Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Wolf, Norbert Christian

Titel

Kakanien als Gesellschaftskonstruktion

Ort / Verlag

Böhlau

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Link zum Volltext

• DOAB - Directory of Open Access Books (ZDB-94-OAB)
• DOAB - Directory of Open Access Books (ZDB-94-OAB)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Open Access
• This monograph (professorial dissertation FU Berlin 2009) undertakes an interpretation of the entirety of Musils monumental novel by placing the focus on its socio-analytical critique of contemporary society. It adapts Pierre Bourdieus concept of the socio-analysis of literary texts, complemented by methodology from recent narratology, discourse and media theory, and is empirically grounded upon research from social and cultural history. Opening with a reconstruction of Musils negative anthropology and his concurrently analytical and constructivistic conception of the novel, as well as his essayistic, anti-filmic poetics, the first part of the study profiles the socio-analytical implications of two major terms of his concept of the novel: firstly Eigenschaftslosigkeit (lack of inherent qualities or characteristics), and secondly Möglichkeitssinn (sense of possibility) or Essayismus (essayism).-
• The main section of the study continues with a reading of The Man without Qualities as a social force field, beginning with an analysis of the narratively constituted chronotope and the social sphere of Kakania. It then turns to the central male and female figures of the novel (in the sections Heirs and Disinherited; Climbers and Stagnaters; Terrorists and Prophets, as well as Fallen Lovers; Sufferers of an obscure time-disease; Adapters and Dissidents) and finally to the constellations and interactions of the characters in their aesthetic arrangements (in the sections Marriages in Crises; Orderless Circumstances, Gender Struggle; Attempts at Love beyond Marriage; and Rivalry over Principles and People; Ideologic Hostilities and Class Struggle).-
• Special attention is paid to Musils contemporary critique of a society in a contradictory process of modernisation, and to his concrete historical and ideological points of reference in the conflict strewn Austria and Germany of the preand inter-war years, as it is these to date neglected aspects that cause the uncompleted, and yet epoch-making, novel to appear so unique and incomparable. A final section considers the positioning of the novel and ist author in the contemporary literary field, as well as his indirect authorial self-analysis which occurs in a concealed manner throughout the fictional narration. With this socio-analysis of The Man without Qualities, Bourdieus innovative cultural-sociological approach is for the first time applied in a consistent and detailed manner on a canonical German language novel.-
• German