OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Pakendorf, Gunther"

Browsing by Author "Pakendorf, Gunther"

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Die Künstlerproblematik im Naturalismus dargestellt an Papa Hamlet von Arno Holz und Johannes Schlaf
(1989) Koch, Sabine; Pakendorf, Gunther
The problem of artistic endeavour and recognition of creative imaginative writing at a time of revolutionary scientific and industrial activity, brings into focus the re-evaluation of the artist during intense economic development. The intellectual crisis of the artist in Germany, 1870-1895, is strongly influenced by the emphasis on financial success and scientific observation. This emphasis is linked to the new aesthetic and artistic expectations, which are influenced by the political and social reality of the industrial age. Naturalism is characterised by an abundance of theoretical literature; Arno Holz is regarded as the greatest of the theorists and his work Papa Hamlet, written together with Johannes Schlaf, is an attempt to combine theoretical consideratiohs with the "new" art. This thesis critically examines Papa Hamlet against the background of social, political and economic change. The investigation into four major areas includes firstly the intellectual crisis in relation to the "Grunderzeit"; the sentimental art of this period is strongly rejected as it in no way reflects the reality of the industrial age. It is vitally important for the artists to be seen as modern, reflecting the truth of the age in which they write. This truth requires the work of art to be as close a reproduction of nature, of real life, as possible. Attention to detail becomes vital and leads Arno Holz to the "Sekundenstil." Secondly, this thesis confronts Papa Hamlet with theoretical background as defined by Arno Holz. Thirdly the attempt made by Holz and Schlaf not to interfere as authors between the piece of prose and the reader, leads to the question of prose versus drama. The investigation leads also into the problem of the lower middle class artist who is confronted by economic difficulties and finds himself threatened by the working class. Thienwiebel's perseverance as "Hamlet", symbolic of an art no longer acceptable, brings a discussion on the traditional German "Bildungsroman". Finally, Arno Holz maintains that Art can only be revolutionised if language is revolutionised; these claims are examined in Papa Hamlet. It is my contention that the artist's claim of being democratic is strongly to be questioned as Papa Hamlet can only be really appreciated by readers who have studied Hamlet by Shakespeare. The greatest achievement by the Naturalists lies in questioning existing values; scientific observation and creative spirit. The Art of Arno Holz, in particular the "Sekundenstil", may be seen to be the· forerunner of Expressionism, Surrealism and Dadaism.
Open Access
The expressionist debate in the light of the concerns of postmodernity : Lukacs, Brecht, Lyotard and Habermas
(1996) Fischer, Bettina; Pakendorf, Gunther
This dissertation investigates the debate between Georg Lukács and Bertolt Brecht in the 1930s, known as the Expressionist Debate and the controversy between Jean-Francais Lyotard and Juergen Habermas. which took place in the 1980s. The two debates. both of which took place among writers of the Left are juxtaposed in order to shed more light on the issues at stake in the Expressionist Debate when looked at in the light of postmodern concerns. The dissertation is based on selected texts by each of the four writers. Bibliography: pages 82-85.
