Bonaventura's Romantic Agony

Bonaventura's Romantic Agony: Prevision of an Art of Existential Despair
Author(s): Gerald Gillespie

Source: MLN, Vol. 85, No. 5, German Issue (Oct., 1970), pp. 697-726
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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697
ONAVENTURA'S ROMANTIC AGONY:

PREVISION OF AN ART OF EXISTENTIAL
DESPAIR m BY GERALD GILLESPIE m The
intent of this essay is to indicate in what manner the bitterand
bizarre work Nachtwachen (1804) representsthe beginningsof a
new estheticorientationwhich we are increasinglycapable of ap-
preciatingin the light of our own times. Since no one has ever
convincinglyidentifiedthe actual author behind the pseudonym
Bonaventura, the book has not benefitedfrom being associated
with a particular creative personalitybut has survivedsolely on
its meritsas a novel anticipating,with its own authenticvoice, a
now distinctand widespread sensibility.It is thus a mark of the
book's unusual intrinsic power that it eventually entered the
German literary canon of our century when, as the unknown
Bonaventura predicted,there would occur a pronounced turning
in art to the grotesqueand absurd out of the logic of our cultural
development. Whatever disagreementsstill may arise over the
interpretationof puzzlingdetails in Bonaventura'sstory,one point
ought to be clear by this day-that we get nowherejudging him by
the literaryvalues which he himselfso vehementlydismisses.This
holds especiallyfor the sublime,governingconceptsof the age of
Goethe. Since Bonaventura exposes "humanity" as a tragic lie
and since "nature " possessesfor him no ultimatemeaning except
as a model of horror,accordingly,to conclude that his novel pre-
sents a disjointed turmoilof diatribesand ghastlyscenes amounts
only to a misleading truism. Dismay over its seeming lack of
"organic" growthobliquely acknowledgesthat it is not moored in
the bedrock of theodicy,but ratherin a rebellion which possesses
its own pronouncedintellectualcoherence.
While the present study is limited to examining some salient
featuresof that coherence,this step-it is hoped-will contributeto
our largerpictureby enabling sounder qualitative judgmentsas to
the place of the Nachtwachen in the context of romantic prose.
The approach here is primarilythroughinternal evidence of the
congruencebetween the structureof the novel and its message,a

698 M L N
conformity exhibitingdeliberatemetaphoricpurpose. It is second-

arilythroughattentionto statementsin the novel which reflectthe
influenceof philosophic "models," in so far as these have a direct
bearing on its shaping. Even though the content of the Nacht-
wachen fullyjustifiessuch a procedure,it will be helpful for the
sake of clarificationto sketch the direction of earlier scholarship
and, in particular,of significantrecentefforts.
Bonaventura criticismhas derived its main thrust from the
closelyrelated impulsesof Positivism (establishmentof authorship
and textual references)and Geistesgeschichte(definitionof role in
the unfolding of romantic thought). Positivisticmethodologyis
impressively representedin the introductionand annotationsto the
critical edition by Hermann Michel which appeared during the
centennaryof the original publication of the Nachtwachen.l De-
spite the factthat Michel's choice of Schelling,like priorand subse-
quent choices by other analysts,was inconclusive,his judicious
reasoningand, more importantly,the suggestivewealth of literary
connections or then contemporaryanalogies uncovered by him
remain exemplary. A thorough integrationof Bonaventura into
the scheme of "intellectual history" was firstadequately accom-
plished by H. A. Korffin his ample masterworkon the Goethean
age.2 Korffsharply differentiated the kinds of negation in such
1 Nachtwachen von Bonaventura (1805), Deutsche Literaturdenkmaledes 18.

und 19. Jahrhunderts,No. 133 (Berlin, 1904). Michel's is still the best dis-
cussion of textual matters,which must be passed over here-e. g., the probability
that the novel was not writtenbefore 1803 because it alludes to publications of
that particular year, and that an attempt to lend the appearance of newness
to a work delayed in production or distributed late in the year's schedule
accounts for the differencein date (1804 versus 1805) between the facing title
pages of the original edition. Among points in Michel's commentarystill central
to critical assessment is the cultural function of Bonaventura's publisher F.
Dienemann & Co., located in the small town of Penig. Its series Journal von
neuen Original Romanen carried the secondary works of established romantics,
their mediocre imitators,and gothic and horrifictales for popular consumption.
Bonaventura's position as a writer who manipulates cliches for his own ends
should be evaluated against the background of popularized fatalism and terror
of dark forces. But to date no adequate monograph has been attempted on
the complex subject of his technique of " quotation," the use of motifs,situa-
tions, phrases, and figures;without claiming to offermore than some indicative
observations,Michel sketchesquite a few clear or probable sources and analogies
in romantic literature (see also note 7). References to Bonaventura in this
essay will be by roman numeral for chapter and arabic numeral for page from
Michel's text.
2 Geist der Goethezeit: Versuch einer ideellen
Entwicklung der klassisch-
romantischenLiteraturgeschichte,3. Teil (2. Aufl.; Leipzig, 1949), pp. 214-235.

M L N 699
works as Hyperion or Faust and the distortionof idealism in the

Nachtwachen,with its nihilisticsubjectivity.Whetheror not later
interpreterscould accept all of Korff'stypologicaland ontological
thesis, he clarifiedthat the book, despite its date, already had
reachedone " end of the romanticspirit,"a negativeversuspositive
terminalphase.3 Missing in Korff,and in other lesser treatments
of similar tendency,is any sufficient appreciation of the extent to
which Bonaventura renders a severe critique of romanticismin
itself as a dead end, but simultaneouslyexplores possible new
territory for a modern art.
A welcome shiftfrominterestin the novel as a precociousreflex
of negativeromanticismto emphasison its structuralconsciousness
occurs in two post-warmonographsto which this studyis specially
indebted. Dorothee Solle-Nipperdeyhas been the firstcritic to
undertake a reasonably complete technical investigationof the
work, attemptingto define the functionof the smallestelements
withinchapters,the interactionof chapterswithinthe whole book,
the use of various literaryformsand rhetorics,and the complexities
of narrativepoint of view, both in how things are told and the
attitudetowardwhat is told and the world.4 She clearlyestablishes
the methodologyof authorial control over the variety of basic
storytellingforms,whose perplexinglyrapid successionis so char-
acteristic,and points out the principle of disturbingloneliness
developed chieflythrough the paramount ego, Kreuzgang. The
advantage in the main of Solle-Nipperdey'suse of abstract cate-
gories,such as the structuring of " time" and " space " in the novel,
is theirinherentaffinity to the post-Kantianepistemologicalconcern
whichpervadesthe Nachtwachen. Thus her treatmentof significant
8 Korff posits (p. 227) that this nihilism is the perverted expression of
German idealism because total rejection of the world amounts to distorted
assumption of a posture as " der radikalste Idealist "; it is idealistic subjectivism
" in anderer Gestalt." But while Korffis fundamentallyright in recognizingthat
"Weltverneinung und Ichverg6tzungsind nur zwei Formen einer Geisteshaltung,
und sie geh6ren so zusammen wie das plus und minus der Algebra," he never
explores the possibilitythat Bonaventura may indeed be engaged in a deliberate
questioning of idealism itself, especially the serious implications of its sub-
jectivity.
'
Untersuchungenzur Strukturder Nachtwachen von Bonaventura, Palaestra,
No. 230 (G6ttingen, 1959). Deeming inconclusive all attempts thus far to
assign authorship and valuing Korffalone among Bonaventura critics beholden
to Geistesgeschichte,this cogent monograph of some 100 pages espouses formal
analysis as the more meaningful approach today on the grounds that structure
incorporates " Intentionalitait" (p. 9) .

700 M L N
frameworks-notably the puppet play, motifsof the world theater,

staged disillusionment in a fake apocalypse, etc.-stressesthe con-
nectionwithproblematicaspectsof the ego as actor-spectator.How-
ever,as will be discussedbelow, her interpretation eventuallyfalters
because of her own unwillingnessto accept the terrorof the work's
visionof nothingnessas an absolute discovery.Instead,she inventsa
hypotheticalagencytermed" the spiritof the narration" to revise
the sense of what we read.5 Though benefitingconsiderablyfrom
her analyses, JeffreySammons has not felt the compulsion to
mitigate the most probable conclusions we ought to draw from
them. What is more, he enhances our grasp of the total structure
by pointingout how the sixteenvigils fall roughlyinto a seriesof
groups,each driftingfromsatire to despair and tragedy,and how
in turn,withunrelentingconsistency, theworkas a whole intensifies
cycleby cycle toward the spiritualcatastrophein its finalchapter.6
Of course,any critichas a perfectrightto reject such a challenge
5As S6lle-Nipperdey indicates (p. 105), this concept is patterned after

Wolfgang Kayser. While her caution against confusing any narrator with the
novel as a whole or with the author is sound enough, it leads to methodologically
dubious conclusions when she argues that, because the watchman himself
undergoes disillusionment, "Auch seine Perspektive, auf die doch das ganze
Buch sich aufbaut, ist unzuverlassig. Triumphierend erhebt sich der Geist der
Erzahlung fiber den nun selbst entlarvtenEntlarver. An solcher Stelle wird uns
der Boden des konsequenten Nihilismus unter den FuiBen fortgezogen ....
Ist also ein nihilistisches Kunstwerk m6glich? Zweifellos ist ein nihilistischer
Erzahler m6glich, nicht aber ein solcher Geist der Erzahlung" (p. 105). I hope
to prove just the opposite, and precisely on the structural grounds of a
convincingcorrespondencebetween what the chief narrator or voice experiences
of and about disillusionment and how the book moves consistentlytoward an
ever deeper perception of nothingness.
6 The Nachtwachen von Bonaventura: A Structural
Interpretation (The
Hague, 1965). By showing how recurrent motifs link the several cycles and
how we thereby gradually discover connections between the nightwatchman's
soul and the principle of catastrophe exemplifiedin seeminglydisparate stories,
Sammons provides evidence which militates against Slle-Nipperdey's reserva-
tions. Her " spirit of the narration" is at least countervailed by his categoryof
our total sense of the novel's shaping: " Thus from the readers point of view
the Nachtwachen represents a process of self-revealingon the part of the
watchman which is gradually and carefullycontrolled in its structural
ordering.
If we now call to mind the resultsof our examination ... we realize that we have
a kind of structural counterpoint. . . . There we found as an external form
a cyclical movement boring ever deeper into the empty core of the universe;
here, the convergenceof two lines of presentation: the intellectual content or
Gehalt and the personalityof the watchman. Both the cyclical
process and the
process of conversionreach their unmercifulconclusion in the final night-watch,
thus providing the structural dynamics of the work with a
clearly definable
terminal point " (p. 102 f.) .

