Between Words and Images – Eccentric Artists and Their Constructions of Reality in Recent German Literature

Abstract

This paper intends to analyse three eccentric figures and their constructions in contemporary German literature from the 1960s to 2005. The aim of this paper is to examine how the main characters, Hieronymus, Henry, and Fabian, from different books (one novel, two short stories) by German authors (Peter Weiss 1965, Eva Zeller 1983, Steffen Kopetzky 2005) share eccentrity on diferent levels. As obsessive collectors, the protagonists devote themselves to the construction of artistic projects through sensual and emotional experience in accordance with a phenomenological perspective (Gaston Bachelard 2007). The main underlying basis for such artistic practices and the type of relationship established between these literary figures and their objects and creative works, on one side, and particular objects, and images used in creating imaginary or alternative worlds, on the other side, are key elements in our analysis.