The Representations of Ageing (Old Age) in German-Language Literature

Abstract

The relevance to study the representations of ageing is conditioned by the necessity to understand the variety between generations, differences in age psychological attitudes and increased life expectancy, in particular in European countries. All this is reflected in fiction. The aim of this work is to outline the main features of artistic representations (indirect, «secondary» prototypes and images) of ageing (old age) in German-language literature of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, especially during modernism, postmodernism and the formation of modern society. The twentieth century in the literature is characterized by the development of such directions as modernism and postmodernism. The last one was originated as an ideological signpost associated with a certain unity of philosophical, theoretical, and methodological approaches. The concept of a human in these theories was marked by skepticism on the world caused by The First and The Second World Wars, sarcasm, irony, despair and hopelessness about the absurdity of the world. In the hieratic works of the twentieth-century German-language literature, representations of old age and gerontological motives were very rarely central. Therefore, in social, physical and psychological dimensions, the ageing process has become richer over time. Artistic representations of the elderly were mostly stereotyped. Since the early twentieth century the problem of depicting the elderly has acquired existential sense, postmodern view on human life, the search for human sense of life, human loneliness in society, the role of an individual in the periods before, during and after the two World Wars.