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Allegorical Slumber: Somnambulism and Salvation in

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seminar
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A Journal of Germanic Studies

Volume XLVI, Number 2, May 2010 RALEIGH WHITINGER, Editor
_______________________________________________________________

Bibliographical information and full-text articles from Seminar. A Journal of

Germanic Studies can be found in many of EBSCO Publishing’s award-winning
databases, accessed through the EBSCOhost interface

95 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question: Female Victimization and

Eclectic Style GAIL FINNEY
112 Kampf der Geschlechter: Entfremdung und Lustmord in der expressio-
nistischen Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha MARTINA LÜKE
131 Allegorical Slumber: Somnambulism and Salvation in Gustav Meyrink’s
Der Golem ERIC KLAUS
146 Chopped up, Grilled and Shrunken to the Size of a Hedgehog: The Bodies
of Saints in Medieval Hagiography and in Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte
JUTTA EMING
161 “Nicht das eine und nicht das andere”: Hybridity, Gender, and (East)
German Identity in Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet TIMOTHY B.
MALCHOW

REVIEWS

180 Constantin Rauer, Wahn und Wahrheit: Kants Auseinandersetzung mit dem
Irrationalen reviewed by PAUL BISHOP.
181 Karen Leeder, ed., “Flaschenpost”: German Poetry and the Long Twentieth
Century, reviewed by GERRIT-JAN BERENDSE.
184 Irene Fußl, “Geschenke an Aufmerksame”: Hebräische Intertextualität und
mystische Weltauffassung in der Lyrik Paul Celans, reviewed by AXEL ENGLUND.
185 Deane Blackler, Reading W. G. Sebald: Adventure and Disobedience, re-
viewed by VERENA SCHOWENGERDT-KUZMANY
188 SPECIAL THEME ISSUES, recent, forthcoming, and in progress.
Acknowledgements

Seminar gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the following:

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

The Canadian Centre for German and European Studies
Le Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes
University of Alberta University of British Columbia
University of Calgary University of Canterbury
Concordia University Dalhousie University
University of Manitoba Memorial University
Université de Montréal Queen’s University
University of Toronto Trent University
University of Victoria University of Waterloo
York University

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Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman
Question: Female Victimization and
Eclectic Style
GAIL FINNEY University of California, Davis

The status of women is of acute interest in the years around 1900, as the period
when the worldwide feminist movement, which had been gaining intensity since
its birth in the United States in the late 1840s, culminates in the final drive for
women’s suffrage. Symbolically, women’s attainment of the right to vote in a
series of countries between 1893 (New Zealand) and 1920 (United States; 1918
in Germany) epitomized the equality for which women had been fighting and the
power they had been gaining throughout decades of struggle. In actuality, female
equality was far from firmly or universally established.
Feminist impulses and the resistance to them create a dynamic force field
through which turn-of-the-century writers and artists must navigate. The “woman
question,” as it was called at the time, is of interest to naturalist, aestheticist, im-
pressionist, and symbolist writers alike, who treat it in all its gradations with
attitudes ranging from misogyny to feminist solidarity (see Finney). The drama
of Gerhart Hauptmann, which returns again and again to the theme of women’s
victimization, manifests varying degrees of support for their cause. The overall
impression his plays convey to the reader or spectator – ambivalence toward
women – allies him with a majority of his fellow male writers around 1900, but
the diversity of styles he commands distinguishes him from many. On the one
hand, Hauptmann is the German naturalist dramatist par excellence. His attention
to economically, socially, and politically oppressed groups and individuals;
his illumination of the determining influence of hereditary and environmental
factors; his exploration of the power of human drives and instincts, sometimes
confronting his spectators with subjects previously taboo in the theatre; the
rich local colour with which he depicts milieu and character, painting detailed
portraits in extensive stage directions and rendering the nuances of speech ap-
propriate to the class and regional background of the speaker – these features
coalesce in Hauptmann’s work to leave their distinctly naturalist mark on the
history of European theatre.
On the other hand, Hauptmann’s dramatic oeuvre experiments with stylistic
modes that might at first glance seem to undermine his naturalist project, modes
that could be characterized as neoromantic, symbolist, and proto-expressionist.
In this diversity, he microcosmically embodies the stylistic pluralism of European

seminar 46:2 (May 2010)

96 GAIL FINNEY

turn-of-the-century literature in general, in which the naturalist prose and drama

of Arno Holz and Johannes Schlaf appear contemporaneously with the symbolist
theatre of Maurice Maeterlinck and the impressionistic lyric plays of Hugo von
Hofmannsthal; in which George Bernard Shaw’s naturalism coexists with Oscar
Wilde’s aestheticism; and in which other writers – notably Henrik Ibsen and
August Strindberg – each create both naturalist and symbolist dramas.
This article will demonstrate the extent to which the theme of women’s
victimization cuts across stylistic lines in Hauptmann’s dramas by focussing
on three plays that are thematically linked but formally quite diverse. Hanneles
Himmelfahrt: Traumdichtung (1893), Die versunkene Glocke: Ein deutsches
Märchendrama (1896), and Rose Bernd (1903) all feature female characters
who are pursued or otherwise victimized by a range of patriarchal figures and
institutions, yet the plays exemplify modes ranging from neoromanticism to
high naturalism to proto-expressionism. This analysis will discuss the three
plays in terms of their stylistic chronology rather than according to the dates
of their premieres to demonstrate the persistence (at least from 1893–1906) of
Hauptmann’s conception of the feminine and of female victimization despite the
changing dramatic modes in which he worked.
Die versunkene Glocke: Ein deutsches Märchendrama evokes four motifs
or traditions important in German literature, which are all especially prominent
in the romantic phase of the Age of Goethe: the Faust legend; the topos of the
artist as antihero; the genre of the Märchendrama; and the symbolically-charged
topographical dichotomy between the realm of the mountains and mines versus
that of life in the flatland. These strands are interwoven in the play. Like the pro-
tagonist of Goethe’s Faust (and even bearing the same given name, Heinrich),
the principal character in Die versunkene Glocke has reached an existential
crossroads and is dissatisfied with all facets of his life. Not only is Hauptmann’s
Heinrich, as the stage directions tell us, thirty years old; described by a character
designated as der Pfarrer as “Hausvater, Musterbild / fromm bis ins Innerste” (act
III, 872), he is ripe for a period of experimentation that would in our culture today
be characterized as a midlife crisis. As Heinrich laments late in the play to the
Alte Wittichen: “Ja, wer denn bin ich, Alte? / Wie oft hab’ ich den Himmel drum
befragt: / wer ich doch sei? Die Antwort kam mir nicht” (V, 912). Since he is by
trade a bellmaker, however, Heinrich’s conflict is not the Faustian split between
a life of the mind and a life of activity, but rather the tension between artistic
creation in the service of the church – his realm of experience hitherto – and the
possibility of artistic creation as the expression of his unfettered imagination.
This dimension of Die versunkene Glocke situates the play in a long and rich
tradition in German literature of works featuring artist-protagonists, spanning
a spectrum from Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther (1774) to Kafka’s
“Josefine, die Sängerin oder Das Volk der Mäuse” (1924) and beyond. Haupt-
mann was clearly fascinated by the theme of the artist and his/her internal and
external conflicts, treating the subject in a variety of stylistic modes. His play
Kollege Crampton (1892) offers a comic exploration of the artist, in this case an
 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question 97

eccentric, alcoholic painter whose delusions of grandeur belie the fact that his
work remains unappreciated. This theme finds a tragic incarnation in the drama
Michael Kramer (1900), which portrays different types of the artist in a father-son
pair. Whereas the title character manages to be a successful artist while leading a
respectable middle-class existence, his son, a truly talented artist whose inability
to fit in is symbolized by his physically deformities, eventually commits suicide.
In its fairy-tale quality, Die versunkene Glocke represents a distinct contrast
to the realistic mode of both Kollege Crampton and Michael Kramer. Although
the Märchendrama recurs during the nineteenth century in works by writers such
as Heinrich von Kleist, Ferdinand Raimund, and Franz Grillparzer, it remains
strongly marked by its origins in German romanticism, notably in Ludwig Tieck’s
Der gestiefelte Kater (1797). Based on Charles Perrault’s version of the tale,
Tieck’s drama is a play within a play whose cast includes a princess and king,
lions, elephants, bears, and birds as well as its famed talking cat in the guise of a
hunter. Retaining similarly marvellous romantic trappings, Die versunkene Glocke
lives up to its subtitle – “ein deutsches Märchendrama” – in terms of its setting,
characters, and language. Yet the play’s marvellous, fairy-tale elements comprise
only one-half of the world it depicts. The drama is propelled by a symbolic spatial
dichotomy between high and low, mountains and valley, the former realm exotic
and fanciful, the latter domestic and realistic. Heinrich moves back and forth be-
tween the two realms, externalizing his Faustian split between his ambitions as
a grandiose romantic artist on the one hand and his sense of responsibility to his
family, church, and community on the other. The mountain landscape is populated
by, in addition to the Alte Wittichen mentioned earlier, dwarves, trolls, elves,
and other marvellous beings, notably the Nickelmann, an elemental water spirit
who appears dripping wet with reeds in his hair and emits frog-like noises, and a
Waldschrat or wood sprite, a lascivious creature who has the features of a goat but
also smokes a pipe and can imitate human voices. By contrast, the scenes in the
valley feature characters like the Pfarrer and the Barbier, both afraid of witchcraft,
as well as the Schulmeister, a reasonable, practical fellow who denies the very
existence of such supernatural forces. As Peter Sprengel elaborates, the play’s
polarities are based in the antithesis between paganism and Christianity (158–60).
The poetic quality of the play is heightened by its construction in a combi-
nation of blank verse and rhyming couplets and its frequent use of lyrical language.
The extent to which the marvellous creatures from the mountain realm can be read
as symbolic externalizations of Heinrich’s unconscious wishes is suggested for
example by the fact that the Waldschrat causes an accident in which Heinrich
falls from his wagon and his bell is knocked off into the lake, where it remains
“sunken” as the symbol of his art in the service of the church and community.
Within the iconography of this fairy-tale play, Heinrich believes he can remain in
the mountains, guilt-free, until he hears this bell ringing again – in other words,
until the call to return to the valley can no longer be ignored.
As indicated earlier, this symbolic spatial dichotomy between above and
below links Die versunkene Glocke to another tradition in German literature
98 GAIL FINNEY

that is particularly prominent among the romantics. In works by writers such as

Tieck, Hebel, and Hoffmann the mountainous setting, in some cases including
mines as well, is associated with exotic forces that lure the protagonist away
from his domestic life and responsibilities down below. This use of the mine
image, an evocative symbol of the unconscious layers of the mind, is a striking
example of the way in which the romantics anticipate the mapping of the psyche
as this was systematically undertaken a century later by Freud. Concomitantly, in
these works the mountain realm is typically dominated by an alluring, erotically
charged female figure who induces the male protagonist to forget his wife or
beloved down in the flatland, at least temporarily.
Die versunkene Glocke is no exception. Hauptmann’s ambivalence toward
both poles of the art-life dichotomy is reflected in his mixed portrayal of the female
figures this play associates with each. At the centre of the mountain realm is the
beautiful fairy Rautendelein, an ethereal, child-like being of unknown origin attired
in silver garments who communicates with nature and possesses magic powers.
Tended and protected by her after his “fall,” Heinrich is soon utterly captivated by
her, and his language makes clear that she has a redemptive function for him:

Heb mich ein wenig auf, du liebes Bild!

Neigst du dich so zu mir? – So löse mich
mit Liebesarmen von der harten Erde,
daran die Stunde mich, wie an ein Kreuz,
gefesselt! Löse mich! Ich weiß, du kannst es,
und hier, von meiner Stirn . . . befreie mich
mit deinen weichen Händen: Dornenzweige
flocht man um meine Stirne. Keine Krone!
Nur Liebe! Liebe! – (I, 824)

This passage not only demonstrates, in Heinrich’s implicit comparison of his trials
with Christ’s, the hubris that overtakes him after he leaves the valley behind and re-
solves to create grandiose art, but also – in the word Bild – points to the association
between Rautendelein and art or fantasy. This association is echoed in his exclamation
to her, “Du bist das Märchen” (I, 824). Such highly desirable female figures seem to
represent male wish-fulfilment fantasies and are “too good to be true.”
Other elements in the depiction of Rautendelein point to the nether side of
the topos of the exotic, otherworldly woman. As the curtain rises, she sits beneath
a cliff, where “[s]ie kämmt ihr dickes rotgoldenes Haar” (I, 813). Readers will
be reminded of lines from Heine’s “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten” from
his poem cycle Die Heimkehr (1823–24):

Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt

Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.
 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question 99

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet

Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

These lines introduce the Lorelei, the maiden whose irresistible song so distracts
men sailing past that they crash into the rocks and drown. This allusion identifies
Rautendelein as a femme fatale or fatal woman, an association augmented by her
admiration of her reflection in the well, since the fatal woman is typically coded
as narcissistic. Even before she encounters Heinrich, then, Rautendelein’s body
language suggests that she will in some way be responsible for his demise.
The portrayal of the female figure associated with Heinrich’s life on earth, his
wife Magda, is also ambivalent, though with quite different parameters. Referring
to Heinrich as “mein Meister” (II, 848), she professes to love him more than their
children, more than herself, indeed more than everything, since, as she puts it,
he lifted her up out of ignorance and poverty and made her into a human being;
she feels she owes him her very life (II, 852–53). Magda’s praise of Heinrich
culminates in her beautifully lyrical glorification of his bell-making art:

[...] Ein Mensch wie du,

begnadet, überschüttet mit Geschenken
des Himmels, hochgepriesen, allgeliebt,
ein Meister seiner Kunst. Wohl hundert Glocken,
in rastlos froher Wirksamkeit gebildet:
sie singen deinen Ruhm von hundert Türmen;
sie gießen deiner Seele tiefe Schönheit
gleichwie aus Bechern über Gau und Trift.
Ins Purpurblut des Abends, in das Gold
Der Herrgottsfrühe mischest du dich ein.
Du Reicher, der so vieles geben kann,
du Gottesstimme! (II, 854–55)

In her utter self-denial and devotion, Magda appears to embody another

wish-fulfilment fantasy of the male artist, one as powerful as that of the exotic,
dangerous female who seeks to lure him away from his earthly calling. These
female figures represent more than the two sides of Heinrich’s Faustian split,
however; it is also significant that both are victimized as women. That Heinrich
leaves Magda and their children to live with Rautendelein is not surprising
in terms of the triad of sensitive male / conventional housewife / exotic other
woman. In fact Hauptmann had rehearsed precisely this plot pattern in his play
Einsame Menschen (1891), itself based on Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, in both
of which the affections of a man for his traditional wife are displaced by his
feelings for a comparatively intellectual, emancipated woman. And as in both
Rosmersholm and Einsame Menschen, the consequences in Die versunkene
Glocke are tragic: the Pfarrer tells Heinrich that his wife is so filled with long-
100 GAIL FINNEY

ing for him that their children are drinking her tears, and we learn from the
Nickelmann that Magda has drowned herself and that her corpse, washing up in
the lake next to Heinrich’s sunken bell, caused it to ring – signalling the moment
when he becomes so filled with remorse for abandoning his family that he must
leave the mountains and return to the valley.
Yet Hauptmann expands the parameters of the conventional love triad in
portraying the victimization not only of the abandoned wife but of the other
woman as well. Rautendelein is figured first and foremost as an erotic object,
lusted after by all the major male characters in the play. The Waldschrat attempts
to lure her into the bushes so that he can, as he puts it, cut her a magic flute, the
symbolic implications of which are difficult to overlook. The Nickelmann urges
her to take off her clothes and come into the well with him. Even Heinrich’s
feelings are depicted as predominantly sexual, as is evident in the language he
uses in commanding her to bring him a cup of wine: “Ja, Kind, gib her! denn
wieder durstig bin ich / nach Wein, nach Licht, nach Liebe und nach dir!” (IV,
897). Ultimately she is passed from one to the next in a manner that underlines
their objectification of her: after Heinrich abandons her to return to the valley,
she becomes the bride of the Nickelmann, and when he talks of being old and
tired of her, the Waldschrat offers to take her off his hands. Especially given the
fanciful nature of the latter two creatures, Hauptmann appears to be engaging in
a satire of male lust.
Heinrich’s command to Rautendelein to bring him wine is typical of the im-
perious, patriarchal tone he takes not only with her but also with the dwarves that
work for him in his glassworks in the mountains. Hence the sexual inequality that
we have seen to characterize his treatment of women figures is accompanied by
an espousal of social inequality. Both doctrines are encapsulated in Heinrich’s
grandiose aim as an artist unfettered by earthly considerations, described by
the Nickelmann as “über Gott und Menschen Herrscher sein!” (IV, 896). The
play’s conclusion can be read as a comment on Heinrich’s treatment of both
female figures and, by extension, as an evaluation of this conception of the
artist. Heinrich’s acknowledgment of his guilt toward his dead wife, symbolized
in the ringing of the sunken bell, is reinforced at the play’s end, when he calls
on Magda’s ghost to give him the goblet of poisonous wine prescribed for him
by the Alte Wittichen. Yet Rautendelein intervenes, insisting on giving it to
him herself. Thus his death at the hands of both female figures can be read as
a symbolic expression of his guilt toward them both and as an indication of the
author’s attitude toward the behaviour that incurred his guilt.
Rose Bernd is one of the most extreme portrayals of female victimization
in Hauptmann’s oeuvre: the title character, an attractive, sensual peasant girl, is
impregnated and then abandoned by the landowner Christoph Flamm, in whose
household she has worked as a servant; forced by her father for financial rea-
sons into an engagement with August Keil, a man she does not love; stalked
and eventually raped by Arthur Streckmann, a loutish field hand; and finally
driven to strangle her newborn baby, having lost her reason. With these thematic
 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question 101

constellations, the play takes its place as a latter-day addition to two traditions
important in German literature, the bourgeois tragedy and the infanticide drama.
As exemplified notably by Lessing’s Miß Sara Sampson (1755) and Emilia
Galotti (1772) and by Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe (1784), the bourgeois tragedy
dramatizes the impotence of the middle class as microcosmically embodied in
the failure of an authoritarian family father to protect his daughter’s honour from
a member of the nobility. Hebbel’s contribution to the genre, Maria Magdalena
(1844), explores the tragic potential contained within the middle class itself but
retains the key figures of the patriarchal father and the daughter who remains
beneath the sway of his principles even though she transgresses against his
moral code. As we shall see, Rose Bernd investigates these tensions among the
lower classes, thereby further expanding the scope of the bourgeois tragedy (see
Guthke, Das deutsche bürgerliche Trauerspiel).
In the infanticide drama, in which an unmarried woman has typically
been abandoned by the child’s father, the mother’s desperate murder of her
baby often serves as a vehicle for critique of the treatment of unwed mothers,
which frequently included public humiliation and physical punishment. It is not
surprising that the infanticide drama was especially popular during the Sturm
und Drang epoch, a period of revolutionary fervour and particular attention to
social inequality and injustice (see Pilz; Weber). In the case of Hauptmann’s in-
fanticide drama there were also autobiographical underpinnings: the immediate
inspiration for Rose Bernd was the author’s service as a juror in the trial of a
young woman accused of infanticide and perjury. As one might expect in view
of his dramatic reworking of these events, Hauptmann favoured the woman’s
acquittal (Hildebrandt 53).
Like Rautendelein in Die versunkene Glocke, Rose Bernd is the object of
universal lust. But Rose Bernd is far from a fairy-tale play. Rose’s description of
her male pursuers to her fiancé vividly conveys her desperation:

August, se han sich an mich wie de Klett’n gehang’n . . . ich konnte ne ieber de
Straße laufen! . . . Alle Männer warn hinter mir her! . . . Ich hab’ mich versteckt
. . . Ich habe mich gefircht! Ich hab’ solche Angst vor a Männern gehabt! . . . ‘s
half nischt, ‘s ward immer schlimmer dahier! Hernach bin ich von Schlinge zu
Schlinge getreten, daß ich gar ni bin mehr zur Besinnung gekomm. (V, 420)

This play memorably demonstrates the extent to which Hauptmann’s interest in

female victimization transcends stylistic modes. In this quintessentially natural-
istic play, the class emphasis at the heart of earlier bourgeois tragedies is replaced
by existential concerns, above all by an attention to the power of drives. Rose’s
lover Flamm, whose wife has been bedridden or in a wheelchair for nine years,
sets the tone early in the play with his rhetorical question to Rose, “Wo soll
schließlich’n Kerl wie ich hin damit?” (I, 353). Later, explaining his affair with
Rose to his wife, Flamm cites Plato’s Phaedrus, saying that the bad horse ran
away with him and all the dikes burst open (IV, 403). Speaking more literally of
102 GAIL FINNEY

the male sex drive, his wife tells him, “Ihr Männer seid wie de Kinder dahier”
(IV, 404). But the most graphic formulation of the power of lust stems from Rose,
whose narration of Streckmann’s treatment of her echoes a principal element of
naturalistic doctrine, the animalistic nature of human drives: “A hat mich verfolgt
und gehetzt wie a Hund” (V, 408). The role of economic privation in the play,
above all Rose’s reference to having done without in order to take care of her
three younger siblings after her mother’s death, heightens the work’s naturalistic
character. Similarly, part of the reason Bernd wants his daughter to marry Keil is
that Keil helped him out when he was having financial difficulties. Stylistically,
the play is classically naturalistic, containing extensive stage directions and util-
izing Silesian dialect (to differing degrees) for every character.
Although Gail Hart’s excellent study of the bourgeois tragedy treats only the
period from 1750 to 1850, her observation that the genre “is all about the father”
and performs the “ritual removal of women” (128) is still true of Rose Bernd, if
“removal” is understood also to include “driving insane.” Rose suffers under a
series of paternal figures and forces, both literal and figurative, beginning with
her natural father. An intensely pious and self-righteous man, Bernd often speaks
imperiously to her and is dictatorial in insisting that she must marry Keil. Like
the father figures in earlier bourgeois tragedies, he is fanatically obsessed with his
daughter’s honour, exclaiming to Keil with reference to the charge he (Bernd) has
made against Streckmann for insulting Rose’s virtue, “O meine Ehre beansprucht
das! Meine Hausehre und meines Mädels Ehre! Und o deine Ehre zu guter Letzt”
(V, 415). But after Bernd learns that Rose has had sexual relations with Streckmann
(though not that he raped her) as well as with Flamm, Bernd rejects her, separating
her from her younger sister so that Rose will not “poison” her (V, 419).
Attempting to shut himself off from Rose by burying himself in his Bible,
Bernd functions as a caricatured embodiment of the divine law that damns his
daughter because she is pregnant and unmarried. Lying in court about what
happened with Streckmann because of her feelings of shame, Rose is condemned
by earthly law as well. Both systems of law are patriarchal. Significantly, the
title of the American version of the German film Rose Bernd (1956), directed
by Wilhelm Staudte, was The Sins of Rose Bernd – a distorted embellishment of
the original play that scapegoats Rose as the transgressor against the laws of the
fathers while downplaying their guilt. Especially given the degree to which the
fathers escape blame, Rose’s description near the end of the play of her desperate
state after giving birth is poignantly ironic: “Do hoa ich wull ernt in de Sterne
gesehn! Da hoa ich wull ernt geschrien und geruffa! Kee himmlischer Vater hat
sich geriehrt” (V, 420).
The other important paternal figure in Rose’s life is Squire Flamm, the father
of her child. The fatherly dimensions of his relationship to her are underlined by
his observation to his wife that he had watched Rose grow up and that his feelings
for the girl were intensified by his love for their young son after his death. The
gap between Flamm and Rose, one of age as well as class, is reflected in the fact
that he addresses her by her first name or a nickname, whereas she often calls him
 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question 103

“Herr Flamm.” He sometimes patronizes her, claiming for example that women
are “So stupide, weiß Gott, wie de Gans, wenn’s donnert” (I, 354–55). He treats
his wife, who is two years older than he, in a similarly condescending fashion,
telling her to stay out of his private life since it does not concern her. Flamm’s
confession to Rose at the beginning of the play that he is fond of his wife but that
he wishes he were married to Rose is a powerful statement of a midlife quandary,
but it acquires even more force in light of its autobiographical basis: at the time
of the play’s composition Hauptmann had already had a child out of wedlock
with the twelve-year-younger Margarete Marschalk, because his wife of eighteen
years, who was two years his senior, had not yet granted him a divorce.
Hauptmann portrays Flamm as genuinely in love with Rose, but it is surely
not insignificant that he is depicted as the quintessential hunter, singing hunting
songs, wearing hunting garb, often appearing with his rifle, and claiming that
hunting gives his life meaning. Perhaps this role helps prepare the viewer or
reader for Flamm’s denunciation of Rose when he learns that she has had sex
with Streckmann and then lied about it in court, echoing Streckmann’s insult to
her with his accusation: “Weshalb hast du uns alle mitnander beschwindelt? Und
wahrscheinlich o Streckmann zu guter Letzt, und mit wem du sonst dei Gestecke
hast” (IV, 408). The dramatic irony of this passage, produced by the viewer’s
awareness of what Flamm does not know – namely that Streckmann succeeded
only through brute force in having sex with Rose – is heightened by Flamm’s
subsequent lines: “Nu was denn, ihr Weiber macht uns zu Hunden. Heute der,
morgen der, ‘s is bitter genug!” (IV, 408). Flamm’s skewed presentation of the
roles of victim and victimizer calls forth its reverse formulation, which so much
of the play is engaged in demonstrating.
The most ferocious “dog” in Rose Bernd is the machinist Arthur Streckmann.
A vain, swaggering, lascivious ladies’ man who is never without his schnapps
bottle and is associated in leitmotific fashion with the humming and buzzing
threshing machine he operates, he represents the quintessence of provincial
German machismo at the turn of the century. His first-act encounter with Rose
in the fields, where she is turning up the soil, is revealing. When she points out
that if he were a real man, he would not have to beat his wife, he insists that a
man has to show women who is boss. His claim that when he wants something
from a woman, he gets it, lays the groundwork for his progressive terrorization of
Rose, based on his knowledge of her relationship with Flamm. As he continues
to insult and threaten her, the stage directions document Rose’s powerlessness:
“wachsbleich und bebend,” “erschrocken, ihrer nicht mächtig,” “ballt die
Fäuste, durchbohrt ihn in einer ungeheuren Aufwallung von Wut, Haß, Angst
und Bestürzung mit den Augen, bis sie im Gefühle ihrer Ohnmacht die Arme
sinken läßt und fast wimmernd die Worte hervorstößt,” “Den rechten Arm vor
die weinenden Augen haltend, mit der Linken die Schürze heraufnehmend und
sich schneuzend, begibt sie sich schluchzend und gebrochen an ihre Arbeitsstelle
zurück,” “außer sich,” “zitternd, in Angstschweiß,” “ohnmächtig weinend und
wimmernd,” “fassungslos schreiend und weinend zugleich,” “in fliegender
104 GAIL FINNEY

Angst” (all quotations in this paragraph from I, 358–60). Rose’s powerlessness

is further evident in the fact that her only recourse in the face of Streckmann’s
taunts is to threaten to harm herself.
Insofar as rape has been characterized as a “prototype of female victimization”
(Becker and Abel 30) and as “the ultimate physical threat by which all men keep
all women in a state of psychological intimidation” (Brownmiller 254), this scene
can be viewed as a symbolic rape. The psychological intimidation Streckmann
employs here finds its culmination in his actual rape of Rose, which occurs off-
stage. Their conversation in act III reveals that Streckmann violated her when she
visited him to persuade him to keep quiet about her relationship with Flamm so
that she can marry Keil. In contrast to her earlier impotence, in recapitulating the
crime she takes an emphatic and accusatory tone: “Du hust mir Gewalt agetan!
Du hust micht verwerrt! Hust mich niedergebrocha! Wie a Raubvogel bist du
gestußa uff mich! Ich wiß! Ich wullde zum Tierla rauskumma! Du hust mir Jacke
und Rock zersaust! Ich hoa geblutt! Ich wullde no rauskumma! Do hatt’st du a
Riegel virgelegt! Das iis a Verbrecha! Ich bring’s zur Oanzeige” (III, 392). Yet
her boldness accomplishes nothing except to provoke him to accuse her publicly
of promiscuity, thus – according to the classic logic of the double standard
– projecting his guilt onto her.
Rose’s desperate exclamation in the last act of the play that she will meet
Streckmann (implied) at the Last Judgment reflects Hauptmann’s awareness that,
in the words of Andrea Dworkin, “For women rape is the paradigmatic act of con-
tempt and violence” (45). Rose’s half-crazed state of mind near the end of the
play prefigures the findings of contemporary research on rape, one of the basic
premises of which is that “Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault represents
a trauma or crisis that results in a disruption of the victim’s physical, emotional,
and social equilibrium” (Minden 203). Similarly, her feelings of abandonment
and isolation in the last act bear out another of Dworkin’s observations: “And
rape is very lonely. Should she survive, rape can make a woman lonely for the
rest of her life” (45). But Rose is of course not the only victim of her rape and
her treatment by men in general. Her hysterical words near the drama’s end re-
veal her principal reason for murdering her newborn infant: “’s sullde ni laba!
Ich wullte’s ni!! ’s sullde ni meine Martern derleida! ’s sullde durt bleib’n, wo’s
hiegeheert” (V, 422). Here too Hauptmann’s understanding of the psychology of
female victimization is shown to be uncannily prescient, anticipating Dworkin’s
statement that “It is fair to say that rape everywhere is pissing on the woman’s
maternity: her capacity to have children and to love them” (194).
Rose’s dazed exclamation, made just prior to admitting her infanticide, that
Streckmann strangled her baby points to yet another victim of the machismo and
violence that Streckmann epitomizes, August Keil, since the statement implies
that if Streckmann had agreed to keep quiet about her and Flamm and had left her
in peace, she could have married Keil and had a father (figure) for her child. As
a feminized character, Keil can be viewed as a symbolic manifestation of female
victimization. In many ways he represents a countertype to the attractive, mascu-
 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question 105

line Streckmann and Flamm: he is bookish, pale, thin, sickly, cries easily, and
even possesses a twitch. He neither drinks nor smokes nor takes snuff, and has
won Bernd’s affections because he is intensely pious, forever invoking heaven;
Flamm refers to his “Gebetbuchvisage” (I, 354). Keil is further feminized as
the victim of violent machismo, losing an eye in defending Rose’s honour in an
altercation with Streckmann (surely a symbol of his blindness to the dire straits
in which she finds herself). Yet Keil has more understanding of her situation than
her father does, urging Bernd to remember that she is only human and pledging
to stand by her despite the testimony of Flamm and Streckmann that they have
had sexual relations with her. The fact that this kind of altruism is associated with
a weak, ineffectual character is unmistakably ironic.
The same irony is even more apparent in the situation of Flamm’s wife.
Quintessentially maternal, she has functioned as an ersatz mother for Rose since
the death of Rose’s own mother and since the Flamms’s son died in childhood.
Even Flamm calls his wife “Mutter,” although she is only two years older than
he. Most strikingly, Frau Flamm offers to take care of Rose and her child even
though she knows its father is her husband, suggesting that Frau Flamm represents
the ethical core of the play. Yet not only are mothers in general, as Frau Flamm
tells Rose, “mit Schmerzen gesegnet” (II, 376), this particular mother figure is
literally paralyzed. Transcending the theme of female victimization, in its por-
trayal of a world where kindness is ineffectual to the point of paralysis and where
brutality and violence have the upper hand, this intensely naturalistic play is one
of Hauptmann’s bleakest.
Following our exploration of the abandonment of Magda in Die versunkene
Glocke and the sexual exploitation of Rautendelein and of Rose Bernd, Hanneles
Himmelfahrt presents another type of female victimization, the battering and
molestation of an adolescent child. In terms of its plot, Hanneles Himmelfahrt
(originally published as Hannele: Traumdichtung in zwei Teilen) appears to
be a naturalistic addition to the literature of adolescence so prominent around
1900: the two-act play focusses on Hannele Mattern, the fourteen-year-old
title character, between the time she is carried into a poorhouse, having been
rescued from an attempt to drown herself, and her death a short time later. Her
economically, physically, and psychologically desperate circumstances – she is
starving, freezing, ill, and at the mercy of her drunken and abusive stepfather
(he is referred to variously in the text as her father and as her stepfather), having
recently lost her mother – render her an extreme example of the wretched figures
that populate the naturalist stage. Aesthetically and psychologically, however,
Hanneles Himmelfahrt is much richer and more ambiguous than this spare but
poignant plot outline suggests.
The play’s treatment of adolescence links it to a wealth of European literature
from the turn of the century. European preromantic and romantic writers tended
to idealize the child as the symbol of rural innocence, often in order to denounce
industrialization and urbanization, and much nineteenth-century realist fiction,
taking the form of the bildungsroman, portrays the child’s development up to
106 GAIL FINNEY

