BD - Literature and Literary Studies

2009/2010

BD - Literature and Literary Studies

Metzler-Lexikon Avantgarde [Metzler Lexicon of the Avant-Garde]. Ed. Hubert van den Berg and Walter Fähnders. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2009. vi, 404 p. 24 cm. ISBN 978-3-476-01866-3: EUR 59.95

This volume, comprised of articles by about 80 contributors, begins with an extensive introduction that serves both to „define“ avant-garde and provide an outline of its terminology. The articles, from „Absolute Dichtung“ [AbsolutePoetry] to „Zufall“ [Chance], reveal in the aggregate the pluralistic nature of the artistic avant-garde. The categories represented include individual avant-garde movements and -isms; individual genres; individual art forms and categories; and countries, regions, and languages, especially Esperanto and Yiddish. While there are no articles on persons, groups and movements are treated. The wide spectrum of art forms covered here serves to reflect artistic modernism itself. The articles are enriched through the inclusion of bibliographies and cross references. This work is a welcome addition to the reference shelf. [tk/rlk]

Handbuch Biographie: Methoden, Traditionen, Theorien [Handbook of Biography: Methods, Traditions, Theories]. Ed. Christian Klein. Stuttgart; Weimar: Metzler, 2009. xv, 485 p. ill. 25 cm. ISBN 978-3-476-02263-9: EUR 64.95

Biography as a literary and historiographical text category has become an area of resurgent interest. This handbook, which approaches the subject in systematic form, is one of several recent omnibus volumes on the theory and practice of biography, e.g., Bernhard Fetz's Die Biographie: zur Grundlegung ihrer Theorie [Biography: Groundwork on its Theory] (Berlin, 2008) and Wilhelm Hemecker's Die Biographie: Beiträge zu ihrer Geschichte [Biography: Essays on its History] (Berlin, 2009).

Klein's handbook attempts to answer five large questions: (1) How is a life presented? (2) What can one learn of the life represented in the biography? (3) What can one learn about the intentions of the biographer, about historical context, and history-of-mentality issues? (4) Why are biographies read, and what meaning do biographical narratives have for concepts of self and other? (5) Which biographical methods produce which results, and which discoveries are hoped for from any given biographical approach? Only biographies mediated by an author, not autobiographies, are considered. The approaches in a wide variety of disciplines, from music to postcolonial studies, are discussed, and the final chapter treats practical matters such as marketing and legal issues surrounding biographical writing.

Each section contains a bibliography and an index of authors, as well as a name index and a detailed subject index, which greatly enhances this handbook‘s utility. It is probable that this handbook will become the focal point for questions of „biographography“, and will encourage a theoretically challenging engagement with ideas from the latest research in a broad field of disciplines. [tk/rb]

Wartesaal-Jahre: deutsche Schriftsteller im Exil nach 1933 [Waiting-Room Years: German Writers in Exile after 1933]. Wulf Köpke. Erkelenz: Altius-Verlag, 2008. 480 p. 23 cm. ISBN 978-3-932483-21-9: EUR 36.90

On the occasion of his 80th birthday one of the best-known scholars of the history of German literary exiles after 1933 has given himself and all others in the field a special gift, a volume of 22 of his essays selected from journals, yearbooks, and long-out-ofprint anthologies. Having begun work on the topic in the 1970s, Köpke became a founding editor of the yearbook Exilforschung [Research in Exile Studies] in 1983, and recently contributed to the volume Publishing in Exile: German-Language Literature in the US in the 1940s (New York, 2009).

Wartesaal-Jahre includes 19 pieces published between 1979 and 2002, two of which appear here for the first time. Köpke has re-edited all of them carefully and ordered them in three groups: How did authors react to the shock of being exiled from Germany? (six essays); how did authors become established in their places of exile? (eight essays); what expectations did exiled writers have of Germany after the end of Hitler‘s dictatorship, and did they return to Germany? (eight essays). Köpke has prefaced each section with an extensive introduction. A final summary discusses „After-Effects and Echoes of Exile.“

The essays deal with individual authors, including Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin and Lion Feuchtwanger (as well as Jochen Klepper and the hopelessness of his non-exile), discussing their experiences and actions away from their homeland, their politicization, how they dealt with being Jewish, the influence of exile on their language and literary style, and their own influence on later German writers. The volume concludes with a thematic bibliography of about 500 works by exiled authors, a name index of over 600 persons, and a subject index (including place names, publishing companies, and journals) with about 250 entries. [wub/nb]

Dichter für das „Dritte Reich“: biografische Studien zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Ideologie; 10 Autorenporträts [Poets for the „Third Reich:“ Biographical Studies on the Relationship of Literature and Ideology: 10 Author Portraits]. Ed. Rolf Düsterberg. Bielefeld: Aisthesis-Verlag, 2009. 336 p. ill. 21 cm. ISBN 978-3-89528-719-0: EUR 29.80

Unlike many biographies, the subjects of this collection will not appeal to readers. The 10 subjects, who styled themselves as „German poets,“ were convinced National Socialists who voluntarily supported the movement (some long before 1933), held official posts in the state and party hierarchy, were active in propaganda, and profited from the Third Reich. The 10 authors are younger scholars whose dissertations were directed by the editor, Rolf Düsterberg, or who took part in his colloquium on literary biography in the Third Reich at the University of Osnabrück.

