Bernd Seidensticker – författare

Der Essayband informiert über den Stand und die Tendenzen der Antikerezeption in der deutsch-sprachigen Literatur der Gegenwart. Im Zentrum steht das anhaltende Wirkungspotential der antiken Tradition, ihre Lebendigkeit und Vielfalt. Dabei werden die unterschiedlichen Ansätze und Perspektiven im Zugriff auf die Antike herausgestellt. Die Beiträge behandeln Texte von Brasch, Braun, Fichte, Fried, Grünbein, Hacks, Haefs, Handke, Jens, Köhlmeier, Kunert, Müller, Ransmayr, Schütz, Strauß und Wolf. Sie sind exemplarisch angelegt und schenken den Fragen der literarischen Form sowie der Funktion der Antikerezeption im Kontext des jeweiligen Gesamtwerks besondere Aufmerksamkeit. Zusätzlich zu den Essays (von Klassischen Philologen und Germanisten, die zum Gebiet der Antikerezeption einschlägig gearbeitet haben) sind programmatische Beiträge von den Autoren selbst, die eigens für diesen Band geschrieben und ausgewählt wurden, aufgenommen.

The concept of corrected myths is not (yet) established in literary studies. This volume introduces this concept and demonstrates its power using exemplary interpretations. It is the case that in numerous literary works, knowledge of a conventional mythical connection is assumed, but then, at a particular point, the traditional narrative is negated - Candaule's wife was not beautiful, the Sirens did not sing, Oedipus was not surprised by the news (Brecht) etc. The corrections always occur at a significant point, so that the intervention casts a new light on well-known narratives, but in principle does not affect the core of the myth. The present volume examines the forms and functions of such corrected myths. For this, relevant works of European literature are studied and their interpretation related with considerations of Antique myths, Christian corrections of myths, new mythology and the correction of myths from existentialism to post-modernism. The spectrum of texts examined is kept as wide as possible in order not to truncate the concept of correction to an illegitimate degree.The texts include those from authors such as Heiner Muller, Thomas Brasch, Christa Wolf und Volker Braun and by Shakespeare, Goethe and Kleist.

In modern art, central importance is accorded to the diverse experiences of physical and mental violence. The resultant question of the forms of presentation of violence and the reasons for taking pleasure in tragic objects is however one which was already posed in Classical Greece in a comparable fashion. The studies in this volume arose from a symposium run by the Collaborative Research Centers on “Esthetic experience and the dissolution of artistic limits”. After reviewing the history of the 5th century B.C. with its intensive experience of violence, they examine the tension between violence and aesthetics in the fields of myth, cult, and literature with particular reference to tragedy and visual art.

Aristotle uses the concept of catharsis at various points in his writings - in his works on reproduction, on zoology, on physics, and on politics. In his "Poetics", the concept is deployed metaphorically in order to determine the purpose of tragedy. Which models of catharsis was Aristotle acquainted with, and what was the relationship between them? Proceeding from a detailed foreword, the specialist papers provide an overview of the use of the term in the different areas of biology, medicine, ritual, cult, music theory, psychology and philosophy. Working on a broad collaborative interdisciplinary basis, the authors determine the specific functions of the various conceptions of catharsis and thus clarify the foundations for the concept in poetology.

In the heyday of Greek tragedy, each of the three playwrights who competed for victory in the tragedy competition at the Great Dionysia, the most important Dionysus festival in Athens, not only had to present three tragedies, but also a light-hearted epilogue, which was called a satyr play after the satyrs who always formed the chorus. Euripides' Cyclops is the only complete surviving example of this dramatic genre. The play deals with Odysseus' encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus, which is familiar to every audience member from the Odyssey.

"Edle Einfalt", "stille Größe" nach dem Bruch mit diesem Antikebild des 19. Jahrhunderts entfaltete die Antike in der Moderne größte Wirkung. Beispiele aus Politik, Literatur, Musik, Architektur und bildender Kunst sowie ein breites Spektrum theoretischer Konzeptionen werden hier in 15 Beiträgen vorgestellt.