Arno Schmidt's Zettel's Traum: An Analysis (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)

Arno Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum: An Analysis

Arno Schmidt (1914–1979) is considered one of the most daring and influential writers of postwar Germany; the Germanist Jeremy Adler has called him a “giant of postwar German literature.” Schmidt was awarded the Fontane Prize in 1964 and the Goethe Prize in 1973, and his early fiction has been translated into English to high critical acclaim. This book introduces Schmidt to the English-speaking audience, with primary emphasis on his most famous novel, Zettel’s Traum. One reviewer called the book an “elephantine monster” because of its unconventional size (folio format), length (1334 pages and over 10 million characters), and unique presentation of text in the form of notes, typewritten pages, parallel columns, and collages. The novel narrates the life of the main characters, Daniel Pagenstecher, Paul Jacobi and his wife Wilma, and their teenage daughter Franziska. In discussing the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe, the four engage in the problems connected with a translation of Poe. Volker Langbehn investigates how literary language can mediate or account for the world of experiences and for concepts. Schmidt’s use of unconventional presentation formats challenges us to analyze how we think about reading and writing literary texts. Instead of viewing such texts as a representation of reality, Schmidt’s novel destabilizes this unquestioned mode of representation, posing a radical challenge to what contemporary literary criticism defines as literature. No other comprehensive study of Zettel’s Traum exists in English. Volker Langbehn is assistant professor of German at San Francisco State University.

Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture Edited by James Hardin (South Carolina)

Arno Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum An Analysis

Volker Max Langbehn

CAMDEN HOUSE

Copyright © 2003 Volker Max Langbehn All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 2003 by Camden House Camden House is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620 USA and of Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK ISBN: 1–57113–261–9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Langbehn, Volker Max, 1959– Arno Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum: an analysis / Volker Max Langbehn. p. cm. — (Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–57113–261–9 (alk. paper) 1. Schmidt, Arno, 1914- Zettel’s Traum. I. Title. II. Series: Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture (Unnumbered) PT2638.M453Z769 2003 833'.914—dc21 2003008930 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America.

Contents Acknowledgments

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Introduction

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1: The Art of Writing in Columns

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2: Schmidt’s Concept of Literary Realism

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3: The Etym Theory

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4: Tropes of Subversion

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5: Schmidt’s Reading of Freud’s Ego-Development

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Conclusion

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Works Cited

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Index

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Meinen Eltern gewidmet

Acknowledgments

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O THOSE WHO supported

or influenced my intellectual development: Jochen Schulte-Sasse, Robert Weninger, Peter Uwe Hohendahl, Anthony Nassar, John Mowitt, Rey Chow, Jack Zipes, Leo Duroche, and Angela Gulielmetti. In addition, I have benefited tremendously from working with Larson Powell, whose knowledge of German literature has been a tremendous source of inspiration. I would like to thank Jim Hardin and Jim Walker of Camden House for their incredible patience during the demanding editing process of the manuscript. Finally, thank you Noreen and little Isabelle and Otto for being in my life. Danke. V. L. November 2002

Introduction entschuldije; aber nich zuviel Teehurie auf einmal; immer hübsch=gemischt (ZT 243)

A

RNO SCHMIDT (1914–1979) is not a well-known figure in literary studies in this country. Although he has been recognized as probably the single most important experimental novelist in German since the Second World War, there is still little criticism on his work. Despite the increase in the amount of published Schmidt research over the past ten years in Germany, his works have never attracted a large readership. The linguistic density and the sophisticated cultural reflections of his texts seem to prohibit his writings from ever becoming popular. But Schmidt has at least finally gained recognition as a “giant of postwar Germany,” whose important role in the period after 1945 was characterized in these words by the Germanist Jeremy Adler:

If Heinrich Böll was the conscience of the nation and Günter Grass put political engagement on the literary agenda, Schmidt was the grand experimenter. He was a writer of arcane but brilliant practice, an uncompromising innovator whose learning, wit and originality place him in 1 the front rank of modern European fiction.

Christoph Hein, a well-known German novelist who received the prestigious Büchner price in 1997, devoted his acceptance speech to Schmidt: “Er ist so einzigartig, daß es in der gesamten deutschen Literatur nicht seinesgleichen gibt und keine Schublade der Literaturkritik und -wissenschaft, in der er mit einem zweiten zu pressen ist. Ein Autor, 2 dessen Werk die Zeitgenossen allesamt zu Schülern macht.” As Hein points out, Schmidt briefly enjoyed a cult-like status during the 1950s and 1960s, but for the greater part of his career remained a persona non grata within postwar German literature and literary criticism. Klaus Theweleit, one of Germany’s most respected sociologists, devoted a book-length study on the myth of Pocahontas in Schmidt’s story “Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas” (Lake Scenery with Pocahontas), paying him 3 an exceptional homage. But despite these extraordinary accolades, Schmidt’s complex works seem destined to occupy at best the margins of critical inquiry even with the availability of some novels in English 4 translation.

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The purpose of this book, therefore, is to present to an Englishspeaking audience an author whose notoriously difficult writings have been characterized by critic Brian Lennon as a “one-man literary-critical industry, composing impassioned and isolationist manifestos in defense 5 of his works.” According to Lennon, Schmidt’s writings display “all the familiar hallmarks (disjunction, interiority, linguistic ‘play,’ pastiche, parody etc., etc.,) of both modernist and postmodernist works of fiction [. . .] with such inventive extremity as would be difficult to surpass on 6 the printed page.” Thus his writings might be of particular interest to scholars of James Joyce (1882–1941), whose writings heavily influenced 7 Schmidt, and of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), whose work forms the 8 center of Schmidt’s analysis in his Zettel’s Traum (1970). Similarly, readers of Sigmund Freud (1865–1939) might view Schmidt’s study of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) as a welcome addition to questions pertaining to the relationship between psychoanalysis and the linguistic structure of consciousness. But who is Arno Schmidt? Schmidt preferred a reclusive lifestyle and neither maintained ties with literary movements nor engaged publicly in literary discussions. Although he kept contacts with a few close friends, such as the writer Alfred Andersch (1914–1980) and the painter Eberhard Schlotter (1921–), from the outset of his career he considered writing his sole way of communicating with the outside world. As a recluse at his desk in Bargfeld, a small town on the Lüneburger Heath in Northern Germany, he devoted his life to literature with a workaholic’s dedication to writing and reading. Living at the periphery of postwar German society, Schmidt gained a reputation as “an enfant terrible and a rogue elephant among the postwar German literary fauna,” as 9 Friedrich Ott put it. Schmidt continuously decried the literary public for its indolence and incompetence, and dismissed professional reviewers and journalists as liars and political ideologues. In retaliation, reviewers and journalists either ridiculed his literary ambitions or scolded him for his 10 liberal political agenda, deprecating his style. Even worse, Schmidt’s uncompromising polemic against the Catholic Church in his story “Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas,” and his criticism of anything religious, led to a lawsuit accusing him of blasphemy and pornography, and, ultimately to self-censorship in his next publication, “Das steinerne Herz” (The Stony 11 Heart). Equipped with the reputation of a latter-day Jacobin, Schmidt took issue in his literary texts of the 1950s and 1960s with the German government in general and the politics of remilitarization, militarism, abortion, sexuality, German studies, and the Adenauer administration in 12 particular. As Günter Herburger, a reviewer of Schmidt’s, notes:

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Wer aber über die fünfziger Jahre Bescheid wissen will, muß SCHMIDT lesen. Es gibt keinen, der so lächerlich genau über Flüchtlinge . . . über Wohnungsnot, Spirituskocher, von Lebensmittelkarten abhängigem Dorfsex, von der Zubereitung eines heißen Wannenbades mittels Torffeuerung und Schöpfkelle, von flatternder Wäsche am Seil und den 13 Vorteilen eines guten Fahrrades [geschrieben hat].

Schmidt’s obsessive and at times pedantic recollection of the most arcane details of cultural history and his knowledge of the microcosm of postwar German life characterizes not just his works of the 1950s but his entire literary corpus up to his last typescript novel, the posthumously published fragment Julia, oder die Gemälde: Scenen aus dem Novecento (Julia or the Paintings: Scenes from the Novecento). Constructed as dense intertextual webs, Schmidt’s narratives convey the sense of a historical realism and literary depth that remains unparalleled in postwar German literature. Thus Schmidt’s complex and reflexive textual practice is complemented by an extreme attention to vivid historical and experienced detail, a combination that puts him in the company of writers like Proust, Musil, and Joyce. As an iconoclast of literary history who criticized the glorification of Goethe and Schiller in the postwar literary canon, Schmidt championed writers he regarded as unjustly relegated to the margins of the literary canon, such as Christoph Martin Wieland (1733–1813) and the novelist 14 Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (nom de plume Jean Paul 1763–1825). Throughout his works, he quotes or refers to these and other authors. His narratives, which conglomerate German, American, and English literary texts, reveal an extensive knowledge of world literature. Schmidt wrote many short stories, newspaper reviews, and articles, a biography of the writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777–1843), and a psychoanalytic study of Karl May (1842–1912), the popular late nineteenthcentury author of Wild West fiction, and produced radio features and essays discussing many authors usually labeled as second-rate. All of these works demonstrate his broad interests and encyclopedic knowledge. His résumé also includes many translations from English to German, notably works by Edgar Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851), Wilkie Collins (1824–1889), Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873), William Faulkner (1897–1962), and Stanislaus Joyce (1849–1930). He was awarded the 1950 literature prize of the Academy of Sciences and Literature of Mainz for his novel Leviathan oder Die Beste der Welten (Leviathan, or the Best of Worlds), the Fontane prize as acknowledgment for his artistic achievements (1964), and the Goethe prize from the city of Frankfurt for his overall literary achievement (1973).

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In reviewing Schmidt’s career in postwar Germany, Wolfgang Albrecht captures an interesting aspect in the reception of his literary oeuvre: Schmidt’s writings attracted very few professional scholars such as Germanists. Schmidt was critical of the literary establishment and his well-known attacks on the Goethe and Schiller cult proffered by postwar German studies and its literary public may have added to the lack of interest in his literary texts. Instead, professional reviewers from major newspapers and other writers made blanket judgments about his literary texts that either ended in enthusiastic approval or strong rejection but 15 not in detailed analysis. Although Schmidt received significant attention in the West German press, East German newspapers and Germanists deliberately ignored his 16 writings. Occasionally reviewed as enemy of the people whose books reveal a nihilistic character, or as representative of an extreme elite bourgeois understanding of art, Schmidt’s writing fell victim to the increas17 ingly politicized climate of 1960s Germany. Until the 1980s he remained only a favorite for literary insiders. Like those of other West German writers, his books were seldom reviewed and did not become part of the literary canon at East German universities. Adding to his status of a hardly known writer in East Germany was the lack of a distribution license. His first East German publication appeared in 1981, leaving him a virtual unknown until then. However, with the publication of a limited and signed edition of Zettel’s Traum — initially 2000 copies — his fortune changed for the better and the worse. As Helmut Schmiedt notes, one can hardly speak of Schmidt’s writings as popular, yet he succeeded in drawing public attention by first announcing and then delaying the publication of Zettel’s 18 Traum. Orchestrating the curiosity of the reaction to his book, Schmidt turned the publication into a big publicity event. As a result, Zettel’s Traum received recognition as Book of the Month by the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk radio station) in January 1970 and created new interest in his earlier prose. But the initial success in gaining a spotlight in the public also signaled a change in the reception of his work in that he now was perceived as an esoteric, self-centered, and elitist writer who was out of touch with reality. Whereas his earlier writings engaged the reader by taking issue with contemporary events, politics, and other topics, Zettel’s Traum was denounced as unreadable and elitist. Some critics even dismissed Zettel’s Traum as non-art, or sheer nonsense, and 19 Schmidt himself as a “psychopath.” But as Albrecht concludes, Schmidt’s reputation as eccentric or esoteric, and that of his work as non-art, are 20 the creations of reviewers rather than serious professional critics.

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Considering the enormous philological and historical erudition of Schmidt’s texts along with the abundance of references, allusions, and parodies of texts from the German, British, French, and classical literary traditions, it should not surprise us that Zettel’s Traum remains a neglected text. As Helmut Weigel observes: Die jahrelange Arbeit des Schriftstellers SCHMIDT fordert die Arbeit des Lesers heraus. Aber wer nur ein wenig sich eingelesen hat, weiß, warum HEINRICH BÖLL von ARNO SCHMIDT mit dem Satz alles sagte: Er ist zweifelslos der größte Poet unter denen, die Prosa 21 schreiben.

Indeed, Weigel’s observation about the hard work required to read Schmidt’s texts is especially true when viewing Zettel’s Traum. From the outset, Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum is visually distinguished from other books by its sheer bulk — 1334 pages and dimensions of 12.8 x 12.3 inches (owing to the photomechanical reproduction of the original typescript). With its irregular formatted pages and its division into various columns, the text, as an unknown reviewer observed, gained the status of an “elephantine monster” among postwar German publica22 tions. A reader of Zettel’s Traum encounters enlarged letters, advertising materials, photographs, pictorial elements supplementing the verbal narration, alterations, additions, and many other devices revealing the text as outside the strict purview of literature. For over ten years, Schmidt filled 130,000 Zettel (index cards) with information. It took him four years to transform Zettel’s Traum into a narrative of twenty-five hours in the life of the main characters of the text, Daniel Pagenstecher, usually called Dan, Paul Jacobi and his wife Wilma, and their teenage daughter Franziska. All four participants engage in the various problems connected with a translation of Edgar Allan Poe and discuss the life and works of Poe. Throughout the text, the central narrator, Daniel Pagenstecher, to whom the critics often refer as the alter ego of Schmidt, complements the discussions by inserting historical events, psychological findings, geographic discoveries, and cosmological insights. Additional comments and quotations from sources such as literary and historic texts unveil the multilingual texture of Zettel’s Traum as a labyrinthine narration. Schmidt connects these stylistic devices with his claim that Zettel’s Traum represents the conscious reading of Poe’s and other authors’ unconscious subtexts. Adapting Freud’s associative method of linguistic analysis as formulated in The Interpretation of Dreams and elsewhere, Daniel Pagenstecher dissects Poe’s use of language and that of other

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literary models. Expanding on Freud’s first topographical model as outlined in his early writings, Pagenstecher ventures to show the unconscious linguistic saturation of our language. In examining possible double meanings, he seeks to get at the real content of other literary texts. The title and the epigraph of Zettel’s Traum hint at Schmidt’s method of writing in the service of a dream. In this instance, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of many allusions. “Zettel,” German for the “warp” of woven cloth, evokes Bottom the Weaver as translated in Friedrich Schlegel’s rendering of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is essential to grasp Schmidt’s literary allusions to understand the structure and the signifying practices in Zettel’s Traum. Comparable to Finnegans Wake (1939), Maurice Roche’s CodeX (1960), and Jacques Derrida’s Glas (1974), Zettel’s Traum, as critic Siegbert Prawer argued in 1973, rewards the reader with an experience 23 of a consciously “‘anti-classical’ work of literature.” The “anti-classical” nature of Zettel’s Traum is evident in the structural and linguistic devices Schmidt deploys — they confront the reader with the impossibility of knowing a general truth about the text at hand. In this labyrinthine narration, a reader of Zettel’s Traum has to abandon the notion of a beginning and an end, along with the subsequent idea of an origin. Any attempt to trace a prime origin inevitably leads to pluralities of meaning and extended contingencies. Schmidt does not consider obedience to the imitative claims of mimesis and mimetic representation as a desideratum, as a regulatory idea. Instead, for Schmidt, the kernel of writing and reading seems to lie in the act of invention and of creating what is not present. The impossibility of knowing a general truth about Zettel’s Traum suggests the text’s proximity to lyric poetry as a mode of writing that stages the tensions of its own authorial subjectivity. Given that Zettel’s Traum has largely been neglected by Schmidt criticism, the purpose of this study is to provide a first detailed introduction into Zettel’s Traum. As Doris Plöschberger notes, significant attention has been paid to Schmidt’s earlier novellas in Germany, but thirty years after the publication of Zettel’s Traum there has been no farreaching study in either English or German on Schmidt’s magnum 24 opus. This study seeks to close the gap by focusing on the hallmarks of Schmidt’s writing in the text at hand. Thus, I discuss Schmidt’s multicolumnar writing style and his practice of declared and indirect quotation, examine his concept of literary realism as established in his early theoretical essays, “Berechnungen I–III” (Calculations I–III) and document his experimentation with language, manifested in his critique of the phonetic writing system. Moreover, by analyzing Schmidt’s incorpora-

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tion of Freudian psychoanalysis and his extension of Freud’s associative method of linguistic analysis, I delineate Schmidt’s concept of metaphor, symbol, irony, and wit. In this way, I hope to present Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum with its wild punning and scatological humor as a very entertaining book to read. However, my interest in this study centers not solely on providing a detailed introduction to Zettel’s Traum, but also on situating the text both theoretically and historically, insofar as this is possible with a work that is so sui generis. Central to this undertaking is to detail the intellectual affinities between Schmidt and the German philosophers Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772–1801), better known under the pseudonym Novalis, and Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829). Although Schmidt regarded the Jena Romantics critically, he revealed a keen awareness of the 25 Romantics’ idea of literature as productivity and literature as reflection. His acknowledgment of such features as linguistic structure as a system of signifiers, caught up in a movement of infinite deferral, the fragmentary nature of perception, and Schlegel’s idea of chaos, indicates his indebtedness to the early Romantics and makes his reading of the Jena Romantics a valuable contribution to contemporary semiotic theories, 26 albeit in fragmented form. Moreover, Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum documents an important theoretical problem taken up by the Jena Romantics and formulated by critic Azade Seyhan as “the never fully answered question of how philosophical or literary language can mediate and account for the world of experiences 27 and for concepts.” The question posed by the early Romantics reappears in Schmidt’s writings, especially in Zettel’s Traum, and formulates or echoes many issues dominating contemporary literary concerns. Examples of these many issues are the question of nonclosure, articulated in various forms by the Jena Romantics, and, more recently, by the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984) and the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901–1981). Like the ideas of Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel, those of Schmidt about language and literary texts strikingly anticipate many tenets of these theorists. Schmidt extends the responses to the crisis of representation as documented by German idealism and Jena Romanticism and as outlined by Seyhan and Alice Kuzniar’s studies of the critical legacy of German 28 Romanticism. For Seyhan, the German Romantics addressed every critical question literature could imagine and foreshadowed many of 29 today’s critical thinkers. Similarly, Kuzniar’s study of Novalis and Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), outlining their affinity with certain poststructuralist concerns, informed my reading of the Ger-

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man Romantics and subsequently of Schmidt. According to Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz, the Protestant theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and several postKantian idealist and Romantic philosophers had already addressed questions regarding the mediation of reference and subjectivity by and 30 through language. Thus, my aligning of Schmidt with the early Romantics and emphasizing his significance for contemporary literary criticism should be seen as part of an extended corpus of scholarly discussion of the constellation between Romanticism and modernity. However, I have tried to keep references to poststructuralist terminology at a minimum. Considering that my reading of Zettel’s Traum has been shaped by my exposure to the writings of Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault, I hope I am successful in conveying the primacy of the text. To suggest Schmidt’s relevance for contemporary literary criticism, I have chosen to quote extensively from his work, thereby providing the reader an immediate familiarity with Schmidt’s style and use of language. As mentioned above, studies on Zettel’s Traum are still embryonic. In her assessment of Schmidt criticism, Julia Schmidt observes that most critics see an autobiographical conformity between the author Schmidt and the private individual Schmidt. For her, Schmidt criticism lacks the innovation and critical disposition toward his texts that the author him31 self always tried to put into practice. According to Michael Schneider, most research follows Schmidt’s own recommended approach to his writings: namely, that the reader should calculate, decipher, and measure 32 the real references in his texts. According to Lutz Prütting, this approach to his texts, informed by literary realism, has reduced the enigmatic character of Schmidt’s texts to the level of a crossword puzzle for 33 which there is only one solution. Michael Minden’s monograph covering Schmidt’s early prose up to the story “Kaff auch Mare Crisium” (Boondocks/Moondocks) provides the first book-length introduction of Schmidt to an English-speaking 34 audience. Minden characterizes Schmidt’s writings as presenting distinguishing elements of modernism and postmodern experimental writ35 ings. While his study calls for a more critical disposition toward Schmidt’s writings, more recent publications have signaled a promising change in the approach toward Schmidt, revamping him, as Robert Weninger puts it, as “postwar Germany’s most prolific and esoteric 36 writer,” a view I share. In particular, book-length studies by Stefan Gradmann (1986), Olaf Werner (1989), Ulrich Sonnenschein (1991), and most recently, Julia Schmidt (1998) and Henning HermannTrentepohl (1998) have ventured out of the confines of the author-text

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dichotomy and attempted to link Schmidt’s concept of language with contemporary semiotic theorists, notably Jacques Lacan, the Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975), the French semiologist Roland Barthes (1915–1980), and the French anthropologist Claude Lévi37 Strauss (1908–1973). With these recent studies, Schmidt criticism has taken a long-awaited turn toward establishing his writings within a broader scope of inquiry especially with regard to structuralist and poststructuralist concerns. Dieter Stündel’s book Zettels Traum (1982) presents a first attempt 38 to understand the structure of Zettel’s Traum. Itemizing the linguistic, narratological, and figural dimensions in Zettel’s Traum, Stündel provides the reader with an inventory of stylistic devices. But his contribution provides little information about the context of Schmidt’s work. Therefore, this first full-length contribution to the study of Zettel’s Traum remains only a concise handbook about Schmidt’s technical repertoire. Similarly, Hannelore Wolfram, in her unpublished dissertation, restricts herself to exploring the dynamic intertextual structure of Maurice 39 Roche’s CodeX and Zettel’s Traum. Wolfram examines how various manifestations and implications of intertextuality constitute and condition textuality, but fails to provide any detailed discussion of the findings. In contrast to Stündel and Wolfram, Gregor Stricks’ An den Grenzen der Sprache (1993) situates Zettel’s Traum within the larger context of twentieth-century European literature and philosophy. Placing Schmidt in a broader current of writers who addressed the crisis of language and values, such as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and the Austrian playwright and essayist Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), Strick discusses the relevance of Schmidt’s psycholinguistic theories for structuralist and poststructuralist thoughts about language as offered by Lacan and Lévi-Strauss. Examining Schmidt’s reading of Freud in Zettel’s Traum, Strick warns the reader that his essay-style contribution can only 40 be fragmentary. Nevertheless, his analysis of Schmidt’s rendering of Freud in Zettel’s Traum and of the similarities between Schmidt and Lacan marks a milestone in the Schmidt research. No other study has continued to explore his interesting findings. While Strick locates Schmidt’s literary precursors within twentiethcentury European literary movements and philosophy, Rüdiger Zymner’s comparative study Manierismus: Zur poetischen Artistik bei Johann Fischart, Jean Paul und Arno Schmidt (1995) extends Strick’s historical context by arguing that Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum belongs to the tradition of mannerism dating back to works of the baroque writer Johann 41 Fischart (1546–1590) and to Romantic works of Jean Paul. In his

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chapter on Zettel’s Traum, Zymner convincingly delineates Schmidt’s indebtedness to the inventive imagination, originality, and calculated design of the various mannerist movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Stefan Voigt’s book In der Auflösung begriffen. Erkenntnismodelle in Arno Schmidt’s Spätwerk (1999) offers a hermeneutic reading of Schmidt’s late work, including a chapter on Zettel’s Traum. Addressing Schmidt’s attempts to construct virtual worlds as an alternative to the loss of the old world, Voigt stresses the importance Schmidt attributes to the vital relationship between visions of the future and the engagement with the literary past. For him, Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum shows a certain cynicism vis-à-vis the real world, leading to Schmidt’s relishing the disappearance of a normal social environment in favor of imagined scenarios. In his role as a detective, the main narrator in Zettel’s Traum, Daniel Pagenstecher, interprets the relative nature of reality and opens new imagined worlds for the reader. Michael Manko in his book Die »Roten Fäden« in Zettel’s Traum (2001) offers the most recent insights into the complexity of Zettel’s 42 Traum. Adopting a positivistic approach, Manko analyzes the main motifs. He concludes that the primary literary sources for Zettel’s Traum are Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Merlin motif in the lyric drama Idylls of the King (1859) by Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), Goethe’s Faust I (1808) and II (1832), and the operas of the composer Jacques Offenbach (1819–1890). In addition, Manko refers to Gérard Genette’s theory of hypertextuality to demonstrate the relationship between Zettel’s Traum and its sources. He shows how Schmidt’s literary transformations enable the reader to view Zettel’s Traum as parody, travesty, and pastiche. Although insightful in their own right, neither of these aforementioned studies provides a detailed introduction into Zettel’s Traum nor address Schmidt’s possible indebtedness to the Jena Romantics. The present contribution instead intends to expand on Strick’s findings. I will address specific differences from other studies from chapter to chapter. My reading of Schmidt’s writings adopts an eclectic approach, highlighting his references to multiple current theoretical concerns. I am aware that even this analysis will remain just another fragment. My analysis of Zettel’s Traum follows the advice given by Schmidt’s narrator, Daniel Pagenstecher, who, in dissecting the literary canon, often proclaims, “die Herren Verfasser wußtn wohl nie deutlich, was sie da so zu Papier brachtn” (ZT 510). I therefore do not necessarily equate author with text; the text speaks for itself and sometimes against its creator. In

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the role of the reader, I take the liberty to establish “Quintette von Bedeutungen,” which Schmidt as writer of the text did not produce since “er hat es nicht, als Autor, bewußt herbeigeführt !” (ZT 35; italics mine). This assessment, although referring to Poe, also applies to Schmidt, and, more importantly, to Schmidt criticism. To achieve a “Sich=Durchlässig=Machens” (ZT 254) of the text at hand, the reader has to search for his or her own truth.

