Literature
Dresden is a topic in German-language literature in various eras. Dresden was home to a number of authors or a place of their activities and influence.
Friedrich Schiller published his Ode to Joy in Dresden which he began in Gohlis near Leipzig in 1785.
E. T. A. Hoffmann's novella The Golden Pot. A Modern Fairytale is set in Dresden and was published in 1814. The Golden Pot has parts of realistic descriptions of Dresden and fades into a surreal world of myths. Hoffmann witnessed the Battle of Dresden in 1813.
Erich Kästner grow up in Dresden. He worked off his youth in Dresden (The Flying Classroom) and his military training in an artillery battalion in the Dresden Albertstadt garrison (poem Sergeant Waurich).
Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five describes the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 seen from a slaughterhouse near the old city of Dresden. Vonnegut was prisoner of war in Dresden during that event.
Contemporary novelists who are active in Dresden include Uwe Tellkamp and Ingo Schulze. Both broach up the theme of "Mythos Dresden". Tellkamp is known for his novel Der Turm (The Tower) plotting the life of an academic family in its educated social environment (ivory tower society) of Dresden in the last seven years of former East Germany.
Read more about this topic: Culture In Dresden
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