Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T22:52:58.901Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Michelle Mattson
Affiliation:
Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee
Get access

Summary

THIS BOOK CENTERS ON several novels by Christa Wolf (1929–), Ingeborg Drewitz (1923–86), and Grete Weil (1906–99). In particular, the study examines their attention to questions of moral responsibility in the second half of the twentieth century. All three writers seek to illustrate how our understanding of the historical present, informed as it is by our personal and our shared memories, shapes how we see our moral responsibilities in a world with increasingly porous and shifting community boundaries. They anchor their exploration of individual and collective responsibility within the family, moving out along different routes through local, national, and finally international communities. With little certainty, but a considerable sense of urgency, they attempt to map the moral geography of western European society in the second half of the twentieth century. In all three cases, furthermore, the inquiry is driven by their reflection on the individual's place within broader historical developments.

Why focus on these particular writers and these questions? The issue of responsibility played a considerable role in much of postwar German literature — one need only think of such writers as Heinrich Böll, Martin Walser, Max Frisch, Wolfgang Borchert, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Rolf Hochhuth (to name just a few) to realize that questioning responsibility is not unique to the three writers at the heart of this study. Nonetheless, my readings within German Studies have drawn my attention increasingly to these authors.

Type
Chapter
Information
Mapping Morality in Postwar German Women's Fiction
Christa Wolf, Ingeborg Drewitz, and Grete Weil
, pp. 1 - 10
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Michelle Mattson, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee
  • Book: Mapping Morality in Postwar German Women's Fiction
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Michelle Mattson, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee
  • Book: Mapping Morality in Postwar German Women's Fiction
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Michelle Mattson, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee
  • Book: Mapping Morality in Postwar German Women's Fiction
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
Available formats
×