Bode, Christoph

English

Universität München: Elektronischen Publikationen

LITERATUR 
in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 
LWU 
Herausgegeben von 
Paul G. Buchloh · Dietrich Jäger · Horst Kruse · Peter Nicolaisen 
Redaktion: Walter T. Rix 
B A N D XIII · 1980 
L I T E R A T U R 
in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 
BAND ΧΠΙ · 1980 
Herausgeber: Paul G. Buchloh, Dietrich Jäger, Horst Kruse, Peter Nicolaisen 
Redaktion: Walter T. Rix 
Englisches Seminar der Universität Kiel 
2300 Kiel, Neue Universität, Olshausenstraße 40-60 
L I T E R A T U R in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (LWU) erscheint 
viermal im Jahr. Erscheinungsort: Kiel. Preis des Einzelheftes: DM 5,—, 
Jahresabonnement: DM 19,50; Ausland: DM 21,—; Studenten und Refe­
rendare: DM 17,—. Das Abonnement ist nur zum Ende des Jahres zu kün­
digen, spätestens bis zum 15. November. 
Beiträge - vornehmlich aus dem Bereich der amerikanischen, deutschen, 
englischen und romanischen Literaturwissenschaft - sowie Besprechungs­
exemplare sind an die Redaktion zu richten. Eine Verpflichtung zur Bespre­
chung unverlangt eingesandter Rezensionsexemplare besteht nicht. Die 
Autoren erhalten 20 Sonderdrucke ihrer Beiträge gratis und auf Wunsch 
weitere zum Selbstkostenpreis. 
Alle Rechte liegen bei den Herausgebern. 
INHALT 
A U F S Ä T Z E U N D K L E I N E R E B E I T R Ä G E 
The Knocking Motif in Sean O'Casey's The Shadow 170 
of Gunman 
John Donne: 'The Sunne Rising'* — Eine Beschrei- 151 
bung der thematischen und rhetorischen Textstruktur 
und ihrer strategischen Funktion. 
Umerzählen von Texten — Eine Möglichkeit, Textana- 176 
lyse und Textproduktion zu verbinden. 
Gottschalk, Klaus-Dieter: St. Athanasius gegen Saint Joan bei Shaw. 
Casey, Paul Foley: 
Fietz, Lothar: 
Fingerhut, Karlheinz: 
Greene, Michael E. : 
Heintz, Günter: 
Heintz, Günter: 
Jarfe, Günther: 
Jochems, Helmut: 
Möller, Joachim: 
Schopp, Joseph C.: 
Simonis, Ferdinand: 
Wertheim, Albert: 
Tennyson's "Disastrous Day": Time in Section 72 of 
In Memoria m. 
284 
29 
1 Ein Kapitel aus der poetischen Wirkungsgeschichte 
Stefan Georges: Gottfried Benn. 
"Sunt lacrimae rerum". Oskar Loerkes Anfänge. 232 
"O Where Are You Going" — Ein Beitrag zur Ana- 110 
lyse des Rhetorischen in Audens Lyrik. 
Urne und Lampe. Vorüberlegungen zu einem textana- 115 
lytischen Transformationsbegriff. 
Buchschmuck oder Verständnishilfe: Text und Illustra- 89 
tion in Vanity Fair am Beispiel des husband-hunting. 
Donald Barthelme: Leseanleitungen und Leseübun- 34 
gen. 
Die Lyrik Jean Follains. Dichtung des Realen und Zeit- 263 
liehen. 
The Unrestrained and the Unconventional: Etherege's 102 
The Man of Mode. 
F O R S C H U N G S B E R I C H T E / F O R U M 
Albrecht, Wilma u. 
Richard: 
Buchloh, Paul G. et al. 
Krimi- und Literaturwissenschaft. Zu einigen literatur- 124 
wissenschaftlichen Diskussionsschwerpunkten um fik-
tionale Verbrechensliteratur. 
Literatur in filmischer Darstellung: Methodische Mög- 47 
lichkeiten zur philologischen Erschließung verfilmter 
Literatur. 
F O R S C H U N G S B E R I C H T E / F O R U M 
Fluck, Winfried: Citizen Kane als 'filmischer' Text und als Text der 296 
amerikanischen Kultur. 
Maack, Annegret: Die literaturkritische und literarische Rezeption von 201 
Leben und Werk der "Brontë-Sisters". 