Notes 1

Jeremy Adler, “Time, Space and Pocahontas,” review of Collected Novellas, vol. 1 of Collected Early Fiction 1949–1961 by Arno Schmidt, trans. John E. Woods, New York Times Book Review, 8 Jan. 1995, 20. 2

Christoph Hein, “Arno Schmidt. Elitär? Allerdings! Oder der kahle Mongolenschädel unter uns,” Freitag (Berlin), 17 Oct. 1997, 14. 3

Klaus Theweleit, “You give me fever,” in Arno Schmidt. Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas. Die Sexualität schreiben nach WWII, vol. 4 (Frankfurt a.M.: Verlag Stroemfeld, 1999). 4

Arno Schmidt, Collected Early Fiction 1949–1964, trans. John E. Woods (Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press); vol. 1, Collected Novellas (1994); vol. 2, Nobodaddy’s Children (1995); vol. 3, Collected Stories (1996); vol. 4, Two Novels: The Stony Heart and Boondocks/Moondocks (1997). 5

Brian Lennon, “Two Novels by Arno Schmidt,” The Iowa Review 29 (1999): 170– 76; here 170. 6

Lennon, “Two Novels by Arno Schmidt,” 170.

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For a comprehensive study of Schmidt’s relation to his proclaimed mentor James Joyce, see Robert Weninger’s Arno Schmidts Joyce-Rezeption 1957–1970 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982) and Stefan Gradmann’s Schmidt’s Ungetym: Mythos. Psychoanalyse u. Zeichensynthesis in Arno Schmidt’s Joyce Rezeption (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1986). 8

Arno Schmidt, Zettel’s Traum (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1986). Abbreviated henceforth in this study as ZT. 9

Friedrich Ott, “Arno Schmidt,” Dictionary of Literary Biography 69: Contemporary German Fiction Writers, ed. Wolfgang Elfe and James Hardin (Detroit: Gale, 1988), 282.

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For an overview of reviews see Über Arno Schmidt. Rezensionen vom »Leviathan« bis zur »Julia«, ed. Hans Michael Bock (Zurich: Haffmans, 1984) and Über Arno Schmidt II, ed. Hans Michael Bock (Zurich: Haffmans, 1987). 11

For details see In Sachen Arno Schmidt ./. Prozesse I & 2., ed. Jan Philipp Reemtsma and Georg Eyering (Zurich: Haffmans, 1988). 12

For a detailed biographical sketch in English see Robert Weninger’s first chapter in Framing a Novelist: Arno Schmidt Criticism 1970–1994 (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1995).

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Günter Herburger, “Einsiedel und Gigant der Literatur,” in Bock, ed., Über Arno Schmidt II, 115. 14

For an insightful examination of Schmidt’s contradicting views on Goethe, see Timm Menke, Die Goethe-Rezeption Arno Schmidts (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 1998). 15

Wolfgang Albrecht, Arno Schmidt (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1998), 123.

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According to Chris Hirte in Bargfelder Bote no. 168–69 (1992): 3–21: Die literaturkritische Erschließung des Schaffens von Arno Schmidt ging dann, wie so oft bei politisch indizierten Autoren, nicht vom akademischen, sondern vom verlegerischen Flügel der Germanistik aus. Und auch das erst, als der Autor tot und eine unliebsame Überraschung seinerseits nicht mehr zu gegenwärtigen war (“Arno-Schmidt-Rezeption in der DDR. Ein Bericht,” 12).

17

See the position paper of the SED (Socialist Party of East Germany) by N. N., “Arno Schmidt: Zettels Traum,” in Bock, ed., Über Arno Schmidt, 255–58 and additional reviews, for instance, by Günter Prodöhl, “Junge deutsche Literatur?” in Bock, ed., Über Arno Schmidt, 11. 18

For some insights into the reception of Schmidt’s books see Helmut Schmiedt, “Das Werk Arno Schmidts im Spiegel der Kritik,” in Arno Schmidt. Leben — Werk — Wirkung, ed. Michael Schardt and Hartmut Vollmer (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1990), 297–305. 19

Richard Holtzberg, “Leserbrief,” in Bock, ed., Über Arno Schmidt, 194.

20

Wolfgang Albrecht, Arno Schmidt, 121–22. For an American or English reader the distinction between professional reviewers and professional critics might be unclear. In the history of German literary criticism the label of professional reviewers emerged, albeit in an early form, during the 1860s and 1870s. Until this point, the dominant model of literary criticism relied on literary categories saturated in empty formalism of bourgeois culture. According to Russell Berman, the new critical direction appeared in opposition to discussions organized around tradition and aesthetics. Instead of treating literary works with a fixed and systematic apparatus of objectives, this new type of criticism gave precedence to the critic’s own feelings and reactions. Labeled pejoratively by conservatives as “feuilletonism,” the mere journalism of professional reviewers was thenceforth distinguished from the work of professional critics adhering to a critical science. For a detailed discussion see Russell Berman, “From Empire to Dictatorship, 1870–1933,” in A History of German Literary Criticism, 1730–1980, ed. Peter U. Hohendahl (Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P), 277–357, here 282–83. 21

Helmut Weigel, “Gehirn contra Leviathan,” in Bock, ed., Über Arno Schmidt II, 132–36, here 136. 22 23

N. N., “A Giant,” in Bock, ed., Über Arno Schmidt, 202.

Siegbert Prawer, “Bless Thee, Bottom! Bless Thee! Thou Art Translated,” in Bock, ed., Über Arno Schmidt, 255.

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Doris Plöschberger, “Vorwort,” in Des Dichters Aug’ in feinem Wahnwitz rollend. . . . Dokumente und Studien zu Zettels Traum, ed. Jörg Drews and Doris Plöschberger (Munich: edition text + kritik, 2001), 5. In the time since the manuscript of the present study was completed, the first book-length study in German of Zettel’s Traum has appeared: Doris Plöschberger’s SilbmKünste & BuchstabnSchurkereien!: Zur Ästhetik der Maskierung und Verwandlung in Arno Schmidts Zettel’s Traum (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 2002). Plöschberger’s book provides a much-awaited introduction to Schmidt’s novel. Seeking to dismantle the “Mythos von Zettel’s Traum, der den eigentlichen Blick auf das Buch verstellt,” she argues that in contrast to his other late works, Schmidt’s main focus in Zettel’s Traum is the capturing of “Informationen — um die thesenmäßige und diskursiv durchargumentierte Darlegung der sogenannten Etym-Theorie [. . .] und des etymanalytischen Interpretationsverfahrens sowie um dessen Exemplifizierung an den Texten Poes” (16). Moreover, she suggests that readers should have no problem reading Zettel’s Traum because it requires only “das emphatische Nachleben einer Stimmung” (17) and not the decoding of all the allusions embedded in the text. Plöschberger’s book provides a welcome introduction to Zettel’s Traum, but her failure or hesitance to situate the text theoretically and historically is a shortcoming. Considering that this manuscript had been finished before the publication of Plöschberger’s book, my response to her reading of Zettel’s Traum will be limited to this brief mention. 25 “Die Schlegel? . . . Beide nur Theoretiker, also Leute 4. Ranges,” Bargfelder Ausgabe 2.2 (Zurich: Haffmans, 1990), 304. 26

I am referring here to Schmidt’s discussion of Tieck in his essay “Fünfzehn. Vom Wunderkind der Sinnlosigkeit,” Bargfelder Ausgabe 2.2 (Zurich: Haffmanns, 1990), 285–332. 27

Azade Seyhan, Representation and its Discontents: The Critical Legacy of German Romanticism (Los Angeles: UP California, 1992), 4. 28

For a discussion of the crisis of representation, see Seyhan’s introductory chapter in Representation and its Discontents. 29

Seyhan, Representation and its Discontents, 3.

30

Geoffrey Winthrop-Young & Michael Wutz, “Translator’s Introduction,” in Friedrich Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (Stanford: UP Stanford, 1999), xi– xxxviii. 31

Julia Schmidt, “Die Schule des Verdachts. Schwerpunkte und Hermeneutische Probleme der Arno Schmidt-Forschung,” Neophilologus 78 (1994): 119. 32

Michael Schneider, “Geschichte und Schwerpunkte der Arno-Schmidt-Forschung,” in Arno Schmidt. Leben-Werk-Wirkung, ed. Michael Schardt and Hartmut Vollmer (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1990), 307. 33

Lutz Prütting, “Die Wissensprobe. Hermeneutische Probleme im Umgang mit dem Werk Arno Schmidts,” in Gebirgslandschaft mit Arno Schmidt. Grazer Symposium 1980, ed. Jörg Drews (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1980), 135. 34

Michael Minden, Arno Schmidt: A Critical Study of his Prose (Cambridge: UP Cambridge, 1982). For additional introductions and critical assessments of Schmidt’s writings in English see Tony Phelan, “Rationalist Narrative in Some Works of Arno

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Schmidt,” University of Warwick Occasional Papers, ed. Keith Bullivant (Coventry: University of Warwick, 1972); Kenneth Wayne Egan, “The Reception of Arno Schmidt Prior to Zettels Traum” (Ph.D. diss., U of Texas, 1978); and the special Schmidt issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction, No. 1, 1988. 35

Michael Minden, Arno Schmidt, 3.

36

Weninger, Framing a Novelist, 1. Weninger’s book provides an excellent outline of the existing studies on Schmidt in discussing the general scope of Schmidt criticism. 37

Ulrich Sonnenschein, Text-Welten: Subjektivität und Erzählhaltung im Werk Arno Schmidts (Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 1991); Olaf Werner, Wortwelten: zu Bedeutungstransport und Metaphorik bei Arno Schmidt (Hamburg: UNI PRESS Hochschulschriften, 1992); Henning Hermann-Trentepohl, Dialoge. Polyphonie und Karneval im Spätwerk Arno Schmidts (Munich: iudicum Verlag, 1998); and Julia Schmidt, Karneval der Überlebenden. Intertextualität in Arno Schmidts NovellenComödie Die Schule der Atheisten (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998). 38

Dieter Stündel, Zettels Traum (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982). Hannelore Wolfram, “Strategies and Effects of Intertextuality in Contemporary French and German Fiction: Maurice Roche’s ‘Codex’ and Arno Schmidt’s Zettels Traum” (Ph.D. diss., U of Texas, 1989). 39

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Gregor Strick, An den Grenzen der Sprache: Poetik. Poetische Praxis und Psychoanalyse in “Zettels Traum.” Zu Arno Schmidts Freud-Rezeption (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1993), 11. 41

Rüdiger Zymner, Manerismus. Zur Poetischen Artistik bei Johann Fischart, Jean Paul und Arno Schmidt (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1995). 42 Michael Manko, Die »Roten Fäden« in Zettel’s Traum. Literarische Quellen und ihre Verarbeitung in Arno Schmidts Meisterwerk (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2001).

1: The Art of Writing in Columns “Die Kunst, gut zu lesen ist vielleicht noch seltener als die, gut zu schreiben?” (Arno Schmidt, “Dichtergespräche im Elysium”)

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Zettel’s Traum borrows its “SpaltenTechnick” from Finnegans Wake. By structuring Zettel’s Traum into three columns or “TextSträhnen,” Schmidt expects that the reader will be able 1 to follow the information provided in the columns. To ease the reading process, Schmidt divides the three columns according to theme. The center column reflects the events of the years between 1965 and 1969, the time frame in which Zettel’s Traum was actually written. Daniel Pagenstecher, as the central narrator of the events, assists Paul and Wilma Jacobi, likewise writers and old school friends, in the translation of Poe’s works into German. The Jacobis had visited Dan to ask him for advice in this work. Daniel Pagenstecher acts as the expert on Poe since he has read him for forty years. Accompanying the Jacobis is Franziska, their sixteen-year-old teenage daughter, who thinks she is in love with the much older Dan. Throughout the day, the four discuss aspects of Poe’s writings such as his choice of vocabulary, his favorite words and authors, metaphors, composition, and footnotes. During their discussions Daniel Pagenstecher discloses his so-called etym theory. Etyms are morphemes or word roots unknown to conscious thought, which Pagenstecher uses to demonstrate the activities of the unconscious. Adopting Freud’s symbol interpretation in combination with the etym theory Dan explicates Poe’s work in order to expose its internal symbolism as tied to sublimated yet still polyvalent sexual fantasies. Discussions of the writings take place to the left of the main column. In addition, the four discussants narrate stories about Poe’s life and insert quotes from his texts, which illuminate the etym theory. The right column contains extensive quotations from literature, myth, and devotional texts, and other references such as radio and TV news or dictionary definitions and translations. All these references to other texts and comments, among many other functions, provide the narrator Daniel Pagenstecher with authoritative proofs of his theories or as supplements to the topic under discussion; the comments serve as a kind of running foot-

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note. According to Schmidt, the columns complement one another. For instance, the Extended Mind Game (Längeres Gedankenspiel) of the participants in the right column explains to a certain extent the left col2 umn. To bridge over thematically the spatial gap between the columns, Schmidt argues that the etyms serve as linking nodal points in the read3 ing process. Schmidt additionally reveals the number of letters per page (6–7500), the workdays he invested (1350), and his weekly input in writing (100 hours). In addressing the basic plot lines as outlined in Vorläufiges zu Zettel’s Traum, Schmidt points out that Zettel’s Traum breaks down into eight chapters or “books” with particular themes. The main topic of conversation in the first book, titled “Das Schauerfeld oder die Sprache von Tsalal” (The Field of Horror or the Tsalal Language), centers around Dan’s interpretation of one of his favorite novels The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1837). While discussing the novel, the friends address the important role alcohol played in the life and literary works of 4 Poe and Joyce. In addition, Dan introduces his Etym-theory. During the course of the second book, titled “In Gesellschaft von Bäumen” (In Company of Trees), the discussion focuses on Poe’s The Journal of Julius Rodman (1840). Alluding to Shakespeare, Dan argues that people may often tend to transform themselves unconsciously into plants and animals. In the following book titled “Däns’s Cottage (ein Diorama)” the friends elaborate on how Poe utilizes the motif of gardens and flowers in his narrative The Domain of Arnheim (1850). The fourth book, titled “Die Geste des Großen Pun” (The Jest of the Great Pun), a Walpurgis fantasy, takes place near a small pond in Bargfeld, Schmidt’s home since 5 1958. The discussants center their analysis on the power of metamorphosis and puns with their multiple meanings. True love and its perils, as seen through the relationship between Franziska and Dan, the aged lover who suffers a mild heart attack, constitute the main motifs of in6 quiry in book five, titled “Franziska = Nameh.” The protagonists in book six, titled “: Rohrfrei !” (a German military term meaning “ready to shoot,” translated as tube-free), address the motif of voyeurism and Poe’s coprow philia. Book seven, titled “The T o ilit of the Guts,” returns to Walpurgis fantasies, in which the friends discuss the habits and perversions of the 7 population in the fictitious village “Scortleben.” In the final book, titled “Im Reiche der Neith” (In the Kingdom of the Night), Schmidt narrates the attempt by a foul-minded friend of Franziska to seduce Dan, who, at 8 the end, acknowledges the foolishness of being in love with a teenager. The friends again return to the motif of voyeurism and autoerotism in

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Poe and analyze his prose poem Heureka (1848). The arrival of the morning brings the disenchantment from the dream and the party disperses in the early morning hours of the next day. Despite this intricate structure the reader of Zettel’s Traum quickly realizes that Schmidt does not keep his initial promises. The strict division into three columns collapses into only one or two columns per page, 9 or expands into four. Schmidt already envisions the division of the page into two columns divided by one vertical line in his essay “Berechnungen II.” He takes the liberty of rearranging the composition, thereby setting up a different reading pattern. As Wolfram correctly remarks, “applied with liberal license, the stereographic tri-partite division and its rationale are thus flexible according to the situations, rather than ‘absolute’. . . . They lead to several divisions of the middle column, for instance, and at times to a parallel spacing of four, or even five text blocks, creating a 10 diversified type facing with fluctuating architectural effects.” This division of Zettel’s Traum into columns, which are then restructured, makes the reader suspect that a strategy of evasion is at work, an attempt to make the writing elusive and difficult. While reading the center column and attempting to grasp the references made, the reader is always reminded that the key to understanding the text lies in the relation be11 tween columns. For instance, when Dan cites a recent survey announced on the radio about the issue of unification in postwar Germany: “1 ‘Institut für Meinungsforschung’ gab vor ne Umfrage veranstaltet zu habm : Ob etwa noch 1 Verworfener für die Unvereinichtn Staatn von Deutschland sey?” and the result of the survey is “Kaum Null=Komma=Null=Ein Protzendt’ hättn=sich dá=gégn geäußert” (ZT 467), the reader grasps the political underpinning of such announcements by reading Dan’s ironic response in the left column: “:was, in Anbetracht unsres Nazional=Charackters, merkwürdich=viel iss” (ZT 467). In this case, the reader senses that it is ironic for a nationalistic population not to consider recuperating the former greatness of the German Reich, since the German character still remains tainted by its Second World War experience. The radio announcer’s polemical question anticipates the answer, hinting at Germans’ unrepentant character. Simultaneously, by using the German verb “gab vor” (to allege), the reader is thrown into doubt about the seriousness of the opinion polls. Using the noun “Verworfener” (roughly translated as bad person), the radio announcer suggests that only a person out of his or her right mind would oppose the unification of East and West Germany. Such playful insertions and nuances in word choice in both columns underscore the allusiveness of Zettel’s Traum and subsequently the lack of any successive

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development of events, as Robert Weninger has argued. Dan’s ironic commentary redirects the information of the story and concurrently, through word play, reveals our normal everyday language as an intricate system of rhetorical devices. Here, the commentary functions as a referential aid and places constraints on the reading process, since a commentary is always already an interpretation. Yet the commentaries in Zettel’s Traum also become literature by interweaving literary criticism, history, geography, and references to and from a great variety of other disciplines. Hence one cannot characterize these commentaries as limitations on the text or on the reader. Dan’s explanation of Poe’s Tsalal language in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, situated in the center column, illustrates my point: Die ‘Sprache von Zalal’ ist, ganz=simpl, ein, absichtlich leicht= korrumpiertes, Hebräisch, versehen mit dem reduplizierenden Endungen der Südsee=Sprachen : ‘Ukule=le Tameia=meia Bora=Bora’.”—/: “Und ‘Tsalal’ selbst ?”; (P.) /: “Die 3 Grundrisse der Höhlen ergeben, nach dem äthiopischen Alfabet . . . das Wort ‘Tza=l (e)=mou (n)’: das aus dem AT mehrfach ‘Zalmon’. ” (ZT 31)

For an ordinary reader, the etymological, geographical, and historical information presents an overwhelming number of references. The Tsalal language of Poe refers to the languages of the Pacific islands, to the Hebrew language, to the Ethiopian alphabet, and the Old Testament. In the two columns beside the center column, the reader finds additional information about the Solomon dynasty, “regierte, seit 1268, die Dynastie ‘Solomon’” and Dan’s lengthy commentary about Poe’s actual knowledge of the Hebrew language: “?-: daß POE kein’n Schlag Hebräisch verstand ?): “erleichert dem Nicht=Orientalistn das Erkenn’ Seiner Possn ungemein, Wilmi!” (ZT 31). Commentaries either place the information within a new context or insert additional sources of information. In the end, secondary commentary becomes primary intervention. The right column intervenes in the reading of the center column, forcing the reader to consider another viewpoint toward the text. Moreover, the commentary forces the reader to confront his or her reading of the story, in this case Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, with the commentary provided. As such, it offers multiple perspectives on the story and reinforces the open-ended character of the text. Commentaries disturb, provoke, interrupt, and question the story and the reader. By luring the reader into a multiplicity of reading operations, the text defers closure in the reading process. In place of an absolute ending, then, Schmidt substitutes an absence or extended

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lacuna. Commentaries generate an expectation of understanding while persuading the reader that such an expectation is impossible to fulfill. Reading becomes a conscious act of reception, a cross-relational activity. The commentary simultaneously alienates the reader and functions as a means of disrupting the contemplative safety of reading, making it 13 impossible for the reader to remain passive. Variable elements within the text, as Wolfram notes, enable the reader to find relevant linguistic connections, such as the Tsalal language being a contamination of the French word “sale” and the English word “all,” and also its pointing to 14 “sully” meaning “besudeln” (ZT 767). The production of meaning here proceeds through a process of grafting — a variety of combinations and insertions — that the reader has to decipher. The fact that the reader has only a limited idea of how to organize the text, combined with the difficulty of making sense, highlights the challenge offered by this writing style. Schmidt’s formal arrangements of the prose elements and the subsequent difficulty of situating Zettel’s Traum within genres function also to subvert any generic classification. Schmidt already opposed the homogenization of narrative texts in his earlier writings when he wrote of the linear and uninterrupted flow of events as a falsification of reality. For the “ideal reader” of Zettel’s Traum, the text unfolds in the play of its incompletion and its deliberate practice of disturbing prior existing narrative experiences that claim to define and represent reality: “die Lüge, der »Aktiven«, daß am Menschen und durch ihn stets planvoll=bedeutende Aktion vor sich geht, ist zu 15 bekämpfen: sie entspricht nicht der Realität.” In this case, Schmidt attacks humanism as much as literary realism. Against such a coherent narrative, Zettel’s Traum echoes Schmidt’s earliest formulation of a text as an endless flow of signification that compels the reader to attend to the particular practices of each column. It is not the wholeness of a literary text that matters, but rather the individual details of information spread out in the various strands of writing. Hence Schmidt’s call in the 1950s for literature to conform to the fragmentary constitution of perception gains new meaning. The text as a “Textgewebe - aus Worten” (ZT 26) forbids the reader to subscribe unambiguously to any single information. On the contrary, to read Zettel’s Traum is not to look for a specific meaning, but rather to identify the innumerable strands of information and to produce one’s own reading through previously established associations and connections. For this reason, Schmidt’s description of the commentary as explanations of 16 intended associations is a helpful indication of how to read his work.

