Bibliography: pages 201-210. / The dissertation attempts to analyse the novella Die Reisebegegnung by Anna Seghers not as an isolated "work" by an isolated "author" but as a symptom of the possibilities and limits of innovative writing in the German Democratic Republic in the seventies. While it therefore situates the novella within the context of literary politics, it also tries to show how Anna Seghers expanded the boundaries of literary political debates, which focused on the concepts of cultural heritage and social realism, by using the form of fiction instead of a critical essay. The first chapter deals with the historical context of the novella. It tries to show Anna Seghers' allegorical depiction of the literary figures of "Nikolai Gogol", "E. T. A. Hoffmann" and "Franz Kafka" as representations of the aesthetics of realism, romanticism and modernism respectively. The use of allegory marks a significant breakaway from the method of social realism. The chapter also tries to show the intertextuality of the novella. The second chapter focuses on the debate on cultural heritage in the GDR. It retraces Anna Seghers' changing attitudes to the controversial cultural heritage of romanticism and modernism in the Marxist debate on realism from the thirties up to the publication of the novella Die Reisebegegn.ung in 1973. The third chapter deals with the theory of socialist realism as developed by Georg Lukacs and simplified by the Stalinist cultural functionary Andrei Zhdanov. It attempts to define the position taken by Anna Seghers in the Marxist debate on realism in which she argued on the same side as Ernst Bloch and Bertolt Brecht against the concept of realism upheld by Lukacs. The fourth chapter deals with the depiction of the three literary figures in the novella. It attempts to show in how far this figuration deviates from the orthodox Marxist reception of the three authors on the one hand and from that of alternative Marxist and non-Marxist interpretations on the other. The fifth chapter analyses Anna Seghers' literary representation of time. She lets the three authors travel freely through "objective" historical time, which constitutes the most significant deviation from the theory of socialist realism in the novella. The chapter discusses the implications this has for innovative writing in the GDR. While Anna Seghers tries to incorporate the divergent concepts of realism of the three authors - each situated within his own literary historical framework - into her variety of socialist realism in the GDR in the seventies, she adapts and changes the complexity and specificity of their representations of reality. The unresolved contradictions of the novella, however, constantly subvert the claim to an extraliterary reality, which the literary figures and the novella make. The limits of this novella in its literary historical context were in turn expanded by writers in the GDR in the seventies who saw in it a legitimisation for their own literary experiments.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-114).

Bibliography: pages 166-171. / Bettina von Arnims novel Die Günderode was written during the period of early German romanticism. The novel consists of an exchange of letters between the literary figure Bettine and an opposite, Gunderode. This exchange takes place in the light of the philosophical discourse of German idealism, mainly represented by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, which excludes women as independent subjects. The novel reveals Bettine's dissatisfaction about her exclusion as a woman within the discourse of idealism. As Bettine realizes her non-representation in the existing discourse of her time she develops distinct writing techniques in order to discover her own subjectivity. She comes to the conclusion, however, that as a woman she can neither be represented in the prevailing discourse nor in another alternative "female" discourse. Using the feminist theoretical framework of Luce lrigaray, in particular her book Das Geschlecht, das nicht eins ist, the author investigates the discursive nature of German idealism and comes to the conclusion that it is essentially a male discourse. The author then analyses Bettine's attempts to liberate herself from male discourse using lrigaray. The author concludes that Bettine's writing technique corresponds to a great extent with the concepts formulated by Irigaray. While Bettine is able to undermine and subvert male discourse, she is aware that she cannot establish a new alternative discourse in which her subjectivity is fully represented.

This dissertation analyses the formation, function and portrayal of language and the subject in the narrative cycle The Thirtieth Year (Das dreißigste Jahr) by the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973), in light of the theories brought forward by the poststructural movement. The traditional outlook on the subject is one that regards it as being autonomous. This autonomy is challenged by the narrative cycle: the analysis shows, how subjects are constructed by a web of interconnecting discourses. In fact, the very qualities from which the subject forms its identity are conferred by the other, which forbids any notion of reflecting on the subject in an autonomous manner. The narratives demonstrate, how the subject will always find itself in an indefinite process of becoming, a process which solicits a different approach, i.e. a change of consciousness for its acknowledgement - one which offers the subject a space to probe its own becoming. Subsequently, this different method of acknowledgement is also confined to the given order. The re-imagining, which the different subjects perform throughout the narrative cycle, show, that Bachmann's subjects are neither fully predestined, nor are they fully autonomous. Although agency is outlined by the given order, the subject is still able to re-evaluate its agency in previously unmediated ways. This shows that ways of existing are not as unalterable as suggested by the given structures. By re -assessing all approaches of autonomous agency, this narrative cycle sensitises the reader to structures that form the subject, and possible ways in which it is thereby oppressed. The narratives expose the mechanisms that form socially recognisable subjects and, more importantly, give voice to those subjects, who find themselves on the periphery of the normative majority. To do so, the dissertation employs theories, which have been categorised as 'poststructural.' These theories lend themselves well to disclosing the repressive character of governing norms and to problematize attempts to universalise certain paradigms. For instance, the assumption that language constitutes identity of the subject, amongst other factors, is re-evaluated in the sense that language and discourse, in fact, restrict and limit the subject in its quest for identity. Bachmann's later works (i.e. Malina (1971), Simultan (1970), Der Fall Franza (1978)) have been the subject of poststructural scrutiny, especially from a feminist perspective. The narrative cycle The Thirtieth Year, however, has received little attention by theorists employing poststructural means of analysis. The dissertation therefore sets out to show that valuable insights can be gained when reading the text from a poststructural perspective.

Bibliography: pages 189-193. / The purpose of this study is to look at the role of Isolde, in particular, in the medieval epic TRISTAN - not TRISTAN AND ISOLDE as many call it. In an attempt to understand the role of the woman in Gottfried von Strassburg's TRISTAN, the woman in medieval society and literature was examined in order to ascertain whether Gottfried was presenting a vastly different or a traditional model. There being no historical literature from this time, church and legal documentation provides the only source of information on the woman of the Middle Ages. As fiction of the time would also reflect society of the day, medieval epics and poetry were consulted and compared. A study was made of ROLE-PLAY to ascertain whether there is a relationship between "individual" and society at this time, and whether it is reflected in literature. It was deemed necessary for an understanding of the confrontation of the two main characters with the society in which they operate. Lastly the text was examined for indications of a "new", "progressive" role afforded the woman as a reflection of social changes of the day. Isolde was considered in terms of education, childhood influences, individuality, "psychological" makeup, social (antisocial) behaviour, as fulfilling a traditional role or representing a new morality, particularly in her interaction with the male, Tristan.

I have chosen the topic, "The Evolution of Schiller's Thought on Freedom and Patriotism", with special reference to "Die Rauber", "Don Carlos", and "Wilhelm Tell", because it seems to me to represent one of the most significant and basic phases of the general philosophy of Germany's greatest dramatist. According to consensus of critical opinion, it was Schiller's ardent love of freedom which motivated practically all of his plays. In the actual world about him, in the society of his times, he found little that seemed to him to make for his ideal of inner harmony.

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Univ., Diss.--Bonn, 2006.