Freie Universität Berlin, Diss., 2007.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis proposes a new view of space in Theodor Fontane’s writing as both a mode of literary expression and an object of literary inquiry: space serves a poetic function and is a thematic concern. The research draws on theories of literary space which focus on spatial structures and topographies, as well as those which provide critical tools for analysing individual passages of description, especially focalisation, which elucidates the influence of the viewing figure in the text. Significantly, the subjective experience of a perceptive observer is central to Fontane’s conception of aesthetic processes, and as a result, an analysis of spatial representation often uncovers reflexive discourses on art, its function and value. On the basis of this insight, this study provides new readings of a range of texts, including less well-established and non-fictional works, as well as recognised masterpieces. In Fontane’s local travelogues, the Wanderungen, the poetic function of space is rare, while many passages reflect on the environment’s potential significance. The early novels explore spatial representation as a means of constructing textual symbolism. Spatial representation in Vor dem Sturm functions as a strategy of relativisation; in Schach von Wuthenow and Graf Petöfy topographies and pregnant descriptions serve as commentaries on characters’ levels of awareness. The mature novels Irrungen Wirrungen and Unwiederbringlich explore the sources and practical implications of reading objects in the world as signs. Space retains its formal role, but the represented figural experience of the novels’ worlds becomes a vehicle for reflexive analysis of the world’s perceived meanings. Similarly, in Der Stechlin different types of relationships with exterior reality are expressed spatially, and, as elsewhere, the capacity for aesthetic appreciation is represented positively. This entails and indeed produces critical distance towards modernity: isolated Stechlin is a locus of poetry, a testament to literature’s importance and vitality.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird die Funktion verschiedener Bibelbezüge im Romanwerk Theodor Fontanes untersucht. Dabei wird die These vertreten, dass Fontanes Verweise auf biblische Texte nicht etwa bloß als theologische Positionierungen zu lesen seien, sondern dass er die Bibel als Speicher an kulturellem Wissen in Form von Narrativen, Personen, Geflügelten Worten etc. begreift, den er in seiner Leserschaft voraussetzen kann und durch den er Themen wie Normativität und Diskursivität mit einer besonderen Tiefe in der Spannung von Text und Prätext verhandeln kann. Im Zentrum der Untersuchung stehen dabei Verwendungen von Bibelbezügen als hochkommunikative Diskursschablonen für poetologische Selbstreflexionen sowie für politische oder frömmigkeits-praktische Kontroversen. / The aim of this treatise is to discuss various functions of references to biblical writings which can be observed in Theodor Fontane’s novels. Analyzing various references and allusions (especially in “Grete Minde”, “Quitt” and “Der Stechlin”), it is maintained that Fontane does not use bible-references as theological statements, but with a wide range of scopes and functions: Providing sujés, situations and constellations which are well known by the typical 19th century audience, references to biblical texts can be used to discuss topics like normativity and discursivity as well as to offer a pattern for political and religious discurses or poetological reflections.

Cette thèse porte sur la poétique du roman de Victor Hugo, Theodor Fontane et Thomas Hardy en s'appuyant plus spécifiquement sur l'étude de L'Homme qui rit (1869), Errements et Tourments (1888) et Tess d'Urberville (1891). En rapprochant ces trois romanciers majeurs mais tenus à l'écart des théories générales du roman, il s'agit de montrer le maintien d'une conception du roman moderne comme forme poétique du monde, s'inscrivant dans un horizon de pensée idéaliste, progressiste et critique. Hugo, Fontane et Hardy, romanciers qui se disent avant tout poètes, font le choix de faire du roman une tragédie, forme poétique du monde qui va à l'encontre du prosaïsme moderne et romanesque théorisé par Lukacs, à la suite de Hegel. Face au nihilisme et aux théories du roman réaliste qui voient le jour dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle et tentent de définir – au sens restrictif du terme – le genre romanesque, ils retrouvent le modèle du roman romantique et le redéfinissent face au roman réaliste. Leur poétique est alors fondée sur la « poiétisation » de la prose, autrement dit, sur l'imagination, le symbolique et le métaphorique. Ils affirment ainsi la spécificité et la possibilité d'une expérience poétique, c'est-à-dire subjective, héroïque et morale du monde, ainsi que la capacité du roman à produire un savoir poétique sur le monde et l'histoire. / This thesis deals with the poetics of the novel in Victor Hugo, Theodor Fontane and Thomas Hardy, with a specific focus on The Man who Laughs (1869), Trials and Tribulations (1888) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891). By bringing together these three novelists who are widely acknowledged as major writers yet ignored by general theories of the novel, this study will show how a vision of the modern novel as a poetic rendition of reality, with an idealist, progressive and critical background, has maintained itself. Hugo, Fontane and Hardy, three novelists who considered themselves to be poets first and foremost, opted to turn the novel into a tragedy, a poetic rendition of reality which stands in contrast with Lukacs’ post-Hegelian theories of the modern novel as a prosaic literary genre. In the face of nihilism and the theories of the realist novel which surfaced in the second half of the XIXth century and attempted to define – in the restrictive sense of the word – the genre of the novel, they turned back to the model of the Romantic novel and reinvented it at a time when the realist novel was preeminent. Their poetics was therefore based on the “poietisation” of prose, in other words, based on the imaginary, the symbolic and the metaphoric. This enabled them to assert the specificity and possibility of a poetic, that is to say subjective, heroic and moral experience of the world, as well as the ability of the novel to generate poetical knowledge about the world and history.

