Expressing the Corporal Exhaustion: Experiences of Corporality in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger Cover Image

Ekspresja wycieńczonego ciała. Doświadczenie cielesności w Głodzie Knuta Hamsuna
Expressing the Corporal Exhaustion: Experiences of Corporality in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger

Author(s): Jadwiga Piskorska
Subject(s): Other Language Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: body; modernity; experience; narration; epiphany;

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is to consider an issue of a split between the psychologism which dominates Knut Hamsun’s novel and the harrowing experience of an exhausted body echoing in the narration. The argumentation is based on a polemic with researchers interpreting Hamsun’s work in terms of a modernist urban novel, thereby treating titular hunger purely as a theme of the text, not as a traumatic, somatic experience structuring the entire narration. Focusing on issues often overlooked during cursory readings, brings out the innovative meanings and narrative techniques pioneering later literary turns.

  • Issue Year: 19/2022
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 583-595
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish