Communication of Love: Mediatized Intimacy from Love Letters to SMS. Interdisciplinary and Historical Studies [1. Aufl.] 9783839424445

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Introduction
Mediatized Intimacy. Interdisciplinary and Historical Studies (Abstracts)
Theoretical Reflections on New Intimacies
Of Rationality and Passions
How Love Relationships begin. Communication Patterns in Change
Intimacy in How-To Books: The Passion of Self-Change Work
Intimate Communication on the Internet:How Digital Media are Changing our Lives at the Microlevel
Let’s Let the Devil Out! How the Public Deals with the Private
Media of Intimacy: Phones, Letters, Songs
Adolescent girls on the phone: The management of dating and social networking
The Mobile Phone: Bringing the Private into the Public. Empirical Notes on the Situational Arrangement of Communicative Behaviour
Investigating Love Letters Across Time:Semiotic, Sociolinguistic and Cognitive Problems and Perspectives
From the Bridal Letter to Online Flirting: Changes in Text Type from the 19th Century to the Internet Era
Letters Between Home and the Front:Expressions of Love in World War II “Feldpost” Letters
“Aesthetic Brutality” and “Boundless Candor”:Mediation of Love in the Eighteenth-Century Letter
Affectionate Titbits:Postcards as a Medium for Love around 1900
Communicating a Message of Love through Singing
Imaginary and Fictional Intimacies
The Medial Persona. Tectonics of the Medial Imaginarium
Window-Dressing: Fetishistic Transactions in Fictional Prose by Oskar Panizza and Thomas Mann
About the Authors

Citation preview

Eva Lia Wyss (ed.) Communication of Love

Cultural and Media Studies

Eva Lia Wyss (ed.)

Communication of Love Mediatized Intimacy from Love Letters to SMS. Interdisciplinary and Historical Studies

This work was financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (No. 11-59393.99), the Swiss Academie of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Academic Forum Gender Studies of the University of Zurich, the board of culture promotion in the Canton of Solothurn, the International and Interdisciplinary Visiting Professorship for Gender Studies of Rhineland-Pfalz Germany in 2009.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2014 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover layoutconcept: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-2444-1 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-2444-5

Table of Contents

I NTRODUCTION Mediatized Intimacy. Interdisciplinary and Historical Studies (Abstracts)

Eva L. Wyss (Koblenz-Landau) | 9

THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS ON NEW I NTIMACIES Of Rationality and Passions

Eva Illouz (Jerusalem) | 23 How Love Relationships begin. Communication Patterns in Change

Karl Lenz (Dresden) | 37 Intimacy in How-To Books: The Passion of Self-Change Work

Sabine Maasen (München)/Stefanie Duttweiler (Frankfurt a.M.) | 55 Intimate Communication on the Internet: How Digital Media are Changing our Lives at the Microlevel

Friedrich Krotz (Bremen) | 79 Let’s Let the Devil Out! How the Public Deals with the Private

Manfred Weinberg (Konstanz/Prag) | 93

MEDIA OF I NTIMACY: PHONES, LETTERS, S ONGS Adolescent girls on the phone: The management of dating and social networking

Helga Kotthoff (Freiburg) | 111 The Mobile Phone: Bringing the Private into the Public. Empirical Notes on the Situational Arrangement of Communicative Behaviour

Joachim R. Höflich (Erfurt) | 151

Investigating Love Letters Across Time: Semiotic, Sociolinguistic and Cognitive Problems and Perspectives

Alexander T. Bergs (Osnabrück) | 165 From the Bridal Letter to Online Flirting: Changes in Text Type from the 19th Century to the Internet Era

Eva L. Wyss (Koblenz-Landau) | 181 Letters Between Home and the Front: Expressions of Love in World War II “Feldpost” Letters

Clemens Schwender (Berlin) | 213 “Aesthetic Brutality” and “Boundless Candor”: Mediation of Love in the Eighteenth-Century Letter

Folke-Christine Möller-Sahling (Boston) | 237 Affectionate Titbits: Postcards as a Medium for Love around 1900

Anett Holzheid (Siegen) | 253 Communicating a Message of Love through Singing

Mahmoud A. Al-Khatib (Irbid) | 275

IMAGINARY AND FICTIONAL I NTIMACIES The Medial Persona. Tectonics of the Medial Imaginarium

Holger Schulze (Berlin) | 299 Window-Dressing: Fetishistic Transactions in Fictional Prose by Oskar Panizza and Thomas Mann

Claudia Lieb (Münster) | 307

About the Authors | 321

Introduction

Mediatized Intimacy Interdisciplinary and Historical Studies (Abstracts)1 E VA L. W YSS

Over the past two centuries concepts of love, as well as the nature of intimate relations, have undergone modifications. Along with these modifications, the language of desire, the genres, text types and writing practices have changed as well. As these historical cultural differences and similarities have not yet been systematically studied this volume will explore with a strong focus on interpersonal, private and public media communication. People have long since started to disintegrate the division into a private and a public sphere as eminently social spaces that has led to diffuse spatial demarcations. At the dawn of the 21st century the public and the private sphere become recognisably clashed in a widespread “trading zone” of the social. In the course of this the categories of social identities that are founded on this separation become indistinct.2 The attribution of gender, status and class, i.e. masculinity and femininity, upper class and lower class, a high status and a low status, is becoming increasingly fuzzy. The borders of the secret and intimate are shifted or even revoked. Neither the cultural practices nor the used media can any longer be strictly separated into private and public types. These transformation went along with the mediatization of communication: in the closing decades of the 19th century the postcard and the telegram, in the 20th 1

This volume would not have been completed without the kind and generous support of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Center of Competence of Gender Studies of the University of Zurich and the authors grant of the Canton of Solothurn.

2

This affects the category of gender, that is linked closely to sexuality, as well. The relations between Sex and Gender are explained detailed and accurately in Cameron/ Kulick (2003).

10 | E VA L. W YSS

century mobile telephony and the Internet invited people to create different forms of mediatization of everyday communication. The use of new communication media influenced and determined then the formation of new communicative practices, too. Apparently new media are prone to establishing practices that go hand in hand with a new configuration of identity, intimacy and relationships. The concept of “intimacy” is ambiguos, though. Focussing on the construction of intimacy one can assume two different modelings: On the one hand, intimacy is seen as a spatially or metaphorically spatial organized quality, which is attributed to the inner realm of the private sphere – inside the body, one’s house as well as metaphorically in a realm of the personal kernel that is imagined as the innermost part of an individual. On the other hand, intimacy is seen more as a constructed state between a person and a (love) object that is interactively and dialogically constructed. The current condition of relation of the interlocutors therefore must be considered as a result that is communicatively and interactively co-constructed by communicative cultural practices. Contemporary dictionaries usually describe a spatial modelling of intimacy as an attribution to a space that is located in a center or a kernel. It is explained in relation to a vaguely defined but supposed “intimate sphere” [German. “Intimsphäre”] and linked to the Latin “intimus, -a”, the innermost.3 As a compound, it metaphorically refers to the innermost sphere of a person. Here, the spheres of a person are radially arranged from the inside to the outside, like the cloth of a Roman tunica, layer upon layer: the intimate sphere is belted by the private sphere, which is then manteled by the public sphere. The definition was established in social sciences at the beginning of the last century by Simmel. He assumed an “order of ideational spheres” (Simmel 1983: 151) and defined this intimate sphere as the innermost tier of an array of “ideational spheres” (Simmel 1983: 151), where he imagined the innermost as “support”, as the “spiritual private property”, as the core of individuality, as what set him apart from others. The innermost zone was believed to store one's “emotional private property” (Simmel 1983: 152), which constituted the core of one’s individuality, and distinguished one person from another. Penetrating this most private sphere of spheres might destroy “an individual’s personality” (Simmel 1983: 151) and must therefore be protected. These extensions of meaning can be understood if one takes into account that – together with a cosmological stratification of the body and in analogy to the literal meaning – intimacy is described as “the most interior” part of the body. This refers only partially to those regions that are traditionally linked to sexual practices. This individual part of a person is veiled like the genital area, which is referred to as “in-

3

The latin term signifies in the feminine form “intima” (or intima tunica) the innermost layer of the roman tunica dress.

M EDIATIZED I NTIMACY

| 11

timate” as well, just as those regions that permit access to the interior of the body.4 With the metaphorical shifts also the eyes5 are included in the range of body parts that allow access to the “interior world.” It leads even to reflections on skin as a perceiving organ and trading zone between the outer and the inner sphere.6 Because of its tactile sensitivity that is connected with the capability of touching and sensation, the skin is not to be seen as a mere exterior and visual form that demarcates the body but as a perceiving organ (beyond the eye, the ear, the nose, the hand and the tung) that is crucial for the conceptualisation of identity. This corresponds to Anzieu’s (1985) idea of a skin-ego, which can be seen as a counter-concept to the cognitive-visual constitution of the ego and as a sensation-related emotion-ego, which represents a challenge to the new visual media (de Kerckhove 1993). Vision and touch-sense are merging into one melted concept of identity-related sensations and achieve to overcome the distance of the gaze. With the effect that intimacy is not shaped tightly located and stable, but used in order of social and cultural practices or as co-constructed interactive attribution by members of a group. It seems that the construction of intimacy is not based on a single coordinative frame nor on a specific set of scripts. Rather it is characterized by a formal flexibility: So far intimate communication, as well as other emotional performative acts, have been ascribed not only a content but also a quality of action, and as a part of an interaction they become highly relevant social facts. However, deliberations concerning language cannot be separated from the reality of the media. In the media space, linguistic communication emerges as media communication and pervades as media reality these newly established spaces of interaction as media reality: this way the perception of reality is shifted, too: real is what becomes visible in a medium. Soon, information and events are produced for this medium: reality becomes a product of the media (Krotz 2008). Media reality and reality can no longer be clearly distinguished. Therefore a clear and dichotomous separation of exterior life (the public, which masculinity was attributed to)

4

Further orifices that are labelled “intimate”: those that grant access to the interior of the body: the anus, the ear and the mouth, which are more or less put under taboo.

5

According to Ovid (Metamorphoses, X, 243-297 (Pygmalion)), it is the look that strikes like a bolt of lightning from Amor’s quiver into the eye of the other. Through this “window to the soul” (cf. Pliny the Elder and common parlance) the look strikes the soul and touches the innermost part.

6

Cf. Streisand (2001), Benthien (1999) and Böhme (1998). This corresponds to Anzieu’s (1985) idea of a skin-ego, which can be seen as a counter-concept to the cognitive-visual constitution of the ego and as a feeling-related emotion-ego, which represents a challenge to the new visual media (de Kerckhove 1993).

12 | E VA L. W YSS

and the interior life (the world of emotions, which was connected to femininity) is deconstructed by mediatization more and more. The public sphere is obviously no longer a locus that is conceived as an exterior space, no longer a locus of heterosexual masculine presence. Consequently, the differentiation between public and nonpublic personas, virtual and non-virtual figures, between masculinity and femininity, between sexuality and non-sexuality has been suspended more and more: This affects the most private expression of love, desire and intimacy. In the first part the present volume includes theoretical reflections on new intimacies: Eva Illouz develops in Chapter 1 the effects of rationalizing romantic practises toward a distant emotional attitude and astrangement; in Chapter 2 Karl Lenz shows how love communication has changed since the 1950s, based on a new methodological approach analysing fictional film data for historical-sociological description of pick-up practices. Sabine Maasen and Catherine Duttweiler focus in Chapter 3 on the self-change work as a form of passionate and intimate caring practice that leads to a rationalization of everyday life. Friedrich Krotz depicts in Chapter 4 the undergone changes of everyday life and communication as mediatisation on the communicative microlevel. Manfred Weinberg analyses in Chapter 5 performances of sexuality indicating a new (homosexual) status of the intimate in everyday life and self-identification The second part Media of Intimacy focusses on the construction and coconstruction of intimacy trough media interactions: Helga Kotthoff and Joachim Hoeflich discuss the usage of phone communication by adolescents, while Alex Bergs, Eva L. Wyss, Clemens Schwendener and Christine Moeller-Sahling analyse (love) letter communication, Anett Holzheids’ studies the postcards usage at the beginning of 20th century. Mahmoud Al-Khatib explains emergent communicative genres in Arabic love songs that are broadcasted in television and radio formats. In the third part this volume presents essays on the question of the specifics of imaginary and fictional intimacy by Holger Schulze on changing patterns of story telling as traces of the imaginative persona and Claudia Lieb explaining fetishistic transactions in Thomas Mann’s oeuvre.

M EDIATIZED I NTIMACY

| 13

ABSTRACTS The following summary of abstracts represents a brief introduction to the reasoning of each paper. Illouz, Eva Of Rationality and Passions

Using Simmel’s notion of “cultural form”, this paper addresses the relationship between technology of representation, social institutions and romantic sentiments. The author suggests that the increasing reliance on literacy and on literate modes of selfexamination has fundamentally altered the phenomenology of love. In the same way that literacy gave rise to what historian Brian Stock has called an “ontology of the text”, the therapeutic way of managing emotions has given rise to an “ontology” of intimacy. The paper is based on an analysis of therapeutic self-help books and interviews with 30 middle-class American men and women. Lenz, Karl How Love Relationships begin. Communication Patterns in Change

Whether the discourse of love has changed is examined via results from a research project on the institutionalising processes inherent in the relationships of couples. Interviewed were couples who “found” each other in the 1950s, ’70s and ’90s, and reports on data derived therefrom is followed by an analysis of medial portrayal of partnership formation, especially in movies and novels. This combination of the couples’ subjectivity and the researchers’ scientific analysis reveals what changes occurred in the medial representation of love discourse among couples over the course of these three decades. Further, the article reveals how the couples themselves describe their verbal exchanges in the early stages of the relationships, and how declarations and confessions of love have become part of their personal histories. Maasen, Sabine/Duttweiler, Stefanie Intimacy in How-to Books: The Passion of Self-Change Work

The rise of therapeutics in modern society has led to the prolification of self-help texts in a variety of media, from Internet chat to telephone hotlines to how-to books. The how-to book offers particular challenges to its users, who engage in a solitary practice of diagnosis, goal-setting, and transformation, constructing an intimate setting in which self-analysis and -exchange leads to self-change. The article argues that the discourse of “therapeutic communication” and the notion of “counselling” in how-to books, whose history and rationale are also presented, thus forges a new intimacy based on a trusting and truthful relationship with one’s self. Further, the article examines how this relationship and its internal processes has now become a

14 | E VA L. W YSS

modern imperative, as well as a normative, socialized, and thus ultimately sociable, practice. Krotz, Friedrich Intimate Communication on the Internet: How Digital Media are Changing our Lives at the Microlevel

Intimate communication is a specific type of human interaction that takes place under specific circumstances and constraints – but these social circumstances and constraints are in flux. Given the rise of digital media, how then has intimate communication changed? Has Internet communication, in particular, altered our communicative reality and behaviour on a social microlevel? The article seeks to answer these questions and points out that the emergence of digital media has made possible several new forms of intimate “interactive” communication, including a form that is here termed as artificial communication. Since (viewed through the lens of Meyrowitz’s Medium Theory) communication is the underpinning of social and emotional relations, the article also suggests that new communicative forms have engendered new types of social and emotional relationships and behaviours, with long-term consequences for how human beings live in and understand the world around them. Weinberg, Manfred Let’s Let the Devil Out! How the Public Deals with the Private

The coming out of homosexuals plays a special role in contextualizing the dramatic changes in public and publicised treatment of the private realm. After reviewing issues surrounding this phenomenon (such as the emergence of a uniform subject – at least, from a sexual perspective), the article examines medial aspects of Klaus Wowereit’s confession of homosexuality – controversial less for the declaration itself than for his added comment, “And that’s the way it should be!” The emerging coordinates in this “case” for a public staging of what is intimate/private, and the reactions thereto, are addressed via concrete questions about what conditions surround both a coming out and public discourse about homosexuality. The latter are then examined and generalised based on a now fundamentally different status of the private realm within the public medial space, which – regardless of whether cause or effect – also indicates a new status of the private/intimate in everyday life and self-identification. Kotthoff, Helga Adolescent girls on the phone: The management of dating and social networking

In this article I will discuss how adolescent girls negotiate among themselves standards of romantic approaches, rejections, and falling in and out of love. I will focus

M EDIATIZED I NTIMACY

| 15

on the conversationally constructed dimension of feelings and show how girls orientate to each other in forming their relationships with boys. I basically analyse private telephone conversations between 14-16 year old girlfriends communicating about the ups and downs of first romantic matchmakings between boys and girls. I will also briefly comment on boys’ practices. Overall, they do not develop such an intense conversational culture of ongoing monitoring of romantic encounters, as the girls do. Relationships with boys do not compete with girls’ friendship, but rather provide them with an abundance of conversational topics. I also draw on stories told by boys and girls in focus groups about lovesickness. Methodically my study is situated in the field of interactional sociolinguistics. Höflich, Joachim R. The Mobile Phone: Bringing the Private into the Public

Although the divide between public and private is not necessarily dissolving, boundaries are nonetheless shifting, and mobile telephone usage is an example of boundary-shifting discourse. The article introduces results of a pilot study that explores differences in the perception of mobile phone private and public communication domains in several European countries. Collected data explore how social and cultural differences pertain to mobile communication: Private communication via mobile phone is bound by social/cultural communication practices. Not least, this also affects emotional exchanges between lovers via mobile phone – i.e., under the auspices of mediatisation. Finally, the study’s results transcend the context of mobile telephony and encompass aspects such as correspondence and its private nature, public conflict and argument, or perceived breach of rules and embarrassment. The ultimate goal, however, is to clarify aspects of relationship communication under the conditions of mediatisation. Bergs, Alexander T. Investigating Love Letters Across Time: Semiotic, Sociolinguistic and Cognitive Problems and Perspectives

The author poses linguistic questions about 19th-century handwritten love letters and current emails and SMS from the perspective of a linguistic research project at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf. Under examination are data collected and analogous problems, relevant bordering research domains (literary and media sciences, sociopsychology), as well as practical ramifications. In particular, the article explores the metaphor/symbolism continuum in love letters and text-typological findings for the subgenre “love letter.” The third part focuses on sociolinguistic components: Has the change from handwritten letters to email and SMS altered love letters in form and content? At the same time, the article asks if this change influences sociopsychological transformations in the perception and performance of

16 | E VA L. W YSS

communicative behaviour, then evaluates whether prototypical characteristics of love letters could function as a litmus paper for such change. Wyss, Eva L. From the Bridal Letter to Online Flirting: Changes in Text Type from th the 19 Century to the Internet Era

It is surprising that certain elements of the correspondence between prospective brides and grooms of the 19th-century bourgeoisie seem today to be enjoying a comeback on the Internet. Some of the parameters, however, have changed. This essay will explore the similarities and differences of intimate literacy from a historical and pragmatic point of view. On the one hand it will discuss the text type in its pragmatic, textual, stylistic and medial aspects, and on the other hand it will focus on a number of distinct writing practices. Schwender, Clemens Letters Between Home and the Front: Expressions of Love in World War II “Feldpost” Letters

The written word endures and suggests commitment; thus, it should suffice to merely once declare mutual love in a letter. However, love and faithfulness pledges have a short half-life, dictated by changed life circumstances and long separations as evidenced by World War II Feldpost, letters written to and from the field. Through Feldpost testimonials, the article explores how a “love relationship” becomes defined. Absence of mail can indicate death, injury, or imprisonment, but it can also be interpreted as the diminishment of affection. The daily wait for mail therefore becomes an integral part of the relationship, and fragility of communication during war harbours the relationship’s frailty. In war letters, love is thus always newly affirmed and demands being confirmed; the article reveals letter themes that reflect this instability and fragility. It also examines how an emancipation of women can be discerned in Feldpost and how that independence can shake foundations of love relationships, especially given a lack of control felt by both parties and the absence of a shared daily routine. Möller-Sahling, Christine-Folke “Aesthetic Brutality” and “Boundless Candour”: Mediation of Love in the Eighteenth-Century Letter

This article examines dialogism in letters between Sophie Mereau and Clemens Brentano, Caroline and Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Luise Mejer and Heinrich Christian Boie in order to consider the changing literary and aesthetic qualities of love letters around 1800. Gender-typological questions follow: How do correspondents approach the topic of love, and do these approaches concur with the conception

M EDIATIZED I NTIMACY

| 17

of love as described by Luhman? How are femininity and masculinity conceived in these letters? Does male dominance mark these exchanges, or do partners correspond equitably? To what point do paradigms of male-oriented literature supersede the demand for individuality in female-authored letters? How does the change in the perception of love influence epistolary culture and genesis of the love letter? The investigation shows that observable discursive strategies between correspondents bring new revelations about how love functions in the search for identity. Most important, new solutions to and variants of love discourse toward the end of the 18th century do not appear unexpectedly, but rather are rehearsed in the love letter. Holzheid, Anett Affectionate Titbits: Postcards as a Medium for Love around 1900

Since their introduction in the last third of the 19th century, postcards embody an alternative to the love letter. While the letter is a form of the private and selfcontained, the postcard is based on the principles of reduction and transparency. The article shows how postcards can be deemed the formal equivalent of linguistic phenomena of love discourse, such as diminutive formation, spontaneous neologisms, and breathless interjections; how they convey secret layers of meaning; and how forms of love texts are determined by media-specific parameters in interplay with the communicators’ social circumstances, needs, and authority. Also discussed are strategies of sending and formulating text, as well as bicodal application. Since messages are encoded both verbally and with imagery, and since prefabricated images and texts are available to postcard writers, the postcard text in toto dwells in the area of conflict between language and gesture, insinuation and expression, form-preserving stereotyping and form-breaking originality, as well as between anonymising disguise and expository representation of subjectivity. Al-Khatib, Mahmoud A. Love Songs in Arabic: Language, structure and function

This article examines love songs in Arabis, using the notion of an ethnography of speaking and the theory of interaction as developed by Hymes (1972), SavileeTroike (1989), and Scheff (1990), et al. In Arab society, people tend to use love songs to communicate, perhaps by exchanging songs on cassette or through song dedication. From data collected, song aspects such as language, structure, form, function, strategies, and style are examined via the dual analytical model of discourse and sociolinguistics. Also, the study attempts to highlight the effect of media (in this case, television programs) on love songs as a mode of communication. Data indicates strategies such as blaming, flattering, and especially suffering and complaining are used to communicate the message of love. The author argues that love songs can be regarded as social acts conveying affection, and that they can be understood only in the context of the situation for which they are composed and used.

18 | E VA L. W YSS

Schulze, Holger The Medial Persona. Tectonics of the Medial Imaginarium

How do we move and act in a public space? How does the tension-rich structure of this artificial medial space, this imaginarium, shape our actions and the persona we thus assume in order to represent ourselves? Given this persona, what is the function of an action that we judge as “intimate”? The article investigates these questions through the use of so-called “medial stories.” Medial stories, as collectively discovered artefacts of the medial imaginarium, constitute the sole tangible representation of the medial persona. Their topical, culturally and historically changing patterns of telling — constructed narratively and performatively — can be seen as a trace of the persona that makes visible the artificiality of public actions and appearances in light of a “theory of the genesis of works.” The article also turns selfreferentially to describing medial situations in the area of scholarship, as well as to medial stories about political life and ventures at the edge of medial art. Lieb, Claudia Window-Dressing: Fetishistic Transactions in Fictional Prose by Oskar Panizza and Thomas Mann

A study about the condition of love discourse from a literary and (literary-) theoretical point of view (Goethe’s Werther, Julia Kristeva’s Tales of Love, and Niklas Luhmann’s Love as Passion) concludes that love is a phenomenon that eludes tangible, material methods or practices. Instead, it drifts into the realm of the imaginary: The beloved partner must be virtualised, and this occurs with the help of visual media. Since the era of Romanticism, the medium of the window is a fixed component of love discourse; and beginning in about 1900, display windows also enter into the discourse. Thomas Mann’s novella Gladius Dei and Oskar Panizza’s short story The Operated Jew (Der Korsetten-Fritz) are, aside from being culturalscientific deliberations, the core examples through which we can examine the status of the public woman, and what attraction she holds for readers and observers.

R EFERENCES Anzieu, Didier 1989 The Skin-Ego. New Haven, London, Yale. (French orig. 1974: le moipeau. Le moi-peau. Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse, 9, 195-208.) Benthien, Claudia 2002 Skin. On the Cultural Border between Self and the World. New York: Columbia University Press.

M EDIATIZED I NTIMACY

| 19

Böhme, Hartmut 1998 Der Tastsinn im Gefüge der Sinne. In Anthropologie G. Gebauer (ed), 214-225. Leipzig Stuttgart: Reclam. Cameron, Deborah / Kulick, Don 2003 Language and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell-Kibler, Kathryn et al. (eds) 2001 Language and Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and Practice. Stanford, Stanford: University Press. Giddens, Anthony 1992 The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity. Illouz, Eva 1997 Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kerckhove, Derrick de 1993 Touch versus Vision: Ästhetik Neuer Technologien. In Die Aktualität des Ästhetischen. W. Welsch (ed), 137-169. München: W. Fink. Krotz, Friedrich 2008 „Media Connectivity: Concepts, Conditions, and Consequences.“ In Network, Connectivity and Flow: Key concepts for Media and Cultural Studies. A. Hepp, F. Krotz & S. Moores (Eds), New York: Hampton Press. McElhinny, Bonnie 1997 “Ideologies of Public and Private Language in Sociolinguistics.” In Gender and Discourse. Wodak, Ruth (ed.), 106-139. London, New Delhi. Sennett, Richard 1977 The Fall of Public Man. New York: Knopf. Simmel, Georg 1906 [resp. 1901-08]) Psychologie der Diskretion und das Geheimnis: Eine sozialpsychologische Skizze. In Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 8/ 3,4, 274-277. Simmel, Georg 1908 Aus einer Soziologie des Geheimnisses In Österreichische Rundschau, 15/ 5, 334-336. Streisand, Marianne 2001 Intimität. Begriffsgeschichte und Entdeckung der "Intimität" auf dem Theater um 1900. München: Fink.

Theoretical Reflections on New Intimacies

Of Rationality and Passions1 E VA I LLOUZ

The current philosophical and psychological literature on emotions seem to have converged in their common call to abrogate the dichotomy between rationality and emotions. Indeed, from the works of neuropsychologists such as D’Amasio, to Nussbaum’s endorsement of Aristotelian practical wisdom, it has become widely accepted that deliberation includes some form of emotionality, both on the descriptive and normative levels. In this paper, I would like to tilt the axis of the discussion on rationality and emotionality by asking not how rational decisions are informed by emotional considerations, but rather, following the thrust of Weberian sociology, how certain emotions become increasingly rationalized, i.e., made into objects of rational scrutiny and control. Whether Freud founded the new science of the psyche or a vast fraudulent enterprise experiment, it remains an undeniable fact that Freud and Freudian thought have exerted the most significant influence on the language of emotions available to modern men and women. When we consider the Freudian intellectual corpus not as a systematic body of thought, but rather as a vast set of loosely connected metaphors, explanatory models, and narratives about the self, the Freudian impact on culture has been, I think, without any precedent: countless Hollywood movies and contemporary novels are structured around some of Freud’s key ideas, such as the power of the unconscious, the debilitating effects of childhood trauma, the comical or tragic character of neurotic identities, and the freedom acquired by recovered memory. An even longer list of self-help books, women’s magazines, TV talk shows, self-help groups, and a wide panoply of workshops in well-being, are premised on ideas and metaphors which are, in fact, diluted versions and faded echoes of the Freudian outlook. The ideas which have been most successfully integrated in popular culture and the advice industry in particular are: the idea that the family is the prime site of the formation and de-formation of the self; that failed lives point to

1

We thank Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt a.M.) for the permission to print this paper.

24 | E VA I LLOUZ

damaged psyches; that essential and formative events can be repressed in the psyche; and finally, the idea that through enough introspection and verbalization of our predicaments, we may come to emancipate ourselves from the many forms of our self - and other-inflicted suffering. The Freudian world view used new cultural techniques to make sense of peoples private torments (e.g., free association, verbalization, emotional transfer, etc.) but it also used and recycled an old Socratic ideal of reason, whereby wisdom is attained through self-knowledge which in turn brings freedom. As Steven Marcus suggests, psychoanalysis may be regarded as a “culmination of the particular tradition of introspection which began with the adjuration of the oracle at Delphi to “Know thyself.” This rationally governed method of self-examination takes as its principal object of scrutiny everything within us that is not rational -our affects, our instinctual strivings, our fears, fancies, dreams and nightmares, our guilt, our endless reproachfulness, our sexual obsessions, our uncontrollable aggressions. It must be one of the greatest examples of the unintended effects of action and ideas, that Freud’s views (which after all gave precedence to the idea of the unconscious and to the idea that we are governed by irrational forces) ended up making an enormous contribution to the culture of self-help, that is, the culture through which men but especially women were instructed to change and to improve their inner and outer lives. What interests me in this paper is not Freudian thought proper, but rather the ways in which the simultaneous popularization and institutionalization of Freudian thought in American culture gave rise to what sociologist Philip Rieff has called the "rise of therapeutic man", which really should have been the rise of therapeutic woman, for women have been the main consumers and purveyors of the therapeutic language and world view. More precisely, I am interested in the fact that, in giving rise to a qualitatively new cultural type, the therapeutic outlook also institutionalized new forms of rationality of emotional conduct. For sociologists, particular forms of thought, language, and outlook can transform selfhood when they become institutionalized. The basic categories of thought of psychology became widely influential when they were mobilized and activated in a variety of social sites as the Corporation, the family, the school, and perhaps mostly the state. Indeed, from the beginning of the 20th century, psychologists of various persuasions progressively became the arbitrators of conflict as well as those in charge for providing motivation in the capitalist corporation, the army, the family, the school, the welfare state, legal courts, and even increasingly in the aftermath of international armed conflicts. From the 1920s, psychologists passed on their expertise and wisdom to American society at large through the channels of popular culture, the scope and influence of which were magnified by the fact that it was largely commodified. In other words, at an early stage, American psychologists simultaneously straddled the world of the

O F R ATIONALITY AND P ASSIONS

| 25

production of scientific knowledge, the army, the corporation, and the realm of popular culture through the mechanism of the market. I would like to focus on a particular moment in the history of the deployment of the therapeutic world view, during which a popular version of feminism and a translation of psychology in the realm of popular culture converged and transformed the language of emotions in the domestic sphere. In 1946, the National Mental Health Act was passed. Up until this point, the work of psychologists had been limited to the army, the corporation and to the care of intense mental disorders, but the 1946 Act, extended the scope of psychologists’ jurisdiction to include the mental health of ordinary citizens and marked a considerable advance in the power (and status) of psychologists as a professional group. The new self-appointed healers of the psyche claimed to promote harmony not only in the workplace but also in the family. Ordinary middle class people struggling with the ordinary problem of having a good life, were increasingly drawn into the purview of psychologists’ expertise; an expertise that was all the more needed now that the traditional family structure seemed increasingly to fall apart. By the 1960’s, psychology had become fully institutionalized and was a regular staple of American popular culture. The full institutionalization of psychology in American culture had a mirror image in the equally full institutionalization of feminism in the 1970s. Indeed, by the 1970s’, a wide network of feminist organizations was in place: “women’s clinics, credit unions, rape crisis centers, bookstores, newspapers, book publishers, and athletic leagues” existed. Feminism had become an institutionalized practice, whose strength only grew with the establishment of departments of women’s studies, which in turn commanded a large array of other institutional practices inside and outside the university. With the institutionalization of the two cultural discourses of feminism and psychology, their mutual reconciliation also started, a fact that is all the more surprising that the two persuasions had been hostile to each other. Initially, Freud had been enthusiastically endorsed by American reformers who had viewed sexuality as the battleground for the politics of emancipation. Feminists found Freud very appealing because he postulated and recognized the existence of sexual passion in women. Feminists were subsequently to have a much more complicated relationship with Freud, but second wave feminism drew heavily on some of the basic cultural schemes of psychoanalysis and psychology to help devise strategies for women’s struggles, and this occurred simultaneous to feminist disavowal of psychoanalysis and psychology. Ideas and practices that were central to therapy were, in fact, translated into feminist practices. As the century unfolded, feminism and psychology proved to be ultimate cultural allies because women came to be the chief consumers of therapeutic advice, thus making therapy increasingly share common schemas with feminism – , that is, basic categories of thought directly derived from the experience of women. On the other hand, because second wave feminism was so densely located in the family and in the realm of sexuality, and be-

26 | E VA I LLOUZ

cause it positioned its narrative of emancipation within these spheres, it had natural affinities with the therapeutic narrative. Inasmuch as schemas can be transferable and transposable from one domain of experience to another, or from one institutional sphere to another, feminism and psychology could borrow from each other: for example, both psychology and feminism solicited the very kind of reflexivity which had been an attribute of women’s consciousness. As art historian John Berger suggests, the woman is both “the surveyor and the surveyed” which are “two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.” Both feminism and therapy demanded that women be both surveyors and surveyed. Moreover, the therapeutic discourse, like feminism, constantly encouraged women to synthesize two contradictory sets of values, namely care and nurturance on the one hand, and autonomy and self-reliance on the other. Independence and nurturance were in fact the two central themes of feminism and therapy, and when properly synthesized would constitute emotional health and political emancipation. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, both feminism and therapy shared the idea and the practice of converting private experience into public speech, both in the sense that it was a speech with and for an audience, and in the sense that it was a speech to be committed to the discussion of norms and values which had a general, rather than particular character. An obvious example of this process of converting private speech into a public one is the consciousness-raising group, which was so important to grass-root second wave feminism. Consciousness-raising groups intertwined political and psychological ideas in more than one way: they invited women to reveal, publicly, their dark (familial) secrets and to put the family under a magnifying glass; they suggested that self-examination was freeing and that emotions which belonged to the private sphere needed to be made into public performances; finally, they also suggested that the private sphere could and should be the object of change and liberation. What therapy borrowed from feminism was a heavy reliance on the language of rights: Men and women were deemed to have basic emotional “needs”, akin to other categories of needs. If that was the case, it was quite easy to shift to the idea quickly promoted by feminists, that certain forms of emotional and sexual fulfillment were in fact a right, loosely defined. From the 1970s’ onward, therapeutic discourse gradually became associated with a liberal feminist lexicon of “rights” that dramatically departed from nineteenth-century “sentimental” female culture in that it mixed the language of emotions with the language of rights. The legal scholar, Ann-Mary Glendon, suggests this clearly in saying that: “Converging with the language of psychotherapy, rights talk encourages our all-too human tendency to place the self at the center of our moral universe[...].”

O F R ATIONALITY AND P ASSIONS

| 27

R ATIONALIZATION The encounter between the political outlook of feminism and the rules of psychological discourse contributed to rationalizing the emotional bonds of men and women trying to experience heterosexual intimacy. Let me now try and define rationalization, which is a central concept in sociology. Max Weber has suggested that something, which is completely illogical, can be rational. This is because rationality pertains to a way of thinking, to a specific form of mental processes. More precisely, it involves a conscious rule-bound comparison and choice among alternative means to a given end. That is, rational action is consciously regulated, not random, habitual or impulsive, while the content as such of the rule it uses is irrelevant. Rather, what makes it rational is the fact that it is “methodical,” has a general character, is systematic, and in Weber’s words, “controlled by the intellect.” Being rational involves the capacity mentally to expand the different course of actions we want to take and applying ourselves to it methodically. The therapeutic outlook as it has been conveyed through the channels of popular culture has promoted, and even aggressively promoted, such a form of rationality within the bounds of intimate life. I think this goes against what we conventionally think both of popular culture and of the image of the domestic sphere in popular culture. Allow me to explain this with several illustrations which are taken from a study of women’s magazines and self-help books over a period of 40 years. Let me start with an example: “Any time you feel a sense of separation or distance from your partner,” instructs a psychologist writing for the popular magazine Redbook in 1971, “go into another room and write down your feelings, beginning with your anger. Blame your partner for every sin you think he or she has committed – don’t edit yourself. Soon you will notice signs of hurt and no sadness coming through. Continue writing, this time about things you’re afraid of or sorry for. Finally, express your love for your partner, your understanding and forgiveness. You’ll be surprised at how much positive emotion comes out – because you’ve already released the negative part. Then show the entire letter to your partner.” In this vignette, the psychologist tries to provide his readers with cultural techniques and mental tools to objectify emotions, that is to turn them into objects external to the self through the medium of literacy. Literacy is used here as a means of externalizing one’s emotions and in the process, of taking control of them and transforming them in order, in fact, to facilitate transactions. For example, we are told that a questionnaire which was published by Redbook magazine asking women to evaluate their sexual and emotional lives, was later adopted by two established therapists in their practices. These psychologists write: “We are now using the Redbook questionnaire in our therapy sessions to help couples begin to communicate better with each other. After answering separately, they compare responses and discuss their feelings. Once cou-

28 | E VA I LLOUZ

ple told us that they were able to begin to deal with some emotional and even painful subjects because the questionnaire helped them get beyond their embarrassment; once they were relaxed, filling out the answers – even those that touched on difficult problems – began to seem like fun.” These “exercises” constitute attempts at organizing and transforming emotional life by “locking” emotions into textuality. The intertwining of textuality with emotional experience is one of the main characteristics of psychological advice in popular culture. Quoting the medieval scholar Brian Stock, we may say that textuality has increasingly become an important adjunct of emotional experience. “Writing down” an emotion lifts it from the time dimension and “locks” that emotion in space, in the sense that it creates a distance between the immediate experience of the emotion(s) and the person’s awareness of that emotion. Such an objectification is attained by naming the emotion, and by ”locking it into the written medium”. If literacy is the inscription of spoken language into a medium that enables us/the writer to decontextualize it from the act of speaking, which occurs in time, similarly these exercises invite a decontextualization of emotions in the sense that they invite men and women to reflect on and discuss emotions even after they are disconnected from their original context. The reflexive act of giving names to emotions in order to manage them gives them an ontology which fixates their volatile, transient, and context-based nature. Indeed, once written down, named, and appropriated as a word name, an emotion acquires a closure which it does not have, or has to a lesser extent than when left as an implicit element of the context in which it arises. Through such literate exercises, emotions acquire an ontological status, independent of the stream of experience in which they arose. According to the anthropologist Jack Goody, literacy decontextualizes speech and thought, and detaches rules that produce speech from the very act of speaking. I would argue something similar is happening here. When locked into literacy, emotions become objects to be observed and manipulated. Emotional literacy makes one extract oneself from the unreflexive flow of experience and transform emotional experience into words. Once emotions are made into cognitive objects, external to the self, they are open to further cognitive manipulation. Weber distinguished between three forms of rationalization, which he called cognitive, instrumental, and value rationalization: Cognitive rationalization is characterized by an attempt to comprehend reality through "increasingly precise and abstract concepts." Let me provide an example: “In situations such as these [where a fight is starting], you are aware of the halfformed thoughts that flit through your mind. But most of us have not trained ourselves to deliberately bring them to our awareness in a manner that permits us to weigh everything and rationally control the outcome.” What is promoted here is quite simply what Weber called a cognitive rationalization, in this case, applied to emotions. In a nutshell, women are asked to observe their emotions, identify pat-

O F R ATIONALITY AND P ASSIONS

| 29

terns of behavior, uncover the hidden causes for their behavior, usually located in early childhood relationships, and to use knowledge to control their relationships. This is accompanied by another type of rational attitude: one we may characterize as value rationalization, i.e., a process of clarification of one’s values and beliefs, dubbed “value-rationality” by Weber, or Weltrationalitaet, a rationality in which ends have to conform to pre-established values. For example: “fighting per se is not the issue. What matters is the degree to which we are able to take a clear position in a relationship and behave in ways that are congruent with our stated beliefs.” The quizzes that are often provided in advice literature are a means of promoting a value-rationality applied to the domain of interpersonal relationships. What do you want? What is your personality? Are you jealous? Are you faithful? The quiz is culturally significant, not because it provides the answer to these questions, but rather because it codifies and encourages value-rationality in the domain of emotions. The cultural meaning of the quiz is that we ought to spell out our values, and preferences and develop the tools to apply these values to our relationships. For example, in a Redbook article discussing a recent book by Dr. Bessell, a questionnaire developed by the aforementioned Dr. Bessell is offered “to evaluate how compatible people are, how romantic their marriage is. The Romantic Attraction Questionaire, or RAQ, which he uses to predict how well a couple are suited is composed of 60 statements [...]. The ‘ideal’ RAQ score is between 220 and 300 points, indicating a high enough level of romantic attraction to sustain a relationship.” This example suggests that a formal kind of literacy (combining value statement and a numerical index attached to these value statements) can in turn serve as a standard to evaluate, rationally, one’s relationship. Adjacent to Wertrationality, we find a third type of rationality that structures the discourse on emotions: practical or instrumental rationality, which, according to Weber, is characterized by the ability to strategically pursue pre-set goals by securing the means to do so. For example: “[...] you may be convinced that there will be some magic moment in your future when you’ll meet and marry your ideal prince, all by chance. You may believe that the only requirement on your part is patience [...] with this philosophy all you can look forward is a pet cat for companionship. Wake up [...] Love is too important to be left to happenstance. Don’t expect magic. You are too mature to believe in Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. If you want anything else in life, you know you need to work for it, not wait for Santa Claus. The same is true when seeking a husband. The key is to know where and how to look.” Fairy tales, in this case, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella or Santa Claus, are counterposed to purposive rational action, namely using adequate means to reach the desired end. Clearly then emotions are to be disciplined so as to attain goals predefined by a rational actor, knowledgeable about her preferences. Finally, Weber viewed rationalization as characterized by a deeper refinement of techniques of calculation. For example, one of the most common clichés of

30 | E VA I LLOUZ

popular culture is that relationships ought to be balanced: “How do couples fall into such destructive patterns of behavior? Plotting intimacy levels on a scale of zero to ten”, Dr. Pope outlines the process by which a couple polarize. “At one end of the scale, say ten, there’s mutuality, connection, proximity. At the other there’s separateness, individuality, differentiation. A good balance is somewhere around five. Let’s say that when a couple marry, she is a Six, leaning a little more toward closeness, and he is a Four, edging toward distance. That’s a manageable difference….[But they may move toward] a Nine by becoming more clingy and demanding […]. If this continues over a long period of time, she reaches Ten and he reaches Zero.” Numerical metaphors are used to characterize personalities and relationships, thus “balancing” relationships or emotions becomes a simple “mean” in a numerical scale. Here emotions and relationships are converted into quantifiable categories, which can be averaged out. Psychological evaluations of this kind use a specifically modern cultural cognition called by sociologists Wendy Espeland and Mitchell Stevens "commensuration.” As they define it, “[C]ommensuration involves using numbers to create relations between things. Commensuration transforms qualitative distinctions into quantitative distinctions, where difference is precisely expressed as magnitude according to some shared metric.” Under the aegis of psychology and feminism, intimate relationships have increasingly become things to be evaluated and quantified according to some metric (which, by the way, varies with a wide gamut of psychologists and psychological schools available.) Let me use an example which summarizes everything discussed above. A husband and wife have been at odds with each other because he wants his wife to dress in a particular pink negligee, a fact he has not informed her of. The article, written by a psychologist, vehemently urges him (and the article’s readers) to secure his/our goals concerning others by using elaborate literate strategies which will help process and transform his wife’s/their feelings, make them more manageable and ultimately more rational. “But how can Sheila satisfy Frankie’s desires if he won’t tell her what they are? You and your partner must also be able to tell each other exactly how you want to be loved. The following exercise will help you do that. 1.

On a sheet of paper, complete each of the following sentences in as many different ways you can. Make your responses specific, concrete and positive. List those things your partner is currently doing that make you feel cared about and loved. “I feel cared about and loved when you….” Think back to when you and your partner were first dating. What did “your partner say or do then that he doesn’t say or do now?” “I feel cared about and loved when you…” Now think of all those things you’ve always wanted your partner but were afraid to ask for. “I would feel cared about and loved if you would…”

O F R ATIONALITY AND P ASSIONS

| 31

2.

Review your responses and rank them by number in order of their importance to you.

3.

Read your responses to your partner. Put an X next to those your partner feels he cannot

4.

Listen as your partner reads this list to you and indicate which of your partner’s needs

do for you just now. you cannot meet just now. 5.

Exchange lists. Select three desires from your partner’s list that you can agree to satisfy over the next three days.

Keep a list of your partner’s list and agree to satisfy three new desires each week. Work toward being able to give your partner some of the things you originally felt reluctant to provide. The more difficult the request, the better you will feel once you have met it. Many couples report in fact, that the partner-desires they thought were the most difficult to satisfy eventually become the things they most like to do for each other.“2

These various forms of rationality that contribute towards making emotions spatial, apprehensible, and cognitive are contained in one overarching form of rationality, which I call communicative rationality. A communicative rationality spells out the procedures through which one can reach agreement with another party. The control of emotions, the clarification of one’s values and goals, the objectification and numerization of emotions all have one purpose: to help the self achieve a relationship in which self and other have equal status and are engaged in communication about their respective needs and desires. Sexual incompatibility, anger, money disputes, an unequal distribution of domestic chores, personal incompatibility, secret emotions, childhood events: all of these ought to be communicated. For example, in an article on marriages that are wrecked by money problems, the advice given by two different marriage therapists is: “The best way to solve some of these problems, as trite as it may sound, is to sit down and talk things over.” In 1976, in an article written by two feminists (the first being a psychologist) Carol Tavris and Toby Epstein Jayaratne respectively, the essence of happy marriage was defined as follows: “The most happily married wives are those who say that both they and their husbands tell each other when they are displeased and thus try to work out their displeasure together by communicating in a calm and rational way.” The model of communication stipulated that a good marriage was one in which men and women could verbalize and talk about their respective needs and disagreements. Sex has also known a similar fate: “The way in which a couple talk about how often they make love, it seems, is the important issue. We speak of this as negotiation.”

2

From Dr. Bessell’s Romantic Attraction Questionnaire, cf. Illouz, Eva: Cold Intimacies. The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Cambridge. 2007 p.31

32 | E VA I LLOUZ

The ethos of communication demands that we are familiar with our interests and needs. Managing a relationship smoothly is not a sufficient condition for one to communicate well. A “nice” person who is oblivious to preserving her own interests would not conform to the idea of communication. It also suggests that when expressing ourselves, we always incorporate the point of view of another. For example, the author of a book on marriage suggests that “an essential first step toward improving your perception skills and your skills as a communicator is to recognize that people have differing perceptions [from yours. E.I.].” Thus a kind of neutral point of view on the self and the ability to entertain a multiplicity of views on oneself is required. To quote another example: “To break through the impasse, Dr. Walsh used an effective technique: She asked each partner to argue the other’s point of view. [...] Marriage counselors try to transform power struggles into healthier patterns of mutual negotiation and accommodation.” Finally, communication always presupposes that the expression of emotions should be replaced by their properly managed linguistic content; for example, saying neutrally “I am upset at you doing this….” can and should replace the “bodily” and direct “emotional” expression of anger. The ethos of communication tries to instill a dispassionate, calm, and rational approach to emotions through such key metaphors as “negotiation” via language. In the face of what the therapeutic persuasion deems to be the intractable differences of biographies and personalities, the therapeutic persuasion suggests that a neutral ground of objective meaning can be reached. This neutral ground is both emotional and linguistic. “The Shared Meaning technique [a technique employed to improve intimate relationships] enables you to share the meaning of what you heard and check out if what you heard is what your partner meant. Often it is not.” If we have been told since post-structuralism that meanings are unintended, undecidable, and polysemic, by contrast, therapeutic literature marshals that ambiguity is the arch enemy of intimacy and that we ought to purge everyday language of unclear and ambivalent statements. Self-help literature offers numerous “exercises” which are aimed precisely at making explicit the hidden assumptions and expectations of married people, at making them aware of their speech patterns in order to understand how in turn, these cause misunderstandings and alienation. In short, these techniques aim to make the language exchanged into more formal and neutral. For example, “This technique [called Vesuvius by the author] helps you to identify when your anger is approaching volcanic proportions, and to ritualize it so that the focus is on getting your anger out of your system. Your partner’s role is simply to witness respectfully the expression of your anger as if it were an overwhelming natural phenomenon in which he or she is not a participant [...] If you want to let off the steam, say something like, “I’m really about to explode. Can you listen to me for two minutes?” Any length of time your partner will agree to is okay,

O F R ATIONALITY AND P ASSIONS

| 33

but two minutes can feel like a surprisingly long time to both the giver and receiver. If your partner says yes, all he or she does is listen with awe, as if watching a volcano explode – and let you know when your time is up.”3

Here again, we may observe the same technique, which instructs people to transform their emotions into external objects, to be watched from the outside, so-tospeak. The ethos of communication prohibits the raw and unrestrained expression of any emotion, but more especially, attempts to instill neutral patterns of speech and of reaction to speech. This is why the linguistic exercises to achieve effective communication aim at finding a neutral ground. Achilles comparing his anger to sweet honey or a Puritan carefully repressing his anger are equally foreign to the moral world of a self-help culture because what the contemporary self-help culture teaches is a measured, controlled expression of emotion based on self-knowledge in which one does not sacrifice one’s self interest, and yet does not infringe on another’s right. Asking permission to be angry is silly if we think of emotions as irrational forces, which express, as Romantics may say, the deepest part of ourselves. But if we think of emotionsas a part of our transactions with others, as I think these books do, then asking permission to express anger becomes intelligible: it is a right that one has, yet simultaneously, it is also a right that must be granted by another. This linguistic flight from ambiguity must serve the goal of resolving problems between two partners who are fundamentally equal: “Alienation in marriage – the same advice book says – is often caused by misunderstandings and mistaken assumptions.” And the author continues: “Fair Fight [...] is designed to replace pleading, ignoring, blaming and threatening. [It] is a structure for isolating and resolving problems [...] The value of the Fair Fight is that it forces both partners in a relationship to talk through the specifics of any given issue, decide clearly what they want and enunciate it just as clearly to the other partner. Then they search for a mutually agreeable solution.”4

In order to ensure that the cultural specificity of such views is clear, allow me to provide two examples. First, I would like to compare it briefly with a letter by Julie de Lespinasse, an 18th-century French woman of “letters” writing to the Comte de Guibert, her lover:

3

Gordon, Lori H.: Passage to Intimacy. Uniquely Effective Concepts and Skills from the dynamic Internationally acclaimed PAIRS Program. 1993, revised 2000, p.114

4

Ibid., p.120

34 | E VA I LLOUZ “I love too well to impose a restraint upon myself; I prefer to have to ask your pardon rather than commit no faults. I have no self-love with you; I detest prudence, I even hate those “duties of friendship” which substitute propriety for interest, and circumspection for feeling. How shall I say it? I love abandonment to impulse, I act from impulse only, and I love to madness that others do the same by me.”5

What Julie de Lespinasse in essence expresses is a rejection of any rule governing intimate relationships; it is an ethic of abandon, in which amorous fusion is reached through impulse. My second example is: “[…][H]e had long since discovered that May’s only use of the liberty she supposed herself to possess would be to lay it on the altar of her wifely adoration […].[W]ith a conception of marriage so uncomplicated and incurious as hers such a crisis could be brought about only by something visibly outrageous in his own conduct; and the fineness of her feeling for him made that unthinkable. Whatever happened, he knew, she would always be loyal, gallant and unresentful; and that pledged him to the practice of the same virtues.”

In this example, wifely adoration and devotion prevents the possibility of crisis, as it defuses calculations and the logic of exchange. In giving these two examples, I am not, it should be clear, trying to celebrate Victorian self-sacrifice. I do not think there is any moral or political way to go back there. These examples simply help me illustrate how rationalized our romantic bonds have become.

I N C ONCLUSION I would like to raise one or two questions pertaining to what I have found. I will discuss this by referring to Arditi’s discussion of Simmel’s theory of work. According to Arditi, Simmel formulated a theory of alienation according to which the gradual impoverishment of personal life is a consequence of the growing separation between objective and subjective culture, between our experience and the world of objects and ideas produced outside of us. As explained by Arditi, for Simmel, when we create a complex objective culture, we lose the unity needed for them to be meaningful. That is, for Simmel an object is existentially meaningful when subject and objects are congruent. In this respect, he suggests that to love means to apprehend the other directly and entirely. It means that no social or cultural object lies between the lover and the beloved that is, that no element of the intel-

5

From Letters of Julie de Lespinasse, Katherine P. Wormley, trans. (Boston: Hardy, Pratt and Co., 1903) cf. Illouz, Eva: Why love hurts. Cambridge. 2012, p.166.

O F R ATIONALITY AND P ASSIONS

| 35

lect plays any part in the experience of loving. These are well-known romantic ideas but I don’t think they should be dismissed just because they are romantic. What Simmel calls the non-rational is what makes possible the sensibly direct, the bodily, the unmediated attribution of meaning to an object. When we love someone, we attach to that person a meaning that derives from experiencing him or her as a whole. Then, and only then do we capture the existential essence of that other in a manner bereft of any intervening factor. Intellectual experience – what Weber viewed as the essence of rationality – thus necessarily introduces a distance between oneself and the object. For Simmel, the thrust toward rationalization that characterizes modern societies has brought about a significant increase in the distance between subjects and objects. And here Arditi offers a very interesting idea, namely that social distance does not derive from the absence of common traits, but from the abstract nature of these traits. Remoteness, that is, does not set in because people have nothing in common, but because of the things they have in common are, or have become, too common. To put this slightly differently, I would suggest that remoteness derives from the fact that people now share a common and highly standardized language. Likewise, closeness results from the specificity and exclusivity of similarities shared between two entities. In this sense, nearness implies the sharing of what we could call existentially generated meanings. It is, in other words, the fact that to an increasing degree, we have cultural techniques to standardize intimate relationships, to talk about them and manage them in a generalized way which weakens our capacity for nearness, the congruence between subjects and object, the possibility of fusion noted in Julie de Lespinasse’s or May’s case. When the relationship becomes increasingly generalized, and, in terms of the mental processes at work, increasingly intellectualized, love loses its unmediated character and both the emotion and the object of love come to be interpreted in terms that are alien to the inner experience of the self.

R EFERENCES Arditi, Jorge (1996) “Simmel’s theory of alienation and the decline of the nonrational”. Sociogical Theory 14(2): 93-108. Benhabib, Seyla (1986) Critique, Norm, and Utopia: A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press. Bormaster, Jeffrey S. and Carol Lou Treat (1994) Building Interpersonal Relationships through Talking, Listening, Communicating. Austin, Tex.: Pro-Ed. Brooks, Terri and Judith Glassman,“3 Ways to a Better (Trouble-Proof) Marriage”. Redbook. Espeland, Wendy Nelson (2002) “Commensuration and Cognition” in Culture in Mind Karen Cerulo (ed), 63-88. New York: Routledge.

36 | E VA I LLOUZ

Gerd, Abigail (1985) “When money comes between couples”, Redbook, January, 82. Goody, Jack and Watt, Ian (1968) “The Consequences of Literacy” in Literacy in Traditional Societies, edited by J. Goody, 27-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gordon, Lori H. and Jon Frandsen (1993) Passage to intimacy. New York: Simon & Schuster. Hendrix, Harville (1985) “Work at your Marriage: a Workbook,” Redbook, October, 130. Herman, Ellen (1995) The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Illouz, Eva (2007) Cold Intimacies. The Making of Emotional Captialism, Cambridge. Illouz,Eva (2012) Why love hurts, Cambridge. Lerner, Harriet (2001) The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to the Changing Patterns of Intimate Relations. New York: HarperCollines. Sarrel, Philipp and Lorna Sarrel (1980) “The Redbook Report on Sexual Relationships” Redbook, October. Schulman, Bruce (2001) The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politics, New York, NY: Free Press. Stock. Brian (1990) Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past, Baltimore, MR, and London: Johns Hopkins. Tierney, Brian and Joan W. Scott (2000) Western Societies: A Documentary History. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Travis, C. and Toby Epstein Jayaratne (1976) “How Happy is your Marriage?”, Redbook, June, 90-134. Wharton, Edith (2010) The Age of Innocence. New York, NY: Fine Creative Media.

How Love Relationships begin Communication Patterns in Change K ARL L ENZ

It’s Saturday evening, at the end of the day in a glassworks. Christa, the new office worker, is setting off for home on foot; Mecky, who works in the production unit, follows her on his bike. Just a little earlier, he saw Christa for the first time when she had to bring some documents from the office to the foreman. Mecky takes up a bet with some workmates that he will succeed in seducing the “new girl” that weekend. Mecky is catching up with Christa and starts to speak to her1: Original

Translation

Mecky: ((ruft)): hey Christa; (1.25) tach;

Mecky: ((shouts)): hey Christa; hi;

wie geht’s denn? (1.0) kennen sie mich

how’s it going? do you not remember who

denn nicht mehr? ich bin doch der freund

I am? it’s me, your brother’s friend ; Uli’s

von ihrem bruder; (--) vom Uli;

friend;

Christa: ja? (1.0)

Christa: oh yes?

Mecky: ach, nun tun sie doch nicht so. (-)

Mecky: oh, come on. we were both in

wir waren doch zusammen bei Woit, beim

Woit’s office, the inspection engineer.

kontrollingenieur. ((leichtes Lachen (3.0)))

((slight laughter)) what are your plans for

1

The transcripts have been written using the conventions of the Transcription System for Conversational Analysis (Gesprächsanalytisches Transkriptionssystem, GAT) (cf. Selting et al. 1998). Transcripts always consist of lower case letters. Upper case letters are used to indicate accentuation. Pauses are transcribed by means of brackets. The length of longer pauses (one second or more) is annotated in brackets, shorter pauses are indicated by dots, hyphens etc. Paralinguistic and extralinguistic acts and events are annotated within double brackets. The intonation of linguistic units is indicated by means of punctuation marks: (? = voice going up high), (, = voice going up medium-high), (- = voice remaining at the same pitch), (; = voice going down medium-low), (. = voice going down low).

38 | K ARL LENZ was haben sen heut noch vor, hm? soll ich

today anyway, huh shall I drive you

se nach haus fahren? komm se. (e)s geht

home? come here. ’t works great; or d’you

prima; (-) oder woll’n se n kissen?

want a cushion?

Christa: nein danke. (-) ich fahr mit’m

Christa: no thank you. gonna take the bus;

bus; Mecky: ach; nu sein se doch nich kO-

Mecky: oh no; don’t you be sIlly. if I offer

misch. wenn ich ihnen anbiete, dass ich sie

to take you home, you’re welcome to ac-

nach hause fahre, dann können ses ruhig

cept.

annehmen. (2.75) Christa geht weiter, Mecky gibt aber nicht

Christa moves on; but Mecky doesn’t give

auf und folgt ihr. Christa versucht seinen

up and follows her. Christa tries to ignore

plumpen Annäherungsversuchen zu igno-

his very obvious advances and remains si-

rieren und schweigt im Weiteren fast

lent almost througout the following. It is

durchgehend. Erst am Ende der Szene

not until the end of the scene that she re-

weist sie ihn mit deutlichen Worten zu-

jects him using clear words.

rück.

Christa: I’ve just about had enough of

Christa: jetzt habe ich aber bald genug von

you.

ihnen. Mecky: ((pfeift))

Mecky: ((whistles))

Christa: übrigens heut nachmittag haben

Christa: if you must know, this afternoon

wir besuch. und heut abend gehe ich mit

we have visitors. and this evening I’m go-

meiner mutter in die oper. und morgen bin

ing to the opera with my mother. and to-

ich zum geburtstag eingeladen. damit sie

morrow I’ve been invited to a birthday

bescheid wissen. (-) und überHAUpt will

party. just so you know. and anyway I

ich mit ihnen nichts zu tun haben. und

want nothing to do with you. and if you

wenn sie das noch nicht gemerkt haben,

still haven’t worked that out, then I feel

dann tun sie mir leid.

sorry for you.

Mecky: ((lacht)) (9.5)

Mecky: ((laughs))

Auszug aus: “Endstation Liebe” (1957)

This scene is taken from the film “Endstation Liebe”, which was shown in German cinemas in 1957. Let us do a time warp to the present time: Would this plot also be feasible in a contemporary filmfilm? How would Christa have reacted to Mecky’s pick-up on the street if the two had met about forty years later? It’s possible that her response would have been similar to Jane’s, the daughter in the film “American Beauty“ (1999), who, on becoming aware of that fact that her new neighbour was filming her arrival home, simply retorted, “asshole” to him?

H OW L OVE RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN

| 39

For the time being, I will offer no answer; this example was only meant to serve as an introduction to the topic at hand. The following text concerns the communication of love and tendencies of change in the genre during the second half of the 20th century. I will deal with this topic primarily by using films from the 1950s and 1990s as empirical material. In the first part, I will define the term love communication and present my empirical material. In the second part, I will outline the accepted manner in which couples would get together in the 50s in order to use the two following parts to look more closely at forms of love communication and tendencies of change in such communication with regard to some chosen aspects.

1

T HE

TERM LOVE COMMUNICATION AND THE EMPIRICAL MATERIAL USED

By the term love communication, I understand verbal and non-verbal exchanges between two persons in face-to-face interaction, where this exchange is embedded in the building phase of a pair relationship. I will concentrate on heterosexual couples as this pattern of couple forming still predominates, and thus it is also primarily heterosexual couples who appear in films. For the analysis of love communication I chose the framework of pick-up situations. This term coined by Murray Davis (1973) refers to the first encounter of two persons who have hitherto been strangers. The research material and analyses supporting the following discussion are taken from our research project “Institutionalisierungsprozesse in Zweierbeziehungen“ (“Processes of Institutionalization in Pair Relationships”) (for more details, cf. Lenz 2003b) which has been underway since the beginning of 2000. The term pair relationship is used to make clear (cf. Lenz 2003a) the fact that not only marriages and their achievement are inferred, but all types of intimate relationship sustained over a longer period. This project is about a (micro-)sociological analysis of pair relationships. Instead of the individual-centered approach, which is common in psychology and therapy for couples, the central aspect of this study consists of reality construction in a pair relationship. Even though each pair relationship is considered unique by the subjects involved, recurring process patterns and regularities can be detected. These are created by the couples using patterns of action and interpretation given by their respective culture. In recent years, our interest has mainly been focused on the building phase of pair relationships in the 50s, 70s, and 90s. Contrary to the convention especially wide-spread in Germany of working empirically in (both quantitative and qualitative) social science studies with questionnaires, we assume that interviews alone are not sufficient in order to explore the building phase of pair relationships. Interviews come up against limiting factors because communicative strategies, action patterns,

40 | K ARL LENZ

and relational norms are present in the practical, rather than in the discursive consciousness of the persons acting within everyday life (cf. Giddens 1984). In other words, the persons acting have a repertoire necessary for the initiation of pair relationships at their disposal for everyday use, but they are unable to put their communicative strategies, their interpretations etc. into discursive expression. Thus for analysis, materials must be brought into play which make it possible for us to discover interactive processes of couple forming occurring in a habitualized and prereflective way. For this reason, we do not only use qualitative interviews with couples as empirical material but also advisory books about marriage and relationships, novels, and films. Unlike other materials, films open up access to a visual dimension. Films combine visual aspects with verbal ones. With that, the behaviour of expression of the persons involved, i.e. the facial engagement, their gestures, their postures etc., becomes available for analysis. The process of two people getting to know each other is a popular film subject. Films show the interaction processes of couple-forming step by step in the form of actions and action sequences following each other, and thus make clear the construction of a relationship by means of sequentially comprehensible, polythetically structured acts of sense-making and interpretation. This is also true when the action of the film is presented in retrospect by a narrator, as is the case with the film “American Beauty” mentioned above, which is narrated from the point of view of Lester Burnham, who has already been shot. Even in these cases, the illusion is conveyed to the spectator as if the latter were present during the crucial moments of action. This is very unlike an interview, in which coupleforming is not only reduced to verbal material, but can also only be presented by retrospective access to a process which is already in the past. Nevertheless, we must not forget that films are fiction. They are not true mappings of reality; they are not personal experiences or reflections, but in films, actors and actresses perform on the basis of a script and directorial judgement. Films do not show processes in their completeness. Films may start at almost any point of a process and even leave out events arbitrarily. The only restriction is that the plot must be comprehensible. Furthermore, it is a special property of films that the time available is rather short. Within 90 minutes or a little more, all of the story has to be told. This fact forces film-makers to condense events and dialogues to a great extent. Interactions, which may take hours in everyday life, are reduced to minutes and seconds in a film. Dialogues, which have such remarkable features as completeness, word scraps, numerous redundancies and trivialities in everyday life, undergo dramaturgical intensification in a film. Despite these differences and the structural restrictions of cinematic presentation, films cannot manage without reverting to everyday life in diverse ways. The stories narrated have not happened in the way in which they are presented, but they have to be arranged in such a way that the sequence of events is plausible. The pro-

H OW L OVE RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN

| 41

tagonists of a film do not manage without a repertoire of everyday behaviour. A kiss in a film takes on a behaviour which used to be common practice between couples a long time before the first film; in a film, this practice is commonly staged as a close-up. It is not the kiss, which is new, but the fact that the observer is so close to the persons kissing. Film action copies everyday action, which is condensed for theatricalized production. The film presentation of action constantly falls back upon a repertoire of behaviour present in the practical consciousness of the actors/actresses who are also acting persons in everyday life. The art of acting in a film does not consist of inventing new kinds of action, but only in presenting action convincingly.2 This falling back on a repertoire of behaviour available in everyday life is also necessary in order to guarantee that the spectator will understand the action. Since films are embedded in everyday life in that way, it is possible to use them as documents of social reality. (For more details cf. Lenz 2003d.)

