German Literature, Nature and Modernity Before 1914
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This essay discusses some of the ways in which German literature acknowledges and negotiates the increasingly problematic relationship between human beings and the natural world as a result of the industrial and economic transformations subsumed under the term modernity. The changes in landscape that took place with increasing rapidity from the 1830s gave rise to dilemmas which writers initially struggled to identify, let alone resolve. Yet it is possible to trace an increasingly sophisticated approach as the century progresses, even if the insights are outweighed by the limitations.