Demonic History: From Goethe to the Present

Description

In this ambitious book, Kirk Wetters traces the genealogy of the demonic in German literature from its imbrications in Goethe to its varying legacies in the work of essential authors, both canonical and less well known, such as Gundolf, Spengler, Benjamin, Lukács, and Doderer. Wetters focuses especially on the philological and metaphorological resonances of the demonic from its core formations through its appropriations in the tumultuous twentieth century. Propelled by equal parts theoretical and historical acumen, Wetters explores the ways in which the question of the demonic has been employed to multiple theoretical, literary, and historico-political ends. He thereby produces an intellectual history that will be consequential both to scholars of German literature and to comparatists. Contents......Page 8 Preface and Acknowledgments......Page 10 List of Abbreviations......Page 16 Introduction......Page 20 Chapter One. Urworte Goethisch: Demonic Primal Words......Page 38 Chapter Two. Demons of Morphology......Page 56 Chapter Three. Biographical Demons (Goethe’s Poetry and Truth)......Page 76 Chapter Four. The Unhappy Endings of Morphology: Oswald Spengler’s Demonic History......Page 104 Chapter Five. Demonic Ambivalences: Walter Benjamin’s Counter-Morphology......Page 128 Chapter Six. Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel......Page 152 Chapter Seven. Demonic Inheritances: Heimito von Doderer’s The Demons......Page 178 Conclusion. Transformations of the Demonic......Page 210 Appendix: German Text and English Translation of Goethe’s “Urworte Orphisch” (with Commentary)......Page 218 Notes......Page 226 Bibliography......Page 256 Index......Page 266