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Zschokke's Das Goldmacherdorf and the Development of the Dorfgeschichte in the 1840s
Author(s) -
McInnes Edward
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1995.tb00076.x
Subject(s) - peasant , narrative , inheritance (genetic algorithm) , power (physics) , realism , german , history , aesthetics , sociology , literature , law , political science , philosophy , art , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , gene
The advocates of the Dorfgeschichte in the 1840s were concerned to put it forward as the vehicle of a specifically German form of realism which renewed the essential values of their native literary tradition. Although critics at this time spent much effort attempting to find precursors or models for the new genre in the literature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, they tended to disregard Zschokke's Das Goldmacherdorf (1817), a work which was still highly regarded and widely popular and which both in its form and preoccupations seemed decisively to anticipate literary development in the 1840s. The discussion of the narrative seeks to show that while critics in the Vormärz could acknowledge Zschokkes's analysis of the power of economic‐commercial forces in the day‐to‐day life of the village, they were more concerned to reject his view of social reform as a process imposed from outside, a process which involved the destruction of the peasant inheritance of the community in the name of a scientifically ratified notion of progress.