Abstract
Beyond general scepticism regarding something like a vivid ›meaning‹ of words there are enormous difficulties in defining, fixing, paraphrasing or describing what ›Angst‹ means, implies, makes etc. This is the more remarkable since ›Angst‹ seems to be a current term in ecomomic, political and social contexts. Not only since 9/11 this linguistic phenomenon can be regarded as a creative and forming factor of collective atmosphere or reality. But how can something that is quite unseizable entail those powerful results in social life? By focussing the literary handling of ›Angst‹ (Stefan Zweig, Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Doblin) in the following article this cultural shift mechanism might become clearer. The semantics of ›Angst‹ in its connection with bio-physical or medical concepts will be analysed with regard to theories of Roman Ingarden and Wolfgang Iser to show how ›Angst‹ can be represented and evoked by narrative orchestration.
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