EAN: 9783039118960

TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE GERMAN NOVEL - MONIQUE R...

At the beginning of the eighteenth century  the German literary establishment considered the
novel the contemptible entertainment of the uneducated. By the end of the century  the novel
had eclipsed the epic poem as the most appropriate genre for depicting humankind and its
preoccupations. The story of the novel's emergence as a respected and productive artistic genre
is intimately bound up with the vicissitudes of the most popular of all German baroque works 
Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen's (1621 22-1676) Der abentheurliche Simplicissimus:
Teutsch (1668 69). Between 1756 and 1785  Simplicissimus quietly found its way into bookshops
three times in radically different forms  in adaptations that were not  as critics have
asserted  arbitrary  but quite purposeful. This investigation discusses the ways in which this
canonical text was reworked to reflect the thinking of leading - and warring - Enlightenment
aestheticians. At the genre war's end  the novel emerged triumphant and Simplicissimus
adaptations had been instrumental in securing the victory  the multi-faceted Simplicissimus had
served as a vehicle for reifying theoretical positions in the conflicts. For  as the social and
aesthetic climate shifted radically  Grimmelshausen's work not only survived  but took on new
life in the most important literary campaign of the century.

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