In der Schwebe

This dissertation addresses Botho Straus’ work in the period around 1990. The research literature describes the author’s change in this period to Real Presences and the Metaphysical.Straus’ Essay, Der Aufstand gegen die sekundare Welt, which he wrote as an epilogue to Georges Steiner’s Real Presences, is decisive for this interpretation. This dissertation, however, proves through an exact analysis of this essay that Straus did not use notions of godly presence, but remained within the semiotic paradigm. He does not draw on a real presence oftheological derivation for his aesthetics, but postulates a presence which semiotically corresponds to Pierce’s Index. In the plays under examination, Besucher, Schluschor and Das Gleichgewicht, the presence of the signified can be derived from its performance. The question as to what the aesthetic sign refers to, leads to Straus’ remarks about the unutterable, which may only be understood as a whole and cannot be rationally divided into individual parts. In this way it is the experience of art and beauty, in which the self awareness of the subject is fulfilled.Based on the premise that subjectivity is in a constant to and fro between the finite and infinite ego and remains in the balance (“in der Schwebe”, Walter Schulz), the dramas at hand show different incarnations of the subjectivity problem: the conflict between the finite, everyday ego and the phantasmagoric ego (Besucher), the interpretation of one’s own ego as an indecypherable whole (Schluschor), as well as the to and fro between the concrete sphere of the body and passion for the infinite (Das Gleichgewicht). The main thesis of this dissertation is that the intrasubjective conflict between the finite and infinite ego is implemented in the theatre as intersubjective actions. The finite and infinite ego or indeed the reflexive self is divided into different characters. The to and fro, the permanent swaying of subjectivity is expressed in Straus’ mode of expression, which constantly undermines his statements and keeps what has been said in the balance.