Theodor Fontane: The Major Novels

by Alan Bance

• ISBN13: 9780521155038
• ISBN10: 0521155037
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This 1982 book examines the novels of Theodor Fontane, one of the most important German novelists of the nineteenth century. He has been well served by English translations and is now regarded as a writer of international standing. Professor Bance begins by setting Fontane's work in the context of nineteenth-century Europe in general, and Germany in particular, which was struggling with its late modernization. The increasing materialism of modern industrial society found its literary correlative in the rise of prose fiction to supplant poetry as the predominant literary mode. Fontane's career reflects this development: beginning as a writer of ballads and balladesque novels, he gradually developed into a realistic novelist capable of treating the most complex social relations. Professor Bance argues that Fontane's Åuvre can be seen in terms of a tension between a desire to present the facts and a desire to assert some transcendent poetic truth.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Poesie and Prosa

Ellernklipp and Effi Briedt

Irrungen, Wirrungen

Unwiederbringlich

Frau Jenny Treibel

Die Poggenpuhls

Der Stechlin

Notes

Select bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.