Die Rolle der Zigeunerin in Heinrich von Kleists Erzählung Michael Kohlhaas (German Edition)

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Not Enabled Word Wise: Not Enabled Screen Reader: Enabled Amazon Best Sellers Rank: Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. And to observe "the unresonant opacity of Kleist's The question of perspective is therefore of central importance. One might metaphors" Graham, p. Precisely in his relentless focusing on empirical In a sense, the warm enclosure is merely an extension of themselves.

But one detail and in his literal playing-out of spatial metaphors like the "gebrechliche might also imagine that the cottage is at the foot of a mountain and far above it, a Einrichtung," Kleist calls attention to the fact that meaning is only disclosed in and hiker displaces a rock and begins a landslide. There is a grim humour in such through a phenomenally-experienced world, a world that shapes and is shaped by doublings of perspective; cartoons often work with the principle. In literature, of interpretation. Thus, to ask what his fictional spaces signify requires that one first course, it is known as dramatic irony: The character's position is defined simultaneously by two and meaningful, that is to say, experienced space "erlebter Raum".

While factual perspectives, his own narrow one and the wider one to which, for whatever reason, locale is simply characterized by the naming of empirical location--a city, house, he has no access. The tension between the perspectives structures the work, and room, etc. Factual locale can, of course, become experienced space Kleist, skilled dramatist that he is, operates constantly with the techniques 16 of dramatic irony in his narrative works. The stories alternately present what an in this sense.

Indeed, it may be argued that it always does, at least in the mind of the reader, for whom even the barest indicators of place evoke associations and individual character sees, knows or thinks, and what an uninvolved observer might values which are determined in part by personal factors and in part by the see, know or think. Yet as we shall see, it is important to recognize that this is structuring context of the work. For the characters, however, the values and accomplished through the device of a narrator, who is not to be equated with associations they attach to their surroundings frequently remain unconscious or Kleist.

Where an ironic discrepancy opens up between a character's interpretive unreflected. Narrative space thus registers "Befindlichkeit" in the double sense of perspective and that of an outside observer, it often occurs in spite of the narrator. It becomes symbolic, that is, represents more than what it is as locale or setting, when it becomes the object of reflection. The analogy that would give that he undermines the authority of his own wider perspective, which he does not that wider meaning of "position" has as its necessary condition a reflecting con- consistently maintain.

His interpretations of the characters' situations, on which sciousness. In the stories, narrative space is not only the narrator. Before one can draw conclusions about the symbolic dimension of space enclosing context within which the process of perceiving and interpreting the world in the stories, then, one is first forced to deal with the tension between competing unfolds, it also represents that world itself, as an object of knowldge. And the levels of awareness and vision, a tension that is not resolved by the narrator.

The relationship between space as an enclosure, omnipresent and hence merely "there," problem of discovering an ultimate level of meaning in or behind the spatial and space as the manifest, objective world to be interpreted, only emerges out of phenomena of the narrative is thus closely tied to the structural problem of finding the tension between the various possible perspectives on the world of the text: Kleist's theme is also his This leads us to the role of mythic patterns. In Kleist's stories, the structuring principle.

Therefore, a study of Kleist's space cannot begin by isolating characters often have recourse to interpretive constructs shaped by the Christian individual spatial elements from the narrative context which gives them meaning. In "Das Erdbeden in Chili," for example, an analogy is drawn Any attempt at a typology cannot bypass the task of textual interpretation. This selection, however, does ultimate and unambiguous meaning in Kleist's fictional world as it might be not imply a value judgment, but serves the purpose of this study: If the valley in stories illustrates a certain expressive aspect of fictional space in Kleist.

In "Das "Das Erdbeben" is a little Eden, then the earthquake might well be attributable to Erdbeben," the primary focus is on the relationship of human beings to a universe divine purpose; if Kohlhaas is a type of St. Michael, then the spaces he attacks which is presumed to be divinely regulated. The spatial phenomenon of the must deserve his avenging fury. Critics have often enough seized on such readings earthquake raises questions about the metaphysics of natural disasters, and hence as clues to the poet's own understanding of the events.

The present study attempts the question of how one can know one's position in a surrounding cosmos. In "Die to explore the validity of such views in the light of both the problem of narrative Marquise von 0. Here, the spatial Kleist and Kant--conditions, indeed limits, how we can know and what we can structure develops the problem of self-knowledge, the fact that there are regions know. The notion of a Garden of Eden or a fallen world, like any metaphor that of the psyche which may be just as resistant to conscious understanding as the yields by analogy a figurative meaning by way of a concrete term, bespeaks the puzzling manifestations of nature.

Finally, "Michael Kohlhaas" focuses mainly on spatial boundaries of human experience even as it strives to transcend them.

Following these close interpretations, I turn in a final chapter to a general NOTES discussion of spatial structure in Kleist's fiction. Here I develop a spatial typology See for instance Karl Otto Conrady, "Das Moralische in Kleists that takes account of all eight of the stories, and try to summarize what Kleist's Erzahlungen: Fest abe fUr Benno von Wiese, ed.

