Books by Martin Swales

At last an engaging and highly readable guide to the works and significance of Goethe.

Although some of the most distinguished German novels written since about 1770 are generally considered to be Bildungsromane, the term Bildungsroman is all too frequently used in English without an awareness of the tradition from which it arose. Professor Swales concentrates on the roles of plot, characterization, and narrative commentary in novels by Wieland, Goethe, Stifter, Keller, Mann, and Hesse. By pointing out that the goal in each work is both elusive and problematic, he suggests a previously unsuspected ironic intent. His analysis adds to our awareness of the potentialities inherent in the novel.Originally published in 1978.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Although Adalbert Stifter (1808-68) has long been recognised as a key figure in nineteenth-century German prose writing, his literary reputation has been curiously volatile. This major 1984 study was a reassessment of Stifter's work within the context of the tradition of nineteenth-century European fictional prose.

The tradition of the German novel, before the emergence of its 'classic' writers in the first half of the twentieth century does not have an assured place in the canon of European literature. The one signal exception is Goethe's novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers