31163 - German Literature 2

Academic Year 2018/2019

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student will have acquired in-depth knowledge about various aspects and problems regarding literary history. The student will have a sound knowledge of the individual authors and works, and will be able to evaluate the literary quality of the works that have been studied, analyzing the texts according to specific critical methodologies.

Course contents


German Language Women’s Literature in the Long Twentieth Century: Female Writers, Figures and Contextsi

 

* Please note: Students attending Letteratura Tedesca III may also choose an alternative programme focussed on the nineteenth century (see below)

The course aims to present the complexity of German literature in the long twentieth century, that is, from Vormärz up to the present day, by analysing the historical, social and cultural contexts of some of the most significant works of “Women’s Literature” or Frauenliteratur, i.e. literary works by female authors and centred on female figures.

Whereas until the 1980s the term Frauenliteratur was mostly deployed within the German language literary debate to indicate works on female topics or figures, nowadays it is commonly used to refer to literature written by female authors.

We will start our investigation by taking a glance at the most relevant contexts of Romanticism – the period that can arguably be considered the starting point of the Moderne in Germany. Afterwards, the course will briefly focus on Vormärz and Realism, to then follow the continuous line connecting Naturalism to contemporary literature.

Most of the female poets that we will analyse as well as most of their works are still rather unknown, only very few of them belong to the canon. However, some of these authors are currently being re-discovered by academic research and will certainly soon obtain a greater recognition within the literary historiography. Alongside less-known names, the course will also draw attention on those German language female authors that are already part of the literary canon, for example Ingeborg Bachmann and Christa Wolf. Moreover, we will analyse paramount figures of German language literature like Mutter Courage, Lulu and Antigone.

1) Instead of an introduction: emancipated women poets and threatening female figures in the Romanticism (Undine, Lorelay)

2) Women and politics: some emblematic cases from the Vormärz

3) Women in Naturalism and Expressionism: Else Lasker-Schüler; Frank Wedekind’s Franziska and Lulu; Gerhart Hauptmann’s Rose Bernd and Walter Hasenclever’s Antigone

4) The 1920s, part I: Women in Brecht’s works. Hanna Cash, Heilige Johanna der Schlachtäfe, Mutter Courage, Antigone

5) The 1920s, part II: young female writers and Neue Sachlichkeit. Marieluise Fleisser, Irmgard Keun, Vicki Baum, Gabriele Tergit and others

6) Exil der Frauen: Jewish women poets before and after Auschwitz

7) The 1950s: Ingeborg Bachmann (poetry and prose) and Claire Zachanassian

8) Uwe Johnson: Jahrestage. Aus dem Leben der Gesine Cresspahl

9) GDR authors: Christa Wolf, Irmtraud Morgner, Sara Kirsch, Brigitte Reimann

10) Nobel Prize laureates and interculturality: Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller, Emine Sevgi Özdamar

11) The third Millennium: Ulrike Draesner (poetry and prose) and Thea Dorn’s female Faust

Readings/Bibliography

Readings/bibliography

1) Criticism:

 

1) LITERARY HISTORY/ Secondary Literature

– Wandruszka, Marie Luise, Orgoglio e misura: quattro scrittrici tedesche, Rosenberg & Sellier 1993

Perrone Capano, Lucia, Visioni della modernità. "Neue Frauen" e influenze americane in "Das kunstseidene Madchen" di Irmgard Keun, in «A.I.O.N.« Sez. germanica", XVII, 2007, 397-408.

– Perrone Capano, Lucia, "Ist die Grenze ein Strich?" Linee di fuga nei romanzi dell'esilio di Irmgard Keun, in A. M. Carpi, G. Dolei, L. Perrone Capano (Eds.), L'esperienza dell'esilio nel Novecento tedesco, Artemide 2009, 167-176.

On the Twentieth Century:

Michael Dallapiazza/ Claudio Santi, Storia della letteratura tedesca, vol. 3, Il Novecento, 3. Ed., Laterza 2005

Additional literature will be provided during the course.

