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From the „Death of Literature‟ to the „New Subjectivity‟: Examining the Interaction of Utopia and Nostalgia in Peter Schneider‟ S Lenz, Hans

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From the „Death of Literature‟ to the „New Subjectivity‟: Examining the Interaction of Utopia and Nostalgia in Peter Schneider‟ S Lenz, Hans FROM THE „DEATH OF LITERATURE‟ TO THE „NEW SUBJECTIVITY‟: EXAMINING THE INTERACTION OF UTOPIA AND NOSTALGIA IN PETER SCHNEIDER‟S LENZ, HANS MAGNUS ENZENSBERGER‟S DER KURZE SOMMER DER ANARCHIE, AND BERNWARD VESPER‟S DIE REISE Thomas J.A. Krüger Department of German Studies McGill University, Montreal August, 2008 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Thomas J.A. Krüger, 2008 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 3 Résumé 5 Acknowledgements 7 Introduction: Framing a Historical and Methodological Context 8 Chapter One: Peter Schneider‘s Lenz and the Narrative of the Road as Utopian-Nostalgic Space 65 Chapter Two: Documenting History: Hans Magnus Enzensberger‘s Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie 125 Chapter Three: Bernward Vesper‘s Die Reise and the Rebellion of Subjectivity 187 Conclusion 253 Selected Bibliography 259 2 ABSTRACT This project seeks to clarify the complex interrelation of utopia and nostalgia in post World War II German literature, as the nineteen sixties student protest movement develops into what has become known as the ‗New Subjectivity‘ of the nineteen seventies. The introductory chapter frames the historical context of this development, problematizing the idea of ‗1968‘ as its climax or turning point, while establishing the interrelationship of the concepts of utopia and nostalgia as the principal methodological and interpretative foil for the literary readings that follow. In three subsequent chapters I propose close readings of this theme in Peter Schneider‘s Lenz (1973), Hans Magnus Enzensberger‘s Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie (1972), and Berward Vesper‘s Die Reise (1977). These, I argue, texts demonstrate a trajectory of utopian thinking toward nostalgic reflection that exposes a dialectical tension between utopia and nostalgia. Through their literary texts as well as their essays in one another‘s periodical publications, such as the Voltaire Flugschriften and Kursbuch, the three authors address this tension as a common experience of the transitional period between the sixties student protest movement and the dawn of the ‗New Subjectivity‘ of the seventies. I read Lenz as road narrative that mobilizes the metaphor of the road as the locus of the utopia- nostalgia dynamic; the road is a transitional space that embodies the uncertainty of the post-revolutionary moment when reflective nostalgia seems to replace the disillusioned utopia. Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie engages the literary 3 discourses of utopia and nostalgia via the documentary form, after its pre-1968 heyday, confronting nostalgia as a return to and a yearning for the forgotten history of the utopian revolutionary movement of the Spanish Civil War. In my final chapter, a reading of Die Reise, I argue that Vesper‘s vast, autobiographically inspired ‗novel-essay‘ testifies to a profoundly nostalgic impulse always-already present in the utopian project of the left, thus begetting a new form of ‗subjective‘ rebellion that informs his text as a constant process of (literary) resistance. This model of rebellion resonates with my more general theoretical framing of the dynamic of utopia and nostalgia as a ‗dialectical‘ process wherein neither notion supplants the other, but rather – as with Adorno and Horkheimer‘s dialectic of enlightenment – ceaselessly engender one another. 4 RÉSUMÉ Ce travail se propose de clarifier l‘interrelation complexe entre utopie et nostalgie dans la littérature allemande d‘après-guerre, lorsque le mouvement estudiantin de protestation des années soixante se transmue en ce qu‘on nommera la ‗nouvelle subjectivité‘ des années soixante-dix. Notre introduction reconstruit le contexte historique de ce développement, contestant la notion que ‗1968‘ en constitue le sommet ou la péripétie, et présente l‘interrelation des concepts d‘utopie et de nostalgie comme cadre à la fois méthodologique et interprétatif des lectures littéraires qui suivent. Au cours des trois chapitres suivants, nous proposons des lectures détaillées de ce thème chez Peter Schneider (Lenz, 1973), Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie, 1972) et Bernward Vesper (Die Reise, 1977). Ces trois textes dessinent une trajectoire de la pensée utopiste vers une réflexion nostalgique, exposant ainsi la tension dialectique entre utopie et nostalgie. A travers leur production littéraire ainsi que les essais publiés dans leurs revues respectives, telles Voltaire Flugschriften et Kursbuch, les trois auteurs en question traitent et thématisent cette tension en tant qu‘expérience collective de la période transitoire entre le mouvement contestataire des années soixante et l‘aube de la ‗nouvelle subjectivité‘ des années soixante-dix. Nous proposons d‘abord une lecture de Lenz en termes de récit de la ‗grande route‘ (road narrative), mobilisant la métaphore de la route comme lieu de la dynamique utopie-nostalgie ; la route est un espace transitoire incarnant l‘incertitude de la 5 période postrévolutionnaire où la réflexion nostalgique semble remplacer l‘utopie désabusée. Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie déploie à son tour des discours utopiques et nostalgiques à travers le genre documentaire, bien après sa grande période d‘avant ‘68, et aborde la nostalgie en tant que retour ou aspiration à l‘histoire oubliée du mouvement révolutionnaire utopique de la guerre civile espagnole. Notre dernier chapitre, une lecture de Die Reise, propose que le grand roman-essai d‘inspiration autobiographique de Vesper témoigne d‘une pulsion profondément nostalgique toujours-déjà présente au sein du projet utopique de la gauche allemande, engendrant ainsi une nouvelle forme de révolte ‗subjective‘, laquelle travaille son texte sous forme de procès constant de résistance (littéraire). Ce modèle de la révolte renforce nos propos théoriques plus généraux, selon lesquels la dynamique entre utopie et nostalgie se réinscrit comme processus ‗dialectique‘ où aucune des deux ne subvertit l‘autre, mais où – suivant la dialectique des ‗Lumières‘ chez Adorno et Horkheimer – elles s‘engendrent perpétuellement l‘une l‘autre. 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like, first, to thank the department of German Studies at McGill University. The support I have received from faculty members and my graduate student colleagues has been a great motivator for the critical reflection on and execution of this project. Secondly, I must express my deep appreciation to the German Foreign Academic Exchange Service, the DAAD, who granted me their doctoral research fellowship, held in Berlin in 2006. Without this support I would not have been able to conduct the archival research so key to my study. Moreover, the experience of working in several different archives and interacting with scholars in Germany working in the same field was invaluable. Next, my thanks to the Faculty of Arts at McGill University for granting me the Arts Insights dissertation completion award, which provided me with the means and motivation to complete my thesis project in a timely fashion. I must also thank my parents, siblings and friends outside McGill for their constant and unwaivering support; they heard much about this project and often compelled me to think more constructively about it. Finally, my greatest and sincerest thanks to Karin Bauer, my supervisor. Her patience, critical eye and formidable intellect were indispensable as we forged this project. 7 INTRODUCTION Framing a Historical and Methodological Context This project eplores the interrelation utopia and nostalgia during the transitional period in post World War II German literature, which saw the nineteen sixties student protest movement develop into what became known as the ‗New Subjectivity‘ of the nineteen seventies. At the heart of this study are close readings of Peter Schneider‘s Lenz (1973), Hans Magnus Enzensberger‘s Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie (1972), and Bernward Vesper‘s Die Reise (1977), for these text elicit a new understanding of the development, demonstrating that utopia and nostalgia have always been in constant ‗dialectical‘ tension. It is the task of this introduction to frame the historical and methodological context within which this dialectic becomes apparent, questioning the accepted readings of literary history that cast ‗1968‘ as a narrative climax followed by a period of pure disillusionment. While there was clearly a progressive political movement that drove utopian yearning during the sixties, and was sobered by the failure of the anticipated revolution, closer examination of literary production from the transitional period shows how putatively subjective – and thus anti-utopian – nostalgia has always been present in the utopian concept. Moreover, nostalgia has itself always had a strong utopian component. It is this tension and the stakes in literature which this project attempts to clarify. 8 The focus in the present chapter is on the years roughly spanning from the Grand Coalition government of 1966-69 to the mid nineteen seventies, the pre- dawn of the ‗German Autumn‘ (Deutscher Herbst) of 1977, i.e., the peak of left- wing terrorism and the deaths of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe in the Stuttgart-Stammheim prison. While a discussion of terrorism and the ‗German Autumn‘ falls outside the scope of this project, this chapter discusses some of the same key issues of the time that drove the West German left-wing terrorists. The passage of the very controversial Emergency Laws (Notstandsgesetze) in May 1968, and the passage of the criminal code (StGB) paragraph
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