The Cambridge History of German Literature by Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly
Published 1997 · 360,000 words · about 30 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Cambridge History of German Literature to read?
The Cambridge History of German Literature scores 65 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 60 out of 100
- Scholarly but clear, accessible to advanced undergraduates and general readers.
- Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
- Abstraction: 68 out of 100
- Literary-historical generalization supported by specific textual and contextual evidence.
- Information density: 80 out of 100
- Comprehensive coverage requires sustained high density of literary and historical information.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Reference-work structure enforces directness throughout.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Analytical and historical rather than interpretive in emphasis.
- Ironic distance: 100 out of 100
- Scholarly neutrality maintained across multiple contributors.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Each chapter concludes its historical and critical argument.
- Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
- Twelve-chapter structure spanning a millennium with clear period boundaries and thematic subchapters.
How The Cambridge History of German Literature is regarded
The Cambridge History of German Literature holds a literary regard score of 80 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.