literary
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
texts written in the
German language
German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is als ...
. This includes literature written in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
,
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein (), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (german: link=no, Fürstentum Liechtenstein), is a German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is a semi-constitutional monarch ...
,
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
,
South Tyrol
it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol
, settlement_type = Autonomous area, Autonomous Provinces of Italy, province
, image_skyline = ...
in Italy and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there are some currents of literature influenced to a greater or lesser degree by
dialects
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
written in Germany, stretching from the
Carolingian dynasty
The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippin ...
; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
(1517) being the last possible cut-off point. The Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century; the most famous works are the ''
Hildebrandslied
The ''Hildebrandslied'' (; ''Lay'' or ''Song of Hildebrand'') is a heroic lay written in Old High German alliterative verse. It is the earliest poetic text in German, and it tells of the tragic encounter in battle between a father (Hildebrand) ...
'' and a heroic epic known as the ''
Heliand
The ''Heliand'' () is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means ''saviour'' in Old Saxon (cf. German and Dutch ''Heiland'' meaning "saviour"), and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the ...
''.
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hig ...
starts in the 12th century; the key works include '' The Ring'' (ca. 1410) and the poems of
Oswald von Wolkenstein
Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376 or 1377 in Pfalzen – August 2, 1445, in Meran) was a poet, composer and diplomat. In his diplomatic capacity, he traveled through much of Europe to as far as Georgia (as recounted in "Durch Barbarei, Arabia").
He w ...
and
Johannes von Tepl
Johannes von Tepl (c. 1350 – c. 1415), also known as Johannes von Saaz ( cs, Jan ze Žatce), was a Bohemian writer of the German language, one of the earliest known writers of prose in Early New High German (or late Middle German—dep ...
. The Baroque period (1600 to 1720) was one of the most fertile times in German literature. Modern literature in German begins with the authors of
the Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
(such as Herder). The Sensibility movement of the 1750s–1770s ended with
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
's best-selling ''
The Sorrows of Young Werther
''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (; german: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a 1774 epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, which appeared as a revised edition in 1787. It was one of the main novels in the '' Sturm und Drang'' period in Ge ...
'' (1774). The
Sturm und Drang
''Sturm und Drang'' (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto- Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particul ...
and
Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism (german: Weimarer Klassik) was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after ...
movements were led by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...
and Friedrich Schiller. German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Biedermeier refers to the literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 (
Vienna Congress
The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...
), the end of the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
Nazi regime
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, some authors went into exile (''Exilliteratur'') and others submitted to censorship ("internal emigration", ''Innere Emigration''). The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to German language authors fourteen times (as of 2020), or the second most often, tying with French language authors, after English language authors (with 32 laureates) with winners including
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
,
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include ''Demian'', '' Steppenwolf'', '' Siddhartha'', and ''The Glass Bead Game'', each of which explores an individual's ...
Peter Handke
Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...
.
Periodization
Periodization
In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis.Adam Rabinowitz. It's about time: historical periodization and Linked Ancie ...
is not an
exact science
The exact sciences, sometimes called the exact mathematical sciences, are those sciences "which admit of absolute precision in their results"; especially the mathematical sciences. Examples of the exact sciences are mathematics, optics, astron ...
but the following list contains movements or time periods typically used in discussing German literature. It seems worth noting that the periods of
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
German literature span two or three centuries, those of early modern German literature span one century, and those of modern German literature each span one or two decades. The closer one nears the present, the more debated the periodizations become.
* Medieval German literature
**
Old High German literature
Old High German literature refers to literature written in Old High German, from the earliest texts in the 8th century to the middle of the 11th century.
Scope
The term "literature" as it is used in connection with Old High German has a broader sc ...
(750–1050)
**
Middle High German literature
Middle High German literature refers to literature written in German between the middle of the 11th century and the middle of the 14th. In the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year " ...
(1050–1350)
** Late medieval / Renaissance (1350–1500)
* Early Modern German literature (see
Early Modern literature
The history of literature of the early modern period ( 16th, 17th and partly 18th century literature), or early modern literature, succeeds Medieval literature, and in Europe in particular Renaissance literature.
In Europe, the Early Modern p ...
)
**
Humanism
Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and Agency (philosophy), agency of Human, human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical in ...
and
Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...
Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism (german: Weimarer Klassik) was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after ...
(1788–1805) or (1788–1832), depending on Schiller's (1805) or Goethe's (1832) death
*** German Romanticism (1790s–1880s)
*** Biedermeier (1815–1848)
***
Young Germany
Young Germany (german: Junges Deutschland) was a group of German writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth ideology, similar to those that had swept France, Ireland, the United States and Italy. Its main proponents ...
(1830–1850)
*** Poetic
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
(1848–1890)
*** Naturalism (1880–1900)
** 20th-century German literature
*** 1900–1933
****
Fin de siècle
() is a French term meaning "end of century,” a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom "turn of the century" and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without context, ...
(c. 1900)
****
Symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
Arts
* Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism
** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
** Russian sym ...
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...
(1914–1924)
****
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, wh ...
(''Neue Sachlichkeit'')
*** Well Known Writers of the 20th Century
*** 1933–1945
**** National Socialist literature
**** Exile literature
*** 1945–1989
**** By country
***** Federal Republic of Germany
***** German Democratic Republic
***** Austria
***** Switzerland
***** Other
**** By thematic or group
***** Post-war literature (1945–1967)
*****
Group 47
Gruppe 47 (Group 47) was a group of participants in German writers' meetings, invited by Hans Werner Richter between 1947 and 1967. The meetings served the dual goals of literary criticism as well as the promotion of young, unknown authors. In a de ...
*****
Holocaust literature
The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There are a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been repre ...
