magazinelogo

Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science

ISSN Print: 2576-0556 Downloads: 350911 Total View: 2963075
Frequency: monthly ISSN Online: 2576-0548 CODEN: JHASAY
Email: jhass@hillpublisher.com
Article http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2021.01.013

Engagement with Death Through Literature: Johannes von Tepl’s Plowman (ca. 1400) and Werner Bergengruen’s Death in Reval (1941)

Albrecht Classen

University of Arizona Department of German Studies 301 LSB Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.

*Corresponding author: Albrecht Classen

Published: May 7,2021

Abstract

Literature assumes a huge role in all of human existence, especially with regard to some of the fundamental concerns in life: love, the quest for God, death, and the meaning of all existence. Through the literary lens, those issues have been addressed already throughout the centuries across the world, which strikingly confirms the critical importance of literature per se. This paper discusses the famous literary debate The Plowman by the Czech-German writer Johannes von Tepl (ca. 1400) and the short stories The Death in Reval by Werner Bergengruen (1941) in order to illustrate how much the fictional discourse contributes in a central fashion to the universal efforts to come to terms with such an evanescent phenomenon as death. The paper does not try to carry out a comparative analysis but presents these two works as major contributors to the literary discourse on death. As we can observe, humans have always responded to death with deep emotions, and those are difficult to cope with. Through the literary lens, however, the readers can gain a sensitive distance and learn how to come terms with this phenomenon. We also realize how much medieval literature can actually contribute powerfully to our contemporary concerns, despite a different cultural-mental framework and a remote language.

References

Althoff, Gerd and Johannes Fried, ed. (2009). Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography. Publications of the German Historical Institute, 9. Washington, DC, and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bender, Jacob L. (2020). Modern Death in Irish and Latin American Literature. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Benzinger, Hans. (1950/1983). Werner Bergengruen: Weg und Werk. 4thed. Bern: Francke.

Bergengruen, Werner. (1956). Der Tod von Reval: Kuriose Geschichten aus einer alten Stadt. Frankfurt a. M. and Hamburg: Fischer Bücherei.

Blamires, Alcuin, with Karen Pratt and C. W. Marx, ed. (1992). Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Classen, Albrecht. (1991). Der Ackermann aus Böhmen—ein literarisches Zeugnis aus einer Schwellenzeit: Mittelalterliches Streitgespräch oder Dokument des neuzeitlichen Bewußtseins? Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 110.3: 348-73. 

Classen, Albrecht, ed. (2007). Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 2. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Classen, Albrecht. (2002). Verzweiflung und Hoffnung. Die Suche nach der kommunikativen Gemeinschaft in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters. Beihefte zur Mediaevistik, 1. Frankfurt a. M., Berlin, et al.: Peter Lang.

Classen, Albrecht. (2003). Death Rituals and Manhood in the Middle High German Poems The Lament, Johannes von Tepl’s The Plowman, and Heinrich Wittenwiler’s Ring, in Grief and Gender: 700-1700. Ed. by Jennifer C. Vaught (33-47). New York: Palgrave.

Classen, Albrecht. (2005). Der Liebes- und Ehediskurs vom hohen Mittelalter bis zum frühen 17. Jahrhundert. Volksliedstudien, 5. Münster, New York, Munich, and Berlin: Waxmann.

Classen, Albrecht. (2014). Mental and Physical Health, Spirituality and Religion in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: Medieval Answers for Our Future? With Special Emphasis on Spiritual Healing Through Narratives of Mourning: Johannes of Tepl and Christine de Pizan, Mental Health, Spirituality, and Religion in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 15 (1-154). Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

Classen, Albrecht, ed. (2016). Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 16 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter).

Classen, Albrecht. (2021a). Johannes von Tepl. Literary Encyclopedia, online. Feb. 4, 2021. https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5805.

Classen, Albrecht. (2021b). Werner Bergengruen, Literary Encyclopedia; online, Jan. 25, 2021, https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14708.

Crain, Jeanie C. (2010). Reading the Bible as Literature: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Denkler, Horst. (2006). Werkruinen, Lebenstrümmer: literarische Spuren der “verlorenen Generation” des Dritten Reiches Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, 127. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

Dichtung als Kulturvermittlung: der Schriftsteller Werner Bergengruen. (1997). Die Deutschen und ihre Nachbarn im Osten. Beiträge für Unterricht und Weiterbildung. Filderstadt: Winmann.

Doležalová, Lucie. (2010). The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages. Later Medieval Europe, 4. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010.

Frank Willaert, ed. (2004). Medieval Memory: Image and Text. Textes et études du MoyenÂge 27. Turnhout: Brepols.

