German literature
Encyclopedia
German literature comprises those literary
texts written in the German language
. This includes literature written in Germany
, Austria
, the German part of Switzerland
, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German
, but there are some currents of literature influenced to a greater or lesser degree by dialects
(e.g. Alemannic).
An early flowering of German literature is the Middle High German
period of the High Middle Ages.
Modern literature
in German begins with the authors of the Enlightenment (such as Herder
) and reaches its classical form at the turn of the 18th century with Weimar Classicism
(Goethe and Schiller).
is not an exact science
but the following list contains movements or time periods typically used in discussing German literature. It seems worth noting that the periods of medieval German literature span two or three centuries, those of early modern German literature span one century, and those of modern German literature each span one or two decades. The closer one nears the present, the more debated the periodizations become.
graph of works listed in Frenzel, Daten deutscher Dichtung (1952). Visible is medieval literature overlapping with Renaissance up to the 1540s, modern literature beginning 1720, and the baroque period separating the two, from 1550 to 1700.
written in Germany, stretching from the Carolingian dynasty; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the Reformation
(1517) being the last possible cut-off point.
The most famous work in OHG is the Hildebrandslied, a short piece of Germanic alliterative heroic verse which besides the Muspilli
is the sole survivor of what must have been a vast oral tradition. Another important work, in the northern dialect of Old Saxon, is a life of Christ in the style of a heroic epic known as the Heliand
.
proper runs from the beginning of the 12th century. In the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit (1170–1230). This was the period of the blossoming of MHG lyric poetry, particularly Minnesang
(the German variety of the originally French tradition of courtly love
). One of the most important of these poets was Walther von der Vogelweide
. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. These are written in rhyming couplets, and again draw on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes
, many of them relating Arthurian material, for example, Parzival
by Wolfram von Eschenbach
. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court. These high medieval heroic epics are written in rhymed strophes, not the alliterative verse of Germanic prehistory. For example, the Nibelungenlied
.
The Middle High German is conventionally taken to end in 1350, while the Early New High German
is taken to begin with the German Renaissance
, after the invention of movable type in the mid-15th century.
Therefore, the literature of the late 14th and the early 15th century falls, as it were, in the cracks between Middle and New High German, and can be classified as either.
Works of this transitional period include The Ring (ca. 1410), the poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein
and Johannes von Tepl
, the German versions of Pontus and Sidonia
, and arguably the works of Hans Folz
and Sebastian Brant
(Ship of Fools
, 1494), among others.
The Volksbuch (chapbook
) tradition which would flourish in the 16th century also takes its origin in the second half of the 15th century.
, in poetry
and prose
. Grimmelshausen
's adventures of the young and naïve Simplicissimus, in the eponymous book Simplicius Simplicissimus, became the most famous novel of the Baroque period. Andreas Gryphius
and Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein wrote German language tragedies
, or Trauerspiele, often on Classical themes and frequently quite violent. Erotic, religious and occasional poetry
appeared in both German and Latin.
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
(1724–1803), Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
(1715–1769), Sophie de La Roche (1730–1807). The period culminates and ends in Goethe's best-selling Die Leiden des jungen Werther (1774).
taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s in which individual subjectivity
and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in response to the confines of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann
is considered to be the ideologue of Sturm und Drang, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
was a notable proponent of the movement, though he and Friedrich Schiller
ended their period of association with it, initiating what would become Weimar Classicism
.
“Weimarer Klassik” and “Weimarer Klassizismus”) is a cultural
and literary movement of Europe
, and its central ideas were originally propounded by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller during the period 1788–1832.
was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. German Romanticism developed relatively late compared to its English
counterpart, coinciding in its early years with the movement known as German Classicism or Weimar Classicism
, which it opposed. In contrast to the seriousness of English Romanticism, the German variety is notable for valuing humor and wit as well as beauty. The early German romantics tried to create a new synthesis of art, philosophy, and science, looking to the Middle Ages
as a simpler, more integrated period. As time went on, however, they became increasingly aware of the tenuousness of the unity they were seeking. Later German Romanticism emphasized the tension between the everyday world and the seemingly irrational and supernatural projections of creative genius. Heinrich Heine
in particular criticized the tendency of the early romantics to look to the medieval past for a model of unity in art and society.
refers to work in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 (Vienna Congress), the end of the Napoleonic Wars
, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions
and contrasts with the Romantic
era which preceded it. Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
, Adelbert von Chamisso
, Eduard Mörike
, and Wilhelm Müller
, the last three named having well-known musical settings by Robert Schumann
, Hugo Wolf
and Franz Schubert
respectively.
Young Germany
(Junges Deutschland) was a loose group of Vormärz
writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth movement (similar to those that had swept France
and Ireland
and originated in Italy
). Its main proponents were Karl Gutzkow
, Heinrich Laube
, Theodor Mundt
and Ludolf Wienbarg
; Heinrich Heine
, Ludwig Börne
and Georg Büchner
were also considered part of the movement. The wider circle included Willibald Alexis
, Adolf Glassbrenner
and Gustav Kühne.
(1848–1890)
Naturalism
(1880–1900)
Under the Nazi regime, some authors went into exile (Exilliteratur) and others submitted to censorship ("internal emigration", Innere Emigration)
German
German
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
texts written in the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. This includes literature written in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, the German part of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
, but there are some currents of literature influenced to a greater or lesser degree by dialects
German dialects
German dialect is dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant shift, and the dialect continuum that connects the German with the Dutch language.-German dialects in relation to varieties of standard German:...
(e.g. Alemannic).
An early flowering of German literature is the Middle High German
Middle High German
Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...
period of the High Middle Ages.
Modern literature
Modern literature
Modern literature can either refer to*modernist literature *modern literature ....
in German begins with the authors of the Enlightenment (such as Herder
Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...
) and reaches its classical form at the turn of the 18th century with Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism is a cultural and literary movement of Europe. Followers attempted to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical and Enlightenment ideas...
(Goethe and Schiller).
Periodization
PeriodizationPeriodization
Periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into named blocks. The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on periods of time with relatively stable characteristics...
is not an exact science
Exact science
An exact science is any field of science capable of accurate quantitative expression or precise predictions and rigorous methods of testing hypotheses, especially reproducible experiments involving quantifiable predictions and measurements...
but the following list contains movements or time periods typically used in discussing German literature. It seems worth noting that the periods of medieval German literature span two or three centuries, those of early modern German literature span one century, and those of modern German literature each span one or two decades. The closer one nears the present, the more debated the periodizations become.
