In:
Scientia Poetica, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Vol. 18, No. 1 ( 2014-01-1)
Abstract:
Alfred Döblin wrote his early story Astralia while he prepared his medical dissertation about the Korsakoff’s psychosis in Freiburg 1904. The short narrative about a small man, a private scholar, who sees himself as a visionary and medium, whereas other people regard him as an insane or drunk person, can be read as a pre-exercise of the popular novella Die Ermordung einer Butterblume. The story combines two virulent discourses of the turn of the century: then current research about the neurological and psychiatric consequences of alcohol abuse like memory loss (and the neurological as well as poetological question, how memory and creativity works) - and on the other hand the ideas and practice of occultism and spiritualism. These two concurring discourses find their synthesis in this sarcastic as well as empathic pre-expressionistic story.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1868-9418
,
1431-5041
DOI:
10.1515/scipo-2014-0107
Language:
Unknown
Publisher:
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Publication Date:
2014
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2628011-5
SSG:
24
SSG:
8
SSG:
7,12
