T. J. Reed

Genesis (eBook, ePUB)

The Making of Literary Works from Homer to Christa Wolf

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Illuminates how selected great works of literature arose, leading to deepened understanding of the works and harking back to what we still call the humanities.



This monumental study seeks the roots of great literary works and the processes by which they arose. It first illuminates the process from idea and inspiration through intention, formulation, revision (and sometimes frustration) to publication and reception. The textual studies that follow range from single poems to epic and dramatic works, from the genesis of new genres to that of a whole career. T. J. Reed sets the scene by going back to Homer's epics and the Bible, refreshing familiar scholarly material with new insights. Two early modern chapters then treat Montaigne, the founder of a new self-confidence, and Shakespeare, the beginner shaped by and shaping history. In the book's second half Reed concentrates on his specialty, modern German literature: Goethe, Büchner, Thomas Mann, Kafka, Brecht, Celan, and Christa Wolf. A sense of the origins of literary meaning in each case is a firm foundation for understanding, staying close to the quick of human communication. Against the depersonalized, skeptical, theory-laden readings of literature that have been dominant in recent decades, this study harks back to what we still call the humanities.

T. J. REED is Taylor Professor of German Emeritus at Oxford University.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, D ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wits University Press
• Seitenzahl: 314
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. September 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781787449848
• Artikelnr.: 62885974

Autorenporträt

T. J. REED is Taylor Professor of German Emeritus at Oxford University.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface Introduction PART 1: ANTIQUITY CHAPTER 1: Homer's Audiences:
Shaping the Iliad CHAPTER 2: Fourfold Genesis: The Bible and Authority PART
2: EARLY MODERN CHAPTER 3: An Allphabet of Experience: Montaigne CHAPTER 4:
Beginner's Luck: Shakespeare's History Cycles PART 3: Goethe CHAPTER 5:
Cross-Purposes: Goethe's Faust CHAPTER 6: Occasions: Goethe's Lyrical
Poetry CHAPTER 7: Live and Learn: Goethe's Prose Fiction PART 4:
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century German Literature CHAPTER 8: Writing on
the Run: Georg Büchner's Revolutions CHAPTER 9: "The best-laid schemes . .
. ": Thomas Mann's Unplanned Career CHAPTER 10: Description of a Struggle:
Kafka's Half-Escape CHAPTER 11: Atomic Beginnings: Brecht, Galileo, and
After CHAPTER 12: Knowing and Partly Knowing: Paul Celan's Mission CHAPTER
13: Christa Wolf: "Better late than . . ."? Bibliography Index