The 10 biographies are arranged alphabetically, and each chapter title gives a concept that characterizes the person. They are Hermann Burte, Arthur Dinter, Kurt Eggers, Hanns Johst, Heindrich Lersch, Eberhard Wolfgang Möller, Hans Rehberg, Rainer Schlösser, Gerhard Schumann, and Tüdel Weller. The volume, with 13 photographs, suppplements the standard works such as Völkisch-nationale und nationalsozialistische Literatur in Deutschland 1890-1945 [Nationalist and National Socialist Literature in Germany, 1890-1945] (Stuttgart, 1976); Literatur und Drittes Reich [Literature and the Third Reich], 2d ed. (Vierow bei Greifswald, 1994) by Uwe-K. Ketelsen; Dichtung in finsteren Zeiten [Poetry in Dark Times] by Ralf Schnell (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1998); and Dichtung im Dritten Reich? [Poetry in the Third Reich?], ed. Christiane Caemmerer and Walter Delabar (Opladen,1996). The addition of at least one woman writer, such as Ina Seidel or Agnes Miegel, would have given the volume a broader authority in terms of social and gender history. [sak/gh]

Nachkriegsliteratur 1945-1989 [Postwar Literature, 1945-1989]. Helmut Peitsch. Göttingen: V & R Unipress, 2009. 404 p. ill. 25 cm. (Schriften des Erich-Maria- Remarque-Archivs, 24; Veröffentlichungen des Universitätsverlags Osnabruck bei V & R Unipress). ISBN 978-3-89971-730-3: EUR 53.90

Ed. note: Other recommended histories of post-1945 German literature include Ralf Schnell's Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945 (see RREO 94-2-281 and RREA 19:97) and Wilfried Barner's Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von 1945 bis zur Gegenwart (2d ed. 2006- -see RREO 95-1-075 for a review of the 1st ed.).

Metzler-Lexikon DDR-Literatur: Autoren, Institutionen, Debatten [Metzler Lexicon of GDR Literature: Authors, Institutions, Debates]. Ed. Michael Opitz and Michael Hofmann. Stuttgart; Weimar: Metzler, 2009. x, 405 p. 24 cm. ISBN 978-3-476-02238-7: EUR 49.95

This encyclopedia covers German Democratic Republic (GDR) literature and authors while avoiding the pleasant nostalgia found in most post-reunification publications on East German culture. It includes authors from the area who emigrated to the West, such as Walter Benjamin, as well as some non-East German recipients of GDR literary prizes, and covers the authors‘ careers to the present. The 155 biographical articles make up only a portion of the 269 signed articles by 78 contributors. There are also articles on institutions, debates, and other topics that the somewhat misleading subtitle does not mention. Topics include: literary organizations and prizes, publishers, periodicals, congresses, genres, popular themes in GDR literature, regional literature, the reception of GDR literature in the United States and in selected Western European countries (though strangely there are no corresponding articles on its reception in socialist countries), and numerous articles on the intersection of literature and politics. Articles average close to three columns and conclude with select bibliographies. The appendix includes a list of abbreviations, a bibliography, and an index of names. A test of the names beginning with A and B confirms that all but one of them also appear in Walther Killy's new Literaturlexikon (Berlin, 2008), which has not yet been reviewed here. [sh/rg]

Ed. note: Past works on GDR authors and literature reviewed in RREA include:

Schriftsteller aus der DDR: Ausbürgerungen und Übersiedlungen von 1961 bis 1989 (see RREA 2:153)
Grenzenlos: Literatur zwischen Ost und West von 1949 bis 1989; eine Bibliographie (see RREA 5:104)
Literatur und Wende: Ostdeutsche Autorinnen und Autoren nach 1989 (see RREA 6:120)
Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR (see RREA 8:97)
Die Rezeption der DDR-Literatur in Frankreich (see RREA 11:98)

Lessing: Chronik zu Leben und Werk [Lessing: A Chronicle of His Life and Work]. Wolfgang Albrecht. Kamenz: Lessing-Museum, 2008. 215 p. ill. 25 cm. (Begleitbücher zur Dauerausstellung des Lessing-Museums Kamenz). ISBN 978-3-910046-34-4: EUR 27

The Lessing-Museum in Kamenz, the birthplace of 18th-century author Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, has published a useful tool for everyone who is interested in Lessing or in the Enlightenment in Germany. This reference work offers a large amount of information and arranges biographical sources in a way that one can easily continue researching. Lessing‘s major writings and individuals mentioned in them are made available in an index. (Only the most important writings are covered, otherwise this book would have been just an index of Lessing‘s books and letters.) Letters that deal with important topics are included, for example, a letter to Mendelssohn about Leibniz and Spinoza.

The chronology captions list the year and place where Lessing lived at the time. Any event whose exact date is unknown is listed at the beginning of the month. Several short quotations are incorporated into the work, and several images are included that give the book more vividness. A section on posthumous materials offers a survey of Lessing‘s reception in subsequent centuries, even up to Hugh Barr Nisbet‘s seminal biography published in 2008. This reference book will be useful for all who are concerned with 18th-century German literature and philosophy. [tk/mr]

Theodor W. Adorno zur Einführung [An Introduction to Theodor W. Adorno]. Gerhard Schweppenhäuser. 5th, completely rev. ed. Hamburg: Junius, 2009. 209 p. 17 cm. (Zur Einführung, 371). ISBN 978-3-88506-671-2: EUR 13.90

Now in its fifth edition, this publication offers a „selective presentation“ of some of the „central motifs of Adorno's critical theory.“ The author does not intend to give a complete survey but rather a philosophical introduction, and his presentation is informative and understandable. Even complex concepts such as that of „determinate negation,“ derived from Hegel, are explained so that they can be grasped. Schweppenhäuser makes clear how strongly Adorno was influenced by Marx, and discusses as well such theories as the „deliverance from hopelessness,“ the „totally incorporated society,“ and the „failure of culture.“ The fifth edition includes two new sections dealing with Adorno‘s critical theory of morality and his „Debate with Benjamin about Mass Art.“

This work is a useful resource for those embarking on an initial study of Adorno. [tk/nb]

Personenregister der Tagebücher Ernst Jüngers [Index of Personal Names in the Diaries of Ernst Jünger]. Ed. Tobias Wimbauer. 3d updated and rev. ed. Hagen- Berchum: Eisenhut-Verlag, 2010. 242 p. 22 cm. ISBN 978-3-942090-02-5: EUR 29.95

This third edition is a much improved and revised version of the index of personal names in Ernst Jünger’s diaries. It is arranged in alphabetical order by last name. Each entry includes a short biographical note, followed by occurrence of the name under the date of the diary entry, in chronological order. Pseudonyms are included as main entries, and are connected to historical identities via footnotes. The listings include short quotes in cases where the quote will help identify an important mention in the diary. Literary figures are listed with the corresponding author (i.e. Hyperion is entered under Hölderlin). The alphabetical arrangement of entries combined with the chronological list of occurrences in the diaries has the advantage that the index can be used in conjunction with any edition of Jünger’s diaries.

