the objects of their speech, thus manifesting the concept of UNBELIEF. Hagionyms in the speech of contemporary characters contribute to the emotionality of their utterances. On the one hand, precedental hagionyms in contemporary German fiction testify that a layer of Christian culture still exists in the German language. On the other hand, the peculiarities of their usage demonstrate that linguocultural concept of FAITH is being transformed and filled with everyday phenomena and a new patchwork religious identity is being formed

Roads to Nowhere? Cycling, Happiness and Emotional Authenticity in Contemporary German Fiction

This article compares a selection of recent German literary representations of cycling in the context of contemporary discourses of slow travel, with a particular focus on themes of happiness and emotional authenticity. It seeks to expand the framework of discussions of slow travel with a comparative focus on four novels: Der Mann auf dem Hochrad (‘The Man on the Penny Farthing’, 1984) by Uwe Timm, Im Sommer wieder Fahrrad (‘I’ll Cycle Again in the Summer’, 2016) by Lea Streisand, Im Feld (‘In the Field’, 2018) by Joachim Zelter and Neujahr (‘New Year’, 2018) by Juli Zeh. The article surveys the cultural history of cycling, and pays attention to the status of cycling in German society and culture. Drawing on the work of John Day, Valeria Luiselli, Erling Kagge and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, it presents a reading of the texts’ treatment of cycling as performance within a broader reflection upon slow travel as a non-functional, affective and authentic practice is experienced as a contrast to everyday life.

Intimacy and Resonance: Visions of Love in Hanns-Josef Ortheil’s Liebesnähe and Ronja von Rönne’s Wir kommen

Since the millennium, representations of intimate relationships have become one of the major trends in contemporary German fiction. This article examines two novels, Hanns-Josef Ortheil’s Liebesnähe (Love’s Closeness, 2011) and Ronja von Rönne’s Wir kommen (We Are Coming, 2016) as examples of two oppositional modes of representation of modern love relationships. Starting from an exposition of the configuration of love in social theory (Niklas Luhmann, Eva Illouz) as a compensatory mechanism for the fragmentation of social roles in modernity, the article reviews two concepts that describe love from a perspective of plenitude, Hartmut Rosa’s “resonance” and Francois Jullien’s “intimacy”. Reading Ortheil’s and von Rönne’s novels against Rosa’s and Jullien’s concepts, the article argues that while von Rönne’s representation of intimate relations falls squarely within the social theoretical parameters outlined by Luhmann and Illouz, Ortheil’s novel presents a fictional alternative to the “unhappy consciousness” of modern love, echoing Rosa’s and Jullien’s ideas.

Willful Girls: Gender and Agency in Contemporary Anglo-American and German Fiction by Emily Jeremiah

