Configuration and Government: Stefan George's The Star of the

Covenant
Kinzel, Ulrich, 1956-
Poetics Today, Volume 25, Number 4, Winter 2004, pp. 731-752 (Article)
Published by Duke University Press
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Conguration and Government:
Stefan Georges The Star of the Covenant
Ulrich Kinzel
German Literature, Hamburg
Abstract This essay on the German poet Stefan George and his poetry book The Star
of the Covenant :q:, is part of a broader study of literary models of an ethics of the
self in the context of governmental practices. Eor George and his circle of followers,
the particular lines of this context can be seen to emerge in a fusion of sociology and
aestheticism at the n de sicle, a fusion which George, who in his eighth book of
poetry takes on the role of a lawgiving authority, tries to transmute in order to regain
an ethical and a governmental function for literature. A critical reading of The Star
of the Covenant, however, will have to examine whether Georges attempt to achieve a
return to ethics also implies a return to the self.
1. Conguration and Government (Context)
Eromthe seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the question of an ethics of
literature in Germany was embedded in the moral and political sciences.
1
According to the systematic order of these latter discourses, which fused
ancient moral and political reection with moral philosophy and other new
disciplines, like the theory of sovereignty, political arithmetic, or political
economy, the government of the selfbattling passions and securing ratio-
nal control over the selfhad to be coordinated with the comprehensive
political task of establishing public security, producing general welfare, and
integrating individuals into the sphere of the state. In this context, literature
:. The following introductory remarks draw on Kinzel .ooo.
Poetics Today .: Winter .oo,. Copyright .oo by the Forter Institute for Foetics and
Semiotics.
732 Poetics Today 25:4
assumed the function of helping to join together moral and political gov-
ernment. In this sense, much of eighteenth-century German literature was
dedicated to the invention of a new anthropology and committed to social
reforms designed to connect individual and general welfare. However, with
the growth of perception that politics interfered with the life of citizens and
took the shape of what Eoucault :q88: :6., termed the political tech-
nology of individuals, literature called for a return to an ethics of the self.
A signicant line of German literature, from Wilhelm von Humboldt to
Stifter and Raabe, engaged in this critical enterprise of working out ethical
projects around the autonomy of the self.
The following interpretation of Stefan Georges The Star of the Covenant
:q:,, a poetry book which achieved remarkable public attention in its
time,
2
is a rst attempt at continuing these historical studies on models of
a literary ethics. This attempt has to take into account a signicant change
of the discursive context at the end of the nineteenth century. Thus, the n
de sicle witnessed a transformation of the moral and political sciences into
social sciences, which, together with an emerging aestheticism, provided a
new discursive frame for a literary return to ethics. The possibility for such
a return lies between the calls for rethinking the social as conguration and
for shaping conguration as an aesthetic process. In sketching out this dis-
cursive frame, the following analysis seeks to work out the inner discursive
structure of The Star of the Covenant, a systematic set of themes which in turn
has to be understood as a reaction to and a transformation of the contem-
porary discursive context. In particular, this essay is interested in Georges
intention to rework poetry into an operator for a return to ethics and to an
ethical community. Crucial to my reading of this ethopoetic enterprise
will be the question whether or notconsidering that George falls back on
the early modern concept of government and sovereigntythis enterprise
implies a return to the self.
In order to gain an outline of the specic historical problems framing
Georges ethical and political project, one might refer to his poem The
Dancer. The rst stanza reads:
The garden wavers with the roundelay
Of children, and the dusk subdues their rhyme,
They swing in circles, then in pairs they sally
And to the same refrain disband and rally,
How gayly, hand in little hand, they sway.
Marx and Morwitz :q;: q,
3
.. Cf. Kolk :qq8: .8o; Norton .oo.: q:.
. Hereafter, quotations from the English translation of Georges works will refer to Marx
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 733
As the dancing and singing children move in pairs, swing in a circle, and
hop to the same tune, they create a social reality which ties them to one
another, and this social artifact is not one of discourse or communication,
it is one of form made up of physical movement: a conguration of bodies,
which establishes both connection and equilibrium through coordinated
movement. If one were to seek a parallel model for this mode of gu-
ration, one could refer to Arthur Schnitzlers play Der Reigen Schnitzler
.ooo |:qoo|,, in which pairs of lovers move through the dierent sectors
of society, each couple associated with the next by one lover extending a
hand to another one of a dierent social station. It is the eros-driven pro-
cess of individual association in pairs which here constitutes social reality
as conguration.
It has often been asserted that these artistic modes of social formation
for George, in particular, his reenactment of religious ritual Braungart
:qq;,must be regarded as an aesthetic opposition to the rationality of
social dierentiation Breuer :qq: .:,. Accordingly, the eect of whole-
ness conveyed by the dancers in the enclosed garden opposes a society split
into a plurality of functions, spheres, and classes. Conversely, if one con-
siders the search for Bindung bonds, among the aesthetic and pedagogical
countermovements at the end of the nineteenth century Braungart :qq;:
;,, as well as the common interest of artists and sociologists in observ-
ing and redening principles of social association, one might come to the
conclusion that artistic models of social formation accompany early soci-
ology like a shadow story.
