Students of German literature will have asked themselves at one stage or another why certain topics have received saturation treatment over the last two centuries while others have been either ignored entirely or at best grossly neglected. This book tackles this fascinating issue and illuminates why, at various junctures, specific topics and attitudes were regarded by influential sections of society as being either inadmissible or presentable only in particular, prescribed ways.

While the presentation of sexual matters such as homosexuality and lesbianism is inevitably at the heart of the book, political, social, and ideological issues also loom large. The editor has recruited a team of prominent scholars to provide a penetrating, comprehensive focus that ranges from individual writers and their works, i.e., Goethe, Holderlin, Kafka, and Thomas Mann, to specific issues, movements, and periods.