1.
Frankfurt Book Fair
–
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the worlds largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented, and also largest trade fair for books based on the number of visitors. It is held annually in mid-October at the Frankfurt Trade Fair grounds in Frankfurt am Main, the first three days are restricted exclusively to trade visitors, the general public can attend on the last two. The fair is organised by Frankfurter Buchmesse GmbH, a company of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. For five days more than 7,000 exhibitors from over 100 countries, the Frankfurt Book Fair is considered to be the most important book fair in the world for international deals and trading. The Frankfurt Book Fair has a tradition that spans more than 500 years, in 1454, soon after Johannes Gutenberg had developed printing in movable letters in Mainz near Frankfurt, the first book fair was held by local booksellers. Before the availability of printed books a general fair in Frankfurt had been a location for the sale of manuscripts. The initiation of a fair focused around printed books is attributed to Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, the fair become the primary point for book marketing, but also a hub for the diffusion of written texts. In the period of the Reformation, the fair was attended by merchants testing the market for new books, until the end of the 17th century, it was the most important book fair in Europe. As a consequence of political and cultural developments, it was eclipsed by the Leipzig Book Fair during the Enlightenment, after World War II, the first book fair was held again in 1949 at the St. Pauls Church. Since then, it has regained its preeminent position, the Frankfurt Book Fair is a critical marketing event for the launching of books, but it is also an important event to facilitate the negotiation of the international sale of rights and licences. Visitors take the opportunity to obtain information about the market, to network. In 2016, more than 10,000 journalists from 75 countries reported on the fair which brought together 7,135 exhibitors from 106 countries, in 2009, there were 7,314 exhibitors from some 100 countries, presenting over 400,000 books. Some 300,000 visitors attended the fair, during the fair the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is given, during a ceremony in the Paulskirche. The prize has been awarded each year since 1950, the fair is also the birthplace of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, a humorous award which is given to the book with the oddest title. The Frankfurt Book Fair is at the origin of other initiatives which would not exist without it, on the occasion of the 1980 Fair, was founded Litprom - the Society for the Promotion of African, Asian and Latin American Literature. In 2006, Litcam, a campaign first of all against illiteracy began, in this context, the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2007 also started a short story project named Whos on the line. Call for free by and for people with migration background, since 1976, a guest of honour, or a focus of interest is named for the fair. A special literary programme is organised for the occasion, a special exhibition hall is set up for the guest country, and the major publishing houses are present at the fair
2.
Literature
–
Literature, in its broadest sense, is any single body of written works. Its Latin root literatura/litteratura was used to refer to all written accounts, developments in print technology have allowed an evergrowing distribution and proliferation of written works, culminating in electronic literature. There have been attempts to define literature. Simon and Delyse Ryan begin their attempt to answer the question What is Literature, with the observation, The quest to discover a definition for literature is a road that is much travelled, though the point of arrival, if ever reached, is seldom satisfactory. Most attempted definitions are broad and vague, and they change over time. In fact, the thing that is certain about defining literature is that the definition will change. Concepts of what is literature change over time as well, definitions of literature have varied over time, it is a culturally relative definition. In Western Europe prior to the century, literature as a term indicated all books. A more restricted sense of the term emerged during the Romantic period, contemporary debates over what constitutes literature can be seen as returning to the older, more inclusive notion of what constitutes literature. Cultural studies, for instance, takes as its subject of both popular and minority genres, in addition to canonical works. The value judgment definition of literature considers it to cover exclusively those writings that possess high quality or distinction and this sort of definition is that used in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition when it classifies literature as the best expression of the best thought reduced to writing. The formalist definition is that literature foregrounds poetic effects, it is the literariness or poetic of literature that distinguishes it from ordinary speech or other kinds of writing. Etymologically, the term derives from Latin literatura/litteratura learning, a writing, grammar, originally writing formed with letters, in spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or sung texts. Poetry is a form of art which uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of. Possibly as a result of Aristotles influence, poetry before the century was usually less a technical designation for verse than a normative category of fictive or rhetorical art. As a form it may pre-date literacy, with the earliest works being composed within and sustained by an oral tradition, novel, a long fictional prose narrative. It was the close relation to real life that differentiated it from the chivalric romance, in most European languages the equivalent term is roman. In English, the term emerged from the Romance languages in the fifteenth century, with the meaning of news, it came to indicate something new
3.
German language
–
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
4.
Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
5.
Austria
–
Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
6.
Switzerland
–
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
7.
Belgium
–
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
8.
Liechtenstein
–
Liechtenstein, officially the Principality of Liechtenstein, is a doubly landlocked German-speaking microstate in Central Europe. It is a monarchy with the rank of principality, headed by the Prince of Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and Austria to the east and it has an area of just over 160 square kilometres and an estimated population of 37,000. Divided into 11 municipalities, its capital is Vaduz and its largest municipality is Schaan, the unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the world at 1. 5%. Liechtenstein has been known in the past as a tax haven, however. An alpine country, Liechtenstein is mainly mountainous, making it a winter sport destination, many cultivated fields and small farms are found both in the south and north. The country has a financial sector centered in Vaduz. Liechtenstein is a member of the European Free Trade Association, and while not being a member of the European Union and it also has a customs union and a monetary union with Switzerland. The oldest traces of human existence in Liechtenstein date back to the Middle Paleolithic era, neolithic farming settlements were founded in the valleys around 5300 BC. Hallstatt and La Tène cultures flourished during the late Iron Age from around 450 BC possibly under influence from the Greek. One of the most important tribal groups in the Alpine region were the Helvetii, in 58 BC, at the Battle of Bibracte, Julius Caesar defeated the Alpine tribes, bringing the region under closer control of the Roman Empire. By 15 BC, Tiberius, who was destined to be the second Roman emperor, Liechtenstein was integrated into the Roman province of Raetia. The area was maintained by the Roman military, which maintained a large legionary camp called Brigantium near Lake Constance, a Roman road ran through the territory. In 259/60 Brigantium was destroyed by the Alemanni, a Germanic people who settled in the area in around 450. In the Early Middle Ages, the Alemanni had settled the eastern Swiss plateau by the 5th century, Liechtenstein was at the eastern edge of Alemannia. In the 6th century, the region became part of the Frankish Empire following Clovis Is victory over the Alemanni at Tolbiac in 504. The area that later became Liechtenstein remained under Frankish hegemony until the empire was divided by the Treaty of Verdun in 843 AD following the death of Charlemagne. The territory of present-day Liechtenstein belonged to East Francia until it was reunified with Middle Francia under the Holy Roman Empire around 1000 AD
9.
South Tyrol
–
South Tyrol, also known by its alternative Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of 7,400 square kilometres and its capital is the city of Bolzano. As of 2011, South Tyrol is among the wealthiest regions in Italy, South Tyrol is the term most commonly used in English for the province, and its usage reflects that it was created from a portion of the southern part of the historic County of Tyrol. German and Ladin speakers usually refer to the area as Südtirol, Alto Adige, one of the Italian names for the province, is also used in English. The term had been the name of political subdivisions along the Adige River in the time of Napoleon Bonaparte and it was reused as the Italian name of the current province after its post-World War I creation, and was a symbol of the subsequent forced Italianization of South Tyrol. The official name of the today in German is Autonome Provinz Bozen — Südtirol. German speakers usually refer to it not as a Provinz, provincial institutions are referred to using the prefix Landes-, such as Landesregierung and Landeshauptmann. The official name in Italian is Provincia autonoma di Bolzano — Alto Adige, South Tyrol as an administrative entity originated during the First World War. The Allies promised the area to Italy in the Treaty of London of 1915 as an incentive to enter the war on their side, with the rise of Fascism, the new regime made efforts to bring forward the Italianization of South Tyrol. The German language was banished from public service, German teaching was officially forbidden, the regime also favored immigration from other Italian regions. The subsequent alliance between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini declared that South Tyrol would not follow the destiny of Austria, the region was de facto annexed to the German Reich until the end of the war. This status ended along with the Nazi regime, and Italian rule was restored in 1945, after the war the Allies decided that the province would remain a part of Italy, under the condition that the German-speaking population be granted a significant level of self-government. Italy and Austria negotiated an agreement in 1946, recognizing the rights of the German minority, alcide De Gasperi, Italys prime minister, a native of Trentino, wanted to extend the autonomy to his fellow citizens. This led to the creation of the region called Trentino-Alto Adige/Tiroler Etschland, German and Italian were both made official languages, and German-language education was permitted once more. Still Italians were the majority in the combined region, in a first phase, only public edifices and fascist monuments were targeted. The second phase was bloodier, costing 21 lives, the South Tyrolean question became an international issue. A fresh round of negotiations took place in 1961 but proved unsuccessful, the issue was resolved in 1971, when a new Austro-Italian treaty was signed and ratified
10.
