Course outline
Module 1
Module 1: Goethe and the Sturm und Drang
Goethe and the Sturm und Drang
Knowledge check
Q1. Which literary movement, whose name translates roughly to 'Storm and Stress,' Goethe was associated with in the 1770s?
- A. Romanticism
- B. Sturm und Drang ✓
- C. Biedermeier
- D. Expressionism
Why: Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) was a German pre-Romantic movement of the 1770s emphasizing emotion, individual genius, and rebellion against rigid rules, and Goethe was one of its leading figures.
Q2. Which Goethe novel, published in 1774, made him famous across Europe and centers on a young artist's unrequited love?
- A. Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre
- B. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers ✓
- C. Faust
- D. Die Wahlverwandtschaften
Why: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther) tells the story of Werther's passionate, ultimately fatal love for Charlotte, and its emotional intensity made it a defining work of Sturm und Drang.
Q3. What is the name of the tragic drama by Goethe, begun in youth and completed in parts later in life, about a scholar who makes a pact with the devil?
- A. Egmont
- B. Iphigenie auf Tauris
- C. Faust ✓
- D. Götz von Berlichingen
Why: Faust is Goethe's most famous work, following Dr. Faust's pact with Mephistopheles. Goethe worked on it for most of his life, with Part One published in 1808 and Part Two after his death in 1832.
Q4. Which early Goethe play, written in 1773, depicts a rebellious German knight of the Peasants' War era and is a key Sturm und Drang drama?
- A. Torquato Tasso
- B. Götz von Berlichingen ✓
- C. Clavigo
- D. Stella
Why: Götz von Berlichingen (1773) is a historical drama about a free-spirited knight who resists authority. Its rejection of neoclassical dramatic rules and its focus on individual freedom make it a hallmark of Sturm und Drang.
Q5. Which of the following best describes the Sturm und Drang movement's view of the artist?
- A. The artist should strictly follow classical rules of form and proportion
- B. The artist is a passionate genius whose creativity arises from inner feeling and originality ✓
- C. The artist's role is to serve the political authority of the state
- D. The artist should imitate nature by recording only observable facts
Why: Sturm und Drang championed the idea of the original genius (Genie) who creates from intense emotion and inspiration, rejecting imitation of classical models and rigid rules of composition.
Module 2
Module 2: Romanticism: Novalis and Hoffmann
Romanticism: Novalis and Hoffmann
Knowledge check
Q1. Which German Romantic writer is best known for the unfinished novel 'Heinrich von Ofterdingen', whose central image is the blue flower?
- A. Friedrich Schlegel
- B. Novalis ✓
- C. Clemens Brentano
- D. Ludwig Tieck
Why: Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg) wrote 'Heinrich von Ofterdingen', published posthumously in 1802. The blue flower (die blaue Blume) became a central symbol of Romantic longing for the infinite and the unattainable.
Q2. E.T.A. Hoffmann's story 'Der Sandmann' (The Sandman) is most famous for which theme?
- A. The triumph of rational science over superstition
- B. A pastoral idyll in the countryside
- C. The uncanny and the blurring of reality and illusion ✓
- D. A realist depiction of bourgeois marriage
Why: 'Der Sandmann' (1816) explores the uncanny (das Unheimliche), as the protagonist Nathanael's fear of the Sandman and his obsession with the automaton Olimpia blur the boundary between madness, illusion, and reality.
Q3. In Novalis's conception, what is the blue flower chiefly a symbol of?
- A. Political revolution
- B. Scientific discovery
- C. Romantic longing and the poetic pursuit of the infinite ✓
- D. Religious orthodoxy
Why: For Novalis the blue flower represents Sehnsucht, the yearning for the infinite, the mysterious, and the unity of nature, mind, and poetry, which can be glimpsed but never fully possessed.
Q4. Which Hoffmann tale features a young man who falls in love with a mechanical doll?
