Materialschlacht für eine andere Ordnung der Dinge: Versuch über Marianne Fritz und ihr Momumentalepos 'Festung'

Translated title of the contribution: Material battle for another order of things: Essay on Marianne Fritz and her Momumentalepos 'fortress'

Uwe Schütte

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article is linked to my major study on the Poetik des Extremen by classifying the monstrous works of Marianne Fritz among a genealogy of extremist writing in German-speaking literature. Her literary project Festung, which represents in all likelihood the most extensive ‘novel’ in Western literary history, is first analysed by looking at the exponential growth of its components from a paperback of 108 pages to the not yet completed novel Naturgemäß, which will most probably comprise 15 volumes, mostly of A4 size and a length that should be equivalent to over 20,000 standard pages. In parallel to the quantitative explosion of form, the article also explores the transgression of traditional narration and Fritz’s typographical innovations of text presentation. Using reproductions of the late facsimile volumes, an exemplary ‘close reading’ of one page from Naturgemäß II is undertaken to demonstrate the enormous density of Festung. Finally, the article seeks to differentiate Fritz’s opus magnum from other out-sized works of literature by focussing on the specific interconnection between the quantitative and stylistic explosion of the form of the novel, which makes it incomparable to the major works of writers such as Robert Musil or Arno Schmidt.
Translated title of the contributionMaterial battle for another order of things: Essay on Marianne Fritz and her Momumentalepos 'fortress'
Original languageGerman
Pages (from-to)289-310
Number of pages22
JournalSprachkunst
Volume36
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 2005

Keywords

  • Poetik des Extremen
  • Marianne Fritz
  • extremist writing
  • German-speaking literature
  • Festung
  • Naturgemäß
  • text presentation
  • Robert Musil
  • Arno Schmidt

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