German Literature General

What is going nowadays in the german literary world?
It seems, at least to me, as if over the last 20 years it drastically lost relevance and is, together with the decrepit german mediasphere, slowly withering away.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Spahn
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From an outsider perspective the German mediasphere seems pretty lively, both online and off, though not as distinct as it used to be. It seems Germans online barely ever talk about their own country when they're in places like Yea Forums or twitch, and almost always prefer to speak only in English. It's almost kind of weird how much they blend in

How about Die Morawische Nacht (The Moravian Night) 2008 by Peter Handke?

bümp

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Now, nothing more perverse can be imagined, than the adoption by German writers of that attribute which makes the French such brilliant virtuosi on the ground of speech. The attempt to treat the German language as an instrument of virtuosity could only occur to those to whom the German tongue is truly alien, and who therefore twist it to improper uses. None of our great poets and sages can be rated as virtuosi of speech: every one of them was in the same position as Luther, who had to ransack every German dialect for his translation of the Bible, to find the word and turn to popularly express that New he had discovered in the sacred books' original text. For what distinguishes the German spirit from that of every other culture-folk is this, that its creative sons had first seen something ne'er yet uttered, before they fell a-writing,—which for them was but a necessary consequence of the prior inspiration. Thus each of our great poets and thinkers had to form his language for himself; an obligation to which the inventive Greeks themselves do not appear to have been submitted, since they had at command a language always spoken by the living mouth, and therefore pliant to each thought or feeling, but not an element corrupted by bad pensters. In a poem from Italy how Goethe bewailed his being doomed by birth to wield the German tongue, in which he must first invent for himself what the Italians and French, for instance, found ready to their hand. That under such hardships none but truly original minds have risen to production among ourselves, should teach us what we are, and at any rate that there is something peculiar about us Germans. But that knowledge will also teach us, that if virtuosity in any branch of art is the evidence of talent, this Talent is denied in toto to the Germans, at least in the branch of Literature: who toils to acquire a virtuosity in this, will stay a bungler; if, following the musical virtuoso who composes pieces of his own, he trumps up poetical sketches for setting off his fancied virtuosity, however, they will not even belong to the category of the Mediocre, but simply of the Bad, the wholly null.

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Its a bit like scandinavians in that english is easy for young people to learn because its close enough to their native tongue. Add to this to the fact that Germany’s past does not permit people to be proud of their country and the result is what you’re describing. Essentially ameriboos online wanting badly to convince people that they pass as american and feel validated when they can display their trivia knowledge to an american (“Texas? Isnt zat ze one where everyone hass guns or somezing?”).
Even within the country, colloquial german language is being overtaken by english words. Not in a clever way as the words being used have perfectly good german translations but just because, to a german, there seems to be something “cool” about english. Interesting to compare with France, where there have a lot of pride in their language and a greater resistance to linguistic globalism basically.

Germany is a USA colony, that’s why.

bömp

Not modern but I’ve been rereading Faust (translated by that pernicious wretch, Kauffman, can’t afford the McIntyre edition yet) and actually closely following along with the German as a point of comparison, it’s been edifying. Faust should be understood best as an alchemical Christian parable,

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I like reading about Germany so it's a bummer you only hear about it online when the subject of politics comes up.

I really want to read Das Schelling-Projekt

We often decide to not talk about ourselves and Germany in public. Honest and truthful thoughts will be uttered behind closed curtains and doors, while sitting on the dinner table amongst family. It's a bit like Japan, where people are extremely adamant about not voicing their opinion and often, in fact, seem to even shy away from doing so in private.

Deutschland schafft sich ab.

Do Japanese find the regional german coat of arms quirky cool and unique the way we find their regional coat of arms cool?

Japan finds everything (western) european fascinating

>we find their regional coat of arms cool
We do?

IMO it's just a case of northern Europeans sort of naturally coalescing on the English-speaking internet because easy for them to learn English.

>reading contemporary literature
Es ist alles so mühsam.

For me, it's Sachsen-Anhalt.

