Volume 6, Tome III: Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries - Literature and Aesthetics (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources) [1 ed.] 9780754662860, 0754662861

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Contributors
List of Abbreviations
Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard’s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit
Eichendorff: Kierkegaard’s Reception of a German Romantic
Goethe: A German Classic Through the Filter of the Danish Golden Age
Hamann: Sharing Style and Thesis: Kierkegaard’s Appropriation of Hamann’s Work
E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard’s Conceptions of Authorship, Poetic-Artistic Existence, Irony and Humor
Hotho: A Dialogue on Romantic Irony and the Fascination with Mozart’s Don Giovanni
Jean Paul: Apparent and Hidden Relations between Kierkegaard and Jean Paul
Schiller: Kierkegaard’s Use of a Paradoxical Poet
Friedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood
Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System
Tieck: Kierkegaard’s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation
Index of Persons
Index of Subjects

Citation preview

kierkegaard and his german contemporaries tome iii: literature and aesthetics

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources Volume 6, Tome III

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources is a publication of the søren kierkegaard research centre

General Editor Jon stewart Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Editorial Board katalin nun k. Brian söderquist Advisory Board istvÁn czakÓ david d. possen Joel d.s. rasmussen peter šaJda heiko schulz

This volume was published with the generous financial support of the danish agency for science, technology and innovation

kierkegaard and his german contemporaries tome iii: literature and aesthetics

Edited by Jon stewart

First published 2008 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Jon stewart 2008 Jon stewart has asserted his moral right under the copyright, designs and patents act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised 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 publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data kierkegaard and his german contemporaries tome 3: literature and aesthetics. – (kierkegaard research: sources, reception and resources ; v. 6) 1. kierkegaard, søren, 1813–1855 2. kierkegaard, søren, 1813–1855 – Friends and associates 3. philosophy, german – 19th century i. stewart, Jon (Jon Bartley) 198.9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data kierkegaard and his german contemporaries / edited by Jon stewart. tome 3: literature and aesthetics p. cm. – (kierkegaard research ; v. 6) includes bibliographical references and index. isBn 978-0-7546-6286-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. kierkegaard, søren, 1813–1855. 2. philosophy, german–19th century. i. stewart, Jon (Jon Bartley) B4377.k4552 2007 198’.9–dc22 2006034593 isBn 13: 978-0-7546-6286-0 (hbk) cover design by katalin nun.

contents List of Contributors List of Abbreviations achim von arnim: kierkegaard’s encounters with a heidelberg hermit Judith Purver

vii ix

1

eichendorff: kierkegaard’s reception of a german romantic Judith Purver

25

goethe: a german classic through the Filter of the danish golden age Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

51

hamann: sharing style and thesis: kierkegaard’s appropriation of hamann’s work Sergia Karen Hay

97

e.t.a. hoffmann: a source for kierkegaard’s conceptions of authorship, poetic-artistic existence, irony and humor Judit Bartha

115

hotho: a dialogue on romantic irony and the Fascination with mozart’s Don Giovanni Joachim Grage

139

Jean paul: apparent and hidden relations between kierkegaard and Jean paul Markus Kleinert

155

schiller: kierkegaard’s use of a paradoxical poet András Nagy

171

vi

Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries

Friedrich schlegel: on ironic communication, subjectivity and selfhood K. Brian Söderquist

185

solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System Jon Stewart

235

tieck: kierkegaard’s “guadalquivir” of open critique and hidden appreciation Marcia C. Robinson

271

Index of Persons Index of Subjects

315 321

list of contributors Judit Bartha, university of pécs, Faculty of humanities, department of philosophy, ifjúság útja 6/b, 7624 pécs, hungary. Joachim Grage, georg-august-universität göttingen, skandinavisches seminar, käte-hamburger-weg 3, 37073 göttingen, germany. Sergia Karen Hay, university of maryland university college, 3501 university Blvd. east, adelphi, md 20783, usa. Markus Kleinert, akademie der Bildenden künste, lehrstuhl für philosophie, akademiestraße 2, 80799 munich, germany. András Nagy, hungarian theatre museum and institute, krisztina körút 57, 1013 Budapest, hungary. Katalin Nun, c/o søren kierkegaard research centre, Farvergade 27 d, 1463 copenhagen k, denmark.. Judith Purver, school of languages, linguistics and cultures, university of manchester, oxford road, manchester m13 9pl, united kingdom. Marcia C. Robinson, department of religion, 501 hall of languages, syracuse university, syracuse, nY 13244, usa. K. Brian Söderquist, søren kierkegaard research centre, Farvergade 27 d, 1463 copenhagen k, denmark. Jon Stewart, søren kierkegaard research centre, Farvergade 27 d, 1463 copenhagen k, denmark..

This page intentionally left blank

list of abbreviations Danish Abbreviations B&A

Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by niels thulstrup, vols. i–ii, copenhagen: munksgaard 1953–54.

Bl.art.

S. Kierkegaard�s �ss Bladartikler, med Bilag samlede efter �orfatterens Død, udgivne som Supplement til hans øvrige Skrifter, ed. by rasmus nielsen, copenhagen 1857.

EP

Af Søren Kierkegaards Efterladte Papirer, vols. 1–9, ed. by h.p. Barfod and hermann gottsched, copenhagen 1869–81.

Pap.

Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, vols. i to Xi–3, ed. by peter andreas heiberg, victor kuhr and einer torsting, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandel, nordisk Forlag, 1909–48; second, expanded ed., vols. i to Xi–3, by niels thulstrup, vols. Xcai to Xiii supplementary volumes, ed. by niels thulstrup, vols. Xiv to Xvi index by niels Jørgen cappelørn, copenhagen: gyldendal 1968–78.

SKS

Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols. 1–28 ed. by niels Jørgen cappelørn, Joakim garff, Jette knudsen, Johnny kondrup, alastair mckinnon and Finn hauberg mortensen, copenhagen: gads Forlag 1997ff.

SV1

Samlede Værker, ed. by a.B. drachmann, J.l. heiberg and h.o. lange, vols. i–Xiv, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1901–06. English Abbreviations

AN

Armed Neutrality, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

AR

On Authority and Revelation, The Book on Adler, trans. by walter lowrie. princeton: princeton university press 1955.

ASKB

The Auctioneer�s Sales Record of the Library of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by h.p. rohde, copenhagen: the royal library 1967.

x

Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries

BA

The Book on Adler, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

C

The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

CA

The Concept of Anxiety, trans. by reidar thomte in collaboration with albert B. anderson, princeton: princeton university press 1980.

CD

Christian Discourses, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

CI

The Concept of Irony, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1989.

CIC

The Concept of Irony, trans. with an introduction and notes by lee m. capel, london: collins 1966.

COR

The Corsair Affair; Articles Related to the Writings, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

CUP1

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 1, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

CUP2

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

EO1

Either/Or, part i, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1987.

EO2

Either/Or, part ii, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1987.

EOP

Either/Or, trans. by alastair hannay, harmondsworth: penguin Books 1992.

EPW

Early Polemical Writings, among others: �rom the Papers of One Still Living; Articles from Student Days; The Battle Between the Old and the New SoapCellars, trans. by Julia watkin, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

EUD

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

�SE

�or Self-Examination, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

�T

�ear and Trembling, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1983.

List of Abbreviations

xi

�TP

�ear and Trembling, trans. by alastair hannay, london and new York: penguin Books 1985.

JC

Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1985.

J�Y

Judge for Yourself!, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

JP

Søren Kierkegaard�s Journals and Papers, ed. and trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, assisted by gregor malantschuk, vols. 1–6, vol. 7 index and composite collation, Bloomington and london: indiana university press 1967–1978.

KAC

Kierkegaard�s Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. by walter lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1944.

LD

Letters and Documents, trans. by hendrik rosenmeier, princeton: princeton university press 1978 (a translation of B&A).

M

The Moment and Late Writings, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

P

Prefaces/Writing Sampler, trans. by todd w. nichol, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

PC

Practice in Christianity, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1991.

P�

Philosophical �ragments, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1985.

PJ

Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. with introductions and notes by alastair hannay, london and new York: penguin Books 1996.

PLR

Prefaces: Light Reading for Certain Classes as the Occasion May Require, trans. by william mcdonald, tallahassee: Florida state university press 1989.

PLS

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by david F. swenson and walter lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1941.

PV

The Point of View including On My Work as an Author, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, and Armed Neutrality, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

xii

Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries

PVL

The Point of View for My Work as an Author including On My Work as an Author, trans. by walter lowrie. new York and london: oxford university press 1939.

R

Repetition, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1983.

SBL

Notes of Schelling�s Berlin Lectures, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1989.

SLW

Stages on Life�s Way, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1988.

SUD

The Sickness unto Death, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1980.

SUDP

The Sickness unto Death, trans. by alastair hannay, london and new York: penguin Books 1989.

TA

Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1978.

TD

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1993.

UD

Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1993.

WA

Without Authority including The Lily in the �ield and the Bird of the Air, Two Ethical-Religious Essays, Three Discourses at the Communion on �ridays, An Upbuilding Discourse, Two Discourses at the Communion on �ridays, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

WL

Works of Love, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1995.

achim von arnim: kierkegaard’s encounters with a heidelberg hermit Judith purver

although kierkegaard possessed a number of arnim’s works and referred to arnim in his writings, no scholarly study of kierkegaard’s reception of arnim exists. in the kierkegaard literature, only walter rehm devotes any serious attention to arnim.1 in arnim studies, kierkegaard is mentioned by gerhard rudolph2 and in paul michael lützeler’s edition of arnim’s novel Armuth, Reichtum, Schuld und Buße der Gräfin Dolores (1810).3 like lützeler, rehm and rudolph focus on kierkegaard’s reception of Dolores. rudolph also refers to arnim’s novella Isabella von Ägypten, Kaiser Karl des �ünften erste Jugendliebe (1812). these are, however, not the only texts by arnim that interested kierkegaard. he quotes the story Owen Tudor (1821) and Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1806–08), the famous collection of german songs and poems edited by arnim and clemens Brentano. his pseudonymous works also provide evidence of covert allusion to other writings by arnim, in particular the drama Halle und Jerusalem (1811) and the novella Die Majoratsherren (1820).4 I. Short Overview of Arnim�s Life and Works5 achim (carl Joachim Friedrich ludwig) von arnim, who came from an ancient family of landed prussian aristocrats, was born in Berlin on 26 January 1781 as see walter rehm, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, hildesheim: georg olms 2003 [munich: hermann rinn verlag 1949], pp. 12f.; p. 85; p. 95; p. 541; 616. 2 see gerhard rudolph, Studien zur dichterischen Welt Achim von Arnims, Berlin: walter de gruyter 1958 (Quellen und �orschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker, n.F., vol. 1 (= vol. 125)), pp. 78f. 3 see achim von arnim, Werke, ed. by roswitha Burwick et al., vols. 1–6, Frankfurt am main: deutscher klassiker verlag 1989–94, vol. 1, Hollins Liebeleben, Gräfin Dolores, ed. by paul michael lützeler, p. 743. 4 For an english translation of Die Majoratsherren, see achim von arnim, Gentry by Entailment, trans. by alan Brown, london: atlas 1990 (The Printed Head, vol. 1, no. 1). 5 This section draws chie��y on �oland Hoermann�� Achim von Arnim, Boston: twayne 1984 (Twayne�s World Authors Series, vol. 722), and helene m. kastinger riley, Achim von 1

2

Judith Purver

the second son of Johann erdmann von arnim (1741–1804), variously prussian ambassador in copenhagen (where he was made a knight of the dannebrog order)6 and dresden, and director of the royal theater in Berlin. arnim’s mother died as a result of his birth, and he and his elder brother were taken in by their maternal grandmother, elisabeth von labes. after attending the Joachimsthal grammar school in Berlin from 1793, in 1798 arnim entered the university of halle, where he studied law, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Between 1799 and 1806 he published articles on physics and chemistry as well as the treatises, Attempt at a Theory of Electrical Phenomena (1799) and Ideas on a Theory of the Magnet (1800). in 1800 he entered the university of göttingen to study mathematics, with the intention of taking up a scientific career. In 1801�� however�� in��uenced by his friendship with Clemens Brentano (1778–1842), he decided to devote himself to literature, and he and his brother embarked on educational travels in germany and europe. in 1802 he undertook a rhine journey with Brentano and published Hollins Liebeleben, a short epistolary novel heavily in��uenced by Goethe’s Werther. in 1803 he traveled to london, wales, and scotland, the respective settings of his stories Mistris Lee (1809), Owen Tudor, and Die Ehenschmiede, which appeared posthumously in 1839. The first volume of the Wunderhorn (dated 1806) appeared in heidelberg in 1805; the second and third volumes followed in 1808. From april to august 1808 arnim edited the Zeitung für Einsiedler in heidelberg; it appeared in book form as Tröst Einsamkeit the same year. a cycle of novellas, Der Wintergarten, came out in 1809. In 1811 Arnim married Brentano’s sister Bettine�� an important figure in her own right, and founded in Berlin the german dining club, which was frequented by leading members of prussian society but excluded all not born into the christian faith. a speech by arnim to the society has been branded anti-semitic,7 as have some of his literary works,8 but he was the only member of the society opposed to the exclusion of baptized Jews9 and had no clear biological concept of race. the treatment of Jewish religion and culture in his imaginative writing is complex and contradictory.

Arnim in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, reinbek: rowohlt 1979. 6 see peter anton von arnim, “wer war im zernikower erbbegräbnis aufgebahrt�,” Neue Zeitung für Einsiedler: Mitteilungen der Internationalen Arnim-Gesellschaft, no. 1, 2000–01, pp. 19–26; see p. 24. For Johann erdmann von arnim’s birth and death dates and other information on him, see ibid., pp. 23f. 7 See Stefan �ienhaus�� �Grattenauer�� Brentano�� Arnim und andere. �ie �rfindung des antisemitischen nationalismus im frühen neunzehnten Jahrhundert,” Aurora: Jahrbuch der Eichendorff-Gesellschaft, no. 65, 2005, pp. 183–99. 8 see for instance heinrich henel, “arnims Majoratsherren,” in Interpretationen, vol. 4, Deutsche Erzählungen von Wieland bis Kafka, ed. by Jost schillemeit, Frankfurt am main: Fischer taschenbücher 1972, p. 168. By contrast, gisela henckmann, “das problem des ‘antisemitismus’ bei achim von arnim,” Aurora, no. 46, 1986, pp. 48–69, seeks to defend arnim against the charge of anti-semitism. 9 see gisela henckmann, “das problem des ‘antisemitismus’ bei achim von arnim,” op. cit., p. 60; helene m. kastinger riley, Achim von Arnim in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, op. cit., pp. 86f.

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

3

arnim published three further novellas, including Isabella of Egypt, in 1812. in 1814�� not least for financial reasons�� he moved to the estate of Wiepersdorf with his family, but at the end of 1816 Bettine moved back to Berlin with the couple’s three children. thereafter the couple lived mainly apart but produced four more children. In 1817 the first volume of Arnim’s unfinished historical novel Die Kronenwächter and the stories �rau von Saverne and Die Einquartierung im Pfarrhause appeared, followed in 1818 by another five stories�� among them his best known Der tolle Invalide auf dem �ort Ratonneau.10 A final cycle of novellas�� Landhausleben, appeared in 1826. on January 21, 1831�� days before his fiftieth birthday�� Arnim died suddenly at Wiepersdorf with a copy of tieck’s novel �ranz Sternbald (1798) in his hand.11 distinguished by originality and fecundity of imagination, and hailed in France as a precursor of surrealism, arnim was also ahead of his time in respect of science, technology, and medicine. Besides looking forward to Ørsted’s discovery of electromagnetism, he describes a submarine in The Marriage Blacksmith,12 a blood transfusion, carried out by Faust in the sixteenth century, in “the guardians of the crown,” and a dental transplant-cum-implant in “life in a country house.” the quasifactual tone in which these innovations are described anticipates science fiction. Arnim was�� in addition�� a prolific writer. As well as prose fiction�� his output includes non-fictional texts�� among them political writings and the important essay Von Volksliedern (1805). he also wrote many poems, some of which have been set to music, and a series of dramas. except for Das Loch, oder das wiedergefundene Paradies (1813),13 however�� these are difficult to access14 and under-researched. His narrative fiction�� too�� has suffered neglect�� largely because its structural complexity was seen as formlessness. its “open form” is now viewed as a positive quality, but the relationship between the structure of his narratives and his dramas has For an english translation under this title, see �our Romantic Tales from 19th Century German, trans. and introduced by helene scher, new York: Frederick ungar 1975. 11 see ronald hoermann, Achim von Arnim, op. cit., p. 18. 12 english translation: achim von arnim, The Marriage Blacksmith, trans. with notes by sheila dickson, illustrations by stephan klenner-otto (New Encounters: 18th- and 19thCentury German Texts, vol. 1), hanover: wehrhahn 2007. 13 see ludwig achim von arnim, Das Loch oder das wiedergefundene Paradies: Ein Schattenspiel, Joseph von eichendorff, Das Incognito oder Die mehreren Könige oder Alt und neu: Ein Puppenspiel, ed. by gerhard kluge, Berlin: walter de gruyter 1968 (Komedia: Deutsche Lustspiele vom Barock bis zur Gegenwart: Texte und Materialien zur Interpretation, no. 13), pp. 5–34 (text), pp. 69–105 (notes). text also in achim von arnim, Mir ist zu licht zum Schlafen: Gedichte, Prosa, Stücke, Briefe, ed. by gerhard wolf, Frankfurt am main: Fischer taschenbuch verlag 1984, pp. 171–99. 14 they are not included in achim von arnim, Werke, ed. by roswitha Burwick et al., op. cit. six appeared in the twentieth century in Dramen von Clemens Brentano und Ludwig Achim von Arnim; Dramen von Ludwig Achim von Arnim und Joseph �reiherrn von Eichendorff; Lustspiele, all ed. by paul kluckhohn, leipzig: reclam 1938. (reprinted, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1969 (Deutsche Literatur in Entwicklungsreihen, Reihe Romantik, vols. 21, 22, 23). vol. 21 includes Halle und Jerusalem, vol. 22 Der Auerhahn, Die Vertreibung der Spanier aus Wesel im Jahre 1629, and Die Appelmänner, vol. 23 Das Loch oder das wiedergefundene Paradies and Die Kapitulation von Oggersheim.) 10

4

Judith Purver

yet to be systematically explored. as it has important implications for kierkegaard’s reception of his work, however, some observations will be made on it here. a striking feature of many of arnim’s texts is a tendency to continue when one would expect them to end. wilhelm grimm compared them to “pictures that were framed on three sides but not on the fourth, where the painting was still being continued indefinitely�� so that in the final outlines heaven and earth could no longer be distinguished from one another, causing anxious uncertainty in the reader.”15 One of the aspects of Arnim’s writing identified here—that it does not permit the reader to make a clear choice between a psychological and a supernatural interpretation of the events presented—is characteristic of fantastic literature.16 as for the claim that Arnim’s texts continue indefinitely�� this is not strictly true. His habit of pursuing characters and events beyond the traditional endings of comedy (marriage) or tragedy (death) is not merely a matter of form, but of structure,17 and is directly related to the import of the texts in which it occurs. kierkegaard was one of very few readers of arnim before the second half of the twentieth century to focus on it, and there is little doubt that it was a major reason for his interest in arnim’s work. II. Works by Arnim in Kierkegaard�s Library according to the auction catalogue of kierkegaard’s library, he possessed the threevolume second edition, dated 1819, of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which he purchased from the bookseller reitzel on march 14, 1836.18 however, no such edition existed. a second edition of the first volume (1806) appeared in 1819;19 the other two volumes (1808) were not reprinted until 1846.20 hence kierkegaard’s set must have consisted of the 1819 edition of volume one and the 1808 edition of the other two volumes.21 wilhelm grimm, Kleinere Schriften, ed. by gustav hinrichs, vols. 1–8, Berlin: dümmler 1864, vol. 1, p. 299. the review, written jointly by wilhelm grimm and Bettine von Arnim�� first appeared in Heidelberger Jahrbücher der Litteratur, vol. 1, no. 11, pp. 452–64. 16 see tvetan todorov, The �antastic: a Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, trans. from the French by richard howard, with a foreword by robert scholes, ithaca, nY: cornell university press 1975. 17 �Structure�� is used here in the sense defined by �en�� Wellek and Austin Warren Theory of Literature, 3rd ed., harmondsworth: penguin 1963, p. 141, as “including both content and form so far as they are organised for aesthetic purposes.” 18 ludwig achim von arnim and clemens Brentano (eds.), Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Alte deutsche Lieder, vols. 1–3, 2nd ed., heidelberg: mohr u. winter 1819 (ASKB 1494–1496). 19 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder, gesammelt von l. achim von arnim und clemens Brentano, vol. 1, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1806 [2nd ed., heidelberg: mohr und winter 1819]. see otto mallon, Arnim-Bibliographie, Berlin 1925 [reprinted, hildesheim: olms 1965], nos. 27, p. 105. Further references to entries in this bibliography will be abbreviated as “mallon” followed by the entry number. 20 vols. 14 and 17 of the edition of arnim’s works referenced in note 23 below. see mallon, nos. 191, 192. 21 Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder, gesammelt von l. achim von arnim und clemens Brentano, op. cit., vols. 2 and 3, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1808. see mallon, nos. 36, 37. 15

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

5

he also possessed Tröst Einsamkeit, the book version of the Zeitung für Einsiedler.22 the main aim of both collections was to draw attention to the german popular cultural heritage. as they include original work by arnim, however, evidence of their reception by kierkegaard will be discussed here. in addition to these four collaborative volumes, kierkegaard’s library contained 14 volumes of writings solely authored by arnim. two of these, the dramas Halle und Jerusalem23 and Die Gleichen (1819),24 were first editions. The remaining 12 were published after arnim’s death, 11 of them as part of an edition of arnim’s complete works edited by wilhelm grimm, in which arnim’s widow, Bettine, had a considerable hand.25 of this edition, kierkegaard possessed six volumes of novellas, two of dramas, the first volume of The Guardians of the Crown, and the two volumes of Dolores, as well as a one-volume edition of six stories, edited by F.w. gubitz. as the titles of the collected volumes do not indicate their individual contents, these will be listed here. The first of the six volumes of novellas26 contains three texts that first appeared together in 1812: Isabella of Egypt; Melück Maria Blainville, subtitled die Hausprophetin aus Arabien; Die drei liebreichen Schwestern und der glückliche �ärber, and Angelika, die Genueserin, und Cosmus, der Seilspringer.27

Tröst Einsamkeit, alte und neue Sagen und Wahrsagungen, Geschichten und Gedichte, ed. by ludwig achim von arnim, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1808 (ASKB 912). this consists, with minor additions, of the three numbers of the Zeitung für Einsiedler of april, may, and June 1808 (no more appeared), and includes ten copperplate engravings, at least seven of which were engraved by ludwig emil grimm, brother of Jacob and wilhelm grimm. these depict Faust and mephistopheles; christ’s nativity; “der erste Bärnhäuter,” who later appears as a character in arnim’s story Isabella of Egypt; a caricature showing Bearskin being tempted by animals; and three saints. see mallon, no. 39, and Zeitung für Einsiedler, in gemeinschaft mit clemens Brentano herausgegeben von ludwig achim von arnim bei mohr und zimmer heidelberg 1808 [mit einem nachwort zur neuausgabe von hans Jessen, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1962]. 23 ludwig achim von arnim, Halle und Jerusalem: Studentenspiel und Pilgerabentheuer, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1811 (ASKB 1623). see mallon, no. 69. 24 ludwig achim von arnim, Die Gleichen: Schauspiel, Berlin: maurersche Buchhandlung 1819 (ASKB 1624). see mallon, no. 106. 25 Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, ed. by wilhelm grimm, vols. 1–20, vols. 1–3 and vols. 5–8, Berlin: veit & comp. 1839–40 (there is no vol. 4); vols. 9–12, grünberg and leipzig: w. levysohn 1841; vol. 13 (= Des Knaben Wunderhorn, vol. 1), charlottenburg: egbert Bauer 1845; vols. 14–20, Berlin: expedition des von arnimschen verlags 1846–48. see mallon, nos. 167–73; nos. 175–6; nos. 179–80; nos. 190–96; no. 199. 26 [ludwig achim’s von arnim], Novellen, vols. 1–6, ed. by wilhelm grimm, vols. 1–2, Berlin: veit & comp. 1839, vols. 3–6, grünberg and leipzig: w. levysohn 1841–42, vol. 1 (ASKB 1612–1617). see mallon, no. 167. 27 these stories are referred to here by the titles given them in a recent english translation: Ludwig Achim von Arnim�s Novellas of 1812: Isabella of Egypt; Melück Maria Blainville; The Three Loving Sisters and the Lucky Dyer; Angelika the Genoese and Cosmus the Tightrope Walker, trans. by Bruce duncan, lewiston: edwin mellen press 1997 (Studies in German Language and Literature, vol. 18). 22

6

Judith Purver

the second volume of novellas28 contains The Marriage Blacksmith, Die Verkleidungen des französischen Hausmeisters und seines deutschen Zöglings (1824), Gentry by Entailment, Owen Tudor, �ürst Ganzgott und Sänger Halbgott (1818), and The Mad Invalid of �ort Ratonneau (1818). the third volume (volume nine of the complete works)29 contains the stories Der Pfalzgraf, ein Goldwäscher�� here published for the first time�� Die Kirchenordnung (1822), and Raphael and his �emale Neighbours. the fourth volume (volume ten of the complete works)30 contains Seltsames Begegnen und Wiedersehen (1818)�� the unfinished narrative Martin Martir, �rau von Saverne, Juvenis (1818), Die zerbrochene Postkutsche (1818), a hilarious parody of belated Werther mania, Die Weihnachtsausstellung (1817), a literary and political satire, and Aloys und Rose: �ranzösische Miscellen aus Wallis. Aus dem Tagebuche eines hypochondrischen Reisenden (1803). The fifth volume (volume eleven of the complete works)31 contains the first part of “the winter garden,” and the sixth volume32 (volume twelve of the complete works) the second part of the same cycle. the contents of the volume of stories edited by gubitz33 overlap with parts of the second and fourth volumes of novellas described above, but also include The Billet at the Parsonage. there is no consistent distinction between “novellas” and “stories” in any of these volumes: the generic designations of arnim’s narrative and dramatic texts vary case by case. As regards the two volumes of dramas�� the first (volume five of the complete works)34 contains Jann�s Erster Dienst, described as “a farce”; Der Auerhahn, “a story in four actions”; Das �rühlingsfest, “a postlude”; Mißverständnisse, “a comedy”; and Die Vertreibung der Spanier aus Wesel im Jahre 1629, “a drama in three acts.” the second volume of dramas (volume six of the complete works)35 contains five texts: “the hole, or paradise regained, a shadow play”; Herr Hanrei und Maria vom 28 [arnim], Novellen, op. cit., vol. 2 (vol. 2 in Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, op. cit.). see mallon, no. 168. 29 [arnim], Novellen, op. cit., vol. 3 (vol. 9 in Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, op. cit.). see mallon, no. 175. 30 [arnim], Novellen, op. cit., vol. 4 (vol. 10 in Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, op. cit.). see mallon, no. 176. 31 [arnim], Novellen, op. cit., vol. 5 (vol. 11 in Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, op. cit.). see mallon, no. 179. 32 [arnim], Novellen, op. cit., vol. 6 (vol. 12 in Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, op. cit.). see mallon, no. 180. 33 Sechs Erzählungen. Nachlaß von L. Achim von Arnim, ed. by F.w. gubitz, Berlin and königsberg in der neumark: in der vereinsbuchhandlung 1835 (ASKB 1625). see mallon, no. 162. contains �rau von Saverne, Die Einquartierung im Pfarrhause, Die Weihnachtsausstellung, Juvenis, �ürst Ganzgott und Sänger Halbgott, Der tolle Invalide auf dem �ort Ratonneau, all previously published. 34 [arnim], Schaubühne, vols. 1–2, ed. by wilhelm grimm, Berlin: veit and co. 1840 (vols. 6–7 in Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, op. cit.), vol. 1 (ASKB 1618–1619). see mallon, no. 170. 35 ibid., vol. 2, see mallon, no. 171.

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

7

langen Markte, a “pickleherring play”; Der wundertätige Stein, “a clown (Hanswurst) play”; Jemand und Niemand, “a tragedy,” Die Appelmänner, “a puppet play,” and Die Capitulation von Oggersheim�� �heroic comedy in three acts���� the only one of the five dramas included in this volume that had not been published previously. the content of these volumes provides a basis for examining kierkegaard’s reception of arnim. there is no evidence that he knew either the verse novel, Ariels Offenbarungen (1804) or the full-length versions of Hollin and of the dramatic epic Päpstin Joanna, which was published posthumously in 1846.36 he did, however, have access to the shorter versions of the last two works that are interpolated in Dolores. III. Kierkegaard�s Allusions to Arnim A. des knaben wunderhorn several entries in kierkegaard’s journals and papers refer to the Wunderhorn. the first�� dated September 8�� 1836�� refers to the poem: ��octor Faust. Fliegendes Blatt aus kölln.”37 in the following entry, under the same date, kierkegaard contrasts a passage in goethe’s �aust, where mephisto “lulls him [Faust] to sleep so that he himself can slip away,” with the poem, where mephistopheles, “unable to paint christ, paints venus instead.”38 kierkegaard alludes here to the last part of the poem only. in “life in a country house” arnim quotes the same part of the poem.39 this may be a coincidence, or alternatively kierkegaard’s attention could have been drawn to the poem by the quotation in Life in a Country House. in an undated entry assigned to 1847, kierkegaard refers to a similar topic, the “venusberg,” which relates to the Wunderhorn, poem “der tannhäuser.”40 this shows that he consulted the collection over some 11 years. that he did so in 1837 and 1838 is indicated by two journal entries. in an undated entry assigned to 1837, he misquotes slightly the opening lines of “die schwarzbraune Hexe—Fliegendes Blatt����41 which refer to a hunter blowing his horn in vain. on september 11, 1838, he quotes, “on the occasion of his [s.s. Blicher’s] nature concert,” the well-known verse beginning “if i were a little bird.”42 in Søren Kierkegaards Papirer it is also stated, in a marginal note of 1844 relating to “guilty�/not guilty�,” that he quotes from the “kinderlieder” section of

see Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, op. cit., vol. 19 [ed. by Bettine von arnim], Die Päpstin Johanna, Berlin: expedition des v. arnimschen verlags 1846. see mallon, no. 196. 37 Pap i c 101. see Des Knaben Wunderhorn, op. cit., vol. 1, 1806, pp. 214ff. 38 Pap i c 102. 39 see achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, ed. by walther migge, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2002 [1962–65; vol. 1, 2nd ed., 1974], vol. 3, p. 299. 40 SKS, 20, 92, nB:131. see Des Knaben Wunderhorn, op. cit., vol. 1, 1806, pp. 86ff. 41 SKS 17, 50, aa:39. see Des Knaben Wunderhorn, op. cit., vol. 1, 1806, p. 34. 42 SKS 17, 261, dd:140. see Des Knaben Wunderhorn, op. cit., vol. 1, 1806, p. 231. 36

8

Judith Purver

the Wunderhorn.43 however, the phrase that he uses, “wer keinen hat muss auch zu Bet” (whoever has none [masculine] must go to bed too), is not identical with the corresponding lines in the children’s song: “die keines hätt / muß auch zu Bett”44 (she who has none [no child] must go to bed too). rather, this phrase is part of the text added to taps (german Zapfenstreich), the military signal for “lights out,” quoted in full in “guilty�/not guilty�” in Stages on Life�s Way.45 it is, of course, possible that the Wunderhorn poem put kierkegaard in mind of it. By contrast, the reference in kierkegaard’s journals to the ratcatcher (pied piper) of hamlin, which is likewise related to “guilty�/not guilty�,” does seem to be an allusion to a poem in the Wunderhorn.46 it is of interest here because “guilty�/not guilty�” also relates closely to a novella by arnim. B. tröst einsamkeit there are no explicit references in kierkegaard’s writings to this compilation, a romantic Gesamtkunstwerk bringing together the work of many hands. some of its contents may, however, have impressed him, particularly arnim’s sardonic address to �the honored public���� which is preceded by an illustration of the head of a figure in a nightcap representing the national prototype, “german michael.” this address anticipates some features of the “philistine” as described in Brentano’s humorous treatise, Der Philister vor, in und nach der Geschichte (1811), originally a speech given to the german dining club, as well as of “herr publikum” in eichendorff’s story Viel Lärmen um Nichts (1832). it also includes a negative comment on “people who are through with themselves and the world”47 which seems to anticipate similar comments by kierkegaard. Above all�� the figure of the hermit�� which recurs in German literature from the middle ages onward48 and is found in such early romantic novels as tieck’s �ranz Sternbald and novalis’ Heinrich von Ofterdingen (published 1802), was highlighted both in the original title and the content of arnim’s collaborative venture, which in its

Pap. v B 97:6. see Des Knaben Wunderhorn, op. cit., vol. 3, 1808, p. 68. Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder, gesammelt von l. achim von arnim und clemens Brentano, vols. 1–3, munich: deutscher taschenbuch verlag 1963, vol. 3, p. 206. 45 SKS 6, 213 / SLW, p. 229: “zu Bett, zu Bett wer einen liebsten hätt / wer keinen hätt musz auch zu Bett [to bed, to bed who a beloved has / who has none must also to bed].” see SLW, supplement, p. 710 n75 and SLW, supplement p. 575. 46 Pap. v B 131. see Des Knaben Wunderhorn, op. cit., vol. 1, 1806, pp. 44ff. (“der rattenfänger von hameln”). 47 Tröst Einsamkeit, alte und neue Sagen und Wahrsagungen, Geschichten und Gedichte, op. cit., column ix. arnim’s address to the public is placed at the back of this edition and is unpaginated. 48 on the role of the hermit in literary texts written in german between 1749 and about 1835, see John Fitzell, The Hermit in German Literature, chapel hill: the university of north carolina press 1961 (University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures, vol. 30). 43 44

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

9

turn is one of the inspirations for a figure in �ichendorff’s work identified elsewhere in this volume49 as the likely source of kierkegaard’s pseudonym victor eremita. C. isabella of egypt in a journal entry of september 10, 1839, kierkegaard notes that “the premonitory eyes possessed by the mandrake in achim v. arnim’s story [Isabella of Egypt] were in the back of its head, whereas the other two eyes, which were no more than ordinarily far-sighted, were in its forehead as with other human beings, or in the part of the head that is turned towards the future.”50 in the margin, he notes the title of the story,51 which he cites as an example of observations on the past and the future that he makes in this entry. D. Arnim�s dolores in Kierkegaard�s Journals and Papers one of the most important of arnim’s works for kierkegaard, in terms of the number and significance of his allusions to it�� is Dolores. like goethe’s Elective Affinities (1809), this novel chronicles the demise of a marriage, but there are major differences between the two works, not least as regards their endings. goethe’s novel ends with the death and burial of the husband, eduard, and his beloved, ottilie. despite the “apparent miracles” that follow, notes david constantine, “goethe offers us nothing we can believe in….it is a chilling, in some ways a repellent book, and would be nihilistic...did it not, through the passion of eduard and ottilie and through their braver equivalents in the novelle, call for its own wholehearted contradiction.”52 Dolores is arnim’s response to this “call.” in contrast not only to Elective Affinities, but also to major nineteenth-century novels of adultery such as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, or Fontane’s Effi Briest, the fourth and final part of Arnim’s novel�� Buße (penance) demonstrates how an apparently dead marriage may be restored to life by way of confession, penance, forgiveness, and constructive acts by the marriage partners. these are not miracles in the usual sense, but examples of christianity in action. in an entry in his journals and papers, dated may 16, 1837 and underlined for emphasis, kierkegaard notes: “around this time i read a good deal of a: v. arnim; among other things ‘poverty, wealth, guilt, and penance of countess dolores. 2 volumes.’”53 he then quotes two passages from the novel:

see Judith purver, “eichendorff: kierkegaard’s reception of a german romantic,” in the present volume. 50 SKS 18, 61, ee:178. 51 SKS 18, 61, ee:178a. 52 Johann wolfgang von goethe, Elective Affinities: a Novel, trans. and ed. by david constantine, oxford: oxford university press 1994, p. xx. 53 SKS 17, 54, aa:56. 49

Judith Purver

10

2 vol. p. 21 where he speaks of her seducer he says: nd

he differed from a don Juan in that he was by no means merely sensual with every woman: only with sensual women was he sensual; with women of strict morals, he showed even greater zeal in examining and amending his life, and, with a religious woman, in praying. if don Juan had had his versatility, he could have talked himself out of the devil’s clutches by appealing to the devil’s grandmother ….54 i have written this down because it accords with my view of d.J., who was not so much a talent as a genius, not so much a character as an idea. p. 60. countess dolores’ husband’s visit to the wonderful doctor: “here he felt very desolate and lonely and – something that all the artificial machines had not been able to do – he shuddered and was seized by a nameless fear at the life of a completely solitary man, who like the last man on earth loses himself in his dreams, runs wild, and collides at the same time with Heaven and Hell but cannot find his way into either.��55

Both passages come from part three of arnim’s novel, Guilt. The first refers to dolores’ seducer, duke a., alias the marquis of d., the second to a maker of automata.56 The solitude of the latter strikes �olores’ husband�� �arl—who feels “quite alien and alone in the power of unfeeling machines which, created by man, could easily gain the upper hand over him”57—and evidently �ierkegaard as well. in a journal entry of January 12, 1841, kierkegaard quotes a poem that ends part Four, chapter twelve of Dolores. a linear translation is given below. the deeper we sink into ourselves, the closer we advance toward hell, soon we feel a wave of the glowing river, and must soon drown in it; It tears the ��esh from our body and consumes it�� and our past times are marked by desolation, in us is death! the world is god! o man, do not abandon man, however great your sin may be avoid even the longing for sins In this way you can still find much grace; who has ever measured the extent of grace� man can forget so much. Countess Dolores 2nd vol. p. 260. thyself in remorse can school thyself in longing for sins, when remorse is more contemplative and anaesthetic.58

achim von arnim, Werke, ed. by roswitha Burwick et al., op. cit., vol. 1, p. 374. SKS 17, 54, aa:56. 56 This figure was based on gottfried christoph Beireis (1730–1809), professor of physics and medicine at the university of helmstedt, whom arnim, on goethe’s advice, had visited in 1806. see achim von arnim, Werke, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 791. 57 ibid., p. 404. 58 SKS 19, 205, not7:1. 54 55

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

11

this poem, too, concerns isolation and self-absorption. kierkegaard’s note to it refers to inauthentic remorse, a topic that recurs in Dolores in connection with duke a. E. dolores and either/or commenting on kierkegaard’s reception of Dolores, walter rehm suggests that the last stage of arnim’s novel, penance, is replaced for kierkegaard by destruction and the triumph of evil (Untergang im Bösen).59 For his part, paul michael lützeler claims that today Dolores is interesting only for its form, not for its content.60 close examination of kierkegaard’s reception of Dolores serves to refute both these claims. all kierkegaard’s allusions to Dolores come from parts three and Four of the novel, and predominantly part Four, which is by far the longest. this indicates that his chief interest in the novel lies in its treatment of guilt and above all of penance. lützeler, while noting kierkegaard’s interest in dolores’ seducer, does not point out that this interest extends to the contrasting reactions of the seducer and his victims, which do not emerge fully until part Four, and that kierkegaard’s reception of the novel makes its structure and import (rather than the superficial dichotomy of �form�� and �content��) of considerable significance in the history of ideas up to the present. it is instructive to compare kierkegaard’s reception of Dolores with the diametrically opposed reaction of his contemporary and fellow danish subject, the german dramatist and poet christian Friedrich hebbel (1813–63), who in a diary entry of March 1�� 1842 praised the first three books of the novel but remarked that “in the fourth book the fact that the whole has no root takes a terrible toll, since as a result it cannot grow a crown. What has no proper beginning can find no proper ending either.”61 By contrast, kierkegaard saw that the fourth book was essential to the conception of the whole, and thereby gained insight into a central aspect of arnim’s writing: its persistent concern with rebirth, renewal, and regeneration. �. Allusions to dolores in either/or in the opening paragraph of the “preface” to Either/Or, the pseudonymous editor, victor eremita, refers to his doubt as to “the accuracy of the familiar philosophical thesis that the outer is the inner and the inner is the outer” and states that he has “consulted the authors whose views i shared in this respect” in order “to make up for what has been left undone in the philosophical writings.”62 there is evidence that one of these authors is arnim, and that the text of arnim’s on which victor eremita, as well as a and B, the narrators of part one and part two of Either/Or, and Johannes, the author of “the seducer’s diary,” principally draw is Dolores.63 see walter rehm, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, op. cit., p. 13. see achim von arnim, Werke, ed. by roswitha Burwick et al., op. cit., vol. 1, p. 760. 61 quoted from ibid., p. 743. 62 SKS 2, 11 / EO1, 3. 63 It is also worth noting that in the first story of ��ife in a Country House�� one of the characters speaks of the difference between the inner and outer as follows: “if a new, higher growth of faith were to spring up, where are the strong hands to harvest it, where are the hearts to 59 60

12

Judith Purver

Either/Or includes several probable allusions to Dolores. one is explicitly attributed to arnim; the others, when considered in connection with it, with each other, and with the novel itself, have a strong claim to be regarded as deriving from the same source. The first occurs in the opening paragraph: �A priest who hears confessions is separated by a grillwork from the person making confession; he does not see him, he only hears. as he listens, he gradually forms a picture of the other’s outward appearance corresponding to what he hears.”64 this is reminiscent of events in chapter one, part Four of Dolores, which constitutes the turning-point of the novel. at the end of part three, having discovered that dolores has been unfaithful to him, karl stages what he intends to be a fatal “accident” by making her unwittingly shoot him with live ammunition. after reading the description of this incident, one might reasonably conclude that karl is dead. however, this is not the case, and part Four opens with a crucial re��ection on narration that attempts to explain why. The gist of this re��ection is as follows. If a narrator kills off all the characters that he doesn’t know what to do with, he may be exercising the right of time, but not time’s maternal love�� and his fictions never attain the significance of real events. the bold human being often resembles such a narrator in respect of his own life: he rushes ahead, ignoring the warnings of his mother, time, until he falls; she then considers whether repentance can help him where love has not. repentant penance (die reuige Buße) is the most effective force in events both great and small, and the human being’s supreme strength and distinction. nature may deny us the ability to regrow limbs that have been cut off, as a tree does, but in compensation she gave us the power of spiritual regeneration.65 having linked narration with penitence, the narrator considers examples of the latter in relation to religion. The first case discussed is that of �olores’ seducer�� duke a., for whom, says the narrator, piety became a stimulant that he craved in ever-increasing doses: “religion became for him a new type of opium.”66 a similar idea lies behind kierkegaard’s comment on the poem from Dolores quoted above.

store it and keep it safe, after so many have opened up their inner self and have made it into their exterior and used it up�� while others have filled their inner self with the exterior of a past time�� like a useless cellar with rubble, but almost all distinguish this exterior of the church so clearly from the interior, as if an irreparable split had opened up its vaulted roof and heaven appeared to them only through this split� why otherwise would there be so many catholics whose entire zeal consists merely in annoyance at the protestants, so many protestants who do not want to understand anything about luther except his protesting; young fools, who have not yet even converted themselves, and think to convert the world, about which as yet they know nothing at all�” see achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 360. 64 ibid. 65 see achim von arnim, Werke, ed. by roswitha Burwick et al., op. cit., pp. 441f. 66 ibid., p. 449. karl marx’s echo of this comment in the introduction to his critique of hegel in the Deutsch-�ranzösische Jahrbücher of February 1844 is probably no accident. in an article in the People�s Paper, marx refers to arnim’s story Isabella of Egypt: see s.s. prawer, Karl Marx and World Literature, oxford: clarendon press 1976, p. 252. as marx also knew Bettine von arnim’s writings and was well read in german romanticism, it is more than likely that he had read Dolores.

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

13

By contrast, the remorse felt by dolores and karl is genuine. Both go to confession, dolores to confess her adultery, karl to confess having tried to cause her to kill him. in this context, the narrator remarks that most educated people who think themselves very religious have no real faith. this is the case with karl, who enters the church in despair and watches scornfully those humbly leaving the confessional.67 after seeing the figure who reminds him of �olores�� however�� he is moved to make a sincere confession “like a dead person.”68 this is the precondition for his rebirth. these comments by the narrator occur in the paragraph of Dolores to which Victor �remita seems to allude in the first paragraph of Either/Or. they leave little doubt that he is indeed alluding to it, as it describes a process of religious renewal, the precondition of which, as in kierkegaard’s thought, is despair. as penance, karl is told to go to a nearby place of pilgrimage. having asked the priest who imposed the penance, Brother martin, to join him, he sets off in a state of timidity and embarrassment that is normally foreign to him. as he walks along, however, he begins to pray, using the priest’s rosary. other pilgrims join in, and he gradually feels comforted by the repetition of the same prayers and the realization of “how simple the human heart [is].”69 thus he ceases to scorn the faith of the ordinary people and comes to share it. this in turn enables him to help others. on arrival at an inn near the shrine, karl notices the unusual pallor of the inn keeper’s daughter�� Hippolita. The priest finds out from other guests at the inn that a colonel had deserted her on the morning after their “wedding,” leaving word that he was already married. her child was stillborn, and she became the butt of public scorn and mockery, which was undermining her health. karl persuades her to come along to the shrine, where the public honor that she receives for her beautiful singing helps to counteract the effect of the undeserved dishonor to which she had been exposed. thus the events set in train by karl’s confession help her to recover from the effects of seduction. This does not depend on miracles�� or on an exceptional occurrence—the honor that hippolita receives is, we are told, not unusual70—but on �arl’s practical application of his now genuine faith—and a shrewd insight into human psychology. the priest’s rosary plays a role here, too. karl leaves it behind at the inn and when he goes back to retrieve it, hears hippolita singing and praying with it. this suggests to him the idea of asking her to accompany him and the priest to the shrine. The beneficial effects of confession continue when �arl finds �olores�� who has been given the same penance but has found the walk exhausting because she is pregnant�� lying apparently lifeless on a chapel ��oor in front of a picture of Mary magdalene. he revives her by sprinkling her with holy water from the water stoup. this, like his recovery from his apparently fatal wound, constitutes a symbolic rebirth, not only of dolores, but also of their relationship in its spiritual and physical totality. the priest who imposed the penance is not particularly intelligent: in fact, he is somewhat foolish and has no idea how much he has helped karl and dolores. karl feels, however, that “a higher voice speaks with the tongue of a person who 67 68 69 70

see achim von arnim Werke, ed. by roswitha Burwick et al., op. cit., vol. 1, p. 450. ibid., p. 451. ibid. ibid., p. 455.

Judith Purver

14

with a faithful heart sits in the place of god.”71 Brother martin is also an essential companion on the pilgrimage, as the incidents with his rosary and hippolita show. if Brother martin has his human faults, so do other priests in arnim’s works. this is the case in Dolores and especially in Halle und Jerusalem, where priests are shown as unfaithful to their calling. the explicit reference to arnim in Either/Or occurs in “the immediate erotic stages,” where the esthete, a, referring to Johannes the seducer, mentions arnim (but not the title of the novel) and cites almost verbatim the final sentence of the first passage from Dolores that kierkegaard had quoted in his journals and papers: achim v. arnim tells somewhere of a seducer with an entirely different style [sc. from don Juan], a seducer who falls within ethical categories….he declares that he could speak with a woman in such a way that if the devil grabbed him, he would talk himself free if he could manage to speak with the devil’s great-grandmother. this is the genuine seducer; the esthetic interest here is also something else: namely, the how, the method.72

this description indicates that the character of Johannes the seducer is based, at least in part, on arnim’ duke a, alias marquis d. the fact that the esthete shares with dolores’ seducer the initial “a” also lends weight to victor eremita’s suggestion that the esthete, a, may be identical with Johannes the seducer.73 Besides duke a, other probable sources for kierkegaard’s Johannes in arnim’s novel are the colonel who deceives Hippolita—like him�� Johannes seduces a young�� inexperienced girl—and Johanna/Johannes in the unfinished drama about �Pope Joan” interpolated in part Four of Dolores, where the devil raises the child Johanna as a boy, Johannes, in order to make her pope and antichrist. a further allusion to Dolores may be concealed in an entry in kierkegaard’s journals and papers and a similar, but briefer comment by Johannes in “the seducer’s diary.” Both remarks immediately follow a quotation from a poem by eichendorff in which the gender of the words indicating two people said to be in love, which is masculine in the original, has been changed to feminine. the journal entry reads: Die eine ist verliebt gar sehr Die Andre wär� es gerne Indeed�� it is difficult to have to walk alongside someone�� especially in the evening to have permission to hold one’s future brother-in-law under the arm, and even under the left arm.74

in “the seducer’s diary” in Either/Or Johannes, referring to a group of girls, quotes the same lines of verse (the one is very much in love / the other would like to be) with the same gender change, and comments: “Yes, it is undeniably a bad employment in life to go walking with a prospective brother-in-law on his left arm.”75 71 72 73 74 75

ibid., p. 460. SKS 2, 103 / EO1�� 99 (Translation modified). SKS 2, 16–18 / EO1, 8–10. Pap. iii B 72 / JP 5, 5480. SKS 2, 345 / EO1, p. 356.

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

15

this may allude, among other things, to the fact that dolores’ seducer is her brother-in-law. he is not literally her prospective brother-in-law; nevertheless, as neither she nor the reader knows his identity until after he has seduced her, the revelation that he is her brother-in-law does lie in the future. the most striking parallel between Dolores and Either/Or, however, concerns the forcible opening of a writing-desk. victor eremita relates how he bought a writing desk from a second-hand dealer and, in trying to open it in order to take out money for a journey, hit it with a hatchet, thereby discovering a secret compartment containing �a mass of papers��—the manuscripts of which the rest of Either/Or allegedly consists. the corresponding episode in Dolores occurs in the final chapter of the novel. A widowed princess believes that she has spent the night with karl and that he loves her and wants to marry her. wishing to write a document of consent to a divorce for dolores to sign, but not having her writing materials to hand, the princess forces open the desk of a male secretary: in her vehement way, she tried the locked desk to see whether it could be opened. into the lid she put the point of a hammer used for collecting minerals, and as the wood had dried out in the intense heat, the lid readily sprang open. impatiently she felt for paper, pen and inkwell, found them all, and was about to close the lid, when a mass of heaped-up papers, whose support she had removed, fell out.76

Among the papers she finds the portrait that she thought she had given �arl after their night together. �ealizing�� as the content of the papers confirms�� that she had spent the night with the secretary and that her assumptions about karl’s feelings were mistaken, she kills the secretary and herself with poison dissolved in lacrimae christi wine. the fact that this allusion, like that to “a priest who hears confessions,” occurs in the “preface” of Either/Or indicates the importance of Dolores, and particularly of Book Four, as a major catalyst for Either/Or as a whole. the phrase “a mass of papers,” taken from arnim’s novel, also describes the latter’s convoluted structure. G. Allusion to owen tudor in either/or this consists of a direct quotation followed by a comment: “‘Wir Presbyterianer halten die Orgel für des Teufels Dudelsack, womit er den Ernst der Betrachtung in Schlummer wiegt, so wie der Tanz die guten Vorsätze betäubt.” 77 this must be regarded as a remark instar omnium. the esthete, a, cites this passage in support of his claim that religious fervor regards music as unsuitable to express spirit, but ignores the original context of the quotation. the passage in Owen Tudor that he quotes is part of an exchange between the narrator and one of his traveling companions, a presbyterian, about the “Jumpers,” achim von arnim, Werke, ed. by roswitha Burwick et al., op. cit., vol. 1, p. 662. SKS 2, 78f / EO1, 72f. (english translation of the german text: we presbyterians regard the organ as the devil’s bagpipe, with which he lulls to sleep the earnestness of contemplation, just as dance deadens good intentions.)

76 77

16

Judith Purver

a welsh sect whose adherents jumped for joy during worship. it is not clear why the Jumpers’ form of worship, expressed through music and dance, should be considered a less fervent manifestation of religious faith than the presbyterian’s opposition to it. in fact, far from supporting the presbyterian’s views, Owen Tudor uses humor to counter them. the presbyterian’s bigoted comment is belied by his altruistic action when he and the narrator prevent a police constable from arresting a welshwoman by joining in the Jumpers’ worship and making the constable dance with them. hence in quoting the presbyterian’s comment, a misinterprets or twists its context and thus, as kierkegaard must have been aware, undermines his own argument. Owen Tudor is not the only story of arnim to attack sectarianism: it is the main theme of “the church ordinance” and of “life in a country house,” both of which convey the concern felt by arnim, a sincere but also ecumenically-minded lutheran, at the religious situation in prussia after the napoleonic wars, and in particular the increasingly hierarchical and authoritarian tendencies in protestantism.78 like kierkegaard, arnim focuses on people’s actions as a manifestation of their faith, not on minor points of doctrine or ceremony. H. halle und Jerusalem arnim’s dramatic epic Halle und Jerusalem, a reworking of a seventeenth-century baroque drama, gryphius’ Cardenio und Celinde,79 is an Erlösungsdrama in two parts. A largely realistic first part�� based on student life in Halle�� is followed by a visionary second part, enacting the voyage of several of the characters to the holy �and and their pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre to find salvation. like Dolores, this is a structurally innovative work whose originality has not received the recognition that it merits. Just as the marriage of karl and dolores, and karl’s life, “ought” to end with part three of the novel, so the life of cardenio, a Privatdocent whose gifts are marred by impulsiveness, is forfeit at the end of part one of the drama: he is wanted by the authorities for murder. he does, however, have a powerful guide and protector: ahasverus, the wandering Jew�� who is the first character to speak in the play and reappears whenever Cardenio is in danger. in part two, ahasverus reveals that cardenio is his son, conceived as the result of rape. Condemned�� as in the legend�� to wander through the world indefinitely for mocking Jesus on the day of the Crucifixion�� and having also committed rape—an addition to the legend that motivates his interest in Cardenio—Ahasverus yet appears as a wise�� noble�� and compassionate figure who is himself seeking salvation and, in doing so, leads cardenio and others on the same path. the import of the drama is that even the worst sinners can be forgiven if they repent and do penance. this does not mean that they can escape punishment: as the narrator states in the opening chapter of Dolores, part Four, penance must include

see achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 765f. see roger paulin, ‘Gryphius� ‘Cardenio und Celinde� und Arnims ‘Halle und Jerusalem�: eine vergleichende Untersuchung, tübingen: niemeyer 1968 (Studien zur deutschen Literatur, vol. 11).

78

79

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

17

acceptance of punishment.80 the visionary second part of the drama enacts the normally invisible process of repentance in the form of a pilgrimage by sea and land to the holy sepulchre, where cardenio, assured of divine grace, dies peacefully. Here Arnim anticipates not only in form—a double drama with a realistic first part and a visionary second part—but also in import�� Goethe’s �aust, in particular part ii. as with Elective Affinities and Dolores, however, the endings of the two dramas differ. Faust’s redemption, despite the catholic trappings, is essentially the result of his continual striving. By contrast, Halle und Jerusalem enacts christian penitence and penance. however, because cardenio, unlike karl and dolores, has actually taken life, this can occur on a visionary level only. kierkegaard possessed a number of books about ahasverus, but, in view of his detailed knowledge of arnim’s work, it is reasonable to assume that Halle und Jerusalem contributed to his interest in the figure. This assumption is supported by the occurrence in arnim’s drama of two phrases used by kierkegaard as titles. in Halle und Jerusalem, the words “either-or” are emphasized by being printed in spaced-out type,81 which is otherwise rarely used in the text. thus arnim’s drama, together with goethe’s Werther, may be one of the literary sources of the title of Either/Or. The title of the first main section of Stages on Life�s Way, “in vino veritas,” besides being a well-known saying, also occurs in Halle und Jerusalem in its german form, “im wein ist wahrheit.”82 another of arnim’s texts that kierkegaard possessed, Die Weihnachtsausstellung, ends with a light-hearted drinking song which includes the same words.83 in using them kierkegaard may have been alluding to arnim. at any rate, he could scarcely have been unaware that they occurred in texts by arnim. I. “Guilty?/Not Guilty?” and Arnim�s gentry by entail, the equals and prince all-god and singer half-god kierkegaard’s second major pseudonymous work, Stages on Life�s Way, makes no explicit reference to arnim. it can nevertheless be shown that arnim’s story, Gentry by Entail was a major inspiration for the section of Stages entitled “guilty�/not guilty�” and that this section also contains possible allusions to arnim’s drama, Die Gleichen and his story, �ürst Ganzgott und Sänger Halbgott. Frater taciturnus claims to have found the manuscript of “guilty�/not guilty�,” with several other objects, in a box that he recovered from søborg lake in 1844. the dates given in the manuscript correspond to the year 1751, but, he suggests, it may be of more recent date�� as it resembles a novel. Its fictional status is further emphasized by his designation of it as “an imaginary psychological construction.”84

see achim von arnim Werke, ed. by roswitha Burwick et al., op. cit., vol. 1, p. 442. Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim sämmtliche Werke: Neue Ausgabe, vols. 1–21, Berlin: v. arnim’s verlag 1857 (mallon, nos. 234–54) (reprinted, vols. 1–10, hildesheim: georg olms verlag 1982, vol. 5 (= vols. 8–10 of the edition of 1857), vol. 8, p. 26. 82 ibid., p. 170. 83 achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 731. 84 SKS 6, 198 / SLW, 211 and passim. 80

81

18

Judith Purver

these words could also be used to describe Gentry by Entail, which is set in the period between the French revolution and the napoleonic wars. the personality and behavior of its main protagonist, referred to only as “der Majoratsherr” (the primogenitive heir), foreshadow in many ways those of the anonymous author of “guilty�/not guilty�,” whom Frater taciturnus calls only “quidam.” In the first place�� the primogenitive heir’s love for a young woman called �sther could be described in the terms that quidam applies to his own love for an unnamed woman: secret and clandestine.85 Both men watch their beloved from a vantage point on the opposite side of the street while seeking to remain unseen themselves. Both engage in “nocturnal pursuits”86 which consist chie��y in writing a diary. Both are highly re��ective: the young heir remarks that he is �a good observer of himself����87 Quidam that he does nothing without re��ection.88 this mode of existence distances them from the present and from daily life. consequently, both feel that they are not, and never have been, truly alive. Just as the heir says that he is “apparently alive,” but actually “dead,”89 so quidam describes himself as “one who is dead” and claims that he has “never lived.”90 paradoxically, their detachment from life gives them profound insights into it. the heir claims to have, like the mandrake in arnim’s Isabella of Egypt, “a second pair of eyes.”91 these enable him to see visions and spirits, among them “unhappy souls who cannot find rest because of uncompleted lawsuits.��92 quidam likewise says that he is “continually seeing ghosts” and that human justice is “nonsense.”93 as these insights derive from non-engagement with life, however, they are inimical to life. arnim’s narrator suggests that those who seek them may be driven to “impious self-destruction.”94 quidam, fearing that his beloved may die or kill herself, thinks of suicide.95 Both young women who are the objects of the men’s affections are described as pale and suffering.96 the heir sees esther dying, or being killed by her stepmother, vasthi, and himself dies shortly afterwards. Both men turn in their predicament to the religious. after esther’s death the heir is assailed by radical doubt as to the existence of a transcendent sphere—this recalls karl’s religious doubts at the beginning of part Four of Dolores—but then has a vision of esther’s departing soul which is followed by a passage in italics: “and there appeared everywhere through the structure of this world a higher world, which is perceptible to the senses only in imagination: in imagination, which stands as see SKS, 6 189 / SLW, 202. SKS 6, 198 / SLW, 211. 87 achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 41. 88 SKS 6, 190 / SLW, p. 202. 89 achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 39. 90 SKS 6, 198 / SLW, 211. 91 achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 39. 92 ibid., p. 40. 93 SKS 6, 205 / SLW, p. 220. 94 achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 33. 95 SKS 6, 361 / SLW, 389. 96 SKS 6, 186 / SLW, 198. see achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 47. 85 86

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

19

mediator between the two worlds and repeatedly spiritualizes the dead surrounding matter, infusing it with living form by embodying the higher.”97 these words seem to express the narrator’s views as well as those of the heir. the heir also expresses the conviction that esther, who, though the child of christians, has been raised by Jews, “is not removed from the heaven of her faith; she has found it�� and I will also find my Heaven�� the peace and motionlessness of the eternal blue�� that accepts me�� its youngest child�� like its firstborn�� in its infinity�� all in equal blessedness!”98 the “faith” referred to here must be Judaism, as it is the faith in which esther has been raised. earlier, the heir states that all the holy stories of all peoples are true,99 a sentiment that accords with the views on myth of a number of german romantics and their associates. quidam, for his part, says that he has “chosen the religious.”100 this also seems to be true of Frater taciturnus, who in his “letter to the reader” treats “guilty�/not Guilty?�� as a fictional work that he has created. When in this ��etter�� he quotes “a deeply philosophical friend” as saying that he (Frater taciturnus) is a seducer who �wants to induce everyone to believe that the single individual has infinite significance and that this is the validity of life���� and cannot �come up with the least little thing that the age demands,”101 this can hardly be read as anything other than irony both on the part of Frater taciturnus and of kierkegaard, since quidam’s views accord with �ierkegaard’s own comments on the significance of the individual and the loss of individuality in the post-revolutionary age. the narrator of arnim’s story, too, states that before the French revolution there was genuine individuality, whereas after it there was only sameness.102 neither of the main protagonists of arnim’s story is who he or she seems to be. not only does esther seem to be of Jewish descent although she is not; she also acts the part of a prominent Jewish salon hostess, inviting imaginary male guests of different nationalities to her room and “conversing” with them in various languages. these guests include “a kantian philosopher” who “demonstrates” his views on French affairs, causing a Frenchman to become enraged, so that esther spills an (imaginary) cup of hot tea over the kantian’s trousers “in order to create a diversion,” and “a young enlightened theologian.”103 they also include the heir who, watching from his hiding-place opposite esther’s window, “feared that he would see himself come in; he felt as if he were being turned inside out like a glove being taken off.”104 in the ensuing imaginary conversation with him, esther says, “You told me very succinctly that I was not what I—seem to be�� and I reply that you�� too�� are not what

97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104

ibid, pp. 63f. achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 64. ibid., p. 59. SKS 6, 207 / SLW, p. 222. SKS 6, 453 / SLW, 492f. achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 33. ibid., p. 50. ibid., pp. 50f.

20

Judith Purver

you seem.”105 similarly, quidam says: “if there is anyone present, no matter who it is, i am never entirely who i am.”106 as the heir learns from overhearing esther’s words, she is the daughter of a former primogenitive heir, whereas he is the illegitimate son of a lady at court. �sther intensifies her false identity not only by imitating social types�� such as a salon hostess and her visitors, and the voices of individuals, such as the heir, but she also mimics the grotesque disguises and voices of guests at an imaginary masked ball, as well as the sound of various musical instruments.107 her skills as a mimic point forward to the latin master in “guilty�/not guilty�” who, says quidam, had a habit of “occasionally speaking suddenly in a completely different voice and from a completely different world.”108 the same could be said of esther. in addition, the theme of role-playing provides a concrete detail that is present both in arnim’s story and in “guilty�/not guilty�” and points to the intertextual links between them. one of the objects that Frater taciturnus claims to have found in the box with quidam’s manuscript is “a fragment of a poster advertising a comedy.”109 when the heir is about to enter esther’s shop to buy curtains in order to conceal himself from her view—a form of disguise and play-acting—he excuses himself for not entering vasthi’s shop, which is next door, by saying that he had merely turned to look at a poster advertising a comedy (Komödienzettel) at the corner of the street.110 there is an even clearer allusion to Gentry by Entail in quidam’s diary entry headed “a possibility,” which concerns an insane bookkeeper who believes that he may have fathered a child. quidam writes of the bookkeeper: “the only relative he had left was an old man, his late mother’s cousin, ‘the cousin,’ as he was called κατ’ εξοχην [in an eminent sense], a bachelor, to whose house he had moved after his parents’ death. he took his meals there every day.”111 the young heir in arnim’s story, too, has an older relative, a bachelor known as “the cousin.”112 after the death of his (supposed) mother, the heir comes to live in the cousin’s house,113 where he also takes his meals. Both cousins are partial to snuff. Both works also mention Jewish religious texts: whereas quidam reads the old testament,114 the heir reads his cousin’s books of Jewish legends.115 Both texts refer to king david.116 there is, in addition, a passage in “guilty�/not guilty�” that recalls arnim’s drama Die Gleichen as well as Gentry by Entail. with reference to his attempts to dissuade his beloved from engaging in re��ection�� Quidam remarks: �one can suck 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

ibid., p. 51. SKS 6, 184 / SLW, 196. see achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 56f. SKS 6, 191 / SLW, 204. SKS 6, 178 / SLW, 190. achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 46. SKS 6, 265 / SLW, 285. achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 34. ibid., pp. 36f. sks 6, 214 / SLW, 230. achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 48. ibid., p. 57. see SKS 6, 234 / SLW, p. 251.

Achim von Arnim: Kierkegaard�s Encounters with a Heidelberg Hermit

21

poison out of another person and oneself die.”117 in “the equals,” a woman sucks the poison from her beloved’s wound and dies, whereas he recovers.118 in Gentry by Entail, the young heir “sees” the angel of death poison esther with a drop of liquid from his sword and wash the point of the sword in a glass of water by her bed. the heir drinks this water and dies shortly afterwards.119 the correspondences between Gentry by Entail and “guilty�/not guilty�” are too numerous and too specific to be the result of chance. The main reason for them appears to be the strong impact that arnim’s story made on kierkegaard. not only is it highly original, it also deals with central themes of kierkegaard’s own work, notably the discrepancy between the inner and the outer and the crisis of individuality. in addition, it satirizes philosophers and “enlightened” theologians, who are among the main targets of kierkegaard’s criticism. “guilty�/not guilty�” also includes what appears to be an allusion to another story by arnim. in his diary entry for “January 12. midnight” the narrator of “guilty/ not guilty�” comments, “since i am not dead i cannot live my life over again, and if i were dead, i could not relive it either, for, after all, i have never lived.”120 this is reminiscent of �ürst Ganzgott und Sänger Halbgott, where the prince complains to the singer “that i do not experience anything at all, that a thousand considerations hem me in; when i die, i shall still be waiting for my life to begin!”121 J. the marriage Blacksmith and the Battle between the old and the new soap cellars There is�� finally�� a possible parallel between Arnim’s The Marriage Blacksmith and kierkegaard’s early draft play, The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars. arnim’s story ends with multiple weddings in gretna green, a scottish town near the english border where runaway couples could be married by a blacksmith. in its light-hearted treatment of marriage it forms a contrasting pendant to Hollin and Dolores. it also offers, in the two rival smiths122 who compete for the custom of couples wishing to be married, a parallel to the rival soap-cellars in kierkegaard’s play. although the latter are based on real soap-cellars in copenhagen, the idea of referring to them in a literary text could have been suggested by arnim’s story. if so, this would show that kierkegaard’s reception of arnim in his creative writing began at about the same time as he noted his reading of arnim in his journal. it is clear from the foregoing that arnim’s thought and writing made a profound and lasting impression on kierkegaard and possessed considerable fascination for him. SKS 6, 252 / SLW, 271. see Ludwig Achim von Arnim�s sämmtliche Werke: Neue Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5 (= vols. 8–10 of the edition of 1857), vol. 10, pp. 339f. 119 see achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 63–5. 120 SKS 6, 198 / SLW, p. 211. 121 achim von arnim, Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 17. 122 the original title of arnim’s story, “die ehenschmiede,” is plural, whereas sheila dickson uses the singular ‘Blacksmith’ in her translation: achim von arnim, The Marriage Blacksmith, op. cit. 117 118

22

Judith Purver

this is particularly noticeable in kierkegaard’s early pseudonymous works that most resemble novels, namely Either/Or and “guilty�/not guilty�,” which forms a pendant to “the seducer’s diary” in Either/Or. the manuscript that victor eremita finds in his writing desk alludes to Arnim’s Dolores as well as to other romantic narratives, notably a novel by eichendorff and chamisso’s Peter Schlemihl. complex intertextual allusion of this kind is characteristic of romantic writing itself. arnim does not appear to have contributed to the concept of three existencespheres put forward in “guilty�not guilty�” however, kierkegaard engaged profoundly with arnim’s thought and writing. arnim’s critical religious thinking from within protestantism, and his interest in the role of the protestant church in national life, was bound to be of particular interest to kierkegaard and to act as a stimulus to his own thought. more remains to be said about this than can be attempted here.

Bibliography I. Arnim�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library Novellen, vols. 1–6, ed. by wilhelm grimm, vols. 1–2, Berlin: veit & comp. 1839, vols. 3–6, grünberg and leipzig: w. levysohn 1841–42 [vols. 1–2 and vols. 9–12 in Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, ed. by wilhelm grimm, vols. 1–20, vols. 1–3 and vols. 5–8, Berlin: veit & comp. 1839–40 (there is no vol. 4); vols. 9–12, grünberg and leipzig: w. levysohn 1841; vol. 13, charlottenburg: egbert Bauer 1845; vols. 14–20, Berlin: expedition des von arnimschen verlags 1846–1848] (ASKB 1612–1617). Schaubühne, vols. 1–2, ed. by wilhelm grimm, Berlin: veit and co. 1840 [vols. 6–7 in Ludwig Achim�s von Arnim Sämmtliche Werke, op. cit.] (ASKB 1618–1619). Die Kronenwächter, ed. by wilhelm grimm, vol. 1, Berlin: veit 1840 (ASKB 1620). Armuth, Reichthum, Schuld und Buße der Gräfin Dolores, vols. 1–2, ed. by wilhelm grimm, Berlin: veit 1840 (ASKB 1621–1622). Halle und Jerusalem. Studentenspiel und Pilgerabentheuer, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1811 (ASKB 1623). Die Gleichen. Schauspiel, Berlin: maurersche Buchhandlung 1819 (ASKB 1624). Sechs Erzählungen. Nachlaß von L. Achim von Arnim, ed. by F.w. gubitz, Berlin and königsberg in der neumark: in der vereinsbuchhandlung 1835 (ASKB 1625). [ed.], Tröst Einsamkeit, alte und neue Sagen und Wahrsagungen, Geschichten und Gedichte, ed. by ludwig achim von arnim, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1808 (ASKB 912). [together with clemens Brentano, eds.], Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Alte deutsche Lieder, vols. 1–3, 2nd ed., heidelberg: mohr u. winter 1819 (ASKB 1494–1496). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Arnim steffens, henrich, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 6, p.78; p. 89; p. 91; pp. 100–101; pp. 105–12; p. 115; vol. 8, p. 328; pp. 333–6; vol. 9, p. 357 (ASKB 1834–1843). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Arnim purver, Judith, “without authority: kierkegaard’s psuedonymous works as romantic narratives,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 2007, pp. 401–423. rehm, walter, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, hildesheim: georg olms 2003 [munich: hermann rinn verlag 1949], pp. 12f.; p. 85; p. 95; p. 541; 616.

24

Judith Purver

rudolph, gerhard, Studien zur dichterischen Welt Achim von Arnims, Berlin: walter de gruyter 1958 (Quellen und �orschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker, n.F., vol. 1 (= vol. 125)), pp. 78f.

eichendorff: kierkegaard’s reception of a german romantic Judith purver

Over fifty years ago�� Walther �ehm and Josef �unz stated that a detailed study of kierkegaard’s reception of german romanticism was “urgent” and “long overdue.” kunz claimed that kierkegaard’s thought had not only been anticipated by late romanticism but had developed out of it, and asserted that, in any study of this topic, eichendorff would occupy an important place.1 two decades later Franz heiduk, in a review of gerhard vom hofe’s work on kierkegaard’s critique of romanticism,2 wrote that a thorough investigation of �ichendorff’s in��uence on �ierkegaard would contribute to our knowledge both of eichendorff’s reception and of the sources of kierkegaard’s critique of early romanticism.3 these two studies remain desiderata. an adequate examination of kierkegaard’s overall debt to romanticism would need to take into account not only his largely negative comments on early �omanticism— which must be seen in the context of the in��uence of �omanticism as a whole on the structure as well as the content of his writings—but also his more positive response to late romanticism and in particular to eichendorff.4 this chapter will provide essential groundwork for the study advocated by �ehm and �unz. More specifically�� it will attempt to meet the need identified by Heiduk and �unz for an account of �ierkegaard’s response to �ichendorff. This response is all the more significant for my investigation of the reception of eichendorff has been supported by the leverhulme trust. 1 see walther rehm, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, hildesheim: georg olms 2003 [munich: hermann rinn 1949], p. 527: “eine wirklich eingehende und umfassende Behandlung des sehr schwierigen themas: k. und die romantik, fehlt noch und wäre dringend nötig”; Josef kunz, Eichendorff; Höhepunkt und Krise der Spätromantik, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1967 [oberursel: altkönig-verlag 1951], p. 221: “es ist längst eine eindringliche untersuchung fällig, die … zeigte, wie kierkegaards anliegen bereits allseits in der spätromantik in philosophie und dichtung spürbar ist und sich daraus entwickelt hat. in dieser untersuchung würde eichendorff eine wichtige stelle beanspruchen.” (my italics.) 2 gerhard vom hofe, Die Romantikkritik Sören Kierkegaards, Frankfurt am main: athenäum 1972 (Goethezeit, vol. 6). 3 Aurora�� no. 33�� 1973�� pp. 126f. (p. 127): ��ine gründliche Untersuchung der �in��üsse der dichtung eichendorffs auf kierkegaard steht noch aus. sie ergäbe einen anregenden Beitrag zur wirkungsgeschichte des dichters sowie eine weitere quelle der kritik der frühromantischen lebensanschauung kierkegaards.” 4 see, for example, rehm, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, op. cit., p. 53.

26

Judith Purver

being hidden: kierkegaard names eichendorff and his works in private contexts, but, with one exception, not in works intended for publication. I. Short Overview of Eichendorff�s Life and Works Joseph karl Benedikt Freiherr (Baron) von eichendorff was born on march 10, 1788 at lubowitz (lubowice), upper silesia, as the second son of the catholic landowner adolph theodor rudolph von eichendorff (1756–1818). on the family estates and in the surrounding countryside he spent an unconstrained, active childhood that provided much of the raw material for his writing. when his father fell into debt, he was sent to school and university in Breslau (Wrocław) (1801–05)�� then to the universities of halle (1805–06) and heidelberg (1807–08) to study law. after helping to run the estates (1808–10) and visiting Berlin (1809–10), he went to vienna (1810–12) to take his law exam. when war broke out in 1813, he enlisted in the lutzow Free corps. discharged in 1814, he re-enlisted in 1815 after marrying louise (aloysia) von larisch (1792–1855), rather than the rich heiress chosen by his family. this set the seal on the loss of all but one of the estates. From 1816 to 1844 he worked as a prussian civil servant in Breslau, danzig (gdansk), königsberg (kaliningrad), and Berlin. in 1841 he was made a privy councillor, and in 1853 he received the Bavarian maximilian order. he died on november 26, 1857 in neisse (nysa), silesia. with e.t.a. hoffmann (1776–1822), eichendorff ranks as one of the two most important late romantic writers. popularly, he is seen as the quintessential german romantic. his best-known works are his story Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts,5 and his Gedichte, which, particularly in musical settings, have enjoyed unique popularity in germany.6 this indicates his success in what he saw as the poet’s task: to mediate between the immanent and the transcendent by translating the language or �song�� of nature into human language�� thereby conveying a spiritual significance accessible to all.7 he does this by means of nature images which tend to be generic and plural—woods�� fields�� mountains�� valleys�� rivers—and other recurrent motifs�� particularly sounds, such as a coach horn, a hunting horn, the singing of birds, the rustling of trees, or the rushing of water. Besides the works mentioned above he is the Joseph von eichendorff, Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts und das Marmorbild: Zwei Novellen nebst einem Anhange von Liedern und Romanzen, Berlin: in der vereins buchhandlung 1826. (english translations: Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing, trans. by charles godfrey leland, new York: leypold and holt 1866; Memoirs of a Good-forNothing, trans. by Bayard quincy morgan, new York: ungar 1955; Memoirs of a Good-forNothing, trans. by ronald taylor, london: calder and Boyars 1966; Leaves from the Life of a Good-for-Nothing, trans. by mrs. a.l. wister, philadelphia: J.B. lippincott company 1889; The Life of a Good-for-Nothing, trans. by michael glenny, london, glasgow: Blackie 1966; Life of a Good-for-Nothing, trans by John gordon nichols, london: hesperus 2002.) 6 eichendorff, Gedichte, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837 (ASKB 1634). see richard alewyn, “ein wort über eichendorff,” in Eichendorff heute: Stimmen der �orschung mit einer Bibliographie, ed. by paul stöcklein, 2nd ed., darmstadt: wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1966 [1960], pp. 7–18 (p. 8): “wohl kein anderer deutscher dichter von rang ist mit einem so wesentlichen teil seines werks so weit in die Breite und in die tiefe gedrungen. 7 cf. SKS 4, 171 / �T, 81: “true greatness is equally accessible to all.” 5

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

27

author of nine further stories, of which the most relevant here are “das marmorbild” and Viel Lärmen um Nichts;8 two full-length novels, Ahnung und Gegenwart and Dichter und ihre Gesellen;9 and several dramas, including the literary satire Krieg den Philistern!10 in later life, he wrote works of overtly catholic tendency: three long narrative poems; translations from spanish, notably of calderón’s Autos sacramentales; and polemical essays and treatises on literature, culminating in Geschichte der poetischen Literatur Deutschlands.11 at the heart of this last work lies his critical study of romanticism, published anonymously in a catholic journal in 1846.12 many of his works engage critically as well as creatively with german romanticism. in his study of 1846, he wrote that the romantics’ task was in large part ethical and religious, but that they had mistaken it for a primarily aesthetic task because they had been led to it by “poesie.”13 this was the path that he himself had taken.14 without rejecting the aesthetic, he repeatedly warned of the risks that it entails when not balanced by ethical and religious considerations. The main literary in��uences on him include German writers and works also familiar to kierkegaard: abraham a st. clara [Johann ulrich megerle] (1644–1709), matthias claudius (1723–66), goethe (1749–1832), schiller (1759–1805), Jean paul 8 eichendorff, “das marmorbild. eine novelle,” in �ouqués �rauentaschenbuch für 1819, ed. by Friedrich de la motte Fouqué, nürnberg: Joh. leonh. schrag 1819; eichendorff, Viel Lärmen um Nichts: zwei Novellen, Berlin: vereins-Buchhandlung 1833 (ASKB 1850) (first appeared�� in Der Gesellschafter oder Blätter für Geist und Herz, ed. by F.w. gubitz, no. 16, april 2–28 1832, pp. 265–342). 9 eichendorff, Ahnung und Gegenwart: ein Roman, nürnberg: schrag 1815; eichendorff, Dichter und ihre Gesellen. Novelle, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1834 (ASKB 1633). eichendorff refers with the subtitle “novelle” to both as a “novelle” and as a “roman” (novel), terms not clearly differentiated at the time. the appropriate modern designation for it is “novel.” see Judith purver, Hindeutung auf das Höhere: a Structural Study of the Novels of Joseph von Eichendorff, Bern: peter lang 1989 (European University Studies, series 1, German Language and Literature, vol. 952), p. 54. 10 eichendorff, Krieg den Philistern: Dramatisches Mährchen in fünf Abentheuern, Berlin: dümmler 1824. 11 eichendorff, Geschichte der poetischen Literatur Deutschlands, vols. 1–2, paderborn: Ferdinand schöningh 1857. 12 “zur geschichte der neuern romantischen poesie in deutschland,” in Historischpolitische Blätter für das katholische Deutschland, no. 17, 1846, pp. 273–89; pp. 371–84; pp. 425–43; revised publication: Ueber die ethische und religiöse Bedeutung der neueren romantischen Poesie in Deutschland, leipzig: liebeskind 1847. 13 see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff: historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vols. 1–22, ed. by wilhelm kosch and august sauer, continued and ed. by hermann kunisch and helmut koopmann, regensburg: habbel 1908–86, tübingen: niemeyer 1986– (hereafter as Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff), vol. 8, Literarhistorische Schriften, ed. by wolfram mauser, regensburg: habbel 1982–85, part 1, Aufsätze zur Literatur, 1982, p. 22. the “poesie” referred to here is german literature of the period preceding romanticism. 14 see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 4, Erzählungen, Dritter Teil, Autobiographische �ragmente, ed. by dietmar kunisch, tübingen: niemeyer 1998, p. 86.

28

Judith Purver

(1763–1825), tieck (1773–1853), novalis (1772–1801), chamisso (1781–1838), achim von arnim (1781–1831), and clemens Brentano (1778–1842). as a student in halle, he was impressed by henrik steffens (1773–1845), a member of the Jena romantic circle who is credited with introducing romanticism to denmark,15 and above all, by Joseph görres (1776–1848), whose treatise on german chapbooks kindled his interest in popular tales.16 the collection of german “folk” songs and poems compiled by arnim and Brentano, Des Knaben Wunderhorn,17 was of decisive significance for his lyric style. Another major in��uence was the Zeitung für Einsiedler, published by arnim in heidelberg in 1808 and in book form as Tröst Einsamkeit the same year.18 of particular importance for his thinking on literature was Friedrich schlegel, in whose circle he moved in vienna and whose lectures on the history of ancient and modern literature, he attended in 1812.19 like kierkegaard, he loved theater-going and music, not least mozart.20 His first novel�� whose title is said to have been suggested by dorothea schlegel, refers inter alia to cervantes’ Don Quixote, shakespeare’s Hamlet and Twelfth Night, goethe’s �aust, and arnim’s Schuld und Buße der Gräfin Dolores. this shared literary and cultural background, and a common concern with the existential significance of Christianity for the individual, prepared the way for kierkegaard’s reception of eichendorff. II. Kierkegaard�s Allusions to Eichendorff kierkegaard is known to have possessed three works by eichendorff: Viel Lärmen um Nichts, Dichter und ihre Gesellen, and Gedichte.21 he also referred to Krieg den Philistern! and appears to have mentioned Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts. so far, see EPW, p. xxi; william and mary howitt, The Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, vols. 1–2, london: colburn 1852, vol. 2, pp. 94f. 16 Joseph görres, Die teutschen Volksbücher: nähere Würdigung der schönen Historien-, Wetter- und Arzneybüchlein, welche theils innerer Werth, theils Zufall, Jahrhunderte hindurch bis auf unsere Zeit erhalten hat, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1807 (ASKB 1440). 17 achim von vonarnim arnim and clemens Brentano, Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder, vols. 1–2, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1805 [dated 1806] and 1808 (ASKB 1494–1496). 18 Zeitung für Einsiedler, nos. 1–37 and a supplement, ed. by achim von arnim in collaboration with clemens Brentano, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer april–august 1808; Tröst Einsamkeit, alte und neue Sagen und Wahrsagungen, Geschichten und Gedichte, ed. by ludwig achim von arnim, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1808 (ASKB 912). 19 �ried. Schlegels Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur: Vorlesungen, gehalten zu Wien im Jahre 1812, vols. 1–2, vienna: karl schaumburg und compagnie 1814 [dated 1815] (ASKB 1816–1825). (in english as Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern, trans. by John gibson lockhart, vols. 1–2, edinburgh: william Blackwood 1818 and Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern, trans by henry george Bohn and two others�� �ondon: H.G. Bohn 1859 (this claims to be the first complete translation).) 20 see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 5, part 4, p. 172, and vol. 9, Literarhistorische Schriften, part 3, Geschichte der poetischen Literatur Deutschlands, ed. by wolfram mauser, regensburg: habbel 1970, p. 82; p. 584. 21 eichendorff, Viel Lärmen um Nichts: zwei Novellen, 1833, op. cit.; eichendorff, Dichter und ihre Gesellen. Novelle, 1834, op. cit.; and eichendorff, Gedichte, 1837, op. cit. 15

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

29

there have been two major attempts—by �mmanuel Hirsch22 and david law23—to identify kierkegaard’s allusions to eichendorff. there are also brief references to eichendorff in walter rehm’s Kierkegaard und der Verführer24 and to kierkegaard in a few items of secondary literature on eichendorff.25 this article is, however, the first devoted solely to �ierkegaard’s reception of �ichendorff. A. krieg den philistern! in his journal of april 1836, kierkegaard notes: “krieg den philistern v. eichendorff. Berlin 1824. s. 62. narr: Ich glaube gar, ich bin der Doppelgänger aller menschlichen Torheiten.”26 these words come from the “second adventure” of eichendorff’s drama, which is subtitled Dramatisches Märchen in fünf Abenteuern.27 the Fool emanuel hirsch, Kierkegaard-Studien, vols. 1–2, gütersloh: Bertelsmann 1933, vol. 1, pp. 6f.; p. 10; pp. 303–308; pp. 310f.; p. 317 [pp. 6f.; p. 10; pp. 431–6; pp. 438f.; p. 445]. (reprinted, vaduz, liechtenstein: toposverlag 1978. First published in Studien des apologetischen Seminars in Wernigerode, nos. 29, 31, 32, 36, 1930–33). hirsch’s comments on eichendorff appear in no. 29 and especially no. 31, both 1930. the reprint retains the pagination of the first publication�� giving the page numbers of the 1933 edition in square brackets. this convention will be followed here. 23 david law, “the literary sources of kierkegaard’s The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars,” in Early Polemical Writings, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1999 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 1), pp. 159–94. 24 see walter rehm, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, op. cit., pp. 12–15; p. 38; p. 52; p. 134; p. 275; pp. 527f.; pp. 532–4; p. 547; p. 549; p. 615. 25 see rehm,, “Jakob Burckhardt und eichendorff,” in his Späte Studien, Bern: Francke 1964�� pp. 276–343 (especially pp. 276–81) (first published as Jakob Burck hardt und Eichendorff, Freiburg im Breslau: albert 1960); hermann Buddensieg, “vom unbekannten eichendorff. eichendorff sprach auch polnisch,” part 2, Mieckiewicz-Blätter, no. 18, 1961, pp. 178–235 (especially pp. 205–208); oskar seidlin, Versuche über Eichendorff, göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht 1978 [1965], p. 297; ernst l. offermanns, “eichendorffs roman Dichter und ihre Gesellen,” in Ansichten zu Eichendorff: Beiträge der �orschung 1958 bis 1988, ed. by alfred riemen, sigmaringen: thorbecke 1988, pp. 151–69 (especially p. 165) (first published in Literaturwissenschaft und Geschichtsphilosophie: �estschrift für Wilhelm Emrich, ed. by helmut arntzen and others, Berlin: de gruyter 1975 pp. 373–87); hans J. hahn, “From image to vision, from artist to prophet: observations on the perception of art and religion in the work of eichendorff,” in Text into Image: Image into Text. Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Bicentenary Conference held at St Patrick�s College Maynooth (The National University of Ireland, in September 1995), ed. by Jeff morrison and Florian krobb, amsterdam: rodopi 1997, pp. 159–68 (especially pp. 165–7). 26 Pap. i a 157. (english translation of the quotation: “war on the philistines by eichendorff. Berlin 1824. p. 62. Fool: i even think that i am the doppelgänger of all human follies.”) cf. david law, “the literary sources of kierkegaard’s The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars,” in Early Polemical Writings, ed. by robert l. perkins, op. cit., pp. 159–94 (p. 180), wrongly claims that kierkegaard does not allude to Krieg den Philistern! 27 Joseph von eichendorff, Werke, vols. 1–5, ed. by Jost perfahl and marlies korfmeyer and klaus-dieter krabiel in collaboration with ansgar hillach, munich: winkler 1970–88, vol. 1, Gedichte, Versepen, Dramen, Autobiographisches, 1970, p. 495. 22

30

Judith Purver

is reminiscent of the shakespearean “wise fool.” at the end of the play, the giant Grobianus—the spirit of the heathen Germanic past�� awakened by unwise fools— blows up the Philistine city (Berlin)�� reducing it to rubble�� and the fictional author�� realizing with horror that the Fool is his own double, rushes from the stage. the quotation shows that kierkegaard had read a work by eichendorff that he is not known to have possessed�� and that he focused on aspects of it—fictional authors and doubles—that were to be of key significance for his own authorship. He appears to echo it again in a text that seeks to explain the authorship. in the “second adventure” of the drama, the Fool refers to himself as a “spy.”28 in The Point of View for my Work as an Author, kierkegaard writes that he is “like a spy in a higher service.”29 Identification with the author’s fictional selves is characteristic of �ierkegaard’s response to eichendorff. another possible reminiscence of Krieg den Philistern! will be discussed below. B. viel lärmen um nichts (I) probably in the same year in which he quoted from Krieg den Philistern!, 1836, kierkegaard wrote an undated review of eichendorff’s satirical novella Viel Lärmen um Nichts.30 the review is omitted from Søren Kierkegaard�s Journals and Papers and included in the critical edition of eichendorff’s works only in the incomplete german translation by hermann ulrich,31 which covers little more than a third of the text and omits �ierkegaard’s most specific and positive comments on the novella. I therefore offer here a complete translation, based almost verbatim on david law’s translation of parts of the review32 and using ulrich’s partial translation as a further guide. kierkegaard begins his review by classifying eichendorff’s novella as belonging to a movement (romanticism) that he sees as backward-looking and unrelated to reality and the present: Viel Lärmen um Nichts, von Joseph �reiherren v. Eichendorff und: Die mehreren Wehmüller und ungarischen Nationalgesichter v. Clemens Brentano. Zwei Novellen. Berlin 1833. see eichendorff, Werke, ed. by Jost perfahl and marlies korfmeyer et al., op. cit., vol. 1, p. 493; p. 500. 29 SV1, Xiii, 571 / PV, 87. 30 As mentioned earlier�� the novel was first published in Der Gesellschafter oder Blätter für Geist und Herz, 1832, op. cit. kierkegaard’s review is based on the book edition of 1833, op. cit. see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 5, part 3, Erzählungen, Zweiter Teil, �ragmente und Nachgelassenes, ed. by heinz-peter niewerth in collaboration with konstanze allnach and antonie magen, tübingen: niemeyer 2006, p. 638; eichendorff, Werke, ed. by Jost perfahl and marlies korfmeyer et al., op. cit., vol. 2, Romane, Erzählungen, 1970, p. 970. 31 Sören Kierkegaard, vols. 1–2, ed. and trans. by hermann ulrich, Berlin: hochweg-verlag 1925–30, vol. 2, Tagebücher in Auswahl, pp. 525f. (reprinted in Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 18, part 1, Joseph von Eichendorff im Urteil seiner Zeit: Dokumente 1788–1843, ed. by günter and irmgard niggl, stuttgart: kohlhammer 1975, p. 301). 32 see law, “the literary sources of kierkegaard’s The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars,” op. cit., pp. 180f.; p. 193. 28

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

31

The first of these novellas belongs to the movement that began its activities with the schlegels at its head and attempted to restore the medieval age of chivalry. as the aim of this tendency was to abandon real life in order to dream itself into a vanished age, this situation became still more withdrawn and anxious (instead of giving life freshness and strength, as it should have done) by the fact that there was a reaction against it in time, so that its attempt to break free of the world became still greater, principally by way of a tendency that aimed to forget the present; it was precisely this, however, on which time exerted its pressure.33

however, he praises the story itself for its irony and humor, which he compares with the work of e.t.a. hoffmann: it is also quite remarkable that the irony [of the story] is carried through completely. this irony expresses itself as the ridicule of single individuals or larger crowds of people wherever a certain sentimentality appears, that is, where an external circumstance of some kind in all its true, prosaic nakedness, precisely by virtue of its contrast with the sentimentality, produces a comical effect. it is the type of humor that is developed to such a high degree in hoffmann, when he lays bare with utter mercilessness the triviality concealed behind the sentimentality.34

he then cites examples showing how deeply its textual details have impressed him: For the present i will cite here right at the beginning, as an example, prince romano who, travelling incognito and arriving at Publicum’s castle�� is greatly surprised by a firework display and turns to his riding companions with the remark p. 3 “Meine Nähe und unser Entschluß hier einzusprechen muß auf dem Schlosse verrathen sein sein” [the fact that i am in the vicinity, and our decision to stop here, must have become known at the castle] (irony) the whole thing is a mistake�� the firework display is in honor of Aurora. Cf. p. 3 where in the firework display he sees a golden lyre with a laurel wreath twined round it�� at which he exclaims “zart-sinnig” [what exquisite sensibility] as he looks around him. (irony). now the prince, it seems, wants to strike a favorable pose so as to make his entrance ceremoniously, when suddenly his thoroughbred takes fright and gallops away with him until it finally throws him off at herr publicum’s feet. etc. example, when Faber and leontin appear, and romano now suggests to them that they should serenade aurora, and now the window opens and a big fat person (herr publicum) appears, yawning, to thank them. example, as Willibald tells the entire long and beautiful story of his life�� in the first place the irony lies in the fact that that angel and almost supernatural beauty, who here plays the main role, is personally present without willibald suspecting it; in the next place the irony lies in the fact that�� when he has safely finished his story�� he finds that the guests have fallen asleep just at a time when he believes that he has expressed something of the deepest reality in his existence. example, all the occurrences at count leontin’s country house, etc.35

he ends by comparing the technique of the story to a particular effect produced by shakespeare (from whom, of course, its title was taken):36 SKS 19, 116f., not3:17. SKS 19, 117, not3:17. 35 ibid. 36 eichendorff takes the title of his novella from the translation of Much Ado about Nothing by wolf, graf Baudissin (part of the so-called schlegel–tieck translation, ASKB 1883–1888). see eichendorff, Werke, ed. by Jost perfahl and marlies korfmeyer et al., op. cit., vol. 2, p. 970. 33 34

32

Judith Purver one of the features that, by the way, gives the novella its characteristic stamp is the simultaneous abandonment of real life and the ideal con��ict with real life. It seems to me to be a great work�� in which the surrounding life breaks in on those living in fantasy and with their gaze fixed on the past as suddenly as the chorus in Shakespeare; or like an elfin dance in the moonlight�� where the silence is suddenly broken by a stupid peasant’s shout of “gee up!”37

despite the initial criticism of the schlegels, the end of the review shows how profoundly kierkegaard (like eichendorff) was indebted to them. it was the schlegels who, with tieck and his collaborators, had made shakespeare’s plays accessible to both.38 it was also the schlegels who, with other romantics, had taught them, by precept and example, how to mix forms and genres, “genius and criticism,” “solid cultural material” and “vibrations of humor.”39 eichendorff does this with great virtuosity in Viel Lärmen um Nichts: the story includes poems, a mock hoffmanesque narrative by romano that forms the negative counterpart to willibald’s life story, a dream, dramatized dialogue, and literary criticism. moreover, it chronicles the end of the classical and romantic period in germany at the very moment of transition and with a mixture of involvement and detachment that is characteristic of eichendorff’s ambivalent attitude to romanticism. From a similarly ambivalent perspective, kierkegaard sees that the story is a romantic satire not only on post-romantic literature and culture, but also on romanticism itself, particularly in its sentimental and untimely aspects. at the same time, he was alive to the poetic qualities of eichendorff’s text, as demonstrated by the final simile of his review. This shows how well he has understood the distinction between false and genuine poetry that is the main theme of the novella. the “angel and almost supernatural beauty” to whom he refers is the real aurora, the true muse in disguise; by contrast, the “aurora” for whom publicum (the public) falls is not genuine, but merely her lady-in-waiting. david law demonstrates convincingly that Viel Lärmen um Nichts is one of the prime sources for kierkegaard’s early draft play, The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars. he also corroborates hirsch’s claim that the name of the main protagonist of The Soap-Cellars, willibald, derives from this story,40 and notes kierkegaard’s admiration for eichendorff’s satire on romanticism. SKS 19, 117f., not3:17. kierkegaard possessed shakespeare’s plays in german and danish ((ASKB 1874–1897 and ASKB u 103 respectively). on his knowledge of a.w. schlegel’s Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Literatur, see Josef körner, Die Botschaft der deutschen Romantik an Europa, Bern: herbert lang 1969 [augsburg: Benno Filser 1929] (Schriften zur deutschen Literatur für die Görresgesellschaft, vol. 9), p. 73. 39 Friedrich schlegel, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, trans. by ernst Behler and roman struc, university park and london: pennsylvania state university press 1968, p. 140. the words quoted here are taken from Athenaeums �ragment 116 (1798). 40 see law, “the literary sources of kierkegaard’s The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars,” op. cit., pp. 174–8; hirsch, Kierkegaard-Studien, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 304 [p. 432]; carl roos, Kierkegaard og Goethe, copenhagen: gad 1955, pp. 144–6; Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 18, Joseph von Eichendorff im Urteil seiner Zeit, ed. by günter and irmgard niggl, stuttgart: kohlhammer 1975–1986, part 3, p. 1560; EPW, p. 261. 37 38

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

33

however, neither kierkegaard nor law mentions that Viel Lärmen um Nichts refers self-ironically to �ichendorff’s own first novel�� Ahnung und Gegenwart. three characters from it, the poets Faber and leontin and leontin’s wife, Julie, reappear in the novella 20 years later: “‘good lord,’ ” he [romano] exclaimed, ‘count �eontin—from Presentiment and the Present!’ ‘instantly recognizable by his guitar,’ interjected the fat man [Faber], ‘can’t round off a meal without striking a chord or two.’ ”41 moreover, just as eichendorff endows the young poet willibald with autobiographical features, drawing on his own diaries for willibald’s account of a walking tour to the harz,42 so willibald in kierkegaard’s text is thought to represent kierkegaard himself.43 Thus �ierkegaard�� at the start of his writing career�� identifies with a projection of eichendorff’s younger self in a story that also includes four other ironically presented “poetic selves”: Faber, leontin, romano (whose name shows that he represents romanticism), and “the writer of this.”44 the latter disclaims responsibility for the authorship of his story: he is told by the true aurora to abandon the novella that he has written for publicum’s wedding and to write instead the story of herself and willibald, that is, the story of the true poet and his muse, which she relates to him and which he then writes down. this is the story that the reader has just read. the narrator’s claim that she told him “everything, just as it happened” 45 makes a claim for the truth of inspired writing as opposed to the superficial realism of the “fabricators of novellas”46 satirized in the text, but also ascribes the text to two fictional figures. One is Aurora�� who for much of the novella is disguised as a man with the pseudonym “Florentin” (a probable allusion to dorothea schlegel’s unfinished novel�� �lorentin,47 and to eichendorff’s own early pseudonym, Florens); the other is the equally fictional narrator. eichendorff’s narrative technique here anticipates the complex interplay of fictional editors and narrators in �ierkegaard’s pseudonymous works and is likely to have been one of the catalysts for it, especially as kierkegaard’s published writings also contain apparent echoes of Viel Lärmen um Nichts. one of the “fabricators of

Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 5, part 3, p. 81; see elisabeth stopp, “the metaphor of death in eichendorff,” in Oxford German Studies, vol. 4, 1969, pp. 67–89 (p. 84). Faber’s comment alludes to the frequent instances of guitar-playing in Ahnung und Gegenwart. 42 see Judith purver and ernst kiehl, “samuel taylor coleridge und Joseph von eichendorff: ihre wanderungen in den harz nebst Bemerkungen zu deutsch-englischen literaturbeziehungen in der romantik,” Aurora, vol. 65, 2005, pp. 83–105. 43 see law, “the literary sources of kierkegaard’s The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars,” op. cit., pp. 160f.; EPW, supplement, p. 260. 44 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 3, p. 149. 45 ibid., p. 156. 46 ibid., p. 92; p. 95; p. 99; p. 139; p. 150. 47 �lorentin: Ein Roman, ed. by Friedrich schlegel, vol. 1, lübeck and leipzig: Friedrich Bohm 1801. dorothea schlegel corrected the manuscript of Ahnung und Gegenwart and is said to have suggested the title: see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 18, part 1, pp. 61f. see also ibid., vol. 3, Ahnung und Gegenwart, ed. by christiane Briegleb and Clemens �auschenberg�� 1984�� p. 341�� for the in��uence of Florentin on Ahnung und Gegenwart. 41

34

Judith Purver

novellas” in eichendorff’s story is called “der junge mann”48 (the Young man), a name used in Repetition and in the section “in vino veritas” of Stages on Life�s Way.49 in addition, Johannes climacus, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, remarks that contemporary poetry “makes one attempt after the other to look like actuality, which is altogether unpoetic…this misunderstood actuality is like a generation or individuals in a generation who have become prematurely old and are now obliged to procure youthfulness artificially.��50 The first sentence of this passage recapitulates the main theme of Viel Lärmen um Nichts; the second evokes romano’s attempts at cosmetic rejuvenation which are humorously described in the novella.51 these attempts, together with romano’s attempted wooing of aurora and ironic references to england in relation to him,52 may allude to the travel writer hermann von pücklermuskau (1785–1871) and his visit to england to seek a rich bride, in connection with which he tried to hide the physical signs of ageing and which he describes in Briefe eines Verstorbenen.53 if kierkegaard’s title, �rom the Papers of One Still Living, also alludes to pückler’s work, this would constitute another link with eichendorff.54 Further evidence of kierkegaard’s reception of Viel Lärmen um Nichts can be found in part three of A Literary Review of Two Ages, “the present age,” where “the public” and “the press” are described in terms highly reminiscent of eichendorff’s novella. “if i were to imagine this public as a person…i most likely would think of … an imposing�� well-fed figure suffering from boredom…more sluggish than he is evil,”55 writes kierkegaard. in Viel Lärmen um Nichts, eichendorff had created just such a figure—corpulent�� slow-moving�� prone to attacks of boredom��56 “a big see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 3, pp. 89–93; p. 139; p. 150. 49 Walter �ehm claims�� without providing specific evidence�� that �ierkegaard’s ��oung Man�� is based on figures in �ichendorff’s novels�� but does not mention the figure of that name in Viel Lärmen um Nichts. see rehm, “Jakob Burckhardt und eichendorff,” op. cit., p. 280. 50 SKS 7, 291 / CUP1, p. 319. 51 see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 3, p. 79f. 52 his horse is an “engländer” (ibid., p. 75), “the english storm” is mentioned (ibid., p. 92), and a Byronic englishman attempts to make him jealous of publicum (see ibid., pp. 99–101). 53 Briefe eines Verstorbenen: Ein fragmentarisches Tagebuch aus Deutschland, Holland, England, Wales, Irland und �rankreich, geschriebenen in den Jahren 1826 bis 1829, vols. 1–4, vols. 1 and 2, munich: Franckh 1830, vols. 3 and 4, stuttgart: hallberg 1831. (in english as Tour in England, Ireland, and �rance, in the Years 1826, 1827, 1828, and 1829, with Remarks on the Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants, and Anecdotes of Distinguished Public Characters in a Series of Letters, by a German Prince, trans. by sarah austin, london: 1832 and philadelphia: carey, lea & Blanchard 1833.) on possible allusions to pückler in Viel Lärmen um Nichts, see eichendorff, Werke, ed. by Jost perfahl and marlies korfmeyer et al., op. cit., vol. 2, p. 970. 54 see EPW, 247; h.p. rohde, Gaadefulde Stadier paa Kierkegaards Vej, copenhagen: rosenkilde og Bagger 1974, pp. 44–51. 55 SKS 8, 91 / TA, 94. 56 see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 3, p. 79; p. 83; p. 92; pp. 95f.; pp. 147f. 48

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

35

fat person … yawning,” as kierkegaard notes in his review. in eichendorff’s novella this figure is served by writers who transform massive old folios into fashionably lightweight publications by means of a machine resembling a high-speed printing press, while a courier brings him, at the gallop, the latest journalistic tittle-tattle about literature.57 similarly, in A Literary Review kierkegaard writes: “the age of the encyclopedists, the men who indefatigably wrote folios, is over; now it is the turn of the lightly equipped encyclopedists who dispose of the whole of existence and all the sciences en passant.”58 in Viel Lärmen um Nichts, the symbiotic relation between press and public is represented by “the so-called practical abyss,”59 an industrialized valley where a large number of little men rush to and fro, doing the public’s bidding. the same relation is described in A Literary Review through different imagery: the press is compared to “a dog” that “the public keeps … for its amusement” and that “is goaded to attack” “a superior person … perhaps even a man of distinction,” thereby bringing about “leveling,” leveling,” ,”60 the reduction of everything to the lowest common denominator. kierkegaard could have found a similar idea in Krieg den Philistern!: the “second adventure” ends with a poem, the second stanza of which runs: “what� we, lowly� You, high-class, rich� / whizz go the shears, leveling things out, / Be swine like us, then we’ll be equal, / misery will spread itself nice and wide!”61 as for the rest of Viel Lärmen um Nichts, kierkegaard would surely have relished the parodistic sermon on marriage given by Faber in clerical disguise,62 but it is above all romano’s dream that merits attention. it is a variation on eichendorff’s Das Marmorbild, itself a variant on the pygmalion myth. although there is no proof that kierkegaard knew Das Marmorbild, there are passages in his writings that strongly suggest that he did, and its basic pattern is repeated in works by eichendorff that he did know. it also helps to clarify romano’s dream. it will therefore be considered brie��y before an analysis of that dream is attempted. C. das marmorbild This is the story of a young poet�� Florio—again�� the name recalls �ichendorff’s early pseudonym�� Florens—who sees and falls in love with a young girl�� Bianca�� in the Italian city of lucca. that night, he dreams that he is sailing alone on a moonlit sea, while sirens, all resembling Bianca, rise from the water, singing so sadly that he feels he must die of melancholy. as his ship begins to sink, he wakes and goes outside. the narrator comments: “the music by the tents, the dream in his room, and his heart, dreaming on the notes, and the dream and the graceful appearance of the girl, had imperceptibly and 57 58 59

p. 93.

ibid., pp. 94f. SKS 8, 69 / TA, 70f. see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 3,

SKS 8, 92 / TA, 95. (my italics.) “was! wir gering� ihr vornehm, reich� / Planierend schwirrt die scheere, / seid lumps wie wir, so sind wir gleich, / hübsch breit wird die misere!”: eichendorff, Werke, ed. by Jost perfahl and marlies korfmeyer et al., op. cit., vol. 5, p. 500. (my italics.) 62 see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 3, pp. 144f. 60 61

36

Judith Purver

wondrously transformed her image into a far more beautiful, greater, and more glorious one, the like of which he had not yet seen anywhere.”63 similarly, in “the seducer’s diary” in Either/Or Johannes writes: “it is not a particular beauty who captivates me, but a totality; a visionary picture ��oats past me in which all these feminine beings blend with one another and all these movements are seeking something, seeking repose in a picture that is not seen.”64 this ideal image then appears to Florio: the moonlight illuminates a statue of Venus�� standing by a pool as if gazing at its own re��ection in the water. As he looks at it, the statue seems to come to life. he closes his eyes “out of dazzlement, rapture, and melancholy.”65 when he looks again, the statue seems to have turned back to stone�� and he ��ees in horror. Johannes uses the same image to express how he would feel if cordelia broke with him: “For me it would be the same as if pygmalion’s beloved were changed to stone again.”66 the close correspondence between the passages in “the seducer’s diary” and Das Marmorbild is difficult to explain unless we assume that kierkegaard knew the novella. constantin constantius’ comment on the young man in Repetition, too, echoes Florio’s situation: “the young girl was not his beloved: she was the occasion that awakened the poetic in him and made him a poet.”67 the day after his vision of the statue, Florio sees a woman who looks like the statue and hears her singing. The first line of her song�� �Was weckst du�� Frühling�� mich von neuem wieder”68 [why do you awaken me yet again, o spring�], echoes the beginning of a quotation from the supposed celtic bard ossian, recited by the hero of goethe’s Werther to the married Charlotte at their final meeting: �Warum weckst du mich, Frühlingsluft� du buhlst und sprichst …” [why do you awaken me, spring breeze� You caress and speak …].69 the allusion to Werther is confirmed by the words sprechen [speak, say] in the second stanza and bühlerisch [caressing] and Lüfte [breezes, airs] in the third stanza of eichendorff’s poem, as well as by his remark in Geschichte der poetischen Literatur Deutschlands that werther is “a modern narcissus.”70 Florio, too, is a modern narcissus: the ideal of beauty that he worships is a creation of his own imagination. he is saved by “an old, pious song”71 sung by the poet Fortunato, who later declares that “an honest poet can dare much, for art that is free of arrogance, and sinfulness banishes and subdues by its magic incantation the wild earth spirits that grasp at us from the depths.”72 By contrast, art unmediated by religious faith, together with the poet’s heightened sensitivity to beauty, threatens him with self-absorption, self-division, and self-destruction. at a Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 1, p. 45. SKS 2, 321 / EO1, 331. cf. EOP, 272, which has “dream image” instead of “visionary picture.” 65 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 1, p. 46. 66 SKS 2, 424 / EO1, 438. 67 SKS 4, 15 / R, 138. 68 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 1, p. 51. 69 Goethes Werke: Hamburger Ausgabe in 14 Bänden, vols. 1–14, ed. by erich trunz, 9th revised ed., hamburg: wegner and munich: Beck 1977–94, vol. 6, Romane und Novellen, part 1, 1977, p. 114. 70 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 8, part 2, p. 80. 71 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 1, p. 70; p. 80. 72 ibid., p. 80. this is an allusion to the earth spirit in goethe’s �aust I (1808). 63 64

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

37

party, Florio sees Bianca and venus as doubles; in his dream and in venus’ palace, he sees multiple images of them and of himself which threaten to overwhelm him. he escapes, but succumbs to near-suicidal melancholy until his servant, who has been interpreted as his conscience,73 persuades him to leave lucca. then, with Fortunato’s help, he creates his own god-oriented art, a song in which he recognizes himself as an individual who is recognized by god: “here i am, Lord! i greet the light / … o �ather, you recognize me indeed.”74 only then does he recognize Bianca as his beloved. this anticipates a statement in The Sickness unto Death that when despair has been removed, “in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.”75 D. viel lärmen um nichts (II): Romano�s Dream76 this work is set in heidelberg, where eichendorff himself had experienced the dangers of the aesthetic as represented by the romantic poet count otto heinrich von loeben (1786–1825), who had conferred on him the pseudonym “Florens.”77 in his dream, romano hears an old song from his childhood. as he follows it, he sees a silent, moonlit landscape that looks “as if the world had died,” enters a garden through a gate on whose threshold a servant lies “stretched out like a dead man,” sees a pool and “beautiful naked statues of deities” that had “fallen asleep,” and catches sight of an alluring figure that he takes for his beloved�� but which�� he discovers with horror�� is himself. Fleeing from the garden, he passes the now “dead servant,” has a terrifying doomsday vision, and hears a bell striking what seems to be the hour of his death.78 he then realizes that it is midnight and that “god is setting the clock of time.” he hears “the rustle of a broad mantle of stars” (iconically representative of the virgin mary) and the song, which now sounds like angels joyfully singing a christmas carol. he wakes with a feeling of profound pleasure mingled with melancholy. thus his dream, like Das Marmorbild, traces a movement from the aesthetic to the religious, but at

see egon schwarz, Joseph von Eichendorff, new York: twayne 1972 (Twayne�s World Authors Series, vol. 163), pp. 118f. 74 “hier bin ich, herr! gegrüßt das Licht /… o Vater, du erkennst mich doch.” see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op.cit, vol. 5, part 1, pp. 80f. (my italics.) 75 SKS 11, 130 / SUD, 14. (my italics.) cf. Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 1, p. 82; p. 131. 76 all references to and quotations from Viel Lärmen um Nichts in this section are taken from Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 3, pp. 104–106. 77 see loeben’s diary entry, march 19, 1808: Eichendorff-Kalender: Ein romantisches Jahrbuch, 1918, p. 39. reference taken from wolfgang Frühwald, Eichendorff-Chronik, munich: hanser 1977, p. 43. 78 stopp, “the metaphor of death in eichendorff,” in Oxford German Studies, op. cit., p. 84, links romano’s dream with Das Marmorbild and comments: “the magical lure had been self-love, delusion, not the real love of ‘i and thou’ but just that of ‘i and myself’ which in eichendorff’s terms spells out death.” 73

38

Judith Purver

the end the servant (conscience, the ethical)79 is dead, and salvation is possible only by direct intervention of the eternal in the temporal (god setting the clock of time) through the incarnation (midnight and nativity references).80 coming in a dream, this insight bypasses �omano’s re��ective faculties and is granted by way of fear and trembling. the proximity of this to kierkegaard’s thought is remarkable.81 references to dreaming and to a servant in the preface to Either/Or also recall romano’s dream. they will be discussed below in connection with Dichter und ihre Gesellen. E. Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts �vidence that �ierkegaard had read the first two chapters of Taugenichts82 is provided by willibald’s exclamation in The Soap Cellars: “oh, why have i become a social animal, a human being, why not an owl or a bittern.”83 in Taugenichts, the hero compares himself in the first chapter to a bittern and in the second to an owl,84 similes that express his unhappy sense of isolation. willibald, by contrast, uses these similes to express a wish for isolation. the use of the same similes in connection with the same concept is unlikely to be a matter of chance, especially as the comparison of a human being to a bittern is unusual. Yet the apparent reference to Taugenichts in On the Concept of Irony ignores the story’s religious import and the irony of its title. Alluding to the significance of the word �Taugenichts�� (good-for-nothing), kierkegaard claims that to become nothing: is part and parcel of the poetic poses and positions in life that irony promoted—indeed�� to become nothing at all is the most superior of them. in the poetry of the romantic school, therefore, a Taugenichts [good-for-nothing] is always the most poetic character; and what the Christians so often speak about…becoming a fool in the world—this the ironist actualized in his own way, except that he feels nothing akin to martyrdom, because to him this is the highest poetic enjoyment.85

79 schwarz in his Joseph von Eichendorff (op. cit., pp. 119f.) interprets the servant in romano’s dream, too, as the conscience and comments: “had Freud known this passage, he would have been enthralled by the perfect poetic depiction of what he called narcissism.” the same may be said of kierkegaard, who did know it. 80 goethe’s werther kills himself immediately before christmas, an allusion pointed up in massenet’s opera “werther” (1893) by the children singing a christmas carol as he lies dying. 81 see paul stöcklein, Joseph von Eichendorff in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, reinbek: rowohlt 1963, p. 77: “es ist eine parabel, die kierkegaard, der das Buch besaß, sicher mit besonderem verständnis gelesen haben wird.” 82 The portion of the text comprising the first two chapters of the completed work appeared as “ein kapitel aus dem leben eines taugenichts.” von Joseph Freiherrn v. eichendorff, Deutsche Blätter für Poesie, Litteratur, Kunst und Theater, nos. 152–8 (26 september–7 october 7, 1823). the whole story appeared in a volume with Das Marmorbild and a number of poems: Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts und das Marmorbild: Zwei Novellen nebst einem Anhange von Liedern und Romanzen, op. cit. 83 cf. SKS 17, 284, dd:208 / EPW, 110. 84 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 1, p. 93; p. 108. 85 SKS 1, 317 / CI, 281.

