Die Weitung der Perspektive als Strategie der Textöffnung in Peter Waterhouse’ Gedicht ,,Verwerfung, Bedeutung, Permutation”

Authors

• Eleonore De Felip Universität Innsbruck

DOI: https://doi.org/10.70484/vakki.149112

Keywords:

Literarische Avantgarde, Perspektivenwechsel, Überwindung der Perspektivität

Abstract

In his poem “Verwerfung, Bedeutung, Permutation” (1986), the Austrian poet Peter Waterhouse performs a continuous change of point of view. Every line, every sentence seems to come from a different direction; there is no manifest link between them; they seem to reject and contradict one another. The poetic strategy of shifting continuously from one point of view to the other aims at opening a gap between the sentences. The secret “heart” of the poem can be found here, in between the words, behind the lines, it is an empty space, full of silence. This silent emptiness behind the words evokes an atmosphere of wideness, permeability and transparency. Instead of trying to understand the “meaning” of every single sentence, the present article analyses how the text, by opening all perspectives to an extreme extent, leads to a complete loss of perspectiveness in the end. In other words, the article discusses the gradual overcoming of every ego-centered point of view occurring in the poem.