Exilens ljudspår

Mot en intermedial tolkning av Peter Weiss litterära verk med utgångspunkt i Der Schatten des Körpers des Kutschers

Abstract

The Soundtrack of Exile. Towards an intermedial interpretation of Peter Weiss’ Literary Works With the Point of Departure in Der Schatten des Körpers des Kutschers.

The problem of representation constitutes one of the main themes in the works of the writer, painter, and filmmaker Peter Weiss (1916–1982). Until recently, the specific intermedial character of his literary work has been largely ignored by literary scholars. In the case of the novel Der Schatten des Körpers des Kutschers (1960), the text itself attempts to transcend the »prison of language« by transposing acoustic elements into its idiom. These transposed »noises« may be interpreted as echoes of (an) exile: a personal response to the trauma of having escaped the Holocaust, as well as – on a more general level – an aesthetical approach to the problems of linguistic representation of past atrocities. In this paper, I contextualize Weiss’ »micronovel« within the framework of current intermedia studies and scholarly work on Peter Weiss. I will also attempt an interpretation pointing to general »Weissian« aesthetics of exile.