It is the purpose of this thesis to present the artistic development of the socialist writer Günter Kunert. He is considered to be one of the important representatives of the literature of the German Democratic Republic where he has spent most of his life. His artistic creativity stretches over three decades. The different artistic and ideological periods of the development of this writer are presented in chronological order. An attempt is being made to explain why Kunert's work is of a politically provocative nature and why it shows such strong criticism towards the socialist country whose citizen he is. The thesis follows the writer from his early socialist didactical works to the "Subjektivierung" of his writings in the present time. In conclusion, the thesis attempts to understand the deep-rooted reasoning of an author who in spite of his unmistakably critical position towards the GDR intends to remain there.

Stuttgart, FH, Diplomarb., 2000.

This master thesis presents the character of Job and his reception in German-speaking literature on the basis of three works of the twentieth century, written by Joseph Roth, Oskar Kokoschka and Günter Kunert. The starting point for the literary reception is the biblical Old Testament book Job, whose story, form and circumstances of origin are mentioned in the first part of the work. Following are the performances of individual authors and the interpretation of their works. The core of the work is a comparison of literary reception of the figure of Job in the texts with a biblical original. The subject of the study was, in particular, the question of how the selected authors deal with the biblical substance, how they use Job for their works and which meaning have the comic elements in their texts.