** Contemporary German literature (1989–)
Middle Ages
Medieval German literature refers to
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
written in Germany, stretching from the
Carolingian dynasty
The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippin ...
; various dates have been given for the end of the German literary Middle Ages, the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
(1517) being the last possible cut-off point.
Old High German
The Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century, though the boundary to Early Middle High German (second half of the 11th century) is not clear-cut.
The most famous work in OHG is the ''
Hildebrandslied
The ''Hildebrandslied'' (; ''Lay'' or ''Song of Hildebrand'') is a heroic lay written in Old High German alliterative verse. It is the earliest poetic text in German, and it tells of the tragic encounter in battle between a father (Hildebrand) ...
'', a short piece of Germanic alliterative heroic verse which besides the ''
Muspilli
''Muspilli'' is an Old High German poem known in incomplete form (103 lines) from a ninth-century Bavarian manuscript. Its subject is the fate of the soul immediately after death and at the Last Judgment. Many aspects of the interpretation of the ...
'' is the sole survivor of what must have been a vast oral tradition. Another important work, in the northern dialect of Old Saxon, is a life of Christ in the style of a heroic epic known as the ''
Heliand
The ''Heliand'' () is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means ''saviour'' in Old Saxon (cf. German and Dutch ''Heiland'' meaning "saviour"), and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the ...
''.
Middle High German
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hig ...
proper runs from the beginning of the 12th century, and in the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the ''mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit'' (1170–1230). This was the period of the blossoming of MHG lyric poetry, particularly ''
Minnesang
(; "love song") was a tradition of lyric- and song-writing in Germany and Austria that flourished in the Middle High German period. This period of medieval German literature began in the 12th century and continued into the 14th. People who w ...
'' (the German variety of the originally French tradition of courtly love). One of the most important of these poets was
Walther von der Vogelweide
Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170c. 1230) was a Minnesänger who composed and performed love-songs and political songs (" Sprüche") in Middle High German. Walther has been described as the greatest German lyrical poet before Goethe; his hundr ...
. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. These are written in rhyming couplets, and again draw on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes, many of them relating
Arthurian
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain.
In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...
material, for example, ''
Parzival
''Parzival'' is a medieval romance by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Parzival (Percival in English) and his long ...
'' by
Wolfram von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach (; – ) was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.
Life
Little is known of Wolfram's life. There ar ...
. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court. These high medieval heroic epics are written in rhymed strophes, not the alliterative verse of Germanic prehistory (for example, the ''
Nibelungenlied
The ( gmh, Der Nibelunge liet or ), translated as ''The Song of the Nibelungs'', is an epic poem written around 1200 in Middle High German. Its anonymous poet was likely from the region of Passau. The is based on an oral tradition of Germani ...
'').
The Middle High German period is conventionally taken to end in 1350, while the Early New High German is taken to begin with the German Renaissance, after the invention of movable type in the mid-15th century. Therefore, the literature of the late 14th and the early 15th century falls, as it were, in the cracks between Middle and New High German, and can be classified as either. Works of this transitional period include '' The Ring'' (c. 1410), the poems of
Oswald von Wolkenstein
Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376 or 1377 in Pfalzen – August 2, 1445, in Meran) was a poet, composer and diplomat. In his diplomatic capacity, he traveled through much of Europe to as far as Georgia (as recounted in "Durch Barbarei, Arabia").
He w ...
and
Johannes von Tepl
Johannes von Tepl (c. 1350 – c. 1415), also known as Johannes von Saaz ( cs, Jan ze Žatce), was a Bohemian writer of the German language, one of the earliest known writers of prose in Early New High German (or late Middle German—dep ...
, the German versions of ''
Pontus and Sidonia
''Pontus and Sidonia'' (French: ''Ponthus et la belle Sidonie'' or just ''Ponthus et Sidoine'') is a medieval prose romance, originally composed in French in ca. 1400, possibly by Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry (d. 1391) or by another member of t ...
Ship of Fools
The ship of fools is an allegory, originating from Book VI of Plato's ''Republic'', about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The allegory is intended to represent the problems of governance prevailing in a political system not based on expert kn ...
'', 1494), among others. The ''Volksbuch'' ( chapbook) tradition which would flourish in the 16th century also finds its origin in the second half of the 15th century.
Thomas Murner
Thomas Murner, OFM (24 December 1475c. 1537) was an Alsatian satirist, poet and translator.
He was born at Oberehnheim ( Obernai) near Strasbourg. In 1490 he entered the Franciscan order, and in 1495 began travelling, studying and then teaching ...
(1475–1537)
*
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
The Baroque period (1600 to 1720) was one of the most fertile times in German literature. Many writers reflected the horrible experiences of the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle ...
, in
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
and
prose
Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the ...
. Grimmelshausen's adventures of the young and naïve Simplicissimus, in the eponymous book ''
Simplicius Simplicissimus
''Simplicius Simplicissimus'' (german: link=no, Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch) is a picaresque novel of the lower Baroque style, written in 1668 by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and probably published the same year (althou ...
'', became the most famous novel of the Baroque period.
Martin Opitz
Martin Opitz von Boberfeld (23 December 1597 – 20 August 1639) was a German poet, regarded as the greatest of that nation during his lifetime.
Biography
Opitz was born in Bunzlau (Bolesławiec) in Lower Silesia, in the Principality of ...
established rules for the "purity" of language, style, verse and rhyme.
Andreas Gryphius
Andreas Gryphius (german: Andreas Greif; 2 October 161616 July 1664) was a German poet and playwright. With his eloquent sonnets, which contains "The Suffering, Frailty of Life and the World", he is considered one of the most important Baroque ...
and
Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein
Daniel Casper (25 January 1635 in Nimptsch, Niederschlesien – 28 April 1683 in Breslau, Niederschlesien), also spelled Daniel Caspar, and referred to from 1670 as Daniel Casper von Lohenstein, was a Baroque Silesian playwright, lawyer, diplom ...
wrote German language
tragedies
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
, or ''Trauerspiele'', often on Classical themes and frequently quite violent. Erotic, religious and
occasional poetry
Occasional poetry is poetry composed for a particular occasion. In the history of literature, it is often studied in connection with orality, performance, and patronage.
