Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Abbreviations
- Introduction: Max Frisch in the Twenty-First Century
- 1 Max Frisch's Early Plays
- 2 Spielraum in Max Frisch's Graf Öderland and Don Juan: Transparency as Mode of Performance
- 3 Max Frisch's Biedermann und die Brandstifter and Die große Wut des Philipp Hotz
- 4 Max Frisch's Andorra: Balancing Act between Pattern and Particular
- 5 Eternal Recurrence in Life and Death in Max Frisch's Late Plays
- 6 Max Frisch's Early Fiction
- 7 From Life to Literature: Max Frisch's Tagebücher
- 8 “Writing in order to be a stranger to oneself”: Max Frisch's Stiller
- 9 Cybernetic Flow, Analogy, and Probability in Max Frisch's Homo Faber
- 10 The Ends of Blindness in Max Frisch's Mein Name sei Gantenbein
- 11 Max Frisch's Montauk. Eine Erzählung
- 12 Man, Culture, and Nature in Max Frisch's Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän
- 13 “My life as a man. Everyman”: Max Frisch's Blaubart. Erzählung
- 14 Max Frisch's Essays and Speeches
- Frisch's Major Works
- Select Bibliography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
12 - Man, Culture, and Nature in Max Frisch's Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Abbreviations
- Introduction: Max Frisch in the Twenty-First Century
- 1 Max Frisch's Early Plays
- 2 Spielraum in Max Frisch's Graf Öderland and Don Juan: Transparency as Mode of Performance
- 3 Max Frisch's Biedermann und die Brandstifter and Die große Wut des Philipp Hotz
- 4 Max Frisch's Andorra: Balancing Act between Pattern and Particular
- 5 Eternal Recurrence in Life and Death in Max Frisch's Late Plays
- 6 Max Frisch's Early Fiction
- 7 From Life to Literature: Max Frisch's Tagebücher
- 8 “Writing in order to be a stranger to oneself”: Max Frisch's Stiller
- 9 Cybernetic Flow, Analogy, and Probability in Max Frisch's Homo Faber
- 10 The Ends of Blindness in Max Frisch's Mein Name sei Gantenbein
- 11 Max Frisch's Montauk. Eine Erzählung
- 12 Man, Culture, and Nature in Max Frisch's Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän
- 13 “My life as a man. Everyman”: Max Frisch's Blaubart. Erzählung
- 14 Max Frisch's Essays and Speeches
- Frisch's Major Works
- Select Bibliography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
In max Frisch's early work, nature is often presented in a sentimental and Romantic manner. In his Tagebuch 1946–1949, for example, Frisch describes the golden autumn landscapes, and a morning break at a lake with “versponnener Sonne” (a hazy sun) and “verblauenden Ufern” (the banks turning bluish). From his early works on, Frisch used images of water to symbolize a longing for vastness and distance, for movement, transformation, and therefore aliveness. Already young Jürg Reinhart, the protagonist in the eponymous novel published in 1934, is fascinated with the ocean. At the beginning of the novel, Frisch writes:
Und wenn man dann aufsprang und diese hellgrünen Holzlättchen verstellte, sah man zwischendurch das Meer; es lag in silbriger und makelloser Zartheit, und makellos war auch die Riesenmuschelbläue, die es überwölbte. Jauchzen hätte man wollen.
[And when one jumped out of bed and moved these light-green wooden battens, one could see the ocean in between; it lay in silvery and pristine delicateness, and the gigantic sea-shell blue that arched over it was also pristine. One felt like cheering.]
But soon Reinhart experiences the sea as a dangerous force of nature. As Reinhart is tacking along the coast of Dalmatia with his improvised sailboat, the wind intensifies dramatically and drives him and his boat out into the open ocean:
Es ging immer rasender in dieser neuen Richtung. […] er […] blickte gradaus, was wohl kommen würde. Und sein Herz hämmerte. Denn dieser Wind hatte ihm den Willen aus der Hand ge rissen, und er klammerte sich mit adergeschwollenen Fäusten ans Steuerruder.
(JR 245–46)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Companion to the Works of Max Frisch , pp. 197 - 210Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013