Explore the vast range of titles available.

In 1858, the German poet-jurist Theodor Storm wrote a small poem that keeps intriguing interpreters: \"One man enquires: And then what? / The other, merely: Is it right? / And so, observing, we can spot / The free man - and the servant's plight.\" Who is the free man - the one who merely asks whether something is right or the one who accepts responsibility for the consequences of his actions? Who is the servant - the one who fearfully allows his actions to be determined by their advantages and disadvantages or the one who does what his master says is right? The article asks what Theodor Storm meant, and what is actually correct.

This project investigates the frame as a recurring motif in works of German poetic realism. Despite the frame’s pervasiveness throughout this body of literature, its function has remained largely unaccounted for by scholarship. Accordingly, my analyses reposition the frame as a signifier that requires interpretation. Focusing primarily on the role of picture frames within these narratives, my analyses also include other types of extra-aesthetic frames, as well as certain linguistic, structural, and discursive frameworks. In Gottfried Keller’s Der grüne Heinrich ( Green Henry, 1855/1879), Adalbert Stifter’s Nachkommenschaften (Descendants, 1864), and Theodor Storm’s Viola tricolor (1874), the frame represents a privileged site for reflecting on the aesthetic agenda of poetic realism. At the same time, frames often communicate ideas of a non-literary nature. An analysis of Keller’s Der grüne Heinrich reveals the frame’s essential function as a moderating force between excesses relating to economics, aesthetics, and gender. Keller’s novel is thereby situated as both a timely social critique and an important means for explicating a theory of realism based on aesthetic moderation. Harnessing the frame’s ability to represent absence, Stifter’s Nachkommenschaften reveals a fundamental message about the power of certain invisible realities that not only provide life with immanent meaning, but are also essential to the author’s specific conception of the realist project. Finally, Storm’s Viola tricolor employs the frame in order to theorize the construction of literary and gender identity, both of which are the product of exclusion, an attempt to order an inherently disordered system. The residual traces of such exclusion are evidenced by the presence of various frames, which shed light on a tension between superficial order and an underlying disorder, a tension between “fiction” and “reality” that lies at the heart of Storm’s understanding of the realist literary enterprise.

How characteristic were the elements used in Theodor Storm's (1817 - 1888) fiction? What were the rich fund of symbols and myths that he used? Few Storm interpreters have addressed themselves seriously to these questions. This study tries to fill this gap.

The texts of Theodor Storm (1817–88) engage with the role of the artist and works of art in society during the latter half of the nineteenth century. While the role of painting and writing has already been analyzed in this regard, the function of music in Storm's work has not been hitherto researched to any great degree. Musicians, however, feature prominently among the artists he portrays. They encounter various artistic and personal difficulties that this dissertation analyzes both through close readings and from a literary-historical perspective. The analysis focuses on three novellas entitled Ein stiller Musikant (1875), Zur \"Wald- und Wasserfreude\" (1879), and Es waren zwei Königskinder (1884), which illustrate the changing role of music in the lives of the protagonists. In order to show the development of economic and social changes that took place after the 1848 Revolution and during the Gründerzeit, the texts are analyzed in chronological order. This thematic study argues that the reflection on music can be interpreted as a specialized reflection on the topic of the artist in general, which, in itself, is a prominent theme in Romanticism. Taking into account how Romantic notions of life and art lost their appeal both during and as a result of the forces of industrialization, the study shows how music, first presented as a nurturing and comforting force in the Biedermeier era, becomes progressively less important, and, in the end, loses its appeal as artistic salvation. The novellas use music as a literary technique in order to comment on education, both musical and academic, with particular emphasis on girls' education. In addition to transcending gender and social barriers, as well as establishing a continuity of sorts between the past and the present, music also serve as a psychological tool to suggest or express feelings or a state of mind. In the same vein, physical features and instruments are used in the characterization of the protagonists, while also reflecting ethnic stereotypes common to both literature and greater society at the time.

Spätestens mit Carsten Curator setzt sich das novellistische Werk Theodor Storms mit Fragen der Vererbung und des familiären Verfalls auseinander, kulminierend in Der Schimmelreiter. Die Denkfiguren, die diese Novellen strukturieren, speisen sich, wie damals üblich, aus dem Darwinismus, vor allem aber aus der psychiatrischen Lehre von der Degeneration. Letztere verdankt, wie sie selbst freimütig zugibt, ihre zentrale Grundfigur, das Aussterben eines Geschlechts über drei oder mehr Generationen, der Androhung des Zorns Gottes bei Missachtung der Zehn Gebote (Exodus 20,3ff.). Während Carsten Curator und Der Schimmelreiter psychiatrisch-biologische und (para-)theologische Denkfiguren (rund um den Zorn Gottes) in Form zweier analoger, keineswegs vollständig aufeinander abbildbarer Lesarten einander gegenüberstellen, geht es in Hans und Heinz Kirch darum, das hereditäre Verhältnis der Geschlechter und deren (möglichen) Verfall rein theologisch durchzuspielen. Die Novelle stellt jedoch nicht nur den Versuch dar, das alttestamentliche Modell des Zorns Gottes zu exemplifizieren. Vielmehr werden weitere biblische Gleichnisse und Denkfiguren aus dem Neuen Testament mit diesem Modell verknüpft. Insgesamt entsteht so eine literarische Theologie des familiären Untergangs, aber auch – und das ist eine Besonderheit des rein theologischen Modells und des damit verbundenen Rückgriffs auf das Neue Testament – die Möglichkeit, diesen aufzuhalten. Alles in allem handelt es sich um ein Strukturmodell, das allen späteren novellistischen Arbeiten Storms zumindest partiell zugrunde liegt, wenn auch nie wieder so explizit auserzählt wie hier.