Freytag, Hartmut, ed. (1993). Der Totentanz der Marienkirche in Lübeck und der Nikolaikirche in Reval (Tallinn): Edition, Kommentar, Interpretation, Rezeption, ed. Hartmut Freytag. Niederdeutsche Studien, 39. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau.

Gabel, John B. and Charles B. Wheeler. (1986/1990). The Bible as Literature: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Ox-ford University Press.

Han, John J. and C. Clark Triplett, ed. (2015). The Final Crossing: Death and Dying in Literature. New York: Peter Lang.

Jernigan, Daniel K., Neil Murphy, and W. Michelle Wang, ed. (2020). Routledge Companion to Death and Literature. Routledge Companions to Literature. New York and London: Routledge.

Johannes de Tepl Civia Zacensis. (1994). Epistola cum Libelloackerman und Das büchleinackerman. Nach der Freiburger Hs. 163 und der Stuttgarter Hs. HB X 23. Vol. 1: Text und Übersetzung, ed. Karl Bertau. Vol. 2: Karl Bertau, Untersuchungen. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Johannes von Saaz. (1969). Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, ed. Günther Jungbluth. Vol. I. Germanische Bibliothek, 4. Series: Texte. Heidelberg: Winter.

Kenfel, Veljka Ruzicka and Juliane House, ed. (2020). The Death in Children’s Literature and Cinema, and Its Transla-tion. Kinder- und Jugendkultur, -literatur und -medien, 123. Berlin, Bern, and Vienna: Peter Lang.

Kerrigan, Michael. (1995). Who Lies Where—A Guide to Famous Graves. London: Fourth Estate.

Kiening, Christian. (1998). Schwierige Moderne: Der ‘Ackermann’ des Johannes von Tepl und die Ambiguität historischen Wandels. Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, 113. Tübin-gen: Max Niemeyer.

Klapper, John. (2015). Nonconformist Writing in Nazi Germany: The Literature of Inner Emigration. Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture. Rochester, NY: Camden House.

Korangy, Alireza and Leyla Rouhi, ed. (2019). The “Other” Martyrs: Women and the Poetics of Sexuality, Sacrifice, and Death in World Literatures. Martyrdom and Literature, 1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Kroll, Frank-Lothar and Rüdiger von Voss. (2012). Schriftsteller und Widerstand: Facetten und Probleme der “Inneren Emigration”. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag.

Lotario dei Segni (Pope Innocent III). (1978). De Miseria Condicion is Humane: Book of the Misery of the Human Con-dition, ed. Robert E. Lewis. The Chaucer Library. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Marion, John Francis. (1977). Famous and Curious Cemeteries: A Pictorial, Historical, and Anecdotal View of American and European Cemeteries and the Famous and Infamous People Who Are Buried There. New York: Crown.

Moreman, Christopher M., ed. (2008). Teaching Death and Dying. Teaching Religious Studies Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Noys, Benjamin. (2005). The Culture of Death. Oxford: Berg.

Popović, Michael and Ivan Pfeifer, ed. (2016). Der Ackermann aus Böhmen: Materialien einer Deutsch-Tschechischen Konferenz über den Tod und das Sterben, Saaz, 14.-15.10.2006 = Oráč z Čech. 2nd expanded ed. Studien des Hauses Königstein, 6. Bad Schussenried: Gerhard Hess Verlag.

Schmitz-Esser, Romedio. (2016). Der Leichnam im Mittelalter: Einbalsamierung, Verbrennung und die kulturelle Konstruktion des toten Körpers. Mittelalter-Forschungen, 48. Sec. Unchanged ed. Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag. Trans. by Albrecht Classen and Carolin Radtke. London: Harvey Miller, 2020.

Shahshahani, Soheila, ed. (2009). Cities of Pilgrimage. IUAES Series, 4. Berlin and Münster: LIT.

Snowden, Frank M. (2019). Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Vogt, Katharina. (2020). Sterbeorte: über eine neue Sichtbarkeit des Sterbens in der Architektur. Architekturen, 52. Bielefeld: transcript.

Wils, Jean-Pierre. (2019). Das Nachleben der Toten: Philosophie auf der Grenze. Paderborn: mentis Verlag.

How to cite this paper

Engagement with Death Through Literature: Johannes von Tepl's Plowman (ca. 1400) and Werner Bergengruen's Death in Reval (1941)

How to cite this paper: Albrecht Classen. (2021) Engagement with Death Through Literature: Johannes von Tepl's Plowman (ca. 1400) and Werner Bergengruen's Death in Reval (1941). Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science5(1), 125-136.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2021.01.013