Germany Literature

Medieval And Renaissance Writing. German literary history begins around 800 AD with Das Hildebrandslied (The Lay of Hildebrand), an epic poem describing the fatal struggle between the heroic Hildebrand and his son Hadubrand. The next several centuries showed an intriguing mix of Christianity and Germanic myth. As chivalry took hold in Germany, lyric poetry focused on unrequited love emerged, best represented by the work of Walther von der Vogelweide. In the 16th century, Martin Opitz and Andreas Gryphius insisted on strict rules for meter and stresses in poetry. The first significant German novel, Hans J. C. von Grimmelshausen’s roguish epic Simplicissimus, was written during the Thirty Years’ War. The long war hampered German literary efforts, which would slowly revive in the 18th century.

Romanticism: Lost And Faust. Sentimental, unusually personalized verse arose in the mid-18th century, about the time Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was writing his early poetry . Goethe later turned to the Bildungsroman (coming-of-age tale) and to classicism and orientalism. His masterpieces include a retelling of the Faust legend, considered the pinnacle of German literature.

In the early 19th century, Romanticism gained momentum, with the poetry of Novalis and J. C. Friedrich Hölderlin, who wrote mythical poetry until he succumbed to insanity. The Brothers Grimm documented fairy tales for the first time. E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote ghost stories (Bamberg). Romanticism gave way to realistic political literature around the time of the revolutions of 1848. Heinrich Heine was the finest of the Junges Deutschland (Young Germany) movement and also one of the first German Jews to achieve literary prominence (Düsseldorf). Dramatists Georg Büchner and Gerhart Hauptmann had an influence at the turn of the century with characteristic fin-de-siècle realism.

Modernism In Germany. Hermann Hesse incorporated Eastern spirituality into his writings (his 1922 novel Siddhartha became a paperback sensation in the 1960s), while Thomas Mann carried the Modernist novel to a high point with Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), using the traditional Bildungsroman to criticize German culture (Lübeck). Also vital to the period were German-language writers living in Austria-Hungary, among them Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Musil, and Franz Kafka.

Expressionism And Destruction. In the years before WWI, Germany produced a violent strain of Expressionist poetry that mirrored developments in painting. The style was suited to depict the horrors of war, and several of its masters were killed in battle. The Weimar Era was filled with artistic production. Its most famous novel was Erich Maria Remarque’s bleak portrayal of the Great War, Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front). Bertolt Brecht presented mankind in its grotesque absurdity through literature (see Berlin). The Third Reich burned more books than it published and the Nazi attitude toward literature was summed up by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels: “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my gun.”

Holocaust Literature. Famous authors who are themselves victims or survivors include Elie Wiesel, Jean Améry, Edgar Hilsenrath, and Anne Frank. Though philosopher Theodor Adorno pronounced that “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric,” poets such as Paul Celan have proven this statement false. Celan’s famed Todesfuge (Death Fuge) exemplifies a powerful attempt to express that which is beyond expression.

Gruppe 47. While the literature of the Weimar period seemed to succeed WWI almost effortlessly, WWII left Germany’s artistic consciousness in shambles. To nurse German literature back to health, several writers joined to form Gruppe 47, named after the year of its founding. The group included such renowned authors as Günter Grass and Celan. Much of the ensuing literature dealt with the problem of Germany’s Nazi past, while the poetry of Hans Magnus Enzensberger and the novels of Grass and Heinrich Böll turned a critical eye towards post-war West Germany’s overly-bureaucratic tendencies.

Literature Of The Ddr. Many expatriates, particularly those with Marxist leanings from before the war (such as Brecht), returned to the East with great hopes. But the communist leadership was not interested in eliciting free artistic expression, causing many talented writers to emigrate. Nevertheless, the literature produced during Soviet occupation from 1945 until 1989 has become a field of interest for scholars.

Contemporary Literature. Günther Grass’s receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 provided the newly reunited Germany with its first literary icon and propelled German literati back into an international spotlight. W.G. Sebald’s novels pushed the boundaries of fiction and nonfiction in their focus on German history. For further happening German literature, look for Monika Maron, Peter Schneider, and Bernhard Schlink.