Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Densky, Doreen

Titel

Literary advocates: The rhetoric and poetics of speaking-for in Franz Kafka

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This dissertation examines the extent to which Fürsprache (advocacy)—the triangulated scenario of speaking for someone (or a group) before someone (or a group)—acts as a constitutive device in the writings of Franz Kafka. It argues that the rhetorical figure of Fürsprache, which has roots in the legal-rhetorical, sociopolitical, and religious spheres, manifests itself in the narrative structure, characters, and topics of his literature as well as in the discourse surrounding his oeuvre. The springboard and constant point of reference is a lesser-known text by Kafka, which Max Brod entitled "Fürsprecher" ("Advocates"). It contemplates and conveys through its own narrative how Fürsprache is not restricted to the legal setting, but is literally to be searched for and found "everywhere." Via close readings and careful contextualization, each chapter exposes facets of Fürsprache in different genres of Kafka's work. After anchoring the concept in narratological discussions and providing a short typology of the discursive field of Fürsprecher (chapter 1), the study looks at Kafka's public texts (selected office writings, a journalistic epitaph, and an introductory speech) to revisit questions around authorship and anonymity from the vantage point of Fürsprache as a mode of representation (chapter 2). In the three novel projects, scenes of intercession by and for the K.- protagonists display contemporary changes in legal and social power structures (chapter 3). In the short prose in which animals are objects and subjects of speech, Kafka subtly probes different narrative configurations between intervening narrators and Fürsprecher -figures as well as the epistemological potential of speaking-for (chapter 4). Moreover, by arranging constellations of aphorisms and speeches by Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, and Elias Canetti, Fürsprache unfolds as a process of dynamically transmitting the texts read (chapter 5). In addition to contributing to the discussions around Kafka's modern, paradoxical communicative arrangements that both generate and hinder narrating, this study elucidates three more fundamental issues: delegated speech in connection with textual production and authorship, the nexus between legal-political and literary-aesthetic representation, and Fürsprache as a category of analysis that provides a critical framework for literary reception, particularly with regard to the institutionalization of literature.