• Literary Authenticity and its Platonic Shadow – The Poetics of Epiphany in Hugo von Hofmannsthal and James Joyce (english version)

    Contributor(s):
    MICHAEL BOEHLER (see profile)
    Date:
    2012
    Subject(s):
    Modernism (Literature), Literature--Philosophy, Plato, Joyce, James, 1882-1941, Germanic literature
    Item Type:
    Conference paper
    Conf. Title:
    Tenth International Conference of the Research Program „Orte des Gedächtnisses“: Die Er/Findung von Authentizität, (Realms of Memory: The Invention / Recovery of Authenticity), The Institute of Culture Studies and Theater History
    Conf. Org.:
    Austrian Academy of Sciences
    Conf. Loc.:
    Vienna
    Conf. Date:
    October 8th –10th, 2008
    Tag(s):
    authenticity, epiphany, hugo von hofmannsthal, Platon, Literary modernism, Philosophy and literature, James Joyce
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/anag-t664
    Abstract:
    No discussion of literature and poetry in connection with the problem of authenticity can fail to evoke their epochal shadow of suspicion of the notoriously non-authentic. This goes back to Plato's Republic where questions regarding the inauthenticity of the mimetic arts result in a decisive verdict against poetry, which would consequently be banned from the state. What unfolds in Plato’s Republic could be called the first debate in Western philosophy on the question of authenticity. In its dialogizing we can already observe the formal, rhetorical and typological structures of argumentation that have defined the discourse on authenticity with regard to literature ever since. By systematizing Plato’s arguments into a “Configuration of the Authentic vs. Inauthentic” (‘gradualism’ / ‘distance vs. proximity’ / ‘fleeting vs. lasting’ / ‘being vs. seeming’ / ‘truth vs. untruth’ / ‘derived vs. original’ / ‘emphatic rhetoric of pathos’) the paper explores the interconnectivity of Joyce’s “Epiphanies” (1898/1904) and Hofmannsthal’s “Chandos Experience” (1902) as witnesses to the quest for literary authenticity at the turn of the 20th century.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Conference proceeding     Show details
    Publisher:
    transcript Verlag, Bielefeld
    Pub. Date:
    2012
    Proceeding:
    Michael Rössner, Heidemarie Uhl (eds.): Renaissance der Authentizität? Über die neue Sehnsucht nach dem Ursprünglichen.
    Page Range:
    119 - 142
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    1 year ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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