The novel as archive : the genesis, reception, and criticism of Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre / Ehrhard Bahr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bahr, Ehrhard.

Series:

Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832. Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von.

Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von).

Physical Description:

xviii, 121 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Columbia, S.C. : Camden House, 1998.

Summary:

"A fresh study of one of the most perplexing and daring novels ever written, one that was largely misunderstood when it first appeared, and which has emerged only in the last two decades as a work that pointed forward, stylistically and structurally, to the modernist novels of the twentieth century. Goethe's contemporaries not only failed to understand the work, but some of them criticized it as the inferior work of a fading talent. Bahr shows how Goethe subordinated the role of the author-narrator, making use of a variety of sophisticated narrative devices, such as the invention of an "editor" working with "archival" materials and interpolated novellas (some of whose characters appear as "real" figures in the novel itself) to distance himself from the work and thus ironize its apparent meanings."--BOOK JACKET.

Contents:

1. The Genesis of the Wanderjahre and Its Context

2. The Structure of the Wanderjahre

3. The Novellas, the Aphorisms, and the Poems

4. The Reception of the Wanderjabre

5. Modern Wanderjahre Scholarship, 1913-1996

6. Aspects of Interpretation

Conclusion: The Death of the Author.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 101-114) and index.

ISBN:

1571130969

9781571130969

OCLC:

39399030