German diaspora
–
German diaspora are ethnic Germans and their descendants living outside of Germany. Outside Europe, descendants of Germans have largely assimilated into their host societies, including adopting the language and adapting their German family names. During World War II, Hitler forbade the use of the term because it was being used in a way against the many ethnic Germans in the SS. It is used by historians who either deliberately or innocently are unaware of its Nazi history. Auslandsdeutsche is a concept that connotes German citizens living abroad, or alternatively ethnic Germans entering Germany from abroad. Today, this means a citizen of Germany living more or less permanently in another country, who are allowed to vote in the Republics elections, ethnic Germans are a minority group in many countries. See Groups at bottom for a list of all ethnic German groups, in the United States census of 1990,57 million people were fully or partly of German ancestry, forming the largest single ethnic group in the country. According to the United States Ancestry Census of 2009, there were 50,764,352 people of German descent. People of German ancestry form an important minority group in several countries, including Canada, Brazil, Australia, Chile, Namibia, Austrians historically were identified and considered themselves Germans until after the defeat of the Third Reich and the end of World War II. Post-1945 a broader Austrian national identity began to emerge, and over 90% of the Austrians now see themselves as an independent nation, in Belgium, there is an ethnic German minority. It is the majority in its region of 71,000 inhabitants, ethnologue puts the national total of German speakers at 150,000, not including Limburgish and Luxembourgish. Though the Luxembourgish language is related to the German language. In a 1941 referendum held in Luxembourg by ethnic German residents, more than 90% proclaimed themselves Luxembourgish by nationality, mother tongue and ethnicity. Before World War II, some 30% of the population in the Czech lands were ethnic Germans, There are about 40,000 Germans in the Czech Republic. Their number has been decreasing since World War II. According to the 2001 census there remain 13 municipalities and settlements in the Czech Republic with more than 10% Germans, the erection of bilingual signs is permitted if a minority constitutes 10% of the population. In Denmark, the part of Schleswig that is now South Jutland County is inhabited by about 12, 000–20,000 ethnic Germans They speak mainly Standard German, a few speak Schleswigsch, a Northern Low Saxon dialect. Prior to World War II, approximately 1.5 million Danube Swabians lived in Hungary, today the German minority in Hungary have minority rights, organisations, schools and local councils, but spontaneous assimilation is well under way
11.
Standard German
–
Standard German is the standardized variety of the German language used in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas. It is a pluricentric Dachsprache with three codified specific regional variants, German Standard German, Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German, adherence is obligatory not for everyday use but for government institutions including schools. Adherence to those standards by private individuals and companies, including the print and audio-visual media, is voluntary, until about 1800, Standard German was almost entirely a written language. In this time, people in Northern Germany, who mainly spoke Low Saxon languages very different from Standard German, learned it as a foreign language. Currently, local dialects are used mainly in informal situations or at home and also in dialect literature, in German linguistics, only the traditional regional varieties of German are called dialects, not the different varieties of standard German. The latter are known as Umgangssprachen and in the territory of Germany began to replace the traditional dialects beginning in the nineteenth century and they constitute a mixture of old dialectal elements with Standard German. In German, Standard German is often called Hochdeutsch, a misleading term since it collides with the linguistic term High German. To avoid this confusion, some refer to Standard German as Standarddeutsch, deutsche Standardsprache, or if the context of the German language is clear, simply Standardsprache. Traditionally, though, the language spoken in the mountainous areas of southern Germany is referred to as Oberdeutsch. The most accepted distinction is between different national varieties of standard German, Austrian Standard German, Germany Standard German and Swiss Standard German, additionally, there are linguists who posit that there are different varieties of standard German within Germany. Linguistic research of the different varieties of standard German began for the most part only in the 1990s, especially in Austria, the German federal state of Bavaria has promoted language diversity in the past in an effort to preserve its distinct culture. The different varieties of standard German differ only in a few features, especially in vocabulary and pronunciation, the variation of the standard German varieties must not be confused with the variation of the local German dialects. Even though the standard German varieties are to a certain degree influenced by the local dialects, in most regions, the speakers use a continuum of mixtures from more dialectical varieties to more standard varieties according to situation. Since the former have not undergone the High German consonant shift, under a socio-linguistic approach to the problem, even if Low German dialects are Abstandsprachen, they are dialects of German, because they lack Ausbau. However, Low German did influence the standard-based vernaculars spoken today in Northern Germany by language transfer, High German heavily influenced by Low German has been known as Missingsch, but most contemporary Northern Germans exhibit only an intermediate Low German substratum in their speech. Therefore, this situation has been called a medial diglossia, although Luxembourgish is no longer considered a German dialect today but a language, the situation can be compared to that of Switzerland. Standard German is also taught in schools in Luxembourg and close to 90% of the population can speak it and this accent is documented in reference works such as Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch by Eva-Maria Krech et al. Duden 6 Das Aussprachewörterbuch by Max Mangold and the materials at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Deutschlandfunk
12.
German dialects
–
In German linguistics, German dialects are distinguished from varieties of Standard German. The German dialects are the local varieties. They are traditionally traced back to the different Germanic tribes, many of them are hardly understandable to someone who knows only Standard German, since they often differ from Standard German in lexicon, phonology and syntax. If a narrow definition of based on mutual intelligibility is used. However, such a point of view is unusual in German linguistics, the varieties of standard German refer to the different local varieties of the pluricentric language standard German. They only differ slightly in lexicon and phonology, in certain regions they have replaced the traditional German dialects, especially in Northern Germany. The variation among the German dialects is considerable with only the neighbouring dialects being mutually intelligible, Low German, most Upper German, High Franconian dialects, and even some Central German dialects when spoken in their purest form, are not intelligible to people who know only Standard German. However, all German dialects belong to the continuum of High German. In the past, there was a continuum of all the continental West Germanic languages because nearly any pair of neighbouring dialects were perfectly mutually intelligible. The German dialect continuum is divided into High German and Low German. The terms derive from the characteristics of the terrain where they are spoken rather than from social status accorded to them. Low German varieties are considered dialects of the German language by some, linguistically Low German and Low Franconian dialects are grouped together because both did not participate in the High German consonant shift. Low German is further divided into Dutch Low Saxon, West Low German, Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. It was the predominant language in Northern Germany, and several translations of the Bible were printed in Low German and this predominance changed in the 16th century. In 1534, the Luther Bible was printed by Martin Luther and it aimed to be understandable to an ample audience and was based mainly on High German varieties. The Early New High German language gained more prestige than Low Saxon and became the language of science, other factors included the Hanseatic League losing its importance around the same time and that the most powerful German states of that period were located in Middle and Southern Germany. The 18th and 19th centuries were marked by mass education with the language of the schools being standard German, slowly Low Saxon was pushed back and back until it was nothing but a language spoken by the uneducated and at home. Today, Low Saxon could be divided in two groups, Low Saxon varieties with a sizable standard German influx, and varieties of standard German with a Low Saxon influence, the North German Broadcasting also offers TV programs and radio programs in Low Saxon
13.
Alemannic German
–
Alemannic is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. The name derives from the ancient Germanic alliance of tribes known as the Alemanni. S, ISO 639-3 distinguishes four languages, gsw, swg, wae and gct. At this level, the distinction between a language and a dialect frequently is considered a cultural and political question, in part because linguists have failed to agree on a clear standard, the following variants comprise Alemannic, Swabian. Unlike most other Alemannic dialects, it does not retain the Middle High German monophthongs û, î, for this reason, Swabian is sometimes used in opposition to Alemannic. Retain German initial /k/ as rather than fricativising to as in High Alemannic, subvariants, Lake Constance Alemannic Upper-Rhine Alemannic in Southwestern Baden and its variant Alsatian Alemán Coloniero Basel German High Alemannic. Complete the High German consonant shift by fricativising initial /k/ to, subvariants, Bernese German Zürich German Vorarlbergisch Liechtensteinisch Highest Alemannic does not have the hiatus diphthongisation of other dialects of German. For example, instead of, instead of, subvariants, Walliser German Walser German Note that the Alemannic dialects of Switzerland are often called Swiss German or Schwiizertüütsch. The oldest known texts in Alemannic are brief Elder Futhark inscriptions dating to the sixth century, in the Old High German period, the first coherent texts are recorded in the St. Gall and Reichenau Island, a considerable part of the Old High German corpus has Alemannic traits. Alemannic Middle High German is less prominent, in spite of the Codex Manesse compiled by Johannes Hadlaub of Zürich, the rise of the Old Swiss Confederacy from the fourteenth century leads to the creation of Alemannic Swiss chronicles. Huldrych Zwinglis bible translation of the 1520s was in an Alemannic variant of Early Modern High German, the 1665 revision of the Froschauer Bible removed the Alemannic elements, approaching the language used by Luther. Johann Peter Hebel published his Allemannische Gedichte in 1803, Swiss authors often consciously employ Helvetisms within Standard German, notably Jeremias Gotthelf in his novels set in the Emmental, and more recently Tim Krohn in his Quatemberkinder. The diminutive is used frequently in all Alemannic dialects, northern and eastern dialects use the suffix -le, southern dialects use the suffix -li. Depending on dialect, thus, little house could be Heisle, Hüüsle, a significant difference between the high and low variants is the pronunciation of ch after the front vowels and consonants. In Standard German and the variants, this is a palatal, whereas in the higher variants
14.
