Christa Wolf, Kassandra [Cassandra]

Ingo Roland Stoehr

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 1983

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Christa Wolf’s short novel

Kassandra

(1983) is perhaps the most important text of German literary feminism published during the 1980s. The English translation by Jan van Heurck,

Cassandra

(1984), appeared together with Wolf’s poetics lectures at the University of Frankfurt on her short novel,

Voraussetzungen einer Erzählung: Kassandra

[

Conditions of a Narrative: Cassandra

, 1983]. The combination of literary work and theoretical reflection, poetic earnestness and public success, points to the range of interpretations the novel has prompted. The monologue of the Trojan princess and priestess Kassandra in the moments before her death in Mycenae invites the readers to reconsider the dawn of Western civilization and its founding myths in the Homeric epics and related narratives.

According

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2422 words

Citation: Stoehr, Ingo Roland. "Kassandra". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 January 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19523, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Christa Wolf, Kassandra [Cassandra]

Dates

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