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„[…︁] mein Recht muss mir werden!“ Hermann Bahrs Tragikomödie Der Querulant (1914)
Author(s) -
Gaderer Rupert
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
berichte zur wissenschaftsgeschichte
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1522-2365
pISSN - 0170-6233
DOI - 10.1002/bewi.201401694
Subject(s) - tragicomedy , economic justice , law , sociology , psychoanalysis , psychology , humanities , art , political science , literature
Abstract “[…] mein Recht muss mir werden!” Hermann Bahr’s Tragicomedy Der Querulant (1914). At the end of the eighteenth century, people who became notorious for their excessive engagement in legal proceedings started being labeled as “querulents” or “paranoid litigants”. The term “querulents” first appeared in the General Order of the Court for the Prussian States ( Allgemeine Gerichtsordnung für die Preußischen Staaten ) from July 6, 1793. From there on, the spectrum of juridical measures undertaken against the so‐labeled litigators included classifying these persons as ineligible for legal action and psychiatric hospitalization. The paper discusses to what extent Hermann Bahr rearranges psychiatric and legal knowledge about this special type of the complainer in his tragicomedy Der Querulant , premiered in 1914. This concerns, first, the theatricality of the body and speech, secondly, the use of cultural techniques of writing and, thirdly, conflicting notions of justice. Therefore, the paper analyzes the aesthetic function of querulous behavior in the dramatic structure of the play from the point of view of both media theory and literary theory.