Carolingian dynasty
–
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name Carolingian derives from the Latinised name of Charles Martel, the Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of Romans in over three centuries. His death in 814 began a period of fragmentation of the Carolingian empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France. This picture, however, is not commonly accepted today, the greatest Carolingian monarch was Charlemagne, who was crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III at Rome in 800. His empire, ostensibly a continuation of the Western Roman Empire, is referred to historiographically as the Carolingian Empire, the Carolingian rulers did not give up the traditional Frankish practice of dividing inheritances among heirs, though the concept of the indivisibility of the Empire was also accepted. The Carolingians had the practice of making their sons kings in the various regions of the Empire. The Carolingians were displaced in most of the regna of the Empire by 888 and they ruled in East Francia until 911 and held the throne of West Francia intermittently until 987. One chronicler of Sens dates the end of Carolingian rule with the coronation of Robert II of France as junior co-ruler with his father, Hugh Capet, the dynasty became extinct in the male line with the death of Eudes, Count of Vermandois. His sister Adelaide, the last Carolingian, died in 1122, the Carolingian dynasty has five distinct branches, The Lombard branch, or Vermandois branch, or Herbertians, descended from Pepin of Italy, son of Charlemagne. Though he did not outlive his father, his son Bernard was allowed to retain Italy, Bernard rebelled against his uncle Louis the Pious, and lost both his kingdom and his life. Deprived of the title, the members of this branch settled in France. The counts of Vermandois perpetuated the Carolingian line until the 12th century, the Counts of Chiny and the lords of Mellier, Neufchâteau and Falkenstein are branches of the Herbertians. With the descendants of the counts of Chiny, there would have been Herbertian Carolingians to the early 14th century, the Lotharingian branch, descended from Emperor Lothair, eldest son of Louis the Pious. At his death Middle Francia was divided equally between his three surviving sons, into Italy, Lotharingia and Lower Burgundy, the sons of Emperor Lothair did not have sons of their own, so Middle Francia was divided between the western and eastern branches of the family in 875. The Aquitainian branch, descended from Pepin of Aquitaine, son of Louis the Pious, since he did not outlive his father, his sons were deprived of Aquitaine in favor of his younger brother Charles the Bald. The German branch, descended from Louis the German, King of East Francia, since he had three sons, his lands were divided into Duchy of Bavaria, Duchy of Saxony and Duchy of Swabia. His youngest son Charles the Fat briefly reunited both East and West Francia — the entirety of the Carolingian empire — but it again after his death. With the failure of the lines of the German branch, Arnulf of Carinthia
15.
Reformation
–
The period is usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517 to the Thirty Years War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura, the initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The spread of Gutenbergs printing press provided the means for the dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists, Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, there were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist, Moravian and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits. In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which left it devastated. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, the later Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. They especially objected to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and the abuses thereof, and to simony, the reformers saw these practices as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Churchs hierarchy, which included the pope. Unrest due to the Great Schism of Western Christianity excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church, New perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University and from Jan Hus at the Charles University in Prague. Hus rejected indulgences and adopted a doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, the Roman Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance by condemning Hus, who was executed by burning despite a promise of safe-conduct. Wycliffe was posthumously condemned as a heretic and his corpse exhumed and burned in 1428, the Council of Constance confirmed and strengthened the traditional medieval conception of church and empire. The council did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions stirred up during the century and could not prevent schism. Pope Sixtus IV established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes. He was the father of seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, in response to papal corruption, particularly the sale of indulgences, Luther wrote The Ninety-Five Theses. The Reformation was born of Luthers dual declaration – first, the discovering of Jesus and salvation by faith alone, the Protestant reformers were unanimous in agreement and this understanding of prophecy furnished importance to their deeds. It was the point and the battle cry that made the Reformation nearly unassailable
16.
Hildebrandslied
–
The Hildebrandslied is a heroic epic poem written in Old High German alliterative verse. It is one of the earliest literary works in German, and it is the only surviving example in German of a genre which must have been important in the oral literature of the Germanic tribes. The opening lines of the set the scene, two warriors meet on a battlefield, probably as the champions of their two armies. As the older man, Hildebrand opens by asking the identity and he believes his father to be dead. Hildebrand responds by saying that Hadubrand will never fight such a close kinsman, Hadubrand takes this as a ruse to get him off guard and belligerently refuses the offer, accusing Hildebrand of deception, and perhaps implying cowardice. Hildebrand accepts his fate and sees that he cannot honourably refuse battle, he has no choice and they start to fight, and the text concludes with their shields smashed. But the poem breaks off, not revealing the outcome, the text consists of 68 lines of alliterative verse, though written continuously with no consistent indication of the verse form. It breaks off in mid-line, leaving the poem unfinished at the end of the second page, however, it does not seem likely that much more than a dozen lines are missing. The poem starts, The text is highly problematic, both because of the circumstances of its transmission and because of the uniqueness of the work. Although the written text presents no gaps, a number of places have been identified where the text not to follow or there are incomplete lines of verse. Other apparent illogicalities suggest misattributed direct speech and lines out of order, the transpositions, apparent lacunae, and unwarranted insertions all indicate a text copied from an earlier manuscript by scribes with only a partial understanding of the poetic form. The mixture of dialects and other linguistic oddities found in the text could also indicate that the poem was written to appear to be older than it was. The manuscript of the Hildebrandslied is now in the Murhardsche Bibliothek in Kassel and was discovered around 1715 by Johan Georg von Eckert and it is assumed to derive, like much else in the librarys collection, from the monastery of Fulda. It is written on two leaves of parchment, the first and last in a theological codex, the codex itself was written in the first quarter of the 9th century, with the text of the Hildebrandslied added in the 830s on the two remaining blank leaves. There is no evidence to support the suggestion of a third leaf which would have contained the end of the poem. The manuscript is the work of two scribes, of whom the second wrote only 11 lines at the beginning of the second leaf, the hand is mainly Carolingian minuscule. A number of features, including the wynn-rune used for w suggest Old English influence, the manuscript pages now show a number of patches of discoloration. These are the results of attempts by scholars to improve the legibility of the text with chemical agents
17.
Heliand
–
The Heliand is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means saviour in Old Saxon, and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the life of Jesus in the alliterative verse style of a Germanic epic, Heliand is the largest known work of written Old Saxon. The poem must have been popular and widespread because it exists in two manuscript versions and four fragmentary versions. It takes up about 6,000 lines, a praefatio exists, which could have been commissioned by either Louis the Pious or Louis the German. This praefatio was first printed by Matthias Flacius in 1562, the first mention of the poem itself in modern times occurred when Franciscus Junius found a fragment in 1587. It was not printed until 1705, by George Hickes, the first modern edition of the poem was published in 1830 by Johann Andreas Schmeller. Than tôgid he iu ên gôdlîc hûs, hôhan soleri, the is bihangen al fagarun fratahun, thar gi frummien sculun uuerdscepi mînan. Thar bium ik uuiskumo selƀo mid mînun gesîđun, thô uurđun sân aftar thiu thar te Hierusalem iungaron Kristes forđuuard an ferdi, fundun all sô he sprak uuordtêcan uuâr, ni uuas thes giuuand ênig. Taken from The Saxon Savior by G. Ronald Murphy, S. J and it contained when entire about 6000 lines, and portions of it are preserved in two nearly complete manuscripts and four fragments. The Cotton MS. in the British Library, written probably in the half of the 10th century, is one of the nearly complete manuscripts. It is believed to have a closer to the original version because it is divided into fitts. This manuscript is now retained in Munich at the Bavarian State Library, because it was produced on calf skin of high quality, it has been preserved in good condition. Neumes above the text in this version reveal that the Heliand may have been sung, a fragment discovered at Prague in 1881 contains lines 958–1006, and another, in the Vatican Library, discovered by K. Zangemeister in 1894, contains lines 1279–1358. Two additional fragments exist that were discovered most recently, the first was discovered in 1979 at a Jesuit High School in Straubing by B. Bischoff and is held in Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. It consists of three leaves and contains 157 poetic lines. The final fragment was found in Leipzig in 2006 by T. Doring and this fragment consists of only one leaf that contains 47 lines of poetry, and it is currently kept at Bibliotheca Albertina. As mentioned above, the Heliand was probably written at the request of emperor Louis the Pious around AD830 to combat Saxon ambivalence toward Christianity
18.