4
But this interference also works the other
way round, as shown by the following passage from Norbert Eliass Pro-
cess of Civilisation, whose concept of guration is rooted in Georg Simmels
sociology:
5
The concept of guration might easily be illustrated by hinting at social dances.
They are in fact the simplest example that one can choose to bring to mind what
is understood by a guration formed by human beings. . . . The image of a mov-
ing guration of interdependent people when they are dancing makes it perhaps
easier to imagine states, cities, families, or even capitalist, communist and feudal
and Morwitz :q; with page numbers in parentheses,. Unattributed translations are mine.
References to the German original in italics, follow George :q8 with page and volume
numbers in parentheses,.
. It is signicant that George was in contact with sociologists like Simmel,, and he and
his circle elicited commentary from sociologists like Max Weber,. Cf. Weiller :qq; Breuer
:qq: :6q8; Groppe :qq;: chap. :.. I take the expression shadow story from Greenblatt
:qqo: 66.
. Eor both Simmel and Elias, detachment and engagement are fundamental principles of
social formation. Simmel :q68 |:qo8|: :., also refers to dance in this context.
734 Poetics Today 25:4
systems as gurations. . . . As the little dance gurations change . . . so do the great
gurations, which we call society. Elias :q8o |:qq|, ::6q |my translation|; see
also Elias :q8; |:qq|: 8,
While the reference to dancing furnishes the sociological model with a
volatility, which makes social reality appear as the eect of autopoetical
practices, the aesthetic model gains seriousness and essence from socio-
logical reference. Thus within the fundamental context of a co-emergence
of sociology and art at the beginning of the twentieth century, the dance
does not just appear as an airy nothing
6
but receives a serious pragmatic
dimension.
Although Georges enterprise of creating a circle of chosen disciples must
be seen in this greater context of a social turn, it is not primarily in con-
guration that the pragmatism of this enterprisewhat Max Kommerell
:q6q: .o, called die Tatsachlichkeit der Unternehmung |the factuality of
the enterprise|can be found. The Dancer is quite clear on this point, for
the poem in its second stanza no longer focuses on the group of dancing
children, but on the One who
invents the moves and marks the time
|Doch einer gibt den takt an und den gang|.
How light the legs that leap and whirl with him,
How lithe and swift the hips that bound and rest.
His hair oats on the dark with trembling shimmer,
He is the lodestar in a maze of glimmer,
He is the heart of youth with all its dream,
He is the heart of youth with all its zest.
q; .:.:,
The dance is dominated and directed by this one gure, who acts as the
central authority, serves as a guiding principle lodestar,, and repre-
sents youth. But leadership, guidance, and representation are not treated as
social practices, since the poem emphasizes the light, dynamic, and grace-
ful movement of the dancers body, so that the lawor order of the sovereign
One, which eventually governs the conguration, appears in the mode of
aesthetic form. In short, while the conguration of dancing bodies shares
the ages general concern for renewed social relationships, the embodiment
of law modies the aesthetic mode of social conguration by reintroducing
sovereignty and the practice of government. And it is in thissovereignty
and governmentthat Georges specic attempt to regain the ethical in
6. See Shakespeare :qq; |:6oo|, .:::6.
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 735
poetry emerges. This attempt resulted from Georges fundamental shift
away fromthe aestheticismof his early years,
7
a shift whichinstead of rec-
onciling art with the broader interests of social discourseimplied a rigid
reorganization of poetry as existence.
2. The Paradox of Divine Self-fashioning (Ethics)
The poems up to The Seventh Ring :qo;, transmit to a large extent the voice
of an isolated speaker, whose soul is caught between melancholy and the
consolation that a healing asceticism oers cf. Kolk :qq8: :., :68,.
Nietzsche, a poem belonging to the rst section of The Seventh Ring, called
Zeitgedichte, announces a fundamental change of this situation. Instead
of crying out from the depths of a painful loneliness and wandering about
in deserted landscapes, it is now necessary, the poem says, to join a bond
of love:
There is no way across the icy summits
And haunts of ghostly birds' Now you must learn |nun ist not:|
To stay within the circle drawn by love
|Sich bannen in den kreis den liebe schliesst|
.:q; .::.,
8
To create such a circle is the aim of The Star of the Covenant :q:,, an aim
which implies a reinvention of poetry and the poet as the foundation and
medium of a new conguration.
The introductory stanzas of The Star of the Covenant repeat what the Max-
imin poems of The Seventh Ring tried to doto reect the fundamental
change that Georges earlier encounter withMaximin had brought about.
