Traces of Trauma in W.G. Sebald and Christoph Ransmayr
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 198
ISBN-13: 9781351192354
Subjects: Criticism and interpretation; German fiction; History and criticism; Psychic trauma in literature; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature; Violence in literature; Roman allemand; Histoire et critique; Traumatisme psychique dans la littérature; Holocauste, 1939-1945, dans la littérature; Violence dans la littérature; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) in literature
Description: "Both W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) and the Austrian author Christoph Ransmayr (1954- ) were born too late to know directly the violence of the Second World War and the Holocaust, but these traumatic events are a persistent presence in their work. In a series of close readings of key prose texts, Dora Osborne examines the different ways in which the traces of a traumatic past mark their narratives. By focusing on the authors' use of visual and topographical tropes, she shows how blind spots and inhospitable places configure signs of past violence, but, ultimately, resist our understanding. Whilst links between the two authors are well-documented, this book offers the first full-length study of Sebald and Ransmayr and their complicated relation to the traumatic traces of National Socialism. Dora Osborne is Lecturer in German at the University of Nottingham."
Table of contents: title: Chapter INTRODUCTION -- Post-Postwar Literature -- chapter 1 Traces of Trauma -- chapter 2 The Terrors of Ice and Darkness: The Case of the Ice-Man -- chapter 3 'Narbenübersät': An Excess of Traces in The Dog King -- chapter 4 Displacement, Dysfunction, and Erasure in The Emigrants -- chapter 5 Blind Spots: Austerlitz -- chapter Conclusion.