Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Germanica
Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Germanica ukazuje się od roku 1997 i „jest kontynuatorem wcześniejszych serii, w ramach których ukazywały się publikacje łódzkie, jak np. Folia Litteraria czy Folia Linguistica (z Przedmowy do tomu 1.). Jest pismem naukowym Katedry Językoznawstwa Niemieckiego i Stosowanego oraz Katedry Literatury i Kultury Niemiec, Austrii i Szwajcarii. Początkowo Zeszyty ukazywały się w nieregularnych, 2- lub 3-letnich, odstępach czasowych i nie posiadały jednoznacznego zawężenia tematycznego. Obecnie Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Germanica ukazuje się regularnie w odstępach rocznych ze sprecyzowaną tematyką danego tomu. Od zeszytu 7 (2011 r.) z redakcją współpracują wybitni germaniści z kraju i zagranicy.
Communicative codes between translational invariance and variance
The article briefly presents the notions of invariance and variance as used with regard to the transfer of three essential codes which we can discern in a literary work, i.e. aesthetic code, lexical­-semantic code and cultural code (cf. Krysztofiak 1999). The analysis is provided on the basis of four novels by the Austrian author Wolf Haas, whose unique writing style can be demanding for any translator.
Copyright (c) 2014 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Is nomen always omen? – reality and fiction in culinary terms in Polish and German
The names of dishes grow in some situations to the level of small works of art. This is especially true in situations where their function is persuasive, they are meant to persuade to buy, order or prepare. For this very reason they are often ambiguous, in many cases not culinarily definitive and possibly misleading to the recipient. We are dealing with this type of names in the culinary programmes “Ugotowani” and “Das perfekte Dinner / Das perfekte Promi-Dinner”. Invented for the sake of the programme, the occasional names of the dishes served are both manifestations of creativity and a kind of a riddle for the recipient, as they permit many interpretations. The aim of our analysis is to identify strategies used to create these terms.
From dictionary to lexicon. Lexical infography in bilingual dictionaries
The aim of this article is to show and to emphasize the importance of the so­-called info boxes for foreign language learners in a bilingual dictionary. The phenomenon has been demonstrated using the Hueber­-Dictionary (2008).
Ideological conditions of the literature of the Third Reich. Nazi literature and cultural politics
National Socialism did not only constitute a political doctrine; it was also a kind of worldview that left its mark on German and pan­-European culture of the 20th century. The drastic changes that were linked to Hitler’s takeover of power confronted writers and poets with a completely new reality and wholly new conditions of the creative process. Those who could not or would not emigrate had to submit themselves (voluntarily or involuntarily) to the policies and norms decreed by the National Socialists. National Socialism – a conglomerate of different ideologies and ideologemes – perverted certain middle­-class values and ultimately aimed towards the total subjugation of all areas of life, culture being among them. The fact that the German middle­-class partly shared the values propagated by the Nazis led to an overhasty and unjust assessment of the attitude of writers belonging to the so­-called ‘Inner Emigration’. The article at hand outlines the principles of National Socialist cultural politics as well as its relationship to artists. The complicated creative situation of writers and poets in the Third Reich will be shown by representative examples.
Lost in the trenches. Semantics of the narrative of war­spaces in Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front”
During the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War Erich Maria Remarque’s bestseller “All Quiet on the Western Front” is surpassing successive records of popularity. Commonly considered as an antiwar and pacifist novel, the history of Paul Bäumer, a young soldier on the western front, is rather a novel about a war generation lost in the trenches. Remarque describes this written off generation on the stage of various war­-spaces. The first­-person narrator who very often switches to the collective ‘we’, is the voice of virtually the whole community of combatants engaged on the side of the German recruits, describes 1) barracks in which it has been attempted to destroy their youth and build their new identity, 2) the latrine at the front that paradoxically secures relative peace for them, 3) earthworks as a prelude to hostilities, 4) trenches/dugouts that are only a waiting­-room for death, 5) the home front which is presented in the context of “La Grande Guerre” as an alien and impersonal space, and 6) the military hospital that from the narrator’s Bäumer’s perspective is the war in a minature format. The homodiegetic and autodiegetic method of narration in “All Quiet on the Western Front” is on the one hand based on the visualization of the war­-spaces, on the other – on showing, through the making of the narrative semantics of these spaces, the lost generation. Bäumer’s and his companions’s moral­-ethical­-human fall is related to, and dependent on, the spaces in which they exist and which affect their psychic and physical condition. With the death of the main narrator also dies the space of the narration, however the frame of the narrative spaces remains and documents the cruelty and savagery of the hell of 1914–1918.
