Contemporary German Writers, Their Aesthetics and Their Language 3906755886, 9783906755885

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Contemporary German Writers, Their Aesthetics and Their Language

Contemporary German Writers, Their Aesthetics and Their Language

edited by Arthur Williams Stuart Parkes Julian Preece

PETER LANG Bern • Berlin • Frankfurt a.M. • New York • Paris • Wien

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Contemporary German writers, their aesthetics and their language / ed. by Arthur Williams ... - Bem ; Berlin ; Frankfurt a.M .; New Y ork; Paris; Wien : Lang, 19% ISBN 3-906755-88-6 NE: Williams, Arthur [Hrsg.]

Published with the assistance of the University of Bradford

© Peter Lang, Inc., European Academic Publishers, Beme 1996 All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, offset strictly prohibited. Printed in Germany

CONTENTS

Preface Acknowledgement Introduction Stuart Parkes I Intertextuality: A Study of the Concept and its Application to the Relationship of Christa Wolfs 'Neue Ansichten eines Katers' to E.T.A. Hoffmann's LebensAnsichten des Katers Murr Ricarda Schmidt

ix x

1

9

n Christa Wolf and Bertolt Brecht: A Case of extended Intertextuality? Renate Rechtien

35

m Aesthetics and Storytelling: Some Aspects of Jurek Becker's Erzdhlungen David Rock

55

IV Writing as precarious Salvation: The Work of Wolfgang Hilbig Martin Kane

71

Die Suche nach dem Was und dem Wie': Hans Joachim Sch&dlich D.G. Bond

83

vi — CONTENTS

VI The Land Surveyor: Hanns-Josef Ortheil's Search for his poetic Home Helmut Schmitz VII The Function of Allegory in Christoph Ransmayr's Novel Die letzte Welt Clemens Murath

vm Cut-up 'Shortest Stories': The Examples of Helmut Heifienbuttel and Ror Wolf Karl Riha IX Poetry and Photography in the Works of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann Dieter Stolz X Diverging Trends in feminine Aesthetics: Anne Duden and Brigitte Kronauer Margaret Littler XI Metaphors of Darkness and Light in Eveline Hasler's Anna Gdldin, letzte Hexe and Der Riese im Baum Felicity Rash XII Julian Schutting's Aesthetic of Reading and Writing Mike Rogers XIII Ilse Aichinger: The Poetics of Silence Andrea Reiter

CONTENTS — vii

XIV Non-Verbal Communication in Robert Schneider's Novel Schlafes Bruder Osman Durrani

223

XV Heinrich Boll's 'Logocentric' Theory of Language Frank Finlay

237

XVI Etymology of Violence: Elisabeth Reichart's Prose Konstanze Fliedl

251

xvn The Use of Language in the Plays of Werner Schwab: Towards a Definition of T)as Schwabische' Julian Preece

267

xvin Trinken Trinken Trinken. Die Welt in Ordnung Trinken': The Language-Fortification of Rainald Goetz Axel Schalk

283

XIX Divergence and Convergence: An Outline of literary Developments in the two German States Ralf Schnell

297

Select Bibliography of Secondary Works Index Notes on Contributors

305 313 319

PREFACE

The majority of the papers in this volume were presented at the Fourth Bradford International Colloquium on Contemporary German Literature: Contemporary German Writers, their Language and Aesthetics, held at the University of Bradford in April 1994. The colloquium was again made possible by the support of the Goethe-Institut Manchester, the German Academic Exchange Service, London, the Austrian Institute, London, and the University of Bradford's Department of Modem Languages. Many of the colloquium contributions were revised for this volume. The editors want to thank the contributors and translators for their constantly cheerful and constructive responses to our various suggestions and interventions. It is this spirit of friendly cooperation and the shared commitment to the study of contemporary German literature which, over the years, have made work on the colloquia and subsequent volumes a delight and lent them a value beyond the finished product. We wish to point out that the opinions expressed in the various contributions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily shared by either the editors or the institutions which supported the original colloquium. Our particular gratitude is due to our wives and families, who have put up with much during the preparation of this volume. And we wish to record our thanks to Anne Croasdell for her time, her constant good humour, and her expertise in making our copy truly camera-ready. My thanks go also to Stuart Parkes and Julian Preece for their thoughtfulness and support during a period when many events conspired to make the completion of this volume less than easy.

Arthur Williams Bradford 17 November 1995

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

All sources have been acknowledged in the individual chapters. However, particular mention must be made here of the Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg, who have granted us permission to cite the poems by Rolf Dieter Brinkmann as follows: ‘Photographic’ (p. 142), ‘Eine ubeiiebensgro&e Photographic von Liz Taylor1 (p. 144), and ‘Photos machen' (p. 149) are taken from Rolf Dieter Brinkmann STANDPHOTOS. Copyright © 1980 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg. 'Die Orangensaftmaschine’ (p. 153), 'Einen jener klassischen' (p. 150), and ‘Gedicht’ (p. 146) are taken from Rolf Dieter Brinkmann WESTWARTS 1 & 2. Copyright© 1975 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg.

INTRODUCTION STUART PARKES

I At the time of German unification in 1989-1990, many writers breathed a sigh of relief Instead of being dominated by political and social questions, it was claimed, literature would now be able to devote itself to more seminal concerns.1 Some five years later, any sense of euphoria appears to have been misplaced, at least if certain assertions are taken at face value. In the intervening period, there has been much talk of a crisis in German literature characterized by decreasing sales of new works and disenchantment among the reading public. Part of this sense of crisis has been linked to the changing role of the writer. A literary symposium which took place in Munich shortly after German unity had as its title Der Sturz des Propheten', whilst in a wider context, at about the same time, the Hungarian writer GyOrgy Konrad expressed a similar sense of the writer's loss of role in his casually formulated remark to the International P.E.N. Club: T)ie Humanit&t des Protests gegen den philosophischen Terror: das war der Hit von gestem' (KonrAd 1992, 62). For Jurek Becker, the answer, at least in Germany, appeared quite simple; in an essay published in 1991, he stated categorically that readers rather than authors were to blame for any crisis in (West) German literature: Der beklagenswerte Zustand der realexistierenden bundesdeutschen Literatur hat seine Ursache ja nicht in der Talentlosigkeit der Autoren [...] Die Talentlosigkeit ist erzwungen. Sie, diese Gesellschaft, will nichts tiber sich erfahren, will in Ruhe gelassen werden' (Becker 1991, 34).2 There are strong echoes here of Brecht's ironic comment following the GDR uprising of 1953 that the SED should elect a new people, since the real people had not lived up to the party's expectations. In this case, it is new readers, who fulfil authors' expectations, that are being demanded. A very different view is taken by the critic Uwe Wittstock, who lays the blame for any crisis at the door of writers and exonerates readers by his emphatic assertion: 'Das Interesse ju r die Literatur ist keine Bringschuld des Lesers' (Wittstock 1993, 51). His argument with writers is that they irritate readers by their abstruse techniques and ignore the way that their great predecessors were not averse to using the techniques of popular literature. Examples quoted are the openings of Michael Kohlhaas and Die Verwandlung. Writing in the same

2 — STUART PARKES

edition of Neue Rundschau, Gert Ueding sees the problem as residing with the tradition of German literature established by Schiller, who sought to set it above popular taste, whereas Gottfried August Burger advocated 'em lem- und lustbegieriges Publikum' (Ueding 1993, 42). The result today is a literature frequently characterized by 'angestrengter Intellektualitflt' (Ueding 1993,42). The overall title of this Neue Rundschau edition is 'Literatur im Abseits — und wie sie herauskommt'. The second element is addressed particularly by the novelist Bodo Kirchhoff, who takes a position between the extremes occupied by Becker and Wittstock. He is aware of the tensions between literature and a world dominated by the ephemeral interests of the media.3 Against this he sets the ideal of a literature that creates its own world and time: T)er Roman hebt den Zuschauer aus seinera gewohnten Lebenszustand heraus, aus seinem gewohnten Zeitempfinden und seinen gewohnten Anschauungen' (KirchhoflTWittstock 1993, 81). This does not mean esoteric Elitism; Kirchhoff specifically criticizes a ten­ dency in Germany to denigrate trivial literature and to demand something stem and puritanical that 'den Leser hart anpackt, nach dem Motto: "Kalte Duschen sind besser als warme...'" (Kirchhoff/Wittstock 1993, 74). Lothar Baier is another writer, who, despite everything, sees a continuing role for literature. In his long essay Was wird Literatur?, he shows a similar awareness of the problems as Wittstock and Kirchhoff, pointing out ironically that there is keine htthere Instanz' to which writers can appeal: 'um die Menschen in irgendeinem transzendenten Interesse zum Biicherlesen und zum Genufi der Literatur zu verdonnem' (Baier 1993, 11). It is only in the Third World that literature still appears to have a clear function. Nevertheless Baier remains opti­ mistic, basing his hopes on the concept of freedom expressed in Sartre's Qu'estce que c'est que la littirature?: Literatur ist, denke ich, solange nicht tot, als sich Schriftsteller [...] immer wieder die Freiheit nehmen, sich den schlechten Bedingungen, unter denen das Ganze steht, schreibend zu entwinden [...] Unter Freiheit verstehe ich, hierin ganz einverstanden mit Sartre, den winzigen Spalt, der das, was ein Mensch aus sich macht, von dem trennt, was sein Bedingtsein aus ihm gemacht hat' (Baier 1993, 114). A similar view was expressed by Hans Krieger in his report on the Munich symposium Der Sturz des Propheten' refer­ red to above: literature speaks 'mit bescheidenen Wdrtem von kleinen Dingen: von lebendigen Erfahrungen lebendiger Menschen, denen sie Freiheit schaffi gegen den Druck der Ideologien und der groBen Machte' (Krieger 1992, 153). Reactions to these various arguments are likely to vary according to indi­ vidual conceptions of literature. Alternatively, it could simply be pointed out that talk of crises in German literature is nothing new and goes back at least as far as

INTRODUCTION — 3

Lessing or, in the modem era, to the 'death of literature' debate initiated in 1968 by Enzensberger's claim that literature no longer had any function.4 A more posi­ tive interpretation would be that current debates reflect, whatever Wittstock may claim, the continuing widespread importance attached to literature in German­ speaking countries. The invocations of freedom by Baier and Krieger certainly seem to show this. The depth of their concern, and that of others, can possibly be linked also to post-unification uncertainties and upheavals in other, more politi­ cal, areas in which the new Germany is seeking to come to terms with change. What remains beyond dispute is that there is no longer any single or dominating literary canon in contemporary Germany. The present age is not one for grand designs in that the writer, as most of the comments quoted above indicate, is facing increased isolation in a hostile environment. In an essay en­ titled 'Zum Profil der neuen und jtingsten deutschen Literatur', the writer HannsJosef Ortheil traces the change from a time in the early postwar years when young authors were faced with 'grofien lohnenden Aufgaben' (Ortheil 1991, 38), in particular contributing to the creation of a new democratic Germany, to the present era dominated by post-histoire, postmodernism and post-structuralism. According to Ortheil, the current situation creates 'eine Vielzahl neuer Sprachen [...] die die Verdstelungen der Diskurse nicht durch Bezug auf Leitbegriffe einzugrenzen, sondem deren selbststeuemden Impulsen — auch wenn sie ins Abseits, ins Heterogene, ins Andere fiihren — zu folgen versucht' (Ortheil 1991, 45). Similar arguments are advanced in the introduction to the volume that contains Ortheil's essay by Paul Michael Ltitzeler. He sees contemporary post­ modern literature as 'weniger totalit&tssQchtig und mythosorientiert' (Ltitzeler 1991b, 12); in the case of the novel, a major concern is the act of narration itself: 'die Existenzweise eines Textes wird im Text zum Gegenstand der Reflexion' (Ltitzeler 1991b, 13).s II

In the light of these factors, the task this volume sets itself of looking at the aesthetic and linguistic concerns of German writers becomes central to any con­ sideration of contemporary literature. Given the diversity referred to by Ortheil, this can only be done by concentration on individual authors. This is not to say that connections cannot be made; they are implied by the order of texts chosen by the editors after much deliberation and with an awareness that other choices might have been equally valid. Essentially, this volume is divided into three parts. The first and shortest part is devoted to questions of intertextuality, with two essays relating to Christa

4 — STUART PARKES

Wolf. Ricarda Schmidt, however, goes beyond a simple consideration of Wolf relationship to E.T.A. Hoffinann to investigate the whole concept of intertextu ality and to question certain ideas of Julia Kristeva that in some quarters hav attained almost cult status. Her essay also underlines the importance of literar theory in contemporary discussions of literature, as well as pointing to the con tinuing relevance of Romanticism in today's multi-faceted world. The concer tration on Wolf by Schmidt and Rechtien shows how important an author sh remains despite, or possibly because of, the controversies she has aroused sine the time of German unity. Intertextuality remains an important factor in othe essays, in Clemens Murath's study of Christoph Ransmayr's Die letzte Welt wit its theme of Ovid in exile and its links to his Metamorphoses, for instnace, and i Mike Rogers's consideration of the work of Julian Schutting, which points to th exchange between dead poet and living, reading poet, not to mention the reade in whom poems are, according to Schutting, transformed and enriched. The second and third sections of this collection concentrate on question of aesthetics and of language respectively. Alongside its perceived concentratio on political and social questions, postwar German literature, as it assimilated th classics of literary modernism, was always marked by aesthetic concern! Indeed, for Theodor W. Adorno, it was the aesthetic that was the basis of art' social function: Das Rohe, subjektiver Kern des BOsen, wird von Kunst, der da Ideal des Durchgeformten unabdingbar ist, a priori negiert: das, nicht die Vei kiindung moralischer Thesen oder die Erzielung moralischer Wirkung ist ihr Teilhabe an der Moral und verbindet sie mit einer menschenwiirdigeren Gesell schaft' (Adorno 1973, 344). Walter Jens, too, in his book Deutsche Literatur de Gegenwart stressed the primacy of modernist forms, declaring boldly: 'der Nec realismus ist tot' (Jens 1964, 129). However true this might have been in the West, writers in the GDR had t contend with the officially imposed aesthetic of socialist realism. Their work wa measured against this and, if found wanting, was likely to be refused publicatior Three essays, those by David Rock, Martin Kane, and Greg Bond on Jure Becker, Wolfgang Hilbig, and Hans Joachim Sch&dlich respectively, concentrat on authors who fell foul of the GDR's cultural authorities. While Becker owed debt to traditional Jewish storytelling — and Rock shows that the relationship i not as simple as has sometimes been assumed, Hilbig and Sch&dlich sought t assert their identity by establishing a discourse that ran counter to officu dictates. In all three cases, Adorno's thesis on the oppositional nature of ai applies so that, as Bond points out, a concentration on the overtly politic; dimension of a writer such as Schadlich does not do full justice to the subject.

INTRODUCTION — 5

In his 1964 survey, Jens spoke of 'Reduktion' as a principle of postwar German literature (Jens 1964, 131). This term was meant by no means negatively and Karl Riha sees the 'Kurzestgeschichten' of authors such as Helmut Heifienbuttel and Ror Wolf not as an expression of despair, nor simply as the consequence of the constricting demands placed on literature by a mediadominated society in which everything must be evanescent and easily digestible, but rather as a potentially fruitful area of experimentation. A similar search for a new form is what Helmut Schmitz sees in the work of Hanns-Josef Ortheil, albeit in this case one that would be a synthesis of traditional narrative and elements of postmodernism. By contrast, Ransmayr's Die letzte Welt might be seen as a quintessential^ postmodern novel, particularly in its merging of different historical epochs, but Clemens Murath is able to conclude that it is a work that looks forward to a better world as well as back to the time of the Roman Empire. The essays in this section reflect the aesthetic variety of contemporary German literature at a time when, as the first part of this introduction showed, the ancient craft of literature seems particularly challenged by the modern world. The essay by Dieter Stolz critically examines one attempt to link old and new by examining the relationship between photography and poetry in Rolf Dieter Brinkmann. In the case of feminist aesthetics, Margaret Littler also makes refer­ ence to the visual arts to show two differing models in the work of Brigitte Kronauer and Anne Duden, both of which relate to the search for autonomy in a hostile world. The link between feminist aesthetics and the search for autonomy recalls Adorno's statement that art is defined by its 'Gegenposition zur Gesellschaft, und jene Position bezieht sie erst als autonome' Adorno 1973, 335). What this must not be taken to mean is, as Stolz says in his critique of Brinkmann, that art should turn its back on life. On the evidence presented here, contemporary German literature does not do this; it seeks rather to present contemporary life's complexities in any number of aesthetically challenging ways.

Ill In Moliere's play Le bourgeois gentilhomme, the main character M. Jourdain dis­ covers, as he seeks to gain the knowledge necessary to advance in society, that, without knowing it, he has been speaking (and presumably writing) prose for years. No writer in a German-speaking country, whether of prose or of any other literary form can approach the use of language in the same unconscious manner as M. Jourdain. It was as early as 1902 that the Austrian author Hugo von Hof­ mannsthal in his celebrated essay 'Em Brief called into question the adequacy of language as a means of expression. Hofmannsthal shows his exasperation with

6 — STUART PARKES

the limits of words as a means of expressing his ideas. His Lord Chandc explains that it has become impossible for him to use language in the normal, ui thinking manner: 'Zuerst wurde es mir allmahlich unmOglich, ein hOheres od< allgemeines Thema zu besprechen und dabei jene Worte in den Mund zu nel men, deren sich doch alle Menschen ohne Bedenken gelSufig zu bedienen pfl< gen1(Hofmannsthal 1957, 341). The result is an inability to write in any existir language, the only hope of a solution being 'eine Sprache, in welcher die stun men Dinge zu mir sprechen, und in welcher ich vielleicht einst im Grabe vor e nem unbekannten Richter mich verantworten werde' (Hofmannsthal 1957, 348). That this scepticism towards language should occur in Austria, at that tin the centre of the multi-lingual Habsburg Empire, does not seem a coincidence, < awareness of language as a barrier, as well as a means of communication, mu have been particularly strong. It is only necessary to recall that the writer wii arguably the greatest sense of human isolation, Franz Kafka, came not only froi the minority Jewish community in Prague, which was during most of his lifedn: part of the Austrian Empire, but also spoke the minority language of German I understand the significance of the problem of language. Indeed, concern wii language has been at the heart of twentieth-century Austrian literature from Ka Kraus to Peter Handke, whose early plays such as Publikumsbeschimpfimg a® Kaspar centre around the theme of language. Accordingly, it is not surprisir that Austrian writers should be so well represented in the part of this volume th; deals primarily with language in contemporary German literature. Both Andre Reiter and Osman Durrani write about Austrian authors, Dse Aichinger an Robert Schneider, both of whom, despite belonging to different generations, a concerned with problems of 'Sprachlosigkeit'. The other factor that has led to questions of language becoming such seminal concern of German literature is the misuse of language in the Thii Reich, both for propaganda purposes and to conceal mass murder and genocic in such obfuscatory euphemisms as 'Sonderbehandlung' and 'EndlOsung'. It well-known that many postwar writers sought to eliminate the language of tt Nazis from their work, an ideal encapsulated in the use of the term Kahlschlag I describe a literature that was stripped of all linguistic or aesthetic adoramen That this did not necessarily lead to an aesthetic vacuum can be seen from th work of Heinrich BOll, arguably the postwar writer most concerned to disassoc ate himself from the Nazi past. Frank Finlay's essay on Bdll shows that part < this process was the adoption of a specific conception of language and gives tt he to any idea that Ball's work was merely moralistic and well-meaning (and, i

INTRODUCTION — 7

Adorno's terms, inferior). Finlay is able to insist on how morality and aesthetics were inseparable for Bdll. Where the Austrian concern with language and the Third Reich come to­ gether is in the work of Elisabeth Reichart. Konstanze Fleidl's essay reveals how Reichart goes beyond previous literary conceptions, as found in the 'Vaterbucher1 and feminist literature of the 1970s. Reichart's starting point may be similar to that of other writers, the wish to ensure a continuing awareness of the past, to write, as Gunter Grass puts it 'gegen die verstreichende Zeit' (Grass 1974, 97), because the tendency to forget caused by the passage of time favours the guilty, but she adds the dimension of language, which is thematized, as Fliedl puts it, as the 'medium of memory'. In this case, there is no question of an acceptance of the inevitability of 'Sprachlosigkeit', but rather an awareness of the historical roots of words. The importance of linguistic awareness is also underlined in the contributions of Julian Preece and Axel Schalk. Whereas Preece is at pains to show how Wemer Schwab developed his own voice, Schalk concludes that Rainald Goetz in the works described does not go much beyond transcription of the cliches he purports to expose, thus neglecting Adorno's 'Ideal des Durchgeformten' quoted above. IV

In the final essay of this volume, Ralf Schnell, having shown the crisis caused by German unification for the traditional self-view of the writer as a moral authority within the world of politics, celebrates the new freedom German literature might now enjoy if it can free itself from the shackles of the past. Whereas the first part of this introduction concentrated on some of the difficulties it faces, it is intended that the volume as a whole should confirm Schnell's optimism by showing how postwar writers have, through their aesthetics and language, contributed something new and valuable to German literature. Where critical views are expressed, the editors hope that they will help towards an understanding of what constitutes literary achievement at the end of the twentieth century.

NOTES 1.

2.

This idea was expressed most memorably by Christoph Hein with his axiom on the true nature of literature: 'Literatur ist, wenn Proust beschreibt, wie er Tee trinkt' (see GOrtz etal. 1992, 271). It is interesting to note that Becker partially withdraws this assertion in an interview with Der Spiegel in 1994, admitting that it is not the whole truth (Becker 1994, 198).

8 — STUART PARKES 3.

4.

5.

Criticism of the media has become part and parcel of literary life in Germany ov recent years. Particular examples that spring to mind are Botho StrauB's 1993 ess: 'Anschwellender Bocksgesang' and the satire on the world of the news magazine Martin Walser’s novel of the same year Ohne einander. The days of the 1960s ai 1970s, when Hans Magnus Enzensberger, for instance, saw revolutionary potential the mass media, appear forgotten. By making this claim — admittedly less categorically than in some representations o1 — Enzensberger sparked off the 'death of literature' debate that dominated Germs literary life from late 1968 until the early 1970s (Enzensberger 1968). An example of such a novel is Sten Nadolny's Selim Oder Die Gabe der Rede, in whii the primary narrative is frequently interrupted by various reflections, many of which a on the subject of narration. One example of this comes close to the ideas express) by Kirchhoff (Kirchhoff/Wittstock 1993): 'Wenn irgendwo, dann wohnt der Widerstai im Erzdhlen, listig, schwer erkennbar, erst nach lingerer Zeit wirksam. Erzdhl* widersteht der Eile, es verfugt uber ein unangefochtenes Volumen an Zeit und Bew gungsfreiheif (Nadolny 1990, 365).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adomo, Theodor W. 1973: Asthetische Theorie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Baier, Lothar 1993: Was wird Literatur, Wespennest, Vienna. Becker, Jurek 1991: 'Die Wiedervereinigung der deutschen Literatur' in Lutzeler 1991a, 2: 35. ------ 1994: "Zuruck auf den Teppich', Der Spiegel, 12 December 1994, pp.195-200. Enzensberger, Hans Magnus 1968: 'Gemeinpiatze, die Neueste Literatur betreffend', Kursbuch, 15 (1968), 187-197. G&rtz, Franz Josef, Hage, Volker, and Wittstock, Uwe (eds.) 1992: Deutsche Literatur 1991. JahresQberblick, Reclam, Stuttgart. Grass, Gunter 1974: Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg Hofmannsthal, Hugo von 1957: 'Ein Brief in Hofmannsthal: Ausgew&hlte Werke, 2 vols, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, II, pp.337-248. Jens, Walter 1964: Deutsche Literatur der Gegenwart, dtv, Munich. Kirchhoff, Bodo and Wittstock, Uwe 1993: 'Der Autor hat nur eine Chance. Er muB den Kritiker uberteben. Bodo Kirchhoff im Gesprdch mit Uwe Wittstock', Neue Rundscha 104(1993), 3, 69-81. Konrdd, Gydrgy 1992: 'Die Welt der Literatur und die Welt', neue deutsche literatur, 40 (1992), 1, 62-69. Krieger, Hans 1992: 'Monologe zum Prophetensturz', neue deutsche literatur, 40 (1992), ( 153-157 Liitzeler, Paul Michael (ed.) 1991a: SpStmodeme und Postmodeme. Beitr&ge zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. ------ 1991b: 'Einleitung: Von der Spatmodeme zur Postmodeme' in Lutzeler 1991a, 11-2: Nadolny, Sten 1990: Selim oderDie Gabe der Rede, Piper, Munich. Ortheil, Hanns-Josef 1991: 'Zum Profit der neuesten und jiingsten deutschen Literatur1in Lutzeler 1991a, 36-51. StrauB, Botho 1993: 'Anschwellender Bocksgesang', Der Spiegel, 8 February 1993, pp.202-207. Ueding, Gert 1993: 'Massenware oder stille Kirche', Neue Rundschau, 104 (1993), 3, 3 6 43. Walser, Martin 1993: Ohne einander, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Wittstock, Uwe 1993: 'Ab in die Nische? Uber neueste deutsche Literatur und was sie vor Publikum trennf, Neue Rundschau, 104 (1993), 3, 45-58.

INTERTEXTUALITY: A STUDY OF THE CONCEPT AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE RELATIONSHIP OF CHRISTA WOLF'S 'NEUE LEBENSANSICHTEN EINES KATERS' TO E.T.A. HOFFMANN'S LEBENS-ANSICHTEN DES KATERS MURR RICARDA SC H M ID T

I Intertextuality is a difficult concept which requires more than a cursory presen­ tation before any attempt is made to apply it. It is not only that there are almost as many definitions as there are theoreticians who have concerned themselves with it; the origin of the term itself is the result of an intertextual act, that is to say one whereby the original idea was put into a new cultural and philosophical context by the later text and thus decisively changed. Accordingly, I shall first of all attempt to penetrate the tangled web of usage surrounding the term 'intertextuality' before I turn to the textual practice of Christa Wolf. As my starting point, I take Thais E. Morgan's 1985 essay 'Is There an Intertext in This Text?', which already discusses 12 different approaches. My purpose in examining some key concepts in this discussion is to determine which theoretical approach is most ap­ propriate for the analysis of the literary relationship between E.T.A. Hoffmann and Christa Wolf, and to ask how Wolfs practice of intertextuality can best be described within a more generalized context. Morgan begins her analysis of the theoretical understanding of textual re­ lations with two models which are mirror images of each other. The model based on the metaphor of 'literary influence' holds the original text in higher esteem than the later one. By contrast, for the model which uses the metaphor of 'inspiration' the more recent text counts as better (Morgan 1985, 2-3). Morgan sees as the basis of these two models of textual relationships a linear, teleological principle, on the rejection of which she builds her alternative of a semiotic model of intertextuality. However, it should be noted that those literaiy critics who operate with the metaphors of influence and inspiration seldom apply the teleological principle criticized by Morgan as crudely as appears from her description. The

10 — RICARDA SCHMIDT

work of Hans-Georg Wemer (1976), to which I shall return, provides a positiv counter-example. Morgan prefers to regard literary relations as a network, a structure, synchronic system of signs, rather than as evolution in the sense of a family tre (Morgan 1985, 2, 8). In this way she positions herself in the tradition of semi otics as developed by structuralism and post-structuralism. Above all, semiotic has revolutionized the concept of the text. Text is now taken to mean not just th literary text but every system in which, as in language, signs are grouped into meaningful structure. In the semiotic sense 'text' can be a novel — but, equall) the conventions of fashion, football, the detective story, politeness, or convei sation can be regarded as text. As a result, the concept of intertextuality can b applied to the structural relationship between two or more so-called 'texts' of an kind that are conceived as co-existing synchronically. Possibly the best-know representative of such an approach is Roland Barthes. In S/Z (1970), Barthe understands the text, the author, and the reader as a collection of texts (als called codes or voices), that is to say, constituted through language(s) (Barthe 1970, 16-18, 21-23,27-28). However, within this system, the reader is assigne the central role, because (s)he is the one who perceives the various codes / texts voices within the literary text. The reader Barthes interprets Balzac's story 'Sam sine' by dissecting it into small and even minute segments, which he calls 'lexia or reading units (Barthes 1970, 20) and which he assigns in each case to one c more of five codes. The hermeneutic code relates to the formulation of secrel and puzzles; the code of the 'seme' indicates the connotations of words,1the syn bolic code embraces the structure of the antithesis; the proairetic code concern the sequence of action within the text; the gnomic code is about cultur; knowledge (Barthes 1970, 24-27). But the number of Barthes's codes and th differentiations between these codes, which all 'just happen' to be completel represented in the first sentences of Balzac's story, are quite arbitrary. This ca be seen, for example, in the way that other codes are introduced in the course ( Barthes's interpretation alongside the five presented at the beginning.2 The impoi tant point, however, is that none of Barthes's codes relates to a single origin author, but all codes indicate social discourses that are in general circulatioi Thus, the idea of text and intertextuality developed in S/Z does not refer to th relationship between the literary texts of two authors. Barthes's intention is rath< to reduce the significance of the author in favour of language as a social systei without specific origin and, what is more, in favour of the reader, that is to sa primarily in favour of Barthes himself.

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 11

By contrast Julia Kristeva does use the concept of intertextuality to refer to the relationship between two literary texts, at least in part of her work. In her essay 'Le mot, le dialogue et le roman', written in 1966 and first published in 1967 in the periodical Critique, Kristeva presented the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, which until then was hardly known in the West and had only been partially translated; or, to put it more exactly, she interpreted Bakhtin's frequently vague and iridescent system of concepts3 in accordance with her own semiotic view of language and literature. Referring to his concept of 'dialogism', Kristeva attri­ butes to Bakhtin the discovery that 'any text is constructed as a mosaic of quota­ tions; any text is the absorption and transformation of another1(Kristeva 1986, 37). In fact, Bakhtin made no such claim about the ubiquity of quotation in his books on Dostoevsky and Rabelais on which Kristeva bases her essay (without, however, distinguishing between them or giving any specific references to any of the concepts taken from these two works). Nevertheless, with this supposed dis­ covery by Bakhtin, to which Kristeva (not Bakhtin) gave the name 'inter-textuality', a concept was bom. In reality, Bakhtin conceived the concept of dialogism in his Dostoevsky book not as characterizing every textual structure, but as stand­ ing in binary opposition to the monological novel. He sees Dostoevsky as the creator of a new world view and of a new way of writing, namely the dialogical or polyphonic novel (these two terms being used equivalently): '[All] of the elements of Dostoevsky's novelistic structure are profoundly original; they are all determined by that new artistic task which only he succeeded in setting and fulfilling in all its breadth and depth: the task of constructing a polyphonic world and destroying the established forms of the basically monological (homophonic) European novel' (Bakhtin 1973, 5) According to Bakhtin this new form does have antecedents, but was trans­ formed by Dostoevsky into something completely new. Whereas Bakhtin drew attention to the principle of simultaneity, to the lack of the categories of causality and origin as well as to the dialogized internal monologue, the so-called micro­ dialogue, as the particular features of Dostoevsky's dialogical or polyphonic way of writing (Bakhtin 1973, 24, 61-62), Kristeva ascribes to the literaiy text per se the ability to overcome diachronism in favour of synchronism, which in turn allows linear history to appear as abstraction (Kristeva 1986, 36.; on the question of Bakhtin's dialogism see GrOttemeier 1993 and especially the lucid essay by Todorov 1987). By linking it with Bakhtin's second key concept, that of camivalization, Kristeva goes on to associate the concept of intertextuality, derived from Bakh­ tin's dialogism and initially presented as a vague sine qua non of any text, with

12 — RICARDA SCHMIDT

libertarian or even cultural revolutionary tendencies. By camivalization Bakthj meant the transfer of the camivalesque attitude, characterized in his view by th suspension of hierarchical systems and by free contact between people acros social barriers, to the forms of literary language, and in particular to the so-calle dialogical line of literary development. Characteristics of a camivalesque liten ture for Bakhtin were, for instance, ambivalent images, which unite opposites, ( de-sacralization. Whereas for Bakhtin, therefore, the camivalesque form of lift rature aims to subvert social hierarchies, for Kristeva camivalesque discours breaks through the laws of language itself, which is normally 'censored' b grammar and semantics (Kristeva 1986, 36). This calling into question of s< called official linguistic codes is in turn, for Kristeva, identical with calling int question official laws in the social sphere. In this adaptation, Bakhtin's ideas ( dialogism as found in Dostoevsky's writing and of camivalization are used t lend credence to Kristeva's idea (developed more fully in La Revolution du lat gage poetique) of the subversive power of poetic language, as well as to the s multaneously developing linguistic philosophy of deconstruction. In this conte) intertextuality means that all words contain the words of another person or ( social discourse, as a point of reference, and that accordingly words cannot b traced back to a specific origin. Hence meaning is deferred to infinity, as it is n( constituted by reference but by relationship to other words. From the banal observation that language is essentially an inter-subjectiv social phenomenon and is subject to historical change, a cultural revolutionar thesis about the character and possibilities of language is derived: because lar guage only refers to language and not to extra-linguistic reality, meaning is neve fixed, and because meaning is never fixed, the infinite play of signifiers can brea up fixed hierarchical systems — both linguistic and social. An obvious contn diction, which in part can be attributed to the vagueness of Bakhtin's concept: arises from the way Kristeva sees intertextuality on the one hand as the natur; essence of any text, indeed of any utterance, but attributes to it on the other han a revolutionary potential. This contradiction is 'resolved' by the assertion tha traditionally, the intertextual nature of texts / language has been suppressed b society. From this perspective the discourses of the epic, of history, and < science, which Kristeva categorizes as monological, are solely the result of th prohibition and censorship of natural intertextuality (Kristeva 1986,47-48). The unsustainability of this thesis of the social suppression of intertexti ality should have been clear from Herman Meyer's 1961 study Das Zitat in de Erzdhlkunst. Zur Geschichte und Poetik des europdischen Romans and, at th latest, from Gerard Genette's analysis of intertextuality (or, as he puts it, tram

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 13

textuality) in a variety of texts since Homer (Genette 1982). Nevertheless, the concept of intertextuality quickly acquired an iridescent attraction that came from association with the theoretical avant-garde and the cultural revolutionary ideas outlined above (Morgan 1985, 10-13).4 How successful Kristeva's popularization of Bakhtin was can be illustrated by the following quotation from a well-known literary scholar, who uses Bakhtin's concepts in the cloak of Kristeva's ideas of intertextuality without knowing Bakhtin's work itself at all (as can be deduced from his otherwise impressive bibliography and footnotes): T)as freie Spiel einer Intertextualitat, welche die Grenze zwischen literarischen Mustem und Erfahrungszustanden verschleift, inszeniert im Karaeval des polyphonen Textes eine Einbeziehung des Lesers, die allein noch das Spiel der Erzeugung, Trans­ formation und Vemichtung von Bedeutung emst nimmt und der Referenz auf eine mimetisch abzubildende Wirklichkeit entsagt' (Renner 1988,264). Yet Bakhtin himself, in his Dostoevsky book, did not understand by dia­ logism a constitution of meaning that was deferred to infinity. The concept func­ tions for him on two levels: the level of the relationship of the author to his characters, and the level of the characters' speech or internal monologue. In con­ trast to the so-called monological novel, in which the author unambiguously jud­ ges the fictional characters, the author of the dialogical novel supposedly has an egalitarian relationship to his characters. The author is located on the same level as the characters, rather than embodying an overriding truth, and allows the cha­ racters their distinct individual existence (Bakhtin 1973, 212): The author's word cannot envelop the hero and his word from all sides, enclose them and finalize them from without. It can only address itself to them. All definitions and all points of view are swallowed up by the dialog and are drawn into its evolution1 (See also Bakhtin 1973, 4: 'plurality o f equal consciousness and their worlds'; and 51: 'The new artistic position of the author vis-^-vis the hero [...] is a [...] fully realized dialogical position'). Tzvetan Todorov has made the following in­ cisive and highly relevant comment on this point: 'The equality between protag­ onist and author that Bakhtin imputes to Dostoevsky is not only in contradiction with the latter's intentions, it is in fact in its very essence impossible [...] The organizer of the dialogue is not just a simple participant' (Todorov 1987, 80). Even if Bakhtin's idea of equality between author (in the terminology of contem­ porary literary theory, it would have to be 'abstract' or 'implied' author) and hero represents an untenable position in terms of narrative theory, it is nevertheless important to recognize within it a polemic against the omniscient narrator and a positive view of narration based on perspective, which is typical not only of Dostoevsky but of modern writing in general. Within the context of Stalinist cul­

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tural policy, in which Bakhtin developed his concept of dialogism, this attempt t( see the relativization techniques of modem narrative as something positive als< represents a 'fundamentale Kritik am Herrschaftsanspruch auf die eine Wahrhei der sich seit Mitte der zwanziger Jahre auf den sozialistischen Realismus hinbe wegenden russischen Literatur' (Lachmann 1983, 70). A short quotation will serve to make clear what Bakhtin meant by dialog ism on the second level, that of the characters. Bakhtin interprets one of Raskol nikoVs interior monologues as follows: The dialogized interior monologue which we have cited is a brilliant model of the microdtalog: every word in it is double-voiced, every word contains a con­ flict of voices. In fact, at the beginning of the passage, Raskolnikov re-creates Dunya's words and the intonations through which she passes judgements or seeks to convince, and to them adds his own ironic, indignant, or precautionary intonations. In his words two voices resound simultaneously — that of Raskol­ nikov and that of Dunya. In the words which follow [...] his mother's voice with her intonations of love and tenderness is heard, and at the same time we hear Raskolnikov's voice with the intonations of bitter irony, indignation [...] and melancholy reciprocal love. Subsequently we hear in Raskolnikov's words Sonya's voice and that of her father. Dialog penetrates every word, giving rise to conflicts and interruptions of one voice by another. This is a microdialog. (Bakhtin 1973, 61-62.)

What Bakhtin means here by microdialogue comes close to what in contempo rary western poetics is meant by the difference between narrator and reflecto (Stanzel 1989) or between narration and focalization (Genette 1980; RimmonKenan 1983). In each case an attempt is being made to show in terms of narra tive theory the interruption of the narrator's text by a reflector figure or dialogu* partner. If, however, dialogism or intertextuality is not based, as in Bakhtin' analysis of Dostoevsky, on concrete dialogue partners, but is understood as ai inherent quality of language that makes denotation impossible and is surroundei by a revolutionary aura, then this use of the concept is more likely to be suitabl to mark out a position in cultural politics (specifically to underline the avant garde position of deconstruction) than to offer an analytical instrument for worl with texts. However, the view of semiotist literary critics such as Jonathan Culle or Thai's Morgan, who have been inspired by Kristeva's Bakhtin essay, that th principle of the author / source of texts / discourses / words is suspended b intertextuality, cannot be based on Bakhtin, who emphasized: in order to become dialogical, logical and concrete semantic (predmetnosmyslovye) relationships must be embodied, i.e. they must enter into a different sphere of existence: they must become a word, i.e. an utterance, and have an author i.e. the creator of the given utterance, whose position is expressed.

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 15

In this sense, every utterance has its author, who is heard in the utterance as its creator. (Bakhtin 1973, 152)

In summary, it can therefore be said that Kristeva has undertaken two substantial modifications to the ideas developed by Bakhtin: on the one hand, the extension and application of the characteristics of a specific text genre to texts in general, on the other the transfer and application of concrete dialogical relationships in concrete contexts to the interplay of signifiers, which in the infinite deferral of meaning is intended to justify the post-structuralist concept of the nonreferentiality of language. Whereas the Bakhtin essay in which Kristeva develops her conception of intertextuality at a theoretical level was translated into German and English and was widely incorporated into the discourse of literary criticism (Renner 1988; Still/Worton 1990), Kristeva's practical application of the concept to the analysis of texts by Lautreamont in La Revolution du langage po&tique has, to the best of my knowledge, been neither translated nor discussed in detail.3 The fact that Kristeva, in Revolution, does not apply the concept of intertextuality to synchronically co-existing sign systems within a particular culture,6 but applies it diachronically to the texts of authors from different historical eras, was regarded as a failing (Culler 1981, 106-107) and, subsequently, specifically as a relapse into teleology (Morgan 1985, 23-24). On the basis of an, in my view, mistaken appli­ cation of the synchronic principle of Saussurian linguistics to literary criticism, Culler and Morgan are unwilling to accept the use of the term intertextuality to apply to the diachronic relationship between literary texts, restricting it to synchronically co-existing and anonymous 'texts' (in the semiotic sense of the term). By contrast, my criticism of Kristeva's application of the concept of intertextuality is not directed against the principle of diachronism as such, but against, firstly, the inexactitude of her arguments at a logical and linguistic level, and, secondly, the paltriness of the results achieved. In Revolution, Kristeva understands intertextuality as a revolutionary ele­ ment of poetic language. In this she differs significantly from Bakhtin, for whom dialogism is a stylistic possibility characteristic of prose and above all the novel (Bakhtin 1973, 166) According to Kristeva, older texts function as discourses which more recent literary texts appropriate by creating a relationship with them in the form of quotation, negation, or transformation. During this process of transfer from one sign system to another, a zero moment occurs in which the semiotic overtakes the symbolic before the new sign system emerges (Kristeva 1974, 340). What constitutes the semiotic for Kristeva are primeval processes

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which are recognizable in such linguistic phenomena as rhythm, rhyme, the accu­ mulation and repetition of phonemes, all of which she calls 'genotext'. Against this Kristeva juxtaposes the so-called 'phenotext', the language structure which permits communication and is to be understood in linguistic terms as competence and performance. During intertextual transposition, the genotext is stimulated, causing the boundaries of single meaning to break down, before a new paradigm, through which the more recent text in turn seeks to establish itself as normative, is produced in the phenotext. Kristeva's concrete analysis of intertextuality relates to individual lines of Lautreamont's Poesies II, in which she points to Pascal as the primary intertext. Using logical and mathematical symbols (which, however, do not stand up to serious analysis and merely give an impression of a rigour which is not there7), she presents a typology of the various possible transformations of an intertext, namely quotation, negation, permutation, indefinite transformation (i.e. omission, displacement, homonymy etc.). It is especially in indefinite transformations that Kristeva finds traces of the genotext in the phenotext. She regards these traces as the revolutionary element in poetic language, because the genotext breaks up the unity of symbolic language and thus casts doubt on any idea that words might have unambiguous meanings (Kristeva 1974,356-357). What Kristeva shows in the genotext of Lautreamont's intertextual verse of the breaking up of symbolic language is, however, surprisingly thin. It concerns Lautreamont's choice of words to overcome the logical contradiction in some of Pascal's sentences, which Lautreamont seeks to 'correct'. As a 13th. textual ex­ ample of intertextuality Kristeva quotes (Ducasse = Lautreamont): XIII.l. Pascal: '...jusqu'a ce qu'il comprenne qu'il est un monstre incomprehen­ sible.' XUI.2. Ducasse: 'H parvient a comprendre qu'il est la soeur de l'ange.' (Kristeva 1974, 350)

Kristeva points out that the choice of the word 'ange' was inspired by phonemes in the preceding text. She claims that the frequency of the preceding /a/ and /a3 / in 'vante-vante-vante-davantage1led to the choice of in the word 'ange'. But / a j / only occurs once in the preceding sentence, and /a/ and /a/ are different phonemes in French (Kristeva 1974, 350). Whereas Kristeva sees in Lautrgamont's choice of the word 'ange' in preference to Pascal's 'monstre' an example of the penetration of the genotext into the phenotext, calling into question the unity of symbolic language and making the meaning of the statement plural and am­ biguous, this seems to me an example of a much less 'revolutionary1 practice: namely a simple 'appropriation positivante' (Kristeva 1974, 347) of the kind

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 17

noted by Kristeva herself as typical of Lautreamont's semantic negations. By negating Pascal's scepticism, Lautreamont is setting against it a statement of optimism and affirming himself. Kristeva's practical analysis of intertextuality in Lautreamont's work not only demonstrates the flimsiness of the foundations of its revolutionary aureole.8 The concentration on syntax, semantics, lexis, and morphophonemics in short snatches of text also constitutes a significant weakness of this approach to a the­ ory of intertextuality. Kristeva does not go beyond the level of micro-linguistic analysis. Modes of writing in a wider sense: genres, narrative viewpoints, types of narrator, symbols, metaphors, literary characters, the openings and conclu­ sions of works of literature, none of these are touched upon in Kristeva's analysis of intertextuality in Revolution. As a result, Kristeva's applied version of intertextuality carries very little conviction and is of little value, even if the theo­ retical concept she created has achieved such wide resonance. Morgan seems to imply a similar judgement when she describes as Kristeva's most important contribution to the debate on intertextuality the not very original idea 'that an intertextual citation is never innocent or direct, but always transformed, distorted, displaced, condensed or edited in some way to suit the speaking subject's value system' (Morgan 1985,22). In many respects, Bakhtin, who inspired Kristeva to coin the term intertextuality, is diametrically opposed methodologically to Kristeva's analytical application of intertextuality. In the first place, he understood dialogism as a characteristic of narrative and he emphasized as essential for dialogism the concrete embodiment of speech, something which he regarded as impossible in poetry. In addition, as far as the concrete relationship between different literary texts was concerned, Bakhtin was not interested in the micro level (changes of letters, individual words etc.) but only in the macro level. If intertextuality is to be understood as the relationship between two literary texts, then Bakhtin's idea of camivalization is more useful than his concept of dialogism. In the Stalinist era in the Soviet Union, Bakhtin conceptualized carnival with its suspension of hier­ archical systems and the overcoming of distance between people as a position of resistance. According to Bakhtin, the forms of carnival have influenced those of literature over millenia and prepared the way for Dostoevsky's invention of the polyphonic novel (Bakhtin 1973, 149). Bakhtin asserts a camivalesque tradition in literature, a camivalesque genre, which is modified by the contribution of each new work. An author does not need to know all the details of the tradition in which (s)he is working, as the logic of the tradition is also visible in fragments of it. Since, however, the genre

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is not in some way ahistorically fixed, an exact knowledge of an author's famili­ arity with a genre helps to gain a deeper understanding of the link between tra­ dition and innovation in the form (Bakhtin 1973, 131). In contrast to Kristeva, who analyses the changes of specific words and phonemes within Lautreamont's appropriation of an earlier author, Bakhtin categorically states: We emphasize again that we are not interested in the influence of individual authors, works, themes, ideas or images — we are interested rather in the influence of the genre tradition itself, which was transmitted through the given authors. The tradition is reborn and renewed in each of them in its own unique way. It is in this that the tradition lives. (Bakhtin 1973, 133)

What Bakhtin is concerned with is the analysis of a distinct basic attitude — a distinct way of seeing the world — in its historical variations, because 'camival­ ization can be employed by various movements and creative methods' (Bakhtin 1973, 134.) Since Bakhtin describes Hoffmann as one of the camivalesque au­ thors through whom Dostoevsky became acquainted with the camivalesque genre, it would be possible to ask, using Bakhtin's approach, the following ques­ tions about intertextuality in relation to Wolf. Was Hoffmann the intermediary between Wolf and this genre? Does Wolf write in the camivalesque tradition? Is there in her work the structure of the camivalesque image that seeks 'to encom­ pass and unite within itself both poles of evolution or both members of an antithesis: birth-death, youth-age, top-bottom, face-backside, praise-abuse, affirmation-negation, the tragical-the comical, etc.' (Bakhtin 1973, 148)? If so, what changes has she made to the traditions of the genre? II The one critic who has constructed a poetics of intertextuality that relates to texts in the narrower sense of the word and who goes beyond the micro-level of tex­ tual analysis is Gerard Genette. Genette's book Palimpsestes is at times some­ what prolix and diffuse: the amount of explanation does not always match the significance accorded to certain textual practices, and the definitions of certain concepts are debatable. Nevertheless, in contrast to Morgan's vehement, not en­ tirely justified criticism of Genette,9 1 am of the opinion that his work (although admittedly leaving room for refinement) presents a rich framework for exact textual analysis. Genette's approach is both structuralist and historical, and makes reference to a large number of literary texts ranging from Homer to the present, as well as to the history of poetological concepts from Aristotle's Poetics to Kristeva's de­ finition of intertextuality in Semeidtike. Within the limits of this essay I cannot go

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN

19

into Genette's analysis of historical modifications to textual practice and literary terminology, and I will only outline his conclusions without reference to context. Genette (1982, 7) chooses 'transtextuality' as a generic term for the relationship of one text to another. He distinguishes five kinds of transtextuality: 1. Intertextuality, by which Genette means la presence effective d'un texte dans un autre1(p. 8) by means of quotation, plagiarism or allusion. Accordingly, he gives a much tigjhter definition of the same concept than Kristeva in her wellknown Bakhtin essay. 2. For Genette paratextuality means material surrounding the text such as tide, sub-tide, headings, preface, appendix, marginal notes, illustrations etc. (p.9). 3. Metatextuality is for Genette the level of commentary, as exemplified in the relationship between the literary critic and the text (p. 10). 4. Hypertextuality denotes the derivation of a text (=hypertext) from an earlier text (=hypotext) by means of transformation or imitation (pp. 11-14). 5. Architextuality is for Genette a silent relationship which refers to the genre. It is found at most in titles that contain reference to a genre and in further information on the title page that refers to a genre. Awareness of the genre to which a text belongs does, however, determine the reader's 'horizon of expectation' (p.ll). Genette points out that in practice these five types often overlap and that they are simultaneous features of textuality and literature as such (Genette 1982, 14-15). However, he emphasizes the different degrees to which these kinds of transtex­ tuality can characterize a text. Instead of looking for fleeting echoes of randomly selected other works and in this way regarding the whole of world literature as a field of hypertextuality (which would render any investigation impossible), Genette, (like Riffaterre 1979) uses this concept only when the text makes clear to the reader its reference to the other text: Jenvisage la relation entre le texte et son lecteur d'une maniere plus socialist, plus ouvertement contractuelle, comme relevant d'une pragmatique consciente et organisee. J'aborderai done ici, sauf exception, l'hypertextualite par son versant le plus ensoleille: celui ou la derivation de l'hypotexte a l'hypertexte est a la fois massive (toute une oeuvre B ddrivant de toute une oeuvre A) et declaree, d'une manigre plus ou moins officielle. (Genette 1982, 16)

Genette devotes his book Palimpsestes to the analysis of hypertextuality, the fourth kind of transtextuality. Starting from Aristotle's definition of tragedy and comedy in his Poetics, he differentiates hypertextual reworking initially accord­

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ing to whether the style or the subject of the hypotext has been changed. Where­ as, according to Aristotle, in tragedy and comedy the style corresponds to the subject being presented, in a hypertext the lofty subject of a hypotext can be presented in a lowly style (this would be burlesque travesty), or the lofty style of a hypotext can be used for a lowly subject (this would be mock-heroic pastiche or, as Genette subsequently calls it, caricature (-charge', Genette 1982,33). He goes on to analyse hypertexts in terms of their intended effect (also called 'regime') and their structural relationship to the hypotext. With regard to effect, he distinguishes playful, satirical, and serious hypertexts (Genette 1982, 36). In terms of structure, he differentiates between text transformation (parody in the narrower sense, travesty, and transposition) and text imitation (pastiche, caricature, forgery). He also concerns himself with so-called hypertextual contin­ uation as a specific case of text transposition (Genette 1982, 181-233). Of all these possibilities of hypertextual practice, Genette considers seri­ ous transformation, or transposition, to be the most important. For while the other techniques are generally limited to short texts as there would otherwise be the danger of boring the reader, and travesty trivalizes, only transposition can lead to the creation of great works (p.237). At the same time, he takes it as selfevident that: 'il n'existe pas de transposition innocente — je veux dire: qui ne modifie d'une manure ou d'une autre la signification de son hypotexte' (p.340). According to Genette, there are the following elementary processes in transposition: 1. Thematic reworking;, diegetic and pragmatic transposition, transmotivation, transvalorization, spatial or temporal displacement, thematic extension or reduction (pp.340-427); 2. Formal reworking-, transvocalization, transfocalization, transmodalization, transstylization, reduction or extension (pp.237-339); 3. Contamination of two or more hypotexts, in which two individual texts, two genres or one genre and one individual text may be involved. Genette cites Grabbe's Faust und Don Juan as a classic example but considers an infinite number of other contaminations possible: On pourrait imaginer des manages plus subtils ou plus inedits: entre deux styles, par exemple, soit — sur le modele de la chimere — le vocabulaire de Mallarme dans la syntaxe de Proust; ou bien une intrigue balzacienne dans le style de Marivaux. Le travestissement, je le rappelle, procede un peu de ce gen­ re de greffe: style populaire sur action epique. Et les variations et paraphrases musicales: Beethoven sur Diabelli, Brahms sur Haendel, Liszt sur Mozart, Ra­ vel sur Moussorgski, Stravinski sur Pergolese, etc. (Genette 1982, 303-304).

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III It has frequently been pointed out that Wolf in her writings refers to the literary tradition in a variety of ways. Countless investigations have shown a whole host of authors, and in particular Romantic writers, to be more or less hidden points of reference in her texts. In relation to Wolfs story Stdrfall, Thomas C. Fox makes use of the term intertextuality, but in practice tends to be working within the parameters of what Morgan encompassed within the metaphor 'inspiration'; that is, he aims to show how Wolf goes beyond the tradition and improves upon it (Fox 1991). Those essays that are concerned with Wolfs relationship to Roman­ ticism10 tend to choose the terms 'relationship to tradition' or 'reception' in prefer­ ence to the concept of 'intertextuality'. One reason for this is that Wolfs own relationship with Romanticism began (and in turn began to be a subject of inter­ est to scholars) before Kristeva's concept of intertextuality had achieved inter­ national resonance — to be precise, at the end of the 1960s with the story Unter den Linden'. It was at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s that Wolfs interest in the Romantics reached its zenith with her essays on Karoline von Gtinderrode, Bettina von Amim, and Heinrich von Kleist (DDA, 511-571, 572-610, 660-676) as well as the story Kein Ort. Nirgends. Wolfs relationship to E.T.A. Hoffinann (primarily in Unter den Linden' and 'Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers') attracted significantly less attention among critics than her rela­ tionship to the authors about whom she wrote essays. That the influence of Hoff­ mann has continued to be significant right up to Wolfs most recent works was my contention in two previous essays (Schmidt 1991,472-474; 1994, 102, 106), in which I referred to the use of Hoffinann motifs in Sommerstiick and Was bleibt. I therefore suggest that a detailed analysis of Wolfs intertextual relation­ ship to Hoffinann is of particular relevance for an understanding of her work and, furthermore, arguably of exemplary significance for an understanding of inter­ textuality in general in Wolfs work. The next part of my essay will concentrate on an analysis of Wolfs story 'Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers', because in this work, whatever further textual references there are to other authors, the relationship to Hoffinann characterizes the structure of the text most strongly. Among essays relating to Wolfs collection Unter den Linden of 1974,11 the work of the Halle scholar Hans-Georg Werner stands out as offering the deepest and most interesting insights, its exemplary significance extending to Wolfs work as a whole. Wemer, who as early as 1976 dissociated himself from a mechanistic cause-and-effect understanding of a writer's relationship to the lite­ rary tradition,12 subverts the two simplistic paradigms implied by Morgan of 'the better older work' or the 'better newer work' through methodological differenti­

22 — RICARDA SCHMIDT

ation that makes it clear that it is necessary 'zu bestimmen, was ein literarisches Werk aus der Vielfalt der theoredsch zur Verfugung stehenden literarischen Traditionen als seine literarische Vorgeschichte konstituiert, welche Faktoren dazu beigetragen haben, welche sozialen Funktionsmfjglichkeiten sich daraus ergeben. Eine so verstandene Analyse der Traditionsbeziehungen eines Werkes erhellt die Eigenart der Produktivit&t, die es zustande gebracht hat' (Werner 1976, 36). Using the example of the story TJnter den Linden', Werner shows that Wolfs conception of Romanticism was mediated through the work of Ingeborg Bachmann, that Wolf makes use of Romantic techniques and a Romantic concept of subjectivity (understood by Werner as an antagonistic relationship between in­ dividual and society), but also that socialist ideas of society are superimposed on Wolfs Romantic world-view and that, furthermore, her intentions bear a resem­ blance to 'der in der deutschen Klassik ausgearbeiteten Idee einer "asthetischen Erziehung zur Humanit&t'" (Werner 1976,62). This means, then, that Werner, instead of constructing a direct line from Wolf to the Romantics, shows Wolfs relationship to Romanticism to be part of a complex interlocking network involving historically disparate traditions. In my view, Werner's insights are largely confirmed in Wolfs later work. What, how­ ever, needs to be shown more exactly are the precise textual manifestations of such a network of traditions in 'Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers'. Werner's view, which in the case of this text is based more on an analysis of content than of form, becomes most apparent when he describes the story as 'am unmittelbarsten an E.T.A. Hoffmann an[schlie6end]' (Werner 1976, 55), meaning by this the use of Hoffmann's vain, socially well-adjusted, pseudo-educated tomcat. The relationship to Hoffinann is direct in the sense that it is made clear from the beginning, is conspicuous throughout, and determines the whole nature of the text. The title is an echo of that of Hoffmann's novel with the addition of the word 'new' pointing to the aim of updating Hoffinann. Using Genette's cate­ gories, one can see that the paratext itself already points out that this is a case of a certain kind of transposition, namely the continuation of a hypotext — or, more precisely, a proleptic continuation, which continues the action of the hypotext into the future, and by heterodiegetic transposition changes the identity of Hoffmann's eponymous hero into that of a descendant of Kater Murr. Then a quotation from Hoffmann's novel, accompanied by title and author, is immedi­ ately placed above the text as a motto. Wolf also takes over Hoffmann's cha­ racter of a cat capable of reading and writing as the first-person narrator, in this case called Max, who describes Hoffmann's Kater Murr as a forebear and is able to quote him (NLK, 119, 124, 129). The quotations and allusions thus demon­

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 23

strate two aspects of intertextuality within Genette's narrower and more precise concept. Alongside the relationships of paratextuality and intertextuality this story follows Hoffinann above all in its imitation of the narrative style of his cat. This places it within the genre of the mock-heroic (supplemented by some contemporization), which is characterized by the contrast between the lowly status of the hero on the one hand and his lofty linguistic style on the other. Moreover, the beginning and the end of Wolfs narrative — a misused quotation by the cat and an announcement of its death by an editor (Castein 1983, 47-49) — are based on Hoffinann. Wolfs transposition thus also contains elements of pastiche. Despite these numerous links with Hoffinann's Kater Murr, I believe the differences between Hoffinann's novel and Wolfs story to be so considerable that there can be no question of describing the latter as a direct sequel. Wolfs trans­ formation from the genre of novel to that of Erzdhlung inevitably causes a reduc­ tion, in content as well as in form. In order to analyse the nature of this reduction I shall first of all look in more detail at Hoffinann's novel. Hoffinann's Kater Murr itself weaves a close mesh of transtextual relation­ ships.13 Its title is in itself an example of what Genette calls architextuality, namely the creation of a certain Tiorizon of expectation' in the reader through reference to literary genres. In this case there is autobiography (LebensAnsichten) as well as biography, as can be seen from the sub-title: nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufdlligen Makulaturbldttem. As Hartmut Steinecke states, both genres are 'in Frage und zur Disposition gestellt' because of the way Hoffinann treats them, for 'die Auto­ biographic ist die eines Tieres und die Biographie bleibt fragmentarisch' (Steinecke 1992, 947). The same applies to the references to the traditions of the Bildungsroman or Entwicklungsroman, as the headings of the sections of feline autobiography reveal, especially the architextual and paratextual allusion in the heading 'Lehrmonate' to the archetypal example of this genre, Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, whose first volume is of course entitled Lehrjahre. Steinecke explains: Da der Bildungsroman eine zentrale Ausdmcksform der deutschen Klassik darstellte, richtet sich Hoffmanns Roman indirekt auch gegen deren weltanschauliche Grundlagen: sowohl gegen den BegrifF der Bildung und die Bildbarkeit des Menschen als auch gegen die Bildungsgiiter und -ziele [...] Die Gattung und ihre Ideale werden der Groteske und dem GelSchter preisgegeben Immer wieder wird der hohe Anspruch der Gattung durch die banale, oft materialistische Konkretisierung desavouiert. (Steinecke 1992, 950)

Hoffinann deconstructs the ideals of German Classicism not only with mockheroic satire (lofty style, animal hero), but above all through the structure of his

24 — RICARDA SCHMIDT

novel. The comedy of the strictly chronologically narrated autobiographical Bil­ dungsroman of the tomcat is interrupted time and again by accidentally reprinted scrap pages in which the Romantic strivings of the genius Kapellmeister Kreisler for the absolute in music are described. Kreisler is so affected by the socially imposed limitations to his musical aspirations that his personality threatens to disintegrate into madness. Kreisler’s Romantic biography acts as a counterpoint to the satirical autobiography of Kater Murr and produces that dissonance between the sublime and the ridiculous, the serious and the comic which is so characteristic of Hoffinann, and is in the tradition of the tragi-comic writings of Cervantes, Sterne, and Shakespeare (Steinecke 1992,951-953), as well as of the fairy-tale comedies of Carlo Gozzi (Eilert 1977, 11). The effect of dissonance is intensified by the way that Kreisler's biography generally interrupts the chron­ ological course of the cat narrative in the middle of a sentence, and is, moreover, itself fragmentary and appears in the novel in non-chronological sequence. This structure, based on contrast, rupture and fragmentation, signals a questioning of the classical ideal of harmony both in relation to aesthetic form and in relation to the concept of the organic development of personality and its active integration into the community (see also L&nmert 1993,416,421). That the structure of Hoffinann's Kater Murr is the decisive mediator of the content (Steinecke 1992, 994; Preisendanz 1963, 79-83), is also to be seen in the way that the cat sections and the Kreisler sections are linked neither on the level of plot (Kreisler and Murr meet only once in the whole novel) nor by means of authorial comment. Instead, the two narratives present the reader with the task of discovering within the heterogeneous sections motifs which, in the manner of music, are related to each other through contrast, recapitulation, variation, inver­ sion etc. For instance, both Murr (LKM, 38) and Kreisler (LKM, 111) speak about the influence of autobiographies on young boys, but characteristically in very different ways, the one bombastically and the other self-ironically. Both the cat and Kreisler ponder on the awakening of their consciousness (LKM, 19-20, 42, 102-116), the one in comic, the other in tragic form. Murr and Kreisler do not, however, illuminate the triangular relationship between individual, society, and art / literature with just one distinct light each; each casts an oscillating light: the Kreisler part of the novel alternates between the tragic and the satirical and humorous; the cat sometimes shows philistine narrow-mindedness, yet frequently within his apparent philistinism there is revealed true insight, which in normal circumstances remains hidden behind ele­ vated concepts. An instance of this latter is when the cat speaks of cuffs over the ear as the beginning of his moral training (LKM, 20): in the idealist philosophy of

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 25

Kant and Schiller, morality represents the lofty state of one who has risen above his urges and acts out of free recognition of his human duty; the cat assumes that morality derives from force. That he is expressing with this anti-idealist view of morality a truth about society's practices becomes clear when, in the Kreisler part, Fiirst IrenSus reports on the weekly beatings of his soldiers. The laudable result of this practice was that 'die Truppen, n&chst der eingepriigelten Moralit&t, auch ans geschlagen werden ttberhaupt gewOhnt wurden, ohne jemals vor dem Feinde gewesen zu sein und in diesem Fall nichts anders tun konnten als Schlagen' (LKM, 25). Hofi&nann's novel therefore acquires the quality of heterogeneity not only through abrupt alternations between cat and Kreisler narrative and between the comic and the sublime, but also through the dual functions of the two protag­ onists. While the cat embodies idealist pomposity within a narrow philistinism and thus serves as the medium for the critique of this, it is also the source of critical social insights. Kreisler is in search of an ideal that surpasses the imper­ fections of society, and at the same time carries within himself the fissures that divide society. Heterogeneity further manifests itself in the variety of frequently interlocking narrator figures and perspectives. — One could reasonably see in this a precursor of what Bakhtin called the polyphonic novel. The alternation of the comic and the serious, of the base and the lofty in Hoffinann's Kater Murr has often been thought inappropriate. Thus, at the begin­ ning of this century the well-known Hoffinann scholar Hans von Miiller attemp­ ted to iron out this disturbing heterogeneity by separating the cat and the Kreisler parts that Hoffinann had so skilfully intertwined. He published separately a Kreisler volume and a cat volume (Muller 1974d). Wolfs exclusive concentration on the satirical cat part is a little reminiscent of this aesthetic cleansing. With the exception of the editor's appendix, Wolfs story contains only one narrator. This means that despite the close links to individual elements of Hoff­ mann's narrative practice, it is possible to say that by leaving out the narrative voice of Kreisler’s biographer as well as those of the many internal narrators Wolf has performed an act of transvocalization, namely from multi-vocalization to single vocalization. Together with this there is inevitably trans-stylization, be­ cause with the elimination of other narrative voices Wolf loses the tension be­ tween the sublime and the ridiculous that characterizes Hoffinann's novel. In Wolfs story one style predominates, the mock-heroic, which Wolf has filtered out from Hoffinann's stylistic plurality in order to imitate it in the form of pasti­ che and bring it up to date. Alongside the lofty nineteenth-century style, Kater Max also speaks in the journalistic, technocratic and Freudian styles of the 20th

28 — RICARDA SCHMIDT

century, not to mention that of socialist bureaucracy. As Hoffinann's modernity14 consists precisely in the way the message of his novel is expressed through a highly complex, heterogeneous structure, Wolfs recourse to a linear, homogen­ eous satire results admittedly in a clear and easily accessible message, but also in what is in aesthetic terms a pre-modem way of writing. Wolfs story changes the message of Hoffinann's novel with both these formal transformations and also with transformations of content. Alongside the diegetic modernization, consisting of the spatial and temporal transposition of the action from Hoffinann's small provincial principality in the Biedermeier period to the GDR, and a GDR of the future at that, a pragmatic reshaping is particularly visible. In the cat part of Hoffinann's novel, Murr indeed recounts his autobio­ graphy in the manner of a classical Bildungsroman, so that the genre is carica­ tured by its use for an animal, but he relates almost nothing directly about the life of humans. There are only two longish anecdotes about human life in this part of the novel, and they are narrated by the urbane poodle Ponto to his friend Murr (satirizing the sentimental idealization of unselfish friendship and ironizing the silly narcissism of a cuckolded husband). In Wolfs 'Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers' the relationship to the Bildungsroman and autobiography is lost, and re­ placed by a relationship to the negative utopia. Max in fact mentions only peri­ pherally a few aspects of his own life, whereas his reports on the life and work of his master (or host, as he calls him in his modernized terminology), the psycho­ logy professor Rudolf Walter Barzel, and his associates Dr. Fettback and Dr. Hinz, are moved to the centre of the narrative. Professor Barzel and his team are working with the aid of computers on TOMEGL (totales menschliches Gltick) and SYMAGE (System der maximalen kdrperlichen und seelischen Gesundheit), which means in reality the reduction of human beings to rationally programmed creatures governed by conditioned reflexes, whose economic efficiency would not be impaired by emotions. As Kater Mutt's acceptance of the Bildungsroman unmasks the very ideals he praises, Kater Max's emphatic acquiescence in this distopian goal contributes to the denunciation (typical of the negative utopian genre) of the instrumental rationality that makes a fetish of technology. In both cases the discrepancy between noble aspirations and banal reality is revealed through the cat figure. While Kater Max praises the goals of his professor, he himself embodies their 'Gegenbild' (Lermen 1980, 114): his behaviour defies all regimentation. His vigo­ rous support for the 'scientific' project through moving around file cards shows how arbitrary the project is, whilst his apparently naive observations on how the

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 27

scientist working on the abolition of the human soul suffers from mental prob­ lems make clear to the reader how false such an endeavour is. Nevertheless, Wolf does not subject the genre of the negative utopia itself to satirical treatment, but only its subject, namely certain social tendencies that appear threatening to her. What Genette calls 'contamination' applies here: Hoff­ mann's satire on the Bildungsroman in the cat part of his novel is transferred in terms of style to the genre of the negative utopia, but in this transfer his satire on his chosen genre becomes a satire on the subject portrayed — a subject which, in the framework of Wolfs chosen genre, is per se negative. For Wolf does here what negative utopian writing always does, namely magnifies existing negative tendencies within society by projecting them into the future, in order to make them accessible to criticism. Whereas Hoffinann satirizes an ideal, Wolf satirizes an anti-ideal, out of which process, ex negativo, an ideal is underlined. The things Professor Barzel, with the approbation of Kater Max, wishes to abolish in the interest of greater efficiency — soul, creative thinking, daring, selflessness, pity, courage of conviction, imagination, sense of beauty, reason, sex (NLK, 119, 145-147) — can be read as an evocation of the Goethean ideal of the develop­ ment of personality, not least in the interests of society. What this means is that Wolfs story invokes as a positive counter-ideal to the satirically unmasked ten­ dencies of the present the very ideal that Hoffinann's Kater Murr questioned through its use of caricature. Thus Wolf undertakes a transvalorization that in my view justifies an interpretation of 'Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers' as a counter-work to Hoffinann's Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr. Wolfs story confirms Genette's thesis that, in terms of faithfulness to the hypotext, hyper­ textual continuations are frequently ambivalent, indeed are often unintentionally anti-texts: 'En general, les continuations infiddles se gardent bien d'afficher une trahison qui n'est peut-etre pas toujours consciente et volontaire, et leur titre [...] proclame une fonction plus modeste et respectueuse: celle d'un simple com­ plement (Genette 1982, 225). Whereas Genette considers these 'unfaithful' con­ tinuations as frequently among the best, in this case I consider that, both aesthe­ tically and in terms of content, Wolfs story represents a regression that falls short of the level of modernism Hoffinann achieved. Paradoxically, Wolfs at­ tempt to combat the social tendency towards standardization and the abolition of heterogeneity has the consequence that her work itself follows the principle of homogenization. Although the nature of the transtextual relationship with Hoffinann's Kater Murr is in many respects a specific one, which is followed in Wolfs later work by other forms of transtextuality (especially in terms vocalization and focaliz-

28 — RICARDA SCHMIDT

ation as well as chronology of plot narration, Wolf is generally much more com­ plex in her later transtextual relationships), I nevertheless think that it is possible to draw some general conclusions from the analysis of this story. On the one hand, one can observe the absence of certain hypertextual practices, namely the satirical techniques of travesty and caricature. Whenever Wolf uses the carica­ turing mock-heroic style (as in 'Neue Lebensansichten'), she imitates the style of the earlier text without submitting it to any recasting (for only a serious text is suitable for such recasting). What is typical of Wolf is pastiche, which imitates the text without any satirical intent, and her pastiche is frequently combined with transposition and contamination. She generally has recourse to earlier texts in order to shed new light upon contemporary social problems with the aid of their techniques and themes. Thus the transpositions generally have a positive didactic aim, they evoke an ideal which is intended to provide orientation in overcoming negative aspects of the present. In this respect, Wolfs hypertexts are often anti­ texts to the hypotexts to which they refer, as these frequently preclude such a positive interpretation. Wolfs tendency to evoke positive counter-images and counter-perspec­ tives to existing social norms implies, despite the social criticism contained in them, not so much what Bakhtin called camivalization but rather a new separa­ tion of high and low, sublime and comic. The profanation regarded by Bakhtin as typical of camivalization is generally absent in Wolfs texts; her tendency is rather to reassert previously questioned ideals.

NOTES Translation by Stuart Parkes. 1. In the original, Barthes relates the code of the 'seme' to the unity of the 'signifi6' (Barthes 1970, 24). The English version (S/Z, trans. by Richard Millar; Jonathan Cape, London, 1975, 17) errs at this point, and in fact throughout, by rendering 'signifi6' as 'signifier1. 2. Within the overall concept of the gnomic code (shortened to REF) — also called by Barthes in the plural form 'cultural codes', by which he means 'references to a science or a body of knowledge' (all references in this note are to the English version by Millar 1975, see note 1 above; here p.20) — Barthes gathers countless sub-concepts, which, however, he also calls 'codes'. As a result of this failure to differentiate between cate­ gories and sub-categories, there arises a myriad of codes: 'chronological code' (p.31), 'literary code' (p.33), 'code of novelists, moralists, psychologists' (p.41), 'rhetorical code' (p.57), 'code of proverbs' (p.80), 'code of passion, regret' (p.88), 'code of ages and code of art1(p.97), 'historical code' (p. 109), 'code of illnesses' (p. 119), 'code of the ages of love' (p.124), 'code of authors' (p.126), 'code of love' (p.143), 'code of women' (p. 152), 'code of pathos' (p.169), 'code of tears' (p.202), 'code of universal pessimism' (p.212), 'Christian code' (p.212), 'moral code' (p.214). Whereas the above-mentioned

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN

3.

4.

29

codes are put into the category REF, some codes appear which are not placed within one of the five major categories of codes. It can be assumed that the 'artistic code', the 'pictorial code' (p.55), the 'representational codes' (pp.55-56.), the 'poetic code' (p.75), 'ironic code' (p. 139), 'psychophysiological code' (p. 147), 'code of the young girl' (p.151), 'code governing bourgeois marriage' (p.152), and 'circulatory code' (p.215) can also be placed within the main code REF = gnomic code. When however Barthes writes under ACT, i.e. the proairetic code, that a given action 'can be read according to various codes: psychological [...] Christian [...] psychoanalytical [...] trivial' (p.119), this implies that a sub-code (namely the Christian), can belong to the main code REF (p.212) as well as to ACT (p.119). The multiplicity of concepts in the following series of equations, where Barthes writes about the portrayal of the old man in Balzac's story 'Sarrasine', is dizzying: 'Meanings abound in the portrait, proliferating through a form which nonetheless dis­ ciplines them: this form is both a rhetorical order (declaration and detail) and an anat­ omical cataloguing (body and face); these two protocols are also codes; these codes are superimposed on the anarchy of signifiers [sic. The French original uses 'signifies' (Barthes 1970, 67), i.e. 'signifieds'], they appear as the operators of nature — or of "rationality".' (Millar's version, p.60) Regardless of the fact that understanding the English version is made more difficult by the mistranslation, I still cannot determine to which of Barthes's five main codes these codes = protocols = rhetorical order + anatomical cataloguing = form are to be allocated. A wider concept of text is also used by Ingeborg Hoesterey 1988. But in contrast to Barthes, she does not put the author on one side in favour of the reader. Moreover, she analyses very concrete relationships between works of fine art and literary texts, not anonymous codes. The term 'word', for example, is not used by Bakhtin with its normal linguistic meaning, but in the sense of 'utterance in a concrete context'. By re-interpreting the content of a concept Bakhtin is attempting to overcome the limits of the linguistics of his day and is pointing in a direction which today is defined by pragmatics and relevance theory in a linguistically more precise way. Bakhtin's central concept of dialogism is also quite iridescent. On the one hand he describes Dostoevsky as the creator of a new kind of novel, the dialogical or polyphonic novel (Bakhtin 1973, 4). On the other hand he understands dialogical relationships as an almost universal phenomenon in human life (Bakhtin 1973, 34). Why, given the extra-literary universality of the phenomenon, the monological novel continued to dominate until the time of Dostoevsky is not considered by Bakhtin any more than the discrepancy between what he claims to be the 'dialogical nature of human thought1 (Bakhtin 1973, 71; emphasis RS) and the consequently unnatural 'monological mode of thinking' (Bakhtin 1973, 78) of Dostoevsky’s journalistic writings. Furthermore, the fact that Bakhtin regards dialogue in drama, philosophical dialogue, and dramatized dialogue in prose as monological (Bakhtin 1973, 13-14) is a further sign of his idiosyncratic use of concepts. One can also conclude from this that, for him, dialogism is by no means a characteristic of every text. It is rather the case that Bakhtin sees dialogism as the incorporation of perspective into narration which thus overcomes the tradition of the omniscient narrator. Kristeva's idea that intertextuality characterizes every text and is at the same time a revolutionary departure is followed by Still and Worton. Extending the positive use of the concept, they identify monological texts, resulting from the supposedly centuriesold suppression of intertextuality, as phallogocentric; suppressed intertextuality on the other hand is characterized by them as feminine (Still/Worton 1990, 30). Not only do the last thirty years with their 'celebration of plurality and intertextuality' (Still/Worton, 30) appear from this perspective to be a time in which the feminine predominated; this

30 — RICARDA SCHMIDT

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

perspective also precludes analysis of the fact that intertextuality (in the sense of a relationship to earlier texts) has always been a feature of the literary tradition without having by definition had revolutionary significance. The English and German translations of this book are both abridged: Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. by Margaret Waller, Columbia University Press, New York, 1984; Die Revolution der poetischen Sprache, trans. by Reinold Wemer, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1978. This, in spite of her mentioning Lautreamont by name as an example of intertextuality, is a common misunderstanding of her definition of 1966 and one shared by Barthes in S/Z Kristeva 1974, 345, gives the logical representation P(mt) to describe a sentence P containing the term t and the modification m. By this concentration on only two compo­ nents, her analysis reduces sentences which contain more than the two elements m and t and therefore allow several transformations, in a way that is linguistically unten­ able. Furthermore several of her transformations, as presented in logical form, are wrong. For example, she claims (p.346) that Lautreamont (=Ducasse) transforms Pas­ cal's phrase 'dans une confusion sans dessein' from the structure P fm ^ , r r ^ ) into P(m2^, m ^ ). In reality, however, in Ducasse's transformation of the original into the phrase 'par un dessein sans confusion', the true structure is P(m3t2, m2t,). The trans­ formation given on p.347 in the logical form (p=>q) - * q=>p -» pnr of Pascal's sentence 'S'il se vante, je I'abaisse, s'il s'abaisse, je le vante' into Lautr6amonfs 'S'il s'abaisse, je le vante. S'il se vante, je le vante davantage' uses arrows denoting transformation at the wrong points and does not represent all constituents of the sentence. The logical form of this transformation should be: ((p^q) & (qn p)) -> ((q=>p) & (p=>r)). I am grateful to Chris Lyons for help in unravelling these logical relationships. See also the differently constructed criticism of Kristeva's procedures by Lack 1990. For example, Morgan (1985, 31) objects that the categorical distinction between differ­ ent types of transtextuality cannot be sustained because in practice they frequently overtap, although Genette (1980, 14) points to such overlaps right at the beginning. In addition, Morgan criticizes Genette's theory for assigning hypertext and hypotext to the same genre and thus limiting textual relationships (p. 32), whereas in fact Genette draws up a taxonomy of hypertextuality which contains the most varied crossings of genre boundaries. Baab 1984, Castein 1983, Greiner 1981, Herminghouse 1981, Kurpanik-Malinowska 1991, Wemer 1976. Castein 1983, Lermen 1980, Manger 1976, Svensson 1983, Szymanska-Orlikowska 1979, Tunner 1991b, Wemer 1976. In so doing, he indirectly subverted the GDR view of Romanticism as bourgeois escapism, a view that obtained in official literary circles well into the 1970s and one which he himself had upheld in mild form (Wemer 1962; Hess/Liebers 1978, as an example of an incipient re-appraisal). Meyer 1961,114-134, provides an analysis of the use of quotation in Kater Murr. In emphasizing Hoffmann's modernity at this point, I am not implying that Hoffmann historically transcends Romanticism and already anticipates present-day post-structur­ alist theorems of subject-construction and writing, as, for example, Cixous 1974, Asche 1985, und Momberger 1986 have argued (see my criticism of this appropriation in Schmidt 1988a, 1988b, 1989). I understand Hoffmann rather as occupying a dual role as 'Romantiker und Begrunder der Modeme' (Kremer 1993, 15) but in analysing the transtextual relationship of a twentieth-century author to Hoffmann I particularly em­ phasize his modem features.

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 31

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Hoffmann, E.T.A: Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr in Hoffmann: Sdmtliche Werke, ed. by Hartmut Steinecke and Gerhard Allroggen, V, Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr. Werke 1820-1821, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1992, pp.9-458. (=LKM). Wolf, Christa: 'Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers' in Wolf: Gesammelte ErzShlungen, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1980, pp. 118-150. (=NLK). ------ : 'Unter den Linden' in Wolf: Gesammelte ErzShlungen, pp.65-117. ------ : Kein Ort. Nirgends, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1979. ------ : Die Dimension des Autors. Essays und Aufs&tze, Reden und GesprSche 1959-1985, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1987. (=DDA).

Secondary Works Aristoteles 1972: Poetik, trans. and ed. by Olof Gigon, Reclam, Stuttgart. Asche, Susanne 1985: Die Liebe, der Tod und das Ich im Spiegel der Kunst. Die Funktion des Weiblichen in Schriften der FrQhromantik und im erzShlerischen Werk E. T.A. Hoffmanns, Hain, K6nigstein/Ts. Baab, Patrik 1984: 'Die Mitwelt hat Anspruch auf Auskunft. Konzeptuelle Wandlung der Rezeption des "negativen" romantischen Erbes in der DDR am Beispiel von Christa W olf, Die Horen, 29 (1984), 4, 49-S1. Bakhtin, Mikhail 1973: Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, trans. by R.W. Rotsel, Ardis, Ann Arbor [Russian edn 1963, r.v. of a book written in 1929]. ------ 1984: Rabelais and His World, trans. by Heldne Iswolskky, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2nd edn 1984 (1968) [Russian edn 1965, based on Backhtin's doctoral thesis of 1947]. Barthes, Roland 1970: S/Z, Editions de Seuil, Paris. Bormann, Alexander von (ed.) 1976: Wissen aus Erfahrungen. Werkbegriff und Interpretation heute. Festschrift f(lr Herman Meyer zum 65. Geburtstag, Niemeyer, Tubingen. Bradley, Brigitte L. 1984: 'Christa Wolfs Erzflhlung "Unter den Linden": unerwunschtes und erwiinschtes Gluck', The German Quarterly, 57 (1984), 2, 231-249. Castein, Hanne 1983: 'Christa Wolfs "Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers"', Mitteilungen der E.T.A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft, 29 (1983), 45-53. Cixous, H6l6ne 1974: Pr6noms de personne, Editions de Seuil, Paris. Culler, Jonathan 1981: The Pursuit of Signs. Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London/Henley. Eilert, Heide 1977: Theater in der Erz&hlkunst. Eine Studie zum Werk E.T.A. Hoffmanns, Niemeyer, Tubingen. Fox, Thomas C. 1991: ’Feministische Revisionen. Christa Wolfs StOrfalf in Lutzeler 1991, 211-223. Gaskill, Howard, MacPherson, Karin and Barker, Andrew (eds) 1990: Neue Ansichten. The Reception of Romanticism in the Literature of the GDR, Rodopi, Amsterdam [=GDR Monitor Special Series, 6]. Genette, G6rard 1980: Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method, trans. by Jane E. Lewin with an introduction by Jonathan Culler, Cornell University Press, Ithaca (NY) [Originally: 'Discours du r6cif in Genette: Figures III, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 1972]. ------ 1982: Palimpsestes. La littdrature au second degr6, Editions de Seuil, Paris. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 1977: Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre in Goethe: Sdmtliche Werke, VII, ed. by Ernst Beutler, Artemis and dtv, Zurich/Munich.

32 — RICARDA SCHMIDT Greiner, Bernhard 1981: '"Sentimentaler Stoff und fantastische Form": zur Emeuerung fruhromantischer Tradition im Roman der DDR' in Hoogeveen/Labroisse 1981, 2 4 9 328. Gruttemeier, Ralf 1993: 'Dialogizitdt und Intentionalitat bei Bachtin', Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, 67 (1993), 4, 764-783. Hardy, Beverley 1990: 'Romanticism and Realism: Christa W olfs 'Unter den Linden'. The Appropriation of a Hoffmannesque Reality' in Gaskill et al., 1990, 73-84. Herminghouse, Patricia 1981: 'Die Wiederentdeckung der Romantik: zur Funktion der Dichterfiguren in der neueren DDR-Literatur* in Hoogeveen/Labroisse 1981, 2 1 7 248. Hess, Heide and Liebers, Peter (eds) 1978: Arbeiten mit der Romantik heute, Arbeitsheft 26, Akademie der Kunste der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin. Hoesterey, Ingeborg 1988: Verschiungene Schriftzeichen. IntertextuaiitSt von Literatur und Kunst in der Modeme/Postmodeme, AthenSum, Frankfurt am Main. Hoogeveen, Jos and Labroisse, Gerd (eds) 1981: DDR-Roman und Literaturgesellschaft, Rodopi, Amsterdam [-Amsterdamer Beitr&ge zur Neueren Germanistik, 11/12]. Jorgensen, Sven-Aage, 0hrgaard, Per and Schmbe, Friedrich (eds) 1983: Aspekte der Romantik, Fink, Copenhagen/Munich [=Texf & Kontext Sonderreihe, 18]. Kremer, Detlef 1993: Romantische Metamorphosen. E.T.A. Hoffmanns ErzShlungen, Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar. Kristeva, Julia 1967: 'Bakhtin, le mot, ie dialogue et le roman', Critique, 239 (1967), 4 3 8 465 [='Le mot, le dialogue et le roman' in Kristeva 1969a, 143-173] [-W ord, Dialogue and Novel', trans. by Alice Jardine, Thomas Gora and L6on S. Roudiez, in Kristeva 1986, 35-61], ------ 1969a: ETHisumicrj [=Sdm6i6tikd]. Recherches pour une sdmanalyse, Editions de Seuil, Paris. ------ 1969b: 'Po6sie et n6gativit6' in Kristeva 1969a, 246-277. ------ 1974: La Revolution du langage poStique, Editions de Seuil, Paris. ------ 1986: The Kristeva Reader, ed. by Toril Moi, Blackwell, Oxford. Kurpanik-Malinowska, Gizela 1991: 'Stil und Traditionsbezuge gehoren zusammen. Zu Christa Wolfs Aufarbeitung der deutschen Romantik' in Tunner 1991a, 135-144. Lachmann, Renate 1983: 'Intertextualitdt als Sinnkonstitution. Andrej Belyjs Petersburg und die 'fremden' Texte', Poetica, 15 (1983), 1/2, 66-107. Lack, Roland Francois 1990: 'Intertextuality or Influence: Kristeva, Bloom and the Po6sies of Isidore Ducasse' in Worton/Still 1990,130-142. Ldmmert, Eberhard 1993: 'Der Autor und sein Held im Roman des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts', The German Quarterly, 66 (1993), 4, 415-430. Lermen, Birgit 1980: 'Das Menschenbild in Christa Wolfs ErzShlung "Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers'" in Michels 1980, 97-116. Lutzeler, Paul Michael (ed.) 1991: SpStmodeme und Postmodeme. BeitrSge zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. Manger, Philip 1976: 'Auf der Suche nach dem ungelebten Leben. Christa Wolf: "Unter den Linden"' in Bormann 1976, 903-916. Meyer, Herman 1961: Das Zitat in der Erz&hlkunst. Zur Geschichte und Poetik des europdischen Romans, Metzler, Stuttgart. Michels, Gerd (ed.) 1980: Festschrift fQr Friedrich Kieneckerzum 60. Geburtstag, Groos, Heidelberg. Momberger, Manfred 1986: Sonne und Punsch. Die Dissemination des romantischen Kunstbegriffs bei E. T.A. Hoffmann, Fink, Munich. Morgan, Thais E 1985: 'Is There an Intertext in This Text?: Literary and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Intertextuality', American Journal of Semiotics, 3 (1985), 4 ,1 -4 0 . Muller, Hans von (ed.) 1903: Das Kreislerbuch. Texte, Compositionen undBilder von E.T.A. Hoffmann, compiled by Hans von Muller, Insel, Leipzig.

INTERTEXTUALITY EXAMINED: WOLF AND HOFFMANN — 33 ------ (ed.) 1916: Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr, new edn by Hans von Muller after E.T.A. Hoffmann's edition, Insel, Leipzig. ------ 1974a: Gesammelte Aufsdtze QberE.T.A. Hoffmann, ed. by Friedrich Schnapp, Gerstenberg, Hildesheim. ------ 1974b: 'Selbstanzeige des 'Kreislerbuchs'. (Sonderdruck, Ende Dezember 1902)' in Muller 1974a, 41^46. ------ 1974c: 'Aus der Einleitung zum Kreislerbuch. (Das Kreislerbuch. Texte, Compositionen und Bilder von E.T.A. Hoffmann, zusammengestellt von Hans von Muller. Im Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, 1903)' in Muller 1974a, 47-90. ------ 1974d: 'Die Entstehung des Murr-Kreisler Werkes unter Berucksichtigung der sonstigen literarischen Produktion Hoffmanns in den Jahren 1818-1822. (Eigenhdndige Niederschrift Hans v. Mullers im Besitz des Herausgebers)' in Muiler 1974a, 331-380. 0hrgaard, Per 1983: 'He Butt! Das ist Deine andere Wahrheit. Die Romantik als Bezugspunkt in der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur' in Jorgensen et al. 1 9 8 3 ,1 2 8 145. Pelz, Annegret et al. (eds) 1988: Frauen — Literatur— Politik, Argument-Verlag, Hamburg [=Argument-Sonderband, AS 172/173], Preisendanz, Wolfgang 1963: Humor als dichterische Einbildungskraft. Studien zur ErzShlkunst des poetischen Realismus, Eidos Verlag, Munich. Renner, Rolf Gunter 1988: Die postmodeme Konstellation. Theorie, Text und Kunst im Ausgang der Modeme, Rombach, Freiburg. Riffaterre, Michael 1979: La production du texte, Editions du Seuil, Paris. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith 1983: Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, Methuen, London. Rosen, Robert S. 1970: E.T.A. Hoffmanns 'Kater Murr1. Aufbauformen und Erzdhlsituationen, Bouvier, Bonn. Schmidt, Ricarda 1988a: 'E.T.A. Hoffmanns Erzdhlung DerSandmann — ein Beispiel fur 'Venture feminine'?' in Pelz et al. 1988, 75-93. ------ 1988b : 'Asche, Susanne: Die Liebe, der Tod und das Ich im Spiegel der Kunst. Die Funktion des Weiblichen in Schriften der FrQhromantik und im erzShlerischen Werk E.T.A. Hoffmanns', Das Argument, 168 (1988), 281-282. ------ 1989: 'Momberger, Manfred: Sonne und Punsch. Die Dissemination des romantischen Kunstbegriffs bei E.T.A. Hoffmann. McGlathery, James M.: Mysticism and Sexuality: E.T.A. Hoffmann', Das Argument, 177 (1989), 788-790. ------ 1991: 'Die Dialektik zwischen Wort und Wirklichkeit, dem Selbst und dem Fremden in Christa Wolfs SommerstQcK, German Life and Letters, 44 (1991), 469-476. ------ 1994: 'Religidse Metaphorik im Werk Christa Wolfs' in Wallace 1994, 73-106. Stanzel, Franz K. 1989: Theorie des ErzShlens, 4th rev. edn, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Gottingen. Steinecke, Hartmut 1992: 'Kommentar* in E.T.A. Hoffmann: Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr. Werke 1820-1821. [=E.T.A. Hoffmann. SSmtliche Werke. V]. pp.887-994. Still, Judith and Worton, Michael 1990: 'Introduction' in Worton/Still 1990. Svensson, Sture E. 1983: 'Gesellschaftliche Utopie in der DDR-Literatur. Christa Wolfs "Neue Lebensansichten eines Katers"', Modema spr&k, 77 (1983), 223-227. Szymanska-Oriikowska, Anna 1979: 'Zur Problematik des Phantastischen in den ErzShlungen von Christa Wolf "Unter den Linden'", Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, ser. 1, 59 (1979), 91-98. Todorov, Tzvetan 1987: 'Human and Interhuman: Mikhail Bakhtin' in: Todorov: Literature and Its Theorists. A Personal View of Twentieth-Century Criticism. Eng. trans. by Catherine Porter, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, pp.70-88. [Originally published as Critique de la critique, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 1984].

34 — RICARDA SCHMIDT Tunner, Erika (ed.) 1991a: Romantik — eine lebenskrSftige Krankheit: ihre literarischen Nachwirkungen in der Modeme, Rodopi, Amsterdam [=Amsterdamer Beitr&ge zur Neueren Germanistik, 34]. ------ 1991b: 'Fabelhafte Begebenheiten. Aus den Papieren eines reisenden Enthusiasten' in Tunner 1991a, 235-243. Wallace, Ian (ed.) 1994: Christa Wolf in Perspective, Rodopi, Amsterdam [=German Monitor, 30 (1994)]. Wemer, Hans-Georg 1962: E.T.A. Hoffmann. Darstellung undDeutung der Wirklichkeitim dichterischen Werk, Arion Verlag, Weimar. ------ 1976: 'Zum Traditionsbezug der ErzShlungen in Christa Wolfs Unter den Linden', Weimarer Beitrage, 22 (1976), 4, 36-64. Worton, Michael and Still, Judith (eds) 1990: Intertextuality. Theories and Practices, Manchester University Press, Manchester/New York.

