Goethe and Judaism : the troubled inheritance of modern literature / Karin Schutjer.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Schutjer, Karin Lynn, 1966- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832--Criticism and interpretation.
• Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832.
• Jews in literature.
• Judaism in literature.
• Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xiii, 245 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Troubled inheritance of modern literature

Place of Publication:

Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, [2015]

Summary:

In Goethe and Judaism, Karin Schutjer examines the iconic German writer's engagement with, and portrayal of, Judaism. Her premise is that Goethe's conception of modernity--his apprehensions as well as his most affirmative vision concerning the trajectory of his age--is deeply entwined with his conception of Judaism. Schutjer argues that behind his very mixed representations of Jews and Judaism stand crucial tensions within his own thinking and a distinct anxiety of influence. Goethe draws, for example, from the Jewish ban on idolatry for his own semiotics, from the narratives of nomadic wanderings in the Hebrew Bible for his own trope of the existential wanderer, from the history of Jewish exile for his own emergent conception of a German Kulturnation. Schutjer thus uncovers the surprising debt to Judaism owed by one the most formative thinkers in German history -- Provided by publisher

Contents:

• Itinerancy, suffering, and providence : Goethe's encounters with Judaism in Poetry and truth
• Moses and the modern nation : Goethe on Exodus
• The people of the book : Goethe's Volksbuch project and the journeyman years
• Faust as keeper of the covenant : Part One of the tragedy
• Faust and the promised land : Part Two of the tragedy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-238) and index.

ISBN:

• 9780810131330
• 0810131331
• 9780810131736
• 0810131730

OCLC:

908991392