Modern Restoration : Re-thinking German Literary History 1930-1960

This book seeks to move twentieth-century German literary history away from its stubbornly persistent reliance on the political turning-points of 1933 and 1945. In the first part of the book, the authors analyze a synchronic corpus of literary journals, identifying a restorative aesthetic mood in the years 1930-1960 which persists across political date boundaries. In the second part, the careers of five writers are considered diachronically against this prevailing restorative climate: Gottfried Benn, Johannes R. Becher, Bertolt Brecht, Günter Eich, and Peter Huchel. Combining these two approaches, the authors show that a fresh perspective that challenges established literary-historical periodisations can shed light on the common cultural and aesthetic ground shared by writers, editors and critics across the ideological divides of the era.

"Es ist dem verdienstvollen Band, der in minutiöser Auseinandersetzung mit einem verschollenen Forschungsstrang erarbeitet wurde, zu wünschen, daß er eine dringend gebotene Neuverhandlung der Literaturgeschichte des mittleren 20. Jahrhunderts auch in der internationalen Germanistik auslöst, die den sozialhistorischen und medialen Besonderheiten dieser Phase verpflichtet bleibt."
Gustav Frank/Stefan Scherer in: IASL-online 2006 http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/rezensio/liste/FrankScherer.html

"The Modern Restoration offers a very valuable perspective on the micro- and macrodebates in this period of massive upheaval."
Mark Elliott in: Modern Language Review 2/2006

"The Modern Restoration is a fascinating investigation of selected journals and authors."
Lynn M. Kutch in: German Studies Review 3/2006

"This book is a valuable contribution to discussions about the periodization of German literature."
Stephen Brockmann in: German Quarterly 4/2005