<p>This study attmepts to present a thorough comparative analysis and evaluation of Brecht's Coriolan adaptation and his Shakespearean model. Brecht's actual achievement is measured by the standards of his critical theory of literary adaptation of classical drama, and especially of Shakespeare, on the modern, 'epic' stage. It is shown why Brecht's insistence on shifting our central interest and sympathy from the hero, on whom Shakespeare had focussed the entire action, to the people's collective, had to result in an admirable failure.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) and Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) were both writers as well as physicians. The latter profession had a significant influence on their works, which is evident in the frequent use of the doctor figure in their plays and prose works.</p> <p>What distinguishes Schnitzler and Chekhov from other writers of the fin-de-siècle, is their ability to clinically observe psycho- logical and social problems. Schnitzler's and Chekhov's works contain "diagnoses" made by their doctor figure.</p> <p>This study examines the respective qualities of a spectrum of six major types. There are mixed, mainly positive and mainly negative types of doctor figures, ranging from the revolutionary type down to the pathetic doctor figure and the calculating type.</p> <p>Dealing with differences as well as with similarities, the thesis concludes by showing how the characterization of the doctor figure sheds light on the authors that created them.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis analyses Thomas Mann's concept of evil, in his novel Doktor Faustus, as opposed to the traditional theological concept. According to Thomas Mann, evil is a loss of humanity evolving in the course of history. He portrays German Nazism as based of inward, speculative tendencies of the German mind which can already be found in the work of Germany's reformer Martin Luther. The evolution of abstract thought and inward culture towards a new barbarism is traced through four centuries of German history. For Thomas Mann, Protestant theology, with its mystic tendencies, played a decisive part in this development.</p> <p>As an artist effected by the crisis of culture, Thomas Mann describes how evil became the instrument of overcoming its stagnation. Thomas Mann's epic technique reveals the omnipresence as well as the genesis of evil in history. Adrian Leverkühn, the central figure of the novel, becomes the all-inclusive paradigm; the modern Faustus, who in order to find God, makes a pact with the devil.</p> <p>Finally, Thomas Manns humanistic principles and their religious foundations are developed. His call for a 'religiously tinted humanism' to prevent future isolation and alienation is shown as consistently valid.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis consists of a biography of Reinhold Schneider and a translation of two stories which appeared in his 1943 collection of short stories entitled Die Dunkle Nacht. Each story is followed by notes which give explanations concerning historical background, biblical concepts and expressions, and problems in translation. The Bibliography is divided into "Works Cited" and "Works Consulted" for the reader who wishes to do further research on this author.</p> <p>The purpose of this thesis is to provide the English-speaking reader with an introduction to Reinhold Schneider, one of the few people who both wrote and published anti-Nazi literature within Germany during the Second World War. This courageous writer, who saw his role as giving his people "a helping word", sought to direct them back to the Absolute, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. He also reminded them that the conscience is an indestructible part of man. The emphasis of this thesis presents itself equally in both Parts One and Two to show that Schneider deserved such names as "a voice in the wilderness" and "Germany's conscience" during this difficult period of history.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis discusses the Institution of the Duel in the dramas and prose works of Arthur Schitzler, and presents a translation into English of the novella Leutnant Gustl.</p> <p>A preliminary chapter provides short biographical details and outlines the general cultural, political and social atmosphere of the times.</p> <p>The concluding chapter discusses the translation and points out certain specific problems.</p> <p>All quotations from Schintzler's Dramas and Prose Works are from the following editions:</p> <p>Arthur Schnitzler, Gesammelte Werke: Die dramatische Werke.</p> <p>2 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1962.</p> <p>Arthur Schnitzler, Gesammelte Werke: Die erzáhlenden Schriften.</p> <p>2 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1962.