Aging and Old-Age Style in Günter Grass, Ruth Klüger, Christa Wolf, and Martin Walser

The Mannerism of a Late Period
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-1-57113-578-0
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 138, 268 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 521 g

Reihe: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture

Explores the performance of aging in the "late style" of Günter Grass, Ruth Klüger, Christa Wolf, and Martin Walser.

Demographers say that by the year 2060, every seventh person in Germany will be aged eighty or older, and every third person over sixty-five. The prediction for other Western countries is scarcely different. Indeed, the aging society is seen by some as a graver threat than even global warming, with potentially unmanageable tensions relating to intergenerational relationships, work and benefits, and flows of people.
This book explores the representation and performance of aging in recent "late-style" German-language fiction. It situates the authors chosen as case studies -- Günter Grass, Ruth Klüger, Christa Wolf, and Martin Walser -- in their biographical and social contexts and explores the significance of their aesthetic figuring of aging for debates raging both in Germany and internationally. In particular, the book looks at gender, generations, and trauma and their impact on how writers "narrativize" aging. Finally, it examines the "timeliness" of these different representations and late-style performances of aging in the context of the shift of social, political, and economic power away from the declining societies of theWest to the ascendant societies of the East.

Stuart Taberner is Professor of Contemporary German Literature, Culture, and Society at the University of Leeds.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Taberner, Stuart

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturtheorie: Poetik und Literaturästhetik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatursoziologie, Gender Studies
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Deutsche Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Old-Age Societies - Old-Age Style
Old-Age Style and Self-Monumentalization in Günter Grass
Old-Age Style and Self-Healing in Ruth Klüger and Christa Wolf
Old-Age Style and Self-Transcendence in Martin Walser
Conclusion: Old-Age Style as Late Style?
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Taberner, Stuart
STUART TABERNER is Professor of German at the University of Leeds, UK. He is Research Associate in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French at the University of the Free State, South Africa.

Stuart Taberner is Professor of Contemporary German Literature, Culture and Society at the University of Leeds.