Rüdiger Görner – författare

Selective Affinities offers in-depth insights into the formation, historical development, and present-day features of British-German cultural relations. Based on rarely considered source material, it tells the story of a uniquely rich relationship in cultural history and examines its synergies and controversies, its misunderstandings and the prejudices resulting from them. It discusses aspects of British Germanophobia and German Anglophilia with a particular focus on the nineteenth century, which influenced British-German relations into the twentieth century. The emphasis is on 'affinities' between British and Germanic culture throughout the last five centuries; at times they were too close for comfort but they were shaped by particular individuals who acted as 'transferants', or mediators, between both cultures. Accordingly, the work of artists, translators, and in some cases diplomats, takes centre stage, ranging from Hans Holbein the Younger, as the portraitist of the late Tudor period, to Michael Hamburger, the German-born exile poet and translator of Hölderlin and Celan. The role of German immigrants to Britain throughout the centuries but predominantly after 1933, is an integral part of the story; but so is the presence of English culture in Germany, first in the shape of the nineteenth-century traveller, or early tourist along the Rhine and Danube, and later, after 1919 and in particular after 1945, through the educational and organizational work of the British Occupation Forces. Ten years after the Brexit-referendum, Selective Affinities provides a balanced and analytical account of these strands in the cultural history of both countries with its fruitful ups and tragic downs that provide us with insightful pointers towards a continuation of these relations, once again in precarious times.

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was an artist of his time, but he also stood out among his peers - not just because of his towering physical height but for his artistic range. Using both brush and pen to work against the tide, he wrote plays and stories as well as essays on art and politics, playing a major role in the development of twentieth-century European art.A rebel of the art world, he was used to controversy, and Rüdiger Görner's accomplished biography traces the dark, unsettling aspects of Kokoschka's life alongside his more celebrated achievements: from the eerie doll he had made in the image of a former lover to the unconventional art school he founded in the aftermath of the Second Word War.Taking us from his birthplace of Pöchlarn across Europe and to the United Kingdom, where he became a naturalised British citizen in 1947, this first English-language biography does more than show Kokoschka as a maverick artist; it is the definitive interpretation of an extraordinary life.

In the Future of Yesterday offers a refreshing approach to the life and work of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig and delves into his considerable contribution to world literature, rooted in the Austro-Jewish tradition. His privileged social background saw him embrace European culture and cosmopolitanism. A world traveller from the outset he liked to uproot himself but whether he stayed in London, New York or, eventually, in Brazil, his literary baggage continued to contain the flair of fin de siècle Vienna.This biography re-examines Zweig’s influential time in England and offers new insights into his final years in the United States and Brazil; it discusses some of his prolific literary output in relation to his life; and takes his political views on Europe, Zionism, and the world order more in greater depth than previous appraisals of Zweig’s life. But the considers the many contradictions in his views and attitudes, which included an initial, and surprising, leniency towards Fascist. Most importantly though, In the Future of Yesterday presents Zweig as a towering figure of a form of writing that was bursting with ‘life’ and was written in the knowledge that there can only be a future if we remain conscious of the past. In that sense at least, Zweig is a writer for our time.

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was an artist of his time, but he also stood out among his peers - not just because of his towering physical height but for his artistic range. Using both brush and pen to work against the tide, he wrote plays and stories as well as essays on art and politics, playing a major role in the development of twentieth-century European art.A rebel of the art world, he was used to controversy, and Rüdiger Görner's accomplished biography traces the dark, unsettling aspects of Kokoschka's life alongside his more celebrated achievements: from the eerie doll he had made in the image of a former lover to the unconventional art school he founded in the aftermath of the Second Word War.Taking us from his birthplace of Pöchlarn across Europe and to the United Kingdom, where he became a naturalised British citizen in 1947, this first English-language biography does more than show Kokoschka as a maverick artist; it is the definitive interpretation of an extraordinary life.

In the Future of Yesterday offers a refreshing approach to the life and work of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, delving into his considerable contribution to world literature, rooted in the Austro-Jewish tradition.A world traveller from the outset, Zweig liked to uproot himself – but whether he stayed in London, New York, or eventually Brazil, his literary baggage continued to contain the flair of fin de siècle Vienna.Looking anew at Zweig’s influential time in England and offering fresh insights into his final years in the United States and Brazil, Görner discusses Zweig’s prolific literary output in relation to his life and treats his political views on Europe, Zionism, and the world order with great depth and scrutiny.Most importantly, In the Future of Yesterday shows Zweig as a towering figure of a form of writing that was bursting with life and was written in the knowledge that there can only be a future if we remain conscious of the past.

