The papers contained in this collection represent a cross-section of research and teaching interests at the turn of the millennium. The first section of the book concentrates on cinema stuidies, from the earliest reception of film to a focus on t

This 1982 book examines the novels of Theodor Fontane, one of the most important German novelists of the nineteenth century. He has been well served by English translations and is now regarded as a writer of international standing. Professor Bance begins by setting Fontane's work in the context of nineteenth-century Europe in general, and Germany in particular, which was struggling with its late modernization. The increasing materialism of modern industrial society found its literary correlative in the rise of prose fiction to supplant poetry as the predominant literary mode. Fontane's career reflects this development: beginning as a writer of ballads and balladesque novels, he gradually developed into a realistic novelist capable of treating the most complex social relations. Professor Bance argues that Fontane's oeuvre can be seen in terms of a tension between a desire to present the facts and a desire to assert some transcendent poetic truth.