As the bourgeois concept of "home" became problematic after important changes in German-speaking society during the 19th century, many fiction writers chose the literary setting of the hotel to explore the status of the individualand the notions of public and private. As social microcosms, hotels are fitting experimental settings for literary inquiries into the tension between the individual's quest for a place in the world and the technocratic rationalism of modern life. The book has two parts, the first establishing the cultural and theoretical context and the second providing analyses of literary works set in hotels. A brief history of commercial hospitality and a chapter establishing the theoretical framework of the hotel as a paradigmatic, ambivalent, semi-public, and stage-like modern space lead to readings of texts by Schnitzler, Zweig, Werfel, Kafka, Thomas Mann, Joseph Roth, and Vicki Baum.
Bettina Matthias is Associate Professor of German at Middlebury College.
- ISBN10 1571133216
- ISBN13 9781571133212
- Publish Date 16 August 2006 (first published 1 January 2006)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Imprint Camden House Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 232
- Language English