This essay examines W.G. Sebald’s relationship to the region of his birth, the Allgäu and explores its significance for his literary work. In his stories, he refers several times to his region of origin, to places and memories there, making his Allgäu past on the one hand a point of repulsion and on the other a reservoir of themes and images from which he draws for his prose. In this way, his “Heimat” (homeland) becomes literarily charged in a way that makes Sebald’s literary writings both fascinating and revelatory in terms of their poetics.

This essay focusses on Sebald’s grandfather Josef Egelhofer. Sebald spent the first years of his life largely in the loving care of Josef, who became far more of a father figure to him than Sebald’s actual father Georg, who was mostly absent during the formative early years of his son’s life. Egelhofer made a profound impression on young Winfried and formed a close bond with his grandson that ended with his traumatic death in April 1956. First, the essay details the importance of this relationship and discusses Egelhofers role as a key figure in Sebald’s life as a teacher of the natural world. It then explores the literary manifestation of Egelhofer in Sebald’s work by way of literary figures that are sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly connected with him: the writer Robert Walser, the naturalist Alphonso Fitzpatrick, the mountain guide Johannes Naegeli, the communist leader Rudolf Egelhofer. Finally, the essay examines the ‘cult of remembrance’ Sebald commemorates in order to creatively confront his burden of grief. It is shown that his grandfather’s death is the original trauma and primal pain to which the mourning work conducted in his literary works must be traced back.

Responses to prompts for words and phrases used to describe people and things

Responses to prompts for words and phrases used to describe people and things

Considers how Quintus captures his stance towards Homer through the presentation of family relationships. Harnessing the frequent collusion between generational and poetic succession (examined using Harold Bloom’s ‘anxiety of influence’ and very prevalent in silver Latin poetry), Quintus first depicts a series of failed rivalrous filial usurpations – Penthesilea, Ajax, Achilles, Memnon – and shows that they fail because of their violent antagonism. He then portrays the two most successful examples of succession – Neoptolemus and Athena – as characterised by impersonation, embodiment and necromantic possession. This contrast becomes a reading of Quintus’ own positive and assimilating approach to Homer. Becoming the poetic father thus becomes the surest way to achieve lasting renown.