Schleier (Veil)

Abstract

The motif of the Schleier (veil) can be found throughout Goethe’s works, where it is often associated with images of textual production. In so doing, Goethe builds on a rich literary tradition of comparing the production of verbal works of art with the making of fabrics and the art of weaving. The following entry isolates and analyzes some representative instances of this lexeme in which the veil is used to evoke not only the traditional semantic field of textiles and their crafts as models for verbal works of art but also this lexeme’s potential in regard to epistemological and perceptual concerns. It will thereby trace the veil’s emergence as a “thing to think with” when it concerns the truth function of poetry and show how, as a conceptual metaphor, it invites reflection on the verbal work of art as an exceptional means of negotiating the position between perception and truth, the sacred and the profane, the eternal and the ephemeral, and the local and the global. In modelling this mediation in Goethe’s oeuvre, the veil lies at the intersection of poetology and epistemology. It also offers a reflection on the human subject’s position vis-à-vis the world and on the work of art’s position with regard to temporality and ever-changing historical contexts.