Tracing the net of intra- and intertextual references within the scenic play "Simson fällt durch Jahrtausende" by Nelly Sachs

Tracing the net of intra- and intertextual references within the scenic play "Simson fällt durch Jahrtausende" by Nelly Sachs
Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher
University of Innsbruck
Susanne.Gillmayr-Bucher@uibk.ac.at
Keywords: intertextuality, computer aided text analysis

The scenic play "Simson fällt durch Jahrtausende"[1] has received very little attention, quite contrary to other works of Nelly Sachs, especially her lyric poetry. This scenic play was neither considered within the science of literature nor was it put on stage. Even the widespread discussion on the relations between Bible and modern literature has scarcely referred to this play. One of the reasons for this neglect might be the complex and entangled sequence of themes and scenes that makes an understanding rather difficult. Therefore a computer aided analysis is chosen to sort the interwoven connections between inter- and intratextual relations in order to obtain some trends for an understanding and interpretation of this scenic play.

A summary of the scenic play
"Simson fällt durch Jahrtausende" takes up the biblical story of Samson and Delila (book of Judges, chapters 14-16) and carries these events on - as the title suggests - throughout thousands of years into the 20th century. However, compared to the straightforward action of the biblical story the plot within the scenic play is split into numerous actions and reflections, hold together by a net of references and connections, that encourage but only scarcely direct the readers to find their way through the play.
Following a prologue the scenic play is divided into 14 scenes, introducing different levels of reality. Thereby the prologue together with the first scene form the starting point. While the prologue centres on the biblical story, the betrayal of Samson by Delila (Judg 16), the first scene - taking place in a sphere between life and death - reflects the betrayal and its consequences from various points of view and introduces the continuation of Samson's fate: "Ich falle- ich falle /Jahrtausendbäume biegen sich/ mit Sonnenlaub -/Ich falle durch Schlafwasser/ Mein Leib ist nur ein Blitz - ein Schrei" (page 193). The end of the biblical story, however, is not anticipated. This open end rather forms the space in which the play unfolds. Thereby the biblical story provides a frame for possible interpretations. The remaining 13 scenes may be divided into two levels: one level showing an action taking place within the reality of the 20th century (scenes 2,4,5,6,7,8,11,12), and another level containing more abstract reflections (scenes 3,9,10,13,14).

The main action shows episodes out of the life of Manes and his wife Nina. Manes, a big and strong man, has a heroic past but his illness, falling sickness, makes it difficult for him to keep trace of the present time. Furthermore that illness makes him appear unpredictable, peculiar and even dangerous for the people in his surroundings, turning him more and more into an outsider. While Manes tries to cling to his every-day life his wife Nina, just on the contrary, tries to escape this every-day-life, hoping for a better future without Manes. She sees her possibility for an escape in taking her husband into a psychiatric hospital, an action she is determined to carry out. In this way she slips into the rôle of the antagonist, like Delila in the biblical story.

So far the most obvious part of this play may be summarised as a concise plot, whereas the distinctive features of this play unfold within a language containing many figures of speech, quotations and references, establishing a net of associations and allusion between the scenes, to the biblical story as well as the metaphoric language Nelly Sachs uses in her poems. For an adequate description and understanding of this scenic play it is therefore necessary to pay close attention to these references and to trace the allusion started by them.

A computer aided analysis
Although the text is not voluminous, due to the complexity and abstraction of the different levels of reality, as well as the interlacing of images and allusions it is difficult to trace the connections and interrelations within the scenic play. To handle this problem the computer is used to support sorting and comparing of the textual elements with regard to intratextual as well as intertextual relations.
Intratextual: to trace the interwoven lines of the play, combining the ostensible actions of Manes and Nina with the reflections and worlds of imagination beyond reality.[2]
Intertextual: to trace the references to the biblical text, Judg 14-16, throughout the play.
Preparing the data
Before any computer aided analysis may be performed, it is necessary to prepare the data of the scenic play according to the aimed levels of text analysis and comparison. While textual searches on the levels of words and lemmas allow to find most of the quotations and allusions, the tracing of the complex thematic relations requires that word-fields are taken into consideration as well. For the preparation of textual data these considerations require that every word is prepared as a single "information unit" consisting of:

an exact reference, indicating page, scene, speaker/stage direction.
the lemma as standard word form
the synonym as standard content form
For example:
reference p1_scene1_Delila
word flamed
lemma flame
synonym fire
Text-analysis
Given these prepared text-data the net of references and connections can be traced throughout the text (intratextual) as well as in connection to the biblical text of the Simson story (intertextual).

