Echoes of Novalis and Tieck in Büchner's Lenz

Abstract

As a poetic statement on the mission and fate of an artist-figure, Lenz bears comparison with some of its Early Romantic predecessors. The similarities and differences revealed are illuminating as to Georg Buchner's post-Romantic view of the nature and function of the poet. In particular Novalis's Hymnen an die Nacht and Ludwig Tieck's Der Runenberg – works often compared in theme and imagery, and very likely linked by a relationship of influence and response' – are called to mind by both basics and details of Buchner's story. Like them, for example, Lenz involves the struggle of an artist-figure to convey a sense of beauties weighing against individuation and mortality. It also shares with them a variety of motifs and images: the topography of mountains and plains, or the motif of Wanderer and Hutte, for example, to depict the poet's progress to insight, or the references to crystalline and fluid to describe the harmony of all things that he senses. Finally, it echoes those accounts of the artist's emergence in a complex way: at times paralleling the ascent of the Romantic artist to insight, then diverging from that positive line to stress his problematic relationship to reality. Closer consideration of these comparisons and contrasts can follow two possible lines. It can initiate critical reflection on whether Buchner was influenced by these Early Romantic works or even intended his story to parody them.' It can also lead – whether or not influence or parodic intent can be established – to insights on how Buchner's story expresses his era's changing view of the artistic existence. I propose to follow these two approaches in turn to contribute suggestions about how Lenz reveals Buchner's revision of the Romantic ideal to be a