Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
There is general agreement in the scholarship about Eduard M rike and his work, that one looks in vain for ideas . Nevertheless, M rike was heir to a very rich literary tradition (his novel Maler Nolten was published in the year of Goethe's death). M rike's creative output and his reading (Belesenheit) are fascinating reflections of a transformation of this tradition to which some of his contemporaries, i.e. Lenau and Waiblinger, seem to have succumbed. M rike's Reading in this study is approached from two directions. On the one hand, it is a study of influence and affinity by and for Shakespeare, Goethe and Lichtenberg, with emphasis on the poetry and letters. Secondly, this study attempts to reconstruct M rike's extant library. His marginalia and notations which have been carefully transcribed indicate retrospective, assimilative and, later, critical reading and re-readings of the literature of modern Europe.