young adulthood. By contrast, toward the end of the nineteenth century many
writers and artists turn their attention to the period between puberty and young
adulthood, a phase of life typically accompanied by tumult and change. An early
example that, like Hanneles Himmelfahrt, features a victimized fourteen-year-
old-girl is Ibsen’s drama The Wild Duck (1884). The literature of adolescence in
the German and Austrian traditions, which explores in particular the dynamics
of pubescent and adolescent sexuality, the often detrimental effects of the school
system, and the gestation of an artistic sensibility, includes dramatic and nar-
rative works by Frank Wedekind, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Robert Musil,
and Hermann Hesse. Seeking to explain the widespread interest in adolescence
at the turn of the century, John Neubauer suggests “that the age focussed on
adolescence because it found therein a mirror of its own uneasiness with its heri-
tage, its crisis of identity, and its groping for a new one” (10).
Given the desperate circumstances depicted in Hanneles Himmelfahrt,
such existential questions of heritage and identity would obviously be a luxury.
Yet Hauptmann’s exploration of the adolescent female psyche is nonetheless
a memorable addition to the literature on youth through its formally and the-
matically hybrid character: elements of naturalism and proto-expressionism
have comparable weight and power in the play. On the one hand: as indicated
above, the setting of the play, a room in a poorhouse with bare walls, makeshift
beds made of rags and straw, dilapidated furniture, and a generally impoverished
appearance, manifests the indigence typical of naturalism. Similarly, this space
is populated by beggars who are dressed in rags, freezing in the winter weather,
sickly, and crude, individuals whose only comforts are cheap liquor and hurdy-
gurdy music. As in Rose Bernd and other naturalist plays by Hauptmann, all these
characters speak in dialect. They talk of the crimes they have committed and even
steal from each other. One of them, a feeble old man called Pleschke with white
hair, goiter, and watery eyes, who constantly babbles, repeats himself, and laughs
insanely, seems to epitomize the helplessness and marginality of these figures.
The impotence of these characters and their position at the bottom of the
social and existential ladder evoke associations with Hauptmann’s play Die
Weber, which premiered the same year as Hanneles Himmelfahrt, 1893. In
fact Hannele, like Die Weber, was inspired by the author’s reconnaissance
journey through the part of Silesia in which the weavers were working, where
he encountered the thirteen-year-old daughter of an impoverished widow, living
in wretched circumstances; this child became the model for Hannele Mattern
(Mayer 55). The suffering of Hannele takes the misery of the other inhabitants of
the poorhouse to another level. Not only barefoot, dressed in rags, and living on
cold potatoes – as we learn in the second act – she has repeatedly been the victim
of her stepfather’s physical violence and still lives in agonizing fear of him.
On the other hand: these quintessentially naturalistic characters and circum-
stances set the stage for a very different kind of theatrical mode that begins
with Hannele’s terrifying vision of her father toward the end of the first act and
continues throughout the rest of the play. In the dramatis personae Hauptmann
 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question 107

notes that these visions “erscheinen dem Hannele im Fiebertraum” (I, 599),
and later stage directions refer to her nightmare vision of her stepfather as the
“Mattern-Halluzination” (I, 615). Elsewhere Hauptmann claimed (in English)
that all her visions had a “purely pathological explanation” (Guthke, “Freud
und Hauptmann” 289). Much in the play bears out this statement and suggests
that her visions, in keeping with the play’s subtitle Traumdichtung, are exactly
that – subjectively generated waking and sleeping dream visions, both wish
fulfilment and anxiety dreams: pleasing visions like those of her mother, the
angelic winged boys, and the deaconess as angel, as well as the terrifying visions
of her stepfather and of the black angel. In Hannele’s feverish imagination the
hallucinations based on Gottwald, the benevolent teacher who represents a polar
opposite to her stepfather, are coloured by a blend of eroticism and religious
fervour that gives these visions a mystical character. The subjective quality of
Hannele’s dream visions is suggested by the fact that they tend to appear only
when she is alone or, if not, that the other characters do not perceive them.
Following Hannele’s fantasized death, however, after which point she lies
motionless and silent until “awakened” by the figure called der Fremde, the
dialogue and actions of the fantasized characters take on an air of relative auto-
nomy and objectivity. This segment of the play contains overtly marvellous
elements reminiscent of a fairy tale: for example, Hannele acquires silken gar-
ments and glass shoes, is placed in a glass coffin, is repeatedly called a saint,
and is surrounded by a pale light. Most striking is the figure of der Fremde,
who combines features of Gottwald and Jesus Christ and speaks in a decidedly
biblical fashion. Yet because Hannele is silent and inactive during this part of
the play, the fact that these visions are the product of her unconscious mind is
downplayed. A similar blurring of reality levels is evident in the final speech of
der Fremde, in verse, at Hannele’s bedside, in a setting complete with angels,
incense, and the music of harps. One wonders how this girl from desperately
impoverished circumstances could have been familiar with many of the things
mentioned in this art nouveau-like evocation of the heavenly paradise, such
as swans, marble, gold, wine, alabaster, jasmine, lilac, malachite, and tropical
fruits. Although the logic of the text tells us that the hallucinations appearing
in the latter part of the play are externalized projections of Hannele’s mind, her
temporary absence from the sphere of the action, as well as the language of this
final speech by der Fremde, can incline the viewer to forget this fact and to read
these scenes as autonomous, quasidivine performance.
The fact that Hannele’s dreams and fantasies are given external form onstage
and the blurring of reality levels in their depiction render Hanneles Himmelfahrt
the most stylistically advanced of the three plays treated here, even though it
was written first. In its use of unconscious visions it anticipates by several years
August Strindberg’s A Dream Play (1901), whose characters are emanations
of a dreaming mind. Insofar as Strindberg’s play can be said to have initiated
expressionist theatre, in which dream characters often exist alongside realistic
ones, the dream scenes of Hanneles Himmelfahrt may be characterized as proto-
108 GAIL FINNEY

expressionist. Since Hauptmann was ahead of his time, it is not surprising that
many of his contemporaries were shocked by the play’s mixture of naturalism
with a stylistic mode that appears to thwart it.
The major link between Hannele’s naturalistic first act and its proto-ex-
pressionistic second part is, aside from Hannele herself, the teacher Gottwald. As
a male figure who is somewhat feminized, religious (in Hannele’s visions), and
concerned for the welfare of the principal female character, he has affinities with
August Keil in Rose Bernd. But the erotic feelings Hannele displays toward der
Fremde (who, we recall, bears the features of both Gottwald and Christ) in her
hallucinations possess a mystical intensity absent from the portrayal of sexuality
in Rose Bernd. After der Fremde progressively blesses each part of Hannele’s
face in preparation for her “assumption,” the stage directions note: “HANNELE,
am ganzen Körper bebend, versucht sich aufzurichten. Wie unter einer un-
geheueren Wonnelast vermag sie es nicht. Von tiefem Schluchzen und Weinen
erschüttert, birgt sie den Kopf an des Fremden Brust” (II, 633–34). Because of
the combination of eroticism and religious fervour evident here and elsewhere
in Hannele’s words and gestures, some critics have associated her behaviour
with hysteria. Both Hauptmann’s interest in psychopathology and his awareness
of the powerful significance of dreams link him with Freud. If we consider that
Freud’s (and Josef Breuer’s) Studies on Hysteria did not appear until 1895 and
Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams only in 1900, we recognize yet another
major thinker whose work Hauptmann anticipates in Hanneles Himmelfahrt.
Karl Guthke’s view that Hauptmann’s coolness toward Freud’s work results at
least in part from the dramatist’s awareness of their commonalities (“Freud und
Hauptmann”) is compelling.
But Hanneles Himmelfahrt invites comparison with other aspects of Freudian
thought as well, which can shed light on a significant dimension of the play not
yet examined here, her victimization as an adolescent female. Such comparison
reveals differences between Hauptmann and Freud that are at least as telling as their
affinities. In view of Hannele’s treatment by her stepfather, a look at Freud’s paper
“‘A Child Is Being Beaten’: A Contribution to the Origin of Sexual Perversions”
(1919) is illuminating. In this essay Freud argues that the childhood fantasy of
a child being beaten, which some of his adult patients have recounted to him in
analysis, is a perversion that produces autoerotic gratification. The fantasy results, he
postulates, from a childhood fixation that can hinder normal sexual development, and
it undergoes transformations in a series of phases. Having encountered such beating-
fantasies twice as often in females as in males, he interprets the fantasy in oedipal
terms, and determines that in girls, the person performing the beating is recognizable
as the father. In Freud’s view, “The unconscious phantasy of the middle phase had
primarily a genital significance and developed by means of repression and regression
out of an incestuous wish to be loved by the father” (124).
In Hanneles Himmelfahrt, child-beating is not psychoanalyzed as a pleasur-
able fantasy but portrayed as a harsh reality, and conventional oedipal attractions
are absent. Hannele lives in cowering fear of her brutal stepfather, whereas her
 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question 109

deceased mother, envisioned as an apparition, appears as a loving, comforting

presence who resembles Mary Magdalene and claims that God is calling her.
Hannele’s suffering at the hands of Mattern rivals – in degree, if not in kind
– the anguish of Rose Bernd. Her first words in the play, after Gottwald carries
her, dripping wet and freezing, into the poorhouse, are: “Ich fürcht’ mich so!
Ich fürcht’ mich so! [...] Ich fürcht’ mich so, wenn der Vater kommt” (I, 605).
We soon learn why, when the woodcutter who pulled her from the water reveals
that Mattern had the habit of sending her out into the snow at night to beg for
his drinking money and the doctor discovers that her entire body appears to be
covered with bruises. The woodcutter’s comment that her mother’s body dis-
played similar markings not only shows that Mattern’s domestic violence was not
limited to Hannele but also reinforces our sense of the bond between the girl and
her mother. The viewer can infer that the death of her mother was the event that
finally drove Hannele to attempt suicide.
In his reversal of the Freudian oedipal model – in underlining the antagonism
between daughter and (step)father and the closeness between daughter and mother
– Hauptmann anticipates the work of many post-Freudian psychologists and
feminist scholars who have foreground the mother’s role in culture and human
development. But there is an additional, less apparent dimension of Hanneles
Himmelfahrt that bears comparison with Freudian thought: the intimation of sexual
molestation. Significantly, after Hannele is brought into the poorhouse, she is afraid
to talk about what has happened to her. Furthermore, although her visions near the
end of the play, in which a chorus of voices condemn Mattern as a murderer, ex-
pressionistically reveal her awareness of his guilt, at other points she takes guilt onto
herself. She insists to Sister Martha that she has committed an unforgiveable sin,
and during her final hallucination she says to der Fremde, “Dein Kleid ist makellos.
Ich bin voll Schmach” (II, 633). The reluctance to talk about one’s experience at the
hands of the molester and the internalization of guilt that should properly attach to
him are common responses in victims of sexual molestation. While the text of the
play does not directly depict molestation, the subtext inclines the viewer to believe
that Hannele’s victimization is not only violent but also sexual. In a subtle, indirect
fashion, Hauptmann acknowledges the reality of sexual molestation and the degree
to which it crosses class lines. His portrayal suggests that this offense is to be taken
seriously, even when the victim is an indigent adolescent.
During the infancy of psychoanalysis around the turn of the century, Freud
heard many stories similar to that of Hannele’s sexual victimization. Although
the cast of characters was quite different – for the most part, young women
from affluent Viennese families, who consulted Freud because of mysterious
physical ailments that appeared to have no organic cause – they told strikingly
similar tales of fathers or male family friends who had coerced them into covert
sexual activity. Freud came to believe that his patients’ physical problems were
the “hysterical” result of their repression of these early sexual experiences. But
he later rejected this “seduction theory,” instead postulating that these supposed
repressed memories were in fact unconscious sexual fantasies.
110 GAIL FINNEY

And herein lies a key difference between Freud and Hauptmann. Where
Freud theorizes about child-beating as a pleasurable fantasy, Hauptmann recog-
nizes physical violence against children as a real phenomenon, gives it dramatic
form, and explores its psychological consequences in Hanneles Himmelfahrt.
Where Freud retreats from the evidence of sexual molestation in the families
of his Viennese contemporaries and assigns guilt to the victims rather than the
offenders, Hauptmann gives credence to sexual molestation in an emotionally
compelling, stylistically hybrid play. Hauptmann’s work not only predates these
facets of Freud’s thinking but transcends them.
In many ways, then, Hauptmann’s formally eclectic plays emerge as more
progressive than the work of many of his male contemporaries. Stylistically,
Hanneles Himmelfahrt anticipates the form of Strindberg’s dream play by
more than a half-dozen years. Similarly, Hauptmann’s understanding of child
molestation and its repercussions appears in some respects to be more sophist-
icated than Freud’s. Furthermore, these dramas demonstrate palpable sympathy
with victimized females – with the betrayed wives, sexually exploited and
abandoned women, unwed mothers, and battered and molested girls who are
microcosmically represented by his female characters.
Although Hauptmann fails in the three plays under discussion to take
the truly emancipatory step of creating a strong-willed female character with
positive, productive goals and the ability to realize them, the protofeminist sen-
sitivity towards women’s oppression manifest in these dramas recurs beyond
the period treated here. As is evident from Hauptmann’s notes, for example,
his unfinished satiric drama “Mutterschaft” (1905) relates the story of a female
physician who plans a home for unwed mothers. Her idea meets with such
disapproval that the community has her committed to a mental institution, but
following her release a few years later, she again publicly defends the cause of
single mothers, disclosing that she is in the meantime the sole parent of a hand-
some young son.
Similarly, approaching the woman’s cause from a different perspective, the
notion of parthenogenesis, Hauptmann’s novel Die Insel der Groβen Mutter
oder das Wunder von Île des Dames: Eine Geschichte aus dem utopischen
Archipelagus (1924) portrays a utopian community of women who have been
shipwrecked on a tropical island. In stark contrast to his own male-dominated
society, Hauptmann depicts here a world where men are unnecessary, even for re-
production: the women begin giving birth spontaneously, although the only male
on the island is a young boy. But it is significant that the idea of female autonomy
is presented in a mythic, utopian mode, whereas the realistic play “Mutterschaft”
remains unfinished. In the end Die Insel der Groβen Mutter emerges as much
as a glorification of woman’s task and essence – motherhood – as anything else.
If Hauptmann’s ambivalence toward feminism allies him with many of his male
contemporaries, however, his compelling sympathy with female victimization
places him in a class by himself.
 Gerhart Hauptmann and the Woman Question 111

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Schuster, 1975.
Dworkin, Andrea. Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women’s Liberation. New York: The
Free Press, 2000.
Finney, Gail. Women in Modern Drama: Freud, Feminism, and European Theater at the
Turn of the Century. 1989. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991.
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Perversions.” Sexuality and the Psychology of Love. Ed. Philip Rieff. New York:
Collier Macmillan, 1963. 107–32.
Guthke, Karl S. Das deutsche bürgerliche Trauerspiel. 1972. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1994.
———. “Freud und Hauptmann: Doppelgänger wider Willen?” Das Abenteuer der
Literatur: Studien zum literarischen Leben der deutschsprachigen Länder von der
Aufklärung bis zum Exil. Bern: Francke, 1981. 277–94.
Hart, Gail K. Tragedy in Paradise: Family and Gender Politics in German Bourgeois
Tragedy, 1750–1850. Columbia: Camden House, 1996.
Hauptmann, Gerhart. Das dramatische Werk. Frankfurt/M.: Propyläen, 1974. 4 vols.
———. Hanneles Himmelfahrt: Traumdichtung. Das dramatische Werk I, 595–636.
———. Die Insel der Großen Mutter oder das Wunder von Île des Dames: Eine
Geschichte aus dem utopischen Archipelagus. 1916–24. Romane. Vol. 5 of Sämtliche
Werke 681–902.
———. “Mutterschaft.” 1905. Nachgelassene Werke: Fragmente. Vol. 9 of Sämtiche
Werke 295–324.
———. Rose Bernd: Schauspiel. Das dramatische Werk II, 347–423.
———. Sämtliche Werke. Centenar Ausgabe. Ed. Hans Egon Hass et al., Frankfurt/M.:
Propyläen, 1962ff. 11 vols.
———. Die versunkene Glocke: Ein deutsches Märchendrama. Das dramatische Werk
I, 809–921.
Hildebrandt, Klaus. Naturalistische Dramen Gerhart Hauptmanns: ‘Die Weber’ – ‘Rose
Bernd’ – ‘Die Ratten’. Thematik – Entstehung – Gestaltungsprinzipien – Struktur.
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Mayer, Hans. Gerhart Hauptmann. Velber: Friedrich, 1970.
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Neubauer, John. The Fin-de-Siècle Culture of Adolescence. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992.
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Kampf der Geschlechter: Entfremdung und
Lustmord in der expressionistischen
Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha
MARTINA LÜKE University of Connecticut

“Sie gingen einen weiten Weg zusammen und sprachen kein Wort. Als sie an
einem Platz ankamen, der dem Mann geeignet war, biß er ihr die Kehle durch.” Mit
diesen Worten endet die 1913 im Sammelband Die Schaukel erschienene Prosa-
skizze “Das Abenteuer” (El Hor/El Ha 25–26). Die unter den Pseudonymen El
Hor und El Ha schreibende Autorin schildert darin ein grotesk-surreal anmutendes
Aufeinandertreffen eines Mannes und einer Frau in einem Theater und bietet
dadurch fesselnde Einblicke in die expressionistische Dichtung aus weiblicher
Perspektive.
Dieser Artikel untersucht die ungewöhnlichen und bislang unbeachteten Bei-
träge einer Dichterin zu Themen des Expressionismus, insbesondere die (sexuellen)
Spannungen zwischen Mann und Frau, Verwirrung der Gefühle, gegenseitige An-
ziehung, aber auch die Darstellung von Abstoßung, Ekel und Gewalt. So urteilt
auch Ottmar Huber: “Der Zwiespalt von Ich und Welt, der die Mythenbildung des
Expressionismus ursächlich bestimmt, prägt sich im Verhalten der Geschlechter
zueinander mit besonderer Eindringlichkeit aus” (177). Entsprechende Analysen
der Darstellungen von Kommunikationsstörungen, Entfremdungen, perversen und
zerstörerischen Leidenschaften und Sexualität in Texten wie Oskar Kokoschkas
Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (1910), Gottfried Benns Morque und andere
Gedichte (1912), Franz Jungs Kameraden! (1913), Georg Kaisers Stationenstück
Von morgens bis mitternachts (1916) oder Fritz von Unruhs Ein Geschlecht
finden sich in nahezu allen Forschungswerken zum Expressionismus. Die kon-
fliktgeladenen Auseinandersetzungen der Geschlechter als Teilaspekte einer
sinnlosen Existenz und einer grundsätzlichen “Menschheitsdämmerung,” im
Sinne von Kurt Pinthus’ gleichnamiger Anthologie (1920), werden hierbei zumeist
abstrahierend dargestellt, indem sich Männer und Frauen, wie etwa in Mörder,
Hoffnung der Frauen und Ein Geschlecht, als stereotype Figuren nahezu un-
versöhnlich gegenüberstehen. Weiblichkeit wird dabei zumeist mit Passivität oder
mit matriarchalen Urmythen verbunden, während Vitalität, Geist und Aktivität
überwiegend mit Männlichkeit gleichgesetzt werden. Grundlegende Vorstellungen
einer “notorische[n] ‘Sprachkrise’” (Anz 70) sind vor allem auf eine korrelative
Sprachinkompetenz von Männern und Frauen projeziert, was zu Verwirrungen und
Frustrationen führt, die die (gewalttätigen) Differenzen häufig weiter anfachen.

seminar 46:2 (May 2010)

 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 113

Vielfach gipfeln diese Konstellationen eines Geschlechterkampfs – den Zeich-

nungen George Grosz oder Otto Dix sowie den literarischen Gestaltungen Alfred
Döblins ähnelnd – in einer Ästhetisierung des Lustmords: “it becomes evident, that
the representation of murdered women must function as an aesthetic strategy for
managing certain kinds of sexual, social, and political anxieties and for constituting
an artistic and social identity” (Tatar 6; siehe dazu Büsser; Hoffmann-Curtius;
Lewis, Georg Grosz).
Wenngleich in den letzten Jahren Künstlerinnen des Expressionismus zu-
nehmend die Aufmerksamkeit der literaturwissenschaftlichen Forschung erfahren
(vgl. etwa Jürgs; Vollmer), haben Texte von Else Lasker-Schüler, Claire Goll
oder Emmy Ball-Hennings bisher wenig Interesse in der gängigen Literatur über
den Expressionismus und seine Autoren gefunden (vgl. Anz; Best; Eykman;
Martini; Raabe und Hannich-Bode). Statt dessen werden Schriftstellerinnen des
Expressionismus vor allem auf ihren biographischen Hintergrund untersucht. Stell-
vertretend sei Christine Kanz zitiert, die betont, dass Autorinnen, die zwischen
1910 und 1920 geschrieben haben, “heute kaum oder gar nicht mehr rezipiert
werden” (115).
Auch die Erforschung der unter Pseudonym schreibenden und damit bis heute
unbekannt gebliebenen Autorin El Hor/El Ha steht noch aus. Hartwig Suhrbier hat
bisher als einziger in akribischer Arbeit die Herkunft der mysteriösen Dichterin
erforscht und ihre Werke erstmalig im Sammelband Die Schaukel. Schatten.
Prosaskizzen zusammengestellt und veröffentlicht. Er urteilt über El Hors/El
Has gegenwärtige literaturwissenschaftliche Erfassung: “Kein Lexikon deutsch-
sprachiger Schriftsteller kennt sie. Keine Geschichte der deutschsprachigen
Literaturen weiß von ihr. Nur in zwei, drei Spezialregistern, die Zeitschriften des
Expressionismus erschließen, kommen ihre beiden Pseudonyme vor” (77). Tat-
sächlich finden sich weder in den verbreiteten Nachschlagewerken noch in den
Autorenverzeichnissen des Expressionismus Hinweise auf El Hor/El Ha. Dies mag
nicht zuletzt dadurch begründet sein, dass über die Identität der Dichterin nahezu
keine Informationen vorliegen.
Eine mühselige Recherche der Zeitschriften Saturn und Pan, eine Reihe
von Indizien, etwa ein in Wien unterzeichneter Buchvertrag und südostdeutsche
Ausdrücke wie der Gebrauch der Währungen “Kreuzer und Gulden” und des
Diminuitivs “Katzerl,” sowie die zufälligen Funde der von El Hor/El Ha heraus-
gegebenen Bücher Die Schaukel (1913) und Schatten (1920), lassen Suhrbier,
wie er im “Nachwort” ausführt, darauf schließen, dass es sich bei El Hor/El Ha
vermutlich um eine bürgerlich gebildete Schriftstellerin handelt, die zumindest
zeitweilig in Wien gelebt hat (77–99). Sowohl der genannte Buchvertrag als auch
die Besprechung des Bändchens Die Schaukel durch einen Berliner Rezensenten,
dem die Identität der Dicherin unwiderlegbar bekannt gewesen sein muss, lassen
dabei keinen Zweifel zu, dass sich eine Frau hinter den Pseudonymen El Hor/El Ha
verbirgt (Suhrbier 84, 90–95).
Die ungewöhnlichen Pseudonyme der Dichterin selbst, die sich bei der Ver-
öffentlichung von Die Schaukel El Hor und bei der Veröffentlichung von Schatten El
114 MARTINA LÜKE

Ha nennt, wirft Rätsel auf. Hat sie diese Namen infolge der für das Fin de Siècle so
typische Faszination an exotischen Themen und Orten gewählt? Literaturhistorisch
ist das Interesse an diesen Themen durch den Kolonialismus und den durch Reiselust
entstandenen Exotismus Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts bestimmt (Reif 437). In diesem
Zusammenhang sei beispielshalber auf den Einfluss der europäischen Kolonien
und von Reiseberichten sowie den Beginn der Völkerschauen, Völkerkundemuseen
oder Zoologischen Gärten, etwa “Hagenbeck’s Tierpark” in Hamburg (1866–
1907), in Form populärer orientalischer Ornamentik und afrikanischer Plastiken
in der Architektur und den bürgerlichen Salons des ausgehenden 19. Jahrhunderts
verwiesen. So verdeutlicht auch die Skizze “Orchideen” von El Hor/El Ha auf eine
entsprechende Faszination an exotisch-sinnlichen Plätzen, indem sich die in einem
Schaufenster ausgestellten Blumen nach der “feuchtglühend und mit Inbrunst
beladenen” Umwelt des Dschungels sehnen (13). Diese Gegenüberstellung von
Primitivität und Modernität beziehungsweise der psychologischen Dimension
einer Abgenzung im vielzitierten “Dschungel der Großstadt” spiegelt sich auch
in Bildern der Expressionisten Ludwig Meidner und Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
wider (Lloyd 130–60). Zudem deuten Skizzen in Schatten, auf ein entsprechendes
literaturwissenschaftliches Interesse an arabischer Kultur: “Hafis“ verweist auf den
persischen Dichter Hafis/Hafiz (ca. 1310/19–1389/1390), dessen 500 Dichtungen
des Diwan Goethe zum Westöstlichen Divan (1819) inspirieren, während “Harun
al Raschid” auf den Kalifen gleichen Namens deutet (763–809), der unter anderem
(handels)politsche Beziehungen zu Karl dem Großen (ca.747–814) pflegte und vor
allem auch durch die Märchensammlung Tausendundeine Nacht bekannt geworden
ist. Weist daher auch die Wahl der Pseudonyme “El Hor” und “El Ha” der Dichterin
auf einen arabischen Hintergrund? Eine wörtliche Übersetzung gestaltet sich
schwierig, da die Aussprache der Vokale in diesen Schreibweisen nicht eindeutig
bestimmt werden kann. “El Hor” kann beispielsweise “der Freie” bedeuten oder
auf die im islamischen Glauben im Paradies lebenden Jungfrauen, “al Hur” (“die
Blendendweißen”), darstellen. Ebenso könnte “Hor” eine Anspielung auf den fal-
kenköpfigen Gott “Horus” (auch als “Hor” widergegeben), “der Ferne,” indizieren,
der als Sohn von Isis und Osiris als Himmelsgott beziehungweise als Welten- und
Lichtgott wirkt. Oder deutet “El” auf den grundlegenden hebräischen Namen für
Gott, der durch weitere Attribute ergänzt und genauer beschrieben werden kann,
etwa “El Hannora” (der Ehrfurchtgebietende) oder “El Hakkavod” (der Herrliche)?
Diesen Interpretationen wäre gemein, dass die Dichterin mystische und spirituelle
Dimensionen hervorhebt.
Neben diesen Ansätzen lassen sich aber auch geschlechtsspezifische Varianten
denken: Ist womöglich durch die traditionell weibliche Endung auf “a” einerseits
und die traditionell männliche Endung “or” eine Betonung der weiblichen und der
männlichen Seite vorgesehen? Addiert die Dichterin durch die Wahl der Namen nicht
auch noch eine geschlechtneutrale wenn nicht gar hermaphroditische Dimension zu
ihren sprachlichen Kunstwerken? Inhaltlich lassen sich beide Bücher lediglich
dahingegend unterscheiden, dass Die Schaukel überwiegend Psychogramme aus
dem Alltag darstellt, (z.B. die Skizzen “Der Trödler” oder “Vorstadtmorgen”),
 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 115

während die Skizzen in Schatten sich auf bedeutende Persönlichkeiten und Figuren
aus literarischen (Goethe, Schiller, Heine) und aus judäo-christlichen Traditionen
(Judas Ischariot, Aaron und Maria) beziehen. Das auf der Märchenerzählung
basierende Psychogramm “Ritter Blaubart” ist in leicht unterschiedlichen Varianten
in beiden Büchern El Hors/El Has abgedruckt, so dass keine strikte oder un-
bedingte inhaltliche Trennung der beiden Pseudonyme vorgenommen werden
kann. Einzig eine (nicht mehr erklärbare) zeitliche Differenz der Künstlernamen
ist erkennbar: vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg schreibt sie sich “El Hor,” nach dem
Krieg findet sich die Schreibweise “El Ha” (Suhrbier 84–95). Schließlich bietet
sich noch eine weitere Deutung der beiden rätselhaften Pseudonyme an, die auf
den kunstvollen und präzisen Sprachnuancen der Dichterin beruht: könnte man
die Namen gar als Abkürzungen für die Initialen “L” und “H” oder als Wortspiel
mit dem französischen “elle” als “die H.” deuten? Wäre dies möglicherweise ein
Ansatzpunkt, um vertiefend nach einer Dichterin dieser Initialien in Wien oder
Prag und Berlin, wo ebenfalls Werke von El Hor /El Ha veröffentlicht worden sind,
forschen zu können? Weitere Forschungen zu der Persönlichkeit dieser Dichterin
stehen damit noch aus, so dass vorliegender Beitrag zumindest ihre literarische
Hinterlassenschaft weiter untersuchen und darlegen möchte. Es wird Zeit, eine
Autorin wie El Hor/El Ha aus der Vergessenheit zu holen, um Einsichten in das
Werk einer der “neuen Frauen” selbst zu gewinnen und so unser heutiges Bild
des Expressionismus und des Übergangs vom 19. ins 20. Jahrhundert abrunden zu
können (vgl. McCormick; Nipperdey; Petro; Ward).
Die genannte Thematisierung eines “Kampfes der Geschlechter” durch die
Literatur des Expressionismus findet sich auch in den Gestaltungen von El Hors/
El Has Prosaskizzen wieder. Neben dem vorliegenden Text “Das Abenteuer”
seien unter anderem auch noch “Pantomine,” “Märchen,” “Die Stunde,” “Die
Begegnung” oder “Die Rache” genannt. Anders als in den Werken von männ-
lichen Expressionisten jedoch, werden bei El Hor/El Ha sexuelle Spannungen
beziehungsweise Darstellungen von Gewalt und Brutalität mit mehr oder weniger
deutlichen sexuellen Untertönen nicht in abstrahierender oder typisierender Weise
dargestellt, sondern in kurzen, analytischen Texten skizziert, die vor allem psycho-
logische Einsichten bieten. Der Beitrag “Der Mörder” für die Januarausgabe des
Jahres 1913 der Zeitschrift Pan, kontrastiert beispielsweise in verdichteter Tiefe
eine scheinbar bukolische Idylle mit der sadistischen Freude eines zehnjährigen
Hütejungen, Tiere zu quälen und zu töten. Der Text endet mit den bedeutungsvollen
Worten:

Bald wurden ihm aber die Frösche zu langweilig. Seine Begierden steigerten sich.
Das kümmerliche Gleichmaß der Tage machte ihm solche Angst, daß er inbrünstig
seine bösen Freuden hegte, als die einzige Lebensbestätigung. Mit leuchtenden
Augen saß er da, die Gerte in der Hand und träumte Foltern. Und wenn er nach
Sonnenuntergang seine Gänse heimwärts trieb, ging er entzückt und in sich ge-
kehrt über die feuchten, würzig dampfenden Wiesen und dachte an seine Zeit, da
er groß und stark sein würde. (79–80)
116 MARTINA LÜKE

Es bleibt dabei ungesagt, ob der von künftigen Foltern als “einzige Lebens-
bestätigung” träumende Junge sich speziell das Quälen von Frauen oder ein
generelles Quälen aller Kreatur oder einen blindwütigen Zerstörungsrausch
– was nur wenige Monate nach Erscheinen des Artikels durch den Ausbruch des
Ersten Weltkrieges traurige Realität werden sollte – erträumt. Da, wie geschildert,
Spannungen zwischen den Geschlechtern explizit in El Hors/El Has Dichtungen
thematisiert werden, könnte der impliziert auf maskuline Attribute und die
Reifung zum Mann deutende Verweis – eine Zeit, in der der Junge “groß und stark
sein würde” – und die Beschreibung, dass sich seine “Begierden steigerten,” auch
in Hinblick sexuell motivierte Gewalt gedeutet werden, die sich möglicherweise
gegen das andere Geschlecht richten könnte. Die Darstellung von weichen,
“feuchten Wiesen” über die der potentielle Täter “entzückt” schreitet, die in dem
letzten Satz zudem spezifisch in den Kontrast zu seiner virilen Stärke gesetzt sind,
könnte dieser Interpretation zufolge ebenfalls einen mit Gewalt, Sadismus und
Brutalität verbundenen Gegensatz von Männlichkeit und Weiblichkeit in dieser
Skizze El Hors/El Has indizieren.
Die herausragende Intensität und psychologische Dimension ihrer Prosa-
skizzen, darunter unter anderem “Orchideen,” “Vorstadtmorgen” oder “Der Leier-
kastenmann,” die in wenigen Sätzen kurze Begebenheiten und Beobachtungen
erfassen, sei beispielhaft durch die Wiedergabe der aus wenigen Sätzen be-
stehenden Skizze “Katastrophe” dargestellt, die am 18. Mai 1918 in der Wiener
Wochenzeitschrift Der Friede erschienen ist:

Als der Mann tot war, spielte die Frau den ganzen Tag mit seiner Taschenuhr,
sprach mit ihr und horchte auf ihren metallenen Pulsschlag. Und des Nachts legte
sie die Uhr in sein Bett. (86)

