Robert Kirstein – författare

Robert Kirstein untersucht drei Gedichte des Corpus Theocriteum, die auf Grund vermuteter Unechtheit in der Forschung des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts weit weniger Berücksichtigung gefunden haben als die unumstrittenen Gedichte Theokrits: Idyll 20 (Boukoliskos), 21 (Fischer) und 27 (Liebesgespräch). Losgelöst von der Echtheitsproblematik führt er eine sprachliche, gedankliche und kompositionstechnische Untersuchung durch, um dabei auch den jeweiligen Berührungspunkten mit anderen Gedichten des Corpus Theocriteum und dem Verhältnis zur theokriteischen ‚Bukolik‘ nachzugehen. Im Fall von Idyll 21 gilt das besondere Interesse den ‚realistischen‘ Elementen in der Darstellung der beiden alten Fischer, die mit den Tendenzen in der hellenistischen Plastik und Bildkunst in Beziehung gesetzt wird.Die Studie setzt sich darüber hinaus kritisch mit den literarästhetischen Werturteilen auseinander, die die Forschung zu den (pseudo-)theokriteischen Gedichten bisher geprägt haben, und zeigt, dass diese teilweise auf methodisch zweifelhaften subjektiven Erwägungen beruhen.

As a well-known phenomenon in everyday communication, ambiguity has increasingly become the subject of interdisciplinary research in recent years. However, within this context, it has been observed that words or expressions situated within the artistic framework of storytelling have not yet been at the centre of research interest. This book aims to bridge this gap by examining the phenomenon of ambiguity from the perspective of narratology – understood as a general theory of narration and narrative communication. The volume pursues two goals: Firstly, it seeks to demonstrate that the interdisciplinary combination of linguistics, cultural history and narratology enriches the field of literary studies significantly. This focus not only highlights how narrative techniques often rely on everyday language conventions, but also explores how various textual features, narrative devices, or even entire storylines can be affected by phenomena (or lead to experiences) of ambiguity. These ambiguities often serve as poetic strategies that are deliberately set in the communicative process of text and reader to achieve certain narrative goals. Secondly, ambiguity – as a characteristic of (narrative) communication – seves as a linking element across different fictional (and factual) text types and genres throughout time and cultures. The collected essays cover a wide range of narrative texts, from Roman comedy to funerary reliefs, from historiographical writings to utopian tales, from Goethe’s novels to contemporary fantasy literature. In its broad approach, the volume thus contributes to the project of diachronic narratology, which, like the research on ambiguity in literary and cultural studies, has recently gained increasing momentum. The combined consideration of ambiguity and narratology not only raises awareness of phenomena of ambiguity in narrative texts but also encourage reflection on the theoretical foundations of narrative, particularly on the methods and devices used to describe these ambiguous structures. Overall, the volume represents an exploration of a relatively unexplored interdisciplinary field, aiming to stimulate further research.