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The Puzzle of Kafka's Prosecuting Attorney

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Heinz Politzer*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley 4

Extract

As an appendix to Franz Kafka's unfinished novel Der Prozeß (The Trial) Max Brod has published a series of fragments more or less closely connected with the main body of the text. One of them, with the heading “Staatsanwalt” (“Prosecuting Attorney”), has lately caused considerable discussion, especially in view of the new order suggested for the entire novel by Professor H. Uyttersprot.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 75 , Issue 4-Part1 , September 1960 , pp. 432 - 438
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1960

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References

1 The Trial, definitive ed. (New York, 1957), pp. 296–304. Since Kafka has been widely discussed by American and English critics, I have used the English translation of the Trial (by Willa and Edwin Muir, and E. M. Butler—the latter responsible for the “Staatsanwalt” fragment—) rather than following the German original. However, I have taken the liberty of changing the translations whenever I felt the need of a more literal version.

2 Eine neue Ordnung der Werke Kafkas? (Antwerp, 1957), pp. 19–22, et passim. Uyttersprot's suggestions have met with a rather agitated reception. But the subject of the “Staatsanwalt” has remained unexplained. Thus Klaus Wagenbach (“Jahreszeiten bei Kafka?,” Deutsche Vierteljahresschrifl, 33 [1959] pp. 644 ff.) evades the issue by declaring that these fragments possess “only the value of sketches or marginal glosses,” while Ronald Gray (“The Structure of Kafka's Works: A Reply to Professor Uyttersprot,” German Life and Letters, New Series, xin [1959] pp. 1 ff.) fails to discuss the episode.

3 Numbers incorporated in the text refer to pages of the definitive ed. of The Trial or to the scholarly work (Brod or the Diaries) which immediately precedes them. Quotations without page references are taken from the two fragments indicated in nn. 1 and 14. Heinz Politzer

4 Amerika, tr. Edwin Muir (New York, 1946), p. 207.

5 Verzweiflung uni Erlosung im Werk Franz Kafkas (Frankfurt, 1959), p. 84.

6 Wilhelm Emrich, Franz Kafka (Bonn, 1959), undertakes a determined step in the direction of interpreting the symbolic texture of Kafka's work.

7 Uyttersprot, p. 19.

8 In her paper, “Goethe's ‘Werther’ and Kafka's ‘Prozeß‘,” E. M. Butler seems to remain insensitive to the problem posed by the “Staatsanwalt.” She calls the fragment “a Prologue or Paralipomenon” and cuts through the Gordian knot when she says that “it looks as if Kafka might have discarded that chapter altogether. It certainly does not make nearly so good an opening chapter as Verhaflung …”(German Life and Letters, New Series, xii. [1959] 251, 254).

9 While trying to solve one editorial problem, Brod is posing another. As the facsimiles show, Kafka has crossed out the last page of ch. 7. Why? How far back does this deletion extend? Brod's suggestion that Kafka “perhaps” crossed out certain chapter endings to allow for future insertions (p. 84), remains thoroughly unconvincing.

10 The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1914–1923, tr. Martin Greenberg and Hannah Arendt (New York, 1949), pp. 106, 107.

11 Now part of the Diaries, pp. 79–91.

12 In the English: “The Giant Mole” in The Great Wall of China, tr. Willa and Edwin Muir (New York, 1946), pp.174–201.

13 Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellscha.fi ii (Marbach, 1958), 266–300.

14 Dearest Father, tr. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (New York, 1954), pp. 330–336. As can be seen from this note and n. 13, not even the titles of the American edition of Kafka's works conform to the German edition.

15 Heinz Politzer, “Franz Kafka: Metaphysical Anarchist,” Renascence, vi (1954), 106–111. Heinz Politzer

16 “On Parables,” Great Wall of China, p. 258.

17 This order contradicts by way of the work's chronology Uyttersprot's suggestion that the Cathedral scene was to be followed by the Titorelli episode (op. cit., p. 33 et passim).

18 July 23: “Der Gerichtshof im Hotel” = the decisive meeting with Felice Bauer's family.—July 27: “ … vor dem Gericht … ” = before the meeting. Tagebiicher 1910–1923 (Frankfurt, 1951), pp. 407, 411 and Diaries, pp. 65, 68.