A Moving Carriage of Similes: Robert Musil and The Perfecting of a Love

Basit Öğe Kaydı
dc.contributor.authorTurner, Zeynep Talay
dc.contributor.authorTurner, Charles
dc.date.accessioned2026-04-04T18:56:04Z
dc.date.available2026-04-04T18:56:04Z
dc.date.issued2025
dc.departmentİstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi
dc.description.abstractRobert Musil described his novella The Perfecting of a Love as a failure. In this paper it is suggested why he might have judged it so. The failure, if that is what it is, is attributed to an undisciplined use of simile. To that end the paper constructs a spectrum of imaginative license, defined through four points or waystations. The first three are: i) metaphors we live by; ii) relative metaphors social scientists live by; and iii) absolute metaphors poets and philosophers live by. These correspond to three ways in which thinking subjects itself to a communal discipline: the discipline of a community in everyday life, the discipline of a social science, and the discipline of poetry and philosophy. A fourth stage is then identified, called here: iv) simile running wild. It was here that Musil's striving for precision in matters of the soul resulted in something more akin to an individual's private counter-discipline.
dc.identifier.doi10.1353/nar.00007
dc.identifier.doi10.1353/nar.00007
dc.identifier.issn1063-3685
dc.identifier.issn1538-974X
dc.identifier.issue1
dc.identifier.scopus2-s2.0-85216726868
dc.identifier.scopusqualityQ1
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1353/nar.00007
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11411/10655
dc.identifier.volume33
dc.identifier.wosWOS:001421177400001
dc.identifier.wosqualityN/A
dc.indekslendigikaynakWeb of Science
dc.indekslendigikaynakScopus
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherOhio State Univ Press
dc.relation.ispartofNarrative
dc.relation.publicationcategoryMakale - Uluslararası Hakemli Dergi - Kurum Öğretim Elemanı
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.snmzKA_WoS_20260402
dc.snmzKA_Scopus_20260402
dc.subjectSimile
dc.subjectMetaphor
dc.subjectMusil
dc.subjectBlumenberg
dc.subjectWittgenstein
dc.titleA Moving Carriage of Similes: Robert Musil and The Perfecting of a Love
dc.typeArticle

Dosyalar

Koleksiyon

Web of Science Indexed Publications
Scopus Indexed Publications