This work is an edifying text in which the interlocutors are experts in evil deeds--they are none other than Sathan and Lucifer. Sathan, at the request of his master, reveals numerous details on the way in which people lived at the end of the Middle Ages: their work and their leisure activities, their sins and their good deeds. With its humour and richness of language, the dialogue between the devils is in the best tradition of the "Rhetoriqueurs" and Francois Villon. Furthermore, as an historical document, it bears witness to the medieval conception of Hell and the representatives of Good and Evil. / We are proposing a new edition of Eloy d'Amerval's Le Livre de la Deablerie, an edition fully justified by the richness of both text and language. Our reconstruction of the twenty thousand eight hundred and four verses of the incunabulum of 1508 (no manuscript of this book has appeared to date) is based on the principles of Bedier's method of text editing. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This thesis presents the first comprehensive history of the Germanic r-stems, the words preserved as Modern English “father”,”mother”, “brother”, “sister”, “daughter”; and “four”. A brief introduction gives general orientation and indicates the position taken by the author on the question of the grouping of the Germanic languages and the laws of final syllables. It also contains specimen paradigms. The main body of the work falls into three parts. The first traces the history of the cardinal numeral “four” (Proto-Indo-European *kwetwór-) in Germanic, discussing in particular the initial and medial consonantism and the relation of the two types of Germanic inflection (Gothic and West Germanic versus North Germanic) to one another and of both to the paradigm of the Indo-European parent language. The second part concerns itself with the sole Indo-European -or stem relationship noun, *swésor- “sister”. A new analysis of the Older Runic form swestar (Opedal Stone) is given, interpreting it as a(n -er-stem) vocative form, and the dating and mechanism of the shift to Germanic -ter inflection is reconsidered in connection with the question of the development of the Indo-European sequence *-er(-) in Germanic unaccented syllables. The third part begins by rejecting alleged o-grade forms of the -ter-stems in Germanic, and proceeds to establish the Proto-Germanic paradigm, special attention being accorded the problem of the genitive singular. The history of this paradigm in the daughter languages is given in the succeeding sections. Special mention may be made of the conclusions reached on: the Gothic nominative singular and plural endings; the stem-vocalism of North-West-Germanic *dohtēr “daughter”; the nominative plural ending in North Germanic; the derivation of the Old English paradigm; the nominative singular and the vowel-quality of the suffix in Old High German.

More than eighty years after the death of its author, Kafka fiction continues to stimulate diverse critical interest: only Shakespeare has generated more publications, more biographies or indeed more PhD theses. In recent years, scholarship has recognised the irreducible, polysemantic nature of Kafka’s writing as a stimulus for this regenerative criticism. Another factor is the author himself, along with his well-known biography. Particularly in published monographs, Franz Kafka’s life story has attracted almost as much attention as the fiction he produced. Thus, unusually for a writer whose works have been so thoroughly dissected by criticism, Franz Kafka seems to have survived the so-called death of the author, promulgated throughout literary theory. This thesis highlights a tension between these two stimuli; between the elusive multivocality of Kafka’s fiction and the ongoing influence of the author. It argues that mythologies about Kafka have now outlived their usefulness, and suggests that greater attentiveness to theoretical insights might benefit the field. Accordingly, this study proposes new ways of looking at Kafka which marginalise the influence of the author and related approaches to his fiction. In its investigation of authority as a theme of Kafka’s writing, this volume repositions Kafka’s fictional and non-fictional output within new and established contexts, exploring philosophical and critical dimensions of the oeuvre. In so doing, it asks what Kafka can teach us about our reading of Kafka, our reading of theory and reading in general.

