\u201cTo blur the Sign\u201d: Miguel de Cervantes\u2019s and E.T.A. Hoffmann\u2019s Speaking Dogs in Zsuzsanna Gahse\u2019s Novel Berganza<\/i> (1984)<\/b><\/p>\n
Besides Don Quixote, also the theme of the speaking dog that Cervantes introduced with The Conversation of the Dogs <\/i>(Coloquio de los Perros<\/i>) into world literature in 1613 has become an active ingredient in the literary life of German speaking countries in the 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 While Fries adapted this text in the context of the downfall of the GDR for political reasons (see Eckart, Glossen <\/i>31), Zsuzsanna Gahse re-interpreted it from the perspective of linguistic skepticism.\u00a0 As a member of a Hungarian family that fled to the West during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Gahse started to learn German when she was twelve.\u00a0 According to Gert Ueding, this late age of German language acquisition enabled her to develop a critical awareness for those \u201cexotic sounding words\u201d (\u201cexotisch klingenden W\u00f6rter\u201d) and to use them as \u201cobjects of play in quite wanton, flowing, and linguistic conventions ignoring combinations\u201d (\u201cGegenst\u00e4nde eines Spiels durchaus mutwilliger, flie\u00dfender, die Sprachkonventionen mi\u00dfachtender Zusammenstellungen\u201d; Ueding 48).\u00a0 Since Cervantes\u2019s dog Berganza learned to speak a human language as a tongue foreign to him, Gahse seems to be predestined to pick up the Spanish canine protagonist and have him perform in a German-speaking context.<\/p>\n Gahse\u2019s short novel Berganza<\/i> is an eccentric piece of prose that contains intertextual references to both Cervantes\u2019s story The Conversation of the Dogs<\/i> (1613) and E.T.A. Hoffmann\u2019s continuation of this text in News from the latest<\/i> Destinies of the Dog Berganza<\/i> (Nachricht von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza<\/i>) (1814).\u00a0 The first-person narrator, a German high school teacher, was told by a friend about the two world-famous Berganza-texts; she read them; nevertheless, when it turns out that the big black dog she finds at a gas station in a Southern German town is Berganza, she is very surprised.<\/p>\n It makes Gahse\u2019s adaptation unique that Berganza performs as a language philosopher.\u00a0 While he tells the story of his life to the female narrator, he takes the time to reflect critically on relations between perception, thought, and speech.\u00a0 Berganza\u2019s hybrid identity \u2013 neither a dog, nor a man, but something in-between \u2013 enables him to observe keenly the processes of language acquisition, thinking, and speaking and to become aware of their shortcomings.\u00a0 The result of this observation is a new contribution to the literary tradition of a writer\u2019s preoccupation with a crisis of language.\u00a0 To give an example, Berganza becomes aware of the fact that perceiving us by means of language results in misjudging us:<\/p>\n With every sentence in which I perceive myself I fall into a pose and misjudge myself.\u00a0 With every sentence in which I think to record myself I fall into a role and distance myself from me.\u00a0 With every description, especially in regard to the exact descriptions, my pen slips.\u00a0 Just as well, I could put on a mask and laugh.<\/p>\n (Mit jedem Satz, mit dem ich mich erkenne, falle ich in eine Pose und verkenne mich.\u00a0 Mit jedem Satz, mit dem ich mich zu fixieren w\u00e4hne, falle ich in eine Rolle und entferne mich von mir.\u00a0 Mit jeder Beschreibung, besonders, was die exakten Beschreibungen anbelangt, verschreibe ich mich.\u00a0 Ich k\u00f6nnte genausogut eine Maske aufsetzen und lachen; 1984, 92)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This example demonstrates that Gahse has a keen awareness of the inability of language to sufficiently express oneself.\u00a0 In a special issue of the journal die horen<\/i> on translation that she edited in 2005, she quoted Jos\u00e9 Ortega y Gasset who states that when man starts to speak he does it because he believes he could say what he thinks.\u00a0 However, the Spanish philosopher goes on to say, that is an illusion: \u201cBut language doesn\u2019t yield that much.\u00a0 It says more or less a part of what we think and puts for the rest an insurmountable obstacle in the way\u201d (\u201cSo viel leistet die Sprache nicht.\u00a0 Sie gibt, mehr oder weniger, einen Teil von dem wieder, was wir denken, und setzt der \u00dcbermittlung des Restes einen un\u00fcbersteiglichen Damm entgegen\u201d; Ortega y Gasset 45-6).<\/p>\n Besides the fact that exile, although she \u201cmerely inherited it,\u201d enriched her as a \u201cchance to receive new artistic inspirations\u201d (Zimmer 385), there is a second reason why Gahse was able to develop such a keen awareness of the problematic nature of language: her work as a translator.