Central European Literary Reconceptualization of Historical Memory: The Case of Ingeborg Bachmann’s Novels

Basia Nikiforova

Abstract


The case of Central European memory and nostalgia is a key to the understanding of spiritual and artistic life in the 20th century. Special features of Central European spiritual life and narration are the feelings of nostalgia, innumerable flashbacks in time, cosmopolitism, and strong regional identity at the same time. Central Europe is the space of distinctive and specific tolerance. The figure of Ingeborg Bachmann is symbolic since it embodies the connection between the two fundamental cultural processes of the twentieth century: philosophy and literature. The article examines Ingeborg Bachmann’s literary interpretations of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language and responses to this philosophical and geopolitical challenge. Borders of Habsburg Empire are symbols of cross-border identities and culture. The author offers to look at the Central European literary nostalgia as a possibility to situate Central European culture and spirituality geographically and territorially. Ingeborg Bachmann created her own borders: the linguistic border, border of gender, time, territory, and philosophical thinking.


Keywords


border; Central European narratives; memory; nostalgia; territoriality; Ingeborg Bachmann

Full Text:

PDF

References


Achberger, Karen. Understanding Ingeborg Bachmann. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1995.

Bachmann, Ingeborg. The Book of Franza & Requiem for Fanny Goldmann. Translated by Peter Filkins. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999.

Bachmann, Ingeborg. “The Good God of Manhattan.” In: Ingeborg Bachmann and Christa Wolf, Selected Prose and Drama, edited by Patricia A. Herminghouse, 55–97. Translated by Valerie Tekavec. New York: Continuum, 1998.

Bachmann, Ingeborg. Malina. Translated by Philip Boehm. New York: New Directions Publishing, 2019. https://books.google.pl/books?id=pCNvDwAAQBAJ&pg. Accessed: 29.12.2022.

Bachmann, Ingeborg. Malina. Translated by Philip Boehm. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1990.

Bachmann, Ingeborg. Three Paths to the Lake. Translated by Mary Fran Gilbert. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1989.

Bachmann, Ingeborg. Die kritische Aufnahme der Existentialphilosophie Martin Heideggers. München, Zürich: Piper Verlag, 1985.

Bachmann, Ingeborg. Wir müssen wahre Sätze finden: Gespräche und Interviews, edited by Christine Koschel and Inge von Weidenbaum. München, Zürich: Piper, 1983.

Bachmann, Ingeborg. Werke, vol. 4, edited by Christine Koschel, Inge von Weidenbaum, and Clemens Münster. München, Zürich: R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1978.

Bird, Stephanie. Women Writers and National Identity: Bachmann, Duden, Oezdamar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Broch, Hermann. “Notes on the Problem of Kitsch.” In: Kitsch: An Anthology of Bad Taste, edited by Gillo Dorfles, 49–76. London: Studio Vista, 1969.

Caruth, Cathy. Literature in the Ashes of History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.

Cornispope, Marcel. “Introduction: Mapping the Literary Interfaces of East-Central Europe.” History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries, vol. 2, edited by Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer, 1–11. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2006.

Dolphijn, Rick, Iris Van der Tuin. New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies. Michigan: An imprint of Michigan Publishing; University of Michigan Library, 2012.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

Hennessy, Rosemary. Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse. London: Routledge, 2013.

Kundera, Milan. “The Tragedy of Central Europe.” Translated by Edmund White. New York Review of Books 1984, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1984/04/26/the-tragedy-of-central-europe/. Accessed: 25.01.1984.

Laqueur, Thomas W. “Introduction.” Representations 2000, no. 69: 1–8.

Larcati, Arturo. Ingeborg Bachmanns Poetik. Darmstadt: WBG, 2006.

Lennox, Sara. Cemetery of the Murdered Daughters: Feminism, History, and Ingeborg Bachmann. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.

Mahrdt, Helgard, Jeanette Clausen. “’Society Is the Biggest Murder Scene of All’: On the Private and Public Spheres in Ingeborg Bachmann’s Prose.” Women in German Yearbook Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture 12, no. 1: 167–187.

Taylor, John. Into the Heart of European Poetry. New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers, 2010.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by David Pears and Brian McGuinness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations, edited by Gertrude E. M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees. Translated by Gertrude E. M. Anscombe. New York: Macmillan, 1953.

http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-sayable-and-unsayablethe-philosophy.html. Accessed: 20.08.2022.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/kw.2022.34.163-182
Date of publication: 2023-02-14 12:07:23
Date of submission: 2022-12-19 17:32:01


Statistics


Total abstract view - 531
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF - 0

Indicators



Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2023 Basia Nikiforova

License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.pl