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Schmidt wrote a text that oversteps the boundaries of traditional narrative by describing its own signifying processes. As Jochen Meißner correctly observes, the text shows its own structure and becomes self17 reflexive. Non-linear writing, as Gisela Dischner suggests, succeeds in provoking an endless amount of unarticulated and articulated trains of 18 thoughts at once. In opening space for thoughts between the columns and individual lines and words, Schmidt undermines any possibility of the sort of teleological reading defined by one of the originators of Concrete Poetry in postwar Germany, Eugen Gomringer (1925–), as a classi19 cal-humanistic conception of wholeness. Already in his early writings, Schmidt had condemned teleological reading processes as the return of metaphysical tradition and as an attempt to impose a universalizing master narrative. He thus sought to demystify the effects of a philosophical tradition exemplified in the “liebenswürdige Wahn von einem singulären überlegenen »Abbilde Gottes«” or other metaphysical as20 sumptions. Zettel’s Traum dissolves the traditional unity of the book, and in doing so deliberately questions the coherence and autonomy of the literary text. As such, Zettel’s Traum fulfills the programmatic declaration Schmidt had made in “Berechnungen “I–III” to produce a new prose form (to be discussed in the next chapter). Schmidt locates meaning within the multiple layers of the varied construction principles and thereby undermines the structural integration of the aesthetic as a compensatory realm. Thus Schmidt offers the reader an alternative to the literary texts propagated by postwar German literary establishment as classical, texts that put emphasis on literature as a meaningful representation of life, anchored in a world view by individuals to whom Dan ironically refers to as “transcendentalen FensterGuckern” (ZT 1248). I will return to this relation of Schmidt to postwar German literary history at the end of this chapter. Nonetheless, Schmidt remains caught in a paradox. First, he condemns the normative character of traditional literature, and then provides the reader with his own normative approach in form of a reading guide for Zettel’s Traum, one that is pointedly described by Voigt as pressur21 ing. Schmidt himself falls prey to what he sees as a major problem in 22 Finnegans Wake, its extremely subjective decoding. If Arno Schmidt considers Joyce’s writing style as too difficult for the reader, Zettel’s Traum certainly cannot be said to solve this problem. Like Finnegans Wake, Zettel’s Traum can be a source of much frustration, especially since Schmidt, like Joyce, assumes an ideal reader with ideal insomnia.

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Schmidt’s insertion of fragments of visual reality such as photos, sketches, and clips from recipe books, newspapers, and menus further illuminates his attempts to break through the appearance of totality or unity. Hence, the reader encounters photos of fashion models (ZT 993, 1209), a camper van (ZT 969), a sticker of a mushroom can (ZT 1021), a sticker of a “Bierwürfel mit Kümmel” (ZT 1148), and many drawings by Arno Schmidt himself (ZT 4, 577, 1092, 1083, 1131, 1240). The latter aspect receives special attention, since Schmidt views the sketches as the visual representation of localities described in Zettel’s Traum. Schmidt explains these insertions as support or illustration of things discussed in the center column. For Gregor Strick, visual representations question the possibility of a definite understanding, a comprehensible 23 sense. Negating any unity of meaning, Schmidt’s montage technique sacrifices stylistic coherence and shifts the focus of reading back and forth between language and visual representation. As a symbolic representation, the representations invoke associations appealing to the creative imagination but not, as Josef Huerkamp has maintained, to any poetics 24 of authenticity. With this technique of montage, Schmidt dislodges language from the role as the sole representative of meaning. The topographical markers along with other inclusions of “reality” might have a specific referential appeal to the reader as Huerkamp rightly suggests. But as my elaboration of Schmidt’s concept of literary realism will demonstrate, factual sources remain part of Schmidt’s creative imagination 25 and subsequently do not constitute authenticity. Dan refers to writings as drawing, “denn Schreiben ist Zeichnen” 26 (ZT 242), that betrays the linear progression of thought. Digressions expressed through sketches and photographs address the creative imagination and the unconscious. Montage prevents both the realization of perfection and referential closure. Schmidt’s use of drawings, sketches, and photographs as symbolic representations causes a series of interruptions, and stimulates in the reader an unending chain of associations between ideas. Here Schmidt reminds the reader of Novalis’s characteri27 zation of poetic production as discontinuous. Thus, when Dan speaks of writings as drawing, “sieh=ma—: ‘Schreiben’ ist schließlich nur eine andere Art zu ‘zeichnen’” (ZT 772), he reminds the reader of Novalis’s 28 famous crooked line. If writing is like drawing, then the crooked line favors the creative imagination over conventional regulation. The gigantic format of Zettel’s Traum supplies further evidence of Schmidt’s attempts to subvert traditional literary classifications. The book’s physical appearance, its sheer size and volume, as well as its obvious quality as a reproduction, disrupts the immateriality of the signifier.

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The reader is thus made to experience what Benjamin defined as “Erlebnis” (mere existence) and “Erfahrung” (reflective experience). The two terms, mere existence and reflective experience, stand in a dialectical relationship in Zettel’s Traum. On the one hand, mere existence (Erlebnis) is the raw material, the sensation of our private existence, yet it also stands for sense and value orientations internalized, in particular, 29 through our literary tradition and reading practice. The paradox of Erlebnis is that the sensations we take as unmediated have in fact already been transmitted and filtered through socialization and language. Reflective experience, on the other hand, signals an emancipation from passive acceptance of convention through our becoming conscious of 30 mere existence. This liberation depends on integrating experience into 31 a relation to tradition, a continuum of sense. Whereas reflective experience suggests that one has become conscious of history, mere existence 32 lacks this differentiating quality. We may conclude from this that our perceived continuity of experience does not depend simply on a linear continuum of experience, but rather on a continuous reflection upon the fragmentary character of time 33 and history. In other words, we are actively involved in producing continuity: it is not merely given. Schmidt’s use of montage disrupts the illusions of mere existence (Erlebnis) by making reading into reflective experience (Erfahrung): “das Náchvollziehen von fertich gelecktn Mode=LGs? iss leicht; aber das Paar=weise Erarbeitn einer ‘besseren Realität’ . . .’ss doch ebmso exclusiv wie schöpferisch — eine geistije Nonstop= Brautnacht” (ZT 1243). Thus Schmidt demonstrates that our unconscious is distorted through the mechanisms of signification between preconscious and unconscious, between absence and presence. Reflective experience is formed from accumulated data of which we are not often aware and 34 which flow together in memory. Mere existence thus symbolizes an imaginary relationship between the self and the I, creating an illusory identity of wholeness. In contrast to such mere existence, Schmidt’s montages provoke the Extended Mind Game, or, in Benjamin’s terms, reflective experience. The reader, juxtaposing mere experience and reflective experience, transforms the reading of Zettel’s Traum into a critical and contemplative practice, being enticed into an evaluating 35 attitude. This play between mere existence and reflective experience becomes even more powerful in Schmidt’s theory of quotation and his Socratic dialogue, which I will address shortly. Thus, too, Schmidt’s fascination with the literary tradition, quotations, and reality-fragments and the reading of the self as a text or an

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imaginative montage indicates that he sought to free the poetic power of objects and fragments while eliminating the subjectivity of the one 36 who liberates them. Zettel’s Traum requires not only that the reader recognizes the connections inscribed in the text, but also encourages the reader to question his or her habits of making sense, and thus becomes an instrument for critical reading of an open work: “Ein Kunstwerk, das man nur 1 Mal zu sehen=hören braucht, um es erschöpfend erfaßt zu 37 habm : das wäre kein Kunstwerk!” (ZT 112). However, reactions of literary critics to Zettel’s Traum document the 38 consternation that such an innovation can cause. Commentators de39 40 scribe Zettel’s Traum as a “convoluted text,” “the thing” as a “gigantic 41 42 reference system” or as a “gigantic picture puzzle.” All commentaries agree that Zettel’s Traum defies convenient classification. For Karl Riha, Zettel’s Traum requires the reader to simultaneously read several text 43 levels. As “citation-mosaic,” this “untamed index box” compels the reader to negotiate a way between the various lines, levels, and layers of 44 writing. But at any given point the reader remains caught in a maze, finding it almost impossible to locate the true sources for the various utterances. According to Armin Mohler, in Zettel’s Traum the endless amount of associations and esoteric citations suffocates the reader, forc45 ing him to lose the thread of action. Schmidt confronts the reader of Zettel’s Traum with a labyrinth of texts provoking the question if there is a center or origin. The reader soon questions whether Zettel’s Traum is literature at all. Gert Ueding helps to formulate the problem: Roman? — Nur schwer läßt sich dieses opus in die üblichen Gattungsgrenzen einfügen; auch die seit JOYCE, DÖBLIN UND MUSIL üblich gewordenen Vokabeln wie Antiroman, Roman eines Romans oder ähnliche tragen nur wenig zur Kennzeichnung bei: sind es doch Etiketten, geboren aus der Verlegenheit von Literaturwissenschaftlern und 46 Rezensenten solchen literarischen Werken gegenüber.

Ueding’s description pinpoints the continuous tension in the reception of Zettel’s Traum between what the literary establishment and Schmidt respectively define as literature. The reactions to the publication of Zettel’s Traum document the unwillingness or inability of literary critics and others to engage what lies outside a particular tradition of 47 literature. The first reviewers of Zettel’s Traum were unable to produce insightful analysis because of the magnitude and complexity of the text. During an interview in 1970 with Gunnar Ortlepp in Der Spiegel, Schmidt commented on the lack of careful or thoughtful reviews: “Der kluge Rezensent sagt ein Jahr lang gar nichts. Er sagt nur, dass es so

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etwas gibt.” Speculating on the future reception of his book, Schmidt adds that Zettel’s Traum will most likely appeal only to a few “Kulturträ49 ger in einer Nation,” people with the proper educational background. Schmidt, who never really cared about his reputation in public, consequently was accused of elitism and arrogance. Responding to Schmidt’s premise that only a cultural elite will be able to understand Zettel’s Traum, Ueding argued that when education loses its unifying role in modern bourgeois society it becomes reactionary, because cultural knowledge will exclude from participation those with merely a basic education. Education becomes a privilege of a few, who have time, endurance, and the money for such luxury. Schmidt worships the aristoc50 racy of the mind. Similarly, an unknown East German reviewer dismisses Schmidt’s position as a defender of a bourgeois notion of art, 51 which is hostile to the people, elitist, and narrow-minded. Even a reviewer such as Siegbert Prawer, who was very appreciative toward Schmidt’s writings, had to conclude that “the shrillness of his attacks on those who do not share his opinions . . . his bouts of self-pity, his selfadmiration, his urge to withdraw and hide coupled with an incessant desire to monologize, — all these suggest psychological disturbances as 52 serious as any of those he attributes to Poe.” As these responses show, Schmidt’s eclectic approach is accessible only to a cultivated audience, and probably will stay that way. But, as Benjamin suggested about Baudelaire, “he had written a book that had 53 from the start little chances of immediate success.” Zettel’s Traum also 54 participates in this modernist risk of marginality. Schmidt, well aware of the difficulty which his reader, even the cultivated one, might experience, responds: “Dichter: erhältst Du den Beifall des Volkes, so frage Dich : was habe ich schlecht gemacht?! Erhält ihn auch Dein zweites 55 Buch, so wirf die Feder fort: Du kannst nie ein Großer werden.” Schmidt’s reluctance to compromise his writing style or to allow more accessibility results in such a surplus of possibilities for the reader that the result is as often a confusion about which to choose. This contradiction, nonetheless, is the kernel of his writing, and reflects back upon his idea of writing in columns. If traditional realistic writing inhibits a reflective reading experience by its inability to reflect beyond existing structures, then writing in columns dissolves established boundaries, but also cannot specify where new thought must begin. The act of reading largely depends on chance activation in the reader’s mind.

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Schmidt’s Theory of Quotation The heterogeneous structure of Zettel’s Traum, and its subsequent transgression of textual boundaries, inevitably brings up the question “What is a literary text?” My discussion has revealed thus far that Zettel’s Traum cannot be subsumed under any particular genre. On the contrary, Schmidt’s construction of Zettel’s Traum as a montage highlights the intertextual character of the text at hand. To tease out Schmidt’s play on the fluidity of genre boundaries, and to reflect on his allusions to other texts, I propose reading Schmidt’s praxis of citation, and the etym theory, as the ultimate paradigm for a notion of intertextuality. Whereas the columnar writing style produces constantly new interpretative contexts, Schmidt’s theory of quotation represents one of many challenges to existing ideas about literary texts in postwar Germany. And, as Julia Schmidt argues, the principally ambivalent and ideologically subversive character of intertexuality critically counters the literary establishment’s 56 claims of objectivity. The notion of intertextuality has received some significant attention over the past decade within Schmidt criticism, for instance in the writings of Ulrich Blumenbach, Rüdiger Zymner, and Henning HermannTrentepohl. But only Julia Schmidt, Sonnenschein, Weninger, Hannelore Wolfram, and Erika Gietema provide some examination of Schmidt’s 57 theory of quotation as a possible paradigm for intertextuality. Gregor Eisenhauer, Hartwig Suhrbier, and Wolfgang Hink all view Schmidt’s praxis of quotation as a self-conscious alignment with literary tradition, yet their references to contemporary definitions of intertextuality remain 58 limited. Whereas Weninger describes Schmidt as a master of intertextuality, Gietema views intertextuality as linguistic gesture, seeking the 59 opening of the sign to a foreign meaning. Gietema sides with Sonnenschein, who views intertextuality in Kristevan terms as the transposition 60 of one sign system or several into another. In contrast to these studies, Julia Schmidt concludes for the Schule der Atheisten (School of the Atheists) that intertextuality’s aesthetic 61 effectiveness is principally indeterminate. However, she employs the concept of humor as a distinguishing criterion, arguing that humor 62 depends on its recognizable effect on the reader. Along with Wolfram’s, all these aforementioned studies represent a fruitful exchange with contemporary semiotic theories, notably with those of Roland Barthes and Kristeva (Weninger, Sonnenschein, Wolfram, Schmidt) and Bakthin (Gietema, Henning Hermann-Trentepohl, Schmidt); according to Erika Gietema, they begin to break with the older tendency of Schmidt criti-

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cism, to use Schmidt’s personality to justify an attitude toward his work, or as Weninger has argued, to automatically legitimatize intertextuality 63 as intended. This last is a particularly problematic critical strategy, since intertextuality according to its definition stands outside of the author’s 64 control. Schmidt’s implementation of citations serves also to create tension between what we know and what we do not know, between consciousness and the unconscious. On this view, Schmidt’s quotation evinces his resistance toward the classical definition of citation, which Claudette Sartiliot in her book on the practice of citations in Joyce, Derrida, and Brecht summarizes as “the basic opposition between the inside and outside of a text, between main discourse and inserted fragment, the notion of the text as a closed and autonomous entity, and the concept of the author as a presence and consciousness controlling his 65 text from without.” Schmidt’s theory of citation, as a paradigm for intertextuality, seeks to bring out the inherent paradoxes of this classical definition by questioning the notions of authorship and boundaries and by expanding a tradition that ranges from authors such as Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) to Arno Holz (1863–1929) and Franz Mon (1926–), from Georg Büchner (1813–1837) to Karl Kraus (1874–1936) and 66 Christa Wolf (1926–). For example, Manfred Durzak argues, in an examination of Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929), that the use of citations parodies the literary canon of education and unmasks the 67 bourgeois understanding of education as empty convention. But it is Bertolt Brecht’s practice of plagiarism Schmidt praises in his essay “Die 68 Meisterdiebe. Von Sinn und Wert des Plagiats.” Despite his critical disposition of Brecht’s blatant practice of plagiarism, Schmidt engages in the same practice and like Brecht also questions notions such as author and originality. Like Schmidt, Brecht explains the problem of plagiarism in form of a story. In a little anecdote by Mr. Keuner on originality, Mr. K. complains that there are innumerable writers who uncritically praise their 69 ability to write great books all by themselves. But if one subscribes to this argument, then one is left without any thoughts that might be copied. In fact, there could be no formulation of a thought at all, given that 70 all formulations can be quoted. Brecht’s use of quotation demonstrates the impossibility of being free of the influence of other texts. Unsurprisingly, most of his plays are readings of other productions. In Brecht’s work, as in Schmidt’s, texts of the past lose their immutable or sacrosanct 71 character, and enter a process of ongoing revision.

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In contrast to Brecht, Herman Meyer’s study of quotations in European novels, which has served as a model of reference for many studies 72 in the theory of citations, simply upholds the classical tradition. Meyer characterizes the citation in terms of a strict distinction between inside and outside, the self-contained world of the novel and another world, all 73 the while maintaining the authority of both author and text. This is precisely what Schmidt puts into question. In contrast to Meyer’s idea of a literary text, Zettel’s Traum is made of many tissues of declared or indirect citations drawn from world literature and, as such, questions the prefigured wholeness of a literary text. To quote the direct speech of someone is to acknowledge the quotation as a sign of presence of the quoted other in the writer’s discourse. According to the German dictionary, the Sprach-Brockhaus, the quotation 74 is a verbatim-cited proof. In this instance, the quotation privileges two functions, namely evidence in the form of affirmation and reference. But if the purpose of the quotation is to illustrate, to authorize, evidence, or validate, then the practice of quotation is inherently paradoxical. On the one hand, to quote another source is to ornament or to illustrate one’s argument in the main text, keeping the ornament under one’s authority. On the other, if the quoted fragment serves as the source of an authority and acknowledgment of another author or scholar, then the role of mastery shifts from the quoting text to the privileged quoted text. In this sense, the author relinquishes and subordinates his mastery over his 75 argument to a more authoritative voice. Quoting an authoritative voice gives the quoting writer the voice he lacks to formulate what he intends to say. This paradoxical nature of quotation invokes the issue of originality, the constant challenge to the writer to be different from but also equal to other writers and scholars. The absence of quotation marks indicates an additional rather complex relationship with the literary tradition, which Schmidt elaborates in his aforementioned essay, “Die Meisterdiebe. Von Sinn und Wert des Plagiats.” In the essay, Schmidt’s Speaker B, who represents the tradition of classical rhetoric, laments, “Gerade die begabtesten Gestalten der ‹Hochliteratur› sind es, die, unbekümmerlich und freisamlich, in das geistige Eigentum ihrer Vorgänger hineingreifen! — Und, was fast noch 76 grausamer ist: ohne diese Vorgänger irgend zu nennen!!.” Speaker B’s complaint reflects his fear that the quoting text and the quoted text might actually be in opposition. He requires that a writer distinguish between direct and indirect discourse so as not to sacrifice any individuality. Yet Speaker A dismisses the myth of originality and the classical notion of authorship by showing the great number of authors in the

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literary tradition that could rightly be accused of plagiarism. For instance, Speaker A reveals how Adalbert Stifter’s Hochwald (1841) derives its theme from James Fenimore Cooper’s Deerslayer (1840), and how Ludvig Holberg’s Niels Klim (1741) in various ways influenced Schu77 berts Die Bergwerke zu Falun (1818). If the reader subscribes to the idea of originality, then all the “‹großen mittelhoch-deutschen Epiker› [waren—] nichts als astreine Plagiatoren! Vom ‹Erec & Iwein› bis zum Wolframschen ‹Parzival›: es ist alles eigentlich nur, ‹übersetzt›, ‹übertragen›, improvisatorenhaft= 78 freibearbeitet!.” The question thus remains whether it is permissible to speak of an autonomous text separated from its author, as the author is from his or her tradition. Schmidt’s Speaker A formulates this relationship between direct and indirect quotations by implicitly defending plagiarism as the precondition of innovation, as an enhancement of and an inspiration to creativity. However, I am not so much interested in determining what constitutes plagiarism, but rather how Schmidt’s discussion of plagiarism relates to my guiding motif, the impossibility of representing presence. Regardless of whether Schmidt’s omission of question marks was intended or not, the practice encourages other ruses, as Cartilliot shows, such as “the pretense of remembering by heart, the pretense of erudition, and its correlatives, a lack of memory and distrac79 tion.” For the purpose of clarification, Schmidt differentiates various levels of citation in order to point to the actual problem: “Zufällige Übereinstimmung, Kryptomnesie, absichtliches ‹Anspielen›, (ob parodierend, ob um des schönen ‹Echoeffekts› willen), bedeutendes Ausbauen 80 eines . . . 1=Zeilen=Einfalls, . . . Entlehnung =Umschreibung. . . .” This differentiation raises the question whether a quotation is still a quotation if it has become distorted or manipulated beyond recognition and whether it is possible to always attribute the quotation with certainty. According to Schmidt, all writers of the literary tradition received their inspiration in and through the reading of other books. Their borrowing and paraphrasing are a common pattern that inevitably poses a threat to originality, the notion of the autonomous text or the authority of the writer. Dan further demonstrates the ambiguity of distinguishing between plagiarism and citation when highlighting the importance of the unconscious in the reading and writing process: Ich möchte sô=sagn—m=es gibt ‘Leser’, . . . die dazu tendieren, Bücher aus ihrem eig’nen, hoch=emotionell=besetztn, BilderVorrat, zu ‘illustrieren.’ Bei Solchen setzt sich jegliche, auch nur annähernd=

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verwendbare, Beschreibung, in Verbindung, mit einem schon= existierenden-, stellvertretnd für eine Ich=typische Vorstellung stehenden, Komplex . . . [und deshalb —V. L.] kommt ihnen, bei der nächsten, unvermeidlich fällich=werdndn . . . Darstellung besagtn Komplexes, gern auch das Wort-Material jener FremdSchilderung ein. (ZT 628)

The contamination of conscious thought processes by the unconscious complicate the possibility of separating direct and indirect quotations. Literary language cannot ignore the endless insertions of alien elements or texts, since other writers inseminate or fertilize our unconscious. How does a writer establish authority over the other, which is ultimately the language of the unconscious? As Hink correctly asserts, Schmidt’s practice of citation involves the process of condensation — enacting moments of condensation of the unconscious — nodal point of several 81 representations. By playing on the dialectic between consciousness and the unconscious, Schmidt conveniently centers the use of citation on a lack of memory, a repression, or an inability to differentiate between text 82 and intertext. Hence, Zettel’s Traum breaks from the traditional understanding of citations by questioning their presuppositions. Most fundamentally, Zettel’s Traum is a text about texts, a discussion and dissemination of the writings by Edgar Allan Poe. As a translation and discussion of Poe’s texts, Zettel’s Traum automatically assumes the role of a commentary performed within the format of a dialogue, and disqualifies any speculations about authenticity. Schmidt’s practices of citation range from simply copying to rewrit83 ing. Anticipating possible criticism Schmidt made the different positions regarding direct and indirect quotations an object of discussion within the text, thereby rendering possible accusation of plagiarism moot: “Zur Frage der ‘offenen’ Excerpte — (die verdecktn nennen sich ‘Plagiate’: ‘ss ja bekannt, wie der Meister=selbst darüber schwadroniert hat; bis Er endlich gestand: der ‘genius’ plagiire am meistn) . . .” (ZT 577). In making Poe’s praxis of quotation a topic of discussion, Schmidt plays a practical joke on his possible critics by stealing their vocabulary and parodying their activity, as this quote on Poe’s plagiarism demonstrates: “he’s a consummate Plagiarist!; and, in Our opinion, nothing more despicable exists!” (ZT 672). By making “plagiarism” the object of inquiry within a text, Schmidt invalidates any “PLAGIAT=Geschrei” (ZT 628) concerning the legitimacy of plagiarism, as the exchange between Paul and Wilma documents. Paul suggests to Wilma: “Solls ‘Da àbgewöhn’, in Zitatn zu quatschen !” whereas Wilma complains, “Wenn man nur Wendungen gebrauchn dürfte, deren sich vor Uns noch Niemand bedient hat?-: würd’n Wir n Mund nich mehr groß=uffmachen” (ZT