The index constructs a (however preliminary) virtual library that documents Ernst Jünger’s intellectual interests. This bibliography of references needs to be expanded with a catalog of his personal library, and it needs to be crosschecked with references in Jünger’s correspondence for a more complete picture of influences and relationships.

Ernst Jünger remains a controversial and much debated figure in Germany. The three editions of the index trace an evolution in Tobias Wimbauer’s understanding of Jünger’s literary merit, but the debate over his role in the political history of early 20th-century Germany is still evolving. Comparatists, Germanists, and historians participating in the reassessment of Ernst Jünger will find the names index an invaluable reference tool. [tk/hm]

Rainer Maria Rilke: Chronik seines Lebens und seines Werkes 1875-1926 [Rainer Maria Rilke: Chronicle of his Life and Work, 1875-1926]. Ingeborg Schenk. Expanded new ed. Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verlag, 2009. 1251 p. 22 cm. ISBN 978-3-458-17433-2: EUR 78

This new edition represents a revised and expanded edition of the first (1975) and second editions (1990) of the trusted Rilke chronicle. The supplements (published in 1996) to the second edition are integrated into the text and index and complement the material with recently published letters, personal testimonials, and other documents. Three important collections of correspondence—Briefe zur Politik [Letters on Politics], Briefe an Schweizer Freunde [Letters to Swiss Frends], and Briefe an die Mutter 1896- 1926 [Letters to His Mother]—could be added. Additional correspondence with, for example, Rudolf Kassner, Auguste Rodin, Anton Kippenberg, Sidonie Nadherny von Borutin, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Rolf von Unger-Sternberg, Thankmar von Münchhausen, and Erwein von Aretin, which until now existed only in manuscript form, has been added. Rilke’s Tagebuch Westerwede und Paris, 1902: Taschenbuch Nr.1 [Westerwede and Paris Diaries] and the collection Siberne Schlangen [Silver Serpents] have been incorporated as well.

An afterword provides information about all the newly included sources. The chronicle contains several indexes: a documentation of the sources for the quotes used in the volume, a personal name index, an index of countries and places, and an index of works. The new editor emphasizes that the work has assumed a life of its own and will continue to expand with no end date in sight. The material is impressive; it exemplifies the editors’ diligence and devotion to the collection, as well as to the interesting and valuable results of research on Rilke. This new edition replaces the two older editions and is highly recommended for any university library. And this work offers Rilke scholars and enthusiasts not just a reference work, but also the opportunity to follow his life almost day by day. [hjb/mr]

Werke: kommentierte Ausgabe in vier Bänden [Works: Annotated Edition in Four Volumes]. Nelly Sachs. Berlin: Suhrkamp. 21 cm.

Vol. 1. Gedichte 1940-1950 [Poetry, 1940-1950]. Ed. Matthias Weichelt. 2010. 344 p. ISBN 978-3-518-42156-7: EUR 44

Vol. 2. Gedichte 1951-1970 [Poetry, 1951-1970]. Ed. Ariane Huml and Matthias Weichelt. 2010. 426 p. ISBN 978-3-518-42157-4: EUR 44

Nelly Sachs once declared that she preferred to “disappear” behind her writing, but she deserves the high regard that was late in coming to her. Only now, 40 years after her death, is a four-volume annotated edition of her works being published. It fulfills some longstanding desiderata, but also respects her request that the prose and poetry she wrote before she emigrated to Sweden not be reprinted. Thus the edition contains all her works published after May 1940, as well as an extensive and representative selection of previously unpublished pieces. The first volume’s afterword, by the edition’s main editor Aris Fioreto—also the author of Flucht und Verwandlung: Nelly Sachs, Schriftstellerin, Berlin/Stockholm. Eine Bildbiographie [Flight and Transformation: Nelly Sachs, Writer, in Berlin and Stockholm. A Biography in Pictures] (Berlin, 2010)— provides references to Sachs’s previous work, citing as well two early poems and listing all known publications from before 1940.

The texts are given in chronological order, always in what was known to be the last version produced by Sachs. Her meaningful punctuation has been left unchanged. Corrections have been made only to obvious mistakes, such as typos. The annotations are of the highest quality, as is the afterword, which gives biographical details and discusses Sachs’s works in depth, offering as well information about Jewish literature, history, culture, and traditions. Also provided are a chronology and, in each volume, an index of poem titles with first lines.

The careful reconstitution of the texts and the informative annotations give this well-crafted publication the quality of a research edition that will remain a primary resource for work on Nelly Sachs for years to come. The editors plan a further publication offering an annotated selection of Sachs’s nearly 4,000 letters, which would be a welcome complement to this edition of her works. [wa/nb]

Bibliographie Arno Schmidt [Arno Schmidt Bibliography]. Karl-Heinz Müther. Bielefeld: Aisthesis-Verlag. 26 cm. (Bibliographien zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, 1).

Suppl. 11. 2009. 128 p. ISBN 978-3-89528-735-0: EUR 18.50.

The most recent supplement to the original Bibliographie Arno Schmidt is a testimonial to the tireless dedication of its editor Karl-Heinz Müther to this endeavor. The bibliography was published between 1949 and 1991, and the so far 11 subsequent volumes from 1992 to the present serve as updates to it. Supplement 10 was reviewed in RREA 14:96, with references to previous RREA reviews back to RREO 94-1/4-454.

