11.7 The literary canon and the Lehrplan — Epoché
What you will be able to do Name the periods of German literature and two or three works German pupils read from each. Explain how the Lehrplan works: why each federal state decides what is read, and what the Abitur asks. Place the texts you have read in this course on a map of the canon. Talk about books and reading in the words of German school and culture. Sentences from this lesson, before the explanation. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English Er studiert moderne Literatur. [1] He is studying modern literature. Das ist eine hervorragende Lösung. [2] It's an excellent solution. Dieses moderne Gebäude ist hässlich. [3] This modern building is ugly. Beim Baden hatte er eine hervorragende Idee. [4] He was having a bath when he had a brilliant idea. Eines Tages wird sie einen Nobelpreis bekommen. [5] One day, she'll win the Nobel prize. Mochtest du deine Lehrer? [6] Did you like your teachers? Montags arbeiten wir gewöhnlich. [7] We usually work on Mondays. Du bist ein Bücherwurm. [8] You're a bookworm. Prerequisites : 11.6 — you need the school system from 11.4 Background , the federal states from 11.2 Background , and the periods of history from 5.24 Vocabulary . Every educated German shares a set of books read at school: a play by Schiller, at least part of Goethe's Faust , a story by Kafka, a novel from after the war. Germans quote these texts, joke about them and argue about whether they should still be read. This shared reading is called the canon, der Kanon , and it is decided less by any authority than by generations of teachers and examiners. This lesson gives you a map of it, explains how the school curriculum decides what is read, and shows where the texts of this course belong. By the end of the course you will have read in the original a good part of what a German school-leaver has read. The periods and their books German literary history is taught as a sequence of periods, each with its own name. The dates overlap, and the labels are tools rather than facts, but every German textbook uses them. Period Dates Works often read at school Barock about 1600–1720 poems by Andreas Gryphius Aufklärung about 1720–1800 Lessing, Nathan der Weise ; Kant's essay on enlightenment Sturm und Drang about 1765–1785 Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers ; Schiller, Die Räuber Klassik about 1786–1805 Goethe, Faust I ; Schiller, Wilhelm Tell Romantik about 1795–1835 poems by Eichendorff; the Grimms' fairy tales; Kleist's stories, which stand between periods Vormärz about 1830–1848 Büchner , Woyzeck ; Heine's poems Realismus about 1848–1890 Fontane, Effi Briest ; Storm, Der Schimmelreiter Moderne about 1890–1933 Kafka, Thomas Mann, Schnitzler, Rilke, Brecht after 1945 from 1945 Borchert, Böll , Dürrenmatt , Frisch, Christa Wolf, and recent novels such as Wolfgang Herrndorf's Tschick The texts of this course fit into this map. You read Werther in 7.26 Reading , the study scenes of Faust in 7.28 Reading , Wilhelm Tell in 7.29 Reading , Kleist in 7.30 Reading , Woyzeck in 7.32 Reading , Nathan in 7.33 Reading , and Kafka, Mann and Schnitzler in 7.24 Reading , 7.37 Reading and 7.38 Reading . The final phase of the course adds the novels of the twentieth century. How the curriculum decides Education in Germany is the business of the sixteen federal states, as you saw in 11.2 Background . Each state writes its own Lehrplan for every school subject, and the plan for German, the Deutschunterricht , says which periods, genres and skills are taught in which year. Most plans do not prescribe a list of books for the lower years; teachers choose. For the Abitur , however, many states set particular works that every pupil in the state must read, so that all candidates can be examined on the same texts. Some states change these set works every few years, which is why a German born in 1985 and one born in 2005 may have read different books for the same examination. Since 2017 the states have also shared a common pool of examination tasks, so that the Abitur in different states becomes more comparable. The tasks are the genres you practised in the writing volume: the Textanalyse of 9.6 Writing , the interpretation of a poem or a scene, and the Erörterung of 9.5 Writing . Readers who went to school in Britain, Ireland or North America may notice the form of the German school essay on a set work, the Interpretation : the plot is assumed, and the work of the essay is analysis. A class may spend several weeks on a single play. The canon under debate The canon has always been argued over. Critics ask why it contains so few women before the twentieth century, why writers from Austria and Switzerland are sometimes treated as guests, and whether pupils who have grown up with other languages should read the same old classics or texts closer to their own lives. Curricula have gradually added more women, such as Christa Wolf, more contemporary novels, and authors whose families came from elsewhere. German literature has also been shaped by exile. Many writers left Germany after 1933, among them Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht; the Austrian Stefan Zweig, whose story you read in 7.39 Reading , left Austria in 1934. Some of the most important books of the century were written outside the country. Among German-language winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature are Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll , Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller and Peter Handke. Finally, a word on attitude. Many Germans remember the classics with a mixture of respect and irritation: they had to learn a ballad by heart, or write an interpretation of Faust under examination conditions. Yet the same people quote Faust in everyday speech without noticing. Knowing where such a quotation comes from is part of understanding German. In real sentences German English Bildung ist wichtig. [9] Education is important. Welches ist dein Lieblingsbuch? [10] What's your favourite book? Sie ist eine hervorragende Dichterin. [11]