W.G. Sebald’s Hybrid Poetics (eBook)

lt;P>Lynn L. Wolff, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.

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Acknowledgments 9
List of Abbreviations 11
Introduction 13
Why W.G. Sebald 13
The Borders of World Literature: Sebald the Author and the Phenomenon 15
International and Transdisciplinary Reception 26
Scope and Method 31
Chapter 1 45
Literature as Historiography in Context 45
Literature versus Historiography across the Ages 46
Toward a Genealogy of a Present Past 57
Literary Historiography: A Method of Interdiscursive Writing 59
The Building Blocks of a Hybrid Form: Genre, Narration, Structure 72
Overcoming the Obstacles in Representing the Past 78
Chapter 2 81
Conscious Historiography and the Writer’s Conscience 81
Writing on the Border between Literary Studies and Literature 81
Literary Portraits as Self-Portrait: Logis in einem Landhaus 84
From Polemic to Poetics: Luftkrieg und Literatur 94
The Author’s Role and the Reader’s Engagement 107
Chapter 3 112
What is (in) an Image? Mimesis, Representability, and Visual History 112
Art and Reality 112
Representing the Holocaust and Photographs of Auschwitz 124
Untangling Fact from Fiction: Sebald’s Extratextual Materials 132
Literature as Historiography and Visual History 155
Coda 160
Chapter 4 162
Chronology and Coincidence in the Narrative Cosmos 162
Outlining the Narrative Frame: From Flow to Tableau 162
Plotting the Text: Simultaneity and Co-Presence of Past, Present, and Future 167
Drawing Parallels: Narrative Dis/Conjuncture and Intratextual Cross-References 175
Revealing Changes: Additions and Subtractions in the Austerlitz Manuscript 182
Uncovering the Past: Restitution through Literary Archaeology 188
Chapter 5 194
Witness and Testimony in Literary Memory 194
Post-Postmemory: Discourses, Concepts, and Modes of Memory 197
Testimonial Structure: Making Sense of the Past by Making Meaning in the Present 201
Memory’s Attributes: Visuality, Physicality, Materiality, Uncertainty 206
Memory’s Opposites: Repression and the Crisis of Language 221
Chapter 6 228
Translation as Metaphor and Conservative Innovation 228
Textual Translation 229
Intermedial, Intratextual, and Intertextual Translation 238
Metaphorical Tanslation 248
Irony of/and Literary Innovation 250
Translation as Context 256
Conclusion 258
Panoramic Outlook 258
Bibliography of W.G. Sebald’s Primary Works and of Works Cited 262
I. Primary Sources 262
II. Primary Texts of W.G. Sebald 263
A. Fictional Prose and Poetry 263
B. English Translations of Sebald’s Works 264
C. Works in Translation (cited in this book) 264
D. Literary Criticism, Essays, Biographies, Translations 264
III. Secondary Literature on W.G. Sebald (cited in this book) 269
IV. W.G. Sebald-Related/-Inspired Films and Websites 281
V. Related Primary and Secondary Literature 281
Name Index 291
Subject Index 298

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“Wolff’s book does not, however, simply challenge the interested reader to think about Sebald’s literary work in a meta-representational way, it also shows the academic reader the advantages of familiarity with his critical work, the benefits of wrestling critically with – as opposed to just paraphrasing – the relevant secondary literature, the insights that come from the careful analysis of manuscript sources, and the creative understanding that derives from close reading, untrammelled by theoretical ideas for which Sebald had little or no time. Wolff has been publishing carefully researched, insightful and authoritative work on Sebald since 2007, but the originality and depth of her excellent new book will raise her into the top echelon of those younger scholars who have made Sebald’s life and work one of their primary preoccupations.” (Richard Sheppard, Journal of European Studies)