Komparatistik : Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft ; 2017
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In recent years, the interest in theory which has once been a moving force of academic research in the field of literary studies appears to have decreased. The status of theory, its relevance and appropriateness for the understanding of literature have been put into doubt. Faced with this observation, some critics have even suggested that we have now entered into a new era of research which can retrospectively be identified as the era "after theory". Against the background of such pronouncements and to a certain extent in opposition to them, the investigations proposed here wish to uphold the idea of the utility and indeed the need for theoretical approaches to literature. To appreciate the status of theory and its possible contribution to a deepened understanding of literature, it is useful not to focus exclusively on the distinction or supposed divide between literature and theory. Instead we should pay attention to what links and unites them. This common ground or common denominator of literature and theory consists in the dimension of language. Furnishing, so to speak, the intellectual material from which both domains of articulation are formed, language constitutes at once the key element of literature and a principal concern of theory.
Die Erzählungen E. T. A. Hoffmanns haben seit jeher bildende Künstler fasziniert, mit über 3000 Illustrationen von Künstlern des In- und Auslandes zählt er zu "den meist illustrierten Autoren der Weltliteratur". Dennoch sind diese Illustrationen bislang kaum aus medienkomparatistischer Sicht untersucht worden. Wie wird die Hoffmann'sche Erzählweise in das bildliche Medium übersetzt? Dieser Frage, die vorliegender Aufsatz sich stellt, ist noch kaum einer nachgegangen. [...] Wer die Illustration als 'Ideenklau' versteht, ignoriert, dass das Bild, als anderes Medium, den Inhalt des Textes verändert, transformiert. Aus diesem Grund wird dieser Aufsatz Klees "Hoffmanneske Märchenscene" und Hoffmanns "Goldenen Topf" aus medienkomparatistischer Sicht vergleichen. Im Gegensatz zu Jürgen Glaesemer, der 1986 schreibt: "Bis heute blieb der Inhalt der Hoffmannesken Szene weitgehend ungeklärt", haben zuvor bereits Jürgen Walter und Elke Riemer den Bezug des Bildes zu Hoffmanns Märchen aus der neueren Zeit erkannt. Bevor Klees Farblithographie kontextualisiert und die Beziehung zwischen Text und Bild unter die Lupe genommen wird, skizziert Pauline Preisler zunächst das Phantastische dieser Erzählung. Denn, wie sich im Folgenden zeigen wird, ist dieser Aspekt relevant für den Medienwechsel.
Robespierre gehört zu den historischen Figuren, die nicht so leicht ad acta gelegt werden können. Das wurde mir wieder bewusst, als ich jüngst auf zwei 2016 bzw. 2017 in Paris erschienene Bücher aufmerksam wurde. Zuerst sprang mir in einer Straßburger Buchhandlung das Buch: "Gertrud Kolmar. Robespierre [Poésies]" in die Augen. Die Herausgeberin und Übersetzerin Sibylle Muller präsentiert dort zweisprachig den 46 Gedichte umfassenden Gedichtzyklus "Robespierre" von Gertrud Kolmar sowie, nur in französischer Übersetzung, Kolmars Essay "Das Bildnis Robespierres". Entstanden sind diese Texte in den Jahren 1933 und 1934, also im zeitlichen Umkreis der Machtergreifung Hitlers. Sibylle Muller verweist in ihrem Nachwort knapp auf das 2016 erschienene Buch des Historikers Jean-Clément Martin - ein renommierter Spezialist für die Geschichte der Französischen Revolution: "Robespierre. La fabrication d'un monstre." Sie erwähnt diesen Historiker deswegen, weil er wie schon Gertrud Kolmar den üblichen Bildern von Robespierre ihre suggestive Dominanz nehmen möchte. Aufschlussreich könnte es sein, dieser möglichen Konvergenz von so unterschiedlichen Texten einmal nachzugehen. Ich möchte also ein Rendezvous zwischen zwei ganz unterschiedlichen Persönlichkeiten, einer bescheidenen deutsch-jüdischen Lyrikerin und einem renommierten französischen Professor der Geschichte, arrangieren. Was Getrud Kolmar betrifft, will ich mich dabei im Wesentlichen auf ihren Essay über Robespierre beschränken und ihren Gedichtzyklus nur kurz ins Auge fassen. Ihr Drama "Cécile Renault" soll ganz bei Seite gelassen werden.
This paper will explore in how far 'political speech' in the emphatic sense Rancière gives these terms can be found in current discourses of migration. After a discussion of Rancière's theories in relation to language and politics, Kathrin Schödel turns to paradigmatic examples of engagements with migration, especially those trying to establish a more positive view of migrants. These will be analysed with regard to two main questions: firstly, what kinds of interventions can be seen as 'political speech acts,' that is, as constituting a particular rupture in existing discourses. Secondly, what does this rupture entail as to reconsidering migration and ultimately envisioning political possibilities beyond the exclusionary 'partitions' established by national(ist) politics and a global economy of inequality.
In recent times a whole range of theoretical approaches in literary and cultural studies have been inspired by linguistic and philological issues, by questions concerning the functioning of language as well as the conceptual history of cardinal terms of our cultural heritage. Among these approaches the work of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben stands out as a particularly interesting case. Indeed, Agamben's approach can serve to illustrate how a concern with language animates the making of theory. This becomes perhaps most evident in one of Agamben's less widely read texts, namely his "Sacrament of language", an investigation of the historical genealogy and cultural significance of the oath. [...] In Agamben's inquiry into the genealogy of the 'sacramento' he seeks to find out how the oath functions as a linguistic procedure and what issues are involved in this operation. In the following explanations Linda Simonis proceeds in three steps: First, she retraces Agamben's historical and linguistic analysis of the oath and tries to expose the basic lines and principal thrust of his reasoning (I). In a second step, she then turns to a concrete literary example, i. e. the oath-taking scene in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (II). In an attempt to re-interpret this famous scene, the proposed analysis aims to unfold, in the light of Agamben's approach, some of its less obvious aspects of meaning and implications. To conclude, Simonis asks what insights and conclusions can be drawn from this analysis with regard to Agamben's theoretical approach and in how far the latter can be said to gain from its linguistic awareness and its concern with commissive speech (III).