Term
As a term of literary criticism, "occasional poetry" describes the wo ...
appeared in both German and Latin.
Sibylle Ursula von Braunschweig-Lüneburg
Sibylle Ursula von Braunschweig-Lüneburg, also known as Sibylle von Braunschweig-Luneburg and Sibylle of Brunswick-Luneburg, (4 February 1629 – 12 December 1671), a member of the House of Welf, was a daughter of Duke Augustus II of Brunswick-L ...
wrote part of a novel, ''Die Durchlauchtige Syrerin Aramena'' (''Aramena, the noble Syrian lady''), which when complete would be the most famous courtly novel in German Baroque literature; it was finished by her brother Anton Ulrich and edited by
Sigmund von Birken
Sigmund von Birken (25 April 1626 – 12 June 1681) was a German poet of the Baroque. He was born in Wildstein, near Eger, and died in Nuremberg, aged 55.
His pupil, Sibylle Ursula von Braunschweig-Lüneburg
Sibylle Ursula von Braunschweig-Lü ...
.
18th century
The Enlightenment
Sensibility
''Empfindsamkeit'' / Sensibility (1750s–1770s)
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (; 2 July 1724 – 14 March 1803) was a German poet. His best known work is the epic poem ''Der Messias'' ("The Messiah"). One of his major contributions to German literature was to open it up to exploration outside ...
(1724–1803),
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (4 July 171513 December 1769) was a German poet, one of the forerunners of the golden age of German literature that was ushered in by Lessing.
Biography
Gellert was born at Hainichen in Saxony, at the foot of th ...
(1715–1769), Sophie de La Roche (1730–1807). The period culminates and ends in
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
's best-selling ''
Die Leiden des jungen Werther
''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (; german: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a 1774 epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, which appeared as a revised edition in 1787. It was one of the main novels in the '' Sturm und Drang'' period in G ...
'' (1774).
Sturm und Drang
''Sturm und Drang'' (the conventional translation is "Storm and Stress"; a more literal translation, however, might be ''storm and urge'', ''storm and longing'', or ''storm and impulse'') is the name of a movement in German literature and
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in response to the confines of rationalism imposed by
the Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
and associated aesthetic movements. The philosopher
Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann (; ; 27 August 1730 – 21 June 1788) was a German Lutheran philosopher from Königsberg known as "the Wizard of the North" who was one of the leader figures of post-Kantian philosophy. His work was used by his student J. G. ...
is considered to be the ideologue of ''Sturm und Drang'', and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...
was a notable proponent of the movement, though he and Friedrich Schiller ended their period of association with it, initiating what would become
Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism (german: Weimarer Klassik) was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after ...
.
19th century
German Classicism
Weimar Classicism (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
“''Weimarer Klassik''” and “''Weimarer Klassizismus''”) is a cultural and
literary movement
Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing ...
of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, and its central ideas were originally propounded by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...
German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. German Romanticism developed relatively late compared to its
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
counterpart, coinciding in its early years with the movement known as German Classicism or
Weimar Classicism
Weimar Classicism (german: Weimarer Klassik) was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after ...
, which it opposed. In contrast to the seriousness of English Romanticism, the German variety is notable for valuing humor and wit as well as beauty. The early German romantics tried to create a new synthesis of art, philosophy, and science, looking to the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
as a simpler, more integrated period. As time went on, however, they became increasingly aware of the tenuousness of the unity they were seeking. Later German Romanticism emphasized the tension between the everyday world and the seemingly irrational and supernatural projections of creative genius. Heinrich Heine in particular criticized the tendency of the early romantics to look to the medieval past for a model of unity in art and society.
* G.W.F. Hegel
* E.T.A. Hoffmann
*
Friedrich Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (, ; ; 20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of German Romanticism. Part ...
*
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays '' Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'', ''The Broken Jug'', ''Amph ...
Friedrich Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich (after 1814: von) Schlegel (; ; 10 March 1772 – 12 January 1829) was a German poet, literary critic, philosopher, philologist, and Indologist. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was one of the main figure ...
*
August Wilhelm Schlegel
August Wilhelm (after 1812: von) Schlegel (; 8 September 176712 May 1845), usually cited as August Schlegel, was a German poet, translator and critic, and with his brother Friedrich Schlegel the leading influence within Jena Romanticism. His trans ...
Ludwig Tieck
Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Early life
Tieck was born in B ...
*
Ludwig Uhland
Johann Ludwig Uhland (26 April 1787 – 13 November 1862) was a German poet, philologist and literary historian.
Biography
He was born in Tübingen, Württemberg, and studied jurisprudence at the university there, but also took an interest in ...
Joseph von Eichendorff
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (10 March 178826 November 1857) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism.Cf. J. A. Cuddon: ' ...
Biedermeier and Vormärz
Biedermeier refers to work in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 (
Vienna Congress
The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...
), the end of the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions and contrasts with the Romantic era which preceded it. Typical Biedermeier poets are
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
Baroness Anna Elisabeth Franziska Adolphine Wilhelmine Louise Maria von Droste zu Hülshoff, known as Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (; 10 January 179724 May 1848), was a 19th-century German poet, novelist, and composer of Classical music. She was ...
,
Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso (; 30 January 178121 August 1838) was a German poet and botanist, author of ''Peter Schlemihl'', a famous story about a man who sold his shadow. He was commonly known in French as Adelbert de Chamisso (or Chamissot) de Bonc ...
