Rougissement littéraire

Abstract

The article looks at how current German-language literature positions itself with respect to class. It points out that in neighbouring France in particular, there has been an intensive discussion of social origins for some time now, partly on the basis of literary and essayistic voices that deal with people’s origins and those of their parents’ generation in an autobiographical manner. Contemporary German-language literature takes up this thread, but increasingly ties it in with the present and opens up perspectives on the lives of class shame that are detached from auto-sociobiography. The article focuses on shame as a central emotion of class. It shows how literature in particular has the potential to understand shame not only as an emotion, but as a narrative itself, and to break shame down into individual factors that motivate action. In the different stages of shame, from paralysis to the desire to hide or forget everything to aggression, the analysis opens up the necessary room for reflection towards action that can overcome shame in its actual injustice

Keywords

• class issues
• class shame
• shame
• auto-sociobiography
• contemporary German-language literature