[Download] "Another Meditation on Das Erdbeben in Chili: Heinrich von Kleist and the Work of the Reader (1)." by The German Quarterly ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Another Meditation on Das Erdbeben in Chili: Heinrich von Kleist and the Work of the Reader (1).
- Author : The German Quarterly
- Release Date : January 22, 2008
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 218 KB
Description
Das Erdbeben in Chili (1807), like so many of Heinrich von Kleist's eerily fascinating texts, has been read and reread from a multitude of theoretical angles with reliance upon countless schools of thought. One of the principal elements of this work is the invitation to search for truth and meaning in both the plot of the story and the form of the text itself. Indeed John Ellis writes that the work's central problem is interpretation and that "this is because the point in the story lies not in the meaning of the events themselves but in the attempts made by the narrator and the characters to give them meaning" (37). The text asks mystifying questions at every turn and these questions often prove vexingly unanswerable. Norbert Altenhofer addresses this riddle-like quality of the story and its provenance. He writes: Characters, the narrator, the reader, and perhaps even the author search for information and meaning; this process is visible not only in the complex and surprising events and relationships in this story but also in the strange moments of emptiness when the text seems deliberately to be withholding information and hiding meaning.