T. J. Reed Knihy

The 1997 London Heine Conference brought together leading scholars and critics from Austria, Britain and Germany. The essays collected in this volume offer a broad canvas of Heine's themes and techniques, his debts and his influence, the ancient and modern connections of his work, its epic and lyrical forms, together with materials and comparisons drawn from English, German, Russian, Jewish and Islamic sources, and the musical settings of his poems. The collection complements recent scholarship, much of which has explored Heine's theoretical and other prose works, by paying close attention once more to the inexhaustible riches of his poetry.

T.J. Reed's study has long established itself as the standard work in English on Thomas mann, and offers as comprehensive a view of Mann's fiction and thought as is available in any language. It is based on a coherent close reading of Mann's oeuvre, literary and political, and also onmanuscripts and sources, and was part of the first phase of literary scholarship that opened up the resources of the Zurich Thomas Mann Archive. Further documents that have appeared since then - Mann's diaries, notebooks, and other correspondences - have not fundamentally altered the individualinterpretations or the overall picture the study offers, and in some respects have emphatically confirmed them. A further chapter added to this edition covers the new documentation, gives a vigorous account of the main curents in Mann scholarship and criticism over the last two decades suggestinghow we should now see the writer, the man, and the political figure, and above all the complex relationship between the three.

Professor T.J.Reed delivered his inaugural lecture before the University of Oxford on 31 October 1989. Professor Reed's argument starts from Goethe's suprising late disclaimer of the authority of a master, and then traces from his literary beginnings the process by which the young writer's self-confidence and authority to speak are grounded in his physical and psychological experience, strengthened by communion with past writers, and shaped into an original communicative language. Against the view that in his day he was an "authority" (an authoritarian figure, even) the evidence shows his growing commitment to a literary forum where freedom of communication matters more than individual position. The belief in, and practice of, literature as a viable means of communication, in which the initiative of individual writers is vital, constitute Goethe's true authority. This is set against recent attempts by theorists to undermine the whole working system of literature. Their fundamental lovelessness is diagnosed and the resistance to theory of those who love literature is justifed.

In this book, T. J. Reed clears the dust away from eighteenth-century Germany, bringing the likes of Kant, Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, and Gotthold Lessing into a coherent and focused beam that shines within European intellectual history and reasserts the important role of Germany's Enlightenment.--Provided by publisher.

Die deutsche Variante der Aufklärung wird im Ausland gern unterschätzt, falls sie überhaupt als kohärente Bewegung zur Kenntnis genommen wird. Im Lande selbst hatte sie lange eine schlechte Presse, denn es gab eine Tradition, bei der man dem Grundsatz klaren Selbstdenkens und individueller Freiheit „tiefere“, „deutschere“ Werte vorgezogen hat, mit schlimmen, auch politischen Folgen. T. J. Reed, intimer Kenner der deutschen Geistesgeschichte, zeichnet in einem großen historischen Essay die Geschichte der deutschen Aufklärung im europäischen Zusammenhang nach. Dabei erlaubt der „Blick von außen“ auf Deutschland manch ungewöhnliche Akzentuierung. Doch Aufklärung ist für Reed kein bloß historisches Ereignis. Hier wurden die Grundlagen der modernen Gesellschaft formuliert, deren Anspruch bis in die Gegenwart gilt.

Dramatist, novelist, lyric poet, and scientist, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) is unquestionably the major figure of Germany's national literature; his career and works created a culture in themselves. In this book T. J. Reed shows that in every phase of his life Goethe's most remarkable characteristic was an essentially youthful creativity, an optimism that still presents a powerful challenge to the pessimistic assumptions of modern culture.

Text, Materialien, Kommentar mit d. bisher unveroffentlichten Arbeitsnotizen Thomas Mann