2

C OUPLE - FORMING

IN THE

1950 S

When considering the processes of change since the 50s, first of all it has to be pointed out that this decade does not represent an entirely new starting point also in couple-forming. The 50s do not represent a new beginning, but only an intermediate stage of a longer-term process of change. A basis is constituted in the bourgeois model of marriage and family, which arose within the bourgeois social milieu in the 18th century and whose central element was a typical mating pattern. Although this bourgeois mating pattern arose almost at the same time as the Romantic ideal of love, the new ideal of love only very carefully found its way into this mating pattern (cf. Lenz 2003a). Central elements of this bourgeois mating pattern can be identified as the following: •

• •

2

The right of the male to take the initiative as part of the progressive individualization of partner choice, which above all signified restraining parental influence. A short, asexual courting phase. The formal proposal of marriage as a ritual act of couple forming whereby the males asked the father of the bride for his daughter’s hand.

Alexander Payne, director of the film “About Schmidt” (USA 2003), said in an interview (Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich, Germany), 2003-02-26; re-translation from German to English): “To me the magic of cinema just consists in its mere existence: that it is possible to take a close-up of a person getting up from a chair and to combine it with a different close-up. You take parts of reality and arrange them in a new way.”

42 | K ARL LENZ

•

Instead of romantic love, the supported ideal was that of love of convenience, in which emotional bonds between prospective spouses were seen as desirable and necessary, yet gave way to the dominance of social criteria.

It was taken for granted that marriage and striving to have a family was almost the only way for the next bourgeois generation to become independent. Despite the advanced cultural hegemony of the bourgeois mating pattern, clear signs of relationships breaking up already appeared in the 50s. Two forces in particular caused these tendencies: • Romantic love finding its way into the mating pattern: In the advisory books about marriage and relationships from the 50s, social status as a criterion for choosing a partner had already been largely replaced by the personal qualities of the partner (cf. Lenz 2003c). As our analyses of advisory books about marriage and relationships of that time show, only marriage for love was recognized as the only true kind of relationship. If the primary orientation to individuality – following Georg Simmel (1985) – is understood as the core of romantic love then, in the course of the 20th century, a progressive approach towards this ideal of relationships can be noticed (cf. Lenz 2003a for more details). • Progressive individualization in couple-forming: The progressive individualization is expressed by the complete elimination of parental permission. After the legal duty to get the parents’ agreement had already ceased to apply towards the end of the 19th century, the convention whereby the husband-to-be had to ask the father of the bride for the hand of the young lady become increasingly less common in the first half of the 20th century. Although advisory books from the 50s still deal with this topic, they do indicate that the convention was no longer customary (cf. Lenz 2003c). Nevertheless, in the 50s there was still a firm process pattern for the building phase in the tradition of the bourgeois mating pattern (cf. Nave-Herz 1998). After the young people had become acquainted with each other, the proposal of marriage (to the parents and/or the bride), the engagement, and finally the wedding (a civil service, and in many cases also a church service), followed. The wedding clearly marked the end of the building phase and the beginning of the phase of continued existence. At the same time, a number of further central events (turning points) in a pair relationship entwined themselves around the wedding: taking up sexual interaction, setting up a household, starting a common budget, and – as planning for the future began immediately – having a family. Meanwhile, it has to be noted that this process pattern has disappeared. Now there are a great number of possibilities to

H OW L OVE RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN

| 43

combine the central turning points in different orders: those turning points have become biographical options, which a decision can be taken in favour of, or against. Against this background, I first want to turn to the forms of pick-up as being the aspect of love communication chosen; afterwards I will consider the question of tendencies of change.

3

B ASIC

FORMS OF PICK - UPS

It is a rather common assumption that the building phase of every pair relationship begins with a pick-up situation, that is to say, with an initial encounter between two persons who have hitherto been strangers. This assumption is to be found in Murray Davis (1973) as well as in the broad sociological research tradition on partner choice (as far as it is concerned with more than just the question of social features (e. g. education)) and in the socio-psychological research of attraction. Nevertheless, this assumption must be corrected. Let us take the examples of films from different periods: •

•

Maria Gasselt, the fisherwoman of Lake Constance (in the film “Die Fischerin vom Bodensee”, FRG 1956), and her future husband, Hans Bruckberger already know each other at the beginning of the film. They have grown up together and now meet as competitors. Maria runs a small fishing business on the Austrian side of Lake Constance, while Hans is to take over his parents’ expanding industrial fishing business now he has successfully completed his studies. The central figures of the US comedy, “When Harry met Sally” (1989) have known each other for twelve years when they finally become man and wife. They meet when they travel together from Chicago to New York by car. Sally gave Harry, her friend’s partner, a lift, as both Harry and Sally were about to start their studies in New York. They fail to find common ground both during this first encounter and during their second one five years later. This changes after their third encounter – again, five years later. In their common grief over their failed relationships, the two become intimate friends. As a favour, both of them try to find a suitable partner for the other, but without success. It is only little by little that after a deep set-back in their friendship, Harry and Sally become a couple.

These examples show that in the beginning of a building phase, the two persons involved need not be strangers. Pair relationships can also evolve from relationships of acquaintance or friendship. And this is true both of the 50s and today. People ac-

44 | K ARL LENZ

quainted with one another – or even friends – do not have the problem of finding a way of coming into contact with each other; but the opposite is true: they are – as Erving Goffman (1963) has shown – even obliged to establish brief contact whenever they meet. We should, however, not dwell on these cases but rather return to those pair relationships which have evolved from pick-ups. According to Davis, every pick-up situation has a preparation phase. The initiator (called “A” in the following) first of all has to find out whether the other person (called “B”) has qualities which are – from his/her point of view – worth the trouble necessarily implied by making a first move. Furthermore, A has to determine whether B is prepared to take up contact. Since further information is not (yet) available to A, determining qualities are above all linked to B’s physical attractiveness and his/her behaviour in that situation. This is not due to any “superficiality” of the acting persons but an immediate consequence of the amount of information available. In order to be capable of assessing B’s readiness for contact, A will look for non-verbal indications and try to stimulate these indications by means of promotional signals (smiles, looks). It is necessary to assess the readiness for contact since simply to speak to someone is a penetration of the other’s territory, which can be considered an annoyance. Promotional signals are also necessary since being knocked back brusquely means a loss of face, which A will try to prevent. For this reason, initial verbal contact is prepared in a non-verbal way. If person B really has the qualities desired by A and is ready for verbal contact, according to Davis, the next step will be to find an opening for verbal interchange as well as topics suitable for continuing the conversation just started. Only if the conversation is continued is it possible to find out more about the other person and to present oneself. Since A and B share no common experiences yet, the two persons need topics which do not presuppose any personal knowledge. Frequently, the contact is continued by small talk. It does not matter what the two persons talk about: the central content consists of a mutual attribution and negotiation of their identities; it is about finding out who the other person is, what the other person thinks about oneself, and who oneself is in this situation. Depending on how this phase goes on, interest in the other person will either increase or decrease. For building a relationship, of course, more than one encounter is needed. At the end of a pick-up situation, it is important to prepare another meeting. This can be done by fixing a date, creating a possibility for meeting, exchanging addresses, phone numbers, or e-mail addresses, or telling the other person where one can usually be found. Our analyses based upon films show that pick-up situations therein do not always correspond to this structure. Also the first encounter of two persons who have hitherto been strangers is not necessarily due to a unilateral initiative of one of them. An example for this is to be found in the early 50s’ German box-office hit (cf. Seidl 1987) “Schwarzwaldmädel”:

H OW L OVE RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN

| 45

Original

Translation

Bärbel: mir sind die äpfele runtergefalle;

Bärbel: I’ve dropped my apples;

Hans: weinen sie nicht kleines fräulein. ich

Hans: don’t you cry my little miss.

helfe ihnen ja =

I’ll help you =

Bärbel: hähä danke schö;

Bärbel: heehee thanks a lot;

Hans: die sind ja echt,

Hans: they’re real,

Bärbel: ja, was dachten sIE denn? (---) bitt

Bärbel: yes, of course. what did yOU

schön,

think? here you are,

Hans: danke, hähähä

Hans: thank you, heeheehee

Bärbel: ((leicht lachend)) gut schmenkense,

Bärbel: ((laughing a little)) tastes good,

gäh?

doesn’t it?

Hans: HErrlich.

Hans: marvellous.

Bärbel: die sind von meiner tante aus dem

Bärbel: they are from my aunt from

schwarzwald.

the black forest.

Hans: aus dem

Hans: from the black

schwarzwald.

forest.

Bärbel: ja: : ? ((atmet laut ein))

Bärbel: yes? ((breathes in loudly))

Hans: nettes Kostüm haben sie. (--) wo ha-

Hans: nice dress you’re wearing. where

ben sie das ausgeliehen?

did you borrow it from?

Bärbel: GAr nit; (-) das ist auch echt; (-) ge-

Bärbel: i didn’t; that’s real too; just like

nau wie die äpfel.

the apples.

Hans: na bei ihnen scheint ja alles echt zu

Hans: well, with you everything seems

sein.

to be real.

Beide lachen, Tusch ((= musikalische Info

Both of them laugh, flourish ((= musical

der Kapelle, dass gleich Rede

information by the band that a speech

folgt))

is going to be given))

Bärbel: s ist (den)n DA los?

Bärbel: oh, what’s going on there?

Auszug aus: “Schwarzwaldmädel” (FRG, 1950), Sequence 6

Bärbel and Hans have not met before this situation, but neither of them acts according to the description given by Davis. The peculiarity of this encounter is that Hans faces Bärbel as a helper. A situation in which help is required makes it possible to speak to a stranger without giving him or her the sensation of penetrating his or her personal territory. If a person suffers from a mishap or harm, then persons present may – or sometimes even must – take on a helper role. According to Goffman

46 | K ARL LENZ

(1963) a helper role is an “opening position”. Giving help implies the right to take the initiative with respect to other persons, even if they are strangers. Persons in need of help may be spoken to and also touched; it is to be assumed that this kind of support is welcome in many cases. Bärbel and Hans strike up a conversation due to Hans’ spontaneous assistance. Situations in which help is required frequently serve as pick-up situations in films and, presumably, also in real life. Thus it is necessary to correct Davis’ description of the structure of a pick-up situation. In the film, we do not see Hans observing Bärbel before nor does he show any intention of taking upcontact with her. This could certainly be an omission, which is likely to occur in a film. However, assistance very frequently requires spontaneous intervention, which makes it impossible to plan things in detail beforehand. It is true that research about help has revealed that willingness to help someone is not independent of the victim as a person. The willingness to help a young lady is much greater than it is in the case of an old, possibly even shabby man. However, a situation in which help is required does not permit lengthy planning in the sense of a preparation phase as outlined by Davis; the only consideration is whether or not to take the initiative of helping. At the same time, situations in which help is required shorten the basic structure of pick-up situations, because in this case, the preparation phase is, to a great extent, not applicable. According to this example from a film, it becomes clear that unlike Davis (1973) assumed, two strangers cannot only get to know each other by one of them unilaterally taking the initiative. This consideration of the behaviour of helping has revealed a second basic type of getting to know someone. A Comparison of this second type with the first one reveals its peculiarities: It is not one of the two persons involved who takes the initiative, but their getting to know each other comes about as a result of an unplanned event. Thus we can distinguish the processes by which two people get to know each other by means of a unilateral initiative (first basic type) and by means of an unintended event (second basic type). This generalizing definition of the second basic type does not only include situations in which help is required. Additional instances can be found in further film analyses. Here is just another example: The relationship between the widower Baron Trapp, father of seven children, and Maria in the film “Trapp-Familie” (FRG 1956) begins as a relationship between an employer and his employee. Maria takes up the position of nanny in Trapp’s household. Her employment was preceded by a letter from Mr Trapp to the nearby cloister, asking them to send someone from the cloister to educate his children, since he had repeatedly been let down by his personnel. The abbess chose the young sister Maria for this task. Neither Mr Trapp nor Maria took the initiative in getting to know the other, but it was their work relationship, which was not free of tension in the beginning, which brought them into contact.

H OW L OVE RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN

| 47

Apart from the distinction of unilateral initiative and unintended events there is another basic type of pick-up situation revealed by film analysis: contact initiated by means of a third party. Two brief examples illustrate this: •

•

Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy in the film “Bridget Jones’ Diary” (USA/GB 2000) have their first encounter as adults at Bridget’s parents’ house on New Year’s Eve. It is Bridget’s mother who introduces them to each other, thinking that the two of them would make up an ideal couple. However, it is not until the end of the film that Bridget and Mark will also be convinced of the same. Hans and Uschi in the film “Eine Berliner Romanze” (GDR 1956) get to know each other via Lord, a friend of Hans’. The three meet at the fairground and Lord introduces Hans to Uschi, but she does not pay much attention to him. Hans falls in love with Uschi immediately, and due to his insistence he eventually succeeds in winning Uschi over.

In both cases, the third party comes from within the natural social network (mother, friend) of one member of the couple. While in the first case, couple-forming was the immediate goal of Bridget’s mother’s action, in the second case, introducing his companion was only a ritual act of courtesy performed by Lord on having met his friend by accident at the fairground. However, the third party can also be a professional (marriage broker or partnership bureau). Finally, anonymous facilities can also play the part of the third party. The classical form this takes is the lonely hearts ad. The first lonely hearts ad in the German-speaking countries was published in the newspaper “Frankfurter Frag- und Anzeigs-Nachrichten” in 1738 (cf. Burkard 2003). Nowadays, the advertisements in newspapers face strong competition from online contact sites (e. g. Parship in Germany or PartnerWinner in Switzerland3). A new variant of these anonymous third parties are synchronous contact forums or chat rooms (cf. Doering 2003). Unlike normal online contact sites, these synchronous forums allow people to enter an immediate interchange. For instance, Kathleen Kelly, the owner of a small shop selling books for children, and Joe Fox, her powerful competitor who owns a chain of book stores, from the US comedy “You’ve Got Mail” (Nora Ephron, 1998) (an adaptation of Ernst Lubitsch’s love letter story “The Shop Around the Corner” (USA 1940) (cf. Feldvoß 2003)) met each other in a chat room. The unilateral initiative for taking up contact as examined by Davis (1973) is only one of three basic types of pick-up situations. Meeting and subsequently getting to know each other by means of an unintended event or through a third party

3

The Internet addresses are http: //www.parship.de and http://www.partnerwinner.ch (später swissfriends.ch).

48 | K ARL LENZ

avoids the ritual problem any unilateral initiative is confronted with (cf. Lenz 2003d). There is always the danger of violating rituals, since the dominant behaviour among strangers actually consists of polite indifference, as Erving Goffman showed (1963): People are aware of each other, however, without bothering each other. But also in the case of unilateral initiatives, in order to take up contact there are strategies for mending or even preventing violations of any ritual rules. As shown in Lenz (2003e), it can be an effective strategy to use deception, e. g. in the form of feigning a situation where help is required. Preventing violations of ritual rules is also possible in starting the unilateral initiative in order initiate contact within an “open region”. According to Goffman (1963: 132), such open regions are “physically bounded places, where ‘any’ two people, acquainted or not, have a right to initiate face engagement with each other for the purpose of extending salutations”. Such “open regions” are, for example, masked balls, bars, pubs, saloons as well as social gatherings in private premises. Being in an open region always signals a certain openness for new contacts, where this is not a personal openness but an openness given by the situational context. Regardless of how the first encounter between two persons took place, the communication problems of prolonging the contact, of arousing interest in oneself, of collecting information about the other person, and finally of preparing another meeting will subsequently arise. persons not acquainted with each other

getting to know each other: pick-up situations

through a third party

natural social network

anonymous facility

advertisements

unintended event

professional third party

other events: e. g. work

situation of required help

unilateral initiative

deception

direct address

open region

chat room

outside the open regions

communication problems: prolonging the contact arousing interest negotiating identities preparing another meeting

Fig. 1 Basic types of pick-up situations

H OW L OVE RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN

4

T ENDENCIES OF 20 TH CENTURY

| 49

CHANGE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE

What tendencies of change since the 1950s can be detected? With regard to the ways of getting to know each other, either from the basis of an acquaintance or friendship or by means of a pick-up situation and with regard to further distinctions (through a third party, by means of an unintended event or by a unilateral initiative), nothing has changed for decades. It is true that due to the Internet, new possibilities have arisen, e. g. chat rooms or online contact sites. However, those possibilities are not additional basic types of getting to know other people as they serve only to increase the number of possibilities within one of these basic types. Qualitative analyses do not tell us anything about the frequency of application of possibilities, either in real life or in the films. Due to our analyses, however, we have the impression that in the films from the 50s, direct address outside the open regions occurred rather frequently, while this type seems to have vanished completely in the 90s. This type proves to be a privilege of men, and displays a clear gender-specific power difference. As differences between genders are being levelled out, this concept also seems to be pushed into the background in addition to being more stigmatized. There has also been a massive change in the way in which women react to this kind of direct address. They are no longer forced to ignore such a ritual attempt, as is in Christa’s case, but they can firmly defend themselves. This immediately leads us to conclude that there has been a substantial change concerning the initiative in couple forming. In the 50s, taking the initiative to take up contact was a privilege of the male; it was he who had the unlimited right to initiate couple forming. Films and advisory books about marriage concur with this. According to Gertrud Oheim (1959: 46), it had always been the male who courts his partner, thus seeking [what?], and due to an unwritten rule, nothing changed until the 50s. It is true that Oheim grants the women of her time the right not to be obliged to play an absolutely passive role: At least middle-aged women whose unmarried state was a consequence of the large number of male casualties in World War II should have the right to look for a man of their choosing. But Oheim expressly warns of a “hunt for men” or “unfeminine advances”. According to her, it is the actual right of women to take the second step and to apply suitable strategies in order to obtain the man’s attention, which is a pattern also confirmed by our interview material. One of these strategies was to feign a situation in which help is required, and advisory books from that time even told women to use this strategy, as, for example, by Ernst Aranus (1959: 47) in “Lieben ohne Reue”: “As being a real daughter of Eve once try the ‘cunning’ way; seize the right moment when meeting him at the exit, drop a book or some other thing. Certainly, this has to seem quite ac-

50 | K ARL LENZ cidental. Surely he will pick it up and give it to you. With that, a link is established and now it’s up to you not to finish your conversation too early.”

The 1990s heralded a break. Advisory books about relationships clearly show that women and men now have the same right to take the first step (for more details cf. Lenz 2003c). Although in present films the man still takes the initiative more frequently, it becomes apparent that women can also legitimately take the first step without falling into disrepute. As an example for this we can refer to the film “Mondscheintarif” (D 2001). While Cora has a close look at the man behind the façade of the physician when she meets Daniel for the first time, which makes it impossible for her to tell him about her bladder inflammation (the actual reason for her visit), she takes advantage of their next accidental encounter at a funeral to give him her phone number. She writes it down on a piece of paper and says: Original

Translation

Cora: „bisher kennen sie nur meine schlech-

Cora: “up to now you’ve only seen my bad

ten seiten. ich meine, ich hab auch ganz gute

sides. I think i also have quite good sides. if

seiten. wenn sie die kennen lernen wollen (.)

you want to get to know them (.) just phone

rufen sie mich an!“

me!”

Auszug aus: “Mondscheintarif” (D 2001)

women are no longer considered as childlike as they were in the 50s. According to Erving Goffman (1979), The intimate behaviour of persons towards a woman show a clear alignment with the parent-child complex. Women are considered to have similar freedoms to children; they have the right to display emotional outbursts and to deal with situationsin a playful manner. Men, on the other hand, have adopted the role of parents as protectors. However, claiming that women are no longer considered childlike does not mean that the whole orientation towards the parent-child complex has been abandoned in the presentation of two persons in love. Especially the affectionate interchange between the two sexes uncovers the continuing dominance of the parent-child complex as the prevailing cultural model. However, the enormous extension of this behaviour complex, which determined the entire encounter of a male and a female, and which degraded the female to the level of a child from the very beginning, as shown in the scene of the film “Schwarzwaldmädel“ (1950) cited above, has vanished.

H OW L OVE RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN

| 51

Original

Translation

Hans: weinen sie nicht kleines fräulein.

Hans: don’t you cry my little miss. I’m go-

ich helfe ihnen ja Bärbel: hähä danke schö;

ing to help you Bärbel: heehee thanks a lot;

Auszug aus: “Schwarzwaldmädel“ (1950)

Not only does Hans address Bärbel as “miss”, but also he adds the attribute “little”. Instead of simply offering his help, he also notices that coping with her mishap would be too much for her, which might provoke the emotional reaction of her crying. However, his request “don’t you cry” has got nothing to do with Bärbel’s facial expression in that situation. Her face does not show the slightest tear and she definitely gives the impression that she is capable of coping with the situation without help. Hans’ lead-in, “don’t you cry” defines Bärbel as in need of protection and himself as protector, who, by means of his intervention, puts everything in order. The entire dialogue between Hans and Bärbel is characterized in that Bärbel is addressed as if she were a child. In the films from the 90s, men and women stop meeting on these different levels for the first time. Men have to face self-confident women who are committed to their jobs, who are successful, who consider men as objects of their own desires, and who definitely indulge in the pleasures of life – in “Bridget Jones”, this is symbolized by her smoking and drinking excessively. While in the 50s, in the tradition of the bourgeois mating pattern, the clear-cut gender differences were omnipresent, nowadays, gender differences have been levelled out to a great extent. Nevertheless, this must not be understood as if the gender category were irrelevant for the building phase. This becomes clear by the fact that, as far as heterosexual coupleforming is concerned, no matter how much the status of personal qualities has been enhanced, women continue to be desired as women and men continue to be desired as men. Couple-forming continues to be tied to the system of two genders; only the form of the sexually determined options of acting as of the central ideas has changed (for more details cf. Lenz 2003b).

R EFERENCES Burkard, Benedikt (2003) “Die Boten des Glücks. Liebe im Zeitalter der Kommunikation”. In liebe.komm. Botschaften des Herzens. Ausstellungskatalog des Museums für Kommunikation. Burkard, B. (ed), 10-27 Frankfurt am Main Davis, Murray S. (1973) “Intimate Relations”. New York: Free Press Doering, Nicola (2003) Internet-Liebe: Zur technischen Mediatisierung intimer Kommunikation. In Vermittlungskulturen im Wandel: Brief - E-Mail - SMS. J. Höflich/J. Gebhardt (eds): 233-264, Berlin

52 | K ARL LENZ

Feldvoß, Marli (2003) “Letter from an Unknown Woman. Über Liebesmacht und Kinomacht” In liebe.komm. Botschaften des Herzens. Ausstellungskatalog des Museums für Kommunikation. Burkard, B. (ed), 160-173, Frankfurt am Main: Giddens, Anthony (1984) The Construction of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polite Press Goffman, Erving (1963) Behavior in Public Places. Notes on the Social Organizations of Gatherings. New York: Free Press Goffman, Erving (1979), Gender Advertisement. New York: Harper & Row Lenz, Karl (2003a), Soziologie der Zweierbeziehung. Eine Einführung. 2. Aufl., Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag Lenz, Karl (2003b) Zur Geschlechtstypik persönlicher Beziehungen – eine Einleitung. In Frauen und Männer. Zur Geschlechtstypik persönlicher Beziehungen. Lenz, K. (ed), 7-51, Weinheim/München Lenz, Karl (2003c) Wie sich Frauen und Männer kennen lernen. Paarungsmuster im Wandel. In Frauen und Männer. Zur Geschlechtstypik persönlicher Beziehungen. Lenz, K. (ed), 55-91, Weinheim/München: Lenz, Karl (2003d), Paare in Spielfilmen – Paare im Alltag. Paper presented at the conferences “Film, Kultur und Gesellschaft. Perspektiven, Positionen, Zugänge” of the section Sociology of Media and Communication of the German Society of Sociology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie 9. and 10. Mai 2003 in Essen. (http://www.germanistik.uni-hannover.de/1641.html) Lenz, Karl (2003e) Täuschungen in Zweierbeziehungen. Zur Normalität einer sozialen Praxis. In: Verleugnen, Vertuschen, Verdrehen. Leben in der Lügengesellschaft, Hettlage, R. (ed) 65-76, Konstanz Seidl, Claudius (1987) Der deutsche Film der fünfziger Jahre. München: Hanser Selting, Margret et al. (1998) Gesprächsanalytisches Transkriptionssystem (GAT). In Lingustische Berichte 173: 91-122. Simmel, Georg (1985), Fragment über die Liebe. In: G. Simmel, Schriften zur Philosophie und Soziologie der Geschlechter. Dahme, H.-J. und Köhnke, K. C. (eds), 224-281, Frankfurt am Main:

F ILMS American Beauty, USA 1999, Directed by: Sam Mendes Schwarzwaldmädel, BRD 1950, Directed by: Hans Deppe Die Trapp-Familie, BRD 1956, Directed by: Wolfgang Liebeneiner Eine Berliner Romanze, DDR 1956, Directed by: Gerhard Klein Endstation Liebe, BRD 1957, Directed by: Georg Tressler Bridget Jones’s Diary, GB/USA 2000, Directed by: Sharon Maguir You’ve Got Mail, USA 1998, Directed by: Nora Ephron Mondscheintarif, D 2001, Directed by: Ralf Huettner

H OW L OVE RELATIONSHIPS BEGIN

ADVISORY

| 53

BOOKS

Aranus, Ernst (1959), Lieben ohne Reue. Lust und Leid der Liebe. Das notwendige Lehrbuch der Liebe. München: Schmitz Oheim, Gertrud (1959), Die gute Ehe. Ein Ratgeber für Mann und Frau. Teil 1. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann

Intimacy in How-To Books The Passion of Self-Change Work S ABINE M AASEN /S TEFANIE D UTTWEILER “Most lack intimacy skills.” (ANONYMOUS, INTERNET)1

1

I NTRODUCTION

Throughout the last two decades, therapeutics have come to permeate society in various forms and fashions. In addition to therapy proper, self-help and counseling have assumed increasing popularity. Journals, radio, television, Internet – wherever one looks, one finds yet another new version of (one-way) therapy and counseling. While the individual variants differ enormously as to their ambition, expertise, and impact, they all imply certain requirements in terms of a highly specific kind of communication: First, they are firmly based upon everybody’s capability to perform a demanding discourse called therapeutic communication. It entails our ability to present a problem to an expert, who will then help us, as a layperson, to solve that problem in various settings (be it short-term, long-term therapy or counseling). Second, they require that one knows when to seek professional help and how to choose among various offers on the market (you pick up the phone, click into the self-help chat, or buy a book). Third, in all cases you need to transfer the lessons learned in special settings (on the couch or in a group seminar) into your everyday life. Self-help by how-to books has introduced yet another significant modification to these requirements: It is a solitary practice of buying and reading a book, and then processing the advice given, or not. You yourself are the expert with whom you have to reach an agreement and who ensures that an agreement is met. Diagnosis, goal setting, and change all take place in one person who is simultaneously both 1

http: //www.csulb.edu/~tstevens/c13-love.htm

56 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

therapist and client. The medium of self-help books thus produces a most intimate setting of self-change. In the terminology of Michel Foucault, all those forms of therapies and selfmanagement are self-technologies. Self-technologies “permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality.” (Foucault 1988: 18)

Granted, advice books regularly aim at very mundane goals: success, health, youth, beauty, and happiness; yet those of us who dersire guidance are provided with minute instructions referring to our soul, our behavior, our whole form of existence – hence, to our selves. The books proceed by establishing a relationship with oneself, the basic “operations” being countless techniques of self-reflection and exercises to empower oneself. How-to books, so it seems, are sites and media of intimate exchange with oneself. The current self-help hype, however, has not come out of the blue, but is a societal necessity in an era of frequent change and uncertainty; hence, the plethora of therapeutic and counseling offers. Most introductory chapters in self-help books convey the message that while we cannot change the world, we can – or even actually have to – change ourselves. Indeed, self-change work is the buzzword of our times. Is this a promise or a threat? Given the fact that advice books are not only bestsellers in every bookshop at present, but have also accompanied the evolution of Western societies through all stages of differentiation and the concomitant shakeup of relations between individuals and society, there is no easy answer at hand. It seems as if advice books both accompanied and, if only marginally, co-constructed time-bound notions of what a self is and how it is capable of adjusting to and governing his or her life in society. Advice books do so by naming “problems”, giving “advice” as to possible answers that may or may not lead to a novel “behavioral response” in the reader. To this end, advice books address problems on the level of knowledge. They distribute, evaluate, and operationalize knowledge framed as advice on what (not) to do. They make use of all kinds of knowledge and various forms of presenting it (e.g., prose, maxims, photos, graphs). They are normative, yet increasingly their normativity is confined to what gave them their generic title: They insist on how to and not on what to do. What is important is the fact that one changes, for this is the way to adapt to inner and outer circumstances better and, hence, the via regia to becoming happy, healthy, successful […] In a society of permanent change, how-to books, so it seems, are sites and media of individual flexibility.

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 57

Changing oneself by intensive exchange with oneself at all times, particularly at stages of individual and/or societal change, is a program that does not leave the concept of intimacy unaffected. While still primarily referring to a trustful and truthful relation to another person including all his or her unique characteristics (a “pure relation,” viz. Giddens 1992), there is another shade of meaning emerging. Our thesis is that intimacy increasingly refers to a trustful and truthful relation to oneself. Although the passionate quest for the “true” self is about to come to a rest, the quest for an efficient, happy and successful self relies on the same processes of self-monitoring, self-motivation, and self-change. A passionate urge to work on oneself via encompassing introspection seizes everyone sooner or later. The intimate relation is all about knowing oneself, balancing one’s interests and external demands, and working at onself both critically and acceptingly. In the Christian discourse, the ultimate goal of Eternal Salvation called for earthly subjection to techniques of disclosing the remotest desires, and to this end, has constituted a postulate of an exhausting confession of an inexhaustible field of sins performed in words, deeds, and thoughts (cf. Foucault 1986, Gaume 1867). Modern self-help has replaced this goal, yet inherited the passion for regulating oneself by intimate inspection of oneself. The only “sin” left is not to work on yourself. The forthcoming study will first address the genre of self help-books more closely: its level of operation (2.), its history of linking selves and society (3.) and its most pertinent techniques (4.), before dealing with three prominent types of critiques – notably, the disciplining effect and technocratic mode of self-help – and their contribution to the “rise of the private” (5.). Thereafter, we will suggest that the phenomenon of an all-pervasive culture of self-help be addressed on a more fundamental level: Niklas Luhmann’s work on Love as Passion (1986) reveals intimacy as a codified way of communicating about highly personal issues between the closest of partners (6.), the code today being “problem-orientation”. One prominent form of (intimate) communication is “counseling” (Fuchs, Mahler 2000). From this vantage point of codified communication in a generalized form called counseling, one is then able to regard intimacy with oneself as a highly powerful means of adjusting highly individualized selves in today’s highly contingent and complex societies. It is true that, as governmentality studies following the work of the later Michel Foucault can show, this type of societal governance by self-governance does have a price: (self-)discipline, (self-)monitoring, (self-)control (7.). Yet, this does not preclude but rather promotes a seeming paradox: Intimacy with oneself is a both socialized and sociable solitary practice. Self-help today finds itself among the acceptable forms of (self-)government and gives rise to novel ways of conducting moral and public discourse (8.).

58 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

2

S ELF - HELP : K NOWLEDGE

FOR ORIENTATION

Advice regularly operates on the level of knowledge. Typically, it is knowledge for orientation: “This book will be one of the most import books in your life“ (Küstenmacher 2001: 11). A major feature of our society, which has come to be known as a knowledge society, is the production and use of knowledge designed to cope with ongoing change, complexity, risk, and uncertainty in various domains (e.g., education, economy, politics). Modern societies, that is, are not only based on knowledge but are also, possibly, threatened by the multiplication of knowledge. Recently, a plethora of types and procedures of knowledge that organize, steer and guide the production, dissemination, and evaluation of knowledge, have emerged. These types and procedures may be seen as second-order knowledge designed to counter dysfunctional tendencies in the knowledge society (e.g., disorientation and incapacity to act). Hence, they accomplish what may be called orientation, or, more precisely, governance by knowledge. In political arenas, for instance, we find a growing body of professional advice, expertise, as well as arenas of ethical deliberation that engage in structuring and mediating different forms of knowledge and values so as to guide individuals or advise political bodies. In the area of the individual conduct of life, we find all kinds of educational activities (life-long learning) as well as therapy and counseling. On the level of knowledge, self-help today can be regarded as a hybrid genre: whichever exemplar of how-to book one chooses, it abounds with all kinds of techniques designed to guide one’s reflection about oneself and to change one’s behaviour and attitudes. The techniques are drawn from a heterogeneous set of sources: psychology (questionnaires, motivation aids), physiology (diet plans and fitness schemes), philosophy (art of living, how to become happy), common sense (proverbs), the esoteric (spiritual knowledge), and wisdom (from philosophy, religion, or everyday knowledge alike). In addition, while most self-help books favour a certain set of knowledge types and their concomitant set of techniques, they rarely refrain from providing their readers with any proto-sociology. In most cases, we find timebound lessons into the world-as-it-is. They thereby provide the helpless with information not only about the society surrounding them, but also about how society and the self relate. Hence, advice books are not only about selves, but also about selves and others, and ultimately, about selves in society. From a sociology-of-knowledge point of view, how-to books allow studies in selves and society alike. Rather than being dismissed as idiosyncratic outbreaks into excesses of self-care (which, in some cases, may be true), the genre as a whole is part and parcel of societal differentiation. It ultimately contributes to producing a culture of individuals who, vis-à-vis highly specific choices as to their conducts of life, still manage to remain sociable – just by way of adhering to highly convention-

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 59

alized procedures of self-care. Indeed, our culture understands itself as a culture of individuals, yet according to Luhmann, this implies, that individuals have to discipline themselves accordingly. If social order and reciprocal expectations are to remain possible (cf. Luhmann 1992: 199), self discipline is indispensable. How-to books are media of individualization and normalization at the same time. Before introducing the most prominent kinds of techniques, a brief account will show how this increasing focus upon working on oneself has evolved over time. Rather than a historical study of this genre, it is a genealogical account that proceeds from the current obligation to work on oneself and tracks the specific evolution of this novel obligation. Thus we focus on prototypes of self-help books, particularly on those that are constitutive for the emergence of this particular practice.This is essentially a study of the increasing intensity of working on oneself, always specifically adapting one’s relation to society and its demands (i.e., success). In the course of this happening, the meaning of intimacy assumes a radical shift: while at first, intimacy is linked to the notion of having a trustful (sometimes sexual) relation to one’s closest friends and partners, today self-help is increasingly about becoming intimate with oneself. The route to changing yourself is via trusting, loving, accepting, and knowing yourself – intimately, that is. The advice book has come to be an important medium for producing and disseminating the knowledge required to shape this relation. How did this all come about?

3

S ELF - HELP : A BRIEF STUDY

OF A SUCCESS - STORY

Advice books are not a new phenomenon. From the 15th century onward, manuals designed to educate us in manners and virtues have accompanied the modernization of Western societies. Following David Riesman, these manuals were designed to produce character types guided by tradition, rather than individual types we have today. While this notion has become subject to discussion, it can be said that etiquette books are safeguards of forms, manners, and ceremonies established by convention that, in turn, are guided by nothing else but the (Godly) order. As a whole, this literature is canonical and strictly oriented towards rules. The relation with oneself is a “must” to solve the problems of interaction and only rarely is it a pleasure – with the exception of carefully designed intrigues, that is. Generally, however, the readers should know the rules and follow them, the ultimate goal being to prevent disgrace. As to the individual seeking advice, etiquette books, to be sure, are not about looking for uniqueness but about establishing uniformity. It is precisely this necessity, however, that initiates and enforces an increased attention to oneself in relation to ever-more concrete situations. A few examples will illustrate how we learn the necessity to look at ourselves and develop an outright desire to do so.

60 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

In the course of the18th century, along with the decline of the stratified society, strict societal codes for communication and behaviour eroded. With the emergence of bourgeois society, a different kind of advice was needed for a different kind of readership (though paralleling the older form). Most of all, educated laymen sought advice on how to cope with everyday problems in all dimensions of life. The Notund Hilfsbüchlein für Bauersleute, written by the educator Rudolf Zacharias Becker (1787), for instance, tries to “redress the distinguished bodily and spiritual necessities of the countryman” in about 800 pages. He expands on moral principles, gives “practical hints”, tries to counter superstition, and even explains how to revive hanged and frost-bitten persons or those struck by lightning. Becker’s teachings on a so-called order of life for the healthy, the sick, and the convalescent are somewhat closer to modern concerns. The book Über den Umgang mit Menschen by Freiherr von Knigge (1788) is another well-known example of a bourgeois advice book. While it is about learning the rules of behaving in public and in the private sphere, and is thus similar to the aforementioned type of books, it introduces a significant shift. The very first chapter of Knigge’s book is about how to associate with oneself. The author argues that our duties toward ourselves are the most important ones, and indeed the association with oneself is neither the least useful nor the least interesting (cf. Knigge 1788: 82). In addition to the call “Be yourself a pleasant company!“, made against the danger of idleness, Knigge appeals to truthfulness, steadiness, and a belief in austerity toward oneself: In lonely hours, one should take stock of one’s behaviour and attitudes. Acting upon oneself as a severe judge, one should sincerely assess whether and how one made use of the hints given in his advice book so as to gain perfection (cf. Knigge 1788: 86). These pieces of advice are located in the context of enlightment and clearly entail an educational intention: a prime vehicle of (self-)education is scutinizing oneself. These books address everyday or professional behaviour, thereby indicating increasing social mobility and accompanying it with good advice. The books show and propagate a modernization of manners, as well as an increasing difference between public and private behaviour. The very moment individuals emerged as unmistakably unique entities, tension arose between themselves and their society calling for a rationality of “how to cope with situation x”. Since then, this rationality has marked the concept of modern individuals, as well as the relation of self and society. Selves, while becoming increasingly more complex, are now equipped with pragmatic rules designed to cope with each other and with themselves (cf. also Pittrof 1989: 15). In the 1920s, we observe the shift toward a more dynamic and goal-oriented type of advice book, resulting from the increasing complexity and contingency of modern society. While social mobility had its own needs, it created possibilities by the same token, thus reorientating the goals of instruction books. In the 1920s, these books focused on the goal of success in the work sphere and on how to proceed me-

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 61

thodically in order to reach this goal. These advice books focus on developing a goal-oriented personality and according efforts upon attaining one’s goals. Potentially, all humans do have the capacity to educate themselves – with the help of books know as “schools for the will” in German, or guides to success. The book titles of the schools for the will signal the need for method and enthusiasm alike: The gymnastics of the will: Practical instructions to enhance energy and self-control, invigoration of memory and pleasure to work by reinforcement of willpower without outside help (Gerling 1920); School for the will (Lindworsky 1927); Life according to the art of generalship (Sartorius 1929); Power and action: A guide to will, health, and power (Helmel 1928). While all books focus on willpower, socalled guides to success differ from the schools for the will in one crucial aspect: In their view, there is no such thing as “a will”, but there are only exercises of will performed using specific objects in order to form special competences and to satisfy concrete needs (cf. Grossmann 1927: 164). They instruct their reader how exactly to commit oneself to certain kinds of (realistic) goals and to reach these goals with the help of how-to plans and self-motivation. In order to gain the correct relation to oneself, one has to proceed in a disciplined way. In every situation, we see rational means that must be applied precisely, methodically, and continuously, and to all matters of organizing one’s personal life. One has to steel one’s will, to train one’s body, to educate and control one’s mind, with the ultimate goal being economic success. From the early 20th century onward, selves have to differentiate as well as integrate the work on themselves: Key variables are the methods of self-energizing, self-education, planned and effective action, self-enthusiasm, and endurance. Ever-new hindrances have to be overcome by ever-new decisions (cf. Lindworsky 1927: 56) in order to defeat the dreaded opposites called “weakness of the will” and “nervousness”. Working on oneself has become incessant. At the end of the 1930s, a novel variant of success books emerges, Dale Carnegies’ manual How to win friends and influence people (1937) being the prototype. In this literature, the self’s dependency on others is the pivot of success. Only those who know how to use others will become successful. It urges the reader to take the perspective of the other: “If out of reading this book you get just one thing: an increased tendency to think always of the other person’s point of view, and see things from his angle […]” (Carnegie 1938: 63). This move, however, is not about internalizing the generalized other than in order to produce a “me” (Mead). Rather, it is about coping with the concrete other in order to reach one’s own goals. With empathy and flattery one will gain the other’s appreciation and help. Riesman declares Carnegie’s book an outright textbook of social interaction following otherdirection: “It is apparent enough that the guides to attractiveness, living, and success […] are promoters of other-direction. Their message is one that implies constant need of approval by others” (1950: 217). The presented strategies can be

62 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

named as “other enhancement”: help others, give them what they want, agree with people. The type of rationality that informs the Carnegie kind of success books is one of manipulation. It marks both the relation to others and to oneself. Yet another shift occurs in the 1960s and 1970s when a more psychotherapeutic-oriented self-help literature appears. Following Humanistic Psychology and the Human Potential Movement, the focus is less on discipline and more on “growth,” “unfolding,” and “self-realization”. The oppressed individual liberates itself from social pressure: “Rich or poor, black or white, male […] we share a belief that feelings are sacred and salvation lays in self-esteem, that happiness is the ultimate goal and psychological healing the means” (Moskowitz 2001: 1). The techniques are well-known in the self-help universe: “employ liberal self-praise; recall positive events in your life; try some positive hypnosis; learn to listen to yourself; don’t punish yourself; learn to accept yourself; make friend with yourself; and so on” (Starker 2002: 121). While de-emphasizing discipline, caring for one’s growth could not deny a certain amount of obsession, for the premise that “human potential is unfulfilled” led to a plethora of activities designed to recognise and realize your inner needs and feelings. Liberation from inner restrictions and outer repressions should eventually reveal the “true self.” The ostentatious obligation to grow in order to be happy leads to the “liberterian paradox: the sole social obligation is in its negation” (Koch-Linde 1984: 56). As the author of the bestseller “Your Erroneous Zones” bluntly remarks, “State your Declaration of Independence from their control” (Dyer 1976 136, quoted in Koch-Linde 1984: 47f). Freedom from social pressure goes hand in hand with self-realization in order to gain responsibility toward oneself. Again, another bestseller by Newman, Mildred, Berkowitz, and Bernard (1971) puts it succinctly: “How to Be Your Own Best Friend.” Important building bricks of these and other popular forms of selfhelp were the devaluation of the other and the upgrading of oneself, the striving for individual happiness and the reduction of social obligations (Koch-Linde 1984: 57). Toward the end of the 1980s, this development came to a peak by enforcing a tendency to regard all kinds of relations with others with suspicion, the catchword being “co-dependence” (cf. Greenberg 1994). The relation one is asked to establish is focused upon oneself. It is all about disclosing and articulating one’s true and authentic self. Yet, this search for one’s true self is fraught with a paradox: Is this my true core identity, my real need, my authentic desire? This paradox of authenticity is processed by continuously working on oneself (cf. also Trilling 1982). Each doubt provokes new activities. The process of revealing one’s true self is insoluble. Accordingly, working at a honest and reliable relationship with oneself is a never-ending process; this constitutes yet another element of setting up an intimate relationship with oneself. In the 1990s, the call for “self-management” changes the relationship with oneself yet again. Self-management no longer promotes the quest for the true self, but

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 63

subjugates it to the quest for efficiency. Consequently, manuals hail the flexible self that operates best upon a flexible, self-organizing mode. Management is not confined to economic success, but rather becomes the dominant metaphor for the organization of all domains of one’s life (home, office, friends, hobbies, etc.). The organizational mode is one of balancing: one has to balance one’s own, maybe conflicting needs and goals as well as external demands. In this vein, self-management manuals encourage their readers to set goals for themselves, to relate to them and, most important, to proceed methodically. However, goals become multiplied and dynamic, hence in need of constant observation and change; readers should be prepared to change their goals should circumstances, be they internal or external, require them to do so. Setting up a relationship with oneself now refers to imagining oneself as the leader of an “inner team”, with each member representing a specific need, capacity, or problem. The leader (i.e., the self) is able to cope with both inner tensions and external demands by regulating or balancing them, respectively. The relationship is thus not about finding oneself but about governing one’s possibly contradictory and often changing needs and demands. Identity follows a model of corporate identity: “the certainty of having a strong team of various ‘true selves’ within oneself” (Besser-Siegmund/ Siegmund 1991: 132 quoted in Bröckling 2002) In both cases, the task of working at oneself is never-ending. Yet, while formerly this endless task had been driven by a fundamental doubt concerning one’s authenticity, now it is also driven by the view that internal and external conditions always change and therefore are in need of continuous monitoring and adaptive reactions. This albeit sketchy tour d’horizon of self-help literature shows an ever-changing relationship of selves to their society, as well as a changing relationship of selves to themselves. Both kinds of relationship co-evolve: stratified society favored a selfrelation guided by rules and obligations, while postmodern society now prefers a self-regulation guided by balancing heterogeneous needs and demands, both internal and external. Consequently, this development alters our understanding of intimacy. While it used to refer to a truthful relationship with a significant other, it is now beginning to refer to a truthful relationship with oneself as well. According to the recent variant of instruction books, governing oneself requires a truthful and trustful relation to a significant Me which is always in the making, with this selfsame Me being the organized set of attitudes of others, which one assumes. This means hard work – self-change work, as it is called today. This work needs to establish an incorruptible “me,” capable of monitoring and regulating all kinds of demands in all dimensions of life. Yet, there is more than work; there is pleasure and passion as well. Foucault once identified the Christian roots of modern self-care in the practice of confession

64 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

and its rapid spread into various domains of private and public life – he pointedly commented on this diffusion in saying that man was “a confessing animal” (1990), who has come to indulge in confessing all sorts of things at all sorts of occasions in his passionate quest for his true self. Not surprisingly, we find pleasure in efficient self-management too: the desire to know oneself, the passion to enhance oneself or the pleasure in spoiling oneself. An overview of the most prominent techniques recommended to those who wish to govern themselves both truthfully and effectively will testify to the passion and pleasure involved. Recent manuals take recourse to all kinds of techniques and carefully advise their readers to choose the most pertinent ones depending on the problem at hand. The mode of intervention to be employed may be disciplining, permitting, discovering or caring – or a combination thereof. Similarly, the relationship to oneself may vary, yet there is always pleasure and passion as well.

4

T ECHNIQUES

OF GOVERNING ONESELF

How-to books instruct their readers not only how to deliberate upon the question of how to become more efficient, happier, or more successful – they also instruct their readers how to perform certain techniques that will lead to improved efficiency, happiness, and/or success. While, ultimately, these techniques should become routine elements of everyday life, the initial steps in generating a routine of, say, selfmonitoring, are set up as exercises. Not unlike spiritual exercises, they require a special setting, time, and certain practices to enable diligent care for oneself. Moreover, these “time-outs” are a matter of careful planning: Frequently repeated appeals to those who wish consciously to build up zones of reflection and self-change instruct them to take time for themselves and establish a free zone reserved for themselves (e.g., Haen 2001: 155). Moreover, all decisions have to be recorded in order to render them manageable and subject them to control. The most important classes of techniques are techniques of isolation, of self-love, of knowing yourself, and of moderation. This distinction is a rather analytical one, for in practice, these techniques are sequenced and interact with one another: Isolation shall raise selflove, and both are preparatory means of establishing a proper condition for selfinspection by moderated techniques aimed at getting to know oneself. While individual techniques can and should be chosen due to individual preferences, selfchange should involve all four classes of techniques in order to be both effective and pleasurable. Isolation. The assumption underlying these techinques is that of a fragile, highly impressionable self that is in need of focusing in order to build up a relation to himor herself. For this reason, external pressure should be reduced as much as possible.

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 65

Several techniques serve this task; positive thinking gains control over your reaction to the outside world, and meditation is the prevalent means of finding the way into yourself. Inside yourself, you will not find anything but silence and peace […] (cf. Osho 2004, p. 5). On a more practical note, one should choose a room for oneself. Even the bathroom can be such a space, “an oasis for self-renewal” (cf. Pitroff et al. 2003: 128): “Coddle yourself, go on an ego-trip. Everybody else gets locked out […]” (Wellfit 01/03: 21). This demarcation, though, is not only a spatial one. It is also a symbolic one, epitomizing one’s capacity to say no to the demands of others (cf. Pitroff et al. 2003: 13). Cocooning practices are not necessarily antisocial, however, and a time-out can be communicated very politely: “Five charming ways of saying no” (cf. ibdl.: 112) show you how, for example. The pleasure you will receive is relaxation and recreation – a short downtime of well-being made possible by fending off disturbing interferences. Self-love. Next to temporary isolation, in order to become independent from others it is essential to establish a loving relationship to oneself, as in “Be your best friend, a ‘nourishing mother’“ (Holdau 1999: 14). The bestseller “Your Erroneous Zone” (Dyer 1976) offers helpful advice in a chapter called “Easy-To-Master SelfLove Exercises” (ibid.: 44). These techniques “included giving oneself ‘treats’ in restaurants and stores, minimizing self-denial, joining pleasurable group activities, and standing naked before a mirror while telling oneself how attractive one was” (Dyer 1976 quoted in Starker 2002: 124). Put another way, “The loving gaze of a mother is known as transfiguring her child [...] We should grant this gaze ourselves – every morning in front of the mirror. The face in the mirror will thank you with a smile” (Baur/Schmid-Bode 2000: 131); or “Take, for instance, your foot fondly into your hands, provide it with security” (Holdau 1999: 31). Lovingly caring for oneself is meant to create emotional independence and a trustful relation to oneself through satisfying one’s yearning for appreciation, comfort, security, and belonging. Knowing yourself. Techniques of introspection, reflection, and observation allow us to more objectively get to know ourselves. How-to books instruct the reader, for instance, to look at themselves from an external point of view: “Place yourself in front of the mirror and contemplate about yourself and then respond to the following questions: Is my opposite pleasant? Do I want to be his friend?” (Tepperwein 1997: 72); “Would you employ ourself?” (Frauenpower 2000: 52). In addition, how-to books encourage retrospective self-reflection: “Each evening, before falling asleep, let the day pass before your inner eye” (Holdau 1999: 19). A diary, checklists, and personality tests have come to be obligatory. Not only should the past and the present be the object of reflection but also a vision about one’s future: “Most people lose sight of their dream of life [...], retrieve it and thereby get to know yourself” (Küstenmacher 2001: 290). Numerous techniques attempt to reveal one’s vision and to transfer it into manageable goals and sub-goals. Regardless of

66 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

whether one proceeds retrospectively or prospectively, however, the major part of such exercises relies upon writing techniques; quite literally, the issue is to commit oneself in a more objective and quasi-contractual fashion. To know yourself promises a “delightful metamorphosis” (Küstenmacher 2000: 20): enfolding the self through the improvement of self-esteem, relations to others, one’s financial situation, or success at work. Last but not least, a feminist author states, “The following seven weeks will be hard work but at the same time it will please you, because it will bring you closer to your self” (Haen 2001: 61). To grant this pleasure, the same author recommends ongoing praise of the progress that occurrs in self-change work. But, as Foucault stated, the gaining of self-knowledge eventually becomes an object of desire and ongoing passion in itself – a prerequisite for increasing intimacy with oneself. Moderation. Mere self-awareness does not suffice to cope with oneself, however. “Working at inner stability” requires a “domestic policy of the self” (Schmid 2004: 96). A soliloquy targeted at an understanding with oneself should use traditional political means: compromise, balancing, separation of power, and the establishing of priorities (cf. ibid.: 99). The prototypical technique is to imagine oneself as moderator of an inner team, with the goal of balancing different needs and demands. In a quasi-democratic procedure, all partial selves have to be heard; the moderator structures the discussion and tries to find an acceptable solution. These techniques allow for inner complexity to emerge by suggesting equally complex procedures of finding an adequate solution. Instead of adamantly acting according to a strict principle, moderation is about attentively listening to all of one’s wishes – and hence about the pleasure of “democratic deliberation.” Isolation, self-love, knowing yourself, and moderation: all these prototypical techniques enforce an ongoing process of working on oneself by addressing various aspects of the self and establishing a relationship among them. The will, the body, emotions, thoughts, and attitudes have to inform, control, or take care of each other. While the prime foci of self-work may change, the process of self-development is never to cease, but intensifies and diversifies the concept of one’s self. Isolation, self-love, knowing yourself, and moderation: all of these prototypical techniques proceed from different angles – social, emotional, cognitive, and “political” ones. While they have to be arranged individually according to the problem at hand, one should not favor one type of technique and disregard others, for the techniques mutually enforce their respective impacts: on the social dimension, selfchange is based on time and space for oneself; on the emotional dimension, it is about caring for oneself; on the cognitive level, it relies on knowing oneself; and on the “political” level, it is about carefully deliberating alternative options and contradictory wishes. Taken together, all techniques work at producing an incorruptible, yet trustworthy and reliable “me” capable of enacting continuous self-monitoring and – if need be – self-change. Self-change work is highly demanding, driven for-

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 67

ward by the promise of being pleasurable, too; and it ultimately delights us with happiness, health and/or success. By the same token, we learn to interact with ourselves intimately. Intimacy with ourselves is feasible, as a workshop on “Embracing ourselves. An intimate retreat for women and men” simply states: “This retreat recognizes that creating intimacy with oneself and others is a skill that can be learned” (phoenixcentre.com). From the perspective of self-help books as media of flexible individualization, intimacy with oneself is revealed as their most specific result. They contribute to accomplishing ever-more complex selves, capable of acting in an ever-more complex world.

5 I NVECTIVES

AGAINST INTIMACY : D ISCIPLINING , TECHNOCRACY , RISE OF THE PRIVATE

Not surprisingly, self-help has been the object of severe criticism, of which the most important strands should be noted. Disciplining. Frequently we hear the lament that self-help books are but ideologies of feasibility entering the domain of individuality (cf. Güntner 2001). Indeed, on an abstract level, they impart knowledge on all relevant dimensions of selfdescription, the norms to be known, adequate strategies for displaying authenticity, successful ways of reflecting upon one’s experience and behaviour, acceptable technologies which can be used to link one’s needs and societal expectations. In other words, self-help books add new prisms to the panoptic machinery of selfcontrol (cf. Kliche 2001: 123). Ironically enough, although most therapies and counseling methods claim to be a remedy for individual problems introduced by a modern, disciplining society, critiques abound according to which self-help is, or has become, a prominent instrument of self-disciplining in itself. Yet, while being busy deploring disciplining effects in specific forms of therapies or counseling, the critics often do not refrain from pleading for another form without realizing that each form of intervention does have its shaping, and thus its disciplining effects (cf. Maasen 1998). Technocracy. Time and again, philosophers and psychologists complain that the popular genre of self-help is technocratic. While the former lack a critical foundation or reflection upon the art of living (cf. Schmid 1998), the latter reject a quasitherapeutic practice that lacks seriousness and academic expertise (cf. Castel 1987, 1988). A typical example of a critique from within the therapeutic community is Michael Mary’s (2003) book on “The lie of being happy. On the belief of the feasibility of one’s life.” The main focus of the critique is a technocratic or a quasiexpert-based view of governing one’s life (ibid.: 201). According to these new preachers, thus Mary, solutions are easily given if one obeys the techniques and

68 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

procedures suggested. His verdict is unequivocal: the how-to genre as a whole suggests a feasibility of desired goals such as success, health, youth, and beauty merely by way of decision and systematic activity. Interestingly, however, Mary promptly offers an alternative: He propagates the power of calmness and composure (ibid.: 249), implying that there are ways of becoming calm and composed. Indeed, each form of intervention does have its methods of reaching the desired state and thus propagates a certain set of techniques, without being necessarily technocratic – as Mary would surely reject his proposition to be. Rise of the private. Yet another important strand of criticism concerns the “tyranny of intimacy” (Sennett) resulting from the “triumph of the therapeutic” (Rieff). For authors such as Sennett, Bellah, and Greenberg, self-help-induced individualism epitomizes the decline of the public and the social-political world at large. More particularly, the project to bind the individual back to a social world culminates in the abandonment of that “world” in favor of an exclusive focus on the private. Only the distinctions arising from the latter are regarded as meaningful, and morality becomes a matter of psychology: the therapist (or his medium, namely the advice book) is to be our guide to well-being, and well-being is the key to achieving a just world. The basis of conversation with others is no longer religion, nor categorical imperatives or accounts of virtues, nor any other binding commitment. Rather, conversation is substituted by soliloquy; religious, moral, or political distinctions are replaced by therapeutic ones. All that is needed in the therapeutic world of intimacy with oneself is a thorough emptying of the public realm (cf. Greenberg 1994: p. 215). While each form of intervention addresses the individual and thereby contributes to further individualization, this does not necessarily exclude the social, but may also provide the anchor for deliberation and change for both the individual and his or her environment. As early as 1985, Bellah and others issued a critique that links all aforementioned strands of criticism and that has only gained in validity. For him, the therapeutic move of establishing private values operates as the most important safeguard against the public world. It is not a moral practice but a technique with disciplining effects that sounds “not altogether different from a textbook description of decision making in a school of management” (Bellah 1985: 128). Technocratic forms of individualization are devoid of rational discourse at the expense of sheer individualistic agency: “A lack of rational discourse ultimately leads to incoherence and fragmentation: now we have selves whose absolute detachment from webs of interlocution brings about an incommensurability that makes moral discourse incoherent. We have a world of sole authors with their stories, whose basis is, perhaps a ‘feeling good’ that is entirely private and cannot be fully and

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 69

rationally explained to any other person. There is no shared understanding of what the Good is. There is only the agony of fragmentation.” (Greenberg 1994: 205)

Although this line of critique does have its grain of truth, it fails to consider the ambivalences entailed in self-help practices: Whichever way we work on our self, even if in allegedly more serious ways (e.g., using psychoanalytic methods or ZENmeditation), all interventions into oneself rely on techniques that ultimately have their disciplining effects on ourselves as well as on our perspective toward the world around us (for the production of such a world through psychoanalysis, cf. Beer 1983). Rather than easily dismissing self-help as a deviant variant of more serious exemplars, one should acknowledge the ambivalent effects of the therapeutic culture in general (cf. Maasen 1998). Maybe it is no accident that the critics seem rather helpless against the pervasiveness of self-help activities by which individuals actually try to govern their lives (if humbly), vis-à-vis the commonly acknowledged lack of certainty and controllability of everyday life. Not only do they remain silent as to what they conceive of as acceptable modes of producing “the social”, “rational discourse,” or “morality” in a highly individualized, if not fragmented world; moreover, they do not even consider self-change practices to be such a mode. Before exploring this possibility, we will look into two pertinent lines of theorizing, one based upon Niklas Luhmann’s considerations of how to communicate about intimacy at all, the other one based upon Foucault’s later works on governmentality.

6

T HE

CODIFICATION OF INTIMACY

Intimacy, as most social scientists would concede, is at the heart of affective relations in western societies. Moreover, they would agree that intimacy is characterized by a paradoxical tendency: On the one hand, people hope for fusion (a “pure relationship” in Anthony Giddens’ terms), and on the other hand, they are driven by individualism and the desire for self-actualization. We, however, would go one step further and argue that the very desire for self-actualization or self-management, promoted by self-help practices, among others, is not necessarily antithetical to modern forms of sociality. On the contrary, intimacy with oneself based on a normalized set-up called counseling may be constitutive for modern forms of sociality, including novel forms of rational and moral discourse. To this end, we suggest shifting the analytical perspective. We will thus take up Niklas Luhmann’s view and regard intimacy as result of a social codification of communicating about highly personal issues and briefly look at the way in which it becomes introduced into more and more aspects of societal interaction. As a result, the notion of intimacy is about to become more and more intimate.

70 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

Regarding this topic, Luhmann’s work on Love as Passion (1986) makes one important assumption, namely that social relations, and intimate relations in particular, are highly improbable. Indeed, in the light of all things we could communicate about, all the ways we could communicate, and all the words we could use, what can be done to render certain communications more expectable? In other words, in light of the contingency and complexity connected to the probability of certain issues, forms of communication and vocabularies becoming accepted, one needs to establish certain devices to render certain communications more successfully. From a systems-theoretical approach to the evolution of societal communication, this improbability is overcome and the complexity is reduced through the emergence of symbolic generalization, which, sociologically speaking, acts as media of interchange. As far as intimate communication is concerned, love is such a generalization. Love enhances the probability that we will talk about intimate things. Love, however, is not the only symbolic generalization that is applied to intimate relationships: pleasure is another, and historically, (arranged) marriage offered a third generalization for intimate relations, but in modern society is now combined with love. Thus love, pleasure, and marriage operate as historically evolved media for communicating intimacy. Though most symbolic generalizations are binarily coded (e.g., morality is coded by esteem/disdain; law by legal/illegal), this is not the case for love. The codification of love may have evolved since the 17th century, but it has typically been programmed by either passion or frivolity. Although passion has been understood differently in various periods, it has consistently been more dominant than frivolity, as social order demands. At the end of his book, Luhmann suggests that currently “idealization and paradoxicalization as code forms could be replaced by problem orientation. Totalizing regulations lead to problems that can be pinpointed exactly and, above all, expected” (Luhmann 1986: 168). And indeed, as our tour d’horizon of the constitutive prototypes of modern self-help literature was also meant to show, instruction books contributed to establishing certain issues in thinking about and acting toward oneself, the ways this is done, and the vocabularies used to do so, particularly in relation to others (e.g., how to become happy despite stressful demands made by others). In fact, a growing set of issues came to be subjected to a program of “understanding”, the latter increasingly being coded by problem orientation: What shall I do? How shall I find out? The crucial point is that questions of this kind are typically not regarded as indicating an excessive concern with oneself, but rather as an expectable and in most cases acceptable way to address a whole range of issues; and quite regularly, we address these issues as problems, or more specifically, as my problems. Next, one needs to look at the form in which this generalized problem orientation takes place. The most prominent form of (intimate) communication nowadays

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 71

is “counseling” (Fuchs, Mahler 2000). The main characteristic of counseling is the differentiation between the advice proper and the action following from it. Systems theory takes counseling to be the form that marks this specific difference between word and deed (cf. Fuchs, Mahler 2000: 350). The mark is constituted socially, as well as temporally and spatially. As for the social dimension, counseling differentiates a counselor from a seeker of advice. In the temporal dimension, counseling gives a certain order to a series of activities: firstly, there is a problem that, secondly, has to be deliberated upon before, thirdly, a novel kind of action can be performed. As for the spatial dimension, advice-giving typically happens in so-called extraterritorial spaces (cf. Hahn 1982). Self-help books strictly follow this form, with the notable exception that in this guise, in all dimensions, counselling is a solitary activity of seeking, choosing, and following advice – the “I” confers with its “Me.” While all variants of counseling distinctively shape communication about intimacy with oneself, self-help fosters it most specifically. Just by looking at the basic structure of this development, a striking coevolution of code and form of communication about intimacy becomes apparent: while the code evolved toward problem-orientation toward oneself, the form of communication evolved toward ubiquitous deployment. The form of counseling is to be found in ever more settings (e.g., education, industry, politics), and it relies more often upon intimate issues (e.g., coaching of professionals operates predominantly upon techniques of self-knowledge). At the crossroads of both form and code, we find “intimacy with oneself” taking place in self-directed practices of counseling. In the course of this happening, the code of problem orientation and the form of counseling ultimately address intimacy within the framework of a different symbolic generalization: next to love, pleasure, and marriage, it seems that the self has become the decisive symbolic generalization, that is, the socially accepted medium of interchange on intimacy. Given the self-help hype in all types of contexts, one can hardly deny, though, that passion has survived as well, yet now it seems to be combined with the self. Intimacy today is about the passionate inspection of the self in terms of problems to be solved, either with an expert or with oneself. From this vantage point of intimacy as codified communication, often taking place in a generalized form called counseling, one is then able to regard intimacy with respect not only to its individualizing, but also to its socializing and political functions. In the light of recent governmentality studies, intimacy with oneself is revealed as a highly powerful means of mutually regulating highly individualized selves and today’s highly contingent and complex societies.

72 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

7 T HE

POLITICS OF SELF : HOW - TO BOOKS

G OVERNMENTALITY

VIA

By sneaking into the lives of virtually all of us, instruction books not only function as self-technologies but also as governmental technologies. Coined by Foucault, the term governmentality refers to the capacity and a specific mode of a (political) rationality that enables us to conduct our selves and others. While the therapeutic discourse of the 1980s hailed the jargon of “inwardness” and the search for the “true self”, modern governmental discourse uses the jargon of “economization” and responsibilization. Put to the extreme, guiding a self simply equals running a company: subjectivity is a corporate identity; communication with oneself operates along the mode of project management (see techniques of moderation); one has to deal with certain resources and several inputs to create a maximum output. The basic principle of organization is the negotiation of conflicting demands and commitment, commitment toward oneself. This contractual approach (cf. Broeckling, 2000) installs new forms of obligation to oneself: Empower yourself! Motivate yourself! Educate yourself! These paradoxical calls are processed by way of continuous self-change work: you have to know yourself, trust yourself and stay at peace with yourself – in short, you have to continuously augment the relation to yourself. Each and every incentive to go for more entails the deeply felt conviction of just not doing enough. Work on yourself simply never ends and it attributes responsibility to oneself. From the governmental point of view, recent how-to literature helps to specify and differentiate some of the political rationalities within which government is articulated today. Following Miller and Rose (1993: 80), we see a type of language in which objects and objectives are construed, in which the grammar of analyses and prescriptions, the vocabularies of programs, and the terms of how the legitimacy of governing self and others are established. The discursive matrix revolves around the “enterprising self” (Rose 1992) and the politics of autonomous selfhood. The enhancement of individuality and responsibility is a subjective desire and, at the same time, an objective demand – highly individualized, responsible and flexible selves are suited to a complex society in which neither intimate relations, nor state nor civil society assume sufficient responsibility. The “enterprising self” not only fills this gap, but “proactively” initiates, shapes, and/or terminates relationships, careers, and/or life-courses – self-management includes and involves one’s closest partners, family, and friends. In actuality, hardly any domain of life remains that does not rely on individuals’ capacity to govern themselves and others; health care, old-age pensions or active citizenship are increasingly based upon and shaped by selfmanagement activities. Their individualistic and technocratic downsides notwith-

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 73

standing, they are indeed the point of departure for novel modes of creating the social and the political. In this way, self-help books are revealed as part of those micro-technologies by which subjects regulate themselves and others – they are, in fact, governmental technologies. Government by responsibility is particularly efficient, as it is wrapped in the promise of liberating oneself and, moreover, of being a prime expression of autonomy (act according to your own choice). The concept of governmentality thus makes us see the intimate (!) and intricate connection of an abstract political rationality (termed neoliberalism) and micro-techniques of the relation to ourselves. True enough, these techniques, which Thomas Osborne identifies as technologies of freedom, are highly – and maybe inescapably – ambivalent: “Under neoliberal conditions freedom becomes a technology of freedom [...] this means that freedom once more is a matter of networks of freedom that are integrated with our existence. This is, of course, no absolute freedom – whatever this could be – but we talk about networks of trust, of risk, of choice. Networks that invite us to overcome the incalculability of our lives by way of entrepreneurship and acts of free will [...] (on this understanding) freedom has a price: continuous monitoring. Wherever freedom appears in our neo liberal era, there is monitoring, audit, regulation of norms. In other words: forms of freedom that integrate us with the whole continuum of acceptable forms of (self-) government.” (Osborne 2001: 15; our italics, SM/SD).