\u00a0 Having translated Hungarian literature into German for years, it became evident for Gahse that, as Friedrich Nietzsche put it in his famous essay \u201cOn Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense\u201d: \u201ca juxtaposition of the different languages shows that what matters about words is never the truth, never an adequate expression; otherwise there would not be so many languages\u201d (256).\u00a0 In Gahse\u2019s narrative Berganza<\/i>, there are plenty of indications that language is something not to be taken for granted as a tool, for instance, when the narrator states: \u201cI am writing this narrative already for the third time\u201d (\u201cIch schreibe diese Geschichte schon zum dritten Mal\u201d; 1984, 22).\u00a0 For depicting her surprise that the dog she brought home suddenly spoke to her, she would need to use the expression \u201cOh\u201d (1984, 22).\u00a0 However, she feels remorse using this word because it comes with an \u201cinner motion\u201d (\u201cinnere Bewegung\u201d; 1984, 22) that \u201ccontains something old-fashioned, almost inopportune\u201d (\u201cbeinhaltet etwas Unzeitgem\u00e4\u00dfes, beinahe schon etwas Ungeh\u00f6riges\u201d; 1984, 23).\u00a0 Afterwards, she tries out different beginnings of the text; one of them stresses the \u201cuniqueness\u201d (\u201cEinmaligkeit\u201d; 1984, 24) of having found a speaking dog; she feels that pointing out this uniqueness should have center-stage.\u00a0 However, she wonders, who would be interested in such a story right now \u2013 during this time of the military \u201cmaneuvers of autumn\u201d (\u201cHerbstman\u00f6ver\u201d; 1984, 24) the noise of which fills the land.\u00a0 These maneuvers cause a specific \u201cimage of mood\u201d (\u201cStimmungsbild\u201d; 1984, 24) that influences people\u2019s mind in such a way that the narrator feels she cannot offer her readers a text about a speaking dog.\u00a0 But, not to write Berganza\u2019s story is also impossible because, maneuvers or not, she feels that it just has to be written.\u00a0 Finally, the narrator starts writing the story that constantly questions its own narrative technique.<\/p>\n In addition to exploring the inability of language to represent truth, Berganza reflects on the connection between language and feelings of guilt.\u00a0 In contrast to Cervantes\u2019s Berganza who suddenly knew how to speak at the stroke of midnight, Gahse\u2019s Berganza had to learn it step for step.\u00a0 Remembering this very slow and strenuous process of language acquisition, he reflects on the transition \u201cfrom being mute to listening and then to speaking\u201d (\u201chin\u00fcber vom Stummsein ins H\u00f6ren und dann weiter zum Reden\u201d; 1984, 80) \u2013 a transition the painfulness of which he could feel in his body: \u201ca little puffiness, pimples, swellings, little hills of misery and small amounts of glory under the skin as a transition to the bursting of talents\u201d (\u201cPlusterchen, Quellungen, Schwellungen, vorbereitete H\u00e4ufchen Elend und kleine Herrlichkeiten, unter der Haut, als \u00dcbergang, bevor die Talente barsten\u201d; 1984, 80).\u00a0 However, there is not much time to celebrate this new ability to understand and to speak, because, \u201cwhen I, for instance, suddenly understood what specific words meant [\u2026] I felt mainly threatened\u201d (\u201cals ich zum Beispiel pl\u00f6tzlich verstand, was einzelne W\u00f6rter sagten [\u2026] f\u00fchlte ich mich in erster Linie bedroht\u201d; 80).\u00a0 Having progressed from listening to understanding and speaking, Berganza feels threatened because he suddenly becomes aware of the human game of blaming:<\/p>\n Everywhere I had made a mess, supposedly all the time.\u00a0 For everything that came apart at the seams I was guilty, of course that was my fault, I thought.\u00a0 A glass fell from the table and shattered in front of my feet, I put my ears back.\u00a0 I jumped over the fence, tore my hind legs open and bleeding, I disappeared into a corner, full of remorse.\u00a0 For every rattle, every time that there was a noise, when people were arguing, I was the guilty one.<\/p>\n (\u00dcberall hatte ich etwas angerichtet, vermeintlich immerzu.\u00a0 Alles, was aus den Fugen geraten war, war meine Schuld, selbstverst\u00e4ndlich, dachte ich.\u00a0 Ein Glas flog vom Tisch und zersprang vor meinen F\u00fc\u00dfen, ich legte die Ohren zur\u00fcck.\u00a0 Ich sprang \u00fcber den Zaun, ri\u00df die eigenen Hinterbeine auf, und blutend verzog ich mich in eine Ecke, voller Reue, ich.\u00a0 Bei jedem Klirren, wenn L\u00e4rm entstand, wenn sich Leute stritten, war ich der Schuldige; 1984, 80-1).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, Berganza feels guilty even for damage he has not caused \u2013 a feeling of which he had been ignorant before he could understand human language.\u00a0 In contrast to Cervantes\u2019s dog\u00a0 \u201cwho feels like hugging himself from joy that he could speak\u201d (\u201cder sich am liebsten selbst umhalsen m\u00f6chte, vor Freude, weil er sprechen kann\u201d; Gahse 1984, 17), Gahse\u2019s Berganza is not happy at all about the gift of speech.