Batts analyses the kinds of predisposition, or bias, displayed by the authors of these works, and accounts for the persistence of certain biases over a long period of time. Histories of German literature published in other western European countries, Britain, and North America are also evaluated to determine to what extent, if any, a particular (i.e., non-German) attitude towards German literature is characteristic of a given country. The recognition of personal, religious, national, and other biases is important since the stereotypical image of the people of a given country is strongly influenced by the manner in which their literature is portrayed. Batts concludes that the history of German literature as it developed in the nineteenth century has doubly distorted history. The selection of works for inclusion in the histories on subjective grounds of "quality" conceals the fact that other, "inferior," works may in their time have had a far greater impact. As well, the authors of the histories fail to discuss those works from the past that are still being read.

A History of World Literature is a fully revised and expanded edition of The Routledge Concise History of World Literature (2012). This remarkably broad and informative book offers an introduction to “world literature.” Tracing the term from its earliest roots and situating it within a number of relevant contexts from postcolonialism, decoloniality, ecocriticism, and book circulation, Theo D’haen in ten tightly-argued but richly-detailed chapters examines: the return of the term “world literature” and its changing meaning; Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur and how this relates to current debates; theories and theorists who have had an impact on world literature; and how world literature is taught around the world. By examining how world literature is studied around the globe, this book is the ideal guide to an increasingly popular and important term in literary studies. It is accessible and engaging and will be invaluable to students of world literature, comparative literature, translation, postcolonial and decoloniality studies, and materialist approaches, and to anyone with an interest in these or related topics.

Offers the first overarching history of the humanities from Antiquity to the present.

This accessible and fresh account of German writing since 1750 is a case study of literature as a cultural and spiritual resource in modern societies. Beginning with the emergence of German language literature on the international stage in the mid-eighteenth century, the book plays down conventional labels and periodisation of German literary history in favour of the explanatory force of international cultural impact. It explains, for instance, how specifically German and Austrian conditions shaped major contributions to European literary culture such as Romanticism and the ‘language scepticism’ of the early twentieth century. From the First World War until reunification in 1990, Germany’s defining experiences have been ones of catastrophe. The book provides a compelling overview of the different ways in which German literature responded to historical disaster. They are, first, Modernism (the ‘Literature of Negation’), second, the literature of totalitarian regimes (Third Reich and German Democratic Republic), and third the various creative strategies and evasions of the capitalist democratic multi-medial cultures of the Weimar and Federal Republics. The volume achieves a balance between textual analysis and cultural theory that gives it value as an introductory reference source and as an original study and as such will be essential reading for students and scholars alike.

This remarkably broad and informative book offers an introduction to and overview of World Literature. Tracing the term from its earliest roots and situating it within a number of relevant contexts from postcolonialism to postmodernism, Theo D’haen examines: the return of the term "world literature" and its changing meaning Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur and how this relates to current debates theories and theorists who have had an impact on world literature non-canonical and less-known literatures from around the globe the possibility and implications of a definition of world literature. This book is the ideal guide to an increasingly popular and important term in literary studies. It is accessible and engaging and will be invaluable to students of world literature, comparative literature, translation and postcolonial studies and anyone with an interest in these or related topics.

"Treating the German railway as both an iconic symbol of modernity and a crucial social, technological, and political force, Presner advances a groundbreaking interpretation of the ways in which mobility is inextricably linked to German and Jewish visions of modernity. Moving beyond the tired model of a failed German-Jewish dialogue, Presner emphasizes the mutual entanglement of the very categories of German and Jewish and the many sites of contact and exchange that occurred between German and Jewish thinkers." "Rather than a conventional, linear history that culminates in the tragedy of the Holocaust, Presner produces a cultural mapping that articulates a much more complex story of the hopes and catastrophes of mobile modernity. By focusing on the spaces of encounter emblematically represented by the overdetermined triangulation of Germans, Jews, and trains, he introduces a new genealogy for the study of European and German-Jewish modernity."--Jacket.