- Medieval German literatureMedieval German literatureMedieval German literature refers to literature written in Germany, stretching from the Carolingian dynasty; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the Reformation being the last possible cut-off point....
- Old High German literatureOld High GermanThe term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
(750-1050) - Middle High German literatureMiddle High GermanMiddle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...
(1050–1300) - Late medieval German literature/RenaissanceLate Middle AgesThe Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....
(1300–1500)
- Old High German literature
- Early Modern German literature (see Early Modern literatureEarly Modern literatureThe history of literature of the Early Modern period . Early Modern literature succeeds Medieval literature, and in Europe in particular Renaissance literature....
)- HumanismHumanism in GermanyRenaissance Humanism came much later to Germany and Northern Europe in general than to Italy, and when it did, it encountered some resistance from the scholastic theology which reigned at the universities.-Origins:...
and Protestant ReformationProtestant ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
(1500–1650) - Baroque (1600–1720)
- Enlightenment (1680–1789)
- Humanism
- Modern German literature
- Eighteenth- and 19th-century German literature
- Empfindsamkeit / SensibilitySensibilitySensibility refers to an acute perception of or responsiveness toward something, such as the emotions of another. This concept emerged in eighteenth-century Britain, and was closely associated with studies of sense perception as the means through which knowledge is gathered...
(1750s-1770s) - Sturm und Drang / Storm and StressSturm und DrangSturm und Drang is a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism...
(1760s-1780s) - German Classicism (1729–1832)
- Weimar ClassicismWeimar ClassicismWeimar Classicism is a cultural and literary movement of Europe. Followers attempted to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical and Enlightenment ideas...
(1788–1805) or (1788–1832), depending on whether one marks the end of this period with Schiller's death (1805) or with Goethe's (1832)
- Weimar Classicism
- German RomanticismGerman RomanticismFor the general context, see Romanticism.In the philosophy, art, and culture of German-speaking countries, German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. German Romanticism developed relatively late compared to its English counterpart, coinciding in its...
(1790s-1880s) - BiedermeierBiedermeierIn Central Europe, the Biedermeier era refers to the middle-class sensibilities of the historical period between 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions...
(1815–1848) - Young GermanyYoung GermanyYoung Germany was a group of German writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth ideology . Its main proponents were Karl Gutzkow, Heinrich Laube, Theodor Mundt and Ludolf Wienbarg; Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Börne and Georg Büchner were also considered part of the movement...
(1830–1850) - Poetic RealismRealism (arts)Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
(1848–1890) - NaturalismNaturalism (literature)Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
(1880–1900)
- Empfindsamkeit / Sensibility
- 20th century German literature
- 1900-1933
- Fin de siècleFin de siècleFin de siècle is French for "end of the century". The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning...
(c. 1900) - SymbolismSymbolism (arts)Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
- ExpressionismExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
(1910–1920) - DadaDadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
(1914–1924) - New ObjectivityNew ObjectivityThe New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
(Neue Sachlichkeit)
- Fin de siècle
- 1933-1945
- National Socialist literature
- Exile literature
- 1945-1989
- By country
- Federal Republic of Germany
- German Democratic Republic
- Austria
- Switzerland
- Other
- By thematic or group
- Post-war literature (1945–1967)
- Group 47Group 47Gruppe 47 was an influential literary association in Germany after World War II. '47' Stands for the year of their creation, 1947.-Early history:The beginnings reach back to1946 when Alfred Andersch and Walter Kolbenhoff founded the literary...
- Holocaust literature
- By country
- 1900-1933
- Contemporary German literature (1989-)
- Eighteenth- and 19th-century German literature
graph of works listed in Frenzel, Daten deutscher Dichtung (1952). Visible is medieval literature overlapping with Renaissance up to the 1540s, modern literature beginning 1720, and the baroque period separating the two, from 1550 to 1700.
Middle Ages
Medieval German literature refers to literatureLiterature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
written in Germany, stretching from the Carolingian dynasty; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
(1517) being the last possible cut-off point.
Old High German
The Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century, though the boundary to Early Middle High German (second half of the 11th century) is not clear-cut.The most famous work in OHG is the Hildebrandslied, a short piece of Germanic alliterative heroic verse which besides the Muspilli
Muspilli
Muspilli is one of but two surviving pieces of Old High German epic poetry , dating to around 870. One large fragment of the text has survived in the margins and empty pages of a codex marked as the possession of Louis the German and now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek . The beginning and end of...
is the sole survivor of what must have been a vast oral tradition. Another important work, in the northern dialect of Old Saxon, is a life of Christ in the style of a heroic epic known as the Heliand
Heliand
The Heliand is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means saviour in Old Saxon , and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the life of Jesus in the alliterative verse style of a Germanic saga...
.
Middle High German
Middle High GermanMiddle High German
Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...
proper runs from the beginning of the 12th century. In the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit (1170–1230). This was the period of the blossoming of MHG lyric poetry, particularly Minnesang
Minnesang
Minnesang was the tradition of lyric and song writing in Germany which flourished in the 12th century and continued into the 14th century. People who wrote and performed Minnesang are known as Minnesingers . The name derives from the word minne, Middle High German for love which was their main...
(the German variety of the originally French tradition of courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
). One of the most important of these poets was Walther von der Vogelweide
Walther von der Vogelweide
Walther von der Vogelweide is the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets.-Life history:For all his fame, Walther's name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of Erla of the Passau diocese:...
. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. These are written in rhyming couplets, and again draw on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...
, many of them relating Arthurian material, for example, Parzival
Parzival
Parzival is a major medieval German romance by the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, in the Middle High German language. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, is itself largely based on Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, the Story of the Grail and mainly centers on the Arthurian...
by Wolfram von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach was a German knight and poet, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of his time. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.-Life:...
. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court. These high medieval heroic epics are written in rhymed strophes, not the alliterative verse of Germanic prehistory. For example, the Nibelungenlied
Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge....
.
The Middle High German is conventionally taken to end in 1350, while the Early New High German
Early New High German
Early New High German is a term for the period in the history of the German language, generally defined, following Wilhelm Scherer, as the period 1350 to 1650.Alternative periodisations take the period to begin later; e.g...
is taken to begin with the German Renaissance
German Renaissance
The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which originated from the Italian Renaissance in Italy...