B U C H B E S P R E C H U N G E N 
Adams, Robert Martin: 
Borklund, Elmer: 
Dietz, Karl Wilhelm: 
Freese, Peter/Groene, 
Horst/Hermes, Liesel 
(Hgg.): 
Gocke, R.: 
Heitmann, Klaus: 
Jendreiek, Helmut: 
Kroneberg, Lutz/ 
Schloesser, Rolf (Hgg.): 
Kruse, Joseph A. (Hg.): 
Noyer-Weidner, Alfred 
(Hg.): 
Schröder, K . / 
Weller, F. R. (Hgg.): 
Strelka, Joseph: 
Weiand, Hermann J.: 
After joy ce. Studies in Fiction After Joyce 
(Rüdiger Imhof). 
Contemporary Literary Critics (James Rambeau). 
Ralph Ellison's Roman* Invisible Man': Ein Beitrag 
zu seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte mit besonderer Berück-
sichtigung der Figuren-, Raum- und Zeitgestaltung. 
(Christoph Bode). 
Die Short Story im Englischunterricht der Sekundar-
stufe II. Theorie und Praxis (Günter Schubert). 
Heine-Jahrbuch 1979 (Kurt Abels). 
Baudelaire (Fritz Rau). 
Literatur im Fremdsprachenunterricht — Beiträge zur 
Theorie des Literaturunterrichts und zur Praxis der Li-
teraturvermittlung im Fremdsprachenunterricht 
(Rolf Högel). 
Methodologie der Literaturwissenschaft 
(Martin Brück). 
Joseph Conrad — Werk und Leben (Rolf Högel). 
74 
144 
147 
322 
146 Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest/Unter-
richtsmodell (Horst Schroeder). 
Der französische Realismus von Stendhal bis Flaubert 226 
(Ferdinand Simonis). 
Thomas Mann: Der demokratische Roman 222 
(Werner Frizen). 
Weber-Revolte 1844. (Klaus-Dieter Gottschalk). 324 
77 
326 
143 
220 
76 
The references to other works of Oscar 
Wilde take us on to the field of literary 
criticism. O n p. 12 of the teacher's guide, 
the editor quite rightly characterizes 
Algernon's and Jack's conversation at the 
beginning of Act I as a ''repartee . . . an 
image taken from fencing" - a remark that 
would have gained much in weight if the 
editor had referred to A Woman of No 
Importance (Act I) or Dorian Gray 
(ch. 18) where Wilde himself uses the fen-
cing imagery for speech characterization: 
" Y o u fence divinely. But your button has 
come off your fo i l . " - "I have still the 
mask." - "It makes your eyes lovelier." 
More important even, it was a habit of 
Wilde's to re-use his aphorisms - a 
characteristic to which the editor might 
easily have opened our students' eyes: 
Algernon's flippant remark that Lady 
Harbury's hair has turned "quite gold 
from grief" (15) is an echo from Dorian 
Gray (ch. 15); his witticism " A l l women 
become like their mothers. That is their 
tragedy. No man does. That's his." (23) 
harks back to A Woman of No Importance 
(Act II); Gwendolen's epigram "In mat-
ters of grave importance, style, not since-
rity, is the vital thing" (52) reflects the 
Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the 
Young; etc. 
Most important of all , however, by not 
putting the comedy within the context of 
Wilde's complete work, the editor has 
made the play appear as just a 
light-weighted farce (cf. Unterrichtsmo-
dell, 5, 33), whereas, by putting it in the 
perspective of Wilde's other writings - no-
tably his literary criticism like The Decay 
of Lying and The Critic as Artist - , he 
might have shown - just as Wilde had 
shown in Lord Goring "the philosopher 
that underlies the dandy" (A Woman of 
No Importance, IV) - the philosophy that 
underlies the farce. 
Braunschweig Horst Schroeder 
Karl Wilhelm Dietz, Ralph Ellisons Ro­
man Invisible Man: Ein Beitrag zu seiner 
Rezeptionsgeschichte mit besonderer Be­
rücksichtigung der Figuren - , Raum- und 
Zeitgestaltung. Frankfurt (Main), Bern, 
Las Vegas: Peter D . Lang, 1979, 328 
pages, pb., SFr. 50 , - (Mainzer Studien 
zur Amerikanistik, V o l . 12). 
Since the late fifties, Ralph Ellison's 
novel Invisible Man (1952) has met with 
constant critical and scholarly interest. 
