This thesis demonstrates the aesthetic impact of crisis on Ingeborg Bachmann's late verse and prose. It examines poetic drafts written during a period of personal breakdown in the 1960s, which have largely been received as documents of personal suffering, and identifies these texts as a radical stage of writing that was to prove formally significant for Bachmann's development of the prose "Todesarten"-Projekt. This thesis draws on the new material made available with the publication of these poetic drafts to chart the genesis of Bachmann's acclaimed late oeuvre. By selecting and grouping lyric fragments, the thesis defines recurrent features in this verse and accounts for the texts as a body of writing that forms a radical, yet undocumented, part of this oeuvre. In terms of both their form and of their content, the fragmentary drafts are shown to reflect new engagement with aspects of experience conventionally excluded from High Art. In light of Bachmann's growing preoccupation with the need for aesthetic engagement in the post-war era, close readings reveal how she set about taking her subjective suffering as a basis for a critique of the social order. The thesis outlines how, during the 1960s, Bachmann pioneered a symptomatic expressive mode that - in the disrupted form of the writing - found an indirect means of manifesting the wider origins of subjective disturbance. The ambiguous aesthetic status of these poetic drafts, which were never finished by Bachmann, is related to an inability to establish structural distance from crisis in lyric form. Building on its readings of the poetic drafts, the thesis traces Bachmann's prose experimentation with the same motifs. It identifies how, ultimately, the prose medium enabled the author to resolve problems of aesthetic form raised in the verse. Parallels with the work of other writers and thinkers illuminate the development of a reflexive mode where sophisticated aesthetic strategies enable the oblique expression of cultural critique.

This thesis is the first academic treatment of the poetry of Anton Schnack (1892-1973): his work is not well known, even in Germany. Methodologically the thesis takes a combined literary, historical and biographical approach, exploring the complex and sometimes deceptive relations between his poetry and the turbulence of his time. The primary aim of the thesis is to show that Tier rang gewaltig mit Tier (1920) is a uniquely innovative volume of war poetry which, to be fully appreciated, needs to be assessed against the background of previous German war poetry and the development of the sonnet cycle. It is placed in the context of Schnack’s other lyrical work, particularly of the three volumes of Expressionist poetry which immediately preceded it and which themselves are analysed as examples of a very powerful kind of Expressionism. Schnack did not publish his next volume of verse until 1936, and three further collections emerged in quick succession between 1947 and 1953. These four collections are examined in detail in the context of Schnack’s decision to stay in southern Germany and to maintain a consistently low profile. The thesis begins with a general introduction to Schnack’s life and work and makes specific reference to his contemporary and current standing among literary historians and critics. Chapter Two focuses on the three volumes of Expressionist verse and documents the cultural circles which he frequented in Munich and the numerous Expressionist magazines and periodicals to which he contributed. The next three chapters are dedicated to Tier rang gewaltig mit Tier and examine it with reference to its poetic form as a cycle of sonnets and of its merits and status as war poetry. The final chapter pays particular attention to Schnack’s life in the Third Reich, situating the single collection he published during that era among the literary works of Inner Emigration, before analysing his three post-war collections.

