Text as Contract: The Nature and Function of Narrative Discourse in the <I>Erzählungen</I> of Heinrich von Kleist (European University Studies, Series I :)

Kleist's narratives convey a strong sense of structure, while describing the ubiquity of disorder in the imaginary world. A narrative paradigm, the contract, is advanced to analyse this interplay of pattern and disorder. The contract, it is argued, characterizes the relationships between the figures of the stories and stands for the broader concept of the written word as a guarantor of meaning - that is, as the medium between poet and reader. This study, then, must reflect on the possibility of legitimate communication - and of interpretation - in narrative.