Titolo della tesi: The city of tar. Pictorial imagination and apocalyptic landscapes in Gustav Meyrink's poetics
The dissertation “The city of tar. Pictorial imagination and apocalyptic landscapes in Gustav Meyrink's poetics” analyzes Gustav Meyrink’s space depiction in the perspective of the categories of revelation, deconstruction, eschatology, timelessness and cyclicity that are proper of the apocalyptical space as noted in studies related to the genre apocalypse. The spaces considered in the analysis are metropolitan milieus, specifically Meyrink’s depiction of Prague, Amsterdam and of a generic anonymous city. The choice of Meyrink’s researched corpus (the novels Das grüne Gesicht (1916) and Walpurgisnacht (1917); the short stories Die Stadt mit dem heimlichen Herzschlag (1928) and Die geheimnisvolle Stadt (1929); the fragmentary novel Das Haus des Alchemisten (1973)) respects the parameters of the metropolitan space and of the apocalyptic perspective understood in both its eschatological and revelatory quality. Two comparative studies are also involved in the dissertation, including the two novels Die andere Seite (Alfred Kubin, 1908) and Der Tod des Löwen (Auguste Hauschner, 1916). This selection allows to observe the relationship between an apocalyptic model present in biblical and apocryphal texts, of which Meyrink’s texts appear to be reminiscent, and the apocalyptic model of metropolitan literature in the Moderne, where the concept of final collapse reminding of the biblical Armageddon interacts with the representation of the alienating urban milieu.
The thesis is divided into two parts, the first one concerning the theoretical aspects of the research, Meyrink’s programmatic attitude to the concept of Schilderung, and the meaning of the space of Prague for Meyrink’s spatial poetics.
The methodologies chosen for this dissertation are the studies on the metropolitan space of Fin de Siècle literature, the investigations on the categories of the Phantastik genre and the studies concerning the spatial and temporal models of the genre apocalypse.
Special attention is given to Meyrink’s depiction of Prague as eccentric city, an interpretation reflecting both the nuances of the apocalyptical space to analyze in this research – the revelatory and the eschatological aspect. It is possible to observe how the space of Prague conceived by Meyrink presents traits that can be traced back to a paradigm used by the author as a basis for the conception of several literary spaces of his production, including the ones of Amsterdam in Das Grüne Gesicht and of the heterotopic Haus zum Pfau in Das Haus des Alchemisten. This paradigm involves the conception of a space possessing a double dimension of rationality and irrationality, but also of conscious and unconscious thought, a space where a truth invisible to the rational investigation can be revealed. To this space are also attributed characteristics of timelessness and immanence that are commented in the thesis.
The first chapter of the thesis explains the main methodological areas of the research: the first section is dedicated to the depiction of urban space in the texts of the Moderne starting from the first experiments in this direction made throughout the 19th century ; the second section examines the definition of fantastic literature starting from the premise of the theorization of the Unheimlich proposed by Sigmund Freud and identifies the categories of uncertainty and threshold as constitutive of this literary genre. After this introduction, a more in-depth analysis of the fantastic literary space is proposed. The third section focuses on the representation of space in apocalyptic literature starting from the very definition of the genre apocalypse and of its characteristic traits. After this premise, the main theories on spatiality and temporality in apocalyptic literature and an introduction to their relation to Meyrink’s space representation are provided.
The second chapter examines the cultural landscape of the city of Prague during Meyrink’s time and especially during the Fin de Siècle and the first decades of the 20th century. In this instance it is introduced the concept of Prager deutsche Literatur and to the tropes constituting the literary imagery of Prague in German literature during the considered period. After this introduction, another section provides a definition of the concepts Prager Roman and Prager Text. Here is also presented Jurij Lotman’s theory of the eccentric and concentric cities which is fundamental for the following text analysis.
The third chapter presents, in its first half, the main aspects of Meyrink’s poetics and especially his relationship with the notion of visuality and image. To do so, are examined his programmatic texts Der Lotse and the Exposé to Das Haus des Alchemisten and the material collected during the archive research in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München and in the Deutsches Literatur Archiv Marbach (DLA). In particular, a section is dedicated to the analysis of the manuscript of Meister Leonhard researched in the DLA. In the second half of this chapter is presented the concept of Prague paradigm based on the texts Die Stadt mit dem heimlichen Herzschlag, Die geheimnisvolle Stadt and Das Haus des Alchemisten, and this paradigm is put in relationship with the Meyrink’s concept of Bild.
The fourth chapter analyzes the novel Das grüne Gesicht starting from the notion of Zeitlosigkeit provided by the character Chider Grün, and presents the main topic of the identity search that is fundamental in the novel. The main topics in this analysis are the eccentricity of the space of Amsterdam, the representation crowded spaces, the concept of anonymity related to the urban environment and the use of psychotops in the novel.
The fifth chapter continues the analysis of Das grüne Gesicht adding a comparative level by providing an investigation of Alfred Kubin’s Die andere Seite. The analysis observes how the dialogue between the two author seems to have continued after their first intellectual encounter during the first conception of Meyrink’s Der Golem, and highlights how their eccentric cities (Perle and Amsterdam) present an equally apocalyptic quality based on heterotopic and heterochronic traits.
The sixth chapter constitutes the final comparative study of the dissertation: the analysis of Meyrink’s Walpurgisnacht and Auguste Hauschner’s Der Tod des Löwen, two Prague novels where the historical matter is treated in a peculiar way that suggests, when interacting with space depiction, an eschatological quality highly influenced from the contemporary political fragility experienced by the authors during their writing.