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621), confirming Mr. Keuner’s speculations about originality. In exposing the mechanisms of Poe’s plagiarism, Dan insinuates that everything has already been said by the masters of the past, so that the contemporary writer need only copy, rephrase, or plagiarize what has already been written. Nonetheless, Poe’s practice of citation, his rewriting and transformation of others, such as the British author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, has a ring of uniqueness, since he elevates “plagiarism” to the level of originality: “Nun ist ‘DAS PLAGIAT’ ja ein unglaublich=weites, (ergo noch gar nicht gut gewürdichtes), Feld — vom idiotisch=nakktn Diebstahl des ehrgeizijn aber geistig=Armen an; bis zum Selbst=Copiren des Großmeisters . . .” (ZT 286). Quoting a review of James Aldrich (1810–1856) by Poe, Dan thus maintains that “‘plagiarism, even distinctly proved, by no means necessarily involves any moral delinquency’ . . . ‘for the most frequent & palpable plagiarisms, we must search the works of the most 85 eminent POEts’” (ZT 942). With its long tradition, the praxis of direct and indirect quotation cannot simply be dismissed as theft. Dan cautions against such accusations, since plagiarism is implied by language itself and its tendency to unrestricted meaning: “[a]lso ‘play=Dscherism’ Wilma; ‘to play’ = Sich dran spielen; mit andern Worten: ‘ipsieren’” (ZT 942). Quotations as part of language itself lose their self-possession; they have relinquished any claims to originality. Whereas the classical tradition of quotation accentuates the domination of meaning and message, Schmidt rewrites the praxis of citation as a new form of appropriation of language. As Gietema observes, this practice becomes a polyvalent sign 86 for the tension between original and changed meaning. Schmidt creates a tension between the traditional mode of references identifying the quotation as the outside — as the domination of sense and message and the inversion of this tradition. Dan stresses the innovative character of Poe’s plagiarism: “Darf Ich — (immer wieder ma) — vorausschikkn,: daß poe’s (etwai ’je!) Plagiate, ébm nich=nur ein ‘Cento’ ergebm habm; sondern’ recht=oft, etwas=Neues, ja?” (ZT 672). Hence, writing involves the assimilation of pretexts into new contexts, whether intended or not, and the question to be posed is not “Who from Whom?” but to acknowledge that chance correspondence, intentional allusions, and cryptoamnesia are part of writing. Zettel’s Traum represents a mosaic of quotations, of “TextgewebsStückchen” (ZT 679), absorbed and transformed in and through Schmidt’s play with language. Intertextuality, whether in the form of obvious insertions of quotations or the incorporation of ideas of other writers, questions filiations. If we subscribe to Schmidt’s theory of quo-

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tation, then the borrowing, paraphrasing, and direct quotation are supplements to the supplement of the text. Each text implicates other texts, and would ultimately expose the canonized authors of the literary tradition, with their focus on autonomy, originality, or authorship, as flagrant plagiarists. Schmidt’s notion of writing has the tendency to dissolve authorship and to replace the author’s authority with that of language. As the author of Zettel’s Traum, Schmidt becomes the speaker of multiple languages — the voices of other writers as well as other languages (French, English, Latin) — and the amalgamation of the particles of the literary texts he has read. Hence, the relationship between Schmidt and the numerous contributing authors of his texts signals the impossibility for the “I” to be constituted as a unity. Dan Pagenstecher acknowledges this as follows: “Ich hab’ Mich in so=viele Bücher zerlegt, Fränzl,: daß Ich kaum mehr bin . . .” (ZT 711). The writer represents the fictitious I of the textual system. In this respect, Schmidt’s quotations of, for example, Poe, Joyce, and Freud, represent the presence of the other as other but also as other in myself, the reader, the addressee. Only the reader’s presence establishes the presence of the other; without his or her act of reading there is no writing or thinking. Dan Pagenstecher’s description of his text, Zettel’s Traum, as an encyclopedia whose task it is “große= Massn von Details zu sammln; und durch den Druck zur Aufbewahrung zu gebm” (ZT 1201) redirects our attention on how to read his text and the text of the others as well as ourselves. Within such a framework, the foreignness of the quoted word, the “fremdes Textstück” (ZT 577), permits Schmidt to omit quotation marks, because everything is already a quotation without origin. Henceforth, Zettel’s Traum is written by the writer who dictates — Poe, Freud, or Joyce — and the one who writes down, Arno Schmidt, who always distorts. Hence, the writing subject is excluded from the text, as Ulrich Sonnenschein argues, and there seems to be no longer any difference 87 between text and intertext. The question always remains: Who speaks or writes when I read Zettel’s Traum? The writer seems to vanish in the text, or as Dan announces, “Ich werde dem Stoffe=gleich, in dem 88 Ich arbeite” (ZT 1030). Schmidt’s game of appearance and disappearance of quotation marks constantly eludes any attempts of becoming universal. The creation of new contexts, including the assimilation and transformation of the foreign, questions the idealized unity of the humanistic tradition and alludes to its syncretic condition as a mixture of citations and plagiarism. The canonized tradition loses its unique aura, and the

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citations of other texts allow for a Gleichzeitigkeit of past and present. Such a strategy allows Schmidt to elevate himself to the level of the classics of German literature, to place himself within a canon he criticized throughout his career, and to challenge the reader and critic to search for 89 the original inscriptions. This challenge is important, because one of Schmidt’s major goals as a writer was to reintroduce forgotten writers who had been considered merely secondary, such as Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680–1747), Johann Gottfried Schnabel (1692–1752?), Karl Philipp Moritz (1756– 1793), and Johann Karl Wezel (1747–1819). Writing in this sense served to resuscitate past authors through the present text. Quoting from the past, therefore, becomes “ein verschränkter Ahnen=, & Enkel=Dienst” (SdA 177) whose task it is to “preserv[e] a vanished civilisation” (SdA 90 247). Schmidt establishes a tenable dialogue with writers of the past, and becomes the true historian who understands history as a point of linkage between two temporalities. Events of the past, their authors, must be read in terms of their original context, but also in terms of their relevance for the present. As a result of Schmidt’s reinscription of past authors through their assimilation into a contemporary context, a new structure of knowledge emerges; our understanding of the past under91 goes changes. For the reader, nonetheless, the text always remains a fragment, resistant to a comprehensive understanding or a coherent reading. Reading becomes a disseminative activity, one in which the text is a tissue of signs. The title of the book — Zettel’s Traum — reinforces its construction as a work practically pieced together. Schmidt stresses the importance of the role of the reader when he argues that the multi-voiced text depends on 92 the reader’s cooperation. The reader assumes the role of the extended 93 author by extending and extrapolating the text. Thus, Schmidt’s texts represent a dissolution of original meaning and intention, as Sonnenschein concludes, and Zettel’s Traum, with all its layers of quotations and 94 commentaries, only generates a matrix of signification. Consequently, the text no longer depends on criteria determined externally, but on its potential to generate multiple readings according to divergent criteria: “Was ‘litterarisch’ heißt: die Immer=wieder=Bearbeitung 1=&= deSSelbm Témas . . . holete immer=neue Schönheitn dort=raus” (ZT 612). 95 The value of the text resides in the impossibility of dissolving the riddle. Zettel’s Traum positions the reader in a state of ambiguity about its 96 purpose. The text is purposeful in and of itself and gains its legitimacy through the quasi-answers to the enigma. Zettel’s Traum guarantees its

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mediation in the endless reading process, and makes it impossible to be 97 read as a fixed entity subject to a specific interpretation. The act of writing and reading Zettel’s Traum links the practice of quotation with violence and destruction as the following dialogue between Dan and Wilma shows: Also vorausgesetzt, daß du ma nich als=ä -: Text=& TaktVergewaltijer arbeitest, nicht als Prosodie= & CäsurenFälscher, als Etymimiker & Schalk (Schalt) - WortParodist . . .” / (Sehr=hübsch Wilma ! Aber): “Sei unbesorgt; es soll alles mit rechtn Ding’n zu=geh’n.” (ZT 672)

Quotation violates and desecrates other books. In the act of reading and writing, both reader and writer seek to disseminate the hitherto sacred notion of the text as a closed system. The desire for the words of the other establishes itself as the object of desire as is evident ex negativo from Wilma’s warning: “Du sollst nich begehren Deines Nächstn Wort!!” (ZT 630). If, in Lacan’s famous formulation, “man’s desire is the desire of the Other” then this also holds true for Schmidt’s writing, 98 where the author’s desire becomes that of the reader, and vice versa. To read is to quote or repeat words rather than understanding them fully. This desire for words demonstrates its power by the casual journal published quarterly for the reader of Schmidt, the Bargfelder Bote (Bargfeld Messenger), originally founded for the purpose of deciphering direct and indirect quotations. As a literary seed house, Zettel’s Traum germinates and disseminates through the reader’s imaginative response. It thus makes questionable Strick’s conclusion that Schmidt’s understanding of 99 literature is premodern.

The Reader as Writer Schmidt’s theory of citation presents the text as a field of fusion and diffusion, establishing the process of writing as an act of synthesis and 100 analysis. Thus Schmidt differentiates between two textual models, with two different modes of writing. On the one hand, the analytical writer Schmidt takes into account the reader as she or he is and creates texts based on these observations in order to provoke a response. On the other hand, Schmidt envisions an ideal type of reader who participates in the writing process by way of the creative imagination. Instead of seeking to form a particular ideal reader according to the text, the synthetic writer 101 engages the reader in a dialogue of creation and recreation. Creative reading assumes the character of experiment, the willingness of the reader to engage in the conditions for dissemination produced by the writer: “[w]ohl ist jedwedes Buch »öffentlich« zu haben; studiert genos-

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sen entziffert, aber wird es doch immer nur innerhalb der eigenen Nase, 102 im intimsten Zwie=Zwitt=Gespräch zwischen Leser=&=Autor.” This intimate dialogue relies on a text — Zettel’s Traum — that subsumes all knowledge-generating activity. Fragmentary in nature, the dialogue constantly questions, dissects, disputes, and interrupts the flow of information, unlike the monologues of a first-person narrator. Reader and text enter a dialogue in which, according to Bakhtin’s discussion of Socrates’ dialogue, syncrisis and anacrisis are the basic devices. Whereas the former refers to the juxtaposition of various points of views on a particular topic of discussion, the latter elicits and provokes the words of 103 the other dialogue partner, forcing to state his or her viewpoint. This results in textual representation and expands all modes of epistemic activity. In the act of reading and writing, dialogue performs the role of 104 criticism by the method of expansion and attempts at completion. Schmidt’s departure from traditional discursive style and logic in favor of illuminating a microcosm of details transforms the notion of poetic construction as the major subject of writing itself. Most important of all, in the writer and reader, distanced from subjectivism, the reader as associative writer perceives Zettel’s Traum as a hall of mirrors, which infinitely reflect one another. Dan Pagenstecher, as the main narrator in Zettel’s Traum and flâneur of the various literary traditions, strolling through the archives of knowledge, is the master par excellence of anacrisis. He controls the dialogue by and through his encyclopedic knowledge and forces the other participants to speak, to react, and thereby exposes their preconceived opinions. As the master of language Dan tests the word by the word. At the base of Schmidt’s Socratic dialogue is the rhetorical illumination of words to expose their falseness or incompleteness. The dialogic nature of truth unfolds in juxtaposition to a ready-made truth, which, according to Schmidt, typifies the selective reading practices of the literary establishment: “Ist Wahrheit das, was der Macht gefällt? Zum Mindesten aber ist unbestreitbar die ‹Moral›: Glaub’ nicht Alles was Du liest! Oder ist 105 Wahrheit das, was man persönlich für wahr hält?” Truth is a concept of power, of subordination, that exercises authority in terms of absolute meaning. The literary tradition is unquestionable; it is the instance of 106 legitimacy, an almost moral obligation to believe the belief. Opposed to any universal truth, Schmidt demonstrates the rhetorical power of the Socratic dialogue, in “Dichtergespräche im Elysium” — a discussion between Cervantes, Dickens, Fouqué, Poe, Stifter, and a stranger — in which Poe summarizes the problem of posing a truth claim: “Meinst du, daß der von sich sagen darf, er habe die Wahrheit gesucht, der, schon

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ehe er anfing, wußte, was zu finden sei?” The truth appropriates the reading process as a means towards an end, a means to what is already there, eliminating its critical potential. In contrast to normative interpretative mastery, reading Zettel’s Traum is the reopening of the process of constituting knowledge. In turn, the reading experience prepares the reader for a critical predisposi108 tion towards unexamined transcendental pretensions. The dialogical principle of Zettel’s Traum breaks with the hierarchical structuring of 109 knowledge. If reading remains a matter of difference, not of originality, or unity, then the constant testing of words by and through words anchors the creative imagination in the idea of reflexive reason, suggesting a displacement of a generic definition of reason. As Schmidt’s speaker B in Der Triton mit dem Sonnenschirm argues, to free oneself of the “Fesseln der Vernunft” does not mean to be irrational or to submit to the 110 “Fesseln der Un=Vernunft.” Critical reading means to liberate the reader from the constraints of prescriptive petrified formulas, the process of instrumental rationality, which is the “submission to authority at the expense of reason” (ZT 719). Schmidt’s conception of dialogue warrants some further specification. Since Schmidt writes and speaks the language of the other, his dialogism results in a dialogue of languages. His questioning and testing of the correlations of signs liberates the word through speech from any universal validity. This defiant structure of the dialogue characterizes the speeches between Wilma, Dan, Fränzel and the other discussants. The dialogue investigates the ideologically saturated language of literary texts, which seeks to centralize and unify language as the ultimate representation of truth. The object of the dialogical principal in Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum is the language of the other, the intertextual matrix of signification. Zettel’s Traum subsumes key aspects of the Menippean tradition as 111 outlined by Bakhtin. First and foremost, Schmidt frees language from its historical constraints via his imaginative inventiveness. All these devices — the practice of quotation and the insertion of numerous disciplines — liberate language from a classical tradition nurtured and imposed by the literary establishment and other institutions in postwar Germany. Discussions in Zettel’s Traum destroy the epic and tragic wholeness of the person by addressing literary representations of pathological states of the mind (especially of writers like Poe [ZT 1112]) split personalities, unrestrained daydreams, and dreams. Schmidt’s language tends to be scandalous and aggressive, characteristics of the Menippean satire, for example when he equates “die sich bekanntlich immer wieder

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erneuernde ErectionsFähigkeit des Penis” with the “auferStehung + SeelnwanderungsFimml” (ZT 1002–3) of religious belief, or when he ridicules religious books such as Poe’s short story “THE CULLOQUY OF MONOS & UNA . . . das Buchleyn vom Leben nach dem Tode” (ZT 112 1001) by his free play of linguistic associations: Bei dem ist Jungfrau ‘Una’ die Allegorie der ‘trou religion’ (auch ‘trous’= allgemein); und ihr ‘Ritter’, die sie beschützende/beschattende Lord= Protector, ein Knight of Holeyness’ = der ‘Ritt=Meister vom Loch’. . .” /: “Der ja ooch uff’s trou paßt, wie Faust ins Grätchen. . . .” (ZT 1002)

Dan’s linguistic play subverts the equation of virginity with moral purity. God as the knight in shining armor protects the body as a drill sergeant protects the female body, yet at the same time desires to be the fathering figure of Eros as Goethe’s Faust desires Gretchen. Opposed to any kind of religious language, to a language that holds power by being “in Normalsprache verpackt” (ZT 471), Schmidt parodies the lie by using its own words against it. What matters is not the direct meaning the word gives to the objects, but rather in which interest this meaning 113 is used. Dan’s puns deprive religion of control over its own language; its use of this language to maintain its authority comes to seem a merely accidental effect. With his crude slum naturalism Schmidt becomes the champion of “improper expression” and vulgarity in their most extreme forms, aligning himself with the tradition of the sixteenth century so well docu114 mented by Rüdiger Zymner’s study. Dan Pagenstecher speaks of “rectangular obsceneties” (ZT 1003), and of masturbation by quoting “ne Englische Autorität: ‘Youthful masturbation may be regarded as a a normal safety= vu lve; and there is nothing pathological about it, if carried on in moderation” (ZT 955a); by referring to Freud, he views the shooting maneuvers of the German army as “FäkalienSymbolik” because “schießen=scheißen” are typical of a “etwas=merkwürdije Männtollität” (ZT 795). In all these cases, his language desecrates the sacred and attacks etiquette and everything that is taboo. In the latter example, Dan, in his sardonic humor, continues to ridicule the Bundeswehr as right-wingers who still fantasize about the “Ausbeutung des Morgnlandes” (ZT 794) and sing songs such as “Reich mit den Schätzen des Orients beladen” and “Hoch lebe Oranie=Transvaal” (ZT 794), thereby invoking the imperial past as always present. Juxtaposing his own personal experience during the wars, “2 erlebte Weltkriege, (und die Zeitn drum=rum nich minder) habn Meine Liebe zum Vaterlande wun-

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dersam abgekühlt, Franziska!)” (ZT 794) to the inherent dangers of patriotism and militarism, Dan equates the sayings and doings of the army to that of the German people as a whole, as if they were infected by “der MilitärPest . . . (Wie all=die Mälljardn !)” (ZT 795). The description of patriotism as a plague and the army as a waste (garbage) of money highlights his antimilitaristic and antipatriotic stance. More importantly, his carnivalization of literature, true to the Menippean tradition, simultaneously opens the door to unimaginable combinations of the sacred and the profane. In our example, Dan’s bitter reminiscences of the past emerge full force when responding to Wilma’s plea for the right to forget: “endlich=ma vergessn’, Wilma ? : wie denksDu Dir das wohl, so ein ‘ungeschehen machn’?” (ZT 795). Alluding to the emerging debate in the 1960s about how to deal with the past or “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (“coming to terms with the past”), Schmidt’s literary devices, as Siegbert Prawer correctly notes, “are well calculated to make us experience again the persistence of such unpurged 115 memories in our response to the present.” Schmidt, never hesitant to break taboos, aligns himself with a generation that looked critically at its own nation’s past and present, pointing to the many continuities that persisted from the Nazi era, such as the Bundeswehr or institutions of higher education. Moreover, “ungeschehen machn” (“making something as if it had never happened”) is a reference to Freud’s description of an individual neurotic defense mechanism, which Schmidt has here implicitly transferred to the entire German people. Zettel’s Traum is a text pieced together as a path strewn with quotations and other references. Characteristic of all these various references, whether to the past or present, is their significance to the present. Similar to the Menippean satire, Zettel’s Traum is a journalistic text, echoing ideological issues of the day by presenting analogies and relations of the past and present in other forms of thought: “Die Stimme des Ansagers wurde ernster: DE GAULLE war schon wieder geschlossen aus der NATO ausgetretn! / (God bless him!): “Der=Mann iss Mein einzijer politischer Trost in dieser Westerwelt; ohne Den hättn Wa längst wieder Krieg” (ZT 468). In this case, the news broadcaster ironically announces that French president Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) has again decided to withdraw France from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While the broadcaster insinuates that de Gaulle’s decision is egotistical and without general support, Dan’s approving response to de Gaulle’s decision in early March 1966 reflects the political climate of the Cold War. For him it seems France’s decision signifies a step toward independence from the American micro-managed NATO and simultaneously assumes the role as

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an opposition force to the increasing political tensions between the USA 116 and the Soviet Union. In its cynical frankness, such writing is unafraid to transgress the border between literature and journalism. If the reader ignores Wilma’s warning, “Du sollst nich begehren Deines Nächstn Wort!!” (ZT 630), he or she will experience the deconstruction of particular systems of thought — dogmatic political worldviews, philosophical schools, or religious doctrines — questioned from the inside, that is, from within their language. Schmidt’s sensitivity to his words’ every possible generic and political context is indispensable to his striving to destroy oldfashioned, established, and historically unavoidable structures of sense, 117 as Gietema suggests. It should be no surprise that Schmidt considers the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) to be a leading writer of the carneva118 lesque, as documented in his essay “Dichtergespräche im Elysium.” The carnivalization of literature is the best way to violate preconceived notions. Poetic representation of the world becomes the sole means of playfully exposing the fragmentary nature of our existence, of representing the foreign in us, and of revealing all possible forms of knowledge. In letting the unconscious speak through irony and humor, Schmidt advances in the direction of that fundamental region of consciousness where the boundaries of existence become questionable, opening the space of or for the not-thought-of. I may now return to our earlier point of departure, the status of quotation in Schmidt. In light of the preceding discussions of citation, authorship, reader response, Socratic dialogue, and Menippean satire, we may see that Schmidt’s theorization of plagiarism relegates any question of literary origins or originality to insignificance. All literary texts are implicated with one another. For Schmidt, it seems all texts are contextually determined, and defined through differential relationships. Since quotations are intrinsic to language, they become a script of ciphers that defies closure, and constitute the intertextual structure of Zettel’s Traum.

Rewriting Time and History Since quotations are generally assumed to have a specific origin within history, or within literary history, Schmidt’s theory of quotation must have implications for his conceptions of time and of history. My elaboration on the intertextuality of Zettel’s Traum already hints at the construction of temporality as a subject of a complex interplay between historic, aesthetic, and linguistic factors. For instance, my reading of his theory of

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quotation suggests that Schmidt does not subscribe to any philosophic or scientific system explaining time. But his references to the past — possibly constituting the present by referring to the future — seem to imply that time is the condition of all representation. However, in my opening remarks of this chapter, I suggested that the fragmentary nature of Zettel’s Traum assumes and continually points toward the possibility of future completion and always already invokes the past as incomplete. If the fragment serves to illuminate a lack of unity and completion, then time has to display a fragmentary character casting a suspicious shadow 119 on the prevailing concept of time as a linear process. In his essay “Berechnungen I,” Schmidt constitutes time and space through three modes of consciousness and cognition: the process of recollection, the remembering of the most recent past, and the Extended Mind Game, already identified in the introduction as a form of reflective experience. Remembering the most recent past represents small events of a day passed. Similarly, the process of recollection refers to events of the more extended past and is described as an instantaneous moment. Both the process of recollection and the remembering of the most recent past share a subjective activity of representation that takes concrete form only in the creative imagination. Although these concepts refer to Schmidt’s first attempts to formulate a new prose theory (which will be discussed in further detail in the next chapter) the idea of writing as an act of remembrance informs all of his writings. Thus, the concept of time has to be seen through the prisms of consciousness and selfconsciousness. Since both time and space are part of the “I,” the “Raum= Zeit =Gemix des Ìch” (ZT 1185), the question arises: How does the notion of time relate to temporality and representation? If time cannot be separated from perception, what are the conditions for temporal experience or time-consciousness? Already in his story “Enthymesis oder W.I.E.H.” (Enthymesis), Schmidt takes issue with the conventional notion of time by questioning the philosophical presuppositions of time and by calling them a significant error: “. . . sie fassen das Wesen der Zeit und des Ichs viel zu ein120 fach. . . . Die Zeit ist zumindest eine Fläche, keine Linie.” He argues: “der Grundirrtum liegt immer darin, daß die Zeit nur als Zahlengerade 121 gesehen wird, auf der nichts als ein Nacheinander statthaben kann.” Time unfolds within a linear structure, and implies a certain order of meaning and movement. There is no existence of time without movement. As movement, time suggests succession and a before and after. The numerical explanation introduces the mind’s ability to distinguish between a beginning, an end, and an interval. In this way, the future and

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past exist only in relation to the present. The present, however, refers to the past in form of memory and to the future in form of anticipation. Consequently, history, framed and told through the chronicle of events, presents a point of origin and the positing of a telos. For Schmidt, such a conception of time and history is problematic since it represents the teleological vision of Christian salvation history and therefore assumes a particular reading of historic events. Such a mode of thinking expresses the contrast between time as permanence and as eternity that frames any scrutiny of the notion of time. Whereas time as a limiting notion defines our experience, eternity points to the always already given, external to human consciousness. Kant, for instance, argues that time and space are invisible and appear as a priori forms of consciousness, thus as objective 122 123 time. More importantly, time is the precondition of all appearance. Space and time in Kant gain intuitive and nondiscursive character only through indirect representation and through simultaneously intellectual and imaginative operations. Time presents itself through our perception 124 of objects in time but cannot be perceived in itself. Time therefore has a status of permanence, a principle that governs our experience of being. There is only one time, and to abandon time as a presupposition of our being, as the marker of temporal relations through objects, is to think of 125 oneself as having no relation to anything. Without a future or past, the 126 present would signify the nothingness of being. Paul, in a heated debate with Wilma and Dan about the value of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781), however, rejects Kant’s explanations of time: Och Wilma’s’ss doch Piss! oder willsDe . . . das Parádoxon verfechtn: KANT hätte, bei Niederschrift der ‘Kritik d Reinen Vernunft’ ‘faint perfumes’ gerochn?, und ‘melodies of a happier world’ vernomm’? . . . es iss . . . ne Zumutung, wenn er Mir das als ErkenntnisTheorie uffschwatzen will . . . [s]ein ganzes (ent)Leer Gebäude entpupt sich als astrales Klo. . . (ZT 1267)

Dismissing Wilma’s argument, that Kant’s notion of time is an already given and can only be experienced through intuition, Paul ridicules her by viewing Kant’s definition as an empty (and emptied) building (notice the pun on the German “Lehrgebäude” — building of knowledge as empty — and its equation with an emptied toilette). In contrast to Kant’s schematic explanation of time, Schmidt offers the reader the following observation about time:

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‹In Wahrheit› wäre sie [die Zeit] durch eine Fläche zu veranschaulichen, auf der Alles ‹gleichzeitig› vorhanden ist; denn auch die Zukunft ist längst ‹da› (die Vergangenheit ‹noch›) und in den erwähnten Ausnahmezuständen (die nichts-destoweniger ‹natürlich› sind!) eben 127 durchaus schon wahrnehmbar.