This article examines coastal defence in East Norfolk between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. From 1802 until 1932 sea defence between Happisburgh and Winterton was the responsibility of the Commissioners of Sewers for the Eastern Hundreds of Norfolk, more commonly known as the Sea Breach Commission (SBC). This article explores the geographies of authority shaping sea defence, with the SBC a body whose relationship to the local and national state could be uneasy. The article outlines the SBC’s nineteenth-century roles and routines, and examines its relationship to outside expertise, including its early hiring of geologist William Smith. The article reviews challenges to the SBC’s authority following late nineteenth-century flood events, details its early twentieth-century routines, and examines disputes over development on the sandhills. The article details the SBC’s dealings with an emerging national ‘nature state’, around issues such as coastal erosion and land drainage, matters which led to the SBC’s demise following the 1930 Land Drainage Act. The article concludes by considering the SBC’s contemporary resonance in a time of challenges to the role of the nature state, and anxieties over coastal defence.

Was ist ein gutes Leben? Anhand ausführlicher Beispielinterpretationen erläutert der Band die Rolle der Literatur bei der Bewältigung existenzieller Probleme.Was ist ein gutes Leben? Unter welchen Voraussetzungen gilt ein Lebensentwurf als gelungen und wann sprechen wir vom Scheitern einer Existenz? Die in diesem Band vorgelegten Interpretationen zu ausgewählten Werken der Weltliteratur kreisen um Fragen existenziellen Zuschnitts: Gibt es ein Glück auf der Grundlage von Selbsttäuschung? Was meinen wir, wenn wir vom tragischen Scheitern einer Person sprechen? Und wird, was wir im Leben erreicht zu haben glauben, angesichts des nahen Todes zwangsläufig null und nichtig? Die behandelten Texte der kleinen und großen literarischen Form – Johann Peter Hebels Kalendergeschichte \"Kannitverstan\", Theodor Storms Novelle \"Der Schimmelreiter\", Leo Tolstois Erzählung \"Der Tod des Iwan Iljitsch\" und Kazuo Ishiguros Roman \"Was vom Tage übrig blieb\" – konfrontieren uns mit solchen Fragen und veranschaulichen die Rolle der Literatur bei der Bewältigung existenzieller Probleme.

In contemporary German literature, rural landscapes often provide the backdrop for idealized imaginations of home (Heimat) and idyll. This portrayal, sometimes referred to as the “New Rurality” (Neue Ländlichkeit), emerges as a response to the social anxieties of late modernity, which at first glance, may seem to offer a retreat to local settings amidst a globalized and crisis-ridden world. However, these idealizations are quickly proven untrue as the deeper complexities and tensions within the concept of Heimat are further examined. Grounded in a theoretical framework based on theories by Beate Mitzscherlich, Hartmut Rosa, and Ina-Maria Greverus, this dissertation aims to explore how the critical analysis of the “New Rurality” in literature prompts a reevaluation of Heimat as a dynamic and socially constructed phenomenon. Through an examination of contemporary German village novels, the idyllic portrayal of Heimat and country life is subjected to scrutiny, revealing deep-seated issues related to gender, nature, and racism. These critical reflections challenge traditional and exclusive notions of home, paving the way for more inclusive and open concepts of belonging. The renegotiation of Heimat in contemporary village novels leads to the dismantling of old, rigid concepts and the emergence of new perspectives. Through the analysis of works by Juli Zeh, Dörthe Hansen, Judith Hermann, and Noah Sow, this thesis demonstrates how literature provides insights into the evolving nature of home in modern society. Overall, this research underscores the importance of critically engaging with representations of Heimat in literature. By doing so, it offers valuable insights into the construction of Heimat in contemporary German society and highlights the need for more inclusive and nuanced understandings of Heimat.

This article uses “enfreakment” as an analytical category to show how and to what effect two nineteenth-century texts, Theodor Storm's “Eine Malerarbeit” and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach's “Die arme Kleine,” portray disability. Narrative and visual enfreakment techniques work toward painting disabled characters as deviant or pitiable—as freaks. The representation of disability in this way serves the creation of narrative spectacles through which narrators can articulate their beliefs and doubts concerning traditional value systems surrounding the family and the body. Portraying disability in this way allows them to convey these ideas to their audiences and ultimately drives their stories forward. Analyzing the underlying mechanisms of enfreakment uncovers the discursive practices of representing and stylizing bodies, specifically bodies with disabilities, and how they become laden with meaning. Doing so brings into view exclusionary social practices as well as moments of destabilization (and reinforcement) of established norms and ideologies that otherwise would have remained unnoticed.

Thomas Mann said that his novella Tonio Kroger was a modernized version of Theodor Storm's Immensee. Although the theme and story of these works are similar, Mann's protagonist is given a voice where the subjective interior of Storm's is only hinted at. This article explores how this distinction affects the flow of time, considering in particular the effects of symbolic objects and spaces on the construction of subjective temporal experience. I contrast Storm's techniques of prefiguration with Mann's use of leitmotif, and propose the concept of the 'temporal prism', when a single image refracts time simultaneously in multiple directions.