Acting figuratively, telling tropically. Figures of insanity in Gunter Grass's Die Blechtrommel.(Critical essay): An article from: Style
Book Details
Author(s)Benjamin Biebuyck
PublisherNorthern Illinois University
ISBN / ASINB002ZBAYUI
ISBN-13978B002ZBAYU0
MarketplaceGermany 🇩🇪
Description
This digital document is an article from Style, published by Northern Illinois University on September 22, 2009. The length of the article is 7784 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the author: Figures of speech are traditionally conceived of as symptoms of the artistic mastery of a language, of originality and wit. But dealing with literary utterances challenging the very notion of "mastery" and "competence" urges us to reconsider the premises of figurative speech. In this article, several textual instances are investigated in which the mental deterioration of the speaker in moments of affective, epistemological and experiential crisis goes hand in hand with a disinhibition on the level of figurative language. At the center of the investigation stands Gunter Grass's 1959 bestselling novel Die Blechtrommel. The straightforward untruthfulness of Oskar Matzerath, the narrator-protagonist, is a unique example in post-war German fiction of how communicative success and failure operate as mutual presuppositions in the narrative representation of madness. The article shows how figurative processes are intertwined in the novel, how they are linked with the changing narrative positions, and how they indicate, exactly at the point where the protagonist's insanity seems to peak, the emergence of interpersonal understanding.
Citation Details
Title: Acting figuratively, telling tropically. Figures of insanity in Gunter Grass's Die Blechtrommel.(Critical essay)
Author: Benjamin Biebuyck
Publication:Style (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2009
Publisher: Northern Illinois University
Volume: 43 Issue: 3 Page: 322(20)
Article Type: Critical essay
Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning
From the author: Figures of speech are traditionally conceived of as symptoms of the artistic mastery of a language, of originality and wit. But dealing with literary utterances challenging the very notion of "mastery" and "competence" urges us to reconsider the premises of figurative speech. In this article, several textual instances are investigated in which the mental deterioration of the speaker in moments of affective, epistemological and experiential crisis goes hand in hand with a disinhibition on the level of figurative language. At the center of the investigation stands Gunter Grass's 1959 bestselling novel Die Blechtrommel. The straightforward untruthfulness of Oskar Matzerath, the narrator-protagonist, is a unique example in post-war German fiction of how communicative success and failure operate as mutual presuppositions in the narrative representation of madness. The article shows how figurative processes are intertwined in the novel, how they are linked with the changing narrative positions, and how they indicate, exactly at the point where the protagonist's insanity seems to peak, the emergence of interpersonal understanding.
Citation Details
Title: Acting figuratively, telling tropically. Figures of insanity in Gunter Grass's Die Blechtrommel.(Critical essay)
Author: Benjamin Biebuyck
Publication:Style (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2009
Publisher: Northern Illinois University
Volume: 43 Issue: 3 Page: 322(20)
Article Type: Critical essay
Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning
