Theory of the Lyric: a Prototypical Approach [Abstract]

Klaus W. Hempfer

Theory of the Lyric: a Prototypical Approach

(Abstract)

Full-length article in: JLT 11/1 (2017), 51–62.

Proceeding from a distinction between ›poetry‹ and ›lyric‹, the present article outlines a prototype theory of the lyric as transhistorical mode. As such the lyric prototype cannot be defined by means of empirical tests, but is a theoretical construct that presupposes the knowledge of highly diverse discursive systems and traditions and the recourse to interpretative-hermeneutic methods for its validity. The model of the prototypical lyric the article proposes is based on four interdependent components: (1) a speech situation characterised by an I-here-now deixis; (2) a represented situation which comes into being in and through the simultaneous speech act based on an identical deixis; (3) a fiction of performativity whose performative character results from the simultaneity and coincidence of speech situation and represented situation, and whose fictionality is based on the fact that the relation of simultaneity is text-internal, thus ›staged‹, and does not conform to the communicative situation between producer and recipient; and finally (4) a lack of, or an asymmetry in, the relationship between speaker and addressee, in as far as the speaker has the ›licence‹ to either perform a locutionary act directly and without any explicit motivation or addressee, or to explicitly address recipients. Unlike in normal face-to-face communication, however, these recipients cannot turn into speakers themselves. At best, they can function as quoted speakers, who are introduced by the ›speaker proper‹, and whose utterances assume the form of mere reported speech.

References

Austin, John Langshaw, How to Do Things with Words, ed. by James Opie Urmson, Oxford/London/New York 1962.

Benveniste, Émile, L’appareil formel de l’énonciation, in: É.B., Problèmes de linguistique générale, Vol. 2, Paris 1974, 79–88.

Bernhart, Walter, Überlegungen zur Lyriktheorie aus erzähltheoretischer Sicht, in: Herbert Foltinek/Wolfgang Riehle/Waldemar Zacharasiewicz (ed.), Tales and »their telling difference«: Zur Theorie und Geschichte der Narrativik. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Franz K. Stanzel, Heidelberg 1993, 359–375.

Bühler, Karl, Sprachtheorie, Jena 1934, Repr. Stuttgart/New York 1982.

Catullus, Gaius Valerius, Catullus [1904], transl. by Frances W. Cornish, revised by G.P. Goold, Cambridge, MA ²1988.

Culler, Jonathan, Problems in the Theory of Fiction, Diacritics 14 (1984), 2–11. [Crossref]

Culler, Jonathan, Lyric, History, and Genre, New Literary History 40 (2009), 879–899.

Culler, Jonathan, Theory of the Lyric, Cambridge, MA/London 2015.

Deufert, Marcus, Situationsbezogenheit und Improvisation in der frühgriechischen Lyrik: Der Festsaal in der Symposionselegie des Xenophanes, in: Albrecht Hausmann (ed.), Text und Handeln. Zum kommunikativen Ort von Minnesang und antiker Lyrik, Heidelberg 2004, 23–45.

Fishelov, David, Metaphors of Genre: The Role of Analogies in Genre Theory, University Park, PA 1993.

Greek Lyric, Vol. 1: Sappho/Alcaeus, with an English transl. by David A. Campbell, Cambridge, MA 1982.

Hempfer, Klaus W., Gattungstheorie. Information und Synthese, Munich 1973.

Hempfer, Klaus W., Zu einigen Problemen einer Fiktionstheorie, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur 100 (1990), 109–137 (republished in: Klaus W. Hempfer, Grundlagen der Textinterpretation, ed. by Stefan Hartung, Stuttgart 2002, 107–133).

Hempfer, Klaus W., Gattung, in: Klaus Weimar et al. (ed.), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Vol. 1, Berlin/New York 1997, 651–657.

Hempfer, Klaus W., Schreibweise, in: Jan-Dirk Müller et al. (ed.), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Vol. 3, Berlin/New York 2003, 391–393.

Hempfer, Klaus W., Performance, Performanz, Performativität. Einige Unterscheidungen zur Ausdifferenzierung eines Theoriefeldes, in: K.W.H./Jörg Volbers (ed.), Theorien des Performativen. Sprache – Wissen – Praxis. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme, Bielefeld 2011, 13–41.

