Open Ipek Kismet Bell Dissertation.Pdf

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Open Ipek Kismet Bell Dissertation.Pdf The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts RAMPANT MODERNISM AND ITS CITYSCAPES: ALFRED DÖBLIN’S BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, ROBERT MUSIL’S DER MANN OHNE EIGENSCHAFTEN, AHMET HAMDİ TANPINAR’S SAATLERİ AYARLAMA ENSTİTÜSÜ A Dissertation in Comparative Literature by İpek Kısmet Bell © 2011 İpek Kısmet Bell Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2011 ii The dissertation of İpek Kısmet Bell was reviewed and approved* by the following: Djelal Kadir Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Comparative Literature Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Nergis Ertürk Lennon Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Martina Kolb Assistant Professor of German and Comparative Literature Daniel Purdy Associate Professor of German Alan Sica Professor of Sociology Caroline D. Eckhardt Professor of Comparative Literature and English Head of the Department of Comparative Literature Director of the School of Languages and Literatures *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii Abstract This study investigates the nature of literary Modernism and social modernity through three modernist novels that represent analogous historical ruptures and conditions in early twentieth-century Vienna, Berlin, and Istanbul. Focusing on Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1930, 1932, 1943) by Robert Musil, Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) by Alfred Döblin, and Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü (1954, 1961) by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, I engage in a comparative study of socio-historical and cultural symptoms, manifestations, and consequences of Austrian, German, and Turkish modernisms as dramatized in these novels. As a whole, this project seeks to contribute to the critical study of Modernism and modernity in general, and to the study of alternative Modernisms and modernities in particular. The city is often a stage for modernization as manifested in literary Modernism. Each of these novels dramatizes modern(izing) life in the authors’ respective cities. Each chapter of this study explores one of various specificities of modernity in each city (Vienna, Berlin, Istanbul)—and, metonymically, each culture—as they are translated into/by the narrative of these modernist authors. I read the modern city in terms of its inherent contradictions and as analogous to Modernism, with its concomitant paradoxes and ironies, where I define irony in its modernist iterations as a simultaneously anarchic, subversive, and constructive mode of philosophico-critical self-reflection. Musil, Döblin, and Tanpınar create out of this trinity—the city, modernity, irony—these novels as allegories of Modernism and as sites of ironic self-reflection. Furthermore, the problematic relationship between modernity and religion as it plays out in the urban iv settings of these novels portrays religion as yet another dysfunctional institution of modernity. This comparative study brings together three authors and three novels which have not been read side by side before, and thereby contributes to the growing recognition of multiple modernities. v Table of Contents Abstract...............................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................vi Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 I. The Temporal City: Time as Experience and Experienced Time……………………..12 II. The Ironic City: Modernity and Its Ironies…………………………………………...63 III. The City of God: A Modernist Contretemps……………………………………….118 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...180 Bibliography...………………………………………………………………………….184 vi Acknowledgments I am grateful beyond words for the selfless support, guidance, and dedication of my dissertation advisor, Professor Djelal Kadir. Having worked under his tutelage will forever be one of the most valuable privileges of my life. I would like to thank my committee members, Professors Nergis Ertürk Lennon, Martina Kolb, Daniel Purdy, and Alan Sica, for their insightful comments and suggestions. My appreciation goes to Professor Caroline Eckhardt, head of the Department of Comparative Literature, and Professor Richard Page, head of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, for the wonderful teaching opportunities they provided. I would also like to give special thanks to Professor Thomas Beebee for his genuine care and for his willingness to help me professionally. The office staff in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures have gone above and beyond in helping me whenever I needed assistance. I am indebted to them for making my life as a graduate student much easier. I will always remember them for their generosity and helpfulness, and for the wonderful people that they are. My thanks go to Irene Grassi, Lynn Setzler, Bonnie Rossman, Jamie Frazell, Mona Muzzio, Sharon Laskowsky, and JoElle DeVinney. I have been blessed with the friendship, love and support of a group of very special people who have provided me with much needed personal and academic guidance during my years as a graduate student. My undying gratitude goes to Selin Akpınar, Yuka Amano, Narjis Benjelloun, Ziad Bentahar, Riadh Bounatirou, Professor Juana Celia Djelal, Jessica Humeniuk, Mariano Humeniuk, Alida Kamer, Ayşe Kaya, Aslı vii Leblebicioğlu, Rhett McNeil, Yasemin Mohammad, Kim Nguyen, Luz Kirschner, Nicole Sparling, María Luján Tubio, and Wilbur Wadlington. I am immeasurably grateful to my parents, Nilgün and Mehmet Kısmet, and my brother, Eren Kısmet, for the unwavering support and endless love they have given me. Sizi çok seviyorum! Most significantly, I would like to thank my beloved husband Jameson Kısmet Bell for his kind patience and undying support, and for motivating me and inspiring me when I needed it most. Seni seviyorum canım! Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my grandparents, Süheylâ and Nihat Karaveli, and Güzin and Fethi Kısmet. The love and prayers they sent me from thousands of miles away gave me the strength to finish this project. I love them deeply. 1 Introduction Modernity as a discourse “interrogates the present” (Gaonkar 14) and travels through geographies, taking with it social practices, cultural forms, and institutions. This movement is referred to as modernization. As such, there might be as many modernities as there are epochs and geographies in human history. In order to exist throughout human history, modernity has identified itself with change and progress. While the societal/industrial aspect of this perpetual change is identified as modernization, its aesthetic manifestation is identified as Modernism. At the site where modernity and modernization converge, Modernism emerges as a new consciousness that reflects, often in a paradoxical manner, the phenomena that result from this convergence. Modernism is a state of consciousness able to see all around it, into the past, the present, and the future, all the while focusing on itself. It is a constant “just now” and a critical construct whose shape and color are never in clear focus precisely because it consists of myriad contesting practices, styles, and theories. The modern tradition, then, is one of fragmentation and rupture caused by the flux of change, progress, and Modernism’s identifying desideratum—the new. It is a tradition that perpetuates itself by constantly negating and reasserting itself, hence Peter Bürger’s observation throughout The Decline of Modernism that modernity is defined by contradictions. The contradictions of modernity are inevitably felt in the day-to-day experiences of individuals, especially, and almost exclusively, in those of the fin de siècle urbanite. As Lewis Mumford writes, “[t]he cities of the nineteenth century embodied with utmost fidelity all the confusions and contradictions of the period of transition” (144). He adds that “[t]hose centers in which the new energies and the new discipline of society were 2 most completely focused showed the greatest departures from the best norms: between 1820 and 1900 the chaos of the great cities is like that of a battlefield, proportionate to the very extent of their equipment and the strength of the forces employed” (144). The early- twentieth-century modern city, then, becomes not only the locus of modernity, but also the setting for the dramatization of modernity and its inherent paradoxes in modernist novels. The present study explores different manifestations of modernity in three imperial cities, Vienna, Berlin, and Istanbul, as they are narrated in the novels of three modernist authors whose different cultural and social backgrounds have converged at crucial historical junctures. I read Austrian writer Robert Musil’s (1880-1942) Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1930, 1932, 1943) [The Man Without Qualities (1953, 1955, 1960)], German writer Alfred Döblin’s (1878-1957) Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) [Berlin Alexanderplatz (1931)] and Turkish author Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s (1901-1962) Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü (1954, 1961) [The Time Regulation Institute (2001)] as narrative instantiations—in the stylistic and contextual specificities of their respective authors—of modernity’s inalienable ruptures, crises, and contradictions which are most poignantly experienced in the modern city. Within a broader framework, this study traces modernity’s—and
Recommended publications
  • History 600: Weimar Culture and the Rise of Nazism Fall 2015, Humanities 5245, T 1:20-3:15 Instructor: Prof
    History 600: Weimar Culture and the Rise of Nazism Fall 2015, Humanities 5245, T 1:20-3:15 Instructor: Prof. Koshar ([email protected]) Department Website: http://history.wisc.edu/faculty_rk.htm Personal Website: http://rudykoshar.net/ Office hours, 4101 Humanities, Thursdays, 1:30-3:30 & by appt. Did Weimar fail? The answer to this question was once thought to be a classic no-brainer. Historians uniformly praised the innovativeness and vibrancy of Weimar art, literature, architecture, city planning, cinema, and popular culture. But in political histories of the era from 1918 to 1933, the Weimar Republic stood both as the symbol of a failed democracy and as a prelude to Nazism, war, and genocide. Weimar’s association with liberal collapse and the rise of authoritarianism has been enduring. As recently as 2013, an American political commentator in The New Republic warned that a stalemated “Weimar America” faced some of the same challenges that pre-fascist Germany faced. Over the past two decades, an interdisciplinary scholarship has re-examined Weimar politics by focusing not just on elections and parties but also on the symbols and discourses of political culture. This scholarship has uncovered new realms of previously unexplored social and political experience and thereby re-opened the question of Weimar’s failure. In this seminar we study some of the new research themes as well as some of the classic topics: work, class, gender, body politics, citizenship, visual culture, popular culture, and consumption. We’ll use a broad array of primary sources, including novels, films, memoirs, official documents, and more.