- A. 'Der goldne Topf'
- B. 'Das Fräulein von Scuderi'
- C. 'Der Sandmann' ✓
- D. 'Kater Murr'
Why: In 'Der Sandmann', Nathanael falls in love with Olimpia, an automaton created by Professor Spalanzani, and the revelation of her mechanical nature drives him toward madness and suicide.
Q5. What term is commonly used for the artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that included Novalis and Hoffmann, emphasizing imagination, emotion, and the infinite?
- A. Naturalism
- B. Romanticism ✓
- C. Expressionism
- D. Biedermeier
Why: Novalis and Hoffmann were key figures of German Romanticism (die Romantik), a movement that prized imagination, emotion, the folk and the supernatural, and a longing for unity and the infinite, in reaction to Enlightenment rationalism.
Module 3
Module 3: Realism and Fontane's Social Novels
Realism and Fontane's Social Novels
Knowledge check
Q1. Which literary period is most closely associated with Theodor Fontane's novels?
- A. Sturm und Drang
- B. Poetic Realism (Poetischer Realismus) ✓
- C. Expressionism
- D. Romanticism
Why: Fontane is a central figure of German Poetic Realism, a period roughly from the 1850s to the 1890s that emphasized detailed, accurate depictions of everyday social life while retaining a certain artistic refinement and subtle irony.
Q2. Which Fontane novel is often considered his masterpiece and centers on an adulterous affair in a Prussian garrison town?
- A. Effi Briest ✓
- B. Der Stechlin
- C. Irrungen, Wirrungen
- D. Cécile
Why: Effi Briest (1895) tells the story of a young woman who, after an affair and a forced separation, is socially ostracized by Prussian society, offering a sharp critique of rigid social norms and honor codes.
Q3. What is a defining characteristic of Fontane's narrative style?
- A. Dense stream-of-consciousness writing
- B. Ironic, conversational narration with precise social observation ✓
- C. Mythic, symbolic prose with heavy allegory
- D. Fragmented verse structures
Why: Fontane is known for his ironic, understated narrative voice and meticulous attention to social detail, dialogue, and class distinctions, rather than inner monologue or heavy symbolism.
Q4. Which social class is most critically examined in Fontane's novels?
- A. The peasantry
- B. The industrial working class
- C. The Prussian aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie ✓
- D. The clergy
Why: Fontane's novels frequently scrutinize the rigid hierarchies, conventions, and hypocrisies of the Prussian nobility and the aspiring upper bourgeoisie, revealing the tensions between tradition and modernization.
Q5. Which of the following best describes the social critique in Fontane's realist novels?
- A. Revolutionary calls for the overthrow of the monarchy
- B. Subtle exposure of social conventions and their human costs ✓
- C. Celebration of industrial progress and urban life
- D. Rejection of realism in favor of fantasy
Why: Fontane's critique is typically subtle rather than polemical; he exposes how rigid social codes and conventions cause suffering, without advocating outright revolution.
Module 4
Module 4: Kafka and Modernist Anxiety
Kafka and Modernist Anxiety
Knowledge check
Q1. In which language did Franz Kafka primarily write his literary works?
- A. Czech
- B. German ✓
- C. Yiddish
- D. Hungarian
Why: Kafka, born in Prague in 1883, wrote his fiction and diaries in German, the language of Prague's German-speaking Jewish community, even though Czech was the language of the wider city.
Q2. What happens to Gregor Samsa at the beginning of 'The Metamorphosis' (Die Verwandlung)?
- A. He falls gravely ill with tuberculosis
- B. He wakes up transformed into a giant insect ✓
- C. He is arrested by a mysterious court
- D. He inherits a castle and must travel there
Why: The novella opens with Gregor waking to find himself transformed into a monstrous vermin-like insect, an image that embodies alienation and the anxiety of being rendered useless to family and society.
Q3. What is the name of the protagonist of Kafka's novel 'The Trial' (Der Prozess)?
- A. Josef K. ✓
- B. Karl Rossmann
- C. Georg Bendemann
- D. Gregor Samsa
Why: Josef K., a bank official, is arrested one morning without being told the charge and is caught in an incomprehensible legal process, a central image of modernist anxiety before inscrutable authority.
