Generational novel

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The generational novel (also known as family novel , generational novel or family saga ) is a literary genre whose plot is determined by characters from several family generations .

definition

The generational novel describes an extensive genre of literature that is structurally characterized by a special figure constellation . The story of three or more generations of a family forms the axis of the composition of the novels. The narrated time usually spans several decades. Due to the family ties of the main characters, certain motives often appear, such as generation conflicts, family secrets or inheritances.

Differentiation from other genres

Terms such as “family novel”, “generation novel”, “family chronicle” or “family saga” are often used synonymously in research. The related genre of family novels is defined by the thematic reference to family and is based on two generations of families (parents-children). In contrast, the generational novel is characterized by a figure constellation that includes at least three successive family generations.

Development of the genre

The subject of the family is a popular and traditional subject of literature. A narrative functionalization of family relationships begins long before the invention of the bourgeois family and can already be observed in the sagas of gods and heroes of antiquity, the stories of the Bible, the songs of the Old Icelandic Edda or the epic poetry of the Middle Ages. In addition to the dramas of Sturm und Drang or the business novels of the 19th century, the theming of intergenerational relationships is also evident in the popular romance, homeland and family novels. At the latest with Émile Zola's cycle of novels Les Rougon-Macquart (1871–1893), the historical dimension in the stories of generations is increasingly being addressed; With novels such as Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks (1901), Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh (1903), Maxim Gorki's Das Werk der Artamonovs (1925) or John Galsworthy's novel trilogy The Forsyte Saga (1906–1925), this narrative pattern is used at the beginning of the 20th century. Century popular on the book markets of many countries.

After the end of the Second World War, the family and generation novel was long regarded as a trivial, "exploited genre". In the 1970s and 1980s, family constellations became apparent in literature through novels such as Peter Henisch's Die kleine Figur meine Vater (1975) or Christoph Meckel's Suchbild. Known through my father (1980). These 'father books' are regarded as the forerunners of a renewed boom in family narratives in the 1990s. Among the much-discussed new publications on the German book market, in addition to successful translations such as Philip Roth's American Pastoral (1997), Jonathan Franzens The Corrections (2001) or Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex (2002), the so-called remembrance literature, with which the topic of the family is addressed, should be mentioned German-speaking book market became visible again.

See also

  • New subjectivity - a term (coined by Marcel Reich-Ranicki) for a new direction in German literature in the 1970s that focused on topics such as personal dreams and problems of private life.

literature

  • Ariane Eichenberg: Family-I-Nation. Narrative analyzes of contemporary generation novels. Göttingen 2009.
  • Friederike Eigler: Memory and history in generational novels since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Berlin 2005.
  • Matteo Galli, Simone Costagli: Chronotopoi. From family novel to generational novel. In: M. Galli, S. Costagli (ed.): German family novels . Literary genealogies and international context. Munich 2010, pp. 7-20.
  • Marijana Jeleč: Forms of coming to terms with the past in selected contemporary Austrian generational novels . In: G. Lovrić, M. Jeleč (eds.): Family and identity in contemporary literature. Frankfurt am Main 2016, pp. 147–162.
  • Csaba Gy Kiss: Comments on the problem of the so-called generational novel in East Central Europe. In: Neohelicon 11, No. 1 (March 1984), pp. 161-170.
  • Markus Neuschäfer: The conditioned self. Family, identity and history in the contemporary generation novel. Berlin: Epubli 2013. Open Access Edition .
  • Rafał Pokrywka: The generational novel as a figuration of historical transitions. Arno Geiger's “We're fine” . In: Studia Germanica Posnaniensia, No. 34 (2013), pp. 149–161.
  • Rafał Pokrywka: Five reading conventions of the generational novel. In: Acta Germanica: German Studies in Africa, Vol. 43 (2015), pp. 187–197.
  • Julian Reidy: Reconstruction and de-heroization. Paradigms of the 'generation novel' in contemporary German-language literature. Figurations of the Other 2. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2013.
  • Anna Rutka: Memory and Gender in Contemporary German Family and Generational Novels. Lublin 2011.
  • Carmen Simon: The Austrian family and generation novel after 2000. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna. Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies 2011 Open Access edition .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ariane Eichenberg: Family-I-Nation. Narrative analyzes of contemporary generation novels. Göttingen 2009, p. 11.
  2. ^ Csaba Gy Kiss: Comments on the problem of the so-called generational novel in East Central Europe. In: Neohelicon 11, No. 1 (March 1984), pp. 161-170; P. 164 f.
  3. ↑ Markus Neuschäfer: The conditioned self. Family, identity and history in the contemporary generation novel. Berlin: Epubli 2013. Open Access Edition .
  4. ↑ Markus Neuschäfer: The conditioned self. Family, identity and history in the contemporary generation novel. Berlin: Epubli 2013, p. 15ff.
  5. ↑ Sigrid Löffler: The family. A novel. In: Literaturen 06/2005, pp. 17–26, p. 20
  6. ^ Ariane Eichenberg: Family-I-Nation. Narrative analyzes of contemporary generation novels. Göttingen 2009, p. 12. For an overview of the field of father literature cf. also ibid., p. 13ff.
  7. ↑ Thomas Medicus: In the archive of feelings. Daughters of the perpetrators, the current »family novel« and the German past. In: Mittelweg 36 (3/2006), pp. 2–15.
  8. ↑ via Julian Reidy