Kafkaesk

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The adjective kafkaesk , named after the writer Franz Kafka , is an educational expression that means something like "in the manner of Kafka's descriptions, mysteriously eerie, threatening".

Origin and meaning of the word

The word was taken from English, where Kafka-esque can first be found in 1939. The oldest word formation of this kind for a writer is Dantesque , which is documented as early as 1799. For Kafka, the German adjective "kafkisch" is initially proven, which is said to have already been coined at Kafka's funeral ceremonies and later only gradually replaced by "kafkaesk". The 17th edition of the Duden took up Kafkaesk in 1973. The adjective was originally used internally to denote Kafka's literary text features and for similarities and imitations of his literary work. Later it was increasingly used for extra-literary issues and stood for "situations and diffuse experiences of fear , insecurity and alienation " as well as being at the mercy of anonymous and bureaucratic powers, absurdity , no way out and senselessness as well as guilt and inner despair . The term is derived from the general mood of numerous works by Franz Kafka , in which the protagonists act in opaque, threatening situations ranging from gloomy comedy to tragedy , but in today's usage it has little to do with his works. Hans Wellmann and Wolfgang Pöckl suspect that the word “kafkaesk” in German is supported by the phonetic similarity to the adjective “ grotesque ” with which it is associated.

The Kafka biographer Reiner Stach said in an interview with the FAZ : “Most of the time, people mean something absurd and at the same time scary, mostly about some kind of power relationship: if those who occupy the center of power remain in the dark, then you have it Feeling that the situation is «kafkaesque» [...]. In his novels the top of the pyramid is invisible, and in today's society - despite the apparent transparency - one does not know exactly what is going on at the highest levels. We don't know where the center of power is, we don't even know whether such a center even exists. [...] You would like to know how things are up there, but you only get to know the middlemen. It's exactly like in Kafka's trial . "

Web links

Wiktionary: kafkaesk  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Duden - German Universal Dictionary, 6th, revised edition. Mannheim, Leipzig, Vienna, Zurich: Dudenverlag 2007.
  2. ↑ Direction , 1939, Issue 2–3, p. 21
  3. ^ August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel: Athenaeum. Volume 2, 1st piece, Berlin 1799, p. 222
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Pöckl: Kafkaesk , in: Gerd-Dieter Stein (Ed.): Kafka-Nachlese , Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart: Stuttgart (1988), p. 102
  5. ^ Thomas Anz : Franz Kafka. Life and work. Beck, Munich 2009, p. 14, ISBN 978-3-406-56273-0 ( online here )
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Pöckl: Kafkaesk , in: Gerd-Dieter Stein (Ed.): Kafka-Nachlese , Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart: Stuttgart (1988), p. 106
  7. ↑ Thomas David: In conversation: Reiner Stach: Was Kafka's life Kafkaesque? , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of June 29, 2008