<\/p>\n Like Cervantes\u2019s canine protagonist, Gahse\u2019s Berganza serves different masters.\u00a0 Earlier masters were, for instance, a student who went to Great Britain to study English and a scientist who studied animal behavior.\u00a0 This later master used Berganza as an object of observation leading to ridiculous results: \u201cIn this undertaking, he one time distinguished between me and human beings; another time, he compared me to them by transferring my qualities on them; in whatever ideas he was involved he always ignored who actually was standing in front of him.\u201d (\u201cDabei unterschied er mich mal von Menschen, und mal verglich er mich mit ihnen, \u00fcbertrug meine Eigenschaften auf sie; ganz gleich, welche Ideen er hatte, er war immer in der Lage zu \u00fcbersehen, wer da eigentlich vor ihm stand\u201d; 1984, 42).<\/p>\n While these experiences fill only a few pages, Berganza\u2019s narrative about a later master, a woman called Anna, goes on and on.\u00a0 After she has adopted him, he lives with her and her family, including a husband called Rupp and their three children.\u00a0 Since Berganza accompanies Anna all the time and can read her thoughts and feelings, he is able to observe her inner turmoil caused by the fact that she loves another man, called Justin, who is married to another woman.\u00a0 Anna\u2019s inability to communicate with her husband (she is unable to tell him that she would like to leave him and start a new life with Justin) is an occasion for Berganza to draw skeptical conclusions about the correspondence between feelings, thoughts, and words.\u00a0 After the secret lovers, Anna and Justin, decided to leave their families for a three-day vacation, Anna says to Rupp only that she feels like traveling and would like to leave for a few days.\u00a0 Rupp answers that he feels the same.\u00a0 Immediately, he makes plans to take the family on a camping trip to the French Alps.\u00a0 During this trip, while Anna constantly postpones saying the decisive sentence that is waiting on her tongue \u201cI can\u2019t any more and I don\u2019t want any more\u201d (\u201cIch kann nicht mehr und ich will nicht mehr\u201d; 1984, 98), she utters other words instead.\u00a0 For instance, when Anna\u2019s husband begs her to sit down and eat with him, she declines the invitation describing a stomachache while Berganza thinks: \u201cthis didn\u2019t seem to lead to the description of an illness, but to conciliatory speeches\u201d (\u201cDas schien nicht auf die Beschreibung eines Krankheitsbildes hinauszulaufen, sondern auf vers\u00f6hnliche Reden\u201d; 1984, 98). \u00a0<\/i>The following statement of Ortega y Gasset that Gahse refers to in her special edition of die horen<\/i> corresponds with Berganza\u2019s observation of the failed attempt to communicate between Anna and Rupp:<\/p>\n Stuck to the deep-seated prejudice that we communicate by means of speaking, we talk and listen in such good faith that in the end we misunderstand each other much more as if we had silently attempted to guess our thoughts.<\/p>\n (Entsprechend dem eingewurzelten Vorurteil, da\u00df wir uns durch Sprechen verst\u00e4ndigen, reden wir und h\u00f6ren in so gutem Glauben zu, da\u00df wir uns schlie\u00dflich mehr mi\u00dfverstehen, als wenn wir stumm w\u00e4ren und uns bem\u00fchten, uns zu erraten; Ortega y Gasset 47).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n No doubt, if Anna were mute, Rupp would know from reading her face and gestures that the happiness in their marriage was over.\u00a0 Also, when Anna talks to Berganza, the communication fails because, as Berganza notices, she is addressing not him, but rather Justin, her lover, and even more:\u00a0 \u201cShe is not just speaking to me, but she also comes up with my answers\u201d (\u201cSie spricht mich nicht nur an, sondern denkt auch Antworten f\u00fcr mich aus\u201d; 53).\u00a0 To Berganza\u2019s surprise, this ritual of miscommunication seems to give relief to Anna\u2019s lovesick heart.<\/p>\n At one point in the narrative, it occurs to Anna that one should better experience everything, also the event of an \u201csickening conversation\u201d (\u201ckr\u00e4nkenden Unterhaltung\u201d; 65) as if it were filmed.\u00a0 Language would disappear with the result that \u201cthe hardly noticeable in the mimicry would become the actual event\u201d (\u201cdas beinahe Unmerkliche in der Mimik wird wohl das eigentliche Geschehen sein\u201d; 1984, 65).<\/p>\n While Anna goes on talking to her husband Rupp about this and that, avoiding telling him the truth, Berganza\u2019s resulting presentiment about Anna\u2019s future is so negative that he decides to leave her.\u00a0 He runs away to look for a new master \u2013 who finally will be the first-person narrator of Gahse\u2019s text, the high school-teacher whose friend had loaned her Cervantes\u2019s and E. T. A. Hoffmann\u2019s texts on Berganza; at this point, the frame of the narrative closes.