This activity reached a peak in the early-
seventies when special issues on Ralph E l -
lison were published by Black World and 
CLA Journal and John Reil ly (Twentieth 
Century Interpretations, 1970), Joseph F. 
Trimmer (Casebook, 1973) and John 
H erse y (Collection of Critical Essays, 
1974) compiled the most important 
articles on Ellison's controversial book. 
Indeed, the novel has been controver-
sial from the moment of its publication. 
On the one hand it has been hailed as an 
exquisite work of art. It won the National 
Book Award in 1953 and in 1965 was 
polled the most important novel since 
World War II. O n the other hand, 
however, it has been under heavy attack 
from mostly Marxist-orientated critics 
and, later in the sixties and seventies, 
black nationalists, who branded Ralph 
Ellison an establishment writer, a docile 
Uncle Tom, renegade etc., or preferred to 
belittle his importance for ideological 
reasons. 
Another point of dispute which is not 
yet settled is the question of whether or 
not Ellison's Invisible Man constitutes a 
genuine Negro novel, i.e. a "black" pro-
test book, which can only be understood in 
relation to the history and painful expe-
rience of the exploited and oppressed 
American Negro, or whether Ellison 
transcends social protest and writes about 
"universal man", "existence as such", 
thereby asserting the basic unity of human 
experience and the existential quality of 
human suffering and alienation. Evident-
ly, critics who hold the latter position tend 
to place the novel into specific Western 
(i.e. white/European) literary traditions, 
such as the picaresque novel or the BU-
IA! 
dungsroman, so that it sometimes seems 
expedient to remind the reader that 
Invisible Man is actually - and not acci-
dentally - about a black man and his 
search for identity in a society which 
refuses to see him as he is. Sensitive critics 
argue that the book is essentially a Negro's 
novel, but not "merely" a Negro novel (in 
the restricted sense of the word), since the 
degraded American Negro - in reality and 
as a fictional character - epitomizes all 
that is wrong with modern man: e.g. the 
problem of "other-directed personalities" 
(Riesman) is not racial in origin, but it is 
evident that the position the Negro holds 
in American society makes it even harder 
for him to develop a sense of identity. In 
his interpretation of the "Battle R o y a l " 
scene in Invisible Man, Marcus Klein 
writes that "It is the function of this caste 
system to suppress a great deal more than 
the Negro, and it is the lesson of this epi-
sode that these Negroes incarnate for 
these whites everything that they sup-
press" 1. In this sense, Invisible Man is 
neither a mere Negro novel, nor a "un i -
versal" novel, but a profoundly American 
novel. "The Negro", as Richard Wright 
said, "is America's metaphor". 
Apart from these more general points 
of dispute, scholarly criticism has, up to 
now, primarily concentrated on the dis-
cussion and analysis of the theme and the 
imagery and symbolism of Invisible Man. 
A s to its theme, critics focused mainly on 
the presentation of the problem of identity 
and related questions, such as whether or 
not the epilogue proves a final acceptance 
of the condition of invisibility. The inter-
pretation of the novel as the symbolic 
history of the American Negro revealed 
new, interesting aspects. A s to the im-
agery and symbolism, critics could not, of 
course, ignore Ellison's extensive use of 
metaphors of vision and blindness, 
darkness and light, and the recurring motif 
of running. Although this symbolism was 
often found to be obtrusive and contrived, 
the structure of the novel - with its suppo-
sedly static quality and no real progress -
and Ellison's variations of style provoked 
even severer judgements, which, howe-
ver, were not left uncontradicted. In re-
cent years, the evaluation of Ellison's use 
of Negro folk culture within the context of 
a "Western" tradition has given new im-
petus to the old discussion of the special 
qualities of the Negro novel and, more ge-
nerally, of the characterization of a speci-
fic Afro-American culture. 
Although not each and every publica-
tion of the immense and still growing body 
of Ellison scholarship is worth reading, 
since very often little more than simple 
paraphrase is offered, an Ellison scholar 
about to work out his own interpretation is 
still confronted with a bulk of valuable 
written work which he must survey in 
order to avoid repetition and to discover 
open questions. It is exactly this sort of ex-
tensive critical and systematic 
examination of the reception history of 
Invisible Man that Kar l Wilhelm Dietz 
declares the first objective of his new 
study of the novel. On some 50 pages 
which constitute part I of his book Dietz 
first delineates the growth and character 
of Ellison studies and Ellison reviews in 
chronological order before he draws 
attention to various studies of literary 
affinities and of the socio-cultural context. 
