The purpose of the article is to discuss the perception of Kafka's The Castle (Das Schloss, 1922) in the novels The Peaches Killers (Die Pfirsichtöter, 1972) by Alfred Kolleritsch, Among the Bieresch (Bei den Bieresch, 1979) by Klaus Hoffer and Into the Castle (Ins Schloss, 2004) by Marianne Gruber. The reference to the writers and their works is no coincidence; preference is given to the artists whose creative manner reflects the most fashionable trends in Western European literary process - from avant-garde to postmodernism. The authors of the article deliberately arrange the analysed works in chronological order to follow the stages in the development of German postmodernism which originates from modernist literature. The universal Kafkaesque discourse suggests the existence of direct and inverse connections between the author and the reader, the extra-textual tradition and reality. The article focuses on the narrative strategies of Austrian avant-garde (Kolleritsch), analyses postmodern discourse (Hoffer, Gruber) in the Austrian literature of the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries, reveals signs of typological similarity between the novels by Kafka, Kolleritsch, Hoffer, and Gruber, which seems productive for understanding the influence of modernist literature on the development of the postmodern paradigm in the German-language literary space. Austrian literature, to a greater extent, is fraught with the search for new forms of self-expression rather than with the artistic “overcoming the past” - the awareness of collective guilt. It brought to the forefront the authors in whose works the age of change was reflected. Literary avant-garde has been replaced by authors who skillfully “play” with the previous culture and establish a dialogue with the present. The comparative methodology is to reveal the perception of "Kafkaesque discourse" in modern Austrian literature and to draw conclusions about the ways authors treat ontological questions.
The anthropomorphic depiction of animals bearing allegorical meanings is the well-represented and actively demanded bestiary of world literature. It reflects the mythological thinking of writers and is an integral part of the worldview basis on which literary works are based. Bestiary images in the artistic text acquire the status of universal representative symbols. This study discusses bestiary images in novelistic works of Austrian writers, Franz Werfel (1890-1945) and Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Using the semiotic approach, the researchers define a range of images and meanings that are related to these two writers as representatives of the era of historical upheavals and individual authorial purposes that reflect the basis of the worldview of each of them. A bestiary image in a literary text can function as an iconic sign, which, on the one hand, reflects the material object in its materiality, and on the other hand, contributes to the emerging of "new", constructed by analogy, aesthetic reality. The similarity to the referent, in this case, is included in the overall system of ontological values. An iconic sign, after Ch.S. Pierce, refers to a simple sign based on the similarity to a thing and participating in the creation of symptoms of a higher order – symbols. Bestiary images in a literary text acquire the status of universal representative characters. The functioning of animal images in the text, their nomination, combinatorics, communication with the elements, time periods, and behavioural patterns are the way of the study of the philosophical foundations of the author's world picture. Canetti’s bestiary is represented by metaphorical images of a monkey, a cat, a pig, and a tortoise, which are used as a tool for analysing various psychic and psychological states of the characters of the novel "Blinding" (Die Blendung, 1931-1932). Multiple forms of anthropopathy and zoomorphism are based on the writer's attitude towards the initial "equality" of man and animal. The study of zoopoetics (the term of J. Lacan) of Werfel’s novel "Barbara, or Piety" (Barbara oder die Frömigkeit, 1929) helps to reveal the axiological foundation upon which the writer constructs his novels. The functioning of images of animals, a horse, for example, is related to the semantics of sacrifice that is rethought and acquiring new meanings in a new historical context. Composite images connecting different characteristics and associated with various natural elements are important. It is apparent that the study of the works by Werfel and Canetti, given the iconic nature of bestiary images, seems relevant to detect common patterns of development of European literature and culture of the first third of the 20th Century.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.