Dueling and the Fantasmatic Specter of Male Honour in Imperial Germany: The Kaiser’s Will and Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest

• Jeffrey Schneider ^[1]
  1. [1] Vassar College

     Vassar College

     City of Poughkeepsie, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Literature and history, ISSN 0306-1973, Vol. 31, Nº 1, 2022, págs. 25-40
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Underneath the historiographical disagreements about military honor and dueling in Imperial Germany there lurks a consensus that most duelists simply internalized the dictates of honor. This article troubles that presumption by attending to the Prussian-German military honor code’s mixed messages and impossible demands, which I interpret through Slavoj Žižek’s concept of a fantasmatic specter. After analyzing a variety of military texts, I illustrate the value of a psychoanalytic approach via a case study and re-examination of Theodor Fontane’s novel Effi Briest (1894/95).