It has been shown that the total number of women who published in German in the 18th and 19th centuries was approximately 3,500, but even by 1918 only a few of them were known. The reason for this lies in the selection processes to which the authors have been subjected, and it is this selection process that is the focus of the research here presented. The selection criteria have not simply been gender-based but have had much to do with the urgent quest for establishing a German Nation State in 1848 and beyond. Prutz, Gottschall, Kreyßig and others found it necessary to use literary historiography, which had been established by 1835, in order to construct an ideal of ‘Germanness’ at a time when a political unity remained absent, and they wove women writers into this plot. After unification in 1872, this kind of weaving seemed to have become less pressing, and other discourses came to the fore, especially those revolving round femininity vs. masculinity, and races. The study of the processes at work here will enhance current debates about the literary canon by tracing its evolution and identifying the factors which came to determine the visibility or obscurity of particular authors and texts. The focus will be on a number of case studies, but, instead of isolating questions of gender, Gender, Canon and Literary History will discuss the broader cultural context.

Since the 1990s, following the end of postmodernism, literary theory has lost much of its dynamics. This book aims at revitalising literary theory exploring two of its historical bases: German poetics and aesthetics. Beginning in the 1770s and ending in the 1950s, the book examines nearly 200 years of this history, thereby providing the reader with a first history of poetics as well as with bibliographies of the subject. Particular attention is paid to the aesthetics and poetics of popular philosophy, of the Hegel-school, empirical and psychological tendencies in the field since the 1860s, the first steps towards a plurality of methods (1890–1930), theoretical confrontations during the Nazi-period as well as the rise of formalist and anthropological approaches from the 1930s onwards. All approaches are evaluated regarding their relevance for academia as well as for the general history of education. If possible, international references and contexts of the relevant theories are taken into account. In sum, the analysis not only shows how differentiated historical accounts in the field were but also reflects how current literary theory could move forward through the rediscovery of sunken ideas.

The first book-length examination in English of the critical reception of Goethe's daring novel The Elective Affinities. From the time of its publication to today, Goethe's famous novel The Elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften, 1809), has aroused a storm of critical confusion. Critics in every age have vehemently disagreed about its content (whether it defends the institution of marriage, radically supports its dissolution, or even whether it is about marriage at all), its style (whether it is romantic, realistic, modern, or postmodern) and its tone (whether it is tragic, anti-romantic, or ironic). The present study begins by focusing upon the reaction of Goethe's contemporaries, and then discusses Goethe's own efforts -- in light of the initial negative critical reaction -- toshape the novel's reception. It continues by viewing the novel through the lens of 19th-century Hegelianism, positivism, and biographical studies, and by exploring the relationship between the novel's 19th-century reception and the growth of psychoanalytic theory and German nationalism. Moving on to the 20th century, the book considers the re-evaluation of Goethe's scientific works, the impact of World War II on the novel's interpreters, and the growing influence of literary theory. Here particular emphasis is placed upon Walter Benjamin's seminal essay on the novel and upon the criticism that the essay has inspired. Astrida Orle Tantillo is assistant professor of German at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

How did the Bible survive the Enlightenment? In this book, Jonathan Sheehan shows how Protestant translators and scholars in the eighteenth century transformed the Bible from a book justified by theology to one justified by culture. In doing so, the Bible was made into the cornerstone of Western heritage and invested with meaning, authority, and significance even for a secular age. The Enlightenment Bible offers a new history of the Bible in the century of its greatest crisis and, in turn, a new vision of this century and its effects on religion. Although the Enlightenment has long symbolized the corrosive effects of modernity on religion, Sheehan shows how the Bible survived, and even thrived in this cradle of ostensible secularization. Indeed, in eighteenth-century Protestant Europe, biblical scholarship and translation became more vigorous and culturally significant than at any time since the Reformation. From across the theological spectrum, European scholars--especially German and English--exerted tremendous energies to rejuvenate the Bible, reinterpret its meaning, and reinvest it with new authority. Poets, pedagogues, philosophers, literary critics, philologists, and historians together built a post-theological Bible, a monument for a new religious era. These literati forged the Bible into a cultural text, transforming the theological core of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the end, the Enlightenment gave the Bible the power to endure the corrosive effects of modernity, not as a theological text but as the foundation of Western culture.