Das ist doch trivial! Wie Walter Moers mithilfe der Intertextualität mit der Grenze zwischen Hoch- und Trivialliteratur spielt

This thesis analyzes two novels by contemporary German author Walter Moers, Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher (City of Dreaming Books) (2004) and Das Labyrinth der Träumenden Bücher (Labyrinth of Dreaming Books) (2011).

Thus far, there only exists a relatively meager corpus of research on Moers because his texts have often been marginalized as ‘trivial.’ Moers only recently started to receive more attention in scholarly contexts and this thesis intents to help filling this still existing void.

This thesis starts with an overview of Walter Moers as an author, his works in general, and focuses on the two novels Stadt der Träumenden Bücher and Labyrinth der Träumenden Bücher. Moers is known for using an abundance of intertextual and intermedial references in his texts, and the main analysis of this thesis focuses on ‘how’ and ‘why’ Moers uses intertextuality and intermediality. This thesis comes to the conclusion that Moers utilizes intertextual and intermedial references in order to deconstruct a supposed juxtaposition of – so called – ‘canonical literature’ and ‘trivial literature’ in a playful fashion.