Forms of literary assent and dissent in the Twentieth-Century German dictatorships:

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" Forms of literary assent and dissent in the Twentieth-Century German dictatorships: "
Philpotts, Matthew

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Record Number	:	1096854
Doc. No	:	TLets488422
Main Entry	:	Philpotts, Matthew
Title & Author	:	Forms of literary assent and dissent in the Twentieth-Century German dictatorships:\ Philpotts, Matthew
College	:	University of Manchester : University of Manchester
Date	:	2001
student score	:	2001
Degree	:	Ph.D.
Abstract	:	This thesis seeks to construct a comparative framework in which to analyse the literaryproduction of the two twentieth-century German dictatorships. More specifically, it aimsto develop an approach to writers and texts in both the Third Reich and the GDR whichallows for a measured and balanced assessment of the forms by which they expressedassent and/ or dissent to the National Socialist and SED regimes. In the first half of thethesis three key terms - `totalitarianism', `ideology', and `resistance' - act as broadanalytical categories for an explicitly comparative examination of social, political, andcultural-political structures in the two dictatorships. Notwithstanding substantialcontrasts in the dynamics and organisational structures of cultural policy, writing underthe two regimes is rendered comparable by virtue of the common `total' claim made bythe National Socialist and SED regimes on the cultural sphere. The capacity of writers toadvance or block that total claim in both the Third Reich and the GDR gives rise tocomparable patterns of assent and dissent. Methodologically, this first half of the thesisdraws heavily on the recent social historiography of the two German dictatorships wherethe focus has shifted from monolithic notions of all-encompassing totalitarianismtowards the structural limitations and historical continuities which restricted the tworegimes in the implementation of their total claims. In particular, the shift away frommonumental and heroic acts of `resistance' towards everyday, partial, and often evennon-intentional dissenting behaviour acts as a central methodological principle.In the second half of the thesis, the writing of Günter Eich under National Socialism andthe cultural activities of Bertolt Brecht in the GDR act as case studies within thetheoretical framework developed in the first half of the study. In both cases, their literaryproduction is characterised by a mixture of assenting and dissenting impulses. Thisstudy aims to assess the relative weighting of these contradictory tendencies in each caseand also to locate common features in the nature of the assent and dissent expressed bythese two writers under the conditions of dictatorship. It also seeks to acknowledge anappropriate role for determining factors in the literary production ofthese two writers which have validity outside the narrow context of dictatorship.
Added Entry	:	University of Manchester : University of Manchester