CHRISTA WOLF AND BERTOLT BRECHT: A CASE OF EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY? RENATE RECHTIEN

According to Sara Lennox, Christa Wolfs entire work may be said to be the product of a tension generated between two poles marked by Bertolt Brecht and Ingeborg Bachmann, the influence of Bachmann growing progressively stronger from the 1970s. Lennox has also pointed out that pursuing Brecht's influence on Wolf and her growing disenchantment with him would be a fascinating enterprise (Lennox 1989, 128). In raising this issue Lennox is echoing Wolf herself who stated in her 1966 essay on Brecht: 'Es kftnnte eine interessante Studie werden, wenn jemand es untem&hme, das Verhaltnis meiner Generation zu Brecht zu untersuchen’, before reminding herself that Brecht would have preferred to have this relationship expressed in terms of 'Spannungen* und 'Entwicklung' (DdA, 8385). To date, few critics have examined the influence of Brecht on Wolf in any detail and those who have done so have arrived at contradictory conclusions.1 Since her first encounter with Brecht's theatre in the early 1950s, Christa Wolf has engaged with Brecht, both overtly and covertly, in her prose and essay works as well as frequently referring to him in interviews and conversations. In this light, a remark she passed in a conversation in the United States in 1983 to the effect that, despite an initially positive attitude towards Brecht, she had later become aware that 'Brecht auf mich als Autorin iiberhaupt keinen Einflufi gehabt hat, dafi ich mich nie mit ihm auseinandergesetzt habe, weder positiv noch negativ' {DdA, 907), suggests that an element of tension in her relationship to her lite­ rary forebear clearly does exist. This essay seeks to illuminate the nature of this tension and will also re-examine the extent to which Wolfs work develops and refines some of the political, socially critical, and aesthetic concerns of Brecht and other socialist intellectuals of his generation. It will focus on two key stages in Wolfs development as a writer, when the question she had first posed in 1964: 'Wie aber soil man heute schreiben?' (DdA, 22), assumed a new and urgent rele­ vance. These stages came in the later 1960s, as part of Wolfs search for new prose forms, and the 1980s, when the crisis within her own society, reflecting developments across the Eastern bloc and also within Western civilization more generally, prompted her to challenge the received truths of Marxism as well as some of the fundamental assumptions on which European culture rests. For Wolf,

36 — RENATE RECHTIEN

this involved a fundamental rethink of her role as a woman writer in European society. But it also led her to renew her interest in Brecht, as the intertextual references to him in Stdrfall and Kasscmdra indicate, for reasons which have not yet been adequately explained. In his analysis of Brecht in the GDR, David Bathrick has stressed the con­ troversial role and the contradictory function which the dramatist played through­ out the cultural and political history of that society, which Bathrick discusses in terms of'the dialectics of legitimation' (Bathrick 1974, 91). This he takes to de­ scribe the two diametrically opposed, yet intricately linked functions of Brecht's revolutionary theatre within GDR culture. On the one hand, beginning with Brecht’s return to the GDR in 1948 and his production of Mutter Courage in 1949, his theatre was supported as a distinctive feature of 'socialist national culture', and was thus used to serve the cultural aims of the SED. On the other hand, however, Brecht was always at odds with the prevailing official, affirma­ tive notion of culture and continuously sought to challenge, undermine, and trans­ form it. Forged as a means of transforming society, art was understood by Brecht to be more than simply a superstructural affirmation of reality. He defined its role as active and critical appropriation of reality, with the artist confronting, expos­ ing, and acting upon real societal contradictions with a view to bringing about social change. Going back to his debate about realism in art with Georg Lukacs in the 1930s, Brecht was particularly at odds with the prominence given in the official Xulturerbe' to the literature of Weimar classicism as well as with the dog­ matic and unidimensional manner in which the works of Goethe and Schiller were being proposed as models for contemporary authors. With his blanket re­ jection of bourgeois culture and aesthetics and his experimentation with alter­ native art forms (montage, techniques of 'Verfremdung', epic theatre), Brecht, according to Bathrick, drew on the artistic and political tradition of the Formalists and Futurists of post-revolutionary Russia (Tretjakov, Arvatov) and introduced production aesthetics into the GDR as an alternative and challenge to socialist realist art (Bathrick 1980). Brecht's aesthetics aimed at more democratic and emancipatory art-forms and rejected any hierarchical understanding of social, political, or artistic production. But it is precisely this challenging and potentially subversive dimension of his work which official GDR criticism tended to ignore or play down, as it was considered too threatening to the ideological programme and hegemony of the SED.2 At the same time, it is the emancipatory and demo­ cratic potential of Brecht's notion of unfettered production and particularly the notion of the writer as a co-producer, not merely a recorder, of the social process

WOLF AND BRECHT: EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY

37

which has served to inspire younger writers in the GDR, who have drawn on and replenished his dialectical critical tradition. There can be little doubt that Wolfs work also stands within this tradition nor that, whether consciously or unconsciously, she has addressed a number of the issues and concerns which had also been of importance to him.Wolf first be­ came acquainted with his work as a student at Leipzig University, when her first reaction to it can be described as a mixture of admiration, curiosity, and a con­ siderable degree of misunderstanding (DdA, 83-85). Her account of visiting the Berliner Ensemble stresses the deep and lasting impression his innovative, pas­ sionate, and fresh approach made on her and points in particular to her spontan­ eous admiration for his sacrilegious handling of the classical literary heritage. Furthermore, his dramatic technique of involving the audience emotionally, while at the same time appealing to its desire for a rational understanding of why the characters act in a particular manner, aroused her curiosity. However, due partly to the manner in which GDR Germanists at the time taught Brecht and partly to the over-confidence of her generation, whose members were only too keen to consider themselves the 'Menschen des wissenschaftlichen Zeitalters' (DdA, 84) whom Brecht had addressed, much of the fundamentally critical and challenging aspects of Brecht's aesthetics and theatrical practice was overlooked. As a conse­ quence, most of her generation also failed to understand Brecht's message regard­ ing their own role in the historical process and in shaping the future of their society. Looking back in the later 1960s, Christa Wolf deplores the fact that people in the GDR of the 1950s had not been ready for Brecht's revolutionary theatre; as a result, it tended to be imitated rather than properly understood.3 In the early stages of her interest in Brecht, Wolf was more involved with his dra­ matic technique than with the ethical issues of works such as Leben des Galilei or his adaptation of Urfaust; later, however, these issues were to assume great importance for her. Wolfs first major prose work Der geteilte Himmel (1963) shows that, at this stage, she had a selective interest in Brecht's Galilei. The narrative raises cri­ tical questions about the importance of truth and honesty in socialist society when the main protagonist, Rita, asks: 'Hat es Sinn, die Wahrheit, die man kennt, immer und unter alien Umstdnden zu sagen?' (GH, 185). With the insertion of 'die man kennt', Wolf directly alludes to the words of Galilei who explains: 'Wer die Wahrheit nicht weiB, der ist blofi ein Dummkopf. Aber wer sie weiB und sie eine Liige nennt, der ist ein Verbrecher1(Brecht 1963, 81). In contrast to Brecht's un­ conditional demand for truth and honesty at all times, the prevailing opinion in the GDR of the early 1960s, as expressed in Wolfs prose work by the character

38 — RENATE RECHTIEN

Schwarzenbach, suggests a more tactical approach when he states: Die reine nackte Wahrheit, und nur sie, ist auf die Dauer der Schlussel zum Menschen. Warum sollen wir unseren entscheidenden Vorteil freiwiUig aus der Hand legen?' (GH, 186; my italics, RR). Although Schwarzenbach is undoubtedly a committed and well-meaning socialist, his response suggests that it is considered legitimate to hide the truth, at least temporarily, from the people, provided this is done for the good of society at large and in the interest of the right cause. By implication, some people in socialism are therefore given the right to 'own' the truth and to transmit it in carefully measured doses to the people at large in the interests of socialist progress. Wolf questions this understanding of truth as an absolute concept which manifests itself through the great causes of history (in this case, socialism) and stresses instead the importance of individual perceptions and the realization 'daB es meine, deine, seine, auch unsere Wahrheit gibt — die Uberzeugung der Subjekte, das Richtige zu treffen' (JSger 1973, 24). Given that Wolf herself was one of the intellectuals who, following the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, welcomed the extra freedom for debate which the new situ­ ation seemed to offer them, her intertextual reference to Brecht in this passage does express an inner tension which was never analysed in official GDR criticism (Jager 1973, 25). In contrast to the passive and crude reflection of society caled for by socialist realist doctrine, with its emphasis on the inevitability of the process of social development, Brecht's method stressed the importance of awareness of the contradictory nature of social relations, thereby not only making evident the potential for change, but also indicating directions it could take. For him, a funda­ mental precondition for genuine social change was that people should arrive at a new understanding themselves, rather than through the acceptance of a new ideo­ logy imposed from above. Thus, his theatre addressed an audience which would be 'stets kritisch [...] und wachsam, auch keiner revolutionaren Legende erliegend' (Mayer 1971, 240). For Wemer Mittenzwei, Brecht's essential partisanship and commitment to the political struggles of his time manifests itself through the Lust am Erkennen' and the 'SpaB an der Veranderung' which his theatre inspires (Mittenzwei 1967, 257; DdA, 83-85). Fundamental to Brecht's method of help­ ing his audience to a new way of seeing, of transcending the appearances of a false reality guided by false consciousness, is his technique of 'Verfremdung' which, according to Mittenzwei, sets itself the goal 'das Allt&gliche auff&llig zu machen, damit es in den Blickpunkt des Betrachters riickt, damit dieser sich wundert und sich fragt, ob es nicht auch anders sein kdnnte. Sich zur Wirklichkeit so

WOLF AND BRECHT: EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY — 39

zu verhalten, als kenne man sie bereits, schien Brecht ein verhangnisvoller Irrtum zu sein' (Mittenzwei 1967, 262). For Wolf, who has been as committed to social change as Brecht was be­ fore her, prose writing in the GDR also had to be firmly anchored in the contra­ dictions arising out of the everyday experiences of people in society, since 'der VorstoB zu den Fragen unserer Zeit ist — jedenfalls in der Prosa, wenn sie sich nicht im Gleichnishaften bewegen will — an das AlMgliche gebunden’ (DdA, 18). And, for her as for Brecht, writing has little to do with a desire for spreading comfortable truths and harmony in the manner in which socialist realist dogma would have it, but springs from the 'anstrengende[n], schmerzhaftefn] Versuch, nicht zu Vereinbarendes miteinander zu vereinbaren', which has always been 'ei­ ne Wurzel fiir den Zwang zum Schreiben' (DdA, 65). In her essay 'Tagebuch — Arbeitsmittel und Ged&chtnis' (1964), Wolf quotes from Brecht's poem 'Lektiire ohne Unschuld' (1944) and from his diary of 1955 in order to stress the fact that one such fundamental contradiction in modern society, which he had already identified in the 1940s and 1950s, had lost none of its topicality and relevance for the GDR of the mid-1960s, namely the gap between the 'Entwicklungsstand der Wissenschaft und den vielerorts zuriickgebliebenen Gesellschaftszustdnden' (DdA, 22). Picking up Brecht's warnings against the destructive potential of tech­ nological and scientific advance as it had been revealed in twentieth-century warfare, Wolf reminds her readers that this dangerous contradiction has remained very much unresolved. Furthermore, she holds it responsible for the many mani­ festations of politically apathetic attitudes and behaviour patterns in modem soci­ alist society. Like Brecht, Wolf believes that artistic and literary production has an important, if not essential, role to play in helping to bridge this gap and in seeking to help people overcome a deep-seated resistance to and disbelief in the possibility of change. Wolf clearly identifies with Brecht's method of confronting his audience with complex issues rather than offering easy answers as a means of promoting independent, mature, and critical thought. And when she writes, refer­ ring to the works of Gorki, Seghers, Thomas Mann, and others, that what they all share with Brecht is 'daB die Struktur ihrer Arbeiten auf eine sehr komplizierte, dfter durchaus indirekte Weise mit der Struktur ihrer Wirklichkeit iibereinstimmt, mit der sie andererseits, Vergnderung wiinschend und verSndemd, dauemd im Streit liegen,' she comes close to Brecht's concept of realism itself. While she does not seek to emulate Brecht, she considers the particular merit of his work for her as an author to be the 'Ermunterung zu eigenen Entdeckungen' (DdA, 85). For Wolf, modem prose writing needs to address the big political ques­ tions as well as the seemingly banal, everyday experience of the individual in

40 — RENATE RECHTIEN

society and to seek to understand the dilemmas and contradictions of the indivi­ dual as a moral agent in a complex social reality. While Brecht emphasizes the importance of a greater rational understanding of the wider social and political determinants which impinge on the individual's ability to act, Wolf stresses, as an equally important prerequisite for genuine change to occur, the importance of gaining greater understanding of the inner, psychological processes which deter­ mine an individual's moral and emotional response to the need for social change. Modern prose must seek to support 'das Subjektwerden des Menschen' (DdA, 503) by helping him/her to gain greater self-understanding in a process of 'Zusich-selber-Kommen' (DdA, 18). This approach, as she stated in a conversation with Hans Kaufinann in 1973, could, like Brecht's theatre, still be explained within the framework of historical materialism: 'Wenn Brecht den Akzent fur seine Untersuchungen zeitweise starker auf die Herausarbeitung der sozialen Determinanten, heutige marxistische Autoren ihn starker auf die Erforschung der Rolle des Individuums [...] legen , — sollte man nicht auch dies mit Hilfe historisch-materialistischen Denkens erklaren kOnnen?' (DdA, 784). When Wolf first fomulated her own prose theory in her essay Lesen und Schreiben' (1968), she expressed her belief that the development of new prose forms in a socialist Ger­ many might begin by combining Brecht's ideas as applied in his epic theatre with Buchner's method and aesthetics.4 This might pave the way for a 'Gattung, die es untemimmt, auf noch ungebahnten Wegen in das Innere dieses Menschen da, des Prosalesers, einzudringen' (DdA, 490). In contrast to Brecht's revolutionary the­ atre, which addressed an audience of the scientific age, prose writing in the GDR of the 1960s in the form prescribed by the doctrine of socialist realism, seemed, for Wolf, to be dangerously out of step with actual social developments. However, in contrast to drama which, according to Wolf, tends to object­ ify characters by placing them outside the dramatist's self and his or her direct personal experience into a constructed reality,5 prose writing, as she envisaged it, should also express the authentic, subjectively mediated experience of the writer, the dimension of authorship. According to her own statement, as a result of the revelations made about the crimes of the Stalin era at the 20th Party Conference of the CPSU, a fundamental learning experience for her, Wolf resolved: kunftig wollte ich zu meinen Erfahrungen stehen und sie mir durch nichts und niemanden ausreden, verleugnen oder verbieten lassen. — Sonst hatte ich ja ubrigens niemals eine Zeile schreiben konnen' (Hfimigk 1989, 21). Wolfs approach to prose writing presupposes that the writer can no longer be the conduit for unalienated reality or agitational didacticism. Instead, the writer's mediation would entail a refraction of that 'external' reality: Lassen wir Spiegel das Ihre tun: Spiegeln. Sie

WOLF AND BRECHT: EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY — 41

kdnnen nichts anderes. Literatur und Wiridichkeit stehen sich nicht gegeniiber wie Spiegel und das, was gespiegelt wird. Sie sind ineinander verschmolzen im Bewufitsein des Autors' (DdA, 496). While Brecht had already rejected the crude socialist realist notion of the artist as passive recorder of reality in his essay 'Wir mttssen nicht nur Spiegel sein' of the 1950s, Wolfs poetological statement devel­ ops his ideas further and stresses in particular the role of the author as conscious subject in history who both acts upon and perceives reality in a manner which is inseparably linked with his/ her entire way of being. Wolfs poetics therefore at­ tach particular importance to the role and integrity of the individual, whether as writer or reader. A further matter of particular concern for Wolf in the 1960s was that art and literature should be ascribed a function outside the demands of the wider social collective, but yet firmly rooted in social reality. She first put these ideas into literary practice with Nachdenken Uber Christa T. (1968). Here, the act of writing itself has become the subject of narration in such a manner as to allow reality to become manifest only to the extent in which the possibility of depicting it is being problematized. And it is precisely this new function Wolf ascribes to literature which Karl Robert Mandelkow considers to be the genu­ inely new and revolutionary element of her work: T)amit hat Christa Wolf den dogmatischen Vorlauf wissenschaftlicher Welterkenntnis in die poetische Re­ flexion zuriickgenommen und die nur attributive Wahrhaftigkeit ihres Erzahlerstandorts in die konstitutive der Wahrheitsstiftung verwandelt' (Mandelkow 1976, 193). However, critics at the time failed to acknowledge this potential and stressed instead, complacently in the West and critically in the East, the subjecti­ vism of the narrator's apparent obsession with the identity problems of her central character. On the basis of my exposition so far, Wolfs aesthetic positions of the 1960s may be said both to draw on and to develop aspects of the critical dialec­ tical tradition emanating from Brecht. In addition to this, I would like to suggest that, beginning with the mid-1960s, she began also to play a similarly complex, yet seminal role to the one Brecht had played a decade earlier within the cultural apparatus of the GDR in terms of the 'dialectics of legitimation'. As Frauke Meyer-Gosau stressed in a study of the relationship between culture and politics in the history of the GDR, the cultural domain was repeatedly turned into the battleground for debates of a fundamentally political nature (Meyer-Gosau 1990). From the outset, writers who opposed and challenged the official norms of socia­ list realism were, in the eyes of the state, automatically considered to be ques­ tioning the very foundations on which the socialist state system rested. Both Brecht and Wolf became increasingly aware of the fine line they had to tread

42 — RENATE RECHTIEN

between their opposition to the hegemony of the SED and their commitment to both the future of socialist society and the development of socialist art and lite­ rature. The overwhelming success of Der geteilte Himmel in the GDR and be­ yond and the way it was acclaimed by SED functionaries as an achievement of national, socialist culture also heightened Wolfs awareness of the special respon­ sibility which her position entailed. By the mid-1960s, Christa Wolfs experiences as a writer in the GDR had made her painfully aware of the dangers which the prevailing reactionary and restorative trend in official cultural politics posed for the future development of GDR literature. Together with many of her colleagues, she perceived an increasing pressure on writers to defend the progress which had been made in artistic and literary practice in terms of experimentation with new art forms and the establishment of more differentiated literary traditions as an alternative and challenge to the official socialist realist dogma. At the same time, she remained convinced that a socialist society would be the only society where literature and art could perform a meaningful social function and she understood her role to be that of a 'Ratgeber' whose reflections could supplement and influ­ ence the decisions of enlightened politicians (Hfimigk 1991, 235). However, Walter Ulbricht's speech at the 9th Plenum of the SED in April 1965 left little doubt about the Party's expectations of art and literature. The cultural policy of party functionaries was now even more explicitly and dogmatically stated than in the early years of the Republic: only literature which supported the wider political and economic goals of the SED would be considered acceptable. At the 11th Plenum of the SED in December of the same year, Wolf took a firm stance against the increasing clamp-down on the creative efforts of writers when she made an impassioned and courageous speech which left Party functionaries and critics in little doubt that she had become a formidable opponent (Drescher 1991). The subsequent difficulties with the publication of her prose work Nachdenken Uber Christa T., as well as her rejection as a candidate for the Central Committee gave Wolf a first taste of the manner in which the Party penalized dissident voices. At the 6th Writers Conference in May 1969, Max Walter Schulz condemned Nachdenken because of its supposed subjectivist and reactio­ nary tendencies and urged Wolf: 'Besinn dich auf dem Herkommen, besinn dich auf unser Fortkommen, wenn du mit deiner klugen Feder der deutschen Arbeiterklasse, ihrer Partei und der Sache des Sozialismus dienen willst!' (JSger 1982, 134). The Party's resolve to keep writers under its control had also been expres­ sed in no uncertain terms before this at the 1Oth Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED in August 1965 by Kurt Hager, when he had emphasized the Party's claim to hegemony in all matters: 'Zu diesen Gesetzm&fiigkeiten gehOrt auch die

WOLF AND BRECHT: EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY — 43

Planting und Leitung der geistig-kulturellen Prozesse durch die Partei und den sozialistischen Staat. Sie ist ein wesentlicher, unentbehrlicher Bestandteil der wissenschaftlichen Fiihrungstatigkeit auf alien Ebenen1(Bogdal 1991,43-44). While these experiences first acquainted Wolf with what she later called the 'VerlierergefiihT (DW, 27), her understanding of this kind of defeat was not necessarily entirely negative. On the contrary, given the increasing polarization in GDR culture and society, the perspective of those whose relationship to the do­ minant culture and ideology was characterized by tension or opposition assumed an ever more important role in her work, as 'manchmal, wenn er nuchtera, ohne Selbstmitleid und Selbstschonung, dafiir aber lernf&hig ist, kann ein Verlierer mehr sehen als ein Sieger, und vielleicht Wesentliches' (DW, 31). While debates about art and literature in the GDR were always of a political nature and led to restrictions and constraints of varying degrees and duration, ultimately they led also to a greater acceptance of one model or another of the avant-garde and to a greater elasticity in the notion of cultural heritage and socialist realism, proving that art and artistic change and development were possible. In this respect, Wolfs prolific career as a writer may be said to have at once chronicled and helped shape the course of GDR literature. As I have argued elsewhere, Wolfs work from the mid-1960s consciously and consistently links with literary traditions which may be considered the anti­ thesis of the dominant culture and ideology in the GDR (Rechtien 1994). In con­ trast to the unidimensional image of man propagated through the heritage recep­ tion of SED cultural functionaries, with its idealization of qualities such as action, thirst for knowledge, and industriousness, Wolfs work offered a necessary dia­ lectical alternative by highlighting the equally important role of emotion, experi­ ence, imagination, and reflection. In doing so, she also re-emphasized the much more differentiated understanding of how society could and should progress towards socialism held by Brecht and other committed socialists of his genera­ tion. However, as Hans Bunge's recent documentation of the debates which Brecht and Eisler fought in the early years of the Republic illustrates, their cri­ tical works were considered too uncomfortable for the political programme of the SED and, as a result, were ruthlessly suppressed (Bunge 1991). While Eisler was forced into an involuntary exile, Brecht became canonized as the classic of socialist literature in a manner which was amenable to the purposes of the SED. And it is this affirmative role and function imposed on Brecht's work by the GDR cultural apparatus — the 'erbarmungsloses Scheinwerferlicht der offiziellen Glorifizierung' (Hdraigk 1989, 19) — which may, in spite of the parallels in their respective roles and functions, also go some way towards explaining Wolfs

44 — RENATE RECHTIEN

ambivalence with regard to him. In this light, I take her denial in 1983 of Brecht's influence on her work, especially as she was speaking abroad, to indicate the extreme importance which Wolf attached to guiding critics away from an ap­ proach to the literature of her country which followed the official SED version of literary history in the GDR at the expense of the alternative lines of tradition established in literary practice. By the late 1980s, Christa Wolf clearly regretted that the absence of documents about the tensions, contradictions, and inner con­ flicts of socialists of Brecht's generation had led to a lack of understanding on the part of her generation (HOmigk 1989, 19). In her endeavour to counteract the tendency to regard an author and his/her work as objects, Wolf was concerned in her reception of literary heritage to fo­ cus on authors with whom she felt a deep affinity deriving from a close identifi­ cation with their experiences, conflicts, and concerns. As a woman writer, she felt alienated by 'die Art von Selbstaufgabe, die Brecht Frauen abverlangte' (Hftmigk 1989, 24). Her interest in Bachmann's work during the mid-1960s led her increasingly into experimentation with more personal forms of writing tradi­ tionally associated with women's literature. In the reflective and self-reflective literature of women, Wolf detected a far greater potential for breaking with those literary conventions which promoted alienation and self-alienation and which had, above all, reduced women in patriarchal societies to the level of objects. In addition, the increasing marginalization of writers and artists in the GDR of the 1970s, which climaxed in the expatriation of Wolf Biermann, led to an increasing disillusionment for Wolf with real existing socialism. In contrast to Brecht, who had been able to hold on to his utopian visions of a future socialist Germany, Wolfs experiences left little room for hope and optimism that the contradictions she perceived and thematized in her writing might be resolved by any future socialist state. Forced to become accustomed to 'h&rtere Beleuchtungen, sch&rfere Einsichten, grGBere Niichtemheit1 (Stf. 43), Wolfs writing from the 1970s became concerned with unveiling the silences which the voice of reason and rationality in European male culture and history had sublimated and repressed. Writing from the point of view of a woman within European society, both insider and outsider, Wolf also began to grapple with the difficulties of expressing a more complex and less comfortable understanding of truth which would question not only the most basic assumptions of European culture, but also her own role in supporting the false consciousness of her earlier socialist optimism. Wolfs work of the 1980s, while continuing to engage critically with liter­ ary tradition, also radically breaks with past conventions and offers important new theoretical foundations influenced by feminist aesthetics. As Judith Ryan has

WOLF AND BRECHT: EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY — 45

suggested, Wolfs Frankfurt Lectures (1983), far from avoiding an engagement with questions of poetics, represent a courageous aesthetic experiment (Ryan 1994, 83). Despite her declaration in the first sentence of her lecture that she is not in a position to offer a poetics, Wolf discusses traditional poetics from anci­ ent and modem traditions — and this discussion also includes Brecht, above all whenever Wolf contrasts the clear and secure ideals of German classical litera­ ture with the contradictory nature of life. However, Wolfs discussion of aesthetic norms assumes a very different form to Brecht's in his Kleines Organon fu r das Theater (1944). For her new poetics, Wolf cannot find an adequate predecessor, and she asks her friend A.: 'Sage Dir alle groBen Namen der abendl&ndischen Literatur auf, vergifi weder Homer noch Brecht, und frage dich, bei welchem dieser Geistesriesen Du, als Schreibende, ankniipfen ktinntest. Wir haben keine authentischen Muster, das kostet uns Zeit, Umwege, Irrtumer; aber es mufi ja nicht nur ein Nachteil sein'. Conventional poetics have, for Wolf, been dominated by a male understanding of self and have excluded woman's voice: 'Wenige, sehr wenige Stmunen von Frauen dringen zu uns, seit um 600 vor unsrer Zeitrechnung Sappho sang' (FPV, 146). Furthermore, the normative prescriptions of a maledominated aesthetics have left, above all women writers, with no viable al­ ternative between the polarized choices of 'sich anpassen oder verschwinden zu mtissen' (FPV, 150). Rather than allowing greater understanding of complex reality, they have contributed, through 'Selbst- und Stoffbeherrschung' (FPV, 153) to keeping reality firmly at bay. By giving her own poetics a most unconventional, non-linear, and anti-authoritarian form, Wolf rebels against conventional theories of aesthetics and offers instead a loose mixture of personal, subjective forms (report, diary, letter, and narration) which explicitly excludes the objective aesthetics of her male forebears. In this manner, as Ryan has convincingly argued, the metapoetic and metahistorical narrative of Wolfs Frank­ furt Lectures develop a kind of 'performativer Poetik' which no longer describes, as her predecessors from Aristotle to Brecht had done, abstract rules of art and different genres, but offer instead 'eine neue Art der Poetik, in der Theorie und Praxis nicht voneinander zu unterscheiden sind' (Ryan 1994, 85-86). However, Brecht does return in W olfs of the 1980s, not on account of his poetics, but because of the ethical principles she found in his Galilei at a time of crisis. Wolfs prose writing of the 1980s was informed by an acute awareness of the destructive path towards annihilation and self-annihilation along which Euro­ pean culture and politics were heading. The intensification of the very real possi­ bility of a nuclear confrontation between the superpowers, followed by the first acknowledged nuclear accident on Russian soil at Chernobyl in 1986, left little

48 — RENATE RECHTIEN

doubt about the fact that the leadership in any modem society, whether East or West, would go to any length in order to protect the supposed progress and achievements of modem civilization. In such a climate, any claim to moral sup­ eriority traditionally upheld by socialist ideologues had clearly become unmasked as false by the events themselves. For Wolf as a writer, the full conscious acknowledgement of these complex and dangerous realities forced a final aban­ donment of the notion, upheld by Brecht, of art as a didactic instrument. In Kassandra (1983), she makes this point through an intertextual allusion to Brecht's Galilei, who had rejected the classical notion of the value and merit of individual heroism, emphasizing instead the hope which lay in the socialist concept of the heroic role of the collective. In its turn, for Wolf in the 1980s, this latter concept had also become invalid, as 'Gegen eine Zeit, die Helden braucht, richten wir nichts aus' (K, 156). For her, any notion of heroism, whether individual or col­ lective, remains trapped in conventional patterns of antithetical thinking in terms of victor and victim, subject and object, which Wolfs aesthetics seeks to over­ come. In contrast to this, Wolfs protagonist develops a contradictory understan­ ding of herself as both subject and object of history, as both resisting and at the same time collaborating in present circumstances. While Kassandra apportions blame where it is due and distances herself from the warmongering tactics, atti­ tudes, and actions of the palace world, she also critically reflects the deeply inter­ nalized awareness of herself and others as victims as a first step towards genuine emancipation. This juxtaposition of a self which is resisting and in opposition as well as collaborating at the same time reflects not only modem feminist thought, but also a postmodern recognition that the old dualistic modes of thinking can no longer be of validity in today's world. At the same time, the depiction of Kassandra's quest for autonomy and emancipation as an inner and self-motivated pro­ cess reflects also the critique of modem civilization articulated from a psycho­ analytical perspective and comes close to Margarete Mitscherlich's understanding of genuine emancipation of the human subject: Fiir mich ist Emanzipation: Befreiung von bestehenden, sozial fixierten, oft verinnerlichten Werten und Vorstellungen, die man oder frau als falsch und gefahrlich erkannt hat oder deren Widerspriichlichkeit ausgeklammert wird. Emanzi­ pation ist nichts Abgeschlossenes. Sie ist eher Haltung als Ergebnis. Sie ist fiir den einzelnen, denn nur er oder sie kann sich emanzipieren, eine lebenslange Auseinandersetzung mit der Innenwelt und der von Menschen geschaffenen und gestalteten Umwelt, die sich heute durch heuchlerische Moral, tddliche Rigidit&t, falsche und verh&ngnisvolle Ehr- und Rechtsbegriffe auszeichnet. (Mitscherlich 1990, 174)

WOLF AND BRECHT: EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY — 47

Stdrfall (1986) reflects similar ideas on a much more autobiographical level. By letting the reader witness the thought-processes of her narrator over the course of one day in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident, Wolf depicts this process of emancipation and the search for inner independence from deeply inter­ nalized values and attitudes. In this narrative, Wolf continues to put into literary practice an intention she had expressed in her Frankfurt Lectures: 'Ich will zusammentragen, was mich, uns, zu Komplizen der SelbstzerstOrung macht; was mich, uns bef&higt, ihr zu widerstehn1(FPV, 109). As a highly intertextual work,7 Stdrfall also contains overt as well as indirect allusions to Brecht's work. After the news of the nuclear accident has reached her, the narrator can no longer con­ tinue to look upon the world in her accustomed way, for 'Wieder einmal, so ist es mir vorgekommen, hatte das Zeitalter sich ein Vorher und Nachher geschaffen' (Stf, 43). Just as Brecht's Galilei had turned the belief system of a millemum on its head with his discovery — 'Die alten Lehren, die tausend Jahre geglaubt wurden, sind ganz bauf&llig' (Brecht 1963, 21) — so Wolfs narrator has to leam 'ein neues Sehen' in order to transcend the false appearances of outer reality. But for Wolf, this new way of seeing involves also attacking the deeply internalized val­ ues and beliefs transmitted through Western culture and society over the millenia, and it also has final implications for her socialist commitment. In the course of the narrative, Wolf critically re-examines how our thought has been shaped by theories of evolution, history, biology, and even religion. Attacking preconceived ideas about outer and inner reality seems to involve first of all overcoming the fear of doing so, for, as Kindheitsmuster had already established, Lust und Angst1are 'innig miteinander verbunden' (KM, 13). The narrator's reflections be­ gin, therefore, with an attack on the obvious, outer enemy: the nuclear accident is the result of scientific progress. In contrast to the promises made by GDR scien­ tists of the earlier years that scientific progress in socialist societies would be guided by ethical and humanitarian principles,8 the scientists depicted in Stdrfall have cast aside all ethical and humanitarian considerations. Wolfs narrative de­ picts them in terms reminiscent of the two Fausts in the suppressed works by Brecht and by Eisler, with the emphasis on the dangerous and ruthless side of their nature, as 'Wissenschaftler[n], die, von keiner Ehrfurcht gehemmt, was die Natur im Innersten zusammenh<, nicht nur erkennen, auch verwerten wollen' (Stf, 34) and as 'Faust, der nicht Wissen, sondem Ruhm gewinnen will' (Stf, 73).9 A further indirect allusion to Brecht's warnings against the dangers of scientific and technological advance contained in Stdrfall is the narrator's scream of horror towards the end of the narration which reminds the reader of Galilei's words: 'Ihr mdgt mit der Zeit alles entdecken, was es zu entdecken gibt, und euer

48 — RENATE RECHTIEN

Fortschritt wird doch nur ein Fortschreiten von der Menschheit weg sein. Die Kluft zwischen euch und ihr kann eines Tages so groB werden, dafi euer Jubelschrei uber irgendeine neue Emmgenschaft von einem universalen Entsetzensschrei beantwortet werden kOnnte' (Brecht 1963, 126). While Brecht's apocalyp­ tic vision of a universal scream of horror has not yet become a reality, Wolf reminds us that his warnings, which had been issued with a view to the abuse made of scientific progress in western capitalism and German fascism, have lost none of their relevance and poignancy in modem European societies, whether socialist or capitalist. The reference to Brecht's poem '1940' (Brecht 1969, 104), which is about the early days of the Second World W ar,'dafi die Matter entgeistert den Himmel durchforschen nach den Erfmdungen der Gelehrteri, serves a similar function of underlining the narrator's sense that the horrors of Chernobyl were not new but familiar, predictable, and, perhaps, avoidable. In the face of a massive nuclear accident, ordinary people are shown to have no meaningful course of action open to them. Even full contemplation and comprehension of the extent of the accident has been rendered impossible, for events are dominated completely by the language of science in a conspiratorial pact with political power. For the narrator of Stdrfall, a writer, this has serious implications. While Brecht ,in his essay Ttinf Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der Wahrheit' (1934), had still been able to conceive of literature as a process of communication — Die Wahrheit aber kann man nicht eben schreiben: man muB sie durchaus jemandem schreiben, der damit etwas anfangen kann' (Brecht 1967), the narrator here seems to have lost any belief that she could communicate the truth as she sees it to anyone: 'Mir ist ein Brieftext durch den Kopf gegangen, in dem ich — beschwdrend, wie denn sonst — irgend jemandem mitteilen sollte, dafi das Risiko der Atomtechnik mit fast keinem anderen Risiko vergleichbar sei und dafi man bei einem auch nur minimalen Unsicherheitsfaktor auf diese Technik unbedingt verzichten miisse. Mir ist flir meinen Brief keine reale Adresse eingefallen' (Stf, 113). But Wolf by no means depicts people as mere victims of ex­ ternal circumstances. The narrator of Stdrfall also identifies the political apathy, lack of interest, and passivity of ordinary people in society as important contri­ butory factors. The dangerous contradiction Brecht had pointed to in the 1950s and Wolf had reiterated in her essay Tagebuch' (1964) is shown to have remain­ ed very much unresolved in the GDR of the late 1980s as well. And the 'Ubereinstimmungssucht und Widerspruchsangst' (Stf, 23) of people in the village also highlight the fact that behaviour patterns and attitudes which Brecht and Eisler had traced back to the impact of Lutheranism on the German psyche, have also survived well into the late 20th century.10

WOLF AND BRECHT: EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY — 49

However, Wolfs critical excursion into certain blind spots of modern civil­ ization does not end with her reminders of past warnings unheeded and an exam­ ination of the manner in which present circumstances and the persistence of false consciousness collaborate in and contribute to the present crisis. The narrator of Storfall, albeit reluctantly, takes her questioning much further than Brecht had done by also probing the depths of her own psyche, attitudes, and behaviour pat­ terns in order to gain greater understanding of the extent to which she, as a mem­ ber of an intellectual elite, has collaborated in these conditions. As in Kasscmdra, collaboration and resistance are juxtaposed in the recognition that she has to cast aside her own preconceived ideas and acquired modes of 'seeing' in order to gain greater understanding of herself. An important first step is the narrator's gradual understanding of her own need to think in terms of Teindbildem', which she un­ masks as a means of self-protection, as it allows the projection of unwanted aspects of herself onto an apparent enemy. What she leams is the 'Verzicht auf den Feind' (Stf, 114) which forces her to take a closer and more critical look at herself. As in Kasscmdra, Wolfs questions and reflections in Stdrfall move far beyond the ethical issues addressed in Brecht's Galilei or his Urfaust. In conclusion, I would argue that Christa Wolf has, in her prose and essay work, repeatedly engaged with Brecht's work and aesthetics. During the 1960s, this centred to a large extent around her search for new prose forms and the development of an aesthetics which would challenge and oppose the officially propagated dogma of socialist realism. In this quest, Brecht's theatre could act as inspiration as well as offer important theoretical insights on which Wolf could build. Wolfs attitude to tradition and her reception of other writers has been informed throughout by the understanding that such relationships should be pro­ ductive and lead to personal as well as professional growth. But it has also been underpinned by the need for close identification and affinity with other authors (whether contemporary or of earlier generations) in an endeavour to counteract the reduction of their work, found frequently in literary criticism, to the level of object. W olfs growing disillusionment with real existing socialism and her heightened awareness especially of the object-status of women in society in European culture and history, led to her becoming increasingly influenced by women's literature and feminist aesthetics. However, in her aesthetic experiments of the 1980s and her critical examination of conventional poetics, Brecht has continued to play a role. In a manner not dissimilar to Brecht's own approach to literary heritage and convention, Wolfs intention has never been to invalidate the important insights and developments of other writers before her, but rather to arrive at necessary new positions on the basis of a fresh examination of the old.

50 — RENATE RECHTIEN

Brecht (above all through Galilei and Urfaust) continued to play an important role for Wolf in terms of his deep commitment to the development of a humani­ tarian and ethical socialism, and Wolf picks up his warnings against ruthless scientific and technological progress which does not serve the interests of human beings, but pursues science and technology for their own sakes. In her essay on Hans Mayer which was written after the demise of the GDR (DW, 31), Wolf de­ scribes the pain and horror she felt when she saw Brecht's grave vandalized by a generation that was obviously no longer able to differentiate between their ex­ perience of the GDR version of real existing socialism and the ideas and hopes for which Brecht and his generation had stood. Wolfs literature, in contrast to this, has consistently emphasized the need to remember and to seek to under­ stand for oneself the issues of both the past and the present. In this respect, she has made it her task in her work of the 1980s to accept also her own respon­ sibility and begin to explain, without wishing to be exonerated: T>u sollst nur sagen, wie es kam' (Stf, 109).

NOTES 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

Sara Lennox sees a definite move away from Brecht in W olfs work of the 1970s to­ wards Ingeborg Bachmann (Lennox 1989, 128). David Bathrick's study focuses on Heiner Muller and Brecht, but he, too, comes to the conclusion that both Muller and Wolf overcome the authority of Brecht in their later work (Bathrick 1980). Emanuel Peter, by contrast, interprets W olf's Kassandm as constituting a move towards Brecht rather than Bachmann (when he terms the protagonist 'eine epische Seherin'). How­ ever, Peter also acknowledges the distinctive influence on Wolf of feminist aesthetics in this work and outlines the manner in which Wolf transcends Brecht (Peter 1985). Werner Mittenzwei was one of the first critics in the GDR who, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Brecht's birth, recognized him as 'the great model for the theatre of the GDR’. Mittenzwei was also the first critic in the GDR to analyse in detail Brechfs debate with Georg LukAcs, which was unpublished in the GDR until 1967 (Mittenzwei 1967). Only five years after Mittenzwei's positive evaluation of Brecht's work, the official verdict on Brecht was reversed and both Brecht and Mittenzwei came under severe attack for their sacrilegious attitudes toward the German classical literary tradition (Hecht 1969, 31; Bathrick 1974, 91). Wolf comments on this in both 'Brecht und andere' (1966) and 'Lesen und Schreiben' (1968). For Buchner, the artist's desire for greater understanding and knowledge of the world must be based on love and compassion rather than rationality. His aesthetic theory is expressed by his character Lenz, who states: 'Man muB die Menschheit lieben, um in das eigentumliche Wesen jedes einzudringen; es darf einem keiner zu gering, keiner zu hd&lich sein, erst dann kann man sie verstehen' (Buchner 1982,15). Wolf made this point in a discussion at Ohio State University when she replied to the question why women rarely write drama: 'Man hat das Problem, die Figuren aus sich herauszustellen, ganz zu objektivieren und in eine Konstruktion zu bringen' (DdA, 907).

WOLF AND BRECHT: EXTENDED INTERTEXTUALITY — 51 6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

'Wir mussen nicht nur Spiegel sein, welche die Wahrheit auBer uns reflektieren. Wenn wir den Gegenstand in uns aufgenommen haben, muB etwas von uns dazukommen, bevor er wieder aus uns herausgeht' (Brecht 1964, 73). For a more detailed analysis of this aspect see Haines 1994. In W olfs conversation with the GDR biologist Hans Stubbe in the later 1960s, the latter had affirmed his belief that scientific progress in the GDR will and must occur in a manner which echoed Brecht's understanding of it: 'Die Frage: Sollen wir weiterforschen? ist mu&ig. W ir werden weiterforschen. Was erfindbar ist, wird erfunden wer­ den. Aber wir werden unsere eigenen Erfahrungen nur a/s Menschen iiberleben, als vemunftbegabte Wesen in vemiinftig organisierten Gesellschaften — Oder gar nicht.' (DdA, 724). See Brecht 1963, 78: 'der Sieg der Vemunft kann nur der Sieg der Vernunftigen sein'. For a detailed discussion of the significance of this aspect in Brecht's Urfaust and Hanns Eisler1s opera project Johann Faustus see Maue 1981, 20. Karl Otto Maue comes to the conclusion that official interpretations of German cultural history in the GDR, rather than being interested in overcoming this particular legacy, had contributed significantly to ensuring the survival of these very characteristics. GDR efforts to re-establish links to German humanism and Goethe's classicism had been far less significant than had been generally claimed: 'Statt zuwenig Sozialismus und zuviel Humanismus, wie der DDR-Fuhrung jener Jahre in der Sekunddrtiteratur hdufig vorgeworfen wird [...] scheint die festgestellte Ideologisierung auch der Faust-Dichtung ein Beispiel dafur zu sein, da& von der DDR-Fuhrung gar nicht so sehr an die Ideale des Humanismus angeknupft wurde, sondem vielmehr an solche, die vor der Zeit des Hu­ manismus entstanden und mehr mit dem Namen Martin Luthers in Verbindung zu bringen sind als mit dem Goethes: Gemeint sind Strebsamkeit, Unterordnung, Obrigkeitsgiaubigkeit, Duckmdusertum und Anpassungswille' (Maue 1981, 89).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Wolf, Christa: Die Dimension des Autors. Essays und AufsStze, Reden und GesprSche, 1959-1985, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1987. (=DdA). All essays are cited from DdA as follows: 'Tagebuch — Arbeitsmittel und GedSchtnis' (December 1966), 13-27. 'Auskunft' (October 1979), 64-66. 'Brecht und andere' (April 1966), 83-85. 'Lesen und Schreiben' (1968), 463-503. 'Ein Besuch' (1969), 695-726. 'Subjektive Authentizitat. GesprSch mit Hans Kaufmann' (1973), 773-805. 'Aus einer Diskussion an der Ohio University. Gesprdch mit Christa und Gerhard W olf (May 1983), 896-911. Wolf, Christa: Dergeteilte Himmel, dtv, Munich, 1973. (=GH). ------ : Nachdenken Qber Christa T„ Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1971. (=CT). ------ : Kindheitsmuster, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1976. (=KM). ------ : Voraussetzungen einer ErzShlung: Kassandra [= Frankfurter Poetik-Vorlesungen], Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1983. (=FPV). ------ : Kassandra. ErzShlung, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1984. (=K). ------ : StOrfall. Nachrichten eines Tages, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1987. (=Stf). -------: 'Ein Deutscher auf W id erru f, neue deutsche literatur, 2 (1991), 2 4 -3 1 . (=D W ).

52 — RENATE RECHTIEN

Secondary Works Agde, Gunter (ed.) 1991: Kahlschlag. Das 11. Plenum des ZK derSED 1965, Aufbau, Berlin. Arnold, Heinz Ludwig (ed.) 1990: Macht Apparat Uteratur. Uteratur und 'Stalinismus', edition text+kritik, Munchen. Bathrick, David 1974: The Dialectics of Legitimation: Brecht in the GDR', New German Critique, 2 (1974), 90-103. ------ 1980: 'Affirmative and Negative Culture: The Avant-Garde under "Actually Existing Socialism" — The Case of the GDR’, Social Research, 47 (1980), 1 ,1 6 7 -1 8 7 . Bogdal, Klaus-Michael 1991: 'W er darf sprechen? Schriftsteller als moralische Instanz — Gberlegungen zu einem Ende und einem Anfang' in Deiritz/Krauss 1991, 40-49. Brecht, Bertolt 1963: Leben des Galilei, Suhrkamp, Berlin. ------ 1964: Liber Lyrik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. ------ 1967: 'Funf Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der W ahrheif in Brecht: Gesammelte Werke, VIII, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. ------ 1969: Gedichte, ed. by Siegfried Streller, Reclam, Leipzig. Buchner, Georg 1982: Lenz, Reclam, Stuttgart. Bunge, Hans (ed.) 1991: Die Debatte urn Hanns Eislers 'Johann Faustus'. Eine Dokumentation, Basis-Druck, Berlin. Deiritz, Karl and Krauss, Hannes (eds) 1991: Der deutsch-deutsche Literaturstreit oder 'Freunde, es spricht sich schlecht mit gebundener Zunge'. Analysen und Materialien, Luchterhand, Hamburg/Zurich. Drescher, Angela (ed.) 1991: Dokumentation zu Christa Wolf'Nachdenken uber Christa T.', Luchterhand, Hamburg/Zurich. Fries, Marilyn Sibley (ed.) 1989: Responses to Christa Wolf. Critical Essays, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan. Haines, Brigid 1994: 'The Reader, the Writer, her Narrator and their Text(s): Intertextuality in Christa W olfs Stfirfall’ in Wallace 1994,157-172. Hecht, W em er(ed.) 1969: Brecht-Dialog 1968, Henschel, Berlin. Hdmigk, Therese 1989: 'GesprSch mit Christa Wolf (June 1987/October 1988)' in Therese Hdmigk (ed.): Christa Wolf, Steidl, Gdttingen, pp.7-41. ------ 1991: '"...aber schreiben kann man dann nicht." Uber die Auswirkungen politischer Eingriffe in kunstlerische Prozesse' in Agde 1991, 231-240. JSger Manfred (ed.) 1973a: Sozialliteraten. Funktion und SelbstverstSndnis der Schriftsteller in der DDR, Bertelsmann, Dusseldorf ------ 1973b: 'Auf dem langen Weg zur Wahrheit. Fragen, Antworten und neue Fragen in den Erzdhlungen, Aufsdtzen und Reden Christa Wolfs' in Jckger 1973a, 11-101. ------ 1982: Kultur und Politik in der DDR. Ein historischer AbriH, Edition Deutschland Archiv, Vertag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne. Lennox, Sara, 1989: 'Christa Wolf and Ingeborg Bachmann: Difficulties of Writing the Truth' in Fries 1989, 128-148. Lutzeler, Paul Michael (ed.) 1994: Poetik der Autoren. Beitr&ge zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. Mandelkow, Karl Robert 1976: 'Neuer und sozialistischer Realismus. Zu Fragen der Rezeption von DDR-Literatur in der Bundesrepublik', Kontext 1 (1976), 175-198. Maue, Kari-Otto 1981: Hanns Ester's 'Johann Faustus' und das Problem des Erbes: Interpretation des Libretto und seine zeitgenOssische Diskussion in der DDR 1952/53, GOppinger Akademie Beitrdge Nr. 113, ed. by Ulrich Muller, Franz Hundsnurscher and K. W emer JauB, Goppingen, p.20. Mayer, Hans 1971: Brecht in der Geschichte. Drei Versuche, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Meyer-Gosau, Frauke 1990: 'Die Ingenieure der menschlichen Seele. Anmerkungen zum Verhiltnis von Literatur und >Stalinismusihr habt mir ein haus gebaut > Ich « . Hilbig does not bother to disguise the similarities between aspects of the external bio­ graphy of his central character and his own life. Like its author, the central char­ acter of » I c h « , M.W., has come to writing from a harsh working-class back­ ground, producing his first tentative poems and texts while labouring as a stoker. But here the similarities end. While M.W. is a somewhat malleable character, Hilbig himself, as noted above with reference to the letter he wrote to the Deputy Minister of Culture, Klaus Hfipcke, is a writer of considerable backbone. The letter was characteristic of a man who, until forced to emigrate to the West in 1985, consistently rejected any compromise with the state over his opinions, life­

78 — MARTIN KANE

style, and writing. This sets Hilbig apart from his creation M.W., who allows himself to be blackmailed into working — initially reluctantly, but with gathering assiduousness — for the secret police. It is here that the point of contact with the author of the novel breaks off, and that similarities with the figure of Sascha Anderson begin to be established. From the late 1970s until his departure for West Berlin shortly before the collapse of the GDR, Anderson was, it seems, the eyes and ears of the Stasi in the unofficial East German literary scene, regularly delivering, under the cover name, inter alia, of David Menzer, succinct and elegantly turned reports on friends, colleagues, and fellow writers (Hilbig included). Not that M.W. (or 'Cambert' to give him his Stasi sobriquet) is meant in every detail to be synony­ mous with the figure of Anderson. Like Anderson, M.W. has more than a passing knowledge of structuralism, postmodernism, and sundry other neo-Gallic schools of thought — he is not above explaining his career as Stasi spy in terms drawn from Baudrillard, or swapping comments with his controller about Foucault. This somewhat unexpectedly sympathetic view of the literary and intellectual exper­ tise of C's Stasi minders is perhaps explicable in terms of an ironic situation we find in Eine Ubertragung where a member of the secret police comments, after reading the narrator's poems, 'Sie sind ja wirklich ein talentierter Lyriker’ (EU, 75), eliciting the reflection that this was the first time he had ever felt flattered by a response to his work. Cambert, however, clearly lacks the style and entre­ preneurial verve with which Anderson carried out his double role, and is much more a projection of the dismal figure Hilbig imagines he himself might have cut, had he been recruited by the Stasi. The projection of the 'I' in the novel as a rather dismal lie1, is nothing new in Hilbig's work: self-alienation, the meticulous if slightly bemused observation of oneself as object, is one of its abiding themes.8 What is new in this novel is an altered view of the role of writing in coming to terms with it. In his earlier work, Die Weiber, it offers a kind of lifeline. On one level, this latter is an exploration of what might befall an individual with a talent for self-expression when he loses the anchoring effect of job routine and contact with his fellow human beings. These familiar points of support are exchanged, when he is sacked from his job as stoker in a laundry, for nocturnal excursions, absorbed, as he puts it, 'in Selbstgesprachen, mir schallende Reden haltend' (DW, 15). Instead of participating in the flow of life, the process of observing it which had already begun in the laun­ dry becomes heightened. External life is used 'um Beschreibungen anzufertigen, die mir ein inneres Leben ermOglichen sollten' (DW, 15). There are hints here at a kind of salvation of the self through the creation of an inner life which are made

WOLFGANG HILBIG'S PRECARIOUS SALVATION — 79

explicit at a later point in the story: 'Wenn es mir gelang, den Besitz einer Iden­ tity zu verspiiren, wenn ich irgendeine schleierhafte Wertvorstellung von meinem Ich je zu entwickeln imstande war, so stets nur dadurch, dafi ich mich schreibend als ein Subjekt erfuhr, als ein Subjekt freilich, das ich niemals 6ffentlich preiszugeben wagte' (DW, 27). In » I c h « , however, no such salvation is on offer from distanced self-observation and the recording of the results. Here the process plunges the narrator, as he becomes ever more entangled with the Stasi, into further depths of self-dissolution and loss of identity. Holger Kulick, in seeking to understand Anderson's case, seems to hint at the possibility of productive schizophrenia in his, on the one hand, encouraging of the literary efforts of fellow underground writers, while, on the other, penning reports about them for the secret police (Kulick 1993). M.W. would be quite in­ capable of handling such treacherous complexities. At an early point in the chro­ nology of the tale when, as one of the ways in which they begin to lure him into their net, the secret police make him an object of suspicion among his work­ mates, writing is a mode of solace and compensation: as he is increasingly coldshouldered, scribbling becomes a way of asserting an identity threatened by ex­ clusion from the human round. Later, as a not unwilling Stasi minion, with any shred of identity outside this role rapidly diminishing, writing, his own writing, suffers. What for Anderson was a cleverly managed duality, is impossible for M.W. His desk — on its left-hand side a scattered heap of unfinished literary jot­ tings, on the right an orderly pile of carefully, even lovingly, phrased reports for the secret police — becomes the graphic symbol of an unsustainable schizo­ phrenia. If, then, one of the main thrusts of Hilbig's earlier prose was to propose writing (creative, self-exploratory writing) as affirmation of identity, here in » I c h « the obverse is demonstrated. M.W.'s neglect of literature and his dwindling ability to write poems as he becomes increasingly the servant of other masters, the composer of prose to their order and taste, place his in any case rather precarious sense of self increasingly under threat. This discussion would not be complete without asking the obvious ques­ tion: why do the Stasi want someone as relatively hapless as M.W. to spy for them? And what might be gained by having a source of information among East Berlin's dissident culture? Here, Hilbig is at his most satirical and amusingly inventive, taking his novel into those areas of specific and discursively formula­ ted critique of the GDR which one finds at various points of his work — in con­ trast as it were to critique which takes the form of atmospheric, surrealistic vision as in the bizarre journey described in 'Beschreibung 11' or, more recently, that of

80 — MARTIN KANE

the grotesque hallucinatory landscapes of Die Kunde von den B&umen and Alte Abdeckerei. In a society which rests on pretence and is propelled by simulation, the greatest fiction to be maintained is of the threat from concerted internal dissidence. M.W./Cambert's controllers know that to imagine this as lurking round every comer in Prenzlauer Berg is an absurdity. But they know too that every in­ competent and oppressive regime would be lost without its real or imaginary scapegoats. The pretence of imminent threat to the system has to be preserved, not only to justify their own salaries and expense accounts, but more importantly to feed the insatiable need of the 'Kalkies' (Hilbig's name for the calcified dead­ heads at the top) for enemies within. How else could they explain away the mani­ fest failure of the socialist dream, rationalize out of being the economic disaster area which the GDR had become? Without the spectre of wild-eyed lyric poets playing fast and loose with the language, subverting thereby not only the state's most sacred ideological shibboleths, but also the very foundations of everything which its defunct leaders had lived for, what excuse would remain but that of their own ineptitude? In conclusion, and, with the demise of the GDR, the main adressees of his protestations of self-assertion and identity through writing a thing of the past, one must inevitably return to questions raised by the title of this paper and ask where, in the light of the post-Wende conditions in which Hilbig now finds himself, he and his writing are to be located. He himself has few sanguine conclusions to offer. In the autobiographical 'Erzahlung' 'Grimes grimes Grab' (written in 1992), an exiled writer finds himself in September 1989 back in the GDR and contem­ plating the prospect of a public reading of his poems which has been organized for the same time as the Monday evening street demonstrations. Literature seems suddenly to have become an irrelevant pursuit. Are the empty chairs at which he envisages directing his 'Verse eines Verschollenen' a perhaps ironic portent of the fate of the east German component of the literature of a unified Germany? And what are we to make of the gloomy analysis he delivers for his standing and voice as a writer in these new circumstances? Dies hatte er erreicht: das hinlanglich geduldete Versatzstuck zu sein zweier verschieden impotenter Leselander, wo er dauemd auf der Hut sein muBte, daB die Lust an ihm in einem der beiden nicht erlahmte, — weder hier noch da, in den beiden pervertierenden Ersatzkulturen, die sich doch nur wechselseitig abstiitzten, wie zwei Kriippel, die mit den blutunterlaufenen Fressen gegeneinander gefallen waren. (GgG, 119)

WOLFGANG HILBIG'S PRECARIOUS SALVATION — 81

NOTES 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

neue deutsche literatur printed the following: 'Darf ich Sie bitten, in einer Ihrer ndchsten Nummem folgende Annonce zu bringen: "Welcher deutschsprachige Verlag veroffentlicht meine Gedichte? Nur emstgemeinte Zuschriften an: W. Hilbig, 7404 Meuselwitz, BreitscheidstraRe, 19b." Ich bitte nach Abdruck der Anzeige, mir die Rechnung zuzuschicken. Wolfgang Hilbig' (neue deutsche literatur, 7 (1968), 187; ZP, 2). The letter, dated 16 February 1981, is reproduced in Wichner/Wiesner 1991, 31. In Karl Corino's 'Laudatio' for Hilbig on his being awarded the ’Bruder-Grimm-Preis'. (Corino 1984, 327). Manfred Jdger in a Deutschlandfunk broadcast, 'Neue Literatur aus der DDR' of 16 April 84. 'Der Mythos ist irdisch. Fur Franz Fuhmann zum 60. Geburtstag' (ZP, 202-211; here 209). 'Er, nicht ich' (ZP, 134-189; here 179; also GgG, 21 -9 7 [82], in the 1991 version — first version 1981). Gaus 1983 gives his fifth chapter (115-169) the title 'Nischengesellschaft'. In this context, it is interesting to note that Hilbig prefaced the poem 'abwertung eines unverstdndlichen gegenstands' in the volume abwesenheit, with a quotation from Robert Creeley, 'i cannot be more than/ the man who watches'.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Hilbig, Wolfgang: abwesenheit. gedichte, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1979. (=abw). : Unterm Neumond. ErzShlungen, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1982. (=UNm). ------ stimme, stimme 1983. : Der Brief. Drei ErzShlungen, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1985. (=DB). ------ : Die Territorien der Seele. Fiinf Prosastucke, Friedenauer Presse, Berlin, 1986. ------ : Die Weiber, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1987. (=DW). ------ : Eine Ubertragung, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1989. (=EU). ------ : Alte Abdeckerei. ErzShlung, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1991. ------ : Die Kunde von den B&umen, Sisyphos-Presse, Berlin, 1992. (=KB). ------ : Zwischen den Paradiesen. Prosa, Lyrik. Mit einem Essay von Adolf Endler, Reclam, Leipzig, 1992. (=ZP). ------ : Grunes gnines Grab. ErzShlurtgen, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1993. (=GgG). ------ : » l c h « . Roman, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1993. (=lch).

Secondary works Biermann, Wolf 1992: 'Ein 6ffentliches Geschwur*, Der Spiegel, 13 January 1992, pp. 15 8 167. Bdthig, Peter and Michael, Klaus (eds) 1993: MachtSpiele. Literatur und Staatssicherheit im Fokus Prenzlauer Berg, Reclam, Leipzig. Claudius, Eduard 1951: Menschen an unsrerSeite, Volk und Wert, Berlin. Corino, Karl 1984: 'Bruder-Grimm-Preis fur Wolfgang Hilbig’, Deutschland Archiv, 17 (1984), 3, 324-330. Gaus, Gunter 1983: Wo Deutschland liegt. Eine Ortsbestimmung, Hoffmann und Campe, Munich. Heukenkamp, Ursula 1979: ’"Ohne den Leser geht es nicht". Ursula Heukenkamp im Gesprach mit Gerd Adloff, Gabriele Eckart, Uwe Kolbe, Bemd Wagner1, Weimarer Beitrage, 25 (1979), 7, 41-52.

82 — MARTIN KANE Kulick, Holger, 1993: 'GrautOne. Der Amoklauf Sascha Anderson. Aus drei Gesprdchen* in Bdthig/Michael 1993,188-197. SuB, W emer and Kuban, Rose-Maria (eds) 1968: Bitterfelder Emte. Eine Anthologie schreibender Arbeiter des Bezirks Halle 1959-1967, Verlag Tribune, Berlin. Wichner, Ernest and Wiesner, Herbert (eds) 1991: Zensurin der DDR. Geschichte, Praxis und 'Asthetik' der Behinderung von Literatur, Literaturhaus Berlin.

'DIE SUCHE NACH DEM WAS UND DEM WIE' HANS JOACHIM SCHADLICH D.G. BOND 'Je ndher man ein Wort ansieht, desto fem er sieht es zurUck. r

Karl Kraus

There is very little secondary literature on Hans Joachim Schadlich and what there is, in keeping with most criticism of GDR literature, tends to ignore aspects of narrative form to concentrate instead on the politics of writing in the GDR.1In attempting a survey of form in his entire oeuvre, this essay will be breaking new ground.

I FromVersuchte Ndhe toOstwestberUn The twenty-five texts of Versuchte Ndhe are very varied, ranging from colloquial naturalist dialogues and interior monologues to highly stylized and distanced parables. They all tackle GDR realities, although the parabolic texts are clearly of wider significance. The majority of these texts are written in the present tense, with only eight using the imperfect, and these eight have a documentary style or a narrator with a distinctive impersonal style. In none of these texts, therefore, does Sch&dlich employ a naive narrator purporting to hold up a mirror to reality. He experiments with syntax, condensing sentences by leaving out articles and auxiliary verbs, or using highly complex clause sequences. This technique makes his work difficult to read. There is no single Schadlich voice; his work consists of a collection of texts each with its own distinct form. What is characteristic is the lack of any perceptible authorial voice2 and the distance from the characters which such a narrative stance engenders, so that empathy is always mediated through considerable rational analytical effort on the part of the reader. The sensuality of these early texts competes with their cool rationality, whilst their sparse humour is that of the absurd. Following Gunter Grass's praise of the book (reproduced on the dustjacket): 'Seit Uwe Johnsons erstem Buch sind nicht mehr so eindringlich, aus der Sache heraus, die Wirklichkeiten der DDR angenommen und auf literarisches Niveau umgesetzt worden', reviews of Versuchte Ndhe concentrated on the au­ thor's position as a critical GDR writer. Later criticism on Schadlich took the

84 — D.G. BOND

same line, emphasizing the problems of writing with the censor in mind. This is the case even when critics look expressly at the form of Schadlich's texts. Theo Mechtenberg saw Schadlich's use of parable and abstraction and his avoidance of the direct, provocative realism of contemporaries like Erich Loest and Reiner Kunze as his way of dealing with censorship in the GDR (Mechtenberg 1985; Kleiber 1990). Yet it cannot only have been a desire to dupe the censor which led to Schadlich's early experiments with form; or, if it was, it was a naive wish,3 considering how clearly the texts in Versuchte Nahe describe the faults of GDR society in general and of the state apparatus in particular. Something more funda­ mental is involved here, namely the writer's sense for the pleasures of complex form (which distinguishes Schadlich from other writers critical of the GDR, such as Loest) and also the poetic rather than purely politically tactical conviction that calling a spade a spade is not often the best way of describing it. This is exemplified by the most formalistic of Schadlich's early texts, which also happen to be the very earliest, such as Unstet und fliichtig' (written in 1971), in which in four and a quarter pages a brief Berlin S-Bahn journey is de­ scribed with extraordinary accuracy. Short sentences provide a detailed descrip­ tion of the banal events that the narrator observes, and the result is a sense of contingency: 'Der Mann, dem ich gegenubersitze und neben dem sich ein Mann gesetzt hat, der ihn genau ansieht, steht auf und setzt sich auf einen Fensterplatz auf der linken Wagenseite. Er fahrt vorwarts. Der Platz neben ihm ist frei. Er sitzt einem Mann gegenuber. Er stiitzt den linken Arm auf (VN, 144).4 The at­ tempt to achieve the greatest proximity to the object results in distance. Reveal­ ing the absurdity of a journey through East Berlin, in which a glimpse of Soviet soldiers is no less banal than the images of anonymous civilian users of the SBahn, was of course far from what the GDR cultural oligarchy expected of lite­ rature, but a more basic principle than the violation of taboos is at work here. Carine Kleiber writes of 'eine bis zur Absurdit&t getriebene Akribie bei der Niederschrift von auf den ersten Blick vollig banalen TatbestSnden, wobei Muhseligkeit unberirrbarer Biirokratie nicht benannt oder beschrieben, sondem heraufbeschworen wird' (Kleiber 1990, 136). She is referring particularly to the 1971 text 'Papier und Bleistift', in which the narrator begins with one blank sheet of paper and designs, with great attention to detail, an office complex with its hierarchy of employees. A sense of overbearing bureaucracy results, but along with it there is the moment of freedom for the writer who has built the structure starting from the single blank page. The arbitrary and absurd can create a liber­ ating multiplicity.3 'Unstet und fliichtig' opens with an inkling of this:

HANS JOACHIM SCHADLICH: FORM AND FREEDOM — 85

Ich offne die Tiir nicht. Eine Frau steigt aus oder ein Mann steigt aus oder eine Frau steigt aus und ein Mann steigt aus. Ich steige in den vorletzten Wagen. Ich schlieBe die Tiir nicht. Eine Frau und ein Mann oder eine Frau oder ein Mann steigen in den vorletzten Wagen. Ein Mann oder eine Frau f&hrt funfzehn Minuten von Ostkreuz bis Kdpenick. (VN, 143)

The arbitrary and coincidental are overbearing in certain texts in Versuchte Ntihe, and were to become a primary feature of Schott fifteen years later, with the difference that in Schott what was once oppressive is now also celebrated as a freedom of possibilities. The move from East to West was difficult for Schadlich, and it caused, as he himself said, a loss of literary theme, which I would suggest was not really overcome until Schott. The main text to document this loss of purpose and the moment when there was hope that it may be regained is 'Irgend etwas irgendwie', written in 1982, first published in 1984, and republished in the collection Ostwestberlin in 1987. On several occasions Schadlich mentions this text as signal­ ling the end of a five-year block following his move to the West (Shaw 1986, 58-59; Sietz 1987, 966-968). The text begins very bleakly, with the oppressive and nauseous nature of the contingent: Es steht ihm frei, heiBt es, beliebig Worte zu benutzen. Niemand fragt danach. G&nzlich frei von den Gesetzen der gebundenen Rede. Oder der Zensur. Oder des Marktes Nur die Regeln der Syntax beachten [...] BloB keine Erw&gungen iiber Schprahche! Es gibt Universitaten, Institute, Wissenschaftler. Beachtenswert die Tonnen einschlagiger Abhandlungen, nur gerechnet das Jahr 1981. Welches Wort an den Anfang? Auch hier freie Wahl. (OWB, 81)

There follows the story of an isolated writer, named Einer, not writing. Schadlich did write again in the 1980s, completing the short texts of Irgend etwas irgendwie and Ostwestberlin, Mechanik, and the novel Tallhover. The former are a mixture of texts with a GDR theme, impressions of the alien­ ating West, more abstract parables, and, as in the case of the longer Mechanik, writing in protocol style about Nazi Germany. If they have something in common then it is probably Schadlich's interest in 'isolated individuals facing the threat of extinction' (Wallace 1991, 80),6 or at least cut off from any productive relation­ ship to their environment. The more ambitious work, Tallhover, was also a project of the 1970s, begun in 1976 in the GDR.7 This tells the story of Tallhover, bom in 1819, who works with great dedication for various secret police forces — Prussian,

86 — D.G. BOND

German, and finally GDR — until his project becomes untenable in 1955. This is the most realist of all of Schadlich's works, although it still cannot be termed realism in the normal sense. The entire story of a man who lives 136 years is told in the present tense, and in an episodic manner which, as Schott was also to do some years later, shows the author to be master of the short form even in his lon­ ger works. Schadlich himself said that the ending to Tallhover should work like the classical close of a short story, making the reader review the tale in a new light (Shaw 1986, 63-64). Historical research and the use of various secret-service jargons lend the work a documentary character, and add to the coolness of a very steady third-person extradiegetic narrator, who keeps emotion well submer­ ged. Direct speech is used extensively in this novel which both as a whole and in many of its sections drifts towards the formalism of linguistic experiment. In particular, Schadlich experiments with repetition and variation, a feature both of some of his earliest texts and of Schott, where the technique is fully explored. When Schadlich did begin to write again after the crisis caused by his move to the West, he published only shorter material and a novel whose origins and, to a large degree, theme lie in the GDR years. The search for new impetus has been a long one. The situation may no longer amount to a crisis, but the questions remain. In an interview coinciding with the publication of Tallhover in 1986, Schadlich described his own crisis around 1980 as follows: 'Woriiber konnte ich schreiben und wie...? Ich suchte nach Gegenstand und Form [...] Es ging bei der Suche ja um ein bestimmtes "Was" und "Wie"' (von Korff 1986). It has, in fact, been Schadlich's constant concern to explore new ground, and in Schott he was to do that with a vengeance, moving away from the 'Was' and further towards the 'Wie' of narrative.

II TheFormofPolitical LiteratureandCriticism Schadlich has so far published very little where he talks about literary form in a non-literary mode. One of the most important is the speech 'Vom Erzahlen erzahlen' (DPL, 48-56), made when Schadlich was given the Thomas Dehler Prize. Schadlich asks: Was heiBt jemandem — sich selbst oder einem anderen — etwas erzahlen. Es ist die Rede von der Wahl des Gegenstandes, und, dies vor allem, von der Form. Von der literarischen und von der sprachlichen Form. Das Vergnugen am Erzahlen, an der Schreibarbeit ist — ich spreche von mir —, abgesehen von der Neigung zu diesem oder jenem Gegenstand, zur H&lfte oder mehr das Ver­ gnugen an der Form, und das bedeutet: das Vergnugen an der Formung, vor allem der sprachlichen. (DPL, 50)®

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Schadlich said this in the autumn of 1989, as the Wende in the GDR was taking shape, and he alluded to the political state of affairs in the opening sentence of this speech: 'Woriiber kOnnte ein deutscher Schriftsteller, dem im Herbst des Jahres 1989 Gelegenheit gegeben wird, dffentlich zu reden, Offentlich reden? (DPL, 48). It is likely that he intended to express his distance from those many writers who raised their voices in public during that autumn in order to talk pol­ itics, and who perhaps find what they said in the heat of the moment embarras­ sing today. In his public statement at that time, Schadlich chose to concentrate on the telling of stories and literary form. Specifically, he warns against confusing political intentions in literature with political results: texts follow their own dynamic in this respect and the good intentions of their authors are not a reliable guide (DPL, 50). This is an idea which Sch&dlich had already developed in an earlier text, Literatur und Widerstand', written in 1985 but not published until 1992. T)er "Zwang zur Politik"', Schadlich writes, *bleibt zumeist trockene Forderung, wandelt sich selten zum literarischen Ausdruck des Politischen, endet haufig im Plakativen' (DPL, 65). It is literary expression of the political which Schadlich recommends; and this en­ tails recognizing the autonomy of literary expression (DPL, 65). On this basis a formulation of the political effects of literature is given: Es ist die Rede von einem subversivem Strom, der in einem Text flieBt und eine das Denken befreiende oder eine zum Denken zwingende Helle bewirken kann, also eine Starke im Kopf eines Lesers oder Hirers' (DPL, 66). Given that this subversive element of texts has nothing to do with political intentions and direct political statements but with autonomous literary form, it is not surprising that Sch&dlich, in the later lecture, states (as an idiosyncratic list of possibilities): 'Ich schreibe nicht, weil ich die Welt verbessem will, oder das Land, oder die Stadt, oder die Gesellschaft, oder die Nachbam, oder die Familie, oder den Freund oder die Freundin — oder den Feind oder die Feindin. Ich schreibe auch nicht, weil ich die Welt anklagen will, oder dies und jenes System oder diese und jene Person' (DPL, 49). Schadlich writes because he enjoys writing: 'weil ich Vergniigen am ErzShlen habe', and 'weil ich etwas erkennen will' (DPL, 49). By concentrating on aesthetic form in this lecture Schadlich was (unwittingly) pre-empting the German Literaturstreit of 1990, but without the personal attacks and the bitterness displayed by some of its protagonists. Moreover, beyond the Literaturstreit, a larger trend in German literary affairs is contained in Schadlich's 'Vergniigen an der Form'. While the Literaturstreit began as a series of newspaper articles critical of Christa Wolf in particular and GDR literature in general, which was seen to have

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collaborated with the oppressive state,9 and the question of the complicity of pro­ minent GDR writers then raged through the press in such a way that it can be seen as part of an attempt to discredit left-wing politics as a whole in the wake of the demise of GDR socialism, ultimately the debate became one about aesthetics too, and was widened to include the whole of postwar German literature and lite­ rary criticism since the politicization of literature in the Federal Republic in the 1960s. Ulrich Greiner argued that a predominant view of the writer as a moral authority and literary texts as political and moral statements led to neglect of literary, aesthetic form. 'Gesinnungs&sthetik' was the product 'eine[r] literarische[n] Ofifentlichkeit, deren erstes Interesse die Gesinnung, die moralische Kampfkraft und die politische Richtigkeit ist' (Greiner 1990, 144). Interestingly enough, while these views were being debated, the attempted depoliticization of literary criticism was aided by the Western discovery of the alternative and highly form-conscious young writers of the GDR underground. For the critics, their aesthetic programmes were those of an avant-garde concentrating on texts as structures of language rather than moral or political statements.10 It is not prudent to come down on one side or the other of these argu­ ments: whilst it seems too easy to join in the opportunist criticisms levelled at a whole generation of German writers and (in many cases) political activists, the call for sensibility towards questions of form is also to be commended. Whilst criticisms of 'Gesinnungs&sthetik' may well seem like an attempt to condemn all political contemporaneity and thus establish new, 'timeless' norms (Heidenreich 1991), reading texts as simplistic sociology is, as Botho StrauB writes, also a ta d habit': Die Unsitte [...] ein Kunstwerk ausschlieBlich auf seinen kritischen Gebrauchswert hin durchzumustem, es auf dem Priifstand entweder einer subjektiven 'Betroffenheit' oder eines flachen Sozialkritizismus zu messen, untergrabt gewissermafien die freiheitlich symbolische Grundordnung der Kunst. Wo Ertrags- und Aussageermittlung jedoch im Vordergrund stehen und die Lust am Spiel mit den asthetischen Zeichen und Vorhalten, die Lust an der Schdnheit auch, zu verderben drohen, wird das produktive Ged&chtnis, das Kunst jedem schenken kann, nicht weiter ausgebildet, sondem derart verkiirzt, daB es getrost gegen das passive Archiv des TV-Menschen eingetauscht werden kann. (StrauB 1988, 73).

Schadlich's most recent and most ambitious work, Schott, reads like a synthesis not only of much of the author's previous production, but also of the Literaturstreit, whose parameters and alternatives it makes appear false.

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III Schott Vielleicht, vermutlich, gegebenen Falles, angeblich, mdglicherweise, oder, falls anders, auch nicht — expressions which indicate some of the essential formal features in Schott. Perhaps Schott is a novel, perhaps not, and perhaps it does not matter. The word Roman is on the dust-jacket and the inside cover, and at one point, Sch&dlich has his narrator cut himself shaving because he is annoyed by a fictional reader who accuses him of not knowing what a novel is (SCH, 211— 212). The only conclusion the narrator draws from his dispute with this frustrated reader is that he ought to grow a beard. Schott is a long work of prose, but it is also, much more so than Tallhover, a series of short prose pieces, each with its own form. There is a plot of sorts, the story of a week or so in the life of Schott, which begins in an unnamed city with its Mietshduser, motorways, chance meetings, and bars with prostitutes. To­ wards the end of the book Schott leaves the city for a cave in the forest, the sea, and then the desert, pursued by his enemy Schill and his gang. A distilled plot to Schott would be a fake because the form (or rather the various forms) of narra­ tion emphasize the ficdonahty of the story and the fact that it consists of lan­ guage. It is impossible to say what happens when we are never sure if we are to believe the illusion that is happening as we read. The reader's imagination does create pictures of events, places, and situations in this novel, whilst at the same time reflecting on the games with language which create another, perhaps more enduring level of enjoyment. This is another Schadlich text to use the imperfect tense sparingly, and the use of the present tense is far from straightforward. There is constant alternation between the indicative and the subjunctive and multiple conditionals, with the result that nothing in this work is akin to descriptive illusionism. Whereas in Ver­ suchte Ndhe Schadlich's experimentation with form often led to unusually con­ densed and difficult syntax, in Schott it tends to take place from sentence to sen­ tence within a carefully crafted section or in the developments between sections rather than within the single sentence. This makes Schott more readable, and the contrasts and incongruities that develop as the text flows also provide much of its humour. One way in which Schadlich highlights the ficdonality of his tale is by using a narrator-figure called the Verfasser, who is heard talking to readers and ruminating on the life of a writer and the form of his work in progress. This Ver­ fasser creates irony and forces reflective distance from the text, and is also one of the many sources of humour in this novel, a humour which was far from pro­ minent in Schadlich's works prior to Schott. Schott may not be less serious than

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the author's earlier works, but it is less bitter and, as a result, more palatable. The ironic narrator figure is reminiscent of many such characters in other works of fiction, and particularly in many eighteenth-century and Romantic novels per­ haps, which, with their liking of experiment and fragment, their reflection on the act of narration, and their tendency towards satire, may be amongst the real pre­ cursors of Schadlich's Schott.11 Schadlich's author figure seems to disarm the critics by inventing their prototype, the Kunstrichter, who accompanies the Verfasser and the other char­ acters on their imagined journey through the city, the desert, and language. For the Kunstrichter 'Kunstgerichtbarkeit kennt keine Grenzen' (SCH, 304), and he goes on to criticize the food the characters have been eating. He would have pre­ ferred a different menu (SCH, 310). The Verfasser quite rightly says to his critic: 'Es ist mir ein Ratsel, wie Sie sich angesichts des ganzlichen Mangels objektiver Geschmacksgesetze nicht in st&ndiger Verlegenheit befinden' (SCH, 287). A number of presumably real-life Kunstrichter, the reviewers, were indeed in a difficult position when writing about Schott. They had to face the playful side to Sch&dlich's formal experiment in a way which readers of earlier works by Schadlich did not. It is not surprising, therefore, that some dismissed the novel outright, and others found it difficult to digest. Cornelius Hell, in Die Presse, allowed the fate of Schadlich's Kunstrichter to bear heavily, when he wrote: Es wird immer schwieriger, eine Rezension zu schreiben' (Hell 1992) For Werner Creutziger, writing in neue deutsche literatur, Schott is a bitter work, full of con­ fused artistry, and the author ought to have said what he meant (Creutziger 1992). Volker Hage was closer to useful insight when he noted that Schadlich's linguistic experiments can become wearisome, but his dismissal of them, by con­ demning the novel as mere repetition of outworn avant-garde forms and as the result of Schadlich's ongoing crisis as an author, is too harsh (Hage 1992). Jurgen Serke offered meaningless exaggerations, calling Schott 'das exemplarische Buch uber die Katastrophe unseres Jahrhunderts, das exemplarische Buch uber den Verrat im 20. Jahrhundert', thus reducing the form of this novel to the grand poli­ tical theme (Serke 1992). Another reviewer, Walter Klier in die tageszeitung, would have preferred precisely the grand narrative of politics, so he condemned Schott for its apolitical nature: whereas in Tallhover Schadlich had deconstructed the power of the state, in Schott he merely deconstructs the individual (Klier 1992). Here we have the parameters of the Literaturstreit: politics or form, but not both. Yet Schott is a work which makes a very definite connection between politics and form: Schadlich's often brilliant formal and linguistic tours de force

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are not arbitrary but contain a 'message' of their own. The author's earlier texts thematized persecution and oppression directly, be this oppression in the GDR in Versuchte Ntihe or in various German police states in Tallhover, or by looking at the vulnerable outcasts of a cold capitalist society in the texts of the 1980s. Schott continues with the theme, much more indirectly. Schott's own isolation and that of various other characters is clearly that engendered by modem capitalist society, but this novel moves into a very abstract realm when it tells the violent tale of personal wars between the characters under the ocean and in the desert. The Verfasser>s interventions become more and more frequent during this fantastic part of the story, so that there can be no doubt about its status as aesthe­ tic construct and not description of reality. The narrator refuses to describe on several occasions, since the reader will use his or her imagination (SCH, 250251; 255; 292; 296), and by this stage in the novel the readers know that descrip­ tion will only lead to a potentially endless list of words indicating infinite possi­ bilities ad absurdum, as it did when the ways of writing names and dates of birth and death on gravestones were indicated: 'Vomame, Name, oder Name, Vorname, Tag, Monat, Jahr bis Tag, Monat, Jahr, oder: Vomame, Name, oder Name, Vomame, Jahr bis Jahr, oder: Vomame, Name, oder Name, Vomame, Tag, Monat, Jahr bis: der, die oder das stirbt, oder: Vomame, Name, oder Name, Vomame, Jahr bis: der, die oder das stirbt, oder...' (SCH, 137). This passage goes on. There are many others like it in Schott, such as a long series of sections on what might happen if a postman or postwoman met a tenant (either sex) on the top floor of Schott's house. This technique of following, as Wolfram Schutte put it, 'logische Spielanordnungen des Konjunktivs1(Schutte 1992) can be tire­ some, but it is the realization of an important aesthetic principle. Schadlich's in­ sistence on possibilities renders naive description redundant, and it leads the Verfasser to declare programmatically: 'Jetzt ist mit dem Indikativ erst mal Schlufi' (SCH, 258). The single version of events is not good enough for this novel. But the novel ends with a shocking imperfect indicative in the words T)er Verfasser sagt, So war es' (SCH, 339). This not only closes the whole book, but more importantly comes after the most violent scene in it, in which the execution of Schott's friend Lui is undertaken by six uniformed men who push her into an oven and bum her. This allusion to the ultimate violent persecution of the Ger­ man extermination camps is foreshadowed by numerous references to death by fire which may have been read over or seemed incongruous earlier on in the book. Lui's execution is told in an uncomplicated, exaggeratedly matter-of-fact imperfect, and this is where the connection between Schadlich's recurring theme of the persecution of the individual by organized state or bureaucratic power

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connects with the aesthetic programme of Schott.12 The single version of events, any exclusive claim to the truth, any conviction that the world is as it seems to be are all oppressive and connected directly (through bad political praxis or by means of the analogy between bad aesthetics and bad politics) to authoritarian and totalitarian organization of society. Schadlich's final 'so war es' sends us back to his novel looking for the possible other worlds he has designed, and for the productive role of his and our own imagination. As the Verfasser says: 'Em Verfasser darf erwarten, dafi ein Freiraum fiir die Entwicklung des Textes, oder, freundlicher gesagt, ein persOnlicher Geheimbereich bleibt. Wer die Vertraulichkeit des Wortes verletzt, ist mit Strafe bedroht' (SCH, 271).

IVDer Sprachabschneider In 1980 Schadlich published an entertaining story for children, Der Sprachab­ schneider. The schoolboy Paul needs a long time to get to school in the morning, because there are so many things to see, and, it seems, so many ways of using language to describe them: Das erste, was Paul sieht, ist ein riesiger weifier Baum, der hoch am Himmel uber Paul hinwegschwebt. Ein schwebender Himmelbaum, denkt Paul. Ein weiBer Riesenbaum. Ein riesiger WeiBbaum uber Paul. Ein riesiger Himmels-WeiBbaum. Ein weiBer Himmels-Riesenbaum' (SPR, 7). Then the evil character Vielolog comes along and offers Paul a Faustian bar­ gain: in exchange for doing his homework Vielolog asks for various aspects of the schoolboy's language, starting with prepositions and definite articles, then taking all verb forms except the infinitive, and finally the first consonant from every word beginning with two consonants. Of course the deal soon backfires on Paul, who loses his ability to communicate coherently and thus his hold on the world. Not only that, Paul gets bored, for his friends' homework prevents them from coming out to play, and Paul's imagination deserts him. He stops dreaming; and even looking up at the sky becomes uninteresting. In her review of Der Sprachabschneider, Barbara Frischmuth wrote: 'Sprachverlust und die daraus folgende Isolation sind das Thema dieser Geschichte' (Frischmut 1980). This is true, but it should also be noted that Paul's language was not just lost but stolen. This story is a parable containing one fundamental message of all of Schadlich's work: the defence of the freedom to speak in ways disregarding the daily discourses of power in which we are all, to a degree, trapped.

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NOTES Biographical Note Hans Joachim Schadlich was bom in Reichenbach in the Vogtland in 1935. He studied Germanistik and then worked as a linguist at the GDR Academy of Sciences from 1959 to 1976, publishing three academic books. He dates his earliest literary texts back to 1969. Except for one text, 'Tante liebt Mdrchen' (in Schadlich: Versuchte N8he\ and in Frohriep 1976, 59-67), GDR publishers did not print any of his literary work. After he signed the petition against the expulsion of Wolf Biermann in November 1976, Schadlich was stripped of his right to gainful employment in the GDR. In August 1977 his first literary work, Ver­ suchte NShe, was published by Rowohlt in the W est and was a critical success. Four months later Schadlich left the GDR. He spent two years near Hamburg, then moved to W est Berlin. His subsequent important publications are Tallhover (1986), Ostwestberlin (1987), and Schott (1992). It is interesting that, in an interview with Ian Wallace, Schadlich explained how the Frohriep volume was not released in 1976 but in 1977, after the appearance of Versuchte N8he, so as to invalidate the claim on the inside dust-jacket of Versuchte NShe that no texts of Schadlich's had appeared in the GDR. See Wallace 1992,160-161. Epigraph: Kraus 1985,140. 1. Since this essay was completed an edition of text+kritik (125, 1995) has been devoted to Schadlich. The contributions do consider narrative form in some detail, no doubt be­ cause Schott has made it impossible to write about Schadlich and ignore formal questions. 2. Nicolas Bom made the following observation: 'Es ist ja alles sehr distanziert, es ist so, als habe der Autor uberhaupt nichts zu tun mit dem, was in den Erzahlungen vorgehf (DPL, 118-126; here 122). 3. Wallace 1989, 62 cites Schadlich in discussion in 1985 looking back on what he now sees as a naive view that he might be able to publish in the GDR. 4. Those who see the basic sentences of philosophical positivism in some of Schadlich's texts may be dose to the truth, but they should note that, by Schott at least, Schadlich uses sentences only in order to show that they cannot be verified when an infinite number of other possibilities may also be true. This relativizes the philosopher's hope that language may express empirical and sayable truths. As Jochen Wittmann sug­ gested to me, a comparison to Ernst Jandl's prose may be fruitful; see for example the protocol style of 'prosa aus der flustergalerie' (Jandl 1966, 83-89). I would like to thank Jochen Wittman for his useful comments on this paper. 5. There is some relationship to a philosophy of the absurd in Schadlich, in that his texts describe reality in such a detailed manner as to render its meaninglessness transpar­ ent, and then lunge for freedom from within the prison of their own making. But Schad­ lich has neither a system of absurdist thought nor the pathos of recognized absurdist writing. Schutte 1992 briefly mentions the absurd connection in his review of Schott. 6. See also Wallace 1990,171; Shaw 1990. 7. An excerpt was published in 1978: 'Ausblick vom Berg' (Ritter/Piwitt 1978, 129-140). See Tallhover, 226-237 (section 70), where minor alterations have been made. 8. Compare Wallace 1992, 158, where Schadlich describes the reasons for writing as follows: 'Ja, aus dem Vergniigen, etwas zu erzahlen, und — das hangt damit zusammen — aus dem Vergniigen an der Formung. Da bin ich mir neuerdings nicht mehr ganz sicher, was das Hauptmotiv ist — etwas zu erzahlen oder eine Form zu schaffen'. 9. Set in motion by Schirrmacher*s article (Schirrmacher 1990).

94 — D.G. BOND 10. Leeder 1994 writes: 'In the atmosphere dominated by demands for a new postmodern literary understanding, unburdened by the exigencies of politics, history, morality, or re­ membrance, Prenzlauer Berg was celebrated as the literature of the new Germany’

(211). 11. Sterne's Tristram Shandy springs to mind. In his first novel, Peter Lebrecht, Ludwig Tieck was less interested in a unified whole than in gentle satire, and he allowed his narrator's discussions with the reader to dominate entire chapters. Reviewers of Schott mentioned a number of authors one might compare to Schadlich: Beckett, Camus, Musil, Kafka, Jahnn, Aichinger, for example. The most perceptive review of Schott is Ingendaay 1992. 12. Schadlich is not only interested in this theme in literature, but in life too, as his inter­ ventions in the debates on the GOR Staatssicherheit after the Wende show best. See his nominal co-editorship of Protokoll eines Tribunals-, his talk 'Die Stunde Null oder ist heute gestem?' in Dichter predigen in Schleswig Holstein (also DPL, 9-22); his editor­ ship of Aktenkundig, an anthology of reactions to Akteneinsicht, and his own text there (166-172): 'Jeder ist klug, der eine vortier, der andere nach her1; the essay 'Literaturwissenschaft und Staatssicherheit (Amold/Meyer-Gosau 1992, 92-95); the literary text which won Schadlich a special Johannes-Bobrowski-Medaille at the Berliner Literaturpreis 1992: 'Die Sache mit B' (Stiftung Preu&ische Seehandlung 1992, 71-83). See also Schadlich's acceptance speech for the Heinrich-Bdll-Preis (Schadlich 1993), in which he talks about communist dictatorship in the GDR and racism in the new Federal Republic; and Schadlich on the PDS (Schadlich1990).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary works (as author) Schadlich, Hans Joachim: Versuchte Ndhe. Prosa, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1977. (=VN). ------ : Der Sprachabschneider. Mit Zeichnungen von Amelie Glienke, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1980. (=SPR). ------ : Irgend etwas irgendwie. Zehn Texte, Brennglas Verlag, Assenheim, Niddatal, 1984. ------ : Mechanik, Brennglas Verlag, Assenheim, Niddatal, 1985. ------ : Tallhover, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1986. ------ : Ostwestberiin. Prosa, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1987. (=OWB). ------ : Schott. Roman, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1992. (=SCH). ------ : OberDreck, Politik und Literatur. AufsStze, Reden, GesprSche, Kurzprosa (Text und Portrat 7), pub. by Literarisches Colloquium Berlin and Berliner Kiinstlerprogramm des DAAD, LCB, Berlin, 1992. (=DPL). ------ 1990: 'Das Fahnlein der treu Enttauschten', Die Zeit, 26 October 1990, p.68. ------ 1993: 'Von der heillosen Liebe zur Unwirklichkeit. Eine Dankrede' in 'Moral, Asthetik, Politik'. Dokumentation der Heinrich-Bdll-Woche, Dezember 1992, pub. by HeinrichBdll-Stiftung, Cologne, pp.168-173.

Primary works (as editor) Schadlich, Hans Joachim (ed.): Dichter predigen in Schleswig-Holstein, Radius Verlag, Stuttgart, 1991. ------ (ed.): Aktenkundig, Rowohlt Berlin, Berlin, 1992. Joachim Walther, Wolf Biermann, Gunter de Bruyn, Jurgen Fuchs, Christoph Hein, Gunter Kunert, Erich Loest, Hans-{sic]Joachim Schadlich, Christa W olf (eds): Protokolle eines Tribunals. Die AusschQsse aus dem DDR-Schriftstellerverband 1979, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1991.

