Michael Butler

Reviews : German Studies A Concise History of German Literature to 1900. Edited by Kim Vivian. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1992. (Distributed by Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, Suffolk.) Pp. 345

This book brings together twelve essays by American Germanists which tackle the problem of the periodization of German literature: ’The Early Middle Ages: Gothic and Old High German’ (Richard H. Lawson), ’Middle High German’ (Frank Tobin), ’Late Middle High German, Renaissance and Reformation’ (Albrecht Classen), ’Baroque’ (Judith Aikin), ’Enlightenment’ (John Van Cleve), ’Storm and Stress’ (Kim Vivian), ’Classicism’ (Gabrielle Bersier), ’Romanticism’ (Christopher R. Clason), ’Young Germany’ (Robert C. Holub), ’Biedermeier’ (Lee Jennings), ’Realism’ (Nancy Kaiser), and ’Naturalism’ (Siegfried Mews). The book’s declared aim is to offer a limited

Reviews : Friedrich Schiller. Drama, Thought and Politics. By Lesley Sharpe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 389. £40.00

History of Colour Theory (1810). This neglected work, Professor Fink maintains, foreshadows recent tendencies in the history of science, for instance in its emphasis on the social and biographical context of scientific theories, its refusal to view history as a straightforward progression from error to truth, its interest in states of transition and flux, and its insight into the relativity of all theories to the concepts and metaphors in which they are expressed. Goethe’s account of the rise of Newtonian orthodoxy, for example, and of its rigidification into dogma, ’anticipated by about a century modern views on the psychology and sociology of knowledge’ (p. 103). This thesis has much to recommend it, but it is somewhat one-sided in its insistence on Goethe’s modernity. Unlike some of those whom he allegedly anticipates, Goethe himself was never a relativist in his attitude towards scientific truth. The true nature of colour, he believed, had been grasped in its essentials by the Greeks, and the subsequent history of chromatics consisted of movements towards and away from this original insight. Besides, his own theory of refraction was just as much a dogma as that of his adversaries, and unlike Newton’s, it could easily be refuted by experiment. It is also a pity that this book is very poorly written, with numerous and confusing solecisms (e.g. ’antimony’ for ’antinomy’ on page 164), too many paraphrases of Goethe’s works, and an irritating habit of reporting the views and activities of critics and even of characters in literature in the

Reviews : German Studies German Classical Drama. Theatre, Humanity and Nation 1750-1870. By F. J. Lamport. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1990. Pp. 241. £39.00

Despite the book’s main title Dr Lamport’s theme is not ’German Classical Drama’ as such but, as the dates of the sub-title suggest, the history of the development of a German national theatre from Lessing’s splendidly humanistic tutelage to the less impressive products of the later nineteenth century before Naturalism gave the German stage a much needed shove into modernism. The method is firmly text-based and the author tells his story in a commendably uncluttered style. However, apart from some interesting comments on the reconstruction of the Weimar stage in 1798 and the impact of technical improvements on production methods, Lamport sticks to a resolutely literary approach to the plays he discusses. Thus his book will be of most benefit to students requiring a succinct, if highly conservative, introduction to the history of eighteenthand nineteenthcentury German theatre. Indeed, this history frequently appears geared to the restricted demands of the examination room: the plays are neatly filleted and summarized; judgements are sober, balanced and quotable; flashes of personal taste or prejudice are rare. After a brief discussion in the opening chapter of the meanings of the term ’classical’, the vexed epithet is swiftly reduced to a catch-all label to identify the ’major’ authors of the conventional canon. Accordingly, Weimar Classicism (plus, of course, the monumental achievement of Faust) is presented as the cultural high point, with Lessing as a knowledgeable precursor and Kleist, Grillparzer and Hebbel, in their different ways, as not quite up to the Weimar goldstandard. From this perspective the ’Sturm and Drang’ plays of Goethe and Schiller though Die R4uber is acknowledged to be ’superbly theatrical’ are treated as a youthful prelude to Weimar, whilst idiosyncratic talent such as Klinger and Lenz are briskly pigeon-holed as second-rate. On the other hand, the most vital and original German dramatist of the nineteenth century, Georg Buchner, who does not fit the conventional frame at all, is relegated together with Grabbe to a brief paragraph in the Epilogue. Though the research is up to date and Lamport writes lucidly, readers interested in theatre as a unique interchange between actor, text and audience or those who wish to discover the social tensions which help to shape both minor and major dramatists will be disappointed by the predominantly literary historical approach, especially as there is little attempt to revise standard critical opinion.

Reviews : Günter Grass's 'Der Butt'. Sexual Politics and the Male Myth of History. Edited by Philip Brady, Timothy McFarland and John J. White. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Pp. 235. £25.00

Berliner; that the USPD was a solidly proletarian party (with its power-base in the newly industrialized areas); and that the major literary critic of Die Freiheit, Erich Baron, had mixed feelings about avant-garde literature, I have to wonder whether one can generalize about the Berlin USPD on the evidence offered above. Do the above-mentioned articles and speech represent anything more than individual opinions within a party which was notoriously lacking in centralized leadership at both the national and the local levels? But to ask that question in no way damages the central thesis of

Reviews : Hölderlin. By David Constantine. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, I988. Pp. 4I5. £40

This is the first critical biography of Holderlin for more than half a century and it has proved worth waiting for. David Constantine brings unusual gifts to his study: a sound grasp of classical scholarship, a poet’s keenness of observation and a novelist’s skill in narration. The book takes a straightforwardly chronological approach; the style is sympathetic and unpretentious. In a disarming preface Constantine admits to being fascinated by Holderlin’s life, but this does not mislead him into using it as a naive tool to explicate the poetry. Nevertheless, the biographical data clearly help to situate the poet’s concerns in a concrete reality and that reality, this biographer persuasively argues, is a fundamentally religious one. The evidence of the work is backed up by copious, and always judicious, quotation from H61derlin’s letters. Constantine’s measured enthusiasm, his refusal to ignore the weaknesses as well as to overstate the strengths of his subject, make him an excellent advo-

Reviews : Karl Kraus: Apocalyptic Satirist. Culture and Catastrophe in Hapsburg Vienna. By Edward Timms. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, I986. 443 pp

with metaphysics. Particularly the comparison between Schlemmer’s Supper Party and Beckmann’s Night throws new light on both paintings. Eberle also brings interesting evidence to bear on the genesis of Schlemmer’s most important paintings. He is a case apart from the others: he mistrusted the vital principle from the start, he had never glorified the instinctual side of human nature. &dquo;Four artists, four paths, four attempts to grasp and express the experience of war and to cope with the disorientation brought by modern technology.&dquo; Eberle’s book is an important contribution to