Fresh essays on the works of the most significant -- and readable -- German Baroque author.Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (ca. 1621-1676) is the most significant (and still readable) author of seventeenth-century German novels. His Abenteuerlicher Simplicius Simplicissimus remains the one German novelof its time that has attained the stature of "world literature": its unique mix of violent action and solitary reflection, its superlative humor, its realistic portrayal of a peasant turned soldier turned hermit has made it the longest-running bestseller in German literature. Read by students and scholars in comparative literature, history, and German, and by those interested in the development of the picaresque novel in Europe, the work and its "Continuations" have increasingly occupied scholars around the world, who have in recent years shown it to be a work of subtle structure and characterization, bearing the imprint of the most advanced political thinking of the time, and showing the influences of some of the most significant works of world literature, including Cervantes' Don Quixote and Barclay's Argenis. This volume of essays by leading Grimmelshausen scholars from Germany, the UnitedStates, and England provides analyses of significant topics in his life and works, including questions of genre, structure, satire, allegory, narratology, political thought, religion, morality, humor, realism, and mortality.Contributors: Christoph E. Schweitzer, Italo Michele Battafarano, Klaus Haberkamm, Rosmarie Zeller, Andreas Solbach, Dieter Breuer, Lynne Tatlock, Peter Hess, Shannon Keenan Greene, and Alan Menhennet. Karl F. Otto isProfessor of German at the University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on German Baroque literature.

Introduction - Karl F. OttoProblems in the Editions of Grimmelshausen's Works - Christoph E SchweitzerGrimmelshausen's "Autobiographies" and the Art of the Novel - Italo Michele BattafaranoAllegorical and Astrological Forms in the Works of Grimmelshausen with Special Emphasis on the Prophecy Motif - Klaus HaberkammGrimmelshausen and the Picaresque Novel - Christoph E SchweitzerGrimmelshausen's Ewig-währender Calendar: A Labyrinth of Knowledge and Reading - Rosmarie ZellerGrimmelshausen's Non-Simplician Novels - Andreas SolbachGrimmelshausen's Trails: The "Afterlife" of Simplicissimus and Grimmelshausen - Dieter BreuerEngendering Social Order: From Costume Autobiography to Conversation Games in Grimmelshausen's Simpliciana - The Poetics of Masquerade: Clothing and the Construction of Social, Religious, and Gender Identity in Grimmelshausen's SimplicissimusSimplicissimus - Peter Hess"To see from these black lines": The Mise en Livre of the Phoenix Copperplate and Other Grimmelshausen Illustrations - Shannon Keenan GreeneThe Search for Freedom: Grimmelshausen's Simplician Weltanshauung - Mr. D. Menhennet