Book excerpt: This comprehensive, bilingual study tests principal theoretical elements of the German Novella, and their variations, through its richest period, against relevant aspects of representative texts from Classicism (Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Hebel), Romanticism (Kleist, Tieck, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Arnim, Brentano), Realism (Droste, Gotthelf, Keller, Meyer, Raabe, Storm), Naturalism (Hauptmann) to Psychological Realism (Hofmannsthal, Thomas Mann, Kafka, Stefan Zweig, Musil), Neo-Classicism (Emil Strauss, Bergengruen, Andres), Neo-Pastoralism (Wiechert), and the Neo-Baroque (Grass). Romance influences (Boccaccio, Cervantes, Marguerite de Navarre, Italy as such) are considered. Written with both students and scholars in mind, Structural Elements of the German Novella from Goethe to Thomas Mann avoids jargon and contains comprehensive indices.