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Texte remanié de : Dissertation : Philosophie : Universität Bergen, Norwegen : 2002. / Bibliogr. p. 284-293. Notes bibliogr.

"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.

"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. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

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.

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This thesis focuses on the anachronistic poacher-hero figure in late nineteenth-century German literature. Historian Hobsbawm has suggested that the symbolic endurance of "noble robber" figures (of which we can view poacher-heroes as a subset) takes place in an ideal imaginary "stripped" of the "local and social framework" (2000, 143). My thesis shows, in multiple examples across multiple genres, that in fact the poacher-hero is uniquely available for re-contextualization and renewal of social relevance, even under changed social and economic circumstances. The poacher-hero is not only a device for making statements about the past, but also for expressing claims on the future. It is perhaps this dynamism that makes the poacher-hero excellent carrier for different kinds of social critique as well. In my first chapter, I give a brief historical overview of the period and the motif. In the second chapter, I show how the poacher and his rural context are brought into contact with urban, imperial themes. In the chapter I read two novels, Der verlorene Sohn (The prodigal son, 1884-1886) and Quitt (Even, 1890), and the play Waldleute (Forest people, 1896) thematically to show how upward social mobility is associated with and adapted to the poacher figure. In the third chapter of the thesis, I examine narrative strategies and their employment in the construction of a socially critical viewpoint in Der verlorene Sohn and Quitt. I show how both high and low literary works, intended and written for different audiences, achieve similar results in their positioning of the poacher-protagonist through different narrative structures. This convergence shows the malleability of the societal frame for the poacher-hero. Finally, in the fourth chapter, I show regional adaptations of the motif, by examining different versions of a folk ballad "Das Jennerweinlied" ("The Jennerwein song"). This thesis furthermore shows how study of a motif can be used to bring together a diverse group of roughly contemporary texts. Viewing these texts in relationship with one another brings into question the scholarly focus on certain texts at the expense of others. / text

This thesis identifies strategies of queer/irony in the writings of Lord Byron, Heinrich Heine, Theodor Fontane, and Oscar Wilde. Key to the understanding of irony is Friedrich Schlegel's re-evaluation of the concept. The thesis establishes an approach to the multifaceted concept of irony and identify key concepts of queer theory. The focus, however, is close reading. First, Lord Byron's epic satire Don Juan is read with regards to the interplay of narrative strategies and the depiction of gender, homoeroticism and the concept of the child. Furthermore, reviews published at the time of the publication of Don Juan are examined: Why did the reviewers reject the work so violently? Second, in Heine's Buch der Lieder we find ironic strategies that Richard Rorty subsumed into the concept of 'final vocabularies.' By acknowledging the formulaic nature of language in general and Romantic tropes in particular, Heine succeeds in subverting a heteronormative discourse on love and desire. Heine's Reisebilder – 'Die Reise von München nach Genua' and 'Die Bäder von Lucca' – depict the limits of queer/irony: Where meaning is fixed, as in the case of the Platen polemic, irony loses its propensity to contain multitudes. Third, Theodor Fontane's novels of adultery are read against the background of irony as established through a Schlegelian reading of Frau Jenny Treibel and a queer reading of Ellernklipp. The novels Unwiederbringlich and Effi Briest question notions of truth and map the danger of knowledge. At the core of this chapter lies the notion of 'knowledge management,' a strategy closely related to irony. The figure of the courtier Pentz in Unwiederbringlich becomes a harbinger of dangerous, queer knowledge similar to the way Crampas' use of Heine quotations negotiates sexually suggestive knowledge in Effi Briest. In a final step, the aforementioned queer/ironic strategies are employed to read texts by Oscar Wilde. Are the strategies as inferred in the other chapters valid for Wilde's writings as well? We find that, in a time where homoerotic behaviour was heavily sanctioned, ironic writing had become a liability. Wilde's ironies are too opaque for the reader: They have become a movement where nobody is allowed to 'play along'.