Todd Kontje 
A Companion to German Realism 1848-1900 

New, specially commissioned essays on representative works of 19th-century German realism.


This volume of new essays by leading scholars treats a representative sampling of German realist prose from the period 1848 to 1900, the period of its dominance of the German literary landscape. It includes essays on familiar, canonical authors — Stifter, Freytag, Raabe, Fontane, Thomas Mann — and canonical texts, but also considers writers frequently omitted from traditional literary histories, such as Luise Mühlbach, Friedrich Spielhagen, Louise von François, Karl May, and Eugenie Marlitt. The introduction situates German realism in the context of both German literary history and of developments in other European literatures, and surveys the most prominent critical studies of ninteenth-century realism. The essays treat the following topics: Stifter’s
Brigitta and the lesson of realism; Mühlbach, Ranke, and the truth of historical fiction; regional histories as national history in Freytag’s
Die Ahnen; gender and nation in Louise von François’s historical fiction; theory, reputation, and the career of Friedrich Spielhagen; Wilhelm Raabe and the German colonial experience; the poetics of work in Freytag, Stifter, and Raabe; Jewish identity in Berthold Auerbach’s novels; Eugenie Marlitt’s narratives of virtuous desire; the appeal of Karl May in the Wilhelmine Empire; Thomas Mann’s portrayal of male-male desire in his early short fiction; and Fontane’s
Effi Briest and the end of realism.


Contributors: Robert C. Holub, Brent O. Petersen, Lynne Tatlock, Thomas C. Fox, Jeffrey L. Sammons, John Pizer, Hans J. Rindisbacher, Irene S. Di Maio, Kirsten Belgum, Nina Berman, Robert Tobin, Russell A. Berman.


Todd Kontje is professor of German at the University of California, San Diego.

Table of Content

Introduction: Reawakening German Realism – Todd Kontje

Adalbert Stifter’s
Brigitta, or the Lesson of Realism – Robert C. Holub

Mühlbach, Ranke, and the Truth of Historical Fiction – Brent O. Peterson

‘In the Heart of the Heart of the Country’: Regional Histories as National History in Gustav Freytag’s
Die Ahnen (1872-80)(1872-80) –

A Woman’s Post: Gender and Nation in Historical Fiction by Louise von François – Thomas C. Fox

Friedrich Spielhagen: The Demon of Theory and the Decline of Reputation – Jeffrey L Sammons

Wilhelm Raabe and the German Colonial Experience – John Pizer

From National Task to Individual Pursuit: The Poetics of Work in Freytag, Stifter, and Raabe – Hans J. Rindisbacher

Das Republikanische, das Demokratische, das Pantheistische: Jewish Identity in Berthold Auerbach’s Novels – Irene Stocksiecker Di Maio

E. Marlitt: Narratives of Virtuous Desire – Kirsten Belgum

The Appeal of Karl May in the Wilhelmine Empire: Emigration, Modernization, and the Need for Heroes – Nina Berman

Making Way for the Third Sex: Liberal and Antiliberal Impulses in Mann’s Portrayal of Male-Male Desire in His Early Short Fiction – Robert Tobin

Effi Briest and the End of Realism – Russell A. Berman

About the author

THOMAS C. FOX is Professor of German at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Stated Memory: East Germany and the Holocaust (Camden House, 1999) and co-editor of Companion to the Works of Lessing (Camden House, 2005).