Negotiating Positions: Literature, Identity and Social Critique in the Works of Wolfgang Koeppen

by Simon Ward

Overview

This study offers new perspectives on Wolfgang Koeppen, a writer too often consigned to the margins of post-1945 literary history. Examining the interaction of the personal and the social in Koeppen's writings, this book demonstrates that the politics of his works are inherent to their form.
Through a series of close readings, the book explores the positive and negative aspects of liminality, a dominant trope in Koeppen’s works. Stressing the thematic and formal continuities of his oeuvre, the first section illustrates how his protagonists perpetually establish a space for themselves 'in between' states. The second section examines how Koeppen negotiates with the discourse of 'nation' during two central periods of his career. It shows how his experiences in the Third Reich and his reappraisal of the years prior to 1933 determine his perspective on modernity, modernism and Germany after 1945. Having defined the location of culture in his works, the book concludes by resituating Koeppen's writings within post-war West German literary culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789042015760
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/01/2001
Series:	Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur Series
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

Table of Contents

PREFACE; CHAPTER ONE: STATES OF LIMINALITY
SECTION ONE: LOCATING THE LIMINAL SUBJECT: CHAPTER TWO: PLAYING ROLES; CHAPTER THREE: WRITING A HOME BETWEEN HOMES;
SECTION TWO: COMPROMISE AND CRITIQUE: CHAPTER FOUR: THE LIMITS OF NEGOTIATION; CHAPTER FIVE: THE UNHOMELY RUINS: THE POLITICS OF NATION;
CHAPTER SIX: LIMINALITY IN THE FICTION OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC; SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
CLASSIFICATION BY SUBJECT LIST:
LITERATURE AND CULTURE, GERMAN, 20TH CENTURY

Editorial Reviews

"Negotiating Positions offers an insightful, fresh look at a much-debated issue…" - in: German Studies Review, Vol. 28, Nr. 2 (May 2005)
"…a helpful contribution to Koeppen exegesis. …well produced…" - in: The Modern Language Review, 98.4 (2003), pp. 1059-1060
"…a very valuable book…" - in: Colloquia Germanica, pp. 193-4

From the Publisher