Yvan Goll--Claire Goll

Book excerpt: This volume brings together for the first time essays on both Claire and Yvan Goll. The Golls made distinctive contributions to the literary cultures of France and Germany in the first half of the twentieth century. Their writings shed much light upon their respective positions within the exile communities created by the First and Second World Wars, and in the inter-war avant-gardes of Paris and Berlin, whose cosmopolitanism and eclecticism they came to embody. The Golls' literary output was shaped by, and in turn helped to enrich, the experimental trends that often challenged or transcended conventional notions according to which genre and choice of literary language are stable phenomena. The essays in this volume focus on texts by Yvan and Claire Goll in French and German, and in various literary forms: these are examined in relation to contem-porary literary, artistic and musical developments, and place particular emphasis on collaborative and interdisciplinary works. The analyses explore a wide range of theoretical perspectives, including inter-textuality, Trivialliteratur, psychoanalysis, feminism, cultural marginality and négritude. This collection represents a distinctive and wide-ranging contribution to the study of Yvan and Claire Goll at a time of renewed critical interest in their lives and work.