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Hans Joachim Schrimpf Bonn: Aufsatze und Essa s, ed. Wissenschaftliche world he creates. That typology and summary is based, as it must be, on certain Buchgesellschaft, , pp. Studien zur deutschen Dichtun des If the final chapter offers only brief interpretations of the other Jahrhunderts und der Romantik Stuttgart: By then epischen Szene, Diss. Essentially, Grob argues that Kleist, in Romantic fashion, came to see nature as the place where man is freed of destructive reflection, and where "das ganz im GefUhl aufgehende Seln" is realized p. Time, Interior and Exterior Space in the Novellas: A Typological Study," in Formen realistischer Erzahlkunst: Festschrift fUr Charlotte Jolles, ed.

Jorg Thuneck and Eda Sagarra Nottingham: Sherwood, , pp. A Poet's Quest for the Symbol Berlin: De Gruyter, , in which she offers a view of Kleist as a "naive realist," literal-minded to a fault and hence apt to confuse figurative meaning with the all-too-material symbolic vehicle that would convey it see pp. Editions du Seuil, , p.

Editions du Seuil, , pp. Denis Savage, in The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics, ed. Press, , pp. Robert Sweeney, in the same volume, pp. Genette, "Espace et langage," p. Hanser, , II, Acting-out in Language," Seminar, 17 , Lilienstern during the poet's imprisonment in France between the end of January 12 Graham, esp. Although it is tempting to suppose that the story, whose first scene 13 See Graham, pp. For a less psychologically-oriented inves- is set in a jail cell, was inspired by Kleist's own prison experience, the evidence tigation of the circumstances and implications of Kleist's encounter with Kantian philosophy, cf.

Ludwig Muth, "Kleist und Kant: Versuch einer neuen Interpretation," suggests that RUhle had received the manuscript from Kleist before his arrest, Kant-Studien, Erganzungsheft 68 , and more recently Ulrich Gall, Philosophie bei Heinrich von Kleist, Abhandlungen zur Philosophie, Psychologie und Padagogik, most likely no later than October, I will return to the relationship between Kant's philosophy, as Kleist apparently understood it, and his poetic practice. If the story is the poet's earliest work of fictional prose, then it represents a 14 Cf.

Graham's chapter "Descent into Matter," pp. Studien zur Literaturgeschichte Stuttgart: Alexander Ritter, WdF, Bd. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, natively an experienced space, narrative makes use of an observing narrator, 5 , p. Studien zu Keller, Stifter, Fontane narrator thus introduces a mediating perspective on the world of the story, a MUnchen: Maatje, "Versuch einer Poetik des Raumes: While this added viewpoint to be discussed later tends to complicate Scientiarum Lodziensis, Section I , 11, No.

Through observation and description, those surroundings are widened to include not only other persons, but also the varied world of nature and of concrete things and places. Narrative space, to the degree that it becomes a meaningful world through the characters' experience, offers a correspondingly widened range of expressive possibilities. Its purpose is not only to offer insight into which would allow one to understand Jeronimo's intention, nevertheless one is the meaning of this particular story, but also to work out typical spatial structures drawn into a spatially and socially-defined focal point which is in effect identical which are paradigmatic for an understanding of Kleist's narrative work as a whole.

He is trapped, both literally and figuratively, as a prisoner of his The story is set in and near Santiago, Chile, and at the beginning, in the society and as a man in apparently such extreme psychological straits that suicide prison cell of Jeronimo Rugera. The first sweeping sentence, focus-like, moves the seems the only "way out. Jago, der Hauptstadt des Konigreichs Chili, stand gerade in dem acter, both socially and spatially, in a given fictional world. That the character Augenblicke der groBen ErderschUtterung vom Jahre , bei welcher viele tausend Menschen ihren Untergang fanden, ein junger, auf ein should have some orientation to a given setting is, of course, to be expected.

What Verbrechen angeklagter Spanier, namens Jeronimo Ruger a, an einem Pfeiler des Gefangnijses, in welches man ihn eingesperrt hatte, und is important here is the nature of this orientation. Jeronimo is not simply placed wollte sich erhenken. This connection, however, cannot at this point human extremity. Each succeeding phrase serves gradually to "personalize" the be seen as a causal one, since at first all information is withheld regarding the events, as the reader's perspective narrows. First comes the chronicle-like stating motive of the intended suicide.

Neither is the connection between inward of city, country, historical event and date, then the effect of the earthquake on experience and outward situation one of reflection by the individual consciousness; humanity though still in the plural: Finally, one learns this unique perspective. Jeronimo's situation in space,. In this way, as a person. This correspondence immediately raises, but does not answer, the even before the biographical events which led up to this moment are narrated, question of his motivation and his attitude: Kleist's first the Spanish population who has been charged with a crime and imprisoned.

It is the first fact which pertains to the inner life of a human to mental situation, and ultimately to the character's position in some all- being. As such, it is startling: To ask "where" the character is, in this fictional world, is to a man seeks voluntary death even as the earthquake strikes , but also because of ask who he is and how he is. Yet the shift has been carefully engineered. By taking an Der Erzahler steht ganz im Banne des Gescheh: Er steht im Banne: Er Uberschaut nicht einmal das Ganze des Ge.

At discussion which followed the Lisbon earthquake of The controversy between the same time, however, because the narrator's perspective, however limited, Leibnizian optimism the view that natural disasters can be reconciled with the remains perceptible, it follows that our ability to conceive and interpret the world notion of divine providence and Voltaire's pessimism as expressed in his poem on of the story depends on his mediating role: Indeed, as John M.

