E-Book Overview
Early Modern German Literature provides an overview of major literary figures and works, socio-historical contexts, philosophical backgrounds, and cultural trends during the 350 years between the first flowering of northern humanism around 1350 and the rise of a distinctly middle-class, anti-classical aesthetics around 1700. Recent scholarship has significantly revised many traditional assumptions about the literature of this period, starting with a reassessment of the canon. The notion of "literature" has expanded to include a much wider range of texts than before, such as broadsheets, illustrated books, emblem books, travelogues, demonological treatises, and letters. Greater attention to the cultural and social phenomena that affect literary production has led to hitherto neglected areas of research, including the culture of learning and learnedness; the idea of authorship; the relationship between the intellectual elite and the state and other political authorities and institutions; the development of the family; gender dichotomy; and the early formation of an educated, urban middle class. In an introduction and twenty-seven essays on specific but broadly-based topics of seminal importance to the period, written by leading specialists from North America, the United Kingdom, and Germany, this pathbreaking volume reflects this state-of-the-art research.
E-Book Content
Camden House History of German Literature Early Modern German Literature comprises an introduction and twenty-six chapters on specific but broadly based topics of seminal importance to the period. Leading specialists in North America, the United Kingdom, and Germany were commissioned to write the essays, which address an audience of scholars, students, and informed general readers. Relevant illustrations accompany the texts, and a bibliography and index of names and subjects round out the volume. Contributors: Klaus Garber, Hans-Gert Roloff, Graeme Dunphy, Renate Born, Wilhelm Kühlmann, Scott Dixon, Stephan Füssel, Joachim Knape, Erika Rummel, John Alexander, Peter Hess, Andreas Solbach, Peter Daly, Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Gerhart Hoffmeister, Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, Steven Saunders, Jill Bepler, Wolfgang Neuber, Gerhild Scholz Williams, John L. Flood, Laurel Carrington, Theodor Verweyen, John Roger Paas, Anna Carrdus. Full set ISBN 1-57113-103-5 The most detailed history of German literature in English CAMDEN HOUSE HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE Vol. 1: Early Germanic Literature and Culture Edited by Brian Murdoch and Malcolm Read, University of Stirling, UK Vol. 2: German Literature of the Early Middle Ages Edited by Brian Murdoch, University of Stirling, UK Vol. 3: German Literature of the High Middle Ages Edited by Will Hasty, University of Florida Vol. 5: German Literature of the Eighteenth Century: The Enlightenment and Sensibility Edited by Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Ohio State University Vol. 6: Literature of the Sturm und Drang Edited by David Hill, University of Birmingham, UK Vol. 7: The Literature of Weimar Classicism Edited by Simon Richter, University of Pennsylvania Vol. 8: The Literature of German Romanticism Edited by Dennis Mahoney, University of Vermont Vol. 9: German Literature of the Nineteenth Century, 1832–1899 Edited by Clayton Koelb and Eric Downing, University of North Carolina Vol. 10: German Literature of the Twentieth Century Ingo R. Stoehr, Kilgore College, Texas Praise for Volume 1, Early Germanic Literature and Culture: “The editors have made a judicious selection of topics for this earliest period. . . . The contributions are original to this volume and provide a very high level of information and scholarship.” GERMAN QUARTERLY Praise for Volume 2, German Literature of the Early Middle Ages: “A fine addition to English-language scholarship on the topic.” CHOICE Praise for Volume 5, German Liter