German Literature?

[Schiller]

Hello, I' m a new member of your board.

I'm from Germany and so I wanted to ask you wheather you read and discuss classic or modern German literature? Just like Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Fontane, Mann, Hesse (classic) or Kafka, Frisch, Grass, Bernhard (modern). Have you ever heard from these guys? wink

German means here German-speaking because Literature from Austria and Switzerland is a very important part of the "German Literature".

I study German Literature at the university, but I'm much more interested in international (english, french, especially russian) literature. And I'd like to know if someone out there reads German literature, or if I study something nobody's interested in?

Hope to hear from you!

[Admin]

Hermann Hesse is on this site.

[Zeno]

I am wondering about your list you have Mann and Hesse classified as classic and kafka as modern. Why is this?

[Schiller]

Well... Kafka is of course a modern classic. But when I called Mann and Hesse classics I thought mainly about the tradition they come from and the background they have. Hesse is (as individuell as he may be) a neo-romantic writer. And Mann is very much in the tradition of Goethe. So both look backward to the 19th-century which is the classic peroid of German literature.

Kafka is nearly free of such influences by tradition. His stories and novels are so unique and so near to the problems of the modern world. Though Hesse and Mann lived more than 30, nearly 40 years than Kafka, he's in my eyes nearer to our probelems. But he's surely a modern classic.

[hoytt]

I read some German literature, but that's also due to the fact that my mum's got a degree in German and one in literature, so I'm kind of surrounded by it. We have a lot of stuff at home (often DTV, Reclam versions) but if someone knows a site like this with German literature I'd be very happy. I do have a copy of 'Die Leiden des Jungen Werther' on my desk asking me to read it. So I might start later today. Since I'm 20 km from Germany getting books isn't hard either.

[Zeno]

Did you ever read herman hesses novel Gertrude?

[crisaor]

Well, i've read a little of german literature, particularly some of Kafka (Die Verwandlung, The Process, America, A Rural Doctor, and a couple of others) and some of Goethe, but only Faust so far, since i've Werther on my computer, and my 'puter is at the service right now, and reading at a cybercoffee store is somewhat expensive.
I've read some Hesse too, but i didn´t like it .
Aside from those i mentioned above and Schiller and Thomas Mann, i've never heard of the others you named.
Maybe german literature is not as popular as say, english literature, but i think that those kind of clasifications (english, german, french, etc.) is inadequate. I'd rather talk of authors individually or, at best, those that can be identified with a movement (i.e. romanticism, gothic, etc.).

[thewinkens]

Is there anyone out there who is familiar with these two authors, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter or Novalis? I am a German Literature Buff (Enlightenment and Romanticism only). Looking for someone to discuss any aspect of that genre, but especially the two authors already mentioned.
Please, no Kafka or Hesse or anything modern.

[thewinkens]

Are you familiar with the other German Romantics, besides Goethe and Schiller? Namely Jean Paul Richter or Novalis?

[Monica]

We read Goethe and Shiller in the secondary school. I've also read Mann's Magic Mountain and Hesse's Glass Bead Game. Both are amazing. Grass has some Polish roots, I believe, so here in Poland he's pretty well known.

[Ia Nabu]

I've read some Hesse, some Kafka (with great difficulty, I might add) and very little Goethe (since I lent my only book by him, Faust, to a friend). I also have a novel by Grass somewhere in my bookshelf but I haven't gotten round to reading it yet.

We don't read that much German literature in school, it's always an option but few people choose to read it. I'd love to know more of it but I love to read books in their original language and since I don't know German I've been a bit put off.

[Surfer]

I've read a lot of German lit in translation only. Lots of Bernhard, whom I really enjoy: Extinction, The Loser, Woodcutters, Voice Imitator, LIme Works, Wittgenstein's Nephew, others (Extinction is one of the finest novels I've read, btw). Some people are turned off by his unrelenting "misanthropy" (which I think is an inaccurate criticism), but not me. I find it very stimulating and uplifting to read someone so self-critical and probing. Bernhard was like the Lars von Trier of Literature. Love him or hate him! Plus his novels are not so easy to find in the US.

Also I am very impressed by Broch's Sleepwalker's Trilogy. The Anarchist is a stunning novel. I really need to re-read that. I wonder why Broch isnt more highly considered as Kafka and others in literature circles in the US? Death of Virgil is on my "to-read" list.

In addition, I'm a big fan of Musil 'Der Manne und Eigenshaften' (did I get that right? pardon my faux-German). A supremely important novel.

I just re-read Homo Faber, which was a book I really liked in college, but that I had some trepidation returning to. But I wanted to see how well it held up. And I think it stands up to repeated scrutiny, even in the face of the criticisms of "wildly improbable coincidences" in the plot. I have not read "I'm Not Stiller". I hope to.

What else? Mann, Kafka, Grass of course. But I think most people know and love Magic Mountain, Trial, Tin Drum. Include me in that group. I'm not a fan of Hesse. I think his (Damien, Steppenwolf, others) work is marginal at best. Though I have not read Glass Bead Game.

On an aside, have you seen Visconti's film version of Death in Venice? I know some people either love it or hate it (mostly because of his use of Mahler), but I have to admit I have a soft spot for that movie, even though I love the story very much. Dirk what's his name is excellent in the lead role.

Is there anything else I'm missing? Thoughts on the woman who just won the nobel prize this year? I also would like to read more Peter Handke Any suggestions? I have a novella collection "Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick", which I hope to read soon.

[mono]

Hello, Schiller, welcome to the forum.
For better or worse, I have studied independently some German non-fiction philosophy, such as that by Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer, and some psychological works by German-speaking writers, as Siegfried Freud and Carl Jung. Only recently, however, have I begun reading more German literature; I read a few works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which I loved, Franz Kafka, and right now working on some plays, short stories, and essays by Heinrich von Kleist, which I have also thoroughly enjoyed.

[Jantex]

Hi ,all.
I`ve started "Also sprach Zaratustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche and read the half of it but then stopped because it became too boring to me.
I haven`t read anything by Geothe but I remember that I`ve read in one of my textbooks that he`s the man with the highest IQ resulsts(over 200). And think I`ll read Faust some day.
I also like Arthur Schopenhauer because of his too pesimistic philosophy.

By the way ,I think you are all mistaking. Although Franz Kafka wrote in German ,he is from the Czech Republic.
He is born in 1883 in Prague, then the capital of a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.He was a German-speaker among Czech-speakers, a Jew among Gentiles-and in himself the loneliest of men. (Am I right, Jay?)

[Jantex]

I hope so, I am now reading a collection of short stories of his,including "The Metamorphosis"