This article examines the concept of German Realism, also known as poetic realism or bourgeois realism, using the example of the motif of marital betrayal. Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest is the most widely known literary work that portrays infidelity and the punishment inflicted on the wife who breaks her marriage vows. The novel is often compared to Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. It depicts not only the young wife’s affair but also its consequences: divorce, losing the rights to her child, social isolation and finally her premature death, caused by her “anguish”. A superficial reading suggests that Fontane was inspired by the literature of European Realism and Naturalism; however, even a cursory comparison of Flaubert’s and Fontane’s works reveals the distinctive features of German Realism. It is this specificity of the mid-19 century German novel that constitutes the main focus of this article. The key aesthetic category characteristic of the German 19th century prose was “humour”, defined by Wolfgang Preisendanz as finding the connection between two seemingly unrelated things. Fontane wrote about the “beautifying veil”, which makes it possible to portray extreme social problems in a poetic way, never directly. The reader must uncover aspects of the literary work which evoke the dilemmas of a world on the verge of modernity.
This paper contains several remarks on Theodor Fontane’s Der deutsche Krieg von 1866 (The German War of 1866), which is the second work from the series of the three so-called war books by the future author of Effi Briest. In these books he presents in minute detail the story of the German Unification Wars. The following aspects are described in this article: the genesis of the above-mentioned work and Fontane’s working method and the structure of his war book of 1866. Using some examples the author of this paper shows Fontane’s handling with citations from foreign and his own previously published texts. At last author of this article gives some information about the (almost missing) reception of The German War of 1866.
Imaged lordship of the manor: Karl von Holtei; Gustav Freytag; Theodor Fontane; Valeska Gräfin Bethusy-Huc This paper analyses how the lordship of the manor was depicted in the novels by four popular authors from the long 19th century (Karl von Holtei; Gustav Freytag; Theodor Fontane; Valeska Gräfin Bethusy-Huc). It also emphasises the coexistence of opposing concepts during this period of time.
This paper deals with Theodor Fontane’s novel Cecile published in 1886. This novel is the first part of the unofficial trilogy of the so-called Berlin novels, which also include Irrungen, Wirrungen (Trials and Tribulations, On Tangled Paths) and Stine. Among these three novels, Cecile is the only one which has not been translated into Polish. In each of these novels, the central motif is misalliance, which in two cases (Cecile and Stine) leads to a tragic end. The motif of a duel, in turn, in which the husband kills the lover or the admirer of the heroine links Cecile to Effi Briest – the most famous of Theodor Fontane’s works. This article attempts to interpret the novel in the context of the similarities between Cecile and Emma Bovary, the protagonist of the masterpiece by Gustave Flaubert and from the perspective of bovarysme –a term coined by Jules de Gaultier. In the analysis, what is important is not only the characterization of Cecile as a character but also the discussion of the role of a letter in the plot of the novel, a letter being a motif used by Fontane in an interesting and surprising way.
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