Abstract
The last days of the distinction between culture and civilization, famously consecrated by Kant, were chronicled in literary texts by East-Central European writers who diagnosed, lamented, and pondered the ethical and political implications of the end of culture, a casualty of technological modernity, the loss of shared moral values, and the “horrors” of history. The following essay reconstructs this apocalyptic scenario, identifying its discrete episodes in Aleksander Wat’s novella “Lucifer Unemployed” (1927), Elias Canetti’s novel Autodafé (1935), and Mircea Eliade’s philosophical parable Youth without Youth (1977). The first offers a vision of the dissolution of culture into civilization, entertaining a subversive solution; the second points irrevocably to the end of culture, through the symbolic destruction of an immense library in autodafé; the third hypothesizes on the redemption of culture through anamnesis in a post-nuclear age. The texts reflect the dilemmas of the 1930s – a Manichean, deeply politicized world, in which allegiances both on the Left and on the Right proved problematic; more broadly, the triptych affords insights into the complex ways in which political ideologies permeate and shape the discourse and place of culture in the Western world.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank George Hoare, Sally Turner, and Jay Hwang for reading and discussing with me an earlier version of this essay. I am also grateful to the editors of Arcadia for their helpful comments.
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© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- General introduction
- Ethical Literary Criticism: East and West
- From Homer’s Odyssey to Joyce’s Ulysses: Theory and Practice of an Ethical Narratology
- The Ethics of (Fictional) Form: Persuasiveness and Perspective Taking from the Point of View of Cognitive Literary Studies
- Leger(e)demain: Reading and the Restless Hand
- Towards an Ethical Literary Criticism
- The Unbearable Lightness of Growth: Ethical Consciousness and Ethical Selection in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden
- Visions of the End of Culture: Civilization, Barbarism, and the Realm beyond Forgiveness
- Wie deutsch ist es?
- The Danse Macabre and Shakespeare’s Battle of Shrewsbury
- Die pfadabhängige Matrix des Labyrinths
- Reviews
- Francesco Bono, Luigi Cimmino, Giorgio Pangaro (Hgg.):Morte a Venezia. Thomas Mann / Luchino Visconti: un confronto. Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino Editore, 2013 (Cinema. Passaggi di confine. Collana diretta da Christian Uva), 238 S., ISBN 978-88-498-3937-1, € 14,00.
- Philosopher en langues. Les intraduisibles en traduction. Sous la direction de Barbara Cassin. Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm / Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure 2014, Zweite Auflage, 218 Seiten. Evelyn Dueck:L’Étranger intime. Les traductions françaises de l’œuvre de Paul Celan (1971–2010). Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter 2014 [Communicatio. Studien zur europäischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte], 466 Seiten.
- Elke Sturm-Trigonakis:Comparative Cultural Studies and the New Weltliteratur. Translated from the German by Athanasia Margoni and Maria Kaisar. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2013.
- Kushner, Eva (ed.).L’époque de la Renaissance. Tome III. Maturations et mutations (1520–1560). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011. 636 pp. (A Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXVI)
- Claudia Hillebrandt/Elisabeth Kampmann (Hrsg.):Sympathie und Literatur. Zur Relevanz des Sympathiekonzeptes für die Literaturwissenschaft. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2014 (= Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft; 19), 308 Seiten.
- Loescher, Jens:Schreiben. Literarische und wissenschaftliche Innovationen bei Lichtenberg, Jean Paul, Goethe. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter 2014. 454 S.
- Ernst van Alphen:Staging the Archive. Art and Photography in the Age of New Media. London: Reaktion Books, 2014.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- General introduction
- Ethical Literary Criticism: East and West
- From Homer’s Odyssey to Joyce’s Ulysses: Theory and Practice of an Ethical Narratology
- The Ethics of (Fictional) Form: Persuasiveness and Perspective Taking from the Point of View of Cognitive Literary Studies
- Leger(e)demain: Reading and the Restless Hand
- Towards an Ethical Literary Criticism
- The Unbearable Lightness of Growth: Ethical Consciousness and Ethical Selection in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden
- Visions of the End of Culture: Civilization, Barbarism, and the Realm beyond Forgiveness
- Wie deutsch ist es?
- The Danse Macabre and Shakespeare’s Battle of Shrewsbury
- Die pfadabhängige Matrix des Labyrinths
- Reviews
- Francesco Bono, Luigi Cimmino, Giorgio Pangaro (Hgg.):Morte a Venezia. Thomas Mann / Luchino Visconti: un confronto. Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino Editore, 2013 (Cinema. Passaggi di confine. Collana diretta da Christian Uva), 238 S., ISBN 978-88-498-3937-1, € 14,00.
- Philosopher en langues. Les intraduisibles en traduction. Sous la direction de Barbara Cassin. Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm / Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure 2014, Zweite Auflage, 218 Seiten. Evelyn Dueck:L’Étranger intime. Les traductions françaises de l’œuvre de Paul Celan (1971–2010). Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter 2014 [Communicatio. Studien zur europäischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte], 466 Seiten.
- Elke Sturm-Trigonakis:Comparative Cultural Studies and the New Weltliteratur. Translated from the German by Athanasia Margoni and Maria Kaisar. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2013.
- Kushner, Eva (ed.).L’époque de la Renaissance. Tome III. Maturations et mutations (1520–1560). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011. 636 pp. (A Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXVI)
- Claudia Hillebrandt/Elisabeth Kampmann (Hrsg.):Sympathie und Literatur. Zur Relevanz des Sympathiekonzeptes für die Literaturwissenschaft. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2014 (= Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft; 19), 308 Seiten.
- Loescher, Jens:Schreiben. Literarische und wissenschaftliche Innovationen bei Lichtenberg, Jean Paul, Goethe. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter 2014. 454 S.
- Ernst van Alphen:Staging the Archive. Art and Photography in the Age of New Media. London: Reaktion Books, 2014.