Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > "Mich in Variationen erzählen" : Günter Grass a...
View graph of relations

"Mich in Variationen erzählen" : Günter Grass and the ethics of autobiogaphy.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>10/2008
<mark>Journal</mark>Modern Language Review
Issue number4
Volume103
Number of pages16
Pages (from-to)1051-1066
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This article examines Grass's 2006 autobiography Beim Häuten der Zwiebel against the background of a long career of overtly complex literary self-presentation. Its aim is twofold: to situate the autobiography as an aesthetic form within Grass's œuvre, and to use what I term Grass's much wider `autobiographical project', developed over the course of his career, to suggest that a kind of narrative ethics may in fact underlie much apparently wilful posturing in autobiographically informed literature. Using Philippe Lejeune to develop the idea of a `contractual effect' felt by author and reader, I argue that Grass draws on the autobiographical mode in order to critique contemporary reading practices.