Figur – Szene – Szenario

Abstract

The challenge of representing movement in literary texts involves not only a knowledge of the physical, affective, and cognitive aspects of motion, it also needs to engage with movement’s medial transformation in the act of writing. Thus, this article draws attention to the largely unnoticed importance of writing in its visual and spatial dimensions within the field of literary movement studies. The article explores the dynamic aspects of the concept of the ›figure‹ and traces its relation to the literary ›scene‹ or ›scenario‹. Drawing on contemporary literary and cultural theories of the ›scene‹ as a cognitive operation (Rancière) and engaging with examples of texts on movement (Pierre Rameau’s ‚Le Maître à Danser‘ and Jean- Georges Noverre’s ‚Lettres sur la danse‘), the aim of this article is to introduce the concept of the ›scene‹ as a (transdisciplinary) hermeneutic category for literary studies of movement in modernity.