The Idea of World Literature


Book Description

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe introduced the concept of Weltliteratur in 1827 to describe the growing availability of texts from other nations. Although the term "World Literature" is widely used today, there is little agreement on what it means and even less awareness of its evolution. In this wide-ranging work, John Pizer traces the concept of Weltliteratur in Germany beginning with Goethe and continuing through Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels to the present as he explores its importation into the United States in the 1830s and the teaching of World Literature in U.S. classrooms since the early twentieth century. Pizer demonstrates the concept's ongoing viability through an in-depth reading of the contemporary Syrian-German transnational novelist Rafik Schami. He also provides a clear methodology for World Literature courses in the twenty-first century. Pizer argues persuasively that Weltliteratur can provide cohesion to the study of World Literature today. In his view, traditional "World Lit" classes are limited by their focus on the universal elements of literature. A course based on Weltliteratur, however, promotes a more thorough understanding of literature as a dialectic between the universal and the particular. In a practical guide to teaching World Literature by employing Goethe's paradigm, he explains how to help students navigate between the extremes of homogenization on the one hand and exoticism on the other, learning both what cultures share and what distinguishes them. Everyone who teaches World Literature will want to read this stimulating book. In addition, anyone interested in the development of the concept from its German roots to its American fruition will find The Idea of World Literature immensely rewarding.




German Film & Literature


Book Description

First Published in 1986. This collection of essays by an international team of scholars is the first sustained investigation in any language of the historical interactions between German film and literature. It is a book about adaptations and transformations, about why filmmakers adapt certain material at certain times. The major impetus at work is the desire to expand the field of adaptation study to include sociological, theoretical and historical dimensions, and to bring a livelier regard for intertextuality to the studies of German film and literature. It is concerned with the ways in which filmmakers in Germany- from Pabst and von Sternberg to Fassbinder, Herzog and Sanders-Brahms- have engaged and been engaged by, literary history.




Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA): Abt. "Das Kapital" und Vorarbeiten


Book Description

Text in English, French, and German. some volumes have cover title: Marx/Engels Gesamtausgabe. some volumes published by: Berlin : Akademie Verlag. Statements of responsibility vary, e.g., Herausgegeben vom Institut fèur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, Berlin, und vom Institut fèur Marxismus-Leninismus beim Zentralkomitee der Kommunistischen Partei der Sowjetunion; Herausgegeben von der Internationalen Marx-Engels-Stiftung, Amsterdam. Includes reissues of some volumes Errata slip inserted in some volumes Includes bibliographies and indexes.




On Bathos


Book Description

While the sublime has garnered a great deal of critical attention over the past twenty years, its counterpart, bathos, has yet to receive any extended treatment. Generally understood as an inadvertent descent to the low, vulgar, and ludicrous in writing or art, the term "bathos" was popularised by Pope, who used it to satirise his contemporaries. Ironically likening bathos to the depths of profundity, Pope lauded his peers for their influential writings whilst openly deriding their absurd misuses of figure and rhetorical device. Pope's method proved prophetic: today, artists regularly celebrate and incorporate bathetic practice. This essay collection considers how bathos has become so central to literature, fine art, and music. The innovative and diverse contributions assess the consequences of this endemic inversion of aesthetic standards, and consider where artistic production might go after hitting, and so comfortably inhabiting, rock bottom.




Karl Marx, Frederick Engels on Literature and Art


Book Description

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher and revolutionary socialist, who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) was a German industrialist, social scientist, political theorist and father of communist theory, alongside Karl Marx. Compiled by Institute of Marxism-Leninism, this Soviet-era, English language edition includes "the most important works of Marx and Engels."




Nineteenth-century German Writers, 1841-1900


Book Description

Contains alphabetically arranged entries that provide career biographies of forty-two German writers active between 1841 and 1900; each with a list of principal works and a bibliography. Includes a cumulative index.







On Literature and Art


Book Description

A selection of writings by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.




Reflections on Marxism


Book Description