W. G. Sebald's hybrid poetics : literature as historiography / Lynn L. Wolff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wolff, Lynn L., author.

Series:

Interdisciplinary German cultural studies ; Volume 14.

Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies, 1861-8030 ; Volume 14

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sebald, W. G. (Winfried Georg), 1944-2001--Criticism and interpretation.

Sebald, W. G.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (312 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin, [Germany] ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : De Gruyter, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book offers a new critical perspective on the perpetual problem of literature's relationship to reality and in particular on the sustained tension between literature and historiography. The scholarly and literary works of W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) serve as striking examples for this discussion, for the way in which they demonstrate the emergence of a new hybrid discourse of literature as historiography. This book critically reconsiders the claims and aims of historiography by re-evaluating core questions of the literary discourse and by assessing the ethical imperative of literature in the 20th and 21st centuries. Guided by an inherently interdisciplinary framework, this book elucidates the interplay of epistemological, aesthetic, and ethical concerns that define Sebald's criticism and fiction. Appropriate to the way in which Sebald's works challenge us to rethink the boundaries between discourses, genres, disciplines, and media, this work proceeds in a methodologically non-dogmatic way, drawing on hermeneutics, semiotics, narratology, and discourse theory. In addition to contextualizing Sebald within postwar literature in German, the book is the first English-language study to consider Sebald's œuvre as a whole. Of interest for Sebald experts and enthusiasts, literary scholars and historians concerned with the problematic of representing the past.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction. Why W. G. Sebald

Chapter 1. Literature as Historiography in Context

Chapter 2. Conscious Historiography and the Writer's Conscience

Chapter 3. What is (in) an Image? Mimesis, Representability, and Visual History

Chapter 4. Chronology and Coincidence in the Narrative Cosmos

Chapter 5. Witness and Testimony in Literary Memory

Chapter 6. Translation as Metaphor and Conservative Innovation

Conclusion. Panoramic Outlook

Bibliography of W. G. Sebalds Primary Works and of Works Cited

Name Index

Subject Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9783110340556

3110340550

9783110370539

3110370530

OCLC:

890070976