, after the invention of movable type in the mid-15th century.
Therefore, the literature of the late 14th and the early 15th century falls, as it were, in the cracks between Middle and New High German, and can be classified as either.
Works of this transitional period include The Ring (ca. 1410), the poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein
Oswald von Wolkenstein
Oswald von Wolkenstein was a poet, composer and diplomat. In the latter capacity, he traveled through much of Europe, even as far as Georgia , and was inducted into the Order of the Dragon...
and Johannes von Tepl
Johannes von Tepl
Johannes von Tepl , also known as Johannes von Saaz , was a Bohemian writer of the German language, one of the earliest known writers of prose in Early New High German ....
, the German versions of Pontus and Sidonia
Pontus and Sidonia
Pontus and Sidonia is a medieval prose roman, originally composed in French in ca. 1400, known as Ponthus et la belle Sidonie, possibly by Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry or by another member of the La Tour family....
, and arguably the works of Hans Folz
Hans Folz
Hans Folz was a German author of the late medieval or early Renaissance period.Folz was born in Worms. He was made a citizen of the city of Nuremberg, Germany in 1459 and master barber of the city in 1486. Folz was a reformer of the meistersangs, adding 27 new tones to those that had been...
and Sebastian Brant
Sebastian Brant
Sebastian Brant was an Alsatian humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire Das Narrenschiff .-Biography:...
(Ship of Fools
Ship of Fools (satire)
Ship of Fools is a satire published 1494 in Basel, Switzerland by Sebastian Brant, a conservative German theologian....
, 1494), among others.
The Volksbuch (chapbook
Chapbook
A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...
) tradition which would flourish in the 16th century also takes its origin in the second half of the 15th century.
German Renaissance and Reformation
- Sebastian BrantSebastian BrantSebastian Brant was an Alsatian humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire Das Narrenschiff .-Biography:...
(1457–1521) - Thomas MurnerThomas MurnerThomas Murner was a German satirist, poet and translator.He was born at Oberehnheim near Strasbourg. In 1490 he entered the Franciscan order, and in 1495 began travelling, studying and then teaching and preaching in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Paris, Kraków and Strasbourg itself...
(1475–1537) - Philipp MelanchthonPhilipp MelanchthonPhilipp Melanchthon , born Philipp Schwartzerdt, was a German reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and an influential designer of educational systems...
(1497–1560) - Sebastian FranckSebastian FranckSebastian Franck was a 16th century German freethinker, humanist, and radical reformer.Franck was born about 1499 at Donauwörth, Bavaria. Because of this he styled himself Franck von Word...
(1500–1543) - Andrzej Frycz ModrzewskiAndrzej Frycz ModrzewskiAndrzej Frycz Modrzewski was a Polish Renaissance scholar, humanist and theologian, called "the father of Polish democracy." His book De Republica emendanda was widely read and praised across most of Renaissance Europe.-Life:Modrzewski was born in Wolbórz Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (ca....
(1503–1572)
Baroque period
The Baroque period (1600 to 1720) was one of the most fertile times in German literature. Many writers reflected the horrible experiences of the Thirty Years' WarThirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
, in poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
. Grimmelshausen
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen was a German author.-Biography:Grimmelshausen was born at Gelnhausen. At the age of ten he was kidnapped by Hessian soldiery, and in their midst tasted the adventures of military life in the Thirty Years' War...
's adventures of the young and naïve Simplicissimus, in the eponymous book Simplicius Simplicissimus, became the most famous novel of the Baroque period. Andreas Gryphius
Andreas Gryphius
Andreas Gryphius was a German lyric poet and dramatist.Asteroid 496 Gryphia is named in his honour.-Life and career:...
and Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein wrote German language tragedies
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
, or Trauerspiele, often on Classical themes and frequently quite violent. Erotic, religious and occasional poetry
Occasional poetry
Occasional poetry is poetry composed for a particular occasion. In the history of literature, it is often studied in connection with orality, performance, and patronage. As a term of literary criticism, "occasional poetry" describes the work's purpose and the poet's relation to subject matter...
appeared in both German and Latin.
The Enlightenment
- August Friedrich Wilhelm CromeAugust Friedrich Wilhelm CromeAugust Friedrich Wilhelm Crome was a German economist and statistician, known particularly for his Producten-Karte von Europa , one of the first uses of cartograms.- Publications :...
- Johann Gottfried HerderJohann Gottfried HerderJohann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...
- Paul Heinrich Dietrich von Holbach
- Friedrich Heinrich JacobiFriedrich Heinrich JacobiFriedrich Heinrich Jacobi was an influential German philosopher, literary figure, socialite and the younger brother of poet Johann Georg Jacobi...
- Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel
- Immanuel KantImmanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
- Gotthold Ephraim LessingGotthold Ephraim LessingGotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...
- Moses MendelssohnMoses MendelssohnMoses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...
- Carl Leonhard Reinhold
- Christian ThomasiusChristian ThomasiusChristian Thomasius was a German jurist and philosopher.- Biography :He was born at Leipzig and was educated by his father, Jakob Thomasius , at that time head master of Thomasschule zu Leipzig...
- Christian Jacob Wagenseil
- Christian Felix WeißeChristian Felix WeißeChristian Felix Weiße was a German writer and pedagogue. Weiße was among the leading representatives of the Enlightenment in Germany and is regarded as the founder of German children's literature.-Life:...
- Christoph Martin WielandChristoph Martin WielandChristoph Martin Wieland was a German poet and writer.- Biography :He was born at Oberholzheim , which then belonged to the Free Imperial City of Biberach an der Riss in the south-east of the modern-day state of Baden-Württemberg...
- Christian WolffChristian Wolff (philosopher)Christian Wolff was a German philosopher.He was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant...
- Friedrich Nicolai
- Christian GarveChristian GarveChristian Garve was one of the best-known philosophers of the late Enlightenment along with Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn.-Life:...
Sensibility
Empfindsamkeit / Sensibility (1750s-1770s)Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock was a German poet.-Biography:Klopstock was born at Quedlinburg, the eldest son of a lawyer.Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more attention having been given...
(1724–1803), Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was a German poet, one of the forerunners of the golden age of German literature that was ushered in by Lessing.-Biography:...
(1715–1769), Sophie de La Roche (1730–1807). The period culminates and ends in Goethe's best-selling Die Leiden des jungen Werther (1774).
