Seconds style
Seconds style is the name of a technique first developed in the epic poetry of naturalism , the aim of which was the complete congruence of narrative time and narrated time. Sensory perceptions, movements or image sequences were recorded and narrated “to the second”. The literary historian Adalbert von Hanstein first coined the term with reference to the study Papa Hamlet by Arno Holz and Johannes Schlaf .
The development of the second style can be related to the further development of phonography ( sound recording ) and photographycan be seen in the late 19th century. In a narrative way, the smallest movements, noises and visual impressions are represented true to time (by the second). Every detail, no matter how banal, is recorded in a protocol, for example, to come as close as possible to natural speech: stuttering, stammering, dialect, exclamations, incomplete sentences, breathing pauses, background noises ... This creates a strong rapprochement between external and internal reality and what is being told has a more immediate effect and more authentic. The seconds style is thus a writing style that creates a filmic-documentary atmosphere and z. B. particularly suitable for the representation of a milieu.
example
The following example is taken from what is probably the most famous story of naturalism, Bahnwärter Thiel . The narrative time corresponds to the narrated time: the reproduced passage can be read in around 20 seconds and describes a process that takes around 20 seconds.
“The train became visible - it came closer - the steam hissed out of the black engine chimney in innumerable rushing jolts. There: one - two - three milk-white steam jets gushed straight up, and immediately afterwards the air carried the whistle of the machine. Three times in a row, short, bright, frightening. You brake, Thiel thought, why only? And again the emergency whistles rang screaming, waking the echo, this time in a long, uninterrupted row. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerhart Hauptmann: Railway attendant Thiel. Reclam's Universal Library No. 6617, Reclam-Verlag , Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-15-006617-1 , p. 31.