Ellis has argued, the des Ganzen erwarten--und sind doch zunachst auf ihn als Vermittler dieser questioning of how the universe works, of how we are to understand such disasters, Wirklichkeit angewiesen. Neither judgment, in those frequent instances where a careful analysis of narrative perspective in the story. He maintains that its very it has a subjective component and goes beyond the "facts" of spatial location, can theme is interpretation, "because the point of the story lies not in the meaning of be relied on for a complete overview.

Often the narrator reports, from the the events themselves but in the attempts made by the narrator and characters to viewpoint of an external observer, the empirical facts of a character's words, give them meaning" p. The as the determining of position can only occur from a given perspective. In the same holds when the narrator shifts to the internal viewpoint and reports the course of the story, it is indeed the case that the characters make value judgments conscious thoughts and feelings of the characters.

Where those thoughts and about the earthquake and their personal situation from limited perspectives.

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And, feelings stand in contradiction to the narrator's somewhat more distanced obser- what is more important for an understanding of Kleist's fiction, any evaluation by vations about the surrounding reality, the characters' illusions are ironically the narrator, who is not to be confused with the author, must be seen as originating exposed. But that irony can reflect upon the narrator too, who, "ganz im Banne des from a similarly limited perspective. Wolfgang Kayser's statement of the problem, Geschehenen," often seems not to notice himself the contradiction between what though frequently overlooked, still holds: These buildings are Jeronimo's prison, Josephe's perspective--on which the reader's interpretation must still depend.

If Kleist has convent from which she rescues her child, and the Dominican church. The set up a situation here where interpretation by the characters and the narrator opposition to these confining spaces in each case takes the form of the open air, or becomes the central theme, then the reader must in effect interpret the interpre- "das Freie," as the German so effectively has it.

It is towards "das Freie" that the tations. It is here where the question of "position," seen in terms of the story's characters strive. On a larger scale, there is the socially-defined space of the spatial structure and symbolism, can be of help. The city, as well, is a In the opening passage, the narrator focuses the reader's attention on cultural phenomenon; its opposition is the surrounding region of nature which, after Jeronimo's spatial and social position within the wider context of the city.

His the earthquake, becomes a place of refuge for the city's population. At the same time, however, the wider context provided by the narrator suggests that flight is created by the natural force of the earthquake. The latter brings about a he is still enclosed and embedded in that world, and the full implications of his literal and figurative breaking, and for the moment a suspension, of the social relationship to it are left to be explored.

It is at this point that the natural force institutions and their constraints. At the same time, however, it is connected with of the earthquake breaks ln. His physical situation is radically changed, and he the experience of fear, vulnerability and the greatest uncertainty. Thus nature must now find his way, and find himself, in a world whose boundaries and plays an ambiguous role: The situation thus suggests the central idyllic surroundings for the reunion of the lovers and the display of brotherhood theme of interpretation, which is, in spatial terms, the process of knowing and among the displaced populace.

But on the other hand, nature as earthquake shows understanding one's place in the world. From a general standpoint, one can discern two essentially different kinds of If the first part of the story is determined by flight and is thus dynamic in space in the story. As Karl Otto Conrady has noted, character, the middle section may be called static. With the setting out of Don Fernando's party towards the Dominican This opposition between the social and natural spheres 9 can be defined more church in the third section, there begins a new movement, this time back into the precisely.

At three different points in the story, the narrative space belonging to confines of the city. The metaphor has not been completely freed of literalness: When socially-defined space of the city is, the reader is informed, the result of a trespass all concrete efforts to free himself fail, Jeronimo prays fervently to the Mother of against the strict norms of his society. He was found to be "in einem zartlichen God "als der einzigen, von der ihm jetzt noch Rettung kommen konnte" Einverstandnis" with Donna Josephe, the daughter of an aristocratic family which Later, when he becomes convinced of the utter hopelessness of his position and employed him as tutor.

In consequence of her father's wrath at this breach of the Josephe's execution seems inevitable, we are told that the piece of rope "ihn dieser class barrier by the lovers, she was placed in the "Karmeliterkloster unsrer lieben jammervoUen Welt entreiBen sollte" Thus the narrator, empathizing with the Frauen vom Berge," where he was able to reestablish contact and make "in einer character's sense of entrapment, speaks of three mental--as opposed to physical-- verschwiegenen Nacht den Klostergarten zum Schauplatze seines vollen GlUckes ways in which Jeronimo's tries to "break out" of his situation.

She rigid constraints of the society and its spatial representatives. Yet the continued was imprisoned and sentenced under Church law to death by fire, later commuted presence of literal barriers, both in the actual setting and in the metaphor of by the Viceroy to a beheading; Jeronimo was incarcerated as well It is thought thwarted, suggests a more fundamental hindrance.

Jeronimo's conscious significant, then, that the instrument of Jeronimo's intended suicide is a prison mind, even as he thinks, prays, and yearns to be torn out of this world, remains pillar--indeed, he is first presented standing up against it. Architecturally, it is a embedded in concrete social circumstance. Literally and figuratively, the pillar "stands for" society; it is a severe nature. Because she is a "Donna," familial disapproval of her socially symbol. Her later imprisonment and death sentence reflect structure, but also deprived of freedom by a social structure which seems to offer the severity of the society's outrage at her violation of its religious and sexual the individual no choice but to be his own executioner.