Oswald von Wolkenstein
–
Oswald von Wolkenstein was a poet, composer and diplomat. In the latter capacity, he traveled much of Europe. He was dubbed a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre and was inducted into the Order of the Jar. He lived for a time in Seis am Schlern, Oswalds father was Friedrich von Wolkenstein and his mother Katharina von Villanders. When he was ten years old, Oswald left his family, Oswald described the journeys undertaken by him in the following 14 years in his autobiographical song Es fügt sich. Mentioning travels to Crete, Prussia, Lithuania, Crimea, Turkey, after the death of his father in 1399, Oswald returned to the Tyrol and began a drawn out quarrel with his older brother Michael about their inheritance. In 1401–02 Oswald participated in the failed Italian expedition of King Rupert of Germany, in 1407 he and his brother finally agreed on how to split the inheritance, Oswald received a third of Castle Hauenstein and the accompanying estates in Seis am Schlern. The other two thirds of the castle belong to a knight named Martin Jäger, but Oswald did not respect the property situation, occupying the entire castle and appropriating Jägers share of the tithe. In 1408, in preparation for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the stone has survived, and shows him in the garb of a Crusader, with the long beard associated with pilgrims. Before he left, he wrote songs for his beloved, Anna Hausmann. After his return in 1410 he acquired the right to take up residence in the Augustiner-Chorherren cloister Neustift near Brixen. In 1414 Oswald became a member of the entourage of Friedrich IV, Duke of Austria and Count of Tyrol at the Council of Constance, Oswald entered as diplomat in the service of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary. His first diplomatic voyage brought him to England, Scotland and Portugal, in 1416 he joined King Sigismund in France and they travelled together back to Constance. In 1417 Oswald married Margarete von Schwangau, with whom he would have seven children, with the help of the local population, especially the peasants, Friedrich was able to resist the King and the nobles and from 1418 onwards Friedrich pursued his enemies within Tyrol vigorously. In September 1421 Oswald was lured by his lover Anna Hausmann into a trap and apprehended by Martin Jäger, who brought Oswald to Innsbruck and handed him over to Count Friedrich. Oswald could not reach an agreement with his enemies and did not show up in Tirol Castle on August 24,1422, opting rather to ride to Hungary, together they plotted a war against Friedrich. The war was started by Oswalds brother Michael who wrote to Friedrich on September 5,1422, Therefore I want to be your enemy, in 1423 open hostilities culminated in the siege of Castle Greifenstein, during which Oswald with both his brothers was part of the castles garrison. The siege was lifted in November 1423 through a successful sally, but because the burghers and peasants of Tyrol and the bishop of Brixen supported Count Friedrich, most of the nobles, including both brothers of Oswald, surrendered on December 17,1423
19.
Johannes von Tepl
–
Johannes von Tepl, also known as Johannes von Saaz, was a Bohemian writer of the German language, one of the earliest known writers of prose in Early New High German. He was literate in Czech, German and Latin, not much is known about him, historians presume that he probably studied at universities in Prague, Bologna and Padua. In 1383, he became a solicitor in Žatec and in 1386 a rector of the towns Latin school and he lived in Prague from 1411. He spent almost all of his life in the Kingdom of Bohemia, during the reign of kings Charles and Wenceslaus. Johannes von Tepl is best known for his early humanist poem Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, sometimes also called Der Ackermann und der Tod, written around 1401 and it is a dialogue of Death and the ploughman, who accuses Death because his wife Margaretha recently died. Central themes of the book are their views on life, mankind. The poem is regarded as one of the most important German poems in the late Middle Ages, complete text of Ackermann aus Böhmen Illuminated manuscript of Ackermann aus Böhmen A modern English translation of the Ackermann aus Böhmen
20.
Age of Enlightenment
–
The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy. In France, the doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy. French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution, some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes of the widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church, a variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution, earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. The major figures of the Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence, others like James Madison incorporated them into the Constitution in 1787. The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie, the ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by an intellectual movement known as Romanticism. René Descartes rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking and his attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by John Lockes 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his dualism was challenged by Spinozas uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus and Ethics. Both lines of thought were opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines, the political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. Francis Hutcheson, a philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words. Much of what is incorporated in the method and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protégés David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Immanuel Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the sphere through private
21.
Johann Gottfried Herder
–
Johann Gottfried Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, born in Mohrungen in the Kingdom of Prussia, Herder grew up in a poor household, educating himself from his fathers Bible and songbook. In 1762, a youth of seventeen, he enrolled at the local University of Königsberg. At the same time, Herder became an intellectual protégé of Johann Georg Hamann, although himself an unsociable person, Herder influenced his contemporaries greatly. One friend wrote to him in 1785, hailing his works as inspired by God, a varied field of theorists were later to find inspiration in Herders tantalisingly incomplete ideas. In 1764, now a clergyman, Herder went to Riga to teach and it was during this period that he produced his first major works, which were literary criticism. In 1769 Herder traveled by ship to the French port of Nantes and this resulted in both an account of his travels as well as a shift of his own self-conception as an author. By 1770 Herder went to Strasbourg, where he met the young Goethe and this event proved to be a key juncture in the history of German literature, as Goethe was inspired by Herders literary criticism to develop his own style. This can be seen as the beginning of the Sturm und Drang movement, in 1771 Herder took a position as head pastor and court preacher at Bückeburg under Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe. By the mid-1770s, Goethe was an author, and used his influence at the court of Weimar to secure Herder a position as General Superintendent. Herder moved there in 1776, where his outlook shifted again towards classicism, towards the end of his career, Herder endorsed the French Revolution, which earned him the enmity of many of his colleagues. At the same time, he and Goethe experienced a personal split, another reason for his isolation in later years was due to his unpopular attacks on Kantian philosophy. In 1802 Herder was ennobled by the Elector-Prince of Bavaria, which added the von to his last name. He died in Weimar in 1803 at age 59, in 1772 Herder published Treatise on the Origin of Language and went further in this promotion of language than his earlier injunction to spew out the ugly slime of the Seine. Herder now had established the foundations of comparative philology within the new currents of political outlook, Herder wrote that A poet is the creator of the nation around him, he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand to lead them to that world. After becoming General Superintendent in 1776, Herders philosophy shifted again towards classicism, Herder was at his best during this period, and produced works such as his unfinished Outline of a Philosophical History of Humanity which largely originated the school of historical thought. The historian should be the contemporary of the past. Herder gave Germans new pride in their origins, modifying that dominance of regard allotted to Greek art extolled among others by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Herder equated the German with the Gothic and favoured Dürer and everything Gothic
22.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
–
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters and he was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. He also contributed to the planning of Weimars botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace and his first major scientific work, the Metamorphosis of Plants, was published after he returned from a 1788 tour of Italy. During this period, Goethe published his novel, Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship, the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808. Goethes comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works, Goethes father, Johann Caspar Goethe, lived with his family in a large house in Frankfurt, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire. Though he had studied law in Leipzig and had been appointed Imperial Councillor, Johann Caspar married Goethes mother, Catharina Elizabeth Textor at Frankfurt on 20 August 1748, when he was 38 and she was 17. All their children, with the exception of Johann Wolfgang and his sister, Cornelia Friederica Christiana and his father and private tutors gave Goethe lessons in all the common subjects of their time, especially languages. Goethe also received lessons in dancing, riding and fencing, Johann Caspar, feeling frustrated in his own ambitions, was determined that his children should have all those advantages that he had not. Although Goethes great passion was drawing, he became interested in literature, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. He also took pleasure in reading works on history and religion. He writes about this period, Goethe became also acquainted with Frankfurt actors, among early literary attempts, he was infatuated with Gretchen, who would later reappear in his Faust and the adventures with whom he would concisely describe in Dichtung und Wahrheit. He adored Caritas Meixner, a wealthy Worms traders daughter and friend of his sister, Goethe studied law at Leipzig University from 1765 to 1768. He detested learning age-old judicial rules by heart, preferring instead to attend the lessons of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. In Leipzig, Goethe fell in love with Anna Katharina Schönkopf, in 1770, he anonymously released Annette, his first collection of poems. His uncritical admiration for many contemporary poets vanished as he became interested in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, already at this time, Goethe wrote a good deal, but he threw away nearly all of these works, except for the comedy Die Mitschuldigen. The restaurant Auerbachs Keller and its legend of Fausts 1525 barrel ride impressed him so much that Auerbachs Keller became the real place in his closet drama Faust Part One. As his studies did not progress, Goethe was forced to return to Frankfurt at the close of August 1768, Goethe became severely ill in Frankfurt. During the year and a half that followed, because of several relapses, during convalescence, Goethe was nursed by his mother and sister
23.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
–
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary, loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. A revised edition followed in 1787 and it was one of the most important novels of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and influenced the later Romantic movement in literature. Goethe, twenty-four years old at the time, finished Werther in six weeks of writing in January–March 1774. It instantly put him among the foremost international literary celebrities, towards the end of Goethes life, a personal visit to Weimar became a crucial stage in any young mans Grand Tour of Europe. Most of The Sorrows of Young Werther is presented as a collection of written by Werther. These give an account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim. There he meets Charlotte, a young girl who takes care of her siblings after the death of their mother. Werther falls in love with Charlotte despite knowing beforehand that she is engaged to a man named Albert eleven years her senior, despite the pain it causes him, Werther spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with them both. His sorrow eventually becomes so unsupportable that he is forced to leave Wahlheim for Weimar and he suffers great embarrassment when he forgetfully visits a friend and unexpectedly has to face there the weekly gathering of the entire aristocratic set. He is not tolerated and asked to leave since he is not a nobleman and he then returns to Wahlheim, where he suffers still more than before, partly because Charlotte and Albert are now married. Every day becomes a torturing reminder that Charlotte will never be able to requite his love and she, out of pity for her friend and respect for her husband, decides that Werther must not visit her so frequently. He visits her one time, and they are both overcome with emotion after he recites to her a passage of his own Ossians translation. Even before that incident, Werther had hinted at the idea that one member of the love triangle – Charlotte, unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a letter to be found after his death. Charlotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols, Werther then shoots himself in the head, but does not die until twelve hours later. He is buried under a tree that he has mentioned frequently in his letters. The funeral is not attended by any clergy, or by Albert or Charlotte, the book ends with an intimation that Charlotte may die of a broken heart. Charlottes life was despaired of, etc and he wrote Werther at the age of twenty-four, and yet this was what all some of his visitors in his old age knew him for
24.
