Frühzeit des Bürgers

Knopf, Jan

doi:10.1007/978-3-476-03085-6

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…This first description brings together two decisive features of the island's topography, namely that it protects against hostile incursions while at the same time concealing the paradisical interior. Jan Knopf is no doubt correct in regarding these features as a topographical representation of the early bourgeoisie's self‐image which juxtaposed an inconspicuous exterior with a materially, morally and emotionally rich interior (Knopf , 85–87). Yet, like More before him, Schnabel assigns a further political dimension to the topography, associating it with territorial delimitation as the precondition for a well‐ordered society.…”

Section: Utopian Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Utopian Passport Control

Gulddal

2016

Orbis Litterarum

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The argument presented in this article addresses a conflict that is fundamental to the eighteenth‐century transformation of the novel namely that between the mobility restrictions imposed by the modern state and the novel's traditional dependency on the free mobility of its characters. J. G. Schnabel's Insel Felsenburg is a striking literary manifestation of this conflict. As I argue, the narrative logic of this voluminous and somewhat bizarre novel can only be fully appreciated when taking into account its complex negotiations of mobility and movement control. Marking the confluence of two novelistic traditions, the utopian novel and the adventure novel, it is equally reliant on the settledness and the nomadism of its central characters, the former being the precondition for social order, the latter the basis for the novel's narrative momentum. The structure of the novel results from an attempt to resolve this conflict by channelling mobility into politically and morally acceptable paths – that is, by inventing a literary movement control regime.

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Section: Utopian Bordersmentioning

confidence: 99%