Goebel studies four representative works by Kafka that explore the problems of the Western representation of the Orient: his 'Description of a Struggle'; several letters to Felice Bauer, offering an interpretation of Chinese poetry in connection with the conflict between writing and Kafka's love for Felice; the canonical story 'The Great Wall of China', parodically appropriating sterotypes of China's stagnant history and authoritarian emperors for a refutation of colonialist ideas of progress; and the sequel 'An Old Manuscript', dramatising China's invasion by foreign powers and the breakdown of crosscultural communication. Elucidating these themes from a broadly comparative perspective, Goebel shows Kafka to be one of German modernism's most intriguing and self-reflective writers on the Orient.
ROLF J. GOEBEL is Professor of German at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
- ISBN10 1571131442
- ISBN13 9781571131447
- Publish Date 6 November 1997
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 22 January 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Imprint Camden House Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 144
- Language English