Genesis: The Making of Literary Works from Homer to Christa Wolf

315 Pages·2020·1.956 MB·English

by  T.J. Reed

Genesis
Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture
Genesis
The Making of Literary Works
from Homer to Christa Wolf
T. J. Reed
Rochester, New York
Copyright © 2020 T. J. Reed
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation,
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
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without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2020
by Camden House
Camden House is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
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and of Boydell & Brewer Limited
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ISBN-13: 978-1-64014-082-0 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78744-888-9 (ePDF)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78744-984-8 (ePUB)
Cover image: Auguste Rodin, The Hand of God, modeled ca. 1896–1902, carved
ca. 1907. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of Edward D. Adams, 1908.
Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CIP data is available from the Library of Congress.
This publication is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
For Richard Dorrington

Contents
Note on Quotations and Translations ix
Preface xi
Introduction: Processes 1
Part I. Antiquity
1: Homer’s Audiences: Shaping the Iliad (and the Odyssey) 19
2: Fourfold Genesis: The Bible between Literature and Authority 37
Part II. Early Modern
3: An Alphabet of Experience: Montaigne 57
4: Beginner’s Luck: Shakespeare’s History Cycles 78
Transition—Tradition 100
Part III. Goethe
5: Cross-Purposes: Goethe’s Faust 103
6: Occasions: Goethe’s Lyric Poetry 125
7: Live and Learn: Werther and Wilhelm Meister 146
Part IV. Nineteenth- and
Twentieth-Century German
8: Writing on the Run: Georg Büchner’s Revolutions 163
9: “The Best-Laid Schemes. . .”: Thomas Mann Unplanned 174
viii  Contents
10: Description of a Struggle: Kafka’s Half-Escape 191
11: Atomic Beginnings: Brecht, Galileo, and After 209
12: Knowing and Partly Knowing: Paul Celan’s Mission 220
13: Christa Wolf: A Fall from Grace 231
Afterword 239
Notes 241
Bibliography 281
Index 295
Note on Quotations and Translations
to meet the needs of comparatists as well as Germanists, German
prose material is for the most part translated into English. The
original is referenced in the endnotes, and in especially significant cases
quoted in full there. Poetry is quoted in the original, with a translation
following. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from German and
French are mine.