In Leben und Werk Wolfgang Hildesheimers kommt England der Status eines Kulturtopos zu, der in bestimmten Lebensphasen prominent, in anderen verschleiert in Erscheinung trat. Der Einfluss englischsprachiger Autoren prägte Hildesheimers Schaffen – von Shakespeare, Shaw, Joyce, T. S. Eliot über Barnes und Beckett – und die englische Sprache durchzieht Werk und Briefe. Wie läßt sich die englische Topografie in Hildesheimers Werk vermessen? Wie das Geopoetische in seinen England-Bezügen werten? Auf welches ‘England’ bezog sich Hildesheimer? War es jenes Shakespeares, Shaws, T.S. Eliots, Becketts oder die Welt des James Joyce? Was am Englischen äußerte sich stilbildend, sprachprägend in seinem Werk? Dieser Band dokumentiert erstmals thematisch zusammenhängend die Lebensspuren Hildesheimers im englischen Kulturraum und die Spuren des Englischen in seinem literarischen und bildkünstlerischen Œuvre. Er präsentiert die Ergebnisse der Tagung «Wolfgang Hildesheimer und England», die im September 2010 am Queen Mary College der University of London stattfand.

Myths determine the way cultures understand themselves. The papers in this volume examine culturally specific myths in Britain and the German-speaking world, and compare approaches to the theory of myth, together with the ways in which mythological formations operate in literature, aesthetics and politics ‑ with a focus on the period around 1800. They enquire into the consequences of myth-oriented discourses for the way in which these two cultures understand each other, and in this way make a significant contribution to a more profound approach to intercultural research.

In der kaum noch überschaubaren Literatur zum Werk Franz Kafkas fällt eine überraschende Leerstelle auf: Sein schriftlicher Umgang mit akustischen Phänomenen. Diese Monographie untersucht erstmals zusammenhängend die klang- und geräuschbezogene Seite des ‚Kafkaesken’, hier als ‚Sonantik’ bezeichnet. In zwölf thematischen Einheiten werden die für Kafkas Texte symptomatischen Bezüge zum Akustischen – auch im Kontext der Anti-Lärm Bewegung der Zeit – in ihrer narrativen und psychologischen Bedeutung analysiert. Dabei können die sonantischen-kakophonen Phänomene – auch im Vergleich zu Rilke und Joyce, ebenso wie in ihrer musikalischen Verarbeitung durch György Kurtág – als konstitutive Elemente im Schaffen Kafkas erwiesen werden. Einen Schwerpunkt bilden die erzählten Geräusche und andere auditive Verwandlungen, ebenso wie diese Studie den Hörspuren in Kafkas Briefen und Tagebüchern nachgeht, dem Geräusch der Dinge und dem verdinglichten Geräusch in seinen Texten – und das im Hinblick auf das Herausarbeiten einer Poetik des Akustischen in diesem Werk. Die Befunde sind für die Kafka-Forschung wie auch für eine kulturanalytisch verstandene Literaturwissenschaft von Interesse, aber auch als Anregung für weitere Studien im zu entwickelnden Bereich der sonantischen Erzähltheorie.

Der Band nimmt Thomas Manns Arbeiten über Goethe, Schiller, Wagner, Shaw, Kleist und Platen erstmals in einen zusammenhängenden Blick. Rüdiger Görner zeigt, dass sich die essayistischen Porträts zumeist wie verkappte Biographien und mithin als Spiegel von Thomas Manns eigenem Ich lesen lassen. Dabei werden insbesondere Fragen nach dem problematischen Verhältnis zwischen essayistischer und fiktiver (Auto-)Biographie aufgeworfen.

In der kaum noch überschaubaren Literatur zum Werk Franz Kafkas fällt eine überraschende Leerstelle auf: Sein schriftlicher Umgang mit akustischen Phänomenen. Diese Monographie untersucht erstmals zusammenhängend die klang- und geräuschbezogene Seite des ‚Kafkaesken’, hier als ‚Sonantik’ bezeichnet. In zwölf thematischen Einheiten werden die für Kafkas Texte symptomatischen Bezüge zum Akustischen – auch im Kontext der Anti-Lärm Bewegung der Zeit – in ihrer narrativen und psychologischen Bedeutung analysiert. Dabei können die sonantischen-kakophonen Phänomene – auch im Vergleich zu Rilke und Joyce, ebenso wie in ihrer musikalischen Verarbeitung durch György Kurtág – als konstitutive Elemente im Schaffen Kafkas erwiesen werden. Einen Schwerpunkt bilden die erzählten Geräusche und andere auditive Verwandlungen, ebenso wie diese Studie den Hörspuren in Kafkas Briefen und Tagebüchern nachgeht, dem Geräusch der Dinge und dem verdinglichten Geräusch in seinen Texten – und das im Hinblick auf das Herausarbeiten einer Poetik des Akustischen in diesem Werk. Die Befunde sind für die Kafka-Forschung wie auch für eine kulturanalytisch verstandene Literaturwissenschaft von Interesse, aber auch als Anregung für weitere Studien im zu entwickelnden Bereich der sonantischen Erzähltheorie.