My thesis explores the various ways in which a small selection of novels published in 1931 depict and respond to a widespread sense of crisis during the final phase of the Weimar Republic, arguing that the authors foreground a powerful sense that modernity itself is in a state of crisis. I consider how the novels articulate diverse experiences of modernity, both within and beyond the metropolis and from different social, generational and gender perspectives. Moreover, I examine how the authors' evaluation of modernity is reflected in their use of formal and narrative techniques. Focusing upon Gabriele Tergit's Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm, Hans Fallada's Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben and Irmgard Keun's Gilgi - eine von uns, I contend that the ambiguity and complexity of the authors' responses towards modernity were often flattened, simplified or ignored by reviewers in the politically polarized environment of the late Weimar Republic. This is partly the result of the debates about Neue Sachlichkeit which influenced the original reception of the novels and have continued to shape subsequent criticism. The novels themselves have often been labelled as classic examples of Neue Sachlichkeit. However, it is my contention that the novels also problematize some of the programmatic statements about this movement which circuated widely in the Weimar Republic. Therefore, I seek to re-examine the novels within the context of Weimar debates about modernity and Neue Sachlichkeit, as well as in the light of recent theoretical work in these areas. I also draw extensive comparisons and contrasts between the models of modernity foregrounded in Tergit's novel and Emile Durkheim's writings on anomie; in Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben and Ernst Bloch's Erbschaft dieser Zeit, and in Gilgi - eine von uns and Mikhail Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World.

This thesis examines Kulturkritik and the question of the representation of difference in the work of Anne Duden. It uncovers a far-reaching interrogation of Western culture in Duden's work as oppositional relations between culture-nature, mind-body, subject and object are constantly questioned. It examinesthe criticism of the treatment of the body in Western culture which appears in the texts in a variety of ways. Though oblique reference to Cartesian and Enlightenment selves, the texts question dominant modes of being in the West and the consequences of this promotion. This is examined firstly through an analysis of Duden's essays on paintings of George and the dragon where the links between Duden's thought and the radical philosophy coming out of the 1960s are investigated. Then the prose works Ubergang and Das Judasschaf are explored to highlight the criticism of binary structures which I argue needs to be understood with reference to the types of selves and bodies which are privileged in Western culture; the production of 'useful/rational' bodies and hierarchical and oppositional subject-object, mind-matter relations prevalent in Enlightenment thought. I also argue that there is not just a criticism of structures perceived to be dominant in Western culture in Duden's texts, but that different modes of being are conveyed by the writing as differences within culture. The narrators become selves through fluid processes of interchange with the environment rather than existing as fixed entities. This analysis is linked to Duden's questioning of abstract and generalised concepts which enables a reading of the experiences of the narrators not as a 'breakdown' or loss of self, but as expressions of alternative modes of being. A close examination of the narrative style in Ubergang and Das Judasschaf analyses how selves, bodies and reality are represented. I argue that the writing is centrally concerned with areas beneath fixed forms and remains immanent to the experiences of pain, dissolution, joy, panic and the semi-conscious body rather than transcending and translating them into speech. Thus the writing continually gives us the impression that it paradoxically narrates word-less experiences. This writing of the body and other realms normally considered beyond representation questions universal norms and concepts. However, the narrative does not descend into nonsense and differences and specificities are not located beyond words but expressed in the text. The avant-garde properties of Duden's texts are examined through an analysis of montage techniques and the juxtaposition of levels of time in 'Ubergang and Das Judasschaf. Narrative and formal aspects are then explicitly linked to history and politics in an examination of Das Judasschaf and the centrality of the problem of living in a post-Holocaust culture. I will argue that the text's Kulturkritik indirectly interrogates the culture which produced the Holocaust and that the breakdown of narrative can be linked to the complexities of the post-Holocaust historical state. In addition the presentation of the Holocaust through the quotation of historical documents is understood in terms of the text's inability to represent the Holocaust. Aesthetics and politics are also brought together in the examination of the Steinschlag poems. With reference to Duden's essays on aesthetics, I argue that the Steinschlag texts speak with and through the broken remains of a language left over from the atrocities of the 20th Century. The musical re-configurations of the remnants, however, produce a negative hope by speaking from the sites of the gaps in culture and history.

No description available.

Through an analysis of the four novels Sansibar (1957), Die Rote (196 1), Efraim (1967) and Winterspelt (1974), this thesis explores the development of the principles of freedom and truth upheld by the characters in Sansibar into the concept of the artistic outline found in the later novels. Crucial to an understanding of this is the Sartre quotation in Winterspelt . According to Sartre's ‘original project’, the individual human being starts off life as a rough outline, which lives itself subjectively, filtering objective reality through its own preconceptions and thus experiencing nothing which is not part of these preconceptions. As a painter creates an outline on a blank canvas, so we create the outline of our own lives and determin our destiny. In Andersch's novels, which are set against the existential void, the fate of the characters is never predetermined; rather, it is the individual's line of thinking which determines his or her course of action, and determines the nature of his or her relationships with others. As Andersch's characters become more aware of their freedom as human beings, they are able to develop conscious artistic outlines and so turn the existential void into a place of freedom. This thesis looks at four closely interrelated aspects of the artistic outline: ‘Lines of Thought’, ‘The Development of Outlines’, ‘New Directions’ and ‘Co-existence and convergence: the individual artistic outline as part of a whole’. By showing the development of these aspects across the four novels, it draws conclusions not only about Alfred Andersch's development as a writer but also about his vision of humanity. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