    [Show full text]
  • CHAPTER 2 the Period of the Weimar Republic Is Divided Into Three
    CHAPTER 2 BERLIN DURING THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC The period of the Weimar Republic is divided into three periods, 1918 to 1923, 1924 to 1929, and 1930 to 1933, but we usually associate Weimar culture with the middle period when the post WWI revolutionary chaos had settled down and before the Nazis made their aggressive claim for power. This second period of the Weimar Republic after 1924 is considered Berlin’s most prosperous period, and is often referred to as the “Golden Twenties”. They were exciting and extremely vibrant years in the history of Berlin, as a sophisticated and innovative culture developed including architecture and design, literature, film, painting, music, criticism, philosophy, psychology, and fashion. For a short time Berlin seemed to be the center of European creativity where cinema was making huge technical and artistic strides. Like a firework display, Berlin was burning off all its energy in those five short years. A literary walk through Berlin during the Weimar period begins at the Kurfürstendamm, Berlin’s new part that came into its prime during the Weimar period. Large new movie theaters were built across from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church, the Capitol und Ufa-Palast, and many new cafés made the Kurfürstendamm into Berlin’s avant-garde boulevard. Max Reinhardt’s theater became a major attraction along with bars, nightclubs, wine restaurants, Russian tearooms and dance halls, providing a hangout for Weimar’s young writers. But Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm is mostly famous for its revered literary cafés, Kranzler, Schwanecke and the most renowned, the Romanische Café in the impressive looking Romanische Haus across from the Memorial church.
    [Show full text]
  • The Primitivist Critique of Modernity: Carl Einstein and Walter Benjamin1
    The Primitivist Critique of Modernity: Carl Einstein and Walter Benjamin1 David Pan In the “Sirens” episode in Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus, relying on nothing more than the wax in his sailors’ ears and the rope binding him to the mast of his ship, was able to hear the sirens’ song without being drawn to his death like all the sailors before him.2 Franz Kafka, finally giving the sirens their due, points out that their song could certainly pierce wax and would lead a man to burst all bonds. Instead of attributing Odysseus’ sur- vival to his cunning use of technical means, which he calls “childish mea- sures,”3 Kafka attributes it to the sirens’ use of an even more horrible weapon than their song: their silence. Believing his trick had worked, Odysseus did not hear their silence, but imagined he heard the sound of their singing, for no one could resist “the feeling of having triumphed over them by one’s own strength, and the consequent exaltation that bears down everything before it.”4 The sirens disappeared from Odysseus’per- ceptions, which were focused entirely on himself. Kafka concludes: “If the sirens had possessed consciousness, they would have been annihilated at that moment. But they remained as they had been; all that had hap- pened was that Odysseus had escaped them.”5 Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno have argued that this ancient 1. From Primitive Renaissance: Rethinking German Expressionism by David Pan. Copyright 2001 by the University of Nebraska Press. 2. Homer, Odyssey, Book 12, pp.166-200. 3.