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Secondary works Arnold, Heinz Ludwig and Meyer-Gosau, Frauke (eds) 1992: Die Abwicklung der DDR, Wallenstein Verlag, Gdttingen. Creutziger, Wemer, 1992: Von Bitterkeit gemacht. Hans Joachim Schadlich: Schott, neue deutsche literatur, 40 (1992), 9 ,1 4 6 -1 4 8 . Deiritz, Karl and Krauss, Hannes (eds) 1991: Der deutsch-deutsche Literaturstreit oder "Freunde, es spricht sich schlecht mit gebundener Zunge. * Analysen und Materialien, Luchterhand, Hamburg/Zurich. Frischmut, Barbara 1980: 'Auslese: Hans Joachim Schadlich: Der Sprachabschneider', Die Zeit, 7 March 1980, p.59. Frohriep, Ulrich et al 1976: Voranmeldung 4. Erzdhlungen, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle. Greiner, Ulrich 1990: 'Die deutsche GesinnungsSsthetik. Noch einmal: Christa W olf und der deutsche Literaturstreit. Eine Zwischenbilanz', Die Zeit, 2 November 1990 (also in Deiritz/Krauss 1991,139-145). Hage, Volker 1992: 'Abschottung. Hans Joachim Schddlichs Roman — Meisterwerk oder Avantgarde aus zweiter Hand?', Die Zeit, 5 June 1992, p.66. Heidenreich, Gert, 1991: 'Die bdsartigen Dichter. Worum es im deutschen Literaturstreit wirklich gehf, Suddeutsche Zeitung, 2/3 February 1991 (SZ am Wochenende), p.I. Hell, Cornelius 1992: '"Ich liefere blo& eine Beschreibung". Hans Joachim Schadlichs Roman Schott ist ein wahres Lesevergnugen', Die Presse, 11/12 April 1992 (Literaricum), p. IX. Ingendaay, Paul 1992: 'Kunstfigur mit Echtheitssiegel. Hans Joachim Schadlichs Roman Schott, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 April 1992, p.L3. Jandl, Ernst 1966: Laut und Luise, Walter, Olten. Kleiber, Carine 1990: 'Die "schlechten Wdrter" des Hans Joachim Schadlich', Germanica, 7 (1990), 135-139. Klier, Walter 1992: 'Guerilla im Hausflur. Uber Hans Joachim Schadlich, aniasiich von Schott, die tageszeitung, 10 April 1992, pp.15-16. von Korff, Christiane 1986: 'Zensur oder nicht — das ist keine Kieinigkeit. W ider die pauschalen Gleichsetzungen in der Kulturpolitik. W ELT-Gesprach mit dem Schriftsteller Hans Joachim Schadlich', Die Welt, 18 July 1986, p. 15. Kraus, Karl 1985: Aphorismen und Gedichte. Auswahl 1903-1933, ed. by Dietrich Simon, Volk und Welt, Berlin. Leeder, Karen 1994: "'eine abstellhalle des authentischen". Postmodernism and Poetry in the New Germany' in Williams/Parkes 1994, 201-220. Mechtenberg, Theo 1985: 'Vom poetischen Gewinn der Zensur*, Deutschland-Archiv, 18 (1985), 977-984. Ritter, Roman and Piwitt, Hermann Peter (eds) 1978: Die siebente Reise. 14 utopische Erzdhlungen, Verlag AutorenEdition, Munich. Schirrmacher, Frank 1990: '"Dem Druck des harteren, strengeren Lebens standhalten". Auch eine Studie uber den autoritaren Charakter Christa Wolfs Aufsatze, Reden und ihre jungste Erzahlung Was bleibt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 June 1990 (also in Deiritz/Krauss 1991,127-136). Schutte, Wolfram 1992: 'L'Etranger zu deutsch: Schott. Hans Joachim Schadlichs bitterkomischer Roman uber Herm Irgendjemand: Endspiel der Fiktionen', Frankfurter Rundschau, 8 April 1992 (Literatur-Rundschau), p. 16. Serke, Jurgen 1992: 'W er die Frau im Feuer sucht. Anmerkungen zu Hans Joachim Schddlichs Roman Schott, Die Welt, 4 April 1992, p.21. Shaw, Gisela 1986: 'Gesprach mit Hans Joachim Schadlich', The GDR Monitor, 15 (1986), 54-65. ------ 1990: 'Hans Joachim Schadlich — Versuchter Zugang', The GDR Monitor, 22 (1990), 83-96.

96 — D.G. BOND Sietz, Henning 1987: 'Gesprflch mit Hans Joachim Schadlich', Deutschland-Archiv, 20 (1987), 964-969. Stiftung PreuSische Seehandlung (pub.) 1992: Der Berliner Uteraturpreis 1992, Mathias Gatza, Berlin. StrauB, Botho 1988: "'Man muB doch sehen, was sagt die F ab er, Programmbuch 57 (Besuchei), pub. by Burgtheater Wien, pp.72-73. Wallace Ian 1989: 'Living with the Censor in the GDR: Some Literary Strategies', New Comparison. A Journal of Comparative and General Literary Studies, 7 (1989), 5 5 67. ------ 1991: 'Our Personality: Hans Joachim Schadlich', Politics and Society in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, 4 (1991-1992), 1, 72-88. ------ 1992: 'Gesprach mit Hans Joachim Schadlich', Deutsche BQcher, 21 (1992), 157-192. Williams, Arthur and Parkes, Stuart (eds) 1994: The Individual, Identity and Innovation. Signals from Contemporary Literature and the New Germany, Peter Lang, Beme/Berlin/Frankfurt am Main.

THE LAND SURVEYOR: HANNS-JOSEF ORTHEIL'S SEARCH FOR HIS POETIC HOME HELMUT SCHMITZ

Since his debut with Fermer (1979), Hanns-Josef Ortheil has published four prose texts: Hecke (1983), Schwerendter (1987), Agenten (1989), and Abschied von den Kriegsteilnehmem (1992). Ortheil is a very ambitious young writer who combines historical, literary, and contemporary themes by means of a program­ matic approach to the novel as a form. He describes his texts as 'Zeitromane' that narrate 'in fortlaufender Weise die innere Geschichte der im Westen aufgewachsenen Nachkriegsgenerationen' and links himself to a double tradition (Schau, 21). He refers back, firstly, to the literature of the early Federal Republic which, in its commitment to contemporary and social issues, was a 'nicht unbedeutender Beitrag zur Gestaltung eines demokratischen Deutschland' — although he re­ gards this literature as suffering from a 'Mangel an Weltdeutung [...] an philosophischer Schulung'. He finds this philosophical component, secondly, in the tradition of the great novels of the Goethe-era — which he criticizes in turn for lacking the social element (Schau, 191-193). It is these two traditions, which he sees as coming to a definite end in the 1970s literature of Neue Subjektivitdt, that he is trying to revive. In his concept of the Programm des Romans', which he calls 'die letzte dem Menschen verbliebene Mdglichkeit, uber das Leben in seiner Gesamtheit nachzudenken' (Schau, 35), he consciously refers back to Georg Luk&cs's interpretation of the novel as ’Epopfle eines Zeitalters, fiir das die exten­ sive Totalitat nicht mehr gegeben ist [...] und das dennoch die Gesinnung zur Totality hat'.1 However, in adopting this decidely traditional approach, Ortheil also brings to bear his experience of the postmodern condition.

I Fermer Ortheil's first novel Fermer, in which he tries to overcome the influence of Neue Subjektivitdt and Neue Innerlichkeit, already contains his whole aesthetic pro­ gramme. The eponymous young army deserter2 is a late representative of Neue Innerlichkeit who flees from the alienating experience of German society into a Romantic inwardness. Always in search of the 'Stunde der wahren Empfindung', the only way he can experience a true sense of himself is through an impres-

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sionistic relationship to literature, preferably poems of the Sturm und Drang and through solitary walks in lonely landscapes. The novel interprets Fenner’s escape into inwardness dialectically as a reaction to the numbing state of German soci­ ety in the late 1970s. This tactic, however, is shown essentially as a cul-de-sac. When the decidedly unpolitical Fermer is conscripted for his military service, the daily drill leaves no space for the self he has preserved by his inwardness and he deserts. Fermer's desertion takes him across the whole of Germany until he leaves the country for Italy with a group of like-minded young people he meets on his way. In the tradition of the Bildungsroman, the novel describes, embedded in the depiction of his flight, the gradual opening up of Fermer's self-preoccupied subjectivity to a social understanding of his situation. Thus the novel seeks to serve a dual purpose. On the one hand, it is a critical comment on Neue Innerlichkeit which, in its concern for personal authenticity, tended to neglect the social dimensions of the subject; on the other hand, the decidedly artistic prose of the novel contains an implicit criticism of the artlessness of some aspects of the literature of Neue Subjektivitdt.3 The opening up of Fermer's horizons becomes possible through what one might call the artist's perspective. Fermer's friend Lotta4 exemplifies the change from an impressionistic, self-mirroring to a reflective relationship with art. Sitting on the top of a high tower near her parent's house she sketches the surrounding landscape. As long as she is not capable of seeing the landscape as a 'Zusammenhang menschlicher Absichten' (F, 132-133), her drawings depict a 'Netz aus Linien, die ich mit schwachen Farben betonte'. As soon as she realizes this, her perspective changes: Da habe ich nicht mehr das Ganze zeichnen wollen, son­ dem den Block mit kleinen Skizzen eines Tales, eines Hauses oder eines Weges geM t' (F, 133). Lotta's perspective resembles that of the land surveyor. A land surveyor reconstructs and re-draws the landscape from a raised position by approaching it with meticulous perception and precise optical instruments. This exposed posi­ tion is comparable to the position of the artist whose task it is, according to Ortheil, to penetrate and interpret society by means of narration. The figure of the land surveyor, who crops up in variation in several of Ortheil's texts, becomes the symbol for his writing project. Already in Fermer the work of the land sur­ veyor is explicitly linked to the work of the artist. Fermer's father, like Ortheil's father a geodesist, refers to topographic lines as 'die ersten Bruchstiicke der Kunst' (F, 224). It is the meticulous eye for detail that enables Ortheil's protagonists to recognize the conditions that are concealed behind the images. Nevertheless,

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only landscape provides the necessary calmness that is required for close scru­ tiny, while the city with its constant change of images creates confusion. The calm look, however, that grasps things in their social nature, is the prerequisite for a successful appropriation of the world. This happens by means of an active (i.e. creative) reproduction. Lotta's brother Ferdinand, for example, collects stones, flowers, and leaves, and '[hat sich] die Landschaft in seinem Zimmer noch einmal zusammengesetzt' (F, 134). The same constellation reappears in Ortheil's second prosework Hecke. Here, the narrator’s mother is shown roaming her native village in the early 1930s accompanied by a painter from the city. She requires him to sketch the entire area, an exercise which has become necessary because, in fulfilling his commis­ sion to paint the village church ceiling, he has so far produced only unsatisfactory designs. His drawings have, as the mother says, 'nichts mit uns zu tun' (H, 111), and she has him make himself familiar with the habits and the outlines of the village. The mapping out of the village finally results in a painting in which the contemporary issues of the year 1933 and the fears of the village population crystallize: 'The Temptation of St.Anthony'. The concept of the eye which first breaks down and then reconstructs images contains, apart from an approach to narration, also a concept of historio­ graphy that owes much to Walter Benjamin (Benjamin 1974a, 691-706). Fermer refers to the 'Geschichten, die es noch zu erzahlen lohnt', as 'Geschichten, in denen man mit einem Ruck bemerkt, woher alles, was zu Bildem geworden ist, herrQhrt, und auf welche Weise man hineingezogen worden ist' (F, 168). This programmatic statement is so important for Ortheil that it is not only repeated by three different characters in Fermer (F, 50, 291), but also serves as narrative concept for Hecke.

II Hecke The central theme of Hecke is the question of how history must be narrated if people are to relate to it productively. Hecke is narrated by a man endeavouring to write down the experiences during the war which have left his mother in a very disturbed state, living in seclusion in her house, separated from the world by tall hedges. Several narrative concepts are compared and declared unsuitable. There is, for example, the mother's way of storytelling. Her stories from the time before the war serve only one purpose — to conceal, by narrative prolixity, the pain of losing four children: 'Sie trftgt Schicht fiir Schicht heran, und uber der bedeutsamen Erzahlung wuchert immer mehr das Unkraut der Erinnerung. Meine Mutter vergiBt, indem sie erzahlt' (H, 23). These stories generate the 'Gefangnis

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der Geschichten' (H, 280), in which the son, who is emotionally highly dependent on his mother, feels himself to be trapped: Der einf<ige Zuhdrer schweigt. Mit jedem Satz, den er sich anhdren mufi, gerat er tiefer in die traumerische Woge des Vergessens. Ich wollte nicht zu einem solchen Zuhflrer werden' (H, 51). The narrator's description of the mother's prewar stories as 'Gestriipp' (H, 172) opens up the first symbolic level of the book's title. His own narration of the story which starts with the rebellious exclamation 'Du erzahlst mir nichts!' (H, 43) is an act of resistance. By writing down his mother's wartime experiences, which he gathers from memories, letters, and accounts of relatives and friends, he frees himself from the cage of history and also achieves an acceptance of his own his­ torical roots, which he has been denying out of disgust for his country's history. Against the apocalyptic perception of his mother, who sees history as '[eine] einzige Katastrophe, die unablassig Triimmer auf Tnimmer hauft' (Ben­ jamin 1974a, 697), the son mobilizes his investigative narration to explode the continuum of history. At the end of his investigations he finds the key to his own existence, the point where 'alle Linien, alle Gedanken und Traume, Phantasien und Ratsel’ converge, and he sees 'dafi man nun hatte darangehen mussen, die Geschichte langsam zu wiederholen [...] um die Stelle zu entdecken an der man das vorwartsgedrehte Rad der Erzahlung anhalten mufite' (H, 279). This point where all the elements of the plot converge and become his own story is the con­ frontation with the death of his elder brother, which had occurred in the last days of the war and had never previously been talked about. His brother, still a baby, had been hit in the head by a piece of shrapnel. This was on a farmstead named 'Hecke', to which the family had been evacuated. The narrator’s previous resis­ tance to history and his mother's stories alike had been caused by his mother, who had kept taking him to his brother's grave, thus creating a sense of compet­ ition in the little boy: 'er war der Erstgeborene, ich war der NachkOmmling [...] der ihm gefallen mufite. Wo lebte ich: Mehr in ihm als in mir' (H, 296). Out of this had grown a mounting ambition to overcome the influence of the dead by making his anxious and overprotective mother forget his precursor and his three stillborn companions: 'Ich machte meinen Bruder vergessen [...] aber noch immer mufite ich ihr auf den Friedhof folgen' (H, 311). His self-protecting resistance to the graveyard visits is also the beginning of his alienation from his mother and of his rejection of history. Out of disgust and denial he takes refuge in a Nullpunktfiktion: 'Ich sollte diese Soldaten als meine Vorfahren, diese Marschierer als meine Vorlaufer erkennen? [...] Nein, ich wollte mit dieser Geschichte nichts zu tun haben' (H, 37). When he finally confronts the matter by narrating his mother's story afresh, he is forced to realize that 'die Gnade der spaten Geburt' is a self­

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deception; the mental injuries of the war are carried forward into the next gene­ rations) even through denials Thus the second symbolic level of the book's title is revealed, for the verb ’hecken' means 'to breed' (in birds and small mammals). By appropriating his mother's story the narrator finally comes to terms with his own biography and with his alienation from fatherland and mothertongue. It is important to note that, for Ortheil, historical recognition does not depend on scientific (i.e. historiographic), but narrative, descriptive investigation. In Fermer, the mistrust of political language, which is experienced as inauthentic by the central characters, is maintained to the end. An important figure in the novel is the 'miller', a historian who lives in an isolated mill outside Fermer's nat­ ive village. When he tries to write the history of the area he finds that his histori­ ographic skills are unable to capture 'das in den Dickschadeln Verborgene' (F, 197). Only by plumbing the hidden depths of the stories told in the village can he uncover the inner story by which the people are bound to the landscape. The narrator in Hecke experiences the same thing. When he tries to get to grips with history, he realizes that a study of the historical sources could not, on its own, facilitate proper assimilation and identification because: 'sie schmeichelten meinem geschichtlichen Verstandnis, sie erhoben mich zum Deuter all jener Erz&hlungen, vor denen ich mich geekelt hatte. Aber sie beseitigten diesen Ekel nicht' (H, 39). Only by re-telling can the narrator come to terms with his own historical entanglement. However, this narrative concept is not concerned with writing history as it was; it relates rather 'eine Erfahrung mit ihr' (Benjamin 1974a, 702). Only when the personal and individual is related does it become possible to win and to pass on historical experience. This is the reason why Ortheil has named the novellength text of Hecke an 'Erzahlung'. The son's narrative, which gives back repres­ sed historical experience to both his mother and himself, reflects Benjamin's concept of the storyteller and his 'Vermfigen, Erfahrungen auszutauschen'.6 Fermer and Hecke are texts for which the concept of resistance by means of narration is of central importance. Art and the process of creation not only open up otherwise obscured views of social contexts, they also establish identity since in the discourse of art the subject comes to itself and its (hi)story. Fermer, who is speechless throughout the entire novel, only becomes capable of putting his experiences into words when he acquires an artistic discourse which enables him to relate his subjectivity to social processes. There is in this a first indication of the aporia in Ortheil's aesthetics which comes to full expression in his later novels. All Ortheil's protagonists are artists or characters with artistic tendencies who interpret their world in spoken and written language. The consequence of

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this subject-acquiring discourse is constant linguistic activity, that is, writing. The compulsion to write incessandy in order to secure identity finds its expression in Hecke in the figure of the narrator, who says of himself: 'Erst das Schreiben verankert die Tatigkeiten in meinem Bewufitsein’ (H, 18). Consequently each chap­ ter ends with a triumphant ’Ich schrieb!' as a fundamental confirmation of the existence of the narrating subject. Thus, not only does art have the function of establishing identity, it also has utopian, that is, liberating powers. However, the less Ortheil's protagonists are successful in realizing their artistic ideals at the level of the story, the more the identity-establishing momentum shifts towards the act of narration, writing as such. The conflict between the aware individual and bourgeois society in Fermer, which remains unresolved even though Fermer moves from radical subjectivity to social understanding, finds its corresponding symbol in the position of the 'miller' as an 'outsider'. The failure of the artistic utopia as an alternative to the constraints of society leaves the writing subject no room to work out and assert an alternative, except at the level of narration. This situation is best exemplified in Ortheil's third and most ambitious novel, Schwerendter.

Ill Schwerendter Schwerendter combines the attempt to portray forty years of West German his­ tory through the experiences of a narrating subject with the literary investigation of the conditio germaniae. The text is a tight web of historical, literary, and con­ temporary references and cross-references whose theme is German intellectual history in its entirety. The framework is the narration of the life story of twin brothers, to whom Ortheil poignantly lends his own names, Johannes and Josef, who, bom in 1949, the year of the foundation of the Federal Republic, live through every significant aspect of postwar German history. The key to Ortheil's understanding of the German soul is the 'SchwerenOtertum' which has its roots in melancholia, the 'schwere Not' (Schw, 11). The other aspect of the title is, of course, provided by the somewhat dated term 'SchwerenOter1, 'philanderer*. Thus for Johannes, the narrating hero of the novel, every figure of German intellectual history becomes a 'Schwerendter* of one kind or the other, with whom he identifies and from whose influence he seeks to break free. Dualism, in fact, lies at the heart of the novel. This not only echoes the Faustian 'Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust' (Goethe 1986, 565), but also the dichotomy of mind and body and, above all, the distinction between (Ro­ man) civilization and (Germanic) barbarism — the twins grow up in Cologne, the

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place where Roman civilization left a lasting impact on German tribes. At the beginning of his narrative, Johannes claims that, in a kind of prenatal dreamtime, he had been told by the Roman founder of the city that the Germans had a 'zwiespaltig unentschlossenes Wesen [...] unergriindlich in seinen tieferen Antrieben und Sehnsttchten', that they were 'ein untatig lagemdes, traumendes, schwerftllig sich bewegendes Volk', incapable of lasting cultural achievement. 'Schwerenfltertum' thus denotes the duality of the introverted and extroverted personalities which the two brothers, through the myriad changes of their constant competi­ tion, come to embody. Moreover, it comes also to denote the duality of an aes­ thetic versus a pragmatic approach to life. It is the bipolarity of melancholy and ecstasy, which permeates the book on every level and which appears to Johannes even in the division of Germany and in the juxtaposition of Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt, that has to be overcome. And it is Johannes, the 'Schwerenftter1par excellence, who does over­ come it — by living both extremes to excess. For him, 'SchwerenOtertum' is the 'Bedingung des Glflcks [...] freilich mufi man hindurch, es ganz bis zur Neige ertragen' (Schw, 365). As he seeks to restore the unity of ecstatic happiness and the intellect, which has been destroyed, Johannes takes as his guiding principle the opening sentence of Adorno's Negative Dialektik: Philosophic, die einmal uberholt schien, erhalt sich am Leben, weil der Augenblick ihrer Verwirklichung versaumt ward' (Adorno 1973, 15). The moment when philosophy, the search for happiness, could have achieved its end has gone; we are caught for ever in the dualism of mind and body, thought and flesh: philosophy and 'Schwerendtertum'. The means for a restoration of the original state, which had been experi­ enced as an Orphic banquet by Johannes in his mother's womb, are an artistic ideal influenced by Joseph Beuys and by Friedrich Schleiermacher's concept of 'schdne Geselligkeit' (Schleiermacher 1981; Schw, 441), here borrowed again from Adomo. As Johannes leams from his uncle, a Joseph Beuys figure, the task of art is 'Veranderung, Umpolung, Zerstreuung', the breaking up of ossified con­ ditions, in short: Tluxus!' (Schw, 274). The 'schdne Geselligkeit' shines through at the end of Fermer as a social utopia where we find a relaxed, unhierarchical, identity-promoting discourse stimulated by aesthetic sensations. It is the social space in which the restoration of the state of grace occurs. The apparently dispar­ ate concepts taken from Schleiermacher, Adorno, Beuys, and the Renaissance idea of melancholy constitute a framework of orientation in which the light of the novel's utopian idea is reflected in the vision of balance addressed in each of the four concepts. Melancholy, according to Renaissance medicine, is caused by an imbalance of bodily fluids — Johannes refers several times to his 'schwarze

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Galle' (Battersby 1994, 44). Beuys's artistic ideal seeks a state of balance be­ tween the crystal and the fluid which resolves the dichotomy between spirit and matter, allowing his 'soziale Plastik' to appear (Harlan et al. 1984, 56-61, 8393). Schleiermacher's 'Versuch' stresses the necessity of a free-floating state within the limits of social convention in order to achieve his 'freie GeseUigkeit', the objective of which is 'ein freies Spiel der Gedanken und Empfindungen, wodurch alle Mitglieder einander gegenseitig aufregen und belehren' (Schleiermacher 1981, 10). Untrammelled sociability is intended explicitly to overcome the division between the individual and society, and to create a framework for a discourse in which the specialization of society's participants is overcome. Frag­ mentation is resolved in a state of wholeness. And, since Schleiermacher at­ tempts to construct 'das gesellige Leben als ein Kunstwerk', the link to aesthetics is explicit (Schleiermacher 1981, 7). Finally, Adorno's essay 'Zur Klassizismus von Goethes Iphigenie', in which he refers to 'GeseUigkeit' as an ideal, addresses a state of balance between civilization and barbarism (Adorno 1974, 504). This social utopia is to act as a counterbalance to the black bile of the 'Schweren&ter1 and to allow the duality of the mutually exclusive aesthetic and pragmatic, two further manifestations of 'SchwerenOtertum', to be overcome. At the end of the novel, at the end of his odyssey through aU the stages of 'SchwerenOtertum', Johannes proclaims his 'Wiedergeburt'. Yet, Johannes's rebirth is merely textual. The last of the 643 pages reveals the narrative to be an account of how he came to write it; it is an example of the transformation of life, real figures and real events, into text. The book is an act of megalomanic self-justification, in which Johannes attempts to defy his brother Josef, who has meanwhile entered parliament as an MP for the Green Party (in one of the many overt references to the contemporary political scene, under the name 'Joschka' [=Joschka Fischer]) It is Josefs success which triggers Johannes's writing of his version of the story. He mobilizes his interpretation of history against the victory of the pragmatic, the reality principle, personified by his bro­ ther. His assertion of a sole right to representation (foUowing the 'AUeinvertretungsanspruch' of Adenauer's Germany in relation to the GDR), cannot conceal its actual failure. The first person narrator, who not only loses his mind in the aftermath of the student protest but, with the breaking down of the social consen­ sus, literaUy loses his contours, deploys his narrative to combat the erosion of his utopia, which he is capable of maintaining only on paper.7 The failure to over­ come the all-pervading dualism results in schizophrenia, against which the writ­ ing of the novel functions as therapy. The claim which he makes at the beginning of the novel, 'die Weltgeschichte hat mich als einen ihrer Burger und kunftigen

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Gestalter in Beschlag genommen' (Schw, 12), reveals itself with hindsight, given his mental instability, as nothing other than his own desperate attempt to find a place in history. In retrospect also, the apparently ridiculous and banal parallels drawn between personal and national history (such as the 'Luftbrucke' [after the Berlin airlift] built by friends when his mother had problems obtaining provisions after the birth of the twins, or the separation of Johannes and Josef from their treehouse by a wire fence during the night of the building of the Berlin Wall) are revealed as futile attempts to attain historical representation and identity. The dubious nature of Johannes's enterprise becomes clear also from his constant misquoting of Adorno's principle, which he has adopted without actually reading the original. The impossibility of establishing a social and historical identity in practice or of realizing an aesthetic utopia, which would promote identity in soci­ ety, means that this identity can only be manufactured textually and, ultimately, is asserted as text. It is therefore perfectly logical that the novel should end with Johannes penning its opening line: 'Adenauer erwartete mich', thus laying claim to precisely that historical significance which the whole textual experience has denied. The constitution of the self by the act of writing has come full circle.

IV Ortheil’s‘poetischeHeimat’ It is at this point that Ortheil's concept of the 'poetische Heimat' comes into focus, by which he means 'so etwas wie eine Zentrierung meiner eigenen Arbeiten urn eine Utopie.' (Schau, 130) For Ortheil, the idea of the poetic homeland has two significant dimensions: an extrapolation from the individual to the general, which is coupled with the idea of absence or loss as a precondition for identification; and the role of language in offering an alternative home. Ortheil's novels, in their ambition to map out the spiritual and literaiy con­ tours of postwar Germany, are concerned with a kind of Lcmdeskunde, or, to use Michael Rutschky's term, an Ethnographie des Inlands.* The meticulous scrutiny of minute geographical detail which, especially in Hecke, is the prerequisite for an understanding of broader social contexts, corresponds to Siegfried Lenz's ob­ servation 'dafi Weltkunde mit Heimatkunde beginnt'.9 It has been pointed out many times that the concept of 'Heimat' depends on the actual loss of what it de­ notes, or that 'es [...] Heimweh geben mufi' (Kittler 1986, 153). Heimat', as a Romantic term of loss and longing, is a sentimental idealization which functions as a ’Kompensationsraum' for the alienation experienced in the industrial revolu­ tion; it seeks to conserve an ideal which never existed as such and is, therefore, feigned (Bausinger 1990, 80). It is exactly this concept of 'Heimat' that the nar­ rator in Hecke rebels against. His mother, in order to cope with the spiritual

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confusion caused by her wartime experiences, tries to escape into a stabilizing recollection of prewar times, which her eye had captured in fine detail: 'Sie starrte ins Tal hinab und begann zu erzahlen, und plOtzlich belebten sich die neumodisch-verfransten GegenstSnde, man ilbersah die Campingwagen und dachte sich in eine ganz andere Zeit zuriick'. Her son reacts indignantly to this wave of nos­ talgic reminiscence: *Nein — ich wollte von diesen Tauschungen nichts wissen' (H, 242). Ortheil's painful historical investigation is diametrically opposed to this kind of sentimentality. In his texts, Tleimat' is a concept that includes all aspects of the country and its history. However, as a place of compensation for lost social identity, 'Heimat' can be identified on the textual level of Ortheil's work. The texts become increasingly the homes of their narrators; they become a Sprachheimat, in which an act of narration compensates for social homelessness. Fermer, whose desire it is to ap­ pear 'im Satz als Gestalt' (F, 238), is the first in a series of characters engaged on a quest for a home. However, while he succeeds ultimately in entering into a dia­ logic discourse, he and his friends are then obliged to leave the country. From Hecke onwards all Ortheil's texts are analytical first-person narratives that pro­ gress in a circular movement which affirms itself textually. In fact, all Ortheil's work, while it is completely fictionalized, is saturated with autobiographical mo­ tifs, so that the narrative stances serve as a kind of alter ego to their author, add­ ing a further dimension to the theme of textualized identity and Sprachheimat. Because the narratives serve to establish identity, the less the narrating subjects are capable of realizing their aesthetic utopias socially, the more the text be­ comes the last resort which affords them a space and a home to exist. At the same time, this must undermine any tendency for closure implied by the circular structure and programmatic 'Gesinnung zur Totalitat' of Ortheil's novels. Open­ ness is, in fact, also suggested by Ortheil's view of his utopia as one 'deren Leuchtkraft sich auf den schwebenden, prinzipiell unabschliefibaren Charakter der einzelnen Satze beziehen sollte' (Schau, 130). If the text becomes the only space where the subject can realize its full utopian potential then this must lead to a form of continuous writing. Ortheil's subjects literally narrate for their lives. Formally this means that the end of the novel is also the beginning, as shown by the example of Schwerendter. Similar features occur in Hecke, where the narra­ tor closes the book imagining his mother opening it, and in Agenten, which again ends with a repetition of the first sentence. Ortheil's novels are thus in several senses 'Heimatromane1. As 'Zeitromane' they are a literary and socio-historical investigation of the country. In their sen­ sitivity to the literary heritage of West Germany they constitute a kind of literary

HANS-JOSEF ORTHEIL’S POETIC HOME

107

homeland for their author. Finally, in their aspiration to totality of expression, they refer to Luk&cs's Theorie des Romans. In the sense of Lukacs's 'transzendentale Obdachlosigkeit', which he also calls Tieimatlosigkeit' (Luldics 1971, 52) and which is the predicament of modernity, one could describe the novel as genre as ’Heimatroman', or, as Rainer N&gele has put it, Homan einer unvollendbaren Heimkehr1 (Nagele, 116). Ortheil's novels reflect this problem in their selfconscious programmatic conception.

NOTES 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

Lukdcs 1971,47. Ortheil begins his own doctoral thesis, a social history of the German novel from the 17th to the 19th century, with a detailed discussion of Lukdcs's theory. See Ortheil: DpW. The name of Ortheil's protagonist is an allusion to Ludwig Tieck's satirical story Fermer der Geniale, whose hero is a young man by the same name whose emotional life is completely determined by and extracted from various pieces of fashionable literature. I am referring to Keith Bullivanfs distinction between 'Neue Subjektivitaf and 'Neue Inneriichkeit' (Bullivant 1988,188-193.) The name of Fermer's friend Lotta is an obvious allusion to Goethe's epistolary novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. Fermer shares several characteristics with Werther, such as an emphatic rejection of the bourgeois world, a resonant relationship to art, and the insistence on self-expression. The expression 'die Gnade der spdten Geburt' became famous after it was used by Helmut Kohl on a visit to Israel in 1984. It is also the title of a story in Heidenreich 1986. Benjamin 1974b, 439. For Benjamin it is the (orally) narrated story which is capable of handing over experience to the listener as opposed to the novel: 'Mitten in der Fulle des Lebens und durch die Darstellung dieser Fulle bekundet der Roman die tiefe Ratlosigkeit des Lebenden' (Benjamin 1994b, 443). The Chapter 'Hauptstrom' (Schw, 469-489) consists of one single, constantly disrupt­ ed sentence in which the narrating subject attempts to give an account of the course of events at the peak of the student movement as he is himself simultaneously literally submerging as a subject under the flood of events. It is at this point that he has his first schizophrenic fit. Rutschky 1984. Ortheil refers to Rutschk/s enterprise extensively in his introductory essay to Schauprozesse (Schau, 12-14) Lenz 1981, 15. The main character of Lenz's novel, who isthecurator of the local 'Heimatmuseum', also refers to the act of extensive collection of everyday material as a means of appropriation of the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary works Ortheil, Hanns-Josef: Fermer. Roman, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1979. (=F). ------ : Derpoetische Widerstand im Roman, Athenflum, KOnigstein/Ts,1980.(=DpW). ------ : Hecke. Erzdhlung, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1983. (=H). ------ : SchwerenOter. Roman, Piper, Munich, 1987. (=Schw).

108 — HELMUT SCHMITZ ------ : Agenten. Roman, Piper, Munich, 1989. ------ : Abschied von den Kriegsteilnehmem. Roman, Piper, Munich, 1992. ------ : Schauprozesse, Beitr&ge zurKultur der 80er Jahre, Piper, Munich, 1990. (=Schau). Schaupozesse contains the following essays referred to in the text Introductory essay, 12-14. 'Werkstatt-Poetik', 21. 'Perioden des Abschieds. Zum Profil der neuen und jungsten deutschen Literatur', 188-205. ’Das Kalkutta-Programm', 28-36. 'Die Sprache des Widerstands', 129-139.

Secondary Works Adorno, Theodor W . 1973: Negative Dialektik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. ------ 1974: 'Zum Klassizismus von Goethes Iphigenie' in Adorno: Noten zur Literatur. Gesammelte Schriften, II, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, pp.495-514. Battersby, Christine 1989: Gender and Genius, Women's Press, London. Bausinger, Hermann 1990: 'Heimat in einer offenen Gesellschaft. Begriffsgeschichte als Problemgeschichte' in Bausinger Heimat. Analysen, Themen, Perspektiven, Bundeszentrale fur politische Bildung, Bonn, pp.76-90. Benjamin, W alter 1974a: 'Uber den Begriff der Geschichte' in Benjamin: Schriften, ed. by R. Tiedemann and H. Schweppenhauser, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1,2, pp.6 9 1 706. ------ 1974b: 'Der Erzahler. Betrachtungen zum Werk Nikolai Lesskows' in Benjamin: Schriften, ed. by R. Tiedemann and H. Schweppenhauser, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, II.2, pp.438-465. Bullivant, Keith 1988: Realism Today. Aspects of the Contemporary German Novel, Berg, Leamington. Goethe Johann Wolfgang 1986: Faust. Der TragOdie erster Teil in Goethe: SSmtliche Werke, Hanser, Munich, V I.1, pp.535-673. Harlan, Volker, Rappman, Rainer, and Schata, Peter 1984: Soziale Plastik. Materialien zu Joseph Beuys, Achberger Verlag, Achberg. Heidenreich, Gert 1986: Die Gnade der spdten Geburt. Sechs Erzdhlungen, Piper, Munich. Kittler, Friedrich 1986: 'De Nostalgia' in Pott 1986,153-168. Lenz, Siegfried 1981: Heimatmuseum. Roman, dtv, Munich. Luk£cs, Georg 1971: Die Theorie des Romans, Luchterhand, Neuwied/Berlin. Nagele, Rainer 1986: 'Simile Modo und Zeitraume der Heimat. Zu Peter Handkes Langsame Heimkehi' in Pott 1986, 113-130. Pott, Hans-Georg (ed.) 1986: Literatur und Provinz, Schttningh, Paderbom. Rutschky, Michael 1984: Zur Ethnographie des Inlands, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Schleiermacher, Friedrich 1981: 'Versuch einer Theorie des geselligen Betragens' in Schleiermacher Werke. Auswahl, 4 vols, Scientia Verlag, Aalen, pp. 1-32.

THE FUNCTION OF ALLEGORY IN CHRISTOPH RANSMAYR'S NOVEL DIE LETZTE WELT CLEMENS MURATH

Die letzte Welt is the second novel by Christoph Ransmayr, an Austrian bom in 1954. As in his first novel, Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finstemis, the action centres on the search by the protagonist for a goal, the meaning of which becomes increasingly questionable. It is boredom, rather than any inner compul­ sion, which brings the well-to-do Roman Cotta to equip himself for a journey to Tomi on the Black Sea in search of the exiled poet Publius Ovidius Naso and his mysterious major work, the Metamorphoses. During his sojourn on the Black Sea, Cotta experiences a deep crisis of identity when he is forced to recognize that here, at the ends of the Empire, his closely integrated view of the world frills to pieces. Cotta gradually loses sight of his original desire to find the poet and his magnum opus, realizing that he himself is ultimately only part of the text he has been seeking and which provides the horizon of his knowledge: Ovid's Meta­ morphoses. In the course of the novel's action, Cotta's previously well-integrated personality breaks down into fragments of conflicting realities. Ransmayr uses the development of his hero to launch a comprehensive critique of a narrow­ minded, positivist society which, in spite of the distance resulting from the processes of literature, is easily recognizable as our own. The disintegration of Cotta's identity, which is not to be understood as a negative phenomenon, opens up dimensions of experience within which a variety of, sometimes conflicting, 'linguistic games' are able to co-exist and which thus marie a departure from a concept of identity which has for so long dominated the discourse of Western societies. It is the allegorical mode of representation which produces not a synthesis but a meaningful juxtaposition of apparently irreconcilable opposites within a formal unity. Allegory confounds every claim to identity (something which, in history, has often been abused as a tool of repression), articulating instead a fundamental insecurity of knowledge and the renunciation of the quest for a valid final explanation. It deconstructs both the consistency of homogeneous views of the world and the belief in the existence of an undeniable reality. This explains

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the current high level of interest in allegory which is apparent not only in litera­ ture studies but also among practising artists (Wallis 1987). This holds good for Ransmayr's novel, where the claim to identity and to ultimate explanations is disputed by difference and the plurality of manifesta­ tions. The disintegration of customary patterns of experience leads to the forma­ tion of alternative points of view — without any one replacing another and with no ensuing reconciliation and synthesis; they exist side by side. It is allegory, as a rhetorical figure, which allows this contradiction to persist: Das nebeneinander von Aufldsungserscheinungen und Neukonstitution l&fit sich als paradoxale Situa­ tion bezeichnen. Suchen wir nach einer Fonnbestimmung fur dieses Paradox, bietet sich das Konzept der Allegorie an' (Reijen 1992,7).

I Through its use of allegory the novel dispels any false appearance of totality on several levels. It takes as its themes the impossibility to recapitulate origins, the dissolution of identity, the textual nature of our experience, and the suspension of time and the laws of nature as factors for order. In a systematic contortion of time, Ransmayr melds together the epoch of Augustus and the present, suggest­ ing two readings of the book. On the one hand, obeying the motto of the Meta­ morphoses, nothing remains in the same form, and the changes that occur throw doubt on the whole idea of established norms. On the other hand, the detour through the Roman Empire serves as an altogether serious critique of our own society. In Rome, Naso steps up to a 'Straufi schimmemder Mikrophone' (D1W, 60) to begin the fateful speech which will drive him into exile. And Ransmayr's an­ cient world is not only equipped with public address systems, it also enjoys pub­ lic transport and other modem achievements as well. In this perspective of an ahistorical concept of time, many features of contemporary civilization are reflec­ ted in the picture of Augustan Rome. In particular, the image of an ossified, en­ crusted society is painted whose original vitality only lives on in the old myths, while daily life is dominated by greed, corruption, and hedonism. Ransmayr's de­ scription of the Roman upper class would apply equally well to the fashionable set in today's Vienna, Munich, or a number of other major cities. Repressive measures on the part of influential Roman citizens and the authorities are a clear indication that the system is on the defensive and is reacting to stifle democratic tendencies. The revolutionary underground is already active in the catacombs and, without any shadow of doubt, will sooner or later triumph. Naso's play Midas is banned because leading personages feel defamed by it; the police take

ALLEGORY IN CHRISTOPH RANSMAYR — 111

robust action; the underground is suddenly able to claim as one of its own an author who is himself a fairly typical representative of the Roman 61ite. These are all mechanisms we know only too well today. The depiction of the faceless bureaucracy of Rome, which investigates Naso's case with dogged, emotionless persistence, is a direct criticism of our own dehumanized adminis­ trative processes, which reached their peak to date in the organization of the Holocaust. Ransmayr refers to this directly in the somewhat contrived episode about a German called Thies (D1W, 261). Only very thinly disguised, the horrors of the extermination camps and the German Army's Russian campaign during the Second World War, from which the Frisian Thies returns half-dead, emerge as a theme. He settles in Tomi as a gravedigger and is constantly troubled by the hor­ rors of the war. He has a fiancee, Proserpina, in ancient mythology the goddess of the underworld. It is the skilful arrangement of intertexts taken from the most diverse strata of time and culture that constitutes the highly artificial character of the novel. It is clear that the author is not interested at all in mimetic realism; throughout he is reflecting on his own fiction. The figurative aspect of the language becomes all the more significant because of the total absence of extra-textual reference.

II Allegory is generally defined as a rhetorical figure which lends an abstract idea concrete representation. Thus it designates simultaneously a thing and its oppo­ site by indicating two antithetical references. To some, the representation of a woman with scales in her hand is simply the representation of a woman with scales in her hand. To those practised in the interpretation of allegories the image will appear to be the representation of justice. Of course, there is no easy and im­ mediate way to determine the 'correct' reading; both variants are significant, as was established by Johann Jakob Bodmer when he defined allegory as 'eine doppelsinnige Schreibart, welche auf einmal zween Sinne mit sich fuhret, einer ist geheim, verborgen, allegorisch, der andere ist bloB auBerlich und historisch. Ftir beyde muB der Allegorist auf einmal besorgt sein, wenn er in einem fehlt, ist das ganze Werck verdorben' (quoted by Reijen 1992, 8). This ambiguity of meaning undermines the concept of truth in language, since the relation to reality is fractured. Either the literal or the figurative aspect comes into view, and the two contradict each other. Strictly speaking then, ac­ cording to Benjamin, the allegorical sign means 'genau das Nichtsein dessen, was es vorstellt' (Benjamin 1991,1.1, 406). Insight into the one level of meaning is matched by blindness for the other, and this has considerable consequences for

112 — CLEMENS MURATH

the interpretation of a text, as Paul de Man has set out impressively in his volume of essays, Blindness and Insight. If the fracture between signifier and signified, between literal and figura­ tive meaning, is constitutive of allegory, then the symbol aims for totality, relying upon a motivated correspondence between signifier and signified. Goethe saw the symbol as realizing the general in the particular. Similarly, Coleridge identi­ fied the symbol with synecdoche, as a part which stands organically for the whole. By contrast, allegory was seen as no more than a purely mechanical, ex­ ternal illustration (Fletcher 1964, 13-17). However, this differentiation between allegory and symbol only emerged in German Idealism because its aesthetics of reconciliation needed a rhetorical figure which would bring together the represen­ tative and semantic functions of language, where opposites could be reconciled in unity. As criticism of Idealism increased, accompanied by the growth of modem linguistic criticism, allegory could again slowly gain in significance. Thus Fried­ rich Schlegel saw allegory as the essentially artistic method, since what is repre­ sented is not what is meant, instead it draws into view what cannot be expressed in discursive concepts. Allegory extinguishes itself as an arbitrary sign and in so doing forces into presence what cannot be represented — something a symbol, being based on correspondences, obviously cannot achieve. With this, allegorical art succeeds where Kant's attempts at conceptualization, in his Analytik des Erhabenen, were in vain: it displays the incomprehensible. Current interest in allegory is probably stimulated by the fact that the dis­ tance between image and significance generates a critical force which disperses any appearance of false totality. The allegorical sign draws together all the irreconcilable conflicts of a fragmented world-view in a formal unity without for­ cing a synthesis upon them. By dint of their representation, uncontrollable, mutu­ ally contradictory and self-cancelling processes are brought under linguistic order. The allegorical work of art provides an example of how orientation can become possible in a world where all attempts to make sense are in conflict with each other.

Ill There has been no deeper insight into the essence of allegory than that provided by Walter Benjamin. In his book Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, Benjamin outlines structural features of the allegorical which are valid way beyond the narrow confines of baroque tragedy.

ALLEGORY IN CHRISTOPH RANSMAYR — 113

Interesting parallels can be drawn between the baroque and the so-called postmodern age (van Reijen 1992). Both are times of transition in which signifi­ cant social, political, and economic upheavals have occurred (Maravall 1986). It is no accident that the baroque is often reflected today, not only in the fashions of pop-culture, but also in films and, particularly, in postmodern architecture. The two epochs are linked by such central experiences of life as a loss of ideological direction, a fundamental doubt about the reliability of human understanding, and the feeling that invisible strings are guiding our path over the stage of life. In this context, allegory offers the most apposite artistic expression. Perhaps the most essential characteristic of the baroque was the know­ ledge of the vanity of all things. The vanity motif and the representation of the world as a stage occupy wide areas of baroque thought. According to Benjamin, this view of the world finds its most appropriate expression in the allegorical tragedy. Paradoxically, it is precisely the arbitrary nature of the allegorical sign which gives compelling expression to an existential consciousness determined by the aura of alienation and death. This arbitrariness characterizes 'eine Welt, in der es auf das Detail nicht so streng ankommt. Doch wird, und dem zumal, dem allegorische Schriftexegese gegenwMig ist, ganz unverkennbar, dafi jene Requisiten des Bedeutens alle mit eben ihrem Weisen auf ein anderes eine M&chtigkeit gewinnen, die den profanen Dingen inkommensurabel sie erscheinen l&fit' (Ben­ jamin 1991,1.1,350). Allegory, then, is characterized essentially by antagonism: on one level it is an arbitrary sign; on the other, the non-signifying level, it is the expression of an existentialist consciousness: T)enn Allegorie ist beides, {Convention und Ausdruck; und beide sind von Haus aus widerstreitend [...] Die Allegorie des XVII. Jahrhunderts ist nicht Konvention des Ausdrucks sondem Ausdruck der Konvention' (Benjamin 1991, 1.1, 350-351). It is the expression of sadness at the tran­ sience of things, the God-forsakenness of life. He who ruminates on the meaning­ lessness of life and its lack of a plan, in the baroque and in the postmodern age, falls prey to melancholy, which is determined by the same antagonistic structure as allegory. Melancholy is characterized by the contrast between emphatic cheer­ fulness and deep sorrow, between insight and madness, between awareness of restrictions and boundlessness. On the one hand, the melancholic strives contem­ platively 'mit unmittelbarem Tiefsinn aufs absolute Wissen', on the other hand, all things escape his questing eye, 'um als allegorische Verweisungen und weithin als Staub vor ihm zu liegen. Die Intention der Allegorie ist so sehr der auf Wahr­ heit widerstreitend, dafi deutlicher in ihr als sonst die Einheit einer puren, auf das

114 — CLEMENS MURATH

bloBe Wissen abgezweckten Neugier mit der hochmtitigen Absonderung des Menschen zutage tritt' (Benjamin 1991,1.1,403). In his boundless isolation, the melancholic loses himself in detail, in frag­ ments, which he breaks out of their context in life to senselessly ponder their lack of sense. Meaninglessness is to be understood here as despair about the grace of God or, in more modem terms, about the loss of metaphysical safeguards, which leaves the individual with sole responsibility and can promise no mercy after death. Accidie, torpor of the heart, is one of the deadly sins of which the melan­ cholic is guilty. It is, as Kittsteiner has rightly pointed out, intellectual inertia: 'Ausdruck des schwindenden Vertrauens in den g3ttlichen Heilsplan1(Kittsteiner 1992, 159). The melancholic looks at things in the perspective of death, not with the design of history in mind: 'Wird der Gegenstand unterm Blick der Melancho­ lic allegorisch, lafit sie das Leben von ihm abflieBen, bleibt er als toter, doch in Ewigkeit gesicherter zuruck, so liegt er vor dem Allegoriker, auf Gnade und Ungnade ihm Uberliefert [...] an Bedeutung kommt ihm das zu, was der Allegoriker ihm verleiht' (Benjamin 1991,1.1, 359). Since life is no longer provided with an all-embracing meaning by God or one of his modem substitutes, then what meaning there is must result from melancholy's absent-minded and subjective view, which is able to attribute arbit­ rary meaning to the fragments of existence simply because they can have no inherent meaning. It is for this reason that the unmotivated relation between signifier and signified, which constitutes allegory, can characterize an experience of a world bereft of any grand design, where individuals are thrown back on them­ selves. It is this aspect which forms a central theme in Ransmayr's book. Cotta's development is marked by his gradual withdrawal from a centre of reason; the resultant loss of orientation throws him into panic, until he manages to attach meaning to the fragments which now constitute his experience of reality and which eventually fit together as the text of the Metamorphoses. The critique of a concept of the autonomous individual is particularly sig­ nificant in the novel. This relates directly to the loss of meaning, a loss which is reflected in the figure of the melancholic, who attempts to recapture what is now irrecoverable. The eye of the melancholic, purely subjective and no longer guided by a superior scheme, loses direction among meaningless references, triggering typical gloom: despair at the impossibility of certain knowledge coupled with simultaneous striving for it. Thus allegory becomes the figure for the self-deception of an individual who has greatly overestimated his own capacity for know­ ledge. Instead of recognizing the connections in the universe as a result of profound contemplation of the absolute '[f&llt] von Sinnbild zu Sinnbild die

ALLEGORY IN CHRISTOPH RANSMAYR — 115

allegorische Intention dem Schwindel ihrer grundlosen Tiefe anheim1(Benjamin 1991, 1.1, 405). In a perpetual process of onward-pointing signification origins can never be recaptured, nor can the individual come to himself. It is precisely here that the critical potential of allegory lies, when it becomes transparent that the striving for the absolute is no more than arrogant 'Gottfeme' and 'Selbsttauschung' (Benjamin 1991,1.1, 405). Just as the images of the melancholic eye obliterate themselves by indicating as allegory what cannot be represented, so the subject enacts its own non-identity in the performance of the self-obliterating process which is characteristic for the allegorical intention. Thus allegory becomes the genuine form of expression for a dispersed subjectivity which constantly displaces itself. Paul de Man took up this point in his essay The rhetoric of temporality'. He defines the nature of allegory as essentially intertextual. Whilst the symbol implies that analogy is the basis of the relationship between signifier and signi­ fied, the allegorical sign constantly refers to other signifers, not to the signified. The literal meaning of the sign is always supplanted by the figurative meaning, indicating the importance of the time element: 'Whereas the symbol postulates the possibility of an identity or identification, allegory designates primarily a distance in relation to its own origin, and, renouncing the nostalgia and the desire to coincide, it establishes its language in the void of its temporal difference' (de Man 1983, 207). It is the allusive character of allegory, with its denial of all origins, that is at work in the intertextual references of Ransmayr’s novel; it corresponds to the leitmotif of metamorphosis which relates to an immediately preceding state which is itself already the result of a metamorphosis. The unbridgeable difference in time between the signs, together with the irrecoverability of origins, makes allegory the expression for radical discontinuity and addresses the theme of the impossibility for the individual of gaining assurance of himself. The self, for lack of reliable points of reference, becomes a rhetorical fiction. This background allows us to read the Metamophoses as direct allegories for a concept of the individual which has abandoned the paradigm of identity.

IV The unmediated co-existence of antagonistic elements pervades the whole novel, with Rome and Tomi providing the two points of reference. Rome is the centre of the civilized world, while Tomi lies on the most distant periphery of the Empire, where the standards of the capital no longer apply. Rome is order and bureau­ cracy, Tomi barbarism and anarchy. Here we find the urbane, bored lifestyle of

116 — CLEMENS MURATH

an elite destined for decline, there the crude mentality of violent, rootless figures whose forms of communication can be described at best as basic. In Rome there is still implicit belief that the Empire is eternal, in Tomi space and time are in dis­ array and Rome's claim to hegemonic power simply dissolves. Cotta's search for Naso becomes a journey into uncertainty. The tempestu­ ous crossing is significant. He has exchanged the firm ground of Roman facts for the heaving planks of the ship, and in Tomi itself certainty will not be reestab­ lished. Cotta's development follows the stations of growing uncertainty of know­ ledge and increasing loss of identity in the area of conflict between the fixed frameworks of Rome and the deranged coordinates of Tomi. Deranged is to be taken literally here, in the sense of dislocation or being thrust out of the pre­ ordained order. This derangement, which is a continual process and never per­ mits a view of a confidence-inspiring source, is manifest in the metamorphoses which beset people and nature. A winter of two full years gives way to luxuriant tropical vegetation which soon buries the last traces of civilization. Cotta wit­ nesses disquieting phenomena which would not be out of place in horror films. For example, eveiy now and again his landlord Lycaon turns into a wolf and sets off on bright moonlit nights up the scree towards Trachila. Procne and her sister, as they flee the raving butcher Tereus, turn into birds just as he raises his axe to strike the fatal blow. Battus, the epileptic son of Fama the grocerwoman freezes overnight to stone. Pythagoras, Naso's servant, is deranged, preferring the transi­ tory to the permanent, writing in sand 'damit die Wellen seine Worte und Zeichen aufleckten und ihn dazu anhielten, immer wieder und anders und neu zu beginnen' (D1W, 252). Even Naso, who has directly challenged Rome's claim to eterni­ ty in his Metamorphoses and is paying for it with his banishment into barbarism, is mad. And, ultimately, Cotta himself is mad; he follows Naso and loses himself in the text of the Metamorphoses. In Trachila, Naso's last hiding place, Cotta comes across stone steles and little pennants inscribed with enigmatic fragments of text. Finally resolving a pro­ digious semiotic puzzle, he discovers that all the dispersed signs link together to make up the previously incinerated text of Naso's Metamorphoses and that this text had done nothing other than tell the stories of the inhabitants of Tomi in ad­ vance: 'Nicht nur die vergangenen, auch die zukunftigen Schicksale der eisemen Stadt flatterten an den Steinmalen von Trachila im Wind oder glitten nun entratselt durch Cottas H&nde' (D1W, 285). Fiction anticipates reality. In the final analysis, it is reality. T)ie Erfindung der Wirklichkeit', we read, 'bedurfte keiner Aufzeichnung mehr' (D1W, 287). Reality has been displaced into the text. In the total suspension of distinction

ALLEGORY IN CHRISTOPH RANSMAYR — 117

between fiction and reality, as consistently happens in the novel, all that remains is for fiction to be recognized as reality and vice versa. The reality of Tomi, as presented to us by the author, appears as Naso's text, which becomes Cotta's sole point of reference. He has to recognize that he is located within a world which he had hoped to find as a poetic manuscript and in which he proceeds to lose him­ self, particularly as he is himself part of the text: Die einzige Inschrift, die noch zu entdecken blieb, lockte Cotta ins Gebirge: Er wOrde sie auf einem im Silberglanz Trachilas begrabenen F&hnchen finden oder im Schutt der Flanken des neuen Berges; gewifi aber wtirde es ein schmales Fahnchen sein — hatte es doch nur zwei Silben zu tragen [...] sein eigener Name' (D1W, 287). The antagonism between Rome and Tomi does no more than indicate two poles which are inherent in the two central figures in the novel, Cotta and Naso. These both come from the enlightened world of Rome and are confronted by things which first call into permanent question the apparently firm structures of the world and then become a problem for the self. In the course of the novel, the various stages in Cotta's loss of self are por­ trayed. His first visit to Trachila already shows all the symptoms of crisis. The obvious decay of architectural order, 'diese eingebrochenen Mauem aus Kalkstein [...] und die im Leeren stehengebliebenen Torbtigen, durch die hindurch nur noch die Zeit verflog' (D1W, 14), correlates with the madness of Pythagoras, who, as Naso's servant, has remained in the wilds. Cotta fights against the disin­ tegration of reason and order by trying to assure himself of his identity in lan­ guage: 'Aber schlieBlich begriff Cotta, daB er erzShlte, um diesem wiisten Gerede aus dem Dunkel die Ordnung und die Vemunft einer vertrauten Welt entgegenzusetzen: Rom gegen die Unmdglichkeit eines Maulbeerbaums im Schnee vor dem Fenster; Rom gegen die in der Eindde hockenden Steinmale, gegen die Verlassenheit von Trachila' (D1W, 18). Roman reason, however, collapses increasingly when faced with inexpli­ cable phenomena. Salvation from this permanent state of crisis becomes a pos­ sibility only when Cotta gives up his resistance to the experiences he cannot rationalize and accepts that conflicting 'linguistic games' can exist side by side: Der quftlende Widerspruch zwischen der Vemunft Roms und den unbegreiflichen Tatsachen des Schwarzen Meeres verfiel. Die Zeiten streiften ihre Namen ab, gingen ineinander iiber, durchdrangen einander. Nun konnte der fallsiichtige Sohn einer Kramerin versteinem und als rohe Skulptur zwischen den Krautfkssem stehen, konnten Menschen zu Bestien werden oder zu Kalk und eine tropische Flora im Eis aufbliihen und wieder vergehen [...] Also beruhigte er sich. (D1W, 241)

118 — CLEMENS MURATH

The novel's underlying idea of constant change undermines every form of identity and the teleological concept of history as well. It is evident that change in form as a permanent process of displacement makes it impossible to achieve a stable state of self-awareness; equally, it cannot accommodate the idea that the life of man is the only element in the ongoing course of history which reaches a point of termination. In this context we can cite the famous fragment from Empedocles which Hubert Fichte had chiselled into his headstone to remind us of the frag­ mentation of the self and of existence continuing beyond life: 'Ich war ja einst schon Knabe, Madchen, Strauch, Vogel und aus dem Meere emportauchender stummer Fisch'. A similar concept of displaced subjectivity can be found at the end of the novel: Naso hatte schlieBlich seine Welt von den Menschen und ihren Ordnungen befreit, indem er jede Geschichte bis an ihr Ende erz&hlte Dann war er wohl auch selbst eingetreten in das menschenleere Bild, kollerte als unverwundbarer Kiesel die Halden hinab, strich als Kormoran uber die Schaumkronen der Brandung oder hockte als triumphierendes Purpurmoos auf dem letzten, verschwindenden Mauerrest einer Stadt. (DIW, 287)

It is certain that neither the rolling pebble, nor the cormorant, nor the purple moss is the last stage of Naso's Metamorphoses, which are themselves only fragments in the passage of history. V The illusion of self-identity, which is dismantled in Ransmayr's novel, was high­ lighted by Friedrich Schlegel. Schlegel pointed out that this illusion, which he saw as a very brief but powerful human experience, is owed to the fragment of the momentary spark of mind, the flash of wit which momentarily signals the whole. Wit is, however, the opposite of allegoiy: 'Im Witz stellt sich die Tendenz auf Einheit ohne die auf Ftille, in der Ailegorie stellt sich die Tendenz auf die Unendlichkeit, abgelOst von der auf die Einheit, dar' (Frank 1989, 296). As a dimension of experience, wit is synchronic; it is the experience of momentary self-identity. From this position it is possible to establish some ideas about the utopia of the moment, as Karl-Heinz Bohrer has shown. He talks of 'Autoren des gesteigerten "Augenblicks"' when, in the distillation of a fleeting moment, 'das "Ich" im Zustand emphatischer Wahmehmung' is at one with itself (Bohrer 1981, 186). This 'fragmentarische Genialitat', to use Schlegel's term for it, does not occur in Ransmayr's novel. Here the melancholic eye strays off into endless signification, finding its allegorical material in the Metamorphoses. A modem self is represented allegorically as a construct that cannot lay claim to

ALLEGORY IN CHRISTOPH RANSMAYR — 119

any degree of authenticity and that recognizes language as the horizon of its self­ depiction. Reality, therefore, is fictional, 'erfiindene Wirklichkeit', as Ransmayr puts it. Correspondingly, the self drafting the self must also be fictional. It is, as de Man says, a rhetorical fiction in a totally undramatic sense of the word. We cannot speak of the 'death of the self, but rather of its permanent self-depiction in a textual world which is bereft of any ultimate meaning. The impossibility of any final explanation admits the possibility of perceiving conflicting elements as a totality which is not related to any kind of centre. This juxtaposition of 'linguistic games' is characteristic of postmodernism. The fragmentation of subjectivity, as presented in the novel, is the expression of this postmodern condition. It finds its most congenial mode of expression in allegory.

VI In the framework of the novel, the allegorical function of the two places Trachila and Tomi is obvious. Trachila, that delapidated hamlet where the last traces of Naso disappear, can only be reached over slopes of scree. The landscape is dominated by stone. Tomi itself is a village of ruins: 'Von den neunzig H&usem der Stadt standen damals schon viele leer; sie verfielen und verschwanden unter Kletterpflanzen und Moos. Ganze H&userzeilen schienen allmShlich wieder an das Kiistengebirge zuruckzufallen' (D1W, 10). The advance of nature and the concomitant progressive destruction of culture, and also of the people, echo in the description of Tomi as 'die eiseme Stadt', itself a metaphorical allusion to the 'age of iron', which, following the ages of gold, silver, and ore celebrated by Ovid at the beginning of his Metamorphoses, marked the point of greatest decline of mankind: Hierauf folgte das dritte Geschlecht, von ehemer Zeugung, Wutender schon von Natur, und gewandt zu schrecklichen Wafifen; Doch unsiindig annoch. Dann schloB die eiseme Abart. Stracks nun stiirmte daher in die Zeit der schlechteren Ader Jeglicher Greu'l: es entflohen die Scham, und die Treu1, und die Wahrheit; Deren StelT einnahmen der lauemde Trug und die Arglist. (Ovid 1990, 14)

The iron race is then wiped out by Jupiter in a great flood. Only Deucalion and Pyrrha survive. At the behest of an oracle they throw stones behind them and thus the human race arises anew, hard, in a new metamorphosis. In Ransmayr's novel, the iron race refers to the late Roman Empire and becomes an allegory for an ossified, repressive society whose loss of meaning is only too obvious. At the peak of its might, the Empire already carries within it the kernel of its self-destruction. Naso has recognized this, at least in Ransmayr's

120 — CLEMENS MURATH

book. The landscapes of ruins in Tomi and Trachila anticipate the end of Rome. Echo, Naso's female companion, bears witness to his visions which would stand at the end of the Metamorphoses: Der Untergang! schrie Echo, das Ende der wOlfischen Menschheit — Naso habe die katastrophale Zukunft wie kein anderer erkannt, und vielleicht sei diese Prophetie auch der wahre Grund seiner Vertreibung aus Rom gewesen; wer wollte denn ausgerechnet in der grdBten und herrlichsten Stadt der Welt an das Ende aller GrbBe und Herrlichkeit mit jener Leidenschaft erinnert werden, mit der Naso den Untergang vorhergesagt hatte? (DIW, 162)

The ruins of Trachila and Tomi remind us of the main theme of the novel, the constant alternation of decline and ascent that mark the area of conflict between culture and nature. All human endeavour carries within itself the germ of self-destruction as, in a dialectical movement, human beings first set about sub­ jecting nature to forms of their will and then suffer the latter's revenge for this rape. Thus Tomi, which is already in a state of advanced decay when Cotta arrives, is wiped out towards the end of the novel, anticipating the fall of Rome. First storms and earthquakes beset the place, violently changing the topography of both town and landscape, then tropical vegetation takes over the ruins and totally obliterates all sign of humanity's efforts: Unter den Umarmungen der Zweige war schlieBlich nicht mehr zu erkennen, ob ein Wetterhahn oder eine Giebelfigur noch an ihrem Platz stand oder 1angst zerfallen war. Das wuchemde Griin ahmte die Formen, die es umfing, anf&nglich spielerisch und wie zum Spott nach, wuchs dann aber nur noch seinen eigenen Gesetzen von Form und Schdnheit gehorchend weiter und unnachgiebig iiber alle Zeichen menschlicher Kunstfertigkeit hinweg. (DIW, 271)

The antagonistic forces of intellect and nature, purpose and accident, past and present, all of which apply throughout the novel, achieve formal unity in the image of the ruins. Georg Simmel has provided us with an instructive essay on this subject and clearly identifies the fracture which pervades the unity of the image: Den tiefen Frieden aber, der wie ein heiliger Bannkreis die Ruine umgibt, tragt diese Konstellation: daO der dunkle Antagonismus, der die Form alles Daseins bedingt [...] hier gleichfalls nicht zum Gleichgewicht versohnt ist, sondem die eine Seite uberwiegen, die andere in Vemichtung sinken laBt und dabei dennoch ein formsicheres, ruhig verharrendes Bild bietet. Der asthetische Wert der Ruine vereint die Unausgeglichenheit, das ewige Werden der gegen sich selbst ringenden Seele mit der formalen Beftiedigtheit, der festen Umgrenztheit des Kunstwerks. (Simmel 1985, 123)

ALLEGORY IN CHRISTOPH RANSMAYR — 121

It is the paradox of antinomic and unmediated opposites which is stabi­ lized in the image of the ruins, thus presenting a snapshot of the processes of reciprocal appropriation. The dual structuring and semantic polyvalence, which guide the eye at once into the past and into the future, which bind conflicting and mutually exclusive forces into the formal unity of the image, are characteristic of allegory. This is how we are to understand Benjamin's much-quoted statement: 'Allegorien sind im Reiche der Gedanken was Ruinen im Reiche der Dinge' (Benjamin 1991,1.1, 354). In fact, the allegorical landscapes of Tomi and Trachila not only open our eyes to the conflicting forces of intellect and nature; they also, through their formal unity as linguistic signs, point to the transience of all things and, at the same time, to their (linguistic) salvation for eternity. To quote Benjamin some­ what out of context, the landscape ruins are 'nicht allein das Sinnbild von der Ode aller Menschenexistenz. Verg&nglichkeit ist in ihnen nicht sowohl bedeutet, allegorisch dargestellt, denn, selbst bedeutend, dargeboten als Allegorie. Als die Allegorie der Auferstehung' (Benjamin 1991,1.1, 405). Clearly it would be a mistake to try to suggest that the novel shares Ben­ jamin's distinctly opaque messianic expectation of salvation. What is significant here is simply the structural element of annihilation and simultaneous salvation contained in allegory. And here Ransmayr's text is utterly explicit, for Naso's Metamorphoses do in fact outlast the end, because this is merely a part of the text, which itself continues in infinite subsequent metamorphoses as the history of the world. The representation of the catastrophe already contains within it the first glimmer of salvation. It is heralded as the sudden change into a new form, which, for its part, again contains an antagonism within itself. The continuing chain of metamorphoses thus expresses an insight into transitoriness and its reso­ lution in eternity. As Pythagoras says: TCemes verbleibt in derselben Gestalt, und VerSnderung liebend / Schafft die Natur stets neu aus anderen Formen, / Und in der Weite der Welt geht nichts — das glaubt mir — verloren; / Wechsel und Tausch ist nur in der Form' (Ovid 1990, 354). And Naso's claim to eternity, which transcends all times and natural cata­ strophes, is expressly confirmed. Cotta finds the following lines carved in stone: 'Aber durch dieses Werk werde ich fortdauem und mich hoch iiber die Sterne emporschwingen und mein Name wird unzerstOrbar sein' (D1W, 51).

VII The metaphor of the stone, which runs through the novel and must be regarded as one of its constitutive elements, unexpectedly becomes an allegory for the living.

122 — CLEMENS MURATH

This may, at first, seem incomprehensible, stone is after all the symbol of death. From the earliest times the hardest parts of the human body have been associated with stone. Bones which stick out symbolize death. In allegorical representations of death there is always a skeleton figure, Death, who brings his sad harvest home, scythe in hand. On the other hand, stone symbolizes liberation from the organic. Its mine­ ral clarity and hardness are the opposite of the stench of decay and melting flesh. Naso does, in fact, see in 'Versteinenmg geradezu eine ErlOsung' (D1W, 158) from the organic. It is, he says, 'der von aller Weichheit und allem Leben befreite Stein' which is capable 'wenigstens eine Ahnung von unangreifbarer Wurde, von Dauer, ja Ewigkeit zu tragen' (D1W, 157). It is perfectly logical therefore that, at the end of his stories, all of the figures turn to stone, causing Echo to surmise that the poet is working on a book of stones. Echo tells us that Naso *habe ihr in seinen Geschichten das Gerdll und noch den Schotter trockener Bachbette gedeutet und in jedem Sediment ein Zeitalter, in jedem Kiesel ein Leben gesehen' (D1W, 157). It is not only that past epochs have settled as fossil sediments in the stone, out of this stone itself new life will arise. The myth of Deucalion marks the renewed changing of the times. The stony element thus becomes the point of passage through to a further metamorphosis which, as is made plain by the cata­ strophic end of the 'eiseme Zeit', can only be better. Not an end is in view, but a beginning — of a new epoch. Ransmayr’s last world, in its allegorical reversal, will become the first.

NOTE Translation by Arthur Williams

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Ransmayr, Christoph: Die letzte Welt, Greno, NOrdlingen, 1988. (=DIW).

Secondary Works Benjamin, W alter 1991: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by R. Tiedemann and H. Schweppenhauser, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Bohrer, Karl-Heinz 1981: PlOtzlichkeit. Zum Augenblick des Usthetischen Scheins, Frankfurt am Main. de Man, Paul 1983: 'The Rhetoric of Temporality' in de Man: Blindness and Insight, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp.187-229. Fletcher, Angus 1964: Allegory. The Theory of a Symbolic Mode, London.

ALLEGORY IN CHRISTOPH RANSMAYR — 123 Frank, Manfred 1989: EinfQhrung in die FrOhromantische Asthetik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Kittsteiner, Heinz D. 1992: 'Die geschichtsphilosophische Allegorie des 19. Jahrhunderts' in van Reijen 1992a, 147-172. Maravall, Jos6 Antonio 1986: Culture of the Baroque. Analysis of a Historical Structure, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Ovid 1990: Metamorphosen (German version by J. H. VoS), Insel, Frankfurt am Main. Reijen, Willem van (ed.) 1992a: Allegorie und Melancholia, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Reijen, Willem van 1992b: 'Labyrinth und Ruine. Die Wiederkehr des Barock in der Postmodeme' in van Reijen 1992a, 261-292. Simmel, Georg 1983: Philosophische Kultur, Berlin. W allis, B. (ed.) 1987: Blasted Allegories, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA).

CUT-UP 'SHORTEST STORIES’: HELMUT HEISSENBGTTEL AND ROR WOLF KARL RIHA

The entry TCurzgeschichte' in the Metzler Literaturlexikon proceeds by tracing back the poetological concept to the American 'short story', establishing its dis­ tinctive features against those of the German 'Novelle', and ends with the sug­ gestion: 'In jiingster Zeit scheint es, als wiirde die Kurzgeschichte ihren Platz als Experimentierfeld der Prosa an noch reduziertere Formen abgeben' (Schwiehle 1984,243f.). More detailed explorations of this phenomenon can be found in the secondary literature — for example, in Assit Datta's study: Kleinformen der deutschen Erzdhlprosa seit 1945, where we find: 'In einer Zeit, in der man mit Diskontinuitat, Disharmonie, mit der dialektischen Antinomie der Gesellschaft leben muB, gewinnt das unscheinbare Detail an Bedeutung. Es scheint natiirlich zu sein, dafi der Reiz des Experiments — durch Verfeinerung, artistische Steigerung und dsthetische Reduktion — bei den Kleinformen der Prosa liegt' (Datta 1972, 197). It is here that my discussion begins. I use the term ’Kiirzestgeschichte' to refer to precisely those 'even shorter' narrative forms which are here identified as the 'Experimentierfeld der Prosa'. These are the forms which emerge at the point where the genre begins to break down and, at the same time, innovative impulses open up new horizons. It is now well established in histories of the media that the Novelle as a nineteenth-century narrative form was closely associated with the publication of almanacs and similar periodicals. The anecdotal account of Stiver's Condor is to some extent symptomatic. The author had taken his manuscript with him to a reception where it was picked from his pocket by one of the society ladies — and found its way into one of the multitude of society 'pocket-books' which, at that time, vied for the reading favours of the ladies. Contemporary theory of the Novelle took as its starting-point Goethe's 'unerhdrte Begebenheit' and sought to draw distinctions from and parallels to the novel and the drama respectively: the multiple threads of the one are refracted in the single strand of the narration, which is intensified by the use of leitmotifs and symbolic objects of the other. Wilhelm Tieck and Friedrich Schlegel emphasized the necessity of the Wendepunkt in the proportioning of the narrated substance, thence declaring the Novelle

126 — KARL RIHA

to be a specific expression of literary energy which formed a 'unified whole' in its own right. By contrast, the 'short story' can be seen as the offspring of the modem daily newspaper, as subject aesthetically to its shaping influence. In order to as­ sert itself among the throng of news reports, articles, commentaries, and reviews, the narrative had, of necessity, to squeeze itself into the columns' corset and, thus constrained, quite simply to reduce its extent. There is a boundless wealth of relevant references to substantiate the fact that the authors, as the short story was emerging as a literary genre, were closely bound by the various forms of the press. One might start in English-language with Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the American short story and the first theorist of its relationship as a published form to contemporary magazines; and in German-language literature with Robert Walser, who, especially during his time in Biel, embarked on intensive experi­ ments with short literary forms. Walser was able to learn from several failed attempts at novel-writing and to draw on his experiences as a newspaper writer. The salient features of the short story may be associated with dissolution into the fragmentary and mysterious: experiences which have been stripped of their con­ text and which stimulate and charm precisely because of their isolation. A period of literary history which is particularly interesting in this respect is German post­ war literature, in which, of course, the short story became the most popular lite­ rary genre. This is where authors like Heinrich Bfill, Martin Walser, and Wolfdietrich Schnurre have their literary origins — in quite concrete and material terms. Working for newspapers did not compromise them; it was naked neces­ sity, for it guaranteed the authors' livelihood. It is no accident, therefore, that Schnurre, for example, takes as the theme of one of his short stories the medium to which he is thus committed. The opening section of 'Portrat eines Schwierigen' contains the following passage: 'Wie der Lange Reporter geworden ist, weifi niemand. Sein Ressortchef sagt, aus Versehen, denn er sieht einen geistig Minderbemittelten in ihm. Doch der Lange ist nicht geistig minderbemittelt, er ist eben nur einfach kein Zeitungsmensch; und das wirkt sich nachteilig aus, wenn man versucht, Reporter zu sein' (Schnurre 1978, 11). Similar arguments are to be found in academic secondary literature which declare the cultural and literary columns of newpapers to be one of the points of origin of the English, and German, modem short story — nor is this to be taken to relate simply to external dimensions. Alongside the quantitative restriction im­ posed by newspapers, formal shaping also occurs both because of the writers' situation, which is determined by the short time available for the creative proces­ ses, reflecting the need to react to external circumstances with utmost speed, and

•CUT-UP* SHORTEST STORIES — 127

because endings are kept open and unresolved, with a fragmentary effect which becomes a structural element in the narrative. The reductionist momentum, in contrast to the processes in the Novelle, can be seen to have a variety of traits. Walter HOllerer provides an abbreviated list of 'specific features', of which, to me, the most significant are: the capturing of the moment ('Augenblicksfixierung'), multifaceted happenings which frequent­ ly appear at first to be situations of no particular significnce ('scheinbar belanglose Situationen1), action built up of sections which are defined precisely by their atmosphere ('atmospharisch genau bezeichnete Abschnitte'). These he calls 'Kabinen', and they can 'sich gegenseitig sttitzen oder sich Widerpart geben'. He refers to 'Arabesken des Erz&hlens' and explains: 'der Erzahler sucht nicht zu vertuschen, dafi er erzahlt; er zeigt das ganz offen und desillusionierend'. Crucially, Hdllerer identifies TJnabgeschlossenheit am Anfang und am Ende [...] an Stelle von Streckenbeschreibungen und Streckenvermessungen mit aufsteigender und abfallender Linie' (Hdllerer 1962). Tur Anfang und Schlufi der Kurzgeschichte gilt die Unabgeschlossenheit als gattungsspezifisches Strukturmerkmal', is the way Leonie Marx makes the same point in her little volume Die deutsche Kurz­ geschichte'. Das bedeutet: schon vor dem ersten Satz [...] hat das Geschehen langst begonnen [...] Am Schlufi dauert die Spannung des Geschehens Uber den letzten Satz hinaus fort, l&fit den Leser emotionell bzw. gedanklich nicht los, spannt ihn zur Mitarbeit ein, weil keine Ldsung geboten wird'. And: Wenngleich die Kurzgeschichte nicht auf das unabgeschlossene Ende festgelegt werden kann, so ist der offene SchluB, mit unterschiedlich angelegter, iiber das Ende fortdauemder Spannung doch vorherrschend. Er kann, vom ausschnitthaften Charakter der Kurzgeschichte her gesehen, wie ein 'Abbruch' des Ge­ schehens erscheinen, den fehlende Abrundung, plotzliche Emuchterung und desillusionierende Wirkung kennzeichnen [...] Um genauere Ergebnisse uber Art und Funktion des ErzShlschlusses in der Kurzgeschichte haben sich Gutmann und Rohner bemiiht [...] Gutmanns Ergebnisse zeigen einen weiten Spielraum 'zwischen schluDpunktartigem Ende und probiematischer Offenheit', den Gutmann in drei moglichen Gnippen typischer Erzahlschlusse zu erfassen versucht.

These are the 'ldsender Schlufi', the 'symbolhaft-vorausdeutender Ausklang', and the 'problematisch-offener Schlufi' (Marx 1985,67-69). The 'shortest stories', which are my main concern, in a sense take the con­ clusions indicated here about the forms of narrative reduction and compression even further, but they also set out to offer a contrasting parody of them, as a play on the content and form of either the Novelle or the short story. Helmut Heifienbtittel worked quite deliberately with the overlaying of these forms in the series

128 — KARL RIHA

of three prose volumes: Eichendorffs Untergcmg und andere Mdrchen (1978), Wenn Adolf Hitler den Krieg nicht gewonnen htitte. Historische Novellen und wahre Begebenheiten (1979), and Das Ende der Alternative. Einfache Geschichten (1980), which relate together as a project (his Projekt series) apparently intended to highlight quite specifically the link between these genres. I want to examine this juxtapositioning in more detail. Each of these three volumes contains thirteen longer stories which are easy to relate back to the example of the Mdrchen, the Novelle or, indeed, the simple story. This is facilitated by a host of historical allusions in both form and content. By using the Mdrchen and its close neighbour, the legend, the author is pressing forward in a direction which perhaps becomes most readily apparent in the last of these longer stories in Eichendorffs Untergang: the theme of Maria Magdalenas Welt' is the sad death of an old woman in an eventide home. It is not the narra­ tor's prime concern here to reinterpret the legendary figure taken from the Bible and the lives of the saints, but rather to achieve something which goes beyond these and is not resolved in either social circumstances or those of the legend, 'obwohl es durchaus wichtig sein kOnnte, beide zu verfolgen'. Maria Magdalena's world, so we are told, indicates a process which none of us can escape: 'Was ich hier und durchaus versuchsweise Maria Magdalenas Welt nenne, das ist jedermanns Welt, wenn Welt aufhflrt, Welt zu sein. Nicht jeder macht es sich bewuBt, mancher merkt es nicht' (EU, 178). All of the longer stories told by HeiBenbiittel in this book seek, each in its own way, to attain this heightened sense of reality. This is formulated, at the level of the narrated figures and events, as the abrupt rupture with normality, as bizarre deviation and separation, as the complex expe­ rience of a momentary glimpse which reaches to the depths of existence. The author, as a writer of narrative prose, captures this moment in the thrall of syn­ chronous fact and invention — and fixes it in the image created by the imagina­ tion, 'der liebsten Gespielin des menschlichen Geistes1, as we read at the begin­ ning of the book, in the motto taken from MusSus, that poet of folktales: Der menschliche Geist ist also geartet, daB ihm nicht immer an Realitaten genugt; seine grenzenlose T&tigkeit wirkt in das Reich hypothetischer M&glichkeiten hinOber, schifit in der Luft und pfliigt im Meere' (EU, 5). If in Eichendorffs Untergang the Mdrchen, infiltrated by psychology, is removed to a new narrative position, then in Wenn Adolf Hitler den Krieg nicht gewonnen htitte it is the turn of the Novelle and the essay, forms with a stronger factual orientation. However, what is interesting about the 'true events' is the way they come together in our consciousness and we become conscious of them. The stories, as they hover between Tiistorical Novelle' and 'science fiction', relate to

•CUT-UP’ SHORTEST STORIES — 129

the author's present. Perhaps the best illustration of this is a tale which has the title 'Axel Springer Syndrom'. Heiflenbiittel first of all rejects the idea of wanting to talk of 'einer bestimmten, historisch und biographisch realen Person', only to become all the more precisely embroiled in this process in the narrative: 'Was die Wahl des Namens betriffi, so kflnnte eingewendet werden, ich kdnnte doch ebenso von einem Konrad Adenauer Syndrom oder von einem Rudolf Augstein Syn­ drom reden. Ich kann das nicht, weil sich, wie der Fortgang zeigen wird, an diesen Namen nicht in gleicher Weise das angeschwemmt hat, was ich erzahlen kann' (WAH, 56). What is involved here is, thus, absolutely not an abstract as­ semblage of data and facts about a person, but the encapsulation of an area of recollection and impression using quite explicitly the resources of an imagination under pressure from an obsession. The story ends, as it begins, with a nightmare. Heifienbiittel recollects a vision from childhood, which is a return journey to the past similar in pattern to that encountered in the story 'Gustav Freytag verirrt sich im Wald und trifft Ingo und Ingraben' with its parallelism to that author's Ahnen and Verlorene Handschrift. The difference is that, in this case, he has Axel CSsar Springer as his travel companion; and he also reaches much further back — to the pithecanthropi and Neanderthals, in front of whom the modem press mogul parades in the moonlight, displaying himself in all the finery of his medals and decorations. The final sentences, executing a volte-face in perspective, address an approaching catastrophe not dissimilar to that of 1945 and which can also be understood as a form of liberation: 'Wir emahrten uns von Pilzen, die auf den Ruinen der Stadt wucherten, und tranken Wasser, das sich in den Ruinen in flachen Lachen ansammelte. Zwischen den Triimmem lagen groBe Packen gepreBten Papiers. Wir benutzten sie als Sitzgelegenheiten, und einige versuchten, daraus Wande aufzurichten. — Die Reste der Springerpresse, sagte eine Stimme' (WAH, 56). The third volume of Projekt 3 refers to the two volumes that preceded it and takes the reference back as one of its themes. In this way, the back-reference is elevated to become an object of the narrator's reflexion and acquires a new quality of its own. T)as Ende der Alternative' offers ample evidence of a stance which emphasizes the identity of return and innovation. It does so, in the first place at the poetological level, where HeiBenbUttel picks up the narrator's accounts and explanations of the process of writing, for which the reader of the previous Projekt volumes is already predisposed. Thus, in 'Homvogelgeschichte' (another of those cleverly arranged, psychologically undermined Mtirchen, of which 'Eichendorffs Untergang' is the most outstanding example), one discovers the following statement on the 'addendum' to an earlier draft: 'Was ich hier einge-

130 — KARL RIHA

fiigt habe, erscheint mir nun als Anmerkung zur ersten Niederschrift, aber auch als Versuch, der notwendigerweise linearen Abfolge der Satze nachtraglich Breite, Tiefe, Fulle zu geben. Was so nachgetragen wird, lauft quer zum Erzahl- und ErinnerungsfluB und filllt ihn zugleich auf (DEA, 81). This, in my view, applies equally to the question I am investigating of the link between the concluding Projekt volume and the previous two. Another equally important hint can be found in the central motif of the story Die Hybris des Oberpostinspektors i.R. Anselm Brotsamen. Bericht seines Freundes Christian Derlebt'. The question is raised here about the possibility of the ludic application to the present of older literary works: 'Eine Erzahlung von Ottilie Wildermuth zum Beispiel, in ihrem syntaktischen und erzahlerischen Geriist bewahrt, aber aufgefiillt mit Vokabular aus den psychoanalytischen Schriften von Freud. Als Anfang. Oder die Bewegungsablaufe eines Autofahrers von heute, eingepafit in die Beschreibungsstruktur des — Witiko — von Stifter' (DEA, 127). This is no epigonic imitation of style, no pastiche, but the invocation by quotation of a piece of past literature and its detached deployment as a means of literary representation and insight. Where Eichendorffs Untergcmg had drawn on the literary genre of the Mdrchen and Wenn Adolf Hitler den Krieg nicht gewonnen hatte on the historical essay and the Novelle, here individual literary works, the creations of this or that specific author, each with its own significance as form and content, become functional aids which unlock language and make avail­ able to description what could not be described. By citing his own works and those of other writers, Heifienbtittel gains a new narrative quality from the sha­ dows they cast. This is the complicated substance which justifies his use of the subtitle Einfache Geschichten. The way he relates his prose to himself, its firstperson autobiographical slant, is just that — simple. This plays a role in all three volumes; in the third, it puts in a more resolute appearance. The debate which the author thus conducts with himself describes an arc from early childhood (HeiBenbuttel was bom in Wilhelmshaven in 1921) through to an artificially inflated old-age, getting on for a hundred, in a single sweep — as is illustrated in the following passage: Er hatte schon in jungen Jahren, so hat er gelegentlich erzahlt, nicht begreifen konnen, woher die Leute so im Lauf eines Tages eigentlich den Stoff fur ihr ununterbrochenes und oft ununterbrechbares Gerede hemahmen. Was beschaftigte sie denn so, dafi sie den ganzen Tag dariiber reden konnten? Sp&ter hatte er selber grdBere Mengen an Redestoff angesammelt, Anekdoten, Floskeln, Klatsch, Gedanken usw., ja er war in den mittleren Jahren seines Lebens mit der Gabe des Einfalls gesegnet gewesen, konnte blitzschnell kombinieren und vermochte damit zu brillieren.

‘CUT-UP’ SHORTEST STORIES — 131

Im Alter hatte er erkannt, daB das alles nur Untemehmungen und Machenschaften waren, die dazu dienten, sich die Fallgruben der Eitelkeit und der Angst zu verheimlichen, sich darum herumzudriicken, auf sich selbst zuriickzustlirzen, vergebliche Versuche, am Ende, dem Alleingelassensein zu entrinnen. (DEA, 137)

In this arc is included also the political and historical dimension which Heifienbuttel had unveiled in the Projekt series with Wenn Hitler den Krieg nicht gewonnen hatte. Deeply engraved in this political testimony, which appears in the form of rationalizations coloured by old age, is an underlying trait of resignation; it is this that lends substance to the title Das Ende der Alternative. Throughout this volume of stories there are snapshots which home in on situations which allow hardly any room for alternatives, such as evasions and alterations. As with the image of the 'revolution grown old', for Heifienbuttel the 'Abschied der Alter­ native' (DEA, 16) becomes an allegory: a beautiful, tall woman with voluptuous breasts strides towards the sea, where, reaching the water, she pulls up her skirts, bends over and shows those left behind her powerful buttocks and hairy, brown­ lipped genitals — and wades out into the water. Perhaps, we are told, she has returned to land on some foreign shore, and perhaps, without anyone recognizing her, she has already come back again. If this were the total context, then the poetological message of these Pro­ jekt volumes would be that MUrchen, Novellen, even first-person stories could again be told, if only the right path could be opened up for them. However, we are discussing an author here whose past is associated with the avant-garde and the experimental, and each of the Projekt volumes contains, alongside the longer short-stories referred to above, and which amount in each volume to about one fifth of the total length, precisely those 'shortest stories' that are my central con­ cern here. Each takes up little more than a few lines of print, but they function very much as a kind of counter to the longer epic explication and derive their charm from the more advanced reduction of the narrative. Mostly their origin lies in something odd; the author reports a strange occurrence — perhaps of the kind: 'Em alterer BuchhSndler las einmal ein Buch, in dem ein alterer Buchhandler ein Buch las [...]'; or 'Em achtundsechzigjahriger Rentner in der Stadt Leeds versuch­ te einmal eine siebzigjahrige Witwe zu vergewaltigen [...]'; or just simply Eine Reitlehrerin heiratete einmal einen Biihnenbildner' (EU, 161, 79, 96). Every one of these texts closes with the stereotypical sentence 'Mehr ist dazu eigentlich nicht zu sagen' or a variation on it: Dem ist eigentlich nichts hinzuzufugen' or *Mehr mdchte ich dazu gar nicht sagen' and so on. This gives rise to cut-up ef­ fects which totally thwart any expectation of a continued narration and throw the reader back to the exposition of the story, which is now the whole story: the per­

132 — KARL RIHA

manent refusal to continue the narrative obeys the logic of the old joke and thus gains its own, progressive absurdity. However, the stereotypical formulation and variation of the ending also indicates that what we are dealing with is always something that has been said, narrated, written before, i.e. here we are dealing with the arbitrary and the abrupt in the medium of language. This is particularly fascinating at the point where the report in the story is itself concerned with lan­ guage or literature as its theme, where the figure in the joke is, as it were, allow­ ed to become introverted. 'Linguistenherbst' is an example: Zwei amerikanische Linguisten trafen einander, als sie schon etwas alter waren, einmal und vollzogen einen Sprechakt aneinander Wozu eigentlich nichts weiter hinzuzufiigen ware, es sei denn, daB niemand weiB, ob die Linguisten sich nicht in Wirklichkeit bloB einfach uber das Wetter unterhalten haben oder ob es ihnen diesmal gelungen ist, den Gang der Weltgeschichte auf den, wie es Hans Wollschl&ger ausgedruckt hat, Satz zu reduzieren: Karlchen fahrt Roller (EU, 158).

As in Eichendorffs Untergang and Wenn Adolf Hitler den Krieg nicht ge­ wonnen hdtte, so also Das Ende der Alternative contains some thirty cut-up shortest stories, of which none extends beyond half a page. All again operate with Herbst' as a fixed element in the title and all have a predetermined scheme of points, thus providing a contrast with the epic shape of the longer stories. However, leaving aside the group of texts called 'Bekannter Schriftsteller Herbst 1-7', here HeiBenbiittel sets out to upset our expectations in terms of his jokes, wit, and absurdities by changing the flavour of the genre and thus the linguistic instrumentation of the comic alienation. Concave changes to convex: instead of the sentence stereotype 'Mehr ist dazu eigentlich nicht zu sagen', here we are faced with the template: Dariiber ware wohl noch viel zu sagen'. This variation within the scheme has its own power of stimulation: it exploits the force of recol­ lection and takes it a step forward. The palpable incompleteness, demanding completion, derives its inspiration from factual information taken from the flow of current news reporting, specifically from technical and economic journalism, mostly even as direct quotation. Whether in Desoxyribonukleinsaureherbst', 'Computerherbst', 'Quarkherbst', or *Hubble-Konstante Herbst', HeiBenbiittel makes holes in information which remains singularly deficient precisely because it is formula-bound — as lexicographical clarification or just statistical summa­ tion, Take the case of TCatathymenherbst': Aus zahlreichen Beobachtungen ist bekannt, daB unter extremer emotionaler Belastung sehr pr&gnante und lebhafte Imaginationen auftreten kdnnen. Der Gottinger Psychiater Hanscarl Leuner hat daraus das inzwischen als Therapie weithin bekannte Katathyme entwickelt. Bei der Auswertung des katathymen

•CUT-UP’ SHORTEST STORIES — 133

Bilderlebens ist zunachst auf den Inhalt zu achten, dessen Bedeutung sich aus Vorgeschichte und Symbolen ergibt. Dabei zeigt sich eine Projektion nicht nur aus der Seele in das imaginierte Bild, sondem auch umgekehrt eine Ruckwirkung auf den inneren Seelenzustand. Das ist verstandlich, wenn man das Sym­ bol nicht mehr als ein unverbindliches Zeichen, sondem als wirkkr&ftig in seinem tiefen seelischen Gehalt begreift, wie das Naturvolker oder ganz kleine Kinder tun. Daniber wfire wohl viel noch zu sagen. (DEA, 68).

The effect is roughly the same as in the 'autumn' stories of the first two of the Projekt 3 volumes, but in reverse direction. Exploiting the form of the cut-up shortest story, which itself functions as a conscious contrast to, indeed as a frac­ ture in historically transmitted longer narrative forms, HeiBenbiittel intercuts an abrupt breaking-off of the story, an act of ironic refusal, with the suggestion that it might be extended into realms of immense potential; the two movements cor­ respond in their effect directly. In both cases what is to be narrated is reduced simply to the first exposition of an anecdote or fact and a variation of the cut-up formula, which is simply added to it: the reductionism thus affects the very es­ sence of the narrative. When, as is the case here, non-narration or 'narration cut short' becomes the theme of narration, then what we have is indeed a poetics ex negativo and thus a radical incision in the history of narration and narrative form. In relation to the short story, therefore, HeiBenbiittel marks a central point similar to those already set long ago during the modern age in relation to other genres: for example, the point when the snapping-ofif of the dialogue, or the cross-pur­ poses dialogue, and other forms which refused or thwarted the process of inter­ personal communication became constitutive elements of avant-garde drama, or when a single word, even a single letter, could be raised to the level of being a poem, and when avant-garde composers established the pause as a principle, rather than the sequence of notes, and made it a new unit of composition. It is, of course, beyond dispute that some of the poetological features of the Novelle and the short story remain valid and continue to apply, also to the shortest stories of the three volumes of Projekt 3 : the structural elements of the 'beginning' and the 'end', for example, the determination of the content according to its 'remarkable', 'extraordinary', or 'immediately relevant' nature, through to the potential to contribute to a 'cycle' or 'series' of stories, upheld by HeiBenbiittel in his serial variations on his closing sentences. At the same time, however, there is a dissolution of these defining features, the parodistic inversion and extrapolation of them. In this context, the material presented here can be set against academic characterizations of traditional endings to short stories like the following: Die Pointe beleuchtet das Geschehen "schlaglichtartig", vermittelt eine Tiefenperspektive iiber den einzelnen Vorfall hinaus, weist auf "unerkannte Ursachen, und

134 — KARL RIHA

unerwartete Folgen, undurchschaubare Zusammenhange" hin, kann aufklarend, mahnend, fragend oder witzig sein' (Marx 1985, 70). If this phenomenon in the radical poetics of the modem era is misunder­ stood and with it the dynamics of literature which, by means of the clash of forms, patterns of innovation and provocation, constantly bursts asunder or ex­ tends the boundaries of the known, also in the genres of literature, then inevitably the intrinsic connection which HeiBenbiittel so emphatically demonstrates in the three individual volumes of his Projekt 3 will also be missed, i.e between the lon­ ger narrative forms of the Mdrchen, the Novelle, and the first-person story. This is the case, for example, with Manfred Durzak who, in his Die deutsche Kurzgeschichte der Gegenwart, proposes the following negative risume. Solche Kiirzestgeschichten, wie sie eine Zeitlang durch Veroffentlichungen in den Akzenten gefbrdert wurden, wie sie Reinhard Lettau in seinen Prosabanden Schwierigkeiten beim H&userbauen und Auftritt Manigs vorgelegt hat, wie sie kiirzlich Herbert Somplatzki in seinen Schrumpfstories, Wolfgang Weyrauch in seinem Band Hans Dumm. I l l Geschichten oder Helmut HeiBenbiittel in manchen Textstucken seines Erz&hlbandes Eichendorffs Untergang verdffentlicht haben, wie sie bei Gunter Bruno Fuchs in seinen Gesammelten Fibelgeschichten dominieren, verengen das Gestaltungsspektrum so sehr, daB die Gattungscharakteristika der Kurzgeschichte ausgeloscht werden und in der Tat nur Schrumpfgeschichten zuriickbleiben, die zum Aphorismus, zur Parabel, zum Tagebuchnotat tendieren: Zwischenformen, erzahlerische Zwitter, die man mit dem Wort Kurzestgeschichte zu Unrecht auf das Gattungsspektrum der Kurz­ geschichte bezieht. Die Mdglichkeit zur Wirklichkeitserfassung wird eingeebnet auf einen einzigen Reflex des Autors, auf eine bestimmte Stilfigur, auf einen Satz, eine Geste, ein Zeichen. (Durzak 1980, 309).

