Triad 26 of 32 · 2026-10-19 · Difficulty 4 · Shared form or method, Genealogy/influence, Conflict
The thread
Three books whose authors say they wrote none of it: Kraus’s Preface (‘the most lurid fantasies are quotations’), Bäcker’s notes (‘Every part of transcript is a quotation’), Dillard’s Author’s Note (‘I did not write a word of it’). Each concedes the same exceptions, order and cut: Bäcker’s ‘except in sequence, repetition, omission’; Dillard’s ‘Sometimes I dropped extra words; I never added a word’. Authorship moves into that parenthesis. They part on what the cut does to the source’s intention: Kraus keeps it and turns it on the speaker (with the Grumbler as commentator); Bäcker keeps it and lets the isolated document convict itself, with no commentator; Dillard discards it (‘the original authors’ intentions were usually first to go’) and adds delight. Bäcker’s own note 16 sets Himmler’s ‘being emigrated’ beside a participle quoted by Kraus, which is most likely the Grumbler’s ‘compulsorily enlisted’ (II, 10: ‘Universal conscription has turned mankind into a passive noun’). Dillard is the control case: same method, opposite effect.
The three books
- The Last Days of Mankind: The Complete Text, Karl Kraus, Fred Bridgham (translator), Edward Timms (translator); 1922. Ancestor: the documentary method with a commentator (the Grumbler); source of the participle Bäcker’s note cites.
- Transcript, Heimrad Bäcker, Patrick Greaney (translator), Vincent Kling (translator), Friedrich Achleitner (editor); 1986. Center: the documentary method with no commentator; cites Kraus in its own notes.
- Mornings Like This, Annie Dillard; 1995. Control case: same method (omission, never addition) producing delight instead of indictment.
Notebook
- The agentless participle: from Kraus II,10 and Bäcker p.16 with note 16, collect five present-day administrative sentences where a person is the object of a passive/participial construction; set each alone on a page; write the Grumbler’s one-line comment for one; which page indicts more?
- Omission only: build a poem from a manual by Dillard’s rule (drop, never add); then isolate one sentence from the same source in Bäcker’s manner; name the exact cut where delight entered, and whether the isolated version can exclude it.
- Rotation as the smallest act: Kraus’s Przemysl pair (II,16 / III,22) and Bäcker’s p.38 alter only order; write a text twice, the second rotated or reversed with no word changed; two sentences on whether that is authorship by Bäcker’s parenthesis.
Rabbit holes
Links as checked on the day of the reading.
- Charles Simic, ‘Death List Poem’ (NYRB, 2010) — https://www.nybooks.com/online/2010/02/22/death-list-poem/
- AAC-Fackel (Austrian Academy of Sciences) — https://www.oeaw.ac.at/acdh/research/literary-studies/corpora/editions/aac-fackel
- Alexander Gelley, ‘Epigones in the House of Language: Benjamin on Kraus’ (Partial Answers 5.1, 2007) — https://partialanswers.huji.ac.il/publications/epigones-house-language-benjamin-kraus
- Dan Featherston, ‘Poetic Representation: Charles Reznikoff’s Holocaust’ (EPC) — https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/reznikoff/danfeatherston.html
- Patrick Greaney, Quotational Practices (Minnesota, 2014) — https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9780816687381
- ‘Heimrad Bäcker, Documentary Poetry’ (Johanna Drucker’s Substack) — https://johannadrucker.substack.com/p/heimrad-backer-documentary-poetry
To carry
“Universal conscription has turned mankind into a passive noun.” — Karl Kraus, The Last Days of Mankind, Act II, Scene 10 (trans. Bridgham & Timms)
Themes
Achleitner · administrative language · authorship · Benjamin · Bäcker · catalogue · collage · concrete poetry · Die Fackel · Dillard · documentary poetry · euphemism · found language · found poetry · Greaney · Grumbler · Heißenbüttel · Holocaust · ineffability · intention · Klemperer · Kraus · last words · lists · montage · Nazi language · omission · Optimist · passive participle · permutation · Picard · quotation · Reznikoff · satire · sequence · signals · Vienna Group
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