Incorporating the Text: Kleist's “Michael Kohlhaas”

Abstract

Kleist's “Kohlhaas,” though much admired, is also much criticized for the “subplot” concerning the gypsy woman and her prophecy. Many readers believe that Kleist spoiled his story by introducing material that is not germane to the plot's central concern. Such criticism is based on the assumption that the novella initially revolves around Kohlhaas's horses but then swerves to focus on the slip of paper containing the gypsy's prophecy. But the assumption is incorrect. The same issue is central at the beginning and at the end: the possession and interpretation of powerful documents. Even the horses themselves turn out, when examined carefully, to be stand-ins for missing papers. The prophecy material is no swerve, for it provides Kohlhaas with a document he can use to counter the power of another document (the Paßschein) that has been withheld from him. When Kohlhaas swallows the gypsy's paper, he incorporates the mysterious power that it represents. Kohlhaas thus redeems himself by means of a piece of writing just as Kleist hoped to redeem himself in the eyes of his Prussian family by producing texts like “Michael Kohlhaas.”