A t the end of part I, the author concentra-
tes even more specifically on findings con-
cerning "constituent elements of Invisible 
Man as a work of art" (13). Dietz comes to 
the conclusion that a lot of work remains 
to be done in this field because certain 
aspects of the novel - above all the "lay-
ers" of plot, characterization, setting and 
time structure - have found only superfi-
cial treatment (15). Dietz takes the 
probing formal analysis of these "layers" 
as his second objective and presents it in 
part II (63-214) of his voluminous study. 
Dietz follows the plot meticulously and 
traces structural links and recurring motifs 
within the larger tri-part structure of the 
novel. He points out that its structural 
principle of "repetition plus variation" 
does not mean that the novel moves " in a 
series of circles" (Klein) , but rather that it 
serves as the basis for the protagonist's 
development from unconscious rebellion 
to conscious resistance which is unfolded 
in the pattern of a journey. Consequently, 
the various artistic means by which the 
148 
protagonist is characterized are examined 
in the next part of Dietz ' study ( 106—143), 
in which, for example, it is shown that the 
protagonist's handling of language, as 
demonstrated in his speeches, is a major 
clue to his changing personality: 
". . . there is a progression in his speeches 
from an uncritical imitation to a skillful 
and even creative use of language. 
Language becomes a sign of his finding 
personal and group identity'' (14 - refers 
to 115 ff.)· The other characters in the 
novel function as signposts in the "hero's" 
search for identity. After he has carefully 
drawn a schedule of their appearances and 
re-appearances, Dietz discovers "mirro-
ring effects in the grouping of figures" 
( 168ff.). He then proceeds to examine the 
functional significance of the settings in 
space and time and comes to the conclu-
sion that "Whi le the experiencing self . . . 
loses all sense of orientation, the narrating 
self regains a new sense of space in his un-
derground existence" (14 - refers to 
175ff.). Furthermore, he makes some in-
teresting remarks on different aspects of 
time ("colored people's time", clock, "na-
tural time") as they are presented in the 
novel and interrelated with its dominating 
metaphor of invisibility. 
Dietz ends with a consideration of mu-
sical motifs (references to jazz, blues) in 
Invisible Man - a somewhat superfluous 
appendage, since this aspect has found 
extensive treatment elsewhere and its 
presentation here, at the very and of his 
study, seems rather arbitrary. 
The merits of Dietz ' book, however, are 
obvious: he knows his subject very well 
and organizes an immense amount of ma-
terial in such a way that the reader can al-
ways (with the exception, perhaps, of part 
I) follow his line of argument. Never does 
he jump to conclusions and his analysis is 
always undertaken with great care and a 
sense for details. It should be noted, 
however, that his language often borders 
on scholarly jargon and that his findings 
sometimes appear to be unrelated to the 
overall interpretation of the novel and 
seem meagre when viewed in proportion 
to the energy expended in analysis. 
It is not my task here to discuss the pros 
and cons of a more formal analysis of 
artistic and structural devices, of "layers" 
of a novel etc., and I am far from saying 
that an extrinsic approach is the only 
legitimate one. This would be absurd, 
even more so since Ellison himself has 
always emphasized the importance he 
attaches to form and artistic craftsman-
ship, in which, it is true, he excels all other 
Negro writers. But it remains to be asked 
whether a novel like Invisible Man, which 
abounds in subtle and elaborate 
references to the history of the American 
Negro and his social and psychological si-
tuation, can ever be appreciated in its full 
significance, if all these references are 
either neglected or only noted marginally. 
Ellison once said that one of his aims in 
writing the novel was to explore the 
problems of black leadership. But his 
fictional rejection of both Bookerism and 
Black Nationalism does not come into fo-
cus when one tends to separate the novel 
from its actual historical and social back-
ground. Many key-scenes of the novel are 
a symbolic recapitulation of Negro history 
(e.g. the journey north, eviction scene) or 
only understandable if the socio-psycho-
logical dimension is taken into account 
(e.g. Trueblood, fabrication of "optic whi-
te"). Dietz knows this, but touches upon it 
only lightly (205). 