Sturm und Drang
Sturm und Drang (the conventional translation is "Storm and Stress"; a more literal translation, however, might be storm and urge, storm and longing, or storm and impulse) is the name of a movement in German literature and musicMusic
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s in which individual subjectivity
Subjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in response to the confines of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann was a noted German philosopher, a main proponent of the Sturm und Drang movement, and associated by historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin with the Counter-Enlightenment.-Biography:...
is considered to be the ideologue of Sturm und Drang, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
was a notable proponent of the movement, though he and Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
ended their period of association with it, initiating what would become Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism is a cultural and literary movement of Europe. Followers attempted to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical and Enlightenment ideas...
.
German Classicism
Weimar Classicism (GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
“Weimarer Klassik” and “Weimarer Klassizismus”) is a cultural
Cultural movement
A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. This embodies all art forms, the sciences, and philosophies. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in culture, but as...
and literary movement of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and its central ideas were originally propounded by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller during the period 1788–1832.
Romanticism
German RomanticismGerman Romanticism
For the general context, see Romanticism.In the philosophy, art, and culture of German-speaking countries, German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. German Romanticism developed relatively late compared to its English counterpart, coinciding in its...
was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. German Romanticism developed relatively late compared to its English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
counterpart, coinciding in its early years with the movement known as German Classicism or Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism is a cultural and literary movement of Europe. Followers attempted to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical and Enlightenment ideas...
, which it opposed. In contrast to the seriousness of English Romanticism, the German variety is notable for valuing humor and wit as well as beauty. The early German romantics tried to create a new synthesis of art, philosophy, and science, looking to the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
as a simpler, more integrated period. As time went on, however, they became increasingly aware of the tenuousness of the unity they were seeking. Later German Romanticism emphasized the tension between the everyday world and the seemingly irrational and supernatural projections of creative genius. Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
in particular criticized the tendency of the early romantics to look to the medieval past for a model of unity in art and society.
- G.W.F. Hegel
- E.T.A. HoffmannE.T.A. HoffmannErnst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann , better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann , was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist...
- Friedrich HölderlinFriedrich HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
- Heinrich von KleistHeinrich von KleistBernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him.- Life :...
- Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg)
- Friedrich Schlegel
- August Wilhelm Schlegel
- Friedrich Schleiermacher
- Ludwig TieckLudwig TieckJohann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...
- Ludwig UhlandLudwig UhlandJohann Ludwig Uhland , was a German poet, philologist and literary historian.-Biography:He was born in Tübingen, then Duchy of Württemberg, and studied jurisprudence at the university there, but also took an interest in medieval literature, especially old German and French poetry...
- Joseph von Eichendorff
- Theodor StormTheodor StormHans Theodor Woldsen Storm , commonly known as Theodor Storm, was a German writer.-Life:Storm was born in Husum, at the west coast of Schleswig than an independent duchy and ruled by the king of Denmark...
Biedermeier and Vormärz
BiedermeierBiedermeier
In Central Europe, the Biedermeier era refers to the middle-class sensibilities of the historical period between 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions...
refers to work in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 (Vienna Congress), the end of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
and contrasts with the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
era which preceded it. Typical Biedermeier poets are Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
Anna Elisabeth von Droste-Hülshoff, known as Annette von Droste-Hülshoff , was a 19th century German author, and one of the most important German poets.-Biography:...
, Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso was a German poet and botanist.- Life :He was born Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot at the château of Boncourt at Ante, in Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family...
, Eduard Mörike
Eduard Mörike
Eduard Friedrich Mörike was a German Romantic poet.-Biography:Mörike was born in Ludwigsburg. His father was Karl Friedrich Mörike , a district medical councilor; his mother was Charlotte Bayer...
, and Wilhelm Müller
Wilhelm Müller
Wilhelm Müller was a German lyric poet.-Life:Wilhelm Müller was born at Dessau, the son of a tailor. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native town and at the university of Berlin, where he devoted himself to philological and historical studies...
, the last three named having well-known musical settings by Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...
and Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
respectively.
Young Germany
Young Germany
Young Germany was a group of German writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth ideology . Its main proponents were Karl Gutzkow, Heinrich Laube, Theodor Mundt and Ludolf Wienbarg; Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Börne and Georg Büchner were also considered part of the movement...
(Junges Deutschland) was a loose group of Vormärz
Vormärz
' is the time period leading up to the failed March 1848 revolution in the German Confederation. Also known as the Age of Metternich, it was a period of Austrian and Prussian police states and vast censorship in response to calls for liberalism...
writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth movement (similar to those that had swept France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Ireland
Young Ireland
Young Ireland was a political, cultural and social movement of the mid-19th century. It led changes in Irish nationalism, including an abortive rebellion known as the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Many of the latter's leaders were tried for sedition and sentenced to penal transportation to...
and originated in Italy
Young Italy (historical)
Young Italy was a political movement founded in 1831 by Giuseppe Mazzini. The goal of this movement was to create a united Italian republic through promoting a general insurrection in the Italian reactionary states and in the lands occupied by the Austrian Empire...
). Its main proponents were Karl Gutzkow
Karl Gutzkow
Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.-Life:...
, Heinrich Laube
Heinrich Laube
Heinrich Laube , German dramatist, novelist and theatre-director, was born at Sprottau in Prussian Silesia.-Life:He studied theology at Halle and Breslau , and settled in Leipzig in 1832...
, Theodor Mundt
Theodor Mundt
thumb|200px|Theodor MundtTheodor Mundt was a German critic and novelist. He was a member of the Young Germany group of German writers.-Biography:Born at Potsdam, Mundt studied philology and philosophy at Berlin...
and Ludolf Wienbarg
Ludolf Wienbarg
Christian Ludolf Wienbarg was a German journalist and literary critic, one of the founders of the Young Germany movement during the Vormärz period.- Biography :...
; Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
, Ludwig Börne
Ludwig Börne
Karl Ludwig Börne was a German political writer and satirist.-Early life:Karl Ludwig Börne was born Loeb Baruch on May 6, 1786, at Frankfurt am Main, son of Jakob Baruch, a banker. His grandfather had been a government bureaucrat.-Education:Börne and his brothers were privately tutored by Jacob...
and Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
Karl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany...
were also considered part of the movement. The wider circle included Willibald Alexis
Willibald Alexis
Willibald Alexis, the pseudonym of Georg Wilhelm Heinrich Häring , was a German historical novelist.-Life:...
