Chewing: Goethe's Proserpina. (2nd September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Goebel, Eckart
• Is Part Of: Publications of the English Goethe Society. Volume 86:Number 3(2017)
• Page Start: 139
• Page End: 149
• Publication Date: 2017-09-02
• Subjects: Goethe and rhetoric -- theory of the tragic -- Proserpina -- repetition -- first Weimar decade; German literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; German literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; 830.9006
• DOI: 10.1080/09593683.2017.1368925
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0959-3683

Abstract

Abstract: This article argues that Goethe reduced the rich myth of Proserpina to a sequence of pure repetitions, which in their various forms then dominate the entire text of the drama. Goethe reproduces the myth as a rhetorical skeleton or, rather, as the skeleton of rhetoric. Put differently, Goethe's Proserpina, executing a meta-theatrical experiment with the rich linguistic possibilities repetition provides, is a monodrama whose actual heroine is repetition.