M L N 701
to values of the Goethean age on philosophicgroundsas " perverse"

and therefore" impossible." But Sammons'structuralcorroboration
of a principle of trauma,which is not at all at variance with the
work's anxiety about the ego, provides a suggestivebase for the
presentpaper.
Understandingof (but not necessarilyacquiescence in) the exis-
tential crisisforeshadowedby Bonaventurainvolvesa new perspec-
tive here-complete abandonment of any expectationsfounded on
artisticimperativesof Germanclassicismand idealism,and complete
abandonmentof the tendencyof Geistesgeschichte to label certain
worksas manifestationsof an " end "-phase,and therebyimplicitly
to negate them. The difficulty to be surmountedis that the Nacht-
wachen itselfgrapples with so many of the themes of organic or
dialectic development which were carried over into nineteenth-
centurycritical thinking;accordingly,we must distinguishin ad-
vance that, so far as these are mentioned in connection with the
novel, theyconstitutepart of our subject matterforliteraryinvesti-
gation, and not presumed verities. Regardless of our personal
evaluation of idealism and romanticism,it is the answer to the
question how Bonaventura dealt with ideas of his age which bears
on the issue of his particularsensibility.Purely historicalimpedi-
mentsto receptivityto him are by far less weighty.Because roman-
tic motifsand devices have deeply affectedmodern writing,the
Nachtwachen now possessesa basic resonance in itself. Whether
or not a reader is familiar with romantic theories about the
" fragment" and " arabesque," he can recognizehow Bonaventura's
skilfullyarranged mosaic produces turbulence, irregularity,and
anxiety,a jaggednesswhich is the objective correlativeto the flow
of events in a chaotic universe and mirrorsthe quirky logic of
Kreuzgang'sperceptions.The narrativerhythmcarries,in fact,not
a simplisticplot line, but interlockingmotifpatternswhich consti-
tutealso an involvedcommentary on romanticand earlierelements
of art and thought. For the work burstswith allusions, parodies,
quotations and names, pieces of cultural heritagecompletelyinte-
grated and subordinatein the textureof the narrator'smentality.7
7 In Der Gebrauch des Zitats im
europiischen Roman (Stuttgart, 1961),
Hermann Meyer judges in passing that Bonaventura does not belong in the
mainstream of the humoristic novel with its controlled use of literature, but
rather absorbs bits and pieces from his intellectual enivironment randomly.
A rigorous investigationof his habits as an assimilator might, however, yield

702 M L N
Thus a cerebral and reflectivetone pervades the Nachtwachen,

with its freemanipulationof supernaturalreferencesand deliberate
constructionof myths,but certainlyno peace of mind. In the
earlier chapters,Kreuzgang is noticeablymore a commentatoron
happenings he witnesses,or acts as a listenerwhile others relate
various stories. But he becomes increasinglyinvolved with, and
speaks more and more of and for,himselfso that his tale progres-
sivelyturnsinto a self-revelation.His ironic distance and personal
alienation go togetherby necessitybecause the ego-and specifically
his ego-is not only the book's chief subject, but its principal
instrumentfor probing existence. The misanthropesand cynicsin
it who do exchange a few signs of recognitionshare only their
knowledgeof the world's perversity.Otherwisethe watchman,like
the sub-narrators,really engagesin a lonelymonologue,as the final
page drasticallyunderscores.To be sure, the author presentsin
severalindividual stories-whichshall be touchedon below at appro-
priate moments-a numberof finelydifferentiated encounterswith,
or modes of of
perception reality. The minor protagonistsmayvary
in type or degree of blindness, disillusionment,or reaction to
trauma, but ultimatelythe significanceof each is conditioned by
his being incapsuled as a detail in the watchman'smind, subsumed
in a repertoryof subjectivizedfacts. The juxtaposition of their
particularhuman experiencesin a kind of spacial arbitrarinessas
truncated bits of a larger nightmarein which Kreuzgang finds
himselfexpressesthe aimless,crushingmonotonyof life. Since the
chief narratoris capable of deeming even cosmic time and the
whole drama of evolution to be without meaning, except as a
frightfulmistake,the necessitythat all consciousnessand sentience
must reach a mysteriousjuncture of self-exposureis revealed
a new picture, especially since, on the one hand, he expounds the theory that
artistic strength depends on digestive power and on the other, mocks the
borrowing of ideas and traits (e.g., both themes are developed in XII). In
any case, it is plain that the book is composed of-and to a remarkable extent
depends on-fragments in circulation; so that on the level of forms,as well as
of social criticismand parody, the impulse to "quote" plays a significantrole.
We cannot appreciate much of his irony except by being acquainted with the
story-tellingstructureshe manipulates, or the dozens of names he drops. As
many scholars have reiterated, the influence of Jean Paul is notable in
Bonaventura's predilection for speeches and first-person
narrations,dramatization
of a story by division into acts, ironic use of scientificand legal concepts or
language, obsession with the themes of immortailtyand folly, ego fantasies,
and so forth.

M L N 703
throughhis case. Kreuzgang's emphasis on "digestion," whether

with respect to the great geniuses who absorbed and contained
whole worlds or to the lowly worm who lets worlds (brains) pass
throughhim, is but one of several remindersthat his ego is the
processor and therebyalso the process as well.8 Thus how he
interpretsthe manifestor predictableresultsof evolutionsupersedes
in importancewhat human destinywas or appeared to be in earlier
phases of the life of the soul.
Transitorinessand eternityare distinctlyoppressiveideas, once
Bonaventura reduces the favoriteromantic paradigm of develop-
ment fromunconsciousnessor a golden age, modeled on the myth
of man's expulsion fromEden, to a mechanical model. If we feel
Bonaventura'sdespair to be genuine,one of the firstquestionsmust
then be why this impulse did not disrupt his book, an attempt,
afterall, at communication,fromwhichwe could perhapsinfersome
hope for meaning. Pointing to the author's numerous references
to a lost age of faithor innocence,S6lle-Nipperdeyreasons that he
musthave regardeddeath as a passage to rebirthforcorrupthuman-
kind and sought purificationthroughthe anguish of absolute loss
of belief; that his denial of God almost possessedmysticalpotential
as a formof mortification;but that in tryingto test the inextin-
guishable realityof divine love throughnegation,he driftedfrom
an eschatologicalyearninginto nihilisticdespair as his subject over-
8 Bonaventura's apostrophe of the worm in XVI unifies the themes of a

grotesque life force, of vanitas, and of disillusionment with idealism meta-
phorically as process: "Der Konig ernahrt sich von dem Marke seines Landes,
und du dich wieder von dem Konige selbst, um die verstorbeneMajestat, wie
Hamlet sagt, nach einer Reise durch drei oder vier Magen, wieder in den SchooB,
oder mindestensin den Bauch ihrer getreuen Unterthanen zu fuhren. An dem
Gehirne wie vieler Konige hast du dich gemastet,du fetterSchmarozer,bis du
zu diesem Grade von Wohlbeleibtheit gekommen bist? Den Idealismus wie
vieler Philosophen hast du auf diesen deinen Realismus zuriickgefiihrt?Du bist
ein unwiderlegbarerBeleg fur die reelle Nutzlichkeit der Ideen da du dich an
der Weisheit so mancher Kbpfe wacker gemastet hast " (140 f.). Earlier refer-
ences to artistic prowess as vigorous digestion (see note 7) are not hereby
contradicted, but rather completed, if we regard the poetic principle of the
whole book to be the relentless processing of materials, the final model for
which is the hateful worm. It is not a paradox that the narrator's mind
slowly convertsillusion (life) into truth (life thought through). The develop-
ment of consciousness is subsumed for him in the story of existence, but since
thought has emerged as the internal medium through which existence attains
its final phase, disillusionment is accordingly, in artistic terms, both the
means and the end.

