The photographic observer in Franz Kafka’s Meditation

Abstract

This essay investigates how photography, a medium that was rapidly developing and expanding in the beginning of the 20^th century, is present in the writing of Meditation (1912), by Franz Kafka. Mentioned in other prose texts by the author, photography is actually incorporated in Meditation’s writing. The collection of short prose, published in 1912, is mentioned in the author’s letters as a trustworthy portrait of himself, more so than photographic images could ever create. Through the close-reading of the fragment “The passenger” and references by Franz Kafka himself in his Correspondence and Diaries, the hypothesis that there is an intimate relationship between the author’s writing and the then new medium is developed here.