Elias Canetti and the British in a European Context: Reception, Exile, Appropriation

埃利亚斯·卡内蒂和欧洲背景下的英国人：接受、流放、挪用

• 批准号: AH/Y007581/1
• 负责人: Julian Preece
• 金额: $ 37.12万
• 依托单位: Swansea University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FY007581%2F1
• 关键词: Elias; Canetti; British; European; Context

Elias Canetti's role in British literary life in the mid-twentieth century is relatively unknown, especially in the UK itself, for three reasons: the subject has not been systematically researched; key primary and secondary texts remain untranslated; his diaries and the letters written to him have remained up to now under embargo. Canetti is remembered, however, for his love affair with Murdoch, which began in January 1953. Her biographer's hostile portrait of Canetti has undoubtedly contributed to twenty-first century misunderstandings about his work and person. Murdoch's widower John Bayley also wrote caustically about his wife's relationship with Canetti in a series of memoirs, which contrast with Canetti's positive British reception in his lifetime. Gavin Maxwell's biographer, for example, describes him 'a formidably talented European intellectual' and 'ever patient, ever thoughtful'. Conradi did bring his literary partnership with Murdoch to wider attention, however, and provided the first account of the relationship with Friedl Benedikt, who as Anna Sebastian published three novels in English between 1944 and 1950. At a moment when the topics of migration, refugees, and political asylum remain central to debates about national identities across Europe, a research project dedicated to the British exile experiences of one of the foremost twentieth-century writers of German is timely. In Germany growing awareness of the mid-century exile experience of German speakers is indicated by the planned opening of an Exilmuseum in Berlin scheduled for 2026. This institution complements the Austrian Exilbibliothek which was established in 1993. There has recently been a resurgence of interest in Canetti's work, with a conference on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death held in Vienna in 2019 and a major reference work on Elias and Veza Canetti in preparation for Metzler. Picador New York published a Canetti Reader in 2022. A critical edition of Canetti's works is due for publication in the late 2020s, edited by Sven Hanuschek and Kristian Wachinger. Canetti's period in London was recently commemorated: his name was included in 2022 on a plaque outside Marie Louise von Motesiczky's home at 6 Chesterfield Gardens, Hampstead. From the perspective of scholarly opportunities, the moment is also ripe. Papers in Canetti's Nachlass in the Zurich Central Library have been digitized and can be consulted by researchers. Diaries and letters to Canetti become available in 2024. Murdoch's journals and letters can be read at the Kingston University Archive, Gavin Maxwell's papers are held in the National Library of Scotland. A book based on Benedikt's family correspondence has recently been published, exploiting another rich family archive. There is thus a major opportunity to evaluate this new trove of primary sources for the first time. Elias Canetti belongs to that rare group of twentieth-century German-language canonical authors whose works are widely translated and whose reputation is international. For example, much valuable research is published in Italian and his oeuvre has so far been better edited in Spanish translation than in their original German. The project aims to unite these strands of reception through critical comparison at the end-of-project conference, 'Canetti, a British European'. As well as interpreting an episode of British cultural and literary history which largely took place in German for readers of English and scholars in English literature, the project brings Anglophone research on Canetti to the attention of German Germanistik. More fundamentally, the project proposes to shift understanding of Canetti's legacy in Literary Studies as practised in the German-speaking countries and in Anglophone literary culture, both in the academy and beyond it.

埃利亚斯·卡内蒂在世纪中期英国文学生活中的作用相对不为人知，尤其是在英国本身，原因有三：这个主题没有得到系统的研究;关键的主要和次要文本仍然没有翻译;他的日记和写给他的信件至今仍处于禁运状态。然而，卡内蒂因与默多克的恋情而被人们铭记，这段恋情始于1953年1月。她的传记作者对卡内蒂充满敌意的描述无疑助长了世纪对他的作品和个人的误解。默多克的鳏夫约翰·贝利（John Bayley）也在一系列回忆录中讽刺了他妻子与卡内蒂的关系，这与卡内蒂在英国的积极反应形成了鲜明对比。例如，加文·麦克斯韦的传记作者将他描述为“一位才华横溢的欧洲知识分子”，“永远耐心，永远体贴”。然而，康拉迪确实使他与默多克的文学合作关系受到了更广泛的关注，并首次报道了与弗里德尔贝内迪克特的关系，弗里德尔在1944年至1950年期间以安娜塞巴斯蒂安的身份出版了三部英文小说。在移民、难民和政治庇护等话题仍然是欧洲各国关于民族身份的辩论的核心之际，一个致力于研究20世纪最重要的德国作家之一的英国流亡经历的研究项目是及时的。计划于2026年在柏林开设一个Exilmuseum，这表明在德国，人们越来越意识到德语使用者在本世纪中叶的流亡经历。该机构是对1993年成立的奥地利流亡图书馆的补充。最近，人们对Canetti的工作重新产生了兴趣，2019年在维也纳举行了他逝世二十五周年的会议，并为Metzler准备了Elias和Veza Canetti的主要参考工作。Picador纽约于2022年出版了一本Canetti Reader。Canetti作品的评论版将于本世纪20年代末出版，由Sven Hanuschek和Kristian Wachinger编辑。卡内蒂在伦敦的时期最近被纪念：2022年，他的名字被刻在汉普斯特德切斯特菲尔德6号玛丽·冯·莫泰西茨基家外的一块牌匾上。从学术机会的角度来看，时机也成熟了。苏黎世中央图书馆Canetti's Nachlass中的论文已经数字化，研究人员可以查阅。给Canetti的日记和信件将于2024年提供。默多克的日记和信件可以在金斯顿大学档案馆阅读，加文麦克斯韦的论文则保存在苏格兰国家图书馆。最近出版了一本以贝内迪克特的家庭信件为基础的书，利用了另一个丰富的家庭档案。因此，有一个重大的机会，以评估这一新的宝藏的第一次来源。埃利亚斯·卡内蒂属于20世纪德语经典作家中的一个罕见群体，他的作品被广泛翻译，并享有国际声誉。例如，许多有价值的研究是用意大利语出版的，他的全部作品迄今为止在西班牙语翻译中的编辑效果比德语原文更好。该项目旨在通过在项目结束时的会议上进行批判性比较，将这些接收链结合起来，“Canetti，英国欧洲人”。除了为英语读者和英语文学学者解释英国文化和文学史上的一段插曲外，该项目还将对Canetti的英语研究带到了德国Germanistik的关注。更根本的是，该项目建议改变对Canetti在德语国家和英语文学文化中实践的文学研究遗产的理解，无论是在学院内外。