The Novel in German

Catalog description

This course examines the novel in German from the mid-eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. We explore the major literary movements of Weimar Classicism, Romanticism, Poetic Realism, Modernism, and Expressionism, among others. We also identify the differences between various narrative genres: the novel, the German Novelle, and the short story; and analyze them in the larger cultural, social, historical and political contexts of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland. Authors might include Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Kleist, Gottfried Keller, Fontane, Thomas Mann, Kafka, and Musil.