This thesis is a re-evaluation of Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull in terms of Thomas Mann's thought about art and in the context of the overall trajectory of his creative career. Until now, critics have tended either to dismiss the novel as light-weight or to invest it with mythological import. The interplay of aesthetic and social issues which it explores has barely been considered. This thesis analyses the way in which Felix Krull presents art as being central to the development of the individual and to the coherence of society. Since the novel conjoins Mann's early and later work, it can be seen as indicative of his main preoccupations, allowing us to trace how the earlier artist-problematic is modified by the insight that art is deeply implicated in the forms and allegiances of a society. Felix Krull is a novel which subverts the opposition between artist and public in a multiplicity of ways. The thesis contains three main thematic sections. The first, 'Art and the notation of identity', studies the involvement of art in the articulation and cultivation of the self, with reference to processes of identity formation and development. The second section, 'Art and the notation of community', adopts a socio-anthropological perspective to demonstrate that social interaction in Felix Krull involves a series of aesthetically modulated negotiations. The third section, 'Narrative performance in Felix Krull explores narrative features including play of genres, interaction with the reader, and polyvalent realism, concluding that the novel's form operates as a meta-commentary upon the thematics of the work as a whole. Each section concludes with a discussion of how these features relate to Mann's other works. In this way, the thesis seeks to demonstrate the overall continuity of Mann's literary achievement.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

In this work the views of the Austrian-Jewish authors Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig are examined to establish how the historical tradition to which they belong contributed to determining their world view. The study also focuses on the responses of the authors to the conditions under which they lived between 1918 and 1938. Furthermore, the influence of their Jewish background is discussed. The methodology adopted is to investigate the journalistic and literary work of the authors, together with their letters and diaries, in light of the historical background and contemporary situation. The respective biographies of the protagonists are also taken into account. The work is divided into three main parts. In the first part Austria's historical background is presented in order to examine the context in which the Austrian identity of Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig developed. The second and third parts are concerned with the writings and views of the two authors. While the thesis seeks to demonstrate the extent to which both authors are indebted to the historical circumstances which led to the formation of their identity, it also examines how after 1918, in the wake of the formation of a new Austria, that identity was challenged and refined. Between 1918 and 1938, through eye-witness accounts and writings, we see the crystallization of their ideas. Negative responses to the new political and social order develop and conditions are compared unfavourably with those of "old Europe". Moreover, it is demonstrated that their views on important socio-political and cultural issues, including their views on Jewishness, are buttressed by the evidence of other contemporary Austrian authors. All authors under consideration place emphasis on the present situation and on tomorrow's world, not simply on the stasis of the world of yesteryear. While the old world order plays a role in the writings, it is critically interrogated and made relevant to the modern era.

No description available.

No description available.

This study analyses and presents the formal qualities of the novels of Erich Maria Remarque. The aim is to show that these works cannot justifiably be classified as lowbrow literature or Trivialliteratur, a negative criticism which has adhered to Remarque’s name since he wrote Im Westen nichts Neues in 1929. As a result, Remarque has rarely been the subject of scholarly interest; his name is, in fact, seldom found even in general works on modern German literature. The relatively few studies which have been carried out on Remarque and his oeuvre mostly express surprise about this author’s continued exclusion from academic discourse, but although these studies voice their disagreement with the labelling of Remarque as an author of Trivialliteratur, no serious attempts have, thus far, been made to create an argument against this tag. By analysing Remarque’s narrative strategies in depth, this study seeks to establish such an argument. Particular attention will be paid to the narrative perspective, although other aspects of form – structural and textural – will be incorporated in the examination. Due to the interdependence which exists amongst not only the individual formal elements, but also between the form as a whole and the novels’ contents, the strategies Remarque employs will be considered in the context of the novels in their entirety. The analysis will furthermore form the basis for the consideration as to whether Remarque’s narrative techniques remain comparatively unvarying throughout the novels – does the author adhere to an Erfolgsrezept? – or whether they reflect some degree of development. Although Remarque experimented with several literary genres in addition to the novel – short stories, poems, plays and film scripts – this study essentially focuses on the major novels which comprise what may be termed his Hauptwerk. It was on the basis of this part of his oeuvre that Remarque gained fame, but subsequently also the part that instigated the accusation of triviality. When evaluating the validity of the widespread condemnation of Remarque’s authorial abilities, it is thus of limited relevance to examine relatively unknown aspects of his oeuvre. Such material is therefore largely excluded, although it is used for comparative purposes where appropriate. For the sake of general clarification, but also in order to identify signs of development, the novels are analysed chronologically. The range of works on the topic of literary interpretation and assessment is extensive. This study, although acknowledging also other approaches, especially favours the comprehensive and logical method proposed by Boa and Reid’s in Critical Strategies. The opening chapter of this study offers a brief outline of Remarque’s life and oeuvre. It thus serves as an introduction to the author and his work. The chapter proceeds to explore different definitions of the term Trivialliteratur, but also considers the various factors which led to this widespread and persisting classification of Remarque. This chapter furthermore considers the relatively few studies which can be found on Remarque, and stresses especially those relating to his narrative strategies. Their limited number testifies to the level of neglect in this area and which Remarque’s work in its entirety has continued to be subjected to. The six chapters comprising the main body of the study each analyse one or two of Remarque’s major novels. Aside from the point-of-view, they examine the author’s most striking utilization of other narrative tools in relation to the individual novels. These tools, of course, vary in accordance with the themes and messages of the books. Throughout the study, the narrative strategies are considered against the reception of Remarque’s novels which, in addition to comparisons to the work of other authors, serve to place Remarque in the context of his literary contemporaries and the time at which he wrote his novels.

