Divergence of Literary thought in East & West Germany as reflected by their differing Receptions of Goethes Humanism

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study the estrangement that has occurred after the national division(1945) between the East & West German literary thought and to investigate its inner reality. After the war ended in defeat in 1945, Germany was devided into the liberal democratic West and the communist East according to their conflicting ideologies， as in the Korean Peninsula. Germans have had to suffer consequences of the antagonism between the two ideologies for forty years until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification in 1990. The reunification, however, was followed by a period of confusion. the aftermath of bitter experiences of the past. In many areas. one sees conflict. contradiction and discomfort. not only in politics, economy and society but a1so in other intangible aspects of life - culture. education. home and work