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University of Bath PHD Literature as a form of social communication: literary theory and literary practice in the GDR in the Honecker era Grant, C. B. Award date: 1993 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 UNIVERSITY OF BATH School of Modern Languages and International Studies LITERATURE AS A FORM OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATION: LITERARY THEORY AND LITERARY PRACTICE IN THE GDR IN THE HONECKER ERA submitted by C.B. Grant for the degree of PhD at the University of Bath 1993 COPYRIGHT Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with its author. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation. Colin B. Grant UMI Number: U049951 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. Dissertation Publishing UMI U049951 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 BfaV£tJ5slY Cf'BATH uswbv >4 24 SEP 1993 ZEZSL Summary This doctoral thesis sets out to analyse literature as a form of social communication by considering developments in literary theory and practice in the German Democratic Republic in the Honecker era. Attention focuses specifically on the changes in the relationship between the discourses of literary theory and literary practice on the one hand and the discourse of political authority on the other. To this end, key developments in the 1970s in literary practice and in literary theory are carefully examined as the point of departure for a new definition of literary communication in society. The study then contrasts idealised views of social communication with practice and theory in the late 1970s and 1980s; in clear trends in both spheres communication was perceived as being increasingly problematic and conflictual. This rupture in communication between literature and reception, between literature and political authority and in literature itself became more salient in the 1980s as its forms and themes radically challenged the mounting stagnation of the discourse of political power. These conflicts are illustrated and discussed with the aid of detailed analyses of key literary texts and previously unpublished interviews with leading theorists. Ill Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to the following people who made significant contributions to the successful completion of this doctoral thesis: Professor Robert Weimann, formerly Vice-President of the Akademie der Kiinste in East Berlin, Professors Manfred Naumann and Dieter Schlenstedt, formerly of the Zentralinstitut fur Literaturgeschichte in East Berlin and the writers Volker Braun and Brigitte Burmeister. I wish also to thank Dr Ian Mason, Head of the Department of Languages at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, for his support of my research during my lectureship in that department and the British Council for a six- month research scholarship which enabled me to work at the Humboldt University and the Zentralinstitut fur Literaturgeschichte in East Berlin in 1990. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Ian Wallace, for his unfailing support of all my endeavours and his exemplary supervision of my thesis in the course of the last four and a half years. Colin B. Grant, Edinburgh 1993 For Emmi and Anna V Table of Contents Copyright declaration i Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Dedication iv Table of Contents v-vi Foreword 1-7 Section 1 Literature as communication in theory and practice in the late 1960s and 1970s 1.1 Introduction to the relationship between literature and political authority in the post-war period 8-15 1.2 Changes in aesthetic theory and literary practice in the late 1960s 16-31 1.3 Theories of literary reception 32-58 1.4 Analyses of literary impact: Dieter Schlenstedt1s Wirkungsasthetische Analysen 59-70 1.5 Literature as communication in poetological essays and prose in the early 1970s 71-87 Section 1 Notes 88-101 Section 2 The rupturing in literary communication from the mid-1970s to the 1980s 2.1 Causes and consequences of the crisis between writers and political authority 102-130 2.2 Literary theory, criticism and the rupturing of communication in literature 131-156 Section 2 Notes 157-167 Section 3 Reading challenged in prose literary practice in the 1980s 3.1 Volker Braun: Hinze-Kunze-Roman 168-190 3.2 Brigitte Burmeister: Anders oder vom Aufenthalt in der Fremde 191-205 vi 3.3 The poetics of Gert Neumann: Die Schuld der Worte, Die Klandestinitat der Kesselreiniger, Ubungen jenseits der Moglichkeit 206-222 Section 3 Notes 223-232 Section 4 The radical differentiation of literary discourses and the crisis of communication in the late 1980s 233-256 Section 4 Notes 257-260 Conclusion 261-264 Appendices Reception theory, conflict and consensus: interviews with theorists Appendix 1 Interview mit Dieter Schlenstedt 265-301 Appendix 2 Interview mit Manfred Naumann 302-318 Appendix 3 Interview mit Robert Weimann 319-336 Bibliography 337-371 1 Foreword Many of the programmes and statements released by the citizens groups in late 1989/ early 1990 referred to the need to overcome the crisis of communication which had characterised relations between the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and the population. (1) New groups such as New Forum, Democratic Awakening and Democracy Now sought to replace the diktat of the State with a public dialogue in which the full range of social problems could be openly discussed. Increasingly in the wake of the democratic transformations in the Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary the SED leadership under its General Secretary Erich Honecker had demarcated itself from a reform process it considered unnecessary. It is no coincidence that the citizens groups during the democratic upheavals in the GDR emphasised the urgent need for a genuine public realm (Offentlichkeit) in which discussion and dialogue could take place. The language of the State- the expression of political authority and power- had long issued bold proclamations about the successes of "real existing socialism" which grew further removed from the realities and difficulties of everyday life. Since the public realm was subject to strict control (in the form of press and artistic censorship and proscription of independent political association or expression) any dialogue beyond these controls was forced to find alternative channels. The first Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany in (East) Berlin, Gunter Gaus, described GDR society as a 2 "Nischengesellschaft" (2): the niches were the private sphere into which people retired to conduct their real lives: "Die Nischen-Offentlichkeiten waren der Ort, an dem die offentliche Verlogenheit durchbrochen und die Krise thematisiert wurde. Dort auch wurden erste Alternativen entwickelt."(3) The fora for highly regulated discussion included the protestant church (under whose auspices many critics and opponents of the SED leadership sought refuge) and literature. In the initial phase of the democratic process in the GDR intellectuals and, more specifically, writers played a prominent role in appealing for openness and a revitalised socialism. (4) However, the public statements of renowned writers such as Stefan Heym, Christa Wolf and Heiner Muller did not represent the sudden expression of long- suppressed criticism; rather, trends within literature had for many years been exploring the possibilities, utopias and failures of GDR society. Indeed, an important trend in literature employed increasingly radical forms from the late 1970s onwards; in effect, they were articulating an intensifying crisis of language and society under "real existing socialism1’: the discourse of political power (invested in the SED) operated and controlled with certain "procedures of exclusion" (5) in the same way that other orthodox discourses excommunicated the heretical and the insane. In state socialism, the orthodox discourse of political power "excluded" direct and public criticism while carefully filtering through indirect criticism in literature- albeit after protracted 3 negotiation with the authorities and the imposition of limited print runs, for example. In his famous philologist’s notebook LTI (Lingua Tertii Imperii or Sprache des Dritten Reichs) Victor Klemperer described the language of the Third Reich as "eine Sprache des Glaubens...da sie auf Fanatismus abzielt”(6).