Ach, achgott, pfui, o, jesus!
Kafka’s Interjections
Following Benjamin’s demand to understand Kafka’s narrative world as a “codex of gestures,” this dissertation project focuses on a specific group of gestures – namely on “interjections,” the part of speech also referred to as “vocal gestures.” While this type of word has already received in-depth attention in other literary contexts, a systematic study of interjections in Kafka’s oeuvre is not yet available. The dissertation project provides an overview of the linguistic peculiarities of interjections and their connection to certain aspects of Kafka research. Subsequently, the project provides a systematic survey of all interjections in Kafka’s narrative works. The main part of the project is a close reading analysis of selected interjections and their textual environments, which is intended to illuminate the enormous linguistic power of interjections in Kafka’s narrative work.