The first step of analysis looks for quotations and allusions within the text. [3] Especially within the scenic play quotations often indicate a reference between the scenes, thereby connecting different actors and levels of reality.
Besides these explicit forms of references there are themes, running throughout the text, thereby establishing a content frame. To do an analysis on this level, the synonym inventory of the text is collected and further grouped according to themes [4].
Closely connected to a thematic distribution are the actors and speakers. Therefore a next step arranges the thematic distribution in dependence on the actors and speakers, revealing further references between the different textual/reflective levels of the play.
Looking for relations between the biblical narration and the scenic play of Nelly Sachs it becomes obvious that the prologue not only repeats one episode of the Samson story but also introduces themes and images out of the entire biblical narration.
For example see the following chart:
it shows the images introduced by the prologue and their distribution within the 14 scenes of the play.

These references establish the possibility that textual elements will be recognised as references to the biblical story in the course of the play, providing a continuity of meaning. For this play it can be shown that the intertextual references to the biblical story of Samson even provide a guideline for the entire scenic play and consequently for an understanding.

Conclusions
The computer as a working tool allows to gather, sort and disentangle the text, and to arrange the wealth of themes and references under different aspects. In this way the single thematic lines as well as the complex references become more distinct and legible and may be evaluated for an interpretation.
NOTES
Works by Nelly Sachs:
Sachs, Nelly. Simson fällt durch Jahrtausende. In: Zeichen im Sand. Die szenischen Dichtungen der Nelly Sachs. Frankfurt 1962, pp 185 - 238.
Sachs, Nelly. Fahrt ins Staublose. Die Gedichte der Nelly Sachs. Frankfurt 1961.
About Nelly Sachs and her works:

Dinesesn. Nelly Sachs, Eine Biographie. Frankfurt a.M. 1992.
Hardegger, l. Nelly Sachs und die Verwandlung der Welt (Europäische Hochschulschriften Reihe I. Deutsch Literatur und Germanistik 24), Frankfurt 1975.
Kersten, P. Die Metaphorik in der Lyrik von Nelly Sachs. (Geistes- und sozialwissenschafltiche Dissertationen 7) Hamburg 1970.
For a survey on the discussion to "intertextuality" cf.:
Broich, Ulrich and Pfister, Manfred (Ed.). Intertextualität. Formen, Funktionen, anglistische Fallstudien. (Konzepte der Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 35) Tübingen 1985.
Lachmann, Renate. Ebenen des Intertextualitätsbegriffs. In: Stierle, Karlheinz and Warning Rainer (Ed.). Das Gespräch. (Poetik und Hermeutik 11) München 1984, pp 133 - 138.
Stierle, Karlheinz. Werk und Intertextualität. In: Stierle, Karlheinz and Warning Rainer (Ed.). Das Gespräch (Poetik und Hermeutik 11) München 1984, pp 139 - 150.
Holthuis, Susanne. Intertextualität. Aspekte einer rezeptionsorientierten Konzeption. (Stauffenburg Colloquium 28) Tübingen 1993.
For the discussion on quotation and allusion cf.:
Plett, Heinrich. Intertextualities. In: Petöfi, Janos (Ed.). Intertextuality Research in Text Theory (Untersuchungen zur Texttheorie 15). Berlin/New York 1994, pp 3 - 29.
Coombs, James. Allusion defined and explained. In: Poetics 13 (1984), pp 475 - 488.
Cf. Fortier, Paul . Analysis of Twentieth-Century French Prose Fiction: Theoretical Context, Results, Perspective. In: Potter, Rosanne (Ed.). Literary Computing and Literary Criticism. Theoretical and Practical Essays on Theme and Rhetoric. Philadelphia 1989, pp 77 - 95.