Worte und Dinge und Worte als Dinge. Selbstreferenz in Inger Christensens „alfabet“ und Herta Müllers Collagen im „Schreibheft“ Nr. 74

Abstract

Words and Objects and Words as Objects – Self-referential Structures in Inger Christensen’s alfabet and Herta Müller’s Collages in Schreibheft Vol. 74

Inger Christensen’s alfabet is one of the most formative contributions in Danish eco-poetry that also initiates a broad reception of Christensen’s œuvre in German literature. Besides the ecocritical tendencies the text establishes a self-referential dimension that deals with the relation between a human speaker, its speaking about ‘world’ and its reference. In this regard the text implicitly debates the verbal material and its (connotative) semantics that one has to use. This dimension of alfabet is one of the main linking points for a productive reception by Herta Müller. Especially her collages published in Schreibheft expose the materiality of linguistic signs and speech. In addition to this, the specific constitution of the collages which are made of newspapers and magazines shows that linguistic signs not only refer to a real reference but also (and mainly) to discourses and other prior communicative contexts.