All the Germans I see online critique America from the standpoint of gae Americanism. Shit like "Trust the experts more" and "Give up your guns". In turn, Redditors love Germany as it's an adult country where adults do adulting.

You called? I won't deny that it's nice here but mostly outside of the cities.

>All the people I see online critique America from the standpoint of gae Americanism. Shit like "Trust the experts more" and "Give up your guns".
The perception of American that most people on this planet have is one shaped entirely by the daily media storm. That is to say, perception as in ignorance. There is hardly real knowledge present and it's not exactly any different when compared with that of the average American in regards to Europe. People tend to repeat the same catchy bullshit regardless of country of origin, no one has the time to gather accurate information at this point. "Give up your guns and everything will work out" is a narrative prepared by the media. You're naive if you think 99% of the individuals that "critique" American from that standpoint, repeating this bland narrative, even know what that means or let alone think about it to begin with.
To some degree you might be right though. It's a little worse here in Germany, I'm guessing, because we love to gobbel up shit and repeat it. Keeps us from thinking and talking about our own national anal fissures.

I got these and a beautiful old (1890s - 1910s) physics textbook today. I have a newfound Reclam obsession

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>You're naive if you think 99% of the individuals that "critique" American from that standpoint, repeating this bland narrative, even know what that means or let alone think about it to begin with.
Oh, I agree. Critique was the wrong word since it does imply they actually thought it over.

Ah, nice Incel-Buch!

>From an outsider perspective the German mediasphere seems pretty lively, both online and off, though not as distinct as it used to be.
What exactly do you mean with pretty lively?
>It seems Germans online barely ever talk about their own country when they're in places like Yea Forums or twitch, and almost always prefer to speak only in English. It's almost kind of weird how much they blend in
I feel one of the big issues here is simply our fairly negligible domestic young media and cultural sphere, combined with our very old population (Germany has a median age of about ~48 years behind only Japan and Monaco), causing most teens to look, especially since the internet came around, to look outside the country, which isn't particularly hard or surprising when nearly everyone has a serviceable command of English.

Not the same user, but didn't a politician of the conservative party passed a law to promote the German language?

>Not the same user, but didn't a politician of the conservative party passed a law to promote the German language?
I know of such ideas floating around since decades but I can't remember which exactly you might mean.

This one.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Spahn

Ignorance is the natural state of man, reason rarely prevails when stronger motives exist. Americans tend to get irritated at (Western) Europeans commentating on their politics because Europeans are very politically minded and believe in the power of reasoning and dialectic to solve all problems, which is great, but do not realize how ignorant they are of the situation when they merely take the mainstream media's prepackaged view of it. And here many of them adopt a smug and patronizing attitude: They believe that Americans differ in opinion here because they simply don't think about it, because Americans are fat morons who take everything Fox News says as gospel, who would refuse to consider an opposing viewpoint even if it were rubbed in their face. And the irony here is lost on them.

Of course, Americans are prideful too - they're just not nearly as smug. Euros are correct to point out the ignorance of the American populace, but they're also hypocrites for not noticing their own pride, their own egotism, and their own lack of skepticism. Perhaps this is just how men are. 99% of humanity will die believing exactly what their society tells them to believe, and the best we can do is craft a society that teaches them the right things, rather than hope to teach them fully independent thought. Maybe I am wrong. I'm still not sure.

bämp

Yo, user.
Go read Elias Canetti's Blendung so I can make a thread about it.

>What exactly do you mean with pretty lively?
Well, it seems the amount of domestic German media being produced is quite high, and much like France, you could conceivably live and go online and do everything within that sphere. I don't know much German so I can't verify that though.

Not a German but I live in Germany.
I hate this fucking cuntry so much it's unreal. People here are the most retarded people I've ever interacted with.

Hey lads, maybe you guys can help me out. I need access to "Der Literarische Expressionismus Online", which is supposedly available for free, but everywhere I go I apparently need some login data or a license or whatever. Can anyone help me out here?

Of course you will not just enter the thread and leave it at that, right? Surely you will elaborate and then explain why you're still staying in a country populated by "the most retarded people" that you've interacted with.