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

39

in eichendorff’s story, however, the soubriquet “good-for nothing” alludes to the refusal of the protagonist to espouse worldly values: he is a “fool in the world” in the christian sense,86 setting out at his father’s behest with his violin and with innocent trust in God (which proves justified) to earn his bread�� or�� as he says�� his �Glück” (the word means both “fortune, luck” and “happiness”).87 whether or not kierkegaard had read the whole of Taugenichts, the reference to it in his dissertation provides further indirect evidence that he had not read Ahnung und Gegenwart. Friedrich, the main protagonist of the latter, speaks enthusiastically of christian martyrdom, and when Friedrich enters a monastery at the end of the novel, leontin cites the same biblical passage as does kierkegaard in connection with Taugenichts.88 if kierkegaard had read Ahnung und Gegenwart, one would not expect him to use this passage and a reference to martyrdom to attack a work by the same author. there may also be an allusion to Taugenichts in the preface to Either/Or. in chapter two of eichendorff’s story, Taugenichts refers to the arrival of a special mail coach just before daybreak. the postilion repeatedly blows his horn, making the hero feel as if he must leave at once and travel far into the world.89 The significance of this, a characteristic motif in eichendorff’s work, will be discussed below in the section on Dichter und ihre Gesellen. there may be a further allusion to Taugenichts in The Point of View for my Work as an Author, where kierkegaard writes: it never occurred to me at any time that i would not be victorious, even if i would have attempted something utterly rash—except in one thing .… At the same time�� however�� together with this it must be understood that i was initiated very early into the thought that to be victorious is to be victorious in the infinite sense�� which in the finite sense is to suffer.

cf. walter rehm, “Jakob Burckhardt and eichendorff,” op. cit., pp. 279f. Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 5, part 1, p. 85. The unfinished novel En dansk Students Eventyr [adventures of a danish student], by kierkegaard’s teacher and mentor, poul martin møller (1794–1838), looks very much like a riposte to eichendorff’s story and includes what appear to be satirical allusions to it. henrik hertz (1797–1870) writes that kierkegaard could “refer to the scene in poul møller’s A Danish University Student�s Tale, in which thirteen-year-old Frits on his romantic escapade wants to earn his bread with his violin.” cited from Encounters with Kierkegaard: A Life as Seen by his Contemporaries, collected and ed. by Bruce h. kirmmse, trans. by Bruce h. kirmmse and virginia r. lauren, princeton, new Jersey: princeton university press 1996, p. 224; p. 330. This scene occurs in the first chapter; see Poul Martin Møller�� En dansk Students Eventyr, copenhagen: gyldendal 1963, pp. 36f. it alludes to the beginning of eichendorff’s story, but also seems to allude to chapter three, which was not published until 1826. this is difficult to explain unless Møller’s story�� whose genesis has been assigned to 1824 (see ibid.�� p. 20) was revised in or after 1826. whatever the case, it is possible that kierkegaard’s view of Taugenichts was colored by møller’s. 88 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 323: “But you know the old saying: they have made themselves fools in the eyes of the world.” see 1 cor 3:18 and 1 cor 4:9–10. 89 see Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., vol. 5, part 1, pp. 101f. cf. ibid., p. 127; p. 130; pp. 132f.; p. 138; pp. 143f. 86 87

Judith Purver

40

so this again is in agreement with depression’s understanding in my innermost being that I actually was good for nothing.90

here, despite the negative comments on it in his dissertation, kierkegaard seems to apply the soubriquet of �ichendorff’s figure to himself�� just as he does with the Fool as “spy” in Krieg den Philistern! he connects it dialectically with the concept of being �victorious���� which in turn evokes his first pseudonym�� �Victor �remita.�� It is to the decisive question as to the source of this pseudonym that we must now turn. �. dichter und ihre gesellen of the many works by german romantic writers in his library, it was Dichter und ihre Gesellen that kierkegaard selected to introduce his relative, hans Brøchner, to german romanticism. in his reminiscences of kierkegaard, Brøchner writes: in 1837 i occasionally met k. at a restaurant.…one evening he…asked if i knew the writings of the german romantics, which i had to admit i did not. he invited me to accompany him home and lent me a book by eichendorff: Dichter und ihre Gesellen. later, when his books were auctioned off, i bought this book as a memento of this conversation with him. i also remember that when i returned it to him two weeks later, and was about to apologize because i had kept it so long…he confounded me by receiving me with the question of whether i had read it already.91

if Brøchner’s recollection as to the date of these conversations is correct, kierkegaard must have read Dichter und ihre Gesellen no later than 1837. it was not until 1839, however�� that he noted down his first documented quotation from it. Written in the margin of another note and dated may 3, 1839, it reads: “Träume ich denn, oder träumt diese phantastische Nacht von mir—v. �ichendorf: �ichter und ihre Gesellen p. 359.” [am i, then, dreaming, or is this fantastic night dreaming of me�].92 these words are spoken by the poet Fortunat in the penultimate chapter of the novel. kierkegaard also quotes a poem from chapter two of the novel: once in a letter to his fianc��e�� �egine Olsen��93 and once in “the seducer’s diary” in Either/Or. in the letter�� �ierkegaard initially cites the first stanza of the poem: Zwei Musikanten ziehn daher, Vom Wald aus weiter �erne, Der eine ist verliebt gar sehr, Der andre wär� es gerne.

there follows a passage of prose, and then the second stanza: Die stehn allhier im kalten Wind, Und singen schön und geigen: 90 91 92 93

SV1, Xiii, 565f. / PV, 81. (my italics.) Encounters with Kierkegaard: A Life as Seen by his Contemporaries, op. cit., p. 226. cf. Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 4, p. 283. B&A, vol. 1, pp. 52f. / LD, letter 21, pp. 67f. (the letter is undated.)

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

41

Ob nicht ein süssverträumtes Kind Am �enster sich wollt� zeigen?94

this suggests that kierkegaard took the poem from Dichter und ihre Gesellen, where the two stanzas are likewise separated by a prose passage, rather than from eichendorff’s Gedichte.95 neither in the letter nor in Either/Or, however, does kierkegaard imitate eichendorff’s technique of verse interpolation so closely: he cites only the third and fourth lines of the first stanza. He also changes the gender of the two figures said to be in love. The letter reads: Der eine ist verliebt gar sehr Der Andre wär� es gerne.96

in “the seducer’s diary” in Either/Or, the same verse is repeated with the same gender change. the prose passage following it is similar, but more concise. referring to a group of girls, Johannes writes: Die eine ist verliebt gar sehr; Die andre wäre es gerne. Yes, it is an undeniably bad appointment in life to walk on one’s future brother-in-law’s left arm.97

shortly after this, Johannes mentions a couple who “seem bent on walking with each other arm in arm through life’s joys and sorrows.”98 this sounds like a reminiscence of eichendorff’s poem “im abendrot” [in the sunset], the opening lines of which read: “we have walked hand in hand through sorrow and joy.”99 “im abendrot” appears in eichendorff’s Gedichte, but not in Dichter und ihre Gesellen. hence Johannes’ echo of it, if noticed, would tend to make readers assume that the lines from the poem quoted just before this have likewise been taken from the Gedichte, where they appear under the title “vor der stadt” [outside the town],100 rather than from Dichter und ihre Gesellen. this may have been kierkegaard’s intention. a similar uncertainty arises with the pseudonym “victor eremita.” here, kierkegaard could not have intended to put readers off the scent unless he had read Ahnung und Gegenwart, which, as we saw, is unlikely. rather, the confusion stems from emanuel hirsch, who claimed that the pseudonym derives from a character called

94 ibid. “two musicians are coming from the forest; they have traveled from afar. one is very much in love, the other would like to be. they are standing here in the cold wind, singing beautifully and playing the violin. will a sweet, dreamy child not show herself at the window�” 95 cf. Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 4, p. 18. 96 B&A, vol. 1, p. 52 / LD, letter 21, p. 67. 97 SKS 1, 346 / EOP, 295. 98 SKS 1, 348 / EOP, 298. 99 “wir sind durch noth und Freude / gegangen hand in hand.” Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 1, part 1, p. 257. 100 ibid., p. 24.

42

Judith Purver

“victor” in Ahnung und Gegenwart.101 In the first edition of that novel�� however�� the name is written “viktor.” the spelling “victor,” if used in the edition consulted by hirsch, may have led him to assume that kierkegaard was alluding to this character. in fact, there is a far more likely source for the pseudonym: count victor von hohenstein in Dichter und ihre Gesellen. kierkegaard possessed this work, which hirsch claimed was the source of the name �Walter���� considered by �ierkegaard as a possible first name for the pseudonymous author of Repetition.102 given kierkegaard’s other allusions to Dichter und ihre Gesellen, this can be taken as correct. hirsch’s attribution of “victor �remita���� however�� is incorrect. To date�� only Oskar Seidlin has identified Victor von hohenstein as the source of “victor eremita.” seidlin also suggests that the name “cordelia” in “the seducer’s diary” may derive from Dichter und ihre Gesellen.103 These findings are confirmed by the following analysis�� which demonstrates not only that kierkegaard derived his most famous pseudonym and the name of a character in his notorious “seducer’s diary” from Dichter und ihre Gesellen, but also that this novel is the source and model of Either/Or as a whole, and thus of the entire authorship as �ierkegaard identified it. Dichter und ihre Gesellen concerns four poets who represent different existential possibilities. the strands of the novel relating to each of them are held together by the overarching metaphor of the world as a stage, which here combines Calderón’s concept of fixed roles allotted by God104 with shakespeare’s idea of a succession of roles played by each individual, and with the metaphor of life as a journey. This is exemplified particularly by a traveling theater company and the poets connected with it. the most important, victor von hohenstein, appears under a series of aliases: as Fortunat’s anonymous guide to victor’s own estate of hohenstein; as the actor �othario�� also known as the ��itteratus��; as a policeman; as an army officer in the napoleonic wars in the interpolated novella “die wilde spanierin” (the wild spanish woman); as a famous poet and dramatist repeatedly referred to in the novel; as the hermit Vitalis; and finally as Victor the Catholic priest. We soon discover that the first three of these personae are identical, but lothario is not revealed as victor until the nineteenth of the novel’s 26 chapters. His identity as Vitalis is not definitely established until the last chapter, and his ordination is not disclosed to the reader or to the other characters until almost the final page.105 the name “victor” and his role as a hermit provide the pseudonym “victor eremita.” “lothario,” signifying “seducer,”106 and “kordelchen” (little cordelia), see hirsch, Kierkegaard-Studien, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 303–304 [pp. 431–2]; pp. 304–308 [pp. 432–6]. 102 hirsch, Kierkegaard-Studien, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 303–304 [pp. 431–2]. 103 oskar seidlin, Versuche über Eichendorff, göttingen: vandenheock & ruprecht 1978 [1965], p. 297. seidlin erroneously ascribes his discovery of the source of “victor eremita” to rehm. 104 in 1836 eichendorff began to learn spanish, and in 1846 published his translation of El gran teatro del mundo in the first volume of his translations of Calderón’s Autos sacramentales. 105 see Judith purver,, Hindeutung auf das Höhere: a Structural Study of the Novels of Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit., p. 62. 106 the name derives from an english drama, nicholas rowe’s The �air Penitent (1703), which was translated several times into german. see mary Bell price and lawrence marsden price, The Publication of English Literature in Germany in the Eighteenth Century, Berkeley, 101

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

43

a female member of the traveling theater company who has had a love relationship with “lothario,” supply the names of the protagonists of “the seducer’s diary.” the significance of Dichter und ihre Gesellen for kierkegaard is implied most clearly, however, in the preface to Either/Or. here, victor eremita writes that, because he doubts that “the outer is the inner and the inner is the outer,” he has “consulted the authors whose views i shared in this respect” so as “to make up for what has been left undone in the philosophical writings.”107 evidently, the authors to whom he refers are not philosophical authors. in making his observations, he says, “hearing became my most cherished sense.” eichendorff’s prose and verse are famed for their appeal to the ear. “at times,” victor eremita continues, “i have had luck (Lykke), at times not.” the literal translation of the danish phrase is “i have had luck with me.” this may allude to the poet Fortunat (“the lucky one”) in Dichter und ihre Gesellen, who accompanies the reader except when the focus shifts to other characters and their respective narrative strands. it was through “good luck” [Held], too, that victor eremita acquired the papers that corroborated his philosophical doubts. there follows the celebrated account of his purchase of a writing desk from a second-hand dealer. it was, he says, “not a modern piece of work”;108 the same is true of Dichter und ihre Gesellen, a romantic novel published when german literary romanticism was over. unable to open the drawer containing money that he wants for a journey to the countryside, victor eremita strikes the desk with a hatchet, revealing a secret recess containing a manuscript dating from 1834109—the year in which Dichter und ihre Gesellen was published. the journey and the discovery of the manuscript, he claims, occurred in the summer of 1836.110 this suggests that kierkegaard had “discovered” Dichter und ihre Gesellen in the summer of 1836—the dealer from whom victor eremita purchased the desk may represent the bookseller from whom kierkegaard bought the novel. he lent it to Brøchner in 1837. since the preface to Either/Or is dated “november 1842,”111 the reference in it to a period �five years ago����112 when victor eremita had reached the point with regard to the manuscript at which he had remained until 1842, likewise points to 1837. after finding the manuscript�� Victor �remita removed a pair of pistols from a mahogany box, replacing them with the manuscript, which he took with him on the journey.113 Famously, goethe’s werther twice borrows a pair of pistols from his rival, albert. At first�� he wants them for a journey into the hills��114 just as victor eremita wants his pistols for a “trip to the country.”115 when werther again requests the pistols for california: university of california press 1934 (University of California Publications in Modern Philology, vol. 17), p. 195. 107 SKS 2, 11 / EO1, 3. 108 SKS 2, 12 / EO1, 4. 109 SKS 2, 17 / EO1, 10. 110 SKS 2, 13 / EO1, 5. 111 SKS 2, 22 / EO1, 15. 112 SKS 2, 19 / EO1, 11. 113 SKS 2, 14 / EO1, 6. 114 goethe,, The Sufferings of Young Werther, trans. by Bayard quincy morgan, new York: Frederick ungar 1986, p. 61. 115 SKS 2, 14 / EO1, 6.

44

Judith Purver

“a journey,” it is a journey into death.116 By replacing his pistols with the manuscript dated 1834, i suggest, victor eremita is symbolically replacing Werther, and the lifeview that leads its hero to suicide, with Dichter und ihre Gesellen. this occurs only after a violent attack on the desk, perhaps symbolizing kierkegaard’s struggle with his own life-view and the direction that his writing was to take from then on, as represented by victor eremita’s remark to himself: “with the escritoire a new period of your life is to begin.”117 Das Marmorbild�� as we saw�� prefigures not only �ierkegaard’s critique of aestheticism, narcissism, and melancholy, and his description of the self, freed from despair, but also his critique of Werther. the anticipation in Das Marmorbild of a comment in The Sickness unto Death (see section c above), together with the clues in Either/Or, strengthens the case for seeing both these kierkegaard titles as allusions to Werther and eichendorff as the key to kierkegaard’s liberation from the “werther complex.” this was an essential step for him both as a man and as a religious writer, for according to The Sickness unto Death suicide is “mutinying against god.”118 other allusions in the preface to Either/Or support this reading. “the coachman was already blowing his horn119 when victor eremita’s servant (conscience�) called him, possibly from “a dream.” 120 the horn blasts are referred to as “poetic motifs” and “enticing tones” [lokkende Toner].121 horns, as we noted, are characteristic of eichendorff’s work. the same goes for enticement or allurement [Lockung], which plays a major role in Dichter und ihre Gesellen. victor eremita’s servant carries the box with the manuscript to “a romantic spot in the forest.”122 in chapter two of Dichter und ihre Gesellen, which includes the poem quoted in “the seducer’s diary,” Fortunat and walter lose their way at night in the forest: Fortunat sings of the beauty of dreaming away the night there, but walter complains of “untimely romanticism and wasted time.”123 this suggests an opposition between an aesthetic and an ethical approach. similarly, the manuscript found by victor eremita has two contrasting parts,124 one aesthetic, the other ethical in content.125

goethe, The Sufferings of Young Werther, op. cit., p. 152. SKS 2, 13 / EOP, 29. 118 SKS 11, 161 / SUD, 46. 119 SKS 2, 13 / EO1, 5. 120 ibid. 121 SKS 2, 13 / EO1, 5f. 122 SKS 2, 14 / EO1, 6. 123 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 4, p. 15. 124 Dichter und ihre Gesellen is divided into three books, but falls into two as regards length: the first book is almost twice as long as the other two together and contains exactly half the chapters. the novel was originally to have had two parts. see purver, Hindeutung auf das Höhere, op. cit., p. 48. 125 The latter consists of �letters written to the author of the first�� by Vilhelm. These could be construed as a riposte to Werther, which consists largely of letters to werther’s friend, wilhelm. marriage, the subject of Either/Or, part two, is the institution on which werther comes to grief. victor eremita refers to the authors of the two parts as “a” and “B,” perhaps a reminiscence of goethe’s Elective Affinities, which also concerns marriage and is referred to explicitly in Either/Or, part two. the terms “a” and “B” (as well as “c” and “d”) are used in 116 117

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

45

the main body of Either/Or, too, includes many reminiscences of Dichter und ihre Gesellen. The first part begins: �What is a poet? An unhappy person…whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.”126 By contrast, chapter twenty of Dichter und ihre Gesellen includes a poem by dryander, whose name, “man of oak,” alludes to eichendorff’s name,127 and whose various roles and soubriquets parody those of victor. a line of the poem runs: “wird aus dem schrei doch nimmer gesang”128 [the scream will, after all, never become song]. a also comments that “life isn’t like a romantic novel.”129 in chapter nine of Dichter und ihre Gesellen, victor-lothario says that he wants to live like a character in a novel or drama,130 but later learns from bitter experience that life is not like this. hence a, when he begins writing, already knows what victor von hohenstein has had to learn. Most significantly�� A says of Johannes�� the author of �The Seducer’s diary”: “his life has been an attempt to realize the task of living poetically.”131 this is what victor-lothario (“the seducer”) tries, but fails to do,132 and confirms Victorlothario’s connection with both Johannes and a. Besides the points of comparison already noted, a compares himself to a “fahrender scholastiker,”133 a possible allusion to goethe’s �aust,134 but also to victor-lothario’s song in chapter six of Dichter und ihre Gesellen, written in the persona of a traveling student.135 a decides, too, to join “aa traveling theater company,” ,”136 as victor von hohenstein does. we have already seen that victor von hohenstein is the source of the name “victor eremita” and that there are links between victor eremita (not to mention a or Johannes) and kierkegaard. all these pseudonyms and figures are interlinked and related to their author. the same is true of the four poets in eichendorff’s novel: not only does “dryander” allude to “eichendorff”; victor’s description of hohenstein recalls eichendorff’s childhood home; Fortunat is mistaken for victor; and otto, like eichendorff, has studied in Halle. The fact that �ierkegaard’s figures allude to �ichendorff’s figures further complicates the picture. this does not, of course, mean that what is said by these figures is �ichendorff’s or �ierkegaard’s personal opinion�� but the value-system of each work may be attributed to eichendorff and kierkegaard respectively as implied author. as both believed that an author’s life must be congruent with his writing, there Elective Affinities for chemical elements that separate from their original compounds and join with others in a manner that appears analogous to human sexual behavior. 126 SKS 2, 27 / EO1, 19. 127 see hans Jürg lüthi, Dichtung und Dichter bei Joseph von Eichendorff, Bern and munich: Francke 1966, p. 212. 128 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 4, p. 216. 129 SKS 2, 32 / EOP, 45. 130 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 4, p. 84. 131 SKS 2, 294 / EO1, 304. 132 see also romano’s attempt in Viel Lärmen um Nichts to seduce the false aurora through increasingly elaborate “arts of seduction”: Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 5, part 3, p. 142. 133 SKS 2, 33f. / EO1, 25. 134 cf. SKS k2–3, 99f., cf. also EO1, 608, note 53. 135 Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 4, pp. 50–52. 136 SKS 2, 42 / EO1, 33.

46

Judith Purver

is also a direct connection between the “implied” and the “real” author of their works, even though both men present their views “incognito” and “in disguise.” For kierkegaard, “living poetically” in an aesthetic sense is neither christian nor an expression of genuine selfhood. this is also the case in Dichter und ihre Gesellen, where most of the characters play false roles and many come to grief. there is, however, a positive sense in which one can live poetically. in part two of Either/Or vilhelm says that �he who has the humility and courage to let himself be transfigured aesthetically�� he who has a sense of being a character in the play written by god… he, and only he, has reached the highest in aesthetics.”137 this comment echoes the “theme-song” of Dichter und ihre Gesellen, sung in chapter seven by dryander as the spokesman both of the traveling actors and of the human condition. here, the set is the whole natural world, the duration of the play the whole of time, god is both super-author and super-director, and only He knows the �final act.��138 these ideas and images are taken up again in the penultimate chapter, where Fortunat, having overcome the fear that he is merely a dream of the night—the passage quoted by �ierkegaard in May 1839—meets ��othario�� at dawn by a ruined monastery and asks what he is doing there. “i am playing the last act,” replies the latter with a smile, “graves, a wedding, god’s green battlements and the rising sun as the final set piece [Schlußdekoration].”139 In the last chapter�� Victor—now truly deserving of that name—takes a more earnest tone. He reveals himself in his final costume�� that of a Catholic priest�� and declares that his aim is to be a missionary—not overseas, where “innocent peoples under palm trees dream of the future dawn” (that is, where they have yet to hear of christianity), but in europe, where he wishes “to overturn the self-made idols round which the people of the renegades dance” and to reveal to them once more “the faithful eye of god against the deep background of heaven.”140 Fortunat says that this is his aim, too, but the only means that he has to carry it out is his poetic writing [Dichtkunst], to which he intends to hold fast in life and in death.141 as the foregoing analysis demonstrates, kierkegaard’s reception of Dichter und ihre Gesellen was of decisive significance for Either/Or. moreover, victor von hohenstein’s spiritual development from poet to priest foreshadows kierkegaard’s central conception of the three “stages” or “existence-spheres” of life, namely the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. Either/Or focuses almost exclusively on the first two of these. Its sequel�� Stages on Life�s Way, treats all three, with particular emphasis on the religious. here, too, there are echoes of Dichter und ihre Gesellen. victor eremita reappears in the section “in vino veritas,” as does Johannes the Seducer�� a ��othario�� figure. Another of Victor von Hohenstein’s personae, the “litteratus,” is mentioned by the editor, hilarius Bookbinder, as the source of the manuscripts of which Stages consists.142 plainly, kierkegaard was still developing the conception that he had derived from eichendorff’s novel and left clues to it in his text. The final work of �ierkegaard’s that alludes to Dichter und ihre Gesellen is The 137 138 139 140 141 142

SKS 3, 136 / EO2, 137. Sämtliche Werke des �reiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff, op. cit, vol. 4, p. 67. ibid., p. 285. ibid., p. 297. ibid., pp. 297f. SKS 6, 12 / SLW, 3.

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

47

Point of View for my Work as an Author. here, writing in his own name, kierkegaard refers to himself as a “policeman”143—yet another of Victor von Hohenstein’s personae—and declares: �This movement from ‘the poet’ to religious existing is basically the movement in the entire work as an author regarded in its totality.”144 This is the movement carried out by Victor von Hohenstein between the first and the last chapter of Dichter und ihre Gesellen. Furthermore, in the second of the “two ‘notes’ concerning my work as an author,” written in 1849 and published in 1859 along with The Point of View, kierkegaard writes: it [the individual] is not the category of the missionary who deals with pagans to whom he proclaims Christianity for the first time; but it is the category of the missionary within christendom itself, aiming to introduce christianity into christendom.145

these words echo victor von hohenstein’s declared intention to become a missionary to europe. hence not only kierkegaard’s conception of “existencespheres,” but also his understanding of his mission to christendom, can be traced back to Dichter und ihre Gesellen. These findings affect our reading of �ichendorff as well as of �ierkegaard. �ow that eichendorff can be seen as the origin and catalyst of kierkegaard’s thinking, it is no longer possible to claim, as egon schwarz and even richard alewyn have done, that eichendorff lacked intellectual capacity146 or that his writings contain no original thought.147 on the contrary, they provided the impetus for the most original thought of the nineteenth century. the most important of eichendorff’s texts in this regard is Dichter und ihre Gesellen, which, ironically, has been seen as particularly unoriginal, and in consequence has been largely neglected by eichendorff scholarship. its significance�� not only for German literary history but also for the history of ideas�� will have to be re-evaluated in the light of its reception by kierkegaard. as for our reading of kierkegaard, the complex use that he makes of eichendorff’s work, particularly of victor von hohenstein and the latter’s various personae, has a number of implications as regards the sources not only of his critique of romanticism, but also of his thought in general, and as regards his relationship to his pseudonyms. Beyond that�� the findings of this chapter indicate that late German �omanticism had a major impact not only on kierkegaard, but, through him, on modern and postmodern thought. this challenges the accepted view of late romanticism as backward-looking in contrast to early romanticism, which is usually seen as more progressive. Finally, in the light of the extensive reception of kierkegaard by protestant theologians, the fact that he drew inspiration for central aspects of his thought from a catholic writer has implications for inter-confessional relations in the twentieth century and beyond. 143 144 145 146

order.”

147

SV1 Xiii, 563 / PV, 78. SV1, Xiii, 607 / PV, 120. SV1, Xiii, 609 / PV, 123. see schwarz, Joseph von Eichendorff�� op. cit.�� p. 164: �his intellect was not of the first see alewyn, “ein wort über eichendorff,” op. cit., pp. 9f.

Bibliography I. Eichendorff�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library Dichter und ihre Gesellen. Novelle, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1834 (ASKB 1633). Gedichte, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837 (ASKB 1634). Viel Lärmen um Nichts, Von Joseph �reiherren von Eichendorff; und: Die mehreren Wehmüller und ungarischen Nationalgesichter. von Clemens Brentano. Zwei Novellen, Berlin: in der vereins-Buchhandlung 1833 (ASKB 1850). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Eichendorff menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd enlarged ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 4, pp. 257ff. (ASKB u 79). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Eichendorff Buddensieg, hermann, “vom unbekannten eichendorff. eichendorff sprach auch polnisch,” part 2, Mieckiewicz-Blätter, no. 18, 1961, pp. 178–235 (see pp. 205–208). hahn, hans J., “From image to vision, from artist to prophet: observations on the perception of art and religion in the work of eichendorff,” in Text into Image: Image into Text. Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Bicentenary Conference held at St Patrick�s College Maynooth (The National University of Ireland) in September 1995, ed. by Jeff morrison and Florian krobb, amsterdam: rodopi 1997), pp. 159–68. hirsch, emanuel, Kierkegaard-Studien, vols. 1–2, gütersloh: Bertelsmann 1933, vol. 1, pp. 6f.; p. 10; pp. 303–308; pp. 310f.; p. 317 [pp. 6f.; p. 10; pp. 431–6; pp. 438f.; p. 445]. (reprinted, vaduz, liechtenstein: toposverlag 1978. First published in Studien des apologetischen Seminars in Wernigerode, nos. 29, 31, 32, 36, 1930–33.) kunz, Josef, Eichendorff: Höhepunkt und Krise der Spätromantik, oberursel, taunus: altkönig-verlag 1951 (reprinted, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1967), see pp. 220f. law, david, “the literary sources of kierkegaard’s The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars,” in Early Polemical Writings, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1999 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 1), pp. 159–94.

Eichendorff: Kierkegaard�s Reception of a German Romantic

49

offermanns, ernst l., “eichendorffs roman Dichter und ihre Gesellen,” in Ansichten zu Eichendorff: Beiträge der �orschung 1958 bis 1988, ed. by alfred riemen, Sigmaringen: Thorbecke 1988�� pp. 151–69 (see p. 165) (first published�� in Literaturwissenschaft und Geschichtsphilosophie: �estschrift für Wilhelm Emrich, ed. by helmut arntzen and others, Berlin: de gruyter 1975, pp. 373–87). rehm, walter, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, munich: hermann rinn 1949 (reprinted, hildesheim: georg olms 2003, see pp. 12–15; pp. 38; p. 52; p. 134; p. 275; pp. 527f.; pp. 532–4; p. 547; p. 549; p. 615). —— �Jakob Burckhardt und �ichendorff���� in his Späte Studien, Bern: Francke 1964�� pp. 276–343 (see pp. 276–81) (first published as Jakob Burckhardt und Eichendorff, Freiburg im Breslau: albert 1960). seidlin, oskar, Versuche über Eichendorff, göttingen: vandenheock & ruprecht 1978 [1965], see p. 297.

This page intentionally left blank

goethe: a german classic through the Filter of the danish golden age Jon stewart and katalin nun

There can be no doubt that Goethe was one of �ierkegaard’s most significant German sources�� on a par with major figures such as Hegel�� Schelling and Hamann. kierkegaard’s relation to and use of goethe is highly diverse and complex. this is due in part to the fact that he refers to many different works by goethe throughout his authorship. moreover, this relation is rendered more complicated since it was partially filtered through the use of Goethe made by other contemporary �anish authors. In any case�� there can be no doubt that Goethe represents a very significant source for kierkegaard’s authorship, and the issue of kierkegaard’s relation to him is one that well merits a detailed study. to date the most extensive exploration of this relation is carl roos’ rightly praised Kierkegaard og Goethe from 1955.1 since this work, there has been no attempt to treat kierkegaard’s relation to goethe systematically, although there have been a handful of highly useful treatments of specific issues in that relation.2 in this article it will be argued that kierkegaard’s assessment of goethe was largely conditioned by his changing relation to specific �anish figures�� known for their works on the German poet. Specifically�� the poet and critic Johan �udvig Heiberg carl roos, Kierkegaard og Goethe, copenhagen: g.e.c. gads Forlag 1955. see, for example, max Bienstock, “sören kierkegaard und sein urteil über goethe,” Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und deutsche Literatur und für Pädagogik, vol. 29, 1. abt., no. 6, 1912, pp. 443–8; august closs, “goethe (1749–1832) und kierkegaard (1813–55): gleichwichtige mitte und Entweder-Oder,” Études Germaniques, vol. 4, nos. 2–3, 1949, pp. 278–90; august closs, “goethe and kierkegaard,” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 10, 1949, pp. 264–80; kristian elster, “kierkegaard og goethe,” in his Livet og digtningen. Essays, oslo: aschehoug 1928, pp. 193–241; helge hultberg, “kierkegaard og goethe,” in Kierkegaard inspiration, ed. by Birgit Bertung et al, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1991 (Søren Kierkegaard Selskabets Populære Skrifter, vol. 20), pp. 47–53; slawomir lesniak, “kierkegaard und goethe,” Orbis Litterarum, vol. 56, 2001, pp. 221–9; horst oppel, “kierkegaard und goethe,” Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, vol. 16, no. 1, 1938, pp. 126–59; steffen steffensen, “kierkegaard og goethe,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 2, 1957, pp. 75–80; steffen steffensen, “kierkegaard und goethe,” Nerthus, vol. 3, 1972, pp. 19–55; ellen vedel, Goethes Clavigo og Enten-Eller: Et bidrag til studiet af Goethes betydning for Søren Kierkegaard, copenhagen: tegnernes Forlag 1978–79. 1 2

52

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

and the theologian Hans �assen Martensen were crucial filters in �ierkegaard’s changing views on goethe. since both heiberg and martensen were also known for their promotion of hegel in denmark, goethe, somewhat oddly, came to be associated with hegel in kierkegaard’s mind. kierkegaard’s assessment of goethe can be characterized by two different phases: initially a positive one, corresponding to his positive relation to heiberg, and then, after 1843, a negative one, caused in part by his falling out with him. I. Goethe�s Life and Works “am 28sten august 1749, mittags mit dem glockenschlage zwölf, kam ich in Frankfurt am main auf die welt.”3 with these famous words goethe begins the account of his life in Dichtung und Wahrheit. It is difficult to compare his long life (1749–1832) with that of any other poet not only due to the sheer quantity of his writings�� which fill 55 volumes in the first collected edition�� but also due to the breadth and diversity of his works. He was of course above all a writer and one of the key figures of German literature, penning poems, dramas, and novels, but his writings also include works on subjects such as morphology, botany, geology, and optics. Goethe was born as the first child of a rich bourgeois family. His father�� Johann caspar goethe (1710–82), was a lawyer and imperial councilor, and his mother, katherine elisabeth textor (1731–1808), was the daughter of the mayor of Frankfurt. all their other children died at a very early age except for goethe’s younger sister, cornelia Friderike christiana (1750–77). From 1765 to 1768 goethe studied law in leipzig, at the time one of europe’s leading cultural centers. It was there that he penned his first poems and dramas. He was forced to interrupt his course of studies because of a serious illness. two years later, goethe went to strasbourg, where he continued and eventually completed his education. here, he made the acquaintance of, among others Johann gottfried herder (1744–1803)�� who in��uenced his development profoundly. In Strasbourg�� Goethe wrote the Sesenheimer Lieder (1770–71) and the famous poem Heideröslein (1771). In the first half of the 1770s�� Goethe lived in Wetzlar and Frankfurt am Main. In 1773, he published The Sufferings of Young Werther and, in 1774, Clavigo, but it was the former work which made goethe’s name famous abroad. after a long journey in switzerland in 1775, he became the privy councilor to karl august (1757–1828), prince of Weimar. In 1776�� Goethe settled in Weimar�� and during the first ten years�� he devoted himself primarily to his official duties. However�� at this time he also began to work on pieces such as Torquato Tasso (1790), Egmont (1788), and Iphigenie auf Tauris (1789). From 1786 to 1788 and again in 1790 goethe traveled in italy, the fruit of which was his well-known Italienische Reise (vols. 1–2, 1816–17; 2nd supplemented edition in 3 volumes, 1829). Johann wolfgang von goethe, Goethe�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, vols. 1–40, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1827–30; Goethe�s nachgelassene Werke, vols. 41–55, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1832–33, vol. 23, p. 11 (ASKB 1641–1668) (abbreviated hereafter as Goethe�s Werke).

3

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

53

in 1791, goethe started work on Wilhelm Meister, but in the same year he began his activities as the director of the weimar court theater (which he continued until 1817). a conversation with schiller in 1794 was the beginning of the period of their friendship, a collaboration that has come to be known as weimar classicism. in this fruitful decade, which ended with schiller’s death in 1805, goethe completed Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795), Hermann und Dorothea (1797) and Die natürliche Tochter (1804). in these years, he was also working on �aust�� the first part of which he published in 1806. From 1809 to 1811 goethe completed the novel Die Wahlverwandschaften (1809), his treatise on optics Zur �arbenlehre (1810) and his autobiography Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit (parts 1–3 (Books 1–15); 1811–14; part 4 (Books 16–20), posthumous, 1833). In 1821 the first version of Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre oder Die Entsagenden was published. the second part of �aust, a text, on which goethe worked throughout almost his entire life�� was finished in 1831. He died in 1832 and was buried in Weimar alongside schiller. From 1836–48 Johann peter eckermann (1792–1854), goethe’s friend and private secretary, published his Gespräche mit Goethe,4 a transcription of a number of conversations with goethe that became an important source for goethe’s biography and thoughts on any number of subjects. II. Goethe�s Role in Golden Age Denmark Goethe was a major figure in the cultural life of �enmark as well as the German states. his works were commonly referred to by educated danish readers. in particular, lines from �aust were regularly quoted in a proverbial manner in the danish literature of the day. henning Fenger describes “the goethe fever” that gripped denmark in the period immediately following goethe’s death in 1832.5 goethe’s theatrical works were staged at the royal theater during this period, Egmont in 1834 and Clavigo in 1845,6 both of which were favorites of kierkegaard. moreover, he was known personally by some of the golden age’s leading intellectuals. For example, adam oehlenschläger (1779–1850) met goethe on his trip to germany in 1806.7 one of denmark’s leading masters of verse, oehlenschläger Johann peter eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens 1823–32, vols. 1–2, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1836; vol. 3, magdeburg: verlag heinrichshofen 1848. 5 see henning Fenger, Kierkegaard: The Myths and their Origins, trans. by george C. Schoolfield�� �ew Haven and �ondon: �ale University Press 1980�� pp. 81–8. See also �ouis Bobé, “goethe og danmark,” Gads Danske Magazin, vol. 20, 1926, pp. 288–302; georg Brandes, “goethe og danmark,” in his Mennesker og Værker, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1883, pp. 1–79. 6 henning Fenger, Kierkegaard: The Myths and their Origins, op. cit., pp. 82–3. see also peter tudvad, Kierkegaards København, copenhagen: politikens Forlag 2004, p. 238; p. 272. 7 adam oehlenschläger, Oehlenschlägers Levnet, fortalt af ham selv, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: Paa Forfatterens Forlag�� trykt i det Christensenske Officin ved J.�. Qvist 1830–31, vol. 2, pp. 7f; Oehlenschlägers Erindringer, vols. 1–4. copenhagen 1850–51, 4

54

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

was profoundly in��uenced above all by Goethe’s poetry. Similarly�� the philosopher�� F.c. sibbern (1785–1872) met goethe during a trip through germany and prussia in 1812.8 he referred to goethe throughout his long authorship and made particularly extensive use of him in the first volume of his main work on aesthetics from 1834.9 his popular novel, The Posthumous Letters of Gabrielis from 1828, is clearly modeled on The Sufferings of Young Werther.10 the author and literary critic peder hjort (1793–1871) visited goethe in weimar in march of 1821.11 the philosopher henrik steffens (1773–1845) was closely associated with goethe for many years.12 other danish authors made substantive use of goethe. the poet Jens Baggesen (1764–1826) wrote a satirical account of Faust that was published posthumously in 1836.13 the poet and philosopher poul martin møller (1794–1838) also availed himself of different aspects of goethe’s work.14 thus, goethe’s works were on the lips of many of kierkegaard’s most important contemporaries. A. Heiberg�s Idolization of Goethe there can be little doubt that Johan ludvig heiberg’s (1791–1860) extensive use of Goethe played a defining role in �ierkegaard’s estimation of the German poet. Goethe was the object of some attention in heiberg’s famous journal, Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post. in an article published on december 12, 1828, heiberg gives an account of the French philosopher victor cousin’s (1792–1867) two visits to weimar to see

vol. 2, p. 12. see also Oehlenschlägers Levnet, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 39ff.; and Oehlenschlägers Erindringer, op. cit., pp. 58ff. 8 see Jens himmelstrup, Sibbern, copenhagen: J.h. schultz Forlag 1934, pp. 39–41. see “letter from sibbern to his sister sophie,” Jena, 9 July 1812, in Breve til og fra �.C. Sibbern, vols. 1–2, ed. by c.l.n. mynster, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandel 1866, vol. 2, pp. 25–7. see also “letter from sibbern to sophie Ørsted,” Jena, 16 July 1812, in Breve til og fra �.C. Sibbern, ibid., vol. 2, pp. 70ff. 9 Frederik christian sibbern, Om Poesie og Konst i Almindelighed, med Hensyn til alle Arter deraf, dog især Digte-, Maler-, Billedhugger- og Skuespillerkonst; eller: �oredrag over almindelig Æsthetik og Poetik, part one, copenhagen: paa Forfatterens Forlag 1834. 10 Frederik christian sibbern, Efterladte Breve af Gabrielis, copenhagen: c. græbe 1826. 11 see morten Borup, Peder Hjort, copenhagen: rosenkilde og Bagger 1959, p. 79. 12 see steffens Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 4, pp. 101–102; vol. 5, p. 9; pp. 12–14; vol. 6, p. 49; p. 150; vol. 8, p. 444; vol. 10, p. 271 (ASKB 1834–1843). 13 Jens Baggesen, Der vollendete �aust oder Romanien in Jauer, in Jens Baggesen�s Poetische Werke in deutscher Sprache, vols. 1–5, ed. by carl and august Baggesen, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1836, vol. 3, pp. 1–312. For an account of the details of the manuscript, see leif ludwig albertsen’s introduction to his modern edition of Baggesen’s Der vollendete �aust oder Romanien in Jauer (ed. by leif ludwig albertsen, Bern: lang 1985), pp. 5–31. 14 see [møller, poul martin], Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, vols. 1–3, ed. by christian winther, F.c. olsen and c. thaarup, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1839–43, vol. 2, p. 133; vol. 3, p. 95; p. 235; p. 326; p. 333 (ASKB 1574–1576).

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

55

goethe in 1817 and 1825.15 this piece presents a sympathetic picture of goethe at a time when his health was beginning to fail. considerably more substantial is heiberg’s book review in 183016 of goethe’s correspondence with schiller.17 in addition to his own critical comments, heiberg translates substantial parts of the correspondence for the benefit of the �anish reader. In a couple of different places the fundamental agreement is noted between goethe and heiberg’s other intellectual hero, the philosopher g.w.F. hegel (1770–1830).18 according to heiberg’s view, goethe and hegel represent the two great spirits of the day. in his treatise On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age from 1833�� Heiberg argues that Goethe and Hegel�� each in their own fields�� stand at the pinnacle of human culture and intellectual development at the time. given this, they are hailed as the ones who will lead european culture out of its then contemporary crisis of truth and meaning. in a dramatic passage, he writes, “Goethe and Hegel are undoubtedly the two greatest men the modern age has produced. no others deserve to the same degree to be called the representatives of our age, for their works contain the entire life of spirit of our age, as existing and present, i.e., encompassing the future in unity with the past.”19 heiberg believes that hegel’s speculative idealism represents the solution to the problem of modern alienation and relativism since it heiberg, “cousins Besög hos göthe,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, no. 99, december 12, 1828, [pp. 409–11]. since the journal Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post did not have page numbers, page references have been given in square brackets to the page numbers in the photomechanically reprinted edition: Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, vols. 1–4, by uffe andreasen (copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1980–84). 16 heiberg, “schillers og göthes Brevvexling,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1830, i, no. 112, 17 september, [pp. 453–6]; ii, no. 113, 20 september, [pp. 457–60]; iii, no. 114, 22 september, [pp. 461–4]; iv, no. 115, 24 september, [pp. 465–8]; v, no. 118, 1 october, [pp. 479–80]; vi, no. 119, 4 october, [pp. 481–4]; vii, no. 122, 11 october, [p. 496]; viii, no. 123, 13 october, [p. 500]; iX, no. 124, 15 october, [pp. 503–504]; X, no. 126, 20 october, [pp. 510–11]; Xi, no. 134, 8 november, [p. 544]; Xii, no. 135, 10 november, [pp. 547–8]; Xiii, no. 136, 12 november, [p. 552]; Xiv, no. 137, 15 november, [pp. 555– 6]; Xv, no. 138, 17 november, [pp. 559–60]; Xvi, no. 139, 19 november, [pp. 563–4]; Xvii, no. 142, 26 november, [pp. 575–6]; Xviii, no. 143, 29 november, [pp. 577–8]; XiX, no. 145, 3 december, [p. 588]; XX, no. 150, 15 december, [p. 608]; XXi, no. 153, 22 december, [pp. 619–20]. (reprinted in Prosaiske Skrifter, vols. 1–11, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1861–62, vol. 5, pp. 213–326.) see iver Jespersen, Johan Ludvig Heibergs benyttelse af Schillers brevveksling med Goethe�� Copenhagen: Grafisk Cirkel 1952�� p. 25f. 17 Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe in den Jahren 1794–1805, vols. 1–6, stuttgart and tübingen: in der J.g. cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1828–29. 18 heiberg, “schillers og göthes Brevvexling,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1830, iv, no. 115, september 24, [p. 468] (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 259): “in respect to goethe’s optics, opinion is still divided, for while the physicists for the most part do not wish to recognize the correctness of his view, the hegelian system has adopted it in its philosophy of nature.” 19 heiberg, Om Philosophiens Betydning for den nuværende Tid. Et Indbydelses-Skrift til en Række af philosophiske �orelæsninger, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1833, p. 36. (in english as Heiberg’s On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age and Other Texts, ed. and trans. by Jon stewart, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 2005, p. 107.) 15

56

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

shows the deep hidden truth not in some transcendent sphere but in the world of finite things itself. Goethe represents a poetic analogue to this. He demonstrates the same speculative truth but in the poetic sphere. heiberg explains: [Goethe] effects this sublation [sc. of finite moments]�� unlike �ante and Calderón�� with a very abstract perception of the finite in universality. On the contrary�� no one goes into more details of nature and human life than he. no one lingers with greater desire on all our finite determinations and relations. Indeed�� he has even taught us that poetry�� without becoming either trivial or unpopular, can go much more deeply into these details, determinations and relations than one had previously suspected. what is grandiose, what is imposing, in goethe is thus seen in the love with which he seems to lose himself in these finitudes�� while he suddenly surprises us by standing above them and recognizing them for what they are.20

goethe is thus acclaimed as a speculative poet who embodies in his poetry hegel’s speculative philosophy, which attempts to give an account of the whole universe of concepts. �ike Hegel�� Goethe is able to grasp and present the infinite truth of the world in the representation of finite characters and situations and not as some unattainable ideal dwelling in another world. this recognition of the truth in the world around us is, for heiberg, the solution to the current crisis of relativism and nihilism. in an article in the �lyvende Post from 1834, heiberg refers to goethe’s �aust. in the main text he explains, in a hegelian manner, the task of scholarship is to trace the development of thought in human self-consciousness. he then continues, “the science which has this as its goal is logic, not…formal logic, but that whose subject matter is the real logos or rational thought, about which it is written in the gospel of John that in the beginning it was with god and it was god.”21 then in a footnote he goes on to refer to �aust: in the Bible the greek logos is translated as “the word.” this meaning is also contained in the greek term since the word is thought’s conscious revelation. in general, this is used about action, but the word is itself an action. goethe’s Faust has a different opinion. see the scene in which he tries to translate the aforementioned passage in the gospel.22

here heiberg refers to the scene in the study, where Faust attempts to translate “logos” alternatively as “das Wort,” “der Sinn,” “die Kraft�� and finally �die Tat.”23 heiberg understands it in a hegelian manner to mean the deep, underlying rationality that structures the universe and human development. this motif is picked up again in heiberg’s most extensive work on hegel’s logic, the Outline of the Philosophy of Philosophy or Speculative Logic from 1832. in discussing the concept of “force,” heiberg explores the understanding of god in 20 heiberg, Om Philosophiens Betydning, op. cit., pp. 45f. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 428; Heiberg’s On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age, op. cit., p. 113). 21 heiberg, “symbolik,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, Interimsblad, 1834, v, no. 8, [p. 37]. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 10, p. 177f.) 22 heiberg, “symbolik,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, Interimsblad, 1834, v, no. 8, [p. 37n]. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 10, p. 178n.) 23 �aust I, in Goethe�s Werke, vol. 12, 1828, p. 66.

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

57

terms of this concept. he explains that force can be understood as something potential or as something actual, expressed in the world. with a hegelian analysis, he notes that these two elements are dialectically related, with the one necessarily implying and thus passing over into the other. here he explains this translation between active and passive force as follows: this transition is expressed in goethe’s �aust in the passage where Faust in his translation of the first sentence in the Gospel of John (�In the beginning was the Word��) is not satisfied with the term “the word,” and (after a previous change) changes it to “the Force,” but is then again displeased with this term and changes it to “the act” (“die That”). Faust is also portrayed by the poet as a character, who in his despair over being unable to achieve the final speculative result�� sets himself firmly at the standpoint from which the infinite is seen as power or absolute necessity. 24

here heiberg interprets goethe’s Faust in a hegelian manner. Faust’s goal is to reach �the final speculative result���� that is�� to attain the Hegelian absolute knowing by seeing the infinite in the finite. The reason for his dissatisfaction with the different translations is that they are all one-sided and thus fail to express the speculative unity of the concept. heiberg reiterates his high estimation for goethe in a rather unlikely place, namely, his Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course at the Royal Military College, which was published at the end of 1834. there he explores the relation between the reciprocal concepts of matter and form. this then leads him to discuss the relation of these two elements in poetry. in this context goethe is hailed as the poet who has best realized the hegelian unity of these concepts: the relationship between matter and form appears again but with the essential difference that it now happens with the consciousness that this opposition is not enduring but only transitory. In other words�� finitude is recognized for what it is�� something which does not exist and whose determination is only to be sublated. a great poet is thus only the one in whose production this insight is living and effective, and it is solely and only thereby that Goethe stands so unconditionally above the most excellent poets of the modern age, among whom one can find individuals with a certain prosaic�� God-fearing attitude for material who thereby make what is in itself unpoetic into their poetic god.25

goethe is to be ranked above the other modern poets since he has managed to overcome the opposition of matter and form. he has realized that the material element is only a finite moment�� something to be overcome�� in order to reach a higher principle. many of the other poets of the day continue to wallow in a poetic materialism, never reaching the truth of the hegelian idea. heiberg, Grundtræk til Philosophiens Philosophie eller den speculative Logik. Som Ledetraad ved �orelæsninger paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole, copenhagen: trykt hos andreas seidelin, hof- og universitets-Bogtrykker 1832, § 115, remark 4, p. 71. (in english as Heiberg�s Speculative Logic and Other Texts, ed. and trans. by Jon stewart, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 2006, p. 139.) 25 heiberg, Indlednings-�oredrag til det i November 1834 begyndte logiske Cursus paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole, copenhagen: J.h schubothes Boghandling 1835, p. 17. (Prosaiske Skrifter, vol. 1, p. 482; Heiberg�s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course and Other Texts, ed. and trans. by Jon stewart, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 2006, pp. 53.) 24

58

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

heiberg’s idolization of goethe was well known in denmark, and it was made the object of satire by his critics (including kierkegaard). For example, in the comic piece, “the collegium politicum of the �lyvende Post,” which appeared in the Humoristiske Intelligentsblade in 1836, the following words are put into the mouth of heiberg who is represented by “professor h.”: “it is not good to be in the sphere of re��ection if one does not work through it to the third�� to the sphere of the Concept�� where all opposites are dissolved in unity and where the heavenly peace abides, which goethe breathed in, as you have certainly heard.”26 here one can readily recognize the close juxtaposition of goethe and hegel that was characteristic of heiberg’s philosophical and aesthetic program. as before, goethe is presented as having achieved the hegelian speculative unity of opposites. in this chapter it will be argued that heiberg’s association and idolization of goethe and Hegel was highly significant for �ierkegaard�� in��uencing his reception of both figures. In �ierkegaard’s early works�� when he was still sympathetic to Heiberg�� he is generally positively disposed towards both goethe and hegel. But after heiberg’s negative comments about Either/Or27 and Repetition,28 kierkegaard became alienated from him and began a polemical campaign against heiberg’s heroes, goethe and hegel. it will be noted that while this thesis has been suggested previously by henning Fenger,29 it has never been documented or argued for in any substantial way. B. Martensen�s �aust Studies Another important figure for �ierkegaard’s reception of Goethe was the theologian Hans lassen martensen (1808–84). on a long study trip from 1834–36 the impressionable young martensen became intrigued by the Faust legend. during this journey, martensen read a new version of Faust by the poet nicolaus lenau (1802–50).30 in vienna he met lenau personally and, with the latter’s encouragement, wrote a review of lenau’s �aust, which appeared in 1836.31 this work, written in german, was a forerunner to a modified �anish version that was published as an article in Heiberg’s Hegelian journal�� Perseus, in 1838. 32 the article in Perseus was the object of a detailed and sympathetic [anonymous], “Flyvepostens collegium politicum. et rørende lystspil i 6 scener,” Humoristiske Intelligentsblade, no. 3, 1836, [p. 1] / EPW, supplement, p. 178 (translation slightly modified). 27 heiberg, “litterær vintersæd,” Intelligensblade, vol. 2, no. 24, march 1, 1843, pp. 285–92 (ASKB u 56). 28 heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, pp. 77–160 (ASKB u 57). (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, pp. 51–130.) 29 see henning Fenger, Kierkegaard: The Myths and their Origins, op. cit., p. 148. see also steffen steffensen, “kierkegaard und goethe,” op. cit., pp. 20–23. 30 nicolaus lenau, �aust. Ein Gedicht, stuttgart: verlag der J.g. cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1836. 31 Johannes m.......n, Ueber Lenau�s �aust, stuttgart: verlag der J.g. cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1836. For the date of publication of this work, see Julius martensen, Mindre Skrifter og Taler af Biskop Martensen, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1885,, p. 1. 32 h. martensen, “Betragtninger over idéen af Faust med hensyn paa lenaus �aust,” Perseus, Journal for den speculative Idee, no. 1, 1837, pp. 91–164 (ASKB 569). in his 26

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

59

review by sibbern which was published as a part of a larger review of the journal as a whole.33 as has been pointed out by roos,34 martensen’s studies on Faust were highly significant for �ierkegaard. martensen’s assessment of lenau’s version of Faust is far from uncritical. he quickly makes the disclaimer that in many technical aspects lenau’s account lags far behind goethe’s classic.35 however, he claims, lenau’s version of Faust nonetheless “can command our interest since it surpasses goethe’s �aust in presenting a clearer consciousness of the essential point of view.”36 what is crucial for martensen is the concept of human autonomy, which he takes lenau’s Faust to embody. Faust represents the spirit of human self-sufficiency that believes that it has no need for god’s grace. martensen made the issue of human autonomy the topic of his dissertation in 1837,37 in which he argues that autonomy is the (erroneous, arrogant and sinful) principle of the modern world in contrast to “theonomy” or a rightful recognition of one’s dependence on god. martensen’s discussion of modern autonomy as embodied in Faust can be regarded as a significant forerunner of �ierkegaard’s well-known discussions of the demonic. At the end of a highly in��uential review of Heiberg’s Hegelian Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course, martensen uses two images from goethe. with the first�� he explains the principle of modern thought�� which believes it can determine the truth for itself: religious philosophy assumes that it can only know the truth insofar as the truth lets itself be known, and it accepts all its knowledge as a gift from the free personal god and in His revelation finds the answer to the deepest questions in the human breast. �ationalist philosophy, by contrast, strives to know the truth in the force which dwells within the human spirit and which will bring itself�� its inner imperishable essence—the substantial reason—to consciousness. Man no longer expects salvation from above but rather finds it within himself. the religious conception of a personal relationship between god and man, of a relation of love and submission, disappears like a mere appearance.38

autobiography, years after the fact, martensen writes the following of this article in Perseus: “i later published my treatise in danish in a more extended version, which was included in heiberg’s Perseus. among the danish readers, particularly in the circle of young people, i have reason to assume that it had some effect. sibbern wrote a benevolent and thoughtful review in the Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, in which he wholly agrees with the view that the task in goethe’s work is wholly different from that in lenau’s.” martensen, Af mit Levnet, vols. 1–3, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1882–83, vol. 1, p. 186f. 33 sibbern, “Perseus, Journal for den speculative Idee,” Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 20, 1838, article viii, “angaaende ideen af Faust,” pp. 405–15. 34 this constitutes an interesting parallel to kierkegaard’s early, aborted studies of Faust. see carl roos, Kierkegaard og Goethe, op. cit., pp. 56–157. 35 martensen, “Betragtninger over idéen af Faust,” op. cit., pp. 123f. 36 ibid., p. 124. 37 hans lassen martensen, De autonomia conscientiae sui humanae in theologiam dogmaticam nostri temporis introducta, hauniae [copenhagen]: J.d. quist 1837 (ASKB 648). 38 martensen, “Indledningsforedrag til det i November 1834 begyndte logiske Cursus paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole. af J.l. heiberg, lærer i logik og Æsthetik ved den

60

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

then he invokes goethe’s poem “prometheus” as an illustration of the modern view of autonomy and defiance vis-à-vis the divine: �The human spirit�� with Goethe�s prometheus, looks back on that standpoint as on a condition when it had not yet found itself. Da ich ein Kind war, / Nicht wußte wo aus noch ein, / Kehrt� ich mein verirrtes Auge / Zur Sonne, als wenn drüben wär / Ein Ohr zu hören meine Klage, / Ein Herz wie mein�s / Sich des Bedrängten zu erbarmen.”39 this was the naive condition of humanity before it came to realize that it could determine the truth for itself. this was the condition of the past, which martensen associates with the middle ages. martensen then goes on to characterize the modern disposition, which regards the human mind itself as the locus and source of truth. he explains, again with reference to goethe’s “prometheus”: But now that spirit has come of age, it no longer expects that the truth will come to it from heaven but profoundly addresses itself to itself with its weighty questions. it expects no voice from above which will resolve all doubt; instead, the truth ceaselessly works its way forward from its own depths in order that it can finally�� in the possession of its own magnificence�� confidently say to itself: Hast Du nicht Alles selbst vollendet!40

here the emphasis is on the unaided power of the human intellect. the truth is no longer considered the providence of the outward, external sphere; instead, it is dependent on the thought and action of the individual. thus, goethe provides the first literary model for Martensen’s principle of modern autonomy: Prometheus. the second model, Faust, is also supplied by goethe with the second image in martensen’s text.

kgl. militaire høiskole,” Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 16, 1836, p. 526. (Heiberg�s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course and Other Texts, op. cit., p. 84.) 39 martensen, “Indledningsforedrag til det i November 1834 begyndte logiske Cursus paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole. af J.l. heiberg, lærer i logik og Æsthetik ved den kgl. militaire høiskole,” op. cit., p. 526. (Heiberg�s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course and Other Texts, op. cit., p. 84.) martensen quotes lines 21–7 of the monologue which forms the basis of the dramatic fragment known as “prometheus” from 1773; see Goethe�s Werke, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 79–80. english translation: “once too, a child / not knowing where to turn, / i raised bewildered eyes / up to the sun, as if above there were / an ear to hear my complaint, / a heart like mine / to take pity on the oppressed.” english translation quoted from Selected Poems, ed. by christopher middleton (vol. 1, in Goethe: The Collected Works, vols. 1–12, princeton: princeton university press 1994–95), p. 29. this passage is also used by ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72) as the motto for his Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit, nuremberg: Johann adam stein 1830. 40 martensen, “Indledningsforedrag til det i November 1834 begyndte logiske Cursus paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole. af J.l. heiberg, lærer i logik og Æsthetik ved den kgl. militaire høiskole,” op. cit., p. 527. (Heiberg�s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course and Other Texts, op. cit., p. 84.) martensen quotes line 32 from the same poem; see Goethe�s Werke, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 80. the complete couplet is as follows: “Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet, / Heilig glühend Herz�” english translation: “did not my holy glowing heart / unaided, accomplish all�” english translation quoted from Selected Poems, ed. by christopher middleton, op. cit., p. 29.

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

61

the passage in goethe’s �aust that was referred to by heiberg was picked up on by martensen, who uses the image of Faust to illustrate the interpretive possibilities of the results of hegel’s philosophy. he explains: here i merely take the liberty of calling to mind Goethe�s Faust. he too gives up faith for doubt. he too speculates about logos but can in no way accept that it should mean “the word.�� He reformulates it again and again—here is a true picture of modern speculation in its relation to revelation. the poet has been guided by good sense, for the issue depends on the various interpretations of logos. this is the scholarly point of contention between rationalism and christian philosophy, i.e., whether logos, in a true speculative sense, means that “the word” or that “thought” was in the beginning and was god; that is, whether “the word,” this light without which thought itself is enveloped in darkness, like the monad slumbering in the womb of possibility, must be thought eternally and prior to all human consciousness or whether man first invented it or found it. But if he found it, then it already existed in the beginning, and god does not need to be revealed in history but rather is revealed eternally.41

martensen notes that the ambiguity here captures the dispute about the ambiguity at the heart of hegel’s philosophy of religion. when hegel speaks of spirit or reason and identifies it with God�� this can be interpreted to mean that this is something that humanity invents [opfinder] and thus is the object of historical development. or alternatively, spirit can be regarded as something preexisting that is found [fundet] by humanity. thus, what is at issue is the ontological priority of god or the logical concept in hegel. is god higher than the concept or vice versa� martensen is critical of heiberg and hegel for apparently subordinating the divine to human reason and thus opening the door to modern autonomy. like heiberg, martensen was also the object of criticism for his views. in 1840, in the wake of his great success as a lecturer at the university of copenhagen, he was attacked in a local newspaper by an anonymous critic for leading the students astray with his hegelianism. in the polemical article, martensen’s use of goethe is noted explicitly. the critic argues that there is much that the students can learn in their studies besides hegel’s system, thereby implying that this was the only thing they were receiving from martensen’s instruction. he continues: ...we take [the claim] to be absolutely amazing that one cannot think without having gone to school with Hegel, that without him one cannot understand one’s time and the world-view that lies in it. We have heard the absolutely amazing proposition that no one can understand Goethe without having read Hegel, from which follows, among others, the equally amazing proposition that Goethe did not understand himself. we have this proposition from a Hegelian non-commissioned officer�� who has received it from his lieutenant.42 41 martensen, “Indledningsforedrag til det i November 1834 begyndte logiske Cursus paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole. af J.l. heiberg, lærer i logik og Æsthetik ved den kgl. militaire høiskole,” op. cit., pp. 527f. (Heiberg�s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course and Other Texts, op. cit., p. 84.) 42 [Anonymous]�� �Philosophiske Suffisance i �ædrelandet,” Kjøbenhavnsposten, vol. 14, no. 31, February 1 1840, pp. 121–4; p. 123.

62

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

the implicit criticism is that presumably one of martensen’s students took this claim from his “lieutenant,” that is to say martensen. while the student remains unidentified�� it is clear that Martensen’s friend and ally Heiberg was known for his claims that one cannot properly understand the age without understanding hegel’s philosophy and that goethe’s poetry is an artistic embodiment of hegel’s philosophy. thus, once again goethe is associated with hegel in the danish context. III. Kierkegaard�s Positive Reception of Goethe in his Early Works kierkegaard was an avid reader of goethe. his library included a copy of the 55-volume edition of Goethe�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, published between 1827 and 1833.43 he also owned a handful of works on goethe’s �aust,44 purchases which presumably date to his student days. Further, he had several other accounts of goethe’s works by famous contemporary authors such as schiller (1759–1805)45 and rötscher (1802–71).46 his early reception of goethe can be characterized as generally very positive. he was initially captivated by the Faust legend and was apparently planning a longer work on the subject which was also to include parts on the wandering Jew and don Juan.47 there are many entries where kierkegaard speaks of different elements of the character of Faust or the story in general without ever mentioning goethe specifically. Thus�� his interest in the legend is more extensive than his interest in goethe’s account of it. however, while goethe’s �aust was not the only version of the story that he explored, it was certainly the central one which constituted the natural point of comparison and contrast for his considerations.

Goethe�s Werke, op. cit. and Goethe�s nachgelassene Werke, op. cit. Johann leutbecher, Ueber den �aust von Göthe: Eine Schrift zum Verständniß dieser Dichtung nach ihren beiden Theilen für alle �reunde und Verehrer des großen Dichters, nuremberg: renner 1838 (ASKB 1405); Friedrich august rauch, Vorlesungen über Goethe�s �aust, Büdingen: heller 1830 (ASKB 1800); moritz retzsch, Umrisse zu Goethe�s �aust, stuttgart: cotta 1834–36 (ASKB u 91); carl ernst schubarth, Ueber Goethe�s �aust: Vorlesungen, Berlin: enslin 1830 (ASKB u 96). 45 Friedrich von schiller, “ueber Egmont, trauerspiel von goethe,” in Schillers sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–12, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1838, vol. 12, pp. 368–81 (ASKB 1804–1815). 46 heinrich theodor rötscher, Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: verlag von wilhelm thome 1841–46, vol. 1, 1841 (ASKB 1391; vols. 2–3, also entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charaktere. Nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung über das Wesen dramatischer Charaktergestaltung, cf. ASKB 1802–1803); see “gretchen im �aust,” in his Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung, vol. 2, pp. 270–97; “mephistopheles in göthe’s �aust,” “antonio montecatino in göthe’s Torquato Tasso,” and “der prinz in Emilia Galotti und clavigo in göthe’s Clavigo,” in his Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung, vol. 3, pp. 75–108; pp. 175–91; and pp. 203–19 respectively. 47 see SKS 19, 94, not2:7 / JP 2, 1179. Pap. i a 150 / JP 1, 795. Pap. i c 61 / JP 5, 5110. SKS 19, 94f., not2:10 / JP 5, 5111. 43 44

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

63

A. The �aust Period in the Early Journals kierkegaard’s early journals and notebooks are full of references to goethe. of particular interest are the journals AA and BB, which clearly show evidence of his project on Faust. this Faust phase in the work of the young kierkegaard has been an object of some attention in the secondary literature.48 in a disputed entry from the Journal AA, dated June 1, 1835,49 kierkegaard goes through the different academic fields in much the same way Faust does�� in search of his proper vocation. in this context he refers explicitly to goethe: For many, it is this Faustian element that makes itself more or less applicable to every intellectual development, which is why it has always seemed to me that we should concede cosmic significance to the Faust concept. Just as our ancestors worshipped a goddess of yearning�� so I think that Faust represents doubt personified. He need be no more than that�� and goethe probably sins against the concept when he permits Faust to convert….50

while Faust represents the principle of autonomy for martensen, he represents the principle of modern doubt for kierkegaard. this early entry raises a critical point that kierkegaard will later return to. given that Faust represents doubt, goethe makes a mistake in �aust, part two, by having the story end in reconciliation. here, according to kierkegaard, he betrays the very principle upon which the character is based. continuing the thought, kierkegaard characterizes Faust as a doubter on a loose paper from the same period. there he writes: i would have been very happy if goethe had never continued �aust; i would then have called it a miracle; but here human frailty has overcome him. it takes a certain strength to see the hero of a piece get the worst of it in his struggle, in this case despairing over his doubt; but it is precisely this which gives Faust greatness, that is, it is his reformation which draws him down into the common everyday life. his death is the ultimate reconciliation in the work, and we could very well sit and weep over his grave but never think of lifting the curtain which at death made him invisible to our eyes.51

see carl roos, “kierkegaard og Faust,” in his Kierkegaard og Goethe, op. cit., pp. 56–157; knud Jensenius, Nogle Kierkegaardstudier, copenhagen: nyt nordisk Forlag, arnold Busck 1932, pp. 36–63; sejer kühle, Søren Kierkegaards Barndom og Ungdom, copenhagen: aschehoug 1950, pp. 113ff; henning Fenger, Kierkegaard: The Myths and Their Origins, op. cit., pp. 84–6; alastair hannay, “a Faustian phase,” in his Kierkegaard. A Biography, cambridge, new York: cambridge university press 2001, pp. 58–87; vilhelm andersen, Tider og Typer af dansk Aands Historie, vols. 1–2, copenhagen, kristiania: gyldendalske Boghandel nordisk Forlag 1916, vol. 2, pp. 78–84. 49 the controversy concerns whether this entry, which appears to be a draft of a letter, is genuine or in fact a part of a planned novel in the form of letters. see the discussion in søren Bruun and Jette knudsen, “tekstredegørelse” to Journal AA in SKS, k17, pp. 18–21. see also henning Fenger, Kierkegaard: The Myths and Their Origins, op. cit., pp. 90ff. 50 SKS 17, 19, aa:12 / JP 5, 5090 / EO1, supplement, p. 454. 51 Pap. i a 104 / JP 2, 1178 / EO1, supplement, p. 459. 48

64

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

here kierkegaard repeats his criticism of goethe from the entry cited above. Faust should be portrayed as an unrepentant doubter since this is the modern principle that he represents. the poet should have allowed him to wallow in despair. in his early article, “the morning observations in Kjøbenhavnsposten no. 43,” published in heiberg’s Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, Interimsblad, on February 18, 1836, kierkegaard refers to a well-known scene in �aust: “Yes, certainly Kjøbenhavnsposten is reforming, but on closer examination it is rather a parody of the reforming endeavor�� and I do not doubt that when the sun first really rises one will find the staff of Kjøbenhavnsposten standing just like the guests in auerbach’s cellar (see goethe’s �aust), the one holding the other by the nose, ready to cut.”52 in this early essay, kierkegaard polemicizes against the journal Kjøbenhavnsposten, in order to defend heiberg’s Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post. in the scene in question, mephistopheles, in order to avoid being attacked by angry and half-intoxicated students, casts a spell over them so that they cannot see what is right in front of them but instead believe that they are walking through vineyards. they grab each others noses in the belief that they are bunches of ripe grapes and make ready to cut them down with their knives. mephistopheles then releases them from the spell, with them holding each other’s noses with knives prepared to cut them off. the implication of the comparison seems to be that the editorial board of Kjøbenhavnsposten is under an illusion and is inadvertently about to do itself harm. in a long entry on a loose paper from this period, kierkegaard makes several short re��ections on both Goethe and the Faust story. He begins by making a comment on heiberg’s placement of goethe’s Faust in his taxonomy of poetic forms. kierkegaard writes, “to what extent is �aust a drama of immediacy, as J.l. heiberg says (is there such a thing�).”53 here kierkegaard makes reference to heiberg’s polemical article against oehlenschläger from 1828,54 in which heiberg attempts to sketch an entire system of poetic genres following the hegelian categories of immediacy, mediation and mediated immediacy. in his account heiberg mentions goethe’s �aust (along with other works including oehlenschläger’s Aladdin) as forms of immediate drama.55 kierkegaard’s entry simply raises the question about the appropriateness of this characterization. According to Martensen�� it would seem that the figure of Faust “the morning observations in Kjøbenhavnsposten no. 43”; “Kjøbenhavnspostens morgenbetragtninger i nr. 43,” in Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, Interimsblad, no. 60, February 18, 1836. EPW, p. 11. (to kierkegaard’s reference in goethe, see �aust I, in Goethe�s Werke, vol. 12, pp. 117–18; in english as �aust I & II, ed. and trans. by stuart atkins (vol. 2 in Goethe: The Collected Works, op. cit), p. 51.) 53 Pap. i c 102 / JP 5, 5160. 54 heiberg, “svar paa hr. oehlenschlägers skrift: ‘om kritiken i Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, over væringerne i miklagard,’” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1828 (i, no. 7, January 25, [pp. 37–40]; ii, no. 8, January 28, [pp. 41–4]; iii, no. 10, February 4, [pp. 50–52]; iv, no. 11, February 8, [pp. 54–6]; v, no. 12, February 11, [pp. 59–60]; vi, no. 13, February 15, [pp. 61–4]; vii, no. 14, February 18, [pp. 65–8]; viii, no. 15, February 22, [pp. 69–72]; iX, no. 16, February 25, [pp. 73–6]) (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 194–284). 55 heiberg, “svar paa hr. oehlenschlägers skrift: ‘om kritiken i Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, over væringerne i miklagard,’” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1828 (iv, no. 11, February 8, [p. 55]). 52

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

65

would represent the stage of re��ection since he has already surpassed the naivety of traditional belief. thus, kierkegaard seems to regard this as a slip on heiberg’s part, who is usually eager to place goethe at the top of any hierarchy. it is interesting to note that heiberg himself seems to have discovered that this was an error. when he reprinted this piece in the first collected edition of his prose writings�� published from 1841–43, heiberg uses the same series of dramatic pieces as examples of immediate drama�� but significantly he removes Goethe’s �aust from this list.56 in one long entry from BB, dated september 2, 1836,57 kierkegaard makes extensive reading notes from karl ernst schubarth’s (1796–1860) work, Ueber Goethe�s �aust from 1830.58 there then come a couple of short entries about goethe in tieck’s works.59 kierkegaard then discovers a detailed Faust bibliography at the end of christian ludwig stieglitz’s (1756–1836) essay, “die sage vom doctor Faust,” from the Historisches Taschenbuch from 1834.60 he proceeds to copy, in detail, this bibliography into his notebook, giving it the heading “literature on Faust.”61 this is then followed by a couple of further entries inspired by stieglitz’s article and other works on Faust.62 in an entry dated september 9, 1836, kierkegaard refers to yet another scene from �aust. he writes: it is the customary goethean experience of the world which led goethe (in his �aust) to have mephistopheles lead the new student astray particularly with regard to the faculty’s curriculum, which he does by ridiculing the arduous pursuit through directing him to a course of study and at the same time leading him astray about it, scaring him away from it, thwarting and destroying the great plans of one who could have gone forth strengthened by such pressure.63

here kierkegaard refers to the scene in Faust’s study where a naive young student seeks advice about his studies from Faust, who is impersonated by mephistopheles.64 �ach time the student names a possible field of specialization—logic�� metaphysics�� law�� theology�� medicine—Mephistopheles begins by praising it and then proceeds to criticize it. ultimately he succeeds in obfuscating the entire issue.

56 heiberg, “svar paa hr. oehlenschlägers skrift: ‘om kritiken i Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, over væringerne i miklagard,’” in Prosaiske Skrifter, vols. 1–3, copenhagen: J.h. schubothes Boghandling 1841–43, vol. 1, pp. 279–381; see p. 316 (vol. 3, ASKB 1560). this is the reading that is reprinted in the second edition of heiberg’s Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 194–284; see p. 227. 57 SKS 17, 76–89, BB:7. 58 carl ernst schubarth, Ueber Goethe�s �aust: Vorlesungen, Berlin: enslin 1830 (ASKB u 96). 59 SKS 17, 91, BB:10–11. 60 see Historisches Taschenbuch, vol. 5, 1834, pp. 125–210. see SKS, k17, p, 205f. 61 SKS 17, 92–104, BB:12. 62 SKS 17, 104–106, BB:13–15. 63 Pap. i a 233 / JP 2, 1457. 64 see goethe, �aust I, in Goethe�s Werke, vol. 12, pp. 93ff. (in english as �aust I & II, op. cit., pp. 48ff.)

66

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

in another entry from the Journal AA, presumably from 1837, kierkegaard refers to both hegel and goethe’s Faust. he writes: Insofar as Hegel was fructified by Christianity�� he sought to eliminate the humorous which is in christianity…and consequently reconciled himself completely with the world, with quietism as a result. the same thing happened with goethe in his �aust, and it is curious that the second volume came so late. He could easily produce the first volume�� but the problem was how to calm the storm once it was aroused. the second volume, therefore, has a far more subjective character (indeed�� on the whole Goethe has sufficiently expressed how his experience occasioned one or another work of art); it seems as if he makes this confession of faith in order to calm himself down.65

here hegel is associated with goethe, and kierkegaard draws an analogy between hegel’s philosophy of religion and goethe’s poetry, thus developing heiberg’s insight. By recognizing the deep inner rationality of the universe, hegel’s philosophy effects a reconciliation between the individual and the world. so also the second part of �aust represents goethe’s reconciliation, presumably with Faust’s conversion, to which, as we have seen, kierkegaard objected. in the second entry after this one in the Journal AA, kierkegaard refers to both goethe’s and martensen’s interpretation of Faust. he writes: in connection with a little essay by Johannes m.....(martensen) on lenau’s �aust, in which it is told that the piece ends with Faust killing himself and mephistopheles’ giving an epilogue, i began to ponder to what extent, after all, it is appropriate to let a work of this kind end in such a way. and here i believe that goethe was right in ending part one with mephistopheles’ “heinrich! heinrich!” a suicide would make too much of a character out of the idea: it should be the counter-weight of the whole world that crushes him, as with �. Juan. —Or end in despair (the Wandering Jew). �espair is romantic—not punishment�� as it was in the case of prometheus.66

By mentioning martensen’s half-pseudonym, “Johannes m…..” kierkegaard makes clear that he is discussing the original german version of martensen’s Faust piece and not the danish version in Perseus (which was published in martensen’s own name). here he is clearly favorably disposed to goethe and opposed to lenau’s version, which was favored by martensen. in lenau’s account, Faust commits suicide, hoping thus to escape his fate. By contrast, goethe’s version ends with mephistopheles taking Faust with him into the abyss, from which a voice calls out to Faust, addressing him by his christian name, “heinrich! heinrich!” this entry is followed by a handful of short entries that all mention Faust.67 martensen’s danish article on lenau’s �aust then appeared in heiberg’s Perseus in June 1837. kierkegaard was taken entirely by surprise since he had presumably envisioned that his own study on Faust would be the central work in the danish literature on the subject. For whatever reason, he seems not to have been threatened by martensen’s german monograph on lenau’s �aust. with martensen’s danish essay, 65 66 67

SKS 17, 49, aa:36. / JP 2, 1568. SKS 17, 49, aa:38 / JP 2, 1183. SKS 17, 50–51, aa:42, aa:43, aa:44.

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

67

however, his efforts were undercut. when he saw martensen’s essay in Perseus, he immediately wrote in his journal: �Oh�� how unlucky I am—Martensen has written a treatment of lenau’s �aust!”68 this presumably played a role in kierkegaard abandoning his project on Faust, the wandering Jew and don Juan. martensen’s essay then triggers a series of critical and sarcastic remarks in kierkegaard’s journals. in an entry from the Journal ��, from 1837, kierkegaard writes, “the don Juanian life is really musical, and thus it is very proper for lenau in his Faust, at the moment Faust begins to portray don Juan, to have mephistopheles start the music. —Martensen has not seen the deeper significance of this circumstance.��69 here kierkegaard praises a small point in lenau’s version, while he is still anxious to criticize martensen. this entry is not dated, and thus it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty if this remark is based on the german monograph or on martensen’s danish essay in Perseus.70 Martensen becomes the butt of the joke in �ierkegaard’s unfinished comedy�� The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars, which he wrote in the Journal DD. there kierkegaard uses the character of mr. von Jumping-Jack to represent martensen, putting the following words in his mouth: my dear fellow! i fully perceive what ails you. it is the Faustian problem; it is what modern philosophy, which, said in parenthesi, began with descartes, has suffered from to a great extent….since i am just in the process of giving a short account of modern philosophy since descartes, i can perhaps oblige the rest of those present by speaking about it publicly so all can hear.71

here kierkegaard refers to martensen’s account of descartes’ introduction of the principle of doubt in modern philosophy, which appears, among other places, in his review of heiberg’s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course.72 kierkegaard thus combines martensen’s account of Faust and his account of cartesian doubt. Pap. ii a 587. see also Pap. ii a 588. SKS 18, 83, FF:38 / JP 5, 5226. 70 while this entry is not dated, it seems to have been written sometime between January 30, 1837 (the date of FF:34) and June 9, 1837 (the date of FF:61). regarding the date of the publication of martensen’s essay, the journal was already out by June 15, 1837. in a letter bearing that date, martensen thanks heiberg for having sent him a copy. see Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Johan Ludvig Heiberg, vols. 1–5, ed. by morten Borup, copenhagen: gyldendal 1946–50, vol. 2, letter 368, p. 281. with a letter dated June 19, 1837, he sends a copy to the swedish writer Bernhard von Beskow (1796–1868). see ibid., vol. 2, letter 368, p. 281f. see carl weltzer, “stemninger og tilstande i emil Boesens ungdomsaar,” in Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, seventh series, vol. 1, copenhagen 1951–53, p. 407. the journal was apparently not yet out by June 3, 1837, since in a letter bearing that date emil Boesen writes, “heiberg is now about to publish a philosophical journal; it is presumably the hegelian philosophy which is to make an entry in it: in the first issue there is a treatise which he himself wrote on occasion of rothe’s Habilitation, ditto on hertz’s newest piece, and even one by martensen on lenau’s �aust.” 71 SKS 17, 289, dd:208 / EPW, 116. 72 martensen, “Indledningsforedrag til det i November 1834 begyndte logiske Cursus,” op. cit., p. 527. (Heiberg�s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course, op. cit., p. 84.) 68 69

68

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

B. Other References to Goethe in the Early Journals and Works goethe’s interpretation of �aust was not the only part of his authorship to have interested the young kierkegaard. there are references to several of goethe’s other works as well. in his Journal AA, kierkegaard writes out an extended quotation from his edition of goethe’s works: what really counts in life is that at some time one has seen something, felt something, which is so great, so matchless, that everything else is nothing by comparison, that even if he forgot everything he would never forget this, so that he could say with Benvenuto cellini, when after sitting a long time in the dark dungeon he got to see the sun: die Gewalt der Strahlen nötigte mich, wie gewöhnlich die Augen zu schließen, aber ich erholte mich bald, öffnete die Augen wieder, sah unverwandt nach ihr und sagte: O meine Sonne, nach der ich so lange mich gesehnt habe, ich will nun nichts weiter sehen, wenn auch deine Strehlen mich blind machen sollten, und so blieb ich mit festem Blick stehen. (Goethe�s W[erke], 8º; stuttgart and t[übingen]: 1830, vol. 34, p. 365 bottom and [3]66 top.73

kierkegaard quotes from goethe’s translation of the autobiography of the italian renaissance artist Benvenuto cellini (1500–71), Leben des Benvenuto Cellini, �lorentischen Goldschmieds und Bildhauers, von ihm selbst geschrieben, published in 1803.74 the scene describes cellini’s stay in prison. kierkegaard seems to understand this episode as an example of a profound, moving existential experience that everyone should have from time to time. It fits well with his later statements about the importance of passion. Notebook 3, which kierkegaard kept during the years 1835–36, contains extensive reading notes to goethe. kierkegaard begins, in an entry dated march 1836, by taking detailed notes to Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre,75 which he quotes from his collected edition of goethe’s works. in the next entry he comments on his reading as follows: If I were to state brie��y what I really regard as masterly in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, i should say that it is the capacious governance which pervades the whole work, the entire Fichtean moral world-order, even more doctrinairely developed in the novel, which is inherent in the whole book and gradually leads wilhelm to the point theoretically postulated, if i may put it that way, so that by the end of the novel the view of the world the poet has advanced, but which previously existed outside of wilhelm, now is embodied and living within him, and this explains the consummate impression of wholeness that this novel conveys perhaps more than any other. actually, it is the whole world apprehended in a mirror, in a true microcosm.76 SKS 17, 51, aa:46 / JP 1�� 1068. Translation slightly modified. The quotation reads: “the strength of the rays compelled me, as usual, to close my eyes, but i soon recovered, opened my eyes again, looked for her steadfastly and said: oh my sun, for whom i have longed for so long, i now want to see nothing else even if your rays would make me blind, and thus I stopped with fixed gaze.�� 74 Leben des Benvenuto Cellini, �lorentischen Goldschmieds und Bildhauers, von ihm selbst geschrieben, vols. 1–2, trans. and ed. by goethe, tübingen: cotta 1803. 75 SKS 19, 100–102, not3:4. 76 SKS 19, 102, not3:5 / JP 2, 1455. 73

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

69

this comment echoes heiberg’s praise of goethe as a speculative poet, who is able to maintain a perspective of the whole, despite the fact that he delves so profoundly into specific details. Indeed�� this is one of the works which Heiberg points to as embodying hegel’s philosophy.77 next in his notebook, kierkegaard then takes detailed notes from a biography of goethe: Johannes Falk’s (1768–1826) Goethe aus näherm persönlichen Umgange dargestellt, from 1832.78 the next text he studies is heinrich döring’s (1789–1862) biography, Goethes Leben, from 1833.79 there are a handful of other passages where goethe is mentioned in diverse contexts. in an entry dated august 19, 1836, kierkegaard writes, “goethe indeed has irony and humor but hovers above both—to that extent different from Greek tragedy.”80 in his Journal BB, kierkegaard notes that goethe was also interested in the wandering Jew.81 here he mentions explicitly goethe’s autobiography. in his entry entitled “something about hamann” from the Journal CC, goethe is mentioned in passing.82 in a passage from the Journal EE dated march 23, 1839, there is a reference to goethe’s Römische Elegien.83 it would be impossible to analyze all of these passages in detail here. But suffice it to say that the young �ierkegaard’s interest in goethe went well beyond his interest in Faust. C. Goethe as a Model for Controlled Irony in the concept of irony In his first serious scholarly work�� The Concept of Irony (1841), kierkegaard makes a brief mention of Faust. in his account of the greek sophists, he makes a comparison with mephistopheles: “on the whole, what they [sc. the sophists] wanted to impart to people was not so much an insight into the particular sciences but a universal culture, and protagoras’ declaration is very reminiscent of the warning by mephistopheles in goethe’s �aust against studies in various faculties.”84 here kierkegaard refers to the response of the sophist protagoras regarding the subject matter of his instruction. protagoras criticizes heiberg, Om Philosophiens Betydning, op. cit., p. 45 (Prosaiske Skrifter, vol. 1, p. 428.): “with respect to Goethe, it now remains to specify how precisely his poetry presents the philosophy which the age seeks. �ot only are some of his most significant works�� such as Wilhelm Meister, Tasso and in particular �aust�� didactic poems in the previously defined sense of the word, but the speculative idea penetrates the composition of almost all his works, even those, which cannot actually be characterized by this name.” (Heiberg’s On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age, op. cit., p. 113.) 78 SKS 19, 103–107, not3:6. see also SKS 19, 107–108, not3:8. SKS k19, 154. 79 SKS 19, 107, not3:7. see also SKS 19, 108–109, not3:9. SKS k19, 159f. 80 Pap. i a 224 / JP 2, 1456. 81 SKS 17, 107, BB:18. 82 SKS 17, 209, cc:25. 83 SKS 18, 18, ee:38 / JP, 5, 5373: “the other day i heard a conversation between some farm girls and farm lads. one of the fellows, the kind commonly called a ladies’ man, asked a very beautiful girl with a strong mark of mysteriousness about her, which goethe discusses in his römische Elegien: �o you have a sweetheart?—to which she replied: �o. Whereupon he answered: ‘well, then, you are also a bad girl.’” 84 SKS 1, 248 / CI, 203. 77

70

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

specialized studies and claims that what he teaches is a general knowledge that concerns the proper care of one’s personal affairs.85 this is then compared to what mephistopheles says in the aforementioned scene in Faust’s study where, disguised as Faust, he gives a young student advice. There Mephistopheles criticizes one by one the individual fields and ends by recommending a knowledge of life. the parallel that kierkegaard draws is intriguing, but unfortunately he does not explore it further. More significantly�� at the end of the work �ierkegaard makes reference to Goethe as well as heiberg as outstanding examples of his concept of controlled irony. the notion of controlled irony is kierkegaard’s proposal for a tenable concept of irony in contrast to socratic irony and romantic irony, which are the main objects of study treated in the work. he begins by explaining the relation between the life of the ironist, or here the poet�� and the artistic use of irony. The point is that the work should re��ect the poet’s own ironic disposition and life and should not “have a merely external relation to the poet.” kierkegaard explains, “in the individual poem, he will see an element in his own development.”86 goethe is then praised for his ability to do just this: the reason goethe’s poet-existence was so great was that he was able to make his poet-life congruous with his actuality. But that in turn takes irony, but, please note, controlled irony….in goethe, irony was in the strictest sense a controlled element; it was a serving spirit to the poet.87

there can be little doubt that this positive use of goethe as a model for controlled irony is an example of Heiberg’s in��uence on �ierkegaard. Just as Heiberg claimed in On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age that goethe and hegel were the two figures who would lead the present age out of its nihilism�� so also here kierkegaard singles out goethe as a model for irony that overcomes the problems associated with the relativism of romantic irony. there can be little doubt about this connection since kierkegaard goes on to associate heiberg with goethe by naming him too as an example of controlled irony: as poet, professor heiberg takes the same position [sc. as goethe], and while almost every line of dialogue he has written can provide an example of irony’s inner economy in the play, all his plays exhibit the conscious striving to assign to every particular line its place in the whole. here, then, the irony is controlled, is reduced to an element.88

kierkegaard’s praise of heiberg here echoes heiberg’s praise of goethe as a speculative poet. this is clear evidence that kierkegaard’s appreciation of goethe at this stage was largely conditioned by his appreciation of heiberg’s works on criticism and aesthetics. kierkegaard then goes on to refer to heiberg’s (and hegel’s) polemic with the romantic view that there is no truth in this corrupt and decadent world since the truth lies in a sphere beyond what is attainable by human beings. he refers to this by 85 86 87 88

Protagoras 318d–e. see SKS, k1, 295. SKS 1, 353 / CI, 325. ibid. ibid.

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

71

means of the modal categories: “the essence is nothing other than the phenomenon; the phenomenon is nothing other than the essence. possibility is not so prudish as to be unwilling to enter into any actuality, but actuality is possibility.”89 due to the oppression of this world, great human possibilities can never be realized. heiberg’s criticism of this view was that we must learn to see the essence in the phenomenon of this world and the possibility in the actuality of this world. there is truth in the mundane sphere which hegel’s philosophy can help us to discern.90 immediately after this passage kierkegaard writes, “goethe, both the striving and the victorious goethe, has always acknowledged this view, has continually articulated this view very energetically.”91 it is extremely odd to see goethe appear in the context of this analysis of the modal categories. the suggestion that goethe has “always acknowledged this view” can only be understood as a reference to heiberg’s understanding of him as a speculative or hegelian poet. again kierkegaard shows himself as a heibergian. D. Goethe�s Faust, clavigo and wahlverwandtschaften in either/or in Either/Or (1843), kierkegaard remains under the spell of heiberg’s aesthetics. he makes extensive use of goethe in a couple of different discussions. in “the immediate erotic stages” from part one, he has the esthete sketch a hegelian series of stages by which works of art can be judged. the esthete mentions goethe when exploring the third criterion, that is, the idea behind the work (in contrast to its subject matter or its formal execution). this idea must be expressed in the most abstract form. the esthete ultimately argues that mozart’s Don Giovanni is “the perfect unity of this idea and its corresponding form.”92 he then goes on to contrast Don Giovanni with other classics: homer found a perfect epic subject-matter, but because history offers more epic subject matter, many more epic poems are conceivable….goethe’s �aust is really a classic work, but it is a historical idea, and therefore every extraordinary time in history will have its �aust. �aust has language as its medium, and since this is a much more concrete medium, for that reason, too, many works of the same kind are conceivable.93

the esthete argues that goethe’s �aust is an outstanding example of the art of its age, but it is tied to history in a way that the timeless classic Don Giovanni is not. moreover, mozart’s work has a musical element which elevates it above goethe’s poetry. in this analysis one can see kierkegaard in a productive and critical discussion ibid. in addition to On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age, op. cit., see also heiberg’s Grundtræk til Philosophiens Philosophie eller den speculative Logik. Som Ledetraad ved �orelæsninger paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole, copenhagen: trykt hos andreas seidelin, hof- og universitets-Bogtrykker 1832, §§ 100–104. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 219–230; Heiberg�s Speculative Logic and Other Texts, op. cit., pp. 114–21.) 91 SKS 1, 354 / CI, 325. 92 SKS 2, 64 / EO1, 57. 93 ibid. see SKS 18, 78, FF:19. 89 90

72

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

with heiberg. he clearly follows heiberg methodologically in the attempt to set up some kind of hierarchy or typology in the judgment of works of art. he can, however, be seen to deviate from heiberg in his personal preference for mozart over goethe; although, with this said, he still clearly places goethe very high on the hierarchy. in “silhouettes,” from part one of Either/Or, kierkegaard dedicates several pages to an analysis of three fictive female figures: Marie Beaumarchais from goethe’s Clavigo,94 elvira from Don Giovanni,95 and margarete from goethe’s �aust.96 all three women have in common the fact that they have been abandoned by their lovers. kierkegaard’s use of Clavigo is intriguing for a number of reasons, both literary and biographical.97 goethe’s Clavigo is a relatively short dramatic piece, which goethe wrote in the course of a very brief period of time in 1774, a year after he published The Sufferings of Young Werther.98 the story is about the young woman marie Beaumarchais, who is engaged to the royal archivist, clavigo. however, Clavigo changes his mind and leaves his fianc��e�� who never recovers from her sorrow and pain and as a result eventually dies. while clavigo regrets what he has done, it is too late, and there is no way for him to repair the situation. goethe wrote Clavigo shortly after an unlucky love affair with Friederike Brion (ca. 1752–1813), whom he ultimately left, just as clavigo left marie Beaumarchais. thus, the piece has autobiographical undertones. there can be no doubt that kierkegaard’s interest in it stemmed from his own then quite recent experience with regine olsen (1822–1904), whom he abandoned in much the same way. there is thus an interesting parallel in the life of goethe and kierkegaard, which the latter was clearly aware of. Just as in goethe’s Clavigo the author tries to work through his own emotions regarding the troubled situation, so also kierkegaard in his account in “silhouettes” likewise uses the analysis to sort out his own feelings and sense of responsibility and guilt in the painful affair. as has been pointed out,99 the very structure of Either/Or underscores the deep personal question for kierkegaard: either he should marry and live a bourgeois life, or he should not. the guilty/not guilty motif likewise runs through both goethe’s and kierkegaard’s work. in goethe the story is about a man who is guilty and not guilty at the same time. he is guilty, because he does not keep what he has promised, but he is not guilty because he has not been disloyal to his lover by finding another woman. his problem is, rather like kierkegaard’s, that he simply cannot reconcile himself with a normal married bourgeois life. as kierkegaard formulates it: her [marie Beaumarchais] story is brief: clavigo became engaged to her; clavigo left her. this information is enough for the person who is in the habit of observing the phenomena SKS 2, 174–86 / EO1, 176–90. SKS 2, 187–99 / EO1, 190–204. 96 SKS 2, 200–209 / EO1, 204–14. 97 For this connection, see ellen vedel, Goethes Clavigo og Enten-Eller: Et bidrag til studiet af Goethes betydning for Søren Kierkegaard, op. cit. 98 cf. Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit, part 3, Book 15, in Goethe�s Werke, vol. 26, pp. 349ff. 99 ellen vedel, Goethes Clavigo og Enten-Eller, op. cit., p. 11. 94 95

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

73

of life as one observes rarities in a curio cabinet; the shorter the better, the more one can manage to see....if someone is in a hurry, it would indeed be a delay to dwell on it any further, since one cannot learn any more than one already knows....100

this is an interesting passage, because one would not expect a lengthy analysis of a story, which is to be described in one single sentence. nevertheless, kierkegaard analyzes in long passages the different psychological aspects of marie, primarily of her sorrow and pain after having been left by clavigo. these analyses are very sympathetic; they take their point of departure in goethe’s drama, and there is no critical account of the way goethe has crafted his characters. elements of heiberg’s pseudohegelian aesthetics are also present here. in his analysis�� the esthete draws a distinction between �immediate sorrow�� and �re��ective sorrow.”101 the characters are thus ranked in accordance with the hegelian categories, with kierkegaard’s author setting up a hierarchy along heiberg’s lines. this analysis shows that kierkegaard had a very positive relation to goethe’s work. Indeed�� he seems even to have identified with him personally in the sense that both were confronted with the same dilemma�� and both made the same difficult choice. later in “silhouettes,” kierkegaard has his pseudonym explore the same issue with the example of margarete who has been abandoned by Faust.102 From the many references to goethe, it seems clear that it is his version of the story that is under analysis here. margarete is characterized as representing the principle of immediacy and set in contrast to Faust’s re��ection. It is precisely her naivety and simplicity that attracts Faust. kierkegaard writes, “goethe understood all this perfectly well.”103 kierkegaard then enters into a dialogue with goethe’s portrayal: of course, the particular features goethe has emphasized are of great value, but i nevertheless believe that for the sake of completeness a little modification must be made. in her innocent simplicity, margarete soon perceives that with respect to faith there is something wrong with Faust. in goethe, this appears in a little catechization scene, which is unquestionably a superb invention by the poet. the question now is what results this examination may have for their relation to each other. it is apparent that Faust is a doubter, and it seems that goethe, inasmuch as he does not suggest anything more in this respect, wanted to have Faust continue to be a doubter also in relation to margarete.104

here kierkegaard returns to his earlier motif of Faust representing skepticism and doubt. Faust’s doubt is in a sense meaningless in the face of margarete’s innocent faith. it would not make sense for him to attempt to destroy her faith with his doubt, since it is precisely her naivety and simplicity that attracts him. on the contrary, Faust tries to fortify her in her naive belief. doubt only enters into margarete once Faust has abandoned her. then she realizes that he did not really believe all the things he claimed to believe. his hypocrisy and deception lead to her downfall as she now begins to see the vanity of the world. 100 101 102 103 104

SKS 2, 174 / EO1, 177. e.g., SKS 2, 176 / EO1, 178. SKS 2, 200–209 / EO1, 204–14. SKS 2, 203 / EO1, 207. SKS 2, 203 / EO1, 208.

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

74

as in the account of Clavigo�� it is difficult to read �ierkegaard’s analysis without seeing some autobiographical connection. the naive simplicity of margarete might well have been one of the same character traits that attracted kierkegaard to regine olsen. in any case, in this analysis as well, kierkegaard is clearly very sympathetic to goethe’s portrayal. in the second volume of Either/Or, kierkegaard has Judge wilhelm refer to goethe’s Wahlverwandtschaften. at the beginning of this volume, in “the aesthete validity of marriage,” the Judge attempts to give an account of immediate romantic love. in this context the Judge writes: what we are speaking of here is what goethe in Wahlverwandtschaften has so artistically first intimated to us in the imaginary nature in order to make it real later in the world of spirit, except that goethe endeavored too motivate this drawing power through a series of factors (perhaps in order to show the difference between the life of the spirit and the life of nature) and has not emphasized the haste, the enamored impatience and determination with which the two affinities seek each other.105

here Judge wilhelm refers to the main premise of goethe’s novel. the concept expressed in the title of the work comes from the natural sciences. in the chemistry of the day “attractio electiva” referred to the way in which individual elements bonded with specific elements under certain conditions and then with other elements under other conditions. goethe uses this as a metaphor for the human heart, whereby people are attracted to other people in a dynamic fashion, often at odds with accepted customs and morals. thus, the Judge appropriately points out the parallel between the life of spirit and that of nature, which constitutes the enduring motif in goethe’s text. later in the same essay, the Judge refers to the work again in his description of love in marriage. there he writes: even in goethe’s Wahlverwandtschaften, ottilia is plowed under, as a faint possibility, by the earnest marital love—how much more power�� then a marriage with a deep religious and ethical foundation should have for that. indeed, goethe’s Wahlverwandtschaften demonstrates precisely what secretiveness leads to. that love would not have gained the power if it had not been permitted to grow in stillness. if edward had had the courage to be open to his wife, it would have been prevented, and the whole story would have become a divertissement in the drama of marriage. the fatefulness was due to both edward’s and his wife’s becoming infatuated at the same time, but this again was because of silence. The married man who has the courage to confide to his wife that he loves someone else is saved, and so is the wife.106

Judge wilhelm refers to this example in order to illustrate the fortitude of love in marriage, which can endure even in the face of minor indiscretions. in Wahlverwandtschaften, the Baron edward and his wife charlotte both fall in love with other people—Charlotte with �dward’s friend Otto and �dward with Charlotte’s niece Ottilia—but they refuse to dissolve their marriage despite this.

105 106

SKS 3, 29 / EO2, 20. SKS 3, 119 / EO2, 119.

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

75

there can be no doubt that Either/Or is the work in kierkegaard’s authorship that makes the most extensive use of goethe.107 he is attracted to different characters, phrases and situations in goethe’s works, which he goes on to exploit in a productive fashion. his appreciation of goethe is entirely positive throughout the different analyses. E. �aust in Fear and trembling in problema iii of �ear and Trembling (1843) �ierkegaard takes up the figure of Faust in connection with the question of abraham’s silence. in this context he again wants to portray Faust’s primary characteristic as doubt. while his account here concerns the Faust figure generally and not any specific version�� he offers a criticism of goethe’s portrayal for not bringing out adequately the element of doubt: to take yet another case, let us imagine that an individual by being hidden and by remaining silent wants to save the universal. For this i can use the legend of �aust. Faust is a doubter, an apostate of the spirit who goes the way of the ��esh. This is the poet’s interpretation�� and although it is repeated again and again that every age has its Faust, nevertheless one poet after the other undauntedly walks this beaten path. let us make a little change. Faust is the doubter κατ’ εξοχην but he has a sympathetic nature. even in goethe’s version of Faust, i miss a profound psychological insight into doubt’s secret conversations with itself.108

It is difficult to know what �ierkegaard means by �doubt’s secret conversations with itself���� but it is clear that he finds Goethe’s portrayal to be lacking in psychological acuity. kierkegaard uses this as his point of departure to retell the story with a slight modification. Instead of infecting others with his doubt�� Faust keeps silent about it. the central issue is thus a comparison of abraham’s silence with Faust’s. only Abraham’s silence is justified. The silent and closed-off Faust contains no moral or religious merits. there is no deep inwardness in him that cannot be communicated with others. thus, Faust is used to illuminate the analysis of abraham’s silence and to justify the proper comportment in the face of a divine revelation. here the reference to goethe’s �aust is used as an occasion for kierkegaard to develop his own views. IV. Kierkegaard�s Negative Reception of Goethe in His Works after 1843 kierkegaard’s positive relation to heiberg and also to goethe changed radically when heiberg published a dismissive review of Either/Or on march 1, 1843.109 kierkegaard’s animosity only increased when heiberg wrote an essay on the repetitions in nature and allowed himself to make some critical comments about there is another minor reference to the Wahlverwandtschaften in this text. SKS 3, 103 / EO2�� 101f.: �When I stand up firmly for the congregation�� I do not identify this with an ‘esteemed public��’ which�� to recall a line by Goethe�� ‘is sufficiently shameless to believe that everything a person undertakes he does in order to provide material for conversation.’” here kierkegaard seems merely to have borrowed a phrase. 108 SKS 4, 195f. / �T, 107f. 109 heiberg, “litterær vintersæd,” Intelligensblade, vol. 2, no. 24, march 1, 1843, pp. 285–92 (ASKB u 56). 107

76

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

kierkegaard’s Repetition.110 this latter text by heiberg is particularly relevant for the issue of kierkegaard’s relation to goethe since heiberg refers to goethe in his attempt to criticize kierkegaard’s work. in his article, “the astronomical Year” from 1844, heiberg claims that kierkegaard’s book confuses the repetition of nature with that of spirit. heiberg describes a “sympathizing with nature,” which he explains as follows: “to rework its repetitions to something new and different is one of the main keys to the true wisdom of life; it is the basis for all instruction on how to enjoy life and to maintain youth in spite of the number of years.”111 he then introduces goethe as follows: no one has felt this more inwardly than goethe. no less was his own life arranged in accordance with it; but where his age presented a sickly moral phenomenon, he understood that this was the result of a kind of spiritual deafness to the regular stroke of the clock of nature. it is interesting what he in this respect remarks in connection with his Werther. a general despondency, a dull dissatisfaction with life, such as it only otherwise is accustomed to express itself in the englishmen’s spleen and in more recent times in the French blasé attitude, had then in the middle of jovial germany seized a large crowd, and in particular young dispositions. the poet himself was not untouched by this infectious matter, and when a young man, who himself was one of the most affected individuals, after an unhappy love affair ended his days with suicide, goethe understood that this was the natural and logical conclusion of the sickness since he, for whom the repetition of life’s continually renewing and pressing gifts is a difficulty�� must regard life as a burden�� which one would like to seek an opportunity to do away with.112

heiberg appeals to goethe to support the claim that the modern sense of alienation is caused in part by a loss of contact with and subsequent lack of appreciation of the repetitions of nature. heiberg then goes on to explain that the awareness of the repetitions of nature was thus an inspiration for goethe’s The Sufferings of Young Werther.113 heiberg continues by quoting extensively from goethe’s autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit,114 where goethe writes: this disgust with life has its physical and its moral causes; the former we will leave to the doctor to research, the latter to the moralist, and with material like this which has been worked through so often, we only emphasize the main point where this phenomenon heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, op. cit., pp. 77–160 (ASKB u 57). (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, pp. 51–130.) 111 heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, op. cit., pp. 102. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, p. 75.) 112 heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, op. cit., p. 102f. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, p. 75f.) 113 heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, op. cit., p. 103f. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, p. 76f.): “seized at once by this sad mood and by a clear insight into its cause and its consequences, he now wrote his Werther, and went thereby through the crises which others must go through in actuality, and now cured, sat back in his old equilibrium, in his old sympathy with nature and his old joy for life. in his famous autobiography, he discusses this fully and expresses himself in among others the following classic words….” 114 in the following heiberg quotes from Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung und Wahrheit, part 3, Book 13, in Goethe�s Werke, vol. 26, pp. 211ff. 110

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

77

most clearly expresses itself. all pleasure with life is grounded in a regular returning to the external things. The change of day and night�� of the seasons�� of the ��owers and fruits�� and what otherwise comes toward us from epoch to epoch, in order that we are able to and should enjoy it, these are the early life’s actual mainsprings. the more we are open for these pleasures, the happier we feel. But if this difference of the phenomena turns up and down for us, without us taking part in it, we are unreceptive for such gracious gifts, then the worst evil occurs�� the most difficult sickness—one regards life as a vexing burden. Of an englishman it is told that he hung himself in order to avoid getting dressed and undressed daily. i have known a comely gardener who was an attendant for a large park grounds, and who once exclaimed angrily: “must i then constantly see these rain clouds move from west to east!” the story is told of one of our most excellent men that he was sorry to see the spring getting green and wished that it would turn red for a change. these are the actual symptoms of a depression, which not seldom ends in suicide and which was more general than one might have thought among thinking people sunken into themselves….115

heiberg thus appeals to goethe’s theory of the repetitions of nature as a model for the concept that kierkegaard has misunderstood in his work. the alienation from the repetitions of nature leads to a spiritual disease that we associate with romanticism. heiberg then continues to cite from Dichtung und Wahrheit, where goethe takes up yet another issue of keen interest to kierkegaard, the different kinds of love. again heiberg quotes goethe as follows: But nothing occasions this depression to a greater degree than the repetition of love. the first love one says with justice is the only one�� for already in the second and on account of its being the second�� love’s highest significance is lost. The concept of the eternal and infinite�� which actually raises and bears it�� is destroyed; it shows itself to be transitory�� like everything, which repeats itself….Further, a young man becomes more easily aware of the fact…that moral epochs change just like seasons. the favor of the great, the mercy of the powerful, the luck of the capable, the inclinations of the masses, the love of the individual�� everything goes up and down�� without us being able to hold it firmly�� so little as we can hold the sun, moon and stars; and nevertheless these things are not only events of nature: we miss them either for our own sake or for that of another, but they change, and we are never certain of them. But what in particular makes the sensitive youth uneasy is the incessant return of our errors, for how late we learn that while we educate our virtues, we cultivate at the same time our mistakes. the former rest on the latter as on their root, and this root branches off into what is hidden, just as strongly and just as manifoldly as the growth above the earth branches off into the clear light. since we now for the most part with will and consciousness exercise our virtues, but unconsciously are surprised by our errors, then the former seldom produce for us any happiness, the latter by contrast constantly produce for us care and sadness. herein lies the most important point of selfknowledge, which almost makes it impossible. concerning this let one consider now a youthfully boiling blood, a power of imagination, which is easily paralyzed by individual

115 heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, op. cit., p. 104f. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, p. 77f.)

78

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun objects; let one further consider the day’s oscillating movements�� and one will find that an impatient striving to free oneself out of this kind of pinch is not unnatural.116

here goethe sketches the stages of love in much the same way as the esthete had done in Either/Or, part one. heiberg is clearly moved by this lengthy passage from goethe. he sums up his feelings with the following remark: after this account, goethe even discusses what precisely at that time contributed to nourishing the described hypochondriac mood, namely, the acquaintance which germany had just made with the heavy �nglish literature�� and he names in this respect chie��y �oung (in the Night Thoughts), gray, milton and ossian, the last of which therefore also plays such a significant role in Werther. these golden words contain repetition’s entire dialectic.117

thus, for heiberg, goethe seems to capture perfectly his own view of the matter and his criticism of kierkegaard. needless to say, kierkegaard took amiss heiberg’s critical remarks about Repetition. In one of his unpublished responses�� �ierkegaard takes up specifically this reference to goethe, writing: the misunderstanding you have occasioned is best seen by considering the “golden words of goethe” that you quoted but that by being quoted in such a manner have perhaps become the gold in which freedom perishes. in order to enjoin beautiful sympathy with nature, you quote goethe’s words. the quotation is fairly long. initially, it does in fact deal with sympathy with nature, where repetition is present, but without touching on freedom in the individual�� where the point is—if one wants to have anything to do with it—to develop sympathy. But the quotation continues. and look, suddenly the quotation is about something entirely different. at its climax, the quotation declares that just as there is a repetition in nature, so “the continuous recurrence of our errors makes the sensitive youth anxious, for how late we learn to perceive that as we train our virtues we cultivate our errors.”118

kierkegaard’s point here is that, like constantin constantius, goethe also recognizes a repetition in the realm of spirit. heiberg reproaches kierkegaard for confusing the two spheres, but yet in the passage quoted by goethe, precisely the same “confusion” is at work since examples of repetition are given from both the sphere of nature and the sphere of spirit. By invoking goethe in this way in his criticism of kierkegaard’s work, heiberg effectively condemned goethe to suffer kierkegaard’s wrath in subsequent writings. From this point on kierkegaard became far more negatively disposed toward goethe than he had been in the past. while he seems generally to be interested in many of the same issues from goethe’s works that had interested him in the past, kierkegaard now looks at them with highly critical eyes. heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, op. cit., p. 105f. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, p. 78f.) 117 heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, op.cit., p. 106f. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, p. 79.) 118 Pap. iv B 111, p. 265 / R, supplement, p. 289. 116

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

79

A. Kierkegaard�s Attack on Goethe in stages on life’s way In the chapter �Some �e��ections on Marriage in Answer to Objections by a Married man” from Stages on Life�s Way (1845), kierkegaard devotes a few pages to exploring the question of love and marriage in goethe’s autobiography. here he has his author assume a decidedly negative tone. while kierkegaard earlier seemed to identify with goethe and his dilemma in leaving the woman he loved, he now becomes irritated at what he takes to be goethe’s self-serving arguments regarding the matter. reading between the lines, one cannot avoid the thought that kierkegaard is anxious to distance himself from what he perceives to be goethe’s reprehensible behavior and later rationalizing it in print to ease his guilty conscience. kierkegaard writes: in Aus meinem Leben, an existence is portrayed that is not a seducer’s; it is too chivalrous for that, even though in the direction of spirit (ethically understood) this chivalry is inferior to a seducer’s, for it lacks decisive resolution; but a demonic resolution is, of course, also ethical—that is�� ethically bad. But an existence such as this more readily finds forgiveness in the world, indeed, all too readily, for the existing person is actually in love. But then, yes, then the ardor cooled; he had made a mistake; he goes away “in a courteous manner.” a half year later he even knows how to give reasons, good reasons, why the break and the distancing were sensible and almost praiseworthy: after all, it didn’t amount to much, just a little village belle; there was too much passion, passion doesn’t last in the long run, etc., etc.119

kierkegaard now seems to have nothing but disdain for goethe’s attempt to rationalize the matter and justify himself to his readers. such an attempt completely undermines the original laudable sentiment of immediate love, a poetic sentiment that goethe, the poet, should honor. the passage turns into a full onslaught on goethe’s moral character. kierkegaard continues: some time goes by; he himself sorrows over the broken relationship, which, however, as circumspectly as possible is kept from taking on any of the more serious aspects of a break. He sorrows a little over the poor girl�� it is not pretense�� he really sorrows—no�� really! this, however, is carrying politeness rather far; it is, after all, a sympathy and condolence that will only increase the pain. the break itself or, to put it more precisely and accurately, this polite and amicable agreement about a departure is precisely what is most insulting; this final forgery�� that any girl�� when it is established that a man has a contractual obligation, should not be a peremptory creditor, this forgery, that a bankrupt will not report his total deficit�� is really the most shocking thing of all�� and yet it is with this politeness that he bought the world’s forgiveness. oh, the sorrowing lover! he is sorrowing not over his instability�� over his ��are-up of ardor�� over this shift in the world of the spirit, not over his sins. that poetic character would probably call such a sorrow depression, for he expressly laments that the age and he as a part of it have become depressed by reading �nglish authors—�oung�� for example.120

here goethe is criticized for a kind of inauthenticity in the whole affair. moreover, in the last part of the quoted passage, kierkegaard, with the reference to Young, 119 120

SKS 6, 140 / SLW, 149. SKS 6, 141 / SLW, 150f.

80

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

refers to precisely the passage from goethe’s autobiography that heiberg quoted.121 thus, kierkegaard’s criticism of goethe is again linked to heiberg. kierkegaard refers to this passage again when he writes, “in goethe’s sound wisdom there is supposed to be a cure for mental aberration and above all for depression, which he himself knew how to avoid.”122 this association continues when goethe is linked indirectly with hegel. kierkegaard has his author complain about the superiority and arrogance of goethe in a way that recalls his pseudonyms’ well-known criticisms of the pretentiousness of hegel’s philosophical system. he says that, with regard to the broken affair, goethe: is too great not to learn, too superior not to harvest advantage, and if he had been just as ethically inspired as he is gloriously endowed, he, more than anyone else, would have discovered and solved the problem: whether there is an intellectual existence so eminent that in the profoundest sense it cannot become commensurable with the erotic, for the response that one loves many times, that one parcels out one’s superiority, is merely a disorientation that neither esthetically nor ethically satisfies what could be termed a decent man’s more serious demand upon life. the poet seems to have learned a great deal; indeed, just as the latest philosophy has made it a term of abuse to speak of kant’s honest way, in the same way goethe smiles in a superior manner at klopstock….123

the reference to “the latest philosophy” is presumably a reference to hegel’s philosophy that heiberg was promoting. Just as the hegelians condescendingly laugh at kant, so also goethe has a condescending disposition towards klopstock. again, goethe is linked to heiberg and hegel. this leads kierkegaard then to criticize goethe’s works for lacking pathos. while kierkegaard previously had the esthete praise goethe’s portrayal of marie Beaumarchais and margarete, now he turns on him quite critically: the experts will perhaps also agree with me that goethe’s women are his best-drawn characters. But on closer scrutiny the best of them are not perceived in true feminine ideality but in the light in which an equivocator sees them, one who is especially adept at discovering what is lovely, at kindling a blaze, but also knows how to look at this con��agration with an exclusive superiority. They are lovely�� very much so�� superbly portrayed, and yet it is not so much they who are dishonored as it is womanhood that is dishonored in their persons, because in relation to them the condescending sensibleness that knows how to enjoy, to relish, but also how to distance them and itself when the pleasure is over�� almost seems to be justified or at least excusable.124

goethe was formerly praised for his portrayal of the female characters as simple and naive. now this praise turns to a criticism of his arrogance and superiority. goethe places himself above these female characters and looks down on them from a position of condescension. see heiberg, “det astronomiske aar,” Urania, 1844, op. cit., p. 106f. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 9, p. 79.), quoted above. 122 SKS 6, 144 / SLW, 153. 123 SKS 6, 142 / SLW, 151f. 124 SKS 6, 144 / SLW, 154. 121

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

81

kierkegaard continues his attack on goethe’s character by arguing that he violates his ethical duty by continually lapsing into the esthete. kierkegaard writes, “every time a human relationship is about to overwhelm him, he must distance it from himself by poeticizing it.”125 in other words, goethe turns his own personal experiences into fictional ones for use in his literary works. He is thus detached from his personal relationships which he regards from a third-person perspective. he is too anxious to translate the events of his life into a narrative. Stages on Life�s Way has the most substantial discussion of goethe after Either/Or. the two works taken together can be said to constitute the heart of kierkegaard’s reception of goethe (with the exception of the Faust theme in his early journals). one can say that the treatment of goethe in Stages on Life�s Way offers an illuminating parallel to that in Either/Or. while in the latter text goethe was seen positively and his works were made use of extensively, in the former he is reproached for moral failing and his works are the object of criticism. these two texts can thus be seen as representing in nuce the two stages of kierkegaard’s relation to goethe. B. The Satire of Heiberg in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript the anti-heiberg polemic continues in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846). there goethe is associated with heiberg in a reference to the latter’s conversion to hegelianism. after having met hegel in the summer of 1824, heiberg was still mulling the experience over in his head on his return to kiel, where he held the position of danish lecturer at the university. he stopped in hamburg, where he claimed to have had a kind of revelation by which the deep secrets of hegel’s philosophy were revealed to him. he writes: while resting on the way home in hamburg, where i stayed six weeks before returning to kiel, and during that time was constantly pondering what was still obscure to me, it happened one day that, sitting in my room in the könig von england with hegel on my table and in my thoughts, and listening at the same time to the beautiful psalms which sounded almost unceasingly from the chimes of st peter’s church, suddenly, in a way which i have experienced neither before nor since, i was gripped by a momentary inner vision�� as if a ��ash of lightning had illuminated the whole region for me and awakened in me the theretofore hidden central thought. From this moment the system in its broad outline was clear to me, and i was completely convinced that i had grasped it in its innermost core, regardless of however much there might be in the details which i still had not made my own and perhaps never will. i can say, in truth, that that strange moment was just about the most important juncture in my life, for it gave me a peace, a security, a self-confidence which I had never known theretofore.126

satirizing this account, kierkegaard has his pseudonym in the Postscript write: ibid. heiberg, “autobiographiske Fragmenter,” in Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 11, p. 500f. (Heiberg’s On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age, op. cit., p. 65.) kierkegaard read this account in christian molbech, Dansk poetisk Anthologie, eller Udvalg af danske og norske lyriske Digteres Arbeider, efter Tidsfølgen, og ledsaget med biographisk-kritiske Efterretninger, vols. 1–4, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1830–40, vol. 4, pp. 243–300; p. 274. 125 126

82

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun But i have no miracle to appeal to; ah, that was dr hjortespring’s happy fate! according to his own very well written report, he became an adherent of hegelian philosophy through a miracle at streit hotel in hamburg on easter morning...an adherent of the philosophy that assumes that there are no miracles. marvelous sign of the times!...the miracle occurred on easter morning. with regard to such a poetic hero and such a poetic easter morning, the year and the date are matters of complete indifference; it may well have been the same easter morning as in goethe’s �aust, even though the two contemporaries, dr hjortespring and Faust in goethe’s �aust, arrived at different results! who presumes to venture an explanation of that miracle!127

kierkegaard thus associates heiberg with Faust, with the implication that heiberg has made a pact with the devil by allowing himself to be led away from christianity by means of hegel’s philosophy. much later in the work, kierkegaard has his pseudonymous author point out goethe’s portrayal of the ambiguity of moral character. in connection with his polemic against hegelian mediation in the long section “the issue in �ragments,” he writes: esthetically, the poet has been required not to depict these abstract models of virtue or diabolical characters but to do as goethe does, whose characters are both good and evil. and why is this a legitimate requirement� Because we want the poet to depict human beings as they are, and every human being is both good and evil, and because the poet’s medium is the medium of imagination, is being not becoming, at most is becoming in a very foreshortened perspective.128

here kierkegaard implicitly praises goethe’s accurate portrayal of the fact that there is good and evil in everyone. this is merely an aside that does not play any substantive role in the discussion about mediation, but it will be noted that heiberg was one of the targets of kierkegaard’s criticism in this context.129 there can be little doubt that the references to goethe here in the Postscript are intimately connected with kierkegaard’s well-known polemic against hegel. C. The Criticism of Goethe in the Late Journals it is notable that after this polemic with heiberg, goethe virtually drops out of the published authorship after 1846. For this period we are thus obliged to seek evidence in kierkegaard’s journals. here there are several scattered references to goethe, most of which re��ect �ierkegaard’s highly critical disposition. Many of these can be linked with his anti-heiberg campaign. in a journal entry from 1844, the markedly negative tone in kierkegaard’s comments on goethe is immediately evident. he writes, “in his Aus meinem Leben, what is goethe SKS 7, 169f. / CUP1, 184. SKS 7, 383 / CUP1, 420. 129 heiberg’s main statement in favor of hegelian mediation is his polemical piece against mynster, “en logisk Bemærkning i anledning af h.h. hr. Biskop dr. mynsters afhandling om rationalisme og supranaturalisme i forrige hefte af dette tidsskrift,” Tidsskrift for Litteratur og Kritik, vol. 1, no. 5, 1839, pp. 441–56. (Prosaiske Skrifter, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 167–90.) 127 128

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

83

but a talented defender of insipidies. at no point has he realized the idea, but he talks himself out of everything he can (girls, the idea of love, christianity, etc.).”130 then in the margin to this he adds, “and all this is rather cheap, if you will, and goethe is only a shade different from a criminal who also poetizes guilt away, puts it at a distance by poetizing.”131 this clearly recalls the criticism issued in Stages on Life�s Way. there is a revealing entry in the Journal NB from 1846. here kierkegaard discusses some of goethe’s remarks in Dichtung und Wahrheit about how the celebrity caused by Werther made it more difficult for him to concentrate and work. kierkegaard writes: Gossip and garbage instead of action is what people still want�� and so they find it interesting. goethe relates in Aus meinem Leben that Werthers Leiden made such a big sensation that from that time on he never again had the peace and absorption he once had, because now he was plunged into all sorts of connections and acquaintances. how interesting and titillating to chatter and prattle! nothing would have been easier to prevent if goethe really had had the courage, if he truly had loved the idea more than acquaintances. one with goethe’s powers can easily thrust people aside. But he is soft and sentimental and does not want to—but then he wants to tell it as an incident. But people like to hear it because it excuses them from action.132

in the same entry kierkegaard goes on to recount a conversation he had with the author christian molbech (1783–1857), who complained about the many social obligations that accrued to him due to his official duties. �ierkegaard’s advice to molbech was that he should in effect insult his hosts to avoid future invitations. when molbech was understandably reluctant to take the advice, kierkegaard took it as a sign of weak moral character and hypocrisy. what is interesting about this entry is that it implicitly contains another point of comparison between kierkegaard and goethe. in the conversation that kierkegaard recounts, molbech praises him for his reclusiveness. the point that kierkegaard wants to make is that he has consciously chosen a reclusive way of life so that he can concentrate on his writings. this choice has, however, meant that he must alienate some people who might wish to see him. the criticism of goethe and molbech is that they do not have the honesty or moral character to alienate people in order to win peace for themselves. instead of doing anything about it, they prefer simply to complain to others about the problem. thus, goethe’s moral character is called into question, while kierkegaard implicitly praises his own virtuousness and authenticity. kierkegaard criticizes goethe’s biography again in an entry from the Journal NB 5, from 1848. there he writes: every sunday every pastor preaches about a purely personal relationship between god and man. But the great minds—Goethe (in Aus meinem Leben, s.w., XXiv, p. 65) cites as an illustration that as a child he wanted to build an altar to God and sacrifice to him�� but it caught on fire�� and then adds: �This holds for any personal and immediate approach

130 131 132

SKS 18, 220, JJ:250 / JP 2, 1458. SKS 18, 220, JJ:250a / JP 2, 1458. SKS 20, 28f., nB:18 / JP 5, 5897.

84

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun to god.” this shows that no one pays any attention to the pastors; and it is wisdom, the profoundest wisdom granted a person, privately to believe the exact opposite.133

here kierkegaard seems to want to point out the hypocrisy of shallowness in the words from the pulpit which enjoin one to a “personal relationship” with god. in the anecdote recounted by goethe about his youth,134 he explains how he believed that the angry and jealous god of the old testament had changed in the course of time. in order to establish a relation to the more approachable version of the divine, the young goethe built an altar. the moral to the story that goethe draws is that the fact that his altar caught fire and burned was a sign that one should not attempt to attain a personal relation with the divine in this way. goethe is mentioned in the Journal NB 7, also from 1848, in a way that clearly points to heiberg: “i follow in the wake of all this hegelian–goethean human selfcomplacency in satisfying one’s contemporaries—i.e.�� abolishing God and making the age into God—and therefore I have to beware lest I jargonize the truth into this disfigured form rather than God-fearingly to express that God is the man of the house.”135 here goethe is associated with hegel’s secular view of the divine as synonymous with the human spirit. this is clearly a criticism heiberg’s praise of both goethe and hegel as the pinnacle of human development at the present time. kierkegaard’s objection is that this is meaningless if this development is entirely secular or if it has subordinated god to a secondary or merely symbolic role. in another entry from the nB journals from 1850, he criticizes goethe’s portrayal of women. he writes: goethe always presents his feminine characters solely in the light of masculine egotism. take clärchen! a man like egmont who stands on the stage the way he does, even in peril of his life—that he can be so completely sure that Clärchen would not betray by a single word or look anything of what she knows and is infinitely interested in�� that she can love mere man to this degree—yes�� this insignificant little maiden is simply femininely great�� an unusual girl—in quite another sense than the silly way in which we usually speak of an unusual girl (a little refined�� etc.)�� a character which�� in complete agreement with Goethe�� I rate very low. Take Margarete! To maintain this feminine insignificance in the presence of such a pronounced personality as Faust—yes�� this is feminine greatness. But Goethe was such an egotist that he really never once had sufficient integrity to value sympathetically all that was squandered on him. even the diminutive “clärchen” is in a sense an injustice if nothing more is said�� for her insignificance is simply greatness�� even if it is quite correct that egmont calls her “clärchen,” but perhaps it could be stressed that it was only egmont who called her this.136

while kierkegaard in Either/Or praised goethe for his sensitive and sympathetic portrayal of female characters, here he is the object of kierkegaard’s disdain for the arrogant and condescending way he portrays them. thus, on exactly the same issue, kierkegaard seems to have completely changed his assessment. 133 134 135 136

SKS 20, 407, nB5:85 / JP 2, 1460. Goethe�s Werke, vol. 24, pp. 63–5. see SKS k20, 419. SKS 21, 76, nB7:3 / JP 2, 1375. SKS 23, 91, nB15:127 / JP 2, 1462.

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

85

one can clearly see a sign of his increasing disdain for goethe in a long entry from 1852. here goethe is again reproached for moral failing: apparently christianity is letting its cause come up for trial; in any case it will be necessary to go back to luther; the question of the public worship service especially must come up, the objective preaching, the fact that it has no character. it may be advantageous, perhaps, to show the modern lack of character in another area, in its representative goethe, where the matter is probably not as serious since goethe did not pass himself off as being a teacher of christianity and had not dedicated himself by a sacred vow and was not consecrated by ordination and the communication of the holy spirit.137

kierkegaard, now many years after heiberg’s treatise On the Significance of Philosophy, echoes heiberg’s claim that goethe is one of the great representatives of our age. however, while, for heiberg, goethe is the representative of the highest level of culture that the present age has reached, for kierkegaard he is an example of “the modern lack of character.” the entry goes on to give a scathing attack on goethe. he is criticized for being a �pure egoist���� who presents himself as a sel��ess�� altruistic person. Seemingly referring to goethe’s account of his life in Dichtung und Wahrheit, kierkegaard reproaches goethe for giving narratives about his life which “poeticize” the events to make him look virtuous. a split thus arises between the actual events and actions and the stories told about them after the fact. kierkegaard regards this as a sign of hypocrisy and a corrupt moral character. goethe is then brought into the context of kierkegaard’s criticism of what he regards as the contemporary christian hypocrisy. he continues in the same entry: �ow think of a teacher of Christianity à la Goethe�� one who with the assistance of observations and descriptions (this corresponds to “exhausting oneself poetically”) acquires the appearance of saintliness and who is a cold egotistical rationalist who knows to the minutest detail how to watch out for his advantage�� and also the profit from these observations and descriptions.138

kierkegaard thus uses this example as typical of the hypocrisy that modern christianity has fallen into. it is easy to talk about being christian or to extol christian virtue as long as it is nonobliging talk that has nothing to do with reality. one can thus imagine that kierkegaard had in mind people such as mynster or martensen,139 whom he considered corrupt members of the priesthood. they represented in his mind the religious equivalent of goethe’s secular hypocrisy. there is an offhand reference to goethe in The Book on Adler, which was written in 1846 and published posthumously: “what happened with goethe certainly did not happen with magister adler, namely, that only after having burned his hegelian manuscripts did he really become an out-and-out hegelian.”140 this refers to an Pap. X–4 a 582 / JP 2, 1462. Pap. X–4 a 582 / JP 2, 1462. 139 in a couple of entries, mynster is in fact compared with goethe directly. see SKS 20, 385, nB5:27 / JP 6, 6150. Pap. Xi–1 a 197 / JP 2, 1804. SKS 23, 310, nB18:84. 140 Pap. vii–2 B 235, p. 188 / A, 102. 137 138

86

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

episode at the end of the second part of goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit, where he recounts a time while living in leipzig that he burned a pile of his early manuscripts.141 here kierkegaard simply notes a parallel between this episode recounted by goethe and adler’s claim to have received a divine revelation, which enjoined him to burn his manuscripts on hegel’s philosophy.142 the connection of goethe to heiberg is strengthened by a remark in The Point of View for my Work as an Author, published posthumously in 1859. although heiberg is not mentioned explicitly, kierkegaard attempts to distinguish his own religious task from heiberg’s program. in a footnote he writes, “i have not with the smallest fraction of the capacities granted me striven to express … that the world is good, loves the true, wills the good, that the demand of the times is the truth, that the human race is the true or presumably even god, and therefore the task (goethean and hegelian) is to satisfy the age.”143 here he does not need to mention heiberg by name since he knows that the reference to the “goethean and hegelian” task will be enough to clue in the reader about the object of the polemic. kierkegaard continues: on the assumption that i had always had my capacities freely at my disposal (and that it had not been the case that another power was able at every moment to force me if i would not voluntarily), then from the very beginning i could have converted all my writing into the interest of the times; i would have had it in my power (if this betrayal would not otherwise have been punished in such a way that i would have been annihilated) to become what the times demanded and thus, goethean and hegelian, would have become one more demonstration that the world is good, that the human race is the truth and the present generation the court of authority, the public the inventor and judge of truth etc., since by this treason i would have managed to make an exceptional success in the world etc.144

the butt of kierkegaard’s criticism is heiberg’s claim (in texts like On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age and The Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course) that the demand of the times is to follow the lead of goethe and hegel in order to escape the relativism of the day. the criticism itself here is less important than the fact that by this formulation it is clear that heiberg’s project has implicated both goethe and hegel in kierkegaard’s mind. kierkegaard’s views of the german thinkers are inextricably bound up with his now negative assessment of heiberg’s program. There can be no doubt that �ierkegaard read Goethe extensively. There is definitive evidence that he read a number of different works by him: �aust, Leben des Benvenuto cf. Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit, part 2, Book 6, in Goethe�s Werke, vol. 25, p. 67. 142 in a footnote in the same work, there is a reference to goethe’s Egmont: “at the moment there is no movement in the danish church worth mentioning, but there certainly are a few journalists to whose interest, in the same sense as it is to the interest of attorneys that there are court cases�� it is to publicize it—in order that if possible there could come to be a little stirring; and thus there are a few gullible people who, like the soap maker in Egmont, spread the rumor further.” Pap. vii–2 B 235, p. 57 / BA, 246n. this is repeated at Pap. vii–1 B 195, p. 376 / M, supplement, p. 386. 143 SV1, 13, 572n / PV, 88n. 144 SV1, 13, 572n–573n / PV, 89n. 141

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

87

Cellini, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, Römische Elegien, West-östlicher Divan, Gespräche mit Eckermann, Clavigo, Egmont, Dichtung und Wahrheit and the Wahlverwandtschaften. moreover, while many of kierkegaard’s early sources disappear in his later works, he seems to have read different texts from Goethe more or less continuously throughout his life. For example�� the first reference to goethe’s West-östlicher Divan comes as late as 1849 in the Journal NB 10.145 there is also a reference to goethe, based on the Gespräche mit Eckermann, in an undated entry from 1850.146 given this, there can be no doubt that goethe was one of the major sources that kierkegaard continually returned to for inspiration. kierkegaard’s disposition towards goethe changed with his changing relation to heiberg. as long as he was positively inclined towards heiberg, kierkegaard made use of goethe and was generous in his praise of his works. But when he became alienated from heiberg, both goethe’s moral character and the quality of his works became the object of serious criticism. Finally�� when �ierkegaard finished his polemic with heiberg and ceased to be exercised by him, goethe likewise drops out of the published authorship, although there are a number of references to him in the late journals and the posthumously published works. most of these late references are quite critical and still colored by the polemic with heiberg. thus, as great a figure as Goethe was in his own right�� his fortunes were�� in �ierkegaard’s mind�� inextricably bound to those of heiberg. kierkegaard’s understanding and use of Goethe was�� without a doubt�� decisively shaped by this �anish filter.

145 146

SKS 21, 283, nB10:52a / JP 6, 6353. see also Pap. iii B 31. SKS 24, 62, nB21:96.

Bibliography I. Goethe�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library Goethe�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, vols. 1–40, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1827–30; Goethe�s nachgelassene Werke, vols. 41–55, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1832–33 (ASKB 1641–1668). [short poems], in Tröst Einsamkeit, alte und neue Sagen und Wahrsagungen, Geschichten und Gedichte, ed. by ludwig achim von arnim, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1808, no. 4; no. 22 (ASKB 912). Goethe�s Gedichte, vols. 1–2, new ed., stuttgart and tübingen: in der J.g. cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1821 (ASKB u 42). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Goethe adler, adolph peter, Populaire �oredrag over Hegels objective Logik, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1842, p. 62 (ASKB 383). Baader, Franz von, Beiträge zur dinamischen Philosophie im Gegensatze der mechanischen, Berlin: realschulbuchhandlung 1809, p. 70; p. 124 (ASKB 393). —— �ermenta Cognitionis, vols. 1–5, Berlin: reimer 1822–24, vol. 1, 1822, pp. 16f.; p. 58 (ASKB 394). —— Vorlesungen, gehalten an der Königlich-Bayerischen Ludwig-MaximiliansHochschule über religiöse Philosophie im Gegensatze der irreligiösen, älterer und neuer Zeit, vol. 1, munich: giel 1827, p. 5; p. 21; p. 40n; p. 49; pp. 77f. (ASKB 395). —— Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik, vol. 1, stuttgart and tübingen: cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1828 [vols. 2–5, münster: theissing 1830–38], vol. 2, 1830, pp. v–vi; p. 69n; vol. 3, 1833, pp. 20f.; vol. 4, 1836, p. 7; vol. 5, 1838, p. 73 (ASKB 396). —— Philosophische Schriften und Aufsätze, vols. 1–2, münster: theissing 1831–32, vol. 1, p. 70n; p. 96n; vol. 2, p. 60n; p. 61n; p. 62n; p. 72; p. 81n; pp. 84f.; p. 86; p. 98; p. 108; p. 446 (ASKB 400–401). —— Über eine bleibende und universelle Geistererscheinung hienieden, münster: theissing 1833, p. 8n; 9n (ASKB 403). —— Vorlesungen über eine künftige Theorie des Opfers oder des Kultus, münster: theissing 1836, p. 117 (ASKB 408). —— Ueber den Paulinischen Begriff des Versehenseyns des Menschen im Namen Jesu vor der Welt Schöpfung. Sendeschreiben an den Herrn Professor Molitor in �rankfurt, vols. 1–3, würzburg: in commission der stahel’schen Buchhandlung 1837, vol. 3, p. 62n (ASKB 413) [to vols. 1–2 cf. ASKB 409–410].

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

89

—— Revision der Philosopheme der Hegel�schen Schule bezüglich auf das Christenthum. Nebst zehn Thesen aus einer religiösen Philosophie, stuttgart: s.g. liesching 1839, p. 2n; p. 21; p. 31n; pp. 159f.; pp. 180f. (ASKB 416). —— Ueber die Nothwendigkeit einer Revision der Wissenschaft natürlicher, menschlicher und göttlicher Dinge, in Bezug auf die in ihr sich noch mehr oder minder geltend machenden Cartesichen und Spinozistischen Philosopheme, erlangen: bei J.J. palm und ernst enke 1841, p. 5 (ASKB 418). [Becker, karl Friedrich], Karl �riedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfried Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. riise, copenhagen: Fr. Brummers Forlag 1822–29, vol. 10, p. 449; p. 563 (ASKB 1972–1983). carus, carl gustav, Psyche. Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Seele, pforzheim: Flammer und hoffmann 1846, p. 139; p. 237; pp. 248–9; p. 268; p. 327; p. 390; p. 463; p. 470n (ASKB 459). döring, heinrich, Joh. Gottfr. von Herder�s Leben, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., weimar: wilhelm hoffmann 1829, p. 52; p. 54 (ASKB a i 134). erdmann, Johann eduard, Grundriss der Logik und Metaphysik. �ür Vorlesungen, halle: Johann Friedrich lippert 1841, p. 77 (ASKB 483). Fiche, immanuel hermann, Grundzüge zum Systeme der Philosophie, vols. 1–2, heidelberg: i.c.B. mohr 1833–36, vol. 1, p. 213n; 221n (ASKB 502–503). —— Die Idee der Persönlichkeit und der individuellen �ortdauer, elberfeld: Büschler’sche verlagsbuchhandlung und Buchdruckerei 1834, p. 186 (ASKB 505). Flögel, carl Friedrich, Geschichte der komischen Litteratur, vols. 1–4, liegnitz and leipzig: david giegert 1784–87, vol. 3, pp. 553–5; vol. 4, p. 331 (ASKB 1396–1399). Frauenstädt, Julius, Briefe über die Schopenhauer�sche Philosophie, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1854 (ASKB 515). —— Die Naturwissenschaft in ihrem Einfluß auf Poesie, Religion, Moral und Philosophie, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1855, pp. 28–9; p. 38; p. 57; p. 76; pp. 98f. (ASKB 516). guerike, heinrich ernst Ferdinand, Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, vols. 1–2, 3rd revised and enlarged ed., halle: in der gebauerschen Buchhandlung 1838, vol. 2, p. 1096 (ASKB 158–159). [hamann, Johann georg], Hamann�s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich roth, Berlin: g. reimer 1821–43, vol. 5, p. 83; pp. 106f.; p. 141; p. 143; p. 158; vol. 6, p. 85; vol. 7, p. 136; p. 138; p. 357; p. 304; p. 360; p. 362; vol. 8, pp. 394f. (ASKB 536–544). hase, karl, Kirkehistorie. Lærebog nærmest for akademiske �orelæsninger, trans. by c. winther and t. schorn, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1837, p. 535 (ASKB 160–166). hebbel, Friedrich, Mein Wort über das Drama! Eine Erwiderung an Professor Heiberg in Copenhagen, hamburg: hoffmann und campe 1843, p. 8; p. 23; p. 25 (ASKB u 54). hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich, “ueber Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. herausgegeben von ludwig tieck und Friedrich v. haumer. erster Band 780 s. mit vorrede Xvi s. zweiter Band 784 s. leipzig, 1826” [1828], in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s vermischte Schriften, vols. 1–2, ed. by Friedrich Förster and ludwig Boumann, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1834–35 (vols. 16–17 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, pp. 436–506 (ASKB 555–556).

90

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

—— �An Goethe���� in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 501–508. —— Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1835–38 (vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, p. 26; pp. 37–8; p. 81; p. 250; pp. 293–4; p. 337; p. 348; p. 355; p. 382; p. 476; pp. 504–505; vol. 2, pp. 239–40; p. 276; p. 317; p. 332; p. 398; p. 429; vol. 3, p. 31; p. 66; p. 70; p. 75; pp. 84–5; p. 90; p. 273; p. 289; p. 315; pp. 349–50; pp. 417–18; p. 428; p. 432; pp. 435–6; pp. 445–6; p. 478; p. 496; pp. 498–9; p. 506; pp. 509–15 passim; pp. 522–3; p. 539; p. 564; p. 570; p. 573; p. 575 (ASKB 1384–1386). —— Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, vols. 1–2, ed. by philipp marheineke, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1840 [vols. 11–12 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45], vol. 1, p. 152; vol. 2, p. 282; p. 537 (ASKB 564–565). —— Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, vols. 1–3, ed. by leopold von henning, karl ludwig michelet, ludwig Boumann, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1840–45 (ASKB 561–563) (vols. 6, 7.1, 7.2 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45).. heiberg, Johan ludvig, ‘cousins Besög hos göthe,’ Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, no. 99, december 12, 1828 [pp. 409–11] (see ASKB 1606–1607; u 55). —— �Schillers og Göthes Brevvexling���� Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1830, i, no. 112, 17 september, [pp. 453–6]; ii, no. 113, 20 september, [pp. 457–60]; iii, no. 114, 22 september, [pp. 461–4]; iv, no. 115, 24 september, [pp. 465–8]; v, no. 118, 1 october, [pp. 479–80]; vi, no. 119, 4 october, [pp. 481–4]; vii, no. 122, 11 october, [p. 496]; viii, no. 123, 13 october, [p. 500]; iX, no. 124, 15 october, [pp. 503–504]; X, no. 126, 20 october, [pp. 510–11]; Xi, no. 134, 8 november, [p. 544]; Xii, no. 135, 10 november, [pp. 547–8]; Xiii, no. 136, 12 november, [p. 552]; Xiv, no. 137, 15 november, [pp. 555–6]; Xv, no. 138, 17 november, [pp. 559–60]; Xvi, no. 139, 19 november, [pp. 563–4]; Xvii, no. 142, 26 november, [pp. 575–6]; Xviii, no. 143, 29 november, [pp. 577–8]; XiX, no. 145, 3 december, [p. 588]; XX, no. 150, 15 december, [p. 608]; XXi, no. 153, 22 december, [pp. 619–20] (see ASKB 1606–1607; u 55). —— Om Philosophiens Betydning for den nuværende Tid. Et Indbydelses-Skrift til en Række af philosophiske �orelæsninger, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1833, pp. 36–8; pp. 44–8 (ASKB 568). —— �Om den romantiske Tragedie af Hertz: Svend Dyrings Huus. i Forbindelse med en æsthetisk Betragtning af de danske kæmpeviser,” in Perseus, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1837–38, vol. 1, pp. 165–264, see p. 196n; p. 197n (ASKB 569). —— �Om Malerkunsten i dens Forhold til de andre skjønne �unster���� in Perseus, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1837–38, vol. 2, pp. 101–81, see pp. 112f.; p. 123; p. 166 (ASKB 569).

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

91

—— ��yrisk Poesie���� in Intelligensblade, nos. 26–27, 1843, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1843 [in Intelligensblade, vols. 1–4, nos. 1–48, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1842–44], vol. 3, pp. 25–72, see p. 57; p. 71] (ASKB u 56). —— Prosaiske Skrifter, vol. 3, copenhagen: J.h. schubothes Boghandling 1843 [vol. 3, in Johan ludvig heiberg, Prosaiske Skrifter, vols. 1–3, copenhagen: J.h. schubothes Boghandling 1841–43 which is part of Johan Ludvig Heiberg�s Samlede Skrifter consisting of Skuespil, vols. 1–7, copenhagen: J.h. schubothes Boghandling 1833–41 and Digte og �ortællinger, vols. 1–2, copenhagen: J.h. schubothes Boghandling 1834–35], pp. 369f. (ASKB 1560). —— ��et astronomiske Aar���� in Urania. Aarbog for 1844, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: h.i. Bing & söns Forlag pp. 77–160, see p. 93; pp. 102–107 (ASKB u 57). heine, heinrich, Die romantische Schule, hamburg: hoffmann und campe 1836, pp. 3f.; p. 36; pp. 69–110 passim; p. 161; pp. 274ff. (ASKB u 63). hotho, heinrich gustav, Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1835, p. 12; p. 45; p. 65; p. 337; pp. 374f.; p. 424; p. 428; pp. 431–8 passim (ASKB 580). leutbecher, Johann, Ueber den �aust von Göthe: Eine Schrift zum Verständniß dieser Dichtung nach ihren beiden Theilen für alle �reunde und Verehrer des großen Dichters, nuremburg: renner 1838 (ASKB 1405). martensen, hans lassen, “Betragtninger over idéen af Faust. med hensyn paa lenaus �aust,” Perseus, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1837–38, vol. 1, pp. 91–164, see p. 93; pp. 19–120; p. 130 (ASKB 569). —— Den christelige Dogmatik, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1849, p. 207; p. 228; p. 236; p. 298; p. 428 (ASKB 653). menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 3, pp. 322ff.; vol. 4, pp. 8ff.; pp. 44ff.; pp. 97ff. (ASKB 479). michelet, carl ludwig, Vorlesungen über die Persönlichkeit Gottes und Unsterblichkeit der Seele oder die ewige Persönlichkeit des Geistes, Berlin: verlag von Ferdinand dümmler 1841, p. 104 (ASKB 680). [møller, poul martin], Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, vols. 1–3, ed. by christian winther and F.c. olsen, copenhagen: Bianco lunos Bogtrykkeri 1839–43, vol. 3, p. 195; p. 235; p. 273; p. 320 (ASKB 1574–1576). mynster, Jakob peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1852–53 [vols. 4–6, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1855–57], vol. 1, p. 22; p. 277; pp. 47–473; vol. 2, p. 210; p. 251; vol. 3, p. 47; p. 176; p. 195 (ASKB 358–363). Ørsted, anders sandøe, Af mit Livs og min Tids Historie, vols. 1–2, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandling 1851–52 [vols. 3–4, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandling 1855–57], vol. 1, p. 165 (ASKB 1959–1960). Ørsted, hans christian, Aanden i Naturen, vols. 1–2, copenhagen: andr. Fred. høst 1850, vol. 2, p. 18 (ASKB 945). rauch, Friedrich august, Vorlesungen über Goethe�s �aust, Büdingen: heller 1830 (ASKB 1800). retzsch, moritz, Umrisse zu Goethe�s �aust, stuttgart: cotta 1834–36 (ASKB u 91).

92

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

[richter, Johann paul Friedrich], Jean paul, Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1813, vol. 1, p. 7; p. 35; p. 133; vol. 2, p. 432; p. 448; p. 451; pp. 481–2; p. 546; pp. 550–51; p. 558; pp. 563–4; p. 568; p. 583; p. 604; p. 609; pp. 617f.; p. 627; p. 635; pp. 637f.; p. 643; p. 665n; p. 667; p. 675; p. 678; p. 719; vol. 3, p. 782; p. 785; p. 791; pp. 803–804; p. 812; pp. 917–19; pp. 932–3; p. 950; p. 965; p. 967; p. 984; p. 988 (ASKB 1381–1383). romang, Johann peter, Ueber Willensfreiheit und Determinismus, mit sorgfältiger Rücksicht auf die sittlichen Dinge, die rechtliche Imputation und Strafe, und auf das Religiöse. Eine philosophische Abhandlung, Bern: c.a. Jenni, sohn 1835, p. vi (ASKB 740). rosenkranz, karl, Erinnerungen an Karl Daub, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837, p. 16; p. 23; p. 26; p. 36; p. 40 (ASKB 743). —— Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, königsberg: Bornträger 1837, p. 15; pp. 48–50; p. 61; p. 63; pp. 90–92; p. 125; p. 171; p. 179; p. 247; p. 260 (ASKB 744). —— Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, danzig: Fr. sam. gerhard 1843, p. 12; p. 45; p. 93; p. 150; p. 170; p. 285 (ASKB 766). rötscher, heinrich theodor, Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: verlag von wilhelm thome 1841–46, vol. 1, 1841, (ASKB 1391; to vols. 2–3, also entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charaktere. Nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung über das Wesen dramatischer Charaktergestaltung, cf. ASKB 1802–1803). —— �Gretchen im �aust,” in his Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: wilhelm thome 1841–46; vol. 2, Der Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung Zweiter Theil, welcher das Gesetz der Versinnlichung dramatischer Charaktere an einer Reihe dichterischer Gestalten wissenschaftlich entwickelt [also entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charactere. Nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung über das Wesen dramatischer Charactergestaltung], 1844, pp. 270–97 (vols. 2–3, ASKB 1802–1803; to vol. 1 see ASKB 1391]. —— �Mephistopheles in Göthe’s �aust,” “antonio montecatino in göthe’s Torquato Tasso,” and “der prinz in Emilia Galotti und clavigo in göthe’s Clavigo,” in his Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: wilhelm thome 1841–46; vol. 3, Der Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung Dritter Theil, welcher eine neue Reihe dramatischer Charaktere entwickelt [also entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charactere. Zweiter Theil. Nebst zwei Abhandlungen über das Recht der Poesie in der Behandlung des geschichtlichen Stoffes und über den Begriff des Dämonischen], 1846, pp. 75–108; pp. 175–91; and pp. 203–19 respectively (vols. 2–3, ASKB 1802–1803; to vol. 1 see ASKB 1391]. schiller, Friedrich von, “ueber Egmont, trauerspiel von goethe,” in Schillers sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–12, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1838, vol. 12, pp. 368–81 (ASKB 1804–1815). schlegel, august wilhelm, Ueber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur. Vorlesungen, vols. 1–2 [vol. 2 in 2 parts], heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1809–11, vol. 2, part 2, pp. 395ff. (ASKB 1392–1394).

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

93

schlegel, Friedrich, Sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–10, vienna: Jakob mayer und compagnie 1822–25, vol. 2, 1822, pp. 276–341; vol. 10, 1825, pp. 153–203 (ASKB 1816–1825). schopenhauer, arthur, Ueber den Willen in der Natur, Frankfurt am main: schmerber 1836 (ASKB 944). —— Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1844 [1819], vol. 1, p. 24; p. 214; p. 259; p. 284; p. 320; p. 446; p. 468; p. 476; p. 593; vol. 2, p. 107; p. 128; p. 144; p. 238; p. 283; p. 372; p. 383; p. 388; p. 390; p. 393; p. 420; p. 423; p. 432; p. 454; p. 525; p. 594 (ASKB 773–773a). —— Parerga und Paralipomena: kleine philosophische Schriften, vols. 1–2, Berlin: a.w. hayn 1851, vol. 1, p. 305; p. 317; p. 324; p. 375; pp. 376f.; p. 389; p. 396; vol. 2, p. 14; p. 23; p. 58; p. 64; p. 66; p. 75; pp. 143–7; p. 154; pp. 164–7; p. 197; p. 245; p. 325; p. 370; p. 383; p. 391; pp. 403–408 passim; p. 413; p. 427; p. 517 (ASKB 774–775). schubarth, carl ernst, Ueber Goethe�s �aust: Vorlesungen, Berlin: enslin 1830 (ASKB u 96). sibbern, Frederik christian, Om �orholdet imellem Sjæl og Legeme, saavel i Almindelighed som i phrenologisk, pathognomonisk, physiogonomisk og ethisk Henseende i Særdeleshed, copenhagen: paa Forfatterens eget Forlag 1849, p. 109; p. 257; p. 288; pp. 446–7; p. 461; p. 463; pp. 479–81; p. 506 (ASKB 781). sihler, w., Die Symbolik des Antlitzes, Berlin: F. laue 1829, p. 64n, p. 91 (ASKB 784). [solger, karl wilhelm Ferdinand], Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, ed. by ludwig tieck und Friedrich von raumer, vols. 1–2, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1826 (ASKB 1832–1833). —— K.W.�. Solger�s Vorlesungen über Aesthetik, ed. by k.w.l. heyse, leipzig: Brockhaus 1829, pp. 44f.; p. 152; p. 171; p. 214; p. 278; p. 296 (ASKB 1387). steffens, henrich, Caricaturen des Heiligsten, vols. 1–2, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1819–21, p. 104; p. 182; p. 375 (ASKB 793–794). —— Christliche Religionsphilosophie, vols. 1–2, Breslau: im verlage bei Josef max und komp. 1839 [vol. 1, Teleologie; vol. 2, Ethik], vol. 1, p. 51 (ASKB 797–798). —— Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 1, pp. 292–5; vol. 2, p. 38; p. 71; pp. 100–101; vol. 3, p. 265; pp. 271–2; pp. 322–6; vol. 4, p. 21; pp. 41–2; pp. 95–102 passim; p. 106; p. 109; p. 113; p. 142; p. 148; pp. 166–7; pp. 178–9; pp. 258–62 passim; p. 268; p. 302; p. 310; p. 313; pp. 315–16; pp. 389–90; p. 402; pp. 411–16 passim; p. 437; vol. 5, p. 5; pp. 9–14 passim; pp. 161–2; p. 166; p. 342; vol. 6, pp. 49–51; p. 89; pp. 102–103; p. 107; p. 135; p. 150; pp. 243–9; p. 252–5; pp. 257–60; p. 262; vol. 8, p. 342; pp. 381–3; p. 444; vol. 9, pp. 340–44; p. 351; vol. 10, p. 271 (ASKB 1834–1843). sulzer, Johann georg, Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste, in einzeln, nach alphabetischer Ordnung der Kunstwörter auf einander folgenden, Artikeln abgehandelt, vols. 1–4 and a register volume, 2nd revised ed., leipzig: in der weidmannschen Buchhandlung 1792–99, vol. 1, p. 307; p. 713; vol. 3, p. 276; p. 610; vol. 4, p. 150; p. 209 (ASKB 1365–1369).

94

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

thiersch, Friedrich, Allgemeine Aesthetik in akademischen Lehrvorträgen, Berlin: g. reimer 1846, pp. 17–18; p. 148; p. 289; p. 357 (ASKB 1378). thomsen, grimur, Om den nyfranske Poesi, et �orsøg til Besvarelse af Universitetets æsthetiske Priisspørgsmaal for 1841: “Har Smag og Sands for Poesi gjort �rem- eller Tilbageskridt i �rankrig i de sidste Tider og hvilken er Aarsagen?,” copenhagen: paa den wahlske Boghandlings Forlag 1843, p. 5; p. 36; p. 38; p. 45; p. 47; p. 53n; p. 60; pp. 62–3; p. 69; p. 71; p. 73; pp. 84–7; p. 93; pp. 104–105; p. 109; pp. 111–12; p. 116; pp. 145–6; p. 152; pp. 160–61; pp. 164–5 (ASKB 1390). trendelenburg, adolf, Logische Untersuchungen, vols. 1–2, Berlin: g. Bethge 1840, vol. 1, p. 97; vol. 2, p. 20; p. 56; p. 93n; p. 121; p. 225; p. 275; p. 363 (ASKB 843). weiße, christian hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit, vols. 1–2, leipzig: c.h.F. hartmann 1830, vol. 1, p. 151n; p. 152n; p. 235n; p. 317n; vol. 2, p. 61n; p. 213; p. 250n; p. 263n; p. 264; p. 278n; p. 303; p. 312n; p. 314n; p. 318n; p. 324n; p. 329; p. 343n; p. 378n; p. 515n (ASKB 1379–1380). —— Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, dresden: r. & w. kori 1844, p. 84n; p. 323n (ASKB 866). wolff, oskar ludwig Bernhard, Handbuch deutscher Beredsamkeit enthaltend eine Uebersicht der Geschichte und Theorie der Redekunst, zugleich mit einer vollständigen Sammlung deutscher Reden jedes Zeitalters und jeder Gattung, vols. 1–2, leipzig: carl B. lorck 1845–46, vol. 2, pp. 418–40 (ASKB 250–251). zeuthen, ludvig, Om den christelige Tro i dens Betydning for Verdenshistorien. Et �orsøg, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1838, p. 23n; p. 41 (ASKB 259). —— Humanitet betragtet fra et christeligt Standpunkt, med stadigt Hensyn til den nærværende Tid, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandling 1846, p. 4 (ASKB 915). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Goethe andersen, vilhelm, Tider og Typer af dansk Aands Historie, vols. 1–2, copenhagen, kristiania: gyldendalske Boghandel nordisk Forlag 1916, vol. 2, pp. 78–84. [anonymous], “liebe und ehe. kierkegaard über goethe,” Der christliche Student, no. 17, 1949, pp. 49–55. anz, wilhelm, “die religiöse unterscheidung. Über das verhältnis von dichtung und existenzdialektik bei søren kierkegaard,“ Kierkegaard Symposion in Orbis Litterarum, tome 10, fasc. 1–2, copenhagen: munksgaard 1955, pp. 5–17; see pp. 11–15. Bienstock, max, “sören kierkegaard und sein urteil über goethe,” Neue Jahrbücher für das klassiche Altertum, Geschichte und deutsche Literatur und für Pädagogik, vol. 29, 1. abt., no. 6, 1912, pp. 443–8. Billeskov Jansen, F.J., “de store romanværker,” in his Studier i Søren Kierkegaards litterære Kunst, copenhagen: rosenkilde og Bagger 1951, pp. 21–43 [in French as “les grands ouvrages romanesques,” in his L�art littéraire de Søren Kierkegaard, trans. by else–marie Jacquet–tisseau, paris: Éditions de l’orante 2000 (Bibliothèque Kierkegaardienne), pp. 21–42]. Bobé, louis, “goethe og danmark,” Gads Danske Magazin, vol. 20, 1926, pp. 288–302.

Goethe: A German Classic Through the �ilter of the Danish Golden Age

95

Brandell, georg, “människouppfattningen hos sören kierkegaard och i goethes Faust,” Religion och Kultur, vol. 25, 1954, pp. 100–103. Brandes, georg, “goethe og danmark,” in his Mennesker og Værker, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1883, pp. 1–79. closs, august, “goethe (1749-1832) und kierkegaard (1813–1855): gleichwichtige mitte und Entweder-Oder,” Études Germaniques, vol. 4, nos. 2–3, 1949, pp. 278–90. —— �Goethe and �ierkegaard���� Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 10, 1949, pp. 264–80. —— �Goethe and �ierkegaard���� in his Medusa�s Mirror. Studies in German Literature, london: cresset press; new York: dufour 1957, pp. 96–112. craemer-schroeder, susanne, Deklination des Autobiographischen. Goethe, Stendahl, Kierkegaard, Berlin: eric schmidt verlag 1993 (Philologische Studien und Quellen, vol. 124). elster, kristian, “kierkegaard og goethe,” in his Livet og digtningen. Essays, oslo: aschehoug 1928, pp. 193–241. Fabro, cornelio, La donna in Kierkegaard, l’aquila: l.u. Japadre editore 1980, see pp. 99–101. Fenger, henning, Kierkegaard, the Myths and their Origins. Studies in the Kierkegaardian Papers and Letters�� trans. by George C. Schoolfield�� �ew Haven and london: Yale university press 1980, pp. 81–8. Fischer, Friedrich carl, “die sinndeutung der lebensalter durch goethe,” in his Existenz und Innerlichkeit. Eine Einführung in die Gedankenwelt Søren Kierkegaards, munich: c.h. Beck 1969, pp. 22–34. Forrest, william, “a problem in values: the Faustian motivation in kierkegaard and goethe,” in Ethics, vol. 63, no. 4, 1953, pp. 251–61. geismar, eduard, Søren Kierkegaard. Hans Livsudvikling og �orfattervirksomhed, vols. 1–3. copenhagen: g.e.c. gads 1926–27, vol. 2, pp. 139–40. hultberg, helge, “kierkegaard og goethe,” in Kierkegaard inspiration, ed. by Birgit Bertung et al, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1991 (Søren Kierkegaard Selskabets Populære Skrifter, vol. 20), pp. 47–53. Jaspers, karl, Unsere Zukunft und Goethe, zürich: artemis–verlag 1948, pp. 24–7. kahn, ludwig w., “goethe’s iphigenie, kleists amphitryon und s. kierkegaard,” Monatshefte für Deutschen Unterricht (madison, wisconsin), vol. 39, 1947, pp. 234–6. kinter, achim, “epilog: Wanderjahre und Entweder-Oder,” in his Rezeption und Existenz. Untersuchungen zu Sören Kierkegaards Entweder-Oder, Frankfurt am main et al.: peter lang 1991 (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Germanistik und Skandinavistik, vol. 26), pp. 94–109. kühle, sejer, Søren Kierkegaards Barndom og Ungdom, copenhagen: aschehoug dansk Forlag 1950, see pp. 113–14. law, david r., “the literary sources of kierkegaard’s The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars,” in Early Polemical Writings, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1999 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 1), pp. 159–94. lesniak, slawomir, “kierkegaard und goethe,” Orbis Litterarum, vol. 56, 2001, pp. 221–9.

96

Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun

lilhav, preben, “Faust,” in his Kierkegaards valg, risskov: Forlaget sicana 2003, pp. 84–97. oppel, horst, “kierkegaard und goethe,” Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, vol. 16, no. 1, 1938, pp. 126–59. Paulsen�� Anna�� ��ierkegaard in seinem Verhältnis zur deutschen �omantik. �in��uss und Überwindung,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 3, 1959, pp. 38–47. roos, carl, “kierkegaard og goethe,” in his Germanica, copenhagen: gyldendal 1938, pp. 125–50 (reprinted in his Essays om tysk Litteratur, ed. by hakon stangerup, copenhagen: gyldendal 1967, pp. 83–103). —— Kierkegaard og Goethe, copenhagen: g.e.c. gads Forlag 1955. —— �Zur Goethe-�ekture �ierkegaards�� I: �ie �omane���� Kierkegaard Symposium: Orbis Litterarum, vol. 10, 1955, pp. 214–35. scopetea, sophia, Kierkegaard og græciteten. En kamp med ironi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1995, see p. 4; p. 5 n6; pp. 6–7; p. 8 n17–18; p. 28 n1; p. 35; p. 45 n36; p. 46 n41; p. 55; p. 60 n18; p. 67 n10; p. 73 n44; p. 82 n17; p. 90; p. 101 n3; p. 156 n28; p. 163 n72; pp. 165–9 passim; p. 203; p. 206; p. 211; pp. 236–7; p. 257 n78; p. 305; p. 309 n39, n44; p. 312; p. 321; p. 322 n22; p. 387; p. 398 n41; p. 443 n100; p. 463. sløk, Johannes, “kierkegaards Bestimmung des Begriffes ‘gottes worte,’ in Kierkegaard Symposium: Orbis Litterarum, tome 10, Fasc. 1–2, ed. by steffen steffensen and hans sörensen, pp. 214–35. steffensen, steffen, “kierkegaard og goethe,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 2, 1957, pp. 75–80. —— ��ierkegaard und Goethe���� Nerthus, vol. 3, 1972, pp. 19–55. vedel, ellen, Goethes Clavigo og Enten-Eller: Et bidrag til studiet af Goethes betydning for Søren Kierkegaard, copenhagen: tegnernes Forlag 1978–79. williams, Forest, “a problem in values: the Faustian motivation in kierkegaard and goethe,” Ethics, vol. 63, 1953, pp. 251–61.

hamann: sharing style and thesis: kierkegaard’s appropriation of hamann’s work sergia karen hay

I. Hamann�s Life and Main Works Johann georg hamann was born to Johann christoph, a barber-surgeon, and maria magdalena hamann on august 27, 1730 in königsberg, east prussia. two years later, the hamanns had another son, Johann christoph. in a short autobiographical work titled Gedanken über meinen Lebenslauf written in 1758, hamann describes his pietistic upbringing and fairly ambitious if unsystematic early education. hamann entered the university of königsberg where he initially studied theology, but later switched to law.1 he left the university without a degree and became a private house tutor�� first for the son of Baroness Budberg in �ivonia and then for the sons of Count von Witten in Courland. In 1756�� Hamann took a position with a trading firm run by the family of a university friend, Johann christoph Berens (1729–92). in april of the following year, hamann traveled to london on a secret business mission that ultimately failed2 and consequently experienced a period of dissipation, careless spending, and purposelessness. isolated and in debt, hamann found a room in a house owned by a young couple and began a concentrated reading of the Bible. on march 31, 1758, after reading deuteronomy 5, he had some sort of powerful religious experience in which he identified himself as Cain3 and saw his life mirrored 1 at the university, hamann did not possess any true intentions to become a theologian nor lawyer: “… ohne Ernst, ohne Treue ein Jurist zu werden; so wie ich keine gehabt hatte noch gewiesen hatte um ein Theolog zu sein.” (Johann georg hamann, Sämtliche Werke, vols. 1–6, ed. by Josef nadler, wuppertal et al.: Brockhaus et al. 1999 (nachdruck der historisch-kritischen ausgabe von Josef nadler, vienna: thomas morus presse im herder verlag 1949–57), vol. 2, Schriften über Philosophie, Philologie, Kritik, p. 21.) 2 there is speculation about the exact aim of this mission; however, in Gedanken über meinen Lebenslauf, hamann reveals that it involved the russian ambassador who rejected the message he delivered. (see also James c. o’Flaherty, Johann Georg Hamann, Boston: twayne publishers 1979, pp. 21–2.) 3 hamann writes, “Ich “ fühlte mein Herz klopfen, ich hörte eine Stimme in der Tiefe desselben seufzen und jammern, als die Stimme des Bluts, als die Stimme eines erschlagenen Bruders, der sein Blut rächen wollte, wenn ich selbiges beizeiten nicht hörte und fortführe mein Ohr gegen selbiges zu verstopfen,—daß eben dies Kain unstätig und flüchtig machte. Ich fühlte

98

Sergia Karen Hay

in the israelites’ struggles.4 this experience was absolutely decisive for the rest of hamann’s life; it shifted his attention from business and writing projects consistent with the goals of the enlightenment to a thoroughgoing commitment to theological concerns and religious life. in 1759, he returned to königsberg where Berens was so surprised and dismayed by hamann’s religious conversion that hamann’s engagement plans with Berens’ sister were canceled and Berens endeavored to restore hamann’s old sensibilities by enlisting the help of a friend, immanuel kant. Berens’ and kant’s efforts included an initial meeting between the three men at a local inn, a suggestion that hamann translate parts of diderot’s Encyclopédie, and an offer that hamann work with kant on the development of a children’s physics text.5 in response to kant and Berens, Hamann wrote a short but significant work titled Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten in which he articulated a defense of his religious position. hamann included a doublededication of this work to “Niemand” (“nobody”), a reference to “the public” to whom works of the enlightenment were addressed, and to “die Zween” (“the two”), a reference to kant and Berens. in this work, hamann writes, “Faith is not a work of reason and therefore cannot succumb to any attack by reason; because believing happens as little by means of reasons as tasting and seeing.”6 in a letter to Jacobi, hamann recalls that at this time he was immersed in the ideas of david hume7; this is no small matter since, as Frederick Beiser writes, “hamann…set a precedent for those philosophers who eventually launched a humean counter-attack upon kant.”8 hamann’s interest in and adaptation of humean philosophy also indicate that although he rejected the aims of the enlightenment, he was not an irrationalist;9 auf einmal mein Herz quillen, es ergoß sich in Thränen und ich konnte es nicht länger—ich konnte es nicht länger meinem Gott verheelen, daß ich der Brudermörder, der Brudermörder seines eingeborenen Sohnes war.” (hamann, Sämtliche Werke, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 41.) 4 hamann writes, “Wer “ die Reisekarte Israels mit meinem Lebenslauf vergleichen will, wird sehen wie genau sie miteinander übereinkommen.” (hamann, Sämtliche Werke, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 42.) 5 the children’s physics text project never got off the ground since hamann and kant disagreed on the appropriate starting point: newtonian science or genesis. For a more complete discussion of “the Kinderphysik Fiasco,” see Frederick c. Beiser, The �ate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to �ichte, cambridge, ma: harvard university press 1987, pp. 32f. this text also includes an engaging description of the general relations and contacts between kant and hamann. 6 hamann, Sämtliche Werke, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 74: “Der Glaube ist kein Werk der Vernunft und kann daher auch keinem Angriff derselben unterliegen; weil Glauben so wenig durch Gründe geschieht als Schmecken und Sehen.” (in english as J.G. Hamann: A Study in Christian Existence, trans. by ronald gregor smith, london: collins 1960, p. 182.) 7 in a letter to Jacobi, hamann wrote, “i was steeped in hume when i wrote the socr. mem., and the following passage of my little book has reference to that: ‘our own existence and the existence of all things outside of us must be believed, and can be determined in no other way.’” (o’Flaherty, Johann Georg Hamann, op. cit., p. 37.) 8 Frederick c. Beiser, The �ate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to �ichte, op. cit., p. 24. 9 isaiah Berlin claims hamann is an irrationalist in his book The Magus of the North: J.G. Hamann and the Origins of Modern Irrationalism, new York: Farrar, straus & giroux 1993.

Hamann: Sharing Style and Thesis

99

rather than asserting that faith requires an outright and naive rejection of reason, hamann saw the beginning of faith at the endpoint or limit of reason. over the next few years, hamann lived with his father and read extensively. he then obtained positions as a copyist and civil servant, took time off to care for his ailing father, and traveled. he returned to königsberg in 1767 and took a position as a clerk for the general excise and customs administration (a position which he secured with the help of kant), and then eventually switched jobs to superintendent of the customs warehouse, a job he held until his retirement. during these years, hamann maintained a relationship with anna regina schumacher who was a servant in his father’s house. Hamann and Schumacher never officially married�� although he considered the relationship a “marriage of conscience”10 and had four children with her: Johann michael (b. 1769), elisabeth regina (b. 1772), magdelena katherina (b. 1774), and marrianne sophie (b. 1778). at the end of his life, he traveled to münster by invitation of princess amalia von gallitzin (1748–1806), who was a great admirer of his writings. while in münster, hamann fell ill and died on June 21, 1788 at the age of 57. along with Gedanken über meinen Lebenslauf and Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten, some of hamann’s more recognized works include Aesthetica in Nuce (1762), Versuch einer Sibylle über die Ehe (1775), Konxompax (1779), Golgatha und Scheblimini! (1784), and Metakritik über den Purismum der reinen Vernunft (1784) in which he responds to kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Besides providing one of the first significant responses to kantian philosophy, hamann is also credited with inspiring the Sturm und Drang literary movement11 which eventually led to german romanticism. goethe called hamann “the brightest mind of his time”12 and Friedrich karl von moser (1723–98) gave him the title “the magus of the north.”13 more importantly, for the purposes of this article, hamann had an “extraordinary connexion”14 with kierkegaard. II. References to Hamann in Kierkegaard�s Journals references to hamann appear in kierkegaard’s journals and papers as early as 1836 and as late as 1850.15 therefore, kierkegaard must have read hamann while he was a student, well before he completed his dissertation, The Concept of Irony, in 1841. in fact, in the margin of a draft of Practice in Christianity, kierkegaard recalls that he had a specific Hamann reading period; he writes�� �Here a passage in one of my

o’Flaherty, Johann Georg Hamann, op. cit., p. 26. this is primarily due to the radical nature of his aesthetic writings and his relationship with Johann gottfried herder (1744–1803). 12 oswald Bayer, Johann Georg Hamann: Der hellste Kopf seiner Zeit, tübingen: attempo 1998. 13 �onald Gregor Smith notes that �it was Friedrich �arl von Moser who first used the words, in direct allusion to hamann’s seeing the star of Bethlehem, like the wise men from the east, in a time without christ.” (J.G. Hamann: A Study in Christian Existence, london: collins 1960, p. 22, note 1.) 14 ronald gregor smith, “hamann and kierkegaard,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 5, 1964, p. 52. 15 see SKS 22, 356, nB14:21 / JP 2, 1396. SKS 23, 259, nB18:8 / JP 2, 1560. 10 11

Sergia Karen Hay

100

oldest journals16 (from the time I was reading Hamann)17 could be used: Young man, you who still stand at the beginning of the way, oh, turn back in time.”18 Five journal entries stand out in particular, since they contain material that is not included�� even in revised form�� in his published works. The first two discuss hamann’s adaptation of humean ideas to support a clear division between faith and reason. in his journals from 1836, kierkegaard writes, “on page 406 one sees the complete misunderstanding of a christian and non-christian in hamann’s answer to an objection by hume: well, that’s just the way it is.”19 Furthermore, kierkegaard remarks that reason’s inability to construct a bridge of understanding between the faithful and unfaithful is not its only failure; reason also does not advance faith, but rather harms it. another passage from the Journals from 1836 states the following: hamann draws a most interesting parallel between the law (mosaic law) and reason. he goes after hume’s statement: “the last fruit of all wisdom is the observation of human ignorance and weakness” … “our reason,” hamann goes on to say, “is therefore just what Paul calls the law—and the command of reason is holy�� righteous�� and good; but is it given to make us wise? Just as little as the law of the Jews justified them�� but is to bring us over from the opposite, how unreasonable our reason is, that our faults should increase through it, as sin increased through the law.”20

the third passage relates kierkegaard’s personal view toward hamann: “the inscription on a tile stove in kold’s tavern in Fredensborg applies to hamann: allicit atque terret.”21 this description of hamann as both “attracting” and “terrifying” reveals the “ambivalent nature”22 of kierkegaard’s relation to him (see section iv below). The fourth and fifth journal passages mentioned here concern �ierkegaard’s interest in hamann’s “marriage of conscience.” in 1844–45, kierkegaard writes: Hamann’s so-called marriage of conscience�� which was not a civil marriage—how does all this hang together� roth in the preface to volume iii merely mentions it and says that there are documents, but that he dare not publish them. in addition, he quotes reichardt’s Urania for 1812. must be investigated.23

and in 1847 he writes: amazing! Yesterday i spoke with Jørgen Jørgensen, who has now become an avid reader of hamann. in hamann’s writings he has found evidence that hamann was not married to his wife but lived with her out of wedlock, consequently as a concubine. and i, who have looked for this most eagerly, have not found it. at one time this would have been of the greatest importance to me. and yet it would not really have helped me, but it would have given the matter a little different twist if i had known that hamann had dared to do such 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

SKS 18, 27f., ee:64, may 12, 1839. my emphasis. Pap. iX B 33:3 / PC, supplement, p. 316. SKS 17, 32, aa:14.1 / JP 2, 1539. Pap. i a 237 / JP 2, 1540. SKS 18, 32, ee:82 / JP 2, 1546. smith, “hamann and kierkegaard,” op. cit., p. 53. SKS 18, 233, JJ:294 / JP 2, 1556.

Hamann: Sharing Style and Thesis

101

a thing. of course i have thought of the possibility, but i did not know that hamann had carried it through. But at the time i was sure that it could not be done that way.24

kierkegaard’s obvious enthusiasm about this detail of hamann’s life is striking. Furthermore�� this appears to have had some sort of exemplary significance for �ierkegaard since he suggests that his own choices in life may have been affected from an earlier knowledge of this information; he writes, “this would have been of the greatest importance to me,” “it would have given the matter a little different twist,” “i have thought of the possibility…but at the time i was sure that it could not be done that way.”25 III. References to Hamann in Kierkegaard�s Published Works references to hamann appear not just in kierkegaard’s journals and private papers, but also in his published writings, particularly in his early pseudonymous authorship. the following paragraphs contain brief summaries of these references in chronological order according to the publication dates of the works mentioned. “a,” the pseudonymous author of part i of Either/Or (1843), who is doubly removed from kierkegaard through a pseudonymous editor (victor eremita), refers to hamann in the section titled “the First love” to illustrate the connection between being a reader and writer: “that is, if a person belongs to ‘the readers’ sect,’ if he in one way or another distinguishes himself as an alert and diligent reader, others begin to nurture the notion that a minor author might emerge, for as hamann says: ‘aus Kindern werden Leute, aus Jungfern werden Bräute, aus Lesern werden Schriftsteller.’”26 in �ear and Trembling (1843), kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes de silentio, uses the following quotation for an epigraph: “Was Tarquinius Superbus in seinem Garten mit den Mohnköpfen sprach, verstand der Sohn, aber nicht der Bote—Hamann.��27 constantin constantius, the pseudonymous author of Repetition (1843), includes the following reference to hamann: let everyone form his own judgment with respect to what is said here about repetition; let him also form his own judgment about my saying it here and in this manner, since i, following hamann’s example, mit mancherlei Zungen mich ausdrücke, und die Sprache der Sophisten, der Wortspiele, der Creter und Araber, Weisen und Mohren und Creolen

SKS 20, 196, nB2:137 / JP 2, 1558. ibid. 26 SKS 2, 238 / EO1, 245. “aus Kindern werden Leute, aus Jungfern werden Bräute, aus Lesern werden Schriftsteller.” [out of children come adults, out of virgins come brides, out of readers come writers.] 27 SKS 4, 100 / �T, 3. “Was Tarquinius Superbus in seinem Garten mit den Mohnköpfen sprach, verstand der Sohn, aber nicht der Bote.” [what tarquinius superbus said in the garden by means of the poppies, the son understood but the messenger did not]. For more information about this epigraph (its meaning, source, and references to lessing’s discussion of the same story) see SKS k4, 101 / �T, 339. 24 25

102

Sergia Karen Hay rede, Critik, Mythologie, rebus und Grundsätze durch einander schwatze, und bald κατ’ ανθρωπον bald κατ’ εξοχην argumentire.28

this quotation was from a letter from hamann to J.g. linder29 in which he describes the notorious and intentional difficulty he presents for his readers.30 Johannes climacus, the pseudonym used for Philosophical �ragments (1844),31 employs two hamannian phrases in his discussion of the offense created by paradox. climacus writes: once again, it is not the understanding that discovers it, but the understanding merely parrots the paradox, however strange that may seem, for the paradox itself says: comedies and novels and lies must be probable, but how could i be probable� the offense remains outside the paradox—no wonder�� since the paradox is the wonder. The understanding has not discovered this; on the contrary, it was the paradox that ushered the understanding to the wonder stool and replies: now, what are you wondering about� it is just as you say, and the amazing thing is that you think that it is an objection, but the truth in the mouth of a hypocrite is dearer to me than to hear it from an angel and apostle.32

The first phrase is ��ies�� comedies�� and novels must be probable����33 and the second is “i would rather hear the truth from the mouth of a pharisee than from an angel and apostle.”34 at the end of Philosophical �ragments, climacus uses another phrase from hamann: “pontius pilate, executor Novi Testamenti.”35 hamann appears in another epigraph as well; The Concept of Anxiety (1844), written by the pseudonym vigilius haufniensis, is introduced by the following passage:

SKS 4, 26 / R, 149. “…mit mancherlei Zungen mich ausdrücke, und die Sprache der Sophisten, der Wortspiele, der Creter und Araber, Weisen und Mohren und Creolen rede, Critik, Mythologie, rebus und Grundsätze durch einander schwatze, und bald κατ’ ανθρωπον bald κατ’ εξοχην argumentire.” [… express myself in various tongues and speak the language of sophists, of puns, of cretans and arabians, of whites and moors and creoles, and babble a confusion of criticism, mythology, rebus, and axioms, and argue now in a human way and now in an extraordinary way.] 29 Hamann�s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich roth, Berlin: g. reimer 1821–43, vol. 1, p. 467 (ASKB 536–544). 30 the context of the quotation in hamann’s letter: “a layman and unbeliever can explain my manner of writing in no other way than as nonsense, since i express myself in various tongues and speak the language of sophists, of puns….” (Pap. iv B 96:4 / �T, supplement, p. 249.) 31 For an interesting discussion of Hamann’s in��uence on �ierkegaard’s Philosophical �ragments, see Joachim ringleben, “kierkegaard als hamann-leser,” in Die Gegenwärtigkeit Johann Georg Hamanns: Acta des Achten Internationalen Hamann-Kolloquiums an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 2002, ed. by Bernhard gajek, Frankfurt am main: peter lang 2005, pp. 455–65. in this article, ringleben attributes several critical elements to Hamann’s in��uence: the title of �Fragments���� the paradox of God as a servant�� and the important role of passion. 32 SKS 4, 256 / P�, 52. 33 Pap. v B 6:1 / P�, 195. see Hamann�s Schriften, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 425. 34 Pap. v B 6:1 / P�, 195f. see Hamann�s Schriften, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 497. 35 SKS 4, 305 / P�, 110. see Hamann�s Schriften, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 274. 28

Hamann: Sharing Style and Thesis

103

the age of making distinctions is past. it has been vanquished by the system. in our day, whoever loves to make distinctions is regarded as an eccentric whose soul clings to something that has long since vanished. Be that as it may, yet socrates still is what he was, the simple wise man, because of the peculiar distinction that he expressed both in words and in life�� something that the eccentric Hamann first reiterated with great admiration two thousand years later: “For socrates was great in ‘that he distinguished between what he understood and what he did not understand.’”36

hamann writes about this socratic distinction in Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten37 and uses it to show how socrates’ relation to the sophists is similar to hamann’s own relation to the enlightenment thinkers, in particular kant and Berens, who make bold claims for knowledge. in a draft of this epigraph, kierkegaard writes: is it not remarkable that the greatest master of irony and the greatest humorist, separated by 2,000 years, may join together in doing and admiring what we should suppose everyone had done, if this fact did not testify to the contrary. hamann says of socrates: “he was great because he distinguished between what he understood and what he did not understand.” if only socrates could have had an epitaph! many an innocent person has drained the poisoned cup�� many a one has sacrificed his life for the idea�� but this epitaph belongs to socrates alone: here rests socrates, he distinguished between what he understood and what he did not understand. or perhaps better simply to quote hamann’s words.38

another reference is made to hamann in The Concept of Anxiety in a footnote at the end of the text. in the second to last paragraph, haufniensis states, “Yet the hypochondriac is only an imperfect autodidact when compared with the person who is educated by possibility, because hypochondria is partly dependent upon the somatic and is consequently accidental,”39 after which the following footnote is provided: it is therefore with a higher meaning that hamann employs the word “hypochondria,” when he says: “Diese Angst in der Welt ist aber der einzige Beweis unserer Heterogeneität. Denn fehlte uns nicht, so würden wir es nicht besser machen also die Heiden und Transcendental-Philosophen, die von Gott nichts wissen und in die liebe Natur sich wie die Narren vergaffen; kein Heimweg würde uns anwandeln. Diese impertinente Unruhe, diese heilige Hypochondrie ist vielleicht das �euer, womit wir Opferthiere gesalzen und vor der �äulniß des laufenden seculi bewahrt werden müssen.”40 SKS 4, 310 / CA, 3. hamann writes, “Sokrates war, meine Herren, kein gemeiner Kunstrichter. Er unterschied in den Schriften des Heraklitus, dasjenige, was er nicht verstand, von dem, was er darin verstand, und that eine sehr billige und bescheidene Vermuthung von dem Verständlichen auf das Unverständliche.” (hamann, sämtliche werke, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 61.) 38 Pap. v B 44 / JP 2, 1554. 39 SKS 4, 460 / CA, 162. 40 SKS 4, 460 / CA, 162: “Diese Angst in der Welt ist aber der einzige Beweis unserer Heterogeneität. Denn fehlte uns nicht, so würden wir es nicht besser machen also die Heiden und Transcendental-Philosophen, die von Gott nichts wissen und in die liebe Natur sich wie die Narren vergaffen; kein Heimweg würde uns anwandeln. Diese impertinente Unruhe, diese heilige Hypochondrie ist vielleicht das �euer, womit wir Opferthiere gesalzen und vor der �äulniß des laufenden seculi bewahrt werden müssen.” [this anxiety in the world is, however, 36 37

104

Sergia Karen Hay

nicolaus notabene, the pseudonym used for Prefaces (1844), writes at the end of preface vii: it is not my concern in life to become an author; it is not my desire to swindle people out of their money; therefore i promise, if this is proved, to return his money to every purchaser. i say with hamann: Nicht eine bloße ὁρμἡ sondern ein furor uterinus hat mich zu den meisten Aufsätzen getrieben. Anstatt Geld zu nehmen, hätte ich lieber Geld gegeben, und das Wiederspiel von andern Schriftstellern getrieben.41

In the section titled ��e��ections on Marriage�� by a �married man�� in Stages on Life�s Way (1845), there are three references to a quotation from a letter from hamann to Friedrich heinrich Jacobi which states, “there is doubt that must be dismissed with no reasons or replies but simply with a Bah!”42 The first reference is in the context of a reply that can be made to arguments against marriage: “let the nitpicking chicaners pile up all their objections to marriage—their case will collapse. Their objections can quickly be classified in two parts: those which one best answers�� as Hamann says�� by saying ‘Bah’—the others can quickly be disposed of.��43 the second reference has a similar context: “But this much is certain: anyone who raises an objection is always to be pitied. either he has gone astray in desire and thereupon become callous or he is infatuated with the understanding. with regard to any objection based on the latter, the only reply, à la hamann, is ‘Bah!’”44 There is also a final reference: �Along with hamann one can appropriately shout at this speedy fellow, who naturally considers a married man a procrastinator—‘Bah’—if there is even time for that and the fellow is not already so far away that ‘scarcely his coattails remain behind in existence.’”45 the “married man” also invokes hamann another time in order to clear away objections, but this time he uses a different quotation from hamann: “when an adversary triumphantly presents his objection in order to terrify with all the only proof of our heterogeneity. For if nothing were lacking, we would be no better than the heathen and transcendental philosophers, who know nothing of god and become foolishly enamored of our dear mother nature. we would feel no homesickness. this impertinent unrest�� this holy hypochondria is perhaps the fire with which we sacrificial animals must be salted and preserved from the decay of the present age.] the english translation used here is from o’Flaherty, Johann Georg Hamann, op. cit., p. 166, rather than the translation provided in thomte’s edition of The Concept of Anxiety because I believe there is an error in the final sentence which states�� �… this holy hypochondria is perhaps the fire with which we season sacrificial animals in order to preserve us from the putrefaction of the current seculi.” 41 SKS 4, 507 / P, 46. “Nicht eine bloße όρμή sondern ein furor uterinus hat mich zu den meisten Aufsätzen getrieben. Anstatt Geld zu nehmen, hätte ich lieber Geld gegeben, und das Wiederspiel von andern Schriftstellern getrieben.” [no mere ὁρμή (impulse) but a furor uterinus (desire to give birth) has driven me to most of these essays. instead of taking money, i would rather have given money and evoked a reaction from other authors.] see Hamann�s Schriften, op. cit., vol. 7, p. 205. 42 SLW, 695. see �riedrich Heinrich Jacobi�s Werke, vols. 1–6, leipzig: gerhard Fleischer d. Jüng. 1812–25, vol. 4.3, p. 34 (ASKB 1722–1728). 43 SKS 6, 90 / SLW, 92. 44 SKS 6, 113 / SLW, 119. 45 SKS 6, 138 / SLW, 147.

Hamann: Sharing Style and Thesis

105

the difficulty�� the thing to do is to have the courage to say with Hamann: That is just the way it is. it is a good answer and in the proper place.”46 in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), Johannes climacus also draws attention to hamann’s and socrates’ distinction between what one understands and what one does not understand. he writes: every human being, the wisest and the simplest, can just as essentially (the comparative makes for the misunderstanding, as when a brainy person compares himself with a simpleminded person, instead of understanding that the same task is for each one and not for the two in comparison) draw the distinction qualitatively between what he understands and what he does not understand (of course, it will be the fruit of his highest effort, this strenuous concentration, and two thousand years lie between socrates and hamann, the two proponents of this distinction), can discover that there is something that is, despite its being against his understanding and thinking.47

climacus also writes: i will not conceal the fact that i admire hamann, although i readily admit that, if he’s supposed to have worked coherently, the elasticity of his thoughts lacks evenness and his preternatural resilience lacks self-control. But the originality of genius is there in his brief statements, and the pithiness of form corresponds completely to the desultory hurling forth of a thought. with heart and soul, down to his last drop of blood, he is concentrated in a single word, a highly gifted genius’ passionate protest against a system of existence. But the system is hospitable. poor hamann, you have been reduced to a subsection by michelet. whether your grave has ever been marked, i do not know; whether it is now trampled upon, i do not know; but i do know that by hook or by crook you have been stuck into the subsection uniform and thrust into the ranks.48

In this passage�� it is worth noting again the perceived difficulty of reading Hamann’s work as well as the description of hamann as a genius who protests “against a system of existence.” IV. Kierkegaard�s Use of Hamann�s Work Hamann appears to have exerted both an intellectual and a personal in��uence on kierkegaard. clearly, hamann’s texts provided rich source material for many recognizably kierkegaardian motifs, of which three (appropriate modes of communication, the relation between faith and reason, and socratic ignorance) will be discussed brie��y here. However�� there is also an important point of divergence between hamann and kierkegaard regarding what they considered to be the ultimate existing expression of faith. kierkegaard clearly noticed hamann’s emphasis on style49 which is particularly remarkable for its use of pseudonyms, metaphor, and references to obscure works in 46 47 48 49

SKS 6, 101f. / SLW, 106. see also note 19 above. SKS 7, 507 / CUP1, 558. SKS 7, 227 / CUP1, 250. see quotation from Repetition in the preceding section.

106

Sergia Karen Hay

foreign languages. in fact, hamann’s varied use of literary devices prompted hegel to say the following about his works: “they do not have a particular style, but rather are style through and through.”50 hamann intentionally used his seemingly unsystematic style as a criticism of proponents of the enlightenment such as kant, who were occupied with philosophical system building. kierkegaard certainly adapted some of hamann’s methods of “indirect communication” as his own. closely connected to his inventive modes of communication, hamann believed that faith was incommensurable with any rational system. kierkegaard’s journal entries concerning hamann’s understanding of hume are relevant here; hamann believed that faith must be understood as an axiomatic belief that is simply accepted after reason has reached its limit. Just as hamann used hume as a point of departure for his understanding of the relation between faith and reason, kierkegaard viewed his own work as a development of hamann’s: hamann rightly declares: Just as “law” abrogates “grace,” so “to comprehend” abrogates “to have faith.” it is, in fact, my thesis. But in hamann it is merely an aphorism; whereas i have fought it through or have fought it out of a whole given philosophy and culture and into the thesis: to comprehend that faith cannot be comprehended or (the more ethical and god-fearing side) to comprehend that faith must not be comprehended.51

Both hamann and kierkegaard invoked the name of socrates to show the limit of reason. through his study of hamann, kierkegaard enriched his understanding of socratic irony, a persistent theme throughout his authorship from his dissertation topic52 to his late-life stance against hegelian systematization and christendom. Furthermore, the epigraph of kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety and hamann’s Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten employs the notion of socratic ignorance, the recognition of a distinction between what one knows and what one does not know.53 my translation. georg wilhelm Friedrich hegel, Jub., vol. 20, p. 209: “‘[die] haben nicht sowohl einen eigenthümlichen Styl, als daß sie durch und durch Styl sind.” (Jub. = Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe in 20 Bänden, ed. by hermann glockner, stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann verlag 1928–41.) 51 SKS 22, 375f., nB 14:51 / JP 2, 1559. 52 in the hongs’ “historical introduction” to The Concept of Irony one reads, “other journal entries and reading notes (on Jean paul, hamann, wieland, erdmann, Baur, and grulich) from 1836 onward touch on socrates, satire, humor, and irony, and an entry dated september 25, 1837, reads, ‘now i know a suitable subject for a dissertation: concerning the concept of satire among the ancients, the reciprocal relation of the various roman satirists to each other’” (p. viii). 53 of course, kierkegaard and hamann are referring to the famous story of the delphic oracle: after being told he was the wisest among men, an initially perplexed socrates tested the oracle’s proclamation for himself by interviewing politicians, poets, and craftsmen, and finally concluded that he did in fact have the slight advantage in wisdom. This slight advantage consisted in his recognition of the worthlessness and limits of human reason. socrates explains, “what is probable, gentlemen, is that in fact the god is wise and that his oracular response meant that human wisdom is worth little or nothing, and that when he says this man, socrates, he is using my name as an example, as if he said: ‘this man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like socrates, understands that his wisdom is worthless.’” (plato, Complete Works, ed. by John 50

Hamann: Sharing Style and Thesis

107

kierkegaard not only credits hamann with being the one who really understood the meaning of socratic ignorance, but he also interprets hamann as a living example of it. in Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten, hamann clearly opposes the methods and aims of the �nlightenment�� specifically represented by �ant and Berens�� in a manner intended to recall socrates’ opposition to the methods and aims of the sophists. in the journals, kierkegaard indicates that he agrees with this portrayal of hamann as a Socratic figure in the following passage written in 1840–41: �Hamann’s relationship to his contemporaries—Socrates’ to the Sophists (who could say something about everything).”54 in a fascinating letter to kant in 1759,55 hamann writes, “reason is not given to you in order that you may become wise, but that you may know your folly and ignorance; as the mosaic law was not given to the Jews to make them righteous, but to make their sins more sinful to them.”56 although kierkegaard interpreted hamann as playing a socratic role in relation to his contemporaries, he also believed that hamann’s existence extended beyond the realm of irony (the boundary between the aesthetic and the ethical) to the humorous (the boundary between the ethical and religious).57 kierkegaard describes socrates and hamann as “the greatest master of irony and the greatest humorist, separated by 2,000 years.”58 it appears that kierkegaard understood hamann’s life as being joyful, full, consistent with his work, and perhaps most importantly, reconciled with the world. in 1840–41, kierkegaard writes in his journals: The dogmatic thesis around which everything centers in Hamann παντα θ��α κα� παντα ανθρωπ�να [�everything divine and everything human��]—yet it does not remain the center�� but the thoughts spill out chaotically. irony remains aristocratic. (the philosophers.) Humor reconciles with all existence παντα θ��α κα� παντα ανθρωπ�να [�everything [“everything divine and everything human”].59

this portrait of hamann as the “greatest humorist” conveys a particular stance toward the world which kierkegaard originally embraced but ultimately rejected in favor of a form of religiousness that gives priority to a private relation between the individual and god. kierkegaard’s climacus writes in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript that “humor is the last stage in existence-inwardness before m. cooper, indianapolis: hackett publishing company 1997, p. 22. Apology 23a–b.) socrates also says, “i am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when i do not know, neither do i think i know; so i am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that i do not think i know what i do not know.” (plato, Complete Works, op. cit., p. 21. Apology 21d.) 54 Pap. iii B 17 / JP 2, 1547. 55 see Hamann�s Schriften, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 429–45. 56 translation from ronald gregor smith, J.G. Hamann, op. cit., p. 50. 57 kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes climacus, writes, “there are three existencespheres: the aesthetic, the ethical, the religious. to these there is a respectively corresponding confinium [border territory]: irony is the confinium between the aesthetic and the ethical; humor is the confinium between the ethical and the religious.” (SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 501f.) 58 Pap. v B 44 / JP 2, 1554. 59 Pap. iii B 20 / JP 2, 1548.

Sergia Karen Hay

108

faith.”60 it is perhaps this point that explains why hamann was a source of material for kierkegaard’s earlier writings and not for his more emphatically polemical works in his later career. this polarity between god’s gift or god’s demand of the world, the life at peace or the life of striving, creates a rich source of contrast between the lives and conclusions of hamann and kierkegaard and is, among the other topics brie��y mentioned here�� worth more investigation.

60

SKS 7, 265 / CUP1, 291.

Bibliography I. Hamann�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library Hamann�s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich roth, Berlin: g. reimer 1821–43 (ASKB 536–544). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Hamann döring, heinrich, Joh. Gottfr. von Herder�s Leben, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., weimar: wilhelm hoffmann 1829, p. 52; p. 54 (ASKB a i 134). Fichte, immanuel hermann, Die speculative Theologie oder allgemeine Religionslehre, heidelberg: akademische Buchhandlung von J.c.B. mohr 1846 [vol. 3, in Grundzüge zum Systeme der Philosophie], p. 151; p. 159; p. 169; p. 172; pp. 264–5; p. 280; p. 283; p. 307; p. 365; p. 465; pp. 488–91; p. 522; p. 570 (ASKB 509) [vols. 1–2 (ASKB 502–503)]. Frauenstädt, Julius, Die Naturwissenschaft in ihrem Einfluß auf Poesie, Religion, Moral und Philosophie, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1855, p. 57 (ASKB 516). günther, anton, Süd- und Nordlichter am Horizonte spekulativer Theologie, vienna: mechitaristen 1832, p. 148n (ASKB 520). günther, anton and Johann heinrich pabst, Janusköpfe. Zur Philosophie und Theologie, vienna: wallishausser 1834, p. 136 (ASKB 524). hase, karl, Kirkehistorie. Lærebog nærmest for akademiske �orelæsninger, trans. by c. winther and t. schorn, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1837, p. 532 (ASKB 160–166). hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich, “ueber: Hamanns Schriften. herausgegeben von Friedrich roth. vii thle. Berlin, bei reimer 1821–1825,” in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s vermischte Schriften, vols. 1–2, ed. by Friedrich Förster and ludwig Boumann, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1834–35 (vols. 16–17 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 2, pp. 38–110 (ASKB 555–556). [Jacobi, Friedrich heinrich], �riedrich Heinrich Jacobi�s Werke, vols. 1–6, leipzig: gerhard Fleischer d. Jüng. 1812–25, vol. 1, pp. 359–404; vol. 4.3 (ASKB 1722–1728) —— J.G. Hamanns Briefwechsel mit �.H. Jacobi, in �riedrich Heinrich Jacobi�s Werke, vols. 1–6, leipzig: gerhard Fleischer d. Jüng. 1812–25, vol. 4, 1819 (ASKB 1722–1728). martensen, hans lassen, Den christelige Dogmatik, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1849, p. 363 (ASKB 653).

110

Sergia Karen Hay

menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 1, pp. 213ff. (ASKB u 79). michelet, karl ludwig, “hamann,” in his Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philosophie in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel, vols. 1–2, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837–38, vol. 1, pp. 302–18 (ASKB 678–679). [richter, Johann paul Friedrich], Jean paul, Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1813, vol. 2, p. 355; p. 403n; p. 605; vol. 3, p. 874; pp. 1029–30 (ASKB 1381–1383). rudelbach, andreas g., De ethices principiis hucusque vulgo traditis, disquisito historico-philosophica, quæ systematum ethicorum secundum primas causas amplioris criseos introductionem continet, copenhagen: hartv. Frid. popp. 1822, p. 180 (ASKB 750). —— Om Psalme-Literaturen og Psalmebogs-Sagen, Historisk-kritiske Under søgelser, vol. 1, copenhagen: c.g. iversen 1854, p. 172 [vol. 2, 1856] (ASKB 193). steffens, henrich, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 8, p. 380; p. 382 (ASKB 1834–1843). sulzer, Johann georg, Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste, in einzeln, nach alphabetischer Ordnung der Kunstwörter auf einander folgenden, Artikeln abgehandelt, vols. 1–4 and a register volume, 2nd revised ed., leipzig: in der weidmannschen Buchhandlung 1792–99, vol. 1, p. 680; vol. 4, p. 209 (ASKB 1365–1369). trendelenburg, adolf, Logische Untersuchungen, vols. 1–2, Berlin: g. Bethge 1840, vol. 1, p. 73 (ASKB 843). zeuthen, ludvig, Om den christelige Tro i dens Betydning for Verdenshistorien. Et �orsøg, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1838, p. 51; p. 54; p. 56 (ASKB 259). —— Om den christelige Tro i dens Betydning for Verdenshistorien. Et �orsøg, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandel 1838, pp. 56–7 (ASKB 259). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Hamann andersen, albert, “hamann,” in Kierkegaard�s Teachers, ed. by niels thulstrup and Marie Mikulovà Thulstrup�� Copenhagen: C.A. �eitzel 1982 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 10), pp. 110–34. [anonymous], “hamann und kierkegaard,” Die Brücke, no. 167, 1950, p. 13. Baudler, georg, “zur Frage nach der wirksamkeit des religiösen denkfundaments J.g. hamanns im werke sören kierkegaards,” in his ‘Im Worte Sehen�: Das Sprachdenken Johann Georg Hamanns, Bonn: h. Bouvier u. co. 1970, pp. 317–26. Beiser, Frederick c., The �ate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to �ichte, cambridge, ma: harvard university press 1987; p. 17.

Hamann: Sharing Style and Thesis

111

Bohlin, torsten, Kierkegaards dogmatiska åskådning i dess historiska sammanhang, stockholm: svenska kyrkans diakonistyrelses Bokförlag 1925; pp. 45–50; pp. 154–5. [in german as Kierkegaards dogmatische Anschauung, trans. by ilse mener-lüne, gütersloh: c. Bertelsmann 1927; pp. 55–60; pp. 185–8.] Bramming, torben, “Johann georg hamann og søren aabye kierkegaard,” Præsteforeningens Blad, vol. 86, no. 44, 1996, pp. 929–36. Brandmair, ilsemarie and ovidio dallera, “eine parallele zu kierkegaard. Johann georg hamanns sokratische metakritik in den sokratischen denkwürdigkeiten,” in Kierkegaard oggi. Atti del covegno dell� 11 Novembre 1982, ed. by alessandro cortese, milan: vita e pensiero 1986, pp. 58–87. colette, Jacques, “kierkegaard et hamann,” in hegel, Les écrits de Hamann, trans. by Jacques colette, paris: aubier montaigne 1981, pp. 37–53. corbin, henry, “l’humor dans son rapport avec l’historique chez hamann et chez kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard, ed. by Jean Brun, [special number of] Obliques, paris: eurographic 1981, pp. 163–5. dallera, ovidio and ilsemarie Brandmair, “eine parallele zu kierkegaard. Johann georg hamanns sokratische metakritik in den Sokratischen Denkwürdigkeiten,” in Kierkegaard oggi. Atti del covegno dell� 11 Novembre 1982, ed. by alessandro cortese, milan: vita e pensiero 1986, pp. 58–87. dunning, stephen n., “kierkegaard’s ‘hegelian’ response to hamann,” Thought, vol. 55, 1980, pp. 259–70. Forrest, william, “a problem in values: the Faustian motivation in kierkegaard und goethe,” Ethics, vol. 63, no. 4, 1953, pp. 251–61. Friedemann, Fritsch, “wirklichkeit als göttlich und menschlich zugleich. Überlegungen zur verallgemeinerung einer christologischen Bestimmung in hamanns denken,” in Johann Georg Hamann: Der hellste Kopf seiner Zeit, ed. by oswald Bayer, tübingen: attempo 1998, pp. 52–79. green, allan, “J.g. hamann,” in his Kierkegaard bland samtida. Personhistoriska skisser, eslöv: Förlags ab gondolin 1995, pp. 72–6. helveg, F., “søren kierkegård og efterslægten. (om papirerne og forholdet mellem kierkegaard, grundtvig og hamann),” Nordisk månedskrift for folkelig og kristelig oplysning, vol. 1, 1881, pp. 133–56; pp. 278–305. hirsch, emanuel, Kierkegaard-Studien, vols. 1–2, gütersloh: Bertelsmann 1933, vol. 2, pp. 43–6 [pp. 489–92]. (reprinted, vaduz, liechtenstein: toposverlag 1978. First published in Studien des apologetischen Seminars in Wernigerode, nos. 29, 31�� 32�� 36�� 1930–33. The reprint retains the pagination of the first publication�� giving the page numbers of the 1933 edition in square brackets.) Jambet, christian, “kierkegaard et hamann,” in Kierkegaard, ed. by Jean Brun, [special number of] Obliques, paris: eurographic 1981, pp. 149–62. Jørgensen, sven-aage, Johann Georg Hamann, stuttgart: metzler 1976, pp. 39f.; pp. 99f. kleinert, markus, Sich verzehrender Skeptizismus. Läuterungen bei Hegel und Kierkegaard, Berlin and new York: walter de gruyter 2005 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 12), p. 21; p. 70; pp. 73–8.

112

Sergia Karen Hay

kloeden, wolfdietrich von, Kierkegaard und Sokrates. Sören Kierkegaards Sokratesrezeption, rheinland-westfalen-lippe: evangelische Fachhochschule 1991 (Schriftenreihe der Evangelischen �achhochschule Rheinland-WestafalenLippe, vol. 16), see pp. 7–14. leach, stephen, “socrates in hamann and kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard and Great Philosophers, ed. by roman králik et al., mexico city et al.: sociedad iberoamericana de estudios kierkegaardianos 2007 (Acta Kierkegaardiana, vol. 2), pp. 36–67. lowrie, walter, Johann Georg Hamann: An Existentialist, princeton: princeton theological seminary 1950; pp. 3–5; p. 7n; pp. 8–9; p. 18; p. 22; p. 23. nadler, käte, “hamann und hegel,” Logos, no. 20, 1931, pp. 259–85. niedermeyer, gerhard, “die erzieher kierkegaards zur Freiheit von ungesunder ironie,” in his sören kierkegaard und die romantik, leipzig: verlag von quelle & meyer 1909 (Abhandlungen zur Philosphie und ihrer Geschichte, vol. 11), pp. 61–73. o’Flaherty, James c., Johann Georg Hamann, Boston: twayne publishers 1979; p. 36; p. 55; p. 61; p. 88; p. 90; p. 101; p. 109; p. 167. otani, masuro, “self-manifestation of Freedom in ‘anxiety’ by kierkegaard,” Orbis Litterarum. International Review of Literary Studies, ed. by steffen steffensen and hans sörensen, vol. 22, 1967, pp. 399–417. Paresce�� �nrico�� �Hume�� Hamann�� �ierkegaard e la filosofia della credenze���� Rivista Internationale di filosophia del Diritto, vol. 26, no. 4, 1949, pp. 357–75. petersen, anders klostergaard, “Philosophical �ragments in a new testament perspective,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 2004, pp. 39–63, see especially pp. 59–62. reuter, hans, S. Kierkegaards religionsphilosophische Gedanken im Verhältnis zu Hegels religionsphilosophischem Systems, leipzig: verlag von quelle & meyer 1914 (Abhandlungen zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte, no. 23), see pp. 63–8. ringleben, Joachim, “kierkegaard als hamann-leser,” in Die Gegenwärtigkeit Johann Georg Hamanns: Acts des achten Internationalen Hamann-Kolloquiums an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg 2002, ed. by Bernhard gajek, Frankfurt am main: peter lang 2005, pp. 455–65 [in english as “søren kierkegaard as a reader of hamann,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 2006, pp. 207–18]. rodemann, wilhelm, Hamann und Kierkegaard, gütersloh: c. Bertelsmann 1922. rubow, poul v., Kierkegaard og hans Samtidige, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandel nordisk Forlag 1950, p. 61. salmony, h.a., Johann Georg Hamanns metakritische Philosophie, erster Band: Einführung in die metakritische Philosophie J.G. Hamanns, zollikon: evangelischer verlag 1958, pp. 215–20. schulze-maizier, Friedrich, “Johann georg hamann und søren kierkegaard,” Die Tat, vol. 28, 1936–37, pp. 605–19. scopetea, sophia, Kierkegaard og græciteten. En kamp med ironi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1995, p. 16 n44; p. 17 n45; p. 26; p. 41 n12–13; p. 50 n65; p. 53; p. 107; p. 110 n31; p. 125 n28; p. 145 n27; p. 173; p. 177 n62; p. 183; p. 186; p. 207; p. 226 n15; p. 386; p. 406; p. 424; p. 446.

Hamann: Sharing Style and Thesis

113

smith, ronald gregor, J.G. Hamann: A Study in Christian Existence, london: collins 1960; p. 13; pp. 18–20; p. 25; p. 29; pp. 31–2; p. 45; p. 57; pp. 61–2; p. 89; p. 91; pp. 109–10; p. 189; p. 233. —— �Hamann and �ierkegaard���� Kierkegaardiana, vol. 5, 1964, pp. 52–67. —— �Hamann and �ierkegaard���� in Zeit und Geschichte, ed. by erich dinkler, tübingen: J.c.B. mohr (paul siebeck) 1964, pp. 671–83. steffensen, steffen, “kierkegaard and hamann,” Orbis litterarum, no. 22, 1967, pp. 399–417. [originally published as “kierkegaard og hamann,” Kierkegaard Studiet, no. 4, 1967, pp. 15–34.] steffes, harald, “erziehung zur unwissenheit� kierkegaards ‘Über die kunst, kindern geschichten zu erzählen’ und Johann georg hamanns Fünf hirtenbriefe das schuldrama betreffend,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 2006, pp. 165–206. suances marcos, manuel, Sören Kierkegaard, vols. 1–2, madrid: universidad nacional de educación a distanca 1997, vol. 2 (Trayectoria de su pensamiento filosófico), pp. 39–45. thulstrup, niels, “incontro di kierkegaard e hamann,” Studi Kierkegaardiani, ed. by cornelio Fabro, Brescia: morcelliana 1957, pp. 323–57. troels-lund, troels, “Brydningstiden, paavirkning af Joh. georg hamann,” in his Bakkehus og Solbjerg. Træk af et nyt Livssyns Udvikling i Norden, vols. 1–3, copenhagen and christiania: gyldendalske Boghandel. nordisk Forlag 1920–22, vol. 3, pp. 139–89. unger, rudolf, “hamann und die romantik. eine prinzipienwissenschaftliche studie,” in �estschrift für August Sauer: zum 70. Geburtstag des Gelehrten am 12. Oktober 1925, ed. by r. Backmann et al., stuttgart: metzler 1925, pp. 202–22. urs von Balthasar, hans, “hamanns theologische Ästhetik,” Philosophisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft, no. 68, 1960, pp. 36–65. weber, h.e., “zwei propheten des irrationalismus: Joh. g. hamann und s. kierkegaard als Bahnbrecher der theologie des christusglaubens,” Neukirchliche Zeitschrift, vol. 28, nos. 1–2, 1917, pp. 23–58; pp. 77–125. zahle, peter christian, Til Erindring om Johann Georg Hamann og Søren Kierkegaard, copenhagen: thieles Bogtrykkeri 1856.

This page intentionally left blank

e.t.a. hoffmann: a source for kierkegaard’s conceptions of authorship, poetic-artistic existence, irony and humor Judit Bartha

research on kierkegaard’s relation to hoffmann seems to lag far behind in comparison to the abundance of investigations on his relation to other german romantic authors. the primary reason for this is that there are relatively few passages and critical comments in kierkegaard’s works that directly mention the name or the works of e.t.a. hoffmann. this stands in contrast to the numerous passages where kierkegaard explicitly mentions other romantics such as Friedrich schlegel, ludwig tieck, Jean Paul or Solger. The reason for this lack of research on�� or superficial study of�� Hoffmann is no doubt The Concept of Irony, where kierkegaard devotes a separate chapter to other romantic authors but fails to treat hoffmann, indeed, fails even to mention him. despite this fact, kierkegaard did nevertheless devote a great deal of time to the works of the German writer�� and the signs of Hoffmann’s in��uence can be unambiguously traced, not so much in a quantitative but rather in a qualitative sense. the only demonstrable fact to indicate a quantitative relationship to hoffmann is found in The Auction Catalogue, which shows that kierkegaard owned two different editions of hoffmann’s complete works in german.1 in addition, in kierkegaard’s journals�� letters and published writings one finds 17 concrete entries which explicitly name hoffmann or one of his works.2 however, if one includes the references to passages he deleted from manuscripts, repetitions of references, and other hidden allusions, then the number of references is substantially increased. more than half the entries appear in his journals and correspondences dating from between 1835 and 1842, many of which are also expanded upon in his later published works either word E.T.A. Hoffmann�s ausgewählte Schriften, vols. 1–10, Berlin: g. reimer 1827–28 (ASKB 1712–1716) and E.T.A. Hoffmann�s Erzählungen aus seinen letzten Lebensjahren, sein Leben und Nachlaß. In fünf Bänden Bänden, vols. 1–5, ed. by micheline hoffmann, geb. rorer,, stuttgart: Brodhag 1839 [vols. 11–15 in E.T.A. Hoffmann�s ausgewählte Schriften] (ASKB 1717–1721). 2 For hoffmann’s works i use the following critical edition: e.t.a. hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke erke in sechs Bänden Bänden, vols 1–6, ed. by hartmut steinecke and wulf segebrecht, Frankfurt am main: dt. klassiker-verlag 1985–2004. instead of the hitherto unpublished vol. 6, see e.t.a. hoffmann, Poetische Werke in sechs Bänden, Bänden vols. 1–6, Berlin: aufbau-verlag 1963, vol. 6, Meister �loh, Briefe aus den Bergen, Letzte Erzählungen. 1

116

Judit Bartha

for word or with only slight modification. The remaining references emerge without any regularity from the early writings up to the turning point in his authorship in 1846. When one considers all these facts�� Hoffmann’s in��uence can be demonstrated in several of kierkegaard’s published works. ten of hoffmann’s stories appear by name on one or more occasions.3 From kierkegaard’s journal entries it becomes clear that he read the novels and short stories of the german writer with great pleasure. at times, in journal entries and letters �ierkegaard brie��y mentions these works without any analyses�� as if they were light reading. in these cases, titles or heroes of novels and short stories appear in musing4 or comic5 comparisons. at other times, the same half-sentences and quick notes hide a train of thought or a whole theory; an explanation of these can give a point of reference for similar themes or kinds of reasoning found in kierkegaard’s works from the same period.6 these references serve as the starting point for more thorough investigations, which are developed in his published works either explicitly or without direct reference. an interpretation of hoffmann’s theories and their presence in �ierkegaard’s works proves that Hoffmann’s significance for �ierkegaard goes beyond a youthful enthusiasm or a penchant for fairy tales. one soon discovers a theoretical interest in the problem of the �omantic artist that goes beyond a mere literary affinity between the two authors. this shows that kierkegaard’s interests are in many respects parallel with hoffmann’s and that hoffmann contributes to kierkegaard’s conceptions of authorship, poetic-artistic existence, irony and humor. I. kierkegaard’s initial admiration for e.t.a. hoffmann is illustrated by one of his entries in January 1836, written while he was reading Master �lea: “often when reading a good poem or some other work that bears the mark of genius, i have thought that it was good that i myself was not its author, for then i would not be namely, Don Juan, Seltsame Leiden eines armen Theaterdirectors, Klein Zaches Genannt Zinnober, Prinzessin Brambilla, Ein �ragment aus dem Leben dreier �reunde, Die Königsbraut, Das �räulein von Scuderi, Lebensansichten des Katers Murr, Die Doppeltgänger, Meister �loh. 4 For example, about what kind of connection there is between madmoiselle scudery in leibniz’s Theodicy and Fräulein von scuderi in hoffmann’s story of the same name. see SKS 18, 151, JJ:29 / JP 5, 5584. see hoffmann, Das �räulein von Scuderi, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 4, pp. 780–856. 5 For example�� he finds amusing the character of �apsul von Zabelthau�� the hero of hoffmann’s story entitled Die Königsbraut. zabelthau, as astrologer and private individual, has extremely different characters. see hoffmann, Die Königsbraut, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 1152, lines 15–30. this comic extremity serves as a basis of a comparison in a draft to Repetition; reference is made to professor heiberg, who himself is also interested in astrology. see Pap. iv B 102 / R, supplement, p. 282. moreover, this is the basis of a distinction in Stages on Life�s Way in the case of hilarius Bookbinder’s characterization, whose character does not conceal such an aesthetic duplicity as zabelthau’s, see SKS 6, 261f. / SLW, 280f. 6 see, for example, his entry related to hoffmann’s Don Juan, Pap. i a 184 / JP 5, 5148.. 3

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

117

allowed to express my joy without the fear of being accused of vanity.”7 in concrete questions, however, this enthusiasm is never so unequivocal; it is rather characterized by an ambivalent emotional behavior that, over the years, moves more and more toward a critical attitude. hoffmann, a writer kierkegaard read so frequently, is just as attractive as repulsive to him, and his conception of romantic authorship, art and poetry is just as much an enjoyable game as it is a kind of misconduct for him. in an entry from the Journal DD on July 13, 1837, he makes clear his aversion to the diary genre. He finds the journals of the great writers (among them �that... refreshing writer...hoffmann”) repulsive for the following three major reasons: (1) the absence of “the possibility of publication,” (2) “a kind of literary hiccupping and squeamishness” and (3) “the aroma of fancies and mood evaporated.”8 this ambivalence is present in kierkegaard’s assessment not only of hoffmann’s journals but also of his short stories and novels. kierkegaard was, from the time of his youth, visibly interested in the world of fairy tales filled with mermaids�� trolls and gnomes as presented by Hoffmann and other contemporary narrators such as Friedrich Baron de la motte Fouqué (1777–1843), hans christian andersen (1805–75), and Bernhard severin ingemann (1789–1862).9 this is so much the case that he later also appropriates with pleasure certain fairy tale motifs in his revived interpretation of his own conception of authorship.10 his affection for fairy tales also emerges in a deeper sense. he responds in an especially sensitive manner, for example, to the social phenomenon caricatured by hoffmann: the german writer in almost every one of his works represents a disintegrated world consisting of two spheres in con��ict (the artistic/poetic/fabulous versus the philistine/prosaic/real). in �rom the Papers of One Still Living, where kierkegaard protests against the misunderstanding and delusion of the age, he develops a version of hoffmann’s Little Zaches, otherwise Zinnober, in which this duality appears in a satirical form. “the couple which the two of them, standing together, formed was odd. the tiny little man who, with his nose high in the air and hardly able to stay on his thin little legs, was too odd of a contrast to the extremely shapely gregor.”11 in kierkegaard’s view�� the exaggerated confidence in the power and irrefragability of development blights the period and corrupts the rising generation: Pap. i a 118 / JP 5, 5117. during the autumn and winter of 1835–36 kierkegaard was reading (in addition to schleiermacher, herder, goethe, poul martin møller, Jens Baggesen) hoffmann’s Meister �loh. see the note to this in JP 5, p. 477, note 171. his enthusiasm for Meister �loh is seen in the fact that it is the most frequently cited story by hoffmann. he cites it five times�� three of which are in the journals. 8 SKS 17, 229f., dd:28 / JP 5, 5241. 9 see SKS 17, 223, dd:14 / JP 5, 5223.. 10 see the parallel passage about agnes and the merman in �ear and Trembling, SKS 4, 183–9 / �T, 94–9. 11 hoffmann: Klein Zaches genannt Zinnober, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 574, lines 12–16: “Seltsam war die Gruppe, die beide zusammenstehend bildeten. Gegen den herrlich gestalteten Gregor stach gar wunderlich das winzige Männlein ab, das mit hoch empor gereckter Nase sich kaum auf den dünnen Beinchen zu erhalten vermochte.” 7

Judit Bartha

118

This form misunderstands the deeper significance of a historical evolution and clings curiously enough�� as if in a fight for its life�� to the clich�� that the world always becomes wiser, understood, please note, with a logic favorable to this moment but parodic. either it appears as youthful arrogance too confident of powers untried in life (and this is its best form), notwithstanding that to the extent that the genuinely youthful, which was the integral element of truth in it, declines, to the same degree the phenomenon itself diminishes to giddiness, even though contemporaries should be infatuated enough to address themselves with their thanks to such a klein Zaches genannt Zinnober—or it appears as lack of patience to adapt oneself to the conditions of life as powerlessness, when filling a particular position in the state�� to share the burden of history�� which is light and beneficent for the reasonable.12

the subject of the scathing irony here is not hoffmann and his work but expressly the phenomenon of “zaches-zinnober” discussed by hoffmann. hoffmann’s Little Zaches, otherwise Zinnober is a mixture of fairy tales and social satires. it is a judgment on his contemporaries that arises from myths. according to this story, zaches is an unremarkable gnome, upon whom a fairy bestows a remarkable ability: if someone in his surroundings does or thinks something considerable, that action or thought is ascribed to him alone. thus, this gnome, endowed with witchcraft, rises quickly to the top in an “enlightened” princely court and becomes a highly respected person. in accordance with the spell, the ladies at the court do not even see the handsome, educated prince gregor. instead, they are all expressly enchanted by Zaches�� the unremarkable gnome. His rival�� Balthasar—a poet and dreamer and thus the odd man in the court—struggles against the fairy and reveals zaches. the source of the satire is a struggle between the fairy-world (“romanticism”) and the bureaucratic system (“enlightenment”) set against it. the enlightenment that is meant to be satirized here, however, is neither an intellectual process nor a way to human freedom but rather the destruction of nature and traditions by a machine of power directed by a despot. the “enlightened” ruler is led by the idea that the abrogation of ancient culture and the establishment of technical advances will continually improve the world. kierkegaard is obviously familiar with the story and touches on its critical point. the phenomenon manifest in the zaches– gregor duality is already a caricature of the distorted conduct of his contemporaries. this ruler who holds the enlightenment in the highest esteem, because of his own �dwarfism�� and �fatuity���� becomes a victim of misunderstanding and delusion. the criticism of the poetic-fabulous world, however, cannot be seen on the socialpolitical level of its polemics but much rather in the theory of the “artist-poet,” that runs through hoffmann’s entire oeuvre and plays a significant role for �ierkegaard when he develops his analysis of the aesthetic stage. in his letter to emil Boesen on July 17, 1838 kierkegaard gives an account of this, stating that, although he considers hoffmann in a certain respect as a like-minded genius, his exciting world stands far from him, because such a world cannot relieve his own spiritual crisis and cannot help him to find himself. �ierkegaard writes:

12

SKS 1, 18f. / EPW, 63.

