The Invention of Trauma in German Romanticism

Breithaupt, Fritz

doi:10.1086/498005

Cited by 18 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The question in novels becomes increasingly, to what forces does an action react? Since novels tend to offer an abundance of possible framing contexts, it may be that this search for possible prior forces leads the romantics in their fiction to discover or invent trauma as a determining force of human action ahead of medical science: We do what we do because we repeat the past (see Pfau 2005;Breithaupt 2005). So the novel as a genre is closely linked to the shift from action to reaction.…”

Section: Is Fiction Based On Excuses?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Birth of Narrative Out of the Spirit of the Excuse: A Speculation

Breithaupt¹

2011

Poetics Today

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This article argues that the origin of narrative lies in the "excuse" and that the structure of the excuse marks what we nowadays consider as narrative. The defining feature of the excuse is that it provides a counterversion to the master story of the accusation and thereby opens a multiplicity of versions. Given an excuse, there is not just a plurality of possible plot developments but also a consideration of linguistic nuances when weighing responsibility. The excuse generates a context within which the acts of the speaker appear in a different light or as elements of a different story; hence, the excuse should be described as a contextgenerating act. The article considers the features of the excuse, links excuse and narrative, provides an evolutionary consideration of the function of the excuse narrative and indicates how the excuse narrative is a key feature of fiction.And he said, Who told thee that thou [wast] naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What [is] this [that] thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Genesis 3My thanks go, first of all, to Suzanne Keen for her many encouragements and to Meir Sternberg for not accepting half-baked excuses in the crafting of this text. Many others have commented on parts of this paper and I would like to express my special gratitude to

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Section: Is Fiction Based On Excuses?mentioning

confidence: 99%