Upon closer perusal, one notes that the number of “new” entries is limited. Furthermore, many of the so-called new entries cite digitized works that can be accessed through the home page of the Gesellschaft der Arno-Schmidt-Leser (GASL) [Society of Arno Schmidt Readers] under the heading Arno-Schmidt-Referenzbibliothek. The latter offers free digital versions of the books found in Schmidt’s personal library or those that played an important role in his works, in the editions used by the author—primarily works of the 18th and 19th centuries which are now somewhat difficult to obtain. To include these in the print bibliography seems unnecessary and cumbersome because of their long URLs. Moreover, the flaws in Müther’s bibliography mentioned in previous reviews remain uncorrected. The work is difficult to use because of its complicated organizational scheme and because there is no sequential numbering of titles. Rectifying these problems would make the bibliography much more user-friendly. [sh/akb]

Fluid Exile: Jewish Exile Writers in Canada 1940-2006. Eugen Banauch. Heidelberg: Winter, 2009. 259 p. ill. 25 cm. (Anglistische Forschungen, 395). ISBN 978-3-8253-5572-2: EUR 32

This informative book, revised from the author’s 2007 dissertation at the University of Vienna, discusses four Jewish writers from either Germany or Austria who came to Canada as prisoners and who remained in Canada after World War II. The author places them within the context of topics such as Canadian Holocaust literature, exile literature, and inter- or trans-cultural writing. The writers’ exile is “fluid” because they can be viewed as German or Austrian writers but also as Canadian writers. For them there are no firm boundaries for national literature. The work features an eight-page section on additional fields for German-Canadian exile studies, along with a 24-page bibliography featuring primary texts (books, articles, transcripts, and other source material), secondary texts, and electronic resources. Fluid Exile offers insights into the complex topic of the Canadian cultural mosaic and will appeal to historians and students of literature. [tk/ldl]

Littératures d’outre-tombe [Literatures from Beyond the Grave]. Ed. André Brincourt. Paris: Grasset, 2010. 519 p. 24 cm. (Anthologie). ISBN 9782246777717: EUR 23

An RREA Original Review by Michelle Emanuel (University of Mississippi)

Structured like a dictionary, alphabetically with short entries, Littératures d’outre-tombe examines the ouvrage [body of work] of close to 150 writers, mostly from the 20th century. Brincourt approaches the project as a musée imaginaire [imaginary museum] instead of a simple anthology and curates a collection of writers while asking, “To what extent, what price, in what reality or misunderstanding does the death of a writer confirm his masterpiece?”

The majority of the collection includes writers from France (such as Aragon, Breton, Camus, Mauriac, Proust, and Sartre) and the United States (e.g., Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Mailer, and McCullers), in addition to other Europeans (e.g., Ibsen, Joyce, Kafka, Strindberg, and Woolf ), Latin Americans (e.g., Borges and Neruda) and even Japan (Mishima). Each entry includes the writer’s name, birth and death dates, and a phrase to sum up his work, such as “William Faulkner, 1895-1962, De l’autre côté de gestes et des mots” [on the other side of gestures and words]. The entries themselves are lyrically written yet contained, looking beyond individual works for the unifying theme of the writer’s body of work. Although not a traditional reference work, it can be appreciated by many types of users.

Répertoire des pastiches et parodies littéraires des XIXe et XX siècles [Directory of 19th- and 20th-Century Literary Pastiches and Parodies]. Paul Aron and Jacques Espagnon. Paris: PUPS, Presses de l’Universite´ Paris-Sorbonne, 2009. 563 p. 29 cm. (Histoire de l’imprimé). ISBN 978-2-84050-611-9: EUR 38

An RREA Original Review by Wendeline A. Hardenberg (Southern Connecticut State University)

The stated objective of this collaboration between a researcher and a bookseller is to furnish the reader with an inventory of the literary pastiches and parodies produced in French between 1800 and 2000. While not exhaustive—secondary sources published after 2005 were not consulted, and it does not include any writing that simply moves original text around or takes it as a starting point for a different, only loosely related original work—the Répertoire still boasts over 3,000 entries for literary “parostiches,” as well as a small selection of works that technically fall outside the purview of the book.

The preface explains the scope of the project and spends more than 20 pages determining the exact nature of and differences between parodies and pastiches. The actual annotated list of parodies and pastiches is divided into three sections: (1) “Textes”—texts consulted, arranged first chronologically for anonymous texts and then by author’s last name; (2) “De seconde main” [Second-hand]—texts mentioned elsewhere but not physically located by the authors; and (3) “Divers” [Various]—a sampling of texts that do not meet the criteria for inclusion.

The annotated bibliography contains a selection of works on pastiche and parody through history and a selection of studies of particular authors associated with parody and pastiche. There are also three indexes: authors who have been the subjects of pastiche or parody; works that have been the subjects of pastiche or parody; and authors of pastiches and parodies.

The typical entry starts with its number (which is in sequence with all other entry numbers regardless of section and is referred to in the indexes) followed by the name of the author of the parostiche in question, when known. If an author has written more than one parostiche, then that author will appear multiple times. The title of the work and the publication information appear on the following lines. Each entry then features an annotation, which can range from one phrase that conveys the source of the parostiche (as is the case for Jean-Didier Wolframm’s “Le toit littéraire” [The Literary Rooftop], which is merely identified as a parody of Jacques Sternberg and the Magazine littéraire [Literary Magazine]), to several paragraphs containing brief analysis and quotes from other sources (as is the case for Marguerite Yourcenar’s Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian], which also contains many references to another work by Yourcenar, Nouvelles orientales [Oriental Tales], that does not have its own entry).

On the whole, Répertoire des pastiches et parodies littéraires des XIXe et XX siècles is an outstanding resource for anyone interested in French literary pastiches and parodies— how to define them, what they parody, and where to direct further research. It is recommended for libraries serving robust programs in French literature.

