Pregledni rad
„Trial stations for the end of the world“ : Apocalyptic scenarios in German-langugage fantasy literature around the First World War
Clemens Ruthner
; Trinity College Dublin
Sažetak
Undoubtedly, German-language fantasy literature which saw great flourishing in the first third of the twentieth century, did not belong to the German canon, but was predominantly a short lived consumerist literature nowadays mostly forgotten. It arose simultaneously with, but also beyond the cultural documents of the impending evil, the works so well known even today, such as Kafka's short story „In der Strafkolonie“ („In the Penal Colony“), Kraus's play Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind), or the painting Apokalyptische Landschaften (Apocalyptic Landscapes) by the expressionist artist Ludwig Meitner. In conjunction, these narratives of doom thematize political, social and cultural upheavals. In their own way, these narratives concern radical changes in the society stemming from the First World War and the questions of the loss of subjectivity in a new mass society of the uncontainable growth of cities and turbocapitalism, problems of sexual identity and sexuality, radical political movements and the violent demise of the great European empires. These texts, spurred by Alfred Kubin's creativity feature important material that, on the backdrop of literary irrationalism and anti-rationalism, offers an insight into the „collective imaginary“, that is, the „collective unconscious“ of the times.
Ključne riječi
German-speaking speculative fiction (first third of 20th century); narratives of the apocalypse, horror literature, Alfred Kubin, Hanns Heinz Ewers; Karl Hans Strobl
Hrčak ID:
210834
URI
Datum izdavanja:
4.12.2018.
Posjeta: 725 *