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis presents the attempt to make visible, in a representative section of the literature of German speaking immigrants, the reflection of Canadian and European reality as experienced from the temporal and spatial distance to the horror of facsism, in Canada as exile and sanctuary. The cultural and historical experiences underlying the interpreted texts are very complex, both on the individual and collective level. Henry Kreisel and Carl Weiselberger who, as Austrian Jews, had to flee from Vienna after the national-socialist annexation of Austria in 1938 were interned as enemy aliens in England in 1940 and deported to Canada where they, after some months in internment camps, became Canadian citizens; Kreisel became much involved with the postwar development of Canadian literature and criticism. Walter Bauer, a successful writer of socially critical fiction in Germany before 1933, and of non-committal books during Hitler's rule, hoped to contribute to a new, just society with his writings after the war. His memories of the German Nazi past and the war kept haunting him as a postwar immigrant in Canada.The "exile structures" found in the fiction of these three Canadian ethnic writers correspond thematically to their individual experience of exile, interpreted under three main aspects: 1. The experience of being cast out and disconnected from the past leads to an understanding of our part in the political reality, and-of the continuity of history. 2. The existential experience of the no one's land communicates the need to assert oneself against the nothingness of oppression, destruction, anonymity. 3. The experience of living with two languages evokes the attempt to better understand both the old and the new culture, and to search for an own, synthetized cultural identity. - The interpreted literature, like any minority literature, shows elements of a self-liberating motivation.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Feuchtwanger feit that due to such technological advances as film, the twentieth-century reader demanded something different from the novel, and he believed that this new film audience would eventually look at verbal texts from a different perspective. Through film techniques he hoped to meet this demand and provide what he felt was a much-needed "Erneuerung" of the novel. He sought to employ these cinematic methods in an attempt to liberate the narrative form from what he perceived to be its limitations. His ultimate goal was to stimulate the reader's social understanding and commitment through his/her emotions. To this end he experimented in a limited but revealing way with film techniques derived from Sergei Eisenstein's theory of dialectical montage. Surprisingly, the significance of Feuchtwanger's use of this type of montage and its implications for Erfolg and the novel in general has not yet been thoroughly investigated or illuminated in the current secondary literature available. This thesis aims at providing an analysis of Feuchtwanger's theoretical considerations regarding the "modernisation" of the historical novel via film techniques in his 1930 novel, Erfolg: Drei Jahre Geschichte einer Provinz. I address Feuchtwanger's intentions concerning the employment of film techniques in the novel. as set out in his theoretical writings, and have dealt with his artistic use of Eisensteinian montage. I also examine Feuchtwanger's use of a less "filmic" type of montage, along with the techniques of simultaneity and changing point of view, techniques he hoped would render his novel more "filmic." One of Feuchtwanger's main requirements for the historical novel is the didactic element. The film techniques he employed have specific implications for his theory of the historical novel, and it is through the application of techniques derived from Eisenstein's theory of dialectical montage that he is able to create didactic art in his historical novel.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>In the years preceding the First World War, Thomas and Heinrich Mann had each formulated his own distinct intellectual and social world views.</p> <p>Thomas had been gr e atly creative spiritual mentors of influenced by three very the nineteenth century: Schopenhauer, Wagner and Nietzsche. In his writing, Thomas emphasized the development of the individual and he was preoccupied by the effects of disease and decadence.</p> <p>Heinrich, on the other hand, strongly influenced by French writers, such as Emile Zola and Paul Bourget, stressed social aspects and the role of the individual by criticizing the prevailing conditions. He had also developed a theory of "literary politics" which called for the 'literary engagement' in the political life of the nation.</p> <p>The outbreak of the First World War saw the brothers embroiled in a major ideological conflict which led to an eventual break in their relationship.</p> <p>Thomas along with many intellectuals became swept up in the prevalent war hysteria and wrote several articles extolling the virtues and be nefits of war.</p> <p>Heinrich was one of a small number of intellectuals who found this war enthusiasm totally offensive a nd wrote his famous Zola essay criticizing those who enthusiastically supported the war. His essay became the catalyst for the ideological conflict which broke out with his brother, who for his part felt personally attacked by it.