{"product_id":"9781781880364","title":"Wilhelm Raabe: 'The Birdsong Papers'","description":"The Birdsong Papers, which appeared in 1896 as Die Akten des Vogelsangs, was Wilhelm Raabe's next-to-last completed narrative. What might be called an anti-Bildungsroman, it is widely considered to be the work that secures Raabe's place as a precursor of German modernist fiction writers.\u003cp\u003eIts tone is critical of late-nineteenth-century society, both German and American, with its industrial expansion, urbanization, pursuit of wealth, and erosion of conventional values; but this critical tone also produces an uneasy tension for its narrator, Karl Krumhardt, a high-ranking bureaucrat with a stake in the stability of that society.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is against that social-critical background that Krumhardt's Papers record a coming to terms with a subject - his longtime friend Velten Andres - whose life both fascinates and profoundly unsettles him. Velten is intelligent, imaginative, idealistic, and full of promise; but he cares nothing about his gifts, chooses self-imposed seclusion over conformity, and carries his individualism to what Jeffrey L. Sammons calls 'a kind of spectacular irrelevance in the conduct of life'. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith this translation of Die Akten des Vogelsangs, the first into English, a major work by one of the most respected German writers of the nineteenth century is made accessible to a new, international readership\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMichael Ritterson is Professor of German Emeritus at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.\u003cbr\u003eRitchie Robertson is Taylor Professor of German at the University of Oxford.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Modern Humanities Research","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47042777383152,"sku":"9781781880364","price":17.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781781880364_p0.jpg?v=1763718213","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781781880364","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}