704 M L N
whelmed him.9 This implies that the Nachtwachen is to some

extent an artistic,throughthe human, failure,if the author was
defeatedin his purpose and finallylured into the abyss. Though
ably argued, S6lle-Nipperdey'stheory suspiciously rests on the
traditional assumption that every artist sets out, necessarilyand
properly,to express final trustin a higher order. It so happens,
though, that Kreuzgang consistentlydefines the true artist'srole
otherwise,and the criticmust resortto overridingthe book's ex-
plicit statementsthroughthe narrator. Yet we could not imagine
a spokesmanmore ready and able to expose the deficienciesof his
own viewpoint,more bent on unmitigateddisillusionment!
Indeed, Kreuzgang-so far as we can tell by internal evidence-
is the highest ironist in the book's world, and the cause of his
suffering is that he cannot honestlydetectthe swayof any supreme
Author worthyof reverence. English-speakingreaders will be in-
terestedby his frequentallusions to the darker insightsof Shake-
speare, and especially to passages fromHamlet. It would be no
exaggerationto definethe art of theNachtwachenin certainrespects
as an attemptto portraylife as " a tale told by an idiot, full of
sound and fury,signifyingnothing." It is thereforethe particular
characterof that Nothing obsessing Bonaventura which requires
carefulscrutiny.Notable in thisconnectionis thathe neverdespises
genuine artists,of whom he mentionsmore than a dozen in passing;
true artistryis virtuallythe only value he respects. And since the
sixteennightwatches conveytheirmessagein large measurethrough
literaryquotation and referenceto the arts and the artistproblem,
creativeconsciousnessmay be regardedas the framework containing
the author'snihilism. If,on one level,the book tellsof the narrator's
struggleagainstprosaiclife,Kreuzgangdoes not aim simplyat mani-
festinghis own artisticsovereigntyover a world his mind invents
or interprets. Apparent arbitrarinessmay be the compositional
method, but romantic irony is not the rationale; indeed such a
triumphof the ego in the Fichtean sense is denied as a delusion.10
9
S6lle-Nipperdey,pp. 103-106. Although firstmaintaining that Bonaventura's
nihilism "bleibt Programm, weil der Geist der Erzahlung im Widerstreitzur
erzahlten Welt die M6glichkeit einer anderen Deutung der Welt offenhalt,"
she eventually must modify her formula to explain the ending of the book:
"Der Geist der Erzahlung wird von der erzahlten Welt fiberwaltigt,nicht die
Hoffnung bestattigt sich, sondern das Nichts . . ." (p. 106).
10This point will be developed furtherbelow, but it may be helpful here
tn indicate a few salient moments in the book in anticipation. When Kreuzgang

M L N 705
As a statementon disillusionment,the Nachtwachen reveals a re-

markable economy in the way it presents a fictionalbiography
purposelyout of order,a general indictmentagainst the world,and
a manifestoof an art of despair deservedby advancing decadence.
If we reconstructthe rough chronologyof experiencesto make
it clear in prosaic terms-an act which naturally controvenesthe
spiritas well as actual sequence of the work-we gain this approxi-
firstdiscovers that the town poet has hung himself in despair (VIII), he vents
his anger against modern, denatured society incapable of appreciation. He
identifieshis own " cause" with the poet's in a time of darknessand specifically
relates the growth of ego philosophy to a general decline: ". .. und da nun
deine Landsleute nur an ein abscheuliches kreischendes Geschrei statt des
Gesanges gewohnt sind, so muBten sie dich eben deines guten gebildeten
Vortragswegen zu den Nachtwachternzahlen, wie ich denn deshalb auch einer
geworden bin. O die Menschen schreiten hiibsch vorwairtsund ich hatte wohl
Lust meinen Kopf nach einem Jahrtausende nur auf eine Stunde lang in diese
alberne Welt zu stecken; ich wette darauf ich wiirde sehen wie sie in den
Antikenkabinettenund Museen nur noch das Frazzenhafte abzeichneten und
nach einem Ideale der HaBlichkeit strebten,nachdem sie die Schonheit langst
als eine zweite franz6sischePoesie fur fade erklart hatten. Den mechanischen
Vorlesungen fiber die Natur wiinschte ich auch beizuwohnen in denen es
gelehrt wird wie man eine Welt mit geringemAufwande von Kraftenvollstandig
zusammenstellen kann, und die jungen Schfiler zu Weltschopfern
ausgebildet
werden, da man sie jezt nur zu Ichsschopfernanzieht " (68 f.) . Kreuzgang also
directlycompares the acquisition of a private universe through insanity,which
is specifically exemplified in the mad creator at the
asylum, and the ego
philosophy of Fichte: "Sehen Sie nur, Herr Doktor,-fuhr ich fort als der
WeltschSpferendete-wie grimmig der Kerl es auf die Welt angelegt hat; es
ist fast gefahrlichfur uns andere Narren, daB wir den Titanen unter uns dulden
missen, denn er hat eben so gut sein konsequentes System wie Fichte, und
nimmt es im Grunde mit dem Menschen noch geringer als dieser, der ihn
nur von Himmel und Holle abtrennt,dafiir aber alles Klassische
rings umher in
das kleine Ich, das jeder winzige Knabe ausrufenkann, wie in ein Taschenformat
zusammendringt" (83). The watchman ironically recognizeshow the grandeur
of a formerlyall-encompassingcosmos has been reduced to the scale of individual
pettiness and arbitrariness;but since elsewhere in the book that majesty too is
unmasked as hideous delusion (XIII), even the reduction to
absurdity of the
"real" world by the ego through internalizationproves
eventually to be con-
sonant with the larger pattern of disillusionment, whichis
In passages such as "Lauf durch die Skala" (X), the ego ultimatelyuniversal.
is unmasked by
itself within the context of the metaphor of a world theater; the motif of
thought,as voice and echo, and the theme of loneliness in the ego are joined:
". . -wie? steht kein Ich im Spiegel wenn ich davor trete-bin ich nur der
Gedanke eines Gedanken, der Traum eines Traumes?-konnt ihr mir nicht zu
meinem Leibe verhelfen,und schiitteltihr nur immer Eure Schellen, wenn ich
denke es sind die meinigen?-Hu! Das ist ja schrecklicheinsam hier im Ich,
wenn ich euch zuhalte ihr Masken, und ich mich selbst anschauen will-alles
verhallender Schall ohne den verschwunden Ton-nirgends Gegenstand, und
ich sehe doch- -das ist wohl das Nichts das ich sehe! -Weg,
weg vom Ich-
tanzt nur wieder fort ihr Larven!" (93).

706 M L N
mate picture: The narrator is conceived on Christmas when his

gypsy mother and necromancer father fatefully interrupt a con-
juration of the devil. His mother puts him in a casket at a cross-
roads so that a gullible, pious shoemaker will find him while
treasure-hunting. Raised in the image of the mystic Jakob Bohme
and the mastersinger Hans Sachs, both cobblers, young Kreuzgang
begins to lose his innocence through overacute intellect. His social
satire as a budding poet lands him rather soon in the madhouse.
There he succumbs to love for Ophelia, the insane actress who had
once played opposite him in Hamlet but lost her identity and be-
came her role. Her death in childbirth on a ghostly stormy night
elicits one of the two tears which the narrator ever manages to shed.
The next drops for the confiscated puppet Hanswurst, with whom
he associates himself while employed as a marionette master after
his release from the asylum. The authorities disband the troupe as
a political threat during the unrest attending the French Revolution,
when the traditional puppet play of Judith and Holofernes incites
the peasants to violent rebellion. At this juncture, the defeated poet
takes a steady job as nightwatchman, in which-without any of this
information-we first meet him in the opening chapters as he
becomes involved in a struggle between a confident, dying atheist
and a cruel, corrupt church. And it is during his career as watchman
that the various minor stories occur or are told. There is his
interference with an adulterous couple whom he turns over to
the husband, an execution-loving judge, in revenge for the hollow
romantic cliches they use to mask their lust; his hearing of the story
of the incestuous fratricideDon Juan, and retelling of it; the piteous
suicide of the town's unsuccessful poet, who hangs himself with the
cord from the returned manuscript of his tragedy entitled Der
Mensch; the secret burial alive of an Ursuline nun who has borne a
child, followed by the history of the young father who curses his
own recovery of physical sight which helped precipitate the disaster;
the attempt to dissuade from suicide a person who proves to be an
actor studying his part; a visit to an art museum, with sardonic
commentary on modern adulation of antiquity; and finally Kreuz-
gang's discovery of his own ancestry and opening of his father's
grave.11 The above condensation regrettablymust omit many choice
details of which there is such a rewarding abundance.
11This reconstruction,proposed in all its essentials by Korff ,pp. 215-218),

is best elaborated in Sammons' treatmentof the novel.

M L N 707
The culmination of despair in the birth and death trauma of

XVI might ordinarily furnish a starting point with powerful
memoriesin a standardsentimentaltale. But Bonaventuracounter-
acts the mesmerizingeffectof romanesque flowand creates a new
"nocturnal" ambience which serves his view of art. While he
constantlydrops hints which show he is in total control,many
sudden shiftsoccur in season,hour, and environment,and the work
is interruptedover and over again for harangues,monologues,and
observationsgiven or reportedby the watchman. Events are often
related throughprojectioninto other art forms,such as woodcuts,
paintings,sculpture,or drama. Even a cursoryreading sufficesto
recognizethat Night in the Nachtwachen is not simplya phase of
time,but a medium for a particularrevelationof truth. There are
many echoes of the romantic discoveryof the night as a special
realm of the mind and spirit,but with a specificnew bias. Bona-
venturaveryexplicitlycontroverts Novalis' approach to immortality
through it, or any connectionwith love and faithas finalreferences
when in XVI a bereftlover attemptsto retain his beloved's image
in a trystat the cemetery,but as in the case of all the dead buried
there,her wraith-only a poetic memory-dissolveswith time into
nothingness.IV and V alreadyhave definedthis new anti-romantic
functionof night,and shown beyond a doubt that the stageprops
of lightning,swirlingwind, obscuringclouds and otherimageryof
terroror sudden illumination in the book subserve a purposely
harsh black-and-white technique.
Toward the end of IV, the watchmanobservesa cloaked figure
enterthe gloomycathedraland tryto kill himselfwitha dagger. It
is all an entertainingspectacleof tragicnobility,and the delighted
Kreuzganghas no desire at all to intervene. But when the stranger
remainsfrozenat the strokeof midnight,unable to stab, he asks
forhis story,which is forthwithtold in the formof a puppet play,
to the imaginaryaccompanimentof Mozart,played badly by village
musicians. This is probably a sardonic double reference,the im-
mediateallusion being to the Don Juan problem,while less directly,
throughthe botched performance,the author may simultaneously
be introducingthe idea of the hopeless enmuddlementof a divine
spark in human nature. Both of these themesrecur in variations.
Hanswurstrompsabout functioningas fateand chorus. Two name-
less brothers,one using prose,the other poor verse,come on stage;
then a commedia dell'arte Columbine and a page. The prosaic