,
Eduard Mörike
Eduard Friedrich Mörike (8 September 18044 June 1875) was a German Lutheran pastor who was also a Romantic poet and writer of novellas and novels. Many of his poems were set to music and became established folk songs, while others were used by ...
, and
Wilhelm Müller
Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Müller (7 October 1794 – 30 September 1827) was a German lyric poet, best known as the author of ''Die schöne Müllerin'' (1823) and ''Winterreise'' (1828), which Franz Schubert later set to music as song cycles.
Life
...
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wo ...
respectively.
Young Germany
Young Germany (german: Junges Deutschland) was a group of German writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth ideology, similar to those that had swept France, Ireland, the United States and Italy. Its main proponents ...
(''Junges Deutschland'') was a loose group of
Vormärz
' (; English: ''pre-March'') was a period in the history of Germany preceding the 1848 March Revolution in the states of the German Confederation. The beginning of the period is less well-defined. Some place the starting point directly after the ...
writers which existed from about 1830 to 1850. It was essentially a youth movement (similar to those that had swept
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
and
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
and originated in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
). Its main proponents were
Karl Gutzkow
Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow ( in Berlin – in Sachsenhausen) was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.
Life
Gutzkow was born of an extremely poor family, not proletarian, but of the lowest and most meni ...
,
Heinrich Laube
Heinrich Laube (18 September 1806 – 1 August 1884), German dramatist, novelist and theatre-director, was born at Sprottau in Prussian Silesia.
Life
He studied theology at Halle and Breslau (1826–1829), and settled in Leipzig in 1832. Here he ...
,
Theodor Mundt
200px, Theodor Mundt
Theodor Mundt (September 19, 1808 – November 30, 1861) was a German critic and novelist. He was a member of the Young Germany group of German writers.
Biography
Born at Potsdam, Mundt studied philology and philosophy at Ber ...
and
Ludolf Wienbarg
Christian Ludolf Wienbarg (25 December 1802 – 2 January 1872) was a German journalist and literary critic, one of the founders of the ''Young Germany'' movement during the Vormärz period.
Biography
Wienbarg was born in Altona, as the son of ...
Ludwig Börne
Karl Ludwig Börne (born "Loeb Baruch"; 6 May 1786 – 12 February 1837) was a German-Jewish political writer and satirist, who is considered part of the Young Germany movement.
Early life
Karl Ludwig Börne was born Loeb Baruch on 6 May 178 ...
and
Georg Büchner
Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose, considered part of the Young Germany movement. He was also a revolutionary and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büch ...
were also considered part of the movement. The wider circle included
Willibald Alexis
Willibald Alexis, the pseudonym of Georg Wilhelm Heinrich Häring (29 June 179816 December 1871), was a German historical novelist, considered part of the Young Germany movement.
Life
Alexis was born in Breslau, Silesia. His father, who cam ...
,
Adolf Glassbrenner
Adolf Glassbrenner (27 March 1810, in Berlin25 September 1876) was a German humorist and satirist, considered part of the Young Germany Movement.
Glassbrenner was born in Berlin. After working for a short time in a merchant's office, he turned to ...
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
(1848–1890):
Theodor Fontane
Theodor Fontane (; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist author. He published the first of his novels, for which he is best known toda ...
Gottfried Keller
Gottfried Keller (19 July 1819 – 15 July 1890) was a Swiss poet and writer of German literature. Best known for his novel '' Green Henry'' (German: ''Der grüne Heinrich'') and his cycle of novellas called ''The People from Seldwyla'' (''Die Leu ...
,
Wilhelm Raabe
Wilhelm Raabe (; September 8, 1831November 15, 1910) was a German novelist. His early works were published under the pseudonym of Jakob Corvinus.
Biography
He was born in Eschershausen (then in the Duchy of Brunswick, now in the Holzminden Distr ...
,
Adalbert Stifter
Adalbert Stifter (; 23 October 1805 – 28 January 1868) was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while ...
,
Theodor Storm
Hans Theodor Woldsen Storm (; 14 September 18174 July 1888), commonly known as Theodor Storm, was a German writer. He is considered to be one of the most important figures of German realism.
Life
Storm was born in the small town of Husum, on the ...
Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He rece ...
20th century
1900 to 1933
*
Fin de siècle
() is a French term meaning "end of century,” a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom "turn of the century" and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without context, ...
Symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
Arts
* Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism
** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
** Russian sym ...
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...
(1914–1924)
*
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, wh ...
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
. A Kafka novel, ''
The Trial
''The Trial'' (german: Der Process, link=no, previously , and ) is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and p ...
'', was ranked #3 on
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
The 100 Books of the Century (french: Les cent livres du siècle) is a list of the one hundred most memorable books of the 20th century, according to a poll performed during the spring of 1999 by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper ''L ...
. Kafka's iconic writing style that captures themes of bureaucracy and existentialism resulted in the coining of the term “Kafkaesque.” Kafka's writing allowed a peek into his melancholic life, one where he felt isolated from all human beings, one of his inspirations for writing.
Nazi Germany
*National Socialist literature: see
Blut und Boden
Atrocity is a German heavy metal band from Ludwigsburg that formed in 1985.
History
First started in 1985 as Instigators and playing grindcore, Atrocity arose as a death metal band with their debut EP, ''Blue Blood'', in 1989, followed soon b ...
,
Nazi propaganda
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...
Under the Nazi regime, some authors went into exile (''
Exilliteratur
German ''Exilliteratur'' (, ''exile literature'') is the name for works of German literature written in the German diaspora by refugee authors who fled from Nazi Germany, Nazi Austria, and the occupied territories between 1933 and 1945. These dis ...