Among those technologies of freedom, we find self-help, including all kinds of how-to books that introduce us to acceptable forms of self-regulation. Not unlike other technologies of freedom, the enhancement of individuality and selfsatisfaction is a double-edged sword: increased autonomy has to be paid for with increased heteronomy. That is, more autonomy as to factual decisions (e.g., happiness or success or health) correlates to more heteronomy as to the process of how to make such decisions, monitor one’s actions, and possibly adapting either one’s goals or actions. The more intimate the procedures become, the more intricate and self-reinforcing the link of self and society becomes, toward which the continuous self-regulating effort is ultimately directed.

8

S ELF - HELP : ABOUT

ACCEPTABILITIES

Self-help books contribute to a morality that is not about avoiding moral wrongdoing, so as to maintain an empty husk of “shoulds” and “oughts”. Nor do they contribute to a morality fully characterized by exercising the virtues (justice, fortitude, prudence, and temperance) as, for instance, Albert Ellis teaches in his writings (cf.

74 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

Ellis 1994). Rather, the morality of self-help books is one of decision, commitment, responsibility. that is, an ethics of autonomous selfhood. This may be called a “postmodern ethics” (put forward by the medium of selfhelp, too, albeit in an overtly pragmatic fashion). However, postmodern ethics is certainly not about a situation where “anything goes”, but rather about facing the world without easy recourse to guiding codes or principles. It is about an acceptance that ambivalence and disorder are aspects of life we should embrace – not just temporary difficulties that need to be overcome by further analysis or the application of further structured ethical systems. Postmodern thinkers would contend that by focusing on the responsibility to act, traditional ethics has had to “fix or close down parameters of thought and to ignore or homogenize at least some dimensions of specificity or difference among actors. To act in this sense means inevitably closing off sources of possible insight and treating people as alike for the purpose of making consistent and defensible decisions about alternative courses of action. The modern thinker associates the commitment to this sense of responsibility with self-justification either in the sense of moral-uprightness or pragmatic effectiveness. The postmodern thinker, however, sees a deeper, unacknowledged will to mastery at work here.” (White 1991: 21, our italics, SM/SD) This postmodern ethics is put forward by the medium of self-help, too, albeit in an overtly pragmatic fashion. It shares the utter conviction that social change emerges from an ethos and a practice of changing oneself. Quoting Gandhi “For changing the world, you have to change yourself”, they promise a positive modification of nothing less but “your family, your work group, your community, your society” (Covey 1999, 277). Craving to change the world, individuals intervening intimately into themselves articulate a struggle for autonomy and responsibility that cannot easily be dismissed as trivial (cf. Taylor 1991), or as being exerted by “cultural dopes.” Rather, we see a deeper, though unacknowledged will to master the fragmented, the uncertain, and the ambivalent that has yet to be explored. The practices of intimacy with oneself and the medium of how-to books, however, certainly play a decisive role.

R EFERENCES Baur, Gesine, and Wilhelm Schmid-Bode (2000) Glück ist kein Zufall. Lassen Sie sich vom Glück berühren. Die besten Methoden für ein erfülltes Leben. München: Gräfe und Unzer. Becker, Rudolf Zacharias (1787) Not- und Hilfsbüchlein für Bauersleute. Leipzig: Göschen. Beer, Gilian. (1983) Darwin’s Plot: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction. London: Routledge and Paul.

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 75

Bellah, Robert N. (1985) Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bröckling, Ulrich (2000). “Totale Mobilmachung. Menschenführung im Qualitätsund Selbstmanagement.” In Gouvernementalität der Gegenwart. Studien zur Ökonomisierung des Sozialen, U. Bröckling, S. Krasmann and T. Lemke (eds): 131-167. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Bröckling, Ulrich (2002) Das unternehmerische Selbst und seine Geschlechter: Gender-Konstruktionen in Erfolgsratgebern. In Leviathan, 48, no. 2: 175 –194. Carnegie, Dale (1977) (1938). How to Win Friends and Influence People. Kingswood: The World’s Work. Castel, Françoise, R. Castel, and Anne Lovell (1982) Psychiatrisierung des Alltags. Produktion u. Vermarktung d. Psychowaren in den USA. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Castel, Robert (1988)”Die flüchtigen Therapien”. In Vom Ende des Individuums zur Individualität ohne Ende, H. Brose and B. Hildenbrand (eds),153–160. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merill, and Rebecca R. Merill (1999) Der Weg zum Wesentlichen. Zeitmanagement der vierten Generation. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus. Dyer, Wayne (1976) Your Erroneuos Zones. New York: Funk Wagnalls. Ellis, Albert (1994) Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (revised ed). New York: Carol Publishing Group. Foucault, Michel (1986) “Der Kampf um die Keuschheit”. In Die Masken des Begehrens und die Metamorphosen der Sinnlichkeit. Zur Geschichte der Sexualität im Abendland, P. Ariès, A. Béjin, and M. Foucault et al. (eds), 25-39. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch. Foucault, Michel (1988) “Technologies of the Self”. In Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, L.H. Martin, H. Gutman, and P.H. Hutton (eds), 16-49. London: Tavistock. Foucault, Michel (1990) The History of Sexuality. An Introduction New York: Vintage. Foucault, Michel (2000) “Die Gouvernementalitat“. In Gouvernementalität der Gegenwart. Studien zur Ökonomisierung des Sozialen, U. Bröckling, S. Krasmann and T. Lemke (eds), 41-67. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Frauenpower für Powerfrauen. Der beste Weg zu mehr Glück, Erfolg und Selbstbewusstsein. 2000. München: Südwest. Fuchs, Peter, and Enrico Mahler (2000) Form und Funktion der Beratung. Soziale Systeme 6: 349-368. Gaume, Jean Joseph (1867) Handbuch für Beichtväter. Regensburg: Georg Josef Manz.

76 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

Gerling, Reinhold (1920) Die Gymnastik des Willens. Praktische Anleitung zur Erhaltung der Energie und Selbstbeherrschung, Kräftigung von Gedächtnis und Arbeitslust durch Stärkung der Willenskraft ohne fremde Hilfe. Berlin: Moeller. Giddens, Anthony (1992) The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Greenberg, Gary (1994) The Self on the Shelf: Recovery Books and Good Life. New York: State University Press. Grossmann, Gustav (1927) Sich selber rationalisieren. Mit Mindestaufwand persönliche Bestleistungen erzeugen. Stuttgart: Verlag für Wirtschaft und Verkehr. Güntner, Joachim (2001) Die ignorierten Bestseller: Ratgeberliteratur – als Phänomen betrachtet. Neue Züricher Zeitung, 65. Haen, Renate (2001) Das Zicken-Prinzip. Der weibliche Weg zu Ruhm und Glück. München: Econ Ullstein List Verlag. Hahn, Alois (1982) Zur Soziologie der Beichte und anderer Formern institutionalisierter Bekenntnisse: Selbstthematisierung und Zivilisationsprozess. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 34: 408-434. Helmel, Heinrich (1928) Kraft und Tat. Wegweiser zu Wille, Gesundheit, Kraft [Gemeinschaft Deutscher Wegbereiter im Bunde für Aufartung]. Passau: Wegbereiter-Verlag. Holdau, Felicitas (1999) Einfach gut drauf. Tolle Gute-Laune-Macher. WellnessTips und Psycho-Tricks. München: Gräfe und Unzer. Kliche, Thomas (2001) “Das moralisch abgezogene und kapitalisierte Selbst. Psychotests, die Erbauungsliteratur flexibler Modernisierung“. In Infografiken, Medien, Normalisierung. Zur Kartografie politisch-sozialer Landschaften, U. Gerhard, J. Link, E. Schulte-Holtey (eds): 115-126. Heidelberg: SYNCHRON: Wissenschaftsverlagverlag der Autoren. Knigge, Adolph von (1977 )(1788) Über den Umgang mit Menschen. Frankfurt am Main: Insel. Koch-Linde, Birgitta (1984) Amerikanische Tagträume. Success und Self-Help Literatur der USA, [Campus Forschung Bd 393: Schriftenreihe des Zentrums für Nordamerika-Forschung]. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Campus. Küstenmacher, Werner T. (2001) Simplify your life. Einfacher und glücklicher leben. Frankfurt am Main: New York: Campus. Lindworsky, Johannes (1927) Willensschule. Paderborn: Schöningh. Luhmann, Niklas (1986) Love as Passion. The Codification of Intimacy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Luhmann, Niklas (1992). Beobachtungen der Moderne. Opladen: Westdeutscher. Maasen, Sabine (1998) Genealogie der Unmoral. Zur Therapeutisierung sexueller Selbste. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1984). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

I NTIMACY IN HOW -TO B OOKS

| 77

Mary, Michael (2003) Die Glückslüge. Vom falschen Glauben an die Planbarkeit des Lebens. Bergisch Gladbach: Lübbe. Miller, Peter, and Nicolas Rose. (1995) “Production, identity and democracy.” Theory and Society 24: 427-467. Moskowitz, Eva S. (2001) In Therapy We Trust: America’s Obsession with Selffulfillment, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Newman, Mildred, and Bernard Berkowitz (1971) How to Be Your Own Best Friend. New York: Ballantine. Osborne, Thomas (2001) “Techniken und Subjekte: Von den ‘governmentality studies’ zu den ‘studies of governmentality’“, IWK-Mitteilungen 2-3: 12-16. Osho (2004) Zeitschrift des Osho-Institut Köln. Pitroff, Uschka, C. Niemann, and P. Regelin (2003) Wellness. Die besten Ideen und Rezepte für die Wohlfühloase zu Hause. München: Gräfe und Unzer. Pittrof, Thomas (1989). Knigges Aufklärung über den Umgang mit Menschen. München: Wilhelm Fink. Rieff, Philipp (1987). The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud. Chicago: University Press. Riesman, David, in collaboration with R. Denney and N. Glazer (1950). The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character. New Haven: Yale University Press. Rose, Nikolas (1992). “Governing the enterprising self.” In The Values of the Enterprise Culture: The Moral Debate, P. Heelas and P. Morris (eds). London, New York: Routledge. Sartorius, Johannes (1929) Die Feldherrnkunst des Lebens. Eine Willensschule. Paderborn: Schöningh. Schmid, Wilhelm (1998) Philosophie der Lebenskunst. Eine Grundlegung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Schmid, Wilhelm (2004) Mit sich selbst befreundet sein. Von der Lebenskunst im Umgang mit sich selbst. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Sennett, Richard (1992) The Fall of Public Man. New York: W.W. Norton. Starker, Steven (2002) Oracle at Supermarket: The American Preoccupation with Self-help Books. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Taylor, Charles (1991) The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge (Mass.): London: Harvard University Press. Tepperwein, Kurt (1997) Der Schlüssel zum Glück. Ein Anti-Ärger-Programm. Güllesheim: Die Silberschnur. Touraine, Alain (1999) “Can we live together, equal and different”. European Journal of Social Theory 1(2): 165-178. Todorov, Tzvetan (1984) The conquest of America: The Question of the Other. New York: Harper & Row. Trilling, Lionel (1972) Sincerity and Authenticity. London: Oxford University Press.

78 | S ABINE M AASEN/STEFANIE D UTTWEILER

Wellfit (2003) Freundin Verlag 2. White, Stephan K. (1991) Political Theory and Postmodernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Intimate Communication on the Internet How Digital Media are Changing our Lives at the Microlevel F RIEDRICH K ROTZ

The following text discusses some changes in communication, especially in intimate communication via digital media. The main thesis is that the introduction of digital media has an impact on the communicative behaviour on a micro-social level, in particular shown by the analysis of the conditions of intimate communication on the Internet and its consequences. Theoretically, the text should be understood as part of the so-called Medium Theory (Meyrowitz 1995), which focuses on the impact of media on society instead of the effects of media content. More precisely, we refer to the so called Mediatization approach (Krotz 2007, 2008, Lundby 2009). This approach includes the thesis that human communication as the basic activity of human beings refers more and more on media in a specific cultural and historical way – and this is how everyday life and identity, culture and society are changing in relation to media development. Using this frame, the study of intimate communication can provide valuable information about societal processes being influenced by media. Of course, at the present time we can only collect signs and indicators for this thesis; there is no elaborated theory. We start by defining intimate communication as a specific type of communication, which takes place in a specific type of situation. Then we discuss how digital media in the form with which we are familiar today change communication in general, and how they influence intimate communication in particular. The changing conditions of and changing partners in digitallymediated intimate communication are then discussed in more detail. Some conclusions will be found at the end, which will hopefully make clear why such a topic is of interest for the future, as these changing conditions will, in the long run, change the way we live together, and how we construct the world and make sense of it.

80 | FRIEDRICH KROTZ

1

I NTIMATE C OMMUNICATION

Many examples of modern-day intimate communication can be found in Erving Goffman’s book about stigmata (Goffman 1977/1963). For example, telling another person that one is sexually deviant or HIV-positive would be categorised as intimate communication, but in general, it is difficult to define exactly what is meant by intimate communication. This is especially so because the concept of what is intimate has changed throughout history, as the work of Richard Sennett (1990), Muchembled (1990), or Norbert Elias (1972) (cf. Krotz 2003) has shown. Further, the definition of intimacy also depends on culture and sub- or co-culture. In general, in the case of intimate communication there are at least two evident problems that are to be avoided; one is of importance during the actual situation, the other may come up afterwards. During the actual situation, one depends on his or her partners. If the partners are disgusted or shocked, if they laugh inappropriately or behave wrongly in any other sense, one may feel ashamed and experience problems or difficulty when relating to those persons. One must find ways to help oneself, for instance by assuming “my partner just doesn’t understand me,” or “my partner is really no longer interested in understanding me.” Such an experience then often leads to a redefinition of one’s social relationships – maybe an individual’s partners are no longer defined as true friends, or maybe the conversation partners redefine the individual as a liar or deceiver and thus changed their relation to him or her. After the conversation, one problem may be that partners tell others the content of the intimate communication. This may lead to further shameful situations or even to conflicts; for example, a boss may discover that the individual is HIV-positive and have difficultly accepting this fact. Because of this, individuals are usually very careful in selecting with whom they start an intimate conversation, and who has access to it. We can reformulate this more systematically using the concept of situation: Situations have a place and a time locator that denotes where, when and for how long they take place. But “situation” is not an objective entity. Instead, following the famous Thomas Theorem, situations are constructed by those people who define themselves as being a part of it. Situations thus have frontiers that separate what belongs to them and what is outside of them; they have a main topic and a development and may change their character; and they contain a general orientation for the participating individuals on what is and is not important. Often a situation connect with an idea of what may follow and what precede it – thus, a person slides from one situation into the next. It is crucial for the concept that a situation consists of a bulk of rules regarding what may be said and done, and how (Krotz 2001). Situations are fundamental to expecting and interpreting what takes place, what is the meaning of the event, and how to behave under such conditions; they are a frame

I NTIMATE COMMUNICATION

ON THE I NTERNET

| 81

for what communication takes place and how it develops (Goffman 1980/1977). For example, although one may meet the same people in church, in the boss’s office, in the red-light district of the town, or at a conference, in every situation the dialogue will develop in different ways, because different social frames and contexts exist. We can now formulate some conditions for intimate communication, understood as a specific type of communication taking place in a specific type of situation: 1. The access to the situation is controlled. Usually this means that a person ensures that only good friends (in relation to the topic of the communication) may have access. These good friends often are called intimate friends and are persons one has known for a very long time and with whom one experiences a very deep relationship and sense of established trust. They can also be members of an intimate group such as one’s family or others with whom a wealth of experiences has been shared. But these are not the only type of persons who may have access – for example, intimate communication may take place with a medical doctor or a priest who listens as an expert, following specific rules (and only because s/he follows such rules is s/he accepted as being an expert).
In the case of intimate face-to-face-communication, the control of access also controls the location of the situation. 2. The topic about which people intimately communicate is of a specific type. It is usually a topic in which one is involved and which one does not share with everybody. It must be accepted by the other participants that this topic may generate social problems if anybody else were to be informed about it. Thus, if someone invites a person to engage in intimate communication, that individual is expected to speak about a basic problem that may fear or shame, or one that is very important the individual: One cannot issue inivites for intimate talk and then discuss a problem with car tyres or whether one prefers scotch to bourbon. 3. Rules on how to behave in such a situation represent a further crucial element. For example, in a situation of intimate communication, it is expected that the participating persons are highly involved. If conversation partners do not listen or try to watch a soccer game on TV on the side, this rule is violated. Thus, the label “intimate” not only separates a communicative situation from other situations and other people, but also forces the participants to act and communicate in a specific way about specific topics. These three points of course are not an exhaustive definition of “intimate communication.” But all three are conditions of importance to the thesis of the changing conditions of human communication by digital media, as we will see below. In addition, it should be noted that the named mechanisms of control do not guarantee full security. In general, it is easier to control access and topic, and it is more com-

82 | FRIEDRICH KROTZ

plicated to control the communication process or the behaviour of the people afterwards. If despite of the control problems emerge, strategies exist to repair the situation, as already mentioned above. For instance, redefining one’s relationships with others may be one strategy. But rather than discuss further definitions and conditions of “intimate communication,” which may prove too exhaustive for this paper, we will now focus on changes to intimate communication caused by digital media.

2 W HAT

IS NEW IN DIGITAL MEDIA: N EW FORMS AND CONDITIONS OF COMMUNICATION AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES FOR SOCIAL RELATIONS

We begin by understanding that the human being is the only animal with the ability to use symbols in a highly differentiated and complex way. In adhering to this definition, we follow philosophers such as Ernst Cassirer (1994) and Susan K. Langer (1994/2); social scientists like George Herbert Mead (1934/1969), Alfred Schutz (1971), Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1980/1966), and Norbert Elias (1972/1989); or researchers with a semiotic background who work in the Cultural Studies tradition. Thus, we can assert that human beings live in a symbolic environment, and that for them, “Things are the signs of words” (Carey 1989: 25). In consequence, the most important form of human action is communicating with others or in an inner dialogue with oneself. In this context, the work of George Herbert Mead is of especial importance because he showed how typically human phenomena such as being part of a group, a culture, and a society, or how having a self and an identity, as well as a consciousness of the world and of oneself, are results of communication (Mead 1934/1969, 1973; Burkitt 1991). A further result of those theories is that we believe that people live in social nets of relations that are repeatedly realized and redefined by communication. Our relations with our family, our colleagues, neighbours and friends spring to life in communication and are maintained and developed by communication and are crucial for any human being. In consequence, if each person lives in a net of social relations that are based on communication, social relations then evidently depend on the communication possibilities that a person has, and thus also on the communicative media a person has access to. My thesis is that as a consequence of the emergence of the digital media, other forms of communication have been made possible. Because social and emotional relations are based in communication, changing conditions for such relations may have the effect that changing forms of social and emotional relations may also come into existence. In the long run, this would have important consequences for the way people live, and for how they understand the world.

I NTIMATE COMMUNICATION

ON THE I NTERNET

| 83

To make this clear, we should start with understanding Media as something that modifies communication. Systematically speaking, face-to-face-communication is the basic form of communication for humankind as a whole, and for each individual in his/her personal life. Before the advent of digital media, two further modified forms of communication had been made possible by traditional media: On the one hand, mediated interpersonal communication takes place if two or more persons communicate by letter, telephone or any other adequate medium. On the other hand, media exist that are used for communication with a given, standardised product. This is the case whenever a person reads a book, listens to the radio, or watches TV, and this form of communication is called media reception. Thus, before the advent of digital media, three different forms of communication were at our disposal: faceto-face-communication, and the two modified forms of mediated interpersonal communication and media reception, with each one using different respective media. Before discussing what is possible with digital media, one must remember that media are not only technical devices but “contain” many social rules and traditions, and that their use is determined by socially- and culturally-based expectations. Each medium is thus bound by tradition, culture, and society to specific times, places, purposes and situations, and each medium has been separated by those conditions from other media. For example, reading a newspaper is something often done in the morning, and is done in order to inform oneself about current affairs. Newspapers may also be read on public transport or during a break at work. However, both of these situations would be unusual for listening to the radio or watching TV. While a reader of a newspaper expects information, the average TV viewer is primarily interested in entertainment, and the average radio listener wants to listen to music (at least, this is true in Germany). Analogous rules and expectations hold for mediated interpersonal communication as well. For example, in Germany it is forbidden to phone a person at random for sales purposes if that person did not initiate contact himself (telemarketing). Thus, whereas the telephone is not used for advertising, this does not hold true for TV or newspapers. Digital media in the forms we are familiar with today now tend to change all that. Younger and better-educated people (with more money at their disposal) already live in a media world that differs from the world experienced by older people who learned their media-related behaviours before the advent of digital media. 1. Basically, after face-to-face-communication, mediated interpersonal communication and media reception, digital media constitutes a fourth, new form of communication, which we call interactive communication. Until now, interactive communication takes place mainly in computer games or with objects such as Tamagotchis, but we will see below that this new form is of importance for

84 | FRIEDRICH KROTZ

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

intimate communication in a broader sense, as it may be seen as a form of “interpersonal” communication with a machine. Besides that, digital media like the Internet and mobile phones offer new communication possibilities such as SMS and Chat, among others, for both old and new purposes. At the same time, “old” media like the letter, TV, or radio have not disappeared, but the functions they have for people have changed. Thus, digital media change the conditions of mediated communication, as I will argue in the following points. Because of the digital form of data, all media are converging or growing together – as technical devices, and in terms of their content and organisation, and via finances and economy. In addition, they converge in the way they are used by people. Thus we can claim that the media environments of individuals, at least in the northern parts of the globe, consist of more and more different devices and channels that are technically and economically connected. At the same time, media environments have become more complex and offer ever more communication possibilities. In consequence, in every single case, every user must decide which of all those communication possibilities should be used for a specific purpose and select an adequate media form – e.g. a letter, an e-mail, a phone call, or an SMS. As a lot of studies show, more and more people are using the richer media environment for more and more purposes during more and more phases of a day, and in more and more situations and places. Consequently, media communication takes place under changing conditions of what, when, with whom, or via which channel we are communicating. We can understand this as a new step in a societal process of mediatisation (Krotz 2001), which means that from a historical perspective, more and more communication takes place via media. Thus, it can be argued that culture, the economy, politics, society, and everyday life increasingly depend on media. In particular, digital media change the possibilities for interpersonal communication in a special way. For example, if an individual wants to contact a person via an old form of interpersonal media, he or she must know an address or a telephone number. (Of course, it is possible to dial any number and speak to the person at the other end of the line, but this is, in general, not socially acceptable behaviour.) Usually, one speaks by phone or sends a letter only to persons whom one knows – in any other case, one must first explain why this rule is being broken. The Internet, howevr, has changed this modus operandi in a broad way: via this medium, one can now “meet” and contact other persons without knowing their name, address, or any other offline characteristics. Usually, in face-to-face-communication, one sees and experiences the other “as she or he is.” This means that the other person is physically present, and one can thus observe the other by “reading” his or her clothes and behaviour. In addi-

I NTIMATE COMMUNICATION

ON THE I NTERNET

| 85

tion, one can analyse the situation to derive further information about the communication partner. A lot of behaviour rules refer to this background information to which everyone has access in a face-to-face-situation – for example, one knows whether the other person is male or female without having to ask, and so one also knows what should and should not be said. As is well known, in digital communication situations a person knows less, or even nothing at all, about the person with whom one is communicating. This, of course, is especially true for chat communication, where one can experience only what conversation partners allow one to know. Of course, all these new communication possibilities are a consequence of technical developments. But to at least the same degree, they are also consequences of a twofold social development. First, they depend on the specific social and economic organisation of the new media. For example, in the net of mobile communication, every participant has a fixed identifier and, in principle, one can find out to whom one is speaking or with whom one is exchanging SMS. This is not true in the case of the Internet, as the Internet offers ”places” where one can meet others. Because of this, anonymous contact is possible. This fact evidently depends on the organisation of the Internet: Not only are the given technical conditions of importance, but the organisation of the medium even more so. In addition, what is possible via the form of any technical medium depends on what people do with it. Any media environment offers us communication possibilities as specific services, as was intended by the respective inventors – but people decide to use these possibilities to suit their own purposes. For instance, the telephone was originally invented for the distribution of music and opera, but was then used by people for interpersonal communication. We can now formulate the thesis that new forms of mediated communication have come into our lives via digital media. They offer us new communication forms, as well as new conditions for already existing communication forms. In consequence, the communication-based nets of social and emotional relations in which we are living may change. Analytically, we can differentiate between a face-toface-communication net and a mediated communication net. Both are intertwined, and together they form the basis of our social relations. Of course, this does not mean that we can differentiate in general between mediated and other social and emotional relations. Instead, we must have in mind that most relations refer to mediated and non-mediated forms of communication – we speak to friends on the telephone, meet them face-to-face, speak to them, and think about them. But the way we communicate with others has changed for most of us, as we also preserve and develop more and more of our relations through the use of digital media.

86 | FRIEDRICH KROTZ

In the next chapters, we discuss these new possibilities with reference to intimate communication in more detail – first as they can be seen as changing conditions for intimate communication, then as changing partners for emotional and social relations may come up.

3 I NTIMATE SITUATIONS IN MEDIATED C HANGING CONDITIONS

COMMUNICATION :

Here, we are occupied with the changing conditions of communication and will discuss some examples of digitally mediated intimate communication that violate traditional rules of intimate communication. 1. Intimate communication may take place with persons we know very well. In this case, a new element is the greater possibilities available via digital media. But I this regard, problems also arise, as it is not very clear which media should be used for what purpose. Personal and sub- or co-cultural rules are important for every type of communication, especially for intimate communication: One must find a medium that is acceptable to the others involved. For example, some people may not like that one issue a declaration of love or announce an intent to divorce via an e-mail. If one starts intimate communication via e-mail with a person who very seldom reads her or his e-mail, problematic situations may also arise; if one sends someone an important e-mail that is not read for a week, the delay may be interpreted as disinterest or rudeness. Also, if one uses a media channel that is not culturally acceptable for intimate communication, one may create a situation where the other person refuses to communicate. 2. There are intimate communication situations in which one can neither control the process of communication, nor the involvement of the other participants. If one has an intensive dialogue with another person about an intimate problem in a face-to-face-situation, one can control, at least in part, whether this person fulfills the usually accepted rules and obligations for such situations and conversations. We should, for example, not watch television or whisper with others while we are having an intimate communication. However, both may be done by a chat partner without one’s knowledge. Thus, in the case of digitally mediated communication, one cannot always control what the other person is doing, or know whether or not he/she is seriously considering one’s intimate problem. 3. As we said above, one of the genuine new communication possibilities offered by the digital media is that one may communicate with persons one does not know in any context outside of the online situation, and that one is unable to identify this person if she or he does not want to be identified. This occurs if

I NTIMATE COMMUNICATION

ON THE I NTERNET

| 87

one participates in a chat and the contact, as it is often the case, leads to intimate communication.
If one speaks with another person about an intimate topic, one usually has assumptions about how the other person is involved in the topic, what she or he thinks about it, and what his or her motive is in participating in the first place. This is not possible in the case of a chat with a person you do not know offline, or in a chat where everybody is only present in terms of the information she or he provides. Thus, one can control access to and define an intimate topic, but it is not always possible to control the situation as a process, as one cannot control what the other person is doing or whether she or he is involved, and to what degree. Furthermore, one cannot control who has access to the communication, just as one cannot control whether the other person is speaking truthfully. This is well known, for example, in the phenomenon of gender-swapping shows (Turkle 1995/1998). The only thing one can control in such a situation are the possible consequences, such as what the other person knows about you. 4. A further problem is that the other person may react in a way that is incomprehensible, as there is no information from which her or his actions can be interpreted. This refers, for instance, to the fact that compared with offline contact, the process of approaching and withdrawing from another person is changing thanks to today’s digital media. Entering a location in the offline space is a gradual process in which one can be observed; one can prepare to enter a room, and one may be expected to be there by others who are present, and traditionally, saying hello and not having a sword in one’s hand symbolizes that one is there with a peaceful purpose. Similarly, in such a situation one does not disappear like a ghost, but says goodbye and leaves, more or less, gradually. One consequence of persons suddenly disappearing, and whose disappearance cannot be understood because one does not have the possibility to ask, may be that in intimate communication one is more interested in the answer one can imagine, not in the actual personal position of the other. Empirically, of course, people have different strategies to make intimate communication via Internet channels safer or better. 1. One can try to select dialogue partners more carefully. If, for example, one wants to speak with a person about a serious illness, the digital media give more options: one has more people to speak to, as one has access, for example, to people who have the same problem. 2. One can try to remain anonymous or to hinder people who may attempt to identify one, and thus reduce possible follow-up problems. If in a chat a person called “paolo457” is revealed to be gay, this is rather irrelevant for the person behind this name.

88 | FRIEDRICH KROTZ

3. One can try to become more independent by avoiding answers to questions one does not like or or which may create complications. This strategy is of further importance, because many indicators show that this is a general trend in digital intimate communication. People who present themselves as carrying out intimate actions on the Internet (for example, www.Jennycam.org/guests) frequently argue that they are independent from the thinking of others. Here we find a trend that more and more people no longer care what a generalized “other” thinks of them; they only care about the opinions of specific subgroups of society. Thus, intimate situations then become more frequent in public, not only on the Internet. 4. A further possibility is not at all to communicate intimately with other humans, because a person may essentially distrust all of them. However, distrusting all humans does not mean other possibilities cannot be used. This is the case if one speaks with a robot or machine. This concept sounds strange, but will be explained in the next section of this article. We should bear in mind that it seems plausible to assume that the changing net of relations and the underlying net of communication possibilities may produce other rules of intimate communication, at least in the long run, or in part.

4

I NTIMATE COMMUNICATION WITH ARTIFICIAL C HANGING FORMS OF COMMUNICATION

PERSONS :

Here we want to point to the fact that people may communicate intimately with non-persons, or with software or hardware robots. This means they communicate intimately with a partner whom they think not to be real – like a bot, or a tamagotchi. We call this discourse with an artificial partner artificial communication, and view is as a special case of interactive communication (cf. Krotz 2003b). It is well known that such communication exists. As a mass phenomenon, one needs only to think of tamagotchis. This Japanese invention is a machine that simulates a little child, and the persons who own such a machine must be in close and often intimate contact with that machine; if they are not, problems will arise. Another example of artificial communication with a robot is the Japanese pop star, Kyoko Date (http://www.damoon.net/starf7.htm [January 2013]), who rose in Japanese music charts with the song “Love Communication.” Kyoko Date was not a human but a software program. Many sent “her” personal e-mails and expected intimate answers. Furthermore, one can download bots from the Internet, such as the “Ultra Hal Assistant Vs. 4.0.146” or a newer version that will organise one’s personal computer; one can also talk to this robot in person. Such software partners

I NTIMATE COMMUNICATION

ON THE I NTERNET

| 89

were already available in the 1950s, as the programmer and philosopher Joseph Weizenbaum (1982/1976) reports. He was the inventor of ELIZA, a software program that did not understand anything yet was able to communicate with persons. It was constructed to help other persons to formulate their problems and questions in a clearer manner. A lot of persons, even Weizenbaum’s assistant at that time, took this communication seriously and would close the door to others before starting the interaction with the software. Of course, one can download ELIZA from the Internet today. Besides such software persons with whom people communicate intimately and the tamagotchi, there are further hardware robots that are intended for intimate communication. The most famous one is the Sony AIBO, which is a sort of digital animal. One can train the animal personally or boot him up directly as a dog-like “three-year-old animal,” as Sony calls it. This animal can walk, dance, and play with a ball, and already “understands” 75 short communication situations. The Internet contains diaries written by AIBO owners, in which they describe their experiences in a very personal way (cf. www.mimitchi.com [January 2013]). Here we must take into account that the AIBO is sold in Japan not only to people who like technological advances; another target group is older people living alone. In Japan, as in most European countries, the fact that societies on average are becoming older and that more people are living alone is a genuine social problem, and AIBOs of the future will not only help such people but also give them a human-like partner with whom they can communicate. In this sense, the AIBO is thought to serve the communication needs of old and lonely people – intimate communication included. Thus we have some cases of intimate communication with machines that avoid problems which may occur when communicating intimately with human beings – and it sounds plausible that with further technical developments, more artificial partners will come to life and will be used for intimate communication.

5

F INAL

REMARKS

As we have learned from Juergen Habermas, we should differentiate between different two forms of communication: Communicative action that aims to be successful following the intention of the actor, and communicative action that aims for “Verständigung,” which essentially means that partners agree on the definition of the situation and agree that they are interested in communicating with one another (1987). Of course, the paradigmatic case of intimate face-to-face-communication is communication which aims at “Verständigung,” unless it is not with a person whom we pay to be an expert in medicine, sex, or in anything else. In the case of mediated

90 | FRIEDRICH KROTZ

communication, things are more complicated, because more than two persons are involved. In the case of telephone, a letter, or the internet, mediated communication is always organised by providers, online services, telecommunication enterprises and others who, in general, use individual communication to make money. This, of course, is not a moral argument; it is merely a description: The frame of mediated intimate communication is organised in such a way to be a success on the market. Because of this, we must bear in mind that the new digital media have an organizational form that is at its base different from face-to-face-communication. It at least means that the context in which one’s mediated (intimate) communication takes place is fundamentally different from face-to-face-communication, for nothing is independent of the frame in which it takes place. Of course, this is also true when using any form of mediated interpersonal communication, as these days this always is part of a market situation. But on the Internet or in mobile phone communication this takes on a new character, as enterprises systematically try to organise thousands of people to communicate intimately in given forms. In an even more relevant sense, we can speak of the privatisation of group communication on the Internet. In that vein, it is well known that pharmaceutical companies organise groups of people who share an illness and analyse their often intimate conversations (without making clear that the organising institution is a highly interested enterprise). Thus, one can speak with the words of Herbert Schiller on the privatisation of intimate communication (Schiller 1989, cf. Krotz 2001b). In sum, the net of mediated digital communication is increasingly becoming a reality for people, because it offers new communication possibilities. It does not replace the face-to-face, everyday net of people, as old media still are a valid option for many purposes. But both nets are increasingly becoming intertwined, and intimate communication takes place on both levels. Of course, these developments are still quite fluent, and most people do not have constructed, fixed expectations about what can be said via e-mail and what cannot, what can be said in a chat of a specific type and what cannot. But it is certain that these digital nets give human communication new possibilities that are also used for intimate communication, for building und sustaining social relations, for experimenting with new forms of contact with other, sometimes unknown, persons, and for placing oneself on the scene in social situations. This all occurs under conditions put in place by many enterprises that aim to earn money. As a result, mediated communication as an activity is changing, and this may have consequences for things that until now have been taken for granted. We must bear this in mind, and we must take into account that not all of what is good for the enterprises working on the Internet is good for civil society and for everyday communication. At the very least, furherFurther research is necessary.

I NTIMATE COMMUNICATION

ON THE I NTERNET

| 91

R EFERENCES Berger, Peter L. and Luckmann, Thomas (1969) The Social Construction of Reality. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Burkitt, Ian (1991) Social Selves. London: Sage. Carey, James W. (1989) Communication as Culture. Essays on Media and Society. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Cassirer, Ernst (1994) Wesen und Wirkung des Symbolbegriffs. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Elias, Norbert (1969) The Civilizing Process, Vol.I. The History of Manners. Oxford: Blackwell. (Germ. Orig. 1939 Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, Basel: Verlag Haus zum Falken.) Goffman, Erving (1963) Stigma. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. (Germ. Orig. 1970 Frankfurt a.M.) Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame Analysis. New York: Harper & Row. (Germ. Orig. (1980): Rahmen-Analyse. Ein Versuch über die Organisation von Alltagserfahrungen. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.) Habermas, Jürgen (1987) Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. 2 vol. , 4. ed., Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Krotz, Friedrich (2001) Die Mediatisierung kommunikativen Handelns. Der Wandel von Alltag und sozialen Beziehungen, Kultur und Gesellschaft durch die Medien. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Krotz, Friedrich (2001a) “‘fast interessanter und spannender als VL selbst, aber im Moment ja keine allzu große Kunst.’ Anschlusskommunikation zu Daily Talks und Daily Soaps im Internet.” In Daily Soaps und Daily Talks im Alltag von Jugendlichen. Udo Göttlich, Friedrich Krotz and Ingrid Paus-Haase (eds), 265307, Opladen: Leske und Budrich. Krotz, Friedrich (2001b) “Die Übernahme öffentlicher und individueller Kommunikation durch die Privatwirtschaft. Über den Zusammenhang zwischen Mediatisierung und Ökonomisierung.” In Medienwirtschaft und Gesellschaft Matthias Karmasin, Manfred Knocheand Carsten Winter (eds), 197-217. Münster: LIT. Krotz, Friedrich (2003) “Kommunikation mittels und mit digitalen Maschinen. Inhaltliche und methodologische Überlegungen aus Sicht der Kommunikationswissenschaft.” In Arbeit – Alltag – Psychologie. Über den Bootsrand geschaut. Festschrift für Harald Witt. Christel Kumbruck, Michael Dick and Hartmut Schulze (eds), 315-330. Heidelberg: Asanger. Krotz, Friedrich (2003a) “Zivilisationsprozess und Mediatisierung: Zum Zusammenhang von Medien- und Gesellschaftswandel.” In Medienentwicklung und gesellschaftlicher Wandel. Markus Behmer, Friedrich Krotz, Rudolf Stöber and Carsten Winter (eds), 15-38. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Krotz, Friedrich (2007) Mediatisierung: Fallstudien zum Wandel von Kommunikation. Wiesbaden: VS

92 | FRIEDRICH KROTZ

Krotz, Friedrich (2008) Media Connectivity: Concepts, Conditions and Consequences. In: Connectivity, networks, and flows. Conceptualizing contemporary Communications, Hepp, Andreas/Krotz, Friedrich/Moores, Shaun/Winter, Carsten (eds), 13-33. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press. Langer, Susanne (1992) Philosophy in a new key. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Lundby, Knut (ed) (2009) Mediatization: Concept, Changes, Conflicts. New York: Lang Mead, George Herbert (1969) Philosophie der Sozialität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Mead, George Herbert (1934) Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meyrowitz, Joshua (1994) “Medium theory.“ In Communication theory today D. Crowley & D. Mitchell (eds), 50-77. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Muchembled, Robert (1990) Die Erfindung des modernen Menschen. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rohwohlt. Schiller, Herbert I. (1989) Culture, Inc.: The corporate takeover of public expression. New York: Oxford University Press. Schütz, Alfred (1971) Gesammelte Aufsätze, 2 Bände. Den Haag: Nijhoff. Sennett, Richard (1990) Fall of Public Man. Knopf: Cambridge. Thomas, William I. and Thomas, Dorothy S. (1973) “Die Definition der Situation [The deflinition of the situation]“ In Symbolische Interaktion, Steinert, Heinz (ed), 333-335. Stuttgart: Klett. Turkle, Sherry (1995) Life on the Screen. Identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster. German 1998: Leben im Netz. Identitaet in Zeiten des Internet, Reinbek b. Hamburg: Rowohlt. Weizenbaum, Joshua (1976) Computer Power and Human Reason. Boston: Freeeman and Company. (Germ. 1976: Die Macht der Computer und die Ohnmacht der Vernunft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.)

Let’s Let the Devil Out! How the Public Deals with the Private M ANFRED W EINBERG

In the introductory remarks of one of the best-selling books in Germany in 2002, Dieter Bohlen’s “Nichts als die Wahrheit” (Nothing than truth), we read: “Gaining media attention is not the way Klein Erna [the typical little girl from Hamburg; M.W.], means it to be. You sit around home all day and make up a bunch of strange stories and call a newspaper. Only life can tell stories. Those who do not have a personality are not given attention in the media (unless they sleep with someone famous). A profile like a Bridgestone-tire – only our dear God gives it to you, either you have it or you don’t.” 1 (Bohlen 2002: 9) It is not worth reflecting further on the “personality” who concludes these preliminary remarks with the sentence “Here I am, kiss my ass! / yours truly, Dieter”2 (ibid.). “Gaining media attention” is here unquestionably conceived as a value trait of its own. However, people achieve this in a much different way to what nonfamous people may think. The media do not portray those that sit around at home and make up weird stories, rather those that experience them, which, of course, only happens to those who have the suitable “personality”. This can be illustrated in just one story from Bohlen’s autobiography: “I was really going at it, when it suddenly went pffffftt!, as if I had ridden my bicycle over 1

In the German original: “In die Medien zu kommen ist nicht so, wie Klein Erna sich das immer vorstellt. Man sitzt nicht den ganzen Tag zu Haus, überlegt sich irgendwelche komischen Geschichten und ruft dann die Zeitung an. Geschichten erzählt nur das Leben. Wer keine Personality hat, kommt auch nicht in die Medien (es sei denn, er schläft mit einem Promi). Profil wie ein Bridgestone-Reifen – das gibt einem nur der liebe Gott, das hat man oder hat man nicht.“ Translations of all passages from german books, newspapers or internet by Michael Dobbins, whom I have to thank further for translating my german talk.

2

In the German original: “Hier bin ich, leckt mich alle! / Euer Dieter“.

94 | M ANFRED W EINBERG

an aluminum can. My little friend had a real breakdown. I was in excruciating pain and was bleeding like crazy”3 (Bohlen 2002: 150f.). The diagnosis given at the hospital later was “fracture of the penis with a rupture of the corpus cavernosum”4 (Bohlen 2002: 152). This very private story was soon to be continued publicly, starting with a nurse, “who held a receiver under my nose. ‘I have someone on the phone for you. He needs to speak to you.’ [...] ’Hans-Hermann Tiedje’, he roared at me, ‘listen dear Dieter! You’ve got five minutes to explain to me why you’re lying in the hospital with a broken willy. Otherwise, we’ll find out on our own.’ I still don’t know to this date who gave the head of the ‘Bild’-Newspaper the decisive tip. All I know is that I was lying there in a very weak state of being and broke out in sweat. ‘Yeah, yeah, wait, wait, Hans-Hermann! Just a moment!’, then I said to myself hysterically: what am I going to say? What am I going to say? In my hour of need I made up a story: ‘Well, Hans-Hermann, I was standing in front of the toilet and the toilet seat fell on the darn thing.’ Of course, I could have made up much more clever stories: that I slipped off my bicycle, that a horse had kicked me, but I just didn’t think of anything like that. All I heard was Hans-Hermann screaming ‘wow! wow! wow!’ into the telephone and the next day, [...] I was greeted with the merry headline in the ‘Bild’-Newspaper: ’Bloody Drama in the Bathroom. Dieter Bohlen nearly emasculated! See page 17!’ Then they wrote: ‘It got stuck between the toilet seat and the bowl!’”5 (Bohlen 2002: 152f.)

3

In the German original: “Ich war mit vollem Eifer bei der Sache, als es plötzlich pfffffttt! Machte, als ob ich mit dem Fahrrad über eine Dose gefahren wäre. Mein bestes Teil hatte einen Platten. Ich hatte wahnsinnige Schmerzen, blutete wie Sau.”

4 5

In the German original: “Penisfraktur mit Ruptur der Schwellkörper“. In the German original: “[E]ine Krankenschwester, die mir einen Hörer unter die Nase hielt. ‘Ich hab hier jemanden am Telefon für Sie, der möchte Die unbedingt sprechen.’ / [...] / ‘Hans-Hermann Tiedje’, dröhnte es mir entgegen, ‘paß mal auf, lieber Dieter! Du hast jetzt genau fünf Minuten Zeit, mir zu erklären, warum du mit gebrochenem Pimmel im Krankenhaus liegst. Wenn nicht, finden wir es selbst raus.’ / Ich weiß bis heute nicht, wer dem ‘Bild’-Chef den entscheidenden Tipp gab. Ich weiß nur, ich lag da in meinem geschwächten Zustand und kriegte einen Schweißausbruch. ‘Jaja, warte, warte, HansHermann! Kleinen Moment!’, dann überlegte ich fieberhaft: Was sag ich nur? Was sag ich nur? In meiner Not erfand ich eine Geschichte: / ‘Also Hans-Hermann, ich stand da vorm Klo und dann ist mir die Klobrille auf das Dingens gefallen.’ / Natürlich hätte ich viel schlauere Geschichten erfinden können: daß ich beim Fahrradfahren abgerutscht war, daß mich ein Pferd getreten hatte, aber das fiel mir alles nicht ein. Ich hörte nur, wie Hans-Hermann ‘wow! wow! wow!’ ins Telefon machte und am, nächsten Tag [...] begrüßte mich die fröhliche ‘Bild’-Schlagzeile: /‘Blutiges Drama im Bad – Dieter Bohlen

L ET ’ S LET THE DEVIL

OUT!

| 95

Apparently it’s not much different than what “Klein Erna” imagines it to be. You lay around in a hospital bed all day long and make up weird stories on demand (hiding behind a mountain is no help because BILD will start making things up on its own); but the stories only interest those people who, like the media tycoons, are keen to point fingers. Who can blame “Klein Erna” for the conjecture that she knows how to tell this kind of story too – and even invent one if need be? And if the opportunity arises (mostly in afternoon talk shows) to make this story public, she thinks that she’s got the certificate on the side of the Bridgestone in the bag already. These days, the Cartesian self-ascertainment is doubtlessly: “I’m in the media, therefore I am!” – and has even now developed a quantitative variation: “The more media attention I gain (regardless how), the more I am.” The unit of measurement of this form of existence is known as market value and can be converted into face value in many different ways. The most recent piece of evidence was provided by the casting show, Deutschland sucht den Superstar (Germany’s Pop Idol). Once again it proved to be a case of: You can’t become a superstar for all of us without exposing your private, yes intimate life. Of the most popular candidates, Juliette was reported to have new breasts, Daniel’s bi-sexuality was openly discussed, and Alex refused to reveal anything, which made us speculate whether he either has no personality or – better by far – something to hide. Before Alex won, the newspaper tycoons correspondingly claimed that a video of him naked had appeared. But maybe none of that is true! Another BILD headline read: “Mother Küblböck unveiled: ‘My Daniel is not gay at all’”6. And a few days later: “Daniel K. just airing out his sex-life.”7 The hype was still going on even weeks later: “Super-Sex – It’s this hot in bed with Juliette”8; To confirm this, a naked lover is stretched out across a bed, and there is a whole gallery of “erotic” photos of the aforementioned Juliette. Therefore, if you want to make it to the top, you have to sing like a “stoned squirrel” whose “tail has been stepped on”9 (Mohr 2002), as the SPIEGEL, one of germany’s leading weekly news magazines, wrote about Daniel Küblböck and his penchant for exposing things that are private – or maybe all too private? Instead of being exceptions, to an increasing extent, the examples of Dieter B. and Daniel K. tend to be the rule. The following questions arise: are more private,

fast entmannt! / Weiter auf Seite 17!’ / Da stand dann: / ‘Alles zwischen Brille und Becken eingeklemmt!’“ 6

In the German original: “Mutter Küblböck enthüllt: ‘Mein Daniel ist gar nicht schwul’“.

7

In the German original: “Daniel K. lüftet nun sein Sex-Leben.“

8

In the German original: “Super-Sex – So heiß ist's im Bett mit Juliette“.

9

In the German original: Singen wie ein “bekiffte[s] Eichhörnchen“, dem man “auf den Schwanz getreten“ hat.

96 | M ANFRED W EINBERG

even intimate things publicly dealt with so that the rapidly increasing number of gossip programs and other similar TV-formats can be filled with stories? Or has the relationship between public and private fundamentally changed? Is the opposition “private-public” itself no longer up-to-date? Perhaps the so abundantly exposed private sphere is just a simulacrum, a mask behind which Juliette, Daniel and Alex hide while searching for something else that will hardly make teenagers screech, though. In the following, I will deal with another example of coming out, the background for which has already been set with Mr. Küblböck’s revelations. According to a (possibly already obsolete) standard, what could be more private than one’s own sexuality and in what context could the exposure be more precarious than in this one? We can investigate these questions by looking at what is probably the best-known coming out of recent years in Germany, namely that of the current mayor of the city of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit. At the end of his speech at the nominational party convention of the SocialDemocratic Party (SPD) of Berlin in June 2000, he turned to his “Dear fellow party members” with the following sentence: “Ich bin schwul, und das ist auch gut so!” (“I am gay and that’s the way it should be!”). He received a standing ovation and his saying soon became a familiar quotation and even made it to number twelve of the so-called “Words of the Year” in 2000. In his end-of-the-year review in the Tagesspiegel (a left-oriented daily newspaper), Elmar Kraushaar surmised that Wowereit had brought about “what an infuriated generation of gays did not accomplish using even the most unerringly accurate slogans: suddenly it was ‘gut so’ [i.e. perfectly fine; M.W.]” (Kraushaar 2001: 16), to be gay.10 This optimistic assessment is only comprehensible when viewed against the background of public dealings with homosexuality in Germany up to now. Even at the end of the 1970s, the social-democratic Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt informed his coalition partner that he would not allow for the ultimate abolition of Clause 175 on homosexuality. In 1983, Günter Kießling, a General in the German Federal Army, was removed from his position by the Christian Democratic Minister of Defense, Manfred Wörner, because it was said that he had contacts with the gay scene. The reason for his dismissal, subtly enough, was not his alleged homosexuality itself, but instead, that being gay made him subject to blackmail. The Kießling affair followed the classical structure of public dealings with homosexuality in postwar Germany: it was ostracized to the extent that it was not even tolerated as some-

10 In the German original: Dass der Spruch bewirkt habe, “was eine aufgebrachte Schwulengeneration mit den treffsichersten Parolen nicht geschafft hatte: plötzlich war es ‘gut so‘“, schwul zu sein.

L ET ’ S LET THE DEVIL

OUT!

| 97

thing private, which in effect, made it public and brought about grave social sanctions for those affected. A change in public opinion did not emerge until the middle of the 1980’s, strangely enough as a consequence of a disease which could actually have led to an even greater stigmatization. The public rhetoric on those infected with HIV, and AIDS-patients, which was primarily rhetoric about gays at that time, produced the effect of them becoming visible as average people, which confirmed very few of the clichés that spread at the regulars’ tables, because more and more aspects of private life became public. Along with that, the new solidarity with the gay movement during the AIDS era also led to other forms of public representation, for example a rapid increase in the number of participants in the Christopher Street Day parades. As a result, Clause 175 was finally abolished in 1994 under the Christian-Democratic Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In the middle of the 1990s, Rosa von Praunheim triggered an all-around outing, labeling both television host Alfred Biolek as well as the comedian Hape Kerkeling as gay. Kerkeling did not deny it. A subsequent kink in his career cannot be traced back solely to this outing, but the fact that this provoked a certain tension, both on the part of the comedian as well the public, cannot be dismissed. In a different situation – because it took place later – Patrick Lindner, a folk music singer, adopted a Russian child, but soon questions were being asked: where was the mother of the child? Didn’t Lindner live together with his manager? First a housekeeper and old friend was presented as a substitute mother, but then Lindner took the bull by the horns and came out. The repercussions remained within limits: Lindner was still allowed to appear on the folk music program, Musikantenstadl and publicly speak about his love for his child on many occasions. And we are all so happy about how terribly tolerant we have become. Most politicians still seem not to trust this new freedom. The head of the FDP (Free Democratic Party), Guido Westerwelle does not deny it, but does not admit it either11. In his book Klartext (“Speaking Plainly”), rival FDP politician, the late Jürgen W. Möllemann was able to take advantage of the situation. On the subject of possible blackmail attempts by the Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, Möllemann makes mysterious prophecies: “What kind of evidence does the Mossad [...] have against Dr. Westerwelle that fills him with such horror and fear? You don’t have to have been the head of a secret service to know how mercilessly these services put their knowledge of even the most private things at risk, when it seems necessary. Every time that he fearfully, indignantly and tearfully spoke of it, I of course asked

11 In the meantime Westerwelle showed himself in public with his partner at Angela Merkel’s, the actual head of Christian-Democratic Party CDU, 50th birthday celebrations and confirmed his homosexuality in some interviews.

98 | M ANFRED W EINBERG

Dr. Westerwelle: “What are these people threatening you with for God’s sake? He still has not answered up to present. But the FDP has a right to an answer from its Federal Chairman. I think it does”12 (Möllemann 2002: 112). Of course, Möllemann had already given the answer himself by quoting Westerwelle’s comment that: “Pim Fortuyn [a openly gay dutch politician; M.W.] and I had more in common than some people think”13 (ibid..) However, this scenario is anachronistic because it demonstrates the fact that Westerwelle had already been flirting with the “semi-publicness” that his sexuality had brought about for a long time. Among other things, one part of his electoral campaign in 2002 was a tour through Germany with the “Guidomobil”. He even wanted to camp out for a night in front of the Chancellor’s Office in Berlin. Once he had been notified that parking is forbidden there, Westerwelle could already look forward to the next day’s headline: “Wowereit schleppt Guido ab.” (“Wowereit tows away/drags off Guido”). This brief résumé follows a double logic. Firstly: the emancipation of homosexuals and thus the highly unspectacular fashion in which they appear in public has made progress with a speed that could not have been expected years ago. Why should we get excited, what is there to object to when you can even become the acting mayor of the German capital and be openly gay? Secondly, the public declaration of one’s sexual orientation is facilitated by this atmosphere, thus it has at least relaxed the “disgraceful discretional degree”14 for gays and lesbians, as Jan Feddersen referred to it in the Tageszeitung (Feddersen 2001: III). So far, so good. Yet along with making what is supposed to be private public, “coming out” has another dimension. It constitutes a form of self-identification which necessarily implies the claim to an identity which, however, sheds light on the question of whether we are still dealing with a model of self-awareness that is adequate for our times. As expected, the Christian Democratic Union had particular difficulties dealing with Klaus Wowereit’s coming out. The initial reactions from their camp were po-

12 In the German original: “Was hat der Mossad [...] gegen Dr. Westerwelle in der Hand, das ihn mit Entsetzen, Furcht und Schrecken erfüllt? Man muss nicht selbst Chef eines Geheimdienstes gewesen sein, um zu wissen, wie gnadenlos diese Dienste auch das Wissen um die privatesten Dinge einsetzen, wenn es geboten erscheint. / Jedes Mal, wenn er angsterfüllt, entrüstet und weinerlich zugleich davon sprach, fragte ich Dr. Westerwelle natürlich: ‘Womit, um Gottes willen, drohen Ihnen diese Leute denn?’ / Er hat bis heute nicht geantwortet. Die FDP aber hat ein Recht auf die Antwort ihres Bundesvorsitzenden. Finde ich.“ 13 In the German original: “Pim Fortuyn und ich hatten mehr gemeinsam, als manche denken.“ 14 In the German original: “infames Diskretionsgebot“.

L ET ’ S LET THE DEVIL

OUT!

| 99

litically correct with the assertion that they, in principle, have nothing against homosexuals. Yet the subsequent “but” turned out to be defiant for the most part. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the parliamentary party in the Bundestag at that time, commented that Wowereit had carried out his “outing in an overly aggressive fashion”. This damages the “concept of family anchored in the Constitution”15 (Mielchen 2001). We will let it pass that Mr. Merz does not know the difference between outing and coming out. The statement that you can “noisily” acknowledge your homosexuality and, astonishingly enough, shed doubt on constitutionallyanchored national objectives in doing so, could be reformulated: at any rate, you can be gay, you can even publicly admit it (unlike in the US military), but you are not allowed to add that being gay constitutes something good. Here the written and unwritten rules – at least in some peoples’ opinion – become confused. Wowereit’s qualifying remark, in particular, became the actual bone of contention. What was often overlooked was the word auch, meaning “also”, or “too” in “Das ist auch gut so”. To further specify its significance, the newspapers even invited experts to comment: the Professor for Sociolinguistics at the Free University of Berlin, Norbert Dittmar, stated that the “also” of the final remark takes away “the astonishing and questionable element of the first statement”, because it was applied in this case as a “modal particle” and thus refers not only to a word, but also to the entire previous sentence, making it even more a “matter of course”16 (Brock 2001). In analyzing the statement thus, Dittmar only mentions one possible interpretation of the statement: Wowereit’s adjunct can be read not only as a reinforcement, but also as a limitation which emphasizes the good in other sexualities as well, particularly the “accepted norm.” Precisely this interpretation relativized the further exploitability of the sentence. Aiming to integrate the already cult-like sentence into their strategy, the SPD campaign managers thus unceremoniously dumped the statement: “If there is to read, the SPD stands for solid government finances, and that’s the way it should be too, the reader might ask – well – what else is also good?”17 (ibid.) Ultimately, the voters might start to think that other parties are also good. There is no room for ambivalence in the political sphere.

15 In the German original: Dass Wowereit “sein Outing mit zu großer Aggressivität“ vollzogen habe; dies schade “dem im Grundgesetz verankerten Familienbild.“ 16 In the German original: Dass das “auch“ des Nachsatzes “[d]er vorangegangenen Äußerung [...] das Erstaunliche und Fragliche“ nehme, da es in diesem Fall als “Modalpartikel“ eingesetzt werde und sich deshalb nicht nur auf ein Wort, sondern auf den gesamten vorangegangenen Satz beziehe; insofern verstärke es “noch die Selbstverständlichkeit des Satzes.“ 17 In the German original: “Wenn da steht, die SPD ist für solide Finanzen und das ist auch gut so, fragt sich der Leser, was ist denn noch gut.“

100 | M ANFRED W EINBERG

After Wowereit’s coming out, the rival candidate from the CDU, Frank Steffel, made room for his wife’s picture on a more than average number of campaign posters. However, this did not provoke the SPD – which was apprehensive about going too far – to show Wowereit’s companion publicly. In terms of its content, Steffel’s reaction was similar to that of Merz. In a talk show, he gave the customary statement to the effect that he has no problems with gays and that it was Wowereit’s free decision to bring his private matters into public life. However, he added that on principle, he had chosen to act differently for the sake of protecting the privacy of his family. (This statement is approximately on the same intellectual level as Steffel’s comment at the Oktoberfest, where, despite the fact that at the time, he was seeking public office in Berlin, he proclaimed Munich to be the most beautiful city in Germany.) According to this logic, this means nothing more than that Steffel also has something significant to hide, because as a supposedly normal condition, heterosexuality should not be concealed from the eyes of the public. As initially assumed, it is still the unwritten law of every human encounter. Nevertheless, Steffel occasionally came off even worse than was appropriate. The English BBC spread the story: “He [Wowereit; M.W.] had a deformed character”, said Frank Steffel, mayoral contender for the right-wing Christian Democrats (CDU). “He would lack credibility and ‘respect’ on key issues such as family matters, said another senior official.” (BBC 2001) Things that really did not belong together were being brought into connection with one another here, as Steffelʼs talk of Wowereitʼs “deformed character” referred to the fact that Wowereit had promised him that the grand coalition would continue, although not long after this, he did in fact let it fall through. However, this report brings the “deformed character” comment into the context of his homosexuality, making Steffel the antipode of the bright and shining figure Wowereit, who as “Germany's first openly-gay senior politician”, according to the BBC once again, “has already guaranteed his place in history.” (ibid.) Other than the conservativeheteronormative one, the BBC’s opinion makes another public realm visible, in which one’s declaration of being homosexual is enough to put him or her in the right. Against this background a statement made by Edmund Stoiber – the conservative CDU/CSU chancellor candidate in 2002 – is comprehensible, at least to a certain extent. He interpreted the vociferous coming out by Wowereit and the essentially positive public reaction as a stigmatization of all heterosexuals. As his statement goes: if nowadays public declarations of being gay no longer damage one’s reputation, but instead, are of great use, then the decent family fathers and mothers (and of course those politicians that celebrate such decency) are being discriminated. One thing is right: if a coming out no longer damages anyone, then public standards have changed so much that heterosexuals and/or things heterosexual are no longer automatically a guarantee of the good in society.

L ET ’ S LET THE DEVIL

OUT!

| 101

Besides that, the conservative Bavarian CSU opted for a “shared roles” strategy. The head of the regional faction of the CSU in the German Bundestag, Michael Glos, commented in an almost statesman-like fashion: “I don’t think much of sharing private life in public and playing on it. The quality of politicians is not dependent on their sexual inclinations”18 (Glos 2001), which at least puts a homosexual private life on the same level as a heterosexual one. However, Norbert Geis, a Member of Parliament from the CSU, adopts an entirely different tone when it comes to homosexual marriages: “By all altruism we should not be giving the impression in public that this way of life is something completely natural, as if it is right for young people to opt for this kind of life. Thus, it is finally time for us to label this way of life in public as what it really is: a perversion of sexuality. The insistent manner by which homosexuals publicly prostitute themselves has become too difficult to bear. They do not show the slightest bit of shame. The loss of one’s sexual shame is still a sign of a mental deficiency, as Freud put it. That is why public opposition must be heard, so that this mental deficiency does not become a fashion.”19 (Geis 2001) The public judgment of homosexuality is so contested because it is assumed that a more positive assessment would increase the private acceptance of one’s own homosexuality, leading to a drastic rise in the number of homosexuals with unimaginable consequences for the heteronormative social order. This fear incidentally also led to flagrant exaggerations of the number of homosexuals wanting to get married, which as expected, could not be confirmed. However, statements like Geis’ do not reflect the mood of the majority of the population anymore. The surveys carried out after Wowereit’s declaration instead revealed the following statistics: sixty-four percent of the German population could imagine being governed by a gay Chancellor. Fifty-three percent of those surveyed claimed that they would not be disappointed if they were to find out that their son or

18 In the German original: “Ich halte nichts davon, Privatleben auszubreiten und damit zu kokettieren. Die Qualität von Politikerinnen und Politikern hängt nicht von ihren sexuellen Neigungen ab.“ 19 In the German original: “Bei aller Nächstenliebe aber darf in der Öffentlichkeit nicht der Eindruck entstehen, als sei diese Lebensform etwas ganz selbstverständliches, als sei es richtig, wenn junge Menschen sich für eine solche Lebensform entscheiden. Es ist daher an der Zeit, dass diese Lebensform endlich auch in der Öffentlichkeit als das bezeichnet wird, was sie ist: die Perversion der Sexualität. Die Aufdringlichkeit, mit der sich Homosexuelle öffentlich prostituieren, ist nur noch schwer zu ertragen. Sie lassen jede Scham vermissen. Der Verlust der sexuellen Scham aber ist immer ein Zeichen von Schwachsinn, wie es Freud formuliert hat. Deshalb muss in der Öffentlichkeit Widerspruch laut werden, damit der Schwachsinn nicht zur Mode wird.“

102 | M ANFRED W EINBERG

daughter is homosexual. Current studies estimate that only approximately 20% of the population would be receptive to a campaign against homosexuals. However, all this remains ambivalent. To provoke skepticism, all one has to do is recall the tolerance practiced towards homosexuals in the Weimar Republic and their deportation to Nazi concentration camps not even ten years later. When Frank Steffel claims that it is Wowereit’s “free decision to go public with his private matters”, he also supposes that Wowereit’s impulse was aimed at creating a public scene. Actually, he pressed ahead with his coming out in order to stay one step ahead of the disclosure campaign that he anticipated from the BILD newspaper in particular. In his column in DIE ZEIT (another weekly news magazine) the author Steffen Kopetzky has regarded Wowereit’s confession as a result of his professional understanding of politics, which enabled him to quickly realize that his adversary in this electoral campaign was not Frank Steffel or Gregor Gysi (the candidate of the left PDS), but the BILD newspaper. The daily tabloid immediately reacted to such professionalism: “Not a day passed on which at least one article appeared on homosexuality to the effect that we have nothing against gays, it doesn’t play a role, there’s nothing more normal than sexual intercourse between men.”20 (Kopetzky 2001) But Kopetzky also pinpointed the reason for so much unexpected tolerance: “Bild was preparing to offer Wowereit a real battle. In order to put its heavy artillery into position, Bild had to (and has to) make it clear that one’s sexual orientation is of absolutely no importance to the newspaper whatsoever. It is not going to attack Wowereit because he loves men, but instead because he is a friend of communists who wants bring the Berlin Wall murderers back to power.”21 (Kopetzky 2001) Kopetzky continued: “Wowereit’s declaration, which was made on the basis of a mere professional calculation, will, in fact, promote tolerance, as the masses of our society still do not tolerate anything that Bild does not tolerate. The Bild newspaper will never again print articles hostile to gays aimed at hindering, sweeping

20 In the German original: “Es verging kein Tag, an dem nicht wenigstens ein Artikel zur Homosexualität erschienen wäre, mit dem Tenor, wir haben nichts gegen Schwule, spielt keine Rolle, es gibt nichts Normaleres als Geschlechtsverkehr zwischen Männern.” 21 In the German original: “Bild bereitet sich darauf vor, Wowereit eine wirkliche Schlacht zu liefern. Um die schweren Geschütze in Stellung bringen zu können, musste (und muss) Bild klarmachen, dass ihr sexuelle Orientierung völlig egal ist. Sie wird ihn nicht deswegen angreifen, weil er Männer liebt, sondern weil er ein Kommunistenfreund ist, der die Mauermörder an die Macht bringen will.”