His conception of Invisible Man's 
"journey" has more of a literary conven-
tion than of "Negro history acted out" 
(Guttmann). His "space" and "t ime" are 
mostly abstracted concepts - abstracted 
from concrete historical time and concrete 
geographical space. A s Jacqueline Covo 
remarked in 1974, esthetic considerations 
may serve as a shield from reality. By con-
centrating on a book as a mere work of art 
and art as something autonomous, one 
tends to neglect its social context and in 
the particular case of Ralph Ellison's 
Invisible Man much, if not the essence of 
the novel, is lost. 
Within the frame of his approach, Dietz 
has done thorough and probing work, but 
it seems to me that the approach itself 
149 
imposes regrettable limitations on the 
scope and depth of the interpretation. 
Kiel Christoph Bode 
1 Marcus Kle in , "Ra lph Ellisons In-
visible Man", from After Alienation: 
American Novels in Mid-Century, 
Cleveland/New York , repr. in Seymor 
Lee Gross / John Hardy (eds.), Images 
of the Negro in American Literature, 
University of Chicago Press, 1966, 
249-264; here p. 257. 
150 


Rezension von: Karl-Wilhelm Dietz: Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man, Frankfurt u.a. 1979

Open Access LMU ( Ludwig-Maximilians-Univ. München)

LITERATUR in Wissenschaft und Unterricht LWU Herausgegeben von Paul G. Buchloh · Dietrich Jäger · Horst Kruse · Peter Nicolaisen Redaktion: Walter T. Rix B A N D XIII · 1980 L I T E R A T U R in Wissenschaft und Unterricht BAND ΧΠΙ · 1980 Herausgeber: Paul G. Buchloh, Dietrich Jäger, Horst Kruse, Peter Nicolaisen Redaktion: Walter T. Rix Englisches Seminar der Universität Kiel 2300 Kiel, Neue Universität, Olshausenstraße 40-60 L I T E R A T U R in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (LWU) erscheint viermal im Jahr. Erscheinungsort: Kiel. Preis des Einzelheftes: DM 5,—, Jahresabonnement: DM 19,50; Ausland: DM 21,—; Studenten und Refe­rendare: DM 17,—. Das Abonnement ist nur zum Ende des Jahres zu kün­digen, spätestens bis zum 15. November. Beiträge - vornehmlich aus dem Bereich der amerikanischen, deutschen, englischen und romanischen Literaturwissenschaft - sowie Besprechungs­exemplare sind an die Redaktion zu richten. Eine Verpflichtung zur Bespre­chung unverlangt eingesandter Rezensionsexemplare besteht nicht. Die Autoren erhalten 20 Sonderdrucke ihrer Beiträge gratis und auf Wunsch weitere zum Selbstkostenpreis. Alle Rechte liegen bei den Herausgebern. INHALT A U F S Ä T Z E U N D K L E I N E R E B E I T R Ä G E The Knocking Motif in Sean O'Casey's The Shadow 170 of Gunman John Donne: 'The Sunne Rising'* — Eine Beschrei- 151 bung der thematischen und rhetorischen Textstruktur und ihrer strategischen Funktion. Umerzählen von Texten — Eine Möglichkeit, Textana- 176 lyse und Textproduktion zu verbinden. Gottschalk, Klaus-Dieter: St. Athanasius gegen Saint Joan bei Shaw. Casey, Paul Foley: Fietz, Lothar: Fingerhut, Karlheinz: Greene, Michael E. : Heintz, Günter: Heintz, Günter: Jarfe, Günther: Jochems, Helmut: Möller, Joachim: Schopp, Joseph C.: Simonis, Ferdinand: Wertheim, Albert: Tennyson's "Disastrous Day": Time in Section 72 of In Memoria m. 284 29 1 Ein Kapitel aus der poetischen Wirkungsgeschichte Stefan Georges: Gottfried Benn. "Sunt lacrimae rerum". Oskar Loerkes Anfänge. 232 "O Where Are You Going" — Ein Beitrag zur Ana- 110 lyse des Rhetorischen in Audens Lyrik. Urne und Lampe. Vorüberlegungen zu einem textana- 115 lytischen Transformationsbegriff. Buchschmuck oder Verständnishilfe: Text und Illustra- 89 tion in Vanity Fair am Beispiel des husband-hunting. Donald Barthelme: Leseanleitungen und Leseübun- 34 gen. Die Lyrik Jean Follains. Dichtung des Realen und Zeit- 263 liehen. The Unrestrained and the Unconventional: Etherege's 102 The Man of Mode. F O R S C H U N G S B E R I C H T E / F O R U M Albrecht, Wilma u. Richard: Buchloh, Paul G. et al. Krimi- und Literaturwissenschaft. Zu einigen literatur- 124 wissenschaftlichen Diskussionsschwerpunkten um fik-tionale Verbrechensliteratur. Literatur in filmischer Darstellung: Methodische Mög- 47 lichkeiten zur philologischen Erschließung verfilmter Literatur. F O R S C H U N G S B E R I C H T E / F O R U M Fluck, Winfried: Citizen Kane als 'filmischer' Text und als Text der 296 amerikanischen Kultur. Maack, Annegret: Die literaturkritische und literarische Rezeption von 201 Leben und Werk der "Brontë-Sisters". B U C H B E S P R E C H U N G E N Adams, Robert Martin: Borklund, Elmer: Dietz, Karl Wilhelm: Freese, Peter/Groene, Horst/Hermes, Liesel (Hgg.): Gocke, R.: Heitmann, Klaus: Jendreiek, Helmut: Kroneberg, Lutz/ Schloesser, Rolf (Hgg.): Kruse, Joseph A. (Hg.): Noyer-Weidner, Alfred (Hg.): Schröder, K . / Weller, F. R. (Hgg.): Strelka, Joseph: Weiand, Hermann J.: After joy ce. Studies in Fiction After Joyce (Rüdiger Imhof). Contemporary Literary Critics (James Rambeau). Ralph Ellison's Roman* Invisible Man': Ein Beitrag zu seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte mit besonderer Berück-sichtigung der Figuren-, Raum- und Zeitgestaltung. (Christoph Bode). Die Short Story im Englischunterricht der Sekundar-stufe II. Theorie und Praxis (Günter Schubert). Heine-Jahrbuch 1979 (Kurt Abels). Baudelaire (Fritz Rau). Literatur im Fremdsprachenunterricht — Beiträge zur Theorie des Literaturunterrichts und zur Praxis der Li-teraturvermittlung im Fremdsprachenunterricht (Rolf Högel). Methodologie der Literaturwissenschaft (Martin Brück). Joseph Conrad — Werk und Leben (Rolf Högel). 74 144 147 322 146 Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest/Unter-richtsmodell (Horst Schroeder). Der französische Realismus von Stendhal bis Flaubert 226 (Ferdinand Simonis). Thomas Mann: Der demokratische Roman 222 (Werner Frizen). Weber-Revolte 1844. (Klaus-Dieter Gottschalk). 324 77 326 143 220 76 The references to other works of Oscar Wilde take us on to the field of literary criticism. O n p. 12 of the teacher's guide, the editor quite rightly characterizes Algernon's and Jack's conversation at the beginning of Act I as a ''repartee . . . an image taken from fencing" - a remark that would have gained much in weight if the editor had referred to A Woman of No Importance (Act I) or Dorian Gray (ch. 18) where Wilde himself uses the fen-cing imagery for speech characterization: " Y o u fence divinely. But your button has come off your fo i l . " - "I have still the mask." - "It makes your eyes lovelier." More important even, it was a habit of Wilde's to re-use his aphorisms - a characteristic to which the editor might easily have opened our students' eyes: Algernon's flippant remark that Lady Harbury's hair has turned "quite gold from grief" (15) is an echo from Dorian Gray (ch. 15); his witticism " A l l women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." (23) harks back to A Woman of No Importance (Act II); Gwendolen's epigram "In mat-ters of grave importance, style, not since-rity, is the vital thing" (52) reflects the Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young; etc. Most important of all , however, by not putting the comedy within the context of Wilde's complete work, the editor has made the play appear as just a light-weighted farce (cf. Unterrichtsmo-dell, 5, 33), whereas, by putting it in the perspective of Wilde's other writings - no-tably his literary criticism like The Decay of Lying and The Critic as Artist - , he might have shown - just as Wilde had shown in Lord Goring "the philosopher that underlies the dandy" (A Woman of No Importance, IV) - the philosophy that underlies the farce. Braunschweig Horst Schroeder Karl Wilhelm Dietz, Ralph Ellisons Ro­man Invisible Man: Ein Beitrag zu seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte mit besonderer Be­rücksichtigung der Figuren - , Raum- und Zeitgestaltung. Frankfurt (Main), Bern, Las Vegas: Peter D . Lang, 1979, 328 pages, pb., SFr. 50 , - (Mainzer Studien zur Amerikanistik, V o l . 12). Since the late fifties, Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man (1952) has met with constant critical and scholarly interest. This activity reached a peak in the early-seventies when special issues on Ralph E l -lison were published by Black World and CLA Journal and John Reil ly (Twentieth Century Interpretations, 1970), Joseph F. Trimmer (Casebook, 1973) and John H erse y (Collection of Critical Essays, 1974) compiled the most important articles on Ellison's controversial book. Indeed, the novel has been controver-sial from the moment of its publication. On the one hand it has been hailed as an exquisite work of art. It won the National Book Award in 1953 and in 1965 was polled the most important novel since World War II. O n the other hand, however, it has been under heavy attack from mostly Marxist-orientated critics and, later in the sixties and seventies, black nationalists, who branded Ralph Ellison an establishment writer, a docile Uncle Tom, renegade etc., or preferred to belittle his importance for ideological reasons. Another point of dispute which is not yet settled is the question of whether or not Ellison's Invisible Man constitutes a genuine Negro novel, i.e. a "black" pro-test book, which can only be understood in relation to the history and painful expe-rience of the exploited and oppressed American Negro, or whether Ellison transcends social protest and writes about "universal man", "existence as such", thereby asserting