Academic literature on the topic 'Heimatliteratur'

Die sogenannte Heimatliteratur wird in der Regel durch kitschige Sentimentalität gekennzeichnet. In der nostalgischen narrativen Weltwahrnehmung der Heimat wird das Motiv der verlorenen Heimat zum Symbolgerüst der Melancholie und Heraufbeschwörung der vergangenen Zeiten. Man könnte deshalb annehmen, dass auch im Werk von Paul Keller – dem schlesischen Heimatschriftsteller schlechthin – das Heimatbild ähnliche Formen annehmen würde. In Kellers Der Sohn der Hagar wird allerdings der Heimat-Topos nicht auf die Parameter der regionalen Heimatliebe eingeschränkt, sondern durch die Dimensionen des christlichen Glaubens und des Selbstsicherheits-Faktors ersetzt. Der schlesische Heimatroman Kellers ist somit weniger als ein Text über die Heimat Schlesien zu begreifen, stattdessen als ein Roman über die Suche nach der Heimat und der eigenen Identität.On the Heimat-Topos in Paul Keller’s Silesian Novel Der Sohn der HagarThe so-called Heimatliteratur which, as it is considered by its critics, is part of the trivial literature, is characterised by a kind of kitschy sentimentality. In the nostalgic, narrative world perception of the Heimat the motive of the lost homeland prevails, which becomes the symbol of the melancholy and the reminiscence of the past history. For this reason, one can assume that in Paul Keller’s prose – the most popular Silesian writer of this trend– the homeland image takes similar forms too. However, in the novel Der Sohn der Hagar the homeland topos does not restrict itself to the parameter of the region­al love of the homeland, but, what might surprise, is transformed by the Christian faith and the safety factor. Owing to that fact, Keller’s Silesian ‚Heimatroman‘ should not be considered as a novel about Silesian small homeland, but as a novel about the search for one’s own homeland and own identity.

Interference instead of Belatedness – Polysystem Theory as a Descriptive Model for ‘Small’ Literatures. Luxembourg literature can be considered a ‘small’ literature from various angles. Its small size, young age and the existence of a sparsely diffused language within a multilingual setting are features that also apply to other small European literary systems and that affect their self-perception fundamentally. In that context, Jeanne E. Glesener has identified a “discourse on smallness” which is developed by the literary centres and unconsciously internalized by the actors of small literary systems themselves: this discourse is essentially shaped by the ideas of creative sterility, poor visibility and, particularly, literary belatedness. However, as Glesener points out with respect to Pascale Casanova’s concept of literary time, the notion of belatedness wrongly implies that all literary systems sooner or later generate the same literary phenomena; it is therefore highly problematic. This paper introduces Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory – which has been designed in view of the Israeli literary system – as an alternative descriptive model for ‘small’ and multilingual literatures. Proceeding from the example of Luxembourg ‘Heimatliteratur’ in the second half of the 20th century, I would like to argue that by openly acknowledging every system’s historical and sociological characteristics and by excluding the notion of comparison from the analysis, the concept of ‘polysystemic interference’ allows for a more neutral study of literary contacts and literary change.

This thesis examines the semi-autobiographical work of Maria Beig in the context of traditional and contemporary regional literature. It attempts to do justice to her work as a whole. The style and content of her work are discussed with reference to topics of literary theory relating to regional literature, such as the village novella, or anti-idyllic elements, to mention only those most discussed. A further emphasis of the thesis is the question of academic reception of regional literature, in relation to the genre generally and to Maria Beig's work--that of a "poeta non docta"--in particular. Finally there is a (short) discussion of "women's issues". Such a discussion cannot be omitted, as Maria Beig is a modern woman writer whose main characters are almost exclusively feminine, and whose texts often raise questions concerned with gender.
Included in the appendix are a transcript of an interview between Maria Beig and the author, and a self-written life story which Maria Beig made available to the author. These represent an indispensable aid to the reading and understanding of the thesis.