'') and others submitted to censorship ("
inner emigration Inner emigration (german: Innere Emigration, french: émigration intérieure) is a concept of an individual or social group who feels a sense of alienation from their country, its government, and its culture. This can be due to the inner emigrants' ...
", ''Innere Emigration'')
*''Inner Emigration'':
Gottfried Benn
Gottfried Benn (2 May 1886 – 7 July 1956) was a German poet, essayist, and physician. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1951.
Biography and work
Family and beginnings
Go ...
Hans Fallada
Hans Fallada (; born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen; 21 July 18935 February 1947) was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include '' Little Man, What Now?'' (1932) and ''Every Man Dies Alone'' ...
,
Werner Finck
Werner Finck (2 May 1902 – 31 July 1978) was a German ''Kabarett'' comedian, actor and author. Not politically motivated by his own admission but just a "convinced individualist", he became one of Germany's leading cabaret artists under the co ...
Ricarda Huch
Ricarda Huch (; 18 July 1864 – 17 November 1947) was a pioneering German intellectual. Trained as an historian, and the author of many works of European history, she also wrote novels, poems, and a play. Asteroid 879 Ricarda is named in her hon ...
,
Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir '' Storm of Steel''.
The son of a successful businessman and ...
Oskar Loerke
Oskar Loerke (13 March 1884, Jungen – 24 February 1941, Berlin) was a German poet, prose writer, literary critic and essayist. Loerke was a prominent representative of Expressionism and magic realism in Germany.
Life and career
Loerke was ...
Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen
Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen (11 August 1884 – February 1945) was a German author. His best-known work is '' Diary of a Man in Despair'', a journal in which he expressed his passionate opposition to Adolf Hitler and Nazism. He was eve ...
,
Richard Riemerschmid
Richard Riemerschmid (20 June 1868 – 13 April 1957) was a German architect, painter, designer and city planner from Munich. He was a major figure in ''Jugendstil'', the German form of Art Nouveau, and a founder of architecture in the s ...
,
Reinhold Schneider
Reinhold Schneider (Baden-Baden, May 13, 1903 – Freiburg im Breisgau, April 6, 1958) was a German poet who also wrote novels. Initially his works were less religious, but later his poetry had a Christian and specifically Catholic influence ...
,
Frank Thiess
Frank Thiess (13 March 1890 – 22 December 1977) was a German writer.
Biography
Born in Eluisenstein (now Ogre Municipality), Kreis Riga, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire (now Latvia), Thiess grew up in Berlin. He worked as a journalist f ...
,
Carl von Ossietzky
Carl von Ossietzky (; 3 October 1889 – 4 May 1938) was a German journalist and pacifist. He was the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in exposing the clandestine German re-armament.
As editor-in-chief of the magazine ''Die ...
Ernst Bloch
Ernst Simon Bloch (; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinkers ...
Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch (; 1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an Austrian writer, best known for two major works of modernist fiction: '' The Sleepwalkers'' (''Die Schlafwandler,'' 1930–32) and '' The Death of Virgil'' (''Der Tod des Vergil,'' 1945).
...
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
Feuchtwanger's J ...
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include ''Demian'', '' Steppenwolf'', '' Siddhartha'', and ''The Glass Bead Game'', each of which explores an individual's ...
,
Heinrich Eduard Jacob
Heinrich Eduard Jacob (7 October 1889 – 25 October 1967) was a German and American journalist and author. Born to a Jewish family in Berlin and raised partly in Vienna, Jacob worked for two decades as a journalist and biographer before the ri ...
Siegfried Kracauer
Siegfried Kracauer (; ; February 8, 1889 – November 26, 1966) was a German writer, journalist, sociologist, cultural critic, and film theorist. He has sometimes been associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He is notable for a ...
,
Emil Ludwig
Emil Ludwig (25 January 1881 – 17 September 1948) was a German-Swiss author, known for his biographies and study of historical "greats."
Biography
Emil Ludwig (originally named Emil Cohn) was born in Breslau, now part of Poland, on 25 Ja ...
,
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann (; 27 March 1871 – 11 March 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German author known for his socio-political novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the Prussian Academy ...
,
Klaus Mann
Klaus Heinrich Thomas Mann (18 November 1906 – 21 May 1949) was a German writer and dissident. He was the son of Thomas Mann, a nephew of Heinrich Mann and brother of Erika Mann, with whom he maintained a lifelong close relationship, and Golo ...
,
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
Rudolf Olden
Rudolf Olden (January 14, 1885 in Stettin – September 18, 1940) was a German lawyer and journalist. In the Weimar Republic, Weimar period he was a well-known voice in the political debate, a vocal opponent of the Nazis, a fierce advocate of ...
Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque (, ; born Erich Paul Remark; 22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970) was a German-born novelist. His landmark novel ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1928), based on his experience in the Imperial German Army during World ...
Alice Rühle-Gerstel
Alice Rühle-Gerstel (24 March 1894 – 24 June 1943) was a German-Jewish writer, feminist, and psychologist.
Biography
Alice Gerstel attended a girls' boarding school in Dresden, then the lyceum and the German-language teacher-training college ...
,
Otto Rühle
Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle (23 October 1874 – 24 June 1943) was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First and Second World Wars as well as a council communist theorist.
Early years
Otto was born in Großschirma, Saxony on 23 O ...
Anna Seghers
Anna Seghers (; born ''Anna Reiling,'' 19 November 1900 – 1 June 1983), is the pseudonym of a German writer notable for exploring and depicting the moral experience of the Second World War. Born into a Jewish family and married to a Hungarian ...
,
B. Traven
B. Traven (; Bruno Traven in some accounts) was the pen name of a novelist, presumed to be German, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. One certainty about Traven's life is ...
,
Bodo Uhse
Bodo Uhse (12 March 1904 in Rastatt, Grand Duchy of Baden – 2 July 1963 in Berlin) was a German writer, journalist and political activist. He was recognised as one of the most prominent authors in East Germany.