Dans les années d’entre-deux-guerres, de nombreux intellectuels ont voyagé afin de circonscrire l’amplitude de la crise qui secouait le siècle au lendemain de la guerre. Céline et Döblin ont apporté une interrogation particulière et inédite de cette problématique. Les deux auteurs dans "Voyage au bout de la nuit" et "Babylonische Wanderung" ont utilisé le roman pour interroger ce qu’est être un homme, désormais. Une crise de la littérature s’est fait l’écho du désenchantement qu’a connu le monde, et les deux auteurs l’ont traduite par le biais de jeux romanesques, par le détournement de motifs relatifs au voyage, et de libertés prises avec les conventions esthétiques de la représentation du réel. En ouvrant les frontières du réel par l’emprunt de tonalité burlesque ou fantastique à une sphère surréelle, Céline et Döblin ont interrogé la nature imparfaite de l’homme. Ce travail s’efforce de mettre en exergue la singularité du regard des protagonistes sur le monde sondant un dépassement du réel dans leurs nombreux voyages, traduisant l’esprit d’expérimentation au centre de la pensée des années d’entre-deux-guerres au niveau politique, idéologique, médical et scientifique, et a défini leur style. Face au spectre large des monstruosités que révèle l’expérimentation du réel et de la sphère surréelle, Céline et Döblin ont proposé la posture cynique. Deux options cyniques, d’un écrivain à l’autre, celle du cynique antique et celle du cynique moderne, émergent de leurs voyages et de leurs expérimentations. Il ressort de ce travail la mise en évidence de l’incarnation littéraire de la crise du roman par l’analyse de l’expérimentation de cet au-delà du réel prégnant des fondements d’une crise de l’humanisme. / During the interwar years, many intellectuals have travelled to delimit the impact of the crisis that shook the century in the aftermath of the World War I. Celine and Döblin brought an unprecedented and particular questioning on this issue. In "Voyage au bout de la nuit" and "Babylonische Wanderung" both authors used the novel to question what it means to be a human being, from this moment. A Literature crisis has echoed the disenchantment known by the post-war world and both authors translated it through fictional games, through the diverting of travel-related patterns and through liberties taken with the aesthetic conventions of representations of reality. Opening the boundaries of reality by burlesque or fantastic tonalities borrowed from a surreal sphere, Celine and Döblin questioned the flawed nature of the human kind. This work aims at underlining the singularity of the characters’ look upon the world and how they explored a reality surpassing during their numerous travels. By doing so, they expressed the experimentation spirit that dominated the thought in the interwar years at different level (political, ideological, medical, scientific etc.), and this, contributed to define their literary style. Facing the wide range of monstrosities revealed both by the experimentation of reality and by the surreal sphere, Celine and Döblin offer a cynical position. Two cynical options, from one author to the other, stand out from their travels and experiences: the antic one and the modern one. This work highlights the literary embodiment of the novel crisis by analysing how is made the experience of going beyond reality, which pioneers significantly the foundations of the crisis of humanism values.