Theodor Fontane: Difference between revisions
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Theodor Fontane (1819 – 1898) was a popular 19th-century German-language novelist whose works are still read but may not be easily available in English today. Most of Fontane's life was spent in cosmopolitan Berlin, the thriving capital of Bismarck's newly-unified Germany. After a long career in journalism and travel writing, in his late fifties he began producing a series of masterful novels every two or three years until the end of his life. | Theodor Fontane (1819 – 1898) was a popular 19th-century German-language novelist whose works are still read but may not be easily available in English today. Most of Fontane's life was spent in cosmopolitan Berlin, the thriving capital of Bismarck's newly-unified Germany. After a long career in journalism and travel writing, in his late fifties he began producing a series of masterful novels every two or three years until the end of his life. | ||
Fontane is considered one of the leading writers of [[realism]], not only because he took great pains to ensure factual accuracy of details in fictional scenes, but also because he depicted his characters in terms of what they said or did and refrained from overtly imputing motives to characters. Fontane's | Fontane is considered one of the leading writers of [[realism]], not only because he took great pains to ensure factual accuracy of details in fictional scenes, but also because he depicted his characters in terms of what they said or did and refrained from overtly imputing motives to characters. Fontane's choice of subjects was also unusual for his time because many of his works delve into topics that were more or less taboo for discussion in polite society of his day, including marital infidelity, abandonment of children, and suicide. His characters range from lower-middle class to Prussian nobility. | ||
== Some English translation of the novels. == | == Some English translation of the novels. == | ||
Revision as of 13:05, 3 August 2020
Theodor Fontane (1819 – 1898) was a popular 19th-century German-language novelist whose works are still read but may not be easily available in English today. Most of Fontane's life was spent in cosmopolitan Berlin, the thriving capital of Bismarck's newly-unified Germany. After a long career in journalism and travel writing, in his late fifties he began producing a series of masterful novels every two or three years until the end of his life.
Fontane is considered one of the leading writers of realism, not only because he took great pains to ensure factual accuracy of details in fictional scenes, but also because he depicted his characters in terms of what they said or did and refrained from overtly imputing motives to characters. Fontane's choice of subjects was also unusual for his time because many of his works delve into topics that were more or less taboo for discussion in polite society of his day, including marital infidelity, abandonment of children, and suicide. His characters range from lower-middle class to Prussian nobility.
Some English translation of the novels.
This is still very incomplete, for now.
- Unterm Birnbaum, 1885 - About a murder and its after-math.
- Under the Pear Tree translated by ?
- Irrungen, Wirrungen, 1888 - About an affair between a wealthy officer and a lower-middle-class Berlin girl.
- Unwiederbrichlich, 1891 - About a troubled marriage in Holstein in 1859-1861, five years before the German/Danish war.
- Beyond Recall[1] translated by Douglas Parmée (out of print)
- Irretrievable
- No Way Back, translated by Hugh Rorrison and Helen Chambers
- Frau Jenny Treibel, 1892 - About attempts by a schoolmaster's daughter to marry new wealth.
- tbd
- Effi Briest, 1894 - About a wronged husband conventionally seeking retribution for a long-past affair.
- tbd
- ↑ Beyond Recall (Unwiederbringlich) by Theodor Fontane, Translated with an Introduction by Douglas Parmée. London, Oxford University Press, 1964. Volume 602 in The World Classics