Schmidt perceives time in intimate relationship with space but situates time within rather than external to consciousness. The representation of time is bound to representation governed by intuition and assumes the form of time as a determined finitude. When discussing time, the narrator of Schmidt’s book Leviathan proclaims that time is “[u]nbegrenzt; 128 aber nicht unendlich.” The mind represents time spatially, as embodying a manifold unity of past, present, and future. But if everything coexists at the same time, then Schmidt’s conception of time excludes any primordial temporality and any fundamental principle for organizing time. In this disconcerting speculation, the present is valid simply as a variant in the ordinary concept of time, that is, the succession from a past by way of the present to the future. How is the reader to understand narrated events? Does Schmidt force the reader to give up an understanding of the past as determined and of the future as open? Is there such a thing as present time? As the above quotation implies, time and space derive from the inchoative representation in an act of making present what is no longer present. However, if time is the prerequisite of all representation but loses its primordial condition of representing itself by a Gleichzeitigkeit of past, present, and future, we are left in an ambiguity about what it is. This ambiguity intensifies when the reader tries to comprehend time through Schmidt’s terms such as imagination, synthesis, and linguistic representation. Since Schmidt appears to present time synonymously with these terms, time cannot be conceived of as representing the present. On the contrary, time resists self-representation since it is through linguistic representation that time eludes certainty, playing on the recurring notions of presence and absence. Since the primary presence remains inaccessible to consciousness, Schmidt’s notion of intertextuality appears as an attempt to represent the remembered fragments of the past — displayed in Zettel’s Traum as discontinuous forms and tropes — as a multi-perspectival view of the images and symbols of history. Poetic language, in line with Schmidt’s strategy of inserting declared and tacit quotations, provides the ultimate vehicle for this discursive representation of temporality through multiple perspectives. Instead of a coherent and linear representation of the past, Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum lets the reader conceive of history as a palimp-

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sest of traces, memories, and dates decipherable only in fragmented form, or, as Weninger writes, via a search for trans-historic webs of 129 traces. Represented in fragmented form, temporality, therefore, becomes a disjunctive continuum. Hence, Schmidt refuses to evaluate time as the progression toward a purported goal, nor as the unfolding of a 130 comprehensible whole. If temporality appears only in fragmented form, then events present themselves only through the Extended Mind Game as memory and anticipation. Time thus is the medium of reflection, since consciousness as reflection continues as an infinite process of making images. Time expresses itself in images and, thus, as the product of the imagination, always maintains the role of indirect representation. The illusion of self-consciousness suggests time as inauthentic. Only in reflection do we experience time. Time remains elusive, since “eine ‘zerklüftete Persönlichkeit [wird] zerklüftete Terrains’ aus sich heraus=projizieren” (ZT 1185). The present as such must remain absent. Since Schmidt rejects any absolute time or scientific method, time and events subsequently can 131 only be grasped through indirect representation. In this, he is in accord with one of the earliest philosophical meditations on time, namely that in Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine, too, had seen that past and future both depend on the present as condition of imaginative recollection: But no time is wholly present. It [the heart] will see that all past time is driven backwards by the future, and all future time is the consequent of the past, and all past and all future are created and set on their course 132 by what is always present.

On this account, Schmidt’s concept of the writing reader locates the writing of history in the imagination of the reader. Schmidt’s three modes of consciousness and cognition — the process of recollection, the process of recollecting the youngest past, and the Extended Mind Game — offer the answer by presenting presence as its other. The act of remembrance is the precondition of writing Zettel’s Traum. As a form of memory and imagination, Zettel’s Traum represents that what cannot be represented by making available through consciousness the traces of the past. But narrative representation of historical events and facts remain incomplete and it is the role of the reader to complete the images of the historical representation. Time as synthesized in the imagination presents itself through the various fragmented strands of historic events. For this reason, Schmidt underscores his role as polyhistorian:

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Der Polyhistor?: das ist der eigentliche Synoptiker, der in genialer Schau erkennt, wo Querverbindungen möglich sind; sei es zwischen einzeln=schnurrigen Fakten, oder ganzen Wissensgebieten; fruchbarste Beziehungen, primzahlhaft= verzwickte, an die zuvor Niemand 133 dachte.

The polyhistorian’s imagination selects and justifies multiple sources and connections by engaging in an imaginary dialogue with the object of inquiry. By positing the events of the past as the other, Schmidt prioritizes the past as actual presence: “Der Leser will die Geschichte ja eben bewußt nicht als Vergangenheit, sondern als hohe Gegenwart 134 erleben.” Schmidt’s idea of the past seeks to envision and to enrich the Extended Mind Game of the reader by engaging him or her in a dialogue with the past. Such a dialogue, for instance, involves the various traditional forms of writing such as diary and writing letters. The role of the reader is to fill in the missing parts of the representation of historic events. As an act of remembrance, the text, presented in tropes and traces, forces the reader to reconstruct, to add to, and to appropriate the past as an experience of presence. Historiography is a basically intertextual enterprise, with all its pleasures and dangers. In Zettel’s Traum, the multiple insertions of various disciplines and quotations from other literary texts signify ruptures and jolts that evade the comprehension of historic events as progressive linear development in time. For Schmidt, recollection turns into collection and production; the recovery of old and forgotten texts from the vaults of our memory banks becomes textual archaeology. The figural artifacts of history reproduce themselves symbolically through the linguistic excavation of archeological epistemology. History, as the image of the other, eludes closure and plays on the dialectic of conscious thought and the unconscious: “. . . daß Alle’s lesn & mit=träumen müßtn’ (so daß Jeglicher sich die ‘Seine’ herzu=imaginierte; & sein eignes Selbst hier=rein projizierte . . .” (ZT 268). As the result of this interplay between consciousness and the unconscious, history becomes a process of the modalities of figuration. Schmidt’s merger of historic events and literature through poetic representation has to be seen within the larger context of his encyclopedic project labeled “Großn Dichtungn” (ZT 1047) seeking to reconstruct and weld together knowledge buried in memory. The textual voyage into various disciplines, literary texts or political events, as well as the bringing forth of historical and philosophical junctures, reinforce Schmidt’s goal, “[a]lles, was je schrieb, in Liebe und Haß, als immerfort 135 mitlebend zu behandeln.” As a polyhistorian who seeks a storage room

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of information, and defines himself through his “sündhafte Belesenheit” (ZT 269), Schmidt accentuates the dictum expressed by the protagonist Schweighäuser in Die Schule der Atheisten: “man kànn gar nich ›mit WissnsStoff überladn‹ sein!” (SdA 191). Understanding otherness by reading historic events, which are no longer immediately available, the reader learns new ways to understand the self and the past. The reconfiguration of the past is a means of refreshing the “Generationsgedächtnis” (ZT 307), because there will be “Zeiten, da Alles vergessen wird” (SdA 33). Schmidt’s walk through the archives of the past inserts descriptions from various disciplines, such as architecture in the context of the interior of Poe’s narratives (ZT 437), landscaping (ZT 78), painting in the context of Poe’s and Pagenstecher’s favorite painters (ZT 772), mathematics in the context of the construction of the literary text (ZT 1182), astronomy and cosmology (ZT 112, 142, 1240), psychology with endless references to Sigmund Freud, history, and contemporary pop songs from England (for example, Petula Clark’s “Down Town” from 1964 136 [ZT 396, 987, 1273]). The boundaries between texts disappear, the different disciplines contaminate each other, and the boundaries between genre, time, historic events, and languages collapse. Quotation marks seem to lose their function of segregating texts, and the columnar arrangement — which the reader initially perceives as setting up boundaries — actually facilitates textual transactions. This multifold system of references transforms the book into a universal text, a “zäh=gefüttertes anachronistisches Ungetümlein von 1300 Seitn” (ZT 425). The text constitutes itself only in relation to other texts, and thereby defines its unity as relative and variable. Now, what was previously exotic in space or time becomes familiar and coextensive in the present. Dan Pagenstecher speaks of the book as an encyclopedia: “nach Großn Dichtungen, sei daß Höchste auf der Welt? Große Nachschlage137 Werke zu liefern . . .” (ZT 1047). Within an encyclopedia, the barriers between different forms of knowledge break down. Each narrative within it is a reading of or about another narrative, generating a variety of readings, offering no definitive understanding of the text, time, and historic events. It assembles narratives that provide points of convergence or condensation as well as of dispersal and dissemination. The world of “textierte Realitäten” (ZT 125) enables the reader to understand life as an act of writing and reading, in turn, as the experience of writing in and about the world. Thus, Senator Kolderup in Schule der Atheisten proclaims, quoting Novalis: “Die ›Wirkliche Welt‹ ?: ist, in Wahrheit, nur die Karikatur unsrer Großn Romane!” (SdA 181). This constant reconfigu-

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ration of knowledge confirms the Extended Mind Game as an infinite act 138 of reflection. Verbatim incorporations of declared or tacit passages from other literary texts consequently function to reconfigure knowledge and the self: “Das Plagiat : was ist es im letzten Grunde andres als Selbst139 erkenntnis?” The task of the polyhistorian is to bring together a multiplicity of disciplines that serve as an encyclopedia of knowledge that opens the space for the new and for arbitrariness. Unlike the Enlightenment project of the Encyclopedia, with its classical-rational pursuit of taxonomic order, Schmidt’s encyclopedia offers paradoxically an opening for chance. Zettel’s Traum, then, is the prime expression of the encyclo140 pedic project. The universal text aims at a totality that never is and 141 never will be. The totality for which discourses strive will always remain 142 another particular individuality, thus always incomplete. Yet the significance of the multiplicity of discourses enacted by the reader is shown in their character as events within the system. The system of knowledge is thought through fragmentation as individuality, hence, in principle, always multiple. As a literary text, Zettel’s Traum creates its own theory of knowledge as it is being written, thereby producing its own truth. Consequently Schmidt’s literary text, as Lacoue-Labarthe argues for the early Romantics, is itself the representation of the absolute, an individual 143 totality that is at the same time finite and plural. In his encyclopedic ambitions, Schmidt has more in common with the overarching projects of the first generation of modernists — such as Stéphane Mallarmé’s Le Livre (1897), Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and even T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land (1922), with its palimpsest of cultural and historical references — than he does with his own post-1945 contemporaries. For the reader, Zettel’s Traum as the symbol of remembrance, littered with the numerous signs of historic events and other cultural artifacts, is always in a state of becoming. History becomes a viewing of the world through images, making it a source of increased differentiation and continuous motion. To speak of history and time in Zettel’s Traum is to transform the reading experience of the represented archaeological epistemology into a reflection on the formation of historical consciousness. Or, to be precise, reflection always disrupts the idea of wholeness based on static images of the past. Such an image of the past was indeed proffered by many postwar German literary critics and historians, in large measure as a way of shoring up the classical canon and its humanist values in the wake of war and dictatorship. For Schmidt, however, postwar Germany presented a time of change and chaos, and not a time for rejuvenation of the timeless values of the literary canon.

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Warum bistu bloß so geegn ‹Akkademikker›? Zettel’s Traum, despite its “polyhistoric” ambitions, does not offer the 144 reader an adequate explanation for all forms of historic experience. Time and history are a matter of representation or narrative; thus, truth and reality become topoi open to investigation. Schmidt’s notion of intertextuality serves to render less dogmatic the concepts of “reality,” “time,” and “history” by pointing to the fact that one is always already implicated in problems of language use. These problems occur when the reader tries to gain critical perspectives on these issues. For Schmidt, writing is certainly a means to raise questions of both the possibilities and the limits of the representation of history as text. This is precisely the issue on which Schmidt targets historians and literary historians: “Rettet die Texte vor den Literaturhistorikern!” (ZT 22). Similarly, he attacks the uncritical notion of preservation of tradition: “Überlieferung: ›Tradition‹: ?—d’s hat denselbm Werth wie etwa 145 ein handgeschrieb’nes Etikett, ›BERNKASTELER DOKTOR‹” (SdA 170). The paralyzing effect of the unification of literary tradition by the academic establishment prevents its literary or critical use in the present: “. . . diese Fachgelehrten sind durch eine Kruste von Tradition und 146 Methoden vom wirklichen Leben getrennt.” According to Schmidt, the selection of great literary works by the postwar German literary establishment constitutes a system of control and exclusion: “(Ich?: die ‘Großn Altn’ verteidijn, Wilma ?): “Dem Lesepublikum mißfällt alles, was neu ist; und von den Klassikern macht es lediglich den 1 Gebrauch: das Neue in der Kunst zu diffamieren . . .” (ZT 1212). The implementation of a specific literary tradition, combined with a specific reading praxis, allows for the isolation, that is, defamation of the new, such as 147 Zettel’s Traum, against a past that can no longer change. As one of Schmidt’s narrators puts it, “Ja, leider tendieren wir Deutsche dahin, Gegenwart und Historie zu trennen, als gehörten sie gar nicht zueinan148 der!” This separation banishes all play of presence and absence, either within the present or within our perception of the past; such play becomes only a fearful chaos: “‹Klassizismus›? : das ist die Bezeichnung für eines von mehreren, angeblich unfehlbaren Verfahren, das uns umge149 bende Chaos dadurch zu beseitigen, daß man es . . . ‹Kosmos› nennt.” In this case, postwar Germanistik’s discipline with its classical canon enforced on the reader’s activity and imagination must be viewed in terms of its role in the production of social knowledge. For Schmidt, professors are employees of the state and view their task in the validation 150 of the existing politics of the government and its state religion. Aware

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of the interplay between Germanistik as a discipline and the political framework that guides its existence, Schmidt questions its reception of predominantly classical texts: Begreiflicherweise wird diese Klassiker=Theorie von stabiler edler= Einfalt stiller=Größe sehr vom Staate gefördert: ist sie doch die Voraussetzung für jeglichen ‹Beamtengeist›—eine andere Technik des ‹make 151 belief›.

The social, historical, and political indifference of literary scholarship toward contemporary social reality supports an apolitical, atemporal literature. With its permanent status of a school science, Germanistik functions to turn one away from a critical assessment of the immediate political past, its own and the nation’s; this is the reason for Schmidt’s mistrust of official culture and the right to forget, as Horst Thomé ar152 gues. Germanistik as an institution and instrument of the state participates in a reciprocal act of providing each other legitimacy for the purpose of maintaining the status quo, “denn auch Regierung’n wie die unsrijen, leidn ja keine Geschichten” (ZT 471); according to Gerhard Kaiser, this 153 also allows for a de-Nazification of Germanistik. The postulate of aesthetic autonomy, and the definition of criticism as “that form of literature whose subject is literature” as Hans Egon Holthusen maintains, 154 stabilize a cultural superstructure’s affirmative character. The empiricist and value-driven investigative procedure of 1950s Germanists, with their subsequent claim to knowledge that is universally valid within its parameters, provides the legitimacy of the discipline. Hence the institutionalized “make-belief” of the unity, stability, and wholeness of the literary text, time, and historic events turns art into a dressed-up confederate of the 155 social order. Schmidt correctly captures this point when arguing that the relegation of literature to “die beliebte »stille hohe Welt der Ideale«” 156 constitutes a “seltsamliche Tracht bei Kanonisierungsversuchen.” The 157 critic turns literature into an aesthetic realm of infinite regression. Reading as hermeneutically faithful interpretation remains restricted to the institution that enables it. Thus utilized, reading cuts off the historical relevance of the literary text, relegating it to the role of a pure compensatory or escapist fantasy, on which Schmidt poignantly comments: “Müde vom Durchwandern öder Letternwüsten, voll leerer Hirngeburten, in anmaaßendsten Wortnebeln; überdrüßig ästhetischer Süßler wie 158 grammatischer Wässerer.” Art becomes a privileged site, a decorum 159 detached from social reality through the medium of aesthetic semblance. As an alienated entity, art becomes an object of consumption of a privileged class, and the exiled critical values lose their potential for realization.

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The formalistic reading of a text as a self-enclosed cosmos of purely literary devices guarantees a circulatory reading mechanism and establishes a textual authority. The objectivity of the text, manifested through assumed truth-values, legitimates and affirms the past and a point of 160 origin implemented by the interpretative practice of Germanistik. Stability and order are valorized over chaos and instability under the premise that the world has an immanent structure. The literary text possesses unconditional authority: “Auf ewigen Sitzen, erhaben über das Getriebe der Nachwelt, thronen, Göttern gleich, die Großen unserer 161 klassischen Zeit.” Literary texts thereby also reaffirm the structure of our moral reality, which then comes to legitimate social practice. This process of affirmation is guided by the desire to perpetuate the values of the classics in order to overcome the dark past — the Second World War, and the role of Germanistik during that time — along with a lack of 162 orientation regarding the present. I conclude this chapter with the following observations. Schmidt’s notion of intertextuality collapses the distinction of literary and nonliterary text by reading reality as narrative representation, allowing it to be an object of literary investigation. Inevitably, his transgressions of disciplinary boundaries raise the question of what constitutes a discipline in the first place. Zettel’s Traum’s sociological genesis initiates a critique of the enabling conditions of disciplines as such, and discloses the underlying paradigms and the protective ideological insularity of academic disci163 plines such as Germanistik or history. Schmidt’s practice of writing acknowledges and is defined through new fields of knowledge outside the strict purview of literature. As my discussion of intertextuality suggests, Schmidt’s texts are an amalgam of interdisciplinary and intertextual sources drawn together by a desire to reflect upon disciplinary discourses and the methodological and theoretical orientations prevalent in postwar Germany. It should therefore hardly surprise Schmidt’s readers that he was marginalized in any canonized reading list of literature. Stated another way, if we conceive of Schmidt’s notion of text as encompassing anthropology, history, psychology, botany, and astrology, what we are studying (reading) is not only German literature, but also German culture. At stake, therefore, is the autonomy of a traditionally understood field of inquiry that presupposes itself as a self-contained field subject to its own laws. And, in the case of Germanistik during the 1950s and 1960s, this autonomy adheres to an ideal of knowledge defined through a particular notion of truth, time, and history.

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Notes 1

Schmidt, Vorläufiges zu Zettel’s Traum (Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, 1977), 3. Henceforth abbreviated as VzZT. 2 3

VzZT, 12. VzZT, 12.

4

The word “Schauerfeld” refers to Daniel Pagenstecher’s property and was chosen as homage to Fouqué and his narrative Das Schauerfeld (1834). 5

The Walpurgisnight is the night of 30th of April in Germany or May Eve for the English-speaking world. On this date God Wotan married Freya. The celebration took place on the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz mountains. 6 The title refers to Goethe’s West-östlicher Diwan (1814/19). 7

The title of the book refers to The Night Life of the Gods (1931) by the American author Thorne Smith (1892–1934).

8

The title of this book echoes Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787) and simultaneously alludes to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 9

See ZT 874, 882, 1020.

10

Hannelore Wolfram, “Strategies and Effects of Intertextuality in Contemporary French and German Fiction: Maurice Roche’s ‘Codex’ and Arno Schmidt’s Zettels Traum” (Ph.D. diss., U of Texas, 1989), 144–45. 11

For a slightly different reading of Schmidt’s writing in columns see Rüdiger Zymner, Manerismus. Zur Poetischen Artistik bei Johann Fischart, Jean Paul und Arno Schmidt (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1995), 261–83. 12

According to Robert Weninger, “Die einzelnen Randnotizen, Bemerkungen, Kommentierungen, Ausrufe, Gedankensplitter, Etymverweise, Zitate u.ä. sind einem sukzessiven Ablauf des Geschehens nicht mehr subsumierbar” (Arno Schmidts JoyceRezeption 1957–1970 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982), 182). 13

I borrow Theodor Adorno’s term “kontemplative Geborgenheit” from Noten zur Literatur (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1991), 46. 14

Wolfram, Strategies and Effects of Intertextuality, 158. See also Thomas Hansen, “Arno Schmidt’s Reception of Edgar Allan Poe: Or, The Domain of Arn(o)heim,” The Review of Contemporary Fiction 8 (1989): 175–78. 15 Schmidt, 3.3: 258. “Die Handlungsreisenden,” in Bargfelder Ausgabe (Zurich: Haffmans, 1993), 3.1:258. Henceforth abbreviated as BA. 16 Schmidt, Das essayistische Werk zur deutschen Literatur in 4 Bänden. Zurich: Haffmans, 1988 4: 371. Henceforth abbreviated as ZdL. 17

Jochen Meißner, “Vor der Schrift zum Hypertext. Typographie in der Schule der Atheisten,” in »Alles=gewendet!« Zu Arno Schmidts »Die Schule der Atheisten«, ed. Horst Denkler & Carsten Würmann (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2000), 219–52, here 223. 18

Gisela Dischner, “Konkrete Kunst und Gesellschaft,” edition text + kritik 25 (1970): 38. For this reason, Gregor Strick aligns Schmidt’s poetic principle with classical surrealism in An den Grenzen der Sprache: Poetik. Poetische Praxis und Psy-

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choanalyse in “Zettels Traum.” Zu Arno Schmidts Freud-Rezeption (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1993), 23. 19

Eugen Gomringer, worte sind schatten. die konstellationen 1951–1968, ed. Helmut Heißenbüttel (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1969), 288. A similar argument has been made by Astrid Wintersberger, “Der gespaltene Text: Arno Schmidt und der Poststrukturalismus,” Protokolle 1 (1989): 12. 20 Schmidt, BA 3.3: 168. 21

Stefan Voigt, In der Auflösung begriffen. Erkenntnismodelle in Arno Schmidts Spätwerk (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 1999), 89. 22

Schmidt, BA 3.4: 254. Gregor Strick, “Einige Probleme des Lesens und Deutens von Arno Schmidts Caliban über Setebos,” Zettelkasten 14 (1995): 257. 23

24

Josef Huerkamp in Gekettet an Daten und Namen: 3 Studien zum authentischen Erzählen in der Prosa Arno Schmidts (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1981) speaks of a “Authentizitätspoetik vom Autor” (32). He views the “Autor als Inbegriff aller Authentizitätsbestrebungen” (31). 25

According to Huerkamp in Gekettet an Daten und Namen, Schmidt’s texts have a “spezifische Appelstruktur” (121). He maintains that Schmidt’s texts invite the reader to treat the real-life locations (Lokaltermine in German) as evidence of his literary realism. 26 For a similar argument of writing as painting see also Meißner, “Vor der Schrift zum Hypertext.” 27

Novalis, Werke, eds. Hans Joachim Mähl and Richard Samuel (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1978), 2: 692, no. 953. 28

Novalis, Werke, 2: 167, no. 485.

29

Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974), 1.2: 1182.

30

Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 1179.

31

Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 608. Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 1176.

32 33

My reading is inspired by Jochen Schulte-Sasse’s essay “Gebrauchswerte der Literatur. Eine Kritik der ästhetischen Kategorien Identifikation und Reflexivität, vor allem in Hinblick auf Adorno,” in Zur Dichotomisierung von hoher und niederer Literatur, eds. Christa Bürger et al. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1982), 62–107. 34

Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 608.

35

Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 497. My reading here is informed by Eugene Lunn’s assessment of Benjamin, who argued that Benjamin’s “fascination with old books, juxtaposed quotations, architectural fragments and ruins . . . were part of Benjamin’s obsession to unlock the poetic power of objects while extinguishing the subjectivity of the one who unlocks them” (Marxism & Modernism: An Historical Study of Lukács, Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno [Berkeley: UP California, 1984], 183). 36

37

Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 505.

