fei H H H3 ±sJ p O p- W CD CD W P O H H' (0 P t*! University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. general Introduction - Doderer as a Moralist 1. CHAPTER II. The Narrator 1. Function and Tone of the Personal Narrator 7. 2. Romantic Irony (l) ... ... ... ... 25. 3. Romantic Irony (ll) ... ... ... ... 44. 4- Attitude towards the Characters ... ... 49. 5. The Author's intrusions in "Die Damonen" 62. CHAPTER III. Plot. 1. 'Menschwerdung' and the Problem of Human Action 77. 2. The Structure of "Die Strudlhofstiege". The moral relevance of Plot in Doderer »«. 87- 3. The Interaction of Characters and Events 116. 4. The 'Umweg 1 and the Theme of Past and Memory 123. 5 The Setting ... ... ... ... 133. 6. Confusion and Order. Form and its moral 147. meaning ... ... ... ... ... ... 7. 'Aussage' and 'Ausdruck' ... ... ... 152. 8. Faults in Theme and Plot ... ... ... 161. CHAPTER Language and Style. 1. The dual Nature of Doderer ! s language; the 184 realist's 'Anschaulichkeit' and the baroque x ant/asy ... ... ... ... ... 2. Character Drawing ... ... ... 205. j . I mage ijr ... ... ... ... ... ... 219. 4. G-rotesque Elements ... ... ... ... 249. 5* Scene Setting ... ... ... ... ... 261. 6. Syntax and Sentence Structure .». ... 268. 7. Language as a Concept ... ... ... 275- Excursus . An Appraisal of Dietrich Weber's book - 287. "Heimito von Doderer: Studien zu seinem Romanwerk. " ... .». ... ... CHAPTER V. Conclusion 298. Notes. 317. Bibliography 340, oOo oOo oOo ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my sincere thanks to all those who have helped and encouraged me during my time of postgraduate study. First of all, my thanks are due to Professor Boy Pascal, M.A., Litt.D., to whose patient and helpful criticism this thesis owes so much* I should also like to thank the other members of the German Department at Birmingham University for their interest and encouragement. Finally, I wish to express my thanks to all those who helped me while I was in Vienna, to Professor Rudolf Henz, Dr. Heinz Rieder, Dr. George Saiko and, above all, to Dr. Doderer himself, to whom 1 am extremely grateful for patiently answering the raamy questions with which I plied him. Birmingham, June, 1963. SYNOPSIS. This thesis is concerned primarily with Doderer as a realist. For Doderer, the realistic novel embodies an implicit moral purpose, a re-conquering of the 'external* world of everyday reality. I have, therefore, started from Doderer's moral viewpoint and tried to discuss how this is actually embodied in the novels themselves. I have taken three specific aspects of his work; narrator, plot, and language. In discussing the narrator I have argued that the most successful parts of Doderer1 s work are those where a genuinely personal narrator is present. This can be seen in "Die DaWien" where the use of more than one narrator broadens the range of the novel and means that the pro­ blems of the would-be novelist are integrated with the central moral concern of 'Henschwerdung*. In comparison, those sections of Doderer's work where the author himself is in charge of the narration are infin­ itely less successful, as can be seen from the passages in "Die Damon- en" where the author takes over the narration from Geyrenhoff and Schlaggenberg. In discussing plot I have tried to suggest that the structure of Doderer1 s novels is a perfect mirror for his overall moral attitude to life. There are, however, certain thematic weakness­ es in his moral viewpoint, and these manifest themselves in faults in the actual plots. The fourth chapter discusses the nature of Doder­ er1 s language, which is not simply that of the "traditional" realist. I have ttied to show how various aspects of Doderer's style (particul­ arly his recurrent use of certain images ) are important as a reflection of his central moral concern. Furthermore, the very confusion and ii restlessness of the language is often a deliberate evocation of the insecurity in the minds of the characters themselves. For Doderer, language is important as a concept; if properly used, it implies a right moral attitude to life, one of communication and contact bat- ween people. In the concluding chapter I have attempted to locate Doderer in the world of the twentieth century Austrian novel and to show that, although he is strikingly "unmodern" in both his moral and his artistic standpoints, this does not justify one in simply dismiss­ ing his novels as "epigonal". oOo oOo oOo - 1 - CHAPTER I. General Introduction. Doderer as a moralist. The one factor which is most characteristic of almost all of Doderer's work is