German literature: Symbolism, Impressionism, and Expressionism

Antinaturalistic movements grew stronger in the German imperialistic period. They became evident as symbolism and impressionism in poetry (Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal) and in the novel (Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Hermann Broch) and as expressionism in verse (Georg Trakl, Georg Heym, Gottfried Benn) and drama (Frank Wedekind, Georg Kaiser, Bertolt Brecht). The literature of the Weimar Republic carried forward prewar traditions and excelled in formal experimentation and innovation. This activity was stifled by the rise of National Socialism, which forced leading writers like Thomas Mann and Arnold Zweig into emigration.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Postwar Literature
• Symbolism, Impressionism, and Expressionism
• The Nineteenth Century: Realism and Naturalism
• Romanticism
• Sturm und Drang and Classicism
• The Protestant Reformation, High German, and Literary Academies: The Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
• Old and Middle High German: From Early to Medieval Literature
• Bibliography

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