<\/p>\n As it was said before, exploring the arbitrariness of language and its consequences from the point of view of Berganza, who on one hand is in a dog\u2019s position and on the other hand is able to reflect philosophically, is Gahse\u2019s important contribution to the literary theme of the speaking dog, which Cervantes had started in 1613.\u00a0 As Dorota So\u015bnicka pointed out, Berganza sometimes puts his snout on the first-person-narrator\u2019s shoulder, resulting in a sound of his voice that resembles her own.\u00a0 From this detail it could be concluded that Berganza is the narrator\u2019s \u2013 and very likely the author\u2019s \u2013 alter ego.\u00a0\u00a0 Therefore, Berganza\u2019s skeptical statements as, for instance, the following about the fact that speaking does not lead to happiness, can be read as a description of Gahse\u2019s own experiences with being a foreigner in a German-speaking context: \u201cYou can learn everything, every language, even its refinements, as you also can learn, with some concentration, good taste \u2013 a joyless enrichment and I would prefer to withdraw into resignation\u201d (\u201cAlles ist erlernbar, jede Sprache, selbst ihre Feinheiten, wie bei einiger Konzentration auch der gute Geschmack zu erlernen ist.\u00a0 Eine freudlose Bereicherung, und lieber will ich mich blindlings in das Verzichten einigeln\u201d; 1984, 60).<\/p>\n Interestingly, Berganza\u2019s negative feelings about language correspond with his discomfort in the city.\u00a0 While he accompanies Anna to the city where she sells the pottery she has made, he complains bitterly.\u00a0 One of his complaints is that everything is \u201cassigned\u201d (\u201cvergeben\u201d; 1984, 57) in urban space; the major culprit seems to be the line:<\/p>\n Everywhere are lines; the new thing are the lines. They force my eyes to a specific point; I don\u2019t like that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t like to be cornered and I have objections to these lines above, underneath, and diagonal to my horizon.<\/p>\n ([\u00dc]berall sind Linien, das Neue sind die Linien. Sie zwingen meinen Blick auf einen ausgesparten Punkt, was ich beklagen m\u00f6chte.\u00a0 Ich mag es nicht eingezw\u00e4ngt zu sein und habe Bedenken vor diesen Linien oberhalb, unterhalb und diagonal zu meinem Blickfeld; 1984, 57)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With its regime of lines, the city attempts to channel, correct, and control Berganza\u2019s perception.\u00a0 However, since he, as a dog, is a part of nature, he can feel clearly that, as Nietzsche put it, \u201ccorrect perception \u2013 which would mean the adequate expression of an object in the subject \u2013 seems [\u2026] a self-contradictory absurdity\u201d; 260). Giving the reason for this absurdity, Nietzsche states boldly: \u201cbetween two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, no expression, but at most an aesthetic attitude<\/i>\u201d (260). With this attitude, Nietzsche means \u201can illusive transference, a halting translation into an entirely foreign language, which in any case demands a freely creative and freely inventive [\u2026] mediating force\u201d (260).\u00a0 In regard to Gahse\u2019s linguistic skepticism, it is important to point out that the concept of the line Berganza has an issue with appears also in the description of Gahse\u2019s discomfort with language, for instance, as a part of the word \u201cline to remember\u201d (\u201cMerklinie\u201d; 1984, 66).\u00a0 Her protagonist Anna notes:<\/p>\n Even for that choppiness that Anna imagined as her approximate future, there were always sentences, not only movements and temperatures; and especially<\/p>\n the sentences had a weight that wanted to eliminate everything that existed at random.\u00a0 She basically thought in statements, assurances, declarations, reassurances, almost in laws, exclusions, lines to remember<\/i>.\u00a0 Hardly in anything that would apply to flitting images, speechless, with many visual appearances.<\/p>\n (Sogar f\u00fcr jene Bewegtheit, die sich Anna als ungef\u00e4hre Zukunft vorstellte, waren immer S\u00e4tze vorhanden, nicht nur Bewegungen und Temperaturen, und gerade die S\u00e4tze hatten eine Schwere, die alles Beil\u00e4ufige verschlucken wollte.\u00a0 Im Grunde dachte sie in Aussagen, Sicherungen, Leitgedanken, Beruhigungen, beinahe schon in Gesetzen, Ausnahmes\u00e4tzen, Merklinien<\/i>.\u00a0 Kaum einmal etwas, was nur vorbeihuschende Bilder betroffen h\u00e4tte, wortlos, mit viel Optik; 1984, 66, italics added). <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, what language threatens to eliminate with such instruments as the \u201clines to remember\u201d are the incidental and fleeting images.<\/p>\n In contrast to the city, Berganza feels good in a more natural space.\u00a0 Although the park in which he runs around one day had once been designed geometrically, now, there \u201ctrees are growing exuberantly blurring the sign by means of their irregularity\u201d (\u201cwuchern die B\u00e4ume, wobei sie mir ihrer Unregelm\u00e4\u00dfigkeit das Zeichen verwischen\u201d;\u00a0 81-2).