Irmgard Keun As Heiress to the Flaneur."

Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2006-03-22 Irgendwo muss man doch einmal hingehoeren': Irmgard Keun as Heiress to the Flaneur." Matthew D. Embley Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the German Language and Literature Commons, and the Slavic Languages and Societies Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Embley, Matthew D., "Irgendwo muss man doch einmal hingehoeren': Irmgard Keun as Heiress to the Flaneur."" (2006). Theses and Dissertations. 380. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/380 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. “IRGENDWO MUSS MAN DOCH EINMAL HINGEHOEREN” IRMGARD KEUN AS HEIRESS TO THE FLANEUR by Matthew D. Embley A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in German Literature Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages Brigham Young University April 2006 BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY GRADUATE COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a thesis submitted by Matthew D. Embley This thesis has been read by each member of the following graduate committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. ______________________________ ______________________________ Date Robert B. McFarland ______________________________ ______________________________ Date Cindy P. Brewer ______________________________ ______________________________ Date Michelle S. James BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY As chair of the candidate’s graduate committee, I have read the thesis by Matthew D. Embley in its final form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographic style are consistent and acceptable and fulfill university and department style requirements; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the graduate committee and is ready for submission to the university library. ______________________________ ______________________________ Date Robert B. McFarland, Chair Accepted for the Department ______________________________ Alan F. Keele Graduate Coordinator Accepted for the College ______________________________ John Rosenberg Dean, College of Humanities ABSTRACT “IRGENDWO MUSS MAN DOCH EINMAL HINGEHOEREN” IRMGARD KEUN AS HEIRESS TO THE FLANEUR Matthew D. Embley Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages Masters of Arts in German Literature Flanerie is the art of taking a walk, leisurely observing the movements and spaces of the city. By writing about cityscapes, urban realms, and the condition of society, flaneurs are able to describe the uniqueness of the metropolis and give life to the modern city—creating a photograph of an urban setting. In the early nineteenth century, and even today, flaneur literature has been ultimately dominated by men who have documented their cultural and aesthetic interactions with the city. During these times, unwritten rules have often excluded the female from participating in parts of the urban society. Today, these unwritten rules are still apparent as many park signs warn us to stay out of secluded areas after dark—implying the possibility of danger for women, but no necessarily for men. The controversy over the existence of the flaneuse or female flaneur has been the corner stone of many recent debates as a large body of scholarship has claimed that women have had no part in the art of flanerie. The questions still remain: was it possible for women to promenade in the streets of a male-dominated society and is it possible that female flaneur literature even exists? My answer to these questions is yes. Although the public sphere was dominated by the male figure as they confined women to the private realm of the home, there were notable women who proved to be exceptions to these rules. Recently, scholars have uncovered an array of female authors that have written in the art of flanerie. Irmgard Keun was one of the prominent exceptions who wrote many texts that are potentially important as cultural and historical documents of the time period in which she lived. In this thesis, I will investigate Keun’s first two novels, Gilig—eine von uns and Das kunstseidene Madchen, as well as a few of her lesser known feuilletons that have scarcely been observed or considered as essential links to the rare works of the female flaneur. I will first discuss the problems of the flaneuse—being subjected to gender- stratified societies, being seen as a prostitute, and being confined to the private realm of the home. I will then argue several aspects of Keun’s novels and feuilletons that are necessary to understand the practices of the modern flaneur and, more importantly, to liberate the controversial figure of the flaneuse. