"Che tempo, che tempo": Geology and Environment in Max Frisch’s 'Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän'
- Critical readings of Frisch’s Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän [Man in the Holocene] have tended to read its heterogeneous and inter-medial form as a code for the mental disintegration of its protagonist. This paper argues instead that this feature can be seen as a poetological engagement with geological and climatic timescales. Due to its hybrid form, the incorporation of a multiplicity of textual fragments and pictorial representations, the text undermines both conventional definitions of narrative and representations of nature. Holozän’s non-linear structure establishes an aesthetic of slowness that ushers in an awareness of the utterly different time schemes of geological and climatic processes. Furthermore, the importance of the material features, such as an interplay between text and image and the disconnected, paratactical arrangement of sentences mirrors the novel’s focus on natural phenomena. Frisch’s narrative establishes a poetics that tries to reach beyond the confinements of an anthropocentric perspective and thereby subverts the borders between culture and environment.
Author: | Oliver VölkerGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-532501 |
URL: | https://www.on-culture.org/journal/issue-2/voelker-geology-environment/ |
URL: | https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:26-opus-123560 |
ISSN: | 2366-4142 |
Parent Title (German): | On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture |
Publisher: | International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen |
Place of publication: | Gießen |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2016/11/30 |
Date of first Publication: | 2016/11/30 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2020/04/12 |
Tag: | Man in the Holocene; Max Frisch; aesthetic of slowness; anthropocene; geology |
Volume: | 2016 |
Issue: | 2 |
Page Number: | 21 |
First Page: | 1 |
Last Page: | 21 |
HeBIS-PPN: | 463782402 |
Institutes: | Neuere Philologien / Neuere Philologien |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 8 Literatur / 83 Deutsche und verwandte Literaturen / 830 Literaturen germanischer Sprachen; Deutsche Literatur |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | Creative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0 |