MLR, .,   tions. Part , ‘Communities across the New Media’, examines the impact (real and perceived) that cinema and radio had on social cohesiveness within and between national communities. Laura Marcus incisively analyses sociological and ethnographic studies which examined how film-going reconfigured relations between individuals and the collective. e last three chapters explore the sonic connections established between British and Russian BBC Home Service listeners, the acts of sonic citizenship carried out via the citation of It’s at Man Again catchphrases, and the polyglot nature of radio transmissions in colonial spaces (by Claire Davison, Debra Rae Cohen, and Jessica Berman, respectively). Each contributor persuasively demonstrates how the heterogeneous nature and content of radio transmissions simultaneously encouraged listening publics to feel part of an expanded community and rerouted established pathways of communal intersection. Space permitting, it would have been useful to see more contextualization of the plural forms of participation uncovered here alongside the communal visions and performative tendencies of, say, twentieth-century Nationalism and Fascism. Overall, this collection’s mapping of networks created by modernism’s diverse place-based practices and border-crossing media makes powerfully tangible how modernist communality was oen formed around acts of creative participation in ‘a rhythm of upheaval, interruption, [and] incursion’ (p. ). U  L D K Willful Girls: Gender and Agency in Contemporary Anglo-American and German Fiction. By E J. New York and London: Camden House. .  pp. £. ISBN ––––. Willful Girls opens with Emily Jeremiah’s clearly stated aim: she will ‘explore the depiction of girls and young women in Anglo-American and German literary texts’ (p. ). is statement indicates the lucidity of Jeremiah’s prose as she reads her chosen works through queer feminist theory, particularly Sara Ahmed’s investigation of the will in Willful Subjects (Durham and London: Duke University Press ()). Ahmed remarks that, as a descriptor, ‘willfulness’ applies to those who will ‘too much, or too little, or in “the wrong way”’ (p. ). Focusing on the ontological specificity of girls and young women, Jeremiah elaborates on Ahmed’s work, which pays particular attention to the regularity with which it is women and girls who are viewed as too active, too passive, or desiring in ‘the wrong way’. Willful Girls uses literary analysis to consider how experiences of ‘becoming’ woman might be affected by the entanglement of post-feminist and neo-liberal discourses of autonomy and freedom led by consumerism. e novels under discussion are: Antonia Baum’s vollkommen leblos, bestenfalls tot (), Sibylle Berg’s Ein paar Leute suchen das Glück und lachen sich tot (), Rachel B. Glaser Paulina und Fran (), Kerstin Grether’s Zuckerbabys (), Helene Hegemann’s Axolotl Roadkill (; trans. Axolotl Roadkill ()), Zoë Jenny’s Das Blütenstaubzimmer (; trans. e Pollen Room ()), Bella Bathurst’s Special (), Elke Naters’  Reviews Königinnen () and Lügen (), Charlotte Roche’s Feuchtgebiete (; trans. Wetlands ()), Juli Zeh’s Spieltrieb (), Caitlin Moran’s How to Build a Girl (), Zoe Pilger’s Eat My Heart Out (), Emma Jane Unsworth’s Animals () , Sarai Walker’s Dietland (), Helen Walsh’s Brass (), and Kate Zambreno’s Green Girl (). Willful Girls is divided into five chapters, plus a short Introduction and a Conclusion . e first chapter, ‘Contemporary Anglo-American and German Feminisms’, usefully outlines the theoretical framework underpinning Jeremiah’s readings, and makes the case for the comparative nature of her research. It gives a historical overview of feminism in the German, British, and American contexts in which the fictions are rooted, highlighting the contextual differences that manifest themselves in the works examined. For example, in Germany, anti-feminist discourses tend to attribute ‘blame’ to feminism for lower birth rates, whereas in the UK such concerns are less prominent (p. ). e remaining four chapters are divided by the following themes: Agency and Volition, Body and Beauty, Sisterhood and Identification, and Sex and Desire. By traversing between texts and topics, Jeremiah produces a complex and compelling analysis of her chosen works, tracing variations on themes while drawing out the overarching sense of queer transgression represented in the above-named novels. Essentially, the fictions examined in Willful Subjects are coming-of-age narratives , education novels, or Bildungsromane. Chapter , ‘Agency and Volition’, explores queer willfulness in relation to the...

Experimenters versus Magicians: Poetic strategies of an intertextual rivalry in 19thcentury German fiction

Even earlier than C.P. Snow's thesis of the "two cultures", Max Weber argued in 1917 that scientists are responsible for "the disenchantment of the world". At first glance, this seems to be evidenced by the science-friendly belles-lettres and literary texts of the 19th century. They focus on various scientists, experimenters, and traveling explorers who displace and "overcome" fictitious characters of magicians, necromancers, and magnetizers in literary texts. Moreover, literary programs (Emile Zola, Wilhelm Bölsche) and the "social" dramas of Naturalism fostered a scientific-like tendency of literature. According to Weber's and Snow's thesis of an antagonism between the natural scientists and literary intellectuals from the humanities, one might assume a rivalry between scientists and magicians in fiction, too. But this paper analyzes novels by Gottfried Keller and Paul Heyse exemplarily in order to show particular literary strategies which undermine this antagonism.

ТЕКСТООРГАНИЗУЮЩИЙ И АКСИОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ ПОТЕНЦИАЛЫ ЦВЕТООБОЗНАЧЕНИЙ В НЕМЕЦКОМ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОМ ТЕКСТЕ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ РОМАНА К. МОДИКА “KONZERT OHNE DICHTER”)

The article is devoted to the identification of the axiological and text-organizing potentials of colour terms by the material of K. Modick’s novel “Konzert ohne Dichter”. The work has an interdisciplinary character; it is written at the intersection of axiological linguistics and literary criticism, involving data from cognitive linguistics and psychology of colour. K. Modick’s novel-bestseller as a representative of the modern German fiction prose is analysed for the first time. The author reveals the colours appearing in the novel, and the means of their verbalization, demonstrates how colour terms structure the text and how they relate to values.