Neben dieser meisterhaften Darstellung von Psychogrammen fällt auf, dass El

Hor/El Ha vielfach auch märchenhafte Elemente enthalten. Wie auch in “Das
Abenteuer” darzustellen sein wird, involvieren die kurzen Erzählungen und
Skizzen der Dichterin daher fantastische und außergewöhnliche Begebenheiten,
antithetische Entwicklungen und Charaktere und zeigen Schlüsselmomente eines
Lebens, wie das traumatisch anmutende Nacheinander von Liebe, Entfremdung
und Trennung (“Die Begegnung”) oder einen Selbstmordversuch (“Die Rache”).
Zudem zeugen viele Skizzen El Hors/El Has von der Jahrzehnte später von
Max Lüthi vorgenommen Kategorisierungen typisierender Eigenschaften von
Märchen, wie der “Eindimensionalität,” d.h. dass jenseitige beziehungsweise
nicht-reelle Ereignisse und Wesen von den Protagonisten des Märchens als Selbst-
verständlichkeit wahrgenommen werden, sowie der “Entindividualisierung” und
“Archetypisierungen” von Charakteren (vgl. Lüthi). Auch die Titel der Skizzen
selbst, darunter “Märchen” und “Ritter Blaubart,” verweisen auf den Einfluss von
Märchen. Immer wieder verschmelzen Realität und Dichtung, das Rationale und
Irrationale aber auch Schönheit, Gewalt, Gefahr, Farben, Rausch, Lust und Zer-
störung. So wird Hafis/Hafiz als “Sänger irdischer Seligheit” bezeichnet, dessen
 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 117

Dichtungen unaufhaltsam ihre Macht entfalten: “So flatterten sie [die Dichtungen]
wie rote Blumenblätter der Menschheit zu, und unzerstörbar entströmt ihnen der
glühende Duft der Rosen von Schiras” (El Hor/El Ha 66). Desgleichen lautet es in
“Harun al Raschid”:

Der da lebte wie Dichter träumen! Der mit grandioser Vermessenheit Menschen-
schicksale formte wie bunte Geschichten! Glück und Gaben ausstreute, wie
klingende Reime! Und Köpfe abschlagen ließ, wenn schrille, schreckliche
Musik in seinen Adern raste [...] Seine eigenen Liebessklavinnen wählten nicht
ihn zum Stern ihrer Träume, sondern harmlose Jünglinge, denen sie nur mit
Lebensgefahr verstohlene Glücksstunden schenken konnten. Und wenn er von
solchen berückenden Todesspielen erfuhr, die ihm nicht beschieden waren und
die ihm doch so grimmig wohlgefielen, verzieh er manches Mal großmütig und
gab ihnen ungestörte Alltäglichkeit. Und oft verhängte er den Tod. Nach seiner
Dichterlaune! (67)

In Ergänzung an die Thematik von sexuellen Spannungen von Mann und Frau,
den unter “Lebensgefahr” ablaufenden “Todesspielen,” die beiden doch “so
grimmig wohl gefallen,” werden damit in den Psychogrammen El Hors/El
Has auch Entfremdungen zwischen dem “Ich” und der Welt, Erfahrungen von
Zivilisation und Animalität, aber auch das Groteske und Ungreifbar-Irrationale
beschrieben, so ist es eine nicht näher erörterte “schrille, schreckliche Musik in
seinen Adern,” die den Kalifen zu den Morden treibt. Inhaltliche Brüche, ins-
besondere das Spiel mit unterschiedlichen sprachlichen Ebenen, der Wechsel
von Bewusstem und Unbewussten sowie ins Extreme gesteigerte Kontraste
intensivieren die spannungsreichen Darstellungen von El Hor/El Ha.
Die psychologische Dimension, das expressionistische Spiel mit sprach-
lichen Ebenen und Erkenntniskritik, sowie Themen, die von Sexualität und
dem Begehren eines signifikanten “Anderen” handeln, legen dabei eine
Untersuchung von El Hors/El Has Text “Das Abenteuer” im Sinne der neo-
freudianischen Konzepte von Jacques Lacan nahe. Zu den Grundannahmen
Lacans zählt dabei die Vorstellung, dass neben den mit einem grundsätzlichen
Mangel verbundenen Begehren und dem Streben nach Erfüllung und Genießen
(jouissance) die Einbettung in das Sprachsystem das Wesen des Menschen be-
stimmen:

The first network, that of the signifier, is the synchronic structure of the language
material insofar, as in that structure each element assumes its precise function by
being different from the others […]. The second network, that of the signified, is
the diachronic set of concretely pronounced discourses, which react historically
on the first, just as the structure of the first governs the pathways of the second.
The dominant fact here is the unity of signification, which proves never to be
resolved into a pure indication of the real, but always refers back to another
signification. (Écrits 126)
118 MARTINA LÜKE

Das “Reale” im Sinne Lacans ist damit immer auch mit dem Unsagbaren, dem
Unfassbaren, dem Imaginierten und narzisstischen Phantasien verbunden. Die
eigentliche Befriedigung und eine Einheit mit dem “Anderen” ist daher nicht mög-
lich, sondern muss, wie auch in El Hors/El Has “Das Abenteuer” ersichtlich sein
wird, letztlich eine Illusion bleiben, denn wie Lacan es in “Seminar II” formuliert:
“there are indeed desires which will never find any other satisfaction than that
of being acknowledged, that is to day avowed” (Seminar 213). Vor diesem
Hintergrund bieten El Hors/El Has Dichtungen, wie eine detaillierte Analyse im
Sinne des close reading der Prosaskizze “Das Abenteuer” verdeutlicht, einen Ein-
blick in Themen und Motive des Expressionismus und der Weimarer Republik aus
der Sicht einer Dichterin. Der kurze, aus nur zwanzig Zeilen bestehende Text soll
hierbei Satz für Satz untersucht werden.
“Das Abenteuer” beginnt mit der scheinbar alltäglichen Beschreibung einer
Theaterpause:

Er saß in einem Theater, ganz vorn im Parkett. Es war Pause, und er saß auf der
Sitzlehne mit dem Rücken zur Bühne und starrte ins Publikum.

Auf den zweiten Blick jedoch fallen Besonderheiten auf. So sitzt der männliche
Protagonist “er” auf der Sitzlehne, was im Rahmen eines Theaterbesuchs um
die Jahrhundertwende nicht unbedingt der Etikette entsprochen haben mag, und
nimmt dadurch eine erhöhte Position ein. Zugleich sucht er seine Unterhaltung
bei dem Menschen im “Publikum,” nicht auf der Bühne. Auch das Verb “starren”
assoziiert Unbehagen, da ein unnachgiebiger Blick durchaus belästigend wirken
kann, zumal diese Permanenz im Kontrast zu der – in der Regel – eher heiteren
beziehungsweise angeregten und gelösten Atmosphäre eines Theaters gerade
in einer Pause steht. Durch die Implizierung des “Starrens” wird zugleich der
scheinbar neutrale und beschreibende Charakter der einleitenden Worte aufge-
hoben, wobei – wie im Verlauf des Textes zu sehen sein wird – unklar bleibt,
wessen Perspektive hier eingenommen wird. Dadurch, dass der Mann “ganz
vorn im Parkett” sitzt und von dort aus auf die Menschen blickt, wird seine
herausragende Stellung betont, die – ebenfalls umgekehrt gedacht – wohl am
ehesten mit der eines Dirigenten verglichen werden kann, der über das ihm unter-
stehende Orchester verfügt. Dieser Vergleich und die Betonung, dass der Mann in
erhöhter Stellung im Publikum sitzt und es von dort aus anstarrt, gibt ihm somit
in mehrfacher Hinsicht nicht nur eine herausragende und abgegrenzte Rolle,
sondern impliziert auch einen gewissen Machtfaktor über das Publikum. Es bleibt
zudem offen, welches Theater an welchem Ort gemeint ist. Oder sind “Theater”
und “Publikum” hier nur im übertragenen Sinne gemeint, so dass gewissermassen
auf das Leben an sich angespielt wird, von dem sich der Betrachter durch die
Titulierung “Theater” auch inhaltlich distanziert? Könnte das “Starren” und der
räumliche Abstand von der Bühne, dem Ort des eigenlichen Geschehens, dann
nicht zugleich als geistige Abwesenheit, sondern auch als bewusste innere Ab-
kehr oder als Gleichgültigkeit gegen die Normen einer Gesellschaft verstanden
 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 119

werden, was zugleich auch eine Vorausdeutung des gesellschaftlich tabuisierten

Lustmordes beinhalten könnte?
Von Beginn an erscheint der Mann daher anders als die Gemeinschaft der
übrigen Theaterbesucher. Dieses wird durch den unmittelbar folgenden Textab-
schnitt weiter betont, in dem das Äußere des Mannes geschildert wird:

Er sah aus wie ein Hund. Wie eine weiße Bulldogge sah er aus. Seine Schultern
waren etwas verwachsen, und er hatte gar keinen Hals. Seine hellen, schräg ge-
zerrten Augen sahen ingrimmig und behende über die vielen Leute hin.

Die Erscheinung ähnelt somit einem scharfen Wachhund. Die stämmige Statur,
verwachsene Schultern und der fehlende Halsansatz intensivieren die Vorstellung
einer gedrungenen und dadurch umso muskulöser und animalischer wirkenden
Gestalt. Zivilisation, dargestellt durch ein kultiviertes Theater, wird mit Animalität,
dargestellt durch den hundeartigen Besucher, kontrastiert. Dieser inhaltliche Bruch
von einem mehr oder weniger gewöhnlichem Theaterbesuch zu der Beschreibung
eines ungewöhnlich abstoßenden, bestienartig wirkenden Mannes wird durch kleine
Details weiter ergänzt: der Hund wird als “weiße Bulldogge” beschrieben – eine
ungewöhnliche Farbe der eher braunen oder grauen Tiere – und hat “helle, schräg
gezerrte Augen.” El Hor/El Ha benutzt nicht den korrekten Ausdruck der verzerrten
Augen, sondern verwendet gezerrte Augen. Gezerrte Augen deuten eine Mimik
an, die sich einer Kontrolle entzieht. Dadurch wirkt die hundeartige Gestalt wie
von den eigenen Instinkten getrieben, so dass die animalische Charakterisierung
des Mannes weiter vertieft wird. Ebenso könnte diese Formulierung einen ge-
wissermaßen exotischen Faktor implizieren, indem auf schrägstehende Augen
eines Asiaten angespielt wird, zumal viele Zeitgenossen El Hors/El Has und Ver-
treter der Avantgarde, wie eingangs geschildert, an orientalischer, afrikanischer
und asiatischer Kunst und Literatur interessiert waren, worauf nicht zuletzt auch El
Hors/El Has Wahl ihres Pseudonyms deutet.
Der bereits erwähnte Machtfaktor wird ebenfalls ausgebaut, indem der Wach-
hund “ingrimmig und behende” über die Menschen im Publikum hinwegsieht.
Inhaltlich findet sich zugleich eine weiterere Spannung: Die Verwendung von
Adjektiven, die innere Aktivität ausdrücken (“ingrimmig,” “behende”), steht im
Kontrast zu Verben, die äußere Passivität verdeutlichen (zweimal wird das Verb
“saß” verwendet, “starren”). Die Hundegestalt scheint nicht nur den Menschen
seiner Umgebung, sondern auch sich selbst entfremdet zu sein, da die innere Ein-
stellung nicht der äußeren Haltung entspricht. Oder sollte El Hors/El Has Skizze
durch die Wahl des Theaters eine betont “zivilisierte” Umgebung andeuten, die die
dem Mann zugesprochenen animalischen und damit für ihn natürlichen Instinkte
unterdrückt, die im Verlauf des Textes durch die Begegnung mit der Frau auf-
brechen und schließlich in einem Lustmord gipfeln?
Die innere Fremdheit wird durch die drei folgenden Worte um eine gefühlte
Entfremdung von den umgebenden Menschen erweitert:
120 MARTINA LÜKE

Er haßte alles.

Nicht nur die abgesonderte Stellung im Raum, auch die geistige Haltung des Mannes
deutet damit eine tiefe Kluft zu der Gesellschaft an. Doch El Hor/El Ha belässt es
nicht bei dieser Betrachtung, sondern fügt noch weitere Polarisierungen hinzu:

Weil er alles mit breitmäuliger Inbrunst liebte und selber so häßlich war.

Der passiven, wachenden Stellung im Äußeren widerspricht die “breitmäulige

Inbrunst” im Inneren, dem “Haß” in der vorherigen Zeile wird nun die “Liebe”
entgegengesetzt. Wiederum ist es die Bezeichnung “alles,” die einen emotionalen
Zustand widersprüchlicher Gefühle beschreibt. Gleichzeitig distanziert ihn die
eigene oder tatsächliche Wahrnehmung der “Häßlichkeit” von seiner Umwelt. Die
Spannung ist für den Leser somit sowohl äußerlich – die Stellung des Mannes im
Publikum und seine äußere Beschreibung – als auch innerlich – sein Hass gegenüber
allem und sein Gefühl der Abgestoßenheit und Entfremdung – erkennbar. Gleich
in den nächsten Zeilen werden dieser bereits mehrfach polarisierenden Einführung
weitere Brüche hinzugefügt:

Da saß eine wunderschöne Frau, die sah plötzlich auf den Mann. Und sie wurde
rot, weil er so böse aussah.

Im Gegensatz zu einem “Mann” ist es nun eine “Frau,” die nicht “häßlich” wie
er ist, sondern als “wunderschön,” und damit als begehrenswert, beschrieben
wird. Sie “starrt” nicht, sondern “sieht” ihn plötzlich. Zugleich steht ihre Spon-
tanität, “plötzlich” erblickt sie ihn und “errötet,” im Gegensatz zu seinem be-
rechnenden “Starren.” Das “Rot” ihres Gesichts steht damit nicht nur in Kontrast
zu seinem hellen, “weißen” Äußeren, sondern es versinnbildlicht im Sinne des
Expressionismus als Farbe des Blutes auch die Impulsivität und Vitaliät der Frau
(Anz 49–60; Martens 110–42). Sie erschrickt darüber, dass er so böse aussieht, was
sie als unschuldig und gut erscheinen lässt.
Zugleich wird der Leser im Ungewissen gelassen, ob diese Vorstellung eines
Antagonismus einer schönen Frau mit einem hässlichen Mann durch einen über-
geordneten Erzähler, durch die Perspektive der Frau, des Mannes oder vielleicht
auch aus Sicht des Publikums in der Erzählung impliziert wird. Der Leser ist vor
allem durch die psychologische Dimension des Textes abgelenkt und daher nicht
mehr in der Lage, den eigentlichen Erzähler oder die faktische Erzählperspektive
zu erkennen, was zu weiteren Gefühlen der Verwirrung und Entfremdung, dies-
mal im Leser selbst, führt. Er ist damit vollkommen auf sich selbst gestellt,
Perspektiven und Widerspüche im Text zu erkennen und zu deuten. So ist auch
in den Texten von El Hor/El Ha unklar, wer die psychologischen Einsichten
und scheinbar allwissenenden Momente im Text bestimmt. Unterstellt die Frau
gewissemaßen dem Mann diese Gedanken? Glaubt sie diesen damit in seiner
Wut, Isolation und “Häßlichkeit” zu erkennen und verstehen, sie “sieht ihn,” was
 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 121

letztlich auch ihre Bereitschaft erklären würde, ihm bedingungslos zu folgen? Ist
es der Mann, der glaubt, diese Gefühle in der Frau zu evozieren? Beschreibt ein
außenstehender Erzähler diese Vorstellungen oder werden hier Beobachtungen und
Mutmaßungen der umgebenden Zuschauer wiedergegeben? Andernfalls könnte
diese Beschreibung tatsächlich den inneren Zustand des Mannes wiederspiegeln,
der in seiner totalen Negativität, im Kontrast zu der Schönheit der Frau im
Speziellen aber auch der harmonischen und gelösten Stimmung seiner Umwelt, des
Theaters, im Allgemeinen steht; eine Darstellung, die auch im bereits erwähnten
Text “Der Mörder” von El Hor/El Ha zu finden ist.
Die beiden Protagonisten werden damit von Beginn an nicht nur (äußerlichen)
Erscheinungsbildern (schön-begehrenswert vs. hässlich-abstoßend, rot vs. weiß),
sondern auch geschlechtlich (Frau vs. Mann), vom Handlungsantrieb (spontan
vs. berechnend) und vom Charakter her (gut vs. böse) als verschieden dargestellt.
Zudem setzen sich beide durch diese detaillierte Beschreibung von der sie um-
gebenden Menschenmenge ab. Deutlich ist hier die Einschätzung von Wolfgang
Rothe über das Menschenbild des Expressionismus erkennbar, der urteilt: “die
Einheit liegt im Antinomischen” (295). Weder der Mann, noch die Frau werden
als individuelle Persönlichkeiten, etwa durch Namen beschrieben. In der Skizze
“Das Abenteuer” bilden beide, als jeweiliges Individuum und in Bezug zu der sie
umgebenden Gesellschaft, sowohl Gegensätze als auch – zumindest kurzfristig
– eine Einheit, denn sie reagieren aufeinander. So scheint der als grimmiges Tier
beschriebene Mann, trotz der inneren und äußeren Gegensätze der Geschlechter,
für die Empfindungen der Frau empfänglich zu sein, denn im folgenden Satz heißt
es:

Der Mann fühlte das und sah zu ihr hin.

Seine Gefühlslage erweckt den Eindruck, sich durch den Einfluss der Frau zu
ändern, indem er ihre Erregung “fühlt” – es bleibt offen, ob mit der sachlichen
Bezeichnung “das” das Ansehen durch die Frau oder ihr Erröten über seine Häss-
lichkeit an sich gemeint ist – und zu ihr sieht. Die Betonung eines ungewissen
Empfindens beziehungsweise eines nicht reflektierten und damit natürlichen Pro-
zesses wird durch die Heraushebung der sinnlichen Ebene, des “Fühlens,” weiter
hervorgehoben. Er betrachtet sie nicht mit demselben “starren” Blick, mit dem er
die andern Menschen beobachtet, sondern er “sieht” sie an, so wie sie zuvor ihn
angesehen hat. Die äußere Passivität und die Insichgekehrtheit des Mannes ist
damit durch die Begegnung mit der Frau durchbrochen worden. Diese Reaktion
wiederum, ruft in ihr eine unkalkulierte Regung hervor, wie der Text fortführt:

Seine Augen waren so häßlich, daß die Frau erschrak.

Die Augen, der vielgerühmte “Spiegel der Seele,” erscheinen ihr so abstoßend,
dass sie dabei Schrecken empfindet. Ist es der unerwartete Blick in die hellen,
kalten Augen, der sie erschauern lässt? Ist es das “Gezerrtsein” seiner Augen, die
122 MARTINA LÜKE

Andersartigkeit, was sie als “häßlich” empfindet? Oder ist es der Hinweis auf seine
Animalität und seine zügellosen Instinkte, verdeutlicht durch die “Verzerrung der
Augen,” der sie entsetzt? El Hor/El Ha geht auf diesen Moment des Schreckens nicht
weiter ein, reiht aber sogleich weitere Brüche an dieses verstörende Erlebnis an:

Dann fing sie an zu lachen, weil sie sich vorstellte, er müßte jetzt gleich laut
bellend über die Sitzreihen springen und ihr die Kehle durchbeißen.

Ihre Reaktion auf diese erschreckende Vorstellung ist ein Lachen. Ist es das
Begehren des Mannes, das sie ersehnt hat, und nun, da es ihrer Meinung nach
offensichtlich geworden ist, erfreut? Noch befindet sie sich trotz dieser Vorstellung
in sicherer Distanz zum Mann. So urteilt Elizabeth Grosz basierend auf Lacan
über das Wechselspiel von begehren und begehrt werden: “His [the man’s] desire
is kept alive because he never truly has her. Ultimately what she values is his
desire for her. It enables her to maintain her apparent independence. She can
feel confident in so far as she is wanted. Ironically, her (secondary) narcissism is
fundamentally other-directed, based on the other’s evaluation of her” (131). Das
Durchbrechen der Ordnung im Theater durch das Aufspringen des Mannes wäre in
diesem Sinne als ein Indiz seiner besinnungslosen Leidenschaft und ihrer starken
Anziehungskraft über ihn zu werten, was ihr schmeichelt und wodurch sie zum
Lachen gereizt werden könnte. Oder ist es die Naivität einer Art Kindfrau, die die
Frau nicht erkennen lässt, in welche tödliche Gefahr sie sich begibt, indem sie sich
mit dem Mann einlässt? Zugleich wird diese unschuldige Vorstellung eines be-
freiten oder glücklichen Lachens (im ersten Teil des Satzes) durch die grausame
Vorstellung, dass er ihr in einem raschen Akt Leid antun könnte (im zweiten Teil
des Satzes) durchbrochen. Wiederum lässt El Hor/El Ha den Leser des Textes im
Ungewissen: lacht die Frau einzig aus Angst und löst dadurch ihre Spannung, oder
ist die Vorstellung, er könne ihr nahe kommen und sie töten, nicht auch mit einer
Art Kombination aus Angst und Lust verbunden? Immerhin ist es die lustvolle Vor-
stellung der Frau, dass er ihr die Kehle durchbeißen könnte. Man könnte daher eine
erotisierte Wahrnehmung seiner Dominanz deuten, zumal die folgenden Zeilen
eine Obsession dieser Vorstellung andeuten:

Dann wurde sie wieder ganz ernst und dachte immerfort daran.

Lacht die Frau ungewollt darüber, dass ihre starke Anziehungskraft ihre unbewussten
Wünsche, die Begehrlichkeit des Mannes geweckt zu haben, in Erfüllung zu
bringen scheint, wodurch für sie zugleich aber auch durch seine “böse” Art eine
(vermutlich tödliche) Gefahr verbunden ist? Der bewusst gemachte Gedanke an
ihre (masochistischen) Vorstellungen reicht ihr jedenfalls nicht mehr, denn die Frau
ergreift die Initiative um diese sie erregende Vorstellung zu verwirklichen:

Als das Theater aus war ging sie zu dem Mann und sagte ganz leise und freundlich
bittend, wie ein sanftes kleines Kind: “Bitte beißen Sie mir die Kehle durch.”
 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 123

Ihre mädchenhaft-kindlich (“leise,” “freundlich,” “sanft”) und unterwürfig vorge-

tragene Bitte widerspricht der aktiven Art, mit der sie zuvor den Mann angesehen
hat, auf den sie direkt “zugeht” und dem brutalen Ziel ihrer offensiven Frage.
Durch diese Darstellung ist somit auf mehrfacher Ebene eine Umkehr von und ein
Spiel mit Passivität und Aktivität gegeben. Der inhaltliche Bruch erfolgt nicht nur
in der Diskrepanz der Frau zwischen dem Entschluss und der Art des Ausführens,
sondern scheinbar auch in dem Widerspruch zu dem Schrecken und der Angst, die
ihr der Mann zuvor eingeflößt hat. Schließlich hat sie nicht nur bereits daran ge-
dacht, dass er ihr die Kehle durchbeißen könnte, sondern dieser Gedanke hat sie
auch zum Lachen gebracht und beschäftigt.
Erneut lässt El Hor/El Ha den Leser im Ungewissen. Erscheint dem Mann etwa
eine vielleicht harmlos vorgetragene Bitte der Frau unmittelbar als Aufforderung,
sie zu töten? Ist er nicht in der Lage, sie richtig zu verstehen – was den Kontrast von
Form und Inhalt der Bitte der Frau erklären würde –, indem seine Vorstellungen
ihre Vorstellungen schlichtweg überdecken? Leitet damit die Aktivität der Frau ihr
Ende ein, ohne dass sich die Frau dessen bewusst ist? Die genannte “Sprachkrise”
der Moderne, die vor allem auch zu Störungen im Miteinander und der Interaktion
von Mann und Frau führt, spiegelt sich somit auch im dieser Prosaskizze El Hors/El
Has wider. Denkbar ist aber auch, dass die die Frau den Mann tatsächlich zu einem
sexuellen Abenteuer auffordert, wofür sie bereit ist, auch eine potentielle Gefahr auf
sich zu nehmen. Dieses würde entsprechende Vorstellungen von “zu berückenden
Todesspielen” bereiten Kurtisanen in der zuvor erwähnten Darstellung El Hors/Els
Has “Harun al Raschids” wiederaufgreifen (67). Ist die Lust der Frau im Theater
so groß, dass sie über den Schrecken und ihre ursprüngliche Angst vor dem Mann
hinwegsieht? Sämtlichen Ansätzen ist dabei gemein, dass El Hor/El Ha damit die
Umkehrung eines scheinbar harmonischen Endes für Mann und Frau vorbereitet.
Zugleich scheint sich die Frau ohne Begleitung im Theater zu befinden. Sie
nimmt aktiv am gesellschaftlichen Leben teil, ist vielleicht auch finanziell unge-
bunden und berufstätig, und kann sich bewusst und selbstbestimmt ihr Leben
und ihre Freizeit gestalten. Dieser Typ der “Neuen Frau” wird dabei von etlichen
zeitgenössischen Männern als befremdlich, provokant, wenn nicht gar bedrohlich,
aber auch als anziehend und als “Freiwild” empfunden (Ankum; Frevert 146–63;
Gleber), wodurch sich erneut Bezüge zur Animalität des Mannes in “Das
Abenteuer” ergeben. Die direkt vorgetragene Bitte der Frau weckt in dem Mann
jedenfalls starke Gefühle und Begierden:

Der Mann sah sie an, und seine Augen glänzten fröhlich auf. “Ja, das will ich –”
sagte er.

Die vermeintliche Bestie, die voller Hass in die Welt starrte, sieht nun mit fröhlich
glänzenden Augen auf die Frau. Erneut lässt sich eine gegensätzliche Struktur
feststellen: während ihre belustigte Stimmung im Theater in Ernsthaftigkeit und
devotes Handeln übergegangen ist, schlagen seine Ernsthaftigkeit und sein Hass
in “Fröhlichkeit” um. El Hor/El Ha spielt hier zugleich auch mit der tradierten
124 MARTINA LÜKE

Gegenüberstellung eines scheinbar aktiven, hässlichen Mannes und einer an-

scheinend passiven, schönen Frau. Ein Erlösen im Sinne des Zusammentreffens
von “la belle et la bête” scheint durch das Zugehen der Frau auf den Mann
stattgefunden zu haben. Nahezu märchenhaft scheint sich somit eine Erlösung
eines in eine Bestie verwandelten Prinzen durch die eine schöne und naiv-reine
Frau anzubahnen. Der Bezug auf dieses literaturgeschichtliche Motiv wirkt auch
insofern plausibel, als dass El Hors/El Has Texte, wie eingangs erwähnt, auf weite
literarische Kenntnisse schließen lassen und explizit Märchen beinhalten. Das
märchenhafte Element wird noch durch die Worte “Ja, – das will ich – ” betont,
die die an glückliche Eheaussichten am Ende vieler Mächendichtungen, etwa
“Dornröschen,” “Der Froschkönig oder der Eiserne Heinrich” oder “Die Gänse-
magd” in den Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812/1815) von Jacob und Wilhelm
Grimm, erinnern.
Gleichzeitig schwingen durch die Gedankenstriche im Sinne von Heinrich
von Kleists “Marquise von O...” (1807) aber auch erneut die Andeutung weiterer
Ebenen mit. El Hor/El Har lässt den Leser wiederum im Ungewissen: Was be-
glückt ihn in diesem Moment? Sie? Ihre Bitte? Haben die beiden die gleichen Vor-
stellungen, von dem was sie beglückt? Was ist “das,” was er genau will? Stimmt
dies mit den Wünschen der Frau überein? Tatsächlich drückt der weitere Verlauf
des Textes eine Entfremdung von Mann und Frau aus:

Sie gingen einen weiten Weg zusammen und sprachen kein Wort.

Die beiden haben sich nichts mehr zu sagen, wobei der Leser erneut im Unklaren
gelassen wird, ob es die Sichtweise des Mannes, der Frau, eines Erzählers oder
entgegenkommender Passanten ist. Die Verständigung scheint nicht gegeben und
unmöglich geworden zu sein. Auch die anfängliche Euphorie und Anziehungskraft
wirken verloren, statt dessen scheint Resignation eingekehrt zu sein. Oder sollte
der Text eine vollendete Harmonie während eines gemeinsamen “weiten Weges”
darstellen, die keinerlei Verständigung mehr bedarf, da, den Vorstellungen eines
klassischen Liebesideals oder einer traditionellen harmonischen Gemeinschaft von
Mann und Frau – ein eheähnlicher Zustand ist unmittelbar zuvor mit den Worten
“Ja, – das will ich” angedeutet worden – entsprechend, keine Worte mehr nötig
sind? Eher ist Ersteres anzunehmen, denn erneut findet ein Bruch statt und das nur
scheinbar ruhige Miteinander hat ein abruptes Ende:

Als sie an einem Platz ankamen, der dem Mann geeignet war, biß er ihr die Kehle
durch.

Erneut findet sich eine Anspielung auf Märchen, indem die Tat erst nach zwei
Ankündigungen erfolgt und damit auf die symbolische Zahl “Drei” hinweist, der
zufolge unter anderem die dritte und letzte Prüfung die Erlösung mit sich bringt
(siehe etwa “Aschenputtel” und “Das Wasser des Lebens” in den 1812/1815 ver-
öffentlichten Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Gebrüder Grimm). Nachdem die
 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 125

Frau zuvor auf ihn zugekommen ist, ist der Mann nun wieder der aktive Part:
er entscheidet sowohl über den Ort, der Platz ist für ihn “geeignet,” als auch das
Geschehen: er “beißt” ihr durch den Hals. Sie ist hingegen absolut passiv und
scheint ihm sogar ohne Gegenwehr zu ermöglichen, ihr den Hals durchzubeißen.
Dies deutet eine Polarisierung in Täter und Opfer. Anders als im Theater, wo
sich die Frau eine abrupte Durchbrechung in ihrer passiven Rolle inmitten eines
Publikums vorstellt, erfolgt die Tat erst, nachdem ein gut gelegener Ort gefunden
worden ist. Die Beschreibung eines “geeigneten Platzes” für die Tat des Mannes
erinnert zugleich an die Auswahl eines Tatortes durch einen Mörder. Erst dann
kann er ihr nach dem gemeinsamen Weg die Kehle durchbeißen. Ebenso weckt das
direkte Ansprechen des Mannes durch die Frau, der schweigende gemeinsame Weg
und die Suche nach einem geeigneten Platz Assoziationen an eine Prostituierte, die
einen Freier angesprochen hat, was in einer Vielzahl von Texten und Filmen des
Expressionismus eine bedeutende Rolle einnimmt (vgl. Petro 160–74; Schönfeld;
Ward 230). Der Aspekt von Macht und Vorstellungen von der Frau als ein nun auf
den Straßen der Großstädte sichtbar flanierendes Objekt des Begehrens ist in der
Entstehungszeit des “Abenteuers” weit verbreitet, da die unverheiratete, arbeitende
Frau und die in der Öffentlichkeit ohne männliche Begleitung auftretende Frau
als sexuell verfügbar gilt. Entsprechend werden aus den Großstädten um die Jahr-
hundertwende viele Fälle von sexuellen Übergriffen, häufig mit tödlichem Verlauf,
berichtet (siehe Ankum 166 und 176–77; Bergstrom and Johnson 345–67; Gleber
177; Lewis, Lustmord).
Durch diese Anspielung greift El Hor/El Ha auf, dass zu Beginn des 20.
Jahrhundert eine aktive Herangehensweise einer Frau an einen Mann, der zudem
zuvor ihre Begierde weckte, wie El Hor/El Ha die Gefühle der schönen Frau im
Theater schildert, nicht nur als provokante beziehungsweise unweibliche Haltung
abgelehnt, sondern auch mit der Handlung von “leichten Mädchen” gleichgesetzt
worden wäre. Auch die gegenseitige Faszination von Mann und Frau in “Das
Abenteuer” ist überwiegend äußerer, wenn nicht sogar rein sexueller Natur. Eine
traditionelle Vereinigung von Mann und Frau ist ebenso wie eine märchenhafte
Verbindung beider nicht mehr möglich, sondern endet in beiden Fällen als töd-
liches Lustspiel zweier Individuen, die sich (zu weit) voneinander entfremdet
haben. Ebenso betont Rothe die negative Darstellung des Sexuellen durch die
Expressionisten und ihre Aufdeckung der “dunklen Bereiche des Geschlechtlichen,
seine Brutalität, Scheußlichkeit und Zerstörungsgewalt” (322).
Der Mann in der Prosaskizze ist wieder zum Tier geworden oder ist das wilde
Biest geblieben, während diejenige, die von der vorgeblich abschreckenden Art
des Mannes gleichermaßen angezogen und abgestoßen ist und ihn gewissermaßen
zu erlösen sucht, getötet wird. Duch ihre neuerworbene Freizügigkeit wird die
Frau zum Freiwild eines Biests und muss für die Durchbrechung ihrer Passivität
– sie macht den ersten Schritt auf den Mann zu – und für ihren Wunsch, Lust zu
erfahren, mit ihrem Leben bezahlen. Als sie sich tatsächlich auf ein “Abenteuer”
mit ihm einlässt, bezahlt sie dies mit ihrem Leben. Ihr Zugehen auf den Mann,
das Durchbrechen einer passiven Rolle, löst somit letztlich ihre Ermordung
126 MARTINA LÜKE

aus. Ebenso unterliegt auch der Mann entweder dem Missverständnis, ihren
spielerisch vorgetragen Wunsch wörtlich zu nehmen und sie mit seiner Gewalt
zu zerstören, oder, was wahrscheinlicher erscheint, ihm lag von Anfang an nur an
der Erfüllung seiner Begierden, ohne Rücksicht auf ihre wirklichen Vorstellungen,
und ist nun mit seiner Handlung zufrieden. In beiden Fällen besteht bei Mann
und Frau gleichermaßen das Unverständnis, den “Anderen” wirklich zu erkennen
und dementsprechend zu reagieren. Huber verweist vor dem Hintergrund einer
“erotischen Doppelstruktur [von] Geschlechtermythos und Sexualgroteske” des
Expressionismus auf das Motiv einer “kompensatorischen Bewältigung sexueller
Frustration” (117 und 118–41). So scheint auch der Mann in “Das Abenteuer” nach
der Tat, mit der er das freizügige Streben der Frau ein grausames Ende bereitet hat,
befriedigt:

Dann leckte er sich das Blut vom Mund, streckte sich und ging davon.

