A Literature of Restitution

Critical Essays on W. G. Sebald
Herausgeber: Baxter, Jeannette; Hutchinson, Ben; Henitiuk, Valerie

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book investigates the crucial question of 'restitution' in the work of W. G. Sebald. Written by a range of leading scholars from fields as various as translation studies, English, German, and comparative literature, photography, critical theory, psychoanalysis, poetry, and art theory, the essays collected in the volume place Sebald's oeuvre within the broader context of European culture in order better to understand his engagement with the ethics of aesthetics. Whilst opening up his work to a range of under-explored areas - including dissident surrealism, Anglo-Irish relations, contemporary performance practices, and the writings of H. G. Adler - the volume also brings renewed impetus to the standard view of Sebald as a 'Holocaust writer'; following the lead established by his English translator Anthea Bell in her foreword, the essays all share a close attention to linguistic detail, returning to the original German texts in an attempt to do justice to Sebald's complex literary style. The recurring themes identified over the course of the collection - from Sebald's carefully calibrated syntax to his self-consciousness about 'genre', from his interest in liminal spaces to his literal and metaphorical preoccupation with blindness and vision - all suggest that the 'attempt at restitution' is both a thematic preoccupation and a narrative technique, and that as such it arguably constitutes the very essence of Sebald's understanding of literature. The volume will thus appeal not only to students and scholars of Sebald, but to anyone with a serious interest in the problems and possibilities of postwar European writing.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Lund University Press
• Seitenzahl: 320
• Erscheinungstermin: 4. April 2016
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 244mm x 170mm x 17mm
• Gewicht: 513g
• ISBN-13: 9781784993504
• ISBN-10: 1784993506
• Artikelnr.: 44750442

Autorenporträt

Jeannette Baxter is Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge Valerie Henitiuk is Director of the Faculty Commons at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Canada, where she also holds an academic appointment in English Ben Hutchinson is Professor of European Literature at the University of Kent

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction: 'A quoi bon la littérature?' Foreword: translating W. G.
Sebald, with and without the author - Anthea Bell Part I: Translation and
style 1. W. G. Sebald's three-letter word: on the parallel world of the
English translations - Arthur Williams 2. Encounter and cry: W. G. Sebald
as poet - George Szirtes 3. Unquiet prose: W. G. Sebald and the writing of
the negative - Shane Weller Part II: Texts and contexts 4. Surrealist
vertigo in Schwindel. Gefühle.- Jeannette Baxter 5. Memoirs of the blind:
W. G. Sebald's Die Ausgewanderten - Dora Osborne 6. 'Like refugees who have
come through dreadful ordeals': the theme of the Anglo-Irish in Die Ringe
des Saturn. Eine englische Wallfahrt - Helen Finch 7. The 'Arca Project':
W. G. Sebald's Corsica - Graeme Gilloch 8. Twisted threads: the entwined
narratives of W. G. Sebald and H. G. Adler - Peter Filkins 9. Stations,
dark rooms and false worlds in W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz - David Darby Part
II: 'Prose' and photography 10. Fields of association: W. G. Sebald and
contemporary performance practices - Simon Murray 11. Still life, portrait,
photograph, narrative in the work of W. G. Sebald - Clive Scott 12. The
return of the repressed mother in W. G. Sebald's fiction - Graley Herren
13. The question of genre in W. G. Sebald's 'prose' (towards a
post-memorial literature of restitution) - Russell J. A. Kilbourn
References Index