126-476 The Austrian Novelist Joseph Roth

Note

Available as 126-376 at 3rd-year level.

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Subject Description

The Austrian writer Joseph Roth (1894-1939) was born in one of the eastern most outposts of the Habsburg Empire, Brody in Galicia, and has been called 'ein Ostjude auf der Suche nach einer Heimat'. Roth's dynamic narratives record with ironic sharpness and a human focus the loss of old certainties in Europe after the First World War. The subject will examine a range of works and locate them in their cultural and historical context, while exploring their stylistic qualities and addressing questions of gender-specificity. Roth's changing literary responses to the political upheaval which overtook him as a Jewish writer in German will be plotted from his early more documentary style, through his use of the discourse of legend, fairytale and historical novel as strategies for coming to terms with his personal fate and the fate of Austrian and European civilisation. Roth despised abstractions and is above all a brilliant story-teller, with a strong and vital sense of history as it affects the individual.

Assessment

Written work in German of no more than 5,000 words for MA, 4,000 words for 4th year and 3,000 words for 3rd year.

Prescribed Texts

• Roth, Joseph, Romane. Kiwi 350, Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1994.
• Roth, Joseph, Die Legende vom heiligen Trinker. Kiwi 27, Kiepenheuer & Witsch.