Wiederholtes Weltende in anderen Breitengraden. Neapel in Franz Werfels Zeit- und Familienroman Die Geschwister von Neapel

Abstract

In The Pascarella Family, Franz Werfel’s family novel about the Neapolitan
society of the late 1920s, it is actually not Napoli that prevails
but Italy more generally, according to the author himself who commented
his work in an interview in 1931. This assessment confirms
the problematical status of Napoli which, although physically in the
foreground, quite vanishes in the background on a symbolic level.
Whereas the capital of Campania appears along with the main characters
in the original German title (Die Geschwister von Neapel) and
constitutes the framework and scenery of almost every chapter in
Werfel’s novel, the heterogeneity in the perception and representation
of the town gives rise to mixed feelings in the reader, who is hence justified in questioning Werfel’s relationship to Napoli and attendant issues
such as modernity, tradition or tourism. Our analysis of the way
Napoli has been depicted by Werfel, or rather by his characters (the
members of the Pascarella family), should help understand why Italy
significantly prevails over Napoli in his literary attempt of re-presenting
(that is showing once again) the fall of a world similar to what
Werfel experienced less than 20 years earlier with the end of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire, and what this changing of places and latitudes
(from Austria to Southern Italy) eventually implicates in his eyes.