[lit-ideas] Nobel in literature
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 07 Oct 2004 14:06:25 PDT
Go
Advanced Search
Site Map
Front Page
Today's News
Information Technology
Teaching
Publishing
Money
Government & Politics
Community Colleges
Science
Students
Athletics
International
People
Events
The Chronicle Review
Jobs
Colloquy
Colloquy Live
Magazines & Journals
Grants & Fellowships
Facts & Figures
Issues in Depth
Site Sampler
This Week's Issue
Back Issues
Related Materials
About The Chronicle
How to Contact Us
How to Register
How to Subscribe
Subscriber Services
Change Your User Name
Change Your Password
Forgot Your Password?
How to Advertise
Press Inquiries
Corrections
Privacy Policy
RSS | Mobile
Thursday, October 7, 2004
Nobel Prize in Literature Goes to Austrian Known for Her Writings on Sexuality
and Aggression
By SCOTT MCLEMEE
The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2004 was awarded this morning to Elfriede
Jelinek, an Austrian novelist, poet, playwright, and translator.
Her satirical and often dark vision of sexuality and human aggression has made
her a controversial figure in Austria. The author is best known internationally
for her novel The Piano Teacher, made into a harrowing film about a
sadomasochistic relationship between a music instructor and a student who
seduces her.
In its award citation, the Swedish Royal Academy noted that Ms. Jelinek's work
analyzes "the cold-blooded practice of male power," making a "fundamental
criticism of civilization by describing sexual violence against women as the
actual template for our culture." There may be an element of self-criticism in
the academy's decision, for Ms. Jelinek is only the 10th woman to receive the
Nobel Prize in Literature since the award was first presented, in 1901.
In announcing the award, the academy lauded "her musical flow of voices and
counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal
reveal the absurdity of society's cliches and their subjugating power." The
academy's citation also noted her place in "a lengthy Austrian tradition of
linguistically sophisticated social criticism," including such figures as the
journalist Karl Kraus, the novelist Thomas Bernhard, and Elias Canetti, a
polymathic author who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981.
Ms. Jelinek, born in 1946, began publishing poetry and fiction in the late
1960s. Besides The Piano Teacher (1983; English translation, 1988), her other
novels available in English are Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1980; trans., 1990),
Lust (1989; trans., 1992), and Women as Lovers (1975; trans., 1994).
In recent years, much of her work has been for the theater and radio. In her
dramatic works, the academy noted, Ms. Jelinek "successively abandoned
traditional dialogues for a kind of polyphonic monologues that do not serve to
delineate roles but to permit voices from various levels of the psyche and
history to be heard simultaneously."
She may be the first Nobel laureate in literature to have made a significant
commitment to the Internet, frequently posting commentary on her own Web site.
Ms. Jelinek has also published translations into German of work by Christopher
Marlowe and Thomas Pynchon, among other authors.
Among the materials available in English at her Web site is a series of short
essays on Bertolt Brecht. They reflect Ms. Jelinek's long-term interest in the
German playwright and dramatic theorist, whose (arguably exploitative)
relationships with his female collaborators have in recent years come under much
scrutiny from scholars. But Ms. Jelinek's commentary also stresses Brecht's
concern with "the basic tension ... between the real and what is said."
That is among Ms. Jelinek's own themes. The academy noted that in her most
recent plays, she puts on stage figures who are "less characters than 'language
interfaces' confronting each other," an approach that thereby reveals "the
inability of women to fully come to life in a world where they are painted over
with stereotypical images."
Scholarship on the author includes Rewriting Reality: Elfriede Jelinek and the
Politics of Representation (Berg Publishers, 1994), by Allyson Fiddler, a
professor of German and Austrian studies at Lancaster University, in England.
More information about the prize-winning author is available on the Nobel Web
site.
---------------------------------
Forwarded by Robert Paul
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
