On the "Poetic Intensity" of Friederike Mayröcker´s Lyrical Poetry

The aim of this project is a comprehensive study of the lyric oeuvre of Austrian author Friederike Mayröcker (*1924). The project puts her poetry into new perspective by examining it in the light of literary intensity studies. Contrary to the so-called modernity-hypothesis, according to which modern lyrical poetry forgoes the expression of emotion and replaces it with formal experiment, the study will show that in Mayröckers poetry the expression of emotions and formal experiment in no way exclude each other, and further, that her poetry is intensely emotional and highly artificial at the same time. Starting from the hypothesis that the exceptional poetic intensity of her verses stems from the transformation of multiple intensities through language, the study analyses both the poems` formal complexity as well as the complexity of their content, describing them as an expression of an intense attitude towards life (Mayröckers famous poetische Existenz). By making the question of multiple aspects of lyrical intensity its focus, the study shows how relevant the formi.e. the highly artificial codingis for the representation of intense sensations (emotions, thoughts, sensory perceptions etc.). A further aim of the study is to position Mayröckers poetry in the context of contemporary lyrical poetry in German and to describe its uniqueness. It shows that Mayröckers influence on other poets takes place primarily through her poetry. In order to illustrate the importance of the concept of intensity, the study puts her poems in the context of intensity discourses in the field of Humanities. Among historical concepts of intensity, Friedrich Hölderlins poetics of intensity is of preeminent importance for Mayröckers poetics. Aside from the question, whether Mayröcker can be seen as Hölderlins heiress, the study examines to what degree she stands in the tradition of other poets (e.g. Trakl or Celan) and shows her interaction with contemporary artistic and philosophical positions, where her interest is often awaken by what this study terms intensity. Methodologically, the analysis and contextualization of individual poems requires that the perspective of literary criticism be combined with that of other sciences, especially with that of psychology. In the last decades, psychological intensity studies have developed especially promising models for description and analysis of the intensity phenomena, which can be applied with great benefit to Mayröckers poetry. One of the main aims of this project is to develop a multidisciplinary based analytical tools. As animals are among Mayröckers characteristic emotional words her animal poems will additionally be examined from the perspective of interdisciplinary cultural and literary animal studies. Finally, this study is a contribution to the current debate on literary criticism as a life science (Lebenswissenschaft), which puts the relationship between literature and knowledge at the centre of attention.

The project develops a theory of the lyrical intensity as a literary figure of thought and as a category of the scholarly text description and analysis. Starting from the origin of the concept of "intensity" in the natural sciences and taking into account different explanatory models from philosophy and neuro-psychology the project created an interdisciplinary catalogue of criteria for the assessment and analysis of this phenomenon in the lyrical poetry. In order to formulate sophisticated criteria, the original limits of the project were expanded, encompassing not only the poems of Friederike Mayröcker as the material for the analysis, but also those of Friedrich Hölderlin, Georg Trakl and Paul Celan. All these texts share a certain darkness, i.e. a lyrical language eluding a quick and easy comprehension. The term "Intensity" was first introduced in physics in the 18th century. Soon it was adopted as a model for description of sliding and changing phenomena, especially the ever-changing emotions and psychological conditions. For the philosophers Deleuze and Guattari the intensity implied an inexhaustible virtual potential which made manifold transformations possible. The answer to the question how we can experience the purely verbal intensity they sought in the "de-territorialisation" of the language. In this manner, what appears are lines of flight, which lead us out of the representation, fixed meanings, and preconceived opinions. A "de-territorialising" use of language breaks up its signifying and metaphoric strata and reveals the underlying intensity as the unexpected possibilities of meaningful connections. Hölderlin`s modulating speech corresponds with his intensity-based, integrating thinking. For him, the poetic perfection comprises, on the one hand, constant modulation of the synchronous "tones" (basic attitudes), and on the other, their narrowing to a new, "higher" totality. In the light of current neuro- psychological insights into the phenomenon of the perceptive ability and perceptive sensitivity, we can understand Georg Traks poems as an expression of the authors exceptional multiple (sensory, imaginative, intellectual, and emotional) giftedness. The fragments of thought, typical for Mayröcker`s poetics, and her rationally incomprehensible sequences of associations represent a contemporary variant of a dark speech. In Mayröcker`s hands, Celan`s concept of "congenital darkness" of a poem becomes a congenital being beside oneself of the lyrical subject. The analysis of the heterogenous poems results in following criteria for the description of the lyrical intensity: especially bold, tension-building verbal imagery and verbal movement; difference-creating modulations; the "de-territiorializing" usage of the language (Deleuze & Guattari); darkness of the expression based on the synchronicity of disparate perceptions; aspects of becoming (Deleuze) such as becoming intense, becoming an animal, becoming a thing, becoming impersonal and imperceptible; the category of in-between (metaxy), i.e. the "zones of proximity" between speech and silence, me and the other, sobriety and ecstasy.