A Melancholy Journey through Landscapes of Transience
A Melancholy Journey through Landscapes of Transience

W. G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn

Summary/Abstract: The paper reflects on W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn (Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt, 1995), a unique literary achievement deeply embedded into the history of literature, culture and the arts, which can be best construed from the direction of "the order of melancholy." On the pages of the book the reader can traverse, together with the Sebald-narrator, a route in East Anglia, with digressions in various directions of (culture) history. The journey in the concrete physical space turns into an inner journey, into a spiritual pilgrimage; the traversed locations become documents of destruction and transience.

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