Kleist's Der zerbrochne Krug and Romanticism

Abstract

In essence this article is concerned with two questions, firstly the position of Der zerbrochne Krug within the main corpus of Kleist's writing and thought, and secondly with the problematic issue of Kleist's general position within the dominant intellectual and artistic movement of the age in which he was writing, namely Romanticism.Three areas of Der zerbrochne Krug are analysed: the experience of the characters, especially Adam; the structure of the action; and the use of symbol, and it is argued from this analysis that the unifying centre of the work is to be found in the tension between subjective and objective, or free and necessary perception and response. This pattern is then related to Romantic theory of comedy in an attempt to demonstrate the ways in which Kleist significantly deviates from the central tenets of Romantic thought as embodied in that theory. On the basis of that contrast parallels are then drawn between Der zerbrochne Krug, Kleist's vision in general and the kind of experience of the years around the turn of the century which informs, for example, the genre of the fate tragedy.