German writers, be it Goethe, Nietzsche, Marx, Brecht or Mann, have had a profound influence on the modern world. This Very Short Introduction illuminates the particular character and power of German literature, and examines its impact on the wider cultural world.

Nicholas Boyle is the Schröder Professor of German and President of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge. He was also Head of the University's Department of German from1996 to 2001. He has so far published two volumes of his prizewinnning biography, Goethe: the Poet and the Age, and his most recent book is Sacred and Secular Scriptures: a Catholic approach to literature published in 2004, based on the Erasmus Lectures which he delivered at Notre Dame University. Professor Boyle is a Fellow of the British Academy, holds an honorary degree from Georgetown University in Washington DC, and was awarded the Goethe Medal of the Goethe Institut in 2000.

• Introduction


• 1: The Bourgeois and the Official: A Historical Overview


• 2: The Laying of the Foundations (to 1781)


• 3: The Age of Idealism (1781-1832)


• 4: The Age of Materialism (1832 to 1914)


• 5: Traumas and Memories (1914-)


• Further Reading and References


• Index