Der Mann hat sich so gesehen als der Stärkere erwiesen, der über die freizügige
Frau triumphiert. Wie nach dem Genuss einer leckeren Speise hat er den Biss in
ihr Fleisch und den Geschmack ihres Blutes genossen. Er “leckt sich das Blut” ab
– ist damit gemeint, dass er sinnbildlich ihre Lebenslust und Dynamik in sich auf-
nimmt, bis sie schließlich ohne Leben vor ihm liegt? Werden dem Mann durch El
Hor/El Ha damit nicht auch vampirhafte Züge gegeben? Ist es die Schönheit und
Vitalität, die er zerstören muss, da er, wie es im Theater beschrieben würde, alles
hasst, was er doch eigentlich begehrt und “mit Inbrunst” liebt? Die Leidenschaft
zur begehrenswerten Frau würde demnach immer auch untrennbar mit Hass und
Zerstörung verbunden sein. Oder bestraft er die Frau dafür, dass sie ihn sowohl
durch ihre Handlung – sie hat indirekt über ihn gelacht und ihn angesprochen
– als auch ihr attraktives Äußeres provoziert hat? El Hor/El Ha deutet mögliche
Gründe nur an. Gleichwohl ist der Mann nach der Tat befriedigt: er “leckt sich”
den blutenden Mut ab, als habe er etwas Wohlschmeckendes in sich aufgenommen,
was erneut Assoziatioenn mit einem Vampir hervorruft, “streckt” sich, als Zeichen
höchsten Wohlbehagens, und “geht davon.” Im Sinne Lacan ist das Verlangen ge-
stillt und das Objekt hat jegliche Faszination verloren (Ecrits 290). Nimmt man
die Formulierung des Leckens wortwörtlich, so ist auch bei El Hor/El Ha, das
Verlangen wortwörtlich wie Durst gestillt worden, wobei die Interesselosigkeit des
Mannes in der Prosaskizze noch dadurch bestärkt wird, dass er die verstümmelte
Leiche der Frau einfach liegen lässt.
Den Mann verbindet nichts mit der Frau, mit der er doch einen Weg zusammen
gegangen ist und die er (kurzfristig) leidenschaftlich begehrte. Ist möglicherweise
mit dem Platz eine größere Fläche gemeint, die nun nachts – die beiden kommen
aus dem Theater – leer daliegt und sich für ein Verbrechen eignen könnte? Dies und
die Tatsache, dass er nicht den Versuch macht, die Leiche zu verbergen, impliziert
zudem, dass er will, dass sie entdeckt wird. Hier findet sich erneut die Vorstellung
eines Lustmordes, indem der Mörder nach der Tat und der Befriedigung seines
sexuellen Triebes das Opfer unbeachtet am Tatort zurücklässt. Oder ist er doch
 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 127

nur der Vollstrecker der, bereits geschilderten, unbewussten Wünsche der Frau
im Theater, begehrenswert zu sein, auch um den Preis, getötet zu werden? Damit
hätte der Mann letztlich ihren Wunsch – seine Leidenschaft zu wecken und letzt-
lich durch ihn den Tod zu finden – befriedigt. El Hor/El Ha verzichtet, gemäß der
durchgängigen Ambivalenz des Textes, auf eine eindeutige Interpretation. Wenn-
gleich der Titel “Ein Abenteuer” lautet, so ist dieses nicht unmittelbar evident. Erst
im Verlauf des Textes wird dem Leser ersichtlich, dass damit auch ein “sexuelles
Abenteuer” gemeint ist, das für die Frau tödlich endet. Zugleich wird der Mann
als gefährliche Bestie beschrieben, als einen gefährlichen und unerklärlichen
“Anderen,” der der zeitgenössischen Auffassung von Lustmördern entspricht:

Branded a maniac, beast, monster, or vampire, the sexual murder often escapes
psychiatric and legal definition by moving into a special category beyond human
terms. He does not need to be analyzed in conventional ways because he re-
presents a “unique” deviation from the norm, an anomaly that can become less
troubling than it should be because it is defined as “other” and “alien” rather than
as the product of a familiar social reality. (Tatar 26)

Ungeachtet der Tatsache, dass, wie geschildert, offen gelassen wird, wer diese
Perspektive eigentlich vertritt und bestätigt (der Mann/das Publikum/die Frau/ein
auktorialer Erzähler), so wirkt auch der Mann in der Prosaskizze wie ein “maniac,
beast, monster, or vampire.” Die Frau wird gerade durch diese Fremdartigkeit, die
sie nicht verstehen kann, sexuell angezogen. Einem Lustmörder gleich, kommt die
Zufriedenheit des Mannes mit sich selbst erst dann wieder zum Vorschein, nach-
dem er durch die Tat seine dominierende Rolle wiederhergestellt hat.
In El Hors/El Has “Das Abenteuer” werden Mann und Frau gleichermaßen
von widersprüchlichen Gefühlen angetrieben und reagieren aufeinander, wobei
das Miteinander beider im Sinne Lacans mit imaginierten Vorstellungen des je-
weils anderen verbunden und dadurch zum Scheitern bedingt ist. So schreibt er
in “Jouissance of Woman” von der Unmöglichkeit eindeutiger männlicher und
weiblicher Kommunikation, so dass Elizabeth Grosz urteilt: “this demand for one
is a demand for an impossible harmony and complementary between the sexes”
(138). In “Das Abenteuer” definieren beide Haupfiguren ihre Begierden, und
damit sich selbst, durch den jeweils anderen, ohne sich wirklich wahrnehmen und
artikulieren zu können. Die gestörte Kommunikation zwischen Mann und Frau,
die zuvor bezeichnender Weise “schweigend” nebeneinander hergehen, gipfelt
schließlich in der Zertrennung der Stimmbänder der Frau. Der Dialog wird durch
den Mord letztlich zum Monolog und erinnert an Michel Foucaults Vorstellungen
eines “insane dialogue of love and death” (210).
Wenngleich der Text El Hors/El Has eine scheinbare Logik im Aufein-
andertreffen von Mann und Frau wiedergibt und sich beiderseitiger Wunsch ver-
meintlich erfüllt, so sind in diesem “insane dialogue” dennoch weder der Mann
noch die Frau in der Lage, die eigene Individualität zugunsten einer Vereinigung
aufzugeben und sich auf den anderen so einzulassen, wie er ist. Beider Ent-
128 MARTINA LÜKE

fremdung wird in “Das Abenteuer” somit nur durch die absolute Unterlegenheit
und die totale Passivität der Frau, ihren Tod, aufgelöst. Die gestörte Beziehung der
Geschlechter äußert sich in einer fatalen Auseinandersetzung von Mann und Frau,
einem Anti-Märchen, in dem nur einer von beiden bestehen kann. Wiederum sind
Polarisierungen erkennbar, wie sie für den Expressionismus so kennzeichnend
sind. Auch Barbara D. Wright urteilt in ihrer Untersuchung expressionistischer
Zeitschriften: “in the view of most – though not all – Expressionist essayists, the
relationship between male and female was necessarily hostile. For many, it was
deeply hostile as well” (“New Man, Eternal Woman” 582).
In der Skizze El Hors/El Has wird nicht nur eine feindliche Haltung von
Mann und Frau beschrieben, sondern ein vorgebliches Ungleichgewicht der
Geschlechterverhältnisse – die Aktivität der “neuen Frau” – durch die Pro-
tagonisten wiederhergestellt, indem der Mann mit Gewalt über die Frau dominiert.
Wenngleich ein sexueller Übergriff nicht ausdrücklich erwähnt wird, so wird die
seit der Begegnung im Theater bestehende sexuelle Spannung von Mann und
Frau durch einen äußerst brutalen Übergriff mit Todesfolge beendet, so dass die
Prosaskizze eindeutig als Darstellung eines Lustmords interpretiert werden kann.
Ähnlich scheinen zumindest auch zeitgenössische Leser geurteilt zu haben, denn
so urteilt der Literat Paul Leppin in der Prager Presse vom 18. Juni 1920 über El
Hor/El Has Skizzen:

El Ha, die ohne Prätention dem Literarischen aus dem Wege geht, gibt un-
pathetische Referate aus der Werkstatt der Natur und des Eros. Die Perversion
des Geschlechts, das in der Qual der Kreatur eigenwillige Erlösungen aufgräbt,
der inbrünstige dumpfe Drang des Lustmörders quellen überklar aus dem Gefüge
ihrer Notizen. (zit. Suhrbier 105–06).

Die Expressionistin El Hor/El Ha bietet daher sowohl Einblicke in Auffassungen

der Zeit als auch in ihre ästhetische Umsetzung aus weiblicher Perspektive und die
Addition psychologischer Dimensionen. Sie zeichnet in “Das Abenteuer” das Bild
einer unmöglichen Verständigung von Mann und Frau als Folge von gestörter
Wahrnehmung. Bezeichnender Weise heißt es auch in der in der Sammlung Die
Schaukel aufgeführten Prosaskizze “Die Begegnung” bei El Hor/El Ha:

Er rief ihren Namen, seine Stimme kam wie von fern, und es war ein tiefer
Schrecken darin. Ein ganz kurzes Erkennen zuckte zwischen ihnen auf, und dann
wurde es wieder dunkel. (16)

Diese Entfremdung von Mann und Frau und die gleichzeitige Anziehung und
Abgestoßenheit gipfelt in “Das Abenteuer” in perverser Logik im Mord der
Protagonistin. Sie verfügt sowohl über passive als auch aktive Eigenschaften,
bezahlt jedoch ihre Aktivität und ihr sexuelles Interesse an einem Liebesspiel
mit einem ihr unbekannten Mann mit dem Tod. Eros und Thanatos sind damit
nicht nur untrennbar verbunden, sondern das Leben von Mann und Frau scheint
geradezu durch die Nähe und die Gefahr des Todes intensiviert. Eine Ästhetik
 Die expressionistische Dichtung von El Hor/El Ha 129

des Hässlichen, groteske und surreale Elemente unterstreichen diese ambivalente

Struktur und deuten zugleich die negative Folgen voraus, indem sich scheinbar
märchenhafte Begegnungen in ein blutiges Anti-Märchen umkehren.
El Hors/El Has expressionistisches Spiel mit Erzählperspektiven, die Bildung
und Aufhebung von Gegensätzen führt zu Brüchen und damit nicht nur zur Distanz
von herkömmlicher Erzähltradition sondern, nicht zuletzt durch das drastische
Ende, auch zu Unbehagen und schockierender Befremdung im Leser. Durch ihre
feine sprachliche Gestaltung und Addition tiefenpsychologischer Dimensionen
bietet sie zugleich eine Ergänzung zu den Dichtungen männlicher Expressionisten.
Eine Beschäftigung mit El Hor/El Ha verdeutlicht, dass diesen Darstellungen die
beeindruckenden literarischen und psychologischen Verarbeitungen einer bisher
nicht genügend beachteten expressionistischen Dichterin hinzugefügt werden
sollte, um so ein vollständigeres Bild der Literatur der Moderne ermöglichen zu
können and “to help to keep Expressionism, its legacy and its lessons, a vital part
of intellectual discourse” (Wright, “Intimate Strangers” 291).

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German Quarterly 60.4 (1987): 582–99.
Allegorical Slumber: Somnambulism and
Salvation in Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem
ERIC KLAUS Hobart and William Smith College
Immer mehr verlässt sich der Mensch auf die Denkdrüse,
und da sie ihm nichts verrät, was mit Magie und den andern
verborgenen Kräften der Seele zusammenhängt, wähnt er,
dergleichen existiere überhaupt nicht oder sei gering zu
schätzen. (Meyrink, “Die Verwandlung des Blutes” 205)

This quote articulates a concern of Gustav Meyrink (1868–1932) that permeates

his thought and writing – the “hidden forces of the soul” have lost their significance
and influence in modern times. The existence of the intangible realm, as well as
its accessibility, occupied his thoughts, his writings, and his own esoteric pursuits
throughout his adult life. In both his theoretical and fictional writings, he returns
to images and tropes that illustrate the condition of possibility for perceiving, in-
terpreting, and integrating the forces of the spiritual self into one’s material life.
A prominent trope in this project is the somnambulist: a wanderer in the region
between waking and deep sleep who can unite disparate parts of the self and thus
secure salvation by overcoming the fears and limitations of the material world.
This article will analyze somnambulism in Meyrink’s novel Der Golem (1915)
through the lens of allegory.
Meyrink’s frustration with the lionization of reason at the expense of the
“hidden forces of the soul” is not unique for his time. His are views shared by a
great many writers during the latter half of the nineteenth through the first third
of the twentieth centuries. During this period much of Europe experienced a
profound series of crises: The debates and disagreements surrounding epistemo-
logical issues in particular offers intriguing insight into this time of crisis. These
discussions were a response to questions as to how to deal with the duality of
mind and body, of material and spirit. For example, positivism and materialism,
as articulated by August Comte (1798–1857) and Karl Marx (1818–1883),
spawned methods of inquiry that promised unimpeachable answers to life’s
fundamental questions, a promise that was grounded in the repudiation of meta-
physical, spiritual factors. In describing these movements, Corinna Treitel points
to Ludwig Büchner, who dismissed any attempt to pursue legitimate knowledge
via supernatural means as “idle fantasy.” Treitel writes that for Büchner, “Clair-
voyants, somnambulists, and others who claimed to know a supernatural or
transcendent reality by nonsensual means contradicted this iron law of nature”
(34).

seminar 46:2 (May 2010)

132 ERIC KLAUS

The vehemence of those who banned metaphysical concerns from epistem-

ology was met with equal force by the defiance of those who legitimized the
spiritual realm. For example, Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) wrote: “that which
withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art”
(221). For Benjamin, each aesthetic product bears a spiritual component that
becomes detached when that product is mass-produced in the modern age.
Others felt that the answers to their questions were to be found by melding
the material and the spiritual. This approach was crystallized in occultist and
esoteric movements, most prominently in theosophy, whose practitioners
included Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, Annie Besant, and
Rudolph Steiner. Founded in New York City in 1875, theosophy was open
to all people irrespective of race, colour, or creed, and it fostered the study
of comparative religions and philosophy to unearth common ground among
spiritual and intellectual traditions across the world in order to unite the material
and the mystical (Cranston 146–47). Central to each of these approaches to
ascertaining truth is the inherent dualism of humanity, and this dualism is also
reflected in Meyrink’s epistemology.
Throughout his adult life, Meyrink believed that fundamental truths of
existence are found in the shadows of the spiritual realm, and his pursuit
of these truths resulted in decades of occultist practices. His nonfiction, for
example in texts such as An der Grenze des Jenseits (1923) and “Hochstapler
der Mystik” (1927), is rich in accounts of his own experimentations with
esoteric traditions, including theosophy. He not only corresponded and met
with Besant and Steiner respectively, but also founded a theosophical lodge in
Prague in 1891. Eventually, he moved beyond the empty promises of the Theo-
sophical Society and developed his own epistemology. Through his attempts
to acquire esoteric knowledge, he believed he had discovered the underlying
structure of the human psyche – that there is a schism between the daily or
waking consciousness and the realms of spiritual experience, but that this
bifurcation can be healed through esoteric training, which aids in achieving
spiritual salvation. Salvation for Meyrink does not correspond to a Christian
notion of the soul’s ascendance into an other-worldly paradise, but resides in
freedom from fear and from the exigencies of material existence. This theme
dominated his fiction and as a result expresses seminal characteristics of
modernism – a movement from around 1880 to the 1930s that constitutes the
aesthetic articulation of modernity.
Modernity resists an all-encompassing definition and continues to generate
attempts to circumscribe its complex structure. Broadly viewed as a series of
social and intellectual upheavals beginning in the Renaissance, several critics and
cultural theorists argue that modernity describes experiences and relationships
permeated by ambivalence: the clash of concomitant yet mutually exclusive
paradigms (Bauman 5; Berman 16; Habermas 3; Kniesche and Brockmann
7–12; Treitel 17–19). In the works of many modernists, this intellectual and
social turbulence is often registered in the image of the somnambulist, for the
 Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem 133

somnambulist embodies a condition of transition, of experience between the

known and the unknown.
Hermann Broch’s trilogy, Die Schlafwandler (1931–1932), for example,
presents a “historisch/erkenntnistheoretische Darstellung jenes vierhundert-
jährigen Prozesses, der unter der Leitung des Rationalen das christlich-
platonische Weltbild des mittelalterlichen Europas auflöste” (734). As such, his
sleepwalkers are caught in the massive flux of historical and epistemological
shifts as they manifested themselves at the turn of the twentieth century. Another
example of a sleepwalker is Cesare, the ghoulish instrument of Caligari’s mad-
ness in Robert Wiene’s 1919 film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. This incarnation
of the somnambulist inhabits a dark corner of modernity – the danger that lurks
among the intangible and hidden powers of the mind. Meyrink, as another voice
in this choir, recognizes neither uneasiness nor perniciousness in somnambulism.
Instead, he views the somnambulistic condition as integral to mending the
inherent rift within each human being.
A colourful and controversial figure, Meyrink was often in the centre of
conflict because of his brazen and iconoclastic character (Frank; Karle; Lube;
Marzin; Mitchell; Smit). Even his position in literary history has been the sub-
ject of debate (Cersowsky; Frank; Marzin; Qasim; Schödel; Wolkan). One of
the reasons why he was so controversial was his caustic derision of those who
favoured empirical science at the expense of the occult. In numerous novellas
and short stories he satirized what he viewed to be blind faith in the promise
of science to answer all of life’s questions. In addition to his satires, he also
chronicled his own attempts to harness occultist forces, and his novels arguably
could be read as fictionalized accounts of individuals on journeys of salvation,
journeys that overcome dualism and lead to freedom and felicity. Salvation is
realized only at the end of a process of awakening to higher knowledge, and this
awakening is contingent upon escaping daily consciousness and entering a state
of awareness akin to a somnambulistic state.
Meyrink often writes about varying degrees of awareness that hinge on
the underlying dualistic structure of human experience. His nonfiction writing
concerns two levels of consciousness within each human being, or what he calls
“Tagesbewußtsein,” or “das körperliche Normalbewußtsein” (Frank 433), and
“Unterbewußte,” or “Überbewußte” (Frank 240). He then argues that the division
of these levels of consciousness is the cause of much suffering and that one can
ameliorate this pain by breaking free of the Tagesbewußtsein and thus bridging
these two levels of consciousness. For example, in An der Grenze des Jenseits,
he writes of a state of hyperawareness (Überwachsein) achieved through yoga
and tantamount to the Nirvana of the Buddha (Frank 434). Elsewhere, he claims
that spiritual awakening and the healing of the intrapersonal divide is contingent
upon achieving a “quasi-dead” (Scheintod) condition (Frank 234). Each of these
states transcends the Tagesbewußtsein and makes the individual aware of the
previously unknown Überbewußte, making unification possible. This moment
of transcending everyday awareness and coming into contact with higher states
134 ERIC KLAUS

of consciousness is translated in many ways in Meyrink’s fiction. The actor

Zrcaldo in Walpurgisnacht (1918) wanders in a trance when communing with
the other side; the protagonist of Der weiße Dominikaner (1921), Christopher
Taubenschlag, traverses the boundary of waking consciousness and spiritual
enlightenment in a dream; alchemy is one of the instruments Baron Müller em-
ploys in Der Engel vom westlichen Fenster (1929) to liberate his spirit from
waking consciousness. In Der Golem (1915), somnambulism is the trope most
closely associated with the condition in which the unnamed narrator, Pernath,
crosses the planes of consciousness. It is not a far leap to link his condition to
somnambulism, for in “Die Verwandlung des Blutes” Meyrink compares the
state of heightened awareness he achieved directly to that of the somnambulist
(Frank 216).
Der Golem is a framed narrative and begins with an unnamed protagonist
drifting off to sleep after having read a biography of the Buddha. He begins
to dream, and this dream is the bridge between the framed and embedded nar-
ratives. The dreamer is struck by the feeling of having his ego, his “I,” slip out
of his body and into the body of a stranger – Athanasius Pernath, the protagonist
of the embedded narrative. The reader then follows Pernath as he encounters the
tempestuous personalities and negotiates the perilous day-to-day workings of the
Prague ghetto.
From this point the narrative pursues a parallel plot: a detective story and
Pernath’s spiritual awakening. Pernath stands entangled in both threads, as an
unscrupulous member of the ghetto has him falsely charged with the murder of
a local watchmaker. As a result, he is arrested and subsequently, after months of
incarceration, released. These Kafkaesque events occur alongside his spiritual
journey, but these threads also intersect, for while in prison he encounters
Amadeus Laponder, a rapist/murderer who teaches Pernath how to decipher the
mystical language of the soul. This kind of interaction is not unique. During
this process of self-discovery, Pernath comes into contact with gurus, ghoulish
apparitions, and mystical texts. All of this culminates in his release from prison
and return to the ghetto only to find it abandoned. On Christmas Eve, fire breaks
out in his building, and he escapes by climbing out of his window and falls to
the pavement below, but not before witnessing visions on the way down that
bear great import to his destiny. This signals the end of the embedded narrative
and brings the reader back to the slumbering unnamed protagonist of the frame.
In contrast to the smooth transition from the frame to the beginning of Pernath’s
story, the return to the frame is abrupt, with the protagonist awaking from his
dream with a start to learn that he had lived many years of Pernath’s life in less
than one hour.
Upon waking, the protagonist realizes that he had taken the wrong hat at
High Mass earlier in the day – the hat belonging to Athanasius Pernath. Wishing
to return the hat to its owner, he seeks out and eventually finds Pernath in the
Alchimistengasse on the Hradschin, a place of great spiritual energy that the
narrator encountered in his dream. Some seventy years after the events of the
 Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem 135

embedded narrative took place, Pernath lives on in an idyllic setting, under the
symbol of the hermaphrodite with his beloved Miriam, who was an important
figure in his path to liberation from the material world. Two further aspects of
the ending of the novel are worth noting. Although he lived decades prior to this
discovery, he has not aged a day, he exists in a place beyond time. Also, he and
the unnamed narrator are physically identical.
Many critics have commented on the fantastic and occultist elements of
the novel (Cersowsky; Jansen; Jennings; Marzin; Mitchell; Oehm; Pastuszka;
Qasim; Wünsch). Although rich in insight and rigour, these analyses nevertheless
tend to overlook a seminal trope in Pernath’s journey: that of the somnambulist.
A reading that foregrounds somnambulism redresses this deficiency in the
secondary literature and reveals the novel to be the fictional representation of
a spiritual pilgrimage towards the healing of the internal duality discussed in
Meyrink’s autobiographical texts. This interpretation, which combines fiction
and autobiography, comes into focus through the lens of allegory.
Many approaches to the genre of allegory (Broszeit-Rieger 28; Cowan
114; Nägele 85; Tesky 397–408) point to a common facet of allegorical texts.
Allegory is an exegetical matrix, a text that creates a space in which different
interpretations can arise. The key to multiple interpretations resides in the
narrative structure. The allegory requires the interplay of two texts: the primary
text and the “proof text.” The interpretation of an allegory requires an external
text or narrative such as the Bible, myth, social mores, political realities (Mad-
sen; Quilligan). A coupling of the primary and proof texts extrapolates a reading
distinct from – yet coeval to – the original narrative.
An approach suitable to an allegorical reading of Meyrink’s text emerges from
Deborah Madsen’s monograph. She identifies two species of allegory that have
developed over time: allegory as metaphor (fabulistic) and allegory as metonymy
(figurative). Allegory as metaphor portrays an “arbitrary relation of similitude
between text and its referent” (50). An example of this is Aesop’s fables. They
represent “a direct signifying relationship between textual signs and an extrinsic
system of ideas” (34). This species of allegory links signs in a text – for example
a fox and a crow – to a general moral code, for example, that flattery from
certain quarters should be accepted with a grain of salt. The other type, on which
this study focusses, is metonymic, in that there exists an “intrinsic similitude”
between the primary text and the proof-text. Madsen quotes A. C. Charity’s
definition of typology to help clarify metonymic allegory: “One thing does not
mean another in typology: it involves it, or has inferences for it, or suggests it,
and it does all these things for no other reason than that there is a real, existential,
parallel, as well as a certain historical dependency and continuity between the
events which typology relates” (44). An example of this kind of allegory is
the Christian exegesis of the Bible. When reading the Bible, one identifies an
interpretive relation between the Old Testament figure and its spiritual, New
Testament referent (45). Essential to this latter species of allegory, as Madsen
frames it, are shared figures or themes that link both texts. An allegorical reading
136 ERIC KLAUS

of Der Golem is a viable interpretive approach by dint of the intrinsic, existential

similitude between Meyrink’s novel and his autobiographical texts, specifically,
“Die Verwandlung des Blutes”: the supernatural images and symbols in his novel
have counterparts in his autobiographical text. In this text, Meyrink interweaves
personal experiences, philosophical reflections, and polemical exclamations to
illustrate the schism of the psyche as well as to help the reader to overcome this
intrinsic ailment. At the nexus of this textual confluence stands, or wanders, the
sleepwalker.
The sleepwalker is the lynchpin for an allegorical reading. Although “Die
Verwandlung des Blutes” was most likely written in the 1920s, a full decade
after Der Golem was published, the events depicted in the autobiographical text
predate the novel. Accordingly, “Die Verwandlung des Blutes” describes ex-
periences and fundamental themes that find expression Meyrink’s oeuvre. The
contiguity between the two texts resides not in a precise mirroring of biography
and fiction, but in shared signposts along paths to salvation. First, one must
become receptive to the turbulence of the supernatural realm. This is achieved
by entering a trance represented by somnambulism. Contact with the apparitions
of the spiritual realm is the next phase. Specifically, one encounters one’s own
intuition, which appears as a mysterious figure often disguised or masked
and which imparts knowledge cloaked in symbols and hieroglyphs. Finally,
one deciphers the language of the intuition with the help of guides and gurus.
Possessing this knowledge, one is able to unify the physical and the spiritual
realms and become master of one’s fate – the seminal moment in securing one’s
salvation.
A comparison of Meyrink’s biography to the path to salvation detailed
above reveals that the two narratives do not completely coincide. As described
in “Der Lotse,” his search for salvation began not with a trance, but with the
intervention by the masked figure he calls “the pilot” before he practiced yoga
and fell into the trance necessary to break free from the material self. The current
argument, however, does not claim an absolute equivalence between Meyrink’s
personal experiences and his fiction. His fiction is a translation of his personal
experiences and should not be viewed as possessing a direct correlation to his
esoteric philosophy (Wünsch 531). For example, his novels explore a variety
of esoteric traditions, and therefore one cannot ascribe a one-to-one connection
between his own views and the views and deeds portrayed in his novels. Instead,
the current study argues that throughout his fiction and nonfiction there are
common processes that allow for the identification of patterns in his texts that
invite comparisons. By identifying the common traits in both “Die Verwandlung
des Blutes” and Der Golem, this study’s allegorical approach will highlight the
“real, existential and certain historical dependency and continuity” (Madsen 44)
between the texts that marks metonymic allegory.
The first common trait of these processes that heal the duality in each
human being is entering the realm of the supernatural through a somnambulistic
trance. In “Die Verwandlung des Blutes,” Meyrink writes: “Jeder Mensch ist
 Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem 137

im Bewußtsein gespalten” (239). This doubled self is a seminal component

of Meyrink’s works. Andrew J. Webber writes that “the Doppelgänger in
his novels combine the totemic powers of a mystic cult figure with the
symptomatic features of the Freudian unconscious” (352). The main concern
of this text is to teach the reader how to heal this inner spiritual divide in order
to take control of his or her fate, to become “Herr über sein Schicksal” (“Die
Verwandlung des Blutes” 208). The method for healing the spiritual divide
is the practice of proper yoga. “Yoga umschließt alle Praxis auf seelischem
und geistigem Gebiet; ist also jene gewisse Werktätigkeit, die dem Menschen
der Jetztzeit so gut wie ganz fehlt. Ich möchte sagen: Yoga ist der Sauerteig,
theoretische Erkenntnisse nur Mehl und Wasser” (238). Yoga, which Meyrink
notes is largely absent in modern society, is an instrument for mediating
between the spiritual and material realities because it marries spiritual energy
to worldly activity. By properly practicing yoga, Meyrink pursues a cure for
the spiritual division by achieving a “Verbindung,” described here as “die un-
lösbare Einswerdung des Menschen mit sich selbst” (239). The unification
of the individual with him or herself occurs through “die Vereinigung des
Unterbewußten oder Überbewußten, wenn man dieses Wort gelten lassen will,
mit dem Tagesbewußtsein des Menschen” (240). This is the crux of his text and
indeed much of his ourevre. The individual is divided, is its own Doppelgänger.
Gerald Bär notes that “Das Doppelgänger motiv bleibt in verschiedene Aus-
formungen stets Bestandteil einer okkultischen Dynamik” (399), and this
occultist dyamic permeates Meyrink’s texts. The healing of the inner schism
from which each individual suffers stems from the unification of one’s latent,
spiritual consciousness and one’s waking, empirical consciousness. He outlines
how this unification is conducted, and uses a seminal metaphor in illustrating
this process: the somnambulist.
Meyrink’s first successful endeavours in yoga are marked by falling into a
stupor akin to somnambulism. He explains:

Ich beobachtete mich selbst dabei so scharf ich nur konnte. Dabei wurde mir
bald klar: all das geschieht nur zu dem Zweck, damit du die Augachsen parallel
stellst. Zugleich erinnerte ich mich, in Büchern gelesen zu haben, daß der Blick
der Somnambulen im Zustand der Ekstase immer wie in die Ferne schauend
gewesen sei. (216)

It is quite apt that Meyrink equates somnambulism with entering the state of
proper yoga and accessing the supernatural. Sleepwalkers exist in a state of
intermediate consciousness – or as a character in Der Golem describes it: the
sleepwalker wanders in a region between waking and deep sleep. Investigations
into the nature of somnambulism and its relation to the “nightlife of the soul”
were common during this period, for it was argued that communication with
the spiritual realm is possible in this region of existence (Treitel 30–40). While
in his trance, Meyrink discovers and develops the ability of “inneres Schauen”
138 ERIC KLAUS

– the capacity of perceiving physical manifestations emanating from the spiritual

realm.
Meyrink tells of meditating outside and wondering to himself how late it had
become. It was then that he saw a vision:

Da, gerade in diesem Augenblick jenes Herausgerissenseins aus meiner

Versenkung sah ich mit einer Schärfe und Deutlichkeit, wie ich vorher niemals
in meinem Leben irgendeinen wirklichen Gegenstand wahrgenommen zu haben
mich erinnere, eine riesige Uhr grell leuchtend am Himmel stehen. Die Zeiger
wiesen: zwölf Minuten vor zwei. (214)

In fact it was twelve to two. Meyrink’s “inner eye,” which yoga had opened,
had perceived the correct time. The ability of inner sight becomes possible
after entering a heightened state of spiritual awareness (217). He discovers
the supernatural by assuming the eyes of a “somnambulist” – a state of inter-
consciousness that bridges the gap between the “Unterbewusste” and the “Tages-
bewusstsein.” It is between waking and deep sleep that one enters this realm.
The protagonist in Der Golem, Athanasius Pernath, finds himself in similar
situations.
At one point in the embedded narrative, Pernath falls into a deep trance and
is unresponsive to any external stimulus. While in this condition, he is taken
to Schemajah Hillel, the synagogue’s registrar, who is well acquainted with
spiritual concerns. Hillel speaks to Pernath of spiritual things: “Es gibt nur ein
wahres Wachsein, und das ist das, dem du dich jetzt näherst” (80). Hillel then
moves his hand before Pernath’s face and soon thereafter Pernath finds his mind
alive and active, witnessing visions and apparitions. This stupor embodies the
first phase in the process of spiritual awakening.
During this episode Pernath witnesses a series of opaque and eerie visions.
Significant among these is the book Ibbur, which, according to Hillel, makes the
soul fertile with the spirit of life (81). As Pernath explains:

Das Buch Ibbur erschien vor mir, und zwei Buchstaben flammten darin auf: der
eine, der das erste Weib bedeutete, mit dem Pulsschlag, mächtig, gleich einem
Erdbeben –, der andere in unendlicher Ferne: Der Hermaphrodit auf dem Thron
von Perlmutter, auf dem Haupte die Krone aus rotem Holz. (85; emphasis in
the original)

This statement is replete with significant symbols for the process of spiritual
awakening and the unification of the divided self. The symbol of the hermaphrodite
plays an important role in the novel and in Meyrink’s oeuvre. The apparitions
encountered here and elsewhere remain with Pernath as he attempts to decode
their meaning. The first step to spiritual salvation, the ability to perceive spiritual
turbulence through a somnambulistic state, leads to the second phase of this
process – communication with one’s intuition. In both texts the spiritual pilgrims
encounter mysterious figures that embody their intuitions and point the pilgrims
 Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem 139

in the direction of their liberation from material exigencies: Meyrink meets the
Vermummter, the disguised one, and Pernath encounters the golem.
In “Die Verwandlung des Blutes,” Meyrink writes: “Sechsunddreißig Jahre
sind es her, dass ich jene vermummte, geheimnisvolle Gestalt hinter den Kulissen
des Lebens zum ersten Male ahnte” (209). He continues: “Sie [die Gestalt] gab
mir stumme Zeichen, die ich lang, lang nicht verstand; ich war noch zu jung,
um zu erfassen, was mir die Gestalt sagen wollte” (209). The language of the
“disguised one” is opaque, and one needs to decipher the “stumme Zeichen” to
benefit from its knowledge. Eventually, Meyrink did begin to listen and to follow
the leadership of this figure and came to recognize it as central to his well-being.
He writes: “Der wahre, einzige Schlüssel zum Glück, Wohlergehen, Gesundheit
und der gleichen ist: die Vereinigung mit dem Vermummten. Er ist das, was wir
im Leben Vorsehung nennen. Er is der, der hilft, wenn die Not am größten ist!”
To become one with the disguised one is to experience happiness, success, and
good health. Yet this union is, because of the incongruity between the physical
and the spiritual selves, not easily achieved:

der innere verborgene, von uns abgetrennte, im Tagesbewußtsein uns fremde,

urfremde Mensch, der Vermummte, steht gewissermaßen senkrecht in uns [...].
Der äußere Mensch ist von ihm getrennt, weil er schief steht – irgendwie in
einem Sinne “schief” zu ihm! (271)

Meyrink goes on to argue that one becomes aligned with the disguised one
through yoga – the key to bringing the spiritual and material portions of the self
into harmony. Pernath also encounters a mysterious character that leads him
down the path of happiness and to salvation. The role of the disguised one in the
novel is taken on by the golem and further illustrates metonymic allegory.
After the unnamed narrator drifts off to sleep and launches the embedded
narrative, Athanasius Pernath enters the story finding himself in curious circum-
stances. He is suddenly overcome with tremendous feelings of anxiety. He falls
into a curious stupor and is confronted with the visage of a strange figure. This
person appears in Pernath’s apartment and gives him the book Ibbur. This text
is a catalyst for Pernath’s interaction with the spiritual realm, for it activates and
animates latent spiritual powers and abilities. In a later scene, Hillel tells Pernath
who this stranger is: “Nimm an, der Mann, der zu dir kam und den du den Golem
nennst, bedeute die Erweckung des Toten durch das innerste Geistesleben” (80).
The golem encountered in Meyrink’s text does not coincide with the traditional
figure of the golem in Jewish myth (Scholem 159). Instead, the golem is a symbol
for Pernath’s intuition. He learns, and the reader along with him, that the intuition
is the collective wisdom of one’s ancestors embodied in mysterious figures who
appear during moments of somnambulistic lucidity. The golem, as Hillel makes
clear, represents the awakening of the dead. It transmits cryptic images and
symbols that Pernath must learn to decipher, just as the disguised one did for
Meyrink. In both cases, he argues that one must not limit oneself to reflection on
140 ERIC KLAUS

events encountered in the spiritual realm. Instead, one must act on knowledge
procured in that realm. However, in order to act on that knowledge, one must be
in a position to comprehend the message of one’s intuition. Therefore, help from
external sources and more experienced guides is required in order to progress in
one’s journey.
Meyrink’s process of spiritual awakening is due in no small part to the
assistance and guidance of many gurus. Indeed, Meyrink writes in “Die Ver-
wandlung des Blutes” that one needs an interpreter to decipher the language of
intuition. The first interpreter Meyrink points to is “das Leben”:

Die größeren Winke und Zeichen begriff ich nur langsam, denn das Leben
stellte mir andere Bilder vors Auge; es trat als Dolmetsch zwischen mich
und den Verhüllten, als ich mich unfähig erwies, durch eigenes In-mir-selbst-
Schürfen seine Gebärden zu verstehen. (210–11)

Life itself intervened when Meyrink did not know how he should proceed along
his path of spiritual awakening. As Meyrink details the events surrounding this
progression, life allowed him to overcome setbacks caused by charlatans posing
as sages and to glean true wisdom from his encounters, albeit not without struggle
and hardship. He offers the reader of “Die Verwandlung des Blutes” an example
from his own experience. He recalls seeing a perplexing vision: “da schoß [...]
ein grünlicher mannsdicker Lichtstrahl einige Meter vor mir vom Himmel herab,
und worauf die Erde traf, zerspaltete er sich in drei Teile, sodass er die Form eines
dreizackigen Ankers bekam” (221). He asked himself how he should interpret this
vision and:

Sogleich kam mir als Antwort der “Gedanke” – einen Gedanken nenne ich’s,
weil ich keinen andern Ausdruck finde –, eigentlich war es fast schon das Hören
einer Stimme; sie belehrte mich: “der Anker heißt soviel wie: Festhalten oder
Hoffen; die drei Zacken bedeuten: drei Tage.” (222)

The three days correspond to the amount of time that elapses before Meyrink
meets a “learned” man, referred to as O. K., or Professor K, who himself claims
to have had a vision that called him to Prague to meet Meyrink in person (224).
Upon meeting O. K., Meyrink is convinced that this man is a genuine guru and
follows his prescribed lifestyle changes, specifically by engaging in an intense
regimen of ascetic exercises. These exercises did not, however, produce the
desired result, instead Meyrink learned from people he trusted that O. K. did not
possess any hidden knowledge: the charlatan O.K. was unmasked.
This is not the only experience Meyrink had with so-called gurus. Through
his contact with O. K. and others, Meyrink learned of a Rosicrucian in Hessen
referred to in “Die Verwandlung des Blutes” as “J,” who was known as Brother
Johannes or Alois Mailänder (Mitchell, Vivo 67; Harmsen 76). Meyrink sought
out the mystic and followed his teachings for thirteen years, a phase he describes
as a “Dornenweg” (Frank 225). Despite ultimately being disappointed in his
 Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem 141

interactions with Mailänder, he believes that he learned an important lesson from

the Rosicrucian, namely that one must search for truth within oneself and that
the body must be included in one’s overall transformation (Frank 229–31). He
needed to identify the needle of truth in the haystack of falsehoods in his journey,
but Pernath has better luck with his spiritual mentors.
Several figures assist Pernath in his journey. One of them is his cellmate in
prison, Amadeus Laponder. Pernath is appalled when he first meets Laponder,
who is condemned to death on charges of rape and murder. Yet Laponder is
not completely what he seems. He is indeed a heinous criminal, but he is also
a sagacious guide for Pernath’s own path to salvation. An important lesson
Laponder teaches Pernath is the composition of the soul: “Die Seele ist nichts
‘Einzelnes’ – sie soll es erst werden, und das nennt man dann: ‘Unsterblichkeit’;
Ihre Seele ist noch zusammengesetzt aus vielen ‘Ichen’ – so wie ein Ameisenstaat
aus vielen Ameisen” (246). Here again the unity of the soul is necessary for the
ultimate goal of immortality to be achieved. Laponder expands upon the notion
of immortality: “Das Ringen nach der Unsterblichkeit ist ein Kampf um das
Zepter gegen die uns innewohnenden Klänge und Gespenster; und das Warten
auf das Königwerden des eigenen ‘Ichs’ ist das Warten auf den Messias” (250–
51). He states that one must gain ascendancy over those unruly inner ghosts,
much as Meyrink teaches secrets to becoming Herr über sein Schicksal. The
journeys depicted in “Die Verwandlung des Blutes” and Der Golem demand the
same process – the unification of the self out of its disparate parts. Laponder then
speaks more directly to the seminal figure in this enterprise.

Der schemenhafte Habal Garmin, den Sie gesehen haben, der “Hauch der
Knochen” der Kabbala, das war der König. Wenn er gekrönt wird, dann – reißt
der Strick entzwei, mit dem Sie durch die äußeren Sinne und den Schornstein
des Verstandes an die Welt gebunden sind. (251)

Earlier in the conversation, Laponder had alluded to the crowning of the true “I,”
and here he names the manifestation of the true “I” as the Habal Garmin. This
figure, then, is symbolically significant in that the crowning of the cabalistic
character inaugurates the new phase in Pernath’s life – the phase of liberation
and independence from the material world. The crowning of the ghostly Habal
Garmin will signal Pernath’s ascendancy to immortality, the unification of his
self making it one and indivisible. This in fact is precisely what happens after
Pernath gains his freedom from prison.
After his release, Pernath returns to the ghetto only to find it in shambles.
The quarter has been torn down, and all that he had known is no more. While
sitting in his little attic room, he has a vision: “Da stand mein Ebenbild auf
der Schwelle. Mein Doppelgänger. In einem weißen Mantel. Eine Krone auf
dem Kopf” (267; emphasis in the original). At that moment, fire breaks out and
Pernath is forced out of the building and falls to the street below. The naming
of the figure as a Doppelgänger is significant. At the core of this novel and
142 ERIC KLAUS

of Meyrink’s epistemology is identity and the rescuing of one’s self from the
obstacles preventing liberation by unifying the Überbewußte with the Tages-
bewußtsein. Of importance here is the culmination of the journey toward sal-
vation. Pernath becomes receptive to the supernatural through somnambulistic
fugues. He learns and interprets the symbols of the language of intuition with
the help of gurus and guides. With the knowledge gained through this process he
becomes Herr über sein Schicksal.
On one level, Meyrink writes, being master of one’s fate means that one
develops the ability of the mind to overcome physical adversity through the
power of the will. In “Die Verwandlung des Blutes” Meyrink details how he
was able to conquer space and time through yoga exercises in order to com-
municate telepathically with his friend on one occasion and with his second
wife on another. More significant, however, is the fact that when one masters
one’s fate, one attains hidden knowledge about the immortality of the soul.
This knowledge liberates an individual from a fundamental fear – the fear of
death. Meyrink writes about this knowledge in “Unsterblichkeit,” a text that
mirrors “Die Verwandlung des Blutes” in meaningful ways. The brief text
seeks to disabuse readers of the notion that death is “terminal,” in other words
that death extinguishes the Ichbewußtsein (“Die Unsterblichkeit” 293). The
current reality is merely one among many, and Meyrink claims that one can
recall the memories of past lives through yoga. Once again, yoga, an exercise
that induces a somnambulistic condition, is the key to accessing the beyond.
In the same text, Meyrink attempts to shed more light on the nature of yoga
by employing a metaphor of the divided self. He writes that the human being
is a

Doppelwesen, das [...] in einem Wagen sitzt: der eine, der Lenker, mit dem
Blick nach vorwärts – in die Zukunft –, der andere, der “Erdenmensch,” mit
dem Gesicht nach rückwärts – in die Vergangenheit – und aus diesem Grunde
nicht imstande, die Zukunft zu wissen. (295)

The bifurcated self can be mended through yoga, in this way allowing the indi-
vidual to gain access to the future and the past: “Der Zweck des wahren Yoga
jedenfalls ist es, dass aus Lenker und Passagier ein Einziger werde [...]. Gelingt
das, dann erkennt der Mensch, dass der Tod niemals existiert hat” (296). Once
again, metonymic allegory allows for one to read Der Golem as a version of
Meyrink’s own process of spiritual awakening. The unification of the self results
in the knowledge of immortality, knowledge that Pernath also gains.
After the fire scene in the embedded narrative, Pernath plummets to the
street below, and the narrator of the framed narrative awakens with a start. He
learns that he had slept for less than an hour and is still confused when he realizes
that he had taken the wrong hat after High Mass. The name written on the inside
of the hat is Athanasius Pernath, and it becomes clear that this switch has caused
him to live Pernath’s life. Carl Gustav Jung has commented that Meyrink utilized
 Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem 143

the motif of the exchanged hat to symbolize exchanged identities (Jung 80). The
narrator then sets out to find the place where Pernath lived. Making his way to
the Hradschin, he comes upon an idyllic vision in the Alchimistengasse, with
which he became acquainted during his wanderings as Pernath. It is there that he
finds Pernath’s home: a white edifice surrounded by a splendid gate and garden.
On the gate is the god Osiris in the form of a hermaphrodite – the symbol of
unification. The servant of the house approaches, and the narrator hands him
the hat. Once the gate is opened, the narrator spies the miraculously unaged
Pernath. Moreover, Pernath and the narrator share a striking resemblance: “Mir
ist, als sähe ich mich im Spiegel, so ähnlich ist sein Gesicht dem meinigen!”
(280). Pernath has achieved the unification of his soul and resides with Miriam
in the shadow of the hermaphrodite. These symbols and motifs are common
to Meyrink’s texts, for, as Bär points out, the mystical union between man and
woman is constitutive of the “Ganzwerdung” at the heart of Meyrink’s writing
(398). Intrinsic similitude – the defining mark of metonymic allegory – appears
again and again through the analysis. The common markers of each text’s
process of salvation demonstrate that Der Golem is an allegory of Meyrinkian
salvation.
Questions surrounding the duality of material and spirit were plentiful
during the fin de siècle. Figures from different philosophical and cultural
traditions such as August Comte, Helena Blavatsky, and Walter Benjamin framed
epistemological questions in terms of a duality between the material and the
mystical. Some rejected one realm in favour of the other, some sought to meld
the two together, and others lamented the separation of the two in art. Meyrink
sought his own resolution in the occult; his solution to the epistemological crisis
is outlined in both his autobiographical and his fictional texts. His best-selling
novel, Der Golem, is an example of how his texts express his own epistemology.
The ultimate goal, to become the master of one’s fate, which in practical terms
means to overcome fear and the temporal and material exigencies of this life, can
be realized first and foremost by knowledge – the knowledge that each person
is a bifurcated being. This knowledge is attainable through occultist means and
resides within the individual. At the core of this endeavour is the somnambulist,
for in order to experience true awakening, one must wander the realm between
waking and deep sleep.

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Chopped up, Grilled and Shrunken to the
Size of a Hedgehog: The Bodies of Saints in
Medieval Hagiography and in
Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte
JUTTA EMING Freie Universität Berlin
Der Großvater nahm mir das schwere Buch von den Knien.
Wat soll dat Kenk met su nem Verzäll? brummte er. De
Huck afftrecke beim lebendige Liev und dann op däm Füer
brode. Dat es doch nix für Kenger! – Wat kallst du, erregte
sich die Großmutter. Dat es e Hellijebooch! Dat es jut für
jede, dä jedöv is. Getauft ist. – Der Großvater schwieg.
Ich spitzte die Ohren. Was hatte ich da gelesen? Gehäutet
worden war einer und dann gebraten? Also hatten diese
Laute eine wirkliche Bedeutung. Derheiligeaufdemrost
meinte wirklich einen Heiligen auf dem Rost. (Hahn 58)

Ulla Hahn’s autobiographical novel Das verborgene Wort describes the difficult
experiences of a girl with a passion for reading, who comes from a family
of modest social background. The family is suspicious of her intellectual
aspirations, but settles – at least for a while – on a solution provided by their
Hellijebooch (‘Heiligenbuch’), the book of saints. Given the family’s religious
Rhenish background, they have no doubts as to the practical usefulness of such a
text. While the grandfather harbours some concerns about the brutality of certain
stories, the grandmother is sure: ‘That’s good for anyone who has been baptized’
(“Dat es jut für jede, dä jedöv is”).
With regard to the cultural heritage of European Christianity, the passage
is illuminating for a number of reasons. First, it reminds us that stories of
saints were the most popular literature of premodern times and still resonate in
Christian contexts today. For medievalists, they serve as “a useful corrective to
the reading experience of most modern readers of vernacular medieval literature,
which is often grounded almost entirely in profane texts” (Gaunt 180). As for
the girl in Hahn’s story, entering the world of the written word meant learning
to read religious literature. The stories collected in the Legenda Aurea by
Jacobus de Voragine established an especially strong tradition of transmitting,
preserving, and representing the sacred for European Christians, and probably
provided much of the background for the text mentioned in the passage cited
above. Being deeply rooted in religious culture, hagiography assumed a status

seminar 46:2 (May 2010)

 Medieval Hagiography and Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte 147

somewhere between literature (in the modern sense of the word) and holy ob-
jects (Kiening). As the grandmother points out, reading the stories is “good”
not because they are good storytelling, but because they remind members of the
religious community of the fundamentals of their faith. Second, the level of ex-
cessive violence portrayed in some of these narratives is especially noteworthy.
In medieval hagiography, as well as in visual art, bodies of saints are subjected to
cruel treatments. They are beaten, mutilated, burned, boiled, or tortured to death
in the most brutal ways imaginable. Third, the function of these passages is not
always immediately clear to the modern reader. Because the episodes are more
often than not excessively brutal, they have raised questions about the mentality
of the historical audience for which they were written. Why were they fascinated
by such brutality? The child in Hahn’s novel admits that she is fascinated as well.
The religious content, however, seems to speak less to her, and perhaps this hints
at how religious memoria came to lose its potency over time. All the same, the
succession of violent acts and the final resurrection does not follow the usual
causalities of time, space, or mortality and can be adequately understood only in
the context of a religious culture.
Like Hahn’s book, this article holds that hagiography is traditionally situated
somewhere between religious practice and literature. From the Middle Ages
to modernity the sacred makes a transition to the literary through a number of
major alterations, especially with respect to the status of the narrator. However,
the primary focus of this article lies in an attempt to understand selected body
concepts of saints from medieval times to modernity – their position between
materiality and transcendence, their relation to space, and conceptualizations of
the sacred. In German literature, a unique research subject for such a comparison
is provided by Thomas Mann’s story Der Erwählte, an adaptation of the Middle
High German narrative Gregorius by Hartmann von Aue. In this story, Mann
introduces the peculiar notion that with time a saint might shrink to the size of a
hedgehog. Using the medieval Gregorius as a model, he writes the parody of a
saint’s life. Based on a comparison of Mann’s Der Erwählte, Hartmann’s Grego-
rius, and examples from the Legenda Aurea, this article explores differences be-
tween medieval and modern concepts of the saints’ bodies. It builds upon recent
scholarly work on medieval concepts of saintliness and sexuality, the body, and
pain. Special attention will be given to the fact that the body itself can become a
space for encountering the sacred.
During the Middle Ages, European Christians could expect to encounter
the sacred in a number of different locations. These were exquisite places where
space and imagination came together in a complex way to make transcendental
experiences possible. Such locations included the church (especially during the
liturgy), monks’ chambers, or journeys to the “hereafter,” which some mortals
claimed to have experienced during their lifetimes. However, the body of a devout
believer could also be considered a locus within which an experience with God
might be possible. Among other medieval narratives, this sort of intercourse with
God has often been related in stories of the saints, in other words, hagiography.
148 JUTTA EMING

This is especially applicable to the genre of martyr stories that describe violence
against the body of a saint.
This can best be illustrated with an example of the legend of Saint Vincentius,
as narrated by Jacobus de Voragine in the Legenda Aurea, from the second half
of the thirteenth century. It pushes the tendencies outlined above to an extreme.
Rainer Nickel’s German translation of the Latin original offers the following:

Freiwillig steigt er auf den Rost, lässt sich dort braten, rösten und brennen. In
seinen ganzen Körper werden eiserne Haken und glühende Bleche getrieben,
und während er vom Feuer erfasst wird, entstehen in seinen Wunden neue
Wunden. Außerdem wird Salz in das Feuer gestreut, damit es auf seinen schon
überall mit Wunden bedeckten Körper spritze und er von den zischenden
Flammen noch grauenvoller verbrannt werde. (145)

No human body could withstand the level of violence meted out. Whereas just
one of these tortures would have sufficed to kill a person, the martyr survives a
whole series of them. Thus a rather laconic, repetitious, and mechanical quality
is another curious aspect to be found in the physical torture portrayed in legends
of saints. It makes the grisly depictions physically and physiologically somewhat
implausible. The brutality sometimes leaves an almost comical impression on the
modern reader – the story of St. George, for instance, reminding Sarah Kay of a
Tom and Jerry plot (224). This association is actually not out of place. It could be
supported by Henri Bergson’s argument that mechanical or automatic actions are
one important feature of comical effects (51–78).
Measured against usual human behaviour, the martyrs’ reactions to their per-
secution are also quite hard to believe. Instead of suffering from pain and agony,
they seem to feel joy in anticipation of new afflictions to come. They demand
and even long for further torment: “Er schlug das Zeichen des Kreuzes und
ging standhaft mit nackten Füßen über die glühenden Kohlen. Dabei sprach er:
‘Mir scheint, ich gehe über Rosenblüten im Namen unseres Herrn Jesu Christi’”
(Jacobus de Voragine 135).
While the element of pain is clearly a critical ingredient in hagiographical
texts, the martyr’s ostentatious insensitivity – the claim that walking on glowing
coals is like treading on rose petals – should not be taken too literally. The
corporeal experience suggested in the text is most surely grounded in feelings
of pain, and we are supposed to believe that the martyr is indeed suffering.
However, since “pain is not just a biological fact but an experience in search of
an interpretation” (Morris 38), the experience of pain attributed to martyrs is
revealing as to its cultural-historical context. As Esther Cohen has pointed out,
“martyrdom was ‘agon’ – a contest” (62), fought against a worldly tyrant who
inflicted torture on the martyr, as much as against the martyr’s own feelings
of pain. In addition, the saint also willingly embraces the pain in an effort to
experience it to the fullest and to transform it into a spiritual encounter. An act
of sublimation takes place, which according to Kay can best be understood as
 Medieval Hagiography and Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte 149

an ideologization of eroticized pain (228). Connections and differences to the

descriptions of masochistic pleasures provided by torture in modern literature,
most notably in the works of the Marquis de Sade, have been discussed, among
others, by Kay and Niklaus Largier (Lob der Peitsche). Especially the female
saint’s body, inasmuch as it is subjugated to worldly power, can be regarded as
having become a sexualized body (Campbell). However, ever since Caroline
Walker Bynum’s seminal works on female ascetic practices (especially fasting),
the question as to what extent the association of pain with sexuality in any
modern sense of the word is legitimate has remained critical for an exploration
of medieval body concepts. Bynum believes, “[w]e cannot understand medieval
religiosity until we realize how different such probing and embracing of body
as pain-pleasure is from most modern notions of body, in which pleasure and
pain are seen as opposites and the cultivation of pain is rejected as pathological”
(245). It is therefore safe to assume that one important historical element of
an ideologization of eroticized pain is the fact that the experience of intense
suffering is considered a form of imitatio Christi. According to this Christian
tradition, the feeling of pain is one way to become especially close to Jesus.
The fierce desire for such divine intimacy finds expression in the fact that the
abuse of the saints was meant to be at least as bad as that suffered by Christ.
And in the process of this experience, the saintly martyr supposedly undergoes
a specific act of transformation in which pain is ultimately replaced by beauty,
sweetness, and good fortune. And along with “the body that the saint eventually
leaves behind,” a transcendence of worldly power takes place (Campbell
237).
While the saint embraces his pain, God intervenes and causes a miracle. This
is why in the end, the saint’s violated body survives intact, confirming the divine
power. Therefore, through miracles, saints use their bodies as a form of per-
formance space, overcoming “the fundamental contrariety between the human
and the divine orders” (Kay 220). According to Ingrid Kasten, the material body
undergoes a transformation into a spiritual body:

Die Unzerstörbarkeit des Körpers trotz zahlloser Martern und seiner Zerstückelung
verdeutlicht, wie aus dem leiblichen ein spiritueller, ein virtueller, körperloser
Körper entsteht. […] Legenden erzählen von Graböffnungen, bei denen Körper
von Heiligen unversehrt und wohlriechend vorgefunden werden, und überall in
Europa glaubt man an die Wunderwirkung der Gebeine von Heiligen, die als
Reliquien verehrt werden. (66)

Accordingly, the saints’ longings for torture and its repeated applications, the
supposed transformation from torment to pleasure, and the invulnerability of
the body itself, in contradiction of natural law all make sense when regarded as
aspects of holy performance and holy encounter. The body literally becomes a
stage upon which the sacred is enacted – a contact zone for divinity. The most
special place where a level of intimacy with God could be attained was not the
150 JUTTA EMING

church, the monk’s cell, or the hereafter. One’s own body became the locus and
medium for an intensely religious experience.
Speaking of the body as a medium, however, does not imply that the saint’s
body should be seen as something passive, like a vessel. On the contrary, the body
plays an active part in the search for a spiritual experience that can be achieved
by an act of transforming pain. The fact that the body is at first reduced to the
essence of its pure materiality through its ability to experience pain is the pre-
condition that opens possibilities to encounter the transcendental. This aspect can
be further discussed regarding Hartmann’s Gregorius, even though it does not
follow the model of the Christian martyr. It is instead an example of the so-called
conversio. According to this model, conversio is the turning point in a person’s
biography, when a man or a woman decides to change the course of his or her
worldly life and to dedicate it to God instead. Conversio also represents the other
dominant style of saintly legend. It is in most cases related to the realization that a
person has lead a sinful life, which elicits an intense wish for change. The person
is moved to ask for atonement and forgiveness and engages in ascetic practices.
In the cultural history of Christianity, these practices are sometimes distinguished
from the tortures that martyrs endure as weißes or unblutiges Martyrium (Egidi).
In most cases, they do not lead to a saint’s death. However, the suffering of
the body plays a similarly central role in the lives of ascetics as in the lives
of martyrs, and it involves a very similar emphasis on physical affliction. The
violent maltreatment of the body through nutritional and other deprivations can
also be interpreted as a form of martyrdom – in the end, another route to sanctity
through the body.
Hartmann’s Gregorius was written in the late twelfth century as an adap-
tation of the French La Vie de Saint Grégoire. A short hagiographic version is
extant in the Latin Gesta Romanorum (the differences between this legend and
Gregorius outlined by Haug 142–45). Even less than its French model, the text is
not simply a legend, but a generic hybrid between hagiography and courtly novel.
By opening the hagiographic content and structure to that of the courtly novel,
the text has moved a significant step further away from cult to fictional literature
(Kiening 58). The generic hybridity reflects the opposition of chivalry and clergy
that is outlined in the story. Gregorius is the product of an incestuous relationship
between his parents, who were brother and sister. After having left behind a life
that was destined by his adoptive father, an abbot, to be spent within the spiritual
community of a cloister, Gregorius begins a knightly career. Then, unwittingly,
he commits incest himself with his mother. Therefore, the story is in essence one
of many medieval adaptations and expansions on the classical tale of Oedipus
(Archibald; Huber). However, Gregorius is involved not only in one, but in two
illicit relationships.
Despite this “abortive career as a romance hero” (Gaunt 207), however,
neither chivalric life in general nor the way Gregorius leads it are depicted as
negative. As Walter Haug has pointed out, this represents one of the greatest
challenges of the plot and the way it is structured in the German version. Of
 Medieval Hagiography and Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte 151

course, unlike his father, the hero has not willingly committed incest. “Gregorius
glaubt, den richtigen Weg gegangen zu sein; trotzdem ist er in Schuld geraten.
Er steht vor dem Paradox der schuldlosen Schuld” (146). Besides the puzzling
question about the nature of his sin, the point of special interest here is how
Gregorius deals with it. He decides that his extreme behaviour demands extreme
punishment, and he voluntarily chains himself to a stone in the middle of the
ocean. His bodily consumption consists only of a little water. Thus is Gregorius
portrayed as an ascetic.
In his recent book on medieval asceticism and its resonances in modern avant-
garde art, Niklaus Largier points out that the role of ascetics should not be seen
– as it usually is – as being a passive one that leaves everything up to God’s will or
meditation. The life of the religious ascestic should instead be regarded as a highly
active one in which the imagination is mobilized to carry out a specific practice:
“Diese Praxis besteht darin, daß sein Begehren die Einbildungskraft formt, wenn
er mit Gott in Kontakt zu treten sucht. So wird eine Vielfalt neuer Vorstellungen
und Bilder produziert, welche die Welt parasitär und ambivalent zu bevölkern
beginnen” (Kunst des Begehrens 22). Ascetics are fundamentally creators of vision-
ary images, activities, and spaces. They use the body with all its different senses,
allowing it to be gripped by the process and to become conduits for the powerful
images and emotions involved. Well-known paradigms for this type of saint are
the so-called Stylites, those ascetics following the example of the Syrian Symeon
Stylites, who supposedly spent forty years standing atop a stone column in the
desert. Largier is interested in the fact that this type of isolation from the world
leads to the production of new, imaginary, artificial worlds. These are commonly
known as visions or demonic temptations. The devil who visits Symeon or Saint
Anthony in the desert is just such a product of the ascetics’ imaginations.
Largier analyzes the connection between asceticism and imaginary worlds as
a cultural-historical phenomenon. From this broad spectrum of possibilities, most
important for understanding Gregorius’s asceticism is the relationship between
social isolation, imagination, and limited space. One might possibly interpret
Syrian holy men on columns as “athletes,” displaying an “ability to control the
body” (Cohen 62). Gregorius, on the contrary, is clearly a sinner involved in an
act of penitence. However, like Symeon resting almost motionless on his column
in the desert, Gregorius is confined to a physically small and isolated space. It
really makes no difference that the desert is replaced by its opposite elemental
environment, the ocean. Gregorius, to use a formulation by Peter Strohschneider,
is situated in a “Jenseits des Wassers” (111).
In addition, Gregorius’s existence on the rock over a period of seventeen years
follows the same paradoxical pattern one finds in the structure of martyr legends.
It is physically torturous and unbearable, but rich in emotional experiences. As
Scott E. Pincikowski observes, Gregorius “conflates the sensations of pain and
pleasure when he embarks on his journey: ‘spilnde bestuont er dise nôt’ (Cheer-
fully did he endure his distress, 2760). Pain becomes an instance for joy because
it shows his willingness to suffer as Christ did and is a vehicle to atonement and
152 JUTTA EMING

redemption” (111–12). Pincikowski points out that “Gregorius finds meaning in

his pain” (112). The practices in which he sees Gregorius involved, however,
could best be summarized as attempts to completely deny his body – “he uses
pain to remind himself of how corrupt the body can become […] he tempers his
desires by fasting, tormenting”(112). Along similar lines, Haug speaks about the
“Vorstellung von der 17jährigen Verlassenheit auf dem meerumbrandeten Felsen
in ihrer ganzen Schrecklichkeit” (148). In both cases, the creative and imaginary
powers of the ascetic’s life, which are rooted in a process of mobilization of
the senses, are denied. Both scholars seem to follow the conventional view that
an ascetic is attempting to mortify the flesh, instead of aiming to stimulate its
sensitivity.
However, in the scene in which Gregorius is finally freed from the rock, it
is made clear that the life he experienced in isolation has not been confined to
loneliness and self-denial:

Dâ im diu îsenhalte lac Since he had worn leg irons

beidiu naht unde tac,
dâ hete si im ob dem vuoze
daz vleisch harte unsuoze
unz an daz bein vernozzen
[…]
ich gelîche in disen sachen,
als der ein lîlachen
über dorne spreite:
man möhte im sam gereite
allez sîn gebeine
grôz unde kleine
haben gezalt durch sîne hût.
swie sêre der gotes trût
an dem lîbe wære
verwandelt von der swære,
nû was der heilige geist
dar an gewesen sîn volleist
alsô gänzlichen
daz im niht was entwichen,
er enhæte sîn alten
kunst unz her behalten
von worten und von buochen.
(3449–75)
both day and night, they had
very severely rubbed away the
flesh above his feet down to
the bone [...],
I shall compare him thus: one
could count through his skin all
his bones, large and small, just
as easily as when one spreads
a bed sheet over thorns. How-
ever much the body of God's
beloved friend had changed
from his difficulties, the Holy
Spirit had been his support, so
completely that his mind had
not diminished at all. Through-
out he had retained his previ-
ous wisdom of speaking and
reading.
(Hartmann, Arthurian Roman-
ces 208)