The best remedy against such ex cathedra normative shackling and straitjacketing of literature is always the living literary process itself with all its surprises, which simply teach us time and again that changes which seem so alien and apparently inappropriate, most particularly in poetic genres, can often also represent productive challenges. Therefore, in the following remarks, following the drift of contemporary literature, I shall refer to one of the most recent prose publications of Ror Wolf, whose early novels and stories identify him firmly with the avant-garde in German postwar literature. He has now turned his innovative energies from the longer narrative forms to the 'short story' and transformed this in quite similar ways to those indicated by HeiBenbiittel in his Projekt 3. It was a well-known quirk of the American film-director Alfred Hitchcock, sometimes copied by Rainer Wemer Fassbinder, that he cut himself into his own films in some tiny minor part, as a casual passer-by on the street or as the

CUT-UP' SHORTEST STORIES — 135

shadow of some casual passer-by. In this way, he seemed to announce announce his own identity in his films: he became an integral element in these films without in any way interfering in the action. It would, I think, make a strange but fascina­ ting film if one were to make a collage of these short celluloid passages and issue it as a last — definitive — work of the famous film-maker. Wolfs latest prose volume: Mehrere Manner, zweitmdachtzig ziemlich kurze Geschichten, zwdlf Collagen und eine Itingere Reise is a work of exactly this kind. For the most part, it consists in a series of short and shortest stories which open with such stereotypical phrases as 'Em Mann kam...', Ein Mann hatte...', Ein Mann tiberraschte...', or with variations on this narratorial entrance like: 'Eines Tages fiel ein Mann vom Stuhl...', 'Einmal traf ich einen Mann mitten im Meere schwimmend...', or 'Ich beschreibe jetzt einen Mann, der pldtzlich hinaus in die Finstemis springt...' (e.g. MM, 11, 6, 46, 39, 41, 59). In each case what follows is a series of abrupt particles of action, lightning-flashes of happen­ ings, events, and situations, mostly of a strange or curious nature. The approach is anecdotal and, in this, follows that older literature to which we owe the con­ crete viewpoint characteristic of this style of narrative, which amounts to a pointing-up of the factual. We might think here of Johann Peter Hebei, Heinrich von Kleist, or of those periodicals and journals of the strange and fantastic which pro­ vided the raw material for narration of this kind at the end of the eighteenth century. The particular charms of this prose lie, therefore, first and foremost in its, in one way or another, striking thematic substance; the spectrum stretches from the strangely alienated everyday reality of our immediate present through to all sorts of variants of the grotesque and the absurd. The story of a man called Mang, who lifts everything he comes across, e.g. a chair with a woman sitting on it, who has a tray in her hands, on which there happens to be a plate, and so on, triggers associations with the weight-lifter of the same name who established his place in our memories when, at a recent Olympiad, a veritable mountain of flesh, he played the part of a hero of the national muscle against American and Russian weight-lifting competition: E r hob alles hoch, was er sah. Seine Mutter hob er am Muttertag hoch und sagte: Ohne dich ware ich niemals der Meister geworden. Das war Mang, ein Mann' (MM, 21). However, most of the heroes of these stories, the longest of which stret­ ches to two pages of print, while the shortest consists of just two sentences (*Ein Mann hatte sich bei einem Spaziergang verlaufen. Man hat ihn niemals wieder gesehen'; MM, 33), come up with completely commonplace names or completely without names. One of Wolfs particular specialties is working towards the sensa­

136 — KARL Rl HA

tional as it were from below. He takes up the most ordinary of daily occurrences, but positions them in such a way that we are constrained to see them in an extra­ ordinary light. Occasionally he slips into jokes and tricks which tend to give the world a peculiar twist or to turn it on its head. This is the case, for instance, with the man who heard dripping in his room and placed a bucket under the drip. Un­ der this, however, since the bucket had a hole in it, he placed a bowl, and under the bowl, which had a leak, a tub — and so on and so forth. The movement from 'Eimer' to 'Schttssel' and 'Wanne' measures out a fixed semantic field and con­ structs it in a most surprising fashion. Events and occurrences constantly tend to dissolve into word-play and yet only really take shape themselves as a result of it. Thus, as dictated by the letter F, a Tanner' comes to Termo', develops a Tormel', founds a Tirma' and disappears finally to Tormosa': 'Im folgenden Jahr fond man ein Formular, in dem eine treffende Formulierung uber die Form eines zu entwickelnden Hutes zu lesen war. Wir haben es mit einem Mann von Format zu tun' (MM, 15). The important point is this. Wolf subjects the anecdote almost totally to the rules of fiction and thus renders it susceptible to treatment as some­ thing made up or which has still to be made up. How does this work? One of the very first stories makes us aware of this factor. The first, intro­ ductory sentence is as follows: 'Em Mann, der unter anderen Umst&nden nicht erwahnenswert ware, kam, ich erwahne das hier nur am Rande, eines Morgens aus einer Tttr'. Now, instead of offering the reader, whose expectations have been aroused, immediate satisfaction by relating some further events, as is normally the case in all narratives, Ror Wolf catches him in a state of excited curiosity and sends him away empty-handed: 'Alles, was wir erwarten, ist jetzt ein Schufi, ein Stofl oder Sturz. Das ist wirklich nicht viel verlangt' (MM, 10). Before the story has started and been given a direction, it is already at an end. Such radical rever­ sals of reality and fiction are to be found particularly at the end of the individual stories where they are set up to tease and confuse the reader. Now the author complies with the reader's wishes and, following the reader's secret desires, draws the action to 'einem schlechten Ende' (MM, 61), now he cites the 'fehlenden Bleistift' and the 'ausbrechende Verwirtung' which had prevented his noting and reporting the continuation of the action, or simply states the basic need for 'eine kleine Pause' to get his breath (MM, 96; 103). The characters whose story was just being told steal away unnoticed, they simply slip out of the narrator's sight. Or we are confronted with cut-up effects in the following mode: what has just being reported is not 'significant', doesn't 'really fit in here' (MM, 47). 'Ganz ohne Veranlassung', to quote one of these texts, 'mufite ein Mann gahnen, und

•CUT-UP’ SHORTEST STORIES — 137

zwar hier, vor unseren Augen. Das veranlafit uns, diese Geschichte, die wir gerade begonnen haben, augenblicklich zu beenden' (MM, 75). Both in the way the material is presented and in the serial variations on the act of narration itself these stories by Wolf generate their own lasting fascination. This applies particularly to their internal coherence, which is controlled external­ ly by the variations on the concluding phrase or punch-line. And yet, like Heiflenbuttel, Wolf also interpolates into the very short narrative form ('ziemlich kurze Geschichten', as the subtitle of the volume puts it) examples of longer forms and, by means of this confrontation, suggests parallels between them. At any rate, he includes at the end of his book a longer story which is divided into various chap­ ters, almost a short novel, 'Auf und davon. Eine l&ngere Reise (Bix Beiderbeck gewidmet)' (MM, 107ff.). The hero, the 'Mann' in the story, is that American arch-gangster A1 Capone. There is obvious potential in the material here for a crime thriller; the author, however, proceeds to demonstrate that in formal res­ pects all of the narrative techniques tried and tested in the short format can be projected, appropriately modified, into the larger format. The poetological point raises the publication beyond itself; it emphasizes that the experiments under­ taken here in the field of shortest proseworks do constitute a genuine area of creative experimentation, not only for the narration of short stories, but for narra­ tive writing in the broadest sense. This can hardly come as a surprise, since the innovatory impulses here can be related back to precisely such practices in writ­ ing as 'serial formation', 'permutation', 'withdrawal of meaning', 'empty form' etc which have had an established place in avant-garde literature and art since the turn of the century. Finally, I wish to return to the question of how this relates to the history of the media, with which I began. If the development of the nineteenth-century No­ velle can, in fact, be related most closely to the framework set by the almanacs, weekly and monthly periodicals, and that of the short story to the modem daily press, what would be the equivalent in the media for the shortest story? Of course, as in these earlier cases, there is no absolutely direct connection in the sense of such works being commissioned, but a loose correlation can be envis­ aged, which may in fact conflict with its cause, as becomes brilliantly clear from the following remark made by Heinrich BOll in conversation: Es ist ein verhangnisvoller Irrtum, wenn etwa ein Redakteur einem Autor sagt: Schreiben Sie uns doch mal eine Kurzgeschichte. Sie ktinnen das doch. Es ist ungef&hr so, als wenn er sagte: Holen Sie mir mal eine Stemschnuppe. Es kann Jahre dauem, ehe ich mit einer Kurzgeschichte zu Rande komme'. If we take this as given, then per­ haps shortest stories can be seen an a direct expression of the constraints which

138 — KARL RIHA

are apparent in all areas of the modern mass media, which narrow down the space for literature more tightly than has ever been known before and at the very most make available to literature the tiniest enclaves in the programme, short and shortest snippets scattered into larger, fragmented programme units. A further re­ duction in form, a proclivity for superficial effects and serial production are the direct consequences. This process seems to have become a fixation for HeiBen­ biittel and Wolf in their shortest stories; however, they escape from it immedi­ ately because they create space for themselves in areas not susceptible to alloca­ tions of this kind. Perhaps this is the reason why we do not find their texts in these media but can read them in the traditional medium of the book, which allows the connection with the mass media to be no more than insinuated. It does seem to me to be important in terms of individual literary biogra­ phies — as in the cases of Walser and Schnurre mentioned at the outset — that the shortest story is seen as a sort of experimental engine which has the capacity to set longer forms of narration in motion again, even if this happens in totally different ways than what is understood by the much-used phrase: TBs wird wieder erzShlt'. Walser described the novel at which he kept 'writing and writing' as a 'mannigfaltig zerschnittenes Ich-Buch'. Schnurre compiled his novels out of notes from diaries, maxims and reflections, aphorisms, simple stories, and commenta­ ries, thus tending to effect a dissolution of narrative coherence which, in its own way, made a new form of narrative possible. The same holds good for HeiBen­ biittel and Wolf, albeit in a more acute way: here it derives from the refusal to narrate and from the 'cut-up' quality of the shortest story. Their experiences in these areas of experimentation may provide them with new ideas for longer nar­ rative forms which would not have occurred to them if they had chosen to operate simply at the level of the novel. NOTE Translation by Arthur Williams

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works HeiBenbiittel, Helmut: Eichendorffs Untergang und andere M&rchen, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1978. (=EU). ------ : Wenn Adolf Hitler den Krieg nicht gewonnen hStte, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1979. (=WAH). ------ : Das Ende der Alternative, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1980. (=DEA). Wolf, Ron Mehrere Manner, Zweiundachtzig ziemlich kurze Geschichten, zwdlf Collagen und eine ISngere Reise, Luchtertiand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1987. (=MM).

’CUT-UP' SHORTEST STORIES — 139

Secondary Works Datta, Asit 1972: Kleinformen in der deutschen Erz&hlprosa seit 1945 — eine poetologische Studie, Verlag Uni-Druck, Munich. Ourzak, Manfred 1980: Die deutsche Kurzgeschichte der Gegenwart, Reclam, Stuttgart. Hdllerer, W alter 1962: 'Die kurze Form der Prosa', Akzente 9 (1962), 226-245. Marx, Leonie 1985: Die deutsche Kurzgeschichte, Metzler, Stuttgart. Schnurre, Wolfdietrich 1978: Klopfzeichen, Gutersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, Gutersloh. Schwiehle, Gunther and Schwiele, Irmgard (eds) 1984: Metzler Literatur Lexikon StichwOrter zur Weltliteratur, Metzler, Stuttgart.

POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE WORKS OF ROLF DIETER BRINKMANN DIETER STOLZ

I Zoom— FramingtheSubject In order to avoid any major misunderstandings over what might be concealed be­ hind the title of this essay, I should like to begin with a brief outline of my aims. As I use my telephoto lens to zoom in on my subject, I must state emphatically that I will not be attempting, in the interdisciplinary tensions and conflicts that exist between 'language and aesthetics', to frame the grand and, necessarily, bo­ gus total picture.1As a result, I shall be providing neither a sensationalist declara­ tion of principle on the 'dialogue between the arts', nor shall I make what is, for me, a self-evident plea for the comparative study of avant-garde poetry, on the one hand, and the breakneck developments in the media landscape, on the other.2 Nor is it my intention to sketch the contours of a poetics of 'photographic narra­ tion' which might be applicable across the boundaries of genre, even though such an exercise would undoubtedly be useful given the range of literary manifesta­ tions on offer.3 My concern is, of necessity, a far more modest one, and yet it is, if my eye does not deceive me, altogether appropriate to the image of contempo­ rary German literature still obtaining today of a level of fragmentation that simply cannot be captured in a single frame.4 It seems to me that there are many contexts in which it can be considered worthwhile to take a particular author, select one aspect of his or her aesthetic theory, and scrutinize that aspect with reference to that writer's literary tool-kit. In this essay, the author in question is Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, bom in 1940, and one of the most important German-language poets of his generation. I shall endeavour, therefore, to illuminate as far as possible the complex relationship between text and photographic image with reference to Brinkmann's writings on poetics and some of his poems. From the outset, it appears indisputable that the originality of Brinkmann's literary works stems from the way in which he borrows concepts and ideas from mimetic photography and film media. A first somewhat laconic, albeit decep­ tively unassuming example of the productive interrelationship between visual and linguistic imagery can be found in the following excerpt from Brinkmann's antho­ logy of poems entitled 'Le Chant du Monde' (1963-1964):

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Photographie Mitten auf der Strafie die Frau in dem blauen Mantel. (Stph, 52)5 O Rowohlt verlag 1980

Titles such as Bild', Tilm', 'Celluloid 1967/68', 'Cinemascope', 'Optik', or Totos 1, 2' are only some of the many poems which highlight Brinkmann's deep understanding for ways our senses observe and operate that are characteristic of the technological age.6 The eye of the author becomes a camera; thus, photo­ graphy can be transformed into literature and vice versa. Moreover, Brinkmann's ambitious style goes way beyond what, initially, might appear to be somewhat superficial allusions to photographic terminology and techniques of visual edit­ ing. It was his abiding obsession with photography, for example, which led him to have the cycle of poems 'Godzilla' appear superimposed on colour prints of the photogenic parts of the bodies of scantily clad magazine models. He also gave the programmatic title Stcmdphotos (1969) to one of his collections of poems, and developed wordless Instamatic sequences on Chicago (1974; DFW, 297304) and on the question Wie ich lebe und warum (1970-1974; DFW, 143-149). Similarly, Brinkmann begins and ends his final volume of poetry Westwdrts 1 & 2 (1975), for which he was awarded posthumous prizes, with his own series of black and white photos. Indeed, right up until the end of his life (he died on 23 April 1975 in a road accident outside the Shakespeare public house in London), Brinkmann was working on the development of a project which was at once photographic and filmic, to which I shall refer in more detail in section three.7 These opening remarks might suggest, however, that I am attempting to view Brinkmann's multi-layered texts through the narrow lens of a particular model of interpretation, and merely regard those texts as evidence for my own a priori theory. In order to avoid such a danger, I should now like to proceed with a discussion of this controversial writer's self-image.8 I would like to examine Brinkmann's own theoretical background, his personal philosophy, and the way in which he attempted to put his aesthetic experiences into practice — a process which itself became increasingly provocative and polarizing: 'oh nee, ich meine nicht h[i]storische Reminiszenzen, ich meine nicht einen abrufbaren Wissenskatalog, ich meine: Achtung, Aufnahme, Foto, innen!' (Rom, 134-135).

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II 'Die Toten bewundern die Toten' — A spooky Inventory Whether we like it or not, looking through Brinkmann's eyes, we gain a vision which utterly abjures the most human of all possible worlds. The inhabitants of the western hemisphere (the main reference points for Brinkmann's eurocentrically narrow analysis) are presented as living in a phantom reality. Furthermore, this is a ghostly world which itself has been the subject of any number of films and a plethora of re-makes (DFW, 25-50, 284). The ruthless pursuit of money and power, the latent propensity for violence, the obsession with sex, the com­ pulsive consumption of goods for compensatory satisfaction, and a fear of and longing for death are the dominating pieces of this optical illusion in which hope never springs eternal. For Brinkmann, ever the astute observer, the gamut of hu­ man sensibilities, from happiness to horror, cannot be distinguished from the end­ less reproduction of fake shadows projected onto cinema screens. And to our anarchic opponent of all mechanisms of subjugation, all that the past and the fu­ ture have to offer are mundane variations of a state and media terror, which is sickeningly familiar. Consciousness is steered by remote control, needs are sub­ jected to constant manipulation, and any real sense of the present is characterized by evanescence: 'Man mischt nur noch einmal die gleichen alten Bilder in einem Zementmixer und setzt sie ein wenig anders zusammen. Das ist alles' (DFW, 92). Engulfed by a sea of flickering video screens and drowning in a deluge of infectious images, the allegedly feeble-minded victims of our capitalistic retail society (Schweikert 1981, 84) have no choice but to grant a cachet of immortality to idolized cliches. In the Platonic caves of the here and now, copies of indiscri­ minately reproduced images hold sway over the secondary realities already on offer: *Nichts ist wahr. Alles ist erlaubt1(DFW, 32).9 Indeed, this is only one of many contexts in which Brinkmann, with his pessimistic view of history, makes explicit reference to Nietzsche (DFW, 286, 289, 295), the provider of an epistemological diagnosis of nihilism, and applies Nietzschean premises to characterize life in the last third of the twentieth century: 'Nichts ist wirklich. Alles ist getr&umt’ (DFW, 33). Take, Hollywood', for example, that permanent self-quotation of so-called bourgeois society, 'die Summe all der verinnerlichten Konventionen, Wertmuster, ZwSnge [...] das einzige Photo, das wirklich ist, ein GroBformat, Hochglanz, ohne Rand, in dem auch wir uns immerfort zitieren [...] hier in dem Photo, in dem Photo, in dem jeder lebt, bricht niemand wirklich zu­ sammen: Lana Turner (oder wer immer) wir lieben dich, steh auf (DFW, 210). Profane resurrections of this kind are similarly a feature of Brinkmann's Todesterritorium Westdeutschland' (Ww, 62), a work which induces both rage and nausea. The mood is one of fin de si&cle where the environmentally

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destructive dream factories of the 'Ziviehlisation' (Ww, 82, 164; Nw, 239) ulti­ mately triumph over even that most inevitable of realities, death — a spooky inventory if ever there was one.10 In this science-fiction tragi-comicstrip, human beings appear as indiscriminately interchangeable marionettes, their strings in the hands of prominent statesmen and media moguls. Their existence is no more than an image superimposed on the surface of apparitions which threaten to mimic to perfection and ultimately to supersede all forms of natural life. And they lack totally any other dimension (DFW, 215): Eine ubergroBe Photographie von Liz Taylor Ich trinke meinen KafFee wie jeder Kaffee trinkt aber die Bilder sind anders. Der eine denkt an irgendetwas und ich denke an irgendetwas, Liz Taylor l&chelt immerzu. Wenn es etwas gibt, das sich noch lohnt, dann ist es das. Die Kriimmung einer Haarlocke und die naturliche Kr&uselung des Schamhaars

wie Schamhaar sich in meinen Tr&umen kr&uselt, es ist schon spfit. Und noch immer l&chelt Liz Taylor mich an. Was ist das? Nehmen wir an, es ist nichts was sich lohnt, dann bleibt dieses von allem ubrig nachdem ich meinen Kaffee ausgetrunken habe. (Stph, 217) O Rowohlt Verlag 1980

Epithets such as 'entertainment industry', 'mass culture' and 'reification' barely suf­ fice in their attempts to characterize those developments which, for Brinkmann, have such clear and fatal implications: 'verfaulte Bibliotheken, ein gespensterhafter Sinn, der ganz leer ist und herumgeistert [...] Satze geben keine Auskunft, WOrter geben keinen Sinn' (Nw, 228-229).11 Words, those erstwhile semantic signifiers, nowadays invoke little more than predetermined images, which for their own part, curdle into vacuous sequences of letters. Within this bogus world of linguistic automatism, every attempt at unconventional feeling is viewed with

BRINKMANN: POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY — 145

suspicion, the 'Anarchie der poetischen Einsichten' (Ww, 160) is not allowed to flourish, and imaginative impulses of all kinds are condemned to extinction. As an author, therefore, who was influenced not only by his reading of Adorno and Horkheimer but also (and it comes as no surprise) by the works of eloquent lan­ guage critics such as Fritz Mauthner and Hugo von Hofmannsthal (Ww, 103— 104), Brinkmann records the stench of putrefaction which lingers over our trashheap of a society, itself for a long time now no more than a ghost-town backdrop for a silent movie: Das ist das alltagliche Gef&ngnis, eine schmierige, heruntergekommene Schaubude, die den KOrper festhalt, hier in der Zeit' (DFW, 205).12 The realm of the German language is, therefore, threatened with suffoca­ tion in the 'WortmulT (DFW, 203) generated by the mass media and official cul­ tural institutions (Nw, 230). Brinkmann, by no means an assiduous pupil of the German culture industry, uses the term 'vergammelte Semantik' (Ww, 164; cf. 141) to denote what others refer to as 'language' and is for him little more than a petrified vortex of abstract signs. Worse still, according to our critic of language and, by implication, society, almost all processes of verbalization merely result in pre-programmed responses and predictably ritualized patterns of behaviour. Hackneyed forms of discourse correspond to predetermined schemata of action, and these include 'die alten verfluchten Trampelpfade' of literature (Nw, 228) and its critical reception: 'Zuviele Wfirter. Zuwenig Leben.' (DFW, 159). It comes as no surprise then that Brinkmann, a relentless opponent of the 'European concept of art', has little time for the poetry of his German-language contemporaries and its preoccupation with intellectual traditions. As a newcomer very much concerned with his own search for an individual style which would clearly set him apart from such a tradition, he offers an equally unambiguous ap­ praisal of his fellow contemporary poets: Die Generation im Moment transportiert lediglich das erstarrte, tote Begriffsmaterial des 19. Jahrhunderts' (Nw, 237). In his opinion, anyone who still feels obliged to deal with the perfectly crafted, but aloof artistry of anachronistic professional poets, not least those of us who deal with such work as an object of academic study, is merely behaving accor­ ding to the maxim: Die Toten bewundem die Toten!' (Stph, 186). Not content with this even, Brinkmann, the passionate destroyer of poetic idylls (Ww, 119-120) and self-proclaimed orator at their funeral, does not mince his words. The enfant terrible of the West German postwar literary scene stages a cultural Kahlschlag of his own: out goes the consecration of a hermetic aesthe­ tic; out goes the moralizing class-war poetry put back on the agenda by the stu­ dent protest movement; out goes the self-satisfied mystification of the terribly style-conscious imitators of artists of old, who appear to have lost all concept of

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sound and vision — not to mention the art-products emanating from the labora­ tory of Concrete Poetry. Tabula rasa: Brinkmann sheds not a single tear for the 'left-overs' of 'western poetry', not least because, in his opinion, they simply dull the vision of any would-be poet. The forms of expression employed by the asce­ tic poet-priests paralyse all potential for uncluttered perception and no longer bear any relation to the kind of vibrant poetry which, in his view, might just be able to capture shifting realities: He, he, wo ist die Gegenwart?' (Nw, 242). To sum up the main points so far: the present, for Brinkmann the only real locus for literature, is evaporating with increasing rapidity before our very eyes amidst the distortions of daily life, fusty and musty (literary) theories, and torpid metaphors. All the present has to offer is a high-gloss colour photo of misery: 'Von dieser ersch&pften, fast ganz erloschenen Gesamtatmosphare aus betrachtet, muB das Schreiben von Gedichten wie Irrsinn erscheinen' (Nw, 238) — madness indeed, were it not for those welcome stimuli from the brave new world, which Brinkmann himself, the visually-obsessed iconoclast, initially greeted with no­ thing short of enthusiasm, not to say wide-eyed infatuation.13 With their help, Brinkmann, the undogmatic sceptic, suddenly seems able to break out of the cell in which the world of his imagination had previously been incarcerated. To para­ phrase Brinkmann, anyone unable to go beyond the reproduction of words, them­ selves long since devoid of meaning, will perish in language (Ww, 62): Gedicht ZerstOrte Landschaft mit Konservendosen, die Hauseingfinge leer, was ist darin? Hier kam ich mit dem Zug nachmittags an, zwei Topfe an der Reisetasche festgebunden. Jetzt bin ich aus den Trfiumen raus, die uber eine Kreuzung wehn. Und Staub, zerstilckelte Pavane, aus totem Neon, Zeitungen und Schienen dieser Tag, was krieg ich jetzt, einen Tag filter, tiefer und tot? Wer hat gesagt, daB sowas Leben ist? Ich gehe in ein anderes Blau. (Ww, 41) e Rowohlt Verlag 1975

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III 'BreakthroughintheGreyRoom'— Ap(h)oetological EscapeBid In 1969, Brinkmann made the following observation: Die neue amerikanische Literatur wie die gesamte kulturelle Szene der USA ftngt in der Gegenwart an, mit zeitgenOssischem Material, und hat keine alteingenisteten, verinnerlichten Muster, keine heimeligen, liebgewordenen Vorurteile zu verlieren' (DFW, 224). The main characteristic of the intellectual movement so enthusiastically celebrat­ ed by Brinkmann, who in the same year edited the anthologies ACID and Silverscreen, was, therefore, the totally clear-sighted way its proponents were engag­ ing with the contradictory manifestations of the Rank-Xerox-Age and what he saw as their concomitant ability to respond directly to omnipresent stimuli. The essence of their art resides in the fact that they manage to control their submer­ sion in the flood of visual images on offer and thus resist the otherwise inevitable result of a further reproduction of the same old cliches: Der entscheidende Unterschied zu der "Lyrik", wie wir sie verstehen, ist: daB Bilder gegeben werden, andere Vorstellungen (images), die sinnliche Erfahrung als Blitzlichtaufhahme; es passiert nicht die Zuriickbiegung des Gedichts auf ein Sprachproblem oder auf unpersdnliche Metaphem oder das bloBe Allgemeine (der "Politik"), denn Leben ist ein komplexer Bildzusammenhang (DFW, 249). It is clear that a sudden shaft of light had entered Brinkmann's darkroom of a brain. This insight stemmed not only from his enjoyment of deafeningly loud rock music and mind-bending drugs, but also from his reading of writers such as William Burroughs and Charles Bukowski or even Frank O'Hara and Jack Kerouac, all of whom had a considerable influence on him.14 Thus, Brinkmann, the intoxicated bearer of enlightenment, began to see the world in a new light, and social and cultural philosophers such as Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer,15 and Leslie A. Fiedler are the unmistakeable forces behind this pagan equivalent of a Pauline conversion16: 'Aufgeklartes Bewufitsein [...] nutzt allein nichts, es muB sich in Bildem ausdehnen, Oberflache werden — am Beispiel der Sexualitat erweist sich der geringe Effekt abendlSndisch-aufgeklarten Bewufitseins: die Reklame hat sich effektiver ausgewirkt' (DFW, 225). With this new-found awareness, Brinkmann is at last able to pay serious attention to much-maligned superficialities, to the petty myths of daily life and the off-the-peg Olympus of appearance and, in so doing, once again gives more than a passing nod to Nietzsche.17 Literary games are to become an experience which addresses all the senses. Ideally, therefore, the best poems are 'irdischer Rock 'n Roll' (Nw, 242), that is, simple song lyrics, which nevertheless simulta­ neously engulf and excite both body and soul:

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Leider kann ich nicht Gitarre spielen, ich kann nur Schreibmaschine schreiben, dazu nur stottemd, mit zwei Fingem. Vielleicht ist es mir aber manchmal geiungen, die Gedichte einfach genug zu machen, wie Songs, wie eine Tiir aufzumachen, aus der Sprache und den Festlegungen raus. Mag sein, dafi deutsch bald eine tote Sprache ist. Man kann sie so schlecht singen. Man mufl in dieser Sprache meistens immerzu denken. (Ww, 7)

For Brinkmann, a writer constantly in search of alternative modes of expression, a new maxim now applies, which promises a trace of liberated existence prior to death. From this point on, Brinkmann believes that, in order to concretize all potential for art, the artist must practise the ability to find unorthodox, subversive expressions for everyday objects and experiences (DFW, 231, 240 ). The magic formulae for this radical new age are then: 'Breakthrough in the Grey Room' (DFW, 227), discover the depths of the surface, plunge yourselves into a visual­ ized mode of thinking free from the compulsion to exploit — and not merely at some point in the dim and distant future, but here and now, 'jetzt, jetzt, jetzt, ad infinitum' (Erk, 240). There can be no doubt that even Brinkmann allows himself to become enchanted with his own understanding of the then fashionable 'erweiterte Sinnlichkeit', nor that he attempts to draw conclusions of both a philosophical and aesthetic nature from the perspective implied by such a concept. The process of literary production becomes part of a daily routine for him, and he emerges as a self-styled and enlightened master of the art of living with Dionysian appetites. To sum up again briefly: Brinkmann, as a contemporary author with an inextinguishable thirst for experience, advocates an emphatically detailed depiction of eveiyday life. Such an approach is then seen as a way of liberating himself, a prisoner of his own presuppositions, from the fetters of a unidimensional concept of reason, and of disengaging himself from a history which he experiences as oppressive. The process of writing down in poetry the moment as it is experienced by the senses thus begins to represent Brinkmann's neverending attempt to wrest an intoxicating experience of liberation from the sterile phenomena of a world of commodities. Brinkmann, the passionate collector of banalities, constructs his aesthetic credo on empirical subjective experiences; thus it relates to his principle of a life based on the senses but also opens up a capacity for reflection (DFW, 227). Brinkmann, as a well-informed student of the American pop and under­ ground poets18 (who, for their part, can be placed in the tradition of an enduring Modernism) is convinced throughout his sensuous voyage of discovery, 'dafi schlechthin alles, was man sieht und womit man sich beschaftigt [...] ein Gedicht

BRINKMANN: POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY — 149

werden kann, auch wenn es sich um ein Mittagessen handelt' (Stph, 187) — or even an extended breakfast, as in the following poem, whose title also brings me back to my central theme: Photos machen & wir sehen uns umgeben von einer Maschine die unsere Anwesenheit bestimmt. Diese Maschine wird "der schwarze Kasten" genannt. Er hat fiinf gleiche Seiten, die sechste Seite sind wir selbst. Eines Morgens kam Inis zum Fruhstuck. Dann kamen Herbert, Paul und Otto & blieben auch. Das Wetter war, wie Wetter ist, sehr schdn. Wir machten Zwieback klein, & plbtzlich war es dunkel. Ich suchte nach dem Streichholz, aber konnte es nicht linden. Also frag ich mich, ob dieses Dunkel nicht das Dunkel jenes Photos ist, das du von mir gemacht hast. Doch du bist schon gestem verschwunden, & ich bin heute hier Die Maschine schweigt & wird erst antworten, wenn alle wieder da sind. Das kann linger dauem, als man glaubt. (Stph, 291) O Rowohlt Verlag 1980

Thus, Brinkmann, by now an author in his prime, makes a programmatic state­ ment in defence of the exoticism of everyday life, the satisfaction of his urge to observe, and his increasing desire ('wachsenden Appetit'; DFW, 214) to process much-maligned trivialities. In short, Brinkmann, thus far the happily uncommitted fldneur, from this moment on devours popular scientific journals, glossy periodi­ cals, sex magazines, and comics — pourquoi pasl Why not plunge your hands into the overflowing sewer that is everyday human life. After all, it's simply a question of what the receptive writer is able to make of the manifold stimuli on offer! It was from this conceptualization of contemporary literature that Brink­ mann, an enthusiastic cineast, developed his 'p(h)oetological' principle of Film in Worten, a concept which nonetheless failed to convince many of his fellow poets (DFW, 223). Thus, and in spite of his own reservations, Brinkmann, the multimedia artist, continued to write about the world at large, and was to remain true to a literary project which, by definition, could never be concluded. It was a pro­ ject, which was a high-wire attempt to mediate between an extraordinarily diverse assembly of moving images, on the one hand, and the author’s own con­ cept of a liberated language, on the other: Die eigene Optik wird durchgesetzt,

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Zooms auf winzige, banale Gegenstdnde ohne Riicksicht darauf, ob es ein "kulturell" angemessenes Verfahren ist, Oberbelichtungen, Doppelbelichtungen [...] unvorhersehbare Schwenks (Gedanken-Schwenke), Schnitte: ein image-track' (DFW, 267) In the context of this seemingly naturalistic, but in no way naively realistic process of discerning and documenting reality — between 18 and 24 ex­ posures per second — Brinkmann is no longer concerned with the usual accumu­ lation of abstract concepts. Instead, he concentrates much more on the neces­ sarily fragmentary draft for a linguistic photo-sequence, or a disjointed, often breaking film of the consciousness, composed of artificially fixed snap-shots, which simultaneously force themselves into the picture.19 Thus, Brinkmann, the linguistic and filmic artist, acts as the seismograph of an atomized age and pro­ vides a collage, which itself is a subjective assemblage of reality devoid of any overriding contextual meaning. This type of poem, characterized by an aesthetics of ambivalence (Richter 1983, 207-209) usually begins with a transient state of arousal, a single isolated observation, or an excerpt, which, as a carefully lit Standphoto (a 'still') with great depth of field, can occasionally speak for itself: Einen jener ldassischen schwarzen Tangos in Koln, Ende des Monats August, da der Sommer schon ganz verstaubt ist, kurz nach Laden SchiuO aus der offenen Tur einer dunklen Wirtschaft, die einem Griechen gehdrt, hOren, ist beinahe ein Wunder: fur einen Moment eine Uberraschung, filr einen Moment Aufatmen, fur einen Moment eine Pause in dieser StraBe, die niemand liebt und atemlos macht, beim Hindurchgehen. Ich schrieb das schnell auf, bevor der Moment in der verfluchten dunstigen Abgestorbenheit Kdlns wieder erlosch. (Ww, 25)20 O Rowohlt Verlag 197S

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Yet anyone who thinks that they can detect literary allegories or any other sym­ bols in such a fleeting 'photo morgana' is sadly mistaken. In Brinkmann's texts, metaphysical or transcendental systems of order are replaced by the sensory existence of individual anti-metaphorical pictures; or at least that is his intention. The quality of a lyrical snap-shot is determined solely by the sensibility or inter­ est which the author invests in his poetic processing of what are, for the most part, extralinguistic impulses (DFW, 208-209). There is clearly no lack of raw material here for books as yet unwritten. The ethnologist of everyday life is constantly confronted by a wide variety of stimuli21 — rubbish, a can of beer, Billy the Kid, cannabis, Pepsi, Kodak-pictures, the headlines of a tabloid newspaper: 'Sehen: klack, ein Foto!: Gegenwart, eingefroren' (Rom, 139). Every snapshot is of equal value. Of course, no-one is able to cast off entirely their [own] Praokkupiertheit von Ideen und Motiven' (Rom, 374) because all individuals see only what they can, or want, to see. The one thing that is clear is that the blurred manifestation of each mosaic, as it is re­ assembled for the umpteenth time from the most diverse fragments, including the blank spaces between them, is determined by rebellious splinters of perception which are unconnected by any causal, spatial, or temporal coherence. It is as though Brinkmann were sweeping up the broken pieces lying in his path and using them to assemble a kaleidoscope. As a result, constantly changing images are created which relativize each other or simply cancel one another out (Grzimek 1981, 34). It appears, therefore, that the last possible form of individual artistic impression in the age of its own reproducibility lies in the arbitrary selec­ tion, and preferably unpredictable compilation, of ready-made images, for which there is no single common denominator (DFW, 265). Moreover, this type of 'Work in Progress' (DFW, 135) clearly accommodates that very process which Academe condemns as plagiarism: 'mach es neu und setz deinen Namen darunter' (DFW, 235). Why stop at anything?! Set against the backdrop of such epistemological, aesthetic, and socio-pol­ itical premises, Brinkmann's work was clearly concerned with eradicating all existential boundaries and expanding traditional concepts of art, which he, for his own part, had always found inhibitive. The author's poetological strategies (Rich­ ter 1983, 65-69) are an attempt to explode the uni-dimensionality of literary pro­ ducts by extending his sphere of work to embrace additional artistic disciplines, and thus create further experimental space for invigorating new approaches (DFW, 211, 251). The taboo-less realist with the manically aggressive camera's eye for detail, sets himself the task, therefore, of radically challenging prevailing patterns of thought or association. He attempts to abandon the safe and sure cate-

152 — DIETER STOLZ

gories of understanding 'eines aristotelischen Abendlandes1 (Rom, 168) and to liberate concrete objects from the fiction of meaningful relationships. In a nut­ shell: Brinkm ann is not merely concerned with lending literary, hence therapeutic expression to his personal insecurity; he also aims to dissect awe-inspiring ideol­ ogies and thus expose the social structures which help cement the very conditions he pillories. Brinkmann's subjectivism is, therefore, not simply narcissistic self­ reflection and playful linguistic acrobatics. His intention is to unleash forceful provocations, to debunk any false semblance of transparency, unity, or totality, and to search relentlessly in his writing, in the face of all opposition, for new points of orientation in a world bereft of meaning. Yet he makes this attempt without ever claiming to be in possession of an overall view of himself or of the realities surrounding him, let alone an ability to comprehend them: Hatte ich eine Theorie anzubieten, ein Weltbild, eine Ansicht, eine Ideologie, ware mir zu schreiben leichtergefallen. So aber ist nichts auBer dem einen Augenblick, an dem ich schrieb, da gewesen. Und so ist immer der jeweils zuletzt geschriebene Satz ein Ende gewesen, von dem ich mit jedem Mal neu beginnen muBte, also lauter Endpunkte, aber genausogut und zutreffend ist, Anf&nge, und diese Anfange ausweiten, gehen, fortgehen. (Nw, 235; cf. 237)

Brinkmann, an obsessive writer, seems unable to offer any other alterna­ tive. He thus remains loyal to an area of aesthetics which returns to eidetic forms, and one which is liberated from mimetic functions of representation and models of catharsis. As I have already indicated at various junctures, it is in this context that the author gives a more prominent role to poetry than to any other genre. Poetry, he felt, had proved itself to be the most flexible of all forms of literary ex­ pression, and the one most able to capture the significance of short-term memory in our fast-moving age: 'in ihr findet eine maximale Raumausdehnung bei minimalem Wort- und Zeitaufwand statt' (DFW, 233). The verbal snap-shot is, there­ fore, the form most suited to the phenomenologist seeking to record, in concrete terms, the flash of sensitivity experienced only in the poetic moment itself,22 spontaneous processes and movements: 'Zusammenhange sehe ich keine' (Nw, 235; cf. Ww, 149: 'Nein, kein Zusammenhang, was sich mir bot'). The central elements in this flexible poetics entail capturing the present, the authentic, the detail, the fragment, the moment — all of which apply equally in the realm of photography23:

BRINKMANN: POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY — 153 Die Orangensaftmaschine

dreht sich & Es ist gut, daB der Barmann zuerst auf die nackten Stellen eines Mfidchens schaut, das ein Glas kalten Tees trinkt. "1st hier sehr heiB, nicht?" sagt er, eine Frage, die den Raum etwas dekoriert, was sonst? Sie hat einen kraftigen KOrper, und als sie dann den Arm ausstreckt, das Glas auf die Glasplatte zuruckstellt, einen schwitzenden, haarigen Fleck unterm Arm, was den Raum einen Moment lang verftndert, die Gedanken nicht. Und jeder sieht, daB ihr’s SpaB macht, sich zu bewegen auf diese Art, was den Barmann auf Trab bringt nach einer langen Pause, in der nur der Ventilator zu hOren gewesen ist wie immer, oder meistens, um diese Tageszeit. (Ww, 24)14 C Rowohlt Verlag 1975

The much-quoted 'snap-shot' constitutes a poetry of the surface, which transcends the eternal 'Gott-Gerede, Land-Gerede, Mutter-Gerede, Liebes-Gerede, ParteiGerede' (DFW, 206). Brinkmann dismisses all forms of universal philosophy and all doctrines of salvation — 'eine gute Kopfschmerztablette ist besser' (DFW, 256) — and, ideally, they would be quickly followed by verbal trash: T)a geht es nicht mehr um die Quadratur des Kreises, da geht es um das genaue Hinsehen — man braucht nur skrupellos zu sein, das als Gedicht aufzuschreiben' (Stph, 185). To sum up again: it is clearly not possible to separate Brinkmann's attempt to bring *hohe Lyrik' down to earth from his constant development of a type of poem which is open on all sides (DFW, 208). Brinkmann, the uncompromising exponent of the contemporary, was working towards a poetic form of visualiza­ tion in the strict sense of the word, and one which refuses to indulge in grand ideas and grandiose linguistic gestures.25 By comparison, his occasional poems,

154 — DIETER STOLZ

which adhere increasingly to the stylistic principle of simulation in parallel lines, can be read as the most authentic expression possible of a never-ending search in progress.26 They are 'momentane Fantasien1(Nw, 228), associative montages o f polyvalent splinters of reality, a complex plea of enduring relevance for the epi­ phany which accompanies sensual or erotic perceptions and which, in his case, are variations on the exemplary works of the triumvirate of Joyce, Pound, and Williams.27 Ultimately, however, precisely when he thought he had dispensed with his­ tory, the disenchanted poet loses even his confidence in those moments of sensu­ ous immediacy which penetrate the consciousness and begins to doubt the ade­ quate conversion of those moments 'der sanften Nacktheit' (Rom, 44). It is as if scales had fallen from his eyes and he sees that there are 'Zuviele Bilder. / Zuwenig Leben' (DFW, 181). Once again he becomes critical of perception and of lan­ guage and appears to lose all concept of certainty in his own chaotic attempts to simulate everyday life. The gap between art and life cannot be bridged because the past holds too much promise of the future, the present too little (Grzimek 1981, 35-36; Braun 1986, 28). It gradually becomes clear that the utopia of in­ dividualistic sensuousness reveals its negative side as a predisposition for the self-destruction of the concept of an emphatic subject.28 The last sanctuaries in the universal context of delusion are in danger of being lost (Schweikert 1981, 88). Intoxication gives way to the obligatory hangover!

IV LongingforSilence— AfragmentaryEpilogue Those who are always wiser after the event knew all along, of course, that such an outcome was only to be expected in the light of such wretched circumstances. The fact remains that the poet's own euphoria was soon followed by disenchant­ ment. The efforts of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, whose personal development runs largely parallel to that of the historical conditions specific to his generation, to muck out the Augean stable of modem consciousness by using the critical tools of poetic alienation were obviously in vain (Witte 1981, 22). The theoretical pre­ tention and the unpoetic reality were hopelessly divided. The subcultural blow for liberation remained without noticeable impact, and day in, day out, we experi­ ence the consequences, themselves reduced to fads. Disappointment is wide­ spread although the causes are hard to see: Und 1974, da ich dies hier ohne Netz schreibe, ein Netz das mich abf&ngt, eine Ideologie mit entsprechenden Begriffen, nicht einmal poetische, ist auch jeder lebendige Impuls, der so stark

BRINKMANN: POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY — 155

zwischen 1965 und 1970 an den verschiedensten Orten sich auszudrticken ver­ suchte, fast zerstOrt' (Nw, 136). Thus, the escape bids which have been outlined here of a sensuous critic of ideology who placed his confidence in the observations of his own senses as he followed the path marked out for him by his mentors, seemed destined to fail. Brinkmann, who inevitably grew increasingly bitter, and gradually withdrew from the public sphere, once again records raging stasis: only this time, in hopelessly negative tones: 'blind, taub, stumm mufite man sein, um die Gegenwart ertragen zu kdnnen' (Rom, 30). His own physical and spiritual sensibilities clearly had no­ thing whatsoever in common with static conditions, whether in a self-proclaimed progressive society or in the cultural and scientific scene dominated by 'akademische[m] Gefasel1 (Erk, 107). What was once a pleasure for the destroyer of taboos, writing poems for example, had now already become '"historisch" eingeordnet, "viehlologisch" sichergestellt und damit noch einmal abgettttet' (Nw, 236). Quod erat demonstrandum? Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that we are once again confronted by the existential malaise of an individual who is thrown back on himself without any known remedy. In spite of the glossy post­ card image, Brinkmann remains an incorrigible aesthete who did not believe in literature as a panacea: Die wirklichen Dinge, die passieren [...] keine Buchtitel, Inhalte, Zitate' (Ww, 42). End of quotation. The final poems of an author whose death came all too soon, still challenge the feelings and understanding of the inquisitive reader,29 narrating, as they do, a hapless daydreamer's impotent look at the desolate details of our 'rubbish-dump civilization' (Grofl 1993, 1; Rom, 47, 402, 406), which, 25 years after Brinkmann's sobering diagnosis, has lost none of its destructive potential. On the contrary, today, as then, there is still no prospect of heaven, and even the gates to a terrestrial paradise will presumably remain locked; nobody seems to know any more. Nonetheless, at least the mystic in Brinkmann appears to have discovered a final escape from the circumscribed hell on earth in those moments, redisco­ vered among the old order, when all images disappear and the imagination is silent.30 Thus, he flirts with a finite nirvana, and confronts his own unsatisfying experience as a writer in the worst of times, with the dubious self-mutilating desire31 for a sated, unfettered existence to be found in a fictitious no man's land: 'das Verlangen nach / Halluzinationen, die Sehnsucht nach wortloseren / Zustanden, eine weifie leuchtende Wand / zur Mittagszeit, auf die man starren kann, gedankenlos, / wortlos, jeder BegrifF von Welt ausgeldscht' (Ww, 107). And yet this wonderful moment — 'Oh, sweet nothing' (Ww, 43) — is itself transitory.

156 — DIETER STOLZ

Had he continued to write, who knows where this longing might have taken Brinkmann, the advocate of a genuinely innovative body-language poetics of committed silence.32 One thing remains clear, however, and that is the fact that Brinkmann, ever the self-critical poet, was himself aware of the limits of any aesthetic or poetological escape bid. Thus, he made no secret of the fact, particularly during what was to be, unbeknown to him, his final period of creative activity that, as far as he was concerned, poetry could only consist in that which had not yet been formulated (Nw, 248). As a result, he was convinced that any author who wishes to be taken seriously should always draw attention to the fact, 'dafi Sprache gar nicht so wichtig ist' (Nw, 232). But it is significant that even Brinkmann, in spite of his own apocalyptic vision of a future without those ghostly 'SchrottwOrter' (Ww, 119, 129), still continues to use that fascinating system of signs which not only literary critics refer to as 'language'.33 In conclusion, it would appear, to me here and now, to be a case of too many words, too many pictures, but too little life. The rest is... cut.

NOTES Translation by Frank Finlay and Sally Johnson. Rolf Dieter Brinkmann’s poems are quoted here by kind permission of the Rowohlt Verlag. 1. Adomo, 1951, 57: 'Das Ganze ist das Unwahre'; Adomo, 1973, 359 (on culture and trash); Lampe 1983,125-149. 2. See Spath 1 9 8 1 ,4 1 -4 4 on the influence of the visual media on the avant-garde. 3. Koppen 1987 represents the best comparative study in this field. 4. Delabar 1993, 8: 'Alles ist erlaubt, jedes Thema und jeder Stil, und alles wird praktiziert. Eine dominante StrOmung ist nicht zu beobachten.' See also pp.25-33 on Rainald Goetz's lack of success in progressing beyond the imitation of Brinkmann's project. 5. For interpretations of the poem see Grzimek 1981, 26-27; Urtoe 1985, 79-83; Koppen 1987, 231. 6. Here, Brinkmann (allowing for differences in emphasis) could be equally well replaced by such figures as Jurgen Becker or Peter Handke. All represent a Zeitgeist Rutschky 1979, 34 encapsulated: 'Es sieht so aus: In den siebziger Jahren hat sich ein Schreiben entwickelt, da& die unbestreitbare Wirklichkeit des KOrperlichen beansprucht, ein Anspruch, den man am einfachsten zu greifen bekommt, wenn man dies Schreiben mit dem Fotografieren zusammenbringt, metaphorisch oder nicht, auf verschiedenen Ebenen'. 7. I am unable, in the present context, to explore more fully the aesthetic strategies in Brinkmann's posthumously published volumes of materials. GroS 1993, 259, offers an analysis of these experimental works: 'Der Collage- und Montagecharakter seiner Textkonvolute ist die formale Entsprechung einer Wirklichkeitswahmehmung, die den

BRINKMANN: POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY

8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

157

Anspruch erhebt, das Urtzusammenhdngende und Wirre, das latent UnbewuBte und Bedrohliche der Alltagserfahrung authentisch zur Darstellung zu bringen'. Fortunately, the academic analysis of Brinkmann's work, of which the best examples are contained in the bibliography to this essay, has now begun to redress the balance of the simplifications and legends surrounding Brinkmann, which stretch from sugges­ tions of fascism to the label of po6te maudit and all of which tend to reject him as a writer for serious study. Grofi 1993, 7-19 . provides an overview of the most contra­ dictory critical reaction to Brinkmann's work (p. 17: 'Die Polarisierung kflnnte starker kaum sein'). Brinkmann is quoting Nietzsche's 'Genealogie der Moraf (Nietzsche 1968,6, II, 417). On this concept and the manifestations of the 'gespenstische Phantomgegerrwarf see Rom, 20; Schn, 5 -7 . On the 'Dialektik der Aufkldrung' see Lampe 1983,152, and GroB 1993, 246-247. See also DFW, 223: 'Das Ruckkopplungssystem der WOrter, das in gewohnten grammatikalischen Ordnungen wirksam ist, entspricht Idngst nicht mehr tagt&glich zu machender sinnlicher Erfahrung'. For the influence of American authors on Brinkmann, which can hardly be overstated, see his poetological writings in DFW: 203-206, 207-222, 223-247, 248-269; Lampe 1983, 104-125; Urbe 1985, 19-70. Of the other German authors who influenced Brinkmann Amo Schmidt is, perhaps, the most significant. In his short novel Aus dem Leben eines Fauns (1953), the narrator's attitude to life is introduced as follows: 'Mein Leben?!: ist kein Kontinuum! [...] ein Tablett voll glitzemder snap-shots'. Hitherto there has been no research into the poeto­ logical similarities between Schmidt and Brinkmann. On the influence of Benjamin, which has been the subject of several studies, and on Brinkmann's reading of Kracauer Ceiner der wenigen Theoretiker, die in Brinkmanns Augen Gnade gefunden haben') see GroB 1993, 246-257; Richter 1983, 85-95; Urbe 1985, 23-29. On the influence of Fiedler on Brinkmann see Wittstock 1994, 14-39, 65-77; DFW, 253-254; Riewoldt 1990, 5. Cf. Nietzsche: Die frOhliche Wissenschaft in Nietzsche, 1968, 5, II (1973), here 20: 'Oh diese Griechen! Sie verstanden sich darauf, zu leben: dazu thut Noth, tapfer bei der OberflSche, der Falte, der Haut stehen zu bleiben, den Schein anzubeten, an Formen, an Tdne, an Worte, an den ganzen Olymp des Scheins zu glauben! Diese Griechen waren oberflachlich — aus Tiefe'. As yet there has not been a properly balanced study of Nietzsche's influence on Brinkmann — who affords the lone warrior against the morality of the herd only qualified praise; c f . Nw, 241-242; Schweikert 1981, 84-85. Mention should be made of the significance of Robbe-Grillefs theory of the nouveau roman for Brinkmann's lyric project. The following is intended merely to indicate some relevant aspects of this: reality is what is perceived by the senses and is in constant change; this phenomonological perception is unconnected to categories of recognition and knowledge which guarantee meaning and context; writing merely names the ob­ jects which stimulate the senses; this reading of reality and creation of text leads to a critique of traditional linguistic means and to the demand for a superficial represen­ tation of an atomized world. On Brinkmann's concept of the fragment see, for example, Nw, 234-235: 'Die fragmentarische Form [...] ist fur mich eine MOglichkeit gewesen, dem Zwang, jede Einzelheit, jedes, Wort, jeden Satz, hintereinander zu lesen, und damit auch logische Abfolgen zu machen, wenigstens fur einen Moment nicht zu folgen [...] Ist das neu? Nein, alles ist doch da!' For interpretations of the poem see Lampe 1983,142-149; Urbe 1985,133-135. On the listing that follows see, for example, DFW, 255, 263; Stph, 185-187.

15a — DIETER STOLZ 22. On this 'Fluchtpunkt der literarischen Modeme' and its roots in intellectual history see, for example, Braun 1986,16-30. 23. See Urbe 1985, 7 0 -7 8 ,1 8 1 -1 8 9 , whose discussion of Brinkmann's poetics focuses on perspective. 24. For an interpretation of the poem see Urbe 1985,133-135. 25. See GroB 1993, 23: 'Der Begriff des Asthetischen I5st sich aus der Verankerung in einer gesicherten Tradition und Theorie der Kiinste und kehrt zu seiner Grundbedeutung zuruck: aisthesis — Anschauung.' 26. See the titular poems of Ww, 42-60. 27. For a list of Brinkmann's 'forebears' see Braun 1986,24. 28. On this appraisal see Lampe 1983, 155: 'Solange der gesellschaftliche Raum zur Selbstentfaltung zu eng ist, sind wir Subjekte ohne Subjektivitat.' 29. On this appraisal, see also GroB 1993, 12. 30. See, for example, Urbe 1985,16, 34-35, and 146-157 on the 'Leere' of the mystics in this context — to experience it is seen as a liberation, an expansion and unbounding of the consciousness, the end of all oppressive questions, the conquest of history, the extinguishing of individuation, fulfilment. Brinkmann describes the wordless concept 'Stille' as 'das Hinter-sich-lassen jenes bequemen Schemas aus Entweder-Oder, die FShigkeit, zu sehen, was tatsSchlich geschieht, wenn der VerbalisierungsprozeB gestoppt isf (DFW, 205). 31. On this self-appraisal of Brinkmann, see Rom, 30. The author seems to be constantly aware of the transience 'des anderen Zustands'. 32. On Brinkmann's 'Sprachkrise', which is hinted at here, and the alternatives he contem­ plated, see Braun 1986, 81-90. 33. See DFW, 152: 'Lasse den inneren Bildschirm leerlaufen. Hdchste Form des BewuBtseins die Vemeinung. WOrter sind nicht die Dinge, die sie bezeichnen. Gehe waiter. Jetzt trflumen. Ohne Wdrter. Durch die verseuchte Gegenwart.' And then in Nw, 244: 'Poesie I6st sich in Wortlosigkeit auf, meine Gedanken und Vorstellungen sind abgeschweift (und vielleicht, freundlicher Leser, fullst du [...] die Lucken.)'

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary works The poems 'Photographic' (p. 142), 'Eine uberlebensgroBe Photographic von Liz Taylor1 (p.144), and 'Photos machen' (p.149) are taken from Rolf Dieter Brinkmann STANDPHOTOS Copyright © 1 9 8 0 by Rowohlt Veriag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg The poems ‘Die Orangensaftmaschine' (p. 153), 'Einen jener klassischen’ (p. 150), and ‘Gedicht'(p.146) are taken from Rolf Dieter Brinkmann WESTWARTS 1 & 2 Copyright© 1975 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg Brinkmann, Rolf Dieter: Westwdrts 1&2. Gedichte. Mit Fotos des Autors, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1975. (= Ww). ------ : Rom, Blicke, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1979. (= Rom). ------ : Standphotos. Gedichte 1962-1970, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1980. (= Stph). ------ : Der Film in Worten. Prosa, Erzdhlungen, Essays, HOrspiele, Fotos, Collagen (1 9 6 5 1974), Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1982. (= DFW).

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159

------ : Erkundungen fQr die Prdzisierung des GefOhls fQr einen Aufstand: Tr&ume Aufstdnde / Gewalt / Morde REISE ZEIT MAGAZIN (Tagebuch), Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1987. (= Erk). ------ : Schnitte, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1988. (= Schn). ------ : 'Ein unkontrolliertes Nachwort zu meinen Gedichten1Uteratunvagazin 5, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1976, pp.228-248. (= Nw).

Secondary works Adorno, Theodor W . 1951: Minima Moralia. ReHexionen aus dem beschddigten Leben, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. ------ 1973: Negative Dialektik, ed by Rolf Tiedemann, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Arnold, Heinz Ludwig (ed.) 1978: Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, edition text+kritik, Munich (1978—). ------ (ed.) 1981: Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, (text+kritik 71), edition text+kritik, Munich. Braun, Michael 1986: Der poetische Augenblick. Essays zur Gegenwartsliteratur, Verlag V is-6-V is, Berlin. Delabar, Walter, Jung, Werner, and Pergande, Ingrid (eds) 1993: Neue Generation — Neues Erzahlen. Deutsche Prosa-Literatur der achtziger Jahre, Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen. GroB, Thomas 1993: Alltagserkundungen. Empirisches Schreiben in derAsthetik und in den sp&ten Materialb&nden Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns, Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar. Grzimek, Martin 1981: "'Bild" und "Gegenwart" im Werk Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns. Ansfltze zu einer Differenzierung' in Arnold 1981, 21-36. Koppen, Erwin 1987: Uteratur und Photographie. Uber Geschichte und Thematik einer Medienentdeckung, Metzler, Stuttgart. Lampe, Gerhard 1983: Ohne Subjektivitat. Interpretationen zur Lyrik Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns vor dem Hintergrund des Studentenbewegung, Niemeyer, Tubingen. Nietzsche, Friedrich 1968: Werke, ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, de Gruyter, Berlin/New York. Richter, Hansjurgen 1983: Asthetik der Ambivalenz. Studien zur Struktur 'postmodemer' Lyrik — exemplarisch dargestellt an Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns Poetik und dem Gedichtband Westwdrts 1&2', Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main/Beme/New York. Riewoldt, Otto F. 1990: 'Rolf Dieter Brinkmann' in Arnold 1 9 7 8 ,1 -1 1 . Rutschky, Michael 1979: 'Ethnographie des Alltags', Literaturmagazin 11, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1979, pp.28-51. Schweikert, Udo 1981: 'Alles ist Kaufhof und nichts mehr Leben. Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns "Rom. Blicke" lesend' in Arnold 1981, 83-89. Spdth, Sibylle 1981: 'Die Entmythologisierung des Alltags. Zu Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns lyrischer Konzeption einer befreiten Wahmehmung* in Arnold 1981, 37-49. ------ 1986: 'Rettungsversuch aus dem Todesterritorium'. Zur AktualitSt der Lyrik Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main/Beme/New York. Urbe, Burglind 1985: Lyrik, Fotografie und Massenkultur, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main/Beme/New York. Witte, Bemd 1981: 'Vechta. Ein O rtfur Rolf Dieter Brinkmann' in Arnold, 1981 7-23. Wittstock, Uwe (ed.) 1994: Roman oder Leben. Postmodeme in derdeutschen Literatur, Reclam, Leipzig.

DIVERGING TRENDS IN FEMININE AESTHETICS ANNE DUDEN AND BRIGITTE KRONAUER M ARG ARET LITTLER

The 1980s in the Federal Republic saw the emergence of a new generation of women writers whose work was implicitly or explicitly informed by theoretical debates within second-wave feminism. One important focal point of these de­ bates remains the question of a feminine aesthetic, that is, the links between women's textual practice and their sexual identity. In this context, the ideas of post-Lacanian French psychoanalytical theorists (Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva) have provided the impetus for much German feminist criticism, the radical potential of women's writing being judged according to the success with which it subverts the conventions of a masculine iconography, articulating specifically feminine modes of subjectivity. One problem with the dominance of psychoanalytical discourse in feminist criticism, however, is the risk of a prescriptive narrowing of the defini­ tions of what constitutes feminine writing, and the summary exclusion from an alternative feminist canon of those women writers who fail to adopt the Lacanian model of identity acquisition A case in point is the German feminist reception of Anne Duden and Brigitte Kronauer. Duden's increasingly poetic prose, Obergang (1982), Das Judasschaf (1985), and most recently Steinschlag (1993), correspond to Sigrid Weigel's idea of the articulation of radical female subjectivity (Weigel 1989, 123-129). At the same time, Margret Bnigmann extols Duden as a truly post­ modern feminist writer (Bnigmann 1989). In Brigitte Kronauer's virtuoso narra­ tive style, deeply indebted to the French nouveau roman, Uwe Schweikert detects 'etwas spezifisch Weibliches' (Schweikert 1984,170).1However, feminist critics have so far accorded it no such status: Weigel dismisses the protagonist of Rita Munster (1983) as 'eine asthetisierte Variante weiblicher Subjektivitat' (Weigel 1989,97); Regula Venske sees in this novel, along with the later novels, Berittener Bogenschutze (1986) and Die Frau in den Kissen (1990), examples of a trend towards 'Be-mannung der ErzShlperspektive in der Literatur von Frauen' (Venske 1992,276). One perplexing aspect of this polarized response to these two writers is that it obscures much that they have in common, their writing being informed

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both by feminist psychoanalytical debates and by the materialist concerns of a specifically German tradition of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. Indeed, the at­ tempt productively to reconcile these often competing discourses has been one of the most interesting developments in recent German feminist theory.2 In common with many writers emerging in the 1980s, the work of Duden and Kronauer can also be said to reflect a postmodern questioning of the validity of totalizing, uni­ versal theories of the self, as of the reality which it is supposed to inhabit.3 Intrin­ sic to the postmodern condition, however, is the plurality of consequences drawn from these doubts, and I shall argue that some of the contrasts between these two authors can be located within the broader debate between psychoanalytical and pragmatic postmodemisms, rather than being exclusively related to feminism. The structural features resulting from this postmodern consciousness, seen both in Das Judasschaf and in Rita Munster, include their abandonment of linear narrative in favour of topographical or associative structures, the representation of time as simultaneity rather than chronology, and the challenging of traditional subject-object relations, the last explored specifically in the relationship of the subject to the work of art. One of the most striking common features of two sty­ listically very different novels lies in their references to Renaissance painting, and in particular to works by Vittore Carpaccio. The contrasting significance of paint­ ings in the texts can be seen as an important index of their differing approaches to the textual construction of subjectivity. Kronauer's representation of the relationship between image and text is comparable to that of Peter Weiss's complementary model of painting and writ­ ing, of affective response and critical distance.4 There is a notable absence of reproductions in Rita Milnster, whereas the paintings are reproduced in Duden's text and occupy an autonomous position in relation to it, underlining the juxta­ position of two distinct and hierarchically ordered modes of symbolization. Whilst this difference may, in itself, signal a less critical approach on Kronauer’s part to language, her concern with the construction of a viable female subject can nevertheless be aligned with recent developments in feminist theory. In an essay on women's art published in 1990, Luce Irigaray warns against women's self-destructive urge to represent their own state of 'dereliction', arguing instead for positive symbolizations of femininity, which would enable women to sublimate their own life-threatening drives (Irigaray 1993). In this context, Kro­ nauer’s narrative strategy might simply be viewed in the German materialist tradi­ tion as a reaction against the postmodern fragmentation of the subject. Unlike Duden, whose writing questions the very categories of subject and object along with the humanist notion of identity which they underpin, Kronauer's is con-

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cemed in all her novels of the 1980s with the processes of individuation by which coherent and active subjects come into being. The question this raises for femin­ ist criticism is that of the relative value of trying to represent the 'unrepresentable' and of retaining a notion of the subject as the basis for a positive renewal of feminine identity.

I ContrastingM odelsofSubjectivity Both Duden and Kronauer share a central concern of Frankfurt School Theory, one that has a crucial bearing on feminist aesthetics: that of the dislocation be­ tween the particular and the general, the individual and the universal.5 The itine­ rant protagonist of Das Judasschaf experiences this dislocation in her travels between the urban landscapes of Berlin, Venice, and New York, pursued by the unspoken question of how to go on living in the treacherous knowledge of the Holocaust. Maria Kublitz-Kramer has pointed to the contrast between this 'Stadtl&uferin' and the Baudelairean fldneur, her state of hyper-sensitive vulnera­ bility suggesting a defencelessly traumatized response to the 'shock-impact' of modem life (Kublitz-Kramer 1993).6 Like the protagonist of the earlier autobio­ graphical prose-text tJbergang', she experiences the present as an unbearable series of crises and catastrophes, and interpersonal relations as essentially antag­ onistic: 'Jeder bekampft jeden gnadenlos [...] Hier kommt keiner mehr raus' (DJ, 39). This insight into the fundamentally antinomial subject-object relationship underlying apparently harmonious social relations, in addition to the protagonist's lack of a totalizing perspective on social reality can easily be interpreted in terms of Adorno's defence of aesthetic modernism.7 At the same time, however, the narrative voice, shifting between 'ich', 'die Person', and 'die Frau', suggests a provisional, Kristevan notion of the 'subject in process', described by Duden in an interview with Sigrid Weigel in 1987 as 'ein ProzeB, der immer weitergeht und aus dem man sich selber nur kOnstlich fur einen Moment rausholt. Man stellt eine Art Zusammenhalt, Zusammenhang her, der aber auch immer wieder aufs neue verfellt. Andere Kulturen und andere Zeiten haben das viel selbstverstSndlicher gewuBt, daB es so eine Identitat, etwas so Ewiges gar nicht gibt' (Duden/Weigel 1989, 137). This implies a liberating in­ sight into the culturally and historically specific nature of the continuous, inter­ nally coherent subject, quite in line with much post-structuralist feminist thought. Duden's protagonist is intensely aware of the constraints of socially constructed femininity. As in Bachmann's 'ErklSr mir, Liebe', the image of the Salamander appears as the impossible articulation of uncontrolled feminine desire (DJ, 41),

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whereas in reality, she knows: 'SchlieBlich gab es eine genau festgesetzte Liebesgrenze flkr Frauen' (DJ, 40). Even more than her femininity, however, her German identity is experi­ enced as an intolerable burden, bound up painfully with her country's recent history: 'Nichts war mehr zu leugnen, kein einziges Versteck war ubriggeblieben, kein Umweg, keine Abzweigung [...] Mannlichere Lebensaussichten konnte sie bei sich nicht anwenden. Denn es fehlte ihnen, was sie erst noch durch ZusammenstoB mit sich selbst und Versteinerung beseitigen mufite: Gedachtnis' (DJ, 40). Elsewhere her German identity is described as an amorphous forcefield, which separates her from the beauty in the world and forces her to gaze into the abyss of German histoiy: Bisweilen nahm es auch mehrere unterschiedliche, immer jedoch auBerst vage Gestalten an. Einmal hatte es ein Gesenke sein kdnnen, dann wieder ein rasendes Geftlle oder ein breiter Strom mit Eisgang, oder auch ein offener Schlund mit dem unerschaubaren Engel des Abgrunds in der Tiefe; meistens aber schien es nur ein blendend helles Feld, eine Gefahrenzone, die nichts preisgab. Vielleicht war es Deutschland. (DJ, 98)

Duden has described subjectivity in terms of a centripetal force-field, in which the integrity of the subject is repeatedly and violently shattered by the ex­ plosive course of history (Duden/Weigel 1989, 144).* In Das Judasschaf, how­ ever, this is the experience of a specifically feminine subject: 'Ich bin eine Frau, ein Madchen, ein weibliches Kind. Ich bin aus Deutschland. Von klein auf habe ich mich nicht davon ablenken lassen, ruhig erregt und ohne den Blick abzuwenden auf die Katastrophen zu starren und sie als solche zu erkennen' (DJ, 52). Whilst the echoes of Benjamin's 'Engel der Geschichte' in this apocalyptic view of historical progress are beyond doubt, her protagonist in Das Judasschaf arti­ culates a more specifically postmodern consciousness analogous to Lyotard's category of 'the jews'. Indeed, her restless travelling could be seen as a metaphor for his notion of 'nomadic thinking'; that mode of thought which acknowledges that all culture, as well as individual identity, is founded on a primary repression (Lyotard 1990).9 Her marginal position as a woman gives her privileged access to the radical alterity which Lyotard considers fundamental to all critical thinking. Yet, as the title metaphor suggests, to be a subject in the late twentieth century involves a form of moral opportunism, requiring a detachment and complicity which is ready to sacrifice the memory of'the jews' in order to survive itself. Kronauer's female subject, on the other hand, who also experiences moments of disorientating fragmentation, and occupies the role of passive obser­ ver or 'resonating chamber' (Clausen 1991, 161) in the first part of the novel, is in

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fact inventing herself in her own narrative, and needs to achieve the necessary distance to succeed in this. The boundary between subject/object is often porous, but never completely dissolved. The self is not a constraint, but a defence mecha­ nism, a necessary construct to protect the individual from the onslaughts of the world. Kronauer writes in an essay on Hubert Fichte of 1979, in terms remini­ scent of Adorno's view of the subject as both oppressive and enabling: 'Nun weifi kaum einer besser, [than Fichte] wie durchl&fiig dieses Ich ist, wie wenig geschfltzt, wie passierbar. Der Kreis also, den eine Person um sich schl>, ist ein kiinstlicher Akt des Schutzes, der Abwehr, ein magischer Akt der Selbstbehauptung in einer ununterbrochen angriffslustigen Umwelt, zu vollziehen mit Worten' (AL, 57). If Duden's subject is formed by centripetal force, then Kronauer de­ scribes a centrifugal movement, the narrative circling around the female pro­ tagonist until she achieves a sense of centred self. Rita Munster actually only begins narrating her own story in the second part of this three-part novel: having dropped out of university, had three different jobs, and lived with three different men, she now lives with her father and does only occasional work in a friend's bookshop. She spends her days in intense ob­ servation of the world, which gives rise to the kaleidescopic portraits of her friends and family in Part One. These descriptions revolve around questions of individuation, desire, and the unfulfilled potential which characterizes human subjectivity. Whilst the main focus is on female characters (such as Ruth Wag­ ner, Petra, Veronika, all trapped in definitions of femininity which they patently exceed) there is little to suggest anything radically specific to femininity, except for the fragmentariness of Rita's experience. Her main concern seems to he with the human capacity to give meaning to the world of everyday, ritualized behav­ iour in which all individuation inheres. The outcome of the detailed descriptions of the first part is anything but intimacy, however, as Rita seeks an optimum distance from others, just knowing enough about them to enjoy complicity, without losing the distance which ensures independent identity. Hence when her friend Ruth's marriage breaks up, she withdraws from her completely, unwilling to be subject to unwelcome con­ fidences. The picture of desire which emerges is not a longing for total identifi­ cation or merging with the other, but rather an intimacy which retains the mystery of the other. This occurs in the first part of the novel in repeated references to the 'Schimmer1or 'Glanz' which animates individuals momentarily and draws others to them (RM, 8-9, 93-94). Her frustration at the shallow banalities of social intercourse, on the one hand, and her fear of complete disintegration, on the other, are both aspects of

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Rita's longing for a sense of self as a basis for communion with the other, for 'Vereinigung, Paarung' (RM, 166). It is the brief affair with a visiting academic, Horst Fischer (narrated in one and a half pages) which gives her the necessary sense of identity and perspective, extending to her perception of others as indivi­ duals in their own right. Earlier in the novel she had confessed a profound indif­ ference to the people she observed: 'Nein, sie interessieren mich alle nicht, aber sie ahneln sich in ihrer Stauung' (RM, 22). Now, her new sense of identity brings with it an appreciation of the unique integrity of others: Durch meine neue Empfindung erhalt das in meiner Gegenwart versammelte Leben ebenso ein Zentmm, eine Verdichtung, ein Auge' (RM, 167). Before meeting Horst she had an un­ stable, semi-permeable sense of self, now she comes to a sense of centred whole­ ness. On the way back from a walk with her father, she notes, Tiatte ich den Eindruck, nicht mehr, wie noch vor kurzem, partikelweise verteilt und eingemeindet in den FluB, die Uferwiesen, die Wolken dariiber zu sein, zersplittert in alien Spiegelungen und Windbewegungen, sondem zurilckgekehrt in eine einzige Person, Rita Munster' (RM, 170). However, there is an ambivalence at the heart of subjectivity in the novel, captured in one description of her intimacy with Horst, which is repeated verbatim at the end of the novel, and can thus be extrapolated to her relationship to the world in general: 'Immer war in seinen Augen eine Zuneigung und eine Drohung, mit dem einen stieg auch das andere an, in seinen Ann&herungen war immer eine Zuriickweisung, in seinen S&tzen ein Angriff. Ich wufite nun, daB man, wie auf einen bestimmten Blick, auch auf eine Art der Beriihrung sein Leben lang warten kann, und man erkennt sie sofort' (RM, 184, 266). The emotional fulfilment experienced depends here on the integrity of the subjectobject distinction, and on the optimum balance of vulnerability and defensive enclosure.10This reciprocal relationship between individual and world is a model for subjectivity entirely commensurate with Adorno's ideal view of 'peace' in the subject-object relation, as 'der Stand eines Unterschiedenen ohne Herrschaft, in dem das Unterschiedene teilhat aneinander' (Adorno 1977, 743). As in Adorno's philosophy, the human subject in Kronauer's text is also crucially a conscious subject, as the insistent reflections on the life of the cat suggest: unlike Duden, for whom animals usually represent a positive other of human culture, for Kronauer, the apparently enviable autonomy of the cat serves rather as a metaphor for the conscious self-invention of the characters in the novel. Cats actually lack the elusive qualities of individuality and unrealized potential which are defining features of human subjectivity: Die Katzen stehen alle untereinander in Verbindung, egal, wo man sie trifit, um das einzigartige

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Katzenwesen gemeinsam darzustellen, ohne Abrifi, Uber die Lender verteilt, ein grofies Netz. Jeder Knoten darin ist eine Katze. Ihr Machtbereich gilt immer bis zur nSchsten, die Faden sind ihre geheimnisvolle Verstandigung' (RM, 134). Human lives, in contrast, are like 'einsinkende Steine in einen Teich, verbunden miteinander durch meine Betrachtung' (RM, 272-273). Rita arrives at this sense of constitutive and reciprocal subjectivity by means of the development of an aesthetic sensibility, signalled largely in Part Three of the novel by her relation­ ship to works of Renaissance art. II Painting and Feminine Aesthetics In outlining the models of subjectivity constructed by these two writers, I have indicated a constellation of contemporary ideas within which illuminating points of contact as well as divergence may be found, particularly in relation to Frank­ furt School Theory. If Duden shares Adorno's central concern with human suffer­ ing, Kronauer can be said to endorse a form of non-identity thinking which seeks to do justice to individuals' unfulfilled potentialities, whilst holding on to a posi­ tive notion of the subject. Analysis of their treatment of art works serves to illus­ trate these differences more clearly, and to demonstrate the complex relationship of contemporary writers to their European cultural heritage. Both authors stress the sensuous nature of aesthetic experience, but they differ crucially in the rela­ tionship of subject-image, and in the nature of the knowledge paintings afford. Ili Das Judasschafand the Cultural Unconscious in A rt Duden's four-part narrative is organized around three different locations (Venice, New York, and Berlin) but more importantly, around five sixteenth-century Venetian paintings which offer an alternative reality to the cities in which they are encountered. The woman's insistent gaze on the repressed history of Ger­ many, signalled by the montage into the text of documentary material relating to Dachau and Auschwitz, motivates her recourse to art, where there is the pos­ sibility of non-linguistic articulation of the horror of the Holocaust. The mute horror is present throughout in the metaphor of the 'Schrei'. The paintings in Das Judasschaf do not offer a flight from reality, nor any hope of religious 'redemp­ tion', but the possibility of confronting 'forgotten' knowledge and of articulating protest at the senseless human suffering of our own time. For Duden, as for Irigaray, paintings embody a knowledge which is analo­ gous to the dream, and cannot be articulated in discursive language. In a 1986 lecture entitled The Colours of the Flesh', Irigaray described painting in striking­ ly similar terms as a positive alternative to verbal language: 'The point about

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painting is to spatialize perception and to make time simultaneous, to quote Klee. This is also the point about dreaming. The psychoanalyst should direct his or her attention not only to the repetition of former images and their possible interpretation, but also to the subject's ability to paint, to make time simultan­ eous, to build bridges, to establish perspectives between present - past - future' (The Colours of the Flesh', quoted by Whitford 1994, 16). In her 1987 interview with Sigrid Weigel, Duden describes the knowledge conveyed by the paintings of Vittore Carpaccio in terms of simultaneity, which, like that experienced in music, offers a configurational grasp of the complexity of human experience not avail­ able in the linearity of rational thought processes. Painting bridges a 'gap' which has opened up in our symbolic order between knowledge and representation. It articulates in colour, shapes, and spatial relationships the primal trauma which is repressed in language: T)ie Bilder Carpaccios zeigen, dafi alles seine SchreiSeite hat, dafi dem Moment der Ruhe immer etwas anderes vorausgegangen sein mufi' (Duden/Weigel 1989, 132). For Duden, Carpaccio also represents an historical moment of Venetian art when the human form was not yet the sole focus of the painting. She emphasizes the restraint of the figures, and the spaces between them, in which there is a sense of absence as well as presence, 'das neben, aufierhalb des Menschen Vorkommende, das Carpaccios Bilder noch mitmalen' (Duden/Weigel 1989, 124)." The details in the paintings which often attract the protagonist's attention could be said to serve the disruptive, irritating function described by Naomi Schor ,in her study of aesthetics and the feminine, distracting attention from the abstract, spiritual content of the religious paintings and marking a departure from the privileging of the sublime in academic aesthetic discourse (Schor 1987). The disturbance of the hierarchical dichotomy of sublime essence and accidental detail, the universal and the particular, points to another crucial differ­ ence between the aesthetic experience of Duden's protagonist and that of the masculine, modernist, contemplative gaze. There is no question of aesthetic edifi­ cation through the detached contemplation of suffering in a world in which the subject/object distinction is radically redefined, and the distance between indi­ vidually experienced and aesthetically represented suffering suspended. While in Dbergang' music provided the release from individual physical affliction and the articulation of a state of abjection, in Das Judasschaf this is the role of painting, and the suffering is both universalized and still agonizingly, physically particular. This is seen immediately in the protagonist's experience of Jacopo Tintor­ etto's Transfer of the Body of St.Mark', encountered in the Venice Academia (DJ, 21-24). It depicts the body of St. Mark being carried by a group of men in a

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scene of storm and confusion, a funeral pyre in the background, and all around people fleeing into the arcades around the Square. The protagonist recognizes in the painting her own experience, that of being a 'body' carried along the corridors of a hospital (DJ, 10), when she had become aware of a new pain-centre linking her body and her perceptions. Whereas Bernard Dieterle stresses the redemptive rather than apocalyptic aspect of the painting, its relationship to the legendary narrative seems for Duden to he in the status of the saint's body: the dead, but miraculously preserved, body evokes what twentieth-century German history has repressed, and it is from this, rather than the storm, that the people are in flight (Dieterle 1991, 271).12 Hence the fleeing figures are described as being 'entleibt vor Angst und Panik' (DJ, 23). The camel standing behind the group is significant in the contrast it pre­ sents to the general atmosphere of panic and terror: 'Seine Gelassenheit war et­ was ganz anderes, und sie pafite auch nicht in diese Geradlinigkeit und Hohe der Fassaden. Das Tier war da, um genau das zu zeigen. Ein grofier, von braunem zottigem Fell umschlossener Leib, der als schiitzende Wand hinter den Mannem stand' (DJ, 23). Its bodily presence represents all that exceeds the abstract rationality which enables humanity to repress the knowledge of real, physical death and mass extermination. Back in Berlin, and juxtaposed with a document from Dachau, the protagonist sees Carpaccio's painting of St. Peter's martyrdom, an expression of calm acceptance on his face in spite of the cleaver in his skull and the sword through his heart. The damage to his body has become 'Alltag', worth bearing for the 'truth' (the book in his left hand), and he holds the martyr's palm, 'denn es kdnnten einem ja die beiden Klingen in Kopf und Korper entgangen sein' (DJ, 32). Interestingly, both Duden and Kronauer use the image of the 'bursting skull' in their novels: but whereas for Kronauer it is connected to desire and the exist­ ence of unrealized possibilities (RM, 19-20), for Duden the top of the skull is a nerve centre connected to suffering (DJ, 60-61, 67), and reminiscent of Buch­ ner's 'Gefuhlsader1. St. Peter's martyrdom is hence an unacceptable acquiescence in the face of unbearable suffering. He is an TJberlebender', whereas she is a 'Weiterlebende im Post-Faschismus', inescapably rooted in her historical identity and compelled to try to end the repression which allows history to repeat itself (Duden/Weigel 1989, 130). It is in part an escapist urge, however, which makes the woman long to inhabit a painting such as Carpaccio's 'Birth of Mary', an idyllic, peaceful interior, a scene of caring, female community, combining protective enclosure with open­ ness to the outside world. The figures are separated by 'ein schdner ger&umiger

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Abstand, der ihre Bewegungen und Tatigkeiten klar zur Geltung bringt' (DJ, 43). Yet even here, in the shadows behind the mother of Mary in her alcove bed, there lurks 'das Unerkldrliche', all that has been banished from this peaceful scene. The juxtaposition of this painting with another text from Dachau indicates that it represents an impossible state of innocence for a female German subject in the late twentieth century, and it is only in the last two paintings that she can find articulation of the knowledge which torments her (Brtigmann 1989,270). In the Metropolitan Museum in New York, a city which produces in her an alienation of 'inner' and 'outer' reality, Duden's protagonist encounters Carpaccio's 'Meditation on Christ's Passion', the painting of St. Jerome, Job, and the dead body of Christ seated on a crumbling throne. The figures in the painting, the 'Vielwisser1, the 'Vieldulder', and the TJmgebrachte', invite her into the painting to be a 'Mitwisser'. Her gaze travels to the 'angenehmere Ferae' (DJ, 85), the hills in the background, and to the animals in the middle distance (DJ, 88-89). However, even the animals prey on each other: Links, in dieser den Abgeschobenen zum Greifen nahen H&lfte des Tier- und Niemandslandes, ist die Gefahr zur Wirklichkeit geworden, stirbt der Hirsch, leben die Raubtiere Wolf, Leopard und L6we' (DJ, 89). The knowledge contained in the painting is almost too terrible to contem­ plate, and she longs to escape back behind the Panzerttiren der Haut', to flee into 'Geruhsames' and 'AlMgliches' (DJ, 86), but she finds herself inescapably allied to these marginal figures, banished to the desert: 'Ich, hinzugetreten, bin hier die einzige Frau, und ich will, so lange es geht, den Blick nicht wenden' (DJ, 87). St. Jerome and Job are the living proof that almost any degree of suffering can be survived, but the triangular constellation of figures itself formulates the question about the meaning of human suffering: 'Aber wozu, das ist die Frage, die sie, mit dem jungen, fast bartlosen, helMutigen Toten im Schnittpunkt, sprachlos und mit GebSrden, die ihnen selber ein R&tsel sein miissen, in den leeren Pyramidenraum zeichnen, den sie und der Tote zusammen bilden, und in die Figur des Dreiecks, dessen Linien sich von Kdrper zu KOrper oder Kopf zu Kopf ziehen liefien' (DJ, 85-86). The silent question is transferred from the hand of Jerome, beating his own chest, to the half-open mouth of Christ, and is passed on by Job's finger which points out of the picture towards the observer. In addition to the silent question contained in this constellation, there is the fragmentary inscription on one of the stones: TDASS MEIN ERLOSER LEBT, and the figure 19, a reference to Job 19. 25 (DJ, 91). The Tcopfloser Nebensatz' carved in the stone is supplemented by the painting in the bodies themselves: TJnausgesprochen bewahrt es [the painting] den Hauptsatz auf in den sprachlosen

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Figuren. Ich weifi. Der Inhalt ihres Wissens jedoch kann nicht abgefragt werden' (DJ, 93). Yet the protagonist's consciousness brings to the painting the implicit 'Schrei' of protest contained in Job 19. 7: 'Ich schreie Gewalt und werde doch nicht gehdrt; ich rufe aber kein Recht ist da' (DJ, 90). This description is pre­ ceded by a terrible dream from which the protagonist wakes screaming; thus the painting provides a means of retrieving for the conscious mind the contents of both an individual and a collective unconscious. The last Carpaccio painting, encountered back in Berlin, is anticipated twice in the text (after each of the first two Carpaccios: DJ, 37, 48) and marked by a shift into the present tense. Like the previous painting it contains the silent knowledge of suffering, this time in Christ's body laid out for burial: *Endlich kann sich das Wissen fiber den ganzen Kdrper verteilen, ausgestreckt und verteilt uber das ganze Bild' (DJ, 117). The body is so beautiful. It is no longer alive, and yet it is still so corporeally, scandalously present in the world that the woman longs at first to he down beside it, but she is then drawn into the depth of the painting, to the human activity in the middle and far distance, guided by a path which connects the spaces for the living and the dead. Just as her gaze suspends the distance between personal and aesthetically depicted suffering, so it disrupts the hierarchy of the painting, picking out details such as the grieving women and the young man among the rubble in the middle distance, of whom she speculates: 'Vielleicht sucht er Geschichte in kleinen Teilen zusammen' (DJ, 120). The suf­ fering depicted here is not a Christian virtue, but the bedrock of human existence among the debris of the catastrophe of history. Finally her gaze comes to rest on two tiny figures high on the cliff in the distance, who live on with the knowledge of all that lies before them. The description, which concludes the text, ends with the words: Es ist schOn und ich habe Angst' (DJ, 125), which Brugmann has interpreted as a caution against the detachment of aesthetic contemplation (Briigmann 1989, 272). In my view the choice of coordinating conjunction here seems rather to indicate that fear is an appropriate and productive response to the experience of the individual in the late twentieth century.13 The complete (and desirable) suspension of the subject/object boundary in contemplation of the painting is in keeping with a construction of subjectivity based on repression, and has clear resonances with post-Lacanian feminist the­ ories of identity-acquisition. Equally, the recourse to painting or music as alter­ native signifying systems within the dominant symbolic order has become a recognizable strategy for women writers seeking to challenge the constraints of patriarchal discourse. Indeed, this seems central to Duden's definition of literature

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a a

as: Der Ubergangsbereich von schon Ausgedriicktem, Ausdriickbarem einerseits und noch nicht Artikuliertem andererseits' (Duden/Weigel 1989, 134). For Kronauer, however, the principal aim of literature is 'das Gewohnte ungewohnt, das Ungewohnte vorstellbar zu machen' (AL, 20). In Rita Miinster, narrative is a process of self-invention, language is not experienced as a 'straitjacket', to be subverted at all costs. Indeed, narrative is crucially allied to the gaze (not separated from it by a gaping divide) which is both responsive and constituting, but relies on a unified perspective. Perception is thus predicated on a sense of self which is not oppressive, but facilitating for the relatively autono­ mous subject in the chaotic flux of the world. Accordingly, it is the gaze and the narrative aspects of the paintings in Kronauer's text, which constitutes their meaning, rather than the extra-symbolic meaning they represent. For Kronauer, paintings are intimately connected to language, as meaning-giving structures, and play a crucial part in shaping our world.

Ilii Rita Miinster andVenetianNarrativeArt In one of the most comprehensive readings of the novel to date, Bettina Clausen interprets Rita Munster as a 'passion' story, constructed around the triptych model of Matthias Griinewald's early sixteenth-century Isenheim altar. While this certainly draws attention to one of the most important works of art in the novel, it seems to me that Rita Munster is a subject constituted by desire rather than by suffering.14 However, there can be no doubt that the altar mirrors the develop­ ment of Rita's identity. The two panels mentioned in Books I and III of the novel encapsulate Griinewald's dual world-view: in the one, Paul, the hermit, in perfect harmony with benign nature, and, in the other, the horrific, demonic face of nature in the Temptation of St.Anthony' (Fraeger 1983, 43). This duality echoes both the ambivalent relationship between Rita and Horst and also the model of subjectivity in the novel. The subject both inheres in the world and actively invests it with meaning. Rita recalls in Book I having first seen the hermit panel when aged 11: Der ausgestreckte, magere Altmannerarm, nackt bis zur Achsel, des Eremiten Paulus von Griinewald' (RM, 47). The outstretched arm suggests both vulnerability and desire for contact, and gives the signal for her first reflec­ tions on her own identity-acquisition. It conjures up an image of herself, stamping through puddles in the first confident childhood sense of unity, the rain on her face suggesting tears of empathy with the world (RM, 47). Again in Book I, she remembers longing to share the undifferentiated unity with the natural world en­ capsulated in the image of the young deer which nestles beside the hermit (RM, 76). In Book III, the nightmarish fantasies of the Temptation of St.Anthony panel

DUDEN AND KRONAUER: DIVERGING AESTHETICS — 173

which (on a reproduction postcard, which she would turn to the wall at night) coincide with what might be termed the development of her superego, as she be­ comes aware of the presence of God in the painting, and feels herself to be the object of His gaze. Finally, at the end of Book m she relates the two panels to each other in her imagination, making the hermit address his 'Gespr&ch' to God in the other panel; He is present in nature, yet transcends nature by means of lan­ guage. Thus she describes St.Anthony's visit to the hermit, 'der, wie eingewachsen, eingedruckt in die ErdoberflSche, mit diirren Armen und spitzen Fingem aus ihr herausragt, diskutierend wie das Ge&st, wie die Berge, das GesprSch nach oben, zum Himmel verlangemd' (RM, 272). Many of the paintings mentioned serve to show the importance of the artis­ tic tradition in forming the child's notions of femininity and masculinity. Rita is fascinated by reproductions of serene Madonnas, inhabiting beautiful, ordered in­ teriors, where there is no intrusion from the arbitrary onslaughts of the world, and she can feel secure in her position as a subject (RM, 211-212). We see her fasci­ nation with the illustrated story of Genovidve surrounded by benign nature, when she follows the Romantic tale lovingly in the pictures, deliberately deferring satisfaction by lingering over them with her gaze (RM, 228-229). Another ideal­ ized female figure is that in Carpaccio's Dream of St.Ursula', one of a series painted in the 1490s depicting the Life of St. Ursula, which is noted for the com­ bination of unique and particularized settings with its legendary subject matter. Rita plays out this scene, which provides an escape from the mundane domestic reality of her mother and aunt (RM, 235). The preoccupation of both authors with paintings by Carpaccio is one of their more intriguing points of contact, but it is also illuminating for the differing ways in which they interpret his art. Whereas for Duden it was the restraint and dispersal of the figures, located in significant landscapes which offer a depth of vision, for Kronauer it is his position within the tradition of Venetian narrative painting, of which Carpaccio's 'St.Jerome and the Lion', which features in the novel, is a good example (RM, 63).15 This depiction of the scene of panic un­ leashed among the monks when St. Jerome brings the tamed lion into the monas­ tery has been noted for the choreographed effect of concerted movement among the fleeing monks, which at once unifies and disperses the figures, presenting them in their similarity and their individuality alike. The narrative mode of paint­ ing, emerging at the end of the fifteenth century out of the eyewitness tradition of Venetian painting, had the effect of ritualizing human behaviour and casting 'nar­ rative situations within a hierarchical, cohesive and ordered structure' (FortiniBrown 1988,191).

