Wenzel, Regina Angela; (1999) Why money talks: A study of changing notions of money and language in selected works of German literature from Fortunatus to Durrenmatt's Der Besuch der Alten Dame. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This project is concerned with the multiple relations between money and language, e.g. abstraction, arbitrary assignment of meaning, ready negotiability and exchangeability, and the way these issues are reflected and reflected upon in some key works of German literature. As mankind went through several transitions from the early modern period to post-modernity, the changes in world view profoundly affected the conceptions of money and language and their importance to human beings as modes of encoding and understanding their world. This thesis seeks to demonstrate how these changing notions are explored in the literature of the times, affecting not only plots and characters, but also impinging on the very language of the texts themselves. By adopting money and language, their interrelation and characteristics as a prism through which to approach literary works, it is argued that these factors are endemic to our nature as social beings, and to the historicity of that nature. The literary investigation covers Fortunatus, Dil Ulenspiegel, Nathan der Weise, Kahale und Liebe, Peter Schlemihl, Faust II, Soil und Haben, Der grüne Heinrich, Buddenbrooks, Von morgens bis mitternachts and Der Besuch der alten Dame in the light of the contemporary world view and man's role within it, socio-economic developments, monetary practice, and linguistic changes as well as linguistic reflections. This means that each chapter provides a detailed and complex analysis of relevant stylistic techniques and modes of expression; the importance of money and its portrayal for the plot as well as for the characters and the society portrayed; and the way in which these issues are reflected in the language and language usage of the texts. In historical terms, the project thus moves from the stable view of wealth and the corresponding belief in language as signifying what it names, to the present day, where money has forfeited substance and language has become an arbitrary discourse, and where the two are governed in our consumer world by a shared enterprise of semiotics.

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