Arabeske und Klage

In her forms, contents, texts and images Else Lasker-Schuler expresses performatively the possibility of the lack of expression. She describes terrible scenes in ostentatiously poetic pictures. On the side she herself comments and quotes constantly her own works. Both peculiarities stem from the same transmedial formal principle of the arabesque. The arabesque can not only serve as decorative frame, but also as hiding place to evade the prohibition of representation. The proof of this...
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In her forms, contents, texts and images Else Lasker-Schuler expresses performatively the possibility of the lack of expression. She describes terrible scenes in ostentatiously poetic pictures. On the side she herself comments and quotes constantly her own works. Both peculiarities stem from the same transmedial formal principle of the arabesque. The arabesque can not only serve as decorative frame, but also as hiding place to evade the prohibition of representation. The proof of this formal principle reveals Lasker-Schuler's long underestimated influences of the Jewish scriptural tradition. In her arabesques Lasker-Schuler captures the precarity of the expression of distress and injustice - her artistic expression implies the possibility of silence.