174 — MARGARET LITTLER

In Rita MQnster, it is the rhetorical, clearly intelligible foregrounding of significant events which is significant in the paintings, in contrast to the disorien­ tating focus on detail demonstrated at the start of the novel. Rita's friend Ruth Wagner is captivated by the painting of St. Jerome and the lion, seen during an evening spent looking at friends' holiday slides of Rome: 'Es interessierte sie, es fiel ihr auf, sie erzdhlte noch spdter davon, wie das Raubtier hier eingebrochen war, Unruhe stiftete und selbst wie ein Holzpferdchen steif aushielt, als hatte ein Sturm die Mfinche erfaBt und nicht der Schrecken vor ihm, dem ahnungslosen Zeichen einer Lebensgefahr1(RM, 63). Unlike Duden's description of the camel in the Tintoretto painting, Ruth's interest in the lion is due less to its symbolic significance than to its quirky narrative content, which defies rational laws of causality: it had temporarily defused her antagonism towards her husband Franz, whose confident, appropriating gaze otherwise dominates in their rapidly deteri­ orating marriage. The slide-show of Rome in Book I is significant also because the novel ends with Rita in Rome, contemplating the originals of the paintings she knows so well from reproductions. She is disappointed by their lack of any 'aura'; they held more fascination in her own imagination: Ich betrachtete in den Kirchen und Museen die gepriesenen Gem&lde, die ich aus meiner Kindheit und Jugend als Reproduktionen [...] kannte, aber als ich so vor ihnen stand, verloren sie ihren CHanz. In meinem Kopf war schon fhih ein Widerschein ihrer angeblichen GroBe aufgegangen, jetzt, jetzt sah ich die Hinfklligkeit der Originate. Wie irdisch, wie verloren kamen sie mir vor in ihrer Tats&chlichkeit, wo ich sie hatte beriihren kOnnen. Sie hingen vor mir und versperrten mir den Blick auf etwas von ihnen einmal Hervorgerufenes, vie! Strahlenderes, das sich nun in meinem Ged&chtnis vericroch. (RM, 263)

This corresponds to a postmodern questioning of the value of originality, whilst retaining the idea of the creative power of the perceiving subject and the imagination. The city of Rome itself becomes difficult to differentiate from the paintings it contains, as Rita perceives both from the ordering perspective of her 'narrative gaze': T)as lautlose Getummel, die scharf konturierten Tumulte des Hauptgeschehens, nach Bedeutung gestaffelt die Flachheit der Hintergriinde, manche Stadte nur in Vogelperspektive...' (RM, 269). Even her affair with Horst now appears to her like a work of art, in which the background is insignificant (his wife and child are in Canada); it is only the intensity of the foreground experience that is important to her. The fulfilment of desire is predicated on the distance which remained between them:

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175

Zuwendung, Abwendung, eine Geistesabwesenheit, ein Umschlagen der Stim­ me: Ich bewegte mich an dieser Kante entlang. Dem Hintergrund der Handlungen dieses einen Mannes konnte ich nicht nachfahren, es geniigte mir ja auch, es entzuckte mich, ich brauchte nichts zu verstehen. Ich war gebannt von den Konturen, ich sfittigte mich daran, es gefiel mir so sehr, wie die Gesten, die Gemiitszust&nde einander ablOsten, klar artikulierte S&tze. Ich betrachtete und genoB die fur mich undurchsichtigen Resultate, die Echos einer viel umfassenderen Person, die Ausformungen eines mir verborgenen Zusammenhangs und Beweggmnds. Wie sich die Oberfl&che so anziehend, so verlockend dariiber bereitete! (RM, 264)16

If this appears to vindicate the charge against Kronauer of aestheticism, it should perhaps be stressed that it was the reciprocity of the gaze which was crucial, that she was both subject and object of desire, and her potential tapped by the crea­ tive imagination of her lover: 'Ich wurde angesehen mit einer Vorstellung, einer Erwartung!' (RM, 265). Subject and object remain intact, clearly defined, even, enhanced by their reciprocal loving regard. This is the insight which remains with her long after the affair is over. As she walks through Rome, the same reciprocal relationship with her surroundings obtains, but it achieves its coherence, as does her narrative, only through her organizing perspective: 'Ich stelle die Gegenwart her [...] ich gehe durch ein Netz von Befiirchtungen und Begierden, meine eigene Wichtigkeit Idst sich auf darin. Wichtig aber ist das Bild, das die Welt durch meine Augen anzunehmen, zu erreichen verlangt' (RM, 272). Surface here is the locus of immanent meaning, not the mere transition to transcendence.

Ill Conclusion In Kronauer’s use of the narrative tradition of Venetian art, and in general the way the paintings are significant for the stories they tell or for those that are told about them, we see an interest in how identities are linguistically constructed, but not in the Lacanian sense, rather as works of conscious fiction. The relative auto­ nomy of the self in question is dependent on 'who's telling the story'.17 In the earlier novel Frau Miihlenbeck im Gehtius (1980), Kronauer explores the narrative strategies by which a viable subject is constructed, demonstrating in the contrast between the narrator and Frau Miihlenbeck the potential hazards in­ herent in theories of the subject which threaten its integrity. Frau Miihlenbeck's 'Geh&us' is the story of her life, perceived by the narrator as a housewife's senseless, repetitive routine, but related by Frau Miihlenbeck herself as a purposeful existence in which individual events relate meaningfully to an iterative structure of experience. Crucial concepts for Frau Miihlenbeck include Distanz', 'Grenzen', 'Zusammenhang', and 'Verbindung', whereas the young teacher who

176 — MARGARET LITTLER

narrates the novel fails to preserve enough distance from her pupils to accord them their own distinct status as subjects in their own right. She thus fails both in her pedagogical duty and in the realization of her own autonomy as an indepen­ dent, emancipated woman. The gestures of human suffering in the children spon­ taneously activate her own childhood traumas and make her incapable of helping them to rationalize and deal with their experience. As in Rita Munster, there is a concern with the construction of a self through narrative as well as through perception, where an optimum distance from the world and boundaries between the self and the other are the necessary condi­ tion of subjecthood. Language is not merely oppressive, but the crucial key to conscious identity, and the assertion of individuality includes each individual's unrealized potential. This contrasts with Duden's more topographical exploration of art works, her interest in the extra-linguistic truth contained in the details and absences as well as the subjects of composition. She finds access through the paintings to a trauma which needs to be remembered, if not articulated in order to preserve a critical distance from the symbolic order which determines what con­ stitutes a viable subject. There is here an absence at the heart of the self, and the notion of identity is predicated on language as coercive constraint. Art enables her subject to transgress the boundaries on which fixed identity depends. Duden's protagonist's gaze is a point of vulnerability, being fixed on the dreadful truth of man's inhumanity and the absence of redemption. If she suc­ ceeds in constructing a 'radical subjectivity' it is in the suspension of boundaries between inner and outer, individual and collective, creating a space for that which is excluded and marginalized in our culture. Kronauer's texts may operate within a more limited historical trajectory (rarely departing from a contemporary middle-class setting), and contain a less clearly developed view of specifically female subjectivity, but her writing is nonetheless predicated on the suffering of contingent individuals exposed to the shock effect of everyday life, and the necessity to invent models of possible autonomous subjectivity, a project which should not be dismissed out of hand in the evaluation of contemporary women's fiction. If we assume a theoretical framework which encompasses aspects of psychoanalytical, materialist, and postmodern thought, then we need not locate these two writers either inside or outside any normative feminist canon. The distinct achievements of each may be appreciated in relation to that broader debate within postmodern feminism between the subversive articulation of 'abject' subjectivity and the practical concern with constructing viable female subjects capable of moral and political agency.

DUDEN AND KRONAUER: DIVERGING AESTHETICS — 177

NOTES 1. Schweikerfs assessment reveals the sentimentality of the male critic's view of 'feminine writing': 'Brigitte Kronauers W elt ist eine radikal weibliche W elt [...] Ihre Themen, Erfahrungen, Redeweisen sind die einer Frau. Auch die Eigenartigkeit ihrer Schreibweise, sich aus der Tiefe in die Fldche, in eine 'gehaltene' Ebene, eine gleichsam wuchemde Trauer zu bewegen, muB als etwas spezifisch Weibliches begriffen werden. Zwischen Kopf und Kttrper befindet sich keine Grenze' (p. 170). 2. Weigel 1990 explores the potential for a productive dialogue between the ideas of Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault, and W alter Benjamin in her readings of literary texts. See also Weigel 1994. 3. I refer particularly to the positions occupied by thinkers such as Jean F ran cis Lyotard, Richard Rorty, and Frederick Jameson, summarized in Chapter Three of Harvey 1990, 39-65. 4. See the discussion of Peter Weiss's essay 'Laokoon oder uber die Grenzen der Sprache' (1968) in Hofmann 1992. Hofmann (p.55) refers to 'das Grundmodell der gegenseitigen Korrektur und Begrenzung von Bildem und Worten', a conciliatory view of image and text quite at odds with contemporary feminist critiques of language. 5. Schor 1987,20 argues that academic art historians from the eighteenth century to the present have devalued the detail as implicitly feminine in a patriarchal hierarchy of aes­ thetic value: The irreconcilability of details and the sublime and the concomitant affinity of details for the effete and effeminate ornamental style point to what is perhaps most threatening about the detail: its tendency to subvert an internal hierarchic ordering of the work of art which clearly subordinates the periphery to the center, the accessory to the principal, the foreground to the background' (8). Later in her study, Schor also notes Baudelaire's implicit politicization of both the detail and the revolutionary mob, as threats to the civilized order: The crowd and the female are on the same continuum in the nineteenth-century male imaginary1(60). 6. Kublitz-Kramer evidently refers here to W alter Benjamin's notion of the Mneur, as one response to the shock impact of everyday life (Benjamin 1961, 201-245). The alien­ ation of Duden's protagonist corresponds closely to that of Benjamin's individual in the crowd, representing the subject in the twentieth century, where the loss of meaningful relationship to our tradition (Erfahrung) renders us defenceless against the serial repet­ ition of contingent, individual experience (Erlebnis). 7. I refer in particular to Adorno's debate with Lukdcs on the idea that subject and object exist in an unbroken continuum, affording the individual an intelligible, totalizing view (Adomo 1980,160). 8. Duden (Duden/Weigel 1989, 144) describes the subject as follows: 'Da wird ndmlich von einer Art namenlosem Zentrum ausgegangen, von einem Kem, in der die Person mit enthalten ist, von vomherein. Der Kem wird zertrummert, immer wieder zertrummert, einem replay gleich, und die Person geht in den Trummem immer nach auGen und in alle Richtungen, immer die Schleuderbewegung und -w eite der Explosionstrummer mitvollziehend, unaufhttrlich und selbstverstSndlich'. 9. In his foreword, David Carroll describes this work as 'a critique of thinking that ignores what is forgotten on the most basic level of memory (what is forgotten because of memory) [...], a radical critique of the limitations of all historicisms and "monumental" or memorializing histories that "forget" by having too certain, too definite, too represen­ tative, too narrativized (too anecdotal) a memory. At the same time, the work is an attempt to indicate the irreducible immemorial (or anamnesitic) responsibilities of all thought and writing, especially "after Auschwitz". It constitutes a demand for forms of thinking and writing that do not forget "the fact” of the forgotten and the unrepresen­ table' (Lyotard 1990, xiii).

178 — MARGARET LITTLER 10. Rita describes herself variously as 'so ungeschutzt durchlflssig’, and 'so eingeschlossen in mich selbsf (RM, 255). Horst appears to her 'eine empfindliche Festung' (RM, 267), embodying the coexistence of vulnerability and strength. 11 ■ Tintoretto has also been noted for his marginal relationship to the central humanistic principles of Renaissance art. The peculiar perspectives and lighting give his paintings an other-worldly quality, and there is an implicit denial of man's importance as noble and unique creation of God. Cecil Gould has remarked on Tintoretto's 'anti-humanist, visionary, neo-medieval view of mankind', and claims that: T o Tintoretto, man is of no consequence as an individual. His personal emotions are minimized because they are of the smallest importance. He is merely one of a nameless herd of puppets who carry out the destiny imposed on them by God' (Gould 1957, 228) 12. Dieterie's illuminating interpretation nevertheless demonstrates the limitations of a reading which focuses on the religious content of the paintings alone. 13. This relates once more to Benjamin 1961. Benjamin notes the justified fear of Baude­ laire's dislocated individual in the symbolic 'crowd' (pp.239-240). 14. Clausen's preoccupation with this altar painting leads to a misidentification of one of the the other paintings in Kronauer's text: the St. Sebastian described (RM, 244) bears more resemblance to Botticelli's 'St. Sebastian' of 1484 than to Griinewald's depiction on the Isenheim Altar. (Clausen 1991,170). 15. Duden's text also contains a reference to the legend of St. Jerome and the lion in the description of the animals in Carpaccio's 'Meditation on Christ's Passion'. Chracteristically the significance of the lion exceeds that in the traditional narrative: it is 'vielleicht der, den die Legende zum zahmen, unterwurfigen Begleiter des Hieronymus gemacht hat, vielleicht aber auch einer, der auf Beute lauert1(DJ, 88-89). 16. Quoting Frederick Jameson, David Harvey describes the postmodern experience of time in terms which correspond closely to that of Kronauer's protagonist: T h e reduction of experience to "a series of pure and unrelated presents" further implies that the "experience of the present becomes powerfully, overwhelmingly vivid and material* [...] The images, the appearance, the spectacle can all be experienced with an intensity (joy or terror) made possible only by their appreciation as pure and unrelated presents in time. So what does it matter "if the world thereby momentarily loses its depth and threatens to become a glossy skin, a steroscopic illusion, a rush of filmic images with­ out density"? The immediacy of events, the sensationalism of the spectacle [...] be­ come the stuff of which consciousness is forged' (Harvey 1990, 54). 17. Kronauer writes in the 'Vorwort der Autorin', Der unvermeidliche Gang der Dinge: 'Im­ mer ist dies die Frage: Kriegen wir Geschichte (Raster, Klischees, Schlu&folgerungen) in den Griff oder sie uns!' (quoted from Clausen/Singelmann 1992, 474).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Duden, Anne: Das Judasschaf, Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin, 1985. (=DJ). ------ : 'Ubergang' in Obergang, Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin, 1982, pp.61-103. Kronauer, Brigitte: Rita MQnster, dtv, Munich, 1991. (=RM). ------ : AufsStze zur Literatur, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1987. (=AL). ------ : ’Auftritt am Horizont: Zur Prosa Ror Wolfs' (AL, 9-21). ------ : Der unvermeidliche Gang der Dinge, Ibnassus Presse im Verlag Schlender, Gfittingen, 1974 ------ : Frau MOhlenbeckim Gehdus, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1980.

DUDEN AND KRONAUER: DIVERGING AESTHETICS — 179

Secondary Sources Adomo, Theodor W . 1977: ’Zu Subjekt und Objekt’ in Adomo: Gesammelte Schriften, 10.2 ed by Rolf Tiedemann, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, pp.741-748. ------ 1980: 'Reconciliation under Duress' in T.W . Adomo, W alter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch et al: Aesthetics and Politics. The Key Texts in the Classic Debate within German Marxism, ed by Frederick Jameson, Verso, London, pp. 151-176. Apel, Friedmar, Kublitz-Kramer, Maria, and Steinfeld, Thomas (eds) 1993: Kulturin der Stadt, Universitdt Paderbom (= Paderbomer Universitdtsreden 36), Paderbom. Benjamin, W alter 1961: 'Obereinige Motive bei Baudelaire' (1939), llluminationen, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, pp.201-245. Briegleb, Klaus and Weigel, Sigrid 1992: Gegenwartsliteratur seit 1968, dtv, Munich (= Hansers Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, XII). Briigmann, Margaret 1989: 'Das gldseme Ich. Uberiegungen zum Verhdltnis von Frauenliteratur und Postmodeme am Beispiel von Anne Dudens Das Judasschaf in Knapp/Labroisse 1989, 253-274. Clausen, Bettina 1991: 'Die Metasprache der Struktur. Brigitte Kronauers Rita Munster1 in Lutzeler 1991,157-171. ------ and Singelmann, Karsten 1992: 'Avantgarde heute?' in Briegleb/Weigel 1 9 9 2 ,4 5 5 487. Dieterle, Bernard 1991: 'Hommage der Literatur an die Malerei. Zu Michel Butors Embarqement de la Reine de Saba und Anne Dudens Das Judasschaf in RitterSantini 1991, 260-283. Duden Anne and Weigel, Sigrid 1989: 'Schrei und Kiirper — Zum Verhdltnis von Bildem und Schrift. Ein Gesprflch uber Das Judasschaf in Koebner 1993,120-148. Fortini-Brown, Patricia 1988: Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpacdo, Yale University Press, New Haven/London. Fraenger, Wilhelm 1983: Matthias GrQnewald, Beck, Munich. Gould, Cecil 1957: An Introduction to Italian Renaissance Painting, Phaidon Press, London. Harvey, David 1990: The Condition of Postmodemity, Blackwell, Oxford. Hofmann, Michael 1992: 'Der dltere Sohn des Laokoon. Bilder und Worte in Peter Weiss' Lessingpreisrede und in der Asthetik des Widerstands', Peter Weiss Jahrbuch, 1 (1992), pp.42-58. Irigaray, Luce 1993: 'How can we create our beauty?' in Irigaray: je, tu, nous: Toward a Culture of Difference, Routledge, London, pp. 107-111. Knapp, Mona and Labroisse, Gerd (eds) 1989: Frauen-Fragen in der deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945, Rodopi, Amsterdam. Koebner, Thomas (ed.) 1989: Laokoon und kein Ende. Der Wettstreit der KQnste, edition text+kritik, Munich. Kublitz-Kramer, Maria 1993: 'Die Freiheiten der Stra&e. Stadtiduferinnen in neueren Texten von Frauen' in Apel et al. 1993,15-36. Lutzeler, Paul Michael (ed.) 1991: Sp&tmodeme und Postmodeme. BeitrSge zur deutschprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. Lyotard, Jean Francois 1990: Heidegger and the jews', University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Ritter-Santini, Lea (ed.) 1991: Mit den Augen geschrieben. Von gedichteten und erzdhlten Bildem, Hanser, Munich/Vienna. Schor, Naomi 1987: Reading in Detail. Aesthetics and the Feminine, Routledge, London. Schweikert, Uwe 1984: '"Es geht aufrichtig, nSmlich gekunstelt zu!" Ein Versuch uber Brigitte Kronauer1, Neue Rundschau, 95 (1984), 3 ,1 5 5 -1 7 1 . Venske, Regula 1992: 'Kritik der MSnnlichkeif, in Briegleb/Weigel 1992,267-276.

180 — MARGARET LITTLER Weigel, Sigrid 1989: Die Stimme der Medusa. Schreibweisen in der Gegewartsliteratur von Frauen, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg. ------ 1990: Topographien der Geschlechter. Kulturgeschichtliche Studien zur Uteratur, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg. ------ 1994: "'Es war ihr nicht zu teilendes Wissen, auf das sie ununterbrochen zusturzte." — Zum Bild—und Kdrpergeddchtnis in Anne Dudens Judasschaf in Weigel (ed ): Bilder des kulturellen Ged&chtnisses. Beitr&ge zur Gegenwartsliteratur, tende, Dulmen-Hiddingsel, 21-38. Whitford, Margaret, 1994: 'Woman with Attitude', Women's Art, 60 (1994), 15-17.

METAPHORS OF DARKNESS AND LIGHT IN EVELINE HASLER’S ANNA GOLDIN, LETZTE HEXE AND DER RIESE IM BAUM FE LIC ITY RASH

The purpose of this paper is to examine two closely related sets of metaphors and the literal images associated with them, namely metaphors and images of dark­ ness and light in Eveline Hasler's two historical novels Anna Goldin, Letzte Hexe and Der Riese im Baum. The theoretical foundation for the discussion of meta­ phor derives from George Lakoffs work on the cognitive basis of semantic categorization, according to which human mental and bodily experiences are inseparable from and responsible for both directly meaningful (literal) and indirectly meaningful (imaginative and figurative) symbolic structures.' For Lakoff, the term 'metaphor1refers to the cognitive process by means of which it is possible to understand one thing in terms of another, i.e. a 'target do­ main' in terms of a 'source domain', as well as the linguistic sign used to represent the target domain. According to Lakoff, the human capacity for metaphorical mapping (or analogy), i.e. the correspondence between conceptual domains (the source and the target), has a deep basis in human cognitive processes, and is closely related to the conceptual categories by means of which human beings make sense of the world around them. To put this in the simplest terms, the human mind is provided with a ready-made stock of metaphors that are related to basic human conceptual categories. Our basic bodily experiences provide the na­ tural link between these conceptual categories and some of the commonest meta­ phors that we use. This is an 'experientialist' view of meaningful thought and categorization, which holds that human reason makes use of existing symbolic structures in the form of cognitive models (which are represented by 'image schemas'). This view is at odds with that of 'objectivist' semantics, which is that human reason constructs the categories upon which knowledge is based and truth is known. Lakoffs experientialist theory of metaphor takes kinaesthetic' image schemas, i.e. the cognitive representations of our most basic experiences of func­ tioning as bodies in space, as the basis for our understanding of metaphors. For example, we experience our bodies as containers with an interior and an exterior, into which food is ingested and air is breathed (Lakoff 1987, 272-273).2 This

182 — FELICITY RASH

physical experience enables us to construct metaphorical links with other objects that have an exterior and an interior, and also with abstract concepts, for example rooms, houses, wakefulness, living. In the case of the most basic image schema the resemblance between source and target domain is clear, and we are able to make these links unconsciously and automatically. Thus darkness, night, and cold may be linked together and in turn to the physical discomfort and fear that they may give rise to, while light, day, and warmth may be similarly linked and also extended to include physical well-being and optimism. However, not all meta­ phors are linked to bodily experience in this way. Social and cultural experience also plays a part, particularly in the extension of basic metaphors. It is thus that the darkness which is analogous with fear and an inability to see is extended to signify ignorance and irrationality; light and the related ability to see may be ex­ tended to represent knowledge and rationality. Such metaphors may be culturespecific to a greater or lesser extent. Once a particular culture has a stock of shared basic and extended metaphors, these may be used for poetic purposes: ba­ sic physical experience is added to in this case by imaginative capacities, specific knowledge, and collective cultural experience (Lakoflf 1987,286-287). According to Lakoff and Turner, darkness and light can be understood in terms of the basic 'bounded space schema' by means of a system of metaphorical links that join: (a) Life > Light > Wakefulness > Alertness as being within the bounded space, or present, and: (b) Death > Dark > Sleep > Non-Functioning as being outside the container, or absent. (LakoffiTumer 1989, 97-98)

Birth and Death form the boundaries of the space. Life can, however, also be imagined in terms of waxing and waning, and can thus be linked with the meta­ phor of the Day. The waxing process starts with absence, cold and darkness; grows to presence, warmth and light; and wanes once more towards absence, cold and darkness (LakoffiTumer 1989, 87). The lists which follow are based on Lakoflf 1987 and LakoflTTumer 1989. Many of the concepts in these lists will be recognized in the discussion of Hasler's two novels. Out Darkness and Shadow Black Death Sleep, Night > Cold Bad weather

In Light White Life Day, Wakefulness > Warmth Good weather

DARKNESS AND LIGHT IN EVELINE HASLER — 183

Not Seeing > Ignorance Irrationality Fear Outsider, Unfriendliness The devil, Evil Hell Woman Temptation Down > Ground Captivity

Seeing > Knowledge Rationality Security Friend, Friendliness God, Goodness Heaven Man Righteousness, Justice U p> Sky Freedom3

Some examples of conventionalized metaphors in the German language that may be seen as deriving from the connected concepts in the above lists are: eine dunkle Gestalt; die Nacht des Todes; eine schwarze Seele; kalte Furcht; triibe Gedanken; ein schattenhaftes Wesen; eine fmstere Miene; ein diisterer Mensch; das Licht der Erkenntnis; das Licht der Welt erblicken; ein heller Kopf; bei Tage besehen; warme Anteilnahme. Darkness may also be seen as offering shelter: im Schutz der Dunkelheit. The following discussion of Anna Gdldin and Der Riese im Baum examines a range of metaphors and images of darkness and light which provide a particularly felicitous illustration of Lakoffs existential theory of metaphor, and, more specifically, of lightness and dark as part of a bounded space-image schema.

I Introduction In Anna Gdldin and Der Riese im Baum, Hasler recreates the fates of two un­ usual historical personalities who lived in the second half of the eighteenth cent­ ury in the author's native canton of Glarus in Switzerland. Anna Goldin worked in the town of Glarus as a maid for the prominent Tschudi family. She is famous as the last woman in mainland Europe to be executed, in 1782, for witchcraft, though she was in fact found guilty of maliciously harming one of the Tschudis' daughters, Anna Maria, who had mysteriously started to spit out metal pins. Like Anna Gdldin, Melchior Thut, the giant, came from a peasant background. After a childhood in a remote part of the canton of Glarus, he spent many years being exhibited as a 'curiosity' on European showgrounds, and also worked as a servant at the court of Duke Karl Eugen of Wiirttemberg. He died in 1784 as a direct result of the medical condition that caused him to grow to a height of 2.34 metres. Both Anna and Melchior were victims of unusually harsh destinies.

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Neither conformed to the expectations that society had of them. Hasler uses their stories to illustrate the darker side of Glarus society during the eighteenth century — a time when much of Europe saw itself as enlightened. Both novels highlight the discrepancy between the reality of Glarus (the town and the canton) and the popular image of it at that time as a model of democracy and personal freedom. A number of travel journals provide inspiration for Hasler's use of darkness as a metaphor for ignorance and irrationality, and of light as a metaphor for rationality and truth. Hasler also links the dichotomy of darkness and light with a system of images based on the natural causes of these two phenomena — night and day, mountains and trees (both of which cast shadows) and meteorological pheno­ mena. Images connected with artificial light join those of natural darkness and light to express more general themes of religious, social, and political enlighten­ ment and the lack of it, as well as various positive and negative elements in the personal lives of Hasler's two protagonists.

II Eighteenth-centuryAccountsofGlarusandHasler'sUseofthem The major sources for Hasler's novels are archive material and a number of travel journals, in particular Heinrich Ludwig Lehmann's Fremdschaftliche und vertrauliche Briefe (1783) and Johann Gottfried Ebel's Schilderung der Gebirgsvdlker der Schweitz (1802).4 Ebel appears as a fictional character in Der Riese, although it is unlikely that he actually met the giant.3 In both novels, passages from the eighteenth-century sources are quoted verbatim in a contrasting typeface. The historical documents are also paraphrased at points in the texts where additional authenticity is called for: such passages are easily recognizable, even without recourse to the original sources, as they use historically appropriate vocabulary and syntax. In both the verbatim and the para­ phrased quotations, the traditional values of darkness and light imagery are re­ tained as a clear-cut conventional binary opposition: light represents goodness, enlightenment, and optimism; darkness stands for evil, ignorance, and fear. How­ ever, the parts of the modem text which are entirely Hasler's own creation decon­ struct and expand the traditional meanings and blur the binary distinction: she demonstrates that conventional images can be kept and used, but also added to. Hasler's direct quotation from her sources gives readers access to the figurative use of darkness and light in those sources, for example a contemporary letter (quoted in Anna Goldin) from a senior Protestant clergyman in Zurich to Pfarrer Tschudi in Glarus.6 Tschudi, a relative of Anna's employers, is warned of the dangers of failing to deal with the Anna Goldin case rationally: he feels that

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the powerful men of Glarus risk bringing the whole canton and the Protestant church into disrepute if they are allowed to explain the case in terms of malign supernatural intervention: Es ware in der That auch gar zu betriibt,7 wenn man in unserem aufgeklarten Jahrhundert jene schauervolle die Menschheit sowohl als das Christenthum entehrende Tragodien, die unter dem Schutz des Aberglaubens hie und da aufgefuhrt worden sind, in einem protestantischen Lande und zwar in einem solchen, wo die edele Freyheit vorziiglich ihre Wohnung aufgeschlagen hat, wieder erneuem wollte. (Lehmann 1783, Beilage 2; AG, 229)

In his reply, Pfarrer Tschudi states that the evidence speaks for itself: Anna Gtildin has cured Anna Maria Tschudi, therefore she, with some help from the devil, must have caused the child's unusual affliction: 'Das jammerlich mifihandelte Kind ist kuriert und wandelt. Wie kann das jetzt albem seyn, wenn man das glaubt? was man mit eignen Augen sieht, und eignen Ohren hort? In dem erleuchteten gegenw&rtigen Jahrhundert werden wir doch auch noch unsere gesunde Sinne benutzen und denselben trauen diirfen?' (Lehmann 1783, Beilage 3; AG, 229-230).The clergyman fails to realize that the evidence of the child's miraculous cure is inconclusive, and that he would be wise to ensure a reasonable outcome to Anna's trial — one that would not involve her execution. Pfarrer Tschudi shows himself to be far less enlightened than the enlightened age he claims to live in. His Idar aufgeheiterte Thatsache' contrasts with some of the lan­ guage in Lehmann's investigation of the Anna Goldin case, for example when he admits: 'es bleiben Dunkelheiten in der Sache ubrig'.® Lehmann sees his search for the truth in terms of Aufkldrung, and denounces as unenlightened the popular belief that the unexplained and unexplainable aspects of the case ('das unerklarbare der Sache'; Lehmann 1783,1, 38) were a result of witchcraft.9 Hasler's eighteenth-century sources frequently use metaphors of darkness and light to describe the canton of Glarus and its inhabitants. The more critical accounts show Glarus as threatened by the darkness of superstition, fear and ignorance: 'Ja was ist es iiberhaupt wunder, wenn man in einem entlegenen Thale lacherliche und aberglSubische Meinungen hegt, da in unserm Vaterlande teutscher Nation aller Aufkldrung zum Trotze die Schwarmerey ihr Haupt emporhebt, und uns in die Finstemisse barbarischer Jahrhunderte zuriick sturzen will, und vielleicht wird (Afsprung 1784, 177).10 These pessimistic words from Afsprung's travel journal contrast with the idealistic accounts, such as Ebel's, which use vocabulary suggesting enlightenment and clarity, such as aufgekldrt, aufgeheitert, erleuchtet, ungetrubt, and a bright effusive tone to support the view of Glarus as a haven of rationality, social equality, and justice. In eighteenth-century

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travel literature, Swiss mountain regions were frequently portrayed as settings for an Arcadian pastoral, with a mountain backdrop and contented, healthy "Naturmenschen' as inhaitants. In such accounts, even the more sinister aspects of natural darkness could, to some extent, be glorified as part of the Swiss idyll: 'diisteres Halbdunkel deckt das ganze, die Wildnifi umher ist schauerlich, und der weitsichtige Blick in die grafiliche Verkliiftung ungeheurer FelsenkOrper entsetzlich und erhebend. So muB der Eingang in die schwarze Unterwelt seyn' (DR, 24; quoted from Ebel 1802). Ebel's description of the menacing natural environment of Glarus has a romantic, almost ecstatic undertone: he appears to enjoy the men­ acing darkness, to find it 'erhebend'. The metaphor of the 'schwarze Unterwelt' is no more than a conventional metaphor as far as the historical account is con­ cerned, but Hasler's narrative provides the modern reader with enough informa­ tion to enable the deconstruction of such an image and the application of new criteria to it: the natural environment and the human population of Glarus are under threat from sinister forces that transcend natural phenomena and stem from human power and corruption. In Anna Gdldin, Hasler recreates the menacing atmosphere of Afsprung's description of Glarus, portraying it as a last outpost of darkness and a refuge for the irrational behaviour and beliefs that had supposedly been banished from the rest of enlightened Europe: 'Vertrieben hatte man die Halbschatten, Zwielichtiges weggejagt aus den glanzenden Zentren Europas, aus illuminierten KOpfen, ubersichtlichen, hellen Bauten, geometrisch angeordneten Garten. Was fur ein Exodus an Teufeln, Gespenstem, Unholden, Hexen, Mifigeburten, Schadenzauberem, Wechselbalgen. Und jetzt fanden sie in den Bergschatten Zuflucht, in den Winkeln der Taler' (AG, 173). These are not real ghosts and witches but metaphors for the irrational thoughts and deeds that are no longer tolerated in the minds and homes of the rest of Europe. They are shown to appear as Anna's trial nears, while the members of the Lesecommun', the supposed intelligentsia of Glarus, gossip about the 'Gdldihandel' rather than reading Rousseau and Bayle. Only a few members of the circle, minor characters in Hasler's narrative, think that they can fight these shadowy creatures 'mit den Waffen der Veraunft'. Hasler has reversed the usual pastoral setting. The stage still has a moun­ tain background, but a potential locus amoenus becomes a locus terribilis: 'die Kulisse fur die erstklassige Inszenierung einer Haupt- und Zauberaktion' (AG, 196). The players are not happy indigenous peasants, but immigrant spirits: 'Zwischengeister' and 'Unterteufel'. No weapons of reason will win a victory against these demonic interlopers. The 'Zwielichtiges' which has found a new shadowy abode in Glarus is not only a metaphor for an irrational belief in witches and the

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like; it also supports the more general themes of both novels, and can be linked with corruption, secrecy, ignorance, and fear. This is made explicit in Der Riese by the fictional Ebel who thinks of the shadowy Linthtal as hiding superstition and backwardness, which he personifies as spirits of nature: Hier hielt sich versteckt, was illuminierte Geister aus den gldnzenden Zentren Europas vertrieben hatten: Aberglaube, Verstocktheit, PhSnomene jenseits menschlicher Veraunfl wie dieser Riese. Baum- und Erdgeister, Halbwesen waren aus den modisch gestutzten Parks geflOchtet, hatten Refugium gefunden in den Bergen' (DR, 26). Of course superstition and obstinacy survive in the region, but the supernatural be­ ings that live in the shadows of the mountains in Der Riese are of a different type than the spirits of irrationality imagined by Ebel. They have always been there: they are the ancient spirits of nature and are less sinister. Hasler's giant is any­ thing but 'jenseits menschlicher Vemunft', and the strange creatures that inhabit the valleys, though feared, are safe to live with if one understands and respects them: Man soil keine Aufmerksamkeit auf sich ziehen, Geister gehen um: der Rttfihund, halb Hund, halb Kalb, der sich mit gliihenden Augen in den Weg stellt [...] das Schrattweibchen mit Schattenhut und roten Strumpfen lenkt im Nebel vom Weg ab' (DR, 78). In Anna Gdldin too, the forests are dark and eerie, inhabited by the 'Hexenvogel', the magpie. When Anna is a child she learns to overcome her fear by flapping her arms in imitation of the bird's wings (AG, 72). Thus supernatural elements are normal and necessary where they connect with natural phenomena; where they are used as metaphors for human irrationality they are much more sinister. I ll Natural Darkness and Light in the Canton of Glarus The characters of Hasler's novels, and the protagonists in particular, directly ex­ perience the physical effects of natural light and darkness in their daily lives. The bodily experience of light and darkness is more intense in mountain regions than elsewhere, and Anna Gdldin and Melchior Thut are portrayed as characters with a heightened awareness of these natural phenomena: they construct their own metaphors from them, and are less affected by culturally constructed metaphors. Hasler describes the canton of Glarus, which consists of one narrow val­ ley, the Linthtal, flanked by steep mountain slopes. The town of Glarus is domin­ ated by the steep rock face of the Glamisch mountain which in winter robs the town of daylight from about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, affecting people's moods and daily routines in Anna Gdldin. The rock wall of the GlSmisch seems threat­

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ening and oppressive to Anna when she first arrives in the Tschudi house. She is intimidated by its prospect: 'Anna erschrickt, die Fenster sind, obwohl es draufien klar war, dunkel gefullt durch die bedrohlich nahen Felsen' (AG, 12). Is this a foretaste of what awaits Anna in this house — a darkness which is not just the result of a natural phenomenon, but is at the same time a metaphor for the lack of rational enlightenment of the house's inhabitants? Later, when Anna is impris­ oned, the Glamisch is visible from her cell: she feels that the rock face forms part of her jail (AG, 177), the shadow it casts may be seen as representing her lone­ liness and continuing incomprehension of her situation. At the southern tip of the Linthtal is the hamlet of Tierfehd, where Mel­ chior Thut was bom. The valley is so narrow and the mountains so tall at this point that no sunlight enters for six weeks in winter: the inhabitants call Tierfehd 'das Loch'. Hasler's modem narrative gives the images of natural darkness a real­ ism that is not present in her historical sources: she brings the images used by privileged observers such as Ebel down to earth and endows them with relevance for her peasant-class protagonists. When light does enter the valley it interacts with the shapes of the mountain peaks and ridges, as well as the trees, creating strange shadows and patterns of light, and exerting a powerful influence on peo­ ple's imagination, making them particularly acute and sometimes fanciful. In Tier­ fehd the nights and the dark winters are haunted by invisible creatures and spirits. Man is at the mercy of the shadows of night and only tolerated by the mountains. Trees and mountains speak to one another, conspire together: there was a time when they spoke with men, but only a few of Hasler's characters, notably Mel­ chior and his friend Samuel, retain any affinity with Nature and can cope with natural darkness: 'Im Dezember schliefilich gelangt die Sonne nicht mehr uber den Berg, die Schatten haben das Tal zuruckerobert, der Mensch ist nur geduldet, unauffkllig mufi er seine Arbeit tun, beklommen hinhdren auf die ZwiegesprSche der Felsen, der Bdume' (DR, 78). Darkness has entered the region in a figurative sense too: human greed cannot be kept out of the valley and it is the so-called 'enlightened', progressive men who cut down the trees, the rare natural resources of the canton, to sell for profit, thus causing dangerous erosion. This type of darkness is more difficult for Melchior and Samuel to live with: both men warn of the environmental consequences of deforestation, but no-one listens to them. A natural phenomenon related to the imagery of light, particularly in Anna Goldin, is the Ffihn — an alpine wind which distorts and accentuates the light of the valleys, making the mountains look closer and clearer. It can play havoc with people's emotions and imaginations, causing headaches and confusion, and forc­ ing the upper-class women to drink large amounts of coffee to clear their minds:

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'sie [die Tiirkenbriihe] veijage den durch FOhnwind verursachten Nebel im Kopf, klare, illuminiere die Gedanken' (AG, 60). On the one hand the light on a day of Fohn can reveal unsuspected realities, for example showing Anna that Frau Tschudi is less beautiful than she is reputed to be: 'an Fdhntagen ist hierzulande das Licht wie ein Messer. Unbannherzig scharf legt es bloB' (AG, 12). On the other hand it can deceive and make false promises, as does Anna's last love, the medical student Melchior Zwicki, who assures Anna that a new age is about to dawn, a classless society when they will be allowed to marry: he deceives him­ self too as he makes love to her, getting her pregnant, on a Ftihntag. The FOhn is also linked with Anna's fate just before she moves to Glarus: 'Alles hangt in der Schwebe an diesem perlmutterfarbenen Fdhntag, noch kann sie umdrehen' (AG, 24); and it is associated with danger and supernatural phenomena: "Etwas Uberirdisches ist in diesen Tagen' (AG, 216). As the mountains move closer in the strange light of the Ftihn, so do less tangible things, such as the irrational thoughts that have left the 'illuminierte K&pfe' of Europe: T)as Unheimliche. Zum Greifen nah' (AG, 173). The medley of metaphors and images associated with the Fdhn reminds the reader that things are not always what they seem. IV Darkness and Light in the Protagonists' Lives Like any historical novelist, Hasler fills in the gaps left by her sources with her own imaginative contributions: the portrayal of Anna and Melchior as individuals is largely the work of the author herself. Various metaphors and images of dark­ ness and light form an important part of Hasler's account of the lives and fates of her two protagonists, and of Anna in particular. Much of Anna Goldin's life is lived literally in the dark in that, as a servant, her daily routine begins before day­ break and ends after nightfall. Her life in the dark may also be seen as a meta­ phor for the way that society treats servants and outsiders. Anna's few experiences of love take place in the dark. As a servant she is at the mercy of lascivious masters who come to her in the dark for the sake of secrecy: Teem Liebeswort, nur fort vom Tatort, die Spuren verwischt, Dunkel, Nachtsand darttbergestreut' (AG, 82). When Anna has a relationship with Jakob, a man from her own class, it is equally secretive. Love takes place in the dark both literally and figuratively, as it would not suit Jakob for their affair to be generally known: 'Nach Einbruch der DSmmerung. Tagsuber im Wald. Dire Beziehung diirfe nicht ans Licht kommen' (AG, 130-131). When Anna thinks of her restless existence, travelling from place to place in search of a better life, perhaps trying to escape her destiny of hardship, she thinks she is pursued by shadows:

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'Wege dahin, dorthin, immer auf der Flucht vor dem Schatten, der ihr doch auf den Fersen folgt' (AG, 23). The shadows eventually catch up with her: 'Jetzt haben mich die Schatten eingeholt, wachsen in mich hinein' (AG, 189). Anna's tendency to dream of a better life, which she inherits from her father, is seen as a 'Jagd nach allem, was glanzt' (AG, 27). When she feels opti­ mistic, this is often on a bright day (although not necessarily a warm one), as on the day when she feels confident enough to send for her suitcases, despite the fact that she is in hiding from the Tschudi family and using a false name: Tebruarlicht. Dieses aufmttpfige Blau iiber den noch schneebedeckten Kuppen. Wie es winkt, Versprechungen macht' (AG, 169). The same winter light can be decep­ tive and malevolent, as it is when Anna is under arrest and being returned to Gla­ rus for trial: Immer weiter durch taumeliges WeiB. Eine Wintersonne, die frieren macht, in den Augen schmerzt' (AG, 180). This foreshadows the morning of her execution, when after months of imprisonment in a dark cell she emerges into daylight: Theses Licht. Nach wochenlangem Dammerdunkel sticht es wie ein Messer in ihren Augen' (AG, 248). Here light is associated with danger rather than safety, and is associated with a physical experience of pain: the rock walls gleam in the June light and Anna is made dizzy, 'inmitten von taumeligem WeiB', as the mountains finally crush her. Darkness and light each have both positive and negative sides in Der Riese too. Darkness is especially benevolent for the shy and isolated Melchior. He is sensitive about the fear that hissize can induce in others and is happier to venture abroad and to stand fully upright between dusk and dawn. Though Melchior’s shadow intimidates others it is one of his few friends: Der Riese trat vor seine Schlafhatte, die Abendsonne in seinem Rucken warf seinen Schatten auf den Boden, ein schemenhaftes zweites Ich, vermischt mit flockigen Blattschatten. Er ging uber die Wiese, der baumiange Zwilling bewegte sich mit ihm. Was ist ein Schatten, dachte er, daB er die Leute so erschreckt? Ein biBchen brauner Dunst. Eine Abwesenheit von Licht dort, wo der Kdrper diesen langen Strich in die Landschaft zieht. (DR, 16)

To Melchior a shadow is no more than the result of an object obscuring the light. Darkness which comes naturally, such as night and the shadows thrown by mountains, is not sinister. It gives chronological and topographical structure to people's daily lives and to existence as a whole. Melchior understands this, as does Anna Gdldin: 'Ware die Nacht nicht, die einen Riegel schiebt, wiirden die gleichfbrmigen Tage ineinanderfliefien' (AG, 190). Darkness and light thus com­ plement one another in the lives of both protagonists and form two halves of a

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necessary whole; Hasler endows these characters and only a few others (notably poorer people) with an understanding of these fundamental natural forces. Melchior twice in his life finds himself in the hands of agents who market him as a fairground attraction, and twice escapes what he feels to be captivity, at night on both occasions, 'im Schutz der Dunkelheit' (DR, 226). On the occasion of Melchior’s second night escape, when being displayed at an English fair­ ground, he sees factory workers returning home and is reminded of the lot of factory workers at home in Glarus. Factories are a symbol of eighteenth-century enlightenment and progress: they have brought a new prosperity to many, but with their advent there is a loss of freedom that Melchior can identify with. Like him, the factory workers in England and in Switzerland are only out and about in the dark, and the natural distinction between night and day is obscured: 'Am Morgen im Dunkeln hin, am Abend im Dunkeln zurtick [...] Die Fabrikglocke teilt ihre Tage ein' (DR, 226). When Melchior visits his home shortly before his death, he feels optimis­ tic. The winter has come to an end, the sunlight illuminates the rocks, the sun beckons him: T)u bist nicht tot, nicht verfault im winterlichen Loch, die Sonne zieht dich heraus, noch ist Atem in dir' (DR, 263). But he is soon to die, and his death is depicted as a return to the shadows of his native mountains, and to dark­ ness: Das Feuer in seinem Inneren erlischt. Der Berg hat ihn angenommen, leckt ihn wie sein Junges, kilhle, heilende Schattenzungen' (DR, 275).

VDarknessandLightasSym bolsofSocial Contrast In both novels, upper-class characters such as the Tschudi and Zwicki families in Anna Gdldin, and Prince Karl Eugen in Der Riese im Baum, lead lives which are less directly influenced by physical affects of darkness and light than those of the peasant characters. Civilization and progress appear to have alienated the upper classes from their bodily experiences: where such experiences are felt, they are liable to cause confusion and distress. As was demonstrated in the above section, Anna and Melchior live their lives in a more direct and frequently more comfor­ table relationship with natural phenomena. Melchior Thut's travels enable him to contrast his home environment, the dark and narrow valley where superstition and ignorance are reputed to survive, with much of so-called 'enlightened' Europe. His experience of the contrast is no­ where as acute as in the palace and parks of Ludwigsburg, where he spends sev­ eral years as a servant, a 'Cammerturk'. Duke Karl Eugen sees himself as a modem enlightened ruler and his assumed enlightenment as an automatic

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privilege of birth. To him it is natural that people of low birth should be condemned to live in the darkness of ignorance. Karl Eugen sees Melchior as exceptional in that he towers above the heads of others and is able to see more than most people, but the Duke does not recognize the metaphorical dimension of Melchior's TJbersicht', his foresight and sensitivity: Wir beide, Riese, sind zu Ubersicht bestimmt. Du, von der Natur mit einer baumlangen Statur versehen, uberblickst das Treppenhaus. Ich, durch gottliche Fugung mit dem Privileg hervorragender Geburt und Geistesgaben ausgestattet, sehe das Herannahen einer illuminierten Zeit. So ist es: Wahrend die Gipfel der Menschheit, die groBen Denker, schon besonnt sind vom sieghaften Licht der Vemunft, sind die Niederungen noch in Dunkelheit und Schlaf befangen. (DR, 132)

Karl Eugen banishes darkness by surrounding himself with bright, glit­ tering objects, such as his young Italian mistress Bonafini, 'der neuaufgefangene Stem' of his court. Melchior learns from another servant of the predilection of all rulers for the bright and the rare: 'Alles was fimkelt, aus dem GewOhnlichen herausragt, fkllt ihnen auf (DR, 103). Not even the darkness of night has to be suf­ fered at Ludwigsburg: 'Karl Eugen hatte die Nachte mit Festlichkeiten ausgesperrt, die Dunkelheit aus den Prunkraumen vertreiben lassen mit Fackeln, Kerzen, Lampen' (DR, 68). The winters are similarly illuminated: 'Mit Festen hat man das Licht in die diisteren Winterwochen gebracht' (DR, 153). Possibly Karl Eugen is so keen to banish darkness from his life because he is fearful of reality and in particular his own mortality (DR, 130). Whatever the reasons for the Duke's search for physical light, he is brought no lasting joy. He is able to banish literal darkness from his life, but not the darkness of his own reality, and he even­ tually tires of all the artificial diversions that he has thought out for himself: artificial light cannot become a substitute for an enlightened life. The artificially bright court of Ludwigsburg contrasts with the eerie dark­ ness of Melchior's home valley. The following passage interrupts the above de­ scription of Karl Eugen's night-time festivities: 'In der Stunde der Dammerung holen die Berge ihr Eigentum zuriick. Die Schatten gleiten aus den Waldflecken, erobem Stuck fur Stuck vom Alpboden. Der Tag erscheint als heller Spuk, schnell eingeholt von der Wirklichkeit der Nacht. PaB auf: Im Zwielicht verliert der Mensch seinen Schatten, sein Gesicht' (DR, 68). But we already know that Melchior feels at home in the shadows: to Melchior it is mankind's attempts to alter nature that are to be mistrusted: Die Bergidylle im Ludwigsburger Park gef&llt Melchior nicht, eine erbarmliche, stiimperhafte Nachahmung, zum Lachen' (DR, 58).

DARKNESS AND LIGHT IN EVELINE HASLER — 193

The German aristocracy in Der Riese and the rich inhabitants of Glarus in Anna Gdldin equate brightness and whiteness with social superiority and moral purity.11 Outward beauty reflects inner worth in a manner reminiscent of the Middle Ages. Frau Tschudi's skin is acclaimed as pure and translucent: 'weiB, fein und durchsichtig [...] wie eine englische Teetasse, die man ans Licht hebt1 (AG, 48), and Glarus society glitters when it is invited to the Tschudi house: 'Schultem, Decolletes schimmerten. Die Brustrundungen der Frau Paravicini stiegen wie Halbmonde aus ihrem Spitzenausschnitt. Unwillkiirlich dachte man an das extravagante Wappen tiber ihrer Haustur in der "Erlen": ein weifier, schreitender Schwan mit goldener Krone, darunter die Gravur: "candidor nive", weifier als Schnee' (AG, 29). The rich people of Glarus are surrounded by splendour, and Anna wants to bask in their reflection: T)ie Magd sonnt sich im Glanz der Herrschaft' (AG, 200). However, as a servant, Anna is supposed to know her place in the social hierarchy and, above all, dress appropriately (in black). Anna's downfall ultimately results from her failure to look and behave like a servant: ’[sie] tragt eine modenfarbne Jiippen'.12 The difference between the sexes is evident in both novels, though not usually seen in terms of darkness and light. However one of the main vehicles for its illustration, Pfarrer Tschudi in Anna Gdldin, sees the difference between the sexes in just this way. As Anna's fate draws to its close he thinks of the damage that women are capable of causing. He thinks of men and women as opposites, and pictures them as they sit on different sides of his church: men are sober and down-to-earth, dressed in dark colours, rational and, above all, cooperative; wo­ men are brightly coloured and irrational, dangerous and capable of causing untold chaos: 'hier die dunkle Masse verheirateter Manner, in schweren M&nteln aus braunem, nach Erde und Stall riechendem Tuch, fruchtbares Erdreich, in das er seinen Wortsamen streuen konnte. Die Frauen driiben heller, uneinheitlich mit dem Wirrwarr von Hauben, Trachten, da und dort modische franzdsische Gew&ider, eine bestdndige Unruhe' (AG, 231-232). Paradoxically it is the dark men that Pfarrer Tschudi sees as rational, presumably enlightened, and the women's brighter physical appearance that he sees as evidence of irrationality, probably because, unlike the men, they are 'schlecht zu erreichen', they are not fertile ground in which he can sow the seeds of his ideas. The hopeless situation that Anna finds herself in after she has lost favour with her employers is exacerbated by the fact that she is an 'outsider', from an­ other region and a lower social class; also, more significantly, she is at a disad­ vantage because she is a woman. Eighteenth-century prejudices against women place Anna in a no-win situation: the ambiguity of her position is reinforced with

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images of darkness and light that are used in connection with a specific aspect of her physical appearance, namely her long, black, wavy hair. The Tschudi family, and later the entire ruling class of Glarus, want to think of Anna as a handmaid of the devil. This is not difficult, because contemporary superstition already classes women as potential instruments of the devil, in that their physical attributes can cause men to have impure thoughts: unfortunately for Anna, hair, particularly black wavy hair like her own ('Hire schwarzen Haarschlangen'; AG, 80), is a major cause of temptation. Anna's hair is also diabolic when it shines, reminiscent of fire and thus of witchcraft.13 When she is awaiting trial the reader is taken back to an episode that took place exactly one year previously, when the child Anna Maria is frightened by the sight of her lighting a fire: 'Anna Migeli steht auf der Schwelle, barfuBig, im Hemd. Anna, du brennst! [...] Deine Haare sind voller Feuer! Ein Fidibutz, der's Haus anziindet [...] Anna, der die Flammen gehorchen' (AG, 205-206). The reader already knows that Anna Maria's imagination is extraordinarily active, and that she tells her family everything that happens to her when she is in Anna's company. We can therefore imagine the Tschudis' delight at hearing evidence of Anna using fire as a supernatural tool. When the inhabitants of Glarus hear that Anna is to be returned for trial, their vision of her entry into the town is as a witch with her hair on fire: TEs hatte die Leute nicht erstaunt, wenn Anna auf einem Besen uber den Wiggis geflogen ware, den Haarschweif wie ein Leuchtzeichen hinter ihr her, von Funken umspriiht' (AG, 183). Thus, the opposing ima­ ges of fire and blackness unite in Anna's hair, and make Anna herself appear diabolic. Melchior Thut, who is in many ways more of an 'outsider' than Anna, and whose fearsome physical size and lack of good fortune are together symbolized by the shadow that his body casts, is spared the degree of superstition that sur­ rounds Anna. As a man his destiny is more straightforward, in fact most of the superstitions about him are directed at his mother, who is blamed for his physical abnormality: the scientists who study Melchior's physical condition conclude that his unusual size must result from his mother's immoderate desires at the moment of Melchior's conception and during her pregnancy.14

VI Synthesis Anna and Melchior's stories come together in Der Riese im Baum. Melchior and Ebel are in Glarus at the time of Anna Goldin's trial and they see her being taken through the streets on her way to the courtroom. Melchior and Anna's eyes meet

DARKNESS AND LIGHT IN EVELINE HASLER — 195

(DR, 102). Melchior feels drawn to Anna: they are, after all, very similar. They are both outsiders in their way and have seen more than many people of their class, but they are nevertheless ultimately limited by the restrictions imposed up­ on them by their birth. A man in an inn remarks to Ebel: 'Eine Hexe in einer Zeit, die sich fur illuminiert halt! In einer Zeit, wo die groBen Aufklarer Lessing, Vol­ taire, Bayle, Rousseau schon tot sind!' (DR, 101). This is the paradox of the En­ lightenment as shown in the two novels: the majority of the fictional characters, probably like many of the real historical personalities, did not know what 'Enligh­ tenment' meant or how to act according to its principles. Ebel had been warned on his arrival in the canton of Glarus of the surprising speed with which darkness can fall there: 'man hatte ihn gewamt, die Dunkelheit kdnne in den Bergtalem uberraschend einfallen' (DR, 12). He has experienced the rapid arrival of literal darkness, and now he is witness to a more sinister type of darkness: the con­ tinued belief in witches in a supposedly enlightened age. It comes, then, as no surprise when Hasler exposes the eighteenth-century illusion of Glarus and enlightened Germany as false. Anna Gdldin sees the 'neue Zeit' anticipated by her lover Melchior Zwicki as a possibility for some two hun­ dred years in the future, but not as something that she herself would experience. She can only imagine the future in symbolic terms: she looks at her favourite tile on the Zwickis' Kachelofen and transforms the pastoral scene that is depicted there, with its constrained figures and manicured vegetation, into a vision of the future which holds more hope for a peasant women: In hundert, nein, zweihundert Jahren muBten wir leben, Anni. Schwindelerregend: 1981, 1982. Sie denkt sich aus, wie es dann sein wird. Der Mann auf der Fiillkachel wird die Flote an den Mund setzen. Die Frau dreht sich urn, steht still. Die Busche recken sich, greifen aus, suchen ihre urspriingliche Form. Die B&ume treten aus der Reihe. Das Gras schieBt empor, Farren wachst (AG, 118).

The very process of image-making is thematized here. In her imagination, Anna subverts the conventional visual image that she beholds and invents a scenario which is more appropriate to her individuality. This is a revolutionary act for a servant woman, even though it is only a revolution in her mind. The portrayal of Anna subverting a contemporary image could be taken to symbolize social change, which is necessary, but ironically absent, certainly in the so-called Age of Enlightenment, and possibly also in 1982, the time that Anna is imagining and the date of publication of Anna Gdldin. The reader is thus reminded of the current relevance of Hasler's themes.

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VII Conclusion In Hasler's historical sources, metaphors for darkness and light are used conven­ tionally: light symbolizes the philosophy of the 'Age of Reason', truth, and wis­ dom; darkness represents ignorance, anything for which there was no rational explanation, and pre-Christian 'uncivilized' times. In her modem treatment of this historical material, Hasler links images of darkness and light with the attitudes, lives, and fates of her characters. Those privileged characters who have inherited political and economic power believe that they are part of an enlightened society, but Hasler reveals them as irrational, corrupt, and complacent. Their attitude to­ wards enlightenment is based on convenience: if enlightened attitudes bring them advantage and prosperity, they adopt them; if enlightenment gives rise to uncom­ fortable reflections, for example that Anna Gdldin is being wrongly treated, they distance themselves from those people who believe in progress and justice: 'Dieser spGttische, aufgeklarte Unterton. Das kam von den Buchem aus Frankreich' (AG, 135). Images of light support the beliefs of the privileged few that they are enlightened, but, equally, images of darkness and of artificially created light are used to illustrate their ignorance, partiality, and irrationality. In the novels, light and darkness have both positive and negative implica­ tions for the two protagonists. Light may stand for hope and truth, but also for deception and confusion, even irrationality. Darkness can be their protection but must also be respected and occasionally feared. It symbolizes their poverty and eventually their adverse fates. But Anna and Melchior are shown as living in har­ mony with both negative and positive aspects of the darkness and light of nature; they are in harmony with nature, with themselves, and ultimately with their fates, in Anna's case at the hands of the self-proclaimed enlightened men of Glarus. Significantly, it is Anna's fate that adds a dark episode, a 'diisteres Blatt' (AG, 228), to the history of the Tschudi family — a family which is so proud of its glit­ tering past. Melchior's role is equally important. He provides a contrast to the false values of the privileged classes and shows their lives to be empty, unnatural, and unthinking. Anna's and Melchior's lives and fates thus highlight the hollowness of Swiss society in the Age of Enlightenment and remind modem readers of the need to care for the world they live in and for the people with which they share it. In this esssay, I have attempted to show how Lakoffs theory of metaphor is illustrated in Hasler's novels. The physical experiences of the characters stem from the same sources as the literal images, which are associated with natural phenomena, and figurative images are related to these physical experiences and natural phenomena. In Anna Gdldin and Der Riese im Baum, darkness and light

DARKNESS AND LIGHT IN EVELINE HASLER — 197

are shown as part of experiential reality for the characters and in particular the two protagonists. Their bodily experience of the natural world around them, its daylight and shadows, and its good and adverse weather conditions, are largely represented by directly meaningful images and basic metaphors, the latter stem­ ming from, or at least as closely related to the former. The historical sources for the two novels make use of a culturally constructed set of metaphors associated with darkness and light, which, although ultimately related to the bodily experi­ ences of darkness and light, have developed into something more remote from basic experience. These metaphors of light for knowledge and reason, and dark­ ness for ignorance and irrationality are noticeably used by the more educated of the characters in each novel, those characters who are in their thoughts and lives more remote from the physical experience of natural darkness and light than their peasant-class counterparts. In her historical novels, Hasler also uses both figurative and literal images to help her readers understand present realities in terms of past events. This is possible where a resemblance exists between different types of information struc­ ture, for example structures that are stored in long-term memory and surface information structures. However, metaphors do not merely make use of existing resemblances: similarities can be created, and human beings may be able to use metaphors to make sense of the world around them and to help them understand concepts that are new to them. I believe that the metaphors and symbols in Anna Goldin and Der Riese im Baum work in a similar way: they give the reader access to stored information where this exists, and they help explain more obscure images (mostly historical metaphors) if no previous knowledge is available. Hasler's metaphors, which are chiefly associated with the historical source texts and refer to ignorance and knowledge in the Age of Enlightenment, and her images from the natural world, which are used more directly in connection with the emotions and fates of the protagonists of the two novels, share the capacity to help the reader understand the relationship between the historical facts, the psychology of the characters, and the present-day relevance of their stories. An analogy is constructed between historical and present events, and we may if we wish see the past in terms of the present and vice versa: this mapping of the past onto the present is itself a pro­ cess of metaphorizing. If the reader has knowledge of eighteenth-century history, he or she can understand the historical textual metaphors instantly; if this is not the case, more help from the author is required. One could therefore speak of two levels of imagery, one easily comprehensible to the majority of readers, the other only accessible to an educated elite. Darkness and light belong to a conventional

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stock of images with which most readers are likely to be familiar. The use of darkness to represent ignorance, fear, and evil, and light to signify knowledge, optimism, and good, belongs to a well-established tradition in European culture. Hasler enables her entire readership to understand the less well-known historical metaphors of darkness and light through this rich set of traditional and more ac­ cessible images based on the physical world and people's direct experience of it. Once the connection has been made between the two levels of imagery, an inter­ action between the two is established, with the more accessible images and the less accessible ones supporting and influencing one another. Here we remember also that Hasler frequently adopts an ironic stance towards more conventional imagery and, for example, uses images of light to represent ignorance and male­ volence, images of darkness to signify rationality and safety. This inversion of traditional images is in itself a symbolic act: one that helps highlight the hypo­ crisy of the society that Hasler is writing about. Just as Hasler deconstructs the traditional interpretations of darkness and light in her historical sources, giving them new and unexpected mappings, so does she subvert the rigid eighteenth-century images of her protagonists. Anna was metaphorized as a witch and Melchior as a giant by a superstitious and bigoted society: they underwent a transformation in people's minds into some­ thing that they were not. They were both strong individuals who failed to con­ form to contemporary social and (in Anna's case) gender stereotypes. They were both misunderstood and feared, Anna because she represented undomesticated and apparently untamable female power, and Melchior because of his physical size. It was the fate of these anomalous individuals, both of whom were ahead of their time in some of their attitudes, to be put beyond the social pale by being consigned to the peripheral categories of an older and even more superstitious world than the one they were bora into. As outsiders, Anna and Melchior may be the ultimate human examples of Lakoffs bounded space metaphor. In a meta­ phorical sense, their lives take place in the dark, that is outside the boundary; their deaths finally put them outside the boundary in reality too.

DARKNESS AND LIGHT IN EVELINE HASLER — 199

NOTES 1. Chiefly Lakoff 1987, in particular chapters 17 and 21; also: Lakoff/Tumer 1989. 2. The 'container schema' is later included in the so-called 'bounded space schema'; Lakoff/T umer 1989, 97. 3. An interesting parallel may be drawn between these lists and Goethe’s ideas on the polarity of colours and related phenomena, summarized in his Farbenlehre as follows (Goethe 1981, 478):

Plus Gelb Wirkung Licht Hell Kraft Warme N8he AbstoBen Verwandtschaft mit SSuren 4.

Minus Blau Beraubung Schatten Dunkel Schwdche Kaite Feme Anziehen Verwandtschaft mit Alkalien

Lehmann claims to provide a full and impartial examination of Anna G6ldin's trial, and also provides copies of contemporary documents relating to the case. He refers to cer­ tain 'dunkle Stellen' in connection with the case (cf. AG, 193). Ebel's travel journal por­ trays Switzerland as a prerevolutionary utopia, a possible model for the rest of Europe, where all men enjoy the 'Freiheit, Gleichheit und BrOderiichkeif of true democracy and an enlightened society (Faessler 1984,153). Hasler has also used sources (possibly via intermediaries such as Gehring) that are not mentioned in her bibliographies, e.g. Afsprung 1784: Lehmann 1795; Schuler 1814. These provide interesting contemporary insights into the Glamers' belief in witch­ craft and into the causes of the environmental catastrophes of the late eighteenth century. 5. See also Lavater 1778, 73-74. Lavater provides a sketch of Melchior Thufs silhouette and concludes that the giant has 'Verstand' on the basis of his physiognomy. 6. Lehmann 1983, Zweytes Heft, Beilagen 2 and 3. See also the Erstes Heft, p.b1v, where Lehmann states that his Zweytes Heft will contain a collection of letters and court documents that he hopes will 'noch manches Dunkle aufkldren'. 7. Here I take the word 'betrubt' to mean 'murky' or 'darkened', in a similar sense to NHG trub, rather than 'troubled': it contrasts with 'aufgekiarf and connects semantically with the mention of 'Aberglaube'. Adelung 1774 records the word betrdbt as archaic when used in connection with water and air that has been made murky or cloudy as a result of turbulence. 8. Lehmann 1783, Erstes Heft, p.a5r. The notion of partiality is introduced in connection with the Tschudi family and their supporters, and the reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions: 'Ich will weder die Moglichkeit, noch die UnmOglichkeit der Zauberey damit beweisen. Das mdgen geschicktere Leute thun als ich'. 9. Adelung 1774 documents the figurative sense of aufkldren thus: 'deutlich machen, erkldren [...] Ein aufgekiarter Verstand, Aufgekldrte Zeiten'. The noun Aufkldrung is listed as deriving from the verb. 10. See also Lehmann 1796, II, 212-224. His claim that Glarus is doomed and prey to the greed and corruption of the rich and powerful is reflected in AG (206) when the lock­

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11.

12.

13 14.

smith Steinmiiller, Anna's supposed accomplice, dreams about 'ein endzeitiiches Glarus, violett im Schatten des Berges'. Hasler quotes Lehmann's glowing description of young Anna Maria Tschudi: 'Purpur und Rosen bluheten auf ihren schneeweiBen Wangen, die GOtinn der Freude thronte auf ihrem Gesicht' (AG, 89). Lehmann goes on to say that it is not possible that such a pure child should trick her parents, a statement which he contradicts in his account of 1795 (AG, 76), where he refers to Anna Maria's infection with metal objects as 'eine Farce*. These words are taken from the 'wanted' notice for Anna, ironically printed on the reverse of a sheet of paper describing the King and Queen of France: she is 'blendend' and he is bejewelled Cder Kdnig schimmerte von kostbaren Steinen'; AG, 176-177). Folk mythology associates fire with women, a result of their 'hamatologische Situation' (AG, 14): women were frequently accused of arson in the eighteenth century and later. Such theories derive from those presented in Lavater 1775, extracts from which Hasler quotes in Der Riese.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Hasler, Eveline: Anna Gdldin. Letzte Hexe, Benziger, Zurich/Cologne, 1984, 4th edn. (=AG). ------ : Der Riese im Baum, Nagel & Kimche, Zurich/Frauenfeld, 1988. (=DR).

Secondary works Adelung, Johann Christoph 1774: Versuch eines vollsttndigen grammatsch-kritischen WOrterbuches der Hochdeutschen Mundart, Breitkopf, Leipzig, 1774-1786. Afsprung, Johann Michael 1784: Reise durch einige Cantone der Eidgenossenschaft, [n.pub.], Leipzig. Ebel, Johann Gottfried 1802: Schilderung der GebirgsvOlker der Schweitz, [n.pub.], Leipzig. Faessler, Peter 1984: 'Freiheit, Idylle und Natur. J.G. Ebel's "Schilderung der Gebirgsvdlker der Schweitz" in der Verwendung durch Schiller und Hdlderlin', Schweizer Monatshefte, 64 (1984), 2, 145-156. Gehring, Jacob 1943: Das Glamerland in den Reiseberichten des X V II.-X IX . Jh„ Jahrbuch des Historischen Vereins Glarus, 51 (1943). Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 1981: Werke, ed. by E. Trunz, Hamburger Ausgabe, 14 vols, XIII: NaturwissenschaftHiche Schriften I, Zur Farbenlehre, Beck, Munich. Heer, Joachim 1865: 'Der KriminalprozeQ der Anna Gdldi von Sennwald', Jahrbuch des Historischen Vereins Glarus, 1 (1865), pp.9-53. Lakoff, George 1987: Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London. ------ and Turner, Mark 1989: More than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London. Lavater, Johann Caspar 1775: Physiognomische Fragmente zur BefOrderung der Menschenkenntnisse und Menschenliebe, [n.pub ], Leipzig/Winterthur, 1775-1778. Lehmann, Heinrich Ludewig 1783: FreundschaWiche und vertrauliche Briefe, den so genannten sehr berOchtigten Hexenhandel zu Glarus betreffend, Caspar FueBly, Zurich. ------ 1795: Oberdie Schweiz und die Schweizer, Vieweg, Berlin, published anonymously in two parts, 1795-1796. Schuler, Johann Melchior 1814: Die Linth-ThSler, Orell, FuBli und Comp., Zurich.

JULIAN SCHUTTING'S AESTHETIC OF READING AND WRITING MIKE ROGERS

Julian Schutting's Graz lectures on poetics, which were published under the title of Zuhdrerbehelligungen, allow us to identify above all positive aspects of his conception of literature: as the communal and democratic creation, by the reading public and the writing author, of a multiplicity of associative meanings on the basis of a linguistic work of art. This naturally presupposes a certain familiarity with the 'raw material'. Schutting took as an example his own rather idealistic version of the German Mirmesang, in which, he claimed, author and public would always have in their minds the many other love-songs which had used the same themes and the same linguistic material. It is an analysis which can be backed up with examples from Schutting's own literary production, especially from his prose-works,1 which owe their suggestive and associative force to the reader's postmodernist familiarity with all kinds of textual forms, of which the thriller and Mills and Boon romances are but two. A closer study of Schutting's poetry in its chronological development reveals strong parallels to the essays which appeared in autumn 1993 under the title of Leserbeldstigungen. These are the principal subject of the present essay. To an even greater degree than Zuhdrerbehelligungen, Leserbeltistigungen are concerned with the practical questions of writing poems, from the point of view of the poet. The first essay in the volume describes various exercises which Schutting set the participants in two writing-courses which he led. What is interesting here is not so much the element of chance which contributed to the choice of objects, but rather the way in which the participants were required to exercise their imagination on 'ready-made material'. der erste Tag. auf mehreren Tischen, Glasgehause sind dazuzudenken, habe ich eine natur- und sprachkundliche Sammlung angelegt, Versuchungsreihen zu kindlichem Denken, die meisten Schauobjekte stammen (?) von einem unweit des Tagungshauses von einem Schwerfahrzeug niedergefahrenen Kastanienbaum. (LB, 14) an der Schultafel befestige ich einen Kastanienzweig. betrachten Sie das als ein Kunstwerk und erfinden Sie Bildtitel, die einzustufen w&ren als: vemunftig; als vertretbar; als fragwurdig; als befremdlich, aber noch erkl&rbar; und zuletzt

202 — MIKE ROGERS

noch aberwitzige Bilddeutungen, nach Mdglichkeit beangstigend wie das Urteil eines Geistesgestdrten — vielleicht ist es eine Hilfe, zu uberlegen, als was man diesen Zweig benennen wurde, wenn man von einer Milit&rkommission als unzurechnungsf&hig heimgeschickt werden wollte! (bei diesem Spiel kommt wider Erwarten nicht viel heraus — vielleicht spielen Sie es fiir sich, ehe Sie weiterlesen? an dem einfach verzweigten Zweig waren grune Blatter und einige junge Kastanien, noch ganz zart die Schale). (LB, 22)

His account of this exercise is preceded by reminiscences of particular moments in his childhood, which, he claims, have made him 'gewifi weit mehr zu einem Schriftsteller [...] als viel spSter die Bekanntschaft mit der Literatur' (LB, S). He describes how, as a child, he muddled up the relations of names and things to one another, partly through using the wrong articles in a grammar test, which got him nought out of ten for his first piece of schoolwork, but partly in a con­ scious and deliberate way, by pointing to the inconsistency of labels and trade­ marks, which sometimes refer to the purpose of the article in question and some­ times to the symbol used as a trade-mark (would you really polish your shoes with a kiwi, or get a small baby in a nappy and little else to help with the washing-up?). Naturally, it all becomes even worse when dealing with plant-labels: was sich von seinem Platz nicht riihren konne, weil es tot sei oder in der Erde festgewachsen, bekomme von den Erwachsenen solche Grabschilder verpaflt, als wire es tot oder lebendig von Erde begraben, und so hfttte ich mir die erste Tafel, auf der 'Winterlinde' geschrieben stand und die zu FiiBen einer Linde in der Erde stak, in den Satz 'Hier ruhet eine Winterlinde' iibersetzt und mir diese so lange in einen Fichtensarg gedacht, bis mir der Lindenbaum an ihrem Grab mit den Blattem gewinkt habe, als ihr Gespenst. (LB, 9)

What is being described here is a kind of home-made semiotics, apparently disguised as a 'naive discovery', a procedure which is reminiscent of the way in which the world of the adults is explained in K&stner's children's books, where the adults' systems are extended with logical consistency and are thus made ab­ surd. But in fact Schutting presents precisely this childlike condition as being the beginning of all poetic thinking, or perhaps, more accurately, as the beginning of the poetic state: the poet as the giver of names, the creator of order, the one who links together those particles of the world of experience that are engaged in a centrifugal flight from one another. Schutting formulates this as a programmatic statement: somit hatte ich, wenn eine Erlauterung eines sogennanten Konzeptes erwunscht gewesen ware, ja doch nur etwa gesagt:

JULIAN SCHUTTING’S AESTHETIC — 203

mit der Findung der W&rter, mit der Namensgebung den Dingen, mit der Zivilisierung der Weit durch die Ausformung von Begriffen, so habe es begonnen und so beginne es immer wieder bei den Kindem, und, etwas anders, auch bei denDichtem. (LB, 13)

However, the reservation with which this explanation is qualified indicates that we are not dealing here with an abstract argument, but rather with a concrete experience, as becomes clear in the early poem Baume' (SI, 5; FB, 7), in which the word 'Baum1, every time it is 'put in' (i.e. planted like a tree), designates a step in the personal development which took place for the author and which is again re-enacted in chronological order in the poem. In this way, the thought process becomes physically tangible; the gap between signifier and signified is annulled by the author's action in equating the moment of realization with the moment at which that realization is written down, and by situating that moment in the imme­ diate past by his choice of the perfect tense for the verb. The ambiguous phrase, 'diesen Baum habe ich gesetzt', refers simultaneously to the word and the thing. The understanding of the relationship between the name and the thing turns into a poem; this is not the poetry of abstract thought, but the poetry of experience. The game between name and reality, the transformation of the one into the other, is for Schutting the poetic process, precisely as he demands it from the participants in his writing course. But he also demands something more than just this release of oneself from familiar categories and this freedom of personal movement: 'ein Dichter sei u.a. einer, dem die Voraussetzungen fiir eine jede seiner Zeilen niemals ganz selbstverstandlich wiirden' (LB,13). This statement is reminiscent of Karl Kraus and his emphasis on 'linguistic doubt', in the sense that nothing should be written down without reflecting on it, that everything which is written down possesses the value and importance of an action and creates a world for which the writer must accept responsibility. In the case of the participants in the writing course, however, something else is involved: the context, or, to use the semiotic term, the frame, is given for each interpretation of the sign which they have to invent. To claim that that was not so in the case of the child is naturally a fiction: the child was already in a world full of signs and systems of signs, with which it had yet to become fami­ liar, and despite all temptations it did not develop or even try to develop a com­ pletely private language, but merely combined the signs that were present and available in new ways, which was in fact also a way of testing them for their truth content, just as Schutting demanded of the up-and-coming authors in his writing course. In the poem 'Baume' mentioned above the last lines run.

204 — MIKE ROGERS

und diesen Baum habe ich ausgerissen, als ich entdeckte, daB die Lautgestalt Baum den Inhalt Baum zwar aufnift aber nicht durch ihn bestimmt ist.

This disappointment that the signifier and the signified are not identical with one another is indicated by an act of destruction, all the other insights are marked by the 'putting in' of a tree. — Similarly, in the next poem in the collection, Tauben', disappointment is again indicated by a gap of a few lines in the poem, and the source of the disappointment is the insight that 'das Wort in Gedichten / eine Ausflucht und ein fauler Zauber war' (SI, 6; r.v. FB, 8). Between the poem and the essay in which the same procedures are re­ capitulated lie some twenty years in which Schutting has published (among other things) five further volumes of poetry, two of which attempted to work with symbols that did not fit into any 'frame'. Liebesgedichte (1982) and (at least partly) Traumreden (1987) tried in many cases to invent their own context, while the volume of prose, Wasserfarben (1991), which, at least on the surface, deals with various longer stays in the Salzkammergut, profits from allusions both overt and covert to a whole context: the summer holiday resorts of the turn of the cen­ tury, literature in the country, Stifter, even Htilderlin. In addition, the volume of poetry published in 1990, Flugbldtter, contains poems from Schutting's first two volumes: In der Sprache der Inseln (1973) and Lichtungen (1976), often in a slightly revised form, together with some other poems that had previously ap­ peared in magazines. Especially poems from Schutting's first volume make pro­ grammatic statements which underlie the methods of the creative writing course as promulgated in Leserbeldstigungen. In the field of writing Schutting has given up the demand for tabula rasa originality and has returned to the art of allusion which particularly distinguished the prose volume Tauchiibungen, in which he used motifs from Stifter's style and content to bring out the neurotic obsessive-compulsive essence of Stifter's style, which he then developed in a thoroughly modem way. In the volume of essays, LeserbelHstigungen, he does the same with Hdlderlin (among others), partly as a commentary on his (Schutting's) own poem from Traumreden (LB, 100), called Das Geddchtnis der WOrter4, partly as a fur­ ther use of the same technique of creative combination of ready-made material, which he describes in the foreword to Leserbeldstigungen: als waren beriihmte Gedichte unsereinem als 'Roh'material zu dienen geschrie­ ben worden (ware ich ein absoluter Souveran, von den Ideen der Aufkl&rung angekr&nkelt, so wiirde ich mein Volk jeden Alters und jeder Klasse dazu an-

JULIAN SCHUTTING’S AESTHETIC — 205

halten, mir Liebe und Untertfinigkeit zu erweisen mit ahnlichen Kompositionen, auszufuhren, das versteht sich, an von mir vorgegebenen Versen aus besseren Zeiten, zu des Menschengeschlechts Besserung solche (Jbung eine Art 'Musikalisches Opfer*). (LB, 5)

Schutting in fact presents various technical commentaries of a considerable degree of complexity, partly of a speculative nature, dealing with vowels, half­ rhymes, consonantal clusters, and echoes that could lead to a stumble of the ton­ gue or a spoonerism, and partly concerned in a more objectively verifiable way with metrics. The half-reminiscences in the poem Das Geddchtnis der Wfirter1 were jumbled together in an unbroken flow, and hence produced a numbing, intoxicatory, hypnotic effect; the enormously detailed frenetic precision of the analysis does the same. The wealth of associations that contradict, complement, and re­ place one another creates an atmosphere of richness of meaning, without one particular meaning being pinned down. The effect of a poem is produced by the interpretation of a poem. The same is true of the other Hdlderlin pastiche in Leserbeldstigungen, 'Erinnemdes Vergessen' (LB,113), as also of the 'variations' on Holderlin's Hyperions Schicksalslied', which form the second part of the essay Die seligen Augenblicken' (LB, 56-69). What is Schutting proving by this? (And I am deliberately not saying: what does he want to prove by this?) That even the disiuncta membra of good poems which have been taken apart still have enough power in them to have an effect on us, as if the force of their abundance of meaning resided in the individual words themselves? Or is it rather the case that we, who are familiar on a conscious or an unconscious level with these poems, supply what is lacking ourselves and contribute the emotional element which we associate with them? Once the frame is given, we know how we are supposed to interpret the signs. In the very early poem 'Gedichte' (SI, 10-11; r.v. FB, 13-14) the statement is made: 'ein Gedicht ist, was sich als Gedicht erkl&rt’; but we had to wait for this volume of essays for Schutting to show us how and with what right something can declare itself to be a poem. Schutting has developed the somewhat naive equation of the tree that one sees with the word 'tree' that one writes to the point where the interpretation of a poem can turn into the extension of a poem, and thus produce the same atmosphere as the poem itself: the equation of signifier and signified on a higher level. The point at issue here is not the novelty of the argument but the artistry with which a poem has been made out of that argument, or rather: the artistry with which the argument has been turned into a poem.

206 — MIKE ROGERS

For what emerges from all Schutting's works is his endeavour to transform everything into poetry. In 'Ansichtskartengriifie' (LB, 70-73), he shows us how one could make poems out of the sensory impressions noted down on postcards. In 'Wie meine besseren Gedichte entstanden sind' (LB, 29-38), he gives us the versions as he changed and refined them of one of his 'passable' poems (he throws away the early stages of his better ones after he has perfected them). In Die seligen Augenblicke' (LB, 48-69) he shows us, to begin with, two late Httlderlin poems, 'Hyperions Schicksalslied' and Tl&lfte des Lebens', in forms that suggest they had remained fragments (like so many late HGlderlin poems); he encourages us to enter empathically into the creative process — but at the same time he plays the game with the systems of signs that he recommended to the upand-coming writers. Since so much of late HOlderlin remained fragmentary, which naturally increases its fullness of meaning and richness of association, it is easy to consider what was completed from this point of view as well, thereby in some way enriching it, inasmuch as one is on the look-out (like a poet) for new significances and new links. This endeavour to turn everything into poetry may perhaps better be de­ scribed as the attempt to turn us all into poets, in the sense that we readers should take part, by reading, in the writer's procedures, and join in the flights and leaps of the writer's imagination. It is not the aesthetic of Rilke, who only allows the world the right to exist because it is the starting-point for poetry; on the contrary, it is an aesthetic which considers the poetic point of view to be the most percep­ tive because it has the power and the possibility to make use of the differing systems of signs, has them, indeed, at its beck and call, and hence can recognize and demonstrate their misuse and their unintentional cross-overs and ironies — as in the poem 'Mauthausen 19..'; FB, 78-80 (Herzmann 1992). The 'variations' on the Hdlderlin poems, which Schutting composes on musical principles, are a game with language. What he did in Das Ged&chtnis der Worter1is also a game with language. But in both cases it is more than language itself which is at issue. In a sense which Kraus would have understood very well, language is for Schutting the only possibility of perceiving the world and expres­ sing this perception. This is the reason why other poems pop up in the course of the HOlderlin-variations, poems by Schiller, Nietzsche, and MOrike, whose lin­ guistic formation, whose tone of voice creates the connection.2 What results from this is, on the one hand, a concrete representation of Hdlderlin's condition of mental darkness, concrete in the sense that the fragments of his mental world are recognizably and tangibly spread out on the paper in front of us, and, moreover,

JULIAN SCHUTTING’S AESTHETIC — 207

in a disorder which one could interpret as order, the order that a poet would create if he or she were trying to reproduce the confused state of someone in mental darkness. On the other hand, we, as modem readers, cannot help trying to read into these links and connections, that may have come about merely by chance, a meaning which could refer to our own times and our own experiences, while we are at the same time being reminded that this meaning results from our uncommitted familiarity with a large number of simultaneously operating systems of signs. We cannot go back to being as innocent and unknowing as children, but nor do we need to be naive in the sense of believing absolutely in one system and one system only. The aesthetic which Schutting presents in both his creative and his literary critical writings is a postmodern, language-linked aesthetic, which simultaneously is that of which it speaks. This aesthetic is reminiscent of Kraus, for whom 'die Gedanken und die Gedichte da waren vor den Dichtem und Denkem' (Kraus 1960b, 205). However, Schutting admits and demonstrates quite evidently that poems which have entered into their readers have undergone in them a certain transformation and enrichment. This exchange between reader and poet, between dead poet and living reading poet, which at one and the same time demonstrates the poetic method, embodies it, and turns it into a poem, forms in my opinion the essence of Schutting's work, of whose range and nature he himself is constantly becoming more aware. The last lines of the poem 'Gedichte sind Flugbl&tter' from Schutting's se­ cond collection (Li, 58; FB, 23) make a fitting conclusion to these observations. Schutting has transformed this programmatic statement into reality in and through these interpretations: was sonst kann Gegenstand des Gedichtes sein als die Frage, wie aus dem Gegenstand eines Gedichtes ein Gedicht werden kann was sonst kann die Aussage eines Gedichtes sein als die Nachricht, daB alles, was ausgesagt werden sollte, von dem Gedicht aufgebraucht worden ist.

208 — MIKE ROGERS

NOTES 1. 2.

Tauchubungen; Parkmord; Sistiana. 'Jene Aufierlichkeit, auf die es dem Gedanken hauptsdchlich ankommt', as Kraus put it when discussing the similarity between Wedekind and Nestroy: 'und es mud irgendwo einen gemeinsamen Standpunkt der Weltbetrachtung geben, wenn Satze gesprochen werden, die Nestroy so gut gesprochen haben konnte wie Wedekind' (Kraus 1960a, 230).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Schutting, Julian: In derSprache derlnseln, Otto Muller, Salzburg, 1973. (-S I). ------ : TauchQbungen, Residenz, Salzburg,1974. ------ : Parkmord, Residenz, Salzburg, 1975. ------ : Sistiana, Residenz, Salzburg, 1976. ------ : Uchtungen, Otto Muller, Salzburg, 1976. (=Li). ------ : Liebesgedichte, Residenz, Salzburg, 1982. ------ : Traumreden, Residenz, Salzburg, 1987. ------ : Zuhdrerbehelligungen, Droschl, Graz/Wien, 1990. ------ : FlugblStter, Otto Muller, Salzburg, 1990. (=FB). ------ : Wasserfarben, Residenz, Salzburg, 1991. ------ : Leserbeldstigungen, Droschl, Graz/Wien, 1993. (=LB).

Secondary Works Herzmann, Herbert 1992: 'Erinnerungsubungen — Zu den politischen Gedichten von Julian Schutting', Modem Austrian Literature, 25 (1992), 2, 57-70. Kraus, Karl 1960a: 'Nestroy und die Nachwelf in Kraus: Werke VIII, ed. by Fischer, K6sel, Munich. ------ 1960b: 'Heine und die Folgen' in Kraus: Werke VIII, ed. by Fischer, Kosel, Munich.

ILSE AICHINGER: THE POETICS OF SILENCE ANDREA R EITER

I Although Ilse Aichinger belongs to the older generation of the avant-garde in German literature her work is, in many respects, still at the forefront. In the age of postmodernism her writings are more modem than those of many of her younger colleagues. Only three years after the end of World War II, she published Die grdfiere Hoffhung (1948), a novel which Walter Jens once described as 'die einzige Antwort von Rang, die unsere Literatur der jungsten Vergangenheit gegeben hat'.1 Yet it has failed to receive the acclaim it deserves. Similarly, the impact of her essay'Aufruf zum MiBtrauen', published in 1946 in the Austrian postwar literary journal Plan, was limited even in literary circles.2 In it, Aichinger actively advo­ cated mistrust by the individual of him/herself; moreover, mistrust of language, which was to mark her poetology and her future work, is already latent in it. Aichinger herself locates the root of her apprehension in the Jewish fear created and fuelled by centuries of persecution (Moser 1990, 47). Furthermore it points to that tradition of Sprachskepsis, which Hugo von Hofmannsthal verbal­ ized in 'Em Brief (Brief des Lord Chandos') and which has since been consid­ ered a characteristic of Austrian literature (Weiss 1972b, 670). In the final analy­ sis, mistrust of language, which is also an expression of unease about a chaotic world, leads to silence. And it is this silence which Aichinger, inspired by the late poetry of Nelly Sachs, has been trying to perfect (KMF, 100). How, then, does she achieve this in her texts? Quantitatively speaking, the increasing reduction in her works is hard to miss. Die grdfiere Hoffhung remains her only novel. Longer early narratives gave way to shorter ones and so-called prose poems. Years passed between successive publications, which themselves are slim volumes. Even her diary notes between 1950 and 1985 confirm that, throughout all these years, Aichinger remained silent more often than she spoke (KMF, 36-83). She perceived even the act of writing as just another way of being silent (Moser 1990, 26). Aichinger's technique of reduction makes her later prose, at first sight, impenetrable. She is sceptical about well-defined terms and writes against easy consumption. She expects the reader to engage with the text, to make an effort.

210 — ANDREA REITER

Like Sachs in her mature poems, Aichinger 'ermutigt ihren genauen Leser immer wieder zu dem Versuch, seine Stummheit in Schweigen zu ubersetzen, in das engagierte Schweigen, ohne das Sprache und GesprSche nicht moglich sind' (KMF, 100). Aichinger, who admits that her understanding of her texts is no better than that of her readers, does at least make a suggestion as to how one could approach them: Ich lese sie so, wie ich etwas suche, das verlorengegangen ist, indem ich zuerst das Suchen suche, die Form zu suchen, und wenn ich es gefunden habe, merke ich, daB ich eigentlich die Form zu finden gefunden habe, im Fall des Textes, die Form zu lesen, und daB Lesen und Schreiben wie Suchen und Finden sich einander bis zur Identitfit nfihem konnen. (Moser 1990, 28).

Without pointing it out explicitly, Aichinger seems to think of her readers as co­ authors of her texts very much in keeping with the way that the 'act of reading' is described in reception theory. However, if the texts themselves leave the reader alone to a considerable degree, her 'poetological writings' do give some idea of her intentions — although it may well be that this term is too grand, for they are more or less hidden in texts which do not differ in genre from her narrative oeuvre. A substantial part of her prose work contains passages which can be interpreted in poetological terms. In two, however, poetological reflection clearly dominates the narrative background. II ■Meine Sprache ist eine, die zu Fremdwdrtem neigt. Ich suche sie mir aus, ich hole sie von weit her. Sie ist aber eine kleine Sprache. Sie reicht nicht weit. Rund um, rund um mich herum, immer rund um und so fort. Wir kommen gegen unseren Willen weiter' (MS, 219). These opening sentences of 'Meine Sprache und ich', which Aichinger wrote in 1968, recall Franz Kafka's Tdeine Literaturen' (Politzer 1983, 182), although she has allegedly never had the courage to get to know Kafka's work (KMF, 94). There is, however, a difference. While Kafka's term is rooted in his geographical and ethnic circumstances, Aichinger's is to be understood historically. Kafka, a German Jew living at the beginning of this century in Prague, belonged in a double sense to a minority; Aichinger's feeling of not belonging, on the other hand, is that of a survivor of the Holocaust. The allegorical plot of her text is set consistently at the frontier. Customs officials are mentioned, and identity papers. Language goes into exile and falls silent, nevertheless arousing suspicion. The first-person narrator, who/which is symbiotically bound to the language, tries to save the situation: 'Ich werde hier und dort einen Satz einflechten, der sie unverdachtig macht' (MS, 221). Although

AICHINGER’S POETICS OF SILENCE — 211

the first-person narrator no longer exerts herself as she used to (MS, 220), she nevertheless cares for the existential welfare of language, which/who, it is feared, might, together with its purple scarf, have lost its voice; this might mean the end of the conversation altogether. The course of Aichinger's poetological development can be recognized in this text. While Die grdfiere Hoffhung is still marked by ornamental language ('lila Schal'), in her later work she strives for a simple idiom. Hence, in a recent interview, she still accepts her first novel but says she would certainly not write it in the same way again (Moser 1990, 44). Where her language has ceased to shine, it has become a Tdeine Sprache'; it does tend to use the unusual word, one that does not lie close at hand, but still it does not lead on to anything beyond itself. It is the surprising context which shapes an Aichinger word. Wolfgang Hildesheimer puts it in a nutshell when he describes his illustration to Aichinger's narration 'Der Querbalken' in the following way: 'Abgegriffene, banale Dinge wurden benutzt, im Versuch, sie so zu fugen, daB etwas anderes, Neues, ein wenig Geheimnisvolles aus ihnen entstehe, das sie uber ihren ehemaligen Zweck [...] erhebe' (Moser 1990, 169) As with collage, the act of making stands at the centre, especially in Aichinger's more recent prose; and the act of making shows a close relationship with play, with which Aichinger has been fascinated from early in her literary career (KMF, 54). Her homage to Joseph Conrad shows just how deeply play with language has made its mark even on her poetology of silence: 'im Spiel sich selbst aus dem Spiel lassen. Das heifit, im Spiel mit den WOrtem seine eigene Lautlosigkeit in die ihre einbringen', and 'in dem Zeitalter, in dem alles erzahlt und nichts angehtirt wird, alles auf den Kopf stellen' (KMF, 83-84). Without explicitly saying so, Aichinger comes close to modem philo­ sophy of language, especially as represented in Ludwig Wittgenstein's theory of the language game. One of Aichinger's most rigidly executed 'games' is the 'Spiegelgeschichte', which, in 1954, earned her the Prize of the Gruppe 47. In it she recounts the life of a young woman, who is dying after an abortion that has gone tragically wrong, in reverse, that is from her death to her birth. The inverted chronology lends the stations of her life a new and sometimes unexpected significance. Five years on from 'Meine Sprache und ich' Aichinger redefined Tremdwfirter' qualitatively as 'Schlechte Worter1 (1973) (SW, 7-10): 'Ich gebrauche jetzt die besseren Wijrter nicht mehr'. Without allegorical circumlocution she now pleads for the 'Zweit- und Drittbeste', as 'das Beste (ist) geboten'. Orders, however, frighten her. This is also the reason why she does not want to be pinned

212 — ANDREA REITER

down, does not want to make connections and does not give definitions. The dif­ ference between her scepticism about language and that expressed by Hofmanns­ thal in 'Em Brief is obvious: While the author of the letter to Lord Chandos complains about the lost Tahigkeit [...] uber irgend etwas zusammenhangend zu denken oder zu sprechen', and the words decomposing 'im Munde wie modrige Pilze' (Hofmannsthal 1991, 48-49), Aichinger decides of her own accord to eschew establishing connections. Her work thus escapes the paradoxical tension which is latent in Hofmannsthal's 'Brief and still dominates, for example, Paul Celan's poetry: that is the 'Problematisierung der Sprache bis hin zum Verstummen und gerade in und aus dieser Lage der Aufbruch zu einer neuen, universalen Metaphorisierung' (Weiss 1972b, 670). Aichinger falls silent or at least gets close to it without, however, returning to metaphorical language. Silence for her is not a transitional state but the ultimate goal. Indeed, the idiosyncrasy of her language lies in her abjuration of symbolism (Schafroth 1978, 2). Already in her first novel, Aichinger instinctively avoids definitions and names; although the historical context of Die grdfiere Hoffhung is self-evident, nowhere do we find words and names that correspond to real events and people. Aichinger does not speak of Jews, but rather of children with four 'wrong' grand­ parents; nor does she refer explicitly to the Hitler Youth, but instead to young­ sters wearing uniforms and carrying daggers. The remaining poetological points, however, are not realized until her later work. There the avoidance of names is not so much at issue as a striving for the Urwort, that authentic utterance which is totally at one with its content. The last text in Kleist, Moos, Fasane, to date her latest publication, bears the title 'Schnee', one of the terms which in Aichinger's view are identical with themselves: 'Es gibt nicht viele Winter. Es gibt nicht viele, die nicht bezeichnen, womit sie eins sind, weil sie es nicht bezeichnen. Die nicht eins sind mit dem, was sie nicht bezeichnen, weil sie damit eins sind. Aber Schnee ist ein Wort' (KMF, 105). It becomes clear, as we read on, that this pecu­ liar passage, reminiscent of a syllogism, is in no sense an attempt at an explana­ tion: 'ich nickte zum Zeichen des Einverstandnisses, weil ich es nicht verstanden hatte. Ich hatte nur verstanden, dafi es kein Wort war'. Yet it does give a good illustration of the private character of Aichinger's poetology. Aichinger's option for vagueness, her choice of the 'second- and third-best', and her avoidance of anything prescribed as set out in her essay 'Schlechte Worter1make her part of literary modernity — with all that this implies: diffusion and incoherence in her prose serve the demolition of meaning. The characteristics o f modem prose listed by Jens Petersen are at the very heart of Aichinger's texts: 1) the sentences themselves have no meaning; 2) they often express the impossible;

AICHINGER’S POETICS OF SILENCE — 213

3) they do not relate to each another (Petersen 1993, 40-41). One consequence of the modernist demolition of meaning, which is rooted in the authentic experi­ ence of life's senselessness (especially after the Holocaust), is the changed reception. While traditional prose offers the reader textual and meta-textual in­ structions (e.g. irony) as to how to understand it, these are almost totally absent from Aichinger's late prose. Without orientation and guidance, the reader is left more often than not to her/his own devices, to find 'die Form des Suchens' alone. The qualitative difference between the two poetological texts mentioned above is noteworthy. Despite the short time span between their publication they differ fundamentally in tone and direction. It can hardly escape our notice how closely, that is even into verbal correspondences, Aichinger, in 'Schlechte W6rter', pursues a concept similar to that of the montage novel radicalized in Ger­ many since 1968 (Petersen 1991,312). However, in fact, Aichinger was ahead of her contemporaries. As early as 1952, at a meeting of the Gruppe 47, together with Ingeborg Bachmann, her compatriot, and Paul Celan, she represented anti­ naturalism in the widest sense and a new concept of form. In this she differed considerably from her German contemporaries, whose writings were character­ ized at that time by verism and neo-realism (Weiss 1972a, 444). With Meine Sprache und ich', she delivered, perhaps somewhat belatedly, a theoretical con­ sideration of this position. It was to be a further five years before she did away with the parabolic even in her essay writing. And it is significant that this happened under the influence of the theoretical works of such German poets as Helmut HeiBenbiittel (Ober Literatur, 1966) and Eugen Gomringer (Weiss 1972a, 459). In any case, she shares with the representatives of a modernist literary praxis the move away from traditional prose. Her scant diary notes from the year 1973 testify to this, demonstrating her unease at the world about her: Die Unfahigkeit zu leben bis zum Ende ausspielen. Keine Zeit, um genug Angst zu haben. Ich bin nicht mehr gefaBt darauf, geboren zu sein. Versuchen, in diesen todlichen Augenblicken zu Hause zu sein. (KMF, 75)

Moreover, each of these four short notes documents the intended or unintended overcoming of fear, as the vehicle of which we have to recognize the literary product. What these splinters of thought show once again is the individual cause of a crisis which is rooted in Aichinger's personal, private sphere — a fact which survived the theoretical reorientation of 1968-1973.