The essays in this volume explore German-language literatures through examples of difference and similarity, examining individual notions of tradition and modernist tendencies that resist simple traditionalism while fostering continuity. Structured in four sections, the volume emphasizes the value of aesthetically informed intellectual orientation and asks what the arts, especially literature, can contain as knowledge.

Ein Zeichen sind wir, deutungslos. Schmerzlos sind wir und haben fast / Die Sprache in der Fremde verloren. So beginnt Friedrich Hölderlins Hymne, die dem Gedächtnis gilt, der Göttin der Erinnerung, Mnemosyne. Dieses Buch will den Dichter der Dichter erinnern und das, was seine Dichtungen, die ihresgleichen in der deutschen Sprache nicht kennen, an Fragwürdigem angeregt, ja, ausgelöst haben. Die hier unternommenen Zugänge gelten einem zu seiner Zeit Ausgegrenzten, einem Sprachkünstler, den seine Zeitgenossen zum Fremden erklärten, bis er sich selbst fremd wurde. Diese mehrfache Fremdheitserfahrung Hölderlins wurde später durch ideologisch motivierte Heimholungsversuche und Vereinnahmungen konterkariert. Rüdiger Görner stellt diesen komplexen Zusammenhang als einen in der jüngeren Literaturgeschichte besonderen Fall dar.

Die hier versammelten Studien behandeln Formen von Thomas Manns Erzählen, die meist weniger im Mittelpunkt stehen, etwa das Lyrisch-Idyllische, sein Liebäugeln mit dem Don Quichotismus in Texten, die sich als fortgesetzter Versuch einer umfassenden, mehr oder minder camouflierten Selbstdeutung verstehen. Über zehn Jahre nach Rüdiger Görners vielbeachteter Monographie „Thomas Mann. Der Zauber des Letzten“ bietet dieses Buch ein ungewöhnliches Panorama, das auch unvermutete Wahlverwandte wie Eduard von Keyserling in den Blick nimmt und etwa das Wellenmotiv in Thomas Manns Schaffen.

"A sign we are, uninterpreted. Painless we are and have almost / lost the language in a foreign country." Thus begins the second version of Friedrich Hölderlin's hymn dedicated to goddess of memory, Mnemosyne. "Hölderlin and the Consequences" wants to remember this 'poet of poets' and consider what his unmatched poems have stimulated, even triggered, in others. This scholarly essay examines the legacy of a poet who was, by and large, ostracized in his time, a master of language, who was declared a stranger by his contemporaries until he became a stranger to himself. Hölderlin's multiple experience of foreignness and alienation was later counteracted by often ideologically motivated attempts to appropriate him. Rüdiger Görner presents this complex context as a special case in recent literary history.This book is a translation of an original German 1st edition, "Hölderlin und die Folgen" by Rüdiger Görner, published by J.B. Metzler, imprint of Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2016. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com).  The author (with the support of Josh Torabi) has subsequently revised the text further in an endeavour to refine the work stylistically.

"A sign we are, uninterpreted. Painless we are and have almost / lost the language in a foreign country." Thus begins the second version of Friedrich Hölderlin's hymn dedicated to goddess of memory, Mnemosyne. "Hölderlin and the Consequences" wants to remember this 'poet of poets' and consider what his unmatched poems have stimulated, even triggered, in others. This scholarly essay examines the legacy of a poet who was, by and large, ostracized in his time, a master of language, who was declared a stranger by his contemporaries until he became a stranger to himself. Hölderlin's multiple experience of foreignness and alienation was later counteracted by often ideologically motivated attempts to appropriate him. Rüdiger Görner presents this complex context as a special case in recent literary history.This book is a translation of an original German 1st edition, "Hölderlin und die Folgen" by Rüdiger Görner, published by J.B. Metzler, imprint of Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2016. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com).  The author (with the support of Josh Torabi) has subsequently revised the text further in an endeavour to refine the work stylistically.