Themes and Structures

This collection of essays focuses on the major figures in German literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, looking at themes and structures in works by Goethe, Schlegel, Tieck, Kempowski and others. Special emphasis is given to the turn of the nineteenth century, to the contemporary period, and to German/American relations, while topics include the popularisation of Copernicus and Newton; Goethe's Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen as elegy; and, moving to the present day, a close reading of themes and structures in Wedekind's Lulu plays, Handke's Repetition, and Wolf's Kassandra project; and an investigation of the changing image of post-war Germany in American fiction. The volume as a whole is thus a fitting tribute to Theodore Ziolkowski, longtime graduate dean of Princeton University and the author of numerous books on key aspects of German literature from Romanticism to the present day.