214 — ANDREA REITER

III I will now examine how Aichinger's 'Schlechte WOrter' manifest themselves in her prose work. The last story in the volume Schlechte Wdrter was written in 1975 and is called 'Wisconsin und Apfelreis'. The title itself is somewhat untypical. While place-names are not rare in the titles of Aichinger's texts, elsewhere in the collec­ tion they are the sole component of the title (T)over', Privas', 'Albany'). Here the place-name is linked and is coordinate with a categorically different term. Aichin­ ger, who, as we have seen, otherwise refuses to make connections, here establi­ shes a relationship which, at first sight, seems totally incomprehensible. And the hermeneutics of the two words does not reveal much either: a glance at the map of the United States shows Wisconsin, with its main city Madison, in the Mid­ west. A little effort of the imagination may establish a connection to 'Apfelreis' — via the Swedish-German immigrants who demographically dominate this agricul­ tural state (Lorenz 1981, 194); and one of the bigger towns is called Appleton. However, this information does not offer a better approach to the text, for, as with other stories with place-names in the title, a curious discrepancy opens up between the topographical precision and the utter vagueness of the narrative as a whole. This is similar to Aichinger's use of Biblical and historical names, such as Herod in an eponymously titled story written in 1962 and Diogenes in the story T)as FaB' (1965), both of which are included in the collection Meine Sprache und ich. She uses these names not in order to historicize the plot, but designs instead a whole new biography for them. Thus Herod is transferred to a mountainous region in Europe, where he shares a household with a local woman and a collec­ tion of wild and domestic animals, whilst Diogenes is turned into a sergeant in search of a barrel. Familiar figures are thus presented in a new light. Aichinger deals with place-names, which she claims inspire her to write, in a similarly unusual and highly idiosyncratic fashion (Moser 1990, 46). That they do not necessarily inspire her as topographical entities can be gathered from a remark she once made in an interview: "Wenn man einen Ort ganz emst nimmt, ger&t man an die Render dieses Ortes" (Kleiber 1984, 148). It is as phonetic and morphological units that place-names interest her, as is suggested in a more recent text, where she reflects on 'ver, das nicht nur die zweite Silbe des Wortes Dover ist' (KMF, 106). This derivation, which is, of course, not to be understood in etymological terms,3 casts a telling light on Aichinger's perception of language. Place-names, like other names, are used by her as raw material. The connections she makes between them and the contexts she builds around them are reminiscent of the techniques of collage. It is a process in which sound seems to be more

AICHINGER’S POETICS OF SILENCE — 215

decisive than meaning, chance more so than intention. Above all certainties are avoided. In 'Wisconsin and Apfelreis' this is even made explicit: 'Sicher sollte man auch weglassen. Alle Fragen und alle Sicherheiten' (SW 59) and 'Alles falsch. Aber doch nur an der Darstellung. Die Sache selbst stimmt' (SW, 60). Nor does Aichinger in any way try to reduce the ontological distance between the expression and its object, that is, to use Saussure's terms, between the signifier and the signified; instead she exploits it. It can be assumed from this that an analysis of the language may do more justice to Aichinger than the hermeneutic speculation that has hitherto been pre­ dominant in research into her work (Lorenz 1981,194; Kleiber 1984,148). In the attempt to determine one specific 'meaning' in her work, hermeneutic interpreta­ tion tends to misjudge its structure, which itself suggests ambiguity and openness (Petersen 1991, 42). This is why an analysis such as that by Bettina Knauer, who tries to pinpoint exhaustively the 'Jewish connection' in the story 'Eliza, Eliza', remains so curiously unsatisfactory (Knauer 1992). Hence the present approach to Aichinger will not strive to establish the only 'correct' interpretation, but rather to determine a mode of describing the complexity of her texts. The production of texts out of the material of language governs 'Wisconsin und Apfelreis' in a paricularly subtle fashion. A close examination reveals a net­ work of recurrent nouns and verbs whose limited range reminds us of Aichinger's concept of the 'kleine Sprache' that does not go far. As in other texts, the nodal points are banal things, which, moreover, are far-fetched. There is a grill: Apfel­ reis, a woman who tells the story, and a monastery in Wisconsin. They are loose­ ly connected by the action verb 'springen' and the corresponding noun 'Sprung / Spriinge'. Yet even when the relationship is eventually established en passant, it is already questioned: "Kann sein, dafi zuletzt nur mehr eins [...] bei diesen Sprungen mithalt' (SW 61). 'Springen', which at first is connected with 'Gatter' and 'Hader', is later connected with a numinous 'it'. In both cases the verb anthropo­ morphizes the objects. Instead of presenting logical connections, Aichinger relies on associations. This and other lyrical compositional principles have been pointed out be­ fore by Aichinger scholars (Lorenz 1981, 194). In 'Wisconsin und Apfelreis' we also find the strategic use of consonance, which preserves the author's interest in playing with words: 'nach Abschied riecht es. Nach Blei, Bleistiften [...] Es schmeckt auch so [...] [J]etzt haben wir das Blei auf der Zunge und den Apfelreis vor den Augen' (SW, 60). And every now and then the influence of musical struc­ tures, e.g. modulation, can be identified, although Aichinger never reaches the perfection of say a Thomas Bernhard in her use of them (Reiter 1990). While

216 — ANDREA REITER

Aichinger admires Bernhard's prose and considers it, along with Beckett's texts, an example of good contemporary literature (Moser 1990, 27), there is no evi­ dence that she reflect anywhere about Bernhard's musical syntax — nor does she talk about her own work in these terms. Indeed, compared with Bernhard, musi­ cal structures are not very predominant in Aichinger's prose.4 Yet the following quotation shows how she, too, utilizes musical syntax in a fashion comparable with Bernhard: Vielleicht kommt Wisconsin auch wieder, das Kloster und so fort. Vielleicht wird es doch heiBen diirfen. Vielleicht darf es heiBen. Das muB es heiBen diirfen. Sonst bleibt ja nichts. Vielleicht sollte dffentlich geschutzt werden. Kommt keiner auf die Idee. Die meisten mogens nicht. Kein Ding schiitzt es. Die Dame da oben hat keine Verwendung dafur. Fur die ist alles, was es ist. Und wie es ist. (SW 60-61)

The example demonstrates how modulation keeps its function of forming a trans­ ition between two unrelated spheres even in the literary text. The modulation signalled by 'vielleicht' (a term which, significantly, is thematically related to Aichinger's theory of indeterminacy), connects the monastery in Wisconsin with a reluctant general public and the lady, who has no intention of changing the situation either. Replacing Wisconsin with the exploited Ideine Geschirrspiilerinnen' reveals the social criticism of the passage. Unanswered, unanswerable questions, on which Aichinger's stories, espe­ cially later ones, occasionally end, are not least signs of the openness of her work. Thus 'Albany' ends as follows: 'wie heifit die Frage? Nein, nicht Albany' (SW, 47), and the narration Rachels Kleider', with Aichinger's own italics: 'Wie heifit die letzte Frage? Wie heifit sie? Ja. So heifit sie. Mein Wagen halt' (SW 58). In 'Wisconsin und Apfelreis', too, questions are asked; at the same time, however, they are set against a request that they be avoided: Lassen, lassen, die Fragen lassen!' (SW, 59). Aichinger's use of the question is significant for two reasons. In the first place, first it offers a hint as to how to interpret the text; this is reminiscent of Kafka, especially of the short narrative 'Von den Gleichnissen' (Kafka 1970, 359): the parable cannot be resolved. This points to the consensus that exists among Aichinger scholars, namely that her texts do not contain symbols and so have to be taken literally (Schafroth 1978, 2). Yet at the same time, secondly, Aichinger's use of the question leads us to Jewish writing and the significance which Judaism generally attaches to the question. It is not only the learned Chassidim who are known for answering a question with a counter-question, Jews generally, in Gershom Scholem's words, are the 'leidenschaftlichsten Frager der

AICHINGER’S POETICS OF SILENCE — 217

Welt' (Scholem 1973, 117). Yet Scholem also records the anecdote according to which one of the last Cabbalists had offered to teach a prospective pupil only on condition that he did not ask any questions. Thus it is precisely the Cabbala that offers 'erzahlende(s), aber nicht mehr fragende(s) Denken'. However, where the posing of questions stops, dialogue, too, quickly comes to an end. Hence it is only consistent that 'Wisconsin und Apfelreis' should tend towards monologue. While a narrator occasionally addresses a 'you', the latter's reactions are not documented and are only in part reconstructible from the words addressed to her/him: 'Lafi sie' and, more insistently, Du sollst sie lassen', or in the labelling that recalls 'Meine Sprache und ich': 'Du bist ein Horcher, ein Aushorcher' (SW 61). Thus the story presents a situation in which one person talks — incessantly, as if to save her life. The other, the Du', is merely implied. To the extent that it is conceived as a spoken text, the story may be seen to have a certain similarity with Aichinger's radio plays. Other prose texts, too, show this relationship; indeed, some of them become accessible only when read as radio plays transformed into prose. This is especially noticeable in the narra­ tion Der Engel' (1963) (MS, 154-160), where a kind of stage direction is sepa­ rated by italics from the main body of the text, which starts: 'Stolpemd Ring- und Kupferschmiede! Diese Langweiler [...]' (MS, 154). In 'Wisconsin und Apfelreis', the ductus of spoken language also governs the grammar. Although a few verbs occur in the past tense, the majority denoting past action are in the present per­ fect. This gives the impression of orality, at least as customary in Austria: thus locating the text in the sphere of talking. Otherwise the present tense, the tense made available for narrative texts by the nouveau roman, prevails in the text (Petersen 1991, 333), allowing the reader to be as immediately involved with the narrator's experience as possible. Deictic expressions of time such as 'jetzt' and 'da' underline this simultaneousness. Aichinger also draws on grammatical aberration, a common device in mo­ dernist prose. She does away with the logical connections traditionally estab­ lished by the correct use of grammar. The regulative potential of grammar in our daily life was exposed in the 1960s by authors such as Peter Handke and Gert Jonke, who turned it into a structural principle in the literary text (Weiss 1972b, 444). While Handke, and to some extent Jonke, have since moved on to a remetaphorized literary language and are thus, in a way, following in Hofmanns­ thal's footsteps (Weiss 1972b, 670), Aichinger still dreads the prescriptive poten­ tial of grammar. It continues to be the case that anything regulated frightens her (see SW, 9). Although, obviously, she cannot neglect grammar entirely, she frees herself from it at strategic points, and this deviance is at its most obvious in her

218 — ANDREA REITER

use of the verb. Thus the author instrumentalizes the infinite forms of the verb (infinitive and participles) in an idiosyncratic fashion in order to create unclear circumstances. Although in principle the substitution of infinitives for impera­ tives, as in 'Lassen, lassen, die Fragen lassen', is correct, it is through the syntax that Aichinger estranges this form. Commonly, when the infinitive replaces the imperative in highly determined situations, such as traffic signs or cookery reci­ pes, the verb typically follows the determinants: Hechts fahren', 'Milch und Eier mischen' (Weinrich 1993, 279-280). Aichinger, whose aim is indeterminacy, lets the infinitive verb come first and even emphasizes its position by doubling it. Word repetitions, which are reminiscent of the poetic ductus, not only create pathos (Staiger 1983), the context often changes the meaning of the second oc­ currence as well, as in the following example: 'was aus dem Hader noch alles entstehen kann. Kann alles mdgliche' (SW 59). The elliptical character of the latter sentence keeps it undecided whether Icann' is to be understood as a modal or as a main verb in the sense of 'to be capable of, to know'. Interpreting it as a main verb causes an allegorization of 'Hader' as the sentences's only possible subject. Often Aichinger's sentences dispense with the verb altogether. The missing agency in the period causes a static, timeless image: 'Bilder, eine kalifomische Lady beim Erzahlen, Apfelreis' (SW, 59). This is, however, contradicted on the level of content, where movement is periodically evoked. Right at the beginning of the narrative the narrator wonders: 'Welche Richtung fahren wir eigentlich?' Not only does she betray her Austrian connection by the added address 'Euer Gnaden', she also answers the question herself: 'Nun, wir fahren selbstverstSndlich diese Richtung. Fluflabwarts. Es scheint doch alles an uns zu liegen' (SW 59). The last sentence gains its full significance only in the second part of the text, where movement is withdrawn from the speaker and attributed instead to fate: 'Wie rasch sich alles auf uns zu bewegt, was sich auf uns zu bewegt' (SW, 61). Even negation does not produce a clear picture. Juxtaposed with their pos­ itive opposites, these sentences express vagueness and undecidedness. The nega­ tion of what has just been stated, as in D a hinten stiirzt es ganz schdn steil ab. Oder nicht' (SW 61), testifies once more to Aichinger's familiarity with Jewish mysticism. Phrases of a similar kind are, according to Scholem, characteristic of the book Sohar, a kind of bible of the Cabbalists (Scholem 1973,121). In it, sen­ tences such as 'something is and is not' do not mean that something 'is half, as in the Talmud, but 'daB etwas auf eine besonders spirituelle Weise existiert und daher nicht richtig beschrieben werden kann' (Scholem 1980, 183). Aichinger, too, seems to use this paradoxical expression; it was also used by Kafka to point at a

AICHINGER’S POETICS OF SILENCE — 219

special kind of abyss, e.g. in Der Bau' (Reiter 1987, 29). Aichinger's belief that contradictions offer space for the inexpressible is relevant here. Referring to the graphical works of her sister, Helga Michie, she once said: 'Ich weifi nur eines [...] daB ihre Weite und ihre Geschlossenheit so betr&chtlich sind, dafi ich den Trost aus dieser UntrOstlichkeit holen kann'. She ends with apodeictic conviction: *Es ist r&tselhaft, woher der Trost aus diesen Bildem kommt, aber er kommt' (KMF, 101). The impression that the drawings leave on the viewer cannot be ex­ plained, only experienced and felt. The enigmatic element which Aichinger de­ tects in her sister's art work is also inherent in her own writings, and paradox is just one form it takes, as in the following example: D a sind wir dann in die Wahl eingetaucht, die wir nie hatten, keuchend, schnupfend, gurgelnd, aber wir sind drin' (SW, 62). What seems, at first sight, to be a metaphor, is to be taken literal­ ly. The seemingly symbolic 'Eintauchen' of the first part of the sentence is marked as actual by the present participles Tceuchend, schnupfend, gurgelnd', while the following sentence, which is introduced by the adversative conjunction 'aber', keeps it undecided whether it is to be taken symbolically or actually. Paradox, as used here for poetical ends, bears some relationship to negation in Jewish mysti­ cism. It, too, is used as a measure to express the otherwise inexpressible. Even well-known sayings and proverbs are frequently subjected to paradoxical usage, are given a new face by their discursive integration into the text, or by slight modification. Thus they, too, are deployed in the author's striving for expressibility and the unclear (where the unclear aids expression), as shown in the follow­ ing sentence, in which the grammatically incorrect use of the subjunctive already acts as a signal. Die [the lady; AR] soil keiner auf ihren finsteren Kopf stellen, sonst fiele sie um' (SW 61). While the saying 'vom Kopf auf die Fufle stellen' de­ notes the transferral from the theoretical sphere to the practical, and often implies anti-intellectual criticism, its opposite 'auf den Kopf stellen' means to turn some­ thing the wrong way up. Here, Aichinger not only combines the meanings of both idioms, she also extends them by the qualitative statement 'finster'.

IV As the example of 'Wisconsin und Apfelreis' demonstrates, Ilse Aichinger's prose does justice to her poetological concepts and creates (in Umberto Eco's sense) eminently open, i.e. modem, texts. Not least, she is influenced by Jewish mysti­ cism. Since, to my knowledge, Aichinger does not mention the Cabbala any­ where as one of her models, only admitting the influence of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, her familiarity with Jewish mysticism probably comes through the work of Nelly Sachs, whose indebtedness to the Hebrew scriptures is known

220 — ANDREA REITER

(Thuswaldner 1978). The rediscovery by German and Austrian writers of their Jewishness in answer to the increasing threat of racial anti-Semitism in the inter­ war years has been well documented — and not only for them (Muller-Salget 1993). Yet only few instrumentalized the Jewish tradition with the intention of finding a modernist idiom (Botstein 1992). It is not only through violating logic that Aichinger creates the unclear and the vague, but also through adapting gram­ mar and syntax to her needs. Aichinger's texts, most of which cannot be pinned down to one meaning (only her early texts tell a somewhat recountable story), are, nevertheless, meaningful. At the very least they convey the author's utter un­ easiness about the world she lives in. By offering nothing definite or conclusive, they also activate the reader's imagination to such a degree that she or he becomes, in the true sense, co-producer of the text.

NOTES: 1. 2. 3.

4.

Jens 1966, quoted by Schafroth. For a discussion of the unbroken prevalence of anti-modernity in Austrian postwar liter­ ature see Muller 1990. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (1960) gives as the roots for Dover DOBRA from DUBRO- (water). Thus the name means 'the stream' Among others the dictionary gives the following historical forms for the first millenium after Christ: Dubris, Dofras, Dobrum. This is despite Gisela Lindemann's suggestion that Die grORere Hoffnung should be read as a 'suite'; see Lindemann 1988.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Aichinger, Ilse: Kleist, Moos, Fasane, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1987. (=KMF). ------ : Meine Sprache und ich. Erzdhlungen, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1984. (=MS). ------ : Schlechte W6rter, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1976. (=SW).

Secondary Works Heinz Ludwig Arnold (ed.) 1978: Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, edition text+kritik, Munich (1978-). Backes, Herbert (ed.) 1972: Festschrift fiirHans Eggers zum 65. Geburtstag, Niemeyer, Tubingen. Botstein, Leon 1992: 'Arnold Schoenberg: Language, Modernism and Jewish Identity' in Wistrich 1992, 162-183. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 1960 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von 1991: Sdmtliche Werke XXXI: Erfundene Gesprdche und Briefe ed. by Ellen Ritter, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. Horch, Hans Otto and Denkler, Horst (eds) 1993: Conditio Judaica, Dritter Teil: Judentum, Antisemitismus und deutschsprachige Literatur vom Ersten Weltkrieg bis 1933/1938', Niemeyer, Tubingen.

AICHINGER'S POETICS OF SILENCE — 221 Jens, Walter 1966: Deutsche Uteratur der Gegenwart. Themen, Stile, Tendenzen, Piper, Munich. Kafka, Franz 1970: SSmtliche Erz&hlungen, ed. by Paul Raabe, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. Kleiber, Carine 1984: Use Aichinger. Leben und Werk, Lang, Beme/Frankfurt am Main/New York. Knauer, Bettina 1992: 'Der Text als Entfaltung des Namens. Use Aichingers Erzfthlung "Eliza, Eliza"*, Sprachkunst. Beitr&ge zur Uteraturwissenschaft, 23 (1992), 2 ,2 4 5 265. Lindemann, Gisela 1988: llse Aichinger, Beck, Munich. Lorenz, Dagmar 1981: llse Aichinger, AthenSum, KOnigstein/Ts. Moser, Samuel (ed.) 1990: llse Aichinger. Materialien zu Leben und Work. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. Muller, Karl 1990: Zdsuren ohne Folgen. Das lange Leben der Antimodeme Osterreichs seit den 30er Jahren, Otto Muller, Salzburg. Muller-Salget, Klaus 1993: '"Herkunft und Zukunft". Zur Wiederentdeckung des Judentums in den zwanziger Jahren (Arnold Zweig, Ddblin, Feuchtwanger)' in Horch/Denkler 1993, 260-277. Petersen, Jurgen H. 1991: Der deutsche Roman der Modeme. Grundlegung, Typologie, Entwicklung, Metzler, Stuttgart. ------ 1993: Erz&hlsysteme. Eine Poetik epischer Texte, Metzler, Stuttgart. Politzer, Heinz (ed.) 1983: Franz Kafka. Eine innere Biographie in Selbstzeugnissen, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. Reiter, Andrea 1987: 'Franz Kafkas autobiographische ErzShlungen "Der Bau" und "Forschungen eines Hundes"', Sprachkunst. Beitr&ge zur Uteraturwissenschaft, 18 (1987), 1, 21-38. ------ 1990: 'Thomas Bernhard's "Musical Prose"’ in Williams et al. 1990,187-207. Schafroth, Heinz F. 1978: 'Use Aichinger*, in Arnold 1978, 2 Scholem, Gershom 1973: Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. ------ 1980: Die jOdische Mystik in ihren HauptstrOmungen, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Staiger, Emil 1983: Grundbegriffe der Poetik, dtv, Munich. Thuswaldner, Anton 1978: 'Nelly Sachs’, in Arnold 1978. Weinrich, Harald 1993: Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache, Dudenverlag, Mannheim. Weinziert, Erika and Skalnik, Kurt (eds) 1972: Osterreich. Die Zweite Republik, 2 vols, Styria, Graz/Vienna/Cologne. Weiss, Walter 1972a: 'Literatur' in Weinzierl/Skalnik 1972, II, 439-476, 642-647. ------ 1972b: 'Zur Thematisierung der Sprache in der Literatur der Gegenwart* in Backes 1972, 669-693. Williams, Arthur, Parkes, Stuart, and Smith, Roland (eds) 1990: Literature on the Threshold. The German Novel in the 1980s, Berg, New York/Oxford/Munich. Wistrich, Robert (ed.) 1992: Austrians and Jews in the Twentieth Century. From Franz Joseph to Waldheim, St. Martin's Press, New York.

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN ROBERT SCHNEIDER'S NOVEL SCHLAFES BRUDER OSMAN DURRANI

I Reception After a period of neglect during the first two postwar decades, the historical novel has been enjoying increasing favour among German authors and critics in recent years. Studies by Ralph Kohpeifi and Hugo Aust have shown that the overwhelming majority of these novels do not seek to reproduce their factual sources, but extrapolate from them and use a carefully researched background rich in seemingly authentic details as the basis for imaginative works which tend to undermine the reader's expectations of a reasoned, linear discourse (Kohpeifi 1993, 65-78; Aust 1994). Novels of this type include Wolfgang Hildesheimer's biographies of Mozart and Marbot, Patrick Suskind's Das Parfum, and Die letzte Welt by the Austrian writer Christoph Ransmayr.1 It was against the background of such texts that the reviewers placed the slim first novel of a hitherto unknown 30-year-old writer from Meschach in deepest Vorarlberg who, after a failed attempt at the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize and more than twenty unsuccessful attempts at finding a publisher, finally landed a contract with Reclam Leipzig and went on to prove that it was possible, even without the benefit of expensive, attention-seeking advertisements in the Feuilleton sections of the highbrow press, to sell 40,000 copies of a new novel in a matter of weeks, given a suitably haun­ ting picture on the cover and a terse description of its purpose: T)as ist die Ge­ schichte des Musikers Johannes Elias Alder, der 22jahrig sein Leben zu Tode brachte, nachdem er beschlossen hatte, nicht mehr zu schlafen' (SB, 7). Thus the cover and thus the first sentence of the book. Then came the reviews, which tended to portray its author’s arrival on the literary scene as a 'spectacular' event: 'ein spektakulares Debut' (Martin Doeriy in Der Spiegel), with the Frankfurter Allgemeine's Frank Schirrmacher managing to be only slightly more restrained when speaking of 'dieser fast spektakular gut erz&hlten Geschichte'.2 Parallels were drawn, not only almost passim with Das Parfum, but with a whole host of other texts both classical and modem: with Goethe's Werther (Hermann Wallmann, Suddeutsche Zeitung), Mann's Doktor Faustus (Schirrmacher, Frankfurter

224 — OSMAN DURRANI

Allgemeine Zeitung), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Wochenpost) and even with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Volker Wieckhorst, Rheinischer Merkur). And yet there were also questions as to what might be the point of it all. Was this perhaps a calculated attempt to ride on the crest of a vogue for a new type of 'time-machine' novels? Doerry, in Der Spiegel, again: Die Zeitmaschine halt den literarischen Markt in Schwung, sie reifit die Leser mit — um sie am Ende aber ratios auszuspucken. Denn was will Schneider iiberhaupt erzahlen? Will er wirklich eine romantische Hymne auf die ewige Liebe singen?' (Doeny 1992, 261-262). It would be a little too simple to couple a depiction of the Romantic period (time as narrated runs from 1803 to 1825) with a paean to romantic adoration. If the book is to stand the test of time, it will have to offer qualities that possess lasting appeal, in contrast, perhaps, to Siiskind's bestseller, which was quickly dismissed as 'ein Kabinettstiick blofi und kein Meisterstiick', or: *Kein Buch jedenfalls, das man in der Hoffhung ein zweites Mai lesen wiirde, ihm noch tiefere Geheimnisse entlocken zu kflnnen' (Hage 1986, 10). Doerry himself emphasizes the visionary, indeed the drug-like qualities of the book: Teem Thema, aber eine Attitude. Indem Schneider sich so furios in seine Bilderwelt versteigt und seinen Helden vergdttert, befriedigt er das allgemeine Bediirfhis nach dem ultimativen Kick [...] Dieser Roman wird wie eine Droge wirken' (Doerry 1992,262). Again and again the reviewers returned to the narrative style, agreeing that here at last was a work that could be regarded as coming close to perfection in this respect: 'Er ist erzahltechnisch perfekt gebaut' (Schmidt 1992). Much of the novel's striking effect was put down to the linguistic means which Schneider em­ ploys in it, although the critics seem unable to agree on a possible definition of its style. Doerry emphasizes 'verwirrende Kraft und zuweilen atemberaubende Eleganz', which he puts down to a fusion of modem elements with others more fami­ liar from the nineteenth century: 'Satzbau und Wortwahl streben zuriick ins 19. Jahrhundert — und sind dennoch von Modernismen durchsetzt. Eben noch bedient sich der Autor der Vorarlberger Mundart, da sturzt schon eine Kaskade von Fremdwortem durch den nachsten Absatz' (Doerry 1992,261). The breathtaking qualities of this tour de force are stressed by nearly all who read the book and agreed that it was: Iconzessionslos durchgefuhrt vom An­ fang bis zum Ende, in der angespannten und wild raffenden Sprache' (von Matt 1992). Several reviewers pursued the question of Schneider's linguistic virtuosity further, establishing parallels not only with Peter Handke and Goethe, as men­ tioned above, but even with Immanuel Kant ('Was ist Aufklarung?'). Hermann Wallmann proclaimed that the innovative power of this novel lay entirely in its language, rather than in plot or structure: Die Zumutung, die Robert Schneider

SCHNEIDER: NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION — 225

riskiert, ist keine der Struktur, sondem eine der Sprache, eine (linguistisch gesprochen:) des "Registers", fur das er sich entscheidet und das er mit unbeirrbarer Sicherheit 'durchh<' (Wallmann 1992). Was this a new from of Expressionism, as Beatrice von Matt claimed: Dem entspricht der neuexpressionistische Sprachgestus, auch wenn er oft gef&hrlich uberanstrengt wird. Verfuhrerisch und von flackemder Attraktivitat sind Schneiders Absolutsetzungen in diesem hinterwaldlerischen Arkadien von schwfrzestem Aussehen' (von Matt 1992)? Or was it rather a kind of Impressionism that heralded a new fin de siecle, as Thomas Rietzschel put it in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: fUnd womiiglich sind Bu­ cher wie das von Robert Schneider schon bald einem neuen Impressionismus, einem neuen Fin de siecle zuzurechnen. Jedenfalls haben sie eher mit der Kunst denn mit dem Leben zu tun, insofera das Handeln der Figuren bezogen wird auf das ihrer literarischen Vorfahren' (Rietzschel 1992)? Or was this novel, as only a few heretics dared to opine, ruined by authorial interventions and numerous 'Plattheiten und Bildbruche'?3 II Social and Linguistic Background The environment into which Johann Elias Alder is bom could hardly be less favourable to the development of an original musical talent. Eschberg is a remote village in which incest, superstition, brutality, and pig-headedness combine to produce a cultural miasma from which no talented individual could expect to emerge unscathed. There are two families, the Lamparters and the Alders, whose members display all the characteristics of in-breeding, 'den uberdehnten Kopf, die geschwellte Unterlippe im tiefliegenden Kinn' (SB, 10). More often than not, they signal their emotions through noises rather than words, 'briillend, hshnend, und weinend' when in distress (SB, 9), and emitting 'Lachen und Johlen’ in their hap­ pier moments (SB, 20). For these people, laughter is always an indicator either of malice or of insanity. The womenfolk are given to expressing themselves via the monotonous incantatory tones of their unending ’Rosenkranzgesausel1 (SB, 20), or, if they have to speak, it is to spread gossip, for which reason several of those who feature in the narrative are not referred to by name, but merely as 'ein Aldersches PlappermauT or 'ein Lampartersches Plappermaul' (SB, 22, 59, 78, 92, etc.). A solemn promise not to repeat a juicy story regularly implies that the whole village will be informed within a week (SB, 39). Even the curate suggests that words, including those preached by himself from his own pulpit, are best not taken at face value: 'es sei doch um Dreifaltigkeitswillen nicht alles bar zu nehmen, was ein Pfarrer von der Kanzel predige' (SB, 22).

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Reviewers have frequently commented on Schneider's ability to sum up a person's life in a single telling sentence. An example is provided by Erich Hackl in Die Zeit: Mit einem einzigen Satz erfaBt Schneider ein ganzes Menschenleben: "Kurator Beuerlin war ein gutmutiger, diirrer und sehr langnasiger Herr"' (Hackl 1992). While it is debatable whether a single sentence of this type can encompass 'an entire human life', there are certainly a number of human features to which Schneider returns with some insistence in order to throw his central cha­ racter into prominence. One of these is the human mouth. It is referred to in com­ pound formulations that point to functions other than the provision of rational dis­ course: Plappermaul' is one, ’KarpfenmauT another (SB, 165, 172). This word is repeatedly associated with the musicologist Friedrich FQrchtegott Bruno Goller, who is 'struck dumb' by a mixture of surprise and jealousy when he perceives the village prodigy's unexpected musical talent, and can only stammer and gasp when in his presence. The congregation in Feldberg are seen stuffing their mouths with food while waiting for Elias to perform: 'Andere [...] packten Wurst- und Selleriebrote aus ihren Taschen und stopften die Wegzehrung pietatlos in ihre Mauler. Die Damen hdheren Standes aber schn&belten gelangweilt an saftig-siifien Erdbeeren' (SB, 170); hence the reference to wide open (and full) 'Brotmauler' when the prodigy finally begins to play (SB, 172). Within the community of Eschberg, it would appear that verbal communication is regularly debased either into meaningless mumbling or into a strident, malicious trading of insults and ru­ mours. When the villagers do manage to formulate a point of view, it tends to be repeated verbatim, as if the linguistic construction, once achieved, is too precious to abandon. Joseph Alder registers his son's abnormality at birth with the phrase 'Gottverreckt mit dem Bub ist etwas falsch' (SB, 27), and years later this is still his standard comment about the boy (SB, 31). The educated class shares this tendency; priests are heard repetitively muttering 'um Dreifaltigkeitswillen' or 'Teufel-Teufel' (SB, 22, 25, 83), and Goller repeats his pet phrase 'in Caciliens Namen' (SB, 159, 161). If they wish to emphasize a point, the villagers add the quaintly macaronic 'Siket erat et prinzipius in nunk und semper1to their words of wisdom (SB, 64, 97, 116). But their culture obliges them to avoid using words when possible. Thus stone-throwing seems to have become the standard means of attracting someone's attention (SB, 139, 191). Of some, the narrator states that their words were never reported or were of no interest. In the case of Elias's bro­ ther Fritz, this indifference is taken to the following extremes, with the author ex­ posing the fiction of his own narrating authority: 'Aus dem Mund des Fritz Alder ist uns kein einziges Wort iiberliefert. Ware eines iiberliefert, es interessierte uns nicht' (SB, 49).

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Verbal communication within the community is replaced by acts of vio­ lence. When Elias's mother suggests various ways of quietly 'losing* their 'posses­ sed' child, her husband makes no reply other than to punch her in the face with such vigour that her jaw is dislocated. This cutting example of a refusal to engage in dialogue effectively underlines the silence of both parties: the husband who will not and the wife who is no longer able to speak: 'da schlug Sefif ihr die Faust so gewaltig ins gottverreckte Maul, dafi die Kinnlade auskegelte. Von da an wurde zwangsl&ufig nichts mehr tiber den Jungen geredet, und als die Seffin wieder sprechen konnte, hatte sie den Mut am Leben verloren' (SB, 39-40). The attitude of the villagers towards their children is one of total indiffe­ rence: Tvlan sorgte sich in Eschberg iiberhaupt nicht um seine Kinder' (SB, 30). Until they attract attention, after which they receive 'Maulschellen, Ohrfeigen und Stockhiebe' (SB, 40), or 'blutige Priigel' (SB, 44). But an explanation of sorts is offered: the horrors that most of them live through are such that words are not adequate to express their grief and shock. A prime example is supplied by the young Elias, who clandestinely witnesses his father's complicity in the murder of the woodcarver Roman Lamparter, and, unable to speak openly about it, dis­ plays, or rather represses, his feelings in the following manner: 'Tiefgurrende Laute entglitten ihm ungewollt, und er stopfte sich die halbe Faust in den Mund, bifi die Zahne ins Fleisch, auf dafi es endlich voriibergehe [...] Schliefilich brachte er sich selber in Ohnmacht, indem er die Arme gegen den Brustkorb stemmte und keinen Atem mehr schOpfte' (SB, 85). It is an act of self-denial that arises from frustration and prefigures his suicide. Again and again, we find people simply un­ able to communicate their opinions or emotions to each other through language. When overawed by Elias's mastery of the church organ, Peter, we are told, 'brachte kein Wort heraus' (SB, 95). Words themselves, by contrast, serve mainly to spread lies, as is shown by the ’PlappermauT (SB, 78), by Nulf Alder's unchar­ acteristically verbose account of what happened to the woodcarver (SB, 86), by Peter's devious schemes (SB, 130) and by the verbal instructions given to the wo­ man in moonlight (SB, 121-127; cf. Dabei hatte sie doch nur dem Wort vertraut', 127). Elias's friendship with Peter is signalled entirely without words: *Elias wischte sich den Mund, bewegte die Lippen, wollte reden. Sie schwiegen. Und wieder bebten Elias' Lippen, er mufite reden, mufite ihm wenigstens ein Wort ge­ ben, ein Wort. Sie schwiegen' (SB, 86).4 Much the same thing had been observed during his birth, when the tedi­ ously rambling thoughts of the midwife were punctuated no fewer than four times by a one-line paragraph signalling his mother's labour pains: Die Seffin gellte vor Schmerzen' (SB, 13-15). Elias's fateful inability to reveal his feelings to Elsbeth

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is presented within exactly the same narrative structure: Elsbeth's conjectures about her strange companion are again punctuated four times by the phrase 'Elias saB schweigend auf dem Bock' (SB, 136-138), as if to contrast the blunt inaccuracy of word-based formulations with the silent gestures that accompany the deeper emotions. It is also worth noting that this scene, in which few words are actually exchanged CElias und Elsbeth sprachen kaum zwei Worte'; SB, 135), ends with Elsbeth's fainting fit, brought on in part by her unspoken thoughts about Elias, in part probably also by her impending pregnancy, and so gives another telling demonstration of 'body language' that proves far more revealing than all her thoughts and speculations.

Ill Religion The spiritual life of Eschberg is presided over by a senile curate named Fridolin Beuerlein, a man so confused that he frequently mixes up the Christmas and Eas­ ter liturgies (SB, 72, 110). Religion plays a major part in the villagers' lives, but very largely in the form of a kind of warped demonology (Hysteric'; SB, 56), which inclines them towards belief in superstitions, witchcraft, and practices which are indicative of a fierce intolerance of outsiders or of any insiders who show signs of deviating from the norm. These themes have their precedents in literature dealing with rural Austria.3 In contrast to the monosyllabic mumblings of the villagers, the curate Elias Benzer is introduced as a man of unusual rhetori­ cal powers ('ein Mann von groBen rednerischen Talenten'; SB, 18). But where one might expect sense, wisdom, mercy, and love, one finds a largely hollow rhe­ toric, shaped by unsavoury emotions. Benzer originates from a well-known 'Bollwerk des Aberglaubens und der DSmonerei', and the moving force behind his en­ try into the priesthood was the witnessing of witch-trials during the previous century: 'Darum wuBte er von der letzten Hexenverfeuerung im Vorarlbergischen zu berichten, die er noch als Kind mit eigenen Augen gesehen hatte. Dieses gewaltige Erlebnis wurde zum Grundpfeiler seiner Theologie schlechthin' (SB, 18). This curate, in whom we are directed to see Johann Elias Alder's real father, is famous for his inflammatory sermons, but even his considerable powers of persuasion eventually let him down, and he has to resort to a more immediate means of impressing his message upon his congregation. He does this by explod­ ing a barrel of gunpowder during a Whit Sunday service, blinding, deafening, and injuring many in the process: a tactic devised in the interests of spreading the Word of God by non-verbal means. The itinerant preacher known by the elabor­ ate pseudonym of Corvinius Feldau von Feldberg is another such fanatic whose sermons are entirely dominated by personal obsessions of a rather unsavoury

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nature. It is he who speaks the fatal words '"Wer schlaft, liebt nicht"1, although paradoxically collapsing into unconsciousness himself at this very point (SB, 101). Religious festivities are regularly associated with alcohol abuse. On Trinity Sunday the consecration of the church is celebrated, TJnd an keinem Tag trank man so wiist in sich hinein als eben am Kirchweihtag' (SB, 46). Religious devotion, when encountered, takes the form of bizarre rituals re­ calling pagan rather than Christian practices. Elias's mother's penance is typical: [Sie] setzte Kroten brennende Kerzen auf, suhlte sich nackt im Herbstlaub, lieB Mistk&fer uber ihren Bauch krabbeln, verstopfte ihre Scham mit Lehm und schnitt sich zuletzt Fleisch aus ihrer linken Wange heraus. Das trug sie dann auf einem Kissen feierlich zum Kirchlein hiniiber, breitete die Reliquie auf dem Altar des HI. Eusebius, welcher angeblich auch ein Stuck eigenen Fleisches vom Bresnerberg zum Viktorsberg getragen haben soil. (SB, 48)

Her devotion is rewarded; her prayer for a mongoloid child is promptly fulfilled (SB, 49). This might give rise to the impression that a cruel and arbitrary God is at work in the village, who torments the villagers with repeated catastrophes, es­ pecially fires. Yet the narrator adopts a more conciliatory position, speaking of Jesus as the great lover (SB, 12) and of Johann Elias Alder's history as the work­ ing out of a divine plan ('Gott war noch lange nicht fertig mit ihm'; SB, 76). An opinion formulated more than once is that men were not meant to live in these re­ mote, inaccessible places, hence the punishment for failing to recognize 'daB Gott dort den Menschen me gewollt hatte' (SB, 8,74,200). From the outset, the young Elias is given many Christ-like attributes. His two fathers, one religious, the other secular, his unimaginable sensitivity, his un­ ending love, his early trials and temptations, and his disciple and betrayer (Peter), are some of the most obvious ones. His talent first manifests itself in public on Easter Sunday 1820, and although his music is by his own admission often in­ spired by a woman, there can be little doubt that it displays genuine religious feeling: hence the peasants' terrified response to the disturbing effect of the All Souls' prelude (SB, 116). While the image of'sleep as the brother of death' is not directly of Biblical origin, the young man's resolve to stay awake when others sleep clearly does have a precedent in Jesus's injunction to his followers to wake with him on the eve of his crucifixion, and their inability to do so. His death is a martyrdom ('des Martyrers'; SB, 194); its site a holy place (SB, 106-107.). His own beliefs are strong, though in some respects closer to pantheism than to con­ ventional Christianity (SB, 117). After his rejection by Elsbeth, conveyed to him by Peter, he curses God (Du Ungott'; SB, 141), but at the very apex of his de­ spair becomes aware of a beautiful child with a bandaged head. As soon as he

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tries to speak, the child's head-wound begins to bleed: Der Mund dffiiete sich qualvoll, wollte sprechen und vermochte es nicht. Da mufite Elias sehen, wie der schwarze Flecken an der Schlafe zu glitzem anfing, wie sich um den Flecken ein nasser Hof ausbreitete. Die Wunde hatte zu bluten begonnen. Das Kind qu<e sich noch immer, suchte zu sprechen, allein, es gelang ihm nicht' (SB, 146). The figure of the child seems to replicate Elias's position in two respects. Despite its divine appearance (an impression which is supported by the absence of a navel) it is bound by an inability to express itself through words. Whenever it opens its mouth to speak, it is assailed by an indescribable agony, and is con­ sequently unable to utter a word. This reproduces the composer's own inability to speak of his love to Elsbeth, and also anticipates the torments which Elias takes upon himself when he resolves to die, when 'das Sprechen' is once again asso­ ciated with 'Qual' (SB, 192). IV Music and the Language of Signs The villagers have little time for or interest in music. When they sing in church, the sounds are indistinguishable from drunken revelry: 'die Bauem [grdlten] das Tedeum so ausgelassen, als s&igen sie schon ein Trink- oder Wanderlied' (SB, 47). The only villager with a knowledge of music is Uncle Oskar, the 'trefflicher Spielmann Gottes', whose ability lags far behind his sensitivity, as in Grillparzer's Der arme Spielmann which is thrice alluded to by name (SB, 64-65, 112). Initially, the young Elias uses his powerful voice to frighten off his assail­ ants. When the children of the village come to stand under his window and try to taunt him with names like 'Gelbteufel' on account of his yellow eyes,6 he utters a terrifying scream: '[Er] stiefi einen derart bnillenden Schrei hinab auf die KOpfe, dafi auf der Stelle alles in heulender Angst davonstob' (SB, 41). The barbaric 'cures' with which his elders experiment are eventually stopped not by reasoned argument or a sense of compassion, but by a deafening noise: '[Als] sich die Weiber anschickten, es mit einer abermals neuen Kur zu versuchen, schmetterte sie der Bub mit einem lauten, btisen Rijhren aus dem Gaden' (SB, 44). But as he ma­ tures, he comes to modulate his voice to the extent of being able to mimic not only other voices, but also the sounds of nature. The chapter Die Stimme, die Tiere und die Orgel' (SB, 51-69) shows a steady paradigm of progression from an ugly voice that terrifies to a beautiful one that charms and seduces (SB, 5859). Having mastered his own vocal powers, control over the organ in church comes easy: "Bald gehorchten ihm die Tasten wie von selbst' (SB, 67). But music does not exist in a vacuum; it requires a social context. The church does not supply this context, largely because the resident organist in the

SCHNEIDER: NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

231

person of Uncle Oskar is fiercely jealous of the young man's talent and refuses to let him tread the bellows, let alone learn how to read musical notation. Cousin Elsbeth provides the inspiration; and such is his desire to 'imitate' her that he adopts her own words and lilting speech-pattems which ironically then sound like music to her ears (SB, 97, 99). His artistic work is entirely bound up with feel­ ings about Elsbeth, even after her marriage to Lukas and his withdrawal into an attitude of cynical detachment. By contrast, his own command of the linguistic medium is weak: 'So bleibt Schneiders Held doch nur ein idiot savant; und auch der Biograph verweigert ihm, der nur Tdne kannte, nachtr&glich eine eigene Sprache' (Schmidt 1992). Where language fails, signs are used. Information is conveyed by one character to another as well as to the reader by non-verbal symbols. Some of these are familiar from the narrative patterns of the Novelle. Elias Benzer's pater­ nal relationship to Johann Elias Alder is revealed not only by the latter's middle name, but also by the deep blush which the boy's biological parents display dur­ ing the baptism ceremony: 'beide errOteten im selbigen Moment auf das Allerpeinlichste' (SB, 27). But signs are easily misunderstood, and although Elias has great sensitivity towards the sounds of people's voices, believing '"daB man am blofien Klang einer Stimme den Charakter lesen kann'" (SB, 104), he misreads Elsbeth's admiration for him, taking it to be a sign of love (SB, 107). His demean­ our, and especially his favourite item of clothing, the 'schwarzer Gehrock', are mistaken by Elsbeth as a sign that he is preparing himself for the priesthood (SB, 138). Vital symbolic gestures are often misunderstood in the course of the narra­ tive. For example, when Peter sees his friend doing penance by pushing wads of hair into his mouth, he fails to associate this with the 'Weib im Mondschein' epi­ sode, when Elias had used his vocal powers to persuade Burga Lamparter to cut off her own hair: Teter begrifF nicht, was er dadurch anzeigen wollte' (SB, 187). The narrator adopts an emotional stance towards his subject, often wishing things had turned out differently for Elias, and, like Serenus Zeitblom in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus (Rietzschel 1992), scarcely concealing his excitement about the his subject's genius: 'Wie geme mochten wir dem Leser sein 1. Streichquartett — gesetzt, er hatte eines geschrieben [...] beschreiben!' (SB, 60). And like Zeitblom he must restrain himself from anticipating the later stages of his narrative: 'Mit Miihe ermahnen wir unser Herz, ruhig in der Chronik dieses Lebens fortzufahren. Mit Miihe' (SB, 65). At one point he wishes that a painter might have attempted to render a scene from his narrative, again implying that words are inadequate to his task (SB, 157). The similarities with Doktor Faustus, even if bordering on parody, are not fortuitous, but inevitable, since the narrator

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is facing a similarly impossible task: that of describing an art-form which by definition defies the logic of the linguistic medium. In doing so, he is inevitably defeated by the defects inherent in mere words. The narrator is, in the end, af­ fected by the same inadequacy of language that was seen to characterize the villagers, and it is for this reason that he, on occasion, draws attention to the arti­ ficiality of his descriptions, as he does when he speculates on what might have happened, had he been able to grab hold of his hero by the shoulder and give him a piece of his mind (SB, 134). Another significant form of intervention characte­ ristic of this self-pluralizing narrator is his avowed sense of affection for the read­ er. The more improbable the developments he is recording, the greater his sense of familiarity with the unknown reader, TJnser Leser, mit dem uns zwischenzeitlich ein Gefiihl fremder Vertrautheit verbindet' (SB, 94), or 'der uns ein guter Freund geworden ist' (SB, 200).

VConclusion So it is, in the end, a topsy-turvy world that is put before the reader in this short novel which I am tempted to describe as a Novelle on account of its single­ strandedness, its Romantic and praetematural components, and its obvious affini­ ties with earlier Kilnstlemovellen. The dichotomous world is signalled by the co­ existence of two extended families in the village. But, and this paradox is at the centre of the book, the two families are not, as one might expect, divided one against the other, but rather they are divided within themselves, so that a Lamparter is more likely to help an Alder rather than one of his own kinsfolk and vice versa (SB, 88). Similarly, as mentioned above, it is not the congregation but the parish curate himself who muddles up Christmas and Easter, greeting and leavetaking (SB, 74, 155). There is one figure who functions as an evident foil to Elias, at least in so far as his fate illustrates the perils of verbal communication with some insistence. This is the charcoal-burner Kfihler Michel, who establishes himself as the village poet following the death of his brother: 'Er aber lieB sich nicht belehren und wur­ de ein geistlicher Dichter' (SB, 61). There is even less work for him in the village than for a musician, and he would have starved but for the occasional tombstone inscription ('TEVFEL WARFEN IHN HINAP/ WEIN WARD SEIN GRAP'; SB, 61) and charitable offerings. When, around 1825, the villagers begin to take an interest in the written word, albeit largely in the form of trash and pornography delivered to them by itinerant traders, Michel surprises everyone by purchasing the complete set of Herder's Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit.1 The result is not quite what one might expect. The only passage in the book

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that strikes a chord within him is the description of highly idealized bare-breasted dusky Californian Indian squaws, and he sets off to discover their land and settle among them. Many years later he returns to regale the credulous community with tales of his life as an Indian chief, although it seems he got no further than a but­ cher's shop in Toulon (SB, 154-156). The written word of scholarship has proved no less liable to misuse and distortion than the spoken utterances of the villagers: 'Am Schicksal des Kohlers Michel mag man ermessen, welch gewaltige Kraft das geschriebene Wort in jener Zeit noch besessen hat' (SB, 157). It is, in fact, remarkable how much of Schlafes Bruder is concerned with speech and how little with music. Even when the performances and compositions of Elias are evoked, they can only be brought to life with the help of metaphors deriving from other areas of creative activity. His fugue in Feldberg is a sermon with a message CNein, der da oben machte nicht blofl Musik, er predigte'; SB, 173). Hopes and fears are 'embedded' in the nuptial music which he extemporizes for Elsbeth (SB, 149). His compositions resemble the elemental forces (SB, 160), a waterfall (SB, 178), a vision of heaven (SB, 177). Only the effects can be re­ corded in words, not the music itself. Some of these readings are flawed, as tran­ spires when the senile curate forms the opinion that it must have been his sermon rather than the music which inspired his audience (SB, 114). And, given the power of this unwritten and unrehearsed music, the narrator can only draw atten­ tion to the feebleness of the written word when he laments, with evident irony: TJnd es ist eine der bedauerlichsten Fatalit&ten der abendlandischen Musikgeschichte, dafi dieser Mensch seine Kompositionen niemals aufgezeichnet hat' (SB, 177). Having led us to believe that his music was unique precisely because it was unwritten and extemporized, he bows out with some naive and school­ masterly regrets that the music has not survived and that its composer was incapable of finding a balance between extremes: 'Welch prachtvolle Menschen — kommt uns der Gedanke wieder — mufi die Welt verloren haben, nur weil es ihnen nicht gegtinnt war, ihr Leben im Gleichmafi von Gliick und Ungluck zu leben' (SB, 196). This may be the end for Elias, but it is not quite the end for the narrator, who adds two further chapters, one dealing with the eventual destruction of the village and its last surviving resident, a certain Cosmas Alder, with whose death by starvation the narrative had begun (SB, 8). The final chapter sketches out an incident deriving from the childhood of this same Cosmas. Here, he listens to his mother's tale about a man of great genius who used to live among them, but who left, 'weil er hier seine Liebe nicht habe finden konnen'. At this point the child

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steps forward and asks his mother, who is none other than Elsbeth, turned Lukasin, Trau Mutter, was meint Liebe?' He receives no answer, for at this point it starts to rain and his mother pulls a hood over his head (SB, 202). While the text has shown the propensity of great artists to bum themselves out, in the manner of Mozart as portrayed in Mdrike's Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag, and the great gap between imagination and reality, which we find in Der arme Spielmann, while it may be seen to present a dismal picture of Austrian village life in the manner of either Franz Michael Felder’s crushingly realistic autobiography, or Franz Innerhofer’s prose narrative Schdne Tage, it does something more besides. The tragedy of the village whose decline is so graphically evoked through the medium of the failed musician is to be found in its inability to use language: 'Sprachlos waren diese Menschen, ja sprachlos bis in den Tod* (SB, 134). Hence the successive levels of misunderstanding which determine the life of Elias Alder. His social background, his parents, and his only friend in the world, Peter, may have let him down, but he himself misinterpreted his environment to a horrifying extent, by confiding in Peter but not in Elsbeth, and by accepting the deranged Corvinius's opinions on the incompatibility of sleep and love. The concluding chapter merely illustrates this process with the aid of an ironic layering. Elias's hearing was, we remember, so sensitive that he could perceive the sound that snowflakes make as they fall and the rhythm of his distant beloved's heartbeat. But while he had the gift of perfect pitch and the ability to create harmonious edi­ fices of unimaginable complexity, a laughably simple miscalculation leads him to misinterpret Elsbeth's affection as love, just as she is persuaded to misinterpret his great passion for her as mere affection. In the final chapter, Elsbeth gives her own version of events to her son, in a characteristically alienating form of indi­ rect speech and with several errors. She may be right in her contention that 'er hier seine Liebe nicht habe finden ktinnen', albeit for the wrong reason; but 'von Geburt an gelbleuchtende Augen' (SB, 202) is contradicted by the account of Elias's transfiguration at the age of five. Not only is her narrative flawed, but on its conclusion it transpires that her audience, the oldest of whom is just nine years of age at the time, cannot understand even the lexical units of which it is compo­ sed, let alone its deeper significance. In this sense the narrative documents the in­ evitable failure of linguistic communication both in the life of Elias and in the re­ telling of this life by the woman who meant everything to him. But might one not, with equal or greater justification, see in her simple gestures the beginnings of an adequate answer that is more direct and more honest than words might have been? She responds to her child's question with a laugh, a kiss, and a protective

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movement of the hand, thereby demonstrating rather than defining the quality she was asked to explain. I hope to have shown that this fascinating first novel by Robert Schneider does merit the acclaim it received, both on and since its publication,8 and that it demands our attention not as a nostalgic 'trip' into a vividly evoked past, but on account of its sustained and exceptionally high level of concern with the inter­ relationship between verbal and non-verbal modes of communication. While suggesting that, in most situations, words are a poor and unreliable means of con­ veying ideas, it nevertheless succeeds in conveying this very insufficiency as its own central idea — ostensibly as a problem peculiar to Vorarlberg (SB, 134), and so gives us, the readers, the subjects to whom the narrator repeatedly appeals, a remarkably vivid insight into the strengths as well as the flaws of the linguistic medium.

NOTES 1. Das Parfum deals in a comparable manner with a 'natural fool' in the tradition of Kaspar Hauser (Sheppard 1990, 310). 2. Among other reviews quoted on the cover of Schlafes Bruder. 3. One of the few negative voices was Julia Schrdder (Schrdder 1992). 4. Another positively presented non-verbal form of communication is the 'Lautsprache* used by Elias and his mongoloid step-brother (SB, 162). 5. Felder 1987 (written c. 1860, first published 1904), Handke 1972, and Innerhofer 1977 show many similarities with Schneider in their portrayal of rural life. Felder 1987, 78: 'Der Schlaf ist des Todes treuestes Bild', may have suggested Schneider's title. 6. Elias's 'yellow eyes' bring out the prejudices of the populace in much the same way as does the motif of 'red hair* found in many Austrian works (Rogers 1993,204). 7. Herder's Ideen are especially recommended to Franz Michael Felder (Felder 1987,

222). 8.

A recent indication of the success of this novel has been the signing up of Andr6 Eisermann (who played the lead in the film Kaspar Hausei) as Alder for the forthcoming film version, to be directed by Joseph Vilsmeier (Herbstmilch, Stalingrad)-, see Focus 23/1994, 107. With a budget of DM 15 million, this will be one of the most expensive films ever made in Germany. By October 1994, the novel had been translated into four­ teen languages, with ten further translations in progress; see Jenny 1994. It has also been dramatized as Fisch, directed by An^e Siebers, at the Theater zum westlichen Stadthirschen, Berlin, in a production that emphasized the theme of silence (Heyden 1994).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Schneider, Robert: Schlafes Bruder, Reclam, Leipzig, 1992. (=SB).

Secondary Works Aust, Hugo 1994: Der historische Roman, Metzler, Stuttgart. Doerry, Martin 1992: ’Ein Splittem von Knochen', Der Spiegel, 23 November 1992, cited by Franz Josef Gfirtz et al. (eds): Deutsche Literatur 1992. JahresQberblick, Reclam, Stuttgart, 1993, pp.258-262. Felder, Franz Michael 1987: Aus meinem Leben, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Hage, Volker 1986: 'Zur deutschen Literatur 1985' in Hage (ed.): Deutsche Literatur 1985. JahresQberblick, Reclam, Stuttgart, pp.7-47. Hackl, Erich 1992: 'Legende vom schlaflosen Musiker’, Die Zeit, 2 October 1992, Literaturbeilage, p.9. Handke, Peter 1972: Wunschloses UnglQck, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Heyden, Susanne 1994: 'Der szenische Kommentar als virtuose Ironie', Der Tagesspiegel, 30 October 1994, p.26. Hildesheimer, Wolfgang 1977: Mozart, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. ------ 1981: Marbot. Eine Biographie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Innerhofer, Franz 1977: SchOne Tage, Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 1974, reprinted Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Jenny, Urs 1994: W enn der Berg ruff, Der Spiegel, 17 October 1994, pp.248-252. KohpeiB, Ralph 1993: Der historische Roman der Gegenwart in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Asthetische Konzeption und Wirkungsintention, M & P Verlag fur Wissenschaft und Forschung, Stuttgart. von Matt, Beatrice 1992: 'Fohnsturme und Klangwetter1, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 20 October 1992, p.23. Ransmayr, Christoph 1988: Die letzte Welt, Greno, Nordlingen. Rietzschel, Thomas 1992: 'Das Dorf ist die Holle des Kunstlers. Wehe dem, der auf dem Lande bleibt', Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 September 1992, Literaturbeilage, p.15. Rogers, Mike 1993: 'Christine Ndstlinger: Kids' Stuff?' in Schmidt/McGowan 1993,. Schmidt, Ricarda and McGowan, Moray (eds.) 1993: From High Priests to Desecrators. Contemporary Austrian Writers, Sheffield Academic Press. Schmidt, Thomas E. 1992: 'Das Genie, das keines wurde', Frankfurter Rundschau, 10 October 1992, Literaturbeilage, p.4. Schroder, Julia 1992: 'Denn wer liebt, schlaft nicht', Stuttgarter Zeitung, 30 October 1992,

P-26. Sheppard, Richard 1990: 'Upstairs-Downstairs — Some Reflections on German Literature in the Light of Bakhtin's Theory of Carnival' in Sheppard (ed.): New Ways in Germanistik, Berg, Oxford, pp.278-315. Suskind, Patrick 1985: Das Parfum. Die Geschichte eines MOrders. Diogenes, Zurich. Wallmann, Hermann 1992: 'Klangwetter, Klangstiirme, Klangmeere, Klangwusten', Suddeutsche Zeitung, 30 September 1992, Literaturbeilage p.6. Wieckhorst, Volker 1992: 'Denn im Schlafe liebt man nicht', Rheinischer Merkur, 52/1992, P-21.

HEINRICH BOLL'S 'LOGOCENTRIC' THEORY OF LANGUAGE FRANK FINLAY

I Introduction When one considers the voluminous scholarship on Heinrich Boll, it is rather surprising that his 'theoretical' pronouncements on literature in speeches, public lectures, book reviews, and a large number of interviews, have received only cursory attention when, in fact, they contribute substantially to his oeuvre.* This neglect appears all the more extraordinary by comparison with the scrutiny ac­ corded his comments on social and political issues.2 In fact, his four Frankfurter Vorlesungen on poetics (1964) are his only statements on literature to have been deemed worthy of more detailed interest. In these, Boll explains that all his cre­ ative efforts emanate from a sense of co-responsibility for the fate of the society to which he belongs, and his central tenet is that morality and aesthetics are con­ gruent, 'untrennbar auch, ganz gleich, wie trotzig oder gelassen, wie milde oder wiitend, mit welchem Stil, aus welcher Optik ein Autor sich an die Beschreibung oder blofie Schilderung des Humanen begeben mag' (E II, 72). For BOll, there­ fore, writing is an exercise in moral responsibility and he advocates a literature which is inevitably critical. On the one hand, this happens ex negativo, through the depiction of social iniquities with frequent recourse to satire. On the other hand, he argues that literature has a utopian potential as a mediator of distinctly human attributes, and he uses the term 'die Asthetik des Humanen' to refer to the compassionate depiction of the beauty of a truly human community (E II, 34). Such a community, he further maintains, is only to be found amongst those who are marginalized by society; its 'refuse' or 'Abfall' (EII, 89-90). There is general consensus among scholars that Boll's Frankfurter Vorle­ sungen constitute his most important attempt to explain his conception of litera­ ture. Indeed Boll's programme, and his proposals for its realization, have become commonplaces in the secondary literature and have been justifiably used as the interpretive model for his imaginative works of the 1960s and 1970s.3 As J.H. Reid (1988, 150-151) has noted, however, it has yet to be sufficiently acknow­ ledged that more provocative ideas on literature are contained in a plethora of other writings, which discuss its nature, social validity, and function. It is my aim here to demonstrate that these writings are worthy of attention as an important

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complement to Boll's literary oeuvre. Particularly since he devoted so much of his time and so many words to speaking and writing on aesthetic matters. In general terms, Boll's thinking focuses on four interconnected areas: the relationship between language and experience; the concept of literary realism; the cognitive potential of literature, which can complement the insights of science and philosophy; and literature's utopian potential. BOll also elucidated what amounts to a 'logocentric theory of language'. This can be seen to underpin these four approaches and constitutes, arguably, his most important and philosophically most coherent aesthetic thought; this is my subject here. After considering some of the factors which account for the neglect of Boll’s literary journalism, the main body of the paper outlines and discusses the central premises of Boll's language theory. It will emerge that it is this theory which provides the justification for the claim, made merely apodictically in the Frankfurter Vorlesungen, that morality and aesthetics are congruent. I shall then discuss some of the factors which shap­ ed Boll's views and give a few examples from Boll's literary and political jour­ nalism of what I shall define as 'critical language analysis'. The final section locates Boll's views within a specific tradition of language theory with reference to the conservative cultural philosopher Theodor Haecker, who can be identified as the chief source for many of Boll's ideas.

II AnUnholyFool? There are several factors which may account for the lacuna in the secondary lite­ rature as far as Boll's pronouncements on literature are concerned. Scholars have been right to note the author's own admission that he distrusted excessive theor­ izing, and that he lacked the assiduousness and enthusiasm required for a sub­ stantial theoretical work (Ziltener 1980, 26). While there can, thus, be no doubt that BOll regarded himself primarily as a writer of imaginative literature, this does not, of course, preclude a theoretical position or, indeed, attempts to articulate it. However, it may also be argued with some force that Boll's easy access to a large media apparatus relieved him, to a considerable extent, of the need for theoretical rigour: he was, after all, a prominent participant in the Literaturbetrieb as critic, publisher, contributor to journals, sound broadcaster, and occasional film maker. In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, the interview was Boll's favourite vehicle for communicating his ideas. SchrOter (1982, 8) summarizes the efficacy of this particular form, and Boll's predilection for it: Tir ist der erste Autor, in dessen Werk Interviews mehr als ein Drittel seiner kritischen Beitr&ge ausmachen; und er exzelliert in dieser neuen Form, die dem kommunikadven Aspekt der Literatur einen direkteren, unmittelbarer publikumsbezogenen Ausdruck verschafft als jede

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andere'. The problem caused for scholars by Bdll's use of a wide variety of pre­ dominantly 'popular1media for the expression of fragmentary theoretical conside­ rations is compounded by other characteristics which suggest a consistent disre­ gard for academic thoroughness: a distinctly emotional aspect, the interweaving of leitmotifs, and an often colloquial style, particularly in the essays, in which ideas are not so much presented in a systematic fashion as narrated. In this con­ text, it is also important to remember that Bijll made deliberate attempts, when he began publishing after the Second World War, to establish a new essay style based on Anglo-American models. He advocated this as an alternative to the often arcane and elitist German tradition of intellectual discourse, whose authors he once criticized as being 'so elitdr und eingebildet, dafi sie sich sch&men, wenn sie verstanden werden' (Int, 644). To an even greater extent, the neglect of Boll's 'theoretical writings' on lite­ rature, to use the term in the broadest sense, can be attributed to a problematic critical reception. This is characterized by a relatively narrow range of approa­ ches; it has been grudging in according him the status of a leading intellectual, and it has tended to damn Boll the author by excessive praise for Boll the mora­ list (Bullivant 1986, 284). All too frequently, the novels and stories have been evaluated according to the pertinence of the moral commitment expressed and the accuracy of Boll's depiction of postwar Germany. The critical aesthetic appraisal of the imaginative literature has frequently been limited to the raising of doubts as to the merit of Boll's literary achievements and the drawing of attention to those artistic failings which militate against the very considerable fame which his ima­ ginative works have achieved. As a recent survey of Boll scholarship has demon­ strated, the most durable of sobriquets have been that of 'Germany's conscience' (J.P. Stem), or 'die politische Instanz der Bundesrepublik' (F.J. Raddatz).4 An ex­ treme example of the tenor of such assessments is provided in an obituary in Der Spiegel (22 July 1985) by the influential journalist and publisher Rudolf Augstein, for whom Boll was 'ein unheiliger Narr' whose works, for all their popula­ rity and controversy, would be very quickly forgotten. Helmut Heifienbuttel (1985, 115) characterized the commonplaces of B611 scholarship most percipiently in terms of 'die Mar vom m&fiig begabten, aber erfolgreichen (kein Simmel natiirlich, aber auch kein Marcel Proust oder Knut Hamsun) Schriftsteller, der als Winkelried und Till Eugenspiegel, voll rheinischen Humors im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert bewies, dafi deutsche Schriftsteller dennoch nicht unpolitisch sind'.3 It is clear from this that the critical mainstream has come to regard BOll as a mediocre author, who never fully deserved his place in the front rank of the nation's writer-intellectuals. My contention, however, is that one of the

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undoubted and unfortunate by-products of this has been that his theoretical endeavours have been undervalued and frequently ignored. In the following section, I shall consider some of the more important essays and speeches, in which BOll defines his theory of language. I shall also provide a few practical examples of what I shall term critical language analysis — 'critical' in the special sense of aiming to reveal connections which may otherwise remain hidden, namely connections between language, ideology, and power.

Ill Words can kill The first important aspect of Boll's theory of language is its strong historical dimension. Many of his statements are devoted to the familiar problematization of the German language following its ideological distortion and perversion by the National Socialists. Like so many writers of his generation, BOll was acutely aware that language was susceptible to abuse for political ends, and he accepts the main premise that ideology is pervasively present in language because lan­ guage is a constitutive element of human consciousness (Wagner 1968, 62).6 Political oppression is, of course, not just a matter of the manipulation of lan­ guage: there are various modalities, including the concrete methods of physical coercion, which BOll enumerates: Priigel und Folter, den Weg in die Todesmuhlen' (E , 304-305). BOll emphasizes the key ideological function of the Lin­ gua Tertii Imperii (Klemperer, 1957) as the agent in the manufacture of consent to criminal acts, not least by indoctrination via the state-controlled media. It was the example of the totalitarian Third Reich which convinced him that the written and spoken word can be used as an instrument of control and indoctrination with 'murderous' consequences: Das Wort, dem gewissenlosen Demagogen ausgeliefert [...] kann zur Todesursache fur Millionen werden, die meinungsbildenden Maschinen konnen es ausspucken wie ein Maschinengewehr seine Geschosse [...] eine beliebig zu klassifizierende Gruppe von Mitbiirgem kann durch Worte dem Verderben aus­ geliefert werden. Ich brauche nur ein Wort zu nennen: Jude [...] Der Spruch: Wenn Worte toten konnten ist langst aus dem Irrealis in den Indikativ geholt worden: Worte konnen tiiten, und es ist einzig und allein eine Gewissensfrage, ob man die Sprache entgleiten laflt, wo sie morderisch wird (E I, 302-303).

One of the most important rhetorical devices in this regard was the euphe­ mistic use of words to conceal the horror of their referent and the deliberate creation of neologisms to falsify their context. It is important to state at this junc­ ture that Boll's observations also draw on his detailed study of the language of the Third Reich, primarily via his reading of the works of H.G. Adler. An extract

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from Boll's review of Adler's monumental investigation of National Socialism, Der verwaltete Mensch, is particularly enlightening in this context: Nach der Kristallnacht fangt dann die systematische Entrechtung der Juden, ihre Aussonderung aus dem Staatsvolk. Im Zusammenhang mit dieser Entwicidung steht der [...] Euphemismus, der sich in Worten wie 'Judenvermogensabgabe', ’Reichsfluchtsteuer1ausdriickt; daB die Euthanasie (an 120 000 Menschen vollzogen) in Heilerziehungsanstalten' stattfand [...] Bedenkt man, daB all dies — und nicht nur die Endlosung, auch die Vemichtung und Verfolgung anderer Vdlker und Kulturen — durch ein Amt lief, das sich 'Reichssicherheitshauptamt' nannte, dann werden Worte wie Reich, Sicherheit, Haupt, Amt, zu schwer aussprechbaren Worten (E III, 125).

As a consequence of such wholesale linguistic distortion, Boll maintains that, in the post-Auschwitz world, it is simply not possible to make a neutral statement; every speech act betrays a value judgement, or a political ideology. In this con­ text, Boll assigns 'free'-lance writers ('freier Schriftsteller') a special responsibility because, if they are guided by the dictates of conscience, then language can be an agent for the protection and defence of the dignity of man and woman against totalitarianism: Die Sprache als letzter Hort der Freiheit', to quote the title of the speech in which many of these ideas are contained (E I, 301-305). BOll made the total corruption of the German language by the National Socialists the subject of many other speeches, essays, and interviews, and he was to become acutely sen­ sitive, indeed veritably allergic, to any subsequent recurrence in public discourse. Boll's views on language, however, were also shaped by a further factor of argu­ ably greater import: his personal background and the intellectual tradition of Christian conservatism fundamental to his Catholicism. I shall now demonstrate that Boll's language theory has at its fulcrum, quite literally, an article of faith.

IVAGiftfromGod In one essay, BOll asserts that language is 'ein Geschenk Gottes, eines der grOBten, denn Gott hat sich, wenn er sich offenbarte, immer der Sprache bedient' (E I, 327). BOll is, therefore, committed to a belief in the divine provenance of lan­ guage — God as the ultimate 'word', presence, truth, or reality which acts as the foundation for all our thoughts, language, and experience and as such anterior to them. It is clear that BOll believes there is a pre-ordained, indeed a divinely ordained, and indissoluble link between language and the world of action, thus the purity of the one is an unfailing test of the moral integrity of the other. The notion at the heart of Boll's language theory, therefore, is one of the a priori integrity of language.

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A problem BOll fails to address is the fact that a situation in which lan­ guage is neutral and untarnished would be possible only in the most primitive of societies, and even then not for very long. Untroubled by such considerations, he provides, in an interview, the precise dates of the linguistic Fall when a corrup­ tion of the substance and meaning of language was perpetrated within the Ger­ man speech community: 'Ich sehe die politische Entwicklung zwischen 1933 und 1945 als eine permanente Vertreibung aus der Sprache' [my italics, FF]. Postwar German society is enveloped by the long shadow of Auschwitz, the twentieth centuiy's most powerful and most terrible symbol of genocide; it is little wonder that Boll defined his own literary endeavours in terms of 'ein Versuch, eine bewohnbare Sprache und ein bewohnbares Land zu schaffen nach dieser Vertrei­ bung' (BOll/Rudolf 1971). This is also the essence of the much quoted axiom of the Frankfurter Vorlesungen that it was the task of literature to embark on a search 'nach einer bewohnbaren Sprache in einem bewohnbaren Land' (E n, 53). This quest amounts to the guiding principle of his entire literary output. In step with his concept of 'linguistic purity' or 'WOrtlichkeit', Boll claims the right as a writer to draw attention to the semantic polyvalence of certain concepts in order to subvert and defamiliarize them from their normal use.7 Typically, it is often those 'Platituden des Alltags', as he once referred to them in a book review, 'die gefahrlichen abgeschliffenen Worte, die uns, indem wir uns ihrer bedienen, demaskieren' (E I, 55), which draw the fire of his critique. It is significant, given this notion of linguistic purity, that the main techni­ que which BOll employs in his language criticism is to refer to the literal meaning of single words in order to analyse what is actually meant or implied. He argues that, in this manner, a word can be unburdened from the connotations of more recent usage. BOll defined the term 'WOrtlichkeit', which he uses to describe this phenomenon, in an interview with Karin Struck: 'Wenn man die Dinge wieder wOrtlich nimmt, ihre WOrtlichkeit betont, sind sie ja befreit von alien Vorurteilen, die so im Laufe der Geschichte auf ihnen gelegen haben' (Int, 265). The implica­ tion here is that it is in the literal meaning that something approximating to the semantic 'purity' of a word or concept can be found. It is, therefore, wholly con­ sistent that Boll's philological examinations refer, on numerous occasions, to ety­ mology in order to derive what he considers to be the basic or 'concrete' meaning of a word. When the target is the language of the legal and political executive then such a critique can also illuminate the relationship between language, ideo­ logy, and power by revealing what is hidden, or even absent, in public discourse. BOll once defined his critical endeavours in terms of 'sprachliche Prufungen in und am Material Sprache' (Int, 408). It would go beyond the confines of the

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present essay to do full justice to Boll's 'linguistic tests', but a few references can be made to examples of critical language analysis in his literary and political journalism to illustrate his conviction that postwar Germany and much of its language were inhospitable territory for citizens seeking a truly humane home. In his essay 'Auferstehung des Gewissens' (1954), BOll uses an analysis of the word 'Wirtschaftswunder1as the point of departure for a fierce attack on the ethos of postwar West German society and the conspiracy of silence with regard to the Holocaust, which so tainted its integrity. To describe the economic rebuil­ ding of Germany, which after all was the result of a combination of factors, not least Marshall Aid and the economic boom created by the Korean war, as a 'mir­ acle' was nothing less than 'blasphemous': 'ein Wunder ist die Auferstehung Jesu Christi, und — genaugenommen — ist es blasphemisch, eine wirtschaftliche Blute als Wunder zu bezeichnen' (E I, 134). BOll reserves one of his most important critiques of language to reveal the materialism, opportunism, pragmatism, and cynicism underlying the policies of the prime architect of the West German resto­ ration. In a review of Konrad Adenauer's memoirs entitled 'Keine so schlechte Quelle', which first appeared in Der Spiegel in 1965, he says: ‘Es ist sehr viel Niedertracht in diesem Buch, und es bedurfte wohl des letzten Restes von Men­ schenverachtung, auch der allerletzten Verachtung unserer Sprache, es zu publizieren, nicht ahnend, wie viel Sprache verraten kann' (EII, 184). A final example can be taken from the last stage in Boll's career following the change of govemmentof 1982. Behind the rhetoric of a putative 'spiritual and moral renewal' (the Wende), this ushered in an era of neo-conservatism and prompted BOll to undertake many philological tests. BOll characterized this new era as 'diese Wendezeit, die den Sinn fur Sprachwiderstand scharfen sollte' (FuF, 134). Boll's main target is the language of the media with its ideological power to shape and distort perceptions of reality. One of the first acts of the new govern­ ment was the appointment of the veteran Springer journalist Peter Boenisch as its new official spokesman, an act which BOll tellingly described in an interview as 'der erste Skandal [...] den die neue Bundesregierung sich leistete' (BOll/Voland 1984).* It was Boenisch's elevation to the head of what is effectively a govern­ ment propaganda department, which provided BOll with the motivation, at a time when he was beset with severe illness, to embark on his most extensive and rigo­ rous examination of language as the reflex of ideology. The resulting book, BildBonn-Boenisch (1984), is a scathing appraisal of the journalist's career prior to his appointment. BOll presents critical commentaries on a selection of twentyseven from almost two hundred of Boenisch's 'Meine Meinung' articles in Bild and Bild am Sonntag. Their author is attacked for extreme journalistic irrespon­

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sibility, for the shameless falsification of facts and judgements. Above all, it is the political ideology at the heart of Boenisch's assertion that he was merely expressing a personal opinion which Boll's critique of his language unmasks.

V The Catholic Writer and Language I shall now advance the hypothesis that Boll's language theory reveals the decisive influence of the Christian conservative philosopher Theodor Haecker, an influence which has been hitherto overlooked in the secondary literature.9 Haecker (1879-1945) is best known today as author of the journals Tag- und Nachtbiicher, published in 1945 but written in secret throughout the war years following a ban imposed by the Nazis in 1938. It was during this period that Haecker became one of the intellectual mentors of the opposition group Weifie Rose (Siefgen 1989, 15). Haecker, who was bom into a Swabian pietist family, became the leading Catholic cultural philosopher of his day, following his conversion to Catholicism in 1921. His early career, however, was spent as an editor and freelance writer, most notably on Ludwig von Ficker's periodical Der Brenner, von Ficker intro­ duced Haecker to Karl Kraus, and the latter was to exert the most significant in­ fluence on Haecker's intellectual development at this time (Blessing 1966, 426).10 Kraus also influenced the intellectual stance of Der Brenner, and von Ficker fre­ quently used this publication to defend Kraus against attack. Kraus's influence is immediately evident in Haecker's fierce polemics and satires, which appeared in Der Brenner in the years 1914-1920. Of particular significance in this context is Haecker's long polemical essay, 'Der Krieg und die Fiihrer des Geistes' (1915). The essay discusses the manipulation of public opinion by the newspapers to engender nationalist and militarist fervour during World War I, and identifies the distortion of language and truth which took place. The second, equally important, influence on Haecker's career followed his conversion to Catholicism. Carl Muth, whose Hochland was the most important Catholic cultural periodical of its day, was initially drawn to Haecker after reading Satire und Polemik. His enthusiastic review of it in Hochland marked the beginning of a long collaboration, which endured until Muth's death in 1944. Haecker's main contributions to Hochland were an attempt to define the central issues of what he termed a 'christliche Philosophie'. BOll has openly acknowledged his intellectual allegiance to Haecker on many occasions. In his autobiographical sketch Was soil aus dem Jungen blofi werden? Oder: Irgendwas mit Biichem, BOll completes a list of authors who influenced him greatly in his formative years with the telling phrase 'und natiirlich

BOLL’S THEORY OF LANGUAGE — 245

Theodor Haecker' (p.71). Further evidence that Boll had a close knowledge of Haecker's work can be found in several references in his unpublished letters from the war years, like those dated 21 April 1941 and 23 August 1943, which are now to be found in the historical archives of the City Library in Cologne. More­ over, BOll has also referred in a number of interviews to the considerable influ­ ence of Hochland on his own development, and the Cologne archives contain his complete private collection of the periodical, which he even had sent to him throughout his labour and military service, until it was banned by the Nazis in June 1941. What is more, BOll renewed his subscription after the War (BOll/Bom 1972, 32). Haecker defines his theory of language in the essay T)er katholische Schriftsteller und die Sprache' (Haecker 1958, 345-360)," and it is noteworthy that its central theses are uncannily close to two of those at the heart of Boll's language theory. This influence emerges with abundant clarity when Haecker, like BOll, asserts that he considers language to be the greatest gift to mankind, because God used language to reveal Himself to man. The divine provenance of language leads Haecker to argue that language is both the sole source of truth and the medium for its communication. Er [the Catholic writer] ist der festen Uberzeugung, daB die Sprache jenseits aller subjektiven und praktischen Kundgabe in das Reich der Wahrheit reicht und das geistig-sinnliche Organ fur deren Vermittlung in der Erkenntnis ist [...] sie hat ihrem Wesen nach teil am Logos, an der Wahrheit, an der Erkenntnis [...] Also das ist [...] das GroBte und am meisten heilig zu haltende an der Spra­ che, daB sie Zugang hat zur Erkenntnis und zur Wahrheit: dies gibt ihr unter alien geistig-sinnlichen Medien, die dem Menschen gegeben sind, den ersten Rang. (Haecker 1958, 345-346)

Haecker's second thesis is that language, since it is God-given, is also consummate beauty. He argues, however, that language must not be defined in purely aesthetic categories, because such a definition would ignore the impor­ tance of language in the formulation of truth. Haecker therefore rejects what he refers to as 'eine reine aesthetische Sprachtheorie': 'das Vomehmste und GOttlichste der Sprache ist, dafl sie Wahrheit sein und geben kann'. Language, he con­ cludes is, 'der reinste, vollkommenste, nichts auslassende, treuste Spiegel [...] der Welt innen und auBen und aller Elemente der Welt des Lebens'. It is the duty of the Catholic writer to achieve a unity of truth and beauty, of form and content. It will be clear from this that Haecker's premises in his rejection of a pure­ ly aesthetic language theory in Der katholische Schriftsteller und die Sprache' are the same as those adopted by BOll. BOll shares Haecker's belief in the logos, in the truth and simultaneous beauty of God's word. For both men, language, how­

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ever distorting and manipulative in practice, always has understanding as its inner telos. It is this 'logocentrism' which provides the basis for Boll's dictum that mo­ rality and aesthetics are one. As such, this insight from Boll's theory of language must be regarded as the key to his entire aesthetic thinking, for it is the capacity of language to refer to empirical reality that provides the theoretical grounding for Boll's Asthetik des Humcmen. If truth can be extrapolated from language, then we can recover fruitful communication, freedom, solidarity, equality, and mutual affinity; in Boll's terms, 'das Humane'. Boll's theory of language therefore, gready influenced by Haecker, stands essentially in the Christian conservative tradition. In terms currendy fashionable amongst followers of the critical theorist Jacques Derrida, it is 'logocentric' in that it is reliant upon the 'metaphysics of presence', or a 'transcendental signified'; in Boll’s system, the extra-systemic validator, or point of authority which fixes linguistic meaning, is God.12 VI Conclusion It is clearly erroneous to regard BOll as a writer who was ignorant of or not con­ cerned with theories of language and literature. Whilst Boll's pronouncements on literature do not reveal the approach of the literary theorist or aesthetician, they document the author's attempts throughout his career to develop and clarify his thinking on aesthetic matters. In my opinion, an understanding of Boll's language might provide a rich basis for future research. In the context of his imaginative works, for example, it is an invitation to explore the instances of critical language analysis which many contain. In particular, one could test the validity of Boll's claim, made in an interview, that he regarded a novel as 'ein Versteck in dem man zwei, drei Worte verstecken kann, von denen man hofft, daB der Leser sie findet' (E I, 16). Hitherto, only the short novel Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum has been investigated in any great detail as to the extent to which linguistic scrutiny functions as a vehicle for a critique of society (McLaughlin 1988). Boll's last novel Frauen vor Flufilandschaft, which was quickly dismissed by the cri­ tics, is another work which would lend itself for examination as an example of Boll's precise dissection of the ideological nature of language.13 Similar investiga­ tions promise many new insights into his novels and short stories. Significandy, the central premises of Boll's language theory are located in a wider tradition, reflected in the influence of Haecker. Without doubt, BOll shar­ ed many of Haecker's views concerning literature's place in society and these are predicated on an essentially Christian conservative set of convictions, hence the emphasis on 'logocentricism' and its position as the main pillar in Boll's aesthetic thinking. Boll's allegiance to this particular intellectual tradition is of interest, not

BOLL’S THEORY OF LANGUAGE — 247

least for the light it can shed on his political views. For example, the imputations of political radicalism and the defamations of him as a mentor of the terrorist movement by self-professed 'conservative critics', as cited in the introduction, ap­ pear to be nothing less than absurd. It can be argued that BOll only appeared leftwing' as the Christian conservatism he espoused was superseded by political conservativism in the parties which included the word Christian in their names but paid only lip-service to Christian values in their manifestos. Epithets like 'socia­ list' or 'left-wing', which are commonplaces in BOll scholarship, need to be re­ assessed in this light and used with greater circumspection in future. Finally, I want to offer a few brief comments on the potential legacy of Boll's aesthetic credo for a younger generation of writers, their language and aes­ thetics. Clearly, Boll's views are manifestly at odds with some of the main trends emanating from the postwar literary debate, and developments since his death in 1985 would appear to cast doubts on the vitality of his bequest. In our so-called postmodern age, which can be partly characterized by an anti-historicism, a cyni­ cal abandonment of commitment, and where meaning and truth survive only 'un­ der erasure', a literature of social semantics with its reliance on a 'logocentric' lan­ guage theoiy of the kind advocated by BOll may appear to some to veer between the quaintly naive and intellectually bankrupt. Certainly, in the current German literary context dominated by writers such as Botho StrauB and Peter Handke, and influential arbiters of culture, like Frank Schirrmacher, Boll's paradigm, based not least on a non-partisan commitment and sense of co-responsibility for his contemporaries, would appear to be somewhat anachronistic, to say the least. It is true that Boll's aesthetic thinking is to a large extent the product of the unprecedented historical context of Nazism, but this fact is insufficient to consign it, and his fictional works, safely to the margins of literary history in a file mar­ ked Nachkriegsliteratur. In my opinion, it would be a mistake to assume that Boll's ouevre belongs to a phase of naivety, now left behind, as some of the country's Feuilletonisten have alleged (e.g. Schirrmacher 1990). This mistake is all the more easily made if one merely associates with BOll a particular mode of fictionalizing reality and a relatively narrow nexus of themes and narrative strate­ gies. Rather, it should be acknowledged that his insistence on the congruence between morality and aesthetics raises issues which reverberate in, and provide problems for, continuing critical discussions on the nature of language and the social role of literature. Boll's position, most significantly, constitutes a defence of the author's right to engage with the discourses of freedom, truth, and human­ ity as a necessary opposition to the arrogance of those who challenge literature's

248 — FRANK FINLAY

social role, which he defined in one of his earliest theoretical essays, the *Belcenntnis zur Trummerliteratur1, as follows: Es ist unsere Aufgabe, daran zu erinnem, daB der Mensch nicht nur existiert, um verwaltet zu werden — und, daB die Zerstdrungen in unserer Welt nicht nur iuBerer Art sind und nicht so geringfiigiger Natur, daB man sich anmaBen kann, sie in wenigen Jahren zu heilen (E I, 35).

NOTES 1.

Bernhard 1975 and Ziltener 1980 are notable among the exceptions, although neither work is comprehensive in scope. After an intelligent exposition of certain important aspects of Boll's literary journalism, Ziltener devotes the entire second half of his study to tracing Bail's increasing radicalism on political and social issues. The reader is left pondering the relationship between Bdll's theory and his literary practice as well the relationship of his aesthetic programme to other contemporary literary theories. 2. Several critics have dealt successfully with Bdll's socio-political writings (e.g. dell' Agli 1983). Vogt 1982, Jeziorkowski 1985, and Roth 1987 discuss his political journalism. 3. See Ziolkowski 1970, Balzer 1975, Gdtze 1985, Wallmann 1968, Bernhard 1975, Grothmann 1977, and Lange 1982. 4. For a detailed discussion of the most common slogans see Finlay 1992. 5. Reactions to Bdll were not always as benign as HeiBenbiittel suggests. In the often inflamed political climate in the 1970s and 1980s, an ad hormnem debate swung frequently between hagiography and diatribe. Joachim Kaiser's exaggerated and unverifiable claim in an obituary can be adduced as evidence of the former 'Wenn es noch im 20. Jahrtiundert Heilige gdbe, dann muBten sie so aussehen wie Heinrich Bdll' (see Finlay 1992, 317). For the latter, see any of the well-documented rebarbative ac­ cusations made in the wake of his attempts to temper the hysteria orchestrated by the country's right-wing media about West German terrorists in the 1970s. He was denounced, for example, as 'gefdhriicher als Baader-Meinhof (Grutzbach 1972,147). 6. See particularly Adomo 1964 and Klemperer 1957. 7. See Jeziorkowski 1974, 47. A practical example of Bdll's application of his concept of WOrtlichkeit can be found in his statements as an expert witness in a law suit brought by the police against Erich Fried (E III, 88-92), who had used the word Vorbeugemo/d ('preventive murder1) to describe the shooting by Berlin police, during a demonstration, of the student Georg von Rauch. Bdll asserted that an author had the right to use words in a different way to that of the legal executive. The judge agreed with Bdll and the case against Fried was dismissed. 8. Boenisch resigned from his post on 14 June 1985 after admitting that he had failed to declare to the tax authorities income received from Daimler-Benz for promoting their products under the guise of car tests published in Bild (Die Zeit, 21 June 1985). 9. Hitherto, Haecker has been mentioned only briefly in the context of the quotation from his Tag- und NachtbQcher which provided Bdll with the title and one of the epigraphs for his first novel, Wo warst du, Adam?. The second mention is in the context of Bdll's acquaintance with Kierkegaard's works via Haecker's translations (Stemmier 1972, 7). 10. Siefgen 1989, 268, describes the contacts between Haecker and Kraus as close. Kraus himself refers to the influence he exerted on Haecker: 'Theodor Haecker, der einzige Mann im heutigen Deutschland, der polemischen Mut und polemischen

BOLL S THEORY OF LANGUAGE — 249 Ausdruck findet, ohne daB er es wie die Horde der Literaturhysterjker nbtig hatte, mich als Quelle von Stil und Anschauung zu verschweigen' (Kraus 1914, 57). 11. The essay includes a glowing tribute to Karl Kraus; Haecker refers to 'das grdBte deutsche Sprachwerk, das unter dem Namen Kart Kraus geht1. He also praises Kraus's 'zum Himmel schreiende Gerechtigkeit', maintaining that 'es muB schlieBlich einer seine Muttersprache nicht lieben und kennen, um diesen schdn und mannlich in sie Verliebten nicht zu ehren' (Haecker 1958, 351-352). In an earlier work, Soeren Kierke­ gaard und die Philosophic der Innerlichkeit, Haecker described Karl Kraus as follows: 'Er ist der einzige, groBe, durch die Ethik gedeckte Polemiker und Satiriker der Zeit, er allein, sonst keiner, hatte das Recht, in seinem Werke des Hasses die furchtbaren Worte Kierkegaards uber die Joumalisten zu zitieren. Im Geiste gesehen ist Karl Kraus der mutigste Mann, der heute lebt, denn er steht mit seinem Wirken im grellen Licht der Offentlichkeit' (Siefgen 1989, 271). 12. For Derrida, of course, there is no such validating principle, as his much quoted asser­ tion 'there is nothing outside the text* indicates. One of the most lucid expositions of Derrida's theories is provided by Sarup 1988. 13. The glare of publicity which greeted the novel's publication shortly after Bdll's death was quick to subside; there are relatively few critical appraisals. It would appear that Marcel Reich-Ranicki's apodictic statement in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (8 October 1985), 'es ware abwegig, Bolls letztes Werk mit literaturkritischer Strenge beurteilen zu wollen', has been followed all too closely.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Boll, Heinrich: Bild-Bonn-Boenisch, Lamuv, Bomheim-Merten, 1984. ------ : Feindbild und Frieden. Schriften und Reden 1982-1983, dtv, Munich, 1987. (=FuF). ------ : Werke. Essayistische Schriften and Reden, ed. by Bemd Balzer, 3 vols., Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, n.d. [1978]. (=E WII). ------ : Werke. Interviews I, ed. by Bemd Balzer, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, n.d. [1978], (=lnt). ------ : Was soil aus dem Jungen bloR werden? Oder. Irgendwas mit BQchem, Lamuv, Bomheim, 1981. Interviews and conversations cited which are not included in the Werkausgabe: B6II, Heinrich and Bom, Nicholas 1977: '"Ich habe nichts iiber den Krieg aufgeschrieben". Gesprach mit Heinrich B6II und Hermann Lenz von Jurgen Manthey und Nicholas Bom', Literaturmagazin 7: 'Nachkriegsliteratur\ Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1977, pp.30-74. ------ and Rudolph, Ekkehart 1971: 'Heinrich Bdll' in Ekkehart (ed.): Protokoll zur Person, Paul List, Munich, 1971, pp.27-^3. ------ and Voland, Claus 1984: "’Bild" regiert mit',' Metall, 20 (1984), 9.

