Selbstgestaltung in aller Seelenruhe. Lebenskunst in Christoph Martin WielandsAristipp und einige seiner Zeitgenossen(1800/1801)

Abstract

Wieland’s epistolary novel Aristipp presents a process of self-formation and self-regulation through writing and reading. The article begins by presenting the main characters’ modes of life as gender-specific paradigms for an independent life. The ancient ars vivendi is central to these modes of life in that it represents the practice of self-formation based upon the characters’ recognition of the possibilities of social influence. Wieland represents writing and reading as the key ways of training oneself in this art of living. The characters form themselves through monologue and dialogue. At the same time, the genre of the epistolary novel serves to emphasize the autopoetic dimension of speech within the process of self-creation, as well as the discursive character of that process. Thus, the characters create themselves through their self-representations and thereby reveal themselves to be fictional subjects composed of various quotations. Finally, the article outlines Wieland’s programme of self-formation and self-moderation as a counter-model to modern understandings of the subject. Since the eighteenth century, the self has tended to be conceived of as autonomous, authentic, original, and final. This concept has only come to be questioned once again in the age of late modernity, by critics who draw on techniques analogous to Wieland’s.