\u00a0 This expression, \u201cto blur the sign,\u201d could be used to characterize Gahse\u2019s aesthetic program.\u00a0 In the list of writers who inspired her, she names Peter Handke (see Segebrecht 55).\u00a0 Although she does not give a specific reason for her attraction to Handke\u2019s work, from reading her oeuvre it can be assumed that what attracts her above all is his obsession with exploring the \u201cspaces-in-between\u201d (\u201cZwischenr\u00e4ume\u201d; Handke, see title of book Aber ich lebe nur von den Zwischenr\u00e4umen<\/i>).\u00a0 In Gahse\u2019s poetic universe, such \u201cZwischenr\u00e4ume\u201d are, for instance, the already mentioned things that are only incidental or just fleeting by very quickly \u2013 things that on first glance hardly exist at all.\u00a0 Since in the linear world of the city where stone sits on stone, such spaces-in-between are very narrow, there is not much to explore for Berganza; this causes his frustration, but he does not give up, using his senses of taste and smell.\u00a0 Examining for instance the different smells of things and people, he discovers that he has the astonishing ability to create new forms of expression out of smell:\u00a0 \u201cfrom these stinging and smooth or stubborn notes of smell, I am creating a composition that reminds me of music\u201d (\u201caus diesen stechenden und glatten oder widerborstigen Duftnoten bereite ich eine Komposition, die mich an Musik erinnert\u201d; 1984, 44).\u00a0 Composing music-like expressions from different notes of smell reminds us of the romantic ideal of synaesthesia by the means of which one can transcend one\u2019s quotidian experience.\u00a0 Also Berganza\u2019s preference of words that have a certain color, as for instance the word \u201ctipsiness\u201d (\u201cSchwips\u201d; 1984, 95), testifies to his synaesthetic abilities.<\/p>\n In terms of Gahse\u2019s aesthetic, Berganza\u2019s insistence on expressing himself by means of a combination of linguistic and artistic means could be interpreted the following way: Although Gahse feels frustrated due to the fact that in language everything is already \u201cassigned\u201d in a strict, but arbitrary order of signifiers and signified, silence is not an option for her.\u00a0 Wisely, Berganza states: \u201cNot to talk is the same as to talk about everything\u201d (\u201cNicht zu reden ist \u00e4hnlich wie alles bereden\u201d; 1984, 94).\u00a0 Therefore, one must express oneself!\u00a0 A possible option to resolve the issue of language crisis would be to explore the so-called \u201cin-between\u201d of things and senses, as difficult as this exploration might be because there are no words for it.\u00a0 In this aesthetic effort, Gahse is clearly inspired by Handke as it was mentioned before \u2013 an author who, in turn, was deeply inspired by Nietzsche\u2019s attitude towards language.\u00a0 As Andrea Gogr\u00f6f-Voorhees points out, for both Nietzsche and Handke language is the only medium for expressing the relationship between the self and the world; nevertheless, the critic goes on to say, both writers share the same caution with language that \u201cis ambivalent, constructive and destructive, creating meaning and identity as well as distorting them\u201d (330).\u00a0 As Handke states:<\/p>\n It is so hard to speak: the pure concrete does not lead to truth; and the abstract seduces you so easily to swing merely around given concepts.\u00a0 To find into-between them \u2013 that is what inspires me to speak, but where you seldom proceed with precision.<\/p>\n (Es ist so schwer zu sprechen: das pur Konkrete ist so erkenntnislos, und das Abstrakte, da ist man so leicht in Gefahr, die vorhandenen Begriffe einfach so herumzuschaukeln.\u00a0 Und dazwischenzufinden, das ist f\u00fcr mich immer\u2026 das ist es, was mich eigentlich antreibt zu reden, wo man aber selten genau arbeitet; 54).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The methods of exploring this in-between are different in Handke\u2019s and Gahse\u2019s texts.\u00a0 While the first author attempts to describe this narrow space in as much detail as possible, Gahse experiments with language, breaking it apart and joining it in new ways.\u00a0 Ueding describes her methods to undermine the conventional view of language and to change it for the purpose of finding new forms as highly artificial.\u00a0 Some examples are Gahse\u2019s \u201cforced shortening, reduction to a single word, pulling together und somehow cubistic creation of space\u201d (\u201cgewaltsame Verk\u00fcrzung, Reduktion aufs Einzelwort, Zusammenziehung und gleichsam kubistische Verr\u00e4umlichung\u201d; Ueding 49).\u00a0 Nevertheless, the critic goes on to say, there is \u201ca lot of play, joke, irony, and unconcerned fun with words that makes these texts so much livelier than some other poetic language experiments in modern poetry are\u201d (\u201cviel Spiel, Witz, Ironie und unbek\u00fcmmerte Sprachfreude darin, die diese Texte so viel lebendiger machen, als es manche lyrische Sprach-exerzitien in der modernen Poesie sonst sind\u201d; 49).