Archives de la vie litéraire sous l’Occupation: à travers le désastre; ce livre est réalisé à l’exposition …”Between Collaboration and Resistance, French Literary Life under Nazi occupation” à la New York Public Library (NYPL), d’avril à juillet 2009 [Archives of Literary Life under the Occupation: Through the Disaster...]. Robert O. Paxton, Olivier Corpet, and Claire Paulhan. Paris: Tallandier, 2009. 446 p. ill. 25 cm. ISBN 978-2-84734-585-8: EUR 45

This is an impressive volume, useful not only as a catalog of the 2009 New York Public Library exhibition “Between Collaboration and Resistance, French Literary Life under Nazi Occupation,” but also as documentation of French literary life during the German occupation of France from 1940 to1944. The scholars responsible for the exhibit are Olivier Corpet, Director of the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC) in Caen; Claire Paulhan, literary scholar and publisher (also with the IMEC); and Robert O. Paxton, one of the most significant scholars of Vichy France and of European fascism, now an emeritus scholar at Columbia University in New York. The IMEC is roughly analogous to the Deutsches Literaturarchiv (DLA), in that it serves as a documentation and preservation center for the literary production of authors, publishers and journals.

The volume includes reproductions of photographs, news articles, cartoons, letters, postcards, posters, tickets, identification cards, and other such documentation from the exhibit. It covers everyday life under occupation, the press, collaboration, persecution and deportation of authors, intellectual resistance, and international solidarity, from the immediate pre-occupation period through the liberation of France. The authors covered are thoroughly representative, the reproductions of high quality. All large libraries should have it.

One caveat, however: factual errors in the work could have been avoided with more use of available primary and secondary source material from Germany. For example, the chapter on Collaboration contains three pictures in which a woman wearing an interesting hat appears. She is identified in the captions as the wife of the German ambassador, but she is actually Mimina Breker, the first husband of sculptor Arno Breker, as can be unambiguously seen in the illustrated memoirs of Arno Breker and of Alice Epting-Kullman. Other errors of this sort, and some photos out of chronological order, could likewise have been avoided by taking advantage of additional secondary literature and private collections. [frh/rb]

Umberto Eco: die Biographie. [Umberto Eco: The Biography]. Michael Nerlich. Tübingen: Francke, 2010. xvii, 349 p. ill. 22 cm. ISBN 978-3-7720-8353-2: EUR 29.90

Michael Nerlich’s biography is a well written and thoroughly researched account of Umberto Eco as a successful contemporary writer as well as an influential researcher in semiotics and literary theory. Nerlich also pays homage to Eco’s achievement of broadening the audience for esoteric topics by valuing his engagement with the public via interviews and presentations on literary, cultural, and political issues. The narrative treatment of Eco’s life includes his childhood in fascist Italy, his work in publishing, his university career as a semiotics researcher of note in Bologna, and his increasing fame due to his literary works. The biography includes a useful selected bibliography in the appendix, but does not include a name index.

Nerlich’s comprehensive approach to narrating Eco’s life is especially important for a German readership, because Nerlich suspects that the German reader may be prejudiced against Eco based on German book reviews that characterize his novels as overly theoretical and lacking narrative appeal. Nerlich believes that Eco’s work is worth a second look for German readers, because the Italian author engages with German literature and culture. Nerlich provides eloquent introductions to Eco’s novels and summarizes his work as a semiotician; he highlights Eco’s greatest contribution as a researcher, that is, his vision of semiotics as a trans-disciplinary science. The biography deserves praise for its attention to detail and deft interpretation of Eco’s scholarly and creative writings.

This biography is highly readable because it treats every aspect of Eco’s creative and scholarly development, including a critical evaluation of Eco as a sometimes effective and sometimes not so effective political speaker and commentator. A University of Bologna online international bibliography of works by and about Umberto Eco (http://www. sssub.unibo.it/pagine_principali/Curriculum_eco.htm) amply demonstrates that he is very well received worldwide. Nerlich has created a compelling account of Umberto Eco that belongs in every library. [tk/hm]

Bibliographisches Handbuch der Calderón-Forschung = Manual bibliográfico calderoniano [Bibliographic Handbook for Calderón Research]. Kurt and Roswitha Reichenberger. Kassel: Reichenberger. 30 cm.

Vol. 4. Die Rezeption der Werke Calderóns; Register für die Bände 1-4 [The Reception of Calderón’s Works; Index to the Volumes 1-4]. 2009. xi, 534 p. ISBN 978-3-937734-57-6: EUR 245

This multi-volume reference work on Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681) reached completion with the publication of volume 4 in 2009. Volume 1 (on Calderón texts and their transmission) was published in 1979, followed by volume 3 (a descriptive bibliography) in 1981. Because of its size, volume 2, a bibliography of the secondary literature for the period 1680 to 1980, was finally issued in two parts, in 1999 (see RREA 6:139) and 2003 (see RREA 10:115). This fourth and final volume is divided into two more or less equal parts; the first is devoted to Calderón reception, and the second contains numerous indexes to all four volumes. The title chosen for the first part of volume 4 is “Information on Calderón Reception” rather than “Books on Calderón Reception,” because most of this part consists of information on performances of Calderón’s dramatic works. Monographic titles are listed only in two introductory chapters: the first of these, entitled Einfluss und Bearbeitungen (Influence and Adaptations), covers Spain and Portugal; the second, called Rezeption und Übersetzungen (Reception and Translations) covers other countries. No pretense is made of providing a complete list of all relevant performances and books; the mass of available material is simply too large.

Monographic titles are listed chronologically by year of publication; dramatic performances are listed under the Spanish titles of the works, further organized chronologically, with information on the place of performance, performing groups, and the title under which the work was performed. Source information is provided in footnotes. It was drawn less from generally available reference works (such as performance chronicles of the major theaters), and more from the specialized literature on which the compilers drew in the course of their work.

