Müßiggänger, faulpelz und flaneur - yusuf atilgans müßiggänger und ihm verwandte figuren der deutschen literatur

The urban idler ('Müßiggänger') in Yusuf Atilgan's novel Aylak Adam follows an established literary tradition and thereby stands in one line with a number of re-markable and at the same time strange literary characters who have played a sig-nificant role in European literary history since beginning of industrialization. With Friedrich Schlegel's novel Lucinde the idler entered the stage of German literature and has remained there ever since, although he has taken on different shapes. While the interest of Atilgan's idler follows the longing of the stroller ('Flaneur') as created by authors like Franz Hessel or Walter Benjamin he is as much related to Schlegel's romantic idler Julius as to Eichendorff's Taugenichts. The charac-ter's appearance as a melancholy stroller, however, has only been made possible by the large city. Atilgan's protagonist is on a quest for the one and only woman and ideal love, which stands for an aim beyond the modern working sphere of the urban area and which can be read as an alternative civilization concept in the prospering city of Istanbul.

Yusuf Atılgan ,

Flaneur ,

Städti-Sche Modernisierung ,

Einsamkeit ,

Müßiggänger ,