Grillparzer's “The Poor Musician”: The Artist-Hermit in Search of a Community
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Carmen Barbu
A parallel reading of Franz Grillparzer's “The Poor Musician” and Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment occasions reflections on the possibility of defining community in aesthetic terms. While aesthetic judgment remains subjective for Kant, even as it formulates a universal claim, Grillparzer shows how a faulty interpretation of universality can disfigure a work of art and deprive unwary readers of their freedom to interpret by charming them with a simulacrum of community. Grillparzer does not merely deplore this, but also sets in the text points of resistance against such invasive interpretations, thus forcing the readers to reflect on both the work and their own judgment. Moreover, the novella's focus on music asks for a reappraisal of Kant's classification of the fine arts, which is based on a quasi-linguistic criterion of communicability and thus restricts their postulated universality.
© Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
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- Narrative Identification
- The Formative Influence of Literature. Analogical Thinking, Statements, and Identification
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- (Mis)taken Identities. Myths of Origin in a South African Familienroman
- Aufklärerische Metaphysik. Walter Benjamin zu Nikolaj Lesskov und Johann Peter Hebel
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- Rezensionen
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction. Identity, Community, and Comparative Literature
- Cosmopolitanism and Identity: Challenges for Comparative Literature
- Narrative Identification
- The Formative Influence of Literature. Analogical Thinking, Statements, and Identification
- Grillparzer's “The Poor Musician”: The Artist-Hermit in Search of a Community
- The Apocatastasis of Community in Late Burroughs
- The Condition of “East Asia” Discourse. Theory and Practice of De-homogenization
- First Nations Identity, Contemporary Interpretive Communities, and Nomadic Legacies
- Conditions of Identity in Writing or: about a Genocide
- (Mis)taken Identities. Myths of Origin in a South African Familienroman
- Aufklärerische Metaphysik. Walter Benjamin zu Nikolaj Lesskov und Johann Peter Hebel
- Krieg und Gartenpartys. Oberflächen des Politischen bei Rainer Maria Rilke
- Rezensionen
