"The 1997 London Heine Conference brought together leading scholars and critics from Austria, Britain and Germany. The essays collected in this volume offer a broad canvas of Heine's themes and techniques, his debts and his influence, the ancient and modern connections of his work, its epic and lyrical forms, together with materials and comparisons drawn from English, German, Russian, Jewish and Islamic sources, and the musical settings of his poems. The collection complements recent scholarship, much of which has explored Heine's theoretical and other prose works, by paying close attention once more to the inexhaustible riches of his poetry."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe introduced the concept of Weltliteratur in 1827 to describe the growing availability of texts from other nations. Although the term "World Literature" is widely used today, there is little agreement on what it means and even less awareness of its evolution. In this wide-ranging work, John Pizer traces the concept of Weltliteratur in Germany beginning with Goethe and continuing through Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels to the present as he explores its importation into the United States in the 1830s and the teaching of World Literature in U.S. classrooms since the early twentieth century. Pizer demonstrates the concept's ongoing viability through an in-depth reading of the contemporary Syrian-German transnational novelist Rafik Schami. He also provides a clear methodology for World Literature courses in the twenty-first century. Pizer argues persuasively that Weltliteratur can provide cohesion to the study of World Literature today. In his view, traditional "World Lit" classes are limited by their focus on the universal elements of literature. A course based on Weltliteratur, however, promotes a more thorough understanding of literature as a dialectic between the universal and the particular. In a practical guide to teaching World Literature by employing Goethe's paradigm, he explains how to help students navigate between the extremes of homogenization on the one hand and exoticism on the other, learning both what cultures share and what distinguishes them. Everyone who teaches World Literature will want to read this stimulating book. In addition, anyone interested in the development of the concept from its German roots to its American fruition will find The Idea of World Literature immensely rewarding.
Biennial volume of new and innovative essays on German Jewish Studies, featuring forum sections on Heinrich Heine and Karl Kraus. Nexus is the official publication of the biennial German Jewish Studies Workshop, which was inaugurated at Duke University in 2009 and is now held at the University of Notre Dame. Together, Nexus and the Workshop constitute the first ongoing forum in North America for German Jewish Studies. Nexus publishes innovative research in German Jewish Studies, introducing new directions, analyzing the development and definition of the field, and considering its place vis-à-vis both German Studies and Jewish Studies. Additionally, it examines issues of pedagogy and programming at the undergraduate, graduate, and community levels. Nexus 3 features special forum sections on Heinrich Heine and Karl Kraus. Renowned Heine scholar Jeffrey Sammons offers a magisterial critical retrospective on this towering "German Jewish" author, followed by a response from Ritchie Robertson, while the deanof Kraus scholarship, Edward Timms, reflects on the challenges and rewards of translating German Jewish dialect into English. Paul Reitter provides a thoughtful response. Contributors: Angela Botelho, Jay Geller, Abigail Gillman, Jeffrey A. Grossman, Leo Lensing, Georg Mein, Paul Reitter, Ritchie Robertson, Jeffrey L. Sammons, Egon Schwarz, Edward Timms, Liliane Weissberg, Emma Woelk. William Collins Donahue is the John J. CavanaughProfessor of the Humanities at the University of Notre Dame, where he chairs the Department of German and Russian. Martha B. Helfer is Professor of German and an affiliate member of the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers, TheState University of New Jersey.
A History of World Literature is a fully revised and expanded edition of The Routledge Concise History of World Literature (2012). This remarkably broad and informative book offers an introduction to “world literature.” Tracing the term from its earliest roots and situating it within a number of relevant contexts from postcolonialism, decoloniality, ecocriticism, and book circulation, Theo D’haen in ten tightly-argued but richly-detailed chapters examines: the return of the term “world literature” and its changing meaning; Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur and how this relates to current debates; theories and theorists who have had an impact on world literature; and how world literature is taught around the world. By examining how world literature is studied around the globe, this book is the ideal guide to an increasingly popular and important term in literary studies. It is accessible and engaging and will be invaluable to students of world literature, comparative literature, translation, postcolonial and decoloniality studies, and materialist approaches, and to anyone with an interest in these or related topics.
One of the essential pillars of Yiddish literature since its beginnings in the 13th century has been translation. In the 20th century, the desire to belong to world literature stimulated Yiddish intellectuals to translate works of foreign literature into Yiddish – in a brilliant display of literary force. With a focus on Yiddish cultural spaces in the Soviet Union and Poland, the present volume is devoted to the transnational and ‘translational’ state of Yiddish literature in various places and periods. Alongside reflections on the craft of translation, the volume includes accounts of literary translations and the practices of self-translation and collective, intermedial and cultural translation. Twelve scholarly contributions illuminate the function and meaning of translation for this minority language as a Jewish national language and for Yiddish literature as world literature.
A thematically rich, provocative, and lyrical study of one of Germany’s most important, world-famous, and imaginative writers Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) was a virtuoso German poet, satirist, and visionary humanist whose dynamic life story and strikingly original writing are ripe for rediscovery. In this vividly imagined exploration of Heine’s life and work, George Prochnik contextualizes Heine’s biography within the different revolutionary political, literary, and philosophical movements of his age. He also explores the insights Heine offers contemporary readers into issues of social justice, exile, and the role of art in nurturing a more equitable society. Heine wrote that in his youth he resembled “a large newspaper of which the upper half contained the present, each day with its news and debates, while in the lower half, in a succession of dreams, the poetic past was recorded fantastically like a series of feuilletons.” This book explores the many dualities of Heine’s nature, bringing to life a fully dimensional character while also casting into sharp relief the reasons his writing and personal story matter urgently today.
Review: "Written to stress the crosscurrent of ideas, this cultural encyclopedia provides clearly written and authoritative articles. Thoughts, themes, people, and nations that define the Romantic Era, as well as some frequently overlooked topics, receive their first encyclopedic treatments in 850 signed articles, with bibliographies and coverage of historical antecedents and lingering influences of romanticism. Even casual browsers will discover much to enjoy here."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.
