Research Catalog

Title

Ghostwriting : W.G. Sebald's poetics of history / Richard T. Gray.

Author

Gray, Richard T.

Publication

• New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
• ©2017

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 450 pages; 23 cm

Summary

• "Ghostwriting provides the first comprehensive analysis of the fictional prose narratives of one of contemporary Germany's most recognized authors, the émigré writer W.G. Sebald. Examining Sebald's well-known published texts in the context of largely unknown unpublished works, and informed by documents and information from Sebald's literary estate, this book offers a detailed portrait of his characteristic literary techniques and how they emerged and matured out of the practices and attitudes he represented in his profession as a literary scholar. The title "Ghostwriting" signals the convergence in Sebald's works of a set of diverse historical questions, philosophical views, and literary practices. Many historical ghosts haunt Sebald's narratives on the level of story. Moreover, Sebald's narrator plays the role of a ghostwriter in the profound sense that his stories fictionally re-enact the histories of obscure, but once-living individuals whose lives they revitalize, and whose fates are tied up with the most virulent historical conjunctures of the modern world. This study thus seeks to comprehend the constitutive elements of Sebald's "poetics of history," his implementation of literary tools for effective historical memorializing"--
• "A comprehensive study of W.G. Sebald's prose fictions, including published and unpublished works, with a focus on the genetic development of his artistic practices and their relationship to his interests in history, memory, and exile"--

Series Statement

New directions in German studies ; Vol. 20

Uniform Title

New directions in German studies ; v. 20.

Alternative Title

W.G. Sebald's poetics of history

Subject

• Sebald, W. G. 1944-2001 > Criticism and interpretation
• Sebald, W. G. 1944-2001
• Literature and history
• Memory in literature
• Exiles in literature
• Collective memory and literature
• LITERARY CRITICISM > European > German
• LITERARY CRITICISM > Semiotics & Theory

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Machine generated contents note: -- Introduction: Sebald's Literary Séance -- 1. Wittgenstein's Ghost: Toward Understanding Sebald's Literary Turn -- 2. The Birth of the Prose Fictionalizer from the Spirit of Biographical Criticism: Schwindel. Gefühle -- 3. Sebald's Literary Refinement: "Dr. Henry Selwyn" and Its Textual Predecessor -- 4. Neither Here Nor There: Exile as Dis-Placement in "Dr. Henry Selwyn" -- 5. Sebald's Ectopia: Homelessness and Alienated Heritage in "Max Aurach"/"Max Ferber" -- 6. Fabulation and Metahistory: W.G. Sebald and the Problematic of Contemporary (German) Holocaust Fiction -- 7. Sebald's Segues: Performing Narrative Contingency in Die Ringe des Saturn -- 8. Writing at the Roche Limit: Order and Entropy in Die Ringe des Saturn -- 9. Narrating Environmental Catastrophe: Ecopsychology and Ecological Apocalypse in Sebald's Corsica Project -- Bibliography -- Index.

Call Number

JFD 17-6806

ISBN

• 9781501329999
• 1501329995

LCCN

2017018313

OCLC

960089022

Author

Gray, Richard T., author.

Title

Ghostwriting : W.G. Sebald's poetics of history / Richard T. Gray.

Publisher

New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.

Copyright Date

©2017

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

New directions in German studies ; Vol. 20

New directions in German studies ; v. 20.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Research Call Number

JFD 17-6806