Beyond Repetition: Karl Kraus's "Absolute Satire"

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Issue Date
2013-10Author
Linden, Ari
Publisher
Germanic Studies Association
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This article reassesses the theoretical import of the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus, arguing that his satire challenges conventional understandings of the genre. Most notably in The Last Days of Mankind (Die letzten Tage der Menschheit), Kraus's satire delegitimizes any given historical or political position, addressing, rather, what he calls "posterity" as the only viable alternative. This moment lies beyond the repetitive structures inherent to modernity, specifically as they were articulated in the First World War. Kraus's "absolute satire" (Hermann Broch) thus contains a temporal dimension insofar as its intended audience is one that does not yet exist.
Description
This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/german_studies_review/v036/36.3.linden.html.
ISSN
0149-7952Collections
Citation
Ari Linden. (2013). Beyond Repetition: Karl Kraus’s “Absolute Satire.” German Studies Review 36(3):515-536. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2013.0146
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