The Poetics of a Thing in the Austrian Literature (In E. Jelinek’s Novels „Die Liebhaberinnen“, „Die Klavierspielerin“, and „Die Ausgesperrten“)

About the author:

Abstract:

The material object is one of the most important traditional aesthetic and poetic categories of Austrian authors. Research on the role of material objects in the narrative discourse of the 19^th — the beginning of the 20^th century has been considerably productive. However, poetics of objects in the works of modern authors is understudied. The author believes that the ‘material tradition’, connected with the unique worldview of Austrian authors, has not been broken up and lives on — for example, in the works of Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek.

The data for study is comprised of novels written in the 1970s-80s that belong to the earlier period of her work. The author has identified four ways, in which a material object can function in the space of her novels: ‘Objectification of a character’, ‘humanization of an object’, ‘exposure of lies’, ‘ontologization of the language’. The author determines that a specific narrative code, that verbalizes the language of a material object, is constructed by the means of material poetics. With the help of material code, Jelinek resolves important issues of aesthetics: deflating trivial myths, criticizing patriarchy, criticizing social patterns of the deeply consumeristic society, overcoming the falsity of language.

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