The table of contents is presented in Spanish and in German. There are 17 different indexes, of varying length, as follows: (1) titles of works, (2) authors of dramas, and (3) an index of first lines. Next comei of characters’ names for: (4) the autos sacramentales, (5) the comedies, and (6) the entr’actes. The rest of the indexes cover: (7) theater directors and actors for the 17th and 18th centuries, (8) printers and booksellers, (9) Sueltas numbers, (10) translations by language and titles, and (11) translations by language and translators. The remaining indexes list: (12) libraries and private collections that hold manuscripts and important printed editions, (13) editors of Calderón’s works, (14) authors of secondary literature, (15) reviewers, (16) authors of free adaptations, and (17) illustrators.

While there is joyous cause for celebrating the completion of this work, we must note that it is now essentially three decades away from being current, given that the closing date for inclusion of material was 1980. During that time, the amount of material published on Calderón has grown tremendously. Fortunately, the publication of this work has become something of a family enterprise, and we can hope for a continuation under the guidance of the Reichenbergers’ daughter Eva. Sadly, her father Kurt passed away in 2008 and thus did not experience the publication of the current work’s final volume. [sh/crc]

La novela en España: catálogo de novelas y novelistas españoles [The Novel in Spain: Catalog of Spanish Novels and Novelists]. Juan Ignacio Ferreras. Madrid: Biblioteca del Laberinto. 25 cm.

Vol. 1. Desde la aparición de la imprenta hasta el siglo XIX [From the Beginnings of Printing to the 19th Century]. 2009. 350 p. ISBN 9788492492183: EUR 42

Vol. 2. Siglo XIX [The Nineteenth Century]. 2010. 687 p. ISBN 9788492492213: EUR 72

An RREA Original Review by David D. Oberhelman (Oklahoma State University)

The first two volumes of La novela en España: catálogo de novelas y novelistas españoles form a comprehensive descriptive bibliography of novels published in Spain from the earliest days of print (incunabula dating up to 1500) through the 19th century. Juan Ignacio Ferreras—a prolific scholar on the history of the Spanish novel whose diverse publications include studies of Don Quijote, the realist novels of Benito Pérez Galdós, and even science fiction—has painstakingly compiled this catalog using the resources of libraries and archives on the Iberian Peninsula and throughout Europe. The volume on the 19th century is an expansion and revision of his Catálogo de novelas y novelistas españoles del siglo XIX (Madrid, 1979), and serves as an excellent continuation of the 2009 volume on the novel up to 1800.

The first volume is divided into three parts, roughly by century (1500s, 1600s, and 1700s). Each section contains alphabetically arranged entries on individual novelists or on anonymous texts such as the picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes. Although the majority of the novels were printed in Spain itself, Ferreras also includes Spanishlanguage fiction that was printed in other parts of Europe, particularly during the Hapsburg era of the Spanish Empire, but not novels published in the New World. Spanish translations of novels in Italian, Portuguese, and other languages appear, as well. The entries on novelists contain brief comments on their lives and fiction, editions of their works published in that century (title, city of publication, printer or publisher, and date), additional bibliographic description, notes on the libraries holding copies of the works, and references to modern critical studies and other catalogs.

In his commentaries, Ferreras discusses how the novel as a genre slowly emerged in relation to other forms of prose narrative, such as romances, histories, tales of chivalry, and various other early chronicles. Ferreras specifically limits his discussion of significant writers in order to devote more pages to lesser-known but more representative works that can illuminate different aspects of the early novel. His entry on Cervantes, for example, consists of little more than a list of 17th-century editions of his prose works and avoids the very complex publication history of his major novels such as the two parts of Don Quijote. This volume of the catalog is thus both an invaluable bibliographic tool and a literary history of how the novel became a distinct genre.

The second volume of La novela en España outlines the widespread popularity of the novel and exponential growth of the printing industry after the Industrial Revolution. The revisions of the 1979 catalog in this edition largely consist of notes based on new scholarship or information that Ferreras uncovered in his archival research. As with the first volume, Ferreras restricts himself to basic bibliographic citations in his entries on the most famous novelists of the era, such as Clarín (Leopoldo Alas) and Pérez Galdós, but his entries on the lesser-known writers and novels reveal fascinating details on the readership and publishing world of Spain in the 1800s. With 2,415 entries in this volume, it gives a comprehensive overview of novels published in that pivotal literary century which will benefit scholars for decades to come.

There is no topical or title index in either volume of the catalog published so far, a slight weakness for researchers seeking other points of entry into the listings. Nevertheless, this set will be an essential purchase for academic libraries supporting programs in Peninsular Spanish literature. Together, the two volumes document the history of the novel in Spain over five centuries, and the two planned future volumes of La novela en España can be expected to expand the coverage to the 20th century and beyond.

Vivliographia Take Sinopoulou 1934-2004 [Bibliography of Takes Sinopoulos 1934-2004]. Comp. Kike Demopoulou and Olga Gregoriadou. Thessalonike: University Studio Press, 2009. 382 p. 24 cm. ISBN 978-960-12-1785-7: EUR 24.30 (Armenopoulou 32, 546 35 Thessalonike, fax [30] 2310 216647)

An RREA Original Review by George I. Paganelis (California State University, Sacramento)

A medical student at the University of Athens during World War II, the poet Takes Sinopoulos was drafted on several occasions to serve in Greek army hospitals on various fronts, beginning in early 1941 and ending in May 1949. During this period Sinopoulos witnessed the extreme hardship that Greece endured under occupation as it fought external enemies, and the ensuing brutality and fratricide of the Greek Civil War. The pervasive death and the loss of close friends in the army devastated Sinopoulos’s psyche and left emotional scars that would color the whole of his life, as well as his dark, defeatist poetry.