    [Show full text]
  • Taking the Cure: a Stay at Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" Philip Bmntingham
    Taking the Cure: A Stay at Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" Philip Bmntingham THERE ARE THOSE who say that the human The subject of Shakespeare's play is race is infected by two sicknesses: the the spiritual malaise of one man. In Tho- sickness of the body and the sickness of mas Mann's 1924 novel, The Magic Moun- the spirit. In fact, both afflictions are po- tain, the subject, as so many critics have tentially fatal. The first sickness can be told us, is the malaise of an entire group traced to a number of causes: namely, an of people, indeed a generation. These outside intrusion (infection), or an inner critics—too numerous to mention—have failure (malfunction). The second sick- suggested that Mann's intent was to use ness comes solely from within: emotional illness as a metaphor for the condition of distress, deep anxiety, or that decline pre-World War I European society. sometimes called failure of the will. A Such a theme would be an ambitious mixture of the two sicknesses sometimes one, to be sure. Novels normally do not happens; and it has been proven that the attempt to describe the decay of an entire sickness of the mind often can affect the society—how could they? Novels are not health of the body—and cause what is tracts or scientific reports, and whenever called psychosomatic illness. they attempt to become either of these In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the hero suf- things, such as we find in as Robert Musil's fers from the second sickness, and it de- The Man Without Qualities (1930-43), they bilitates him so much that he contem- are no longer fiction but prose seminars.
    [Show full text]
  • Metamodernism, Or Exploring the Afterlife of Postmodernism
    “We’re Lost Without Connection”: Metamodernism, or Exploring the Afterlife of Postmodernism MA Thesis Faculty of Humanities Media Studies MA Comparative Literature and Literary Theory Giada Camerra S2103540 Media Studies: Comparative Literature and Literary Theory Leiden, 14-06-2020 Supervisor: Dr. M.J.A. Kasten Second reader: Dr.Y. Horsman Master thesis submitted in accordance with the regulations of Leiden University 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................. 3 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 1: Discussing postmodernism ........................................................................................ 10 1.1 Postmodernism: theories, receptions and the crisis of representation ......................................... 10 1.2 Postmodernism: introduction to the crisis of representation ....................................................... 12 1.3 Postmodern aesthetics ................................................................................................................. 14 1.3.1 Sociocultural and economical premise ................................................................................. 14 1.3.2 Time, space and meaning ..................................................................................................... 15 1.3.3 Pastiche, parody and nostalgia ............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Action Yes, 1(7): 1-17
    http://www.diva-portal.org This is the published version of a paper published in . Citation for the original published paper (version of record): Bäckström, P. (2008) One Earth, Four or Five Words: The Notion of ”Avant-Garde” Problematized Action Yes, 1(7): 1-17 Access to the published version may require subscription. N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published paper. Permanent link to this version: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-89603 ACTION YES http://www.actionyes.org/issue7/backstrom/backstrom-printfriendl... s One Earth, Four or Five Words The Notion of 'Avant-Garde' Problematized by Per Bäckström L’art, expression de la Société, exprime, dans son essor le plus élevé, les tendances sociales les plus avancées; il est précurseur et révélateur. Or, pour savoir si l’art remplit dignement son rôle d’initiateur, si l’artiste est bien à l’avant-garde, il est nécessaire de savoir où va l’Humanité, quelle est la destinée de l’Espèce. [---] à côté de l’hymne au bonheur, le chant douloureux et désespéré. […] Étalez d’un pinceau brutal toutes les laideurs, toutes les tortures qui sont au fond de notre société. [1] Gabriel-Désiré Laverdant, 1845 Metaphors grow old, turn into dead metaphors, and finally become clichés. This succession seems to be inevitable – but on the other hand, poets have the power to return old clichés into words with a precise meaning. Accordingly, academic writers, too, need to carry out a similar operation with notions that are worn out by frequent use in everyday language.
    [Show full text]
  • A Study of the Space That Shaped Weimar Berlin Carrie Grace Latimer Scripps College
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2014 The lotP s of Alexanderplatz: A Study of the Space that Shaped Weimar Berlin Carrie Grace Latimer Scripps College Recommended Citation Latimer, Carrie Grace, "The lotsP of Alexanderplatz: A Study of the Space that Shaped Weimar Berlin" (2014). Scripps Senior Theses. Paper 430. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/430 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PLOTS OF ALEXANDERPLATZ: A STUDY OF THE SPACE THAT SHAPED WEIMAR BERLIN by CARRIE GRACE LATIMER SUBMITTED TO SCRIPPS COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS PROFESSOR MARC KATZ PROFESSOR DAVID ROSELLI APRIL 25 2014 Latimer 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 3 Introduction 4 Chapter One: Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Making of the Central Transit Hub 8 The Design Behind Alexanderplatz The Spaces of Alexanderplatz Chapter Two: Creative Space: Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz 23 All-Consuming Trauma Biberkopf’s Relationship with the Built Environment Döblin’s Literary Metropolis Chapter Three: Alexanderplatz Exposed: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Film 39 Berlin from Biberkopf’s Perspective Exposing the Subterranean Trauma Conclusion 53 References 55 Latimer 3 Acknowledgements I wish to thank all the people who contributed to this project. Firstly, to Professor Marc Katz and Professor David Roselli, my thesis readers, for their patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and thoughtful critiques.
