Karl May: Authorialand textual staging

Abstract

This article aims to reassess the work and life of Karl May, one of the most successful German-language writers, from the aspect of staging. It shows how May mixes memories of childhood and literary elements, the desired and the factual, for a staged memory that would provide a deeper meaning for both his biography and his work. Thus, May recreated himself as an ideal man who, in his novels, can overcome his problems with reality, a multifaceted "I" represented by his various literary characters and his adventures, claimed by May as his own experiences. If the intersections of fictional and personal identity created by Karl May mark the first phase of his production and its narrative is structured around the motives of imprisonment and liberation, his late work abstracts from such elements and is directed toward a quasi-philosophical reflection on humanity and peace