Early years
Uhse came from a ...
,
Franz Werfel
Franz Viktor Werfel (; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian- Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of ''The For ...
,
Arnold Zweig
Arnold Zweig (10 November 1887 – 26 November 1968) was a German writer, pacifist and socialist.
He is best known for his six-part cycle on World War I.
Life and work
Zweig was born in Glogau, Prussian Silesia (now Głogów, Poland), the son ...
Joseph Roth
Moses Joseph Roth (2 September 1894 – 27 May 1939) was an Austrian journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga '' Radetzky March'' (1932), about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life '' Job'' ...
.
1945 to 1989
* Post-war literature of
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
(1945–1967):
Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Theodor Böll (; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll is a recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). ...
Group 47
Gruppe 47 (Group 47) was a group of participants in German writers' meetings, invited by Hans Werner Richter between 1947 and 1967. The meetings served the dual goals of literary criticism as well as the promotion of young, unknown authors. In a de ...
;
Holocaust literature
The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There are a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been repre ...
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
Wolf Biermann
Karl Wolf Biermann (; born 15 November 1936) is a German singer-songwriter, poet, and former East German dissident. He is perhaps best known for the 1968 song "Ermutigung" and his expatriation from East Germany in 1976.
Early life
Biermann was b ...
Günter Kunert
Günter Kunert (; 6 March 1929 – 21 September 2019) was a German writer. Based in East Berlin, he published poetry from 1947, supported by Bertold Brecht. After he had signed a petition against the deprivation of the citizenship of Wolf Bierman ...
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller (; 9 January 1929 – 30 December 1995) was a German (formerly East German) dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. His "enigmatic, fragmentary pieces" are a significant contribution to postmodern drama and postdr ...
,
Anna Seghers
Anna Seghers (; born ''Anna Reiling,'' 19 November 1900 – 1 June 1983), is the pseudonym of a German writer notable for exploring and depicting the moral experience of the Second World War. Born into a Jewish family and married to a Hungarian ...
,
Christa Wolf
Christa Wolf (; née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist. Barbara Gard ...
* Postwar literature of Switzerland and Austria:
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann (25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author.
Biography
Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of Olga (née Haas) and Matthias Bachmann, a schoolteacher. Her f ...
,
Thomas Bernhard
Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilizat ...
,
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (; 5 January 1921 – 14 December 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-g ...
,
Max Frisch
Max Rudolf Frisch (; 15 May 1911 – 4 April 1991) was a Swiss playwright and novelist. Frisch's works focused on problems of identity, individuality, responsibility, morality, and political commitment. The use of irony is a significant featur ...
,
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek (; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors writing in German today and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-vo ...
,
Peter Handke
Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...
*
Postmodern literature
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narrator, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This sty ...
:
Christian Kracht
Christian Kracht (; born 29 December 1966) is a Swiss author. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Personal life
Kracht was born in Saanen in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. He attended Schule Schloss Salem in Baden-Wür ...
Christoph Ransmayr
Christoph Ransmayr (born 20 March 1954) is an Austrian writer.
Life
Born in Wels, Upper Austria, Ransmayr grew up in Roitham near Gmunden and the Traunsee. From 1972 to 1978 he studied philosophy and ethnology in Vienna. He worked there as ...
Rainald Goetz
Rainald Maria Goetz (born 24 May 1954, in Munich) is a German author, playwright and essayist.
Biography
After studying History and Medicine in Munich and earning a degree (PhD and M.D) in each, he soon concentrated on his writing.
His first p ...
W.G. Sebald
Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...
21st century
Much of contemporary poetry in the German language is published in literary magazines. DAS GEDICHT, for instance, has featured German poetry from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Luxemburg for the last twenty years.
*Science-Fiction, Fantasy:
Andreas Eschbach
Andreas Eschbach (born 15 September 1959, in Ulm) is a German writer, primarily of science fiction. His stories that are not clearly in the SF genre usually feature elements of the fantastic.
Biography
Eschbach studied aerospace engineering ...
Walter Moers
Walter Moers (; born 24 May 1957 in Mönchengladbach) is a German comic creator and author.
Life and work
Moers held odd jobs after leaving school before starting a commercial apprenticeship. He taught himself how to draw, and has been publis ...
Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre
Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...
*
Migrant literature
Migrant literature is either written by migrants or tells the stories of migrants and their migration. It is a topic of growing interest within literary studies since the 1980s. Migrants are people who have left their homes and cultural settings an ...
:
Wladimir Kaminer
Wladimir Kaminer ( rus, Владимир Викторович Каминер, Vladímir Víktorovich Kamíner; born 19 July 1967)http://www.munzinger.de/search/portrait/Wladimir+Kaminer/0/23999.html
Wladimir Kaminer: deutsch-russischer Schrifts ...
Rafik Schami
Rafik is the given name of:
*Rafik Al-Hariri (1944–2005), business tycoon, former Prime Minister of Lebanon
*Rafik Bouderbal (born 1987), French-born Algerian player currently playing for ES Sétif in the Algerian Championnat National
*Rafik Deg ...
Marcel Beyer
Marcel Beyer (born 23 November 1965) is a German writer.
Life
Marcel Beyer was born in Tailfingen, Württemberg, and grew up in Kiel and Neuss. From 1987 to 1991 he studied German language and literature, English studies and literary studies ...
Rolf Dieter Brinkmann
Rolf Dieter Brinkmann (16 April 1940 – 23 April 1975) was a German writer of poems, short stories, a novel, essays, letters, and diaries.
Life and work
Rolf Dieter Brinkmann is considered an important forerunner of the German so-called ''Pop-Li ...