Hempfer, Klaus W., Lyrik. Skizze einer systematischen Theorie, Stuttgart 2014 (Hempfer 2014a).

Hempfer, Klaus W., Some Aspects of a Theory of Genre, in: Monika Fludernik/Daniel Jacob (ed.), Linguistics and Literary Studies/Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft. Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers/Begegnungen, Interferenzen und Kooperationen, Berlin/Boston 2014, 405–422 (Hempfer 2014b).

Hempfer, Klaus W., Konvergenzen und Divergenzen disziplinärer Begriffsbildungen: linguistische ›Diskurstraditionen‹ und literaturwissenschaftliche ›Gattungen‹, in: Franz Lebsanft/Angela Schrott (ed.), Diskurse, Texte, Traditionen. Methoden, Modelle und Fachkulturen in der Diskussion, Bonn 2015, 307–316.

Hempfer, Klaus W., Grundlagen der Literaturwissenschaft (in preparation).

Koch, Peter, Diskurstraditionen: Zu ihrem sprachtheoretischen Status und ihrer Dynamik, in: Barbara Frank/Thomas Haye/Doris Tophinke (ed.), Gattungen mittelalterlicher Schriftlichkeit, Tübingen 1997, 43–79.

Kutschera, Franz von, Wissenschaftstheorie: Grundzüge der allgemeinen Methodologie der empirischen Wissenschaften, 2 Vols., Munich 1972.

Mahler, Andreas, Towards a Pragmasemiotics of Poetry, Poetica 38 (2006), 217–257.

Müller-Zettelmann, Eva, Lyrik und Narratologie, in: Ansgar Nünning/Vera Nünning (ed.), Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär, Trier 2002, 129–153.

Petzold, Jochen, Sprechsituationen lyrischer Dichtung. Ein Beitrag zur Gattungstypologie, Würzburg 2012.

Rosch, Eleanor, Principles of Categorization, in: E.R./Barbara B. Lloyd (ed.), Cognition and Categorization, Hillsdale, NJ 1978, 27–48.

Rosch, Eleanor/Carolyn B. Mervis, Family Resemblances: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories, Cognitive Psychology 7 (1975), 573–605.

Schlaffer, Heinz, Sprechakte der Lyrik, Poetica 40 (2008), 21–42.

Stanzel, Franz K., Theorie des Erzählens, Göttingen 1979.

Taylor, John R., Linguistic Categorization. Prototypes in Linguistic Theory, Oxford 1989.

Taylor, John R., Linguistic Categorization [1989], Oxford ³2003.

Vivas, Eliseo, Literary Classes: Some Problems, Genre 1 (1968), 97–105.

Warning, Rainer, Interpretation, Analyse, Lektüre: Methodologische Erwägungen zum Umgang mit lyrischen Texten, in: R.W., Lektüren romanischer Lyrik: Von den Trobadors zum Surrealismus, Freiburg 1997, 9–44.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations [1953], transl. by Gertrude E.M. Anscombe, New York ³1968.

Wolf, Werner, The Lyric. Problems of Definition and a Proposal for a Reconceptualization, in: Eva Müller-Zettelmann/Margarete Rubik (ed.),Theory into Poetry. New Approaches to the Lyric, Amsterdam/New York 2005, 21–56.

Wolf, Werner, Aesthetic Illusion as an Effect of Lyric Poetry?, in: W.W./Walter Bernhart/Andreas Mahler (ed.), Immersion and Distance. Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and Other Media, Amsterdam/New York 2013, 183–213.

Zymner, Rüdiger, Lyrik. Umriss und Begriff, Paderborn 2009.

2017-03-16

JLTonline ISSN 1862-8990

Copyright © by the author. All rights reserved.
This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and JLTonline.
For other permission, please contact JLTonline.

How to cite this item:

Abstract of: Klaus W. Hempfer, Theory of the Lyric: a Prototypical Approach.

In: JLTonline (16.03.2017)

URL: http://www.jltonline.de/index.php/articles/article/view/877/1992

A Persistent Identifier can be found in the PDF-Version of this article.