Entsagung und Routines

Renunciation and Routines works on a history of the narrative techniques in German literature at the transition from realism to literary modernism. The volume pursues a dual objective: on one hand, it consolidates semiotic research on poetic realism into a comprehensible structural model that can serve as a basis for describing realistic narrative techniques. Studies on Raabe, Fontane, Stifter, Storm, and Meyer, as well as on lesser-known realists from the second and third tiers, examine the applicability of this approach in practice, with a focus on the aporetic structures of late realism and transitional phenomena to modernity.

On the other hand, an attempt is made to recognize the unity of the various isms around 1900 through the technique of 'routine.' Case studies on lesser-known narrative authors such as Bang, Conradi, Bölsche, Liliencron, Scheerbart, and Dehmel explore a field of literary prose that can almost be described as a laboratory of modernity. An epilogue traces the realistic narrative tradition into the present day.