the basic unity of human experience and the existential quality of human suffering and alienation. Evident-ly, critics who hold the latter position tend to place the novel into specific Western (i.e. white/European) literary traditions, such as the picaresque novel or the BU-IA! dungsroman, so that it sometimes seems expedient to remind the reader that Invisible Man is actually - and not acci-dentally - about a black man and his search for identity in a society which refuses to see him as he is. Sensitive critics argue that the book is essentially a Negro's novel, but not "merely" a Negro novel (in the restricted sense of the word), since the degraded American Negro - in reality and as a fictional character - epitomizes all that is wrong with modern man: e.g. the problem of "other-directed personalities" (Riesman) is not racial in origin, but it is evident that the position the Negro holds in American society makes it even harder for him to develop a sense of identity. In his interpretation of the "Battle R o y a l " scene in Invisible Man, Marcus Klein writes that "It is the function of this caste system to suppress a great deal more than the Negro, and it is the lesson of this epi-sode that these Negroes incarnate for these whites everything that they sup-press" 1. In this sense, Invisible Man is neither a mere Negro novel, nor a "un i -versal" novel, but a profoundly American novel. "The Negro", as Richard Wright said, "is America's metaphor". Apart from these more general points of dispute, scholarly criticism has, up to now, primarily concentrated on the dis-cussion and analysis of the theme and the imagery and symbolism of Invisible Man. A s to its theme, critics focused mainly on the presentation of the problem of identity and related questions, such as whether or not the epilogue proves a final acceptance of the condition of invisibility. The inter-pretation of the novel as the symbolic history of the American Negro revealed new, interesting aspects. A s to the im-agery and symbolism, critics could not, of course, ignore Ellison's extensive use of metaphors of vision and blindness, darkness and light, and the recurring motif of running. Although this symbolism was often found to be obtrusive and contrived, the structure of the novel - with its suppo-sedly static quality and no real progress -and Ellison's variations of style provoked even severer judgements, which, howe-ver, were not left uncontradicted. In re-cent years, the evaluation of Ellison's use of Negro folk culture within the context of a "Western" tradition has given new im-petus to the old discussion of the special qualities of the Negro novel and, more ge-nerally, of the characterization of a speci-fic Afro-American culture. Although not each and every publica-tion of the immense and still growing body of Ellison scholarship is worth reading, since very often little more than simple paraphrase is offered, an Ellison scholar about to work out his own interpretation is still confronted with a bulk of valuable written work which he must survey in order to avoid repetition and to discover open questions. It is exactly this sort of ex-tensive critical and systematic examination of the reception history of Invisible Man that Kar l Wilhelm Dietz declares the first objective of his new study of the novel. On some 50 pages which constitute part I of his book Dietz first delineates the growth and character of Ellison studies and Ellison reviews in chronological order before he draws attention to various studies of literary affinities and of the socio-cultural context. A t the end of part I, the author concentra-tes even more specifically on findings con-cerning "constituent elements of Invisible Man as a work of art" (13). Dietz comes to the conclusion that a lot of work remains to be done in this field because certain aspects of the novel - above all the "lay-ers" of plot, characterization, setting and time structure - have found only superfi-cial treatment (15). Dietz takes the probing formal analysis of these "layers" as his second objective and presents it in part II (63-214) of his voluminous study. Dietz follows the plot meticulously and traces structural links and recurring motifs within the larger tri-part structure of the novel. He points out that its structural principle of "repetition plus variation" does not mean that the novel moves " in a series of circles" (Klein) , but rather that it serves as the basis for the protagonist's development from unconscious rebellion to conscious resistance which is unfolded in the pattern of a journey. Consequently, the various artistic means by which the 148 protagonist is characterized are examined in the next part of Dietz ' study ( 106—143), in which, for example, it is shown that the protagonist's handling of language, as demonstrated in his speeches, is a major clue to his changing personality: ". . . there is a progression in his speeches from an uncritical imitation to a skillful and even creative use of language. Language becomes a sign of his finding personal and group identity'' (14 - refers to 115 ff.)