“There is no emigration literature, there are only interesting literary situations” – on the works of Polish writers in Germany after 1989
The article is an introduction to the issue of Polish literature written in Germany after 1989. The first part of the work focuses around the current literary discussions on defining and developing the terminology and methods enabling research into this new literature – written abroad after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Post­-emigration literature, migration literature, minority literature, multi­-, inter­-, trans­-cultural and diasporic literature – these are only a few of the suggested terms. The second part of the article refers to the works of selected representatives of Polish literature written after 1989 and the issues they discuss in their works. The purpose of the article is to briefly present the complexity of an important problem in the views of Polish, German and Slavic philologists. At the same time, it aims to show that study of the phenomenon in question is still insufficient.
Transformations and references to German literary works (Friedrich Nietzsche and Günter Grass) in Stefan Chwin‘s novel “Dolina Radości” [Valley of Joy]
In his novel “Dolina Radości” [“Valley of Joy”] Stefan Chwin tackles the subject of metamorphoses. In this article I will talk about the issue of transformations in “Dolina radości”. The hero of the novel is a makeup­-artist and that is why metamorphoses are at the center of the action. Noteworthy are also transformations connected with the most important political events and the most important places in Europe in the 20th century for example in the Polish city of Gdańsk which Chwin writes about. The events of December 1970 are described in an episode of the novel but are a very important element of the whole book. This article first presents references to German literary works (Friedrich Nietzsche, Günter Grass, Novalis) which are the part of the literature of German­-Polish dialogue.
literary allusions to German literary works
The new­-old vampire. The horrible and the Nachzehrer [Undead] figure in “Vampirismus” by E. T. A. Hoffmann
E. T. A. Hoffmann is one of the most famous representatives of early German horror literature. He has been both, inspired by its predecessors, as well as having influenced the work of many of his successors, and hence the development of the whole genre. The present article examines a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, “Vampirismus” from the collection of short stories “Serapions Brüder” (1819–1821). Emphases are, on the one hand, on the mechanisms that cause readers’ fear and uncertainty and, on the other hand, the peculiarity of the vampire or Nachzehrer figure and their function in the story. Firstly, it will be shown that the vampire depicted in the work is not actually a vampire. We find here a ghoul; that is a demon from Arab culture. However, the ghoul has more to do with the monster outlined by Antoine Galland in his translation of the “One Thousand and One Nights” than with traditional folk beliefs. Secondly, the author comes to the conclusion that Hoffmann has functionalized the Horrible. This element does not work by itself, but serves the author as the background of the action. And he is using this background to let the characters reveal all their weaknesses and dark sides. The violation of the order ruling in the world as it is represented engages the reader and at the same time raises his fear. The resulting excited feelings and general alienation are further reinforced for the figure of the Nachzehrer that occurs instead of a formerly innocent, graceful girl. The emergence of the supernatural – the final confirmation of the breach of order – is responsible for the effect just described.
A quantitative analysis of the Jewish victims from Trier (Germany) in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto
In October 1941 about 512 Jews from Luxembourg and Trier were deported to the ghetto in Litzmannstadt (Łódź). They were part of a total of 20.000 Jews brought there from the ‘German Reich’, joining the horrible living conditions of some hundred thousand Polish Jews. This article aims to show the fate of these Western­European Jews in the ghetto by examining an exemplary group of 120 persons among those deported from Trier. After short descriptions of the ghetto’s role during the extermination of the European Jews and the persecution of Jews in the ‘German Reich’ and Trier before autumn 1941, the focus is on the integration of the Jews from western Europe (and especially from Trier) in the existing ghetto society as well as on their living and working conditions. After this how and when the Jews from Trier died in the ghetto and the extermination camp at Chelmno will be described. This article is a short version of my master thesis from Trier University. It features several new findings about the fate of the Jews from Trier. Moreover it is meant to be an exemplary study about the Jews from western Europe in the ghetto in Litzmannstadt and their coexistence with Polish Jews.