Sturm und Drang
–
The period is named for Friedrich Maximilian Klingers play Sturm und Drang, which was first performed by Abel Seylers famed theatrical company in 1777. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of Sturm und Drang, with Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, H. L. Wagner and Friedrich Maximilian Klinger also significant figures. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was also a proponent of the movement, though he. French neoclassicism, a movement beginning in the early Baroque, with its emphasis on the rational, was the target of rebellion for adherents of the Sturm und Drang movement. The term Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seylers Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft and this seemingly spontaneous movement became associated with a wide array of German authors and composers of the mid-to-late Classical period. Sturm und Drang came to be associated with literature or music aimed at shocking the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion, there is much debate regarding whose work should or should not be included in the canon of Sturm und Drang. Nevertheless, the originators of the movement came to view it as a time of premature exuberance that was abandoned in favor of often conflicting artistic pursuits. The literary topos of the Kraftmensch existed as a precursor to Sturm und Drang among dramatists beginning with F. M, Klinger, the expression of which is seen in the radical degree to which individuality need appeal to no outside authority save the self nor be tempered by rationalism. The most important contemporary document was the 1773 volume Von deutscher Art und Kunst, einige fliegende Blätter, a collection of essays that included commentaries by Herder on Ossian and Shakespeare, along with contributions by Goethe, Paolo Frisi, and Justus Möser. The protagonist in a typical Sturm und Drang stage work, poem, or novel is driven to action—often violent action—not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, goethes unfinished Prometheus exemplifies this along with the common ambiguity provided by juxtaposing humanistic platitudes with outbursts of irrationality. The literature of Sturm und Drang features an anti-aristocratic slant while seeking to elevate all things humble, natural, Friedrich Schillers drama, Die Räuber, provided the groundwork for melodrama to become a recognized dramatic form. The plot portrays a conflict between two brothers, Franz and Karl Moor. Franz is cast as a villain attempting to cheat Karl out of his inheritance, though the motives for his action are complex and initiate an investigation of good. Both of these works are examples of Sturm und Drang in German literature. The principal themes tend to be angular, with large leaps, tempos and dynamics change rapidly and unpredictably in order to reflect strong changes of emotion. Pulsing rhythms and syncopation are common, as are racing lines in the soprano or alto registers, writing for string instruments features tremolo and sudden, dramatic dynamic changes and accents. Musical theater became the place of the literary and musical strands of Sturm und Drang. The obligato recitative is a prime example, here, orchestral accompaniment provides an intense underlay of vivid tone-painting to the solo recitative
25.
Weimar Classicism
–
Weimar Classicism is a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism, from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. The German Enlightenment, called “neo-classical”, burgeoned in the synthesis of Empiricism and Rationalism as developed by Christian Thomasius and this philosophy, circulated widely in many magazines and journals, profoundly directed the subsequent expansion of German-speaking and European culture. The inability of this common-sense outlook convincingly to bridge “feeling” and “thought”, “body” and “mind”, another, though not as abstract, approach to this problem was a governing concern with the problems of aesthetics. It was no inquiry into taste — into positive or negative appeals — nor sensations as such, therefore, the Weimar Classicism could also be started with the arrival of Wieland and extended beyond Schillers death until the death of Wieland or even of Goethe himself. In Italy Goethe aimed to rediscover himself as a writer and to become an artist, through training in Rome. While he failed as an artist, Italy appeared to have him a better writer. Schillers evolution as a writer was following a path to Goethes. He had begun as a writer of wild, violent, emotion-driven plays, in the late 1780s he turned to a more classical style. In 1794 Schiller and Goethe became friends and allies in a project to establish new standards for literature, by contrast the contemporaneous and efflorescing literary movement of German Romanticism was in opposition to Weimar and German Classicism, especially to Schiller. On this Goethe remarked, The Weimar movement was notable for its inclusion of female writers, die Horen included works by several women, including a serially published novel, Agnes von Lilien, by Schillers sister-in-law Caroline von Wolzogen. Other women published by Schiller included Sophie Mereau, Friederike Brun, Amalie von Imhoff, Elisa von der Recke, between 1786 and Schillers death in 1805 he and Goethe worked to recruit a network of writers, philosophers, scholars and artists to their cause. A work’s Gehalt is not reducible to its Inhalt, Stoff, Schiller and Goethe reserve this for the forms taken from the world or that are created. In a work of art, Stoff is to be “indifferent”, christoph Martin Wieland was the first writer to arrive in Weimar. In 1772 he was called by the widowed Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, then regent of the Duchy Sachsen-Weimar, Weimar remained Wielands home until his death. Here, in 1773, he founded Der teutsche Merkur, which under his editorship became the most influential literary review in Germany,1776, one year after his arrival, Goethe arranged that Herder was called to Weimar, whom he had admired already in his Strasbourg years. The vast array of writings themselves, other than being solely literary pursuances or distichs, include scientific, philosophic, Schiller was remarkably prolific during this period, writing his plays Wallenstein, Mary Stuart, The Maid of Orleans, The Bride of Messina and William Tell. Ein Schauspiel für Liebende Iphigenie auf Tauris Torquato Tasso Römische Elegien Venezianische Epigramme Faust, ein Fragment Beiträge zur Optik Der Bürgergeneral Reineke Fuchs Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten Das Märchen, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre Faust. Musicians were inspired to compose for the works of writers, Ludwig van Beethoven, Paul Dukas, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
26.
Friedrich Schiller
–
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life, Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous and they frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision. Friedrich Schiller was born on 10 November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg as the son of military doctor Johann Kaspar Schiller. Schiller grew up in a religious family and spent much of his youth studying the Bible. His father was away in the Seven Years War when Friedrich was born and he was named after king Frederick the Great, but he was called Fritz by nearly everyone. Kaspar Schiller was rarely home during the war, but he did manage to visit the family once in a while and his wife and children also visited him occasionally wherever he happened to be stationed. When the war ended in 1763, Schillers father became an officer and was stationed in Schwäbisch Gmünd. Due to the high cost of living—especially the rent—the family moved to nearby Lorch, although the family was happy in Lorch, Schillers father found his work unsatisfying. He sometimes took his son with him, in Lorch, Schiller received his primary education. The quality of the lessons was fairly bad, and Friedrich regularly cut class with his older sister, because his parents wanted Schiller to become a pastor, they had the pastor of the village instruct the boy in Latin and Greek. Pastor Moser was a teacher, and later Schiller named the cleric in his first play Die Räuber after him. As a boy, Schiller was excited by the idea of becoming a cleric and often put on black robes, in 1766, the family left Lorch for the Duke of Württembergs principal residence, Ludwigsburg. Schillers father had not been paid for three years, and the family had been living on their savings but could no longer afford to do so, so Kaspar Schiller took an assignment to the garrison in Ludwigsburg. There the Schiller boy came to the attention of Karl Eugen and he entered the Karlsschule Stuttgart, in 1773, where he eventually studied medicine. During most of his life, he suffered from illnesses that he tried to cure himself. While at the Karlsschule, Schiller read Rousseau and Goethe and discussed Classical ideals with his classmates, the plays critique of social corruption and its affirmation of proto-revolutionary republican ideals astounded its original audience
27.
