Course Description

This paper introduces you to German literature through the study of set texts. Each text has been chosen for its importance in its own right as well as for its comparability with other representatives of its period or genre. The aim is to help you to appreciate texts both in and for themselves and in their historical and genre context.

The works listed below are a selection from the very large body of critical writing on each of the authors and texts. Although they have been recommended by teaching members of the German Department (and in some cases even written by them!), they do not represent a 'party line'; in fact one of the most important aims of the course is to introduce you to different approaches and interpretations and to encourage you to develop your own arguments. Your College supervisor will be able to provide further advice and suggestions for reading in the course of the year.

An asterisk (*) indicates that there is a volume on the author or work in the series 'Reclam Interpretationen' or 'Reclam Erläuterungen und Dokumente'.

Gottfried von Strassburg

• Mark Chinca, Gottfried von Strassburg. Tristan (Cambridge: CUP [Landmarks of World Literature], 1997)
• Mark Chinca, 'Tristan narratives from the high to the late middle ages', in W.H. Jackson & S.A. Ranawake, The Arthur of the Germans (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000), pp. 117-134
• Christopher Young, 'Der Minnetrank als Literarisierungsprozeß bei Gottfried von Strassgburg', in Christoph Huber & Victor Millet, Der 'Tristan' Gottfrieds von Strassburg (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002) pp. 257-279

Walther von der Vogelweide

• Thomas Bein, Walther von der Vogelweide, Reclam Literaturstudium (Stuttgart, 1997) especially pp. 98-167
• G Hahn, H Brunner et al, Walther von der Vogelweide. Epoche. Werk. Wirkung, (Munich: Beck, 1996)

* Kleist

• Dorrit Cohn, 'Kleist's Marquise von O: The Problem of Knowledge', Monatshefte 67 (1975), pp.129-144
• Erika Swales, 'The Beleaguered Citadel: A Study of Kleist's Die Marquise von O', DVJS 51(1977), pp.129-147
• Harriet Murphy, 'Theatres of Emptiness: The case of Kleist's Marquise von O' , Oxford German Studies 24 (1995), pp.80-111

Goethe

• Nicholas Boyle, Goethe. The Poet and the Age, Vol. 1. The Poetry of Desire (1749-1790). (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), esp. pp. 218-229
• John R. Williams, Goethe's 'Faust', (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987)

* Büchner

• Edward McInnes, Woyzeck, Glasgow Introductory Guides to German Literature 9 (Glasgow, 1991)
• John Reddick, Georg Büchner: The Shattered Whole (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), especially pp. 303-70
• Andrew Webber, 'Büchner, Woyzeck', in P.Hutchinson, ed, Landmarks in German Drama (Oxford etc.: Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 95-110

Heine

• Ritchie Robertson, Heine (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988)
• Nigel Reeves, Heinrich Heine: poetry and politics (Oxford: OUP, 1974; paperback London: Libris, 1994)

Wenders

• Alexander Graf, 'Wings of Desire', in Graf, The Cinema of Wim Wenders (London: Wallflower, 2002), pp. 112-130
• Robert Philipp Kolker, Peter Beicken, 'Wings of Desire: Between Heaven and Earth', in Kolka/Beicken, Wim Wenders: Cinema as Vision and Desire (Cambridge: CUP, 1995) pp. 138-160

Wolf

• Anna K. Kuhn, Christa Wolf's Utopian Vision. From Marxism to Feminism, (Cambridge: CUP, 1988)
• Karin McPherson, Christa Wolf, Der geteilte Himmel (University of Glasgow: French and German Publications, 1995) Glasgow Guide to German Literature 12

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