2)Readings :

 

2) PRIMARY LITERATURE

* Compulsory reading

Irmgard Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, Ullstein 2017

Or in Italian translation– Doris, la ragazza misto seta, a cura di V. Gallico, L’Orma 2017

* Compulsory reading: A choice of two works selected from the first group plus a choice of two works from the second group:

I Group: From Naturalism to Exile

* Some of the following texts are available online in the original edition on “Gutenberg-Projekt”: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/ . You are allowed to also use the official Italian editions of these works.

Drama

– Gerhart Hauptmann, Rose Bernd (also on Gutenberg-Projekt)

– Frank Wedekind, Franziska (available online at www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Wedekind )

– Frank Wedekind, Lulu. Lo spirito della terra, Il vaso di Pandora, con un saggio di Karl Kraus

– Walter Hasenclever, Antigone

– Marieluise Fleißer, Pioniere in Ingolstadt (in: Marieluise Fleißer: Dramen)

– Bertolt Brecht: Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe

– Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage

Poetry

Else Lasker-Schüler, Ballate ebraiche e altre poesie

– Nelly Sachs, Al di là della polvere, prefazione di Hans Magnus Enzensberger, 1966.

– Rose Ausländer, Poesie scelte, 2004 (ca. 150 pagine a scelta)

-Bertolt Brecht, Hauspostille/ Libro di devozione domestica

Prose, miscellaneous

– Vicki Baum: Stud. chem. Helena Willführ/ Elena Willfuer, studentessa in chimica, 1937

– Marieluise Fleißer, Avanguardia, 1982

– Ricarda Huch, Der letzte Sommer/ L’ultima estate

– Mascha Kaléko, Das lyrische Stenogrammheft: kleines Lesebuch für Grosse, ausgewählt von Mascha Kaleko, 1956

– Irmgard Keun, Nach Mitternacht/ Dopo mezzanotte,1984

– Irmgard Keun: Gilgi, eine von uns/ Gilgi, una di noi, trad. it. di A. Pelizzola, 2016

– Gabriele Tergit, Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm

II Group: Post-war to the present day

Drama/ Radiodrama

– Ingeborg Bachmann, Der gute Gott von Manhattan/ Il buon dio di Manhattan. Radiodramma

– Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Der Besuch der alten Dame

– Elfriede Jelinek, (Lebewohl) / L'addio: la giornata di delirio di un leader populista, introduzione di Elena Stancanelli

– Elfriede Jelinek, FaustIn and out/ dramma secondario basato su Urfaust, introduzione e traduzione di Elisa Balboni e Marcello Soffritti; prefazione di Elena di Gioia; con un dialogo con Fabrizio Arcuri a cura di Lucia Amara

– Friederike Mayröcker, Arie auf tönernen Füßen: metaphysisches Theater, Neuwied 1972

- Friederike Mayröcker: Schwarmgesang: Szenen für die poetische Bühne, 1978

Friederike Mayröcker, Fogli magici

Poetry

– Ingeborg Bachmann, Die gestundete Zeit

– Ingeborg Bachmann, Anrufung des großen Bären/ Invocazione all'Orsa maggiore

Ulrike Draesner, Subsong, Gedichte, 2014

– Ulrike Draesner, Viaggio obliquo

– Sarah Kirsch: Calore di neve: poesie 1973-1989 (half of the poems in the collection=

Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Gedichte (Frankfurt am Main 1975)

Prose

Ilse Aichinger: Die größere Hoffnung/ La speranza più grande

– Ingeborg Bachmann, Das Buch Goldmann

– Heinrich Böll, Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum/ L'onore perduto di Katharina Blum

– Thea Dorn, Die Unglückseligen

– Ulrike Draesner, Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt, Roman, 2015

– Elfriede Jelinek, Die Klavierspielerin/ La pianista

– Uwe Johnson, Jahrestage. Aus dem Leben der Gesine Cresspahl, Band 1 (I giorni e gli anni, primo volume agosto 1967–dicembre 1967)