German Romanticism
–
German Romanticism was the dominant intellectual movement in the philosophy, the arts, and the culture of German-speaking countries in the late-18th and early 19th centuries. Late-stage German Romanticism emphasized the tension between the world and the irrational and supernatural projections of creative genius. In particular, the critic Heinrich Heine criticized the tendency of the early German romantics for looking to the medieval past for a model of unity in art, key figures of German romanticism include, Ludwig van Beethoven. In his earlier works, Beethoven was a Classicist in the traditions of Mozart and Haydn, because Beethoven wrote some of his greatest music after he became totally deaf, he embodies the Romantic ideal of the tragic artist who defies all odds to conquer his own fate. His later works portray the triumph of the spirit, most notably his Choral Symphony No. 9, the stirring Ode to Joy from this symphony has been adopted as the anthem of the European Union and his works are cast in the formal moulds of Classicism, he had a profound reverence for Beethoven. Liszt was by nationality a Hungarian, but nevertheless he spent many years in Germany, credited as the inventor of the tone poem. In his old age, Liszt adopted a more dissonant, ominous flavour, characteristic works being la Lugubre Gondola and Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth—predating Impressionism, a composer of the Early Romantic period, together with such figures as Schumann, Chopin and Liszt. One of the responsible for reviving interest in the almost-forgotten music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His body of work consists mainly of song cycles and German Lieder set to poems by his contemporaries and his works recall the nostalgia of lost childhood innocence, first love, and the magnificence of the German countryside. As an influential critic, he played a role in discovering new talents, among them Chopin. The greatest composer of German opera, was an exponent of Leitmotif, one of the main figures in the so-called War of the Romantics. The emotional intensity and supernatural, folklore-based themes in his operas presented a break from the Neoclassical traditions of that time. The Mystical Sources of German Romantic Philosophy, translated by Blair R. Reynolds, caspar David Friedrich, translated by Sarah Twohig. Introduction, A Revolution in Culture, in European Romanticism, A Brief History with Documents, “Making of a Romantic Icon, The Religious Context of Friedrich Overbeck’s ‘Italia und Germania. ’” American Philosophical Society,2007. “Orpheus Philologus, Bachofen versus Mommsen on the Study of Antiquity. ”Painting the Sacred in the Age of German Romanticism, baltic Light, Early Open-Air Painting in Denmark and North Germany. New Haven and London, Yale University Press,1999, caspar David Friedrich and the Age of German Romanticism. New Haven and London, Yale University Press,1980, ISBN 3-8228-2293-0 ONeill, J, ed. German masters of the nineteenth century, paintings and drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany
28.
Biedermeier
–
The Biedermeier period refers to an era in Central Europe between 1815 and 1848 during which the middle class grew and arts appealed to common sensibilities. It began with the time of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and ended with the onset of the European revolutions in 1848. Although the term itself is a reference, it is predominantly used to denote the artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music. The Biedermeier period does not refer to the era of time as a whole, there were two driving forces for the development of the period. The first was the growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new middle class. The second was the political stability prevalent under Clemens Wenzel von Metternich following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the effect was for artists and society in general to concentrate on the domestic and the non-political. Writers, painters, and musicians began to stay in safer territory, the verses parodied the people of the era, namely Samuel Friedrich Sauter, a primary teacher and sort of amateurish poet as depoliticized and petit-bourgeois. The name was constructed from the titles of two poems—Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit and Bummelmaiers Klage —which Joseph Victor von Scheffel had published in 1848 in the same magazine, as a label for the epoch, the term has been used since around 1900. Due to the control of publication and official censorship, Biedermeier writers primarily concerned themselves with non-political subjects, like historical fiction. Political discussion was usually confined to the home, in the presence of close friends, Adalbert Stifter is a novelist and short story writer whose work also reflects the concerns of the Biedermeier movement, particularly with his novel, Der Nachsommer. A “Biedermann” is characterized as a conservative unimaginative middle-class personality, content, Biedermeier was an influential German style of furniture design that evolved during the years 1815–1848. The period extended into Scandinavia, as due to numerous states that made up the German nation were not unified by rule from Berlin until 1871. These post-Biedermeier struggles, influenced by historicism, created their own styles, throughout the period, emphasis was kept upon clean lines and minimal ornamentation consistent with Biedermeiers basis in utilitarian principles. The idea of lines and utilitarian postures would resurface in the 20th century. Middle- to late-Biedermeier furniture design represents a heralding towards historicism and revival eras long sought for, social forces originating in France would change the artisan-patron system that achieved this period of design, first in the Germanic states and, then, into Scandinavia. Biedermeier furniture used locally available materials such as cherry, ash, whilst this timber was available near trading ports such as Antwerp, Hamburg and Stockholm, it was taxed heavily whenever it passed through another principality. This made mahogany very expensive to use and much local cherry, stylistically, the furniture was simple and elegant. Its construction utilised the ideal of truth through material, something that influenced the Bauhaus
29.
Napoleonic Wars
–
The wars resulted from the unresolved disputes associated with the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, which had raged on for years before concluding with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Napoleon became the First Consul of France in 1799, then Emperor five years later, inheriting the political and military struggles of the Revolution, he created a state with stable finances, a strong central bureaucracy, and a well-trained army. The British frequently financed the European coalitions intended to thwart French ambitions, by 1805, they had managed to convince the Austrians and the Russians to wage another war against France. At sea, the Royal Navy destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in October 1805, Prussian worries about increasing French power led to the formation of the Fourth Coalition in 1806. France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July, although Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, it did not bring a lasting peace for Europe. Hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia, the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, the Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. Unwilling to bear the consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse and retreat of the Grand Army along with the destruction of Russian lands. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France, a lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814 and he was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again, the Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The Congress of Vienna, which started in 1814 and concluded in 1815, established the new borders of Europe and laid out the terms, Napoleon seized power in 1799, creating a de facto military dictatorship. The Napoleonic Wars began with the War of the Third Coalition, Kagan argues that Britain was irritated in particular by Napoleons assertion of control over Switzerland. Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, for its part, Russia decided that the intervention in Switzerland indicated that Napoleon was not looking toward a peaceful resolution of his differences with the other European powers. The British quickly enforced a blockade of France to starve it of resources. Napoleon responded with economic embargoes against Britain, and sought to eliminate Britains Continental allies to break the coalitions arrayed against him, the so-called Continental System formed a league of armed neutrality to disrupt the blockade and enforce free trade with France
30.
Revolutions of 1848
–
It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history. The revolutions were essentially democratic in nature, with the aim of removing the old feudal structures, the revolutionary wave began in France in February, and immediately spread to most of Europe. Over 50 countries were affected, but with no coordination or cooperation between their respective revolutionaries, the uprisings were led by shaky ad hoc coalitions of reformers, the middle classes and workers, which did not hold together for long. Tens of thousands of people were killed, and many forced into exile. Significant lasting reforms included the abolition of serfdom in Austria and Hungary, the end of monarchy in Denmark. The revolutions were most important in France, the Netherlands, the states that would make up the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century, Italy, and the Austrian Empire. The revolutions arose from such a variety of causes that it is difficult to view them as resulting from a coherent movement or set of social phenomena. Numerous changes had been taking place in European society throughout the first half of the 19th century, both liberal reformers and radical politicians were reshaping national governments. Technological change was revolutionizing the life of the working classes, a popular press extended political awareness, and new values and ideas such as popular liberalism, nationalism and socialism began to emerge. Some historians emphasize the serious crop failures, particularly those of 1846, that produced hardship among peasants, large swaths of the nobility were discontented with royal absolutism or near-absolutism. In 1846, there had been an uprising of Polish nobility in Austrian Galicia, additionally, an uprising by democratic forces against Prussia, planned but not actually carried out, occurred in Greater Poland. Next, the middle classes began to agitate, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, working in Brussels, had written Manifesto of the Communist Party at the request of the Communist League. Following the March insurrection in Berlin, they began agitating in Germany, the middle and working classes thus shared a desire for reform, and agreed on many of the specific aims. Their participations in the revolutions, however, differed, while much of the impetus came from the middle classes, much of the cannon fodder came from the lower. The revolts first erupted in the cities, the population in French rural areas had risen rapidly, causing many peasants to seek a living in the cities. Many in the feared and distanced themselves from the working poor. Many unskilled laborers toiled from 12 to 15 hours per day when they had work, living in squalid, traditional artisans felt the pressure of industrialization, having lost their guilds. Revolutionaries such as Karl Marx built up a following, the situation in the German states was similar
31.
