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The image of the peasant woman in selected works of Berthold Auerbach and Jeremias Gotthelf

University of British Columbia

This dissertation seeks t o achieve three objectives: (1) to draw attention to the genre of the "Dorfgeschichte," (2) to examine "Dorfgeschichten" which were highly acclaimed in nineteenth century Germany, but are dismissed by literary scholarship today, (3) and most importantly, to adjust decades of inveterate and misleading critical responses with regard to the writers Berthold Auerbach and Jeremias Gotthelf. Although Auerbach's Schwarzwalder Dorfgeschichten were received with great enthusiasm by the literati in nineteenth century Germany, his contribution to the genre is diminished by literary critics and historians today. Some, such as Hermann Boeschenstein, claim that the author "was merely ... sugar-coating the realities of peasant life , while having no real contacts with it . "On the other hand, although the majority of Gotthelfs shorter narrative works receive little scholarly attention , the consensus of critical opinion in regard to the author is that he possessed an "unexcelled insight into the peasant's inner life ." On the basis of my close analysis of Auerbach's and Gotthelfs respective texts : Schwarzwalder Dorfgeschichten (1843-1854), and Kleinere Erzahlunaen (1838-1852), [More abstract follows]

Thesis/Dissertation

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2008-12-23

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/3294

Germanic Studies

University of British Columbia

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