Kafka and Ernst Bloch thought the most beautiful story ever written was a short piece by this author that captures the passage of 50 years by listing events like the Lisbon earthquake. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this 19th-century German author whose story “Unexpected Reunion” is excerpted in the essay “The Storyteller.” This author wrote “calendar stories” and a Treasure Chest of Rhenish tales.
ANSWER: Johann Peter Hebel (“HAY-bell”)
[10e] This author of “The Storyteller” praised Hebel for embedding the passage of time “in natural history.” This critic’s death interrupted his Arcades Project.
ANSWER: Walter Benjamin [or Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin]
[10m] Both “Unexpected Reunion” and a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann depict the discovery of Fet-Mats in one of these places. Stendhal’s theory of love was inspired by these places, which Novalis inspected for his day job.
ANSWER: mines [accept copper mines, salt mines, Salzbergwerk, or Kupfermine; prompt on caves, caverns, underground areas, pits, shafts, quarries, or synonyms of any] (The Hoffmann story is “The Mines of Falun.”)
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