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022) was a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Andreas Thalmayr, Elisabeth Ambras, Linda Quilt and Giorgio Pellizzi. Enzensberger was regarde ...
Ernst Jandl
Ernst Jandl (; 1 August 1925 – 9 June 2000) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator. He became known for his experimental lyric, mainly sound poems (''Sprechgedichte'') in the tradition of concrete and visual poetic forms.
Poetry
Inf ...
,
Thomas Kling
Thomas Kling (June 5, 1957 – April 1, 2005) was a German poet.
Life
Thomas Kling was born in Bingen am Rhein, grew up in Hilden and went to school in Düsseldorf. He studied philology in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Vienna and lived in Finland for ...
Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker (20 December 1924 – 4 June 2021) was an Austrian writer of poetry and prose, audio plays, children's books and dramatic texts. She experimented with language, and was regarded as an avantgarde poet, and as one of the lea ...
,
Durs Grünbein
Durs Grünbein (born 1962) is a German poet and essayist.
Life and career
Durs Grünbein was born and grew up in Dresden. He studied Theater Studies in East Berlin, to which he moved in 1985.
Since the Peaceful Revolution nonviolently toppled ...
Karl Krolow
Karl Krolow (11 March 1915 – 21 June 1999) was a German poet and translator. In 1956 he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize. He was born in Hanover, Germany, and died in Darmstadt, Germany.
Biography
Krolow came from a family of civil servants ...
,
Elke Erb
Elke Erb (born 18 February 1938) is a German author-poet based in Berlin. She has also worked as a literary editor and translator.
Biography Family provenance and early years
Elke Erb was born at Scherbach (today part of Rheinbach) in the hill ...
*Aphorists: Hans Kruppa
*Thriller:
Ingrid Noll
Ingrid Noll (married name Ingrid Gullatz, born 29 September 1935 in Shanghai) is a German thriller writer. She has written several novels, including ''Head Count'' (''Die Häupter meiner Lieben''), ''Hell Hath No Fury'' (''Der Hahn ist tot'') ...
Herta Müller
Herta Müller (; born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Nițchidorf (german: Nitzkydorf, link=no), Timiș County in Romania, her native language is G ...
,
Siegfried Lenz
Siegfried Lenz (; 17 March 19267 October 2014) was a German writer of novels, short stories and essays, as well as dramas for radio and the theatre. In 2000 he received the Goethe Prize on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's bi ...
Rainald Goetz
Rainald Maria Goetz (born 24 May 1954, in Munich) is a German author, playwright and essayist.
Biography
After studying History and Medicine in Munich and earning a degree (PhD and M.D) in each, he soon concentrated on his writing.
His first p ...
Norbert Scheuer
Norbert Scheuer (born December 16, 1951 in Prüm, Westeifel, Rheinland-Palatinate) is a German author.
He earns a living as an IT system programmer for Deutsche Telekom and now lives in Keldenich, Kall, North Rhine-Westphalia in the area where ...
,
Dietmar Dath
Dietmar Dath (born 3 April 1970) is a German author, journalist and translator.
Life
Born in Rheinfelden, Dath grew up in Schopfheim, Germany, and finished high school in Freiburg. After civilian service he studied German studies and physics i ...
,
Christian Kracht
Christian Kracht (; born 29 December 1966) is a Swiss author. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Personal life
Kracht was born in Saanen in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. He attended Schule Schloss Salem in Baden-Wür ...
,
Kathrin Schmidt
Kathrin Schmidt (born 12 March 1958 in Gotha, Bezirk Erfurt), is a German writer. She is known both for her poetry and prose.
Life and work
Kathrin Schmidt grew up in Gotha and from 1964 in Waltershausen. After graduating from high school, sh ...
Robert Menasse
Robert Menasse (born 21 June 1954) is an Austrian writer.
Biography
Menasse was born in Vienna. As an undergraduate, he studied German studies, philosophy and political science in Vienna, Salzburg and Messina. In 1980 he completed his PhD thesi ...
,
Martin Walser
Martin Walser (; born 24 March 1927) is a German writer.
Life
Walser was born in Wasserburg am Bodensee, on Lake Constance. His parents were coal merchants, and they also kept an inn next to the train station in Wasserburg. He described the ...
Washington University
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
, in St. Louis,
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
Jenny Erpenbeck
Jenny Erpenbeck (born 12 March 1967) is a German writer and opera director, recipient of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
Life
Born in East Berlin, Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and th ...
Peter Handke
Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...
,
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek (; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors writing in German today and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-vo ...
,
Daniel Kehlmann
Daniel Kehlmann (; born 13 January 1975) is a German-language novelist and playwright of both Austrian and German nationality.Paul-Henri Campbell,
Walter Abish
Walter Abish (December 24, 1931 – May 28, 2022) was an Austrian-born American author of experimental novels and short stories. He was conferred the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1981 and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship six years later.
...
Nobel Prize laureates
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to German-language authors fourteen times (as of 2020), tying with French-language authors, or the second most often after English-language authors (with 32).
The following writers are from Germany unless stated otherwise:
*1902
Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th centu ...
*1908
Rudolf Christoph Eucken
Rudolf Christoph Eucken (; 5 January 184615 September 1926) was a German philosopher. He received the 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and ...
*1910
Paul Heyse
Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (; 15 March 1830 – 2 April 1914) was a distinguished German writer and translator. A member of two important literary societies, the '' Tunnel über der Spree'' in Berlin and ''Die Krokodile'' in Munich, he wrote n ...
*1912
Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He rece ...
*1919
Carl Spitteler
Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler (24 April 1845 – 29 December 1924) was a Swiss poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1919 "in special appreciation of his epic, ''Olympian Spring''". His work includes both pessimistic and hero ...
