Christian Quendler
From Romantic Irony
to Postmodernist Metafiction
A Contribution to the History
of Literary Self-Reflexivity in
its Philosophical Context
PETER LANG
Europaischer Verlag der Wissenschaften
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: aesthetics of self-reflexivity and the possibilities
and limits of art
13
1.1. Romantic irony and postmodernist metafiction
1.2. Romantic irony and the actuality of early romantic theory
1.3. Romantic prospectivity vs. postmodern belatedness
13
16
19
2. Literary Self-referentiality and Self-reflexivity: theoretical
aspects of metafiction
23
2.1. Object and general functions of metafiction
2.2. Formal aspects of metafiction: self-referentiality vs. metareflexivity
2.3. Forms of metafiction
23
27
32
3. Self-reflexivity in Romanticism
39
3.1. From the Aesthetic Idea to Romantic Irony: theoretical
aspects of early romantic theory (Schlegel, Novalis) in the
context of Kant, Fichte and Hegel
39
3.1.1. The aesthetic turn of early romanticism: a prehistory of romantic
irony
41
3.1.2. Poetics of truth: romantic idealism vs. absolute idealism
45
3.1.3. The symbolic form and the form of the paradox: romantic irony
as the reconciliation of philosophy and poetry
49
3.1.4. Perpetual alternation of self-creation and self-destruction:
romantic self-reflexivity as a means of transcendence
52
3.1.5. Symbol vs. symbolized: romantic irony as a critique of language. 55
3.2. Romantic Irony in the Romantic Novel I: Clemens
Brentano, Godwi oderDas steinerne Bild der Mutter
61
3.2.1. Romantic irony and the early romantic novel
61
3.2.2. From a parody of the epistolary novel to a poetological allegory
of art
65
3.2.3. Godwi's precarious attempt of self-poetization and Maria's
failure of complete narration
3.2.4. Critical theory and poetic praxis - the unattainable ideal and its
poetic representation
71
78
3.3. Romantic Irony in the Romantic Novel II: Thomas Carlyle,
Sartor Resartus
83
3.3.1. Elements of early romantic theory in Carlyle's theoretical work... 85
3.3.2. Immanent poetology and romantic self-reflexivity in Sartor
Resartus
87
3.3.3. The anti-systematic 'clothes philosophy' of Diogenes
Teufelsdrockh
89
3.3.4. Biography vs. philosophy: the life-philosophy of Diogenes
Teufelsdrockh.
94
3.3.5. 'Editorial Difficulties': the gestation of Sartor Resartus and the
effect of the 'clothes philosophy' on the Editor
99
4. Self-reflexivity in Postmodernism
103
4.1. From Romantic Irony to Postmodernist Self-reflexivity:
theoretical aspects in Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Derrida
103
4.1.1. Kierkegaard's critique of romantic irony
4.1.2. Aspects of romantic irony in Nietzsche
4.1.3. Radicalization of romantic irony: post-structuralism as
'emancipated reflexivity'
4.2. Postmodernist Metafiction I: William H. Gass, Willie
Masters' Lonesome Wife
104
109
116
123
4.2.1. William H. Gass and the question of postmodernism
125
4.2.2. Babs Masters' crippled husband and the question of the author.. 127
4.2.3. Body and mind of Babs Masters
130
4.2.4. Reading intercourse with Baos Masters
132
4.2.5. From fictional reality to the reality of fiction
135
4.3. Postmodernist Metafiction II: John Fowles, Mantissa
4.3.1. Parody of the postmodernist novel as a ritual of purification?
10
141
141
4.3.2. Inspired by the muse under postmodern conditions
142
4.3.3. Trapped in a chess game with the Other disguised as self
145
4.3.4. The reality trap and the limits of self-reflexivity
147
4.3.5. The authorial trap as an endless metaleptic spiral
149
4.3.6. The substantial trap as an unresolved deconstruction complex... 152
5. Conclusion: reconstructing the gap - the functions of
difference in romantic irony and postmodernist metafiction
5.1. Truth and reality
5.2. Freedom and originality
159
159
162
Deutsche Zusammenfassung: Von romantischer Ironie zu
postmodernistischer Metafiktion. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
der literarischen Selbstreflexivitat im philosophischen Kontext 165
Works Cited
173
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