Physically chained and barely mobile, Gregorius nonetheless led an intensely

spiritual life for seventeen years. During this whole time he was nourished by the
biblical wisdom of God. The passage reveals exactly the connections between
text, imagination, and holiness to which Largier refers when he speaks of a
rhetorical application of the senses in asceticism. And even though the people
who find Gregorius and free him from the rock are moved to tears by his wretched
 Medieval Hagiography and Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte 153

appearance (3480–81), this only adds to the sublime aura of superior spirituality
to be found in this passage. It is by no means accidental that the metaphors used
for his skin and bones – thorns and linen – hint of objects associated with the
suffering body of Jesus on the cross. This pious man is undoubtedly involved in
the practice of imitatio Christi. Similar to Christ’s crucifixion, Gregorius’s body
undergoes a transformation and is shaped by the spiritual experience. Ultimately,
this also leads to his elevation as rightful leader of the entire Christian world.
In the end, for suffering and surviving so long, Gregorius is ultimately
granted a reprieve and made pope. Although in the medieval context penance
could function as a sort of “gift” to God (Egidi), a compensatory reward or
counter-gift could not be taken for granted in the life of a sinner. While no sin
is so great that it cannot be pardoned, the assumption would be false that every
sin is ultimately assured forgiveness. This is one of the aspects of the story that
became especially interesting for Mann: forgiveness is turned into the reward of
making Gregorius a “very great pope” (234). In comparison, however, Mann’s
story and the medieval Gregorius deal with very different concepts of guilt and
forgiveness (Beer). This becomes manifest in the differing ways they relate body
to space.
Once dipped in Mann’s “acid bath of irony” (Sommer 224), what could
possibly survive from the story of radical sin and expansive forgiveness? To be
sure, Mann had no intention of writing a historically based medieval narrative.
As in all his novels dealing with historical or mythical themes, he set out instead
to establish a dialogue between the past and present. Der Erwählte fits this role
especially well. His references to the Middle Ages serve to illuminate modernity,
and vice versa.
To say the least, initial reactions to Mann’s text among the general public
and in literary circles were somewhat cool (Jens 93–94). Many contemporary
readers of Der Erwählte have been left with the question whether or not this is
a fundamentally blasphemous work. The most important point of contention has
been an intentional transfer of religious to fictional motivation. Mann decided to
give the omnipotent role – otherwise reserved for God – to the writer, calling him
“der Geist der Erzählung” (see Jeßing). Karl Stackmann, a medievalist and one
of the first to reflect on the medieval dimensions of the story, celebrated Mann’s
choices as a successful attempt to liberate the story from its hagiographical roots
and open it to the rich narration of fictional literature (63). Yet scholars still have
difficulty coming to terms with the religious dimension of the book.
It is worth remembering that the potential tensions between literary and
religious discourses have always been an element of hagiographic writing. More
important seems the question: what was it about the Christian concepts of pen-
ance and forgiveness that seem to have inspired the modern author, and how does
a sinner the size of a hedgehog fit into the scheme of holy bodies?
The story line of Der Erwählte follows its medieval source. The miraculous
seventeen-year-long survival of the saint chained to a stone is narrated in one of
the book’s most famous chapters. It describes a strange liquid emanating from
154 JUTTA EMING

the boulder, a liquid that helps the hero, Grigorß, to survive. In the medieval text
the liquid is described simply as water. The following quote gives Mann’s version
of the peculiar foodstuff that somehow sustains Grigorß:

In der Mitte, ziemlich genau, war im Gestein eine kleine Mulde, darin stand
weißlich trübes Naß bis zum Rande, vom gestrigen Regen wohl, wie er dachte,
nur eben auffallend trüb und milchig, – willkommen ihm jedenfalls zum Trunk,
wie unsauber und woher so unsauber es sein mochte, – er war der Letzte, der
Ansprüche zu stellen hatte. Darum beugte er sich über das kleine Becken und
schlürfte mit Lippen und Zunge, was darin war, schlappte es aus, so wenig es
war, nur ein paar Löffel voll, und leckte wahrlich den Grund des Grübchens
noch ab, als es leer war. Der Trank schmeckte zuckerig-leimig, nach Stärke
etwas, etwas würzig nach Fenchel, dazu metallisch nach Eisen. Gregorius hatte
gleich das Gefühl, daß durch ihn dem Durste nicht nur, sondern auch dem
Hunger Genüge geschah, und zwar überraschend gründlich. Er war satt. Leicht
stieß es ihm auf, und etwas von dem Getrunkenen floß ihm aus dem Munde
wieder hervor, als sei das wenige schon zuviel gewesen. (190–91)

While Mann recasts the tradition of the saint’s body with considerable irony, he
never stoops to ridicule. In a sophisticated style, he even combines detailed de-
scriptions of bodily functions with religious poetry. It is not by coincidence that
this somewhat off-putting ascetic, dripping fluid out of his mouth, reminds one of
a full, freshly nursed baby. The liquid, whose consistency is described with nearly
scientific precision, has unmistakable similarities to mother’s milk. Its effect,
however, is just the opposite. Instead of growing big and strong, Grigorß begins
to shrink. The initial drinking of the food stuff starts a transformation process by
which he gradually regresses towards an embryonic state: “Leicht aufstoßend und
etwas aussabbernd von ihr, lag der Mann in sich selbst zusammengezogen, die
Knie am Mund, unter den Wettern, und auch seine Haut war zusammengezogen
[…] von dem zusammengekrümmten Verteidigungszustand wurde der [der
Körper] zusehends kleiner” (193).
Should one conclude from this description of an eremitic lifestyle that in order
to become a saint it is necessary to revert to an infantile condition? The previously
quoted passage seems to support this perception. In other passages in this chapter,
the rock is even referred to as “Mutterquelle” (192) and the strange liquid as
“Muttertrank” (193). However, Mann’s concept is significantly more complex
than these basic symbols. His peculiar choices modify the interpretation of physi-
cality concerning the relationship between body and space that was outlined
earlier and presents a different condition for experiencing transcendence. Grigorß
shrinks not only to an infantile, but also to a creatural state, both being intertwined
in the strangest fashion: “An einigen wenigen Stellen der Erde […] sind solche
Nährsaftquellen der Urzeit, tief in den mütterlichen Organismus hinabreichend
[…]. Das war eine große Gnade” (192). Grigorß falls back in time, both in his own
individual time and in the history of mankind, to the state of a primitive organism.
The especially rich detail and exactness with which the transformation of his body
 Medieval Hagiography and Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte 155

is described – without actually explaining how or why – seem to parody scientific

discourse and draw the reader’s attention to the materiality of the body. Haug
sees an “Ironisierungsprozeß” at work, by which Mann makes transparent “die
Oberflächenereignisse auf einen Mythos hin [...] er kehrt sozusagen in den Schoß
der Natur zurück. [...] Die Remythologisierung weicht dem Unerträglichen des
christlichen Paradoxons aus” (149; on mythological structures see also Müller).
Yet not only the mentioning of “Gnade” signals that Grigorß’s dwindling figure
is supposedly kept alive by an act of divine intervention. Religious discourse re-
mains a strong subtext throughout the modern version. According to Sean Ireton,
Grigorß, like his counterpart in Kafka’s Die Verwandlung, progresses “über die
‘notwendige’ zur ‘höheren Nahrung’ des Sakraments” (46). Yet when compared to
the medieval practice of asceticism, Grigorß’s body transformation clearly lacks a
connection to transcendence.
Mann does not seem to describe any act of intentional penitence similar to
the one referred to earlier. According to Andreas Urs Sommer, Mann did not
want to describe any kind of internal process of penitence either. Sommer notes
the absence of desperation, guilty conscience, or strain under punishment (225).
Mann does not describe an act or practice of penitence at all, but rather a form
of passive resignation. As observed by a contemporary reviewer of the novel,
its religious parallels, if any, would lie more in the protestant doctrine of pre-
destination than in the catholic concept of active penitence (Sommer 225). The
message here seems to be that forgiveness or grace is something that cannot be
actively sought.
This is especially revealing as to the intense connection of body, space, and
spirituality, which played a major role in the Middle High German Gregorius and
which is lost in Mann’s version. The hero’s tiny prison is devoid of any religious
qualities or spiritual aura. Instead of spiritual nourishment, Mann’s hero is fed on some
sort of strange, sticky muck, which somehow manages to keep him barely alive. His
portrayal of the so-called discovery scene (“Die Auffindung” 221) is also literally quite
another thing: “bevor sie [...] ein Ding, ein Wesen, eine lebende Creatur, wenig größer
als ein Igel, sich hinbewegen sahen, auf allen vieren jetzt, dann sich aufrichtend, dann
wieder auf die vorderen Gliedmaßen sich niederlassend. Sein Lauf war wie Flucht,
doch gab es, wohin er sich richtete, kein Versteck” (224).
If this were a medieval legend, one might expect that the hero’s minuscule
prison would have inspired him to expand his world into an imaginary space. In-
stead, the tiny space overpowers the prisoner with claustrophobia, causing him
literally to shrink away from existential possibilities. Instead of the wracked, yet
still noble and sublime body described in the medieval story, which brings tears
to the eyes of those who see it, the modern version presents us with a repulsive,
scuttling little creature. The transcendental transformation of the body that one
finds in tales of medieval martyrs and ascetics seems nowhere to be found. The
metamorphosis of this body is neither miraculous nor realistic. It appears to be
grotesquely material, which is all the more accentuated by the accompanying
pseudoscientific descriptions Mann provides.
156 JUTTA EMING

Mann’s fictional writings are known to have been influenced by nineteenth-

century natural sciences, especially the developmental biology of Ernst Haeckel
and Paul Kammerer (Michler; Otis). Mann was specifically interested in the
concepts of degeneration and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. A
famous example of this exploration is his novel Buddenbrooks (Michler 300;
Otis 112–36). The connection of Der Erwählte to these discourses seems not yet
to have been thoroughly analyzed. The shrunken saint, however, resonates in an
odd way with the Darwinian concept of “survival of the fittest.” Living on just as
much sustenance as the source provides, his body adapts so perfectly to his natural
surroundings that he is actually able to shrink in order to survive. A metaphorical
interpretation might hold that his bodily depletion would be attributed to the lack
of emotional and spiritual experience that medieval ascetics experienced under
similar duress – an insight for which I am indebted to Susanne Balmer.
One further connection of the hedgehog-sized hero to cultural traditions
of saints’ bodies is worth discussing. The term “grotesque,” which recurs in
scholarly literature to describe Mann’s body concept in Der Erwählte, takes us
in this direction. Stavroula Constantinou has examined this term as a tool for
describing concepts of sacred bodies in Byzantine collections of miracle stories,
especially those focussing on affliction and healing. As Constantinou explains,
many protagonists of these stories suffer from diseases such as dysentery, colic,
elephantiasis, dropsy, and genital illnesses. As a result of these diseases, the bodies
are involved in processes of transformation. They gradually lose their form and
size through swellings in various lower parts of the body. They also produce
excessive quantities of bodily fluids and flux such as vomit, diarrhoea, urine,
pus, and blood. In many cases, the saints contract these diseases from the bodies
of patients they are tending. In others, however, they have acquired a grotesque
body as a result of the hardships of their own austere, ascetic lives. For example,
Symeon Stylites the Elder, as described by Theodoret of Cyrrhus (ca. 393–457),
developed a malignant ulcer on his left foot, which continuously oozed pus, a
result of the saint’s constant standing position atop his tall pillar (Constantinou).
Constantinou is interested in the (over-)emphasized materiality of these body
images, which she relates to Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque body. She finds
all of the features that for Bakhtin characterize the grotesque body represented in
Byzantine miracle stories, including: (1) the focus on lower body parts, especially
on the body’s orifices, (2) connections to food, (3) celebration of “base” bodily
excretions such as feces, urine, semen, (4) the transformative powers of the body,
and (5) unification with other bodies. As for connections to Mann’s narrative, one
can undoubtedly cite features (2), (4), and (5), whereby, in the case of (5), uni-
fication refers to the combination of two contradictory processes, namely life and
death, which Constaninou finds to take place simultaneously in one person. These
particular aspects show that Mann’s hero is clearly possessed of a grotesque
body.
Yet a closer look at the apparent connections to grotesque bodies of saints
reveals once again the lack of transcendence in Mann’s concept of the body. One
 Medieval Hagiography and Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte 157

of the most important ideas in Bakhtin’s notion of the grotesque body is that it
reintroduces and even celebrates body parts and functions that are otherwise
suppressed and hidden in official culture. The grotesque body builds on a form of
inversion of high and low. For example, instead of focussing on a person’s eyes
(the most important body part in medieval concepts of beauty), it emphasizes the
belly and its needs, the bottom and the anus, the genitals, as well as all sorts of
liquids and materials emanating from them. A saint’s connection to these body
parts and fluids, though not obvious at first, makes sense in light of the Christian
tradition of pious men and women willingly debasing themselves. This does
not hold for saints of the Byzantine tradition alone. Bynum has emphasized this
aspect in her works on female religiosity, giving the salient example of Catherine
of Siena, who according to several of her hagiographers, debased herself by
taking the putrid breast of a dying woman into her mouth and by willingly in-
gesting pus (171–72). The idea that degradation should be embraced is another
important aspect of imitatio Christi and, as such, of medieval asceticism.
Nothing of this tradition is evoked in Mann’s version of Saint Gregorius.
The grotesque little body of his hero does not reflect the idea that making
oneself smaller might bring one closer to God. While Mann’s version of the
tale is nonetheless a reflection on the requisite conditions for saintliness and
forgiveness, his approach leads to quite an opposite result to the one pursued
in medieval stories. Through extreme practices, the medieval ascetic could turn
the body into a medium for religious experiences. While these were proactive,
literary, and imagination-based occurrences, such qualities are absent from
Mann’s version. There is no epiphany of the imagination that leads to intercourse
with God. Instead, the suffering hero succumbs passively to his situation and
is physically and emotionally reduced to a primogenial state. Most important,
instead of experiencing years filled with consolation from book-based wisdom,
as the medieval Gregorius does, Mann’s hero lives through “Zeit […] wenn
sie nichts weiter ist als das und keinen Gegenstand hat als den Wandel der
Jahreszeiten und die Mienen des Wetters, keinen Gehalt an Ereignissen, der sie
überhaupt erst zur Zeit macht” (194).
To be sure, Mann might not have known anything about this religious tradition
at all. His work with medieval texts is regarded as being rather eclectic (Schork;
Wimmer). He apparently also had difficulty relating to a cultural-historical
tradition that sees the body as a location for the experience of transcendence,
and literature as a form of physical nourishment. His parody might lead to the
impression that he sees religious traditions as rather dated, pathetic, or infantile.
However, Mann criticized his contemporary reviewers for not having understood
his work in this respect. As R. J. Schork notes: “In letter after letter Mann
complained that reviewers, especially those in England and America, failed to
recognize or appreciate the humour in his conception and presentation of the
novel’s theme of the sometimes crooked channels in which God’s grace flows”
(49). Mann saw no contradiction between ironic narration and serious content.
He insisted that he kept the religious content intact, although, as he remarks in
158 JUTTA EMING

one of his comments on Der Erwählte, with a “melancholic” attitude towards the
Christian idea of sin and forgiveness (Sommer 215). So to conclude from Mann’s
version of the story that saintliness or the sacred is a somewhat “dated” concept
would be false. The more important question seems to be why Mann chooses not
to grant his hero any kind of spiritual experience.
Mann draws no connection between penitence and grace. Apparently, for-
giveness is not something one may actively seek. Critics have suggested that
the hero’s passivity towards his sins could relate to the realization that for a sin
such as his no act of penitence could be adequate. On this point Mann’s tale has
stimulated heated and still unresolved debate as to whether he draws a connection
to Germany’s crimes of the last century (Jens 95; Sommer 231–32; Wimmer, “Die
altdeutschen Quellen” and “Der sehr große Papst”). If forgiveness is something
that can be hoped for but not actively sought after, the same would hold for
Germany’s guilt with regard to the Holocaust. Yet the comparison of Germany’s
Holocaust to Grigorß’s unwitting act of incest is a tenuous argument. In any case,
while Mann’s interpretation suggests that humiliation and self-abasement are
the proper prerequisites for forgiveness, he also suggests an outward perspective
on penitence that is devoid of spiritual experience – seventeen years on a stone
spent with “time, nothing but time,” empty time. His malnourished hero does not
contemplate biblical wisdom, he is simply radically and socially isolated, and this
induces a steady decline to a foetal state. Thus we are able to recognize two very
different concepts of development when assessing a body deprived of proper food
and drink: a traditional one, rooted in the cultural history of religiosity, in which
the person subjected to such treatment reaches a higher level of spiritual existence,
and a modern one involving degeneration to a primitive level of pure survival.
Grigorß, unlike the medieval Gregorius, experiences “schreckliche Einsam-
keit.” The German title of Mann’s story, Der Erwählte, literally translatable as
‘The Chosen One,’ expresses this situation well. Grigorß is finally chosen and
rewarded by God, not for any act of contrition or penitence, but simply for sur-
viving. For the same reason, the conventional title of the English translation of
Mann’s novel, The Holy Sinner, seems ironically inappropriate. It refers to the
subtitle der guote sündære of Hartmann’s Gregorius. Guot, however, means an
exemplarily humble and pious man, not necessarily a holy man. Aside from
its physical grotesqueness, the life described is nearly devoid of the necessary
prerequisites for holiness in the medieval sense of the word. This is one of the
instances where Mann’s modern perspective on the medieval content unveils an
inherent condition of medieval religiosity: that God’s grace may be received only
as an absolute gift and never as a form of compensation. It can never be acquired
through acts of penitence. In other words, the recipient of such grace is always
God’s chosen one.
Therefore, the aforementioned literary dimension of Mann’s story also
serves as an ironic modern comment on the connection between asceticism,
the imaginary, and the prerequisites for forgiveness. Mann appears to say (1)
that, counter to what the medieval Gregorius claims, God does not grant grace
 Medieval Hagiography and Thomas Mann’s Der Erwählte 159

in return for acts of penance, but only as an absolute gift, and (2) that in all
narratives of saints it is not God who is granting grace and absolution, but
actually the narrator. The novel’s description of the physical transformation of
Grigorß can be seen as a metaphor for rebirth (Stackmann 73). Again, this might
be a comment on how to deal with unthinkable guilt. From the perspective of
literary and cultural history, however, using the body as a rhetorical figure
is a final departure from the tradition of saints’ legends of he Middle Ages.
Instead of the body as an exquisite space for religious transcendence, Mann
offers a metaphorical body, a literary figure. His saint “shrunken to the size of
a hedgehog” provides an image consistent with the entire text: one in which
literature continues to question, dissipate, and replace the heritage of religious
discourse.

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———. Gregorius der gute Sünder. Mittelhochdeutsch/Neuhochdeutsch. Trans. Burkhard
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“Nicht das eine und nicht das andere”:
Hybridity, Gender, and (East) German
Identity in Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet
TIMOTHY B. MALCHOW Valparaiso University

Thomas Brussig’s most ambitious novel, Wie es leuchtet (2004), is set in

Germany, with brief excursions abroad, during 1989–90. Most of its several
dozen characters are East Germans undergoing a bewildering transition, caught
between the familiar structures of a GDR that has ceased to exist and an un-
fathomable, emerging German society. This article is especially concerned
with the representation of this ungrounded condition. Indeed, the novel’s
characters live through a variety of transitions that can be read as variously
analogous to those of East Germans. These characters include a migrant author,
a blind woman whose sight is restored, women in exploitive heterosexual re-
lationships, a transsexual undergoing gender reassignment, and a postcolonial
Thai woman who remains unscathed by modernity. The narrative brings these
tropes into dialogue with East German experience and with each other. Given
the primary focus on the Wende, these other transformations work allegorically
in the narrative, allowing the implied author to explore facets of East German
experience and to locate it as part of a broader human experience. One might
ask what cultural work such rhetorical figures accomplish in a text ostensibly
about the “German Year,” written in the first decade of the twenty-first century
by an established, male, German author with an East German background. How
do they frame memory of German unification, and what do they imply about
German, and eastern German, identity?
To pursue these questions, it is helpful to recall debates in German studies
about postcolonialism and memory work in the literature of the Berlin Republic.
A widely discussed figure here is Homi Bhabha, the theorist who celebrates the
“hybrid agencies” of migrants, applying Mikhail Bakhtin’s linguistic theories
of hybridity to a postcolonial context (Bhabha, “Culture’s in Between” 212).
Postcolonial migration for Bhabha results in “partial culture, [...] the con-
taminated yet connective tissue between cultures – at once the impossibility
of culture’s containedness and the boundary between” (167; emphasis in the
original). For Bhabha, migrants’ very presence interrupts the nation’s “unisonant
discourse,” and their silence speaks “the foreignness of language,” rendering
impossible the selective remembering that engenders an intact national identity
(Location 236). In German studies and more generally, Bhabha’s optimism

seminar 46:2 (May 2010)

162 t imot hy b. mal chow

about the critical potential of hybridity to undermine the authority of hegemonic

discourses is controversial.
Bhabha figures prominently in Paul Cooke’s Representing East Germany
since Unification: From Colonization to Nostalgia. Cooke demonstrates that
numerous analyses presented German unification as the colonization of the
GDR by the FRG, including Wolfgang Dümcke’s and Fritz Vilmar’s 1996 edited
volume Kolonialisierung der DDR. Though historically dubious, “perceptions of
colonization nonetheless have important implications for the way both east and
west Germans relate to the unified state and the legacy of the past” (2; emphasis
in the original). That is, for Cooke, postcolonial concepts such as hybridity and
mimicry are relevant to German unification, if only as means of understanding
the peripheral discourse. Appropriating Bhabha, Cooke discerns in Brussig’s
Helden wie wir (1995) the “hybrid position” of a former East German engaged
in a form of mimicry or “writing back” to satirize others’ reductive portrayals
of the society in which he once lived (74, 73). Other scholars have followed
Cooke’s example. For instance, Martina Caspari employs Bhabha’s theories
of mimicry and hybridity to illuminate eastern German memory work in Jana
Hensel’s Zonenkinder (209).
But Bhabha is controversial in postcolonial studies owing to the wide
applicability of his concepts and the concomitant danger of obfuscating socio-
logical and historical distinctions (Loomba 148–51). Within German studies,
both Todd Herzog and Leslie Adelson have aspired to historicize the use of
hybridity, in the contemporary Jewish-German and Turkish-German contexts
respectively. For Herzog, “the ‘in-between’ position is not an inhabitable
position” since the historical baggage of a late-nineteenth-century figure, the
Mischling, inevitably bogs down a poetics of Jewish-German hybridity (100).
Similarly, Adelson rejects “the cultural fable suspending migrants ‘between two
worlds’” and finds Bhabha’s discussion of the Turkish Gastarbeiter “of limited
value” for reading Turkish-German literature of the 1990s (Turkish Turn 20,
90). In contemporary Germany, she argues, “[t]he imaginary bridge ‘between
two worlds’ is designed to keep discrete worlds apart as much as it pretends
to bring them together” (“Against” 132–33). Both Herzog and Adelson object
that the rhetorical figure of the hybrid may reassert, rather than destabilize, the
imaginary, historically contingent identities of which it is composed.
To extend this historicizing gesture to Brussig, it is important to examine
the possibilities and limits of hybridity in texts focussed on eastern German
identity, including Wendeliteratur. Strikingly, the aforementioned scholarship
finds hybridity an effective aesthetic strategy in eastern German, but more prob-
lematic in Jewish-German or Turkish-German, literature. Narratives exploring
Jewish-German identity, for instance, must contend with longstanding discourses
emphasizing Jewish-German difference. But then the situation is fundamentally
different for former East Germans. Predominant discourses posit the common
Germanness of eastern and western Germans, a sentiment epitomized in the
former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s proclamation of 10 November 1989, “[j]etzt
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 163

wächst zusammen, was zusammengehört” (Brandt 39). Against this ideological

background, nationalist iconography can be mobilized in the interest of eastern
German identity politics, with differences between eastern and western Germans
cast as scandalous. Wie es leuchtet exhibits a nationalist emphasis by focussing
on the question, “[w]as ist Deutschland?” (198; emphasis in the original).
Of central interest, then, is how Wie es leuchtet employs the figures of
migrants and women as ciphers to comment on German national identity and
eastern Germans’ relation to it. Though beyond the scope of this article, the
interplay of genders, sexualities, and colonial discourses is complex and con-
troversial, as Ania Loomba demonstrates at length (128–45). Most important for
this analysis is that the narrative of Wie es leuchtet forces these realms together
by relating them to East German experience. Undeniably, Brussig writes in
reaction to circulating images of former East Germans as “emigrants in their
own country” (Roberts 371). His gendered metaphors also evoke prevalent
discourses, as this discussion will demonstrate. Moreover, the allegorical use of
the situations of migrants or women is by no means confined to representations
of eastern Germans. Yet none of these considerations diminishes the importance
of examining just how Brussig “writes back” – what he highlights, downplays,
or ignores outright – in formulating his eastern German response to preeminent
discourses about unification. How does the narrative weave together hybridity,
sexual politics, and (eastern) German identity, and to what effect? And what
does this suggest, more generally, about the potential of Bhabha’s “hybrid
agencies” to transcend the inherited categories through which social reality
is commonly represented, allowing for something imaginative, novel, and
sustaining (“Culture’s” 212)? For Bhabha describes his aim as “to suggest no
salvation, but a strange cultural survival of the people. For it is by living on the
borderline of history and language, on the limits of race and gender, that we are
in a position to translate the difference between them into a kind of solidarity”
(Location 244).
This article argues that Brussig’s narrative is at odds with Bhabha’s “ethics
of ‘survival’ that allows us to work through the present” (“Culture’s” 212; em-
phasis in the original). It is at odds with itself, aesthetically and thematically,
and the aesthetic tensions are related to the thematic ones. Aesthetically, the
novel flaunts multiple perspectives but grafts these into a rather homogenous
narrative. On the thematic level, the East Germans’ hybridity is to be both
celebrated and overcome. To express this contradiction in the gendered terms
implied by the narrative, the valorized sphere of everyday East Germans is
coded as feminine but susceptible to moments of masculine triumphalism.
The aesthetic contradictions in Wie es leuchtet derive in large part
from the conceit structuring the narrative: that it offers a broad societal por-
trait composed of myriad perspectives, without any externally imposed,
programmatic framework. The novel’s title appears when the character Lena
describes this ostensibly underlying aesthetic principle, referring to the “Flirren
und Flimmern der Zufälle” that dominate life: “Aber wenn man etwas nimmt,
164 t imot hy b. mal chow

das an vielen Stellen flimmert und flackert, und man schaut sich das Ganze
an, dann sieht man, wie es leuchtet” (600; emphasis in the original). Brussig
modelled the novel after Lion Feuchtwanger’s Erfolg (1930), which portrays
Munich society during 1921–24 (Brussig, Personal interview). Yet unlike
Erfolg, Brussig’s novel has no protagonist to tie events together. Instead, several
dozen characters’ stories are juxtaposed, overlapping on occasion. He justifies
this “opulente Personal” as a means to represent the “Wahnsinn” of 1989–90
(“BRDDR”).
However, the novel’s seemingly arbitrary assemblage of perspectives is pre-
tense. For example, the representation of East German characters is markedly
different than that of West Germans and “non-Germans” – the latter referring
here simply to citizenship, not to an essentialist notion of national identity. To
be sure, on the plot level, the destinies of East German characters are varied.
For instance, while a West German doctor ruins the blind Sabine Busse’s life,
another West German doctor helps the transsexual Rainer/Heidi, who has
been abandoned during sex-reassignment by her East German doctor. Also, a
photographer overcomes his fears to learn hang gliding (591–92), whereas the
writer Waldemar jumps presumably to his death, attempting to prove to himself
that “ein Sprung ins Bodenlose [...] eben nicht Selbstmord ist” (517). Finally,
the dissident Jürgen Warthe imagines being hit on the head by a falling coconut
to be a beautiful death, but this notion is contradicted when an ambulance
driver, Willi, is killed by a bottle tossed from the Brandenburg Gate during the
reckless New Year’s celebration (605; 353–54). Ultimately, any conclusion that
might be drawn by reading a particular character as a representative of the East
German experience is undermined elsewhere in the narrative. Yet the repre-
sentation of West Germans and non-Germans is more reductive, with both in
supplementary roles that augment the East German quest for identity. The novel
lacks an exploration of Turkish-German or Jewish-German perspectives – of
any perspectives, in fact, that might complicate the binary opposition between
Germans and non-Germans.
Stephen Brockmann suggests that Wie es leuchtet “fails aesthetically” be-
cause of its prescriptive, “laundry list” approach to representing German society
through multiple perspectives (43). Beyond this, though, the notion of multiple
perspectives is at odds with the omniscient, third-person narrative voice employed
in all chapters but the first. The rather monolithic tone – at times sentimental or
bittersweet, at others slightly absurdist – closely resembles that of Brussig’s novel
Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee (1999), revealing the influence of the American
authors John Irving and Joseph Heller, whom Brussig considers important pre-
cursors (Personal interview). Examined in light of aesthetic debates in Germany
since unification, Wie es leuchtet falls clearly on the side of the simplistic realism
of the “new readability,” like all Brussig’s work (cf. Finlay, esp. 33).
What emerges is a retelling of nationally iconic moments, infused by the
marginalized perspectives of East Germans. The novel marks itself as a Wende-
roman, part of a national genre that employs elements of the historical novel
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 165

and the roman-à-clef. The represented historical events include the emigration
of GDR citizens through Hungary, the Monday demonstrations in Leipzig, the
November 9 opening of the Wall, East Germans’ first shopping excursions in
the West, the March 18 elections, and the July 1 currency union. Characters
share attributes with real people, for instance Jürgen Warthe with Jürgen
Fuchs; Gisela Blank with Gregor Gysi; der kleine Dichter with Volker Braun;
Valentin Eich with Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski; and Leo Lattke with Der
Spiegel journalist Matthias Matussek. The critical reception emphasizes the
novel’s concern with German collective memory, casting it as a Wenderoman or
Deutschlandroman (e.g., F. 4; Halter 46; Kastberger XI; Lehnartz 57; Lüdke 51;
Matussek 192; Richter 33).
To turn to the novel’s thematic contradictions, it is helpful to begin with
precedents in Brussig’s work. His earlier novels all focus on the GDR, where
he lived from his birth in 1965 until German unification. His pseudonymously
published novel Wasserfarben (1991) garnered little attention. But Helden wie
wir brought acclaim and controversy, relating the satirical tale of a picaresque,
megalomaniacal Stasi agent who credits his sex organ with the opening of the
Berlin Wall. Yet Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee evinces the most obvious
parallels to Wie es leuchtet. Beyond the already mentioned similarities in tone,
thematic parallels in two areas are noteworthy.
First, like Wie es leuchtet, Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee valorizes
everyday East Germans who inhabit a feminized sphere removed from power.
In the more recent novel, the elusive realm of power is a puzzling new society
dominated by West Germans; in the earlier one, it is East German state
authority. The narrative of Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee presents the state
as a phantasm in the consciousness of its main characters, exploring the role
of power in their psychic economies and their alienation from it. The emphasis
on everyday people typifies what Cooke calls “writing back” in response to
predominant, postunification discourse on the GDR (61–101). For in the years
following 1990, much German public discourse focussed extensively on the
role of the Stasi, in some ways reducing GDR society to what Brussig has
called “‘Stasi-Terror’, ‘SED-Staat’, ‘totalitären Regime’” and overlooking the
everyday experiences of most East Germans (“Murx” 25). In the novel, by
contrast, traces of state terror provide the mere backdrop for quotidian lives and
mundane pursuits such as romance, western pop culture, opportunities for one’s
children, and self-actualization. The novel highlights its own fictitiousness as
a way of remembering that is distinct from historical memory. The emphasis
on personal and conciliatory memory, grounded in narrative, corresponds
to the focus on everyday life in the GDR, rather than on political history.
While simulating personal memories, the text constructs for its characters a
romanticized space of powerlessness that is coded as feminine, with the pro-
tagonist Micha’s doting mother at its centre.
Second, Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee culminates in a moment of
masculine triumph that arises through the act of narrating. Micha’s coming
166 t imot hy b. mal chow