L ET ’ S LET THE DEVIL

OUT!

| 103

away or permanently denouncing Wowereit (and everything associated with him).”22 (Kopetzky 2001) Things turned out to be different in the end. The lasting denunciation of Wowereit as a backer of the “Berlin Wall killers” failed to materialize, only because it soon become clear that the CDU had no chance with Frank Steffel as their candidate. Plus, BILD is again much too professional to aimlessly pick a quarrel with the future governing mayor of Berlin. But as it turns out, the private sphere no longer assumes its own place and value in this game. Instead, it is a token in the professional competition for votes and thus power. In more simple terms: this coming out was politically not about the disclosure of private life, but about public survival. However, if the diagnosis is true that “the masses of our society [...] continue not to [tolerate] anything that Bild does not tolerate”, in other words, that the BILD reports reflect the prejudice structures of the majority of the population, then in spite of everything, the day when we can deal with homosexuals in a less cramped manner is still a long way off . One more final example of this from the BILD newspaper deals with the public appearances of Klaus Wowereit together with the host of a political talk show, Sabine Christiansen. We read that both of them had not appeared to be happy for quite some time. Questions were then asked as to whether Ms. Christiansen was longing for something more, for the “whole” man. “In short”, following BILD’s original tone: “Can a woman turn a gay man around? Tracing for clues from homosexual men. The answer: ‘Basically no, but...’”23 (Horn 2002). After a few unutterable comments, which I will omit here, BILD continues by saying: “The fact is that many gays find women sexy, some even sleep with them. Coming from someone who should know – that depends on the kind of gay. Those that don’t dash around in leather gear, that aren’t shrill, those that don’t extend their pinky finger while drinking, are certainly up for an adventure with a woman. In numbers: one out of three gays sleeps with women every once in a while, one out of 12 even falls in love. And six percent of gays turn back into heterosexuals at some point in time [...]”24 (Horn 2002)

22 In the German original: “Wowereits Bekenntnis, das allein aus professionellem Kalkül heraus gemacht wurde, wird tatsächlich die Toleranz befördern, denn die Masse unserer Gesellschaft toleriert nach wie vor nichts, was Bild nicht toleriert. Um Wowereit (und alles, was mit ihm zu tun hat) zu verhindern, fortfegen oder nachhaltig denunzieren zu können, wird die Bild-Zeitung nie wieder schwulenfeindliche Artikel drucken.“ 23 In the German original: “Kurzum: Kann eine Frau einen schwulen Mann umdrehen? / Spurensuche bei homosexuellen Männern. Antwort: ‘Im Prinzip nein, aber...’“ 24 In the German original: “Fakt ist: Viele Schwule finden Frauen sexy, manche schlafen sogar mit ihnen. Das – und das erzählt ein[]er, der es wissen muss – kommt auf den Typ

104 | M ANFRED W EINBERG

The fact is that public dealings with the topic of homosexuality could not be more crooked and inhibited, but at least there is hope for “Wowi”: as long as he doesn’t belong to the shrill leather type or holds out his little finger while drinking, he has a good chance of being one of the six percent of gay men that actually really isn’t gay. What is remarkable is that BILD is thereby actively promoting the further complication of the matter at hand: even gays are no longer simply gay, but are made up of all kinds of different types. Thus we have evidently come to an anything goes scenario, even in the sexual sphere. However, against this background, appears the (small) glimmer of truth hidden in Norbert Geis’ diagnosis of the public representation of homosexuals, insofar as they once again led the way in other public dealings with the private sphere. All we need to ask is: lead the way for what? Klaus Wowereit has occasionally noted that he does not want to be involved in gay politics, but to be involved in politics as a gay man. His rejection of “gay politics” can initially be understood as a signal to voters that he is not a lobbyist for homosexuals. Yet his claim that he is in politics (for everyone) as a gay man, on the one hand makes being gay a trait to be disregarded, but on the other hand, is founded upon a far-reaching identification. The man is not involved in politics as the city mayor, rather as a gay man. In more general terms: gays are never not gay. However, both this self- as well as heteronomous identification is nothing more than the forward projection of an all-embracing sexual identification, which begins immediately after our birth. It all starts with the verdict: “It’s a girl!“ or “It’s a boy!” In the “doctor’s interpellation”, as Judith Butler calls it (Butler 1995: 29), a neuter is replaced by a sex – supposedly in the mere name of nature. Initially, however, it is inevitably about an identification for others, who treat the newborn child according to the verdict and inform him or her what is expected of a male or female child. The crucial thing that this entails is that I as “me” am still under the spell of that identification that occurred before I was “me.” (cf. Weinberg 1998) Sexual identification is thus an example of the thesis presented by Michel Foucault and further elaborated by Butler that power initially is not something repressive with which I am faced, but instead, something that “goes right through me”. Power, wrote Butler, takes on “a physical form, that constitutes the self-identity of the subject.” (Butler 2001: 9) In the end, it manifests itself in the claim: “I am a man/a woman” – and finds its continuation in accordance with sexual preferences with the self-identification: “I am homosexual!”

Schwuler an. Solche, die nicht in Lederkluft rumflitzen, nicht schrill sind, beim Trinken den kleinen Finger nicht abspreizen, die sind durchaus für ein Abenteuer mit einer Frau zu haben. In Zahlen: Jeder 3. schläft ab und zu mit Frauen, jeder 12. verliebt sich sogar. Und 6 Prozent der Schwulen werden später wieder heterosexuell [...]“.

L ET ’ S LET THE DEVIL

OUT!

| 105

In the German-speaking countries, Judith Butler is primarily known as an advocate of a fundamental cultural “constructedness” of the difference between the sexes. Her examination of gender-based differences also possessed a political perspective from the outset; it certainly was a form of emancipation, but one which was supposed to leave the essentialism of things feminine or homosexual behind. The leading political tenet of Butler’s earlier articles thus became a parody aimed at proving that the naturally and intrinsically claimed norm was untenable. Incidentally, such parody of conventional things is precisely what conservatives evidently perceive to be particularly pushy about the way homosexuals present themselves in public. At this point, it is worth elaborating on later reformulations that Judith Butler made on her hypotheses. In her book, The Psychic Life of Power – Theories of Subjection, she writes: “If the assumption of femininity and the assumption of masculinity proceed through the accomplishment of an always tenuous heterosexuality, we might understand the force of this accomplishment as mandating the abandonment of homosexual attachments or, perhaps more trenchantly, preempting the possibility of homosexual attachment, a foreclosure of possibility which produces a domain of homosexuality understood as unlivable passion and ungrievable loss. (Butler 1997: 135) In this light, homosexuality is only what becomes publicly evident as a result of the ban, and not what was prevented at first. However, since this never becomes evident, he who has “successfully” become the norm cannot be put in relation to the exclusion that the norm is based on. Put in Freudian terms of mourning and melancholy: the loss of what was once possible cannot be concretely mourned; what was lost manifests itself, if need be, in a general melancholy. Yet Butler goes a step further when she supposes that all “rigid forms of gender and sexual identification [...] appear to spawn forms of melancholy” (Butler 1997: 144). She explains: “Within the formation of gay and lesbian identity, there may be an effort to disavow a constitutive relationship to heterosexuality. When this disavowal is understood as a political necessity in order to specify gay and lesbian identity over and against its ostensible opposite, heterosexuality, that cultural practice paradoxically culminates in a weakening on the very constituency it is meant to unite. Not only does such a strategy attribute a false and monolithic status to heterosexuality, but it misses the political opportunity to work on the weakness in heterosexual subjectivation and to refute the logic of mutual exclusion by which heterosexism proceeds (Butler 1997: 148). Butler continues: “Indeed, we are made all the more fragile under the pressure of such rules, and all the more mobile when ambivalence and loss are given a dramatic language in which to do their acting out.” (Butler 1997: 148). Coherent identities, to use Butler’s formulation, do not exist. To claim their existence leads to resulting costs. We will thus have to endure the tension between

106 | M ANFRED W EINBERG

identity coercion and the incoherency of every identity by searching for a “dramatic language”, in which precisely this tension can be acted out. However, this demonstrates how close theory and practice can become, and how far apart they are after all on closer examination. Returning to my initial comments, the media public is certainly not the place for this kind of language, and it has no longer been the place for the staging coherent identities for some time. Applying this to just one example of a coming out, we could cite this phenomenon in Robbie William’s “just for fun” declaration of his homosexuality. Yet his denial was not unambiguous, either. Watching one of his most recent videos, which shows the pop star having sex with two women who turn into men during the act, does not even allow for the diagnosis that we know anything more definite, but that there is nothing definite to be known. Williams’ song and video are explicitly presented as a revelation of his most private side: “It is about my personal battle with drugs, alcohol and fame.” In fact, Mr. K. also fits into this scheme once again, as in the words of SPIEGEL: “Daniel Küblböck allowed us to take part up-close in his multi-polar sexuality through ‘Bild’ – hetero, homo, bi or everything at once, who cares!“25 (Mohr 2002) This at last helps us to identify the anachronism of Wowereit’s declaration and allows for a résumé. In the recent disclosure of things private, the identificational element has already gone astray. What I confess to today, does not have to hold for tomorrow, and not because I’ve come to learn more, but because the first claim no longer is founded upon the premise of formulating something constant. Not only has sexuality become multi-polar; its counterpart is a – at least public – multiple personality. However, this requires a media public that doesn’t take their statements too seriously anymore. We could quote countless examples here, but I will stay with the topic in hand: at the end of the aforementioned first season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar (Pop Idol), the Internet site of eurogay was decorated with the headline: “Daniel in bed with the ‘Superstar’.”26, which certainly encouraged many a gay man to keep clicking. They read: “After the after-show party, Alexander went home […]: ‘I went to my room and Küblböck was sleeping in my bed. He was lying there in his entire outfit!’, as an outraged Alexander Klaws reported to ‘Bild’. ‘I carried him out of the room first.’”27

25 In the German original: “Daniel Küblböck ließ uns via ‘Bildʼ hautnah an seiner multipolaren Sexualität teilhaben – hetero, homo, bi oder alles auf einmal, is' doch egal!“ 26 In the German original: “Daniel im Bett mit dem ‘Superstar’“. 27 In the German original: “Nach der Aftershow-Party sei Alexander nach Hause gefahren und habe dort den Drittplatzierten vorgefunden: ‘Ich kam in mein Zimmer und der Kü-

L ET ’ S LET THE DEVIL

OUT!

| 107

It takes great effort to recognize the promise of the title in this “strange story.” In times of rampant revelations of the most private things, the private sphere has, in turn, lost its traditional outstanding feature: its succinct and identifying character. Against this background, Klaus Wowereit’s comment appears as an outright anachronism owing much to political tactics, in which the “gut so” fortifies not only the confessed homosexuality, but also the presupposed uniform “self”. Those who no longer convey anything uniform in their public appearances and have abandoned of their private sphere seem to be even more up-to-date. However, we still must ask ourselves whether this only holds for the public staging of the private, or whether it has long since become valid also for private life itself, which has become merely a parody of identity. Yet this would point to a fundamental change in the category of identity, which provides the title for this volume.

R EFERENCES BBC (2001) “Profile: Berlin's cult-status mayor”. Internet URL: http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1613270.stm (consulted: September 23rd, 2003 ) Bohlen, Dieter (2002) Nichts als die Wahrheit München: Weltbild Brock, Peter (2001) “KULT-SPRUCH. Mit “auch” oder auch nicht”, in: Berliner Zeitung, June 29th, 2001: 20; Quoted from Internet URL: dump/2001/ 0629/lokales/0023/index.html (Consulted: September 23rd, 2003) Butler, Judith (1995) Körper von Gewicht. Die diskursiven Grenzen des Geschlechts, Berlin: Berlin Butler, Judith (1997) The Psychic Life of Power. Theories in Subjection, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press Feddersen, Jan (2001) “Infames Diskretionsgebot”. In: taz Magazin, Nr. 6490 from July 7th, 2001: III. Quoted from Internet URL: http://www.taz.de/pt/2001/07/ 07/a0204.nf/text (Consulted: September 23rd) Geis, Norbert (2001) “Die Perversion beim Namen nennen”, Quoted from Internet URL: http: //aschaffenburg.gay-web.de/presse/diskrim-1.htm (Consulted: September 23rd, 2003) Glos, Michael (2001) ““Unter Schröder sind wir zur lahmen Ente geworden”. Michael Glos in an Internet-Chat on June 27th, 2001”, Quoted from Internet URL: http://www.politik-digital.de/salon/transcripte/mglos.shtml (Consulted: September 23rd, 2003) Horn, Marion (2002) “‘Ich bin schwul und das ist gut so’. Kann Sabine Christiansen Wowereit umdrehen?”, in: BILD, January 16th, 2002; Quoted from Internet

blböck schläft in meinem Bett. In voller Montur lag der da!’, empörte sich Alexander Klaws gegenüber ‘Bild’. ‘Da habe ich den erst mal rausgetragen.’“

108 | M ANFRED W EINBERG

URL: http://www.lsvd.de/presse/2002/0201165.html (Consulted: September 23rd,2003) Kopetzky, Steffen (2001) “Und das ist gut so. Die Kunst des Krieges oder noch mehr Worte zu Klaus Wowereit, dem ersten schwulen Berliner Bürgermeister”, in: DIE ZEIT, Nr. 26, 2001, 49.(Http: // http://www.zeit.de/2001/26/Und_ das_ist_gut_so) Kraushaar, Elmar (2001) “Der homosexuelle Mann... macht sich so seine Gedanken, wenn er auf das Jahr 2001 zurückblickt”. In: taz Nr. 6635 from December 27th, 2001: 16, Quoted from Internet URL: http://www.taz.de/pt/2001/12/27/ a0116.nf/text (Consulted: May 23rd, 2003) Möllemann, Jürgen W.(2002) Klartext. Für Deutschland München: C. Bertelsmann Mielchen, Stefan (2001) “Kommentar: Sicherheitsrisiko Wowi”. Internet URL: http://www.eurogay.de/editorial/7476.html (Consulted: May 23rd, 2003) Mohr, Reinhard (2002) “Das Ende der irren Küblböck-Ära”. Internet URL: http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/musik/0,1518,238419,00.html (Consulted: May 17th, 2003) Weinberg, Manfred (1998) “WHAT MAKES A (WO)MAN A (WO)MAN? Zum Zusammenhang von sexueller Identität/Differenz, Erinnerung und Gedächtnis”. In: Medien des Gedächtnisses, Aleida Assmann, Manfred Weinberg and Martin Windisch (eds), Sonderheft der Deutschen Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 174–192, Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler

Media of Intimacy: Phones, Letters, Songs

Adolescent girls on the phone The management of dating and social networking.1 H ELGA K OTTHOFF 2 I will approach the construction of intimate talk among girls from an interaction analytic perspective. I am going to discuss excerpts from a recently recorded corpus of ten telephone conversations of 14 -16 year old girls, who are good friends living in South-Western Germany. The telephone conversations are intimate, insofar as private topics are negotiated (e.g., relationships with boys), and the interlocutors rely on pre-discursive “common ground” (Gumperz 2002). I try to approximate the coarticulation of age, gender and friendship in the conversations (Eckert 2000, Androutsopoulos/Georgakopoulos 2003, Kotthoff 2006). In talking about boys, girls not only negotiate gender boundaries, but also age-related feeling norms for engagement and distanciation in relationship to romantic and erotic relationships. The girls, on the one side, focus their engagement on hetero-sociability, which thereby becomes the unchallenged normality of this age-specific way of “being a girl.” The narratives about initiating contact occur with a “high involvement style” (Tannen 1989), using numerous direct quotes introduced by “and I’m like, and he’s like”/”und ich so, und er so.” On the other side, they act “cool” and lend dating the “spirit of consumerism” that Illouz detects in media contexts (1997). Interactional sociolinguists and discourse analysts will find many interesting aspects in these informal conversations, in which the production of in-group and outgroup, the drawing of social boundary lines, the negotiation of moral and emotional stylization, images of the self and the other are implicitly accomplished.

1

This is a reprint from the paper first published in Norman J. Jørgensen (2010) in the volume “Valla Gurkensalat & Me!” with the kind permission of the editor.

2

I am grateful to James Stuart Brice for helping me to translate the complex transcripts of spoken German into English.

112 | HELGA KOTTHOFF

1

D OING

FRIENDSHIP AS AN ADOLESCENT GIRL

Twenty girls recorded their telephone conversations for us. They talk with each other on the phone almost every day (Winterhalter-Klatt 2003), often even several times a day. Very much to the annoyance of their parents, the lengthy phone conversation seems to be an important genre for practicing their mutual friendships. Phone calls, as everyone knows, typically involve just two people speaking with each other. Dialogues play a central role in adolescent girls’ friendships (Eder 1995, Hey 1997, Branner 2003). They facilitate the type of intimacy and exchange that young females are looking for. I am going to examine the question of what characterizes this type of intimacy and exchange. For outsiders the content and style of the telephone conversations result in an approximate age- and gender-related classifiability. I have given transcripts to students without providing information on the speakers. They all characterized them as conversations among friends who are girls or young women. Expressed in ethnomethodological terminology, in the excerpts that I present, “doing friendship” is being practiced in a very specific manner: “doing friendship as an adolescent girl.” We will pay close attention to the inter-relatedness of various linguistic features in the young speakers’ identities in discourse. In the debate on “doing gender,” it became clear (Hirschauer, 1994, Kotthoff 2002) that we have to reconstruct possible identity categories as being relevant to a certain degree (“gradable relevance”). Gender is, in the episodes I present, constructed as a significant identity category, insofar as it centers on alliance formation in the heterosexual market. However, it is always age- and context-related. With Eckert (2000, 2003), I regard adolescence as a life phase which does not simply result from bodily growth, but rather is communicatively constructed. The data will give us some access to these constructions. The fact that this transitional phase from childhood to adulthood is semiotically so intensively performed, as has been the case for a long time, suggests that this is not simply a period of developmentally-conditioned changes. From hair styles to clothing to musical styles to gait and speech style, youth use every available means to design themselves the way they want to be and to be viewed. A vast cultural industry promotes the, in comparison with other life phases, extraordinarily richly symbolic activity of youths. Language proves to be an integral part of their specialized semiotics. Thorne (1993) has pointed out that in the transition from ‘teen to twenʼ “striking shifts in kids” gender relations and systems of meaning” occur. Romantic and heterosexual interests “begin to eclipse other definitions of cross-gender relations, and some kids start to publicly affirm themselves as sexual or at least romantic actors” (Thorne 1993: 151). Exactly this can be traced in the conversations. The girls construct themselves with an orientation to each other as “sexual and romantic actors.”

A DOLESCENT

GIRLS ON THE PHONE

| 113

Most notably Cahill (2001: 76)3 has shown in his analysis of notes that adolescent girls pass to each other in classes that the negotiation of heterosexuality is positioned in the system of the girlfriends in such a way that this system is not threatened. I think I can show, on the basis of the phone conversations, that the networks of girlfriends are thereby even nourished in a particular way. In networks of girlfriends, feeling and relationship standards for heterosexual relationships are formed and become permanent narrative material (Georgakopoulos 2003). Above all, girls tell each other who said what, when and why. We can very well interpret the collaborative speech activities of the telephoning girls as revealing their strong orientation to relationships (Gilligan et al. 1990, Coates 1997), for in fact they are continually weaving together social networks, negotiating alliances, marginalizing the one and advancing the other. In close coconstruction, they evaluate the activities of their social scene, including school and home, boys, peer group moral standards of romantic-erotic relationships, girls and their (im)possible affiliation with their own group. In- and outsiders, as already stated, can recognize in the content and style an indexing of age and gender. Essentializing the high level of cooperation among females (a reading that we can definitely assign to Gilligan et al. 1990) is not necessary, if we follow HOW girls focus on alliance and network formation, transform this into an entertainment program and thereby make choices. How strongly who cooperates with whom is a question of choice, not the simple manifestation of a psychological disposition. The staging of friendship of the 14-16 year olds necessarily includes pairing practices with very concrete performative, moral and emotion-political standards. Couple formation in the age group from which the recordings stem is unstable and for this reason provides material for continuing evaluations of affection and disaffection, (mis)behavior and showing favor. Dating in these talks definitely displays the “spirit of consumerism“ that Illouz detects in media contexts (1997). As well the opposite perspective holds: Entertainment needs nourish instability. In interpreting the more or less unstable encounters between boys and girls, girls orient each other on how to act in relationships, how to feel and how to evaluate the behavior of others. Girlfriends also do favors for each other by strategically arranging acquaintanceships with boys, and are always ready to hear about the developments of these acquaintanceships. In the girl peer group, relationships are constantly being commented on. Cahill (2003) writes that romantic-erotic relationships with boys are mostly functionalized in some way for the relationships of the girls. Precisely this is also shown by these telephone conversations. On the phone the girls position themselves

3

For bonding strategies in letter writing among young Japanese women, see Kataoka 2003, who also discusses the specifics of emotion politics.

114 | HELGA KOTTHOFF

in past and future dialogues as lovers and loved ones, construct dialogues in which they verbally stage themselves and others and present each other with short, entertaining excerpts from their own everyday lives. They portray themselves as adored and adoring and mutually evaluate their emotions. In the conversations they mutually adjust their emotional standards. All societies somehow uphold the ideology that falling in love, attraction and falling out of love are psychic states that quasi befall people, but in interdisciplinary research on emotions, scholars assume that not only the deep dimension of feelings (“deep acting” in Hochschild 1983), but also the surface dimension of displaying and performing feelings (“surface acting”) are subject to cultural influences. People try to manage and control their emotions in order to conform to cultural norms, a process that sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls “emotion work“ (1983).4 Illouz (1997, 3) views emotions as located on the interface where body, cognition and culture meet. The emotional standards for couple forming activities that start in early youth are not simply taken over from outside, e.g., from parents or the mass media. The standards are indeed so varied that youths must somehow position themselves with regard to them. Girls talk about feelings quite extensively and with great engagement. With their girlfriends they form a circle that constantly observes what is going on around them; these continuous exchanges are highly entertaining for them. Among the possible reasons for the high level of engagement is surely that an orientation to relationships is a traditional feminine preoccupation. This tendency is reinforced everyday by the mass media (Illouz 1997). Thereby the “initial stages of attraction“ play a major role: “In contemporary culture, two equally powerful repertoires are used to make sense of, express, or control the various stages of the romantic bond: in the main, the initial stages of attraction and the romantic sentiment are expressed in the cultural institution of ‘datingʼ and are imbricated with hedonist values of postmodern culture. On the other hand, the stability […] and long-lasting love are associated with the institution of marriage [… ].” (Illouz 1997, 4)

Feminists idealize this relationship orientation as in principle supportive (as we find, e.g., with Coates 1996, 1997). Although this is rather simplistic, it has already provided many descriptions of the phenomenology of girls’ discourse. Who supports whom, who distinguishes herself from whom and who “gets something over on” whom constitute a form of “social engineering” among girlfriends which we can observe in the transcriptions. A highly implicit and performa-

4

Kataoke summarizes anthropological research on affect/emotion/feeling as a social construct.

A DOLESCENT

GIRLS ON THE PHONE

| 115

tive conversational style plays a role in the discursive creation of a social network with both variable and stable positions. It is striking that telephone conversations often begin as though the interlocutors were only continuing a briefly interrupted conversation. This phenomenon alone shows pre-discursive self-evidence. This refers to intensive contact and to increasing intimacy. In Datum 1 Olga tries to coax Paula to give her the phone number of a boy whom the two had recently met in a discothèque called the “Exit.” In all ten conversations it is apparent that youth view phone numbers as a key access possibility for a boy or girl. Expressing interest in a phone number is quasi equivalent to announcing greater interest in a possible romantic relationship. Not until lines 039 and 040 are Paula’s reactions to Olga’s request recognizable as strategic. Datum 1 (TG 8 Olga – Paula)5 001 002

(The telephone rings) O:

003 004

(- -) O:

005 006

yeah. (-)

P:

016 017

me? (-)

O:

014 015

got it? (- -)

P:

012 013

the number? (-)

O:

010 011

what? (-)

O:

008 009

hey, where do you have the number? (- -)

P:

004 007

okay hehehe

what sort of number? (-)

O:

i – told you in the

018

exit,

019

(-)

020 021 5

O:

i knew that you forgot it.

I wish to thank Corinna Winterhalter-Klatt for the recordings and her and Thomas Steuber for work on the transcription.

116 | HELGA KOTTHOFF 022 023

(-) P:

024 025 026

(?in what sort of exit?) hehehe (- -) when.

O:

027

were you- were you drunk or what.

028

P:

when (-) last time?

029

O:

yeah:.

030

P:

°what did you say then.°

031

O:

032 033

there was of course that guy: from from from corsica, from, camp.

P:

yeah:. oh i see::::. of course. of course. the guy.

034

O:

do you have the number?

035

P:

nooo.

036

O:

oh.

037

P:

[hehehe.

038

O:

[hehehe.

039

P:

i don’t know now,

040

she is still writing to him.

Original: 001 002

(Das Telefon klingelt) O:

003 004

O:

005 006

P: O: O: P:

Ich? (-)

O:

014 015

hAsch sie? (- -)

012 013

die nUmmer? (-)

010 011

wAs? (-)

008 009

du, wo hasch=n die nUmmer? (- -)

004 007

okay hehehe (- -)

jA. (-)

P:

was für ne nUmmer?

A DOLESCENT

016 017

O:

ich hab- ich hab=s dir doch im exit gesAgt,

019

(-) O:

ich hab gewusst dass du=s

021

vergEssen hasch.

022

(-)

023

P:

024

(?in was für nem exit?) hehehe (- -)

025 026

wann. O:

027

warsch du- warsch du besOffen oder was.

028

P:

wann (-) lEtztes mal?

029

O:

jA:.

030

P:

°was hast du da gesAgt.°

031

O:

032 033

| 117

(-)

018 020

GIRLS ON THE PHONE

: -(“I am very angry after losing hours of work”) is certainly unknown to the majority of internet users and will never catch on. A number of factors might contribute to the success of certain memes over others. These include factors relating to the meme itself on the one hand, and to the meme carrier (speaker) on the other. Complexity, transparency, and frequency seem to be the most important factors as far as the meme is concerned. Structurally complex memes have fewer chances of survival than simple ones, semiotically opaque

I NVESTIGATING

LOVE LETTERS ACROSS TIME

| 173

ones have fewer chances than semiotically transparent ones, and also the more frequently they occur, the better their chances of survival. In terms of the meme carrier (or speaker in most cases), social networks and group or cultural ideology can be identified as the prime factors that promote or defer the spread of certain memes. The more contacts somebody has and the more willing he or she is to innovate his or her group or culture, the greater the chances of spread and survival for the meme. I would like to argue that metaphors, images, symbols, and conventions of discourse in general are also memes and memeplexes, and that they follow the same kind of principles, i.e. mutation, selection, and replication. From the meme theory point of view, we can show why and how certain images, symbols, and conventions of discourse have survived over many years, even centuries, while others have died out quickly. Symbols, like “x” for a kiss, or metaphors, such as the object of love as appetizing food, are meme complexes that have spread rapidly and successfully through society and across time. In contrast, one particular symbol that can be found in emails and short messages, “xoxoxo” “Hugs and kisses”, for example, differs only slightly from the traditional “x”, and can be seen as a mutation of the original. Whether it will eventually be more successful in its replication than the original form, and whether one will oust the other or not, remains to be seen. Similarly, particular metaphors or images are simply “better” (for instance structurally simpler and therefore easier to memorize) than others. Many people could use an utterance such as (9a): (9a) My love for you is like the surging sea, wild and passionate against the sand

All of the elements are well-known to most people, the adjectives are clear, simple, and very common in this collocation. Moreover, the structure is quite simply: X (my love) is (like) Y (the sea). The syntactically independent adjunct (“wild and passionate[…]”) with its elliptic structure makes the utterance look quite spontaneous, lively, and emotionally involved (cf. Koch and Österreicher’s “language of distance versus of language of proximity” (1994), or the distinction between “planned” and “unplanned” discourse). Only minor modifications, as in example (9b), reveal interesting differences in quality: (9b) “My love for you can be compared to the undulating briny. It is out of control and flows with much emotion in the direction of the beach”

Example (9b) is propositionally roughly equivalent to (9a), and yet it seems quite unlikely that this phrase will ever make it into a love letter, and even if it did, it would have few chances of being passed on, in contrast to (9a). It contains eleven more words, its collocations are rather uncommon, and its overall structure is much more complex (two complete and grammatical sentences; prepositional phrases in-

174 | ALEXANDER T. B ERGS

stead of simple adjectives). However, this is not to say that collocation frequency, number of words, or structural complexity can be used to predict the success of a given linguistic meme with any degree of precision. However, it seems intuitively clear that these are important factors which must enter into the equation when the power and long-term survival of memes is considered. Meme theory can thus also be applied in explaining the stylistic and cultural inertia that can be observed in love letters and in ideas about love letters across time. People often seem to be very unwilling to change and to violate the overt and covert norms and rules of successful amorous communication (cf. Wyss 2002: 61). The memes of amorous discourse are promoted and enforced through general cultural ideas about language and language use, such as the value and importance of (hand-) writing and correct language use (cf. Milroy and Milroy 2001; Stein 1997) on the one hand, and media influence on the other. The media, and literature in particular, have always fostered the idea of traditional love letters with well-established stylistic elements as something valuable, important, and, most importantly, successful. Cyrano de Bergerac, or the poets of the romantic period (Byron, Keats, Burns, to name but a few) are probably the all-time classics in this respect. In portraying love letters in such a way, the media promote and enforce this memeplex in at least two ways. On the one hand, they show the great success that writers can have with traditional letters, on the other hand, they tell the recipient what they can and should expect from authors. Thus, the pressure authors are put under is twofold: they should follow the example of successful writers as seen in the media, and they should carefully attend to what their addressee expects, which is also determined by the media. And yet, language users are caught on the horns of a dilemma. One the one hand, strong memes want to be copied and it seems desirable to follow wellestablished patterns. On the other hand, another maxim of amorous discourse, a meme in itself, is creativity, spontaneity, and originality. Authors of “good” love letters find and use new, original ways of expressing their feelings – the overt, nonironic use of clichés is as much a faux pas in love letters as blatant directness is. Thus love letters simultaneously epitomize the romantic and the postmodern credo: Make it new, but there is nothing new, everything has been said before.

4

S OCIOLINGUISTIC

AND SOCIOPSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGES

What changes in terms of sociolinguistic and sociopsychological factors can be observed between the middle of the nineteenth century and the present day? The widespread cliché, as has been pointed above, is that if amorous discourse exists at all, it no longer uses the pen and paper form, but takes place exclusively via electronic media, such as email and short messages. These, many critics fear, may have

I NVESTIGATING

LOVE LETTERS ACROSS TIME

| 175

had a substantial influence on shaping our ideas about love and amorous discourse (cf. Kesseler and Bergs 2002). First, it has to be acknowledged that many people today do indeed use short messaging and email as a media for their love messages, and that sometimes the modern electronic media win over the traditional ones, such as letters and Valentine’s cards. VirginMobile, for example, reports that in 1999, twelve million people, i.e. half of Britain’s mobile users, expected a Valentine’s text message rather than a traditional card from their lovers. In 2001, about 25 per cent of all weekly short messages in the UK, i.e. 71 million, contained flirtatious or romantic text (Garcia-Robles 2001). Concomitantly, it can be observed that more and more people are subject to some kind of emotional exhibitionism. Many speakers today are quite willing to publish their thoughts and feelings on Internet websites (e.g., http://library.lovingyou.com/; http://www.love-letter.de/basic.html). In some cases it is even expected that love be publicly declared and expressed. This might be regarded as analogous to the situation in eighteenth century Britain, where the act of letter writing and reading was considered a public affair and entertainment for friends and family. Also, the growing number of websites that offer prefabricated text elements for online love letters (e.g., http://www.secretloveletters. com/) has been a cause of growing public concern. Critics have regarded these websites as signs of rapid devaluation of originality and of a general loss of creativity in authors. However, these websites seem to correspond to traditional letter-writing manuals, which have been available for hundreds of years and which offer practical advice, rules, guidance, and prefabricated text chunks for good love letter writing. Needless to say, all these normative institutions are powerful amplifiers of the memeplexes in question. Second, as a rule, the introduction of new media leads to new forms of expression without necessarily endangering old(er) forms. The printed book supposedly endangered traditional learning, newspapers endangered coffee house conversations and eventually also the printed book; the telegraph in turn endangered newspapers and traditional journalism (Baron 2000: 244f). Once the telephone had become firmly established, quite a number of critics pronounced the letter and written communication dead (Baron 2000: 245). Obviously, none of these worries proved to be substantial. While there is indeed a rapidly growing number of phone calls, emails, and short messages being exchanged, we also have a more or less stable number of letters being sent world wide (http://www.upu.int/fact_sheets/en/fact_ sheet_en.pdf). In fact, it seems that 9/11 had more of an impact on postal communication than the rise of the new economy before 2001. There is no indication that phone calls or any other electronic medium can or will take over 100% of written and face-to-face communication. Similarly, the introduction of email and short messaging on mobile phones has led to fears that these might oust older forms of communication, that they might isolate people, and eventually endanger general face-to-face communicative skills (Baron 2000: 245). Again, this is clearly not the

176 | ALEXANDER T. B ERGS

case; socio-psychologists have come to the conclusion that email and short messages actually invite people to communicate more than before. It is a fact that there is a fast-growing number of short messages being sent throughout the world, and these are used for purposes that remained unfulfilled before. In other words, people now can “text” things that they could not “say” or “write” before, either because of temporal or technical restrictions, or because these things were conceptually not possible in either the written or spoken mode. Döring, for instance, reports that many lovers send short messages in the morning or evening, or even during the day just to say hi and ask after their significant other’s well-being. Men are said to be more open and willing to talk about their feelings on email and short messaging, particularly when the message is somewhat face-threatening (saying they are grateful, sorry, etc.). Even after the advent of email, short messages, and instant messaging, there has still been a steady increase in business travel and meetings – and why should that be the case if electronic media are faster, supposedly more efficient and much cheaper? Naturally, some face-to-face communication or letter writing has disappeared due to electronic media, but it can be argued that the introduction of the new media has also led to new forms of communication. They have filled (and sometimes even created) gaps that the other media could not fill in the same way. Email is faster, cheaper and less formal than letter writing; phoning is more expensive, personal and less binding than writing. Also, it is one of the few synchronous means of communication, i.e. both communication partners have to engage in the communicative event simultaneously. Letter writing, email, and short messages are all asynchronous means of communication. The recipient can read the message and reply at their discretion, which is why people sometimes use email rather then the phone. It is not only because “even people with no computer experience are finding that email is often both less expensive and more convenient than traditional phone calls” (Baron 2000: 227) that people use this form of communication, but because email allows you to avoid intruding into the addressee’s time and space. I can talk to colleagues about some technical detail any time of the day via email, and I do not have to prepare every single issue that I wish to discuss beforehand. This is what I would have to do for a phone call because I cannot call, let alone reach, a colleague 24/7, and certainly cannot bother this colleague every hour or two if I have forgotten some point or when something new comes up. Emails can be sent 24/7, and they can be sent several times a day, if need be (but within limits, of course). This is the reason why they are sometimes more elegant and useful than the phone. Short messaging, then, is mobile, cost effective, asynchronous, and less personal than a phone call. Also, as has been mentioned above, the act of writing seems to impose fewer inhibitions on communicators than the act of calling and talking. On the other hand, many things cannot or should not be communicated via email or short messages, mainly for security reasons, but also because of urgency, or because the matter is very delicate and personal. While flirting via short messaging is often tolerated and

I NVESTIGATING

LOVE LETTERS ACROSS TIME

| 177

sometimes even endorsed (see above), ending a relationship via short messaging is generally considered inappropriate, as is proposing. Baron mentions that condolences can now be sent via email (2000: 235) and while this is generally true, it also depends on the recipient and occasion. Condolences for distant relatives, friends or colleagues are certainly appropriate in email or in letter form. In the case condolences sent to people with whom one is socially or emotionally close to,I would like to argue that email would be a marked choice and would probably be considered offensive. Instead, a phone call, personal visit or maybe a letter would be required. In the former case, we simply would often not have sent anything at all before email became available. Thus, email has created and filled a gap rather than ousted the phone or the letter. If we now turn our attention back to love letters, as pointed out above, the concept “love letter” has many different realizations and the traditional love letter is only one of them. The introduction of the electronic media has led to new possibilities to express amorous sentiments. At the same time, there is growing concern that the traditional forms will be ousted by the new ones, that traditional lover letters will be devalued and eventually die out. I have argued that this is not the case. Traditional handwritten love letters are not ousted by the new forms, but are supplemented by them. The new forms allow for communication that has rarely been possible before. In such a way, the older forms are actually not devalued, but gain in value, as they are now reserved for very special occasions and purposes; the traditional love letter has become the marked choice. In other words: receiving an amorous short message on a mobile phone today is nothing special and can only serve daily purposes, much like the little notes that were sent in the nineteenth century. But receiving a carefully handwritten letter on special paper has become (or still is) something very special. Furthermore, it has been shown that the present-day idea of prototypical love letters is also based in some part on clichés and misconceptions. The average nineteenth-century love message is not carefully written, ornamented, scented, etc., but rather a brief note on scrap paper. Very few of these messages show “correct” language use. Often, they contain very mundane messages following or preceding declarations of love, as Barret-Ducrocq points out: “The most striking feature of this rare and precious material is its variety of tone. It is most unusual […] for one of these letters to be devoted entirely to the expression of amorous sentiments. Suitors who lived or worked in distant parts of a metropolis not yet equipped with long-distance communications wrote mainly to arrange a rendezvous or to apologize for missing one.” (1992: 114)

She continues:

178 | ALEXANDER T. B ERGS “The letters swarm with hints and anecdotes about daily life, with adolescent jokes, lovers’ private codes, promises of gifts. A pocket-knife or book has not been returned; the friend who knows where to get gloves has not been seen; the weather, of course, is cold, or hot, or damp […].” (1992: 116).

In brief, they do not really correspond to our “Golden Age” image of earlier amorous communication. Of course, there were also traditional love letters, and some of them can be found in Lovric’s anthology (1990), but these should be regarded as exception rather than the rule. In sum, the introduction of the modern means of communication and the concomitant changes in communicative practices seem to have some repercussions in the sociolinguistic and sociopsychological dimension of amorous discourse. However, contrary to common assumptions, these consequences are not necessarily of a negative nature. Rather, the introduction of the new media has multiplied the possibilities available for communicating thoughts and feelings. The more traditional love letter has been supplemented by email and short messages, each of which can now be used in very special conditions and for very special purposes. Interestingly, the stylistic and cultural inertia that has been observed in amorous discourse seems to have survived the medial changes, so that we still find some of the traditional imagery, metaphors, and style in modern SMS and emails (cf. Wyss 2002: 85). Nevertheless, the modern electronic media have also developed medium-specific forms and rules of usage so that authors are offered some chances to escape the dilemma of having to be original and traditional at the same time. What remains to be seen is to what extent there will also be some reflux in the future which might bring forms, structures, and practices from the electronic media into the traditional modes of communication, and whether these memes and memeplexes will also have a chance of long-term survival.

I NVESTIGATING

LOVE LETTERS ACROSS TIME

| 179

R EFERENCES Allison, Rebecca (2001) “Phone txt chat ‘harms literacy”’, The Guardian 22 Jan 2001. Aunger, Robert (2001) Darwinizing Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baron, Naomi S. (2000) Alphabet to email. How written english evolved. London: Routledge. Barret-Ducrocq, Françoise (1991) Love in the time of Victoria. London: Penguin. Blackmore, Susan (1999) The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dawkins, Richard (1976) The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Denison, David (2004) Corpus of Late Modern English Prose. http://www.llc. manchester.ac.uk/subjects/lel/staff/david-denison/lmode-prose/ (accessed 10 Mai 2010). Döring, Nicola (2000) “Romantische Beziehungen im Netz.” In Soziales im Netz. Caja Thimm (ed), 39-70.Wiesbaden/Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Döring, Nicola (1999) Sozialpsychologie des Internet, Göttingen: Hogrefe. Fitzmaurice, Susan (2002) The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English: A Pragmatic Approach. (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series, 95). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Frehner, Carmen (2004) Email and SMS. Unpublished Lic. Phil. Thesis, University of Zürich. Garcia-Robles, Veronica (2001) “Romance boosts SMS phenomena”. Online. Available HHTP: (accessed 11 March 2002) Humphrey, Nicholas (2000) “The privatization of sensation”. In The Evolution of Cognition. L. Huber and C. Heyes (eds), 241-252. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Kesseler, Angela and Alexander Bergs (2002) “Literacy and the New Media: Vita brevis, lingua brevis?“ In New Media Language. Jean Aitchison and Diana Lewis (eds), 75-84. London: Routledge. Koch, Peter and Wulf Oesterreicher (1994) “Schriftlichkeit und Sprache”. In Handbuch Schrift und Schriftlichkeit. Ein interdisziplinres Handbuch internationaler Forschung. Hartmut Günther and Otto Ludwig (eds), 587-604. Berlin: de Gruyter. Kövecses, Zoltan (1988) The Language of Love, Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. Labov, William (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Lakoff, George and Marc Johnson (1980) Metaphors we live by, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lovric, Michelle (1997) Passionate Love Letters. An Anthology of Desire. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

180 | ALEXANDER T. B ERGS

Lystra, Karen (1989) Searching the Heart. Women, Men, and Romantic Love in nineteenth-century America. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Middleton, John (2000) “Mobile users become engaged in ‘text sexʼ”. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 11 March 2002). Milroy, James (1992) Linguistic Variation and Change. Oxford: Blackwell. Milroy, Lesley and James Milroy (2001) Authority in Language. London: Routledge. Siemens Mobile (2002) “Love is... on the mobile”. Online. Available HTTP:

(accessed 11 March 2002). Stein, Dieter and Jenny Cheshire, eds (1997) Taming the Vernacular. London: Edward Arnold. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid (2001) “Social Networks and the Observer’s Paradox”. In The History of English in its Social Context. Dieter Kastovsky and Arthur Mettinger (eds), 441-461. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyer. Voland, Constanze (2001) “…scheuen das Licht der Öffentlichkeit. Eine kurze Geschichte des Liebesbriefs.“ kommunikation@gesellschaft 2.4 (http://www.unifrankfurt.de/fb03/K.G./B4_2001_Voland.pdf accessed March 3, 2004) Wardaugh, Ronald (1998) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Wyss, Eva Lia (2002) “Fragmente einer Sprachgeschichte des Liebesbriefs. Liebesbriefe des 20. Jahrhunderts im Spannungsfeld von Sprach-, Kommunikationsund Mediengeschichte.“ In Briefkommunikation im 20. Jahrhundert Eva Lia Wyss, Ulrich Schmitz (eds), 57-92. Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft OBST 64.

From the Bridal Letter to Online Flirting Changes in Text Type from the 19th Century to the Internet Era E VA L. W YSS

1

H ISTORICAL P ERSPECTIVE

A love letter is a “metasign” of love, as Roland Barthes notes in his work Fragments d’un discours amoureux, published in 1977. This semiotic term reveals the love letter’s function: as a whole it signifies – or, more broadly, expresses1 – the writer’s love. This illocutive force evolves in interaction with the socio-cultural knowledge of the text type “love letter” and love discourse in general.2 In this paper I will focus not only on contemporary letters and especially Internet love messages and flirting, but also on letters written more than a century ago. I thus analyze correspondence from a historical perspective focusing on letters, text type and writing practices as an integral part of evolving textual meaning and social practices. In a contemporary context, readers decode the meaning and the function of an individual text by referring to their more or less tacit knowledge of the “gestalt” (phenomenological form), specific cues indexing the text type, letter content, discursive norms and performative rules that govern their milieu. A historical anal1

Bühler (1934) mentions in his theory of language that all linguistic signification can be divided into three functions: the expressive, the appellative and the representative text types. He follows a well-known differentiation of literary genres into the poetic (expressive), the epic (representative) and the dramatic (appellative), as formulated in classical genre theory (Plato, Aristotle and Horace).

2

Sandig (2006) and Brinker (2001), for instance, are exponents of the position that, from a merely holistic point of view, the text function is conceived of as the principal and, as Sandig points out, the prototypical feature among other textual dimensions. Other positions focus on the complexity of textual meaning, which cannot be fully described by pragmatic theory, as for instance Heinemann & Viehweger (1991), Adamzik (2000), Fix (2000) and Feilke (2003).

182 | E VA L. W YSS

ysis, on the other hand, requires the reconstruction of the norms and rules of a socio-historical context that is different from one’s own contemporary milieu. Accordingly, one of the tasks of this essay is to render comparable not only the text type of the love letter, but also a number of writing practices within their particular historical and media-specific writing contexts. In this sense, the essay is to be understood as an interdisciplinary part of the more general project of the social history of private life and intimacy (cf. Aries & Duby 1994), with a specific focus on the change of text type, language use and linguistic practice in the tradition of Barton and Hall (2000), Mattheier (1987) and Schikorsky (1990), and in relation to the change of writing culture in the context of the “evolution” of the culture of literacy following Goody (1977) and Ong (1982). I will begin by exploring letter writing as a social and historical writing practice of everyday literacy. This means that I will describe and analyze historical and contemporary language use following Wittgenstein (1953) and as a transformation3 of mediatized linguistic material that becomes meaningful in the moment of aesthetical experience, for instance by reading it and in relation to the context and interest of the reader. The gestalt, form and function of the text as a linguistic transformation are then connected to and discursively prescribed from the author’s environment. This discursive prescription is made explicit, for instance, by the models of letter writing found in the numerous advice books of a certain period (cf. Ettl 1984, Nickisch 1991). Thanks to the wide-spread alphabetization and the improved postal system around the turn of the 19th century, the letter – and especially the love letter – became a medium of communication for everyone, even for those who had little letter writing know-how. Cf. Mattheier (1987), Grosse (1989), Schikorsky (1990), Klenk (1997), Jakob (2000), Messerli (2002) and Elspass (2005). I then consider the writing of love letters as a means of indexing and performing social and personal identities (Eckert 2000, Butler 1990) within the realm of private, intimate correspondence and, in the case of e-mails, of semi-public4 correspondence. The last section of this essay concerns the consequences the changes in performance have for the interlocutors and their relationships.

3

The concept of transformation is related to Lévi-Strauss (1958/9) and indicates the change of status between the empirical textual material and the text as a significative entity.

4

To protect the authors of the letters, I have changed all identifying features such as names and sometimes even locations.

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

2

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 183

M ETHODOLOGY

The letters I use for this study come from the Zurich Love Letter Archive (ZLA), a large collection of authentic love letters, cards, telegrams, e-mails and text messages5 written in German by women and men from all social classes, and from the predominant religious groups, who lived in Switzerland and Germany from 1880 until 2006.6 The fact that there is a preference for writing love letters makes this text type not only wide-spread, but also especially convenient for research on the interrelations of social, technological and linguistic changes. Moreover, this text type has emerged in every new medium of communication used for individual communication in the 20th century. The aim of this paper is to describe the historico-linguistic transformation of the text type “love letter” and to explore whether the changes we can see relate strictly to the text type, or whether something occurs to the performative function of the traditional lover letter when it is transposed into the emerging media of the 20th and 21st centuries. In order to answer these questions, I have sorted the empirical material found in the “uncensored” archive of letters according to the socio-historical communicative context and three overlapping principal parameters: medium, linguistic categories (style, text type, codes) and writing practice. The data in this study are taken from the three last decades of the 19th century until 2007. For this reason the methodology employed here does not take the form of a straightforward comparison. Rather, the analysis is conducted in a dialogical man-

5

Since 1998 I have assembled a corpus of 7,500 love letters written in German between 1850 and the present in Germany and Switzerland by women and men, Christians and Jews, highly educated persons and those with little schooling. Contributors have been sending me copies of their own letters (notes, e-mails, text messages), letters written by their parents, or by their children, for the scholarly analyses since the winter 1997/98; all Love Letters of the ZLA are serially numbered (for further details on the archive see the authors website).

6

The archive also carries an implicit ideological valorization: the dearth of material extant which makes an investigation of amatory communication possible is due not only to the intimacy of the texts, but also to the fact that archives predominantly collect letters and autobiographical sources from artists, poets and other public personalities in relation to the high value of the bourgeois cultural practice. There are therefore very few authentic documents written by so-called ordinary people (cf. Elspass 2005). I developed the Zurich Love Letter Archive (ZLA) in order to collect authentic love letters for a linguistic study on love letters. In public and private archives of the 19th and 20th centuries, only few examples of love letters can be found (cf. Lystra 1989, Joris and Witzig 1992).

184 | E VA L. W YSS

ner, in which one medium is compared to another, and one set of similar letter types to another. This method results in a focus on similarities and differences of text types both between the media and between the text types within the same medium.7 This generates a crossing of perspectives and an increased insight into the text types for a more profound understanding of private everyday literacy. It does so by focusing on the ongoing and changing uses of various media, and the practices that are “invented”, “tested” and “introduced” into certain socio-cultural milieus (Durkheim 1894, cf. also Schulze 1995).8

3

T HE L OVE L ETTER IN THE 19 TH C ENTURY

The 19th century is known as the century of correspondence (Chartier 1997). The love letter must be understood as a part of this social institution. But what does the term “19th century” mean? The mathematical distinction from zero to ninety-nine is obviously not of historical relevance, as Schikorsky (1996: 11) explains in relation to her discussion of history, which defines the 19th century as lasting from 1815– 1918. From a linguistic point of view, as von Polenz (1999: 5) notes, the crucial question is how to define historical linguistic periods and their connection to historical ones. The study of linguistic change shows that in language (and language use) there is no abrupt, clear-cut change of linguistic features. Instead, there are often overlapping strands of different formal and functional linguistic features that evolve in parallel. In addition to formal and functional changes, linguistic pratices also emerge and end. 3.1 The Bourgeois Bridal Letter The exchange of letters between bride and groom during their period of engagement became a “must” within the bourgeois context of the 19th century. This form of let-

7

The telegram (since 1860), the postcard (since 1870), the telephone call (since 1890), the fax (since 1964), the e-mail (since 1971), instant and text messaging (ICQ 1996), and SMS or text messaging (since 1992 in Europe and Asia). Practices surrounding text messaging differ in some countries, depending in part on the price structure of the service.

8

The result of the intermedial comparison is often considered to be a method that leads to a theoretical concept of intermediality, one which takes the results of the comparison as a way of revealing the so-called nature of a medium. My own interest in intermediality is not in media essences or media ontologies, but rather in the functions and practices they entail.

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER TO O NLINE FLIRTING

| 185

ter-writing is referred to as “Verlobungskorrespondenz” or engagement correspondence, which names the ritual it pertains to, or as “Brautbriefe”9 or bridal letters, which refers to the authors of the letters. This form of letter-writing was so relevant socially that it was integrated into common language use. The fact that the practice was named, of course, also promoted speaking about it. Other forms of correspondence or letter-writing are not named. 4296 Ermatingen, den 4. Nov. 04

Mein lieber Rudolf!

Nächste Woche sind wir – Mann und Frau! Du kannst dir gar nicht denken, wie ein innerer Jubel in mir lebt. Aber ich hoffe Dich recht bald bei mir zu sehen denn mit dem Schreiben – wird’s eine schlimme Geschichte. Auch du willst wohl lieber alles aufs mündliche versparen

Figure 1. Letter from Emmy to Rudolf 11-4-1904 (ZLA 4296); the last letter before they were married. (Engl. Translation: Next week we are husband and wife. You cannot imagine how jubilant I am within. But I hope to see you soon at my place, because it will be difficult to write. I think that you would prefer to talk when we meet.)

9

At the beginning of the 19th century, the so-called bridal letter was on the one hand a legal term referring to the letter written by the bride or the bride’s family, in which the dowry was specified, and amounted to a “written record of that brought in by the woman” (DRW, German Dictionary). In the 18th century the term “letter to the bride” was used. This term describes for instance the letters written by Friedrich Schiller to his bride Charlotte von Lengfeld from 1787-1790, the letters of Eduard Mörike to Luise Rau, 18291833, and Theodor Storm’s letters to Constanze Esmarch, 1844-46.

186 | E VA L. W YSS

In Germany, bourgeois couples who corresponded during their engagement usually did so with the permission of their parents. In fact, since the bride and groom were often chosen by their parents, the exchange letters often began without prior personal contact. (Joris & Witzig 1992). This practice of parents choosing their children’s mates began to change in the middle of the 19th century, so that those corresponding would then typically know one another. By the end of the 19th century the volume of correspondence between partners who were not designated by their parents increased. In other words, the emotional connection had more weight for the choice of partner. In contrast to U.S. 19thcentury practice (cf. Lystra 1989), German and Swiss bridal correspondence usually ended at the time of marriage. (See the letter in Figure 1, above.) This tradition is also reflected in the semantic description (lexical definition) of the love letter in a well-known German thesaurus at the end of the 19th century, where Heyne (1892: 650) writes in his language thesaurus that a love letter is “written by engaged people”. Reading the letter above, written after a two-year engagement period, one can see that the bride has already taken on the role of the wife. Her enthusiasm is controlled. The passion discernible in the letters at the beginning of the engagement was lively. Her training as a housewife, as well as the long negotiation process that was undertaken between the parents and the preparations for the actual marriage, had changed the young woman (she was 17 years old). It is also evident that the young woman is writing in a polished style combined with a nice handwriting and good ink on beautiful, expensive brown paper. She uses not only an elaborated vocabulary, but writes with a certain rhythm, line after line in a very narrow spacing which is – as Ehlert (2004) points out – related to informality. She has the competence to put a rhythmic pause (a caesura) in her first phrase to heighten its pathos. Highly sophisticated norms seem to have governed the writing of this middleclass woman. Such usage can be called a bourgeois language culture, which can be expressed as a highly esteemed language practice that upper-class children learned at home in a set of strict and disciplined, and at times frightening, writing rituals (i.e. the New Year’s greeting letter or the Christmas letter for the parents) performed under severe maternal pressure at their homes (Schultz 2000). In the context in which letter writing became ritualized, amatory correspondence was a rite of passage from the status of son and daughter to that of betrothed (bride and groom) and finally to husband and wife. In this context of ritualization it was the form of the letter and not its content that had to be emphasized. By writing aesthetically elaborate letters, people demonstrate their belonging to a distinct (Bourdieu 1979) social and cultural milieu. This practise stands in sharp contrast to the contemporary notion of fixing thoughts by writing. As Ettls (1984) notes in his work on the German epistolary advice book, the gender and age of the author were linked to a certain letter-writing style. There was a style in which the young bourgeois man showed his passion. The highest textual

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 187

style, the literary style, showed his highest passion (see below Fig. 2). The genre that best befitted this style was the poem. The old man, on the other hand, was not supposed to feel fire but instead warmth, not sensitivity but boldness; he therefore did not write love poems for his bride. Love letters by the working class and by soldiers were supposed to be written with restraint. Women – there is only one category of woman mentioned in the literature – were not supposed to show passionate feelings in their letters. They were meant merely to reply to a letter, and to do so with decency; and of course they were never to initiate amatory correspondence (Ettl 1984: 141f.) As Lystra (1989) shows, women did write passionately as did men. The loveletter archive also provides evidence of feminine passionate writing, when the young Lizbeth 1896 writes to her secret fiancé about her lust and desire which expresses her frustration that they can not live as she would like to: O, wie gerne will ich mich all dem fügen, was vorläufig noch nicht anders sein kann, u. dann später wird’s schöner! Wir müssen uns dann nicht mehr auf so manchmal gar schmerzende Art bezwingen, u. möge Gott uns zusammen gefügt haben, dass Du in mir gefunden, was Du mein Teurer begehrtest! – Mein innigst Geliebter es ist wonniglich sich so vereint zu wissen, u. dürfen wir es dann aller Welt mitteilen, dann: “O Liebesglück!“ ----Mein lieber Rudeli, da ich Dich ja wahrscheinlich bis Sonntags nicht mehr sehen darf, so will ich doch in Gedanken glücklich bei Dir sein u. sage auf freudiges Wiedersehen! Sende Dir indessen mein Liebster die herzlichsten Grüsse u. die innigsten Küsse, Dein treues Liseli [ZLA 7026] Oh how I would love to have everything that at present cannot yet be otherwise, and then later on, things will be nicer! Then we won’t have to force ourselves so painfully, and may God put us toegher, that you found in me, what you my dearest desired! My true beloved, I am delighted to know that we will be unified that much and then we can tell the whole world: “We’re in love!“---- My dear little Rudy, since I probably can’t see you again until Sunday(s?), I will be happy with you in your thoughts, and say a joyful “Good bye“, until we meet again! I send you hereby my dearest the warmest greetings and the deepest kisses, Your faithful little Lizbeth.

So, we can say that there is a gap between the societal norms and factual normality: they do not mirror the writing norms, but rather are deontical valorizations of letter style.10 If the highest writing style prescribed in letter-writing advisory books is

10 This fact shows how self selected norm authorities are painting an image that is far away from actual language use, and thus, linguistics should take these differences into consideration.

188 | E VA L. W YSS

called poetic, that does not mean that every line in a text was actually written in a poetic or literary style. But the named style preference is an anthropological formula that can be sketched as follows: aside from the standardized salutation and close of a letter, high valuation of the addressee is indicated by means of a socially elevated writing style and writing competence. An important function of amatory correspondence is the self-representation and self-assurance of the writer as a member of the bourgeoisie. Letter-writing in this sense could thus be understood as a performance of the bourgeois self. This is not merely a narcissistic maneuver, since it relies on a certain bourgeois code of virtue and sociability. Very detailed emotional sequences are sometimes entered symbolically into the discourse, or staged as allegorical scenes, so that the phatic function and the construction of relationship fades. 3.2 Letter-Writing without Much Linguistic Competence Letter-writing in the 19th century was not only practiced by the bourgeoisie, but became more widely practiced among all social classes. This was possible because at the end of the 19th century it was not only alphabetization that promoted letterwriting among different social classes: people who were not used to writing did so nonetheless because they found themselves in uncertain circumstances, such as war and emigration (cf. Elspass 2005), and wanted to send a sign of life and to stay in contact with their relatives (cf. Wyss 2003a). The linguist Isa Schikorsky (2001) analyzed the love correspondence of a lower middle-class (or petty-bourgeois) couple over a period of eleven months in the summer of 1870, during which time the man was fighting in the Franco-Prussian war. The couple corresponds every four to five days and this correspondence can be situated in a communicative “state of emergency” (p. 70) in which their distance to literacy in general is expressed. The couple is used to neither reading nor writing in their everyday life. Their writing style therefore does not follow any epistolary standard. Indeed, no one style is discernible in this correspondence and the writing oscillates between informality and conformity, the most general model followed being the “pragmatic” business letter. Orality can be discovered in the letters as well: the authors imitate taking turns by organizing the sequential structure with formulas of address. (Cf. Koch & Oesterreicher 1985/1997, Assmann 1995) Furthermore, the usual text-structuring devices, such as punctuation marks, paragraphs and marks of direct discourse, are absent. The letters are characterized by a certain liberty of “orthographic rules, colloquial abbreviations and contractions, deviations of grammatical congruence, syntactical breaks and ellipses and a certain lack of a stringent argumentation” (Schikorsky 2001, 73f., transl. by the author). (Cf. Haecki Buhofer 1985).

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 189

At the same time, they show a certain over-adaptation in hypercorrect forms. And, like bourgeois couples, they use stylistically highly marked language in sequences that express love and care. The topic of the letters is the everyday life they lead, so the functional focus is on the construction of relationship; the fact that they are writing could be seen as the need to overcome their separation. 3.3 Two Poles of Stylistic Variation Focusing on the textual style, ranging from the letter paper to the written text, one can observe a diversity of stylistic qualities. The most elaborate letters are written in a “literary” style using such things as an elevated vocabulary (“ein Jubel lebt in mir” [“I am all jubilant within”]), a rather complex or unusual syntactic structure, employing symbolic expressions of nature (“Heute Mittag stahl ich mich ganz leise ins Dörfchen. Von Konstanz konnte ich gleich mit dem Dampfboot heimfahren. Ein nasser Schirm wirbelte einem um den Kopf und die frische Seeluft erfrischte die Sinne, wie gern liess ich diesen Elementen ihr Spiel” [“At noon I absconded for the small village. From Constance I could take the steamboat home. A wet umbrella whirled around my head and the fresh air of the lakeside refreshed my senses, how much I liked the play of the elements”]), an original address (“Meine liebe böse Braut” [“My beloved bad bride”]), and an interesting or entertaining occurrence narrated to serve as a plausible reason to end the letter (“Heute habe ich vom Militär ein unangenehmes Schreiben bekommen, ich habe einen Meldungstermin verlümmelt. Nun muss ich mich daher gleich hinsetzen und den Leuten etwas vorlügen, denn Entschuldigungen gibt es bei Militär nicht” [“Today I received an unpleasant missive from the army, obviously a reporting date had slipped my mind. Now I have to sit down and write down a pack of lies, because there are no excuses in the army”]). And of course one also finds the literary topoi of passionate, romantic emotional expressions (“meine Liebe, mein Heimweh ist so gross, ach...” [“my love, I am so homesick, alas...”]); occasionally even the closing was carefully chosen. Female and male members of the bourgeoisie wrote often such eloquent, correct or playful letters, employing an old-fashioned stereotypical literacy usually observed only in very formal literacy – letters with a sense of esprit modeled by the great German writers, whose letters were already being published in edited collections in the second third of the 19th century11. The textual aestheticization is not the only stylistic peak. Outstanding writing – the result of high competence – is combined with ad-

11 The rules of business writing were taught in school and served as the models most people had access to. Members of the bourgeoisie, by contrast, learned their writing style at home by reproducing or copying model texts such as poetry and letters from canonized writers such as Klopstock, Goethe or Schiller.

190 | E VA L. W YSS

vanced letter design: “stylish” colored ink, nice handwriting and expensive personal letter paper with initials and decorations.12 On the other hand, there were less ritualized or even spontaneous exchanges of love letters. This form of letter-writing is not common and can therefore not be a ritual, but is rather due for instance to the Franco-Prussian war, or to migration – in these cases, the separation was the true13 reason for writing. These two poles of aestheticization are not designing homogenous types of two letter styles but they are referring to a variety of stylistic features that are used also in combination with elements positioned on the other end and in between the poles. High level of aestheticization • •

(Private) and business letters are the letter

eloquent, correct or playful

models which are orally perceived, learned

Letters with esprit expressing the au-

in school or copied from advisory books

thor’s passion and emotional experienc- •

Stereotypical letter structure (address, thanks

es within symbolistic impressions and

for the previous letter, inquiry about health,

stereotypes including moral reflections

statement about one’s own health, declara-

on society (letters with esprit); aside

tion of love, request for a date/present/reply,

from the salutation and the greeting

indication of the reason for not writing, val-

formula at the end, the structure is

edictory formula)

open/free •

Low level of aestheticization

Poetic, literary or elaborate letter style: •

•

Literary topoi of passionate, romantic, •

Standardized love-declaration formulas Stereotypical syntactical features

emotional expression

•

Argumentative discontinuities and breaks

•

Complex or unusual syntactic structure

•

Difficulties in keeping orthographical and

•

Coherent and logical argumentation

grammatical norms: non-written (dialectical)

structure

lexic, oral-syntactical structures

•

In keeping with orthographical and grammatical norms

Figure 2: Levels of aestheticization14

12 The visual codes of politeness and distance have been weakening since 20th-century letter writing, as explained Ehlers (2004). 13 In the ritualized love letters of a bridal correspondence, separation was not the cause for writing. The exchange of letters was arranged in the form of an agreement. The parents determined how many letters the “young” people should or could write. And it was the mother’s duty to read them (or to listen to their reading by the son or daughter). 14 Elements of styles therefore can be organized along a certain hierarchical scale, but the hierarchies do not mirror social stratification, because styles – as Eckert (2000) shows – are mixed or clustered selections of language elements people use to follow peer-group norms.

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 191

To optimize the scholarly distinctions, I will avoid the high-low culture bias that imports unwelcome prejudices, as Elspass notes.15 This is important for the analysis of letter practices because the so-called German bourgeois16 culture is highly connected to Protestant (pietistic) practices, and not to the likewise bourgeois Jewish or Catholic practices. There is a risk of anticipating an implicit high-low assumption because of its connection to literacy in general. In fact, the aestheticization and ritualization can have the effect of a linguistic leveling of writing culture, which establishes a good basis for standardization processes.17

15 Elspass (2005) discovered in some important papers on 19th-century literacy an implicit doubling of the low-high culture bias: when they focus on lower-class literacy they focus on submissive speech acts, which obviously determines linguistic style and will distort results on literacy of “ordinary” people (cf. Mattheier 1990, Klenk 1997, Jakob 2000). 16 The three different fields of “Verbürgerlichung” or “bourgeoisification” are the politicaljuridical, the socio-economic and the cultural-religious. German social history has begun only recently to take into consideration non-Protestant formations and to focus as well on the differences between the prototypical Protestant (liberal) and Jewish or Catholic bourgeois culture. For the Jewish bourgeoisie cf. Lässig (2004) and the Catholic bourgeoisie cf. Dowe (2006). 17 The linking of writing culture with bourgeois literacy only – the lack of integration of a broader literal culture – is the reason “standardization” processes have been revisited (cf. Jahrbuch des Instituts für deutsche Sprache 2005). Elspass criticizes, for instance, the use of the term “standard” in two directions: on the one hand, he condemns the prioritization of written language over other oral-lingusitic expressions, what he calls a “scriptism”, while on the other hand he unmasks the term “standard” in his use in Germanistic linguistics as a deontic term, a term that implies a valorization of how something should be: it stands in fact not only for high-culture German literacy in general, but has to date beeen used as a term to prescribe how language should be used.

