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University of Cincinnati UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI 10 August 2004 I, Jeffrey M. Packer , hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in: German Studies It is entitled: Negotiating the Borderland: Thresholds in Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Paul Celan, and Peter Handke This work and its defense approved by: Chair: Dr. Todd Herzog Dr. Katharina Gerstenberger Dr. Sara Friedrichsmeyer NEGOTIATING THE BORDERLAND: THRESHOLDS IN HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL, PAUL CELAN, AND PETER HANDKE A dissertation submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D.) in the Department of German Studies of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences August 2004 by Jeffrey M. Packer B.A., Brigham Young University, 1996 M.A., Brigham Young University, 1999 Committee Chair: Dr. Todd Herzog Abstract My dissertation, Negotiating the Borderland: Thresholds in Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Paul Celan, and Peter Handke, focuses on the threshold imagery of these three writers as a means of approaching the often contradictory issues of modernity in the twentieth century. Thresholds offer a literary means for writers to dwell momentarily in an instant of calm amidst the chaos of the modern world. By setting their works within threshold regions, these authors create new spaces that simultaneously maintain an element of separation from society and reestablish a relationship to it. Threshold metaphors are about transgressing boundaries and pushing the limits, but also about lingering in between them. A threshold functions as a bridge between extremes in which opposite sides of a paradox coexist The thresholds I explore fall into three general categories: thresholds of time, thresholds of place, and thresholds of language. They take such forms as doorways, rivers, the instant between waking and sleeping, or a turn of breath before speaking. These three threshold types correspond to aspects of spatial, temporal, and linguistic fragmentation that are characteristic of the twentieth-century experience. The cause-and-effect relationship between the three becomes blurred as they come to represent a complex of ideas more than a linear progression from one to the next. These different types of thresholds can be combined to explore fragmentation on all levels as individuals negotiate the boundaries of speech and history and their position in them. I contend that the threshold as a metaphor can both define the phenomenon discussed above, and hint at a resolution of the fragmentation resulting from the pressures of modernity. The threshold becomes a symbol for symbolism per se, by standing as a part, or fragment, for the whole. And it is this wholeness informed and given depth by an awareness of fragmentation that can be discovered in the threshold. ©Copyright 2004 Jeffrey M. Packer. All rights reserved. Acknowledgments This work would not have been possible without the constant help and support of my wife, Harmony Packer. She has been advisor, proofreader, cheerleader, and office manager all in one. Most of all she has been my best friend, providing patient support through long years of schooling and deserves as much credit for the completion of this work as I. Table of Contents Note on Abbreviations ...................................................... -2- Introduction ............................................................. -3- Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the Erhöhte Augenblick ............................ -14- Paul Celan Between Ich and Du .............................................. -79- Peter Handke an der Schwelle der Erzählung ................................... -134- Conclusion: Wozu Dichter? ................................................ -203- Works Cited ........................................................... -209- Index ................................................................. -221- -1- Note on Abbreviations Hugo von Hofmannsthal: All citations from Hugo von Hofmannsthal are from the Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben. Edited by Herbert Steiner. A Aufzeichnungen. D I Dramen I. D II Dramen II. D III Dramen III D IV Dramen IV E Die Erzählungen GLD Gedichte und lyrische Dramen. L I Lustpiele I L II Lustpiele II L III Lustpiele III L IV Lustpiele IV P I Prosa I P II Prosa II P III Prosa III P IV Prosa IV Paul Celan: The works from Paul Celan are from Paul Celan: Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Edited by Beda Allemann and Stefan Reichert. GW I Gedichte I GW II Gedichte II GWIII Gedichte III GW IV Übertragungen I GW V Übertragungen II Peter Handke: AT Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter CS Der Chinese des Schmerzes DN In einer dunklen Nacht ging ich aus meinem stillen Haus FE Die Fahrt im Einbaum oder das Stück zum Film vom Krieg HB Der Himmel über Berlin: Ein Filmbuch Th Noch einmal für Thukydides W Die Wiederholung WR Eine winterliche Reise zu den Flüssen Donau, Save, Morawa und Drina oder Gerechtigkeit für