dc.creator | Edwards, Elizabeth Weber | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2020-08-23T15:56:52Z | |
dc.date.available | 2014-12-11 | |
dc.date.issued | 2012-12-11 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/etd-11292012-210847 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1803/14878 | |
dc.description.abstract | Elisabeth Langgässer (1899-1950) was a German-Catholic writer banned from publishing by the Nazi regime because she was classified as half-Jewish. This dissertation sheds new light on Langgässer’s final works by reading the novels through the lens of the original intention of the author, and considering the works as both a response to individual circumstance and an ongoing prescription for the German people’s return to the Church. Specifically, I look at Elisabeth Langgässer’s final two novels and her interpretation of the Incarnation, key to her Catholic worldview, to constitute a single German Christian community during and after the Nazi regime.
The first chapter provides a theological background for reading Langgässer’s work, analyzing the early unpublished essay Die Welt vor den Toren der Kirche (1922) and a number of speeches from the late in Langgässer’s career. In these texts, Langgässer develops a theory of Incarnation in and through fiction, where content and form, modeled on Christ’s humanity and divinity, become inseparable to create the Catholic novel. A response to the era, the Catholic novel helps constitute community among readers and across space and time, in spite of and in response to the political moment. | |
dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
dc.subject | Christianity in Literature | |
dc.subject | German Women Authors | |
dc.title | Literature as incarnation: form and content in Elisabeth Langgässer's novels | |
dc.type | dissertation | |
dc.contributor.committeeMember | James McFarland | |
dc.contributor.committeeMember | Meike Werner | |
dc.type.material | text | |
thesis.degree.name | PHD | |
thesis.degree.level | dissertation | |
thesis.degree.discipline | German | |
thesis.degree.grantor | Vanderbilt University | |
local.embargo.terms | 2014-12-11 | |
local.embargo.lift | 2014-12-11 | |
dc.contributor.committeeChair | Barbara Hahn | |