Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung [Metamorphosis]

Ken Newton (University of Dundee)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.2: German-language Writing and Culture: Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, 800-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1915

Places

Czech Republic (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novella

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Franz Kafka wrote his novella

TheMetamorphosis

in 1912 and it was first published in 1915. Though Kafka is associated with the Modernist movement that would include figures such as T. S. Eliot and James Joyce, his writing is not formally experimental in the manner of Eliot's

The Waste Land

or Joyce's

Ulysses

. His writing, however, exhibits a literary self-consciousness that is characteristic of Modernism.

TheMetamorphosis

is, for example, a difficult work to pin down. Is it realism or fantasy or allegory? It's hard to say categorically and this creates an uneasy relationship between text and reader. Questions concerning how one should read such a text are implicitly raised so that interpreting this story of a man who is transformed into a giant insect is not straightforward.

It is

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1843 words

Citation: Newton, Ken. "Die Verwandlung". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 February 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3593, accessed 24 April 2024.]

Save this article