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In premodern narratives contradictions are omnipresent – conflicting concepts, logical inconsistencies, acts of objection. In a narratological perspective ›contradiction‹ – conflicts of incompatible knowledges and narrative patterns; inconsistencies in or between speech (by narrator or characters) and action; contradictory or inconsistent information and motivation – is apt to subvert, complicate, or enrich the textual production of meaning. The project ›Contradiction as a Narrative Principle in Premodern Narrative‹ (University of Bremen) explores different types of contradictions in medieval epic and romance.


Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 139: 69–90.

DOI: 10.1515/bgsl-2017-0003

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limits

“Resistance is a democratic right, sometimes a duty. With literature we can find models for this right and think about its limits.”

Gisela Febel
paradox

“The basis of law is not an idea as a systematic unified principle but a paradox.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano
interstice

“The contradiction of law in Derrida lies in the interstice that separates the impossibility of deconstructing justice from the possibility of deconstructing law.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano
l’illusion d’une unité

“Foucault speaks of contradiction as l’illusion d’une unité.”

Ingo H. Warnke
problem to be solved

“Contradiction is not primarily a problem to be solved but a motor we cannot do without.”

Martin Nonhoff