ZEIT library of 100 books
The ZEIT library of 100 books was a pedagogically ambitious series of articles by the feature section of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit . Begun in 1978, a review of a work of world literature was published week after week for the next two years.
In 1980 a book edition of these essays was published by Suhrkamp Verlag , edited by Fritz J. Raddatz , the sales success of which confirmed the great interest in this type of canon formation ; the collection of essays is available in the unchanged 13th edition in 2009.
The success of the company led to the project being expanded five years later to include a ZEIT library collection of 100 non-fiction books , and the 1984 book edition was again provided by Raddatz as editor. Finally, a series of articles followed in 2002 and 2003 that proposed a reading canon for schoolchildren comprising 50 works, the ZEIT school library .
ZEIT library of 100 books
On the basis of the observation that in a recent study on reading behavior the reception of “beautiful literature” was far behind various types of reference works and non-fiction books, the declared aim was to teach reading, to seduce you to read.
The selection of the works was made by a six-member jury ( Rudolf Walter Leonhardt , Hans Mayer , Rolf Michaelis , Fritz J. Raddatz , Peter Wapnewski and Dieter E. Zimmer ), which also invited the reviewers. Some of the works were presented by the jury members themselves, but most of the reviewers were not professional literary critics , but rather well-known writers themselves. Their subjective perspective on the works based on their own reading experience and enthusiasm is part of the appeal of the collection for many readers. With its selection committee of literary experts, the ZEIT Canon differs conceptually from approaches in France and Great Britain. The BBC let a large number of readers vote and thus compiled a list of the 100 most important books . The French magazine Le Monde initially had the 200 most important books in world literature of the 20th century determined by a commission of experts and then carried out a reader vote on the 100 books of the century among them .
The jury laid down five "rules of the game" for the selection (introduction by the editor, book edition, p. 8):
- No time limit (the Bible appears as well as Günter Grass ).
- Not a “playful educational garden” ( Lautréamont or Saint-John Perse do not appear).
- No national barriers (from A ndersen to Z ola ).
- Only one book by each author (exceptions only for German-language literature for Goethe and Kafka ).
- No dramas (e.g. no Shakespeare ), no poems , no non-fiction books - it was about a library of narrative literature.
List of reviewed works
ZEIT library of 100 non-fiction books
The jury of this project: Ralf Dahrendorf , Manfred Eigen , Theodor Eschenburg , Wolf Lepenies , Golo Mann , Alexander Mitscherlich , Fritz J. Raddatz , Thomas von Randow and Uta Ranke-Heinemann .
List of reviewed works
ZEIT student library
From 2002 to 2003, 50 works were presented that were proposed as canons for German lessons. The jury: "two students, two German teachers, two writers and two editors ". The list is arranged alphabetically by author, with the exception of the five volumes of poetry which are arranged under "L".
List of reviewed works
See also
- BBC Big Read
- Time selection of the best 100 English-language novels from 1923 to 2005
- BBC selection of the best 20 novels from 2000 to 2014
- BBC selection of the top 100 British novels
- The 100 books of the century by Le Monde
- Thirteen Classics (Classical Chinese Canon)
- Canon of literature
literature
- Fritz J. Raddatz (Ed.): ZEIT library of 100 books . 13th edition, Suhrkamp TB 645, Frankfurt am Main 2009 (first edition 1980), ISBN 978-3-518-37145-9 .
- Fritz J. Raddatz (Ed.): ZEIT library of 100 non-fiction books . 2nd edition, Suhrkamp TB 1074, Frankfurt am Main 1985 (first edition 1984), ISBN 3-518-37574-1 .
Web links
- Ulrich Greiner: Why we need a literary canon ( Memento from December 9, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
- The ZEIT student library
Footnotes
- ↑ Review by Rolf Michaelis . - A brief presentation of the work and text excerpts can be found in the ZUM-Wiki
- ↑ Die Zeit 22, May 27, 1983 .
- ↑ Die Zeit 32, August 5, 1983 .
- ↑ Die Zeit 33, August 12, 1983 .
- ↑ Ulla Hahn published her compilation of 234 poems in 2003 as an anthology under the title Voices in Canon - German Poems. Reclam, Ditzingen 2003, ISBN 3-15-010536-6 .