Акустика чужого пространства в восточных заметках Ф. Верфеля и Э. Канетти

Abstract

The material of the study is the travel notes Egyptian Diaryby F.Werfel and Voices of Marrakeshby E.Canetti, two Austrian writers of Jewish origin. The task of both authors is defined as a re-turn to national and cultural origins and reconstruction of the ‘oriental myth’, which, in their opinion, serves the basis of any aesthetic search. It is concluded that the writers are united by the principle of text fragmenta-tion, namely the transition from one space to another and overcoming of the boundary both locally and in terms of spiritual development. Travel in literature necessarily implies segmentation of the text when chang-ing locations. In most cases, however, verbal communication remains for Werfel and Canetti beyond the mu-sic they seek in the East. The dialogue obscures and recodes the deep strata of the ancestral culture, the de-sire to find which moves the authors. For musically-minded writers, each topos segment has its own acoustic score. The article describes the reasons why both authors refuse to study the language beforehand, preferring to rely on intuition and sense of language. Since for both of them the sound is stronger than the word, they use similar principles of audiolization of the world. The authors of the article dwell on contrast, the capturing of rhythmic shift, and the use of music-related metaphors and other types of ekphrasis. The dialogue con-ducted in a comprehensible language (German, French) is opposed to the music of urban streets and the de-sert in the descriptions by Werfel and Canetti. The incomprehensible is aestheticized and mythologized, while the verbalized is felt as profane,ordinary, flat.