<\/p>\n As it was said before, in Gahse\u2019s narrative Berganza<\/i>, it is the dog that playfully designs this avant-garde program.\u00a0 At first, he notices that when he speaks there is something missing in what he is saying: \u201cI feel as if I have to throw myself into the speech at the end of all my sentences\u201d (\u201cmir ist, als m\u00fc\u00dfte ich hinter allen meinen S\u00e4tzen mich selbst in den Redeflu\u00df werfen\u201d; 1984, 52).\u00a0 He is missing himself, his personality; but how to include such a thing in speech?\u00a0 He experiments with different types of sentences, shorter and longer ones, until he feels that \u201cthe sentence fascinates [him] more than an orderly or also not-orderly description\u201d (\u201c[ihn] der Satz mehr fesselt als eine ordentliche oder auch ordnungsfreie Beschreibung\u201d; 1984, 53).\u00a0 In Saussure\u2019s terms, this means that the signifier has become more fascinating for Berganza than the signified.\u00a0 He continues to state:<\/p>\n I want to have patterns, speech patterns with exuberant ornaments [\u2026]; then, I have to laugh about this idea and notice that I actually prefer the coarse features, casually jotted sentences along the long strand of which sometimes robust buttons are lighting up; sketches, more is not due to a story.<\/p>\n (Ich will Muster haben, Sprechmuster mit \u00fcppigen Ornamenten [\u2026] bis ich \u00fcber diesen Einfall lachen mu\u00df und merke, da\u00df ich eigentlich die groben Z\u00fcge mag, l\u00e4ssig hingeworfene S\u00e4tze, an deren langem Strang manchmal widerstandsf\u00e4hige K\u00f6rner aufleuchten. Skizzen, mehr steht keiner Geschichte zu; 1984, 53).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n During his experiments with different types of sentences, Berganza also notices that language, above all, is a \u201cStimmung\u201d (possible translations would be: mood, disposition, humor, or ambience):<\/p>\n Probably I could fill myself with every language like with a mood.\u00a0 That sounds as if I would claim a language is only a mood.\u00a0 Conversely, it is certainly less correct that not every mood is a language; a mood does not even require a clear expression.\u00a0 Nevertheless, I must swing myself into a specific mood; I must painfully climb into this mood when I wish to speak in a foreign tongue.\u00a0 It remains alien to me.\u00a0 I like it, but I cannot grow together with it.<\/p>\n (Wahrscheinlich k\u00f6nnte ich mich mit jeder Sprache auff\u00fcllen wie mit einer Stimmung.\u00a0 Das h\u00f6rt sich an, als w\u00fcrde ich behaupten, ein Idiom sei nur eine Stimmung.\u00a0 Umgekehrt ist es nat\u00fcrlich noch weniger richtig, also nicht jede Stimmung ist gleich eine Sprache, nicht einmal einen deutlichen Ausdruck mu\u00df eine Stimmung haben.\u00a0 Und doch muss ich mich in eine ganz bestimmte Laune schwingen, mu\u00df in die Laune umst\u00e4ndlich hineinsteigen, wenn ich in einer fremden Sprache sprechen will.\u00a0 Sie bleibt mir fremd.\u00a0 Ich mag sie, kann mit ihr trotzdem nicht verwachsen; 1984, 39).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In her essay \u201cMain and Secondary Meanings of Language\u201d (\u201cHaupt- und Nebenbedeutungen der Sprache\u201d; 2005), Gahse examines the connection between the different fields of mood and the historic roots of languages.\u00a0 Her thoughts on this matter reflect once more her reading of Ortega y Gasset, who sees the incongruity of languages based on the fact that they developed in different landscapes and under the influence of different conditions and experiences of life.\u00a0 He argues that it would be wrong to assume, for instance, \u201cthat what the Spaniard calls bosque<\/i> would be the same as that which the German calls Wald<\/i>\u201d (\u201cda\u00df das, was der Spanier bosque <\/i>nennt, das gleiche sei, was der Deutsche Wald<\/i> hei\u00dft\u201d; Ortega y Gasset 21) although the dictionary claims that \u201cWald\u201d means \u201cbosque.\u201d Gahse states with resignation that in translation this specific field of mood that belongs to a language gets lost.\u00a0 In Berganza\u2019s case, this loss means that although he is able to listen and to speak, the exact mood of a people\u2019s language is not accessible to him.<\/p>\n Exhausted after his difficult experiences with language, Berganza considers returning to barking \u2013 a language with which he could completely identify.\u00a0 However, he has learned to think about language critically and barking is a kind of language about which he states: \u201cI am too blind in it\u201d (\u201cich bin in ihr zu blind\u201d; 1984, 40).\u00a0 To be blind towards language means he is not able to reflect on his original language critically for a lack of distance.\u00a0 As a translator and writer, Gahse probably feels that she cannot question her native Hungarian language as radically as she is able to question German.<\/p>\n In Ortega y Gasset\u2019s exploration of the forces that generate language change, the Spaniard distinguishes between to<\/i> speak<\/i> and to<\/i> say<\/i>.