of age is treated with less irony than the grotesque, phallic climax of Helden
wie wir. Micha desires Miriam throughout the novel, sensing in her presence
“was es auch heißt, ein Mann zu sein” (70; emphasis in the original). He wins
Miriam’s affection by reading from a bogus diary that he has created for the
occasion, writing heroically all night long (148). Like the text’s implied author,
he retroactively constructs a narrative voice that expresses a developing identity
in isolation, indeed alienation, from official GDR culture. Similarly, with Am
kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee, Brussig himself created a narrative voice that
retrospectively celebrated a societal niche removed from state power. Thus he
further established his identity as a public figure, distinguishing himself from a
discredited generation of East German literati, including Christa Wolf, after the
Literaturstreit.
In fact, the relation between speech and agency is a central thematic con-
cern in both Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee and Wie es leuchtet, with both
texts representing agency in gendered terms. To examine Brussig’s literary ex-
plorations of this relation, and to compare his poetics to Bhabha’s, it is useful
to bear in mind the latter’s idea that hybrid agencies “deploy the partial culture
from which they emerge to construct visions of community, and versions of
historic memory, that give narrative form to the minority positions they occupy”
(“Culture’s” 212). For in both of Brussig’s texts, some characters acquire
agency through the use of language while others fail. While Micha’s bogus
diary is instrumental in his maturation, his mother appears merely absurd while
clumsily peppering her speech with communist jargon to impress a neighbour
whom she mistakenly takes to be a Stasi agent (Am kürzeren Ende 66). Her vain
attempt to appropriate power through the use of language is reminiscent of the
“code switching between the official discourse and ‘ordinary speech’” that has
been widely attributed to GDR citizens (Stevenson 188).
Wie es leuchtet also satirizes characters who attempt, despite their ineptitude,
to rise in status through code switching. Here the elusive codes are not the
idioms of the SED but rather the imagined mores of West Germans. Several
East German characters engage in a disingenuous “Posieren mit Worten” (390).
For example, the hotel manager Alfred Bunnzuweit imagines erroneously that
thriving in the new Germany depends on a new vocabulary: “Als Faustregel
mal: Sätze, in denen früher die Worte ausbeuten und Ausbeutung vorkamen,
müssen jetzt was mit engagieren und Engagement haben” (363; emphasis in
the original). Here, belying Bhabha’s notion that the subaltern’s forced mimicry
of the colonizer’s discourse “disrupts its authority,” Brussig’s narrative satirizes
East Germans who attempt to mimic West Germans, highlighting their resulting
lack of agency (Bhabha, Location 126). Patrick Stevenson’s sociolinguistic
study of German language change since World War II, Language and German
Disunity, examines such purely lexical changes in eastern German speech after
1989 (115–29). Stevenson goes beyond these to explore how differing “patterns
of text construction and the textual strategies that are used to create contexts”
played a more central role in communicative impasses, often to the detriment of
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 167

eastern Germans (130). Bunnzuweit’s reduction of the need for understanding

entire discursive frameworks to the lexical level makes him a comical figure.
Moreover, Wie es leuchtet contains a character, Waldemar, whose success
as an author derives from his eccentric use of language. Having migrated to
the GDR from Poland as an adolescent, he writes in an idiosyncratic German.
According to Brussig, this character has some autobiographical features but is
based also on the author’s friend, the Polish-Austrian writer Radek Knapp, who
was awarded ZDF’s Aspekte-Literaturpreis in 1994 (Personal interview). The
editors at the Aufbau Verlag expect Waldemar’s first book to be a sensation
because his limited facility with the language evokes the new disorientation
and “Fremdheit” of East Germans (434). One editor explains, “[i]ndem der
Mensch Sprache benutzt, empfindet er Identität, und er gibt sich Identität”
(434). Another elaborates, “Sie sind sprachlich unbehaust. Sie sind von zwei
Seiten unfertig, aber wie Sie daneben hauen – das ist schöner, als wenn Sie
treffen würden. Wir werden uns bald in einer Gesellschaft mühen, die nicht die
unsere ist” (434; emphasis in the original). Significantly, Waldemar’s poetics,
unlike Bhabha’s, rely on missing the mark – “daneben hauen” – rather than
using historically formed material in a new way to express something particular
about East Germans’ experiences. Certainly, the appeal of Waldemar’s book
suggests that established codes cannot sufficiently represent these experiences.
Yet this migrant character’s situation is merely analogous to that of other East
Germans, who are passing through a historical moment of disorientation.
As a metaphor for East German experience, Waldemar’s success implies the
possibility of triumphantly overcoming alienation. But he remains a mere meta-
phor, his imprecision as a writer corresponding to the East Germans’ temporary
ineptitude.
Another character in Wie es leuchtet is more successful at representing
precisely, and with authenticity, what has thus far eluded representation. The
narrative casts this act as a masculine triumph. This character is the East
German photographer called Lenas großer Bruder (though actually unrelated
to Lena). Significantly, he works primarily in a medium other than language,
but his voice narrates the opening chapter of the novel. He claims to possess
the fantastic ability “dem Leben die Bilder zu entreißen,” taking mimetically
perfect photographs by sensing “wo ein Bild entsteht” in a magical moment
(7; 10–11). The third-person narrative voice that relates the remainder of the
novel affirms this characterization, noting that it applies except at the fall of
the Berlin Wall: “[I]n jener Nacht machten sich die Bilder zur Hure – jeder
konnte sie haben. [...] [A]ber ähnlich wie Kriegsbilder waren sie nicht in der
Lage, die emotionale Urgewalt des Geschehens zu fassen” (99). This passage
metaphorically equates representation and masculine sexual conquest. It also
implies that the events of November 1989 resist authentic representation and
that the well-known, extant photographs are insufficient clichés. Brussig
claims,
168 t imot hy b. mal chow

gerade wenn wir uns mal dieses Deutsche Jahr ansehen, sind es immer wieder
dieselben Bilder, die man dazu sieht, und diese Bilder sind so verbraucht, dass
jeder glaubt, er wüsste über dieses Jahr schon alles, und deshalb wollte ich
die Bilder erst mal beiseite räumen und Worte an deren Stelle treten lassen,
zwar nicht um die Bilder zu ersetzen, sondern um einfach mal zu zeigen, was
die Bilder nicht gezeigt haben oder nicht zeigen konnten. [...] Damit trete ich
an gegen das gesamte Geschichtsbewusstsein, was es über diese Zeit gibt.
(Personal interview)

The first chapter dispenses with photographs in a sense. Here the photographer
as narrator tells of a flood that has destroyed his photographs of the German
Year, concluding, “[d]ie Bilder sind verschwommen, und die Geschichte be-
ginnt von neuem” (13). This announcement of the ensuing narrative as a new
beginning and the photographer’s role as narrator of the opening chapter suggest
that the fantastic authenticity adhering to his photographs will also be present
in this novel. The narrative then proceeds to show that words have previously
been the domain of western Germans. Through this triumphant – and again, by
implication, masculine – narrative act, the implied author appropriates words in
the service of the collective memory of a marginalized group, the former East
Germans whose perspective predominates.
The narrative’s central preoccupation is the incommensurability of
Germany, which appears to the East German characters as an emergent reality,
an inevitable force of nature, but also a mysterious, alien entity. In this,
Deutschland occupies a position in their psychic economies similar to that of
East German state authority in Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee. For instance,
Lenas großer Bruder considers the societal changes after the fall of the Wall:

Er empfand in den politischen Entwicklungen und in den Taten der

Durchschnittsmenschen eine Art Schwerkraft, die alles geschehen läßt, was in
die Einheit führt. [...] Auch Wasser fließt und fließt – bis es endlich ins Meer
gelangt. Und so war es mit dem, was jetzt in Bewegung gekommen war: Erst
in Deutschland findet es Ruhe.
Die Frage war nicht, ob und auch nicht, wann. Die Frage war: Was ist
Deutschland? (198)

The East German characters imagine tentative responses to this question. The
first and second, that Germany is burdened by history or a projection field for
political hopes, are overshadowed by the third, which equates Germany with
the FRG’s economic success. After examining each of these possibilities, this
article will turn to the narrative’s fourth and most compelling answer to the
German question: Deutschland is a signifier to be used in performing identity
and appropriating power.
To some characters, Germany appears burdened by its Nazi past. For in-
stance, Waldemar shudders to see a drunken man at a CDU rally in 1990 lift
his right arm and bellow the Nazis’ national anthem: “Es gab welche, die das
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 169

Wort Wiedervereinigung so verstanden, daß Deutschland da weitermacht, wo es

zuletzt aufhören mußte” (418). Elsewhere, an East German’s shopping trip in
the west is described as a coming “heim ins Reich, nach Deutschland,” in the
language of annexation from the Nazi period (296).
Yet the diffuse fears about the historical gravity of Germany give way to the
realization that the past is in many ways irrelevant to the post-Wende present.
Twentieth-century German history is personified in the figure of the East German
Fritz Bode, a sixty-six-year-old author and dedicated communist who prides
himself on being a “Person der Zeitgeschichte” (202). Through an absurd series
of misunderstandings, Bode has narrowly escaped a Nazi execution order, then
nearly died in Siberia after being captured and mistaken for an SS-man on the
eastern front, only to be imprisoned later in East Germany for allegedly conspiring
against the communist party (203–06). Having achieved celebrity status with
his autobiography at the end of the 1980s, he is dumbfounded when, at a public
reading after the fall of the Wall, his criticisms of real existing socialism suddenly
interest no one. In response, he absentmindedly lets his glass eye, a consequence
of his maltreatment while imprisoned in the GDR, roll across the table, “zur
Murmel degradiert,” and realizes, “[i]ch bin doch nur noch ein Museumsstück,
ein Zeitzeuge von damals” (209). In attendance is the young Lena, who perceives
a lacuna between the reality she knows and Bode’s experience, “was in den
Geschichtsbüchern, aber nicht im wirklichen Leben vorkommt” (210).
Bode’s disembodied eye symbolizes that his witness to history has been
reduced to an irrelevant spectacle. With this glass eye, Bode can no longer
see and bear witness; rather, all other eyes gawk at this uncanny object. Later,
this reification of history is symbolized by a pinball machine called Das Auge
Bodes, in which a glass eye rolls past fields of corpses, the Kristallnacht,
labour camps, and the Berlin Wall (506). In another passage, Hitler’s Bavarian
Kehlsteinhaus further evokes the Nazi past. Here it is filled with East German
tourists, leading one character to observe, “daß denen Hitler der populärste
Deutsche nach Helmut Kohl war” (564). Bode’s witness to history has had little
effect. The narrative’s lack of engagement with Jewish-German identity, for
instance, enables it to dismiss the implications of this history so cursorily.
The political promise that Deutschland holds proves similarly incon-
sequential. The East German lawyer and former Stasi informant Gisela Blank
is a postcommunist candidate of the reformed SED in the March 1990 election.
She views the political changes as an opportunity: “Für ein einiges, nicht-
paktgebundenes Deutschland, für einen besonnenen, wohlüberlegten Weg in die
Einheit zweier gleichberechtigter Partner, sie war für eine Wirtschaftsform, die
zugleich die Produktivität der Menschen entfesselt und die Destruktivität des
Gewinnstrebens bändigt” (398). Yet Blank’s association with the communist
government limits her political viability. She burns her Stasi file in 1989, but
is to be distinguished from the old SED establishment, for whom the emergent
Germany is not an opportunity but a threat; for them, “nun drohte Deutschland”
(184, 494).
170 t imot hy b. mal chow

The Blank character is based on the PDS politician Gregor Gysi. Her nick-
names “Gisi” and “Notar” – allusions to allegations that Gysi collaborated
with the Stasi under the name IM Notar – are obvious indications (398, 180).
Like Gysi, Blank defended East German political dissidents as a lawyer and, in
1990, is a rising politician with a platform of reforming real existing socialism
in a democratic context and retaining the GDR’s socialist focus and self-de-
termination. Thus in Wie es leuchtet the prominent advocate for a hopeful
reimagining of socialism is an East German tainted by a Stasi past. In the case
of Gysi, the allegations have been disputed; for the character Blank, they are
simply true. This contrivance is a reminder that the eastern German identity
Brussig champions is entirely distinct from socialism and, by contrast, grounded
in everyday experience.
In the novel, the economic success of the FRG eclipses both the German
past and the new political possibilities. The former is shown overtly in the
thoughts of an East German after the CDU victory in the March 18 elections:
“Er hatte sich mehr von freien Wahlen versprochen, die Gier nach der D-Mark
hatte die Sinne benebelt und einer an historischen Erfahrungen geschulten
Deutschlandskepsis keine Chance gegeben” (407). The latter is addressed by
another on the same occasion: “Er zog sicheren Wohlstand unsicheren Weltver-
besserungsphantasien vor. ‘Die Leute haben das Geld gewählt’” (406). Echoing
Jürgen Habermas’s criticism of “DM-nationalism,” the character Lena realizes
later in the novel that the multitudes singing the national anthem “sangen
Deutschland und meinten die D-Mark” (Habermas 84; Brussig, Wie es leuchtet
514).
As a fourth answer to the German question, the narrative of Wie es leuchtet
emphasizes that the word Deutschland is a signifier to be employed as a prop
in performing identity and asserting power. The word’s materiality, its status as
an object open to appropriation, is central to the account of a CDU celebration
in which the word is chanted over five lines of text until it disintegrates into
two syllables, “deu” and “schlann” (405). Germanness appears primarily as the
province of West Germans, who have the upper hand in the performance of
identity and mastery of the requisite vernacular. The novel’s two West German
protagonists, Werner Schniedel and Leo Lattke, exemplify this trait. Notably,
both have surnames that refer to slang terms for “penis,” if “Lattke” is read
as a diminutive form of “Latte.” Both enter into sexual relationships with East
German women, enabling the implied author to reconfigure a longstanding,
gendered metaphor for power relations between eastern and western Germans.
Through this reconfiguration, the novel implies that eastern Germans might
still inject some authenticity into the narrative construct of German national
identity.
The awkward, nineteen-year-old albino Schniedel poses as a Volkswagen
executive, telling all he meets, “[i]ch sondiere für einen Weltkonzern eine
Volkswirtschaft” (e.g., 246, 325). This con enables him to live for months free
of charge in East Berlin’s Palasthotel. Schniedel renders his performance con-
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 171

vincing by displaying counterfeit business cards and western consumer goods

as props (301). However, the expectations and behaviours of East Germans
enable him to perform most effectively. For instance, he understands the self-
demeaning behaviour of the hotel manager Alfred Bunnzuweit as an invitation
to develop his feigned identity (302). Also, when he persuades the insecure East
German Kathleen Bräunlich to live in his hotel room as his secretary and sexual
partner, her own needs and expectations are central: “Sie würde ihm seine Rolle
noch mehr glauben, als er sie je spielen könnte. Und sie wird seine Erfindung
immer wieder in Kraft setzen, auch vor ihm. Denn auch sie hat etwas davon,
daß er der ist, für den sie ihn hält” (305). When Schniedel is finally arrested, his
West German grandmother buys his freedom with money from the sale of an
East Berlin apartment building that she has reacquired since the collapse of the
GDR (477–79, 492–94). Thus beneath the overtly fraudulent claims that sustain
this young West German for a while in the east, economic developments work
more subtly and permanently to his advantage. In effect, the outright con and
the new economy are two sides of the same coin.
The other West German protagonist is Lattke, in essence a more sophisticated
version of Schniedel. A prominent journalist who imagines his role as “Die Welt
in meine Worte tauchen” (486; emphasis in the original), Lattke derives his
status from skilfully framing the presentation of his subjects. Success in Lattke’s
milieu requires a refined performance, akin to Schniedel’s activity as a con man.
For instance, a gathering of western journalists, including Lattke, is described
as “ein raffiniertes Spiel, das die Männer spielten. Die Akteure waren zugleich
das Publikum, und alles, was gesagt, gezeigt, getan und geboten wurde, fand nur
deshalb statt, weil es vor aller Augen stattfand” (308). These characters typify
Brussig’s conception of West Germans as “viel selbstbewusster und viel lässiger
und viel präsentationsbewusster” and East Germans as “oft ganz schön hölzern,
abgequält aber auch nicht so instrumentell, nicht so schauspielerisch” (Personal
interview).
Lattke maintains a condescending distinction between himself and the East
Germans; he responds to the masses chanting “[w]ir sind ein Volk” by pro-
claiming, “[w]ir auch” (314). Yet he is on the lookout for a representative East
German who, “stellvertretend für die Deutschen,” will enable him to encapsulate
the nation’s feelings (347). As a West German journalist, he considers himself
best suited to interpret the East German experience for the nation. But this
proves untrue. After a bout of writer’s block, Lattke stages a scenario by having
his brother, a West German doctor, restore the sight of a blind East German
woman named Sabine Busse: “Blindheit als Metapher für ein Leben hinter der
Mauer” (347). The results are disastrous. Lattke must write an unpublishable
piece about a woman who is devastated because, after a life of blindness,
she cannot make sense of visual stimuli (526–38). Busse’s experiences resist
the narrative framework that Lattke wishes to impose on them. Through this
journalistic failure, the implied author “writes back,” satirizing western German
representations of eastern Germans.
172 t imot hy b. mal chow

Furthermore, by reconfiguring prevalent, gendered metaphors, the narrative

of Wie es leuchtet implies that eastern Germans might use the signifier
Deutschland to their advantage. In the immediate postunification period, a
widespread metaphor for German unification was a marriage or heterosexual
union, with the GDR in the female role, as Ingrid Sharp’s 1994 essay “Male
Privilege and Female Virtue: Gendered Representations of the Two Germanies”
demonstrates. The novel contains variations on this metaphor, each of which
casts it in a different light, in the characters Kathleen Bräunlich, Rainer/Heidi,
and Lena.
Through Bräunlich’s sexual relationship with Schniedel, the narrative
satirizes the sexual union metaphor by presenting it in an exaggerated and thus
comical form:

Daß ein Kapitalist Zugriff auf den Körper der Werktätigen hat, war ihr wohl-
bekannt – das sollte nur eine der vielen Abscheulichkeiten des Kapitalismus
sein. Doch Kathleen Bräunlich wollte den Kapitalismus nicht abscheulich
finden, im Gegenteil: Sie wollte zu ihm überlaufen. So befriedigte sie Werner
Schniedel – freiwillig und so gut sie eben konnte. (306)

The overt reference to Bräunlich’s sexual exploitation is a reversal of the

“fairy-tale elements” that Sharp identifies in gendered representations of
the GDR as “Cinderella rescued from servitude and exploitation by the
handsome Prince,” the FRG (Sharp, “Male Privilege” 90). When Bräunlich
first climbs into Schniedel’s “Westauto,” he appears to rescue her from her
“Aschenputteldasein”: “Das mußte der Prinz sein. Kathleen Bräunlich konnte
nicht widerstehen” (255). Here the implied author turns the fairy-tale marriage
metaphor on its head by introducing the con man as the prince.
Through another character, Rainer/Heidi, the narrative emphasizes the
performative aspects of identity. She first appears in the novel among a group
of seven transsexuals complaining to the Minister of Health of having been
abandoned in mid-sex-reassignment by East German doctors. These transsexual
characters fit neither of the ostensibly fixed gender categories: “Sie waren nicht
das eine und nicht das andere” (174). Their gender identities are analogous
to Waldemar’s literary language between languages and, by extension, to the
complex identities of East Germans at the time of the Wende. The narrative
emphasizes the perils of living in a social world that expects, and projects,
fixed categories of identity. One transsexual character laments: “Wirklich,
Herr Minister, ich trau mich kaum noch raus. Wir sind doch Freiwild!” (174).
After her transformation, Heidi’s work as a prostitute involves multiple layers
of performance: “Erhaben mußte sie auftreten, da hatte sie keine Wahl” (498;
emphasis in the original). She performs not only her gender but also East or
West German identity to correspond to the desires of male customers (501).
The implied author engages in “writing back” through this character, recasting
widespread, postunification discourse on eastern German sexual practices.
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 173

East German women were frequently represented as “super-sexualised, multi-

orgasmic fantasy object[s] desperate for western men,” on the one hand, or, on
the other, as sexually “unawakened” and “trapped in the grey sexual landscape
of the GDR,” and thus rife for participation in a much sexier western consumer
culture (Sharp, “Victor” 179). Commodification is central to both images: in
the first, the eastern German woman becomes a commodity; in the second, she
desperately needs western commodities. Through Heidi’s work as a prostitute,
the implied author explores both these constructs, further demonstrating the
exploitive side of the fairy-tale marriage metaphor for unification. For Heidi,
the sexual union appears ironically as a commercial exchange predicated on
performatively fulfilling the other’s expectations. Heidi’s East German male
customers “wollten sich echten westlichen Sex kaufen. Sie bekamen einen Mann
aus dem Osten, frisch transformiert” (501). Here East German men, rather than
women, are the consumers, but the desire to consume titillating western sex is
likewise central. Conversely Heidi plays the East German female fantasy object
for men, “die ostdeutsches Material suchten, weil sie sich von dem noch Frische
und eine aufreizende, anfängerhafte Schamhaftigkeit erhofften” (501). In both
cases, the commercial exchange involves deceit, suggesting a darker side to the
free-market, consumer culture of the west.
A third variation on the sexual union metaphor involves the East German
Lena, who becomes Lattke’s lover on the evening of the March 18 elections
(426). The narrative implies a parallel between Lena’s union with Lattke and
that of the two states when she speaks earlier in the evening with a social
democrat. He describes his party’s plan for the GDR as “[d]ie Braut noch auf-
zuhübschen, die mit dem reichen Gemahl verheiratet werden soll,” and Lena
declares, “[u]nd jetzt geh ich mich aufhübschen” (403). Lena’s sexual desire
for Lattke is characterized in language that appears borrowed from the political
realm, as a “heftigen Wunsch nach körperlicher Vereinigung” (442).
However, once the narrative has cast Lena in this allegorical role, it disrupts
the expected trajectory of the story. Brussig’s adaptation of the metaphor here
suggests that mimicry can lead to a form of agency. Lena eventually rejects the
prospect of moving to New York with Lattke and ends the relationship. Instead,
the political unification provides her with an opportunity to confront the theatre
director Paul Masunke, who sexually abused her as a child and has recently
returned to the east after a career in the west. Masunke exhibits a sadistic ob-
session with histrionics and power; his productions involve the physical abuse
of the actors (594). This adds another, darker dimension to the theme of acting
and role playing, which the narrative associates with West Germans. When Lena
confronts Masunke in the cafeteria of his new theatre, causing him to spill soup
on himself just as he once spilled semen on her, she acts out a reversal of gender
roles and power relations, striking a triumphant masculine pose that is a staple
of pornography: “Nur hatte Lena die Rollen getauscht: Jetzt riß sie an seinem
Handgelenk, und er schaute sie erschrocken und ängstlich von unten an. / Mehr
Theater wollte sie mit ihm nicht spielen” (599). The passage exposes the power
174 t imot hy b. mal chow

relations underlying the sexual union metaphor. The cathartic confrontation

with Masunke suggests that rather than passively accepting societal conditions,
eastern Germans might treat the political unification as an opportunity to
exercise power in their own interests.
Brussig destabilizes the sexual union metaphor and the gendering of the
GDR, exposing power dynamics and the performative aspects of identity.
In support of eastern German identity politics, he interrupts these gendered
discourses that make relations between eastern and western Germans appear
natural. As Sharp explains, “[a]ssigning the female role to the GDR [...]
normalises assumptions which would otherwise appear extremely inequitable”
(Sharp, “Male Privilege” 90–91).
Though Brussig’s appropriation of sexual metaphors undermines the binary
opposition between eastern and western Germans, the novel fails to extend this
gesture to other oppositions at work in the discourse of the Berlin Republic. By
representing eastern Germans as subaltern and recasting predominant discourse
about eastern and western Germans, Brussig employs strategies reminiscent
of postcolonial literature. Rainer/Heidi’s and Lena’s performances of gender-
role reversals can be read as moments of “mimicry” in which the implied
author adopts pervasive metaphors for eastern Germans only to subvert them.
These characters, like Bhabha’s migrants, reveal that identity formations are
effects of performance, not essence. Yet upon closer examination, the parallel
between Brussig’s and Bhabha’s projects falls apart. As noted above, Bhabha
envisions “no salvation, but a strange cultural survival of the people,” in which
the difference between people “on the borderline of history and language, on
the limits of race and gender” becomes “a kind of solidarity” (Location 244).
The implied author of Wie es leuchtet, by contrast, appears just as interested
in a form of “salvation” – that is, a reimagining of the German nationalist nar-
rative that allots eastern Germans a more prominent space within it – as in an
open-ended “solidarity.” This is clear in the novel’s representations both of non-
German characters and of other nations.
Though appearing only rarely, non-Germans in Germany (i.e., characters
who would have been foreign nationals at the time of the Wende, regardless of
place of birth or residence) perform two functions in the narrative. First, they
embody an extreme difference that emboldens the East Germans to assert their
own divergence from West German norms. The exotic otherness of the street
performers Lena encounters in Berlin is undeniable: “Die Tänzer, durchweg
Jungs, schienen aus südlichen Ländern zu kommen, türkisch und nord-
afrikanisch sahen sie aus” (522). Coming upon them, Lena’s impression is of
something nonhuman, “etwas, das sie an ein kreiselndes Insekt, dem ein Flügel
ausgerissen wurde, erinnerte. Sie brauchte eine Sekunde, um zu erkennen, daß
sich da am Boden ein Mensch in schnellen Hüpfern drehte” (522). Enraptured
by the spectacle, Lena thinks: “Ja, das ist die Große Freiheit. Mehr wollte
sie nicht, als unter Menschen zu leben, die das Beste, das sie geben können,
das Einzigartige, das sie haben, das Andere, das sie sind, auch zeigen dürfen”
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 175

(525; emphasis in the original). Lena’s thoughts here appear to endorse liberal
multiculturalism.
But non-German characters also reinforce the Germanness of the East
Germans. After identifying exotic flowers for two East German women on a
shopping expedition in the west, a cheerful Turk assures them of their identities
in nonstandard German:

Der Türke sagte lachend, sie seien die ersten Deutschen, denen er deutsche
Wörter beibringt.
“Sind wir deutsch?” fragten die zarten Masseusen. “Wir sind doch ...”
Sie drucksten herum, weil sie die drei Buchstaben nicht sagen wollten.
“Doch,” sagte der türkische Blumenhändler überzeugt. “Ist auch deutsch.”
(121)

These examples typify the novel’s representation of non-Germans. Such char-

acters give East Germans a model for navigating a life that diverges from the
norms of the majority culture. Yet their more pronounced difference emphasizes
the commonality of eastern and western Germans, supporting a normative,
German nationalist element. The combination of these contradictory impulses
lets the implied author explore eastern German alterity while insisting that
eastern Germans’ stories belong to the German national narrative.
In fact, such a narrow focus on eastern German identity politics is central
to Brussig’s project as a public intellectual in general. His prominence in the
wake of his publishing successes of the 1990s has made him a spokesperson
for former East Germans as a group. The media call on him to address the
meaning of German national identity and collective memory, presenting him as
an eastern German version of public intellectuals like Günter Grass or Martin
Walser. In 2003, for example, the Tagesspiegel staged a “literarisches Gipfel-
treffen zwischen Ost und West” by interviewing Brussig and Grass together
about the German national implications of the 1953 GDR workers’ revolt
(Brussig and Grass 33). Also, Edgar Reitz chose Brussig to represent East
German perspectives as the co-writer of the screenplay for Heimat 3 (2004), the
latest installment of the iconic Heimat television series. In describing his work
with Brussig, Reitz said, “[i]ch hätte nie den Mut gehabt, als Wessi Leute aus
dem Osten so bedenkenlos zu beschreiben, wie es durch die Zusammenarbeit
mit Thomas möglich wurde” (Reitz and Brussig 30). During her 2005 campaign
for the German chancellorship, Angela Merkel included Brussig among her
expert advisors (Kramer 48).
The sham of German unity is Brussig’s refrain: “Endlich wird geredet
werden über die Lüge, die ‘deutsche Einheit’ heißt. Warum Einheit, wenn sich
im Westen fast nichts ändert und im Osten fast alles ändert?” (“Lüge” 15). Thus
he makes himself indispensable: in the absence of German unity, a representative
eastern German public intellectual is needed to qualify western German under-
standings of the nation. Given the demise of the older, more established class
176 t imot hy b. mal chow

of East German intellectuals after unification, Brussig can step in to fill the gap
(Geyer 367–68). But his focus on eastern German experience insulates him from
other stakeholders in the Berlin Republic. As a public intellectual and author, his
exploration of eastern German identity falls short of the radical interrogation of
identity constructs – including national identity – more typical of his Turkish-
German, Jewish-German, and transnational contemporaries, such as Emine Sevgi
Özdamar, Zafer Şenocak, Esther Dischereit, Maxim Biller, and Yoko Tawada.
In Wie es leuchtet, the portrayal of eastern Germans as virtual migrants would
be less problematic were it not for the rise of German antiforeigner violence
in the early 1990s, which the novel does not address at all. In Hoyerswerda in
1991 and Rostock in 1992, neo-Nazis attacked homes for asylum seekers and
foreign workers, marking the beginning of a trend that culminated in murders as
well as “656 fire attacks involving right-wing extremists” in 1992 and 284 such
attacks in 1993 (Peck, Ash, and Lemke 83). One might argue that the focus on
1989–90 in the novel precludes the exploration of such topics, but the narrative
makes ironic allusions to later events in other contexts, most notably the Persian
Gulf War of 1991, and could have done so here (591). Significantly, the absence
of such topics demonstrates the extent to which the narrative is concerned
with the situation of eastern Germans specifically, relegating other characters
to supplementary roles. The narrative shows East Germans and non-Germans
in parallel situations but also separated by the impermeable barrier of national
identity. Though it emphasizes characters in an ungrounded, transitional state,
the narrative posits an emergent German identity. The preoccupation with the
question “[w]as ist Deutschland?” is one example (198). Another is Waldemar’s
conversation with his editor, which turns from an excursus on migrant authors
– Ionesco, Conrad, Beckett, Israti, Celan, Nabokov, Kundera, and Dinesen – to
focus on Fontane: “Der ist deutsch, urdeutsch” (189–95, 195).
A further manifestation of the concern with national identity is the novel’s
caricatures of national character. When East Germans travel to the United
States and Thailand near the novel’s end, these nations respectively provide a
negative and positive example for a developing German national identity. In
New York, Lena sees rampant materialism: “Geld ist das Wichtigste bei euch.
Es wäre lächerlich, es zu übersehen” (572; emphasis in the original). She calls
the World Trade Center the “New Yorker Kathedrale,” and the city itself is a
“menschenverschlingendes Ungetüm” as well as an “Inszenierung,” evoking the
disingenuous posing typical of the novel’s West German characters (576, 574,
573). In fact, elsewhere in the text, Lena bemoans the West Germans’ related
obsession with money and the effect it may soon have on all Germans: “Und
Geld ist das Wichtigste bei euch. [...] In Wirklichkeit macht euer Geld hart. Ihr
seid es schon, und wir werden es noch” (543). The subtext is clear: the German
nation is at a crossroads and, because of West Germans, in danger of adopting
the dehumanizing attitudes of the United States.
Thailand, in turn, appears idyllic and nurturing. Although Brussig has
written elsewhere about sex tourism in Bangkok (“Schachmatt” 24, 29), no
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 177

such references appear in Wie es leuchtet. Rather, the aforementioned dissident

Jürgen Warthe travels with his wife to the island of Ko Samui to die of leukemia,
a result of exposure to radioactivity while imprisoned by the Stasi. Here he
meets a Thai woman, Noy, who gives him a massage “so sanft wie das Land
und seine Menschen” and an apparently drugged pudding that fills him with
a sense of well-being (603). Under this influence, he can determine “wer ein
Mensch mit einer Daseinsberechtigung ist und wer nicht” (605). The masseuse
Noy, Warthe, and his wife are among those with a justifiable existence; not so
the judge and interrogator who persecuted him in the GDR. While Lena’s trip
to the United States is a cautionary tale for Germans, Warthe’s journey to Thai-
land emphasizes the sensitivity to humanity attributable to everyday eastern
Germans who have escaped the ideological influences of both the SED and
the United States. The narrative implies that such eastern Germans might best
answer the question, “[w]as ist Deutschland?” (198).
In conclusion, Wie es leuchtet harks back to the romanticized sphere of
everyday life in Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee, adapting it to represent
eastern German memory of the iconic “German Year.” The resulting narrative
comprises several related contradictions. Though the novel’s poetics rely on
representing multiple perspectives, the narrative focusses on East Germans
extensively. Though the narrative valorizes a feminized eastern German
identity for its ostensible authenticity and “Daseinsberechtigung,” moments of
masculine triumphalism suggest that eastern Germans should overcome their
marginal status (605). Though several passages imply that identity is fungible
and predicated on performance, the narrative maintains rigid boundaries
between Germans and non-Germans. The text employs the situations of
migrants, non-Germans, women, and transsexuals as metaphors for eastern
German experience without exploring the full consequences of the performative
aspects of identity that come to light through these metaphors. It focusses
instead on eastern German entitlement within a German national context.
Hybridity in this text serves a primarily metaphorical function, rather than
opening up room for all residents of the Berlin Republic to contribute to German
memory work. Undeniably, several passages support Cooke’s application of
Bhabha’s mimicry to eastern German literature. For example, the text recon-
figures prevalent, gendered representations of East and West Germans. But a
theory that considers how this ostensibly postcolonial gesture works in con-
junction with a hypostatization of national identity would best account for
Brussig’s poetics. Brussig considers himself a “deutscher Schriftsteller mit
einer ostdeutschen Herkunft” (Personal interview). The case of Wie es leuchtet
suggests that investigations of “hybrid agencies” in contemporary German
literature must contend with how hybridity can both undermine and reinforce
exclusivist notions of fixed national identity. Studies of postcolonial discourse
in eastern German literature ignore this at their peril, given the roles played by
nationalisms and notions of eastern German entitlement in xenophobic violence
after German unification.
178 t imot hy b. mal chow

Works Cited

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and Karin E. Yeşilada. Cardiff: U of Wales P, 2003. 130–43.
———. The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature: Toward a New Critical
Grammar of Migration. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Bhabha, Homi K. “Culture’s in Between.” Artforum 32.1 (1993): 167–68, 211–14.
———. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Brandt, Willy. “. . . was zusammengehört”: Reden zu Deutschland. Bonn: Dietz, 1990.
Brockmann, Stephen. “Berlin as the Literary Capital of German Unification.” Taberner
39–55.
Brussig, Thomas. Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee. 1999. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer,
2001.
———. “BRDDR-Wendejahre.” Moderator Thea Dorn. Literatur im Foyer. SWR (Süd-
westrundfunk), Stuttgart. 2004.
———. Helden wie wir. 1995. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer, 1998.
———. “Die Lüge, die Einheit heißt.” Süddeutsche Zeitung 26 June 2001: 15.
———. “Murx, die deutsche Einheit.” Tagesspiegel 31 Aug. 2003: 25.
———. Personal interview. 11 June 2005.
———. “Schachmatt in Bangkok.” Die Zeit 6 March 2003, sec “Reisen”: 24, 29.
———. Wasserfarben. 1991. Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 2001.
———. Wie es leuchtet. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer, 2004.
Brussig, Thomas, and Günter Grass. “Helden? Ach was, die brauchen wir nicht.”
Interview with David Ensikat and Marius Meller. Der Tagesspiegel 15 June 2003:
33.
Caspari, Martina. “Die schwierige Konstitution von Identität zwischen den Welten: Jana
Hensels Zonenkinder.” The German Quarterly 81.2 (2008): 203–19.
Cooke, Paul. Representing East Germany since Unification: From Colonization to
Nostalgia. New York: Berg, 2005.
Dümcke, Wolfgang, and Fritz Vilmar, eds. Kolonialisierung der DDR: Kritische
Analysen und Alternativen des Einigungsprozesses. Münster: Agenda, 1996.
F., J. “Meisterstück mit Ostkompetenz.” Die Tageszeitung 15 Dec. 2004: 4.
Feuchtwanger, Lion. Erfolg: Drei Jahre Geschichte einer Provinz. Berlin: Kiepenheuer,
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Finlay, Frank. “Literary Debates and the Literary Market since Unification.” Taberner
21–38.
Geyer, Michael. “The Long Good-bye: German Culture Wars in the Nineties.” The
Power of Intellectuals in Contemporary Germany. Ed. Geyer. Chicago: U of
Chicago P, 2001. 355–80.
Habermas, Jürgen. “Yet Again: German Identity.” New German Critique 52 (1991):
84–101.
Halter, Martin. “Zonenkasper macht Ernst.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 30 Oct.
2004: 46.
Herzog, Todd. “Germans and Jews after the Fall of the Wall: The Promises and Problems
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Colorado P, 2000. 93–102.
Kastberger, Klaus. “Die stumpfen Bilder.” Die Presse 27 Nov. 2004: XI.
 Thomas Brussig’s Wie es leuchtet 179

Kramer, Jane. “The Rise of Angela Merkel: Will Germany Have a Woman Chancellor?”
The New Yorker 19 Sept. 2005: 48–55.
Lehnartz, Sascha. “Gesamtdeutscher Romanbaufacharbeiter.” Frankfurter Allgemeine
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Lüdke, Martin. “Die Prototypen der deutschen Wende.” Die Zeit 30 Dec. 2004: 51.
Matussek, Matthias. “Der Balzac vom Prenzlberg.” Der Spiegel 18 Oct. 2004: 192–95.
Peck, Jeffrey, Mitchell Ash, and Christiane Lemke. “Natives, Strangers, and Foreigners:
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Identities. Ed. Konrad H. Jarausch. Providence: Berghahn, 1997. 61–102.
Reitz, Edgar, dir. Heimat 3: Chronik einer Zeitenwende. Written by Edgar Reitz and
Thomas Brussig. Kinowelt Home Entertainment, 2004.
Reitz, Edgar, and Thomas Brussig. “‘Gegen die Globalisierung helfen keine Lichterketten.’”
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180 seminar

Reviews
Constantin Rauer. Wahn und Wahrheit: Kants Auseinandersetzung mit dem Irratio-
nalen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2007. 377 pp. Hardback. € 49.80. ISBN 978-
3-05-004300-5.