708 M L N
brotherthumpshis wooden chest at sight of her and startsusing

verses,but Hanswurstarbitrarilycrashesinto him when he attempts
to pursue her. Next Columbine appears in a duet with the other
brother,whereuponHanswurstleads the disappointedone on stage
and, to his surprise,now findsa real heart under the flap on the
latter'swooden chest. When the two brothersmeet and Columbine
is introduced as the other's wife, the one with a heart falls in a
heap. In the last act, he tries to explain to Columbine that the
directorconfounded thingsand mistakenlygave her to her own
brother. But rejected in his own advances, he tricksthe husband
into killing her and the page for suspected adultery. He is just
about to follow his brotherin suicide, when a wire snaps and his
hand is leftdangling forever.Hanswurstconsoles with the remark
that one should not take farcefor anythinghigher than farce,and
the wooden clowns praise the directorfor abolishing Greek fate
and introducinga moral orderwith freewill in the theatre-one of
many slaps at the ethical pretensionsof German classical drama.
The puppet storyin IV actuallyconstitutesa denial of freewill,
if we accept the most immediateinterpretationof the mechanistic
thrashingabout of puppets. Under the spell of multiple satire (for
instance, the plot probably parodies Schiller's Die Braut von
Messina), the impact of this negation is still somewhat delayed.
But in the course of the work,we begin to recognize that Bona-
ventura'smockeryrestson no positiveconvictions. IX will under-
score the lack of any suprememodel of order throughits depiction
of a Creatorwho is at best an incompetentmuddler,and it will be
revealed that Kreuzganghimselfcannot believe in the realityof a
moralityor justice whichwould be the implicitideal normallyheld
by a satiristwho scourgesthe world's deceiversand fools for their
deviation therefrom.
As a resultof the midnightencounter,the watchmanfindshimself
uncomfortably awake at morningin hated daylightand resolvesto
apply the followingsoporific:
Da konnteich nun nichtsbesseresthun,als mir meine poetisch
tolle Nacht in klare langweiligeProsa iibersetzen,und ich brachte
das Leben des Wahnsinnigen recht motivirtund verniinftigzu
Papiere und lieB es zur Lust und Ergotzlichkeitder gescheuten
Tagwandler abdrucken. Eigentlich war es aber nur ein Mittel
mich zu ermiiden,und ich wollte es in dieser Nachtwache mir
vorlesen, um nicht zum zweitenmale mit der Prosa und dem
Tage mich einlassenzu miissen. (41)

M L N 709
The retellingin V of the storyin IV has been cited by some critics,

with singular obtuseness-Sammonsrightlysuggests-, as evidence
of Bonaventura'scrude procedure. Yet though the above passage
plainlystatesthatnightis the sphereof poetryand truth,while day
is the sphereof prose and deception,what followscan easily startle
or confuseus, for what we read is a carefullydrawn storyof the
flesh-and-bloodbrothersJuan and Ponce, expounding the conse-
quences of the former'sinsanely jealous love for Ines. All the
marionettesfrom the puppet play acquire personal names and
individual coloration,and the action springsfrom their character
and motivation. The clowns have disappeared who personified
abstractforces. Juan's evident repressionof his unconsciousrecog-
nition of kinship,and its inexorable deformationinto crime as it
rises to the surface,could delight any presentdayreader familiar
with Freudian patterns. Kreuzgang,however,contrastsV with IV
as a lesser with a greaterformand tells us that the psychological
and sentimentalrealism of his second versionlacks the veracityof
the savage mechanical farce,and we really have littlechoice but to
acknowledgethe consistencybetween his conception of farce and
the starkblack-and-whiteambience of night.
Bonaventura's obsession with the likelihood man is only a
machine and his concern over attaining truthintensifymost grip-
pinglyin XIV. This episode of thewatchman'sstruggleagainstlove
comes late in the book because it gets to the heart of the crisis-his
tormentingly ambivalent attitude towardshuman emotions under
the threatof meaninglessness.Kreuzgang'sattractionto the illusion
in which the actresslives is recounted in fragmentary notes, the
quirkish prose-poems he found himself composing, and the letters
they exchanged as Hamlet and Ophelia. In order to "communi-
cate," the watchman has simplyhad to accept her view of him as
Hamlet. Anothersign of the momentarybreakdownof his studied
isolation from humankind is his idea of propagating a race of
"fools " like himselfto oppose bourgeoiscivilization. This amounts
to a sentimentalrationalization-as we soon learn. The pair's odd
love lettersexamine the whole question of identity,while jabbing at
variousGerman philosophers.Ophelia still seeksreassurancein the
depth of delusion, using the onion metaphor of self-analysis:
Sieh, da kann ich mich nimmerherausfinden, ob ich ein Traum-
ob es nur Spiel oder Wahrheit,und ob die Wahrheitwiedermehr
als Spiel-eine Hiilse sitztfiberder andern, und ich bin oft auf
dem Punkte,den Verstanddariiberzu verlieren. (119)

710 M L N
She would like to rehearseher way out of mererole back to herself:

Hilf mir nur meine Rolle zuriickzulesen,bis zu mir selbst...
Sieh, da suche ich mich zu ereilen,aber ich laufe immervor mir
her und mein Name hinterdrein,und nun sage ich wieder die
Rolle auf-aber die Rolle ist nicht Ich. (119 f.)
A ratherself-servingHamlet replies that she should not brood over
such mattersas " to be or not to be," since there is nothing but
dust and hellish mockerybehind the role, but seal a reasonable
match. And she accepts him, because-in her own words-he is
writteninto her role as a cue. Dying afterbearing his dead child,
the actresswho thoughtshe was Ophelia emergesfromher obsession
in a disillusionmentwhich, like Don Quixote's, is a moving act
of faith:
Die Rolle geht zu Ende, aber das Ich bleibt, und sie begraben
nur die Rolle. Gottlob, daB ich aus dem Stiicke herauskomme
und meinen angenommenenNamen ablegen kann; hinter dem
Stiicke geht das Ich an. . . . Dort steht es schon hinter den
Koulissen und wartetauf das Stichwort;wenn nur der Vorhang
erstganz nieder ist!-Ach, ich liebe dichI das ist die letzte Rede
im Stiicke,und sie allein will ich aus meiner Rolle zu behalten
suchen-es war die schbnste Stellel Das Uebrige m6gen sie
begraben!- (123)
Her confidencein her own identitygrowsout of the (for her)
meaningfulencounterwith a " thou," another'sexistence. Witness-
ing her brave interpretationof the world theaterdoes not, however,
alter the watchman'satheism. Rather, this loss crusheshim as an
enormous failure, intensifieshis loneliness, and forces him into
furtherdefensivesolipsism,for he has now personallyexperienced
the entrapmentof people by the devicesof nature.
Afterher death,he probes the natureof laughteras an expression
of despair and misanthropyand recognizeshis own counterpartin
the clown Hanswurst (XV). Even beforeher death, the love union
(" Selbstwechsel,"122) -which he passes over as if such memories
are too painfulin theirdeceivingbeauty-has caused terribleanxiety
in him, the nightmareof having foreverand inexorablyan identity.
An eternityof isolation with the selfis a horrifyingprospect:
Da sah ich mich selbst mit mir allein im Nichts, nur in der
weitenFerne verglimmtenoch die letzteErde, wie ein ausloschen-
der Funken-aber es war nur ein Gedanke von mir, der eben

M L N 711
endete. Ein einziger Ton bebte schwer und ernst durch die
Oede-es war die ausschlagendeZeit, und die Ewigkeit trat jezt
ein. Ich hatte jezt aufgehortalles andere zu denken,und dachte
nur mich selbstI Kein Gegenstandwar ringsumaufzufindenals
das groBe schrecklicheIch, das an sich selbst zehrte und im
Verschlingenstetssich wiedergebar.Ich sank nicht,denn es war
kein Raum mehr,ebenso wenigschienich emporzuschweben.Die
Abwechselungwar zugleich mit der Zeit verschwunden,und es
herrschteeine firchterlicheewig 6de Langeweile. AuBer mir,
versuchteich mich zu vernichten-aberich blieb und fiihltemich
unsterblichl- (122 f.)
It is thereforea reliefforthe watchman,looking at dyingOphelia,
to believe thereis nothingafterdeath:
Jezt schlaft es [das Kind]! sagte Ophelia und blickte mich

lachelnd an, und das Lacheln war mir,wie wenn ich in ein aufge-
worfenesGrab schaute.-Gottlob,es giebteinen Tod, und dahinter
liegt keine EwigkeitIsprach ich unwillkiihrlich. (123)
Here a peculiar shiftoccurs in Romantic thought-a change I will
relate below to Bonaventura'streatmentof cosmologicalmetaphors
rooted in German literarytradition. He sees that the idea of the
ego as a creativeconsciousnessor supremeentity,out of which all
else emanates,is indeed a model for a universe,but that universe
would be at war with itself,condemned to be itself,feed on and
bringforthitselfonly.
The opening episode of the atheist seemed to promise some
affirmation of life in and of itselfas a value, in opposition to a
spurious afterlife. By this juncture in the book, however, the
unshakable freethinker and sincerefamilyin I, II, and III have a
definitestructuralfunctionof picturingthe marvelousvernal state
of any absolute faith, though it be engulfed by a threatening
world. Opheila's haunting smile is a variation upon that earlier
confidence,which now in recollectionwe readers summon again,
but withkeenerawarenessof the narrator'spain even thenas disillu-
sioned spectatorof those scenes. This lost state the watchmanonce
knew himself-and the book opens afterhis own fall, a fact which
is unknownto us in the initial pages. Althoughthe Ophelia tragedy
is firstnarratedin XIV, Kreuzgang-Hamlethas already sufferedit.
His exile fromchildhood pietyand thisdrasticconfirmation of life's
deception,both as yetunmentioned,generatethe strangetensionwe
immediatelysensein the wordsof the odd voice which addressesus.

