126-026 Heinrich von Kleist's Prose Fiction

Credit Points

HECS Band

Coordinator

Prerequisites

37.5 points of second/third year subjects. European studies students wishing to enrol in this subject would normally have completed 37.5 points of European studies at second/third year, see Prerequisites.

Semester

Subject Description

Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) was not only one of the greatest dramatists in German literature, but he also wrote a small body of short prose fiction that contain some of the most fascinating texts in German. The world of Kleist's stories is full of obscure implications which the characters struggle to decipher. Family relationships are fraught with latent violence; glimpses of a better world are fleeting or hedged with irony; circumstance and coincidence play an often cruel game with the fictional characters. Against this underlying grimness is the beauty and power of Kleist's literary technique. Students will undertake a close reading of Kleist's eight stories in order to both situate them in their historical context and relate them to paradigms of modern experience. Students who complete the subject should have an awareness of Kleist's place in the German literary tradition and an understanding of the problems of posed by Kleist's experimental approach to writing.