That she collapses in labor on the very steps of the cathedral has been 12 When the narrator goes on to present the suicide motive from the figure's aptly called a "Provokation des Christentums. After he learns of Josephe's sion--her transgression becomes evident. The later procession to the place of death sentence, Jeronimo's reaction is registered with a curious spatial metaphor: Uberall, wohin ihn auch der Fittig der spatial confinement and constraint, as is Jeronimo's cell.

The structural similarity vermessensten Gedanken trug, stieB er auf Riegel und Mauern, und ein Versuch, die Gitterfenster zu durchfeilen, zog ihm, da er entdeckt becomes particularly clear when we read later that the execution procession was ward, eine nur noch engere Einsperrung zu. And yet her tryst secret, surrounded as they were by the walls of an oppressive society which simultaneous isolation and embeddedness in the context of the city and its had made the garden into closed and forbidden territory.

In spatial terms, then, disapproving populace parallel Jeronimo's initial imprisoned position. The concentration on characters are not in any way beholden to the social constraints which the garden Jeronimo's happiness implies an avoidance of the question of Josephe's feelings walls stand for. There are hints that, to a certain degree, they are: For Kleist's age, and certainly for 17th century socially-defined boundaries of the convent garden--might they not have eloped? The narrator would be less than discreet Although the narrator's language does not necessarily suggest a one-sided se- towards the lovers were he even to hint at sensual qualities in Josephe, who is duction, the question does arise as to Josephe's attitude toward Jeronimo's 14 practicaly equated with the Mother of God in the reunion scene.

Further, it nocturnal visit. Presumably, she was glad to receive her beloved. But in view of seems clear that the convent into which Josephe is forced by her family is, as an her apparent adjustment to convent life--we read how the Abbess had grown found institution, no different from Jeronimo's prison in the sense that she is shut within of her "wegen ihres sonst untadelhaften Betragens" --and the frequent its walls as a result of social sanctions.

As for Jeronimo, it is noteworthy that his prayer for freedom in the patch of nature in the midst of the confining, socially-determined space of the prison is directed toward the very Madonna after whom Josephe's cloister, also a convent. Triumph des NatUrlichen, das die aufpasserische christliche Gesellschaft ebenso Thus, although the reader is generally drawn by the narrator to see the 16 unterdrUckt, wie sie den Garten in Klostermauern pfercht. The outward contrast between the garden fertile nature and the felt to have been lost with the mythic Fall. For one brief night, Jeronimo was able convent constraining culture , between triumphant spectacle "zum Schauplatze to gain access to the garden, in a sense to re-gain the archetypal idyll of Adam and seines vollen Gli.

The lovers had to keep their between the isolated act of intimacy and its social embeddedness, creates a tension which hints at the potential for inward ambivalence on the part of the figures. The immediate experience of fear displaces the thought of The significance of the arch-image for Kleist will be recalled from the letter suicide, and his instinctual response is to grab for support. That support belongs, as to Wilhelmine von Zenge in the last months of , following his trip to WUrzburg: Paradoxically, what was Ich ging an jenem Abend vor dem wichtigsten Tage meines Lebens in before an instrument of death is now a means to preserve life.

Als die Sonne herabsank war es mir als ob mein GlUck unterginge. Mich schauerte wenn ich dachte, daB ich vielleicht pillar as a symbol for the social order and its institutions, then Jeronimo's reaction von aHem scheiden mUBte, von aHem, was mir teuer ist. Da ging ich, in mich gekehrt, durch das gewolbte Tor, sinnend in the face of the earthquake puts the relationship between the individual and zurUck in die Stadt.

Warum, dachte ich, sinkt wohl das Gewolbe nicht ein, da es doch keine StUtze hat? Es steht, antwortete ich, weil aile society in a different light. The sphere of human culture suddenly has life- Steine auf einmaTe'Ii1StUrzen wollen--und ich zog aus diesem Gedanken einen unbeschreiblich erquickenden Trost, der mir bis zu dem ent- preserving, helping, positive connotations.

Whereas previously there were only The experience, which coincided with his first ambitions to become a writer, hints that the character's embeddedness in a social reality implied a relationship of inaugurated a passionate interest in collecting and preserving such analogies in dependence, this is a clear indication that such is the case. Thus it is open to interpretation as He is then able to slip through an opening formed at the front of the prison by the a symbol, that is, as an image whose latent, analogical meaning is not immediately inward fall of the buildings and reach "das Freie" before the whole street collapses.

Never- expanded here to include the gate aspect, the aspect of the opening or passage, theless, it occurs just at the right moment, and holds just long enough, to allow for from Kleist's original experience. The arch produced by the falling buildings allows the escape of the protagonist, with whom the reader's sympathies are clearly Jeronimo to escape out of the prison into "das Freie. There is a striking Biblical parallel in Acts Similarly, Josephe's first steps take her toward Silas and throws open all the doors of their prison. Is one not tempted to see such a the nearest gate of the city, until she remembers her child and returns to rescue miracle in the story's events?