Building on several bibliographical notices that have appeared mostly in periodical literature, as well as sections of Michales Pieres’s Ho Choros kai ta chronia tou Take Sinopoulou 1917-1981: schediasma vio-ergographias [The Space and Years of Takes Sinopoulos, 1917-1981: An Outline of His Life and Work] (Athena, 1988) and the volume, edited by Elias Gkres, Takes Sinopoulos: enoikos tora tou pantoteinou, kekyromenos [Takes Sinopoulos: An Inhabitant Now of the Eternal, Authenticated] (Athena, 1996), this work brings together comprehensively all the literary output of and related scholarship on one of Greece’s most important post-war poets through 2004.

The front matter features a lengthy introductory essay, including useful statistical data, entitled “Ho Takes Sinopoulos, he prote metapolemike genia kai he kritike” [Takes Sinopoulos, the First Post-War Generation, and Criticism]; for a thorough critical analysis of the poet’s work in English, readers should consult Kimon Friar’s introduction to Landscape of Death: The Selected Poems of Takís Sinópoulos (Columbus, Ohio, 1979).

The bibliography itself contains over 1,300 entries and is broken down into six sections: The first lists Sinopoulos’s discrete publications in detail beginning in 1951 with Metaichmio [Midpoint] through posthumous reprints up to 1999, including contents and references to reviews of most works. Sinopoulos first found his way into print in 1934 in the local periodical press in his native Peloponnesus under an assumed name and throughout his life continued writing articles, columns, and criticism, all of which are enumerated in the second section. The third profiles his translations of foreign, mainly French, poets and literary figures into Greek. Translations of the poet’s work into Italian, German, English, and other languages appear in the fourth section. The fifth outlines studies, reviews, and criticism of Sinopoulos’s work, and the sixth section offers listings of recorded poetry readings, radio and TV shows, theatrical representations, etc. A multitude of indexes concludes the work, including references to and reviews of his artistic activities as a painter.

Given the general lack of indexing of Greek periodicals and the difficulty of locating many scarce publications—which, the editors freely admit, sometimes caused them to rely on intermediary references from other sources without firsthand consultation—this bibliography stands as a highly useful, up-to-date tool for further research on a significant literary figure in 20th-century Greek letters. It is recommended for all Modern Greek studies collections and for broad European poetry collections. Interested readers are further directed to the Web site of the Sinopoulos Foundation (http://www.elpenor.gr/) for information about the legacy of the poet and sponsored activities, workshops, etc.

Dziela Karla Dedeciusa: wybór bibliograficzny adnotowany = Werke von Karl Dedecius [The Works of Karl Dedecius: An Annotated Selective Bibliography]. Blazej Mierczak. Wroclaw: Oficyna Wyd. ATUT; Dresden: Neisse-Verlag, 2009. 126 p. 24 cm. (Scripta Caroli Dedecii, 1). ISBN 978-83-7432-530-1 (ATUT); ISBN 978-3-940310-78-1 (Neisse): EUR 24

No one in the latter half of the 20th century has done more to present Polish literature to the German-reading public than has Karl Dedecius, who was born in Lódz in 1921 (see his autobiography Ein Europäer aus Lodz: Erinnerungen [A European from Lódz: Remembrances], Frankfurt am Main, 2006). He is the translator of important Polish authors of the 20th century (e.g., Zbigniew Herbert and Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz), the publisher of Surkamp-Verlag’s 50-volume Die Polnische Bibliothek, the editor of a seven-volume anthology of 20th-century Polish literature translated into German, and the founder of the Polnisches Institut in Darmstadt in 1980, which he led for almost 20 years. Among the many honors bestowed upon him is the 1979 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, awarded annually at the conclusion of the Frankfurt Book Fair each October.

His papers reside in the Karl-Dedecius-Archiv at the Collegium Polonicum of the University Library of the Europa-University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder (see http://www.ub.europa-uni.de/de/projekte/kda/index.html). In 2010 the Archive began publication of the journal OderÜbersetzen: deutsch-polnisches Übersetzungsjahrbuch = Polsko-niemiecki rocznik translatorski [Translating the Oder: German-Polish Translation Annual].

The bibliography begins with a 21-page introduction in Polish, followed by a chronologically arranged annotated selective bibliography (p. 31-127), which covers Dedecius’s works from 1952-2009, including of course many translations. A total of some 830 items are listed, among them a number of newspaper and journal articles. Where possible, the titles have German-language annotations. The bibliography’s use is limited by the lack of an index, so that one cannot readily distinguish between works that Dedecius translated and works that he edited. One can hope that such an index will be forthcoming in this series, Scripta Caroli Dedecii, to enhance access to his works. [sh/ga]

Bibliographie der Buchübersetzungen slowenischer Literatur ins Deutsche = Bibliografija knjižnih prevodov slovenske literature v nemšcino [Bibliography of Translations of Book-Length Slovene Literature into German]. Stojan Vavti. Ed. Andrej Leben. Ljubljana: Center for Slovene Literature, 2006. 86 p. ill. 30 cm. ISBN 961-6036-73-4: gratis (litcenter@mail.ljudmila.org).

Bibliographie der Buchübersetzungen slowenischer Literatur ins Deutsche seit 1991 [Bibliography of Translations of Book-Length Slovene Literature into German since 1991]. Stojan Vavti. Ed. Andrej Leben and Aleksander Studen-Kirchner. Ljubljana: Center za Slovenskeho Književnost, 2008. 19 p. 30 cm. ISBN 978- 961-6036-92-4: gratis (litcenter@mail.ljudmila.org).

Smaller literatures in lesser-used languages have a hard time getting noticed on the international stage, especially if there has been no Nobel Prize winner from that national literature. For a number of eastern and southeastern European national literatures that rely on translations for exposure in other countries, the presumably most important book market is the German-language one. The fact that the literature of these countries, seemingly against the odds, has been disseminated in a relatively high number of German translations can be traced back not only to the accomplishments of GDR publishing houses that accepted the literature of “fraternal socialist countries” to an impressive degree, but also to the efforts of West German publishers, who did more than just license editions from the East German houses. In order to promote international awareness, some countries established special institutions to take on the task of financially supporting translations. In Slovenia the Center za Slovensko Književnost (Center for Slovene Literature) took on this function, including the promotion of already existing translations—and thus the work at hand.

