Band 54, Heft 1

Flaubert regarded his last two novels, La Tentation de saint Antoine and the unfinished Bouvard et Pécuchet , as companion pieces. For all their obvious differences in terms of setting and generic models, certain similarities have struck readers, not least the way in which both works depart from the parameters of the writer’s influential poetics. Among the most prominent similarities are an unmistakable and at times tiresome repetitiveness and the overwhelming encyclopedic scope of the scientific knowledge and disciplines informing both works. The essay charts the different generic lineages that make for the difficulty in situating Flaubert’s late work to then discuss a theme that is often overlooked: curiositas . Hans Blumenberg’s magisterial history of curiosity, Der Prozeß der theoretischen Neugierde , allows us to account for the peculiar mix of science and religion, gnostic and scientific curiosity, in La Tentation , while the philosopher’s short study Das Lachen der Thrakerin , an extension of the curiosity book, casts a new light on the ambivalent status of libido sciendi in Bouvard et Pécuchet .

The exile in Germany allowed the Georgian writer Grigol Robakidse to re-work national myths and history more freely. Hence it appears legitimate to read Robakidse’s novel Die Hüter des Grals that was written and published during his exile period as a fiction of memory. The text aims to counteract social oblivion and to prevent the loss of the Georgian identity. Recalling the national past becomes an act of resistance against Soviet rulers and is determined to serve as a weapon against suppression. To do so, the novel allocates the entire storyline to a mythically determined framework that is designed as a fusion of the Georgian and European mythologems, thus demonstrating the proximity of the corresponding cultural traditions. By staging a fight between various interpretations of the past, it not only (re)constructs but also remythologizes the national identity and attaches to it a universal significance. The characters and spaces of the novel are configured in a way that the Georgian (and the congruent Occidental) self-image is represented as sacred, whereas the intracultural (Bolshevist) hetero-image undergoes demonization. According to the conception of the text, a special cultural mission is assigned to Georgia as a country that is able to fulfill the role of a guardian of the Occident’s spirit, its past, and its values.

This article focuses on the theme of the family secret as literary genre, motif, and structure in the work of the contemporary French author Gisèle Fournier. Following a triaxle scheme, the article analyzes the particular polyphonic writing of the secret and the unspeakable, and explores the long psychological process of the victims as depicted in Fournier’s writings. In addition, the study situates Fournier’s oeuvre in the same tradition as two of the most prominent contemporary French authors, Marie NDiaye and Laurent Mauvignier.

Gryphius reworks the first version of his tragedy Carolus Stuardus . In doing so, he elucidates not only the parallels with the Passion of Christ but also the presentation of the human voices at the medial interface between description and song. Irregular rhythmic arrangements of character discourse and the independence of the choruses from the plot point to a multifaceted contrast polyphony that can be readily measured against contemporary musical models.

Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life (1998) and its filmic adaptation Arrival (2016) both use Heptapod B, an artificial language from extra-terrestrial origin, capable of conferring on its speakers the ability of precognition, as a primordial narrative framework. Innovative as it is, it not only determines the way the stories are recounted, but also raises some very interesting philosophical issues. Focusing on that fantastical language, we promote a comparative analysis of the differing perspectives of the novella writer and the filmmakers regarding the free will and determinism dichotomy in connection with foreknowledge, and how these distinct views may have been influenced by the adaptation process. With the aim of providing a solid basis for such discussion, we collect and review the contributions of Linda Hutcheon, Brian McFarlane, George Bluestone, Linda Gualda as well as of others in relation to the plot developments in the literary text and its filmic adaptation. As a result, we point out what is prioritized or transformed in the adaptation process, thus offering a theoretical and philosophical criticism on the two stories and a comprehensive exegesis of the texts.