Alfred D?blin (1878-1957) was one of the great German-Jewish writers of the 20th century, a major figure in the German avant-garde before the First World War and a leading intellectual during the Weimar Republic. D?blin greatly influenced the history of the German novel: his best-known work, the best-selling 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, has frequently been compared in its use of internal monologue and literary montage to James Joyce's Ulysses and John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer . D?blin's oeuvre is by no means limited to novels, but in this genre, he offered a surprising variety of narrative techniques, themes, structures, and outlooks. D?blin's impact on German writers after the Second World War was considerable: G?nter Grass, for example, acknowledged him as "my teacher." And yet, while Alexanderplatz continues to fascinate the reading public, it has overshadowed the rest of D?blin's immense oeuvre. This volume of carefully focused essays seeks to do justice to such important texts as D?blin's early stories, his numerous other novels, his political, philosophical, medical, autobiographical, and religious essays, his experimental plays, and his writings on the new media of cinema and radio.Contributors: Heidi Thomann Tewarson, David Dollenmayer, Neil H. Donahue, Roland Dollinger, Veronika Fuechtner, Gabriele Sander, Erich Kleinschmidt, Wulf Koepke, Helmut F. Pfanner, Helmuth Kiesel, Klaus M?ller-Salget, Christoph Bartscherer, Wolfgang D?sing. Roland Dollinger is associate professor of German at Sarah Lawrence College; Wulf Koepke is professor emeritus of German at Texas A&M University; Heidi Thomann Tewarson is professor of German at Oberlin College.
Author(s): Roland Dollinger, Wulf Koepke, Heidi Thomann Tewarson
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 326
CONTENTS
......Page 6
FOREWORD
......Page 8
ABBREVIATIONS AND TRANSLATIONS OF TITLES
......Page 10
WORKS BY ALFRED DÖBLIN
......Page 14
INTRODUCTION
......Page 18
Döblin’s Early Collection of Stories, Die Ermordung einer Butterblume:
Toward a Modernist Aesthetic......Page 40
The Advent of Döblinism: Die drei Sprünge des Wang-lun and Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine......Page 72
The Fall of Wallenstein, or the Collapse of Narration? The Paradox of
Epic Intensity in Döblin’s Wallenstein......Page 92
Technology and Nature: From Döblin’s Berge Meere und Giganten
to a Philosophy of Nature......Page 110
“Arzt und Dichter”: Döblin’s Medical, Psychiatric, and Psychoanalytical Work
......Page 128
Döblin’s Berlin: The Story of Franz Biberkopf......Page 158
Döblin’s Engagement with the New Media: Film, Radio and Photography......Page 178
Döblin’s Political Writings during the Weimar Republic......Page 200
Döblin, the Critic of Western Civilization: The Amazon Trilogy......Page 210
Döblin’s November 1918......Page 232
Döblin and Judaism......Page 250
Robinson the Castaway: Döblin’s Christian Faith as Reflected in His Autobiography Schicksalsreise and His Religious Dialogues Der unsterbliche Mensch
and Der Kampf mit dem Engel......Page 264
The Tragedy of Truth: Döblin’s Novel
Hamlet oder Die lange Nacht nimmt ein Ende......Page 288
BIBLIOGRAPHY
......Page 308
NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS
......Page 316
INDEX
......Page 318
