Provides a view of the late Stifter as a forerunner of twentieth-century modernism.Adalbert Stifter has always been viewed as a natural heir to the Great Classical tradition, even by those critics who detect disturbing subtexts in his fiction. But he should be viewed quite differently: however well disguised, heis in truth a closet modernist, and a major trailblazer for Kafka and the Absurd. This is most evident in his late fiction, which has been almost universally ignored, dismissed or disparaged by his critics. His last novel Witiko in particular has been conspicuously neglected by both nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics. Ragg-Kirkby demonstrates -- largely by way of close reading -- that this is Stifter's extreme masterpiece. Beneath the surface of Biedermeier stuffiness is a vision of fracture, emptiness, meaninglessness, and mania not only more radical than that of any other 19th-century author, but arguably more radical than that of any 20th-century author, precisely because there is such a disjuncture between text and sub-text. In his final novel, Stifter simply leaves the future behind. Helena Ragg-Kirkby is a lecturer in German at the University of Sheffield.uncture between text and sub-text. In his final novel, Stifter simply leaves the future behind. Helena Ragg-Kirkby is a lecturer in German at the University of Sheffield.uncture between text and sub-text. In his final novel, Stifter simply leaves the future behind. Helena Ragg-Kirkby is a lecturer in German at the University of Sheffield.uncture between text and sub-text. In his final novel, Stifter simply leaves the future behind. Helena Ragg-Kirkby is a lecturer in German at the University of Sheffield.

This 1948 text was the first complete study of Austrian prose writer Adalbert Stifter's work to appear in English.

The history of this period in German literature is told through a detailed chronology, an introductory essay, a comprehensive bibliography, and over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries on poetry, novels, historical narrative, philosophical musings, drama, and the exceptional writers who emerged and shaped German literature over the centuries.

Geohistoricism examines two mid-nineteenth century thinkers – the Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter and the French architect Eugène E. Viollet-le-Duc – who imagined cultural history on the model of earth history: as a history of objects to be restored and worlds to be reconstructed. The nascent field of geology shaped cultural thought; their conservationism, informed by erosion, envisions a future of restorative renewal.

Recent years have seen a wealth of new scholarship on the history of photography, cinema, digital media, and video games, yet less attention has been devoted to earlier forms of visual culture. The nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic proliferation of new technologies, devices, and print processes, which provided growing audiences with access to more visual material than ever before. This volume brings together the best aspects of interdisciplinary scholarship to enhance our understanding of the production, dissemination, and consumption of visual media prior to the predominance of photographic reproduction. By setting these examples against the backdrop of demographic, educational, political, commercial, scientific, and industrial shifts in Central Europe, these essays reveal the diverse ways that innovation in visual culture affected literature, philosophy, journalism, the history of perception, exhibition culture, and the representation of nature and human life in both print and material culture in local, national, transnational, and global contexts.

Tracing Austrian intellectual life from Maria Theresa to Hitler's annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, this innovative book offers a precise and engaging account of Austrian intellectual history since the Enlightenment. Here, David S. Luft begins by locating his narrative in the region known as Cisleithanian Austria, the area to the west of the Leitha River that was the basis for the modern Austrian state after 1740. Chapter 2 provides a history of the German-speaking intellectual life of these central lands of the Habsburg Monarchy (Austria and Bohemia) from the Enlightenment to annexation by Nazi Germany. Chapters 3 to 5 identify the most important philosophers, writers, and social thinkers who contributed to Austrian intellectual life in the period between 1740 and 1938/1939 and address the intellectual significance of their work. Elegantly written and meticulously researched, Luft's book brings out the contributions of major figures such as Wittgenstein, Hofmannsthal, Musil, Kafka, Rilke, and Freud, but also draws attention to less well-known figures such as Bolzano, Brentano, Grillparzer, Stifter, Broch, and Hayek.

Collecting is usually understood as an activity that bestows permanence, unity, and meaning on otherwise scattered and ephemeral objects. In The Redemption of Things, Samuel Frederick emphasizes that to collect things, however, always entails displacing, immobilizing, and potentially disfiguring them, too. He argues that the dispersal of objects, seemingly antithetical to the collector's task, is essential to the logic of gathering and preservation. Through analyses of collecting as a dialectical process of preservation and loss, The Redemption of Things illustrates this paradox by focusing on objects that challenge notions of collectability: ephemera, detritus, and trivialities such as moss, junk, paper scraps, dust, scent, and the transitory moment. In meticulous close readings of works by Gotthelf, Stifter, Keller, Rilke, Glauser, and Frisch, and by examining an experimental film by Oskar Fischinger, Frederick reveals how the difficulties posed by these fleeting, fragile, and forsaken objects help to reconceptualize collecting as a poetic activity that makes the world of scattered things uniquely palpable and knowable.