The word unheard
Subtitle: legacies of anti-Semitism in German literature and culture
By: Martha B. Helfer
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Evanston, Ill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
ISBN-13: 9780810127944
Subjects: Jews; Antisemitism in literature; Jews in literature; German literature; History and criticism; Social conditions; Antisemitism; History
Description: Between 1749 and 1850—the formative years of the so-called Jewish Question in Germany—the emancipation debates over granting full civil and political rights to Jews provided the topical background against which all representations of Jewish characters and concerns in literary texts were read. Helfer focuses sharply on these debates and demonstrates through close readings of works by Gotthold Lessing, Friedrich Schiller, Achim von Arnim, Annette von Droste- Hülshoff, Adalbert Stifter, and Franz Grillparzer how disciplinary practices within the field of German studies have led to systematic blind spots in the scholarship on anti-Semitism to date.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-224) and index.
Table of contents: title: Lessing and the limits of Enlightenment; title: Questioning origins : Friedrich von Schiller's The legation of Moses; title: Germany under the sign of the Jew : Achim von Arnim's Isabella of Egypt; title: Reading blood : Annette von Droste-Hulshoff's The Jews' beech tree; title: Natural anti-Semitism : Adalbert Stifter's Abdias; title: Framing the Jew : Franz Grillparzer's The Jewess of Toledo.