Inaug.-Diss.--Kiel. / Vita.

Inaug.-Diss.--Freiburg. / Lebenslauf. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1965. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-134).

<p> The history of Bertolt Brecht&rsquo;s play <i>Leben des Galilei </i> extends through the writing of its three versions during 1938 to 1955&mdash;a period of two decades that also encompassed the entirety of the Second World War. The period also covers the atom bomb from its development to America&rsquo;s use of the bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the beginning of the Cold War, which included the sustained threat that nuclear weapons might be used any day. This thesis traces, and offers interpretations of, changes in Brecht&rsquo;s <i>Leben des Galilei</i> from its inception in 1938&ndash;1939&mdash;when the protagonist, a scientist, is portrayed in a positive light&mdash;through the play&rsquo;s American version in 1947, where it bitterly accuses science and scientists of having betrayed society and humanity, and finally to its last version in 1955, where the protagonist struggles to prevent the normalization&mdash;the familiarization&mdash;of the threat of nuclear warfare. </p><p> Next to the writing of the <i>Leben des Galilei</i>, the thesis also focuses on the main critical readings of the play. A large fraction of the critical readings, but not all of them, interpret the play either as a judgment of science or as an invitation to pass judgment on science. </p><p> The thesis compares <i>Leben des Galilei</i> with three different groups of other texts. The first comparison is with two other plays that also address the problem of science in the age of nuclear weapons, and the second comparison is with other work of Brecht himself. The first comparison leads to the observation that the muted note of optimism in the final version of <i> Leben des Galilei</i> is exceptional, and the second comparison to the apparently unrelated observation that it was uncharacteristic of Brecht to make explicit a certain literary allusion in <i>Leben des Galilei</i>. The two observations converge to a possible common explanation from a comparison with a still third group of texts, a cycle of Native American myths which appear in the oral traditions of various Native American tribes spread throughout the New World. </p><p> Finally, the thesis addresses the question of why a modern-day literary text, addressing the essentially modern problem of nuclear warfare, and addressing that problem using the essentially modern techniques of Brechtian theatre, might have structures parallel to the structures of primitive mythology.</p><p>

Abstract not available

This thesis investigates cross-dressing as a historical practice and as a literary motif German texts around 1800. It is interested in how cross-dressing allowed real women and their fictional counterparts a wider sphere of action, and how the figure of the transvestite affected the contemporary discourse on "gendered character," a newly arising concept that attempted to define woman's intellectual and moral make-up as a derivative of her body. Chapter 1 is concerned with novels by Therese Huber and Caroline de la Motte Fouque which are set during the time of the French Revolution. It analyses how concepts of femininity are tied up with the author's political agenda by comparing a heroine who fights for the republicans with another who is a royalist. Chapter 2 focuses on the motif of the death of the transvestite in texts by Schiller, Kleist, and Gunderrode. It demonstrates how in Schiller's and Kleist's texts language, truth, and gender become entangled, whereas Gunderrode's texts refuse to instrumentalize the category of gender in order to stabilize cultural norms and values. Chapter 3 investigates the discourse on cross-dressing in the city of Weimar, the cultural mecca of Germany's late 18$\sp{\rm th}$ century. It understands texts by Charlotte von Stein and Wolfgang von Goethe as a discussion about the essence of gender carried out through the figure of the transvestite, and aims especially to reconstruct von Stein's point of view. Chapter 4 is concerned with novels by Frederike Helene Unger and Karoline Paulus which portray foreign cross-dressers, i.e., texts where the transgression of gender lines is coupled with a transgression of national boundaries. It demonstrates how these exotic transvestites function as enabling devices, facilitating the expression of forbidden desires and a critique of German gender norms. Finally, chapter 5 focuses on the literary movement of romanticism. It demonstrates how Dorothea Schlegel and Bettina Brentano-von Arnim employ the transvestite's power to defy dichotomies and to express desire. Rather than drawing a clear line between subversive and conservative texts, the analysis exposes the complicated network of resistance to and compliance with dominant gender stereotypes within every text.

The subject of this dissertation concerns the visit of the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke to Sweden in 1904, and its subsequent impact on modern Swedish literature. Rilke came to Sweden at the invitation of the feminist writer Ellen Key and stayed for almost half a year, lecturing and meeting with many of the country's leading cultural figures. While scholars have often discussed the ways in which Rilke's brief Swedish sojourn affected his own work, this dissertation seeks to examine the extent of Rilke's influence on succeeding generations of Swedish writers and poets, from the turn of century through the late sixties. Ellen Key's widely read essay published in 1904, marked the beginning of the Swedish interest in Rilke. However, it was not until two decades after this event that anything of consequence was written about him, when in the mid-twenties, Rilke's works were briefly mentioned in a book on modern German literary history. The 1930s saw the emergence of a renewed interest in Rilke, with Johannes Edfelt beginning the first major translation of the latter's poems into Swedish. While subsequent interpretations of Rilke's poems were made by other literary figures such as Bertil Malmberg and Karin Boye, Edfelt's work stands out as clearly the most significant. Swedish interest in Rilke continued unabated throughout the 1940s, before reaching its apogee in the fifties—a period that ushered in still more translations of the author's works, by Arnold Ljungdal and Mirjam Touminen. Perhaps, the most noteworthy examples of Rilke-inspired literature from this decade were the poems and newspaper articles of Folke Isaksson, a neo-romantic writer, whose early works demonstrate a deep attachment to Rilke. However, this admiration later turned to open criticism during the politically turbulent sixties—resulting eventually in a complete break with ‘the master’. While the 1980s and 90s saw yet another periodic revival of Swedish interest in Rilke, the majority of significant literary texts concerning the latter were published between 1904–1968—a period which, as previously indicated, serves as the principle focus of this dissertation.

Thesis--Tübingen. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-145).

Issued also as the author's inaugural dissertation, Bern, 1928. / "Bibliographie": p. [172]-176.

Inaug.-diss.--Breslau. / Lebenslauf. At head of title: Germanistik. "Literatur": p. 109-110.