Arnds, Peter O.
Wilhelm Raabe's "Der Hungerpastor" and Charles Dickens's "David Copperfield"

Intertextuality of Two Bildungsromane.

Der Hungerpastor (1864-65) is Wilhelm Raabe's most popular novel. This monograph shows how Raabe borrowed much of the plot and characters from Charles Dickens's best-selling David Copperfield (1849-50). By providing the reasons why Raabe borrowed from Dickens, this study goes far beyond the existing research on the parallels between these two Bildungsromane. A comparison of the heroes, their Jewish antagonists and a number of female characters demonstrates the extent of Raabe's indebtedness to Dickens. The intertextuality ranges from direct verbal echoes to a mere use of Dickens's ideas upon which Raabe builds a novel distinctly his own. X,191 Seiten, gebunden (North American Studies in Nineteenth-Century German Literature and Culture; Vol. 20/Peter Lang Verlag 1997) Mängelexemplar/near mint