</p> <p>As a result, Thomas wrote his voluminous Reflections of a Nonpol it ical Man. In them, as well as extolling the virtues and superiority of German 'Kultur', he criticized his brother for supporting Germany's enemies.</p> <p>The main purpose of this thesis will be to examine the Mann brothers' ideological and ultimately fraternal conflict as seen against the background of the historical, political, social and cultural realities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Given the recent demise of "real existing socialism," socialist literature raises a number of new questions for the contemporary audience. A case in point is the dramatic theory and practice of the German writer and dramatist Bertolt Brecht (18981956). Based as it was upon the premises of Marxism, how relevant is Brecht's art after the <em>Wende</em>? This study seeks to address this question through a revised look at Brecht's Marxist plays.</p> <p>A commonly accepted tenet of Brecht research to date is that his plays demonstrate a development on the part of the playwright. Those Brechtian plays written after Brecht's first study of Marxist theory in the late 1920s can be divided into two groups: the <em>Lehrstücke</em>, or learning plays, which were brief, theatrical exercises in social behaviour, designed only for participants, rather than an audience, and the <em>Schaustücke</em>, full-scale plays to be performed onstage before an audience. Implicit in the approach of the so-called <em>Phasentheorie</em> is a tendency to consider the learning plays of lesser quality than the plays of Brecht's later work, and to emphasize differences between the two models.</p> <p>Upon closer examination, however, the most striking characteristic of Brecht's dramatic theory and practice as it develops is not the divergence, but the unity of his plays. Using Brecht's <em>Die Maβnahme</em> (1930) and <em>Das Leben des Galilei</em> (1938/39) as paradigms of the Lehrstück and Schaustück, respectively, this study first reinterprets the learning play to then contrast and compare the two plays in terms of form and content. This reevaluation of Brecht's development as a dramatist reveals that the differences between Lehrsttick and Schaustück are essentially of a formal nature, and that these differences are outweighed by the intent and the content of the plays. Since Brecht's foremost concern with the dramatic medium is communicating a social message, the greatest significance of structure to the play is that it "structures" the play's socio-political content. Consequently, not the differences, but the continuities between Brecht's learning plays and the full-scale plays are meaningful. They indicate the unity of Brecht's dramatic theory and practice: to empower people with the knowledge that they can potentially liberate themselves from repressive forces within society through understanding their social nature and working together in community.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis deals with the literature of the Russian Mennonites, who left the Soviet Union for Canada following the upheavals of the Revolution and Civil War. The loss of their homeland - the "Russian Mennonite Experience" - and the building of a new homeland became the central issue of their literature.</p> <p>The use of Heimat as an approach allows the description of both the concrete loss of the land and its mental implications, thus combining the Mennonite vision with the historical aspect. In defining the Mennonite identity literature plays an instrumental role.</p> <p>A development can be traced through two generations of writers. In Verloren in der Steppe Arnold Dyck understands Heimat in a rather concrete sense as the Ukrainian steppe and the existence of his people as a "people apart" according to the traditional rules of social interaction. Signs of alienation can be seen in the relationship to the surrounding Russians as well as in the development of the boy Hans as an artist.</p> <p>Rudy Wiebe's Peace Shall Destroy Many holds a transitional position. In Deacon Block the traditional concept of Heimat fails in the needs of the historical situation as well as of the individual human being. Thom Wiens, however, indicates a positive orientation toward Christ's living and teaching.</p> <p>In The Blue Mountains of China loss of Heimat is shown in its deepest aspect, the breakdown of the inner spiritual being. At the same time the utopian impulse is the most developed in this novel. Characters like Samuel Reimer or David Epp may fail in what they attempt, their intentions, however, are carried on by others. Caught up in limited perspectives they demonstrate the limitations of human perception. Hence the novel ends "On the way", indicating that true Heimat cannot be reached in this life but is an ideal that transforms the present.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)