Eduard von Keyserling’s novels show a great variety of narrative devices. Contrasts are pervasive, sometimes culminating in polarities, as frequently noted in Keyserling scholarship. Contrasts may in the course of a novel be modified, as by attenuation or intensification, or expansion and/or deepening. Contrasts may also be shown to be inappropriate in their initial appearance; reversals of certain components of contrasting complexes may occur. Significantly, whereas contrasts and polarities in their binary appearance usually tend to stress uniqueness and individuality, by the very fact of their recurrence, and their reference to other, similar binary opposites, these contrasts are shown to be indicative of a framework of similarity rather than contrast . Many other devices, mostly overlooked by critics, also occur, such as parallelism of figures and situations, doubling of characters, the use of leitmotifs and symbols. They, too, become recognizable as tending towards sameness rather than difference. Moreover, the play with identities and variants, with leitmotifs, with linguistic links and echoes, with borrowings and anticipations, and, especially in the later novels, with symbols, is repeated among the novels themselves. Intertextuality therefore eventually takes precedence over contextuality, and hence there is established a universe which is a coherent one and, though limited in space and time, complete in itself. This universe is one inspired by a Weltanschauung in which determinism appears to prevail over freedom of action; the analysis of structural and narrative elements undertaken here reveals their function as delineating and supporting this world-view. To see the characteristic of Keyserling’s art, therefore, as showing a divorce from the world as constituted, or an assessment of Keyserling’s novels as instances of a non-committal art for art’s sake, is ill conceived. That narrative patterns are undeniably employed in the cause of novelistic and aesthetic considerations by no means implies that they are not at the same time employed to advance a significant, though ambivalent view of the world.

中文翻译：

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世界制造与世界观：爱德华·冯·凯瑟林小说中的叙事手段及其功能

爱德华·冯·凯瑟林 (Eduard von Keyserling) 的小说展示了多种多样的叙事手法。对比是普遍存在的，有时在极性上达到顶峰，正如 Keyserling 奖学金中经常提到的那样。对比可能在小说的过程中被修改，如通过减弱或加强，或扩展和/或加深。对比也可能在最初的外观中被证明是不合适的；对比复合物的某些成分可能会发生逆转。值得注意的是，虽然对比和极性在其二元外观中通常倾向于强调独特性和个性，但由于它们的重复出现以及它们对其他类似的二元对立的引用，这些对比被证明是相似性框架的指示，而不是对比 。许多其他设备，大多被评论家忽视，也出现了，例如图形和情况的平行，字符的加倍，主题和符号的使用。他们也被认为倾向于相同而不是差异。此外，这种带有身份和变体、主题、语言联系和回声、借用和预期，尤其是在后来的小说中带有符号的戏剧，在小说本身中重复出现。”。 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 因此，互文性最终优先于语境性，因此建立了一个连贯的宇宙，尽管空间和时间有限，但它本身是完整的。这个宇宙的灵感来自世界观，在这种世界观中，决定论似乎战胜了行动自由；这里对结构和叙事元素的分析揭示了它们描绘和支持这种世界观的功能。因此，将 Keyserling 艺术的特征视为表现出与所构成的世界的分离，或者将 Keyserling 的小说评估为一种为艺术而置身事外的艺术实例，这是不妥当的。不可否认，叙事模式被用于小说和美学考虑的原因，绝不意味着它们不会同时被用于推进一种重要但矛盾的世界观。