Texts are transcendental in a at least two ways. On one hand, they are transcendental through the language – the substance of texts – which by constituting diachronic relationships and functioning in synchrony transcend – to use Karl Jaspers’ term – past reality in the form of the then existing signs and their meanings into future then unknown from that perspective, and thus also the present as known to us. On the other hand, texts interact with each other and as it were, create hypertexts in time and space. There also exists a third dimension – the author and the reader (each independently) whom the text allows, to quote Gerhard Kurz, to go ‘beyond oneself’ because only then we experience the need to return to ‘one’s own I’, rejecting on the way a successive mask (Greek and Latin persona). In this article the concept is illustrated in the context of Franz Kafka’s texts. Among the multitude of themes presented, let us limit ourselves to the topos of the Sirens who lured sailors with their singing. In Kafka’s works the Sirens no longer sing, so Odysseus need not have asked to have his ears blocked with wax. At that point Kafka only completed the process of change, for already earlier in German literature the singing had grown quieter and quieter. Thus in Heine’s well­known song “Loreley” the poet is no longer convinced about the effectiveness of the mermaid’s singing – he only wishes to believe in it: “I think that the waves will devour the boatman and the boat as one” (as translated by A.Z. Foreman). Because in times of nihilism the singing – and art in general – had lost their power. In Goethe’s “Fisherman” the mermaid still triumphs, but not because of her singing. Her song dominates in the second verse (“She sang to him, she spoke to him” as translated by John Storer Cobb), but the fisherman immerses himself in the abyss of the sea only in the fourth verse which is dominated by verbal persuasion (“She spoke to him, she sang to him”). This inversion – nota bene lacking in the Polish translation by Hanna Januszewska in “Dzieła wybrane” J.W. Goethe (PIW 1983) – could not have been accidental: it symbolizes the reversed image typical of a mirror reflection – in reality the fisherman had seen his own reflection in the water and mistook it for the image of a mermaid. His death in the abyss of the sea was a price paid for lack of self­knowledge. It was not without reason that the inscription on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi read: “Γνῶθι σεαυτόν (Gnothi seauton) – Know thyself!”.
Variables and constants in static and dynamic valency
This article deals with the dichotomy of static and dynamic valency. Although the attribute static means constancy and characteristic dynamic is most associated with changeability and variantibility, both types of verbal valence show (although very different) fixed and variable aspects. Quite obviously this is related to the specificity of valency – to its multilayered qualities. This paper presents attempts to show in what sense static valency implies variantibility, and what fixed and what variable aspects are included in dynamic valency.
Conventions in the interpretation process of conversational implicatures
This article is an attempt to characterize the conventions employed in the interpreting of conversational implicatures. The main objective is to justify the hypothesis that language utterers confronted with conversational implicatures not only use knowledge about rules of the language system and extralinguistic knowledge but also refer to special instructions for interpretation of implicit meanings. The article presents possibilities of verbalizing such instructions and compares them with linguistic rules showing some differences and similarities between them.
Some words about the adaptation of borrowed German words from the field of science in the Polish language
The matter under consideration in this article is the problem of borrowed German lexical elements and their life in the borrowing Polish language. The starting point is a short overview of the elements of the lexical field of science and their change of meaning in the Polish language.
borrowed German lexical elements from the field of the science in Polish language
the change in meaning of the borrowed German vocabulary in Polish
Slavic loanwords in the Austrian variant of the German language and their description in the “Duden” dictionaries: “Deutsches Universalwörterbuch” and “Wie sagt man in Österreich?”
This article presents Slavic loanwords in the Austrian variant of the German language. Its aim is twofold: it discusses words of Polish, Slovakian, Czech, Serbo­-Croatian, and Slovenian origin in the Austrian variant of German, as well as stressing the multicultural history of Austria and its influence on vocabulary (a significant number of Slavic loanwords refer to culinary lexis denoting the names of Slavic meals). The analysis will not only deal with the meaning and etymology of particular words, but will also scrutinize their description in the “Duden” dictionaries: “Deutsches Universalwörterbuch” and “Duden. Wie sagt man in Österreich?”.