712 M L N
Hence, too, the puzzling,tendercomparisonof the atheistwith the

great Baroque mystic,Jakob Bohme, in the last paragraph of I.
At the start,atheismhas the structuralforceof a noble sentiment,
and comfortingdoctrine,a guarantyof a " negative" eternal bliss,
i. e., extinction. But the "music " which the dyingatheisthears in
I has devolved into a mockingecho of the watchman'sselfby XIII,
when he asks nature for an answer to the riddle of man: " Ich
hortenichts,als Widerhall,Widerhall meinereigenenRede-bin ich
denn allein? " (108) The lack of an answerexcept confirmation of
aloneness in the self by the self is in this case the answer. And as
the Nachtwachen closes, the narratorhas just watched his dead
father'shand, symbolicvestigeof defiance,crumble to dust. The
cult of titanism,too, is suddenlyrenderedinsignificant, forno kind
of rebellion alters man's futilityone iota. Neither does any at-
tempted spiritualization. Therefore Kreuzgang utters these last
wordsof the book with agonized finality:
... Ich streuediese Handvoll vaterlichenStaub in die Liifte und
es bleibt-Nichts!
Driiben auf dem Grabe steht der Geisterseherund umarmt
Nichts!
Und der Wiederhall im Gebeinhause ruft zum letztenmale-
Nichts!- (144)
XIII preparesus forthisnadir of despair throughits " Dithyram-
bus iiberden Friihling,"invokingthe romanticmetaphorcomplex
of rebirth inherited from Renaissance cosmology,but reaching
disturbingconclusions through it. As (for example) in Novalis'
Heinrich von Ofterdingen,Part one, we witnesshow a frozenworld
is redeemedat springtimeby the power of lightand fire. The sun,
playing the role of the Divine Father or creative aether, inspirits
life in its bride the earth. At this point, however,the watchman
interruptswith the unanswerablequestion why man has the mis-
fortuneof appearing as observer-participant in this colossal drama
under the ultimate sign of entropy. For once granted that the
cosmosis runningdownhill towardextinction,nature is then only
a cruel sketchbroken offwithout meaningfulcontinuation,since
man has lost his primitiveprotectivenaivete and all he can now
know is the echo of his own thoughtstrappedwithina dyingsystem.
The book fullygrantsthe existenceof a natura naturans,but its
whole motion is unmasked as a hideous nightmare. In the final
chapter,the watchmanrails againstthe creationsuch as he viewsit:

M L N 713
. . diese Myriadenvon Welten sauBen in allen ihren Himmeln

nur durch eine gigantischeNaturkraft,und diese schreckliche
Gebarerin,die alles und sich selbst mit geboren hat, hat kein
Herz in der eigenen Brust, sondern formtnur kleine zum Zeit-
vertreib,die sie umher vertheilt- (142)
As I have suggested,the similarityof attributes (terrible,mon-
strous,self-generating and self-consuming)indicates that the ego
is also a model for the entire universein Bonaventura'seyes. His
several referencesto evolution never affirmeven remotelythe idea
of an expansion of consciousnesswithinthe whole of creatednature
as a gradual triumph of the spirit; rather he seems to view the
overall organicdevelopmentof consciousnesssimplyas the product
of an enclosed system,somewhatin analogy to individuation. The
human beings who appear with " hearts" are simplyoutgrowthsof
evolution. That the development of sentimentsmeans useless
tragedyis only an unfortunatefact. With a lack of concernequal
to thatof a puppet masterin assigningdestinies (or playingstories),
nature has spawned hearts.
Bonaventura'sgaze into the abyssof natureremarkablyresembles
the anguished perception by Goethe's Werther,in the letter of
August 18, concluding:
. . .mir untergrabtdas Herz die verzehrendeKraft,die in dem
All der Natur verborgenliegt; die nichtsgebildet hat, das nicht
seinen Nachbar, nicht sich selbst zerstorte.Und so taumle ich
beangstigt. Himmel und Erde und ihre webenden Krafte um
mich her: ich sehe nichts als ein ewig verschlingendes,ewig
wiederkauendesUngeheuer.
The related fear that life is a ridiculouspuppet spectacleoccursin
Werther'sletterof January20:
Ich spiele mit, vielmehrich werde gespielt wie eine Marionette
und fasse manchmal meinen Nachbar an der holzernen Hand
und schauderezuriick.
Bonaventuradoes not draw back fromthis threatto Storm-and-
Stressand, next, romanticspirits.Rather than mitigatethe primal
horrorof existence,which is subordinatedin the standardGerman
poetic cosmologyof organic development,he calls in question any
rationalizationof sufferingby the "heart." Thus Jakob Bohme's
concept of a contestin the veryprocessesof the universebetween

714 M L N
Love and Hate may be as familiar in the Nachtwachen as it is

generallyin German romanticism.But instead of hintingat some
of life, Bonaventura announces a triumph
ultimate transfiguration
of darknessand hate. One of the watchman'smore elaborate refer-
ences to the strugglewithin his own personalityis a perverse
variationupon the metaphorof the marriageof Heaven and Earth.
He muses-
daB eben der Teufel selbst,um dem Himmel einen Possen zu
spielen, sich wahrend einer dunklen Nacht in das Bette einer
eben kanonisirtenHeiligen geschlichen,und da mich gleichsam
als eine lex cruciata furunsernHerrgottniedergeschrieben
habe,
bei der er sich am Weltgerichtstageden Kopf zerbrechensolle.
(57)
Lex cruciata refersto the law of biological inheritance and is
anotherpun on cross,forKreuzgang. In the grislyrecognitionscene
of the final nightwatch,of which I intend to speak again, the
narratorhears fromhis mother the maxim of their kind, a total
reversalof romanticvalues and of the sense of the romanticvision
of evolution: " Es ist groBer,die Welt zu hassen,als sie zu lieben."
(137)
This negativismappears logically also in the several models for
the supreme artistof such a vexatious creation. One of the God-
figuresis the inmate at the insane asylumin IX who thinkshe is
the Creator, and on several levels of meaning, the madhouse is a
representationof micro- and macrocosmicrelationships. In the
" Monolog des wahnsinnigenWeltsch6pfers," a pathetic,indecisive
person expressesviews which are, ambiguously,the acknowledged
product of mental aberration. Reviewing his work, this self-
appointed God is sorrythat he created the world in which man
is a misfitthroughendowmentwith a hurtfulspark of divinity.
But though he admits that he has bungled, he is confused as to
what remedyto apply, except to let the race muddle along with
its delusions in the chaos, until he can bring himselfto appoint
a day of final judgment, i.e., ultimate extinction. The idea of
having to grantmen theiroverweeningdream of immortalityand
thereforetoleratethem for eternityfrightensthe mad creator. He
is already quite annoyed that man's inquisitive probing through
science encroacheson his own lordly prerogatives.The other im-
portant God-figureis the marionette director, who can quite

M L N 715
arbitrarilypull a wire and decide a destiny.By contrast,he appears

to be a powerful,indifferent demiurge; his theateris characterized
by the ridiculous gesturesand harsh laughterof clowns. Nonethe-
less, like the frustratedtown poet, he kills himselfover the loss of
his private universe which gets out of control, that is, which
mirrorsthe primitiverelationshipsof the bigger world accurately
enough to triggerviolence, with its repercussions.
Shiftingour focus slightly,we can consider these hypertrophic
egos also as variations upon the ego-modelin Kreuzgang's night-
mare. On one level, each figure'sstoryis a case of extremelone-
liness,an exclusion fromand of " normal" life-which theybitterly
expose. On anotherlevel, the respectivesuicide or insanityindicates
the directionin which consciousnessdevelops as it expands in the
drive for absolute supremacy.The trendis toward perversionand
even annihilation, because all creation is tragic throughits own
inherent principle. In this sense, the final cry of the book is
simultaneouslya momentwhen NothingnessoverwhelmsKreuzgang
and when his mind merges with the universal process and end
of being.
Obviously,we are dealing here with a complex picture,because
the Nachtwachen repeatedly portraysmen as helpless dolls and
the narratorhimself often senses being a puppet. Bonaventura
incorporatesin the dense space of some 150 pages all important
phases in the development of the marionettetheme in German
since the reaction in Enlightenment rationalism.12 Scorning
popular and lower formsof theater-includingpuppet plays and
fairytales-asmanifestationsof the barbaric,retrograde,and super-
stitiousin the folk, criticssuch as Gottschedhad tried to banish
Hanswurstfromthe stage. It seemed necessaryif theywere to lift
art to a classical,ethical, progressiveplane. But a new generation
of German writersrallied to the defenseof folk theaterand the
clown. For young Goethe and Storm-and-Stress generally, the
puppet acquired new literaryvalue as a symbol variously of an
outside,dead society;or of the frustratedgenius and the arbitrari-
ness of the powersof fate operatingagainst his freedom. In early
12 The
following outline of phases in the marionette theme is based on
Eleonore Rapp, Die Marionette in der deutschen Dichtung vom Sturm und
Drang bis zur Romantik (Leipzig, 1924). This fine, slim volume has been
reworked and expanded in Die Marionette im romantischen Weltgefiihl
(Bochum, 1968).

