Copia Nostri: Echoes of a Poetic Self in Kafka's “Der Ausflug ins Gebirge”

Abstract

Through a reading of Kafka's “Der Ausflug ins Gebirge” and the story of Echo and Narcissus in Ovid's Metamorphoses, this paper explores the strategies employed by Kafka in creating a poetic self. Central to this maneuver are the complementary tropes of aphanisis, the “fading” of the subject upon contact with language, and prosopopoeia, the lending of a voice to a voiceless entity Kafka's text stages a “Ruf ohne Klang,” uttered by a silent “I” which is able to “lend” itself a voice only by fading away behind its own image. Unpacking the multiple resonances of the word “copia,” the essay explores the power of the echo, as producer of difference and meaning through repetition, to constitute an original utterance. In this way, Kafka's text may be read as a textual echo that preserves an utterance which otherwise could never have come into being.