\u00a0 To<\/i> speak<\/i> is to use a language \u201cas constituted and as our social environment imposes it on us\u201d (Gabriel-Stheeman 144); to<\/i> say<\/i> means \u201cto invent new modes of the language \u2026 because those that exist and that it already possesses do not [\u2026] suffice to say what needs to be said\u201d (Gabriel-Stheeman 144).\u00a0 The dynamics between the two, as Ortega shows, create change in a language \u2013 these thoughts clearly reverberate in Gahse\u2019s narrative Berganza<\/i>.\u00a0 In her questioning of German sentence structure and vocabulary, as, for instance, the word \u201ceternal<\/i>\u201d (\u201cewig<\/i>\u201d; 103) as well as in her criticism of the instrumentalized use of language in everyday conversation, she criticizes what Ortega y Gassett calls to<\/i> speak<\/i>.\u00a0 Her playful testing what kind of images and sounds a word yields and her creation of new forms of language as Ueding has described it, contributes to the dimension of to<\/i> say<\/i>.\u00a0 By undermining the dichotomy between that which is and that which appears, \u00a0Zsuzsanna Gahse also undermines the traditional notion of language.<\/p>\n Regarding Gahse\u2019s reception of E. T. A. Hoffmann\u2019s romanticist Berganza-adaptation, Dorota So\u015bnicka noted correctly that the story of Anna, Rupp, and Anna\u2019s lover Justin is told \u201cbefore the background of E. T. A. Hoffmann\u2019s unhappy love story with his married voice student, Julia\u201d (\u201cvor dem Hintergrund der ungl\u00fccklichen Liebesgeschichte E. T. A. Hoffmanns zu seiner verheirateten Gesangsch\u00fclerin Julia\u201d 432).\u00a0 While Berganza in Hoffmann\u2019s story does not understand why the sixteenth-year-old Julia who represents the romantic ideal, gives her consent for the \u201cunfitting marriage\u201d (\u201cunpassende Heirat\u201d; Gahse 1984, 19) with Graepel, a rich, but stupid merchant, in Gahse\u2019s story Berganza does not understand why Anna does not leave her husband for Justin, whom she truly loves.\u00a0 Besides quoting from Hoffmann\u2019s story frequently, as for instance the famous sentence, \u201cHave you never seen a dog cry\u201d<\/i> (\u201cHast du denn noch nie einen Hund weinen gesehen\u201d; Hoffmann 154), Gahse\u2019s narrator criticizes Hoffmann from a feminist point of view stating that his statement that \u201cwomens\u2019 blooming time is their actual life<\/i>\u201d (\u201cdie Bl\u00fctezeit der Frauenzimmer [sei] ihr eigentliches Leben<\/i>\u201d 1984, 34) is wrong.\u00a0 According to Gahse\u2019s first-person-narrator who is a woman beyond that \u201csweet stage of bloom and raisins\u201d (\u201cs\u00fc\u00dfen Bl\u00fcte und Rosinenzeit\u201d; 1984, 35), it would be wrong \u201cto underestimate the previous and following stages of life\u201d (\u201cdie vorhergehenden und nachfolgenden Zeiten zu untersch\u00e4tzen\u201d 1984, 35) due to the fact that they have their own beauty.\u00a0 Also, while Hoffmann\u2019s story is mainly concerned with the position of the artist in bourgeois society and the contrast between devotion to art and dilettantism, Gahse\u2019s text is more concerned with the contrast between lines and nature, signified and signifier, i.e. the issue of language.<\/p>\n Gahse\u2019s intertextual references to Cervantes\u2019s narrative The Conversation of the Dogs <\/i>that humorously satirized seventeenth-century Spain are mainly focused on the friendship between the dogs Berganza and Scipio as well as on the figure of the witch, Ca\u00f1izares.\u00a0 Since Anna is actually talking to Justin when she talks to Berganza, Berganza is unable to communicate with her; he misses Scipio with whom he had discovered the ability to speak and was able to have a true conversation.\u00a0 Ca\u00f1izares, on the other hand, appears in Gahse\u2019s narrative for the purpose of delivering a kind of feminist manifesto.\u00a0 In the most important, almost seven-pages-long reference to Ca\u00f1izares, Berganza sees her in a dream dancing with Anna: \u201cResolutely, they held each other at the hips and circled through the room\u201d (\u201cEntschlossen hielten sie einander an den H\u00fcften und kreisten durch den Raum\u201d; 1984, 107).\u00a0 While they are dancing a waltz together \u2013 the witch many-centuries-old and dried out, Anna young and fresh \u2013 they talk; it seems that Ca\u00f1izares attempts to disillusion Anna in regard to her euphoria about Justin by trying to wake her up to the fact that he does not deserve her.\u00a0 Also in this conversation the issue of language plays an important role.\u00a0 Whatever Justin says and does \u2013 for instance, \u201chow he is dangling from many thoughts and thinks he would be in control of them\u201d (\u201cwie er an vielen Gedanken baumelt und meint, er h\u00e4tte sie fest im Griff\u201d; 1984, 110) \u2013 it makes Anna happy.\u00a0 In other words, Anna\u2019s concern of whether we really think something or language is thinking us (i.e., by using a language we are being manipulated by its structures) that otherwise would trouble her, in Justin\u2019s case, she finds it not to be an issue.