A Companion to the Works of Grimmelshausen (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture, 67)

Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (ca. 1621-1676) is the most significant (and still readable) author of seventeenth-century German novels. His Abenteuerlicher Simplicius Simplicissimus remains the one German novel of its time that has attained the stature of "world literature": its unique mix of violent action and solitary reflection, its superlative humor, its realistic portrayal of a peasant turned soldier turned hermit has made it the longest-running bestseller in German literature. Read by students and scholars in comparative literature, history, and German, and by those interested in the development of the picaresque novel in Europe, the work and its "Continuations" have increasingly occupied scholars around the world, who have in recent years shown it to be a work of subtle structure and characterization, bearing the imprint of the most advanced political thinking of the time, and showing the influences of some of the most significant works of world literature, including Cervantes' Don Quixote and Barclay's Argenis. This volume of essays by leading Grimmelshausen scholars from Germany, the United States, and England provides analyses of significant topics in his life and works, including questions of genre, structure, satire, allegory, narratology, political thought, religion, morality, humor, realism, and mortality. Contributors: Christoph E. Schweitzer, Italo Michele Battafarano, Klaus Haberkamm, Rosmarie Zeller, Andreas Solbach, Dieter Breuer, Lynne Tatlock, Peter Hess, Shannon Keenan Greene, and Alan Menhennet. Karl F. Otto is Professor of German at the University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on German Baroque literature. Fresh essays on the works of the most significant -- and readable -- German Baroque author.Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (ca. 1621-1676) is the most significant (and still readable) author of seventeenth-century German novels. His Abenteuerlicher Simplicius Simplicissimus remains the one German novelof its time that has attained the stature of'world literature': its unique mix of violent action and solitary reflection, its superlative humor, its realistic portrayal of a peasant turned soldier turned hermit has made it the longest-running bestseller in German literature. Read by students and scholars in comparative literature, history, and German, and by those interested in the development of the picaresque novel in Europe, the work and its'Continuations'have increasingly occupied scholars around the world, who have in recent years shown it to be a work of subtle structure and characterization, bearing the imprint of the most advanced political thinking of the time, and showing the influences of some of the most significant works of world literature, including Cervantes'Don Quixote and Barclay's Argenis. This volume of essays by leading Grimmelshausen scholars from Germany, the UnitedStates, and England provides analyses of significant topics in his life and works, including questions of genre, structure, satire, allegory, narratology, political thought, religion, morality, humor, realism, and mortality.Contributors: Christoph E. Schweitzer, Italo Michele Battafarano, Klaus Haberkamm, Rosmarie Zeller, Andreas Solbach, Dieter Breuer, Lynne Tatlock, Peter Hess, Shannon Keenan Greene, and Alan Menhennet. Karl F. Otto isProfessor of German at the University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on German Baroque literature. Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (ca. 1621-1676) is the most significant (and still readable) author of seventeenth-century German novels. His Abenteuerlicher Simplicius Simplicissimus remains the one German novelof its time that has attained the stature of "world literature": its unique mix of violent action and solitary reflection, its superlative humor, its realistic portrayal of a peasant turned soldier turned hermit has made it the longest-running bestseller in German literature. Read by students and scholars in comparative literature, history, and German, and by those interested in the development of the picaresque novel in Europe, the work and its "Continuations" have increasingly occupied scholars around the world, who have in recent years shown it to be a work of subtle structure and characterization, bearing the imprint of the most advanced political thinking of the time, and showing the influences of some of the most significant works of world literature, including Cervantes' Don Quixote and Barclay's Argenis. This volume of essays by leading Grimmelshausen scholars from Germany, the UnitedStates, and England provides analyses of significant topics in his life and works, including questions of genre, structure, satire, allegory, narratology, political thought, religion, morality, humor, realism, and mortality.
Contributors: Christoph E. Schweitzer, Italo Michele Battafarano, Klaus Haberkamm, Rosmarie Zeller, Andreas Solbach, Dieter Breuer, Lynne Tatlock, Peter Hess, Shannon Keenan Greene, and Alan Menhennet.

Karl F. Otto isProfessor of German at the University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on German Baroque literature. CONTENTS ......Page 6 ILLUSTRATIONS ......Page 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......Page 10 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF GRIMMELSHAUSEN'S WORKS AND THEIR FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION ......Page 12 INTRODUCTION ......Page 16 I. Basics......Page 38 Problems in the Editions of Grimmelshausen’s Works......Page 40 Grimmelshausen’s “Autobiographies” and the Art of the Novel......Page 60 Allegorical and Astrological Forms in the Works of Grimmelshausen with Special Emphasis on the Prophecy Motif......Page 108 Grimmelshausen and the Picaresque Novel......Page 162 Grimmelshausen’s Ewig-währender Calender: A Labyrinth of Knowledge and Reading......Page 182 Grimmelshausen’s Non-Simplician Novels......Page 216 In Grimmelshausen’s Tracks: The Literary and Cultural Legacy......Page 246 II. Critical Approaches......Page 282 Engendering Social Order: From Costume Autobiography to Conversation Games in Grimmelshausen’s Simpliciana......Page 284 The Poetics of Masquerade: Clothin gand the Construction of Social, Religious, and Gender Identity in Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus......Page 314 “To see from these black lines”: The Mise en Livre of the Phoenix Copperplate and Other Grimmelshausen Illustrations......Page 348 The Search for Freedom: Grimmelshausen’s Simplician Weltanschauung......Page 374 CONTRIBUTORS ......Page 394 INDEX ......Page 398 Edited By Karl F. Otto, Jr. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.