No place. Nowhere

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No place. Nowhere by Christa Wolf (1979) tells the fictional encounter between the German poets Heinrich von Kleist and Karoline von Günderrode in a merchant's salon in Winkel in the Rheingau . The perspective changes between the two protagonists , who both died in real life shortly after their meeting in 1804, independently of one another, through suicide .

publication

At the same time the work appeared in the West ( Luchterhand-Verlag - Darmstadt ) and in the GDR ( Aufbau-Verlag - Berlin -Ost). It quickly became a bestseller.

content

The fictional meeting takes place in the circle of a tea party in which Clemens Brentano , his two sisters Bettina and Gunda , Friedrich Carl von Savigny , later Prussian Minister of Justice, and the scientist Christian Nees von Esenbeck, along with other personalities, take part. While the other participants have more or less profound conversations in changing groups, Kleist and Günderrode stand as foreign bodies in the room. However, they soon recognize their kinship. During a walk with the whole company, the two outsiders can talk about their situation undisturbed for a while.

Readings

Contemporary / socially critical

When the story is published, it differs from the official literature in several ways. The situation of the artists in a narrow social corset of their time, as addressed between Kleist and Günderrode, is reminiscent of the situation in the GDR and the ongoing debate about the role of the artist in socialism in the context of Biermann's expatriation in 1976. Formally corresponds because even the work does not meet the requirements of socialist realism.

variant

Wolf has at the same time about K. v. Günderrode edited materials and wrote an essay:

  • Marlis Gerhardt: Essays by famous women. From Else Lasker-Schüler to Christa Wolf. Insel TB # 1941, Frankfurt 1997 ISBN 3458336419 pp. 137-169. - (Excerpt from: K. v. G .: The shadow of a dream. Poems, prose, letters, testimonies from contemporaries. 1979, again dtv, 1997)

interpretation

  • Ansgar Leonis in: Buchner's School Library of Modernity. Texts and interpretations. Row no. 4. CC Buchner, Bamberg 2000 ISBN 3766143549