The Stories of Heinrich von Kleist: Fictions of Security by Seán Allan, and: Gewagte Experimente and kühne Konstellationen: Kleists Werk zwischen Klassizismus und Romantik ed. by Christine Lubkoll, Günter Oesterle (review)

Abstract

MLR, 98.4, 2003 1045 systematic comments on rhetoric negotiates shifting terminology and complex inter? play between a wide variety of sources and Schlegel'sexperimental ideas. His finding that Schlegel's concept of rhetoric remained ambiguous and in essence 'unrhetorical' is convincing, and Schlegel's work thus appears to support the generally accepted view that 1800 marks the death of rhetoric proper not only in German literature. The second part is curiously disconnected from the first,since Schlegel, while implicitly acting as the sole representative of Romanticism, now recedes from view. Al? though Krause here purports to deal with 'Rhetorikund Romantik', he in fact reaches back into the classics and deals with the whole of the eighteenth century in an admirably differentiateddiscussion ofmanifold strands ofthe tradition. By viewing early Romanticism as marking 'the end of histories of rhetoric in the eighteenth century', however, Krause simplifies the rhetorical tradition at the point where it becomes par? ticularly complex: in the variety ofworks across the spectrum of Romantic theory and literature well into the nineteenth century. 11is certainly the case that by 1800, classical rhetoric had been significantlyweakened by the disappearance of Latin fromuniversi? ties and schools, by reconfigurationsof academic disciplines, and by the rationalist and idealist traditions in philosophy. Looking beyond 1800, it is true that the very concept of rhetoric is called into question when Hans Blumenberg or Paul de Man identi? fies one small component, namely metaphor and related tropes, with the discipline itself,and divests that component of its functional role. Yet their interest in rhetoric, founded in part on Nietzsche's vigorous engagement with tradition, is more than just the twitching of a severed limb. If rhetoric is regarded as founded in language and speech rather than specifically in Greek and Latin, ifits relationship with philosophy is acknowledged to have been both co-operative and competitive since classical times, and if rhetoric is seen throughout its history to sustain manifold tensions between theory and practice, then the notion of its demise around 1800 ceases to be persuasive. Tantalizingly, Krause concludes by highlighting the importance of Romanticism for a continuity of sorts, suggesting that the Romantics facilitated both the transfor? mation of rhetoric into literature and subsequent reflection on rhetoricity. Yet the mechanisms of such processes fail to come into focus, not least because Krause hardly comments on the interaction between Schlegel's theoretical writings and those of his fellow Romantics, or the role of rhetoric in their literary practice. Moreover, he ignores a contemporary such as Kleist, whose work would show rhetoric to be alive and kickingeven around 1800. Nevertheless, the achievement of this study should not be underestimated, for it addresses issues central to the changing role of rhetoric in the eighteenth century and beyond. By focusing on the disintegration of rhetoric under the impact of philo? sophy in works that helped to shape the Romantic agenda, Peter Krause illuminates the importance of ancient disputes forthe constitution of modern literary theory,and explores immensely varied strands in a tradition that is too often viewed as monolithic. Jesus College, Oxford Katrin Kohl The Stories ofHeinrich von Kleist: Fictions of Security. By SeAn Allan. Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2001. x + 243pp. ?45; $65. ISBN 1-57113-227-9 (hbk). Gewagte Experimente and kuhne Konstellationen: Kleists Werk zwischen Klassizismus undRomantik. Ed. by Christine LuBKOLLand Gunter Oesterle. (Stiftungfiir Romantikforschung, 12) Wiirzburg: Konighausen & Neumann. 2001. 333 pp. ?35. ISBN 3-8260-1862-1 (pbk). Following his 1997 study of Kleist's plays, Sean Allan now turns to the novellas and the 'fictions ofsecurity' they develop. Arguing that 'the behaviour ofthe characters can 1046 Reviews be properly understood only ifseen in the light of their respective societies' (p. 217), Allan groups seven texts into four thematic categories: justice and revenge {Michael Kohlhaas, Der Zweikampf), revolution and social change {Das Erdbeben in Chili, Die Verlobungin St. Domingo), the nature of evil {Der Findling, Die Marquise von O . . .), and art and religion {Die heilige Cacilie oder die Gewalt der Musik). If Das Bettelweib von Locarno is excluded because it is untypical, Cacilie is included precisely because it is so difficultto integrate into Kleist's oeuvre as a whole, yet 'in its insistence on the...