· The other characters in the novel function as signposts in the "hero's" search for identity. After he has carefully drawn a schedule of their appearances and re-appearances, Dietz discovers "mirro-ring effects in the grouping of figures" ( 168ff.). He then proceeds to examine the functional significance of the settings in space and time and comes to the conclu-sion that "Whi le the experiencing self . . . loses all sense of orientation, the narrating self regains a new sense of space in his un-derground existence" (14 - refers to 175ff.). Furthermore, he makes some in-teresting remarks on different aspects of time ("colored people's time", clock, "na-tural time") as they are presented in the novel and interrelated with its dominating metaphor of invisibility. Dietz ends with a consideration of mu-sical motifs (references to jazz, blues) in Invisible Man - a somewhat superfluous appendage, since this aspect has found extensive treatment elsewhere and its presentation here, at the very and of his study, seems rather arbitrary. The merits of Dietz ' book, however, are obvious: he knows his subject very well and organizes an immense amount of ma-terial in such a way that the reader can al-ways (with the exception, perhaps, of part I) follow his line of argument. Never does he jump to conclusions and his analysis is always undertaken with great care and a sense for details. It should be noted, however, that his language often borders on scholarly jargon and that his findings sometimes appear to be unrelated to the overall interpretation of the novel and seem meagre when viewed in proportion to the energy expended in analysis. It is not my task here to discuss the pros and cons of a more formal analysis of artistic and structural devices, of "layers" of a novel etc., and I am far from saying that an extrinsic approach is the only legitimate one. This would be absurd, even more so since Ellison himself has always emphasized the importance he attaches to form and artistic craftsman-ship, in which, it is true, he excels all other Negro writers. But it remains to be asked whether a novel like Invisible Man, which abounds in subtle and elaborate references to the history of the American Negro and his social and psychological si-tuation, can ever be appreciated in its full significance, if all these references are either neglected or only noted marginally. Ellison once said that one of his aims in writing the novel was to explore the problems of black leadership. But his fictional rejection of both Bookerism and Black Nationalism does not come into fo-cus when one tends to separate the novel from its actual historical and social back-ground. Many key-scenes of the novel are a symbolic recapitulation of Negro history (e.g. the journey north, eviction scene) or only understandable if the socio-psycho-logical dimension is taken into account (e.g. Trueblood, fabrication of "optic whi-te"). Dietz knows this, but touches upon it only lightly (205). His conception of Invisible Man's "journey" has more of a literary conven-tion than of "Negro history acted out" (Guttmann). His "space" and "t ime" are mostly abstracted concepts - abstracted from concrete historical time and concrete geographical space. A s Jacqueline Covo remarked in 1974, esthetic considerations may serve as a shield from reality. By con-centrating on a book as a mere work of art and art as something autonomous, one tends to neglect its social context and in the particular case of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man much, if not the essence of the novel, is lost. Within the frame of his approach, Dietz has done thorough and probing work, but it seems to me that the approach itself 149 imposes regrettable limitations on the scope and depth of the interpretation. Kiel Christoph Bode 1 Marcus Kle in , "Ra lph Ellisons In-visible Man", from After Alienation: American Novels in Mid-Century, Cleveland/New York , repr. in Seymor Lee Gross / John Hardy (eds.), Images of the Negro in American Literature, University of Chicago Press, 1966, 249-264; here p. 257. 150 

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Rezension von: Karl-Wilhelm Dietz: Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man, Frankfurt u.a. 1979

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