The First World War in German narrative prose : essays in honour of George Wallis Field

This collection of eight essays in honour of the distinguished Canadian Germanist G.W. Field treats themes in German narrative prose of the First World War, the pre-war era, and the earliest of the Weimar Republic. The aim of the book is not to present a comprehensive study of the field, but rather to shed new light on specific problems. The essays are organized in the historical sequence of the events and situations to which they are related. The topics include discussions of the concept of war as presented by Robert Musil in Der Mann hone Eigenschaften; the treatment of war as a catalyst by the Expressionist writers Carl Sternheim and Leonhard Frank; the preservation of values in the face of war as dealt in Hesse's Demian; and an exploration of the effects of war on the individual and social values in the works of Salomo Friedländer and Alfred Döblin. An essay on H.G. Well's Mr. Britling Sees It Through helps to clarify the ways in which the reaction of German writers to the war may be viewed as specifically German by providing an outsider's point of view. The final chapter, a survey of the most recent literature on the topic, shows how much World War I lives on in the minds of German writers as the great turning point in German political and cultural history. This collection of eight essays in honor of the distinguished Canadian Germanist G.W. Field treats themes in German narrative prose of the First World War, the pre-war era, and the earliest days of the Weimar Republic. The aim of the book is not to present a comprehensive study of the field, but rather to shed new light on specific problems. The essays are organized in the historical sequence of the events and situations to which they are related. The topics include discussions of the concept of war, war as a catalyst, the preservation of values in the face of war, and the effects of war on individual and social values. Finally, a survey of the most recent literature on the topic, shows how much World War I lives on in the minds of German writers as the great turning point in German political and cultural history Contents 5 Preface 7 The Anatomy of Pre-War Society in Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften 13 Two Representative Expressionist Responses to the Challenge of the First World War: Carl Sternheim's eigene Nuance and Leonhard Frank's Utopia 28 The Sperber in Hesse's Demian 46 War and the Destruction of Moral Principles in Arnold Zweig's Der Street um den Sergeanten Grischa and Erxiehung vor Verdun 62 Mynona versus Remarque, Tucholsky, Mann, and Others; Not So Quiet on the Literary Front 83 The Aftermath of the First World War: Christianity and Revolution in Alfred Doblin's November 1918 105 Mr Britling Sees It Through, A View from the Other Side 130 The First World War in German Prose after 1945: Some Samples - Some Observations 150 Publications of George Wallis Field 171 Contributors 175 Index 177