Felsner, K: Perspektiven literarischer Geschichtsschreibung

Christa Wolf and Uwe Johnson have repeatedly been said to have engaged in a "literary dialogue" (Hoppe). However, their novels represented two supposedly different German literatures.Twenty years after the Fall of the German Wall, it is about time to compare those two canonical authors and their works in order to systematically include them into German literary history. The present study describes Johnson's and Wolf's works as adopting two differing perspectives on German history, two ways of dealing with the conflict between the state and the individual, and two ways of telling stories about one's homeland and about hope. In addition to analysing some of Wolf's and Johnson's pivotal poetological texts, the present doctoral thesis explores Johnson's "Mutmassungen über Jakob", "Das dritte Buch über Achim" und "Jahrestage" as well as Wolf's novels "Der geteilte Himmel", "Nachdenken über Christa T." and "Kindheitsmuster". This dissertation is the first German monograph on the topic. It critically reviews and assesses current and former research on the matter and thus provides a profound basis for further discussion.