This was a young man called Maximilian Kronenberger, who had died
young and whom George had transgured into a god, lling the poet and
his followers, in the midst of a deep spiritual crisis, with the light of new
prophecies .:o.,. The opening poemintroduces himas a bringer of light
and as Lord of Turning |Herr der Wende| :6,, who brought about a funda-
mental spiritual change. In the third introductory poem, Maximin recalls
the moment of his transguration. As you do not know who I am, he tells
the listening members of the covenant, just listen to this: before I begin to
fashion an earthly and human existence, the time is approaching
;. Cf. Schonauer :q6o: :o, :6. Braungart :qq;: ;;::;, opposes the view of a funda-
mental shift and claims the continuity of Georges oeuvre.
8. Also cf. Raschel :q8: .; Trawny .ooo.oo:: .
736 Poetics Today 25:4
When I shall nd another form of being.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
I cannot be like you' My choice is made
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
I am already what I willed. In parting
Accept what only one like me can give:
My breath |anhauch| that shall revive your strength and courage,
My kiss that shall be branded in your spirit.
:6:;,
Maximins new form relates to a new mode of being, which is essentially
aesthetic. The previous poem speaks of Maximins twofold beauty :6,,
physical beauty giving birth to the spiritual god. According to Maximin
himself, this transgurationis not something that just happenedas a miracle
but is the eect of his own choice. In this transformation of earthly into
divine beauty and thus in the perfection of beauty .:o6,, conversion be-
comes an act of divine self-fashioning: I am already what I willed. Now,
the position of divine selfhood not only marks the dierence to a previous
mode of life, it introduces hierarchy in relation to others. The gods kiss is,
according to Ernst Osterkamp .oo:: ;,, a vertical kiss, one that is deliv-
ered from a superior to an inferior, stamping the divine mark on the souls
of the listening members of the circle, empowering them with strength and
courage, and breathing new life into them. The god who fashions himself
by separating himself from earthly forms returns his breath to those left
behind.
In an echo to this one, another poem from the introduction focuses on
the poet, who faces the riddle of the new god:
My child, and I the child of my own child
|wie er mein kind und ich meines kindes kind|.
:8; .::,
If the poet is the child of his own child, he, in fact, is the begetter of the god
that begets him: in other words, the myth of Maximins divine transforma-
tion turns out to be the story of the poets self-creation. Yet the substance
of this self-fashioning is not the poets identity, it is a set of oral functions:
breath, sound, voice, kiss. Hence divine breath is nothing else but the breath
|Hauch, Odem
9
.::6, :, :,| of poetry. The signicance of this observa-
tion becomes evident when we look at the two functions that breath assumes
in The Star of the Covenant. If, on the one hand, as we have seen, divine breath
q. Ralf Simon .oo:: 66, also speaks of a Zeugung aus dem Selbstbezug heraus generation
from self-reference,, which he, however, links to the act of writing ibid.: 6,.
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 737
revives and empowers disenchanted souls, ooding every vein with richer
teeming :q,, and, on the other hand, gives new life to all the words the
world has done to death :;,, and, furthermore, communicates the pro-
phetic word,
10
then poetry becomes a mode of existence or, as Kommerell
:q6q: .., says, a Lebensfunction |function of life|. The line that the poet
addresses to himself,
Reverse the symbol and reverse the song'
|Kehr um im bild kehr um im klang|
.:; .::;,,
shows that the great conversion is an act which has to take place within the
medium of poetry. Concentration on and of this medium coincides with an
intensication of the life-giving word .:oo,: healing the wounds of dis-
enchantment :6,, overcoming disintegration.,, rekindling the ame of
life :q,, all this must be seen as a concrete turn toward poetry as a medium
of existence.
Within its boundaries, this medium allows for extensions. One is histori-
cal: the new god enables the poets spirit to take a new look at tradition
o,; the other marks the social turn of divine self-fashioning. In the pref-
ace to the Maximin poems, George says that all the burning questions of
societies fade into darkness as soon as the great redeemer appears:
No-one will then shake his head anymore over the selsh enclosure which does
not care for the woe of his brothers: for he is the greatest benefactor for all, who
perfects his own beauty in a way bordering on wonder. .:o6,
By perfecting his own beauty, the new god exercises care for his brothers.
This social turn, however, entails sacrice. Maximins law, says the poet,
Decrees that he who sacriced his blood
Eor all and for himself, shall be fullled,
And only through his death beget the deed.
:8,
11
The great transformation which links beauty to brotherhood is governed
by an ethical paradox: divine self-fashioning is paired with earthly sacrice.
Considering, furthermore, that the birth of the new god is meant to consti-
tute a new centre |neue mitte| :q, sending out rays of light to create the
:o. Cf.: The new commandment you have worded o,; fervent words of sage and seer
:8,.
::. Wie sein gesetz ist dass der erfulltDer sich und allen sich zum opfer gibtUnd dann die
tat mit seinem tod gebiert .::,.
738 Poetics Today 25:4
ring of a new community,
12
this sovereignty is curiously undermined by its
own renouncement.
