The German Pícaro and Modernity reads the re-emergence of the
picaresque narrative in twentieth-century German-language writing as an
expression of modernity and its social imaginaries.
Malkmus argues that the picaresque, whose origins date back to the
Spanish Renaissance and the Baroque Age, re-emerged as a reflection both
of Germany's explosive modernizing processes between 1880 and 1930 and
of the most barbarous implosion of modern civilization under National
Socialism. Another reason for the fertility of this literary form at
that particular cultural moment is rooted in the complexities of
German-Jewish relations and the history of Jewish assimilation in
central Europe. A considerable number of authors who used the picaresque
form in the twentieth century are from a Jewish background, and Malkmus
demonstrates how the picaresque narrative template also offers a medium
for German-Jewish self-reflection. In highlighting these connections, he
contributes not only to scholarship in European literature, but also but
also to our understanding of major social, economic and political issues
at stake in modernity