No.

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So it's attention-seeking and nothing else.

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>Even within the country, colloquial german language is being overtaken by english words. Not in a clever way as the words being used have perfectly good german translations but just because, to a german, there seems to be something “cool” about english
Same thing in Serbia and Croatia. We have words like "frendica" and "favorit". On top of that we also use entire English phrases while speaking Serbo-Croatian. You could take a stroll around Zagreb or Belgrade and you'll hear English on virtually every street corner

Has anyone here read pic related and can tell me whether I should get it?

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It's extremely cringey to speak in your own language on an English speaking platform. If someone does it, I assume they are uneducated scum.

Has anyone read this? Is it good or is it masturbatory like that infamous Martin Luther biography?

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American here. Went to Germany on vacation and noticed this exact problem in Hamburg, Berlin, and even some tiny town in westphalia or whatever it's called. Went to a party of college aged kids and everyone was speaking English, not just to me but to each other when I wasn't around even. I talked to my wehraboo friend with whom I share sympathies and we concluded that this was obvious Anglo imperialism bent on destroying the autistic national character of Germany in the most intimate sphere: your own minds! Honestly I was hoping that the Trump thing would turn Germans off of the language of those uncultured Americans, but it's obvious now that English is no longer a national language (though it hasn't been for centuries probably).. Even in the 2000s though you saw some European cultural chauvinism against Americans but it looks like that's over. If present trends continue a lot of countries in Europe are going to stop speaking their native languages altogether sooner than you'd think

Everyone spoke French in the 18th century and yet the German language survived that. It's just a fad.
Also, it's not very Yea Forums related.

>a lot of countries in Europe are going to stop speaking their native languages altogether
This is a massive leap to make, has this ever happened anywhere besides Ireland?

>Went to a party of college aged kids and everyone was speaking English, not just to me but to each other when I wasn't around even.
That didn't happen. Either a few of them were Erasmus students or they just used a lot of English words.

I've read it. It's short and kinda nonsensical? Maybe I just don't have enough German history but mostly it's him shooting crossbow bolts, kidnapping people, getting into brawls with randoms and complaining about his enemies.

What have been some good german contemporary authors?

Germany was never that great at literature compared to France, Russia or England. Their strength lies in philosophy, their fiction is forgettable.

Germany has Goethe, Mann, Hesse and Kafka, so I'm inclined to disagree. Germany also has fantastic poetry, though that is probably hard to access to a non-native speaker.

Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller, Günter Grass, Heinrich Böll,

Cry more

Taking the piss, surely?
Hesse, Mann, Goethe, Kleist, Eichendorff, Keyserling, Lafontaine, Fontane, Büchner, Kafka, Lessing and so on. How many more do you need before you realize that this is complete nonsense.

Do Austrian writers count? I had a good time with pic related. The short stories were all very enjoyable.

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MacIntyre's translation is available on archive dot org.
Here's the link:

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I'm reading Jelinek's die Klavierspielerin right now, and it's great so far. The main character has a type of narcissism and everyday sadism that feels very realistic and petty.

Looks interesting, might read it next

Hermann Hesse war ein erbärmlicher Scribbler, der stets den selben Roman über einen intellektuellen Nietzsche-Leser auf Selbstsuche neu aufgegossen hat. Sprachlich ist er nur mäßig begabt im Vergleich mit anderen Prosa-Artisten, und an künstlerischer Tiefe steht er seinen Idolen (Dostojewski, Nietzsche, Novalis etc.) in jedweder Hinsicht nach. Das würde er selbst genauso sehen. Goethe, Kleist, Eichendorff, Büchner Lessing kann ich unterstützten, für Großväterromane Fontanes interessiere ich mich nicht.

Hast du gerade Oskar Lafontaine als Beispiel eines deutschen Autoren genannt? Lmao

>Oskar Lafontaine
Besser als Schwesterwelle!

August Lafontaine du Brotfahrer

Du schreibst wie ein Mittelstufendeutschlehrer