192 | E VA L. W YSS

4

AMATORY C ORRESPONDENCE

IN THE

20 TH C ENTURY

In the 20th century the forms of correspondence known in the 19th century continues, with, however, a number of changes. I would like to distinguish, generally speaking, among three different strands of written amatory communication. They cannot be classified only according to a chronological progression because their application (as a sort of communication habitus) does not occur exactly at the same time in each social milieu, or even for each person with his or her preference for communication. Because of the simultaneity of historically different social practices – for instance, in the 1960s some couples are still writing love letters according to the traditional models while others might be living together without being married – it is difficult to position these strands in a clearly defined period of historical progression. However, the first strand of letter-writing continues with similar differences between bourgeois and petty-bourgeois couples, as in the 19th century (see above). The second strand is the type of letter-writing that is mixed up with other written and oral communications: the telegram for long-distance and rapid communication, and the telephone for closer distances, are used more and more often in (upper) middle-class society. The postcard is important as an inexpensive communication for lower middle-class couples (see Fig. 3 below and Diekmannshenke in this volume). Conversation takes up more space and time within cultures relative to writing: correspondence (letter, fax, e-mail) becomes a supplement to conversation, both face-to-face and by phone calls. The latter became the usual form of communication for couples (see section 4.1. below). The third strand evolves in the Internet that creates new space for, and entails new forms of, amatory correspondence: an adaptation of handwritten practice and very special form of written flirt communication (see section 5). 4.1 Mixing Media The phenomenon of mixing media – the second strand – is related to the emergence and easier access to different sorts of media in the 20th century. While the telegram is used by members of the upper middle class to announce an arrival, the postcard becomes a very important medium for love discourse around the beginning of the 20th century. The phone, by contrast, does not become important until the sixties, when there is a boom of subscriptions that reaches the 50% level in Switzerland in the 1970s. The 20th century also stands for big social changes in Western cultures: for instance the up-and-coming leisure culture, the importance of youth movements, the sexual revolution and women’s liberation. These changes affect pick-up communi-

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 193

cation, dating rituals, communication patterns between dating couples, perceptions of partnership and intimacy. A recent psycho-sociological study from Döring (2003) of the use of media for amatory communication shows that the media choice for private amatory communication depends on many social and psychological factors: people use the mobile phone because both partners possess one and they travel a lot; they use chat rooms because they both have access to computers with a standing on-line access and one of them does not like to talk on the phone; others report that they write e-mails because they like to write, and they have access to the Internet at home. As the ZLA shows, letter-writing is in fact not the sole form of communication between lovers in the 20th century. Correspondence is mixed with other written and oral forms of communication. Nor is written communication limited to love letters. In the ZLA men often use a telegram to announce to their lover – who is not in every case a fiancée – when they will arrive at the central station. Telegrams also have a status similar to love letters as they too are often considered collectables. The postcard is an inexpensive – and only partly private – means of communication for a short message with the advantage of a tidy design and the ability to speedily celebrate an event of relevance to the couple, such as an anniversary or a holiday (Diekmannshenke in this volume). Around the 1920s “other” means of communication were mentioned and enter the love-letter discourse. People would, for instance, refer to the telephone: “– Warst Du heute schlecht gelaunt oder meint‘ ich’s nur am Telephon? Du warst so kurz angebunden” [ZLA 550] (“Were you in a bad mood today, or did I take it the wrong way on the telephone? You were so curt”). In the following note from the early 1930s the whole text focuses on a call. First the problem is introduced, namely that George could not reach Elisabeth by phone, then the anxiety that the call was not welcome or might even have disturbed the other person is expressed, and finally the “solution” is offered, when the author asks his lover to call him at his number. Liebstes Lisel! Bin nun ganz traurig dass ich Dich heute nicht telephonisch erreichen konnte. Aber weist Du, ich habe den Eindruck, es wird eben nicht sehr gefällig aufgenommen, wenn ich Dir anläute. Darf ich Dich deshalb herzlich bitten, mir morgen (Freitag) um 11h oder 18h No 34645 anzurufen, das heisst natürlich..... wenn Du mich treffen magst! Bin ich ein sehr grosser Gauner deswegen? Ich möchte Dir sehr sehr viel sagen, aber ich kann jetzt nicht, obwohl ich ja so reichlich Zeit hätte.

194 | E VA L. W YSS Tausend herzliche Grüsse und Küsse Georges. [ZLA 3393] (“Dearest Lisel! I am very sad that I was not able to reach you by telephone today. But I have the impression my calls are not entirely welcome. May I ask you, therefore, to call me tomorrow (Friday) at 11 a.m. or at 6 p.m. at no. 34645, that is of course… if you would like to meet me! Do you think this makes me a very big scallywag? I would like to tell you a lot of things, but now I am not able to, although I have lots of time. I send you my love and a thousand kisses, Georges.”)

This example documents not only the problems people had with telephone calls, but also that they dealt with them by means of written communication. The letter was also used to announce future telephone calls. For instance, on October 23, 1924, Robert wrote a letter to Elisabeth (from Brienz in the Bernese alps to Zurich): “Wenn nicht Du telephonierst so telephoniere ich / Sonntag morgen zwischen 1/2 11 u 11 Uhr und dann / besprechen wir mündlich wegen dem andern Sonntag.“ [ZLA 3314]. (“If you do not telephone I will/on Sunday morning between 10:30 and 11:00 and then/ we will talk in person about the following Sunday.”) The war situation augmented letter production (Schwender forthcoming), although in the 1940s it moved a lot of Swiss to purchase a phone subscription, while the boom in the 1960s and 1970s meant that the phone call became a normal thing for most people.18 Phone Stations (per 100 Habitants) 100 90,5

90 80 72,2 70 60 50

46,2

40 30,9 30 19,19

20 11,28 10 0

0,37

1,27

2,11

1890

1900

1910

3,93 1920

7,33

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

Figure 3: Phone Stations in Switzerland (per 100 Inhabitants since 1890)

18 For this period the ZLA gathers more single letters, and there are other reasons for writing: first letters (to plan a first date), letters between people in secret relationships, letters as a means of communication in long-distance relationships.

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 195

This kind of correspondence is not found in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s in the letters of the ZLA. In the 1960s, the appearance of the phone could be considered an important reason for the abundance of letters. However, since at that time couples could meet freely, the personal exchange of intimacies was more common (cf. Vincent 1995). 4.2 Correspondence as a Supplement When correspondence becomes a supplement, letter-writing is no longer a higly valued (bourgeois) writing practice. Private face-to-face interaction becomes ever more possible with the change in leisure and youth culture, an interaction that will play a more important role in the phases of beginning and establishing a love relationship. (Symptomatic for this change is the myth of the disappearance of the love letter: I am often asked whether people today still write love letters.)19 Thus the act of writing letters complements conversations and becomes a supplementary practice. In combination with the growing importance of the telephone and in relation to the content of the letters, there is a tendency to give correspondence a new function: correspondence becomes a supplementary communication.20 In the following example the writer refers four times to meetings that have either taken place the same week, or that she is expecting by the weekend. St. Gallen, 19 Dez. 47. Mein lieber Uli!

Schnell möchte ich Dir mein "lieber" ein/paar Worte schreiben, Wie geht es Dir?/Hoffe gut, was auch bei mir der Fall/ist. Bist Du noch gut heimgekommen, am/Mittwoch? Ich war grad etwa 5 Minuten/in meinem Zimmer, als es Licht gab im/Treppenhaus und die beiden Herren fort/gingen, also hatten wir wieder einmal/Glück. /Nun möchte ich Dir nur noch mitteilen/wegen morgen Abend. Weiss noch nicht ob/Müllers ausgehen. Aber nun habe ich//noch

19 Couples also met in earlier times. It depended quite a lot on their status. While workingclass people – if they had enough money to have a family – had more possibilities to meet, the bourgeois bride and groom met in highly staged circumstances: the common promenade/walk, the familial invitation for supper/dinner, the proposal visit of the future groom. These ritualized bourgeois meetings were combined with a certain romanticizing and transfiguring experience of nature (“birds singing”, “waves rushing”). This makes clear that the context of face-to-face interaction, too, was not only charged symbolically but was also connected to a tendency to idealize and glorify. 20 Some informants (who were engaged at this time) told me about using the phone (they remembered the old-fashioned phones in the corridor of apartments); others told me about writing letters to each other.

196 | E VA L. W YSS allerlei Weihnachtsabeiten zum fertig/machen, und Päckli machen. Nun muss/ich das einfach Samstag abend in/Angriff nehmen, den nächste Woche ist/nicht mehr viel los, und auf den/letzten Tag kann ichs auch nicht sparen. /Hoffe Du werdest die Zeit schon/verbringen, und bald ist es ja/wieder Sonntag. Vielleicht muss ich/morgen Nachmittag in die Stadt. /Werden wir uns dann wohl sehen? /Nun aber muss ich schnell unter/die Decke, es ist schon wieder ziemlich/spät. //Nun empfange meine liebsten Grüsse/und viele Küsse von Deinem Klärli. [ZLA 1289] (“St. Gallen, Dec. 19, 1947. ‘My dear Uli [short form of Ulrich]! < image of a heart > ‘My “dear” I want to dash off a quick note to you. How are you ?/ Hope you are well, as am I. Did you get home all right on/Wednesday? I was in my room for only 5 minutes when the light came on/ in the stairwell /and the two gentlemen left/ so we were lucky/again. /Now I just wanted to let you know /about tomorrow evening. Don’t know yet whether/the Muellers will go out. But I still /have a number of Christmas preparations to take care of/ and parcels. But now I simply have to/tackle this on Saturday evening, for next week not much will be happening, and I cannot save /it to the last day. Hope you will have a nice time, after all / it will be Sunday soon. Perhaps /tomorrow afternoon I will have to go to town. Do you think we might meet? But now I have to get under the/ covers quickly It’s quite late already/. /Now I send you my most heartfelt greetings /and many kisses from your Klaerli [diminutive of Klara].”)

Letters like this no longer serve as a kind of standardized self-presentation of middle-class people: this is more of a caring gesture, which performs closeness without much content beyond reflexive remembering and the managing of dates as a way of constructing intimacy. The following written text – as mentioned in section 1 – is an example for a face-saving form of communication for “difficult” and “forbidden” topics: in this case the ambivalent feelings about first sexual experiences. A young woman writes the following lines (excerpt) to her fiancé: Schau, manchmal finde ich es gar nicht/recht von mir, wenn ich immer nein sage,/wenn Du recht lieb mit mir sein willst./ Du tust mir dann sehr leid, auch ich/meine manchmal es nicht mehr aushalten/zu können, und doch, gell, wir wollen/uns beherrschen. Wir halten ja/noch eine sehr schöne Zeit vor. Wie muss/das schön sein, einmal von Dir Kinder/zu haben, und sie zusammen wieder/zu guten und lieben Menschen zu erziehen. /Ja, auf das freue ich mich sehr [ZLA 1253]. (“See, sometimes I don’t think it is /right of me to say no all the time / when you try to be really loving with me./ I always feel very sorry for you then, I too/ sometimes think I can barely contain myself/, and yet, right, we want to/ control ourselves. We are saving up a beautiful

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 197

time. How lovely it will be to have children with you and to raise them together to be good and lovely people. Yes, I look forward to that very much.”)

Bound up in a complicated ideological and moral argumentation, the author discusses the man’s sexual desire from his perspective and calls it euphemistically “loving”. His desire is described (by her) as a sensual bodily force that makes the man suffer, and makes the woman sad in turn. She doesn’t consider herself fair when she says no. The letter is taken as a means for discreet communication designed to avoid conflict, which was a must for bourgeois interaction. When they are corresponding (and living in the same village) the correspondence takes on a new status as a special practice. It could be a practice that mimics bourgeois correspondence, but it has lost its very crucial function of marriage introduction. If the people know each other, fall in love and meet, the virtuality of the written letters in which written fantasies can be experienced together no longer holds, because it has been reduced by face-to-face communication. Letter-writing turns out to be a nostalgic, romanticizing practice. And the simple, unelaborate writing style is no longer of importance to the correspondents. 4.3 De-Ritualization of Correspondence and the Introduction of Visual Literacy After World War II, private letter-writing becomes more and more a spontaneous act of passionate and intimate expression. Everybody can do it, and it no longer has the mark of a bourgeois virtue, but instead that of an extraordinary, even artistic, expression of love. Due to this de-ritualization of amatory communication and the refocusing of the love declaration as an explicit and faithful communication, a severe conflict arises. In the de-ritualized context the former adequate language of love seems to have lost its meaning21 and – even more troubling – there is no new “unused” way to express love. One solution to this vexing problem lies in a combined communication: some try to add meaning by including texts of popular love songs. With this new focus on linguistic semantic content the stereotypical language of love becomes impossible. At this time visual literacy is introduced in the everyday love letter – as a form of implicit language critique and as a symptom for lost meaning. Language is no longer the one and only way to say “I love you”. Changes in design and layout gradually alter the ways of presenting the letter, cf. Wiese (2000 : 125ff.). There is no sudden visual turn in private literacy. From the start of the 20th century and even 20 years earlier, one can oberve the gradual

21 This conflict is not to be confused with the critique of romanticism established in 20thcentury love letters.

198 | E VA L. W YSS

beginning of visual communication in handwritten letters. One inserts small signs – religous crosses or hearts – within the written lines, another designs his letter as a friendship album, still others complement their writing with sketches as the bourgeoisie used to do in books of sketches (in the 18th and 19th centuries). Cf. Wyss (2002). From the 1960s onward there is no engagement correspondence in the ZLA. It is possible that people continued to write letters nonetheless, but that they no longer had the same impact as they did 60 years before. What I note in my love-letter archive is correspondence over a limited time span when couples were separated for work or studies. Correspondence is used also in the case of hidden relationships (with priests, with married people) to stay in touch with each other, and to communicate openly, because at this time the use of the telephone in a family context was observed and could become a family event – and of course it was not possible to enjoy privacy or to hide telephone communication from other members of the family. But it goes deeper: the letters in figures 4 and 5 (see below) show that language is no longer an adequate medium in which to express love. The authors of love letters prefer a synaesthetic expression, featuring color or even a mathematical graph.

Figure 4: Synaesthetic letter: verbal and visual expression are equivalent and complementary [ZLA 4333]

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER TO O NLINE FLIRTING

| 199

Another example is that of a mathematical design, with which the writer constructs a formula of love:

Figure 5: Declaration of love in the form of a graph: x=days, y=love [ZLA 327]

In the 1970s, many unmarried couples live together and there is no longer a need to perform certain rites leading up to marriage. The (general) frequency of letterwriting decreases, so much so that the German post office launched the ad “Schreib mal wieder” (“Why not put it in writing?”, cf. Nickisch 1991, p. 69.) New motifs can be observed: young people and elderly adults write not only in Swiss dialect, but also in very long paragraphs, stream-of-consciousness style, about their feelings, about morality and the authenticity of life. Younger and shyer people try to get a date by writing a love letter in the school setting. Another novelty that marks the 1970s is that children begin to write love letters and notes in the classroom (Cherubim 1981, Canaan 1990, Wyss 2003a, Ziegler 2006); children even begin at this time to write short love letters.

200 | E VA L. W YSS

Like the letters of married couples in the 19th century and during war times, love letters are more a means to sustain a mutual everyday life. Therefore the epistolary style of the letters resembles that of a personal diary. If lovers live in the same town, they write small notes, which they put on each other’s beds, on mirrors in baths, or on refrigerators. The letter is shrinking to a note. It seems that writing has lost its importance to the discourse of love. The consequence of this casual treatment of letter-writing is a different performative function. The letters are seen more as unexpected gifts, nice to have as a source of joy, but lacking the existential and relationship-constructive impact the bourgeois bridal letters enjoyed as an introductory ritual. In the 20th century the love letter evolves into a whole textual family of written intimate communication and shows new forms and codes of intimacy: erotical nick names for men and a more variable and colloquial addressing (cf. Wyss 2000).

5 T HE 21 ST C ENTURY – C ORRESPONDENCE ON

THE I NTERNET

The new media will determine a development in the kinds of choices people are enabled to make with regard to the medium in which they choose to express themselves. The new media can – if the socio-cultural contexts of the users allow it – support new forms and uses of communication and new attitudes toward language use and communication. In this case the new medium changes the social value of the media itself, which will in turn lead to a rearrangement of the media functions and uses (cf. Krotz 2003.) The invention of media and their adaptation to personal and individual communication creates the possibility of inter-media crossings analogous to the mixture of text types. (Cf. Wyss 2003b) A clear cut comes in 1971 with the rise of a new writing technique: the e-mail. It was first used by U.S. academics on ARPANET and, nearly 10 years later, by European academics as well, and in the 1990s an increasing number of people in the Western world have access to e-mail facilities in their offices, in Internet cafés or at home. With the advent of e-mail communication the informal and socio-emotional communication on Internet increases, as Rice and Love (1987) showed as early as the 1980s. This refers both to the frequency of the messages written as well as to the socio-emotional contents of these messages. Moreover, Schoenberger (1999), writing about the German situation in the 1990s, notes that people show certain preferences in the selection of the addressees of their e-mails: the users do not write letters to unknown people, but to friends (90%/61.3% domestic/foreign) or ac-

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 201

quaintances (73.6%/52.9% domestic/foreign). This is the quantitative part. For the qualitative part, it seems that the new media offer the user a surplus – a new, exciting, occasionally confusing experience of self with risks of losing the self that were not easy for the early members of the virtual community to handle. The e-mail constitutes the invention of a new middle-class writing habit in the northern hemisphere. In the 19th century, the alphabetization line distinguished those educated either at home or at school from those with only little education or none at all. Internet literacy divides other groups and milieus, and sometimes the dividing line goes between the groups (as the European project on the virtual society has shown, cf. http://virtualsociety.sbs.ox.ac.uk/). All milieus (the academic context included) show different specifications of non-users. For the purposes of this essay, however, it is obvious that love letters are increasingly written on computers and sent by e-mail. The letter is the medium that serves to celebrate the lovers’ fantasies, for instance the discontinuous “quasi”-mutual remembering of things they have experienced (in real life or on-line) or even the invention of some actual erotic or sexual fantasies occurring exclusively in, by and through the text. Every transfer of a text or text type from one medium to another is marked by two leading principles: on the one hand there is the so-called stylistic inertia principle (Bausinger 1972, p. 81), which contends, generally speaking, that parts of the text type or characteristics of the genre are conserved throughout the media change; at the same time, however, there is an innovative force that leads to a mediaspecific innovation. 5.1 “Ordinary” Amatory Correspondence by E-Mail There are couples living in the same flat or working at the same place who use email to write notes to each other. They also write e-mail love letters or even organize and discuss their vacations using e-mail. This resembles the use of written communication forms that are described in sections 3.1 and 3.2. But – and this is a renaissance of 19th-century correspondence practices – there are also a lot of couples who have their first “conversation” or a first “date” on the Internet, then take a liking to one another and begin corresponding. The letters could be flirty at the beginning, but when the two fall in love they initiate a “real” amatory correspondence. The messages no longer constitute an assumed identity to mask or hide the goal of letter-writing: the aim is to get to know each other better, to express very private feelings and to be intimate with somebody else in the real (or virtual) world. (Cf. Baker 2005, Lenz 2006). Many people begin a love correspondence by placing a personal advertisement on a dating site and then exchanging letters. In these letters they tell their partner about

202 | E VA L. W YSS

their everyday life, confide secrets and tell stories about their families. Like the couples in the 19th century, today’s couples correspond daily or several times a day. Their linguistic self-representation is a way of forging a relationship (“Beziehungsarbeit”), a way of establishing closeness, trust and intimacy22 (Wyss, forthcoming). These letters are not colloquial, elliptic and non-coherent. Instead they show a complex and well-organized topic development, are well structured, and use salutation and valedictory forms, as well as unmarked language, correctly, and thus demonstrate greater literacy. Communicative standards are evolving on the Internet and many surveys show that, if a non-virtual relationship is desired after corresponding, a first non-virtual contact occurs with a phone call. More physical reality is created by writing faxes, where the handwriting tells more about a person. Then after some time, a first date establishes a love relationship in real life, or a sudden silence lets the other know that there is no desire to meet in real life. (Turkle 1995, Doering 2000) The linguistic construction of a relationship23 is established with responsive and cooperative performances (on the locutionary and illocutionary levels) or sibling or couple codes (cf. Rowe 2001, Langford 1997). The letters reveal a lot of private life, which creates not only closeness; the exchange of personal experiences, opinions and interests also builds up mutual trust. Furthermore, these letters demonstrate several forms of the construction of intimacy. The most important features are the caring words, the declaration of love and the establishment of mutual fantasies (Wyss forthcoming). But the Internet does not only transport e-mails from one mail host to another. Aside from textual and lexical Internet culture codes (the e-mail layout with header, body and signature, the abbreviations, smileys, emoticons) and CMC adaptation features (the contextualizing of the letters by talking about office problems, the naming of a certain experiential lack due to the virtuality of the context, the problems in de-anonymizing each other, cf. Wyss 2003b), there is a more crucial difference between the handwritten correspondence of the 19th century and current e-mail correspondence: the perception of one’s own identity as well as that of the other. In the 19th century, the future bride and bridegroom did not know each other in a sense very different from that of the Internet: in the 19th century, although the two writers had not met yet, they knew a lot about each other from their parents, other relatives and the like. But on the Internet the ignorance of the other is real. People may have

22 In this trust-building context, it becomes clear that the demasking of the online identity or the revelation of a real and different identity becomes an admission of a lie which always comes too late and is therefore made (almost) impossible. 23 The construction of relationships is described in sociological literature (Lenz 2006) as a form of negotiation.

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 203

only a nickname or a user-ID, which, while stimulating certain fantasies, leaves it unclear whether this cyber-identity is desirable and to what extent it correlates with the actual author. This creates not only some crucial psychological problems but also problems on a more linguistic level. First of all, since readers cannot know whose utterances they are reading, they experience something utterly new: an enormous and bewildering lack of context. Such context is the missing fundament for the handling of meaning, although through further communication the communicators do establish their own, strictly literate context from the verbal information they are gathering. 5.2 Online Textual Flirting: A New Written Communicative Genre Virtual reality (VR) is a real or simulated environment that is characterized by its vividness and interactivity. The experience the author has while using this virtual medium is real. The Internet offers a stage for role-playing games with masks and pseudonyms (Turkle 1995, Beisswenger 2000 u. 2001). This creates a perfect environment for flirting. In flirting, it is crucial to be kept guessing about the actual desires of the addressee. On the Internet, where it is unclear who is hidden behind a user-ID or a nickname, this situation is the norm. But how does flirting operate through e-mails? By communication with written messages? No glances, no attractive bending of the head, no blushing is visible in the asynchronous texts, but there is still a big secret, a technically created mystery. The dialectic between one’s own virtually constructed “desirable” identity and the desired identity increases the thrill of this specific communication. A flirt could start as a synchronous communication in the chat room or multiuser dungeon, after which there might be a first e-mail exchange, without commitments. There are, however, cyber-love stories24 in which intimacy and passion become central. In flirting, it is important to remain in a non-committal state (Doering 2000, p. 60). Flirt letters are playful, volatile, momentary, minimalist verbal meetings without a clear objective (or with a well-camouflaged objective). (Cf. Cameron & Kulick 2003) dearest romeolino wollte dir nur eine versuesste nacht wuenschen ...... angel [ZLA 4889]

24 Nicola Doering (2003) shows the different dating contexts and types of pick-up situations on the Internet and lists a typology of love or sex relationships based on Internet communication (cf. Lenz 2006).

204 | E VA L. W YSS (“dearest romeolino just wanted to wish you a sweetened night...... angel”)

Users toy with one another by feigning confusion, they make interesting allusions, ask rhetorical questions and use erotic nicknames (cf. Danet 2001). The nicknames turn into self-selected pet names in the duty of attention control. From: [email protected] To: beramis@xxx com Subject: AW.: Romeo calling Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 12:40:01 EDT habe was vergessen....an was sind die philosophen gescheitert?? an der liebe etwa??? [...] kläre mich doch bitte auf... [...] [ZLA 3975] (Translation: “forgot something… why did the philosophers fail?? … could it have been because of love??? [... ] enlighten me please... [... ]”)

The flirt text becomes more effective, that is to say the sender remains longer in the center of attention, the vaguer the text is. As a produced, ambiguous self, its writer does not want to be an author and instead uses intellectually stimulating quotations to pad his or her e-mail. So the queston is whether a flirt letter can be called a love letter. Indeed, the flirt letter is the playful counterpart to a love letter. It is a letter written in a romantic context and might be compared to the older letters of a love affair. It does not make much sense to define the love letter according to the possible states of love, which differ not only in terms of historical context, regional and cultural setting, sexual orientation and gender lines, but also from one romantic phase to another. An important differentiation, however, is the performative status of the flirt letter. Flirting by e-mail is not only an exchange of communication but also a way to linguistically construct a relationship. Its linguistic actions are designed to achieve curiosity and interest without a commitment. At every moment of the flirting process, it is unclear whether there will be a further reply. The “lovers” keep a certain emotional distance. Nonetheless, the colloquial style of the letters affects a certain closeness. The colloquial style, also referred to as language of closeness25, is a result of con-

25 Rowe (2003) finds a code of closeness, a “sibling code”, in the e-mail correspondence of two sisters, which is an effect of the rhythm of communication. Langford (2003) finds a

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER

TO

O NLINE FLIRTING

| 205

ceptual orality in the production of the text (Koch/Oesterreicher 1985/1994, p. 28, Assmann 1995). There are studies of adolescents and teenagers turning to SMS to instigate flirting, so that if they are rejected it is not public or even in physical presence, so it is easier to avoid losing face (Brown 2002, Thurlow & Brown 2003). It can happen – when both partners reply in a speedy rhythm – that this form of e-mail communication becomes almost synchronous, like the communication on a private channel in a chat room. The quick writing results in a non-coherent text that does not follow the syntactic and orthographic rules. Flirting on-line is a communication by cryptic texts with erotic allusions, sometimes with a (pseudo-)poetic character but also with stereotypical sequences from the traditional Western discourse of love. habe das gedicht noch nicht gelöscht...ich muss sagen, es berührt mich doch...... aber lieber wurde ich in einem boot dahergleitent bei mondschein und sternenhimmel, in die unendlichkeit oder, in einem meer aus rosen mich niederlegen und mich vom blütenduft berauschen lassen und den himmlischen stimmen folgen, die mich in die ewigkeit verlocken (ZLA 3976) (Translation: “have not yet deleted the poem... I must say, it does touch me...... but I would prefer to float in a boat in the moonlight under starry skies into infinity, or to lie down in a sea of roses and be carried away by the smell of roses and follow the celestial voices, which beckon me to eternity”)

The stylistic characterization is ambivalent as well. The letters are expressive texts that stretch dialogical structures. All of these features also belong to orality.

6

AN I NTERMEDIAL H ISTORICAL C OMPARISON – S IMILARITIES AND D IFFERENCES FROM THE 19 TH C ENTURY TO THE P RESENT

Not every text type is as rich as the love letter, which allows us to obtain new knowledge and permits a generalization of writing practices. The love letter is advantageous for media-historical socio-linguistic comparative research, not only because it is very frequent, but also because it can be found in different media, social milieus and historical periods. As noted earlier, there are three different strands of written love communication, which cannot be classified according to a chronological progression alone:

code of closeness, which she calls “baby talk”, in Valentine’s Day messages in print media.

206 | E VA L. W YSS

Bridal correspondence is the 19th-century practice of letter-writing by a couple engaged to be married and persists in the 20th century. During this later period, however, letter-writing is mixed up with other written and oral communications and is important for middle-class couples. In this new context correspondence (letter, fax, e-mail) becomes a supplement. As a third strand the Internet (in particular e-mail and the World Wide Web) creates two new forms of intimate writing: the e-mail correspondence and online flirting. On the one hand there are love letters in which not many adaptational features have changed, while on the other hand one finds e-mails that differ in form, content and function very much from e-mail correspondence: flirt e-mails, whose rapid exchange causes them to develop a performative function, which might be called online flirting. During the 19th century, writing love letters was personal, but not private in today’s meaning of the word. The letter was a secretive means of making sure that the relationship during the engagement was lived beyond the family’s control. Letterwriting at the beginning of the 20th century was an obligation and a civic virtue. When corresponding became a supplement, the letter could occupy another function: no longer assigned to a distinctive behaviour, it offers the possibility of conversing in a “civilized” way about things that usually cause shame. Today people sit in front of their computers and write love letters during work. They regard loveletter writing as a pleasant distraction. In other cases, the love letter and/or love note is connected to creativity and having fun. The separation of two people is thus no longer the reason for written communication. With the differentiation of the love letter in e-mail correspondence and in the context of online flirting, we can observe the effect of intermediality: the Internet transforms a formal oral communicative performance into a written one. This development represents a very strong new impact on the culture of writing. With the advent of new writing features such as e-mail and text messaging, the culture of writing is currently changing much as visual culture changed with the invention of video, handy cam and Internet cam. The rhythmic structure and quasisynchronous nature of these new tools have rendered the practice of writing fully performative and thus made of writing a form of experiencing.

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER TO O NLINE FLIRTING

| 207

R EFERENCES Adamzik, Kirsten. 2000. Was ist pragmatisch orientierte Textsortenforschung? Textsorten: Reflexionen und Analysen, ed. by Kirsten Adamzik, 91-112. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. Aries, Philippe; Duby, Georges (eds.). 1994. A History of Private Life. Belknap: Harvard Univ. Press. Assmann, Jan. 1995. Kulturelle Texte im Spannungsfeld von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit: Literaturkanon – Medienereignis – Kultureller Text, ed. by Andreas Poltermann, 270-292. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. Baker, Andrea J. (2005). Double Click. Romance and Commitment Among Online Couples. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Barthes, Roland. 1977. Fragments d’un discours amoureux. Paris: Seuil. Barton, David; Hall, Nigel (eds.). 2000. Letter writing as a social practice. John Benjamins: Nigel Hall. Philadelphia. (= Studies in written language and literacy. v. 9). Bausinger, Hermann. 1972/1984 (reprint). Deutsch für Deutsche. Dialekte, Sprachbarrieren, Sondersprachen. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer. Beaugrande, Robert A. de; Dressler, Wolfgang U. 1981. Einführung in die Textlinguistik. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Beißwenger, Michael. 2000. Kommunikation in virtuellen Welten: Sprache, Text und Wirklichkeit. Stuttgart: ibidem–Verlag. Beisswenger, Michael. 2001. Das interaktive Lesespiel. Chat–Kommunikation als mediale Inszenierung: Chat-Kommunikation. Sprache, Interaktion, Sozialität und Identität in synchroner computervermittelter Kommunikation. Perspektiven auf ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld, ed. by Michael Beisswenger, 79-138. Stuttgart: Ibidem–Verlag. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1979. La distinction – critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Brinker, Klaus. 2001. Linguistische Textanalyse. Eine Einführung in Grundbegriffe und Methoden. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Brown, Alex. 2002. The language and communication of SMS: An exploratory study of young adults' text-messaging, Unpublished BA dissertation, Cardiff University. (Cited from Thurlow & Brown 2003) Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, New York. Bühler, Karl. 1934/1999 (reprint). Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius. (= Uni-Taschenbücher 1159). Cameron, Deborah/Kulick, Don (2003): Language and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Canaan, Joyce E. 1990. Passing Notes and Telling Jokes. Gendered Strategies among American Middle School Teenagers: Uncertain Terms. Negotiating

208 | E VA L. W YSS

Gender in American Culture, ed. by Faye Ginsburg and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, 215-231. Boston: Beacon Press. Chartier, Roger. 1997. Correspondence: models of letter–writing from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cherubim, Dieter. 1981. Schülerbriefchen: Neben–Kommunikation. Beobachtungen und Analysen zum nichtoffiziellen Schülerverhalten innerhalb und außerhalb des Unterrichts, ed. by Jürgen Baurmann, Dieter Cherubim and Helmut Rehbock, 107-168. Braunschweig: Westermann. Danet, Brenda. 2001. Cyberpl@y. Communicating online. Oxford, New York: Berg. Döring, Nicola. 2000. Romantische Beziehungen im Netz: Soziales im Netz, ed. by Caja Thimm, 39-70. Wiesbaden/Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Döring, Nicola. 2003. Internet–Liebe: Zur technischen Mediatisierung intimer Kommunikation: Vermittlungskulturen im Wandel. Brief – E–Mail – SMS, ed. by Joachim R. Höflich and Julian Gebhardt, 233-263. Frankfurt a.M., New York, Wien: Peter Lang Verlag. Dowe, Christopher. 2006. Auch Bildungsbürger. Katholische Studierende und Akademiker im Kaiserreich. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. (= Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 171). Durkheim, Émile. 1894/ 1967 (reprint). Les règles de la méthode sociologique. Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France. 16th edition (Collection: Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine). Eckert, Penelope. 2000. Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Identity in Belton High. Oxford: Blackwell. Ehlert, Klaas-Hinrich. 2004. Raumverhalten auf dem Papier. Der Untergang eines komplexen Zeichensystems dargestellt an Briefstellern des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts: Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 32. 1-31. Elspass, Stephan. 2005. Standardisierung des Deutschen. Ansichten aus der neueren Sprachgeschichte ‚von unten‘: Standardvariation: Wie viel Variation verträgt die deutsche Sprache? ed. by Ludwig M. Eichinger and Werner Kallmeyer, 6399. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. (= Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Jahrbuch 2004). Ettl, Susanne. 1984. Anleitungen zur schriftlichen Kommunikation. Briefsteller von 1880 bis 1980. Tübingen. (= RGL 50). Feilke, Helmuth. 2003. Oberfläche, Kontext und Lexikon. Referat auf der GAL– Tagung 26.9.2003. Tübingen. Fix, Ulla. 2000. Das Rätsel. Bestand und Wandel einer Textsorte. Oder: Warum sich die Textlinguistik als Querschnittsdisziplin verstehen kann: Sprachgeschichte als Textsortengeschichte. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Gotthard Lerchner, ed. by Irmhild Barz, Ulla Fix, Marianne Schröder and Georg Schuppner, 183–210. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Foucault, Michel. 1971. L’ordre du discours. Paris, Gallimard.

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER TO O NLINE FLIRTING

| 209

Foucault, Michel. 1978. Dispositive der Macht. Über Sexualität, Wissen und Wahrheit. Berlin: Merve. Grosse, Siegfried et al. 1989. »Denn das Schreiben gehört nicht zu meiner täglichen Beschäftigung«. Der Alltag kleiner Leute in Bittschriften, Briefen und Berichten aus dem 19. Jahrhundert. Bonn: Dietz. Goody, Jack. 1977. The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Häcki Buhofer, Annelies. 1985. Schriftlichkeit im Alltag. Theoretische und empirische Aspekte – am Beispiel eines Schweizer Industriebetriebs. Bern: Lang. (= Zürcher Germanistische Studien 2). Heinemann, Wolfgang, Viehweger, Dieter. 1991. Textlinguistik. Eine Einführung. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Heyne, Moriz. 1892. Deutsches Wörterbuch 2. H–O. Leipzig: S. Hirzel. Jakob, Karlheinz. 2000. Zwischen Alltag und Institution. Antrags- und Beschwerdeschreiben am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts: Vom Umgang mit sprachlicher Variation. Soziolinguistik, Dialektologie, Methoden und Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Festschrift für Heinrich Löffler zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. by Annelies Häcki Buhofer, 299-310. Tübingen, Basel: Francke. Joris, Elisabeth, Witzig, Heidi. 1992. Brave Frauen, aufmüpfige Weiber. Wie sich die Industrialisierung auf Alltag und Lebenszusammenhänge von Frauen auswirkte (1820-1940). Zürich: Chronos. Klenk, Marion. 1997. Sprache im Kontext sozialer Lebenswelt. Eine Untersuchung zur Arbeiterschriftsprache im 19. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Koch, Peter; Oesterreicher, Wulf. 1985. Sprache der Nähe – Sprache der Distanz. Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im Spannungsfeld von Sprachtheorie und Sprachgebrauch: Romanistisches Jahrbuch 36. 15- 43. Koch, Peter; Oesterreicher, Wulf. 1997. Schriftlichkeit und Sprache: Schrift und Schriftlichkeit. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch internationaler Forschung, ed. by Hartmut Günther and Otto Ludwig, 587-604. Berlin. New York: de Gruyter. HSK 1. Halbband. Krotz, Friedrich. 2003. Kommunikation im Zeitalter des Internet: Vermittlungskulturen im Wandel. Brief – E–Mail – SMS. Frankfurt a.M., New York, ed. by Joachim R. Höflich and Julian Gebhardt, 21-38. Wien: Peter Lang. Langford, Wendy. 1997. “Bunnikins, I love you Snugly in your Warren”. Voices from subterranean Cultures of Love: Language and Desire. Encoding Sex, Romance and Intimacy, ed. by Keith Harvey and Celia Shalom, 170-185. London: Routledge. Lässig, Simone. 2004. Jüdische Wege ins Bürgertum. Kulturelles Kapital und sozialer Aufstieg. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Lenz, Karl. 2006. Soziologie der Zweierbeziehung. Eine Einführung. Opladen/ Wiesbaden, Westdeutscher Verlag.

210 | E VA L. W YSS

Lévi–Strauss, Claude. 1958/1959. Strukturale Anthropologie I und II. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Lystra, Karen. 1989. Searching the Heart. Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mattheier, Klaus J. 1987. Formale und funktionale Aspekte der Syntax von Arbeiterschriftsprache im 19. Jahrhundert: Neuere Forschungen zur historischen Syntax des Deutschen, ed. by Anne Betten, 286-299. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Messerli, Alfred. 2002. Lesen und Schreiben 1700 bis 1900. Untersuchung zur Durchsetzung der Literalität in der Schweiz. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (=Reihe Germanistische Linguistik. Band 229). Nickisch, Reinhard M. G. 1991. Brief. Stuttgart: Metzler. (= Sammlung Metzler 260). Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality & Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word. London, New York: Routledge. Polenz, Peter von. 1999. Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Band III: 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. Rice, Ronald E.; Love, Gail. 1987. Electronic Emotion. Socioemotional Content in a Computer–Mediated Communication Network: Communication Research 14/1, February, 85–108. Rowe, Charley. 2001. Genesis and evolution of an email sibling code. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dissertation. Sandig, Barbara. 2006. Stilistik der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. (= Sammlung Göschen 2229). Schikorsky, Isa. 1990. Private Schriftlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des alltäglichen Sprachverhaltens kleiner Leute. Tübingen: Niemeyer. (=RGL 107). Schikorsky, Isa. 2001. “Dein bis in den Tod” – Zur Sprache der Liebe unter den Bedingungen des Krieges: Die deutsche Sprache in der Gegenwart. Festschrift für Dieter Cherubim, ed. by Stefan J. Schierholz, 69-79. Frankfurt a.M./New York/Wien: Peter Lang Verlag. Schönberger, Klaus. 1999. Neue Online–KommunikationspartnerInnen? Qualitative und quantitative Annäherungen: Current Internet Science. Trends, Tecniques, Results. Aktuelle Online–Forschung. Trends, Techniken, Ergebnisse, ed. by Ulf–Dietrich Reips. http://www.gor.de/gor99/tband99/pdfs/q_z/schoenber ger.pdf. [03–22–2007] Schultz, Lucille M. 2000. Letter-Writing Instruction in 19th Century Schools in the United States: Letter Writing as a Social Practice, ed. by David Barton and Nigel Hall, 109-130. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, J. Benjamins Publ. Schulze, Gerhard. 1995. Die Erlebnisgesellschaft. Kultursoziologie der Gegenwart. Frankfurt am Main, New York: Campus.

F ROM THE B RIDAL L ETTER TO O NLINE FLIRTING

| 211

Schwender, Clemens. Forthcoming. Letters between Home and the Front — Expressions of Love in World War II Feldpost Letters: Transformations of Passion. The Mediatisation of Intimacy in Letters, Postcards, TV, Internet and Mobile Phone, ed. by Eva L. Wyss. Thurlow, Crispin, & Brown, Alex (2003). Generation txt? The sociolinguistics of young peopleʼs text-messaging. Discourse Analysis Online, 1 (1). Retrieved December 6, 2007 from http://extra.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a3/ thurlow2002003-paper.html Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen. Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York, Simon & Schuster. Vincent, Gérard. 1995. Eine Geschichte des Geheimen: Geschichte des privaten Lebens. 5. Band: Vom Ersten Weltkrieg zur Gegenwart, e. by Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby, 153-344. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. Wiese, Ingrid. 2000. Entwicklungslinien der Präsentationsweise medizinischwissenschaftlicher Zeitschriftenartikel: Sprachgeschichte als Textsortengeschichte. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Gotthard Lerchner, ed. by Irmhild Barz, Ulla Fix, Marianne Schröder und Georg Schuppner, 125-131. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953/2001. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Wyss, Eva Lia. 2000. Intimität und Geschlecht. Zur Syntax und Pragmatik der Anrede im Liebesbrief des 20. Jahrhunderts: Bulletin VALS/ASLA 72. 187–210. Wyss, Eva Lia. 2002. Fragmente einer Sprachgeschichte des Liebesbriefs des 20. Jahrhunderts im Spannungsfeld von Sprachgeschichte, Geschichte der Kommunikation und Mediengeschichte: Briefkultur des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Ulrich Schmitz and Eva L. Wyss, 57-92.Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Sprachtheorie 64. Wyss, Eva Lia (2003a): Liebesbriefe von Kindern, Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen. Eine Textsorte im lebenszeitlichen Wandel: Spracherwerb und Lebensalter, ed. by Annelies Häcki Buhofer, 71-86. Basel. (= Basler Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur). Wyss, Eva L. (2003b): Metamorphosen des Liebesbriefs im Internet: Vermittlungskulturen im Wandel. Brief – E–Mail – SMS, ed. by Joachim R. Höflich and Julian Gebhardt, 199-231. Frankfurt a.M., New York, Wien: Peter Lang. Ziegler, Evelyn (2006): Identitätskonstruktion und Beziehungsarbeit in bayerischen Schülerzetteln: Perspektiven der Jugendsprachforschung, ed. by Christa Dürscheid and Jürgen Spitzmüller, 165-183. Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang.

Letters Between Home and the Front Expressions of Love in World War II “Feldpost” Letters C LEMENS S CHWENDER

In the days of World War II, the Feldpost letter was about the only means of individual communication available to soldiers and their relatives and friends back home. Through the deployment of soldiers to far-away fronts, many relationships were torn apart. This included not only relationships between colleagues and friends, but also between parents and children and between spouses and lovers. Feldpost (field post) letters are not a new source of so called “hard facts” about World War II. The basic facts like dates, battles, troop movements, and front lines are well known. Feldpost letters have a different value. They are increasingly being recognized as documents of everyday communication. They give us an insight into the emotions and motivations of the ordinary soldier and their families and partners. Written communication was the only possibility for contact with those at home and vice versa. As a rule, the telephone was not available for private conversations, so letters, cards, packages and telegrams were all that remained. These were all transported through the organization of the Feldpost system (cf. Gericke 1971). Mobile Feldpost offices collected the letters at the front and handed them out. Each unit had its own number, by which it could be identified, even if the unit was moved. The Reichspost (German Post Office) was responsible for the transportation within the German Reich. Occasionally, other soldiers could take something back and forth as they were going home on leave or returning to the front. Estimates based on existing invoices between the German army of that time and the Reichspost indicate that during World War II, about 30 to 40 billion items marked Feldpost were transported. Interest shown in these letters has changed over time. At first, it was mainly philatelists who were interested in the standards and peculiarities of the means of transportation. It was not until 1982 that interest in the actual content of the documents inside the envelopes began to be shown. The first publication on this topic is by Ortwin Buchbender and Reinhold Sterz. They published excerpts of Feldpost let-

214 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER

ters in a work called Das andere Gesicht des Krieges. These excerpts were taken from the private collection of Reinhold Sterz, currently available in the State Library (Landesbibliothek) in Stuttgart. Since 2000 there has been another major archive that collects Feldpost letters from German soldiers and their families: The Feldpost Archiv Berlin has more than 10,000 letters in over 600 bundles of series of letters that can be classified by sender. The special feature of this collection is that in contrast to all of the other archives, it includes extensive information about the authors, which enables systematic access and new evaluations to be made in the future.

1

“W RITE

AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN ”

There are signs which support initial conjectures regarding the importance of Feldpost letters as communications of love. It is possible to examine the hypothesis that the lover who died during the war has a greater emotional meaning than the one who returned. Initially, this sentiment could not have played a role in the recipient’s decision whether to save letters, or not, because at the time of receipt, they could not known, if or when their loved one would be killed. At this stage, there can’t be any difference between the surviving lover and the one who was killed, since nobody can foresee what will happen in the future. On the other hand, it is equally apparent that afterwards the memory of the two would be different. In the case of the lover who returns home, the matters discussed in the letters are continued and finally settled. Matters are finished in a different sense in the case of the fallen soldier or the one missing in action, but this case the letters are a reminder of the person, as well as personal documents of a relationship that was ended through a violent death. The contents of the letters themselves provide a special commemoration of the loved one. Statistic analysis of the bundles and their entry in a databank yield first indications of different cultures of commemoration: Of 610 bundles in the Feldpost archives at the time of the evaluation (April 2003), 395 have a recognizable and recorded reference to the recipient. Of the 610 letter writers, 23 correspond with friends, acquaintances, or comrades (=5.8%); 157 with partners, some also with other family members at the same time (=39.7%); two thirds of these 157 writers were later killed in action; and 215 only with family members only (=54.4%; two thirds of these were also later killed in action). Irrespective of the intended recipient, there is a total of 370 statements regarding the sender’s whereabouts: 70% of them were later killed in action or by other effects of war, or were missing in action. According to projections by Overmans (Overmans 1999), who analysed a representative sample of the 17 million record

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 215

cards of the Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt1) notifying of next-of-kin of members of the former German Wehrmacht who were killed in action, 28% of the soldiers of the army, air force, SS, or members of the Reichsarbeitsdienst, Organisation Todt, police, customs, state railway, post office, and finally, the Volkssturm, did not return home. According to Overmans, more than five million soldiers were killed in action. In the Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, 70% of the bundles of letters are from soldiers who did not return home, as opposed to the 28% of all soldiers who did not return. The distinctly larger number of series of letters in the archives from killed and missing soldiers is a first clear indication of their remarkable emotional importance. In examining the content of the letters, it becomes apparent that those which serve as communications of love are actually perfectly ordinary love letters. They fulfil all the criteria and patterns: There are various themes that also appear in other communications of love, such as a declaration of love, interest in a relationship, and clashes over jealousy. This analysis will concentrate on themes which are specific to the Feldpost: war and relationships, the special problems of communicating love in a time out of joint, and on Feldpost letters as a special form of the communication of love. Individual aspects will be identified and illuminated with the use of examples. As representative material is lacking, hermeneutics provides the only useful methodological approach. The generalization of individual cases and their application to larger groups of letter writers is purely hypothetical and can only succeed if the selection of themes is plausible.

2

“Y OU

CAN ’ T IMAGINE WHAT IT ’ S LIKE .”

The long separation, which in individual cases could last up to several years, not only caused problems in communication. Increasingly, mutual points of reference for the exchange of information were lacking. Four different worlds with their own restricted horizons in which the letter writers lived, can be identified: first, the world of the soldiers, consisting of the front or the zone behind the lines; then home, where the families and partners remained; the future and the past, which were constantly referred to because a shared present was lacking; and finally, the world of media, which may be viewed as some form of a shared synchronic experience.

1

Wehrmachtsauskunftstelle für Kriegerverluste und Kriegsgefangene.

216 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER

2.1 The World of the Front The world of the front was the soldiers’ world. This world was certainly the most difficult to convey. There are many reasons for this fact. The soldiers’ communications were most likely to be censored. Ideological opinions were less important to the censors than military information was. Any kind of sensitive military information was to be kept a secret in case the letters fell into the enemy’s hands. Thus writing about military goals, battles, the type and condition of weapons and other resources, or naming comrades or officers was forbidden. Soldiers were not even allowed to mention their current location. The needs of the relatives to know about the well-being and problems of their partners is often repeated in the letters: 20.10.41 “Sag Willi, in welchem Frontabschnitt steckst Du eigentlich? Ich höre nämlich täglich genau die Wehrmachtsberichte an und die Frontberichte. Du kannst Dir das nicht vorstellen, denn Du bist ja selbst draußen, aber für uns in der Heimat ist ein, na sagen wir ein eigenartiges Gefühl zu wissen, daß dort in dem riesigen Rußland ein Mensch gegen diese fanatischen Bolschewisten kämpft, dessen Wohl einem am Herzen liegt.“ (Say, Willi, which section of the front are you in right now? Because I listen carefully to the armed forces news reports and the reports about the front every day. You can’t imagine that because you are out there yourself, but for us at home it is a, let’s say — a peculiar feeling — to know that out there in big, wide Russia a human being who you care very much about, is fighting against those fanatic Bolsheviks.) (Unknown woman in: Golovchansky et al [eds] 1991: 43)

The lack of information left the soldiers’ correspondents with little possibility for imagination. They learned much from the newsreels, radio and newspapers, but the authentic reports from their partners had a much higher value for them. When the men wrote they apparently mentioned their everyday life and what they did only marginally. Very naively, the women asked questions about the front. They thought about their men often and they wanted to be able to imagine what their lives were like. The questions from home regarding the soldiers’ whereabouts were raised repeatedly, and the answers were vague. Censorship was not the only reason for that. Many of the experiences in the realm of the war could not be expressed in words, especially not in a written form that would require explanation. In those cases where the soldier was aware of this, he promised to explain face-to-face at a point in the future.

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 217

25.9.44 “In 24 Jahren, Geliebte, feiern wir unsere Silberne Hochzeit! Viel, viel könnte ich Dir erzählen, aber das geht nicht. Das erzählt sich besser persönlich. Weißt Du, so mit Dir auf den Knien, in den Armen. So manches möchte ich berichten. Erfreuliches und (oft weit mehr) Unerfreuliches. Alles das aber würde als Geschriebenes eine Gefahr bedeuten. Es sind Geschichten für nach dem Kriege. Kein Geheimnis mehr, daß wir uns planmäßig absetzen.“ (In 24 years, my darling, we will celebrate our silver anniversary. I could tell you very, very much, but that is not possible. It’s the kind of thing that can be related better in person. You know, holding you on my lap, arms around each other. I would like to tell you a lot — happy things and (far more often) unhappy things. All things, however, that would be dangerous to write down. Those are stories for after the war. It is no secret any more that we are withdrawing according to plan.) (Kurt O. in: Orgel-Purpur 1995: 173)

The letters from the front contained summarizing assessments rather than details. The world of the front was a world unto itself. The soldiers had experiences that could not be compared with any others and so they could not refer to them. In addition to being prohibited from stating personal names, there were also very few persons in one’s immediate surroundings who were known to the persons at home, and thus there were no common reference points. The consequence of this was that the letters usually contained only general hints about the situation at the front line. The letter communication served mainly as a means of maintaining personal relationships. Since the anecdotal was lacking, many concentrated on assurances of love, common memories of past experiences and references to the future. There are numerous examples of letters in which the writers ignore the rules of censorship and write surprisingly openly. These remain the exception, however. Only if the soldier was absolutely certain that his partner would read the confessions with understanding and treat them confidentially, and additionally, if he had enough self-confidence to disobey the censure regulations, then it would be possible for him to write concretely about experiences and deeds that occurred at the front. Consequently, one would not expect explicit descriptions of war crimes in letters and there are, in fact, only a few cases. As evidence of the discrepancy between personal perception and communication with one’s partner, one need only compare the entries in the soldier’s private diary with the content of his letters. Ernst wrote the following in his diary on July 15, 1941: “Das Dorf Offerany brennt vollständig. Der Gegner verläßt fluchtartig die Stellung. Die erste Kompanie erhält noch Feuer aus einer Scheune. Oberleutnant Wendelhorn und drei Unteroffiziere gehen dran. Zwei Unteroffiziere fallen. Oberleutnant Mantelboom steckt die Scheune

218 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER in Brand. Die Russen verbrennen bei lebendigem Leib. Die Nacht ist ruhig. Bataillon gräbt sich ein. Im Stab sind Gefreiter Samer, verwundet. Funkeroffizier Doege und Gefreiter Müller verdienten sich das EK 2.“ (The village of Offerany is burning completely. The enemy are fleeing their position. The first company is being fired at from a barn. Lieutenant Wendelhorn and three noncommissioned officers are fighting back. Two NCOs have fallen. Lieutenant Mantelboom has set the barn on fire. The Russians are burning alive. The night is quiet. The Battalion is digging itself in. Lance Corporal Samer is in the headquarters, wounded. Radio specialists Doege and Lance Corporal Müller earned the EK 2 [Iron Cross].) (Ernst G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

His wife did not learn any of this. In the letter chronologically following this diary entry a week later, he wrote: 22.7.41 “Du fragst nach meinem Befinden. Ja Bobi, da kann ich Dir mit einem ganz reinen Gewissen antworten: ‘sauwohlʼ. Wir rauchen nur noch ‘Attikaʼ, bekommen täglich unsere Schokolade und noch so vieles mehr. Natürlich fehlt auch der Geruch des Krieges nicht. Das Leben ist etwas unregelmäßig, z. B. haben wir uns schon vier Tage nicht waschen können. Warum ist auch nicht wichtig. Von der großen Kriegslage weiß ich nichts zu berichten, da wir soweit nicht orientiert sind. Ich glaube, wenn wir hier fertig sind, ist auch der Krieg soweit abgeschlossen. Nur um eines möchte ich Dich bitten, nicht weich werden. Mir geht es ja ab und zu nicht viel anders, aber diesen ‘Schweinehundʼ müssen wir unterdrücken. Bobi, beiße auf die Zähne und schau geradeaus, dort wo unser großes Ziel mit jedem Sonnenaufgang näher kommt. Wir müssen und werden es erreichen und ihr, unsere Frauen und Eltern daheim, müßt viel mithelfen, denn jedes liebe Wort, jeder Kartengruß gibt neuen Lebensmut.“ (You ask how I am. Yes, Bobi, I can answer with a perfectly clear conscience, ‘wonderful.ʼ We only smoke ‘Attika,ʼ we get chocolate every day and a whole lot more. Of course, the smell of war is there, too. Life is somewhat irregular (for example, we haven’t been able to wash for four days). It doesn’t matter why. I can’t really say anything about the general war situation because we don’t get any information. I think when we are done here, the war will be about over. I just want to ask you one thing, don’t get soft. Sometimes it isn’t any different for me, but we have to fight back this weakness. Bobi, grit your teeth and look straight ahead, where we are a little closer to reaching our big goal with each sunset. We have to, and will reach it, and you, our wives and parents at home, must help a lot because every loving word, every greeting card gives us new courage.) (Ernst G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 219

Even considering that a week had passed since the battle, there are indications that it had not yet been digested. The “wonderful” appears to be self-reassurance because it stands in contrast to repressing the “weakness.” Instead of reporting on his experiences, or passing on any kind of assessment or feelings, the soldier withdrew behind set phrases. His own doubts were repressed, and his own confidence was created or increased by the need to hold out and be strong. Bad news and bad moods were likely to be withheld. Communication in letters seemed to have more the function of compensating for one’s own negative experiences than to leading a discussion with one’s partner. As the experiences were too complex and the descriptions too vague for that. The world of the soldier was separated from the world at home. Concrete questions were seldom asked. Participation in decision making was out of the question. Within the framework of social history, it is difficult to determine whether there are gender-specific differences in the communication of feelings. It is, however, possible to verify that letters written by women are different. 2.2 The World of Home The most obvious characteristic of letters from home is that they were less subject to censure. Random checks of these letters were made, but for one thing, there were no military secrets to hide, and secondly, the possibilities for sanctions were much more complicated. The world at home was known to the soldier at the front. In most cases he was involuntarily torn out of his family and social surroundings. He wanted to continue to participate in this world. He repeatedly asked questions and thereby requested communication. The medium of the letter enabled the man to continue a discourse with his family in spite of the spatial separation. It was possible for the letters to contain many details about the situation of the family and their possessions. Among other things, the letter had to replace immediate experience. 31.8.41 “Diese süßen Kinder! Du ahnst nicht, wie nett das ist, wenn sie alle Drei morgens ‘in Muttis Bettʼ sitzen! Wie Ekki aussieht, kannst Du Dir nicht vorstellen? Er liegt meistens mit großen klaren Augen, und wenn Du kommst und ihn ansiehst, dann ist es, als ob die Sonne aufgeht! Und so pfiffig sieht er immer aus, so richtig helle und so süß, daß man immer Atem holen muß vor Freude.“ (These sweet children! You can’t imagine how nice it is, when all three of them sit ‘in Mummy’s bedʼ in the morning! What Ekki looks like, can’t you imagine? Usually he lies there

220 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER with big clear eyes, and when you come and look at him, it’s as if the sun is rising! And he always looks so smart, so clever and sweet, that you have to catch your breath for joy.) (Hilde K. in: Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0861)

Indeed, there was not always only positive news to report. The women were requested not to spread any negative feelings, but depending upon their disposition and individual situation, some women would not let themselves be prevented from describing their situation, even including negative details. Due to the fact that the home front was increasingly burdened by the worsening supply situation, that it was increasingly becoming the target of bombing attacks, and through the approach of allied soldiers, it became a front itself, and these situations were mentioned in the letters that women at home wrote to their men. 31.5.44 “Die Schwester von Gustav ist am Kreuzberg auch total bombengeschädigt, wo man hinhört, überall dasselbe. Ich sah mir dann bei Paula noch ihre Kaninchen an, sie hat wohl ca. 6 Junge u. ein altes. Ich sollte auch noch bei ihr Kaffee trinken, aber ich hatte doch keine Zeit mehr; denn Deine l[ieben] Eltern warteten doch mit dem Mittagbrot auf mich. So lief ich schnell zu mir nach Haus, holte meinen Fliederstrauß, den ich Deiner Mutter mitgebracht hatte u. ging zu Deinen Eltern. Mutter hatte dann bald das Mittag fertig, na, es war ja durch den Alarm nun schon wieder ½ 3 Uhr geworden. So waren wir wieder ein paar Stunden gemütlich beisammen u. konnten uns alles wieder einmal berichten.“ (Gustav’s sister who lives in Kreuzberg has been bombed. Everywhere it is the same thing. I went to take a look at Paula’s rabbits; she has about 6 little ones and one old one. I was supposed to have a coffee with her, but then I didn’t have any more time because your dear parents were waiting for me with lunch. So I quickly ran home, grabbed the bouquet of lilacs that I had for your mother and then went to their house. By then, Mother had lunch almost ready, but because of the alarm, by that time it was already 2: 30. So we could sit comfortably together for a few hours and talk about everything that had happened.) (Hertchen B.: Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0828)

Feldpost letters served as a means of communicating information about the organisation of the family and the relationship. Much private information was reported. Gossip was also part of it because it is part of the exchange of social information. The Feldpost letters that were written from home could fulfil this function better than the letters that went in the other direction, because the persons and places they described, were known to both parties. Thereby the man who was far away could participate in the exchange of personal information. He was not able to contribute anything to the discussion because his own experiences were lacking in the private context, but he was not completely ex-

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 221

cluded. One feature of a relationship is that one is included in the gossip. As long as the man learns of the little things that are going on in his personal surroundings, he knows that he still belongs to the social group at home. The world at home could further be characterized by a phenomenon that one could call the “daily wait for the post.” The post was delivered twice a day, and each time, the relatives hoped for a sign of life from the front. They exchanged news; friends and neighbours joined in the joy when a letter arrived and in the disappointment when it did not. Often — content permitting — the letters were read aloud to each other. Since many people were in comparable situations, there was widespread understanding. The letters were collected. The motivation for saving them is not explicitly stated. One woman, who turned her collection of letters saved in a fabric-covered box over to the Feldpost-Archiv, did so with the explanation, “Those are all of my love letters. I took this box along down to the cellar during every bomb attack.” Since one had to consider very carefully what one took along in an emergency and what seemed to be needed for daily survival, it would appear that the letters had an unusually high value. The fact that there are still so many letters in the families’ possession and that many of them are being handed over to archives today, is evidence that the emotional motivation for collecting the letters must have been very great. 2.3 Past and Future Relationships that are maintained through letters have a past and a potential future. They are on hold for an indefinite period of time, and in spite of the separation, they are not over, but are put to a difficult test. Partnerships are determined by communication, which serves to bridge the physical separation. The problem is that love, which cannot be realized by shared experiences, can only be kept alive through the greatest mutual trust. Memories of good old times and hopes for better times are often used as arguments for not giving up a friendship in spite of a temporary separation. Since there is no shared present, references to the past are needed for consolation. Memory was used in order to alleviate the pain of the separate present. In general, reference is made to positive memories. Romantic situations, in which one felt close to each other, stood for the pleasant aspects of the relationship. Reference to this memory implicitly pointed to the future. Just as it was before, so it should be again.