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

119

i have taken hoffmann’s Wercke along, and although i do feel that i am related to him in many ways, my grief about the world and in the world has not yet despairingly swung around to its opposite; nor has my grief for the world completely dissolved itself in a hoffmanesque proliferating realization of the wish that the whole world be damned to Bloksbjerg, and conceived with such indignation that one personally has to spend most of one’s time in the same place to make sure that the world is properly tortured and plagued; and finally in destructive fury one feels all alone in a life-and-death waltz with witches and trolls, tortured by the thought that this was not the right point from which to shake the world, for it is certainly true that wherever the devil the archimedean point lies, it is not at Bloksbjerg....i need a voice as piercing as the glance of lynceus, as terrifying as the groan of the giants, as sustained as a sound of nature, extending in range from the deepest bass to the most melting high notes, and modulated from the most solemn-silent whisper to the fire-spouting energy of rage. That is what I need in order to breathe�� to give voice to what is on my mind, to make the viscera of both anger and sympathy tremble. therefore i write to you, and the more i think about our motto: “a church stands in the distance,” the more i also feel the truth of what you once remarked, that it had come considerably closer, but still i can never become more than one who primarily listens. my speech is not suitable for it; it is uncircumcised, unevangelical, night-hoarse like the scream of the gull, or vanishing like the blessing on the lips of the mute.13

it is clear that this letter is not so much directed against the gothic novel (or Schauerromam), which hoffmann enjoyed and which was a fashionable genre of the age but rather gives voice to its writer’s anxiety and new spiritual needs. this yearning can be a primary reason for his ambivalent attitude toward hoffmann. the above letter extract is reworked and used in the “diapsalmata” of Either/Or (without mentioning the name of hoffmann). in his published work kierkegaard conceals only one detail, which, however, results in a crucial change.14 his letter includes namely a reference (“a church stands in the distance”) to the work of adam oehlenschläger entitled Sanct Hansaftens-Spil,15 by which the yearning of getting over this inner concern and finding a new voice involves an unequivocal seeking of God. The last sentence of the given passage in Either/Or, which almost literally corresponds to the end of the train of thought in the letter (“my speech is night-hoarse like the scream of the gull, or vanishing like the blessing on the lips of the mute”) can only be completed with this missing link. For it is what he seeks but does not find in the stories and in the world, and the explication of which is not by chance left out of the “diapsalmata,” that introduces the aesthetic stage. the poetic attitude in it can also be explained merely from this distance and from the continuous re��ections on this absence. II. kierkegaard’s pseudonymity is perhaps one of the most striking outward appearances of this distance, which creates a poetic attitude. to this authorship, which can also be interpreted from the perspective of the poetic existence, the “diapsalmata” chapter 13 14 15

B&A, 1, p. 42 / LD, letter 8, p. 53f. see SKS 2, 32 / EO1, 24. see the commentary in B&A, 2, p. 29 / LD, p. 453..

120

Judit Bartha

of Either/Or contributes with a further important detail. the opening passage in the subsection entitled, “tested advice for authors,” is an unambiguous reference to hoffmann’s novel The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr: one carelessly writes down one’s personal observations, has them printed, and in the various proofs one will eventually acquire a number of good ideas. therefore, take courage, you who have not yet dared to have something printed. do not despise typographical errors, and to become witty by means of typographical errors may be considered a legitimate way to become witty.16

this sarcastic editorial proposal is a paraphrased version of hoffmann’s “editor’s foreword” in his The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr: no book stands in more need of a foreword than the present work, since without some explanation of the strange way in which it is put together, it is bound to seem an oddly assorted hotchpotch....So printing began�� and the editor saw the first clean proofs. Imagine his alarm, however, when he discovered that now and then murr’s story breaks off, and there are interpolations of a different nature which belong to another book, containing the biography of �apellmeister Johannes �reisler!...These pages were left in the manuscript— and were inadvertently printed too, as if they were part of it!...the editor hopes for your kind indulgence. Finally, it is a fact that authors often owe their boldest notions and most remarkable turns of phrase to their kind typesetters, who assist the inspiration of their ideas by perpetrating what are called printer’s errors.17

hoffmann’s novel presents a parallel biography of the kapellmeister kreisler and a tomcat named murr. the “editor” explains the simultaneity of the biographies by the typesetter’s carelessness, although he adds that the accidental misprints at the same time can serve as a ���ight of ideas.�� With this interpolation the writer creates a distance from his work at different levels. in addition to the “editor” named e.t.a. hoffmann, kreisler’s biographer and his own biography-writing murr begin to speak in a fragmentary and chronologically confused form due to the “editorial accident.” the editorial interpolation is, on the one hand, hoffmann’s excuse for the unusually large number of misprints�� and�� on the other hand�� by confirming the ��awed proofs (in many cases by the intentionally uncommon usage) he really gives an opportunity SKS 2, 28 / EO1, 20. hoffmann, Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 5, pp. 11ff.: “Keinem Buche ist ein Vorwort nötiger, als gegenwärtigem, da es, wird nicht erklärt, auf welche wunderliche Weise es sich zusammengefügt hat, als ein zusammengewürfeltes Durcheinander erscheinen dürfte....Der Druck begann, und dem Herausgeber kamen die ersten Aushängebogen zu Gesicht. Wie erschrack er aber, als er gewahrte, da Murrs Geschichte hin und wieder abbricht, und dann fremde Einschiebsel vorkommen, die einem andern Buch, die Biographie des Kappelmeisters Johannes Kreisler enthaltend, angehören!...Diese Blätter blieben im Manuscript und wurden, als zu demselben gehörig, aus Versehen mit abgedruckt!...Der Herausgeber hofft auf gütige Verzeihung. Wahr ist es endlich, da Autoren ihre kühnsten Gedanken, die außerordentlichsten Wendungen, oft ihren gütigen Setzern verdanken, die dem Aufschwunge der Ideen nachhelfen durch sogenannte Druckfehler.” (english translation quoted from e.t.a. hoffmann, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, trans. by anthea Bell, harmondsworth: penguin 1999, pp. 3f.)

16 17

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

121

for a play between writer–editor–typesetter–reader. to such an extent, his method of willful hiding speaks against the correction of the errors even in the most recent editions of his texts.18 thus, the target of the “diapsalmata” passage related to hoffmann is the romantic fragmentation and desultoriness, spiced with pseudo-editorial interpolations. (However�� we must add that this late�� unfinished work of Hoffmann treats ironically the fragmentary form submitted by the editor.)19 in a broader sense the question becomes important of the �author in author�� and the �omantic unfinished work which has been composed by means of “accidentally” discovered fragments, journals and letters. however, not only hoffmann20 (or the early romantics) adopt this authorial strategy, but kierkegaard also uses it willingly from Either/Or onward. perhaps the most striking variation of this method is offered by victor eremita, the “editor” of Either/Or, on the basis of the papers of the authors’ a and B. the apparently superficial resemblance is�� however�� more than a �omantic clich��. It is a point of departure that conceals a strong critical attitude against the above authorial strategy and the poetic existence by which it is mediated. the disguised author, the chaos and the fragmentation (by the “ecstatic lecture” in “diapsalmata,” that formulates the abolishment of all principles) is a manifestation of the aesthetic person existing in infinite existential alternatives. It is intuition and mood at the same time. The consciousness of fragmentation, the alternative of nothing compels one to choose nothing, which, lacking any real action, results in melancholy and angst. the result is mediated, however, and one can no longer regard as primary the irregular work of art built from fragments. For fragmentation itself is regarded merely as a series of bad alternatives, from which the unfortunate aesthetic individual cannot see a way out. suffering, melancholy and angst related to this bad alternative take on a significant role in the exposition of the poetic existence�� and �ierkegaard�� we can add, is also indebted to hoffmann in this respect. III. the most obvious starting point for this comparison may be the romantic poet’s concept of love and his suffering arising from it. it can be that the problem emerges only in a short note related to mozart’s “don Juan”: “Don Juan by hoffmann.21 see hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 5, pp. 904ff. in this double biography, alongside murr’s humorously melancholic and sublime (or sentimental) poetic attitude, appears kreisler’s disposition to (late-romantic) irony, ending in insanity. 20 see, for example, hoffmann’s Die Elixiere des Teufels, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 2.2, pp. 5–352. on the title page there appears as author “capuchin Brother medardus,” the hero of the novel, while as publisher there appears the name of the author of �antasiestücke in Callot�s Manier, i.e., e.t.a. hoffmann (p. 9). in addition to the publisher’s preface (pp. 11f.), the authenticity of the biography would be supported by, for example, the epilogue of “pater spiridion, librarian of the Capuchin closter in B” (pp. 350ff.). 21 see hoffmann, Don Juan, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 2.1, pp. 83–97. 18 19

122

Judit Bartha

(The melancholy as soon as the theater lights are extinguished—sensitive.)��22 this passage�� in spite of its fragmentary form�� is expressive. The first important point to note is that, although the hoffmann edition in kierkegaard’s own library does not include hoffmann’s “don Juan,”23 kierkegaard seems to have read the story. what is even more surprising, in Either/Or he does not directly refer to it at all. nonetheless we can unravel the enigmatic entry by comparison of the authorial aspects of the stories which are represented by the narrators; namely, the “enthusiastic traveler” (hoffmann) and the “esthete a” (kierkegaard) mediate their different interpretations of “don Juan” and their own concept of love related to him. in hoffmann’s early short story the faith of the “enthusiastic traveler” is the battle of the two spheres, that is, the sensible and the supersensible world and their reconciliation by art. thus, the story tends towards the representation of two stages: (1) don Juan’s disunity and collapse (because although he is endowed with a great talent, he cannot recognize that the higher aim of earthly existence is directed not to the sensible but to the supersensible world), and (2) the all-uniting love of the poet-narrator and the actress playing donna anna (mirroring the stage (art) and theater box (reality)). the union of the two spheres in the story is experienced by the artist (the chanteuse) in the moment of her death and the poet (the enthusiastic traveler) in his poetry. this “encounter” occurs in an extraordinary, inspired moment of the earthly being in a box of an obscure, empty theater, at the death of donna anna or the chanteuse acting her: unlock yourself, you distant, unknown realm of spiritsthou Jinnistan full of splendor, where an unutterable, heavenly pain, like the most unspeakable joy, grants, beyond all measure, everything promised on earth! let me step inside the circle of your lovely apparitions! may the dream which you have chosen now as a messenger, arousing horror, to man on earth, now be a friendly onemay it, when sleep holds the body in bonds of lead, bring my mind to the ethereal realms!24

the eroticism in hoffmann’s short story is the creation (composing and writing) and reception (listening and writing) of the work of art (a piece of music and narration), the medium of which is the connecting of a real and a fantastic level in love. in contrast to this, in kierkegaard’s Either/Or the disappointed poet-esthete, who conveys the don Juan theme, does not yet believe in the all-uniting power of art and love. what is more, the main reason for his suffering is just a contradiction of the mutually annihilating alternatives. eroticism is here the music itself, and its medium slides by listening to it in the sphere of the battle of theories, where love is merely one melancholic�� re��ected moment related to the music interpretation. Pap. i a 184 / JP 5, 5148. see JP 5, note 195, p. 478. 24 hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 2.1, p. 96, lines 27–37: “Schließe dich auf, du fernes, unbekanntes Geisterreich—du Dschinnistan voller Herrlichkeit, wo ein unaussprechlicher, himmlischer Schmerz, wie die unsäglichste �reude, der entzückten Seele alles auf Erden Verheißene über alle Maßen erfüllt! Laß mich eintreten in den Kreis deiner holdseligen Erscheinungen! Mag der Traum, den du, bald zum Grausen erregenden, bald zum freundlichen Boten an den irdischen Menschen erkorren—mag er meinen Geist, wenn der Schlaf den Körper in bleiernen Banden festhält, den ätherischen Gefilden zuführen!”. 22 23

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

123

a similar problem of romantic poet-love emerges in a much more concrete form in Stages on Life�s Way, with a cutting irony as a criticism of the ethical stage. Judge william, the defender of kierkegaard’s ethical stage (just as in Either/Or)�� fights against melancholic, platonic love, therefore against poetic existence and for marriage: �owadays woman is continually characterized in the highest terms�� in the most ��attering phrases, up to, indeed, far beyond the boundaries of the fantastic. everything that is great in life is ascribed to her; on this point poetry and gallantry agree. and irony is naturally most gallant of all, for gallantry is indeed irony’s mother tongue, and it is never so gallant as when it regards the whole thing as a false alarm. woman’s existence in the world becomes a parade of fools and irony is gallantry’s master of ceremonies; the procession itself is reminiscent of hoffmann’s insane schoolteacher, who, holding a ruler like a scepter as he graciously bows to all sides, declares that his general has just returned from a victory over the lombards; whereupon he takes some cloves out of his vest pocket, hands them to someone present with these words: do not disdain this small token of my grace. irony prostrates itself and worships most obsequiously.25

the scene from the story entitled A �ragment from the Life of Three �riends26 ��ashes with pungency the criticism of the romantic poet-love. however, we must add �ierkegaard did not have a difficult task in this respect since Hoffmann’s work itself is also based on this criticism. the subject of the story is an ironic, humorous portrayal of the poetic mind’s reality-spurning, self-deluded illusions and its recovery. at the center stands the figure of �ettelmann�� the insane schoolmaster�� who imagines that he is the king of amboina and, in his insanity, unites the two worlds (poetic and civil) in an extreme form. in the story, the three poetic-minded friends, during a conversation in a pub, glimpse the woman who makes a fatal impression on all of them. two years later, when they meet again, they go on with their life story, in which the woman too is also a participant. all of them take pleasure in the idea that the woman is already someone else’s fianc��e. In fact�� only the hopeless�� unattainable love and the suffering accompanied by it in��ame their love. As soon as this illusion is demolished�� both love and the object of love cease to exist. the symbol of the young men’s feigned, smug idea is a clove with its strong color and overpowering scent, which appears not only in their sweetest dreams as a temptation of love, but also in a disillusioning way pinned on the nightcap of the jester. the two meanings of the clove come together in the character of nettelmann. in his personality civil life and poetic folly lead to insanity. thus, the clove that was presented as a kindly royal gift is not only a humorous demolishing of the lover’s self-deluded illusions but also a symbolic gesture of the unification of the two worlds in insanity whereby “irony prostrates itself.” the point of interest in this scene is above all that kierkegaard’s Judge william, instead of criticizing the german writer’s ironic self-criticism about romanticism, develops it more fully according to his own conception. with regard to hoffmann’s story, only one question may become the subject of his criticism, namely, the question of marriage itself, which in the story of the three friends (as a similar alternative to SKS 6, 137 / SLW, 146. see hoffmann, Ein �ragment aus dem Leben dreier �reunde, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 4, pp. 165.28–166.11. 25 26

124

Judit Bartha

the “ecstatic lecture” in Either/Or) causes as much disappointment as poetic love itself. nevertheless the crucial difference is that while hoffmann, in spite of this, believes in the redemptive power of love and poetry, for kierkegaard, these can only exist by resignation. What in Hoffmann is a humorous�� playful fillip in contrast to the exaggerated variation of the poetic disposition, is in kierkegaard a serious battle in a stage which should be overcome. For both theories the melancholic person’s reason for suffering arises not only from lovesickness but also from a kind of life-re��ection. The search for a way out is, however, entirely different again. the main cause for this is perhaps that while Hoffmann’s melancholic characters mostly seek and find a solution in mediation and unification of the world disintegrated in two spheres�� �ierkegaard by building up the ethical and the religious stages makes this impossible and shows clearly that everything that manifests itself in the aesthetic category cannot be resolved at this stage. kierkegaard writes in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical �ragments: “‘a story of suffering’ as a title seems to intend something different from goethe’s title, Leiden des jungen Werther, or hoffmann’s Leiden eines armen Theaterdirectors.”27 in this sense suffering caused by love or life is merely an accidental element linked with the aesthetic “enjoyment.” it collapses in opposition to the ethical attitude of “struggle and victory,” and it can play only a slight role compared to the inwardness of the religious.28 in hoffmann’s work, which is more an essay spiced with dialogues than a fiction�� the reason for the theater director’s suffering is the lack of comprehension of the people, the actors and the audience�� their insufficiency and his withdrawal from them. The relation to the title of goethe’s novel can, however, be interesting not only for the common aesthetic category of suffering in love and life. it is also a kind of association, in so far as hoffmann’s theater director takes steps against goethe’s classicistic theater and its exaggerated artificiality and pathos. It is no accident that the solution for Hoffmann’s theater director would be a totally impersonal form of the theater: a marionetteplay, which eliminated actors and actresses. From kierkegaard’s point of view, that would not of course mean a solution to overcoming suffering in an aesthetic sense, for it does not offer a real alternative. on the one hand, one stands with emotional losses, vagary, but with artistic talent too. But, on the other hand, there are exact, though glassy marionettes, which can attain their existence only by play. thus, in a sense of an “extended” kierkegaardian interpretation, the theater director’s solution, which searches for the lost ethical base and religious faith, would lead, by a multiple re��ection�� only to a still deeper point of the aesthetic stage. IV. however, hoffmann himself does not consider this one-sided solution suitable. his irony concept is based on the early romantic supposition that the everyday reality of the present time has completely lost contact with the reality which was derived from 27 SKS 7, 262 / CUP1, 288. hoffmann, Seltsame Leiden eines Theaterdirectors, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 399–518. 28 SKS 7, 262 / CUP1, 288.

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

125

the prehistory of the mythical golden age. the high level of reality is only available for the poet, who can overcome the philistine way of life and, like the early romantics, not in the external but in the internal world. the symptom of this is the melancholic longing of the poet and his endeavor to suggest the inaccessible. nevertheless there is a fundamental difference between the idea of the early romantics and hoffmann since hoffmann does not exile everyday reality from the sphere of poetry or simply reduce it in comparison to the high level of reality. instead he makes them the two poles of the dualism; each of them is transformed�� re��ecting in the other the image of the inverted world. the task of the poet is to recognize and to overcome the disharmony, which appears in the former case in representation of the extreme signs and in the latter one in the reconciling purpose. In his fictions Hoffmann strives to elaborate a “duplicity-theory” based on such an alter-ego [Doppelgänger] attitude, with which irony and humor would be able to bridge the gap which arose from the world disintegrated into different spheres. His first important work in this respect is Princess Brambilla,29 the theoretical goal of which is to lead irony and humor into the theater (or life) where the former, as a microcosmos�� still could re��ect the prehistoric world one wishes to restore. This object is revealed at the end of the story: it was extremely malicious of the demon to arrange that the princess could only be freed from her spell by a miracle which he considered impossible. For it was necessary to find�� in a little world known as the theater, a couple of people who were not only animated by true imagination, true inward humor, but were also capable of recognizing this state of mind objectively, as though in a mirror, and of introducing it into external life in such a way that it should have the effect of a powerful spell upon the great world which surrounds the little world. thus the theater, if you like, could after a fashion represent the well of urdar, in which people can look.30

hoffmann’s criticism has a double motivation: it is directed not only against the philistine world but against goethe’s classicistic theater too. the latter appears as a practical realization of the theoretical concept of the Seltsame Leiden eines Theaterdirectors. the new theater is here the world itself, “where irony and genuine

hoffmann, Prinzessin Brambilla in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 767–912. (in english as e.t.a. hoffmann, Princess Brambilla in The Golden Pot and Other Tales, trans. by ritchie robertson, oxford: oxford university press 1992, pp. 119–238.) 30 hoffmann, Prinzessin Brambilla, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 910: “Sehr boshaft war es, da der Dämon die Entzauberung der Prinzessin von einem Wunder abhängig gemacht hatte, das er für unmöglich hielt. In der kleinen Welt, das Theater genannt, sollte nämlich ein Paar gefunden werden, das nicht allein von wahrer �antasie, von wahrem Humor im Innern beseelt, sondern auch im Stande wäre, diese Stimmung des Gemüts objektiv, wie in einem Spiegel, zu erkennen und sie so ins äußere Leben treten zu lassen, da sie auf die große Welt, in der jene kleine Welt eingeschlossen, wirke, wie ein mächtiger Zauber. So sollte, wenn ihr wollt, wenigstens in gewisser Art das Theater den Udarbronnen vorstellen, in den die Leute kucken können.” (english translation quoted from e.t.a. hoffmann, The Golden Pot and Other Tales, op. cit., p. 236.) 29

126

Judit Bartha

humor are valid.”31 that would be created by hoffmann’s reinterpreted genre, the capriccio, which, in accordance with the rules of commedia dell�arte, would unite life, theater and poetry in irony and humor. irony is here the bearer of irreconcilable contradictions. its game in hoffmann’s story leads to the “main idea” the “chronic dualism,”32 in other words, to the aesthetic exposition of the alter-ego theme, which is dated�� at the earliest�� to Hoffmann’s fictions. Its symbolic meaning here is seen in the lovers who unite the two worlds in a realistic-theoretic game. its allegorical projection is a carnival bustle that attains to its highest point in the dance-scene with the multiple re��ections of reality and dream. And its theoretical phrasing is the duplication-idea of the artist-enchanter figure (Celionati�� i.e.�� Prince of Pistoja)�� who would be tested by the above-mentioned discovery. in celionati’s interpretation, the different identities in one person do not necessarily lead to schizophrenia; moreover, in the case of a real artist this dualism would be the only way towards the “authentic art.” so the “chronic dualism” theoretically oversteps the ranges of the medical diagnosis. it becomes a syndrome of a special artist-disease, which can exist only in duplicity. the conception of art used to prove the permeability of the persons is exemplified by the tale of the double prince: And yet it could not be claimed that either had a specific character; for the nature of each seemed to pass over into the other, in an endlessly changing cycle. the reason for this was doubtless that they had grown together not only physically but also spiritually, and that caused the dissension between them. You see, their thoughts always ran sideways, so that neither of them could ever be sure whether his thoughts had been thought by him or by his twin; and if that isn’t a muddle, i don’t know what is. now if you imagine somebody having such a double prince, with thoughts running sideways, lodged in his body as materia peccans, then you have the illness i am talking about, whose principal symptom is the patient’s inability to make sense of himself.33

the simile of the double prince demonstrates the extreme variants of irony, “in an endlessly changing cycle.” the mediators of this extreme movement in hoffmann just as in kierkegaard are the alter-egos. their common feature is a rhetoric which unites duplication in the figure of the anonymous authors (pseudonyms); between them only a higher disharmony, the consciousness of insanity or the reconciling humor can bring order. in Princess Brambilla the solution is romantic fancy: “you are imagination, whose wings need humor if they are to soar aloft, but without the hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 911: “wo ironie gilt und echter humor.” 32 ibid., p. 893, line 16: “der chronische dualismus.” 33 ibid., p. 895, lines 17–29: “Und dabei konnte man durchaus nicht behaupten, der eine sei dieser, der andere jener bestimmten Gemütsart; denn in dem Widerspiel eines ewigen Wechsels schien eine Natur hinüberzugehen in die andere, welches wohl daher kommen mußte, daß sich, nächst dem körperlichen Zusammenwachsen, auch ein geistiges offenbarte, das eben den größten Zwiespalt verursachte. Sie dachten nämlich in die Quere, so daß keiner jemals recht wuβte, ob er das, was er gedacht, auch wirklich selbst gedacht, oder sein Zwilling; und heißt das nicht Konfusion, so gibt es keine. Nehmt ihr nun an, daß einem Menschen solch ein in die Quere denkender Doppelprinz im Liebe sitzt, als materia peccans….” (english translation quoted from e.t.a. hoffmann, The Golden Pot and Other Tales, op. cit., p. 224.) 31

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

127

body of humor you would by nothing but a pair of wings and would drift away through the air, a plaything of the winds.”34 The specific interplay between irony and humor through mediation of fancy results in a ��ight�� which can finally bring a reconciling synthesis. From kierkegaard’s point of view, this way of uniting these elements becomes important in his explication of the poetic existence that bears a romantic attitude and in his criticism of romantic irony and humor, that is, in the battle of rhetoric and theory. in a journal entry from June 2, 1837, he makes the following comment on Princess Brambilla: if i have conceived of the romantic position as a teeter-totter, the ends of which are characterized by irony and humor, then it follows naturally that the path of its oscillation is extremely varied, all the way from the most heaven-storming humor to the most desperate bowing down in irony, just as there is also a certain rest and equilibrium in this position (Wieland’s �Irony��)�� for irony is first surmounted when the individual�� above everything and looking down from this position�� is finally elevated beyond himself and from this dizzy height sees himself in his nothingness�� and thereby he finds his true elevation. See Princess Brambilla.35

kierkegaard mentions the story of hoffmann as an exemplar of “irony as a controlled element.” he speaks about an extreme commuting play of irony; by contrast, he adds that the poet creates a moment of balance with the required restriction and by means of it he makes it possible to contemplate things and himself from above. this rest appears as a state of equilibrium of the teeter-totter in the position halfway between “the most desperate bowing down in irony” and “the most heaven-storming humor.” the most important element here is reconciling humor as a higher variant of disintegrating irony. in hoffmann, humor, as the only redemptive power, leads to an overcoming of dualism and a coming to know the world and oneself. in kierkegaard, the same thing cracks the walls of the aesthetic stage. kierkegaard, continuing the passage cited above, summarizes the higher role of humor in the following: this self-overcoming of irony is the crisis of the higher spiritual life; the individual is now acclimatized—the bourgeois mentality�� which essentially only hides in the other position�� is conquered, and the individual is reconciled. the ironical position is essentially: nil admirari [admire nothing]; but irony, when it slays itself, has disdained everything with humor, itself included.36

in accordance with this, humor in hoffmann will become the bearer of the deepest tragedy of life in a poetic, higher state of being, and similarly in kierkegaard: “humor is lyrical (it is the most profound earnestness about life—profound poetry�� which cannot form hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit.,, vol. 3, p. 910: “du “ seist die �antasie, deren �lügel erst der Humor bedürfe um sich emporzuschwingen, aber ohne den Körper des Humors wärst du nichts, als �lügel und verschwebtest, ein Spiel der Winde, in den Lüften.” (english translation quoted from e.t.a. hoffmann, The Golden Pot and other Tales, op. cit., p. 236.) 35 Pap. ii a 627 / JP 2, 1688. 36 ibid.

34

128

Judit Bartha

itself as such and therefore crystallizes in the most baroque forms—it is hemorrhoidal non fluens [non-��owing]—the molimina [exertions] of the higher life.)”37 hoffmann’s humor and irony at several points evoke kierkegaard’s criticism, which is not entirely free from contradiction. we can cite as an example the aforementioned novel Tomcat Murr,38 in which the concepts of humor and irony, interweaving with duplicity, appear with a theoretic formulation very similar to Princess Brambilla. this is no accident since Princess Brambilla (1820) was written in the period between the first (1819) and the second volumes (1821) of Tomcat Murr. Yet hoffmann’s idea, which in Princess Brambilla earned kierkegaard’s appreciation, in Tomcat Murr is already the starting point of his critical attitude. we read the following fragmentary entry in kierkegaard’s papers: “hoffmann, who himself would have artistically conceived of �reisler’s going mad—the presumed part three of Tomcat Murr. The confounding of first person and third person.��39 kierkegaard considers the culmination point of kreisler’s (the kapellmeister, often identified with Hoffmann) insanity�� his finding himself again�� when �I�� and �he�� again want one and the same in identity with the alter-ego: the other day, when i was walking by the little lake in the middle of the abbey’s extensive grounds and saw my re��ection walking beside me in the water�� I said: �The man down there, walking by my side, is a peaceful, circumspect man, no longer tossing wildly in vague, unbounded space, a man who keeps to the way he has found, and i am glad that man is none other than myself.40

the emphasized moment in kierkegaard can, in spite of the missing details, be connected with the melancholic state of mind of the aesthetic self-loss. the aesthetic self is divided and in its diversity identifies itself with a third party. Hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr is therefore, from this standpoint, notable because this alter-ego attitude emerges in it in a more extensive form as in the double-model of the Princess Brambilla. it has an effect on the narrative-self (author/publisher/pseudo-biographer) and on the word introduced by him (real-ideal); it extends over the persons included by it, the disintegration of which culminates in kreisler’s personality (kreisler (1) murr, (2) abraham, (3) leonhard), but it is also true of the ideas and behavior represented by them (on the basis of kreisler’s aforementioned alter-ego pairs: (1) late romanticism/

SKS 17, 225, dd:18 / JP 2, 1690. hoffmann, Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 5, pp. 11–458. 39 Pap. iii B 18 / CI, supplement, p. 444. 40 hoffmann, Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 279, lines 33–7: “Als ich neulich an dem kleinen See, der in der Mitte des weitläufigen Gartens der Abtei liegt, wandelte und mein Bild, neben mir wandelnd, im See erblickte, da sprach ich: der Mensch der da unten neben mir hergeht, das ist ein ruhiger besonnener Mensch, der nicht mehr wild umherschwirrend in vagen unbegrenzten Räumen, die gefundene Bahn festhält, und es ist ein Glück für mich, daß der Mensch kein anderer ist, als ich selbst.” (english translation quoted from e.t.a. hoffmann, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, op. cit., p. 196.) 37 38

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

129

enlightenment, (2) art/craft, (3) fantasy/insanity.41 the theoretic similarity of the two stories can be summed up in the irony concept, which is aimed at getting this duplication recognized, where humor, as an element considered to be of a higher order, is a device for overcoming the duplication. however, one of the main sources of the humor in Tomcat Murr is just the structure, which endeavors to create equilibrium, the multiple levels of authorial distance, in which the levels of meaning are interwoven in a higher unity. kierkegaard had, however, unambiguously disputed the humor of this authorial concept in Either/Or by introducing a demonstrative self-loss of the “diapsalmata” poet. what is more, as we have seen earlier, his doubt is supported by criticism of the authorial concept based on the alter-egos, which he also adopts with pleasure. therefore, he creates a contradictory situation, in which his own position can never be fixed unambiguously. this ambivalent attitude is still not a part of a deliberate theory of authorship. rather it can be explained by his personal disposition which was required to balance out a new, still quite plastic irony concept that he was continually developing. this is related to hoffmann’s work, which can be approached as an attempt to wind up irony both as an aesthetic concept and as a duplicity theory that is defined as an essential element to the alter-ego existence. the basis of the former is a contrast between romantic and christian irony. in kierkegaard’s Journal DD from august 4, 1837, we read the following entry: humor is irony carried through to its maximum oscillation. even though the essentially christian is the real primus motor, nevertheless there are those in christian europe who have not achieved more than irony and for that reason have also not been able to accomplish the absolutely isolated, independently personal humor. therefore they either seek rest in the church, where in united humor over the world the solidarity of individuals develops a Christian irony, as was the case with tieck and others, or, if the religious is not in motion, form a club (The Brothers of Serapions which in hoffmann’s case was nevertheless not something palpable, actual, but ideal). no, hamann is still the greatest and most authentic humorist, the genuinely humorous robinson crusoe, not on a desert island but in the noise of life; his humor is not an aesthetic concept, but life, not a hero in a controlled drama.42

kierkegaard’s criticism, which keeps christian irony in view, is distressing. tieck and hoffmann have not reached a real humor because they were not capable of anything else. �ierkegaard mentions the same insufficiency as a reason for why both of the authors try to accomplish their irony in a community. From this point of view,

For hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr, see, for example, the following similar alter-ego types from Either/Or: a and B (the possibility of their identity is raised by victor eremita); victor eremita and a (the manuscripts found in similar circumstances; author in author); Johannes the seducer and cordelia (by correspondence Johannes expresses the permutability of the third and the second persons), as well as from Repetition: constantin constantius and the young man (which is at the same time constantius’ breach between his young and old theatregoing self); the young man and Job (where the fact of mere reading evokes the possibility of the self-loss), etc. 42 SKS 17, 234, dd:36 / JP 2, 1699. see also SKS 17, 224–6, dd:17–18. 41

130

Judit Bartha

hoffmann’s gathering of poets, The Serapion Brothers,43 where “the religious is not in motion” in a more degrading form, can be only interpreted as the former’s grotesque reproduction. the idea of hoffmann’s serapion club really serves theoretical purposes, and its work in this sense is also merely “ideal.” its primary goal is to train the poet for introspection and self-criticism by means of conversations and stories in order to develop the creative process. the serapion principle44 is based on a theory of an “ideal sight,” according to which the experienced internal pictures (fantasy and mood [Gemüt]), can be made into external pictures (narration [Erzählung]). in this product-aesthetics, the clarity of poetic contemplation is distinguished both from the everyday observation of reality and from the artistic manner. its main point is a simultaneous apprehension of inner and outer cognition: a transformation of the real experienced inner images into outer images by poetic forming of the matter. The Serapion principle cannot be reduced to a mere definition�� but the stories themselves serve as a basis of the principle. it is a theory that is proven in practice: in the creation of the stories and in the criticism of the audience related to them in a poetic fellowship or in the process of reading. on the basis of the principles of the gathering, isolation is really also condemned because it makes it impossible to get to know the total experience of the artistic world. in this way, creation connected with the ideal aspect, claims again a duplicated form, the “duplicity of cognition”45—the joining of the experienced reality and the artistic form in an isolation which rejects poetic gathering. hoffmann’s conception still remains purely “ideal” since no one can be entirely suitable for this theory. the poetic-minded fellows of the gathering do not have the wonderful ability of the pure view, which the insane serapion hermit has, the person who gives his name to the gathering. the hermit is considered a real poet because he actually sees all that he announces (he has a mental disposition to cross time and space and he is a kind of narrator, who describes it in a higher stage). in spite of this, he is not perfectly in accordance with the duplicity theory of the gathering since he obeys only the order of his own inner dreams, while he entirely ignores the outer.46 this is what kierkegaard calls a pure “aesthetic concept,” which he rejects in the ensuing discussion, where it is contrasted with christian irony.

on october 12, 1814 in Berlin hoffmann founded under the name of “seraphinen ordnens” the poetic fellowship, which was a forerunner to the above mentioned fellowship named Die Serapions-Brüder, which was reorganised by him on november 14, 1818. this name will be the title of his writings in four volumes, which provide a frame for conversation, which brings together several genres. among the members there were also adalbert von chamisso, Friedrich Baron de la motte Fouqué and ludwig tieck, and the latter’s romantic poetry collection entitled Phantasus presented a poetic-ideal background to it. 44 hoffmann, Die Serapions-Brüder, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 69, lines 22–9: “serapiontisches prinzip.” 45 hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 68, lines 11–13: “die Erkenntnis der Duplizität.” 46 cf. hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit.,, vol. 4, p. 68, lines 9–31. 43

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

131

V. the above opposition yet proves to be negligible in kierkegaard’s criticism of Hoffmann�� which first of all presents itself as an aesthetic problem. The detailed elaboration of the question appears as early as 1841 in The Concept of Irony. here it becomes clear that kierkegaard conceives “irony as a controlled element” in a way that is opposed to any theory of romantic duplicity; thus, neither the irony concept of Princess Brambilla nor of The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr and of The Serapion Brothers can live up to it. For the perspective in hoffmann’s works cannot admit the separation of real and ideal or the emphasis on their isolation. For hoffmann, irony serves to bridge the gap between real and ideal: the romantic longing for something higher may well be genuine, but just as man must not separate what god has joined together, so man also must not join what god has separated, but a sickly longing such as this is simply a way of wanting to have the perfect prematurely ....when irony is controlled, it no longer believes, as do certain shrewd people in everyday life, that there is always more than meets the eye; but it also prevents all idol worshiping of the phenomenon.47

in spite of the severe criticism, kierkegaard’s attachment to hoffmann’s irony turns out to be more than an inexplicable personal feeling. Specifically�� �ierkegaard clearly finds here and there in these works a further�� for him also important�� condition of “irony as a controlled element,” which can overcome both the bourgeois mentality and the affected poetic existence, and which reconciles the mutually negating extremes in a poetic attitude of controlled irony. in The Concept of Irony he writes about it as follows: The more irony is present�� the more freely and poetically the poet ��oats above his artistic work. therefore, irony is not present at some particular point of the poem but is omnipresent in it, so that the irony visible in the poem is in turn ironically controlled. therefore irony simultaneously makes the poem and the poet free. But in order for this to happen, the poet himself must be master over the irony.48

in addition to Princess Brambilla, the praise of Master �lea49 (one of hoffmann’s latest works) can prove above all that kierkegaard’s depiction of the poet who controls irony might turn out to be true for hoffmann too. kierkegaard’s appreciation of the story is documented by several journal entries. nevertheless (or perhaps just because of its exceptionality) this short story can be found neither in his dissertation nor in the final version of his published works. The exceptionality of Master �lea for him is, however, demonstrated not only by the frequency of the entries, but by the patterns of variation of the theme too. in his Journal �� dated from 1836 we read the following entry about this work: SKS 1, 357 / CI, 329. SKS 1, 353 / CI, 324. 49 see hoffmann, Meister �loh, in hoffmann, Poetische Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 6, pp. 7–187. (in english as e.t.a. hoffmann, Master �lea in The Golden Pot and Other Tales, op. cit., pp. 239–375.) 47 48

132

Judit Bartha the bourgeois mentality or philistinism is essentially the inability to rise above the absolute reality of time and space and as such can therefore devote itself to the most exalted objects—for example�� prayer at certain times and with certain words. This is what hoffmann has always known how to emphasize so splendidly.50

kierkegaard calls attention to the irregular element in hoffmann, that is, that the bourgeois mentality does not manifest itself in contrast to the poetic yet, for it does not appear as a part of the dualism but through a fine humorous filter�� which is able to fuse real and ideal. perhaps the most attractive example of it is the key story, “tale of a little tailor of sachsenhausen” in the sixth adventure, which kierkegaard cites with pleasure several times: the story of the tailor who got a dose of balloon gas. this in itself is not at all humorous; but when it is told that he had squeezed so much out of his customers that his wife had gotten a new dress, when it is related that every sunday upon coming home from church he was allowed to go to the pharmacy�� in short�� when this commensurable finiteness in all conditions of life is placed in relation to anything so extraordinary and when hoffmann with the painstaking profundity of a scientist then tells how he first of all ascended to the ceiling and plunged down again and finally was abruptly carried out the window by a breeze—the humor emerges.51

the quoted abstract is a summary of the theoretical level of the story. By means of humor which outshines irony, it shows the bourgeois who is everywhere permeated by the fabulous world; at the center of the interest with the philistine, peddling tailor, who, rising in the air, becomes a meteor and in this way, against his wishes, can transcend the limit of his philistine being. kierkegaard later on, probably just because of the tailor’s unintentional humorous action, makes a new version of the story, in which the tailor is no more a sufferer of the irony, but one who, exercising a new limitation, rises above irony and by means of humor can control it: Suppose that tailor who in Hoffmann’s story had drunk a ��ask of liquor�� suppose he had had a lesser quantity so that by taking a relatively skewed direction he did not immediately seek the way out into the open air through the open window, suppose he had had a lesser quantity so that there could be a possibility of exercising restraint—would it be a sign of his wisdom if he assumed that it was no art to restrain himself but an art to ��y out through the window, which he could, after all, easily achieve with an extra little dose.52

By the humorous demonstration, the exploded dualism attains its end and its clear form in the character of peregrinus ty, the protagonist of the story. peregrinus is neither poet nor artist nor wizard yet, but only a childlike fantasy-rich, poetic-minded simple citizen. moreover, his alter ego, the ruler of sekakis fairydom, is not an element which disintegrates identity, but rather just a dreamlike projection SKS 18, 78, FF:17 / JP 1, 217. SKS 18, 76f., FF:12 / JP 5, 5177. see hoffmann, Meister �loh, in hoffmann, Poetische Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 6, pp. 129–31. 52 Pap. vi B 98:35 / CUP2, supplement, p. 43. this episode that kierkegaard deleted from the final version of the second part of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript would have been originally an example of exercising restraint. 50 51

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

133

of peregrinus’ higher moments. master Flea’s gift, a microscopic glass that can be inserted into one of his eyes, also results in a quite different sort of double-sight from the former “chronic dualism.” on the one hand, it is a magic-tool, by which its owner, maintaining the apparent world (the untrue externals), can simultaneously penetrate into the essential world (to the people’s most hidden thoughts and desires). on the other hand, it is a reality-weapon against poetic daydreaming that fails in the battle of the extremities and turns into insanity. the creation of balance is assisted by the decomposition and recomposition of the chronological structure of the story and of life. this construction, which is not at all unusual in hoffmann, is always the bearer of a kind of ironic event-character. Master �lea can perhaps be considered exceptional to the degree that the hero’s destiny itself is also a marked exhibition of this event-character: through the continuous mutually destroying contraries along the all-annihilating apathy up to the personality’s finding himself again. �ierkegaard is also concerned with this discontinuous life and similarly with a possibility of the narration, which dissolves the chronological structure, the event-character of which is mostly an ironical reconciling final result that can only be interpreted from the last phase which comes to a standstill. Beyond this point, the quantitative addition of the everyday experience of life cannot result in any qualitative change. in the last adventure of the “master Flea���� this moment emerges with a ��ash. The scene mirrors the most important stage in peregrinus ty’s course of life: depths of despair fall into nothingness. the young kierkegaard simply copies the passage into his journal without commentary, and with this gesture he identifies himself for a moment with his German contemporary: how did a man who sought out the most secret thoughts of his brethren speak to himself� does not his fatal gift bring over him that frightful condition which came over the eternal Jew, who wandered through the bright tumult of the world without hope, without pain, in apathetic indifference which is the caput mortuum of despair, as if through an uncomfortable, comfortless wasteland�53

Finding the inner harmony by rejecting the quantitative experiences presumes also, for hoffmann, a kind of qualitative leap: a miracle that transforms reality into a tale and a tale into reality. in the case of the highly appreciated Master �lea, this miracle originates unambiguously from the hero’s own mind, which ignores the external world. kierkegaard’s appreciation is clearly the result of this emphasis on the inner decision and choice of the personality. however, in other stories of hoffmann this leap is still mostly a result of an external magic, of which the poetic-minded hero is just as much a mediator as a sufferer. And by all means one can find in this the main reason see SKS 19, 94, not2:9 / JP 5�� 5109 (translation modified): �Wie? sprach er zu sich selbst ein Mensch, der die geheimsten Gedanken seiner Brüder erforscht, bringt über den diese verhängnißvolle Gabe nicht jenes entsetzliches Verhältnitz, welches den ewigen Juden traf, der durch das bunteste Gewühl der Welt, ohne �reude, ohne Hoffnung, ohne Schmerz, in dumpfer Gleichgültigkeit, die das caput mortuum der Verzweiflung ist, wie durch eine unwirthbare trostlose Einöde wandelte.” see hoffmann, Meister �loh, in hoffmann, Poetische Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 6, p. 176. as a further addition to this one can mention that kierkegaard at this time had read the story of the “wandering Jew.” see note 171 in JP 5, p. 477.

53

134

Judit Bartha

of �ierkegaard’s critical attitude. The thrilling world of the figures in the stories is never isolated�� but it is always re��ected in the micro-world of the artist-heroes�� which in the dual view creates further hair-fractures or insoluble alternatives. in hoffmann, the existential representatives of this dualism are the mutually abolishing-counterbalancing alter-egos, and the consequence of it in many cases is a real world filled with demonic anxiety out of which only the rhetoric of irony ascending to humor can mean a redemption. we read in The Concept of Anxiety: “the medical-therapeutic view regards the phenomenon [i.e., demonic anxiety] as purely physical and somatic, and as physicians often do, especially a physician in one of hoffmann’s short stories, takes a pinch of snuff and says: it is a serious case.”54 kierkegaard examines here the phenomenon of demonic anxiety and the attempts to overcome it. every medical interference ends in failure because the doctors try to treat the problem merely as a physical (somatic) one, and they leave out of consideration that the phenomenon belongs simultaneously in the psychic and the pneumatic spheres and that all three have an effect on each other. This demonic obsession plays a significant role in the entire oeuvre of hoffmann and appears in it in two different versions. The first one is represented by �anxiety about the evil” and a wrong medical practice against the demonic obsession. to this category belong the above cited works Das Sanctus and Die Doppeltgänger,55 in which the physicians are entirely powerless against the demonic phenomena; they reduce them in a trivial way to physical problems and propose a cure in accordance with it; and in Der Magnetiseur in which the reason for the powerlessness of the physician who expels the demonic is not his ignorance, but the fact that he himself serves the evil demonic powers too.56 in contrast to this, the second version is the world of the priests and monks fighting for or against the nightmare world�� in which the �good ��ashes �in the demonic anxiety about it.�� A good example for this is hoffmann’s early novel, The Devil�s Elixirs. although kierkegaard never refers to it directly, nevertheless it serves as an astonishingly graphic illustration of the passage about “demonic” in The Concept of Anxiety. at the center of the story stands medardus, the fallen monk escaping monastic life, and the demonic alterego existence represented by him. his enigmatic life is an aggregate of complicated alternatives, which expand the chronological and narrative structure of the story and his own contiguous personality. In the demonic fight which above all arises from within him due to the recognition of his own distress and the impenetrability of god’s will, medardus manages the destruction and abolishment of his original personality. And although the crucial moment is decided—as a stereotype of the genre of the Gothic novel—in a symbolic struggle of good and evil�� the new�� for the reader also unknown�� starting-point already ��ashes the possibility of redemption by faith.

SKS 4, 423 / CA, 122. see hoffmann, Das Sanctus, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 141, lines 9–24. 55 see hoffmann, Die Doppeltgänger, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 5, pp. 755–813. 56 see hoffmann, Der Magnetiseur, in hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, op. cit., vol. 2.1, pp. 178–225. 54

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

135

while reading hoffmann, kierkegaard is clearly affected by this miracle of the individual�� neglecting the outside world�� filled with trembling. He is further affected by the anxiety of a man who, by proper self-exercise, can change extreme discordance into consonance. he is affected by the depth of despair of a man who might be capable of leaping and, by an easy movement, leaving the inter-phase behind him stepping over to a later, higher stage. and in the gaps he is affected by an incessant experience of a phenomenon of deficiency and a promise of a new beginning�� which presupposes, from the complete downfall to the recovery, the momentariness of redemption by religiosity. this duplicity, as a simultaneous converging and diverging, could become a new starting point for research on the relation between hoffmann and kierkegaard. the goal would be to explore the pantomime motions, the presence of which is often confessed by the missing commentaries.

Bibliography I. Hoffmann�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library E.T.A. Hoffmann�s ausgewählte Schriften, vols. 1–10, Berlin: g. reimer 1827–28 (ASKB 1712–1716). E.T.A. Hoffmann�s Erzählungen aus seinen letzten Lebensjahren, sein Leben und Nachlaß. In fünf Bänden, vols. 1–5, ed. by micheline hoffmann, geb. rorer, stuttgart: Brodhag 1839 (vols. 11–15 in E.T.A. Hoffmann�s ausgewählte Schriften) (ASKB 1717–1721). Klein Zaches Genannt Zinnober, 2nd ed., Berlin: dümmler 1824 (ASKB a ii 268). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Hoffmann hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich, Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by von heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1835–38 (vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, p. 286; p. 311 (ASKB 1384–1386). heine, heinrich, Die romantische Schule, hamburg: hoffmann und campe 1836, p. 192; p. 199; pp. 231–3; p. 235; pp. 276f. (ASKB u 63). hotho, heinrich gustav, Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1835, p. 24; p. 27; p. 313 (ASKB 580). menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 4, pp. 233ff. (ASKB u 79). sihler, w., Die Symbolik des Antlitzes, Berlin: F. laue 1829, p. 56 (ASKB 784). weiße, christian hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit, vols. 1–2, leipzig: c.h.F. hartmann 1830, vol. 1, p. 182 (ASKB 1379–1380). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Hoffmann Bartha, Judit, “alteregó-centrumok polifóniája” [the polyphony of the alter-ego centers], Pro Philosophia �üzetek, vol. 28, 2001, pp. 61–70. egenberger, stefan, “the poetic representation of the religious in kierkegaard’s Postscript with special regard to e.t.a. hoffmann’s concept of humor,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 2005, pp. 113–36.

E.T.A. Hoffmann: A Source for Kierkegaard�s Conceptions

137

ekmann, Bjørn, “‘und immer hat’s geklungen....’ zu dämonie und erlebniskrise in Brentanos ‘lore lay’ und in der hoffmann und kierkegaard gedeuteten mozartschen don-Juan-Figur,” Text & Kontext, vol. 19, no. 2, 1995, pp. 213–60. haustedt, Birgit, Die Kunst der Verführung. Zur Reflexion der Kunst im Motiv der Verführung bei Jean Paul, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Kierkegaard und Brentano, stuttgart: m & p verlag für wissenschaft und Forschung 1992. katz, marc, “confessions of an anti-poet: kierkegaard’s Either/Or and the german romantics,” in Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age. Critical Essays in Comparative Literature, ed. by gregory maertz, albany, new York:: state university of new York press 1998, pp. 227–45. lindemann, karin, Das verschlossene Ich und seine Gegenwelt. Studien zu Thomas Mann, Sören Kierkegaard und E.T.A. Hoffmann, ph.d. thesis, erlangen and nuremberg 1964. mesterházy, Balázs, “a szétcsúszás alakzatai két 19. századi szövegben” [the Forms of mutual distancing in two texts from the nineteenth century], Literatura, vol. 3, 1998, pp. 241–63. Starobinski�� Jean�� �Ironie und Melancholie. Gozzi—�.Th.A. Hoffmann— kierkegaard,” Der Monat, vol. 18, no. 218, 1966, pp. 22–35.

This page intentionally left blank

hotho: a dialogue on romantic irony and the Fascination with mozart’s Don Giovanni Joachim grage

when søren kierkegaard traveled to Berlin in the autumn of 1841, he attended lectures given by Friedrich schelling (1775–1854), henrik steffens (1773–1845) and the hegelian karl werder (1806–93), those scholars he had been engaged with in his master’s thesis, The Concept of Irony, directly prior to his visit to Berlin.. he did not, however, meet heinrich gustav hotho, also a Berlin professor, nowadays remembered primarily as the editor of hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics, from which kierkegaard quotes several times in his thesis. hotho at that point was away on a research trip to italy, but kierkegaard probably would not have made an effort to contact him in person anyway. in his letters and papers there is not a single mention of hotho’s name, nor did their paths cross during kierkegaard’s later visits to Berlin. in kierkegaard’s published works, however, hotho appears, in both The Concept of Irony and Either/Or. kierkegaard engages with hotho when dealing with some of the key topics of his early writings, such as the hegel reception, romantic irony, mozart’s music and Don Giovanni. in this article i wish to shed some light on the intertextual relations between kierkegaard and hotho. after a short survey of hotho’s life with a particular focus on his relations to hegel, i will follow the traces hotho left in kierkegaard’s early writings. I. “An otherwise ardent Hegelian” hegel’s shadow was far too large for hotho to ever have been able to step out of it. his close relation to, and openly demonstrated appreciation of, his teacher and idol Hegel were to have substantial in��uence not only on Hotho’s contemporaries’ and posterity’s perception of him but also on his own biography. to his contemporaries, Hotho appeared as what �ierkegaard—before even mentioning his name—with slight disapproval called “an otherwise ardent hegelian.”1

i would like to thank Frederik moche, elisa hormes, Barry murnane, and ekkardt sonntag for help with the translation of this article. 1 SKS 1, 335 / CI, 302.

140

Joachim Grage

heinrich gustav hotho was born on may 22, 1802 in Berlin as the son of a wealthy factory owner.2 in 1821, still in Berlin, he began studying law; one year later�� in the spring term of 1822�� he attended Hegel’s lectures for the first time. hegel, as Fichte’s successor, had been teaching at the university in Berlin since 1818. struggling with his law studies and being more interested in poetry and the arts, Hotho discovered a whole new world in Hegel’s philosophy�� although at first he was troubled by his “outward performance” and the “inner succession of [his] thoughts.”3 one day, though, he “was granted the unexpected bliss, that a key might have been found, that would open every lock to god’s world”4—Hotho had found his way into hegel’s system. during this and the following semesters he attended hegel’s lectures on the “Philosophy of Spirit,” the “Philosophy of Law,” the “Philosophy of World History,” “Logic and Metaphysics,” “Aesthetics,” the “History of Philosophy” and the “Philosophy of Religion.” hegel’s philosophy obviously failed to provide hotho with a key to resolving his inner con��icts and the question of his personal destiny; after three years of studying in Berlin and one semester in Breslau (now Wrocław)�� hotho fell into a depressive crisis that only a long stay abroad was capable curing. in 1825 he traveled to paris, where he visited museums, parks, salons, the opera and theaters, and wrote his tragedy Don Ramiro, which was published the same year. with paris as his base, he paid visits to Belgium, the netherlands and london, mainly in order to further his private art studies. Traveling did serve its purpose and finally put an end to Hotho’s crisis. In August 1826 he finished his Ph.�. dissertation called De philosophia cartesiana,5 for which Hegel was first examiner. At the beginning of 1827 he attempted to obtain a professorship with a Habilitationsschrift on art history based on hegelian aesthetics, but failed to get this work approved. Thus Hotho withdrew his submission—in spite of the fact the work had hegel’s personal support. in the summer of the same year he tried once again, this time presenting a work on heraclitus, to which there was no resistance. In the fall term of 1827–28 Hotho finally was able to give his first lecture as a Privatdozent. over the course of the next few decades he taught aesthetics. having dealt with literature (mainly goethe and schiller) in the beginning, he later focused on art history, particularly painting. however, his dream of a position as a regular professor never came to fruition. When Hegel died of cholera in 1831�� Hotho lost his most in��uential supporter. thus he was lucky to be offered a job as an assistant at the Berlin Gemäldegalerie in 1832. not only did this position provide him and his family with a secure income, but it also put him in an excellent position to continue his own studies in art history. Moreover�� he was out of the line of fire when�� in the late 1840s�� the government

2 For information on hotho’s biography, see elisabeth ziemer, Heinrich Gustav Hotho. 1802–1873. Ein Berliner Kunsthistoriker, Kunstkritiker und Philosoph, Berlin: dietrich reimer verlag 1994, pp. 225–363. 3 Heinrich Gustav Hotho, Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: in der J.g. cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1835, p. 381 (ASKB 580). 4 Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., pp. 384–5. 5 hotho, De philosophia cartesiana, Berlin: ioannis Friderici starckii 1826.

Hotho: A Dialogue on Romantic Irony

141

repeatedly took measures against the hegelians at the Berlin university.6 hotho traveled abroad frequently�� partly with the financial support he gained as correspondent for the german publisher cotta’s Morgenblatt. apart from his promotion to the post of the copperplate collection’s director in 1860, his life was outwardly not very eventful. he died on december 24, 1873. there can be no doubt as to hotho’s hegelian credentials, as his book Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst published in 1835 proves sufficiently.7 here he writes about his youthful studies of mozart’s Don Giovanni, his educational journeys to paris, Belgium, holland and london as well as about his philosophical and aesthetical studies, the result of which he presents in a short but penetrating history of german literature and its roots. the Vorstudien can be considered hegelian in its explicitly uttered confession to hegel as an idol and to his “miraculous teachings.”8 proudly, hotho claims to be able to count himself “part of the inner circle of his [hegel’s] younger acquaintances and friends.”9 also the history of literature and the Bildungsgeschichte presented in the book show clear signs of being largely in��uenced by Hegel’s concept of Geistesgeschichte: a nation’s historical coming of age. its journey toward selfrealization manifests itself in art. as in hegel’s view, hotho views art as the medium in which an idea is visualized, thus making it an essential subject of philosophical consideration. in dealing with art, an educational process is performed which is of equal standing with philosophical education itself. hotho considers “science” (that is, essentially the hegelian philosophy) to be on equal footing with art, and he aims to “bring them together by philosophically recreating the works of art within their history.”10 In his later writings on art history—to which �ierkegaard paid no attention—Hotho ended up realizing this early formulated intention.11 having been one of hegel’s students, hotho was member of the Verein der �reunde des Verewigten, a group which took it upon itself to publish the critical edition of hegel’s collected works following his death. this also came as a result of a feeling of responsibility for hegel’s widow who had not inherited much from her husband and who now was supposed to benefit from the sales of his works. The editors took no fee for their work and promised to base their own lectures on hegel’s works, so that the edition would sell among their students as well. hotho took see ziemer, Heinrich Gustav Hotho, op. cit., pp. 273–4. in the following abbreviated as Vorstudien in the main text. 8 Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 382. 9 ibid., p. 390. 10 ibid., p. 279. 11 cf. hotho, Geschichte der deutschen und niederländischen Malerei. Eine öffentliche Vorlesung an der Königlichen �riedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, vols. 1–2, Berlin: simion 1842–43; hotho, Die Malerschule Huberts van Eyck nebst deutschen Vorgängern und Zeitgenossen. Öffentliche Vorlesung, vols. 1–2, Berlin: veit & comp. 1855–58. For hegel’s in��uence on Hotho�� see wilhelm Wilhelm waetzold, Waetzold��, Deutsche Kunsthistoriker, vols. 1–2, leipzig: e.a. seemann 1921–24, vol. 2, Von Passavant bis Justi, 1924, pp. 53–70; annemarie gethmannsiefert, “h.g. hotho: kunst als Bildungserlebnis und kunsthistorie in systematischer Absicht—oder �ie entpolitisierte Version der Ästhetischen �rziehung des Menschen���� in Kunsterfahrung und Kulturpolitik im Berlin Hegels, ed. by otto pöggeler and annemarie gethmann-siefert, Bonn: Bouvier verlag 1983 (Hegel-Studien, Beiheft 22), pp. 229–61. 6 7

142

Joachim Grage

charge of the Lectures on Aesthetics, a challenging task for the editor since he was only able to rely on hegel’s own handwritten documents to a very limited degree. hegel had frequently given these lectures in varying forms during his professorial career; thus the material contained notes dating from various periods over a number of years. moreover, only some parts were properly formulated, while others were mere sketches and rough outlines. In the preface to the first volume Hotho writes: �How Hegel himself�� standing up there on the lecture-podium in the full ��ow of a lecture, was ever able to navigate his way through these books with their laconic key-words and the confusing mass of years’ worth of chaotic marginal notes is barely fathomable.”12 apart from this material, hotho had a handful of students’ notes at his disposal (including his own),13 which unfortunately differed from each other, and so he had to fuse together quite a lot of material. After three years of work the first volume was published in 1835, volume two and three followed respectively in 1837 and 1838. however, the lectures that can be read today in hotho’s edition were never actually given by hegel in that exact form.14 nevertheless, contemporaries were able to sense hegel’s spirit in it and considered it genuine: “everyone familiar with hegel’s way of thinking and expression,” one of the reviewers wrote, would agree that the editorial interventions hotho was forced to perform “did not essentially affect the text with respect to either the intellectual conception or the form of the

12 “vorwort,” in Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vol. 1, 3rd ed., in georg wilhelm Friedrich hegel, Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe in 20 Bänden, stuttgart: Fr. Frommanns verlag 1953 (abbreviated Jub.), vol. 12, p. 4. (First edition: Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by von heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1835–38 [vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45] (ASKB 1384–1386).) 13 cf. hegel, Vorlesungen. Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Manuskripte, vols. 1–14, hamburg: Felix meiner verlag 1983–2001, vol. 2, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst. Berlin 1823. Nachgeschrieben von Heinrich Gustav Hotho, ed. by annemarie gethmann-siefert 1998. 14 Over the past decades Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert has done significant research on Hotho’s share of Hegel’s aesthetics. She shows how Hotho not only decisively gave it its final shape but also intervened interpretively. Up to now Hotho still remains the formative in��uence for the understanding of hegel’s aesthetics, but he also might be responsible for a number of misunderstandings. cf. gethmann-siefert’s extensive introduction in hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst, op. cit, pp. Xv–ccXXiv; gethmann-siefert, “h.g. hotho: kunst als Bildungserlebnis und kunsthistorie in systematischer absicht,” op. cit.; gethmann-siefert, Einführung in Hegels Ästhetik, munich: wilhelm Fink verlag 2005, pp. 15–28. consequently, whenever kierkegaard relates to hegel’s aesthetics, hotho is, as an interpreter, part of the picture. it might otherwise be of some interest to explore to what degree the aesthetics in their final form are authentic and whether Hegel’s genuine thoughts can be deduced from Hotho’s edition, but it would be academic and highly speculative to wonder if it is hotho’s interpretation or “the real thing” kierkegaard relates to when dealing with hegelian aesthetics. it is not what hegel actually said, but what hotho made out of it, that came to be historically important and came to represent kierkegaard’s hegel. cf. also elisabeth ziemer’s (hotho-friendly) criticism of gethmann-siefert, in Heinrich Gustav Hotho, op. cit., p. 12; pp. 84–6; pp. 131–3; p. 177.

Hotho: A Dialogue on Romantic Irony

143

presentation.”15 the Lectures on Aesthetics sold so well that the publisher asked hotho to revise it for a second edition, which appeared in 1842. in calling hotho “an otherwise ardent hegelian,” kierkegaard was implicitly suggesting that hotho was a hegelian copycat, or at least that he uncritically incorporated hegel’s theories into his own thoughts. kierkegaard was not alone in this view: “he [hotho] stuck with hegel’s principles in his own writings, avoiding any attempt to develop them any further in a speculative way,” carl von prantl (1820–88) writes in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.16 even more explicit is christian hermann weiße in his review of the Vorstudien: “more ardent than any other hegel student,” he writes, “hotho preached the gospel of the decline of all art in absolute knowledge.”17 still more sharply and subliminally anti-hegelian is wolfgang menzel (1798–1873) in his review of the Vorstudien: despite hotho’s striving for emancipation, he counts him among the “kind of people…who are virtually destined for school teachers’ pedantry and parroting.”18 hotho’s students also called him “one of hegel’s disciples”19 and re��ected the dubious anecdote that it was Hotho at whom �Hegel’s aphorism was aimed: he only had one student who ever understood him, and that one misunderstood him.”20 on the other hand, it was obviously hotho’s close proximity to hegel and his thoughts that made him an appropriate source for kierkegaard’s writing. II. “As Hotho correctly observes” in the three passages where kierkegaard explicitly mentions hotho in The Concept of Irony he never alludes to hotho’s own philosophical views but rather to his judgment on other philosophers and poets—views with which �ierkegaard quite agrees. at one point, dealing with hegel’s interpretation of ludwig tieck (1773– 1853)�� �ierkegaard ponders whether Hegel’s attacks on �omantic irony are justified. prior to this he had stated that hegel’s disagreement with tieck and schlegel was based on their complete negation of reality. as for kierkegaard, he differentiates: while schlegel’s arguments are openly directed against reality, tieck engaged in a “poetic abandon” that is still characterized by an “indifference toward actuality.” this poetic abandon, “that is utterly inordinate in its excessively ironic capering,”21 15 christian hermann weiße in Hallische Jahrbücher für deutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst, leipzig 1838, no. 210; as cited by ziemer, Heinrich Gustav Hotho, op. cit., p. 258. 16 carl von prantl,, “hotho,” in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vols. 1–56, ed. by the historische commission bei der königlichen akademie der wissenschaften, leipzig: duncker und humblot 1875–1912, vol. 13, Holstein—Jesup, 1881, p. 191. 17 weiße, review of Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, in Literarischer Zodiacus. Journal für Zeit und Leben, Wissenschaft und Kunst, august 1835, pp. 157–61; p. 157. 18 wolfgang menzel,, review of Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, in Literatur-Blatt, no. 111, 1835, pp. 441–4; p. 443. 19 karl Frenzel, one of hotho’s students in the 1850s; as cited by ziemer, Heinrich Gustav Hotho, op. cit., p. 296. 20 hotho’s student and successor in the Gemäldegalerie, wilhelm Bode, as cited by ziemer, Heinrich Gustav Hotho, op. cit., p. 328. 21 SKS 1, 335 / CI, 302.

144

Joachim Grage

may indeed have some justification�� but Hegel had no appreciation of it�� leading to his often unjustified attacks on Tieck. To prove that Hegel allegedly lacked a sense of humor, kierkegaard does not refer to hegel’s own works but to hotho’s biographical report, quoting him literally: equally at home with jest and cheer, he [hegel] nevertheless remained partly impervious to the ultimate depths of humor, and the most recent form of irony stood in such stark contrast to his own orientation that he completely lacked the wherewithal with which to recognize or appreciate what was genuine in it.22

this quotation initially originates in the emphatic literary portrait hotho draws of hegel in his Vorstudien. in this “outstanding characterization of hegel,”23 hotho sketches the human side of the famous philosopher, which only his close acquaintances ever had the chance to experience. the picture sketched gives a very lively and authentic impression because it does not conceal the various contradictions in hegel’s personality. Hotho’s first impression of Hegel—when he was received in his study in a friendly manner—is contrasted by the recollection of the lectures�� where Hegel is described as follows: “grief-stricken he sat there, wasted away with his head hanging down”;24 the “presentation,” which included the “constant clearing of his throat and coughing,” “the metallic emptiness of his voice,” the “thick swabian accent” did not seem to be in line with the “inner merits”25 of the lectures. the architect of a barely accessible philosophical world-view turns out to be a charming chit-chatter, who prefers gossiping to scholarly conversation, who is an eager concert- and theatergoer, always surrounded by singers and actresses, though always a faithful and caring husband. hegel’s alleged missing sense of “the ultimate depth of humor,” which kierkegaard refers to, stands in stark contrast to his otherwise cheerful mind. in summation, hegel appears to hotho as someone �fit to handle life in the most joyful manner.��26 it is of some importance to look closely at the more general context out of which kierkegaard took this quotation. it clearly shows that he did not highlight by chance something which simply happened to be in line with his way of arguing. kierkegaard refers to Hotho in his Tieck chapter—which might not be a coincidence given the fact that hotho himself extensively talks about tieck directly after his portrayal of hegel. hotho also devotes detailed attention to karl wilhelm Ferdinand solger (1780–1819), about whom kierkegaard himself writes a whole chapter immediately following the one which deals with tieck. hotho’s critical analysis of tieck and solger is due to the fact that they were two of German �omanticism’s key representatives and thus had a great in��uence on his own biography. tieck is seen as a representative of a whole group of romantic poets (“tieck and his comrades”); solger serves as their theorist, who succeeded in SKS 1, 335 / CI, 302. the quotation in kierkegaard’s text is in german and differs only very slightly from the original in Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 394. 23 see karl rosenkranz’s review of Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, in Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, no. 3, 1836, pp. 17–20; p. 20. 24 Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., pp. 384–5. 25 ibid., p. 385. 26 ibid.,, p. 399. 22

Hotho: A Dialogue on Romantic Irony

145

bringing romantic “poetry and sentiment to clear awareness.”27 hotho’s view of these authors is remarkably ambiguous. his initial receptiveness to romanticism in general, and tieck and solger in particular, is motivated by his “hatred for german Spießbürgertum,”28 which is a threat to art since it considers it solely from a moral point of view. In Tieck and Solger he saw brothers-in-arms since they were �fighting an intellectually outstanding war against the Philistines and against moral finiteness�� only to restore poetry, religion and science to their ancient place.”29 art and science are beyond the reproach of prosaic reality—this is �Tieck’s main dogma�� just as the like-minded Solger had established the arts with a philosophical clarity difficult to comprehend.”30 kierkegaard makes use of this stylistic characterization writing: “as Hotho correctly observes (p. 399), he has developed his point of view with a philosophical clarity difficult to comprehend.��31 hotho provides a summary of solger’s idea that “the existing reality is god’s constant self-destruction”32 since god’s creation is a mirroring, a negation of himself. kierkegaard uses this thought extensively in his solger chapter, basing his own analysis of solger’s perception of irony on it. hotho, by contrast, deals mainly with solger’s metaphysical legitimation of “art, religion and science” as god’s revelation and with the fact that true art is above moral reproach. At the first glance�� Hotho seems to agree with this sentiment, but he is in doubt concerning the practical use of this view on art in romantic literature. For if art reveals itself, as solger claims, “not in the imitation of the existing world, not in the intention of teaching virtue and morals, not in the worn-out counterfeits of transcendent ancient images,”33 it would only be logical if it plays “irony’s game”: “the most secret seriousness, the most inscrutable marvels will reveal themselves in such a game to the utmost joy and gaiety of all the seriously poetic souls.”34 the “true poet” is a poeta vates, who recognizes the revelation as it occurs in the world and communicates his prophetic knowledge by creating “a world of marvels,”35 in which both nature and human life are “only a surging sea of sounds, sounds from which the fervent pain, the deepest emotion and every rejoicing of the mind tenderly join together in the soul’s marvelous moods.”36 hotho falls back on personal experience to describe the awakening effect which romantic literature in this characterization can enact on the susceptible reader. in his treatment of tieck he repeatedly delves into tieck’s “weaving of sentiments, whispering, germinating, blossoming and fading, struggling and longing”37—but it is ibid.,, p. 400. see kierkegaard who called solger “the philosophic spokesman for romanticism and romantic irony,” SKS 1, 349 / CI, 318. 28 the term Spießbürgertum cannot be directly translated. a Spießbürger is something of a petty bourgeois. the danish equivalent is Spidsborger. 29 Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 400. 30 ibid. 31 SKS 1, 341 / CI, 308. 32 Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 400. 33 ibid., p. 402. 34 ibid., p. 404. 35 ibid., p. 406. 36 ibid., p. 407. 37 ibid. 27

146

Joachim Grage

a threatening state of mind to which the subject is exposed: “he who devotes himself to this form of ironical wonder-dream has to let go of his security and foothold in life forever.”38 romantic irony alienates the reader from reality, offering the subject “poetry’s brimming opium bowls.”39 in a parodying paraphrase, hotho portrays the component parts of tieck’s marvelous world by combining the various ingredients of �omantic poetry into a collage of anthropomorphic ��owers�� chirping birds�� green forests, foggy clouds and “the sound of horns calling to the hunt.”40 this probably most romantic of all instruments reappears in kierkegaard’s text, where he focuses on the random nature of tieck’s plays: in a colorful enumeration of settings and plots in tieck’s dramatic works, he integrates a “solo for the French horn.”41 in a footnote to that solo he mentions “hotho’s excellent description” and quotes a comparatively long sentence from the paragraph devoted to tieck in the Vorstudien.42 while he is made use of in kierkegaard’s criticism of solger,43 hegel was not much of a help for kierkegaard in his treatment of tieck, who is given only a minor role in hegel’s lectures on aesthetics.44 regarding tieck, kierkegaard’s parallels to hotho are much more striking, especially since there are explicit references that show their correspondence: both authors focus on tieck’s plays and lyricism and omit his prose. Both appreciate tieck’s attack on Spießbürgertum,45 regarding it as one of tieck’s key impulses which thus put his writings into a socio-critical context. also, in his brilliantly satirical portrayal of the spießbürgerliche existence, kierkegaard uses some of hotho’s central expressions.46 Both regard romantic poetry primarily as a liberating power.47 Both ibid., p. 409. ibid.. 40 ibid., p. 407. 41 SKS 1, 338 / CI, 305. 42 “here the adventurous license of the imagination reserves unlimited room for any kind of image: daring episodes swirl forth at will, arabesquelike curiosities gaudily twist themselves into teasing laughter through the loose fabric, allegory expands otherwise constricted shapes until they turn nebulous, here and there the parodic jest hovers in topsy-turvy abandonment. And this ingenious pleasure is then wedded to that ��at indulgence that is unable to refuse any idle whim, because it grows out of the very ground of his indulgence.” SKS 1, 338 / CI, 305. kierkegaard quotes the german text. 43 see Jon stewart, Kierkegaard�s Relation to Hegel Reconsidered, new York: cambridge university press 2003, pp. 170–77. 44 in the paragraph on romantic irony: hegel, Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vol. 1, 3rd ed., in Jub., op. cit., vol. 12, p. 106; in the chapter on drama: hegel, Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vol. 3, 3rd ed., in Jub., op. cit., vol. 14, p. 502. 45 hotho: “die deutsche spießbürgerei” (Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 399); kierkegaard: “Spidsborgerne,” “Spidsborgerlighed” (SKS 1, 337), det Spidsborgerlige (SKS 1, 339); “the philistines” (CI, 305), “‘philistinism” (CI, 305, 306). 46 hotho is complaining about the Spießbürger’s being content with “overthrowing the evil instincts in the family’s secure womb, in bourgeois relations, in referring to the state,” Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 399. kierkegaard writes: “one married, one lived for domesticity and one’s position in society; one acquired children, acquired family worries,” SKS 1, 336 / CI, 303. 47 hotho: “irony’s genius that sets us free from the world and our duties,” Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst�� op. cit.�� p. 413; �ierkegaard: �In that respect�� �omanticism was beneficial���� SKS 1, 336 / CI, 304. 38 39

Hotho: A Dialogue on Romantic Irony

147

use the metaphor of a “dream” for tieck’s poetry and go on to problematize romantic poetry’s questionable relation to reality.48 Both call tieck’s irony just a game playing with existence,49 resulting in escapism and inner emptiness. Both refer to shakespeare as a counter-model for presenting an irony that does not content itself with the “mere falsification of the false and the trivialization of the trivial���� an irony that does not seek its triumph in “mocking and deceiving,”50 but by no means allows “the substantive worth to evaporate into an ever more fugitive sublimate.”51 although hotho and kierkegaard start from the same point of view, their conclusions drawn from romantic irony’s consideration differ strikingly. while kierkegaard points to the counter-model of socrates’ irony, hotho ends up rejecting all irony completely. he regards it as insubstantial artistry, lacking any sort of relevance for reality. unlike kierkegaard, who could think of a “controlled irony,”52 hotho does not seem to consider such a concept to be an appropriate remedy against �omantic irony’s threats—despite vague traces of similar ideas that can be found in his treatment of shakespeare.53 he rejects the absolute denial of reality and thus the philosophical premises which he believes romantic irony to be based upon. with regard to solger’s speculative view he says: it was not possible for me to bow down before that ironical god, who merely re-creates himself as a deceptive universe through which the earthly sand trickles, so his divinity would reveal itself in the proof of the nothingness of that pale glow and of all dispersing contradictions.54

to hotho romantic irony, on the one hand, has a liberating effect and, on the other, leaves him dissatisfied. It is also closely connected to his own educational process as documented in Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst. he can actually identify its appearance in his own life: it was “at the end of [his] stay in paris,” when he felt himself “tempted by that arty arbitrariness.”55 in hotho’s mind, romantic irony is an attitude towards art and reality that one has to overcome, and so it cannot be anything but a step in one’s personal development. kierkegaard, by contrast, does not fit �omantic irony into his own biography but into irony’s general history. �ike Hotho—at times using the very same arguments—�ierkegaard is critical�� if not disapproving, of romantic irony; still, he does not see irony’s history as having hotho: “there is no reality but in my dreams,” “ironical marvelous dreams,” Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 409; kierkegaard: “the romanticist...experiences all this in a dream....But dreams do not satisfy,” SKS 1, 337 / CI, 304. 49 hotho: “irony’s game,” Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 404; p. 411; kierkegaard: “now all existence becomes just a game for the poetizing arbitrariness,” SKS 1, 335 / CI, 302. 50 Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 414. 51 SKS 1, 352–3 / CI, 324. 52 See the final chapter of The Concept of Irony, “irony as a controlled element, the truth of irony,” SKS 1, 352–7 / CI, 324–9. 53 see Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., pp. 410–11. 54 ibid., pp. 421–2. 55 ibid., p. 413. 48

148

Joachim Grage

come to an end. quite the opposite: in going ad fontes and stressing socrates’ irony, his own book has a reviving in��uence on irony as such. III. “A pale copy of Mozart�s rich, full-toned luxuriance” more striking than the similarities in hotho’s and kierkegaard’s judgments of tieck is their consensus concerning their taste in music. in the case of kierkegaard this becomes evident in his journals from as early as 1836 and is definitively formulated in “the immediate erotic stages or the musical-erotic.” this section of Either/ Or presumably dates from kierkegaard’s return from Berlin in the early summer of 1842.56 �ierkegaard’s fixation on Mozart’s Don Giovanni57 is equally evident in Hotho’s work. Hotho even devotes the first third of his Vorstudien to the opera. hotho’s interpretation of the opera is once more dominated by an autobiographical technique. the narrator’s58 childhood and youth are only brought to the reader’s attention through his various stages of dealing with the opera. at nine years of age, as he reports, he had seen Don Giovanni at his first theater visit ever and was left with an unforgettable impression of the piece. in the following years, this early experience was superseded by several attempts to understand the opera from different points of view. “Barely grown out of boyhood,”59 the narrator and his friends began to stage the work (he himself cast in the role of don ottavio). For more than a year they met for rehearsals, becoming ever more familiar with the composition, “with lively pleasure” and without succumbing to “pondering and brooding”60 until the group finally went their separate ways. a few years subsequently “the question of the pleasure’s ‘why’” urges him to study both the text and the music more intensively, driven by the wish to gain “insight …into the work’s secret perfection.”61 on a journey he reads e.t.a. hoffmann’s (1776–1822) Don Juan novella, comparing it to goethe’s �aust, speculatively reconstructing the respective characters’ past, psychologically analyzing them, thinking about “the dramaturgical development of the whole,”62 comparing Don on the text’s handwritten rough copy it reads “13 Juni 42,” SKS k 2–3, 22. original title: Il dissoluto punito ossia Il Don Giovanni. hotho and kierkegaard refer to the opera as ��on Juan���� the title under which the opera was—in the respective languages— performed in germany and denmark. concerning mozart’s reception in germany, see gernot gruber, Mozart und die Nachwelt, new ed., munich and zurich: piper 1987. For denmark see niels Barfoed, Don Juan. En studie i dansk litteratur, copenhagen: gyldendal 1978. 58 i am using this term instead of the author’s real name, since although the (rare) confirmed facts in the biography correspond to Hotho’s own�� the account is given in a much more literary and fictionalized manner than the comments on Hegel and German �omanticism. we are looking at a narratively shaped study of Don Juan, integrated into the biography, bearing traces of a history of a personal development. it is hard to decide whether these thoughts on the opera were actually made at that particular stage in hotho’s life as stated in the text. ziemer, though, uses the facts given by hotho for her biography. 59 Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 3. 60 ibid., p. 5. 61 ibid., p. 8. 62 ibid., p. 34. 56 57

Hotho: A Dialogue on Romantic Irony

149

Giovanni to mozart’s other operas and the musical dramas by other composers (especially gluck), thus moving ever closer to his goal of a deeper understanding of this opera’s uniqueness. the analytical and comparative approach is followed by the reconstruction of a performance in his mind’s eye. in order to do so, the narrator describes a visit to prague (where Don Giovanni had its premiere) and recounts in detail the events on stage as well as his own inner excitement while watching it.63 while attempting to put his notes on Don Giovanni into order after returning from his journey, the narrator notices that the central question has not yet been accounted for�� namely �why is it significantly these melodies and no others that necessarily combine this particular plot, these situations and occurrences, these characters and emotions in perfect poetry and beauty.”64 But since he lacks the necessary musical knowledge to arrive at an answer, he immerses himself a study of musical theory, and after some months’ work writes a fundamental music-theoretical treatise himself, returning to Don Giovanni after these “preparations.”65 unfortunately, he is still unable to fully grasp “the peculiar magic of mozart’s tones”66 and gives up on his plan to “recreate don Juan by explaining it.”67 Finally, he chooses the alternative of approaching the work through literary fiction�� intending to write a novella in which the characters initially engage in conversation about the opera and end up becoming part of the plot themselves by becoming actors in a private staging of the play. noticing that he thus enters into artistic competition with mozart, however, the narrator gives up on this plan. the failure of these academic and literary efforts leads directly to the aforementioned crisis for which the trip to France and england is the only cure. while kierkegaard’s references to hotho in The Concept of Irony are entirely affirmative�� he distances himself from him quite visibly in Either/Or. in “the Immediate �rotic Stages or The Musical-�rotic�� he initially shows the fictional writer�� the esthete a, pursuing the same goals as hotho, namely trying to prove and explain Don Giovanni’s uniqueness and exceptional quality. For kierkegaard, however, the opera’s distinctiveness is accounted for differently: whoever sees in Don Giovanni “only the best opera, [not being] qualitatively different from all other operas,” merely “the crown among operas,”68 “has failed to recognize its special importance. to the esthete, mozart’s Don Giovanni is the height of classical art, since here the most abstract idea imaginable is expressed in the most abstract medium, namely in music, meaning that 63 the narrator mentions a performance “by far exceeding every other one in being sprung from complete love for the work,” Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 89. it cannot be decided whether this performance is the one in prague, described immediately afterwards or whether the narrator has altered his recollection by mentally traveling to Prague and constructing the ideal performance in a place that is so significantly important in connection with the opera. 64 ibid., p. 155. 65 ibid., p. 159. 66 ibid., p. 160. 67 ibid., p. 161. 68 SKS 2, 91 / EO1, 86 and SKS 2, 78 / EO1, 71. hotho calls Don Juan “dramatic opera music’s peak,” Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 46; see also e.t.a. hoffmann’s famous aphorism of Don Juan being “the opera of all operas,” e.t.a. hoffmann, Rat Krespel. Die �ermate. Don Juan, ed. by Josef kunz, stuttgart: philipp reclam jun. 2002 [1964], p. 64.

150

Joachim Grage

form and content correspond completely. it is the idea of sensuous-erotic originality,69 of perfectly unre��ected erotic sensuality�� which �on Giovanni�� as the main character�� embodies—and this is only adequately represented in music.70 the esthete appreciates hotho’s eloquence,71 but he states that words are insufficient to grasp �on Giovanni as an embodiment of the unre��ected seducer. That is why Hotho’s considerations will inevitably result in a “verbiage (which is supposed to constitute recompense for mozart’s sonority or sound like a faint echo, a pale copy of mozart’s rich, full-toned luxuriance).” thus don Juan “at times becomes more than he is in the opera, becomes a re��ective individual�� at times becomes less.��72 He concedes that Hotho superficially comes to correct conclusions—as in the case of Zerline�� whom Mozart had designed to be �as insignificant as possible��73—but at the same time he denies that Hotho has any deep understanding of the play.74 he also criticizes the vague terminology and the lack of a clear concept: hotho uses the term “seducer” imprecisely and does not say what type of seducer don giovanni is (quite an unfair criticism, given the fact that it was A himself who had brought up the categories of a �re��ected�� and an �unre��ected�� seducer), and at any rate, the interpretation of character is not dominated by any one major idea, but rather consists of a variety of different ideas.75 given this harsh criticism, niels Barfoed argues that kierkegaard saw a rival in hotho, who, with his enthusiastic adoration of mozart, seemed to be a match for kierkegaard himself, and someone to whom he owed more and deeper insights into the opera than kierkegaard was willing to concede. hotho’s Vorstudien, as Barfoed states, was “the decisive reading of don Juan as harold Bloom puts it,”76 and so the criticism of Hotho can be understood as an example for the �anxiety of in��uence.��77 Barfoed points out numerous parallels between hotho’s and kierkegaard’s Don Juan texts, coming to the conclusion that hotho’s literary self-portrait is “steeped in an aesthetic way of life,”78 as embodied by a in Either/Or. this is not entirely correct since hotho is this term is used by howard and edna hong in their translation of Either/Or for “sandselige erotiske Genialitet,” SKS 2, 71 / EO1, 64. 70 on kierkegaard’s theory of music as outlined in Either/Or, see Joachim grage, “durch musik zur erkenntnis kommen� kierkegaards ironische musikästhetik,” in Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 2005, pp. 418–39. 71 �so discriminating in re��ection and fertile in re��ection�� so copious in expression���� SKS 2, 91 / EO1, 86. “his style, his exposition, and his reproduction are lively and stirring,” SKS 2, 119 / EO1, 116. 72 SKS 2, 91 / EO1, 86. 73 SKS 2, 101 / EO1, 97. 74 “without, however, perceiving the basic reason,” SKS 2, 101 / EO1, 97. 75 see also SKS 2, 119 / EO1, 116. 76 niels Barfoed, “hotho und kierkegaard. eine literarische quelle zur don Juanauffassung des Ästhetikers a,” in Orbis Litterarum, no. 22, 1967, pp. 378–86. Barfoed is the only one to ever have looked more deeply into the relations between kierkegaard and hotho, but he entirely focuses on the hotho reception in Either/Or and fails to mention the use kierkegaard makes of hotho in The Concept of Irony. 77 harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence. A Theory of Poetry, new York: oxford university press 1973. 78 Barfoed, “hotho und kierkegaard,” op. cit., p. 384. 69

Hotho: A Dialogue on Romantic Irony

151

incapable of irony, which is one of a’s central characteristics. more convincing are the parallels drawn between the two writers in terms of their common adoration of mozart, as the figure who can �bring the crisis-stricken individual back to full life�� (Hotho)79 and “the one pillar that until now has prevented everything from collapsing for me into a boundless chaos, into a dreadful nothing” (kierkegaard).80 hotho speaks of a tension between “the philosophical urge to decode and the immediate pleasure in art.”81 these are categories that also apply to kierkegaard’s treatise. Finally, Barfoed demonstrates the similarity of several formulations: while arguing how classical works of art function as substitutes for a whole epoch or for one artist’s entire oeuvre, hotho writes: when you hear people talk and chatter about the apollo of Belvedere when talking about greek sculptures, about the strasbourg cathedral and the cathedral in cologne when talking about medieval architecture, about the sistine madonna when talking about raphael, about goethe and schiller when talking about german poets, about Faust and the virgin, and about don Juan and nothing else but don Juan over and over again when talking about mozart .…82

this is mirrored in kierkegaard’s observations on “that happy greek view of the world” at the beginning of the treatise on the immediate erotic stages: “uniting what belongs together, axel with valborg, homer with the trojan war, raphael with catholicism, mozart with don Juan.”83 Furthermore, Barfoed points out the parallels in terminology and content concerning Don Giovanni’s overture.84 Both authors see a sort of musical narration of don giovanni’s life in the overture; both point out the difference between the “deep” and the “serious” chords in the andante opening and the quicker movements in the allegro section. Both interpret this as a “zest of life” (“Lebensschwung,” hotho) or “joy of life” (“Livsglæde,” kierkegaard), both describe the musical progression as a �fight�� and make extensive use of nature metaphors (wind�� lightning�� rocks�� day and night�� light�� fire). Both thus visualize the overture�� even though A never tires of repeating that Don Giovanni “is not to be seen but to be heard.”85 Finally, Barfoed notices the fact that kierkegaard had considered writing his own Don Juan novella,86 a project kierkegaard actually completed, in opposition to hotho: “the seducer’s diary” can convincingly be seen as a Don Giovanni adaptation,87 even if the conditions of the linguistic medium in literature require a Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., pp. 7–8. SKS 2, 57 / EO1, 49. 81 Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 8. 82 ibid., p. 45. 83 SKS 2, 55 / EO1, 47. 84 see Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., pp. 92–4 and SKS 2, 128–31 / EO1, 126–30. see also SKS 2, 106–107 / EO1, 103, where the overture is not explicitly mentioned, although the same motives and metaphors are used. 85 SKS 2, 106 / EO1, 103. 86 cf. SKS 18, 100, FF:129 / JP 5, 5314. 87 cf. Fritz paul, “kierkegaards verführer, don Juan und Faust,” in Fritz paul, Kleine Schriften zur nordischen Philologie, ed. by Joachim grage et al., vienna: edition praesens 2003, pp. 132–52. 79 80

152

Joachim Grage

change of conception. this means that a’s criteria of the musical-erotic cannot be applied to the main character—being unre��ected in music�� he has to be presented as a reflected seducer in literature. regardless of whether or not these selective correspondences actually justify speaking of the Vorstudien as “the decisive reading of don Juan,” hotho’s views on mozart’s opera certainly provide foundations for a’s arguments, even if kierkegaard concealed hotho’s traces in his text. in his criticism kierkegaard fails to mention the fact that hotho had obviously managed to become aware of what a would consider the main difficulty in dealing with Don Giovanni, namely the problem of putting music into words: “where words fail to let the innermost heart speak freely, music becomes the soul’s best interpreter; how could i ever be able to formulate in words what cannot even be translated into words.”88 hotho mentions the “borderline between what is possible and what is unreachable”89 as being a barrier set by language. this concept will reappear in a’s media theory where music and language are understood as two neighboring empires separated by an impassable border.90 what obviously escaped kierkegaard’s attention initially was that hotho’s implicit confession of having failed to recreate Don Giovanni in writing was no more than an attempt to justify approaching the project once again in the form of a biographical story as proof of his own personal and subjective engagement with mozart’s music, despite having already carried out a failed scholarly treatise and a literary adaptation. the genre of the “biographical fragment” evidently supplies hotho with an escape route from the aporia of intermedia writing�� the difficulty of which kierkegaard is so eager to emphasize in his text. kierkegaard’s treatment of hotho both in The Concept of Irony and in Either/Or turns out to be much more important than it seemed to be at first glance. The text on the musical erotic in particular enables us to speak of a genuine answer to hotho since it pursues the same goals as hotho. hotho’s biographical account of his treatment of Don Juan leads kierkegaard to formulate new questions and answers concerning mozart’s opera. thus hotho’s and kierkegaard’s texts might well be considered part of a dialogue that could not be executed in personal conversation—and that probably only one of the participants was ever aware of.

Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, op. cit., p. 160. ibid., p. 161. 90 see SKS 2, 72 / EO1, 52. in the use of the metaphor of impassable borders between two empires this conception of media alludes to kierkegaard’s view on irony. see Joachim grage, “durch musik zur erkenntnis kommen�” op. cit., pp. 427–9. 88 89

Bibliography I. Hotho�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: in der J.g. cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1835 (ASKB 580). [ed.] hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich, Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by von heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1835–38 (vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45) (ASKB 1384–1386). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Hotho hegel, g.w.F., Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, vols. 1–3, ed. by leopold von henning, karl ludwig michelet, ludwig Boumann, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1840–45, vol. 1, pp. 132–3 (ASKB 561–563). menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 4, pp. 261ff. (ASKB u 79). rosenkranz, karl, Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, königsberg: Bornträger 1837, p. 276 (ASKB 744). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Hotho Barfoed, niels, “hotho und kierkegaard. eine literarische quelle zur don Juanauffassung des Ästhetikers a,” Orbis Litterarum. International Review of Literary Studies, ed. by steffen steffensen and hans sörensen, vol. 22, 1967, pp. 378–86.

This page intentionally left blank

Jean paul: apparent and hidden relations between kierkegaard and Jean paul markus kleinert

a thesis: great geniuses are essentially unable to read a book. while they are reading, their own development will always be greater than their understanding of the author.1

to analyze kierkegaard’s relation to Jean paul is to enter largely unexplored territory. this article attempts a survey of this area and at the same time offers an explanation for why the widespread neglect of the relationship between the two authors is both surprising and not surprising. To fulfill its task�� this article progresses in three steps: the first part offers selected information on Jean Paul’s life and works; the second part presents the references to Jean paul in kierkegaard’s writings, including those which go beyond demonstrable intertextual references; finally�� the third part works out decisive points for relating kierkegaard to Jean paul. I. the following information on Jean paul’s life and works is, of course, compiled with a view toward kierkegaard.2 Jean Paul is the pseudonym—meant as a reference to �ousseau— of Johann paul Friedrich richter (1763–1825). after abandoning his studies in theology, the versatile richter, who was educated in orthodox as well as heterodox theology and philosophy, decided to live as an independent author. his philosophical point of view may be characterized as a �philosophy of faith�� similar to that of Jacobi—to use an unavoidable i would like to thank dao tran and Jon stewart for correcting the english translation of this article. 1 SKS 17, 136, BB:46 / JP 2, 1288. 2 this overall view follows primarily kurt wölfel, “Johann paul Friedrich richter. leben, werk, wirkung,” in Jean Paul-Studien, ed. by Bernhard Buschendorf, Frankfurt am main: suhrkamp 1989, pp. 7–50. also highly recommendable is günter de Bruyn’s literary biography, Das Leben des Jean Paul �riedrich Richter. Eine Biographie, Frankfurt am main: Fischer taschenbuch verlag 1998 [1975]. For the sake of simplicity, Jean paul’s works are cited from the following edition: Jean paul, Sämtliche Werke, part 1, vols. 1.1–1.6, part 2, vols. 2.1–2.4, ed. by norbert miller, Frankfurt am main: zweitausendeins 1996. hereafter abbreviated as SW.

156

Markus Kleinert

simplification. The young author’s mainly satirical experiments�� in which he began to use his encyclopedic knowledge of similes, did not met with any reverberations for a long time. not until the last decade of the eighteenth century did Jean paul make his breakthrough, and his novels and stories—Hesperus,3 Leben des Quintus �ixlein,4 or Siebenkäs,5 to name just a few—became greatly acclaimed. this literary success, which had long eluded him, was due largely to his choice of the novel form: the novel allowed Jean paul to combine different genres of text—especially the aforementioned satire along with sentimental idyll and elegy— into a unit full of tension. the abstract author, who guarantees the unity of the heterogeneous text, occupies the center of attention. Jean paul shakes up the familiar order of narration by an ingenuous blurring of the border between the real and the fictive author�� between the levels of the narrator and the characters; furthermore�� by using mirror images, the author troubles the border guard of common sense. so the attention of the reader is directed away from the narration to the act of narrating and the voice responsible for this narration. Jean Paul’s texts force the reader to re��ect on communication�� and in this re��ection they express the communicating subject’s constitution. with regard to a contemporary understanding of Jean paul’s texts, it is significant that Jean Paul’s narrating subject does not disappear behind the narration�� but reveals itself to be included in the satirically criticized situations; therefore, the author was regarded by his contemporaries as a humorist. according to the author’s own in��uential understanding�� humor is an indirect elevation: by consistent and self-referential criticism of all relative, worldly standards, the humorist refers to an absolute standard to which he can never refer directly. the fact that Jean paul came to be appreciated by his contemporaries, however, does not change his position as an outsider in the history of literature: the author, who stayed only for visits in the literary centers of the time, kept his distance from the ideals of weimar classicism as well as from the projects of romanticism in his texts. in the texts written after his main work, Titan6 (for example, Der Komet7), there is an increasingly resigned attitude which calls into question his carefully voiced views of utopia and hope. These short comments should suffice to characterize Jean Paul’s literary works. Besides his literary writings, his aesthetic, pedagogical and political writings should also at least be mentioned. At the end of the eighteenth century and during the first half of the nineteenth century Jean paul’s works were very popular. however, one must take into consideration that only a few of his texts or even only extracts were the cause of this Jean paul, Hesperus, oder 45 Hundsposttage: Eine Biographie, Berlin: carl matzdorffs Buchhandlung 1795. 4 Jean paul, Leben des Quintus �ixlein: aus funfzehn Zettelkästen gezogen; nebst einem Mustheil und einigen ius de tablette, Bayreuth: Johann andreas lübecks erben 1796. 5 Jean paul, Blumen- �rucht und Dornenstükke oder Ehestand, Tod und Hochzeit des Armenadvokaten F. St Siebenkäs im Reichsmarktflecken Kuhschnappel, Berlin: carl matzdorffs Buchhandlung 1796–97. 6 Jean paul, Titan, Berlin: in der Buchhandlung des commerzien-raths matzdorff 1800–03. 7 Jean paul, Der Komet oder Nikolaus Marggraf: eine komische Geschichte, vols. 1–3, Berlin: reimer 1820–22. 3

Jean Paul: Apparent and Hidden Relations between Kierkegaard and Jean Paul

157

popularity, for example, “schulmeisterlein maria wutz” from Die unsichtbare Loge.8 the peculiarity of the works, belonging neither to classicism nor to romanticism, was a provocation; they evoked equally strong praise and criticism. the german reception may be illustrated by two prominent opinions. hegel, in his Lectures on Aesthetics, pays tribute to Jean paul’s humor, even though this humor often turns into subjective arbitrariness and sentimentality; he claims that the turn to the complacency of the subject, comparable to the complacency of the romantic ironist, is supported by Jean paul’s “economy of excerpts”: similarly, Jean paul’s humor often surprises us by its depth of wit and beauty of feeling, but equally often, in an opposite way, by its grotesquely combining things which have no real connection with one another, and the relations into which his humor brings them together are almost indecipherable. even the greatest humorist has no relations of this kind present in his memory, and so after all we often observe that even Jean paul’s interconnections are not the product of the power of genius but are brought together externally. thus in order always to have new material, Jean paul looked into books of the most varied kind, botanical, legal, philosophical, descriptive of travel, noted at once what struck him and wrote down the passing fancies it suggested; when it was a matter of actual composition, he brought together the most heterogeneous material—Brazilian plants and the old Supreme Court of the empire. this is then given special praise as originality or as humor by which anything and everything is excused. But such caprice is precisely what true originality excluded.9

although heine in Die romantische Schule condemns Jean paul’s arbitrary style, he nevertheless cites him as a role model for the movement “Young germany.” heine commends Jean paul for his emphatic view for his time, while remaining independent of all literary doctrines: he [Jean paul] stands wholly isolated in his time since he, in contrast to the two schools [sc. classicism and romanticism], had wholly surrendered to his time and his heart was wholly filled with it. His heart and his writings were one and the same. We also find this quality, this wholeness, in the authors of Young germany today, who likewise make no distinction between life and writing, who never separate politics from science, art and religion and who are simultaneously artists, tribunes and apostles.10

the german reception of Jean paul, then, is the story of an irritant whose irritating works gave rise to antagonistic or ambivalent attitudes; the author’s early canonization does not eliminate the confusing effect of his works, which seems to last until the present time. Jean Paul was also popular in �enmark during the first decades of the nineteenth century, at the beginning of the danish golden age. the poet-philosopher Jens Jean paul, Die Unsichtbare Loge: Eine Biographie, Berlin: matzdorff 1793. g.w.F. hegel, Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, vols. 1–2, trans. by t.m. knox, oxford: clarendon press 1998, vol. 1, pp. 295f. Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, in Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe in 20 Bänden, ed. by hermann glockner, stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann verlag 1928–41, vol. 12, p. 397. (see also Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, vol. 1, pp. 601f. / Jub., vol. 13, pp. 227f.) 10 heinrich heine, Die romantische Schule, kritische ausgabe, ed. by helga weidmann, stuttgart: reclam 1994, p. 125; see pp. 123–30. 8 9

158

Markus Kleinert

Baggesen (1764–1826), who belonged to Jean paul’s generation, had an especially strong affinity for him.11 on one occasion Jean paul invited Jacobi to participate in a projected monthly journal directed against the, so to speak, narcissistic tendencies in contemporary philosophy. Baggesen, who was a friend of Jacobi, used this occasion to introduce himself in a long letter to Jean paul and to recommend himself as a philosophically and politically experienced ally.12 though the project of the journal was never realized, Baggesen and Jean paul remained in contact. deciding the degree to which Baggesen’s works, especially Labyrinten,13 can be seen as pendant to Jean paul’s works and assessing the importance of Baggesen for kierkegaard would require a separate investigation.14 here Baggesen is mentioned merely as an important advocate of Jean paul in denmark.15

see august Baggesen, Jens Baggesens Biographie: Udarbeidet fornemmeligen efter hans egne Haandskrifter og efterladte litteraire Arbeider, vols. 1–4, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1843–56, vol. 3, pp. 1–6. in Baggesen’s comedy, Der vollendete �aust, Jean paul appears as the enthusiastic and idolized st preux: Jens Baggesen, Der vollendete �aust oder Romanien in Jauer, in Jens Baggesen�s Poetische Werke in deutscher Sprache, vols. 1–5, ed. by carl and august Baggesen, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1836, vol. 3, pp. 1–312. see also Der vollendete �aust Oder Romanien in Jauer, ed. by leif ludwig albertsen, Bern: lang 1985, pp. 5–31. 12 Baggesen’s letter to Jean paul is given as a supplement in august Baggesen, Jens Baggesens Biographie, op. cit., supplement, pp. 3–13. 13 Jens Baggesen, Labyrinten eller Reise giennem Tydskland, Schweitz og �rankerig, vols. 1–2, copenhagen: Johan Frederik schultz 1792–93. 14 F.J. Billeskov Jansen’s article in Kierkegaard: Literary Miscellany, ed. by niels thulstrup and m. mikulová thulstrup, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1981 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 9), pp. 83–90, offers some information about Baggesen (1764–1826) indicating his in��uence on �ierkegaard. 15 the popularity of Jean paul in denmark can also be illustrated by the young mynster’s writing exercises in Jean paul’s manner: Jakob peter mynster, Meddelelser om mit Levnet, 2nd ed., copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandling 1884 [1854], pp. 119–21 (see Joakim garff, Søren Kierkegaard. A Biography, trans. by Bruce h. kirmmse, princeton and oxford: princeton university press 2005, p. 609). as garff points out, one of mynster’s aphorisms recalls Johannes de silentio’s epilogue in �ear and Trembling: “in order to keep them from losing their value, do not indulge in enjoyments too frequently, just as the dutch uprooted cinnamon trees in order to keep the price of cinnamon from falling.” (mynster, Meddelelser om mit Levnet, op. cit., p. 121). “once when the price of spices in holland fell, the merchants had a few cargoes sunk in the sea in order to jack up the price” (SKS 4, 208 / �T, 121). the simile used by mynster and Johannes de silentio has a pendant in Jean paul’s �legeljahre: “Doch der Adel erkennt auch selber seine Kostbarkeit und unsere Notwendigkeit gern an; denn er schenkt selber deswegen—wie etwa die Holländer einen Teil Gewürz verbrennen oder die Engelländer nur siebenjährig ihre Wasserblei-Gruben auftun, damit der Preis nicht falle—in seiner Jugend der Welt fast nur Bürgerliche, und sparsam erst später in der Ehe eines und das andere Edelkind; er macht lieber zehn Arbeiter als eine Arbeit, weil er den Staat liebt und sich” (SW, part i, vol. 2, pp. 797f.). this series of texts is, of course, not an intertextual reference, but demonstrates the same simile’s variant uses and corresponding ��uctuations of quality. 11

Jean Paul: Apparent and Hidden Relations between Kierkegaard and Jean Paul

159

II. to give a general idea of the traces of Jean paul in kierkegaard’s writings, this article will begin by examining �ierkegaard’s demonstrable references to Jean Paul�� first in the published writings and then in the unpublished writings (in each case arranged in descending order from significant references to less significant). Finally�� some indirect references will be sketched, indicating, for example, the inspiring power of a literary character for philosophical re��ections. in accordance with this outline, the analysis begins with the explicit references to Jean Paul in �ierkegaard’s published writings. An important reference—a negative one�� in fact—is found in �ierkegaard’s dissertation�� The Concept of Irony. concerning representations of the modern or romantic concept of irony, he writes: Jean paul also mentions irony frequently, and some things are found in his Aesthetik, but without any philosophic or genuinely aesthetic authority. he speaks mainly as an aesthetician, from a rich aesthetic experience, instead of actually giving grounds for his aesthetic position. irony, humor, moods seem for him to be different languages, and his characterization is limited to expressing the same thought ironically, humorously, in the language of moods—somewhat as Franz Baader at times�� after having described some mystical theses, then translates the description into mystical language.16

even though this negative judgment seems clear, it can be called into question by the content and form of the dissertation itself: first�� Jean Paul decisively in��uences the concept of humor which kierkegaard uses in the dissertation as counterpart to irony with the mentioned Vorschule der Ästhetik and his literary writings; secondly, Jean paul’s Vorschule der Ästhetik, with its peculiar mode of presentation, can be seen as a model for kierkegaard’s dissertation, which tries to be consistent with its unconventional subject by breaking the conventions of academic writing. sometimes the style in kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony, which was criticized by his dissertation committee, is reminiscent of Jean paul;17 this relationship is later 16 SKS 1, 284 / CI�� 244f. (translation slightly modified). �ierkegaard refers especially to “course viii. on epic, dramatic, and lyric humor,” in Jean paul’s Vorschule der Ästhetik, SW, part i, vol. 5, pp. 144–64 [1st ed.: Vorschule der Aesthetik: nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, hamburg: perthes 1804]. (english translation: Horn of Oberon. Jean Paul Richter�s School for Aesthetics, trans. by margaret r. hale, detroit: wayne state university press 1973, pp. 104–19). 17 such stylistic similarity may be illustrated by at least one example taken from the first—and at first sight more conventional—part of �ierkegaard’s dissertation. In connection with the thesis that plato’s Apology is either false or ironic, kierkegaard uses the following strategy: he compiles in the main text detailed quotations from ast’s study of the subject and confines himself to a few subversive footnotes. As �ierkegaard points out�� performing the breakdown of ast’s pathos makes evident the ironic thesis in an adequate ironic manner. see SKS 1, 146–50 / CI, 90–96. Jean paul uses a similar satiric strategy in “des rektors Florian Fälbels und seiner primaner reise nach dem Fichtelberg” (a supplement to Leben des Quintus �ixlein). the main text is a teacher’s report of a school excursion. this report turns out to be a boastful transfiguration of common occurrences; the literarily performed contrast between appearance and essence is emphasized by a few insertions and footnotes by the narrator. SW, part i, vol. 4, pp. 226–57.