3. The Ring of Love (Erotics)
In the systematic set of themes governing The Star of the Covenant, erotics
is one eld in which the constellation of self, wholeness, and sovereignty
undermined by sacrice becomes apparent. The overall function of erotics
here is to generate the circle by establishing individual relationships be-
tween the poet and his ephebes. In this context, poetry refers to ethos, or
personal conduct, while the third book of The Star of the Covenant, where
the poet addresses the members as a whole, unfolds the nomoi, the political
dimension of the covenant.
In The Book of the Hanging Gardens :8q,, a series of poems is dedicated to
the unfullled love of a young man for a woman. One of these pieces reads:
A novice I was drawn into your sway,
I was not moved until I saw your face,
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Elect me to the ranks that do your will,
These young and folded hands regard with grace,
Im |sic| merciful forbearance spare who still
Must falter on so new and strange a way.
:o6,
The young mans desire, far from seeking fulllment, is almost immedi-
ately disciplined and turned into service and devotion. The lover becomes a
pupil, a follower, one among a group surrounding his mistress, who adopts
or is made to adopt the role of an educator. The focus of the poem is clearly
on the lover and his humble position, whereas the superior position of the
beloved is given no voice. Other poems with less emphasis on initiation
reveal a similar distribution of roles. In a number of homoerotic poems, the
poet appears in the position of the lover, who voices his desire and its renun-
ciation Keilson-Lauritz :q8;: :q, :..,. Breaththe breath of life, love,
and poetryis attributed to the humble position of the lover and becomes
a voice of melancholy and disappointment:
Love does not value one who feels a lack'
It waits in torment for a single glimpse,
And pours its treasures into thankless hands,
:.. The god is veiled in highest consecration,With rays around he manifests his station
|Mit strahlen rings erweist er seine reihe| :q; .::,.
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 739
Exalts the ame in which it is consumed.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
But even more my sweet |Ssser! ja mehr als dies|: Lest any breath
Disturb your buoyancy, I shall not return.
And doubly sad I leave, and pain is all
That speaks in me and this unheeded song.
.8;,
In the second book of The Star of the Covenant, which develops a kind of
dialogue between the poet and those wanting to enter the circle, all these
elements of the erotic game return, yet in reversed form. Eirst of all, one
can observe a clear change of roles. When the poet admonishes a friend to
purge himself and become prepared for the moment,
When you are roused by the god,
Bound in the breath of your love
|Wenn dein geliebter dir raunt|
.8; .::o,,
it becomes clear that the poet is no longer the lover, but the beloved. On
the other hand, the pupil, as he seeks the company of the poet, executes
the service of . . . love ., and thus adopts the position of the lover. The
model for this reversal of roles can be found in the Symposium, where Soc-
rates, the old and ugly man, manages to attract handsome young men. In
his book Platon: Der Kampf des Geistes um die Macht :q,, one of the circles
studies explicitly approved of by George for whom Flato had become a
permanent reference point,, Kurt Hildebrandt :q: ..., writes:
Socrates courts the young men like a lover. . . . then eros turns around and they
fall in love with him.
Moreover, the reversal of roles eects a change in the nature of the erotic
relationship. As the young men turn toward the poet and ask him to con-
sider their failure to comply with the rules of the newlife .q,, to free them
from the chains of a rebellious spirit ibid.,, to assist them in overcoming
their helplessness and raise their self-condence :,, or to spur their will
to present the gift of their beauty and their power to him.,, they address
the poet as an adviser and educator, who in return exhorts them to conde
in his leadership:
Curb your rage, give me your hand'
You shall bear another bondage
|Anders will ich nun dich binden|,
Face another path to gladness | freude|.
740 Poetics Today 25:4
Sun shall reign and overtide you,
Break the spell which holds you bound.
.q; .:::,
Such bliss under the reign of the sun is the reward for the pupils painful
attempts to work out and style their personal conduct. In other words, erotic
attraction is converted into moral exercises, which here aim at an enhance-
ment of the self:
What happened that I almost am a stranger
To my own self, the same yet something more'
|Kein andrer bin und mehr doch als ich war?|
.; .::,
Eor George, however, education is not restricted to the pragmatic dimen-
sion of leadership but is also conceived of as a creative, poetic power. The
sperm .o, or seme .:,, which is fertilized in the poet on his en-
counter with the god, is transferred to the pedagogical inducement of the
new life: the way from confusion to bliss, the poet tells his pupils, corre-
sponds to the growth of a seed fromfertile darkness to light, which nally
displays what we bothbegot ,.The fruits of a shared newlife resemble
the immortal children Diotima speaks of when trying to denote the o-
spring of spiritual procreation Flato :qq:: .oqc,; similarly, eros is pictured
by George as a fertile god , ;,.The role of educator enables the poet to
both beget and give birth to a newexistence and to see himself as a medium
blessed with the powers of generation:
I am the One, I am the Two,
I am the womb, I am the sire,
. . . . . . . . . .
I am the bow, I am the shaft.
