Poetological-Technical Operations: Representation of Motion in Adalbert Stifter

The essay examines the representation of motion in Adalbert Stifter in a twofold way: on the one hand with respect to the dynamization of description, and on the other in regard to its discursive context. Stifter's descriptions—as will be shown based on a reading of Aussicht und Betrachtungen von der Spitze des St. Stephansturmes and Der Hoch-wald—are not descriptions of "reality," but stagings of visual perception. In relation to optical media and in the discursive context of the modern physiology of perception, Stifter explores visual perception through literary means. In contrast to the topos common in Stifter scholarship that his descriptions bring about a standstill of motion and time, I argue that Stifter decidedly works on the temporalization of description. It is thus not the description of motion on the thematic level that the essay is concerned with, but rather that the motion of description itself is inscribed. Depicting visual perception through the syntagmatic structure of writing, Stifter stages the active gaze. The telescope is particularly important in this respect. As will be argued, the telescope does not confirm the stasis of realism, but on the contrary serves as a medium of representing motion by investigating the active gaze. In a second step, Stifter's representation of motion will be considered within its discursive context: motion, as will be demonstrated in a reading of Der Condor, will itself be profiled as an interdiscursive transfer among literature, aesthetics, natural science, and the development of technology.