The Dear Purchase
The Dear Purchase
This book studies individual works by twelve major writers of German modernism, including Thomas Mann, Musil, Brecht and Rilke, in relation to the history of the twentieth century. It explores the theme of the 'dear purchase', an ideal of moral strenuousness and sacrifice seen as characteristic of Germany after Nietzsche, and reveals the underlying flaw in this notion as a self-justifying value. In this context, it considers the renaissance of German poetry after 1900, the impact of the War of 1914, its aftermath in uncertainty and relativism, and attitudes to the Hitler period, and finally juxtaposes Mann's Felix Krull and Kafka's story Josephine as a deliverance from the value-system of the title. The Introduction, partly autobiographical, traces J. P. Stern's preoccupation with this interpretation of his material in many of the books he published (especially those concerned with Nietzsche and Hitler), and pays tribute to Wittgenstein's influence on his thinking.
- This book is the culmination of J. P. Stern's life of study, the summation of his thoughts on a theme that had long preoccupied him
- It contains detailed studies of many of the most important works of German modernism, by writers including Musil, Mann and Brecht
- It constantly relates literature to its historical and philosophical contexts, especially Nietzsche and Hitler
Product details
February 2011Adobe eBook Reader
9780511882227
0 pages
0kg
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Foreword by Nicholas Boyle
- Editor's preface
- Introduction
- 1. The theme
- 2. Reality
- 3. Relativity
- 4. The Great War
- 5. The purchase of poetry
- 6. Rendering account
- 7. A deliverance of sorts
- 8. Postscript: the divided self
- Notes
- Index.
