Brigid Haines focuses on the crucial interplay between dialogue and narrative in Adalbert Stifter’s works and relates this to their overall structure. Stifter, a conservative and often didactic writer, is nevertheless shown to present a complex view of reality which incorporates subjective and sometimes subversive voices. In Der beschriebene Tännling the characters’ utterances relativize the narrator’s apparently objective account, while in the Bildungsroman Der Nachsommer one subjective voice succeeds in calling into question the validity of the tightly-woven rhetorical creed on which the novel is based. Stifter achieved a more open form in his final novel, Die Mappe mines Urgroßvaters, which articulates honestly his own doubts about the adequacy of human communication and understanding.
This book, originally published in paperback in 1991 under the ISBN 978-0-947623-44-9, was made Open Access in 2024 as part of the MHRA Revivals programme.
One of the characteristics of Stifter’s writing which has been noted by generations of critics is the fact that it is remarkably consistent. Although contemporary events, in particular the 1848 revolution, did impinge on his work, he remained true to a particular literary terrain and a particular body of themes which form the basis of even his earliest work. There are no sudden changes of direction, few unexplained introductions of new ideas to disturb the general picture. The works, when taken together, form a more recognizably unified corpus than do those of many other writers. Understanding of the stories and novels can be furthered by comparing and contrasting them with each other, for although the early works differ significantly from the later ones in style and composition, the themes and the subject matter are often basically the same.
2.1. Introduction; 2.2. Language: some preliminary comments; 2.3. Dialogue: some general remarks; 2.4. The composition of narrative works; 2.5. Literary dialogue; 2.6. Dialogue as subject to the control of the narrator; 2.7. Dialogue’s potential to escape the control of the narrator; 2.8. Conclusion.
3.1. Introduction: dialogue as articulatory tool; 3.2. Direct speech in the Journalfassung and in the Studienfassung; 3.3. Hanna: the seeds of tragedy; 3.4. The hunt: mounting tension; 3.5. Hanns: tragedy averted, dénouement; 3.6. Conclusion.
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Bibliography entry:
Haines, Brigid, Dialogue and Narrative Design in the Works of Adalbert Stifter, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 34 (MHRA, 1991)
First footnote reference:35 Brigid Haines, Dialogue and Narrative Design in the Works of Adalbert Stifter, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 34 (MHRA, 1991), p. 21.
This title was first published by Modern Humanities Research Association for the Institute of Germanic Studies but rights to it are now held by Modern Humanities Research Association and the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies.
