Modernism and Weimar

German Literature

Course 1 · Chapter 8 · Modernism & the Weimar Years

The early twentieth century was a time of great upheaval: the First World War, the end of the German and Austrian empires, revolution, inflation, and then the short-lived Weimar Republic (1919 to 1933). It was also a period of extraordinary literary range. This chapter looks at the German-language modernists: Kafka writing in Prague, Rilke's poetry, Thomas Mann's novels, Hermann Hesse, Bertolt Brecht's theatre and Alfred Döblin's city novel. Names and dates are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

A Time of Breakdown and Invention

Expressionism

Before and during the First World War a group of poets and playwrights wrote in a violent, intense style about the city, war and the self, in what is called Expressionism (check). Poets such as Georg Trakl and Gottfried Benn belong to it, as do the Expressionist film and painting treated in German Film & Television.

The Weimar Republic

Berlin in the 1920s was a centre of theatre, cabaret, film and publishing, with great freedom and great instability (check). The decade also saw the Bauhaus (see Bauhaus & German Design) and new music.

A German-language world

German-language writing in this period was spread across Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Zurich. Vienna produced Musil, Schnitzler and Karl Kraus (check), but the course keeps to the German story, as set out in Chapter 1.

Six Writers

Writer and work (check each)Note
Franz Kafka (1883 to 1924)A German-speaking Jewish insurance clerk in Prague. Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis, 1915) turns a man into an insect. Der Process and Das Schloss (The Castle) were unfinished and published after his death. He asked his friend Max Brod to burn his manuscripts, and Brod published them instead.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 to 1926)Born in Prague, a wanderer across Europe. His Duineser Elegien (Duino Elegies) and Sonette an Orpheus (both 1923) are among the most admired German poems of the century; Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (Letters to a Young Poet) is widely read.
Thomas Mann (1875 to 1955)Buddenbrooks (1901) is the saga of a merchant family's decline; Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain, 1924) is a novel of ideas set in a Swiss sanatorium. He won the Nobel Prize in 1929 (check).
Hermann Hesse (1877 to 1962)Der Steppenwolf (1927) and later novels of spiritual search made him hugely popular, and he won the Nobel Prize in 1946 (check).
Bertolt Brecht (1898 to 1956)Playwright and poet. Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera, 1928), with music by Kurt Weill (see German Music), was a hit. His "epic theatre" aimed to make audiences think, not just feel.
Alfred Döblin (1878 to 1957)Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) follows a petty criminal through the city in a collage of voices, headlines and songs.
Kafka and "Kafkaesque" Kafka's stories are about guilt, power and bureaucracies that no one fully understands. The word "Kafkaesque" has become a general English term, but it often loses the humour, the precision and the Prague setting of his writing (check). The decision to publish his manuscripts against his wishes is still discussed (check how Brod's choice is judged).

Weimar and Its Limits

  • Mass culture. Newspapers, cabaret, radio and film reached large audiences, and writers such as Erich Kästner and Kurt Tucholsky wrote satire and journalism for them (check).
  • Political tension. The republic faced economic crisis, with the hyperinflation of 1923 and the depression after 1929 (check), and strong enemies on the left and right.
  • The end. The Nazi takeover of 1933 ended this world. Many of these writers left, were banned or were killed (Chapter 9).
A British comparison English modernism, with Joyce, Woolf, Eliot and Lawrence, ran in parallel, and Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) can be set beside Rilke or Benn as a response to the breakdown after the war. Mann's family saga Buddenbrooks is often compared with Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga (check).
Check the details Dates, titles and prizes are from general knowledge. Verify with a literary history, and use a recent translation for Kafka, Rilke and Mann, since older versions have been criticised. Some of the material in later years (the Nazi seizure of power and its aftermath) is taken up in Chapter 9.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Describe what makes Kafka's writing distinctive and explain why the term "Kafkaesque" can mislead.

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Exercise 2

Compare Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht in terms of form, audience and attitude to society.

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Exercise 3

Explain how the Weimar Republic both helped and endangered literature, giving two examples.

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Quick Reference

  • Kafka: Prague, Die Verwandlung 1915, unfinished novels (check)
  • Rilke: Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus 1923
  • Mann: Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, Nobel 1929
  • Brecht and Döblin: epic theatre; the city novel
  • The caution: use recent translations; labels flatten the writers