From a philosophical-phenomenological and literary critical perspective, Nadine Benz gains a more detailed knowledge on the temporal phenomenon of waiting. She first discusses the historical development of the concept of time from a philosophical-phenomenological viewpoint, specifically relating to questions of measurability, mediation and the aporia of objective and subjective components of temporal experience. She then moves from the lifeworld concept to literature. The study first theoretically integrates the aporias of time into a narratology of temporal experience, primarily taking the fictive factor into account. Finally, the knowledge gained and the instruments thus obtained are applied for an analysis of 20th-century and 21st-century narrative texts. Here, the literary configurations of waiting time are constituted as a »semantics of waiting« for the subjects of fictive temporal experience.