Q4. Which term is commonly associated with the bureaucratic, opaque, and seemingly absurd systems that feature prominently in Kafka's fiction?
- A. Romanticism
- B. Kafkaesque ✓
- C. Biedermeier
- D. Expressionism
Why: 'Kafkaesque' has become the adjective describing nightmarish, labyrinthine bureaucracy and inexplicable authority, reflecting the recurring themes of Kafka's novels and stories.
Q5. What is the central setting of Kafka's unfinished novel 'The Castle' (Das Schloss)?
- A. A monastery in the Alps
- B. A remote village dominated by a castle whose officials are unreachable ✓
- C. A colonial port city
- D. A Prague coffeehouse
Why: The protagonist K. arrives in a village under the authority of a distant castle, and he struggles endlessly to gain recognition from its officials, emblematic of Kafka's themes of alienation and unattainable access to power.
Module 5
Module 5: Weimar Literature and Brecht
Weimar Literature and Brecht
Knowledge check
Q1. Which playwright is most closely associated with epic theatre and the concept of the 'Verfremdungseffekt' (alienation effect)?
- A. Gerhart Hauptmann
- B. Bertolt Brecht ✓
- C. Frank Wedekind
- D. Carl Zuckmayer
Why: Bertolt Brecht developed epic theatre and the Verfremdungseffekt, which aims to keep audiences critically distanced from the action so they reflect on social conditions rather than identify emotionally with characters.
Q2. Which Brecht play, written in 1928 with music by Kurt Weill, satirizes bourgeois society and capitalism through a criminal underworld in London?
- A. Mother Courage and Her Children
- B. The Good Person of Szechwan
- C. The Threepenny Opera ✓
- D. Life of Galileo
Why: Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera, 1928), adapted from John Gay's 18th-century Beggar's Opera, uses a gangster setting to expose the hypocrisy of respectable society and capitalist exploitation.
Q3. What is the term for the Weimar-era movement emphasizing objective, detached, and often cold depictions of reality, prominent in painting and literature?
- A. Expressionism
- B. Romanticism
- C. Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) ✓
- D. Sturm und Drang
Why: Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity, was a 1920s movement rejecting the emotional excess of Expressionism in favor of matter-of-fact, unsentimental portrayals of contemporary life.
Q4. Which novel by Alfred Döblin, published in 1929, depicts the life of a former convict trying to survive in Berlin and is famously associated with the 'stream of consciousness' technique and urban modernity?
- A. Berlin Alexanderplatz ✓
- B. Buddenbrooks
- C. Steppenwolf
- D. The Magic Mountain
Why: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) by Alfred Döblin follows Franz Biberkopf after his release from prison, using montage and interior monologue to capture the chaotic rhythm of Weimar Berlin.
Q5. Which Brecht play, set during the Thirty Years' War, follows a canteen woman who loses her children one by one while profiting from the war?
- A. The Caucasian Chalk Circle
- B. Mother Courage and Her Children ✓
- C. Baal
- D. Drums in the Night
Why: Mother Courage and Her Children (1939) shows Anna Fierling, nicknamed Mother Courage, who prospers from war and loses her children to it, illustrating Brecht's argument that people cannot profit from war without being complicit in its horrors.
Module 6
Module 6: Postwar Writing: Borchert and Böll
Postwar Writing: Borchert and Böll
Knowledge check
Q1. Wolfgang Borchert's play 'Draußen vor der Tür' (The Man Outside) is most closely associated with which literary movement?
- A. Expressionism
- B. Trümmerliteratur (rubble literature) ✓
- C. Sturm und Drang
- D. Neue Sachlichkeit
Why: Draußen vor der Tür (1947) is a key work of Trümmerliteratur, the literature of the immediate postwar period that dealt with the destruction of Germany, the experience of war, and the difficulty of returning to normal life.
Q2. Who is the protagonist of Borchert's play 'Draußen vor der Tür'?
