![Learn more about our new title Approaches to Teaching Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/112401/JournalAd-RAUT.png"})
![Sample our Language & Literature journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5941/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Language-Literature.jpg"})
Abstract
Peter Handke’s filial auto|biography, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, traces the life of the mother. However, the image that Peter presents of Maria remains blurry. This paper employs Julia Kristeva’s notion of melancholia to substantiate that this elusiveness is due to the unutterable nature of melancholia rather than the conventional limitations of auto|biographies.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Freadman, “Decent and Indecent: Writing My Father’s Life,” 121–146.
2 Varsava, “Auto-Biography as Metafiction,” 121.
3 Derived from the Latin word filius (son), filial specifically denotes sonly rather than daughterly.
4 Park, “Sons as Their Mothers’ Memoirists,” 127.
5 Dhúill, Metabiography: Reflecting on Biography, 35.
6 Park, “Sons as Their Mothers’ Memoirists,” 124.
7 Atay, “The Punctum in History,” 5.
8 Atay, “The Punctum in History,” 7.
9 Varsava, “Auto-Biography as Metafiction,” 121.
10 McCooey, “The Limits of Life Writing,” 277.
11 Varsava, “Auto-Biography as Metafiction,” 122.
12 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 15.
13 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 15.
14 Kristeva, Black Sun, 3.
15 Watkin, “Melancholia, Revolution and Materiality,” 86.
16 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 5.
17 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, 66.
18 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 62.
19 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 5.
20 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 15.
21 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 5.
22 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 25.
23 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams. 16.
24 Kristeva, Black Sun, 12.
25 Ryan, The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, 200.
26 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 63.
27 Margaroni, “The Lost Foundation,” 79.
28 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 7.
29 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 7.
30 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 13.
31 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 14.
32 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 14.
33 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 9.
34 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 13.
35 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 16.
36 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 17.
37 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 17.
38 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 16.
39 A similar issue is raised in relation to Handke’s depiction of his own individuality through language. As discussed in the latter section of the article, Handke attempts to preserve his identity (and life) by narrating this auto|biography. However, since Handke’s melancholia is objectal, rather than narcissistic, his identity is relatively less precarious than that of his mother. Additionally, Handke is a creative melancholic whose creative use of semiotic and symbolic language reveals his desire to emancipate himself from the “pejorative combinations” that characterize the individuality of the people of his community.
40 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 17.
41 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 16.
42 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 14.
43 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 63.
44 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 24.
45 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 62.
46 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 62.
47 Radden, The Nature of Melancholy, 335.
48 Freud and Klein make a distinction between mourning (depression due to an external loss) and melancholia (depression due to an internal loss). Influenced by this categorization, Kristeva identifies two types of depression: Narcissistic melancholia and Objectal depression. Since Kristeva borrows these concepts from Freud and Klein, Objectal depression of Kristeva is, in many regards, an equivalent of Freud and Melanie Klein’s account of mourning. Additionally, Kristeva’s concept of narcissistic melancholia resembles Freud’s definition of melancholia. See Kritzman and McAfee.
49 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 16.
50 Radden, The Nature of Melancholy, 335.
51 Kritzman, “Melancholia Becomes the Subject,” 144.
52 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 62.
53 Sanchez Pardo, Cultures of the Death Drive, 44.
54 Sanchez Pardo, Cultures of the Death Drive, 44.
55 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 62.
56 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 70.
57 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 71.
58 Wahlström Henriksson, “Moms, Memories, Materialities,” 143.
59 Varsava, “Auto-Biography as Metafiction.”
60 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 14.
61 Varsava, “Auto-Biography as Metafiction,”121.
62 Varsava, “Auto-Biography as Metafiction,”121.
63 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dream, 8.
64 Atay, “The Punctum in History,” 2.
65 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dream, 5.
66 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 15.
67 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 15.
68 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 15.
69 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 16.
70 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 16.
71 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 20.
72 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 20.
73 Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, 40.
74 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 31.
75 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 16.
76 Kristeva, Black Sun, 145.
77 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 15.
78 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 15.
79 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 6.
80 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 5.
81 Park, “Sons as Their Mothers’ Memoirists,” 123
82 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 6.
83 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 63.
84 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 64.
85 Watkin, “Melancholia, Revolution and Materiality,” 86.
86 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 25.
87 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 25.
88 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 25.
89 Becker Leckone, Julia Kristeva and Literary Theory, 184.
90 McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 65.
91 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 25.
92 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 28.
93 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 29.
94 Kristeva, The Feminine, 14.
95 Kristeva, Black Sun, 25.
96 Kristeva, Black Sun, 22.
97 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 25.
98 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 31.
99 McCooey “The Limits of Life Writing,” 280.
100 Handke, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 25.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Saeedeh Esmailzadeh
Saeedeh Esmailzadeh is a PhD candidate and part-time lecturer in English Literature at the University of Tehran. Her article, entitled “The Interplay of Dominant Empiricism and Residual Cartesianism in Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance,” is available in Taylor and Francis’s English Studies. Her upcoming article, “From Wedlock to DeadLock: Madame Bovary’s Path Toward Self-Destruction,” will be published in the 2023 issue of Folia Linguistica et Litteraria.