No Place on Earth (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Christa Wolf
- First Published: 1979
- Type of Work: Novella
- Type of Plot: Historical realism
- Time of Work: 1804
- Setting: Winkel, on the Rhine River in Germany
- Principal Characters: Günderrode, Kleist, Joseph Merten, Carl von Savigny, Christian Nees von Esenbeck, Clemens von Brentano, Bettina
- Genres: Long fiction, Historical fiction, Philosophical realism, Biographical fiction, Character study, Alternate history
- Subjects: Gender roles, Authors or writers, Nineteenth century, Art or artists, Alienation, Poetry or poets, Feminism, Conformity, Enlightenment, Germany or German people, Romanticism, Parties
- Locales: Germany
Form and Content
Christa Wolf’s prose text No Place on Earth describes an imaginary meeting between the poet and dramatist Heinrich von Kleist and the poet Karoline von Günderrode. Although the narrative of No Place on Earth makes references to a specific time and place and to historical figures, it is not a simple example of historical realism but a highly complex fictional integration of biographical and historical material. While the characters are historical, the event—the gathering for tea at Joseph Merten’s country estate—is described by the...
[The entire page is 2069 words long]
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