Exile Drama: The Translation of Ernst Toller's Pastor Hall (1939)

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-202
Author(s):  
Florian Alix-Nicolaï
Keyword(s):  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
Prompt Action ◽  
The Impact

Ernst Toller's Pastor Hall, one of the first plays to depict life in a concentration camp, counts among the few anti-Nazi dramas translated into English before World War Two. The process by which it came to the British stage reveals the impact of censorship on authors and translators of anti-Fascist plays. It also reveals conflicting aesthetic strategies to tackle fascism. While Toller relied on straightforward documentary realism, one of his translators, W. H. Auden, championed anti-illusionism and distrusted propaganda art. In the cultural fight to reclaim Germany's heritage from the Nazis, German writers in exile viewed translations as urgent messages demanding prompt action, whereas British writers tended to see them as an archive for future generations.

Beyond Realism

Renascence ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
Maurizio Ascari ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Subject ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Literary Character ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Human Condition

A complex and controversial novel, Atonement is at the core of a lively critical debate, opposing those who focus on the impossibility of Briony’s atonement – also in relation to the author’s atheist views – to those who conversely explore the redemptive quality of her “postlapsarian” painful self-fashioning. Far from concerning simply the destiny of a literary character, this debate has to do with the impact Postmodernist relativism has on both the conception of the human subject and the discourses of the past, from memory to history and fiction. Discarding any potentially nihilistic interpretations of Atonement as disempowering, this article delves into Ian McEwan’s multi-layered text in order to comprehend its ambivalences, its subtle investigation of the human condition, and its status as a postmemory novel reconnecting us to the events of World War Two.

scholarly journals “Being Human”: Edward Bond’s Theories of Drama

Text Matters ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 307-329
Author(s):  
David Allen ◽  
Agata Handley
Keyword(s):  
Psychological State ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Extensive Body ◽  
The Impact

The playwright Edward Bond has recalled the impact of seeing photographs of Nazi atrocities at the end of World War Two: “It was the ground zero of the human soul.” He argues we need a different kind of drama, based in “a new interpretation of what it means to be human.” He has developed an extensive body of theoretical writings to set alongside his plays. Arguably, his own reflections on “what it means to be human” are based in his reaction to the Holocaust, and his attempt to confront “the totality of evil.”Bond argues we are born “radically innocent.” There is a “pre-psychological” state of being. The neonate does not “read” ideology; it has to use its own imagination to make sense of the world. To enter society, however, the child must be corrupted; its imagination is “ideologized.” Bond claims that “radical innocence” can never wholly be lost. Through drama, we can escape “ideology” and recover our “autonomy.” It leads us to confront extreme situations, and to define for ourselves “what it means to be human.” The terms of Bond’s theory are Manichean (innocent-corrupt, autonomous-ideologized etc.). His arguments are based in the assumption that there is a fundamental “humanity” that exists prior to socialization. In fact, the process of socialization begins at birth. As an account of child development, “radical innocence” does not stand up to close scrutiny. Arguably, however, Bond’s work escapes the confines of his own theory. It can be read, not in terms of the “ideologized” vs. the “autonomous” mind, but rather, in terms of “conscious” and “unconscious.” In Coffee (2000), Bond takes character of Nold on a journey into the Dantean hell of his own unconscious. He does not recover his “innocence,” but, rather, he has to face the darkness of both history and the psyche.

Die politische Säuberung der französischen Wirtschaftselite nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg

2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Barjot
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
Car Industry ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Two Sectors

AbstractHistoriography on the French post-World War Two economic purge has in the past been very limited. Recently, however, a radical change has occurred as a result of the intersection of two previously separate research fields: on the one hand economic and business life during the Occupation, and on the other hand, the purge of elites and other social groups. A conference addressing French Firms during the Occupation period paved the way for a synthesis round three axes: Firstly, it was necessary to estimate the effects of measures to seize illicit profits and to assess the impact of purges on business mobility after the War. Secondly, regional approaches could be used to define a French typology, which could then be compared to other occupied countries (Belgium for example) or occupying Nations (Germany). Thirdly, the study of branches, sectors and firms. Among these studies, two sectors have been privileged so far: the car industry as well as construction and civil engineering.

Bishop Ambrose Moriarty, Shrewsbury and World War Two

2000 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-158
Author(s):  
John Davies
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
British Society ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Catholic Church

Kenneth O. Morgan has argued that in 1945 it was ‘generally acknowledged that British society had undergone a massive transformation during the war years …’ The impact of World War Two on British society has been explored perceptively by Marwick and others. However, there has been little attempt to examine the impact of the war on the churches in Britain. This is especially the case with the Roman Catholic Church. The more general works have little to say of the Catholic church during this period. There have been some limited regional studies of Catholicism in the pre-war period but it is only for the post-war period, prior to and since the Second Vatican Council, that there has been any systematic attempt to examine structural changes in Catholicism. Hornsby-Smith in a series of enquiries has examined the social changes in the Catholic community in England since the Second Vatican Council. In a brief overview he described the Catholic church in England prior to the Council as having the characteristics of a ‘mechanistic’ organisation, namely a distinct hierarchical control structure, vertical relations between superiors and subordinates and an insistence on loyalty to the institution.

The Film World’s Cooperative Store: Institutions and Films of the 1930s and 1940s

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Claire Thomson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Meat Products ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Early History ◽  
World War ◽  
International Context ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

This chapter traces the early history of state-sponsored informational filmmaking in Denmark, emphasising its organisation as a ‘cooperative’ of organisations and government agencies. After an account of the establishment and early development of the agency Dansk Kulturfilm in the 1930s, the chapter considers two of its earliest productions, both process films documenting the manufacture of bricks and meat products. The broader context of documentary in Denmark is fleshed out with an account of the production and reception of Poul Henningsen’s seminal film Danmark (1935), and the international context is accounted for with an overview of the development of state-supported filmmaking in the UK, Italy and Germany. Developments in the funding and output of Dansk Kulturfilm up to World War II are outlined, followed by an account of the impact of the German Occupation of Denmark on domestic informational film. The establishment of the Danish Government Film Committee or Ministeriernes Filmudvalg kick-started aprofessionalisation of state-sponsored filmmaking, and two wartime public information films are briefly analysed as examples of its early output. The chapter concludes with an account of the relations between the Danish Resistance and an emerging generation of documentarists.

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