Descriptio

Description always had a difficult position in literary studies and even in descriptive systematics it is usually determined in dependence on narrative. This volume takes a different approach and explores the potential of description beyond narrative ties. Exemplary case studies and an essay by Gérard Genette, translated into German for the first time, demonstrate how descriptive procedures by no means only depict reality, but first and foremost constitute it. They are situated in the history of rhetoric and literary genres and open up specific aesthetic, epistemological and cultural dimensions. In the interplay between referentiality and reflexivity, between world and word, the description always remains in motion.
With contributions by
Ursula Gärtner | Gérard Genette | Albert Gröschl | Kurt Hahn | Eveline Krummen | Astrid Poier-Bernhard | Anne-Kathrin Reulecke | Steffen Schneider | Werner Wolf | Julia Zimmermann