Arno Schmidt, Leviathan [Leviathan]

Timm Menke (Portland State University)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1949

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story Collection

Resources

On accepting the Frankfurt Goethe Prize of 1973, Arno Schmidt lamented that German Fascism and the Second World War had encumbered an entire generation of German writers with the specter of “too late”. In particular, he saw himself as having been cheated out of many years of literary productivity. Indeed, Schmidt was already 35 years old before Leviathan [Leviathan], his first publication, a volume containing the stories Leviathan or The Best of Worlds, Enthymesis, and Gadir, appeared in 1949. Written during October 1946, the title story Leviathan comprises a mere 21 pages in the Bargfeld Edition of the collected works of Arno Schmidt. Yet Leviathan in its brevity is …

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1426 words

Citation: Menke, Timm. "Leviathan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 September 2012 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=28119, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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