716 M L N
romanticism,the marionetteexpresseda subjectivefatalismon the

part of the aspiring class of artists,theirfear of the existenceof a
mechanical world instead of one governedby the dynamicnatural
and spiritualprocesseswith which theircreativetheorywas linked.
The marionette play thus provided a pattern of gesturesfor a
new kind of style. Finally,the romanticconcept of the " organic"
began to exclude the idea of a dynamic or irrational unfolding
in favor of transcendentalsignificancein art. Mature romantic
irony,or the controlby art over life, introduceda perspectivefor
the genius not as a Storm-and-Stress Prometheusin chains, but as
a sublime puppeteer. The primitivismof the marionette form
permittedallegoricalmanipulationof the author'screatures. Even-
tually, it became evident that such an emphasis upon a shaping
idea would tend to equalize necessityand freedomfora protagonist
within a poetic work. This meant the inevitable nullificationof
the tragic hero's individualism based on dynamic qualities, and
here was one basis for the growthof the late romanticfate drama
in which man is a pawn of dark forces. (Needless to say, the
attitudebehind such plays also contributedits part to the eventual
formationof German Naturalist drama, for it was easy to leap
frominherentobscure factorssuch as a curse to various allegedly
scientificfactorsof determinism.) The basis for the dignityof the
tragichero was shattered. Thus-as Bonaventura precociouslysays
in several places-comedy replaces tragedy,and as a corollary,the
puppet becomes the highestformof actor,for his wooden gestures
are closestin essence to those of ancient masked drama.
In this connection,I shall now turn to that aspect of Bona-
ventura'swork which may most intriguepresent-day readers. They
cannot fail to notice that he develops the storyof Don Juan's
incestuous and fratricidalmania in V explicitlyon the Oedipal
pattern,or arrivesat the watchman'sbirth trauma in a circuitous
approach to the root of evil. In the grislydiscoveryof XVI, the
narratorstates:
Welch ein helles Licht nach dieser Rede in mir aufging,das
konnen sich nur Psychologenvorstellen;der Schliisselzu meinem
Selbst war mir gereicht,und ich offnetezum erstenmalemit
Erstaunen und heimlichem Schauder die lang verschlossene
Thiir- da sah es aus wie in Blaubarts Kammer, und es hiitte
mich erwiirgt,ware ich minder furchtlosgewesen. Es war ein
Schliissell (137)
gefihrlicherpsychologischer

M L N 717
This weird final nightwatchis intended to symbolizethe embodi-

ment of contestingforcesin him, rather than be a confessional
revelation. Throughout the book sexual drives are regarded as
among the mechanismswhich make puppet-humanityperformits
farcicaltragedy. It is plain that Bonaventura had absorbed many
implicationsof general romanticpsychology,on which Freud and
Jung and others later built with slight modifications,the way
Darwin and the Naturalists built on romantic biology with its
thesis of evolution. In fact, both fieldsof study were unified in
romantic thought,and the idea that individuation recapitulated
and continuedevolution was widespreadaround 1800. Many lead-
ing scientistswho accepted the appearance of matter out of the
void, organic life out of matter,and spiritual life within organic
nature as a meaningfulprocess also consideredthe growthof the
human being to be an analogous patternof emergencefromuncon-
sciousnessto consciousness.Bonaventurais not novel, then,because
he recognizesthe existenceof shaping impulses behind the facade
of the ego, but because he casts doubt on the meaningfulnessof
the whole scheme of life. He certainlysenses the depths of the
mind-but as an abyss. Though the book's structuresuggestsformal-
ly the processof psychoanalysis, yetit advances to just the opposite
of a normaltherapeuticposition;it uncoversinstead a deep abiding
perversityof the brain.
If the romantic quest for a key to all knowledge-both inner
and outer-led many like Schelling throughnature philosophyto
metaphysicalsymbolization,other minds were already exploring
new directionsfor interpretingthe given "facts" about the life
patternsof the creaturehomo sapiens. In the case of Bonaventura
the most productivecomparisonsare to troubled contemporaries
such as Heinrich von Kleist and Georg Biichner.
In Kleist's famous essay " Uber das Marionettentheater,"an
unnamed narratorengages in a conversationregardingthe art of
puppetrywith an accomplisheddancer, Herr. C., who explains its
esthetics. Each puppet possesses a ruling center of gravityinto
which a sensitiveoperator seeks to project himself;while already
virtuallymathematical,the relationshipbetween his fingermove-
ments and those of the puppet would improve to the extent it
became completelymechanical. When the narratoracts hesitant
to accept C.'s observationthat even the motion of artificiallegs has
a certain gracefulness,which trained dancers somehow lack, the

718 M L N
latterpursuesthe matter,contrastinghuman awkwardnesswith the

perfectpoise of a hypothetical"total marionette" (automaton)
and then positing,as the factor disturbingthe natural ordering
of grace, man's acquisition of consciousness. The unreflecting,
physical purityof puppets suggeststhe paradise fromwhich man
has fallenby tastingof the treeof knowledge. The narrator,finally
approachingC.'s viewpoint,himselfillustratesthe drasticeffectsof
loss of naivete with the storyof the young acquaintance who, on
discoveringhis own resemblanceto a beautifulstatue,degenerated
into a vain, clumsyperson without charm by tryingto recapture
the image. C., with a touch of self-irony, then tells of his own
experienceof being outfencedby an astonishinglyagile bear who
could neverbe deceivedby the feintsof a skilledrationalopponent.
This is one of several hints that unconsciousfactorsmay serve to
restoreman's lost balance. Earlier C. has assertedthat man cannot
again attain to the quality of a marionette,but introduced a
metaphorof returnby progressin a cycle: " Nur ein Gott konne
sich, auf diesem Felde, mit der Materie messen; und hier sei der
Punkt, wo die beiden Enden der ringformigenWelt ineinander
griffen."He now places thisidea of an ascendingrestorationwithin
a vast evolutionaryframework:
". . . Wir sehen,daB in dem MaBe, als, in der organischenWelt,
die Reflexion dunkler und schwacher wird, die Grazie darin
immer strahlenderund herrschenderhervortritt.-Dochso, wie
sich der Durchschnittzweier Linien, auf der einen Seite eines
Punkts, nach dem Durchgang durch das Unendliche, plotzlich
wieder auf der andern Seite einfindet, oder das Bild des
Hohlspiegels, nachdem es sich in das Unendliche entfernthat,
plotzlich wieder dicht vor uns tritt: so findetsich auch, wenn
die Erkenntnisgleichsamdurch ein Unendlichesgegangenist,die
Grazie wieder ein; so, daB sie, zu gleicher Zeit, in demjenigen
menschlichenK6rperbau am reinstenerscheint,der entwedergar
keins,oder ein unendlichesBewuBtseinhat, d. h. in dem Glieder-
mann, oder in dem Gott."
" Mithin," sagte ich ein wenig zerstreut," miiten wir wieder
von dem Baum der Erkenntnisessen, um in den Stand der
Unschuld zuriickzufallen?"
"Allerdings," antworteteer; "das ist das letzte Kapitel von

der Geschichteder Welt."-

M L N 719
The sequence Puppet (total unconsciousness),Man (sentimental

split), God (total consciousness),modelled on the developmental
paradigms of German idealism, has its most direct bearing with
respectto contemporaryEuropean civilization,about which Kleist
harbors few illusions. The narratordefinesthe dilemma of con-
sciousness,the dilemma which characterizescontemporaryhumani-
ty,when he describesit as benumbmentor imprisonment:" Eine
unsichtbareund unbegreifliche Gewalt schien sich,wie ein eisernes
Netz, um das freieSpiel seinerGebarden zu legen ...." The "iron
net" which trammelsthe "free play of his [the young acquaint-
ance's] gestures" is the spell of an iron age, as well as of advancing
individuation. The answergiven in Kleist's fictionto the demean-
ing bondage of consciousnessis an heroic,often necessarilytragic,
assertionof creativefeeling. In a varietyof ways,his protagonists
accept or are fulfilledthroughthe emotional totalityof existence;
sometimestheir ultimate achievementof unity of being seems to
acquire metaphysicalsignificanceor depend on the opening of
mysteriouschannels of communicationand understanding. Thus
while Kleist resembles Bonaventura in denying the validity of
Kantian moral imperativesarrivedat throughrational abstraction,
he is unlike him in oftenglorifyingnature's deep promptings,laws
which are Dionysian rather than Apollonian. Bonaventura'sfeud
with the realm of day is not matched by any positive belief in
feelingas a valid manifestationof the life force,since life itselffor
him is suspect as the matrix of deception and suffering.13 This
point will occupyus again below. While the unconsciousis implicit
in Bonaventura'smodel of man as puppet, he sees no regainingof
a golden age or state. The storyof being ends with Mensch: eine
Tragddie, as the town poet summed it up. He verymuch takes
forgrantedthat hidden springsimpel human beings and that their
dreams are distortedreleases of inner psychicmovement. But as
shall be shown, he is not pleased about such discoveries,because
he also regardshidden mental processesas mechanismscontributing
to man's bondage. Perhaps the only significantmomentswhen he
seems to exult in dark impulsesare the several anarchisticgestures
1 To be sure, Bonaventura, railing against "pygmies" and "cripples" at

the end (XVI), still extols "regal" personnages and the "inspired singers"
who sang them, but his praise is directed specificallyto " plummeting titans";
what is left for modern art is luciferic recognition of the fall, and the
emotions of rebellion alone.

