Wilfried Steiner’s Der Weg nach Xanadu – an Austrian Campus Novel?

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Abstract

This article focuses on Wilfried Steiner's 2003 novel Der Weg nach Xanadu / The Way To Xanadu which appears to be an Austrian campus novel owing to the setting of the Austrian world of academia in its first part. Owing to its lack of local coloring, however, the Vienna-based plot of the first part does not feature a (stereo)typically 'Austrian genius loci. Although this part of the text echoes features of the international campus novel tradition, it may be definitely not considered an Austrian campus novel. The second part of the novel is set in the Lake District, focuses on Coleridge's Romantic poetry and the Doppelganger-motif. Whereas the first part may be vaguely contextualized within the international campus novel tradition, the second part is deeply imbued with the Romantic tradition of the Kunstlerroman or artist's novel.

Original languageSlovenian
Pages (from-to)119-128
Number of pages10
JournalActa Neophilologica
Volume52
Issue number1-2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

  • 602005 American studies

Keywords

  • "Kubla Khan"
  • Austria
  • Campus Novel
  • Der Weg nach Xanadu
  • English Romanticism
  • Kunstlerroman
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • The White Goddess
  • Wilfried Steiner
  • “Kubla Khan“
  • Künstlerroman

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