IDEOLOGICAL AND ARTISTIC ORIGINALITY OF “WEISKERN’S HERITAGE” BY K. HEIN

Abstract

The analysis of the ideological and artistic originality of K. Hein’s prose based on the “Weiskern’s Heritage” (2011) university novel is carried out. The text helps to solve an important problem within the aesthetic program of the writer – the interrelation between the individual and the social, the conflict of a person with society and with himself. The novel accumulates a number of motifs used in the earlier works by the author. Being a committed writer, K. Hein attacks the economic relations, the depreciation of the spiritual values among the german academics. Satire as a way of critical treatment of moral and social flaws assimilates “Weiskern’s Heritage” with the former German satirical tradition. The perception of the satirical devices characteristic of the university novel, such as irony, sarcasm, grotesque, playing with stereotypes, as well as the romantic experience enables the writer to comprehend the universal questions, and to discover the deep connections between the past and the present.