Winfried Sebald - A Place in the Country

11 “storms of steel”A reference to Ernst Jünger’s famous novel of the Western Front in the First World War, In Stahlgewittern (1920). English translations ( Storm of Steel ) by Basil Creighton (1929) and Michael Hofmann (London: Penguin Books, 2003).

12 KleistHeinrich von Kleist (1777–1811) wrote his first drama, Die Familie Ghonorez (better known as the tragedy Die Familie Schroffenstein ) in Switzerland in 1802, where — perhaps influenced by Rousseau’s views on nature — he briefly harbored hopes of settling to a rural existence. He killed himself in a suicide pact with Henriette Vogel on November 21, 1811, on the shores of the Wannsee near Berlin.

13 Otto von KotzebueOn Kotzebue, see “Why I grieve I do not know” p. 71 and note p. 191 above, and also Walser’s eponymous piece in the volume Fritz Kochers Aufsätze: Geschichten; Aufsätze (pp. 326—27). Otto von Kotzebue was in fact the son of the dramatist.

14 “yards and yards”Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), pp. 65–66; (New York: Vintage, 1989), p. 83.

AS DAY AND NIGHT—

1 “Action et passion”“Action and passion so little separable that one no longer knows who is looking and who is being looked at, who is painting and who is being painted” (translation by Michael Hamburger, in his version of this essay in Unrecounted , p. 80: a closer rendering than in the published translation of Merleau-Ponty’s essay listed in the Bibliography).

2 his comprehensive work on art and illusionE. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 206.

3 Gombrich goes on to explainIbid., p. 207.

4 “And though he may try”Ibid., p. 220.

5 We are such stuff as dreams In English in the original where, however, “on” is misquoted as “of.”

6 ’tis all a Chequer-board In English in the original ( Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , trans. Edward FitzGerald).

A NOTE ON TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

The following bibliography lists both the works referred to in W. G. Sebald’s texts and their English translations where available. An asterisk denotes an edition known to have been owned or consulted by the author. For a catalog of Sebald’s library at the time of his death, see Jo Catling and Richard Hibbitt, eds., Saturn’s Moons: W. G. Sebald — A Handbook (Oxford: Legenda, 2011).

Where Sebald quotes directly from other writers in the text, the relevant passages are quoted, wherever possible and appropriate, from the published English translations listed below. In some cases, however, these have been adapted where necessary to fit more closely with Sebald’s original. It should, though, also be noted that Sebald often does not quote directly but adapts citations for his own ends.

INTRODUCTION

Lubow, Arthur. “Crossing Boundaries,” in Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W. G. Sebald , ed. Lynne Sharon Schwartz (New York, London, etc.: Seven Stories Press, 2007), pp. 59—173.

Silverblatt, Michael. “A Poem of an Invisible Subject,” in Emergence of Memory , pp. 77—186 (Bookworm Interview, KCRW, Santa Monica, California, December 6, 2001).

“Three Conversations with W. G. Sebald: (1) Echoes from the Past: Conversation with Piet de Moor (Brussels, 1992); (2) Lost in Translation? Conversation with Jon Cook (Norwich, 1999); (3) In This Distant Place: Conversation with Steve Wasserman (Los Angeles, 2001),” in Saturn’s Moons: W. G. Sebald — A Handbook , eds. Jo Catling and Richard Hibbitt (Oxford: Legenda, 2011), pp. 349—75.

A COMET IN THE HEAVENS

Hebel, Johann Peter. Werke , 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1968).* Vol. 1: Erzählungen des Rheinischen Hausfreundes. Vermischte Schriften: “An den Vetter: Patriotisches Mahnwort”; “Der Brand von Moskau”; “Die Fixsterne”; “Der Komet von 1811”; “Die Kometen”; “Ein Kriegsschiff”; “Das Unglück der Stadt Leiden”; “Traumbilder.” Vol. 2: Gedichte: Briefe: “Der Bettler”; “Die Vergänglichkeit.”

Johann Peter Hebel: Schatzkästlein des Rheinischen Hausfreunds: Ein Werk in seiner Zeit , ed. Hannelore Schlaffer (Tübingen: Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins, 1980).*

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS:

Hebel, Johann Peter. The Treasure Chest (selections), intro. and trans. John Hibberd (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1994): “The Tailor at Penza” (“Der Schneider zu Pensa”); “The Great Sanhedrin in Paris” (“Der Große Sanhedrin zu Paris”); “The Sly Pilgrim” (“Der schlaue Pilgrim”); “Kannitverstan” (“Kannitverstan”); “The Emperor Napoleon and the Fruit Woman in Brienne” (“Kaiser Napoleon und die Obstfrau in Brienne”).

The Penguin Book of German Verse , trans. Leonard Forster (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1994): Hebel, “Transience.”

SECONDARY SOURCES:

Benjamin, Walter. Angelus Novus: Ausgewählte Schriften , vol. 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1966)*: “Johann Peter Hebel”; “Gottfried Keller.”

——. Illuminationen: Ausgewählte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1961)*: “Robert Walser.”

——. “Johann Peter Hebel (I): On the Centenary of His Death,” English translation by Rodney Livingstone, in Selected Writings 1913–1926 , vol. 1, eds. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996).

——. “A Chronicle of Germany’s Unemployed: Anna Segher’s novel Die Rettung ,” trans. Edmund Jephcott, in Selected Writings , vol. 4, pp. 126—33 ( Gesammelte Schriften , vol. III, pp. 530—38).

Bloch, Ernst. Das Prinzip Hoffnung , 3 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1968).*

——. The Principle of Hope , trans. Neville Plaice et al. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).

Dutourd, Jean. Le Feld-maréchal von Bonaparte: Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Français et de leur décadence (Paris: Flammarion, 1996).*

Heidegger, Martin. Hebel — Der Hausfreund (Pfullingen: Neske, 1957), reprinted in Heidegger, Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens ( Gesamtausgabe , vol. 13) (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1983); English translation by Bruce V. Foltz and Michael Heim as “Hebel — Friend of the House,” in Contemporary German Philosophy 3 (1983).

——. “Die Sprache Johann Peter Hebels” (1955), in Martin Heidegger, Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens .

——. Gespräch mit Hebel: Rede beim Schatzkästlein zum Hebeltag 1956 (Lörrach: Hebelbund, n.d.). (= Aus der Schriftenreihe des Hebelbundes Sitz Lörrach e. V., Nr. 4), reprinted in Hanns Uhl (ed.), Hebeldank: Bekenntnis zum alemannischen Geist in sieben Reden beim Schatzkästlein (Freiburg: Rombach, 1964).

——. “Dank bei der Verleihung des staatlichen Hebelgedenkpreises,” in Hebel-Feier: Reden zum 200; Geburtstag (Karlsruhe: Müller, 1960), reprinted in Hebel in Ehren: 50 Jahre Hebel-Preis (Bühl-Moos: Elster, 1986) (= Allmende, Nr. 13).

Minder, Robert. “Heidegger und Hebel oder die Sprache von Messkirch,” in Dichter in der Gesellschaft: Erfahrungen mit deutscher und französischer Literatur (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1966);* also includes “Johann Peter Hebel und die französische Heimatliteratur.”