- A. Heinrich Böll
- B. Beckmann, a soldier returning from the Eastern Front ✓
- C. Faust
- D. Ludwig Rubens, a schoolteacher
Why: The play follows Beckmann, a traumatized World War II veteran who returns home to Hamburg after years as a prisoner of war and finds himself rejected by society, his wife, and his former life.
Q3. Heinrich Böll's novella 'Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa...' (1950) is written from the perspective of what kind of narrator?
- A. An omniscient narrator from the 19th century
- B. A first-person narrator who is a returning soldier looking back on his war experiences ✓
- C. A child recounting a fairy tale
- D. A detached journalist reporting facts
Why: Böll's work narrates the wartime and postwar experiences of a former soldier, reflecting on guilt, loss, and the moral confusion of the war years.
Q4. Which theme is central to much of Böll's postwar writing?
- A. Industrial progress and technological optimism
- B. Confronting the moral legacy of the Nazi period and the struggle of ordinary people amid war and reconstruction ✓
- C. Colonial adventure abroad
- D. Romantic nature mysticism
Why: Böll repeatedly examined how ordinary Germans coped with guilt, complicity, and the human cost of war, and how postwar society struggled with its past.
Q5. What is the typical style of Borchert's writing in works like 'Draußen vor der Tür'?
- A. Ornate, highly metaphorical baroque prose
- B. Short, stark, fragmented sentences conveying trauma and directness ✓
- C. Long, philosophical treatises
- D. Humorous satire of bourgeois life
Why: Borchert's language is terse and emotionally direct, with short sentences and a sparse style that mirrors the shock and disorientation of his characters.
Module 7
Module 7: Grass and the Legacy of 1945
Grass and the Legacy of 1945
Knowledge check
Q1. Which Günter Grass novel, published in 1959, is widely regarded as a landmark of postwar German literature and centers on a narrator who refuses to grow up?
- A. Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) ✓
- B. Hundejahre (Dog Years)
- C. Die Rättin (The Rat)
- D. Örtlich betäubt (Local Anaesthetic)
Why: Die Blechtrommel (1959) follows Oskar Matzerath, a boy who stops growing at age three in protest against the adult world. It became one of the defining works of the Group 47 generation and a key text for confronting the Nazi past.
Q2. Günter Grass was a member of which influential postwar German writers' association that met to discuss and critique new literary work?
- A. Sturm und Drang
- B. Gruppe 47 ✓
- C. Der Blaue Reiter
- D. Junges Deutschland
Why: Gruppe 47 was an informal association of writers founded by Hans Werner Richter in 1947. Grass joined in the 1950s, and the group helped shape postwar German literature by fostering realistic, socially engaged writing.
Q3. In which German city was Günter Grass born, a town that was then a Free City and is now part of Poland?
- A. Königsberg
- B. Breslau
- C. Danzig ✓
- D. Stettin
Why: Grass was born in 1927 in Danzig (today Gdańsk, Poland). The city's history and the Polish-German border region recur throughout his work, including the Danzig trilogy.
Q4. What is the name of the Danzig trilogy's first novel, which is set in and around the city of Grass's childhood?
- A. Die Blechtrommel
- B. Hundejahre ✓
- C. Katz und Maus
- D. Der Butt
Why: The Danzig trilogy comprises Die Blechtrommel (1959), Katz und Maus (1961), and Hundejahre (1963). Hundejahre (Dog Years) is the third volume, though the trilogy's chronological arrangement differs from the order of publication in some readings.
Q5. What event in 1945 marked the end of the Second World War in Europe and is central to the 'Stunde Null' (zero hour) discourse in German postwar culture?
- A. The signing of the Treaty of Versailles
- B. The unconditional surrender of Germany ✓
- C. The Berlin Wall's construction
- D. The Nuremberg Laws
Why: Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945 ended the war in Europe. The idea of 'Stunde Null' described a hoped-for fresh start, though writers like Grass later showed that the Nazi past remained deeply present.