Unreliable narration in GDR literature. Evolution, forms, and functions

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Matthias Aumüller
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 517064952

Unreliability is considered a narrative technique that is typical of modern literature of the 20th century. At the same time, fiction of the GDR is usually taken to be anti-modernist (what is more or less in line with the self-characterisation of GDR-literature). Thus, unreliably narrated stories should not exist in GDR-literature, at least not within officially promoted, representative GDR-literature. The main hypothesis governing this project holds, however, that this phenomenon of unreliable narration did exist in GDR-literature right from the beginning, based not only on an affirmative attitude toward the state and its politics (including aesthetic principles) but also on a critical stance toward it. The project’s purpose is to investigate unreliably narrated literary works and to give a description of their evolution in the course of forty years. It is expected that the phenomenon of unreliable narration heterogeneously evolved. The result of the analyses will be a typology of different forms und functions. This provides evidence for the original hypothesis and is at the same time the basis for further investigations answering the following questions: Which intentions directed the authors using narrative techniques of unreliability? How was unreliable narration received by public audience? And last but not least: How could a narrative technique that is specific for modernism and normally used to destabilize common convictions be part of a literary sphere committed to socialist realism?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants