Zur Bedeutung des sprachbergriffs in Ingeborg Bachmanns

Abstract

ENGLISH SUMMARY The women movement in Germany started with the students movement in 1968 and was an important event for the German women literature because literature which was written by women became interesting more than ever. The Austrian poet, dramatist and novelist Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) belongs to the authors who has written before the women movement. Bachmann became popular in the 1950s with her poems, but ceased to write poetry in the 1960s and focused on prose. In these later works feminist themes came to the fore. The subject of research of this thesis is the meaning of the language idea in Bachmanns' novel `Malina`. The thesis comes into existence by two parts. The theoretical part demonstrates Bachmanns' own language concept by refering to her poetological writings especially to her `Frankfurt Lectures` (1959). The key words in her language understanding are `language suspicion` and `language Utopia`. In her theoretical writings Bachmann reflects about this two concepts without considering the difference between women and men. But in her prose works, so in `Malina`, that is the first part of the unconcluded novel cycle `Manners of Death`, the language problem appears together with the women identity topic. The female I in `Malina` struggles against the problem not to have a language that meets her expectations: She desires to create a language/way of writing that is absolutely different from the existing `man-made` language. Helene Cixous is one of the most important theorists who has developed a concept for the female way of writing. The practical part of this research shows, how far the ideas of Cixous are applicable with Bachmanns' language understanding. The conclusion is: Bachmann is not able to reach the desired language Utopia, but on her journey to this language she has created a language dream.