Abstract
Recent German fiction has given an imaginative nuance to the general postmodern critique of the Enlightenment by parodying some of its leading adherents. This essay analyzes two of these works: Daniel Kehlmann's Die Vermessung der Welt, a fictional biography of the intertwined lives of the explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauß, and Klaas Huizing's novel Das Ding an sich, a fantastic tale which takes a real-life episode from the life of the philosopher Johann Georg Hamann and gives it a grotesque twist in order to parody the man who first defined the Enlightenment in Germany, Immanuel Kant. For purposes of contrast, the author examines another work of Humboldt fiction that tends to valorize the Enlightenment and Humboldt's place in this movement: Christoph Hein's short story “Die russischen Briefe des Jägers Johann Seifert.” The author stresses both Kant's influence on Humboldt and the antithetical trajectory of their lives at the conclusion.
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