Short description:

Katherine Mansfield and Germany focuses on an under-researched yet crucially important aspect of Mansfield?s life and art, her encounter with Germany and all things German: language, culture, society. 

Long description:

Katherine Mansfield and Germany focuses on an under-researched yet crucially important aspect of Mansfield?s life and art, her encounter with Germany and all things German: language, culture, society. The chapters will draw on recent critical theories, current research in modernism and biographical approaches to trace the impact of German literature, philosophy and music on Mansfield?s thinking, narrative experimentation and verse composition. This text includes a focus on the 19th century German legacy and influences; on the fairy tale and modernist style; and on poetry and music. The volume explores perspectives on health and alternative healing methods, and Mansfield?s German literary legacies, including critical responses to her first story collection, In a German Pension (1911) and German translations of her stories. It will reassess with cultural, scientific, and intellectual perspectives, the critical but obscure period of her life spent in the Bavarian spa town of Wörishofen in 1909, previously neglected due to Mansfield?s destruction of all personal records relating to this difficult time. That Katherine Mansfield?s early interactions with the literature, language, music, and culture of Germany held a particular fascination for her that indelibly shaped her writing has long been known. For the first time, this influence is examined in chapters that provide another welcome examination of Mansfield?s work from an international, transnational perspective. Katherine Mansfield and Germany turns to the diverse continental landscapes that fashioned Mansfield?s world view and testifies to Germany?s enduring hold on her imagination, so counterpointing and complementing the perception of France as her spiritual home.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Katherine Mansfield?s German encounters

            Janet M. Wilson and Tracy Miao

Part One

Wellington to Wörishofen: Locations and intersections

1.     A ?long[ing] for German?: Katherine Mansfield?s German encounters

Natalie Perman  

2.     From Rotorua toWörishofen: Katherine Mansfield?s spa experiences

John Horrocks  

3.     Mansfield in Wörishofen in 1909: literary encounters and explorations

 Martin Griffiths  

Part Two

In a German Pension: A ?modernist? response to Germany

4.     ?On the grounds of this perversion?: Mansfield?s ?fallen? figures 

Eliana Rozinov

5.     Constructing the modern woman: Katherine Mansfield?s In a German Pension stories

Janet M. Wilson

6.     Katherine Mansfield and Sekundenstil

Michael Hollington

7.     Antipodean modernism and the ?Germanic? narrative space: Katherine Mansfield?s In a German Pension and Christina Stead?s The Salzburg Tales 

Yingjie M. Cheng  

Part Three

 Music, poetry, and fairy tale: German cultural influences

8.     ?Strange medley of sound?: Resonances of Heine in the writings of Katherine Mansfield

             Claire Davison  

9.     Katherine Mansfield?s Germany: ?These pine trees provide most suitable accompaniment for a trombone!?

Delia Da Souza Correa

10.  Turning white pebbles into bread crumbs: Katherine Mansfield?s fairytale collaging and morphing

Tracy Miao  

11.  ?Where had she come from?? The fairy-tale and biblical undertones in Katherine Mansfield?s ?A Cup of Tea? 

Janka Kaskacova 

Part Four: Reframing literary history and Mansfield?s reception

12.  ?A thousand premeditated invasions?: Katherine Mansfield, Germany, and the New Age

Jenny McDonnell

13.  Katherine Mansfield?s German reception in Nazi Germany and the former German Democratic Republic

 Monika Sobotta