Marginal Culture, Hybridity and the Polish Challenge in Fontane's Effi Briest
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 2-2011 Justifying the Margins: Marginal Culture, Hybridity and the Polish Challenge in Fontane's Effi Briest Zorana Gluscevic University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the German Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Gluscevic, Zorana, "Justifying the Margins: Marginal Culture, Hybridity and the Polish Challenge in Fontane's Effi Briest" (2011). Open Access Dissertations. 335. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/335 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JUSTIFYING THE MARGINS: MARGINAL CULTURE, HYBRIDITY, AND THE POLISH CHALLENGE IN FONTANE’S EFFI BRIEST A Dissertation Presented by ZORANA GLUSCEVIC Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2011 German and Scandinavian Studies © Copyright by Zorana Gluscevic 2011 All Rights Reserved JUSTIFYING THE MARGINS: MARGINAL CULTURE, HYBRIDITY, AND THE POLISH CHALLENGE IN FONTANE’S EFFI BRIEST A Dissertation Presented By ZORANA GLUSCEVIC Approved as to style and content by: _________________________________________________ Sara Lennox, Chair _________________________________________________ Barton Byg, Member _________________________________________________ Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan, Member __________________________________________ Susan Cocalis, Department Head German and Scandinavian Studies DEDICATION To My Parents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to my advisor Sara Lennox for her many years of expertise, understanding, and patience. She provided me with direction and guidance that helped me to stay focused on this work and beat procrastination during the challenging period of my life and became more than a Doktormutter to me. I am grateful to the members of my committee for their support: Barton Byg for jumping on board at the right moment and to Radha -- Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan -- for being confident in my progress even when the end was nowhere in sight. My thanks also go out to my friends, near and far, especially to Jelisaveta and Dimitrije Prodanovic, Alice Russell, Dragana Perovic, Olivera Golijanin, Dimitri Oram, Catherine Donaghy and Peter Morales for the support they provided in encouraging me, sustaining me and putting up with my venting of frustration. My very special thanks go out to my companion for the past thirteen years, my dog Andy, for his devoted friendship and endless love. v ABSTRACT JUSTIFYING THE MARGINS: MARGINAL CULTURE, HYBRIDITY, AND THE POLISH CHALLENGE IN FONTANE'S EFFI BRIEST FEBRUARY 2011 ZORANA GLUSCEVIC, B.A. UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Sara Lennox This dissertation argues that the interpretive framework from which Fontane's Effi Briest is commonly approached limits discussion to metropolitan core culture and fails to address Fontane’s path-breaking accomplishment. After outlining limitations of some prominent approaches to Effi Briest in chapter one, my next four chapters explore alternative reading strategies that instead situate the novel in the imperial context of the new German state inflected by transnational relations and problematize the tendency to see Germany as a space territorially and culturally homogenized and stable. Chapter two reads the novel through Foucault’s notion of heterotopia to demonstrate Fontane’s heterotopic strategies as a counter-model to the monolithic mapping of novelistic space. In chapters three and four I use Bakhtin’s chronotopic strategies to show how Fontane “fuses together” fictional time and space into a productive force for depicting society in motion and change. I demonstrate how this “spatial turn” breaks with the traditional time- paradigm and opens up space for polyphony and dialogism. Chapter five discusses Fontane’s Wanderungen contrapuntally to draw attention to Fontane’s counter-strategies, vi which break with the master narrative in favor of small-scale ones, to show their relevance for Effi Briest. The rest of my dissertation focuses on the novel’s Eastern Pomeranian/Kessin-based chapters. Chapter six addresses the spatial arrangement of Hinterpommern from the viewpoint of the ruling elites. Chapter seven treats Kessin as a hybridized “third space” that both resists the dominant and represents an unstable and ambiguous alternative to paralyzing dichotomies of opposites. I also look into Hinterpommern as a contested space between Germans and Poles – and their competing claims over the Kasubians, inhabitants of the strategically important Baltic area. In chapter eight I show how the Polish margins impinge on Fontane’s fictional representation of Prussia and are articulated in both the content and structure of Effi Briest . In chapter nine I discuss Fontane’s representation of Polish/Slavic-hyphenated characters in terms of their different responses/resistance to anti-Slav/Polish prejudices and measures. In revealing the creative and transformative powers of margins this dissertation models alternative ways of approaching canonical writers and contributes to the transnationalization of German studies in particular and cultural studies in general. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I. UNDER WESTERN EYES: EFFI BRIEST AND THE LIMITS OF METROPOLITAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL THEORY .........................30 Lukács’ Turn and Fontane Reception ........................................................33 Some Mainstream Western Feminist Perspectives ....................................50 Liberal Humanism .....................................................................................65 II. DECOLONIZATION OF IMAGINATION: THINKING ABOUT SPACE THROUGH HETEROTOPIA ..............................................................................70 III. READING EFFI BRIEST THROUGH BAKHTIN’S CHRONOTOPE ...............98 IV. TOWARDS THE POLYPHONIC NOVEL ........................................................136 V. OVERLAPPING TERRITORIES AND INTERTWINED HISTORIES OR WHOSE HISTORY AND TERRITORY IS IT ANYWAY? .......................184 VI. IMAGINATION OF DOMINATION: SPACE AND NATIVE MARGINALIZATION ........................................................................................221 Hinterpommern .......................................................................................239 Poznan/Posen ..........................................................................................257 VII. JUSTIFYING THE MARGINS: KESSIN AND THE KASHUBIAN QUESTION..........................................................................................................268 Kessin .......................................................................................................271 Kashubian Question: From Bismarck’s Trusted Pomeranian Grenadiers to Polish Nationals.................................................................285 VIII. ÜBERMUT KOMMT VOR DEM FALL ...........................................................305 IX. POLAND - EIN WEITES FELD? AND THE CHALLENGE OF HYBRID SUBJECTIVITIES ..............................................................................346 viii Contesting the Finalizing Gaze on Others ...............................................358 Contesting the Finalizing Word on Others ..............................................372 Hybridity and Cultural Transformation ...................................................412 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................438 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................440 ix INTRODUCTION Ohne Vermögen, ohne Familienanhang, ohne Schulung und Wissen, ohne robuste Gesundheit bin ich ins Leben getreten, mit nichts ausgerüstet als einem poetischen Talent und einer schlechtsitzenden Hose. (Auf dem Knie immer Beutel). Theodor Fontane (Georg Friedlaender, 3.10.1893) Eine tapfere Modernität zeichnete Theodor Fontane aus. Thomas Mann, 1910 Given the fact that Theodor Fontane is today widely regarded as one of the most esteemed German novelists of the nineteenth century, or even the most important writer between Goethe and Thomas Mann (Chambers 1995: vii), 1 it is ironic that during his lifetime he was better known as a Prussian patriotic poet, journalist, historian and the author of local travelogues rather than a novelist. Theodor Fontane (1819-98) turned to the novel late in life, and his reputation and fame were slow in developing. Eventually he achieved posthumous acclaim as the first German novelist of social realism of European stature. Fontane’s reputation began to grow steadily after World War II, and his popularity