Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Constructing China: Kafka's Orientalist Discourse

Constructing China: Kafka's Orientalist Discourse

Goebel, Rolf J.

Hardcover

Series: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture, Book 1

Literary Criticism

ISBN10: 1571131442
ISBN13: 9781571131447
Publisher: Camden House Inc
Published: Nov 6 1997
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.85
Height: 0.50 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Kafka's interest in and use of China establish him as a principal commentator in Western discourse on the Orient.

Goebel studies four representative works by Kafka that explore the problems of the Western representation of the Orient: his 'Description of a Struggle'; several letters to Felice Bauer, offering an interpretation of Chinese poetry in connection with the conflict between writing and Kafka's love for Felice; the canonical story 'The Great Wall of China', parodically appropriating sterotypes of China's stagnant history and authoritarian emperors for a refutation of colonialist ideas of progress; and the sequel 'An Old Manuscript', dramatising China's invasion by foreign powers and the breakdown of crosscultural communication. Elucidating these themes from a broadly comparative perspective, Goebel shows Kafka to be one of German modernism's most intriguing and self-reflective writers on the Orient.

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