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New essays by leading scholars on the most perplexing of modern
writers, Franz Kafka. No other 20th-century writer of
German-language literature has been as fully accepted into the
canon of world literature as Franz Kafka. The unsettlingly,
enigmatically surreal world of Kafka's novels and stories continues
to fascinate readers and critics of each new generation, who in
turn continue to find new readings. One thing has become clear:
although all theories attempt to appropriate Kafka, there is no one
key to his work. The challenge to criticshas been to present a
strong point of view while taking account of previous Kafka
research, a challenge that has been met by the contributors to this
volume. Contributors: James Rolleston, Clayton Koelb, Walter H.
Sokel, Judith Ryan, Russel A. Berman, Ritchie Robertson, Henry
Sussman, Stanley Corngold, Bianca Theisen, Rolf J. Goebel, Richard
T. Gray, Ruth V. Gross, Sander L. Gilman, John Zilcosky, Mark
Harman James Rolleston is Professor Emeritus of German at Duke
University.
New essays on the most prominent German dramatist and short-story
writer of the early 19th century. For over 150 years, Heinrich von
Kleist (1777-1811) has been one of the most widely read and
performed German authors. His status in the literary canon is
firmly established, but he has always been one of Germany's most
contentiously discussed authors. Today's critical debate on his
unique prose narratives and dramas is as heated as ever. Many
critics regard Kleist as a lone presager of the aesthetics and
philosophies of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
modernism. Yet there can be no question that he responds in his
works and letters to the philosophical, aesthetic, and political
debates of his time. During the last thirty years, the scholarship
on Kleist's work and life has departed from the existentialist wave
of the 1950s and early 1960s and opened up new avenues for coming
to terms with his unusual talent. The present volume brings
together the most important and innovative of these newer scholarly
approaches: the essays include critically informed, up-to-date
interpretations of Kleist's most-discussed stories and dramas.
Other contributions analyze Kleist's literary means and styles and
their theoretical underpinnings. They include articles on Kleist's
narrative and theatrical technique, poetic and aesthetic theory,
philosophical and political thought, and insights from new
biographical research. Contributors: Jeffrey L. Sammons,Jost
Hermand, Anthony Stephens, Bianca Theisen, Hinrich C. Seeba,
Bernhard Greiner, Helmut J. Schneider, Tim Mehigan, Susanne Zantop,
Hilda M. Brown, and Sean Allan. Bernd Fischer is Professor of
German and Head of theDepartment of German at Ohio State
University.
No other writer of German-language literature in the 20th century
has been as fully accepted into the canon of world literature as
Franz Kafka. The unsettlingly, enigmatically surreal world depicted
in Kafka's novels and stories continues to fascinate readers and
critics of each new generation, who in turn continue to find new
readings. One thing has become wholly clear: although all theories
attempt to appropriate Kafka, there is no one key to his work. The
challenge to critics has been to present a strong point of view
while taking account of previous Kafka research, a challenge that
has been met by the contributors to this volume. The essays follow
an introduction by the editor,and include: Clayton Koelb on the
controversial question of Kafka editions; Walter H. Sokel on a life
of reading--and writing about--Kafka; Judith Ryan on the early
stories; Russell A. Berman on tradition and betrayal in `The
Judgment'; Ritchie Robertson on anti-Christian elements in `The
Judgment,' `The Metamorphosis,' and the aphorisms; Henry Sussman on
Kafka's evolving aesthetics; Stanley Corngold on The Trial; Bianca
Theisen on Kafka's use of circus motifs in the stories `Up in the
Gallery' and `First Sorrow'; Rolf J. Goebel on the connection of
Kafka's The Missing Person, `In the Penal Colony,' and `The Great
Wall of China' to postcolonial critique; Richard T. Gray on the
semiotics and aesthetics of `In the Penal Colony'; Ruth V. Gross on
the `enigmatics' of the short fiction; Sander L. Gilman on Kafka's
Jewishness and the story `The Country Doctor'; John Zilcosky on the
colonial visionsin The Castle; Mark Harman on the variants to The
Castle and what they tell us about Kafka's writing process; and
Clayton Koelb on Kafka's rhetoric in the late stories `Josephine
the Singer' and `The Burrow.' James Rolleston is Emeritus Professor
of German at Duke University and has written widely on topics in
modern German literature.
A collection of essays examining the influence of Kant on Heinrich
von Kleist. The great and eccentric German writer Heinrich von
Kleist, famous for his enigmatic dramas and novellas, read the
Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant in 1801. A series of
letters written around this time speak of the distresshe felt as he
absorbed the implications of Kantian thought. This sense of
distress -- long considered important to understanding Kleist's
subsequent works -- has become known to Kleist scholars as the
'Kant crisis,' and marks Kleist's abandonment of the hope of
gaining metaphysical certainty about his life. But it has never
been established which texts of Kant Kleist actually read, how well
he understood them, and why they precipitated such despair.
Kleisthimself -- aside from one paraphrasing of Kant in a letter of
1801 -- was never explicit about what he called this 'sad
philosophy.' Yet the distress seems never to have left him and
remains an abiding preoccupation throughout his dramas and stories.
This collection of essays, all in German language, represents the
most recent work of prominent scholars in the field. It takes the
pervasive sense of metaphysical crisis in Kleist's works as a
startingpoint. In the context of Kleist's response to Kant, the
essays deal with his subversive treatment of the literary motifs
and genres of his day, and with the ambiguity of truth in his works
-- for his characters and readers alike.In tracing the source of
crisis to specific writings of Kant and to other Enlightenment
thinkers such as Rousseau and Wieland, the essays show Kleist's
complex dialogue with the Enlightenment to be an important new
approach to understanding this notoriously difficult writer. Tim
Mehigan is Professor of German in the Department of Languages and
Cultures at the University of Otago, New Zealand.
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