This paper attempts to examine the development of the Anti-Heimatliteratur as a typical austrian literary genre. For this reason, the specific sociopolitical situation in the country of this time is discussed, a description is given and how these circumstances contributed to the rise of this specific literature form. Thomas Bernhard is presented as a well-known representative of the Anti-Heimatliteratur. The great austrian theater scandal at the premiere of Bernhard's drama Heldenplatz in 1988 is described as a significant, illustrative example of the Anti-Heimatliteratur.
Die vorliegende Examensarbeit untersucht die Entstehung der Anti- Heimatliteratur als typisch österreichische Literaturgattung. Zu diesem Zweck wird die spezifische, damals vorherrschende, gesellschaftspolitische Situation im Land erörtert und dargestellt, wie diese zur Ausbildung dieser speziellen Literaturform beitrug. Thomas Bernhard wird als bekannter Vertreter der Anti- Heimatliteratur vorgestellt. Der große österreichische Theaterskandal bei der Premiere von Bernhards Drama Heldenplatz im Jahre 1988 wird als signifikantes, erläuterndes Beispiel der Anti-Heimatliteratur beschrieben.

This investigation presents two literary case studies that demonstrate the heterogeneity of Wilhelmine popular fiction, both in terms of thematic orientation and aesthetic quality. The chosen authors are women from bourgeois backgrounds who were prolific and well-known during their life-time, but who have since been relegated. They target the ‘new middle class’ of that era as their readership and, respectively, represent two important but contested genres of late nineteenth-century popular fiction: Heimatkunst and the Sozialroman. Heimatkunst has been dismissed as a homogeneous propagator of right-wing ideology. Yet the texts of Charlotte Niese evidence ‘resistant practice’ within and against prevailing discourse parameters. Her autobiographical writing demonstrates a type of nationalism orientated in dignity and independence, rather than competition and militarism, while also showing how political indoctrination and imposition poisoned the vernacular social status quo which otherwise managed to integrate antagonistic values and attitudes. Her fictional narratives highlight how writing dubbed Heimatkunst was subject to hybridisation, at times to amount to an approximation of a modernist aesthetic. The Sozialroman has been dismissed as a trivial ‘variety of social recipes’. Luise Westkirch’s narratives, however, incorporate thorough-going social reform. Her shorter narratives include astute, psychologically-based social critique which facilitates insights into contemporaneous preoccupations and slow perceptual changes. Incorporating tenets derived from the German romantic legacy, her narratives challenge dominant discourse parameters directly. In the process, the internationally ubiquitous interpretation of competition and power as basic instinctual drives is deconstructed as an erroneous and self-destructive assumption. Westkirch’s complex narratives establish sub-textual agendas through ‘thematic compounding’ that directs the reader’s attention overtly at one set of issues while covertly commenting on another. In this way, she constructs gender inequality as an indictment of normative socio-political systems. This study therefore argues that popular fiction located in a time of cultural crisis has the potential to make explicit the parameters of the prevailing dominant discourse, against which specific values are articulated. Since a conscious formulation of these parameters is essential to the loosening of any conceptual hegemony, which depends on implicitness, fiction thus situated can yield new perspectives, not only in terms of historical insight, but in terms of conceptual alternatives that also have contemporary relevance.

The main motif of this diploma thesis is the social criticism in the chosen novels of the Austrian author Wolf Haas. Because of his critical point of view to the Austrian society subsists the main focus of this diploma thesis not only on the description of the specific genre of the Austrian criminal literature, but also on the enlistment to the Anti-Heimatliteratur. The first part of this thesis reports about this significant post-war literature movement as well as it briefly defines the genre of detective fiction. The chapters of the analytic part are dedicated to the various novels and thank the concrete quotations it is pointed to the criticism of the Austrian society and generally to the social problems, too. This thesis pays attention to the characters of the detective Brenner and the narrator, who are the concrete representatives of the novels and they become the main critics of the Austrian society even if they actually belong to it, too.