3 - Franz Kafka: the necessity for a philosophical interpretation of his work

Summary

There is no doubt that Franz Kafka is one of the most exhilarating writers of our century. While he was known only to a few during his lifetime, his worldwide literary influence did not begin until after World War II, when a second edition of his works was published by Schocken. The same publisher had already made available an edition in Berlin in 1935. But at that time of the Nazi regime, his works had no chance of becoming popular. I do not know whether his books were among those burned in public by order of the Nazi government, but I would imagine that they were not even known to its barbaric representatives.

Immediately after World War II, his works began to be translated into all the major languages, and their contents began to stimulate discussions everywhere. Even today, the discussion about Kafka continues, although he no longer happens to be the center of the general literary discourse.

In this chapter I wish to use Kafka as an example in order to investigate the question of whether there is a necessity for a philosophical interpretation of a literary work of art. The question itself can by no means be taken for granted. On the contrary, one could immediately argue that such a philosophical interpretation would necessarily leave the domain of literature for a mode of thought that calls for such a necessity. And this new domain of philosophy, one could also argue, must be identified with abstractions because concepts are (supposedly) basically abstractions. One tends to be apprehensive of abstractions because, it is said, they make one lose contact with the real world.