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Ich suche ein unschuldiges Land: Reading history in the poetry of Ingeborg Bachmann
Abstract
"Ich suche ein unschuldiges Land": Reading History in the Poetry of Ingeborg Bachmann" reads the discourse on fascism as one among multiple discourses in the poetry (1948-1967) of the postwar Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann. In Chapter One I position myself in relation to previous work on Bachmann's poetry, as I argue for a reading of her poetry that examines her engagement with the legacy of National Socialism. Chapter Two presents a reading of Bachmann's early poems (1948-1952), in which the poetic subject can be seen flying over a ruined "landscape of history," recalling Walter Benjamin's angel of history flying over debris and rubble. Historiography and historical discourse were as much in rubble as the physical landscape of the former German Reich; the imposing structures that had previously dominated the figurative landscapes of history and literature were in ruins. In Chapters Three and Four, poems from Die gestundete Zeit (1953) are examined in the context of a gap in historical discourse during the early 1950s--a period in which this discourse is suspended because of "das Unsagliche" of National Socialism. The poems discussed in Chapter Four, although dealing predominantly with poetological questions, also represent a self-reflexive "Engagement" with the legacy of National Socialism in the "afterbirth of horrors." Chapters Five and Six are devoted to Anrufung des grossen Baren (1956). Chapter Five focuses on landscapes of night and darkness as metaphors for the aftermath of National Socialism. The second part of the chapter explores the concept of an "unbeschriebenes Land," and the nexus of guilt, memory, and language that are brought together in these poems. The sixth chapter discusses Bachmann's presentation of Italy as an anti-idyll that forbids the possibility of escape from history into an "unschuldiges land" (Ungaretti). The final chapter treats the late poems (1957-1961; 1964-1967) that have traditionally been read as signaling Bachmann's "Sprachkrise," but which also problematize what it means to write "das unbeschriebene Land." Like Benjamin's angel, the poetic subject of Bachmann's poetry, very often flying over this landscape of history, seeks the "unschuldiges Land" but ultimately articulates the impossibility of innocence and nationhood.
Subject Area
German literature|Modern history|History
Recommended Citation
Morris, Leslie C, "Ich suche ein unschuldiges Land: Reading history in the poetry of Ingeborg Bachmann" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9305871.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9305871