Work (literature)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A work in the field of literature consists of text and becomes a literary historical fact through its publication. In general, the term ›work‹ is used for a certain number of variant or invariant pieces of text, “which, despite their variance, agree with one another so largely that they belong under one roof,” says Rüdiger Nutt-Kofoth. From an edition-philological point of view, the first print of a work is the version that gives the text its work character and that is viewed as the basis for an edition . Sometimes, however, there is no non- fragmentary text, but a work edition should nonetheless be produced. In such a case, say Herbert Kraft, Diana Schilling and Gert Vonhoff, referring to Walter Benjamin , a work is also understood to be that which can be seen as a forced result of the creation process of a work.

The traditional view saw a work as the result of a creative act that was imagined to be original aesthetics, and as a result of which a work was characterized by originality and identity. The Hamburg Goethe edition, for example, which came out in the late 1940s and became the model for other historical-critical editions , has remained “largely in this paradigm of idealistic aesthetics” according to Kraft, Schilling and Vonhoff. In terms of its work concept, it is characterized by the fact that questions of origin and influence are mostly subordinated to those of originality and identity.

On the other hand, there is a conception of work that began to develop in the debates critical of ideology at the end of the 1960s. On Julia Kristeva Bakhtin - reception , especially her work with his concept of dialogism , the introduction is the concept of intertextuality back, the diverse manifestations learned. Following these conceptual extensions, Kraft, Schilling and Vonhoff try to use the term functional references to make it clear that there can be a work concept beyond the “boundaries of the bourgeois, ingenious entity concepts” insofar as a work is “more than a self-contained, monad-like one size to be thought of. ”Functional references determine a work through“ its always special formation of contextual references. ”

Further conceptions and definitions of work can be found in Siegfried Scheibe (1991), Klaus Kanzog (1991) and Heinrich Schepers (1991). According to Herbert Kraft, these are different from his.

The meaning of the works is constituted by the reading process.

Work term and text term since the 1970s

The term “work” has been controversial in literary studies since the 1970s and the term text is used as an alternative in many areas of the subject. The reasons for this are, among other things, that genius-aesthetic author concepts are rejected, as well as traditional conceptions of the unity and holism of a work. Instead, the view is that literature is processual and that the performative openness is better accentuated through the use of the term “text”. The concept of a work may, however, be better suited to bring into view non-manifest properties that cannot be identified solely on the basis of the textual form. From this perspective, a work is not identical to the text on which it is based. One of the decisive relational properties of a work here is the fact that a verbatim copy of the text can be the same textual basis of two different works.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Kraft: The historicity of literary texts. A theory of the edition , Rotsch, Bebenhausen 1973, pp. 37 and 41f.
  2. ↑ Rüdiger Nutt-Kofoth: “Variants of Self-Presentation and the Torso of the Overall Project From My Life : Goethe's Autobiographical Publications”, in: Variants - Variants - Variantes , edited by Christa Jansohn and Bodo Plachta. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-484-29522-8 , pp. 137–156, p. 137.
  3. ↑ Herbert Kraft; Diana Schilling; Gert Vonhoff: Edition Philology . Lang, Frankfurt / New York 2001, ISBN 3-631-35676-5 , p. 35
  4. ↑ Herbert Kraft; Diana Schilling; Gert Vonhoff: Edition Philology . Lang, Frankfurt / New York 2001, ISBN 3-631-35676-5 , p. 146
  5. ↑ a b c d Herbert Kraft; Diana Schilling; Gert Vonhoff: Edition Philology . Lang, Frankfurt / New York 2001, ISBN 3-631-35676-5 , pp. 164f.
  6. ↑ Siegfried Scheibe: "Editorial basic models", in: On work and text. Contributions to textology , edited by Siegfried Scheibe and Christel Laufer, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag 1991, ISBN 3-05-001104-1 , pp. 23–48, therein p. 25
  7. ↑ Klaus Kanzog: “Structuring and restructuring in the text genesis. Try to find rules for the constitution of a work ”, in: Zu Werk und Text. Contributions to textology , edited by Siegfried Scheibe and Christel Laufer, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag 1991, ISBN 3-05-001104-1 , pp. 87-97
  8. ^ Heinrich Schepers, "On the problematic of the work in statu crescendi. A supplement to the discussion ”, in: On work and text. Contributions to textology , edited by Siegfried Scheibe and Christel Laufer, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag 1991, ISBN 3-05-001104-1 , pp. 99-103
  9. ↑ Herbert Kraft; Diana Schilling; Gert Vonhoff: Edition Philology . Lang, Frankfurt / New York 2001, ISBN 3-631-35676-5 , p. 223, footnote 4
  10. ↑ Herbert Kraft; Diana Schilling; Gert Vonhoff: Edition Philology . Lang, Frankfurt / New York 2001, ISBN 3-631-35676-5 , p. 9
  11. ^ Tilmann Köppe and Simone Winko: Newer literary theories . An introduction. 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2013. Table of contents ISBN 978-3-476-02475-6 , pp. 135-136.