The Representation of War in German Literature: From 1800 to the Present

by Elisabeth Krimmer

The history of literature about war is marked by a fundamental although war forms the subject of countless novels, dramas, poems, and films, it is often conceived as indescribable. Even as many writers strive towards an ideal of authenticity, they maintain that no representation can do justice to the terror and violence of war. Readings of Schiller, Kleist, Jünger, Remarque, Grass, Böll, Handke, and Jelinek reveal that stylistic and aesthetic features, gender discourses, and concepts of agency and victimization can all undermine a text's martial stance or its ostensible pacifist agenda. Spanning the period from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars to the recent wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq, Elisabeth Krimmer investigates the aesthetic, theoretical, and historical challenges that confront writers of war.

278 pages, Hardcover

First published May 31, 2010

Reviews

[Maria Manaia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As Hannah Arendt explains, “where violence rules absolutely, everything and everybody must fall silent . . . the point here is that violence itself is incapable of speech, and not merely that speech is
helpless when confronted with violence."

"(...) and his desperate cry that all soldiers will march "gegen wen, gegen wen?" (against whom, against whom)"