In this study, the author looks at the role the warrior-hero plays within a set of predetermined political and social constraints. The hero if not a sword-wielding barbarian, bent only upon establishing his own fame; such fame-seekers (including some famous medieval literary figures) might even fall outside the definition of the Germanic hero, the real value of whose deeds are given meaning only within the political construct. Individual prowess is not enough. The hero must conquer the blows of fate because he is committed to the conquest of chaos, and over all to the need for social stability. Even the warrior-hero's concern with his reputation is usually expressed negatively: that the wrong songs are not sung about him. The author discusses works in Old English, Old and Middle High German, Old Norse, Latin and Old French, deliberately going beyond what is normally thought of as "heroic poetry" to include the German so-called "minstrel epic" and a work by a writer who is normally classified as a late medieval chivalric poet, Konrad von Wurzburg, the comparison of which with "Beowulf" allows us to span half a millennium.

What happened to Adam and Eve after their expulsion from paradise?
Where the biblical narrative fell silent apocryphal writings took up this intriguing question, notably including the Early Christian Latin text, the Life of Adam and Eve. This account describes the (failed) attempt of the couple to return to paradise by fasting whilst immersed in a river, and explores how they coped with new experiences such as childbirth and death.
Brian Murdoch guides the reader through the many variant versions of the Life, demonstrating how it was also adapted into most western and some eastern European languages in the Middle Ages and beyond, constantly developing and changing along the way. The study considers this development of the apocryphal texts whilst presenting a fascinating insight into the flourishing medieval tradition of Adam and Eve. A tradition that the Reformation would largely curtail, stories from the Life were celebrated in European prose, verse and drama in many different languages from Irish to Russian.

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The period immediately following the end of the First World War witnessed an outpouring of artistic and literary creativity, as those that had lived through the war years sought to communicate their experiences and opinions. In Germany this manifested itself broadly into two camps, one condemning the war outright; the other condemning the defeat. Of the former, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front remains the archetypal example of an anti-war novel, and one that has become synonymous with the Great War. Yet the tremendous and enduring popularity of Remarque's work has to some extent eclipsed a plethora of other German anti-war writers, such as Hans Chlumberg, Ernst Johannsen and Adrienne Thomas. In order to provide a more rounded view of German anti-war literature, this volume offers a selection of essays published by Brian Murdoch over the past twenty years. Beginning with a newly written introduction, providing the context for the volume and surveying recent developments in the subject, the essays that follow range broadly over the German anti-war literary tradition, telling us much about the shifting and contested nature of the war. The volume also touches upon subjects such as responsibility, victimhood, the problem of historical hiatus in the production and reception of novels, drama, poetry, film and other literature written during the war, in the Weimar Republic, and in the Third Reich. The collection also underlines the potential dangers of using novels as historical sources even when they look like diaries. One essay was previously unpublished, two have been augmented, and three are translated into English for the first time. Taken together they offer a fascinating insight into the cultural memory and literary legacy of the First World War and German anti-war texts.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is probably the most famous anti-war novel ever written. The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war;under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations. Although there are vividly described incidents which remain in mind, there is no sense of adventure here, only the feeling of youth betrayed and a deceptively simple indictment of war - of any war - told for a whole generation of victims.

This edition, the first since 1878, offers Middle English texts accompanied by detailed notes contextualizing the poems within an apocryphal tradition and full glossary. The Introduction reviews the development of the Adam and Eve legend in medieval European vernacular. Last edited in 1878, the two poems edited in this volume are medieval English versions of the legendary lives of Adam and Eve, telling of their attempts to regain the Paradise they had just lost and their life after the Fall, and merging with the related legends of the history of the Cross before Christ. The poems are important as part of a very large European tradition of vernacular adaptations of the Adambook, known in its Latin form (the immediate source) as the Vita Adae et Evae, with analogues in many other languages. Once very well known, these stories largely disappeared after the Reformation. The works are of equal interest not only in the general area of medieval English literature, but also in the study of Old Testament apocrypha itself. This edition offers readable texts of the two poems, accompanied by a detailed set of notes which contextualise the poems within their apocryphal traditions; traditions which have echoes in a wide variety of other medieval works, ranging from continental world-chronicles to the Cornish Ordinalia and to the English mystery-cycles. The Introduction includes a substantial review of the development of the Adam and Eve legend in medieval European vernacular and is a contribution to scholarship in its own right.