Secondary Sources Adomo, Theodor W. 1964: Jargon der Eigentlichkeit. Zur deutschen Ideologie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Arnold, Heinz Ludwig (ed.) 1982: Heinrich BOll, edition text+kritik, Munich. Balzer, Bemd 1975: 'Humanitat als asthetisches Prinzip: Die Romane Bblls' in Beth 1975, 1-28. ------ (ed.) 1992: Heinrich BOll, 1917-1985, zum 75. Geburtstag, Peter Lang, Beme. Bernhard, Hans Joachim 1975: 'Zu poetischen Grundpositionen Heinrich B&lls' in Jurgensen 1975, 77-90.

250 — FRANK FINLAY Beth, Hanno (ed.) 1975: Heinrich BOll, Eine EinfQhmng in das Gesamtwerkin Einzelinterpretationen, Scriptor, Kronberg/TS. Blessing, Eugen 1966: Theodor Haecker' in Neue Deutsche Biographie, pub. by Historische Kommission der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, VII, Berlin. Bullivant, Keith 1986: ’Heinrich BOll — A Tribute’, German Life and Letters 39 (1986), 3, 245-251. dell’Agli, Anna Maria (ed.) 1983: Zu Heinrich B6II, Klett, Stuttgart. Finlay, Francis James 1992: ’Aspekte und Tendenzen der BOII-Forschung seit 1976’ in Balzer 1992, 315-338. GOtze, Kari-Heinz 1985: Heinrich BOll. Ansichten eines Clowns, Fink, Munich. Grothmann, Wilhelm H. 1977: ’Zur Struktur des Humors in Heinrich Bail's Roman "Gruppenbild mit Dame'", The German Quarterly 50 (1977), 150-159. Grutzbach, Frank 1972: Freies Geleit fQr Ulrike Meinhof. Ein Artikel und seine Folgen, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne. Haecker, Theodor 1958: Essays. Kdsel, Munich. HeiSenbiittel, Helmut 1985: 'Anti-Nachruf auf Heinrich Bdll', Freibeuter6 (1985), 2 5 ,1 1 4 118. Jeziorkowski, Klaus 1974: 'Heinrich Bdll als politischer Autor', The University of Dayton Review 11 (1974), 2 ,4 1 -5 0 . Jurgensen, Manfred (ed.) 1975: BOll: Untersuchungen zum Werk, Peter Lang, Beme, (=Queensland Studies in German Language and Literature V). Klemperer, Victor 1957: Lingua Tertii Imperii. Notizbuch eines Philogen [3rd edn 1957], rpt. Reclam, Leipzig, 1991. Kraus, Karl 1914: Die Fackel, no. 40 3,107 (1914), pp.57-58. Lange, Manfred 1982: 'Asthetik des Humanen. Das literarische Programm Heinrich BOIIs* in Arnold 1982, 89-98. McLaughlin, Donal 1988: Heinrich BOll: 'Die veriorene Ehre derKatharina Blum', University of Glasgow French and German Publications. Thomas-Morus-Akademie (pub.) 1987: ErzShler, Rhetoriker, Kritiker. Zum Verm&chtnis Heinrich BOIIs, Bensberg. Reich-Ranicki, Marcel (ed.) 1970: In Sachen BOll. Ansichten und Einsichten, dtv, Munich. Reid, James Henderson 1988: Heinrich BOll. A German for his Time, Berg, Oxford/New York/Hamburg. Roth, Klaus-Hinrich 1987: '"...ein biBchen Aufklflrung zu schaffen..." Zur publizistischen Schreibweise Heinrich Bdlls' in Thomas-Morus-Akademie 1987, 59-86. Sarup, Madun 1988: An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead. Schirrmacher, Frank 1990: 'Abschied von der Literatur der Bundesrepublik', Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 October 1990. SchrOter, Klaus 1982: Heinrich BOll mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg. Siefgen, Hinrich (ed.) 1989: Theodor Haecker, Tag- und NachtbQcher (1938-1945), Haymon, Innsbruck. Stemmier, Wolfgang 1972: 'Max Frisch, Heinrich B6II und Soeren Kierkegaard' (unpublished doctoral dissertation), Munich. Vogt, Jochen 1982: 'Der Erinneiungsarbeiter. Zur Charakteristik des Publizisten Bdll' in Arnold 1982,114-125. Wagner, Kari-Heinz 1968: 'Die Sprache als Mittel der Demagogic', Der Deutschunterricht, 5 (1968), 61-74. Wallmann, Jurgen P. 1968: 'Heinrich B6II', Argumente: AufsStze und Kritiken, n.pub. Ziltener, Walter 1980: Die Uteraturtheorie Heinrich BOIIs, Peter Lang, Beme. Ziolkowski, Theodor 1970: 'Vom Verruckten zum Clown' in Reich-Ranicki 1970, 265.

ETYMOLOGY OF VIOLENCE: ELISABETH REICHART'S PROSE KONSTANZE FLIEDL

I HownearisM authausen? Jorge Semprun's autobiography Quel beau dimanche is not merely the recollec­ ted story of somebody deported to and imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentra­ tion camp; rather it is an account of the times and places where memories of the period in captivity come to the surface, and the ways in which they intersect with and are superimposed on other memories and the memories of others. The dis­ tinctions thus drawn between individual and collective memory also entail a revi­ sion of Semprun's political analysis of the Nazi extermination industry. The same ruthless honesty which prevents him from leaving complex historical truth to the tender mercies of reductive interpretation also rules out chronological and monoperspectival narrative procedures. Every sentence bears witness to this precision: words are weighed according to the point in history and the ideological position at which they occur. The fact that language is almost axiomatically called the 'vehicule d'une histoire et d'une memoire collective et culturelle' (Semprun 1980, 232)1 does not preclude the possibility that that memory may need to be helped along by a critical re-examination of language itself. The central theme of the book is 'memory' and the way in which it functions — as resistance. In this way the book really does live up to its epigraph, a quotation from Kundera: 'La lutte de lTiomme contre le pouvoir est la lutte de la memoire contre l'oubli' (Semprun 1980, 9).2 It is true that memory is also constantly struggling against its own re­ sistance, and against the attempt to avoid the agony of remembering; but for Semprun that agony is also, at the same time, a sign of life: La memoire est le meilleur recours, meme si cela parait paradoxal a premiere vue. Le meilleur recours contre l'angoisse du souvenir, contre la dereliction, contre la folie familiere et sourde' (Semprun 1980,97).3 The next generation of authors have their dates of birth to thank for the fact that, for them, remembrance of Nazi crimes can no longer be realized (or denied) except through the recollections of others. The attitude of German-language writers especially to the Nazi past was conditioned by their reaction to the speech or silence of their elders. For those bom after 1945, to engage with his­ tory meant dealing with either forbidden or permitted discourses. What they were

252 — KONSTANZE FLIEDL

concerned to fight against was that enforced silence which often enough had served as a cover for involvement, abetment, or connivance. The much-discussed autobiographical 'Vater- (und Mutter-)bucher' of the late 1970s, starting with Bemward Vesper's Die Reise and including texts by Christoph Meckel, Peter Harding, and numerous others, were an attempt as it were to strip away the speech taboo with which their parents surrounded their information on the sub­ ject. The virulence of this process often led to a situation whereby the parents merely figured as the butt of accusations. It could no longer be appreciated that precisely the non-active party members often vacillated tragically between the roles of perpetrator and victim. The authors, as Michael Schneider put it, 'schnitten sich selbst oft den Weg zu einem umfassenden und tieferen Verstandnis der sowohl schuldhaften als auch leidvollen Vergangenheit der alteren Generation ab’ (Schneider 1981, 19).“ The Upper Austrian author Elisabeth Reichart, bom in 1953, is one o f those who have consistently sought such an understanding. Her first work on the history of the Third Reich was of an academic nature: in 1983 she completed her studies in Salzburg with a doctorate on the Communist-organized resistance in the Salzkammergut (HM). Questions first framed in the course of many discus­ sions with contemporary witnesses were then reworked in literary form. Her first novel, Februarschatten, is still concerned with the conflict in the family: the part­ ners are mother and daughter. The daughter's writing is an act of rebellion against her mother's life-preserving, imperative injunction to forget. In the story Komm iiber den See the suffering of the teacher Ruth has its source in her own apathy and language difficulty.3 When she is finally able to establish contact with a resis­ tance fighter, it is only to discover that her own mother had turned traitor under torture by the Gestapo. The parallel stories of two young women of different generations, 'Wie nah ist Mauthausen' and 'Wie fem ist Mauthausen' (LV, 117151; 152-163), tell of the survival of a concentration camp inmate and of the apparently hopeless attempt of a historian to come to terms with history by working in the concentration camp — as a guide for visiting parties. Mauthausen is in every sense the topographical centre of these texts. The Austrian concentration camp was, according to Semprun, Tun des plus durs du systeme concentrationnaire nazi'. Reinhard Heydrich, the head of Hitler's police and security system, foresaw three categories of prison camp: 'unbedingt besserungsMiige Schutzhaftlinge' were sent to Dachau, Sachsenhausen, or Auschwitz 1; prisoners described as 'noch erziehungs- und besserungsfahig' were sent to Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Neuengamme, or Auschwitz 2; the third category, for convicts regarded as 'unverbesserlich' and *kaum noch erziehbar', comprised one

REICHART'S ETYMOLOGY OF VIOLENCE

253

single camp — Mauthausen.6 Mauthausen, however, was really only a central distribution point serving over 50 sub-camps and out-posts throughout Austria, leading one of the first historical studies on Mauthausen to the shocked conclu­ sion: 'One is left with a final picture of vast numbers of human beings being shak­ en, like pepper from a pepper pot, at random and completely ruthlessly, all over the map of Austria' (le Chene 1971, 260). The historian in Reichart's story is also unable to shake off the haunting image of Mauthausen gradually taking over the whole map of Austria: 'Mauthausen und seine Nebenlager: fiinfzig — manchmal, wenn ich einen Ort auf der Strafienkarte von Osterreich suche, verschwinden die anderen Namen und es bleibt nur Mauthausen iibrig, und funfzig Linien gehen von ihm aus — Osterreich ist von Mauthausen bedeckt' (LV, 153). Mauthausen was not just some faraway 'over there' that you avoided and ignored. The history of the camp demonstrates how the SS-State really did be­ come total and held the civil population in its grip as well. Just before the end of the war the number of dead had risen so steeply that the crematorium ovens were no longer adequate for disposing of the bodies. Since thousands more camp in­ mates were to be liquidated before the final collapse, huge mass graves had to be dug. This situation led to an escape attempt and the merciless hunting down of those involved. These are the events which the mother in Reichart's Februarschatten had been trying to forget ever since. The story of what happened is told again in the wry words of the novel's epilogue: die sogenannte MUHLVIERTLER HASENJAGD in der nacht zum 2. febraar 1945 brachen ca. 500 der 570 h&ftlinge aus der sonderbaracke 20 des KL MAUTHAUSEN aus. in der baracke waren vor allem sowjetische offiziere bis heute wurden 17 iiberlebende eruiert. alle anderen wurden von den nationalsozialisten und von bis dahin 'unpolitischen’ muhlviertlem ermordet wenige miihlviertler wagten zu helfen. (FS, 105)

This inconceivable fact, that part of the civilian population of its own accord set about hunting down the escapees, voluntarily and mercilessly shot and slaughtered them, is a trauma which others apart from Reichart have tried to drag into the light. Conversely, the fact that some people took upon themselves the enormous risk of refusing to take part in the persecution or of offering the refu­ gees shelter (Kamy 1992, 110-112), raises that other question as to the leeway available for humanitarian action which Reichart had been concerned to investi­ gate in her thesis. One literary exploration of the possibility of opposing acts of collective slaughter was the story Maria-Lichtmefi-Nacht (1973) by the Upper Austrian author Franz Kain. Kain, bom in 1922, who, as a resistance fighter, had

254 — KONSTANZE FLIEDL

himself been incarcerated during the Third Reich, recounted the story from the perspective of a peasant woman who had provided a hiding-place for two of the escapees from Mauthausen.7 Kain too described the tentacular doom which ema­ nated from Mauthausen and took in the whole map — 'alle Wege haben nach Mauthausen gefiihrt' (Kain 1986, 115); but he also portrayed the courage of an individual in breaking through this web of terror. Kain's story offers an example of resistance motivated clearly not by political but explicitly by maternal feeling. The simple solicitousness of the old woman is offered as something readers can identify with; and the simple tone of the narrative betrays the unmistakable eager­ ness of the author to use such models to foster the anti-fascist sentiments of the younger generation. The following generation was immediately faced with the problem of con­ fronting experiences which were already second-hand. Their texts must also reflect how it is still possible, across historical distance, to conceive of and to communicate about unthinkable crimes; they have to find a voice which opposes both denial and habituation. In two stories, Das Fenster1and ’Begegnung' (1991), Christoph Janacs, another Upper Austrian writer of Reichart's age (bom 1955), has presented an almost filmic reconstruction of the historical events (Janacs 1991, 7-24; 25-77). Janacs breaks the unimaginable down into the smallest opti­ cal details; what he describes is the process of seeing, the perception of the terrible. The sequence of images is seen from the most distanced outside perspec­ tive, bringing the events painfully ’home'. In 'Begegnung' the perspective is that of a deportee who is invited back years later to visit the concentration camp; the interaction of image sequences from the past and the present constitutes an ex­ tremely sharp criticism of the relationship between history and the alleged pro­ cess of 'coming to terms' with it. Janacs's texts translate the question of what could be seen literally into visual effects. But whereas Janacs demands from lan­ guage the greatest possible accuracy in the reproduction of remembered images, Reichart thematizes language itself as the medium of recollection.

II Attempts at Speech Ultimately, what has to be said cannot be put into words. As Hannah Arendt de­ monstrated dispassionately and compellingly at the time (Arendt 1977, 289-291), a system of justice which respects the rule of law simply does not have at its dis­ posal concepts which could be applied to the crimes of the Nazis. The reports of the witnesses, the internees themselves, came up against the paradox that no lan­ guage existed for the experiences which had to be passed on. In a posthumous tribute to Primo Levi, the writer Cordelia Edvardson, who was herself deported

REICHART’S ETYMOLOGY OF VIOLENCE — 255

as a fourteen-year-old via Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, put it as follows: T)a ist keine Sprache, da sind keine Worte, mit deren Hilfe Du das Unsagbare sagen, das Unbegreifliche erklaren kflnntest. Kein Sprachgewand, das uber das Skelett Deiner Erfahrungen geworfen werden konnte. Keine Buchstaben fur den Schrei' (Edvardson 1988, 369). Those whose language had produced the word 'Endlosung' lapsed for their part into deliberate taciturnity or into the wordlessness of collective repression. In Reichart's novel Februarschatten this deceptive quiet is to be broken, the mother is to be made to speak. Here, though, the protest against the speech taboos imposed after the war rejoins the demand for that say which has been denied to women since time immemorial. Reichart's young heroines will rebel against exclusion from the dominant discourse — only to find themselves faced with the problem that the language they are fighting for is at the same time irre­ deemably compromised, that there are no longer any untainted words. In Komm iiber den See, Ruth can still hear in the language around her the undertones of a Lingua Tertii Imperii (Klemperer 1975), and falls silent in disgust. But the text leaves us in no doubt that keeping silent is not a possible proper or logical res­ ponse to critical insights into the nature of language. An attitude of disgust at the inflationary and mechanical use of words can also be a pose, a simple act of superiority. Even the harshest judgement against language is in danger of cover­ ing up the fact that silence is not a noble and voluntary renunciation of speech, but extorted speechlessness. If the aim is to make clear what linguistic prohibi­ tions were at work, who was deprived of the right to speak, or who never had a right to speak, then a wholesale disavowal of language is not an appropriate way to proceed. This is the trap that is laid for all radical criticism of language: that in certain circumstances passionate abstention can play into the hands of societal censorship. Ruth, as an interpreter, had at first suffered from the 'simultaneous syn­ drome': 'Nur fremde Satze sind in mir' (KS, 43).® The expropriation of her lan­ guage also led to physical symptoms: nausea, retching, and inflammation of the mouth, until she gives up her profession. But Ruth's new preference for silence is criticized both openly and covertly by the position of the narrator and the other characters: 'Ohne Sprache aber ist nichts' (KS, 43). Hence it is necessary to arti­ culate and reproduce especially insults and injuries in speaking. '1st es dir nicht aufgefallen, dafi wir die gleiche Art haben, iiber uns zu reden: Bruchstucke, eingestreute Satze, abgebrochene Satze, Episoden — eben Stiickwerk', says Ruth's friend (KS, 33). The breaking down of syntax, the truncation of sentences by the removal of their 'nominative' corresponds to the (self)-abasement of the speaking

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subjects. Nor did the novel Februarschatten go beyond this broken speech, even though the whole narrative strategy of that text urgently strives to get the mother to have her say. Unlike the texts from the 1970s mentioned above, this is no lon­ ger an indictment; rather the story tries, with its protagonist, to practise recollec­ tion and speech. The voice of the mother, which dominates from the start, must not be confined within the narrative, rather it must be heard once again criticizing the writing of it; and this dislocation of the narrator's role has been interpreted by Christa Wolf as follows: Diese Autorin will ihrer Figur nicht antun, was ihr das ganze Leben lang angetan wurde: Sie will sie nicht zu ihrem Objekt machen [...] Gewissenhaft, vielleicht ubergewissenhaft findet diese Autorin in dem Mittel der doppelten Brechung eine Mftglichkeit, ihre Figur von sich zu befreien' (Wolf 1989, 108). But the loosening of the perspective does not of itself mean that an undamaged textual subject is beginning to speak here. Again and again mere ellipses are set stiffly side by side: 'Hilde stand auf. Suchte Antons Schlussel zum Weinkeller. Fand keinen Schlttssel. Nahm die Holzhacke. Brach damit die Tiir auf (FS, 9). Thus the language of the narrator reproduces once again the distur­ bed state of the characters' minds. Hilde herself expresses herself in infinitives which can also be interpreted as imperatives and thus as representing internalized compulsions: 'Zu dir gehen. Damit diesen Tag beginnen. Dich um Verzeihung bitten' and so on (FS, 36). At the same time however she attempts in a desperate first person to affirm her own self: Ich will nicht mehr auf dich Rucksicht nehmen. Ich habe mein Leben lang auf dich Rucksicht nehmen miissen Ich habe auch ein Recht [...] Ich hasse dich. (FS, 83)

This ritual invocation of the T no longer works except as excruciating rhe­ toric. In one of Reichart's most recent works, the narrator has a disabled sister, who never says 'I' and who communicates exclusively in a subjectless, primitive idiom. At the same time, it is made clear here that the 'I' which expresses itself in a sentence also needs an object. A utopian language could dispense with this opposition: Und die barmherzige Sprache meiner anderen Schwester wurde ich lemen wollen, ich wurde die Subjekte aus meiner verbannen, zuallererst dieses Ich, bei mir fing doch jeder Satz mit Ich an, austauschbares Ich, omnipotentes Ich, es richtete Schaden an, was ich von der reduzierten Sprache meiner Schwester nicht behaupten konnte. Wahrscheinlich hatte ihr meine Sprache bereits im Mutterleib die Freude am Sprechen ausgetrieben, und ihr Him hatte sich geweigert, die gleichen Verbindungen einzugehen wie meines ja, ich war es, die sie dazu gebracht hatte, anders zu sprechen, ohne Besitznahme, ohne Hack-

REICHART'S ETYMOLOGY OF VIOLENCE — 257

ordnung [...] Nur mein Sprechen konnte sie veranlaBt haben, ganz anders mit der Welt in Kontakt zu treten, und ich ahnte, konnte ich wenigstens einen Satz in ihrer Sprache denken, ohne ihn vorher in meiner zu formulieren und erst im nachhinein das Subjekt auszustreichen, wodurch nichts gewonnen war, keine Erkenntnis und kein neuer Blick, keine Grenziiberschreitung und keine Anteilnahme, wiirde mir dies gelingen, ware ich gerettet durch sie. (F, 78-79)

But this 'redemption' remains illusory as long as history and grammar predicate a subject-object relation. A speech without 'I' cannot survive in the face of the fact, which linguistics makes it impossible to doubt, that it is in and through language that the human being constitutes itself as subject. In Emile Benveniste's defini­ tion, subjectivity could not be anything other than 'Emergence dans l'etre d'une propriete fondamentale du langage'. 'Est "ego" qui dit "ego"' (Benveniste 1966, 260).9 Without language there would be no subjectivity; conversely language is only possible 'parce que chaque locuteur se pose comme sujet, en renvoyant a lui-meme comme je dans son discours [...] II est marque si profondement par l'expression de la subjectivity qu'on se demande si, autrement construit, il pourrait encore fonctionner et s'appeler langage' (Benveniste 1966,260).10 But if language and subjectivity are preconditions for each other, then anyone who gives up the position of subject also extinguishes language. Such a renunciation of speech, however, tacitly lays the groundwork for authoritarian language, which is like­ wise concerned to silence the individual subject. That is why it is necessary to speak, even if the speaker then becomes implicated in the matrices of oppression and violence which have become ingrained in language itself.

Ill Etym ologyofViolence In addition, Reichart's texts are constantly concerned to lay bare the historical roots of words. Power is etymologized — and not merely as regards the 'Worterbuch des Unmenschen'. Indeed, it is precisely where current everyday usage obli­ terates traces of historical violence that Reichart sets out through narration to extricate the unspeakable. The title story in La Valse contains an explicit lesson in etymology: Trag mich nicht, befrage die Worte: Das Licht und der Logos und der Laut und die Luge entstammen einer Ur-Wurzel: 1-e-g. Und preces heifit nicht nur Gebet, sondem auch sein Gegenteil — Fluch' (LV, 38-39). Yet Rei­ chart is not satisfied with drawing out Indo-Germanic roots. As Fritz Mauthner complained early on, academic etymology is in many respects every bit as naive as the etiologico-mythological derivations of the ancients or popular etymology (Mauthner 1982, II, 186-188). The business of the etymologist ought rather to be to send a probe into the history of language and to illuminate the contexts in which words were used. The verum etymologicum would then be seen always to

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concern processes whereby pain and alienation both negate the ego and intensify it. Jean Amery has given instances pertaining to exile and torture, experiences which permanently disrupt the self, which take away its self-evidency. After the account of his flight to Belgium, Am6ry goes on to discuss the word which is re­ lated to 'alien': 'Wer es nicht wufite, den hat es spater der Alltag des Exils gelehrt: dafl nSmlich in der Etymologie des Wortes Elend, in dessen friiher Bedeutung die Verbannung steckt, noch immer die getreueste Definition liegt' (Amery 1988, 59). In the essay, Am6ry describes the hanging torture in the cellars of the Gesta­ po: how the hands are tied behind the back, how the body is hung up by the wrists, how the muscles slowly give way and the shoulder-joints snap. After all this has been described comes the sentence: Tortur, vom lateinischen torquere, verrenken: Welch ein etymologischer Anschauungsunterricht!' (Amery 1988, 50). Reichart's writing accords with this kind of radical etymology, as it does also with Mauthner's assertion that the 'I' dictated by grammar is a fiction: 'Glaubt man an ein Ich, sucht man es, so mufi man es natiirlich in dem Kehricht der Erin­ nerungen finden, der aus verwesenden BegrifFen besteht. Will man die Welt mit Hilfe der Sprache erklaren, so darf man den Kehricht nicht verschmahen' (Mauthner 1982, I, 672). Reichart's recent book can be seen in a sense as a search through the sweepings. The text is concerned with the remnants of the Nazi past, with the continuance of a form of fascism which is to be found in the fatal con­ junction of sex with violence and, as such, lurks in the most intimate nooks and crannies of private life. This prose no longer has anything in common with the Trauenbiicher' of the 1970s. The confidence that it would be possible to invent an 'authentic' female language, or 'way of writing' in which gender and sex would find pleasurable expression, had evaporated. Stories of mothers and fathers were focusing not only on the dogged silence of domestic repression, but also on the crippling dressage of daughters. It was not possible to show much enthusiasm for liberation any more in the light of the realization that a history and a language divested of respect deform every body and leave behind traces which cannot be wiped out that quickly even by vociferous protest. The fact that collective fanta­ sies of violence take root in the minds of women themselves and create pleasure, shattered the puritanical feminine position in the pornography debate and with it all confidence in an Edenically new feminine sexuality. This bitter scepticism lies behind (and in the title of) Reichart's story Fotze — a title which did indeed actually lead to a situation whereby bookshops refused to put the book on display and the Austrian broadcasting media declined to discuss it. No-one would want to insist that this is a 'new' word — the writer least of all. The word is being 'zuriickgegeben', it is a 'vergessenes', 'abgelegtes', 'aufer-

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259

standenes Wort' (F, 8). The 'new' language for the silent sex, provided by the under-class lover, is the old insult. Totze', etymologically 'stinking stuff, is used in the Bavarian dialect not only for the female genitals, but also more generally for 'girl, woman', and, as the lexica put it, 'other orifices' and therefore also 'mouth'; the verb 'fotzen' means to hit (on the mouth) — the book had to be called that: the tide is not a publicity stunt but the epitome of the connection, which the text constandy points up, between sexuality and violence in language. The word has literally 'risen again' from ruins: it occurs in the narrator's childhood memo­ ries, as a graffito on a bunker wall. Under the wall, the metaphor for the war and the 'immuring' of history, lie hidden 'die Leichen', 'die Gebeine', 'diese vermoderten Knochen' (F, 9). The close counterpoint between two obscenities, two conspiracies of silence is exposed. The swear-word and the walls built over the 'verharmlosten Verbrechen' (F, 10) stand as monuments of shame and warning. 'Wortleichen', Mauthner's decomposing concepts, are also exhumed in places where Reichart focuses on the paradigm of patriarchal domination, on the relationship between father and daughter. In La Valse the daughter confronts the father who has abused her with her incorruptible memory and a list of 'death words': 'Vater, Morder, Kinder, sterben, Grab, Rache, Selbstmord, Mord, Strick, Plastikwaffen, Grauen, grauenhaft perfekt, Geld, Krebs, Krankenhaus, Arzte, Chemotherapie' (LV, 43). It is not only individual words which stand for this bru­ tality, but also the special ideolects of paternal violence which suffuse speech and can be made into weapons. The diction of science and the Old Testament is used to cut the female subject down to size. '[D]ie Bibel war euer Schlagstock' (LV, 34), is how the narrator remembers her parents. The Genesis story of Lot and his daughters is the corollary to the continuing abuse of children. The episode which precedes the destruction of Sodom is also quoted: Lot has two angels in human form as guests. The Sodomites demand that he should hand over the strangers. They want to indulge in unnatural practices with them, a vice which, as the note in the Jerusalem Bible explains, was abhorred by the Israelites but widespread amongst their neighbours. Lot tries to come to the following deal: 'Ach liebe Bruder, tut nicht so tibel! Siehe, ich habe zwei Tdchter, die wissen noch von keinem Mann; die will ich herausgeben unter euch, und tut mit ihnen, was euch gefdllt; aber diesen Mdnnem tut nichts, denn darum sind sie unter den Schatten meines Dachs gekommen’ (LV, 18; Gen 19, 7-8). The daughter's voice comments: 'So groBziigig warst du nicht, wolltest alles fur dich allein haben'. The daughter takes advantage of Lot's offer in getting her revenge: by appearing before her father as a whore, she gives him a pathogenic shock; his subsequent illness ends in death. Before he dies there is a final 'attempt to save him': 'du kannst gesund werden',

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says the daughter, 'wie du krank werden konntest, sobald du bereit bist, mir zu glauben: Aufier dir ging kein Mann bei mir ein nach aller Welt Weise' (LV, 41; Gen 19, 31). Just as she turns the Biblical euphemism into a last cynical jibe against her father, so she also takes over the language of medicine in order to defend herself with that sovereign knowledge: Ich rechnete mit einem Verlustkonflikt — Hodenkrebs klang so schon, eventuell mit einem Selbstwerteinbruch, wobei ich mir iiber die Schwere dieses Biitzschlags nicht klar wurde — Knochennekrose, Milznekrose oder nur Bindegewebs- beziehungsweise BlutgefkB- versus Dyschondrose versus LymphgefaB und all dieser Nekroschen mehr [.. .] Es kommt einfach nur Krebs des entodermalen Magenanteils der groBen Curvatur und des untersten linken Drittels der Oesophagus in Frage. (LV, 8-9)

The classic patriarchal discourse of the woman as pathological 'case' is thus reversed and turned against the father. What had been used to exclude women from systems of knowledge is here gleefully taken up by the narrator and made to serve her revenge. And as in Fotze, this text too ultimately faces the pro­ blem that the female 'I', in taking over language, can at the most reverse, but never do away with, relations of dependency: 'Sie will Subjekt werden und kann es nur, wenn sie das Erbe des Vaters antritt [...] Aber das Subjekt, das sie sucht und als ihr eigenes in Besitz nehmen mochte, bleibt ein von Mannem geschenktes [...] denn das Begehren des Mannes ist auf seine eigenen Worte gerichtet, und ihr Geschlecht bleibt Objekt' (Mitgutsch 1993). That is why the trauma of one's own body is incurable: 'on the body is written the stigma of past events', what is to be shown is liow history gnaws at the body' (Michel Foucault). IV The Voices of the Witnesses The point Reichart insists on in her texts (and it is an achievement which goes beyond the historical anamnesis of words) is that conjuring up the traces of the past in language, though it may make them visible, does not make them go away. Her stories repudiate therapeutic and juridical models. She always denies us the cathartic effect of psychoanalytical recall or criminalistic detection. Doubtless her texts would be more easily accepted if they did offer the possibility that historical crimes could finally be disposed of by 'working through' them. What is really astonishing about the objections raised by one critic to the 'old-fashioned' nature of Reichart's technique and her treatment of '[t]ausendmal Gedachtes, Gefuhltes, Beobachtetes' is the way it completely disregards the probable sources of such a distaste for these 'old fashions' (Dotzauer 1988). Critical opinion may attack the literary means, but it is actually directed against the inopportune theme, which is

REICHART'S ETYMOLOGY OF VIOLENCE — 261

indeed not fashionably original but rather insists on the necessity of repetition. Reichart has been accused of being neurotically obsessed with her themes; her fellow-writer Renate Welsh has defended her against the charge — and Welsh should know what she is talking about because she too has published an antho­ logy on Austrians in the Resistance (Welsh 1993, 197)." In the period after the war this typically Austrian denial of history was able to draw on the politically opportune designation of Austria as victim; hence its ultimate recourse is to talk, definitively, of 'victims'. Against this Reichart insists on the virulence of history and its continual power to maim in ways which cannot be dismissed as mere phantom pains. One passage in the story 'Wie nah ist Mauthausen' describes the traumatic experiences of a resistance fighter who in interned in Kaplanhof, a sub­ camp of Mauthausen. When the camp is set on fire following an air raid, she manages to escape. Badly injured, she is taken to hospital and operated on: weiche, glatte Frauenhande, kiihle Haut auf offener Haut. Diese Hande suchten nach den Fremdkorpem in meinem Korper. Wie tief dringen Hande, was kann ein Messer aus mir schneiden, eine Pinzette aus mir nehmen. Kdnnen sie Worte herausholen, einen Verrat tilgen? [...] Sie verhafteten die Arztin [...] Die Fremdkorper, die sie nicht entfemt hat, hat niemand entfemt, und die Worte haben sich eingegraben in das verbrannte Fleisch. (LV, 120, 122).

What is reflected here, broken up by the asides on the efficacity of words, are the recollections of a 'contemporary witness'. 'Translated' here into literary form is a moment in the story told personally by the Upper Austrian resistance fighter Maria Ehmer (1910-1992). Ehmer's autobiography is recorded in Elisabeth Rei­ chart's thesis: 'Mir is alles aberbrennt gwest vom KOrper, net [...] Do bin i auf am Tisch glegn, und do war a Schwester do, die hat ma iiberall was aussi tan, iiberall was aufier gschnittn, lauter Bombensplitta und so Kugln drinnen ghabt [...] Da hab i ma denkt, da bin i wenigstens in gute Hand. Die hat mir ja die Kugln aussa gnumma' (HM, xlvi). In accordance with the principles of Oral History, Rei­ chart's transcription seeks to leave the characteristics of orality intact.12 The only way Reichart's narrator can point up the equally persistent in­ juries inflicted on the body by words is by metaphorizing Ehmer's sentences, by operating on them. Her reworking does not escape the sad dilemma that even the attempt to preserve the experiences of contemporary witnesses once again makes an object of oral narrative. The translation of dialect into standard or literary lan­ guage may be a pre-requisite for its widespread comprehensibility — but it is at the same time a form of 'alienation'. Even if deviations from the standard lan­ guage and oral characteristics are retained in transcriptions, there is still the danger that this colloquialism will then degenerate into something folkloristically

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exotic (Stangl 1989, 40). The problem recurs again and again in the theory of Oral History — which constantly dispossesses its subjects of that very language it hopes to help them find. The process of linguistic colonization which it seeks to work against is one which it simultaneously perpetuates (Botz 1988, 27).13 Reichart's intention of 'giving a voice' to 'powerlessness' had likewise been misunder­ stood as a plea in favour of social underprivilege (Reichart/Roscher, 129). Yet she had already reflected on these difficulties in her thesis, as well as in Komm uber den See where the 'contemporary witness' refuses to speak and is no longer prepared to accept the role of victim ascribed to her: 'Nennt uns nicht Opfer! Ich kann dieses Wort nicht h6ren, es gehdrt mit zu den Vereinbarungen, die uber uns getroffen wurden. Wir und Opfer? Habt ihr denn die Stimme nicht vemommen, die da spricht: A uf das Opfer darf keiner sich beruferi (KS, 153). The voice speaking there is the voice of another 'witness'. Reichart recent­ ly edited a volume in which Austrian women writers submit the work of their predecessors and colleagues to a process of exact and careful reconstruction, es­ pecially where it is a matter of saving the writings of emigrees from oblivion (Reichart 1993). She herself did not produce a portrait of any writer for this vol­ ume. Her contribution is to be found in her texts, in the form of a homage to an Austrian writer who, as no other, drew attention to the long-term damage caused by fascism: Ingeborg Bachmann. 'Auf das Opfer darf keiner sich berufen' is a piece of Bachmann's, published posthumously. Bachmann is here protesting against an imputation of victim status, 'weil der geopferte Mensch nichts ergibt': ■Es ist nicht wahr, dafi die Opfer mahnen, bezeugen, Zeugenschaft fur etwas ablegen, das ist eine der furchtbarsten und gedankenlosesten, schwSchsten Poedsierungen [...] Auf das Opfer darf keiner sich berufen. Es ist Miflbrauch. Kem Land und keine Gruppe, keine Idee, darf sich auf ihre Toten berufen' (Bachmann 1978, IV, 335). Bachmann's 'voice' can be heard again and again in Reichart. 'Hier wollte ich nie ankommen', thinks the protagonist in Reichart's short story Die Kammer', 'in diesem dunklen Schatten, dem ich schon seit Anfang folge...' (LV, 112). The text can be read as a variation on themes by Bachmann: on the fathertrauma and its symptoms, on angst, illness, and the loss of self. The 'dark shadow' is a poetological metaphor, the model Bachmann herself. The posthumous poem from which the quotation is taken is entitled 'Angste': Was wird denn bleiben? Ich seufze, leide, suche und meine Wanderschaften werden niemals enden. Der dunkle Schatten, dem ich schon seit Anfang folge, fuhrt mich in tiefe Wintereinsamkeiten [.. .]14

REICHART’S ETYMOLOGY OF VIOLENCE — 263

Paraphrases of Bachmann in Reichart stand for the forms of death (Todesarten') in a 'gestundete Zeit' (FS, 40). Utopian moments only ever occur at the point of tipping over into failure, as with the poem 'An die Sonne' (LV, 123), the metaphors of high tides and floods from Malina (LV, 114; KS, 68), the brothersister relationship in Der Fall Franza (FS, 8).16 Reichart is invoking 'textual wit­ nesses' representing the most advanced positions yet reached in the etymology of violence, in the analysis of the patriarchal structures of language. The program­ matic quotations from Bachmann in her texts are markers underlining the serious problem that language encompasses the abuses which at the same time have to be written against; in Bachmann's words: T)enn dies bleibt doch, sich anstrengen miissen mit der schlechten Sprache, die wir vorfmden, auf diese eine Sprache hin, die noch nie regiert hat, die aber unsere Ahnung regiert und die wir nachahmen' (Bachmann 1978, IV, 270). Bachmann, too, was aware that utopia, including the utopia of words, had been shorn of its concrete correlative: to think of the other state henceforth meant destruction. Nothing can restore innocence to words; if they do their job, they work hard, drawing out their roots, uncovering what lay buried and resisting the temp­ tation to cheat their way in a postmodern manner out of history. And this work knows no respite. In his novel La Montagne blanche, Semprun changed the Jew­ ish name Teierabend' into Teuerabend' and gives the last word to this popular etymology: 'Les mots travaillaient encore. Comme des lampes allumees dans une nuit d'ete les papillons, ils attiraient des images enfouies les naus£es ou les frayeurs d'autrefois: une sorte de ressourcement' (Semprun 1986,104).

NOTES Translation by Robert Gillett. 1. Sheridan (Semprun 1984, 165) has a 'vehicle of a cultural history and a collective memory'. 2. In Sheridan's translation, this passage occurs before the page numbering starts; it is rendered: 'man's struggle against power is the struggle of memory against oblivion' [Translator's note]. Gunter Grass expresses a similar idea: 'Ein Schriftsteller, Kinder, ist jemand, der gegen die verstreichende Zeit schreibt' (Grass 1974, 98). 3. Sheridan (Semprun 1984. 66): 'The memory is the best recourse, even if it seems paradoxical at first. The best recourse against the pain of remembering, against the dereliction [sic], against the unspoken, familiar madness'. 4. Daniel's English version (Daniel 1983) was reprinted in Wehrmann and SchuetzeCobum 1991, 125-140 (here 129): 'And they themselves often blocked the way to a deep and comprehensive understanding of the past of the older generation, which was as ridden with suffering as it was with guilt'. (The VaterbQcher referred to are discussed by Ehlers 1991, 233-238).

264 — KONSTANZE FLIEDL 5. 6

7.

8. 9.

10.

11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

On the relationship between the roles of female perpetrator and female victim in both texts see Wigmore 1993. Semprun 1980, 60, translates the German phrases as: 'les cas les moins graves, les detenus susceptibles de r66ducation et d'amdlioration1, 'les detenus plus dangereux mais encore susceptibles d'etre r66duqu6s et am6lior6s' and 'les cas les plus graves, les detenus & peine r6cup6rables ou r66ducables'. Sheridan (Semprun 1984, 38) ren­ ders his glosses: 'the least serious cases, prisoners capable of reeducation and im­ provement*, 'more dangerous prisoners, who were nonetheless capable of being re­ educated and improved' and 'the most serious cases, prisoners regarded as beyond reeducation and improvement*. On Mauthausen see MarSdlek 1980, 38-44; le Chdne 1971, 35-37. The woman was Maria Langthaler from Winden near Schwertberg, who sheltered the Soviet officers Michael Ryabtchinsky and Nicolai Zemkalo until the end of the war (Kamy 1992,101-120; MarSaiek 1980, 262). A similar message is conveyed in Bachmann 1974. Meek translates this as: 'Now we hold that "subjectivity" [...] is only the emergence in the being of a fundamental property of language. "Ego" is he who says "ego"* (Benveniste 1971, 224). Meek translates: 'language is only possible because each speaker sets himself up as a subject by referring to himself as I in his discourse [...] Language is marked so deeply by the expression of subjectivity that one might ask if it could still function and be called language if it were constructed otherwise' (Benveniste 1971, 225). Welsh 1993,197. See also Welsh 1988 In an anthology on Austrian resistance fighters, Maria Ehmer's story is subjected to a different degree of standardization: 'Einen SchuB hab ich gehabt in der Hand, einen im GesdB, einen im Oberschenkel und an BauchschuB. Verbrennungen vom Knie bis zu den Zehen, da war nur mehr ein Streifen Haut. In Linz habens mir die Kugeln rausgenommen, zum Toil, eine steckt noch immer drin. Splitter hab ich auch noch, war grad wieder einmal im Spital, daR mir die rausnehmen. Manchmal tuts mir schon noch weh' (Ehmer 1985, 238). On general methodological questions concerning Oral History see Grele 1980. [8.12.1945]. NachlaH, Blatt 6188, cited by Hdller 1987,173. See also HOIIer 1982. See Bachmann 1 9 7 8 ,1, 37,136-137; e.g. Ill, 65, 141, 357, 397.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Reichart, Elisabeth: 'Heute ist morgen. Fragen an den kommunistisch organisierten Widerstand im Salzkammergut*, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Salzburg, 1983. (=HM). ------ : Februarschatten. Roman, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1989 (=FS). ------ : Komm Qberden See. ErzShlung, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1988 (=KS). ------ : La Valse. Erzdhlungen, Muller, Salzburg, 1992. (=LV). ------ : Fotze. ErzShlung, Muller, Salzburg, 1993 (=F). ------ and Roscher, Achim: 'Elisabeth Reichart im GesprSch [mit Achim Roscher]', neue deutsche literatur 35 (1987), 9 ,12 9-1 32.

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Secondary Works Am6ry, Jean 1988: Jenseits von Schuld und SQhne. BewSltigungsversuche eines OberwSltigten, dtv, Munich. Arendt, Hannah 1977: Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil, rev. and enl. edn, Penguin, London. Bachmann, Ingeborg 1974: 'Simultan' in Bachmann: Simultan. ErzShlungen, dtv, Munich. ------ 1978: Werke, ed. by Christine Koschel, Inge von Weidenbaum and Clemens Munster, 4 vols, Piper, Munich. Benveniste, £mile 1966: Probl&mes de linguistique g6n6rale I, Gallimard, Paris. ------ 1971: Problems in General Linguistics, trans. by Mary Elizabeth Meek, Miami Linguistics Series, 8, University of Miami Press, Miami. Berger, Karin et al. (eds) 1985: DerHimmelist blau. Kann sein. Frauen im Widerstand— Osterreich 1938-1945, Promedia, Vienna. Botz, Gerhard, 1988: 'Neueste Geschichte zwischen Quantifizierung und "Mundlicher Geschichte". Uberlegungen zur Konstituierung einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitgeschichte von neuen Quellen und Methoden her1in Botz et al. (eds): 'Qualitdt und Quantitdt'. Zur Praxis der Methoden der Historischen Sozialwissenschaft, Studien zur historischen Sozialwissenschaft, Campus, Frankfurt am Main. Daniel, Jamie Owen 1983: 'Fathers and Sons, Retrospectively: The Damaged Relationship Between Two Generations’, New German Critique, 31 (Winter 1983). Dotzauer, Gregor, 1988: 'Alles geborgt. Elisabeth Reicharts ErzShlung "Komm uber den See’", Die Zeit, 12 August 1988. Edvardson, Cordelia 1988: 'Fiir Primo Levi', trans. Ruprecht Volz, in Levi: Ist das ein Mensch? Die Atempause, Hanser, Munich, pp.369-373. Ehlers, Hella 1991: ’Erinnerungsarbeit gegen Vergessen und ",Entsorgung* On the treatment of the experience of German fascism in prose works of the last decade in the Federal Republic' in Williams et al. 1991, 225-242. Ehmer, Maria 1985: 'Lieber Bruno, sei tapfer, ich bin verhaftet' in Berger et al. 1985, 2 3 0 239. Grass, Gunter 1974: Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg. Grele, Ronald J. 1980: 'Ziellose Bewegung. Methodologische und theoretische Problems der Oral History' in Niethammer/Trapp 1980,143-161. H6ller, Hans (ed.) 1982: 'Der dunkle Schatten, dem ich schon seit Anfang folge'. Ingeborg Bachmann — VorschlSge zu einer neuen LektQre des Works, Lacker, Vienna. ------ 1987: Ingeborg Bachmann. Das Werk. Von den friihesten Gedichten bis zum Todesarten'-Zyklus, AthenSum, Frankfurt am Main. Janacs, Christoph 1991: Das Verschwinden des Blicks, Muller, Salzburg. Kain, Franz 1986: 'Maria-LichtmeG-Nachf in Kain: Das SchOtzenmahl. Geschichten, ed. by Helga Thron, Aufbau, Berlin, pp.111-119. Kamy, Thomas 1992: Die Hatz. Bilder zur MQhlviertler'Hasenjagd', Edition Geschichte der Heimat, Griinbach. Klemperer, Victor 1975: LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen, Reclam, Leipzig. le Ch§ne, Evelyn 1971: Mauthausen: The History of a Death Camp, Chivers Press, Bath. MarSdlek, Hans 1980: Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen. Dokumentation, Osterreichische Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen, Vienna. Mauthner, Fritz 1982: BeitrSge zu einer Kritik der Sprache, 3 vols, Ullstein, Frankfurt. Mitgutsch, Waltraud Anna 1993: 'Benennen bedeutet Anerkennen', Der Standard, 29 October 1993. Niethammer, Lutz with Trapp, Wemer (eds) 1980: Lebenserfahrung und kollektives GedSchtnis. Die Praxis der Oral History, Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main. Reichart, Elisabeth (ed.) 1993: Osterreichische Dichterinnen, Otto Muller, Salzburg. Schmidt, Ricarda and McGowan, Moray (eds) 1993: From High Priests to Desecrators. Contemporary Austrian Writers, Sheffield Academic Press.

266 — KONSTANZE FLIEDL Schneider, Michael 1981: 'Vdter und Sdhne, posthum. Das beschfldigte Vertiaitnis zweier Generationen' in Schneider Den Kopf verkehrt aufgesetzt oder Die melancholische Linke. Aspekte des Kulturzerfalls in den siebziger Jahren, Luchterhand, Darmstadt, pp.8-64. Semprun, Jorge 1980: Quel beau dimanche, Grasset et Fasquelle, Paris. ------ 1984: What a Beautiful Sunday, trans. by Alan Sheridan, Abacus, London. ------ 1986: La Montagne blanche, Gallimard, Paris. Stangl, Gitta 1989: Alltagsgeschichte. MOglichkeiten und Grenzen der Arbeit mit Lebensgeschichte, OBV, Vienna. Stemberger, Dolf, Storz, Gerhard, and Suskind, W .E 1957: Aus dem WOrterbuch des Unmenschen, Claassen, Hamburg. Welsh, Renate 1988: In die Waagschale geworfen. Osterreicher im Widerstand, Jugend und Volk, Vienna. ------ 1993: 'Gegen das Verschweigen. Zu Elisabeth Reichart in Reichart 1993, 191-208. Wehrmann, Elisabeth and Schuetze-Cobum, Marje (eds) 1991: The Silent Shadow. The Third Reich and the Generation After, Goethe-lnstitut, Los Angeles. Wigmore, Juliet 1993: '"Auch Schweigen kann Verrat sein". Coming to Terms with Women's History: Elisabeth Reichart's Februarschatten and Komm iiber den See' in Schmidt/McGowan 1993,119-134. Williams, Arthur, Parkes, Stuart, and Smith, Roland (eds) 1991: German Literature at a Time of Change, 1989-1990. German Unity and German Identity in Literary Perspective, Peter Lang, Berne. Wolf, Christa 1989: 'Struktur der Erinnerung'. 'Nachworf to Reichart, Februarschatten.

THE USE OF LANGUAGE IN THE PLAYS OF WERNER SCHWAB: TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF 'DAS SCHWABISCHE' JULIAN PREECE

Werner Schwab, who died on New Year's Day 1994 a few weeks before his thirty-sixth birthday, was the German-speaking theatre's most exciting new dis­ covery in the early 1990s. His rapid rise to fame and critical recognition, prolific output (more than a dozen plays, possibly as many as twenty, in roughly five years), and his skill in cultivating a public persona to match the sometimes outra­ geous content of his plays, are unparalleled in recent times.1 In addition to his dramatic work, he published a volume of experimental prose and a theoretical essay and, by the time of his death, had discovered an interest in directing.2 It is his plays, however, which fascinate. After the first performance of Die Pr&sidentinnen in February 1990, he caught public attention with a production of OBERGEWICHT, unwichtig, UNFORM at the Wiener Schauspielhaus in January 1991 (dir. Hans Gratzer). Theater Heute made him 'Jungdramatiker' of that year and Dramatiker des Jahres' a year later; Volksvemichtung, featured in that magazine in March 1991, now looks set to become a contemporary classic after the Mu­ nich production won first prize at the 'Berliner Theatertreffen' in 1992. Over the three to four years immediately preceding his death the regional theatres of Ger­ many and Austria competed with one another for commissions and premieres and Schwab did his best to satisfy their demands. He claimed that he wrote for mo­ ney anyway and that he wanted to exploit his fame to make himself financially secure by the time he turned forty (Kralicek 1992). This, although leading inevi­ tably to accusations of commercial sensationalism, helped him establish himself as a theatrical pop-star who had shot to fame from nowhere. More than one re­ viewer used extra-terrestial imagery to describe his impact on the theatre-going world: Die Zeit wrote that 'ihr Autor scheint vom Himmel gefallen, ist in unsere Theaterlandschaft eingeschlagen wie ein Meteor1(SchOdel 1992). Theater Heute never seemed quite sure what to make of him, having championed his cause ini­ tially, the journal distanced itself from the Schwab phenomenon once he had be­ come successful (Wille 1993; Kralicek 1993). Nevertheless only the language of show business would do: 'Landauf, landab wird Schwab gespielt, zum Muhlheimer Dramenwettbewerb (1991 und 92) sowie zum Berliner Theatertreffen

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(1992) eingeladen — a star was bom' (Kralicek 1992). Freitag varied the Holly­ wood imagery only slightly: 'Was Arnold Schwarzenegger (auch er ein Steirer) fur das amerikanische Kino darstellt, ist Schwab fur die deutschsprachigen Biihnen: Barbar und Terminator' (Dermutz 1992). Yet this general aura of scandal and commercial success obscures the (more important) question of literary value: what will remain of his work once audiences are thoroughly used to his adventurous theatrical style and no longer find his themes quite so daring? This essay locates his orginality in his use of language, the bizarreness of which has escaped nobody who has seen any of his plays, and argues that his rather desperate portrayal of contemporary society is articulated primarily through the modes of speech adopted by his characters. Through his choice of explicit subject-matter and his apparently obscene language Schwab sets out to offend, confront, and even overturn everyday no­ tions of good taste: he depicts scenes of exhibitionism and orgiastic cannibalism (OBERGEWICHT), human sacrifice (MESALLIANCE), mass poisoning (Volksvemichtung), masturbation and mutual food-smearing (Eskalation ordindr), nakedness, murder, and sexual intercourse, both homo- and hetero- (Hochschwab, Pomogeographie). It seems that none of his plays is complete without a dumb sequence, or series of sequences, involving one or some of the above. In Hundemund, possibly the most nauseating of all, the central figure, Hundsmaulsepp, sits for most of the action in a tub of blood and innards (he is a charcutier by trade) before inviting his dog to gnaw at his leg and eat him in the final scene. Schwab was quick to claim that the public appetite for such spectacles explained his success, remarking sarcastically: 'Ich bin eine real existierende Marktliicke' (quoted by Merschmeier 1994). While the idea of presenting these activities on stage can be traced to Performance Theatre in general and Viennese Actionism in particular, he is not primarily an 'actionist' or 'performance dramatist', as dia­ logue, plot, characterization, and dramatic theme conform to more or less con­ ventional theatrical expectations. That Schwab's emergence coincided precisely with German unification and the concomitant rejection in certain quarters of overtly political literature struck some as no coincidence. When he mentions the event at all, it is only as the second part of a sarcastic simile involving sexual coupling (KK, 197). His mis­ anthropic (and misogynistic) outpourings, his scatalogical extravaganza, and the often nonsensical babbling of his characters, added to his supremely cynical atti­ tude towards people and ideas, were all said to suit the nationalist, anti-Enlightenment, and unpolitical mood of the moment, or (worse still) to be tailored for an extreme-right audience. A few weeks before his death, Sigrid LOffler bundled

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these accusations into a personal and poisonous attack (LOffler 1993). Yet, while critics from the ex-GDR found his plays particularly unappealing (Pees 1993; Ebert 1992), in the West, reviewers in the right-wing press found it as difficult to embrace his work as did the left (Spiegel 1992). Helmut Schddel, whose own re­ views in Die Zeit grew more enthusiastic, probably got it right when he said: 'manche Kritiker [sehen] einen Mix aus linkem Terror und rechtem Sumpf. Die Wahrheit: die haben Angst vorm schwarzen Mann1(SchOdel 1993). Schwab, of course, delighted in feeding his detractors with the flippancy of some of his comments. He claimed that he had been to the theatre only one-and-a-half times before his own plays came to be performed. As his whole definition of theatre is anti-bourgeois, he took the bourgeois fascination with his plays to be simply masochistic: 'So wie viele wohlsituierte Prokuristen und Bankdirektoren in eine strenge Kammer gehen und sich foltem lassen, so kommen sie auch ins Theater und sehen sich meine Stttcke an1(quoted by Hfibel 1992). It is more likely that they come for the exquisite comedy of his dialogue, which, like all true comedy, broods over a darker, frightening realm of cruelty where an absolute lack of pity intrudes through the social surface with devastating effect. Schwab's provocative comments do not mean that he does not want to be taken seriously. When asked once what reaction he wanted from his audience, he replied in more responsible mode: Die Zuschauer sollen sich vor Lachen auf die Schenkel schlagen und pltitzlich das darunterliegende Grauen wahmehmen' (quoted by Dermutz 1992). Language and the comic potential of word-play were his overriding con­ cerns, not society or politics. He insisted that 'Geschichten und Schicksale interessieren mich nicht' (quoted by Wirsing 1994) and that the social milieu, which he rendered with fine comic accuracy, held no instrinsic fascination for him. It was nothing more than 'der Kitt, der die Sache zusammenhalt' (quoted by Hammerstein 1994); literary content and material were moreover 'sekunddr', because 'das Mittel ist der Zweck. Zuerst kommt die Sprache, dann kommt der Mensch'. He elaborated: 'es geht nicht darum, daB man auf die soziale Tranendriise driickt, irgendein politisches Problem hat, das man mit Figuren und Sprache auszuwiisten hat. Sondem umgekehrt' (Siedenburg 1991). This is definitely not drama with a message; nor is it altogether empty of social content. Clearly, he begins with lan­ guage in order to move in the direction of other matters, be they social, political, or whatever. This process is in a way inevitable since language is rarely 'pure' in any real sense and usually involves content of one sort or another, unless it is to degenerate into absolute nonsense. Schwab's sententious pronouncements on contemporary theatre are reminiscent of that other scandal-monger of the last fm de-siecle, Oscar Wilde. Furthermore the problems that some theatre critics

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encountered with his work may be attributed to their unstated hostility to I'art pour I'art in this latest inverted (and possibly, to them, perverted) guise. It is true that, for Schwab's characters, social values, morality, and reli­ gion, count for nothing and that their lives and actions seem to demonstrate the redundancy of all finer notions. Yet it is false to assume that he celebrates this fact or that it amounts to neo-right nihilism, simply because he fails to explore the social factors which have wrecked the lives of those he portrays. In his more comic, popular (and more acccessible) plays, especially Volksvemichtung, Die Prdsidentinnen, OBERGEWICHT, and MESALLIANCE, society in the form of class and gender roles, social behaviour and family expectations is undeniably present. His characters are social, if not socialized, beings. The words 'Gemeinschaft' and 'Menschlichkeit' and compounds containing one or the other of them recur frequently: for Schwab, politics begins with two people on stage. Each of these plays might easily be read as an allegory of Austrian society. Moreover, since everything he wrote revolves around language and communication between individuals, or the effective impossibility of it, society can never be far away even in the more abstract pieces. Schwab's personal aversion to political convictions and his antipathy to anything which smacked of 'Gesinnungsasthetik' may help align him with the 'Zeitgeist', but does little justice to his plays and does not explain their popularity. Other factors are far more significant. These are: his experiments with speech and invention of new linguistic forms, even a new dialect or language, which clever reviewers quickly called 'das Schwabische'; his original use of dramatic structure, particularly the dual or triple endings to several of his plays, which underline his belief in the impossibility of rounded conclusions; his, at times, uproariously funny satire of Austrian mores, effected primarily between the massive discrepancy between what is said and the way it is said, for which basic comic technique he knew infinite variations; and, last but not least, his apparent obsession with bodily functions. Schwab himself explained the primacy of language in his thinking: Die Figuren sind absichtsvoll leer, weil ich kaum uberhaupt jemandem Subjektcharakter zugestehe oder so etwas wie das Dasein eines Individuums. Und ich mach' das uber Sprache, weil es doch ein ganz vemiinftiger Ansatz ist, zu denken, daB BewuBtsein sowieso nix ist als Sprache. Das heiBt, daB es auCerhalb dessen unter Umstanden gar nix gibt. Das BewuBtsein hat eben so eine sehr grammatische und semantische Struktur. (quoted by Pees 1994)

Language is so powerful a force that it crushes the distinctions between individ­ uals rather than enabling them to express their own distinctness.

THE LANGUAGE OF WERNER SCHWAB — 271

Schwab is at his funniest and most satirical (though possibly least original) when he creates a gap between what is said and what is meant and when the way it is said is farcically inappropriate. In addition to the comic effect, this technique demonstrates once more how speakers are alienated from their speech, how what they say does not belong to them. There are innumerable examples of this. Be­ fore the diastrous birthday party for Johanna and Johannes Pestalozzi3 in Mesalli­ ance, their parents discuss the imminent arrival of the guests who have signalled their intention of bringing surplus home-grown produce: FRAU PESTALOZZI Die Haiders haben sich angesagt bei uns. Eine von der Verdauung der Familie Haider unmoglich zu iiberwaltigende Menge Friihkartoffel hat sich emten lassen mussen in ihrem Garten [...] HERR PESTALOZZI Die Familie Torti hat sich vorausberechnet bei uns. Sie umfugt zu viele Erbsen bei sich. Die glinstige Witterung erregte eine zu groBe Erbsenanzahl in der Ernahrungsplanwirtschaft der Familie Torti. Die Tortis suchen den Erbsenuberschufi zu verteilen in der unmittelbaren Nachbarschaft.

Herr Pestalozzi then muses that Nachbarschaft ist ja Ausdruck des Ausforschens von iiberflussigen Dingen und Zust&nden eines Landstrichs. Ein Landstrich ahndet nichts lieber als die Austauschverweigerung einer Nachbarschaft, die etwas etwaiges Uberfliissiges nicht verbrauchen will als einen Austausch. (KK, 145)

One understands what he means even though it sounds as if he had learnt his German from a textbook printed on a faraway planet. The grave tone gives the subject under discussion a disproportionate significance, but given the horrible events in the final scenes, when the birthday twins are killed, his puzzled, closing comment on neighbourliness is chilling. Reviewers tended to stress the nonsensical character of Schwab's peculiar speech forms, finding his language either to be 'einem dem deutschen angen&herten Kauderwelsch' (Barz 1992), or, in recognition of its parody of German officialese, a mixture of 'Amtsdeutsch' and 'Kindersprache' (SchOdel 1991). Alternatively, because of the proliferation of passives and exaggerated compound nouns side by side with childish obscenities, 'Amtsdeutsch' and 'Aftersprache' (Auch 1992). Less positive voices implied it represented the linguistic equivalent of fast-food in the modem throw-away, television-saturated society: 'ein schnelllebiges Geplapper also, Sprache zum Sofortverzehr' (Urbach 1993), 'Wortmull', or, a little more hopefully, 'eine prekare Balance aus plappemdem Unemst und

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pldtzlicher Wahrhaftigkeit' (Weinzierl 1993; Hfibel 1992). Even Jutta Landa, in the first academic essay devoted to Schwab, argues that he revels in the produc­ tion of nonsense and non-sense.4 The premise of this essay is that there is far more to 'das Schwabische' than such comments would have us believe. It is the relationship between speakers and language which is the key to understanding these plays, as one or two newspaper critics did recognize: the obituary in the Siiddeutsche Zeitung observed that 'die Sprecher haben die Macht 1angst verloren uber die Substantive, die Verben, die Adjektive, die sie so befallen und sie aussaugen wie Vampire. Die Worte maltrStieren die Sprecher' (Sucher 1994); the Badische Zeitung defines it similarly: 'die Sprache, die seine Figuren sprechen, ist ein zu gleichen Teilen ordinSres und gestelztes Kunstidiom, das wie eine Besatzungsmacht in den Himen sitzt und von dort schwer und voluminds voller Beulen, Wiilste und Wucherungen daherquillt wie das Stoflwechselprodukt eines "peristaltischen Gedachtnisses'" (Hammerstein 1994). Schwab's language draws attention to itself because it is quite clearly more powerful than the individual speakers: it dominates and controls them. He ap­ pends a stage direction under the rubric 'Sprache' to his list of dramatis personae to underline language's omnipresence. On the title page of Hundemund, he writes with typical bathos, for instance, that: T)ie Sprache ist der jeweilige KOrper der agierenden Personen. Die Sprache zerrt die Personen hinter sich her: wie Blechbiichsen, die man an einem Hundeschwanz angebunden hat' (FD, 191). Speech thus inhibits and restricts its speakers. In Saussure's distinction 'langue' is migh­ tier than 'parole' because language threatens to smother and overwhelm individual users who encounter insurmountable difficulties in trying to establish their indivi­ duality through their speech. This can clearly be a social issue. In Die Prilsidentinnen speaking is said to be an act of'Widerstand' (FD, 13), so high are the odds stacked against speakers, whose sole means of asserting themselves against words is by using words. The three elderly women to whom the title refers fight a losing battle because it is impossible for any one of them to articulate herself in an original voice. They are all submerged in a morass and are at best capable of flashes of lyrical insight, which are obscured as soon as they have occurred, neg­ ated either by their own self-contradictory imagery or the context in which they have been uttered. As they mix metaphors with abandon, they are also able to wander blithely in and out of metaphorical speech, trailing lop-sided epic similes behind them. A characteristic mixture of literal and figurative speech blurs the distinction between indicative and metaphorical significance: figures of speech are taken literally before, once more, they become figures of speech. This is com­ pounded by all manner of semi-personifications, which create the impression that

THE LANGUAGE OF WERNER SCHWAB — 273

not only inanimate objects but also abstract ideas, propositions, and emotions have independent, subject status. In turn this puts the distinction between subject and object, speaker and world, into question: by naming things, after all, we designate, order, and (mentally, at least) control them, above all making them into objects by separating them from us. By naming other human beings and de­ vising complex systems of pronouns and cases to refer both to other individuals and things, we demarcate further differences between ourselves and the world. It is not surprising that Schwab's characters get especially confused with pronouns. Schwab's 'explanations' of his 'Sprachtheorie', particularly in Das Gute und der Dreck, which, because they are couched in the same clumsy, ungrammatical idiom that causes his characters to flounder so helplessly, do not divulge too many of his secrets; they do, however, astonish for the frequency of their theolo­ gical and Biblical imagery. Both the need to communicate and the means of verbal communication belong to the imperfect, post-Lapserian condition. In the note on language at the beginning of Endlich Tot. Endlich keine Luft mehr (repeated in Das Gute und der Dreck, 25), he writes: Die Sprache gehtirt dem Ding, das man einen Dreck heifien kftnnte'. After a mythological battle between beauty and filth: 'Von nun an begann man: sich mitzuteilen, was die totalisierte Fehlfarbe sein muB: DIE TEELUNG!' (KK, 239) Before this war (or 'fall') lan­ guage was unnecessary because mankind had no need of communication. If lan­ guage has now become so repressive and difficult, it is because human relations have become so fissured. The profound difficulty of linguistic communication is demonstrated in Offene Gruben. Offene Fenster, sub-titled Ein Fall von Ersprechen (evoking both 'erbrechen' and 'sich versprechen'). Here a mechanical device or doll ('das Vehikel') acts out what the two nameless characters, ER and SIE, who switch from 'du' to 'Sie' in the same sentence, think or feel but do not say: 'Anhand des Vehikels wird exemplifiziert, was Sprachkonstruktionen ihrer Natur nach verhindert. Es ist das dritte Ding, das entsteht, wenn zwei Personen versuchen, sich aufeinander zuzubewegen' (KK, 9). Thus ER kisses SIE on the hand while 'das Vehikel' kisses her on the mouth; SIE sits away from him while 'das Vehikel' leans its head on his shoulder; ER laughs cruelly at her discomfort, while 'das Vehikel' sobs quietly. The real meaning of a typically stilted conver­ sation, involving, among other things, packets of washing powder, laundry, and stains on bed linen, becomes apparent only once it is over and 'das Vehikel' rocks and suckles an imaginary baby. Offene Gruben is one of Schwab’s least accessible plays, as the comedy is sparse, the action dependent upon a single idea, and because the dialogue seems so difficult. Its difficulty is in fact a sham: most of what the two characters say to

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one another before they shoot each other next to the rubbish heap in the final silent scene approaches the meaningless. Only fragments of thoughts and images remain recognizable. The following is an extract from a conversation which had initially been on the subject of kissing and his inability to do so: SIE Deine UnmOglichkeit entspricht selbstverst&ndlich einer Mdglichkeit. Ihre Wirklichkeit ist wirklichkeitssiichtig, meine Moglichkeiten existieren ihre Mdglichkeiten Und Mdglichkeiten sind immer wirklicher als Wirklichkeiten. ER Du hdrst die Schweine. Wegen der Schweine sind wir hier. Alle Schweine sind gewissenschaftlich diese Landschafl. SIE Eine Schweinelandschaft ist ein mogliches Herkommen. Ich bevorzuge es, eine Nachkommenschaft zu sein, die nicht gekommen ist. (KK, 43)

A few sentences later they return to the subject of kissing. Like so many of Schwab's creations, they try desperately to articulate something while mouthing a series of unconnected thoughts and images, mingled with non-thoughts and meaningless images. This reaches an even more extreme form in Hochschwab, which tide refers simultaneously to the mountain on the outskirts of Vienna and to the ratified atmosphere of Schwab's linguistic experiments. In the spoken duet between the TComponist' and the Pianistin', who are pseudo-Nietzschean artist figures contemptuous of lesser mortals, sense of any sort has been left behind on the linguistic foothills. As the bemused 'Bauer' remarks Die Worter verlassen die Sachen und heiBen nichts mehr, heifien gar nichts mehr und sind eine Unterhaltung' (KK, 96). The play might be taken as a parable of Schwab's artistic prac­ tice, as their art is shown to be terrible in its power. This pair have betrayed their fellow human beings and gone over to the other side, to the side of language and art, which they now use to torment others. Their absolute artistry is matched by absolute indifference to other people, who can be used simply as a source of art: 'man komponiert die graBlichen Menschen und dann spielt man sie' (KK, 67), says the Pianistin, which could stand as a motto for Schwab's entire oeuvre. The Impresario beseeches them to forsake the 'SchlSchtersprache' (KK, 74), as he remembers how his brother was killed on a previous expedition up the mountain. He recognizes their inhumanity but is powerless to resist them because he is powerless to articulate and argue his fears. Control of language would entail some control of the world. He tries to explain the origins of their predicament:

THE LANGUAGE OF WERNER SCHWAB — 275

Aber dann hat Gott hinfaUen miissen... und zwar auf den Riicken wie eine ausgewurzelte SuppenschildkrOte, und dann hat er einen Komponisten in einen genialen Komponisten verurteilt, und eine Pianistin zu einer genialen Pianistin. Und diese Fluchverurteilten miissen die Welt verqu&len und die gesunden Menschen, weil das Genie ein gOttlicher MiBerfolg sein mufi, eine ungluckliche Erregung der menschlichen Natur, eine Erschdpfungsverleugnung der menschlichen Erfindung (KK, 98)

The poor Impresario gets lost, like so many others in Schwab's plays, in tautolo­ gies and circular arguments at a point when he is groping towards a definition. It is not surprising that abstract thought is so elusive since speech of any sort is construed as an animal activity, like sex or excretion, eating or being sick: we speak with our bowels, which vie with the genitals in Schwab's world for the status of most defining organ. 'Ausdriicken' means to press or push out and we speak 'wie eine iiberfiillte Tube Mayonnaise ausgedriickt werden mufi' (KK, 270). His characters say 'leiben' for leben' and, pace Heidegger, 'wesen' for 'sein', except that for Schwab 'wesen' evokes 'verwesen' rather than a deeper, more authentic mode of being. They pepper their speech with unassuming obscenities, genital and lavatorial references, which have become an everyday, automatic way of talking and which enable him to demonstrate means of control, domination, and exploitation. Through a complex play on the literal and metaphorical mean­ ings of 'Schwein', 'Sau', and 'Ferkel', Hermann Wurm in Volksvemichtung recalls how he was sexually abused in his childhood by his Onkel Vormund, who locked him in the 'Saustall': auf daB keine falschen Schweinereien herauskommen aus dem Herrmann. Weil die Menschheit in einer ganzen Umgebung versteht das ja nicht, dafi ein kleines rotweiBrotes Kind auch ein geiles Ferkel sein kann. Und der kleine Herrmann hat dann denken miissen, daB die Schweine wenigstens nichts hineinstecken wollen in den eigentiimlichen Herrmann, auch wenn sie den Kriippelherrmann fast erdriickt hatten, die fetten Schweine in dem Stall. (FD, 134)

Because the little boy is said to be 'swinish', he is put among the pigs. These, however, treat him rather better that their human superiors, thus subverting the sense of the metaphor and putting the identity of the real swine into question. Herrmann's dreadful plight is depicted as existential and unalterable: Und die Mutd gesagt, daB man leben muB, weil die H6lle eine noch grftBere Speisekammer voller Schmerzen fiir die Menschen hat... als die Welt' (FD, 135). Some of the dreadful vocabulary of National Socialism (TJntermensch', 'Aussortierung', 'EndlOsung') has entered everyday speech and is used without a second thought, apparently accepted as appropriate for the daily struggle for life and supremacy. Frau Grollfeuer, the widowed ex-Nazi (whose first name is

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revealed as Cosima on her next appearance in Mein Himmel mein Lieb meine sterbende Beute), verbally abuses the Slovenian Kovacic family before extermin­ ating them along with Herrmann 'Kriippelwurm' at her fateful poisoning party. She tells Frau Wurm: 'man mtifite Sie vertilgen, ohne Sie tats&chlich vemichten zu wollen. Einen Untermenschen wie Sie... rottet man verst&idnislos aus, bis er niemals wahrgenommen werden muBte [...] Jahrhundertelang wollte man Grauenhaftigkeiten, wie Sie es sein miissen, reformieren, wollte man alle Untiere tiberhohen... sinnloserweise... eigendiinkelhafterweise. Ihresgleichen stiirmt alles am Ende... und kann nichts wert sein' (FD, 164-65). For Schwab, bom some thirteen years after the collapse of the Third Reich, National Socialism still held one o f the keys to understanding the world about him. He is not saying that nothing has changed since the Third Reich, nor that lots of Nazis are still at large (though it seems from his plays that this may be the case); he is saying that the dreadful deeds of 1933-1945 were committed once and that human beings have not lost the capability of committing them again. While professing no interest in his figures and the milieu which bred them, Schwab portrays both with withering irony. This is suburban, provincial Austria, Roman Catholic to the bone, although Wottila Karli turns out to be the local 'TierkOrperverwerter' (butcher) rather than priest.3 This is the parodied world o f the Austrian 'Volksstiick', where Herr and Frau Haider live literally a few doors down the road (MESALLIANCE) and where Frau Krimhild and a homeless Herr Adolf wander casually on to the stage (Endlich tot).6 Because Schwab's figures have no consciences and know no taboos, they have no need to separate areas o f their thoughts or feelings and everything bubbles immediately to the surface in speech: 'man mufi die Worter sprechen wie sie heraus wollen' (FD, 38). People never hide their thoughts or motives because they say everything out loud. This makes Frau Grollfeuer's racist attacks on the Kovacic family, or the accusations of adultery in MESALLIANCE all the more brutal for their unclothed aggression and directness. Although no one would usually express such abuse directly and, when it is expressed, it is in any case not usually meant literally, the remarks are simply the literal articulation of metaphorical insults. In this sense there is often no dramatic 'sub-text' to the dialogue. When someone says: 'I could murder you', or words to that effect, he means the threat and is probably about to carry it out. As a result of the latent violence of spoken thoughts, the violent scenes in Schwab’s plays, which inevitably attract much attention, are in no way gratuitous or divorced from the dramatic action. When Schweindi, Fotzi, and the other down-at-heel alcoholic inhabitants of the 'Prolo-Kneipe' in UBERGEWICHT tear the social interlopers ('das schdne Paar') literally limb from limb and devour them

THE LANGUAGE OF WERNER SCHWAB — 277

(raw) in a frenzy of eroticized violence, the power of both the dramatic idea and moment are overwhelming. The act is intrinsic to the play which turns upon the scene. The play is sub-titled 'ein europ&isches Abendmahl' and, as the 'Wirtin' explains: 'Europa ist voller Geschichten. Man macht eine Gemeinschaftsreise nach Europa und macht einen Ausflug in einen Geschichtshaufen hinein. Die Ge­ schichten liegen Qbereinander wie Gewandfetzen, und jede Geschichte handelt von den Verbrechen der Verbrecher, und wie man mit einem neuen Verbrechen ein altes uberholen kOnnte. Ich mache geme diese Gemeinschaftsgeschichtsausfluge nach Europa' (FD, 102). Schwab's characters all secretly want to kill each other for personal gain or gratification: sex and sexuality ('unsere personlichen Unterleibmiasmen'; KK, 149) are mechanical activities requiring victims rather than partners, while love and eroticism are unknown. The sexual urge needs regular release or it will explode. Learning and education, morality and religion may serve for some of the time to conceal the beast within, but they offer no re­ sistance whatsoever in a crisis. Ethical scruples or pangs of conscience are alien to all his figures (with the sole exception of the Impresario in Hochschwab) because moral considerations are purely abstract, while vices are not. When the educated Jurgen in OBERGEWICHT repeats 'da haben wir emeut versagt' after he and his companions have consumed 'das sch&ne Paar' and recline in a postcoital swoon of mild regret, Schwab parodies the idea of moral conscience. Schweindi's evocation of 'der Endsieg der menschlichen Vemunft' (FD, 64) is a prime example of a Schwab oxymoron. Art and philosophy are moral-free zones. The absolute artists in Hochschwab ritually humiliate and then murder their Impresario, who, although the least likely, is the only figure capable of the human emotions of empathy and pity. In MESALLIANCE, the inaptly named Herr and Frau Pestalozzi join in the sacrifice of their troublesome children. Their longrunning debates on the philosophers Jaspers and Heidegger are shown to be a charade: Enlightenment and anti-Enhghtenment are interchangeable. A very obvious feature of 'Schwabish' is the dominance of the passive voice. This serves further to hide or smother the individual speaking subject, which is thus displaced as the active subject of a sentence. 'Aber Kinder,' intones Frau Kovacic in an attempt to guide a conversation away from domestic insults, 'lafit euch doch nicht von alien abscheulichen Sachen aussprechen'. She brings home the point of language's supremacy by adding: The btise Sprache meint sich selber nicht so emst und die Menschen sind ihr auch egal' (FD, 147). We are all ventriloquists' dummies: we do not speak, we are spoken. Many speakers choose to avoid personal pronouns, preferring 'meine Person' for 'ich' and 'deiner Person gegentiber' for 'dir': 'die Schwierigkeit, "ich" zu sagen', so central to Christa Wolf,

278 — JULIAN PREECE

takes on a whole new meaning for Schwab, especially since his characters are only minimally distinguished as individuals by their speech. Even the un- or illeducated are capable of the most convoluted constructions, overflowing with misplaced auxiliaries and multiple genitives, heavy with monstrous composite nouns and ridiculous neologisms. In many ways the language is extremely figur­ ative as it is rich in inappropriate imagery and mismatched similes. Schwab's principle is that of dislocation between signifier and signified, a complete and irreparable rupture between words and things or what were once, in happier times, the unified components of the symbol. A further facet of the preference for the passive is that emotions, thoughts, intentions, desires, memories, and even parts of the body are given an autono­ mous existence and a will of their own. They are spoken of accordingly in the third person. Herr Kovacic, for instance, protests that he did not mean to kill the family's pet hamster: Das habe ich doch nicht wollen, daB er umgebracht wird von meiner Aufregung' (FD, 144). This is one of several semi-mythological aspects of Schwab's mock-heroic style. The parodied epic simile is another. Cir­ cumlocution and periphrasis become the expected way of speaking, as nothing can be said directly and utterances are loaded down with redundancy. If one defi­ nition of poetry is that it is language pared down to the barest minimum ('Dichtung'), then 'Schwabish' is the precise opposite. Everything points inwards, back in on itself, rather than outwards to the world: it is centripetal (in Bakhtin's termi­ nology), rather than centrifugal; retentive rather than expletive, in the author's own. Yet where surrealist prose or narrative streams of consciousness with all their jumps, disconnections, and free associations expand our understanding of the world or the human mind's perception of it, Schwab's language more often reduces. His mass of words, all potentially capable of conveying meaning, either restrict or even negate sense. Oxymoron and particularly tautology seem most likely to lead to an under­ standing of Schwab's imagination. There are in fact easily more tautologies than obscenities and they range from the simple ('ein minnlicher Mann'; FD, 17, 'die zukiinftige Zukunft'; FD, 50) to the more elaborate. One's aim in life, says Frau Grollfeuer, is 'eine Existenz zu existieren' (FD, 156) while Bianca Kovacic enthu­ ses that 'Em jedes Fest ist immer geil, weil es auf Festen immer nur geile Menschen geben kann' (FD, 175). In reply to her husband's empty epigramm, 'die Gemeinschaft ist der Sinn des Lebens', which has been contradicted by every other line of the play, Frau Kovacic confirms that 'Eine Familie ist das beste Beispiel fur so ein Beispiel' (FD, 152). One of the most hopeless characters in OBERGEW1CHT announces 'ich stehe vor einem groBen Spiegel, vor einem riesen grofien

THE LANGUAGE OF WERNER SCHWAB — 279

Spiegel... und sehe, daB ich ein Mensch bin, weil ich sehe... daB ich wie ein Mensch ausschaue...' (FD, 81), which neatly encapsulates her utter helplessness. The circularity of these expressions demonstrates once more the nature of Schwab's world: his characters are trapped and repressed by what they speak because language has no means of referring to anything beyond or outside itself. It is, indeed, as the critic said, 'a prison house'. For Schwab this is the natural, irreversible state of affairs — only silence and death are to come. Most of his plays contain a movement towards decay, destruction, and death (which after all is the natural state of things), yet what he hates is a definitive ending and a superficially satisfying structure. Hence the mass poisoning in Volksvemichtung is followed by a mock resurrection and happy birthday party; 'das schOne Paar' reappear to make friends with their murderers of a moment ago. 'Es darf kein Resultat dabei herauskommen. Das ist das Unbefriedigendste, was es gibt', he once said (Siedenburg 1991). Schwab wrote, and apparently lived, at great speed. He died before either the theatrical or critical world had a chance to get used to him, let alone under­ stand his dramatic and linguistic uniqueness. If one thing seems certain, however, it is that no future assessment will be able to get by without a scrutiny of his use of language. Tentative explanations of what 'das Schwabische' is and what made it that way would include the living legacy of National Socialism, which is pal­ pable in much of his work; the second-hand language in a society permeated by the media which manufacture words and sell them as products; and the modem Austrian tradition of extreme social criticism, which has produced Thomas Bernhard and Elfriede Jelinek. What impresses most in the press cuttings is the num­ ber of times Schwab is said to resemble other writers and dramatists. This is not because he copies others but because when critics and reviewers are confronted with something new, they will always relate it to something already known. The comparisons are thus testimony to originality. Schwab not only found a distinc­ tive voice, which all new authors seek, but an individual perspective on the world. 'Schwabisch' may or may not enter the language in the same way as Kafkaesque' or 'Brechtiari have done, but it deserves nonetheless to denote an original depiction of the human condition.

280 — JULIAN PREECE

NOTES 1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

Schwab published ten plays during his life-time. In addition three others are now available in manuscript form, but unfortunately the third volume of plays could not be published in 1994 as planned 'aufgmnd von rechtlichen Schwierigkeiten nach Schwabs Tod' (letter from Droschl Verlag to the author, 14 February 1994; JP). The precise contents of the 'NachlaB' is known but will remain in private hands for the forseeable future. Schwab is said to have destroyed, however, 'mehrere tausend Seiten Prosamanuskripte' before his death (letter of 28 April 1994 to the author from Wilhelm Memecker, adviser to Schwab's heirs; JP), which makes it unlikely that Schwab's boast to Alex Schalk in the autumn of 1993 that he had twenty more works ready for performance will be verified by their publication. 'Alles weitere (ca 1 Koffer Autographen) betrifft im wesentlichen die Theaterstucke und ist [...] zur Zeit nicht zugflnglich' (Hemecker). [Eds note: the third volume of Schwab's plays did eventually appear in late 1994.] The published plays are printed in two volumes. FD contains four plays: 1) DIE PRASIDENTINNEN. Drei Szenen, 2) OBERGEWICHT, unwichtig, UNFORM. Ein eumpdisches Abendmahl, 3) VOLKS VERNICHTUNG ODER MEINE LEBER IST SINNLOS. Eine RadikalkomOdie, 4) MEIN HUNDEMUND. Das Schauspiel. Vier Szenen. KK contains five plays: 1) OFFENE GRUBEN. OFFENE FENSTER. EIN FALL von Ersprechen. Eine KomOdie, 2) HOCHSCHWAB. Das Lebendige ist das Leblose und die Musik. Eine KomOdie-, 3) MESALLIANCE aber wir ficken uns prSchtig. eine VariationskomOdie, A) DER HIMMEL MEIN LIEB MEINE STERBENDE BEUTE. Selbstverfreilicht eine KomOdie] 5) ENDLICH TOT ENDLICH KEINE LUFT MEHR. Ein Theaterzemichtungslustspiel. ABFALL, BERGLAND, CASAR. Eine Menschensammlung-, Der Dreck und das Gute. Das Gute und der Dreck. Schwab directed PORNOGEOGRAPHIE at the steierischer herbst in 1993. Schwab often introduces names loaded with historical, political, or cultural significance. Herr and Frau Pestalozzi (both schoolteachers) are called after the great Swiss educationalist, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827). Their behaviour in the final act calls into question the relevance of the entire Enlightenment project. By giving Frau Grollfeuer Cosima as a Christian name, after Cosima Wagner, the second wife and inspiration of the composer (and daughter of Franz Liszt), Schwab aligns her with some of the worst traditions of German right-wing nationalism and xenophobia. She compares him and his plays very helpfully to the dramatists of 'Aktionismus' and their re-invention of the Austrian 'Volksstiick', but argues, 'daS aber Schwab im Gegensatz zu diesen Autoren keineswegs auf das bewu&tseinerhellende Provokationspotential solcher Tabuverstd&e innerhalb der popuiaren Gattung zielf. Further­ more, in her view, 'Schwabs Sprache fehlt jeglicher Anklage- oder Appellcharakter*. (Landa 1993). Roman Catholic audiences would immediately recognize this as a bastard form of Karol Woytila, Pope since 1978. Jdrg Haider is the leader of the increasingly successful neo-Nazi party in Austria. Kriemhild/e, the wife of Siegfried, avenges his murder in the national, medieval epic Das Nibelungenlied promoted enthusiastically by the Nazis.

THE LANGUAGE OF WERNER SCHWAB — 281

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Works Schwab, Wemer: Fdkaliendramen, Droschl, Vienna, 1991. (=FD). ------ : KOnigskomOdien, Droschl, Vienna, 1992. (=KK). ------ : ABFALL, BERGLAND, CASAR. Eine Menschensammlung, Residenz Verlag; Salzburg and Vienna, 1992. ------ : Der Dreck und das Gute. Das Gute und der Dreck, Droschl, Graz and Vienna, 1992. ------ : Faust: Mein Brustkorb: mein Helm, published in manuskripte, 122 (1993), 3-20. ------ : PORNOGEOGRAPHIE. Sieben GerOchte, 1993. Manuscript viewed by kind permission of Thomas Sessler Verlag, Vienna. ------ : ESKALATION ordindr. Ein Schwitzkastenschwank in sieben Affekten, 1993. Manuscript viewed by kind permission of Thomas Sessler Verlag, Vienna.

Secondary Works Auch, Joachim 1992: 'Eine eigne Sprache — hinter ObszOnititen', Stuttgarter Zeitung, 31 October 1992, p.30. Barz, Paul 1992: 'Unwichting, aber ubergewichtig. Wemer Schwabs neues Ekelstuck im Hamburger tik', General Anzeiger, 29 December 1992, p.25. Dermutz, Klaus, 1992: 'Die Geburt der Komddie aus dem Grazer Stumpfsinn. Ein Portrat des dsterreichischen Dramatikers Wemer Schwab', Freitag, 22 May 1992, p.11. Ebert, Gerhard 1992: 'Viel Geschwdtz, wenig Handlung', Neues Deutschland, 7 April 1992, p.6. Hammerstein, Dorothea 1994: 'Zum Tod des Buhnenautors Wemer Schwab. Sprachabfall, Gefiihlsschrotf, Badische Zeitung, 4 January 1994, p.12. Hdbel, Wolfgang 1992: 'Das Gute und der Dreck', SQddeutsche Zeitung, 5 November 1992, p. 19. Kralicek, Wolfgang 1992: 'Auf die Pldtze, Drama, los! — 18 junge Dramatiker/innen beim ersten "Autorentreffen" im Wiener Schauspielhaus', Theater Heute, 5 (1992), 40-44. ------ 1993: 'Mai Alp-Driemplay, mal Kdrperverwertungssuada', Theater Heute, 11 (1993), 24-25. Landa, Jutta 1993: '"KdnigskomOdien" oder "Fdkaliendramen"? Zu den Theaterstucken von Wemer Schwab', Modem Austrian Literature 26 (1993), 215-229. LOffler, Sigrid 1993: 'Monstren, Gefuhle und sieben Geruchte. Wemer Schwabs "Pomogeographie" beim "steierischen Herbst" uraufgefuhrf, SQddeutsche Zeitung, 5 October 1993, p. 13. Merschmeier, Michael 1994: 'Alles Tote bin ich. Uber den Dramatiker Wemer Schwab — und Aspekte des Theatermarkts', Theater Heute, 2 (1994), 1-2. Pees, Matthias 1993: 'Aus dem Sudelbuch eines Ubermenschen. Anmerkungen zum dramatischen Aufsteiger des letzten Jahrs — eine Schwabvemichtung', Berliner Zeitung, 6 January 1993, p.26. ------ 1994: 'Der aus der Kdlte kam. Zum uberraschenden Tod des Dramatikers Wemer Schwab', Berliner Zeitung, 4 January 1994, p.28. Schodel, Helmut 1991: 'Kleinstadt, GroSkunst, Grazkunsf, Die Zeit, 6 December 1991, p.75. ------ 1992: 'Geisterfahrer. Die Welt des Schriftstellers Wemer Schwab', Die Zeit, 31 January 1992, p.58. ------ 1993: 'Die Stunde des Wrestlers', Die Zeit, 26 November 1993, pp.67-68. Siedenburg, Sven 1991: 'Interview with Wemer Schwab: "Erst die Sprache, dann der Mensch'", SQddeutsche Zeitung, 25 November 1991, p.32. Spiegel, Herbert 1992: 'Theaterbetriebswassertrdger. Mode-Dramatiker der Saison: "Obergewicht, unwichtig, Unform" von Wemer Schwab am Theater Basel', Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, 29 September 1992, p. 36.

282 — JULIAN PREECE Sucher, C. Bemd 1994: 'Der Selbstvemichter. Keine Mausescheisse: W emer Schwab in Graz gestorben', SQddeutsche Zeitung, 4 January 1994, p. 19. Urbach, Tilman 1993: 'Ekel, Schmerz, Schdnheit — und allemal Skandal', Rheinischer Merkur, 15 January 1993, p.21. Weinzierl, Ulrich 1993: 'Purzel und Schnurzel. Gruselgeschlecht: Schwabs Pomogeographie uraufgefuhrf, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 5 October 1993, p.35. Wille, Franz 1993: 'Die Not der Ausgabe', Theater Heute, 1 (1993), 16-20. Wirsing, Sibylle 1994: 'Zum Tod von Wemer Schwab, dem dsterreichischen Dramatiker, verstorben mit 35 Jahren in seiner Heimatstadt Graz', Tagesspiegel, 4 January 1994, p. 15.

TRINKEN TRINKEN TRINKEN. DIE WELT IN ORDNUNG TRINKEN': THE LANGUAGE-FORTIFICATION OF RAINALD GOETZ AXEL SCHALK

I TheLivingLegend— AMancalledB5ck '[W]as wissen wir von Richard Gott?1(Kempker 1986, 166). We know that he's also called Btick (Hunt 1991, 1). R.G., a German poet, alias Richard Gott, alias Bdck, a short-story hero in his own life time. B6ck only said hello once before he hanged himself: 'Tag, Tag. Was das bedeuten soil. Tag. Tack. Tacktacktack. Kurz und bequem, es heifit nichts' (Hunt 1991, 2). Thus goes the greeting of a German poet whose sponsored sojourn (winter 1985-1986) in the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (LCB) inspired both Irmgard Eisner Hunt and Birgit Kempker to pen sarcastic, scurillous stories describing an egg-boiling 'ardscht' who hangs himself (Kempker 1986, 166): 'Schon stiirzen Dissertanten sich auf den Fall...' (Hunt 1991, 5). The names they chose for him speak volumes in themselves: a living author is called 'Gott' and 'Bock' — like the comic tailor in Wilhelm Busch who falls from the bridge when Max and Moritz begin to saw through it from one side (Busch 1982, 213ff.). Or is Rainald Goetz Widow Bolte? '[H]ysterisch, weibhysterisch, mehr noch, wie ein Weib, ein Waschweib, ein Superwaschweib, ein Quatschweib, ein Superquatschweib' (Kempker 1986, 168). Or is he a brand name? Ingrid Seidenfaden felt honoured when she heard she had been granted permission to put written questions to the man himself. In the 'mainstream' of German culture the national cliched image of the poet, immured inside his 'IchKerker1, has degenerated into a banal grotesque, for all the world as if the pur­ pose were to advertise tickets for the state-subsidized theatre: 'Beim Versuch, die Festung Goetz zu stiirmen, bekam ich das Angebot, meine Fragen per Brief zu formulieren. Ich schwitzte, schrieb (ungem) und bekam postwendend eine lange Antwort [...] Inzwischen haben wir uns live Guten Tag gesagt, in der Kantine des Hamburger Schauspielhauses' (Seidenfaden 1994, 9). She doesn't know how lucky she was! Kempker, who was staying in the LCB at the same time as Goetz, uses her experience to denounce the artist cliche (Kempker 1986, 166-167): the poet paces up and down the shore; he sniffs the thorns. She turns the Romantic image of the artist on its modernist head and Gott/Goetz, who declaims to the ice, dons

284 — AXEL SCHALK

the German Michel's Pudelmutze'. Has his creator, who has him get lost in the bushes, seen through the self-dramatizing public persona? Clearly, his work in progress does not impress her. Hunt, too, reports how the forever egg-boiling Goetz cultivated a bizarre artistic image of himself (conversation with AS). The reviewers thought differently. After the premiere of his Kritik in Festung at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus on 22 October 1993 the response was unusually favourable for a complex modem play. One reviewer wrote of the 'herrische Bedeutungslust1 and others greeted the 'uberaus genaue Positionsbestimmung', or his textual condensation of 'scharfe, provozierende Thesen' (Wamecke 1993; Pees 1993; Fischer 1993). Even the left-wing tageszeitung, where arguments usually run counter to the cultural 'mainstream', spoke of TdihJ kalkuliertes Pathos und brilliant genaue Textarbeit' (Briegleb 1993). Goetz and his director Anselm Weber are obviously tuned into the 'Zeitgeist'. This type of legend, launched into the world by complicit media, has to be subjected to critical literary analysis if the views of the literary chattering classes are not to distort our understanding of the actual textual material. This and a soci­ ological critique of the media's role in the whole affair are the themes of this essay. A degree of scepticism would seem appropriate since the journos and TV talking heads created the myth of a man called Goetz, which none of them is prepared to challenge, using the very mechanisms that the creator of the Festung trilogy himself set out to expose. This is a case riven with such apparent contra­ dictions, which demonstrate the interplay between what was once called the pub­ lic sphere, now patrolled and regimented by organs of the media, and literary success in the postmodern age. This highly irrational process, through which an author becomes a legend in his own lifetime, illustrates the general failure of con­ temporary public debate, which allows role models to be thrown up as if at random in a general cultural vacuum. Rainald Goetz is a brand name indeed. Goetz, the fanatical collector and transcriber of headlines, has been a larger than life figure in the literary world since he cut into his forehead with a razor blade when he read from his text 'Subito' at the award ceremony for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize more than ten years ago in Klagenfurt. Such acts are rare in contemporary writers: Ohne Blut logisch kein Sinn. Und weil ich kein Terrorist geworden bin, deshalb kann ich mir bloB in mein eigenes weiCes Fleisch hinein schneiden [...] Ich schneide in die Haut, Blut quillt hervor, und es macht: FlieB Rinn Zisch Losch [...] Aber mit meiner Rasierklinge enttame ich die Liige. Mit ruhiger Hand setze ich die Rasierklinge auf eine beliebige Stelle unversehrter Haut und schneide gut sichtbar und tief in die Epidermis ein.1

RAINALD GOETZ’S LANGUAGE-FORTIFICATION — 285

Here speaks Goetz the medic, who knew exactly how to make the cut, and Goetz the calculating, self-dramatizing intellectual. Both the recently deceased Wemer Schwab and the late Amo Schmidt, who cleverly camouflaged his real life, played to the public gallery in similar vein and with comparable success.2 Yet a writer, like Goetz, who sets out to deal with public morals and the language in which they are articulated should hesitate before wounding himself in this way: the 'wound of Woyzeck', as Heiner Miiller described the origin of his own artistic creativity, suppurated silently (Miiller 1988). Goetz does have a role model for the self-mutilation. We know that the young Hans Henny Jahnn punished himself with a cut in the leg after each act of self-abuse (Muschg 1967, 68). The difference between Jahnn and Goetz is that Jahnn performed this in privacy, far from the media spotlight, in the pubescent loneliness of his 'Querstellung' to the world, a posture he maintained until death (Jahnn 1977, VII, 306). While Jahnn had nothing to do with the media, Goetz provoked a raucous press reaction, comparable to that of the young Peter Handke after his legendary reading at the Gruppe 47 meeting in Princeton in 1967. The suspicion is hard to resist that the scandalous act here was pure market-oriented publicity: Goetz the prisoner of the media apparatus and of the literary discourse. Yet he insists he wants to criticize public discourse, from the review pages in the quality press to German Studies in the Ivory Towers of Academe. II 'Die VerhSltnisse — die sind nicht so' It may be unusual while discussing an author's aesthetics in a literary critical context to step into the sordid world inhabited by the sensationalist press and its allies on the supposedly lubricious talk-shows; it may seem unusual to report a media-inspired political scandal, which occurred in February 1994 in Germany. It is, however, unavoidable since Goetz attempts in Festung to define literature anew in the context of a society determined by the media. What happened on this occasion? In a talk-show on the private television station RTL (Nachts, 24 February 1994) a German politician, whose name and party were discreedy passed over, was 'outed', that is publicly defamed, by a prostitute who revealed his favourite practices and preferred methods of payment. She even brought along photogra­ phic evidence and the premeditated scandal was a great success. The following day the presenter informed her viewers that the politician concerned, again no name was mentioned, had received an apology from them. The income-generat­ ing scandal was thus presented twice, while the refusal to name names — natur­ ally everybody always wants to know — added that extra touch of piquancy to

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the unspeakable sequence of events. Even Ceasar knew that to repeat a rumour is to increase its effect. Next there came a short, angry article on the front page of Bild (25 February 1994), which did give the name of the person at the centre o f this synthetic storm. The scandal was thus marketed a third time and a public, political figure faced the end of his career, for now the voyeurist reader knew who was who and what was what. The Berliner Zeitung (25 February 1994), another rag from the House of Springer, used the scandalous story as the 'Aufmacher1, as the front-page story is called in the tits-and-bums press (it is other­ wise known as the 'AufreiBer1, the 'AnreiBer', or the 'Aufmischer'). The tone of the argument on this occasion was one of righteous and offended indignation — and no names were named. It was explained to the readers that the democratic rules of libel and defamation had been broken; quite naturally, no names were named. In essence they all fiddle to the same tune — some in major, some in minor. The variations in the workings of the sensationalist media cannot disguise the fact that, whether they hide behind the screen of moral outrage or behind the pseudo­ liberal procedure of permissive, unrepressed 'outing', all participants have one and the same objective. It is particularly impressive that organs belonging to the same media group earn their money with both prongs of the operation: either we have the naming of names spiced up with mendacious indignation, or we have no names — spiced up with equally mendacious indignation that elsewhere the names have been named. Sex and drugs and morals. Goetz, for his part, wrote, in banner headline script, on the cover of Festung, 'Kommunikation iiber Veraichtung'. This is his subject. The incident may be taken both as a sociological parable of the carefully orchestrated workings of the media-controlled public sphere and, equally, as the perversely precise measure for Goetz's massive work, Festung. A first impres­ sion is that Goetz seems not to question or to analyse the social conditions which produced the TV talk-show, which, as a pseudo-genre, informs the structure of Festung. He uses the media, as it were, operatively and by instrumentalizing them, he affirms rather than undermines. His reticence to develop an analytical style of writing is in fact all-pervasive. Writing is presented as an aggressive, emotional act of literary self-expression and defended as a 'Querstellung', to use Jahnn’s term, which always exercises to its avant-garde right to oppose the system. At least this is the impression gained from a first reading.

