"Entstellte Darstellung. Schreiben und Lesen im Zeichen des Todes. Zur spaten Prosa von Nelly Sachs"

My thesis is the first scholarly critique ofNelly Sachs's later prose and seeks to establish it as a significant body of work, both within Sachs' s oeuvre and in German literature after the Second World War. In her later prose Sachs develops, describes and publicly illustrates her own poetics, which I describe as 'disfigured representation'. Sachs does so in three different types of prose, which can be differentiated by their functions: firstly, 'Erschreiben' or 'writing oneself (autobiographical notes developing her poetics); secondly, 'Anlesen' or 'reading the works of others' (essayistic texts further describing Sachs's own writing by reading the works of others); thirdly, 'Verlesen' or 'reading oneself to/for others' (public speeches illustrating her own poetics). Contrary to many of the previous studies on Sachs's writing, I argue that the Shoah should not be seen as the centre and sole issue of Sachs's works, but needs rather to be thought of as the historical base of Sachs's poetics. A personal incident, the death of Sachs's mother, proves to be the main catalyst for Sachs's renewed prose-writing after 1950 and for the formulation of her own poetics in these texts. Together, the historical base and personal incident inform the realm of death, a realm central to Sachs' s poetics. Focusing on Sachs's explicit poetics in my close reading of her later prose allows the revision, reformulation, and fusion of previous studies on the implicit poetics in her poetry and plays. Furthermore, it confirms a newly suggested periodisation of her oeuvre, which -is closely linked to the question of how literature, history and biography interact. The 'language of the many' in her 1940s writings is followed by a never-ending search for identity after 1950. This leads to a radical literary openness and bodily poetics, erasing the 'I' more and more, until finally we arrive at a distinct form of ethics and witnessing.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo