A01=Madeleine Brook
August
Author_Madeleine Brook
Category=DSB
Category=GTM
Category=JHB
Category=NHD
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9783034308427
- Weight: 420g
- Dimensions: 150 x 225mm
- Publication Date: 07 Oct 2013
- Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
- Publication City/Country: CH
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
This book addresses the function of fiction in the creation of an historical myth and the uses of myth over time. The subject of the case study is the popular image of August the Strong (1670-1733), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, a figure who has frequently been portrayed as possessing extraordinary sexual prowess and ruling over a magnificent, but frivolous, court in Dresden. The author locates the origins of this myth in the art and literature of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century and traces its development up to the twenty-first century in German historiography, fiction, art and media.
The study identifies the long-lasting effects of the cultural dominance of Prussia on Saxon historiography in the nineteenth century and the privileged status of particular historical sources over others. It thus sheds light on the challenges facing historians since the early twentieth century when they rely on popular media in recounting and interpreting history. Conversely, it reveals how writers of popular historical fiction employ the methodologies of the historian to bring historical knowledge and self-identity together for the reader.
The study identifies the long-lasting effects of the cultural dominance of Prussia on Saxon historiography in the nineteenth century and the privileged status of particular historical sources over others. It thus sheds light on the challenges facing historians since the early twentieth century when they rely on popular media in recounting and interpreting history. Conversely, it reveals how writers of popular historical fiction employ the methodologies of the historian to bring historical knowledge and self-identity together for the reader.
Madeleine Brook is Departmental Lecturer in Early Modern German at the University of Oxford.