– Irmtraud Morgner, Leben und Abenteuer der Trobadora Beatriz nach Zeugnissen ihrer Spielfrau Lara. Roman in dreizehn Büchern und sieben Intermezzos

– Herta Müller, Il paese delle prugne verdi

– Özdamar, Emine Sevgi, Mutterzunge/ La lingua di mia madre

– Roggenkamp, Viola, Familienleben/ Vita di famiglia

– Anna Seghers, Das siebte Kreuz/ La settima croce

– Karin Struck, Klassenliebe (Amore di classe)

– Grete Weil, Meine Schwester Antigone/ Mia sorella Antigone

– Christa Wolf, Cassandra

– Christa Wolf, Der geteilte Himmel

Students attending Letteratura Tedesca III may also choose the following programme:

1) LITERARY HISTORY/ Secondary Literature:

– Wandruszka, Marie Luise, Orgoglio e misura: quattro scrittrici tedesche, Rosenberg & Sellier 1993

Sull’Ottocento:

Kindl, Ulrike, Storia della letteratura tedesca, vol. 2, Dal Settecento alla prima guerra mondiale, Laterza 2001, pp. 132-267; 271-304; 322-330

2) PRIMARY LITERATURE

* Select three works amongst the following (more materials will be provided during the course):

– Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: La casa nella brughiera: poesie 1840-1846, introduzione, traduzione e note di Giorgio Cusatelli

– Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Die Judenbuche

– Karoline von Günderrode: Der Schatten eines Traumes : Gedichte, Prosa, Briefe, Zeugnisse von Zeitgenossen, herausgegeben und mit einem Essay von Christa Wolf (L'ombra di un sogno: prose, poesie, lettere di Karoline von Günderrode)

– Bettina von Arnim, Die Sehnsucht hat allemal Recht : Gedichte, Prosa, Briefe, herausgegeben und mit einem Nachwort von Gerhard Wolf, 1985

– Isolde Kurz, Italienische Erzählungen

– Caroline Schlegel, Lieber Freund, ich komme weit her schon an diesem frühen Morgen/ Caroline Schlegel-Schelling in ihren Briefen; hrsg. und mit einem Essay eingeleitet von Sigfrid Damm

– Rachel Varnhagen von Ense, Nel mio cuore un altro paese: una donna ebrea ai tempi di Goethe / Rahel Levin Varnhagen; a cura di Ursula Isselstein; traduzione di Palma Severi

– Sophie Mereau-Brentano, Ein Glück, das keine Wirklichkeit umspannt: Gedichte und Erzählungen, herausgegeben und kommentiert von Katharina von Hammerstein
München, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1996

– Karl Gutzkow: Wally die Zweiflerin, 1835

http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/show/gutzkow_wally_1835

(also available on Gutenberg-Projekt)

– Theodor Fontane, Effie Briest

 

A list of further readings (Sekundärliteratur) will be given at the beginning of the lectures.

Programme for non-attending students:

Non-attending students must add the one more work of theatre, one more text of each of the groups

Teaching methods

Seminar lessons

Assessment methods

The exam consists in an oral interview. During the interview the methodological and critical skills acquired by the student will be evaluated . The student will be invited to discuss the texts covered during the course and to move within the sources and bibliographical material in order to be able to identify in them the useful information that will enable to illustrate the similarities and cultural areas of the discipline. The achievement of an organic vision of the issues addressed during the classes and their critical use, which demonstrate ownership of a mastery of expression and specific language, will be assessed with marks of excellence. Mechanical and / or mnemonic knowledge of matter, synthesis and analysis of non-articulating and / or correct language but not always appropriate will lead to discrete assessments; training gaps and / or inappropriate language - although in a context of minimal knowledge of the material - will lead to votes that will not exceed the sufficiency. Training gaps, inappropriate language, lack of guidance within the reference materials offered during the course will lead to failed assessments.


Teaching tools

 

Office hours

See the website of Michael Gottlieb Dallapiazza