FR 1090 ASPECTS OF MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION

Seminars: Theodor Fontane, Effi Briest

For seminar discussion you will work in smaller discussion groups. Please reflect in advance of the seminar on the aspects of the text and come prepared to discuss them for the first 25 minutes in your small group before reporting on your findings to the whole seminar group.

WEEK TWO Wednesday - Chapters 1&2 or 3&4

Chapter One

Give a close textual reading of how Fontane describes the setting, the house, the garden, the churchyard, the swing, the two women, their work, and their relationship. Analyse the “love story with a hero and a heroine who gave each other up”, and the characters’ interpretations of that story.

Chapter Two

Effi and the provincial governor. Hiding behind the rhubarb (“bigger leaves than fig-leaves”). In the opening paragraph of the novel the churchyard wall is described as having ‘small-leafed ivy growing along its whole length’. Check in a dictionary the German for ‘Ivy’ and reflect on its similarity to Effi, and the similarity of both to the German pronunciation of Eve (Eva. How is that pronounced in German?). Compare with chapter three: ‘Geert ... a tall slim tree trunk …’ and other similar references in chapters 1-4.

What threads are being set up in the opening stages of the novel?

Look at the different attitudes to the impending marriage, the father’s first appearance and the mother’s ambiguous prophecy.

Chapter Three

The daughter’s turn, getting along with Briest, modes of address, Briest’s freedom and attitude to officialdom, Innstetten’s response (rejected all forms of superstition entirely?).

Coping with being apart, Berlin, giving up second best.

Chapter Four

Return to Hohen Cremmen, the overseer and the gardener’s wife, Kleist’s Käthchen von Heilbronn & the ‘moral application’ to I & E. . Briest’s reaction, Effi’s reaction. Sedan Day (= ?).

·  “We must be careful how we live, above all because we’re women.”

Effi & Geert: attitudes to marriage, expectations of marriage. Principles, or the lack of them.

NB Any page numbers may not be the same as in your edition – use chapter numbers as reliable way to identify key passages (also in presenting and illustrating ideas for the seminar group)

WEEK THREE - Small group discussion topics

Fontane described Innstetten as “a splendid person, in no way lacking in that which is necessary in order to be loved”. Do you agree? What is the reader’s reaction to this character at various points in the narrative? Consider in this respect:

·  How Innstetten is described before his arrival, how we see him as husband (Ch 6, Ch 20)

·  Innstetten’s response to the letters discovered (Ch 27)

·  lengthy discussion with Wüllersdorf re. the duel (chapter 27 pp. 213-216)

·  I.’s thoughts on returning from the duel (chapter 29, pp. 221-3

·  I.’s reaction to news of his promotion (chapter 35 pp. 258-60)

Fontane claimed that the Chinese “ghost story” (chapter 10) was the pivot of the novel. In what senses might this be true? Why does Innstetten say “I didn’t want to talk about it”? What does it reveal about I. (cf. p.220)? Does it confirm Crampas’ view of Innstetten as a “born pedagogue”?

Some critics view Effi Briest as a powerful exposure of the subordinate status of women in Prussian society, and as therefore eligible for consideration as a quasi-feminist novel. What are the arguments for and against his view? Does it take sufficient account of the complexity of Effi’s character, her actions and motivations?

How might we characterise the stance of the narrator? Is this a detached, omniscient narrator, or an interventionist one – and where does he not comment? Consider the relative amounts of attention given to each major character, the extent to which the reader is provided with insights into their psychological motivation, as well as any evidence of editorial ‘moralising’. What kind of a novel is Effi Briest: realist, naturalist?

Alan Bance Theodor Fontane: the Major Novels, Cambridge, 1982

Marcia Baron, ‘Was Effi Briest a victim of Kantian morality?’, Philosophy and Literature, April 1988 Vol. 12, 1.

Helen Elizabeth Chambers, Supernatural and Irrational Elements in the Works of Theodor Fontane Stuttgart, 1980.

Edith H. Krause, “Desire and Denial: Fontane’s Effi Briest”, The Germanic Review, Vol. 74, 2, Spring 1999. 117-129

H. C. Sasse Theodor Fontane. An Introduction to the Novels and Novellen

Erika Swales, “Private Mythologies and Public Unease: on Fontane’s Effi Briest” Modern Language Review 75 (1980) 114-23

William L. Zwiebel Theodor Fontane, New York, 1992