Unpublishable works

Unpublishable Works: Wolfgang Borchert's Literary Production in Nazi Germany looks behind the veil of silence that covers the pre-1945 literary works of Germany's first postwar author. For the first time a complete and comprehensive analysis is offered of Wolfgang Borchert's unpublished oeuvre. Unpublishable Works deals with the dramatic and poetic works written by Borchert during the period that Germany was preparing for, and then engaged in, the struggle that led to its devastation. Erwin Warkentin identifies themes and ideas that are common to both Borchert's published and unpublished works. Warkentin not only outlines Borchert's artistic development, but offers a new perspective on the political and philosophical positions presented by Borchert in his early plays. A third point illuminated by Warkentin is the number of references Borchert makes to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Goethe's Faust. Warkentin contends that it was not Holderlin, Rilke, Trakl and the Expressionists who served as Borchert's literary mentors - as received opinion would suggest - but rather that it was Goethe, Shakespeare, Schiller, and the British Romantics who had the greatest impact on Borchert's art.