"The Sounds of Deeds": Karl Kraus and Acoustic Quotation

The Viennese satirist Karl Kraus (1874-1936), publisher of the influential periodical The Torch (Die Fackel), enjoyed great notoriety during his lifetime as a writer and performer of theatrical texts, famed for his versatility as a vocal mimic and for his ability to turn his own enemies' words...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Theatre journal (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2011-03, Vol.63 (1), p.85-100
Main Author:	Youker, Timothy
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	1900-1999 20th century Artists Austrian drama Canetti, Elias Canetti, Elias (1905-1994) Creativity Criticism and interpretation cultural criticism Die Fackel im Ohr Die letzten Tage der Menschheit drama Dramatists Eschatology German language German literature Historical text analysis History and criticism Human body human voice Humanity Judaic studies Kraus, Karl Kraus, Karl, 1874-1936 Language Language history Literary criticism Musical performance Narrative techniques Oeuvre Performing artists Publishers quotation Recitations Reported speech Rhetorical figures Satire Studies The Torch in My Ear Theater Theater history Written composition
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Summary:	The Viennese satirist Karl Kraus (1874-1936), publisher of the influential periodical The Torch (Die Fackel), enjoyed great notoriety during his lifetime as a writer and performer of theatrical texts, famed for his versatility as a vocal mimic and for his ability to turn his own enemies' words against them through probingly glossed quotations of their writing. In recent decades, however, scholarship has treated Kraus primarily as a print satirist, ignoring or downplaying the fact that language, for Kraus, remained vital and meaningful to the extent that it hewed closely to its origins in embodied acts of individual speech. The purpose of this essay is to renew scholarly interest in Kraus's plays and performances by demonstrating how his use of "acoustic quotation"—a term coined by Elias Canetti to describe Kraus's method of quoting printed text as if it were speech—constituted a distinctive response to mass media's disembodiment of language and lived experience in the early twentieth century.
ISSN:	0192-2882 1086-332X 1086-332X