Elizaveta V. Sokolova, PhD in Philology, Leading Researcher, the Head of the Department of Literary Studies, Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky Avenue, 51/21, 117418, Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7098-3589
The article examines the nature of “rhetorical despair” in some literary texts of Franz Kafka and his letters to Felice Bauer. Distorted communication between the individuum and transpersonal forces, that ultimately hides the “death of God”, seems to center the entire corpus of Kafka’s texts. Against the background of his constant desire to communicate to the “upper” world (personified, in particular, by the figure of the father) and acutely experienced communication failures (“The Judgement”, “Letter to His Father”), a symbolic connection of the figure of Felice Bauer with the earthly, “lower” world is shown (where the “earthly happiness” and death appear to be integral components of the latter). Correspondence with Felice Bauer is presented as a process (unfolded over five years) of internal choice between “life” and “death” (not fully realized by the writer himself), which ends in favor of the latter, synchronously with the diagnosis of tuberculosis. The theses are illustrated with quotations from “Letters to Felice” and “The Diaries” of 1912–1917.
Austrian literature of the twentieth century; “rhetorical despair”; communicative distortions; Franz Kafka; “Letters to Felice”; “The Judgement”.
15.02.2024
10.03.2024
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