..,
This claim, though, throws the reciprocal nature of Georges pedagogical
eros into doubt. If, indeed, he is both procreator and womb, the friends
serve as mere objects of a poetic, generative will, as the poets claim,
How in you I be perfected
:,,
betrays. Apart from moments when the loving pupil and the beloved mas-
ter converge in mutual fulllment o,, the master clearly sees himself as
the dominant gure in the erotic-pedagogical game. When my lips, the poet
tells a friend, are pressed to your lips and my breath lives inside yours and
I then step back from your body, It is because I feel my esh confront me
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 741
:,. At the other end, the pupils return to himself is achieved only at the
cost of self-sacrice:
But since I gave myself, my self is mine'
|Seit dem ich ganz mich gab hab ich mich ganz|
., .::,
Destroy me' Let me drink your ame' I freely
Gave up my freedom for your keeping.
.,
The same process that has turned around and modied the erotic game
has obviously exchanged the pains of the former novice and rejected lover
for the new pupils pains of initiation. Georges pedagogy is not an instru-
ment that helps to promote the growth of the other; instead, it strengthens
the authority of the master. In this context, Georges specic conception of
youthgains signicance: it is not just a transient stage of growth, but climax
and perfection .:o,, which point to a new mode of existence.
13
Seen in
the light of Georges hierarchical erotics and ethics, adolescence no longer
is an operator of the youths self-formation but of the poets permanently
rejuvenated, sovereignty.
4. The Ring of Steel (Politics)
Decisive events, the poet reminds himself, are not predetermined but cre-
ated out of almost nothing. Hence, his self-reection goes,
Erom grains of dust you realized the state,
Walked as if led and knew that you were chosen.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Established codes |whrung| and language, set the norm |gesetz|.
.:,
The poet is talking about his earliest vision of the circle as a state with its
own currency, language, and law. George does not refer to the historical
reality of the state but to a paradigm invented by himself. The famous sec-
ond poem in the third book of The Star of the Covenant, a book devoted to the
politics of the circle, sets out to characterize the main principles of this new
political entity:
This, the realm of the spirit, mirrors
My domain with grove and grange'
:. The god in The Star of the Covenant is referred to as the essence of our peoples sacred
youth :q,.
742 Poetics Today 25:4
Each is born again |umgeboren| and given
Other form. His home and country
Dim to legend, and the rites
Of the message, of the blessing
Change your kindred, name, and station.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Erom the sons who have been chosen
I elect my lords of earth |meine herrn der welt|.
;,
The new state is given the status of a spiritual realm. With it, there is no
contract, there are no institutions or forms of government, but there is a
denite claim to power in the last line, which entitles us to view this Reich
as a political project in more than just a metaphorical sense. In contrast to
empirical forms of the modern state, its members are neither families nor
populations, but a chosen elite completely disconnected from traditional
social, local, and family ties. To be chosen implies that the individual is
reinvented. The new gods fundamental claim to conversion is obviously
continued in the political sphere. Totally cut o from any historical or sys-
tematic substance of the political, Georges polis is presented to use a term
by Fhilippe Lacoue-Labarthe |:q88|, as political ction | politique ction|,
as a project creating an autonomous body whose stability and durability
is achieved through aesthetic formation. Like the advent of Maximin, this
body politic has an undeducible beginning; it is ction fabricated out of
words, invented and transmitted by the breath of the poet. Again George
like a spideris at the center of this web of sense and sound .::,: the
realm of the spirit . . . mirrorsMy domain.
In a poem hailing the suddenness of the new gods advent, from the rst
book of The Star of the Covenant, George presents a further vision of how the
circle came into existence:
I curve an age that tends to arrow-straightness,
I lead the round and wrest into ring.
.:,
14
The arrowlike movement of progress, is replaced by a Reigen, which allows
for an integration of individuals into a closed form and for their association
within it. But Georges Reigen not only refers to aesthetic form and social
conguration; the dance is also strictly governed. Thus, more than just
being replaced, the arrowlike willbanned into closure and recurrenceis
introduced into the round. In other words, Georges spiritual realm is con-
:. Aus einer ewe pfeilgeradem willenEuhr ich zum reigen reiss ich ein den ring .::q,.
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 743
stituted by both conguration and government, the latter giving essence to
the Reigen against the threat of modern contingency.
The conguration of the circle is clearly organized around a center. Eirst
of all, each member maintains a close relationship with the master and
establishes a hierarchical, vertical axis; horizontal association between the
members, however, is not provided for:
Your ways divide, your purpose is the same.
|Ihr seid im gang getrennt im zweck gesellt|
; .::;,
As Ernst Morwitz :q6o: 68; cf. also Breuer :qq: 8:8, has pointed out,
the circle consists of radii leading to the center, while the single points or
clusters of the circle are hardly connected. Erom the ethic-erotic point of
view, this order secures close personal relationships between master and
pupil, but it also vests the center with a great amount of power.
15
Yet great emphasis is put on the circle as a whole:
More than the sum of parts the total counts
|dass vollzahl mehr gilt als der teile tucht|.
And through the circle new lan |neues wesen| is ushered
So that the strength of every member mounts.