Dynamics in language from a linguistic and neurocognitive perspective
Cognitive sciences are grouped together according to their substantial disciplines such as neurobiology, psychology, linguistics and many others. From more than ten years a search has been undertaken for the best fitting cognitive research method, that does not influence the scientific output. More recently attention has been turned to systems which might operate through their dynamic aspect, called the dynamic approach. Their great advantage is to see the old linguistic axioms such as connectivity in a new way.
Konstanz und Wandel in Sprache und Kultur? Antworten sind gut, Fragen sind besser
Copyright (c) 2015 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
From refusal letters to refusal letter generators – constancy and changeability in the form and content of German job application refusal letters
The situation in the job market and specific expectations of job applicants lie at the heart of a peculiar “career” that has recently been experienced in refusal letters. Additional elements influencing their form and content are German law regulations. Aperitif-Briefe, Eisschreiben, and refusal letters proper are the three main variants of this text genre which has undergone noticeable evolution in the investigated period of 2001–2012. The aim of this article is to indicate the development stages of this text genre, paying special attention to the aids offered to refusal letter authors by developing technology, especially by media.
From rhetoric to rhetorical communication. A shift in term and content
The term Rhetorische Kommunikation (engl. rhetorical communication, vgl. McCroskey 1968 „An Introduction to Rhetorical Communication“) was introduced into German–language scholarship by Brigitte Frank-Bohringer in her 1963 book of the same title and was subsequently firmly established by Helmut Geißner. It is currently used in a variety of contexts when the rhetorical dimensions of language are the focus of interest. It appears both in rhetoric manuals as well as in academic texts on the topic, including those with an empirical perspective. This contribution aims to illuminate the epistemological background to this terminology by focusing on a number of linguistically relevant communication approaches. Underlying this discussion is the differentiated use of the concept as outlined here, as well as a holistic view of spoken language, grounded in a theory of action. Finally, the practical value of the term Rhetorische Kommunikation, will be emphasized, underlining the fact that its content serves as a provable basis for the systematic and goal–oriented use of rhetoric as a theme in the teaching of German as a foreign language. The following discussion proceeds from the concept of Rhetorische Kommunikation.
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Women–men-joke then and now. Some comments on the German pun
In this article an attempt is made to discuss the German joke regarding its assignment to the class of bad jokes in German. The question of what is a pun and what determines that a humorous text can be classified as bad or good is also important and very interesting. No less important are questions about the possibility of breaking all rules and norms, both of linguistic and social natures. These considerations are documented by examples of German jokes; on the one hand Loriot’s texts, texts from “Was guckst du?” and on the other from websites. The question of whether an analysed joke is good or bad still remains open despite all possible classification attempts, because its interpretation is subjective, to be assessed for what it is by the recipient from the outset.
The text type ‘column’ in the diachronical depiction
The aim of the paper is to describe the column as a type of text. This text type has its roots back in the 19th century France. But at the beginning this text type had a totally different character, different form, aim and features. It was a part of newspaper, where novels, critiques and poems were posted. Nowadays there may occur a problem to define the term ‘column’. Generally it is the text type with a polemical and derisive character, which serves as the entertainment, but sometimes the term ‘column’ still refers to a part of the newspaper. This article defines the term and how this text type has developed through the time.
the text type, the column, the text linguistic
The linguistic norm and its (in)variants as a basis for the evaluation of lingual expressions
The main subject of this article is the linguistic norm and its (in)variants with regard to evaluation of lingual expressions. The article tries to show various German and Polish conceptions of linguistic norms and to point to their reference to lingual errors/mistakes and interference. Functional norm, usus, feel for language and their importance for language standardization are also discussed in the article, together with the relativity of linguistic norm.
linguistic norm, lingual errors/mistakes, interference, usus, language standardization
Constancy and changeability in the lexicographic description of chosen german loanwords in the category building industry in Słownik języka polskiego edited by Witold Doroszewski and in Słownik języka polskiego PWN edited by Elżbieta Sobol
This article presents German loanwords in the Polish language. Its aim is twofold: to discuss words of German origin in Polish, as well as to stress Polish-German language contacts and their influences on vocabulary (a significant number of German loanwords refer to the building industry). The analysis will not only deal with the meaning and etymology of particular words, but will also scrutinize their description in the dictionaries of Polish edited by Doroszewski and Sobol.
