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Item Open Access James's central intelligence and the deconstruction of character(1983) Ziegler, HeideThe central intelligence in James's novels represents the signifying intention of the text, transcending the merely psychological intention which might be ascribed to any fictional character. If the Jamesian novel is a vast and intricate system of correspondences, then it is the central intelligence that allows us to isolate from among these correspondences a sense of the possibilities of the future, as well as the need for a constant conversion of thought from static to dynamic. The preconceived plot of the Jamesian novel constrains the actual possibilities of the central intelligence as a character and reduces his function to that of commentary and exegesis; yet at the same time it provides the ideal conditions for an exercise of his intelligence in his attempt to transcend the constrictions of this very plot and for a refinement of his taste as an attrition of its overriding demands. The deconstruction of character in James's novels reveals a human possibility and turns it into a task: the development of the imagination as an instrument for understanding life.Item Open Access John Hawkes' "Travesty" and the idea of travesty(1982) Ziegler, HeideJohn Hawkes' novel "Travesty" is a travesty in a broader as well as in the strict sense of the term, what might be termed an "existential" as well as a "literary" travesty: for it travesties, on the one hand, Albert Camus "La Chute" and, on the other hand, Camus' philosophical speculations on the existential implications of suicide as well as his somewhat mysterious death in an automobile accident. Hawkes' "Travesty" finally takes the shape of an apotheosis of death itself: not as a fictionalized instance of the Freudian death-wish, but as the narrator's preoccupation with death as the form for life. The narrator's lifelong concern with pornographic photography as well as his concept of "ideal" suicide in a planned automobile accident force debris to appear as design and thus elevate him to the status of ultimate artist.Item Open Access John Barth's "Sot-weed factor" revisited: the meaning of form(1980) Ziegler, Heide"The sot-weed factor" by John Barth is an expanded parody of the historic Ebenezer Cooke's poem of the same tide as well as of the latter's role as colonial Maryland's first poet laureate. But in the course of the novel the dual nature of parody, as defined between the opposite poles of imitation and play, or necessity and freedom, becomes emblematic of the postmodern imagination as such. Just as the novel's content derives its meaning from the ambivalent central symbol of twinhood, which unfolds in the question of identity and role, so the novel's form mirrors an increasing tension between fiction and reality. Parody, for Barth, becomes a means of solving this tension by dissolving recollected and recorded experience into separate segments which the present author may then treat as material for the creative imagination. In "The sot-weed factor" stories become games played by the author. However, as a creator of fictional characters, while resambling the Creator of real mankind, the author neverthless remains one of His playthings. Thus the freedom which he achieves in entering the realm of the creative imagination can only be enjoyed at the price of evading reality.Item Open Access Postmodernism as autobiographical commentary: "The blood oranges" and "Virginie"(1983) Ziegler, HeideThe postmodernist writer needs to be autobiographical; but autobiography, for him, has changed its meaning. Especially the "marginal" problems of the text acquire autobiographical importance, editorial questions, publication procedures, and the intellectual and emotional feedback offered by literary reviews shape the authors life and became part of his further fictional endeavors. It is in this "autobiographical" sense, that John Hawkes can be considered a postmodern writer. Ever since he started to write fiction after World War II, he has been concerned with the relationship between his narrators and himself in the role of author in the text.Item Open Access John Barth's "Echo": the story in love with its author(1980) Ziegler, HeideThe emblematic quality of "Echo" derives its force from the double meaning of the word "self reflection" from both its concrete and its abstract connotations. In Barth's story, this double meaning serves to relate content and form and to establish an ironic tension between them: the encounter of mythic Narcissus, the story's protagonist. with his concrete self reflection - his image in the pool determines the content of the story; and his abstract self reflection - his search for self knowledge - provides the story's form. This ironic tension is embodied in the ambivalent nature of the complement to Narcissus, the nymph Echo, who appears as both character and voice.Item Open Access John Barth, Sabbatical, a romance : New York, Putnam, 1982; [Rezension](1983) Ziegler, HeideBarth has been recycling his favorite theme-the predominance of the imagination-both in his novels and apparently in his life. His latest novel, "Sabbatical: A Romance" is no exception; yet the author claims that "Sabbatical" is realistic and that it is at the same time not an autobiographical novel. What he seems to imply is that "Sabbatical" is a realistic novel exploring the possibilities of imaginative life. As the subtitle states, the novel is "a romance".Item Open Access Harte - The luck of roaring camp(1974) Ziegler, HeideDie Erzählung "The Luck of Roaring Camp", die ihrem Autor sozusagen über Nacht zum literarischen Erfolg verhalf, erschien im August 1868, in der zweiten Ausgabe des "Overland Monthly", dessen Herausgeber Bret Harte war. Sie war das erste einflußreiche Beispiel einer neuen Art der Kurzgeschichte, die in den Jahren nach dem Bürgerkrieg rasch an Popularität gewann, die "local-color story". Kennzeichnend für diesen Kurzgeschichtentyp ist die Bedeutung, die der jeweilige geographische Raum und die in ihm vorherrschenden ethnischen Gegebenheiten als Hintergrund und handlungsbestimmendes Element gewinnen.Item Open Access Neuere Faulkner-Literatur(1979) Ziegler, HeideEnth. Renzensionen von: Reed, Joseph W.: Faulkner's narrative. New Haven; London : Yale University Press, 1973. - XI, 303 S. Broughton, Panthea Reid: William Faulkner : the abstract and the actual. Baton Rouge : Lousiana State University Press, 1974. - XVIII, 222 S. Irwin, John T.: Doubling and incest : repetition and revange; a speculative reading of Faulkner. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. - 183 S. Levins, Lynn Gartrell: Faulkner's heroic design : the Yoknapatawpha novels. Athens : University of Georgia Press, 1976. - X, 202 S. Brooks, Cleanth: William Faulkner : toward Yoknapatawpha and beyond. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1978. - XVIII, 445 S.Item Open Access Existentielles Erleben und kurzes Erzählen : das Komische, Tragische, Groteske u. Mythische in William Faulkners short stories(1977) Ziegler, HeideDiese zusammenfassenden Ausführungen sollen vor allem deutlich werden lassen, daß es sich vom Ansatz her nicht um einen weiteren Beitrag zur Diskussion über Gattungstheorie und -problematik handelt, sondern daß der Versuch gemacht wird, ein Kommunikationsmodell zu beschreiben, das über die Definition der existentiellen Erlebnisweise und ihrer variierenden Ausprägungen in der Moderne, die theoretische Erörterung der Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten ihrer fiktionalen Umsetzung, sowie die gegenläufige induktive Korrelierung von besonderer Textstruktur und allgemeiner Erlebnisstruktur eine Verbindung zwischen außerliterarischer und innerliterarischer Wirklichkeit zu erstellen vermag. Indem aber der Prozeß der hermeneutischen Konkretisierung dieses Kommunikationsmodells es von sich aus sinnvoll erscheinen läßt, die Affinität spezifischer fiktionaler Texte zu spezifischen Darstellungsformen aus ihrer Intentionalität zu begründen, bringt er darüber hinaus gattungskonstitutive Merkmale hervor.