(Swiss)
*1929
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
*1946
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include ''Demian'', '' Steppenwolf'', '' Siddhartha'', and ''The Glass Bead Game'', each of which explores an individual's ...
*1966
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs (; 10 December 1891 – 12 May 1970) was a German-Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of he ...
*1972
Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Theodor Böll (; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll is a recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). ...
*1981
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti (; bg, Елиас Канети; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994) was a German-language writer, born in Ruse, Bulgaria to a Sephardic family. They moved to Manchester, England, but his father died in 1912, and his mother took her ...
(Bulgarian, later British)
*1999 Günter Grass
*2004
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek (; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors writing in German today and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-vo ...
(Austrian)
*2009
Herta Müller
Herta Müller (; born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Nițchidorf (german: Nitzkydorf, link=no), Timiș County in Romania, her native language is G ...
(Romanian by birth, later naturalized in West Germany)
*2019
Peter Handke
Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...
German-speaking Europe
This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the German-speaking area (german: Deutscher Sprachraum) in Europe ...
Austrian literature
Austrian literature () is mostly written in German, and is closely connected with German literature.
Origin and background
From the 19th century onward, Austria was the home of novelists and short-story writers, including Adalbert Stifter, ...
History of German
The appearance of the German language begins in the Early Middle Ages with the High German consonant shift. Old High German, Middle High German, and Early New High German span the duration of the Holy Roman Empire. The 19th and 20th centuries s ...
History of literature
The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques ...
Media of Germany
Mass media in Germany includes a variety of online, print, and broadcast formats, such as radio, television, newspapers, and magazines.
History
The modern printing press developed in Mainz in the 15th century, and its innovative technology spre ...
**
Books in Germany
As of 2018, ten firms in Germany rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: C.H. Beck, Bertelsmann, , , Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, , Springer Nature, Thieme, , and Westermann Druck- und Verlagsgruppe. Overall ...
References
Literature
English
*''Cambridge History of German Literature''. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen, ed. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
*Konzett, Matthias Piccolruaz. ''Encyclopedia of German Literature''. Routledge, 2000.
*''The Oxford Companion to German Literature'', ed. by Mary Garland and Henry Garland, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 1997
* Grange, William, ed. ''Historical dictionary of German literature to 1945'' (2011 online *
*
German
*Bernd Lutz, Benedikt Jeßing (eds.): Metzler Lexikon Autoren: Deutschsprachige Dichter und Schriftsteller vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, Stuttgart und Weimar: 4., aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage 2010
* Theo Breuer, Aus dem Hinterland. Lyrik nach 2000, Sistig/Eifel : Edition YE, 2005,
* Theo Breuer, Kiesel & Kastanie (ed.): Von neuen Gedichten und Geschichten, Sistig/Eifel : Edition YE, 2008,
* Jürgen Brocan, Jan Kuhlbrodt (eds.), Umkreisungen. 25 Auskünfte zum Gedicht, Leipzig: Poetenladen Literaturverlag, 2010
* Manfred Enzensperger (ed.), Die Hölderlin-Ameisen: Vom Finden und Erfinden der Poesie, Cologne: Dumont, 2005
* Peter von Matt, Die verdächtige Pracht. Über Dichter und Gedichte, Munich tc.: Hanser, 1998
* Joachim Sartorius (ed.), Mimima Poetica. Für eine Poetik des zeitgenössischen Gedichts, Cologne : Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1999
Anthologies
*German poetry from 1750 to 1900, ed. by Robert M. Browning. Foreword by
Michael Hamburger
Michael Peter Leopold Hamburger (22 March 1924 – 7 June 2007) was a noted German-British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn and ...
, New York : Continuum, 1984, 281 pp. (German Library),
*Twentieth-Century German Poetry: An Anthology, edited by Michael Hofmann, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008 (Paperback Edition), 544 pp.,
*
Heinz Ludwig Arnold
Heinz Ludwig Arnold (29 March 1940 – 1 November 2011) was a German literary journalist and publisher. He was also a leading advocate for contemporary literature.
Early years
Heinz Ludwig Arnold attended schools in Bochum and, subsequentl ...
(ed.), TEXT+KRITIK: Lyrik des 20. Jahrhunderts (1999).
*Verena Auffermann,
Hubert Winkels
Hubert is a Germanic masculine given name, from ''hug'' "mind" and ''beraht'' "bright". It also occurs as a surname.
Saint Hubertus or Hubert (c. 656 – 30 May 727) is the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians, and metalworkers. ...
(ed.), Beste Deutsche Erzähler (2000–)
* Hans Bender (ed.), In diesem Lande leben wir. Deutsche Gedichte der Gegenwart (1978)
*Hans Bender, Was sind das für Zeiten. Deutschsprachige Gedichte der achtziger Jahre (1988)
* Christoph Buchwald, Uljana Wolf (ed.), Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2009 (2009)
* Karl Otto Conrady (ed.), Der Große Conrady. Das Buch deutscher Gedichte. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (2008).
*
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.
Early life
Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-cl ...
(ed.), Deutsche Erzähler I (1912, 1979)
*
Marie Luise Kaschnitz
Marie Luise Kaschnitz (born Marie Luise von Holzing-Berslett; 31 January 1901 – 10 October 1974) was a German short story writer, novelist, essayist and poet. She is considered to be one of the leading post-war German poets.
She was born in Ka ...
(ed.), Deutsche Erzähler II (1971, 1979)
*Boris Kerenski & Sergiu Stefanescu, Kaltland Beat. Neue deutsche Szene (1999)
* Axel Kutsch (ed.), Versnetze. Deutschsprachige Lyrik der Gegenwart (2009)
* Andreas Neumeister, Marcel Hartges (ed.), Poetry! Slam! Texte der Pop-Fraktion (1996)
External links
Sophie – A digital library of works by German-speaking women
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:German Literature