Abstract

LORENZI, Camila Lousana Pavanelli de. Melancholy in Kafka as loss of language: some thoughts on The Burrow. Ide (São Paulo) [online]. 2015, vol.37, n.59, pp. 33-46. ISSN 0101-3106.

This paper analyzes Kafka's 1923 novel The Burrow with a focus in the psychology of the character-narrator. The character has traces both of melancholy as described by Freud (1917) and Ogden (2005) with his selfrecriminations and his self-imprisonment, and of melancholy as described in Benjamin's writings, which comprises the impulse towards creativity. The melancholy found in The Burrow, however, surpasses Freud's and Benjamin's considerations: in Kafka's writing, it assumes ontological features, since it is characterized as the loss of language.

Keywords : Kafka; Freud; Benjamin; Melancholy; Language.

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