And from this source of love |liebesring| which never shallows
Each tyro-templer will, in turn, attain
A greater force which tides into his fellows
And washes back into the ring again.
.; .::6q,
Neues wesen receives a political determination insofar as it primarily
results fromcommonactivities andnot frompersonal innovationthe indi-
vidual is subordinated to the whole of the round. Another poem from the
third book admonishes members to remain oriented toward the center,
because those who drift away too far from it risk their personal identity.
They are, in fact, threatened with dissolution:
Who ever circled the ame
Always shall follow the ame
. . . . . . . . . .
Broken from bond of the core
He will be scattered in space.
8,
16
:. George also used to supervise contact between members and actively maintained their
separation; cf. Breuer :qq: ;8;q.
:6. Wer je die amme umschrittBleibe der amme trabant' . . . Eehlt ihm der mitte
gesetztreibt er zerstiebend ins all .::6.6,.
744 Poetics Today 25:4
Yet, as the previous poem makes clear, the politics of the circle is not
only about integration into a predominant whole, which again entails self-
sacrice, or about the prescriptive function of the law; it is also and insis-
tently about power: So that the strength of every member mounts, that
is to say, the individual member is empowered, this power even being
increased by joint eort. And this practical element is specically empha-
sized when the poet warns the group to do the necessary things here and
now, because delay will leave things undone ,. On the whole, the circle
works like a self-sustaining and power-increasing mobile: the power that
each member receives from the circle is again injected into it, increasing
its might with every ow of energy. This, more than reference to heroism
o,, characterizes the politics of the covenant. When at the end George
dismisses his pupils from the inner space,
The cell which holds the nucleus of powers
|Der zelle fr den kern geballter krfte|
; .::;,,
it becomes clear that, in contrast to an ascetic community, the circle is not
based on restraint but reveals itself as a power cell, governed and inspired
by a central authority, Des kraft euch stahlt |whose strength steels you|
.::;,. The ring of love |liebesring| is hardened into the ringOf steel
|band aus erz| o,.
5. Law as Poetry (Ethopoetics)
The practical intentions of The Star of the Covenant furnish Georges poetry
with an antihermeneutical stance. The lyrical word is no longer designed
to create meanings but, rather, specic forms of conduct. Within Georges
development, this implies a shift away from the earlier monologue of the
soul to dialogical forms of speech. Jurgen Wertheimer :q;8: :o, has
investigated the interplay of self-address and addresses to the other and
divine authority. Taking into account furthermore the neglect of the single
poems autonomy in favor of its horizontal linkage Simon .oo:: o,, The
Star of the Covenant appears to be organized as discourse. Yet this discourse
does not adhere to the principles of discursive communication but, rather,
works according to the techniques of pre-Flatonic, mimetic orality.
In The Star of the Covenant, reference to personal and political conduct is
organized around the notion of law. The law is placed in the middle of the
circle, it is unyielding , and at rst sight appears in the written form
of a rune ., or of the new commandments |tafeln| o,. Yet the pre-
dominant form of moral prescription is not discursive instruction. Against
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 745
the threat of misleading seducers, the poet maintains that he supplied his
followers with the true eyeinstead of the deceiving brainenabling them
to tell the genuine leader by his face and body .,. Here, as in many
other instances cf. Braungart :qq;: qq;,, the law appears to be a given
physical and aesthetic form, something which is beheld rather than under-
stood and which is not subject to change. Vision and timelessness are com-
plemented by the process of speaking and listening,; sound and rhythm as
we shall see, present the poeticized law in action.
Resistance to change is also meant to shape the readers response. Codi-
ed lawlike literature, would ask for interpretation, but this is exactly what
George is trying to obviate. In the introduction, the poet gives an account
of how Maximin appeared and proceeds to tell his followers:
You who surround and question me, let this
Suce |mehr deutet nicht|: Through him |Maximin| alone I now
am yours.
:8,
Later, when given a chance to ask the new god one question,
I hesitated rst and then refused:
Who lived the utmost needs no clues |deutung|.
,
And when urged by his followers to unseal the mystery of his doctrine and
make it available to the people, the poet points at the danger that such
untimely revelation may break the laws power; only the master knows the
right moment for unveiling the mystery:
No one
But the master sets the day.
.,
Freserving a secret moral and political knowledge against careless diusion
as if it were a divine law is one aim of Georges resistance to interpreta-
tion; controlling reception is the other. The lawthe poetic word itselfis
excluded fromthe philological interplay of text and interpretation; instead,
the law and its transmission are subjected to a poetic technology. Eirst of
all, as Wertheimer :q;8: ::, has pointed out, one can observe a restriction
of poetic language to a number of recurrent elements like star, bond,
round, master, god. Eurthermore, these expressions are not dened,
but repeated like formulas. An extreme formof this can be found in the lita-
nies of the rst book and at the end of The Star of the Covenant. The overall
eect of reduction and repetition is semantic displacement, a shift from the
746 Poetics Today 25:4
logic of representation to the magic of rhythm. Foetry becomes the medium
of true wisdom , not by being explained, but by being performed.