Serbien ZR Aber ich lebe nur von den Zwischenräumen -2- Introduction: Wozu Schwellen Close your eyes Peter Handke tells his readers, and out of the after image of the black letters arises the lights of a city. The lights are not, however, those of the city center, but those of the periphery. At sunset, a lone observer stands and watches as a bus pulls up to its final stop and a line of people cross a bridge over the canal that marks the boundary between the city and the suburban village. For the observer, the bridge stands between two spaces, but belongs to neither. The moment on the bridge creates an open space, and out of this threshold-emptiness emerges a narrative. In this dissertation, I will examine the role of the threshold in twentieth-century literature as a vehicle for self-exploration and as a means for the individual to connect with an other through language. Thresholds stand in contrast to the more common concept of the border. Much has already been written about boundaries and the crossing of borders in literature. Yet, in the majority of those texts, the emphasis is less on the border itself and more on the differences it creates. As Rüdiger Görner and Suzanne Kirkbright point out, borders both require that they be acknowledged, and demand that they be crossed. The border has to be defined before it can be overcome, yet its very existence supposes that it will be overcome at some point (9). Likewise, many works place the emphasis in what lies on either side of the border. Thus, they are often not concerned with the border region itself, but primarily with the process of crossing or transgressing the border, be it a border that marks a difference in gender,1 or a political,2 philosophical, racial, 1Gender is seen as a border to be crossed or transgressed by a wide variety of writers. Most often, however, crossing gender boundaries is associated with questioning outdated social norms and providing a new way for looking at gender identity. Seldom is the border or the difference the actual subject of the discussion. Just one example is the third chapter of Cannon Schmitt s Alien Nation: Nineteenth-Century Gothic Fictions and English Nationality. 2For a more detailed analysis of political borders, see, for example Dieter Lamping s Über Grenzen Eine literarische Topographie. Philosophical, political, personal, and linguistic borders are discussed in Boundary of Borders, edited by Tadeusz Slawek. In most of the essays, the emphasis is on the differences they create. Scott Michaelsen and David Johnson s book -3- ethnic or national border. In contrast to border imagery, the thresholds I will discuss focus on the metaphors that are used to constitute the gap bet ween two concepts as a theoretical space of its own. The threshold both establishes a difference while it holds those differences together, revealing as it does the commonalities between them. For example, one of Celan s words for the threshold is meridian. A meridian is a great circle that circumscribes the earth, passing through both poles as it divides it into two hemispheres. But in the act of separating, it also joins the two halves together. In his speech upon receiving the Büchner literary prize, Celan finds in this threshold metaphor a means of reestablishing a connection to an audience that can share in his poetic work (GWIII 202). Although thresholds metaphors can be about transgressing boundaries and pushing the limits, they are also about lingering in-between them. A threshold delimits a this-side and a that-side but is not itself limited, because it is not a space in t he normal definition of the word. Rather, it becomes a u-topia that is neither inside nor outside, neither past nor future. A threshold therefore becomes a bridge between two extremes in which paradox and contradictions can coexist, at least momentarily. The threshold represents an open space open precisely because it is nothing but a boundary and exists not as a physical reality, but as a theoretical one. It is a dimension where the rules can be suspended, where contradictions can exist simultaneously without canceling each other out, where a writer is free to explore and experiment. Thresholds are particularly prominent in the works of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Paul Celan, and Peter Handke. Each explores this trope in ways that are both unique and part of a larger tradition of threshold imagery. The thresholds I explore in this dissertation fall into three Border Theory: the Limits of Cultural Politics also addresses a variety of political and ethnic/racial borders, especially as they relate to the U.S.-Mexico border and the representations of this space in the public dialogue. These references represent a sampling of the types of discussions surrounding borders and border crossing. An exhaustive survey of this topic is beyond the scope of this investigation. -4- general categories: thresholds of time, thresholds of space, and thresholds of language. The temporal thresholds take the form of sunsets, or the moment between waking and sleeping.
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