The first of the two volumes reviewed here is a retrospective bibliography: its initial section is a “Chronology of Translations” published between 1781 and 2006 (pp. 17- 48), while its second section selectively includes “Collective Works and Anthologies with Literature of Slovene Authors” published between 1813 and 2006 (pp. 49-60). A nice visual touch is the inclusion of facsimile title pages and mock-up book covers near the margins. An author index (pp. 61-86) closes out the volume, although it only includes works from the first section. A short essay on the reception of Slovene literature in German-speaking countries forms an introduction. The second bibliography listed here is an excerpt from the first, supplemented by a few titles that appeared after 2006. The layout corresponds to the two parts of the first bibliography, but here the titles are listed alphabetically instead of chronologically. [sh/rdh]

Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto: 1887-2007. Geoffrey Sutton. Published under the auspices of the Esperanto-speaking Writers’ Association. New York: Mondial, 2008. x, 728 p. 24 cm. ISBN 978-1-59569- 090-6 (hb.): $66

There exists a rich legacy of literature in Esperanto, both original works and translations of world classics. However, even the Esperanto community is largely unaware of this impressive corpus. To try to alleviate this situation, Geoffrey Sutton has compiled an encyclopedia of original literature written in Esperanto, a singular achievement that creates a compendium of literary writing and criticism that future scholars of Esperanto will of necessity consult.

Sutton’s encyclopedia also underscores the need to collect biographical material on Esperanto authors in order to create cultural institutions that provide a framework for preserving the cultural artifacts of the Esperanto movement, e.g., literary archives, and university collections. The archives and papers of Esperanto writers tend to be forgotten with the death of their authors.

Although Sutton’s is a monumental achievement, there is missing information as well as organizational aspects that detract from the usefulness of the work. For example, instead of opting for an alphabetical arrangement of authors, Sutton has divided their work into five fairly arbitrary epochs: (1) 1887-1920: Primitive Romanticism and the Establishing of Style, (2) 1920-1930: Mature Romanticism and a Literary Flowering, (3) 1931-1951: Parnassianism and the Coming of Aage, (4) 1952-1974: Post-Parnassianism and Modernism, and (5) 1975-: Popularization of the Novel, Eexperimental Poetry, and Postmodernism.

Among the many disadvantages of this approach is the need to use the author index to find information about a particular author, other than by serendipity or persistent leafing through the volume. It also means that updating the work, available only in a printed version, will be virtually impossible, which would not have been the case, had Sutton chosen a different format—a ring-binder edition, for example. Although remarkably error-free for such a massive work, Sutton’s encyclopedia contains inaccuracies and creates confusion about some titles and editions, and, as usual, missing or incorrect birth and death dates pop up occasionally.

The encyclopedia concludes with an extensive bibliography detailing general materials, sources, cited translations from Esperanto originals, and associated works. However, this section of the book is very difficult to use because of the small typography, the conflation of primary and secondary literature, and the duplication of information. Moreover, Sutton fails to distinguish clearly between literary and popular criticism and often quotes lay scholars repeatedly, thereby giving the mistaken impression that they are experts about the topics treated and thereby creating a false authority system in his encyclopedia.

However, the presence of these shortcomings may be a blessing in disguise in that Esperanto scholars will feel challenged to address them, which may just rekindle a wider and profounder interest in the Esperanto literary legacy. That renaissance of interest, too, will be to Sutton’s credit. [rh/jb]

Schicksallosigkeit: ein Imre-Kertész-Wörterbuch. [Fatelessness: An Imre-Kertesz- Dictionary]. Ed. László F. Földényi. Transl. from the Hungarian by Akos Doma. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2009. 363 p. 22 cm. ISBN 978-3- 498-02122-1: EUR 19.90

Imre Kertész, a Hungarian writer and Auschwitz survivor, received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature for his unflinching and unsentimental narrative treatment of the Holocaust. Kertész’ novels recount his experience in the concentration camps; he writes in an impersonal style that illustrates the loss of a personal fate in the industrialized mass murder engineered by fascist Germany. His style was not always understood or embraced by critics, but the objectified narration of personal experiences communicates Holocaust history from a broader perspective. The Holocaust signifies for Kertész nothing less than the failure of Christian European culture. Europe failed not because six million Jews were murdered, but because it was possible that six million Jews could be murdered. Living with the memory of the Holocaust becomes understanding the human potential for inflicting the Holocaust. Kertész’ novels include Sorstalanság, translated as Fatelessness; A kudarc, translated as Fiasco; Gályanapló [Diary of a Galley Slave], and K. dosszié, which has been translated into German, Danish, and Swedish as Dossier K.

The Hungarian scholar László Földényi set out to create a Kertész dictionary of characteristic expressions in the work of the author. Most readers might expect words like “fear,” “memory,” “death,” “fiasco,” “suicide;” but instead they will find words like “dog,” “scale,” “Hamlet,” and “battle axe. Földényi has chosen a set of words that merely point to the unspeakable; the dictionary entries, with their contextual explanations, create an echo of Kertész’ work that points to the themes in the center of his work. Key quotes from Kertész’ work are repeated strategically in the over 100 entries, and the alphabetically arranged dictionary becomes an atmospheric and insightful immersion into the work of Kertész.

Földényi is an expert on Kertész’ work, and this dictionary will draw both new and seasoned readers into the circle of his admirers. Fatelessness, a novel that recounts his arrest and deportation to Auschwitz, perfectly illustrates Kertész powerful narrative stride; it begins with the line “Today I did not go to school.” [tk/hm]

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