Inaug.-Diss.--Universität Bern. / Bibliographical references included in "Anmerkungen" (p. 78-89).

Issued also in part as inaugural dissertation, Zürich. / "Literatur": p. [7]-9.

Thèse--Strasbourg. / Issued also without thesis note. Arranged in chapters corresponding to those of the author's Goethe en Angleterre.

Teilw. zugl.: München, Univ., Diss. U. Bayer, 2006

Zugl.: Saarbrücken, Univ., Diss., 2009

No description available.

This thesis examines the development of an anorexic discourse in Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften. Chapter 1 investigates anorexia as a cultural signifier and its relationship to non-clinical and non-medical disciplines. I then submit that female self-starvation serves a structural and a thematic function in WV. In Chapter 2, I argue that Ottilie's arrested female development illustrates the central, concept (elective affinities) of the novel. Chapter 3 examines food as a non-verbal system of communication in the narrative. Here, I demonstrate that Ottilie's eating disorder denies her subjectivity while it signifies and affirms the dominant social institutions depicted in the novel. Chapter 4 examines Ottilie's oscillation between corporeality and bodilessness. Her physicality is always associated with instability. The disappearance of her flesh allows for the passive reflection of masculine identity. In Chapter 5, I analyze the representation of Otttilie's death and demonstrate that her corpse allegorizes the construction of subjectivity in the narrative. In closing, I argue that Ottilie is an empty signifier in the novel, onto which the plot is imposed. Her anorexia functions as a sign for the process of narration and is a condition of the novel itself.

Zugl.: Berlin, Techn. Univ., Diss. 2004

Zugl.: Mannheim, Univ., Diss., 2005

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 2005