RAINALD GOETZ'S LANGUAGE-FORTIFICATION — 287

III Textual Observations— 'Kritikerliteraturliteraturliteratur' The following passage, from the first volume of the three collections of headlines which make up 1989, proceeds as if the subjects of the headlines were fit for 'Le Grand Guignol'. Bild Miinchen Mittwoch. 7. Juni 1989 — 60Pf Khomenie fiel aus dem Sarg Millionen bei Beerdigung Blutiges China Soldaten tdten im Rausch Armee verteilt Drogen Kohl iiber China Kdln null null Bayern Meister Regierung tritt ab Kopemikus oben

[...] Tuv stoppt 4000 Autos (1989; I, 88)

The form, reminiscent of verse, testifies that the quoted material is worthy of literary treatment. The printed headlines from Bild, placed one after another, are intended to demonstrate their own senselessness, representing both the public sphere itself and the rules which govern it, which Goetz subsumes under the heading, Testung'. The three volumes of 1989 operate artistically with this antiaesthetic. His urge to control his world in this way can appear obsessive; he wants to note down absolutely everything, with the efficiency of a machine, the moment it happens. The reader and collector, Uwe Johnson, once managed this rather differ­ ently with 'die alte Tante', New York Times; in those days literary modernity spoke a rather different avant-garde language. Johnson's contemporary, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, wrote a poem entitled 'Bildzeitung' in 1957:

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[...] du wirst schon sein: wenn der Produzent will wird dich Druckerschwirze salben zwischen Schenkeln grober Raster miBgew&hlter Wechselbalg

[...] Sozialvieh Stimmenpartner du wirst stark sein: wenn der President will Boxhandschuh am Innenlenker Blitzlicht auf des Henkerl&cheln gib doch Zunder gib doch Gas [...] (Enzensberger 1971, 14)

Here the poet transposes his discontent into images and explores the media reality with the help of a little sociology. Reading Goetz, on the other hand, can­ not give the reader comparable aesthetic pleasure as the literary, fictional com­ ponent is abolished. By ripping public language out of its respective context and presenting it, bare and de-contextualized, to his readers, he tries to rescue literary language because, as the quotations from Bild show, language has become sense­ less when left in media hands. Yet the great roll of drums which greeted this aesthetic rebel is hard to many with his method of imitating Bild and simply reproducing its linguistic noises. The old man in 'Katarakt', probably an authorial alter ego, is aware of all this: '&sthetisches System / das war einmal' (Fst, 259). Goetz does not want to be literary; he does not write literature. Yet his literary lineage, whether acknowledged by him or not, can be easily proved: his observations in the LCB correspond very closely to those made by Rolf Dieter Brinkmann in the Villa Massimo in Rome on the literary in-crowd he found there, a full twenty-one years earlier in his diary-like, experimental novel, Rom, Blicke. A brief comparison will illustrate the point. First, Goetz's Testung. Frank­ furter Fassung': LITERARISCHES COLLOQUIUM BERLIN

[...] CHOR DER DICHTER UND DENKER

[...] daB ein starkes Licht sich auf uns richtet bitte Ruhe und Ton ab Ton l&uft die erste Frage bitte soo a ha aha aha aha a ha und noch einmal a ha aha aaa ha

[...]

RAINALD GOETZ’S LANGUAGE-FORTIFICATION — 289

SCHREIBER

[...] Abends oft ganze Wochenenden lang fielen die literarischen Tagungen die Lesungen und die Kongresse uns all die wichtigtuerischen Konferenzen ein wie wilde Horden schwadronierend furchtbare Reden wurden gehalten furchtbare Debatten gefiihrt natiirlich auf deutsch die furchtbarsten Trottel standen danach gesellig auf dem Teppich rum mit ihren lacherlichen Rotweinglasem in den scheuBlichen Betriebsgenudelhanden undsoweiter furchtbar war das diese Wannseekonferenzen [...] (Fst, 139-140,212-213)

The poetic deficiencies in his formless style could hardly express his message more clearly, conveying his disgust in unashamedly blunt terms. The everyday language of a frustrated individual is simply repeated, word for word. Brinkmann's observations seem much less tense and stylistically far more advanced. Brinkmann gazes into the room at those present: Dahinter liegen sie und komponieren, dahinter liegen sie und formulieren nocheinmal, was schon da ist, dahinter klimpem sie atonal und modellieren sie ihre stereotypen Ansichten, zweite Wahl, freundliche Arschkriecher, elende, himvergammelte Schw&tzer, Zahnpopler, die Erfindung der Schreibmaschine beleidigende, schlieBlich nur armselige Haufchen [...] Dicktuer, avantgardistische Konventionelle [...] Auch ein Professor als Ehrengast, klapprige wiirdevolle Geste, den Kopf schon als Reflex zuriickgeworfen, Pensionsberechtigte. (Brinkmann 1979, 63)

Here the momentary observation evolves into a meditation on the wom-out cul­ ture business. The feelings may be the same, but the means and the methodology could hardly be more different. As a part of his search for the truth, Brinkmann places himself under the microscope; Goetz simply asserts baldly the artifice and simulation of those he observes without questioning. The montage technique which informs Brinkmann's work, in which photographs comment on text and text supplements photographs, is to be found also in Goetz's work. Yet his photo­ sequences show only an involuntary Narcissism: what we see is nothing more than a series of photographic self-quotations. There is nothing to compare with the entertaining sharpness of criticism found in Brinkmann's aesthetic.

290 — AXEL SCHALK

Festung itself is arranged like a talk-show and the author (presumably) writes in the blurb to the boxed set:'Festung spielt im Theater und ist Kommunikation. Das abstrakte Familienstilck Kritik in Festung untersucht in der Maske an der Rolle der Sprache die Funktion von Latenz. Das Wannseekonferenzstuck Festung handelt vom heutigen Reden iiber den deutschen Beschlufi zur Vemichtung der Juden. In Katarakt redet ein Alter iiber sein Leben' (Fst, 3). The blurb seems very similar to the text inside. At the end of the book there remain a number of unanswered questions. Are we supposed to take the talk-show, as several hints encourage us to do, as an example of contemporary fascism or as a theoretical construct which Goetz develops ahistorically into a dramatic schema? The opus magnum, printed on thin paper, adapts an ancient structure, that of the classical trilogy; in terms of content it takes the lead from Peter Weiss (Der Schatten des Kdrpers des Kutschers), from Brinkmann, as well as from the docu­ mentary practices developed by Johnson. For Goetz the tri-partite scheme risks becoming a rigid principle: the Festung triptych, consisting of TCritik in Festung', 'Festung', and 'Katarakt', takes its cue from the dramatic trilogy, Krieg. It is followed by the three-volumed collection 1989 and, finally, by the prose collec­ tion, Kronos. The thematic development can be divided once again into three: the documentary (1989); the autobiographical (Kronos); and the theatrical (Festung). The prose text 'Wir Kontrolle Welt. Jahresbericht', sub-titled a 'report' and written in diary-form, could be taken as the key text in the Goetzian (anti-)system (Kron, 73-95). As in the interpretatively difficult Kontrolliert (1988), the firstperson narrator writes from the point of view of a potential terrorist, one of seve­ ral in Goetz's work with whom he as author seems to identify (T)as Polizeirevier*; Kron, 11-13). His radicalism is based on a disgust for society: for him observa­ tion of the world depends upon an extreme position. 'Wir Kontrolle Welt' refers to the three-part system which inspires his writing: the first-person narration ('wir') attempts to control CKontrolle') the world ('Welt') through description, thereby appropriating it for himself. The 'I' takes on the world; literature means heightened confrontation with things. The world, which is Goetz's actual, con­ crete subject, is the media world, which he claims is identical with the real world outside. There follows the attempt to establish a totality, since control is the desire to govern everything. Goetz wants to control and then rule the world of his book by means of language: I / control / language. The narrating subject con­ fronts things through writing and wants to build his own three-part system. The perception of the world, which precedes and determines the writing, goes from day to day, from TV show to TV show, from Die Zeit to Der Spiegel. The aes­ thetic system itself is built upon this obsessional, all-inclusive compilation.

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The author thus begins with the aesthetic answer of literature (his books) to the language of the media (his subject). This is the result of a search for a lan­ guage adequate to the expression of the destruction of language. As a conse­ quence literary language has to describe the linguistic left-overs, the TV voice­ over, for instance, or the Bild headline. This is a difficult literary enterprise. How is the world on a typical day, say Sunday, 17 April 1983, depicted? What does the reporting first-person do with the material? He watches television: Ton aus. Neben dem Nachrichtensprecher macht der Mann im runden Sprechblasenkreis sehr expressive Bewegungen, die ihren Reiz daraus beziehen, daB sie Die Zeichen sind, uns zwar unverst&ndlich, dem taubstummen Mitbiirger dafur umso unverst&ndlicher [...] die vor allem auch auf sich selbst hinweisen, darauf wie sehr das ZDF sich schon immer und gerade sonntags fur Turken Robben Frauen Behinderte aller Art einsetzt [...] Dann kommt schon der Nachrichtenfilm mit Untertiteln, der in seinem stummen, zugleich durch die Textzeilen jedoch entpuppten Zustand erst so richtig als Spielfilm zu erkennen ist, der diese ganz verkommene kaputtgehaute Sprache plappemder Bild-I-d-e-e-n, plappemder [...] Schwenks spricht. Und schlieBlich [...] daB das bereits aufs Wesentliche konzentrierte Femsehnachrichtendeutsch, Subjekt Pradikat Adverbiale Bestimmung Neuer Satz Subjekt Pradikat Neuer Satz Undsoweiter, doch noch [...] knapper [...] gefaBt werden kann. Die ganze Politik der ganzen Welt der ganzen Woche wird zur Heiligen Legende, zur Picturae Subscriptio erlbst. (•Wir Kontrolle Welt'; Kron, 92-94.)

Goetz adheres to the conventional system of syntactically correct language in order to depict TV reality as monstrously filtered from the world outside. Lan­ guage remains a wholly transparent, conventional instrument and the critical stance of the author ordinary. He even comes up with the formulation lcaputt gehaute Sprache' to describe the everyday nonsense of the television news pro­ gramme and he sees the public broadcast news once more as Grand Guignol. However, what the author intends as critical reflection is terribly banal, more akin to the conditioned reflex of a consciousness he thinks is critical. He over­ looks the fact that the news for any particular day will show simply tedious items. My point is that television has its longueurs which Goetz ignores; and he distorts and overvalues the worthless, which cannot be made into subjects of literature, media scrap which does not even have the compensation of spectacle. Controlling the world through language is also the aesthetic programme in the story Kontrolliert: Man ist kein Physiker, kein Mathematiker, kein Biologe, was einen aber anspomt, was man ist [...] Wortnaturreflektor mit alien Sinnen maximal zu sein. Ich zum Beispiel ware [...] gem der Automat, der alle AuBerungen [...] Wort fur Wort gespeichert hfttte [...] Automatisch muBte man das Him umgehen, das wertet, ordnet, sichtet, sieht und hbrt, damit man nur der reine Speicher ware,

292 — AXEL SCHALK

der [...] die Wortsumme der letzten vierundzwanzig Tage ganz erbrache Die Leidenschaft ist nur zu gut verstandlich, die durch das Abschreiben offentlich gesagten Sachen, im Femsehen etwa, in dem Schreiber, der mitschreibt sich entfacht, weil er schreibend wirklich mitschreibt mit Wirklichkeit. (Kont, 49)

[...] von das der

Realism here means straightforward transcription. The printed words are, how­ ever, 'stumm gefroren’, becoming autonomous, a reality all to themselves (Kont, 49). Anyone who believes, like Goetz, that in writing like this, transcribing spoken words from the goggle box, he is really tackling reality has fallen into the trap of documentary naturalism. Goetz never goes beyond surface phenomena. These are the poetics of the three volumes of / 989, for if the 'Abschreiber' admits, when he refers to himself at all, that he is 'lediglich ein Betriiger' (1989,1, 50), then what is left is simply the transcription of the spoken words. This is the paradox at the heart of his work. The I finds itself in a 'fortress', the Goetzian linguistic fortress, which never transcends tautology, as it seeks to destroy the linguistic system by reproducing it. In practice there operates an aesthetics with dual linguistic perspectives. The first may be called realist, traditional language in which the epic I is enthralled to the manic, self-torturing urge to totality and self­ reassurance (comparable with Brinkmann) and takes individual observations to an extreme. The second is articulated in the last text 'Asthetisches System' which comes to the following conclusion: T)as ware doch gerade der Witz [...] diese Art Fiktionsfiktion, dafi es ausschauen wtirde wie Literatur, dadurch deren Freiheitsraume hatte, die Beweglichkeit der Perspektiven und den ganzen Stimmungsreichtum, aber in Wirklichkeit nichts daran was Ausgedachtes ware, sondem alles echt' (Kron, 379). Is a more radical disavowal of literary practice conceiv­ able? The traditional aesthetic system is broken up through narrative self-consciousness. It no longer functions. This is where Fritz J. Raddatz sees the real, the literary Goetz. According to him the failed collection 1989 is an 'elektronischer — Papierkorb', a 'Mullcontainer' (Raddatz 1993); in effect, however, it is the final piece of linguistic sophistry in his attempt to create a literature of barbs in which literary contexts are broken up and any meaningful analytical apparatus levered out of joint. When Goetz collects together the headlines, the snatched sentences pronounced on television, and the tennis results from 10 February 1989 to 3 March 1990 (up to the day of German unification), he demonstrates how the discourse of the German media has nothing to do with the world and nothing to do with literature. The revolution which could have been became the banal tri­ umph of the historical result: 'Niagrafall von Wtirtem [...] Gesamtwerk/Sprachzertrummerung'. The last word in the book is 'Authentizitat' (1989, III, 513). In fact the literary treatment of the subject matter is itself authentic anti-literature,

RAINALD GOETZ'S LANGUAGE-FORTIFICATION — 293

word-rubbish concocted from tired cliches. This is the problem of blowing up the fortress. The authentic is inauthentic: the genuine turns out to be a collection of automated pseudo-language, nothing but a direct, literal quotation of the public nonsense. Language is second-hand anti-language. This all puts the theatre in a bind, as Goetz's dialogues do away with both the form and the content of dramatic discourse: the plot is no more, the surface of sense and meaningfulness is abolished. Anyone who wants to interpret them is led into the deceptive contortions of the playwright's fantasy. The ordering prin­ ciple is the disruptive moment, the sudden cut perfected by MTV. Goetz once more uses the means which he wants to denounce. The ostensibly literary lan­ guage defies analysis and the material lacks any visible organizing principle. It is troubling too that alongside individuals such as Joseph Goebbels or the television comedian Hape Kerkeling, Peter Iden, one of the most influential German theatre critics, makes an appearance — a grotesque misconception of reality. Or that he compares the Wannsee Villa of the LCB with the one in which the Holocaust was planned — a piece of abject nonsense showing only his lack of reflection on history. The reader of these apparently completely authentic transcriptions has to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of current affairs in order to keep up with the rapidity of the references. Perhaps that in itself is one explanation of his public resonance: 'KritikerUteraturliteraturliteratur'. IV Conclusion — Beer-Drinking and the Bomb im Femsehen

[...] im Achsenkreuz des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts

[...] der negativen Zeit

[...] da die Tangente am Seinsnullpunkt der Kurve wo der Mensch steht nichtsversucht voll Sehnsucht nichts und nicht und nicht ich zu sein sich wiegte und in dieser Wiege der Geschichte alien Menschen die relativ normale Sache der Sprache auf sensationeli allt&gliche Weise elektrisch neu geboren wurde als der ideal reale Grundgott

294 — AXEL SCHALK

Kommunikation

[...] in Formationen geordneter Massen von Informationen und so ganz schdn da sind uberall einander irritierend

[...] rasend flattemd fliegend jagend fusionierend gegenseitig bis sie sich fur einen Augenblick verstehen pldtzlich um sofort zu explodieren in die Teile neuer Informationen

[.] zu schon wieder neuer Kommunikation zerexplodieren und so weiter und so fort das schaffen was sie schdpfend selber sind Weltkemkraftreaktorwelt CKritik in Festung'; Fst, 53-54)

Here speaks a madman, full of yearning, hung up on Kleist, a man possessed, someone chipping away at the reality of the media-dictated status quo, someone who names the real instances of schizophrenia — icriture automatique, the demented system of public language, the demented system of the public sphere. For Goetz, literature is also an act of non-comprehension at the same time as an obsessive imperative to understand. He clearly believes that language is not up to the task of describing the processes he observes. Here lies the literary problem: Goetz's technique of descriptive deconstruction puts literature itself into question. If Brinkmann shaped each moment according to the rules of poetry, Goetz adheres to time-honoured 'Sprachskepsis', which manifests itself primarily in senseless juxtaposition. The literary avant-garde is, however, by definition subject to the laws of art: 'Avantgarde ist Anti-Kunst, aber als Kunst' (Lange 1993, 517). Anyone who, like Goetz, does away with all trappings of the aesthetic, runs the risk of just including things at random for the sake of it. As the world-weary agent provocateur, Rainald G. puts it, 'Trinken trinken trinken. Die Welt in Ordnung trinken. Trinken = Denken' ('Wir Kontrolle Welt'; Kron, 81). Is this equation, which would render aesthetic factors redundant, really correct? 'Z. Zt. wird allseits sehr viel Bier getrunken' (Das Polizeirevier*; Kron, 32); D a trin­ ken wir lieber noch ein paar Liter Bier* ('Wir Kontrolle Welt'; Kron, p.86); 'dann auf einer Wiese im Englischen Garten bei mehreren Litem Bier1. Thus thought arrives at 'eine desolate Lage': 'Riick StoB Auswurf Knall' (Kron, 93-95). The literary comic strip celebrates its rebirth; the return of the avant-garde. Jumps in consciousness and Cut Ups — if Brinkmann captured instants to manu­

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facture a kaleidoscopic panorama, Goetz just leaves them as he finds them. Soci­ ety out of joint; reality out of joint; the language of public information out of joint — nothing else. Perhaps literature out of joint too? If Goetz's concept of the 'Weltkemkraftreaktorwelt', a typical compound noun of the sort we get used to in his work, which comments upon the function of the media in question, then a particular problem bobs to the surface in his textual waterfall. Can the public language of the media be the subject either of a theory or indeed of a literary text if the information-machine produces nothing except snippets of information and snatched, garbled sentences, sent spinning into space on their trail around the globe? Here the reality of the atomic threat, which could also annihilate Herr Goetz drinking his beer in Munich, is nothing more than a functionless word, as totally available as any old postmodern metaphor? The political context in which the atom bomb or the 'outing' of politicians could be made to make sense is missing. This absence makes the 'Festung' texts themselves into little more than the cliches Goetz wants to unmask. The fear of formulation, the shying away from precision, and the avoidance of a coherent literary design, all of which are lurking inside the brightly coloured Suhrkamp boxed set, give rise to the alarming frequency of 'irgendwie', 'irgendwas', and 'irgendeine' (twenty-two times in 'Katarakt' alone). Can the Zeitgeist, which is 'vielleicht' (another common word) 'wahrscheinlich' (eighteen times in 'Katarakt'), or just 'irgendwie', be denounced through the action of transcribing it?

NOTES Translation by Julian Preece. 1. Rainald Goetz: 'Subito' (Him, 9-21.). For a documentation of the events, see Fink/ Reich-Ranicki 1983, 201-245 passim.). The event even made it to the pages of Stem (30 June 1983): 'Ach so — 'ne blutige und "Bild"-Zeitungsgerechte Stimwunde brachte sich ein Neu-Autor namens Rainald Goetz aus dem "feinstem Verlagshause Deutschlands" (Suhrkamp) bei [...] Naturblut trdpfelte aufs Lesemanuskript, ein Zuschauer kippte um, mehrere Damen veriieBen den Saal'. 2. On Schmidt, see Giimbel 1995, esp. Part Three, 'Zur Biographie' (pp.251-330). This is the first refreshingly convincing attempt to see through the myth which surrounds Schmidt by looking both at his work and his life as remembered by those who knew him.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Work# Goetz, Rainald : Him, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1986. (=Him). ------ : Krieg. StQcke, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1986. ------ : Kronos, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1993. (=Kron). ------ : Kontrolliert. Geschichte, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1988. (=Kont). ------ : Festung, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1993. (=Fst). ------ : 1989, 3 vols, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1993. (=1989).

Secondary Works Briegleb, Till 1993: 'Inhaltliche Rekordh&he gesprungen. Schauspieihaus: Saisonerdffnung mit Rainald Goetz und Elfriede Jelinek', die tageszeitung, 25 October 1993. Brinkman, Rolf Dieter 1979: Rom, Blicke, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg. Busch, Wilhelm 1982: 'Max und Moritz. Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen' in Busch: Gesamtwerke, 6 vols, Xenos, Hamburg, I, pp. 195-251. Enzenberger, Hans Magnus 1971: 'Bildzeitung' in Enzensbergen Gedichte. 1955-1970, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 14-15. Fink, Humbert and Reich-Ranicki, Marcel (eds) 1983: Klagenfurter Texte, List-Verlag, Munich. Fischer, Ulrich 1993: 'Kritik in Festung im Deutschen Schauspieihaus in Hamburg uraufgefuhrf, SOddeutscher Rundfunk, 23 October 1993. Giimbel, Lutz 1995: ICH. Synthetischer Realismus und Odipale Stmktur im FrQhwerk Am o Schmidts. Eine typologische Untersuchung, Kdnigshausen & Neuman, Wurzburg. Hunt, Irmgard Eisner 1991: 'B6ck‘ in Hunt: Hier auf der Erde. Geschichten, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, pp. 1-7. Jahnn, Hans Henny 1974: Mein Werden und mein Werk, Werke und TagebQcher, Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg. Kempker, Birgit 1986: 'Der Kunstler im Haus', Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 4 (1986), 166-168. Lange, Wolfgang 1993: 'Avantgarde als Phantom', Akzente, 1993, 6, 507-524. Muller, Heiner 1988: 'Die Wunde Woyzeck' in Storch 1988,184. Muschg, Walter 1967: GesprSche mit Hans Henny Jahnn, Europdische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main. Pees, Matthias 1993: 'Weiterspielen in den Trvimmem. Frank Baumbauers triumphaler Start in Hamburg', Berliner Zeitung, 25 October 1993. Raddatz, Fritz J. 1993: 'Z. Zt. wird allseits sehr viel Bier getrunken. Zertrummerungsdsthetik light: Rainald Goetz in funf Taschenbuchem', Die Zeit, 12 November 1993. Seidenfaden, Ingrid 1994: 'II', Magazin des Deutschen Schauspielhauses Hamburg, 3 (1994). Storch, Wolfgang (ed.) 1988: Explosion of a Memory. Heiner MQIIer DDR. Ein Arbeitsbuch, Edition Hentrich, West Berlin. Wamecke, Kldre 1993: 'Familienwitze unterm Tannenbaum. Mutiger, doch zwiespaltig aufgenommener Start am Deutschen Schauspieihaus in Hamburg', Die Welt, 25 October 1993.

DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE: AN OUTLINE OF LITERARY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TWO GERMAN STATES RALF SCHNELL

A retrospective commentary, which draws up a provisional balance and seeks to take stock from a committed contemporary position; a provisional attempt to reach understanding in the midst of turbulent change. Some thoughts of Heinrich Heine, as a poet of transition an apposite source, may serve as a guiding motto to this enterprise. In his Franzdsische Zustimde of 1832 he wrote: Der heutige Tag ist ein Resultat des gestrigen. Was dieser gewollt hat, miissen wir erforschen, wenn wir zu wissen wiinschen, was jener will' (Heine 1961, V, 124). Heine's statement is to be understood as a plea for an open kind of questioning which is still curious about where this process might lead. Hermann Kant, who prefaced his novel Die Aula with this quotation, transformed its exhortation to investigate and question into simple affirmation. He considered that he already had the answer: the GDR, as he understood it — before he took the trouble to start ask­ ing any questions. Historically, this is no way to think, at least not if one is seek­ ing answers to the question of how things were, what will remain the same, and what will happen in the future. To outline the development of literature in the two German states on this basis means coming to terms with contradictory alternations between divergence and convergence. In this process, one crucial feature stands out above all others: the links and embroilments with the past. As a symbol for this, perhaps 10 May 1933 is the date which springs most readily to mind. With the National Socialist book burning ceremony on that day, progressive literature was excised, an event which, through the creation of a cultural myth, marked and shaped German liter­ ature for decades. This was because the persecution, suppression, and murder, the oppression and exiling of the most important German authors, in short the terror of fascism, created unwittingly (and this is unique in German history) in one and the same figure the martyr and the standard-bearer — the standardbearer of German greatness, the martyr of German suffering. As a result of this there grew up the cultural myth of the writer as the embodiment of a national sense of responsibility and collective conscience. This conception first came to

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the fore at the all-German congress of writers that took place in 1947 when the demand for national and cultural unity put forward by writers from East and West Germany was far and away the major item on the agenda. It was an attempt to create a common perspective for a single German national culture, the starting point being the experience of fascism and the Third Reich, exile and internal emigration, war and postwar. 'Responsibility' was to provide the basis of identity, 'unity' the point of orientation for the future.1 With indomitable self­ belief, the authors saw themselves as standard-bearers of the whole nation: their cultural status was to secure them political influence. Of course, this congress of writers, however well-intentioned, can hardly be understood as anything but a harbinger of the process of division. The victorious powers of the Second World War had in reality already secured their spheres of influence in long-term opposition to each other: these soon turned out to be the demarcation lines of two German literatures. With hindsight the call for unity must in itself therefore be understood as an expression of its failure. In other words, the writers' legitimation of their congress did not arise from any ability to shape the present but from a devastated past out of whose ruins an affirmative ideal might arise. Accordingly, it was not young authors of the emerging generation who initially dominated literary developments after 1945 but those who had been in exile or internal emigration. In the Soviet Zone and subsequently in the GDR, whilst politics sought to continue the strategy of the popular front under the prescribed banner of anti-fascism, literature found its ori­ entation in the tradition of exile and in the aesthetic concepts of the Bund proletarisch-revolutiondrer Schriftsteller and of socialist realism.2 By contrast, in the western zones and the early years of the Federal Republic, it was the traditions of internal emigration, the attitudes of lnnerlichkeit, conventional ways of writ­ ing, and traditional poetics that set the agenda. This was the starting point. More­ over, it was one that revealed a considerable convergence in terms of themes and problems: fascism, war, and postwar, responsibility, guilt, and deprivation. In the literary response, increasingly divergences between East and West German writers came to the surface as separate traditions were established. Almost from the beginning and right into the 1960s pre-formed Marxist and primarily sociocritical realist patterns of historical interpretation came to the fore in GDR literature, whereas in the literature of the Federal Republic, expecially in lyric poetry and narrative prose, the attempt was made to incorporate literary modern­ ism from Expressionism through to contemporary young American authors. Thematic convergence, aesthetic divergence: this is how the situation in the immediate postwar years could be summed up. Dividing factors, in thematic

DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE — 299

terms as well, became more and more apparent in the 1950s, although this did not of course mean that the authors felt relieved of their self-adopted role both to provide a point of authority and to represent. Whilst the literature of the GDR, after the phase of 'anti-fascist democratic reforms',3 increasingly followed the call to play a part in the construction of the socialist state, the literature of the Federal Republic began to articulate its feeling of distance towards the conservatism of the Adenauer era more and more clearly. The literature of the GDR acted as an instrument of 'socialist construction': in the area of cultural politics because it was dependent on the licensing system of the SED and the state; in terms of con­ tent because it reflected the perspectives and directives of the party; and aesthe­ tically because it was obliged to follow the doctrine of 'socialist realism'.4 The literature of the Federal Republic, on the other hand, based its identity to a large extent on its distance from the state and the leading party, on which it neverthe­ less remained fixated. Criticism was its elixir of life: criticism of the state and the church, of the economic miracle and of everything that had been swept under the carpet in the postwar period. Social dissidence and aesthetic heterogeneity were the order of the day. New forms of expression were sought to escape from the thrall of the age of restoration — in vain, as literature with a few exceptions con­ tinually remained obsessed by it. By contrast, the literature of the 1960s, in both East and West Germany, fulfilled the function of highlighting historical deficits from the perspective of social utopias, different ones in each case, it goes without saying. In the GDR it was the suppressed factor of 'subjectivity', in the Federal Republic the neglected 'politicization' — both areas of reality that had been kept from view. Wherever until that point subjectivity had been marginalized and pushed to the side in the GDR, it now demanded a voice that had to be heard. Wherever in the Federal Republic whole areas of history and society had been suppressed or treated as taboo, for instance National Socialism, conservatism, clericalism, or the world of work, a rich vein of discovery and enlightenment could be tapped by political theatre, reportage, documentary literature, and functional poetry. In both German states, literature seemed at this time to take up almost classical traditions as its eyes were raised towards utopian projects: it called for what history had failed to bestow and demanded what society had not redeemed. That this path could ulti­ mately lead in the opposite direction to the political impulses of enlightenment became visible in the Federal Republic at the beginning of the 1970s with the development of 'New Subjectivity', which turned its back on the abstractions of the politicization phase. In the GDR, on the other hand, the demand for subjecti­ vity undermined precisely the social assumptions laid down by the party which

300 — RALF SCHNELL

were the preconditions for that demand. The expulsion of Wolf Biermann in 1976 led to a new orientation after a period of disorientation and finally to the subversion of the rigidified structures. The fulfilment of the functions of the sup­ pressed public sphere replaced the contribution to socialist 'construction' as the determinant of literary production. In the light of this, the meeting of writers from both German states, which took place in 1981 with the encouragement of the SED,5 caused understandable surprise. It was, however, not without a certain logic, for it did reflect a kind of cultural convergence transcending, as it were, the individual states. At the root of this, once again, was the writers' understanding of their role as the conscience of the nation. At this meeting agreement was expressed on certain problem areas that went beyond the difference between the political systems: the nuclear arms race, overkill, and the threat of nuclear war, and were thus able to mobilize wri­ ters from both East and West for the first time since 1947. The achievement of agreement heralded more than the simple desire for pragmatic co-operation. If, at the beginning of the Cold War, the key word had been 'unity' and this in itself had signalled the very fact of division, now the watchword was 'peace'. From this time on, even discounting Matin Walser, the lonely voice crying in the wilder­ ness of German division,6 signs of a poetic desire for change demanding some movement in the apparent historical log-jam became evident on all sides. That German literature from both East and West with its common aspiration to repre­ sentative status and to the expression of fears for the fixture contributed to the eventual movement can hardly be denied. This desire for change, however differ­ ently Giinter Grass was wont to interpret it,7 may be read as a commitment to the legacy of Auschwitz and what this means permanently for German history as a whole. This is, this was the starting point of the momentous year 1989. Since then German literature of the immediate present with its divided inheritance has exist­ ed in a situation of 'non-synchronization' — aesthetically, thematically, and insti­ tutionally. Aesthetically, in as far as in the western part of Germany a variety of competing artistic modes of perception have developed, whereas 'GDR' authors, apart from occasional exceptions such as Heiner Muller, remained largely bound within the parameters of the previously decreed realism. Thematically, because, as the first autobiographical texts published since unification clearly show, com­ ing to terms with the most recent past will remain a dominant concern for 'GDR' authors — something that is alien and distant to western writers confronted with the variety of problems presented by a 'postmodern' age. And finally institution­ ally, since authors and publishers from the GDR have to refocus within the

DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE — 301

market of a multi-media society, in which the best positions are already occupied and interest in dissidence within the political system is exhausted. Already there are the first signs of acrimonious factional strife. It is, literally, a matter of survival. Additionally, there is the complicating factor for writers, in both East and West, that the very role they believed they were able to fulfil without further ado, namely that of representative, has become less than clearcut, with the result that a tradition of many decades that persisted right up to the events of unification has been called into question. Surely, never before did so many prominent writers reveal such a concentrated lack of awareness of reality as at the time of the revolution in the GDR. It is not necessary to mention names; all those who considered themselves important were involved. The ever-quickening pace of the movement to German unity left the many, all too many opinions behind, as its inexorable power gathered the breathtaking speed and force to sweep all before it. As this proceeded, intellectuals remained hidebound by their fantasies of power, their formulaic explanations of the world, and their prophetic posturings, things for which there was no longer any demand. The result was the de­ mystification of the intellectual as a standard-bearer in society.8 This is not a reason for gloating; the erosion of the tone-setting power of the role-model is, after all, a phenomenon that can be observed in all spheres of life, in politics and philosophy, in the arts and the media, even in sport. This must be seen as an expression of the increasing complexity of post-industrial societies in an age that demands function rather than representation, information rather than truth. It is necessary to learn that there is a time for silence, especially when one puts one's trust in language. It is in this connection, and only in this connection, that Christa Wolfs Was bleibt is significant. Now that she has admitted her own co-operation with the Stasi, this text, her autobiographically inspired account published in 1990 of the time when she was herself under surveillance from the State Security Service of the GDR towards the end of the 1970s, could be read as self-justification before the event. Yet such a reading would only reproduce many of the prob­ lematical systems of interpretation which have been propounded in numerous variations on the basis of political evaluations of literary texts. What is not at issue are the political positions of authors, nor their Stasi past as such either; what counts is the way they convey their themes aesthetically. When it is a question for literary history of 'what remains', it is always individual works that matter. Undoubtedly, what becomes plain for all to see in this work by Wolf are the contradictions within the persona of a GDR intellectual who has been

302 — RALF SCHNELL

regarded as part of the literary canon, over many years in West Germany as well, and who even by the delayed publication of her manuscript seemed, in her own way, to have done the system a service. Yet it was only because discussion centred on the political function of this GDR author, not, as would have been appropriate, on the aesthetic dimension of autobiographical writing, that the pub­ lication cf this text could develop into a significant event at all. Its literary sub­ stance does not offer sufficient justification for this; at least, not as long as the view is held that poetic language possesses a complex, transcending element that goes beyond reality and mere 'concern1. Not to possess what Wolf herself calls the 'other1, the 'new language*9 and yet still to put pen to paper reveals the para­ dox of the unconscious, yet self-inflicted impotence of an important GDR author. This episode, of course, also contains a symbolic significance. Literary history is a process which can be revealed not only in changes of form but also in exchanges of overarching paradigms. There are signs that, in parallel with the phenomenon of the representative intellectual, the traditional function of litera­ ture as the leading form of social discourse has also been lost. A new generation of authors has developed in east and west, and to the extent that they are pre­ pared to settle for a niche within the functionally differentiated cultural spheres that make up modernity and normality in united, yet double Germany, they are beginning to move out of the traumatic shadow of the German past. That the older generation of authors hardly notices its younger colleagues says as much about the different role-conceptions as about differences of aesthetic perception between generations. For its part, the literature of authors born in the 1950s and 1960s no longer recognizes the ties and restraints that previously existed. It accepts no models, no debts, no obligations. It has rediscovered in the play of art the art of play. The stance of this literature is marked by openness. Polyphony and irony, the instruments of shock and violence are its characteristic means. Its prose moves on a sea of erudition and intertextuality. Its poetry cultivates the gestic pose of quotation, provocation, and self-referentiality. The storms and stresses of its powerful theatre show a greater love for excess than for any seminal search for meaning, interpretation, or enlightenment. This increase in freedom, the artistic kind as well, is not to be underestimated. After the periods of affirmation and utopia, this freedom realizes a claim for autonomy, which can be regarded as characteristic of emancipated literary postmodemity. It may well be, however, that the accelerated pace of the media age, which threatens to drag literature too into the maelstrom of rapid oblivion, is the price younger authors must pay for release from dominating historical and social experiences.

DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE — 303

NOTES Translation by Stuart Parkes. 1. Three declarations adopted at the 'Erster Deutscher SchriftstellerkongreS' are con­ tained in Wagenbach 1979, 73-75. 2. This was a grouping of writers created by the communist party (KPD) during the Wei­ mar Republic. 3. GDR historiography distinguished a number of phases during the development of the Soviet Zone/GDR. The 'antifaschistisch-demokratische UmwSlzung' was perceived as lasting from 1945 to 1949. 4. For a history and an explanation of the term 'socialist realism' see Jdger 1982, 33-48. 5. This first meeting in East Berlin was followed by a second one in West Berlin in 1983. Transcripts of the two meetings were published as follows: (1) Berliner Begegnung zur FriedensfOrderung, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1982; (2) Zweite Berliner Be­ gegnung. Den Frieden erklSren, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1983. 6. Walser* s campaign against the division of Germany is best followed in Walser 1989. 7. In his campaign against German unification, Grass saw the legacy of Auschwitz as a reason for the continuing division of Germany. See, for example, Grass 1990. 8. This feeling is expressed in Meyer 1992. 9. Wolf 1990. The following extracts are relevant: 'Meine andere Sprache [...] die in mir zu wachsen begonnen hatte, zu ihrer vollen Ausbildung aber doch nicht gekommen war, wurde gelassen das Sichtbare dem Unsichtbaren opfem' (14-15) and: 'Diesmal haben sie [...] den Punkt getroffen. Den ich eines Tages, in meiner neuen Sprache, benennen wurde' (170).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Berliner Begegnung zur FriedensfOrderung, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1982. Grass, Gunter 1990: 'Schreiben nach Auschwitz', Die Zeit, 23 February 1990. Heine, Heinrich 1961: Werke und Briefe, ed. by Hans Kaufmann, Aufbau, Berlin, 19611964. JSger, Manfred 1982: Kultur und Politik in der DDR, Edition Deutschland-Archiv, Cologne. Meyer, Martin (ed.) 1992: Intellektuellenddmmerung?, Hanser, Munich/Vienna. Wagenbach, Klaus (ed.) 1979: Vateriand, Muttersprache, Wagenbach, Berlin. Walser, Martin 1989: Ober Deutschland reden, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. Wolf, Christa 1990: Was bleibt, Luchterhand, Frankfurt am Main. Zweite Berliner Begegnung. Den Frieden erklSren, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1983.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SECONDARY WORKS Adelung, Johann Christoph: Versuch eines vollstandigen grammatisch-kritischen WOrterbuches der Hochdeutschen Mundart, Breitkopf, Leipzig, 1774-1786. Adomo, Theodor W.: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1977. ------ Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch et al: Aesthetics and Politics. The Key Texts in the Classic Debate within German Marxism, ed. by Frederick Jameson, Verso, London, 1980. Afsprung, Johann Michael: Reise durch einige Cantone der Eidgenossenschaft, [n.pub.], Leipzig, 1784. Agde, Gunter (ed.): Kahlschlag. Das 11. Plenum des ZK der SED 1965, Aufbau, Berlin, 1991. Am6ry, Jean: Jenseits von Schuld und Silhne. BewSltigungsversuche eines Qberwaitigten, dtv, Munich, 1988. Apel, Friedmar, Maria Kublitz-Kramer, and Thomas Steinfeld (eds): Kulturin der Stadt, Universitat Paderbom (= Paderbomer Universrtatsreden 36), Paderbom, 1993. Arendt, Hannah: Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil, rev. and enl. edn, Penguin, London, 1977. Arnold, Heinz Ludwig (ed.): Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, edition text+kritik, Munich, 1978-. ------ (ed.): Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, (text+kritik 71), edition text+kritik, Munich, 1981. ------ (ed.): Heinrich BOll, edition text+kritik, Munich, 1982. ------ (ed ): Macht Apparat Literatur. Literatur und 'Stalinismus', edition text+kritik, Munchen, 1990. ------ , Frauke Meyer-Gosau (eds): Die Abwicklung der DDR, Wallenstein Verlag, Gfittingen, 1992. Asche, Susanne: Die Uebe, der Tod und das Ich im Spiegel der Kunst. Die Funktion des Weiblichen in Schriften der FrQhromantik und im erzShlerischen Werk E.T.A. Hoffmanns, Hain, K6nigstein/Ts, 1985. Aust, Hugo: Der historische Roman, Metzler, Stuttgart, 1994. Backes, Herbert (ed.): Festschrift fiir Hans Eggers zum 65. Geburtstag, Niemeyer, Tubingen, 1972. Baier, Lothar Was wird Literatur, Wespennest, Vienna, 1993. Bakhtin, Mikhail: Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, trans. by R.W. Rotsel, Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1973. ------ : Rabelais and His World, trans. by H6l6ne Iswolskky, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2nd edn 1984 (1968). Balzer, Bemd (ed.): Heinrich BOll, 1917-1985, zum 75. Geburtstag, Peter Lang, Beme, 1992. Barthes, Roland: S/Z, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 1970. Battersby, Christine: Gender and Genius, Women's Press, London, 1989. Bausinger, Hermann: Heimat. Analysen, Themen, Perspektiven, Bundeszentrale fiir politische Bildung, Bonn, 1990. Benjamin, Walter: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by R. Tiedemann and H. Schweppenhauser, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1991. Benveniste, £mile: Probldmes de linguistique g6n6rale I, Gallimard, Paris, 1966. ------ : Problems in General Linguistics, trans. by Mary Elizabeth Meek, Miami Linguistics Series, 8, University of Miami Press, Miami, 1971. Berger, Karin et al. (eds): Der Himmel ist blau. Kann sein. Frauen im Widerstand— Osterreich 1938-1945, Promedia, Vienna, 1985. Berliner Begegnung zur FriedensfOrderung, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1982.

306 — SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Beth, Hanno (ed.): Heinrich BOll, Eine EinfQhrung in das Gesamtwerk in Einzelinterpretationen, Scriptor, Kronberg/TS, 1975. Bdthig, Peter and Klaus Michael (eds): MachtSpiele. Literatur und Staatssicherheit im Fokus Prenzlauer Berg, Reclam, Leipzig, 1993. Bohrer, Kart-Heinz: PlOtzlichkeit. Zum Augenblick des asthetischen Scheins, Frankfurt am Main, 1981. Bormann, Alexander von (ed.): Wissen aus Erfahrungen. Werkbegriff und Interpretation heute. Festschrift fQr Hennan Meyer zum 65. Geburtstag, Niemeyer, Tubingen, 1976. Botz, Gerhard et al. (eds): 'Qualitat und Quantit&t'. Zur Praxis der Methoden der Histori­ schen Sozialwissenschaft, Studien zur historischen Sozialwissenschaft, Campus, Frankfurt am Main, 1988. Braun, Michael: Der poetische Augenblick. Essays zur Gegenwartsliteratur, Verlag V is-& Vis, Berlin, 1986. Briegleb, Klaus and Sigrid Weigel: Gegenwartsliteratur seit 1968, dtv, Munich, 1992. Bullivant, Keith: Realism Today. Aspects of the Contemporary German Novel, Berg, Leamington, 1988. Bunge, Hans (ed.): Die Debatte um Hanns Eislers 'Johann Faustus'. Eine Dokumentation, Basis-Druck, Berlin, 1991. Chiartoni, Anna and Helga Pankoke (eds): Grenzfallgedichte, Eine deutsche Anthologie, Aufbau, Berlin, 1991. Cixous, H6l6ne: Pr6noms de personne, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 1974. Claudius, Eduard: Menschen an unsrerSeite, Volk und Welt, Berlin, 1951. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 1960 Culler, Jonathan: The Pursuit of Signs. Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London/Henley, 1981. Datta, Asit: Kleinformen in der deutschen Erzdhlprosa seit 1945 — eine poetologische Studie, Verlag Uni-Druck, Munich, 1972. Deiritz, Karl and Hannes Krauss (eds): Der deutsch-deutsche Literaturstreit oder 'Freunde, es spricht sich schlecht mit gebundener Zunge'. Analysen und Materialien, Luchterhand, Hamburg/Zurich, 1991. Oelabar, Walter, Wemer Jung, and Ingrid Pergande (eds): Neue Generation — Neues Erzahlen. Deutsche Prosa-Literatur der achtziger Jahre, Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1993. dell'Agli, Anna Maria (ed.): Zu Heinrich BOll, Klett, Stuttgart, 1983. de Man, Paul: Blindness and Insight, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1983. Drescher, Angela (ed.): Dokumentation zu Christa Wolf'Nachdenken uber Christa T.', Luchtertiand, Hamburg/Zurich, 1991. Durzak, Manfred: Die deutsche Kurzgeschichte der Gegenwart, Reclam, Stuttgart, 1980. Ebel, Johann Gottfried: SchUdemng der GebirgsvOlker der Schweitz, [n.pub.], Leipzig, 1802. Eilert, Heide: Theater in der Erzdhlkunst. Eine Studie zum Werk E. T.A. Hoffmanns, Niemeyer, Tubingen, 1977. Fink, Humbert and Marcel Reich-Ranicki (eds): Kiagenfurter Texte, List-Veriag, Munich, 1983. Fletcher, Angus: Allegory. The Theory of a Symbolic Mode, London, 1964. Fortini-Brown, Patricia: Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio, Yale University Press, New Haven/London, 1988. Fraenger, Wilhelm: Matthias Grdnewald, Beck, Munich, 1983. Frank, Manfred: Einfiihrung in die FrQhromantische Asthetik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1989. Fries, Marilyn Sibley (ed.): Responses to Christa Wolf. Critical Essays, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan, 1989.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY — 307 Gaskill, Howard, Karin MacPherson, and Andrew Barker (eds): Neue Ansichten. The Re­ ception of Romanticism in the Literature of the GDR, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1990. Gaus, Gunter Wo Deutschland liegt. Eine Ortsbestimmung, Hoffmann und Campe, Munich, 1983. Genette, G6rard: Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method, trans. by Jane E. Lewin with an introduction by Jonathan Culler, Cornell University Press, Ithaca (NY), 1980. ------ : Palimpsestes. La littGrature au second degr6, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 1982. GOrtz, Franz Josef, Volker Hage, and Uwe Wittstock (eds.): Deutsche Literatur 1991. JahresQberblick, Reclam, Stuttgart, 1992. Gdtze, Kari-Heinz: Heinrich BOll. Ansichten eines Clowns, W. Fink, Munich, 1985. Gould, Cecil: An Introduction to Italian Renaissance Painting, Phaidon Press, London, 1957. Graf, Karin and Ulrich Konietzny (eds): Werkheft Uteratur Jurek Becker, ludicium Verlag, Munich, 1991. GroB, Thomas: Alltagserkundungen. Empirisches Schreiben in der Asthetik und in den spdten Materialbdnden Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns, Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar, 1993. Grutzbach, Frank: Freies Geleit fQr Uirike Meinhof. Ein Artikel und seine Folgen, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, 1972. Giimbel, Lutz: ICH. Synthetischer Realismus und Odipale Strukturim FrQhwerkAmo Schmidts. Eine typologische Untersuchung, KOnigshausen & Neuman, Wurzburg, 1995. Haecker, Theodor Essays. Kdsel, Munich, 1958. Harlan, Volker, Rainer Rappman and Peter Schata: Soziale Plastik. Materialien zu Joseph Beuys, Achberger Verlag, Achberg, 1984. Harvey, David: The Condition of Postmodemity, Blackwell, Oxford, 1990. Hecht, W em er(ed): Brecht-Dialog 1968, Henschel, Berlin, 1969. Heidelberger-Leonard, Irene (ed.): Jurek Becker, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1993. Heine, Heinrich: Werke und Briefe, ed. by Hans Kaufmann, Aufbau, Berlin, 1961-1964. Hess, Heide and Peter Liebers (eds): Arbeiten mit der Romantik heute, Arbeitsheft 26, Akademie der Kunste der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin, 1978. HOIIer, Hans (ed.): 'Der dunkle Schatten, dem ich schon seit Anfang folge'. Ingeborg Bachmann — VorschlSge zu einer neuen LektQre des Works, Lbcker, Vienna, 1982. ------ : Ingeborg Bachmann. Das Work. Von den frQhesten Gedichten bis zum TodesartenZyklus, Athendum, Frankfurt am Main, 1987. Hdmigk, Therese (ed ): Christa Wolf, Steidl, Gottingen, 1989. Hoesterey, Ingeborg: Verschlungene Schriftzeichen. IntertextualitSt von Literatur und Kunst in der Modeme/Postmodeme, AthenSum, Frankfurt am Main, 1988. Hoogeveen, Jos and Gerd Labroisse, Gerd (eds): DDR-Roman und Uteraturgesellschaft, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1981. Horch, Hans Otto and Horst Denkler (eds): Conditio Judaica, Drifter Teil: Judentum, Antisemitismus und deutschsprachige Uteratur vom Ersten Wettkrieg bis 1933/1938, Niemeyer, Tubingen, 1993. Irigaray, Luce: je, tu, nous: Toward a Culture of Difference, Routledge, London, 1993. Jager, Manfred (ed.): Sozialliteraten. Funktion und Selbstverstdndnis der Schriftsteller in der DDR, Bertelsmann, Dusseldorf, 1973. ------ : Kultur und Politik in der DDR. Ein historischer Abrid, Edition Deutschland Archiv, Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne, 1982. Janacs, Christoph: Das Verschwinden des Blicks, Muller, Salzburg, 1991. Jens, W alter Deutsche Uteratur der Gegenwart. Themen, Stile, Tendenzen, Piper, Munich, 1966. Johnson, Susan: The Works of Jurek Becker. A Thematic Analysis, Peter Lang, Beme/New York, 1988.

308 — SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Jorgensen, Sven-Aage, Per 0hrgaard and Friedrich SchmOe (eds): Aspekte der Romantik, Fink, Copenhagen/Munich, 1983. Jurgensen, Manfred (ed.): B6II: Untersuchungen zum Werk, Peter Lang, Beme, 1975. Kalb, Peter E. (ed.): Einmischung. Schriftsteller uber Schule, Gesellschaft, Literatur, Beltz, Weinheim/Basel, 1983. Kamy, Thomas: Die Hatz. Bilder zur MOhlviertler 'Hasenjagd', Edition Geschichte der Heimat, Grunbach, 1992. Kleiber, Carine: Ilse Aichinger. Leben und Werk, Lang, Beme/Frankfurt/New York, 1984. Klemperer, Victor Lingua Tertii Imperii. Notizbuch eines Philogen, RecJam, Leipzig, 1991. Knapp, Mona and Gerd Labroisse (eds): Frauen-Fragen in der deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1989. Koebner, Thomas (ed.): Laokoon und kein Ende. Der Wettstreit derKQnste, edition text+kritik, Munich, 1989. KohpeiS, Ralph: Der historische Roman der Gegenwart in der Bundesrepublik Deutsch­ land. Asthetische Konzeption und Wirkungsintention, M & P Verlag fiir Wissenschaft und Forschung, Stuttgart, 1993. Koppen, Erwin: Literatur und Photographie. Uber Geschichte und Thematik einer Medienentdeckung, Metzler, Stuttgart, 1987. Kremer, Detlef 1993: Romantische Metamorphosen. E.T.A. Hoffmanns Erzdhlungen, Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar. Kristeva, Julia: Eripeiumicrj [=Sdm6i6tik&]. Recherches pour une s6manalyse, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 1969. ------ : La Revolution du langage po6tique, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 1974. ------ : The Kristeva Reader, ed. by Toril Moi, Blackwell, Oxford, 1986. Kruger, Ingrid (ed.): Mut zur Angst. Schriftsteller fQr den Frieden, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1982. Lakoff, George: Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London, 1987. ------ and Mark Tum er More than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London, 1989. Lampe, Gerhard: Ohne SubjektivitSt. Interpretationen zur Lyrik Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns vor dem Hintergrund des Studentenbewegung, Niemeyer, Tubingen, 1983. Lavater, Johann Caspar Physiognomische Fragmente zur BefOrderung der Menschenkenntnisse und Menschenliebe, [n.pub.], Leipzig/Winterthur, 1775-1778. le Chdne, Evelyn: Mauthausen: The History of a Death Camp, Chivers Press, Bath, 1971. Lehmann, Heinrich Ludewig: Freundschaftliche und vertrauliche Briefe, den so genannten sehr beruchtigten Hexenhandel zu Glarus betreffend, Caspar Fuefily, Zurich, 1783. ------ : Uber die Schweiz und die Schweizer, Vieweg, Berlin, published anonymously in two parts, 1795-1796. Lindemann, Gisela: Ilse Aichinger, Beck, Munich, 1988. Lorenz, Dagmar Ilse Aichinger, Athenfium, Kdnigstein/Ts, 1981. Lutzeler, Paul Michael (ed.): Spdtmodeme und Postmodeme. Beitrdge zur deutsch­ sprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1991. ------ (ed.): Poetik derAutoren. Beitrdge zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1994. Lukdcs, Georg: Die Theorie des Romans, Luchterhand, Neuwied/Bertin, 1971. Lyotard, Jean Francois: Heidegger and the jews'. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1990. McLaughlin, Donal: Heinrich BOll: 'Die veriorene Ehre derKatharina Blum', Glasgow, 1988. Maravall, Jose Antonio: Culture of the Baroque. Analysis of a Historical Structure, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1986. Maridlek, Hans: Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen. Dokumentation, Osterreichische Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen, Vienna, 1980.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY — 309 Marx, Leonie: Die deutsche Kurzgeschichte, Metzler, Stuttgart, 1985. Mauthner, Fritz: Beitrdge zu einer Kritik der Sprache, 3vols, Ullstein, Frankfurt, 1982. Mayer, Hans: Brecht in der Geschichte. Drei Versuche, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1971. Meyer, Herman: Das Zitat in der Erzahlkunst. Zur Geschichte und Poetik des europaischen Romans, Metzler, Stuttgart, 1961. Meyer, Martin (ed.): Intellektuellendammerung?, Hanser, Munich/Vienna, 1992. Michels, Gerd (ed.): Festschrift fQr Friedrich Kieneckerzum 60. Geburtstag, Groos, Heidelberg, 1980. Mitscherlich, Margarete: Oberdie MOhsahl der Emanzipation, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1990. Momberger, Manfred: Sonne und Punsch. Die Dissemination des romantischen Kunstbegriffs bei E.T.A. Hoffmann, Fink, Munich, 1986. Moser, Samuel (ed.): Ilse Aichinger. Materialien zu Leben und Werk. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1990. Muller, Hans von (ed.): Gesammelte Aufsatze QberE.T.A. Hoffmann, ed. by Friedrich Schnapp, Gerstenberg, Hildesheim, 1974. Muller, Karl: Zasuren ohne Folgen. Das lange Leben der Antimodeme Osterreichs seit den 30erJahren, Otto Muller, Salzburg, 1990. Muschg, W alter Gesprache mit Hans Henny Jahnn, Europflische Verlagsanstatt, Frankfurt am Main, 1967. Neue Deutsche Biographie, pub. by Historische Kommission der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1966. Niethammer, Lutz with Wemer Trapp (eds): Lebenserfahrung und kollektives Geddchtnis. Die Praxis der Oral History, Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main, 1980. Pelz, Annegret et al. (eds): Frauen — Literatur— Politik, Argument-Veriag, Hamburg, 1988. Petersen, Jurgen H.: Der deutsche Roman derModeme. Grundlegung, Typologie, Entwicklung, Metzler, Stuttgart, 1991. ------ : Erzahlsysteme. Eine Poetik epischer Texte, Metzler, Stuttgart, 1993. Politzer, Heinz (ed.): Franz Kafka. Eine innere Biographie in Selbstzeugnissen, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1983. Pott, Hans-Georg (ed ): Literatur und Provinz, Schdningh, Paderbom, 1986. Preisendanz, Wolfgang: Humor als dichterische Einbildungskraft. Studien zur Erzahlkunst des poetischen Realismus, Eidos Verlag, Munich, 1963. Reich-Ranicki, Marcel (ed.): In Sachen BOll. Ansichten und Einsichten, dtv, Munich, 1970. Reichart, Elisabeth (ed.): Osterreichische Dichterinnen, Otto Muller, Salzburg, 1993. Reid, James Henderson: Heinrich BOll. A German for his Time, Berg, Oxford/New York/Hamburg, 1988. Reijen, Willem van (ed.): Allegorie und Melancholia, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1992. Renner, Rolf Gunter. Die postmodeme Konstellation. Theorie, Text und Kunst im Ausgang derModeme, Rombach, Freiburg, 1988. Richter, Hansjiirgen: Asthetik der Ambivalenz. Studien zur Struktur ‘postmodemer1Lyrik — exemplarisch dargestellt an Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns Poetik und dem Gedichtband Westwdrts 1&2', Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main/Beme/New York, 1983. Riffaterre, Michael: La production du texte, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1979. Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith: Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, Methuen, London, 1983. Ritter-Santini, Lea (ed ): Mit den Augen geschrieben. Von gedichteten und erzahlten Bildem, Hanser, Munich/Vienna, 1991. Rosen, Robert S.: E.T.A. Hoffmanns ‘KaterMurf. Aufbauformen und Erzahlsituationen, Bouvier, Bonn, 1970. Rutschky, Michael: Zur Ethnographie des Inlands, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1984.

310 — SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Sarup, Madun: An Introductory Guido to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 1988. Schmidt, Ricarda and Moral McGowan (eds): From High Priests to Desocrators. Contemporary Austrian Writers, Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. Schneider, Michael: Den Kopf verkehrt aufgesetzt oder Die melancholische Linke. Aspekte des Kulturzerfalls in den siebziger Jahren, Luchterhand, Darmstadt, 1981. Scholem, Gershom: ZurKabbala und ihrer Symbolik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1973. ------ : Die jOdische Mystik in ihren HauptstrOmungen, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1980. Schor, Naomi: Reading in Detail. Aesthetics and the Feminine, Routledge, London, 1987. SchrOter, Klaus: Heinrich B6II mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1982. Schuler, Johann Melchior Die Unth-Thdler, Orell, FuBli und Comp., Zurich, 1814. Schulz, Hans J. (ed.): Mein Judentum, Kreuz Verlag, Berlin, 1978. Schwarz, Wilhelm (ed.): Protokolle. GesprSche mit Schriftstellem, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main/ Beme, 1990. Schwiehle, Gunther and Irmgard Schwiehle (eds): Metzler Uteratur Lexikon Stichw6rter zur Weltliteratur, Metzler, Stuttgart, 1984. Sheppard, Richard (ed.): New Ways in Germanistik, Berg, Oxford, 1990. Siefgen, Hinrich (ed.): Theodor Haecker, Tag- und NachtbQcher (1938-1945), Haymon, Innsbruck, 1989. Simmel, Georg: Philosophische Kultur, Berlin, 1983. Spath, Sibylla: 'Rettungsversuch aus dem Todestemtorium'. Zur AktualitSt der Lyrik Rolf Dieter Brinkmanns, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main/ Beme/ New York, 1986. Staiger, Emil: Grundbegriffe der Poetik, dtv, Munich, 1983. Stangl, Gitta: Alltagsgeschichte. Mdglichkeiten und Grenzen der Arbeit mit Lebensgeschichte, OBV, Vienna, 1989. Stanzel, Franz K.: Theorie des ErzShlens, 4th rev. edn, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Gottingen, 1989. Stemmier, Wolfgang: 'Max Frisch, Heinrich BOll und Soeren Kierkegaard', Munich (1972, unpublished doctoral dissertation). Stemberger, Dolf, Gerhard Storz, and W.E. Siiskind: Aus dem WOrterbuch des Unmenschen, Claassen, Hamburg, 1957. Stiftung PreuBische Seehandlung: Der Berliner Literaturpreis 1992, Mathias Gatza, Berlin, 1992. Storch, Wolfgang (ed.): Explosion of a Memory. Heiner MQIIer DDR. Ein Arbeitsbuch, Edition Hentrich, West Berlin, 1988. SuB, Werner and Rose-Maria Kuban (eds): Bitterfelder Emte. Eine Anthologie schreibender Arbeiter des Bezirks Halle 1959-1967, Verlag Tribune, Berlin, 1968. Thomas-Morus-Akademie: Erzdhler, Rhetoriker, Kritiker. Zum Verm&chtnis Heinrich B6lls, Bensberg, 1987. Todorov, Tzvetan: Literature and Its Theorists. A Personal View of Twentieth-Century Criticism. Eng. trans. by Catherine Porter, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1987. Tunner, Erika (ed.): Romantik — eine lebenskrdftige Krankheit: ihre literarischen Nachwirkungen in der Modeme, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1991. Urbe, Burglind: Lyrik, Fotografie und Massenkultur, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main/Beme/New York, 1985. Wagenbach, Klaus (ed.): Vateriand, Muttersprache, Wagenbach, Berlin, 1979. Wallace, Ian (ed.): Christa Wolf in Perspective, Rodopi, Amsterdam/Atlanta, 1994. Wallis, B. (ed.): Blasted Allegories, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA), 1987. Wallmann, Jurgen P.: 'Heinrich BOH', Argumente: Aufsdtze und Kritiken, n.pub., 1968. Walser, Martin: Uber Deutschland reden, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1989. Weigel, Sigrid: Die Stimme der Medusa. Schmibweisen in der Gegewartsliteratur von Frauen, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY — 311 Weigel, Sigrid: Topographien der Geschlechter. Kulturgeschichtliche Studien zur Literatur, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1990. Weinrich, Harald: Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache, Dudenverlag, Mannheim, 1993. Weinzieri, Erika and Kurt Skalnik (eds): Ostorreich. Die Zweite Republik, 2 vols, Styria, Graz/Vienna/Cologne, 1972. Welsh, Renate: In die Waagschale geworfen. Ostermicher im Widerstand, Jugend und Volk, Vienna, 1988. Wehrmann, Elisabeth and Marie Schuetze-Cobum (eds): The Silent Shadow. The Third Reich and the Generation After, Goethe-lnstitut, Los Angeles, 1991. Wemer, Hans-Georg: E.T.A. Hoffmann. Darstellung und Deutung der Wirkiichkeit im dichterischen Werk, Arion Verlag, Weimar, 1962. Wichner, Ernest and Herbert Wiesner (eds): Zensur in der DDR. Geschichte, Praxis und 'Asthetik' der Behindemng von Literatur, Literaturhaus Berlin, 1991. Williams, Arthur, Stuart Parkes and Roland Smith (eds): Literature on the Threshold. The German Novel in the 1980s, Berg, New York/Oxford/Munich, 1990. ------ Stuart Parkes, and Roland Smith (eds): German Literature at a Time of Change, 1989-1990. German Unity and German Identity in Literary Perspective, Peter Lang, Beme/Berlin/Frankfurt am Main, 1991. ------ and Stuart Parkes (eds): The Individual, Identity and Innovation. Signals from Contem­ porary Literature and the New Germany, Peter Lang, Beme/Berlin/Frankfurt am Main, 1994. Wistrich, Robert (ed.): Austrians and Jews in the Twentieth Century. From Franz Joseph to Waldheim, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1992. Wittstock, Uwe (ed.): Roman oder Leben. Postmodeme in der deutschen Literatur, Reclam, Leipzig, 1994. Worton, Michael and Judith Still (eds): Intertextuality. Theories and Practices, Manchester University Press, Manchester/New York, 1990. Ziltener, W alter Die Literaturtheorie Heinrich BOIIs, Peter Lang, Beme, 1980. Zweite Berliner Begegnung. Den Frieden erkidren, Luchterhand, Darmstadt/Neuwied, 1983.

INDEX The categories in this index are intended to be broad. Thus, for example, ‘Concentration camps' includes references to ‘extermination camps' and to named concentration camps, Mauthausen being the sole exception. Absurd: 83f., 93 Adenauer, K: 103-105, 129, 243, 299 Adler, HG: 240f. Adorno, TW: 4f„ 7, 103-105, 145, 163, 165-167, 177, 248 Afsprung, JM: 185f. Aichinger, I: 6, 94, 209-220 Allegory: 109-122,131, 151, 210, 218, 270 Am6ry, J: 258 Anderson, S: 77-79 Anti-Semitism: 56, 220 Arendt, H: 254 Augstein, R: 129, 239 Aust. H: 223 Autobiography: 23f., 26, 80 ,1 06,13 0, 163,244, 2 5 1 ,2 6 1 ,3 0 2 Avant-garde: 13f„ 43, 88, 9 0 ,1 3 1 ,133f„ 137, 141,209, 286f.t 294 Bachmann, I: 22, 35, 44, 50, 163, 213, 223, 262f. Baier, L: 2f Bakhtin, M: 11-15, 17f„ 25, 28f. Balzac, H de: 10 Baroque: 112f. Barthes, R: 10, 28-30 Bathrick, D: 36, 50 Baudelaire, C: 163,178 Baudrillard, J: 78 Becker, Jurgen: 156 Becker, Jurek: 1f., 4, 8, 55-68 Beckett, S: 94, 216, 219 Benjamin, W: 9 9 ,1 0 1 ,1 0 7 ,1 1 1 -1 1 5 , 121, 147, 157, 164, 177f. Benveniste, £: 257 Bernhard, T: 215f., 279 Beuys, J: 103f. Biermann, W: 44, 77, 300 Bild: 288, 291 Bildungsroman: 23f., 26f., 98 Biography: 23f. Bitterfeld: 72 Bodmer, JJ: 111 Boenisch, P: 243f„ 248 Bohrer, K-H: 118 Bdll, H: 6f„ 126, 137, 237-249

Bom, N: 93 Botticelli: 178 Brandt, W: 103 Brasch, T: 73 Braun, V: 73 Br&unig, W: 73 Brecht, B: 1, 35-51, 279 Brinkmann, RD: 5, 141-158, 288-290, 292, 294 Brugmann, M: 161, 171 Buchner, G: 40, 50,169 Bukowski, C: 147 Bullivant, K: 107 Bunge, H: 43 Burger. GA: 2 Burroughs, W: 147 Busch, W: 283 Cabbalists: 217-219 Camus, A: 94 Camivalization: 11f., 17f., 28 Carpaccio: 162, 168-171, 173 Carroll, D: 177 Catholicism: 241, 244-246, 276 Celan, P: 212f. Censorship: 62f., 64, 71, 84, 255 Cervantes: 24 Chassidim: 216 Cixous, H: 161 Classicism: 22, 24, 36f„ 45, 50 Claudius, E: 73 Clausen, B: 172 Coleridge: 112 Concentration camps: 55, 91, 111,167, 169f„ 206, 251f., 254f. Concrete poetry: 146 Conrad, J: 211 Creutziger, W: 90 Culler, J: 14f. Cut-ups: 131-133, 136, 138, 294 Datta, A: 125 Deconstruction: 14,109 Derrida, J: 246, 249 Dialogism: 11, 1 3 ,1 5 ,1 7 , 29 Dieterle B: 169 Doerry, M: 223f.

314 — INDEX

Dostoevsky, FM: 1 1 ,13f., 17f., 29 Duden , A: 5 ,1 6 1 -1 7 8 Durzak, M: 134 Ebel, HL: 184-186, 188 Eberhardt, U: 65 Eco, U: 219 Venture automatique: 294 Edvardson, C: 254 Ehmer, M: 261, 264 Eich, G: 74 Eisler, H: 43, 47f., 51 Emancipation: 46f. Empedocles: 118 Enlightenment: 1 4 7 ,1 8 5 ,1 8 8 ,1 9 1 -1 9 3 , 195-197, 268, 277, 299, 302 Enzensberger, HM: 3, 8, 75, 287f. Etymology: 242, 251-264 Exile: 298 Experientialist: 181-183 Expressionism: 225, 298 Fascism: 48, 262, 290, 297f. Fassbinder, RW: 134 Felder, FM: 234 Feminism: 5, 4 4 -4 6 ,1 6 1 -1 6 3 ,1 7 1 Fichte, H: 118,165 Ficker, L von: 244 Fiedler, LA: 147 Film: 135, 141-145, 149f„ 235, 254 Fin de s/dcte: 143, 225, 269 Fischer, J: 104 FI6neur. 149, 163, 177 Focalization: 14 Formalism: 36 Foucault, M: 78, 177 Fox, TC: 21 Fragment: 104, 109, 116, 118f., 126, 141, 150-152, 154, 157, 162, 164f„ 206, 274 Frankfurter Schule: 162f., 167 Frauenbiicher. 258 Freud, S: 25 Frisch, M: 65, 68 Frischmuth, B: 92 Futurism: 36 Gaus, G: 77 Genette, G: 12f„ 18-20, 22f., 27, 30 Genotext/phenotext: 16 GesinnungsSsthetilc. 88, 270 Gestapo: 252, 258 Goebbels, J: 293

Goethe, JW von: 23, 27, 36, 97, 107, 112, 125, 199, 223f. Goetz, R: 7, 283-295 Gogol, NV: 65 Gomringer, E: 213 Gorki, M: 39, 65 Gould, C: 178 Gozzi, C: 24 Grass, G: 7, 83, 263, 300, 303 Greiner, U: 88 Grillparzer, F: 230, 234 Grun, M von der 72 Grunewald: 172,178 Gruppe 47: 211, 213, 285 Hackl, E: 226 Haecker, T: 238, 244-246, 249 Hage, V: 90 Hager, K: 43 Handke, P: 6, 156, 217, 224, 247, 285 H&rtling, P: 252 Hasler, E: 181-200 Headlines: 151, 284, 287, 291f. Hebei, JP: 135 Heidegger. M: 275, 277 Heidenreich, G: 107 Heimat 105-107 Heimatroman: 106 Hein, C: 8 Heine, H: 297 HeiBenbuttel, H: 5, 127-134, 137, 213, 239 Hell, C: 90 Herder, JG: 233 Heydrich, R: 252 Hilbig, W: 4, 71-80 Hildesheimer, W: 211, 223 Historical novel: 223 Historiography: 99-101, 303 Hitchcock, A: 135 Hitler Youth: 212 Hoffmann, ETA: 4, 9-30, Hofmannsthal, H von: 5f., 145, 209, 212, 217 H&lderiin, JCF: 204-206 Hdllerer, W: 127 Holocaust: 55f„ 60, 62, 111, 163, 167, 210, 213, 242f., 300 HGpcke, K :7 1 ,7 7 Horkheimer, M: 145 Hunt, IE: 283f. Hypertext/hypotext: 19f., 22, 27f., 30

INDEX — 315

Icon: 161 Idealism: 25,112 Iden, P: 293 Identity: 4, 40f„ 49, 56, 72f„ 75, 79f„ 101f„ 105f., 109f„ 115-118, 134, 161, 164-167, 171f., 176, 275 Impressionism: 225 Innerhofer, F: 234 Internal emigration: 298 Intertextuality: 3f., 9-30 , 35 -5 1,1 11, 115, 302 Irigaray, L: 161f„ 167 Jahnn, HH: 94, 285f. Jameson, F: 178 Janacs, C: 254 Jandl, E: 93 Jaspers, K: 277 Jelinek, E: 279 Jens, W: 4f., 209 Jewish traditions: 4, 6, 55-68, 210, 2 1 5 -

Kulick, H: 79 Kunze, R: 84 Lacan, J: 16 1,171 ,1 75 Lakoff, G: 181-183, 196, 198 Landa, J: 272 Landscape: 98f., 101, 116f., 121 Langthaler, M: 264 Lautreamont: 15-18, 30 Lehmann, HL: 184f. Lennox, S: 35, 50 Lenz, S: 105,107 Levi, P: 254 Literature (death of): 3 Uteraturstnait 87f., 90 Loest, E: 84 LCffler, S: 268 Luk6cs, G: 36, 50, 97, 107, 177 Lutheranism: 49 Lutzeler, PM: 3 Lyotard, JF: 164,177

220 Johnson, U: 83, 287, 290 Jonke, G: 217 Joyce, J: 154, 219 Kafka, F: 6, 76, 94, 210, 216, 219, 279 Kahlschlag: 6 ,1 4 5 Kain, F: 253f. Kant, H: 297 Kant, I: 25, 112, 224 Kflstner, E: 202 Kempker, B: 283 Kerkeling, H: 293 Kerouac, J: 147 Kirchhoff, B: 2, 8 Klee: 168 Kleiber, C: 84 Kleist, H von: 135, 294 Klemperer, V: 240, 248, 255 Klier, W: 90 Knaur, B: 215 Kohl, H: 107 KohpeiB, R: 223 Kolbe, U: 77 Konrad. G: 1 Kracauer, S: 147,157 Kraus, K: 6, 203, 206f„ 244, 249 Krieger, H: 2f. Kristeva, J: 4, 11-18, 21, 29f„ 161, 163, 177 Kronauer, B: 5, 161-178 Kublitz-Kramer, M: 163

Man, Pde: 112,115, 119 Mandelkow, KR: 41 Mann, T: 39, 223, 231 M&rchen. 128-131,134 Marchwitza, H: 72f. Marquez, GG: 224 Marshall Aid: 243 Marx, K: 35, 40, 298 Marx, L: 127 Matt, B von: 225 Matthies, FW: 71 Maue, KO: 51 Mauthausen: 206, 251-254, 261 Mauthner, F: 145, 257, 259 May, K: 65 Mechtenberg, T: 84 Meckel. C: 252 Media: 2, 5, 8, 126, 137f„ 141, 145, 238f„ 258, 279, 284-286, 288, 291f., 294, 300, 302 Melancholy: 102f., 113-115, 118 Memory: 7, 39, 55, 58, 61, 67, 100, 251, 254, 263 Metaphor 9, 17,119, 121, 166, 181-200, 219, 233, 259, 261, 272, 275f„ 295 Meyer, H: 12 Meyer-Gosau, F: 41 Michie, H: 219 Minnesang: 201 Mitschertich, M: 46 Mittenzwei, W: 38, 50

316 — INDEX

Modernism: 4, 28, 149, 163, 212f., 217, 220, 283, 287, 298, 302 Moli&re, JBP: 5 Morgan, TE: 9f„ 14f„ 17f„ 21, 30 Mdrike, E: 206, 234 Muller, H von: 25 Muller, H: 50, 285, 300 Multi-media: 149, 301 Mundstock, K: 73 Music: 215f., 223, 230-235 Musil, R: 94 Muth, C: 244 Mysticism: 218f. Myth: 75-77 Nadolny, S: 8 Names: 214, 280 National Socialism: 6, 61, 85, 240f., 244f., 247, 251-254, 275f„ 279, 297, 299 Neo-realism: 4 Neue Innerlichkeit 97f., 298 Neue Subjektivitat 97f., 299 Nietzsche, FW: 143, 147, 157, 206 Nihilism: 270 Nouveau roman: 217 Novel: 89. 97,107, 125, 161 Novelle: 1 2 5 ,127f„ 130f., 133f„ 137, 231f. Obscenity: 268, 271, 278 Old Testament: 259 O'Hara, F: 147 Oral history/orality: 58-62, 107, 217, 261f., 264 Ortheil, H-J: 3, 5, 97-107 Ovid: 119 Painting: 99, 162,167-175 PapenfuR-Gorek, B: 77 Pascal, B: 16f. Patriarchy: 44, 259f„ 263 Performance Theatre: 268 Petersen, J: 212 Photography: 5 ,1 4 1 -1 5 8 , 289 Poe, EA: 126 Poetry: 5 Pornography: 258, 268 Postmodernism: 3, 5, 46, 78, 97, 113, 119, 162, 164, 174, 176, 178, 201, 207, 209, 247, 263, 284, 295, 300, 302 Post-structuralism: 3, 1 0 ,1 5 ,1 6 3 Pound, E: 154

Rabelais: 11 Raddatz, FJ: 292 Ransmayr, C: 4f„ 109-122, 223 Reader 1f.. 10. 24. 40f., 59, 65-67, 83. 89, 136 Realism: 36, 39, 83, 86, 91, 1 1 1 ,116f., 119, 151,213, 238, 292, 300 Reduction: 5, 23, 127, 133, 138, 251 Reichart, E: 7, 251-264 Reid, JH: 237 Religion: 228-230 Renaissance: 103,162 Rietzschel, T: 225 Riffaterre, M: 19 Rilke, RM: 206 Rimbaud, A: 73 Robbe-Grillet, A: 157 Romanticism: 4, 21f., 24, 30, 90, 97, 105, 173, 224, 232, 283 Ryan, J: 44f. Sachs, N: 209, 219 Sartre, J-P: 2 Saussure, F de: 15, 215, 272 Schadlich, HJ: 4, 83-94 Schedlinski, R: 77 Schiller, JCF von: 2, 25, 36, 206 Schirrmacher, F: 223, 247 Schlegel, F: 11 2,118 ,1 25 Schleiermacher, F: 103f. Schmidt, A: 157, 285 Schneider, M: 252 Schneider, R: 6, 223-235 Schnurre, W: 126, 138 Schddel, H: 269 Scholem, G: 216-218 Schor, N: 168 SchrOter, K: 238 Schulz, MW: 42 Schutte, W: 91 Schutting, J: 4, 201-208 Schwab, W: 7, 267-280, 285 Schweikert, U: 161 Science/technology: 26, 37-41, 43, 4 5 48. 50 Science fiction: 128 SED: 1. 36. 42-44, 299f. Seghers, A: 39 Seidenfaden, I: 283 Semantics: 1 7 ,144f., 181, 242 Semiotics: 9 - 1 1 ,14f„ 116, 202f. Semprun, J: 251, 263f. Serke, J: 90

INDEX — 317

Shakespeare: 24 Shelley, M: 224 Short story: 125-127, 133-135, 137 Shortest story: 5, 125-138 Sienkiewicz, H: 65 Signifier/signified: 12,15, 7 5 ,1 1 2 ,1 1 4f., 171, 144, 203-205, 215, 278 Signs: 231 f. Simmel, G: 120 Snap-shot: 150-153 Socialist realism: 4 ,1 4 , 36, 38-43, 49, 71, 299, 303 Sprachlosigkeit. 6f., 56,101 Sprachskepsis: 6, 209, 294 Sprachveriust. 92 Springer, AC: 129, 243, 286 Stalin: 13,17, 40, 62 Stasi: 76-79, 94. 301 Steinecke, H: 23f. Steme: 24 Stifter, A: 125, 204 Storytelling: 4, 55-68, 86f., 99, 101 Stout, R: 65 StrauQ, B: 8, 88, 247 Struck, K: 242 Structuralism: 10, 78 Sturm und Drang: 98 Subjectivity: 163, 165-167,176 Suskind, P: 223f. Symbol: 10, 15 -1 7,1 00, 112, 115, 151, 162, 171, 176, 181, 191, 212, 219, 231 Synchronism: 1 1 ,1 5 ,1 1 0 ,1 2 8 , 300 Talk-show: 285, 290 Third Reich: 6f„ 240, 252, 254, 276, 298 Tieck, L: 94, 107 Tieck, W: 125 Tintoretto: 168,174,178 Todorov, T: 13 Transtextuality: 19, 27f., 30 Truth: 25, 35, 37f„ 41, 44, 48, 58, 61-63, 65, 67, 92, 111, 113, 176, 241, 247, 251, 301 Ueding, G: 2 Ulbricht, W: 42 Underground scene (GDR): 75-77, 80, 88, 94 Unification: 1, 4. 7, 80, 87. 292, 298, 301, 303 Utopia: 26f„ 44, 102-106, 118, 237f„ 256, 263, 299, 302

Vater/MutterbQcher. 252, 263 Venske, R: 161 Verfremdung: 36, 38 VeriierergefOhl: 43 Vesper, B: 252 Viennese Actionism: 268 Violence: 251-264, 276f., 302 Wallace, E: 65 Wallmann, H: 224 Walser, M: 8, 126, 300, 303 Walser, R: 126,138 Weber, A: 284 Weigel, S: 161,163,168, 177 Weiss. P: 162, 177, 290 WeiOe Rose: 244 Welsh. R: 261 Wemer, H-G: 9, 21f. Wilde, O: 269 Williams, WC: 154 Wittgenstein, L: 211 Wrttstock, U: 1-3 Wolf, C: 4. 9-30, 35-51, 87, 256, 277f„ 301f. Wolf, R: 5, 134-138 Women's writing: 36, 44f., 262 Worker-writer 63, 72f., 75 Zeitroman: 97,106

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS D.G. Bond Undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Nottingham, the latter leading to the award of a PhD in 1992. He now lives in Berlin, teaching, translating, and writing. He has published on Ingeborg Bachmann, Peter Weiss, Gunter Grass, and Uwe Johnson, including German History and German Identity: Uwe Johnson's 'Jaftresfage'(1993).

Osman Durrani Was appointed Professor of German at the University of Kent in 1995, having spent 23 years at the University of Durham. He has published extensively on eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century literature, and has recently completed a study of the modem novel, Fictions of Germany. He is currently editing a volume of papers on literature and society after German unification.

Frank Finlay Undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Newcastle and at the Freie Universitat, Berlin. A period as Lektor at the Wirtschaftsuniversitdt, Vienna, was followed by two years as a researcher in the Heinrich-Bdll Archives, Cologne, on projects relating to the preparation of an edition of Bflll’s complete works. From 1991-1995 he was Lecturer in German at the Manchester Metropolitan University and is now Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Bradford. He is the author of several articles and a monograph on Heinrich B6II. Recent work includes an analysis of the aesthetics of the painter and sculptor Joseph Beuys, and an article on the Austrian playwright Peter Turrini. He is currently planning a monograph on H.G. Adler.

Konstanze Fliedl Has been Assistant Professor in the German Department of Vienna University since 1991. She has published on Austrian Literature and on Women's Writing; her latest publications are Arthur Schnitzler— Richard Beer-Hofmann: Briefwechsel 1891-1931 (Vienna, 1992); Osterreichische Erz&hlerinnen. Prosa seit 1945 (Munich, 1995); Arthur Schnitzler. Der Weg ins Freie. Roman (Salzburg, 1995) (together with K. Wagner); Peter Rosegger— Ludwig Anzengruber. Briefwechsel 1871-1889 (Vienna, 1995).

Robert Gillett Studied at the Universities of Oxford (The Queen's College) and Cambridge (Trinity College) and then held a Laming Junior Fellowship at the former. He has taught at Queen Mary and Westfield College in the University of London since 1990. His post-doctoral research has been supported by the Central Research Fund of the University of London.

Sally Johnson Studied Modem Languages at Salford University, where she was awarded her PhD in 1992. Her publications include Gender, Group Identity and Variation in the Berlin Urban Vernacular (Peter Lang, 1995) and Language and Masculinity, with Uirike Meinhof (Basil Blackwell, forthcoming). She is Lecturer in German Language and Linguistics at Lancaster University.

320 — NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Martin Kane Is Reader in Modem German Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He is the author of Weimar Germany and the Limits of Political Art (1987) and editor of Socialism and Literary Imagination. Essays on East German Writers (1991). He has published several articles on aspects of East and West German literature.

Margaret Littler Is Lecturer in German at the University of Manchester. She is author of Alfred Andersch (1914-1980) and the Reception of French Thought in the Federal Republic of Germany (Lewiston, 1991), since when she has worked on German women's writing and feminist theory, publishing most recently on postmodernism and West German women's writing in the 1980s.

Clemens Murath Is DAAD Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Modem Languages at the University of Bradford. He has previously taught German in Taipei, Taiwan and Chinese philosophy at the Free University Berlin. His research areas are literary theory and the theory of cognition. He has edited a volume on Perception and Understanding in Science and Art.

Stuart Parkes Graduated from the University of Oxford before completing his PhD at the University of Bradford. He is now Reader in German at the School of Social and International Studies at the University of Sunderland. He has published principally on modem German literature and society. Among his numerous publications are Literature and Politics in West Germany (1986) and, as co-editor, Literature on the Threshold. The German Novel in the 1980s (1990), German Literature at a Time of Change, 1989-1990. German Unity and German Identity in Literary Perspective (1991) and The Individual, Identity and Innovation. Signals from Contemporary Literature and the New Germany (1994).

Julian Praece Studied French and German at Exeter College, Oxford. He held a Laming Junior Fellowship at The Queen's College, Oxford and was awarded his DPhil in 1991 for a dissertation on Gunter Grass. After lecturing for a year at Queen Mary and Westfield, London, he is now Lecturer in German at the University of Huddersfield. He has published numerous articule on twentieth-century German and Austrian themes.

Felicity Rash Is Lecturer in German at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Recent publications include French and Italian Lexical Influences in German-speaking Switzerland (1550-1650) (Walter de Gruyter, 1989); ’Gwaggli and Gwagglitante. The use of epithets for men and women in Swiss German past and present' (in Das unsichtbare Band der Sprache. Studies in German Language and Linguistic History in Memory of Leslie Seiffert, edited by J.L. Flood et al, Stuttgart, 1993); and 'Amerikanismen in der deutschen Sprache der Schweiz' (in Sprachspiegel 50, 1994). Her current research interests are: linguistic and stylistic aspects of sexual stereotyping in German advertising texts of the 1950s; themes associated with language and sexual difference in contemporary German literature; the language, culture, and literature of German-speaking Switzerland.

Renate Rechtien Studied at Goldsmith's College, University of London. She took up a lectureship in German at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh in 1990 and moved to the University of Bath in October 1993 as Lecturer in the School of Modem Languages and European Studies. She will be submitting her PhD thesis on developments in the conception of the responsibility of

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS — 321 the writer and the reception of other writers in Christa W olfs prose and essay work (spring 1996). Her further research interests indude the position of women in German society; a research project will focus on the changing experience of women in rural communities in the old and the new Lander (since 1945). Andrea Reiter Is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Research and Graduate Studies, University of Southampton. She has published articles on various aspects of anti-modernist Austrian writers, on Thomas Bernhard, Monika Maron, and on the memoirs of Holocaust survivors. Recently, her book 'Auf dal3 sie entsteigen der Dunkelheit...’ Die literarische Bewaitigung von KZ-Erfahrung was published in Vienna.

Karl Riha A literary scholar, critic, and author, he lives in Siegen/NRW. He has published works on street ballads, the literature of the city, comic strips, cross-readings, political aesthetics, Dada, commedia dell’arte, on criticism, satire, and parody, and on premodem, modem, and postmodern literature. He has published journals and series, contributed to journals and anthologies, and edited numerous books. He is a member, and for a time was Director, of the Literary Colloquium Berlin (LCB). David Rock Studied at the University of Wales and lectures in German at Keele University. He has published on Hauptmann, Storm, Diirrenmatt and Becker, and on aspects of German language and teaching. He is currently completing a book on Becker and articles on reactions of former GDR writers to unification. He is also co-editing a book on Friedrich Schorlemmer.

Mike Rogers Gained both his first degree and his doctorate at the University of Cambridge and is now Lecturer in German at the University of Southampton. He has particular interests in theatre and poetry, and in Austrian literature. He has published, for example, on Nestroy and politics, Karl Kraus and language, Trakl and symbolism, and various themes germane to the theatre. Axel Schalk Studied German and History together with Philosophy, Education, and Theatre in Hamburg and Berlin before completing his doctorate at the Technische Universitat Berlin on 'Geschichtsmaschinen'. Clberden Umgang mit der Historie in der Dramatik des technischen Zeitalters (published 1989). He has worked at the Deutsches Schauspieihaus in Hamburg and is a fully qualified teacher. Currently he combines being a freelance writer specializing in contemporary literature, particularly theatre, with teaching commitments at the University of Potsdam and work at the Schillertheater, Berlin, as Dramaturg. Ricarda Schmidt Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. She has published extensively on GDR literature, contemporary women's writing, and literary theory. She is now working on E.T.A. Hoffmann Helmut Schmitz Was educated at Cologne University and the University of Warwick (MA 1992). He is currently working on a PhD thesis on Hanns-%Josef Ortheil.

322 — NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Ralf Schrtell Has been Professor of Contemporary German Literature at Keio University, Tokyo since 1991. He was previously AufterplanmflBiger Professor fQr Neuere Deutsche Literaturgeschichte at the University of Hanover. His research ranges through literary theory, cultural policy (including the former GDR), and culture and literature during the Third Reich. His many publications indude Die Literatur der Bundesrepublik. Autoren, Geschichte, Uteraturbetrieb (1986) and Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945 (Metzler 1993).

Dieter Stolz Studied German, History, Education, and Philosophy at the Universities of Munster and Berlin. He has already published several articles on contemporary German literature and was awarded his doctorate for a dissertation on Gunter Grass, Vom privaten Motivkompfex zum poetischen Weltentwurf (published 1994). Following a teaching post at the Humboldt University he is now a member of the Institut fur Deutsche Philologie at the Technische Universitat Berlin. He joined the editorial board of Sprache im technischen Zeitalter in 1995.

Arthur Williams Studied at the University of Keele both as an undergraduate and postgraduate. He is Senior Lecturer in German Studies and currently Head of the Department of Modem Languages at the University of Bradford. His particular fields are the Contemporary Society of Germany and Contemporary German Literature. He has published on Thomas Mann, GDR education, West German social policy, and the media in West Germany, particularly the governance of broadcasting (Broadcasting and Democracy in West Germany, 1976). Since 1985 he has returned to literature and has developed interests in the novel and the work of Botho StrauQ. He is co-editor (with Stuart Parkes and Roland Smith) of Literature on the Threshhold. The German Novel in the 1980s (1990), German Literature at a Time of Change, 1989-1990. German Unity and German Identity in Literary Perspective (1991), and (with Stuart Parkes) The Individual, Identity and Innovation. Signals from Contemporary Literature and the New Germany (1994).