, Adolf Glassbrenner
Adolf Glassbrenner
Adolf Glassbrenner , was a German humorist and satirist, born in Berlin.After working for a short time in a merchant's office, he turned to journalism, and in 1831 edited Don Quixote, a periodical which was suppressed in 1833 owing to its revolutionary tendencies...
and Gustav Kühne.
Realism and Naturalism
Poetic RealismRealism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
(1848–1890)
Naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
(1880–1900)
1900 to 1933
- Fin de siècleFin de siècleFin de siècle is French for "end of the century". The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning...
(c. 1900) - SymbolismSymbolism (arts)Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
- ExpressionismExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
(1910–1920) - DadaDadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
(1914–1924) - New ObjectivityNew ObjectivityThe New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
(Neue Sachlichkeit)
Nazi Germany
- National Socialist literature: see Blut und Boden, Nazi propagandaNazi propagandaPropaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the NSDAP in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany...
Under the Nazi regime, some authors went into exile (Exilliteratur) and others submitted to censorship ("internal emigration", Innere Emigration)
- Innere Emigration: Gottfried BennGottfried BennGottfried Benn was a German essayist, novelist, and expressionist poet. A doctor of medicine, he became an early admirer, and later a critic, of the National Socialist revolution...
, Werner BergengruenWerner BergengruenWerner Bergengruen was a Baltic German novelist.Bergengruen was born in Riga, Livonia. After growing up in Lübeck and attending the Katharineum, he started studying theology in Marburg in 1911. He later changed to studying Germanistics and art history, but failed to graduate; he then moved to Munich...
, Hans Blüher, Hans Heinrich Ehrler, Hans FalladaHans FalladaHans Fallada , born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen in Greifswald, Germany, was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include Little Man, What Now? and Every Man Dies Alone...
, Werner FinckWerner FinckWerner Finck was a German comedian, an actor with "comic bones". He could read the phone book and it would seem extremely funny.-Life:...
, Gertrud Fussenegger, Ricarda HuchRicarda HuchRicarda Huch was a pioneering German intellectual. Trained as a historian, and the author of many works of European history, she also wrote novels, poems, and a play. Asteroid 879 Ricarda is named in her honour.- Life :...
, Ernst JüngerErnst JüngerErnst Jünger was a German writer. In addition to his novels and diaries, he is well known for Storm of Steel, an account of his experience during World War I. Some say he was one of Germany's greatest modern writers and a hero of the conservative revolutionary movement following World War I...
, Erich KästnerErich KästnerEmil Erich Kästner was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known for his humorous, socially astute poetry and children's literature.-Dresden 1899–1919:...
, Volker Lachmann, Oskar Loerke, Erika Mitterer, Walter von MoloWalter von MoloWalter Ritter/Reichsritter von Molo was a Czech-born Austrian writer.- Life :...
, Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Richard RiemerschmidRichard RiemerschmidRichard Riemerschmid was a German architect, painter, designer and city planner from Munich. He was a major figure in Jugendstil, the German form of Art Nouveau, and a founder of architecture in the style...
, Reinhold SchneiderReinhold SchneiderReinhold Schneider was a German poet who also wrote novels. Initially his works were less religious, but later his poetry had a Christian and specifically Catholic influence. His first works included Luís de Camões and Portugal He had written anti-war poems, which were banned in Nazi Germany...
, Frank ThiessFrank ThiessFrank Thiess was a German writer.-Biography:Born in Eluisenstein, Russian Livonia , Thiess grew up in Berlin, where his family moved after Russia had annexed Livonia. He worked as a journalist for four years until he was enlisted into the German army in World War I...
, Carl von OssietzkyCarl von OssietzkyCarl von Ossietzky was a German pacifist and the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize. He was convicted of high treason and espionage in 1931 after publishing details of Germany's alleged violation of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding an air force, the predecessor of the Luftwaffe, and...
, Ernst WiechertErnst WiechertErnst Wiechert was a German teacher, poet and writer.-Biography:Wiechert was born in Kleinort near Sensburg , East Prussia.He was one of the most widely read novelists in Germany during the 1930s... - in exile: Ernst BlochErnst BlochErnst Bloch was a German Marxist philosopher.Bloch was influenced by both Hegel and Marx and, as he always confessed, by novelist Karl May. He was also interested in music and art . He established friendships with Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Theodor W. Adorno...
, Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, Hermann BrochHermann BrochHermann Broch was a 20th century Austrian writer, considered one of the major Modernists.-Life:Broch was born in Vienna to a prosperous Jewish family and worked for some time in his family's factory, though he maintained his literary interests privately...
, Alfred DöblinAlfred DöblinAlfred Döblin was a German expressionist novelist, best known for the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz .- 1878–1918:...
, Lion FeuchtwangerLion FeuchtwangerLion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....
, Bruno FrankBruno FrankBruno Frank was a German author, poet, dramatist, and humanist.Frank studied law and philosophy in Munich, where he later worked as a dramatist and novelist until the Reichstag fire in 1933...
, A. M. Frey, Anna GmeynerAnna GmeynerAnna Wilhelmine Gmeyner was an exiled German and Austrian author, playwright and scriptwriter, who is now best known for her novel Manja . She also wrote under the names Anna Reiner, and Anna Morduch...
, Oskar Maria GrafOskar Maria GrafOskar Maria Graf was a German author.He wrote several socialist-anarchist novels and narratives about life in Bavaria, mostly autobiographical.In the beginning Graf wrote under his real name Oskar Graf...
, Heinrich Eduard JacobHeinrich Eduard JacobHeinrich Eduard Jacob was a German and American journalist and author. Born to a Jewish family in Berlin and raised partly in Vienna, Jacob worked for two decades as a journalist and biographer before the rise to power of the Nazi Party...
, Hermann KestenHermann KestenHermann Kesten was a German novelist and dramatist. He was one of the principal literary figures of the New Objectivity movement in 1920's Germany.The literary prize Hermann Kesten Medal has been given in his honor since 1985....
, Annette KolbAnnette KolbAnnette Kolb was the working name of German author and pacifist Anna Mathilde Kolb. She became active in pacifist causes during World War I and this caused her political difficulties from then on. She left Germany in the 1920s and her works were banned during the Third Reich...
, Siegfried KracauerSiegfried KracauerSiegfried Kracauer was a German-Jewish writer, journalist, sociologist, cultural critic, and film theorist...
