The German Joyce

In August 1919, a production of James Joyces Exiles was mounted at the Munich Schauspielhaus and quickly fell due to harsh criticism. The reception marked the beginning of a dynamic association between Joyce, German-language writers, and literary critics. It is this relationship that Robert Weninger analyzes in The German Joyce. Opening a new dimension of Joycean scholarship, this book provides the premier study of Joyces impact on German-language literature and literary criticism in the twentieth century. The opening section follows Joyces linear intrusion from the 1910s to the 1990s by focusing on such prime moments as the first German translation of Ulysses, Joyces influence on the Marxist Expressionism debate, and the Nazi blacklisting of Joyces work. Utilizing this historical reception as a narrative backdrop, Weninger then presents Joyces horizontal diffusion into German culture. Weninger succeeds in illustrating both German readers great attraction to Joyces work as well as Joyces affinity with some of the great German masters, from Goethe to Rilke, Brecht, and Thomas Mann. He argues that just as Shakespeare was a model of linguistic exuberance for Germans in the eighteenth century, Joyce became the epitome of poetic inspiration in the twentieth.