German language, lexeme, loanword, Polish language, word
Specialization of working memory for the sentence processing
Constructing dependency relations, in particular subject-verb agreement, in languages in which verbs may occupy the final position in the sentence, requires a combination of newly appearing lexical items with the existing context, such that it extends beyond the limits of the phrase. New words can be integrated only if the part of the sentence that has already been processed remains in a state of activation, being open to receive new elements. This article focuses on the question of the specificity for the domain of linguistic knowledge of the working memory, as the cognitive system in which representations are temporarily stored and manipulated.
Modularity, sentence processing, sentence comprehension, working memory, domain specificity
Thomas Mann and Erich Kästner: serious against entertainment, exile literature against literature under writing prohibition in the inner emigration
The writers Thomas Mann (1875–1955) and Erich Kästner (1899–1974) took in the years between 1933 and 1945 (in the so called ‘Third Reich’) extreme positions of inner and outer emigration, which can be shown concerning autobiographical aspects and concerning their works which they wrote during the time of national socialism. While Kästner, who represents the inner emigration, wrote humorous stories like Drei Männer im Schnee and Der kleine Grenzverkehr, Mann completed his tetralogy of Joseph und seine Brüder, which deals with the foundation and development of the monotheistic jewish world religion, in France, Switzerland and America where in 1943 he began his dark artist novel Doktor Faustus, while in Europe internicine warfare and the Shoa were in progress. While Erich Kästner, who was a very engaged political author in the so called Weimar Republic, was captivated during the period of national socialism by his inwardness, Thomas Mann released himself from this attitude in view of the Third Reich and became an emancipated author who was politically engaged and with moral integrity.
Thomas Mann, Erich Kästner, national socialism, Third Reich, inner and outer emigration, inwardness
Ein Schriftsteller, der politische gegenstände in sein Künstlerisches schaffen einbeziehen will, muss an der politik Gelitten haben“. Klaus Mann and the politics. Mephisto – career of a novel or a novel of career
The novel Mephisto is one of the most well-known texts by Klaus Mann. Its fame results not only from its literary virtuosity, but also and primarily from the enormous media attention which was caused by the novel’s publication. The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, in which it dealt with the relationship between freedom of art and other constitutionally guaranteed rights of individuals, launched the unprecedented career of this novel. This article describes Klaus Mann’s political views and their development in the 1920s during the time when the National Socialist movement was strengthening and the writer made the decision to emigrate. The essay deals with the circumstances of creating the novel considering both biographical and political issues. The novelist is described from the perspective of the reality of the 1930s during the National Socialist regime and the time after his emigration. The concern of the article is not a literary analysis of the novel, but to take a look at the novelist’s development up until the moment of finishing his work as a protest against National Socialism. Another goal of the essay is to analyze the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, which regards the balance between freedom of art and other basic rights. Considering the synergy of both methodological approaches and the interdisciplinary view on the problem, the article represents a novel attempt to give a complex view on the relationship between art (literature) and the reality of a totalitarian state and between the relationship art–state in the conditions of a democratic state.
The 3rd Reich, irrationalism, Klaus Mann, exile, Mephisto, Gottfried Benn, freedom of art
Ernst von Salomon, the Rural People’s Movement [Landvolkbewegung] and the new rules of German things
Based on two of Ernst von Salomon’s literary documents on the Rural People’s Movement [Landvolkbewegung] (1928–1932), this paper will trace the thinking of national revolutionary intellectuals and charismatic Landvolk leaders. Their clear rejection of National Socialism is just as evident as their retreat into a specific form of inner emigration.