Open Access
Fiction, ideology and history : a critical examination of Hans Grimm's novel 'Kaffernland'
(1988) Bardien, Faiza; Pakendorf, Gunther
This dissertation aims to place Hans Grimm's uncompleted epic, Kaffernland, eine deutsche Sage (Kaffraria, a German Legend) within the context of the historical discourse of the nineteenth-century as it has been challenged by presentday critical historiography. Central to Grimm's text is the problematic relationship between fiction and historical reality. It reproduces historical documents and relies on the scientific aura of a bourgeois realist discourse to present itself as having reference to an extra-textual reality. These truth-claims are examined with Roland Barthes' structuralist techniques. I locate Grimm's text within an intertext dominated by the ideologies of German nationalism, colonial space and fate. His portrayal of mid-nineteenth century political questions is shown as a contradictory amalgam of partisanship for both the bourgeoisie and the small peasantry, of romantic anti-capitalism and pro-imperialism. The authoritarian narrative discourse affirms Britain's colonial subjugation of the Xhosa and negates Xhosa resistance. I focus on speaking positions in the text and the power of the colonizer's practice of designating and signifying. The rhetoric of the text is seen as a continuation of politics against Britain's exploitation of the British German Legion and of German missionary work in British Kaffraria. Grimm reproduces and embellishes the mythology of the German Legion as saviours of Kaffraria and Germany. He inverts history to re-make the negative record of the German Military Settlement. I show how mythic signs and a moralizing discourse stimulate an envisaged pre-World War I readership to recognize Kaffraria as a German colony and to reflect on how, in its own times, Germany can be regenerated through acquiring colonial space. The mythological discourse is also viewed in the light of the text's attempts to manifest the external factual reliability and inner truth of bourgeois realism. While Grimm deploys the literary conventions of the modern novel, as an epigone he draws on the forms of legend, saga and epic cultivated in the nineteenth century. He alludes to the Icelandic saga also to legitimize a claim to Xhosaland. This first book of the epic, presented as complete, attains a measure of cohesion through techniques of parallelism and contiguity. The text parallels the fate of the German and Xhosa nations and simultaneously signifies the Xhosa as destroyers of Xhosaland and the cattle-killing movement of 1856-57 as a diabolical plan. I see this mythologization of history as the ideological justification for the expropriation of the Xhosa and show that Grimm's colonialist fiction is in fact a colonizing discourse.
Open Access
Grenzüberschreitungen : Eine untersuchung ausgewählter Novellen Hans Grimms im Zusammenhang mit der kolonialen Grenzproblematik
(2006) Kaut, Nadja; Pakendorf, Gunther
The focus of this dissertation is the concept of liminality within selected novellas of the German colonial author Hans Grimm (1875-1959). Boundaries and frontiers are an omnipresent key issue within colonial literature. Within the postcolonial German literary studies ﬁeld, however, liminality has so far been given only very little interest, although it is an essential tool in elaborating our understanding not only of the colonial ideology and the colonial discourse, but also of society in general. The methodology used in this dissertation is derived from a postcolonial paradigm. Within the globalization tendencies of the 21st century the postcolonial discourse is characterized by the ﬂuidity and questioning of boundaries. Postcolonial and post-modern theorists have designated the identity formation with expressions like "hybridity" (Homi K. Bhabha) and "fragmentation" (Stuart Hall). Studies have shown that every human contact inﬂuences identity formation. Every exchange, every dialectic interaction between the heterogeneous "other" and "self" leads to new, complex and hybrid identities. Postcolonial and post-modern concepts are a signiﬁcant tool in understanding the colonial obsession with boundaries. Besides an understanding of the postcolonial discourse, an overview of the particularly complex concept of the German word "die Grenze," the boundary, is vital with regard to literary analysis. This literary study draws attention to gender, race as well as geographical boundaries within Grimm’s writings. In his novellas these boundaries are explored, undermined and underpinned at the same time. Any recognition of the "other," any hybridisation jeopardizes the colonial power, and calls for the constant reinforcement of the boundaries. The novellas reveal that any repressive and totalitarian boundary settings leave no space for any other aspirations, apart from power. That is the dilemma Grimm’s ﬁctional characters have to deal with. The colonial enterprise is not compatible with personal fulﬁlment and the human condition itself, which is the reason why most of the characters are doomed to failure in the colony.
