The Aesthetics of Impotentiation in Tieck and Hölderlin

Abstract

This article argues that the works of Ludwig Tieck—specifically the fairy tales collected in Phantasus—and the poems of Friedrich Hölderlin operate according to an aesthetics of impotentiation. Impotentiation designates the coexistence of seemingly opposed operations: on the one hand, the generation of forms that can be developed further in unexpected directions; and on the other hand, impotence, a condition whereby processes of emergence are brought to a standstill. The works of Tieck and Hölderlin draw on these operations to imbue sites of deviant emergence with uncertainty, albeit directed toward different ends. Tieck dramatizes the shifting of states in which everyday forms of intelligibility are briefly suspended, thereby allowing individuals to explore alternative forms of being, some of which are transgressive, some of which are redemptive, if but for a short while; his tales gesture at impotent forms not capable of development, but nevertheless invested with a critical force over and against problematic reality. Hölderlin situates his poetic voice on the cusp of an emergent order that would entail a revolutionary suspension of cultural norms; poised between the possibility of renewal and the danger of annihilation, his poetry invests such inflection points with an increased sense of urgency.