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Why Money Talks: a Study of Changing Notions of Money and Language In Why Money Talks: A Study of Changing Notions of Money and Language in Selected Works of German Literature from F ortttnattts to Diirrenmatt’s P e r B estjch p e r AT TEN DAMK PhD Thesis Regina Angela Wenzel University College London 1999 ProQuest Number: 10010361 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10010361 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract This project is concerned with the multiple relations between money and language, e.g. abstraction, arbitrary assignment of meaning, ready negotiability and exchangeability, and the way these issues are reflected and reflected upon in some key works of German literature. As mankind went through several transitions from the early modern period to post-modernity, the changes in world view profoundly affected the conceptions of money and language and their importance to human beings as modes of encoding and understanding their world. This thesis seeks to demonstrate how these changing notions are explored in the literature of the times, affecting not only plots and characters, but also impinging on the very language of the texts themselves. By adopting money and language, their interrelation and characteristics as a prism through which to approach literary works, it is argued that these factors are endemic to our nature as social beings, and to the historicity of that nature. The literary investigation covers Fortunatus, DU Ulenspiegel, Nathan der Weise, Kabale and Liebe, Peter Schlemihl, Faust II, Soil und Haben, Der griine Heinrich, Buddenbrooks. Von morgens bis mitternachts andDer Besuch der alten Dame in the light of the contemporary world view and man’s role within it, socio-economic developments, monetary practice, and linguistic changes as well as linguistic reflections. This means that each chapter provides a detailed and complex analysis of relevant stylistic techniques and modes of expression; the importance of money and its portrayal for the plot as well as for the characters and the society portrayed; and the way in which these issues are reflected in the language and language usage of the texts. In historical terms, the project thus moves from the stable view of wealth and the couesponding belief in language as signifying what it names, to the present day, where money has forfeited substance and language has become an arbitrary discourse, and where the two are governed in our consumer world by a shared enterprise of semiotics. Contents Page Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 4 Foreword 5 Chapter One: Introduction:Money and Language Chapter Two: Fortunatus andTill Eulenspiegel 31 Chapter Three: Nathan der Weise andKabale und Liebe 72 Chapter Four: Faust II 123 Chapter Five: Der griine Heinrich 173 Excursus: From Romanticism to Naturalism 224 Chapter Six: Von morgens bis mitternachts andDer Besuch der alten Dame 241 Conclusion 292 Bibliography 297 A cknowledgements Naturally, I am indebted to a great many people: friends, family and many an academic; and, of course, to the British Academy, who kindly agreed to pay my fees. But thanks are due, first and foremost, to my supervisor, Professor Martin Swales, who not only proved himself to be an invaluable source of wisdom, but also of patience, support and encouragement, and whose humour and humanity, coupled with great enthusiasm for this project, immensely aided my work and helped me through difficult times. I am grateful too to Professor Paul Oppenheimer, not only for his expert advice, but also for his support and many a kind word. I would also like to thank Sue Jones and Heidi Berry for their friendship, patient ears and the way Jobs landed on my desk when they were most needed. I am, of course, very thankful to the whole of my family for their encouragement and sustained interest in a piece of work most of them are unable to read; and who never seemed to mind the fact that I have been a perennial drain on their resources. And last, but not least, thanks go to James Vickers who, for most of this project, provided a shoulder to moan on. Foreword Money and language are something specifically human: man has been called both the articulate and the exchanging mammal. This thesis is concerned with the multiple relations between money and language, e.g. abstraction, arbitrary assignment of meaning, ready negotiability and exchangeability, and the way these issues are reflected and reflected upon in some key works of German literature. As mankind went through several transitions from the early modern period to post-modernity, the changes in world view profoundly affected the conceptions of money and language and their importance to human beings as modes of encoding and understanding their world. This thesis seeks to demonstrate how these changing notions are explored in the literature of the times, affecting not only plots and characters, but also impinging on the very language of the texts themselves. By adopting money and language, their interrelation and characteristics as a prism through which to approach literary works, I hope to show that these factors are endemic to our nature as social beings, and to the historicity of that nature. However, this thesis makes no claim whatsoever to provide an exhaustive overview of all the texts that deal with the issues raised here. Rather, I have confined myself to the detailed analysis of a small corpus of texts. It is my hope that the analyses themselves serve to demonstrate the interpretative centrality of the issues under discussion; and that the texts interlock to form a kind of historical narrative. Moreover, it is interesting to note that of the texts discussed, four (Fortunatus, Peter Schlemihl, Von morgens bis mitternachts, andDer Besuch der alten Dame) conform to a basic pattern: the sudden acquisition of enormous wealth, or the promise thereof. Within the texts, this allows for a detailed examination and portrayal of the power and influence money exerts on society: money emerges as the means to put society, its values and structures, to the test. I am interested in the changes in the human perception and understanding of the substance and purpose of money and in the changes in the understanding of the essence and purpose of language that took place over the past 400 years. This thesis sets out to be not only a literaiy investigation, but also attempts to highlight parallels between the changes in the mode of human thinking, their reflection in money and language, and, in turn, in the literature of the times. Hence, this thesis treats the literary works it discusses as representative and exemplary of the respective periods, identifying them as moments where the issues at stake are particularly resonant. Although the literary investigation stops with Dürrenmatt’sDer Besuch der alten Dame (the first version of the text dates back to 1956), there are some general remarks about current monetary practice which are not discussed in relation to a more recent work of German literature, but serve to highlight the developments in finance within the broader framework of my argument. Chapter One: Introduction Money and Laneuaee The multiple relations between money and language have been an object of intense investigation and speculation over centuries,' not least because they are regarded as being inseparable from our nature as human beings: man has been called the articulate as well as the exchanging mammal. The secondary literature on both subjects is extensive; and I shall in the following concentrate on those arguments which bring the two phenomena into reciprocal interrelation. The succeeding chapters will focus on the textual dimension of this intersection. In this introductory chapter I will, then, review a set of generally acknowledged issues about the phenomena of money and language, their interrelation and development, and how these change through the centuries. The way in which this finds reflection in some key literary works of German literature is the theme of the ensuing chapters. So what is money? It is not only Mr Dombey in Dickens’sDombey and Son who finds this question hard to answer: definitions of what money is may well be as numerous as its users. This, however, lies at the root of money’s all-pervasive role in human life, as we shall see. First of all, at the most basic level of definition, money is a medium of exchange. Yet the step a society makes in moving from a barter economy to a money- based one is considerable, it denotes a willingness on the part of the participants to accept a basically useless substance - money cannot be eaten, or worn, or lived in - in exchange for life’s essentials. It necessitates the ability to abstract as well as a social consensus. ‘See, for example, M. Shell’s The Economy of Literature, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1978, and hisMoney, Language and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. since to sell for money would be a foolish exercise if money could not be reconverted, without loss of value, into something else. This also requires a third authority who will guarantee the value of the currency and provide real goods to spend the money on.
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