The Representation of War in German Literature: From 1800 to the Present

The history of literature about war is marked by a fundamental paradox: although war forms the subject of countless novels, dramas, poems, and films, it is often conceived as indescribable. Even as many writers strive towards an ideal of authenticity, they maintain that no representation can do justice to the terror and violence of war. Readings of Schiller, Kleist, J nger, Remarque, Grass, B ll, Handke, and Jelinek reveal that stylistic and aesthetic features, gender discourses, and concepts of agency and victimization can all undermine a text's martial stance or its ostensible pacifist agenda. Spanning the period from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars to the recent wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq, Elisabeth Krimmer investigates the aesthetic, theoretical, and historical challenges that confront writers of war.

Author: Elisabeth Krimmer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 07/10/2014
Pages: 278
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.83lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9781107425477

About the Author
Krimmer, Elisabeth: - Elisabeth Krimmer is Associate Professor in the Department of German and Russian at the University of California, Davis.