Neil H. Donahue Livres

New essays examining the complex period of rich artistic ferment that was German literary Expressionism.

Donahue presents Krolow's career from a wholly new perspective, presenting in sum, but overturning, decades of Krolow criticism that, begun on a false footing, missed the real historical depth in Krolow's poems: the depth of avoidance."--BOOK JACKET.

Revises and expands current understanding of German literary modernism including experimental prose authors whose status in German modernism did not survive the disruption of Nazi persecution and World War 2. Contents include: Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraction as Style; The Solution to Silence, The emergence of abstraction in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's "Chandos Letter" (1902); Ethics in Action, the Failure of Speculation in Robert Musil's 'The Confusion of Young Torless' (1906); Fear and Fascination in the Big City, Rainer Maria Rilke's Use of Georg Simmel in 'The Notebooks of Malte Laurid Brigge' (1910); Analytics and Construction, The Aesthetics of Carl Einstein; Expressionist Prose, Experiments in a New Spirit; Ecstatic Montage, Paratactic Visions in Gottfried Benn's Novella Cycle 'Brains' (1916); Erudite Montag, the Domesticating of Abstraction in Thomas Mann's 'Doctor Faustus' (1947).