Metamorphosis in Modern German Literature
Transforming Bodies, Identities and Affects

Tara Beaney

Germanic Literatures 9

Legenda

19 December 2016  •  196pp

ISBN: 978-1-909662-84-1 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

ISBN: 978-1-781883-24-2 (paperback, 30 September 2018)  •  RRP £10.99, $14.99, €13.49

ISBN: 978-1-781883-25-9 (JSTOR ebook)

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Radical bodily transformation can be shocking, terrifying and wonderful. But what makes it such compelling literary subject matter, and what place does it have in modern Germany? Tara Beaney analyses metamorphosis in literary texts from the Romantic period onwards, focusing on the affects involved. This emphasis allows for a unique insight into ways of experiencing bodily change, into threatened identities, and into changing affective styles across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ranging from canonical texts by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Franz Kafka to the work of post-war and post-Wende writers Marie Luise Kaschnitz and Jenny Erpenbeck, as well as the cross-cultural writer Yoko Tawada, this study shows how narratives of metamorphosis help us negotiate the social and political changes, and the experience of shifting boundaries and identities, that are so pertinent to modern Germany.

Tara Beaney is Lecturer in German at the University of Aberdeen.

Reviews:

  • ‘In conclusion, this monograph is recommended to an academic readership with a general interest in the role of affect in fictional transformations, and in multidisciplinary, comparative approaches to transformative phenomena.’ — Elisabetta Leopardi, Modern Language Review 113.2, April 2018, 436-39 (full text online)
  • ‘What is innovative is that the author links transformation to affect. Her corpus entails (as is to be expected) E.T.A. Hoffmann and Franz Kafka, discussing e.g. metamorphosis and utopia/dystopia. More original in this context are the case studies on Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Jenny Erpenbeck, and the trans-cultural Japanese German author Yoko Tawada.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 371-72
  • ‘The book’s great merit is that it shows in close readings the prevalence of metamorphosis as a concept in German literature, and how metamorphosis in all its different iterations always questions stable identities and disrupts affective structures.’ — Tanja Nusser, German Studies Review 41.2, May 2018, 396-98 (full text online)

Contents:

ix-x

Acknowledgements
Tara Beaney
doi:10.2307/j.ctvfc5652.3

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1-18

Introduction
Tara Beaney
doi:10.2307/j.ctvfc5652.4

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19-53

Chapter 1 - Inner Realms: the Painful Pleasure of Metamorphosis in E.t.a. Hoffmann
Tara Beaney
doi:10.2307/j.ctvfc5652.5

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54-86

Chapter 2 - Being Animal: Kafka and the Wordless World
Tara Beaney
doi:10.2307/j.ctvfc5652.6

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87-119

Chapter 3 - Cocooned From the Past: Temporal Subversion in Marie Luise Kaschnitz and Jenny Erpenbeck
Tara Beaney
doi:10.2307/j.ctvfc5652.7

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120-158

Chapter 4 - Metamorphoses Under the Influence: Transformation Politics, Poetics, and Affects in Yoko Tawada
Tara Beaney
doi:10.2307/j.ctvfc5652.8

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159-170

Endings and Beginnings: Towards A Conclusion
Tara Beaney
doi:10.2307/j.ctvfc5652.9

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171-181

Bibliography
Tara Beaney
doi:10.2307/j.ctvfc5652.10

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Bibliography entry:

Beaney, Tara, Metamorphosis in Modern German Literature: Transforming Bodies, Identities and Affects, Germanic Literatures, 9 (Legenda, 2016)

First footnote reference: 35 Tara Beaney, Metamorphosis in Modern German Literature: Transforming Bodies, Identities and Affects, Germanic Literatures, 9 (Legenda, 2016), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Beaney, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Beaney, Tara. 2016. Metamorphosis in Modern German Literature: Transforming Bodies, Identities and Affects, Germanic Literatures, 9 (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Beaney 2016: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Beaney 2016: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)


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