The twentieth century, perhaps more than any other, was shaped by war and conflict. In particular, the two world wars have had a profound influence on the development of world history, especially in western Europe. The aim of Memory and Memorials, however, is not to seek the effects war has had on the twentieth century, but rather to explore how societies chose to remember wars and manipulate this memory for political and cultural purposes. Tackling issues of actual memory, distorted memory and reconstructions of the past, the use and nature of the war memorial, and the reflection of all these points in selected art, literature and film, the main theme of Memory and Memorials is to stress both continuity and change in memory and memorial.

The period immediately following the end of the First World War witnessed an outpouring of artistic and literary creativity, as those that had lived through the war years sought to communicate their experiences and opinions. In Germany this manifested itself broadly into two camps, one condemning the war outright; the other condemning the defeat. Of the former, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front remains the archetypal example of an anti-war novel, and one that has become synonymous with the Great War. Yet the tremendous and enduring popularity of Remarque's work has to some extent eclipsed a plethora of other German anti-war writers, such as Hans Chlumberg, Ernst Johannsen and Adrienne Thomas. In order to provide a more rounded view of German anti-war literature, this volume offers a selection of essays published by Brian Murdoch over the past twenty years. Beginning with a newly written introduction, providing the context for the volume and surveying recent developments in the subject, the essays that follow range broadly over the German anti-war literary tradition, telling us much about the shifting and contested nature of the war. The volume also touches upon subjects such as responsibility, victimhood, the problem of historical hiatus in the production and reception of novels, drama, poetry, film and other literature written during the war, in the Weimar Republic, and in the Third Reich. The collection also underlines the potential dangers of using novels as historical sources even when they look like diaries. One essay was previously unpublished, two have been augmented, and three are translated into English for the first time. Taken together they offer a fascinating insight into the cultural memory and literary legacy of the First World War and German anti-war texts.

The accepted canon of war poetry usually includes only those underlining patriotic or nationalistic views. This study opens up the view of war poetry with the inclusion of such material as Nazi poetry and song, and the poetry of the atomic bomb. This book should be of interest to students and lecturers in literature and popular culture.

New essays introducing a broad range of novelists of the Weimar period. The Weimar Republic was a turbulent and fateful time in German history. Characterized by economic and political instability, polarization, and radicalism, the period witnessed the efforts of many German writers to play a leading political role, whether directly, in the chaotic years of 1918-1919, or indirectly, through their works. The novelists chosen range from such now-canonical authors as Alfred Doeblin, Hermann Hesse, and Heinrich Mann to bestselling writers of the time such as Erich Maria Remarque, B. Traven, Vicki Baum, and Hans Fallada. They also span the political spectrum, from the right-wing Ernst Junger to pacifists such as Remarque. The journalistic engagement of JosephRoth, otherwise well known as a novelist, and of the recently rediscovered writer Gabriele Tergit is also represented. Contributors: Paul Bishop, Roland Dollinger, Helen Chambers, Karin V. Gunnemann, David Midgley, Brian Murdoch, Fiona Sutton, Heather Valencia, Jenny Williams, Roger Woods. Karl Leydecker is Reader in German at the University of Kent.

The presentation, the use, and the possible reception of the book of Genesis to lay audience largely unable to read the original texts. What was meant by the medieval popular Bible - what was presented as biblical narrative to an audience largely unable to read the original biblical texts? Presentations in the vernacular languages of Europe of supposedly biblicalepisodes were more often than not expanded and interpreted, sometimes very considerably. This book looks at the presentation, the use, and the possible lay reception of the book of Genesis, using as wide a range of medieval genresand vernaculars as possible on a comparative basis down to the Reformation. Literatures taken into consideration include Irish, Cornish, English, French, High and Low German, Spanish, Italian and others. Genesis was an importantbook, and the focus is on those narrative high points which lend themselves most particularly (it is never exclusive) to literal expansion, even though allegory can also work backwards into the literal narrative. Starting with thedevil in paradise (who is not biblical), the book examines what Adam and Eve did afterwards, who killed Cain, what happened in the flood or at the tower of Babel, and ends with a consideration of the careers of Jacob and Joseph.The book is based on the Speaker's Lectures, given in 2002 in the University of Oxford. BRIAN MURDOCH is Professor of German at the University of Stirling.