160

Markus Kleinert

explicitly noted by Frederik christian sibbern, dean of the Faculty of philosophy who was in part responsible for the official evaluation of the work.18 kierkegaard’s discourse “at a graveside” (from Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions) yields another interesting reference: a poet had told of a youth who on the night when the year changes dreamed of being an old man, and as an old man in his dream he looked back over a wasted life, until he woke in anxiety new Year’s morning not only to a new year but to a new life. likewise, to be wide awake and to think death, to think what surely is more decisive than old age, which of course also has its time, to think that all was over, that everything was lost along with life�� in order then to win everything in life—this is earnestness.19

here the speaker refers to a short text by Jean paul; the intention to get the reader in the mood for serious contemplation may be the reason for not naming the poet or the title of the work (while Jean paul is mentioned by name in a draft).20 the speaker’s obvious appreciation of the poet Jean paul is not inconsistent with the polemics in the dissertation, where the lack of appreciation of the theorist Jean paul is coupled with the appreciation of his literary practice. the text, which is taken up in the discourse, has the title “die neujahrsnacht eines unglücklichen” and is incorporated into Jean Pauls Briefe und bevorstehender Lebenslauf,21 after being published in an earlier version as an autonomous contribution to “taschenkalender für die Jugend.”22 the auction catalogue of kierkegaard’s library suggests that he knew Jean paul’s novel only in the second, incorporated version; if this is the case, the reference in the discourse is “dissociating” or disruptive in the sense that it removes the text entirely from its context—and is therefore typical of �ierkegaard’s use Jean Paul’s writings. The dissociation will be illustrated brie��y. in Jean Pauls Briefe und bevorstehender Lebenslauf, “die neujahrsnacht eines unglücklichen” is the second postscript to the fourth letter. as reported in kierkegaard’s discourse, “new Year’s eve” is about change: a young man dreams he is old and has chosen the wrong way at the crossroads of life; the young man awakens changed after his despairing dream about the irreversible mistake. at the end of the novel, the narrator admonishes the reader to test himself to discover whether the reader’s life could be justified in the young man’s dream or whether it must be changed accordingly. this unmistakable, narrator-authorized pedagogical message of “new Year’s eve” is altered, though, by its relationship to the remainder SKS �1�� 129–45�� gives an account of the official evaluation of �ierkegaard’s dissertation. carl weltzer mentions sibbern’s comparison of Jean paul’s and kierkegaard’s style in his “omkring søren kierkegaards disputats,” in Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, series 6, vol. 6, 1948–50, p. 293; pp. 284–311. see Jens himmelstrup, Sibbern. En Monografi, copenhagen: J.h. schultz Forlag 1934, pp. 267f. 19 SKS 5, 446f. / TD, 76. 20 Pap. vi B 179 / TD, supplement, pp. 144f. 21 Jean paul, Jean Pauls Briefe und bevorstehender Lebenslauf, gera und leipzig: heinsius 1799. 22 SW, part i, vol. 4, pp. 925–1080, here “die neujahrsnacht eines unglücklichen’,” pp. 965–7. in a note, the character Jean paul refers to the earlier version of “new Year’s eve,” p. 960, note 1. 18

Jean Paul: Apparent and Hidden Relations between Kierkegaard and Jean Paul

161

of Jean Pauls Briefe und bevorstehender Lebenslauf. the short piece, “der doppelte schwur der Besserung,” which constitutes a prelude to “new Year’s eve,” is a variation on the theme of change. Both narratives are postscripts to a letter, which the fictive letter-writer Jean Paul sends to Benigna�� who is cast as a sufferer. These narrations are used in the communication between writer and addressee and an interpretation of “new Year’s eve” must take into consideration its function in the fictive correspondence. Furthermore�� the interweaving of the letters�� for example�� includes the anthropological essay, “Über das träumen,” which is sent to another addressee in the following letter, a kind of comment to the terrifying dream of the young man.23 these annotations illustrate that the meaning of the author’s narration, as part of a whole work�� is�� of course�� in��uenced and changed by the latter (and Jean paul uses these effects ingenuously). with regard to kierkegaard’s discourse “at a graveside,” it must be noted that kierkegaard lifts the sentimental “neujahrsnacht eines unglücklichen” from its context in Jean Pauls Briefe und bevorstehender Lebenslauf (which�� of course�� fits the intention of the discourse). The refractions of meaning, which are typical for Jean paul’s writing, are thereby ignored. having treated the theorist and the poet Jean paul, i now turn to an analysis of some passages in kierkegaard’s published writings which concern Jean paul the humorist. evaluating the historical evidence for the truth of christianity in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Johannes climacus says the following about a possible rhetorical use of this evidence: “perhaps most aptly with a humorous twist, as when Jean paul says that if all demonstrations of the truth of christianity were abandoned or disproved, one demonstration would nevertheless remain, namely, that it has survived for eighteen hundred years.”24 the fact that this is an incorrect reference since this proof cannot be found in Jean paul’s writings probably illustrates how natural it is for kierkegaard to associate humor with Jean paul.25 the concept of humor is, however, equivocal: it stands for a certain behavior towards the self, the world and truth, and also for a more or less defined�� ridiculous expression. The humorous remark�� which Johannes climacus associates with Jean paul, may be compatible with the concept of humor Johannes climacus himself conceives as confinium to the religious. in any case, kierkegaard often associates Jean paul with the vague concept of humor, that is, a ridiculous way of writing. kierkegaard has a collection of expressions by Jean paul which he uses occasionally: the critic in �rom the Papers of One Still Living and Judge william in Stages on Life�s Way, for example, both use the same remark taken from Jean paul’s �legeljahre26 to characterize a wrong point of view: “J. paul says, ‘Solchen Sekanten, Kosekanten, Tangenten, Kotangenten kommt alles excentrisch vor, besonders das Centrum.’”27 the adoption of the remark aims at a polemical ibid., pp. 971–82. SKS 7, 53n / CUP1, 47n. see Pap. vi B 25 / JP 3, 3607. 25 see SKS k7, 129. 26 Jean paul, �legeljahre: Eine Biographie, tübingen: cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1804–05. 27 SKS 1, 19n / EPW, 63n. see SKS 6, 136 / SLW, 145, each with reference to SW, part i, vol. 2, p. 666. “Solchen Sekanten, Kosekanten, Tangenten, Kotangenten kommt alles excentrisch vor, besonders das Centrum.” [to such secants, cosecants, tangents, cotangents, everything appears eccentric, especially the center.] as another example of a remark taken from �legeljahre, see 23 24

162

Markus Kleinert

point, whereas the original meaning in Jean paul’s text is negligible. the arbitrary suitability of such passages is also illustrated by the fact that kierkegaard uses them in literary, as well as in journalistic, works.28 By turning to kierkegaard’s unpublished writings, we can check and complete the observations thus far. the excerpts in kierkegaard’s early journals mention Jean paul indirectly:29 molbech’s “lectures on more recent danish poetry” claim Jean paul’s authority for determining the character of the romantic;30 in k.e. schubarth’s lectures “ueber goethe’s Faust,” Jean paul is an example of “sentimental humor.”31 the humorist returns in kierkegaard’s own notes. in the margins of a fundamental comparison of irony and humor which kierkegaard wrote in preparation for his dissertation, he notes: “Jean paul is the greatest humorist capitalist.”32 two readings of this sentence seem possible. in the relevant journal, planned as an investigation of irony and humor, the latter concept is analyzed with reference to hamann without consideration of Jean paul; in this light, the sentence about Jean paul may be understood as a compliment of the manifold forms of expression of the humorist Jean paul. on the other hand, it may also be dismissive of Jean paul’s works as a mere accumulation of funny ideas.

Prefaces (SKS 4, 515 / P, 54) and the Journal EE (SKS 18, 36, ee:95b / JP 4, 4580), both with reference to SW, part i, vol. 2, p. 1066. 28 see the articles “to mr. orla lehmann” (SV1 Xiii, 36 / EPW, 31) and “literary quicksilver” (SV1 Xiii, 483 / COR, 85). Jean paul’s Schmelzles Reise nach �lätz (SW, part i, vol. 6, p. 35) is alluded to in a note concerning Either/Or (Pap. iv B 19, 186 / EO2, supplement, 389), and in Stages on Life�s Way (SKS 6, 42 / SLW, 38) (also in peter ludvig møller’s article “a visit in sorø’,” COR, 104); see the article “the activity of a traveling aesthetician,” SV1 Xiii, 426n / COR, 42n. 29 see also the account of hans lassen martensen’s lectures on speculative dogmatics (written by an unidentified hand) printed in Pap. ii c 28 (in Pap. Xiii, 69). 30 Pap. i c 88 / JP 5, 5135: “thus it is not the sentimental or the chivalrous or the marvelous element that constitutes the essential or necessary substance of the romantic—it is rather the infinitude�� the freedom without physical barriers in the working of the imagination�� in the intuiting of the ideal, in the fullness and depth of feeling, in the idea-oriented power of re��ection to which we must look for that fundamental condition for the romantic and also for a large and significant share of modern art. ‘The romantic��’ declares Jean Paul�� ‘is the beautiful without boundaries or the beautiful infinite�� just as there is a sublime infinite.’ Jean P. likens the romantic to the illumination of an area by moonlight or to the tone waves in the echo of a ringing bell�� of a stroked string—a trembling sound that swims as it were�� farther and farther away and finally loses itself in us and still sounds within us although outside of us it is quiet.�� For the reference in Jean paul’s Vorschule der Ästhetik, see SKS k17, 144f. 31 SKS 17, 88f., BB:7: “he [k.e. schubarth] makes a distinction between naive and realistic and a more ideal or fanciful, humor full of longing. ‘Der Unterschied beider aussert seine Wirksamkeit vorzüglich in Absicht auf jenes Absolute, den sonstigen Unterschied der Dinge theils aufhebende, theils neu Contrastirende. Wird namlich dieses in irgend etwas Gegenwartiges, noch Erreichbares, Diesseitiges gesetzt, so entsteht jener naive Humor; wird aber dabei in die �erne, in ein Jenseits, in überirdische Regionen hinaufgegangen, so entspringt der sentimentale Humor.’ e.g., Jean paul.” see SKS k17, 195f. 32 SKS 17, 225, dd:18e / JP 2, 1696 (in margin of SKS 17, 225, dd:18 / JP 2, 1690).

Jean Paul: Apparent and Hidden Relations between Kierkegaard and Jean Paul

163

this second reading, that Jean paul only accumulates humorous ideas, is supported by the fact that Jean paul is mentioned as a negative example a few entries later in the same journal. in a note with the title, “resolution of July 13, 1837, made in our study at six o’clock in the evening,” which discusses the work of taking notes, kierkegaard declares: i have often wondered how it could be that i have had such great reluctance to write down particular observations; but the more i come to know individual great men in whose writings one does not detect in any way a kaleidoscopic hustling together of a certain batch of ideas (perhaps Jean paul by his example has given me premature uneasiness in this respect) and the more i recall that such a refreshing writer as hoffmann has kept a journal and that �ichtenberg recommends it�� the more I am prompted to find out just why this, which is in itself innocent, should be unpleasant, almost repulsive, to me…33

in this note, which obviously enjoys the self-contradiction of being a note about the shyness of taking notes, kierkegaard admonishes himself to write down ideas directly as they occur to him as a way of getting to know himself and as an exercise in exploring styles of expression. By accusing Jean paul of “a kaleidoscopic hustling together of a certain batch of ideas,” kierkegaard seems to share hegel’s opinion, mentioned in the first part of this chapter�� which holds that Jean Paul excerpts all kinds of writings and creates by simply mixing these excerpts. Behind this sweeping reproach of arbitrariness may be a hidden annoyance at an irritating form of communication which provokes re��ections about the author’s almost baroque play with the readability of creations articulated in an abundance of similes. Furthermore, kierkegaard’s negative judgment hides a perhaps comparable, elaborate system of taking notes: Jean paul possessed an imposing collection of notes that he organized in journals used simultaneously, with titles like Gedanken, Merkblätter or Studienhefte (unfortunately, these are for the most part taken into account only with reference to the published writings).34 in both his unpublished and published writings, kierkegaard freely uses pointed expressions from Jean paul without regard to their original context.35 after this overview of kierkegaard’s documented reception of Jean paul, a provisional result can be formulated: kierkegaard disrupts or “dissociates” the tense unity of Jean paul’s texts; for example, he ignores the interweaving of satiric and sentimental poetry and the interlocking construction. Jean Paul is regarded first of all as a representative of humor, but kierkegaard does not clarify the particular concept of humor he has in mind. the references analyzed here belong to kierkegaard’s writings from the time of the earliest journals to the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and the Corsair affair; they suggest at the least that kierkegaard was familiar with Vorschule der Ästhetik, �legeljahre and some shorter stories by Jean paul.

SKS 17, 229f., dd:28 / JP 5, 5241. see henning ritter, “zur unsichtbarkeit gehören zwei. die meisten hüten sich davor, ihre gedanken aufzuzeichnen: Jean paul graute vor nichts,” �rankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, september 14, 2000. 35 see, for example, the entry SKS 20, 279, nB3:75 / JP 4, 4779 and the draft of an article Pap. vii–1 B 55, 241 / COR, supplement, 192. 33 34

Markus Kleinert

164

Finally, i will now move to some less demonstrable points of inspiration that kierkegaard may have received from Jean paul. in this connection, one of Jean paul’s literary characters has received special attention in research: roquairol, the negative protagonist of Titan (nota bene, a book not mentioned explicitly in kierkegaard’s writings). taking up an expression from Vorschule der Ästhetik, walther rehm has characterized �oquairol as a re��ected seducer and �poetic nihilist���� and interpreted the character as a forerunner of kierkegaard’s esthete.36 rehm’s considerations are repeated here in detail due to their in��uence on more recent (and with regard to the analysis at issue, less fruitful) studies. interpreting the friendship between albano and roquairol, the positive and the negative protagonists of Titan, rehm says of the latter: will to recovery would mean revelation of his [roquairol’s] self and opening to love, towards a person opposite him, to whom his isolated “i” with its self-assertion must yield. so it would mean renunciation of the self which he at the same time desperately wants to be and desperately wants not to be. (kierkegaard could have studied this category of the con��ictingly reserved aesthetic-demonic human being in detail in the character of roquairol, and maybe even did so.)37

and a note explains this idea: kierkegaard seems not to mention Titan anywhere. it would be easy to develop the character of roquairol from the concepts and analysis through which the ethicist understands the aesthete in the second part of Either/Or…the inability to love, to decide, the tendency to live in the mood and the moment, to masquerade and to lie, the neronic-demonic melancholy and feeling of being lost, the secret despair, the merely aesthetic view of evil, the merely aesthetic view of repentance, the fear of being unmasked combined with a secret longing to be unmasked�� and the con��icted demonic will to be peculiar and to be interesting by default—these are the components which also determine �oquairol’s structure. an analysis of kierkegaard and the relevant considerations of his dissertation The Concept of Irony from 1841 are not included here because of the historical perspective: roquairol is not yet totally the aesthete (or ironist)�� but he prefigures him.38

in the same vein as this comparison, an interpretation may also analyze the relationship between the humorist schoppe (another central character of Titan, who is secretly related to roquairol) and kierkegaard’s esthete. in addition to such inspirations in content, formal ones are also probable. as proved by kierkegaard’s adoption of a walther rehm, “roquairol. eine studie zur geschichte des Bösen” in his Begegnungen und Probleme. Studien zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, Bern: Francke 1957, pp. 155–242, 436–45; see walther rehm, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, munich: h. rinn 1949�� especially pp. 112–17�� 617. In��uence of �ehm’s studies is seen�� for example�� in �onrad paul liessmann, Ästhetik der Verführung. Kierkegaards Konstruktion der Erotik aus dem Geiste der Kunst, Frankfurt am main: hain-verlag 1991, p. 83; Birgit haustedt, Die Kunst der Verführung. Zur Reflexion der Kunst im Motiv der Verführung bei Jean Paul, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Kierkegaard und Brentano, stuttgart: m. & p. 1992 (see ralf simon’s review in Jahrbuch der Jean-Paul-Gesellschaft, vol. 28, 1993, pp. 244–8); ralph-rainer wuthenow, “verführung durch phantasie,” Jahrbuch der Jean-Paul-Gesellschaft, vols. 26–7, 1992, pp. 92–107. 37 rehm, “roquairol. eine studie zur geschichte des Bösen,” op. cit., p. 189. 38 ibid., p. 440 (note 30). 36

Jean Paul: Apparent and Hidden Relations between Kierkegaard and Jean Paul

165

set of pointed expressions, Jean paul’s style inspires the polemicist kierkegaard; however�� to separate the inspiration from the in��uence of other authors—for example�� the aforementioned Baggesen—seems very difficult. The labyrinthine nature of Jean paul’s works is certainly one reason for the neglect of such indirect relations between kierkegaard and Jean paul; the importance determines the heuristic value for the interpretation at hand. III. to recapitulate the former analysis of the relationship between kierkegaard and Jean Paul�� humor seems to be the most obvious and—at first sight—most important aspect. as already noted, the concept of humor has different meanings. Jean paul has in��uenced the story of the concept of humor decisively by understanding humor as the �reversed sublime���� as an attempt to mediate the infinite and the finite under the historical conditions of Christianity. In this attempt�� the humorist surveys the infinite by means of the finite�� experiencing the deficiency of not only this or that finite thing�� but of the finite in general—without forgetting his�� the humorist’s own finiteness. humorous behavior and communication make possible an indirect relation to the infinite�� achieved by the humorist’s permanently repeated radical disappointment about the finite. Jean Paul’s impressive image of the humorist�� who points to a salvation hidden to himself�� is the mythical bird Merops�� who ��ies upside-down in the sky, always looking down to earth.39 these few remarks illustrate that kierkegaard could agree with Jean paul’s concept of humor, for example, in Johannes climacus’ considerations in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript.40 to decide whether Jean paul directly shapes kierkegaard’s understanding goes beyond the scope of this chapter. this would necessitate not only a close study of the development of the concept of humor in kierkegaard’s writings, but also a reconstruction of the discussion of humor at the turn of the century with all its german and danish contributors. in this article, humor can draw attention to two matters which also relate kierkegaard SW, part i, vol. 5, p. 129. see wolfgang preisendanz’s terse comment: “seen as a relation to the ridiculous and as a modus of the comical, humor is based on the division between the i and the world, which is connected to Christianity�� and which is thereby based on the suffering of the finite as an unsublatable feature of human existence. as an expression of this situation and the possibility of aesthetically mastering it�� humor is defined through the whole of the relation to the world: ‘Humor as the reversed sublime destroys not the individual but the finite by contrasting it with the idea.’ With regard to the total determination of the finite as suffering�� wrongness�� and deficiency�� a comical relation appears in every phenomenon in humor; for the ‘humorous totality’ every phenomenon presents itself as a ‘finite applied to the infinite.’ �ierkegaard then based his definition of humor as ‘incognito’ and ‘aesthetic confinium’ to the religious on this re��exive relation between the comical and suffering and guilt as total determinations of life.” wolfgang preisendanz, “humor,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 3, ed. by Joachim ritter, karlfried gründer and gottfried gabriel, Basel and stuttgart: schwabe 1974, columns 1232–4, here 1233; see günther voigt, Die humoristische �igur bei Jean Paul [1934], 2nd unchanged edition published as Jahrbuch der Jean-Paul-Gesellschaft, vol. 4, 1969, pp. 7–144, e.g., pp. 20f., pp. 111–15, p. 136. 39 40

166

Markus Kleinert

to Jean Paul: if humorous mediation of the finite and the infinite fails�� self-deification or inconsolable despair may win and determine a human being. in Vorschule der Ästhetik�� Jean Paul characterizes such self-deification�� which�� following the zeitgeist, “would egotistically annihilate the world and the universe in order to clear a space merely for free play in the void,”41 as “poetic nihilism.” since this point of view, taking the absolute impulse of idealism without further ado into everyday life, does not accept any borders, the border between art and life also falls away. as suggested in the discussion of the character roquairol, “poetic nihilism” can be understood as a forerunner of kierkegaard’s aesthetic mode of existence.42 in addition to “poetic nihilism,” Jean paul’s presentation of atheism must be mentioned, a presentation of unfaith, which disdains the nihilistic authorization of an absolute subject and its forced salvation. the most famous presentation of atheism or atheistic despair is “speech of the dead christ from the cosmos, that there is no god,” integrated as “erstes Blumenstück” in the novel Siebenkäs.43 whereas the inconspicuous “new Year’s eve,” mentioned above, anticipates despair about a wasted life, the enormous vision in “speech of the dead christ” stages the apocalypse of a world without god, the final withdrawal of any promise of salvation. Following the narrator’s interpretation�� the vision intends to renew faith by shock, at least to make impossible a personally disinterested attitude towards faith; accordingly, the “speech of the dead christ” has been interpreted as a precarious balance of anti-gospel and gospel, between the inability to believe and the regaining of faith.44 this interpretation becomes questionable if the vision is located in the novel: with regard to contextualized vision, for example, thomas wirtz claims that the apocalyptic sovereignty of interpretation and the hermeneutic work of interpretation keep each other in check and that the

“§ 2. poetische nihilisten” SW, part i, vol. 5, pp. 31–4, here 31; see for example Clavis �ichtiana, SW, part i, vol. 3, pp. 1011–56. (english translation: Horn of Oberon, op. cit., p. 15.) see wolfgang müller-lauter, wilhelm goerdt, “nihilismus,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 6, op. cit., 1984, column 846–54, especially 848 (the emphatic use of the concept in the danish discussion of nihilism, for example, in poul martin møller (1794–1838), should be noted). 42 in this respect Vorschule der Ästhetik and Titan may be understood as theory and practice. walther rehm, “roquairol. eine studie zur geschichte des Bösen,” op. cit., p. 237. 43 SW, part i, vol. 2, pp. 270–75. regarding the importance of “speech of the dead christ” for Jean paul’s popularity, see kurt wölfel, “Johann paul Friedrich richter. leben, werk, wirkung,” op. cit., pp. 49f. (compared to “speech of the dead christ,” the “apocalyptical poetry” written by Johan ludvig heiberg and discussed theoretically by h.l. martensen seems quite bland.) 44 walther rehm, Experimentum medietatis. Studien zur Geistes- und Literaturgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, munich: h. rinn 1947, especially pp. 91ff.; see götz müller, “Jean pauls ‘rede des todten christus vom weltgebäude herab, daß kein gott sei,’” in Religionsphilosophie und spekulative Theologie. Der Streit um die Göttlichen Dinge (1799–1812), ed. by walter Jaeschke, hamburg: Felix meiner 1994, pp. 35–55. For interpretations of the vision going beyond the immediate context, see, for example, georg picht, Glauben und Wissen, ed. by constanze eisenbart and enno rudolph, 2nd ed., stuttgart: klett-cotta 1994, especially pp. 121–31; hendrik Birus, “apokalypse der apokalypsen. nietzsches versuch einer destruktion aller eschatologie,” in Das Ende. �iguren einer Denkform, ed. by karlheinz stierle and rainer warning, munich: Fink 1996, pp. 32–58. 41

Jean Paul: Apparent and Hidden Relations between Kierkegaard and Jean Paul

167

temptation to instrumentalize a vision is demonstrated in the novel itself.45 thus when one looks at Jean paul’s “speech of the dead christ,” which confronts the reader with con��icting and unsublatable points of view and questions the relation of author and authority, the resemblance to kierkegaard’s literary strategy becomes apparent insofar as kierkegaard tries to involve and rattle the reader in and by literary arrangements of life (which are valuable sources of serious contemplation). kierkegaard refers to Jean paul’s writings in a way that removes them from their original context. the peculiarity of the writings, for example, the polyperspectivistic construction or the refraction of mood, disappears in this use. while kierkegaard apparently appreciates isolated elements of Jean paul’s writings, important points of comparison to the intact literary cosmos of Jean paul remain hidden. these hidden parallels, for example, regarding techniques of narration, deserve further research. Finally, the motto of this essay concerning the reading habits of great geniuses may be modified as follows: �ierkegaard’s dissociating approach shows an appreciation for Jean paul’s books but is unable to recognize a related poetic genius therein.

45 Thomas Wirtz�� �‘Ich komme bald��’ sagt die Apokalypsis und ich. Vorläufiges über den zusammenhang von weltende und autorschaft bei Jean paul,” in Jahrbuch der Jean-PaulGesellschaft, vols. 32–3, 1998, pp. 47–84.

Bibliography I. Jean Paul�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1813 (ASKB 1381–1383). Jean Paul�s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–60, Berlin: g. reimer 1826–28 [vols. 61–5, Jean Paul�s sämmtliche Werke. Jean Paul�s literarischer Nachlaß, Berlin: g. reimer 1836–38 and Jean Paul �riedrich Richter. Ein biographischer Commentar zu dessen Werken by richard otto spazier, neffen des dichters, leipzig: wigand 1833] (ASKB 1777–1799). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Jean Paul döring, heinrich, Joh. Gottfr. von Herder�s Leben, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., weimar: wilhelm hoffmann 1829, pp. 196f.; p. 213; p. 226; pp. 261ff. (ASKB a i 134). erdmann, Johann eduard, Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatik und Religionsphilosophie, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837, p. 249 (ASKB 479). Goethe�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, vols. 1–40, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1827–30; Goethe�s nachgelassene Werke, vols. 41–55, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1832–33, vol. 6, pp. 113–16 (ASKB 1641–1668). günther, anton and Johann heinrich pabst, Janusköpfe. Zur Philosophie und Theologie, vienna: wallishausser 1834, p. 413 (ASKB 524). [hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich], Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by von heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1835–38 (vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 2, p. 205; pp. 227–8 (ASKB 1384–1386). heiberg, Johan ludvig, “om malerkunsten i dens Forhold til de andre skjønne kunster,” in Perseus, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1837–38, vol. 2, pp. 101–81, see p. 151 (ASKB 569).

Jean Paul: Apparent and Hidden Relations between Kierkegaard and Jean Paul

169

—— ��yrisk Poesie���� in Intelligensblade, nos. 26–27, 1843, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1843 [in Intelligensblade, vols. 1–4, nos. 1–48, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1842–44], vol. 3, pp. 25–72, see p. 43] (ASKB u 56). menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 4, pp. 63ff. (ASKB u 79). [møller, poul martin], Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, vols. 1–3, ed. by christian winther and F.c. olsen, copenhagen: Bianco lunos Bogtrykkeri 1839–43, vol. 2, p. 210; vol. 3, p. 233 (ASKB 1574–1576). mynster, Jakob peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1852–53 [vols. 4–6, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1855–57], vol. 2, p. 254; p. 400 (ASKB 358–363). rosenkranz, karl, Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, königsberg: Bornträger 1837, p. 119; p. 264 (ASKB 744). —— Erinnerungen an Karl Daub, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837, p. 5; p. 11; p. 51 (ASKB 743). rötscher, heinrich theodor, Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: verlag von wilhelm thome 1841–46, vol. 1, 1841, p. 181n; p. 183n (ASKB 1391; to vols. 2–3, also entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charaktere. Nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung über das Wesen dramatischer Charaktergestaltung, cf. ASKB 1802–1803). rudelbach, andreas, De ethices principiis hucusque vulgo traditis, disquisito historico-philosophica, quæ systematum ethicorum secundum primas causas amplioris criseos introductionem continet, copenhagen: hartv. Frid. popp. 1822, p. 78n (ASKB 750). schopenhauer, arthur, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1844 [1819], vol. 1, p. 482; vol. 2, p. 92; p. 378; p. 380; p. 382 (ASKB 773–773a). —— Parerga und Paralipomena: kleine philosophische Schriften, vols. 1–2, Berlin: a.w. hayn 1851, vol. 2, p. 228; p. 388; p. 517 (ASKB 774–775). schubert, gotthilf heinrich, Die Symbolik des Traumes, 2nd ed., Bamberg: kunz 1821 [1814], p. 119n (ASKB 776). sihler, w., Die Symbolik des Antlitzes, Berlin: F. laue 1829, p. 91 (ASKB 784). [solger, karl wilhelm Ferdinand], Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, ed. by ludwig tieck and Friedrich von raumer, vols. 1–2, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1826 (ASKB 1832–1833). —— K.W.�. Solger�s Vorlesungen über Aesthetik, ed. by k.w.l. heyse, leipzig: Brockhaus 1829, p. 45; pp. 218–19; p. 245 (ASKB 1387). spazier, richard otto, Jean Paul �riedrich Richter. Ein biographischer Commentar zu dessen Werken, vols. 66–70 in Jean Paul�s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–65, Berlin: g. reimer 1826–33; vols. 65–70, leipzig: wigand 1833 (ASKB 1777–1799). steffens, henrich, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 3, pp. 331–3; vol. 4, p. 310; vol. 8, pp. 158–60 (ASKB 1834–1843). thiersch, Friedrih, Allgemeine Aesthetik in akademischen Lehrvorträgen, Berlin: g. reimer 1846, p. 18 (ASKB 1378).

170

Markus Kleinert

thomsen, grimur, Om den nyfranske Poesi, et �orsøg til Besvarelse af Universitetets æsthetiske Priisspørgsmaal for 1841: “Har Smag og Sands for Poesi gjort �rem- eller Tilbageskridt i �rankrig i de sidste Tider og hvilken er Aarsagen?” copenhagen: paa den wahlske Boghandlings Forlag 1843, p. 10, p. 61; p. 69, p. 101n (ASKB 1390). weiße, christian hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit, vols. 1–2, leipzig: c.h.F. hartmann 1830, vol. 1, p. 33n; p. 152n; p. 192n; p. 232; pp. 238f.; p. 244n; vol. 2, p. 278n; p. 294; p. 401n; p. 410n; p. 503n (ASKB 1379–1380). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Jean Paul haustedt, Birgit, Die Kunst der Verführung: zur Reflexion der Kunst im Motiv der Verführung bei Jean Paul, E.T A. Hoffmann, Kierkegaard und Brentano, stuttgart: m & p verlag für wissenschaft und Forschung 1992. liessmann, konrad paul, Ästhetik der Verführung. Kierkegaards Konstruktion der Erotik aus dem Geiste der Kunst, Frankfurt am main: hain-verlag 1991, p. 83 paulsen, anna, Menschsein heute. Analysen aus Reden Sören Kierkegaards, hamburg: Friedrich wittig verlag 1975, see pp. 17–23; p. 189. rehm, walther, Experimentum medietatis: Studien zur Geistes- und Literatur geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, munich: h. rinn 1947. —— Kierkegaard und der Verführer, munich: h. rinn 1949. —— ��oquairol. �ine Studie zur Geschichte des Bösen���� in his Begegnungen und Probleme. Studien zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, Bern: Francke 1957, pp. 155–242; pp. 436–45. voigt, günther, Die humoristische �igur bei Jean Paul [1934], 2nd unchanged edition published as Jahrbuch der Jean-Paul-Gesellschaft, vol. 4, 1969, pp. 7–144. wuthenow, ralph-rainer, “verführung durch phantasie,” in Jahrbuch der JeanPaul-Gesellschaft, vols. 26–27, 1992, pp. 92–107.

schiller: kierkegaard’s use of a paradoxical poet andrás nagy

Friedrich schiller had to pass away to be really and wholly present. Years later, goethe’s death also helped to conjure up the image of the twin geniuses in denmark. kierkegaard not only read and referred to schiller from the time of his early youth until the end his life�� but perhaps even more significantly�� he was also indirectly inspired in a deeper and more controversial manner. while the great german poet, playwright and thinker does not show up often in kierkegaard’s texts in the form of direct quotations and straightforward references, this does not mean that schiller did not in��uence his thinking or that his role was not formative for him. On the contrary, sometimes the hidden references and “randomly” quoted lines from poems reveal the profound and substantive in��uence Schiller had on �ierkegaard. This is particularly true when the same line appears again and again in different works in kierkegaard’s oeuvre�� with significantly modified meanings. From kierkegaard’s university years until his late writings, schiller’s plays and poems illuminate problems and contradictions that are usually hard to approach with pure argumentation—with logic or speculation—since they reveal a certain kind of wisdom that “only” a poet can obtain. kierkegaard liked to call himself a poet. he referred to schiller as a “noble poet,”1 without mentioning his name, thus emphasizing the vocation so close to kierkegaard’s own heart. schiller was also a poet for the stage, and this offered another type of identification�� since the �staging of the self��2 was of great importance for kierkegaard when composing his works. at a later phase in kierkegaard’s authorship, when his spiritual movement concluded by getting “away from the poet” and “becoming a christian,”3 schiller appeared again, not as a prototype of the devoted believer, but as a poet�� a playwright and a thinker who knew a lot about the difficulties of obtaining faith. in this artcle i shall focus on reconstructing the path kierkegaard took when he was inspired by schiller, and when he referred to him both directly and indirectly. the german poet appeared again and again in kierkegaard’s writings, but at different phases; even the same line or phrase changed significantly in SKS 10, 209 / CD, 199. Janne risum, “toward transparency: søren kierkegaard on danish actresses,” in Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries, ed. by Jon stewart, Berlin, new York: walter de gruyter 2003 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 10), p. 330. 3 ibid., p. 330. 1 2

172

András Nagy

meaning—sometimes surprisingly. In Schiller’s oeuvre�� �ierkegaard finds three important points of reference in schiller’s rich and aesthetically conceived body of writings: (1) the attraction and fear of resignation, (2) life as a synonym of love, and (3) history as the process of judgment. I. kierkegaard’s close familiarity with schiller’s oeuvre was not only an “academic” requirement for becoming an �educated�� writer�� something which �ierkegaard— both a good student and a skilled intellectual dandy—would be expected to obtain and demonstrate. it was much more. kierkegaard’s library included a twelve-volume edition of schiller’s collected works (published in 1838).4 moreover, he inscribed his name into another set of schiller’s collected works which he had purchased years before and which he gave as a gift5—perhaps as a birthday present to a young student.6 it is certainly of great importance that he put his very personal mark, his name, alongside schiller’s. the body of collected writings included poems, plays, theoretical works, and so on, and not just a selection of poems, schiller’s Gedichte, which Johannes the seducer advises edward to lend to cordelia.7 the entire authorship is given to one single person, as if the different literary genres were only various facets of the same soul, mind and spirit. But before focusing on this complex and rich aesthetic universe, i believe it is important to note that schiller’s most obvious presence in golden age denmark was probably on stage. theater, which was so important for kierkegaard, was much more than a social meeting point or a laboratory for aesthetic experiments; for the admirer of mozart’s Don Juan, the devoted critic of mrs. heiberg, the representative of the audience of oehlenschläger and scribe, it was, as shakespeare put it, the entire world.8 as known from his writings, kierkegaard regularly attended the theater; he possessed a necessary distance from this often “dangerous” institution, but he also had an unavoidable attraction that brought him close to the stage. the theater had particular significance for �ierkegaard while he wrote Either/Or, and again later when he traveled to Berlin, as is duly documented in Repetition. he also touched upon issues surrounding the theaters in the danish capital, although he never wrote about specific performances of Schiller’s plays. The references to specific dramas as well as the theater in general play an eminent role in kierkegaard’s writings, regardless of whether they refer to shakespeare Schillers sämmtliche Werke in zwölf Bänden, vols. 1-–12, stuttgart and tübingen: verlag der J.g. cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1838 (ASKB 1804–1815). 5 see the essay “søren kierkegaard som bogsamler,” in the auctioneer’s sales record of the library of søren kierkegaard, ed. by h.p. rohde, copenhagen: the royal library 1967, pp. iX–Xlvi, see pp. Xvi–Xvii. 6 henning Fenger, Kierkegaard, the Myths and their Origins, new haven, connecticut and london: Yale university press 1980, p. 37. 7 SKS 2, 353 / EO1, 364. 8 see george pattison, “søren kierkegaard: the theater critic of the heiberg school,” in Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries, op. cit., pp. 319–29. 4

Schiller: Kierkegaard�s Use of a Paradoxical Poet

173

or sophocles, scribe or heiberg. kierkegaard was probably also inspired by his in��uential �anish contemporary—thinker and playwright—with his schematization of literary genres. in heiberg’s hegelian logic, immediate communication is said to be lyrical�� re��ection is epic�� and the higher unity of the two is the dramatic. In this way�� Heiberg offers an aesthetic justification for his emphasis on stage.9 II. kierkegaard’s “polyphonic” thinking10 and playful personality, so apparent in the pseudonymous writings, were inspired by theatrical forms as well. For as henning Fenger puts it, “pseudonyms can be considered theatrical roles, invented by and played by kierkegaard with the purpose of concealing his true self. he, too, is the child of a milieu to which theater meant life.”11 voices, personalities and even theatrical roles may not have been invented to conceal his true self but rather to be able to show it from different angles,12 to reveal its con��icting nature. Also here�� the importance of schiller is apparent. kierkegaard lived during a time when some of schiller’s most important plays were performed the royal theater in copenhagen, and thus the opportunity to attend these performances was open to him.13 these had longer and shorter runs: depending on the quality of the performance and the �box office success��—if there was any— the plays were performed anywhere between twice to 21 times. The Robbers, for example, was staged in 1834 (though the play had opened for the first time in 1823). Here the issue of an incognito—an issue which was later so important for �ierkegaard—was raised in the figures of �arl and Franz Moor. one brother chose the life of the “robber captain” for purely honest reasons, while the other played the devoted son, based on ultimately dishonest logic. in fact, the “robber chief” is discussed by kierkegaard later in Either/Or. this reference to schiller is indirect and probably inspired by the stage play, though later the “robber” will be replaced by the “master thief” or even the “wandering Jew.” the controversy between the two brothers is also masterfully elaborated by schiller. and kierkegaard was probably familiar with such tensions, just as he was familiar with the weakening authority of the father figure.

pattison, “søren kierkegaard: the theater critic of the heiberg school,” in Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries, op. cit., p. 321. 10 referring to the category m.m. Bakhtin introduced in order to describe dostoevsky’s literary universe. 11 henning Fenger, “kierkegaard: a literary approach,” in Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries, op. cit., p. 318. 12 see györgy lukács, “søren kierkegaard és regine olsen,” in Ifjúkori művek, Budapest: Magvető 1977�� pp. 287–303. (In �nglish as George �ukács�� �Søren �ierkegaard and regine olsen,” in his Soul and �orm, trans. by anna Bostock, london: merlin press 1974. pp. 28–41.) 13 see edgar collin, Overskous Handbog for Yndere og Dyrkere af dansk dramatisk Literatur og Kunst, copenhagen: schubothe 1879. 9

174

András Nagy

schiller’s other play which refers to paternal strength, Don Carlos, was also performed in �ierkegaard’s lifetime: the �sacrifice�� of the son�� based on the logic of power and politics, is of great importance. the story, however, was not referred to by Johannes de silentio when, in �ear and Trembling�� the problem of sacrifice was raised. king philip’s dilemma, after all, may not be comparable to that of abraham, or even to the choices confronted by agamemnon or Jephthah. schiller, however, is present in the book, albeit in a different context, as we will see below. political power and its inhumane logic were at the core of another schiller play, Maria Stuart, though here power is presented in the context of the strength and fragility of women. it was staged at the royal theater and ended up with more performances than any other play by the german playwright. But these issues were not kierkegaard’s central concern, nor is the tragedy of love, which is raised in the context of lovers from different social classes in Kabale und Liebe, staged 11 times until 1836. kierkegaard would also have had a chance to attend a theater production focusing on pure and immaculate faith�� which�� in the figure of Joan of Arc�� turns into a historical force. She is the archetype of the charismatic yet fallible heroine—who is in direct communication with god. the only schiller play that was both staged in copenhagen during kierkegaard’s lifetime and mentioned explicitly by kierkegaard himself, however, is Wallenstein. this is a trilogy about a controversial hero, a dramatic reconstruction of the rise and fall of the genial predator, performed only two times in 1820–21 when the danish thinker may have been too young to attend the show. the other drama concretely referred to by kierkegaard is Wilhelm Tell, which was not a part of the sensual and cathartic universe of the theater in copenhagen. it may have been important for kierkegaard because of its fame as a romantic interpretation of the longing for freedom and independence, and for hope and victory in the course of historical changes. The Bride of Messina was not staged in kierkegaard’s lifetime, yet the brothers’ love for the same woman and the unavoidable tragedy was in��uential for �ierkegaard’s contemporary, grundtvig, and it “was discussed in some notes which in 1807 turn into a printed essay in the copenhagen periodical New Minerva.”14 it also raised the issue of the revitalization of archaic literary forms, such as the “tragedy of fate” and its consequences on modern stage; it included the role of the choir, which schiller himself commented on in a study that accompanied the play. even though this drama was never performed, and Wallenstein was no success�� the trilogy nonetheless greatly in��uenced oehlenschläger when he gave lectures on schiller in 1811–12. it also reappears when oehlenschläger composed his work Hakon the Mighty, which presents the clash of �two contrasting philosophies�� embodied in two mighty�� heroic figures.��15 with regard to the Wallenstein play, there was also a historic danish “presence,” and thus the story might have been a part of the nation’s collective memory. schiller’s fame arrived in denmark when Jens Baggesen visited the poet in Jena Flemming lundgreen-nielsen, “grundtvig and romanticism,” in Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries, op. cit., p. 207. 15 niels ingwersen, “the tragic moment in oehlenschläger’s Hakon Earl the Mighty,” in Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries, op. cit., p. 248. 14

Schiller: Kierkegaard�s Use of a Paradoxical Poet

175

in 1790 at a time when schiller was seriously ill. the report of Baggesen’s trip and sad experience soon resulted in generous financial support from several wealthy danish aristocrats who desired to see the german genius recover and begin writing again.16 This is an indication that Schiller was seriously and unselfishly appreciated in �enmark. Indeed�� the works of Schiller—or at least some of them—were widely read and discussed by leading Copenhagen intellectuals and artists. The in��uential and successful Thomasine Gyllembourg was also heavily in��uenced by the �concept of Bildung and Erziehung,”17 as katalin nun emphasizes. the concept originated in the collective thought of both goethe and schiller, which often cannot be readily distinguished from one another. III. after the death of goethe, the german twin-genius, in 1832, kierkegaard also “became infected with the goethe fever that gripped copenhagen,”18 writes henning Fenger, describing the city’s atmosphere. goethe was seen as a “literary equivalent to hegel, the age’s thinker,”19 and even if the two geniuses were often mentioned together, the sharp differences between them were also noticed, particularly by such a sensitive and autonomous thinker as kierkegaard. while he often referred to goethe, he nonetheless had his reasons to focus on schiller, on the more tormented spirit, on the unhappy sick man, on the author who sometimes became scared by the success of his own work. in his youth, schiller studied law and medicine, and soon became receptive to �ant’s philosophy and was heavily in��uenced by him in both his theoretical and artistic works. schiller’s philosophical interest progressed in a parallel fashion with his studies in history, which served as a key to open up the political controversies of his time�� or—as in the case of The Robbers—history was the cover for talking�� at least obliquely, about such controversies. history and mythology were often interpreted by schiller with an eye to the present. this was certainly inspiring for kierkegaard, who had a sense for contemporaneity. systematic studies and, at times, profound analytic research also served as a source of inspiration for schiller in many of his plays, while history and philosophy were inseparable for him. From Don Carlos to Wilhelm Tell, freedom had an importance that went far beyond political or historical conditions for schiller, something kierkegaard could easily relate to even if their respective historical experiences and interpretations were very different. schiller lectured on history and published several studies on The Aesthetic Education of Man. the title of his study, Theater Stage as a Moral Institution, highlights the importance of the stage for him. For schiller, however, the aesthetic was higher in the hierarchy than ethics, and when composing plays, the laws of theater were more powerful than those of the existing world. 16 hanne marie and werner svendsen, Geschichte der dänischen Literatur, neumünster: karl wachholtz verlag and copenhagen: gyldendal 1964, p. 171. 17 katalin nun, “thomasine gyllembourg’s Two Ages and her portrayal of everyday life,” in Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries, op. cit., p. 285. 18 Fenger, Kierkegaard, the Myths and Their Origins, op. cit., p. 81. 19 ibid., p. 81.

176

András Nagy

as a challenge to and confrontation with the present world order, the problem of crime is of fundamental importance. it resurfaces in different phases of schiller’s life, in different contexts. in The Robbers, he started his career as a playwright by staging the choices of the Moor brothers in different contexts of �criminality��—and he concluded his oeuvre with the fate of wallenstein, whose historically-shaped guilt determined europe’s fate, both justly and unjustly. the controversies of morality were re��ected in the need for and lack of faith in both plays. And it was presented in a radically different way again in Joan of Arc. since her actions were inspired by her unconditional belief, neither historical determination nor morality was called into question. this is an issue that kierkegaard certainly thought about. historical roles and the incompatibility of the persons fated to play them were very important for Schiller—and these were questions for �ierkegaard as well. In The �iasco of Genova, the conspiracy of Don Carlos�� and in the drafts to Schiller’s unfinished play Demetrius which focuses on Pseudo-�imitry—the German poet understood that personal identity and historical roles were two different�� often con��icting�� sides of the same problem. to understand kierkegaard’s receptivity towards schiller with regard to identity and the roles one is assigned to play, there is another aspect that is extremely important: the father–child relationship. this was dramatically expressed in many of schiller’s works: king philip, the older piccolomini, and father moor were all different points of orientation from which to distance oneself or with which to identify; for they were all concretely debated, acted and demonstrated on stage. the problem of fate was presented in other plays as well. it appears as a legitimate and hereditary force in Maria Stuart, for example, and as a clear political problem echoing the legendary—or mythical—longing for freedom in Wilhelm Tell. the authority of the personality is constantly brought into con��ict with fate�� be it �in the stars�� (Wallenstein), in the dream (The Bride of Messina), or in a divine vocation (Joan of Arc). When Schiller started his career as playwright�� he had neither significant knowledge nor experience of theater. he had, however, strong lyrical inspiration when composing dramas, not only because he included poems within the body of the play, but sometimes because he composed the whole text as a poem. Beyond that, theoretical and educational convictions also played an important role when writing for the stage. �dification�� so important at the time of the �nlightenment�� then found its institution in theater. Schiller’s powerful autonomous ability to redefine existing traditions was in��uential for �ierkegaard—one example is Schiller’s use of the choir, which was not only explained theoretically in a study accompanying his play, The Bride of Messina, but was also presented on stage. IV. In spite of the significant differences in their respective characters�� backgrounds and experience, kierkegaard quite often referred to schiller when he wanted to express something intimately personal and otherwise hard to formulate. even if the reference to the german poet is in itself an illustrative device, the presence of schiller provides added importance to the quoted words.

Schiller: Kierkegaard�s Use of a Paradoxical Poet

177

the psychological elements in the later authorship become dominant in Johannes’ seduction in Either/Or. in the early phase of his plan when he is working to bring about “various kinds of womanly blushes” on cordelia’s face, he decides “to read aloud to cordelia,” for the most part “very trivial things.”20 Because he needs the very best means to change the color of female skin, he uses poetry. the educated seducer makes use of the book of his rival: “edward lent her schiller’s Gedichte,” he concludes, “so that i could accidentally come across thekla’s song.”21 in the end Johannes decides against the beautiful poem sung by the (invented) daughter of wallenstein, and he reads instead from Bürger’s Gedichte to provoke triviality. the binding of the volume also becomes a topic of discussion for Johannes since the seducer’s intention is “to destroy in cordelia the impression of pathos the very moment it was awakened.”22 thekla will be quoted later in the oeuvre with a significantly modified meaning; there it recalls sensual and emotional totality. aesthetic development is like that of a plant, writes B in a letter to a in Either/Or. For an aesthetically-minded person, the soul is “like soil out of which grows all sorts of herbs�� all with equal claim to ��ourish.��23 since such a person is unconcerned with the ethical, he can say, “i have a natural capacity to be a don Juan, a Faust, a robber chief,”24 since all these possibilities have the same chance of developing further and defining�� or even dominating�� the personality. While the robber chief referred to here does not have the same mythological significance as the other two�� these figures are nonetheless connected to the stage and appear as theatrical roles. Thus�� they give rise to memories of “sitting in theater, intoxicated with aesthetic pleasure.” The identification of these figures with the stage is obvious when he explains: �you applaud the actor…and the applause from the pit is for you.”25 The identification itself is applauded, and so theater provides a positive feedback to the Faust, the don Juan and maybe even the karl moor sitting in the audience. when kierkegaard leaves the aesthetic and describes the approach to faith, schiller reappears. At first glance�� he seems to do this for no other reason than to provide a wellworded quotation—but here the deeper meaning of absurdity is expressed. Among the many approaches, explanations, “expectorations” and elaborated comparisons found in �ear and Trembling�� there is one of particularly great significance: Sarah’s tragic story from the Book of Tobit. the girl cannot give herself to anyone because of the jealous demon�� and so�� tragically�� she is unable to realize every �young girl’s beatific treasure, her prodigious, enormous mortgage on life, her ‘Vollmachtbrief zum Glücke,’ to love a man with all her heart.”26 the core problem of “problema iii” goes beyond merely breaking the spell (which happens later). the central problem is to develop the same kind of resignation found in abraham. Resignation is the very title of the schiller poem Johannes de silentio cites, and this is no doubt one of the most important 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

SKS 2, 353 / EO1, 364. ibid. SKS 2, 353 / EO1, 365. SKS 3, 216 / EO2, 225. ibid. SKS 3, 122 / EO2, 122. SKS 4, 191 / �T, 102.

178

András Nagy

conclusions of the “dialectical lyric.” in the book’s closing pages, this allusion endows a rich dramatic aspect to both resignation and the role of the protagonist. This same poem appears elsewhere in �ierkegaard’s work—just as the �robber captain�� does—though the meaning is slightly altered. This happens in Repetition, a “venture of experimental psychology,” a book published on the same day as �ear and Trembling. “among the shadows in which he discovers himself, there may be a robber captain whose voice is his voice,” constantin constantius writes in theatrical context, but referring also to the “shadow play”27 of the hidden individual. he can listen to the voice of the robber as to his own, emphasizing the “chivalry” of the criminal with regard to girls—a quality that �omantic robbers like Schiller’s are famous for. in another work, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, schiller’s poetic richness is called upon when climacus needs terminological clarity. climacus describes “the ethical as the absolute���� because it is �infinitely valid in itself.�� This is contrasted with world history�� where “according to the poet” the ethical, like nature, “serves knechtisch dem Gesetz der Schwere, since the differential of quantity is also a law of gravity.”28 the quotation is from schiller’s poem, Die Götter Griechenlandes, and is about weight, the role of gravity; in a deep sense, it conjures up antique gods and brings them into the poem. in the same text there is another powerful reference to schiller’s work. Johannes Climacus emphasizes how difficult it is to obtain a �consciousness of immortality�� since it “belongs simply and solely to me.” when he writes that even if one could “systematically manage to get immortality mounted somewhere, like gessler’s hat, so that all of us would have to tip our hats as we passed by, that would not mean one were immortal or that immortality were proven,” he refers to the law of schiller’s swiss tyrant.29 the metaphorical picture is powerful, and the argumentation makes it even more clear: it would be only a �wasted effort and ridiculous contradiction—to want to answer a question systematically that…cannot be raised systematically.”30 it is also important to recall the events of the play from which this image comes: Wilhelm Tell. The dramaturgical turning point—the revolt against the tyrant—is reached when gessler has his hat placed on a stick and collectively humiliates everyone. this event triggers the acceleration of the heroic and tragic actions. though just a metaphor in kierkegaard’s text, it reminds one of the historic-legendary context. without being didactic or simplistically demonstrative, kierkegaard makes one aware of an earthly limitation: the consciousness of mortality. V. kierkegaard sometimes refers polemically to schiller. in the Postscript, he focuses on the poem that was so important for Johannes de silentio. “admittedly,” writes climacus “it is said that ‘die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht’ and the word “judgment”” seems to make the claim that the statement contains an eternal view 27 28 29 30

SKS 4, 31 / R, 156. SKS 7, 133 / CUP1, 142. SKS 7, 161 / CUP1, 174. SKS 7, 161 / CUP1�� 174�� translation modified.

Schiller: Kierkegaard�s Use of a Paradoxical Poet

179

of life.”31 climacus, named after a medieval thinker, disagrees with the statement: “perhaps it is this way for god because in his eternal knowledge he possesses the medium that is the commensurability of the outer and the inner. But the human mind cannot see world history in this way,”32 he concludes, and this is likely an allusion to schiller’s Weltanschauung. Yet kierkegaard uses his words and terms to express the difference and distance as well. the same arguments will be further elaborated in Practice in Christianity when anti-climacus describes the logic of christ and the concept of judgment. his “practice” of living in this world is “to be tested” since life itself is an examination; and “the greatest examination” is “to become and to be a christian.”33 the polemic soon goes further: “there are those who want to teach us that history is the judge, but i also know that this is the invention of human sagacity, which abolishes the relationship with god, even wants to put on airs and play providence and therefore is concerned solely with the result of a life, instead of bearing in mind that at every moment a person is being examined by god.”34 the critique here centers on hegel, but it is also a reference to schiller, focusing on the already quoted poem, Resignation. The polemic highlights the personal�� the intimate�� the single individual—the one who is “poetically,” not “systematically,” determined. regarding the context of kierkegaard’s references to schiller, it is also important to notice that several letters written to kierkegaard regularly include a kind of “common knowledge” or common point of reference that is embodied in schiller’s oeuvre. these are used in more substantial—or more subtle—communication. Once�� in a letter written to kierkegaard, kolderup-rosenvinge recalls schiller’s words about “the silent room of the heart”35 where one can seek refuge. in another letter, Fanny ludovica le normand de Bretteville quotes a poem highlighting the “battle of faith.” she employs schiller’s metaphor of the two buckets lowered and raised in well, one always full, another empty. This�� she says�� represents �the con��ict between religion or feeling and awareness.��36 kierkegaard did not focus on the extensiveness of schiller’s oeuvre, but more on the intensity of understanding. “i still am essentially only a poet,” he writes at the time of the Corsair affair. �ierkegaard keeps Schiller in mind when defining himself: “to describe my seven years of activity as an author i may use the words of a poet: Ich habe gelebt und geliebt.”37 In this identification of love as life�� the famous words of Thekla’s song reappear. But now �ierkegaard re��ects on how much he has lived in past years: �I have loved—yes…yes�� the ideals!��38 The identification is not only poetic but also �feminine�� since it refers to the passion of the past. in the second authorship, this will be transformed into a love of God in the promise: �All Things Must Serve Us for Good—When We �ove 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

SKS 7, 131 / CUP1, 141. ibid. SV1, Xii, 170 / PC, 183. ibid. B&A, vol. 1, p. 198 / LD, letter 181, p. 249. B&A, vol. 1, p. 290 / LD, letter 270, pp. 368–9. Pap. X–5 B 128, p. 328 / COR, supplement, p. 251. ibid. the reference is also to schiller’s poem: Des Mädchens Klange.

180

András Nagy

god.”39 this logic again leads to schiller, but before referring to him, kierkegaard emphasizes that “every demonstration only leads away from what you have, although this demonstration pretends to lead you to it.”40 here he wants to be clear and nondemonstrative: “let us understand each other. You are most likely familiar (and who is not) with that very felicitous and fervent line by the noble poet who has the unhappy girl say something like this: ‘i ask for nothing more, i have lived and i have loved.’”41 this passage expresses the notion that she loved and lived, and thus that erotic love is the highest good; for her, to live and to love are entirely synonymous. when the beloved is taken away�� her whole life is over—but she had loved. She is stronger than all understanding because she believes in erotic love. Paradoxically enough—and in a substantial way—�ierkegaard applies the terminology of a young girl’s love when focusing on the definition of divine love. The reference to Schiller indicates that�� for �ierkegaard�� love is beyond eroticism since it is beyond finality and mortality. the eternal knowledge of poetry is needed to express what is unthinkable: the concrete poem contradicts the message it is used to forward. schiller is used here paradoxically; but though this paradox, kierkegaard can present the divine in the human. and, consequently, just the opposite. paradoxical schiller.

39 40 41

cf. the title of kierkegaard’s discourse: SKS 10, 198–210 / CD, 188–201. SKS 10, 208 / CD, 199. ibid.

Bibliography I. Schiller�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library Schillers sämmtliche Werke in zwölf Bänden, vols. 1–12, stuttgart and tübingen: verlag der J.g. cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1838 (ASKB 1804–1815). Schiller�s sämmtliche Werke: vollständige Ausgabe in einem Bande, abtheilung 1–2, munich: cotta 1830 (ASKB u 95). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Schiller adler, adolph peter, Theologiske Studier, copenhagen: trykt paa Forfatterens Forlag hos louis klein i commission hos universitets-Boghandler c.a. reitzel 1846, p. 4n (ASKB u 12). —— Optegnelser fra en Reise, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1849, p. 7n (ASKB 2041). [anonymous], “schillers monument,” Dansk Kunstblad, vol. 1, no. 22, 1837, column 164 (ASKB u 32). Baader, Franz von, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik, vol. 1, stuttgart und tübingen: cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1828 [vols. 2–5, münster: theissing 1830–38], vol. 1, 1828, p. 44 (ASKB 396). [Becker, karl Friedrich], Karl �riedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfired Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. riise, copenhagen: Fr. Brummers Forlag 1822–29, vol. 10, p. 565; vol. 12, p. 51 (ASKB 1972–1983). Bruch, Johann Friedrich, Die Lehre von den göttlichen Eigenschaften, hamburg: Friedrich perthes 1842, p. 196n (ASKB 439). danzel, w., “ueber den gegenwärtigen zustand der philosophie der kunst und ihre nächste aufgabe. erster artikel,” Zeitschrift für Philosophie und spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–16, ed. by immanuel hermann Fichte and christian hermann weiße, Bonn et al.: eduard weber et al. 1837–46, vol. 12, 1844, pp. 201–42 (ASKB 877–911). döring, heinrich, Joh. Gottfr. von Herder�s Leben, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., weimar: wilhelm hoffmann 1829, p. 276 (ASKB a i 134). [Fibiger, mathilde], Clara Raphael. Tolv Breve, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1851, pp. vi–vii; p. 75 (ASKB 1531). Frauenstädt, Julius, Die Naturwissenschaft in ihrem Einfluß auf Poesie, Religion, Moral und Philosophie, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1855, pp. 15–17; pp. 26–9; p. 32; p. 146 (ASKB 516).

182

András Nagy

[Goethe�� Johann Wolfgang von]�� �Zu Schillers und If��ands Andenken���� in Goethe�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, vols. 1–40, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1827–30; Goethe�s nachgelassene Werke, vols. 41–55, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1832–33, vol. 45, pp. 18–22; pp. 77–97 (ASKB 1641–1668). hagen, Johan Frederik, Ægteskabet. Betragtet fra et ethisk-historiskt Standpunct, copenhagen: wahlske Boghandels Forlag 1845, pp. 20f. (ASKB 534). hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich, “ueber wallenstein,” in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s vermischte Schriften, vols. 1–2, ed. by Friedrich Förster and ludwig Boumann, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1834–35 (vols. 16–17 in georg wilhelm Friedrich hegel’s werke. vollständige ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45) vol. 2, pp. 411–13 (ASKB 555–556). —— Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by von heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1835–38 (vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, p. 38; pp. 80–81; p. 202; p. 250; p. 299; p. 302; p. 312; p. 374; vol. 2, pp. 106–109; p. 183; p. 202; p. 221; p. 398; vol. 3, pp. 141–2; p. 202; p. 287; p. 289; pp. 383–5; p. 423; pp. 428–34 passim; p. 441; pp. 465–6; p. 478; pp. 496–9; p. 502; p. 506; p. 520; p. 523; pp. 564–72 passim (ASKB 1384–1386). —— Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, vols. 1–3, ed. by leopold von henning, karl ludwig michelet, ludwig Boumann, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1840–45, vol. 1, p. 117; vol. 2, p. 385 (ASKB 561–563) (vols. 6, 7.1, 7.2 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45).. heiberg, Johan ludvig, “om den romantiske tragedie af hertz: Svend Dyrings Huus. i Forbindelse med en æsthetisk Betragtning af de danske kæmpeviser,” in Perseus, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1837–38, vol. 1, pp. 165–264, see p. 259 (ASKB 569). —— Om Philosophiens Betydning for den nuværende Tid. Et Indbydelses-Skrift til en Række af philosophiske �orelæsninger, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1833, p. 44 (ASKB 568). heine, heinrich, Die romantische Schule, hamburg: hoffmann und campe 1836, p. 70; p. 77; pp. 81ff.; p. 91; p. 93; p. 107; p. 347 (ASKB u 63). hotho, heinrich gustav, Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1835, p. 45; pp. 374f.; p. 395; p. 432 (ASKB 580). martensen, hans lassen, Den christelige Dogmatik, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1849, p. 189; p. 428 (ASKB 653). menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 4, pp. 107ff. (ASKB u 79). michelet, carl ludwig, Vorlesungen über die Persönlichkeit Gottes und Unsterblichkeit der Seele oder die ewige Persönlichkeit des Geistes, Berlin: verlag von Ferdinand dümmler 1841, p. 10; pp. 212–19 passim; p. 258 (ASKB 680). Ørsted, hans christian, Aanden i Naturen, vols. 1–2, copenhagen: andreas Frederik høst 1850, vol. 1, p. 18; vol. 2, pp. 9–11; p. 16; p. 19 (ASKB 945).

Schiller: Kierkegaard�s Use of a Paradoxical Poet

183

rauch, Friedrich august, Vorlesungen über Goethe�s Faust, Büdingen: heller 1830, 26n (ASKB 1800). [richter, Johann paul Friedrich], Jean paul, Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1813, vol. 1, p. 138; p. 170; p. 183; pp. 188–9; p. 215; p. 304; vol. 2, p. 458; p. 483; p. 504; p. 504n; p. 506; p. 531; p. 542; p. 606; p. 610; p. 643; p. 665n; p. 667; vol. 3, p. 782; p. 788; p. 881; pp. 884–93; pp. 917–18; p. 965; p. 970; p. 1007n; (ASKB 1381–1383). romang, Johann peter, Ueber Willensfreiheit und Determinismus, mit sorgfältiger Rücksicht auf die sittlichen Dinge, die rechtliche Imputation und Strafe, und auf das Religiöse. Eine philosophische Abhandlung, Bern: c.a. Jenni, sohn 1835, p. 139 (ASKB 740). rosenkranz, karl, Erinnerungen an Karl Daub, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837, p. 26 (ASKB 743). —— Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, königsberg: Bornträger 1837, p. 15; p. 17; p. 61; p. 179; p. 217 (ASKB 744). —— Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, danzig: Fr. sam. gerhard 1843, p. 10; p. 16; p. 25 (ASKB 766). rötscher, heinrich theodor, Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: verlag von wilhelm thome 1841–46, vol. 1, 1841, (ASKB 1391; to vols. 2–3, also entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charaktere. Nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung über das Wesen dramatischer Charaktergestaltung, cf. ASKB 1802–1803). —— �Burleigh und �eicester in Maria Stuart,” in his Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: wilhelm thome 1841–46; vol. 2, Der Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung Zweiter Theil, welcher das Gesetz der Versinnlichung dramatischer Charaktere an einer Reihe dichterischer Gestalten wissenschaftlich entwickelt [also entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charactere. Nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung über das Wesen dramatischer Charactergestaltung], 1844, pp. 226–46 (vols. 2–3, ASKB 1802– 1803; to vol. 1 see ASKB 1391). —— �Franz Moor in Schillers Räubern” and “könig philipp ii in Don Carlos,” in his Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: wilhelm thome 1841–46; vol. 3, Der Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung Dritter Theil, welcher eine neue Reihe dramatischer Charaktere entwickelt [also entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charactere. Zweiter Theil. Nebst zwei Abhandlungen über das Recht der Poesie in der Behandlung des geschichtlichen Stoffes und über den Begriff des Dämonischen], 1846, pp. 109–41 and pp. 157–74 respectively (vols. 2–3, ASKB 1802–1803; to vol. 1 see ASKB 1391]. schlegel, august wilhelm, Ueber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur. Vorlesungen, vols. 1–2 [vol. 2 in 2 parts], heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1809–11, vol. 2, part 2, pp. 395ff. (ASKB 1392–1394). schlegel, Friedrich, Sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–10, vienna: Jakob mayer and company 1822–25, vol. 2, 1822, pp. 276–341 (ASKB 1816–1825). schopenhauer, arthur, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1844 [1819], vol. 1, p. 69; vol. 2, p. 525 (ASKB 773–773a).

184

András Nagy

—— Parerga und Paralipomena: kleine philosophische Schriften, vols. 1–2, Berlin: a.w. hayn 1851, vol. 1, p. 198; vol. 2, p. 59; pp. 196–7; p. 391; p. 495 (ASKB 774–775). [solger, karl wilhelm Ferdinand], Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, ed. by ludwig tieck und Friedrich von raumer, vols. 1–2, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1826, pp. 493–628 (ASKB 1832–1833). —— K.W.�. Solger�s Vorlesungen über Aesthetik, ed. by k.w.l. heyse, leipzig: Brockhaus 1829, pp. 43–4; p. 170; p. 229; p. 320 (ASKB 1387). steffens, henrich, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 3, pp. 323–30 passim; vol. 4, pp. 106–13; pp. 114–17; p. 144; pp. 411–12; p. 434; vol. 6, p. 182; vol. 7, p. 96 (ASKB 1834–1843). sulzer, Johann georg, Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste, in einzeln, nach alphabetischer Ordnung der Kunstwörter auf einander folgenden, Artikeln abgehandelt, vols. 1–4 and a register volume, 2nd revised ed., leipzig: in der weidmannschen Buchhandlung 1792–99, vol. 1, p. 741; vol. 4, p. 556; p. 581 (ASKB 1365–1369). thiele, Just m., Der dänische Bildhauer Bertel Thorvaldsen. Nebst einem Ver zeichnisse seiner bis jetzt ausgeführten Kunstarbeiten, hamburg: perthes, Besser und mauke 1837, p. 29 (ASKB 198). thiersch, Friedrich, Allgemeine Aesthetik in akademischen Lehrvorträgen, Berlin: g. reimer 1846, pp. 17–18; pp. 255f. p. 357; p. 425; p. 447 (ASKB 1378). thomsen, grimur, Om den nyfranske Poesi, et �orsøg til Besvarelse af Universitetets æsthetiske Priisspørgsmaal for 1841: “Har Smag og Sands for Poesi gjort �rem- eller Tilbageskridt i �rankrig i de sidste Tider og hvilken er Aarsagen?,” copenhagen: paa den wahlske Boghandlings Forlag 1843, p. 5; p. 105; p. 112; p. 117; p. 146 (ASKB 1390). weiße, christian hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit. In drei Büchern, vols. 1–2, leipzig: c.h.F. hartmann 1830, vol. 1, p. 120; p. 165; p. 169n; p. 175; p. 242n; p. 259n; p. 317n; vol. 2, p. 263n; p. 318n; p. 328n; p. 377n (ASKB 1379–1380). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Christliche Sittenlehre, vols. 1–3, Berlin: g. reimer 1819–23, vol. 1, p. 132n (ASKB u 110). zeuthen, ludvig, Om den christelige Tro i dens Betydning for Verdenshistorien. Et �orsøg, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1838, pp. 8–9 (ASKB 259). —— Om Ydmyghed. En Afhandling, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandel 1852, p. 32 (ASKB 916). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Schiller rosenberg, carol leslie, Towards an Aesthetic Education: An Interpretation of Rousseau, Schiller and Kierkegaard, ph.d. thesis, harvard university, cambridge, massachusetts 1985. svendsen, paulus, “schiller, welhaven, kierkegaard,” Nerthus, no. 3, 1972, pp. 7–18.

Friedrich schlegel: on ironic communication, subjectivity and selfhood k. Brian söderquist

The German author Friedrich von Schlegel (1772–1829)—one of the founders of the literary and cultural movement kierkegaard refers to as both “irony” and “romanticism”1—is one of the many thinkers with whom �ierkegaard was in dialogue as a young student. like a great number of german authors who show up in kierkegaard’s early academic studies in his early journals, however, schlegel’s name essentially disappears from the authorship after his student days. But unlike many of these other figures�� the thoughts that were provoked by �ierkegaard’s early study of schlegel end up returning throughout his pseudonymous authorship in a central way. one might even argue that schlegel, as a representative of romantic thought, plays a role comparable to that of hegel as a representative of philosophical thought. �specially with regard to �ierkegaard’s anthropology—the development and misdevelopment of the �self��—his interpretation of Schlegel’s theory of the self is always in the background. in fact, i do not think it is an exaggeration to assert that schlegel is the eminent model for a position kierkegaard considers to be one of the most pernicious threats to selfhood: the modern “poetic” consciousness. Schlegel is an ambivalent figure in �ierkegaard’s authorship. In his only detailed treatment of schlegel, found in The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard is generally critical�� accusing Schlegel’s works of celebrating a fantastic ��ight from reality�� superficial philosophy�� undisciplined sensuality�� and so on. At the same time�� he is not completely dismissive, and on occasion even defends schlegel against his moralizing critics. indeed, the two authorships share more common territory than the sharp tone of kierkegaard’s critique would suggest. perhaps the most obvious point of comparison from a historical perspective is the fact that both authors have written extensively on “irony.” indeed, the relationship between schlegel’s and kierkegaard’s understanding of irony has attracted the attention of scholars from a diverse range of academic disciplines, including philosophy, �ierkegaard identifies �irony�� with �romanticism�� in his university dissertation�� The Concept of Irony. he writes: “throughout this whole discussion i use the terms ‘irony’ and ‘ironist.’ i could have just as well say ‘romanticism’ and ‘romanticist.’ Both terms say essentially the same thing; the one is more reminiscent of the name which the faction itself christened itself, the other the name which hegel christened it” (SKS 1, 312 / CI, 275).

1

186

K. Brian Söderquist

literary studies and theology. i must agree with scholars such as Joakim garff, richard summers, and others who credit studies of kierkegaard’s irony with opening up novel ways of thinking about kierkegaard’s authorship.2 they have shown that a comparison of kierkegaard and schlegel on irony opens up an important discussion of literary style in general and provides clues for how to read kierkegaard’s works in particular. one is primed to ask how a tool like irony is related to kierkegaard’s understanding of image, the limits of language, indirect communication, negative theology�� and so on. For by definition�� irony has to do as much with how one says (or writes) something as it does with what one says (or writes). the treatment of the relationship of schlegel and kierkegaard is incomplete, however, without an analysis of what i would like to call the “existential” components of their respective thoughts on irony. here again, there is much common ground. Both recognize irony as a rhetorical tool, but, even more centrally, both investigate the practical employment of “irony” as a vehicle for becoming a subject and ultimately, a “self.” in short, in the hands of these two authors, “irony” is a consciousness that sharpens one’s eye to inherited intellectual and moral habits of thought, and sets the individual apart from the other. this existential element of irony becomes more evident in their shared interest in how the ironic consciousness is related to the cultivation or education of the “self.” like many other romantic poets at the time, both are convinced that authentic selfhood can emerge only if the subject is liberated from the objective in��uences inherited via culture. And like many others�� both suggest that the key to overcoming these in��uences is a �spiritual�� turn inward�� toward the subject. Finally�� kierkegaard and schlegel are also in agreement that a self can only be fully realized in a social context and that a solipsistic form of subjectivity is “despair.” the points of disagreement are also many, however. most crucially, kierkegaard and schlegel disagree about the kind of spirituality that must be cultivated to bring the self back into a relationship with the world. schlegel points to the necessity of cultivating �artistic genius��—to which he attributes a kind of divine status. kierkegaard is skeptical of precisely this move. as he sees it, schlegel’s faith in an inner divine genius is little more than a self-deification that assumes that the subject has the capacity and right to define or �create�� the self. Alternatively�� for kierkegaard the hallmark of selfhood is the submission of the will to a higher power; or as louis dupré describes it, “the free choice which constitutes the self is ultimately an acceptance of the self’s ontological dependence rather than a self-creation.”3 in this study i will begin with a general sketch of the aspects of schlegel’s thought that are relevant for kierkegaard. after a few words about schlegel’s biography and kierkegaard’s familiarity with schlegel’s texts, an interpretation of schlegel’s irony richard m. summers, “‘controlled irony’ and the emergence of the self in kierkegaard’s dissertation,” in The Concept of Irony, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2001 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 2), p. 289. see also Jan holmgaard, En ironisk historia, stockholm: aiolos Förlag 2003, and kevin newmark in sylviane agacinski, Aparté: Conceptions and Deaths of Søren Kierkegaard, trans. with an introduction by kevin newmark, tallahassee: Florida state university press 1988 [French 1977], p. 7. 3 louis dupré, “the constitution of the self in kierkegaard’s philosophy,” International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 3, 1963, p. 506. 2

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

187

follows. First, i turn to schlegel’s theory of “irony,” which is conceived as the tool for expressing the irreducible tension between ontological stability and instability. i then turn to Lucinde, the most important of schlegel’s works for kierkegaard. here i focus on how irony is related to the development of subjectivity: for schlegel, irony is a form of artistic genius that allows the self to emerge in a continual process of self-construction. with this interpretation of schlegel in place, i turn to kierkegaard’s treatment of schlegel. kierkegaard’s magister thesis, The Concept of Irony will be the primary focus because aside from the chapter devoted to schlegel there, kierkegaard’s direct references to schlegel are scarce. kierkegaard’s treatment of schlegel in The Concept of Irony, however, cannot always be teased apart from his critique of romantic irony in general; i therefore outline what i take to be three waves of criticism against schlegel in The Concept of Irony�� in order of a more or less increasing degree of specificity: first�� an epistemological-metaphysical critique which was leveled earlier by Hegel and several danish critics; second, an existential critique that has to do with the loss of the “original self”; and third and most importantly, a religious critique. Finally, i will conclude with a few examples of how kierkegaard’s critique of schlegel reappears in his pseudonymous authorship. i would like to suggest that while schlegel’s name is virtually absent in kierkegaard’s formal authorship, kierkegaard’s reactions to the problems raised during his study of schlegel are not only present, but even make up the scaffolding around which he constructs a continually more nuanced theory of selfhood. In short�� �ierkegaard’s critique of Schlegel is part of his first attempt to describe the double-movement of selfhood that is articulated in various forms throughout his authorship: �osing oneself in order to find oneself�� dying to the world in order to be reborn, letting go of the understanding in order to see with the eye of faith, and becoming alienated from immediacy in order to receive a new immediacy. I. Schlegel�s Life and Works Friedrich schlegel was born in hanover into the home of a lutheran pastor in 1772. after his school years, he tried his hand as a banker’s apprentice and then as a student of law before finally settling on Greek literature�� which he studied brie��y at the University of leipzig and then at the university of dresden. he then moved to Jena in 1796, joining his elder brother and friend, august wilhelm, with whom he collaborated on a number of literary projects. For the next several years in Jena, he published a series of in��uential works comparing ancient and modern literature�� and�� in 1797�� introduced the term “irony” in the romantic context in a collection of “fragments” published in a literary journal he co-edited, the Lyceum. here the 25-year-old schlegel formulated the guiding intuitions of a circle of young poets which also included his brother august wilhelm (1767–1845), novalis (1772–1801) and Friedrich schleiermacher (1768–1834). this was followed by the publication of the Athenäum in 1798, a journal which contained similar literary fragments. also published during his Jena years was the novel Lucinde, a book that was taken by kierkegaard’s generation to be the instantiation of “irony” in the form of a practical guidebook. schlegel lectured at Jena in 1800–01 before moving to paris, where he married dorothea mendelssohn von schlegel (1763–1839), the daughter of the philosopher and literary critic moses

188

K. Brian Söderquist

Mendelssohn (1729–86). �uring his time in Paris�� he became interested in Sanskrit— an interest that eventually led to numerous comparative studies on indo-european languages and cultures. after moving to cologne, where he remained for three years, he converted to catholicism in 1808 and moved to vienna, where he worked for the Austrian Office of Foreign Affairs. He moved again in 1815�� this time to Frankfurt where he was employed by the austrian legation at the german confederation. he continued with his academic interests throughout his political career and was in dresden to lecture on the philosophy of language when he died on January 12, 1828. II. Kierkegaard�s �amiliarity with Schlegel�s Texts as far as kierkegaard is concerned, schlegel’s texts from his Jena period are no doubt the most important. although the Auction Catalogue from kierkegaard’s library shows he owned schlegel’s Collected Works,4 there is little direct evidence that he read more than a few Jena essays, and, even then, the degree to which he studied them is an open question. in The Concept of Irony, he provides a rather detailed analysis of one of schlegel’s Jena works, the novel Lucinde published in 1800, but as tonny aagaard olesen has noted, this is the only primary work kierkegaard consults in his study of schlegel or any other romantic author.5 a complete inventory of all the remaining references to schlegel in kierkegaard’s authorship—both his published works as well as his journals and notebooks—shows only a handful direct references to schlegel, and these say very little of kierkegaard’s reading of him. in the Journal BB, written primarily during kierkegaard’s student days in 1836�� one finds two short marginal references—without any explanation or interpretation—to works on the differences between ancient and modern literature. a small entry on a loose paper from the same period alludes to a similar theme.6 if nothing else, these scattered references indicate that kierkegaard had at least some familiarity with schlegel’s historical studies and knew him as one of the many literary historians of the time interested in the contrasts between ancient Greece and modern— or ��omantic��—culture. ��—culture. culture.7 another loose paper from his student days indicates that �riedrich Schlegel�s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–10, vienna: Jacob mayer und compagnie 1822–25 (ASKB 1816–1825). 5 tonny aagaard olesen, “kierkegaard’s socratic hermeneutic in The Concept of Irony,” ed. by robert l. perkins, op. cit., p. 104. 6 in BB:2, kierkegaard simply adds a one-line marginal note to his study notes on Friedrich diez’s Die Poesie der Troubadours which refers to schlegel’s lectures on “ancient and modern literature” in his Collected Works. in BB:14, he adds a similarly short marginal note to his study of Faust which refers to schlegel’s “on the study of greek poetry.” the marginal notes, of course, could have been added after 1836, even though the main text was composed at that time. see also a loose paper from the time, Pap. i a 219 / JP 3, 3811, pp. 768–9, where kierkegaard alludes to “on the study of greek poetry.” here he refers to schlegel’s observations on the difference between the use of masks in greek and roman drama and facial expression in modern drama (see SKS 17, 67, 158, BB:2, SKS 17, 106, BB:14 and SKS k17, 211). Finally, there is a short reference from 1852 to schlegel’s treatment of caesar, Pap. X–4 a 575 / JP 4, 4219. 7 kierkegaard’s discussion of the concepts of the “beautiful” and the “interesting” found, for example, throughout “the seducer’s diary” in Either/Or and in the third problem 4

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

189

kierkegaard looked at some of schlegel’s works on non-european thought and culture.8 on three other occasions, he refers to one of schlegel’s novellas, “the story of merlin the magician,” but he simply uses the story to exemplify the issue at hand: anxiety; here one finds no discussion of Schlegel’s thought as such.9 in Stages on Life�s Way,10 one finds a short reference that is more or less a reformulated version of one of the key passages from kierkegaard’s critique of schlegel in The Concept of Irony, which i cite later in this study.11 Finally, in what might be the most interesting of the scattered references, in an 1835 entry in Notebook 3�� �ierkegaard re��ects on Schleiermacher’s famous review of Lucinde, Confidential Letters on Schlegel’s Lucinde, which served as a sort of justification for the renewed interest in Lucinde among members of kierkegaard’s generation.12 here, however, kierkegaard is more interested in the formal aspects of the review than the content of the book. indeed, he is most impressed by schleiermacher’s ability to provide convincing sketches of the various characters.13 this is the extent of kierkegaard’s direct references to schlegel.

in �ear and Trembling, are probably partially inspired by schlegel’s concept of the “beautiful” greek consciousness and the “interesting” modern consciousness, treated in “on the study of greek poetry.” carl henrik koch is among those who have explored the possible connections. while he notes the many intriguing thematic similarities, he has not been able to identify specific ideas that �ierkegaard adopted without significant modification. see See carl Carl henrik Henrik koch, Kierkegaard og “Det Interessante.” .” En studie i en æstetisk kategori, kategori copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1992, pp. 32–54. it is likely that schlegel’s discussion of the “beautiful” and the “interesting” comes to kierkegaard via a local danish discussion. see erik a. nielsen’s chapter on “the interesting” in the danish context in Søvnløshed. Modernisme i digtning, maleri og musik, aarhus: centrum Forlag 1982. 8 see Pap. i a 211, where kierkegaard muses on the similarities between the kind of indian thought portrayed in schlegel’s work, which is said to make god a source of evil, and hegel, who kierkegaard thinks might make the same move. 9 see BB:42 in SKS 17, 135 and SKS 17k, 257. a short reference to “merlin” is also found in The Concept of Anxiety, see SKS 4, 373 / CA, 69. in both the journal entry and The Concept of Anxiety, kierkegaard alludes to the youthful emergence of a consciousness of sexuality. “merlin” touches upon this same theme (cf. SKS k17, 257). cf. also a loose paper Pap. v a 102, where there is a reference to “merlin” and anxiety. 10 SKS 6, 423 / SLW, 458. cf. Pap. v B 148, p. 37, which is a draft of the same idea. 11 see SKS 1, 330–33 / CI, 297. 12 Lucinde, which was republished in 1835, was popular among a group of politicallyactive authors from �ierkegaard’s generation known as ��oung Germany��—which included Heinrich Heine�� another German author �ierkegaard read closely as a student—and its counterpart further south, “Young France.” as george pattison shows, kierkegaard studied schleiermacher’s defense of schlegel, Confidential Letters on Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde, a popular read during the decade in which kierkegaard wrote his dissertation. see george pattison, Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture, cambridge: cambridge university press 2002, pp. 116–36. interestingly, the famous 1835 edition of Lucinde that kierkegaard cites in his dissertation was not in his library as the time of his death. he may have borrowed the book, of course, or simply lost it. this is one indication that the Auction Catalogue cannot be used as the only tool for reconstructing kierkegaard’s history of study. 13 SKS 19, 99, not3:2.

190

K. Brian Söderquist

ironically, even when kierkegaard’s references to schlegel’s works in The Concept of Irony are taken into account, it turns out that what would seem to be the most obvious shared territory—their mutual interest in indirect�� witty communication�� that is�� rhetorical irony—turns out to be the least of �ierkegaard’s explicit interests in schlegel. he has little to say, directly, about schlegel’s irony fragments. in fact, there is no direct evidence that kierkegaard even read schlegel’s now-famous aphorisms on irony as a form of paradoxical indirect communication.14 given the absence of documentation that kierkegaard studied schlegel’s fragments�� it is difficult to claim that they are one of �ierkegaard’s primary sources for a theory of rhetorical irony. notwithstanding, kierkegaard’s understanding of the rhetorical aspect of irony has many family resemblances with that of schlegel, and most of the studies on kierkegaard and schlegel focus on these thematic similarities.15 one possible explanation for the similarities is that kierkegaard could have seen many of the features of schlegelian irony in the single work we know he studied carefully, Lucinde. indeed, much of schlegel’s theory of irony from the Lyceum and the Athenäum is employed in praxis in Lucinde, as we will see. kierkegaard’s concept of irony, however, is hardly limited to a theory of rhetoric—and for that matter�� neither is Schlegel’s. For them�� irony is first and foremost a “consciousness” or existential category. as isak winkel holm points out, when kierkegaard explicitly re��ects on art and �the poetic life���� he does not take an interest in the immanent problems of art, but is concerned almost exclusively with the function of art in the poetsubject’s life. The decisive issue is not the beautiful music which ��ows over the poet’s lips�� but the deep nausea in the poet’s heart, and this type of existential nausea belongs, of course, to an ethical and religious discussion, and only secondarily to a theory of aesthetics.16

the role of irony in a “poet-subject’s life” is indeed the issue, i believe. let me now turn to schlegel’s development of irony where i focus on the issues that directly 14 as clancy martin astutely points out, kierkegaard seems unaware that one of the erdmann passages he quotes in The Concept of Irony is itself taken from Athenäum fragment § 34, (SKS 1, 324 / CI, 289 ). see clancy martin, “a common mistake about kierkegaard’s ‘the seducer’s diary,’” in Søren Kierkegaard and the Word(s): Essays on Hermeneutics and Communication, ed. by poul houe and gordon marino, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 2003, p. 203. 15 cf. sylviane agacinski, Aparté: Conceptions and Deaths of Søren Kierkegaard, op. cit., see pp. 62–7; Jacob Bøggild, Ironiens tænker—tænkningens ironi: Kierkegaard læst retorisk, copenhagen: museum tusculanum press 2002; ole egeberg, “lyttende som var der en mening. om ironi,” in Experimenter. Læsninger i Søren Kierkegaards �orfatterskab, ed. by ole egeberg, aarhus: modtryk Forlag 1993; holmgaard, En ironisk historia, op. cit.; roy martinez, Kierkegaard and the Art of Irony, amherst, new York: humanity Books 2001; vincent a. mccarthy, The Phenomenology of Moods in Kierkegaard, the hague: martinus nijhoff 1978; gregory l. reece, Irony and Religious Belief, tübingen: mohr siebeck 2002; peer e. sørensen, “skyerne om efteråret. om den kierkegaardske tekst,” in Experimenter. Læsninger i Søren Kierkegaards �orfatterskab, ed. by ole egeberg, op. cit., pp. 123–42. 16 isak winkel holm,, “poesiens himmelbrev,” in Studier i Stadier. Søren Kierkegaard Selskabets 50-års Jubilæum, ed. by Joakim garff, tonny aagaard olesen and pia søltoft, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1998, pp. 41–2.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

191

apply to kierkegaard. i begin with an account of the concept of irony in schlegel’s fragments before turning to the role of irony in Lucinde. II. Schlegel�s Irony the intellectual project that schlegel is most famous for today, his theory of “irony,” does not fit neatly into the academic disciplines from which it emerges�� namely�� eighteenth-century philosophy and literary criticism. his thoughts on irony come in part as a response to philosophical problems raised in the late eighteenth century, most centrally, the apparent dualism in kant’s thought between the world of appearances described by transcendental philosophy and the world of moral activity described by practical philosophy. and it is fair to say that part of schlegel’s project is fueled by what we might call the existential concerns that emerge from this debate. like his colleagues at Jena—Fichte�� Schelling�� and Hegel—Schlegel inherited the problem of demonstrating that human freedom is not at odds with a natural world seemingly indifferent to human goals.17 But unlike his systematically-minded contemporaries who aim to overcome kantian dualism via a more precise philosophical articulation, schlegel does not appeal to systematic thought. the sustainability of schlegel’s project is not grounded in logical coherence. ernst Behler, who makes it his task to extract an intelligible theory of literature from Friedrich schlegel’s often enigmatic writings, suggests that it is a misunderstanding to demand of schlegel the kind of theoretical apparatus that one finds in the philosophical tradition. What Behler says of Schlegel’s �theory�� of the imagination, applies to his thought in general: it would be an incorrect reading of schlegel to seek a theory articulated in the same philosophical language as that of a systematic thinker such as Fichte, hegel or schelling. to seek a systematic theory in the writings of Friedrich Schlegel and his circle of early �omantics artificially introduces “a systematic tendency that simply does not exist.”18 if schlegel’s “arguments” are to be persuasive, it must be via a “view” or “perception” which results from an interaction with his texts. he implies that those with ears to hear will receive and understand his arguments in the same way as poetry itself is received and understood. a pair of studies written in Jena while he was in his early twenties, On the Value of the Study of the Greeks and Romans (1795–96) and On the Study of Greek Poetry (1797)—which �ierkegaard seems to have read—set the stage for this discussion. the most important of schlegel’s conclusions in these essays is the notion that, unlike the ancients who conceived of the universe as a perfected whole and sought truth within the immanent sphere of nature, the modern consciousness is fragmented and must resign to longing for a transcendent truth it cannot know. striving, longing, david J. gouwen’s dissertation, published as Kierkegaard�s Dialectic of the Imagination, new York: peter lang 1989, traces schlegel’s conception of the imagination, through Fichte, to kant’s Critique of Judgment. he argues that a general trait among early german romantic authors was an interest in uniting the apparently contradictory aspects of kantian thought, namely theoretical cognition and moral duty. see especially chapter one, pp. 13–44. 18 ernst Behler, German Romantic Literary Theory, cambridge and new York: cambridge university press 1993, p. 77. 17

192

K. Brian Söderquist

and wonderment replace the security of immanent ends. moderns cannot hope to reach scientific�� ethical�� or aesthetic perfection�� and the final telos for humankind remains an unattainable vanishing point. in these early essays, schlegel’s attitude toward modern thought appears to be utterly dismissive. as schlegel scholar stuart Barnett writes, “a cursory reading of schlegel’s essay could easily conclude that all of modern culture is to be abandoned in favor of a culture modeled on that of antiquity.…[modernity] is often decried and shown in poor comparison with antiquity.”19 But even in these early essays, schlegel suggests that the fragmentation of modernity offers possibilities. a sort of untapped vitality pervades the broken modern consciousness. it is just these possibilities which he investigates when he, together with his friends in Jena, begins to develop a new organ for expressing the fragmentation of modern thought. his interest in an artistic revolution comes to expression a few years later in fragments published in his literary journals, the Lyceum and Athenäum. Significantly�� the brokenness which characterizes modern thought is no longer viewed as a weakness. in fact, schlegel not only gives up his lamentations over the fragmentation of modernity but celebrates it. in the Lyceum and the Athenäum�� he suggests that modern poesis must re��ect an awareness of alienation of the individual subject who does not feel bound by or at home in the inherited traditions, customs or beliefs of his community. if the modern age is indeed committed to an ontology that posits a finite physical world that is ultimately irreconcilable with infinite human concerns�� it must also be committed to a discourse that recognizes this irreconcilability. This new discourse must re��ect the inconsistencies and tensions already present in the age; it must be capable of holding contradictory thoughts together while acknowledging that the contradiction cannot be eliminated. the age needs a sort of speech which consciously expresses what it means and, at the same time, the opposite of what it means. it needs the paradoxical discourse of “irony.” For schlegel, the playful ambiguity of irony is the only way to express conviction and skepticism at one and the same time. Behler puts it like this: “only the imagination can grasp this fullness and it strives with all its might to express it. however, in the ‘sphere of nature,’ in the realm of human language and experience, the imagination can ‘communicate and express itself only indirectly’ and therefore transforms itself into ‘witty’ or ironic configurations.��20 Schlegel thus takes confusion—understood also as a �bringing together���� a �con-fusion��—to be the strength of his project�� not its weakness. the interplay between the various fragments is explicit, intentional, and celebrated. One of the aims of the fragments—suggested in the fragments themselves—is the development of a sort of literature which will blur and confuse the boundaries which separate poetry and philosophy. the literature of the new generation must be capable of articulating the principles of transcendental philosophy in poetic language and of formulating poetry inspired by philosophical principles. in fragment § 115 from the Lyceum, schlegel writes: “the whole history of modern poetry is a see stuart Barnett’s introduction to Friedrich schlegel, On the Study of Greek Poetry, trans. by stuart Barnett, albany: state university of new York press 2001, p. 13. 20 Behler, German Romantic Literary Theory, op. cit., p. 177 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, vols. 1–35, ed. by ernst Behler, Jean-Jacques anstett and hans eichner, paderborn: schöningh 1958ff., vol. 2, p. 334). 19

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

193

running commentary on the following brief philosophical text: all art should become science and all science art; poetry and philosophy should be made one.”21 while schlegel could certainly agree that confusion is part of his plan, he is nevertheless interested in establishing a kind of order, too. schlegel advocates both destruction and construction, a constant changing interplay between the freedom of the imagination and restrictions of logical thought (and as we will see, it is indeed the constructive or ordering element that is most problematic for kierkegaard). schlegel seeks a form of expression that can gather the fragmentation of the age into a new kind of wholeness or completion. as lilian munk rösing suggests, for schlegel “the fragment is not an expression of post-modern apathy, where, surrendering every unity, one jubilantly scribbles unsystematic, random thoughts. on the contrary, the fragment stands in an inextricable dialectical relationship to the whole.”22 schlegel compares a fragment with a hedgehog or porcupine. in and of itself, the fragment is an independent unit of meaning: “a fragment, like a miniature work of art, has to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world and be complete in itself like a porcupine.”23 But as Jacob Bøggild explains, the quills of the porcupine also point outward, in all directions, and demand that the surrounding fragments play a role in the interpretation.24 the space within this network of freely associating fragments constitutes a totality in which meaning can arise—even if that meaning is ��uid. It is within this sort of �totality of fragments” that schlegel wants to discover the answers to the philosophical problems of his time. the imagination is free to assemble and disassemble fragments of meaning. It is also within this context that he �defines�� irony. when schlegel uses the term “irony,” he is obviously not describing a merely witty formulation in which one says something other than what one intends—something we will also see in kierkegaard’s discussion of irony. in the famous fragment § 42, schlegel sets mere rhetorical irony apart from a more sublime philosophical irony: “of course there is also a rhetorical species of irony which, sparingly used, has an excellent effect, especially in polemics; but compared to the sublime urbanity of the socratic muse, it is like the pomp of the most splendid oration set over against the noble style of an ancient tragedy.”25 The superficiality of a witty remark is of little interest when compared with the “nobility” of a higher form of irony: philosophical irony. the contemporary poet should look to philosophy to find an example of genuine irony: “philosophy is the real homeland of irony, which one would like to define as logical beauty: for wherever philosophy appears in oral or 21 Friedrich schlegel,, Philosophical �ragments, trans. by peter Firchow, minneapolis: university of minnesota press 1991, § 115, p. 14 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 161). 22 lilian munk rösing, “Friedrich schlegels �ragmenter,” Den Blå Port: Tidsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 36, 1996, pp. 28–9. 23 schlegel, Philosophical �ragments, § 206, p. 45 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Aus gabe, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 197). 24 Jacob Bøggild, “the Fine art of writing posthumous papers,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 19, 1998, p. 98. 25 schlegel, Philosophical �ragments, § 42, p. 5 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 152).

194

K. Brian Söderquist

written dialogues—and is not simply confined to rigid systems—there irony should be asked for and provided.”26 and when schlegel suggests that irony is at home in philosophy, he alludes to ancient philosophy�� exemplified in the Socratic dialogues of Plato. But what aspect of socrates’ dialogues is ironic� obviously, the irony is not visible in the logical content of socrates’ arguments, that is, in the logical formulae that make up his arguments. unlike philosophers who attend to the conceptual content of plato’s socratic dialogues, schlegel is interested in the rhetorical mood of the exchange as well. For schlegel, the most important hallmark of socratic irony resides in the ambiguity of its delivery—and this is an element of the Socratic dialogues that escapes translation into logical formulae. For schlegel, philosophical irony is the tone which accompanies an apparently serious exchange of ideas, a tone which is hidden from a listener who lacks an ear for irony. to the dismay of any listener who does not get it, “it remains a riddle”: socratic irony is the only involuntary and yet completely deliberate dissimulation. it is equally impossible to feign it or divulge it. to a person who hasn’t got it, it will remain a riddle even after it is openly confessed. it is meant to deceive no one except those who consider it a deception and who either take pleasure in the delightful roguery of making fools of the whole world or else become angry when they get an inkling that they themselves might be included. in this sort of irony everything should be playful and serious, guilelessly open and deeply hidden. it originates in the union of savoir vivre and scientific spirit�� in the conjunction of a perfectly instinctive and perfectly conscious philosophy. it contains and arouses a feeling of indissoluble antagonism between the absolute and the relative, between the impossibility and the necessity of complete communication. it is the freest of all licenses for by its means one transcends oneself; and yet it is the most lawful, for it is the absolutely necessary. it is a very good sign when the harmonious bores are at a loss about how they should react to this continuous self-parody�� when they ��uctuate endlessly between belief and disbelief until they get dizzy and take what is meant as a joke seriously and what is meant seriously as a joke. For lessing irony is an instinct; for hemsterhuis it is classical study; for hülsen it arises out of the philosophy of philosophy and surpasses these others by far.27

schlegel refers repeatedly in this passage to paradoxical situations of intention that are held together in ironic delivery. the ironist speaks seriously and in jest, consciously and intuitively. irony is an expression that simultaneously claims both objective and subjective validity. socratic irony, according to schlegel, derives its power from the ambiguity with which he commits to his own position. as schlegel puts it in another fragment, “irony is the form of paradox.”28 in other words, what irony is to delivery, paradox is to content. we ought to pause for a moment to sketch the ontology behind his theory of fragment, for schlegel was criticized by hegel and others precisely because his position is said to be philosophically indefensible. and from the perspective of a philosophy of ibid. schlegel, Philosophical �ragments, § 108, p. 13 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 160). 28 schlegel, Philosophical �ragments, § 48, p. 6 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 153). 26 27

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

195

reason, this is correct: for schlegel, human beings cannot access a stable metaphysical order. he has become convinced that it is a philosophical mistake to believe in the possibility of locating a stable metaphysic that can guarantee human nature and the universal ends that this would imply. in this sense, he breaks with the philosophical tradition of metaphysics. at the same time, however, it should be emphasized that schlegel does not see himself as celebrating metaphysical emptiness. schlegel longs for fulfillment via the �infinite�� or the whole. As �arsten Harries notes�� the infinite�� as Schlegel understands it�� is not a definite �something��; the infinite is not an object opposed to a subject, and thus it is impossible to understand it in the same way one understands an object: �the infinite is not any-thing�� and in that sense is nothing.��29 importantly, schlegel is not satisfied with nothing understood as emptiness—and this is a crucial point with regard to kierkegaard, for as we will see, he will argue that Schlegel’s longing for the infinite does indeed end in existential “emptiness”’ insofar as it is not sufficiently attentive to the finite context in which a subject always resides. many of the hallmarks of irony in the Lyceum and Athenäum—particularly the notion that irony expresses itself paradoxically and indirectly—are visible in kierkegaard’s analysis of irony. and yet, as noted, there is little evidence that kierkegaard read schlegel’s fragments on irony. Lucinde—written just a couple of years after the fragments—seems to be his primary source. One of the questions we might ask of Lucinde, then, is how “irony,” understood as “the form of paradox,” is exhibited in Lucinde. and more centrally, how is the concept of irony presented in the fragments reformulated in Lucinde as a practical, existential position� III. lucinde: A Guide to Selfhood summarizing the aims and content of Lucinde, published in 1799, is no easy task. george pattison puts it nicely when he writes, “it deliberately eschews the narrative form that is popularly associated with the novel….as it stands, the text is an apparent chaos of narrative, letters, dialogue, myth and fantasy.”30 But as we might expect from schlegel, where there is chaos, there is also order. For schlegel, “what constitutes the novel as a coherent unity is by no means the ‘dramatic thread of the story,’ but the relationship of the whole composition to a higher unity.”31 part of the “higher unity” is presumably suggested in the compositional structure of the book: it is comprised of 13 symmetrical sections: six small texts precede the longer centerpiece—the �Apprenticeship to Manhood��—which is again followed by six smaller pieces.32 clues about how to interpret this odd assembly of texts are given in the opening pages of Lucinde where we find that we are reading a compilation of thoughts penned by a certain Julius for his wife lucinde. it is meant to be a poetic 29 karsten harries, The Meaning of Modern Art: A Philosophical Interpretation, evanston: northwestern university press 1968, p. 50. 30 pattison, “a literary scandal,” in his Kierkegaard, Religion and the NineteenthCentury Crisis of Culture, op. cit., p. 117. 31 Behler, German Romantic Literary Theory, op. cit., p. 177. 32 For an overview of secondary literature which examines the literary form of Lucinde, see Behler, ibid., pp. 289–98.

196

K. Brian Söderquist

account of their relationship, he tells her, but at the same time, he reminds her that she should not expect a “faithful history” in the sense of a chronologically ordered retelling of their common history.33 a merely chronological account, he writes, would be inaccurate insofar as the narrative structure would bind events in an in��exible order and thus fail to capture the vitality and spontaneity with which they unfolded. instead, Julius retells the story in suggestive bits and pieces, so that the images can be imaginatively recalled and rearranged in the mind of his reader: as an educated lover and writer, i want to attempt to shape raw chance and mold it to the purpose. no purpose, however, is more purposeful for myself and for this work, for my love of it and for its own structure, than to destroy at the very outset all that part we call �order���� remove it�� and claim explicitly and affirm actually the right to a charming confusion. this is all the more necessary since writing about our life and love in the same systematic and progressive way we experienced them would make this unique letter of mine insufferably unified and monotonous�� so that it would no longer be able to achieve what it should and must achieve: namely the re-creation and integration of the most beautiful chaos of sublime harmonies and fascinating pleasures.34

the hermeneutical principle that schlegel outlined in the Lyceum and Athenäum is once again at play in Lucinde. on the one hand, the logical “order” we expect in philosophy or, in this case, in a narrative, is “destroyed” by the very fragmentary nature of his text. on the other hand, his fragmentary style requires that his reader recreate a provisional interpretation through the imaginative association of fragments. the “confusion” of individual thoughts coupled with their imaginative recombination is the key to “interpreting” the text as a whole. and this is indeed something kierkegaard himself was aware of. in his chapter on schlegel in The Concept of Irony, he cites this very passage.35 in a second move consistent with schlegel’s theory of the fragment, Julius suggests that the confused content is governed by an appropriately confusing mood, that is, a mood schlegel called “irony” in the fragments but which he refers to now in Lucinde as “wit.”36 again, kierkegaard is attentive to the notion that the “mood” of irony is critical in Lucinde. as we will see, he thinks this is the very mood that threatens the schlegel, Lucinde, trans. by peter Firchow, minneapolis: university of minnesota press 1971, p. 50 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 13). 34 schlegel, Lucinde, p. 45 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 9). 35 SKS 1, 326–7 / CI, 292. 36 ernst Behler notes that schlegel uses the term Witz and Ironie interchangeably when he describes his own literary project, and as a matter of fact, in Lucinde, “wit” is used almost exclusively. see Behler, Studien zur Romantik und zur idealistischen Philosophie, paderborn: schöningh 1988 p. 24, cited in sanne elisa grunnet, Ironi og Subjectivitet. En Studie over Søren Kierkegaards Disputats Om Begrebet Ironi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1987, p. 57. see also Behler, German Romantic Literary Theory, op. cit., p. 177. on a similar note, marina Foschi albert points out that “love” and “wit” stand at opposite poles of schlegel’s poetic theory. as she sees it, one of his tasks in Lucinde is to show how the driving passion for the infinite�� �love���� is brought under control and unified with the finite via the use of a distanced poetic mood, “wit.” see marina Foschi albert, �riedrich Schlegels Theorie des Witzes und sein Roman Lucinde, new York: peter lang 1995, pp. 75–7. 33

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

197

“original” self if mood remains the governing principle. For Julius, though, the tone or mood of the text ought to reveal that even though the events and passions which make up their relationship are deeply serious, his retelling must be balanced by a form that allows it to be viewed with the distance of an ambiguous playfulness. as he sees it, sentimental expressions of erotic desire, love, melancholy, longing, and so on, lack force if they are not domiciled within a formal wittiness—or irony—that pervades the book. passions must be given a rightful expression rather than simply repressed by insensitive ethical customs, he suggests, and they become vital only when indirectly addressed. In a conversation between Julius and �ucinde—which is ostensibly a disagreement between the two concerning Julius’ delight in ��irtation with other women—Julius explains that one must fight against the tendency to take one’s passions too seriously. cultural convention demands that an ethical seriousness accompany all social interaction between men and women�� he says�� with the result that passions are sti��ed�� causing them to “darken.” a light and witty ambiguity should bear one’s inner passions and while doing so, consciously bring them into view. “society” he writes, “is a chaos that only wit can organize and bring into harmony. If one doesn’t tri��e and amuse oneself with the elements of passion, then passion gathers itself into thick masses and makes everything grow dark.”37 and as we will see, it is this very darkness kierkegaard thinks schlegel cannot overcome, or at least the sort of darkness that is not overcome in the right way. the centrality of “wit” or irony in Lucinde is underscored elsewhere in a surrealistic chapter called “allegory of impudence.” here Julius wakes to a dreamlike world in which he is chased by a monstrous beast “swollen with poison” and equipped with “crablike claws.” Julius manages to neutralize the strange beast, discovering that in reality it looks more like a harmless frog. he soon meets a number of muses, who turn out to be embodied literary moods like naughtiness, decency, daintiness, the Beautiful soul and ethical life. not surprisingly, it is “wit” who is master of this world and who oversees Julius’ defeat of the poisonous monster: public opinion. during the course of the vision, wit himself becomes disembodied and grows and expands to the point of outward invisibility. at this point, Julius senses that wit has become part of him, internally. and with this inner transformation, the outer world is also transfigured. the inner eye of irony changes what Julius sees: Soon I recognized the surroundings of the external world again�� but transfigured and purer: above me the blue canopy of the sky, below me the green carpet of the rich earth, soon teeming with happy shapes. For i had only to make a wish, and whatever i wished for would come alive immediately, and crowd in front of me, even before i had clearly thought of it….And I heard—I don’t know from where—the familiar words: ��estruction and creation; one and all, and so may the eternal spirit hover forever over the eternal stream of time and life, and observe each bold wave before it ebbs away.”38

here we arrive at the central issue: a pattern for the development of “self” that reappears in various forms throughout the fragmented novel, a pattern that is especially important in �ierkegaard’s reading. Julius first experiences a con��ict with the world�� schlegel, Lucinde, pp. 75–6 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 35). schlegel, Lucinde, p. 57 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, pp. 19–20). 37

38

198

K. Brian Söderquist

society, public opinion and conventional life. he then turns inward, into his own consciousness, and becomes isolated from his surroundings. this leads him to the discovery of an inner�� infinite world which gives him confidence to decisively dismiss the habits of convention and which provides him with an eternal source of inspiration. �quipped with this inner light—the infinite—the finite world is illuminated in a new way. He can even destroy and recreate the configuration of finitude at will. In essence�� this movement away from the world, into oneself, and back to the world again is the movement kierkegaard would like to follow. But for him, schlegel’s move back to the world again via irony is simply an illusion. as we will see, he thinks schlegel fails to find the original self again in this movement of �reconciliation.�� From kierkegaard’s perspective, another crucial aspect of schlegel’s thought emerges when Julius continues his account of his vision: Julius’ own inner power of imagination is granted a prophetic, even divine status. the discovery of wit or irony within him allows him to rise above immediate experience and�� from the ether of the infinite�� fashion an intelligible form of the truth which is unavailable to everyday consciousness: the voice of Fantasy sounded terribly beautiful and very remote, but the words that followed were gentler and more as if directed to me: “the time has come. the inner being of god may be revealed and described. all mysteries may be uncovered and fear shall cease. consecrate thyself and proclaim to the world that nature alone is worthy of being honored,, and health alone of being loved.”39 at the mysterious words, “the time has come,” a spark of heavenly fire fell into my soul. It burned and consumed my innermost being; it strove and stormed to express itself….But i remembered that my lips hadn’t learned how to recreate the songs of the spirit. ��ou musn’t try to communicate the immortal fire in its pure and raw from,” said the familiar voice of my friendly companion. “create, discover, transform, and retain the world and its eternal forms in the perpetual variation of new marriages and divorces. veil and bind the spirit in the letter.”40

Julius has been called to be a prophet�� responsible for bringing back to the finite world an image of the divine�� the infinite. It is clear that Schlegel�� through Julius�� clearly has some kind of �transfiguration�� in mind. But to what degree does this represent a transfiguration of actuality understood as a rediscovery of one’s concrete factical circumstances� to what degree does this artistic �transfiguration�� of the world translate into a practical guide? Is Schlegel’s art meant to change actuality� this is critical, for these are indeed the fundamental questions raised in The Concept of Irony. it is certainly not unusual to read in secondary literature that one of the goals of early romantics like schlegel was to articulate the conditions and possibilities for a modern formation of the self, a modern Bildung. perhaps kierkegaard’s assertion that a romantic text like Lucinde is a practical guide might seem not only uncontroversial but even trivial—even if one has not studied Lucinde. indeed, most readers are familiar with the romantic notion that the creation of the self was said to be analogous to the creation of an artwork. it had become such a cliché by the kierkegaard repeats this particular line later in Stages on Life�s Way and in a journal entry. see note 10. 40 schlegel, Lucinde, pp. 57–8 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 20). 39

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

199

middle of the nineteenth century that artists of all sorts could formulate their aesthetic projects in terms of life praxis.41 and as noted above, even in schlegel’s early essays on greek art, existential issues of selfhood are at stake: at least part of the reason he compares ancient and modern art is to explain the alienation of the modern individual, whose ends and purposes are dimly understood when compared with those of the ancients. indeed, the task set by schlegel’s early thought seems to be to articulate, via art, what a modern formation of the self should encompass. with this in mind, it is not strange that Lucinde addresses some of the same issues. even so, it may be worthwhile to look at an even clearer example of the Bildung model presented in Lucinde in a novel within a novel, the nearly chronological account of Julius’ “apprenticeship to manhood.” For here one must agree with kierkegaard that it has a sort of “doctrinaire character.”42 Superficially�� this miniBildungsroman is an account of Julius’ relationships with a string of different women. But Julius is no triumphant seducer—unlike �ierkegaard’s Johannes in Either/Or. For example, Julius cannot consummate the seduction of a teenager because of his own awkwardness; he abruptly breaks off his relationship with a former prostitute when she informs him that he is the father to her unborn child; he becomes infatuated with a few women from his class who will not return his affection; and to top it off, he falls deeply in love with an engaged woman with whom he cannot share his secret. His fortunes finally change when he meets his savior�� �ucinde�� an artistic spirit who can guide him out of his despair and back to himself and the world.43 Julius’ story begins with a tension which kierkegaard will describe as the hallmark of irony: the disparity of the inner and outer. Julius is thoroughly isolated from his social environment, acting as though he is passionately involved in the trivial events of everydayness, though he is inwardly detached and aloof.44 in fact, his isolation was his only consolation insofar as he could engage in ��ights of imagination: with this kind of personality, it was inevitable that he should feel lonely even in the friendliest and liveliest society; and actually he felt least lonely where no one was with

41 romantic painter phillip otto runge, for example, writes that “one should observe one’s life as a work of art.” phillip otto runge, letter to daniel runge [march 9, 1802], in Theorie der Romantik, ed. by herbert uerlings, stuttgart: reclam 2000, p. 224. 42 SKS 1, 324 / CI, 290. 43 my aim here, however, is not to give a thoroughgoing summary of his failed relationships, though there are no doubt many parallels one could make with several of kierkegaard’s early pseudonyms such as Johannes the seducer in Either/Or or the young man in Repetition. my aim, rather, is to call attention to the developmental “stage theory” to which I alluded above: the first stage is a distrust of the given order of things—what �ierkegaard calls an alienation from “given actuality.” the psychological war between the inner and the outer eventually leads the hero to search within himself. Here he discovers the infinite truth which lies beyond human determinations. Finally, through a cultivation of imagination, he learns that the finite world can once again be his home as he artistically—and religiously— reinterprets both himself and his relationships in the world. 44 schlegel, Lucinde, p. 77 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 35).

200

K. Brian Söderquist him. as such times, he would intoxicate himself with images of his hopes and memories and intentionally let himself be seduced by his own imagination.45

this intoxicating focus on his own thoughts was far from a solution to his fragmented personality. at this point Julius’ consciousness looks something like an assembly of his own literary fragments, though the interpretive key which could unite them has yet to be employed: “in his imagination, the whole existence was a mass of unrelated fragments. each fragment was single and complete, and whatever else stood next to it in reality and was joined to it was a matter of indifference to him and might just as well not have existed at all.”46 this confused and despairing consciousness was a condition for the possibility of discovering himself, but the young Julius could not see it himself. The narrator—Julius�� looking back at his own despair—writes something that kierkegaard’s wilhelm could have written to his own alter ego, the esthete A: This inner ferment could have been healthy for him. Through despair he might finally have achieved peace, stability, and a clearer understanding of himself. But the fury of his frustration lacerated his memory: never had he had less of a conception of the whole of his ego. he lived only in the present.47

his wilhelm-like observations continue when he notes that his confused youthful self could not even decide whether to take his own life. he simply lacked the disposition to choose anything at all: he would have been quite capable of carrying out a decision of this kind if he had been at all capable of arriving at any decision. it seemed hardly worth the trouble since he really didn’t hope to escape the boredom of his existence and his revulsion of fate in this way. He despised the world and everything in it—and he was proud of it.48

the crucial turn in his account of failed relationships and social alienation arises when Julius falls for a woman who is betrothed to another man. when he realizes that any chance of realizing his love in this world is impossible, he then resigns the possibility of a reconciliation with finitude: he �turned the whole force of his passion against [his love]. he renounced all expectation of happiness, but resolved to be worthy of it and become master of himself.”49 Julius had made a decision to renounce the possibility of ever feeling at home in the world again, and not unlike kierkegaard’s knight of resignation in �ear and Trembling, his decision provides him with some solace. He will never be happy in the finite world�� but his decision to become “master of himself” closes him comfortably off from the world and shuts him in with himself—and closes him in with the possibilities that solitude offers. he rededicates himself to his chosen artistic discipline, visual art, with a renewed vision: he recognizes a calling to create “divine art.”50 45 46 47 48 49 50

schlegel, Lucinde, p. 78 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 36). schlegel, Lucinde, p. 78 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 37). schlegel, Lucinde, p. 89 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 46). schlegel, Lucinde, p. 91 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 47). schlegel, Lucinde, p. 91 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 48). schlegel, Lucinde, p. 93 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 49).

