Abstract
Throughout Elfriede Jelinek’s novel Lust there is extensive use of citations from the poetry of Hölderlin, sometimes barely noticeable, sometimes grotesquely altered. There has been little scholarly consensus on the function of these citations: some have found traces of a utopian notion of a just and fair society to contrast to the harsh satire of the novel; others have read Hölderlin as representing patriarchal authorship. My contribution suggests that Jelinek takes two stylistic devices from Hölderlin - the gnomic form and the ‚harte Fügung‘ (austere harmony) - to integrate them as main principles of her own text. In doing so, she is stressing Hölderlin as an avant-garde author in Bourdieu's sense of the term: as an author whose goal is it to take poetic language to new limits. Thus Jelinek takes on the contemporary figuration of Hölderlin (as represented by D.E. Sattler's Frankfurt edition); and by using Hölderlin in such an innovative way, she positions herself within this avant-garde tradition.
Keywords:
Jelinek; Hölderlin; Pathos; Form; Lust