Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A Critical Companion to Jorge SemprúnSemprun, Philosophy, and the Texture of Literature

A Critical Companion to Jorge Semprún: Semprun, Philosophy, and the Texture of Literature [Jorge Semprun’s four books set in Buchenwald together present a self-portrait as philosophy student turned Resistance fighter. He informs his readers about the books he was carrying in his knapsack before his capture—Kant’s Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone) and Malraux’s L’espoir (Man’s Hope) were among them—and about his insistence upon his scholarly calling (kein Beruf, nur ein Berufung: not a profession, but a calling) during the nightmare of registration at the concentration camp. On Sunday afternoons in Buchenwald, he often went to the Little Camp, where new arrivals were quarantined before being integrated into the labor system and where those who were dying or otherwise unable to work were quartered. There he pursued philosophical issues with a small group, often focusing on the nature of radical evil. The narrative repetition—four times in three books—of the registration episode alone has been characterized as the working through of Semprun’s traumatic experience, and there is no reason to doubt its importance in that context.1] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Critical Companion to Jorge SemprúnSemprun, Philosophy, and the Texture of Literature

Part of the Studies in European Culture and History Book Series
Editors: Ferrán, Ofelia; Herrmann, Gina
Bernstein, Carol L.
Springer Journals — Oct 28, 2015
Download PDF
17 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/a-critical-companion-to-jorge-sempr-n-semprun-philosophy-and-the-P0kR6ilrEr
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2014
ISBN
978-1-349-45859-2
Pages
107 –124
DOI
10.1057/9781137439710_6
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Jorge Semprun’s four books set in Buchenwald together present a self-portrait as philosophy student turned Resistance fighter. He informs his readers about the books he was carrying in his knapsack before his capture—Kant’s Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone) and Malraux’s L’espoir (Man’s Hope) were among them—and about his insistence upon his scholarly calling (kein Beruf, nur ein Berufung: not a profession, but a calling) during the nightmare of registration at the concentration camp. On Sunday afternoons in Buchenwald, he often went to the Little Camp, where new arrivals were quarantined before being integrated into the labor system and where those who were dying or otherwise unable to work were quartered. There he pursued philosophical issues with a small group, often focusing on the nature of radical evil. The narrative repetition—four times in three books—of the registration episode alone has been characterized as the working through of Semprun’s traumatic experience, and there is no reason to doubt its importance in that context.1]

Published: Oct 28, 2015

Keywords: Nazi Regime; Narrative Style; Philosophic Identity; Radical Evil; German Soldier

There are no references for this article.