    [Show full text]
  • I Urban Opera: Navigating Modernity Through the Oeuvre of Strauss And
    Urban Opera: Navigating Modernity through the Oeuvre of Strauss and Hofmannsthal by Solveig M. Heinz A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Germanic Languages and Literatures) in the University of Michigan 2013 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Vanessa H. Agnew, Chair Associate Professor Naomi A. André Associate Professor Andreas Gailus Professor Julia C. Hell i For John ii Acknowledgements Writing this dissertation was an intensive journey. Many people have helped along the way. Vanessa Agnew was the most wonderful Doktormutter a graduate student could have. Her kindness, wit, and support were matched only by her knowledge, resourcefulness, and incisive critique. She took my work seriously, carefully reading and weighing everything I wrote. It was because of this that I knew my work and ideas were in good hands. Thank you Vannessa, for taking me on as a doctoral rookie, for our countless conversations, your smile during Skype sessions, coffee in Berlin, dinners in Ann Arbor, and the encouragement to make choices that felt right. Many thanks to my committee members, Naomi André, Andreas Gailus, and Julia Hell, who supported the decision to work with the challenging field of opera and gave me the necessary tools to succeed. Their open doors, email accounts, good mood, and guiding feedback made this process a joy. Mostly, I thank them for their faith that I would continue to work and explore as I wrote remotely. Not on my committee, but just as important was Hartmut. So many students have written countless praises of this man. I can only concur, he is simply the best.
    [Show full text]
  • Modernity, Modernism, and Fascism. a "Mazeway Resynthesis"
    0RGHUQLW\PRGHUQLVPDQGIDVFLVP$PD]HZD\UHV\QWKHVLV 5RJHU*ULIILQ Modernism/modernity, Volume 15, Number 1, January 2008, pp. 9-24 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\-RKQV+RSNLQV8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/mod.2008.0011 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mod/summary/v015/15.1griffin.html Access provided by Universitätsbibliothek Bern (1 Mar 2015 12:52 GMT) GRIFFIN / modernity, modernism, and fascism 9 Modernity, modernism, and fascism. A “mazeway resynthesis”1 Roger Griffin MODERNISM / modernity VOLUME FIFTEEN, NUMBER Fascism and modernism: finding the “big picture” ONE, PP 9–24. Researchers combing through back numbers of this journal © 2008 THE JOHNS HOPKINS in search of authoritative guidance to the relationship between UNIVERSITY PRESS modernity, modernism, and fascism could be forgiven for occa- sionally losing their bearings. In one of the earliest issues they will alight upon Emilio Gentile’s article tracing the paternity of early Fascism to the campaign for a “modernist national- ism” which was launched in the 1900s by Italian avant-garde artists and intellectuals fanatical about providing the catalyst to a national program of radical modernization.2 They will also come across the eloquent case made by Peter Fritzsche for the thesis that there was a distinctive “Nazi modern,” that the Third Roger Griffin is Reich embodied an extreme, uncompromising form of politi- Professor in Modern History at Oxford cal modernism, a ruthless bid to realize an alternative vision of Brookes University modernity whatever the human cost.3 But closer to the present (UK), and author of they will encounter Lutz Koepnik’s sustained argument that over 70 publications on the aesthetics of fascism reflected its aspiration “to subsume generic fascism, notably everything under the logic of a modern culture industry, hop- The Nature of Fascism ing to crush the emancipatory substance of modern life through (Pinter, 1991).