But the Biblical earthquake harms no one, while him, at which point her path is again directed toward the gate, outside of which she Jeronimo must witness terrible scenes of human suffering on his flight to safety. Both the city gates and the "zuf1Hlige His own interpretation of his position changes repeatedly. In a short space of Wolbung" reflect the passageway aspect of the arch-symbol. Their common time, he radically shifts his view of the world three times: An exactly parallel spatial structure is the portal of the which God seems absent and only the destructive power of nature holds sway He sees his position as progressively more isolated and the world as more and more Josephe sti.

His views, however, are clearly conditioned by his personal, genqualmte, in das von allen Seiten schon zusammenfallende Gebaude, und gleich, als ob alle Engel sie umschirmten, trat sie mit ihm subjective concern over the loss of Josephe.

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At their reunion, the narrator, in unbeschadigt wieder aus dem Portal hervor. The divine intervention escape even as tpe surrounding structures collapse. Moreover, the fact that permitted? As Ellis has shown particularly well, the and subjective perspective, tends to undermine one's trust in the pronouncements dominant interpretation which seems to suggest itself is that the lovers are freed of the narrator. And yet a tension is created between evidence which 23 that it is "als ob aile Engel des Himmels sie umschirmten.

The reader is clearly invited to see this as a visitation of divine come to terms with what has been called the "Struktur des Als-0b"28 in Kleist's justice on a corrupt society, even though the death of the Abbess "auf eine story.

When we read how Josephe emerges from the convent portal "als ob alle schmahliche Art erschlagen" [ ] who had shown compassion toward Josephe and Engel des Himmels sie umschirmten," or how in the valley it was "als ob" it were her child remains a disturbing detail which cannot quite be reconciled with this the garden of Eden, we are dealing with the question of appearance and reality. The attempt to salvage the view that God is demonstrably present in The reader is thus encouraged to see the prison and convent arches as hterature. More recently, Ellis and Walter Silz, and following them Wittkowski, miracles, i.

In fact, there is in the whole story a presence in this world, it is an indicator of the "narrator's provisional con- 30 mythic undertone which shows itself primarily in the spatial structure. Just as the s t rue t'Ions n an d a signa. And from a general standpoint, the sharp "als ob" constructions: The subjective, provisional character of the "als ob" is an indication of passage into Eden, then they also seem to have gained passage out of Sodom and the unreliability and limitations of the interpretive act.

It does not necessarily Gomorrah. A similar structure was the miraculous release of Paul and Silas from 32 show "das Bewu13tsein davon"; Kleist expects only his readers to feel with him prison, which the story seems to parallel. The analogies he drew between evokes the ambiguity of human experience, which is always an interpretive principles of nature--paramount among them the arch--and the human situation experience: They were in a sense "freed" to which is man's lot, and the capacity for courage and faith which is the counterforce become literary symbols, 33 with all of the interpretive demands and risks that this to such adversity.

This ambiguous quality of from heaven cf. But the only "truth" it can offer arch with Kleist's concept of the "gebrechliche Einrichtung der Welt. It represents a it possesses a paradoxical order which is also a human creation. The arch stands and put to use by the creative human mind. Its application to man remains fixed within permits passage in spite of and because of its inward fall.

An apparently the limits of earthly reality. When an arch appears by chance, we may construe it miraculous escape is granted to Jeronimo and Josephe--but only because Santiago to be the creation of a conscious intelligence, God, in analogy to the man-made crumbles. The characters' confinement is broken open, but only at the price of arch, but it is only "as if" it were such a creation; the teleological dimension is immense strain and a terrifying loss of protectedness.

The earthquake, by causing read into it by an interpreting consciousness. As a symbol, then, the arch may the stable social context of their world to crumble, not only lets them go free, it point to the absolute; it is indicative of the human yearning for final explanations also leaves them physically and psychologically. Did not Jeronimo and for access a gateway, as it were to ultimate knowledge and certainty. This is reach for support on the very pillar from which he had wished to hang himself? It is interesting to note how the psychological effects of the earthquake protection of a cherub, we know that it is only because the fairy-tale element of parallel its concrete effects, particularly as indicated by the verbs.

It was as the work, the artificial character of this very different fictional world, allows for though Jeronimo's "Bewuf3tsein were "zerschmettert," his knees " [wollten unter such things. In "Das Erdbeben," the emphasis is on the dangers of the passage, ihm brechen," and after escaping the city he himself finally "sank But it is Josephe who particularly for an ultimate interpretation of what made it possible. This position of unsupportedness or society: The exposure has been defined by the spatial structure of the story: As we have seen, that endosure meant both confinement within him dead: Kleist has created here a situation where such niedersinken; doch in demselben Augenblick jagte sie der Sturz eines Gebaudes hinter ihr, das die ErschUtterungen schon ganz aufgelost parameters of certainty have been stripped away.

As such, the story can hatten, durch das Entsetzen gestarkt, wieder auf; sie kUBte das Kind, drUckte sich die Tranen aus den Augen, und erreichte, nicht mehr auf appropriately be called a "Versuchsspiel, a sort of experiment to see how the die Greuel, die sie umringten, achtend, das Tor.

The remainder of the story around her. Yet it is precisely the caving in of the building behind her which holds up to view the rewards, but also the immense dangers, of that position. One might say that in the moments following the earthquake Jeronimo reacts in extremes; his constant shifting said p.