Open Access
Gustav Freytag's Soll und Haben und D.F. Malherbe's Hans-die-skipper : ein Vergleich
(1990) Bertelsmann, Richard; Pakendorf, Gunther; Horn, Peter
Gustav Freytag's Soll und Haben (1855) and D. F. Malherbe's Hans-die-Skipper (1929) can both be read as reactions to early industrial capitalism, although neither text refers directly to this phenomenon. This dissertation attempts to show that both novels display a similar, ambivalent attitude, whilst defending the "logic of the market" against proponents of the moribund semi-feudal system, they pre-empt the moral indifference of the market by positing a "new" value in absolute terms. In either case, this value is "industry", in both the economical and the moral sense of the term. This aspect of both texts is analysed in terms of the literary theory of Peter V. Zima. On closer inspection, it is found that both authors attribute the moral value of "industry" exclusively to one social group, namely the group whose interests they hope to advance. In Freytag' s case, this is the conservative, pre-industrial German bourgeoisie; in Malherbe's case, the impoverished, Afrikaans-speaking rural population of the early 20th century. However, in translating their "ideological projects" into a literary "figuration" (in the sense of Pierre Macherey), both authors encounter certain problems, which only appear in the "absences" and the "silences" of their texts. These are analyzed in terms of the literary theory of Pierre Macherey. Finally, in both texts, the moral value of "industry", and the social hierarchy established in its name, are subliminally or temporarily threatened by the "pleasure principle". This aspect is analyzed- in terms of Klaus Theweleit's findings gained from "pre-fascist" texts of the early 20th century.
Open Access
Kontroverses Erbe und Innovation : die Novelle Die Reisebegegnung von Anna Seghers im literaturpolitischen Kontext der DDR der siebziger Jahre
(1990) Horn, Anette; Pakendorf, Gunther
The dissertation attempts to analyse the novella Die Reisebegegnung by Anna Seghers not as an isolated "work" by an isolated "author" but as a symptom of the possibilities and limits of innovative writing in the German Democratic Republic in the seventies. While it therefore situates the novella within the context of literary politics, it also tries to show how Anna Seghers expanded the boundaries of literary political debates, which focused on the concepts of cultural heritage and social realism, by using the form of fiction instead of a critical essay. The first chapter deals with the historical context of the novella. It tries to show Anna Seghers' allegorical depiction of the literary figures of "Nikolai Gogol", "E. T. A. Hoffmann" and "Franz Kafka" as representations of the aesthetics of realism, romanticism and modernism respectively. The use of allegory marks a significant breakaway from the method of social realism. The chapter also tries to show the intertextuality of the novella. The second chapter focuses on the debate on cultural heritage in the GDR. It retraces Anna Seghers' changing attitudes to the controversial cultural heritage of romanticism and modernism in the Marxist debate on realism from the thirties up to the publication of the novella Die Reisebegegn.ung in 1973. The third chapter deals with the theory of socialist realism as developed by Georg Lukacs and simplified by the Stalinist cultural functionary Andrei Zhdanov. It attempts to define the position taken by Anna Seghers in the Marxist debate on realism in which she argued on the same side as Ernst Bloch and Bertolt Brecht against the concept of realism upheld by Lukacs. The fourth chapter deals with the depiction of the three literary figures in the novella. It attempts to show in how far this figuration deviates from the orthodox Marxist reception of the three authors on the one hand and from that of alternative Marxist and non-Marxist interpretations on the other. The fifth chapter analyses Anna Seghers' literary representation of time. She lets the three authors travel freely through "objective" historical time, which constitutes the most significant deviation from the theory of socialist realism in the novella. The chapter discusses the implications this has for innovative writing in the GDR. While Anna Seghers tries to incorporate the divergent concepts of realism of the three authors - each situated within his own literary historical framework - into her variety of socialist realism in the GDR in the seventies, she adapts and changes the complexity and specificity of their representations of reality. The unresolved contradictions of the novella, however, constantly subvert the claim to an extraliterary reality, which the literary figures and the novella make. The limits of this novella in its literary historical context were in turn expanded by writers in the GDR in the seventies who saw in it a legitimisation for their own literary experiments.
Open Access
Lyrik im dialog : die gedichte Jose F. A. Olivers
(2006) Van Ryneveld, Hannelore; Pakendorf, Gunther
The literary origins of the poet Jose F.A. Oliver lie in the field of guest-worker or migrant literature, which is located on the periphery of German mainstream literature. It remains a contested and to date not fully explored territory with the differing terminologies used to define this literature ranging from guest-worker literature or literature of foreigners to the more recent intercultural literature, the term used in this thesis.
