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Part of the book: The Ethics of Narration

Colin Riordan

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 28

Bithell Series of Dissertations 14

Modern Humanities Research Association for the Institute of Germanic Studies

GermanFictionopen

Abstract.  The complex system of narrative dynamics evident in Jahrestage operates according to a set of moral imperatives which together amount to no less than a code of narrative ethics. And that code of ethics explains the technical develop- ments from the early novels through to Jahrestage in a way which extra-literary explanations — sociological and historical — cannot match. This is not to say that Johnson's narrative ethics are a purely literary phenomenon: indeed, the present study will attempt to show that they have profound political, historical, and social implications. Johnson's fiction acts as a testing ground for issues which have affected the moral and political consciousness of both Germanies since 1945.

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