LITERATURE, 1880 TO THE PRESENT DAY

By}. C. MIDDLETON Lecturer in German at King's College in the University of Londmz

I. GENERAL BOOKS

1. K. Hamburger, Die Logik der D£chtung, Stuttgart, Klett, is the most stereoscopic inquiry into differences between genres and into the laws governing them since Staiger's Grundbegriffe. New light is shed on a number of structural factors; but the field of literary reference is narrow, and an exclusive passion for categorization tends to rule the argument. The central dis• tinction between fictive and existential language leads to im• plausible statements, especially in the sections on lyric verse and on first-person narrative. 'rVork by American fuglemen in the field is not taken into account (only Langer receives one shrivel• ling aside), and there is no bibl. The remarks on tense-functions, types of fiction, mixed genres and mimesis may be found fecund; but this book will offer little to persons who value literature more highly than magisterial deliberations on it. On mimesis see also the important reinterpretation of Aristotle in E. Grassi, Kunst und Mythos, Hamburg, Rowohlt. Two reason• able guides for the literary amateur have appeared: K. A. Horst, Die deutsche Literatur der Gegenwart, Munich, Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, and G. Blocker, Die neuen Wirkliclzkeiten, Berlin, Argon. H. traces through writings of the 192o's a salient quest for a 'utopian' syneresis of 'soul' and ' reason' (also 'myth' and 'ethos'), examines the evolution of this tendency through the vicissitudes of the 193o's in emigre and other writings, and finally diagnoses in writings after 1945 a dual reaction, 'apocalyptic' and 'moralistic'. The least patchwork chapters are those on the fiction of the period. B. reviews, in separate essays, other European and American developments also. He has informed and thoughtful chapters on Benn, E. JUnger, Kafka, Broch, Musil and T. Mann, and supplies a valuable international chronology. W. Grenzmann's Dichtzmg

26·2 404 German: Literature, 188o to the Present Day und Glaube, Bonn, Athenaum, a prototype of this form of survey, has now gone into a 3rd ed., enlarged by a chapter on E. Schaper. M. Rychner's Arachne: Aufsiitze zur Literatur, Zurich, Manesse, a selection of his essays, includes items on Benn, Kassner, Kraus, Borchardt and Hofmannsthal; rev. by G. Steinbrinker, NDH, 40. A. Closs, Medusa's Mirror, Cresset Press, likewise reprints earlier papers (on Trakl, Rilke, George, Hauptmann and 'German Poetry after 1945 '). The essay on 'The European Scene: Some Trends in Present Day Literary Criticism', is a revised and enlarged version of his 'Scientific Analysis and Interpretation in Modern German Literary Cri• ticism' ( YWML, xviii, 378), and is most confused (for clarity see H. Levin, 'Criticism in Crisis', CL, vii (1955), 2). Medusa's Mirror is justly strictured for opacity by T. E. Carter, AUMLA, 7; rev. also TLS, 9 Aug. J. Pfeiffer, Ober das Dichterische und den Dichter, Hamburg, Meiner, 1956, a revised ed. of his Zwischen Dichtung und Philosophie (1948), incorporates some of the excellent essays publ. in the interim (see GEORGE, HEYM, KRAUS, RILKE, SCHRODER, infra). In his 'literarische Streit• schrift', Kitsch, Konvention und Kunst, Munich, List, in which Broch, Jahnn and Musil as original stylists rout Bergengruen, Carossa, Hesse and E. Junger as epigones, K. Deschner deploys highly motorized debunking parties but has no main striking force. It is an incondite engagement. W. Haas, Die literarische Welt, Munich, List, distinctive memoirs of the period 192o-5o, is rev. by K. Schwedhelm, NDH, #· The present cultural situation as a whole is surveyed in various contributions to the successful year-book, Jahresring 1957-58, iv, Stuttgart, Dt. Verlags-Anstalt. H. E. Nossack meanwhile, in Ober den Ein• satz, Wiesbaden, Steiner (a Mayence Academy lecture), examines past and present attitudes of readers to writers and vice versa, also the variable relation between a writer's intention and his production; rev. by J. F. Angelloz, MF, July. H. Mayer, Deutsche Literatur t!nd Weltliteratur, Berlin, Rutten and Loening, is a collection of essays and occasional addresses, mostly reprints, as noted below under various authors. F. Len• nartz's valuable handbook, Dichter und Schriftsteller unserer Zeit, Stuttgart, Kroner, has appeared in a 7th ed. with new material on several of the 273 authors (see WALSER, infra).