Katherine Mansfield and Germany : Influences, Interactions, Afterlives

Katherine Mansfield and Germany focuses on an under-researched yet crucially important aspect of Mansfield’s life and art, her encounter with Germany and all things German: language, culture, society. The chapters will draw on recent critical theories, current research in modernism and biographical approaches to trace the impact of German literature, philosophy and music on Mansfield’s thinking, narrative experimentation and verse composition. This text includes a focus on the 19th century German legacy and influences; on the fairy tale and modernist style; and on poetry and music. The volume explores perspectives on health and alternative healing methods, and Mansfield’s German literary legacies, including critical responses to her first story collection, In a German Pension (1911) and German translations of her stories. It will reassess with cultural, scientific, and intellectual perspectives, the critical but obscure period of her life spent in the Bavarian spa town of Wörishofen in 1909, previously neglected due to Mansfield’s destruction of all personal records relating to this difficult time. That Katherine Mansfield’s early interactions with the literature, language, music, and culture of Germany held a particular fascination for her that indelibly shaped her writing has long been known. For the first time, this influence is examined in chapters that provide another welcome examination of Mansfield’s work from an international, transnational perspective. Katherine Mansfield and Germany turns to the diverse continental landscapes that fashioned Mansfield’s world view and testifies to Germany’s enduring hold on her imagination, so counterpointing and complementing the perception of France as her spiritual home.