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Sacred Journeys in a Secular Age: Pilgrimage in Contemporary German Literature

Traylor, Sarah Kay
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6084-4526
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1562757919972067

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Germanic Languages and Literatures.
In contemporary German literature there is a body of texts that deals with pilgrimage on the levels of both form and content that I identify as pilgrim literature. From this literary corpus emerge interventions in literary traditions and theories of modernity. Pilgrim literature intervenes in the tradition of the Bildungsroman, which portrays a journey of self-realization that ultimately ends in resignation and societal integration. It brings a critique of and alternative to this genre’s articulation of discontent with modernity through its communal aspects and its mode of engaging with place and movement. The literary pilgrims I investigate travel not only as part of religious communities, but must also learn to engage with the community of the biosphere as they move within and through the environment. With protagonists setting off on journeys that bring them into contact with nature, pilgrim literature also hearkens back to the Romantic tradition and its topos of Wanderlust. As it re-frames literary topoi in the framework of pilgrimage, this body of literature engages with theories of modernity, in particular theories of time. I analyze three novels that I consider representative of pilgrim literature due to their protagonists’ embodiment of predicaments of modernity: Ilija Trojanow’s Der Weltensammler (2006), W.G. Sebald’s Die Ringe des Saturn (1995), and Carl Amery’s Die Wallfahrer (1986). Each of the pilgrim protagonists embodies different predicaments of modernity: temporal and social homogenization, social acceleration, and ecological crisis. Trojanow’s pilgrim embodies discontent with homogenization as he undertakes the Hajj to Mecca in disguise. His many attempts at inner and outer transformation through role-play can be interpreted as compensation for experiences of temporal and social homogenization. As Sebald’s narrator retrospectively models a journey along the English coast as a pilgrimage, he embodies discontent with social acceleration. Through his narrative, he retraces Western society’s steps towards modernity and the destruction that accompanied them, and places the ruins of these steps in the framework of pilgrimage in the hopes of remembering the victims of modernization. Amery’s pilgrims embody discontent with the human relationship to the environment in modernity. Each pilgrim witnesses current violence against humans and the environment and gains glimpses into a future characterized by human-caused destruction. The pilgrims’ visions slowly come together throughout the novel and paint pilgrimage as a journey towards ecological consciousness. Contemporary pilgrim literature offers a critique of aspects of modernity that have already come under scrutiny as well as aspects that have more recently emerged as concerns, such as environmental issues that have had an increasing presence in humanities scholarship. As they engage with conceptions of the self, social acceleration, and the human relationship to the biosphere in modernity, these novels portray pilgrimage as not only a journey of the past, but as a journey of the present that can reframe views of the future.
Bernhard Malkmus (Advisor)
Katra Byram (Advisor)
362 p.
Germanic Literature; Modern Literature
pilgrimage; contemporary German literature; modernity; anthropocene

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Traylor, S. K. (2019). Sacred Journeys in a Secular Age: Pilgrimage in Contemporary German Literature [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1562757919972067

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Traylor, Sarah. Sacred Journeys in a Secular Age: Pilgrimage in Contemporary German Literature. 2019. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1562757919972067.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Traylor, Sarah. "Sacred Journeys in a Secular Age: Pilgrimage in Contemporary German Literature." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1562757919972067

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1562757919972067
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.