The as-if constructions and related stylistic devices, far from between hope and despair, between faith in a divinely-regulated universe and showing "wie Gottliches ins irdische Dasein hineinwirkt" ibid. One is in fact struck support and made vulnerable. Josephe is shown to be in the same exposed position, by the very literariness of the nature descriptions. It is as if Kleist were especially but because of her maternal instincts and perhaps a stronger religious faith, she aware that this was a construct of his poetic imagination. And that gives the 39 passage a noticeably illusory tone which tends to make one conscious of the tension does not lose her "innere Kontinuitat.

Wtpfel thr wollUstiges Lied. Kayser has called the phrase a "glatter Stilbruch" because the narrator allows the narrator here to indulge his sympathy for the characters and favor them here seems f or on Ce to Co me out from under the spell of the events and turn to the with the most beautifully-described setting convention could offer. But aU of this,. It is notable that in the middle of the description we read: To draw connections to the doctrine of Romantic irony, however, is apt to be Und weil die Armen immer noch jammerten; dieser, daB er sein Haus, jener, daB er Weib and Kind, und der dritte, daB er alles verloren habe: Rather, it has, l 1'ke the "als ob" constructions, the quality of a warning that the lovers' happiness has been bought at great cost.

That the figures isolate themselves so as not to distress the others encounters here th e dark Sl'de of irony ' which by definition implies a destruction, or with their joy only serves to make it plain that theirs is a fleeting and qualified at least a partial destruction, of an illusion. If only a poet might dream of such a idyll, an "isolated case. It is real, Kleist seems to say, in the There, too, the lovers seemed to have gained access back into Eden, into the yearnings of the imagination.

But bY rna k'mg room in Romantic fashion for the original state of perfect harmony between man and nature. And yet, while the "as if" of the creating and completely shut out. The figures are still embedded in a social context, however interpreting mind is only an "as if," it is all one has.

The typical elements of the locus amoenus have often been innocent happiness of the primeval couple or here, of the natural family , man described, 45 and they are unmistakable here: As lovely as the description may be, which all but closes out a recognition of its fragility and insufficiency. From their one cannot get around the fact that it is conventional.

Even the richness and perspective, their physical release from Santiago, the space of suffering and social sensuality of the adjectives "wundermild," "silbergll: Nevertheless, the plan, to which Jeronimo gives his and dependence on, their society. This follows from the very human, but limited approval, is characterized by optimism. After this we read he "kehrte mit ihr zur conclusion they seem to draw, namely that they alone have been purposely granted Gesellschaft zurUck. Fernando's, but the formulation indicates how the figures have reinterpreted their Denn Unendliches hatten sie zu schwatzen vom Klostergarten und den Gefangnissen, und was sie urn einander gelitten hatten; und waren sehr position.

The hope has awakened in them that, having seen themselves as favored gerUhrt, wenn sie dachten, wie viel Elend Uber die Welt kommen mul3te, damit sie glUcklich wUrdenl by God, the favor of the viceroy and Josephe's father, and thus reintegration into The "mu13te" and the "damit" of the last two clauses clearly imply causality, at least the secular society of the city, is possible. Not only do the figures jump to teleological conclusions, they do so This change in plans will soon be followed by another: But Kleist motivates these interpretive shifts in such a way th h others suggests a dim awareness that Santiago was not Sodom and Gomorrah.

And at t ey carry the force of logical necessity. The eire t f yet their decision to emigrate to Spain and there "ihr glUckliches Leben zu urns ances o the approach to Don Fernando's group is beschlie13en" implies that from their perspective, there are no longer any ties teJHng: Jeronimo is concerned "wie er Nahrung fUr die Seinigen herbeischaffen binding them to Santiago, the socially-defined space of their past. The decision sollte" , and Don Fernando asks Josephe to nurse his son, whose mother, Donna follows consistently from their sense of having been, the three of them, singled out Elvire, is injured.

It is food, that most elemental of needs, which draws the couple for happiness by God. Their apparent idyll was not a self-sufficient world With the dawning of a new day, the figures encounter the "Gesellschaft" unto itself, llke Eden, and the closing-out of others which it involved could only around Don Fernando. Somewhere between that encounter and their return to the last so long. Their escape into freedom takes on the qualJ'ty of an exile, and the city, something makes them change their minds.

They are shown later, strolling enclosure of their locus amoenus appears as isolated and Jlmiting, as soon as simple under the shady boughs of the pomegranate grove: Er sagte ihr, daB er, bel dieser Stimmung der GemGter und dem Without abandoning the view that they have been granted a divinely-wiUed Umsturz aller Verhaltnisse, seinen EntschluB, sich nach Europa einzu- schiffen, aufgebe; daB er vor dem Vizekooig, der sich seiner Sache idyll, they are graduaJJy drawn to extend that idyllic vision beyond themselves.

Such examples of "RomergroBe" exhibited by ordinary Again there appears the "als ob" construction, which, as we have seen, signals the people, of "Unerschrockenheit," "freudiger Verachtung der Gefahr," "Selbst- act of interpretation from a finite human perspective. It is coupled with the fading verleugnung und der gottlichen Aufopferung" and so on, are what the arch of memory and the loss of the broader perspective which memory provides.

