Os Limites do Espaço em Die Ringe des Saturn de W.G. Sebald

Abstract

The following essay proposes a reading of W.G. Sebald’s Die Ringe des Saturn. Eine englische Wallfahrt, in which the representation of space as a liminal entity will be explored. In Die Ringe des Saturn space is not just a physical territory, but also a mental construct, being both these dimensions mixed by Sebald in order to bring about a historically shaped topography in need of being discovered. However, space also figures as a precarious site for the decoding of the past, in that it is vulnerable to temporality. Thus, one of the main issues permeating this oeuvre pertains to the significance, modes of inhabiting and representing a space that is in a permanent state of disaggregation, a territory that comes about in a condition of liminality.