The story of the apocryphal pope and saint Gregorius was extremely popular throughout the middle ages and later in Europe and beyond. In a memorable narrative Gregorius is born from an incestuous relationship between a noble brother and sister, and is set out to sea with (unspecific) details of his origin. He is found and brought up by an abbot, but when revealed as a foundling leaves as a knight to seek his origins; he rescues his mother's land from attack, and marries her. On discovering his sin he undertakes years of penance on a rocky islet, which he survives miraculously. An angel sends emissaries from Rome to find him after the death of the pope, the key to his shackles is equally miraculously discovered, and he becomes pope. This hagiographical romance is not a variation upon Oedipus; it uses the invisible sin of incest as a parallel both for original sin (the sin of Adam and Eve) and for actual sin. It combines the universal theme of the quest for identity with the problem not of guilt as such, which is inevitable, but of how sinful humanity can cope with it. Brian Murdoch traces the story's probable origins in medieval England or France, and its later appearance in versions from Iceland and Ireland to Iraq and Egypt, in verse and prose, in full-scale literary forms or in much-reduced folktales, in theological as well as secular contexts, down to Thomas Mann and beyond.

New view of Remarque's novels as a chronicle of the century yet more than a mere reflection of historical events. Erich Maria Remarque is a writer of great popularity who has rightly been described as a "chronicler of the twentieth century." He is both a German writer and a genuinely international one. Although he spent much of his life in exile from Germany, most of his novels reflect its twentieth-century history: the two world wars and the Weimar and Nazi regimes, and especially their effects on the individual. His portrayals of the lives of refugees from Nazi Germany are especially vivid. His themes are universal, dealing with human relationships, with love in particular, and with the provisional nature of life. Often seen as a one-novel writer due to the immense success of All Quiet onthe Western Front, Remarque wrote many other novels, major works that have nearly all been filmed and have remained popular. Nor should it be ignored that his works are above all else immensely readable: not a negligible criterion. This new study of Remarque's novels treats them as a chronicle of the century, but also looks at them as works that go beyond the reflection of historical events. Brian Murdoch is Emeritus Professor of German atthe University of Stirling, Scotland.

The sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front, one of the most powerful novels of the First World War and a twentieth-century classic. After four gruelling years the survivors of the Great War finally make their way home. Young, spirited Ernst is one. Finding himself inexplicably returned to his childhood bedroom, restless, chafing, confused, he knows he must somehow resurrect his life. But the way back to peace is far more treacherous than he ever imagined. If All Quiet on the Western Front was a lament for a lost generation, this sequel speaks with the same resonant voice for those who came back. The is a new definitive English translation by expert Remarque translator Brian Murdoch. 'Remarque is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank' New York Times Book Review

Comparative study of Cornish literature, placing it in a wider context and looking in detail at major works. `This admirable survey...compact, smoothly written, easy to read and digest, yet indicative throughout of profound scholarship and an obvious mastery of the field, Cornish Literatureprovides an enduring guide to this smallbut significant genre. The three Middle Cornish plays - in English titles, The Creation of the World, Life of St Meriasekand the tripartite Ordinalia - accompany a long Pascon agan Arluth, a verse `Passion of our Lord' and the odd fragment... His last chapter, `Survivals and Revivals', is a fair but detached account covering a long (1611 to 1992) phase that will also interest sociologists. The chief strength of his book is the textual analysis of the main plays, placing them alongside medieval English drama as well as the larger European manifestation of religious drama and the complex question of all their biblical and quasi-biblical sources. There is auseful bibliography. Modestly priced, Brian Murdoch's scholarly and attractive guide should appeal to many beyond medievalist circles; it will not be superseded for a long time.' THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BRIAN MURDOCHis head of the Department of German at Stirling University.

Death still comes to Everyman, but this study of three twentieth-century German plays shows the harder challenge of living without salvation in an age of war and unprecedented mass destruction. Death comes to everyone, and in the late-medieval morality play of Everyman the familiar skeleton forces the universalized central figure to come to terms with this. Only his inner resources, in the forms of Good Deeds and Knowledge, ensure that he repents and is redeemed. Three important twentieth-century German plays echo Everyman - Toller's Hinkemann, Borchert's The Man Outside, and Frisch's The Arsonists/Firebugs - but the unprecedented scale of killing in the First and Second World Wars changed the view of death, while in the Cold War the nuclear destruction literally of everyone became a possibility. Brian Murdoch traces the heritage of Everyman in the three plays in terms of dramatic effect, changes in the image of Death, and especially the problem of living with existential guilt. Death, now over-fed, still has to be faced, but Everyman has the harder problem of living with the awareness of human wickedness without the possibility of salvation. All three plays have tended to be viewed in their specific historical contexts, but by viewing them less rigidly and as part of a long dramatic tradition, Murdoch shows that all present a message of lasting and universal significance. They pose directly to the theater audience questions not just of how to cope with death, but how to cope with life.

In 1914 Paul Baumer and his classmates are marched to the local recruiting office by a sentimentally patriotic form-master. On a calm October day in 1918, only a few weeks before the Armistice, Paul will be the last of them to be killed. In All Quiet on the Western Front he tells their story. A few years after it was published in 1929 the Nazis would denounce and publicly burn Remarque's novel for insulting the heroic German army - in other words, for 'telling it like it was' for the common soldier on the front line where any notions of glory and national destiny were soon blasted away by the dehumanizing horror of modern warfare. Remarque has an extraordinary power of describing fear: the appalling tension of being holed up in a dugout under heavy bombardment; the animal instinct to kill or be killed which takes over during hand-to-hand combat. He also has an eye for the grimly comic: the consignment of coffins Paul and his friends pass as they make their way up the line for a new offensive; the young soldiers joyfully tucking into double rations when half their company are unexpectedly wiped out. Remarque's elegy for a sacrificed generation is all the more devastating for the laconic prose in which his teenaged veteran narrates shocking experiences which for him have become the stuff of daily life. Paul cannot imagine a life after the war and can no longer relate to his family when he returns home on leave. Only the camaraderie of his diminishing circle of friends has any meaning for him. He comes especially to depend on an older comrade, Stanislaus Katczinsky, and one of the most poignant moments in the book is when he carries the wounded Kat on his back under fire to the field dressing station, with starkly tragic outcome. The saddest and most compelling war story ever written.

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A detailed, contextualized picture of the very beginnings of writing in German from around 750 to 1100. This second volume of the set not only presents a detailed picture of the beginnings of writing in German from its first emergence as a literary language from around 750 to 1100, but also places those earliest writings into a context. The first stages of German literature existed within a manuscript culture, so careful consideration is given to what constitutes the actual texts, but German literature also arose within a society that had recently been Christianized -- through the medium of Latin. Therefore what we understand by literature in Germany at this early period must include a great amount of writing in Latin. Thus the volume looks in detail at Latin works in prose and verse, but with an eye upon the interaction between Latin and German writings. Some of the material in the newly written German language is not literary in the modern sense of the word, but makes clear the difficulties and indeed the triumphs of the establishing of a written literary language. Individual chapters look first at the earliest translations and functional literature in German (including charms and prayers); next, the examination of heroic material juxtaposes the Hildebrandlied with the Christian Ludwigslied and with Latin writings like Waltharius and the panegyrics; Otfrid's work -- the Gospel-poem in German -- is given its due prominence; the smaller German texts and the later prose works are fully treated; as is chronicle-writing in German and Latin. Old High German literature was a trickle compared to the flood of the Latin that surrounded (and influenced) it, but its importance is undeniable: that trickle became a river. Contributors: Linda Archibald, Graeme Dunphy, Stephen Penn, Christopher Wells, Jonathan West, Brian Murdoch. Brian Murdoch is Professor of German at the University of Stirling,Scotland.

The fourth volume in the acclaimed paperback series . . . the only county series that can legitimately claim to represent the past and present of a nation.

Contributions by
Bernard Deacon, Amy Hale, Neil Kennedy, Alan M. Kent, Brian Murdoch, Philip Payton, Glanville Price, Rod Sheaff, Mark Stoyle, Paul Thornton and Nicholas Williams