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Knappir textar og önnur ritmennska ´Franz Kafka

Abstract

This article discusses the part and significance of microfiction in Franz Kafka’s literary career. His first book, Contemplation (Betrachtung) is a collection of microfiction texts and this restricted form of expression was a salient component of the works he prepared for publication himself, although they also contained some of his most prevalent short stories and one of his best known works, the novella The Metamorphosis (DieVerwandlung). However, the majority of Kafka’s writings were still unpublished when he died and they emerged posthumously over a period of several years, first his three novels, but then later more novellas and short stories. A number of these works of fiction were not completed and can be termed fragments, although this did not hamper Kafka’s belated recognition as one of the foremost fiction writers of the 20^th century. The article briefly dwells on the concept of fragment, in view of both the terse and voluminous narratives of Kafka.

Kafka’s reaction to having successfully completed the short story “The Judgement” (“Das Urteil”) in a single stretch of creativity, from evening till early morning, in the autumn of 1912, is discussed as a turning point in his writing career. He was approaching thirty and had a little more than a decade to live – but his achievements during that period are striking. Kafka may, however, have underestimated, especially early on, the role of microfiction in his story-telling art. It was instrumental in his narrative pursuits, and the short pieces in his first book attest to the vision and the hesitant but creative rumination which in the stage settings of his stories may either counterbalance or redouble the narrative agitation in Kafka’s fiction. He had returned to microfiction by the end of 1916 and several of his very short tales were found in the collection of papers he left behind at his death – but this branch of his fiction also frequently emerges in the shape of narrative fragments in his diaries.

The article examines some of Kafka’s microfiction, its topics and structure, and the fusion of the social imaginary and fantasy that characterizes many of the stories – and some of them appear in their entirety (in Icelandic translations) within the article, thanks to their brevity.