"Das metaphysische Unterfutter der Realität": Recent Publications and Trends in W.G. Sebald Research

Wolff, Lynn L.

doi:10.1353/mon.2007.0020

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 17 publications

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“…Given this absence in Sebald's writings and the fact that his major literary works appeared years after what Gerd Koenen (2001) has called West Germany's 'red decade', it is not surprising that relatively few critics have linked Sebald's work with the events of that time (but cf. Anderson, 2003;Atze and Loquai, 2005;Morgan, 2005;Long, 2007a;Wolff, 2007;Anderson, 2008;Long, 2009;Zisselsberger, 2009;Sheppard, 2009b;. This situation may, of course, also be due partly to such features of contemporary criticism as the traditional German view that Sebald's literary works, belonging as they seem to do to the realm of high art ('Dichtung'), are necessarily separated from the lower realms of history and politics, an impression that may have been fostered, too, by Sebald's extensive and unconcealed resonance with his literary forebears and his highly literary, archaizing style.…”

Section: Sebald and The Culture Of Protest: Critical Receptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An uncanny journey: W. G. Sebald and the literature of protest

Davies

2011

Journal of European Studies

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In an interview, Sebald distanced himself from the 1960s protest movements in West Germany, and his writings contain no evident reference to them. But more recent research indicates possible, albeit paradoxical or ambiguous links between Sebald’s life and works and the culture of the protest movements, and this essay will begin by synthesizing the results. In the light of these observations, a revealing comparison can be made between Sebald’s Schwindel. Gefühle. / Vertigo, especially its last section, ‘Il ritorno in patria’, and Bernward Vesper’s ‘novel-essay’ Die Reise, an emblematic text of the protest generation, which was written in 1969–70 and first published in 1977, since there are striking similarities between them, probably because both may be related to the conventions of ‘Väterliteratur’ (‘father literature’), one of the protest movement’s characteristic literary forms. This discussion will suggest that key issues which haunted the late 1960s remained unresolved at the start of the 1990s. It will thus permit a brief re-examination of protest literature and the painful positions it involved, which seem, on my argument, to have been culturally repressed, only to return, in an uncanny form, in Sebald’s work.

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Section: Sebald and The Culture Of Protest: Critical Receptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An uncanny journey: W. G. Sebald and the literature of protest

Davies

2011

Journal of European Studies

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`Woods, trees and the spaces in between'

Sheppard

2009

Journal of European Studies

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Words, Not Bombs

Rahmani¹

2020

Boundary 2

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The introduction to this special issue of boundary 2 examines W. G. Sebald’s rapid and sudden transformation from controversial and curmudgeonly Germanist to literary superstar as a case study in the “global valences of the critical.” The massive success of Sebald’s strange and variegated oeuvre among critics highlights a pervasive and troubling provincialism afflicting this supposedly global moment in world cultural history. Using Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, the author links the emergence of “distant” modes of reading to drone warfare and concludes by calling for greater emphasis on literary translation.

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"Das metaphysische Unterfutter der Realität": Recent Publications and Trends in W.G. Sebald Research

Cited by 4 publications

References 17 publications

An uncanny journey: W. G. Sebald and the literature of protest

An uncanny journey: W. G. Sebald and the literature of protest

`Woods, trees and the spaces in between'

Words, Not Bombs

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