Thomas Mann
–
Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and his analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Mann was a member of the Hanseatic Mann family and portrayed his family and class in his first novel and his older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland, when World War II broke out in 1939, he moved to the United States, returning to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur. Manns work influenced many authors, including Heinrich Böll, Joseph Heller, Yukio Mishima. Paul Thomas Mann was born to a family in Lübeck. His mother was Roman Catholic but Mann was baptised into his fathers Lutheran religion, Manns father died in 1891 and his trading firm was liquidated. The family subsequently moved to Munich, Mann lived in Munich from 1891 until 1933, with the exception of a year in Palestrina, Italy, with his novelist elder brother Heinrich. Thomas worked with the South German Fire Insurance Company in 1894-95 and his career as a writer began when he wrote for Simplicissimus. Manns first short story, Little Mr Friedemann, was published in 1898, in 1905, Mann married Katia Pringsheim, daughter of a wealthy, secular Jewish industrialist family. She later joined the Lutheran church, today the cottage is a cultural center dedicated to him, with a small memorial exhibition. In 1933, while traveling in the South of France, Mann heard from Klaus and Erika in Munich, the family emigrated to Küsnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland but received Czechoslovak citizenship and a passport in 1936. After Nazi Germany took over Czechoslovakia, he emigrated to the United States in 1939. In 1942, the Mann family moved to 1550 San Remo Drive in the Pacific Palisades suburb of Los Angeles, on 23 June 1944 Thomas Mann was naturalized as a citizen of the United States. The Manns lived in Los Angeles until 1952, the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, prompted Mann to offer anti-Nazi speeches to the German people via the BBC. In October 1940 he began monthly broadcasts, recorded in the U. S. and flown to London, in these eight-minute addresses, Mann condemned Hitler and his paladins as crude philistines completely out of touch with European culture. In one noted speech he said, The war is horrible, Mann was one of the few publicly active opponents of Nazism among German expatriates in the U. S
32.
Hermann Hesse
–
Hermann Karl Hesse was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individuals search for authenticity, self-knowledge, in 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Hermann Karl Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw in Württemberg and his grandparents served in India at a mission under the auspices of the Basel Mission, a Protestant Christian missionary society. Hesses mother, Marie Gundert, was born at such a mission in India in 1842, in describing her own childhood, she said, A happy child I was not. As was usual among missionaries at the time, she was left behind in Europe at the age of four when her parents returned to India, Hesses father, Johannes Hesse, the son of a doctor, was born in 1847 in the Estonian town of Paide. Johannes Hesse belonged to the German minority in the Russian-ruled Baltic region, Hermann had five siblings, but two of them died in infancy. In 1873, the Hesse family moved to Calw, where Johannes worked for the Calwer Verlagsverein, maries father, Hermann Gundert, managed the publishing house at the time, and Johannes Hesse succeeded him in 1893. Hesse grew up in a Swabian Pietist household, with the Pietist tendency to insulate believers into small, furthermore, Hesse described his fathers Baltic German heritage as an important and potent fact of his developing identity. His father, Hesse stated, always seemed like a polite, very foreign, lonely. His fathers tales from Estonia instilled a sense of religion in young Hermann. An exceedingly cheerful, and, for all its Christianity, a merry world and we wished for nothing so longingly as to be allowed to see this Estonia. Where life was so paradisiacal, so colorful and happy, from childhood, Hesse appeared headstrong and hard for his family to handle. In a letter to her husband, Hermanns mother Marie wrote, The little fellow has a life in him, a strength, a powerful will, and, for his four years of age. How can he express all that, Hesse showed signs of serious depression as early as his first year at school. The fictional town of Gerbersau is pseudonymous for Calw, imitating the real name of the town of Hirsau. It is derived from the German words gerber, meaning tanner, Calw had a centuries-old leather-working industry, and during Hesses childhood the tanneries influence on the town was still very much in evidence. Hesses favorite place in Calw was the St. Nicholas-Bridge, which is why the Hesse monument was built there in 2002, all this instilled a sense in Hermann Hesse that he was a citizen of the world. His family background became, he noted, the basis of an isolation, young Hesse shared a love of music with his mother
33.
Periodization
–
Periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified named blocks of time in order to facilitate the study and analysis of history. This results in descriptive abstractions that provide convenient terms for periods of time with relatively stable characteristics, however, determining the precise beginning and ending to any period is often arbitrary. To the extent that history is continuous and ungeneralizable, all systems of periodization are more or less arbitrary, yet without named periods, however clumsy or imprecise, past time would be nothing more than scattered events without a framework to help us understand them. The origins of periodization are very old and first became part of the Western tradition in the myths of Ancient Greece, virgil spoke of a distant Golden Age and recurrent cycles of history. The Bible outlines a narrative of history from Creation to the End of time, not only do periodizing blocks inevitably overlap, they often seemingly conflict with or contradict one another. Some have a cultural usage, others refer to prominent historical events, other periods are named from influential or talismanic individuals. Some of these usages will also be geographically specific and this is especially true of periodizing labels derived from individuals or ruling dynasties, such as the Jacksonian Era in America, the Meiji Era in Japan, or the Merovingian Period in France. Cultural terms may also have a limited reach, thus the concept of the Romantic period is largely meaningless outside the Western world of Europe and European-influenced cultures. Likewise, the 1960s, though applicable to anywhere in the world according to Common Era numbering, has a certain set of specific cultural connotations in certain countries. For this reason it may be possible to say things as The 1960s never occurred in Spain. Likewise it is often said, as the historian Arthur Marwick has. His reason for saying this is that the cultural and economic conditions that define the meaning of the period more than the accidental fact of a 10-year block beginning with the number 6. This extended usage is termed the long 1960s and this usage derives from other historians who have adopted labels such as the long 19th century to reconcile arbitrary decimal chronology with meaningful cultural and social phases. Similarly, an Eighteenth Century may run 1714–1789, eric Hobsbawm has also argued for what he calls the short twentieth century, encompassing the period from the First World War through to the end of the Cold War. Is it possible to use the term Victorian outside Britain, and even within and it sometimes is used when it is thought that its connotations usefully describe the politics, culture and economic conditions characteristic of the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, periodizing terms often have negative or positive connotations that may affect their usage and this includes Victorian, which often negatively suggests sexual repression and class conflict. Other labels such as Renaissance have strongly positive characteristics, as a result, these terms sometimes extend in meaning. Thus the English Renaissance is often used for a largely identical to the Elizabethan Period or reign of Elizabeth I
34.
Middle Ages
–
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
35.
Old High German
–
Old High German is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 700 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the half of the 8th century. There are, however, a number of Elder Futhark inscriptions dating to the 6th century, as well as single words, during the migration period, the Elbe Germanic tribes settled in what became Alamannia, the Duchy of Bavaria and the Kingdom of Lombardy. Old High German comprises the dialects of these groups which underwent the Second Sound Shift during the 6th Century, namely all of Elbe Germanic, in the south, the Langobards, who had settled in Northern Italy, maintained their dialect until their conquest by Charlemagne in 774. This area did not become German-speaking again until the German eastward expansion of the early 12th century, though there was some attempt at conquest, Old High German literacy is a product of the monasteries, notably at St. Gallen, Reichenau and Fulda. Its origins lie in the establishment of the German church by Boniface in the mid 8th century, einhard tells how Charlemagne himself ordered that the epic lays should be collected for posterity. It was the neglect or religious zeal of later generations that led to the loss of these records, thus, it was Charlemagnes weak successor, Louis the Pious, who destroyed his fathers collection of epic poetry on account of its pagan content. Hrabanus Maurus, a student of Alcuins and abbot at Fulda from 822, was an important advocate of the cultivation of German literacy, among his students were Walafrid Strabo and Otfrid of Weissenburg. Notker Labeo towards the end of the Old High German period was among the greatest stylists in the language, the main difference between Old High German and the West Germanic dialects from which it developed is that it underwent the High German consonant shift. This is generally dated approximately to the late 5th and early 6th centuries—hence dating its start to around 500, the result of this sound change is that the consonantal system of German remains different from all other West Germanic languages, including English and Low German. Grammatically, however, Old High German remained very similar to Old English, Old Dutch, by the mid 11th century the many different vowels found in unstressed syllables had all been reduced to /ə/. Since these vowels were part of the endings in the nouns and verbs. For these reasons,1050 is seen as the start of the Middle High German period, for this reason the dialects may be termed monastery dialects. It declined after the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom by the Franks in 774 and it is classified as Upper German on the basis of evidence of the Second Sound Shift. The continued existence of a West Frankish dialect in the Western, claims that this might have been the language of the Carolingian court or that it is attested in the Ludwigslied, whose presence in a French manuscript suggests bilingualism, are controversial. The charts show the vowel and consonant systems of the East Franconian dialect in the 9th century and this is the dialect of the monastery of Fulda, and specifically of the Old High German Tatian. Old High German had five long vowels and six phonemic short vowels. Both occurred in stressed and unstressed syllables, notes, All back vowels likely had front-vowel allophones as a result of Umlaut
36.