Throughout history, there have been playful prefaces to literature (or in classical oratory, before display pieces). But German examples written by authors around 1800 to their own works, together with contemporary, self-authored prefaces to speculative philosophy, constitute a peculiarly paradoxical text type. Once literature was conceived as an autonomous domain rather than as a branch of general learning; as a popular book market took hold; and once systematic philosophy competed with literature’s broad acclaim as well as intellectual independence, the preface became not only a pragmatic, but also a creative and conceptual problem. Hence the preface became complicated as a form, in a broadly Romantic tradition of thought in which every act of genuine reflection was understood to expose epistemological contradiction. After my general, theoretical Preface and my comparative, historical Introduction, I focus on three preface paradoxes and three case studies of remarkably complex textuality: on Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel. Most notable among their prefatory texts are the prefaces to Werther (1774), to a fictive second edition of Quintus Fixlein (1797) and to Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807). This trajectory is a story that begins with literary creativity and moves towards greater philosophical intricacy. The significance of my study is threefold. First and foremost, considering prefaces in this period of German literature and philosophy complements and augments the negative, subjective Early German Romantic idea of irony, Romantic textual fragmentation, as well as Jean Paul’s and Hegel’s literary and philosophically informed attempts to render both concepts and their manifestation on the page more positive and objective. Fragments are conventionally conceived as additive pieces, fortifying or undermining works. This conception can hold true for prefaces, including those by Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel. At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, though, a number of writers of fragments argued that their works should be understood as wholes. Precisely some prefaces by Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel can be read so paradoxically: as unifying, wholesome (in a Sentimental sense) and systematic fragments respectively. Second and third, I show the wider importance of the German preface at the turn of the nineteenth century. Authors around 1800 not only displayed, but discovered and debated a prefatory paradoxicality that we encounter in post-Romantic, post-Structuralist and post-modern literature, theory and philosophy, too. Moreover, I demonstrate the ways in which prefaces by particularly Jean Paul and Hegel influenced especially Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Derrida.

This study explores how education and the medieval intellectual and pedagogical discipline of 'grammatical' developed in Iceland during the medieval period, defined roughly from the official conversion to Christianity c.1000 to the Reformation c.1550, The first chapter deals with social, institutional, and financial aspects of teaching and learning in medieval Iceland, surveying key figures and places, but also arguing that more attention shoulder be paid to the costs of learning and the effect of that on poor students. The second chapter addresses Latin education, discussing the importance of Latinity in medieval Iceland and the types of education that would involve Latin. It also addresses the idea of bilingual education and suggests ways in which extant venacular writings can provide evidence for how Latin was taught and learned using the vernacular, using the model of Old English bilingual education. Finally, the third chapter addresses vernacular topics of learning, focusing on the development of a venacular \(grammatical\) which is focused on the interpretation and normalization of Old Norse texts, rather than the understanding and use of Latin. Discussing these three components of educational history together is fundamental to understanding the intellectual and pedagogical dynamics behind the extant medieval Icelandic textual corpus.

Nach einem Rekurs über den Utopiebegriff wurden sowohl im diarischen Werk als auch in der veröffentlichten Prosa Brigitte Reimanns utopische Konzeptionen aufgespürt. Gesucht wurde das Utopische sowohl in den Beschreibungen einer konkreten Gesellschaftsutopie, als auch in den literarischen „Verfeinerungen“ einer kruden Ideologie, wie im kritischen Hinterfragen des „Noch-Nicht-Bewussten“ (Ernst Bloch). Als ästhetische Utopien wurden auch Wunschbilder des Alltags, Träume, Märchen und Mythen gedeutet. Ausführliche Untersuchungen beschäftigten sich mit der Gestaltung der weiblichen Figuren und ihrer Entwicklung von der ideologisch (auch männlich) indoktrinierten Protagonistin zur „freien“ Ich–Gestalterin. Nachgewiesen wurde sowohl im diarischen Werk, als auch in der veröffentlichten Prosa eine Wandlung des Utopieverständnisses von der Gesellschaftsutopie zur subjektiven „Augenblicksutopie“, die im Deutungshorizont der Literatur der Romantik auch als DDR-spezifische Innerlichkeit verstanden werden könnte, welche mit ihrem Rückzug ins Individuelle die ritualisierte DDR-Öffentlichkeit desavouierte. / After a study of the term of Utopia, Utopian concepts were discovered both in the diary texts and in the published prose of Brigitte Reimann′s oeuvre. The Utopian was searched in the descriptions of concrete social Utopia as well as in the literary <EM>Verfeinerungen</EM> of crude ideology and in the critical research of the <EM>Noch-Nicht-Bewusste</EM> (Ernst Bloch). Wishful thinking, dreams, fairy-tales and myths were interpreted as an aesthetic Utopia. Detailed researches were engaged in a study of representation of feminine characters and their development from the ideological indoctrinated protagonist to the “free” <EM>Ich-Gestalterin</EM>. The change in understanding of Utopia from the social Utopia to the <EM>Augenblicksutopie</EM> could be proved both in the diary texts and in the published prose of Brigitte Reimann. In the <EM>Deutungshorizont</EM> of Romantic literature it may be understood as a specific <EM>DDR-Innerlichkeit</EM>, which with its retreat into individualism showed up the ritual public.

