Between 'surface illusionism' and 'awful depth': Reflections on the poetological and generic ambivalence of W. G. Sebald's Logis in einem Landhaus

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@article{cc901066babf49aaaa7b4268346dead9,
title = "Between 'surface illusionism' and 'awful depth': Reflections on the poetological and generic ambivalence of W. G. Sebald's Logis in einem Landhaus",
abstract = "Within W. G. Sebald{\textquoteright}s oeuvre, Logis in einem Landhaus (LieL, 1998), a collection of essays on five writers who wrote in Swabian-Alemanic or Swiss (French/German) and Jan Peter Tripp, the illusionist painter from the Allg{\"a}u, has a multiply ambivalent position. Although the essays can be characterized as Dichterportr{\"a}ts that are rounded off by a more conventional art-historical study, the former have clear generic affinities with biography, the literary-critical essay, literary history and autobiography. As such, they oscillate between the depiction of what is known on the one hand and critical reflection on the other. Sebald said that beneath the apparently realistic surface of Tripp{\textquoteright}s visual work there lay concealed {\textquoteleft}an awful depth{\textquoteright} (LieL: 181), and his portraits have the same ambivalence about them: carefully arranged collections of well-known fragments that recall individual writers conceal dizzying reflections about the nature of (auto)biography, literary criticism and literary history.",
keywords = "Didactics of the German language, Literature studies, (auto)biography, Dichterportr{\"a}ts, Eduard M{\"o}rike, Gottfried Keller, Heinrich von Kleist, Jan Peter Tripp, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Peter Hebel, Robert Walser, subjectivity",
author = "Claudia Albes",
year = "2011",
month = dec,
doi = "10.1177/0047244111413696",
language = "English",
volume = "41",
pages = "449--465",
journal = "Journal of European studies : literature and ideas from the Renaissance to the present",
issn = "0047-2441",
publisher = "SAGE Publications Inc.",
number = "3-4",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Between 'surface illusionism' and 'awful depth'

T2 - Reflections on the poetological and generic ambivalence of W. G. Sebald's Logis in einem Landhaus

AU - Albes, Claudia

PY - 2011/12

Y1 - 2011/12

N2 - Within W. G. Sebald’s oeuvre, Logis in einem Landhaus (LieL, 1998), a collection of essays on five writers who wrote in Swabian-Alemanic or Swiss (French/German) and Jan Peter Tripp, the illusionist painter from the Allgäu, has a multiply ambivalent position. Although the essays can be characterized as Dichterporträts that are rounded off by a more conventional art-historical study, the former have clear generic affinities with biography, the literary-critical essay, literary history and autobiography. As such, they oscillate between the depiction of what is known on the one hand and critical reflection on the other. Sebald said that beneath the apparently realistic surface of Tripp’s visual work there lay concealed ‘an awful depth’ (LieL: 181), and his portraits have the same ambivalence about them: carefully arranged collections of well-known fragments that recall individual writers conceal dizzying reflections about the nature of (auto)biography, literary criticism and literary history.

AB - Within W. G. Sebald’s oeuvre, Logis in einem Landhaus (LieL, 1998), a collection of essays on five writers who wrote in Swabian-Alemanic or Swiss (French/German) and Jan Peter Tripp, the illusionist painter from the Allgäu, has a multiply ambivalent position. Although the essays can be characterized as Dichterporträts that are rounded off by a more conventional art-historical study, the former have clear generic affinities with biography, the literary-critical essay, literary history and autobiography. As such, they oscillate between the depiction of what is known on the one hand and critical reflection on the other. Sebald said that beneath the apparently realistic surface of Tripp’s visual work there lay concealed ‘an awful depth’ (LieL: 181), and his portraits have the same ambivalence about them: carefully arranged collections of well-known fragments that recall individual writers conceal dizzying reflections about the nature of (auto)biography, literary criticism and literary history.

KW - Didactics of the German language

KW - Literature studies

KW - (auto)biography

KW - Dichterporträts

KW - Eduard Mörike

KW - Gottfried Keller

KW - Heinrich von Kleist

KW - Jan Peter Tripp

KW - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

KW - Johann Peter Hebel

KW - Robert Walser

KW - subjectivity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=83755167809&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0047244111413696

DO - 10.1177/0047244111413696

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 41

SP - 449

EP - 465

JO - Journal of European studies : literature and ideas from the Renaissance to the present

JF - Journal of European studies : literature and ideas from the Renaissance to the present

SN - 0047-2441

IS - 3-4

ER -

DOI