| Summary: | <p>This thesis explores forms and functions of religious knowledge in the highly complex work of the Austrian prose writer Adalbert Stifter. Although there has been a dramatic increase in Stifter research over the last three decades, scholars have so far ignored a key element of his writing: In a variety of ways, almost all of Stifter’s texts deal with elements of religious knowledge. This study generically demonstrates that literature from the mid-19th-century by no means simply abandons metaphysics and confines itself to facts and science, but still strongly engages with religion. The theoretical framework for this endeavour is an eclectic mix of intellectual history, intertextuality studies, history of mentalities and discourse analysis. Based on overviews of Stifter’s personal belief and his education with the enlightened Benedictines from Kremsmuenster in Upper Austria, close readings of his short stories 'Das Haidedorf', 'Die Pechbrenner' and 'Kalkstein' shed new light on the role of biblical intertexts in Stifter, while readings of 'Der beschriebene Tännling', 'Der heilige Abend' as well as 'Der Waldgänger' and 'Das alte Siegel' recontextualise Stifter in the aftermath of Baroque Catholicism and Catholic Enlightenment. Whilst one chapter examines physico-theology as a distinctive, yet versatile category for the portrayal of nature in Stifter’s early and late work, an in-depth reading of his famous novella 'Abdias' focuses on the contemporary anti-Jewish discourse. In detecting the various traces of religious knowledge, the thesis uncovers an important semantic level of Stifter’s prose, yet it emphasises that these religious elements can by no means serve as single key to a full understanding of the nuanced, often ambiguous texts.</p>
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