"Die dröge Trina" erzählt eine von F. E. Peters in hochdeutscher Sprache veröffentlichte Geschichte aus der "Baasdörper Krönk", der bedeutenden niederdeutschen Dorfchronik desselben Autors. Der Roman, 1946 erschienen, beschreibt, wie die Bauerntochter Trina Dührsen, raffgierige Anbeterin des "Taler-Gottes", durch ihre Habgier das Leben ihres Bruders und ihres Ehemannes zerstört und versucht, ihren Neffen Wilhelm um sein Erbe zu bringen. Der Roman findet dennoch ein versöhnliches Ende, als Trina inmitten der Inflation der Jahre 1922/1923 die Entwertung ihres Geldes und damit die Vergänglichkeit irdischer Güter erlebt, gleichzeitig aber menschliche Werte schätzen lernt . Der eigenwillige Untertitel "Geschichte einer Poahr Dangoaß" bezieht sich auf den Spitz- und Schimpfnamen Trinas, eine Verballhornung des französischen Begriffs "poire d’angoisse" (für das Folterinstrument der Mundbirne), der ihr in Anspielung an ihren schlechten Charakter und die schönen, aber wenig schmackhaften Birnen ihres Hofes, die "Gurgelschnürer", verliehen wurde. "Die dröge Trina" schildert mit freundlich-ironischer Empathie mentalitätsgeschichtlich aufschlussreiche Verhaltensweisen, Sitten und Bräuche der norddeutschen Provinz im Zeitalter der Industrialisierung. Berühmtheit hat die Beschreibung eines Schweinewiegens erlangt. Die dröge Trina ist 1945 als Fortsetzungsroman unter dem Titel "Trina Dührsen" in den Flensburger Nachrichten erschienen.

Henning Rohwer wird im Dorf Esau genannt, weil sein Vater sich dazu entschieden hat, die Erbfolge zu durchbrechen und seinen Bauernhof nicht dem erstgeborenen Henning zu übertragen, sondern dem zweiten geeigneteren Sohn Fritz. Fritz soll Anna Harder heiraten. Henning versucht, durch Anritzen des Pferdegeschirrs die Brautfahrt der beiden mit einem tödlichen Unfall enden zu lassen und sich auf diese Weise den Hof zurückzuerobern. Diese Geschichte, die in der 1975 posthum publizierten Baasdörper Krönk andeutungsweise enthalten ist, wurde von F.E. Peters zu Lebzeiten auf Hochdeutsch veröffentlicht. Sie erzählt von dem sozialen Abstieg eines Verstoßenen und den archaischen Selektionsmechanismen und Abwehrstrategien einer Dorfgemeinschaft, die Verstöße ihrer Mitglieder gegen den bäuerlichen Sitten- und Ehrenkodex hart ahndet.

Humorvolle Schilderung einer Alltagsszene im Dresdener Museum vor Rembrandts Bild „Ganymed in den Fängen des Adlers“ mit geistreichem Brückenschlag zu Langbehns „Rembrandt als Erzieher“ (1890).

Ein alter Major stößt zu einer Reisegesellschaft, die sich auf einem Dampfer nach Hallig Hooge befindet. Durch seine verbalen Ausfälle und seine Trunksucht verspielt der Major allmählich die Achtung, die ihm anfangs entgegengebracht wurde. Eine genaue Beobachtung von gesellschaftlicher Gruppendynamik und unterschiedlichen Rollenverhalten in der Konfrontation mit einem Außenseiter.

Die Demütigung eines armen Dichters durch einen selbstherrlichen Beamten.