Poetologie der Prozessualität und schreibendes Erinnern in Thomas Bernhards Die Autobiographie
Abstract
“Ich bin ein Geschichtenzerstörer, ich bin der typische Geschichtenzerstörer” – “I am a story destroyer, I am the typical story destroyer”, Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) says in the film manuscript Drei Tage (1970). The Austrian author Thomas Bernhard is famous for his monomaniacal, ironic and antithetic style, which is found in all his works. In Bernhard’s prose, the language is in the centre, while the story plays a minor role. The goal is not to write a “whole” work, but to “cut” stories through interruptions, abrupt endings of narratives, and undermining the logics of a story. However, “destroying a story” is also an accurate characterisation of the contrast between the expectations called forth by the title of the pentalogy – Die Autobiographie – and the non-fulfilment of these expectations. Long wordy sentences, hypotaxes, and hyperbolism are in the centre of Thomas Bernhard’s Die Autobiographie. The style overshadows to a large degree the story of Bernhard’s childhood and adolescence, so that the story itself ends up as fragmented to the point of being almost invisible.
The present dissertation, Poetologie der Prozessualität und schreibendes Erinnern (“Poetics of Processuality and Writing Remembrance”), examines Thomas Bernhard’s five autobiographical novels – Die Ursache, Der Keller, Der Atem, Die Kälte, and Ein Kind – which were published between 1975 and 1982, and later collected and published as a pentalogy with the title Die Autobiographie. The first four volumes are to a large degree chronological, and deal with the period from the protagonist’s 14. until his 19. year of life. The last volume, however, breaks the chronology by focussing on his early childhood.
The main focus of the dissertation is the processuality of the poetic language in Thomas Bernhard’s Die Autobiographie. The following research questions are considered: What kind of poetic language of autobiographical writing does the work construct? How does Bernhard decide the genre affiliation of his work through ‘language play’ with key terms linked to autobiography? How does he thematise the process of finding language in Die Autobiographie? What is the importance of Bernhard’s writing style regarding his autobiographical writing and his descriptions of reality?