Indeed, Josephe's observation that the human spirit "schien.. Strength-in-collapse, human greatness emerging as The same can be said about Josephe's interpretation of the whole situation as all outside support is stripped away: Josephe's now very a sort of paradise on earth: Und in der Tat als sie von der anderen abgenommen hatte" captures that limited hope. Auf den Feldern, so weit das Auge reichte, negative in human reality does not constitute a transformation into something sah man Menschen von allen Standen durcheinander liegen, Flirsten und Bettler, Matronen und Bauerinnen, Staatsbeamte und TagelOhner, Klo- better.

We read The sight of people of all social classes together, helping one another, is real, but that the church is the only one "welche das Erdbeben verschont hatte" The the words "Geflihl," "schien," and "als ob" with the subjunctive indicate once again word "verschont" implies that the narrator attributes purpose to the fact that the 49 that she is interpreting, and that her interpretation may well be illusory. In fact, church still stands; one is tempted to conclude that it has been singled out by there are reports from the city of summary executions for rampant theft, of the God as worthy of being spared.

And there is no doubt that this is the conclusion lynching of an innocent man, and of "wie man einer Wache, die auf Befehl des Vize- Josephe has come to when she announces "daB sie den Orang, ihr Antlitz vor dem kenigs verlangte, eine Kirche zu riiumen, geantwortet hatte: For the fact The world she is interpreting here has not been absolutely transformed from that a building representing a social institution has not been destroyed and "above," but has "shifted" internally, along with her perspective.

That she and especially as it is a church seems to be decisive evidence that divine favor extends Jeronimo are drawn to see their position in a positive light does not cancel the even to the space of the city. The latter seems to have become secure and friendly. This is confirmed, not disproved, by agam. Figuratively speaking, if it seemed possible before to return to the 52 death for one-third of every year.

Josephe, because she has known the Garden of Eden, it now seems possible--even necessary--to return to Sodom and supportive enclosure of her society, is drawn inevitably back into the city. The parallel to the pomegranate in It has been said that the characters act out of tragic blindness or tragic Christian myth is the apple; indeed, the German, "Granatapfel," suggests the error, that they "Uber die gebrechliche Einrichtung der Welt hinweg [sehen ]" and connection, as does its presence here in the Eden-like valley. The characters come to ruin not because of personal guilt in the knowledge which means exile from paradise and the irretrievable loss of innocence.

For Kleist, however, even the possibility of an absolutely lack of innocence, which makes her turn back. This model, the awareness of the limits which divide it from the world as a separate vis-a-vis. The decision to immediate experience of the present is colored by the thought of a yearned-for return at Josephe's urging would now seem to parallel the turning back of Lot's future and a past forever lost. The problem was of course a central one for the 55 wife.

Yet it is motivated by a vision of the social space as a place of almost post- whole period. In spatial terms, the consequence of self-consciousness is exile Apocalyptic reconciliation. That the evidence speaks both for and against each and exposure: There is only the fatal dancer says. And with exile comes the fatal yearning for what is felt to be lost: It was the tree which shaded the locus amoenus, and the human spirit.

Jeronimo and Josephe cannot fully return to Eden, nor can they under which the reunited family rested and the lovers gave up their plan to find a home in the city, the realm of guilt and death. His reference to the "unbregreiflich" God or will, echoed in Josephe's In mythic terms, this was Kleist's response to the thought of Rousseau in the reverent allusion to God's "unbegreifliche und erhabene Macht" , IS. A letter to Wilhelmine from Paris, dated 15 of the inadequacy of the human mind to make sense of a world filJed with such August, , could stand as a commentary to the story.

Troubled by the moral contradictions. Ohne Aufklarung ist bring him closer to absolute truth, moral perfection or happiness. Kant's insistence Neither the state of nature nor the state of culture is satisfactory. And the on the unavoidable involvement of the construing subject in the apprehended object consequence for Kleist was that ' un der sue h Circumstances,.

Wir kennen nicht entscheiden, ob das, was wir Wahrheit nennen, Und so mogen wir vielleicht am E d. Ist das letzte, so. Tausendfaltig verknUpft sind die Dinge der Welt 57 " toward the perfect completeness of a god-like perspective. Through the eyes of Rousseau, he now saw this as a problem of human culture in general. Kleist's appar en t response to this problem was not to abandon the idea that However, in the letter he then departs from Rousseau by questioning whether.

Without the support of culture and knowledge in the sense of das auch ein GenuB ist.. The verb "geniessen" signals a shift of emphasis acquired learning , man becomes immensely vulnerable to the destructive forces of from ethical categories of thinking to aesthetic ones, and hints at the outlet he was nature--to which one might add earthquakes.

Yet for Kleist the development of soon to find for these complex conflicts, namely art. In presuming to use the Sodom and Gomorrah model to read ultimate, divine That the figures have returned into confinement--the confinement of the prison purpose into the earthquake, the canon entangles himself in inconsistency. But it and the convent--and not into a renewed and friendly society, is suggested by the was the same with the protagonists earlier: The latter was the case when the fact schenmenge wogte darin. But The atmosphere of anticipation and foreboding is enhanced by the play of light and the crack created by the tremor seems to indicate that the church has not really shadow, and in particular "die Pfeiler warfen, bei der einbrechenden Dammerung, been spared, although this does not trouble the canon, who fits the fact into his geheimnisvolle Schatten" The pillar of a social institution is later to become view of the earthquake as divine vengeance.

