Thomas Bernhards philosophische Affinitaeten: Zum an-spielerischen Umgang mit Heidegger, Schopenhauer und F. Schlegel in 'Korrektur', 'Der Untergeher', und 'Alte Meister' (German text, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Schlegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Austria)

This dissertation investigates the function of the philosophical in three novels by Thomas Bernhard. Specifically, the playful evocation of ideas and terminology of Heidegger, Schopenhauer and Friedrich Schlegel is examined in the novels Korrektur, Der Untergeher, and Alte Meister. It is the basic assumption of this work that Bernhard's literary strategy attempts to undermine any credibility of epistemic certainty by making the paradox the most distinctive feature of his prose.; This concept is referred to here as the principle of the "on the one hand and on the other hand" ("Einerseits und Andererseits"). By constantly contradicting his own protagonists' statements and actions, especially regarding philosophical topics and terminology, Bernhard ironizes these very ideas.; The first essay of this dissertation contrasts Heidegger's texts "Bauen, Wohnen, Denken" and "Was heisst Denken?" with Bernhard's novel Korrektur. While Bernhard deals with the problems of original thinking and building as well as the concept of autonomy, a comparison with Heidegger's texts, whose terminology Bernhard seems to allude to, shows, that Bernhard is critical of the concept of being as presented in Heidegger's ontology.; Chapter II offers a critical reading of Der Untergeher with regard to the idea of genius. Bernhard focuses on this central aspect of Western philosophy in order to question traditional notions of the creative process and the concept of originality in artistic production. Bernhard's position is contrasted with Schopenhauer's description of genius and Glenn Gould's writings on art and technology.; The final chapter attempts to situate Bernhard's writing in the discussion of theories of the romantic and the postmodern by examining the function of irony and the fragment in his last novel Alte Meister. By contrasting Bernhard's views with the writings of Friedrich Schlegel on the one hand and postmodern critics like Linda Hutcheon and Maurice Blanchot on the other hand, Bernhard again emerges as a sceptic of the idea of perfection or completion. Yet, he is also considerably less radical than postmodern writers such as Blanchot and his attempts to step "beyond language itself".