Product Description
Recognised as one of post-war Germany's most idiosyncratic and notorious novelists, Arno Schmidt (1914-1979) was both an eccentric literary innovator and provocative literary historian. Although his works make no concessions to the general reader, Schmidt has proved astonishingly popular, challenging the assumptions of many critics that he was a quixotic elitist devoid of a wider audience.This volume is the only study in either English or German to chart the field of Schmidt criticism comprehensively since 1970. Focusing on the ways in which critics have attempted to `frame' their subject, and taking modern literary theory into account, the author provides a thematic outline of Schmidt criticism as well as critical analyses of the scholarship on selected works. ... Read more

Product Description
This book, originally published in 1982, was the first monograph in English to offer a critical study of an important twentieth-century German novelist, Arno Schmidt. Schmidt, who died in 1979, was a controversial figure on the German literary scene. His early work, which began appearing immediately after the Second World War, attracted attention by virtue of its stylistic eccentricity and aggressive stand against all forms of organized authority. As an experimenter with language, much influenced by Joyce and Freud, Schmidt aroused large-scale public interest with the publication of a gigantic prose work, Zettel's Traum, in 1970. He developed a cult following which survived his death. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Schmidt, and the broader development of post-war German literature in general. ... Read more