The Sphinx's smile

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The smile of the Sphinx is a short story by Ingeborg Bachmann , which was published on September 25, 1949 in the “ Wiener Tageszeitung ”.

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action

When the king sees his rule threatened - not by the subjects of the empire, but from above - a shadow in the immediate vicinity of the castle is reported to him. The troubled ruler investigates the phenomenon. Finally he looks into the face of the Sphinx and asks boldly about her desire. The Sphinx has three questions . The king wants to avert the threat and assigns his scholars to answer the first question: What does it look like inside the earth? Exploration fills volumes. When the King of the Sphinx presented the answer contained in the papers, the questioner found no starting point for criticism. In answering the second question - the Sphinx now wants to know what it looks like on earth - the scholars overshoot the mark. To the description of all aboveground conditions they add formulas that describe the course of the stars. The Sphinx is satisfied and asks: What is it like in humans?

As time goes on, it turns out the best scholars in the kingdom are overwhelmed with the third question. The king devises an abbreviation of the procedure and resolutely enforces his idea. The subjects are beheaded by machine. The king stands alone. He answered all of the questions. The Sphinx leaves the corpse-strewn realm.

reception

Bettina Banasch quotes Agnese, according to which the author always thought philosophically. Jost Schneider sees the text as a parable and quotes Weigel. Then Bachmann took up an idea from Horkheimer's and Adorno's “ Dialectic of Enlightenment ”: The unconditional rational comprehension of the world proved to be destructive. Enlightenment turns into mythology . Weigel notices a discrepancy. The criticism of pure reason in the “Sphinx” collides with the strictly logical argumentation in Ingeborg Bachmann's dissertation.

Christine Kanz looks at the mystery psychoanalytically. According to this, the mother symbol, the Sphinx, should be taken as a projection of the king's fears. The irrational inherent in the Sphinx is frightening. It is true that the king conquered it through rational action, but fatally he would lose his subjects.

According to Kurt Bartsch, the author considers it necessary to set appropriate limits in research in the sense that everyone is not allowed to research what they want.

interpretation

The author interprets National Socialism .

literature

Text output

Used edition
  • Christine Koschel (Ed.), Inge von Weidenbaum (Ed.), Clemens Münster (Ed.): Ingeborg Bachmann. Works. Volume two: Stories . 609 pages. Piper, Munich 1978 (5th edition 1993), ISBN 3-492-11702-3 , pp. 19-22

Secondary literature

  • Otto Bareiss, Frauke Ohloff: Ingeborg Bachmann. A bibliography. With a foreword by Heinrich Böll. Piper, Munich 1978. ISBN 3-492-02366-5
  • Kurt Bartsch: Ingeborg Bachmann. Metzler, Stuttgart 1997 (2nd edition, Metzler Collection. Volume 242). ISBN 3-476-12242-5
  • Monika Albrecht (Hrsg.), Dirk Göttsche (Hrsg.): Bachmann-Handbuch. Life - work - effect . Metzler, Stuttgart 2002. ISBN 3-476-01810-5
  • Joachim Eberhardt: “There are no quotations for me”: Intertextuality in Ingeborg Bachmann's poetic work. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2002 (Diss. Göttingen 2001). ISBN 3-484-18165-6 , pp. 91-104
  • Sigrid Weigel : Ingeborg Bachmann. Legacies in compliance with the confidentiality of letters . dtv , Munich 2003 (Zsolnay, Vienna 1999). ISBN 3-423-34035-5 , pp. 74-81

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 602, third entry from above
  2. ↑ Bareiss, Ohloff, p. 17, entry 39
  3. ↑ Albrecht and Göttsche, p. 175, right column, 27. Zvo
  4. ↑ Barbara Agnese: The angel of literature. On the philosophical legacy of Ingeborg Bachmann. Vienna 1996
  5. ↑ Albrecht and Göttsche, p. 107, right column, below
  6. ↑ Albrecht and Göttsche, p. 108, left column, 15. Zvo
  7. ^ Marion Schmaus in: Albrecht and Göttsche, p. 216, right column, 23. Zvo
  8. ↑ Weigel, p. 81 below
  9. ↑ Christine Kanz in: Albrecht and Göttsche, p. 224, right column
  10. ↑ Kurt Bartsch, p. 45, 2nd Zvu
  11. ↑ Eberhardt, p. 100, 7th Zvu