LEBENDIGE LITERATUR.

By Frank G.Ryder and E. Allen McCormick. Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1960. 381 pp. $3.75.

Two members of the Department of German, Professors McCormick and Ryder, have prepared a very excellent German reader. The title, Lebendige Literatur, signifies living literature, in the sense of that which is alive, vivid, quick. The subtitle declares it a reader for beginners. Here we note the difference. Though introductory, it is good literature, not the tasteless pap so often served German classes in the guise of a starting or "warming-up" text.

We have used this book in our basic course at Dartmouth this year and found it most satisfactory. For teaching purposes it is divided into three parts. Part I, the first and easiest, is based on a standard 500-word vocabulary listed at the beginning. Unusual or difficult words are glossed, page by page, so that the neophyte finds himself reading good literature right away, without insuperable obstacles. Part II makes use of a standard 1000-word vocabulary, also given, while Part III functions as a transition to conventional German texts. Part II continues the glossing of difficult words, but Part III foregoes glossing and introductory vocabulary. A complete vocabulary concludes the volume.

The authors are modern, that is, from the period between the two great wars or since World War II. Among the older generation we find such names as Hermann Hesse, Karl Heinrich Waggerl, Ina Seidel, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ludwig Thoma. The very first story of Part I is by Wolfgang Borchert who died in 1947 at the age of 26 and whose fame rests on his work in the brief period granted him after the war. The material shows careful, discriminating selection throughout. I might add that short poems appear frequently between prose sections to further animate the scene. The text is well worth reading. I recommend it to those of you who once "took" German here, but who now need a "booster shot".