Through an analysis of the four novels Sansibar (1957), Die Rote (196 1), Efraim (1967) and Winterspelt (1974), this thesis explores the development of the principles of freedom and truth upheld by the characters in Sansibar into the concept of the artistic outline found in the later novels. Crucial to an understanding of this is the Sartre quotation in Winterspelt . According to Sartre's ‘original project’, the individual human being starts off life as a rough outline, which lives itself subjectively, filtering objective reality through its own preconceptions and thus experiencing nothing which is not part of these preconceptions. As a painter creates an outline on a blank canvas, so we create the outline of our own lives and determin our destiny. In Andersch's novels, which are set against the existential void, the fate of the characters is never predetermined; rather, it is the individual's line of thinking which determines his or her course of action, and determines the nature of his or her relationships with others. As Andersch's characters become more aware of their freedom as human beings, they are able to develop conscious artistic outlines and so turn the existential void into a place of freedom. This thesis looks at four closely interrelated aspects of the artistic outline: ‘Lines of Thought’, ‘The Development of Outlines’, ‘New Directions’ and ‘Co-existence and convergence: the individual artistic outline as part of a whole’. By showing the development of these aspects across the four novels, it draws conclusions not only about Alfred Andersch's development as a writer but also about his vision of humanity. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

Through an analysis of the four novels Sansibar (1957), Die Rote (196 1), Efraim (1967) and Winterspelt (1974), this thesis explores the development of the principles of freedom and truth upheld by the characters in Sansibar into the concept of the artistic outline found in the later novels. Crucial to an understanding of this is the Sartre quotation in Winterspelt . According to Sartre's ‘original project’, the individual human being starts off life as a rough outline, which lives itself subjectively, filtering objective reality through its own preconceptions and thus experiencing nothing which is not part of these preconceptions. As a painter creates an outline on a blank canvas, so we create the outline of our own lives and determin our destiny. In Andersch's novels, which are set against the existential void, the fate of the characters is never predetermined; rather, it is the individual's line of thinking which determines his or her course of action, and determines the nature of his or her relationships with others. As Andersch's characters become more aware of their freedom as human beings, they are able to develop conscious artistic outlines and so turn the existential void into a place of freedom. This thesis looks at four closely interrelated aspects of the artistic outline: ‘Lines of Thought’, ‘The Development of Outlines’, ‘New Directions’ and ‘Co-existence and convergence: the individual artistic outline as part of a whole’. By showing the development of these aspects across the four novels, it draws conclusions not only about Alfred Andersch's development as a writer but also about his vision of humanity. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

Through an analysis of the four novels Sansibar (1957), Die Rote (196 1), Efraim (1967) and Winterspelt (1974), this thesis explores the development of the principles of freedom and truth upheld by the characters in Sansibar into the concept of the artistic outline found in the later novels. Crucial to an understanding of this is the Sartre quotation in Winterspelt . According to Sartre's ‘original project’, the individual human being starts off life as a rough outline, which lives itself subjectively, filtering objective reality through its own preconceptions and thus experiencing nothing which is not part of these preconceptions. As a painter creates an outline on a blank canvas, so we create the outline of our own lives and determin our destiny. In Andersch's novels, which are set against the existential void, the fate of the characters is never predetermined; rather, it is the individual's line of thinking which determines his or her course of action, and determines the nature of his or her relationships with others. As Andersch's characters become more aware of their freedom as human beings, they are able to develop conscious artistic outlines and so turn the existential void into a place of freedom. This thesis looks at four closely interrelated aspects of the artistic outline: ‘Lines of Thought’, ‘The Development of Outlines’, ‘New Directions’ and ‘Co-existence and convergence: the individual artistic outline as part of a whole’. By showing the development of these aspects across the four novels, it draws conclusions not only about Alfred Andersch's development as a writer but also about his vision of humanity. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.