Rediscovery of Subjectivity: Lines of Development in Lyric Poetry

Abstract

Contrary to the programmatic title of the first volume of poetry, Die Innenwelt der Außenwelt der Innenwelt (The Innerworld of the Outerworld of the Innerworld), the texts collected there do not aim at the theme of lyrical subjectivity. Rather, they are almost entirely devoted to a language-experimental procedure that demonstratively presents certain grammatical models or ingrained ways of speaking and idioms. Prominent examples of this are Der Rand der Wörter 1 (The Words’ Edge 1, IAI 31), Der Rand der Wörter 2 (The Words’ Edge 2, IAI 104), Die verkehrte Welt (The inverted world, IAI 32–35), Abstraktion von dem Ball, der in den Fluß gefallen ist (Abstraction from the Ball that Fell into the River, IAI 40–42) or Veränderungen im Lauf des Tages (Changes in the Course of the Day, IAI 49–52), and finally the Wortfamilie (Word Families, IAI 99–103). This dominance of the experimental and formalistic, which leads one critic to remark that Handke “in seinen Texten einfach nicht vor[kommt]” (Scharang ÜH 60), points to the problem that the formulaic nature of language sometimes does not give sufficient space to the articulation of individuality. However, the lyrical texts, which, like the early spoken plays and early prose, repeatedly remind us that all literature has already become secondary literature (Scharang ÜH 61), not only reveal the rules and clichés mediated by language, but at the same time make them productive (Scharang ÜH 58). In doing so, they map out the scope of a poetic self. Handke’s poetry is to be placed in this field of tension, and it is from here that its uniqueness is determined.