The arbitrary and inconsistent nature 59 of all of these interpretations of the facts points to the limits of man's what it almost became for Jeronimo: The canon's sermon is bitterly ironic. He points to a crack caused in the understanding when he ventures to make judgments about ultimate purpose. The church by the earthquake and relates the latter to the Last Judgment and God's irony is that the canon's own fallacious use of the Sodom and Gomorrah model wrathful destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: Hierauf kam er, im Flusse priesterlicher Beredsamkeit,?

This figurative "resistance" is symbolically represented in the convent and calls the indulgence shown it by the world "gottlos" Thus, the spatial structure and imagery of the story. Enclosures that seemed to be secure canon uses the model of Sodom and Gomorrah to explain the earthquake, just as the refuges the valley, the Dominican church reveal themselves to be narrow and characters and narrator seemed to do before, but in a completely converse--and confining.

The figures' outward movement into freedom becomes a fateful return perverse--fashion. Whereas it was suggested earlier that the earthquake was a that is motivated by the same desire for sanctuary, for the safe resting-place, as divine vindication of the lovers and the punishment of those who unjustly judged their initial flight.

They never really "escape" Santiago because the inward ties them, it is now interpreted as a punishment called down on the city for harboring that bind them to it remain in force. The limitation of human knowledge, which is and tolerating the sinful lovers. But the populace may hardly be accused of that, symbolized here by spatial limitation, also implies fallibility, and this too finds and the canon has no explanation for the inconvenient fact that Jeronimo and expression in the spatial images of breakage.

The crack in the church, the Josephe, like Lot, were able to escape. The logical implication would be that God coHapsing arch-structures, indeed the whole earthquake, capture succinctly the somehow missed the worst culprits when he destroyed the city. The earthquake, when These strategems are to no avail; even Don Fernando's attempt to lead his viewed from a perspective that forgoes an interpretation or forgoes all claims to a "Gesellschaft" calmly out of the crowded church--in a sense, to bluff his way consistent final interpretation, becomes a morally neutral event.

The fissures and through--brings only a temporary sense of safety. They "glaubten sich gerettet," 60 but the "von Menschen gleichfalls erfUllte [r] Vorplatz" is simply an extension arches it produces appear as formations of blind chance, of "Zufall," despite all the efforts of the figures and the narrator to see purpose behind them.

Yet Kleist, of the confining interior of the building. Nevertheless, the ploys which the by involving us in imaginative identification with the figures and the "captivated" characters use are admirable, even though they cannot be called examples of moral narrator , confronts us with the inescapability of hazardous interpretation, which is action in any conventional sense.

The figures rise to the occasion of strain with always conditioned by one's position of involvement. The church, despite its crack, improvised strategies which occur to them, without reflection, as a response to the 61 immediate situation. Jeronimo's his efforts to comprehend and find order in the inexplicable. Befreit jenen Mann, welcher In the final scene, the central figures make one last attempt at an outward unschuldig ist!

These are acts Blind chance reigns in a bewildering series of reverses which derive largely from of greatness and heroism, and as such, morally admirable. But they too are mistaken identities. Throughout the scene, Jeronimo, Josephe and Don Fernando unreflected and arise in spite of the fact that there can be no ultimate insight into show the kind of courage Kleist so admired: Characteristic of this kind of response is the impromptu ploy at a given moment and from a given perspective, the limits of which undermine the or bluff.

At the first signs of threat, Don Fernando tells Donna Constanze to claim to knowldge of what "der Himmel Later, he informs another and that brief glimpse of an alternative, humane society which seemed to the naval officer, for the crowd to hear, that Jeronimo was only pretending to be open itself to them in the valley. But the memory of it is all that remains. Jeronimo so as to calm the mob, and asks that the latter individual and the "young The narrator's enthusiastic characterization of Don Fernando as "dieser lady" Josephe be arrested for their protection And when Josephe hands gottliche Held" must be taken with a grain of salt, like all the narrator's.

It has been suggested that he is a type of St.

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Lmken hielt er die Kinder, in der Rechten das Schwert. Mtt Jedem Htebe wetterstrahlte er einen zu BodP. Sieben Bluthunde lagen tot vor ihm, der FUrst first scene. Tog th h e er, t ey seem to suggest an arch that frames the story, whereby der satanischen Rotte selbst war verwundet. The connection to St. Michael is confirmed by a passage in a letter where Kleist w o eness lt possesses is bought at the price of disin- tegration. The only sense that can be made of these deaths is that perhaps--and describes a painting of the same subject in the Louvre: But while raising Kleist's figure a notch toward mythic status, it freuen" This is an extremely conditional "sich freuen" whl'ch also brings home how far he falls short of the archangel, whose role it is to rests on an intuition that loss and gain have perhaps been balanced out.

What has been lost is the relatedness of the original family: Moreover, Don Fernando wielding his sword while braced against the church man, woman and natural child. This is the relatedness of the lost--indeed never complete--idyll of Jeronimo, Josephe and wall is an image which is reminiscent of Jeronimo and the prison pillar. On a wider scale, the system of beliefs or What appears to offset that Joss is Don Fernando's sense of having b "certainties" which society, especially in its religious fundaments, represents is a een courageous enough to defend that ideal and to find a provisional kind of happiness in a fragile world.

And yet that structure, because it is of human design, is often constricting and always fallible:

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