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introductions: Page 1 Irmgard Keun and the Flaneur Chapter One: Page 5 “Männer dürfen und Frauen dürfen nicht”: Revealing the Secrets behind the Private Woman in the Public Sphere. Chapter Two: Page 21 “Gut kann ich kurze Sachen nie Schreiben. Ich kann nur Romane:” Re-investigating and Restoring Keun’s Weimar Novels as Models of Flanerie. Chapter Three: Page 46 Windows of Curiosity and Streets of Desire: Reading the City, Writing the Feuilleton, Pursuing the Flaneur. Conclusion: Page 67 The Flaneuse Irmgard Keun and Suggestions for Further Research Works Consulted: Page 71 Appendix: Page 77 A Collection of Keun’s Feuilletons used in this Thesis vi Introduction Ich bin in Berlin. Seit ein paar Tagen. Mit einer Nachtfahrt und noch neunzig Mark übrig. Damit muss ich leben, bis sich mir Geldquellen bieten. Ich habe Maßloses erlebt, Berlin senkte sich auf mich wie eine Steppdecke mit feurigen Blumen. Der Westen ist vornehm mit hochprozentigem Licht—wie fabelhafte Steine ganz teuer und mit so gestempelter Einfassung. Wir haben hier ganz übermäßige Lichtreklame. Um mich war ein Gefunkel. Und ich mit dem Feh. (Keun, 39) After announcing her arrival in Berlin, Doris searches to find a way to describe her initial experience with the metropolis, but is only capable of using fragments, images, and metaphors. She is unable to speak cohesively or expound on her observation. But why is this the case? Why does she struggle to fully develop this description? For Doris, the main protagonist in Irmgard Keun’s (1905-1982) 1932 novel, Das kunstseidene Mädchen, the metropolis and its urban landscape are immeasurable and beyond normal dimensions. To comprehend the pace and rhythm of the city, Doris turns to these fragments and metaphors to deal with comprehending so much in just a short time. It is through these short, fragmented glimpses that she tries to keep up with the movement of the city and find herself among the crowds that she encounters. Doris continues: Und schicke Männer wie Mädchenhändler, ohne dass sie gerade mit Mädchen handeln, was es ja nicht mehr gibt—aber sie sehen danach aus, weil sie tun würden, wenn was bei rauskäme. Sehr viel glänzende schwarze Haare und Nachtaugen so tief im Kopf. Aufregend. Auf dem Kurfürstendamm sind viele Frauen. Die gehen nur. Sie haben gleiche Gesichter und viel Maulwurfpelz—also nicht ganz erste Klasse—aber doch schick—so mit hochmütigen Beinen und viel Hauch um sich. Es 1 gibt eine Untergrundbahn, die ist wie ein beleuchteter Sarg auf Schienen—unter der Erde und muffig, und man wird gequetscht. Damit fahre ich. Es ist sehr interessant und geht schnell (39). As Doris enters the metropolis of Berlin, she is bombarded with multiple stimuli—lights, advertisements, men and women, and exciting and curious innovations—and she tries to depict these spectacles and describe the feelings that arise within her as quickly as she experiences them. As she observes the expanse of the metropolis and the fleeting images of modernity, Doris tries to capture them in words. She needs to describe as quickly as she observes, from moment to moment and from glimpse to glimpse. Not only is Keun using Doris to describe the streets and the city, but she is also using the city itself as an aesthetic medium for her literature. As Doris is driven by the spectacles of the streets and fleeting images of the modern metropolis, she tries to capture its kaleidoscopic images and put them into words. What Doris is doing with this description and throughout her experience in Berlin is exactly what Charles Baudelaire describes as the pursuit of the flaneur.1 He says: The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flaneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of 1 For the purposes of this thesis, I will be using mainly Baudelaire’s definition of the flaneur. For further discussion of the definition of the flaneur, see Neumeyer, Harald. Der Flaneur. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1999, Köhn, Eckhardt. Straßenrausch: Flanerie und Kleine Form. Versuch zur Literaturgeschichte des Flaneurs von 1830-1933. Berlin: Das Arsenal, 1989, Tester, Kieth. The Flaneur. New York: Routledge, 1994, Benjamin, Walter. “Das dämonische Berlin” in Nachträge. Gesammelte Schriften VII Teil I. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1992, and “Die Wiederkehr des Flaneurs” in Gesammelte Schriften III. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1981, and Gleber, Anke. The Art of Taking a Walk: Flanerie, Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999. 2 the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—such are a few of the slightest pleasures of those independent, passionate, impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define.

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