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Die Stadt als Partitur

Das vielstimmige Wien in Musils Romantext
  • Alexander Honold
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2023/2024
This chapter is in the book 2023/2024

Abstract

In this essay, the urban setting in Musil’s Man without Qualities is analysed in terms of the semiotic structures of spatial extension and narrative simultaneity. Musil’s attempt to capture the complexities and ambiguities of simultaneity in modern cities can be seen as something akin to a musical score with its notation that combines several linear systems at once. The wide range of social discourses in Musil’s pre-war Vienna thus brings together various tonalities and characters in an urban soundscape full of unsung melodies.

Abstract

In this essay, the urban setting in Musil’s Man without Qualities is analysed in terms of the semiotic structures of spatial extension and narrative simultaneity. Musil’s attempt to capture the complexities and ambiguities of simultaneity in modern cities can be seen as something akin to a musical score with its notation that combines several linear systems at once. The wide range of social discourses in Musil’s pre-war Vienna thus brings together various tonalities and characters in an urban soundscape full of unsung melodies.

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