720 M L N
in the book; for example, there is the boy who shoots himselfin
VI during the watchman'sfalse alarm of an onrushingapocalypse
just to see whether he can avoid participatingin God's grand
finale to time!
It is well to stressthree facetsof Bonaventura'scritique of the
human mind as an organ which is given to constructingbeguiling
fantasies. As I have noted, he exhibitsno final trustin the primi-
tive,because it is exposed as ambiguous preciselythroughits direct
identitywith life-the ultimatedeception. He is thereforedoubly
nauseated by the sentimentalprojectionby modern humanityinto
the ruins of a primal era (e.g., Greek antiquity in XIII). And
consistently, he leaps impatientlybeyond any psychologicalrealism,
as mere deceptive surface painting, to depersonalizationand the
mechanicsof farce (IV and V). Yet forall his irony,Bonaventura
does pay tribute to life style and clearly enjoys depicting grand
gesturesin the midst of hopelessness. The theatricalityof such
moments,no matter how negativelypresented,releases a certain
measureof repressedsympathyforthosesuffering ineluctable,repre-
sentativeanguish. The case of the blind youthwho awakensto the
light of nature and beauty,only to experience a virtual spiritual
annihilation when finallythe "veil" falls from life and exposes
its pain and deception (XI), is an instance when the author
allows us to hear, ostensiblythroughKreuzgang,the point of view
of the individual, sentientperson. At such momentswe are forced
to descend fromour ironic vantage and rememberjust how power-
ful the impact of existence is for the participantsof the cosmic
drama. The reality of limited, partial, or temporaryinnocence
among men does not, however,alter the greater pattern; it only
intensifiesour anguish in perceiving the mechanismsof natural
crueltytowardsouls emergingfromthe dream,and the corruption
of mankind as a whole. The author can show tenderconsideration
for a figurelike the mad actressOphelia, but that does not mean
he lessensthe charge against the wearersof maskswho exploit and
harm theirfellows. The general indictmentagainst the basenessof
mankind still stands. Witnessingwith Bonaventura the pain in-
flictedon men by life, we begin to understand that his sardonic
disillusionmentruns in counterpointto genuine outrage on behalf
of his fellow mortals. In the Nachtwachen there is a parallel
between the almost totallyunauthenticview of men of themselves
as sentimentalpersonalities,and of societyof itselfas a moral order.

M L N 721
When Bonaventurabitterlyregardslifeas a pyramidof structured

power wearing the mask of "society," and human historyas a
processof deformationfrombarbaric splendor to grotesque farce,
thisethicalrage seemsto bringhim closerto the sphereof Biichner,
who also was concernedover the compulsivenessof human actions
and the hatefuloppressionof man by man throughmanipulationof
the natural drives in the social order. Giving way to nihilistic
despair, Bonaventura does not, however,balance his own vision
of grindingennui and transitoriness with a programof revolution-
ary redemption. His cry that the clown must replace the tragic
victim remains strictlyan artistic,rather than social manifesto,
anticipatingcertainelementsin the aestheticof the grotesqueand
absurd today. If his puppet theater is a compact microcosmic
showplacebased on the older world theater-overwhose metaphors
he so often and so negativelybroods-then, in associatingthe un-
conscious or mechanical aspects of existencewith the idea of an
arbitraryassignmentof human beings to particularroles, he deals
a double blow, on the one hand to theodicy,and on the other,to
the concept of progressderiving therefromunder the guise of
organic laws or dialectical processes.
It was noted that the main narrator'sramblingsand flashbacks,
as he reworks the materials of his life, bear some analogy to
Freudian analysis, but the novel evinces perhaps an even more
pertinentforeshadowingof later psychologicaltheory. Kreuzgang
graduallydefinesthe emergencein his own tormentedintellectof a
life-denyingforce,what Freud termedthe death wish. In outline,
Kreuzgang states that illusion is inherentin life itself; that life
continues throughthe masking of thingsin Apollonian light and
color. Truth, he decides, is thereforean attack on the deception
of being. Significantis that the watchman, as satirist,does not
himself escape the trap but must for consistencyalso become
ridiculous.14His encounterwith Ophelia leads to no affirmation
of a meaning; ratherhe admitsthe follyof his love affair.Similarly,
he admits being taken in by the compulsion to talk a seeming
suicide out of rejecting life, when the party turns out to be an
actor practicinghis role of despair,forwhich he lacks any personal
feeling. Such double deceptions only underscorethe fraudulence
14
agree with Sammons' view (p. 51) that the watchman himself must
experience being a dupe, " if the author is writing a consistentlystructured
work."

722 M L N
of the world. No sure hold is left, when the cynic is so easily

victimized,too. The prescriptiongiven by the asylumdoctorin IX
is less or no thinkingat all. The mind, in exposing the systemof
the universeto be emptyand absurd,driftsinto a fatefulacceptance
of Nothingnessin order thereby to rebel against man's alleged
enslavementby the vital instinctsand drives.
The conflictbetween good and evil, or love and hate, in the
genesisof the watchmanis no longerjust the familiarthemefrom
Storm-and-Stress to explain the turbulence of wild heroes who
live in themselvesthe strugglebetween nature and perversion.
Bonaventura's attitude toward nature is disturbinglyambivalent.
Though he acknowledgesits piercingbeauty,he is horrifiedby the
grim inevitabilityof absolute extinction under its vernal mask.
Ultimately,the mechanical,heartless,frozentriumph-henceKreuz-
gang's obsession with the motifs of death as rigidityand frag-
mentationand mutilation,as in his dream of the ancient gods in
the museum, or his vignetteof the dying begger in winter. The
formerare called a " G6ttertorso,"the latter a " Naturtorso,"and
the entire work is ridden with expressionssuch as "stump" for
limb, and the like. Everything, both biological entitiesand art are
slowlyreturning to the realm of dis-organization.Men's
lifelessness,
works,such as the entiregloryof Greek civilization,become broken
bits-finally sheer dust.15The theme of vanitas still holds in a
godless universe.
In view of our actual state of consciousness,Bonaventura pro-
poses,only a savage marionetteplay is artisticallytrue. That is, as
Diirrenmattrepeats somewhat belatedly, when the world grows
16Sille-Nipperdey recognizes in Bonaventura's treatment of the theme of

the demise of the gods and their ancient home a complete shift in art from
reverential concern over a lost golden age to a sense of the grotesque and
absurd: "Durch den Hinweis auf die Verstiimmelungder Gitter schlagt das
erhabene Bild ins Groteske um. .. . Wie die Gotter in diesem Bilde nicht
griechische Gbtter-schon gar nicht im Sinne Hdlderlins, aber auch nicht im
allegorischen Sinne Schillers-meinen, sondern die titanische Lebendigkeit eines
grolen Zeitalters, in dem das Gottliche nah war, so meinen die Furien auch
nicht das antike Schicksal. Von ihm ist nur die Ratselhaftigkeitiibriggeblieben.
Aber wie das Schicksal sonst in den Nachtwachen durch den Hanswurst . . .
ersetztwird, so steht es auch hier nicht in seiner erhabenen GroBe, sondern in
sinnloser Versteinerung,vor dem die Erwartungdes Lebens ' ein Gewuihle' wird.
Der Tod bleibt in diesem Bilde. Aber nicht erl6send,sondern als Fratze. Stumm,
starr, ohne Licht und aus der Zeit herausgenommen bleibt der Furienchor
zuriick. Stehende Zeit ist fur alle Bilder konstituierend' '(pp. 60 ff.).

M L N 723
absurd in our eyes,tragedymustmetamorphoseinto farce.16Hence,

as the Nachtwachenalready proposed,Hanswurstreplaces Hamlet.
If Bonaventura'sharsh laughteris indeed a defensiveretreatfrom
the senselessworld of deficientpersonal contactinto total isolation
vis-a-vischaos, it is understandable that an inversion of values
must follow such inversion into oneself. The narrator'smother
(XVI) expresses the work's internal logic in this "oracular"
dictum:
"Es ist gr6Ber,die Welt zu hassen, als sie zu lieben; wer liebt,
begehrt;wer haBt, ist sich selbstgenug und bedarfnichtsweiter
als seinen HaB in der Brust und keinen dritten!" (137)
The fragmentation processof European individualismis effective-
ly completed in her statement: the single unit of being is sundered
from all organic human relationshipswhich depend on "love,"
that is, acceptance. If one thinks "too much," the book often
enough shows,it becomes verydifficult to accept the social context
or the notions of "health" which social structureimposes. The
alienated begin to insist more defiantlyon retiringinto private
mental worlds; many to the extent of being classifiedas "sick."
1 Alfred
Jarry's Ubu Roi (1896) and Ram6n Maria del Valle-Inclan's
aesthetic of the esperpento in Luces de Bohemia (1920) are significantinde-
pendent recapitualtions of the same thought by the early twentiethcentury. In
an historical sense, however, some current repetitive exponents of absurdity
are doing what Bonaventura fiercelydenounced in then contemporarysenti-
mental literature-providing a warm bath of self-pity,a new commercialized
escape for a jaded public robbed of gripping beliefs and any authenticity. The
negation of the formal message itself is the logical step which Bonaventura
never took. Though numerous artists today have indeed progressed to the
point of half-heartedattempts at creating art which "denies" art, only total
silence and abstinence from creative activities would fulfillthe nihilistic trend
(the example for this having already been given by Arthur Rimbaud). Even
"happenings" and ostentatious "destructions" of work are mostly evasions,
without any forthrightfacing of the dilemma of a dead-end; Hugo von
Hofmannsthal's letter of Lord Chandos (" Ein Brief," 1902) would be, in
German literature, a contrasting example of the anguished consideration of
silence. But as a Kreuzgang might well have noticed, the modern artistic
communityhangs on to its illusions, its life; literal or figurativesuicide, insanity,
and professional illusionism are not exactly new solutions. Bonaventura's
rejection of free will also sets him off from existentialistswho-in agreement
with Sartre-conceive of a godless world but insist man must accept his moral
freedom and create values. And unlike Brecht who scourges man's criminality
but constantlyreverts to faith in an ultimate solution-betraying thereby his
underlyingkinship to bourgeois idealists-Bonaventura breaks offwith no answer
to the reality of bestial habits and the attested facts of oppression and pain.

