Substance (literature)
The term fabric is a term used in art history in the field of analysis and interpretation of a work of art . In literary studies, “substance” describes a concentrated tradition that has been and is used in artistic processing. The “substance” is thus an expression that is related to the terms motif and topic .
The material in the literary-scientific sense is a substrate that is initially shaped outside of poetry , a story with its own existence, which is then open to poetic processing. Thus, a part of history as Julius Caesar , a fairy tale like Cinderella or the poetic work itself, like the Antigone of Sophocles become the fabric. However, since there is usually a longer process of transmission ( handing down ), the transitions between history and art can also be fluid, as with the Faust material . Because it is only through its being passed on that the narrative material is freed from individual characteristics and thus formed into further artistic processing.
The term “substance” is also differentiated from the more general term “topic”. In the case of material, there is not only a higher degree of organization, of compression. The topic given in the material can also be generalized. The material abstracts the given theme and thereby opens it up to repeated artistic use. Not every topic can become material in this way. Current “topics” in particular often fail to become material, so that the English term theme or its French counterpart thème , which is sometimes used in literary studies with a more precise “dt. Substance "can mean both" substance "and" subject ".
It is disputed whether a substance can then also be described as a “clearly defined motif constellation that constructs the framework for action” (Andreas Meier, in: Killy 14, 406) or whether only the motif constellation must be viewed as the result of the process of substance creation. The question of whether material history should be carried out primarily as content research - and this then primarily within literary studies - (Frenzel) or in dialogue with historical narrative research as part of comparative literature (Beller) still dominates the discussions in the corresponding sub-disciplines.
However, literary material also has a correlation with the material in other genres of art.
See also
literature
- Helmut Weidhase: Fabric. In: Günther Schweikle, Irmgard Schweikle: Metzler Literature Lexicon. Terms and definitions. 2nd Edition. JB Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1990, p. 445
- Bibliography on the subject