Comedy that mocks the failings of human nature and the judicial system in a forgiving way.

This is the first English collection of the greatest comedies written in German from the late-eighteenth to the late-nineteenth centuries. Each of the translated comedies is placed in historical context and in relationship to its author's life as well as his other plays, and each is followed by a select bibliography of English-language criticism and interpretation.

This comprehensive guide is an ideal reference work for film specialists and enthusiasts. First published in 1984 but continuously updated ever since, CineGraph is the most authoritative and comprehensive encyclopedia on German-speaking cinema in the German language. This condensed and substantially revised English-language edition makes this important resource available to students and researchers for the first time outside its German context. It offers a representative historical overview through bio-filmographical entries on the main protagonists, from the beginnings to the present day. Included are directors and actors, writers and cameramen, composers and production designers, film theorists and critics, producers and distributors, inventors and manufacturers. An appendix includes short introductory essays on specific periods and movements, such as Early Film, Weimar, Nazi Cinema, DEFA, New German Cinema, and German film since unification, as well as on cinematic developments in Austria and Switzerland. Sections that crossreference names around specific professional groups and themes will prove equally invaluable to researchers.

The book's primary emphasis is on Bernhard's later fiction, but it also explicates the early texts of the 1960s and 1970s. The book makes use of insights from recent approaches to fiction that pay attention to what can be termed "narrative dynamics." Earlier studies of Bernhard have tended to remain within the descriptive framework established in narrative studies of the 1950s and 1960s; this book views Bernhard's prose works from a more nuanced vantage point."--BOOK JACKET.

Joel B. Lande’s Persistence of Folly challenges the accepted account of the origins of German theater by focusing on the misunderstood figure of the fool, whose spontaneous and impish jest captivated audiences, critics, and playwrights from the late sixteenth through the early nineteenth century. Lande radically expands the scope of literary historical inquiry, showing that the fool was not a distraction from attempts to establish a serious dramatic tradition in the German language. Instead, the fool was both a fixture on the stage and a nearly ubiquitous theme in an array of literary critical, governmental, moral-philosophical, and medical discourses, figuring centrally in broad-based efforts to assign laughter a proper time, place, and proportion in society. Persistence of Folly reveals the fool as a cornerstone of the dynamic process that culminated in the works of Lessing, Goethe, and Kleist. By reorienting the history of German theater, Lande’s work conclusively shows that the highpoint of German literature around 1800 did not eliminate irreverent jest in the name of serious drama, but instead developed highly refined techniques for integrating the comic tradition of the stage fool.

The publication of this volume of essays marks the centenary of the birth of Bertolt Brecht on 10 February 1898. The essays were commissioned from scholars and critics around the world, and cover six main areas: recent biographical controversies; neglected theoretical writings; the semiotics of Brechtian theatre; new readings of classic texts; Brecht's role and reception in the GDR; and contemporary appropriations of Brecht's work. This volume will be essential reading for all those interested in twentieth century theatre, modern German studies, and the contemporary reassessment of post-war culture in the wake of German unification and the collapse of Stalinist communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The essays in this volume also address a variety of general questions, concerning - for example - authorship and textuality; the nature of Brecht's Marxism in relation to his understanding of modernity, science and Enlightenment reason; Marxist aesthetics; radical cultural politics; and feminist performance theory.

Kleist was an important dramatist at the beginning of the nineteenth century and Käthchen was one of his greatest stage successes. Reeve presents a brief outline of the Kleist family involvement in the Prussian aristocracy and Kleist's reactions to his background. He also surveys the literary critics' attempts to come to terms with Käthchen, noting a revisionist trend which associates Kleist with the bourgeois liberalism of his time. While acknowledging the influence of the German Enlightenment, Reeve argues that the most significant influence on Kleist was his noble heritage. Reeve's close textual analysis of Das Käthchen von Heilbronn uses the model of the aristocrat which draws upon Nietzsche's Was ist vornehm? and the works of Anthony Ludovici, John H. Kautsky, and others, a model which has remained virtually unchanged since the Middle Ages. Reeve examines Kleist's use of symbolic and descriptive names in Käthchen, showing how they emphasize his ties to the aristocratic, and compares Kleist's drama to two other plays featuring socially forbidden love, Friedrich Schiller's Kabale und Liebe and Friedrich Hebbel's Agnes Bernauer. Despite his efforts to the contrary, Heinrich von Kleist was unable to ignore or deny his aristocratic heritage. It left an indelible mark on his works, especially, as Reeve demonstrates, Das Käthchen von Heilbronn.