DIALECTICS and NIHILISM DIALECTICS and NIHILISM Essays on Lessing Nietzsche Mann and Kafka BY P E T E R H E L L E R TH E UNIVERSITY OF M ASSACHUSETTS PRESS . 1966 Copyright © 1966 by The University of Massachusetts Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 65-26240 Printed in the United States of America Second printing, 1969 for Christiane and Hans FOREWORD Each of the following studies considers dialectic and the problems inherent in Faustian striving. Each concerns the story of the dialectical quest as reflected in the rise and fall of German literature from the age of idealism to the age of nihilism. Inasmuch as this literature has always been characterized by a religious or quasi-religious striving for infinity revealed in finite symbols, for absolutes in the heart of the contingent, this story exceeds, of course, the scope of this volume. The following studies illustrate an initial stage, represented by Lessing, in order to set off against the promise of progressive and unending enlightenment the final act of the tragedy as represented by Nietzsche, Mann and Kafka. Certain scenes of the drama, such as Goethe’s Faust or the Hegelian tradition, could not be fitted into this book. Yet the rationale which underlies the development of its theme should be readily apparent. Lessing conceived “pure striving” as a dialectic sustained in its direction by a divine and infinitely distant goal. The increasing emancipation of dynamic striving from the faith in this or in any objective goal led to Nietzsche’s frantic attempt to embrace a boundless and autonomous dialectic. Nietzsche’s endeavor established the context for the pervasive ambivalence and perennial oscillations of Thomas Mann. Finally, the levelling and neutralizing despair of Kafka demonstrated that dialectical striving, without a goal, is futile. The studies combine a historical perspective with an “intrinsic” approach to the interpretation of texts. They represent systematic endeavors to reveal correspondencies between form and content and to appreciate a given work in terms of such correspondencies. The principle of this method is contained in Kierkegaard s observation that “the reduplication of content in form” is essential to all literary art (Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Swenson, Lowrie [Princeton, 1941], .297). The assumption of the “unity” of a text suggests the presence of unifying features, of a dominant impulse which finds expression on all levels or in all aspects of a work. At the same time, these levels or aspects, e.g., of style and philosophical content, remain distinct, and the assertion that a stylistic feature vii / Viii / FOREWORD reduplicates an idea can be true only in a metaphorical sense. An approach designed to reveal the underlying spirit or logos of a work in a variety of spheres may therefore be termed a method of analogy. The manner in which a unifying tendency may find expression in a literary work of art, how it may shape micro-units of style, the nexus between sentences, the imagery, the segments and the entire structure of a text, the character portrayal, the plot and the ideational content remain to be demonstrated with sufficient thoroughness. It is one thing to suggest that the dialectical arguments of Lessing correspond to his faith in a progressive dialectic as the providential evolution of mankind. It is quite another thing to demonstrate how the principle of this dialectic manifests itself in all aspects of Lessing’s Nathan. Similarly, conjectures concerning a general affinity between Nietzsche’s doctrines and his strategy of antithesis and reversal must be applied and worked out in detail if they are to serve the purpose of inter­ pretation and analysis. It may be obvious that Mann’s verbal leit­ motifs correspond to his philosophy of varied recurrence or to his conception of life in the myth. Yet only a close reading in terms of this correspondency will reveal its significance as a key to the inter­ pretation of the Joseph Novels. And the same considerations apply to the attempt to read Kafka on all levels in terms of a single configura­ tion which defines despair as incongruity, alienation or non-arrival. So much for thesis and method. The critical bias of these studies is implicit in the diagnosis of decline. For what could justify concern with this condition unless it were the hope of comprehending the contemporary crisis of literature and of overcoming it from within rather than by a reliance on traditional models which is necessarily ineffectual? Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of God initiated a phase in German literary and intellectual history which is about to be concluded. Given this perspective — and a disbelief in Nietzsche’s anti-credo — one is compelled to register a reaction against the moderns. In criticism these moderns were, typically, in search of ambiguities and liberal to the point of preferring even chaos to an inhibitive order. We, on the other hand, have no choice but to be concerned with reintegration. Nietzsche, Mann, Kafka managed to preserve an ever more tenuous coherence in spite of violent disunity, radical doubt and the final threat of decomposition. The following studies trace the unraveling of coherence. The methodological quest is, in this sense, a descent into hell. Yet there, too, are the gods. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my enduring gratitude and sense of obligation to Erich Heller and to the late Franz R. Sommerfeld. I am deeply indebted to colleagues, teachers and friends, and, in particular, to Frederick C. Ellert, Andre von Gronicka and Hermann J. Weigand. The suggestions and criticisms of Leone A. Barron, Mark Boulby, Peter Salm, and Rene Wellek guided my revisions of the manuscript. Throughout the years, the University of Massachusetts generously supported my work on this book. I am indebted to S. Fischer for permission to quote from German editions of the works of Thomas Mann, notably from Joseph und seine Briider, copyright © 1964, S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt/Main. For kindly permitting me to adapt from their copyrighted editions, especially from Joseph and His Brothers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944), I am grateful to the estate of Thomas Mann and to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., the publishers of the writings of Thomas Mann, trans­ lated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. The English version of “Auf der Galerie,” slightly adapted, is reprinted by permission from The Penal Colony by Franz Kafka, copyright @ 1948 by Schocken Books, Inc., New York, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. I am also indebted to Schocken Books for permission to quote from their German editions of Kafka s works. Quotations from previously published articles are by permission of The Germanic Review, The Journal of Aesthetics, and The Modern Language Association of America.