ABSTRACT
From Goethe’s Werther (1774) and The Elective Affinities (1809) through Rilke’s Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) to Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus (1947) the twin themes of solitude and isolation have formed a major aspect of German narrative prose; hence my earlier claim that in the exploration of solitary experience lies its major contribution to world literature. Some of the formal problems to which these explorations gave rise in the age of European realism have been mentioned. The characteristic solution, as we find it in the stories of Adalbert Stifter, combines a parochial setting with existential depth.