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38

Arno Schmidt, “Berechnungen III,” Das essayistische Werk zur deutschen Literatur in 4 Bänden (Zurich: Haffmans, 1988) 4: 372. 39 Karlheinz Kramberg, “Lektüre für tausendundeinen Tag,” in Über Arno Schmidt. Rezensionen vom »Leviathan« bis zur »Julia«, ed. Hans Michael Bock (Zurich: Haffmans, 1984), 194. 40

Heinz Ludwig Arnold, “Ein Buch und eine Meinung,” in Bock, Über Arno Schmidt, 204. 41

Klaus Podak and Rolf Vollmann, “Das Bilderbuch,” in Bock, Über Arno Schmidt, 219. Ueding, “Die gelehrte Traumwelt des Arno Schmidt,” in Bock, Über Arno Schmidt, 229. 42

43

Karl Riha, Cross-Reading und Cross-Talking. Zitat-Collagen als poetische und satirische Technik (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971), 102. 44

Riha, Cross-Reading und Cross-Talking, 102.

45

Armin Mohler, “Die Westdeutsche Literatur seit 1945 am Beispiel von Arno Schmidt,” in Über Arno Schmidt II, ed. Hans Michael Bock (Zurich: Haffmans, 1987), 146. 46

Gert Ueding, “Die gelehrte Traumwelt des Arno Schmidt,” in Bock, Über Arno Schmidt, 227. See also Julia Schmidt, who remarks that “Schmidt in jeder Hinsicht ein Außenseiter war und darum in nahezu keiner Hinsicht mit traditionellen literaturwissenschaftlichen Kategorien zu erfassen ist . . .” (Karneval der Überlebenden, 46). 47

See, for example, this extreme reaction by Hans Habe (“Schmidt,” in Bock, Über Arno Schmidt, 200) who dismisses Zettel’s Traum as not belonging to the category of literature: An dem soeben erschienenen “Buch” des “Schriftstellers” Arno Schmidt — Anführungszeichen von mir —, Zettels Traum genannt, ist nichts erstaunlich als das masochistische Pflichtgefühl der Kritiker, sich spaltenlang mit dem auf 1334 Seiten ausgebreiteten Unfug zu befassen.

48

Gunnar Ortlepp, “Apropos: Ah!; pro=Poe,” in Bock, Über Arno Schmidt, 189–93, here 189. 49 50

Ortlepp, “Apropos: Ah!; pro=Poe,” 189. Ueding, “Die gelehrte Traumwelt des Arno Schmidt,” 231–32.

51

N. N., “Arno Schmidt: Zettels Traum,” in Bock, Über Arno Schmidt, 255–58, here 257. 52

Siegbert Prawer, “Bless Thee, Bottom! Bless Thee! Thou Art Translated,” in Bock, Über Arno Schmidt, 250. 53

Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 607.

54

If success is measured by sales, Zettel’s Traum would be a modest success story today. According to Doris Plöschberger, 12,000 copies have been sold so far (“Vorwort,” in Des Dichters Aug’ in feinem Wahnwitz rollend. . . . Dokumente und Studien zu Zettels Traum, ed. Jörg Drews and Doris Plöschberger (Munich: edition text + kritik, 2001), 9. 55

Schmidt, BA 1.1: 137.

56

Julia Schmidt, Karneval der Überlebenden, 4.

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57

Michael Manko in all earnest argues that Zettel’s Traum cannot be viewed through the concept of intertextuality, since Schmidt’s intentionality controls the use of citations (Die »Roten Fäden« in Zettel’s Traum. Literarische Quellen und ihre Verarbeitung in Arno Schmidts Meisterwerk [Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2001], 136). Surprisingly, in his very brief discussion of intertextuality, Manko completely ignores the most recent books on this topic by Julia Schmidt (1998) and Henning HermannTrentepohl (1998), to name but two. His hesitancy to engage in a thorough discussion of other contributions remains a serious flaw of his book. 58 Gregor Eisenhauer, »Die Rache Yorix« Arno Schmidts Poetik des gelehrten Witzes und der humoristischen Gerichtbarkeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992), 148. Hartwig Suhrbier, Zur Prosatheorie von Arno Schmidt (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1980), 31. Wolfgang Hink, Der Ausflug ins Innere der eigenen Persönlichkeit: zur Funktion der Zitate im Werk Arno Schmidts (Heidelberg: Winter, 1989), 204. 59

Robert Weninger, “Allegorien der Naturwissenschaft oder: Intentionalität versus Intertextualität als Problem der Schmidt-Forschung,” in Arno Schmidt am Pazifik, ed. Timm Menke (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1992), 26. Erika Gietema, “Narrenfreiheit oder Subversion? Versuch einer Funktionalisierung des Intertextualitätsbegriffs bei Arno Schmidt in Richtung auf die humoristische Subjektivität,” Neophilologus 72 (1988): 419. 60

Ulrich Sonnenschein, Text-Welten: Subjektivität und Erzählhaltung im Werk Arno Schmidts (Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 1991), 22. 61

Julia Schmidt, Karneval der Überlebenden, 173.

62

Julia Schmidt, Karneval der Überlebenden, 2.

63

For the multiple functions of quotations see Wolfram, Strategies and Effects of Intertextuality, esp. 231–43. 64

Gietema, “Narrenfreiheit oder Subversion?” 418; Weninger, “Allegorien der Naturwissenschaft,” 26–27. 65

Claudette Sartiliot, Citation and Modernity: Derrida, Joyce and Brecht (Norman: UP Oklahoma, 1993), 6. 66

For an insightful historic overview of the praxis of citation see Riha, Cross-Reading und Cross-Talking. See also Reiner Niehoff, Die Herrschaft des Textes. Zitattechnik in Georg Büchner’s Drama “Danton’s Tod” unter Berücksichtigung der “Letzten Tage der Menschheit” von Karl Kraus (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1991). For the role of citation in East German prose see, for example, Ute Brandes, Zitat und Montage in der neueren DDR-Prosa (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1984). 67

Manfred Durzak, “Zitat und Montage im deutschen Roman der Gegenwart,” in Die deutsche Literatur der Gegenwart. Aspekte und Tendenzen, ed. Manfred Durzak (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1976), 222. 68

Schmidt, BA 2.1: 333–57. Here, 338.

69

Bertolt Brecht, Gesammelte Werke in acht Bänden (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1967), 5: 379. 70 Brecht, Gesammelte Werke, 5: 380. 71

For an insightful reading of Brecht’s praise of plagiarism see Sartiliot, Citation and Modernity, esp. ch. 4.

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72

“In general it might be maintained that the charm of the quotation emanates from a unique tension between assimilation and dissimilation: it links itself closely with its new environment, but at the same time detaches itself from it, thus permitting another world to radiate into the self-contained world of the novel. Its effect is to expand and to enliven the novel, contributing thereby to its variegated totality and richness” (Herman Meyer, The Poetics of Quotation in the European Novel [Princeton: UP Princeton, 1968], 6–7). 73

It seems almost ironic that most of the contributors on Schmidt’s theory of quotation adhere to this dichotomy (Wolfgang Hink cites Meyer as major influence), whereas this study tries to show the opposite, namely that Schmidt discards any wholeness or originality of literary texts. Similarly, Gerhard Kaiser’s important study on the role of citation on Proust, Musil, and Joyce defends the idea that citations must be seen “stets im Blick auf das Ganze eines Werkes” (Proust Musil Joyce. Zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Gesellschaft am Paradigma des Zitats [Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1972], 1). 74

Friedrich Brockhaus, Der Sprach-Brockhaus (Wiesbaden: Brockhaus, 1984), 812.

75

For a detailed discussion see Sartiliot, Citation and Modernity, ch. 1.

76

Schmidt, BA 2.1: 338.

77

Schmidt, BA 2.1: 340.

78

Schmidt, BA 2.1: 345. See also Friedrich Panzer, “Vom Mittelalterlichen Zitieren,” Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften 50 (1950): 5–44.

79

Sartiliot, Citation and Modernity, 21.

80

Schmidt, BA 3.4: 364.

81

Hink, Der Ausflug ins Innere, 208. In the evolution of intertextuality, Flaubert holds a strategic position, since his texts make use of indirect quotations in a fashion that later dominate Joyce’s interior monologue, not to mention Schmidt’s texts. In his discussion of intertextuality in Ulysses (“The Matrix and the Echo: Intertextuality in Ulysses,” in Post-Structuralist Joyce, ed. Derek Attridge and Daniel Ferrer [Cambridge: UP Cambridge, 1984], 103), André Topia observes that since the nineteenth century, the status of quotation within the writing process has changed dramatically. Now, 82

[t]he literary text is situated more and more in relation to the multitude of texts which circulate within it. . . . [The literary text] appears as an open configuration, strewn with landmarks and furrowed by networks of references, reminiscences, connotations, echoes, quotations, pseudo-quotations, parallels, reactivations. Linear reading gives way to transversal and correlative reading, where the printed page becomes no more than the point of intersection for strata issued from myriad horizons. 83

See also Manko’s brief discussion of citations in Die Roten Fäden, 189.

84

For a contrasting view see Sonnenschein, Text-Welten, 99.

85

Poe contributed a series of papers on the “Literati of New York City” between summer and fall of 1846. In his paper on James Aldrich, Poe accuses him of palpable plagiarism and maintains: “The charge of plagiarism, nevertheless, is a purely literary one; and a plagiarism even distinctly proved by no means necessarily involves any

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moral delinquency,” in The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. James A. Harrison (New York: AMS Press Inc, 1965), 15: 62–63. 86

Gietema, “Narrenfreit oder Subversion?” 424.

87

Sonnenschein, Text-Welten, 22.

88

This quote could also be read as a pun on Faust, where the “Erdgeist” says: “Du gleichst dem Geist, den Du begreifst,/Nicht mir!” Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Faust, in Werke, ed. Erich Trunz (Munich: DTV, 1986), 3: 24. With this possible reference to Goethe, Schmidt seems to suggest that traditional hermeneutics of reading and writing means absorbing the signifier into immaterial “Geist.” This would also be true for the representatives of postwar Germanistik such as Emil Staiger and Wilhelm Emrich. 89

As Stefan Voigt points out, despite Schmidt’s critique of Germanistik and the literary canon, he remains embedded in the tradition he criticizes. “Selbstexplikation als Textstrategie,” Zettelkasten 14 (1995): 272. 90 Arno Schmidt, Die Schule der Atheisten. Novellen=Comödie in 6 Aufzügen, vol. 4.2 (Zurich: Haffmans, 1994). Hereafter abbreviated as SdA. 91

Here I follow Benjamin’s argument in “Über den Begriff der Geschichte,” Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 704. Anhang A. 92

See also Gregor Strick, “Einige Probleme des Lesens und Deutens von Arno Schmidts Caliban über Setebos,” Zettelkasten 14 (1995): 257, 259. 93 This of course echoes Novalis, who argued that the true reader has to be the extended author. Novalis, Werke 2: 282, no. 125. 94

Sonnenschein, Text-Welten, 69.

95

Benjamin captures this point well in his discussion of Valéry when arguing that the recognition a work of art lies in the impossibility to exhaust or to finish the original artwork. Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 645. 96 See also Sonnenschein, Text-Welten, 170. 97

See also Adorno for a detailed elaboration of this point. Theodor Adorno, Ästhetische Theorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973), 181–86. 98

Jacques Lacan, Écrits (New York: Norton, 1977), 264. For Strick, Schmidt remains “hinter den Standards der Aufklärung . . . ebenso sein vormoderner, emphatischer Literaturbegriff, der eher der Zeit der Weimarer Klassik, der Epoche Wielands, Goethes und Schillers angehört” (An den Grenzen der Sprache, 60). 99

100

In Schule der Atheisten (245), Schmidt articulates writing as an act of synthesis and analysis: Suse: . . .»besteht hier der Unterschied zwischen dem Schreibmdn, gegnüber dem nur=Lesndin? . . . Kolderup: . . . auf jedn Fall der SchreiberMensch — (& wahrscheinlich=auch eine ganze, (›kaufkräftije; und ebm=deshalb gar nicht zu vernachlässijinde) Leser=Klasse: genau=jene MischnaTuren aus anner=Lüd’ SündThetisch’m!) — müßtn’s=Kennan. . . 101

Through the distinction between the reader whose only interest is the passive consumption of a literary text and the reader who joins the writer in teasing out the

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various layers of signification, Schmidt’s typology corresponds to the differentiation made by Roland Barthes between the readerly and writerly text (S/Z [New York: Hill & Wang, 1994], 5) or Friedrich Schlegel’s differentiation between the synthetic and analytical writer (Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, ed. Ernst Behler et al. [Munich: Schoening Verlag, 1958], 2.1: 161, no. 112). 102

Schmidt, BA 2.3: 240. Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis: UP of Minnesota, 1989), 110.

103

104

See also the role of dialogue in Marc Koch, “Müde vom Durchwandern der Letternwüsten.” Zur Methode der literaturhistorischen Arbeiten von Arno Schmidt (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 1992), 29–36, and Heiko Postma, Aufarbeitung und Vermittlung literarischer Traditionen (Frankfurt: Bangert & Metzler, 1982), 35–46.

105

Schmidt, BA 3.3: 455–56.

106

This is precisely what Benjamin had in mind when he expressed his suspicions about mere existence. It eliminates the reflective experience of the individual by blocking it from the reader. See Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 1.2: 610. 107

Arno Schmidt, “Dichtergespräche im Elysium,” Bargfelder Ausgabe (Zurich: Haffmans, 1988), 1.4: 239–302, here 262. 108

For a contrasting view see Robert Weninger, who argues that Schmidt remains an advocate of traditional reading concepts, in “Why Were They Saying Such Terrible Things About Arno Schmidt?” The Review of Contemporary Fiction 8 (1989): 76.

109

See also the excellent essay by Ulrich Blumenbach, “Das Werk auf den Schultern vergänglicher Riesen. Arno Schmidt an den Grenzen der Speicherbarkeit kulturellen Wissens,” Zettelkasten 14 (1995): 187–218. 110

Schmidt, BA 2.3: 50.

111

See Bakthin’s chapter “Characteristics of Genre” in Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist (Austin: UP Texas, 1990), 101–80. 112 The title refers to Poe’s celestial dialogue between two posthumous lovers, Monos and Una, who reunite centuries after their death. The two look upon the condition of civilization and its decay since their departure from earth. As the names indicate, Monos and Una stand for a return to primal unity. 113

Bakhtin stresses this observation by arguing that “the actual and always selfinterested use to which this meaning is and the way it is expressed by the speaker” matters the most in evaluating language (The Dialogic Imagination by M. M. Bakhtin, 401). 114

This term was articulated first by Mikhail Bakhtin in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 115. 115

Prawer, “Bless Thee, Bottom! Bless Thee! Thou Art Translated,” 254. Schmidt here refers to the tensions between the U.S. and France over the French independent nuclear strike force (1958), which eventually led to the French withdrawal from NATO. The French government argued, for example, that the U.S. has too much control over NATO and subsequently threatens French sovereignty and political independence. 116

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117

Gietema, “Narrenheit oder Subversion?” 429.

118

Schmidt, BA 1.4: 276.

119

For a contrasting discussion of Schmidt’s notion of time see also Robert Weninger, “Von Kreisen, Zylindern und Spiralen. Der lange Tag von Zettels Traum als hermeneutisches Gleichnis,” in Drews and Plöschberger, eds., Des Dichters Aug’ in feinem Wahnwitz rollend, 220–36, and Dieter Stündel, Arno Schmidt Zettels Traum (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982), ch. 3. 120

Schmidt, BA 1.1: 11. Schmidt, BA 1.1: 394. For a brief discussion of time see also Norbert Nicolaus, Die literarische Vermittlung des Leseprozesses im Werk Arno Schmidts (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1980), 180–82, and Horst Thomé, Natur und Geschichte im Frühwerk Arno Schmidt (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1981), 20–46. 121

122

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood (Cambridge: UP Cambridge, 1998), 163. 123

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 163.

124

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 304.

125

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 303.

126

For a detailed examination of the notion of time in western philosophy see Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 3 (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988). 127

Schmidt, BA 1.1: 394.

128

Schmidt, BA 1.1: 41.

129

Weninger, “Allegorien der Naturwissenschaft,” 27. In this case, Schmidt provides a literary answer to Novalis’s question as to why we have to have a beginning at all since the quasi-philosophical purpose leads to errors (Werke 2: 622, no. 634).

130

131

This reorientation of the experience of temporality returns to the form of historiography inaugurated by the early Romantics. For an examination of the Romantics’ notion of historiography see Azade Seyhan, Representation and its Discontents: The Critical Legacy of German Romanticism (Los Angeles: UP California, 1992), ch. 4. 132

Augustine, Confessions, 9.11, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992), 228–29. Emphasis mine. 133

Schmidt, BA 2.2: 105.

134

Schmidt, BA 1.4: 265.

135

Schmidt, BA 2.2: 142.

136

See, for example, ZT 981–82. See also Schlegel’s definition of the book as an encyclopedia: Kritische FriedrichSchlegel-Ausgabe, 2.1: 337.

137

138 139

See also Hansen, “Arno Schmidt’s Reception of Edgar Allan Poe,” 170.

Schmidt, BA 1.2: 326. See also Sonnenschein, Text-Welten, 99. Schlegel similarly argues: “Es ist gleich tödlich für den Geist, ein System zu haben, und keins zu haben. Er wird sich also wohl entschließen müssen, beides zu verbinden” (Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, 2.1: 173). 140

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141

For Schlegel, the totality, envisioned as higher unity, remains a system of fragments (Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, 2.1: 176). 142 Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, 2.1: 242. 143

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism (New York: State UP of New York, 1988), 12. Schlegel: “Nur dadurch, daß es eins und alles ist, wird ein Werk zum Werk” (Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, 2.1: 327).

144

Schmidt’s opposition to any ideal notion of time and historic events is also evident in his polemic against the concept of historical realism propagated by the Prussian historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), who became the founding father of “historicism,” and the historian Johann Gustav Droysen (1808–1884), a critic of Ranke: “Ranke; ‹Historiker› Ranke! (Wie genau er es mit der Wahrheit nahm . . .” (BA 1.1: 225). Although Schmidt does not deal in any specific detail with Ranke and Droysen, apart from dropping their names, he exposes Ranke’s concept of historical realism by confronting his key terms “the particular” and “the general” of history, for instance, in his story Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas (BA 1.1: 245–46). Schmidt resorts to the Swiss art historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) along with Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) to serve as some voices for questioning the prevalent ideas of history as belonging to a particular vision or a religious worldview as propagated by Ranke. Burckhardt, for instance, argues: “[w]ir verzichten ferner auf alles Systematische; wir machen keinen Anspruch auf »weltgeschichtliche Ideen« und sondern begnügen uns mit Wahrnehmungen und geben Querschnitte durch die Geschichte, und zwar in möglichst vielen Richtungen; wir geben vor allem keine Geschichtsphilosophie” (Gesammelte Werke [Basel: Benno Schwabe & Co, 1956], 4:1–2.) Burkhardt, in response to Hegel, denies history as the ultimate transcendental signified, dismisses systematic categories — following in this instance the early Romantics — and reads time as only given to representation. For an overview of Ranke and Burckhardt’s different views on time and history see Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: UP Johns Hopkins, 1987). 145 See also ZT 150, 194. 146

Schmidt, BA 2.1: 326.

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For an assessment of Germanistik by Schmidt see also Georg Guntermann, “Das Eigene im Fremden - gewollte Nähe. Arno Schmidts literarische Funkessays,” in Arno Schmidt, das Frühwerk III, ed. Matthias Schardt (Aachen: Alano-Verlag, 1989), 244–70, and Koch, Müde vom Durchwandern. 148 149

Schmidt, BA 2.2: 164. See also Schmidt, BA 2.2: 303. Schmidt, BA 2.2: 302.

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“Übrigens sind Professoren Staatsbeamte . . . Ebeneben ! Weswegen schon Schopenhauer die Befürchtung äußerte, sie möchten ihre Aufgabe lediglich darin sehen, die jeweilige Regierungspolitik und Staatsreligion theoretisch zu begründen” (BA 2.2: 146).

151 152

BA 2.2: 302. Thomé, Natur und Geschichte, 41.

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Schmidt, BA 2.2: 302. This critique by Gerhard Kaiser of Germanistik was a response to the “Germanistentag” in 1966 and its glorification of textimmanent reading of the great works as an answer to the role of Germanistik during the Nazi era (Neue Antithesen eines Germanisten. 1974–1975 [Kronberg: Scriptor, 1976], 13). The Germanisten conference from 1966 is published as Germanistik — eine deutsche Wissenschaft, ed. Eberhard Lämmert (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1967). 154 Hans Egon Holthusen, Der unbehauste Mensch: Motive und Probleme der modernen Literatur (Munich: Piper, 1951), 33. 155

Schmidt (BA 1.2: 18) formulates the problem as follows:

‹Pro Patria› heißt auf Englisch ‘‹fool’s cap›’; nachdenklich genug. - Die üblich furnierte Prosa. Die von staatswegen stets erstrebte und längst wieder erreichte Einknopfbedienung unserer Literatur. 156 Schmidt, BA 2.2: 139. 157

According to Alexander von Bormann, this mystification of the reading process displaces art as a negation of experience and of contemplation, with the (secondary) objective function of not questioning the established basic decisions in postwar West Germany, and reduces reading to the level of mere existence analyzed by Benjamin (Alexander von Bormann, “Der Kalte Krieg und seine literarischen Auswirkungen,” in Literatur nach 1945 Politische und regionale Aspekte, ed. Jost Hermand [Wiesbaden: Athenaion, 1979], 21.1: 99). 158

Schmidt, BA 2.2: 142.

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Klaus Briegleb (Unmittelbar zur Epoche des NS-Faschismus. Arbeiten zur politischen Philologie [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1990], 251) maintains that the emphasis on “Menschheit” and “europäische Zivilisation” turns art into a “funktionalen NSBlindheit.” 160

See Schmidt, BA 2.2: 292. These values are tied to the basic paradigm of Western metaphysics — original unity that has been lost in the present and needs to be regained in the future — and organize the world as stable, immutable, and knowable. This explanation of the original unity lost in the past is evidenced, for instance, in the “Goethe” debate between Jaspers and Curtius. See Karl Jaspers, “Unsere Zukunft und Goethe,” in Goethe im Urteil seiner Kritiker. Dokumente zur Wirkungsgeschichte Goethes in Deutschland, ed. Karl Robert Mandelkow (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1984), 4: 288–404, and Ernst Robert Curtius’s response in the same volume, “Goethe oder Jaspers?” 304–7.

161 162

Schmidt, BA 2.2: 139.

See also Gregor Strick’s analysis of Schmidt’s criticism of the postwar German literary establishment in his discussion of the relationship between Schmidt and Goethe in “Ich und Goethe oder wie Arno Schmidt sich als Klassiker konstruiert,” Zettelkasten 20 (2001): 195–228. 163 For a brilliant reading of the problematic connection of the literary disciplines as institution and interpretation see Samuel Weber, Institution and Interpretation (Minneapolis: UP of Minnesota, 1987).

2: Schmidt’s Concept of Literary Realism ‹Bei Uns› ist es genauso, wie in der DDR : beiderseits ‹regiert› die welt=anschaulichste Empfindlichkeit : Ist man bei uns gottvergiftet und prüde; so drüben prüde und barbarisch= einfältig.1

T

HE ILLUSIONISTIC NATURE of language finds its first elaboration in Schmidt’s concept of literary realism, which dominated his writings in the 1950s. As I showed in the previous chapter, Schmidt’s early writing already shows his awareness of the impossibility of ideal literary repre2 sentation in Foucault’s sense of the classical age of representation. Schmidt’s call for a literature emulating the lack of continuity typical of 3 modern existence attests to that awareness, as does his criticism of traditional prose forms — the epistolary novel, epic novel, and diary — with their classic sequence of beginning, middle, and end. Schmidt’s conclusion that extant prose models fail to do justice to actual experience initiates his search for a prose form characterized by “konforme Abbildung von Gehirnvorgängen durch besondere Anordnung von Prosaelemen4 ten.” The writer’s task, “die Welt nach Kräften präzise abzubilden,” inaugurates Schmidt’s desire to develop these sorts of strategies to cap5 ture the absent presence. This concept of literary realism leads Schmidt to stress the search for new formulations of language. The theory of typography as detailed in “Berechnungen III,” partly discussed in “Berechnungen II,” and an integral part of Schmidt’s aesthetics of reading and writing throughout his work, is one of several examples of such attempts to create a new language. To provide an accurate way of describing our experience and perception of reality Schmidt proposes three modes of consciousness and cognition: the process of recollection, the process of recollecting the most recent past, and the Extended Mind Game (Längeres Gedankenspiel). All three terms function as explanatory vehicles of the concept of literary realism. However, after his exposure to Freud and Joyce in the 1950s and 1960s, Schmidt dropped the first two terms, and kept only the Extended Mind Game. Although the process of recollection and the process of recollecting the most recent past disappear as terms in Schmidt’s writings of the 1960s, the idea of writing as an act of remembrance characterizes all his writings.

