Speaking the taboo : : a study of the work of Wolfgang Hilbig / / Paul Cooke.

• Superior document: Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur ; 141
• VerfasserIn: Cooke, Paul, 1969-
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam, Netherlands : : Rodopi,, [2000]; ©2000
• Year of Publication: 2000
• Language: English
• Series: Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur ; 141.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (258 pages)

Wolfgang Hilbig is a writer who is widely acknowledged as one of the most important to have emerged from the former GDR. In this study, the first in English, Paul Cooke explores the interplay of aesthetic and social 'taboos', as defined by the official discourse of the GDR, in a cross-section of Hilbig's critical writing, poetry and prose. The protagonists in Hilbig's texts suffer from a profound crisis of identity due to the disparity between the state's official presentation of life in the East and their own experience. Cooke argues that through their exploration of the 'taboo', i.e. that which is excluded from the state's official discourse, Hilbig's characters attempt to break through the banal rhetoric of the ruling elite in order to realise an authentic sense of self.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements. List of Abbreviations for Works by Hilbig. Introduction. 1 Countering 'Realitätsverlust': The Role of the Writer and the Use of the Unsägliche in Hilbig's Critical Writing. 2 The 'Taboo' of Modernism in Hilbig's Poetry. 3 Literary Tradition in Hilbig's Prose: the Problem of 'Objectivity' in 'Der Brief'. 4 The Pornographer as Historian: Sexual Repression and Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Die Weiber . 5 The Krimi and the Criminal State in Eine Übertragung . 6 No More Taboos? the Stasi, Beckett and the Continuing Search for Identity in » Ich «. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.