, Emil LudwigEmil LudwigEmil Ludwig was a German author, known for his biographies.-Biography:Emil Ludwig was born in Breslau, now part of Poland. Ludwig studied law but chose writing as a career. At first he wrote plays and novella, but also worked as a journalist...
, Heinrich MannHeinrich MannLuiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
, Klaus MannKlaus Mann- Life and work :Born in Munich, Klaus Mann was the son of German writer Thomas Mann and his wife, Katia Pringsheim. His father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews. He began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a...
, Thomas MannThomas MannThomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
, Balder Olden, Rudolf OldenRudolf OldenRudolf Olden was a German lawyer and journalist. In the Weimar-period he was a well known voice in the political debate, a vocal opponent of the Nazis, a fierce advocate of human rights and one of the first to alert the world to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in 1934. He is the author of...
, Robert Neumann, Erich Maria RemarqueErich Maria RemarqueErich Maria Remarque was a German author, best known for his novel All Quiet on the Western Front.-Life and work:...
, Ludwig RennLudwig RennLudwig Renn was a German writer. His real name was Arnold Friedrich Vieth von Golßenau.Born in Dresden into a Saxon noble family, he fought in World War I on the Western Front. He wrote the book Krieg on his experiences...
, Alice Rühle-Gerstel, Otto RühleOtto RühleOtto Rühle was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First and Second World Wars, and a founder with along with Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and others of the group and magazine Internationale, which posed a revolutionary internationalism against a world of warring...
, Alice Schwarz-Gardos, Anna SeghersAnna SeghersAnna Seghers was a German writer famous for depicting the moral experience of the Second World War.- Life :...
, B. TravenB. TravenB. Traven was the pen name of a German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. A rare certainty is that B...
, Bodo UhseBodo UhseBodo Uhse was a German writer, journalist and political activist. He was recognised as one of the most prominent authors in East Germany.-Early years:...
, Franz WerfelFranz WerfelFranz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
, Arnold ZweigArnold ZweigArnold Zweig was a German writer and anti-war activist.He is best known for his World War I tetralogy.-Life and work:Zweig was born in Glogau, Silesia son of a Jewish saddler...
, Stefan ZweigStefan ZweigStefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...
.
1945 to 1989
- Post-war literature (1945–1967); Group 47Group 47Gruppe 47 was an influential literary association in Germany after World War II. '47' Stands for the year of their creation, 1947.-Early history:The beginnings reach back to1946 when Alfred Andersch and Walter Kolbenhoff founded the literary...
; Holocaust literature (Anne FrankAnne FrankAnnelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
, Edgar HilsenrathEdgar HilsenrathEdgar Hilsenrath is a German-Jewish writer living in Berlin. His main works are Night, The Nazi and the Barber, and The Story of the Last Thought.-Biography:...
) - GDR LiteratureGDR LiteratureGDR literature is the literature produced in East Germany from the time of the Soviet occupation in 1945 until the end of the communist government in 1990. Because the time span actually precedes the establishment of the German Democratic Republic, another term used is "East German" literature...
in East Germany: Wolf BiermannWolf BiermannKarl Wolf Biermann is a German singer-songwriter and former East German dissident.-Early life:Biermann's father, who worked on the Hamburg docks, was a German Jew and a member of the German Resistance....
, Sarah KirschSarah KirschSarah Kirsch is a German poet.She was born Ingrid Bernstein in Limlingerode, Prussian Saxony. She changed her first name to Sarah in order to protest against her father's anti-semitism. She studied biology in Halle and literature at the Johannes R. Becher Institute for Literature in Leipzig. In...
, Günter KunertGünter KunertGünter Kunert is a German writer who left the German Democratic Republic to live in the Federal Republic of Germany ....
, Reiner KunzeReiner KunzeReiner Kunze is a German writer and GDR dissident. He studied media and journalism at the University of Leipzig. In 1968, he left the GDR state party SED following the communist Warsaw Pact countries invasion of Czechoslovakia in response to the Prague Spring. He had to publish his work under...
- Postmodern literaturePostmodern literatureThe term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
: Oswald Wiener, Christian KrachtChristian KrachtChristian Kracht is a Swiss novelist and journalist.-Early life:Kracht was born in Saanen. His father, Christian Kracht Sr., was chief representative for the Axel Springer publishing company in the 1960s. Kracht attended Schule Schloss Salem in Baden and Lakefield College School in Ontario, Canada...
, Hans WollschlägerHans Wollschlägerthumb|right|150px| Signature, 1988Hans Wollschläger was a German writer, translator, historian, and editor of German literature.-Biography:...
, Christoph RansmayrChristoph RansmayrChristoph Ransmayr is an Austrian writer.- Life :Born in Wels, Upper Austria Ransmayr grew up in Roitham near Gmunden and the Traunsee. From 1972 to 1978 he studied philosophy and ethnology in Vienna...
, Marlene Streeruwitz
Nobel Prize laureates
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to German language authors thirteen times (as of 2009), or the third most often after English and French language authors (with 27 and 14 laureates, respectively).- 1902 Theodor MommsenTheodor MommsenChristian Matthias Theodor Mommsen was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist, and writer generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. His work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research...
- 1908 Rudolf Christoph EuckenRudolf Christoph EuckenRudolf Christoph Eucken was a German philosopher, and the winner of the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life:...
- 1910 Paul Heyse
- 1912 Gerhart HauptmannGerhart HauptmannGerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...
- 1919 Carl SpittelerCarl SpittelerCarl Friedrich Georg Spitteler was a Swiss poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1919. His work includes both pessimistic and heroic poems....
- 1929 Thomas MannThomas MannThomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
- 1946 Hermann HesseHermann HesseHermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
- 1966 Nelly SachsNelly SachsNelly Sachs was a Jewish German poet and playwright whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews...
- 1972 Heinrich BöllHeinrich BöllHeinrich Theodor Böll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.- Biography :...
- 1981 Elias CanettiElias CanettiElias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
- 1999 Günter GrassGünter GrassGünter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
- 2004 Elfriede JelinekElfriede JelinekElfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."-...
- 2009 Herta MüllerHerta MüllerHerta Müller is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet and essayist noted for her works depicting the effects of violence, cruelty and terror, usually in the setting of Communist Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceauşescu regime which she experienced herself...
