The poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler

<p>This thesis looks at the poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler. It argues that focusing on colour words allows us to think more carefully about the sort of making that poetry, around the turn of the twentieth century, was seen to b...

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Main Author: Conquer, G
Other Authors: Louth, C
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
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author Conquer, G
author2 Louth, C
author_facet Louth, C
Conquer, G
author_sort Conquer, G
collection OXFORD
description <p>This thesis looks at the poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler. It argues that focusing on colour words allows us to think more carefully about the sort of making that poetry, around the turn of the twentieth century, was seen to be, its purpose and effects. In doing so it thinks also about this making—about the ways that words can be seen as the material of poetry, the ways poems relate to objects, and are objects, the ways poets negotiate semantic space and communicability.</p> <p>While other accounts argue for the specificity of a particular period, author, or hue, I argue for the specificity of the medium, a conclusion which seems necessary when considering how these particular poets thought about and through colour. While the poets’ projects differ, colour can be used in each case like a prism, to separate out their attitudes and commitments towards their medium and its place in the world. </p> <p>The combination of these four poets, which is, to the best of my knowledge, unique, also allows new connections to be seen, whether, facing inward, in terms of colour itself, or outward towards the commitments regarding the poem that an approach via colour exposes. The four poets share an interest in the involvement, and in some cases, aesthetic education, of readers, and in how and what we can learn through reading, and particularly reading colour. What we learn has less to do with colours and how they are experienced than to do with the constructed world of the poem and its mechanisms, and of the role we have to play in animating this world.</p>
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spelling oxford-uuid:de16361d-e146-494f-beb4-15703c880e9d2022-03-27T09:29:34ZThe poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-SchülerThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:de16361d-e146-494f-beb4-15703c880e9dGerman literatureColour studiesPoetryEnglishORA Deposit2016Conquer, GLouth, C<p>This thesis looks at the poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler. It argues that focusing on colour words allows us to think more carefully about the sort of making that poetry, around the turn of the twentieth century, was seen to be, its purpose and effects. In doing so it thinks also about this making—about the ways that words can be seen as the material of poetry, the ways poems relate to objects, and are objects, the ways poets negotiate semantic space and communicability.</p> <p>While other accounts argue for the specificity of a particular period, author, or hue, I argue for the specificity of the medium, a conclusion which seems necessary when considering how these particular poets thought about and through colour. While the poets’ projects differ, colour can be used in each case like a prism, to separate out their attitudes and commitments towards their medium and its place in the world. </p> <p>The combination of these four poets, which is, to the best of my knowledge, unique, also allows new connections to be seen, whether, facing inward, in terms of colour itself, or outward towards the commitments regarding the poem that an approach via colour exposes. The four poets share an interest in the involvement, and in some cases, aesthetic education, of readers, and in how and what we can learn through reading, and particularly reading colour. What we learn has less to do with colours and how they are experienced than to do with the constructed world of the poem and its mechanisms, and of the role we have to play in animating this world.</p>
spellingShingle German literature
Colour studies
Poetry
Conquer, G
The poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler
title The poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler
title_full The poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler
title_fullStr The poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler
title_full_unstemmed The poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler
title_short The poetics of colour in Stefan George, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wassily Kandinsky and Else Lasker-Schüler
title_sort poetics of colour in stefan george rainer maria rilke wassily kandinsky and else lasker schuler
topic German literature
Colour studies
Poetry
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