Home >> Austrian Studies, Volume 16, Number 1

Ada Christen, `Sturmvogel vor der großen Hochflut des Naturalismus'

Author: Chambers, Helen

Source: Austrian Studies, Volume 16, Number 1, 1 December 2008 , pp. 188-204(17)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article aims to demonstrate the importance of Ada Christen (1839-1901) as an innovative writer of proto-Naturalist prose. Her portrayals of Viennese lower-class life are written from the inside. Already in the 1870s she represents links between environment and human fates. Christen's view that class and personal experience are relevant to the writer's work is reflected in critical comment on contemporaries such as Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. The discussion focuses on narratives, paying attention to thematic and stylistic features. It is in this small, but significant body of writing that Christen's contribution to Naturalism can be seen, whereas her plays failed to achieve the authentic vitality with which she invests her fictional characters.

German
Dieser Artikel sucht die Bedeutung von Ada Christen (1839-1901) als innovativer Verfasserin von proto-naturalistischer Prosa herauszuarbeiten. Ihre Schilderungen des Alltagslebens der Wiener Unterschichten basieren auf Insider-Kenntnissen. Schon in den 1870er Jahren stellte sie die Beziehungen zwischen dem Milieu und dem Schicksal der Menschen dar, und Christens Ansicht, dass die soziale Klasse und die persönliche Erfahrung literarisches Schaffen maßgeblich prägen, spiegelt sich in ihrem kritischen Kom mentar zu Zeitgenossen wie Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach wieder. Die Diskussion befasst sich mit Erzählprosa, wobei thematische und formelle Merkmale untersucht werden. An diesem nicht sehr umfangreichen aber bedeutenden Erzählkorpus erkennt man Christens Beitrag zum Naturalismus, während sie es in ihren Dramen nie fertigbrachte, eine ähnlich authentische Vitalität, wie die, mit welcher sie ihre fiktionalen Figuren ausgestattet hat, zu erreichen.
More about this publication?
  • Austrian Studies is an annual journal reflecting sustained interest in the distinctive cultural traditions of the Habsburg Empire and the Austrian Republic. By publishing a wide range of articles in English, together with a selection of book reviews, it aims to make recent research accessible to a broadly based international readership.

    The focus is on Austrian culture from 1750 to the present. Literature is considered in relation to psychology, philosophy, political theory, music, theatre, film, and the visual arts. 'Austrian' includes German-language culture of former areas of the Habsburg Empire, such as Prague and the Bukovina, as well as the work of people of Austrian origin living abroad. Austrian interactions with other linguistic and ethnic groups -- the Jewish communities of Austria-Hungary, for example -- are also taken into account.

    Each volume of Austrian Studies has a coherent but broadly conceived theme, and reviews of the most important recent publications in the field of Austrian studies. Each volume also includes a number of substantial review essays devoted either to keeping readers up to date with major cultural debates and events, or to areas of scholarship in which activity has been particularly intense.
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