Elizabeth Boa
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158196
- eISBN:
- 9780191673283
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158196.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter sheds light on the symbolic and almost surreal conflicts present in many of Kafka's celebrated works. It not only looks at his famous novels such as The Metamorphosis, but also his short ...
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This chapter sheds light on the symbolic and almost surreal conflicts present in many of Kafka's celebrated works. It not only looks at his famous novels such as The Metamorphosis, but also his short stories, such as A Country Doctor and Josephine the Singer. Kafka's short stories typically depicted the life he dreaded; as in the case of the doctor who was an old bachelor, or more importantly the flaws and failures of the society he lived in. Importantly, Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk is a cleverly written depiction of Jewish life in Germany; not only focusing on the struggles of the Jewish race in relation to other races, but also on the internal conflicts of Kafka's kind. These are the artists, the writers, as depicted by Josephine, who among her kind is both resented and loved for her strange gift of singing.Less
This chapter sheds light on the symbolic and almost surreal conflicts present in many of Kafka's celebrated works. It not only looks at his famous novels such as The Metamorphosis, but also his short stories, such as A Country Doctor and Josephine the Singer. Kafka's short stories typically depicted the life he dreaded; as in the case of the doctor who was an old bachelor, or more importantly the flaws and failures of the society he lived in. Importantly, Josephine the Singer or The Mouse Folk is a cleverly written depiction of Jewish life in Germany; not only focusing on the struggles of the Jewish race in relation to other races, but also on the internal conflicts of Kafka's kind. These are the artists, the writers, as depicted by Josephine, who among her kind is both resented and loved for her strange gift of singing.
Jeff Fort
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254699
- eISBN:
- 9780823260836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254699.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter provides a discussion of Kafka’s 1922 story “A Hunger Artist” and argues that this late story engages in a retrospective critique of the author’s previous strivings for sublimity and ...
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This chapter provides a discussion of Kafka’s 1922 story “A Hunger Artist” and argues that this late story engages in a retrospective critique of the author’s previous strivings for sublimity and transcendence, as examined in earlier chapters of this book. Drawing on Kant’s analysis of the sublime in The Critique of Judgment, it is shown that the hunger artist’s own pursuit and understanding of his art is articulated in terms that resonate directly with the Kantian sublime (in particular the “mathematical sublime”), but in a mode of failure and degradation, leaving the art of hunger at risk of oblivion. Arguing that the story is structured as a joke with a punchline, the chapter makes a link between the logic of this story and the joke logic at work in Freud’s theory of the comic, specifically in the form of a “degradation of the sublime” which Freud attributes to jokes aimed at “unmasking” the pretentions of elevated personages. The hunger artist is a figure who is radically destituted and emptied, but this emptiness itself is seen as a new shape and “ground” for the imperative to write.Less
This chapter provides a discussion of Kafka’s 1922 story “A Hunger Artist” and argues that this late story engages in a retrospective critique of the author’s previous strivings for sublimity and transcendence, as examined in earlier chapters of this book. Drawing on Kant’s analysis of the sublime in The Critique of Judgment, it is shown that the hunger artist’s own pursuit and understanding of his art is articulated in terms that resonate directly with the Kantian sublime (in particular the “mathematical sublime”), but in a mode of failure and degradation, leaving the art of hunger at risk of oblivion. Arguing that the story is structured as a joke with a punchline, the chapter makes a link between the logic of this story and the joke logic at work in Freud’s theory of the comic, specifically in the form of a “degradation of the sublime” which Freud attributes to jokes aimed at “unmasking” the pretentions of elevated personages. The hunger artist is a figure who is radically destituted and emptied, but this emptiness itself is seen as a new shape and “ground” for the imperative to write.
David Stephen Calonne
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781496831859
- eISBN:
- 9781496831903
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496831859.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This chapter explores Crumb’s work on the book Introducing Kafka, for which he provided the illustrations. The chapter begins with the ways Crumb has incorporated themes from Jewish culture into not ...
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This chapter explores Crumb’s work on the book Introducing Kafka, for which he provided the illustrations. The chapter begins with the ways Crumb has incorporated themes from Jewish culture into not only his Kafka drawings, but in his work as a whole. Crumb often depicts himself as a schlemiel—Yiddish for a vulnerable loser. Like Kafka, Crumb had a troubled relationship to his own father. This is one reason why Crumb felt such an affinity for Kafka’s writings. Crumb also concentrates in several drawings on Kafka’s intense relationship to writing, a theme which he also depicts in his Bukowski drawings. Crumb also created powerful drawings to illustrate Kafka’s The Trial and we may see in these works the ways Crumb includes Christian imagery in his conceptions. Another example occurs in Crumb’s illustrations for A Hunger Artist where we may observe a clear allusion to Rogier van der Weyden’s The Descent of the Cross in the way Crumb portrays the fragile body of the Hunger Artist. As we saw in Chapter 4 with Sartre, here again Crumb incorporates themes from Kafka in his own autobiographical drawings, depicting himself as a suffering Christ or as a Hunger Artist who must beg for his sustenance from an uncaring public.Less
This chapter explores Crumb’s work on the book Introducing Kafka, for which he provided the illustrations. The chapter begins with the ways Crumb has incorporated themes from Jewish culture into not only his Kafka drawings, but in his work as a whole. Crumb often depicts himself as a schlemiel—Yiddish for a vulnerable loser. Like Kafka, Crumb had a troubled relationship to his own father. This is one reason why Crumb felt such an affinity for Kafka’s writings. Crumb also concentrates in several drawings on Kafka’s intense relationship to writing, a theme which he also depicts in his Bukowski drawings. Crumb also created powerful drawings to illustrate Kafka’s The Trial and we may see in these works the ways Crumb includes Christian imagery in his conceptions. Another example occurs in Crumb’s illustrations for A Hunger Artist where we may observe a clear allusion to Rogier van der Weyden’s The Descent of the Cross in the way Crumb portrays the fragile body of the Hunger Artist. As we saw in Chapter 4 with Sartre, here again Crumb incorporates themes from Kafka in his own autobiographical drawings, depicting himself as a suffering Christ or as a Hunger Artist who must beg for his sustenance from an uncaring public.