The recipients role in this ritual enactment of the law has been described
by Morwitz :q6o: :,. Setting out from the idea of rhythm as a funda-
mental life-preserving means, Morwitz explains that verse not only serves
the purpose of impressing the wisdom of the poet-sage on the hearer; verse
has a physical eect on the listener, whose actions, as a consequence of
the rhythmic imprint, adapt to the law, which is the will of the poet-sage
transposed into form. In other words: all that remains to be done for the
recipient is to swing into the poetic rhythm and thus to execute the law.
George tries to make production and reception match completely; dier-
ences and incongruities are erased. This amounts to nothing else but repe-
titionperformed repetitionand this is what the techniques of commu-
nication, decreed by George and practiced by him and the members of the
circlepoetry recitals, memorization and copying of poems cf. Braungart
:qq;: :;; Kolk :qq8: .:8,are about.They aimnot only at the pres-
ervation of knowledge, but also at the control of the single recipients ethos
and the circles nomoi.
The question of law is also a question of its medium. In the rst book
of The Star of the Covenant, George attacks chirographic preservation and
storage of cultural artifacts. A re would destroy them, but moreover, stor-
ing artifacts in archives and museums converts them to lifeless things. The
doctrine of the ring is saved in a dierent way:
It lives secure in image, tone, and rhythm |reigen|,
And dealt from mouth to mouth conveys a message.
.,
The implications of this reference to mouth to mouth orality are far-
reaching and fundamental in the sense that Eric Havelock :q6, has shown
for pre-Flatonic Greek culture. Foetry was then what it is for George: not a
separated area of aesthetic experience but a mode of existence. The striking
similarities do not comprise all aspects of early oral culture, but there are
some fundamental ones, which help us to understand Georges ethopoetics
in the light of media history. As Havelock ibid.: , remarks, orality bears
strong inclination to instruction:
All memorisation of the poetised tradition depends on constant and reiterated
recitation. . . . Hence poetry exists and is eective as an educational instrument
only as it is performed.
If George indeed wanted to have his law transmitted by word of mouth,
his presence, the presence of his voice and its renewal was needed and was
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 747
often desperately missed |Breuer :qq: 6.68|,. The renewal of presence
and performance had to make sure that speaker and listener were closely
knit together. This practice, then, was diametrically opposed to any kind of
distance between word and recipient, which a script would allowbut which,
in oral practice, would threaten the word to be forgotten and the loss of its
power. Distance is also the presupposition for questioning the text and for
critical analysis, which is exactly what George intends to obviate. Eurther-
more, oral repetition relies upon the unchanged word. Interpretation, con-
versely, subjects the written word to change by questioning its meaning and
by allowing a plurality of readings. Against all this, George tries to incor-
porate content into form in order to make it tight, unchangeable and to
convert it into a lawLandmann :q6: .,. We can nowunderstand why the
law is conceived of as shape, sound, and dance: it is a way to x its mean-
ing in actu against a play of opinions, to make it stick in the recipients soul,
and to control its power. Eor George, written law entailing analysis, leads
to a diusion of meanings, law as poetry demanding identication, leads
to unity of conduct.
Since George has been claimed to be a representative of an ethics of the
self Landmann :q;:,, his techniques of inducing personal conduct should
also be looked at from the point of view of ethopoetics. Rainer Kolk :qq8:
.o, says that the techniques of memorization nally aim at transposing
text into self. But how are we to understand this process with regard to the
ascetic tradition of ethopoetics` Ethopoetics, as Eoucault :q88: , denes
it, is the process of transforming truth aletheia, into conduct ethos,. Eor this
purpose, a set of exercises is applied, among which are those of reading and
writing; thus to use a termin Eoucault :qq |:q8|,, the writing of the self
criture personelle, requires a processing of the words which dene principles
of conduct. The words are subjected to personal activities and exercises,
in contrast to oral repetition, which only reproduces discourse. In etho-
poetics, ample space is provided for the individual to reect on principles
of conduct, to nd and understand their rationale, and to shape rational
moral conduct according to a personal style. In Georges conception, this
free space is completely occupied by the prescriptive voice of the poet. In
the ascetic tradition, the individual transfers the techniques of art to ethical
practice in order to invent his or her life; in Georges oral cosmos, the indi-
vidual transfers his or her life to art in order to obey the voice of the law.
Instead of becoming poets of their lives as Nietzsche would have demanded
|Nehamas :q8: ..8|,, the members of the circle adjust their lives to the
breath of the poet.
748 Poetics Today 25:4
6. The Empty Fortress (Heterotopia)
In an essay on Georges idea of a new ethics, Edith Landmann :q;:: q:,
explains that the poets concept of a beautiful life refers to a mode of exis-
tence which is based not on the modern idea of achievement, but on Sein
being,. Accordingly, the poet says that neues wesen .::6q, emanates
from the circle. Being is closely connected with a resistance to time and
change. In The Star of the Covenant the god tells his listeners:
Utter my will through the rising and falling of time,
Utter the changeless design of the xed constellation.
