Publication
Case studies of literary multilingualism: expressing alterity in a self-referential recourse to the motif of the double
| dc.contributor.author | Bär, Gerald | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2017-02-17T10:05:37Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2017-02-17T10:05:37Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2015 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Many authors such as Chamisso, Conrad, Kafka, Rilke, Andreas-Salomé and Pessoa grew up bi- or multilingual, or lived in linguistically and culturally hybrid regions. Several of these writers have fictionalized their cultural encounters not only in their ‘mother-tongue’, but in the language of their region’s socially dominant population or in their host country’s language. Some have successfully translated their own works, gaining thus a valuable awareness of themselves and of the host culture. My contribution focuses on the common tendency of these authors to develop new concepts of the self, by exploring the frontiers of alterity. In a social context, which is often experienced as uncomfortable, or even threatening, the strangeness of their literary characters, frequently expresses itself in a double- or hetero-social consciousness, articulated in the same narrative. In this creative process, fantasies of fragmentation take the shape of the ‘other’, double selves and heteronyms. In my essay “Fantasies of Fragmentation in Conrad, Kafka and Pessoa: literary strategies to express strangeness in a hetero-social context” (Bär, 2011) of which some parts are quoted here, I have already presented three case studies to illustrate this thesis. In the following I will demonstrate how the literary motif of the ‘Doppelgänger’ was used by other bi- or multilingual authors and its development from a gothic heritage to modernist concepts. In this analysis the awareness of the terminology used to describe the phenomenology of the double and the competence to differentiate is crucial. National critique employs terms, such as ‘Sosie’ and ‘Sósia’ in the French and Portuguese tradition, referring to Plautus’ concept developed in his tragicomedy Amphitryon, or ‘Doppelgänger’ and ‘double self’ used by German, British and American scholars. However tempting it may be to use these terms synonymously the result will be misleading in any international debate about comparative literature. ‘Doppelgänger’ has become an English loanword, although it does not have the same connotations than in German, as the ‘imported’ term carries the uncanny aspects of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s approach. The various translations of Dostoevsky’s Dvoinik (1846), for example, demonstrate the different (and differentiating) perception and interpretation of the phenomenon in diverse linguistic and cultural contexts: in German this novella bears the title Der Doppelgänger; in English it is The Double. French and Portuguese versions use either ‘Le Sosie’ or ‘Le Double’ / ‘O Duplo’ or ‘O Sósia’. Obviously, the emergence of literary fantasies of fragmentation also depends on factors different from those I will be examining in the context of bi-lingual and hetero-social consciousness. Usually, the shape of the double in world literature betrays multiple influences, be they linguistic, social, idiosyncratic or, as in Oscar Wilde’s and Mario de Sá-Carneiro’s case, creative homo-erotic fantasies. In Freudian terms it can be considered a projection of aspects of the super-ego or the id; in a moral-theological approach the double may manifest itself as the bad conscience which occurs mostly in protestant countries where it cannot get relief through confession. Although the double’s habitat includes all literary genres, as well as the cinema and other arts, I will concentrate mainly on prose narratives in this particular study. | pt_PT |
| dc.description.version | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion | pt_PT |
| dc.identifier.doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0352-6541-5 | pt_PT |
| dc.identifier.isbn | 9783035265415 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/6147 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | pt_PT |
| dc.peerreviewed | yes | pt_PT |
| dc.publisher | Peter Lang | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Literatura comparada | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Multilinguismo | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Duplo | pt_PT |
| dc.title | Case studies of literary multilingualism: expressing alterity in a self-referential recourse to the motif of the double | pt_PT |
| dc.type | book part | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| oaire.citation.conferencePlace | Bruxelles | pt_PT |
| oaire.citation.endPage | 193 | pt_PT |
| oaire.citation.startPage | 171 | pt_PT |
| oaire.citation.title | Paradoxes du plurilinguisme littéraire 1900: réflexions théoriques et études de cas | pt_PT |
| person.familyName | Bär | |
| person.givenName | Gerald | |
| person.identifier | 130159670 | |
| person.identifier.ciencia-id | 331A-6BF0-FD49 | |
| person.identifier.orcid | 0000-0002-3948-2153 | |
| person.identifier.scopus-author-id | 55873996900 | |
| rcaap.rights | restrictedAccess | pt_PT |
| rcaap.type | bookPart | pt_PT |
| relation.isAuthorOfPublication | 52973eba-3cba-4b13-8d86-089b26ab3f24 | |
| relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery | 52973eba-3cba-4b13-8d86-089b26ab3f24 |