EIRP Proceedings, Vol 1 (2006)

Abstract

The works of Franz Kafka and Mihail Sebastian represent the image of some isolated artists, who feel their isolation as a tragic guilt. The two artists explore the relationship between life and death, between hope and anguish, their writing being a direct consequence of their life. The instinct of life (Eros) and the instinct of death (Thanatos) become profound philosophical experiences reflected through a member of obsessive repetitions. They express both death (at the symbolic level) and Eros (as an overwhelming longing). These two writers hesitate between life and literature (the only refuge), but they cannot fully live either of them.