SOURCE: "The Narrator's Allusions to Art and Ambiguity: A Note on C. F. Meyer's Der Heilige," in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, Vol. X, No. 4, November, 1974, pp. 265-73.

In the following essay, Jacobson contends that the narrator's attempt to understand Thomas à Becket in Die Heilige exposes a distinction, crucial for Meyer, between inherent and artificial ambiguity in art.

The general significance of Meyer's frequent symbolic use of art and artefacts has already been ably treated by Karl S. Guthke. In his essay, 'Kunstsymbolik im Werke Meyers,' he argues convincingly that these works of art and artefacts not only serve a proleptic purpose, but also function as prototypes which illuminate human character and human situations—that, in other words, life tends to imitate art in Meyer's work.¹ This note is not intended either to challenge or to substantiate further this well documented thesis. It is simply an...