Among the early readers of Swedenborg’s multivolume work Arcana coelestia

(1747–1758) – or The Heavenly Mysteries, contained in the Sacred Scriptures, etc.
– was Immanuel Kant, who used the Swedish mystic’s text as the starting point of his
Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (1766). What
compelled the philosopher to turn to this “großes Werk,” to these “acht Quartbände
voll Unsinn,” as he called them, in which Swedenborg claims to uncover the
“geheimen Sinn” of the Pentateuch and the Bible as a whole? The very fact of the
composition of Träume (combined with a failure to engage with its predominantly
ironic tone) led to a curious episode in Kant reception – to the claim, put forward
in the nineteenth century by Carl du Prel and others, that Kant was, in fact, himself
a mystic. Behind Kant’s doctrine of the “noumenal” world lies a doctrine of the
“numinous,” behind the “transcendental” lies the “transcendent” – how could such a
reading be taken seriously?
But as Heinrich Heine sensed, when he included in his Harzreise a scene where
a ghost appears and solemnly cites the first Kritik to prove he does not exist, there
are a number of points where Kant’s vocabulary intersects with occultism: the world
of “appearances,” the emphasis on imagination and illusion (Schein), a theory of
projection. And over the last few decades, various studies have investigated Kant’s
interest in Swedenborg and occultism, notably those by Monique David-Ménard
(1990), Gottlieb Florschütz (1992), Gottfried Gotz (1993), and most recently a
Sammelband edited by Friedemann Stengel (2008). The originality of Constantin
Rauer’s study lies in its comprehensive approach to the entire problem: it explains
the intellectual-historical context to Kant’s engagement with Swedenborg, examines
what is at stake in Träume eines Geistersehers and other relevant texts, and at the
same time provides an essential bibliographical account of the subsequent scholarly
debate surrounding the Kant-Swedenborg relation. Rauer dissects Kant’s account,
given in his Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik (1783), of the reasons
for his “critical turn,” namely that “die Erinnerung des David Hume war eben
dasjenige, was mir vor vielen Jahren zuerst den dogmatischen Schlummer unter-
brach.” Yet the Humean problematic of empiricism and rationalism is not, in Rauer’s
view, central to the first Kritik, and he finds Kant’s language here – that strange
genitive, the emphasis on memory, the adverb zuerst – suspicious: nothing less than a
strategy, whether conscious or unconscious, to suppress the impact on his thought of
Swedenborg. Not that Kant was ever a mystic, or a member of what has been called
the “covert enlightenment” (Alfred Gabay, 2005), but Rauer instead proposes three
main theses: first, the critique of reason evolved from Kant’s critique of irrationalism
(Schwärmerei); second, Kant’s transcendental logic has its origins in his empirical
psychology of the 1760s; and third, the link between the critique of reason and the
critique of irrationalism lies in the idea of projection, which itself forms a point of
 REVIEWS 181

contact between the critical philosophy and psychoanalysis. For Kant himself was
profoundly interested in problems of mental pathology, and he used (what, in his
essay of 1764, he called) “die Krankheiten des Kopfes” to illustrate the cognitive
process, just as, later, Ernst Cassirer took aphasia, agnosia, and apraxia to demon-
strate the workings of “symbolic consciousness.” Indeed, Rauer develops a number
of schemata to show the overlap between concepts in the critical philosophy
(amphiboly, paralogism, antinomy) and corresponding pathologies: projection,
splitting, and paranoia. Thus Kant’s description of the author of Arcana coelestia as
a “Kandidat des Hospitals” is no mere insult: Wahn emerges as the central category
of what Kant wanted his philosophy to combat.
The remarkable conceptual density of this study should not deter nonphilo-
sophers from reading it. As far as possible, given his subject matter, Rauer not only
writes with eminent clarity, but even succeeds in his ambition to convey a sense of
“fröhliche Wissenschaft” (26), marrying the art of philosophy with the literature of
science to correct the still-pervasive image of Kant as a narrow-minded pedant. In
this respect, this study is a contribution to a reevaluation of Kant within the world
of the humanities, just as the fiction of Michael Gregorio has offered a fresh image
of Kant to the wider reading public. Nowadays Swedenborgians may be few and far
between, and a belief in occultism surely is the least of our problems: but the dangers
inherent in irrationalism arguably pose just as great a threat as in Kant’s time.

PAUL BISHOP University of Glasgow

Karen Leeder, Hrsg. “Flaschenpost”: German Poetry and the Long Twentieth
Century. Spec. issue of German Life and Letters 60.3 (2007): 277–466. ISSN
0016-8777 (print), 1468-0483 (online).

In den Beiträgen dieser Sondernummer der britischen Fachzeitschrift wird das

Spannungsfeld zwischen lyrischen und sonstigen Diskursen als Energiequelle
literarischer Dialoge herausgearbeitet und in diversen Kontexten gedeutet. Die
Literaturwissenschaftler und Literaturwissenschaftlerinnen offerieren ein breites
Spektrum an Kommunikationsangebote mit Lyrik. Hinzu kommt, und das macht
den Mehrwert der Sondernummer aus, dass die wissenschaftlichen Leistungen in
direktem Dialog mit den Produktionen zweier zeitgenössischer Lyriker stehen, die
mit ihren hier abgedruckten Gedichten ebenfalls zum Gelingen der Veröffentlichung
beigetragen haben.
Neun Gedichte von Ulrike Draesner und Michael Krüger rahmen neun litera-
turwissenschaftliche Essays renommierter Lyrikexperten ein. Robert Vilain
(Royal Holloway, London) eröffnet die Reihe mit einem wahrlich europäischen
Beitrag, in dem er die deutschsprachige Lyrik aus den engen Gefilden holt und
in einen breiteren Kontext platziert, der das lyrische Gespräch zwischen Hugo
von Hofmannsthal, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Celan und Paul Valéry verfolgt
und auswertet. Im grenzenlosen Feld bekommen die einzelnen Stimmen eine
kräftige Resonanz, auch wenn nie die Rede von einem Unisono war. Trotz
Wahlverwandtschaft, reger lyrischer Korrespondenz und Übersetzungsarbeit
erkennt Vilain nämlich eine Anomalie im Verhältnis der Deutschsprachigen zu
dem Franzosen: je stärker die Anziehung und reger die produktive Rezeption,
182 seminar

desto weiter entfernen sie sich von einander, und die Rede von Valéry als “Vor-
sprecher” erübrigt sich letztendlich.
Einen anderen Erweiterungsvorschlag des lyrischen Gesprächs versucht
Georgina Paul (St Hilda’s College, Oxford), wenn sie die weibliche Handschrift in
der deutschsprachigen Lyrik thematisiert, die sich zwar von der männlichen Domi-
nanz emanzipiert hat, gleichzeitig dem Dialog mit ihr nicht aus dem Weg geht. Der
Weg zur Emanzipation hat sich, so zeichnet Paul nach, als äußerst holprig ergeben,
insbesondere weil das weibliche Schreiben sich oft in der Form der Mimikry ent-
wickeln konnte. Viele Lyrikerinnen konnten sich erst im späteren Alter von den
männlichen Vorlagen entfernen, um ein eigenes œuvre aufzubauen. Dabei, so Paul
weiter, fällt auf, dass die neuen Stimmen, die aus diesem Prozess hervorggangen
sind, selbst Vorbild für andere Kollegen und Kolleginnen werden. Die Ambivalenz
der Emanzipationstendenzen in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts in Europa
hielt Anna Achmatowa 1958 in ihrem “Epigramm” fest.
Katrin Kohls (Jesus College, Oxford) Essay erweitert das Denken über die Funk-
tion der Metapher “Flaschenpost” in ihrem eindrucksvollen literaturtheoretischen
Essay und hebt hervor, wie sich die Metapher (und ihre Auslegung) über Jahre
und Jahrzehnte hinweg verändert hat: “Metaphern vermögen Vorstellungen von
Sprache zu vermitteln, die auch das Unausgesprochene und in Worte nicht Fassbare
miteinbeziehen – eine Funktion der Metapher, die schon die Mystiker auf viel-
fältigste Weise nutzen” (344). Dabei geht sie den oft vertrackten und als hermetisch
gescholtenen Kommunikationswege von u.a. Ernst Jandl, Friederike Mayröcker
und Ulrike Draesner nach und versucht so das Verständnis der poetischen Rede
zu ergründen. Michael Eskin (Columbia) geht ebenfalls tiefer auf die Rede von
der “Flaschenpost” ein, indem er das von Bertolt Brecht und Osip Mandelstam
angereichte Bild in Texten ihrer Nachfolger bzw. Schüler, Paul Celan, Joseph
Brodsky und Durs Grünbein findet und neu deutet. Dabei kommt Eskin zu dem
überraschenden Ergebnis, dass die Lyriker sich zwar bemühen, eine Flaschenpost
auszusetzen, in der Hoffnung, in einen Dialog zu treten, aber oft nicht über den
Status des Monologischen hinausgehen wollen. Letztendlich, so Eskin, ist der
Adressat nicht Ansprechpartner, sondern der Adressant selbst, der seiner Rolle als
“einsamer Robinson Crusoe” frönt.
Zwischen den sehr erkenntnisreichen Beiträgen von Judith Ryan (Harvard) zum
etwa in der Tradition von T. S. Eliot entstandenen langen Gedicht und Hermann
Korte (Universität Siegen) zu den epigrammatischen Formen in Texten von u. a.
Erich Fried, Arnfrid Astel, Günter Bruno Fuchs und Rainer Malkowski, sind die
Gedanken von Wolfgang Emmerich (Universität Bremen) zur Lyrik nach Auschwitz
als Generationsproblem zu lesen. Es ist schade, dass solch ein wichtiger Beitrag zur
zeitgenössischen Lyrik auf diese Weise eingekeilt wurde, andererseits ragt Emmerichs
Text dadurch im Heft hervor, weil er genau im Mittelpunkt der Aufmerksamkeit
angesiedelt ist. Emmerich führt die Vielfalt der Dialoge mit dem Auschwitz-Diskurs
in Gedichten aus verschiedenen Jahrzehnten vor. Die Heterogenität wird von einem
polyphonen Sprechen “im Bewusstsein des Geschehens von Auschwitz als dem
‘Zivilisationsbruch’ schlechthin” (368) geprägt, wobei er die Worte des Historikers
Dan Diner zitiert. Revue passieren Gedichte von Lyrikern und Lyrikerinnen, deren
Differenzen in der lyrischen Repräsentation von Auschwitz als generationsbedingt
gedeutet werden. Überzeugend ist Emmerichs Fokus auf das Generationsparadigma
beim Repräsentieren dieses Zivilisationsbruchs, vor allem auch seine Feststellung,
 REVIEWS 183

dass der Grund für das Fehlen von “Auschwitz” in der Lyrik der Popliteraten in den
1980er und 90er Jahren nicht als ein Abwenden vom Nazi-Terror oder vorgetäuschte
Unbetroffenheit verstanden werden sollte, sondern vielmehr mit dem erschreckenden
Umstand zu tun hat, dass dieses Paradigma nicht mehr als “Identifikationsmuster für
erbauliche moralische Zwecke” (381) zu taugen scheint.
In ihrem Beitrag “The poetry of science and the science of poetry” geht
Karen Leeder (New College, Oxford) den Affinitäten der modernen Poesie mit
Diskursen über Technik und Naturwissenschaften nach. Leeder sieht nicht nur
Berührungspunkte zwischen der modernen Lyrik und der Sprache im technischen
Zeitalter, sie verzeichnet auch die Autonomie der Poesie, die im Stande ist, sich
erfolgreich dem totalen Zugriff der “Welt der Maschine” (Nicolas Born) auf das
lyrische Sprechen zu entziehen. Die Germanistin geht noch einen Schritt weiter,
wenn ihr in der Unabhängigkeit der Diskurse eine Parallelität auffällt. Sowohl
Naturwissenschaftler als auch Lyriker sind von einem Wissensdrang besessen und
beide wollen die Einsicht in Ambivalenzen vertiefen. Dabei wird aber zugleich ein
wichtiger Unterschied vermerkt: im Gegensatz zur Wissenschaft, will die Poesie
Unebenheiten nicht glätten, sondern gerade hervorheben.
Tom Kindt (Universität Göttingen) und Hans-Harald Müller (Universität
Hamburg) scheinen mit ihrer Analyse von Brechts Sonett “Und nun ist Krieg” für
seine Geliebte und Mitarbeiterin Margarete Steffin aus dem Rahmen des Themahefts
zu fallen. Das täuscht jedoch, denn die Beschäftigung mit Liebeslyrik zeigt gerade
die Reichweite der lyrischen Dialogizität. Die Liebeslyrik wird als introvertierte
Untergattung gescholten, die nicht über die Grenzen des Objekts der Liebe zu
schreiten vermag, aber mit Hilfe des Brecht-Gedichts gelingt es Kindt und Müller,
dieses Klischee zu zerstören. Das Sonett ist nicht nur das Resultat einer Kollision
zwischen Diskursen, die einerseits mit Erotik und Liebe andererseits mit Krieg und
Exil verflochten sind, es ist ebenfalls im intertextuellen Spannungsfeld mit früherer,
traditionalistischer Liebeslyrik entstanden. Auch wenn dieses Gedicht eine Sonder-
stellung in Brechts Lyrik einnimmt, wie die beiden Verfasser hervorheben, ist in
ihren Ausführungen die Idee, dass Lyrik im Netz von Querverbindungen, Allusionen,
Wechselzitaten und Repliken entsteht, hervorragend illustriert.
Die Sammlung zur zeitgenössischen Lyrik ist ein wichtiger Beitrag zur gegen-
wärtigen Lyrikforschung. Leeder präsentiert mit diesem Heft und dem im gleichen
Jahr in der Serie German Monitor erschienenen Buch Schaltstelle den Höhepunkt
ihres bewundernswerten Feldzugs, Lyrik aus dem toten Winkel zu holen, in dem
die überholte Vorstellung, das Gedicht sei dem Hermetischen und Monologischen
verpflichtet, weiterhin vorherrscht. In sowohl “Flaschenpost” als auch Schaltstelle
gelingt es Leeder in überzeugender Weise, den Austausch zwischen scheinbar assym-
metrischen Diskurswelten prägnant zur Diskussion zu stellen.

GERRIT - JAN BERENDSE Cardiff University

184 seminar

Irene Fußl. “Geschenke an Aufmerksame”: Hebräische Intertextualität und mystische

Weltauffassung in der Lyrik Paul Celans. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2008. 170 S.
€52. ISBN 978-3-48-465168-5

The young Paul Celan – or Paul Antschel – took little interest in Jewish language
and culture and studied Hebrew only at the injunction of his orthodox father. After
the dire experience of losing his parents in the Holocaust this attitude changed,
and from time to time he immersed himself in the study of the Kabbalah, above all
through the works of Gershom Scholem. It is thus a thoroughly justified, although
not unprecedented, initiative when Irene Fußl endeavours to interpret a selection of
Celan poems against the background of Jewish mysticism.
In its theoretical perspective, this study aligns itself with traditional hermeneutic
attitudes, citing Hans-Georg Gadamer and Peter Szondi as authorities. Fußl em-
phasizes, with the former, the need for a “Sinn-Halt” (14) in order to domesticate
the connotational chaos of Celan’s language and guarantee coherence, a task she
assigns to Jewish mysticism. Accordingly, her understanding of intertextuality is
far from a poststructuralist one, focussing instead on palpable traces of influence
from texts known and read by Celan, above all the holy texts of Judaism and the
Judaica of Scholem and Buber. From this perspective Fußl zeroes in on a handful
of poems, some of which belong to Celan’s most frequently interpreted texts
(“Tübingen, Jänner,” “Ich trink Wein,” “Du liegst”), whereas others have received
little scholarly attention (“Auch mich,” “Die rückwärtsgesprochenen,” “Allmählich
clowngesichtig”). Drawing on the Kabbalistic notion of the Breaking of the Vessels,
Fußl arranges the poems in three categories: Einheit, Spaltung, and Einen. Celan’s
poems stubbornly resisting rough classifications, this grouping is less a characteristic
of his texts than an ordering principle of Fußl’s, and the value of her study is rather
to be found in the interpretation of the individual poems.
For instance, the perspective of mysticism inspires Fußl to numerological
expounding of the poems. Celan’s texts, as she puts it, “er-zählen [...] auch in
Zahlen” (7). Mentioned numbers as well as structurally implied ones – for instance,
the number of verses or words in a poem – contribute to the meaning of the poem
through their symbolic value. The approach is most persuasive when Fußl is able to
show that these strata really interact, as in “Die mir hinterlassene / balkengekreutzte
/ Eins:” where the number one crossed by a beam evokes a seven both as an Arabic
numeral and as the Hebrew letter Zayin, signifying seven. The number of words in
the poem – seventeen, a number containing both one and seven – are brought into
play, as are the numbers ten and seven, symbolizing the Old and the New Testament
respectively, thus disclosing an intricate web of references involving numeric
structures and thematic content alike.
Celan emphasized that his poems were on their way towards an addressable
“you” – a position that they, as Gadamer has shown, take great care to leave open.
Fußl often attempts to fill this position by situating God as the implicit addressee,
thus reading the poems as reflections on the divine being and its relation to
humankind (“Die mir hinterlassene,” “Huriges sonst,” “Es war Erde in ihnen,” “Du
liegst”). Even if such readings do not claim to reveal more than one possible aspect
of a complex poem, one would have expected a more thorough discussion of the
differences between approaching God as a divine entity or as a mythological one
sprung from human culture – i.e. of the post-Shoah poem being written and read
 REVIEWS 185

under a religious or an atheist paradigm. Indeed, Fußl even seems at times to take
the former for granted – “Aus den Gedichten spricht kein Zweifel an der Existenz
Gottes” (86) – and that threatens to give a rather simplified image of the poems.
Fußl also makes use of the Hebrew language as a soundboard that adds semantic
resonance to German words, a strategy previously employed by, among others, Klaus
Reichert. Sometimes such interpretations move beyond mere academic witticisms
and uncover significant meanings, as in the interpretation of stuttering repetitions
like “immerimmer” (“Allmählich clowngesichtig”) as the Hebrew practice of creat-
ing superlatives by word-doubling, or in “Es war Erde in ihnen,” where the earth
inside “them” is elucidated by Hebrew retranslations: ’adam (“man”) is a part of
the word ’adamah (“earth”) (103), which suggests that the humans and the earth
contain each other, and that Wort and Ding, as so often in Celan, are profoundly
interconnected.
On the whole, Fußl’s book makes clear that the scholarly investigation of
Celan’s dialogue with the traditions of Jewish mysticism is far from finished. Her
own contribution certainly deserves respect for emphasizing a crucial perspective on
one of the most important poets of the twentieth century, while in the process dis-
closing several illuminating aspects of his poems.

AXEL ENGLUND Columbia University

Deane Blackler. Reading W. G. Sebald: Adventure and Disobedience. Rochester:

Camden House, 2007. 255 pp. US $75 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-57113-351-9.

Deane Blackler’s book assembles an impressive breadth of material on W. G.

Sebald, including a biographical sketch, a survey of recent secondary literature, and
a series of sensitive close readings of aspects of his four prose texts, Vertigo, The
Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, and Austerlitz. Her central thesis, that Sebald’s
texts engender an adventurous and “disobedient” reader, is explored with respect
to several Sebaldian themes, such as travel, photography, and space, as well as the
(pseudo)documentary character of his texts. Yet what Blackler’s book attests to best
is the difficulty of organizing any extended commentary on W. G. Sebald’s dense,
hybrid, and notoriously hard-to-categorize oeuvre. Sebald’s prose texts are so cross-
referential and studded with intertextual allusions and quotations – not to mention
photographs – and hint at such a wealth of interlinked themes that they seem to
defy ordered framing. Blackler’s three chapters are prefaced by forty-five pages of
ruminating preliminary material, in the form of “Notes Toward an Itinerary” and a
so-called “Pre-amble,” among others – a tip of the hat to Sebald’s peripatetic mode
of inquiry. The three chapters following this introduction are subdivided into two to
five page-long passages under subheadings not listed in the table of contents. The
third chapter is further split into three “stages,” each of which is also arranged by
the four primary texts they cover. This gives the book a disjointed feel that its author
might well have intended to produce, mirroring what she reads as the disorienting
quality of Sebald’s narrative style. With its Sebaldian sentence constructions (such
as paragraph-long sentences), especially in the “Pre-amble,” Blackler’s book also
attests to the pitfalls of producing a scholarly text on an admired author, especially
one who blurred the boundaries between academic work and creative compositions
186 seminar

in his own writing. Vladimir Nabokov’s inimitable style has similarly inspired an
apologetic and emulating scholarship.
Within this somewhat convoluted organization, Blackler’s response to Sebald’s
oeuvre is careful and heartfelt, at times luminous, but ultimately bound by the limit-
ations of any reader-response criticism that envisions a generalizable “reader.” Her
thesis, that the text produces a disobedient, emancipated reader, is built upon a pat-
ronizing supposition. She seeks to contrast a regular, “obedient” reader (modelled
after Umberto Eco’s critique) with a Sebaldian “disobedient” one, yet her depiction
of the latter is a caricature of a wide-eyed and disoriented reader, discombobulated
by Sebald’s trickster moves, the blurred genres of his texts, and their implied
questioning of authenticity. She envisions a reader who needs prodding in order to
think beyond the boundaries of the text and who, say, slept through all literature and
literary criticism produced in the second half of the twentieth century. Disobedience,
Blackler argues, is triggered by some texts in the dialogical tradition of Mikhail
Bakhtin, rather than by a practice of reading. While she consistently uncovers the
often unrecognized humorous and carnivalesque traces in Sebald’s prose, her model
of Sebald is didactic rather than adventurous, and her model of disobedience remains
tame.
Blackler devotes much attention to dissociating “Max” Sebald the author from
“his narrator,” but seems convinced that they represent a meaningful dyad. She
(obediently) assumes, for instance, that the narrating “I” in all of the four voices of
The Emigrants is a continuous persona, and overall she does not distinguish between
the narrators of the different texts. In a similar vein, she (obediently) reads Jacques
Austerlitz as a distinct figure rather than allowing for the possibility that he is a fig-
ment of an unreliable narrator’s imagination. Her whole second chapter is devoted
to Sebald’s biography, which further stifles her attempts at untangling the quasi-
autobiographical elements of Sebald’s text from the fictitious ones. Hence Blackler
quite obediently follows the trajectory Sebald has laid out in his texts, reading his
narrator(s) as the author’s inadequately coded alter ego.
Throughout Reading W. G. Sebald, “disobedient” could seamlessly be sub-
stituted with “questioning.” In her “Pre-amble” Blackler defiantly announces her own
“disobedient” stance of giving her scholarly text a personal and essayistic inflection,
a strategy that voids this act of all transgression. Disobedience that needs to be an-
nounced lest it go unnoticed loses all adventurous impact. What is left behind in her
analysis is in fact just that: adventure, the first half of Blackler’s spirited subtitle.
The most adventurous section is her unconventional reading of Sebald as a Catholic
whose texts spring from the rich soil of Christian spirituality. Her baffling first
chapter, in which she uses Sebald to read the Lucan Annunciation narrative as a self-
referential, performative text leads to an uneasy understanding of Sebald as a writer
who, Blackler insinuates throughout, should be recuperated as a Christian. This new
Sebald, steeped in Catholicism, is a writer who chooses the photomontage of Kafka
hovering in a plane above Vienna’s Votivkirche as code to underscore that Kafka falls
in love with a Christian girl in Riva in Vertigo (124). Similarly, Blackler identifies a
tone of redemption in Austerlitz – a refreshing breeze in a body of scholarship that
tends to read Sebald’s texts as primarily literature of trauma. However, her sense of
redemption is again Christian in nature, and one wonders how the past is figured as a
welcome shrine of contemplation and place worship in a text that charts the horrors
of the Holocaust and its lasting wounds (99). Kafka’s and Austerlitz’s Jewishness
 REVIEWS 187

seem elided by Blackler. Sebald’s origin in Catholic Bavaria and the interweaving
of Christian cultural history into the fabric of his prose are uncontested, but the
depiction of Sebald as a devout Christian is questionable. Still, there is stuff here
for debate, and one wishes she would have dared continue on this route and used
her knowledge of scripture to uncover and comment further on Sebald’s intertextual
Biblical references instead of reiterating a claim that need not be made any longer
with such urgency in this day and age: that reading is an act of individual rebellion
against the authority of any text.
Overall, Blackler’s text serves as a readable introduction to Sebald and as
useful teaching material, particularly chapters two and three. She picks up on some
of Sebald’s main important intertexts such as Kafka, Proust, Borges, Nabokov,
and Wittgenstein, sifts and summarizes some of the relevant secondary literature
produced to date (that is, until 2006), devotes a short and sweet chapter to his use
of photographs, and her deft close-reading skills showcase her talents as a well-
read comparatist. And yet, Blackler’s book recalls one of the few captions under a
photograph in Sebald’s work. In The Emigrants, Paul Bereyter is “zirka 2000 km
Luftlinie weit entfernt—aber von wo?” Blackler’s text is a thoughtfully phrased
commentary in nice prose—but on what? Those who are familiar with Sebald and
keep up-to-date with the rapidly growing scholarship will not learn much that is new
here but will be reminded that, yes, Sebald’s is a unique voice, one worth celebrating
and spreading.

VERENA SCHOWENGERDT - KUZMANY University of Washington

 Greetings to Readers, Authors, and Guest Editors!

The Editor and the Editorial Committee take pleasure in

drawing your attention to recent, forthcoming, and
in-progress Special Theme Issues of
Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies
Recently published, February 2008 (44.1): Discourses on Masculinity in
German Literature and Film. Guest editor: Michael Boehringer (Waterloo),
with articles by Esther K. Bauer (Wisconsin, Stevens Point), Claudia Breger
(Indiana), Alison Lewis (Melbourne), Christer Petersen (TU Cottbus), Anke
Pinkert (Illinois), Edward T. Potter (Mississippi State), David James Prickett
(Humboldt, Berlin), Eva-Maria Russo (Washington U), Agatha Schwartz
(Ottawa), Birgit Tautz (Bowdoin).
Recently published, September 2009 (45.3): Images of Poland in Postwar
German Literature. Guest editors: Petra Fachinger (Queen’s) and Werner
Nell (Halle), with articles by Norman Ächtler (Gießen), Herman Ernst
Beyersdorf (Armidale), Carsten Gansel (Gießen), MargaRet Maliszewska
(Queen’s), Magdalena Marszałek (Humboldt, Berlin), Arletta Szmorhun
(Zielona Góra), Jane Wilkinson (Leeds), Pawel Zimniak (Zielona Góra).
Forthcoming, September 2010 (46.3): Moving Bodies, Moving Pictures: Dance
in Early German Cinema. Guest editors: Michael Cowan (McGill) and
Barbara Hales (Univ. of Houston, Clear Lake), with articles by Laurent
Guido (Lausanne), Jennifer Kapczynski (Washington U), Mihaela Petrescu
(Hobart and William Smith), Lucia Ruprecht (Cambridge), Valerie Weinstein
(U Nevada, Reno), Allison Whitney (Texas Tech).
Forthcoming, February 2011 (47.1): Questioning the RAF: The Politics of
Culture. Guest editor: Karin Bauer (McGill), with articles by Gerritt-Jan
Berendse (Cardiff), Svea Bräunert (Humboldt, Berlin), Christina Gerhardt
(Columbia), Patricia Melzer (Temple), Petra Rethmann (McMaster), Eric
Scheufler (U Washington).
In progress: Globalization, German Literature and the New Economy. Guest
editors: Sabine von Dirke (U Pittsburgh) and David N. Coury (U
Wisconsin, Green Bay).
In progress: Reading Female Happiness in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century
German Literature: Texts and Contexts. Guest editors: Alan Corkhill
(Queensland) and Katharina von Hammerstein (Connecticut).
In progress: Visions of Tomorrow: Science and Utopia in German Culture.
Guest editors: Peter McIsaac (York), Gabriele Mueller (York), Diana
Spokiene (York).
In progress: Embracing the Other: Conceptualizations, Representations,
and Social Practices of [In]Tolerance in German Culture and Literature.
Guest editors: Elisabeth Herrmann (Alberta) and Florentine Strzelczyk
(Calgary).

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