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

201

at this stage, Julius might have lived with the peace of resignation because he had discovered a pathway to the infinite within himself—and he was prepared to do so. then he is introduced to lucinde. he sees in her an artistic soul who, like him, has dismissed conventional values, Sittlichkeit. and she understands the spirituality that comes from isolation. But at the same time�� she has also managed to find a sort of road back to the world and has worked out her own peaceful coexistence with it. she has “created actuality”: lucinde had a decided bent for the romantic….she belonged to that part of humankind that doesn’t inhabit the ordinary world but rather a world that it conceives and creates for itself. only whatever she loved and respected in her heart had any true reality for her; everything else was spurious: and she knew what was valuable. also she had renounced all ties and social rules daringly and decisively and lived a completely free and independent life.51

it is important to note here that lucinde does reinhabit a world that has been endowed with meaning and value. she can live in the actual world because it is of her own making. she feels no need to seek an external system of ethical order, and she feels no obligation to universalize what she herself finds valuable. She sought herself inwardly and found herself internally content. she is successful in her project of self-creation. in her company, Julius notices that he is “once again relaxed and happy in the company of other people.”52 and even more importantly, by following her calm example, he too is able to open himself to the gift of reconciliation. By passively accepting the finite world on its own terms�� he found that it became transfigured for him—and his own self was discovered: Just as his artistic ability developed and he was able to achieve with ease what he had been unable to accomplish with all his powers of execution and hard work before, so too his life now came to be a work of art for him, imperceptibly, without knowing how it happened. a light entered his soul: he saw and surveyed all the parts of his life and the structure of the whole clearly and truly because he stood at its center. he felt he would never lose this unity; the mystery of his life had been resolved and he had found the word.53

Just as he saw in his dream, earlier, a light entered his soul. he had been given the power to unify what had only been fragmentary before. he had discovered the consciousness of “wit” or “irony” that would allow him to accept an inherent tension between the infinite�� that he could never fully express�� and the finite that could never fully contain the rich�� undifferentiated mystery of the infinite. The final line is especially important: Julius had discovered “the word,” which alludes, of course, to the logos that was in the beginning, that was with god, that was god.54 the inner principle that allowed him to live in actuality again had made him a prophet and allowed him to reinterpret or create—like a god. The narrator concludes with a description of his completed religious apprenticeship:

51 52 53 54

schlegel, Lucinde, p. 98 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 53). schlegel, Lucinde, p. 96 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 52). schlegel, Lucinde, p. 102 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 57). John 1:1.

202

K. Brian Söderquist so his spirit was made whole and enriched in a variety of ways and circumstances. But here too he found full harmony only in �ucinde’s soul—the soul in which everything magnificent and everything holy awaited only the sunlight of his spirit in order to unfold themselves in the most beautiful religion.55

as we will see, kierkegaard argues that schlegel’s “poetry” aims “to ease the pain of actuality that darkens everything.” it offers in the place of a darkened actuality a more perfect one; �omantic poetry offers a world that is transfigured and beautiful. Schlegel himself might agree. But kierkegaard is suspicious of the ease with which this new world is recreated. It is a false transfiguration�� a false reconciliation�� he will argue. In fact, kierkegaard will go as far as to accuse schlegelian irony of becoming stranded at exactly the place where schlegel begins his own Bildungsroman: in confusion and ultimately in the midst of total emptiness. in other words, schlegel seems to present a developmental theory which begins with the dismissal of conventional order, then turns inward to discover the divine infinite�� and then finally uses the light of that sphere to return to the world. as i show below, kierkegaard will insist, by contrast, that Schlegel’s infinite is in fact a return to total emptiness. schlegel will be accused of remaining within a nihilistic void, never discovering the divine truth. in The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard offers his own version of a reconciliation with actuality. and perhaps surprisingly, it shares much of the structure outlined by schlegel in Lucinde. as kierkegaard sees it, the fundamental problem with schlegel’s irony is not his anti-ethical sarcasm, nor his suggestion that the individual must become aware of one’s subjectivity by turning inward to seek a truth that is not located in the finite sphere. The fundamental problem for �ierkegaard is that schlegel does this by virtue of the powers he has within himself alone. despite what schlegel writes about opening himself to the divine and accepting the gift of “wit,” or “irony,” kierkegaard will argue that schlegel remains closed within himself, closed up with his own power of imagination, and thus closed up in a nihilistic emptiness. he is thus closed off from the only authentic source that could save him. let me now turn to a more through examination of kierkegaard’s critique. IV. Kierkegaard on Irony in the preceding section we saw that schlegel understands “irony” as an ambiguous discourse used to express the tension and uncertainty inherent in modern philosophical thought. In fact�� as Schlegel sees it�� irony is the only fitting form of expression for a philosophy that knows that by using finite terms and concepts�� it does only partial justice to an infinite truth. Additionally�� we saw that Schlegel also uses the term “irony” to describe the consciousness of an individual who has discovered the spiritual key to personal integration; he suggests that a consciousness of “irony” brings about a kind of synthesis between irreconcilable opposites: the ironist lives in the finite world�� where no finite human purpose seems ultimately fulfilling�� while at the same time keeping alive an awareness of the infinite�� a sphere that promises wholeness if one can access it via a sort of mystical union. irony accompanies the 55

schlegel, Lucinde, p. 103 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 58).

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

203

“religious” consciousness that has “seen the inner light,” so to speak. schlegel seems to imply that this divine inner light assures the individual that his self-appointed purposes and goals are valuable in and of themselves. like schlegel, kierkegaard’s “concept of irony” might be described as a “consciousness” or a way of being in the world. and like schlegel, he also insists that the merely witty remark is far from describing the concept of irony. But when �ierkegaard presents his definition of irony in The Concept of Irony, he begins, like Schlegel�� with rhetorical irony. His starting point is the common definition of irony as a way of using language to express the opposite of the literal meaning, and in this form of irony he finds the first universal characteristic of all forms of irony: the opposition of the inner private life and an outer public life. when someone says the opposite of what one means, he explains, “the phenomenon is not the essence, but the opposite of the essence.”56 The spoken word—available to all listeners—is said to be the phenomenon while the subjective intention of the speaker is said to be the essence. the most common forms of irony, then, can be recognized by the disharmony between the intention of the subject who is speaking—the essence—and the uttered or written word available to listeners—the phenomenon. In short�� like schlegel, he characterizes irony as the opposition of the inner and the outer. If one fixes attention on what happens within the subject when he speaks ironically, he continues, we discover another characteristic found in all forms of irony: that “the subject is negatively free.”57 as opposed to the positive freedom a person has when straightforwardly communicating an intention, a person is negatively free from the expression when he says something not meant in earnest. the ironic speaker does not feel committed to what he has literally said, and can therefore always escape responsibility for saying it. in practice, an ironic speaker can say anything at all knowing well that he can claim that he was not serious. irony is a concept of liberation, or better yet, a concept which liberates. with an ironic consciousness, the individual also becomes increasingly aware of why he conceals himself from the world and ultimately what he gains (and loses) by doing so. The key concept is the intensification of what �ierkegaard�� using Schlegelian language�� calls an �inner infinity.�� With this inner �non-finiteness���� �ierkegaard speaks of a focused awareness that there is something more to the personality than its daily preoccupation with finite concerns. A person becomes aware that a personality is not the sum of its daily activity, that there is something about one’s self-consciousness which is not bound to routine activity in the empirical or �finite�� world: there is something �infinite�� about the self. �ierkegaard writes that the more an ironist’s mystifications originate “from the craving to be a human being once in a while, and not always and forever to be a civil servant, the more poetic infinity inheres in it; and the more artfully the mystification is accomplished�� so much the more is irony manifest.��58 like schlegel, kierkegaard suggests that ironic isolation heightens this spirituality by turning one’s attention away from everyday relationships with others and toward one’s own personal identity, toward subjectivity. Being alone with one’s thoughts is 56 57 58

SKS 1, 286 / CI�� 247 (�ierkegaard’s italics�� translation modified). ibid. SKS 1, 291 / CI 252 (�ierkegaard’s italics�� translation modified).

204

K. Brian Söderquist

the key. when a person keeps a love affair secret, even from trusted intimates, his inner thoughts are amplified.59 one does not do what comes most naturally: share the secret. the weight of knowing something that no one else knows is psychologically taxing�� and the process of endless re��ection never stops if one refuses to share it with someone else.60 the unique psychological “something” in the personality, which at moments is incommensurable with the conventional world, starts to dominate one’s consciousness—not just at isolated moments but all the time. �ierkegaard is suggesting that for the ironist, the arbitrariness and strangeness of conventional life become absolute, and something more original within the individual starts to come into focus. It is significant that in all these cases in which the ironist shies away from the world and is left to his own thoughts, the person is weakening the bonds that tie him to the world in which he is embedded. that is, as the ironist harbors secrets and cultivates self-awareness�� he frees himself from an immediate identification with the finite conditions and relationships which make up the practical sphere. �ike Schlegel�� kierkegaard suggests that he no longer sees the self as completely enmeshed in the social world that seems to be running so smoothly alongside him, and does not feel obligated in every circumstance to respect the practical conventions and customs which bind the uncritical person. when an ironist distances himself from a given social convention—for example�� the rules for being engaged to be married—he is free to ignore his own comportment as binding, even if he seems to follow the rules. Just as the ironic rhetorician does not feel bound to his ironic statement, this ironist does not feel bound to the ways he acts. as of yet, however, none of the forms of irony kierkegaard has described are examples of the “pure” ironic standpoint which is the object of his dissertation: “thus far we have merely conceived of irony as an expression of the moment, so that in all these instances we cannot yet speak of pure irony, or irony as a position [Standpunkt].”61 in other words, in rhetorical irony, the disparity between the inner and the outer is still limited to episodic expressions. He identifies�� for example�� an “ironic elite,” or a group of initiated members who speak ironically among themselves

SKS 1, 290–91 / CI�� 251–2 (translation modified). ettore rocca makes pertinent observations about “secrets” in his study on kierkegaard’s treatments of the demonic secret and psychological closure [Indesluttethed]. rocca argues that one of the most important themes throughout kierkegaard’s authorship is his treatment of religious figures who cannot speak because they live in categories where their paradoxical experience cannot be communicated�� and demonic figures who will not speak because they desire to remain cut off from the social world. see ettore rocca, “the secret: communication denied, communication of domination,” in Søren Kierkegaard and the Word(s): Essays on Hermeneutics and Communication, ed. by poul houe and gordon d. marino, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 2003, pp. 116–26. 61 SKS 1, 292 / CI�� 253 (translation modified). Schlegel’s claim that Socratic irony (§ 42) goes beyond the witty formulation as should be considered the best example of the highest form of irony is consistent with �ierkegaard’s claims that irony is a �position��—though one must keep in mind that kierkegaard writes two-hundred pages on socratic irony while schlegel provides just a handful of cryptic fragments. 59 60

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

205

as they seek liberation from societal clichés. one is reminded of schlegel’s claim that irony will “remain a riddle” for the uninitiated62: To the degree that higher circles—naturally this must be understood according to an intellectual protocol—speak ironically so as not to be understood by lay people�� just as kings and princes speak French, to this degree irony is in the process of isolating itself, for it does not wish to be generally understood.63

in the higher circles of ironic persons, the code of conduct includes a refusal to ever reveal an inner intention to the uninitiated. these elite few do not want or need the majority of serious souls to understand their private playful language. For kierkegaard, this higher form of irony is more self-assured than common forms because it seeks and receives no social reward beyond the inner circle. there is no reconciliation with a common audience. and yet this elite group has a problem, kierkegaard says. For irony is, “according to its concept, isolation.”64 as such, any attempt to form a genuine fellowship of initiated ironists is a contradiction, and the apparent unity falls apart on its own. These elitists—perhaps ironists like Schlegel and company—either resort to straightforward communication at some point, which ends their self-appointed superiority, or their fellowship is false, and they do not really understand each other after all: “there is as little social unity in a coterie of ironists as there, in truth, is honesty in a band of thieves.”65 the point here is that, for kierkegaard, irony in its higher forms can only exist if the subject refuses social consolation. here we begin to sense a critical difference from Schlegel with regard to the definition and scope of irony. schlegel ultimately sees irony as a tool for bringing the self into relationship with others, a “reconciliation” with the world. kierkegaard wants to restrict irony to the purely negative. as he sees it, irony is aimed at something in the outside world, but the world does not understand it and—if the irony is fully and properly carried out—will never fully understand it�� not even by like-minded friends.66 schlegel, Philosophical �ragments, § 108, p. 13 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 160). 63 SKS 1, 287–8 / CI�� 248 (�ierkegaard’s italics�� translation modified). 64 SKS 1, 288 / CI�� 249 (translation modified). 65 ibid. 66 it is worth pointing out here that contrary to what we might expect, kierkegaard’s way of defining irony relies almost entirely on the psychological world of the subject. Almost from the beginning of this discussion, kierkegaard has chosen to look at the disparity between what a particular individual understands with his ironic statement and what a listening public might understand. in this discussion, he does not explicitly mention the kind of literary play that might be involved when a writer plays with ambiguity, obscured intent, double entendres, paradoxes, etc. if one were to apply this discussion of irony to a written text, it follows that even the sensitive reader intent on finding ironic expressions is dependent upon clues from the author. As �ierkegaard shapes the problem, the author must be willing to let us in, must “want to be understood” and thus “cancel” his irony as soon as we have understood it. But kierkegaard’s “higher” forms of irony—irony defined by the purely personal satisfaction in hiding his intent completely from his reading audience—is by definition not accessible to the reader�� and thus a reader can never get behind this more radical kind of irony. this implies that a reader cannot “decode” irony, and this, i believe, ought to be kept in mind whenever one reads kierkegaard. i do not believe it is possible 62

206

K. Brian Söderquist

with kierkegaard’s concept of pure irony, however, a subject’s momentary alienation from a social order gives way to constant alienation. kierkegaard writes: the difference between all of the expressions of irony alluded to here is merely quantitative, a more or less. By contrast, irony sensu eminentiori is qualitatively different from the forms described here, just as speculative doubt is different from vulgar doubt and empirical doubt. irony sensu eminentiori is not aimed at one part of existence or another, but is aimed at the entire actuality [Virkelighed] of a given time and under given circumstances. it has, therefore, an apriority in itself; it does not achieve its totalizing view by successively destroying one part of actuality after the next, but it is by virtue of its totalizing view that it destroys individual parts. it is not one phenomenon or another which is observed sub specie ironiae, but it is the totality of existence. as far as this goes, one sees the correctness of Hegel’s designation of irony as infinite absolute negativity.67

kierkegaard understands that the definition of pure irony is negativity; that is, unlike schlegel, who sees the consciousness of irony as both “destructive and constructive,” kierkegaard wants to limit the scope of irony to the “destructive” side. to attribute a creative element to the definition of irony is a mistake. Indeed�� as we will see�� it is the critical mistake he sees in schlegel’s irony. or perhaps better said, pure irony has something in common with a divine creator: the ironist observes the entire world as a whole—thus the wordplay on the divine perspective�� sub specie aeternitatis—and sees that it is all of the same order. But unlike the eternal divine eye that sees all events in the world as necessary, the ironist sees all of them as equally contingent, arbitrary and empty. this is the consciousness or position of pure irony. and this purely “destructive” element is what we must keep in mind when kierkegaard speaks of irony proper. �ierkegaard’s conclusion that irony is ultimately defined as the negative isolation of a subject from his objective world may be somewhat surprising, especially if one is looking for a well-developed theory of rhetorical irony. kierkegaard’s point of departure is rhetorical irony insofar as he calls attention to the disparity between a subjective speaker and the understanding of a listener, but he keeps the focus on the psychology of the subject as he nuances the definition. While tracing irony from its weakest to strongest forms, he accentuates the fact that the subject becomes less and less inclined to participation in the social environment. and it is important to underscore here that the definition of the ironic position is dependant upon the private perspective of a subject. a complete break with the world has been accomplished only when a subject himself sees the world solely through the lenses of pure irony. louis mackey sums it up well: “irony (in principle) is not a form of communication. it is a technique of concealment to look over �ierkegaard’s shoulder�� so to speak�� and confidently claim to have understood exactly where the irony begins and ends. if we stay within the framework of The Concept of Irony—a framework which i do not think is nuanced enough to contribute to the contemporary discussion of reader-oriented hermeneutics—it turns out that for �ierkegaard�� the higher�� interesting kind of irony takes place in the psychological space of an individual, not in the common space of textual analyses. irony becomes intriguing for kierkegaard when it can no longer be recognized publicly and cannot be discussed and identified in a common forum. For more on the impossibility of �decoding�� kierkegaard’s irony, see oscar parcero oubiña, “‘controlled irony’…. are You serious� reading kierkegaard’s irony ironically,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 2006, pp. 241–60. 67 SKS 1, 292 / CI, 254.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

207

that isolates the speaker (in principle) absolutely.”68 we see that the purely ironic person fulfills the Socratic demand to �know thyself.�� For�� as �ierkegaard sees it�� this means nothing other than “to separate oneself from the other.”69 V. Kierkegaard�s Critique(s) of Schlegel in the concept of irony i have suggested throughout this study that kierkegaard is particularly attentive to schlegel’s thought insofar as it implies a theory of “selfhood.” in Lucinde, the synthesis between the finite and infinite described via Schlegelian irony is depicted as a three-fold movement. Schlegel’s first movement is one of destruction: the individual dismisses the authority of the conventional order of things which then leads to a consciousness of complete alienation from �finitude.�� Secondly�� the individual moves into himself in search of a sense of wholeness or �infinitude.�� Finally�� this spiritual longing for the infinite sparks artistic creativity: as the ironist cultivates and expresses a mystical union with the infinite�� finitude itself appears to be transformed. and by virtue of this divine creative light which changes the individual and his world, the individual “self” emerges as a whole. in The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard’s own portrayal of the movements of irony parallel those implied by schlegel. But, as kierkegaard sees it, irony is both a truth and an untruth. that is, as kierkegaard calls attention to the moment of isolation, he begins to reveal why an ironic distance from actuality can work both as a prerequisite for authentic selfhood as well as a temptation which results in the spiritual death of the self. while it may appear counter-intuitive, one of kierkegaard’s aims in The Concept of Irony is to show that the ironic view contains a truth. in fact, he claims it is necessary. One of the fifteen theses which he sent to the dissertation committee asserts the importance of irony: “Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life, deserving of being called human, begins with irony.”70 we see similar praise of irony scattered throughout The Concept of Irony�� including the brief final section of the book, “irony as a mastered moment, the truth of irony.” there he writes, “irony as the negative is the way; it is not the truth, but the way.”71 in kierkegaard’s thematic development of pure irony, the consequence of an alienation from actuality is said to be a heightened awareness of subjectivity. The first movement of irony is now in place: the individual separates himself from the inherited order that appears to be absolutely without validity, absolutely empty. in the eyes of the ironist, the bonds that hold actuality together are loosed; existence appears as arbitrariness and chance. the outward glance levels all value to emptiness and kierkegaard thinks this thoroughgoing skeptical attitude toward actuality is healthy: if one never questions the truth of inherited social forms and thus never moves beyond this immediate consciousness, one is never liberated from the rules which govern one’s given actuality. armed with the nihilistic insight of louis mackey, Points of View. Readings of Kierkegaard, tallahassee: Florida state university press 1986, p. 14. 69 SKS 1, 225 / CI, 177. 70 SKS 1, 65, SKS k1, 162 / CI�� 5–6 (translation modified). 71 SKS 1, 356 / CI, 327. see also SKS 1, 303 / CI, 265. 68

208

K. Brian Söderquist

irony, the individual subject becomes more and more aware of the distance between the inner and the outer life which otherwise dictates his comportment. and the more the individual senses that the values and purposes always already present in the cultural environment are empty, the more he is driven to search within the self for such purposes. a consciousness of inwardness or subjectivity begins to emerge.72 thus, the isolated person who feels exempt from certain social expectations, praised in Lucinde, makes an important move toward locating a self. the nihilistic negativity of irony is important for becoming a human being, kierkegaard thinks, insofar as it eliminates historically-mediated conceptions and misconceptions about the world. an empty space is opened, free of the creations of human tradition. the isolation of irony makes possible an openness to a truth that culture cannot provide, one could say. he has already alluded to the truth of irony when he writes that, “as certain as it is that there is much in existence which is not actuality, and that there is something in the personality which is at least momentarily incommensurable with actuality, so also it is certain that there resides a truth in irony.”73 the isolating movement of irony opens the possibility of inwardness and a heightened sense of subjectivity necessary for the development of a healthy “self.” and insofar as schlegelian irony is a criticism of convention�� �ierkegaard agrees that it is justified.74 while kierkegaard is at pains to defend this absolute moment of isolation as a necessary element for the development of selfhood, he is also insistent that selfhood is possible only if this isolation is overcome in the right way. For, as he sees it, the ironic position is a potentially damning endpoint. the absolutely isolated subject stands on a pinnacle, as it were, looking down at an apparently meaningless world. and this is precisely the position where the ironic individual confronts a critical crossroads. kierkegaard insists that selfhood is only achievable if one can regain a meaningful relationship to the very world which the ironist sees as hollow. For that world holds the key to selfhood. the ironist must become re-engaged with the world: he must become “reconciled with actuality.” that is, in order to become a self, one must ultimately take ownership of the actual relationships that are an essential element of the self. For him, a “reconciliation with actuality” is just as necessary as �isolation from actuality���� but even more difficult to achieve. as i have alluded, however, kierkegaard is in no way convinced that schlegel’s version of irony results in the happy ending we see in Lucinde. he not only thinks Schlegel’s poetic �reconciliation with actuality�� is artificial�� but he claims it ends in a straightforward “enmity” with the demands of the actual world.75 as kierkegaard sees it, the romantic ironist is most thoroughly alienated from himself and the actual world at exactly the point where he thinks he is most at home. But what is it about romantic irony that makes it a threat to selfhood for kierkegaard, especially in light of the fact that schlegel’s and kierkegaard’s respective theories of selfhood share a similar structure� why can kierkegaard assent to the first two moves of Schlegel’s ironic project—the movements of destruction 72 73 74 75

see louis dupré, Kierkegaard as Theologian, new York: sheed and ward 1963, pp. 124–6. SKS 1, 292 / CI�� 253 (translation modified). SKS 1, 321–3 / CI, 286–8. SKS 1, 330–31 / CI, 297.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

209

and inwardness—but object to Schlegel’s reconciling move back to the world? What is the problematic element in the romantic ironic formula� in short, it is not the negative element, “the destructive,” but rather the constructive one, “the creative.” VI. Kierkegaard�s �irst Critique: Hegel�s Philosophical Critique as interpreters have frequently noted, kierkegaard’s analysis of schlegel and the romantics76 in The Concept of Irony incorporates the basic features of hegel’s critique.77 in a short three-page synopsis at the beginning of the section “irony after Fichte,” kierkegaard aims to show that the romantic reinterpretation of conventional ethics is based on a philosophical error—just as Hegel asserts in his critique of schlegel in Lectures on Aesthetics and The Philosophy of Right.

76 kierkegaard’s criticism of “romanticism” is not aimed solely at schlegel, of course. in The Concept of Irony kierkegaard speaks of “romanticism” in general terms and names two other authors in addition to schlegel, namely, ludvig tieck (1773–1853) and karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Solger (1780–1819). At first glance�� it can be a challenge to apply kierkegaard’s general critique of “romanticism” to the primary texts of the three thinkers he treats specifically. This has something to do with the scope of �ierkegaard’s study: it is a history of ideas. he must therefore abstract from the details of a particular author in order to identify trends within the history of ideas. Following Hegel—and in general keeping with the world-historical context of the dissertation—�ierkegaard is perhaps somewhat vulgar in his critique of romanticism. Yet even if kierkegaard’s sketch of romanticism is somewhat indiscriminate, i do not think he misses his target altogether. some of the general traits kierkegaard mentions are, i believe, recognizable in these three thinkers, as well as other romantics (see, for example, stefan egenberger, “the poetic representation of the religious in kierkegaard’s Postscript: climacus’ humoristic style against the Backdrop of e.t.a. hofmann’s understanding of humor,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 2005, pp. 113–37. and despite the general language of the critique, i am convinced that schlegel in particular is the defining figure for �ierkegaard’s conception of �omantic irony. In addition to the fact that Lucinde is the only primary romantic text we can be certain he studied carefully, schlegel was also the representative of romantic irony and the target of a wave of criticism in both germany and denmark in the mid-1830s and early-1840s. Furthermore, kierkegaard himself frequently refers to schlegel and schlegelian irony as if synonymous with romantic irony (see, for example, SKS 1, 303 / CI, 265). thus, in this study i apply kierkegaard’s general remarks about romantic irony to schlegel, even if they are not exclusively aimed at him. For analyses on the problems with applying kierkegaard’s general critique to schlegel, see Behler, “kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony with constant reference to romanticism”; garff, Den Søvnløse. Kierkegaard læst æstetisk / biografisk, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1995, pp. 17–19 and pp. 41–2; clancy martin, “a common mistake about kierkegaard’s ‘the seducer’s diary,’” op. cit., pp. 192–203; michael weston, “kierkegaard and the origins of the post-modern self,” European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 3, 2002, pp. 398–412. 77 the most thorough and historically grounded of these critiques is located in Jon stewart’s Kierkegaard�s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, cambridge and new York: cambridge university press, 2003, pp. 166–81. he gives a complete inventory of �ierkegaard’s references to Hegel—and points out that even �ierkegaard’s assessment of solger is dependent on hegel’s treatment.

210

K. Brian Söderquist

he begins his argument by repeating hegel’s observation that contemporary irony is not fully naive about what it is doing. it is well aware that transcendental thinkers have changed the focus of philosophy from an investigation of the knowing and willing subject to an investigation of the conditions for the possibility of the knowing and willing subject. speaking from within the historical framework he set up in the first part of The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard presupposes that spirit itself has evolved to such a point that if one were to talk about a new sort of irony, it would have to be an ironic consciousness that is not only aware of �subjectivity��— the possibility of looking inward in search of an eternal principle of knowledge and action—but also subjectivity understood as a critique of the conditions of the possibility for the first form of subjectivity. �For a new mode of irony to appear now���� kierkegaard writes, “it must result from the assertion of subjectivity in a still higher form. it must be subjectivity raised to the second power, a subjectivity’s subjectivity, which corresponds to re��ection’s re��ection.��78 kierkegaard’s focus, of course, is the modern version of subjectivity which accompanies romantic irony. Following hegel, he claims that this new mode of irony emerges from a misappropriation of critical philosophy. Specifically�� Schlegel and fellow ironist ludwig tieck are said to confuse Fichte’s transcendental I with the empirical I, just as hegel argues.79 In fact�� one must admit that at first glance kierkegaard seems to do little else than recite hegel’s arguments against schlegel and the romantics. he explains: this Fichtean principle that subjectivity, the I, has constitutive validity, is the sole omnipotence, was grasped by schlegel and tieck, and on that basis, they operated in the world. In this there is a twofold difficulty. In the first place�� the empirical and finite I was confused with the eternal I; in the second place, metaphysical actuality was confused with historical actuality. thus a rudimentary metaphysical position was applied to actuality. Fichte wanted to construct the world, but he had in mind a systematic construction. schlegel and tieck wanted to obtain a world.80

SKS 1, 282 / CI, 242. SKS 1, 301 / CI, 275. in his Lectures on Aesthetics, hegel claims that schlegel and his fellow ironists have simply not understood the transcendental philosophy which has inspired and emboldened them. he writes that they have “appropriated from the philosophical idea as much as their completely non-philosophical but essentially critical natures were capable of accepting” (Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, vols. 1–2, trans. by t. malcolm knox, oxford: oxford university press 1998 [1975], vol. 1, p. 63 (Jub. vol. 12, p. 99) (Jub. = Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe in 20 Bänden, edited by hermann glockner, stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann verlag 1928–41)). it is the transcendental philosophy of Fichte in particular, he adds, that they have misappropriated to their own ends. as he sees it, they seize upon the notion that the transcendental ego is “productive” and take that to mean that actuality itself is capable of being both produced and destroyed by an individual human being. they seem to think, says hegel, that “whatever is, is only by the instrumentality of the ego and what exists by my instrumentality i can equally well annihilate again” (Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 64 (Jub. vol. 12, p. 100).) 80 SKS 1, 311 / CI, 274. 78 79

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

211

kierkegaard argues that the romantics are guilty of two related misunderstandings. First schlegel and tieck have made the philosophical category mistake pointed out by hegel: they have misapplied the transcendental or “eternal” I and have thus confused a theory designed to explain logical possibility with an empirical theory of knowledge explaining everyday consciousness. this leads to an associated problem, kierkegaard argues, namely, that irony proceeds to apply to historical actuality the conclusions of Fichte’s metaphysical actuality. the “absolute power” of logical creativity that Fichte attributed to the eternal I is taken by modern irony as a starting point for empirical activity. the romantics assume the absolute power to establish meaning in the actual world based on argumentative principles designed to show the constitutive power which must be attributed to the eternal I. it is important here to be clear about where kierkegaard is going with his charge that schlegel and company “create actuality.” in general, kierkegaard conceives of historical actuality as the concrete everyday circumstances structured by the rule of law, custom, and belief that present themselves to an existing individual in her own time and place. when kierkegaard argues that the romantics attempt to “create actuality,” he means that they have taken it upon themselves to redescribe and redefine the practical rules that he believes are constitutive of historical actuality itself. in everyday language, one’s historical actuality consists of “the conditions of the world”81 in which one finds oneself�� the network of relationships that make up one’s everyday life. thus, when kierkegaard says that the romantics have taken it upon themselves to redefine historical actuality�� he sees them redefining �life circumstances”82—and the rules that shape them.83 SKS 1, 296 / CI, 257. SKS 1, 294 / CI, 255. 83 hegel considers schlegel’s ironic project to be highly unethical as well as philosophically confused. as he sees it, schlegel takes the notion of the all-powerful creative subject and applies it to the sphere of practice. the result is a mistaken notion that any given empirical subject is capable and responsible for creating or interpreting his or her own practical guidelines: “the ironical artistic life apprehends itself as a divine creative genius for which anything and everything is only an unsubstantial creature to which the creator, knowing itself to be disengaged and free of everything, is not bound, because he is just as able to destroy it as to create it. in this case, he who has reached this standpoint of divine genius looks down from its high rank on all other men, for they are pronounced dull and limited inasmuch as law, morals, etc. still count for them as fixed essential and obligatory�� (Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 66 (Jub. vol. 12, p. 102). hegel’s accusation that the romantics elevate themselves above the laws and customs that have emerged throughout human history is most clearly expressed in his Philosophy of Right. in a chapter that kierkegaard read closely entitled �Good and Conscience��—which �ierkegaard returns to in �ear and Trembling—Hegel traces the development of a subjective form of thinking about law which he terms “moral” thinking. in the closing pages of this chapter, hegel turns his attention to the “supreme form of moral evil,” which turns out to be nothing other than schlegelian irony (Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. by hugh Barr nisbet, cambridge and new York: cambridge university press 1991, § 140, pp. 180–84 (Jub. vol. 7, pp. 216–22)). romantic irony is said to advocate a radical version of subjective morality: the individual can justify any personal desire by redefining it as the absolute good and, in doing so, make the momentary desires of the subjective will into an ethical absolute. hegel describes the position as “empty”: “in this ironic consciousness in 81 82

212

K. Brian Söderquist

the most important point to note here is that although kierkegaard clearly makes use of hegel’s philosophical criticism, essentially agreeing with hegel’s charge that the romantics have misappropriated Fichte’s transcendental I, he does not place it at the core of his own argument. he uses it more as an introduction to what he takes to be even stronger criticisms. the focus is on the consequences of living ironically: as kierkegaard sees it, the ironic consciousness loses track of the conditions for becoming a self and thus a genuine self is never appropriated. VII: Kierkegaard�s Second Critique: The Lost Self in The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard argues that the “creativity” housed in schlegel’s concept of irony eliminates two conditions needed for selfhood: (1) a relationship to the “original self,” and (2) the world of human relationships. let me begin with a brief look at the problem of originality.84 which i let the highest things perish, i merely enjoy myself. in this shape, subjectivity is not only empty of all ethical content in the way of rights, duties, and laws and is accordingly evil, in addition, its form is that of subjective emptiness in that it knows itself as this emptiness of all content and in this knowledge, knows itself as the absolute” (Elements of the Philosophy of Right, op. cit., § 140, p. 182 (Jub. vol. 7, p. 219). hegel here asserts the ironists are not just naive. they not only know they destroy universally valid ethical principles, they also know that their own subjectively fashioned guidelines are provisional and thus empty. 84 what i call here kierkegaard’s “second critique” builds on the insights of university of copenhagen professor poul martin møller. as møller sees it, certain contemporary movements in art encourage the “poetical transformation of feelings” which smother “primitive,” authentic emotional reactions. This �primitivity��—a term which �ierkegaard later incorporates in works like Sickness unto Death—is the crucial issue for Møller here. The result is an internal con��ict in which contrived “poetic” experience severs one from one’s own original self. møller speaks critically of�� �a one-sided inclination to be affected by poetically transfigured feelings. One can become so affected that it leads to a reluctance to give room to feelings from actual life since these actual feelings grasp the mind with a less friendly authority. one can thus be tempted by the desire to live exclusively in the ethereal regions of poetry such that one acquires a disgust for actions in actuality’s coarser element.” (poul martin møller,, “recension af sibbern’s Om Poesie og Konst i Almindelighed, med Hensyn til alle Arter deraf, dog især Digte-, Maler-, Billedhugger-, og Skuespiller-konst; eller: �oredrag over almindelig Aesthetik og Poetik,” in Dansk Litteratur-Tidende, 1835, pp. 208–209. my translation. this review is reproduced in the second volume of møller’s posthumous writings, Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, vols. 1–3, ed. by christian winther and F.c. olsen, copenhagen: Bianco lunos Bogtrykkeri 1839–43, vol. 2, pp. 105–26 (ASKB 1574–1576)). møller provides more insight on this poetic ��ight from actual experience in an unfinished essay from 1837. Here he concludes that the person who has habitually adopted affected moods has incorporated a “corrupt element” which “disrupts the personality.” when “expressions do not conform to the actual self,” he says, there is no longer a “permanent core in the person’s thoughts and will, but at every moment of his life he creates a temporary personality which can be annulled in the following moment.” in the end, this affected behavior leads to a “total untruth in one’s personal life,” Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 291–313, my translation). it turns out that his review was just the beginning of an effort to come to terms with irony. Shortly after finishing his review of Sibbern�� Møller began in earnest to work out his critique of irony in another unfinished study—which bears the very title of

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

213

one of the problems with the romantic attempt to create the self, says kierkegaard, is that the individual loses touch with “that which is original in him, his an sich.”85 kierkegaard here presents the most fundamental anthropological concept of his entire authorship: the concept of an original, primitive self that must be consciously appropriated if one is to becomes a self. in short, kierkegaard presupposes that the original conditions for the possibility of becoming a self—one’s own unique self— are potentially present from the beginning as a part of creation. he writes that a person who has respect for “a human being’s worth and…a sense for the originality in a human being,” will “silently and quietly listen to the voice of what is peculiar [det Eiendommeliges Stemme] in individuality” will “spy its movements in order to dispose over it” and let “the individual develop harmoniously into a pliable, complete form.”86 though schlegel and the romantics have opened a space for a cultivation of the original self, they lack the ear to hear the voice of uniqueness and lack the eyes with which to hold watch over the self. as kierkegaard sees it, when modern irony demands that one live poetically or creatively, it demands that one be in a continual process creating the self anew, unencumbered by something like an original nature. the romantic ironist moves beyond the merely original: he moves on to create and recreate conceptions of the self based on what he wants it to be. kierkegaard argues that as the ironist decides which self he wants to become, the �original�� essential self dissipates into �nothing�� and is replaced by artificial “moods.” and thus the continuity which binds a healthy personality together over time gives way to arbitrariness: as the ironist poetically composes himself and his environment with the greatest possible poetic license, as he lives in this totally hypothetical and subjunctive way, his life loses all continuity. he succumbs completely to mood. his life is nothing but moods.87

kierkegaard’s soon to be written dissertation: “on the concept of irony.” here møller argues that the inner alienation from the primitive personality is only one side of the problem. not only does Møller think that the poet buries genuine feeling beneath artificial moods�� he holds that the ironic poet also cuts himself off from an openness to the concrete relationships in the outside world. in other words, for møller the ironic poet stands completely isolated from both the subjective and objective ends of a healthy “open” dialectic. in “on the concept of irony,” møller explicitly ties the pathology of contemporary poetic culture to Friedrich schlegel’s irony and begins to explain why he thinks schlegel and company have also dismissed the external conditions for selfhood. at the heart of romanticism, he says, is an assumption that selfhood emerges only when the subject has extricated himself from the laws and customs of a sti��ing bourgeois culture and�� in their stead�� posited his own moods as a guide for activity in the world. the ironist takes his own subjective feelings and desires to be higher than any ethical principle. From here, møller argues, there is a smooth transition to schlegel’s ironic position. schlegel has simply made the next move: he has become fully conscious of the implications of accepting a subjective moral standard. like hegel, he sees this as an utterly empty position though he uses another term to describe it. irony, he says, “necessarily ends in an absence of all content, in a moral nihilism” (Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 154). 85 SKS 1, 317 / CI�� 281 (translation modified). 86 SKS 1, 316 / CI�� 280 (translation modified). 87 SKS 1, 319 / CI, 284.

214

K. Brian Söderquist

and in the end, the mood that supports the vicissitudes of one’s emotional life is “boredom”88: the absence of any fundamental purpose or telos at all. to underscore that moods cannot be a source of the genuine self, kierkegaard points out that they are constructed artificially�� under the conscious control of the subject. the ironist is trivially constructive and reigns over the world of ideas and appearances, kierkegaard continues. since a reinterpretation of the elements that make up the cultural tradition is always within the power of the ironic subject, the events of the past become a warehouse of ideas that can be shaped, ordered, and rearranged at will. the modern ironist is completely aware that the order he imposes upon the world is arbitrary and subjective, that the order is entirely provisional. kierkegaard explains his view of the omnipotence of the schlegelian romantic: [he] poeticizes everything, poeticizes his moods too. in order genuinely to be free, he must have control of his moods; therefore one mood must instantly be succeeded by another. if it so happens that his moods succeed one another so nonsensically that even he notices that things are not quite right, he poeticizes. He poeticizes that it is he himself who evokes the mood; he poeticizes until he becomes so intellectually paralyzed that he stops poeticizing….he hides his sorrow in the superior incognito of jesting; his happiness is muf��ed by wailing.89

kierkegaard argues that the ironic world-view results in a series of unrelated moods which remain internally unconnected, and thus the inner continuity which binds a self together is lacking. moreover, constructed [digtede] moods are said to sti��e what is original in a person and cut the individual off from the conditions which could contribute to the authentic self. Perhaps most significantly�� �ierkegaard identifies what he takes to be one of the tragic elements of irony: the pain involved in the constant ��ight from one’s own inner life. A haunting shadow is cast over the apparent lightness and play of irony. the ironist must be on guard not to allow himself to ponder the consequences of becoming a foreigner to himself. he writes that when one begins to consider the personal implications of “taking ‘nothing’ seriously,” the entire ironic project is in danger of crashing and irony is no longer a sustainable position. said differently, if the witty and playful ironist is to be successful in his divorce from the world, he cannot ponder the state of his own soul, for at the moment this “concern” for himself enters, ironic lightness is transformed into something very different: irony gives way to despair.90 interestingly, as we saw above, Julius makes a similar claim about despair being a sign that the dissolution of the self has been recognized; but as kierkegaard sees it, the romantic world-view requires that the ironist guard against a consciousness of seriousness and thus against despair. it seems that he is unconvinced that one could be both ironic and existentially serious at the same time à la Schlegel. another passage in The Concept of Irony is equally suggestive of the pain that lurks beneath the playfully composed moods of the ironist: “For irony, everything becomes nothing….For irony, the ironic nothing is the dead silence in which irony

88 89 90

SKS 1, 320 / CI, 285. SKS 1, 320 / CI�� 284–5 (�ierkegaard’s italics. Translation modified). SKS 1, 306–307 / CI, 270.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

215

comes back to jest [spøge] (the latter word taken altogether ambiguously).”91 the alternate translation of this play on words states that “the ironic nothing is the dead silence in which irony comes back to haunt.” what he has in mind with a “jest” is clear enough. once one is aware of the creative and destructive power of irony, a subtle ironist can always attempt to playfully outmaneuver himself by avoiding an honest appraisal of what is going on inside. why does irony haunt� the self is hollowed out, emptied of everything that is unique and ultimately personal. on the one hand, the fabricated moods of irony lead to a wealth of possibilities for posing as a self. on the other hand, the self becomes a mere ghost. summed up most clearly, he writes that “the ironist most often becomes nothing, because what is not true for God is true for man—only nothing can be created from nothing.��92 For kierkegaard, the loss of one’s original self is bound up with a second equally important claim, namely that romantic “creativity” results in the loss of relationships in the outer world. kierkegaard argues that the ironist breaks with ethical customs so thoroughly that he loses any sense of personal obligation to actual life-relationships. it is not only conventional values which are viewed as hollow, but any practical principle which governs inter-subjective activity. in order to protect the freedom to do whatever one feels like doing, the ironist suspends that which kierkegaard says gives human relationships consistency: both ethical custom [Sædelighed] and moral discipline. kierkegaard suggests that the concrete environmental context in which the ironist lives, actuality, must be replaced with something else: But for the ironist, this context [Sammenhæng]—which he would call a mere encumbrance [Paahæng]—has no validity�� and since it is not his concern to form himself in such a way that he fits into his environment�� then the environment must be formed to fit him�� that is�� he not only creates [digter] himself, but he creates [digter] the surrounding world as well. the ironist stands proudly closed [indesluttet] into himself, and he lets people pass by, just as Adam let the animals pass by�� and finds no fellowship for himself. In doing so�� he continually collides with the actuality to which he belongs. it thus becomes important for him to suspend what is constitutive in actuality, that which orders and supports it: that is, morality [Moral] and ethics [Sædelighed].93

as kierkegaard sees it, the ironist’s distance from conventional life is thoroughly isolating. �He finds no fellowship.�� But the ironist’s isolation is made even more sure in a related move. as he teleologically “suspends the ethical” for the sake of his own freedom�� he establishes a fictional actuality grounded only in subjective arbitrariness. �His environment must be formed to fit him—in other words�� he poetically composes not only himself, but he poetically composes his environment also.”94 irony is a problem for the “personality” or selfhood insofar as it severs an individual from actuality or, better said, from purposeful participation in the world. the ironist avoids taking ownership of the concrete relationships which integrate him into the world of other human beings. the result is an inability to recognize that 91 92 93 94

SKS 1, 296 / CI, 258. SKS 1, 317 / CI, 281. SKS 1, 318 / CI�� 283 (�ierkegaard’s italics. Translation modified). ibid.

216

K. Brian Söderquist

essential elements of the self are bound up in concrete social relationships. as pia søltoft writes, “here, the ethical seems to be partially bound up with a focus on an original conformity with oneself and one’s surroundings, partially a differentiation of the same….the ethical thus has something to do with a conscious responsibility for the previously given via a differentiation of the same.”95 kierkegaard’s point is that one must take ownership of one’s primitive emotional life as well as one’s surroundings and then consciously work to form oneself such that it becomes dovetailed into the actual world. without this move, there is no authentic self. let me here summarize kierkegaard’s arguments against schlegel and the romantics thus far. Following hegel, kierkegaard accuses the romantics of misunderstanding the “creativity” of Fichte’s transcendental I. schlegel and company are said to assume that their own subjective power of imagination is capable of determining the logical and moral categories which are constitutive of actuality. the result of this line of thinking, he says, is a view of the human subject which is completely free to create arbitrarily a replacement for a lost metaphysical ethical order. the practical implementation of this self-attributed power to “destroy and create” leads to an accusation that romanticism is ethically apathetic. as kierkegaard sees it, the ironic author becomes the creative arbiter of truth who, via narrative, brings order to chaos. the romantics believe they are free to create themselves in their own ��eeting images since ultimately�� only the chaos of emptiness surrounds the subject. For kierkegaard, this implies that the ironic author stands independent not only of the ethical limitations imposed by an empty cultural convention, but also of any limitation that might originate outside his own subjective will. and the romantic victory over conventional ethics is said to come at a high price. in fact, it costs the ironist the very thing he is trying to protect, namely his unique individuality. For, as kierkegaard sees it, schlegel’s developmental psychology arbitrarily severs the individual from the concrete human relationships that are constitutive of “reality” or “actuality” [Virkelighed], and thus he eliminates the relationships which necessarily define the self. the fundamental problem for kierkegaard is that the constructive impulse of schlegel’s irony ends up erecting walls that seal off the self’s own conditions of possibility. contrary to what the ironic subject himself believes, his cynical dismissal of primitive emotions and conventional norms leads to a sad emptiness, for schlegelian irony does not manage to replace what it has destroyed. schlegel’s irony is said to be a playful sarcasm that views all values as arbitrary and susceptible to reinterpretation. in kierkegaard’s eyes, it implies a completely empty nihilistic closure within oneself [Indesluttethed]. a closer look at kierkegaard’s argument in The Concept of Irony, however, shows that, in the end, his criticism of schlegel and the romantics is aimed at the religious implications of romantic irony as well as the anthropological ��aws.

95 søltoft, “den enkelte og den anden,” in Studier i Stadier. Søren Kierkegaard Selskabets 50-års Jubilæum, op. cit., p. 125.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

217

VIII. Kierkegaard�s Third Critique: Irony is “Unpoetic Because it is Irreligious” in the section of The Concept of Irony which deals specifically with Schlegel�� kierkegaard begins his critique with a repetition of the moralistic assessments that were in fashion at the time. Lucinde, he writes, is an “obscene book” in the service of the �rehabilitation of the ��esh��—although�� even here�� �ierkegaard sees some value to schlegel’s work insofar as it challenges the sentimentality and prudery of bourgeois values that threaten a healthy expression of eros.96 But the charge of immorality is not the most important aspect of his critique. he writes that while many critics have “screamed” that romantic irony is unethical, they have been unsuccessful in showing that irony is existentially unattractive. kierkegaard makes it clear that his aim in The Concept of Irony is not to demonstrate, yet again, that schlegel’s irony is immoral: there have been enough attempts to show that books like Lucinde are immoral, and “alas!” and “alack!” have frequently been sounded over such books, but as long as the author has been openly allowed to claim, and the reader secretly to believe, that they are poetic, not much is gained….therefore let it be said, as it will also be demonstrated, that these books are not only immoral but also unpoetic, for they are irreligious.97

At the heart of �ierkegaard’s argument against Schlegelian irony�� one does not find a reliance upon hegel’s rational ethics, and he is not committed to articulating a moral or ethical foundation for refuting the romantic world-view. the novelty of his approach is that his argument against the romantics is largely negative, that is, he tries to convince his reader that the romantic theory of selfhood is neither attractive nor authentically religious. to see why kierkegaard takes this approach, one must remember that his interpretation of the romantics is centered on what he takes to be an implicit theory of selfhood inspired by a kind of religious devotion. he sees romantic irony as an attempt to express a unique self based on an image of the self that arises through religious experience. indeed, schlegel’s irony does seem to have religious overtones. in schlegel’s Lucinde, we saw that the confusion of Julius’ youth was calmed as he moved inward and discovered the infinite within himself. This meeting with the infinite is described as nothing less than a mystical experience�� a religious and spiritual discovery that holds the key to meaningful activity in the actual world. a divine inner light transformed the world�� Julius says. It is this sort of transfiguration of the world that kierkegaard cannot accept. kierkegaard writes: if we ask what poetry is, we may say in general that it is victory over the world; it is through a negation of the imperfect actuality that poetry opens up to a higher actuality, expands and transfigures the imperfect into the perfect�� and thereby assuages the deep pain that darkens everything.98

96 97 98

SKS 1, 321 / CI, 286. SKS 1, 330 / CI, 297 (kierkegaard’s italics). Ibid. (translation modified).

218

K. Brian Söderquist

here kierkegaard seems to take it for granted that schlegel’s ironic art creates an escape from a complicated and “painful” everydayness. in line with a fundamental theme in the tradition of german aesthetic thought, he acknowledges that aesthetic experience transcends practical concerns and even requires that the observer keep a distance from interests bound to temporal existence.99 schlegel’s poetry is said to nullify actuality, the prevailing order of things, that “darkens everything.” it is also important to note that, for kierkegaard, schlegel’s poetry or ironic literature, like all irony, houses a negative power: in the hands of authors like schlegel, poetry itself is the vehicle which brings about a “negation of an imperfect actuality.” as noted, kierkegaard could look favorably upon the destructive power of irony since �imperfect actuality��—immediate conventional life—exerts a sti��ing in��uence on the soul.100 thus, the strictly destructive element of irony, even in schlegel’s literature�� is said to have a justified place in life. at the same time, this passage also contains a hint of what kierkegaard considers to be the problematic feature of schlegel’s literature: a positive element is tied to ironic poetry insofar as it is said to “open up” a “higher” actuality. as he sees it, schlegel assumes that poetry itself is the tool and forum for reestablishing an individual’s relationship to the actual world; ironic poetry is said to be not only an artistic diversion from concrete practical activity, but also the instrument for articulating a new guide for selfhood. Poetry is thus said to �transfigure�� actuality�� thereby easing the pain of the nihilistic void it has discovered. But for kierkegaard, it provides a false comfort. he continues: Poetry is a kind of reconciliation, but it is not the true reconciliation for it does not reconcile me with the actuality in which i am living; no transubstantiation of the given actuality takes place by virtue of this reconciliation, but it reconciles me with the given actuality by giving me another, a higher and more perfect actuality. the greater the contrast, the less perfect the actual reconciliation, so that when all is said and done there is often no reconciliation but rather an enmity.101

the obvious implication here is that schlegel’s attempt to replace the given “imperfect actuality” is a failure. and the problem lies not only in the fact that the so-called “higher and more perfect” order established via romantic poetry is an illusion, but also in the fact that the illusion is so seductive: the more one becomes attracted to the artificial order one has created for oneself�� the more one is prevented from seeking an authentic understanding of oneself and the finite conditions in which the self resides. in other words, the more one is convinced that the bonds which are constitutive of actuality can be created by the same subjective power with which they can be dissolved, the more one’s damnation is ensured.102 99 see, for example, kant’s discussion of the disinterested perfection of the aesthetic object in immanuel kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. by werner s. pluhar, indianapolis: hackett publishing company 1987, § 2–5, pp. 10–16. see also harries, The Meaning of Modern Art, op. cit. 100 see SKS 1, 321–3 / CI, 286–8. 101 SKS 1, 330–31 / CI, 297. 102 For an insightful treatment of the centrality of the �transfiguration of actuality�� in kierkegaard’s early thought, see niels nymann eriksen, Kierkegaard�s Category of Repetition.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

219

in short, the problem seems to be pride.103 in a continuation of the passage just cited, kierkegaard writes: “only the religious is able to bring about the true reconciliation because it infinitizes actuality for me….To enjoy oneself…in the religious sense is the only true infinity.��104 here he makes a crucial distinction between two positions: the ironist, and the religious individual. on the one side, he mentions the ironic poet who has created a distance between himself and the world and has thereafter taken upon himself the role of his own savior. without help from a divine source, and without regard to other human beings, the ironist transforms his own world. it is the complete self-sufficiency of this movement of reconciliation—a movement which �ierkegaard seems to think the ironist makes without divine assistance—which now stands out as the underlying problem with romantic irony. the second position, the religious, presupposes a distance from the world, but for this religious consciousness, the “transubstantiation” of actuality is not within the power of the subject alone: it happens “for me.” this is particularly important since it anticipates a major theme in kierkegaard’s formal authorship, namely that an authentic relationship to the actual world is ultimately not entirely within human power and that the individual who would defiantly be self-sufficient lacks the crucial openness to the divine. kierkegaard writes elsewhere in The Concept of Irony that the ironic mind is similar to a religious mind inasmuch as the established order has been declared hollow and vain. But while the ironist consults only his own will as the final authority�� the will of the religious individual does not stand in the way of divine directive. when the negative power of irony is combined with the elimination of the particular will, kierkegaard argues, “all disturbing factors are set aside and the eternally existing order comes into view…the divine will not be thrust back by its opposition but will pour itself into the mind opened by devotion.”105 kierkegaard’s understanding of the tension between the romantic and religious world-views becomes more evident here. the ironist and the religious person are said to have differing conceptions of the infinite and its relationship to actuality. Schlegel takes his infinite to be a divine source of inspiration; �ierkegaard takes Schlegel’s infinite to be a product of egoistic fabrication. As noted above�� Schlegel speaks of the infinite in a mystical sense: it designates a non-finite divine sphere that cannot be fully grasped via the determinations of a finite human mind. It can only be “experienced” as a pre-cognitive feeling, in short, a mystical experience. For Schlegel�� then�� the infinite cannot be understood as an object or a �something.�� At the same time, he hardly thinks of it as a nihilistic void. Importantly�� �ierkegaard could well agree that an authentic infinite sphere is divine. But he is highly suspicious of Schlegel’s claim to have accessed the infinite and brought it back to earth via poetic expression. in his view, the literature of the

A Reconstruction, Berlin: walter de gruyter 2000 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 5), pp. 56–61. 103 cf. hans Feger, “philosophy as hubris,” The Harvard Review of Philosophy, vol. 8, 2000, pp. 109–31. 104 SKS 1, 330–31 / CI, 297 (kierkegaard’s italics). 105 SKS 1, 296 / CI, 258.

220

K. Brian Söderquist

romantics is not the word” as schlegel suggests.106 nor is it an authentic guide to selfhood. romantic poetry is the imaginative fabrication of a human mind which has an empirical ego as its source, and, for kierkegaard, this subjective reinterpretation of actuality is not synonymous with a divine “transubstantiation” of actuality. Schlegel’s �infinite�� turns out to be as empty as the traditions and customs that irony is so enthusiastic about destroying; it is as empty as all merely human wisdom. the Schlegelian infinite is an empty, hollow, nihilistic void. kierkegaard’s claim that schlegelian irony is “irreligious” becomes clearer now: as he sees it, the ironist does not make room for a divine power which can dictate how the individual ought to become a self. Better said, even though schlegel obviously appeals to a divine source of inspiration, kierkegaard does not think that schlegel has the right relationship to that divine source. the humility of authentic religion is absent. �ierkegaard describes the practical self-sufficiency of the ironist as a kind of self-divination. As he sees it�� the subjective will of the ironist is con��ated with a divine will. as the ironist replaces binding ethical activity with subjective arbitrariness, he appropriates divine powers of creation. he writes that the ironist assumes the authority to “posit and annul” any value and, alluding to Jesus’ words to peter, assumes “the power to bind and to unbind.”107 kierkegaard holds that the romantic position ends in the illusion that the ironist is his own creator: Irony now functioned as that for which nothing was established�� as that which was finished with everything, and also that which had the absolute power to do everything. if it allowed something to remain established, it knew it had the power to destroy it, knew it at the very same moment it let it continue. if it posited something, it knew it had the authority to annul it, knew it at the very same moment it posited it. it knew that in general it had the power to bind and to unbind. it was lord over the idea as much as over the phenomenon, and it destroyed one with the other. during all this, irony saved its carefree life, since the subject, man, was able to do all this, for who is as great as allah, and who can endure before him�108

kierkegaard’s ultimate refutation of schlegel appeals to a religious world-view. the isolation of the ironist can only be overcome by recognizing the truth that receives its authority beyond subjective moods and self-imposed values. it is the absolute dependence upon a divine will that is absent in the ironic project. though the romantic subject thinks he has discovered the self via a willed, self-conscious “destruction and construction” of purpose, kierkegaard suggests that instead he is “continually outside” himself in “something other.” the movement of dependence is underscored in the formula kierkegaard uses to distinguish the ironic and religious positions with regard to the self: while the ironist “composes himself poetically,” the religious individual “allows himself to be composed.”109 herein lies the charge that schlegel is “unpoetic” as well. if indeed one of schlegel’s challenges is that one must “create oneself like a work of art,” kierkegaard schlegel, Lucinde, p. 102 (Kritische �riedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 57); John 1:1. 107 matt. 16:19, 18:18; SKS k1, 342. 108 SKS 1, 312 / CI, 277. 109 SKS 1, 316–18 / CI, 280–83 (my emphasis). 106

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

221

must conclude that schlegel’s artistic instructions will lead to bad “artwork”: a false “self.” the aesthetic validity of the ironic position is called into question precisely because the original self is expunged at the expense of the self one would like to be on one’s own terms. For as he sees it, “even if he enjoys the whole world, the person who enjoys poetically nevertheless lacks one enjoyment, for he does not enjoy himself.”110 IX. Schlegel�s Shadow in Kierkegaard�s �ormal Authorship in his direct treatment of schlegel in the concept of irony, kierkegaard’s analysis ends with the suggestion that a humble “religiosity” is the key to a “reconciliation with actuality” and thus to a reconciliation with one’s original “self.” Beyond the relatively undeveloped assertion that an authentic reconciliation with actuality requires an openness to the divine power that posited it, however, he does not explain how this religious openness is related to christian concepts like sin and redemption. such theological considerations “lie beyond the scope” of his study, he writes in the concluding section.111 For the most part, he is content to spell out the existential problems associated with the ironic subject who refuses to be a part of the actual world. as noted, once kierkegaard’s dissertation was published, schlegel’s name all but vanishes from the pages of kierkegaard’s books and journals, and one might conclude that the schlegelian issues which engaged him in the dissertation fade in importance as well. i do not believe this is the case. the problems associated with overcoming isolation and becoming a self integrated into the actual world are, of course, lifelong interests for kierkegaard. a comprehensive treatment of these general themes in kierkegaard’s authorship “lie beyond the scope” of this study as well, but i would like to offer some examples from a few pseudonymous works, without offering a full justification�� of how the problems identified with Schlegel’s irony reappear. More specifically�� I will focus on the dilemma of ironic isolation: one can either attempt to create a concept of self based on one’s own subjective desires and interests—or one can cultivate oneself in faithful dependence on a higher being. the idea that the problems kierkegaard addresses in The Concept of Irony re-emerge in his formal authorship has been observed in the secondary literature from the outset.112 the similarities between kierkegaard’s critique of romantic irony SKS 1, 331 / CI, 297. SKS 1, 357 / CI, 329. 112 danish critic hans Frederik helweg noted as early as 1855 that On the Concept of Irony was the springboard for kierkegaard’s activity and his observation has been repeated ever since. georg Brandes made similar claims in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and one finds such sentiments in �nglish language literature as early as 1923 via the first translator of kierkegaard’s writings into english, lee m. hollander. see georg Brandes, Søren Kierkegaard. En kritisk fremstilling i grundrids, copenhagen: gyldendal 1967 [1877], p. 49; hans Frederik helweg, “hegelianismen i danmark,” Dansk Kirketidende, nos. 51–52, 1855, pp. 825–37 and pp. 841–52; Selections from the Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, trans. by lee m. hollander, new York: anchor Books 1960 [1923], p. 6. as eivind tjønneland notes, insofar as books like Repetition and Stages on Life�s Way are variations of themes from Either/Or, On the Concept of Irony is also implicitly present there, see tjønneland, Ironi som Symptom. En kritisk Studie av Søren Kierkegaards om Begrebet ironi, ph.d. thesis, Bergen: university of Bergen 1999, 110 111

222

K. Brian Söderquist

and his first major pseudonymous work�� Either/Or, are especially often noted.113 as has often been suggested, A’s writings in the first part of Either/Or can be read as a literary staging of the ironic consciousness, while wilhelm’s letter can be viewed as a critique of romantic irony. indeed, i do not think it an exaggeration to suggest that what kierkegaard describes as the “romantic” or “poetic” consciousness in The Concept of Irony is essentially what wilhelm has in mind when he labels A’s world-view “aesthetic.” of course, it should be noted that Either/Or is organized as a sort of dialogue between an ironic esthete and his critic, and neither position is obviously victorious. already here we see that kierkegaard’s style in his pseudonymous works makes it difficult to simply label the ironic position the loser without recognizing that there is a truth to irony as well as an untruth. “part one” of Either/Or reveals several themes related to schlegel’s works including the difference between ancient and modern thought, the categories of “the beautiful” and “the interesting,” “boredom,” and the liberation of eros from societal constraints. Beyond these clear similarities, however, the most important schlegelian theme is this: A is an instantiation of a poet who wants to create and recreate himself. A seems to take it for granted, like schlegel, that the modern individual has no choice but to “create” an interpretation of the self. all other categories that could serve as guides for shaping the self have becomes fragmented in modernity, and only the subject can reorder or recreate them. in his essay on ancient and modern tragedy, for example, he notes that “our age has lost all the substantial categories of family, state, kindred; it must turn the single individual over to himself in such a way that strictly speaking, he become his own creator.”114 In perhaps the best example of the despairing ironist�� we find the story of a young man in “the seducer’s diary” who tries to control and survive his own principles of recreating the self. most importantly, the seducer is careful to protect the possibility of recreation by refusing to recognize his past behavior as his own. he is convinced that he must avoid objective demands like marriage since this sort of “ethical” obligation sti��es and suffocates �love.�� He is far more interested in creating situations that he will be able to recollect�� reorganize and reinterpret—just as Julius speaks of in his introduction to Lucinde. In a sense�� the seducer argues that his re��ective approach to love allows him to avoid the pitfalls of committing to anyone or anything, and this frees him to live with his own memories of erotic moments and situations. In �The Unhappiest One�� we find a similar perspective. Here�� A takes a slightly different perspective on his refusal to take ownership of his behavior. he cynically and sarcastically celebrates his own discontentment, congratulating himself that he has understood the deepest principle of unhappiness: not being present to oneself. pp. 1–2. tjønneland adds Johannes sløk and Josiah thompson to the list of interpreters who see On the Concept of Irony as the starting point of kierkegaard’s authorship. see Johannes sløk, Shakespeare og Kierkegaard, copenhagen: Berlingske Forlag 1972, p. 131, and Josiah thompson, Kierkegaard, A Collection of Critical Essays, new York: anchor Books 1972, p. 120. the most extensive and thorough investigation of such themes, however, is found in walther rehm’s Kierkegaard und der Verführer, munich: hermann rinn verlag 1949. 113 this has been noted by a host of authors, including sylvia walsh, Living Poetically. Kierkegaard�s Existential Aesthetics, university park: the pennsylvania state university press 1994, pp. 63–7, and howard hong’s “introduction” to Either/Or (EO1, ix–x). 114 SKS 2, 148 / EO1, 149.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

223

he speaks of the sadness of living “outside” oneself since one lives in a “recollected future” and a “hopeful past.”115 with these paradoxical formulations, he admits that the unhappiest people never live in the present and never obtain a realized past or a realizable future. in essence, the strength which allows him to distance himself from “the now” is also the stubborn strength that seals him into an impotent lack of self. these same melancholy insights are repeated in the “Diapsalmata” as well. in many cases A ironically praises his lack of self; but he also willingly admits to the inner pain of not being present to himself. the “Diapsalmata” are also replete with passages about hovering above actuality, returning to it to take memories away, etc. of course, unlike the analysis of romantic irony in The Concept of Irony, A’s writings do not treat the problems of poetic construction academically; one reads about them from the inside, as it were, from the perspective of an ironist who experiences the dissonance of irony and lack of selfhood it entails. wilhelm’s letters to A in the second volume of Either/Or can be read as a response to the fundamental problem introduced in The Concept of Irony, namely, how can an ironist overcome his own ironic insight and become “reconciled with actuality.” it is also important to admit, however, that while wilhelm develops kierkegaard’s critique of the ironist, wilhelm is not speaking to schlegel or any other particular historical “ironist.” he is speaking to A, kierkegaard’s own instantiation of the ironist. schlegel’s authorship is not directly at issue here. it is rather Kierkegaard�s interpretation and perhaps misinterpretation of schlegel. For as we saw, even in The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard interprets schlegel’s Lucinde such that his irony ends in emptiness and nothingness rather than the happy reconciliation Julius himself celebrates. that being said, wilhelm seems to think A suffers from many of the same problems kierkegaard mentions in his critique of schlegelian irony: a disillusionment with the traditions, norms and ethical principles that govern human relationships, an unengaged attitude with regard to the people he interacts with, a freedom from the continuity of past, present and future, and a freedom from an original self. in both of wilhelm’s letters to A, he laments the fact that A is so set upon defining himself at the expense of cultivating his self. wilhelm’s strategies for overcoming the self-creative tendencies of modern irony are also more nuanced than those we saw in The Concept of Irony, for he focuses first and foremost on how he might convince A that there is indeed an original self he could keep watch over. he can appeal to A to take his “self” seriously, for example, by appealing to A’s sense of despair: are you not aware that there comes a midnight hour when everyone must unmask� … can you think of anything more appalling than having it all end with the disintegration of your essence into a multiplicity, so that you actually became several, just as that unhappy demoniac became a legion, and thus you would have lost the most inward and holy in a human being, the binding power of the personality�116

more directly addressing A’s perceived self-creative tendencies, wilhelm suggests that if A chooses to take ownership of his actions, he will indeed discover the self 115 116

SKS 2, 221–2 / EO1, 226. SKS 3, 157–8 / EO2, 160.

224

K. Brian Söderquist

or “personality” that is bound up with the actual world in which he lives. he will experience a kind of “reconciliation with actuality.” to take just one example, he writes that in the moment of choice: the individual�� then�� becomes conscious as this specific individual with these capacities�� these inclinations�� these drives�� these passions�� in��uenced by this specific social milieu�� as this specific product of this specific environment. But as he becomes aware of all this�� he takes upon himself responsibility for it all. he does not hesitate over whether he will take this particular thing or not, for he knows that if he does not do it, something much more important will be lost. in the moment of choice, he is in complete isolation, for he withdraws from his social milieu, and yet at the same time he is in absolute continuity [with it], for he chooses himself as a product.117

and echoing kierkegaard’s assertion in The Concept of Irony that a transfiguration of the conditions for selfhood is tied to a religious openness to the divine, wilhelm writes: when around one everything has become silent, solemn as a clear, starlit night, when the soul comes to be alone in the whole world, then before one there appears not an extraordinary human being, but the eternal power itself, then the heavens seem to open, and the I chooses itself or, more correctly, receives itself. then the soul has seen the highest, which no mortal eye can see and which can never be forgotten; then the personality receives the accolade of knighthood that ennobles it for an eternity. he does not become someone other than he was before, but he becomes himself. the consciousness integrates, and he is himself.118

wilhelm’s admonitions to A in Either/Or give nuance to kierkegaard’s critique of schlegel, but the kierkegaardian story of selfhood is, of course, far from exhausted. the problem of how religiousness is related to christian doctrines like sin and faith is only touched upon brie��y in Either/Or. wilhelm represents a general religious consciousness that takes seriously the search for a primitive self as opposed to A who is the instantiation of an ironic consciousness that wants to create itself. kierkegaard returns indirectly to the problems raised by schlegel in many of his early works like Repetition�� where the key characters—the young man and Constantin Constantius—struggle with the problems of the poetic life vs religious life. likewise, in �ear and Trembling the movement from immediacy to irony is tied to the portrayal of the knight of infinite resignation�� who makes the move out of actuality, and the movement from irony to the world is tied to the knight of faith, who is able to become reconciled again through the gift of faith.119 and in SKS 3, 239 / EO2, 251. SKS 3, 172–3 / EO2, 177. 119 the discussion of irony and resignation is most explicit in �ear and Trembling when de silentio himself, who claims to know a thing or two about irony, draws the comparison between infinite resignation and the resigned distance which accompanies an ironic world-view. He writes that the distance resulting from an ironic world-view—and a humorous world-view which is closely related to it—falls under the category of infinite resignation. speaking of irony and humor, he writes: “i am not altogether unfamiliar with these two passions; i know a little bit more about them than is to be found in german and german–danish compendia. therefore i know that these two passions differ essentially from faith. irony and 117 118

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

225

“guilty�/not-guilty�” in Stages on Life�s Way�� one finds a discussion of why poetry can never fully capture inward suffering. in the course of this exposition, Frater taciturnus mentions schlegel directly, and repeats the crucial critique of irony from The Concept of Irony: poetry is not a true reconciliation with one’s factical self, but rather a “mediocre reconciliation.”120 only a religious perspective, he says, can approach the inwardness necessary for appropriating subjective experience.121 the problem of schlegelian self-creation reappears most obviously in kierkegaard’s anthropological study, The Sickness unto Death. the book is, of course, about “despair” understood as an imbalance in the potentially healthy self. this imbalance can arise if the individual orients himself incorrectly to any of the essential relationships which constitute the self.122 the result of correcting the imbalance, he writes, is a realized “primitive” self: “For every individual human being is “primitively organized as a self, characteristically determined to become himself.”123 we see the hallmarks of schlegelian irony in anti-climacus’ discussion of the �despair of infinitude�� and the �despair of possibility���� which are described as existential positions that lack a proper relationship to finitude�� and �necessity���� respectively. The despairer who lacks finitude is said to be governed by an �abstract�� imagination; that is, like the ironic consciousness, this form of despair arises because the individual is not attentive to his own concrete relationships and finite context. By power of artistic genius or the “imagination,” one becomes a “fantastic self.”124 similar descriptions are found in his discussion of a despair which lacks necessity, or limits: what is really missing is the strength to obey, to yield to the necessary in one’s self, what might be called limits. nor therefore is the misfortune of such a self not to have become anything in the world; no the misfortune is that he did not become aware of himself, that the self he is�� is a quite definite something�� and thus the necessity. Instead�� through this self’s fantastically re��ecting itself in possibility�� he lost himself.125

the most explicit treatment of the power of self-creation, however, is found in the section called “despair considered with regard to consciousness.” here anticlimacus looks at despair from the “inside,” that is, he charts an increasing awareness of the problem of selfhood from a psychological perspective. after describing what he calls �unconscious despair��—where there is no proper concept of a �self�� since humor re��ect also upon themselves and so belong in the sphere of infinite resignation; they own their ��exibility to the individual’s incommensurability with actuality�� (SKS 4, 145 / �TP, 80). De silentio also introduces his “problemata” with a reference to a chapter in hegel’s Philosophy of Right called “good and conscience,” which is the very chapter where schlegel and romantic irony are treated. see note 83. among other things, de silentio is at pains to demonstrate how a religious “teleological suspension of the ethical” abraham story differs from what might be called an aesthetic “teleological suspension of the ethical.” 120 SKS 6, 423 / SLW, 458. 121 SKS 6, 420–29 / SLW, 454–65. cf. SKS 1, 330–33 / CI, 297. 122 SKS 11, 131f. / SUDP, 45–6. 123 SKS 11, 149 / SUDP, 63. 124 SKS 11, 146f. / SUDP, 60. 125 SKS 11, 152 / SUDP, 66–7.

226

K. Brian Söderquist

the idea of a self is missing from one’s understanding of human anthropology126— anti-climacus speaks of various forms of “conscious despair.” it is in a discussion of the most re��ective form of despair�� the despair of �defiance���� that �ierkegaard’s analysis of romantic thought reappears. In short�� for the defiant despairer�� interpreting the self is a continuous process in which one consults oneself about who and what the self is and ought to become. one interprets the �self�� on one’s own terms—which means�� of course�� that the original self that resides beneath the inauthentic�� self-defined �self�� is never realized. Here�� the threat to the self is not that “one does not want to become oneself,” but rather just the opposite: that one “wants to become” a self one “creates.” indeed, the despairer is re��ective enough to realize that he is capable of defining something that he calls a self; like the schlegelian ironist, he has discovered that a conception of self can be poetically constructed in the space opened up by negative re��ection. This capacity to “create” a self-conception in this empty space is here called a “consciousness of an infinite self�� or a consciousness of the �most abstract form of the self.�� He writes: In order to want in despair to be oneself�� there must be a consciousness of an infinite self. However�� this infinite self is really only the most abstract form of the self�� the most abstract possibility of the self. and it is this self the despairer wants to be, severing the self from any relation to the power which has established it, or severing it from the conception that there is such a power. By means of this infinite form�� the self wants in despair to rule over himself, or create himself, make the self the self he wants to be, determine what he will have and what he will not have in the concrete self. his concrete self, or his concreteness�� has indeed necessity and limits�� is this quite definite thing�� with these aptitudes, predispositions, etc. in this concrete set of circumstances, etc. But by means of the infinite form�� the negative self�� he wants first to undertake to refashion the whole thing in order to get out of it such a self as he wants�� produced by means of the infinite form of the negative self—and it is in this way he wants to be himself. That is to say�� he wants to begin a little earlier than other people, not at and with the beginning, but “in the beginning;” he does not want to don his own self, does not want to see his task in his given self�� he wants by virtue of being the infinite form�� to construct it himself.127

it is also apparent from this passage that anti-climacus is attuned to the critical religious move kierkegaard discussed in The Concept of Irony: the defiant despairer must detach himself from the conception of a higher power, a rival deity as it were, that would threaten his creative autonomy. �efiant despair �recognizes no power over itself.”128 As Anti-Climacus sees it�� the defiant despairer says to himself: I will define myself exactly as I want. For I am a better creator than a god if indeed a god has created the ��awed individual I am.129 anti-climacus describes this form of despair in language similar to that of kierkegaard’s thesis written almost ten years earlier, when he spoke of the ironist’s tendency to appropriate the creative powers that “bind and unbind” heaven:

126 127 128 129

SKS 11, 157–162 / SUDP, 72–7. SKS 11, 182 / SUDP, 99. SKS 11, 182 / SUDP, 100. SKS 11, 182–187 / SUDP, 98–105.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

227

the negative form of the self exerts the loosening as much as the binding power; it can, at any moment, start quite arbitrarily all over again….the self is its own master, absolutely (as one says) its own master; and exactly this is the despair, but also what it regards as its pleasure and joy [Nydelse].130

and in the end, anti-climacus would agree with the following analysis from The Concept of Irony: “the ironist most often becomes nothing, because what is not true for God is true for man—only nothing can be created from nothing.��131 For as anticlimacus sees it, the self-creative despairer rules over an empty self, over “nothing”: all these experimental virtues look very splendid….Yes they do that for sure, and beneath it all there is nothing. the self wants in despair to savour the full satisfaction of making itself into itself...it wants to take credit for this poetic [digteriske], masterly project, its own way of understanding itself. And yet what it understands itself to be is in the final instance a riddle; just when it seems on the point of having the building finished�� at a whim it can dissolve the whole thing into nothing.132

One final important parallel with �ierkegaard’s discussion of Schlegel’s irony ought to be mentioned. though the discussion of the religiosity required for authentic selfhood was described cryptically in The Concept of Irony—and is still incomplete in many of the early pseudonymous works—Anti-Climacus adds more detail concerning what he considers the authentic religious consciousness to be. in short, anti-climacus suggests that the refusal to become oneself, before god, is precisely what sin is—and thus the cultivation of faith, the counterpart to sin, is the path toward a reconciliation to actuality and the self. sin is not an epistemological problem, he says, solved via a proper rational understanding, nor an ethical problem solved by living virtuously. it is a problem bound up with the will. the root of the problem is said to be that the individual will not submit to the will of the creator—and here the creator’s will can be summarized simply as the demand that the creature willingly realize the potential self it was created to become. kierkegaard has not said his last word here about either the overcoming the sin of self-creation or the cultivation of faith that leads to authentic selfhood. But it is apparent, i hope, that the issues tied to schlegelian irony that kierkegaard addressed as a student are very much alive in the later authorship.

130 131 132

SKS 11, 183 / SUDP, 100. SKS 1, 317 / CI, 281. SKS 11, 183 / SUDP, 101.

Bibliography I. Schlegel�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library �riedrich Schlegel�s Philosophische Vorlesungen aus den Jahren 1804 bis 1806. Nebst �ragmenten vorzüglich philosophisch-theologischen Inhalts, vols. 1–2, ed. by c.h.J. windischmann, Bonn: bei eduard weber 1836–37 (ASKB 768–768a). [short poems], in Tröst Einsamkeit, alte und neue Sagen und Wahrsagungen, Geschichten und Gedichte, ed. by achim von arnim in collaboration with clemens Brentano, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1808, nos. 2, 3, 7, 9 (ASKB 912). �riedrich Schlegel�s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–10, vienna: Jakob mayer and compagnie 1822–25 (ASKB 1816–1825). Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Alterthumskunde; nebst metrischen Uebersetzungen indischer Gedichte, heidelberg: mohr & zimmer 1808 (ASKB 1388). [ed.] Novalis� Schriften, ed. by ludwig tieck and Fr. schlegel, 4th revised ed., Berlin: reimer 1826 (ASKB 1776). [ed.] Shakspeare�s dramatische Werke, trans. by aug. wilh. v. schlegel and ludwig tieck, vols. 1–12, 2nd ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1839–40 (ASKB 1883–1888). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Schlegel erdmann, Johann eduard, Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837, pp. 80–88 (ASKB 479). Feuerbach, ludwig, Geschichte der Neuern Philosophie. Darstellung, Entwicklung und Kritik der Leibnitz�schen Philosophie, ansbach: Brügel 1837, p. 217 (ASKB 487). Fichte, immanuel hermann, System der Ethik, vols. 1–2.1, leipzig: dyk 1850–51, vol. 1, Die philosophischen Lehren von Recht, Staat und Sitte in Deutschland, �rankreich und England von der Mitte des Achtzehnten Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart, 1850, pp. 439–42 (ASKB 510–511) [vol. 2.2, leipzig: dyk 1853 (ASKB 504)]. günther, anton and Johann heinrich pabst, Janusköpfe. Zur Philosophie und Theologie, vienna: wallishausser 1834, p. 198 (ASKB 524). hagen, Johan Frederik, Ægteskabet. Betragtet fra et ethisk-historiskt Standpunct, copenhagen: wahlske Boghandels Forlag 1845, p. 43 (ASKB 534). [hardenberg, Friedrich], Novalis Schriften, parts 1–2, ed. by ludwig tieck and Friedrich schlegel, 4th revised ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1826 (ASKB 1776).

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

229

[hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich], Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, ed. by eduard gans, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1833 (vol. 8 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45), pp. 200–207; p. 229 (ASKB 551). hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich, “ueber Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. herausgegeben von ludwig tieck und Friedrich v. haumer. erster Band 780 s. mit vorrede Xvi s. zweiter Band 784 s. leipzig, 1826” [1828], in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s vermischte Schriften, vols. 1-–2, ed. by Friedrich Förster and ludwig Boumann, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1834–35 (vols. 16–17 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, pp. 436–506 (ASKB 555–556). —— �Friedrich von Schlegel���� in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–3, ed. by karl ludwig michelet, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1833–36 (vols. 13–15 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 3, pp. 642–4 (ASKB 557–559). —— Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by von heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1835–38 [vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45], vol. 1, pp. 83–8; vol. 2, p. 108; pp. 175–6; p. 306 (ASKB 1384–1386). heiberg, Johan ludvig, Om Philosophiens Betydning for den nuværende Tid. Et Indbydelses-Skrift til en Række af philosophiske �orelæsninger, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1833, p. 45 (ASKB 568). —— ��yrisk Poesie���� in Intelligensblade, nos. 26–27, 1843, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1843 [in Intelligensblade, vols. 1–4, nos. 1–48, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1842–44, vol. 3], pp. 25–72, see p. 51 (ASKB u 56). heine, heinrich, Die romantische Schule, hamburg: hoffmann und campe 1836, pp. 38ff.; p. 46; p. 50; p. 52; p. 57; pp. 69ff.; p. 90; pp. 114ff.; pp. 119ff. (ASKB u 63). helfferich, adolph, Die christliche Mystik in ihrer Entwickelung und in ihren Denkmalen, vols. 1–2, gotha: Friedrich perthes 1842, vol. 1, p. 250 (ASKB 571–572). hotho, heinrich gustav, Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: in der cotta’schen Buchhandlung 1835, p. 150; p. 196 (ASKB 580). menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 1, pp. 206ff.; vol. 2, pp. 117ff.; pp. 137–40; pp. 219ff.; vol. 3, pp. 166ff.; pp. 161ff. (ASKB u 79). michelet, karl ludwig, “Friedrich von schlegel,” in his Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philosophie in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel, vols. 1–2, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837–38, vol. 2, pp. 5–46 (ASKB 678–679). [møller, poul martin], Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, vols. 1–3, ed. by christian winther and F.c. olsen, copenhagen: Bianco lunos Bogtrykkeri 1839–43, vol. 2, p. 291; vol. 3, p. 218; p. 254 (ASKB 1574–1576).

230

K. Brian Söderquist

mynster, Jakob peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1852–53 [vols. 4–6, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1855–57], vol. 1, p. 265; p. 270; p. 275 ; vol. 2, pp. 119–22 passim (ASKB 358–363). Ørsted, anders sandøe, Af mit Livs og min Tids Historie, vols. 1–2, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandling 1851–52 [vols. 3–4, copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandling 1855–57], vol. 1, p. 41; pp. 165–6 (ASKB 1959–1960). [richter, Johann paul Friedrich], Jean paul, Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1813, vol. 1, p. 184; p. 241; vol. 2, p. 492; p. 669; vol. 3, p. 849; p. 970 (ASKB 1381–1383). rosenkranz, karl, Erinnerungen an Karl Daub, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837, p. 11; p. 22 (ASKB 743). —— Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königs berg, danzig: Fr. sam. gerhard 1843, p. 132; p. 136; p. 242; p. 327 (ASKB 766). rudelbach, andreas, De ethices principiis hucusque vulgo traditis, disquisito historicophilosophica, quæ systematum ethicorum secundum primas causas amplioris criseos introductionem continet, copenhagen: hartv. Frid. popp. 1822, p. 171 (ASKB 750). schubert, gotthilf heinrich Die Symbolik des Traumes, 2nd ed., Bamberg: kunz 1821 [1814], p. 94 (ASKB 776). [solger, karl wilhelm Ferdinand], Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Brief wechsel, ed. by ludwig tieck und Friedrich von raumer, vols. 1–2, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1826 (ASKB 1832–1833). – K.W.�. Solger�s Vorlesungen über Aesthetik, ed. by k.w.l. heyse, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1829, p. 83 (ASKB 1387). steenstrup, mathias g.g., Historisk-kritisk Oversigt over �orsøgene paa at give en Historiens Filosofi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1854, pp. 27–38 (ASKB 792). steffens, henrich, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 2, p. 166; vol. 4, p. 39; p. 152; p. 257; pp. 264–8 passim; p. 293; p. 303–304; pp. 310–13; pp. 319–20; p. 416; vol. 6, p. 25; p. 71; p. 74; vol. 7, p. 89; vol. 9, p. 269 (ASKB 1834–1843). thiersch, Friedrich, Allgemeine Aesthetik in akademischen Lehrvorträgen, Berlin: g. reimer 1846, p. 18 (ASKB 1378). weiße, christian hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit. In drei Büchern, vols. 1–2, leipzig: c.h.F. hartmann 1830, vol. 1, p. 109; p. 121; p. 175n; p. 238; p. 247; p. 260n; vol. 2, p. 214n; p. 278n; p. 326n (ASKB 1379–1380). —— Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, dresden: ch. F. grimmer’sche Buch handlung 1833, p. 36n (ASKB 866). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Schlegel agacinski, sylviane, Aparté: Conceptions and Deaths of Søren Kierkegaard, trans. by kevin newmark, tallahassee: Florida state university press 1988 [French 1977], see pp. 62–7.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

231

Ågotnes�� �nut�� �‘Jeg sidder rolig som �lintekongen.’ �e��eksjon og pasjon hos adam smith, Friedrich schlegel og søren kierkegaard,” Norsk filosofisk tidsskrift, vol. 36, 2001, pp. 242–55. Behler, ernst, “kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony with constant reference to romanticism,” in Kierkegaard Revisited. Proceedings from the Conference Kierkegaard and the Meaning of Meaning It, ed. by niels Jørgen cappelørn and Jon stewart, Berlin: walter de gruyter 1997 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 1), pp. 13–33. Bøggild, Jacob, “the Fine art of writing posthumous papers,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 19, 1998, pp. 95–112. capel, lee m., “historical introduction” to The Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates, by søren kierkegaard, trans. by lee m. capel, Bloomington: indiana university press 1968, pp. 7–41. dierkes, hans, “Friedrich schlegels Lucinde, schleiermacher und kierkegaard,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, vol. 57, no. 3 1983, pp. 431–49. egeberg, ole, “lyttende som var der en mening. om ironi,” in Experimenter. Læsninger i Søren Kierkegaards �orfatterskab, ed. by ole egeberg, aarhus: modtryk Forlag 1993, pp. 109–22. Feger, hans, “philosophy as hubris,” The Harvard Review of Philosophy, vol. 8, 2000, pp. 109–31. gouwens, david J., Kierkegaard�s Dialectic of the Imagination, new York: peter lang 1989, pp. 13–44. grunnet, sanne elisa, “Fr. schlegels ironibegreb,” in her Ironi og Subjectivitet. En Studie over Søren Kierkegaards Disputats Om Begrebet Ironi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1987, pp. 17–31. —— �Ironi hos Fr. Schlegel og �ierkegaard���� Dansk teologisk Tiddskrift, vol. 53, 1990, pp. 193–215. harries, karsten, The Meaning of Modern Art: A Philosophical Interpretation, evanston, illinois: northwestern university press 1968, pp. 49–60. himmelstrup, Jens, Søren Kierkegaards Opfattelse af Sokrates. En studie i dansk filosofis historie, copenhagen: arnold Busck 1924, see pp. 18–41. hofe, gerhart vom, Die Romantikkritik Sören Kierkegaards, Frankfurt am main: athenäum 1972. Hoffmeyer�� Mikkeline Blatt�� �Grib kaos—bliv ironiker! Ironiens historie fra Friedrich schlegel til søren kierkegaard,” Det ny Reception, vol. 38, 2000, pp. 25–9. katz, marc, Kierkegaard�s Critique of the German Romantics, ph.d. thesis, northwestern university, evanston, illinois 1991. —— �Confessions of an Anti-Poet: �ierkegaard’s Either/Or and the german romantics,” in Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age. Critical Essays in Comparative Literature, ed. by gregory maertz, albany, new York: state university of new York press 1998, pp. 227–45. kinter, achim, “Friedrich schlegels Lucinde” in his Rezeption und Existenz. Unter suchungen zu Sören Kierkegaards Entweder-Oder, Frankfurt am main et al.: peter lang 1991 (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Germanistik und Skandinavistik, vol. 26), pp. 65–6.

232

K. Brian Söderquist

koch, carl henrik, “Friedrich schlegels begreb om det interessante,” in his Kierkegaard og ‘Det Interessante.� En studie i en æstetisk kategori, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1992, pp. 32–54. man, paul de, Aesthetic Ideology, minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996, pp. 163–84. marcuse, herbert, “sören kierkegaard und die Überwindung des romantischen menschen,” in Die Dioskuren. Jahrbuch für Geisteswissenschaften, vols. 1–3, ed. by walter strich, munich: meyer & Jessen 1922–24, vol. 2, pp. 194–237. martin, clancy, “a common mistake about kierkegaard’s ‘the seducer’s diary,’” in Kierkegaard and Communication, ed. by poul houe & gordon marino, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 2003, pp. 192–203. mesnard, pierre, Le Vrai Visage de Kierkegaard�� Paris: Beauchesne et ses fils 1948�� pp. 51–2; p. 150; p. 151 note 1; pp. 156–60; p. 165; pp. 170–71; pp. 173–4; p. 178; pp. 482–3. mullen, John d., “the german romantic Background of kierkegaard’s psychology,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 16, 1978, pp. 649–60. pattison, george, “Friedrich schlegel’s Lucinde: a case study in the relation of religion to romanticism,” Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 38, 1986, pp. 545–64 (see pp. 555–64). —— �A �iterary Scandal���� in his Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture, cambridge: cambridge university press 2002, pp. 116–36. perkins, robert l., “three critiques of schlegel’s Lucinde,” in The Nature and Pursuit of Love. The Philosophy of Irving Singer, ed. by david goicoechea, amherst, new York: prometheus Books 1995, pp. 149–66. pivcevic, edo, Ironie als Daseinsform bei Sören Kierkegaard, gütersloh: mohn 1960, see pp. 33–44. radnóti, sándor, “kierkegaard és schlegel” [kierkegaard and schlegel], in Kierkegaard Budapesten. A Kierkegaard-hét előadásai 1992 december 1–4 [kierkegaard in Budapest. papers from the kierkegaard week, 1–4 december 1992], ed. by andrás nagy, Budapest: Fekete sas kiadó 1994, pp. 97–102. rehm, walter, Kierkegaard und der Verführer, munich: hermann rinn verlag 1949, see pp. 34–49. requadt, p. “lessing, schlegel, kierkegaard,” Neue Schweizer Rundschau, no. 22 (n.F. 1), 1933, pp. 103–108. rösing, lilian munk, “Friedrich schlegels �ragmenter,” Den Blå Port: Tidsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 36, copenhagen: Forlaget rhodos 1996, pp. 28–40. schmidinger, heinrich m., Das Problem des Interesses und die Philosophie Sören Kierkegaards, Freiburg and munich: velag karl alber 1983, see pp. 161–79. scopetea, sophia, Kierkegaard og græciteten. En kamp med ironi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1995, p. 3 n1; p. 4 n4; p. 5 n6, n7; p. 33; p. 62 n23; p. 83 n24; p. 101 n4; p. 103 n16; p. 142; pp. 149–62 passim; p. 163 n72; p. 166 n95; p. 167 n96; p. 181 n99; p. 220 n57; p. 250 n24; p. 300 n47; p. 305 n15; p. 333; p. 334 n45; p. 439; p. 448; p. 463. simon, richard keller, “transcendental Buffoonery: kierkegaard as comedian,” in his The Labyrinth of the Comic, Theory and Practice from �ielding to �reud, tallahassee: Florida state university press 1986.

�riedrich Schlegel: On Ironic Communication, Subjectivity and Selfhood

233

sørensen, peer e., “skyerne om efteråret. om den kierkegaardske tekst,” in Experimenter. Læsninger i Søren Kierkegaards �orfatterskab, ed. by ole egeberg, aarhus: modtryk Forlag 1993, pp. 123–42. stewart, Jon, Kierkegaard�s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, cambridge and new York: cambridge university press 2003, see pp. 166–81. summers, richard m., “aesthetics, ethics, and reality: a study of �rom the Papers of One Still Living,” in Early Polemical Writings, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon georgia: mercer university press 1999 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 1), pp. 45–68. szondi, peter, “Friedrich schlegel and romantic irony, with some remarks on tieck’s comedies.” On Textual Understanding & Other Essays, trans. by harvey mendelssohn, minneapolis: university of minnesota press 1986, pp. 57–73. thompson, Josiah, “the master of irony,” in Kierkegaard—A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Josiah thompson, new York: anchor Books 1972, pp. 103–63. thomsen, lene, “F. schlegel,” in her Til sin tid. En undersøgelse af S. Kierkegaards brug af begreberne ironi og humor på baggrund af den romantiske ironi og med henblik på det kristologiske ærinde i Kierkegaards pseudonyme forfatterskab, Århus: Århus universitet 1992, pp. 10–12. tjønneland, eivind, Ironie als Symptom. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Søren Kierkegaards Über den Begriff der Ironie, Frankfurt am main et al.: peter lang 2004 (Text und Untersuchungen zur Germanistik und Skandinavistik, vol. 54). walsh, sylvia, Living Poetically. Kierkegaard�s Existential Aesthetics, university park: the pennsylvania state university press 1994, pp. 51–67. weston, michael, “kierkegaard and the origins of the post-modern self,” European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 3, 2002, pp. 398–412.

This page intentionally left blank

solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System Jon stewart

karl wilhelm Ferdinand solger is known to most kierkegaard researchers today as one of the prominent german romantic scholars interested in the phenomenon of irony. He is mentioned along with figures such as Friedrich von Schlegel in the second part of The Concept of Irony, which explores the different forms of modern irony. solger is thus often regarded as a background figure to the development of �ierkegaard’s own theory of this phenomenon. what is less well known is the fact that his relation to solger is closely connected to his relation to hegel; indeed, kierkegaard’s view of solger is largely mediated by hegel’s assessment. in this article, an attempt will be made to sketch kierkegaard’s view of solger with an eye towards its dependence on hegel’s treatment. the goal is to determine if kierkegaard ever managed to arrive at an independent view of Solger that was significantly different from Hegel’s. I. Solger�s Life and Works solger was born on november 28, 1780 in schwedt in prussia.1 after beginning his early education in his hometown, he was sent to Berlin to study at a renowned secondary school. in 1799 he began his university studies at halle, where he enrolled as a law student. here he met his lifelong friend, the historian Friedrich von raumer (1781–1873). his father had planned for him to become a civil servant or businessman, but solger found his law studies tedious, preferring much more the study of languages. during this time, he avidly read literary and aesthetic works from both the ancients and the moderns. 1 For a more detailed account of solger’s life and works, see reinhold schmidt, Solger�s Philosophie, Berlin: dümmler 1841; max lenz’s ’s Geschichte der Königlichen �riedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, vols. 1–4, halle: verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenshauses 1910–18�� vol. 1�� pp. 394–6; vol. 2.1�� pp. 98–9. An account of Solger’s first years and initial university studies appears in the “vorrede,” to Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, vols. 1–2, ed. by ludwig tieck and Friedrich von raumer, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1826, pp. vii–Xv (ASKB 1832–1833). this is followed by solger’s own diaries from 1800 onward, which are elucidated with interspersed comments by the editors. this is clearly the main source of primary material information on solger’s life. hegel also recounts a fair bit of this biographical information in his review of this work (see below).

236

Jon Stewart

in 1801 solger went to the university of Jena for six months in order to attend the lectures of F.w.J. schelling (1775–1854), the young star of german philosophy at the time, who had just published his System of Transcendental Idealism.2 the university was in those days the focal point of the famous Jena �omantic movement�� with figures such as ludwig tieck (1773–1853), novalis (1772–1801), Friedrich von schlegel (1772– 1829) and August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767–1845). Under Schelling’s in��uence�� solger further developed his interest in philosophy. he also presumably met hegel (1770–1831) for the first time here�� where the latter had moved in January 1801. in 1802 solger embarked on a long journey that took him through southern germany, Switzerland and finally to Paris. Upon his return�� he took a position�� at the beginning of 1803, in the house of war and domains in Berlin, in accordance with the wishes of his father. in 1804 he attended Fichte’s lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre at the university of Berlin. these lectures struck him as a kind of revelation and moved him to return to academic life. in 1806 he quit his government post and devoted himself wholly to scholarship. one fruit of this was a two-volume translation of sophocles’ works in 1808.3 having received his doctoral degree in philosophy in 1808, solger, in 1809, went to the university in Frankfurt an der oder, where he was soon made professor extraordinarius in philosophy. in 1810 he was elected mayor by the town commissioners. although the position came with a high salary, he declined the honor in order to stick with the non-salaried position as professor at the university there. (his humility and good will were recognized, and shortly thereafter he was awarded a small salary by the government.) this was followed in 1811 with a prestigious appointment at the then newly founded university of Berlin. not yet 32 years old, he was among the young generation at the university. initially he was a popular instructor, and already in the winter semester 1811–12 his lecture courses attracted more students than Fichte’s.4 however, his initial popularity wore off in time, and he ultimately became more and more isolated as fewer and fewer students came to his courses.5 he felt increasingly alienated from the students whom he regarded as light-minded for following both frivolous modern trends and a superficial�� overly nostalgic and emotional version of christianity. moreover, the reception of his books was disappointing. solger published his main work in 1815 under the title, Erwin: �our Conversations about the Beautiful and Art.6 here he attempts a defense of some of the basic principles of romantic aesthetics in a series of dialogues. this work has the reputation of being extremely difficult to comprehend. In 1817 he published another series of dialogues along the same lines entitled, Philosophical Conversations.7 readers found him 2

1800.

schelling,, System des transscendental Idealismus, tübingen: cotta’sche Buchhandlung

Des Sophokles Tragödien, vols. 1–2, trans. by k.w.F. solger, Berlin: realschulbuchhandlung 1808. a second edition appeared in 1824. 4 lenz, Geschichte der Königlichen �riedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 469. 5 ibid., vol. 2.1, pp. 98f. 6 k.w.F. solger, Erwin. Vier Gespräche über das Schöne und die Kunst, vols. 1–2, Berlin: realschulbuchhandlung 1815. 7 solger, Philosophische Gespräche, Berlin: mauer 1817. 3

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

237

tedious, and his decision to write in dialogues proved an unsuccessful strategy. this met with the disapproval of, among others, hegel, who seems to have found the dialogue form inappropriate for current philosophical expression.8 nonetheless solger supported hegel’s appointment to a professorship in Berlin in 1818.9 in his letters after the appointment but before hegel’s arrival, solger’s tone is one of great interest and anticipation.10 when asked to submit his course proposals for the winter semester, hegel solicited solger for suggestions so that they could coordinate their instruction. the tone of solger’s response is respectful and even friendly.11 they became good friends after hegel’s arrival in the prussian capital in the fall of that year. in the last year of his life solger was active in university politics. the university senate entrusted him with the formulation of a letter of protest defending the rights of the professors to express their opinions freely.12 this must be seen in the context of the rise of the student movement in prussia and the german states, which was regarded with great alarm by the authorities. Some professors had been fired�� and all works had to be submitted to the censors before they could be published. solger died of a sudden illness on october 20, 1819 before the results of his efforts in this regard were clear. his period at the university of Berlin has been described as an “interregnum” between Fichte and hegel, the two major philosophers who played such a formative role there.13 a two-volume edition of solger’s posthumous works was published in 1826 with the title, Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel.14 this work was edited by solger’s friends, ludwig tieck and Friedrich von raumer, who published some of their own correspondence with Solger in this edition. The first part of this work consists of excerpts from solger’s diary along with his correspondence. these are arranged in such a way as to present a kind of autobiography. the second part of the work consists of individual essays, reviews, prefaces and short pieces by solger. in their preface tieck and raumer mention that hegel had helped them with the organization of the philosophical material in their edition.15 in addition to this work, an edition of solger’s lectures on aesthetics was published in 1829 by one of solger’s students, karl wilhelm ludwig von heyse (1797–1855).16 kierkegaard owned a copy of both of these posthumous works.

see günther nicolin,, Hegel in Berichten seiner Zeitgenossen, hamburg: Felix meiner 1970, p. 229. 9 ibid., p. 117. 10 ibid., pp. 171f; pp. 172f. 11 see Briefe von und an Hegel, vols. 1–3, ed. by Johannes hoffmeister, 3rd ed., hamburg: meiner 1969 [1951–54], vol. 2, letter 340, pp. 189f. 12 lenz, Geschichte der Königlichen �riedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, op. cit., vol. 2.1, p. 99f. 13 ibid., vol. 1, p. 396. 14 Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, op. cit. 15 “vorrede,” in Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, ibid., vol. 1, p. Xvi. 16 K.W.�. Solger�s Vorlesungen über Aesthetik, ed. by k.w.l. heyse, leipzig: Brockhaus 1829 (ASKB 1387). 8

238

Jon Stewart

tieck and raumer’s edition was reviewed sympathetically by hegel in 1828 in the Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik.17 this book review was then reprinted in 1834–35 in the volume of Vermischte Schriften, edited by Friedrich Förster (1791– 1868) and ludwig Boumann (1801–71), in the posthumous edition of hegel’s collected works.18 kierkegaard also owned a copy of this work. it can fairly be said that tieck’s and raumer’s edition along with hegel’s review were the primary forces involved in the reception of solger’s thought not just for kierkegaard but for all later generations. in 1837–38 karl ludwig michelet (1801–93) published his famous twovolume, Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philosophie in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel.19 in this work michelet has an extended chaptered dedicated to “die solger’sche philosophie.”20 this account is based largely on texts featured in Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, with the sole exception being the final section which is based primarily on Heyse’s edition of Solger’s lectures on aesthetics. while solger wrote works on metaphysics and political philosophy, he is, however, best known as a critic and theorist for aesthetics, which is the focus of hegel’s book review. michelet, by contrast, attempts to give a more rounded view of him, beginning with an account of solger’s epistemology and metaphysics, and then moving from there to his political philosophy and finally to his aesthetics. Towards the end of the chapter, michelet treats solger’s understanding of irony as the key to art.21 His analysis is on this point clearly in��uenced by Hegel’s assessment. Prior to �ierkegaard�� Solger was certainly not an unknown figure in �enmark. the danish critic and aesthetician, Johan ludvig heiberg (1791–1860), was quite familiar with his works. For example, in a letter from 1825, he laments the ponderous style of some writers who “lose themselves in what the germans call ‘ein breites Hin- und Herreden.’”22 he then implies that solger’s Erwin suffers from this ��aw hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. herausgegeben von ludwig tieck und Friedrich von raumer. erster Band 780 s. mit vorr. Xvi s. zweiter Band 784 s. leipzig, 1826,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, erster artikel (march 1828), nos. 51–52, pp. 403–16; nos. 53–54, pp. 417–28; zweiter artikel (June 1828), nos. 105–106, pp. 838–48; nos. 107–108, pp. 849–64; nos. 109–110, pp. 865–70. 18 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. herausgegeben von ludwig tieck und Friedrich von raumer. erster Band 780 s. mit vorr. Xvi s. zweiter Band 784 s. leipzig, 1826,” in Vermischte Schriften, i–ii, ed. by Friedrich Förster and ludwig Boumann, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1834–35, vols. 16–17 in Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45, vol. 16, 1834, pp. 436–506 (ASKB 555–556). (Jub. vol. 20, pp. 132–202 (Jub.= Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe in 20 Bänden, ed. by hermann glockner, stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann verlag 1928–41); in english as Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, ed. by Jon stewart, evanston: northwestern university press 2002, pp. 354–400.) 19 karl ludwig michelet, Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philosophie in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel, vols. 1–2, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837–38 (ASKB 678–679). 20 ibid., vol. 2, pp. 560–98. 21 ibid., pp. 592–4. 22 letter 126, “J.l. heiberg til h.c. Ørsted,” in Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Johan Ludvig Heiberg, vols. 1–5, ed. by morten Borup, copenhagen: gyldendal 1947–50, vol. 1, p. 166. (in english as Heiberg’s On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age and Other Texts, ed. and trans. by Jon stewart, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 2005, p. 77.) 17

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

239

and, further, constitutes a “false imitation of the platonic form.”23 heiberg continues his attack on solger’s style in a short article, entitled “on solger,” published in his famous journal of aesthetics and criticism, Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, on February 16, 1827.24 this was actually a part of a larger discussion of solger in the danish journals.25 in his article heiberg echoes the sentiment of his earlier letter comparing solger’s Erwin with plato’s less stylistically successful dialogues. he further carps at Solger’s infelicitous translations of Sophocles. Heiberg refers specifically to Solger’s views on irony and mentions hegel’s treatment of this in the Philosophy of Right: with all respect for tieck (whom solger’s lovable personality has impressed), in philosophy his authority is quite limited. i would rather refer to what the most profound thinker of our age, hegel, has said about solger’s confused ideas about irony, [which solger] set forth in the review of a.w. schlegel’s Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst. hegel discusses solger with respect and friendship (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, p. 150, in the footnote), but also demonstrates how far solger was from speculative clarity. without doubt hegel, who is no lenient judge, would have judged him even more sharply if he had not had in mind the dear memory of solger’s personality.26

although he is more focused on the issue of style, heiberg seems generally to share hegel’s criticism. however, his tone is considerably shaper that the latter’s. in his article heiberg, with characteristic condescension, writes, “a man who struggles with honest efforts on the field of re��ection�� without having the genius to work through it and reach the speculative result, is to be pitied, but his efforts deserve to be appreciated, although tieck goes too far when he proclaims that a book of this kind [sc. Erwin] contains the truth.”27 heiberg thus portrays solger as a well-meaning but incompetent philosopher, who never managed to grasp the depths of speculative thought. while kierkegaard was almost certainly familiar with heiberg’s article and perhaps even with michelet’s chapter, there can be little doubt that the real key to

ibid. heiberg, “om solger,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1827, February 16, no. 14, [pp. 67–8]. since the journal Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post did not have page numbers, page references have been given in square brackets to the page numbers in the photomechanically reprinted edition: Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, vols. 1–4, by uffe andreasen (copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1980–84). 25 the polemical context is somewhat complex. an article in Kjøbenhavnsposten (“kjøbenhavnspostens nyheder,”: “solgers dom om Baggesens parthenais,” Kjøbenhavnsposten, no. 4, 1827, p. 15) had reported solger as complaining that Baggesen’s work, Parthenaïs, oder die Alpenreise (1802), was written in an infelicitous german style. a subsequent article in Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, pseudonymously attributed to “s.....” (s....., “solger og Baggesen,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1827, Januaryy 22, no. 7, [pp. 38–9]) attempted to defend Baggesen by arguing that solger should be the last one to make criticisms regarding style since his german translation of sophocles is a stylistic disaster. the author of the original piece then riposted in another issue of Kjøbenhavnsposten ([anonymous]�� �Til S….. i den ��yvende Post �o. 7���� Kjøbenhavnsposten, no. 12, February 10, 1827, pp. 50–51). this is the point where heiberg enters the discussion with his short piece. 26 heiberg, “om solger,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1827, no. 14 [p. 68]. 27 heiberg, “om solger,” ibid., [p. 68]. 23 24

240

Jon Stewart

understanding his assessment of solger is hegel’s critique. thus, this is the natural place to begin any treatment of kierkegaard’s relation to solger. II. Hegel�s Assessment of Solger�s Irony hegel had long been in a polemical relation with the theoretical leaders of german romanticism, especially Friedrich von schlegel.28 as early as the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) he had criticized different forms of subjectivism associated with the romantic movement with sarcastic labels such as “the unhappy consciousness,” “the beautiful soul,” “virtue and the way of the world,” and “the spiritual animal kingdom.”29 hegel’s criticism of the romantics continues and is further developed in different forms throughout his authorship and not least of all in his posthumously published lectures. One of the forms of subjectivism that Hegel identifies for criticism is irony.30 Solger appears in the context of these critical analyses and specifically in connection with hegel’s discussions of romantic irony. A. the philosophy of right Hegel’s first direct mention of Solger comes in the Philosophy of Right (1821). in a long analysis in the “morality” chapter, hegel systematically surveys the different forms of subjectivism. 31 here in a long footnote he refers to solger as follows: see otto pöggeler,, Hegels Kritik der Romantik, Bonn: rheinische Friedrich wilhelmsuniversität 1956 (for solger, see pp. 263–98). 29 see the chapters “the actualization of rational self-consciousness through its own activity” and “individuality which takes itself to be real in and For itself” from the “reason” chapter (Jub., vol. 2, pp. 271–334; in english as Hegel�s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by a.v. miller, oxford: clarendon press 1977, pp. 211–262) and “spirit that is certain of itself. morality” from the “spirit” chapter (Jub., vol. 2, pp. 459–516; Hegel�s Phenomenology of Spirit�� op. cit.�� pp. 364–409). See also Ferruccio Andolfi��, “die ��ie gestalten Gestalten des individualismus Individualismus in der Phänomenologie des Geistes,” Hegel-Jahrbuch, 1991, pp. 211–25; gary shapiro,, “notes on the animal kingdom of the spirit,” Clio, vol. 8, 1979, pp. 323–38; donald phillip verene,, “two Forms of defective selfhood: the spiritual animal kingdom and the Beautiful soul,” in his Hegel�s Recollection. A Study of Images in the Phenomenology of Spirit, albany: state university of new York press 1985, pp. 92–103; donald phillip verene,, “hegel’s spiritual zoo and the modern condition,” Owl of Minerva, vol. 25, 1994, pp. 235–40; J.Y. calvez,, “l’�ge d’or. essai sur le destin de la ‘belle �me’ chez novalis et hegel,” Études Germaniques, vol. 9, 1954, pp. 112–27; d.o. dahlstrom, “die schöne seele bei schiller und hegel,” Hegel-Jahrbuch, 1991, pp. 147–56; moltke s. gram, “moral and literary ideals in hegel’s critique of ‘the moral view of the world,’” Clio, vol. 7, 1978, pp. 375–402; emanuel hirsch, “die Beisetzung der romantiker in hegels Phänomenologie. ein kommentar zu dem abschnitte über die moralität,” Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft, vol. 2, 1924, pp. 510–32. 30 see ernst Behler, “hegels polemik gegen die ironie,” in his Ironie und literarische Moderne, paderborn, et al.: Ferdinand schöningh 1997, pp. 115–49. 31 hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, Berlin: nicolaische Buchhandlung 1821, § 140, pp. 137–53. (reprint: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im 28

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

241

my late colleague professor solger did admittedly take over the expression “irony” which Friedrich von schlegel introduced during an earlier period of his literary career and whose meaning he extended to include that subjectivity which knows itself as supreme. But Solger’s better judgment rejected this definition�� and his philosophical insight seized upon and retained only one aspect of it, namely the dialectical element proper, the activating pulse of speculative re��ection. But I do not find his conclusions entirely clear�� nor can i agree with the concepts which he develops in his last, substantial work, his detailed critique of august wilhelm von schlegel’s Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (Wiener Jahrbuch, vol. vii, pp. 90ff.) 32

here hegel is quick to distinguish solger’s form of irony from what he regards as the more offensive form found in Friedrich von schlegel, who is hegel’s most frequent target of criticism in this context. solger is praised for grasping “the dialectical element” in the phenomenon of irony. By this hegel means that one essential element of irony recognized by solger is its negative or critical dimension. it destroys accepted beliefs and customs; it sets itself apart from the status quo and the accepted order of things by calling everything into question. while hegel’s statement appears to be straightforwardly laudatory, there is an implicit criticism hidden in it. By saying that solger focuses on the negative dimension of irony, hegel seems to want to imply that he thus overlooked the positive or constructive dimension, which appears after irony has done its destructive work. hegel focuses his analysis here on solger’s then recently published review33 of august von schlegel’s Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature.34 he quotes from the review as follows: “true irony,” says solger on that occasion (p. 92) “starts from the point of view that, as long as human beings live in this present world�� it is only in the world that they can fulfilll their destiny, even in the highest sense of that word. any means whereby we believe we can transcend finite ends is a vain and empty fancy….even the highest of things is present to our action only in a limited and finite shape.” this, if understood correctly, is a platonic view, very truly expressed in opposition to that empty striving for the (abstract) infinite which Solger had previously referred to. But to say that the highest of things is present in a limited and finite shape�� like the realm of the ethics—and the ethical realm is essentially actuality and action—is very different from saying that it is a finite end; the

Grundrisse, ed. by eduard gans, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1833, in Hegel�s Werke, vol. 8, § 140, pp. 188–207; Jub., vol. 7, § 140, pp. 204–23; in english as Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. by h.B. nisbet, ed. by allen wood, cambridge and new York: cambridge university press 1991, § 140, pp. 170–84.) 32 hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1821), § 140, p. 150n. (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1833), in Hegel�s Werke, vol. 8, § 140, p. 201n; Jub., vol. 7, § 140, p. 217n; Elements of the Philosophy of Right, op. cit., § 140, pp. 170–84 and § 140, pp. 180n–81n.) 33 solger’s review of august wilhelm von schlegel’s Ueber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur. Vorlesungen originally appeared in Jahrbuch der Literatur, vol. 7, 1819 (vienna), pp. 80–155. it was then reprinted as “Beurtheilung der vorlesungen über dramatische kunst und literatur” in Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 493–628. 34 august wilhelm von schlegel, Ueber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur. Vorlesungen, vols. 1–2.2, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1809–11.