222 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER 21.4.41 “Ich dachte wieder an den Osterfeiertag, den wir 1939 in Altenburschla verlebten. Erinnerst Du Dich noch? Wir fanden auf dem Spaziergang auch Schlüsselblumen, die wir auf Mutter‘s Grab brachten.“ (I was reminded again of the Easter holiday that we spent together in Altenburschla in 1939. Can you still remember? On our walk we also found cowslips that we placed on Mother’s grave.) (Irene G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

It goes without saying that the situations called up from memory were conflict-free. The past became nostalgic, an emotional mixture of grief, because that time was over, and joy at the happiness and pleasure of that time. Beside the more general past and future, there was a short-term future in which the possibilities of the shared furlough at home and the time that could then be spent together were discussed, as well as a middle-term future in relation to the end of the war. This end was always imagined as being in the near future. A war that would go on for a long time was beyond imagination because communication by letter was only possible in a temporally limited timeframe. In their understanding, the partners were only using the communication by letter temporarily, even in cases where the separation had already gone on for a while, in their belief the separation would soon end. In looking for a timeframe, one repeatedly encounters the subjective, but hopeful “soon”. The general future was the time after the war. The present was not eliminated, but was experienced as an interval that one had to live through in order to continue where the nostalgic past had been interrupted. 18.7.41 “Der Krieg muß ja mal zu Ende gehen! Meine Gedanken sind so oft jetzt bei uns in Detmold nach dem Kriege, und jetzt hat das alles wieder Farbe und Gestalt gewonnen, während es zwischendurch schon einmal ganz blaß und fern geworden war. Ich habe überhaupt so stark das Gefühl, daß etwas Dunkles über uns gehangen hat wie eine schwere Wolke und daß wir jetzt hindurch sind, und die Sonne scheint wieder, und alles ist wieder gut und wird noch besser.“ (The war has to end sometime! My thoughts now are so often with us in Detmold after the war; now all of that has taken on colour and form whereas for a while in between, it had become pale and distant. I have such a strong feeling that something dark was hanging over us like a heavy cloud and that now we’ve got through it and the sun is shining again, and everything is good again and will get even better.) (Karl K. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0861)

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 223

The future was hope. Separation — and thereby the present — was viewed negatively in this regard. Since the present was determined by the war, there are very rarely positive remarks about the war among married couples and couples in love. It was seldom questioned ideologically or principally, but rather it was experienced as the interruption of a private happiness to which one yearned to return as soon as possible. Due to the nostalgia and hope, the past and the future were idealized. Through the medium of letters, an ideal image was created that was preserved in the case of death. This state of affairs probably contributed to the fact that the letters of deceased relatives were more likely to be saved than were those of home-comers. In the latter cases, everyday reality soon overcame the romantic images. The idealized content of the letters fostered the idealization of the soldiers killed in the war. 2.4 Propaganda and the Media In addition to furlough and letters, the mass media were the only possibility for shared current experience independent of the separate worlds of home and the front. Feature films produced in the Babelsberg film studios were shown not only in the cinemas at home, but also in many locations where German soldiers were stationed. They were a popular pastime both at home and at the front. Newspapers, magazines and books could be sent everywhere and were very popular among soldiers. In this way, participation in public discourse was possible. Radio was the only live media that could be heard at the same time at all parts of the front and at home. The synchronic reception united those who were separated. Of special interest in this regard is the radio programme, Wunschkonzert, which, for a small fee, enabled listeners to request music and send greetings to other listeners. There are references to this programme in many of the letters. The partner is often asked if he or she has heard a particular passage. The speeches given by leaders of the Third Reich are of particular interest in other radio programmes. They made attempts to explain and interpret the current military and political situation. The letter correspondents could use these speeches as a topic in their communication. Goebbels’ infamous speech in the Sportpalast on February 18, 1943 after the defeat of the 6th Army was the basis for a debate, which will be looked at more closely here. In this speech, which was broadcast on the radio, Goebbels screamed, “Do you want total war?” It was heard by many people, including the married couple, Irene and Ernst Guicking. Irene was at home in Gießen, and Ernst was in France at the time. Irene mentioned the speech in a letter to her husband shortly after the speech was broadcast. She wrote:

224 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER 18.2.43 “So mein Schatz, ich habe ein bißchen geschlafen. Das tat mir gut. Ja, ich bin eigentlich noch ganz im Banne der großartigen, einzig dastehenden Rede von Dr. Göbbels. Hoffentlich hast Du sie auch hören können. […] Ich möchte lieber bei Dir sein und möchte auch Deine strahlenden Augen gesehen haben, als Göbbels in der Schlußrede die Deutsche Nation aufrief, vor der feindlichen Welt ein Gelöbnis abzulegen. Aus vollem wahren Herzen antworten wir alle mit ja. Ich habe es nicht anders erwartet. Das waren echte deutsche Männer und Frauen, die im Sportpalast diesen historischen Stunden angehören durften. Man kann wahrhaftig diese Stunden des 18.2.43 historisch bezeichnen. Eine solche Treue, ein solches Treuebekenntnis glaubte ich noch nie vernommen zu haben. Und erst recht nicht unsere Feinde. Mögen sich nur jede deutsche Frau und auch Mann ihre deutsche Herkunft würdig erweisen indem sie das Gebot der Stunde aufnehmen und auch danach handeln. Mich hat diese Rede und diese spontane Kundgebung geradezu überwältigt. Ich hätte mitschreien können, in die Hände klatschen! Ich konnte gar nicht ruhig sitzen bleiben. Ob ich jetzt überhaupt noch gut einschlafen kann? Gute Nacht mein lieber Ernst. Ich küsse dich mit aller Herzlichkeit und mit meiner ganzen Liebe, die ich für Dich empfinde. Deine Irene” (So my darling, I took a little nap. It did me good. I am still under the spell of that wonderful, fantastic speech by Dr. Goebbels. I hope that you were able to hear it too. […] I would rather be with you and would like to have seen your gleaming eyes at the end of Goebbels’ speech, when he called upon the German nation to take a vow against the enemy. With full sincere hearts, we all answer, ‘Yes!ʼ I didn’t expect anything else. Those were true German men and women who had the privilege of experiencing those historic hours in the Sportpalast. One can truly call those hours of Feb. 18, 1943 historic. I don’t think I have ever experienced such loyalty, such a declaration of loyalty. And I am sure our enemies haven’t. May every German woman and man be worthy of their German origins by accepting the challenge of the moment and acting accordingly. I found this speech and the spontaneous demonstration overwhelming. I could have screamed along with it and clapped my hands! I could not sit still. I wonder whether I will even be able to go to sleep now? Good night, my dear Ernst. I kiss you with all my heart and with all the love that I feel for you. Yours, Irene) (Irene G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

The referendum suggested in the speech was held. Irene shared her interpretation of the speech with her husband. He had a chance to hear the speech, as well as the repetition on 21 February before he shared his opinion of it with her. 24.2.43 “Liebe, gute Frau, heute kam Dein Brief vom 19.2. Ja, der Jupp Göbbels hat Euch scheinbar einen Schock eingejagt. Ich muß schon sagen, er war verdammt deutlich. Ich habe sie mir am

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 225

Sonntag morgen noch einmal angehört. Man könnte bald sagen, der Berliner Tiergarten wäre losgelassen worden. In sehr vielen Frontschichten hat er sich durch diese Rede sehr viel Sympathie erworben. Man kann auch behaupten, daß dieser Mann seinen Posten voll auswertet. Wie man so sagt, in seinem Fach auch seinen Mann steht.“ (Dear good wife, Today I received your letter of Feb. 19. Yes, it sounds like Jupp Goebbels gave you all a shock. I must say, he was damn clear. I listened to the speech again on Sunday morning. You could almost say all of the Berlin Tiergarten was unleashed. He won a lot of sympathy for himself among many of the front-line soldiers with this speech. It is safe to say that this man earns his money. Most people seem to think that he is also good in his field.) (Ernst G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

Ernst was much more reserved in sharing his opinion, but he did not contradict Irene. He confirmed her opinion by giving his estimation of the effects of the speech although in his letter, there was no discussion of the content. When Irene answered, she referred to the speech again and gave a concluding aesthetic judgement. 28.2.43 “Ja mein Lieber, die Göbbels-Rede hast Du auch gehört? Ja mein Schatz, gell die war zackig. Ich hab' sie mir auch am Sonntag morgen noch einmal angehört.“ (Yes, my dear. You also heard Goebbels’ speech? Yes, my dear, wasn’t it brisk? I listened to it again on Sunday morning too.) (Irene G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

Through the media events, synchronic experiences were possible. Additionally, the aspect of the aesthetic judgements was important for relationships. Discussions about opinions are very important and play an important role in everyday communication. Aesthetic judgements are spontaneous assessments of perceptions. They serve to ascertain whether the partner views the world in the same manner as oneself. Similar judgements exclude the necessity to search for commonalities. The more the partners form similar aesthetic judgements, the fewer arguments can be expected, and cooperation is easier to achieve. Reconfirmation of shared opinions is an important part of communication within a partnership. Since it is only possible to reach mutual assessments based on shared perceptions, media events thus play an important role. The medium of the Feldpost letter brought a stabilising effect into the aesthetic discussion. It was very difficult to carry on the debate over a changing attitude. During conversation, there is the possibility to try out arguments and then change

226 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER

one’s opinions. If they do not come across as intended, they can be spontaneously revised again. In contrast, written material is committed. The written word carries more weight. There are also further limitations: transportation took a long time and was uncertain. The letters did not always arrive in the order in which they had been written. Arguments were difficult to carry on by letter. Thus it was generally easier to continue along the way that had been started, than to communicate a desire or need to change it. Since one could not assume that one’s partner had changed his or her mind, one tried to use written communication to reconfirm opinions already established and known. In this way, the whole communication exchange became a self-referential system.

3

“I

HAVE ALREADY APPLIED FOR FURLOUGH .”

Furlough was the only possibility for maintaining direct contact without relying on letters and telegrams. Love without meetings has almost no chance in the long run. During the war, meetings between soldiers and their wives and families were limited. As a rule there was home leave twice a year, for 14 days each time. In addition, there was convalescent leave for illness or injury and special furlough for a death in the immediate family or other emergency situations. There was no furlough for births. Birth announcements and other news within the family had to be conveyed by letters or telegrams. It was not possible to plan the dates of regular furlough in advance. There was always something spontaneous about it. 4.8.42 “With the irregular distribution of furlough, I can’t begin to say when it might be my turn. Right now it looks like it will probably be late autumn though. I can’t say that I really want to go on leave now because returning would be too awful. By now I have got so used to the deprivations that I hardly notice them any more. When you go home on leave, you start to notice again that more exists in life than Russian dirt. And then it’s much worse to have to go back. I would really rather go home during the winter because I am most afraid of the winter here.” (Heinz S. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0827)

Furlough was one of the main topics open to debate over its current status. The lack of knowledge and insight into the general military situation caused uncertainties that required interpretation. A common theme of the letters was passing on gossip about the system behind the distribution of home leave. This was discussed not only between the correspondents, but also among the soldiers because it was a problem for everyone.

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 227

4.5.44 “Es soll eine neue Verfügung rauskommen in den nächsten Tagen, wonach Verheiratete alle 6 Mon. auf Urlaub fahren sollen. Schön wär's ja, denn dann könnte ich hoffentlich noch Oktober wieder bei Dir sein, Du! Denk' mal an, die 3 Tage Nachurlaub hat mir meine Einheit nicht auf meinen regulären Urlaub angerechnet. Ist doch auch ganz gross nicht wahr? Da kannst Du sehen, was ich hier für ne Nummer habe.“ (There is supposed to be a new order coming out in the next few days guaranteeing married men home furlough every six months. That would be nice because then I could hopefully be with you again by October, darling! Just think! My unit did not count the three days of additional leave last time as part of my regular furlough. Isn’t that wonderful? You can see what a good deal I have here.) (Werner B. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0828)

Furlough was a constant theme in the letters. Every conjecture, every change and every hope is communicated. However, furlough also caused problems because happy experiences left memories that were often difficult to bear. Furlough was a poor substitute for what the soldiers really wanted. They wanted to return home as soon as possible to stay. The temporary break in separation made the continuing separation afterwards more difficult to bear. 15.11.41 “Ein trauriges Weihnachtsfest wird es dieses Jahr geben, denn ich glaube nicht mehr an Weihnachtsurlaub. Wie leid mir das tut, kann ich in Worten gar nicht wiedergeben. Ich ertrage auch das noch und schweige darüber. Mir ist es überhaupt nicht mehr ums viele reden.“ (Christmas will be sad this year because I am no longer counting on Christmas furlough. I cannot express in words how sorry that makes me. I am suffering that in silence, too. I do not feel like talking much anymore.) (Alois S. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.1218)

The negative feelings connected with involuntary separation were particularly intense during those times when families were normally united in harmony. Christmas was the most painful holiday when not celebrated with the family and so it was especially on those days that the separation was experienced most intensely. It was not even a certainty that a soldier could get furlough for his own wedding. For this reason, in November 1939 marriage by proxy was introduced, permitting soldiers to be symbolically present in their home town or city hall represented by a photo, helmet and sword. Not even the telephone or wireless was needed to learn the mutual will of bride and groom. A declaration of intent to marry given by

228 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER

the soldier to his battalion commander was sufficient. In some cases even a simple written note of consent by the soldier was adequate for marriage by proxy. 23.4.42 “Es gibt jetzt Urlaub. Immer 2 % jeder Einheit dürfen nacheinander fahren. Ich bin dann 1945 daran. – In einer Parodien auf ‘Lili Marlenʼ heißt es: ‘[..]. Und wenn ich wieder Urlaub krieg, treib ich Bevölkerungspolitik, mit Dir, Lili Marlen!ʼ“ (Now there is furlough. 2% of every unit can go at a time. Accordingly, it will be my turn in 1945. — In a parody of ‘Lili Marleneʼ there is a song that goes, ‘[…] and when it’s my turn for furlough, I’ll practice population politics with you, Lili Marleneʼ!”) (Heinz S. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0827)

Cynicism and parodies provide possibilities for coping with undeterminable situations in uncertain times. Humour can trivialise unpleasant facts and at least verbally can reduce their importance. One acts as though one has recognised the problem and has it under control. The granting of furlough was somewhat fateful. Neither the timing nor the distribution criteria were comprehensible. On top of that, there was always a nightmare hanging over all of them: cancellation of furlough. Even when leave was granted, if the military situation demanded it, approval could be withdrawn at any time.

4

“I

HAD DEATH IN MY POCKET .”

One theme that in other forms of communication of love is likely to be an exceptional topic was a constitutive component of Feldpost love letters: The possibility of one’s own death enters the communication. Love, death and war are brought into relationship with each other in these communications. Through his journal entries we know that Ernst had various experiences with death in the course of the Russian campaign as comrades were killed or wounded. This experience was so basic that he refers to it in a letter in January, 1943. 26.1.43 “Denke mal an den vergangenen Winter, an den Januar. Ruf Dir mal die Gedanken wieder zurück und vergleiche sie mit den heutigen. Nein mein Schatz, tu es lieber nicht, es wäre Wahnsinn. Ich hatte ja fünf Monate lang den Tod vor Augen und ich bin ihm entkommen. Ich kann heute noch sagen, es klingt wie ein Märchen aber es war so und ich kann es nicht vergessen. Weißt Du, ich sage mir, ich hatte den Tod in der Tasche, im Brotbeutel, ich hab ihn

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 229

nur nicht rausgelassen. Na ja, vorbei, wir haben uns wieder, mein Schatz und ich kaufe wieder und mache Päckchen, genau wie 1941, als wäre nichts gewesen.“ (Just think once of the past winter, of January. Recall your thoughts of that time and compare them with your thoughts of today. No, my dear, don’t do that. It would be madness. I had death before my eyes for five months, and I escaped it. Today I can say that sounds like a fairy tale, but that is how it was, and I cannot forget it. You know, I often tell myself, I had death in my pocket, in my haversack, but I didn’t let it out. Oh, well, that’s over. We have each other, my darling, and I buy things again and make little packages, just like in 1941, as though nothing had happened.) (Ernst G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

The possibility of one’s own death remains present. One can view Feldpost letters as a sign of life simply showing the partner that one was still alive at the time of writing the letter. At the same time, every letter was potentially a farewell letter because one never knew when and under what circumstances death might occur. 22.1.44 “Mit meinen Kameraden lag ich dicht vor dem Feind. Ich hatte den Tod ständig vor Augen und Du lagst in denselben Stunden mit großen Schmerzen in den Kissen und bis fast die Kraft, Deine Kraft, zu Ende war, da kam das Kind. In dieser Zeit, da habe ich festgestellt, ich kann es von mir sagen: Du, ich habe damals bis in die tiefsten Wurzeln meines Herzens gespürt, gefühlt, was Du mir bist und daß ich zu Dir gehöre und wiederum Du zu mir. Und ich muß sagen, es ist schön einen Menschen zu haben, um den man sich bangt und sorgt, denn hier heraus spricht doch nichts anderes, als die tiefe Glückseligkeit, einen Menschen ganz zu besitzen. Dein Ernst” (My comrades and I were lying close to the enemy. Death was constantly before my eyes. At the same time you were lying in bed in great pain, and when your strength was almost at an end, our child was born. At that time, I realised, I can tell you of myself: dearest, at that time I felt down into the deepest roots of my heart, and I felt what you mean to me and that I belong to you and you to me. And I must say it is wonderful to have a person whom one worries about and cares about because in that there is nothing other than the deep happiness of owning a person completely. Yours, Ernst) (Ernst G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

In this letter written at the birth of his second daughter, Ernst makes a connection between death and birth. He transfigured both occurrences with the intention of cre-

230 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER

ating something in common with Irene. For him this commonality was proof of his affection and solidarity in the relationship. This birth was interpreted as a continuation of life, perhaps even his own life. It is clear that in a time when one’s own life and the safety of one’s partner were not to be taken for granted, death was perceived as a threat. At the same time it was idealised as a hero’s death. “Fall for the Fuehrer, People and Fatherland” was a set phrase that was soon being used in every family. In this way, it was easier to deal with death as a personal experience. This form of putting it at a distance made its threat easier to bear.

5

“I S

THAT RIGHT ? KNOW MORE ?”

O R TOO MUCH ? D O

YOU WANT TO

Another phenomenon in connection with the communication of love and Feldpost letters was the special role adopted by men and women. The absence of the husband forced the wife to take on new duties and responsibilities. Conscription separated him not only from his wife and family, but also from his profession, job or business. Unless his job was categorised as being necessary for the war effort, no exceptions were made and he was conscripted. The work he left behind was not necessarily completed. Customers waited, bills had to be paid, taxes had to be paid. 31.8.41 “Also nun der Steuerbescheid noch einmal: Einkommensteuer einschl. Kriegszuschlag 63,55 für 1940 vorausgezahlt 29,00 noch zu zahlen 34,55 künftige Vorauszahlungen vierteljährlich 15,00 Ist das so richtig? Oder zuviel? Willst Du noch mehr wissen?“ (Here again the income tax assessment: Income tax (including war tax) due, 63.55 Advance payment for 1940, 29.00 Due, 34.55 Futuree advance payments due quarterly, 15.00 Is that right? Or too much? Do you want to know more?) (Hilde K. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0861)

The husband lost ability to work and sometimes also to make decisions. The wife who prepared this calculation was not sure of her role. She hesitated to make decisions, wanted reassurances. Communication between the partners was repeatedly

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 231

determined by business-related matters. It is worth noting that the distribution of roles was not questioned. The wife did not act on her own, but rather as a helper of the decision maker who was not present at the time. She substituted for him as best she could. In this connection it must be noted that the war-related burdens and pressures were enormous. In the communication between the partners, it becomes obvious that the husband is always asked for his advice and that his active role is missed, as in the following example: 13.12.44 “Wenn ich ja nicht so Angst vor der Fahrt oder vor Angriffen gehabt hätte, dann hätte ich noch manches nach hier holen können. Aber alles konnte ich ja auch nicht holen. Ich hab gleich Mutti losgeschickt auf die Post und zum Ortsgruppenleiter und sie gibt ein Telegramm für Dich auf. Hoffentlich läßt man Dich daraufhin wenigstens fahren. Wenn auch alles in Asien ist, Du könntest mir trotzdem noch vieles abnehmen. Es gibt noch Gänge zu erledigen, um die Du Dich besser kümmern kannst.“ (If I hadn’t been so afraid of making the trip or of getting into more air raids, I could have brought more things here. But I couldn’t have brought everything anyway. I sent Mother to the Post Office and the Local Branch Leader right away, and she is going to send a telegram to you. Hopefully they will at least let you come home then. Even if everything is in Asia, you could at least help me with some things. There are still some things to be taken care of that you can handle better than I can.) (Irene G. in: Kleindienst, Jürgen [ed.] 2001; also Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.0349)

It is a rather strange thought: the husband should come home at the end of 1944 in order to take care of errands in connection with bomb damage. Certainly the wife should have been able to handle that herself, but in her desperation she wanted the support of her husband. It is also possible that the bomb attack was just used as an excuse to help her husband get home leave and so to get her beloved husband closer to her. Although the wives had to handle almost everything in a self-responsible manner and in most cases they did so, it did not change their ideas about their role. They did the work because they were forced to do it. They took on the responsibility, but only against their will, and as soon as possible they gave it up again. There is an analogous situation as far as the men are concerned. They also had their expectations and demands, which were equally based on traditional behavioural roles.

232 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER 18.8.41 “Wende Albertchen Deine größte Aufmerksamkeit zu und wache über seine Erziehung. Sei immer lieb und gut zu ihm, aber auch streng und gerecht gegen auftretende Fehler und Untugenden. Gewöhne ihn an Ordnung, Sauberkeit und Gehorsam, das sind Dinge, worauf Du unbedingt achten mußt. Lasse ihn auch regelmäßig beten, morgens, mittags und abends. Ich bin überzeugt, daß Du das schon sowieso tust. Nimm es mir dennoch nicht übel, wenn ich Dich nochmals darauf hinweise. Die Erziehung unserer Kinder ist ja eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben, die wir haben.“ (Please give little Albert all of your attention and watch over his upbringing carefully. Please always be loving and kind to him, but also strict and upright when he makes mistakes and displays bad habits. Please get him used to order, cleanliness and obedience. Those are all things that you must pay attention to. Please make sure that he prays regularly, every morning, afternoon and evening. I am certain that you are doing that anyway. Please do not hold it against me for mentioning it again. The upbringing of our children is one of the most important duties that we have.) (Alois S. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.1218)

The father Alois was concerned about the upbringing of his child. His absence prevented him from participating in it. In spite of that, he had very precise ideas about it and this attitude was no exception: Other male letter writers also knew exactly how they expected their children’s lives to proceed, and they also knew what role they expected their wives to play in this important matter. 7.4.40 “Bei der Gelegenheit möchte ich vorsorglich noch hinzufügen, daß ich Dich innigst um Erfüllung meines Wunsches bitte, unser Kind während seiner ganzen Jugend selbst und gut zu erziehen. Und solltest Du aus beruflichen Gründen dazu nicht immer imstande sein, dann bitte bringe das Geld auf und gebe es auch während seiner ganzen Schulzeit (bis zum Abitur) in eine entsprechend gute Pension. Und laß es, wenn es ein Bub ist, auf jeden Fall studieren, damit etwas ordentliches aus ihm wird, so wie es sein Vater gewollt hat. Versuche mit aller Mutterliebe immer dieses Opfer zu bringen. Es ist mein großer Wunsch. – Und erzähle ihm von uns, von unserem glücklichen gemeinsamen Leben und verhelfe ihm Du als Mutter dazu, so weit es in Deiner Macht steht, selbst auch glücklich zu werden und unserer Liebe nachzustreben: Rein und bedingungslos, für uns Sterbliche vollkommen in seiner Größe und Erhabenheit. – Ich hoffe, daß Du meine letzten Zeilen richtig verstehst und nicht traurig darüber bist. Aber wir müssen zeitweilig mal auch solche Gedanken anstellen, wenn auch ihr Inhalt – denk an unseren guten Engel – nie in Erfüllung gehen mag.“ (I would like to take this opportunity to add once again that I am asking you kindly to fulfil my deepest wish to raise our child yourself throughout his teenage years and to take it very

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 233

seriously. If your job will not permit you to do so, then please get enough money together to send him to a good boarding house throughout his entire school years until he has his schoolleaving certificate. And if it is a boy, please ensure that he gets a university degree so that he can attain a good profession, as his father desired. Please use all of your motherly love to make this sacrifice. It is my greatest wish. – And please tell him about us, about our happy life together, and as much as it is possible, please try as a mother to influence him to become happy and to emulate our love: Pure and unconditionally, for us mortals perfect in his greatness and eminence. – I hope that you understand my last lines as they were intended and that they will not make you sad. Sometimes it is necessary to have such thoughts, even if their content will never be fulfilled – think of our good angel.) (Georg N. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.1286)

Almost as in his last will and testament, the writer here described his expectations. He expected to maintain his dominant role even after death. These examples show that the women’s wishes pertained to details and present concrete conditions, whereas the men’s expectations dealt with more basic and longer-term goals.

6

“D EAR

UNKNOWN SOLDIER ”

Before concluding, it is worth mentioning one more phenomenon that does not apply to normal love letters. In most cases, people only write to other people whom they know. However, in those days, all age groups of male youths were conscripted into war duty, which created great problems for young men and women to meet. There was a solution to that, however, whereby women wrote to an unknown soldier. In the archives, there are numerous examples of such letters. The following letter to a young man in the Third Reich’s Labour Service is typical: Wednesday, 14th of the month “Lb. unbekannter Vormann! Sie werden erstaunt sein, heute aus unbekannter Hand, Post zu empfangen! Sich meiner zu erinnern können Sie bestimmt nicht, da Sie meine Wenigkeit noch nicht gesehen haben. Möchte nur kurz bemerken, dass ich Ihre Adr. von einer Stubenkameradin erhalten habe. Hoffentlich sind Sie mir darob nicht böse. Od. doch. Wie mir meine Kameradin erzählte, wartet Ihr Lager schon sehnsüchtig auf Post. Werden Sie, auch nicht von meiner Person enttäuscht sein?? Lege Ihnen deshalb ein kl. Photo bei. Bei nicht gefallen Geld zurück. Sie müssen entschuldigen, dass ich schon Schluß mache. Mir ist noch ganz fahselig zu Mute. War nähmlich mehrere Tage in der Heilstube. Für Heute die besten Grüße, ganz Ihre Arbeitsmaid Alice!“

234 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER (Dear unknown state labourer, You will be surprised to receive mail today from someone you do not know! You will not be able to remember me because you have never even seen me. I would just like to mention that I received your address from a roommate. I hope you will not be angry about that. Are you? According to my friend, your camp is waiting eagerly for mail. Will you not be disappointed over me in person? I am including a small photo of myself. Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back. Please excuse me that I am closing now. I am still a little tired. I just spent several days in the infirmary. For today, I send you best wishes, Your Working girl Alice) (Alice – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.1276)

This letter illustrates self-initiative. The young woman had received the address from a roommate and while maintaining a certain degree of distance, got up her courage to write a few words and post them. There are also examples known of soldiers who, being sent to the front, wrote their name and Feldpost number on a slip of paper and then threw the slips of paper out of the windows of trains going through towns. The young women collected these slips of paper and used them to start a correspondence. Those who did not have friends or acquaintances who could pass on contacts or who did not find addresses by chance, turned to magazines or the radio. The abovementioned radio programme, Wunschkonzert, which was heard on the front and at home, was very popular for this purpose. Many requests for beginning a correspondence were sent in here. The passing on of the addresses was finally handled by the German Women’s Organisation. This organisation had a printed form with the following standard text: Datum des Poststempels Betrifft: Feldpost! “In Erledigung Ihres Schreibens teilen wir Ihnen wunschgemäß nachstehend die Anschrift eines Frontsoldaten mit, der Post aus der Heimat haben möchte. Damit geben wir die Betreuung des Soldaten an Sie ab! Heil Hitler! Deutsches Frauenwerk“ (Date of postage stamp Concerning: Feldpost In reply to your request we are sending you the address of a soldier at the front who has indicated he would like to receive mail from home. Herewith we are passing the care of this soldier on to you. Heil Hitler! German National Women’s Organisation) (Heinz R. – Feldpost-Archiv Berlin, shelf number: 3.2002.7115)

L ETTERS BETWEEN HOME AND THE F RONT

| 235

The name and rank of a soldier, as well as his Feldpost number, appear in handwriting in the appropriate position on the printed form. The Feldpost number was sufficient to identify the soldier’s address. The National Women’s Organisation was a sub-organisation of the Nationalist Socialist Party (NSDAP), and so the political leadership was directly involved with the initiation of partnerships. One can suspect a simple motive here: soldiers who have an emotional attachment to home will fight more intensely and with more commitment for the home front.

7

C ONCLUSION

Lovers and fathers are bad soldiers if they only want one thing: to go home. This is a contradiction of the effect desired by the political and military leadership which provided the system of Feldpost to motivate the soldiers to fight and “defend” their country as well as their families. The letters were to remind of what they are fighting for. The content of the letters indicates clearly that the separation was an unpleasant experience. The conviction to support the Fuehrer, People and Fatherland unconditionally and to the end stands in opposition to the feelings expressed in the letters. Fathers often write of their longing for home. In spite of that — and it is important not to forget this —there are differences between thinking, feeling, and acting. The soldiers’ moods certainly had little influence on the outcome of the war. Decisions were not based on their free will; they had to fight, whether they wanted to or not. The flight of the bullet was not influenced by the emotional conditions under which it was shot. Feldpost communication and its media-specific conditions led to idealised images of the partner and the relationship. The resulting expectations could certainly not always be fulfilled. It was only in the case of death that the images did not need to be revised. Irene Guicking, whose letters have repeatedly been quoted here, confirmed this phenomenon in a conversation, “When my husband came home on leave, it took a while, before we could relate to each other again. We had to renew our acquaintance with each other.” The real man and the idealised correspondent were two different people. When Ernst Guicking died in 1996, his wife Irene opened the drawer containing their entire war correspondence for the first time since the end of the war, and began to read the letters again. For her it was a comparable situation. Separated from her husband, the letter was the medium uniting the two. Letters overcome any distance to create closeness. Her experience with her renewed reading of the letters was so intense that Irene Guicking decided to have the letters transcribed and turned over to the public. Today, we can read them and learn many important and intimate things about a period whose inner emotional life would otherwise remain unknown. Translation by Caroline Rued-Engel

236 | CLEMENS SCHWENDER

R EFERENCES Buchender, Ortwin and Sterz, Reinhold (eds) (1982) Das andere Gesicht des Krieges. Deutsche Feldpostbriefe 1939-1945. München: C.H.Beck Gericke, Bodo (1971) “Die Deutsche Feldpost im Zweiten Weltkrieg.” In Archiv für Deutsche Postgeschichte im Verlag Gesellschaft für Deutsche Postgeschichte e.V., Heft 1, Frankfurt/Main. 1-164. Golovchansky, Anatoly, Valentin Osipov, Analoy Prokopenko, Ute Daniel und Jürgen Reulecke (eds) (1991) “Ich will raus aus diesem Wahnsinn” Deutsche Briefe von der Ostfront 1941–1945 aus sowjetischen Archiven, Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag. Orgel-Purpur, Liselotte (1995) “Willst Du meine Witwe sein? ” Eine deutsche Liebe im Krieg. Briefwechsel zwischen Lieselotte Orgel-Purpur und Kurt Orgel. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag. Overmans, Rüdiger (1999) Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Beiträge zur Militärgeschichte, Band 46. München: Oldenbourg. Kleindienst, Jürgen (ed.) (2001) “Sei tausendmal gegrüßt” Feldpost-Briefwechsel Irene und Ernst Guicking 1937–1945, book and CD-ROM. Berlin: JKL Publikationen.

“Aesthetic Brutality” and “Boundless Candor” Mediation of Love in the Eighteenth-Century Letter F OLKE -C HRISTINE M ÖLLER -S AHLING

Sometimes they are written in secret, intercepted, coded, shared, or destroyed. Sometimes they are weapons of “ästetische Gewalttätigkeit”1 and sometimes they speak with soaring passion, always vascillating between reconstructed presence and unbearable absence. Correspondences are skewed by invisible perforations, the small holes of the unwritten, but not the unthought: Love letters are exciting because they are messengers of the heart. “I wrote my heart, and that is not deceitful,” writes Richardson’s heroine Pamela in 1747-48, in what serves as the model for epistolary exchange during the age of the Enlightenment (Richardson 1974, 1: 203).2 During the eighteenth century, the letter came to be a marker of immediacy, a written reflection of inwardness and a mimesis of the heart. Thus, when Europe “discovered” the private letter in the eighteenth century, it quickly became the preferred medium for the exploration of the evolving discourse of love and intimacy (Landgraf 2004: 38). Indeed, for the eighteenth century modern individual, love played a pivotal role in self-validation.3 A close examination of the love letter

1

Brentano on January 10, 1803 (Gersdorff 1981: 101). All references to the letters, unless noted otherwise, are from Dagmar von Gersdorff, Lebe die Liebe und Liebe das Leben. Der Briefwechsel zwischen Sophie Mereau und Clemens Brentano (1981). The citations will be directly inserted in the text with date of the letter followed by page number. All translations from the German are my own.

2

In Germany, new bourgeois ideals of love are most prevalent in the literature of the Enlightenment, especially in the bourgeois tragedy and in the epistolary novel, as Landgraf notes (cf. 2004: 30).

3

I am indebted to Edgar Landgraf, whose work on “Romantic Love and the Enlightenment” (2004) has explored changes in the concept of love during the Enlightenment period in a most elegant way. My reading of the correspondence was further inspired by Her-

238 | FOLKE-C HRISTINE M ÖLLER-SAHLING

brings to light struggles with the modern self, who, no longer sufficiently defined by a social system (cf. Landgraf 2004: 37), needs to find self-validation elsewhere. The structural change in society, conceptualized by Niklas Luhmann (1982: 208), has had an effect on the semantics of individuality, thus creating “a need and a freedom”, as Landgraf asserts, for a discourse in which the individual can identify himor herself (2004: 37). The eighteenth century love letter is the site where the new discourse of love is most evident. In my study, I reflect on the significance of the genre’s peculiarities for historically contextualized considerations on love and gender. A close, historical-aesthetic reading of a particular set of letters, namely the correspondence between Romantic writers Sophie Mereau and Clemens Brentano may provide a preface to gaining an understanding of our modern notion of love, where self-validation and the recognition of the impossibility of communicating love remain a central element (Landgraf 2004: 40). I content that the correspondence between Mereau and Brentano stands out from those of their contemporaries. As both sides of their correspondence are extant, which is a rare phenomenon indeed,4 the modern reader gets a glimpse of both a male and a female perspective on the discourse of love. Sophie Mereau was already a well-established writer in the German ClassicalRomantic circles of the “Scholar’s Republic” of Weimar and Jena when she met fellow Romantic poet and novelist, Clemens Brentano. He became her second husband in 1803. Her correspondence with Brentano, who was eight years younger than Mereau, began in 1798 and ended with her death in 1806. Even during the height of letter-writing culture at the end of the eighteenth century, few other correspondences come even close to the intensity of their discourse, marked by intensive disputes and discussions, poetic play, quarrels, and repeated misunderstandings. The timelessness of their evolving dissonances, and the tension that emerges between the need to communicate while authenticating the self, are all “precursors to modern notions of love” (Landgraf 31). In the end, the Romantic couple, caught in the tangle of epistolary intimacies surrounding them, ultimately fails to unravel them.

ta Schwarz’ interpretation of the letters in “Poesie und Poesiekritik im Briefwechsel zwischen Clemens Brentano und Sophie Mereau” (1991). 4

Sophie Mereau-Brentano’s correspondence (1770-1806) is one of the exceptions in German epistolary history, as often only the male side of a correspondence survived to be reprinted in countless versions, while the female side of the exchange was lost. Other examples for Eighteenth Century correspondences where both sides of the correspondence are still available are the correspondence between Luise Mejer and Heinrich Christian Boie, Caroline and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Caroline Flachsland und Johann Gottfried Herder.

“A ESTHETIC B RUTALITY”

AND

“B OUNDLESS CANDOR ”

| 239

The epistolary genre invokes a multiplicity of questions, no doubt, all contributing to the particular perplexities of the love letter, a cultural institution with multiple histories. What about the privacy of the correspondence for instance? While the illicit reading of supposedly private correspondence became a central device in eighteenth and nineteenth century fiction, the extent to which “real” letter-writers regarded their correspondence as secret is much less clear. Despite new principles of law securing the privacy of correspondence – first in 1712 and then in 1794 (Nickisch: 1991, 216) – the writer did not know if his or her letter would ever reach the recipient.5 In light of the fear of disclosure from private to public, one cannot help but wonder whether paper is not always an “ungetreuer Bote” (Gersdorff 1981: 84) as Sophie Mereau contents. The awareness that an unintended recipient might read or even print the correspondence certainly altered the intimacies of love letters. Furthermore, all too often only one side of the correspondence remains, obscuring any critical possibility of an impartial reading. A letter, in Bakhtin’s words always “half someone else’s” (1972: 293), must be read as part of a dialogue. Only through the analysis of its dialogicity does it become evident that new variants, trends and solutions in the discourse of love emerge during the eighteenth century. The do not emerge suddenly, instead, these variants seem to be drafted in the love letter time and again. What is more, for both the letter-writer and the intended recipient it must be particularly perplexing and intriguing that love in the letter takes place in a way that does not exist outside the epistolary matrix. Mereau summarizes the fictional resonances of epistolary writing as “Ein Brief ist mir immer wie ein Roman”: the letter as a novel (Gersdorff 1981: 84).6 While historical and political approaches to the letter have been thoroughly examined, there remain significant deficits with regard to considerations on gender and the romantic relationship. Here, the correspondence between Sophie Mereau and Clemens Brentano serves as point of departure for three reasons: First, I contend that the vacillation between power and love that drives the epistolary exchange between Mereau and Brentano is matched by few other private correspondences of the time. The second point raised by their exchange is the recognition that the dis-

5

Throughout the nineteenth-century, the socio-historical conditions for the love-letter improved: The literacy rate increased rapidly, post roads and, subsequently, the delivery of mail were better than ever; only the postage rate for a letter continued to be high. After 1700, letters could be sent and received as often as twice a week. However, it still took about three months for a letter to travel from Rome to Königsberg, according to Nickisch (1991: 217). The meticulous dating of their letters by some correspondents gives evidence of the less than perfect reliability of the Taxxische Reichspost (Nickisch: 1991, 317 and Steinhausen 334).

6

Mereau’s letters are always noticeably briefer and more concise than Brentano’s.

240 | FOLKE-C HRISTINE M ÖLLER-SAHLING

ruptive moments of their communication, the dissonances, are significant for the study of communicational modes today. If self-validation and poetic discourse underscore the letter’s communicational mode in Mereau’s case, in Brentano’s case the discourse of love is simultaneously uprooted by serving as a medium that demonstrates the poet’s self-reflection and creativity. Finally, through analyses of the letters’ peculiarities, I will illustrate how the writers both confront and reject Enlightenment traditions of authenticity and immediacy as they simultaneously register the shift away from language as a reliable mode of communication. By way of conclusion, I reflect on the communicational paradoxes of the genre. The story of Mereau and Brentano’s love affair and ensuing marriage in 1803 is well documented, so a cursory account ought to suffice here. They met in Jena in 1798, and their expansive epistolary exchange began in November of that year. With the separation and divorce from her first husband, Friedrich Ernst Karl Mereau, a professor from Vienna whom she married in 1793, Mereau transcended the domestic domain and embarked on the difficult life of a writer; she was one of the first German women writers to write professionally.7 Transcending the “feminine” sphere, intruding on public life, and recognized as a poet and novelist, she meets Brentano. Their relationship was likely the subject of much gossip in Jena, gossip Brentano often seemed to initiate. I will turn now from the mere description of their relationship to the contents of their letters illustrating it. In several of her letters Mereau has to ask Brentano to be more conscious of her reputation as a writer, since she fears that ”Deine Schmähsucht untergräbt vielleicht den Ruf meiner Arbeiten, auf den, du weisst es, meine Existenz beruht” (206). His jealous “talk” – letters to his sister and his friends – threatens her work as a writer. Brentano writes that he admires her as an independent, professional, experienced, and mature woman, as a “virtuoso in life” (Gersdorff 1981: 276): “Du kennst meine Ungeduld, meine ewige Unmündigkeit, wie kann ich je mit einem Weibe leben, das die Welt nicht kennt, mit einem Weibe, das durch mich in die Welt eingeführt, in ihr befestigt werden will, Du bist mein Gatte, ich bin Dein Weib, Du nimmst mich, beherrschest mich, gibst mir ein Los, eine Geschichte” (Gersdorff 1981: 276).8 But at the same time, he also patronizes her, instructing her in private and in public not to be be “gepuzzt” (Gersdorff 1981: 126), nor to ride horses anymore:

7

In the nineteenth century, Schindel refers to her as “one of the first German women writers of her time” (5).

8

“You know my impatience, my eternal immaturity how could I ever live with a woman who does not know the world, with a woman, who has to be introduced to the world through me […], you are my husband, I am your wife, you take me, you rule over me, you give me a purpose, a history” (Gersdorff 1981, 276).

“A ESTHETIC B RUTALITY”

AND

“B OUNDLESS CANDOR ”

| 241

“Geh du liebes Kind, du reitest nicht mehr” (Gersdorff 1981: 171). When he calls her “Sophus” or, as in the letter above, refers to her as “mein Gatte” (Gersdorff 1981: 276), he projects his Idealist dreams into the guise as androgynous female figures. Above all, Brentano desires a poetic union with Mereau, a fusion of masculine and feminine traits in love leading to a higher form of existence: “Ich sehne mich mit einem liebevollen, romantischen Weib einen poetischen Bund zu schließen, und mitten in dem wirklich prosaischen Leben, eine freie poetische fantastische Lebensart anzufangen“ (Gersdorff 1981: 188). On January 10, 1803, Brentano sends Mereau a letter that is nearly nineteen double-folded pages long. This letter, in which Brentano uses the term “ästetische Gewalttätigkeit” for the first time to describe his own rhetoric, and Mereau’s response contain the most pertinent examples depicting their different communicational modes. The letter is meant to provide her with “einige Minuten Unterhaltung” (Gersdorff 1981: 112), and entertaining it is: Brentano gives a meticulous account of the affair he conducted with an actress. It troubles him that the object of his affection appears similar to Mereau, “Ihnen mehr ähnlich [ist], als irgend ein Weib” (112). Unfortunately the actress is infertile, “O hätte die kleine Aktrize Ihnen nicht so geglichen, und hätte man mir nicht verraten, daß Sie unfruchtbar ist” (113). It seems that Brentano wages a mode of communication not in the name of love, but as an orientation toward conquest and control. His tendency to belittle Mereau, to mock, and to list romantic conquests indicate that insecurity clearly gnaws at him. Mereau seeks to communicate by expressing humanistic ideals of compassion, understanding, and tolerance. She replies quickly to his long letter, only about a week after its receipt (Schwarz 1991: 42), on January 20, 1803. Her response to a letter that seemed to render any response impossible is collected, short, reasoned, and ironic. She re-exerts her authority that Brentano sought to undermine by ironically reminding him of her age, her work, and her social status: “Ihr Brief, junger Mann, hat mir Veranlassung zu mannigfaltigen Reflexionen gegeben. Ich muß auf der einen Seite Ihren Scharfsinn bewundern, obgleich ich auf der andern Ihren strafbaren Mutwillen beseufzen muß, der freilich Ihrer Jugend zuzuschreiben ist” (Gersdorff 1981: 115)9. Irrefutably, she injects her letter with a dose of reason, because at her age, “geht mir der Verstand über Alles” (115), and irony, “Ein paar Jahre können freilich reichlich zur Reife unsers Geistes beitragen und es war auch hohe Zeit, wie Sie, junger

9

“Your letter, young man, gave me cause for varied reflections. On the one hand, I have to admire your keen perception, although on the other hand I have to sigh about your punishable mischief that is naturally a result of your youth” (Gersdorff 1981: 115).

242 | FOLKE-C HRISTINE M ÖLLER-SAHLING

Freund, auch zu fühlen scheinen, da Sie mich an mein Alter erinnern” (115).10 Mischief resonates from her words. She adds a postscript, in which she writes, “Sollten Sie mir wieder schreiben, Clemens, so verlange ich, daß Sie mir die artigsten Sachen schreiben, die übrigens gar nicht wahr zu sein brauchen. Ihre Wahrheiten sagen Sie nur Ihrer Geliebten, die ich, wie Sie selbst sagen, gar nicht kenne; aber da meine Persönlichkeit, die Sie gar nicht geliebt haben, und gar nicht genug herab zu setzen wissen, doch Ihre Briefe lesen muß, so ist es billig, dass Sie ihr entweder gar keine, oder angenehme Briefe schreiben” (Gersdorff 1981: 117).11 Mereau also includes a passage concerning women and writing, since Brentano asserts that it is dangerous to write for a woman and “noch gefährlicher einen Musenalmanach herauszugeben” (Gersdorff 1981: 104). He adds that he was always shocked when he saw her work in print (106). She responds in a passage dripping with irony: “Was Sie mir über die weiblichen Schriftsteller, und ins besondere, über meine geringen Versuche, sagen, hat mich recht ergriffen, ja erbaut. Gewiß ziemt es sich eigentlich gar nicht für unser Geschlecht und nur die außerordentliche Großmut der Männer hat diesen Unfug so lange gelassen zusehen können. Ich würde recht zittern wegen einiger Arbeiten, die leider! schon unter der Presse sind, wenn ich nicht in dem Gedanken an ihre Unbedeutsamkeit und Unschädlichkeit einigen Trost fände. Aber für die Zukunft werde ich wenigstens mit Versemachen meine Zeit nicht mehr verschwenden, und wenn ich mich je genötigt sehen sollte, zu schreiben, so gute moralische, oder Kochbücher zu verfertigen suchen. Und wer weiß, ob ihr gelehrtes Werk [...] mich nicht ganz und gar bestimmt, die Feder auf immer mit der Nadel zu vertauschen” (Gersdorff 1981: 116).12

10 “A few years can of course contribute to our maturity, and it was about time, dear friend, that you reminded me of my age” (Gersdorff 1981: 115). 11 “If you were to write to me again, Clemens, I request that you write only of sweet things to me; they do not have to be true. You can tell your lover, whom I do not know as you said yourself, the truth; but since this person, whom you did not love nor could you be more condescending to, has to read your letters, you might as well send her none, or kind letters instead” (Gersdorff 1981: 117). 12 “What you have told me about women writers, and in particular about my own meagre attempts, deeply moved me; yes, it edified me. It certainly is not proper for our sex, and only the extraordinary generosity of men has tolerated this nonsense for so long. I would really tremble at the thought of some texts, which are unfortunately already in print, if I could not console myself a little bit for their insignificance and harmlessness. But in the future at least, I will not waste my time rhyming verses, and if I ever find myself coerced to write, I will compose morally sound books, or cookbooks. And who knows, perhaps your scholarly work will induce me altogether to trade the quill forever for the needle” (Gersdorff 1981: 116).

“A ESTHETIC B RUTALITY”

AND

“B OUNDLESS CANDOR ”

| 243

Mereau, especially when she responds to him with irony, seems to elude his poetological reach, thus hindering what he envisions as the perfect union between himself and the other, between poetry and love. Without her, he writes that he is crippled, cannot write or walk, albeit using the epistolary mode to convey his feelings, “Ich kann nicht leben, nicht dichten ohne Dich, ich kann nicht spazieren gehn, ja ich bin ein Krüppel, der die Stube nicht verläßt, selbst an dich schreiben läßt mich meine Sehnsucht nicht” (Gersdorff 1981: 165). In response, Mereau repeatedly asks him to try to work, to become calmer “durch einfache Beschäftigung, Arbeit, körperliche Anstrengung” (Gersdorff 1981: 126), but he never follows her requests for measured responses. Whereas Mereau’s letters often lean more toward the quotidian than the ardent – she gives motherly advice, is interested in his work, his wellbeing, or the company he keeps – Brentano’s semantics are fleeting, his letters seemingly endless, his metaphors eccentric and his language is akin to the poetic theories of the early Romantics, injected with metaphors, images, poems, stories. He brings the letter to life by telling stories, reciting prayers, and relating dream-like sequences; he rhymes, puns, provokes. To Mereau, Brentano’s letter seem as if written in “einer Art von Rausch, den Sie wahrscheinlicher eine paar schönen Augen als einem Champagnerglas enttrunken haben – und der andre ist so mystisch, fliegend aber nicht beflügelt, geistig aber nicht begeistert“ (Gersdorff 1981: 87).13 And yet, Brentano claims not to be fond of writing letters, because “one person alone cannot bring anything to life”, he writes in a letter to Carl von Savigny.14 Mereau, in one of her first letters to Brentano in November 1799, expresses an aversion to letters as well: “Es ist ein sonderbares Gefühl, sich auf dem Papier jemandem nähern zu wollen, und ich habe ihre Entfernung nie mehr gefühlt als jetzt da ich Ihnen schreiben will. Ich hasse alle Briefe an vertraute Wesen, ob ich sie gleich um keinen Preis missen möchte. […] Das Papier ist ein so ungetreuer Bote, dass es den Blick, den Ton vergisst und oft sogar einen falschen Sinn überbringt, und doch ist selbst der Kampf mit Irrungen besser als die fürchterliche Öde, die kein Ton durchhallt.” (Gersdorff 1981: 84)15

13 “in a kind of ecstasy, drunk from a pair of beautiful eyes rather than from a glass of champagne […], [in a] state of inebriation, mystical, flying, but not inspired, spiritual, but not with enthusiasm” (Gersdorff 1981: 87) 14 “Ich schreibe so ungern Briefe, weil man nichts aussprechen kann, weil kein Mensch allein etwas lebendig machen kann” (Schwarz 1991: 41). 15 “It is a strange feeling to want to get closer to someone on paper, and I have never felt the distance more pronounced than now, as I want to write to you. I hate all letters to familiar persons, although I would not want to miss them at any cost. […] Paper is such an unfaithful messenger, that it forgets the facial expression, the tone, and sometimes even de-

244 | FOLKE-C HRISTINE M ÖLLER-SAHLING

A struggle it is indeed, this “battle with aberrations”, especially when the correspondents communicate their feelings in such different ways. Mereau prefers faceto-face conversation, missing facial expression and tone in the letter. Her letter offers perhaps the strongest example of the dilemma that a letter-writer faces in trying to convey authenticity: She maps out the liabilities of an age with exceedingly high expectations of writing for social discourse.16 Koschorke refers to this phenomenon as the “Theorie der Abwesenheit” (1999: 265) and describes the emergence of a new subject which is only accessible “auf dem Umweg über die Medien” (265). The result is a medial discourse in which the individual can, and has to find him- or herself. No longer defined through any single social system, the increasing freedom fractures the individual’s identity. Therefore, Brentano looks for confirmation of himself outside of communication, outside social integration, in a poetic existence. About a year after her first encounter with Brentano, Mereau summarizes her own social status and challenges as a woman and as a writer: “Ich kämpfe im Leben einen sonderbaren Kampf. Eine unwiderstehliche Neigung drängt mich, mich ganz der Phantasie hingeben zu wollen, das gestaltlose Dasein mit der Dichtung Farben zu umspielen und unbekümmert um das Nötige nur dem Schönen zu leben. Aber ach! Der Nachen meines Schicksals schwimmt auf keiner spiegelhellen Fläche, wo ich, unbekümmert, mit Mondschein und Sternen spielend, das Ruder hinlegen könnte […] ich muß das Ruder ergreifen oder untergehen” (Gersdorff 1981: 845).17 She does not see herself as a self-absorbed artist, as Schwarz points out in her reading of the passage, but rather as an individual determined to take her destiny, like the oars of her ship, into her own hands (Schwarz: 34). In doing so, she is prepared to acknowledge both her artistic calling as well as everyday-life, which Brentano considers “prosaisch” (Gersdorff: 124). While he criticises her prosaic nature, in contrast, she objects to his Romantic vagueness and thought. Romantic clouds obstruct her life, she writes in the letter quoted above, “Überall leichtes Gewölk, das mit dem Licht-Glanz kämpft. – Und er siegt! – möchte mein Leben sein wie

livers the wrong meaning – and yet the battle with aberrations is still better than the horrifying dreariness in which no tone at all resounds” (Gersdorff 1981: 84). 16 Or, to follow a more precise formulation by Koschorke: “Mit dem Grad der sozialen Dekontextualisierung wachsen die Anforderungen an eine von den Werken selbst ausgelegte Kontextsicherheit” (1999: 298). 17 “I fight a strange battle in my life. An irresistible inclination urges me to give in to my imagination completely […]. Alas! The ship of my destiny does not float on a surface light as a mirror, where I, without a care in the world, playing with moonlight and stars, could put down my oar […] I have to hold the steering wheel or sink” (Gersdorff 1981: 84-5).

“A ESTHETIC B RUTALITY”

AND

“B OUNDLESS CANDOR ”

| 245

dieses Bild! Romantisches Gewölk das in voller Klarheit auffliegt“ (Gersdorff 1981: 85).18 As Schwarz states, Mereau’s poetological concept is embedded in the concepts of the Age of Reason with humanity and freedom as its overarching categories. In vain, she pleads for letters that are natural and kind, with “liebe[n], menschliche[n], natürliche[n] Züge[n]” (Gersdorff 1981: 87), but she encounters mockery and irony, Brentano’s favourite epistolary devices, instead. Frustrated, she repeatedly asks Brentano to refrain from insulting and hurtful cynicism, parody, and irony: “Auch bitte ich Sie, minder in der Gewalt Ihrer Äußerungen zu sein, und mehr Ihre Äußerungen in der Gewalt zu haben. […] Es steht in Ihrer Gewalt, sanft und gut auf mich zu wirken – warum wollen Sie mich betrüben?” (Gersdorff 1981: 97)19 Why choose a rhetoric that upsets the beloved addressee? Even to her most sincere requests, Brentano responds with irony. As a result, we often witness a thinlyveiled projection of his fear of her social and professional status, and even of her sexual experience. Consequently, after several warnings, she interrupts their intimate discourse for several months. Brentano pleads, “Schreib Sophie ich bitte Dich, ach wenn du nicht schreibst so werde ich sehr krank” (Gersdorff 1981: 93), pleading her to write again, but she does not want to reply, prefers not to see him because he is “zu gereizt” (Gersdorff 1981: 96-97). Consistent with her role as a reasoned, measured partner in their correspondence, she suggests a “wohltätigen Schleier” between them, a veil to mediate each other’s image (Gersdorff 1981: 97). She asks Brentano to find ways to drive out the demon of infinite unrest, “einfachste, natürliche Mittel den Dämon namenloser Unruhe zu verbannen, der in Ihnen, nicht außer Ihnen wohnt“ (Gersdorff 1981: 125). Her notion of love is based not upon eccentricity and unrest, but Enlightenment ideals of love such as harmony, imagination, enthusiasm and reason.20 She reassures Brentano that she will not disappear from

18 “A beautiful morning! I am in good spirits, cheerful even. Light clouds everywhere wrestling with the sparkle of the light. – And it wins! – May my life be just like this image! Romantic clouds that lift in full clarity!” (Gersdorff 1981: 85) 19 “I also ask you to be less under the control of your utterances, but rather to keep your utterances under control. I hope that I may think of you once again with calm; it is within your control to have a calming and gentle effect on me – why would you want to upset me?” (Gersdorff 1981: 97) 20 Before meeting Brentano in 1798, Mereau corresponded with a young student, Johann Heinrich Kipp, for over a year. Their exchange can be read as a preface to her correspondence with Brentano, an earlier attempt to exceed the classic division of love along gender lines by constructing an equal relationship. In her correspondence with Kipp, Mereau laid down the ground rules of their correspondence and their Romantic relationship early on, with honesty or “unbegränzte Ofenheit” as she wrote in a letter to Kipp in June

246 | FOLKE-C HRISTINE M ÖLLER-SAHLING

his life altogether, since “Sie werden wo Sie auch sind unter meinen Augen handeln” (Gersdorff 1981: 97). Although Mereau does not exclude the possibility of a future reunion, as she still believes in the “Edle“, the sublime in him and in his “bessere Natur”, she demands different terms for their communication: “Sagen Sie einmal, einfach, wahr, und ohne Witz: weshalb beklagen Sie sich über mich? – Aber sagen Sie es mir, nicht anderen, die mich darum hassen, weil sie für Ihre Poesie keinen Sinn haben” (Gersdorff 1981: 99).21 For her, the language of their letters is marked by Brentano’s demon, rather than his genius (cf. Gersdorff 1981: 99), and his love dictated and undermined by his cruel poetics. Instead of addressing her requests, Brentano seems to convert their emotional conflicts into an aesthetic problem to which he then gives a literary response. Through love, he hopes to realize his poetic existence, through – in his own words – “ästhetische Gewalttätigkeit” (Gersdorff: 1981, 101), he projects his ideal concept of love onto the other. He seeks to validate himself or an extension of himself in the unsullied perfection of the other’s image. He can point out her flaws through rhetorical play, yet the other is not permitted to know herself. Such rhetoric undermines the very dialogue for which Mereau so yearns. The materiality of their correspondence itself hints at the fact that reason gradually begins to supplant desire for Mereau, as her letters become shorter and their content noticeably less reflective the longer his letters are. For Brentano, Mereau might as well be his “Romanfigur” or puppet, as Brentano’s insightful friend Achim von Arnim notes, since everything around him serves sublime artistry for Brentano.22 The letters become merely a transformative moment

of 1796 (“so hast du den Bund der Wahrheit schrecklich gebrochen,” Dechant: 424) as the overarching theme. In doing so, emphasizing utmost openness, she assumes the possibility and desirability of direct and immediate contact between two individuals. 21 “Once, simply, truthfully and without irony: Why do you complain about me? What do you mean, really honestly, sincerely? But do tell me yourself, not others who hate me for it, because they do not understand your poetics” (Gersdorff 1981: 99). 22 Achim von Arnim confesses in a letter to Brentano, that he does not understand the relationship his friend has with Sophie Mereau: “Dein Verhältnis zur Mereau verstehe ich nicht, ich gestehe es, ihr habt euch gegenseitig so potenziert, dass ich nicht recht weiss, ob Deine Liebe realistisch oder idealistisch ist. Wer dich nicht kennte würde dir geradezu sagen, Du liebst sie nicht mehr als eine Romanperson oder als einen Gelenkmann, den man allerley närrische Sprünge machen läst” (“I don't understand your relationship with Mereau, I admit, you have multiplied each other so much that I don't really know whether your love is realistic or idealistic. Someone who does not know you could almost say that you do not love her more than the protagonist of a novel or a puppet that one forces to make all sorts of foolish leaps”, Migge 1959: 387).

“A ESTHETIC B RUTALITY”

AND

“B OUNDLESS CANDOR ”

| 247

in realizing the poetic existence. His notion of love is the motor of his creation and Mereau’s nominal presence essential in order to set the process of self-realization and validation in motion. Nearly three years after their first encounter, her letters indicate that she is worn out by the divorce from her husband and her son’s sudden death. But mostly, she is irritated by Brentano’s unpredictable “aesthetische Gewalttätigkeit.” She thus decided to interrupt their correspondence. However, despite her staunch resolution, the couple is reconciled when Brentano announces that he will come to see her. Soon, Brentano’s endeavours to have her agree to marry him become more and more urgent. He courts her, signalling humility and submissiveness. Letter after letter, Mereau resists his string of pleas and marriage proposals. He “demand[s]“ that she becomes his wife (“Ich verlange, daß du mein Weib seist”, Gersdorff 1981: 140), he reproaches her (“Du läßt mich reden, bitten, flehen”, 144), he pleads that her “decision not be final” (“lasse Deinen Entschluß nicht unauflösbar sein”, 169) because “you will anyway sooner or later” (“Ich fordre Dich auf mein Weib zu werden, ich versichere dich, Du wirst es doch über kurz oder lang”, 239). Because she fears the essential incompatibility of Brentano’s fleeting enthusiasm and instability and her experience of the long-term social realities of marriage, she asks him not to speak of marriage (“Vom Heurathen sprich mir nicht,” 185). In her opinion, his urging that they marry derives not from self-determined, inward feelings of love, but rather from exterior motives, “Bei allem was du von mir begehrst, nimm Deine Gründe stets nur von dir selbst her, mischest du andre mit hinein, so empörst du mein Gefühl unausbleiblich” (Gersdorff 1981: 200). Torn between the need to see him and fear of disappointment, Mereau urges him to end the “circle of poetic correspondence”, as Schwarz refers to their communicational dilemma (46). Mereau has long realized the impossibility of love’s sustenance in the absence of true communication. Therefore, she insists on another meeting and face-to-face communication in a short and notable letter of April of 1803: “Ich will Sie sehn – Sie werden mir eine neue Bekanntschaft sein. Wie kann ich wissen, was ich für Sie fühle, das ich Sie nicht mehr kenne? – Fern sei der täuschende Eindruck der Ferne, der Einbildung, des betrügerischen Buchstabens! – den wahren, lebendigen Eindruck der Gegenwart begehre ich – er mag entscheiden!” (Gersdorff 1981: 125)23 The simulation of love in the letter cannot summon a true image of the other anymore. Her love founders in the absence of the other and it suffers from his epis-

23 “I want to see you! – You will be like a new acquaintance for me. How could I know how I feel about you, as I do not know you anymore? Far be the delusional impression of the distance, the imagination, the deceiving letter! I desire the true, living, vibrant impression of the presence – may it decide [their fate]” (Gersdorff 1981: 125).

248 | FOLKE-C HRISTINE M ÖLLER-SAHLING

tolary rhetoric. At this point, she is profoundly discouraged by Brentano’s aesthetics of self-discovery that exclude the other. Her repeated requests for an encounter are certainly not merely rhetorical. In fact, they even come with specific instructions: “Ihr letzter Brief enthält sehr vieles was mir mißfällt; er ist sonderbarerweise, vertraulich und trocken, zuversichtlich und argwöhnisch zugleich: Wie können Sie zweifeln, daß ich ehrlich gegen Sie sein werde, da ich so ganz ohne Plan, ohne Absicht bin? – O! Clemens, lassen Sie unser Wiedersehen einfach, kindlich, und lieber ganz bedeutungslos als unnatürlich sein! – Jetzt, da es geschehen soll, zitttre ich sie zu sehen, und doch wünsche ich es törich[t]erweise” (Gersdorff 1981: 127)24 Although she “tremble[s] at the thought of seeing” him, she still hopes, against her better judgement, for the clarity a meeting might bring, since the epistolary genre does not seem to allow for the dialogue she seeks. She specifically asks that the meeting take place “ohne Vorbereitung”, without preparation (Gersdorff: 128), as she is increasingly suspicious of strategic and rhetorical ploys of communication. After all, she did not even correspond with him for twelve months, between December of 1802 and December of 1803. Their reunion finally takes place in late spring of 1803, but alas, their expectations of the reunion were vastly different. Soon after the event, Brentano writes a letter filled with self-pity, expressing disappointment that their encounter was merely platonic: “Ich bin heute so reich an Friede und Liebe zu Ihnen gekommen, und so bettelarm haben Sie mich gehen lassen, nicht einmal Ihre Lippen haben Sie mir gegeben, Sie hätten mich nicht so sollen gehen lassen, denn gestehen Sie aufrichtig, woran soll ich glauben lernen, dass Sie noch lieben können, als daran, dass Sie küssen können.” (Gersdorff 1981: 132)25 He came full of love, and had to leave without as much as a kiss. Their dissonances are caused by issues of control and dominance as well as by poetological differences, but their struggle also hinges in a practical sense upon a social status that denies them a happy-ending. If Mereau were to conform to Brentano’s notion of love and marriage, it would threaten her identity as a woman, as a writer, as a modern individual. They are eighteenth century modern individuals trying to vali-

24 “Your last letter contains so many things that displease me; [the letter] is, strangely enough, familiar and neutral, confident and suspicious: How can you doubt that I am honest, when I am without any plan, any intention? – O! Clemens, let our reunion be simple, childlike, and preferably insignificant rather than unnatural! – Now that it is about to happen, I tremble at the thought of seeing you, yet at the same time I am foolishly desiring it” (Gersdorff 1981: 127). 25 “I came to you full of peace and love and you send me away poor as a beggar, you did not even proffer me your lips. You should not have let me leave like that, do admit to me, how should I believe that you are still capable of love other than from your kisses” (Gersdorff 1981: 132).

“A ESTHETIC B RUTALITY”

AND

“B OUNDLESS CANDOR ”

| 249

date their personae through writing and love, a correlation that is rendered impossible against the socio-historical backdrop around 1800. Their correspondence continues after their reunion, but their ensuing story is a bitter one. Torn between agony and bliss, “o Qual! O Seligkeit” (Gersdorff 1981: 247), Mereau continues to write, and their relationship deepens, against her better judgement. On September 20/21, 1803, Mereau sends a letter that, once again, expresses utmost resignation in light of Brentano’s unchangeable ways. For the modern reader, this letter seems a reflection on the mediation of the modern notion of love: “Kannst du Deine genialische drammatische Grausamkeit nicht aufgeben – nun, so betrübe Dich darum nicht! – Gehe dann leicht und ungebunden über die Erde, vermeide nur alle nähern Verhältnisse, wo du nur strafbar wirst, und unglücklich machst, und laß Dir alles zu einem Gedicht werden!” (Gersdorff 1981: 207)26 Here, Mereau assesses the reasons for the failure of the dialogue in particular his “genialische drammatische Grausamkeit.” When Schwarz analyzed Mereau’s critical assessment of Brentano’s epistolary style, she asserts that Mereau acknowledges its poetic quality (“genialische”). Moreover, Mereau recognizes the control Brentano is able to exert over the “players” he positions strategically on his epistolary stage (“drammatische”), while she tries to undermine his use of Romantic irony and “Witz” (“Grausamkeit”). Shortly after Mereau sent this letter, she writes, on September 22, “fest drücke ich beide Augen zu, halte die Hände vor beide Ohren, und so springe ich in den Abgrund – in Deine Arme!“ (210). Closing her eyes, covering her ears with both hands, she jumps into an abyss – into his arms. Less than three weeks later, on October 11, she addresses Brentano as “Ungeheuer, Genie, Bösewicht, Lügner, Verläumder, Räuber, Schriftsteller, Comediant – ach! Du Teufel “(ogre, genius, villain, liar, slanderer, robber, writer, comedian – Oh, you devil!” 249). When, only a few months after their reunion in 1803, Mereau learns that she is pregnant, the terms of their relationship irrevocably shift. She shares her secret with Brentano on October 28, 1803: “Clemens, ich werde Dein Weib – und zwar so bald als möglich. Die Natur gebietet es […] Wärest Du in Deine vorigen Grausamkeiten zurückgefallen, so war ich fest entschlossen, eine Diebin zu werden, und mit Deinem Eigentum an einen Ort zu flüchten, den ich mir schon ersehen hatte, wo Du mich nie, nie wider gefunden hättest; so aber, da Deine Briefe in schönen Zusammenhang, sich wie eine Kette von goldenen Blumen um mich geschlungen, und mich ununterbrochen im-

26 “If you cannot give up your genial, dramatic cruelty – well then, do not be saddened about it! – Keep walking lightly and fancy-free through life, avoid all closer relationships, in which you could only become punishable and unhappy, and let everything in life turn into a poem!” (Gersdorff 1981: 207)

250 | FOLKE-C HRISTINE M ÖLLER-SAHLING

mer näher zu Dir geführt haben, will ich Dir Dein Eigentum zurückbringen, und sorgsam bewahren” (Gersdorff 1981: 285).27 Her situation renders a decision inevitable. Her letter is filled with the ambivalence of an age, her gender, and of the genre itself, in which, eerily, she formulates her own ending. In the same letter, she predicts that she will be happy with Brentano, but whether she will remain happy, she does not know, “Ich werde mit dir glücklich sein, das weiß ich; ob ich es bleiben werde, das weiß ich nicht, aber was geht mich die Zukunft an? – Kann ich nicht sterben, eh’ ich unglücklich werde? – Es müßte recht angenehm sein, in Deinen Armen, und von Dir beweint zu sterben” (Gersdorff: 285-6).28 Could she not die before she becomes unhappy, she asks. A sombre vision of the future emanates from her voice. The remainder of her letter covers questions on where to send her books and other belongings, arrangements on where and when to get married, practical matters. She ends with an affirmation of her love. Sophie Mereau died in childbirth on October 31, 1806. Their marriage, their “poetic existence,” lasted all of three years. Faced with the contradictions of an age that arise when Enlightenment ideals of love are fused with Romantic notions of love, the couple explored, rejected, idealized and even attempted to resolve the mediation of love. Their communicational differences culminate in Mereau’s realization that Brentano’s poetics of “ästhetische Gewalttätigkeit” are in fact a rejection of intimacy. She predicts that his use of the mediality of language mode is bound to lead to a life of solitude rather than a poetic existence (“vermeide nur alle nähern Verhältniße”, Gersdorff: 207), an assessment that seems to give an indication of a rather contemporary notion of love. Moreover, when Brentano accuses Mereau of communicating with “orakelhaft grausame Undeutlichkeit” (Gersdorff 1981: 122), it seems to indicate that the stability of language as a medium of representation and communication was threatened long before the twentieth century. The backdrop of their struggle, the emergence of a new subjectivity and individuality during the second half of the eighteenth century into the nineteenth century, causes their dissonances. These dissonances seem to illustrate the evolution of a

27 “Clemens, I will become your wife – in fact, as soon as possible. Nature demands it. […] If you had resorted to your old brutalities, I was prepared to become a thief, and to flee with your property to a place I had already chosen, a place where you would have never found me; as is, with all your letters beautifully connected, strung like a wreath of golden flowers around me, which drew me close and closer to you, I will return your property and take care of it “ (Gersdorff 1981: 285). 28 “I will be happy with you, that I know; whether I will remain happy, I do not know, but what business of mine is the future? – Could I not die before I become unhappy? It must be nice to die in your arms as you mourn my imminent passing” (Gersdorff 1981: 286).

