Bernhard: Nestbeschmutzer i przymus powtórzenia przeciwko władzy
Bernhard. Nestbeschmutzer and Compulsion of Repetition Against Power

Summary/Abstract: The paper addresses the work of an enfant terrible of the post-war Austrian culture, Thomas Bernhard, by posing questions about the relation between veridiction and a proper Nestbeschmuzung. Bernhard was frequently downplayed as a sarcastic and spiteful madman who drew sick pleasure from insulting his community. Nonetheless, as I demonstrate in the paper, the unveiling of systemic violence in Bernhard’s oeuvre reaches much deeper than just paresia. Bernhard’s prose has a structure of the fugue in which protagonists struggle with their own subjectification and objectification. It is precisely this structure of the fugue that possesses unmasking and paresiastic functions that go beyond the role of insults which make up a good part of the content this structure gives a form to. Ultimately, the fugue is a strategy to counter the overwhelming power and seek the subjectification outside of its realm.

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