Abstract:The essay depicts John Barth´s sophisticated dealing with the fiction of forms. By referring to short stories from his 1968 collection Lost in the Funhouse, and especially to "Life-Story", Barth´s approach of creating metafiction as response to supposedly exhausted literary topics is highlighted. Fiction, consisting of forms as equivalent of existence in being, and consisting of thoughts as equivalent of essence in being, cannot basically change until essence in being itself will change. As forms will only repeat again and again, Barth challenges the reader by having him witness the demanding process of creating a work of art. Varying the kuenstlerroman, he anticipates identity issues of subsequent decades as well as issues of being and art.
The essay highlights aspects of ideology and of emancipation issues in Maria Susanna Cummins´ novel, The Lamplighter, published in 1854. Being a domestic, or sentimental, novel it reached a wide range of readers, as did many of contemporary female authors referred to as literary domestics. Though simply structured, The Lamplighter carries a specific view as to life at home and life in the world, relating to central issues of female readers´ self-perception and self-concept. Benevolence and enlightenment as central ideas of socialization give insight into the ways and the goals of the early republic. In the novel, aspects of affirmation take turns with aspects of autonomy in the image of how women were supposed to be like. Obvious differences in background, class, and behavior hint at the morals and manners of a society on the cusp of becoming the nation-to-be. Cummins is shown to promote what is a moderate approach of achieving a middle position between poverty and fashion. Mostly didactic in her presentation of the protagonists, Cummins advocates a kind of Protestantism that is grounded in the concept of man being generally capable and in need of undergoing a gradual educative process. With that the author rejects the Calvinism then still strong in New England, and she advocates for candor in antebellum contemporaries.
Abstract:The essay addresses issues of existence and time in John Updike´s short story, "The Music School", which was published in 1966 in a short story collection by the same name. While waiting for his daughter in a music school, the writer Alfred Schweigen reflects on the complexities of life, describing his thoughts and impressions. In his everyday dealings with reality, by way of contrasting materiality to immateriality he attempts to make sense of existence as it comes into view. Especially, time not so much as an objective category but as a matter of subjective experiencing is an important aspect. Time as a musical category of rhythm, and as rhythm of life and of transience, is a topos the narrator makes a draft on, approaching an existential view of real-world issues through life philosophy. Some others of Updike´s stories of the sixties make for a thematic kinship, so that it becomes obvious that existence in reference to time provides a point of departure to gain insight into being.
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