"From Work to Text": The Modernist and Postmodernist Kunstlerroman
1987; Duke University Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1345988
ISSN1945-8509
Autores Tópico(s)German Literature and Culture Studies
ResumoFrom modernism to postmodernism. If the twentieth century has witnessed a dramatic change in sensibility, a shift in the prevailing episteme, and if that shift registers itself foremost in the very nature and function of the aesthetic artifact, then one way to define the transformation would be to examine in detail representative narratives which deal directly with the development of the artist and the nature of his or her calling. I have chosen as my tutor texts two works generally recognized as representative modernist and postmodernist kiinstlerromans, Thomas Mann's Tonio Kroger (1903) and John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse (1968). I propose to examine the two works in terms of their definition of the artist, his relation to society, the nature of his vocation, and, most important, the authorial treatment of the subject, especially as regards structuration, use of irony, overdetermined literary devices, and metalinguistic themes and techniques. The choice is not at all arbitrary-the two works, as will be shown, define artistic sensibilities in ways that invite comparison. Moreover, in the essay cited in the epigraph, Barth not only refers to Tonio Kroger twice, but acknowledges the fact that his own work can very well be seen in relation to the great modernist tradition that he cut his literary teeth on.,i
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