Poetic self

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The expression poetic ego is occasionally used in literary studies , but is just as little traditional as the synonymous term of the poetological ego. According to the general reading, a poetic I in a narrative, fictional text is a character that carries the action and is characterized by being perceived and understood by the reader as an entity on an equal footing with the real I and thus as a person capable of feeling and developing . The poetic ego stands in contrast to the empirical, formal or normative ego , which functions, for example, as the carrier or mouthpiece of political, religious or cultural ideas and programs or as a typical representative of his (professional) class, his gender, his culture or his country of origin occurs, but in contrast to the poetic self, does not show any empathic and comprehensible emotional or intellectual development.

Emergence

The emergence and determination of a poetic ego is first described by Novalis in his Fragment (n) und Studien 1799/1800 and Jean Paul in his Preschool of Aesthetics (1804, greatly expanded in a second edition in 1813). Novalis says, for example: “Real, poetic characters are difficult enough to invent and execute. They are, as it were, different voices and instruments. They must be general and yet peculiar, definite and yet free, clear and yet mysterious. In the real world there are extremely seldom characters. (...) Most people aren't even characters. Many do not even have the facility. One must distinguish between the habitual, the everyday, and the ch [aracters]. The character is quite independent. "(No. 445)

Jean Paul writes in § 57 of his Aesthetics of the Preschool : “The character himself must be enthroned firmly in front of you in the enthusiastic hour, you must hear him, not just see him; he has to give you - as happens in dreams - not you to him, and so much so that in the cold hour beforehand you could predict roughly the what, but not the how. A poet who has to consider whether to make a character say yes or no in a given case, throw him away, it's a stupid corpse. "

The appearance of the poetic ego can be noted in (German-language) literature since the second half of the 18th century. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), Karl Philipp Moritz's psychological novel Anton Reiser (1785–1790 in four parts), Jean Paul's novel Siebenkäs (1796–97) and also ETA Hoffmann's novel Kater Murr (1819 / 1821 in two volumes) are considered to be the first literary works in which the poetic self gains comprehensible liveliness due to its literary design in the reading and imagination process. In the 19th century, Gottfried Keller created in his novel The Green Heinrich (first version 1854/55; second version 1879/80) as a protagonist as a poetic self like Leo Tolstoy in his novel Anna Karenina (1877/78). At the beginning of the 20th century, poetic egos appear in Robert Musil's Die Verwirungen des Zöglings Törless (1906) and in Rainer Maria Rilke's Malte Laurids Brigge (1910). Since then, the design of poetic selves can be found in almost all high-ranking literary works, such as Franz Kafka , Robert Walser , Alfred Döblin , James Joyce , Virginia Woolf , Louis-Ferdinand Céline , Franz Werfel , Thomas Mann , Samuel Beckett , Halldór Laxness , Hermann Hesse , Wolfgang Koeppen , Thomas Bernhard , Max Frisch , Christa Wolf and Mircea Cărtărescu .

literature

  • Peter J. Brenner: The crisis of self-assertion. Subject and reality in the novel of the Enlightenment (= studies on German literature. Vol. 69). Niemeyer, Tübingen 1981, ISBN 3-484-18069-2 (also: Bonn, Universität, Dissertation, 1979).
  • Oliver Cech: The miserable self and the beautiful being. Autonomy of the individual and his art in Karl Philipp Moritz (= Rombach Sciences. Series: Cultura. Vol. 19). Rombach, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2001, ISBN 3-7930-9269-0 (At the same time: Cologne, University, dissertation, 2000).
  • Ulrich Charpa: The poetic I - persona per quam. In: Poetica. Journal for Linguistics and Literature Studies. Vol. 17, Issue 1/2, 1985, pp. 149-169.
  • Sieglinde Grimm: Language of Existence. Rilke, Kafka and the salvation of the ego in the novel of classical modernism. Francke, Tübingen et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7720-3340-7 (also: Cologne, University, habilitation paper, 2000).
  • Sabine Groppe: The I at the end of the letter. Autobiographical storytelling in the 18th and early 19th centuries (= Epistemata. Series: Literaturwissenschaft. Vol. 58). Königshausen and Neuman, Würzburg 1990, ISBN 3-88479-526-0 (also: Münster, University, dissertation, 1989).
  • Karl S. Guthke : The discovery of the self. Studies on literature (= Edition Orpheus. 8). Francke, Tübingen et al. 1993, ISBN 3-7720-2318-5 .
  • Paul Heinemann: potentiated subjects - potentiated fictions. I figurations and aesthetic construction with Jean Paul and Samuel Beckett (= Saarbrücker Contributions to Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. Vol. 16). Königshausen and Neuman, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2065-0 (At the same time: Bochum, University, dissertation, 2000).
  • Carola Hilmes: The inventory and the inventory I. Borderline cases of the autobiographical (= Frankfurt contributions to German studies. Vol. 34). Winter, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-8253-1048-5 (At the same time: Frankfurt am Main, University, habilitation paper, 1999: The literary modernity as an integrating unit of autobiography and poetry. ).
  • Jann Holl: Kierkegaard's conception of the self. An investigation into the requirements and forms of his thinking (= monographs on philosophical research. Vol. 81). Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1972, ISBN 3-445-00839-6 (also: Freiburg (Breisgau), university, dissertation, 1970).
  • Herbert Kaiser: Reading Jean Paul. Attempt on his poetic anthropology of the ego. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-8260-1063-9 .
  • Erich Kleinschmidt : Authorship. Concepts of a theory. Francke, Tübingen et al. 1998, ISBN 3-7720-2736-9 .
  • Andrea Ring: Beyond Kuhschnappel. Individuality and religion in Jean Paul's Siebenkäs. A system-theoretical analysis (= epistemata. Series: Literary Studies. Vol. 529). Königshausen and Neuman, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-2983-6 (also: Göttingen, University, dissertation, 2003).
  • Magnus Schlette: The self (discovery) of the new human. On the emergence of narrative identity patterns in Pietism (= research on systematic and ecumenical theology. Vol. 106). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-56333-7 (also: Frankfurt am Main, University, dissertation, 2003).
  • Norbert W. Schlinkert : The self-illuminating consciousness as poetic self. From Adam Bernd to Karl Philipp Moritz, from Jean Paul to Sören Kierkegaard. A hermeneutical-phenomenological investigation (= enlightenment and modernity. Vol. 23). Wehrhahn, Hannover 2011, ISBN 978-3-86525-152-7 (also: Berlin, Humboldt University, dissertation, 2009).
  • Ralph-Rainer Wuthenow : I remembered that. European autobiography and self-expression in the 18th century. Beck, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-406-05133-2 .