Fantastic Consumption and the Utopia of Self‐Cannibalism in Ludwig Tieck's Des Lebens Überfluß

Abstract

Consumption is a central problem in Ludwig Tieck's 1838 novella Des Lebens Überfluß. This essay argues that autosarcophagy stands at the imaginary core of a utopian project of secession from nineteenth century social and material relations. Beginning with the tale of the self‐devouring criminal that Heinrich relates at the beginning of the novella, eating as a bodily act structures the novella's confrontation with the legacies of German Romanticism and Idealism and the problem of living a decommodified life in an emerging global capitalist order. By exploring the text's utopianism, this essay illuminates the story's more radical political stakes while also situating the novella relative to nineteenth century concerns on the philosophical dimensions of eating.