The Fortuitous Arch: Reconstructing Classical and Christian Interpretations of Sexuality in Kleist's Das Erdbeben in Chili

Abstract

Kleist's novella, Das Erdbeben in Chili [The Earthquake in Chile], brings together various religious and literary traditions usually seen as mutually exclusive in an exploration of how human sexuality – the physicality of the sexual act, birth and its connection to death – can be known and understood. Among the religious and literary traditions explored in Kleist's novella are the classical notion of sexuality as idyll (pastoral); the Christian idea of sexuality as a fallen state; the Aristotelian notion of tragedy, which posits that (sexual) knowledge leads to change in fortune for the characters, and ultimately towards deeper understanding on the part of the audience; and the Christian notion of drama as revealing abstract spiritual truths in physical actions. Das Erdbeben in Chili unites these apparently contradictory modes of interpretation through the evocation of an architectural feature, the arch, which takes on symbolic significance in relation to the novella's tripartite structure and allows for the possibility of a new structure that escapes the limitations established by each of these individual traditions.