    [Show full text]
  • Pushkin and the Futurists
    1 A Stowaway on the Steamship of Modernity: Pushkin and the Futurists James Rann UCL Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2 Declaration I, James Rann, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 3 Acknowledgements I owe a great debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Robin Aizlewood, who has been an inspirational discussion partner and an assiduous reader. Any errors in interpretation, argumentation or presentation are, however, my own. Many thanks must also go to numerous people who have read parts of this thesis, in various incarnations, and offered generous and insightful commentary. They include: Julian Graffy, Pamela Davidson, Seth Graham, Andreas Schönle, Alexandra Smith and Mark D. Steinberg. I am grateful to Chris Tapp for his willingness to lead me through certain aspects of Biblical exegesis, and to Robert Chandler and Robin Milner-Gulland for sharing their insights into Khlebnikov’s ‘Odinokii litsedei’ with me. I would also like to thank Julia, for her inspiration, kindness and support, and my parents, for everything. 4 Note on Conventions I have used the Library of Congress system of transliteration throughout, with the exception of the names of tsars and the cities Moscow and St Petersburg. References have been cited in accordance with the latest guidelines of the Modern Humanities Research Association. In the relevant chapters specific works have been referenced within the body of the text. They are as follows: Chapter One—Vladimir Markov, ed., Manifesty i programmy russkikh futuristov; Chapter Two—Velimir Khlebnikov, Sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh, ed.
    [Show full text]
  • Frank Martin's Interpretation of the Tristan and Isolde Myth
    MARTA SZOKA (Łódź) Frank Martin’s Interpretation of the Tristan and Isolde Myth: Following the Trail of a Certain Novel Some people may frown at a juxtaposition of the Tristan and Isolde myth, one of the greatest sources of artistic inspiration in Euro­ pean culture, and its numerous musical representations with a novel by Charles Morgan, a minor writer known today almost exclusively to English literature scholars. If, however, we assume that the practice of musicology, apart from the analysis of music in terms of purely sonic structures, embraces also critical reflection, then we can put forward a perspective which will - to quote Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert - ‘open up a dialogue with the maker of the work, with his unique inner world, his love, passion and dilemmas, and also the path of perfection charac­ teristic of him and given to him’.1 I set out to scrutinise Frank Martin’s work in view of certain cul­ tural and psychological issues, as well as the social aspect of myth. Taken out of its complex context, the music score is forced to be an autonomous organism, and thus the multidimensional sense of art in the modern world becomes forgotten. Bearing an artistic and cultural message, a work of art is a carrier of meanings beyond the author’s in­ tent - meanings to be reached and understood. Moreover, this process of reaching out toward meaning does not exhaust itself in a single act of cognition, supposed to establish a certain truth once and for all. I would like to adopt here Hans-Georg Gadamer’s premise of the ‘inexhaustibil­ ity’ of the meaning of art as well as the ever renewed process of its un­ derstanding.2 1 Zbigniew Herbert, ‘Willem Duyster (1599-1635) albo Dyskretny urok soldateski’ [Willem Duyster, or the Discreet charm of the soldiery], Zeszyty Literackie 68 (1999), 18.
    [Show full text]
  • German Culture 1910- Music
    German Culture 1910- Music During the mid 1920s, cabaret was a popular entertainment within cities Berlin and Munich, as the lift of censorship and hedonism of a society which had “lost everything” was lived out within these cabaret shows. Pre- viously under an authoritarian government, both entertainment and social activities were tightly regulated, causing many citizens to love the relaxed social attitudes of Weimar. The first cabaret in Germany dated back to 1901, however in the rule of Kaiser Wilhelm II, German cabarets were strictly forbidden to perform and promote its bawdy humour, provocative dancing and political satire. After the Weimar governments lifting of cen- sorship, cabarets began to transform and flourish, with entertainment in berlin through cabarets and nightclubs dominated by sex and politics, (with stories, jokes, songs and dancing all laced with sexual innuendo, also following no political line, meaning any party or leader was open to criti- cism or mockery). Especially after decades of restrictive, authoritarian gov- ernment, Weimar was a period of social liberalisation. Post 1924 economic revival saw many people seeking new forms of leisure activities, one being cabaret. Cabaret led to people being more open about their sexuality and gender too. Photos show Josephine Baker, an American dancer naked on stage and a revue at the Apollo theatre in Berlin, with chorus girls only covering themselves partly by flowers. This is significant in Germany con- sidered the previous culture of the Kaiser, this was unheard of. However Weimar Germany and the culture of cabaret also led to social divisions be- tween families and of classes in Germany too.
    [Show full text]