From Indefinite Longing to Unfulfilled Love: Romantic Motifs in the Liter-ature of the New Narrative Using the Example of the Short Story Sommer-haus, später by Judith Hermann

Abstract

Romanticism and Romantic motifs have been, for quite some time, the subject of investigation. This article aims to contribute to this area of research by showing how typically Romantic motifs were revisited, modified or reversed in the literature of the New Narrative at the end of the 1990s. The text analysed as an example is the short story Sommerhaus, später by Judith Hermann, a well-known author of contemporary German literature, who became famous for her texts in the context of the New Narrative. In order to carry out the investigation, the novelistic motifs have first been worked out using the example of Joseph von Eichendorff's story Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts, one of the most important works of the Romantic period, so that reference could be made to them in the following text analysis. The paper finishes with a discussion and reflection of the results of the analysis as well as with an outlook on further research possibilities.