| CODE | GRM3013 | |||||||||
| TITLE | Ausgewählte literarische Texte (Böll) | |||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 03 - Years 2, 3, 4 in Modular Undergraduate Course | |||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | |||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 2 | |||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | German | |||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit deals with Heinrich Böll's "Kurzgeschichten" - his short stories, narratives and satires. Examples of these works will be taken from the three main phases of his literary career. We shall begin with his "Kriegs- und Nachkriegsgeschichten", the short stories about the war and the immediate post-war period written in the late 1940s and the 1950s. We pass on to the second phase, Böll's narratives from the time when life in the Federal Republic of Germany was marked by political stability and economic progress but also by tremendous pressures on individuals and institutions to perform and produce results ("Leistungszwang"). Finally we shall deal with some of the satires in which Böll criticizes the affluent society produced by the "Wirtschaftswunder" - the German economic miracle. During the first half of this study-unit we shall be looking at Böll's earliest literary works which concern the war years and the immediate post-war period. We shall relate them to concepts such as "Trümmerliteratur" (rubble/debris literature), the "Literatur der Stunde Null" (the literature of the zero hour), "Kahlschlag-Literatur" (the slogan coined by W. Weyrauch to denote the complete break with German literary tradition in matter and manner which took place in the late 1940s and the early and mid-1950s). In these works Böll focuses on the effect that the war had on the lives of ordinary people, materially and psychologically. We shall then move on to deal with the narratives and satires which Böll wrote during the arduous years of the "Wiederaufbau" (the period of reconstruction), the period which ultimately led to the attainment of the economic miracle ("Wirtschaftswunder") and a stable, affluent society in Western Germany. Taking examples from different periods of the author's literary career, the genre of the "Kurzgeschichte" (short story), which was particularly popular among German authors after the war, will be analyzed in detail. Study-unit Aims: The aim of this study-unit is to strengthen the students' level of comprehension of written modern German by enhancing their skills of close reading of modern German literature and parallel textual analysis. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - distinguish between the three main phases in the literary career of Heinrich Böll (one of Germany’s foremost post-World War II writers, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972) and relate them to the social developments in post-war Germany, spanning the four decades from the second half of the 1940s to the mid-1970s; - by referring to the works of Heinrich Böll, describe the characteristics of the German short story which developed mainly after World War II. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - relate the reactions and works of an author to the main events that mark his life and that of his contemporaries; - write and speak German with increased accuracy and fluency. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: - Heinrich Böll (1961): Erzählungen, Hörspiele, Aufsätze, Cologne/Berlin, Kiepenhauer & Witsch - Heinrich Böll (1965): Als der Krieg ausbrach. Erzählungen, München, dtv. - Heinrich Böll (1965): Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa.../Traveller, if You Come to Spa...– Original zusammen mit einer parallelen englischen Version, München, Max Hueber. - Heinrich Böll (1967): Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa ... Erzählungen. - Heinrich Böll (1966): Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit. Satiren, München, dtv, ISBN 3-423-00350-2. - Heinrich Böll (1958): Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen und andere Satiren, Cologne/Berlin, Kiepenhauer & Witsch, 1996. - Heinrich Böll (1979): Du fährst zu oft nach Heidelberg und andere Erzählungen, Bornheim-Merten, Lamuv, ISBN 3-921521-07-6. ----------------------------------------- - Enid Macpherson (1972[1978]): A student’s guide to Böll, Heinemann Educational, ISBN 0-435-37576-8. - Rainer Naegele (1976): Heinrich Böll: Einführung in das Werk und in die Forschung, Frankfurt a. M., Fischer-Athenäum Taschenbuch. - Hanno Beth (ed.) (1980): Heinrich Böll. Eine Einführung in das Gesamtwerk in Einzelinterpretationen. 2. überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, Königstein i.Ts. - Edgar Neis (1981): Heinrich Böll: Romane, Erzählungen und Kurzgeschichten (Königs Erläuterungen und Materialien, Band 70), Hollfeld/Ofr., C. Bange, ISBN 3-8044-0266-6. - James H. Reid (1988): Heinrich Böll. A German for His Time. Oxford/New York/Hamburg, Berg Publishers – in German: Heinrich Böll. Ein Zeuge seiner Zeit (1991), München, dtv. - Wilhelm Johannes Schwarz (1967): Heinrich Böll, teller of tales : a study of his works and characters. - Bernhard Sowinski (1988): Heinrich Böll, Kurzgeschichten: Interpretationen, München, Oldenbourg, ISBN 3-486-88612-6. - Bernhard Sowonski (1993): Heinrich Böll, Stuttgart/Weimar, Metzler, ISBN 3-476-10272-6. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | |||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Katrin Dautel |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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