30619 - German Language (LM)

Learning outcomes

Students gain in-depth knowledge of linguistic and discursive aspects of the German language, from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, including its applications in textual analysis and translation. Through practical exercises, their communication skills in all areas, both active and passive, progress towards level C2 of the Common European Framework of Reference, enabling them to effectively interpret the socio-linguistic and cultural codes of those involved in a communicative relationship.

Course contents

Between 1880 and 1918, a paradigm shift took place in the three major literary centres of German-speaking Europe: Berlin, Munich and Vienna. The late 19th and early 20th centuries – starting from realism and naturalism – oscillated between naturalism, symbolism, impressionism, art nouveau and decadence. Artistic self-reflection led to a crisis of language and identity, expressionism and the literary avant-garde of the 1920s.
The lecture looks at a small section of this dazzling and extremely productive phase of German-language literature with works from the period 1882 to 1917.
It begins in Berlin, the capital of the German Empire, with the realist Theodor Fontane (1819–1897): his best works include the social satire Frau Jenny Treibel (1892) and his literary testament and last novel Der Stechlin (1897). Rapid urbanisation, big-city experience, but also the dichotomy between city and countryside as a refuge for personal ethics are at the heart of his aesthetic of transfiguration.
Munich, residence of the Wittelsbach dynasty, capital of bohemian life and home of the magazine Die Jugend – which gave its name to Art Nouveau – stands for themes such as art vs. bourgeoisie, eroticism, decadence, and the artist's existence, exemplified here by Thomas Mann (Der kleine Herr Friedemann (1897)) and the far less well-known Eduard Graf von Keyserling (1855–1918) from Courland: Abendliche Häuser (1914) and Fürstinnen (1917).

Keyserling's texts do not represent big-city literature, but are created in it from the memories of a blind man of his native Courland, its sensory richness and nature, condensed in the synaesthesia of his prose.
The series concludes with the city of Vienna, until 1918 the centre of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the birthplace of psychoanalysis, with three treatises by Sigmund Freud (1856-1930): An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1938/49), Civilisation and Its Discontents (1930) and Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), and the Austrian writer and dramatist of Viennese Modernism Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) with Dream Story (1926) and Fräulein Else (1924).

Teaching methods

Face-to-face lectures

Assessment methods

Written examination

Teaching tools

Virtual portal

Office hours

See the website of Eva Elisabeth Susanne Vitz Manetti