[Reichstraten]

G.C.Thornley - An outline of English literature

[fuser]

A childhood friend of mine has just published this short medieval fantasy novel, the only reason why I am reading it.. Its not bad though although not my genre.

[skinster]

Recent:






Current:

[Wellsy]

Simon Clarke’s “Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology”

[Decky]

[Reichstraten]

Very Shakespearean.

[Potemkin]

Very Shakespearean.

All early 19th century German poets and playwrights were Shakespearean, Reichstraten. Goes without saying. Lol.

What is remarkable about Buechner is the way in which he departed from his Shakespearean models, and even from the models of Goethe and Schiller. Wozzeck was something radically new in world literature. The madness of Wozzeck was not constrained within the 'normality' of a standard literary structure, in order to be 'purged' in some Aristotelian act of catharsis. No, Buechner was attempting to make the point that Wozzeck's madness and distorted perceptions were merely a symptom of the madness of civilisation itself, and that such madness cannot simply be constrained or purged from the system by any act of catharsis, but is ineradicably inscribed in the structures of human society itself. Buechner's attempt to convey this idea broke the bounds of traditional literary models and created a revolution - he was the first Expressionist playwright, and it took the rest of the world half a century to catch up with him.

[Reichstraten]

It was the high tide of Romanticism in the early 19th century.
This made possible the expressionism of Buchner.
If he hadn´t died so young he could have been the greatest writer of his era.

[Potemkin]

It was the high tide of Romanticism in the early 19th century.

Buechner was more of a post-Romantic writer than a Romantic writer. He had abandoned most of the illusions of the Romantic movement.

This made possible the expressionism of Buchner.

Indeed. In fact, Wozzeck can be thought of as Schiller's The Robbers taken to the next motherfucking level. Lol.

If he hadn´t died so young he could have been the greatest writer of his era.

I absolutely agree. His early death was one of the great tragedies of European literature. He could have become greater than Goethe.

[Reichstraten]

He also wrote the novella Lenz depiciting a psychotic episode.
Isn´t that choice of topic typically romantic?

The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature.

Romanticism

[Potemkin]

The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature.

Indeed. As I said, it was the Romantic movement which made Buechner's Expressionism possible at all. After all, it's no accident that his work appeared at that particular historical juncture and not before. But the Romantic movement had many fond illusions about the world and about human nature, in particular the possibilities for human liberation through aesthetic understanding alone. In other words, they were idealists (in the philosophical sense) rather than materialists (also in the philosophical sense). Buechner was labouring under no such illusions, which is why he is best described as a post-Romantic writer.

[Reichstraten]

I guess you're right.
He can be placed somewhere between romanticism and naturalism.
The pessimism in Danton's Death, Leonce und Lena as a satire on romantic ideas and the regard for the poor in Woyzeck...
Georg Büchner | German dramatist

I was wrong about Buchner being a romantic because he choose to depict a psychotic episode:

Accordingly, Naturalist writers were drawn to the themes of physical and mental illness, hypocrisy, and class struggle.

Woyzeck German Naturalism

[Potemkin]

I guess you're right.

Of course I'm right; I'm Potemkin.

He can be placed somewhere between romanticism and naturalism.

Agreed.

The pessimism in Danton's Death, Leonce und Lena as a satire on romantic ideas and the regard for the poor in Woyzeck...

Precisely. Buechner was highly critical of much of the idealism and self-delusion of the Romantic movement.

I was wrong about Buchner being a romantic because he choose to depict a psychotic episode:
Accordingly, Naturalist writers were drawn to the themes of physical and mental illness, hypocrisy, and class struggle.

Indeed. Buechner was one of the pioneers of both Naturalism and Expressionism - in fact, he transcended both Naturalism and Expressionism in his work, decades before those movements even existed. And all this before the age of 23. He was genius, generations ahead of his time.

[Reichstraten]

Finished Buchner.
Now reading: Eustace Chisholm en Consorten by James Purdy.
Very Revean (after writer Gerard Reve) I could say, but then only the Dutch will understand me.

[Drlee]

The letters of Flannery O'Connor

[Reichstraten]

Really excited about this one:

[ThirdTerm]

The opening volume of Morris’s “Pax Britannica Trilogy,” this richly detailed work traces the rise of the British Empire, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne in 1837 to the celebration of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Index. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/138 ... _s_Command

This great book is the first volume of the “Pax Britannica Trilogy ” by Jan Morris. Two chapters are dedicated to vivid descriptions of Sydney and Tasmania in the early 19th century, which may be completely censored in Australia because they are so truthful and demeaning to proud Aussies.

[ness31]

Vanity Fair. He’s not half bad this Thackeray fellow.

[Potemkin]

Vanity Fair. He’s not half bad this Thackeray fellow.

Thackerey is the most under-rated of the Victorian novelists. It says a lot about the philistinism of the British middle-classes that Trollope is a more widely read novelist than Thackerey.

[Reichstraten]

Has anyone read this book?
It seem pretty prescient to me, since it was written a half year before 9/11.