The Anthropology of Love by Ingeborg Bachmann (“War Diary” and “The Book of Franza”)
Abstract
The article is dedicated to the study of the work of the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926–1973), which involves the investigation of specific examples of fictional and non-fictional literature using the principles of literary anthropology. In particular, the «War Diary» («Kriegstagebuch», 1944–1945) and the unfinished novel «The Book of Franza» («Das Buch Franza», 1965–1966) are considered comparatively. The purpose of the article is an anthropological analysis of the cultural universality of love, which is based on the author’s own life experience and is artistically reinterpreted in her texts.
The role of the British soldier, the Viennese Jewish émigré Jack Hamesh (1920–1987) is emphasized in rereading «The Book of Franza». His image is embodied in the figure of Lord Percival Glyde (Percy), a captain of the English army, with whom the protagonist of Franza’s novel falls in love during the deoccupation of the Carinthia region. I. Bachmann’s notes in the form of a diary and 11 letters from the young man to her demonstrate the feelings of both.
The main aspects of the artistic transformation of the writer’s «first» love for J. Hamesh are emphasized, considering the time-space context of the depicted events, which are accompanied by existential challenges for a person (the end of the Second World War). The literary character Percy summarizes the image of the British military, with whom the writer communicated at the time, and the receptive potential of his allusive anthroponym, which hints at the status of the «pseudo-couple». In addition, attention is paid to the idealization of his figure, which indicates the replacement of the real image with the metalogical one with hyperbolization of the characteristic features of the prototype, to enhance the effect in depicting the first romantic relationship of I. Bachmann.
The anthropological dimension of love between a man and a woman shows the importance of fictional and non-fictional literature for the artistic rereading of life experience, representing a generalized vision of love by I. Bachmann.
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References
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