its unmistakeable moral intensity. Doderer is a moralist, and the moral principles in which he so passionately believes are the mainspring behind his literary production. It is because ©f these moral principles that he writes at all, and, as we shall see from his theory, the reason for the selection of the novel form as his most suitable medium is precisely because the formal and technical basis, indeeed the whole attitude to life which the novel implies, co­ incides completely with his moral preoccupations. Before attempting any analysis of the works themselves, therefore, we should ask our­ selves what is the nature of this moral concern which is so central for any understanding of DodererT s literary achievement. In the opening pages of his principal theoretical work "G-rund- lagen und Funktion des Romans" Doderer asks the question: when does the novel form attain prominence, when does it begin to dominate the literary scene? Doderer1 s answer is significant and gives us the key to the moral preoccupations which we have already stressed: nes musate eine geminderte Wirklichkeit einbrechen, mit einer nur mehr fragwurdigen Deckung zwischen Innen- und Aussenwelt, es musste zwischen ihnen eine KLuft sich offnen, die vielenorts nur der kritische Pfeil nooh uberfliegt: jetzt erst geselite sich der kritische Geist dem Epiker bei, ebnete den episohen Vers ein."^ ' The novel, then, tends to be the product of an age where a split has occurred between the - 2 - 'inner1 and the 'outer' man, between man as an individual and the everyday social world in which he finds himself. The novel attains its full significance for an age which has lost reality, which has withdrawn its allegiance to the empirical world. Doderer's gener­ al remarks apply with particular relevance to the 20th ctotury, where, as he points out, even if there had been no novels written, the much discussed 'crisis' would still exist, because it is essentially real­ ity which is undergoing a crisis. Modern man has lost the ability to link 'innen* and 'aussen', to express his own personality and in­ dividuality in an unwavering commitment to the Alltag in which he finds himself. What he fails to realize is that by denying the validity of empirical reality, by accepting that there is a dislocation between events and values, between active involvement in the social world and the meaning of life, he is in fact destroying his own reality, and driving himself still further into isolation. The reaction away from empirical reality leads "zur Apperceptions-Yerweigerung (dessen was ist namlioh), also zu jener verheerenden form der modernen Dummheit, welche heute bereits die Verstandigung uber die einfachsten Dinge glatt unmoglich macht: vermittels der sogenannten Gesinnungen. (2) Man tends to run away from the moral challenge which faces Mm in the confusing arbitrariness of the Alltag, and to take refuge in a rigid, self-enclosed world, a second reality to which he feels he can lay down the law. The moral task facing the novelist, therefore, is to educate man back to a re-conquering of the social reality around him and there­ by to a full attainment of his own reality. (riven that this is Doderer's central moral attitude, it is natural that he should turn to the novel form in order to express his ideas. - 3 - The novel, he maintains, speaks to those who are living in an unreal, false world of their own, whereby they are cut off from life: ^und bringt uns niohts geringeres als eine Lust zu leben, die uns sonst vergehen musste, ja, knapp daran war, sich ganz zu verfluchtigen. n The novel, in Doderer's view, is not committed to answering the age- old question of the ultimate goal of life; it is not the art form in which the author should give expression to his philosophical and metaphysical speculations. It is, and must be, empirical in spirit. Its supreme task is to insist that life is here to be lived fully, that the individual must be committed to the reality which is all around him, and must make his everyday existence personally meaningful by accepting it for what it is: "wir schlagen inn (den Blick) jetzt nieder zum Erfahrbaren (das Empirische haben die Romanschreiber vom Epos ge- erbt, hier hat sich nichts gaandert). Wir erschauen zum ersten Male durch Ale flachere Wasserschichte auch den Grand: und auf ihm sahl- lose bis rJahin unbekannte Einzelheiten. Und wieder wird's eine Lust zu leben. Wohin bleibt fremd. 1" 'It is because the novel form - pro­ perly understood - implies its own moral discipline that Qoderer *s philosophy finds its most natural and convincing expression through this medium.