Anomaly and Danger: Politics of the Impure in Goethe’s Hermann und Dorothea

• Published in: MLN 2019-04, Vol.134 (3), p.572-590
• Main Author: Lande, Joel B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 18th century; Arendt, Hannah; Epic literature; Exegesis & hermeneutics; Fate; German literature; Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832); History; Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804); Literary criticism; Literary devices; Logic; Narrative techniques; Philosophy
• ISSN: 0026-7910; 1080-6598; 1080-6598
• DOI: 10.1353/mln.2019.0044

For many German-speaking intellectuals around 1800, the events surrounding the French Revolution assumed pivotal importance. Beyond the first-hand reports from prominent authors, including Georg Forster und Joachim Heinrich Campe, there were also figures further removed from the epicenter of revolutionary events, who felt personally addressed by the upheaval.1 Perhaps the most prominent instance of such engagement can be found in the final text Immanuel Kant published during his lifetime, the Conflict of the Faculties (1798). From his far-flung university town along the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea, Kant asserted his belief that the ongoing Revolution was of universal human importance. At the heart of Kant’s observations is the set of concerns expressed in the following paragraph.The revolution which we have seen taking place in our own times in a nation of gifted people may succeed, or it may fail. It may be so filled with misery and atrocities that no right-thinking man would ever decide to make the same experiment again at such a price, even if he could hope to carry it out successfully at the second attempt. But I maintain that this revolution has aroused in the hearts and desires of all spectators who are not themselves caught up in it a sympathy which borders almost on enthusiasm, although the very utterance of this sympathy was fraught with danger. It cannot therefore have been caused by anything other than a moral disposition within the human race.