« Scharlih » unchained. Traces de Karl May chez Arno Schmidt
This article highlights the relationship between two German-language writers who, at first glance, have nothing to do with each other: adventure novels author Karl May (1842-1912), and Arno Schmidt (1914-1979) known for his avant-garde writing with little emphasis on action. However, Schmidt devoted...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Association Française de Recherche sur les Livres et les Objets Culturels de l’Enfance (AFRELOCE)
2015-07-01
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| Series: | Strenae |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/strenae/1452 |
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| Summary: | This article highlights the relationship between two German-language writers who, at first glance, have nothing to do with each other: adventure novels author Karl May (1842-1912), and Arno Schmidt (1914-1979) known for his avant-garde writing with little emphasis on action. However, Schmidt devoted more than one essay to May, and his novels are full of references to the hermit of Radebeul. Our aim is to show that Schmidt’s "sexualized" reading of May proposed in his book Sitara and the Road to it (1963) attempts to expose the roots of May's enduring success, and demonstrates how this humorous backhanded reading also lays the foundations for Schmidt’s new poetics. By looking at two of Schmidt's stories that predate the discovery of a Freudian reading—Scenes from the Life of a Faun (1953) and The Republic of Scientists (1957)—we can interpret the (misappropriated) references to May—primarily horse metaphors, an emblematic animal in May's universe—in terms of narrative economy: by interspersing seemingly disparate and disjointed microstructures of Schmidtian narratives, these references appear as clues to a hidden storytelling structure. As truly "shameful parts" of Schmidtian writing, his references to May demand a reading mode similar to one that the essayist Schmidt will later apply to Karl May's texts—except that here the enjoyment of the text is at stake, and not the expression of repressed impulses. |
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| ISSN: | 2109-9081 |