The first collection of essays treating exclusively the figure of the prostitute in modern German literature. Unlike her counterpart in French literature, and despite her importance in drama, poetry, and prose, the figure of the prostitute in modern German literature has been a largely neglected phenomenon. Commodities of Desire addresses this omission: it is the first collection of essays to exclusively investigate this colorful and multi-faceted figure in its many forms and mutations. The book pursues this goal by analyzing a number of key texts -- from the Wilhelmine Empire to the Weimar Republic -- and by providing the social, legal, and cultural contexts necessary for their interpretation. While the 'sex-worker' has been a presence in literature for centuries, the prostitute was never more popular in German literature than between the late 1880s and the early 1930s. It was then -- during a time when prostitution had become one of the most pressing social problems of urban Germany -- that the streetwalker became a symbol of the destructive and fertile forces of the metropolis, an allegorization of the political and social crisis, and a vehicle for biting social criticism. This book focuses on prostitutes as literary figures and prostitution as a topic in works by well-known and lesser-known writers. It thus clarifies the iconography of the prostitute and aids the reader in understanding her significance in the development of modern German literature. Christiane Schoenfeld teaches German at the University of Galway, Ireland.

This book examines the intersections between the ways that marriage was represented in eighteenth-century writing and art, experienced in society, and regulated by law. The interdisciplinary and comparative essays explore the marital experience beyond the 'matrimonial barrier' to encompass representations of married life including issues of spousal abuse, parenting, incest, infidelity and the period after the end of marriage, to include annulment, widowhood and divorce. The chapters range from these focuses on legal and social histories of marriage to treatments of marriage in eighteenth-century periodicals, to depictions of married couples and families in eighteenth-century art, to parallels in French literature and diaries, to representations of violence and marriage in Gothic novels, and to surveys of same-sex partnerships. The volume is aimed towards students and scholars working in the long eighteenth century, gender studies, women's writing, publishing history, and art and legal historians.

Divorce is a conspicuous character trait of modernity, commonly portrayed in texts and on screen, with its moral and social rationalisation firmly rooted in Enlightenment and Romantic thought. The aim of this volume is to bring into focus this contemporary cultural fascination by assembling the variety of academic responses it has started to create. Bringing together the reflections of scholars from the UK and North America who have worked in this domain, this study offers for the first time a genuinely wide-ranging account of the depiction of divorce across the northern hemisphere in a number of media (fiction, journalism, film and television). It reaches historically from the intellectual and legal aftermath of the Enlightenment right up to the present day. As such, the collection shows both the roots of this apparently contemporary phenomenon in nineteenth-century literary practice and the very particular ways in which divorce characterises the different narrative media of modernity.

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.

This book examines the intersections between the ways that marriage was represented in eighteenth-century writing and art, experienced in society, and regulated by law. The interdisciplinary and comparative essays explore the marital experience beyond the 'matrimonial barrier' to encompass representations of married life including issues of spousal abuse, parenting, incest, infidelity and the period after the end of marriage, to include annulment, widowhood and divorce. The chapters range from these focuses on legal and social histories of marriage to treatments of marriage in eighteenth-century periodicals, to depictions of married couples and families in eighteenth-century art, to parallels in French literature and diaries, to representations of violence and marriage in Gothic novels, and to surveys of same-sex partnerships. The volume is aimed towards students and scholars working in the long eighteenth century, gender studies, women's writing, publishing history, and art and legal historians.