Open Access
Realistischer Diskurs und dialogischer Text : eine Strukturanalyse von Peter Handkes Roman "Der Kurze Brief zum langen Abschied"
(1983) Pakendorf, Gunther; Horn, Peter
The question whether the critical tools developed by, the structuralist approach can stand up to a text which alienates or deviates from traditional narrative discourse is one of the main theoretical concerns of this thesis. The investigation is based on two premises: firstly, that the contemporary novel is as much the literary expression of bourgeois consciousness as its predecessor in the 18th and 19th centuries, whose mode of expression was that of realism; secondly, that the paradigm shift from classic bourgeois realism to the modern novel must be seen as a dialectic process: modern fiction can thus be said to be engaged in an intertextual dialogue with traditional realist discourse. In confronting the method and conclusions of S/Z by Roland Barthes with a contemporary text, the thesis aims to reflect this dialogue on a meta-literary level. Starting from a detailed analysis of the structural elements of the text and their arrangement, the thesis proceeds to a description of the technique of deviation on the microstructural level as well as in conjunction with contextual, ideological and symbolic reference. The complex relation between fiction and reality is then investigated with regard to the configuration and in conjunction with the notion of identity, the focal point of the novel. Handke's complex understanding of reality and consequently also his response to the realist tradition are derived from the unstated realization of the fictionality of the bourgeois concept of the subject. This is the background to the discussion of the structures of traditional realist discourse and the ambivalent portrayal of reality in Handke's novel, which amounts to the application of realist discourse in order to subvert it. Finally, Handke's rigorous anti-ideological position is evaluated in conjunction with Bakhtin's theory of the dialogic text and the concept of intertextuality as developed by Julia Kristeva. While Handke's novel can thus be seen to be critical both in its perception of, and response to contemporary reality and in its refusal to accept any systematic modes of thought, its contradictions remain unresolved since it registers but does not transcend the problematic nature of the core of bourgeois ideology, the self-image of the subject.
Open Access
Streifzüge durch eine "fremde" Welt : untersuchung ausgewählter schriftlicher Zeugnisse deutscher Reisender im südlichen Afrika im 19. Jahrhundert unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der kulturellen Fremderfahrung : eine literaturwissenschaftliche Untersuchung
(1998) Hemme, Tanja; Pakendorf, Gunther
In this thesis the written sources of the following travellers have been analysed: Gustav Theodor Fritsch (Drei Jahre in Südafrika, 1868), Theodor Hermann Wangemann (Ein Reise-Jahr in Südafrika, 1868) and Ernst von Weber (Vier Jahre in Afrika, 1878). The main focus is on the perception of the foreign country with its foreign people and different landscape. Each German traveller is studied as a unique example of experiencing the "other" land in his own special way. Travel writings are perceived as scientific, completely rational texts but they contain subjective fictional descriptions of reality as well; the reason why I focussed on the question how a person in the previous century from another continent with a different ideology and mentality reflected the region of Southern Africa. Travelling is at its height in the 19th century, through various continents by different kinds of people. Most of these travellers wanted to gain knowledge about the area visited and its inhabitants in order to "transport" via written texts the facts found and data collected to their European home countries. In my examination these texts are seen as "cultural documents" which express not only the reaction caused by the confrontation with totally foreign forms of life but at the same time they are considered as the indirect representation of the German home culture. The moral values and cultural characteristics of Germany played a significant role during the production of each travelogue. That is the reason why the textual product is also a self-portrayal of the author: his prejudices, his view of the world and his valuation of his home country. The collision of the European and with the so-called Other and the effects on the traveller are of main interest in this thesis. The postmodern theory of the "colonial discourse" was used as an analysing method in order to demonstrate that each encouter with the Other produces a different kind of response from the traveller in its own special environment.

Browsing by Author "Pakendorf, Gunther"

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