Aesthetics in Prose

This book is an investigation into the phenomenology of prose. The first section deals with two champions in the modern history of prose: Montaigne and Nietzsche. The second section considers some versions of prose and modernity through two profiles in the history of modernism: Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. Furthermore, modern prose is examined through the development of the modern prose-poem. The third section assembles a wide range of examples from two vital sections of modern prose on the boundaries of literary fiction: travel writing and life writing. The final section consists of four shorter extensions: prose in photos, design and blogs.The final extension is a brief summary of the idea of prose. The phenomenology of prose will be presented in many forms and via many metaphors. Montaigne's essayistic body, disparate but still hanging together, never finished, always something to add. Nietzsche's labyrinth, showing by hiding, hiding by showing. Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul or Ryszard Kapuscinski's World: diligently mapped by foot and pen. Thomas Bernhard's or W.G. Sebald's meandering syntax, indicating a state where everything is connected with everything else - together with the insight in the boundless contingency of everything that exists. Network is the final metaphor: the network connects and includes. It encompasses the world while leaving the world open.