THE EMBODIMENT OF THE DISCOVERER IMAGE IN D. KEHLMANN’S NOVEL “MEASURING THE WORLD”

Abstract

The article deals with the image of a discoverer based on D. Kehlmann`s novel “Measuring the World” (“Die Vermessung der Welt”, 2005). Since the image of a discoverer is represented by two characters, the life journey of two geniuses of German scientific thought of late XVIII-early XIX centuries: a prominent nature researcher Alexander von Humboldt and a brilliant mathematician and an astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss are in the center of the novel. Two adventures of such different characters, during which they discover the world and themselves, are at the heart of the plot. While the thirst for knowledge and the desire to measure everything make Humboldt climb the highest mountains, cross oceans and rivers and risk his life, Gauss`s journey is a way of selfdiscovery by calculations, made without leaving his house. The peculiarity of Kehlmann`s poetics lies in masterly combination of two different worlds: real and imaginary ones, and two different styles: high and low ones. The grandeur of intellect of main characters and the meaning of their achievements intersperse throughout the novel with everyday routine, where not their best features appear, and comic situations the main characters always get in. Both geniuses represent two totally different types of discoverers (Gauss is a theoretic one, and Humboldt is an empirical one) and only in their unity they generate an imagine of a discoverer in the novel. Such image is a metaphor for world cognition, since each of main characters discovers it in its own way. This feature unites them, because the character, who experiences the basics of world order, i.e. himself being a part thereof, has a significant meaning for the whole German culture. Expressively and vividly D. Kehlmann depicted the life of two outstanding contemporaries of the scientific world of the XIX century and created the image of the discoverer with traditional German traits of character.