“A ESTHETIC B RUTALITY”

AND

“B OUNDLESS CANDOR ”

| 251

new communicational mode that emerged during the age of the Enlightenment, when writers turned toward the exploration of the mediality of language. Both correspondents explore the new rhetoric of love until they ultimately clash within the charged discursive field of Romantic love. They are ultimately unable to resolve the paradoxes surfacing between writing, authenticity, and the need to validate themselves, all of which are preconditions for today’s semantics and quest for selfvalidation in love (Landgraf 2004: 30). In the twenty-first century, the epistolary means that govern the communication of love have become ever more varied, with the advent of electronic mail, personal ads, fax machines, fan mail, and instant messaging. Nevertheless, the quest for the purest expression of inwardness to mediate love continues.

R EFERENCES Altman, Janet Gurkin (1982) Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail (1972) The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays. Transl. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Michael Holquist (ed). Austin: University of Texas Press. Dechant, Anja (1996) “Harmonie stiftete unsere Liebe, Phantasie erhob sie zur Begeisterung und Vernunft heiligte sie mit dem Siegel der Wahrheit”: Der Briefwechsel zwischen Sophie Mereau und Johann Heinrich Kipp [Europäische Hochschulschriften: Reihe 1, Deutsche Sprache und Literatur] Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. Gersdorff, Dagmar von (ed) (1981) Lebe der Liebe und liebe das Leben. Der Briefwechsel von Clemens Brentano und Sophie Mereau. Frankfurt: Insel. Gilroy, Amanda and Verhoeven, W. M. (eds) (2000) Epistolary Histories: Letters, Fiction, Culture. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Hammerstein, Katharina von (ed) (1997) Mereau-Brentano, Sophie. Liebe und allenthalben Liebe: Werke und autobiographische Schriften in drei Bänden. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Koschorke, Albrecht (1999) Körperströme und Schriftverkehr: Mediologie des 18. Jahrhunderts. München: Fink. Landgraf, Edgar (2004) “Romantic Love and the Enlightenment: From Gallantry and Seduction to Authenticity and Self-Validation”. The German Quarterly 77 (1): 29-46. Luhmann, Niklas (1982) Liebe als Passion. Zur Codierung von Intimität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Migge, Walter (1959) “Briefwechsel zwischen Achim von Arnim und Sophie Mereau. Ein Beitrag zur Charakteristik Clemens Brentanos.” In Festgabe für Edu-

252 | FOLKE-C HRISTINE M ÖLLER-SAHLING

ard Berend, Hans Werner Seiffert and Bernhard Zeller (eds). Weimar: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach am Neckar: 384-407. Nickisch, Reinhard M. G. (1991) Brief. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler. Richardson, Samuel (1974) Pamela or, Virtue rewarded. New York: Garland Pub. Co. Schindel, Carl Wilhelm Otto August von. (1823) Die deutschen Schriftstellerinnen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus. Schwarz, Herta (1991) “Poesie und Poesiekritik im Briefwechsel zwischen Clemens Brentano und Sophie Mereau”. In Die Frau im Dialog. Studien zu Theorie und Geschichte des Briefes, Anita Runge and Lieselotte Steinbrügge, 33-50. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler.

Affectionate Titbits Postcards as a Medium for Love around 1900 A NETT H OLZHEID

Our verbal toolbox for everyday communication contains many formulaic expressions. One of them, the end justifies the means, verbalizes the notion of action which contravenes socially approved norms. It applies quite fittingly to the epistolary paradox of communicating private discourse on an open postcard. After the postcard was introduced as a new means of verbal intercourse in Germany in 1870, it elicited strong resentment among the conservative middle class, who considered valued standards and principles of written correspondence to be seriously at stake.1 Despite its economical postage, the generic blank postcard demonstrated its inadequacy for conveying private messages in numerous ways. Its general acceptance was hampered by its characteristic semi-public distribution, and the limited, and often repetitive verbal patterns associated with its use. The postcard was small-scale on many levels, yet lacking the seriousness of a telegram, the use of a privately-sent postcard in the early days was restricted to occasions requiring an exceptional demand for communicative efficiency, its visible content was a straightforward message and its subtext, an obligatory explanation and an apology for this choice of cost-conscious contact.2 The functional design, the obvious convenience, and the simple, unencrypted messages of the postcard would seem to restrict its use, certainly leaving little scope for private verbal fancy and the discourse of the heart. And yet, the love postcard 1

First issued by the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on October 1, 1869, other countries followed. The medium was, for example, officially accepted in Great Britain, Switzerland (1870); Denmark, the Netherlands, (1871); France, Russia (1872); Spain, the USA (1873), Italy (1874), etc.

2

There has been no comprehensive study of the history of postcard communication from a semio-linguistic perspective to date. My forthcoming PhD thesis will provide a thorough study of this medium from the beginning to the end of the 20th century.

254 | A NETT HOLZHEID

strongly emerged as a subset of general postcard communication and became a fashionable part of late nineteenth century popular culture. To explain its increasing popularity, one might again delve into that verbal toolbox and simply declare that all is fair in love and war – the postcard included. Undoubtedly, the medium did enjoy historic success in the form of Feldpost-Correspondenzkarte sent during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. Even so, there remains the crucial question of how meaningful or beneficial the medium ultimately became as a means of promoting love. Furthermore: what were the socio-cultural implications that provoked and shaped love discourse on postcards, despite the fact that the medium's constitutional characteristics were compatible neither with the concept of love nor with the concept of written communication in the nineteenth century? What designs of graphics and text were generated to transform the postcard into a valuable and acceptable medium of intimate interaction? Pursuing these questions, we will briefly elaborate on the phase that preceded successful love card usage by explaining how the general postcard was adopted for private communication.

1

P RIVATE

POSTCARD COMMUNICATION

The use of the general postcard grew significantly and rapidly when it was officially authorized by the post office as private postal card and thus it also became a lucrative product of the paper industry. Through an intricate combination of technical refinements and high caliber artwork involving printing, colouring, and embossing, the medium was upgraded from plain cardboard to valuable picture postcards.3 Also, as a consequence of the introduction of novel materials such as superior ink, glitter, feathers, fine fabrics and pearls, and even fragrances, the medium came to provide a multi-coded stimulus for private communication. Semantically enriched with several sensual and symbolic layers of meaning, each single card opened up a small playground, where image and text interacted to create private messages. A perpetuum mobile of social communication had begun. The industry's newfound ability to reproduce, on cardboard, sparkling details of real places and envisioned dreams gave people of any social level, age group, or gender, a new vehicle for maintaining or transforming their social network. Felicitations – seasonal greetings or congratulations upon personal success – were conveyed, as were spontaneous gestures of friendship. The significance of the postcard habit became such that

3

See Pieske 1984 for details on the various subtypes of cards as valuable products of the paper industry.

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 255

the unexplained absence of an anticipated card caused disappointment and implied rejection. Readily recognized and accepted, postcards continued to develop in their role as carriers of friendly greetings. Then, with deliberate ambiguity, affectionate tidbits of the amorous sort subtly and gradually slipped into the mix. On the cards' iconic level, an inventory of accustomed symbols of emotional closeness (e.g. hearts, doves, rings, cupids, and floral arabesques) advertised the cordial rapport between sender and receiver as one of either friendship or love. Likewise, the writer could use humor and skill in writing the verbal message to withhold from the unauthorized reader the fact whether those hugs and kisses to the dear she-addressee were sent by a suitor or by her best female friend.4

2

L OVECARDS

UNBOUND

It stands to reason that lovers waived standard epistolary etiquette and approached the medium playfully and impulsively. Love cards were exchanged in sequels of short verbal units sometimes more than twice a day (cf. figure 3), which parallels our current use of short- and multimedia message services. The abbreviated style characteristic of both private SMS and postcard communication is clearly demonstrated by a piece of correspondence (fig.1) sent in Berlin in 1905:

Fig 1 “Heartfelt greetings to my sweet mouse. / Yours / C[arl]chen. / Berlin 03/21/1905.” 4

For further information on postcard communication in the preceding state of a love relationship and on those cards with a pictorial topic relating to love as used among young girls or young man as a means of communication in the realm of discourse on love, see Holzheid 2004.

256 | A NETT HOLZHEID

Although this card’s design suggests a hand-written letter in narrow line spacing, the actual message dispenses with lengthy content and follows a common pattern of three lines (1.2 - 4), which corresponds to a typical closing frame of a private letter. In large fonts and wide spacing, this pencil script joins with the prefabricated text (1.1; bold, A.H.) to form one bi-coded message unit, which will be referred to as the postcard communiqué: (1) 1

Meiner süßen Maus einen herzlichen Gruß

2

Dein

3

C'chen

4

Berlin 21/3.05.

The printed text in this verbal unit, which purports to be an intimate greeting but is not confined specifically to a love relationship, sets the stage on which the sendertext provides deictic references in order to transform this piece of mass media into an individual token of social contact. Aside from matching the linguistic level of the card’s pre-printed text, the sender’s text also merges with the typographic and overall visual design, resulting in a darling, petite, semiotic creation: The card's colour frame (limited to dove-blue cardboard, white ink, red for the two rebus signs) provides an aesthetic context for the sender's pencil grey. The embossed sensual print and cursive style of font strategically mimic sophisticated handwriting. The two pictorial rebus signs create a unique atmosphere to which the short sender text conforms in its verbal stylistics (e.g. ellipsis of verb; signature consisting of morphemic diminutive and apostrophized abbreviation; numerals instead of words for the month, abbreviated numbers for the year). The possessive pronouns (the handwritten "deinem", which corresponds to the printed "meiner") and the underlining of the signature, which formally echoes the ornate line of the printed text, suggest a balance between the first and second person singular and imply a close relationship. Here, the gesture of devotion symbolized by the handwritten pronoun not only claims a special emphasis in its relation to the overall length of the text, it also appears framed and constitutes an eyecatching centre of the text’s visual structure. Hence, with the grammatical diminutive and its semantics of affection worked out to the last detail, semiotically, the communiqué becomes a super-sign of affectionate form. Such creative play in charming miniature centered around the signature constitutes the primary basis for love discourse enacted through postcards. The signature, a marker of completion, can signify the gesture of silently assenting to the message of the card. As is still true today, each deployed version of signature was acknowledged to indicate a certain degree of emotional closeness, the common signature scale running from anonymous to surname, followed by first name then nicknames with various forms of abbre-

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 257

viations and combinations, to the ultimately intimate no-name. However, forms of signature in the early twentieth century primarily needed to reflect the state of relationship progress that was officially accepted for this couple within the social community. Especially in the heyday of picture postcards, when a vast majority of intricately designed cards were sent to be collected in albums, the element of signature turned the card into a designated present. As exemplified in figure 2, such cards consisted of a typical patchwork pattern, which would spell out the love message appealingly, demanding as little as the sender's consenting signature:

Fig. 2 The whole visible world echoes greetings of love.

Following the standard visual design of a geographic panorama postcard, this card (fig. 2) shows a private resort against the backdrop of an unlimited horizon, illustrating the concept of distance and, by extension, “here” vs. “there” and “addresser” vs. “addressee”. In a module-like manner, its warm sepia colours combine common elements of the "Greetings-from" card (Gruß-aus-Karte) with ornamented framelike elements and symbols (untouched nature and a chapel, a sailboat with white canvas). The four-lined verse (2), which becomes the basic verbal element of love card design, refers to and explains the pictorial message, describing the visible world as an advocate to love. The lyrical "I" in the printed verse fulfills the sender's intention of greeting the beloved addressee: (2)

1 2 3 4

Es klingt aus Wellen und Wogen, Lacht aus dem Sonnenschein, kommt mit dem Schifflein gezogen, Der Gruß: Ich denke Dein!

258 | A NETT HOLZHEID

Applying a close to word-to-word translation, the verse reads: "The greeting: 'I am thinking of you' echoes from the sound of small and big waves, appears as a smile of the shining sun and comes along with a small sail-boat.” Three-word affirmations, similar to the "thinking of you" phrase (2.4), which, in figure 2, was particularly emphasized by the sender's underlining, comprise the key message of love postcards. The medium's manufactured emotive atmosphere provides the means to declare, repeatedly and anew, unaltered emotions between separated lovers. "Bist Du mir treu" (Are you faithful?), "Ich bin Dein" (I am yours) are examples of such question and answer games that were favourably played in series of exchanges (figures 3a-3d):

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 259

Fig. 3a-d. Within one day, the she-addressee, Miss Kätchen, received a gesture of greeting subdivided and expanding across one day, tied to morning, mid-day, evening, and night as referential points of devotional acknowledgment.

This series dating from 1899 performs a spoken greeting in the form of a written one. Including a compliment to the postal-service, the verse of card 3a uses the postcard as a substitute for face-to-face contact: "'Guten Morgen!' aus der Ferne / Ach wie brächt ich's selber gerne / Doch die Post wird's treu besorgen: / 'Guten Morgen!'" ("Good morning" from afar. Ahh, how I would love to deliver these greetings to you in person, but I am sure, the post will faithfully oblige: "Good morning!") As demonstrated, a particular tradition of love card writing was generated by standardizing and emulating the language of the desired greetings. This language consisted of a set of short, versed citations, formulaic phrases and stereotypical visuals, which served to manifest a core meaning using slightly altered signifiers (fig.4).

260 | A NETT HOLZHEID

Fig. 4 a + b Happy Easter on love cards. Two variations of the Happy Easter theme: “Herzlichen Ostergruß”, “Fröhliche Ostern!”

Taking advantage of this manufactured authority of a common text, which the printed word and the graphics exhibited naturally and which the portrayed topics acquired by the simple rule of repetition, senders wholeheartedly subscribed to this postcard design and pattern (fig. 5).

Fig. 5 To establish a momentum of intermediary contact before the upcoming face-to-face visit, this love card was mailed by a female sender.

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 261

“Ewig Dein” (yours forever) is presented as a noble motto of faithful avowal, whereas unambiguous symbols (roses, tulips, carnations) and common symbolic colour (red, gold) are employed to maximize the effect of the verbal meaning. The female sender adopts this technique of unmistakable emphasis, and shapes her perfect expression of love by perfecting the language of the postcard itself: she expands on the motto by adding a version of a rhymed verse (5), which might just as well have been part of the printed text. Drawing on the symbolic meaning of flowers, this popular folk verse declares the exceptional endurance of love holding together the lyrical "I" and the addressee: (5) 1

Rosen Tulpen Nelken

2

Alle Blümlein welken

3

Marmor und Eisen bricht

4

Aber unsere Liebe nicht.5

Likewise, in the space for the verbal message on the reverse side, her words express thanks to the reader for the card he had sent to her, and express hope that her most preciously loved sweetheart may be as safe and sound as she is. These warm remarks are followed by a farewell and at last by the typical ending of hugs and kisses from his ever loving and forever loyal Elise.6 This two-sided message further implies perfect love by addressing the only two concepts of time that lovers find relevant: the present moment of fulfillment, and the state of never-ending eternity joined into one semantic entity of undivided love. The handwritten note documents some present moment of situational and mental contact, and the slogan overleaf, "Yours forever", claims time-transcending validity. This way of perfecting postcard language by means of an intertextual citing mode operates with tacit knowledge, which is constitutive for love messaging via postcards in general: prefabricated and mass-produced love card code with its common textual features (reduction, repetition and variation in form as well as in content, rhyme and verse) acquires the status of authentic expression. Despite miniaturization, the message of the card is experienced as a complete rendering of the emotional status quo. The sender-text of a later card (fig. 6) demonstrates an aware-

5

As stated in the verse: Roses, tulips, carnations and other flowers are bound to wither away and, similar to this fate of natural beauty, the solid entities of marble and iron can be broken by some natural forces, but the couple's love would neither fade nor be broken.

6

“Mein innigstgeliebter / habe Deine liebe / Karte erhalten. / Hoffentlich bist Du noch gesund und / munter was ich auch / noch bin. Lebe wohl / bis Sonntag. / Herzlichen Gruß. und Kuß von D.[einer] D.[ich] ewig tr[eu] l.[liebenden] Elise“.

262 | A NETT HOLZHEID

ness of this tacit knowledge in an extraordinarily explicit manner. It consists solely of a certifying comment, which strongly affirms the content of the printed message. Instead of gathering individual words to communicate affection, the loving male appraises the text at hand to verbally pinpoint his amorous sentiments.

Fig. 6 Bi-coded love card design from 1942, marked as veritably fitting the communicative needs of the male sender.

The graphic design consists of a clever comic-style arrangement: instead of a thought bubble, the card uses a subtitle, leaving it up to the specific user of the card to determine whether the male or female is to be connected with the lyrical voice of the printed sentiment. (6) 1

Junges Glück!

2

Schau ich Dich an, so sieht das Leben aus

3

Schön und bunt wie der Blumenstrauß.

The expressive noun phrase (6.1, Young and blossoming happiness of love) can be interpreted either as the thematic title of the picture or as an emphatic invocation of the addressee. Additionally, due to its elliptical style and the use of definite articles,

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 263

the text itself serves to decode the picture as much as to provide adulation: “Looking at you makes the world appear as beautiful and colourful as this bouquet of flowers.” The male sender attributes iconic quality to these lines of praise, equating the verse with his very thoughts and feelings: 4

Dieser Spruch stimmt haargenau auf

5

das, was ich nur denke und fühle,

6

Elise.

His comment, which tenderly ends by using the addressee's name (6.6), perfectly matches the first line of the printed verse (6.1) in style, and provides further emphasis to positively denote the addressee.

3

L IMITATIONS

Although the love card became an indispensable means by which to communicate with a beloved partner, this bonding ritual was not completely left to the lover's discretion as social restrictions held great sway. As Peter Gay (1986: 3) poignantly put it: "Acceptable paths to love were plainly marked and heavily guarded." To reconstruct some of the basic principles governing the normative rules of middle class conduct, the picture postcard of figure 7 is be worth our attention:

Fig. 7 Caricature card from 1905, used in a teasing man-to-man-correspondence.

264 | A NETT HOLZHEID

This caricature dramatizes social convention, lovers’ interaction, and the popular topic of the coy male suitor. In the salon of private homes, one of the designated areas for courting activity, interaction conformed to accepted roles (i.e. female responsiveness, the initiative of male, the obligatory presence of a third party of paternal authority). The distance between the couple, marked as artificial separation, follows the rule of restrained intimacy, which required, prior to engagement, that the woman be addressed using the formal version of her name. On the whole, these norms implied that each interaction should signify commitment, show rational character, and include modest limitations of length and frequency in writing and conversations. The picture addresses these issues by contrasting mediated and unmediated discourse. Paper, as the vehicle for language, appears in its central vertical axis: first, the unfolded newspaper (symbol of common public interest, serving as a prop for the occupied male mind), secondly, the closed book (symbolizing the female's realm of a private home), and thirdly, the small note deployed as billet-doux (referring to intimate verbal intercourse). Within this hierarchical order of paper media, the small note located in the foreground is particularly emphasized. It is part of both the vertical and the horizontal axis, clearly indicating the suitability and scope of the postcard. Indeed, during the first phase of acquaintance, the postcard carried the advantage of constituting private contact, yet without the secretiveness of a sealed letter. By adapting the pattern of general greeting cards, visually as much as verbally, the standard card from a suitor passed the critical eye of family sentries as an innocuous gesture of politeness. Images of seasonal illustrations, scenes of photo realism, and reproductions of pieces of art strategically kept its denotations to the realm of generic postcard topics; and explicit greetings to the “werten Eltern und lieben Geschwistern” (much esteemed parents and dear brothers and sisters) made the tacit claim that the cards were open to public inspection. In the everyday discourse between lovers, postcard messages conformed strictly to the traditional system of accepted morals. Favourite pictorial expressions of mass produced cards were sent as legitimate samples of lovers' individual values and fantasies of private happiness. Popular images of undisturbed togetherness, chosen by both women and men, featured scenes illustrating rapturous mutual attention through gesture, gaze and talk. Such scenes were located on open green land or a hidden bench surrounded by blue sky. Cards chosen by men at a later stage of a relationship unmistakably portrayed personal concepts about their future wives (cf. fig. 8a-d):

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 265

Fig. 8 a, b were sent by a young male teacher as to convey some simple greetings at day or night time to beloved Miss Anna. Fig. 8 c, d are part of a series depicting countryside idyll, addressed to Miss Bella, residing in Frankfurt city.

266 | A NETT HOLZHEID

Such cards with a message of scenic harmony were frequently selected to send a tender message to the addressee – either to smooth over a previous incident of disagreement, or to visually forecast future fulfillment in compensation for the present moment of want.

4

D OUBLE - VOICED

Love cards express the goal of ultimate togetherness, but their vital discourse also includes mystifying and controversial forces. Due to the ambivalent potential of visual language, love cards became popular devices with which to play out guessing games. Aside from the pleasure associated with the riddled sign, enigmatic greetings affect intimacy because those who are involved decode the message in the light of the exclusively shared presuppositions of their history. Contrary to the romantic mode of intimated conspiracy, it may also be the case that encrypting techniques were applied as a precautionary approach. The following examples demonstrate different forms of creative mystery as a substantial feature of love card language. The substitution of names was a popular strategy. Especially in the beginning of the bonding state the sender is constructed as an anonymous person. This can be illustrated by one particular message from five female senders (9). Their handwritten text consists purely of a list containing a possibly identifying reference to each sender. Instead of names, periphrastic signatures were used. The message (9) translates as: “Affectionate greetings and a kiss / sends / a silent female admirer / likewise: an even more silent / female admirer, / a quite silent female admirer, / a truly silent female admirer / an ardent female admirer”: (9) [I] 1

Herzlichen Gruß und Kuß

2

sendet

3

eine stille Verehrerin,

[II] 4

desgleichen: Eine noch stillere

5

Verehrerin,

[III] 6

Eine ganz stille Verehrerin

[IV] 7

Eine wirklich stille Verehrerin

[V] 8

Eine glühende Verehererin [sic, A.H.]

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 267

At first glance, these signatures can be read according to the common lexicon of that time, as manifestations of traditional female ethos: they affirm passivity and restrained desire. At second glance, these utterances ironize this attitude when read in the context of the image of the selected postcard (fig. 9).

Fig. 9 Referentially, the visual theme of this card provides the primary information of the whole communiqué. It functions as a note of a cultural event, referring to the debut performance of an operetta by Franz Lehár in Munich.7

While it was rather unusual for women to initiate a contact to a male address, other than those among their relatives, the selection of this card for correspondence, taken by itself, could be interpreted as a fully decent and stereotypical act. The culture of theater was explicitly declared as the most common topic for conversations between young middle-class men and women. And yet, writing apparently innocent greetings related to the topic of the emancipated wife seems to challenge the traditional role of women. It evokes an act of modern wishful self-promotion by associating each female writer with the world of actresses – with glamorous successes and their masquerade of fictitious seduction. The communiqué's peculiar quality of a doublevoiced message is generated by oscillating between gestures towards the male addressee, as enacted in the sender text, and turning away from him, as envisioned in the printed message.

7

Lehár's operetta "Die Juxheirat" (“The Mock Marriage”) had its debut performance in Austria, Theater an der Wien on 12th December, 1904.

268 | A NETT HOLZHEID

Creative playing with conventional form, as this communiqué exemplifies, is another form of flirting.8 It worked in its swaying and noncommittal character against the officially designated routines of committed behaviour. Typically, these cards were circulated during social gatherings of adolescent peer groups, such as bicycle clubs and fraternities, and signatures were accumulated from everyone present in order to pull together one collective hello to the absent addressee. Such multi-voiced postcards were successfully turned into love cards when addressees took up this hide-and-seek-game and decoded one signature as carrying more significance than the rest of the names. This strategy of concealing identity by carefully blending one's message with the standards of postcard language might have addressed the individual need of the coy lover, who preferred subdued ways of communicating love. This type of sender, who played his love cards like a cautious gambler, liked to have the imprinted message of his cards indicate love vaguely, by keeping his own text at a distance to the illustrated love scene both in its physical placement and in terms of the content it expressed. In general, adolescent multi-voiced greetings on cards seem to have been closely related to a specific rule of nineteenth century middle class conduct, according to which, teenagers were expected to approach a member of the opposite sex within small groups only. However overtly ambiguous they were, cards sent during the early stages of a relationship nevertheless contained small traces of discrete meaning upon closer inspection, whether this meaning was placed there on purpose or unintentionally. Thus it was left to the addressed reader to decide whether the orthographic peculiarity of the last female sender of the operetta card (9.5) was meant as a jocular wordplay or rather subconsciously triggered as a Freudian slip. Her conflating the two key words of the card – the noun Verehrerin (agency of female admirer) and the noun: Ehe (institution of marriage) – into her version of "Verehererin" fuels ambivalent meaning. On one hand it, this version containing an additional e-vowel can be interpreted as imitating a stressed pronunciation of the regular lexical form so as to indicate a higher degree of adoration. On the other, it reads as if the writer is revealing a desire to proceed from admiration to matrimony. The strategy of the camouflaged message that was adopted on a card dating from 1904 is very different again. Its printed text reads like an instruction manual on how to express love on postcards. It appears to perform a secret semiotic maneuver which, if intercepted, no one else would be able to decipher: “Willst du dein Herz mir schenken, / So fang es heimlich an / Dass unser Beider Denken, / Niemand errathen kann” (If you want to devote your heart to me, begin to do so secret-

8

In Germany, flirt first appeared as a dictionary entry in the Meyer's Conversationslexikon in 1894.

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 269

ly, so that no one shall decipher our (intimate) thoughts.) The male sender follows suit and takes advantage of the card's illustration, which depicts the medieval romantic cliché of a noble suitor carefully watching a sleeping beauty who is resting on a bench after gathering pink rose blossoms. This pictorial face-to-face-encounter equally compares with the photographic card in figure 6, and allows for the small verbal pencil message well hidden in the pleats of the lady's dress: "Mittwoch auf Wiedersehen" (I’ll see you again Wednesday). This embedded information about an upcoming tête-à-tête parallels the card's pictorial message of a meeting at a romantic site. Further intricacies of the art of concealing an intimate message in a seemingly innocuous carrier are exemplified in the use of cards depicted in figure 10a and b.

Fig. 10 To express his thoughtfulness and comfort, these two cards were sent – two days in a row – by a young man in 1904 within a small town to his female friend, who was sick in bed.

Illustrating manifestations of young female health and attractiveness, these two serial cards of baroque beauty seem unmistakably to allude to the physical condition and persona of the addressee; with each of the pictorial elements – the girl dressed in her morning gown with loose hair, rosebuds, and an open décolleté – indicating not only the sender's best wishes for her recovery, but also his adoration and desire. The similarity between the two visual images is reflected in the sender's verbal messages. Both texts constitute polite greetings within the boundaries of formal ad-

270 | A NETT HOLZHEID

dress. The message of the second day (10b), in an almost literal translation reads: "How is it going today, Miss Babettchen??? Certainly much better! Soon you will be able to get out of bed again, won't you? Be greeted most affectionately from Rudolf". (10b 1

Wie geht es heut, Frl.

2

Babettchen??? Doch

3

sicher besser! Nicht

4

wahr, Sie können

5

bald wieder aufstehn?

6

Seien Sie herzlichst

7

gekrüßet [sic, A.H.] von

8

Rudolf

Aside from orthographic markers that indicate informal spoken language, one orthographic peculiarity of (10b.7) stands out. As a marked substitute for the unmarked version of the past participle, gegrüßt the version used, “gekrüßet” (l0.7) indicates an elaborate, antiquated style and thus shows that two levels of discourse are active on this card (i.e. the formal register of a young suitor plus the informal register of an old acquaintance). What seems to be yet more significant is the substitution of the regular consonant (voiced plosive g to voiceless k). This alteration might have been caused by dialectic interference9 but, read as a consolidation of the verb grüßen (to send greetings) and the verb küssen (to kiss), it suggests that the formal greetings contain some secret kisses. This conspicuous letter appears to be akin to another secret sign on this card: next to the stamp, a small penciled cross points to the secret note underneath the stamp. There, much in contrast to the “main” text, the message constituted an intimate address, explicit kisses and an affectionate form of signature. Although running the risk that their message would be detected and they would consequently be fined by the postal institution, lovers frequently used this space underneath the stamp just as they would use the main space for the sender's message: to exchange kisses and cite verses, to express their desire or frustration, or to arrange the next secret date.

9

Considering that within the region in which this card was sent, speakers frequently substituted the voiceless plosives with voiced ones, this particular word might be a hypercorrection phenomenon, triggered by the formal version of the word.

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 271

As further embellishment in the address section, the stamp itself symbolized a certain message of devotion depending on its angular position.10 Although carrying the typical vagueness of postcard signifiers in general, the stamp applied in figure11, is specifically highlighted by two exclamation marks, denies any accidental meaning, and adds yet another touch to the many genuine forms of verbal caress that are spread throughout the sender's text and address section.

Fig. 11 The stamp as an additional sign of affection addressed to: “My sweet little bride” in 1900.

Undoubtedly, gestures of love can be subtly and creatively worked into any medium, including seemingly innocuous postcards. Writers were free to encrypt their greetings in order to add some secret or tender touch. For example, a writer might use numerals or the Morse code on a Christmas card to extend the scope of the common greetings of the season. Levels of secrecy were dependent on the stage of the relationship and its specific predicaments and constraints.

10 The specific meaning of each stamp’s positioning was part of the couple’s individual love code. Due to the many different and changing interpretations of love stamp language, which over time, were also illustrated in several inexpensive booklets, from today’s perspective the single stamp-messages offers several readings. The depicted angle in fig. 17 can be interpreted, e.g. as “I am longing for you”, “I won’t tell and my lips are sealed” (around 1900); “please, would you pick me up” (1902); or “are you really faithful” (around 1930).

272 | A NETT HOLZHEID

5

C ONCLUSION

The postcard, in the pre-telephone era, certainly did not replace the elaborate medium of the love letter, but it cannot be discredited as a medium of laconic and uninspired communication either. Love card writing grew as a tradition, despite being open to public scrutiny, and a whole new realm was opened with its own democratic rules. Small private messages, no longer negatively connoted, began their career as much sought after charming and affectionate tidbits. By utilizing the advances of the paper industry and by taking courageous and creative spin on prefabricated cards to a greater or lesser extent, standard modes of communicating affection were turned into unique signs of endearment without requiring unreasonable amounts of time, money or artistic skill. Using a variety of coded signs to confirm the message of the heart, the love card culture of the turn of the twentieth century paved the way for the various electronic modes of multi-coded affectionate short messaging of today. Genuinely new standards of affectionate communication rose to the social surface, actively affirming the conceptual changes that were emerging in love. Moves towards mutual give and take, either dramatically dynamic in their form or almost imperceptible challenged the gender-fixed concept of communicative action and reaction. Whether love messages were inscribed on cardboard, as was the case circa 1900, or transmitted electronically, as was the case circa 2000 and still is today, the enduring popularity of the discourse of the heart on postcards is due to a play with paradoxes. On one level the post card invites lovers to perform a tricky twist between expression and concealment; on the next level the medium forces them to cope with opposing concepts of presenting affection: they have to act within the framework of an accustomed rhetoric and sparkling new ways of expression.

R EFERENCES Diekmannshenke, Hajo (2002) “‘und meld‘ dich mal wieder!‘: Kommunizieren mittels Postkarte“. Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Sprachtheorie 64: 93-124. Gay, Peter (1986) The Bourgois Experience: Victoria to Freud: Volume I: . The Tender Passion. New York: Oxford University Press. Holzheid, Anett (2003) “Das liebe Spiel mit offenen Karten: Die Postkarte als Medium der Liebeskommunikation“. In liebe.komm: Botschaften des Herzens, Benedikt Burkard (ed.), 122-131. Heidelberg: Wachter. Pieske, Christa (1984) Das ABC des Luxuspapiers: Herstellung, Verarbeitung und Gebrauch 1860 bis 1930. Berlin: Reimer. Walter, Karin (2001) “Die Ansichtskarte als visuelles Massenmedium“. In Schund und Schönheit. Populäre Kultur um 1900, Kaspar Maase and Wolfgang Kaschuba (eds), 46-61. Köln, Weimar and Wien: Böhlau.

A FFECTIONATE TITBITS

| 273

F IGURES (P OSTCARD F ACSIMILES ) Cards are from the author's collection, except Fig. 6 (collection of Eva Herold, Coburg) and Fig. 3, 9 (collection of Joachim Schlotterbeck, Würzburg). Fig. 1: 21.3.1905 to: Fräulein Emmy M., Elberfeld from: C'chen, Berlin. Fig. 2: 4.6.1901 to: Hochwohlg. Fräulein Lotte von K, Austria. from: Adolf. Fig. 3 a – 3 d: 5.9.1899 to: Kätchen B., Bamberg, from: F. Nüsslein, Bamberg. Fig. 4 a: 28.3.1918 to: Gussy, from: "Deinem Dich heiß lb Bräutchen Ilse". Fig. 4 b: 2.4.1920 to: Frl. Mari Sch., Retzbach, from: Luise, Aschaffenburg. Fig. 5: 7.12.1906 to: Herrn Ernst R., Oberdallendorf, from: Elise, Obercassel. Fig. 6: 8.5.1942 to: Frl. Elise B, Nürnberg, from: "Dein Wildfang", Kirchenlamitz. Fig. 7: 14.1.1905 to: Eduard K., Ökonom, Bad Kissingen, from: Simon F. Fig. 8 a: 20.12.1909 to: Fräulein Anna O., Karlsruhe from: Franz, Gengenbach. Fig. 8 b: 20.7.19012 to: Fräulein Anna O., Karlsruhe, from: Franz, Lörrach. Fig. 8 c + d: 11./25.11.1909 to: Frl. Bella S., Frankfurt, from: Richard, Frankfurt. Fig. 9: 20.7.1905 to: Herrn Andreas N., Munich from: 4 female sender, München. Fig. 10a + b: 14./15.5.1907 to: Fräulein Babettchen H. , Fulda, from: Rudolf, Fulda. Fig.11: 21.5.1900 to: “meine Kleine süße Braut”. from: “Deinem Dich liebenden Willi.”

Communicating a Message of Love through Singing M AHMOUD A. A L -K HATIB

I NTRODUCTION Hodge (1985: 122-123) defines a song as an oral form, which is “normally distinguished from everyday speech, however, by a degree and type of vocal resonance, whether open (‘melodiousʼ) or constrained (‘harshʼ). Along with resonance, there is typically a significant type of pitch pattern. This may differ from speech by having more variation (‘tuneʼ) or less variation, as in monotone chants”. He adds, “Song frequently has a marked form of stress patterning (‘rhythmʼ) which may be reinforced by actions (e.g. moving the head, clap, ping, tapping feet) or instruments (e.g. drum beats, etc.)”. Just like an apology (Homles, 1990), and a compliment (Holmes, 1986; ALKhatib, 1997, Farghal and Al-Khatib, 2001), a song can be seen as a social act aimed at communicating a particular message. This fact was clearly manifested in the words of Leith and Myerson (1989,p. 43) who argued that, “songs actually seem to assert values of shared rather than personal feeling, the communal and collective experience rather than the individual or unique”. Since singing can be seen as one way of communicating, a good analysis of a song (as a discourse phenomenon) requires sufficient knowledge of culturallybound rules, including those relating to the selection of the appropriate strategy (Clyne, 1981: 61). Ethnographic research in folklore and other verbal arts, for example, has shown that it is not only different cultures that vary in their discourse modes, but also those cultures which have had frequent contact with each other, and whose languages and cultures are similar to one another to a considerable extent. A good example of such intercultural differences exists between Western cultures. Earlier research into differences between Western cultures such as the English, French, German and American cultures (cf. Stross, 1975; Hodge, 1985; Georgakopoulou, 1994; Hill and Irvine, 1993; Stahl, 1989; Bauman, 1984; Heath, 1983)

276 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

pinned down some of the characteristic differences in the verbal behavior of Western people as expressed in folk tales, proverbs, riddles, and songs. Thus, a love song is seen as a reflective element providing the basis for at least two types of information: (1) information about love as a socio-psychological phenomenon; (2) information about the socio-cultural norms of the society in which it is composed and sung. A similar claim has been leveled by Hodge (1985: 127), who maintains, “The social relationships involved in the production and reception of song normally signify relations in society as a whole”.

T HEORETICAL

BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW

The theoretical paradigm of this study is based on the notion of the ethnography of speaking as developed by Hymes (1962, 1972, 1974) and his associates, for example, Blom and Gumperz (1972); Wolfson (1983); Saville-Trioke (1997/1983), and Bloch (1996), among others. This model assumes that “a general theory of interaction of language and social life must encompass the multiple relations between linguistic means and social meaning” (Hymes 1972: 39). This paradigm also presupposes that: “In undertaking an ethnography of communication in a particular speech community the first task is to define at least tentatively the speech community to be studied, attempt to gain some understanding of its social organization and other salient aspects of culture, and formulate possible hypotheses concerning the diverse ways these sociocultural phenomena might relate to patterns of communication.” (Saville-Troike, 1989: 126) Among the theoretical views that have also inspired the conceptual framework of this study is previous research on different displays of emotive communication (cf. Bloch, 1996; Caffi and Janney, 1994; Setling, 1994). In this tradition, a number of sociologists and discourse analysts (like, Scheff 1990) believe that the analysis of emotional expression in discourse takes its starting point in a theory of interaction (cf. Bloch, 1994). Social interaction, according to Scheff (1990), always involves the building, repair, or damaging of social bonds (reported in Bloch, 1994: 325). The analytical model of this study is an adequate analysis of love songs, which, as Saville-Troike (1989) puts it, “must go beyond a static concept of frame to the consideration of frame in an interactive model, as dynamic ‘schemata’ or structure of expectation”. This approach presupposes that: “Message form and message content are closely interrelated, and the two components often cannot be separated in description and analysis. Message content refers to what communicative acts are about, and to what meaning is being conveyed” (Saville-Troike, 1989: 150).

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 277

Love songs will therefore be analyzed and discussed in terms of two components: Rules of interaction and Norms of Interaction. While the first component “includes explanation of the rules for the use of speech which are applicable to the communicative event”, the latter “should provide all of the other information about the speech community and its culture which is needed to understand the communicative event” (Saville-Troike 1989: 154-55). Singing has scarcely been studied as an interactional phenomenon. This could be due in part, as Hodge puts it, to the compound nature of song. Commenting on this issue, Hodge (1985: 121) assumes: “Song, and music have been studied extensively by musicologists and historians of music, but the systematic study of song as a form of discourse has barely begun. Part of the reason for this lag comes from the compound nature of song. Song as a multisemiotic form of discourse, consisting minimally of an interaction of words plus music, so the study of either in isolation will not be adequate.“

Most of the small number of earlier studies on folk arts in general, and singing in particular, have been carried out within the framework of either discourse or pragmatic theories. In studying singing as a verbal behavior in particular, a number of African researchers (Cf. Anyidoho, 1995; Omoniyi, 1995) reported on such culturally-significant stylistic differences in both the construction and function of folk songs. In her study on “stylistic features of nnwonkoo, an Akan female song tradition”, Anyidoho (1995) revealed that singing is a functional process which has an important role to play in some Akan communities of Ghana. She concluded that the songs are structural and rule-governed, and that the poetic features identified in the compositions of female artists are some of the characteristic of Akan poetics. In a similar manner, Tope Omoniyi (1995) argues that in traditional Yoruba society, among other uses, songs are used as a communicative mode for funeral consolation (through dirges), for expanding mythological themes, for rituals, for inspiring warriors, for folkloric entertainment and even for launching verbal assaults in interpersonal conflicts. Omoniyi argued that song-lashing is a communicative strategy which is highly conditioned by a wealth of local socio-cultural norms. In his analysis of linguistic creativity in Tzeltal songs, Stross (1975) makes a distinction between two types of song: Standard and Improvised songs. By standards, he means that type of song which contains obligatory invariant phrases, while the improvised ones are those that vary from one singer and context to another, both in melodic pattern and in content (Reported by Omoniyi, 1995 p.300). In Arabic, we can also make a distinction between two types of love songs; “short” taqtuqa songs and “long” tarab songs, both of which would fit into Strosse’s category of standard songs. In other words, they are largely invariant in terms of content and melodic pattern. But what differentiates a short song from a

278 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

long one is the duration of a song. Although both types deal with love as a main subject, they differ from one another in terms of the lyrics and melodic pattern, i.e., a short song tends to be lighter and more dancing in nature than a long one. Moreover, even though both types express the personal emotion of love, a short song is usually less emotional than a long one, for it is written in a simpler and more direct style. Lastly, as we are concerned in this study with love songs, it is important to reach an agreement on what it is that constitutes love, and the examples which I will cite are compatible with this assertion. Building upon a variety of definitions of the term, love can be seen from an Arab point of view as a very strong feeling of affection towards a particular person to whom someone is romantically attracted. Such a relationship should entail a great deal of affection, faithfulness, happiness, sacrifice, and in some cases, shedding tears. By love songs, we mean only this type of song which arouses a great deal of emotion in terms of music and verse, i.e., “?aγani aţifiyya” “emotional songs”. This study will attempt an analysis of love songs as a mode of communication, which is a popular strategy employed by an Arab lover either to entertain self (to communicate with oneself) or to communicate a particular message to others. Communication with others through singing may take place either by exchanging cassettes or dedicating songs on radio and/or TV song programs. This article attempts to investigate certain conventions governing the concept of love as reflected in the form of singing. These conventions concern the content, form, and function(s) in which the notion of love is manifested. By content we mean the type of ideas, attitudes, orientations, and values dealt with in a song. By form we mean the type of medium (i.e., voice, instrument, clapping etc.) by which the message of love is transmitted to the listener. I hypothesize that Arabic songs of love are greatly affected by the socio-cultural norms of Arab society in terms of content, style, tone, manner, and spirit, and that they tend to demonstrate a great deal of flattering, blaming, suffering and complaining. Additionally, they are seen as communicative events in that they communicate an important massage about love (as a man-woman relationship), lovers and how they are viewed in this milieu.

M ATERIAL

AND

M ETHODS

The data for this study was collected by employing the Hymesian ethnographic approach introduced by Hymes (1964, 1972) and used successfully by others like Blom and Gumperz (1972), Wolfson (1983), Saville-Troike (1997/1983), and Bloch (1996), among others. Three main methods form the basis of data-gathering in this study: observation, interview and introspection, all of which have proven to be very effective in data collection. The procedure taken was as follows: I started by watch-

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 279

ing and listening to a considerable number of TV and radio song programs, and then I compiled a very long list of songs (totaling more than one hundred songs). For the purpose of this investigation, I chose the most popular fifty Arab songs, regardless of whether they are Egyptian, Syrian, Saudi, Iraqi, Lebanese or Moroccan. The songs are popular in the sense that they are sung by famous singers such as Abdul Halim, Om Kolthoum, Kazim Alsahir, Hani Shakir, or Fayrouz, to name just a few, and requested the most by Arab audiences and aired on radio and television most frequently. Frequency here (as a criterion) means that a song has to be requested and/or aired on certain radio and/or TV stations at least five times a week within the period of data collection, lasting four months. Since our concern is mainly with studying the content and the sociological functions of the songs, the written texts of the songs were deemed necessary information. Therefore, the written texts were analyzed along with the recordings of the songs so as to make sure that nothing was missed of the various aspects of the songs as a mode of communication. Although some of the chosen songs were sung in the 1960s and the 1970s, we are in a position to claim that such songs are still very popular with younger listeners, as many of them are still sung by famous singers such as, for example, George Wasuuf. Abdul Halim’s song, “Gana Al-Hawa” is a case in point as it has been sung by more than three famous singers. Thus, although one could speak of an agegraded differentiation in the public’s musical taste, with those over thirty years of age being in tune with the songs sung in the 1960s and 1970s, we are in a position to claim that the selected songs do represent a cross-section of Arabic love songs sung during a period extending from 1960 to the present. For illustration, a number of extracts from this material are analyzed and discussed in the present paper to highlight various sociolinguistic aspects of this tradition. The data was analyzed by using the dual analytical approach of discourse and sociolinguistics, which has been successfully used by a number of linguists (e.g., Al-Khatib, 1997; Omoniyi, 1995; Anyidoho, 1995). Here, I set out a number of discourse analytical strategies that will enable us to describe in detail several aspects of Arab sociolinguistic behavior as reflected in love songs. These are flattering, blaming, suffering and complaining, among others.

ANALYSIS I begin by providing a general overview of the features of love songs in terms of structure, language and function. This discussion provides a context for a more detailed analysis of the most prominent strategies used by the Arab singer in singing of love. The analysis concludes with a section on how love songs can be utilized as a mode of communication for communicating a particular message of love.

280 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

C OMPONENTS AND S TRUCTURAL ARABIC SONGS OF LOVE

FEATURES OF

Structural features By structural features, we mean those aspects of a song such as the type of lyrics used, composition of lyrics, composition of music, length, and the way the song is performed. Love songs in the Arab world, like their counterparts elsewhere, belong to the lyric type of poetry which expresses the writer’s personal feelings and thoughts. They are written in the form of everyday language and are usually simple, sensuous and emotional in tone. The verbal component of a song consists of three or four stanzas. The initial stanza, termed lazima in Arabic, is an introductory part of the song comprising two or three lines and is used as refrain throughout the song. Like all other parts of a song, this part is performed with instrumental accompaniment. It should also be noted that this particular part in most Arabic songs of love could be repeated by the chorus at the end of each part. In addition, the verbal component of a song has a definitive structure. That is to say that all of the components identified in a song must occur in the same sequence, though some parts can be repeated more often than others. Also, in some performance contexts such as in the theater, the singer is at liberty to repeat some parts of a song several times at the request of the audience. However, this would not violate the obligatory invariant phrases pattern suggested by Stross (1975). An examination of the data shows that parallelism is a characteristic feature of most Arabic songs of love (Jakobson, 1960: 358, reported in Foley 1997: 366). Foley believes that this perhaps most apparent in phonology; phonological parallelism is the basis of rhyme for line final syllable in poetry and recurring metrical patterns in lines of a verse. 1 A large portion of instances of this phenomenon can be traced in the example below, in which the songwriters play on the same sound or combination of sounds within lines (cf. the extracts discussed below). Arabic songs are usually long in duration, lasting from 10-60 minutes. They are long for they are repetitious in nature. One beautiful section of a song could be repeated more than 10 times in one setting. Repetition, where the genre of delivery is

1

For illustration, Foley cited the following example from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29: When in grace the fortune and men’s eyes I all alone be weep my outcast state, And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself, and cures my fate Note the recurring parallel pattern of final rhyme in alternate lines (line 1 /aIz/, line 2 /eIt/, and again line 3 /aIz/, line 4 /eIt/; and so on).

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 281

predominant, appears to have a communicative function. In repeating a section or sections of a song, a singer attempts firstly, to convey a certain sentimental message, and secondly, this can be viewed as a way of rewarding the audience by pleasing them more and more through repeating what delights them. But it should be noted that the length and duration of a song is highly dependent on whether the song is recorded in the form of a video-clip or sung in the theater. Songs sung in the theatre are usually longer in duration, because some sections of them are repeated several times at the request of the audience. This perennial genrehas been on the decline with the rise of the short type of song. Another important feature of Arabic love songs is the use of both Arabic and Western musical instruments in composing the melody and chords to the lyrics. Among these are the lute, violin, electronic organ, drums, flute, horns, acoustic guitar, and bass. Linguistic features An examination of the corpus shows that there is a maximal reference to the word “love” and lyricists also resort to a huge number of other, related terminology. In Arabic love songs, the object of affection is referred to metaphorically as “heart”, “eyes”, “heartʼs soul”, “heart’s eyes”, “light of eyes”, “moon”, “sun”, “hope”, “soul” and so on, or he/she might be referred to directly as “Habibi” (somebody’s love). So, Arabic songs have various metaphoric uses intended to intensify the feeling of love. The words ħayati “my life”, ‫؟‬inaya “my eyes”, for example, were found to be the most productive metaphors used in singing. It should be noted here that the use of such expressions in love imagery would appear to follow from the generally positive and central role of these body parts in Arabic metaphor.2 In most songs, music was found to be in harmony with the feelings intended to be conveyed to the listener. For example, when an Arab singer wants to lament his bad misfortune or the changing pattern of his love, the lyrics may be accompanied by the sad sound of the flute. It was also noted that in Arabic love songs, the songs are not directed at a specific addressee, and it is to be understood that the communication is directed at the

2

For example, Arabic een “eye” appears in a great many other metaphors, not only those related to love, e.g. ala ‫؟‬een “on my eye, with pleasure, confirmation of compliance”, ћaţţa ‫؟‬een ‫؟‬laa “put one eye on = be determined”., nazal min ‫؟‬eeni “he descended from my eye = I lost respect for him”; ‫؟‬eenu Saaljeh “his eye is so impudent = somebody who usually sneaks a look at girls, criticizing somebody for behaving impolitely”. However, as “eye” is positively valued, its use as an expression of love emanates, as said earlier, from the generally positive and important role it plays in Arabic metaphor. The same also is true of other metaphors like “soul”, “heart”, etc

282 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

audience and every listener of the song. Therefore, the song can be explained in different ways. In this regard, Leith and Myerson (1989: 44) say, “the marks of address within the lyrics themselves allow audiences considerable freedom for interpretation”. They also reported that the performance convention in rock and certain other genres of pop song is for the singer to utter the second person pronoun “you” – which seems to be true of both Arabic and English songs – in the course of singing while facing the audience, as though addressing them directly; but the audience has the scope to interpret the term – “you” – in at least four different ways (for more information on these interpretations, see Leith and Myerson 1989). In Arabic love songs sung by a female singer, the addressee is addressed either by using the masculine second-person pronoun marker “?inta” (you), or the secondperson plural form “?ntu” (you); but in songs sung by male singers the addressee is addressed by using either the feminine personal pronoun “?inti” (you), or the masculine personal pronoun “?inta”, or even the plural form “?intu” (you). This means that it is obligatory for a female singer to use only either the masculine or the plural personal pronoun forms, whereas it is optional for a male singer to use any of the above three forms of address. Insofar as performance is concerned, the Arab, non-Egyptian singers share another common feature relating to vocal delivery of songs with their colleagues in non-English-speaking Western countries. Most Arab singers in different Arab countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and Morocco tend to sell themselves to the public by singing in Egyptian Arabic. In so doing, Arab singers attempt to identify themselves with their Egyptian colleagues who are very popular, and are well known in the Arab world for their beautiful and delightful singing.

C OMMUNICATIVE

STRATEGIES USED IN

ARABIC LOVE

SONGS

A close examination of the corpus shows that most Arab poets and songwriters have a strong tendency to make extensive use of four main communicative strategies in singing of love. These are: flattery, blaming, suffering and complaining. Flattery Flattery can be seen as a positive politeness strategy used to claim common ground or fulfill the hearer’s desires (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987). Careful examination of the data shows that Arab singers tend to use flattery extensively, and that male singers appear to use it more often than female singers do. This happens usually by telling the other party how attractive, beautiful/smart, generous, kind, caring, s/he is and thus how important s/he is to the concerned lover. An examination

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 283

of the corpus reveals that Arab songwriters and poets have used several images to describe their lovers. For example, a beautiful lady is seen by an Arab poet as one who has “‫؟‬uyuun ?almaha” (the antelopes’ eyes), ∫a‫؟‬ar ?aswad ħariir’ (black silky hair), “‫؟‬uyuun suda was‫؟‬a” (wide black eyes), “xuduud wardiyeh” (rosy cheeks) “wajih mitil ?al?amar” ( a moon-like face), “raqabeh mitl ?almarmar” (a marblelike neck), “ma∫yeh mitil ma∫yet ?alγazal” (a deer-like walk), “xaЅir mitil xaЅir ?alγazal” (a deer-like waist), “kasm mitil ?alxyzaran” (a cane-like figure) etc. Talking of the importance of using such images in poetry, Foley (1997: 365) claims that “These also derive their power as framing devices from their deviation from the uses of ordinary language, directing the audience to attend to the text through the semantic density and suggestiveness of the lexical items used.” (For more information on this issue see also Aitchison, 1994; Vicente, 1996). The following extract, which is taken from a song “lawti‫؟‬rafu!” (If you know!) – sung by Asala Nasri, a female Syrian singer, is a case in point where flattery has been used extensively. Example (1) yazinit ?idunia lina ya?aγla milruuħ wil‫؟‬uyuun 1 Oh! You, the source of great pleasure, are much dearer than soul and eyes bin?ulukum min ?albina lawkuna ward ?intu ?ilγusuun 2 From the heart of heart we say to you If we were flowers the branches would be you walaw kuna leil ?ntu ?ilSabaħ 3 If we were nights you are the mornings walwa kuna teir ?ntu ?il ginaħ 4 And if we were birds you are the wings

Example (1) involves several flattery devices by which the singer attempts to appeal to the beloved’s emotion. It is also clear from the lyrics that the singer attempts to express her feelings by making use of three important elements of life, spring and freedom. These are manifested in the use of such images and metaphors as “night and morning”, “flowers and branches”, and “bird and wing”. So, by using these beautiful images and metaphors, the singer is attempting to make the song have a great deal of positive impact on the listener.

284 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

Blaming (in a friendly manner) Blaming is usually the result of disappointment. Resort to blaming is one important strategy by which people tend to express a protest. Thus, as far as singing is concerned, blaming could be addressed to unfaithful lovers or to those who are waiting for the fall of others (i.e., the envious). So blaming is a main strategy used by Arab singers to convey strong feelings of disappointment and suffering. Some songwriters often attempt to highlight this aspect by showing how one party unfairly treats the other. The following extracts, which are taken from “Latakzibi” (Don’t Lie To Me – a famous Arabic song) sung by three (Egyptian) singers, illustrate some of the ways in which Arab lovers can display their disappointments in the form of singing. More specifically, in the first part of the song, the singer shows how his mistress, who appeared to be fond of somebody else, deceives him. He then begins in the second part by blaming her for what has happened to him by saying: Example (2) 2-1 maza ?aqulu l?admu‫؟‬in safaħatha ?∫waqi ‫؟‬ilayki ?! 1 What should I say to tears that have been shed for you ?! maza ?aqulu l?ađlu‫؟‬in mazaqtuha xawfan ‫؟‬alayki ?! 2 What should I say to ribs that have been torn in fear for you ?! ?a?aqulu xanat ?, ?a?aqulu xanat ? ?a ?aquluha ? 3 Should I say you have broken your vows? Should I say you have betrayed me? Should I say it?

An interesting point about this part is that the singer here attempts to achieve his goal (blaming his beloved) in a polite and indirect way. That is, by blaming her through blaming himself for the tears shed and the ribs torn in fear of her. Thus he holds his mistress responsible for the parting. He begins by raising two closedended questions that can be answered by the singer himself. Then he gives a prompt answer by saying, “No – no I would never say it, never say it”. The singer intends here to tell the hearer that despite what has happened to him, he is still faithful to her. It can also be noted that the songwriter/singer attempts to dramatize the situation by personifying “tears” and “ribs” that are supposed, according to the song, to blame him for being so faithful to an unfaithful person; “what should I say to tears that have been shed for you”. Dramatization is used here for the purpose of creating a kind of dialogue through which the broken-hearted lover can express his concern and distress.

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 285

2-2 lataxjali latafza‫؟‬i falastu bisa?ilik 4 Don’t be embarrassed, don’t feel scared, I’m not gonna punish you lataxjali latafza‫؟‬i falastu biθa?iri 5 Don’t feel embarrassed, don’t feel scared, I’m not angry anymore ?anqaztini min zayfi ?aħlami waγadri maa∫‫؟‬iri 6 ‘cause you liberated me from my fake dreams and self-deceit wara?aytu ?anaki kunti li qaydan 7 ħaristu ?al‫؟‬umra ?alayksira, faksartihi! 8 You have been cuffs and shakling chains I was careful never to break, but you’ve broken them! wara?aytu ?anaki kunti li ðanban sa?altu ?alaHa ?ala yaγfira, faγafartihi! 9 You have been the sin I prayed God would never forgive me, but you’ve forgiven me! kuni kama tabγina lakin lan takuni lan takuni 10 fa?ana sana‫؟‬tuki min hawaya wamin jununi 11 Be as you want to be, but you’ll never be, you’ll never be Because you’re the creation of my imagination and madness walaqad bar?tu min ?al hawa wa min ?al jununi 12 walaqad bar?tu min ?al hawa wan min ?al jununi 13 And I’ve been cured of imagination and madness And I’ve been cured of imagination and madness

In this part of the song, the singer successfully uses a new method to escalate the situation with his lover. He accuses her of doing something bad to him, but he is still thankful to her because she has liberated him from the heavy burden of “the fake dreams and self-deceit”. He also displays his criticism of his lover by describing her as a shackling chain and a sin. Yet she herself is the liberator who came to liberate him from such tyranny. He continues his revolt by blaming her more and more. He asks her to do whatever she likes, but then he rectifies the situation by saying he is sure that she will never be able to do anything without his help. According to him, this is because she is created (as a lover) by his imagination and madness (i.e., he is the one who taught her the art of love and madness [to be mad in love means to be possessed by your lover]), two contradicting qualities. It should be noted here that in Arabic, the use of the expression “junuun” (madness) in this context means that the concerned lover is possessed by his mistress to the extent that she controls his thinking and behavior completely. One last point that needs to be emphasized here is that by using this tactic (blaming a deceitful beloved through blaming the self) the singer is quite able to distance himself from all the unpleasant effects that may result from their parting

286 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

and thereby help please all those lovers (the song’s listeners) who have gone through similar experiences or those who may exploit the song to communicate a particular message of love. Suffering and Complaining By suffering, we mean that feeling of pain caused by love in which the concerned parties are not treated on equal basis. This type of singing is characterized by a manifestation of a prolonged unfulfilled desire or need, and it therefore conveys a sense of disappointment and suffering. In fact, Arab songwriters write this type of song with a range of devices in mind, such as lamenting bad-misfortune, complaining about the surrounding circumstances, describing a bad experience of love, talking of sleepless and endless nights, and so on. The following is the verbal component of a song- “?aruuћ limiin” (To whom may I go?) sung by an famous female Egyptian singer called Om Kolthoum3, who was known in the Arab world as “Kawkab Al-Sharq" (The Orient Star). Her songs can be seen by critics as being very beautiful and very sentimental, as famous romantic poets such as Ahmad Rami, Bayram Al-Tunusi, Prince Abdulla Al-Faisal, Yousef Alseba’i, among others, write them. In addition, very famous musicians composed their music too, such as Riyad Sunbati, Sheikh Zakaria Ahmad, Mohammed Abdul Wahab, Baligh Hamdi, Sayed Mikawi, to name just a few. Om Kolthoum begins the song with the following two lines, which are used as a refrain throughout the song. Example (3) 3-1 ?aruuħ limiin wa?uul yamiin yinsifni minak? 1 To whom may I go? And whom may I ask to do me justice? mahu ?inta farħi wi?inta garħi wikulu mink 2 You are my happiness and you’re my wretchedness and all this is caused by you.

The singer begins her song by asking two close-ended questions that can be answered by no one except herself: “To whom may I go? And whom may I ask to do me justice?” In reality, the singer attempts here to make use of the socio-cultural norms of Arab society in which people usually ask for help by complaining and suf-

3

Om Koltoum, who died in 1975, was one of the few Arab singers who were very selective in choosing the lyrics and music of their songs.

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 287

fering to show their helplessness, particularly when they find themselves in a bad situation. It goes without saying that such a call for help may have a great effect on the listener. Consider also the second stanza below: 3-2 yituul bu‫؟‬dak wa‫؟‬i∫ ba‫؟‬dak ‫؟‬ala ∫o?i wi?a∫gani 3 Because you leave me behind for so long I have nothing to live on except my longing and grief mabein mađi mahuu∫ ?adir yinasini wiyinsani 4 Between a past that I cannot forget wibein ħađir mahuu∫ ?adir yixalini biħirmani 5 And a present that persists wabaat ?an‫؟‬i ?ana wdam‫؟‬i 6 I end my day lamenting in tears waxabi dam‫? ؟‬il‫؟‬ein wadari milaymiin 7 And I try to suppress them layilmaħu ‫؟‬inaya wiyi∫matu fiya 8 So as not to be seen by the blamers who may get rejoiced at my bad misfortune. wilħadi ?imta ?imta ħatib?a ?inta ?inta wi∫amtaniin 9 And for how long, how long, are you and the blamers gonna stay against me?

In this section the singer attempts to reveal more of her suffering. She finds herself in a bad situation, as she seems to have an inner conflict between two equal forces: sweet memories of the past (between a past that I cannot forget), and the hardship of the present (a present which persists…). In fact, this puzzling situation represents the climax of her suffering. Another pattern of suffering also emerges as she says that she is not even given the chance to mitigate her pain by crying, “suppressing tears so as not to be seen by others (the blamers and/or the envious), who might rejoice at her bad-misfortune”. Then, she concludes this section by asking: “For how long are you and the blamers going to stay against me?” In other words, she wants to ask whether she is going to be an everlasting sufferer? The skillful translation of emotions into words by Yousef Alseba’i (the songwriter) and into music by Riyad Al-Sunbati (the music composer), along with the skillful performance of the song by Om Kolthoum have resulted in a masterpiece of art that could win the respect and appreciation of all those who listen to it.

288 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

L OVE

SONGS AS COMMUNICATIVE EVENTS

To communicate is to impart knowledge or exchange thoughts, feelings, or ideas via speech, writing, emotion or any other means such as, for example, singing. To speak is to make verbal utterances or express something in or as if in words (Collins English Dictionary, 1979, reported in Al-Khatib 1997: 156). Based on these two definitions, along with the definitions of a speech event and communicative event suggested by Hymes (1972), Al-Khatib (1997) has concluded that communication is broader than speech, and as such, a communicative event and speech event are not the same. Therefore the notion of a communicative event is broader than the notion of a speech event. So, just like congratulation and thank you announcements in Jordanian newspapers (cf. Al-khatib 1997), love songs can be seen as communicative events as they have the function of telling hearers something about a particular love story. Additionally, they have the specific function of communicating pleasure, suffering, complaint, etc. to a particular person(s), and at the same time, they aim to communicate particular information pertaining to the occasion being referred to. In what follows, we are going to discuss some cases in which love songs can be used to communicate a particular type of message. Communicating a message of love and good wishes by dedicating a song Generally speaking, in Arab society, communication through singing may take place either by exchanging cassettes or dedicating songs on radio and TV song programs. Exchanging cassettes takes place usually between lovers as a means of expressing their feelings toward each other through the lyrics of the songs recorded on the cassettes. Dedicating songs on TV and radio programs, on the other hand, is a widespread practice in the Arab World, where lovers, relatives, friends etc. tend to dedicate songs of different types and for different purposes to each other. Most Arab TV channels devote a sizeable amount of their broadcast times to such programs. A close look at more than fifteen Arab TV satellite channels shows that some of these programs are presented on a daily basis, whereas some others are shown once a week. It seems likely that the time devoted to such programs is highly dependent on the size of audience and the socio-political orientation of each channel. For example, those channels which are politically oriented do not devote any of their time to such programs. It should be noted that some of the dedications are usually written and read by the TV presenter, and some others are phone-ins, i.e., the dedication is made on the phone while talking to the presenter. It should also be mentioned that female presenters present all TV and radio song programs.

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 289

There has always been an interesting relationship between the type of song being requested by the dedicator and the type of message conveyed through it. For example, if somebody wants to dedicate a song to his fiancée, he tends to choose a rather happy song. Happy songs are usually chosen and dedicated on happy occasions such as birthdays, graduation, engagement, getting a new job and so on. Moreover, on such occasions, a dedication would be accompanied by a wealth of good wishes. Observe the following examples from the data: (1) a. X would like to dedicate Kazim Alsahir’s song, (Love me more) to his beloved fiancée Y on the occasion of her birthday. He also wishes her a very happy birthday. b. X would like to dedicate this song to his wife Y, and would like also to congratulate her for getting a new job. He wishes her a lot of luck.

It should be noted that the dedicator’s name, the dedicatee’s name, the occasion, and a number of good wishes are standard features of the dedication formula. However, due to the cultural norms of Arab society, which prohibit a man-woman relationship before marriage, the name of a female lover cannot be mentioned plainly on air. Therefore, in some cases, pseudonyms are used. Engaged couples, however, do have the courage to dedicate love songs to each other and to mention their names along with bold messages of love. Observe the following example taken from the data: (2) a. X would like to dedicate Nagat’s “The flying bird” to his beloved fiancée Y with thousands of warm kisses, wishing her all the best.

But because of the socio-cultural norms of Arab society, such bold messages of love (i.e., sending warm kisses) are usually uni-directional in nature, namely a male dedicates them to a female . Love songs can also be dedicated by family members to other family members, particularly on certain important occasions such as birthdays, marriage, engagement, mothers’ day and so on. Observe the following example from the data:

290 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB (3) a. X would like to dedicate Asala’s song, “I swear by God” to his sister Y on her birthday, wishing her a very happy birthday and many happy returns. He also would like to extend this dedication to his mother, father, and brothers.

In most cases, dedicators tend to express their feelings toward each other through the dedicated songs. In phone-in programs, for example, some of them tend to dedicate the song by reciting, while talking to the presenter on the phone, some beautiful expressions extracted from the song. Consider the following example from the data: (4) a. “I would like to dedicate this song to my wife on her twenty fifth birthday, and also like to say to her: You are my eyes’ love You are my eyes’ sight You are my love’s madness You are my heart’s smile”.

Lastly, in many phone-in programs, the dedicators may also extend their dedications to the presenter herself, and thank her too for her nice program. Observe the following example: (5) a. “I am talking to you from the US, and would like to dedicate Abdul Halim’s song, “Remember me” to my beloved fiancée Y, and would like to extend this dedication to you (the presenter), and also to thank you for your very nice program.”

