Suddenness and suspended moment: falling in Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea

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dc.contributor.authorAllen, Colleen
dc.contributor.supervisorPollard, Matthew
dc.contributor.supervisorThorson, Helga Mae
dc.date.accessioned2010-08-27T23:06:10Z
dc.date.available2010-08-27T23:06:10Z
dc.date.copyright2010en
dc.date.issued2010-08-27T23:06:10Z
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Germanic and Russian Studies
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Germanic and Slavic Studies
dc.degree.departmentSchool of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractIn the literary works of the early nineteenth-century German writer Heinrich von Kleist there is little certainty. Kleist’s characters experience catastrophic natural and social disasters – earthquakes, revolution and war – and, as if this were not trauma enough, are subject to extreme behaviours and repeated mishaps. Characters leap from windows and break legs, stumble, faint or fall; incidents which lay bare inner psychological states that are as precarious as the external circumstances in which they find themselves. Yet into these violent events Kleist invariably interjects a suspended moment – a moment that might be considered one of intolerable exposure. Although sudden moments and momentary suspension define almost all of Kleist’s novellas and dramas, nowhere is this phenomenon so visible as in Kleist’s tragedy Penthesilea. Taking into account German critic Karl Bohrer’s concept of ‘suddenness’ (Der romantische Brief: Die Entstehung ästhetischer Subjektivität and Suddenness: On the Moment of Aesthetic Appearance), secondary literature on Kleist, scholarship on gender as well as Kleist’s biography, this project will focus on falling and suspended moment within Penthesilea, paying particular attention to vulnerability.en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/2987
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben
dc.subjectsuspended momenten
dc.subjectfallingen
dc.subjectvulnerabilityen
dc.subject.lcshUVic Subject Index::Humanities and Social Sciences::Literature::German literatureen
dc.titleSuddenness and suspended moment: falling in Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesileaen
dc.typeThesisen

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