:q,
17
The order of the starstimelessness and beingis erected against the
threat of surrounding contingency and diusion. There seems to be a strong
anity to the Flatonic concept of beauty as a revelationof truthandessence.
Yet this ontology of beauty is deed and eaced by the poet. The following
lines deal with this theme explicitly:
Some teach that this is earthly, that eternal,
Another: I am want and you abundance.
We tell how earthly stu can be eternal,
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Unconscious of its dawn and dusk is beauty,
The deathless spirit snatches what is mortal,
It shapes, it keeps alive and heightens beauty,
And with empyreal power makes immortal.
A body that is fair incites my blood,
I, who am spirit, clasp it with enchantment,
And changed in works of spirit and of blood,
It is my own and changeless in enchantment.
6,
The poem sets out to overcome the contrast between earthly and eternal
being, between want and abundance. Line introduces the Flatonic theme
of beauty, which, in itself ephemeral, is made immortal by spiritual trans-
formation. This is the point where, following the line of contemporary Ger-
man existentialism, one might expect a reection on beauty as a mode of
existence and not as an object of aesthetic experience. Eor Martin Hei-
degger :q6.: ; cf. Grassi :q8o: chap. .,, for instance, beauty is closely
connected with techne, the revelation of truth. But Georges reection takes
a dierent route. He emphasizes the power with which the spirit trans-
:;. Cf. also: And such a cycle is eternity o,.
Kinzel

Conguration and Government 749
forms contingent beauty into a possession of the speaker for his permanent
enchantment. The whole complex of beauty, being, and constancy is shifted
from ontology to appropriation. Georges beautiful life, which appears to
be conceived as an alternative to the diusion of society, turns out to be the
poets claim to the possession of timeless beauty.
The will to create an alternative mode of existence also has a spatial
aspect. The formula for this can be found in the famous poem Secret Ger-
many, in which the gods, reacting to the disenchantment of modern ratio-
nalism, found
a new space in the old . . .
|Neuen raum in den raum|.
;.; .:.o,
This formula, of course, describes the position of the circle within the so-
ciety by which it is surrounded, and it characterizes Georges will to invent
a topological other. Given the nature of Georges project, this other space is
not utopia, an unreal place linked by similarity with existing society.
18
The
otherness of Georges project, rather, emerges from its pragmatic charac-
ter. It formulates principles of personal conduct and group behavior, and it
tries to impose on the reader rhythmic identication with these principles.
The Star of the Covenant can be seen as a counterdiscourse defying the whole
of society and oering a systematic alternative. Despite being poetry, it is a
kind of handbook to guide and arm the aspirant to the new life. The other-
ness of the newspace does not consist in its being a distant ideal but in being
a place for transforming individuals and creating a new form of existence
here and now. This pragmatic or heterotopian Eoucault :qqo, otherness is
emphasized by Max Kommerells :q6q: ., already quoted phrase regard-
ing Georges Tatsachlichkeit der Unternehmung, but it is also character-
ized by Kommerells suspicion that the circle, despite its claim to objec-
tivity and being, might be wesenlos without being, and as such nothing
more than der AtemraumGeorges |Georges breathing space| ibid.,. All
the procedures of creating and founding a new ethos and new nomoi serve
the restoration of the life- and law-, giving breath of the poet as a sover-
eign power.
19
And within this realmof sovereign ction, the members of the
circle arein Thomas Hobbess :qq: |:6:|: ::., sensearticial persons,
:8. Morwitz :q6o: o, underscores the antiutopian character of The Star of the Covenant by
asserting that Georges words are not designed to incite imagination but, rather, to be taken
as unambiguous, explicit statements.
:q. Historically speaking, the reanimation of the sovereign as animated law. See Ernst Kan-
torowicz on the medieval sovereign as lex animata :qq: |:q.;|: .:;, ..; :q;: :.;, and on
sovereignty as ction :q6 |:q6:|,.
750 Poetics Today 25:4
actors, whose words and actions are owned by someone else, the author,
and who, thus, act by authority.
In other words: the circle is a medium of the poets self-fashioning, and
the poets self-fashioning is an act of self-empowerment. Thus, the central
light of the covenant is not an agent of truth as in the philosophical reec-
tion on beauty,, but an agent of power, which illuminates new space and
those who live in it. Hobbess ibid.: :.8, words on the privileged visibility of
the sovereign may well be transferred to the relationship between the poet-
master and his pupils: And though they shine some more, some lesse, when
they are out of his sight; yet in his presence, they shine no more than the
starres in presence of the Sun. Georges ring is designed to restore and to
fulll this presence of both law and master and to fortify them against the
threat of modern dispersion and contingency. Yet viewed fromthe perspec-
tive of a contemporary literary reection, Eranz Kafkas Der Proce, where
the lawhas disappeared fromthe scene, Georges moral and political ction
appears as a desperate eort to people an empty fortress.
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