724 M L N
Bonaventura knows that Romantic introspectionis leading to this

impasse and that he himself,as a representativeanalyst of man,
is penetratinginto disagreeable,once betterhidden recessesof the
human mind. The book compressesdiscoverieswhich,historically,
have been a long time in the making. By virtueof its verynature,
the human selfmust in the course of thingseventuallydiscoverits
own limitationsas a point of consciousnessattached to a dying
animal within a doomed system.Even the productsof the brain,
that transitoryorgan which is the fountainhead of all human
achievement,evil, and pretension,constituteonly a phantasmagoria
withoutvalidityor permanence.17Mankind bringsforththe mys-
17 In the famous conclusion to the firstedition of Studies in the History of

the Renaissance (1873), Walter Pater summed up the fundamental ideas both
of psychological impressionismand existential isolation which flowed from the
discoveriesof the romantics:
"Or if we begin with the inward whirl of thought and feeling,the whirlpool
is still more rapid, the flame more eager and devouring. There it is no
longer the gradual darkening of the eye and fading of color from the wall,-
the movement of the shore side, where the water flows down indeed, though
in apparent rest,-but the race of the mid-stream,a drift of momentary acts
of sight and passion and thought. At firstsight experience seems to bury us
under a flood of external objects, pressingupon us with a sharp and importunate
reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand forms of action. But when
reflectionsbegins to act upon those objects they are dissipated under its in-
fluence; the cohesive force seems suspended like a trick of magic; each object
is loosed into a group of impressions-color, odor, texture-in the mind of the
observer. And if we continue to dwell in thought on this world, not of objects
in the solidity with which language invests them, but of impressionsunstable,
flickering,inconsistent,which burn and are extinguishedwith our consciousness
of them, it contractsstill further;the whole scope of observation is dwarfed to
the narrow chamber of the individual mind. Experience, already reduced to a
swarm of impressions,is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall
of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its way to us,
or from us to that which we can only conjecture to be without. Every one of
those impressions is the impression of the individual in his isolation, each
mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream of a world." Pater's answer
was " to burn always with this hard, gemlike flame," because "Of this wisdom,
the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for art's sake, has most;
for art comes to you professingfranklyto give nothing but the highest
quality
to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake." This
solution, which we might term the rescue effortof "positive" decadence, was
not specificallyforeshadowedin Bonaventura; however, the principle of "sensa-
tionalism" (in a higher sense), as a necessaryconsequence of imprisonmentin
the self, already is representedin the personality and vision of the watchman.
It is felt negativelythrough his rage over the inevitable progressof decline and
deformation; nonetheless, his broodings about art have direct bearing with
respect to the emergence of modern understanding for the grotesque and
absurd.

M L N 725
teriousscriptof the world theaterthroughthe interactionof minds

in a collectivetragedy;but both for the single persona and for all
dramatispersonae duringthe life of our species,the scriptis-albeit
with Elizabethan grandiloquence-nightmarishly and futilyfinite:
Was ist nun dieserPalast, der eine ganze Welt und einen Himmel
in sich schlieBt; dieses FeenschloB, in dem der Liebe Wunder
bezauberndgaukeln; dieser Mikrokosmus,in dem alles, was groB
und herrlich,und alles Schrecklicheund Furchtbareim Keime
nebeneinanderliegt,der Tempel gebar und Gotter,Inquisitionen
und Teufel; dieses Schwanzstiickder Schopfung-das Menschen-
haupt!- -Die Behausung eines Wurmes. -0, was ist die Welt,
wenn dasjenige, was sie dachte, nichts ist und alles darin nur
voriiberfliegendePhantasie! -Was sind die Phantasien der Erde,
der Friihling und die Blumen, wenn die Phantasie in diesem
kleinen Rund verweht,wenn hier im innern Pantheon alle
Gotter von ihren FuBgestellenstiirzenund Wiirmer und Ver-
wesung einziehen. 0, riihmtmir nichtsvon der Selbstandigkeit
des Geistes-hier liegt seine zerschlagene Werkstatt,und die
tausend Faden, womit er das Gewebe der Welt webte, sind alle
zerissen,und die Welt mit ihnen. (141)
This kind of truthshattersold norms. If suffering is to remain
authenticand not degenerateinto phony sensibility,only sardonic,
self-criticalart can cope with it. Lessing had fleetinglyprobed
demonic laughter as an expression of despair in extremity
(Odoardo) and misanthropy(Tellheim), but Bonaventuramakes
it into a chiefweapon with his mythof its inventionby the devil,
a thoughtcentral in Baudelaire's vision later in the century. It is
given to mankind,Bonaventurasays,as a reaction of doubt in the
face of absurd facts.18The artistis destinedto make his pact with
18
Korffrightlyinterpretsthis form of laughter as an expression of romantic
despair and connectsit with problematic aspects of subjectivity: "Dieses Lachen
erst ist der Triumph des Subjektivismus. Aber es ist zugleich das Lachen einer
letzten schauerlichen Einsamkeit, die-in einem wirklichen Menschen gedacht
und nicht in einer bloBen Marionette-nichts anderes als der Wahnsinn ist"
(p. 228).
My contention in this essay, supported by such evidence as that cited in note
10, is that Bonaventura already made precisely the connection which Korff
suggests; important, however, is the way in which Bonaventura converts his
insight into an artistic principle so that-in a manner of speaking-there is
method in his madness. When art shapes the themes of insanity,loneliness, or
subjectivityin its varied guises, it is necessarythat art appear in many instances
to be "sick," and in accepting such a burden Bonaventura is indeed in advance
of his times.

726 M L N
the powers of darkness,forcedto side against life with its implied

subservienceto a hypotheticalCreatorwho permitsthemonstrosities
of reality. Truth makes common cause metaphoricallywith the
Devil, and the artistfindshis own face contortedin the grimaceof
all inmatesof hell.
State Universityof New York

Binghamton


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Bonaventura's Romantic Agony: Prevision of an Art of Existential Despair

Author(s): Gerald Gillespie

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.214 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:04:50 PM

ONAVENTURA'S ROMANTIC AGONY:

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conformity exhibitingdeliberatemetaphoricpurpose. It is second-

1 Nachtwachen von Bonaventura (1805), Deutsche Literaturdenkmaledes 18.

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works as Hyperion or Faust and the distortionof idealism in the

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frameworks-notably the puppet play, motifsof the world theater,

5As S6lle-Nipperdey indicates (p. 105), this concept is patterned after

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to values of the Goethean age on philosophicgroundsas " perverse"

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Thus a cerebral and reflectivetone pervades the Nachtwachen,

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throughhis case. Kreuzgang's emphasis on "digestion," whether

8 Bonaventura's apostrophe of the worm in XVI unifies the themes of a

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whelmed him.9 This implies that the Nachtwachen is to some

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As a statementon disillusionment,the Nachtwachen reveals a re-

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mate picture: The narrator is conceived on Christmas when his

11This reconstruction,proposed in all its essentials by Korff ,pp. 215-218),

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The culmination of despair in the birth and death trauma of

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brotherthumpshis wooden chest at sight of her and startsusing

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The retellingin V of the storyin IV has been cited by some critics,

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She would like to rehearseher way out of mererole back to herself:

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Jezt schlaft es [das Kind]! sagte Ophelia und blickte mich

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Hence, too, the puzzling,tendercomparisonof the atheistwith the

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. . diese Myriadenvon Welten sauBen in allen ihren Himmeln

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Love and Hate may be as familiar in the Nachtwachen as it is

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arbitrarilypull a wire and decide a destiny.By contrast,he appears

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romanticism,the marionetteexpresseda subjectivefatalismon the

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This weird final nightwatchis intended to symbolizethe embodi-

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latterpursuesthe matter,contrastinghuman awkwardnesswith the

"Allerdings," antworteteer; "das ist das letzte Kapitel von

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The sequence Puppet (total unconsciousness),Man (sentimental

1 To be sure, Bonaventura, railing against "pygmies" and "cripples" at

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This content downloaded from 195.34.79.214 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 21:04:50 PM

When Bonaventurabitterlyregardslifeas a pyramidof structured

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of the world. No sure hold is left, when the cynic is so easily

Bonaventura's Romantic Agony

Bonaventura's Romantic Agony

Bonaventura's Romantic Agony