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According to Schmidt, the process of recollection refers to events such as a past summer vacation, which he calls the photo album. An instantaneous moment of recollection is presented with a commentary or caption. The purpose of this procedure is to stimulate in the reader the illusion of one’s own experience. The amount and length of the texts attached to the photos are the results of the rhythmic textures and tempo of the characters. Schmidt describes the resulting rhythmic textures in mathematical terminology as “straight,” “hypocycloid,” “epicycloid,” 6 “spiral,” or “lemniscate.” At first, these terms appear intimidating, pointing to Schmidt’s considerable mathematical knowledge. But for Bernhard Sorg they are simply a strategy to create the image of an author 7 who knows it all. In plain language, Schmidt envisions writing prose as a means to capture human movement in space by following a strict logic that reflects modern natural sciences or mathematics. In this, he participates in a larger modernist tendency to borrow models from the natural sciences, a tendency one may also find in Musil, Brecht, Benn, and others. Therefore, for Schmidt, the addition of particular themes to all these rhythmic textures forms the prose structure. For instance, the thematic complex “means of transportation” assigned to the spatial motion “straight” suggests a fast movement in space. The story “Die Umsiedler” (The Displaced) is one example, since its rhythmic texture combines several short photos with texts, short sentences, and many themes in a brief period of time. Schmidt’s story “Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas” exemplifies the hypocycloid, because it deals with a microcosm of the world, a particular time during the summer within a limited space. Instead of a typical story that represents increased action by the protagonist through rhetorical or other linguistic devices, “Pocahontas” achieves its culminating effect by the number of photos increasing with the speed of the movements. The linguistic design of, for instance, the short sentences, allows the reader to comprehend the many themes of the prose. The process of recollecting the most recent past represents the remembered day not as a continuum, but as a sequence of small segments of daily experiences. As with the photo album, the narrator of this prose form uses an incomplete mosaic of recollection instead of creating the impression of an epic flow of events. A first flash of light, written in italics, provides the initial spark and introduces these moments of meaning. The subsequent initiation of other thoughts, perceptions, and evaluations, attests that our memory is often random in its associations. According to Schmidt, “Brand’s Haide” (Brand’s Heath) and “Das steinerne Herz” exemplify this prose form, though with structural differences resulting from different thematic foci. Central to both, nonethe-

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less, is the process of recollection itself. Brand’s Haide and Das steinerne Herz are mosaics of the process of experience, and divide the process of recollection into an initial spark of thought and a commentary. In contrast to the process of recollection, the Extended Mind Game requires two levels of experience, the level of objective reality (the actual experience of events, or E I), and the level of subjective reality (the level of imagined events, which is the actual mind game, or E II). Dreams also make this distinction, but dreamed events, according to Schmidt, are experienced passively, whereas with the Extended Mind Game, the individual is much more in control, and selective. The Extended Mind Game functions partly as the conscious object of the narrator of the text. Schmidt distinguishes among three types of Extended Mind Games. The first type, “Bel Ami,” is influenced by from the portrayal of slick 8 magazines, movies, and suggestive hit songs. This type strives for a contrast between the monotonous respectability of a workaday routine life and the mind game of subjective reality (E II), allowing the mind player to achieve all his daily needs such as playing the egotistical part of 9 the hero. The second type Schmidt calls “Malcontent,” who has a tendency to rhetorical exchanges with himself in which he always maintains the upper hand. The level of subjective reality is parallel to and an extension of the level of objective reality. Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf (1927) serves as one example of this, because the main narrator indulges 10 in feelings of inner insecurities and anxious compulsions. Finally, the “Enchained” type is fixated on a threatening or even deadly situation on the level of objective reality (E I). In this case, the “Enchained” exaggerates his pessimistic situation onto the level of subjective reality (E II), tending toward melancholy. Schmidt provides the reader with a rather odd assortment of literary examples to illustrate these different levels of reality, without much elaboration. Ludwig Tieck’s novel Die Vogelscheuche (1834) is a blend of two levels of reality (E I + II), and makes it difficult to discern pure examples of each type. Reality and imagination merge with one another. Barthold Heinrich Brockes’s collection of poems in Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott, bestehend in physicalisch- und Moralischen Gedichten (1721–48) is one example of an objectively depicted reality. In contrast, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s prose treatise Die Gelehrtenrepublik (1774) and Schmidt’s novel Schwarze Spiegel (1951) represent a much more subjective view of reality. The only literary work in German Schmidt refers to here, and one that consistently combines these two levels, is Johann 11 Gottfried Schnabel’s novel Insel Felsenburg (1828). Here, the biogra-

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phy of the inhabitants of the island represents the objective reality, whereas the island as utopian place stands for the subjective reality. This brief list of Schmidt’s examples of literary realism shows that the process of recollection — in this case, of other authors — supplies concrete images by way of allusion. For Minden, the role and status of the Extended Mind Game demonstrates how Schmidt’s interest in conscious processes leads to a confrontation between subjectivity and objective 12 possibilities of its representation. As the terms recollection or anamnesis suggest, our experiences and perceptions rely on what is already presupposed and buried in our memory. From the start, writing involves an inexhaustible assemblage of multiple images of the past, providing, at best, fragmented and incomplete images of reality, always, however, evoking figures of absence. As an act of memory, recollection displaces reality as the object of poetic language. In order to capture realism in the process of recollection, Schmidt frames his discussion within the parameters of a scientific inquiry identifying the natural sciences, notably mathematics and physics, as possible means of securing an accurate depiction of reality. One presupposition for securing a sense of realism involves the interplay between traditional disciplines and art by transforming their methods and questions of inquiry into the literary context. Such an interdisciplinary use of science is by no means arbitrary, as Schmidt argued in “Dichtergespräche im Elysi13 um.” Alluding to the arbitrary separation between the natural sciences and the arts, with their subsequent fragmentation into separate branches of knowledge, Schmidt, by merging various disciplines, breaks the nar14 row confines of the modern episteme. Instead of situating the mathematical and physical sciences as well as the arts into separate categories with their own verifiable propositions, Schmidt writes across disciplinary boundaries to provide insights into the repeatedly recurring processes of consciousness. Together with poetry, Schmidt constantly assimilates other sciences 15 and thus forms the means of an unrestricted mode of investigation. As the title “Berechnungen” suggests, the model of Calculation has its source in Schmidt’s interest in mathematics and physics, signaling how literature might accurately reflect on our poorly equipped sensory mechanisms. His use of the phrase “konforme Abbildung” (roughly translated as conformal presentations) already infers that reality is measurable. Mathematical calculations assure the rigor of investigations of experience and establish measurable relations, since mathematics symbolizes the realization of the rational. But the quality of mathematical calculation as a matter of predicting and utilizing a certain ratio does not actually establish an objective reality.

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In his essay “Literatur: Tradition oder Experiment,” Schmidt specifies the role of mathematics by distinguishing between “reine Mathematik” and “angewandte Mathematik.” For the writing process, pure mathematics functions to invent formulas and new “conformal presentations,” whereas applied mathematics selects and accordingly writes, “was wirklich brauchbar . . . fruchtbringend, zu neuen Formen der Mitteilbar16 keit geeignet [ist].” According to this distinction, mathematical writing concurs with invented formulas and assumes the role of new equations rearranging the slices of objects known as reality. The subsequent infinite possibilities for creating equations generate a vast network of semantic valences, which continually produce new semantic (and syntactic) chains of signification. Like formulas from mathematics, writing corresponds to the idea of equations by rewriting and reinventing old prose forms. Thus, Schmidt’s reliance on mathematical calculations does not mean to literally describe reality or, for that matter, processes of consciousness and cognition. Rather Schmidt’s calculations signify a sustained effort at approx17 imation. Mathematical calculations do not seek truth itself, but a relative approximation. All resolutions thus become relative and approximate since mathematics, like language, instigates a play with possibilities. Providing a paradigm for written representation, the mathematical dimension of poetry creates the possibility of perfection in describing social reality. The process of transformation into mathematical formulas adheres to the law of chance and brings forth transient or relative moments of cognition. Poetry as mathematics sets in motion the reader’s curiosity to search for what is not attainable, that is, the ideal representation of reality. Hence Schmidt’s dictum “Wer die Sein=setzende Kraft von Namen, Zahlen, Daten, Grenzen, Tabellen, Karten, nicht empfindet, tut recht daran, Lyriker zu werden; für die beste Prosa ist er verloren : hebe Dich hinweg” does not signal a reference to the authentic locale, 18 as critic Hartwig Suhrbier concludes. Like many other readers, he argues that Schmidt’s concept of literary realism presupposed that reality 19 can be determined as long as one develops the appropriate processes. Topological markers and real references to specific events in history, authentic and verifiable as they may be, remain caught in an aesthetic and fictional world. Martin Lowsky, in his discussion of Schmidt’s indebtedness to mathematics, concludes that before taking on any metaphorical meaning the word “konform,” which Schmidt borrows from mathematics, means 20 angular. The term “conformal representation,” used over and over again by literary critics to justify reading Schmidt’s fiction as authentic representations of reality, is thus only a mathematical model used to

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create an image of approximation. As images, mathematical concepts or, for that matter, historical or psychological concepts, constitute a means of creatively stimulating processes of reconstruction. In contrast to Lowsky, who suggests that in his writings Schmidt separates mathematics and poetry, I view them both as merged in form of a poetic calculation seek21 ing a relative measurability of knowledge. How can we keep the two disciplines separate when Schmidt bases his writings on the calculability of objective reality? Expanding on the value of mathematics and physics, Schmidt argues that the reliance on the natural sciences justifies itself vis-à-vis reason’s nemeses, religion, and mysticism. His opposition to the supernatural, and his denunciation of metaphysical thinking, end with praise for scientific reason since mathematical operations force a reconsideration of how the universe is constructed. The natural sciences offer emancipation from the metaphysical tradition, and as fictitious devices, thwart an unexamined reliance on concepts such as nature, truth, and reality. Schmidt’s narrative strategies disable any connection of literature to reality. The real is fictional, but no less real. Put differently, the real is a substitute for that which is no longer true. Discarding any real reference to reality, Schmidt transforms writing into a symbolic representation of reality extracted from consciousness. The latter aspect emerges from Schmidt’s distinction between objective and subjective reality. Schmidt’s claim to write a prose form representing reality turns into the representation of a fragmentary form of Schmidt’s consciousness, or what Jürgen von Stenglin calls a formal 22 subjectivism. Statements identifying the author with the narrator show only the consciousness of a recollecting mind of the narrator and an imagining author. Schmidt’s distinction between E I and E II, for instance, in his reading of E. T. A. Hoffmann and Cervantes, proves to be a product of the imagination. The difference between apparent reality and fiction as the possibility of a final reality dissolves itself into the product of an imagining author. Experience level I, objective reality, and experience level II, subjective reality, are pure fiction. Schmidt’s texts are the product of the imagination since the Extended Mind Game functions as the fictional representation of literary production. The incorporation of mathematical tools in the writing of prose as explanatory, rational instruments, therefore, represents only metaphors of the mind. Accentuating the constructed and symbolic character of literary texts, Schmidt distinguishes between “intuition” and “construction.” In his essay “Der Dichter und die Mathematik,” Schmidt relates his definition of literary realism to the nineteenth-century concept of literary realism

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represented by the two dominant literary figures, the Austrian novelist Adalbert Stifter (1805–1869) and the playwright, journalist, literary critic 23 and poet Christian Friedrich Hebbel (1813–1863). His elaboration clarifies the ideas on literary realism he had proposed in his essay “Die 24 Handlungsreisenden.” His discussion of the two concepts of realism offered by Stifter and Hebbel ends with the distinction between intuition and construction as the decisive criterion for differentiation between the two, and is the precursor for his critique in Zettel’s Traum of the so25 called poet-priests. As a deliberate, rational writing process, construc26 tion refers to writing as work and not as intuitively given. Schmidt’s proposed distinction between intuition and construction establishes a differentiation between the organic and non-organic work of art. The constructed character of the literary text thus negates the idealization of the traditional concept of the organic work of art. These observations must suffice to question arguments such as that made by Horst Thomé that Schmidt’s realistic narration shows that he 27 maintains the mimetic character of art. Undoubtedly, as Robert Weninger writes, Schmidt was a master of narrative deception and dissimula28 tion. But this does not suggest, as Thomé argues, that Schmidt’s concept of literary realism relies on the traditional dichotomy between subject and objective reality, or that his convictions are identical with the narrator of the texts, as the majority of Schmidt criticism seem to sug29 gest. The unwillingness to differentiate between fact and fiction, and the readiness to read biographical details and other historic points of references as proof of authenticity, as the representation of reality, have resulted in what Julia Schmidt describes as a relatively homogeneous 30 criticism on Schmidt. The inability to view the object of representation outside of the context of the subject who perceives it has paralyzed inquiries into Schmidt’s writings. Lutz Prütting observes that this normative model of interpretation — which aims at the reconstruction of the 31 author — reduces fictional texts to a reproduction of meaning. Unfortunately this model still represents the dominant approach to reading Schmidt’s texts. To address this problem of fact and fiction differently: Although Schmidt confronts the reader with statements such as “Weiterhin ist das Mengenverhältnis der imaginären und realen »Hälften« zu untersuchen und annähernd festzulegen,” the question remains how we are able to 32 distinguish what is imaginary and what is real. If Schmidt’s objectivity is possible by means of a third “I,” the narrator, who can distinguish between the recollecting I and the recollected I by virtue of some prior knowledge of the world, then Schmidt’s claim to differentiate between

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fact and fiction makes sense only if it is the product of a subjective, that is, individual act of consciousness. Even if we follow the distinction by calculating the proportion between what is imaginary and what is real, and attempt to detach the scientific theory from the standpoint of individual interest, the question remains whether there can be a kind of Archimedean point standing outside of history. Be that as it may, to conclude that Schmidt’s early prose represents the author’s narcissistic mirroring of the self, his life, or his psyche is rather troublesome, since it is typical of many critics’ hesitance to distinguish between fiction and reality. Despite statements such as “‘Bücher’ sind (wenichstns zT, geistije Aktaufnahm des Verfasser, (‘mit Selbstauslöser’)” (ZT 1213), which pervade almost all of Schmidt’s texts, the playful convergence of narrator and author does not authenticate his texts as the literary representation of reality. Finally, pronouncements such as “für die Beschreibung und Durchleuchtung der Welt durch die Worte (die erste Voraussetzung zu jeder Art von Beherrschung)” support my conclusion that Schmidt’s texts 33 overtly draw attention to their own fictional productivity. In this case, language acts as the representation of processes of consciousness, and validates subjective thought processes as objectified means of reflection. Accordingly, Schmidt relies on a concept of language whose premise is to be both representation of consciousness and also its objectification. If representations of consciousness are produced by the imagination of the author, the resulting linguistic representations undermine any possible equation of literature to reality. Linguistic representation of consciousness breaks with individual thought processes and mediates them via linguistic conventions. The objectification of our conscious thoughts, as Jürgen von Stenglin has suggested, inevitably leads to a loss of immedi34 acy. Hence, Schmidt’s literary realism must be limited to a fragmentary yet conformal representation of Schmidt’s own consciousness. Schmidt’s concept of literary realism expresses a self-conscious relation to the figurative character of language. Hence, his early writings establish a concept of reality permeated by indirect representations, that is, the approximation via calculated images. To talk about objective reality means to approach literary realism in terms of signs (of things). Schmidt’s realism may thus, if one will, be grasped as a semiotic materialism. Critic Kurt Jausslin, who alludes to the anti-mimetic thrust in Schmidt’s actual prose practice, observes that there is a significant differ35 ence between Schmidt’s poetic praxis and his theoretical writings. Jausslin’s observation that Schmidt’s texts subvert their author’s intention confirms my previous discussion of authorial intentions in Zettel’s

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Traum and invites the argument that Schmidt lacks consciousness of 36 these problems, as Weninger maintains. Such a conclusion would admittedly undermine the actual role Schmidt assigned for himself, namely that of an experimenter who seeks new ways of writing that correspond to our incomplete intellect, his own included.

Schmidt’s Theory of Typography In “Berechnungen I and II,” Schmidt’s concept of literary realism hinges upon his objections to the metaphysical underpinnings of a canonized literary tradition. His advocacy of a new prose form finds further elaboration in his polemic against linguistic norms. “Berechnungen III,” a fragmentary essay edited and published posthumously, extends his critique of the literary tradition by a polemic against the Duden and the institutionalized phonetic writing system. At stake in all three of these essays is not just the question of what constitutes literary realism, but more importantly, how literary language constructs our understanding and experiences of the world. Schmidt’s increasing experimentation with language finds its first detailed theoretical elaboration in “Berechnungen III.” The essay, written as a critique of the Duden and of German orthography, evinces his awareness of the constructed character of our written language. For Schmidt, grammar symbolizes a technology by which one identifies correct speech and, more particularly, texts. But the classification of language by its basic constituent parts — sounds, words, and grammatical units — has reduced language to phenomena that do not correspond to actual speech acts. As an arbitrary system based on convention, written language reduces the abundance of the speech act to regularities or analogies. For this reason, Schmidt’s linguistic experimentation — his advocacy of a verbal economy, his use of typographic symbols, and elaborations on the role of punctuation — targets this abstract and mechanical reduction of the phonetic writing system. Deploying two distinct styles of writing, marking two intimately related shifts in his understanding of the nature of language, Schmidt first develops his theory of typography, one of the main characteristics of all his writings. Second, his readings of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams lead him to a psychoanalytical method of analysis, in which the etym theory becomes the explanatory vehicle of his notion of language. In “Berechnungen III,” Schmidt focuses on two main aspects of language: the institutionalized phonetic writing system, and the renewal

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of language by the implementation of various writing styles. As in the first two essays, the premise of “Berechnungen III” is to represent reality more suggestively. To achieve this goal of a suggestive reality, Schmidt proposes incorporating acoustic reality into written form, the exact imitation of our acoustic reality by means of typographic symbols. Schmidt starts out with the following example: ‹Sie sah herum:?›” der Doppelpunkt [giebt] das fragend geöffnete Gesicht, das Fragezeichen die Torsion des hergewandten Körpers, das 38 Ganze also »Die Frage« ebenso gültig wieder. . . .

In this example, Schmidt accentuates punctuation as an integral partner in the constitution of meaning and as one of many methods to subvert unrealistic, petrified modes of writing and thinking. His emphasis on punctuation shows that typography signifies meaning and elicits a specific response. The colon signifies the questioning face, and the question mark the turning around of the body. When I call upon somebody, our shared system of language determines the response. But what would we do if the answer to the question “What is it?” were: “ :».«—:»!«— 39 »!!!«.” Normally, the sentence should transcend the act of utterance, allowing the reader to realize the discourse as an event, and to understand its meaning. According to Schmidt, the sentence transcends its utterance, but — as the discussion of punctuation makes clear — the spoken event contains more information than the written words (facial appearances, tone, and inflection). The unresolved question is to what degree the phonetic writing system represents ordinary oral language with all its physical and psychological characteristics. Nonverbal behavior conveys information about the attitude and affective state of a speaker and his or her interpersonal relationship to the conversational partner. Many times nonverbal behavior regulates the flow of conversation and exercises some control over the rate of transmission of verbal material. For instance, verbal productivity (rate of speech) might disclose some physical-anatomical relationship between speech and emotion. Face and facial expressions indicate emotional or attitudinal states revealing happiness, anger, sadness, or state of mind. In the following dialogue between Wilma and Franziska, Wilma’s question reveals her confusion, since she apparently lost the line of thought during the discussion: “Also w o befindn Wir uns grade ?” / - ) :” ä. . . : Icks 111 ?” - Üppsilonn 71 ! - ” (ZT 718). The underlined word “wo” marks her confusion as well as frustration, and the response by Franziska indicated by the three dots following the “ä” expresses Franziska’s hesitancy to answer right away because the question caught her by surprise. Predicta-

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bly, the perplexity results in the wrong answer marked by a question mark and the subsequent self-correction followed by an exclamation mark suggests her relief at being able to provide the right answer. In the following example, “: Moment=bitte -:. . .: ! ” (ZT 718), dots assume a double role. While, in this case, the dots signal a pause, the call for a break, and the exclamation mark reinforces the speaker’s insistence on the pause, they also function as a means of expressing assertiveness. Furthermore, as visual depiction, dots, exclamation marks, and small circles also present staring eyes: “ °!°…°!°…°!°… ” (ZT 1164) and demonstrate the absolute minimum economy of the signifier. Exclamation marks with a single hyphen also describe an action such as a murder: “& sogleich=wieder, schätzungsweise=fümfMal: ‘!‘!‘!‘!‘! ), erstochn= wurde:-)” (ZT 545). The hyphen symbolizes the stabbing of the body, which is represented by the exclamation mark. Schmidt defends the undermining of traditional punctuation by emphasizing the arbitrariness involved in the written transformation of the speech act. For Schmidt the written text thus is not the complete repre40 sentation of the speech act as it actually happens in reality. This distinction opens up the difference between speaking and writing. Schmidt’s aim, the accordance between the actual speech act and script, would guarantee the immediate experience of reality, the “Schtimmung” (ZT 124) of the speech act in the reading process. By arguing for new means of implementing emotive language, Schmidt raises the question about the immutability of language in and of itself. The artificial reduction of the system of language to its purely abstract function eliminates the expressive function and confines it to stagnant fixity. As shown in the above examples, the various mechanisms of emphasis, of the emotional side of parole, allow the reader to experience modifications of intonation, changes in word order, or even omissions. As I discussed in chapter 1, writing, for Schmidt, functions as storage room for a literary tradition and history. To extend this argument further, writing functions also for the preservation of our oral history. Schmidt’s criticism of the phonetic writing system (to be detailed momentarily) suggests that traditional literary writing, instead of transcribing how we really speak and think, only reconstructs our interaction or memory according to linguistic convention. Schmidt’s desire to present acoustic reality in written form points to the fact that writing and memory might function as two principally different forms of orientation and appropriation of reality, as Aleida and Jan Assmann argue, and as such 41 assumes the role of the codification of reality. Schmidt seeks to preserve spoken communication as an historical record of the various forms of

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expressions, perceptions, and experiences of a society. Although writing functions as the collection of oral utterances, according to the Assmanns, writing elaborates, exploits, and integrates the oral tradition, continuing the oral tradition through its own devices and presenting them as litera42 ture. In its existing conventional use, writing alienates spoken language from its local characteristics (dialects, facial expressions, or shifts of meaning). For the late sociologist Niklas Luhmann, writing reproduces and thus automatically manipulates the spoken word, instigating a dis43 tancing reflection about the spoken word. The written fixation of thought culminates in the preservation of meaning through its new 44 formulation, as the Assmanns suggest. Such processing inevitably turns into a form of commentary, exegesis, or allegory. Writing becomes a discourse about another discourse (orality) and consequently ends in the canonization of thought and memory or as an authorial individuality of language. Schmidt’s distinction between pure and applied language attests to the problems inherent in any canonization of orality. For him the phonetic writing system reflects applied language, defined as a literary language that is cultivated, regulated, and artificially adapted for aesthetic use. In contrast, “pure” language underscores its expressive function, 45 and, in its written form, displays a multiplicity of linguistic appearances. For Schmidt, judging the German language solely by its use-value strips speech sound of its immediacy and, thus, eliminates the individual components of the speech act. Grammar regulates language and dissects the expressive function of language into constituent components. It regulates the reading of literary texts by prescribing consistent forms analogous to similar utterances and usages. According to Luhmann, grammar places borders of meaning between system and environment, leading to a purging of psychological and social contexts of the processing of experi46 ences. Such functional differentiation within the semantic system results in a rather ambiguous status of conventional language. On the one hand, a structured, well-defined language provides the necessary means of communication within a given society. On the other hand, the functional character nurtures a systematization of knowledge and becomes dog47 matic. Schmidt’s criticism of the regulatory character of applied language with the subsequent development of this theory of typography has many precursors in the aesthetic theories of artistic movements between 1890 48 and the 1920s in England, Russia, Italy, and Germany. According to Johanna Drucker, “[w]ithin the mainstream of what is known as the avantgarde in this period — Futurism, Dada, Cubism, Vorticism —