Contemporary literature
- Science-Fiction, Fantasy: Andreas EschbachAndreas EschbachAndreas Eschbach is a German writer who mostly writes science fiction. Even if some of his stories do not exactly fall into the SF genre, they usually feature elements of the fantastic.- Biography :...
, Frank SchätzingFrank Schätzing' , is a German writer, mostly known for his best-selling science fiction novel The Swarm .- Life :Schätzing was born in Cologne and studied communication studies; he later ran his own company, an advertising agency named INTEVI, in Cologne. Schätzing became a writer in 1990, and penned several...
, Wolfgang HohlbeinWolfgang HohlbeinWolfgang Hohlbein is a German writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction who lives near Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia. His wife, Heike, is also a writer and often works with her husband. She often comes up with the story ideas and therefore is generally credited as co-author...
, Bernhard HennenBernhard HennenBernhard Hennen is a German writer of fantasy.Hennen is one of the best known German writers of fantasy. Many of his books especially his Die Elfen-Saga are translated and published in all major European languages except English. He is married and lives in Krefeld...
, Walter MoersWalter MoersWalter Moers is one of the best-known and commercially most successful German comic creators and authors.-Life and work:... - Pop Literature: Dietmar DathDietmar DathDietmar Dath is aGerman novelist.- Life :Dath grew up in Schopfheim, finished the high school in Freiburg, did his civilian service and studied mathematics and German studies in Freiburg....
, Christian KrachtChristian KrachtChristian Kracht is a Swiss novelist and journalist.-Early life:Kracht was born in Saanen. His father, Christian Kracht Sr., was chief representative for the Axel Springer publishing company in the 1960s. Kracht attended Schule Schloss Salem in Baden and Lakefield College School in Ontario, Canada...
, Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, Rainald GoetzRainald GoetzRainald Maria Goetz is a German author, playwright and essayist.After studying History and Medicine in Munich and earning a grade in each, he soon concentrated on his writing....
. - Migrant literatureMigrant literatureMigrant literature, that is, writings by and to a lesser extent about migrants, is a topic which has commanded growing interest within literary studies since the 1980s...
: Feridun ZaimogluFeridun ZaimogluFeridun Zaimoğlu is a German author and visual artist of Turkish origin.Zaimoğlu has developed since 1995 to have become one of the important poets of contemporary German language...
, Wladimir KaminerWladimir KaminerWladimir Kaminer is a Russian-born German short story writer, columnist, and disc jockey of Jewish origin.Kaminer was born in Moscow, and after initially training as an audio engineer for theatre and radio, then studied dramaturgy at the Moscow Institute of Theater...
, Rafik SchamiRafik SchamiRafik Schami is a Syrian-German author, storyteller and critic.-Biography:Born in Damascus, Syria in 1946, Schami is the son of a baker from an Syriac-Christian family. His schooling and university studies took place in Damascus. From 1965, Schami wrote stories in Arabic... - Poetry: Jürgen BeckerJürgen BeckerJürgen Becker is a German comedian, kabarett artist, and actor.- Life :After school in Cologne, Becker became a graphic designer in German company 4711. Later Becker studied social science in Cologne....
, Marcel BeyerMarcel BeyerMarcel Beyer is a German writer.-Life:Marcel Beyer grew up in Kiel and Neuss. From 1987 to 1991 he studied German language and literature, English studies and Literary studies at the University of Siegen; in 1992 he obtained a Magister degree with a work on Friederike Mayröcker. Since 1987 he has...
, Theo BreuerTheo BreuerTheo Breuer is a German poet, essayist, editor, translator and publisher.-Life and work:...
, Rolf Dieter BrinkmannRolf Dieter BrinkmannRolf Dieter Brinkmann was an important poet of German Pop-Literatur. He also wrote Keiner weiß mehr , a novel of modern family life. His early writing was inspired by Gottfried Benn and the French nouveau roman...
, Hans Magnus EnzensbergerHans Magnus EnzensbergerHans Magnus Enzensberger , is a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He has also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr. He lives in Munich.- Life :...
, Aldona GustasAldona GustasAldona Gustas is a female Lithuanian – German poet and illustrator who has lived in Berlin since the early 1940s.-Biography:Gustas was born in the Lithuanian village of Karceviškiai in 1932...
, Ernst JandlErnst JandlErnst Jandl was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator.- Poetry :Influenced by Dada he started to write experimental poetry, first published in the journal "Neue Wege" in 1952....
, Thomas KlingThomas Kling- Life :Thomas Kling was born in Bingen am Rhein, grew up in Hilden and went to school in Düsseldorf. He studied Philology in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Vienna and lived in Finland for a certain period. Since 1983 he presented his poems on public performances – first in Vienna, than in the Rhineland...
, Uwe Kolbe, Friederike MayröckerFriederike MayröckerFriederike Mayröcker is an Austrian poet.- Life :From 1946 to 1969 Mayröcker was an English teacher at several public schools in Vienna. In 1969 she took a release from working as a teacher and in 1977 she retired early.She started writing as a 15 year old...
, - Aphorists: Hans Kruppa
- Thriller: Ingrid NollIngrid NollIngrid Noll is a German thriller writer. She has written several novels, including Head Count, Hell hath no Fury and The Pharmacist, as well as one television drama, Bommels Billigflüge...
- Novel: Wilhelm GenazinoWilhelm GenazinoWilhelm Genazino is a German journalist and author.In the 1960s, he studied German, philosophy and sociology at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. He worked as a journalist until 1965. During this time, he worked, inter alia, for the satirical magazine Pardon and co-edited the...
, Günter GrassGünter GrassGünter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
, Herta MüllerHerta MüllerHerta Müller is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet and essayist noted for her works depicting the effects of violence, cruelty and terror, usually in the setting of Communist Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceauşescu regime which she experienced herself...
, Siegfried LenzSiegfried LenzSiegfried Lenz is a German writer, who has written novels and produced several collections of short stories, essays, and plays for radio and the theatre. He was awarded the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt-am-Main on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's birth...
, Charlotte LinkCharlotte LinkCharlotte Link is a German writer. She is among the most successful contemporary authors writing in German.- Life :Charlotte Link is the daughter of a well-known German writer and journalist, Almuth Link...
, Anna KaleriAnna KaleriAnna Kaleri is a German writer- Biography :Anna Kaleri was born 1974 in the Harz Mountains in the former GDR. She studied from 1996 to 2002 in then German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. After her diploma on this noted school for writers, she studied Philosophy. Currently she lives in Leipzig...
