This volume brings together the proceedings of a symposium to mark the retirement of Eda Sagarra from the Chair of German (founded 1776) at Trinity College Dublin. It addresses the themes of her major research field, the 19th century as an epoch of literary, social and cultural history. The 'difficulties' of cultural memory of an era which - with varying emphases - has been characterized as the century of liberty, of ideologies, of sciences, of historicism or of realism, are examined from a variety of perspectives in the light of postmodern deconstruction of both literature and history.

In this volume, leading scholars assess the contribution of Voltaire, Goethe, Schlegel and Coleridge to the reception of Shakespeare and his plays. Each substantial contribution provides a sketch of its subject's intellectual and professional biography and gives an account of the wider cultural context, before going on to assess the double impact of Shakespeare on the writer and of the writer on subsequent interpretations of Shakespeare.

Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) was a major figure in German Romanticism, a poet, playwright and novelist who was also an influential art and theatre critic, the editor of Kleist and Novalis, and responsible for bringing out the famous Schegel-Tieck translation of Shakespeare. This book has condensed a mass of material to make a readable but accurate and comprehensive literary biography, the first complete study of Tieck since 1935. Its aim is to convey, through the study of one man's works, the climate of Romanticism, and to trace its progress from being a movement of aesthetic protest and experiment to one of national awareness. The present book is an attempt to present the material in a form which makes it accessible to all Germanists, and to present Tieck's life and times in such as way as to illuminate a central phase in German and European literary history. English translations are provided of the German quotations.

The Novelle has always invited theoretical definition, as demonstrated by the important statements on its form and function by Goethe, Heyse, et al., reproduced in an appendix to this book. But Roger Paulin's purpose is to relate such theoretical discussion to the tradition whence the Novelle sprang, to examples of the genre written outside Germany (by such as Poe as Turgenev), and to the wider context of German literature in the nineteenth century. In short, he regards the Novelle both in terms of literary context and of individual practice, rather than as an abstract concept.

Die Leiden des jungen Werthers gehoert zu Goethes bekanntesten Werken. Der Briefroman handelt von der Geschichte einer unglucklichen Liebe, die tragisch endet. Als Die Leiden des jungen Werther 1774 erschien loeste der Roman nicht umsonst eine regelrechte Lesesucht aus. Ein unvergleichliches Stuck Weltliteratur, welches bis heute den Lesern ein Gefuhlsfeuerwerk beschert.