An edition of Wilhelm Raabe's Der Hungerpastor and Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1997)
Wilhelm Raabe's Der Hungerpastor and Charles Dickens' David Copperfield
intertextuality of two Bildungsromane
By Peter O. Arnds
Publish Date
1997
Publisher
P. Lang,Lang AG International Academic Publishers, Peter
Language
eng
Pages
191
Description:
Der Hungerpastor (1864-65) is Wilhelm Raabe's most popular novel. This monograph shows how Raabe borrowed much of the plot and characters from Charles Dickens's best-selling David Copperfield (1849-50). By providing the reasons why Raabe borrowed from Dickens, this study goes far beyond the existing research on the parallels between these two Bildungsromane. A comparison of the heroes, their Jewish antagonists and a number of female characters demonstrates the extent of Raabe's indebtedness to Dickens. The intertextuality ranges from direct verbal echoes to a mere use of Dickens's ideas upon which Raabe builds a novel distinctly his own.