Die Reinkarnation Des Lesers Als Autor: Ein Rezeptions Geschichtlicher Versuch Ueber Den Einfluss Der Altindischen Literatur Auf Deutsche Schriftsteller Um 1900. (German Text)
Murti, Kamakshi Pappu
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Description
Title
Die Reinkarnation Des Lesers Als Autor: Ein Rezeptions Geschichtlicher Versuch Ueber Den Einfluss Der Altindischen Literatur Auf Deutsche Schriftsteller Um 1900. (German Text)
Author(s)
Murti, Kamakshi Pappu
Issue Date
1987
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Shaw, Leroy R.
Department of Study
German
Discipline
German
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Literature, Germanic
Abstract
The purpose of this dissertation is to redefine the relationship between classical Indian literature and modern German literature. Almost all the criticism surveyed has been an analysis of the influence of the sacred texts of India on German literature. The result was a refusal to acknowledge the writing of the Germans as a creative process. Their works were viewed as distortions of the original texts.
The perceptions of texts as sacred or profane is culturally rooted and German writers have often interpreted as profane that which the Indians consider sacred. This difference in perception explains why German writers have received certain themes from literature and restructured them within the framework of their own creative ambitions.
The dissertation focuses on the reception of Indian literature between the 3rd and 8th centuries A.D. by three modern German writers--Frank Wedekind, Lion Feuchtwanger and Hermann Hesse--and analyses the process by which these writers shed their role as reader and expand their own creative horizon by transforming the Indian material. A clear thematic and structural link between these three authors is provided by their reception of two genres in Indian literature, viz. the drama and the treatise (especially that on erotic love), because both genres deal with prostitution, and the ascetic-erotic-central concerns of these writers.
In his Das Sonnenspektrum Wedekind destroys the idyllic concept offered by the Indian material. In the process he creates his own brand of aesthetized eroticism which is not unlike that in the Indian play. Feuchtwanger's projection of the idyll in Vasantasena results from a conscious politicising of language with a view to changing society. Certain key notions of philosophy which had served the Indian dramatist to reinforce the hierarchical structure of his society are altered by Feuchtwanger to mirror his own belief in a classless society. Hesse's Siddhartha presents the idyll as a means of escaping the reality of society. He mixes mystical with idyllic elements and thus fails to achieve the pure form of the idyll and its potential for renewing lost values or creating new ones.
The concluding chapter of the dissertation provides points of reference to characterize the process of reception. These could be used paradigmatically to analyse problems of influence and reception in other works, especially when the source material originates in an alien culture.
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