Published in 1929, Erich Maria Remarque’s novel Im Westen nichts Neues details a semi-autobiographical experience of the First World War. Translated into English later that year, it achieved remarkable success in the United States. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, attained a similar transatlantic popularity when it was translated into German in 1930. Both novels emphasize outward description and avoidance of inner, abstract thought in order to emphasize a physicality that draws on reportorial and objective traditions which attempt to attack a romantic sense of war. In privileging physical experience, both novels and their translations have the similar goal of criticizing propagandistic rhetoric. Despite these similar goals, each novel’s reception in the other’s country was different. Americans viewed Remarque as simply a writer of documentaries, while Germans saw Hemingway in a problematically primitive way, both viewing him as a salve to overblown European intellectualism and subjugating him to a larger European aesthetic scheme. This paper attempts to answer why these receptions differ, and offers the solution that European critics remained in modes of thought reminiscent of the nineteenth century and had a different horizon of expectations. / text

Thesis (B.A.(Hons.))--University of Adelaide, Dept. of German Studies, 1994? / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-139).

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.

This thesis examines how the concept of evil was understood by opposing German perspectives during the era of National Socialist rule (1933-1945). The rise of Nazism in Germany marked a period of massive political upheaval wherein the National Socialist government encouraged the masses to view the world in terms of a great struggle between forces of good and evil. This was the central theme of their propaganda, which zealously encouraged racialist beliefs in the popular consciousness, and was based on assumptions of German superiority and Jewish evil. Despite Hitler's apparent success in creating an obedient nation, a significant number of Germans opposed his rule, amongst whom a small group of writers expressed their discontent through creative fiction. Through a comparison of the worldviews communicated through political propaganda and anti-Nazi literature, it is revealed that the crux of the divide between their opposing perspectives hinged on the meaning of evil. Since evil is a concept with many meanings, this thesis approaches the subject thematically. The comparison begins by focusing on the perception of evil as an all-corrupting force that had taken hold of Germany, followed by an exploration of how power and brutality were understood, ending with a comparison of views on how the struggle between good and evil took place on both a social and individual level. In addition to demonstrating the subjectivity of moral perspective during a tumultuous period of the recent past, this research reveals how the struggle against Nazism existed as a conflict of ideas. Moreover, the comparison of cultural sources (including Nazi art, visual propaganda, written texts such as Mein Kampf, and anti-Nazi creative fiction) demonstrates the value of art as a tool for conducting historical enquiry. Since the legacy of the Third Reich continues to directly influence modern perceptions of evil, exploring how evil was understood according to contemporary Germans – from both pro and anti-Nazi perspectives – is of particular historical interest.