Using song “dictums” to communicate a message of blaming (in a friendly manner) In his study on language of persuasion in Jordanian society, Al-Khatib (1994) observed that both proverbs and sayings of wisdom had a very great effect in the process of persuasion. Their importance that makes them so effective in persuasion is that they can address both intellect and feeling. Similarly, a large number of Arab people tend to use “dictums” for the same purpose. By “dictums” I mean here those expressions or verses which are extracted from well-known songs. Such verses have gained the position of “dictums” or “sayings” in the colloquial dialects of many Ar-

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 291

ab countries. That is, they are a common feature of social interaction in most forms of spoken dialogues. They are of great importance in accounting for the way people deal with each other, regardless of whether they are lovers or not. In Jordanian society, for instance, a large number of people have the tendency to use such expressions or verses as a communication strategy for supporting their viewpoints. But it should be noted that the importance of using such dictums as supporting strategies depends on how they are relevant to the situation in which they are used. Several purposes are behind the use of these dictums. Some of them, for example, are used for blaming, complaining or reconciliation purposes. That is, if someone would like to settle a dispute with a friend s/he might employ them. Consider the following example which is taken from Fayrouz’s song, “Gold is very expensive”: “ms?altu ‫؟‬alayna ‫؟‬tibna ktiir w‫؟‬a?ad ?ilmaħabeh ?il ‫؟‬atab kbiir“ You didn’t care for us, we blamed you so And blame is as big as love I hope you know

The expression “blame is as big as love” means that people usually blame (in a friendly manner) those whom they love so much. And the more they love a person, the more they blame them (where this is a constructive type of blame). By so doing, it is quite common for close friends or lovers to settle their differences and disputes. Lovers could also use this tactic as an attempt on their part to soften the amount of tension that may arise and to mitigate “face-threatening acts” as well (Brown and Levinson, 1978). In a similar manner, when somebody would like to tell someone else that he/she has already become fed up with what has happened or with the incongruous behavior of the other party, he/she tends to quote, for instance, Om Kolthoum, who says in one of her famous songs, “lisabr ?iħduud, lisabr ?iħduud, yaħabibi” (patience has end […] patience has end […], Oh my love), or matsabarni∫ maxalas an faad biya wmaleit (no more patience, no more patience, I got pretty fed up with that). So among others, these two expressions or dictums represent communicative strategies in the sense that some people use them to express their feelings, attitudes, or orientation toward each other.

D ISCUSSION The foregoing analysis reveals a good deal about love songs in the Arab world in terms of language, structure, strategies used, and function. It helps illustrate how love as a valuable human feeling is viewed in Arab culture. To examine this phenomenon deeply, let’s shed light on the most prominent findings of this study, pay-

292 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

ing special attention to the meanings attached to the songs, and the manner in which these meanings dictate the behavior of Arab people. As said earlier, singing does not occur in a vacuum. The process is believed to represent the attitudes, values, beliefs, traditions and orientations of the speech community in and for which the songs are composed and sung. As seen above, the results of this study have shown that suffering and complaining are two of the main characteristics of most Arabic love songs. Moreover, the results of my investigation show that Arab people in general, and Arab lovers in particular, tend to be emotionally attached to this type of singing more than any other type, and do appreciate changing the songs through dedication in order to express their feelings toward each other. The questions to be addressed now are how can we account for the extensive use of suffering and complaining in Arabic songs of love? And why do Arab people favor this type of singing? Ruben (1984: 302) assumes that “some of the most basic dimensions of culture are language, social customs, family life, clothing, eating habits [...] beliefs and value systems. These elements do not exist in isolation from one another, but instead interact in a number of subtle ways”. In view of this assumption and in a number of other respects, I believe that “deprivation” and “need” are the elements most responsible for favoring this type of singing. But before turning to a discussion of this matter, it would be useful to give a brief overview of the socio-cultural background of Arab society and the status of women in it, which might help us to find answers to the questions being raised. This fact was clearly manifested in Swacker’s (1975: 29) words when he/she said “in order to study contemporary events, it is necessary to pause and consider what the early feminists were up against”. In most Arab societies, segregation of the sexes at public gatherings, wedding ceremonies, mosque prayers, funerals etc. was, and in a sense, still is the norm. Kaplan (1980: 82) also noted that “sexual segregation is one of the most important determinants of social status in Jordanian and other Arab societies. Although the systematic seclusion of woman is not generally practiced, men and women constitute largely separate sub-societies each with its values, attitudes, and perceptions of the other”. Until relatively recently, the choosing of one’s spouse was completely out of the woman's control. The families of both parties arrange everything for the couple. The girl’s family often used to determine or recommend the marriage partner as well as the conditions of the dowry. Virginity was and still is one of the most precious belongings a girl can have. The loss of virginity before marriage means that the woman would be subject to severe punishment, since sexual behavior is to be limited to a marital relationship (cf. Al-Khatib 1988). Ruben (1984: 306) also reported that in Arab culture, the Islamic religion and tradition prescribe a very different role for women and men. He noticed that it is quite normal, for example, for

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 293

a Saudi male to invite a married man to dinner at his home with the expectation that the guest will not bring his wife. Even in those situations in which the couple is invited, the wife may be met at the door by the women of the house and entertained in a separate area of the home, leaving the men to dine alone. Based on my personal observations, this is also true of many other Arab societies. Although this is not the norm, the case varies even from city to city and from region to region in the same country, let alone throughout the Arab World. Even though the attitudes of Arab people towards love itself – as a relationship between a man and a woman – varies from country to country and from one community to the next within the same country, it is neither acceptable nor appreciated for a girl to have a date with a stranger. Dating is prohibited before the engagement is announced or even before the date of the wedding is set. Love before marriage is not socially acceptable, and even for those people who accept it before marriage, the relationship should not be announced to the public. That is to say, only intimate friends of the concerned couple may know about it. It should also be mentioned that until relatively recently, in some cases, lovers in some Arab communities had no chance to meet or to communicate with each other, except for sending and receiving written messages. The messenger is usually a female relative (sister or cousin) of the boyfriend. However, this practice has been diminishing day by day with the appearance of modern and new means of communication like, for example, mobile telephones and electronic mail. Although love is the by-product of a male-female relationship, Arab society still lays most of the blame on women for violating the cultural norms of their society. Such behavior was, and is still looked at in some Arab societies as one which may ruin the honor of the clan and the family. In short, with such great limitations and restrictions imposed upon women, and to a lesser extent upon men, love before marriage seems to be an illegal affair. Having said that, the picture now becomes clear about why love in the Arab world may result in a great deal of deprivation and disappointment. Facts like these, which can be replicated in different Arab societies, are a manifestation of the effect of the socio-cultural norms on the individual and provide answers to questions (1 and 2) above. Personal introspection, based on a lifelong experience with Arabic songs of love, combined with a careful examination of the songs suggest, however, some answers to the second question. That is, Arab people appear to favor this type of singing for a variety of reasons. Among these is the following comment made by a forty-year-old male subject who reported, “I like this type of singing because it addresses my feelings directly. It reflects the type of experience which I personally and many others of my generation have gone through.” To compensate for what has been lost, an Arab lover may find a kind of comfort in listening to this type of song. Comfort, for example, can be sought in interpreting the “you” uttered by the singer in the course of singing, as it can refer to an individual addressee determined by the

294 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

listener himself (where the listener identifies himself with the “I” of the lyric) (cf. Leith and Myerson 1989: 46). This behavior is evidenced by such listeners’ confession that they do so when their attention is drawn to such behavior. Thus comfort and relief could have been achieved by so doing or referring to another type of psychological element, which is beyond the scope of this study. To conclude, it can be said that love songs appear to draw on a very wide range of strategies, which seem to vary from one particular culture to another. To the extent that these songs afford an individual or a society a great deal of pleasure and delightfulness, an understanding of the strategies used in writing or singing them may well have important implications for human behavior and how people communicate with each other.

R EFERENCES Aitchison, Jean (1994) Words in the Mind. Oxford: Blackwell. Al-Khatib, Mahmoud A. (1988) Sociolinguistic change in an expanding context: A case study of Irbid City-Jordan. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Durham. Al-Khatib, Mahmoud A.(1994) “A sociolinguistic View of the Language of Persuasion in Jordanian Arabic.” In Language, Culture and Curriculum, 7: 2, 161-174. Al-Khatib, Mahmoud A.(1997) “Congratulation and Thank You Announcements in Jordanian Newspapers: Cultural and Communicative Functions”, In Language, Culture, and Curriculum 10(2), 156-170. Anyidoho, Akosua (1995) “Stylistic features of nnwonkoro, an Akan female song tradition.” In Text, 15 (2), 317-336. Bauman, Richard (1986) Story, Performance, and Event: Contextual Studies of oral Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bloch, Charlotte(1996) “Emotions and discourse.” Text 16 (3), 323-341. Blom, Jan Petter and Gumperz, John J. (1972) “Social meanings in linguistic structures: Code-switching in Norway.” In Directions in Sociolinguistics, J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (eds), 407-34. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Steven (1978) Universal in Language usage: politeness phenomena. In Questions and politeness E. N. Goody (ed), 56-289. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Steven (1987) politeness: some universals in language usage. Cambridge : Cambridge University press. Caffi, Claudia, and Janney, Richard W. (1994) “Toward a pragmatics of emotive communication.” Journal of Pragmatics, 22, 325-373. Clyne, Michael (1981) “Culture and discourse structure.” Journal of pragmatics, 5: 61-66.

C OMMUNICATING

A

M ESSAGE OF L OVE THROUGH S INGING

| 295

Farghal, Mohammed and Al-Khatib, Mahmoud, (2001) “Jordanian College Studentsʼ Responses to Compliments: A Pilot Study.” Journal of Pragmatics. Volume 33, Issue 9, September 2001, 1485-1502 Foley, William (1997) Anthropological Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Georgakopoulou, Alexandra (1994) “Modern Greek oral narratives in context: Cultural constraints and evaluative ways of telling.” Text, 14 (3), 371-399. Heath, Shirley B. (1983) “Processes of dispute management among urban black children.” In Ways with words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms. S. B. Heath (ed) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hill, Jane H. and Irvine, Judith T. (1993) Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hodge, Robert (1985) Song. In Discourse and Literature. T. van Dijk (ed), 121– 135. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Holmes, Janet (1990) “Apologies in New Zealand English” In Language in Society, 19, 155-199. Holmes, Janet (1986) “Compliments and compliment responses in New Zealand English” In Anthropological Linguistics, 28 (4): 47-62. Hymes, Dell (1962) “The Ethnography of speaking.” In Anthropology and Human Behavior, T. Gladwin & W. C. Sturtevant (eds), 13-53. Washington, DC: Culture and Society. New York: Harper & Row. Hymes, Dell (1972) “Models of the Interaction of language and social life.” In Directions in Sociolinguistics: Ethnography of Communication, J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (eds), 35-71. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Hymes, Dell (1974) Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnography Approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kaplan, Irving (1980) “The Society and its environment.” In Jordan: a country study. I. Nyrop et al (eds) Washington D.C.: The American University. Jakobson, Roman (1960) “Concluding statement: Linguistics and poetics.” In Style in Language. T.A. Sebeok (ed), Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Leith, Dick and Myerson, George, (1989) The Power of Address. London: Routledge. Olshtain, Elite and Cohen, Andrew, (1983) “Apology: A speech act set.” In Sociolinguistics and language acquisition, N. Wolfson & E. Judd (eds), 18-35. Rowley, MA: Newburry. Omoniyi, Tope (1995) Song-lashing as a communicative strategy in Yoruba interpersonal conflicts. Text, 15 (2), 299-315. Ruben, Brent D. (1984) Communication and human behavior. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Trudgill, Peter (1974) The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

296 | M AHMOUD A. AL-KHATIB

Saville-Troike, Muriel (1997/1983) The Ethnography Analysis of Communicative events. In Sociolinguistics. N. Coupland & A. Jawarski (eds), London: Macmillan Press Ltd. Saville-Troike, Muriel (1989) The Ethnography of Communication. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd. Scheff, Thomas J. (1990) Microsociology. London: University of Chicago Press. Selting, Margaret (1994) “Emphatic speech style-with special focus on the prosodic signaling of heightened emotive involvement in conversation.” In Journal of Pragmatics, 22, 325-373. Stahl, Sandra K. (1989) Literary Folklorists and the Personal Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Stross, Brian (1975) “Linguistic creativity in songs.” In Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use, M. Sanches and B.G. Blount (eds.), 319-348. New York: Academic Press. Swacker Marjorie (1975) The sex of speaker as a sociolinguistic variable. In: B. Thorne & N. Henley (Eds.) Language and sex: difference and dominance. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House. Vicente, Begona (1996) “On the semantics and pragmatics of metaphor: coming full circle.” In Language and Literature 5 (3), 195-208. Wolfson, Nessa (1983) “Rules of speaking.” In Language and Communication. J.C. Richards & R. W. Schmidt (eds) New York: Longman.

Imaginary and Fictional Intimacies

The Medial Persona Tectonics of the Medial Imaginarium1 H OLGER S CHULZE

From a distance, we see a person we do not know – perhaps in a professional context, at a business lunch, an official reception or a conference. Perhaps this encounter reminds us of a photograph, a name, a text, a previous public appearance. If nothing comes to mind, then we might instead recall similar meetings – in which we encountered people of a comparable physiognomy and temperament, with the personal style, attitudes and disposition that we seem to recall in this situation. However, we do not know this person; and yet we have an immediate impression of him or her, a distinct idea of the person in front of us. We can talk about this person, even though she or he remains unknown to us. We just listen to the ubiquitious commentary that precedes or follows anyone’s public appearance.

1

Translation by Laura Schleussner. This essay is the first in a series of three essays (The Medial Persona – The Artifact as Drug – Sensibility's Exactitude) which provide an insight into the author's current research project Intimacy and Mediality – An Anthropology of Artifacts: the third and final volume of a comprehensive generative theory of artifacts, a “Theorie der Werkgenese”: The Aleatoric Game – Heuristics – Intimacy and Mediality. The approach of this theory as a whole is thoroughly phenomenological and incorporates phenomenological narratives of experiential situations as well as general theoretical reflections and analysis. It follows therefore the author’s methodological approach of a “Theorie Erzählung” (“Theory Narration”) An outline of the “Theorie der Werkgenese” (in German); a brief overview of aleatoric games and heuristic strategies in the course of the generation of any artifact has been published in: Schulze 2003: 61-65.

300 | HOLGER SCHULZE

M EDIAL S PACES An initial first encounter with someone usually begins at a distance – and personal, private or even intimate situations follow. We experience others and they also experience us in the reserved and officially polite manner in which we portray ourselves in a professional and social context. Moments in which we perceive one another as unfamiliar actors on the medial stage. This stage is not necessarily set up for audio-visual recording or wired for transmission, but it is definitely linked to the attention attracted by each new person who enters – as either a virtual or actual presence – and to the mental projections of those present in the room. In such a moment, the instant of a medial appearance, the interests and expectations of those present are intensely concentrated within a narrow frame of space and time. This generates an extreme amount of tension, which is often almost unbearable for the protagonist and the public alike. Sites of mediated transmission do no exist in isolation. They are preceded and followed by other medial spaces. The appearance of a medial persona is previewed by earlier appearances in other medial spaces – through announcements or interviews, short biographies or publications, casual references and official introductions. The wave-like dissemination of preview announcements and critical echoes permeate these medial spaces in the form of rumors and circulating reports, jaded judgements, malicious gossip or enthused opinions. A myriad of fragmentary stories envelop each individual and form the collective narration that surrounds each one of us like an aura. An individual's social existence is always cloaked in a shifting swarm of narrative particles: The buzz. These particles concentrate at the moment of a medial appearance: conversation stirs and comments about the main actor consolidate into an overriding semantic content and form a judgement that becomes majority opinion. A collective narrative is created around the person. Loose fragments are pieced together to make up a rough figurative sketch of the individual. Medial space is a pervasive dispositive. In such a situation, the main protagonist is at center stage – absorbing the concentrated attention of other participating individuals. The procedural and interactive, fluid nature of human behavior is almost obscured by the exemplary aspects of the protagonist’s function as a comprehensive medium – an artifact on view. Insecure and searching, people become medial personae through a process of auto-artificialization.

T HE M EDIAL P ERSONA

T ECTONICS

| 301

OF THE I MAGINARIUM

The interlocking realms of different medial spaces form an imaginarium. Created by the attention and expectations of its surroundings, an imaginarium focuses on the coherence of a persona and its actions; it rewards distinctiveness and clarity and penalizes imprecision and blurred definitions. A tension is created surrounding the display and representation associated with a medial appearance, the social psychology of the Tectonics of Public Attention.2 This tension takes different forms depending on the situation and associated processes. As an expression of the medial dispositive, it exerts intense pressure on each and every protagonist. A regulatory and disciplinary element, which tightens in certain situations and relaxes in others. The tectonics of a medial space is the formula for the specific social-spatial tensions effecting the actions of each individual within a socially cohesive framework. Behaviors and attitudes, movements and executions are determined by collective reactions, which we experience with the same powerful intensity, whether we are the protagonist or a member of the public. We do not decide whether to approve or resist. In all medial situations – major, minor, wired, intimate – we are subject to a collective non-verbal tension, to which we ourselves contribute significantly. This highly-charged realm of expectations generates a consistent medial narrative through the collective discussion, interpretation and judgement of the actions of a specific persona. Here, non-verbal tectonics are articulated – to the extent that they can be formulated. Actions that elude interpretation or that resist the repertoire of given narratives are overlooked as unhealthy, irrelevant or neurotic. The necessary medial conditions that make an appearance interpretable limit the possibilities for efficacious action. A high degree of directness, clarity and distinctiveness is necessary to have an effect in medial spaces – except in the most rare situations, in which the tensions surrounding a public presentation are relaxed and replaced by an intimate ease. Statements that cannot be successfully incorporated into the tectonics of collective perception are drowned out by agitated, whirring sub-medial background noise – the theatrical stir associated with the group psychology of a mass audience. Narrations thus emerge that demand uncompromisingly interpretable protagonists. At the same time, they search for the twists and turns in the story that are surprising, hard to comprehend and therefore worth telling.

2

The term tectonics could be central to any historical anthropology of artifacts. It refers not to the material layers of tensions, but to the immaterial, the sociopsychological and the interpersonal tensions that generate any medial space: a tension created out of public performance and audience reactions. Those immaterial relations are the forces that generate a room in the realm of the medial.

302 | HOLGER SCHULZE

T HE I MAGINARIUM

OF

S CIENCES

How then is it possible to take advantage of this collective attention and cultivate a medial persona, which is not merely a servo mechanism of the medial dispositive, but also a lively expression of personal vitality? How can medial representation succeed in portraying individual needs? In order to answer these questions, I would like to examine two example narratives from the academic world. The first narration tells the story of the discovery of the DNA double helix in the year 1953. The accounts currently conveyed in journals, newspaper articles and books commemorating the fiftieth anniversary depict the protagonists as lucky dilettantes. As the story goes, James Watson and Francis Crick were not well versed in physics or chemistry at the time; they were somewhat insouciant and irresponsible and were more interested in beer and women than in correctly applying their knowledge in the field. Their department head, Sir Lawrence Bragg, is quoted as a source of authority along with Erwin Chargaff. James Watson is described as an incurably gawky Wunderkind, who “somehow recalls one of the cobbler's apprentices in Nestroy's Lumpazivagabundus”. Francis Crick is depicted as a rare character with a “droning laugh” and a “high, agitated voice, a tireless piccolo flute.” Cf. Bartens (2003). Bragg comments in 1951 that “Francis has talked non-stop for 35 years now, and so far nothing of particular value has come of it.” (Bartens 2003) The scene is set. The rhetorical effect in narrating the lucky discovery could hardly be greater. It would be jumping to conclusions to ascribe this highly effective stylization to all journalistic accounts or to Watson and Crick themselves. The dramatically intensified antagonism between professionally established authorities and criminally underestimated doctoral candidates is in fact, as experience tells us, rooted in the institutionally prescribed medial situation. The kind of medial pressure that generates a high-profile persona is not initially created by press conferences or interviews, but by daily experience in a research institute, particularly one consisting of such reputed and ambitious individuals. The environment promotes the accentuation of distinguishing characteristics. The fallibility and chaos associated with the actions of Watson and Crick are proof of their human qualities – in contrast to the conscientious approach of their colleagues. Although these deficiencies might hurt Watson and Crick in a professional context, socially they provide them with a wealth of possibilities in terms of their own self-portrayal – which are not to be underestimated. Talking about their faults and quirks appears interesting. * The medial persona of the second narrative goes by the name of “Slavoj Zizek”. The performative turbulence associated with his appearances is described in polemic, but vivid tones in the German monthly, Merkur.

T HE M EDIAL P ERSONA

| 303

“One has to experience the manic flood of words in his lectures, which he spews forth accompanied by expressive gestures, always a bit frightening and charming at the same time. His eloquent English is seasoned with a hard Central European accentuation. The aura of a wild man from the Balkans is important, if not decisive for the reception of his work in Western Europe and America. His pale complexion with tousled hair, dark rings under his eyes and civil-activist beard give him the commanding appearance of a philosophical speaker in tongues, who seems to have sprung directly from the European unconscious.” (Lau 2003)3

Here the author gets very personal – but not personal enough. He ignores the very details that differentiate Zizek’s persona from the typical line-up at academic symposia. The author does not mention the nervous gestures, obsessively repeated actions or the argumentative, social awkwardness of his extreme politeness and deference, which Zizek repeatedly refers to in his aside remarks. The author circumvents these actions, since they have been rejected by the tectonics of the medial space of academic practice. The attractive magnetism of selfassurance and self-control typically honored by the collective is missing in Zizek; in contrast, his persona permits his uncertainty and nervousness, his momentary desires and perceptions in the given situation to come to the surface in the form of compulsive actions. A personal realm predominates which is generally perceived as inappropriate, embarrassing and unacceptable; in other words, behavior adverse to medial representation.

M EDIAL P ERSONA

AND I NTIMATE

B EHAVIOR

The Medial Persona is the first aspect of another human being that we perceive – whether she or he is an academic celebrity or a new colleague working in the cubicle next to us. However, it is the expression of intimate behavior that gives the individuals in the two narratives just illustrated medial distinction. A person with institutional and medial competence is fractured and perforated by such actions: He or she no longer forms a consistent narrative. Desires, perceptions, obsessions and

3

Cf. Lau, The German original: “Man muss den manischen Redeschwall seiner Vorträge erleben, die er unter expressiven Gesten hervorstößt, immer ein bißchen beängstigend und charmant zugleich, sein eloquentes Englisch gewürzt durch eine mitteleuropäisch harte Akzentuierung. Die Aura des wilden Mannes vom Balkan ist wichtig, wenn nicht entscheidend für die Aufnahme seines Werkes in Westeuropa und Amerika. Blass, mit struppigem Haar, dunklen Augenringen und Bürgerrechtler-Vollbart gibt er sehr eindrucksvoll den philosophischen Zungenredner, der direkt aus dem Unbewußten Europas entsprungen zu sein scheint.”

304 | HOLGER SCHULZE

neurosis, which are difficult to grasp, come into play and cannot be objectively perceived; they can only be interpreted ad personam. This momentary dissolution of a stable and mature persona into the discrepant and unrestrained behaviors associated with intimate interaction is what makes it possible to get to know this person. Actions based on intimate desires instead of performative effect evade representation and form hetertopias in the ongoing stream of ordinary events. However, this is what makes them an appealing interface for intimate narrations and investigation. These intimate ruptures must, however, take place in conjunction with a great level of confidence in dealing with medial situations. Only then does the protagonist improve her or his medial impact. If such confidence is lacking, then the person’s entire continuum of actions seems strange and incomprehensible. Thus, a persona that turns out to be unstable and incapable of being appropriately instumentalized cannot be cultivated, confidence is required so that fragmentations and fissure can function as a relief or a pleasant break. Whoever narrates a story about such a persona believes that their descriptions refer to the protagonist of the medial imaginarium. However, they are making statements about people none of them know. They make use of printed statements, edited recordings, staged photographs, planned appearances and artificial sources, which are used as indications and testimonies of an existence they do not understand. All these sources merely generate a series of representations projected into the continuum of the medial. If protagonists of the medial continuum wish to influence what is said about them – at least in terms of the basic source material – their only option is to provide narrative opportunities, to calmly allow their own behaviors to be stirred by intimate ruptures, to streamline themselves into a medial persona while still bearing the fissures of non-medial interaction. The post-appearance commentary of the medial collective, its skepticism about whether an intimate rupture might have been too cleverly calculated, can thus result in a tectonic shift working against the individual: – but all this remains beyond the control of a medial persona.

T HE M EDIAL P ERSONA

| 305

R EFERENCES Bartens, Werner (2003) “Clowns im Labor.” In Die Zeit 58, No.9, 33. Debray, Régis (1997) Transmettre. Paris: Odile Jacob. Gendlin, Eugene T. (1997) “How Philosophy Cannot Appeal to Experience, and How It Can”. In Language beyond Postmodernism, David Michael Levin (ed), 3-41. Illinois: Evanston. Gendlin, Eugene T. (1992) “The Wider Role of Bodily Sense in Thought and Language” In Giving the Body its Due, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (ed), 192-207. Albany: SUNY Press. Latour, Bruno (1999) Politiques de la nature. Comment faire entrer les sciences en démocratie. Paris: La Découverte. Latour, Bruno (1991) Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Essai d'anthropologie symétrique. Paris: La Découverte 1991 Jörg Lau(2003) “Auf der Suche nach dem guten Terror.” In Merkur 57, 2, 158-163. Seitter, Walter (2002) Physik der Medien. Materialien, Apparate, Präsentierungen. Weimar: Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften. Seitter, Walter (1997) Physik des Daseins. Bausteine zu einer Philosophie der Erscheinungen. Wien: Sonderzahl Verlagsgesellschaft. Schulze, Holger (2005) Heuristik. Theorie der intentionalen Werkgenese. Sechs Theorie-Erzählungen zwischen Popkultur, Privatwirtschaft und dem, was einmal Kunst genannt wurde. Bielefeld: Transcript Schulze, Holger (2003) “Hand-Luggage. for a generative theory of artifacts”. In Leonardo Music Journal 13: 61-65. (German original: 2001 “Leichtes Handgepäck. Für eine Theorie der Werkgenese,” Positionen - Beiträge zur Neuen Musik 49: S. 4-9). Schulze, Holger (2000) Das aleatorische Spiel. Erkundung und Anwendung der nichtintentionalen Werkgenese im 20. Jahrhundert – Theorie der Werkgenese, Bd. 1. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Sloterdijk, Peter (1998-2003) Sphären I-III. Blasen – Globen – Schäume. Mikro-, Makro- und Plurale Sphärologie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.

Window-Dressing Fetishistic Transactions in Fictional Prose by Oskar Panizza and Thomas Mann1 C LAUDIA L IEB

1

L OVELORN L OVERS

Throughout the history of literary fiction, discourses of love have been all the rage. As Julia Kristeva puts it, each and every story is about love, for the great artistic oeuvres talk about nothing else (1989: 2). But they rarely talk about happiness in love, and pleasurable, lasting and requited love. My reading follows Niklas Luhmann (1999: 10), who says love is both an “anomaly” and an “absolutely normal improbability”. If, by and large, love goes beyond the bounds of sanity, literary amour passion does so intensively. More often than not, in literary fiction, the surge of passionate love does not result in fulfilled lovers, but in the failure of love and individual breakdown, for which young Werther serves as the classic example. As in Werther’s case, literature repeatedly gives force to a specific idea of love. Even if it ends in a grave, true love means loving one, and only one person for life. Examples range from Greek and Roman myth to the minnesingers, from Hero and Leander to Romeo and Juliet. The narratives of great difficulties to be overcome suggest that love’s energies are triggered by craving, and not by possession. Distance rather than closeness, trouble rather than ease, imagination rather than fact are necessary to make this model of exclusive love work. One strategy is to wrap the beloved in a tight garment of virtual images. Goethe’s Werther, for instance, produces paintings and a silhouette of his beloved but untouchable “Lotte”. To maintain the barrier that passionate love requires, one must be willing to love a substitute, a substitute of the body that reveals its true character as being ul1

We thank the editors of “Philologie im Netz” to reprint in this volume the paper that was published as “Window-shopping. Fetishistic Transactions in Fictional Prose of the “Münchner Moderne”.” (Philologie im Netz 52, 2010, 35-49).

308 | CLAUDIA LIEB

timately textual. Werther’s artistic practice surpasses the reality of love and turns his beloved into graphic signs: “Ich lese in ihren schwarzen Augen wahre Teilnehmung an mir”, he writes and concludes that Lotte reciprocates (Goethe 1994: 77). He reads her eyes like a book, and so her body evaporates to become a text. But what appears to be a clear message to its reader is, in fact, ambiguous and open to abuse. Werther’s love is only possible as a literary or artistic act; beyond this it eludes realisation. In his letters, he can communicate the incommunicable: love. In his fantasies, he can breathe life into its images and signs. Amongst others, the novel shows what it means to feel the thrill of love in the world of art: the body vanishes and is replaced by a work of art, or a text (cf. Kremer 2000).

2

W INDOW - SHOPPING

In the deluge of literary love stories since Goethe, women are often connected with pictographic material, and various optical instruments come into play. The German Romantic period imposes many types of glass barriers between the hero and his beloved, such as telescopes, looking-glasses, or windows. Typically, it is the man who looks, and the woman: she is subject to his gaze. The male gaze through a window turns the woman into a mental picture enclosed by a frame. Modern literary fiction is littered with windows because they emphasise the importance of the eye. As far as literary, cultural and media history is concerned, sight dominates the other four senses when related to love and desire (e.g. Elias 1995: 281). In narrative fiction, both visual perception and the act of imagination are foregrounded when someone looks into a stranger’s window and sees an erotic female body. Peering through the filter of thick glass and maybe a curtain, lovesick heroes can expect anything but a clear view. They are restricted, if not blocked by a frame and adjoining solid walls. As it is incomplete and therefore unsatisfactory, the partial view of a woman is bound to fuel fantasies in her male observer. Thus, windows provide a perfect stage for the drama of passionate love. A tantalisingly incomplete view behind glass also explains why shop windows attract the gaze of passers-by. The shop window as we know it appeared at the dawn of the modern age in the early nineteenth century. The history of shop windows is linked with the technical innovation of large glass plates. As early as in 1701, it was possible to produce sheets of glass almost two metres square in size, but this was a costly affair. It took a century to make window glass cheaper and, just as important, truly transparent, which was crucial to the development of shop windows. Initially, they served the function of ordinary windows as sources of light for shops. As a side-effect, glancing into a shop’s interior happened to stimulate shoppers. This is why goods were soon placed before windows that grew ever larg-

W INDOW -DRESSING

| 309

er. What followed were arcades and spacious department stores: London’s Burlington Arcade was launched in 1819, Paris’s Galerie d’Orleans in 1829, several Berlin department stores started business between 1837 and 1840, Galerie Saint-Hubert hit Brussels in 1846/47, etc. (cf. Weibel 1980: 11-12). Meanwhile, the skill of arranging goods in shop windows grew increasingly important. From 1900 on, windowdressing was a profession that required training, and in 1925, a magazine about window-dressing was initiated (Osterwold 1974: 273). For passers-by, shop windows, like windows, became an effective medium for entertaining fantasies, because they show an intriguing glimpse of what can be found inside the store. In his Passagen-Werk, begun in 1927, Walter Benjamin stresses the significance of department stores, “a recent invention of industrial luxury” (2003: 31), for the history of the modern age. As the most important architectural form of the nineteenth century, glamorous Parisian shopping arcades – les passages – are at the core of his research into that century’s preoccupations, “glass-roofed, marble-panelled corridors extending through whole blocks of buildings [...] Lining both sides of these corridors, which get their light from above, are the most elegant shops, so that the arcade is a city, a world in miniature” (Benjamin 2003: 31). In this context, the shop window’s function is analogous to the function of the nineteenth-century interior: “a stimulus to intoxication and dream” (Benjamin 2003: 216). Benjamin defines interior not as the inside of a private habitation, but as a public and urban space related to the flaneur. Embracing the city, the flaneur gazes at shop windows that enticingly offer their wares. A world in its own right seems to rise from the window’s surface, exposing its goods to the eye, but effectively keeping them untouchable. While cliché has it that window-shopping is a female activity, Benjamin views it as originally a nineteenth-century male obsession. His theory is rooted in historical fact. The seductions of the city and its shopping arcades emerged at a time when the street was a world forbidden to middle-class women. Their space was the house, an area of intimacy and security in contrast to the unprotected space of the city. If women appeared in the streets, they provoked an ambivalent reaction, since this was the domain of workers and prostitutes and no place for a respectable woman (cf. Sykora 1999: 130). Moving about town without a man to escort them, women were perceived as sexual targets. Terms such as street-girl, street-walker, or woman of the town stem from a male-oriented city. Women who left the splendid isolation of the home would be seen as cheap and easy to obtain. Shop windows were decorated with female display-dummies from an early stage, and hence, as Peter Weibel (1980: 7) observes, shop windows, like peepshows, were designed to satisfy male voyeuristic pleasures. In the public space of street life, the erotic promises of a woman shifted from the real body to its artificial double.

310 | CLAUDIA LIEB

Peep show and invitation to voyeurism aside, when shop windows are part of an artwork, they are connected with the self-referential character of art. According to Katharina Sykora (1999), shop windows are close relatives of photographs. In her analysis of modern photography, the shop window is the paradigm of modern cosmopolitan cities. The window motif, like a photographic image, serves the function of a self-referential “membrane”, she says, for it works in a similar way. The optical lens becomes a substitute for the window glass, both are transparent invisible glass walls. Sykora points out that the two media share the quality of transparency as well as solidity. So, in art’s game of simulation, a photograph suggests direct access to the woman it portrays but blocks this access via its form, just as the shop window does (Sykora 1999: 138). My suggestion is that this thesis can be transferred to the shop windows of literature. In literary texts, we can see that the window motif can also work as a selfreferential membrane – and actually the Middle High German word membrâne denotes a parchment.

3

O SKAR P ANIZZA: D ER K ORSETTEN -F RITZ (1893)

Panizza’s novella Der Korsetten-Fritz is structured as a fictional autobiography. Now in a psychiatric clinic, the narrator, “Fritz”, writes his memoirs. As a schoolboy, we learn that he lived with his uncle’s family in Munich where he was subject to a strict patriarchal order. His aunt, however, allowed him to make secret trips into the buzzing city, a world apart from his prudish Protestant home. Yet, the freedom he enjoyed rambling about town, did not last long. It “suddenly” ended when he discovered the shop window of a lingerie store with a fine collection of women’s corsets on show: He was on his way home when “ich plötzlich [...] vor einem großen Glasfenster, wie vom Blitz getroffen, stehen blieb, und fassungs- und willenlos, wie ein angeschossenes Tier, dort hineinstarrte” (Panizza 1997: 116). “Robbed of both will and control”, the fifteen-year-old was “thunderstruck” by the display’s attraction, literally captured like an “animal wounded by a shot”. He stared at the splendid corsets, at their opulent cups and “precious middle parts”. It is an exotic sexual initiation: instead of being initiated into an accepted social form of erotic satisfaction, he becomes a fetishist. Panizza, who gave up his early career as a psychiatrist to be a writer, added some pre-Freudian theories of fetishism to his text. For early nineteenth-century philosophers such as Auguste Compte, and late nineteenth-century psychologists such as Alfred Binet – who was the first to use the term to denote sexual fetishes (Binet 1887: 142-167) – the origin of fetishism is a singular personal event that structures desire. This notion of a traumatic fixation on a unique, powerful experi-

W INDOW -DRESSING

| 311

ence as the source of compulsory repetition is, of course, elementary to the psychoanalytic concept of fetishism (cf. Pietz 1985: 9). So, too, is the notion of the fetish object’s basic materiality. “Marxism’s commodity fetish, psychoanalysis’s sexual fetish, and modernism’s fetish as art object all in an essential way involve the object’s untranscended materiality.” (Pietz 1985: 7) This mania for a material thing, and the compulsion to look at it and visualise it again and again, mark the protagonist’s fast-emerging erotic practice in Der Korsetten-Fritz once he has had his original experience in front of the shop window. This rite of passage accommodates some irony by crossing boyish naïveté with imaginary necrophilia. As young Fritz has no idea that what is behind the glass is women’s underwear, he believes he is attracted to preserved human skin. The ordering power of the fetish is derived from his favourite object: an orange-coloured “body” with “black piping”, made for a tiny waist and a “bold giant breast”: “Besonders ein orangegelber Leib nahm meine ganzen Sinne gefangen, er war schwarz gerändert, die Hüftschwingungen zart [...], die Brust war kühn und gewaltig” (Panizza 1997: 117). Thinly disguised, literature’s model of exclusive love is at work here: true obsession means being obsessed with one, and only one fetish, for life. What is more, Panizza cites a literary discourse of his time that deals with the connection between desire and clothing. As early as in 1869, two decades before Binet gave the word significance in the new social science of psychology, it was Leopold von SacherMasoch who published a novel about fetish called Venus im Pelz. His Venus in furs had far-reaching consequences. It turned out to be a source for Kafka”s Verwandlung (cf. Kremer 1998), and it inspired Richard von Krafft-Ebing, a Viennese psychiatrist, to appropriate the clinical term of masochism. Concerning the story-line of Venus im Pelz, the title rather speaks for itself, for the hero”s erotic fantasies are triggered by women wrapped up in fur (Sacher-Masoch 1997). Panizza”s Korsetten-Fritz also gets straight to the point, fusing a persona and a common sex toy in its title. Fetishism as a whole, however, is not only about objects; “desires and beliefs and narrative structures establishing a practice are also fixed (or fixated) by the fetish, whose power is precisely the power to repeat its originating act of forging an identity of articulated relations between certain otherwise heterogeneous things.“ (Pietz 1985: 7-8) This definition can be applied to the corsets in Panizza’s novella. At the beginning, they epitomise the economic seductions of the city and establish a discourse of desire. This discourse is linked with a discourse of spectatorship and then topped with adolescent imagination gone utterly astray. It is true that Fritz, peering into the window of the lingerie shop, comes to realise that the displays he sees must be dead. But this does not stop him from thinking that the objects of his desire are still living and breathing in nature. So he fantasises that there is “eine farbige, glitzernde

312 | CLAUDIA LIEB

Menschenrasse”, a “multi-coloured, radiant race of human beings” hidden from the civilised world, and he longs to find its enclave (Panizza 1997: 117). When he starts to examine the shop window more carefully, he notices that the corsets are filled with some strange white “content”. This “Inhalt” is enough evidence for him to prove that he is seeing the mortal remains of human beings. If they are to be put up for sale, human beings, of course, must be cleansed of “blood” and “entrails”: “Oh, ich lasse mich nicht so leicht täuschen! – Es sind also veritable Menschenhülsen – gewiß! Man kann doch das Blut und die Eingeweide nicht darinlassen!” (Panizza 1997: 118). With this deception disguised as a truth, the hero’s erotic pleasures drift away into a fantasy that transforms feminine undergarments into a real woman’s body. As the woman’s body is replaced by its clothes (and vice versa), male desire is not directed to the body but to its fancy exterior covering. Although Fritz recognises that the cover is a cover (“Menschenhülsen”), he misinterprets it as a reference to a living body. He is fooled by something that, according to Michel Foucault, is fundamental to every erotic arrangement: masquerade. In his essay Un si cruel savoir, Foucault says that masquerade, like a veil, has the power to both hide and show; like a mirror, masquerade reflects the truth as if it were an illusion and withholds it from the viewers while offering it to them; masquerade is also a filter, he says, because it conveys impressions that are both natural and illusionary (Foucault 1988: 68). In Der Korsetten-Fritz, there is yet another filter which obscures the hero’s view, and this is why the orange seducer remains behind glass even in his fantasies. The shop window keeps the object of desire at a distance and makes sure it stays out of reach. All the “precious” things on display are pushed even further away for poor Fritz, for he believes they are prohibitively expensive. “Only a king” could possibly afford goods made of human beings, he thinks: “Aber wer kann so kostbare Menschen kaufen? Wohl nur ein König!” (Panizza 1997: 118). He prices each corset at several thousand “Gulden”, and he concludes that he will never obtain them. It is precisely this distance, established by the window, which permits sexual fantasies that actual possession would make impossible. Desire’s energies are generated and sustained by frustration and longing; they disappear with the possession of the object. Analogous with the artificial filling of the corsets, Fritz stuffs his inner self with imaginings of the female body so outrageous that they subvert his everyday reality. Standing in front of the shop window, he fantasises: “Diese Geschöpfe haben also, fing ich jetzt an zu konstruieren, einen höchst zarten, grazilen Leib, das heißt, Hüfte, Taille, Brust und diese zwei höchst interessanten, an ihr hervorspringenden, schäumenden Kugeln; rechts und links von der Brust fliegen zwei nackte, schlanke Arme heraus, zum Rudern, zum Fliegen. Farbige fledermausartige Flughäute verbinden diese ihrer ganzen Länge nach mit dem Körper, [...] und zwischen den zar-

W INDOW -DRESSING

| 313

ten Perlmutterfingern gibt es noch weiche, durchsichtige Schwimmhäute. Oben an die Brust setzt sich ein blendendweißer, vielleicht schon befiederter Hals an; dann folgt ein Mäulchen von Korallenfarbe [...].“ (Panizza 1997: 124)2 The fantastic imagery grows rampant because there is no actual body to be seen. Renate Werner (1999: 222-224) has shown that the images of bodily excess, delivered by the narrator, are typical symbols of feminine eroticism in literature written by men at the turn of the twentieth century. Among the most prominent examples, we have the female body laced up, and the female demon shaped as a pre-historic creature that swims or flies and has webs between its claws. Panizza also cites the sweet cross-breeds between girls and fluffy birds, as well as the fantasy of a female vampire bat. At the other end of the scale, there are necrophilous and sadistic images of mutilated and dismembered women. This kind of imagery is dramatised when it comes to looking into the shop window, where the corsets represent what Benjamin calls the “exchange between woman and ware – between carnal pleasure and the corpse. [...] For fashion was never anything other than the parody of the motley cadaver, provocation of death through the woman” (2003: 62-63). Fritz, who is obsessed by the window, believes he sees human torsos stripped of their heads and legs. He says they do not exactly look slaughtered (“nicht gerade geschlachtet”), but rather as if limbs have been hacked off (“mehr abgehackt”), in sum: “ausgeschälte Rümpfe mit drangelassener Hüfte, aber blutlos, sogar höchst säuberlich, glänzend, seidig, furchtbar graziös und elegant und wie zum Umarmen und Küssen eingerichtet [...] – wie soll ich sagen! – leichenartig konservierte Hüften mit vorgequellter Brust, Menschenmumien [...]” (Panizza 1997: 116)3 A medical discourse of dissection is linked with a discourse of love drifting into necrophilia. Meanwhile, attention swings between the body’s image and the body’s embalmed texture. Small wonder the protagonist’s sexual drive is not aimed at sat-

2

“So these creatures have, I started to construct now, an utterly soft and graceful body, that is, hip, waist and breast, as well as these two most interesting and foamy balls springing out of the chest; on each side of the breast, a slim naked arm sticks out, made for paddling, for flying. Colourful bat-like wings join these two arms lengthwise onto the body, [...] and then there are supple and transparent webs between the delicate mother-of-pearl fingers. A radiant white and perhaps feathered neck sits on the upper part of the breast; what follows is a little coral mouth [...].” (Panizza 1997: 124)

3

“carcasses with their insides scooped out, with remaining hips, but hygienic rather than bloody, and shiny, silky, terribly graceful and elegant as if they were made for hugging and kissing [...] – how can I say this! – some corpses’ hips with protruding breasts, all preserved from decay, human mummies [...]” (Panizza 1997: 116)

314 | CLAUDIA LIEB

isfaction; it is a schematic desire, kept alive by compulsively repeated projections of the grotesque. But there is yet another element which is essential to the structure of this obsession. “How can I say this!” – that self-directed cry of the narrator shows his erotic practice is also a matter of words. Given that he declares he is writing his own biography in the end, it is also a practice of writing. Der Korsetten-Fritz is suffused with self-referential imagery of art, focused on the fetish and partly on the fetish’s medium: the shop window. Much of the action takes place in or in front of a draper’s shop window, and with props like a “Vorhang” (Panizza 1997: 119) the window-related scenes are clearly dressed up as stage events. The window’s theatrical status is joined by allusions to another medium capable of entertaining fantasies: the written text. Among these, the most powerful self-referential imagery is provided by the novella’s obsessive game with “Stoff” and “Inhalt”. Since Stoff denotes things like cloth, fabric, or weave, as well as semantic material and topics, Panizza takes the allegoric potential of this contrast between exterior shell and content to its limit. On a metaphorical level, it is the weave of the text itself, the textures of writing which are on show behind the clothes in the shop window; and therefore the novella itself becomes a fetish, lusted after by the reader. All this runs on the established assumption that a text is something “woven”. If this is the case, then the fashionable garment is made of a weave whose texture equals the text. In a similar sense, Benjamin (1991: 118) pointed out that fashion is a “Medium” enticing the sexual drive into a “Stoffwelt”. What is more, in occidental history, the function of the written sign has long been analogous to that of Panizza’s corsets: the function of a cover hiding an unseen content that is to be unveiled by the reader. Panizza, however, undercuts this metaphor of the text as an off-the-peg dress, because he gradually eliminates the contrast between cover and content. The cover is not really a cover, for there is no well-defined content beneath the undergarments. Although their white filling suggests that there may be a hidden meaning, the text leaves it to the reader – and to Fritz – to make sense of that blank. So the corsets become an allegory for art’s way of playing with language. Literature is a game that players only play successfully when they refrain from cracking its code. Instead, literature works like a surface, where possible meanings may pop up at one moment and vanish at the next. In his book Le Plaisir du texte, Roland Barthes elaborates such a definition of literary artworks. “Text” means “something woven”, he says, but instead of seeing this weave as a ready-made veil that covers the meaning, it must be viewed as a process, whereby the text emerges from constant weaving. “Lost in this weave, in this texture, the subject dissolves like a spider melting into the constructive secretions of its own web” (Barthes 1992: 94). Getting lost in one’s own imaginary constructions is something Panizza’s hero is obsessed with, and thus the whole novel turns out be an allegory of reading. Reading, then, is not about hunting down a sin-

W INDOW -DRESSING

| 315

gular and fixed content, but about an imaginary game with signs where the sky is the limit.

4

T HOMAS M ANN : G LADIUS D EI (1902)

Research has shown that Thomas Mann, in fact, knew Panizza and his works. The novella Gladius Dei shows some striking similarities to Der Korsetten-Fritz that suggest Panizza’s influence. Both texts focus on the shocking perception of a shop window full of purchasable women, simulacra of female bodies displayed for consumption, which provoke male erotic projections. In Gladius Dei, Panizza’s corsets are reproduced in a “garment” covering the lower parts of an otherwise naked “Madonna”. Her photographic depiction is at the centre of the plot. An ascetic called “Hieronymus” tries to enforce the removal of this Madonna image from a Munich shop window, because he deems it distasteful and sinful. Although he feels he is appointed by God himself, his heavenly mission fails, and he develops an earthly obsession for the pretty and blasphemous icon. At last, in a hallucinatory vision, he sees the sword of God threatening the town, destroying the picture of the Madonna and all the city’s arts and crafts in a magic, divine blaze. Social factors are glanced at in this novella about Virgin Mary worship taken to extremes. The repressive Catholic Church is to blame for this man of God going mad, just as Panizza’s fetishist – the son of a preacher who becomes a preacher himself – is a product of the Protestant Church. As in Panizza’s novella, the shopowner who possesses the object of desire in the window is Jewish. The photograph in question is a reproduction that is lusted after by the entire town. The image is so successful, according to the narrator, that the State of Bavaria acquired the original to make it a museum piece. Thomas Mann, therefore, turns his shop window into a metaphorical museum. This museum, however, exposes the avant-garde atmosphere of an artist’s studio, too: “Die große, rötlichbraune Photographie stand, mit äußerstem Geschmack in Altgold gerahmt, auf einer Staffelei inmitten des Fensterraumes. Es war eine Madonna, eine durchaus modern empfundene, von jeder Konvention freie Arbeit. Die Gestalt der heiligen Gebärerin war von berückender Weiblichkeit, entblößt und schön. Ihre großen, schwülen Augen waren dunkel umrändert, und ihre delikat und seltsam lächelnden Lippen standen halb geöffnet. Ihre [...] Finger umfaßten die Hüfte des Kindes, eines nackten Knaben [...], der mit ihrer Brust spielte [...].“ (Mann 1981: 203-204)4

4

“The big reddish-brown photography sat, most tastefully framed in dark gold, on an easel in the midst of the window. It was a Madonna, a thoroughly modernist work free of any convention. The figure of the holy bearing girl was of appealing femininity, bare and

316 | CLAUDIA LIEB

The female image, a hybrid of mother and whore, must be taken literally here, as this irresistible woman is actually put up for sale. What is more, the whore disguised as a saint has another connotation. From the earliest history of human communal life, the city has been related to mythological images of femininity, ranging from the unapproachable goddess, to the Babylonian whore, to the great mother (cf. Sykora 1999). Symbols of the desirable woman and the threatening woman alike, this paradoxical imagery of the city marks the picture of the sultry Madonna. Hieronymus cannot help falling for her, and as she induces sexual fantasies, she is the thorn in his flesh. Unlike the action in Panizza’s text, however, the fetishistic fixation of Hieronymus remains bloodless and rather cold. To his own disgust, he cannot get rid of the Madonna image: whether he stays in his “cool narrow chamber” or whether he kneels in “cool churches”, his soul is always faced with the fetish. “And no prayer could chase it away” (cf. Mann 1981: 206). With the stigma of religious fanaticism, the hot, erotic obsession turns chilly. Meanwhile, the independent narrator tries to win the reader over for an offshoot of Munich’s art industry linked with the Madonna image: “Blick um dich, sieh in die Fenster der Buchläden! Deinen Augen begegnen Titel wie [...] ‘Die Renaissance im modernen Kunstgewerbe’, ‘Das Buch als Kunstwerk’ [...]” (Mann 1981: 200).5 This ironic address to the reader keeps the addressee at a distance to the text. Irony deepens as the narrator points to a medium he is part of himself: the written text. In addition, the book titles echo the novella’s depictions of Munich as a Florence-style, sixteenth-century city. Mann parodies the turn-of-the-century excitement about the Renaissance, and hence the shop window indeed represents “a city, a world in miniature” (Benjamin 2003: 31). While the books outline the view over the actual city, in turn, the city itself melts into a text put on display in a shop window. In this context, the novella makes a whole range of self-directed puns. Street life is buzzing “auf Plätzen und Zeilen”, shop windows are presided over with “linearer Humor”, buildings are decorated with “fließenden Linien”, and the whole town is devoted to a “cult of lines”, “Kultus der Linie” (Mann 1981: 189-200). All this can be related to the ornamental style of Art Nouveau, but it is not limited to that. The imagery of writing refers to houses, windows, and the residents of the city, with a veil of signs. This metamorphosis into a text can also be seen in the Madonna pho-

beautiful. Her large and sultry eyes were dark-rimmed, and her delicate and strangely smiling lips stood half open. Her [...] fingers embraced the hip of a child, a naked boy [...] who was playing with her breasts [...]” (Mann 1981: 203-204). 5

“Look around, peer into the windows of the bookshops! Your eyes will read titles such as [...] ‘The Renaissance in Modern Arts and Crafts’, ‘The Book as an Artwork’ [...]” (Mann 1981: 200).

W INDOW -DRESSING

| 317

tograph, the city’s exemplary window display and epitome of Munich’s optical temptations. Taking the shop window as a medium, it can be seen as a symbol for the self-description of art. Right at the beginning, the narrator announces that in Munich, one is used to seeing women “through the medium of art” (Mann 1981: 200). This is mirrored by the icon and the photograph and the shop window. The Madonna’s self-referential framing is backed up by allusions to the written text; take the odd “Linienfluss [ihres] Gewandes”, the “floating lines of her dress”, which are “wirklich eminent” (Mann 1981: 205). Again, the shop window turns out to be the link between text and texture and between writing and lines. Printed material also plays a role, for Munich has been showered with posters advertising the holy (or nearly so) virgin just as the shop window does. Finally, the erotic promises of glass and paper condense in the central arts-and-crafts shop, the glass door of which is covered with art magazines. And as one of the employees there writes a brochure about modernist art, the novella’s ironical self-portrait is finally complete.

5

C ONCLUDING

REMARKS

The beloved woman as an image, a spectacle, a display of beauty – she does not only challenge the eye but also the imagination of the beholder. In art’s game of simulation, shop windows are important to the literary discourse of love, for they refer to paradigms such as subjectivity, eroticism, and the media. Panizza’s Der KorsettenFritz (1893) and Mann’s Gladius Dei (1902) play with aesthetic traditions of the myth of female seduction and male projections thereof. In both novellas, erotic attraction is triggered by a window display of surrogate femininity. Male fantasy brings the surrogate to life and disconnects it from the actual object in the shop window. Panizza’s protagonist becomes obsessed with everyday objects exhibited in a draper’s shop window. Its corsets inspire him to invent a race of women that outdoes the underwear in eroticism. Hybrids between birds, bats, vampires and mummies are not only proof of a decadent sexual fetishism, they also expose the repressive nature of a moral code by taking the bull by the horns: the hero escapes into a world of unbridled fantasies, of exoticism and of perversion. In Mann’s Gladius Dei, too, the shop window suggests the metamorphosis of women into wares. The common image of the holy whore is transposed onto the medium of photography. Unlike Panizza’s hero, here the monk-like protagonist escapes into prayer, into suppression and neurosis. This is visualised by a sexually-driven fantasy of violence, where the female body bursts into flames and erotic temptation is annihilated. Eroticism is replaced by the insane ideal of an Ego that imagines itself as a religious

318 | CLAUDIA LIEB

leader. And just as in Panizza’s novella, femininity pressed behind glass tricks male desire into pathological madness. With these implications, the window motif is anchored in a literary discourse of love established in the Romantic period. In E.T.A. Hoffmann’s fiction, for instance, the simulacra of female bodies behind glass take the form of oil paintings and machines. The male imagination and gaze breathes life into their inorganic forms; take Olimpia, the robotic heroine of Der Sandmann (1816), who draws the hero’s passion when he sees her through windows and a telescope, with devastating effects. Early nineteenth-century writers such as Hoffmann and turn-of-the-century writers such as Panizza and Mann challenged their contemporary cultural norms of love because they explored the substitution of the beloved body by an inorganic thing. Under the name of fetishism, this model remained in full swing throughout the twentieth century. In 1905, Sigmund Freud branded fetishism as a “pathological case” of “normal love” and as an aberrant sexual practice. He defined the fetish as a “substitute for the sexual object”, i.e. for the living body. The fetishes he had in mind included “lifeless objects” such as garments, underwear, and furs (Freud 1999: 52-54). While Freud continued to work on his psychoanalytic concept of fetishism until 1938 – and fetishism has never ceased to be subject to psychologist investigation until today – it was Gaetan Gatian de Clérambault who researched cloth fetishism as part of a large-scale ethnological project throughout the 1920s in Paris. In 1935, Parisbased Walter Benjamin connected the Freudian sexual fetish with Marxism’s commodity fetish and related both to fashionable clothes. “Fashion”, he wrote, “couples the living body to the inorganic world. To the living, it defends the rights of the corpse. The fetishism that succumbs to the sex appeal of the inorganic is its vital nerve. The cult of the commodity presses such fetishism into its service.” (Benjamin 2003: 8) Today, it is precisely the cult of the fetish that is one of fashion’s vital nerves. Sexual fetishism is no longer hinted at, but openly exhibited in fashion – leather, lacquer and corsets having conquered the catwalks years ago. In the 1970s, Christian Metz started to theorise about fetishism as a cinematic effect, while Jean Baudrillard stressed its semiological significance, identifying the fetish as a work of art and of signs. From 1985 on, William Pietz traced the history of fetishism and then identified it as a “cultural discourse” (Pietz et al. 1993). In 1991, Emily Apter published her book Feminzing the fetish, which prompted a range of feminist studies in this field. Valerie Steele (1996), too, analysed fetishism as a cultural discourse and highlighted the importance of visual perception for its world-wide spread. Much of today’s visual attention is directed to the glassy surfaces of TV and computer screens, where countless programmes, websites and games depend on the sex appeal of digital images. For a user, screens and windows share the quality of transparency as well as solidity; both are invisible glass walls. The present media

W INDOW -DRESSING

| 319

evolution, however, is paving the way for the walls to be knocked down, and in this context, the fetishistic practices of bodily substitution may have reached a new level. According to Keisuke Ori (1997: 172), who is researching Japan’s “Anime” industry, some users of computer games do without girl-friends, because they are obsessed with IT-generated girls. They go so far as to store them not only in data carriers but also in organic bodies (also cf. Kremer 2000). Data gloves are a step in a similar direction, and hence fetishism may indeed do away “with the boundaries separating the organic world from the inorganic” (Benjamin 2003: 69). Benjamin’s inorganic world of the 1930s did not include data gloves but did include equally delicate articles of fashionable clothing. Relating these to love, he wrote: “Every fashion is to some extent a bitter satire on love; all sexual perversities are suggested in every fashion by the most ruthless means; every fashion is filled with secret resistances to love.” (2003: 64). Replace the word “fashion” with “medium”, and what you get is a sceptical view of the twentieth-century media industry.

R EFERENCES Barthes, Roland (1992) Die Lust am Text [Le plaisir du texte]. Frankfurt, Main: Suhrkamp. Benjamin, Walter (1991) Das Passagen-Werk [Gesammelte Schriften V.1], R. Tiedemann (ed), Frankfurt, Main: Suhrkamp. Benjamin, Walter (2003) The Arcades Project [Das Passagen-Werk], H. Eiland, K. McLaughlin (translators), prepared on the basis of the German volume edited by R. Tiedemann, Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press. Binet, Alfred (1887) “Le Fétichisme dans l’amour”. Revue philosophique XXIV: 142-167. Elias, Norbert (1995) Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation: Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen I, Frankfurt, Main: Suhrkamp. Foucault, Michel (1988) “Ein so grausames Wissen [Un si cruel savoir]”. In Foucault: Schriften zur Literatur, 53-68, Frankfurt, Main: Fischer Taschenbuch. Freud, Sigmund (1999) Gesammelte Werke V, A. Freud, E. Bibring, W. Hoffer, E. Kris, O. Isakower (eds), Frankfurt, Main: Fischer. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1994) Die Leiden des jungen Werthers [Sämtliche Werke: Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche I. 8], W. Wiethölter (ed.), Frankfurt, Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag. Kremer, Detlef (1998) Kafka: Die Erotik des Schreibens. Bodenheim, Mainz: Philo. Kremer, Detlef (2000) “Liebe im virtuellen Raum: Das Verschwinden des (anderen) Körpers”. In Kursbuch Kulturwissenschaft, T. Düllo, A. Meteling, A. Suhr, C. Winter (eds), 81-88, Münster: Lit.

320 | CLAUDIA LIEB

Kristeva, Julia (1989) Geschichten von der Liebe [Histoires d’amour]. Frankfurt, Main: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, Niklas (1990) Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimität. Frankfurt, Main: Suhrkamp. Mann, Thomas (1981) “Gladius Dei”. In Mann Gesammelte Werke in Einzelbänden I [Frankfurter Ausgabe], P. d. Mendelsohn (ed.), 198-216, Frankfurt, Main: S. Fischer. Oki, Keisuke (1997) “Leben in deine Taschen und Mädchen in deinem Gedächtnis.” Telepolis 3. Osterwold, Tilman (1974) Schaufenster: Die Kulturgeschichte eines Massenmediums. Stuttgart: Dr. Cantz’sche Druckerei. Panizza, Oskar (1997) “Der Korsetten-Fritz”. In Panizza Ein skandalöser Fall: Geschichten, 112-143, München: Martus. Pietz, William (1985) “The problem of the fetish, I”. Res 9: 5-17. Pietz, William and Apter, Emily (eds) (1993) Fetishism as Cultural Discourse: Gender, Commodity, and Vision. Ithaca, London. Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von (1997) Venus im Pelz. Frankfurt, Main, Leipzig: Insel. Steele, Valerie (1996) Fetish. Fashion, Sex & Power. New York: Oxford University Press. Sykora, Katharina (1999) Unheimliche Paarungen: Androidenfaszination und Geschlecht in der Fotografie. Köln: Walther König. Weibel, Peter (1980) “Schaufenster-Botschaften: Ein Piktoral zur Ikonographie des Urbanismus”. In Künstlerschaufenster: Katalog zu “Kunst im Schaufenster”, L. Anderson (ed.), 5-17, Graz: Styria. Werner, Renate (1999) “Geschnürte Welt: Zu einer Fallgeschichte von Oskar Panizza”. In Romantik und Ästhetizismus: Festschrift für Paul Gerhard Klussmann, B. Gruber, G. Plumpe (eds), 213-233, Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann.

About the Authors

Alexander Bergs is Professor and Chair of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Osnabrueck. His areas of expertise include historical sociolinguistics, construction grammar, varieties of English, and 19th century English. He is the author of Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics (Mouton de Gruyter), Modern Scots (2nd ed., Lincom Europa 2005). Stefanie Duttweiler is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Sport Studies at the University of Frankfurt am Main (Germany). Her research interests include sociology of space and architecture, sociology of religion and governmentality studies. Together with P.-P. Bänziger, Ph. Sarasin und A. Wellmann she has co-authored Fragen Sie Dr. Sex! Ratgeberkommunikation und die mediale Konstruktion des Sexuellen. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Joachim R. Höflich is Professor of Communication Science and Media Integration at the University of Erfurt. He is an expert in the field of mobile technologies and interpersonal communication and has worked on forms of media-driven interpersonal communication for many years. His particular focus is mobile communication. Anett Holzheid is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Departement of Media History at the University of Siegen. Her special interests include media history, visual literacy analysis and contemporary literatures. She is the author of a monograph on the history of postcards in Germany: Das Medium Postkarte. Eine sprach– und medienwissenschaftliche Studie, Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Eva Illouz is Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and President of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. She is the author of several books, including Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery and Why Love Hurts. In 2004 she delivered the Adorno lectures at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany.

322 | COMMUNICATION OF L OVE

Mahmoud Al-Khatib is a professor of English and Linguistics at the Department of English for Applied Studies at Jordan University of Science & Technology in Irbid. His major area of specialization is sociolinguistics, but he is also interested in pragmatics, bilingualism, discourse analysis, contrastive linguistics (ArabicEnglish), and English for specific purposes (ESP). Helga Kotthoff is Professor of German Linguistics at Freiburg University in Germany. She is an anthropological linguist with a focus on gender and youth cultures, mediatized constructions of humour, and practices of mourning in Georgian society. She is the author and co-author of several books, including Humor (in) der Migrationsgesellschaft and Konversationsanalyse. Eine Einführung. Friedrich Krotz is Professor of Communications and Media Studies with a focus on social communication and mediatization research at Bremen University. He holds numerous positions in academic institutions and associations, among them the executive editorship of the European Journal of Communication Research. He is also the initiator and coordinator of the DFG priority program "Mediatized Worlds". Karl Lenz is a Professor of Micro Sociology at Dresden University and Dean of the University. His academic work focusses on interactional theory (i.e. Goffman) and several aspects of youth culture. He is the author of Soziologie der Zweierbeziehung. Eine Einführung. Claudia Lieb is a Lecturer in German Literature Studies at Muenster University. Her research interests include the science of law and literature, history of knowledge and media theory. She is the author of a monograph on the crash as a literary topos, Crash. Der Unfall der Moderne. Bielefeld 2009. Sabine Maasen is Friedrich Schiedel Professor for Sociology of Sciences (Friedrich Schiedel-Stiftungslehrstuhl) at the TUM (Technische Universität München). She is particularly interested in the co-constituency of academic research and the knowledge society. Her research interests lie in the dynamic knowledge phenomenon in academia, as well as in the social paths of academically elaborated concepts (e.g. ‘chaos’ and ‘awareness’). Folke-Christine Möller-Sahling was Associate Professor of German and Humanities at the University of Southern Indiana and President of the Indiana Chapter of the American Association for Teachers of German. He is currently the Language Program Director and Deputy Director at the Goethe-Institut in Boston.

A BOUT

THE

A UTHORS

| 323

Holger Schulze is Visiting Professor at the Leuphana Universität Lüneburg and Principal Investigator at the Sound Studies Lab (HU Berlin). His interests include the cultural history of the senses and the historical anthropology of media and sound in popular culture. Recently he has published the third and final volume of his “Theorie der Werkgenese: a Generative Theory of Artefacts“: Das aleatorische Spiel (2000) − Heuristik (2005) − Intimität und Medialität (2012). Clemens Schwender is Professor for Media Psychology at the School of Popular Arts (hdpk Hochschule der populären Künste) in Berlin. He is particularly interested in media history the history of telephone communication, media esthetics, visual literacy and technical documentation. He is the manager of an archive of German war letters that is accessible on the web. Manfred Weinberg is Professor of Modern German Literature at the Charles University in Prague where he acts as Deputy Head of the Department of Germanic Studies. He works on the literatures of the 18th – 21st century, transculturalism, gender studies, recollection and memory, and on German literature within the Czech Republic. Eva L. Wyss is Professor of German Linguistics at the Department of German at Koblenz-Landau University (Campus Koblenz). Her research interests include the discourse of intimacy, media linguistics, and written communications. She is the author of “Leidenschaftlich eingeschrieben” (Nagel und Kimche, Zürich).