This thesis traces and explicates the changes in Theodor Fontane's landscape depiction in the years 1887- 1892. I examine his novels Cecile (1887), Irrungen, Wirrungen (1888), and unwiederbringlich (1892). I show that Fontane, as though discarding a relic of the Romantic past, used increasingly less landscape in his narratives. He focused on the actions and conversation of his characters, and on their immediate surroundings. When these surroundings were urban, they tended to disappear. The progressive minimalization of landscape, and of cityscape in particular, foreshadowed the appearance in German literature of twentieth-century man: man alienated from nature in cities, and less aware of empirically observable surroundings than of internal forces and realities.

Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt einen Beitrag zur gesprächslinguistischen Analyse literarischer Dialoge dar. Da Theodor Fontane in der Forschung als Schriftsteller gilt, der dem Gespräch und seiner sprachlichen Gestaltung einen besonders hohen Stellenwert zuschreibt, ist sein letzter großer Roman Der Stechlin aus linguistischer Sicht besonders reizvoll. In ihm wird die Gesellschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts durch das Mittel des Gesprächs eindrucksvoll charakterisiert. In einem theoretischen Teil dieser Arbeit werden zunächst die Besonderheiten des literarischen Dialogs in Abgrenzung zum Alltagsgespräch geklärt sowie der historische Kontext, also die Höflichkeits- und Gesprächskultur in adeligen Kreisen des 19. Jahrhunderts, beleuchtet. Auf dieser Basis steht die detaillierte Analyse von drei Dialogausschnitten aus dem Roman im Mittelpunkt: ein offizieller Besuch, ein Tischge-spräch, ein Klatschgespräch unter Bekannten. / This paper contributes to the analysis of literary dialogue from the perspective of conversation lin-guistics. Since Theodor Fontane is widely considered by researchers to be an author who accords paramount importance to linguistic composition, his last great novel, Der Stechlin, is particularly interesting from a linguistic point of view. The novel strikingly characterizes 19th-century society by way of conversation. The theoretical section of this paper aims to clarify the particularities of literary dialogue as opposed to those of day-to-day conversation, as well as the historical context, that is to say, the culture of courtesy and conversation in 19th-century aristocratic circles. This section theoretically grounds the chief focus of this paper, the detailed analysis of three excerpts of dialogue from the novel: an official visit, a table conversation, and a fragment of gossip amongst acquaintances.

"Ich werde ganz einfach telegraphieren" — Subjekte, Telegraphie, Autonomie und Fortschritt in Theodor Fontanes Gesellschaftsromanen Electronic media influence our thoughts and behaviours. Our present situation resembles that of the industrial world in the late nineteenth century, when electrical telegraphy, the precursor of today's media technologies, gained a dominant position in telecommunications. In our day, conditioning prevents us from reaching a deeper understanding of our relationship to technical media. Because electrical media were still new in the late nineteenth century, observers then were more readily able to analyse their effects and to recognize potentials of subjects in their accounts. In Germany the writer Theodor Fontane demonstrated through depictions in his late novels of society that, by reflecting on the nature of the self and its relation to telegraphy and concomitant ideologies, subjects have the capacity to become aware not only of factors that control them, but also of their autonomous potentials. This consciousness provides the basis for their self-empowerment in the use of telegraphy. However, because Fontane critically depicts Wilhelminian society, his protagonists only attain this level of Consciousness in isolated instances. Its realisation is continuously achieved through Fontane's narrative depiction and its reconstruction by the readers. The image of the subject and its potentials that emerges in this reconstruction provides valuable insights applicable also to evaluations of our present media involvement. Contrary to a wide-spread belief as to subjects'powerlessness and insignificance, our findings imply that the position of subjects in relation to media can be described more positively. Fontane's depiction is concentrated in three identifiable areas, in which the conjunction of telegraphy and ideology exerts a controlling influence on subjects. In accordance with this focus our study examines the views of nature and technology as fateful forces, the alteration of time- and space experiences, and the construction of German, foreign and technical cultures.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1922. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. 78-82.

Zugl.: Bochum, Univ., Diss., 2009