Prose sketch

A prose sketch is an impressionistic prose piece . Like impressionism in painting , the prose sketch aims to capture impressions and feelings in a literary way. In the spirit of Ernst Mach's empiricism , according to which the reality perceived by humans only makes up a large number of simultaneous sensory impressions (sensations), sensual impressions such as colors , light , sounds , smells and the moods evoked by them play an essential role in the prose sketch . The description of a reality lying behind the sensual sensations takes a back seat to their perception . The content of the prose sketch is deliberately left open and unrounded by merely suggestive descriptions and gaps. The sketchy brevity emphasizes the fleetingness of the moment that produces the impressions and sensations.

The Austrian writer Peter Altenberg (1859–1919) is considered the master of the prose sketch . Even Thomas Mann ( Vision , disappointment , death ), Rainer Maria Rilke ( The display fishmonger ) or Robert Musil ( The Mouse ) have left us prose sketches. More recent examples were created by Peter Handke ( once more for Thucydides ). Although a corresponding generic name is not in use in English-language literature , prose sketches can be found in the work of Virginia Woolf ( The Death of the Butterfly ).

literature

• Otto F. Best: Handbook of literary terms - definitions and examples . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1982.
• Dirk Göttsche: prose sketches as images of thought . In: Thomas Althaus et al. (Ed.): Little prose . De Gruyter, Berlin 2011, pp. 283-302.