242

Jon Stewart shape and form of finitude do not deprive the content�� i.e.�� the ethical realm�� of any of its substantiality or of the infinity which is inherent within it. 35

From the passage hegel quotes, he again underscores the negative dimension in solger’s position, which denies any truth or validity to the world of actuality. as hegel indicates, this kind of despairing view of the actual world is commonly accompanied by a conception of a true, meaningful world in some transcendent sphere; this posited utopia constitutes the contrastive term to the miserable and impoverished world of actuality. In contrast to this�� Hegel affirms his view that the idea or the truth is not some abstract, unattainable entity dwelling in the beyond but rather exists all around us in the sphere of appearance. the challenge is merely to recognize and understand it in the appearances. hegel seems to want to point out that solger is apparently guilty of the common error of thinking that anything that is revealed in the realm of finite appearances is merely finite and ultimately trivial and meaningless. For hegel, the essential point is that the idea can appear in phenomenal form and is thus something real and not merely an abstract ideal. the idea is not denigrated, tainted or compromised by the fact that it also appears in actuality. returning to the actual context of solger’s discussion in art, hegel then goes on to discuss in some detail how this relates to an understanding of dramatic characters. he quotes again from solger’s review as follows: Solger continues: �And for this very reason�� it [the highest of things] is as insignificant in us as the lowest of things, and necessarily perishes with us and our insignificant intellects. For it is truly present in God alone�� and when it perishes in us�� it is transfigured as something divine, in which we would have no share if there were not an immediate presence of this divinity which becomes manifest even as our actuality disappears; but the state of mind to which this presence becomes immediately evident in human events themselves is tragic irony.”36

it is only though god that humans are saved from a complete nihilism. without the divine�� we simply would wallow in a meaningless�� finite world. God is thus the guarantor of truth and beauty, in short, all the “highest of things.” solger makes this claim in the context of a discussion of tragic characters, whose fate is, according to his analysis, caused by the fact that they cease to believe in a higher sphere and become apostate. they then betray their own highest values and character traits. hegel analyzes this as follows: the arbitrary name “irony” would not in itself require comment, but there is an unclarity in the statement that it is the highest of things which perishes with our insignificance�� and that the divine is revealed only when our actuality disappears, as when we are told on page 91: �We see heroes lose faith in the noblest and finest aspects of their dispositions 35 hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1821), § 140, pp. 150n–51n. (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1833), in Hegel�s Werke, vol. 8, § 140, pp. 201n–202n; Jub., vol. 7, § 140, pp. 217n–18n; Elements of the Philosophy of Right, op. cit., § 140, p. 181n.) 36 hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1821), § 140, p. 151n. (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1833), in Hegel�s Werke, vol. 8, § 140, p. 202n; Jub., vol. 7, § 140, p. 218n; Elements of the Philosophy of Right, op. cit., § 140, p. 181n.)

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

243

and feelings, not only in relation to what these lead to, but also in relation to their source and their value; indeed, we are elevated by the downfall of the best itself.” the tragic downfall of figures of the highest ethical worth can interest us�� elevate us�� and reconcile us to its occurrence only in so far as such figures appear in mutual opposition�� with equally justified but distinct ethical powers which have unfortunately come into collision….As a result of this opposition to an ethical principle, they incur guilt, from which the right and wrong of both parties emerges�� and with it the true ethical idea which�� purified and triumphing over this one-sidedness, is thereby reconciled in us. accordingly, it is not the highest thing in us which perishes, and we are elevated not by the downfall of the best but, on the contrary, by the triumph of the true.37

here hegel invokes his own theory of tragedy. the portrayal of straightforward rogues getting their just deserts has no higher value. this may well be conceived as the meaningless play of finite forces�� which is rightly criticized by irony. However�� true tragedy involves the necessary con��ict of two rightful principles�� as in�� for example, hegel’s famous analysis of sophocles’ Antigone.38 The con��ict between antigone and creon represents higher principles of spirit working itself forward. The truth thus appears in the con��ict of this opposition. This development is not merely destructive, as the romantic ironist would have it. the upshot of this is again, according to hegel, that solger grasps only the negative dimension of this tragic relation. he sees only the negative downfall of the characters and not the higher, positive view revealed in the dialectical collision of the abstract principles that they represent. the truth lies in the speculative overcoming of these one-sided principles and not their simple destruction. it is thus a mistake to conceive of irony in this straightforward, negative fashion. B. Hegel�s Review of Solger�s Posthumous Writings hegel’s most extensive account of solger is clearly his book review of tieck’s and raumer’s edition of solger’s posthumous writings. this review consists of two long articles, which, going far beyond a simple account of the new book, provide an overview of hegel’s assessment of the german romantic movement in general. while hegel paints a positive portrait of solger, he is highly critical of other romantics, such as Friedrich von schlegel and solger’s editor, tieck. in his review, hegel treats the issue of irony at some length in a couple of different places. after giving a brief account of solger’s biography based on the materials contained in the first volume of the edition�� Hegel describes the crises in German literature and literary criticism during the periods in question. one of these is the hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1821), § 140, p. 151n. (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1833), in Hegel�s Werke, vol. 8, § 140, p. 202n; Jub., vol. 7, § 140, p. 218n; Elements of the Philosophy of Right, op. cit., § 140, p. 181n.) 38 the classic statement of this is of course the beginning of the “spirit” chapter from the Phenomenology of Spirit: Jub., vol. 2, pp. 340–67; Hegel�s Phenomenology of Spirit, op. cit., pp. 266– 89. hegel also analyzes the Antigone in his Lectures on Aesthetics, see Jub., vol. 14, pp. 556–7. (Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, vols. 1–2, trans. by t.m. knox, oxford: clarendon press 1998 [1975], vol. 2, pp. 1217–18.) see also the Philosophy of Right, Jub., vol. 7, p. 227; pp. 246–7. (Elements of the Philosophy of Right, op. cit., § 144, remark; § 166.) 37

244

Jon Stewart

crisis of irony. it began innocently enough with some comic writers making use of irony to comic effect�� and thereby criticizing specific institutions or practices. It was then subsequently adopted as a more general theory of poetry which denied the truth and reality of everything. hegel describes this as follows: … we saw the theory of the poetry of poetry, and, on the other hand, the circle of poets developing who made it their object to mystify both themselves and the public with the dawning products of the new poetic poetry with a cometary world made of fragrance and tone without a core. the lyrical form is natural for this ironic sublimation towards meaninglessness and longing, and it creates itself almost out of itself because the playing in unreal tones of the hollow mind is not, for verse and rhyme, embarrassed by content. in the dramatic branch, reality, character, and plot cannot be dispensed with. the inner void, which is demanded by the theory of irony�� leads here to what mediocrity hits upon by itself—lack of character�� inconsistency and accidentality, boastful dryness. the theory adds only the claim that mediocrity, even with the maxim of unprincipledness and superficiality�� is productive. With this point of view�� criticism gave itself a new, bold, indeed, often insolent, impetus and impressed a group who wanted to be at the aesthetic apex because a public, as solger frequently expresses the experience, forms itself around every bold and glossy crookedness.39

although he mentions no names here, hegel seems to have in mind here the period in german literary criticism immediately preceding schlegel. his criticism is that, apart from its numerous theoretical shortcomings, this view of irony simply leads to bad art. when applied to lyric poetry, irony provides the poet with an excuse to avoid the treatment of any concrete content or issue�� and the poem becomes ��ighty and self-indulgent. With respect to dramatic poetry, the ironic practice eliminates the key ingredients of drama and leaves the audience with no reason to be interested in the characters or the piece. the ironic poet or dramatist thus ends in an arrogant and self-congratulatory posture that disdains the readers or audience who cannot understand his self-indulgent amusement. hegel then moves ahead in his historical account and discusses the period of irony which is dominated by Friedrich von schlegel. still following the correspondence and biographical material in the edition, hegel compares solger’s view of irony favorably with that of schlegel: a great many literary phenomena and opinions that belong to the spirit of this time pass before our eyes in this correspondence. �et the most audacious and ��ourishing period of irony, Lucinde, Athenäum, etc., falls already beyond this….solger’s more profound judgment dgmentt always stopped far short of the standpoint of the Athenäum, not to mention Lucinde. even less could he in more mature years participate in the utmost grotesqueness to which the humor in the hoffmannesque productions climbed.40

as evidence of solger’s more tempered view of irony and his disapprobation of the romantics, hegel cites the following: 39 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 410. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 445f; Jub., vol. 20, pp. 141f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 360.) 40 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 411. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 446; Jub., vol. 20, p. 142; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 360f.)

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

245

Just to give a few examples of that tendency�� Solger�� in his youth�� finds in the novel begun by novalis, Heinrich of Ofterdingen (p. 95), a new and extremely daring attempt to depict poetry through life�� the idea of a mystical story�� a tearing apart of the veil that the finite on this earth holds around the infinite�� an appearance of the godhead on earth�� of a true myth, which here, however, forms itself in the mind of an individual man. “it distresses me exceedingly that this novel is not continued further and stops right at the beginning of what is most important.” the sparkling onset corrupted the young man, but he still did not realize that a conception of this kind is deficient precisely because it cannot be continued and brought to a conclusion. the shallow characters and situations shudder back from the reality towards which they should move if they are to progress. on p. 124 the Song of the Nibelungs is declared, according to its outline, to be greater than the Iliad. in a.w. Schlegel’s lecture on �ante�� Solger finds neither the proper solemn awe before this lofty mysticism�� nor sufficient receptivity for the sublime artlessness.41

hegel’s quotations of solger here are clearly intended to demonstrate that solger is critical of the excesses of his contemporaries. hegel lauds solger for having the good sense, even as a young man, to reject the self-indulgent dimension of irony as presented by novalis, schlegel and their followers. however, according to hegel’s portrayal, while solger has the correct intuitive disposition towards these errors, he does not properly understand the philosophical reasons for rejecting them. hegel then dedicates some pages to exploring solger’s assessment of the works of his editor tieck; hegel uses this as an occasion to take the latter to task on a number of different points. hegel then returns to the issue of irony and runs through the interpretations of this concept in the different romantic authors beginning with schlegel, whom he reproaches for misunderstanding what philosophy is. it will be useful to explore his criticisms of these other figures brie��y in order to set Solger’s position into relief. hegel writes the following about schlegel: the self-conscious frustration of the objective has called itself irony. since the most excellent ironical individuality is to be found on our path�� let us brie��y mention this….Throughout his entire public career, the father of irony [sc. Friedrich von schlegel] has given himself the same relation to philosophy noted here. he has, namely, always behaved judgmentally towards it without ever articulating content, philosophical propositions, or even a developed sequence of them, not to speak of having proven or even refuted them. refuting requires the assertion of a basis, and with this an engagement in the issue. this would mean, however, condescending from the genteel position or (to use one of his earlier inventions of categories) from the divine insolence and from the heights of irony (one can just as easily say: from the satanical or diabolical insolence of evaluating and disputing from the position above the issue to condescending to the ground of philosophizing itself and to the issue).42

hegel attacks what he takes to be schlegel’s overbearing arrogance with regard to his judgments of others since schlegel seems to believe that his clever use of 41 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 411. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 446f.; Jub., vol. 20, pp. 142f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 361.) 42 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., pp. 426f. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 465f.; Jub., vol. 20, pp. 161f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., pp. 372f.)

246

Jon Stewart

irony elevates him above the common people, who are still trapped by a simple and outdated conception of truth and value. like kierkegaard, hegel describes this position as “demonic.” hegel continues: mr. Friedrich von schlegel has constantly pointed out that he stood on the highest peak of philosophy without ever proving that he has penetrated this science and understood it in a merely ordinary fashion. his discernment and reading have certainly acquainted him with problems that philosophy has in common with religion and that even get in the way of philological criticism and literary history. But the kind of solution he intimates everywhere and only ostentatiously gives one to understand instead of simply stating it or indeed justifying it philosophically, is partly a subjective solution, which may be convenient for him as an individual this way or that, but partly demonstrates the entire demeanor of his remarks, that the requisite of thinking reason, and with it, the basic problem of that thinking reason and a science of philosophy which is conscious and honest towards itself have remained foreign to him.43

here hegel descends into a whole-hearted attack on schlegel for pretending to have a defensible philosophical position, while in reality not having any idea about what philosophy is or how philosophical argumentation works. schlegel has no interest in providing reasoned arguments to support his position. he does not enter into any form of discursive reasoning to explicate or defend his views. thus, for hegel, his opinions remain bald assertions with no philosophical basis whatsoever. in his criticism hegel then moves from schlegel to tieck. as in his previous analysis of schlegel, here he likewise uses tieck as a contrastive form of irony to that of solger: tieck’s irony remains free of charlatanry in its relationship to philosophy and generally limits itself to dismissing the objective formation of content through thinking, that is, to dismissing the characteristic of philosophy to deduce the abstract universal, what is called mystical; in relation to solger’s philosophy, it limits itself to having a sincere interest and occasionally acknowledging its content, usually to formulate the response to the explicated solgerian depictions and explanations with a general agreement enclosing them with the often repeated good-natured assurance of understanding solger, of understanding him completely�� of having finally understood him.44

here tieck clearly comes off better than schlegel with respect to his understanding of philosophy. His irony�� with respect to philosophy�� seems to be confined to a denial of the ability to deduce the universal truth in any final way. In��uenced by the German mystics, tieck regards the truth as a mystical experience that cannot be reduced to rational explanation or discursive reasoning.

43 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 427. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 466; Jub., vol. 20, p. 162; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 373.) 44 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 427f. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 466f.; Jub., vol. 20, pp. 162f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 373.)

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

247

hegel saves his most detailed account of solger’s conception of irony for the second article of his review.45 he there takes a historical approach and inquires into the origins of the concept of modern irony. as in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy,46 hegel identifies Fichte’s conception of the self-positing ego as the beginning of this trend: For this purpose we distinguish the speculative moment which lies on one side of irony and is certainly found in the speculative determinations observed. this is, namely, that negativity in general, which in the elevation to its abstract apex constitutes the basic determination of Fichte’s philosophy. In the ego = ego not only all finiteness�� but also all content in general has disappeared. the highest starting point for the problem of philosophy has indeed been brought to consciousness with this elevation, to develop the particular from the unconditional�� the universal—a principle containing the possibility for it because it is itself simply the impulse of development. But this principle is�� first of all, itself a presupposition and exists only in its abstract, and therefore not in its true, one-sided purity. a principle must also prove something; it must not be required that it be accepted on intuition, immediate certainty, inner revelation, or as one may call it in a word, in good faith….in the aforementioned form, negativity has remained only in the one-sided�� finite affirmation that it has as ego.47

Fichte makes use of the abstract principle of the subject for epistemological purposes. It is a universal�� abstract conception of a subject and not a real ��esh and blood one. its purpose is to play a role in the further epistemological argumentation, but it was never intended as a kind of philosophical anthropology. Fichte’s account was then seized upon by schlegel, who took it out of its original context and applied it to the particular, empirical subject. hegel continues: In this exclusively subjective affirmation�� it has been taken up from Fichtean philosophy by Friedrich schlegel with a lack of understanding of the speculative and a dismissal of it, and so torn out of the field of thought�� that turned directly toward reality�� it has ��ourished

45 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 854. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 486f.; Jub., vol. 20, pp. 182f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 386): “But with this depiction of solger’s highest determination of the idea and of the highest rung of his philosophical development, one perhaps misses an account of the irony touched upon preliminarily in the previous article, which because it otherwise is labeled the highest, one can especially expect to meet it here�� to find its sense and determination exponentiated and safeguarded against misunderstandings. as it usually occurs, it is to be regarded as more than simply a famous�� supposedly refined apparition. In relation to Solger�� however�� it can never be treated as a principle, and in this sense we want to consider it more closely here.” 46 hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, i–iii, ed. by karl ludwig michelet, vols. 13–15 [1833–36], in Hegel�s Werke, op. cit, vol. 15, pp. 611–46. (Jub., vol. 19, pp. 611–46; in english as Lectures on the History of Philosophy, vols. 1–3, trans. by e.s. haldane, london: k. paul, trench, trübner 1892–96; lincoln and london: university of nebraska press 1995, vol. 3, pp. 479–512.) 47 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., pp. 854f. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 487; Jub., vol. 20, p. 183; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., pp. 386f.)

248

Jon Stewart into irony, to the negation of the animation of reason and truth and to the degradation of it to the appearance in the subject and to the appearing for others.48

Schlegel thus took the abstract Fichtean ego as a kind of theoretical justification for his own view of the ��ippant�� ironic artist. �ike the Fichtean ego�� the ironist has no fixed content and is free to criticize, or in Fichte’s language, negate everything around it. the ironist is unlimited and thus unconstrained by any conventions, customs or laws. For hegel, this was never the point of Fichte’s theory, and when schlegel applies it for his own purposes in this way, the theory is distorted almost beyond recognition. then anticipating kierkegaard’s analysis, hegel contrasts this form of irony with socratic irony.49 hegel then returns to the issue of solger’s irony, referring explicitly to his previous analysis.50 he writes: hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 855. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 487f.; Jub., vol. 20, p. 183f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., pp. 386f.) 49 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 855f. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 488f.; Jub., vol. 20, p. 184f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., pp. 387f.): “For that perversion, innocent socratic irony had to allow its name to be perverted. it deserved all the less to be drawn into this, since if we leave out the side entirely according to which it was only the charming sophistry of cheerful, well-meaning conversation of attic urbanity in which plato and aristophanes are these great masters, if we take them according to the sense in which they are attributed to socrates in relation to his scholarly manner of teaching, it can appear to have been attributed to socrates unjustly, be it as accused or as praised. if it is mainly assumed thereby that socrates began his conversations with the assurance of not knowing anything and caused the others, the sophists, the learned, and whoever else there was, rather to display their wisdom and scholarship that then was brought to confusion and shame by him through his dialectic, then this success is certainly well known, but it is at the same time usually of such a kind that it remains something negative and without a scholarly result, so that the peculiarity and the great effect of Socrates should be placed in the stimulation of re��ection and in the leading back of the human being to his innermost, to his moral and intellectual freedom. the truths that socrates did not really teach and his students gained from him, that which is considered true and right for the human being�� what he must draw and confirm from his own interior through re��ection�� refer entirely alone to that free self-assurance of the mind in general. accordingly, that preamble in socrates considered as untrue, that lie claiming to know nothing, to possess no knowledge, should, on the contrary, be considered by us as stated completely in earnest�� as completely correct and by no means ironic. We do not find it contradicted by his actual teaching and activity.” 50 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 856 (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 488; Jub., vol. 20, p. 185; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 388): “if, for solger, irony is, according to his own explanations, by no means the “scornful disregard for everything which essentially and seriously interests the human being, for the entire discord in his nature” (ii, p. 514 in the review of a.w. schlegel’s Dramatic Lectures), but he instead expressly rejects this meaning of it�� just as it is in other respects contrary to all his principles�� his definition nevertheless remains not without the admixture of something crooked, as i have already noted elsewhere (Elements of the Philosophy of Right, p. 150), and which emerges in connection with the speculative ideas explained above in an even more definitive light.�� 48

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

249

what is to be distinguished from the purely abstract attitude of the speculative category of negativity which is discussed is the re��ection of this upon the specific�� upon the field where duties, truth, principles begin. it is in this transition that irony appears. “when it looks towards reality,” it states in vol. i, p. 689, “mysticism is the mother of irony, when it looks towards the eternal world, the child of enthusiasm or inspiration.” we have seen before what is expressed right there (ibid., pp. 115ff.), that it is an immediate presence of the divine that reveals itself precisely in the disappearance of our reality. the mood that makes this directly manifest to human events is tragic irony.51

here hegel quotes from a letter to tieck, from november 1818, found in Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften.52 where the divine appears, it makes the actual world look impoverished and meaningless. hegel analyzes this in a manner similar to that in the Philosophy of Right: it had been said immediately before that “the highest for our behavior was present only in limited�� finite formation�� that for that reason it was as insignificant with us as the lowest and necessarily is destroyed with us and our insignificant meaning because�� in truth�� it is only there in God�� in whose destruction it then is transfigured as divine.�� If we first take this elevation and its sentiment which is called “tragic irony” here, then what is necessary has already been mentioned with regard to the relationship of both definitions that relate here to each other�� for which philosophical knowledge was the one definition�� the point of departure. this elevation in itself, whatever its point of departure may be, is nothing other than devotion, and if it is only a matter of popular depiction, then it does not require a large circumlocution in order to make one acknowledge it.53

here hegel associates this use of irony with traditional conceptions of religious devotion. the goal in the religious context is to elevate oneself to the level of the divine in order to overcome the finitude and triviality of this world. There is thus a clear religious dimension to romantic irony. hegel continues: in relation to ancient tragedy too, we may use the term “devotion” because that depiction of art was part and parcel of the cult, and as pure and enhanced devotion may be, it is nevertheless in general an elevation to god out of the occupation of the mind with temporal interests and cares and out of the impurity of the soul. But this is only the sunday of life; the workdays follow. out of the cabinet of the interior, the human being steps out of the specific present and work�� and the question is: how does the re��ection of the divine�� which is present in devotion, look in this world�54

51 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 856. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 488f.; Jub., vol. 20, pp. 185f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 388.) 52 Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 689. 53 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 856f. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 490; Jub., vol. 20, p. 186; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 388.) 54 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 857. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 490; Jub., vol. 20, p. 186; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., pp. 388f.)

250

Jon Stewart

The contrast between �the Sunday of life�� and everyday life is significant. The point is to recognize the divine (and thus the truth) in day-to-day life and not only on special occasions. hegel is quick to defend solger against the nihilistic view that denies this world any truth and validity, which is reserved solely for the divine. he continues: solger is far removed from the view that the workday and activity in this world are and could only be a godless life; his theology is also morality…and his philosophy is for this reason at the same time worldly wisdom. But in the passage cited�� the re��ection of the divine in the world, “the unfolding of the same into the world of dismemberment, of nothingness,” etc., through which the divine becomes familiar to us and transplanted completely into our sphere, appears only as comic irony, “the highest and holiest” as the object of comedy. without wanting to go further into the dissection of “the highest and holiest,” so much is clear that between the worldly presence of this kind and that elevation above the finite�� the middle is missing in which the �highest and holiest�� has worldly presence as morality, law, love, and every virtue, as solger himself views everywhere the state�� the entire moral life�� as the revelation of God. Here affirmation must receive an entirely different determination than merely that of a subjective affirmation persisting negatively against the concrete.55

the shortcoming with solger’s view is that although the divine is revealed in the world, it is not revealed in anything objective, that is, laws, institutions and so on. it is revealed only to the private conscience of the individual. it thus becomes something purely subjective with no objective validity. the individual does not see itself recognized or affirmed in the world. On the contrary�� the world is a place of alienation, which stands in utter contrast to the divine and the dictates of the individual’s conscience. hegel returns to the criticism of schlegel’s failure to offer any philosophical justification of his position on irony. Solger is lauded for recognizing this. Hegel continues with a critical analysis of solger’s conception of the divine. he writes: if we now see that with solger the kind of subjectivity which irony is leaves unharmed the highest speculative principles as well as the axioms of concrete truth, nevertheless it has to happen, due to the imperfection of form in the highest determinations, that a subjective side emerges in another way—a side which should already reveal itself from the overview of the whole of the moments cited above. The first determination is…that the godhead creates itself directly in a present reality, a moment which is for us only among the determinations and relationships of existence in which we are constrained. this relative fact should, however, raise itself in us into the experience and reality of God. With that�� the omnipresence of God is expressed in everything finite�� but with this obligation to experience�� we are first of all no farther than what Spinoza said�� i.e.�� that everything must be observed sub specie aeternitatis, or it is furthermore the same as the pious soul does to be devout in all natural things and changes, as in the occurrences of the circle of human things, to acknowledge and to experience it in what is higher, i.e., God’s finger and presence. What is indefinite in this attitude becomes a definite content 55 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 857f. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 490f.; Jub., vol. 20, pp. 186f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 389.)

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

251

only through cognition. For this to be true, the merely relative manner of cognition is not enough for solger, i.e., the so-called explaining from natural causes that proceeds along the finite and stops within the circle of the limited�� but also the manner of cognition that makes the eternal merely a presupposition and with it an abstract universal.56

Solger claims that the divine is revealed in the actual finite world. But to recognize the divine in the world requires that one distinguish the things or events which are invested with the divine or show signs of a divine hand from the other finite things and events. this always requires a cognitive act of interpretation to distinguish the two. hegel continues: Furthermore, solger very nicely distinguishes these modes of cognition from philosophical knowledge as that which, within itself, by recognizing the progress of self-limiting determinations�� at the same time sees itself in thought going beyond its finiteness and sees its original unity necessarily emerging out of it. since solger, however, separates from this objective being in truth, from the knowledge of opposites, what he calls the experiencing of divine reality, there remains for this only to make “subjective sensation and devotion” a demand, and to bring about the elevation to the consciousness of divine presence in the same way it is produced through the religious excitement of the soul: regardless of whether this consciousness is essential only in relation to itself or whether it is produced in the relation to philosophizing. It is only in such a superficial manner�� therefore, that solger can now seek to bring about this experience of the divine, since he has not recognized that for philosophical cognition it is immanent as an affirmative result as well as a foundation and in the activity of progress.57

hegel reproaches solger for not recognizing the necessity of speculative thought in this process. It is the very nature of the abstract and the infinite to make itself concrete and finite. Thus�� it is necessary that the divine be revealed in some way. Similarly�� it is necessary that the human mind overcome its natural limitations and strive for the eternal. solger sees this as something desirable but fails to recognize the speculative truth of its necessity. thus, he ends up with an arbitrary conception of human devotion to the divine, which amounts to a simple moral wish or “pious demand” that humans recognize the divine in the world and elevate themselves to god. in his review of solger, hegel anticipates a number of things that kierkegaard says not only about solger but also about romantic irony in general in The Concept of Irony. it is natural that kierkegaard, while working on his dissertation, would go to this text for inspiration since this is clearly one of hegel’s fullest treatments of the forms of romantic subjectivity in his authorship.

56 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 859. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 493; Jub., vol. 20, p. 189; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., pp. 390f.) 57 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., pp. 859f. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, pp. 493f.; Jub., vol. 20, pp. 189f.; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 391.)

252

Jon Stewart

C. Hegel�s lecture’s on aesthetics in the Lectures on Aesthetics, published posthumously from 1835–38 by heinrich gustav hotho (1802–73), hegel again takes up the question of solger’s irony. in this context he understands irony to be a historical phenomenon in the development of art. he thus takes a historical approach, tracing irony back to its source in Fichte’s philosophy. here he repeats what he said previously in his review of solger. the main analysis is, as one might expect, about the irony of Friedrich von schlegel. after his account of schlegel, however, as a kind of historical note, hegel mentions the irony of solger and tieck as members of the romantic movement of irony. there one reads: Of Solger this is not the place to speak at the length he deserves�� and I will confine myself to a few observations. Solger was not content�� like the others�� with superficial philosophical culture; on the contrary, his genuinely speculative inmost need impelled him to plumb the depths of the philosophical idea. in this process he came to the dialectical moment of the Idea�� to the point which I call �infinite absolute negativity���� to the activity of the Idea in so negating itself as infinite and universal as to become finitude and particularity�� and in nevertheless canceling anceling this negation in turn and so re-establishing the universal and infinite in the finite and particular. To this negativity Solger firmly clung�� and of course it is one element in the speculative idea, yet interpreted as this purely dialectical unrest and dissolution of both infinite and finite�� only one element, and not, as solger will have it, the whole idea.58

here hegel reiterates what he said in his previous analyses. as was claimed in the Philosophy of Right, solger’s irony consists in grasping the negative dimension of the dialectic. however, he stopped there and failed to go on to see the positive, speculative side. he thus grasped only one dimension of the idea and not the whole. Here one sees the famous formula�� �infinite absolute negativity���� which will come to play such an important role for kierkegaard. similarly, as hegel argued in his book review, solger’s irony is set in the context of a serious philosophical discussion in contrast to Schlegel’s �superficial philosophical culture.�� hegel then continues his analysis of solger with a more personal tone. here he extols solger’s moral character and once again is anxious to distinguish him from schlegel: unfortunately solger’s life was broken off too soon for him to have been able to reach the concrete development of the philosophical idea. so he got no further than this aspect of negativity which has an affinity with the ironic dissolution of the determinate and the inherently substantial alike, and in which he also saw the principle of artistic activity. Yet in his actual life�� having regard to the firmness�� seriousness�� and stoutness of his character�� he was neither himself an ironic artist of the kind depicted above, nor was his profound sense for genuine works of art, nurtured by his persistent study of art, in this respect of an ironical nature. So much in justification of Solger�� who in his life�� philosophy, philosophy�� and art deserves to be distinguished from the previously mentioned apostles of irony. 59 hegel, Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, i–iii, ed. by heinrich gustav hotho, vols. 10.1–3 [1835–38], in Hegel�s Werke, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 89f. (Jub. vol. 12, p. 106; Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 68f.) 59 hegel, Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, op. cit., vol. 10.1, p. 90. (Jub. vol. 12, p. 106; Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 68f.) 58

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

253

here hegel seems to make an attempt to play down the importance of irony for Solger. It is not difficult to see the continuities of this with Hegel’s previous analyses. while solger is seen as being in the same constellation of positions in the universe of romantic irony, he clearly occupies a galaxy far different from that of schlegel. III. Solger in the concept of irony the second part of kierkegaard’s famous master’s thesis, The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841) can fairly be described as a critical discussion of different forms of romantic irony. the references to solger begin in the second half of the book. in this context, he quotes or refers to the three texts by Hegel treated in the previous section—namely�� The Philosophy of Right, the review of solger’s posthumous writings, and the Lectures on Aesthetics, all of which he owned in the relevant volumes of the complete edition of hegel’s works. moreover, there are also direct quotations from tieck’s and von raumer’s edition of Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,60 and a reference to von heyse’s edition of solger’s lectures on aesthetics.61 solger’s importance in the work is signaled at the very beginning since kierkegaard dedicates one of the 15 obligatory theses to him. the fourteenth thesis reads as follows: “solger not moved by piety of the soul but seduced by envy of mind because he could not think the negative or subdue it by thought, adopted acosmism.”62 the idea that solger was a victim of sheer negativity, who never managed to reach a positive principle is familiar from hegel’s analyses. what is significant about this in the first instance is that apart from Hegel�� Solger is the only modern author mentioned in the 15 theses. this can be taken as a hint that he will assume a position of some significance for the work in general. A. Solger in the Introduction to Part Two in the introduction to part two of the work, kierkegaard explains that he will now move from his account of Socratic irony�� which was treated in the first part�� to explore the other forms of irony which have appeared since then�� specifically�� the forms of irony found in german romanticism. like hegel, kierkegaard refers to romantic irony as a radical form of subjectivity: “For a new mode of irony to be able to appear now, it must result from the assertion of subjectivity in a still higher form. it must be subjectivity raised to the second power, a subjectivity’s subjectivity, which corresponds to re��ection’s re��ection.��63 he then goes on to name the main theorists of this form of irony, which he will come to treat in this part of the work.

Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, op. cit. see SKS 1, 283n / CI, 243n. SKS 1, 340ff. / CI, 308ff. 61 K.W.�. Solger�s Vorlesungen über Aesthetik, op. cit. see SKS 1, 340n / CI, 308n. SKS 1, 352 / CI, 324. 62 SKS 1, 65 / CI, 6. 63 SKS 1, 282 / CI, 242. 60

Jon Stewart

254

like hegel, he traces this movement back to Fichte’s theory of the self-positing ego, which is then transformed into a theory of irony by schlegel. he explains: With this we are once again world-historically oriented—that is�� we are referred to the development that modern philosophy attained in kant and that is completed in Fichte, and more specifically again to the positions that after Fichte sought to affirm subjectivity in its second potency. actuality bears out that this hangs together properly, for here again we meet irony. But since this position is an intensified subjective consciousness�� it quite naturally is clearly and definitely conscious of irony and declares irony as its position. this was indeed the case with Friedrich schlegel, who sought to bring it to bear in relation to actuality; with tieck, who sought to bring it to bear in poetry; and with solger, who became aesthetically and philosophically conscious of it.64

here kierkegaard anticipates his later discussion by giving a brief description of the trademark forms of irony that one finds in the representative �omantic authors. what he means by saying that solger “became became aesthetically and philosophically conscious of it” is best understood in contrast to the descriptions given of schlegel and tieck. while schlegel attempted to apply the theory of irony to a way of existing or being, and tieck attempted to apply it to poetry and literature, solger was the more philosophical mind, who attempted to work out a philosophically defensible account of the concept. here kierkegaard clearly follows hegel. �ierkegaard begins by noting that it is not easy to find a straightforward definition of irony among the romantic writers, despite the fact that they have constructed an entire theory around it. in this context he notes that solger has drawn attention to this fact: In the period after Fichte�� when it [sc. irony] was especially current�� we find it mentioned again and again, suggested again and again, presupposed again and again. however, if we are looking for a clear exposition, we look in vain. solger laments that a.w. v. schlegel in his Vorlesungen über dramatische Kunst und Litteratur, where, if anywhere, we would expect to find adequate information�� cursorily mentions it but once. Hegel laments that with solger it was the same and no better with tieck.65

it is natural that solger would lament that the concept is used so loosely without any adequate definition given the fact that�� in contrast to Schlegel and Tieck�� he is interested in developing a philosophical theory of irony. in a footnote to this passage kierkegaard then goes on to quote the passage in question from Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. in his review solger writes: As reviewer I was stunned by finding irony (which I regard as the true focus of all dramatic art and also as indispensable to philosophical dialogue if it is to be properly dramatic) mentioned only once in the entire work (pt. ii, sec. 2, p. 72) and then for the sake of prohibiting irony from any and all intermingling in the genuinely tragic. and yet the reviewer can recall previous statements of this author that at least appear to

64 65

ibid. SKS 1, 282f. / CI, 243.

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

255

approximate this idea. But irony is the very opposite of that view of life in which, as the author supposes, seriousness and jest are rooted.66

kierkegaard was perhaps made attentive to this passage by hegel, who, as noted in the passage itself, makes a point of it in his review of solger. in fact, in a footnote, kierkegaard quotes just this passage, where hegel writes: solger has met up with the same: he does not mention irony at all in the speculative expositions of the highest idea, which he presents in the aforementioned treatise with the innermost mental seriousness, irony which joins itself most intimately with enthusiasm and in which depths art, religion, and philosophy are to be identical. there especially, one would have believed�� must be the place where one would find cleared up what the philosophical case might be with the noble secret�� the great unknown—irony.67

kierkegaard seems to share hegel’s wish for a detailed philosophical account of the concept in question. in the romantic tradition it seems to be taken for granted that everyone knows what is at issue, but no attempt is ever made to provide a conceptual analysis. �ierkegaard does not explore further the significance of this for Solger but instead uses this as an introduction to some general re��ections about Hegel’s criticism of romantic irony. in this context he explicitly praises hegel’s account in the review of solger. he continues: �et I am far from being able to lament justifiably over Hegel as Hegel laments over his predecessors. there are excellent observations especially in his review of solger’s posthumous writings....and even if the presentation and characterization of negative positions...are not always as exhaustive, as rich in content, as we could wish, hegel knows all the better how to deal with them, and thus the positivity he asserts contributes indirectly to his characterization.68

From this brief introduction, there can be little doubt that kierkegaard’s understanding of solger is largely shaped by hegel’s account. indeed, kierkegaard has not added anything to hegel’s account. kierkegaard singles out hegel’s review of solger as one of his most important sources for understanding not just solger’s irony but romantic irony in general. B. Solger in “Observations for Orientation” kierkegaard prepares his historical analysis of the different forms of romantic irony with some general re��ections about the nature of the concept in a section entitled “observations for orientation.” while solger’s name is not mentioned here explicitly, he is present indirectly in connection with one of hegel’s remarks about 66 Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 514. quoted in SKS 1, 283n / CI, 243n. 67 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., p. 858. (Vermischte Schriften, vol. 16, p. 492; Jub. vol. 20, p. 188; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 389f.) quoted in SKS 1, 283n / CI, 243n–4n. 68 SKS 1, 284 / CI, 244.

256

Jon Stewart

him. kierkegaard explains the universal character of irony and in so doing refers to a key phrase from hegel: irony sensu eminentiori qualitatively differs from the irony described here in the same way that speculative doubt differs qualitatively from common, empirical doubt. irony sensu eminentiori is directed not against this or that particular existing entity but against the entire given actuality at a certain time and under certain conditions. thus it has an intrinsic apriority, and it is not by successively destroying one portion of actuality after another that it arrives at its total view, but it is by virtue of this that it destroys in the particular instance. it is not this or that phenomenon but the totality of existence that it contemplates sub specie ironiae. to this extent we see the correctness of hegel’s view of irony as infinite absolute negativity.69

While �ierkegaard refers to the phrase �infinite absolute negativity�� as �Hegel’s view of irony” generally, this is in fact his characterization of solger’s irony, which he gave in the introduction to the Lectures on Aesthetics, discussed above. 70 kierkegaard turns this into a slogan for his account of romantic irony in general.71 What is significant here is not so much that this formulation stems from Hegel but rather that it was originally intended as a characterization of solger’s irony specifically. �ierkegaard was presumably just attracted by the phrase and was less concerned about the original context of its use. At the end of this chapter �ierkegaard describes a final aspect of irony which is remarkably similar to that of Solger�� again as described by Hegel. Specifically�� what is at issue is irony as a religious phenomenon�� which despairs over the finitude�� contingency and insignificance of the world and attempts to retreat to the divine. kierkegaard describes this as follows: Finally, insofar as irony, when it realizes that existence has no reality, pronounces the same thesis as the pious mentality, irony might seem to be a kind of religious devotion. if i may put it this way, in religious devotion the lower actuality, that is, the relationships with the world, loses its validity, but this occurs only insofar as the relationships with God simultaneously affirm their absolute reality. The devout mind also declares that all is vanity, but this is only insofar as through this negation all disturbing factors are set aside and the eternally existing order comes into view.72

this follows closely hegel’s account of solger’s irony as a form of devotion, as discussed above in connection with hegel’s review.73 while kierkegaard mentions neither hegel nor solger in this context, it seems clear that he is drawing on hegel’s SKS 1, 292 / CI, 254. hegel, Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, i–iii, op. cit., in Hegel�s Werke, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 89f. (Jub. vol. 12, p. 106; Hegel�s Aesthetics. Lectures on �ine Art, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 68f.) 71 SKS 1, 87 / CI, 26. SKS 1, 292 / CI, 254. SKS 1, 297 / CI, 259. SKS 1, 299 / CI, 261. SKS 1, 307 / CI, 271. SKS 1, 309 / CI, 273. SKS 1, 343 / CI, 312. SKS 1, 352 / CI, 323. 72 SKS 1, 296 / CI, 257f. 73 hegel, “Über Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel,” Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, op. cit., pp. 856f. (Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 490; Jub., vol. 20, p. 186; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., p. 388.) 69 70

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

257

analysis in order to identify and illustrate a specific dimension of the phenomenon of irony in its modern form. C. Solger in “The World-Historical Validity of Irony” kierkegaard begins the following chapter, “the world-historical validity of irony, the irony of socrates,”74 with the aforementioned slogan that hegel used to characterize solger’s irony: If we turn back to the foregoing general description of irony as infinite absolute negativity�� it is adequately suggested therein that irony is no longer directed against this or that particular phenomenon, against a particular existing thing, but that the whole of existence has become alien to the ironic subject and the ironic subject in turn alien to existence, that as actuality has lost its validity for the ironic subject, he himself has to a certain degree become unactual.75

�ierkegaard now attempts to develop this slogan into a general definition of irony. He continues�� �It is negativity because it only negates; it is infinite�� because it does not negate this or that phenomenon; it is absolute, because that by virtue of which it negates is a higher something that still is not.”76 the key here is that this form of irony is intended to negate all actuality in an indiscriminate fashion. nothing is spared its critical appraisal. this is intended to capture solger’s position, which, as noted, remains in this nihilistic view. solger appears again toward the end of the chapter where kierkegaard mentions him together with schlegel: For irony, nothing is an established order; it plays helter-skelter ad libitum with everything; but when it wants to declare this, it says something positive, and to that extent its sovereignty is thereby at an end. therefore, when schlegel or solger says: actuality is only appearance, only semblance, only vanity, a nothing, he obviously is saying this in earnest�� and yet Hegel assumes it to be irony. The difficulty here is that�� strictly speaking�� irony actually is never able to advance a thesis�� because irony is a qualification of the being-for-itself subject, who in incessant agility allows nothing to remain established and on account of this agility cannot focus on the total point of view that it allows nothing to remain established. Schlegel’s and Solger’s consciousness that finitude is a nothing is obviously just as earnestly intended as socrates’ ignorance.77

this passage constitutes a part of kierkegaard’s polemical agenda since he wants to insist, ostensibly against hegel, that irony is a purely negative phenomenon, which contains no positive element. what is somewhat unusual here is the fact that solger’s position is con��ated with that of Schlegel. The two are taken to be advocating a universal ironic negation of the world. usually, both kierkegaard and hegel are SKS 1, 297–308 / CI, 259–71. in this section kierkegaard refers primarily to hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 397–406; Jub., vol. 18, pp. 58–70. 75 SKS 1, 297 / CI, 259. 76 SKS 1, 299 / CI, 261. 77 SKS 1, 306 / CI, 269. 74

258

Jon Stewart

anxious to give a nuanced account which distinguishes the two, but here they are taken together to represent a general conception of romantic irony. D. Solger in “Irony after �ichte” the most extensive treatment of solger in The Concept of Irony and, indeed, in kierkegaard’s entire authorship appears in the next chapter of the book, “irony after Fichte.”78 there kierkegaard attempts to trace a brief history of romantic irony, largely following hegel’s model: he begins with Fichte as the forerunner of the movement, before dedicating individual sections to schlegel, tieck and solger. there can be no doubt that this section on solger must be the central focus of any general account of kierkegaard’s understanding of solger. kierkegaard begins the chapter, exactly as hegel began his account, namely with a presentation of Fichte’s self-positing ego as the theoretical background for romantic irony, which was seized upon and transformed by schlegel. in this part of the analysis schlegel and tieck are often mentioned together as representing a single phenomenon, but solger is generally omitted. Here prior to the actual section specifically dedicated to Solger�� there are only a couple brief references to him. In the first of these �ierkegaard makes reference to Hegel’s review of Solger without mentioning it by name.79 however, this passage concerns hegel’s criticism of schlegel and not solger. in the second reference to solger, which is more substantial, kierkegaard discusses hegel’s criticism of the romantics for placing themselves above accepted morality and law. he writes: here we have come to the point that has been the particular object of hegel’s attack. everything established in the given actuality has nothing but poetic validity for the ironist, for he, after all, is living poetically. But when the given actuality loses its validity for the ironist in this way, it is not because it is an antiquated actuality that must be replaced by a truer actuality, but because the ironist is the eternal i for which no actuality is adequate. here we also perceive the implications of the ironist’s placing himself outside and above morality and ethics, something that even solger declaims against in pointing out that this is not what he means by irony.80

here kierkegaard refers to a passage in Solger�s Nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, which he later quotes in a footnote. there solger writes, “is this irony an insolent disregard for whatever essentially and seriously interests man, a total disregard for the split in his nature� By no means. that would be a vulgar mockery, which is not superior to earnestness and jest, but rather combats them on their own SKS 1, 308–52 / CI, 272–323. SKS 1, 314 / CI, 278: “it was against this judging and denouncing conduct on the part of Friedrich schlegel that hegel declaims in particular (Werke, Xvi, p. 465). in this connection, hegel’s great service to the understanding of the historical past cannot be sufficiently acknowledged. He does not reject the past but comprehends it; he does not repudiate other scholarly positions but surpasses them.�� Translation slightly modified. The reference is to hegel, Vermischte Schriften, op. cit., vol. 16, p. 465. (Jub., vol. 20, p. 161; Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.�. Hegel, op. cit., pp. 372f.) 80 SKS 1, 318f. / CI, 283. 78 79

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

259

level with their own weapons.”81 this indicates that kierkegaard follows hegel in giving a milder judgment of solger than of schlegel and tieck. here kierkegaard explicitly emphasizes that solger’s irony is not a denial of morality. the next reference to solger here appears in connection with a criticism of tieck. what is at issue is the lack of character of the ironist, who does not allow himself to be fixed or defined in any way: �As the ironist poetically composes himself and his environment with the greatest possible poetic license, as he lives in this totally hypothetical and subjunctive way his life loses all continuity. he succumbs completely to mood. his life is nothing but moods.”82 kierkegaard then notes that this criticism was central to hegel’s critique of the romantics: “it is especially for this that hegel criticizes tieck, and it is also present in his correspondence with solger. at times he has a clear grasp of everything, at times he is seeking; at times he is a dogmatician, at times a doubter, at times Jacob Böhme, at times the greeks, etc.—nothing but moods.��83 presumably in agreement, kierkegaard merely notes this without really adding anything to hegel’s criticism. these references to solger are rather minor in comparison to kierkegaard’s main treatment in the section dedicated specifically to him.84 at the beginning of this section, kierkegaard gives a direct statement of his sources: heyse’s edition of solger’s lectures and tieck’s and von raumer’s edition of Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel.85 Immediately thereafter he mentions and even quotes brie��y from hegel’s treatments of solger in his book review of the Nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel and the introduction to the Lectures on Aesthetics. it is noteworthy that there is no reference either to solger’s Erwin or his Philosophical Conversations. thus, his analysis is based solely on the posthumously published works. with respect to hegel, he notably fails to mention hegel’s brief treatment in the Philosophy of Right. it is clear, however, that he has made use of this treatment since earlier in the text he quotes directly from the section in the Philosophy of Right, where it appears.86 a further source mentioned brie��y is Hotho’s Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, where solger is brie��y mentioned in a general overview of German literature and criticism.87

81 Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 515. quoted in SKS 1, 341n / CI, 309n. 82 SKS 1, 319 / CI, 284. 83 SKS 1, 320 / CI, 285. see also SKS 1, 318f. / CI, 283: “here we have come to the point that has been the particular object of hegel’s attack. everything established in the given actuality has nothing but poetic validity for the ironist, for he, after all, is living poetically. But when the given actuality loses its validity for the ironist in this way, it is not because it is an antiquated actuality that must be replaced by a truer actuality, but because the ironist is the eternal i for which no actuality is adequate.” 84 SKS 1, 340–52 / CI, 308–23. 85 SKS 1, 340 / CI, 308. 86 SKS 1, 270f. / CI, 228. 87 heinrich gustav hotho, Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: cotta 1835, p. 399 (ASKB 580). quoted in SKS 1, 341 / CI, 308f.

Jon Stewart

260

Following his introductory comments here, kierkegaard seems to divide his analysis of solger into three main sections, which correspond to the different spheres where irony plays a role: metaphysics,88 dogmatics,89 and aesthetics.90 (1) kierkegaard begins his account by analyzing solger’s conception of irony as a metaphysical principle. this is presumably intended to distinguish solger from, for example, schlegel, for whom irony was not something primarily abstract or theoretical but rather practical. For this reason, solger’s conception is dubbed “contemplative irony,”91 in contrast to something like practical irony or applied irony. Further, it is claimed that “solger’s efforts are totally within the sphere of scholarship,”92 with the implication being that they never advance out into life and action. in this respect solger’s conception of irony remains closer than schlegel to Fichte’s theory of the self-positing ego, which, according to hegel, was the origin of the notion of romantic irony. at the outset kierkegaard writes, “solger has gone completely astray in the negative.”93 however, he has failed to break out of this and to see the positive dimension of irony. kierkegaard writes: since the negative always becomes visible only through the positive, but the negative here is the absolute monarch and is present here in all its unproductiveness, everything becomes confused, and the moment one hopes for the possibility of having a determination by which to orient oneself, everything vanishes again, because the positive that appeared in the distance is found upon closer inspection to be a new negation. presumably solger may have had his significance in the development�� but no doubt he can best be regarded as a sacrifice Hegel’s system demanded. This also explains Hegel’s partiality for him; he is the metaphysical knight of the negative.94

here kierkegaard seems to agree wholly with hegel’s assessment in the Lectures on Aesthetics, treated above. while negation is an important and necessary step in hegel’s dialectical methodology and thus in his metaphysics, ultimately, it gives rise to a positive moment. out of the negation and the contradiction arises the positive speculative truth. solger thus grasps the negation but he fails to see the next step, called by hegel, “the negation of the negation” or the positive. in the conclusion to the section kierkegaard writes, “throughout this whole investigation, solger seems to have a dim notion of the negation of the negation, which in itself contains the true affirmation. But since the whole train of thought is not developed�� the one negation erroneously slips into the other�� and the true affirmation does not result.��95 similarly, he claims, solger “does have the negation of the negation, but still there is a veil

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

SKS 1, 341–8 / CI, 308–14. SKS 1, 345–8 / CI, 314–18. SKS 1, 348–52 / CI, 318–22. SKS 1, 341 / CI, 309. ibid. SKS 1, 341 / CI, 309. ibid. SKS 1, 348 / CI, 317.

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

261

in front of his eyes so that he does not see the affirmation.��96 it seems obvious that kierkegaard has simply co-opted hegel’s criticism on this point.97 after complaining, like hegel, about a certain lack of clarity in solger’s use of irony, kierkegaard goes on to explain its metaphysical implications. here he refers to a long debate about the proper beginning of philosophy without presuppositions: �Solger wants to bring about the absolute identity of the finite and the infinite�� wants to destroy the partition that in so many ways wants to separate them. thus he is working together toward the absolute presuppositionless beginning; consequently his striving is speculative.”98 this unity is begun with a recognition of the emptiness of the actual and the subsequent negation or destruction of it: solger’s “contemplative irony now sees the finite as the Nichtige, as that which must be annulled.”99 next, one must appeal to the abstract sphere of thought and ideas in order to restore truth and meaning to the world. But this sphere must first be negated so that it loses its abstraction and becomes real: �the infinite must also be negated; it must not continue in an otherworldly an sich. in this way, the true actuality is produced.”100 here solger shares hegel’s criticism of empty, abstract ideals, which never become real. For both solger and hegel, if they are to have any meaning at all, then they must at some point enter into actuality, but this means giving up their abstract, ideal status. this is what must be negated for them to become real. kierkegaard’s criticism is then that this negated ideal does not, for solger, manage to save the world of actuality of emptiness and meaninglessness. he writes: solger is at the beginning, but this beginning is utterly abstract, and now the point is that the dualism that is in existence is to manifest itself in its truth. But this does not happen. on the contrary, it becomes clear that solger is unable to achieve the concession of any validity to the finite. He cannot achieve any concreteness for the infinite. He sees the finite as the Nichtige, as the vanishing, as the nichtige All.101

the world of actuality still remains without meaning and truth since by entering into reality the ideals lose their sublime form and become finite and compromised. solger thus seems to end in a kind of nihilism where there is no truth in the moral sphere: �Therefore moral qualifications have no validity; all finitude together with its moral and immoral striving vanishes in the metaphysical contemplation that sees SKS 1, 352 / CI, 323. SKS 1, 348 / CI, 317: “hegel perceived this very clearly and therefore articulates it explicitly on page 470.” 98 SKS 1, 343 / CI, 311. 99 ibid. 100 SKS 1, 343 / CI, 311. cf. SKS 1, 343f. / CI, 312: “here, then, we have the idea at the point of the absolute beginning; therefore we have it as the infinite absolute negativity. �ow�� if this is to become something�� the negative must assert itself again in a finitizing of the idea—that is�� in making it concrete. The negative is the restlessness of thought�� but this restlessness must manifest itself, must become visible; its desire must manifest itself as the desire that actuates the work, its pain as the pain it engenders. if this does not happen, then we have only the unreal actuality of contemplation, devotion and pantheism.” 101 SKS 1, 344 / CI, 312. 96 97

262

Jon Stewart

it as nothing.”102 kierkegaard argues in a hegelian manner that solger overlooks the fact that although �the finite is indeed the Nichtige…there is nevertheless something in it with substance.”103 (2) kierkegaard then turns from this analysis of metaphysics to dogmatics. here he is concerned primarily with the dogmas of atonement, the creation and the incarnation. in this part of the analysis, he refers explicitly to hegel’s treatment of this dimension of solger’s thought.104 kierkegaard complains that solger uses a language that is rather unclear and indeed intentionally paradoxical, and this then leads to confusions in his understanding of the different dogmas. he writes, quoting solger: When it says: �inasmuch as God exists or reveals himself in our finitude���� we first of all have to know something about how God exists in finitude—we lack here the concept of creation. When it expressly says next that by existing this way in finitude he sacrifices himself, it might seem that here creation is expressed. But if this is the meaning, it is not strictly expressed�� for then it would have to read: In sacrificing himself�� God creates. This could seem to be confirmed by the corresponding predicate�� that God destroys himself. In other words, if we say that god destroys himself, we do, of course, have a negation, but, please note�� a negation by means of which the infinite is made finite and concrete.105

the idea that solger seems to have in mind here is concerned more with the doctrine of Incarnation than that of creation. God must first negate himself in the sense that the abstract conception of the divine in the beyond must be negated in order for god to appear in incarnate form. in other words, in order to enter the world of actuality, god must give up his abstract, ideal side and become something particular and concrete. But then a second negation takes place with the Crucifixion. God�� in incarnate form�� allows himself to be sacrificed. �ierkegaard continues his account: On the other hand�� however�� the statement that God sacrifices himself�� just as the one that God destroys himself�� leads thought more to the Atonement. This is confirmed by the very next words: �We are nothing�� for that�� of course�� posits the finite�� posits it in its finitude�� its nothingness, and it is this nothingness that must be negated, whereby the negation then infinitizes the finite.�� But here we lack the middle term to inform us in what sense man is nothing—middle terms of such scope that the meaning of sin might be construed therein. as a result, we have a speculative unclarity that does justice neither to creation nor to the Atonement�� neither to finitude nor to sinfulness.106

What �ierkegaard finds insufficiently illuminated here is the doctrine of the sacrifice of christ as atonement for human sins. he complains that solger talks too much about negation but does not explain adequately how this can be understood in relation to this doctrine. The finitude of the world can be interpreted as a result of human sin�� and the doctrine of atonement can be understood as the negation of human sin and SKS 1, 344 / CI, 312f. SKS 1, 345 / CI, 313. 104 SKS 1, 345 / CI, 314: “hegel has carefully considered this part, and therefore i can draw upon him.” SKS 1, 346 / CI, 315: “hegel’s development of this is found on pages 469 top ff.” 105 SKS 1, 346 / CI, 315. 106 SKS 1, 346f. / CI, 315f. 102 103

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

263

thus as a restoration of truth and meaning, but none of this is made clear in solger. kierkegaard continues his criticism of solger’s confusion of dogmas: when it goes on to say: “and is this not the greatest love, that he himself has entered into nothing so that we might be,” then here again creation and the atonement are confused and confounded with each other. in other words, god has not entered into nothing in order that we might be, because we are indeed nothing; but god has entered into nothing in order that we might cease to be nothing.107

while god has created the world in order for humans to exist (creation), he reveals himself and becomes incarnate in order to redeem us from our sins (atonement) and thus to save us from death or nothingness. this is not clearly distinguished in solger. kierkegaard continues to complain about solger’s confused linguistic usage, which leads to serious problems and questions in dogmatics.108 up until now the discussion has been focused on the concept of negation, but finally�� �ierkegaard connects Solger’s conception of irony with these dogmatic issues. he writes: if i were to give the reader an idea of solger’s view, i would perhaps come closest to it by attaching it to his favorite concept, irony, and would say that solger actually turns the existence of god into irony: god continually translates himself into nothing, takes himself back again�� translates himself again�� etc.—a divine diversion that sets up the most horrible contrasts�� as does all irony. In the enormous swinging of this double movement…finitude also participates, and in it at the instant of separation man is the projected shadow of the divine, and sketches his moral virtues and vices into this shadow-existence, which is seen as a nothing only by someone with eyes wide open for irony.109

given that negation is the key feature of irony for solger, it is a short step for him to understand the workings of the god of christianity as ironic since, according to solger’s language, god negates his abstract self to enter the world, and then the incarnate god negates himself in order to return. For kierkegaard, there is a real danger that these most serious of dogmas can be con��ated with the �omantic ironist’s ��ippant negation of the world. �eedless to say�� turning �the existence of god into irony” is a highly unfortunate consequence of solger’s theory. (3) kierkegaard then turns to the issue of irony in solger’s aesthetics. his argument here is that solger’s theory ultimately fails to overcome the nihilistic position of the other romantics as he clearly wants to do. kierkegaard explains: SKS 1, 347. / CI, 316. SKS 1, 347f. / CI�� 317: �Furthermore�� it seems difficult to understand what is meant by the statement that God sacrifices himself if it is to be explained by the following words: ‘He annihilates his nothingness.’ But the confusion becomes even greater when we learn that the Nichtige in us is the divine. we are supposed to be the Nichtige, and how then can the Nichtige in us (thereby suggesting that there is something else in us that is not the Nichtige) be the divine� Finally, it is taught that we ourselves can recognize this Nichtige in us. if this means that we ourselves can negate this Nichtige by means of this knowledge, then we obviously here have a pelagian conception of the atonement.” 109 SKS 1, 348 / CI, 317f. 107 108

Jon Stewart

264

here he came to the aid of the romanticists and became the philosophic spokesman for romanticism and romantic irony. Here again we meet the very same basic view that finitude is a nothing and must perish as the false actuality so that the true actuality may emerge….one does not see which actuality is supposed to be destroyed, whether it is the false actuality… whether it is the selfishness of the separate elements that must be negated in order for the true actuality to emerge, the actuality of spirit not as something otherworldly but as something present, or whether that divine diversion cannot allow any actuality to remain.110

according to solger, actuality is supposed to be negated and destroyed by the sublime work of art�� which is a re��ection of the divine. This proves problematic. kierkegaard continues: Solger seems to want to find in art and poetry the highest actuality that emerges through the negation of finite actuality. But here a new difficulty appears. Since the poetry�� the romantic, which solger in his letters to tieck so frequently acknowledges as supreme, is quite incapable of pacifying the negation in that higher actuality, inasmuch as in its essential striving it itself seeks to create an awareness that the given actuality is the imperfect one but the higher actuality can be perceived only in the infinite approximation of intimation, then it seems to become necessary to relate ironically once again to every poetic work, because every single work is only an approximation. if so, it is clear that the higher actuality that is supposed to emerge in poetry nevertheless is not in the poetry but is continually becoming.111

while solger hopes that the work of art will be the solution to the problem of nihilism, it falls short of the task. after the world of actuality has been negated, one looks to the work of art as the truth. But�� according to Solger�� this is not a final truth but only an approximation. thus, with art one approaches an ideal but never attains it. the truth is posited in another world, while we end up in nihilism in this one. kierkegaard agrees with hegel’s objections to solger’s understanding of dramatic poetry. he complains that it does not give us a way out of the negation and nihilism. he writes: here it is apparent to what extent the negation that destroys actuality is brought to rest in a higher actuality. we are lifted up by the downfall of the best, but this uplifting is of a very negative kind. it is irony’s uplifting, resembling here the envy of the gods, yet it is envious not only of what is great and outstanding, but is just as envious of what is lowly and insignificant�� on the whole�� envious of finitude. When the great perishes in the world�� this is tragic, but poetry reconciles us to this tragedy by showing us that it is the true that is victorious. herein lies the uplifting and the upbuilding. thus we are not uplifted by the destruction of the great but are reconciled to its destruction by the victory of what is true, and we are uplifted by its victory. But if in the tragedy i see only the destruction of the hero and am uplifted by that, if in the tragedy i become aware only of the nothingness of human affairs, if the tragedy pleases me in the same way that comedy does by showing me the nothingness of what is great, just as comedy shows me the nothingness of what is lowly—then the higher actuality has not emerged.112 110 111 112

SKS 1, 348f. / CI, 318f. SKS 1, 349 / CI, 319. SKS 1, 351f. / CI, 322.

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

265

kierkegaard’s objection here seems to be that of hegel’s. nothing positive is really established by witnessing the downfall of simple rogues. solger is unable to provide the principle that will restore truth to the world in the face of the negation of actuality. he has not yet discovered the hegelian principle of the truth operating behind the scenes in the development of spirit through history by means of violent�� tragic con��icts. IV. A Journal Entry apart from these references in The Concept of Irony, solger only appears a single time in the rest of kierkegaard’s vast corpus. in an entry from the journal NB10, from 1849, kierkegaard quotes a passage in solger’s posthumous works as follows: This is a remarkable characterization of the Furies: μνημον�ς μν Ερ�ννυ�ς.. see solger: Über den ursprung der lehre von dæmonen und schutzgeistern in der religion der alten griechen. Nachg[elassene] W[erke], vol. ii, no. Xi, p. 655. it makes me think of the common phrase: to remind someone of something. what one would like to say emphatically is: “don’t forget, don’t forget justice!” in the passage just quoted solger calls attention to the common german expression “ahnden,” in the sense of �to punish.�� Fate�� the Greeks say�� pursues: μο�ρα ἑπ�τα� or, or�� also, also�� it sees all. �“Dieses begleitende Bewußtsein ist auch die zeit, in einem höheren göttlichen Sinne gedacht, und daher ist auch χρονος eine Schicksalsgottheit, welche alles Einzelne als eine und dieselbe anschaut.” …Dieses unbekannte dunkle, alles anschauende Wesen erkennt also vorzüglich auch die Vergehungen der Menschen, und straft sie, wenngleich noch so spät; denn dasselbe begleitet in ununterbrochener Einheit wie die Gegenwart so die fernste Zukunft.” On the whole�� it is indeed a qualification of time to make manifest. How profound the Greeks were; I am thinking specifically of Plutarch’s treatise on the slowness of divine justice, a gripping ethical treatise.113

kierkegaard here quotes from a treatise printed in Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, which he references here.114 this is not a text that kierkegaard had referred to before in The Concept of Irony. it is not at all clear why these remarks from solger happened to catch kierkegaard’s eye at just this point in time. one possible interpretation is that they are to be seen in the context of kierkegaard’s sense of being unjustly treated in the Corsair con��ict. there are several entries in this journal, where kierkegaard analyzes and reanalyzes the events of that con��ict and his disposition to them. His interest in the concept of the punishment of the Furies can thus be interpreted as a wish that this divine justice would one day be visited on Meïr Goldschmidt (1819–87)—as editor of The Corsair, one of the main protagonists in the con��ict—for whom �ierkegaard nourished an uncompromising hatred. in kierkegaard’s mind, goldschmidt never really received any proper punishment for his actions (although he voluntarily left The Corsair), and so the idea behind this entry may well be that the Furies will remember, and in time 113 114

SKS 21, 349, nB10:180 / JP 4, 4796. Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 650–75; p. 655.

266

Jon Stewart

they will take action in order to punish the wrong done to kierkegaard in that context. this would explain kierkegaard’s interest in this entry in the temporal dimension of the work done by the Furies. admittedly, this interpretation is simply a suggestion, badly in need of further support before it can be accepted. in any case, this entry does evidence kierkegaard’s interest in a different text from Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel than the ones he makes use of in The Concept of Irony. From this overview, the following can be concluded about kierkegaard’s relation to solger. his interest in solger is primarily as one of the theorists of irony. while his interest in irony continues throughout the authorship, his interest in solger seems to be confined almost exclusively to the early period of his authorship�� with The Concept of Irony as the obvious main text. while kierkegaard does quote from tieck’s and von raumer’s edition of Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel and von heyse’s edition of solger’s lectures on aesthetics, there can be no doubt that much, if not most, of his information about solger comes from hegel. moreover, kierkegaard seems to be wholly in agreement with hegel’s assessment of solger’s conception of irony. in the section dedicated to solger in The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard reaches the same conclusion as hegel: solger has focused too exclusively on the negative and has thus failed to grasp its dialectical opposite, the positive. the idea that solger is best understood as a sacrifice to Hegel’s system is mentioned at the beginning of kierkegaard’s analysis and brought up again at the conclusion.115 what he seems to mean by this is that solger in fact shares something important with hegel. Both are interested primarily in a theoretical or contemplative approach and not in action or praxis. Further, both have grasped the importance of negativity in this sphere. however, this is where their paths part, and hegel must abandon or sacrifice his friend in order to go on to the next stage, that is, the positive stage of speculation. thus, instead being the object of hegel’s zealous criticism, like schlegel or even Tieck�� Solger was the object of a necessary sacrifice that Hegel made reluctantly and grudgingly in order to remain true to his speculative principles. this explains the difference in tone between his mild and sympathetic treatment of solger and his harsh condemnation of the other romantics.

115

SKS 1, 341 / CI, 309. SKS 1, 352 / CI, 323.

Bibliography I. Solger�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library K.W.�. Solger�s Vorlesungen über Aesthetik, ed. by k.w.l. heyse, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1829 (ASKB 1387). Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, vols. 1–2, ed. by ludwig tieck und Friedrich von raumer, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1826 (ASKB 1832–1833). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Solger erdmann, Johann eduard, Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatik und Religionsphilosophie, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837, pp. 80–88 (ASKB 479). [goethe, Johann wolfgang von], “Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. Zwey Bände,” in Goethe�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, vols. 1–40, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1827–30; Goethe�s nachgelassene Werke, vols. 41–55, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1832–33, vol. 45, pp. 289–91 (ASKB 1641–1668). [hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich], Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, ed. by eduard gans, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1833 (vol. 8, in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45), pp. 201–202n. (ASKB 551). —— �Ueber Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. herausgegeben von ludwig tieck und Friedrich v. raumer. erster Band 780 s. mit vorrede Xvi s. zweiter Band 784 s. leipzig, 1826” [1828], in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s vermischte Schriften, vols. 1–2, ed. by Friedrich Förster and ludwig Boumann, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1834–35 (vols. 16–17 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, pp. 436–506 (ASKB 555–556). —— Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by von heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1835–38 (vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45) vol. 1, pp. 89–90 (ASKB 1384–1386). heiberg, Johan ludvig, “om solger,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1827,, February 16, no. 14, [pp. 67–8] (see ASKB 1606–1607; u 55).

268

Jon Stewart

s...[heiberg, Johan ludvig], “solger og Baggesen,” Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, 1827, January 22, no. 7, [pp. 38–9] (see ASKB 1606–1607; u 55). hotho, heinrich gustav, Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: cotta 1835, p. 399 (ASKB 580). michelet, carl ludwig, “die solger’sche philosophie,” in his Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philosophie in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel, vols. 1–2, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837–38, vol. 2, pp. 560–98 (ASKB 678–679). mynster, Jakob peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1852–53 [vols. 4–6, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1855–57], vol. 2, p. 360 (ASKB 358–363). steffens, henrich, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 6, p. 236 (ASKB 1834–1843). weiße, christian hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit. In drei Büchern, vols. 1–2, leipzig: c.h.F. hartmann 1830, vol. 1, pp. 38ff.; p. 125; p. 149; p. 174 (ASKB 1379–1380). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Solger allemann, Beda, “solger und kierkegaard,” in his Ironie und Dichtung, pfullingen: günther neske 1956, pp. 83–98. ernst Behler, Ironie und literarische Moderne, paderborn, et al.: Ferdinand schöningh 1997, pp. 204–12, pp. 229–31. —— ��ierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony with constant reference to romanticism,” in Kierkegaard Revisited, ed. by niels Jørgen cappelørn and Jon stewart, Berlin and new York: walter de gruyter verlag 1997 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 1), pp. 13–33; see especially pp. 21–5. grunnet, sanne elisa, “k.w.F. solgers ironibegreb,” in her Ironi og Subjectivitet. En Studie over Søren Kierkegaards Disputats Om Begrebet Ironi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1987, pp. 31–6. himmelstrup, Jens, Søren Kierkegaards Opfattelse af Sokrates. En studie i dansk filosofis historie, copenhagen: arnold Busck 1924, see pp. 18–41. katz, marc steven, “kierkegaard, solger and hegel,” in his Kierkegaard�s Critique of the German Romantics, ph.d. thesis, northwestern university, evanston, illinois 1991, pp. 38–72. kleinert, markus, Sich verzehrender Skeptizismus. Läuterungen bei Hegel und Kierkegaard. Berlin and new York: walter de gruyter verlag 2005 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 11), pp. 55–6; p. 125; p. 149. mesnard, pierre, Le Vrai Visage de Kierkegaard�� Paris: Beauchesne et ses fils 1948�� p. 152; pp. 166–70; p. 174; p. 482. niedermeyer, gerhard, “kierkegaard als Überwinder der romantik,” in his sören kierkegaard und die romantik, leipzig: verlag von quelle & meyer 1909 (Abhandlungen zur Philosphie und ihrer Geschichte, vol. 11), pp. 45–61. scopetea, sophia, Kierkegaard og græciteten. En kamp med ironi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1995, see p. 62 n23; p. 101 n1; p. 137 n17; p. 142; pp. 163–5; p. 233 n. 62.

Solger: An Apostle of Irony Sacrificed to Hegel’s System

269

søltoft, pia, “ethics and irony,” in The Concept of Irony, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2001 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 2), pp. 265–87; see the section “solger: contemplating the ethical,” pp. 284–5. thomsen, lene, “k.w.F. solger,” in her Til sin tid. En undersøgelse af S. Kierkegaards brug af begreberne ironi og humor på baggrund af den romantiske ironi og med henblik på det kristologiske ærinde i Kierkegaards pseudonyme forfatterskab, Århus: Århus universitet 1992, pp. 12–14. thulstrup, niels, “kierkegaard’s use of hegel’s critique of Solger�s nachgelassense Schriften und Briefwechsel,” in his Kierkegaard�s Relation to Hegel, trans. by george l. stengren. princeton: princeton university press 1980, pp. 229–31; see also pp. 120; p. 213; pp. 216–17; p. 227; p. 256. tjønneland, eivind, Ironie als Symptom. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Søren Kierkegaards Über den Begriff der Ironie, Frankfurt am main et al.: peter lang 2004 (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Germanistik und Skandinavistik, vol. 54), see pp. 244–54.

This page intentionally left blank

tieck: kierkegaard’s “guadalquivir” of open critique and hidden appreciation marcia c. robinson

the german romantic poet Johann ludwig tieck (1773–1853) was an important part of kierkegaard’s early study of romanticism. he was also an enduring presence in kierkegaard’s authorship. throughout his career as a writer, kierkegaard immersed himself in the works and aesthetics of tieck. in the process, he developed a quiet, but deep admiration of tieck, even as he criticized him and other romantics. s.. early on kierkegaard accused tieck of being overly involved in fantasy and ironic play. he thought that tieck’s novellas and plays could be so absorbed in poetic shenanigans, aimed at satirizing staid bourgeois life, that they displayed not only an indifference toward life in time but also a failure to offer an alternative form of poetic and passionate living. given kierkegaard’s early commitment to a life-view in art and to a christian form of poetic living, this was a major ��aw in Tieck’s art. But it was not �ierkegaard’s only or definitive view of Tieck.1 even as he criticized tieck’s poetic license, kierkegaard also admired his poetic genius. From the start, kierkegaard appreciated tieck’s irony, humor, sense of the uncanny, and gift for storytelling. he thought that tieck’s ironic play was engaging, light, and at times quite insightful about human nature. over time he absorbed tieck’s cervantic manner of combining earnestness with lightness, and soaked up tieck’s SKS 1, 316, 330–33, 337–8, 352–7 / CI, 280–81, 297–9, 305, 324–9. SKS 1, 5–57 / EPW, 53–102. For recent discussions in the secondary literature on kierkegaard’s conceptions of poetic living, especially christian forms of it, see marcia c. robinson, “kierkegaard’s conception of poetic living: aesthetic unity and religious-ethical life-view in the Journals and dissertation,” a paper presented at the Fifth international kierkegaard conference, howard V. Hong and �dna H. Hong �ierkegaard �ibrary�� St. Olaf College�� June 11–15�� 2005�� �orthfield�� mn (forthcoming); and “Ars Divina”: Kierkegaard�s Conception of Christian Poetic Living, ph.d. thesis, emory university, atlanta 2001. see also sylvia walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard�s Existential Aesthetics, university park, pa: pennsylvania state university press 1994; ettore rocca, “kierkegaards teologiske æstetik: om troens perception,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 23, 2004, pp. 76–95; ettore rocca, “kierkegaard’s second aesthetics,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 1999, pp. 278–92; george pattison, Kierkegaard, the Aesthetic and the Religious: From the Magic Theatre to the Crucifixion of the Image, 2nd ed., london: scm 1999 [1992]; george pattison, “kierkegaard and the sublime,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 1998, pp. 245–75; niels nymann eriksen, Kierkegaard�s Category of Repetition, Berlin: walter de gruyter 2000 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 5), p. 33; pp. 99–100. 1

272

Marcia C. Robinson

capacity to bring the uncanny out of the familiar. at the same time, he embraced tieck’s views on allegory and storytelling. indeed, kierkegaard came to see tieck as a source of methodological inspiration, a master aesthetician who could help him to sharpen his own natural wit, penchant for irony, sense of the uncanny, and gift for storytelling. For kierkegaard, then, tieck was ultimately a mentoring spirit who helped him to develop his own self-appointed role as Socratic gad��y and jesting troubadour of danish christendom. kierkegaard’s appreciation of tieck, though, is not immediately apparent. it is hidden by his open criticism of tieck, especially as it relates to his scathing critique of Friedrich schlegel in particular and romantic irony in general. in his dissertation, The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard all but conceals his appreciation of tieck in what he takes to be tieck’s and schlegel’s misguided conceptions of living poetically, forms of living that turn on an unbridled and godlike irony. he then scatters his appreciative remarks and uses of tieck throughout the published and unpublished authorship so that like his mythic image of the guadalquivir river in spain, his appreciation and use of tieck is only partially apparent.2 this is precisely why scholars who have addressed kierkegaard’s relation to tieck typically overlook this hidden, but deeper engagement of tieck.3 applying kierkegaard’s mythic image of the guadalquivir to his relation to tieck, though, might well demonstrate why it is worth our time to look more closely at this relation. I. Tieck and Kierkegaard�s �igure of the Guadalquivir River kierkegaard often used an image of the guadalquivir river to characterize the lifegiving force of a half-concealed, half-revealed source.4 on one occasion, he used it to describe socrates’ relation to his followers; on several others, he used it to describe his own relation to his pseudonymous authorship.5 in every instance, the 2 kierkegaard spells the name of this river alternately as guadalquivir or guadalquibir. Both spellings are adaptations of the arabic Wadi Al Kabir [great river]. see, for example, SKS 1, 244 / CI, 198 and SKS 18, 46, ee:128 / JP 5, 5397. 3 see, for example, walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard�s Existential Aesthetics, op. cit., pp. 53–4 and the brief treatments of tieck by tonny aagaard olesen, pia søltoft, richard summers and ronald hall in The Concept of Irony, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2001 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 2), pp. 103–104; p. 106; p. 281, n17; p. 298; p. 300; p. 302; and p. 337. only hall acknowledges that kierkegaard actually has something positive to say about tieck. 4 �ierkegaard says plainly in an 1849 entry that the figurative comparison of himself to the guadalquivir river appeals to him very much. see SKS 22, 149, nB12:7 / JP 6, 6445. he uses it at least five other times. 5 With regard to the first reference�� see SKS 1, 422 / CI, 198. the passage reads thus: �Socrates’ life is like a magnificent pause in the course of history: we do not hear him at all; a profound stillness prevails—until it is broken by the noisy attempts of the many and very different schools of followers to trace their origin in this hidden and cryptic source. with socrates the stream of historical narrative, just like the river guadalquivir, drops underground for some distance, only to rush out again with renewed power.” in regard to kierkegaard’s reference to himself, see, for example, SKS 22, 70–71, nB11:123 / JP 6, 6416. the passage

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

273

river, as kierkegaard conceives it, waters the surrounding area, from the sierra de Cazorla to the plains of Andalucia�� first by running underground for several miles�� and then by emerging with “renewed power.”6 This image fits Tieck’s half-concealed�� half-revealed presence in kierkegaard’s authorship. the soil in which kierkegaard works out his authorship is made fertile by the river that is tieck’s largely unseen in��uence. On one hand�� �ierkegaard’s published authorship�� appearing after the public defense of the dissertation, is like the guadalquivir’s long, cavernous underground. obscured by the mountainous terrain that is kierkegaard’s open criticism of tieck in the dissertation, and further obscured by the cavernous quality of �ierkegaard’s subtle handling of Tieck�� the published writings house—and help to conceal—the river that is Tieck’s in��uence. Here we have oblique references to tieck, subtle uses of tieck’s insights, and most important a subtle infusion of tieck’s storytelling methods, cervantic irony, and sense of the uncanny in a wide range of complex portraits of human beings, especially kierkegaard’s depictions of christ and his followers in the world. the journals and papers, on the other hand, are like the andalusian plains. unobscured by the public and mostly negative remarks of the dissertation, the journals and papers expose the river that is kierkegaard’s direct and fairly extensive engagement of tieck’s ideas and works, especially the works of tieck’s later years, when he sought to balance romantic enthusiasm and idealism with practical life.7 Here�� in the broad expanse of his notebooks and papers�� we find kierkegaard openly musing on tieck’s views on allegory, ways of telling stories, specific stories and plays�� translations of Shakespeare�� views on Goethe�� and sense of irony and romantic restlessness.8 given the dialectical nature of kierkegaard’s thought, we should also view this figure in the reverse. From this perspective�� �ierkegaard’s journals and papers are like the guadalquivir’s long, cavernous underground. inasmuch as they serve as an authorship behind the authorship, supplying the published works with their hidden source, they house the tieckean river that runs under the published authorship’s literary ground. kierkegaard’s published works, then, are like the andalusian plains. Here Tieck’s in��uence emerges with rhetorical force and literary vigor in kierkegaard’s storytelling and at pregnant moments in the development of his reads thus: “Just as the guadalquibir river plunges into the earth somewhere and then comes out again, so i must now plunge into pseudonymity, but i also...will emerge again under my own name.” see also SKS 18, 46, ee:128 / JP 5, 5397. SKS 22, 127–8, nB11:204 / JP 6, 6431; and SKS 22, 169, nB12:52 / JP 6, 6461. 6 SKS 1, 42 / CI, 198. 7 roger paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, oxford: clarendon press 1985, p. 189; p. 232; pp. 325–8. see SKS 17, 122–33, BB:37 / JP 1, 265. Pap. i a 203 / JP 3, 3806. Pap. i a 167 / JP 4, 4388. SKS 17, 76, BB:6 / JP 5, 5138. SKS 17, 91, BB:10, 11 / JP 5, 5163, 5165; and SKS 6, 432 / SLW, 469, 739, n 549. see also william J. lillyman, Reality�s Dark Dream: The Narrative �iction of Ludwig Tieck, Berlin and new York: walter de gruyter 1979, pp. 115–54. 8 SKS 17, 122–33, BB:37 / JP 1, 265. SKS 17, 76, BB:6 / JP 5, 5138. Pap. i a 203 / JP 3, 3806. Pap. i a 167 / JP 4, 4388. SKS 17, 91, BB:11 / JP 5, 5165. SKS 21, 234, nB9:58 / JP 6, 6318. Pap. iv a 194 / JP 4, 3971. SKS 17, 44, aa:24 / JP 4, 4773. SKS 17, 91, BB:10, 11 / JP 5, 5163, 5165; and SKS 17, 234, dd:36 / JP 2, 1699, respectively.

274

Marcia C. Robinson

religious and moral self—that is�� for those with �eyes to see and ears to hear�� beyond what he says in the dissertation.9 II. �our Basic Ways in Which Kierkegaard Relates to Tieck once one gets a good sense of the range of kierkegaard’s references to and uses of Tieck—both �underground�� and �above ground��—one can see that �ierkegaard has a rich and intricate relation to tieck that functions in four basic ways. First, there is kierkegaard’s direct engagement or assessment of tieck as poet, editor, and translator. this includes (1) kierkegaard’s direct criticism of tieck in his dissertation; and (2) direct and indirect references to (a) tieck’s stories and plays in the published and unpublished authorship, (b) tieck’s translations of william shakespeare (1564–1616) in the journals and papers and late authorship, and (c) tieck’s editions of the writings of karl wilhelm Ferdinand solger (1780– 1819) and Friedrich von hardenberg (novalis) (1772–1801) in the dissertation, journals and papers, published writings, and personal letters. in all, there are at least 39 direct and indirect references to tieck and tieck’s work in kierkegaard’s published and unpublished writings.10 second and related is kierkegaard’s ownership of works by and on tieck. kierkegaard owned the second edition of tieck’s collected works as well as his editions and translations of novalis, solger, heinrich von kleist (1777–1811), Jacob michael reinhold lenz (1751–92), and william shakespeare.11 similarly, he owned Tieck’s translation of Shakespeare—his favorite out of the four translations that he mt 13:14–16, mk 8:18, lk 10:23–4, Jn 12:40–41; isa 6:9–10. I arrived at my figures by using all of the Tieck references appearing in the database for Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter at the søren kierkegaard research centre and various of the hongs’ indices. in regard to the hongs’ many indices, my numbers include the comprehensive list under tieck, all of the solger and novalis references in the hong indices and a limited number of the shakespeare references. the total count, including references to the hongs’ critical notes and commentary (which they provide in their indices), breaks down as follows: (1) 39 direct and indirect references that kierkegaard himself makes to tieck, tieck’s writings, tieck’s translations of shakespeare and tieck’s editions of solger’s and novalis’ works, and (2) 24 references to tieck and his collective work (his own and others) in the hongs’ critical notes and commentary. this provides a total of 63 references. please note that this number is not based primarily on the number of times that tieck’s name appears, but on the number of discussions of tieck in a work, which often includes a series of pages (see, for example, SKS 1, 334–41 / CI, 301–308); discussions of tieck’s edition of solger writings, which again often run for a series of pages (see, for example, SKS 1, 342–9 / CI�� 311–18); as well as individual references to specific works by Tieck and Tieck’s editions and translations of novalis, solger and shakespeare. in a single discussion, i count the series of pages in that discussion as one reference. 11 Ludwig Tieck�s Sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–2, paris: tétot Frères 1837 (ASKB 1848–1849); Heinrich von Kleists gesammelte Schriften, ed. by ludwig tieck, vols. 1–3, Berlin: g. reimer 1826 (ASKB 1739–1741); Gesammelte Schriften von J.M.R. Lenz, ed. by ludwig tieck, vols. 1–3, Berlin: g. reimer 1828 (ASKB 1744–1746); Novalis Schriften, ed. by ludwig tieck and Friedrich schlegel, 4th revised ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1826 (ASKB 1776); Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, vols. 1–2, ed. by ludwig tieck and Friedrich von raumer, leipzig: 9

10

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

275

owned in both german and danish.12 For example, he owned assessments of tieck by georg wilhelm Friedrich hegel (1770–1831), heinrich hotho (1802–73) and heinrich heine (1797–1856), and used them extensively in his own criticism of tieck in the dissertation.13 the third basic way in which kierkegaard relates to tieck is in his use of tieck’s works, ideas, and literary tactics to implicate others or to present his own ethical art.14 For example, in the “seducer’s diary,” kierkegaard uses tieck to expose the moral and religious shortcomings of romanticism, particularly the aesthetic eroticism of tieck’s friend and colleague Friedrich schlegel. more importantly, he incorporates tieck’s views on allegory and storytelling into his own avowedly socratic approach to the authorship, thereby making it not only intentionally socratic, but also intentionally poetic. Fourth and related, as kierkegaard develops his own storytelling method using tieck’s insights, he also employs tieck’s cervantic attitude and sense of the uncanny to sharpen his own sense of humor and the sublime. tieck’s “humorous irony” or �ironic humor���� (as Heine puts it) in telling stories helps him to refine his sense of the tragi-comic nature of the christ ideal, particularly as he and his pseudonym Johannes climacus see it.15 similarly, tieck’s sense of the uncanny gives him a sense of how to make familiar conceptions of Christ—especially what he takes to be �anish Christendom’s childish or sentimental conceptions of the God-man—appear strange, unsettling, sublime. in this essay, i will demonstrate only two aspects of kierkegaard’s multi-faceted relation to Tieck—aspects that allow us to look �above ground�� at his critique and “below ground” at his appreciation. this demonstration will depend upon a reading of a small selection of kierkegaardian texts, focusing on the dissertation and the journals, but also referring to published works across kierkegaard’s vast literary corpus. Brockhaus 1826 (ASKB 1832–1833); Shakspeare�s dramatische Werke, trans. by aug. wilh. von schlegel and ludwig tieck, vols. 1–12, 2nd ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1839–40 (ASKB 1883–1888). 12 see, for example, Pap. iv a 194 / JP 4, 3971. SKS 17, 44, aa:24 / JP 4, 4773. For a brief discussion of kierkegaard’s favoring the translation by tieck, see “shakespeare,” at pp. 650–52, preceding JP 4, 3971, n. 267. 13 see, for example, SKS 1, 283–4, 305, 320, 334–6, 337–41, 345–8 / CI, 243–4, 268, 285, 302, 304–309, 314–17. 14 For kierkegaard’s authorship as a kind of ethical art, see george connell, To Be One Thing: Personal Unity in Kierkegaard�s Thought, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1985, pp. 19–37. 15 By reading the criticism of heinrich heine, kierkegaard gained an appreciation for tieck as translator and interpreter of cervantes. heine’s Die Romantische Schule, which kierkegaard probably owned, reveals not only an appreciation of tieck as a translator and a writer, but also as a master of a “humorous irony” or “ironic humor,” gained by immersing himself in the writings of cervantes. see heinrich heine, The Romantic School, trans. by helen mustard, in The Romantic School and Other Essays, ed. by Jost hermand and robert c. holub, new York: continuum 1985 (The German Library, vol. 33), pp. 18–19 and pp. 59–68, especially 66–8. kierkegaard owned heine’s german translation and c.d. Biehl’s danish translation of cervantes’ Don Quixote, but does not seem to have owned tieck’s translation (see ASKB 1935–1940).

276

Marcia C. Robinson

First, since kierkegaard’s discussion in The Concept of Irony is the most prominent treatment of tieck in the authorship, i will begin by analyzing it. this will involve a brief comparison of kierkegaard’s critical assessments of tieck and schlegel. it will also highlight subtle, but positive aspects of kierkegaard’s assessment of tieck in order to set the stage for the ensuing discussion of a more hidden appreciation. second, i will examine tieck’s role in kierkegaard’s early views on storytelling and developing a religious and ethical aesthetic.16 i will begin by looking at tieck’s in��uence on �ierkegaard’s views on storytelling and allegory in the early journals. I will track this in��uence into �ierkegaard’s early views on writing in �rom the Papers of One Still Living and The Concept of Irony. and i will close by suggesting that there is a fundamental relation between kierkegaard’s early views on storytelling and writing and his later and avowed purpose for the authorship in The Point of View for My Work as an Author. the point of this two-part analysis is to show that even though it is not readily apparent, tieck’s genius as a storyteller and insights on storytelling serve as an inspiration and a foundation for kierkegaard’s own storytelling in the authorship. For as he constructs his complex body of published and unpublished writings, kierkegaard carries out a subtle, deliberate, and critical conversation with tieck on the religious and moral function of literature, the use of irony in literature, the use of the uncanny or the sublime to make familiar things strange, and the use of fairy tales and fables to present the sacred dimensions of life. III. About Tieck�s Life and Work as Writer, Dramatist, Editor, and Translator Tieck was a central figure in early German �omanticism�� and an older contemporary of kierkegaard. he was born in Berlin on may 31, 1773, 40 years before kierkegaard’s birth in 1813, and died on april 28, 1853, roughly two and a half years before kierkegaard’s death in 1855. like kierkegaard, tieck came from a respectable bourgeois family, whose enterprising patriarch had worked his way out of obscurity into a position of considerable social standing. like kierkegaard, he was socially and politically moderate, even though he could also be very critical of bourgeois culture. like kierkegaard, he also produced a large body of works that wielded a wide in��uence. Unlike �ierkegaard�� though�� he received major accolades for his literary production in his lifetime. such accolades did not free him from financial worries�� however. For unlike �ierkegaard�� whose inheritance gave him the freedom not to work, tieck was compelled to write in order to support himself and his family. this explains in part why tieck’s large body of writings do not have the kind of thematic unity that kierkegaard’s corpus displays. tieck is probably best known today for fairy tales such as The Blond Eckbert and The Runenberg�� but he was a prolific writer not only of fairy tales but also of novellas, plays, poems, and theater criticism and stagecraft. his works include, among others, William Lovell, Puss in Boots, �ranz Sternbald�s Wanderings, The By religious and ethical aesthetic, or religio-ethical aesthetic, i mean his use of a religious and ethical life-view to shape and to permeate the production of his largely literary authorship.

16

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

277

Land of Upside Down, The Engagement, King Octavianus, �ortunat, The Old Man from the Mountain, The Old Book and the Voyage into the Blue, The Young Master Cabinet Maker, and Vittoria Accorombona. he and others put together numerous collections of his writings, including two collected works bearing his name (even though the first edition included the works of others as well as Tieck);17 another collected writings with a slightly different title, but also bearing his name;18 a collection of early and later romantic pieces set in a conversational framework, entitled Phantasus;19 a collection of poems;20 and a collection of novellas, among others.21 then, there are the works of other thinkers and writers that tieck edited and/or translated, often in collaboration with others such as the schlegel brothers and Friedrich von raumer. as indicated earlier, these include the works of several significant writers and figures of his own day and earlier�� namely�� �ovalis�� Solger�� and shakespeare.22 They also include lesser figures such as von �leist and �enz. Tieck was also a leading figure in dramatic circles. He not only wrote plays but also directed the royal theater at dresden and wrote dramatic criticism. as his biographer �oger Paulin puts it�� Tieck was a major figure of German �omanticism and belles-lettres for over half a century.23 like kierkegaard’s reputation today, tieck’s reputation in his day was national and international. In spite of debts and other personal and financial problems�� Tieck was clearly seen in germany as a man of sophistication, culture, and graciousness. at the same time, his reputation extended beyond germany into england, France, denmark, and even the united states. Young writers and poets such as e.t.a. hoffmann (1776– 1822) and heinrich von kleist sought his help and friendship. important cultural figures such as Schelling (1775–1854)�� Hegel�� Jean Paul (i.e. Johann Paul Friedrich richter, 1763–1825), david Friedrich strauss (1808–74), hans christian andersen (1805–75), Bertel thorvaldsen (1768–1844), Jakob (1785–1863) and wilhelm grimm (1786–1859), henrik steffens (1773–1845), alexander von humboldt (1769–1859), achim von arnim (1781–1831) and his wife Bettina von arnim (1785–1859), Felix mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–47), and the prussian royal family came to his readings (or in the case of the royal family, had him come to the court). painters such as phillip otto runge (1777–1810) and caspar david Friedrich (1774–1840) were among his 17 Ludwig Tieck�s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–30, vienna: grund 1817–24; Ludwig Tieck�s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–2, paris: tétot 1837, op. cit. 18 Ludwig Tieck�s Schriften, Berlin: g. reimer 1828–46. 19 Phantasus. Eine Sammlung von Mährchen, Erzählungen, Schauspielen und Novellen, ed. by ludwig tieck, vols. 1–3, Berlin: realschulbuchhandlung 1812–16. 20 Gedichte von L Tieck, vols. 1–2, dresden: hilscher 1821. 21 Ludwig Tieck�s gesammelte Novellen, Berlin: g. reimer n.d.; Ludwig Tieck�s gesammelte Novellen: vermehrt und verbessert, vols. 1–10, new revised ed., Breslau: J. max 1835–39; Ludwig Tieck�s gesammelte Novellen: vermehrt und verbessert. Neue �olge, vols. 1–4 (in 2 tomes), Breslau: J. max 1842. 22 novalis and solger were two of tieck’s closest friends. collecting and editing their works was as much a tribute to his friends as it was a literary venture. see paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., pp. 104–105; pp. 140–42; pp. 192–6. 23 paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, ibid. all biographical data about tieck in this section is primarily from paulin’s biography.

278

Marcia C. Robinson

supporters. the Edinburgh Review compared him to shakespeare. thomas carlyle and others translated several of his works into english. among his english and French associates, tieck counted samuel taylor coleridge (1772–1834) and mme germaine de staël (1766–1817). in translating tieck’s poems into danish, adam oehlenschläger (1779–1850) joined steffens as one of tieck’s most avid danish supporters. and henry wadsworth longfellow (1807–82), washington irving (1783–1859), and edgar allen poe (1809–49) represented his american “confraternity,” as paulin puts it. after his death, tieck was given a state funeral by king Friedrich wilhelm iv (1795– 1861)�� which many of the leading figures in the world of German culture attended. heinrich heine, another one of germany’s prominent writers, criticized tieck in The Romantic School, and spread his name further. in spite of his criticisms, though, he happily acknowledged Tieck’s stature as one of Germany’s most gifted poets—and as germany’s best translator of cervantes.24 while interpreters of tieck’s works sometimes follow heine in dividing tieck’s writings into three major periods, revolving around his close association with Friedrich schlegel (1772–1829) and his brother, august wilhelm schlegel (1767–1845), paulin resists this tendency in his biography of tieck. indeed, he acknowledges that the schlegel brothers played a major role in tieck’s literary career, but his concern is to allow tieck to come forth on his own terms. kierkegaard seems to have been willing to do this as well. For even though heine, hegel, and hotho informed his reading of tieck, it is apparent that he engaged tieck apart from these critics and the schlegels. in this essay, i will attempt to bring out both the way that hegel, hotho, and especially heine informed kierkegaard’s reading of tieck and kierkegaard’s own reading of tieck apart from these critics. IV. Tieck and Kierkegaard�s Critique of Romanticism tieck is one of three major german romantic poets and thinkers whom kierkegaard discusses in The Concept of Irony. he appears in kierkegaard’s introductory remarks about romantic irony in part two of the dissertation, emerges in several more general references to early romanticism in the opening pages of “irony after Fichte,” and then enjoys a sustained discussion in a section specifically devoted to him in the same chapter.25 kierkegaard’s discussion of tieck follows an acerbic critique of what he takes to be Friedrich schlegel’s immoral conception of living poetically. while kierkegaard believes that tieck’s conception of poetic living ultimately possesses the same major problem as schlegel’s, he nevertheless demonstrates a deep respect for his ironic style and appropriates it almost immediately in his poetic parody and indictment of schlegel’s Lucinde—namely�� �The Seducer’s �iary�� from Either/Or.26 heine, The Romantic School, op. cit., pp. 18–19; pp. 59–68. SKS 1, 282–4, 303, 311–13, 320, 334–41 / CI, 242–4, 265, 274–7, 285, 301–308. tieck also appears in kierkegaard’s discussion of solger. see SKS 1, 345, 346–7, 349 / CI, 314, 316, 319. 26 kierkegaard does not copy schlegel’s Lucinde in any kind of literal way. instead, he applies several features of schlegel’s characters to his seducer in an earnest, but jesting manner reminiscent of tieck. the point, as i see it, is to present one very critical angle on 24 25

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

279

in comparison to his criticism of schlegel in The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard’s critique of tieck is mild. one might even say that the mildness of kierkegaard’s criticism betrays an appreciation that is just as important as his explicit critique. the explicit purpose of kierkegaard’s discussion of tieck is to show that romantic poetic living in all of its permutations—whether immoral like Schlegel’s or non-committal like Tieck’s—is problematic because it does not seriously engage what it means to exist in time. the second, more implicit purpose of kierkegaard’s discussion of tieck, however, seems to be to say that some of the romantics have insights and approaches that merit appreciation, even respect.27 this can be seen if we contemplate kierkegaard’s reading of tieck in the context of his harsh assessment of schlegel. utilizing hegel’s criticisms of schlegel in The Concept of Irony, kierkegaard maintains that schlegel rejects the religious and moral foundations of personhood. as he sees it, schlegel celebrates the deliberate dissipation of the human spirit in erotic wantonness as though this were an ideal. in his novel Lucinde, particularly in the portrait of lisette, schlegel disdains the very idea of becoming and being a self what will become a complex and attenuated allegory of selfhood—namely�� the authorship. an example of what i mean by kierkegaard’s adaptation of tieck to critique schlegel can be seen in the opening lines of the diary, where kierkegaard’s earnest jest comes replete with a reference to one of tieck’s novellas: “take care, my beautiful stranger! take care! to step out of a carriage is not such a simple matter; at times it is a decisive step. i could lend you a novel by tieck in which you would see that in dismounting from a horse a lady became so involved in a complicated situation that this step became definitive for her entire life. Indeed carriage steps usually are so ill conceived that one is almost compelled to abandon all grace and to hazard a leap into the arms of the coachman and servant. Yes what a good deal a coachman and servants have! I do believe I shall try to find a job as a servant in a house where there are young girls; a servant easily comes to know the secrets of such a little miss….” see SKS 2, 304 / EO1, 313. the hongs identify this novella as “die wilde engländerin,” in Weihnacht-Abend. Das Zauberschloss, in Ludwig Tieck�s gesammelte Novellen: vermehrt und verbessert, op. cit., vol. 2, 1835, pp. 144–69 (see EO1, 648, n 24). 27 solger, an aesthetician and philosopher, is the third romantic whom kierkegaard reviews in the dissertation, and the second of two romantics whom kierkegaard seems to believe has merit. as indicated, tieck is the other. kierkegaard’s discussions of tieck and solger respectively follow his scathing critique of schlegel, and establish a kind of ranking of kierkegaard’s assessment of romantic ironists, from worst to better, according to their views and/or attitudes on the relation between irony and existence. in varying degrees, kierkegaard agrees and disagrees with each figure�� from Schlegel whom he agrees with least�� to Tieck�� whom he agrees with more and with whom he is clearly intrigued�� to Solger�� whom he finds confusing and intriguing at once. To be more specific�� �ierkegaard agrees with Schlegel’s critique of bourgeois life just as he does with tieck’s; nevertheless, he sees little of value in schlegel’s ironic outlook and so attacks him with more vehemence than either tieck or solger. as indicated here, schlegel is the worst because he rejects concrete existence. tieck is somewhere in between schlegel and solger because kierkegaard thinks that he is neither immoral like schlegel, nor as earnest about life as solger. solger is the best of the three from kierkegaard’s perspective because he seriously engages the meaning of irony in human life. Following hegel and hotho, kierkegaard indicates that even though solger goes astray in the negative, he is nevertheless serious about searching out the philosophical, theological and aesthetic applications of irony, particularly as it relates to the meaning of human life. see SKS 1, 321–6, 334–7, 339–41 / CI, 286–90, 301–304, 307–309.

280

Marcia C. Robinson

by rejecting both the banality of bourgeois life—a good thing—and the problems and limitations that define finite existence—a bad thing. �ierkegaard contends that schlegel wants an ideal existence, something he calls poetic living, but schlegel’s purported existential poetry does not embrace an ideality that belongs to and that is potential in temporal existence—as does a Christian form of poetic living. �ather�� schlegel seeks to escape all of the problems of time as well as its demands by championing a luxuriant, but callous eroticism that plays with, then discards others, and that even treats the supposed poet’s own feelings and bodied existence with the same disregard. as a result, kierkegaard concludes, schlegel ends up with a conception of poetic living that corrupts human relations�� defies the individual’s relation to the divine, and ultimately destroys the integrity of all involved. this is precisely what makes the portrait of lisette in the novel so disturbing to kierkegaard, in spite of the aesthetic skill with which schlegel develops it.28 kierkegaard lets out a sigh of relief when he comes to tieck. he maintains that tieck allows him to “breathe easier” because tieck has a solid grasp on actuality, and can even present it convincingly.29 according to kierkegaard, while tieck often overindulges in ironic capering, criticizing ordinary life, and championing a kind of aesthetic escapism or artistic play that engages in its own artistry so much that it offers neither a genuine point of view nor a genuine existential ideal, nevertheless tieck does not dogmatically “negate actuality with as much earnestness as schlegel.”30 Tieck’s writings—especially some of his satirical dramas�� poetry and later novellas written during and after his association with Friedrich and August Schlegel— possess none of the “seductive tones of sensuousness” and “wild, bestial howling” in Lucinde, says kierkegaard.31 rather, tieck’s ironic play and poetic abandon is light and engaging. as such, it has its own legitimacy.32

28 SKS 1, 282, 302–303, 306–308, 311–17, 321–34 / CI, 242, 265–6, 269–70, 274–81, 286–301. 29 SKS 1, 334 / CI, 301. 30 SKS 1, 339–40 / CI, 307; see also SKS 1, 334–40 / CI, 301–306. 31 SKS 1, 334 / CI, 301–302. 32 SKS 1, 335–6 / CI, 302. here, following heinrich hotho, whom he characterizes as “an otherwise ardent hegelian,” kierkegaard considers that hegel may be wrong about tieck. the hongs’ translate the passage as follows, including kierkegaard’s quotation of hotho in german with the english in brackets: “surely no one will deny that such a poetic abandon that is utterly inordinate in its excessively ironic capering has its validity. if it has, then hegel has frequently wronged tieck, and i must agree completely with the comment made somewhere by an otherwise ardent hegelian: In Spaß und Heiterkeit fand er (Hegel) sich gleichfalls behaglich, doch die letzte Tiefe des Humors blieb ihm theilweise verschlossen, und die neueste �orm der Ironie widerstrebte dermaßen seiner eigenen Richtung, daß es ihm fast an dem Organ gebrach, auch das Aechte in ihr anzuerkennen oder gar zu genießen [equally at home with jest and cheer, he (hegel) nevertheless remained partly impervious to the ultimate depths of humor, and the most recent form of irony stood in such stark contrast to his own orientation that he completely lacked the wherewithal with which to recognize or appreciate what was genuine in it].”

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

281

Following hotho and heine, kierkegaard maintains that tieck is ingenious at creating witty, intriguing, and enchanting diversions.33 armed with a mastery of words and sounds that enable him to produce a variety of moods, tieck draws his bourgeois audience into his lyrical world of make-believe�� impish fun—and polemic.34 he critiques bourgeois conventionalism, but he knows how to blend this polemic with fancy, jest and good cheer.35 as kierkegaard observes, he also knows how to encase it in mystery, sadness, and a sense of the uncanny. tieck is fascinated with the way in which the familiar can be made to appear strange, and the strange can be made to appear familiar.36 and so as he gives his bourgeois audience a wonderfully entertaining story, he also charms them into recognizing that there is something more than the accepted conventions that make everything equally significant or “absolute.”37 This is especially the case with Tieck’s ideal human figures�� which kierkegaard claims “can actually make a person very fearful, because at times they resemble remarkable natural creations,” whose “wise and unwavering eyes do not inspire confidence but rather a certain unheimlich [disquieting] anxiety.”38 �ierkegaard thinks�� though�� that Tieck wastes the opportunity that these figures create. instead of offering a genuine existential ideal that would compel his bourgeois audience to wake up from their meaningless lives and engage life more fully, Tieck encourages his readers to continue in his jovial polemic against the ossified conventionalism of the day. according to kierkegaard, this polemic assumes and asks the audience to assume that actual existence can never have any meaning.39 all of life—from the most trivial things to the most significant—is meaningless�� and so can be treated as a jest. For kierkegaard, tieck’s purported ideals only exacerbate the situation since they are always vanishing into other�� infinitely emerging enigmas and never coming to fruition in time.40 kierkegaard concludes then that nothing seems to SKS 1, 335–8, 339–40 / CI, 302–305, 307. SKS 1, 339–40 / CI, 307. 35 SKS 1, 334–7 / CI, 302–304. 36 SKS 1, 337–40 / CI, 305–307. 37 SKS 1, 335–40 / CI, 303–306. 38 SKS 1, 338–40 / CI, 306. 39 SKS 1, 334–41 / CI, 302–308. 40 SKS 1, 338–40 / CI, 306. kierkegaard maintains that tieck’s “polemic” or “ideal endeavor” “has no ideal, since every ideal is instantly nothing but an allegory hiding a higher ideal within itself�� and so on into infinity.�� I will say more about Tieck and �ierkegaard on allegory later. at this point, though, i refer to allegory, particularly in regard to its iconic and symbolic quality, as “enigma,” because as kierkegaard explains it, the ideal is not something that is known or fully understood. it is more like a chinese box. this goes hand in glove with kierkegaard’s earlier comment about the romantics, especially tieck, awakening our passions, longings, feelings, and sense of the mystery of life, but then falling asleep themselves because they want to live in a dream world, not the real world: “the tragedy of romanticism is that what it seizes upon is not actuality. poetry awakens; the powerful longings, the mysterious intimations�� the inspiring feelings awaken; nature awakens; the enchanted princess awakens— the romanticist falls asleep. he experiences all this in a dream, and whereas everything was fast asleep around him before�� now everything is awakening—but he is sleeping. But dreams do not satisfy. he wakes up tired and torpid, unrefreshed, only to lie down to sleep again, and soon he needs to produce the somnambulant state artificially�� but the more art it takes�� the more 33 34

282

Marcia C. Robinson

be meaningful for Tieck—at least not in his Schlegelian mode.41 and so his poetry is nothing but the sophisticated artifice —a �poetry about poetry ad infinitum��—of a writer caught up in his own genius�� ironic re��ection�� and—despair.42 while this is both a serious charge and the thrust of kierkegaard’s discussion of Tieck in the dissertation�� it does not preclude the fact that �ierkegaard finds a legitimate power in tieck’s jesting polemic. kierkegaard is clearly struck by the ingenuity of tieck’s ironic and imaginative play. he is also quite taken with the effect that tieck’s uncanny “natural creations” have on him. realizing this is especially significant when we consider �ierkegaard’s comments about these figures with his own and his pseudonyms’ later presentations of Christ—presentations that turn on �ierkgaard’s development of a Tieckean sense of the uncanny�� and first and foremost on kierkegaard’s development of a tieckean approach to storytelling. V. Tieck�s Role in Kierkegaard�s View of Storytelling and Developing a Religio-Ethical Aesthetic Just as the mountainous terrain of the sierra de cazorla conceals the source of the guadalquivir river, so kierkegaard’s public critique of tieck in the dissertation conceals the fundamental role that tieck plays in his early ideas about storytelling. indeed, as kierkegaard’s early ideas about storytelling feed his ensuing ideas about writing, poetic living, and the published authorship, his critique of tieck also hides the role that tieck plays in what one might call his developing religio-ethical aesthetic.43 if we are to discover kierkegaard’s true appreciation of tieck, then, we must go below the surface of his critique in the dissertation into the caverns of the exaggerated also becomes the ideal that the romanticist evokes.” see SKS 1, 337 / CI, 304. according to kierkegaard, the ideal is always receding in tieck’s poetry because tieck does not try to bring it into actuality. in other words, tieck, as kierkegaard reads him, has given up on the transformation of ordinary life. the transformation of ordinary life, though, is precisely what kierkegaard thinks is essential to living poetically, particularly in a christian sense. 41 SKS 1, 334–41 / CI, 302–308. i mention tieck’s schlegelian period here because i think that even though �ierkegaard does not cite or distinguish specific works from Tieck’s early, middle and late career, the journals show that kierkegaard seems to become more interested in the later and more mature tieck, who, according to roger paulin, develops his own more balanced romantic view apart from the schlegels and the Jena circle after 1811. see paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., pp. 186–331. 42 SKS 1, 339–40 / CI, 307. in light of The Sickness unto Death, we might interpret �ierkegaard’s conception of Tieck’s withdrawal from the world as despair—that is�� as a self seeking to be all infinitude or possibility. See SKS 11, 145–157 / SUD, 29–42. 43 By religio-ethical aesthetic, i mean that kierkegaard’s literary authorship as well as his conception of the christian life are informed by aesthetic principles of unity and harmony. to be more specific�� �ierkegaard maintains that art and life become deeply or spiritually beautiful— that is�� they take on a well-integrated�� harmonious�� and unified form—when individuals allow religious and ethical ideals—particularly Christian ones—to shape both art and life. Since I deal with �ierkegaard’s religio-ethical aesthetic elsewhere�� I will only discuss it brie��y in this article, and only as it relates to kierkegaard’s relation to tieck. see robinson, “kierkegaard’s conception of poetic living,” op. cit., and “Ars Divina,” op. cit. see also walsh, Living

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

283

early journals. it is here in a cluster of entries from the mid-to-late 1830s that we will find �ierkegaard’s positive engagement of Tieck’s views on storytelling—and the source of a line of methodological re��ections demonstrating �ierkegaard’s ongoing absorption and critical adaptation of tieck’s storytelling principles and tactics. in an 1837 journal entry on telling children stories, written about four years before the defense of the dissertation, kierkegaard embraces tieck’s ideas about fairy tales and fables. that is, after quoting at length tieck’s conceptions of what constitutes good stories in an earlier journal entry from 1836, kierkegaard then adapts these ideas to his view of telling children stories in the entry from 1837. Following tieck, he maintains that a good storyteller uses the enchantment of poetry not only to intrigue and entertain children, but also to present spiritual and moral issues in a personal and psychologically engaging way so that children might develop into thoughtful and mature adults. From 1838 to 1841, when his interest in storytelling becomes an interest in what constitutes good writing, kierkegaard continues to embrace this idea, even though he publicly attacks tieck. this is apparent in his critical review of hans christian andersen from 1838. it is also apparent in his developing conception of poetic living in the dissertation from late 1841. as both of these theories turn on kierkegaard’s adaptation of tieck’s idea that a good story is a dynamic integration of spiritual outlook�� moral questioning�� and aesthetic form—something we might call tieck’s religio-ethical aesthetic, both theories set the stage for the published authorship—a polyphonic�� largely literary body of writing designed to get cultured danish christians to recognize the paradoxical ideality of the christian life. in the published authorship, produced from 1843 to 1852, kierkegaard puts these theories into practice, and instantiates one-half of his own religio-ethical aesthetic.44 Poetically: Kierkegaard�s Existential Aesthetics, op. cit.; and rocca,“kierkegaards teologiske æstetik,” op. cit., and “kierkegaard’s second aesthetics,” op. cit. 44 as kierkegaard’s emerging religio-ethical aesthetic deals with the art of writing as well as the art of living, particularly by making a religio-ethical outlook and purpose central to both, kierkegaard’s production of the authorship represents the instantiation of one half of this aesthetic. his life, then, should represent the other half. kierkegaard, however, was much less sanguine about his life re��ecting the kind of poetic living that he advocated than his literary production. that is, kierkegaard was not at all convinced that as a poet, even a poet of the religious, he was a christian, or perhaps even could be as long as he was a poet. rune engebretsen points this out, and maintains that this is the reason that kierkegaard drops the term “living poetically,” after using it in a christian and an ethical sense in The Concept of Irony and Either/Or respectively. see rune alf engebretsen, “kierkegaard and poet-existence with special reference to germany and rilke,” ph.d. thesis., stanford university 1980, pp. 115–17; pp. 121–3; and pp. 183–5. while i think that engebretsen’s cautions are indeed correct, i do not agree that kierkegaard actually gives up the concept of living poetically in a christian sense. kierkegaard not only outlines it in the dissertation but also carries the concept into the authorship, develops it and brings it to fruition in anti-climacus’ discussion of the youth in love with christ in Practice in Christianity. in other words, even though kierkegaard himself does not seem to have thought that he lived poetically in a christian sense, this does not mean that he thought others could not do so, especially if they were not poets and artists with the likely burden of being so attached to the glory of the christian life, and so disdainful of ordinary life, that they could not leave it to try to effect the christ ideal in actual existence.

