Plage des bösen oder kleinod der schöpfung: vom netz zur spinne zwischen dem meissner und trakl

Abstract

For centuries spiders and cobwebs have formed programmatic iconographic images which often change their meaning in the course of literary epochs and thus help to uncover the aspects of epoch changes. Even though the spider belongs to the rarer animal symbols in German litrature, the rare incidence of this image between the Middle Ages and modernism gains in significance when the origin and development of motifs have to be unravelled. the semantic level of the spider/cobweb-motif ranges through the whole gamut of meanings from the deadly monster to the symbol of tender love. In addition, a structural shift within the image can be noticed: the focusing on the cobweb gives way to the concentration on the builder of the network. In modernism the spider/cobweb-motif seems to vanish altogether.