Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

colloquial language also serves as a sort of Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt and
contributes to the novel’s irony.
In fact, these verse endings often underscore the narrator’s ironical stance
and distance toward his characters. For example, in the first ekphrasis of the
Sueño de la razón which I have quoted above, the balladesque verse form and
poetic language are at odds with the description of Goya’s feeling of being
attacked by his inner demons and his lack of control. Likewise, in the second
quote Feuchtwanger uses particularly striking enjambments that split not only
sentences but also words (“…die Dä- / Monen, die Gespenster, ratten- /
Schwänzig, hundsgesichtig, kröten-/ Mäulig…,” Goya 403). But here, in contrast
to the first quote, the unruly, disconnected language jars with Goya’s ostensible
domination of the demons and ghosts.
In Wolf’s film, there is a similar ambiguity between distance and
proximity to the artist. Throughout the film, Goya’s works are discussed in
depictive or interpretive ekphrases from other people’s points of view rather than
the artist’s own, deleting Goya’s own verbalizations of his works. At no time, for
example, does Goya verbalize the Sueño de la razón. However, in the dramatic
ekphrases, the camera movement and montage often reproduce Goya’s
perspective, his pre- or non-verbal perceptions about his work, similar to the
function of free indirect discourse in the novel, and thus provoke viewer
identification with the artist. This wavering between identification and distance is
perhaps the most palpable in the first scene of interpretive ekphrasis, where the
camera adopts a high angle position, showing Goya from above, from an external
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