Deccal Ä°ncili by Fırat Caner (review)

persona. As such, Bunch is iconic, always outrageously in your face, sometimes very funny, sometimes cringeworthy, sometimes lovable, and sometimes revolting (even to herself), but always and forever authentic. Rita D. Jacobs New York City Franziska Hauser Die Gewitterschwimmerin Cologne, Germany. Eichborn Verlag. 2018. 428 pages. How does someone turn into the person they don’t want to be? Franziska Hauser answers this question in her autofictional book, Die Gewitterschwimmerin (The thunderstorm swimmer). The title character is based on the author’s own mother, and the book, Hauser’s second novel and longlisted for the 2018 Deutscher Buchpreis, is a journey to discover how this woman was shaped by both history and her family. Two converging timelines skillfully alternate between the chronology of the Hirsch family from 1889 onward and the story of Tamara, the thunderstorm swimmer , told from the present day back to her birth in 1951. We accompany members of the Hirsch family through the pivotal events of the past century, from the Jew who wanted to be a communist to the puppeteer who embraced the chances brought by German reunification. As readers, we become involved in the triumphs and tragedies of the Hirsch family. Being privy to their thoughts, we reflect on why they behave the way they do. As the trajectories meet around fourfifths of the way through the book, the open secret that has been lurking since the very first pages is unveiled; the actions and reactions of the characters gain context, and we start to understand what has hardened Tamara. We question whether her father, the decorated resistance fighter and celebrated socialist author, was really as good a man as his public persona would suggest. However, it is only in the closing scenes when an old acquaintance visits Tamara that she becomes aware of the unpleasant secret she has spent a lifetime hiding from herself. Although the topics and background events of Die Gewitterschwimmerin may be familiar to readers of contemporary German fiction, Franziska Hauser’s vividly drawn characters keep the story moving and the interest high. The detailed images and descriptions allow us as readers to fully appreciate the constraints of the times, which are the key to understanding the novel. For all it is character led, it is the situational circumstances that dictate their actions. Die Gewitterschwimmerin is a painfully beautiful exploration of what makes a person who they are. Catherine Venner Durham, UK Fırat Caner Deccal İncili İstanbul. Heyamola. 2018. 88 pages. In this playful and provocatively ironic book, Fırat Caner makes his readers suspect the foundations of alleged truths and provides a critique of cultural and sociopolitical assumptions within his narrative. Caner’s iconoclastic effort, perhaps best translated into English as “The Demon’s Gospel,” exploits a variety of emotions, including anger, sarcasm, and irony, through which he discusses a range of issues, from the interaction of good and evil, fate and free will, to knowledge, mineworkers, alienated individuals , inequality among genders, fixed gender roles, and power relations. In his rich narration, it is hard to pinpoint when it is the demon or the narrator ’s voice surfacing. It is, however, certain the narrator/evil endeavors to unmask the genuine intentions of the status quo and expose the disguised forms of social degradation , economic exploitation, and political manipulation. Through the cynical identities of aspiring Faust and alluring Gretchen, the narrator not only portrays the corruption of interpersonal relationships but also provides a panoramic view of society. Society is argued to have emerged among the compromising forces of wealth, advertisement , authority, and media. Through his reinterpretation of history and deconstruction of popular culture with all its concrete institutions and abstract notions, Caner provides concise formulations or brief aphorisms such as “The smartest censorship ever invented is noise” or “Opposition is the smartest invention of Power.” Books in Review 106 WLT WINTER 2019 Nota Bene By embodying evil, the narrator chooses a different strategy in telling the truth, particularly when the demon is regarded as the scapegoat of every bad deed. He refutes the accusations and tries to prevent the potential rebuttals by claiming he has never existed. It is an argument that recalls the aphorism from The Usual Suspects...

‘Israel’ in East German Fiction Film

‘Israel’ in East German Fiction Film