Functioning of Literary Anthroponyms in the Works by E. Canetti and K. Hoffer

Abstract

The author studies the works of Austrian writers Elias Canetti “Earwitness. 50 characters” (“Der Ohrenzeuge. 50 Charaktere”) and Klaus Hoffer “In Graz” (“Bei den Bieresch”). The relevance of the study is determined by the need to comprehend the literary process of Austria in the second half of the twentieth century. A review of the existing points of view regarding the significance of the analyzed works of both authors and in modern Austrian literature is performed. The debatable nature of Canetti's book genre and the originality of the poetics of the Hoffer novel are noted. The authors of the article proceed from the fact that Canetti's work is a “collection” of literary miniatures; Hoffer's novel can be considered as an example of the initial stage of development of German-language postmodern literature. The narrative strategies used by Canetti and Hoffer to create a surrealistic context and “fantastic reality” are drawn into consideration. The authors dwell on the study of the functioning of literary anthroponyms in the text space of works. It is proved that fictional onomastics is involved in the creation of semantic multidimensionality of a literary text. Hoffer’s novel traces Canetti’s borrowed method of creating a verbal image with enriched contextual semantics using proper names. The translation aspect remains outside the scope of the article.

Keywords

• elias canetti
• klaus hoffer
• literary anthroponym
• occasional onomastics
• poetics
• genre
• narrative strategies