Willie van Peer

Sophie Levie

een letterkundig alfabet

Sleutelwerken

Harald Hendrix

Joost J. Kloek

Literary Studies is currently going through a deep transformation, preparing itself for the launch into the twenty-first century. The present volume, which is dedicated to Douwe Fokkema on the occasion of his retirement from Utrecht University, captures this transformation in a number of squibs by a select international group of scholars. Topics dealt with are: canon formation, conventions, cultural relativism, hermeneutics vs. empirical studies, and the problem of values, all themes very much central to current discussions in comparative literature and literary theory. Taken together they form a variegated picture of a discipline in a changing world, continually involved, so to speak, in ‘The Search for a New Alphabet.’

Literary studies in a changing world

The Search for a New Alphabet

This study of six early twentieth-century periodicals serves to refine the traditional image of the inter-war journal as the pre-eminent vehicle of artistic and intellectual renewal. Every periodical has its own history but general themes are clearly identified. Traces emerge of a common commitment to the internationalisation of the arts and we find early and unexpected discussion of Freud, Chaplin and Joyce in Brussels and Berlin, jazz in Vienna and Brussels, Ezra Pound in the Netherlands and Belgium. In contrast to this internationalisation are the ambitions of the various editors to play a significant role in their national cultures. This tension between national and international influences was in the first instance stimulating and innovative. Later, as a result of political and socio-economic developments, the newly achieved openness and exchange were gradually diminished and finally disappeared as did the periodicals themselves.

Die Fackel, Die Weltbuḧne, Musikblätter Des Anbruch, Le Disque Vert, Mécano, Versty

Reviews, Zeitschriften, Revues

Sophie Levie

Books

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