Spatial dynamics in poetry:A topographical approach to poems by Rilke, Hoelderlin and Bachmann (Germany, Austria, Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Hoelderlin, Ingeborg Bachmann)

[摘要] For all they contribute to an understanding of modern lyric poetry, traditional tropological interpretations betray a number of limitations. In particular, the restrictive manner in which they impinge upon the dynamics of a poem and its potential for making meaning is the principal occasion for this dissertation, which postulates an alternative understanding of poetic space in modern German lyric poetry. The ;;scientific-topographical;; method involved, like its terminology, is derived in Chapters I and II from the areas of geography and physics and would reveal a vibrant and expansive spatial dynamics in poetry hitherto subjected--with varying degrees of success--to an exhaustive yet more statically limiting and often exclusively allegorical analysis.This project is pursued with reference to poems by Rilke, Holderlin and Bachmann. The application of the method to Rilke's ;;Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens;; in the third chapter constitutes an exemplary ;;spatial reading;; of the poem, ;;mapping;; as it does a network of dynamically charged landmarks. This example is then followed in Chapter IV with a detailed presentation of the spatial dynamics in Holderlin's ;;Andenken.;; As the poetic space unfolds here, the lyrical I is discovered in an unexpected location, one in fact that has until now been completely neglected in criticism of the poem. With the analysis of Bachmann's ;;Bohmen liegt am Meer;; in Chapter V the ;;scientific-topographical;; method is most fully vindicated; for it is here that the dynamic process of ;;spatialization;; practised by the critic finds thematic representation in the creative process practised by the poet. In a concluding chapter a brief consideration of the spatial dynamics in Goethe's ;;Machtiges Uberraschen;;--a poem unlike the earlier three insofar as it has repeatedly permitted an altogether fruitful allegorical treatment--is intended to suggest the method's potential for further and broader application.

[发布机构] Rice University

[效力级别] literature