, Norbert Scheuer, Kathrin Schmidt, Burkhard Spinnen, Robert MenasseRobert MenasseRobert Menasse is an Austrian writer.As an undergraduate, Menasse studied in Vienna, Salzburg and Messina. In 1980 he completed his PhD thesis "Der Typus des Außenseiters im Literaturbetrieb...
, Martin WalserMartin WalserAt first the speech did not cause a great stir. Indeed, the audience present in Church of St. Paul received the speech with applause, though Walser's critic Ignatz Bubis did not applaud, as confirmed by television footage of the event... - Literaturport (in German): audio clips of contemporary literature, many read out by the authors themselves
- German-American Bilingual Poetry: Paul-Henri Campbell
Literature
English- The Oxford Companion to German Literature, ed. by Mary Garland and Henry Garland, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 1997
German
- Bernd Lutz, Benedikt Jeßing (eds.): Metzler Lexikon Autoren: Deutschsprachige Dichter und Schriftsteller vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, Stuttgart und Weimar: 4., aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage 2010
- Theo BreuerTheo BreuerTheo Breuer is a German poet, essayist, editor, translator and publisher.-Life and work:...
, Aus dem Hinterland. Lyrik nach 2000, Sistig/Eifel : Edition YE, 2005, ISBN 3875121864 - Theo Breuer, Kiesel & Kastanie (ed.): Von neuen Gedichten und Geschichten, Sistig/Eifel : Edition YE, 2008, ISBN 3875123476
- Jürgen Brocan, Jan Kuhlbrodt (eds.), Umkreisungen. 25 Auskünfte zum Gedicht, Lepzig: Poetenladen Literaturverlag, 2010
- Manfred Enzensperger (ed.), Die Hölderlin-Ameisen: Vom Finden und Erfinden der Poesie, Cologne: Dumont, 2005
- Peter von MattPeter von Matt-Life:Peter von Matt grew up in Stans in the canton of Nidwalden. He studied Art History as well as German and English studies in Zürich and received a doctorate with Emil Staiger on Franz Grillparzer. In 1970, he received his post doctorate lecturing qualifications with a work on E. T. A...
, Die verdächtige Pracht. Über Dichter und Gedichte, Munich [etc.] : Hanser, 1998 - Joachim Sartorius (ed.), Mimima Poetica. Für eine Poetik des zeitgenössischen Gedichts, Cologne : Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1999
Anthologies
Bilingual- German poetry from 1750 to 1900, ed. by Robert M. Browning. Foreword by Michael HamburgerMichael HamburgerMichael Hamburger OBE was a noted British translator, poet, critic, memoirist, and academic. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn and W. G. Sebald from German, and his work in literary criticism...
, New York : Continuum, 1984, 281 pp. (German Library), ISBN 0826402836 - Twentieth-Century German Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Michael Hofmann, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008 (Paperback Edition), 544 pp., ISBN 0374530939
German
- Heinz Ludwig Arnold (ed.), TEXT+KRITIK: Lyrik des 20. Jahrhunderts (1999).
- Verena Auffermann, Hubert Winkels (ed.), Beste Deutsche Erzähler (2000-)
- Hans BenderHans BenderHans Bender was a German lecturer on the subject of parapsychology, who was also responsible for establishing the parapsychological institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg. For many years his pipe smoking, contemplative figure was synonymous with German...
(ed.), In diesem Lande leben wir. Deutsche Gedichte der Gegenwart (1978) - Hans Bender, Was sind das für Zeiten. Deutschsprachige Gedichte der achtziger Jahre (1988)
- Christoph Buchwald, Uljana Wolf (ed.), Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2009 (2009)
- Karl Otto Conrady (ed.), Der Große Conrady. Das Buch deutscher Gedichte. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (2008).
- Hugo von HofmannsthalHugo von HofmannsthalHugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...
(ed.), Deutsche Erzähler I (1912, 1979) - Martie Luise Kaschnitz (ed.), Deutsche Erzähler II (1971, 1979)
- Boris Kerenski & Sergiu Stefanescu, Kaltland Beat. Neue deutsche Szene (1999)
- Axel Kutsch (ed.), Versnetze. Deutschsprachige Lyrik der Gegenwart (2009)
- Andreas Neumeister, Marcel Hartges (ed.), Poetry! Slam! Texte der Pop-Fraktion (1996)
See also
- German-speaking EuropeGerman-speaking EuropeThe German language is spoken in a number of countries and territories in West, Central and Eastern Europe...
- Standard GermanStandard GermanStandard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
- Swiss literatureSwiss literatureThere is no such thing as a Swiss national vernacular literature, as there is no dominant national language. The four main languages of French, Italian, German and Romansch form the four branches which make up a literature of Switzerland...
- Austrian literatureAustrian literatureAustrian literature is the literature written in Austria, which is mostly, but not exclusively, written in the German language. Some scholars speak about Austrian literature in a strict sense from the year 1806 on when Francis II disbanded the Holy Roman Empire and established the Austrian Empire...
- Alemannic literature
- Stiftung LesenStiftung LesenStiftung Lesen is a Mainz, Germany, based non-profit organization under the patronage of Horst Köhler, with the purpose of reading education as well as learning reading competence for all age groups, especially children and adolescent. The scope of the foundations activities is national...
- History of GermanHistory of GermanThe history of the German language as separate from common West Germanic begins in the Early Middle Ages with the High German consonant shift. Old High German, Middle High German and Early Modern High German span the duration of the Holy Roman Empire...
- list of German-language authors, list of German-language playwrights
- list of German-language poets
- list of German-language philosophers
- History of literatureHistory of literatureThe history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempts to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces. Not all...
- Projekt Gutenberg-DEProjekt Gutenberg-DEProjekt Gutenberg-DE is a collection of German language literary texts, distributed via the web and on CD-ROM. It is run by a small publishing company called Hille Partner, run by Gunter Hille, and its web presence is hosted by the weekly magazine Der Spiegel....
- Sophie (digital lib)Sophie (digital lib)Sophie is a digital library and resource center for works produced by German-speaking women, 1740-1939.Resources available at the site include literary and journalistic texts , musical scores and recordings, screenplays and dramas, and a collection of colonial/travel texts...
External links
- Sophie
A digital library of works by German-speaking women