Theory's engagement with language on the one hand, with literature's potential to generate knowledge that is theoretically relevant on the other, has a long history. One of its roots lies in the approach to culture and society developed by enlightenment anthropology and philosophy. In this paper Christian Moser intends to analyze the function attributed to language in eighteenth-century theories of the origin of culture and society. What we nowadays call 'cultural theory' is genealogically related to these early investigations into the constitution of human society. Social theories of the enlightenment first emerged in the contexts of a secularized universal history and the nascent discourses of anthropology and the philosophy of history. They often took the form of a 'conjectural history': speculations about the origin of society and its institutions; the origin of government, of law, and of social inequality; all of them linked systematically to the origin of language. While present-day cultural theory no longer harbours this obsession with origins, it still carries with it a rich legacy of enlightenment thought, not least its idea that social structure and linguistic structure are interconnected. Therefore it seems apposite to trace back current 'languages of theory' to eighteenth-century 'theories of language' and their interplay with 'theories of society.'
Genealogy and philology
(2018)
The present paper deals with the use of the term "genealogy" in theory. Markus Winkler first tries to highlight the hidden metaphorical status of this use and the ambiguity that it conveys. In doing so, Winkler tries to outline how this metaphoricity and its inherent ambiguity may be brought to fruition in the philological analysis of texts and in theory itself. The paper is subdivided as follows: 1. The use of the term "genealogy" in theory and the interest of this use to philology. 2. A philological comment on the metaphorical status of this use and its inherent ambiguity inherited from mythical genealogy as a form of founding narrative. 3. The imitation of mythical genealogy and its inherent ambiguity in theory (Nietzsche) and literature (Goethe). 4. Genealogy's ambiguity in theory: an example taken from current political discourse. 5. Conclusion.
One characteristic of the work of Roland Barthes - and of that of other structuralist theorists - is the attempt to replace traditional forms of academic criticism, its unreflected claim of objectivity, and its dominant methods of 'text explanation' by science-based approaches which draw extensively on the ideas and terminology of theoretical corpora. [...] The relation between Barthes' position and philology deserves a closer look, however. What exactly is Barthes opposing under the label 'philology'? And do Barthes' theoretical advancements actually present a radical rupture with philology or do they not, at least to some extent, also build on philological methodology? To put it differently: do Barthes' works not, rather than entirely refuting philological methods of reading, serve to re-orientate philology itself - in line with or going beyond other contemporary views? To answer these questions, it will be necessary to sketch out at least roughly which notions of philology are and which are not compatible with Barthes' theory of the text, and which notions of philology may even form an integral part of his approach. If we come to the conclusion that philological interpretation does indeed form a part of Barthes' theoretical as well as practical endeavour, it will be important to determine its exact place and function. What happens to philology in such a theoretical environment? Is it simply given a 'facelift' or is it adapted to theoretical insights that cannot be dismissed? Ultimately, these questions point toward the aesthetic aspects of Barthes' theoretical language. Therefore, Regine Strätling examines whether a particular relation between theory and philology has had a part in the overwhelming success and the obvious attractiveness of Barthes' language of theory. Her emphasis will be on Barthes' essay S/Z, one of his most technical literary analyses as well as his most extensive and meticulous analysis of a literary text. Barthes himself promoted his 1970 essay as the first exhaustive structural analysis of a narrative text. With regard to the state of the art of structuralist textual analysis, Barthes claimed that after a period dedicated to extracting the macro-structures of texts, structuralism now had to face a new challenge: it had to proceed to a more comprehensive approach, also taking into account the micro-structures of a given text. And indeed, although Barthes in S/Z does not proceed literally word by word, he very nearly does so.
Borges : philology as poetry
(2018)
The titles of many of Borges's poems refer to canonical texts of world literature. One poem, for example, deals with the ending of the Odyssey and is simply called "A scholion"; others are called "Inferno V, 129" and "Paradise XXXI, 108", referring both to Dante's "Divine Comedy". These titles indicate that in his poems, Borges often keeps his distance from traditional poetical matters such as love, or, more generally, immediate emotions. Instead, he writes poems that gloss other texts, some of which actually relate love stories. Thus, Borges's poems stage themselves as philological commentaries rather than as poetry in its own right. In a similar vein and on a more general level, Borges likes to present himself in poems, interviews, and essays as a fervent reader of world literature, playing down his role as an original author. [...] In the following two sections of his paper, Joachim Harst tackles this question by commenting on two of Borges's philological poems, namely, the two texts on Dante's "Comedy". A ready objection to the idea of "philological poetry" is that despite Borges's selfstaging as reader, his texts obviously aren't philological in any academic sense. [...] The fundamental role of love for Dante's cosmological vision leads Harst to another understanding of the term "philology," namely, its more or less literal translation as "love of the lógos," the "lógos" being the cosmic principle and the divine word. Dante's Comedy can be considered a "philological" text in the sense that it is fueled by the "love of the lógos," and it discusses this love by citing, glossing and correcting other texts on love. Returning to Borges, Harst suggests that his two "philological" poems on Dante refer to this understanding of "philology." But by modifying the epic's theological underpinnings, they work to integrate Dante into a larger system which Borges calls "universal literature." Harst claims that this notion of literature, just like Dante's cosmos, is also centered on a lógos—albeit differently structured—and in this sense "philological."