Kafkas Poetik by Ulrich Stadler

Reviewed by: Kafkas Poetik by Ulrich Stadler Pamela S. Saur Ulrich Stadler, Kafkas Poetik. Zurich: Edition Voldemeer, De Gruyter, 2019. 337 pp. In the "Vorwort und Vorschau" of Kafkas Poetik, Ulrich Stadler addresses the extraordinary number of published interpretations of Franz Kafka's texts. Among the approaches taken are "biographisch-positivistische, religiöse, philosophische, psychoanalytische, soziologische, marxistische, ethnographische," and "kulturwissenschaftliche" (10). Rather than building on these studies, Stadler for the most part sets them aside and takes a different tack, focusing not on the "meaning" "in" the finished texts but on the largely ignored "Machart der Texte" (10), Kafka's creative processes and principles, or "Poetik," a subject Kafka virtually never explicated or even wrote on indirectly. Stadler warns, however, that he does not intend to arrive at a unifying (or simplifying) synthesis in this book:"Für das vorliegende Buch gilt jedenfalls, dass die einzelnen Kapitel zusammengenommen keine Synthese bilden, die Kafkas Poetik darstellt. Gäbe es eine solche Synthese, dann hätte Kafka vielleicht sogar selber eine Poetik geschrieben" (12). One might wonder how a scholar in 2019 could hope to contribute an original study to over a century of voluminous Kafka scholarship, and this volume provides a convincing answer. First of all, his originality is based on [End Page 109] his deep knowledge of Kafka's life and writings, which he has placed in the relevant contexts, and he acknowledges influences on Kafka by numerous writers and philosophers. Second, Stadler explores a fresh combination of relevant angles, for example Kafka's humor; interactions between his readers and texts; auditory experiences, such as reading aloud; visual issues such as tunnel vision, kaleidoscopic play, and Vexierbilder (picture puzzles, including optical illusions and images evoking two different subjects or including hidden elements); literary fragments and "miniatures"; experimental writing; and creative dreamlike or semi-sleeping states. Kafka's texts also incorporate three-dimensional images, change, motion, conflict, and fighting, as well as his philosophical "Denkmodel," a spinning top. Finally, this book, while certainly containing references to Kafka's famous novels and stories, brings particular attention to his "minor" texts: aphorisms, anecdotes, letters, diaries, and lesser-known stories. Returning to Stadler's comments on the voluminous secondary literature on Kafka, I point to two remarks. He states that he is opposed to "die skrupellose Allegorisiererei [ ... ] deren Öde die LiteraturwissenschaftJahrzehnte lang dominiert hatte" (10). In addition, he introduces a section on "Das Urteil" with a milder but still rather negative remark: "Im Folgenden geht es nicht darum, die viel interpretierte Erzählung noch ein weiteres Mal zu interpretieren" (61). One might think that Stadler is advising his readers to eschew all previous Kafka criticism. More likely, he assumes that his readers are already quite familiar with Kafka's writings and a good share of the existing Kafka studies. This book is addressed to an "advanced" rather than a "beginning" reader of Kafka. A student or beginner ought to begin with Kafka's major texts and some of the conventional interpretations before tackling this challenging volume. Stadler emphasizes humor in Kafka's works, a "tabu" broken by Peter von Mattin 1986 and widely acknowledged in the 1990s. Laughter often broke out in Kafka's public readings of his texts, accompanied by facial and hand gestures and other techniques contributing to interactions between the author and his audiences. Kafka's readings, like other aspects of his poetics, transcend the limitations of writing and reading static words on flat pages. Stadler discusses numerous binary concepts or "Antithesen" in Kafka's writings, such as "Vater und Sohn," "Jude und Nichtjude," "Autor und Leser," "Subjekt und Objekt," "Detail und Ganzes," and "Drinnen und Draussen." Like Kafka himself, Stadler does not present these opposing or [End Page 110] opposite concepts in order to arrive at a synthesis, partly because Kafka's metaphors are more pictorial or physical than verbal. Stadler writes, "Er kannte und liebte Bilder wegen ihres affektiven Potentials, ihrer lebendigen Ausdruckskraftund auch wegen ihrer Eigenschaft, nicht unbedingt bestimmte Bedeutungen überMitteln zu müssen. [ ... ] Kafka's uneingeschränkte Liebe galt dem, was ich 'reine Bilder' nennen möchte, solchen die nur 'selbstständige, eigengesetzliche Verrichtungen' wiedergeben und [ ... ] möglichst gar keine Bedeutungsfunktion übernehmen" (78–79). In a letter

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