Forssmann, Juliane Erika Elsbeth; (1997) Intimations of ambiguity: The narrative treatment of the uncanny in selected texts of romantic English and German prose fiction. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Intimations of ambiguity.pdf Download (5MB)

Abstract

This thesis analyzes a number of texts in order to find evidence for two principal contentions. The first contention is that in the literature here examined stylistic and thematic elements cooperate in the narrative treatment of the uncanny. The notion of the uncanny is defined by the Freudian dialectic of the known and the unknown in “Das Unheimliche” (1919). The second contention is that a tangible difference exists between the English and the German texts in respect of their narrative treatment of the uncanny. Chapter 1 examines the dialectic nature of the imagery related to the motif of the veil in Radcliffe's The Italian and explores its role in the portrayal of the uncanny. Chapter 2 analyzes Tieck's “Der blonde Eckbert” and demonstrates how the text is destabilized by a tripartite compression of genres. The subject of Chapter 3 is Hoffmann's “Der Magnetiseur” and explores how a peculiar montage of narrative units unsettles the reader by raising certain expectations and then defeating them. In Shelley's Frankenstein, which is examined in Chapter 4, the uncanny mainly resides in the nature of the creator-creature constellation and the relationship between individual and society. Chapter 5 examines Hoffmann's “Die Elixiere des Teufels” in which the uncanny derives from certain linguistic properties and the ambiguity of symbolic structuralization. The subject of Chapter 6 is James Hogg's “The Confessions'”, here the uncanny chiefly originates from the irony underlying the narrators' communications. In the conclusion I summarize the textual evidence of the interaction of stylistic and thematic elements in order to prove that the uncanny derives not only from the content of the narratives but also from the way in which they are narrated. I compare and contrast the English texts with the German texts to prove that there are differences in respect of the narrative treatment of the uncanny.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Archive Staff Only

View Item