"Gutes" + "Schönes" = "Humanitääääät"? Atonal Music and Nuclear Catastrophe in Elfriede Jelinek's Kein Licht

Based on Jelinek's understanding of humanity in Kein Einer und kein Andrer mehr (2023), this article examines how the focus on an "ecological imperative" of responsibility (Hans Jonas) can be reconciled with the idea of an aesthetically autonomous literature. Jelinek's play Kein Licht (2011) reflects environmental pollution and environmental destruction by bringing together an ethically connoted critique (the good) and an aesthetic focused on autonomy (the beautiful). Despite the massive presence of ecological themes in Jelinek's texts around the turn of the millennium, it is ultimately not possible to speak of a (substantive) replication of those themes. Rather, all supposedly direct references to ecology, the climate crisis, criticism of the lack of human responsibility and the lack of action to protect nature take a "detour" via the musical aesthetics of the texts.