TY - CHAP

T1 - Cultural impact and the power of myth in popular public constructions of authorship

AU - Braun, Rebecca

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 - This chapter sets out to conceptualize how authors attain cultural significance beyond the literary reception of their work. Starting from Thomas Mann’s famous radio addresses and working through mass media constructions of famous authors from the Gruppe 47, it argues that the public narratives constructed around these authors and their literary lives can be understood in terms of myth and mythic excess. Engaging with several different conceptions of myth --- from Barthes’s myths of the everyday, through Bourdieu’s system of belief, to contemporary thinking on celebrity --- the chapter seeks to unearth the various mechanisms by which authors manipulate public interest in their person in an attempt to raise their cultural profile.

AB - This chapter sets out to conceptualize how authors attain cultural significance beyond the literary reception of their work. Starting from Thomas Mann’s famous radio addresses and working through mass media constructions of famous authors from the Gruppe 47, it argues that the public narratives constructed around these authors and their literary lives can be understood in terms of myth and mythic excess. Engaging with several different conceptions of myth --- from Barthes’s myths of the everyday, through Bourdieu’s system of belief, to contemporary thinking on celebrity --- the chapter seeks to unearth the various mechanisms by which authors manipulate public interest in their person in an attempt to raise their cultural profile.

KW - authorship

KW - celebrity

KW - myth

KW - German literature

KW - Jelinek

KW - Barthes

KW - Gruppe 47

KW - Bourdieu

M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)

SN - 9781571134301

SP - 78

EP - 96

BT - Cultural impact in the German context

A2 - Braun, Rebecca

A2 - Marven, Lyn

PB - Camden House

CY - Rochester, NY

ER -