Late Middle Ages
–
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th and 15th centuries. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the modern era. Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt, a series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it was before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare, France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict in the Hundred Years War. To add to the problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively these events are called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of progress in the arts. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High Middle Ages, combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing, which facilitated dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. These two things would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the period, the Age of Discovery began, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, eroded the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire and cut off trading possibilities with the east. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the expedition of Columbus to the Americas in 1492 and their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations. The changes brought about by these developments have led scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of modern history. However, the division is artificial, since ancient learning was never entirely absent from European society. As a result there was continuity between the ancient age and the modern age. Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not to speak of the Late Middle Ages at all, but rather see the period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance. The term Late Middle Ages refers to one of the three periods of the Middle Ages, along with the Early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People. Flavio Biondo used a framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire. Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, for 18th-century historians studying the 14th and 15th centuries, the central theme was the Renaissance, with its rediscovery of ancient learning and the emergence of an individual spirit
37.
Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe
–
Humanism may be dated from the invention of the printing press about 1450. Marked features distinguished the new culture north of the Alps from the culture of the Italians, the university and school played a much more important part than in the South according to Catholic historians. The representatives of the new scholarship were teachers, even Erasmus taught in Cambridge and was on terms with the professors at Basel. During the progress of the movement new universities sprang up, from Basel to Rostock, again, in Germany, there were no princely patrons of arts and learning to be compared in intelligence and munificence to the Renaissance popes and the Medici. Nor was the new culture here exclusive and aristocratic and it sought the general spread of intelligence, and was active in the development of primary and grammar schools. In the Humanistic movement, the German people was far from being a slavish imitator and it received an impulse from the South, but made its own path. In the North, Humanism entered into the service of religious progress, German scholars were less brilliant and elegant, but more serious in their purpose and more exact in their scholarship than their Italian predecessors and contemporaries. In the South, the ancient classics absorbed the attention of the literati and it was not so in the North. There was no consuming passion to render the classics into German as there had been in Italy, nor did Italian literature, with its often relaxed moral attitude, find imitators in the North. Boccaccio’s Decameron was first translated into German by the physician, Henry Stainhowel, North of the Alps, attention was chiefly centred on the Old and New Testaments. Greek and Hebrew were studied, not with the purpose of ministering to a cult of antiquity, in this way, preparation was made for the work of the Protestant Reformation. This focus on translation was a feature of the Christian humanists who helped to launch the new, post-scholastic era, among them Erasmus and Luther. In so doing, they also placed biblical texts above any human or institutional authority, what was true of the scholarship of Germany was also true of its art. Dürer and Holbein had close contacts with leading humanists, cranach lived in Wittenberg after 1504 and painted portraits of Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon and other leaders of the German Reformation. Holbein made frontispieces and illustrations for Protestant books and painted portraits of Erasmus, if any one individual more than another may be designated as the connecting link between the learning of Italy and Germany, it is Aeneas Sylvius. By his residence at the court of Frederick III and at Basel, as one of the secretaries of the council, the mediation, however, was not effected by any single individual. The fame of the Renaissance was carried over the pathways of trade which led from Northern Italy to Augsburg, Nuremberg, Konstanz, a constant stream of pilgrims travelled to Rome and the Spanish popes drew to the city throngs of Spaniards. As the fame of Italian culture spread, scholars and artists began to travel to Venice, Florence and Rome, to the Italians, Germany was a land of barbarians
38.
German literature
–
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Belgium and Switzerland, Liechtenstein, South Tyrol in Italy and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the period is mostly in Standard German. The Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century, the most famous works are the Hildebrandslied, Middle High German starts in the 12th century, the key works include The Ring and the poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein and Johannes von Tepl. The Baroque period was one of the most fertile times in German literature, modern literature in German begins with the authors of the Enlightenment. The Sensibility movement of the 1750s-1770s ended with Goethes best-selling Die Leiden des jungen Werther, the Sturm und Drang and Weimar Classicism movements were led by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Biedermeier refers to the literature, music, the visual arts, under the Nazi regime, some authors went into exile and others submitted to censorship. Periodization is not a science but the following list contains movements or time periods typically used in discussing German literature. The closer one nears the present, the more debated the periodizations become, the Old High German period is reckoned to run until about the mid-11th century, though the boundary to Early Middle High German is not clear-cut. The most famous work in OHG is the Hildebrandslied, a piece of Germanic alliterative heroic verse which besides the Muspilli is the sole survivor of what must have been a vast oral tradition. Another important work, in the dialect of Old Saxon, is a life of Christ in the style of a heroic epic known as the Heliand. This was the period of the blossoming of MHG lyric poetry, one of the most important of these poets was Walther von der Vogelweide. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances and these are written in rhyming couplets, and again draw on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes, many of them relating Arthurian material, for example, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach. These high medieval heroic epics are written in rhymed strophes, not the verse of Germanic prehistory. Therefore, the literature of the late 14th and the early 15th century falls, as it were, the Volksbuch tradition which would flourish in the 16th century also finds its origin in the second half of the 15th century. Sebastian Brant Thomas Murner Philipp Melanchthon Sebastian Franck The Baroque period was one of the most fertile times in German literature, many writers reflected the horrible experiences of the Thirty Years War, in poetry and prose. Grimmelshausens adventures of the young and naïve Simplicissimus, in the eponymous book Simplicius Simplicissimus, martin Opitz established rules for the purity of language, style, verse and rhyme
39.
Realism (arts)
–
Realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in part a matter of technique and training. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the depiction of lifeforms, perspective. Realist works of art may emphasize the mundane, ugly or sordid, such as works of realism, regionalism. There have been various movements in the arts, such as the opera style of verismo, literary realism, theatrical realism. The realism art movement in painting began in France in the 1850s, the realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate French literature and art, with roots in the late 18th century. Realism is the precise, detailed and accurate representation in art of the appearance of scenes. Realism in this sense is also called naturalism, mimesis or illusionism, realistic art was created in many periods, and it is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. It becomes especially marked in European painting in the Early Netherlandish painting of Jan van Eyck, however such realism is often used to depict, for example, angels with wings, which were not things the artists had ever seen in real life. It is the choice and treatment of matter that defines Realism as a movement in painting. The development of increasingly accurate representation of the appearances of things has a long history in art. It includes elements such as the depiction of the anatomy of humans and animals, of perspective and effects of distance. Ancient Greek art is recognised as having made great progress in the representation of anatomy. Pliny the Elders famous story of birds pecking at grapes painted by Zeuxis in the 5th century BC may well be a legend, roman portraiture, when not under too much Greek influence, shows a greater commitment to a truthful depiction of its subjects. The art of Late Antiquity famously rejected illusionism for expressive force, scientific methods of representing perspective were developed in Italy and gradually spread across Europe, and accuracy in anatomy rediscovered under the influence of classical art. As in classical times, idealism remained the norm, intriguingly, having led the development of illusionic painting, still life was to be equally significant in its abandonment in Cubism. The depiction of ordinary, everyday subjects in art also has a history, though it was often squeezed into the edges of compositions. However these objects are at least largely there because they carry layers of complex significance, pieter Bruegel the Elder pioneered large panoramic scenes of peasant life
40.
Naturalism (literature)
–
Naturalism is a literary movement that emphasizes observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality. Novelists writing in the naturalist mode include Émile Zola, Thomas Hardy, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, Naturalism began as a branch of literary realism, and realism had favored fact, logic, and impersonality over the imaginative, symbolic, and supernatural. Dreiser, Crane, and Norris were also journalists, and thus attempted to immerse themselves in the world of fact via the assumption of detached observation. Although they considered themselves realists, naturalistic authors selected particular parts of reality, misery, corruption, vice, disease, poverty, prostitution, racism and they were criticized for being pessimistic and for concentrating excessively on the darker aspects of life. The novel would be an experiment where the author could discover and analyze the forces, or scientific laws, that behavior, and these included emotion, heredity. The paradox of naturalism is that it holds two contrary or conflicting views, human behavior is the result of free will, and yet also determined by natural laws, Naturalism Naturalism Philosophical naturalism Sociological naturalism Naturalism in 19th-century French literature Realism in the visual arts
"Germany, Language and Literature of". The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
"