Table Of ContentDIALECTICS
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
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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.
