Franz Werfel, the faith of an exile : from Prague to Beverly Hills / Lionel B. Steiman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steiman, Lionel B. (Lionel Bradley), 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Werfel, Franz, 1890-1945.

Werfel, Franz.

Werfel, Franz, 1890-1945--Religion.

Authors, German--20th century--Biography.

Authors, German.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 244 pages) : portraits

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Waterloo, Ont., Canada : W. Laurier University Press ; Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Distributed in the U.S.A. by Humanities Press, c1985.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Franz Werfel was born in Prague in 1890 and died in Beverly Hills in 1945, a popular and artistic success in Europe and America. Despite his Jewish birth and upbringing, he was attracted to Christianity at any early age, and although he never formally converted, he celebrated his own vision of it in his entire life's work. The origina sof that peculiar faith and the response it engendered in Werfel's work as he lived thorough the horrific end of Jewish life in Europe are treated here. Werfel was not a systematic thinker, and, while his writing contains much that is philosophical and theological, his eclecticism and idiosyncracy render any attempt to trace the specific origins of his thought or its relation to the work of contemporary philosophers and theologians highly problematic. Thus, this work is neither biography nor intellectual history in the strict sense—it goes beyond, melding the concerns of both genres into a thoughtful, comprehensive portrait of faith at work. Of interest to historians of the twentieth century as well as to students of that intriguing zone that lies between faith and art but is neither—or both.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

List of Photographs

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Mystic Sources

The Great War

Social Conscience and Christian Quietism

Alma

Alma and Barbara

Alma and Franz: Political Counterpoint

Poetry and Politics: Werfel Between the Wars

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh

Between Heaven and Earth

First Fruits of Exile: Cella's Austria and Embezzled Heaven

Historical Vision and Political Nostalgia: Twilight of a World, 1938-40

Vox Clamantis in Tusculum: Bernadette and the Bishop

A Special Relationship

Afterword

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliography and index.

ISBN:

9786613811097

9781554587964

1554587964

9781282233355

1282233351

9780889205932

0889205930

OCLC:

243581038