Ernst von Salomon, Hans Fallada, national revolutionary, Nationalsocialism, Inner Emigration
Acting rightly in times of lawlessness – Ernst Wiechert’s novella The Judge
The novella The Judge by Ernst Wiechert gives testimony to the poet’s critical analysis and examination of the immediate National Socialist past and, at the same time, tries to provide some forward-looking re-orientation in terms of a comprehensive humanism based on Christian ideals. Wiechert’s narrative follows a dramatic structure in accordance with the tragedies of Classical Greek Antiquity. Faced with an existential crisis, the title character has to prove his moral integrity and steadfastness. Deluded by the pervasive Nazi ideology, the judge’s son goes astray by killing a former friend but finally, thanks to his father’s cautious, gentle guidance, finds his way back. At the end of the novella the son even atones for his wrongs while his father, an unfaltering representative and unswerving advocate of law and justice, resigns from his office in the face of the lawlessness he has experienced under the Nazi terror regime. Apart from analysing the plot of Wiechert’s novella, this study also examines the clearly outlined characters as well as the complex theme of guilt, repentance and forgiveness. Finally, the article focuses on the author’s intention of taking part in the social and political discourse of post-war Germany by conveying his message of humanity and moral integrity
Ernst Wiechert, novella, National Socialism, ideological delusion, law and justice, moral integrity, guilt, dramatic structure, characterisation, humanism based on Christian ideals
„[…] warum schläft denn nimmer nur mir in der Brust ein Stachel?“ Ernst Wiechert’s prose works in the 1930s
Ernst Wiechert’s prose written in the 1930s is best symbolized by Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem Abendphantasie (1799), in which the persona describes his loneliness and resignation, describing them as a thorn in his chest. The question of the identification of these feelings with the East Prussian writer is a major problem raised in the article. Wiechert certainly belongs to the group of writers associated with the so called Inner Emigration, and the studies by Herbert Wiesner, Ralf Schnell, Reinhold Grimm and Friedrich Denka support this thesis. Also, the method developed by Hubert Orlowski allows us to include or exclude literary works from inner emigration literature. This method turns out to be helpful in the interpretation of Wiechert’s works. Moreover, the question of Wiechert’s position on National Socialism is considered, which is full of contradictions, as well as his coming close to the Inner Emigration. On the basis of selected prose works created in the 1930s (e.g. Die Hirtennovelle, Die Majorin), the writer’s evolution from the ‘breakthrough of grace’ to becoming an inner emigrant will be presented. Particularly noteworthy are some relevant themes in his works such as World War I, the mother figure as a prefiguration of the ‘Great Mother’ myth, the writer’s stand on National Socialism or the Mazurian landscape.
Ernst Wiechert, Inner Emigration, East Prussia, World War I
“Poetry, in a mysterious way, can simultaneously impart deepest impotence and ultimate power”. Rudolf Hagelstange‘s cycle of sonnets Venezianisches Credo (1945)
The origin of Rudolf Hagelstange’s (1912–1984) cycle of sonnets Venezianisches Credo was Venice, while he was temporarily stationed in northern Italy in 1944 as a soldier. Twenty-four sonnets were written in the lagoon city, four more in Breganze, the remainder in Verona, where a limited edition was published in spring 1945, after some of the sonnets had already been distributed in military circles over some months. This contribution attempts on the one hand to analyze Hagelstange’s choice of the sonnet–form – a classical type of lyric poetry, guaranteeing tradition and continuity – claiming that at that time sonnets had become a fashionable form of oppositional poetry; on the other hand, the content of the three dozen sonnets will be analyzed, in which, over long stretches discordance prevails. For the author initially presents a damning indictment of the criminal activities of the NS-regime, until he eventually proclaims –with reference to Schiller – that the contemporary spiritual and moral crisis can yet be overcome by an ‚other Germany‘. In the final analysis, Hagelstange brilliantly succeeded – by means of an interaction of continuity and dissonance – to merge aesthetic and ethical aspects and thereby managed to create one of the most outstanding lyrical documents near the end of World War II.
The Third Reich, Sonnet Form, Rudolf Hagelstange, Inner Emigration
The devil in the opera: The Clown by Thomas Mann in the context of Faust by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
The protagonist of Thomas Mann’s short story The Clown (Der Bajazzo) cannot became an artist because he hasn’t got enough talent. He is also unable to live among people as an ordinary citizen because his social competencies haven’t been completely developed. That is why he can be regarded as a literary figure who tries to leave the real world and to penetrate the literary world. The devil who appears in Charles Gounod’s opera Faust based on Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s drama Faust and who is watching the protagonist from the stage during the opera performance seems to be the only person who can help him to find his existential space.
German Literature, French Opera, Mann, Goethe, Gounod