284

Marcia C. Robinson

his poetic coordination of the religious, the ethical, and the aesthetic, though, not only presents religion and morality in an aesthetic form that is personal and psychologically powerful, but it also distinguishes religion and morality from art at the same time that it integrates them. kierkegaard addresses his unique adaptation of Tieck’s storytelling method—without�� of course�� identifying Tieck—in both his dissertation from 1841 and his 1846 assessment of the authorship, The Point of View for My Work as an Author. we can begin to see how all of this might be so if we attend first to the aforementioned journal entries from 1836 and 1837. A. Tieck and Kierkegaard�s View of Good Storytelling In two undated entries in the journals from 1836 and 1837�� �ierkegaard re��ects on the art of storytelling, and includes tieck in his musings. in the second of the two entries�� a long re��ection from 1837�� he considers what good storytelling entails�� particularly with regard to personal development in children. he opens, saying that: there are very few people who have talent for storytelling. as a result much harm is done. there are two recommended ways of telling stories to children.... �irst, there is the way which children’s nurses (and others who may be so categorized) unconsciously follow. they open up a whole world of fantasy to the child, and the fact that they are sincerely convinced of the truth of their stories must instill a salutary tranquility in the child, no matter how fantastic the content itself may be. only when the child himself detects that the teller does not believe stories are the stories damaging—yet not because of the content itself but because of the untruth in regard to the teller—because of the mistrust and suspiciousness which the child gradually develops. the second way can be followed only by someone who in perfect clarity has reproduced the life of childhood, who knows what this life requires, who knows what is good for it and now from this vantage point offers children intellectual-emotional nourishment which is beneficial for them, who knows how to be a child; whereas the nursemaids basically are children. (Fortunately, children are able to derive good from both ways, and following the second way certainly does not exclude appreciation of the first. On the other hand�� the semi-educated usually eliminate the process of development valued by one who has a mature view of life.)45

kierkegaard continues by explaining good storytelling procedure: as for the procedure for…storytelling…all general pursuits on behalf of children outside of formal instruction, and this, too, as much as possible, should be Socratic. one should arouse in children a desire to ask, instead of fending off a reasonable question, which perhaps goes beyond uncle Frank’s general information or in some other way inconveniences him....the whole point is to bring the poetic into touch with their lives indeed, this is just what anti-climacus says that the earnest youth does, and all christians must do, if they are not going to be mere poets or mere spectators of the poet’s depictions of christ’s sufferings. see SKS 22, 127–8, nB11:204 / JP 6, 6431 and SV1 Xii, 173–81 / PC, 186–9, 192–6. perhaps it is also the reason that kierkegaard says early on in the dissertation that it is the “simple christian” who is able to live far more poetically than any poetic genius such as schlegel or himself. see SKS 1, 316 / CI, 280–81. see also robinson, “kierkegaard’s conception of poetic living,” op. cit., and “Ars Divina,” op. cit. 45 SKS 17, 123, BB:37 / JP 1, 265.

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

285

in every way, to exercise a power of enchantment, to let a glimpse appear at the most unexpected moment and then vanish.46

he then adds that “one should not schedule the poetic for certain hours and certain days.” that is, the time for storytelling should not be so predictable that children can become indifferent about it or the storyteller. rather, the storyteller should make the timing of his visits as intriguing and enchanting as the stories he tells and the way that he tells them. as kierkegaard puts it, the children should become more excited by and enchanted with the storyteller and his coming than with hearing any particular story: children do not jump around such a person like loutish calves with dangling legs and clap their hands because they are going to hear a story. Him they approach in an open, free, confidant way�� entrust themselves to him�� initiate him into many little secrets�� tell him about their play, and he knows how to join in, also knows how to give the game a more serious side....47

kierkegaard clearly believes that good storytelling is as much about the impression that the storyteller makes on the child as it is about the story. For him, both the nursemaid and the mature storyteller trade on children’s natural attraction to fantasy and so are able to create the right space within which to tell stories. this is what makes them both good storytellers. nevertheless, kierkegaard is clearly more interested in mature storytellers than the people he considers to be immature nursemaids. according to him, unlike the “childish” approach of the nursemaid, the socraticpoetic approach of the mature storyteller is able to develop the “intellectualemotional” dimension of a child’s personality. the mature storyteller does not engage children’s imaginations in order to make them merely responsive to him so that they might take their medicine, eat their vegetables, behave, or go to sleep. rather, he makes children responsive to him so that they might willingly and happily respond to the existential issues that he introduces in the story. this is what will help them to develop into thoughtful and mature human beings. �ierkegaard’s entire re��ection— which extends well beyond the passages quoted here—turns on this point�� and so does his implicit and explicit use of tieck’s views on storytelling. From the beginning of the re��ection to the end of it�� �ierkegaard maintains that “the poetic” should be “brought in touch with” children’s “lives in every way.” By “the poetic,” kierkegaard means both the imaginative tale to be told and the imaginative space that the storyteller creates with children that makes it possible for him to tell the story. “the socratic,” on the other hand, refers to the broad existential issues that children face and that the storyteller weaves into the story so that they will ask the questions they already have about life, but do not quite know how to ask or answer. For kierkegaard, these two features of storytelling are of a piece. in the best stories, a socratic purpose pervades and is borne by the enchantment of poetry. Tieck emerges implicitly in this part of �ierkegaard’s re��ection. as the passages quoted above indicate, for kierkegaard, a good storyteller knows how to enter the child’s space, get immersed in the child’s way of doing things, and 46 47

SKS 17, 124, BB:37 / JP 1, 265. SKS 17, 124f., BB:37 / JP 1, 265.

286

Marcia C. Robinson

win the child’s confidence. This play-acting with children puts them at ease�� even makes them look forward to the storyteller’s visit. thus, when the storyteller does get around to telling the children an interesting story, they are in the right state of mind to engage the existential. as the storyteller spins his magical tale, the children become enthralled. then, the storyteller interjects something intriguing about life that he knows will arouse their curiosity and make them ask a serious question. with this, the existential emerges effortlessly. herein is tieck. when kierkegaard says that the storyteller allows the children to get “a glimpse” of something intriguing “at the most unexpected moment and then vanish,” he anticipates a very similar remark that he will make about tieck four years later in the dissertation. in the dissertation, which kierkegaard was preparing to write at the time that he wrote this re��ection on storytelling�� �ierkegaard says that Tieck likes to have his �ideal human figures�� appear suddenly and then vanish�� leaving the audience with questions about these uncanny figures and the questions that they raise about human life. As indicated in the previous section, kierkegaard clearly thinks that this tactic of using enigmatic figures to raise existential questions in fairy-tale form is powerful and effective. Indeed�� in the 1837 journal entry quoted above, he immediately employs it and then explains its power in two ways—without directly attributing it to Tieck�� though.48 First, he says that the storyteller who introduces the existential in a tieckean way avoids becoming either overbearing and didactic, on the one hand, or overly fantastic and condescending�� on the other. In presenting an enigmatic figure�� the storyteller does not lecture the children, does not need to make the story more fantastic than necessary for good entertainment, or need to be dismissive of such play. rather, he is able to let the uncanny element do his work for him. the children become so intrigued with it that they ask the existential questions that it naturally raises on their own. with this, the stage is set for the storyteller to have one of those magical conversations with children that he already knows how to have. second and related, by avoiding didacticism, silliness, and condescension, kierkegaard indicates that the children are both entertained and assisted in their “intellectual-emotional” growth. For one thing, the children are delighted to have a fun, wise, trustworthy, and interesting adult in their world, and so do not get bored or put off by a ponderous didacticism when this adult tells them a story. For another, the uncanny image at the heart of the storyteller’s imaginative tale not only captivates them, but also allows them to deal in an interesting and non-threatening way with existential issues already troubling them. these uncanny images also have the added effect of keeping the children from getting sidetracked into questions about the veracity of certain fantastical aspects of the story. all of this makes it possible for the story to be the source of good entertainment that it should be, and to do the characterbuilding work that the mature storyteller knows that it can. From the middle of the entry to the end, kierkegaard elaborates these points. he emphasizes that avoiding didacticism, silliness, and condescension is absolutely essential to good storytelling. according to him, didacticism makes children eventually resist exploring existential matters. Being overly fantastic or silly, when it 48 SKS 1, 338–40 / CI, 306–307, for kierkegaard’s discussion of tieck’s “ideal human figures.�� See also Section IV�� above.

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

287

is clear that one does not believe in fairy tales and is even condescending toward them, “damages” children’s personalities by making them “mistrustful” and “suspicious.” as they grow older, such storytellers and storytelling only lead children to become increasingly skeptical about stories and the ideality they represent since they imply by their attitude that smart people know that such things have nothing to do with actual existence. didacticism, silliness, and condescension, then, preclude children from developing a proper taste for the ideality and sacredness of life—an intellectual and emotional resource kierkegaard believes they will need as adults in order to search for meaning and fulfillment in the modern world—especially as he and his pseudonyms Johannes climacus and anti-climacus will see it.49 kierkegaard illustrates this by addressing what he takes to be the bad storytelling of bourgeois families. With his usual polemical ��air�� he indicates that cultured bourgeois storytellers consider themselves to be more sophisticated than nurses. in their smugness and complacency, though, they fail to recognize that they are not only superficial�� but ruefully lacking in the Socratic—and the poetic. In making this point, kierkegaard engages tieck a bit more directly. anticipating his later pseudonym Johannes climacus’ now well-known examination of moral or existential truth over objective-speculative truth, kierkegaard contends that stories should not encourage children to be overly concerned with �atomized knowledge��—the result of a certain kind of didacticism.50 storytelling is not about imparting to children a series of disconnected facts about plants and animals, or teaching them the word for “nose in French,” so that they might become good performers for family, friends, and colleagues.51 nor is storytelling about endless diversions into “horribly monotonous” trivialities such as “those interminable silly tales about the dog and the cat.”52 rather, storytelling is an engaging, uninhibited exploration of the poetic that carries at its core a deep and intriguing engagement with life through the �indefiniteness�� of the Socratic.53 as he lambastes bourgeois storytellers, kierkegaard concentrates on their condescending attitude, and makes a brief, but explicit reference to tieck. according to him, one of the major faults of bad storytelling is the condescending attitude that the bourgeois storyteller has toward fairy tales. mimicking them, kierkegaard says that they love to end their yarns telling the children that they should understand that this “was only a fairy tale.”54 in countering this move, kierkegaard calls on tieck for support: is the fairy tale...so meaningless that one must immediately destroy the story and its impression...? Children crave fairy stories�� and this alone is sufficient proof of their value 49 SKS 17, 122–33, BB:37 / JP 1, 265. compare SKS 4, 233–41 / P�, 26–35. SV1 Xii, 162–7, 173–83 / PC, 174–9,186–98. SKS 11, 145–157 / SUD, 29–42, where kierkegaard’s pseudonyms tell the story of christ’s passion with the express purpose of presenting him as an ideal meant to heal the fragmentation and despair of human existence. the reference to Practice in Christianity also includes anti-climacus’ view on telling children the passion story. 50 compare SKS 17, 122–33, BB:37 / JP 1, 265 with SKS 7, 182–222 / CUP1, 199–243. 51 SKS 17, 130, BB:37 / JP 1, 265. 52 ibid. 53 ibid. 54 SKS 17, 130n, BB:37 / JP 1, 265.

288

Marcia C. Robinson ....�ot to tell children such exciting imaginative stories and tales leaves an unfilled space for an anxiety which, when not moderated by such stories, returns again all the stronger (compare tieck, Die Verlobung; dresden: 1823; pp. 63–5)55

kierkegaard does not elaborate on tieck’s story, The Engagement. instead, he simply implies that tieck understands that imaginative stories should be employed to help children to deal with their anxieties about life. if adults fail to tell children imaginative stories, or fail to let them stand as such when they are told, they fail to be responsive to children’s desires for and need of such stories. as a result, they fail to use the poetic and entertaining moment that stories create to help children deal with fundamental existential issues.56 in an undated entry from 1836, about a year earlier than the entry we have been discussing, kierkegaard makes it clear that tieck is an ally of his view of storytelling: Tieck knows that all stories have allegory—that is�� the struggle of good and evil—at their heart. kierkegaard is so taken by what tieck has to say about allegory that he cites the passage and then quotes it at length in german. here is the entire entry: Ludwig Tiecks Schriften, iv, Phantasus, part i. Berlin: 1828. p. 129.…there is perhaps no invention of the imagination which, even if unconsciously, does not have the allegory as the very ground of its character. the double phenomenon of good and evil is that which the child understands most readily in all imaginative literature, which moves us anew in every portrayal, which speaks to us in manifold forms out of every enigma and arduously seeks to resolve itself into understanding. there is a way in which the most ordinary life is regarded as fairy tale; likewise, one can become conversant with the most marvelous as if it were the most commonplace. it is possible to say that all of the most ordinary as well as the most marvelous,, the lightest, and the jolliest have veracity and captivate us, only because this allegory in the last analysis serves as the mainstay of the whole, and that is precisely why dante’s allegories are so convincing; they have been painstakingly developed into the most graphic actuality. novalis says: only the story that can also be a fable is truly a story. But there is also much sick and feeble literature of this type which only drags us about in concepts without engaging our imagination, and that is the most irksome kind of entertainment.— see in this connection heyne (Romantische Schule, p. 20).57

In this brief�� but insightful re��ection�� Tieck makes four significant points about imaginative literature that �ierkegaard will adapt in his 1837 re��ection. First�� he claims that all �inventions of the imagination��—that is�� fairy tales�� fables and stories of all kinds—are fundamentally defined by allegory. Good storytelling is allegory, and allegory is about the struggle of good and evil. according to him, children immediately recognize this—and so do adults. In fact�� both are captivated by imaginative stories precisely because they see the phenomenon of good and evil at the heart of such tales. this suggests that there are two dimensions to stories for SKS 17, 130–31n BB:37 / JP 1, 265. note, for example, how kierkegaard’s pseudonym vigilius haufniensis deals with human anxiety, particularly as it is presented in the story of the Fall in genesis 3 and the doctrine of original or hereditary sin. see SKS 4, 348–51 / CA, 41–6, especially SKS 4, 349 / CA, 42–3. 57 SKS 17, 76, BB:6 / JP 5, 5138. 55 56

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

289

tieck, namely, an enchanting or entertaining dimension and a spiritual and moral dimension, which leads us to his second point. By maintaining that all imaginative tales are allegories, tieck implies that storytelling is as much about engaging our spiritual and moral sensibilities as it is about engaging our imaginations and sense of play. while the magic and lightness of a story’s aesthetic details are clearly meant to enchant us, the struggle of good and evil at its core is clearly meant to attract us at a deeper and more serious level. indeed, as just indicated, the quest to resolve this struggle is the most engaging and definitive feature of the story. It is clear�� then�� that for Tieck�� a good story is not simply about pleasure and entertainment; it is fundamentally about addressing the spiritual and moral issues that affect our lives. this does not mean, however, that an imaginative tale should cease to be aesthetic. in fact, according to tieck, a storyteller cannot awaken his audience to existential issues without understanding and effectively utilizing the nature and power of the aesthetic. the master storyteller knows that the pleasing and enchanting qualities of his story enable his audience to engage its religious and moral core. tieck’s brief discussion of the artistry of dante in the passage quoted above illustrates this point. according to him, when a master storyteller like dante brings us face to face with the phenomenon of good and evil, he is not simply concerned with imparting religious doctrines or moral principles to his audience. he does not preach, teach, or moralize like a priest or a professor might. instead, he produces an enchanting story that pleases us, gives us an engaging perspective on life’s most fundamental issues, and then compels us to engage life more fully. this is the reason that dante’s allegories are never “irksome” entertainment like the “sick and feeble literature” that “only drags us about in concepts without engaging our imagination.” dante demonstrates that good storytelling means allowing every portrayal of good and evil to captivate us anew, to engross us again and again in the problem of resolving this struggle. thus, as tieck sees it, the art of the fairy tale is precisely that which brings the intellectual, psychological, and emotional engagement of religious and moral matters to life for an audience. this anticipates a later point that tieck will make about the intimate relationship between the religious, the ethical, and the aesthetic in fairy tales. in The Old Book and the Voyage into the Blue, a novella from 1835, tieck maintains that the spiritual, the moral, and the aesthetic aspects of fairy tales are not only intricately related but also inseparable: the true fairy-tale opens up with its child-like tone and its play with the wondrous an area of our spirit into which other kinds of art and poetry cannot find their way. Our first�� and most sacred, relations with nature and the invisible world, the basis of our faith, the elements of our perception, birth, and grave, the creation around us, the necessities of our life, all this is as fairy-tale and dream and cannot be resolved into what we call rational or consequent. hence the sacredness and strange mysteriousness of all old romances. the creation, the origin of good and evil, the fall of the angels, redemption, call it what you will in greeks, gentiles,

290

Marcia C. Robinson Jews, and christians, the fresh originality of legend as well as of our closest everyday life, if we take the word in a sacred and serious way, is a fairy-tale.58

As Tieck sees it�� the spiritual and moral dimensions of our lives—that is�� our deepest and most basic ways of understanding, relating to, and being in the world, from birth through life to death—are like fairy tales. Just as fairy tales are shrouded in mystery, awe, wonder, and a sense of the sacred because their imaginative forms trade in deep, existential matters that we do not fully understand, so the spiritual and moral dimensions fundamentally shaping our lives are shrouded in mystery, awe, wonder, and a sense of the sacred, and trade in existential matters that we do not fully understand. indeed, fairy tales are nothing less than powerful poeticizations of the religious and ethical aspects of our lives. thus, while our lives can and do mimic fairy tales in one sense, fairy tales in truth draw from our lives before representing them in poetic form. this is why they are able to awaken our spiritual and moral sensibilities, and to compel us, with all of their psychological, intellectual, and emotional power, to deal with deep religious and ethical issues in a way that neither rational discourse nor “other forms of art and poetry” can. this is also why they can and should be taken “in a sacred and serious way.” they are nothing less than pictures of the religious and moral issues grounding and defining our lives. this sense of the interrelatedness and inseparability of the religious, the moral, and the aesthetic in fairy tales brings us to a third and related point in the passage that kierkegaard quotes from the Phantasus, namely, tieck’s idea that there is a close, but complex relation between ordinary life, art, and allegory. this idea is summed up in his claim that the best allegories are poeticizations of “the most ordinary life.” after saying that every good story is an allegory, and after indicating that stories awaken, evoke, and interweave our spiritual, moral, and aesthetic sensibilities, tieck then suggests that the poeticization of “the most ordinary” life into the form of a fairy tale is precisely the kind of allegory that he has been discussing all along. in the passage from the Phantasus, cited above, tieck maintains that any person’s life can be seen as a fairy tale in which the individual becomes conversant with the “most marvelous” things, people, and events as though they were the “most commonplace.” that is, when an individual views life as a fairy tale or fable, extraordinary things 58 ludwig tieck, Das alte Buch und die Reise ins Blaue hinein (in Das alte Buch und die Reise ins Blaue hinein. Der Alte vom Berge. Eigensinn und Laune. Die Gesellschaft auf dem Lande, Berlin: g. reimer 1853) as quoted and translated from the german in paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography�� op. cit.�� pp. 309–10. Tieck seems to have thought about—as well as practiced—the art of storytelling throughout his long�� literary career�� for he published these remarks about storytelling in 1835�� well after he first published similar musings in the Phantasus (Berlin: realschulbuchhandlung 1812–16). see paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., p. 188; pp. 196–202; pp. 309–10. note also that the 1828 edition of the Phantasus that kierkegaard used was closer in publication to this 1835 novella. indeed, as kierkegaard clearly knew Ludwig Tiecks Schriften (Berlin: g. reimer 1828–46), the collection that contains the edition of the Phantasus from which he quotes, he undoubtedly knew the Das alte Buch und die Reise ins Blaue hinein that came out only six to seven years later in the same collection, especially since it was certainly out in time for kierkegaard to have read it by 1837, when he was thinking about storytelling—and clearly mining storytellers and writers such as Tieck for ideas.

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

291

can appear to be just as real for that person (and those reviewing the tale of her or his life) as ordinary things, without, however, losing their distinctive quality. as the extraordinary things tend to symbolize or point to the sacred and mysterious aspects of life, the equalization of these things with ordinary things creates an intriguing interchange or fundamental relation between the two. tieck indicates that this fundamental relation between the extraordinary and the ordinary is defined by the �mainstay of the whole��—namely�� the mysterious struggle of good and evil. as implied, but not fully explained in our earlier discussion of the spiritual and moral dimension of allegories, the magical interplay between “the marvelous” and “the commonplace” is not just a bit of enchantment, a little whimsy to “captivate” and entertain us. this aesthetic construction of “manifold” and contrasting “forms” is first and foremost the vehicle for—that is�� the concrete expression of—the “double phenomenon of good and evil.” as tieck puts it, “the marvelous” and “the commonplace” get their truth or “veracity” precisely by bodying forth this spiritual and moral con��ict in every aspect of their aesthetic form. It is precisely this kind of idealized, yet concrete, portrayal of ordinary life as an imaginative struggle of good and evil that makes the religious, the ethical, and the aesthetic inseparable in allegories, and that makes allegories so convincing. revisiting tieck’s discussion of dante’s allegories makes this explicit. in discussing dante’s artistry, tieck essentially says that allegory both substantiates and is made alive by the interplay of the marvelous and the quotidian. once allegory gives depth and richness to the poetic interplay of the wondrous and the ordinary, the poetic interplay of the wondrous and the ordinary gives allegory a concrete situation in which to unfold. this is what makes allegory’s struggle of good and evil real and convincing. consider the way that dreams function. dreams captivate us precisely by the way that they bring together extraordinary things with ordinary things. If a dream also has the added depth of struggle—say we are trying to get away from some sinister force, then all of the vivid details of the marvelous and the commonplace give our struggle that much more of a sense of reality. the graphic and striking nature of the extraordinary and the concrete and familiar forms of the ordinary create a situation in which the line between fantasy and reality breaks down so much that we are disturbed that much more. this is the reason that we force ourselves to wake up: we do not want to accept that this struggle is really happening. as tieck sees it, fables and fairy tales often function in a similar way. the dark and mysterious struggle of good and evil within them gets that sense not by being abstract concepts but by being portrayed as actual phenomena. the struggle emerges in the unexplained tension between the enigmatic wonders and the familiar rituals and conventions of everyday life, and takes shape in and through the dynamic relation of these concrete and contrasting elements. if these imaginative tales are poeticizations of our own world, then we not only come face to face with the mysterious forces of good and evil in such stories, as we get caught up in them, but we also come face to face with the mystery and the con��ict in our own lives. As Tieck puts it in The Old Book and the Voyage into the Blue, true fairy tales allow us to see the world as sacred

292

Marcia C. Robinson

and ideal, and to engage, if only vicariously, the questions and the problems that we ordinarily face as we try to make sense of our world.59 this might well unsettle us, but, unlike a dream, such stories operate in a more controlled manner. For one thing, we engage them while we are awake, not asleep. second, by allowing us to see the world from an ideal perspective, particularly through the lightness of fantasy, fairy tales give us a certain amount of distance from which to view our ordinary lives. in doing so, they create a safe space within which to address our own circumstances. this leads us to tieck’s fourth point. to suggest that the poeticization of ordinary life into a fairy tale allows us to deal with the mysterious phenomenon of good and evil in our own lives is to suggest that imaginative stories have a cathartic function. this is basically what aristotle says about tragedy in the Poetics.60 it is also what kierkegaard implies that tieck’s The Engagement illustrates. in 1836 and 1837, kierkegaard clearly saw in tieck’s ideas and stories an effective and imaginative presentation of allegory that he could incorporate into his own emerging idea of good storytelling as a socratic-poetic endeavor. to start, issues of good and evil, which tieck believed children could “readily” see in any good story, are undoubtedly what kierkegaard suggests is at the root of their anxiety, and are precisely what the socratic-poetic storyteller wants to help them to address. As �ierkegaard points out�� such a storyteller—for example�� Tieck in The Engagement—realizes that children do not know how to deal with such issues�� particularly in regard to their own actions, without play and stories. thus, if they are not going to become increasingly anxious—or ultimately insensitive and callous�� they need good stories to help them to deal with life and their anxieties about it. as tieck notes, and kierkegaard picks up, we adults need stories for the same reasons, even though our circumstances are more complicated. second and related, kierkegaard’s idea that storytelling is about developing the child as a person trades on tieck’s idea that good stories must engage an audience’s moral and spiritual sensibilities. Just as tieck thinks that all imaginative stories are about our need to deal with good and evil, so kierkegaard thinks that good stories are about helping children to deal with existential issues, particularly as they have to do with becoming a whole human being. next, just as tieck thinks that one should be creative and engaging, not prosaic and “irksome” in presenting the moral and spiritual dimension of stories, so kierkegaard thinks the storyteller should be poetic and enchanting, not didactic and ponderous in presenting the existential. in other words, kierkegaard clearly embraces tieck’s idea that a good storyteller engages the imagination in order to engage the moral and religious senses, which means that he also clearly accepts tieck’s idea that stories are more than entertainment. Finally, like tieck, kierkegaard also believes that good storytelling means entering into the audience’s world, and spinning a fanciful story from what is both familiar and of personal concern to it. kierkegaard recognizes that starting from the place where children live, like starting from the ordinary world for adults, is the best 59 see the quotation from and discussion of this work above. see also paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., pp. 309–10; pp. 196–202. 60 Poetics 1449b 28; see also Politics 1341b 32–1342b 17.

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

293

way to allow the poetic to touch children’s lives in every way. spinning a fanciful story out of the familiar is also the best way to create a safe space in which to help children deal with the troubling issue of good and evil. it gives children the distance and the playful context that they need to handle such matters on their own terms. From this, we can see that kierkegaard’s early idea of telling children stories has all of the features of tieck’s idea of good storytelling in the Phantasus and elsewhere. we might add that heine, whom kierkegaard notes at the end of the entry from 1836, helps kierkegaard to see tieck’s strengths as a storyteller as well. although heine was critical of tieck, almost to the point of mockery, and would later in��uence �ierkegaard to be openly critical of him as well�� he nevertheless recognized, amidst all of the jesting, that tieck was a master at storytelling.61 in The Romantic School, a long essay on two generations of german romantics, heine acknowledges tieck as a great storyteller and credits his accomplishments to his own creative genius as well as to tieck’s appreciation and absorption of master storytellers like goethe and cervantes.62 in the middle of this book-length essay, where he contends that tieck became a disciple of his old foe, goethe, particularly when he started to display the same “artistic clarity, serenity, calm, and irony” as his one-time nemesis, heine says, “mr. tieck, however, is still a great poet. For he can create characters�� and from his heart ��ow words that move our own hearts.��63 an example of what heine means by this appears in an earlier point about tieck’s �omantic novellas—stories comprising a major portion of the first edition of the Phantasus:64 the novellas that mr. tieck wrote in his second style…Blond Eckbert and The Runic Mountain are the best. a mysterious inwardness, a strange sympathy with nature, especially with the plant and mineral kingdom, dominate these writings. the reader feels as if he were in an enchanted forest; [he]…at times…fancies he hears his own name in the whispering of the trees;…strange magical ��owers gaze at him with their bright�� longing eyes;…great silent birds rock in the branches and nod down at him with their wise, long beaks; everything is breathing�� listening�� quivering with expectation—then suddenly…a beautiful woman�� with wavering feathers in her cap and her falcon on her fist�� gallops past on a white palfrey. and this beautiful lady is as beautiful, as fair-haired, as violet-eyed, as smiling and also as serious, as real and yet as ironic, as chaste and also as passionate as the imagination of our excellent ludwig tieck.65

as heine sees it, we are drawn into tieck’s enchanting, earnest, and ironic interpretation of the natural world, and even hear our names being called to pursue the existential mysteries that his “remarkable natural creations” raise.66 trees with according to paulin, heine is often unfairly critical of tieck. see paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., p. 228. 62 heine, The Romantic School, op. cit., p.18; p. 64; pp. 66–8. 63 ibid., p. 65; p. 66. 64 paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., pp. 188–9; p. 196. 65 heine, The Romantic School, op. cit., p. 64. 66 the reference to “remarkable natural creations” is from kierkegaard’s description of tieck’s characters in the dissertation. see SKS 1, 338–40 / CI, 306. in light of our discussion in the previous section, we might recall that in the dissertation, kierkegaard uses similar 61

294

Marcia C. Robinson

voices�� ��owers with �bright�� longing eyes���� and silent�� nodding birds with �wise�� long beaks” act like human beings who deliberately lure us into their magic world of deep longing and tense expectation.67 as we follow them deeper into this world, suddenly an attractive, but enigmatic lady bursts on the scene, riding a horse and carrying a domesticated bird of prey. her disruptive, but intriguing entrance suggests that she is what the trees�� ��owers�� and birds are waiting for—something beautiful�� desirable, promising, yet totally unsettling, mysterious, sublime. it is precisely these strange “natural creations” that intrigue us, and their longing for and expectation of something beautiful and sublime that moves us. getting caught up in them, we are compelled to feel as they do, and so not only is our curiosity awakened, but so also are our desires, anxieties, and fears. in characterizing tieck’s stories, particularly Eckbert the �air and The Runenberg, heine is not really talking about either story, but about the effect of various aspects of both stories on him as a reader. For good measure, and in his usual jesting tone, he even adds a reference to cervantes, a modern writer whom he admired and whom he felt tieck captured very well in his german translation.68 in the midst of all of this jesting, though, heine does not miss the way that tieck raises questions about the logic of an individual chasing after ideals beyond the pale of ordinary life. kierkegaard does not miss this point or the tragi-comic sense that heine gives to it language to characterize Tieck’s �ideal human figures�� and their effect on him�� which suggests that heine’s assessment of tieck played a role in kierkegaard’s assessment. 67 in his late christian discourses on the lilies and the birds, which were published over ten years after kierkegaard quotes from the Phantasus, kierkegaard presents his own picture of silent�� quivering�� and expectant ��owers and birds. In four sets of poetic interpretations of matthew 6:24–34, he portrays the lily and the bird of the Jutland heath as human-like creatures who evoke just as much wisdom and beauty, and just as much longing and expectation of something sublime�� mysterious�� yet promising to come�� as Tieck’s marvelous ��owers and birds. while his immediate touchstone for these poetic discourses was the gospels, one might argue that �ierkegaard turns Tieck’s spiritualized image of ��owers�� birds�� and lady into a beautiful picture of the incarnation as the overwhelming presence of the divine in human life. and he does so in a tone that is earnest and questioning like tieck’s in The Runenberg. compare heine, The Romantic School, op. cit., p. 64 with SKS 8, 257–307 / UD, 157–212; SKS 10, 7–96 / CD, 3–91; SKS 11, 7–48 / WA, 3–45; SV1 Xii, 423–81 / J�Y, 147–215. someone might object that kierkegaard is concerned primarily with the religious, not the aesthetic, in presenting several interpretations of matthew 6. i would agree, but the religious that he uses is also aesthetic. in other words, that kierkegaard is concerned with the religious need not preclude his use of a Tieckean sense of the power of the fairy tale—precisely as a way to address the difficult ideality that the religious�� particularly the Christian�� demands. See Paulin�� Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., p. 310. 68 the reference to the noblewoman on the palfrey is from chapter XXX of Don Quixote. For the definitive �nglish translation of Don Quixote, see miguel de cervantes, Don Quixote, trans. by edith grossman, new York: ecco, harpercollins 2003, p. 653. For discussions of the symbolism of falcons and other birds, see george Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, new York: oxford university press 1961, pp. 12, 18; James hall, Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art, new York: icon editions, harpercollins 1994, pp. 24, 208; and J.e. cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, new York: Barnes and noble 1995, pp. 26–8.

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

295

either, especially as he reads tieck and heine on tieck. indeed, tieck’s regular use of a noble or mysterious woman to represent a strange, captivating, and dangerous ideal is just the kind of image that will inspire kierkegaard to picture christ as a strange, captivating, and dangerous ideal. For example, in the Philosophical �ragments, appearing eight years after his quotation of tieck in the journals, kierkegaard will call his reader through the jesting irony of Johannes climacus to see the god-man, Jesus christ, as a lofty king in love with a lowly maiden. in this christian variation on the elizabethan tale of king cophetua and the Beggar maid, christ will be the enchanting, unsettling, and earnest figure who bursts on the scene of peasant life�� and startles the lowly maiden�� representing the human creation, with his promises of divine love. like the noble, but enigmatic lady of tieck’s Runenberg, christ will appear as a majestic, intriguing, ironic�� and disquieting figure. His unsettling nature�� though�� will not only reside in the wonder and splendor of his divinity, particularly as it contrasts with the ordinary world�� but it will also�� indeed first and foremost�� reside in the intimate association between his majestic divinity and the lowly human form that he must take in order to be his beloved’s equal in love. out of love for his beloved, christ will willingly bind his divine status as lord of the universe to his newly chosen human status as humble servant. in doing so, he will present his humble mistress, the human creation, with a paradox. on one hand, as lord�� he will disrupt all that she knows�� is comfortable with�� and loves—like the beguiling woman does to christian in tieck’s Runenberg. on the other hand, as peasant, his offer of an eternal happiness with him in divine glory will make no sense, since a lowly servant can hardly make the promises of a king—a nonsensical move that parallels the final scene of the Runenberg, where christian, mad and spellbound, displays his ordinary rocks as though they were precious jewels. and as though all of this were not problematic enough�� Christ will then—as king and peasant—tell the lowly maiden that the responsibility for their separation and their union is entirely hers! The struggle at the core of the story�� then�� will be defined by the risk that the incarnate god will take in making his beloved human creation bewildered, anxious, unhappy, and offended, and the offense and the risk that the maiden must face in having anything to do with this king. and so like tieck, climacus will raise the question of the reasonableness of running after beguiling ideals.69 in the late 1830s, though, nearly ten years before the publication of the Philosophical �ragments, heine’s insights about tieck, and especially tieck’s own stories and insights about storytelling, undoubtedly inspired the young kierkegaard to consider what it means to be a good storyteller. they also inspired him to consider what it means to be a good writer. B. Tieck and Kierkegaard�s Emerging Religio-Ethical Aesthetic: Good Writing as a Development of Good Storytelling From the mid-to-late 1830s to the early 1840s, when kierkegaard was pondering what it meant to tell children stories, he was also pondering what it meant to be a good writer. 69

SKS 4, 233–43 / P�, 26–36.

296

Marcia C. Robinson

In fact�� a sampling of his writing from this period—the journal entries from 1836 and 1837 just discussed, �rom the Papers of One Still Living of 1838, and The Concept of Irony from 1841—suggests that�� for him�� the two concerns were fundamentally related. as we have seen, in the 1837 journal entry discussed above, kierkegaard maintains that good storytelling is a religious, ethical and aesthetic enterprise. a year later, in �rom the Papers of One Still Living�� he defines what it takes to be a good writer in similar terms. three years after that, in 1841, when he defends the dissertation, he continues to promote the idea that good writing, like good storytelling, is a religious, ethical and aesthetic project. this suggests that kierkegaard’s ideas about being a good writer are the logical development of his ideas about being a good storyteller for children— ideas that we know were fundamentally in��uenced by Tieck. This progression in kierkegaard’s thought, from good storytelling to good writing, also suggests that both his ideas about being a good writer and his ideas about being a good storyteller constitute an emerging religious and ethical aesthetic. it is my contention that kierkegaard will use this emerging religio-ethical aesthetic to construct his literary corpus over the next decade. in the process, he will also carry tieck’s storytelling methods directly, though clandestinely, into the formation of the authorship. �oughly a year after writing his long re��ection on storytelling in his journals�� kierkegaard addresses the issue of being a good writer in �rom the Papers of One Still Living. in this long and primarily negative review of hans christian andersen from 1838, he contrasts andersen’s work, particularly his novel, Only a �iddler, with the short novels of thomasine gyllembourg-ehrensvärd (1773–1856) and steen steensen Blicher (1782–1848)—and finds Andersen wanting. Focusing his praise primarily on mme gyllembourg, and to a lesser extent on Blicher, kierkegaard exclaims that gyllembourg is a true writer because she has a life-view, born from experience, that she employs in her literary productions. Because she has lived the perspective that she illustrates in her novels, particularly A Story of Everyday Life, she knows what she wants to say about life; how to say it convincingly through the characters, the plot, and the con��ict in the story; and how to model the whole into an aesthetic unity that is both pleasing and inspiring.70 andersen, on the other hand, fails to engage life in any genuine way, and so fails to say or present anything profound in his novels. as a result, says kierkegaard, stories like Only a �iddler not only lack aesthetic unity but also fail to be either pleasing or inspiring. in other words, without a life-view and the lived experience that gives rise to a life-view, the writer cannot give a story the meaning, unity�� and integrity that would make it beautiful�� uplifting—good. For discussions of kierkegaard on the relation between aesthetic unity in art and aesthetic unity in life, see robinson, “kierkegaard’s conception of poetic living,” op. cit., and connell, To Be One Thing: Personal Unity in Kierkegaard�s Thought, op. cit., pp. 19–37. For discussions of kierkegaard on aesthetic unity in life and art, and aesthetic unity in kierkegaard’s own life, see alastair hannay, Kierkegaard, A Biography, cambridge: cambridge university press 2001, pp. 11–19; pp. 101–26; 429–41. note also that hannay characterizes mme gyllembourg’s A Story of Everyday Life not as a short novel, but as a feuilleton because it appeared in her son Johan ludvig heiberg’s Copenhagen�s �lying Post (p. 108). in light of this, her story might best be characterized as a serialized novel. see george pattison, Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture, cambridge: cambridge university press 2002, pp. 25–49. 70

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

297

this emphasis on the coordination of the spiritual, the moral, and the aesthetic in kierkegaard’s conception of good writing clearly expands and deepens the union of spiritual and moral purpose and aesthetic effect in his conception of the socratictieckean storyteller. the artist’s task is still to entertain and gratify the audience, while also helping them to develop character. after all, a key component in kierkegaard’s understanding of gyllembourg’s success and andersen’s failure at good writing is their individual abilities to please and inspire the reader. But the artist’s spiritual and moral task is now more complicated. kierkegaard’s good writer does not simply want to get the audience to ask deep existential questions, as the socratic-tieckean storyteller does. he or she also wants the audience to think about a particular kind of life-view and the meaning and integrity that it can give their individual lives. in other words, the good writer is addressing not children but adults about what it means to live as a whole and healthy human being. a closer look at kierkegaard’s conception of the spiritual and moral aestheticism separating gyllembourg and andersen makes this apparent. according to kierkegaard, mme gyllembourg is a writer who is joyous and hopeful about life in a mature way. Speaking with the confidence and authority of one who has lived what she speaks, gyllembourg champions the view that even the most trivial people have within them “a fullness, a divine spark,” which if “carefully tended, can make the whole of life glow.”71 kierkegaard maintains that by doing this, she gives the reader a sense of the beauty of her own life and that of her characters’ lives. as he sees it, both her life and her characters’ lives are tested by time, yet �transfigured�� and �transubstantiated�� by hope and joyous possibility.72 kierkegaard clearly finds this uplifting�� even �evangelistic���� for he revels in what he takes to be the “boundlessness” of gyllembourg’s “rich temperament” and “youthful earnestness.”73 with all of this religious and moral language, one might expect kierkegaard to admit, if only marginally, that gyllembourg’s stories are didactic. kierkegaard, however, says nothing of the kind. according to him, gyllembourg pulls off this “truly upbuilding study” with “artistic virtuosity.”74 it might be born in the crucible of life, and so have a religious and ethical perspective to promote, but it is no less gratifying for the reader. in other words, gyllembourg is no pedant, “dragging her reader about in concepts without engaging their imaginations,” as tieck would put it.75 she knows how to create an engaging story that also has existential validity and religious and ethical force. given kierkegaard’s excitement about gyllembourg, particularly against the backdrop of the religious, ethical, and aesthetic concerns he expresses in his 1836 and 1837 journal entries on tieck’s and his own storytelling methods, it is apparent that kierkegaard saw in mme gyllembourg’s literary aesthetic a way to develop the socratic-tieckean storytelling that he already embraced. he had long been in the mood SKS 1, 21–2 / EPW, 65–6. kierkegaard will develop this very idea himself in his later christian writings from the late 1840s, under his own name and anti-climacus. 72 SKS 1, 21–3, 31–4, 36–41 / EPW, 65–7, 76–8, 81–5. kierkegaard uses this christian and specifically Catholic terminology again in the dissertation. See SKS 1, 330 / CI, 297. For a discussion of this language, see my “Ars Divina,” pp. 80–82; see also walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard�s Existential Aesthetics, op. cit., p. 37. 73 SKS 1, 21 / EPW, 65–6. 74 ibid. 75 compare kierkegaard’s long quotation from tieck’s Schriften above. 71

298

Marcia C. Robinson

for allegorical stories such as those written by tieck, and now mme gyllembourg’s stories added a new dimension to this interest. they showed him how a writer could be a skillful and sophisticated proponent of a religious and ethical life-view. since the summer of 1835, when he wrote his now famous gilleleje entry in his journals, he had been looking for an idea for which he could live and die.76 later the same year, in his address before the student union at the university of copenhagen in november 1835, he began working out this existential idea in moral and aesthetic terms, where he accused the danish liberal press for failing to display both moral and aesthetic integrity in its newspapers.77 two years later, in 1837, when kierkegaard was pondering the use of stories in the moral and spiritual development of children, he was undoubtedly also considering how such an existential question might emerge for children, particularly as he took into account the whole range of their capacities as developing human beings—imagination�� faith�� intellect�� feeling�� desire�� and action. since he was concerned that children learn to ask existential questions, we can easily see him contemplating what kind of taste for the ideal and what kind of spiritual and moral questioning would need to be in place for children to grow up inquiring about the idea—ultimately the life-view—for which they could live or die. Tieck’s conception of storytelling as allegory helped him to address this concern in religious, ethical, and aesthetic terms. it also set the stage for him to consider how he might handle that very meaning-of-life question in his own emerging desire to be a writer. By 1838, then, when kierkegaard encountered the stories of mme gyllembourg, and wrote about them in �rom the Papers of One Still Living, he was not only channeling his need for an idea for which he could live and die into the notion of a christian lifeview,78 but he was also figuring out in a preliminary way how to connect his emerging life-view with his emerging sense of himself as a writer. kierkegaard already saw himself as a kind of socratic-tieckean storyteller. mme gyllembourg, however, would help him to refine this�� both in terms of content and in context. �omanticism�� idealism�� and especially Hegelianism defined the outlook of the cultural elite in kierkegaard’s world. mme gyllembourg and her son, the hegelian playwright and writer Johan ludvig heiberg (1791–1860), were not only at the center of this elite world, but they were also its arbiters, particularly heiberg. at this point in his writing career�� �ierkegaard identified with Mme Gyllembourg and the entire heiberg–gyllembourg circle. this is not only evident in his brief review of her in �rom the Papers of One Still Living, but it is also evident in his dissertation, SKS 17, 18–30, aa:12 / JP 5, 5100. Pap. i B 2 / EPW, 35–52 / JP 5, 5116. see also robinson, “kierkegaard’s conception of poetic living,” op. cit. and hannay, Kierkegaard, A Biography, op. cit., pp. 11–19. 78 SKS 1, 21–2 / EPW, 65–6. SKS 1, 316 / CI, 280. kierkegaard is so moved by what gyllembourg says in A Story of Everyday Life that two years after the publication of �rom the Papers of One Still Living he trades on aspects of her life-view in the dissertation. compare his sketch of a christian conception of poetic living with his review of gyllembourg in �rom the Papers of One Still Living. note the similarity between her idea of a “divine fullness” and kierkegaard’s idea of the recognition and development of the “seeds” of a “divine individuality” in a life that is to have meaning and beautiful form. see also robinson, “kierkegaard’s conception of poetic living,” op. cit.; and hannay, Kierkegaard, A Biography, op. cit., pp. 11–19; pp. 101–26. 76 77

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

299

particularly in his use of hegel’s aesthetics to criticize romantics like tieck, and in his student union address, in which he employs a kind of heibergian–hegelian aesthetic to criticize the political movements of the day. It is natural�� then�� to find kierkegaard publicly recognizing mme gyllembourg, and publicly criticizing and distancing himself from tieck. their german master had, after all, criticized tieck’s irony, and he himself had found tieck wanting in a clear life-view just as mme gyllembourg gave him the outlines for creating a christian one.79 kierkegaard, however, never totally relinquished his admiration of tieck as a storyteller, or gave up his storytelling methods, even while he was in the heiberg– gyllembourg circle. as we have seen, kierkegaard quietly acknowledged tieck’s abilities in his critical assessment of him in the dissertation. more importantly, in his journals and dissertation, kierkegaard clung to tieck’s idea of combining the engaging and the entertaining with a deeper religious and ethical perspective on life. in fact, as we have just seen, kierkegaard uses this very tenet to praise mme gyllembourg as a good writer!80 in spite of the more public critique, then, it is apparent that tieck and gyllembourg provided the positive contours of kierkegaard’s emerging religious and ethical aesthetic. andersen, on the other hand, did just the opposite. kierkegaard considered him to be too busy “sniveling” to have anything uplifting to say or to present with poetic virtuosity, and so andersen could only help him to develop his religious and ethical aesthetic in a negative way.81 examining kierkegaard’s negative assessment of Andersen helps us to see this—and more importantly to deepen our understanding of kierkegaard’s view and use of tieck. drawing conclusions from what he takes to be revelations of andersen’s personal temperament in Only a �iddler rather than any actual acquaintance with him, kierkegaard accuses andersen of lacking a life-view.82 instead of engaging the world in a deep and earnest way so that he might develop an appropriate and meaningful perspective on his own life, andersen develops a “dissatisfaction with

SKS 1, 282–4, 311–13, 320–41 / CI, 242–5, 274–7, 285–308. see also hannay, Kierkegaard, A Biography, op. cit., pp. 1–29; pp. 101–53; Jon stewart, Kierkegaard�s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, new York and cambridge: cambridge university press 2003, pp. 50–58; pp. 115–31; pp. 170–81; Jon stewart (ed.), Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries: The Culture of Golden Age Denmark, Berlin and new York: walter de gruyter 2003 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 10), pp. 78–145; pp. 272–97; and pp. 319–29 (relevant and noteworthy essays by k. Brian söderquist, Jon stewart, katalin nun and george pattison). 80 note that in regard to modern life, and kierkegaard’s critique of it, tieck would probably be even more insightful than gyllembourg or her son, since kierkegaard would come to distance himself from Heiberg—though not Gyllembourg. For �ierkegaard’s continued admiration of mme gyllembourg, compare SKS 1, 21–2 / EPW, 65–7 with SKS 8, 17–106 / TA, 12–112. see also hannay, Kierkegaard, A Biography, op. cit., pp. 108–18; pp. 324–41. For kierkegaard’s relation to heiberg and heiberg’s hegelianism, which includes kierkegaard’s and heiberg’s relation to hans lessen martensen, see, for example, hannay, Kierkegaard, A Biography, op. cit., pp. 8–29; pp. 69–100. 81 SKS 1, 43 / EPW, 89. 82 SKS 1, 38–9 / EPW, 83. 79

300

Marcia C. Robinson

the world.”83 kierkegaard explains this “dissatisfaction with the world” as the complaint that genius is ignored, squashed, or abused in the world, especially in those who come from the poorer classes as andersen does. as kierkegaard sees it, this is nothing but self-pity, yet this is precisely what andersen uses repeatedly and inappropriately to shape—or rather distort—his story. according to kierkegaard, andersen introduces christian, the hero or protagonist of the story, as a genius.84 By doing so�� he makes his reader—particularly �ierkegaard—expect to see Christian struggling to attain an existential ideal of some sort. instead of giving the reader a genuine struggle, though, says kierkegaard, andersen entrenches his character in his own petty complaint about genius.85 that is, andersen presents the other characters’ petty brush-offs of christian as though they were major con��icts�� and then sides with Christian against these offending characters.86 For kierkegaard, this is not only self-pity parading as genius, but this is also poetic confusion. andersen “misrelates” to his own person and to “the fund of knowledge necessary for a novelist.”87 according to kierkegaard, andersen fails to relate properly to himself and to others because he fails to recognize and develop the seeds of a genuine ideal in himself, as mme gyllembourg does. as a result, he cannot relate properly to his poetic productions either. since no ideal comes forth and gives meaning and beautiful form to his life, no ideal can come forth and give meaning and beautiful form to his character’s life either. kierkegaard concludes, then, that andersen is a spiritually stunted, self-indulgent, and uninspired writer, and Only a �iddler mirrors this in its lack of aesthetic unity, inspiration, and entertainment value.88 andersen’s only consolation, on kierkegaard’s account, is that he is not a politician.89 But since kierkegaard thinks that contemporary politicians lack both a sense of the poetic and any conception of what constitutes a meaningful view on life, this is no real consolation.90 andersen is simply a spiritually poor and superficial writer who belongs to an age that is equally poor and superficial. we might also add here that by kierkegaard’s standards, andersen is also a poor storyteller, for unlike tieck, he fails to unite the spiritual and the moral with the poetic in an effective, imaginative, and entertaining way. this might seem to be an odd thing to say. after all, kierkegaard contends that both tieck and andersen lack a life-view, and both are also lyrical poets whose ability to create mood in stories fails to produce the existential and literary cohesiveness that steen Blicher’s earnest mood achieves

SKS 1, 44 / EPW, 89. kierkegaard did not miss the eponymous connection to andersen. 85 SKS 1, 30–31, 45–7 / EPW, 74–5, 90–92. 86 SKS 1, 44–8 / EPW, 89–92. 87 SKS 1, 44 / EPW, 89. 88 in his recent biography of hans christian andersen, Jens andersen rightly says that kierkegaard criticized h.c. andersen because he was “looking for an ethically stronger author persona.” see Jens andersen, Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life, trans. by tiina nunnally, new York and london: overlook duckworth 2005, p. 250. 89 SKS 1, 27–8, 56 / EPW, 71–2, 102. 90 Pap. i B 2 / EPW, 35–52 / JP 5, 5116. see also robinson, “kierkegaard’s conception of poetic living,” op. cit.; and hannay, Kierkegaard, A Biography, op. cit., pp. 11–19. 83 84

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

301

in his stories.91 if we consider kierkegaard’s views of tieck and andersen a bit more carefully, though, we can see that he believes them to be more different than alike. to start, kierkegaard thinks that tieck and andersen have fundamentally different attitudes toward existence. according to him, tieck does not reject actual existence altogether as Andersen does—even though he agrees that the ordinary world is full of philistines, and so shows an indifference towards it, when he indulges in an ironic polemic against it.92 rather, tieck demonstrates that he has an interest in actual life, especially in his later novellas, where he balances his ironic capering with a concern for life’s sacred and moral dimensions.93 andersen, on the other hand, wants to have nothing to do with a world that will not conform to his sense of genius. as a result, says kierkegaard, he only succeeds in “sneaking out” of it.94 second, kierkegaard thinks that tieck is a profoundly more gifted writer and storyteller than andersen. For him, andersen’s dissatisfaction with the world makes him superficial�� weak�� ponderous�� and confused about what good poetry entails.95 tieck, on the other hand, suffers from none of these problems. he knows how to wield irony against the conventional in a light and entertaining way. he also knows a real struggle when he sees one, and how to make it vivid, convincing, and engaging for his audience. this suggests that while tieck’s stories may not have the spiritual depth, moral focus, and aesthetic unity that kierkegaard is looking for, they nonetheless have some kind of spiritual and moral re��ectiveness and some kind of literary deftness and insight that kierkegaard can appreciate and appropriate. after all, kierkegaard not only acknowledges that tieck produces imaginative works at a high level of refinement and sophistication�� but he also embraces his views on storytelling.96 this presses us to ask, then, what is it about tieck’s purported lack of a life-view that really bothers kierkegaard. recognizing the role of heine’s negative assessment of tieck in kierkegaard’s criticism might be helpful here. as indicated in our earlier discussion of kierkegaard’s direct assessment of tieck in the dissertation, kierkegaard is not happy with the way that tieck handles either his �ideal human figures�� or the infinite�� enigmatic ideals that they promote. He implies that Tieck squanders an opportunity to make good use of these figures and ideals. If tieck had infused his works with a particular religious and ethical life-view, drawn from SKS 1, 24–31 / EPW, 69–76. SKS 1, 339–40 / CI, 307. SKS 1, 334–7 / CI, 302–304. in regard to tieck’s “ironic capering,” i imagine that kierkegaard, following heine, may very well have had in mind plays such as The Inverted World [Die verkehrte Welt]. 93 SKS 1, 334 / CI, 301–302. SKS 17, 76, BB:6 / JP 5, 5138. cf. paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., pp. 196–201; pp. 309–10. 94 SKS 1, 357 / CI, 329. kierkegaard uses the expression “sneaking out of the world,” to criticize the romantics as a whole. this includes not only schlegel but also tieck. as i have tried to show, though, kierkegaard can only charge tieck with “sneaking out of the world,” when he speaks of tieck’s abandon in ironic capering and of tieck’s failure to offer an ideal capable of transforming or “transubstantiating” life. see SKS 1, 334–40 / CI, 302–307. he cannot say this when he refers to tieck’s later novellas, or when he truly acknowledges the existential import of tieck’s stories. 95 SKS 1, 27–31, 38–40 / EPW, 71–5, 83–4. 96 SKS 1, 313, 337–40 / CI, 276–7, 304–307. 91 92

302

Marcia C. Robinson

his own experience, as mme gyllembourg did, his wonderful characters would have purpose, depth, and power; his ideals would have focus and existential applicability; and his stories would have integrity and coherence—or �poetic totality���� as �ierkegaard puts it.97 as a result, he would have a legitimate and inspiring alternative to offer to his conventional bourgeois audience, not just endless jest, polemic, and artistry. in making such a critique, though, kierkegaard is not being entirely fair. in fact, he is utilizing heine’s criticisms of tieck, particularly his rather misleading remark that tieck “never concerned himself much with serious disciplines” such as philosophy, and so had nothing particularly profound to say.98 kierkegaard, however, was thoroughly familiar with tieck’s mature view of stories, and so he knew that tieck used the fairy tale and the fable to get his audience to deal with the sacred and moral aspects of their lives. this means that kierkegaard also knew that however vague tieck’s thoughts about the religious or sacred might be, he nevertheless had thoughts about it.99 therefore, in criticizing tieck for not having a life-view, kierkegaard is really criticizing tieck for not developing his religious and ethical views in a clear way, not for being indifferent about deep existential issues. that is, kierkegaard is frustrated that tieck failed to exploit the existential potential of his stories—and finds an ally in Heine�� another critic and secret admirer of Tieck.100 it is precisely this frustration, hidden in a more serious charge against tieck, though, that masks kierkegaard’s rather immediate exploitation of this undeveloped aspect of tieck’s aesthetic. For by 1838, when kierkegaard reviewed andersen and gyllembourg, kierkegaard was already building on tieck’s storytelling aesthetic, even though he was not forthcoming about it. tieck had given kierkegaard the idea that stories have a religio-ethical as well as an aesthetic function. mme gyllembourg made it clear that the religio-ethical function could be clearly defined. Thus�� by 1841�� when kierkegaard outlined a christian form of poetic living in contrast to romantic poetic living in the dissertation, kierkegaard was well on the way, with the help of 97 SKS 1, 337–40, 352–3 / CI, 304–307, 324–6. see also SKS 1, 29–31/ EPW, 65–7. �ierkegaard implies that Tieck mishandles these figures�� where he says that Tieck’s works lack “poetic totality” and where he discusses the integrity that a life-view brings to art and life. �ierkegaard himself will demonstrate what he means by using the uncanny or unsettling figure to present a life-view in his portrayals of youths falling in love with christ later in the authorship. 98 heine, The Romantic School, op. cit., p. 66; see with p. 18; pp. 59–60; pp. 62–8. tieck may not have been a philosopher in any profound or proper sense, but he certainly dealt with philosophical issues in his stories, and kept up a relationship and/or a correspondence with his aesthetically-minded, philosopher-poet friends, solger and novalis. he also spent some time studying religion, particularly the writings of the german mystic, Jacob Böhme. see paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., p. 98; pp. 99–100; p. 187; pp. 192–6; pp. 264–5; pp. 103–105; pp. 140–43; pp. 201–202. 99 see paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., pp. 99–100; pp. 309–11; pp. 347–8 for discussions of Tieck’s religious thoughts�� in��uences and �omantic religiosity. as paulin rightly indicates, tieck was not religious in an orthodox christian sense; he was religious in a romantic sense closer to the early works of schleiermacher. see especially pp. 309–11 and pp. 347–8. 100 see paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., p. 228, on heine’s attitude toward and treatment of tieck.

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

303

mme gyllembourg and others, to turning tieck’s storytelling aesthetic, with its own religio-ethical orientation, into a more deliberately christian one. Tieck—not Mme Gyllembourg�� though—had given �ierkegaard a foundation for this aesthetic by giving him the idea that all good storytelling and all good stories are religious, ethical, and aesthetic at once.101 in doing so, he also gave kierkegaard the idea that all good stories allow us to see the ideality and sacredness of life from a distance, so that we can return to the world with a richer perspective on it and a deeper engagement of it. in other words, tieck taught kierkegaard that good imaginative tales help us to live better lives. with this, kierkegaard only needed to add the religio-ethical focus of his decidedly christian life-view. C. Tieck and Kierkegaard�s Idea that Good Writing is Religious �ierkegaard’s Christian life-view was still forming when he finished The Concept of Irony in 1841. nevertheless, in outlining his christian existential aesthetics, he made the bold claim that good writing is religious. central to this claim is not only a developing conception of human beings in christian terms, but also the very tieckean–gyllembourgean aesthetic that kierkegaard had just adopted in his review of andersen.102 in “irony after Fichte,” the chapter in which kierkegaard critiques tieck and Schlegel—as well as Tieck’s philosopher friend Solger�� �ierkegaard outlines his christian conception of poetic living and quickly puts his revised tieckean literary aesthetic to work supporting it. arguing against schlegel, and to a lesser degree tieck and solger, he contends that in order for one to live poetically in truth, one must recognize the distinctive individuality that a divine creator has planted in one, and come to the aid of this divine power by bringing these “seeds” of individuality to fruition in one’s actual life in the world. kierkegaard puts it thus: by “living poetically” irony understood something other...than what any sensible person who has any respect for a human being’s worth…understands by this phrase. it did not take it to mean the artistic earnestness that comes to the aid of the divine in man, that mutely and quietly listens to the voice of what is distinctive in individuality, detects its movements in order to let it really be available in the individual and to let the whole individuality develop harmoniously into a pliable form rounded off in itself. it did not understand it to be what the pious christian thinks of when he becomes aware that life is an upbringing, an education, which, please note, is not supposed to make him into someone completely different…but is specifically supposed to develop the seeds God 101 this need not preclude the fact that others may well have been contributing to this foundation, just that tieck, hitherto unrecognized as fundamental to kierkegaard’s aesthetics (at least to my knowledge), was seminal. 102 hereafter i will refer to kierkegaard’s “tieckean-gyllembourgean aesthetic” both in these terms and as his “revised tieckean aesthetic” or “revised tieckean literary theory,” since my point is to emphasize the role of tieck, and since in many ways mme gyllembourg really served as a kind of mediating figure between �ierkegaard’s adaptation of Tieck’s storytelling theories to his own idea of telling children stories and his emerging christian literary theory in The Concept of Irony. as indicated earlier, it is my contention that kierkegaard will put his christian literary theory, based on tieck’s storytelling ideas, to work in constructing the authorship.

304

Marcia C. Robinson himself has placed in man, since the christian knows himself as that which has reality for god. here, in fact, the christian comes to the aid of god, becomes, so to speak, his coworker in completing the good work god himself has begun.103

as kierkegaard sees it, recognizing, appreciating, and nurturing the individuality that one has been given by a divine power is the best way for one’s life to become �poetic��—that is�� a well-formed�� unified�� thoroughly integrated�� and meaningful whole.104 this requires one to sustain a religious, ethical, and creative relation to this master artist by treating one’s actual existence as “a gift” and a religious and creative “task.”105 it also requires one to treat others as though they are also fundamentally related to the same creative and sustaining power.106 in light of our earlier discussion of this chapter, then, this means that one cannot attain this kind of existential harmony by creating, participating in, and dispensing with an endless stream of erotic situations, as schlegel promotes in Lucinde; one cannot attain this kind of harmony by endlessly poking fun at bourgeois conventions, as tieck often does in his satirical plays; and one cannot attain this kind of harmony by endlessly negating�� but not affirming one’s finite existence, as solger recommends in his speculative dogmatics and aesthetics.107 all of these forms of so-called poetic activity, says kierkegaard, only lead to existential fragmentation and meaninglessness. therefore, only the poet who champions a religioethical form of poetic living, particularly the christian one just outlined, can be a true poet. kierkegaard puts this more pointedly in his critique of schlegel. shortly after making the above remarks about christian poetic living, kierkegaard declares outright that schlegel is not a genuine poet. he contends that the heroes and heroines of schlegel’s novel Lucinde usurp the role of god, disengage from their given situations in the world, and so dispense with their true selves. as a result, their lives and the novel that presents them are not only “immoral” and “irreligious” but also fragmented, that is, lacking in any kind of aesthetic unity. it is at this point that kierkegaard makes the startling claim that good writing must be religious. he says: there have been enough attempts to show that books like Lucinde are immoral…but as long as the author has been openly allowed to claim and the reader secretly to believe they are poetic, not much is gained.…therefore, let it be said…that these books are not only immoral but unpoetic, for they are irreligious.108

SKS 1, 316 / CI, 280. By “poetic,” i have in mind the aesthetic unity and coherence that kierkegaard has already articulated in his student union address from 1835, his review of gyllembourg and andersen from 1838 and the language that heine uses in characterizing goethe’s art, which, as indicated in the previous note, was available to kierkegaard when he sketched this conception of a christian form of poetic living. 105 SKS 1, 312–16 / CI, 276–80. see robinson, “kierkegaard’s conception of poetic living,” op. cit., and “Ars Divina,” op. cit. 106 ibid. 107 SKS 1, 321–34 / CI, 286–301 (schlegel). SKS 1, 334–41 / CI, 301–308 (tieck). SKS 1, 341–52 / CI, 308–23 (solger). 108 SKS 1, 330 / CI, 296–7. 103 104

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

305

in saying that schlegel’s Lucinde has no basis on which to be considered genuine poetry, kierkegaard not only means that Lucinde fails to advocate the life-view and features of his Christian poetic living but it also fails to fulfill the tenets of the revised tieckean literary aesthetic that kierkegaard had just recently adopted in his review of gyllembourg and andersen. as we have seen, in grafting gyllembourg’s literary aesthetic onto tieck’s ideas about storytelling, kierkegaard indicates that it is precisely the religio-ethical orientation or life-view that is the “mainstay” of art and life. that is, it is the poet’s cultivation and presentation of a religio-ethical life-view in life and poetry that makes the poet’s life and art unified�� coherent�� and congruent with each other. Therefore�� as �ierkegaard sees it�� if modern literature is going to be truly good—that is�� religiously oriented�� morally uplifting�� and aesthetically unified and pleasing�� at once�� it cannot promote the views that schlegel presents in Lucinde, because schlegel’s so-called poetry exhibits nothing but the existential and aesthetic fragmentation that results from rejecting a religio-ethical life-view.109 the best modern literature, then, will necessarily celebrate some kind of religio-ethical perspective. For kierkegaard, this means that the best modern poetry will show precisely how the Christian conception of human being outlined above—and echoing the emphasis on education and character in kierkegaard’s tieckean views of storytelling—can make a work of art as well as a life inspiring�� beautiful�� whole. Interestingly�� while �ierkegaard suggests in all of this that Tieck—at least to some degree—does not qualify as a genuine poet either�� he does not and cannot attack tieck or his poetry for being “unpoetic,” “immoral,” and “irreligious.” this is because he cannot indict tieck’s imaginative works on the same grounds as he can schlegel’s novel. For one thing, tieck is not concerned with the erotic in the same way that schlegel is in Lucinde. more importantly, kierkegaard knows that many of tieck’s works express the very idea that true poetry unites the religious, the moral, and the aesthetic in an effective and legitimate way (regardless of his idea that tieck does not define his religious perspective well enough). This is the reason �ierkegaard can use them to support the religious and ethical points that he wants to make in various places throughout the journals and published authorship.110 this is also the reason he can use the insights in tieck’s literary theory to construct his own religioethical poetry. therefore, it would not make sense for him to criticize tieck in the manner in which he attacks schlegel since that would only confuse and frustrate his poetic and existential project. kierkegaard, then, reserves his most scathing criticism for the �omantic poet whom he thinks best exemplifies immorality�� irreligiousness�� and poetic and existential fragmentation, namely, the schlegel of Lucinde.111 or any of the other aforementioned romantic perspectives on life, including what kierkegaard takes to be tieck’s overindulgence in irony. 110 in addition to the passage from the Phantasus and the reference to The Engagement, see, for example, kierkegaard’s references to tieck’s The Old Man from the Mountain [Der Alte vom Berge] in Stages on Life�s Way; to tieck’s �air [Jahrmarkt] in the journals; and to tieck’s The Young Master Carpenter [Der junge Tischlermeister] also in the journals. SKS 6, 432–3 / SLW, 469. SKS 21, 234, nB9:58 / JP 6, 6318. Pap. i a 167 / JP 4, 4388. 111 As is well known�� Schlegel later became a Catholic�� so I specifically have in mind here schlegel’s early attitude toward protestant christianity, along with Friedrich schleiermacher’s defense of religion and especially christianity in On Religion. 109

306

Marcia C. Robinson

all of this helps us to understand why kierkegaard’s criticism of tieck in the dissertation is so mild. tieck helped kierkegaard to pursue his religious calling and poetic ambitions to be a writer for christendom.112 in the next chapter, “irony as a controlled element, the truth of irony,” kierkegaard continues his conversation with tieck by adapting another tieckean tactic to his purposes. here, kierkegaard takes tieck’s lead in using shakespeare as a model of irony, particularly the kind of irony that he thinks should be at work in good literature. in doing so, however, kierkegaard uses shakespeare’s irony to correct what he takes to be tieck’s penchant for indulging in ironic play.113 his purpose in doing so is to champion what he calls a “controlled” or mastered irony—that is�� an irony that knows how and when to stop ironizing and poeticizing�� so that the poet and his audience might truly live as genuine human beings. kierkegaard knew shakespeare in large part through tieck.114 in being attentive to Shakespeare as a master ironist�� �ierkegaard was in part figuring out a way to turn the jesting, but earnest, spirit of tieck’s irony into an existential tool for his christian poetry. To be specific�� �ierkegaard was uneasy about the close relation that Tieck had constructed between religion, ethics, and aesthetics in his view of fairy tales, and wanted to qualify that relation with irony. as we have seen, in the Phantasus, tieck says that ordinary life can be regarded as a fairy tale or fable.115 he follows this remark several years later with an even stronger one in The Old Book and the Voyage into the Blue, where he says that the “creation, the origin of good and evil,…redemption,…as well as…closest everyday life…is a fairytale.”116 while kierkegaard agrees that imaginative tales are a great way to deal with existential issues, he nevertheless sees in such remarks an existential danger and a poetic ��aw. �ierkegaard expresses this concern in the dissertation�� where he uses heine’s jesting, but earnest, insight on tieck as a poet. Following heine, kierkegaard says that the “tragedy” of tieck’s poetry “is that what it seizes upon is not actuality. poetry awakens; the powerful longings, the mysterious intimations, the inspiring feelings awaken; nature awakens; the enchanted princess awakens,” but �the romanticist��—that is�� Tieck—�falls asleep.��117 From his perspective, if the artist fails to have a sense of controlled irony with regard to his poetry—that is�� an ironic stance that allows him to distinguish life from art, or the religious and the ethical from the aesthetic, he runs the risk of remaining and encouraging his audience to remain the idea that writing was a religious calling as well as an ambition for kierkegaard is probably best treated in kierkegaard’s Point of View. see SV1 Xiii, 544–75 / PV, 57–90; compare with SKS 1, 352–4 / CI, 325, where kierkegaard discusses the congruence of the poet’s life with his art, particularly with regard to goethe. 113 kierkegaard’s controlled irony not only stands as a correction to what he takes to be tieck’s undisciplined ironic capering, but also what he takes to be the undisciplined and immoral irony of schlegel and the all-encompassing and thoroughly destructive irony of tieck’s friend and colleague, solger. 114 as indicated earlier, the translation of shakespeare that kierkegaard tends to read and cite the most is the multi-volume edition translated by tieck and a.w. schlegel. 115 SKS 17, 76, BB:6 / JP 5, 5138. 116 paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., p. 310. 117 SKS 1, 337 / CI, 304. 112

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

307

in the dream world of the fairy tale. this in turn means that the poet can preclude the very existential moment that he is trying to effect. in other words, kierkegaard thinks that tieck himself succumbs or at least at times succumbs to this very problem. in order to correct it, kierkegaard maintains that the good writer must know how to relate “ironically to what he writes.”118 like shakespeare, he must become a master of irony by learning how to use it to marshal his creativity. in focusing on the english bard, kierkegaard notices that irony is present everywhere in shakespeare’s writings. But “the irony visible in” shakespeare’s writings does not control him; he controls the irony.119 as a master of irony, shakespeare makes irony into a disciplinarian that serves his aesthetic and existential concerns. when he composes a poem and pervades it with irony, irony does not become a godlike power, seducing him to romp in his own artistic play “like a leviathan in the sea.”120 rather, irony becomes a moderating force, serving his need to balance all of the disparate elements of the poem, so that he can say something of “substantive worth.”121 as moderating force, irony makes shakespeare’s poem into its own “miniature world” with its own “center center of gravity” in itself, distinct from him.122 the poem is “free” from shakespeare, and so has it own unique integrity that should be acknowledged.123 this in turn means that shakespeare, as a person with his own “center center of gravity” in himself, according to his status as a human being first and then an artist�� is �free�� from the poem�� and so has a unique integrity that should also be respected.124 according to kierkegaard, this does not mean that the poet and the poem are unrelated to each other. in fact, as shakespeare demonstrates deftly, art can and does speak to the fundamental issues of life—when it is balanced. �ather�� it means that the relation between the two also entails a respect for their difference. kierkegaard elaborates on this point, when he refers to goethe, gyllembourg, and heiberg, and then goes on to say that the poetic productions of a good writer do not take him out of the world but instead help him to be “oriented and...integrated in the age in which he lives.”125 in other words, by exercising a controlled form of irony, the good writer can see his stories not as an alternative to the ordinary world, but as “an element in his own development.”126 irony can serve the poet’s life by allowing art to be seen as a medium for saying something meaningful about life and its development. mastered or “controlled” irony, then, is the

SKS 1, 352–3 / CI, 324. ibid. 120 SKS 1, 315 / CI, 279. 121 SKS 1, 352–3 / CI, 324. 122 ibid. 123 ibid. 124 the poet actually has a rather complex integrity, for as poet, he must be the master of what he creates. that is, he must know the rules of artistic production so that he can produce good art. as a person, though, he must also make his life as a poet “congruous,” as kierkegaard puts it, with the religious and ethical demands that govern him as an existing individual. his art, then, must become an “element” in his life, must represent or serve it in some way in his development as a human being or self. see SKS 1, 352–5 / CI, 324–6. 125 SKS 1, 354–5 / CI, 325–6. 126 SKS 1, 354 / CI, 325. 118 119

308

Marcia C. Robinson

kind of polemical and aesthetic outlook that is sober, edifying, and needed to help make both art and life balanced, integrated, and poetic for existing individuals. in this conversation with tieck, we might see kierkegaard returning to and elaborating the mature stance of his socratic-tieckean storyteller, for in his 1837 journal entry, the storyteller, like the english bard, is the master of the story and the storytelling situation precisely because he exercises the kind of moderating irony that allows him to see the difference and the relation between art and life. the socratic-tieckean storyteller knows that he has to balance all of the enchanting and intriguing elements of the story so that his existential issue might emerge with force. he also knows that he has to exercise enough irony to give the children a space within his magic play to ask the existential questions that concern them most. after all, he is telling the story in order to help his juvenile audience deepen their existential sensibilities and develop as selves. if he fails to exercise this kind of control, by allowing himself to get caught up in the play of creating a dream world, then he and his audience will lose the existential moment. and he will no longer be a master storyteller but a nursemaid! therefore, as kierkegaard presents him in the journals and explains him four years later in the dissertation, the master storyteller must have an ironic relation to the stories and poetic situations that he creates. only in this way can he and his audience come to appreciate and respect the distinct, but related integrity of art and life. with this, kierkegaard ends one conversation with tieck, only to start another, for he continues to engage tieck’s stories, insights, and translations of shakespeare, even as he applies the christian poetics that tieck has helped him develop into a literary production aimed at awakening danish christendom to the strangeness and the difficulty of a life defined by the ideal of Christ. VI. Conclusion: Toward Tieck�s Hidden Role in the Authorship In 1846�� ten years after �ierkegaard quoted Tieck at length in his journals�� and five years into an authorship that was already one half of a large literary production, kierkegaard wrote The Point of View for My Work as an Author. in this work, kierkegaard sets out his tieckean literary theory, developed from 1836 to 1841, as the religious, ethical, and aesthetic task of making the so-called christians of danish christendom aware that their conception of themselves as christians is an illusion. as he sees it, he does not try to disabuse them of this illusion directly.127 instead, he decides to tell them a series of stories that will make them come to that conclusion themselves—just as kierkegaard’s tieckean storyteller would do for the smug adults of modern bourgeois society.128 indeed, this is precisely why his polyphonic, multi-faceted authorship can be characterized as a complex tieckean allegory of good and evil. his reader, “the single individual,” must learn through imaginative tales that she or he must struggle to become a christian in a land that claims to be the kingdom of god.129 127 128 129

SV1 Xiii, 529–43 / PV, 41–56. SKS 17, 122–33, BB:37 / JP 1, 265. SKS 17, 76, BB:6 / JP 5, 5138. SKS 20, 280–82, nB3:77 / JP 2, 2004.

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

309

as with tieck’s large literary corpus, kierkegaard’s corpus contains tragedy and comedy�� irony and humor�� jest and earnestness�� and the marvelous and the ordinary— only kierkegaard’s works revolve around a decidedly christian life-view. like tieck, kierkegaard draws in the reader with the enchanting, interesting, or intriguing nature of his stories and literary sketches—stories drawn from everyday life�� stories and discursive vignettes based on the literature of modern writers (including tieck himself!), and especially stories and sketches based on folk tales and fables that are a part of his and tieck’s literary heritage as european poets.130 in all of these works, the tieckean element functions with the socratic in that kierkegaard uses the pseudonym to withdraw as he presents a story or a vignette to raise a question about life in an intriguing and captivating way.131 For example, in “the seducer’s diary” kierkegaard uses the pseudonym Johannes the seducer, within two other pseudonyms, the esthete a and the editor of a’s papers, victor eremita, to present a story of a man and woman who make us wonder about a merely aesthetic lifestyle. at the end of Either/Or, kierkegaard does something similar, when he has an unnamed Jutland pastor raise a question about the conventional ethics of a bourgeois assessor, who, in writing two long letters to his esthete friend a, purports to know how to live poetically ethically and religiously.132 in the Philosophical �ragments, particularly in the story of the king and the maiden discussed earlier, kierkegaard again puts on his tieckean and socratic hat and makes us wonder about the reasonableness of engaging the incarnate god. indeed, as we consider this imaginative vignette, with his retelling of the gospel story of the friendship of peter and christ in Works of Love�� and with his stories and imaginative re��ections on the passion in anti-climacus’ climacus’ Practice in Christianity, we realize that kierkegaard not only employs tieck’s sense of the uncanny to make the god-man downright strange to anyone living in christendom, but kierkegaard even develops tieck’s own insight about the way that ordinary people childishly talk about their relation to god. Following tieck, he notes that when ordinary people speak of suffering, while experiencing good fortune�� it is clear that they have never entertained a truly earnest and pathos-filled thought about god. and so they need christ to appear in a “disquieting” form to remind them that christianity is neither sentimental nor easy.133 in regard to discursive vignettes, i am reminded of how kierkegaard’s discussions of literature and aesthetics in Stages on Life�s Way and Practice in Christianity, for example, evoke tieck’s discussions in the Phantasus. see SKS 6, 385–437 / SLW, 416–74. SV1 Xii, 162–7 / PC, 174–9; and paulin, Ludwig Tieck: A Literary Biography, op. cit., pp. 196–201. in regard to kierkegaard’s use of folk tales, i particularly have in mind here the elizabethan tale of king cophetua and the Beggar maid discussed earlier. 131 even when kierkegaard signs a work with his own name, such as the 1849 discourses on the lilies and the birds, the effect is similar. 132 SKS 2, 11–22, 289–432 / EO1, 3–15, 301–445. SKS 3, 317–32 / EO2, 337–54, with SKS 3, 131–8, 145, 153–314 / EO2, 133–9, 147, 155–333. 133 see SKS 4, 233–43 / P�, 26–36. SKS 9, 155–74 / WL, 154–74; and SV1 Xii, 1–65, 156–84 / PC, 9–68, 167–99, with SKS 6, 422–37 / SLW, 458–74; and all of these and especially SKS 6, 432–4 / SLW, 469–70 with SKS 21, 234, nB9:58 / JP 6, 6318. it is also important to note here that anti-climacus, like kierkegaard, is a storyteller who ponders what it means to tell children stories—particularly the Passion story. 130

310

Marcia C. Robinson

it is in all of these ways and more that kierkegaard’s presentation of the struggle to become a self before God—a Christian in Christendom—becomes an allegory of faith and sin, and an ongoing conversation with tieck. For here, in the “magic theater” of the authorship, kierkegaard, in good tieckean fashion, raises a single existential question to his cultured audience: are you willing to be a self who is happy to rest and find beauty and wholeness in the God of the lily and the bird on the Jutland heath?134 we can conclude, then, that it is only on the surface that kierkegaard seems to have a major problem with tieck. underlying his explicit complaints is an agreement about the religious and moral function of literature. and so kierkegaard’s objections are only the frustrations of a critical admirer who wants his mentor to pursue his powerful insights to their fullest extent. kierkegaard shows his highest regard for Tieck�� then�� when he takes Tieck’s insights forward into his own authorship—with all the jest, polemic, and earnestness of this master storyteller.

in regard to the term “magic theater,” i am using george pattison’s characterization of kierkegaard’s authorship. pattison paraphrases kierkegaard’s discussion of the magic of the theater in Repetition. he also notes martin thust’s characterization of the authorship as “das marionettentheater.” see pattison, Kierkegaard, the Aesthetic and the Religious, op. cit., pp. 95–6; pp. 111–24.

134

Bibliography I. Tieck�s Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library “könig rother zieht einer Jungfrau die schuhe an. Fragment aus einer alten handschrift,” in Tröst Einsamkeit, alte und neue Sagen und Wahrsagungen, Geschichten und Gedichte, ed. by ludwig achim von arnim, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1808, no. 3, columns 22–4; no. 4, columns 25–32; no. 5, columns 33–6 (ASKB 912). “tieck’s novelle: ‘vandmanden,’” Kjöbenhavns flyvende Post, Interimsblade, nos. 1–100, 1834–36, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, nos. 74–76; no.78; and no. 81, 1836 (ASKB 1607). Ludwig Tieck�s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–2, paris: tétot Frères 1837 (ASKB 1848–1849). [ed.] Heinrich von Kleists gesammelte Schriften, ed. by ludwig tieck, vols. 1–3, Berlin: g. reimer 1826 (ASKB 1739–1741). [ed.] Gesammelte Schriften von J.[akob] M.[ichael] R.[einhold] Lenz, vols. 1–3, ed. by ludwig tieck, Berlin: g. reimer 1828 (ASKB 1744–1746). [ed.] Novalis Schriften, parts 1–2, ed. by ludwig tieck and Fr. schlegel, 4th revised ed., Berlin: reimer 1826 (ASKB 1776). [ed.] Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, vols. 1–2, ed. by ludwig tieck and Friedrich von raumer, leipzig: Brockhaus 1826 (ASKB 1832–1833). [ed.] Shakspeare�s dramatische Werke, trans. by aug. wilh. von schlegel and ludwig tieck, vols. 1–12, 2nd ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1839–40 (ASKB 1883–1888). II. Works in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard�s Library that Discuss Tieck erdmann, Johann eduard, Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatik und Religionsphilosophie, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837, p. 108 (ASKB 479). Frauenstädt, Julius, Die Naturwissenschaft in ihrem Einfluß auf Poesie, Religion, Moral und Philosophie, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1855, p. 39 (ASKB 516). [goethe, Johann wolfgang von], “ludwig tiecks dramatische Blätter,” Goethe�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, vols. 1–40, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1827–30; Goethe�s nachgelassene Werke, vols. 41–55, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1832–33, vol. 45, pp. 111–15; see also p. 295 (ASKB 1641–1668). [hardenberg, Friedrich], Novalis Schriften, ed. by ludwig tieck and Friedrich schlegel, parts 1–2, 4th revised ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1826 (ASKB 1776).

312

Marcia C. Robinson

hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich, “ueber Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel. herausgegeben von ludwig tieck und Friedrich v. haumer. erster Band 780 s. mit vorrede Xvi s. zweiter Band 784 s. leipzig, 1826” [1828], in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s vermischte Schriften, vols. 1–2, ed. by Friedrich Förster and ludwig Boumann, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1834–35 (vols. 16–17 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, pp. 436–506 (ASKB 555–556). —— Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, vols. 1–3, ed. by heinrich gustav hotho, Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1835–38 (vols. 10.1–10.3 in Georg Wilhelm �riedrich Hegel�s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: verlag von duncker und humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, pp. 89–90; vol. 3, p. 502; p. 509 (ASKB 1384–1386). heiberg, Johan ludvig, Om Philosophiens Betydning for den nuværende Tid. Et Indbydelses-Skrift til en Række af philosophiske �orelæsninger, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1833, p. 45 (ASKB 568). —— �Tieck’s �ovelle: ‘Vandmanden��’�� Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, Interimsblad, 1836, i, 13 February, no. 74 [pp. 301–302]; ii, 16 February, no. 75 [pp. 307–308]; iii, 18 February, no. 76 [pp. 311–12]; iv, 20 February, no. 77 [pp. 313–16]; v, 22 February, no. 78 [pp. 319–20]; vi, 9 march, no. 81 [pp. 329–31] (see ASKB 1606–1607; u 55). —— �Om den romantiske Tragedie af Hertz: Svend Dyrings Huus. i Forbindelse med en æsthetisk Betragtning af de danske kæmpeviser,” in Perseus, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1837–38, vol. 1, pp. 165–264, see p. 264 (ASKB 569). —— ��yrisk Poesie���� in Intelligensblade, nos. 25–26, 1843, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1843 [in Intelligensblade, vols. 1–4, nos. 1–48, ed. by Johan ludvig heiberg, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1842–44], vol. 3, pp. 25–72, see p. 51; p. 68 (ASKB u 56). heine, heinrich, Die romantische Schule, hamburg: hoffmann und campe 1836, pp. 44ff.; p. 52; p. 135; pp. 150–69; p. 232; pp. 274f. (ASKB u 63). hotho, heinrich gustav, Vorstudien für Leben und Kunst, stuttgart and tübingen: cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1835, p. 196; p. 280; p. 295; p. 307; p. 375; pp. 399f.; p. 402; p. 406; pp. 411–31 passim (ASKB 580). menzel, wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart: hallberg’sche verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 3, pp. 177–9; vol. 4, pp. 157ff.; pp. 299ff. (ASKB u 79). [møller, poul martin], Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, vols. 1–3, ed. by christian winther and F.c. olsen, copenhagen: Bianco lunos Bogtrykkeri 1839–43, vol. 3, p. 207 (ASKB 1574–1576). mynster, Jakob peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1852–53 [vols. 4–6, copenhagen: den gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag 1855–57], vol. 2, p. 360; vol. 3, p. 152 (ASKB 358–363). Ørsted, hans christian, Aanden i Naturen, vols. 1–2, copenhagen: andreas Frederik høst 1850, vol. 1, p. 97 (ASKB 945).

Tieck: Kierkegaard�s “Guadalquivir” of Open Critique and Hidden Appreciation

313

[richter, Johann paul Friedrich], Jean paul, Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed., stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1813, vol. 1, p. 172; p. 178; pp. 241–2; p. 253; vol. 2, p. 541; p. 635; p. 652; vol. 3, p. 917n (ASKB 1381–1383). rötscher, heinrich theodor, Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem organischen Zusammenhange, vols. 1–3, Berlin: verlag von wilhelm thome 1841–46, vol. 1, 1841, p. 21n; p. 23n; p. 27n; p. 33n; p. 34n; p. 35; p. 36n; p. 46n; p. 69n; p. 84n; p. 263n; p. 265n; p. 268 (ASKB 1391; to vols. 2–3, entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charaktere. Nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung über das Wesen dramatischer Charaktergestaltung, cf. ASKB 1802–1803). schlegel, Friedrich, Sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–10, vienna: Jakob mayer and company 1822–25, vol. 2, 1822, pp. 276–341 (ASKB 1816–1825). sihler, w., Die Symbolik des Antlitzes, Berlin: F. laue 1829, p. 76 (ASKB 784). [solger, karl wilhelm Friedrich], Solger�s nachgelassene Schriften und Briefwechsel, vols. 1–2, ed. by ludwig tieck und Friedrich von raumer, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1826 (ASKB 1832–1833). —— K.W.�. Solger�s Vorlesungen über Aesthetik, ed. by k.w.l. heyse, leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1829, p. 294; p. 321 (ASKB 1387). steffens, henrich, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef max und comp. 1840–44, vol. 1, p. 14; vol. 2, 65; vol. 3, p. 23; p. 231; vol. 4, p. 118; pp. 124–5; pp. 129–33; p. 152; pp. 195–6; p. 254; pp. 258–9; pp. 268–9; p. 303; p. 310; p. 315; pp. 368–70; pp. 372–9; pp. 389–92; p. 396; p. 419; vol. 5, p. 81; p. 279; p. 335; p. 353; vol. 6, p. 18; pp. 54–5; p. 78; pp. 89–90; p. 102; p. 104; p. 115; p. 240; vol. 8, pp. 171–2; p. 361; p. 408; vol. 9, p. 279; pp. 323–5; pp. 335–6; pp. 341–2; pp. 349–51 (ASKB 1834–1843). thiersch, Friedrich, Allgemeine Aesthetik in akademischen Lehrvorträgen, Berlin: g. reimer 1846, p. 18 (ASKB 1378). weiße, christian hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit. In drei Büchern, vols. 1–2, leipzig: c.h.F. hartmann 1830, vol. 1, p. 247; vol. 2, p. 61n (ASKB 1379–1380). —— Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, dresden: ch. F. grimmer’sche Buchhandlung 1833, p. 36n (ASKB 866). wolff, oskar ludwig Bernhard, Handbuch deutscher Beredsamkeit enthaltend eine Uebersicht der Geschichte und Theorie der Redekunst, zugleich mit einer vollständigen Sammlung deutscher Reden jedes Zeitalters und jeder Gattung, vols. 1–2, leipzig: carl B. lorck 1845–46, vol. 2, pp. 553–5 (ASKB 250–251). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard�s Relation to Tieck hall, ronald l., “the irony of irony,” in The Concept of Irony, ed. robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2001 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 2), pp. 317–345.

314

Marcia C. Robinson

katz, marc, “confessions of an anti-poet: kierkegaard’s Either/Or and the german romantics,” in Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age. Critical Essays in Comparative Literature, ed. by gregory maertz, albany, new York: state university of new York press 1998, pp. 227–45. kinter, achim, “ludwig tiecks ‘william lovell,’” in his Rezeption und Existenz. Untersuchungen zu Sören Kierkegaards Entweder-Oder, Frankfurt am main et al.: peter lang 1991 (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Germanistik und Skandinavistik, vol. 26), pp. 63–5. kjær, grethe, “the role of Folk and Fairy tales in kierkegaard’s authorship,” in Kierkegaard on Art and Communication, ed. by george pattison, new York and london: st martin’s press/macmillan press 1992, p. 83. mesnard, pierre, Le Vrai Visage de Kierkegaard�� Paris: Beauchesne et ses fils 1948�� pp. 51–2; p. 150; p. 152; pp. 160–66; pp. 170–74; p. 178; p. 187; p. 190. niedermeyer, gerhard, “kierkegaard als Überwinder der romantik,” in his Sören Kierkegaard und die Romantik, leipzig: verlag von quelle & meyer 1909 (Abhandlungen zur Philosphie und ihrer Geschichte, vol. 11), pp. 45–61. robinson, marcia c., “Ars Divina”: Kierkegaard�s Conception of Christian Poetic Living, ph.d. thesis, emory university, atlanta 2001, pp. 34–6; pp. 48–52; p. 73. scopetea, sophia, Kierkegaard og græciteten. En kamp med ironi, copenhagen: c.a. reitzel 1995, see p. 7 n14; p. 35 n5; p. 142; pp. 151–4 passim; pp. 161–3 passim. walsh, sylvia, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard�s Existential Aesthetics, university park, pennsylvania: pennsylvania state university press 1994, pp. 52–5. weiss, János, “kierkegaard, a bohóc és ludwig tieck” [kierkegaard, the clown and ludwig tieck], Pro Philosophia �üzetek, no. 28, 2001, pp. 89–96. weissberg, liliane, “repetitions, returning to kierkegaard, Freud and tieck,” in Under Construction. Links to the Site of Literary Theory, ed. by dirk de geest, et al., leuven: leuven university press 2000, pp. 149–65. —— �Wiederholungen [�epetition]���� in Erinnern und Vergessen in der Europäischen Romantik [remembering and Forgetting in european romanticism], ed. by günter oesterle, würzburg: königshausen and neumann 2001, pp. 177–91.

index of persons abraham a santa clara (1644–1709), austrian divine, 27. adler, adolph peter (1812–69), danish philosopher and theologian, 85–6. alewyn, richard, 47. andersen, hans christian (1805–75), danish poet, novelist and writer of fairy tales, 117, 277, 283, 296–305 passim. aristotle, 292. arnim, Bettine von see Brentano, Bettina. arnim, ludwig achim von (1781–1831), german poet, 1–24, passim, 277. Baader, Franz Xaver von (1765–1841), german philosopher and theologian, 159. Baggesen, Jens (1764–1826), danish poet, 54, 157, 165, 174–5. Barfoed, niels, 150–51. Behler, ernst (1928–97), german philologist and literary scholar, 191–2. Beiser, Frederick, 98. Benvenuto, cellini (1500–71), italian renaissance artist, 68. Blicher, steen steensen (1782–1848), danish author, 7, 296, 300. Bloom, harold, 150. Boesen, emil (1812–79), danish pastor, 118. Böhme, Jacob (1575–1624), german mystic, 259. Boumann, ludwig (1801–71), german aesthetician and author, 238. Brentano, Bettine (1785–1859), german author, 2–3, 5. Brentano, clemens (1778–1842), german poet and author, 1–2, 8, 28.

Bretteville, Fanny lodovica le normand de (1827–59), danish woman of letters, 179, 277. Brøchner, hans (1820–75), danish philosopher, 40, 43. calderón de la Barca, pedro (1600–81), spanish dramatist, 27, 42, 56. carlyle, thomas (1795–1881), scottish writer, 278. cervantes, miguel de (1547–1616), spanish author, 278, 293–4. chamisso, adalbert von (1781–1838), german poet, 22, 28. claudius, matthias (1740–1815), german author, 27. coleridge, samuel taylor (1772–1834), english poet and critic, 278. constantine, david, 9. cotta, Johann Friedrich (1764–1832), german publisher, 140. cousin, victor (1792–1867), French philosopher, 54. dante, alighieri (1265–1321), italian poet, 56, 245, 288–9, 291. descartes, rené (1596–1650), French philosopher, 67. diderot, denis (1713–84), French philosopher and author, 98. döring, heinrich (1789–1862), german author, 69. eckermann, Johann peter (1792–1854), goethe’s friend and private secretary, 53. eichendorff, Joseph Freiherr von (1788–1857), german poet and author, 8–9, 14, 22, 25–49, passim.

316

Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries

Falk, Johannes (1768–1826), german author, pedagogue and philanthropist, 69. Fenger, henning (1921–85), danish literary historian, 53, 58, 173, 175. Fichte, Johann gottlieb (1762–1814), german philosopher, 68, 140, 191, 210–12, 216, 236–7, 247–8, 252, 254, 258, 260. Flaubert, gustave (1821–80), French author, 9. Fontane, theodor (1819–98), german novelist and poet, 9. Förster, Friedrich (1791–1868), german poet and historian, 238. Fouqué, Friedrich heinrich Baron de la motte (1777–1843), german poet and novelist, 117. Friedrich, caspar david (1774–1840), german painter, 277. gallitzin, adele amalia von (1748–1806), german cultural personality, 99. gluck, christoph willibald ritter von (1714–87), german composer, 149. goethe, Johann wolfgang von (1749–1832), german poet, author, scientist and diplomat, 2, 7, 9, 17, 27–8, 36, 43, 45, 51–96, 99, 125, 140, 148, 151, 162, 171, 273, 293, 307. goldschmidt, meïr aaron (1819–87), danish author, 265. görres, Joseph (1776–1848), german romantic writer, 28. gray, thomas (1716–71), english poet, 78. grimm Jakob (1785–1863), german historian, linguist and author, 277. grimm, wilhelm von (1786–1859), german linguist and author, 4–5, 277. grundtvig, nicolai Frederik severin (1783–1872), danish poet and theologian, 174. gubitz, F.w., 5–6. gyllembourg-ehrensvärd, thomasine christine (1773–1856), danish author, 175, 296–307 passim. hamann, Johann georg (1730–88), german philosopher, 51, 69, 97–113, 162.

hebbel, Friedrich (1813–63), german poet and dramatist, 11. hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831), german philosopher, 51–2, 55–8, 61–2, 66, 69–73, 80–86, 106, 139–40, 144, 146, 157, 163, 173, 175, 179, 185, 187, 191, 194, 209–12, 216–17, 235–43 passim, 247, 259, 266, 275–9 passim, 298–9. Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), 240. Philosophy of Right (1821), 209, 239–243, 249, 252–3, 259. “review of solger’s Posthumous Writings” (1828), 243–53, 259. Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1832), 140, 209. Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1833–36), 247. Lectures on Aesthetics (1835–38), 139–43 passim, 143, 157, 252–3, 256, 259–60. heiberg, Johan ludvig (1791–1860), danish poet, playwright and philosopher, 51–87 passim, 173, 238–9, –9,, 298–9, 307. Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post (1827–37), 54, 56, 64, 239. Perseus, Journal for den speculative Idee (1837–38), 58, 66–7. heiberg, Johanne luise (1812–90), danish actress, 172. heiduk, Franz, 25. heine, heinrich (1797–1856), german poet and author, 157, 275, 278, 281, 288, 293–5, 301–2, 306. hemsterhuis, François (1721–90), dutch philosopher, 194. heraclitus, 140. herder, Johann gttfried von (1744–1803), german philosopher, poet and literary critic, 52. heyse, karl wilhelm ludwig von (1797–1855), german philologist, 237–8, 253, 259, 266. hirsch, emanuel (1888–1972), german protestant theologian, 29, 32, 41–2. hjort, peder (1793–1871), danish literary critic, 54. hofe, gerhard von, 25.

Index of Persons hoffmann, ernst theodor amadeus (1776– 1822), german romantic author, jurist, composer, 26, 31–2, 115–37, 148, 163, 244, 277. homer, 71. hotho, heinrich gustav (1802–73), german art historian, 139–53, 252, 259, 275, 278, 281. hülsen, august ludwig (1765–1809), german philosopher, 194. humboldt, alexander von (1769–1859), german natural scientist, 277. hume, david (1711–76), scottish philosopher, 98, 100, 106. ingemann, Bernhard severin (1789–1862), danish poet, 117. irving, washington (1783–1859), american author, 278. Jacobi, Friedrich heinrich (1743–1819), german philosopher, 98, 104, 155, 157. Jean paul, i.e. Johann paul Friedrich richter (1763–1825), german author, 27, 115, 155–70, 277. kant, immanuel (1724–1804), german philosopher, 19, 80, 98–9, 103, 106–7, 175, 191, 254. kierkegaard, søren aabye (1813–1855). “the morning observations in Kjøbenhavnsposten no. 43” (1836), 64. The Battle between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars (1837), 21, 32, 38, 67. �rom the Papers of One Still Living (1838), 34, 117, 161, 276, 296, 298. The Concept of Irony (1841), 38, 69, 99, 115, 131, 139, 143–152 passim, 159, 164, 185–233 passim, 235, 251, 253–266 passim, 272, 276, 278–9, 296, 303–4, 306. Either/Or (1843), 11–15, 22, 36, 38–46, 58, 71–75, 78, 81, 84, 101, 119–124, 129, 139, 148–52, 164, 172–3, 177, 199, 222–4, 278, 309. �ear and Trembling (1843), 75–81, 101, 174, 177–8, 200, 224.

317

Repetition (1843), 34, 36, 58, 76, 78, 101, 172, 178, 224. Philosophical �ragments (1844), 102, 295, 309. Prefaces (1844). 104. The Concept of Anxiety (1844), 102–3, 106, 134. Stages on Life�s Way (1845), 7–8, 17–22, 34, 46, 79–81, 83, 104, 123, 161, 189, 225. Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845), 160–61. A Literary Review of Two Ages (1846), 34–5. Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), 34, 37, 44, 81–2, 105, 107, 124, 161, 163, 165, 178–9. The Book on Adler (ca. 1846–47), 85. Works of Love (1847), 309. The Point of View for My Work as an Author (ca. 1848), 30, 39, 47, 86, 276, 284, 308. The Sickness unto Death (1849), 225–6. Practice in Christianity (1850), 99, 179, 309. king Friedrich wilhelm iv (1795–1861), king of prussia, 278. kleist, heinrich von (1777–1811), german poet and dramatist, 274, 277. klopstock, Friedrich gottlieb (1724–1803), german poet, 80. kolderup-rosensvinge, J.l.a. (1792–1850), danish legal historian, 179. kunz, Josef, 25. law, david 29–30, 32–3. lenau, nicolaus see strehlenau, niembsch von. lenz, Jacob michael reinhold (1751–92), german poet, 274. lessing, gotthold ephraim (1729–81), german writer and philosopher, 194. lichtenberg, georg christoph (1742–99), german physicist and satirist, 163. loeben, otto heinrich von (1786–1825), german writer, 37. longfellow, henry wadsworth (1807–82), american poet, 278.

318

Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries

luther, martin (1483–1546), german religious reformer, 85. lützeler, michael, 1, 11. martensen, hans lassen (1808–84), danish theologian, 52, 58–67 passim, 85. mendelssohn, moses (1729–86), german philosopher, 187–8. mendelssohn Bartholdy, Felix (1809–47), german composer and conductor, 277. menzel, wolfgang (1798–1873), german author and journalist, 143. michelet, karl ludwig (1801–93), german philosopher, 105, 238–9. milton, John (1608–74), english poet 78. molbech, christian (1783–1857), danish author, historian and literary scholar, 83, 162. møller, poul martin (1794–1838), danish poet and philosopher, 54. moser, Friedrich karl von (1723–98), german statesman, 99. mozart, wolfgang amadeus (1756–91), austrian composer, 28, 71–2, 121, 148, 151. Don Giovanni (1787), 139–153 passim, 172, 177. mynster, Jakob peter (1775–1854), danish theologian and bishop, 85. novalis, Baron Friedrich von hardenberg (1772–1801), german lyric poet, 8, 28, 187, 236, 245, 274, 277, 288. nun, katalin, 175. oehlenschläger, adam (1779–1850), danish poet, 53, 64, 119, 172, 174, 278. olsen, regine (1822–1904), 40, 72, 74. Ørsted, hans christian (1777–1851), danish scientist, 3. pattison, george, 195. paul, 100. plato, 194, 239, 241. poe, edgar allan (1809–4), american poet and writer, 278. prantl, carl von (1820–88), german philosopher and philologist, 143.

protagoras, 69. pückler-muskau, hermann von (1785– 1871), german author and garden architect, 34. raumer, Friedrich von (1781–1873), german historian, 235, 237–8, 243, 253, 266, 277. rehm, walter 1, 11, 25, 29, 164. roos, carl (1884–1962), danish literary historian, 51, 59. rötscher, heinrich theodor (1802–71), german theater critic, 62. rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712–78), French philosopher, 155. rudolph, gerhard, 1. runge, philipp otto (1777–1810), german painter, 277. schelling, Friedrich wilhelm Joseph von (1775–1854), german philosopher, 51, 139, 191, 236, 277. schiller, Johann christoph Friedrich von (1759–1805), german poet, 27, 53–4, 62, 140, 151, 171–84. schlegel, august wilhelm von (1767–1845), german critic, 31–2, 187, 236, 239, 241, 245, 277–8, 280. schlegel, Friedrich von (1772–1829), german romantic writer, 28, 31–2, 115, 143, 185–233, 235–6, 240–60 passim, 266, 272, 275–80, 304–5. schleiermacher, Friedrich (1768–1834), german theologian, 187, 189. schubarth, karl ernst (1796–1860), german philosopher, 65, 162. schwartz, egon, 47. scribe, augustin eugène (1791–1861), French dramatic author, 172–3. seidelin, oskar, 42. shakespeare, william (1564–1616), english dramatist, 28–9, 31–2, 42, 147, 172, 273–278 passim, 306–8. sibbern, Frederik christian (1785–1872), danish philosopher, 54, 59, 160. socrates, 194, 272, 284–5, 287. solger, karl wilhelm Ferdinand (1780–1819), german philosopher

Index of Persons and aesthetic theorist, 115, 144–7, 235–69, 274, 277, 303–4. sophocles, 173, 236, 239, 243. spinoza, Baruch de (1632–77), dutch philosopher, 250. staël, madame germaine de (1766–1817), French woman of letters, 278. steffens, henrik (1773–1845), norwegiandanish philosopher, 28, 54, 139, 277–8. stieglitz, christian ludwig (1756–1836), german art historian, 65. strauss, david Friedrich (1808–74), german theologian, historian and philosopher, 277. strehlenau, niembsch von, i.e. nicolaus lenau (1802–50), austro-hungarian poet, 58–9, 66–7. tieck, Johann ludwig (1773–1853), german poet, 3, 8, 28, 31, 65,

319

115, 129, 143–8, 211, 236–9, 243, 245–6, 249, 252–4, 258–9, 264, 266, 271–314. thorvaldsen, Bertel (1768–1844), danish sculptor, 27. tolstoy, leo (1828–1910), russian writer, 9. ulrich, hermann, 30. weiße, christian hermann (1801–66), german philosopher and theologian, 143. werder, karl Friedrich (1806–93), german philosopher and literary critic, 139. wieland, christoph martin (1733–1813), german poet, 127. wirtz, thomas, 166. Young, edward (1681–1765), english poet and dramatist, 78.

This page intentionally left blank

index of subjects absolute knowing, 57, 140. acosmism, 253. actuality, 34, 70–71, 143, 198, 201–2, 206–8, 211, 215–16, 218–21, 223, 227, 242, 254–8 passim, 261–5 passim, 306. ahasverus, see wandering Jew. alienation, 192, 199–200, 206–7, 250. anxiety, 119, 134–5, 150, 160, 189, 281, 288, 292. atheism, 166. atonement, 262–3. autonomy, 59–61, 226. Bildung, 175. Bildungsroman, 199, 202.

essence, 71, 203. ethical life, 151ff., 201, 215. existence, poetic-artistic, 116. fairy-tale, 117–18. faith, 13, 16, 19, 36, 61, 73, 98–100, 105–6, 108, 124, 166, 171, 174, 177, 224, 227, 310. Faust, 7, 17, 45, 53–72 passim, 75, 82, 84, 148, 162, 177. finite/infinite�� 56–7�� 165–6�� 195�� 198�� 201�� 203, 207, 217, 219–20, 241, 251–2, 261–2. freedom, 78, 175. French revolution, 18–19.

christianity, 2, 9, 17, 19, 28, 39, 46–7, 66, 82–3, 85, 161, 165, 171, 221, 224, 236, 263, 295, 298, 302–5, 308–10. comedy, 4, 6–7, 20, 67, 118, 191, 215, 250, 264, 309. communication, 105, 156. indirect, 106, 186, 190. concept, the, 58, 61. conscience, 37–8, 79, 250. Corsair, 179, 265. creation, 262–3.

god, 10, 14, 17, 37–46 passim, 56–61, passim, 83–4, 102, 104, 106–8, 119, 131, 134, 140, 145, 147, 166, 174, 178–80, 189, 198, 201, 215, 226–7, 242, 245, 249–51, 256, 262–3, 272, 275, 295, 303–10 passim. governance, 68.

defiance�� 226. demand of the times, 86. demonic, the, 59, 79, 134, 164, 246. despair, 37, 133, 164–6, 186, 200, 214, 225–6, 282. dialectic, 40, 57, 78, 193, 241, 243, 248, 252, 260, 266, 273. don Juan (don giovanni), 10, 62, 66–7, 71–2, 121–2, 177. doubt, 60–61, 63, 67, 73, 75, 206, 256. drama, 16, 244.

idea, the, 57, 71, 242, 252, 255. idealism, 55, 298. immortality, 178. incarnation, 38, 262. infinite�� see finite/infinite. inner/outer, 11, 21, 43, 130, 179, 199, 203–4, 208. irony, 19, 38, 69, 103, 107, 116, 118, 123–34 passim, 144–5, 147, 151, 162, 164, 235–69, 271–6 passim, 293, 299–308 passim. christian, 129–30, 185–233. controlled, 70, 131, 147, 306, 307.

enlightenment, 98, 103, 106–7, 118, 129, 176.

history, 71, 175, 178–9. humor, 31–2, 69, 103, 107, 116, 125–9, 132, 134, 144, 156–65 passim, 271, 275.

322

Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries

philosophical, 193. romantic, 70, 127, 139–53 passim, 159, 187, 208–10, 217, 219, 221–3, 240, 243, 249, 251, 253, 255–6, 258, 260, 264, 272. socratic, 70, 106, 147–8, 194, 248, 253. isolation, 130–31, 199–208 passim, 215, 220–21, 224. Jena romanticism, 28, 188, 191–2, 236. Judaism, 2, 19–20, 100, 107. Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, see heiberg, Johan ludvig. language, 152, 186. levelling, 35. living poetically, see poetic living. logos, 56, 61. love, 74, 77–9, 83, 121–4, 174, 180, 197, 222. marriage, 4, 9, 16, 21, 35, 44, 74, 79, 99–100, 104, 123, 198, 222. martyrdom, 39. master thief, 173. matter/form, 57. mediation, 82, 166. melancholy, 37, 44, 121–2, 125, 164, 197. miracles, 82. modal categories, 71. music, 71, 122, 139, 148–52. mysticism, 249. mythology, 19, 175. nature, 12, 74–8, 118, 151, 198. negation, 262–5. negativity, 206, 208, 247, 252–3, 257, 260, 266. infinite absolute�� 206�� 252�� 256–7. nihilism, 9, 56, 70, 164, 166, 202, 207–8, 242, 250, 257, 261, 264. offense, 102, 295. old testament, 84. ossian, 36, 78. paradox, 102, 194–5, 295. particular, see universal. Perseus, see heiberg, Johan ludvig. phenomenon, 71, 203. philosophy of religion, 61, 66.

poem, 8, 10, 14, 27, 35–6, 41, 45, 131, 307. poet, 33, 70, 125, 171–84 passim. poetic living, 278–83 passim, 302–5. poetry, 32, 34, 56–7, 66, 71, 124, 126–7, 145–7, 149, 162–3, 177, 192, 202, 217, 218, 225, 244–5, 254, 264, 280–85 passim, 305–6. romantic, 202, 218, 220. possibility, 71. protestantism, 16, 22. reality, 147. reconciliation, 66, 198–202 passim, 205, 208, 218–27 passim. relativism, 55–6, 70, 86. religion, 12, 37, 84, 98, 220–21, 224, 227, 249, 256, 303–8. repetition, 75–8, 101. revelation, 75, 145, 250. romanticism, 8, 19, 22, 25–49 passim, 77, 118, 121, 123, 125, 128, 131, 145, 156–7, 162, 240, 252–3, 264, 271, 275–82 passim, 298, 302. german, 99, 115, 185, 198, 209, 212–13, 216, 243. royal theater in copenhagen, 53, 173–4. skepticism, 73. sin, 221, 224, 227, 262, 310. Sittlichkeit, see ethical life. sophists, the, 69, 76. speculative poet, 70. Spießbürgertum, 145–6. spirit, 61, 74, 78, 210, 243. stages, 46, 78, 122, 124, 151. subjectivity, 185–233, 240, 251, 253–4. theater, 125–6, 172–7. tragedy, 4, 69, 243, 249. transcendence, 18, 26, 56, 242. unity of opposites, 58. universal/particular, 252. Young germany, 157. wandering Jew, 16–17, 62, 66–7, 69, 133, 173. weimar classicism, 53, 156–7. weimar court theater, 53. women, 10, 18, 80, 84, 174.