\u00a0 Because she is in love with him, she is able to smile about such uncertainties of the human condition that otherwise would trouble her.\u00a0 Ca\u00f1izares does not like at all this uncritical attitude but, in the end, she fails to disillusion Anna about the man.<\/p>\n To summarize, Gahse adopted the canine characters of Miguel de Cervantes\u2019s and E. T. A. Hoffmann\u2019s texts Conversation of the Dogs<\/i> (1613) and News from The latest<\/i> Destinies of the Dog Berganza<\/i> (1814) mainly in order to examine the issue of language.\u00a0 While Cervantes uses the speaking dog to satirize the corruption in the Spanish society at the beginning of the seventeenth century and Hoffmann the deplorable position of the artist in Germany two hundred years later, Gahse has Berganza explore critically the ways in which people speak and their consequences.\u00a0 Simultaneously, she suggests changes to our use of language that point in the direction of an avant-garde program.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. \u201cNovela y Coloquio que pas\u00f3 entre Cipi\u00f3n y Berganza.\u201d\u00a0 Miguel de Cervantes.\u00a0 Novelas Ejemplares<\/i>.\u00a0 Vol. II, Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1969, 209-340.<\/p>\n Eckart, Gabriele.\u00a0 \u201cThe Reception of Cervantes\u2019s Don Quixote<\/i> and The Conversation of the Dogs<\/i> in Post-Reunification German Literature.\u201d Glossen<\/span> 31 (2011).<\/p>\n Fries, Fritz Rudolf.\u00a0 Die Hunde von Mexico Stadt<\/i>.\u00a0 Warmbronn: Ulrich Keicher, 1997.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Gabriel-Stheeman, Luis.\u00a0 \u201cA nobleman grabs the broom: Ortega y Gasset\u2019s verbal hygiene.\u201d Jos\u00e9 del Valle and Luis Gabriel-Stheeman.\u00a0 (Eds.) The Battle over Spanish between 1800 and 2000<\/i>.\u00a0 London: Routledge, 2002, 134-66.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Gahse, Zsuzsanna.\u00a0 Berganza: Erz\u00e4hlung<\/i>.\u00a0 M\u00fcnchen: List, 1984.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n ———-. \u201cHaupt- und Nebenbedeutungen der Sprache.\u201d Die horen<\/i> 50, 2 (2005): 6-9.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Gogr\u00f6f-Voorhees, Andrea.\u00a0 \u201cLanguage, Life, and Art: Handke and\/on Nietzsche.\u201d David N. Coury.\u00a0 Frank Pilipp.\u00a0 The Works of Peter Handke: International Perspectives<\/i>.\u00a0 Riverside: Ariadne P, 2005, 310-335.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Handke, Peter.\u00a0 Aber ich lebe nur von den Zwischenr\u00e4umen: Ein Gespr\u00e4ch, gef\u00fchrt von Herbert Gamper<\/i>.\u00a0 Z\u00fcrich: Amman, 1987.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n E. T. A. Hoffmann. Poetische Werke in sechs B\u00e4nden<\/i>.\u00a0 Berlin: Aufbau, 1963. Vol. 1, 147-226.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Nietzsche, Friedrich. \u201cOn Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.\u201d Friedrich Nietzsche.\u00a0 Writings from the Early Notebooks<\/i>.\u00a0 Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009: 253-64.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Ortega y Gasset, Jos\u00e9.\u00a0 Elend und Glanz der \u00dcbersetzung.<\/i>\u00a0 Ebenhausen: Langewiesche-Brandt, 1956.\u00a0 <\/i>Print.<\/p>\n Segebrecht, Wulf.\u00a0 Ausk\u00fcnfte von und \u00fcber Zsuzsanna Gahse.<\/i>\u00a0 Bamberg: Univ. Bamberg, 1996.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n So\u015bnicka, Dorota.\u00a0 Den Rhythmus der Zeit einfangen: Erz\u00e4hlexperimente in der Deutschschweizer Gegenwartsliteratur<\/i>.\u00a0 W\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigshausen & Neumann, 2008.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Ueding, Gert.\u00a0 \u201cAn der Spitze der europ\u00e4ischen Avantgarde: Portr\u00e4t der Schriftstellerin Zsuzsanna Gahse.\u201d\u00a0 Segebrecht, Wulf.\u00a0 Ausk\u00fcnfte von und \u00fcber Zsuzsanna Gahse.<\/i>\u00a0 Bamberg: Univ. Bamberg, 1996:\u00a0 46-50.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n Zimmer, David.\u00a0 \u201cUngarinnen im Schweizer Exil: Drei Ann\u00e4herungen.\u201d Arcadia<\/i> 42,2 (2007): 385-397.\u00a0 Print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cTo blur the Sign\u201d: Miguel de Cervantes\u2019s and E.T.A. Hoffmann\u2019s Speaking Dogs in Zsuzsanna Gahse\u2019s Novel Berganza (1984) Besides Don Quixote, also the theme of the speaking dog that Cervantes introduced with The Conversation of the Dogs (Coloquio de los Perros) into world literature in 1613 has become an active ingredient in the literary life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":394,"featured_media":0,"parent":3479,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3608","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/394"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3608\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Works Consulted<\/h1>\n