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typographic experiment was uniquely suited to express the crossdisciplinary approach to representation which formed one of the central 49 tenets of much artistic practice.” For Drucker, the French writer Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) signals a turning point from which modernity emerges as a radical rethinking of representational strategies within the field of poetics. Mallarmé’s spatial and visual manipulation of the poetic text as in Un Coup de Dés (1897) embodies the ultimate break away from the phenomenal world instigating an avalanche of movements that manipulated the typographic form and spatial distribution. While Mallarmé’s typographic plan for Un Coup de Dés displayed randomness and inadequacy of human thought, the Italian Futurist Filippo T. Marinetti (1876–1944) pushed the boundaries of experimental typography further by calling for a revolutionizing of visual, literary, and graphic forms. In his “Manifeste technique de la literature futuriste” (1912), Marinetti argued for graphic markings through the combination of aesthetic expression of sound, action, and movement, pictorial strategies to map the relations of linguistic elements, and the introduction of mathematical and diacritical marks into the sequence of alphabetical 50 symbols. Like Schmidt, Marinetti sought to free expressive orthography by rupturing the typographical harmony of the page. Using different typefaces, boldface for the onomatopoeias, Marinetti believed in redoubling the expressive force of words. Like Schmidt, Marinetti, in “Manifeste technique,” calls for a radical reordering of language by destroying the existing stifling syntax. Utilizing verbs in the infinitive or replacing punctuation by the system of signs, plus, minus, multiplication, and division, Marinetti precedes Schmidt in that he sought to engage the lyric imagination in the physical materiality of sensation. However, this model of consciousness as continuous stream of changing and dynamic impressions opposes the concept of the lyrical imagination as an individual psyche central to Schmidt. According to Drucker, “[i]n attempting to develop more appropriate means for representing the absent signified, [Marinetti] engaged in the exploration of the presentational elements of 51 graphic effects available through manipulation of the signifier.” It is this elusive presence that Schmidt and Marinetti have in common and that 52 finds a detailed response in Zettel’s Traum. In response to this regulating, containing, and controlling technology of writing, and in order to capture the personal linguistic manifestations of the individual speaker, Schmidt’s theory of typography serves to illuminate the illusionistic nature of literary language. Such an undertaking gives the reader the role of a reader and listener. Implementing nonphonetic signs and other devices, Schmidt transforms the text into a

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quasi transcript of speech. More importantly, Walter Benjamin’s distinction between mere existence and reflective experience resurfaces. Schmidt’s non-phonetic signs represent a change in the structure of our communicative experience by providing colliding linguistic stimuli. The linguistic continuity in Zettel’s Traum is disrupted and transforms the reading experience into a rapid succession of seemingly disconnected images. In Zettel’s Traum, Schmidt depicts the metaphorical character of language by detailing the various typographic forms available and their subversive character in the reading process. His shift of meaning from word to punctuation or pictography — his implementations of comma, quotation, signature, spacing, and other punctuation — contests the legitimacy conventionally ascribed to writing as a means of conveying an unmediated reality. In a discussion of Poe’s abundant utilization of typographic symbols, Dan justifies his “PHILOSOPHY OF DASH” (ZT 173) and “The Philosophy of Point” by arguing that the point represents “‘a second thought’: ‘eine zweite Bedeutung!’” which gives the reader “the choice between 2, or among 3, or more, expressions; one of which may be more forcible than another … but the one principle, that of second thought or emendation, will be found at the bottom of all” (ZT 174). Dan, in his arbitrary fashion, therefore, presents the reader with dashes signifying sexual underpinnings and graphic representations of “Stoßweislichkeiten mehrerer Art” (ZT 242). Dashes can indicate sultry passages (ZT 178), suggest a penis (ZT 172), or represent an intensification of obscene imagination (ZT 174). Such playfulness with graphic representation derides the stylization of professional typographic writing as defined by the Duden. Dan’s play with the German word “Die Gedanknschtriche” (ZT 172) alludes to this fact. By underlining the word “Gedankn,” Dan suggests that dashes are literally unrestricted trains of thoughts, “viel=sinnige Gedankenstriche” (ZT 56). Schmidt’s diversity of style installed through the etymological or literal understanding of words serves to exploit the inherent multiplicity of typographic writing. With their long tradition in the history of the alphabet, non-phonetic signs or ideographs take on various appearances. For instance, the apostrophe marks before or after quotations did not come into regular typographic use until the late sixteenth century and gained significance only 53 in the late eighteenth century. But dashes or guillemets (« ») also function as apostrophes, and their abundant use in Zettel’s Traum suggests 54 that Schmidt was aware of this tradition. Dan, for instance, in posing the question about the origin of writing, maintains that writing derives its origin from drawing, “wenn die ältesten Chinesen die Sonne meinten,

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machten sie n Kreis ‘o’; für ‘Berg’ 3 Spitzn” (ZT 193). To support his argument, he explains that the Greek word graphein means “ja nich nur ‘zeichnen’, sondern auch ‘schreibm’” (ZT 774), because: der Chinese sètzt für ‘Haus’ nu ma die kleine SchemaZeichnung in Giebl Ansicht; und die ‘Römische 3’ zeigt halt ‘drei Figger’ : iii ! ; ergo werden in ‘Buchstabm’ sowohl a) Bilder hineingesteckt worden; als auch, b), ihnen leicht wieder welche (auch ‘neue’) unterzulegn sein. (ZT 774).

The conclusion that pictographic writing provides the origin of written communication remains doubtful, since, according to the French anthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan, figurative art cannot be separated from language and “proceeds from the pairing of phonation with graphic expression. Therefore the object of phonation and graphic expression 55 obviously was the same from the very outset.” Consequently, pictographic writing always already presented associated ideas, abstractions, 56 or metaphors. Schmidt’s reference to the Chinese writing system reveals an interesting similarity between his writing and the Chinese tradition since, as Leroi-Gourhan maintains, the combination of ideographic with phonetic notation in ideograms “has created a highly symbolized relationship between the sound that is noted (auditive phonetic manner) and its 57 notation (a swarm of images).” Thus, the mutual complementary nature of ideographic and phonetic writing of the Chinese writing system reemerges in the relation between Schmidt’s concept of acoustic reality and his concept of “Zeichnen.” Like the Chinese system, Schmidt’s accentuation of the rhythm of words along with the created images sparkle with allusive meaning. In other words, “Chinese” is, for Schmidt, as for many other modernists, an analogy to a metalanguage. Hence, Dan’s conclusion about Poe’s typographic symbols, “[s]eine Interpunktion ist nicht ‘dudisch’, sondern rhetorisch; und subjektiv logisch & inconsequent” (ZT 174), misses the point. For the attentive reader, Poe as well as Schmidt engages in the creation of a world of symbols that form a halo around banal images of words by providing or stimulating parasitic images or, as Leroi-Gourhan suggests, a mode of thought based 58 on diffuse multidimensional configurations. Now Schmidt’s writing in columns appears even more plausible since writing in the narrow sense, especially phonetic writing, evolve from a past of nonlinear writing, as 59 Jacques Derrida upholds. Within such a Derridean understanding the unity of gesture and speech, of body and language, as well as of tool and thought undergoes a profound reconceptualization that makes it impos-

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sible to speak of the originality of a writing system. In view of LeroiGourhan’s concept of multidimensional configurations, Schmidt exposes the conventional writing system as a reduction to linear thought that is based on a linear concept of time and history, as elaborated in chapter 1. The unorthodox writing style of Zettel’s Traum opens up an interplay of style and content and breaks the rules of formation, especially those of syntax, established by conventional grammar. Dan, in examining Poe’s text, points out that “ ‘dashing’ & ‘double=dashing’ ” is one way of breaking the “conventionell=erstarrte Oberfläche” (ZT 174) of the written word. For him linguistic play dissolves the established boundaries of writing, speaking, and thinking. The form of writing becomes the form of content. Punctuation too can give shape to and modify the content or meaning of the sentence: “SiehsDu jetzt=ein Wilma; daß . . . die Form für den Inhalt eintretn könne?” (ZT 466). By incorporating non-phonetic signs — punctuation and dashes — into the phonetic writing system, Schmidt unmasks writing as an artifact. As a result, the referential values of syntax, word order, and sentence construction lose their primary function as the defining aspect of a natural language. Dan provides us with the following example: ‘My nothingness—my wants—my sins—and my contrition—‘; und CAMPBELL merkt bieder dazu an, daß es aus “Imitation of the Persian’ stamme, ‘with commas, where POE has dashes’ . . .” /—:”?”.—/:” O=übersetz doch einfach : ‘Meine Nicht=Ding=heit-meine Wünschungen=Begehrungen—meine Sünden—& meine Zerknirschung sive con=Zerquetschtheit’./ (ZT 174)

The non-phonetic sign’s conventional task, the syntactic and semantic structuring, does not limit its use. Does not the question mark act both as the marker of the end of a sentence, and as a sign that symbolizes 61 the attitude and/or appearance of the questioning speaker? The dash — as a sign — orders the text and structures meaning hierarchically — from more important to less important — and also symbolizes the sharply observant attitude of the view of the speaker. Similarly, the colon functions as a sign of the sentence; it demarcates or divides the following sentence, but also signifies the distancing to a particular position. The meaning of non-phonetic signs always depends upon the immediate context and, as such, varies widely. Words in the sentences sometimes give the meaning of non-phonetic signs. Most often the non-phonetic signs function in an endless myriad of non-specified ways or without context, and not necessarily, as Suhrbier suggests, to provide a sense of 62 orientation. They are a constitutive element in the reading of the text.

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Non-phonetic signs challenge us to read them differently and, as Olaf Werner correctly notes, break away from the systematic character of the 63 conventional mode of writing. For him non-phonetic signs aim through the meaning of facial expression at a different medium of perception, replacing the reading process through an iconic deciphering. Assuming their own logic in the text, non-phonetic signs draw attention to the interpretative instability of even the simplest kind of denotative language. For Doris Plöschberger, non-phonetic signs, like writing in columns, enable a reflection on the technological character of the medium of writing and bar the reader from an internalized automatic process of 64 reception. This different medium of perception exposes conventional language as the effacement of its origin, the metaphorical character of the speech act. As the obliteration of the natural and pure character of the speech act, writing connotes the erasure of the emotive underpinnings of speaking. Assuming a supplementary role that reduces the speech act to a precise and exact language, writing reduces the dimensions of presence 65 in its sign. Hence, non-phonetic signs establish a logic of their own by raising the question about the priority placed on conventional language with its forms of linguistic prediction. Such a subversive act seeks to encourage disbelief in the laws of logic and the rules of grammar by revealing the fundamental plurality of meaning constituting our language. On that account, non-phonetic signs such as the “et-ligatur” or ampersand, the semicolon, or the apostrophe stylistically challenge the authority placed in language as univocal, a fact, for instance, already 66 inherent in the etymology of the ampersand. Evolved from the Latin et, the ampersand is one of the oldest alphabetic abbreviations and assumed 67 over centuries a variety of forms. Dan, confronted with Wilma’s question “Was sindnn überhaupt ‘ampersands’?” responds by maintaining that the ampersand is “Die ältliche Art das ‘und etcetera’ auszusprechen” (ZT 172). For him the ampersand connotes “Popo” (ZT 172), whereas the “Semicolon?: Semen + colon” (ZT 643) functions as a signifier and, 68 because of its shape, an allusion to a penis. Semicolon, written as word, allows the reader to visualize the ambiguity embedded in the semicolon 69 as typographic sign. In this case, “semen” refers to insemination, the injection of ideas in the reading process, whereas the word “colon” points to the intestine of the body, the “Eingeweide” (ZT 175). Apostrophes and ampersands hint at the playful character of the communicative situation itself. As the example shows, non-phonetic signs as signifiers complicate or disrupt the fluidity of communication, raise 70 questions about the addressee, and constantly reconfigure the meaning.

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In addition, apostrophes serve as intensifiers, as images of a particular emotional response. As a signifier, the apostrophe could thus be a figure adopted at the instance of reading. The variety of functions assigned to non-phonetic signs suggests that their function in Zettel’s Traum is to resist narrative, since the sign depends on the contextual circumstances under which it appears. Functioning to abolish frontiers without doing away with differences, Schmidt’s non-phonetic signs designate Zettel’s Traum as a process book that takes on different dimensions in the course of repeated readings. Non-phonetic signs undermine literary language conceived of as a linguistic whole, as abstract linguistic markers or, as Friedrich Ott suggests, as unitary, by indicating the aposiopesis of the disintegration of the 71 logic of thought. Resulting in a parody of the logical and expressive structure of literary language, Schmidt’s typography taunts the deceptive 72 written word by a satirical destruction of syntactic structures. In so doing, he reduces to absurdity any claim that language should represent an unmediated intention or expressive excess, such as that frequently made by postwar German literary critics. Logical accented aspects of words, such as predication and explanation, appear as false and inadequate to experience any sense of reality. Examples such as “%ual” (ZT 159), referring to percentage points, “*=Geschenk” (ZT 618), meaning birthday present, “2=Glein” (ZT 979), meaning a branch of a tree (Zweiglein), or the number eight symbolizing a woman’s torso (ZT 541) stimulate a creative reading practice but, more importantly, they question 73 the semantic rules organizing words into higher grammatical units. This form of “agrammaticism” reduces the sentences to a mere compilation of words and letters rupturing the “Wortverschalung” by dispersing the “Wort=Decke in Schollen & Halbsätzchen” or “‘fissures’ & Spalten” 74 (ZT 174). In dissolving word order and grammatical coordination, such an impairment of linguistic entities breaks with the restrictive framework usually enforced by writing. As instruments of humorous prevarication, non-phonetic signs such as “x+1=orbitant” (ZT 97) gain significance through the essential arbitrariness of any sign’s relationship to a particular referent. Already on the acoustic level, the listening experience signals the differences in signification. If we pronounce the grapheme “x” as an English phoneme, then we say “eks plus one orbitant,” a linguistic enhancement of the word “exorbitant” through mathematical means. From a purely mathematical point of view, this quotation in German also suggests a mathematical equation “iks plus one equals orbitant.” Since the morpheme “orbitant” derives from the Latin “orbis” meaning circle, the reader discovers the

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geometrical context of mathematics. Seen from within the context of algebra — the art of manipulating formal mathematical expressions such as equations, formulas, or inequalities — “x” functions as the idea of a variable. In the example above, the letter “x” refers to a variable, that is, “x” denotes arbitrary individual numbers in the sense that any particular number may be substituted by “x.” A variable assumes the function of a sign whose meaning within an algebraic expression lies in certain other, necessarily absent, signs. Apart from the mathematical context, “X” lends itself to several other allusions. In the writings of Poe, Dan observes, the sign “X” receives “mehrfach= sinnreichn Slang=Bedeutungn von ‘X & x’ ” (ZT 780). The reader encounters Dan’s argument that “x” could mean “to have intercourse with a woman” since “X” refers to “cross.” “X” also relates to “X=treme” (ZT 780). Like the “X” the letter “O” receives special treatment since “o” signifies “Rundloch” or a “Brille” or visually depicts the spatial dimension of “wind=O,” a round window in 76 a house (ZT 780). When Dan, for instance, describes Poe’s character as “3/5 of him genius; and 2/5 sheer fudge” (ZT 17) or Wilma as “zu je 1/3 spöttisch=mütterlich= mitleidIch” (ZT 859) so as to achieve some ironic accuracy in assessing personality traits, he implodes the coherence of the conventional concept of writing. By subverting the systematized and dogmatic nature of writing, Schmidt’s experimentation with the processes of signification also stresses the negative moment associated with 77 experimental literature. The destruction of words and the vehement opposition toward ossified language and thoughts of the “steifer . . . GelehrtnSprache” (ZT 806) contests the universal rule of quantifying thought and behavior. The crossing of sanctified boundaries represents the negative moment by subverting conventional language, depicted by Dan as “ ‘Verkleidungen’ ” (ZT 510), and the destruction of our habitual engagement in communication, the “Wunsch nach wolltätlicher Klarheit” (ZT 510). As a form of indirect political resistance, the negative moment creates alternative discourses in opposition to the established forms of communication. The negative moment attains an emancipating effect, and thus a constructive side, contrary to Torsten Schmandt’s assertion that the avant-garde character of Schmidt’s texts fundamentally 78 undermines its enlightening function. Both aspects of the negative moment thus appear as a manifestation of the rational activity of a conscious subject, and as a manifestation of the subject’s inability to control the process of signification. Schmidt’s use of non-phonetic signs has thus a central ambivalence. Non-phonetic signs are a product of a rational subject, in this case the writer Schmidt. However, the writer Schmidt has

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no control over the signification processes. The effect of the nonphonetic signs lies in the creation of multiple meanings. They function to produce fictive, discursive events. In following Schmidt’s reasoning, that is, to dissolve the unnatural strictures of the written language, the reader gains a more realistic experience of the spoken word. The description of vocal effects introduces a reading experience that dissolves the aporetic contradiction between speech and grammar. As readers are conditioned to read for information, or ideas, Schmidt’s implementation of typography demands an ability to perceive the aspects of sound images. In using semicolons, dashes, or numbers, Schmidt seeks to enable the reader to experience the subtleties of ordinary language, the knowledge of its aspects perceived in sound. Language comes alive when read aloud or visualized, creating interplay of the senses. Through its different mode of representation, the sound of speech generates an awareness of possible meanings. Sounded forms of language seek to convey a sense of realistic speech situations and establish a basis for more complex auditory receptions. By attempting to present the complex vocal dynamics, Schmidt recognizes the flexibility of the auditory imagination. Inseparable from sense, sound attains equivalent status. For Schmidt both forms are equally important to our language. The attempt to apprehend the materiality of sound itself — as paradoxical as that may be — defines his understanding of language as a reflective experience. But, as Friedrich Kittler has argued for writing around the turn of 79 the nineteenth century, writing has become its own medium. In accordance with Kittler’s observation that writing in the discourse network of 1900 was only one medium among others, Schmidt’s theory of typogra80 phy remains caught in a paradox he is unable to solve. To preserve speech as objectified text and simultaneously capture the immediacy of acoustic data requires a typewriter, an instrument Schmidt was very fond 81 of when writing Zettel’s Traum. As Kittler convincingly demonstrates, it is precisely this use of the technological media that disables Schmidt’s desire to apprehend the materiality of sound itself. Like the writers of the turn of the nineteenth century, Schmidt adopts a medium that confines him to a mechanical inscription of sounds in letters as dictated by the keyboard. Schmidt records — that is, transcribes — the shape of sound waves, visual and acoustic effects. In this attempt to write down the immediacy of acoustic and visual data, he eliminates all the individuality of script. But, in contrast to writers like Marinetti or the French essayist and poet Paul Valéry (1871–1945), Schmidt fails to recognize that transcribing visual or acoustic data constitutes an act of translation by mate-

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rial means, rendering impossible his idea of conveying a sense of realistic speech situations. Moreover, the use of the typewriter invalidates Schmidt’s quest to free writer and reader from the mechanics of conventional language. Instead, as Kittler correctly demonstrates, with the emergence of the typewriter, writing “became selection from a countable, spatialized supply. . . . The only tasks in the transposition from keyboard to text remained the manipulations of permutation and combi82 nation.” As my discussion of Schmidt’s theory of typography has shown, he was a master of creative manipulations of letters but remained oblivious to the changing media ecology he pays tribute to as part of the 83 effects of his own writing program. For Kittler, the contradictions of Schmidt’s typographical play (mimetic-nonmimetic) would be symptomatic of the creative anxieties that confronted the avant-garde writer in the early twentieth century. These anxieties are, if anything, heightened by the fact that Schmidt worked in the second half of the twentieth century as a late descendant of the modernists. Like his literary predecessors of the turn of the nineteenth century, Schmidt seeks to answer the question of how to creatively respond to the fact that writing ceased to hold the media monopoly on the storage and transmission of culture’s visual and acoustic data. Without doubt, Schmidt seems caught between two different cultural models or imperatives: writing must find new ways to reproduce speech; writing must be about writing. As such, Schmidt’s dilemma is entirely symptomatic of modernist avant-garde writing, for example, that of Mallarmé or Valéry. For Valéry capturing the acoustic data would mean that “language is transformed first into nonlanguage and then, if we wish, into a 84 form of language different from the original form.” Schmidt’s theory of typography and his ideas on poetry as mathematics of writing enable the reader to reflect on the problematic of representation, but his understanding of language reveals additional ambiguities. Since the traditional phonetic writing system exemplifies the dissimulation of the natural, primary, and immediate presence in the act of speaking and, thus, symbolizes alienation, Schmidt certainly exposes the inability of literary language to present presence. However, following Valéry’s reasoning, Schmidt’s argument for acoustic reality as unmediated presence in written form remains flawed. Whether we speak of non-phonetic signs, numerals, or other devices, the act of communication, regardless of its appearances, accords with the larger mediative character of language. Thus, non-phonetic signs or any other nontraditional element must automatically assume the status of a meta-sign, rendering Schmidt’s distinction between pure and applied

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language nonsense. Assertions such as “[e]ine phonetische Schreibweise lehne ich für mich ebenfalls ab” invite the speculation whether Schmidt 85 was fully aware of the implications of his statements. If his rejection of what he calls applied language refers to language defined by grammatical rules and by the lexicon, as the following commentary suggests — “. . . das Aussagevermögen eines Wortes, bei Versteifung auf seine übliche ‘Recht=Schreibung’ [wird], nicht=erschöpft, ja nur allzuoft direkt blockiert” (ZT 278) — then non-phonetic signs fulfill their designated role as enhancement of the possibility of linguistic appearances. If Schmidt perceives of pure language as the inauguration of a language independent of writing, then his statement about applied language invalidates itself. Phonetic and non-phonetic signs are the abstract characteristics of typical elements but neither can be pure qualities of an entire 86 system of writing. Caught within the structure of signification, Schmidt’s concept of pure language must inscribe itself within the system of phonetic differences. From the beginning, non-phonetic signs or numbers as abstractions invoke their role as quasi meta-signs, since numbers are like signs and 87 words, appearances, and representations. In their written form, nonphonetic signs illuminate the absence of the alphabetical system. Thus Schmidt’s play with non-phonetic signs revolves around the idea of an abstract sign, a sign about a sign. As typographical markers derived from the alphabet, non-phonetic signs always, at the same time, oscillate ambiguously between the abstract character of ciphers and codes, and a character of absent presence described as a gesture — as a permanent sign independent of any physical interpretation — in the form of a graphic medium. In short, non-phonetic signs or numerals within a particular convention of language always imply absence. Aside from my reservation about his distinction between pure and applied language, Schmidt’s use of non-phonetic signs elicits further insights that give his concept of literary realism a powerful role. As a visual code depicting acoustic reality, non-phonetic signs transform the reading process into an illusionary presentation of reality. Moreover, this abstract level is complemented by Schmidt’s constant allusions to historical events: “Erzählen Sie mir doch nicht, daß Hitlers stets 98% Wahler88 folge gefährdet gewesen wären: das hatte er gar nicht nötig.” He also makes reference to political figures such as “‹Krusch=tschoffs› und ‹Ullbrichz›.” Through these references, Schmidt’s writing produces multiple 89 signs (images). For example, “Ullbrichz” could signify the physical or political fragility of the East German president or refer to his political menace as a dictatorial politician who cracks down on opposition (the

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German word brechen means either to break or to fall apart). Similarly, “Krusch=tschoffs” insinuates that the Russian prime minister is a brutal man, a politician who crushes (“Krusch”) any resistance. By placing the politicians side by side, Schmidt induces in the reader reflections about the Eastern bloc countries. Each date, name, or locale offers an illusionist representation of some real or imagined visual scene. Non-phonetic signs, mathematical calculations or any other devices therefore represent items in what is taken to be a prior reality (actual names, dates). Such a system of signs enacts a thought experiment (calculating or envisioning) about this reality through the agency of this meta-sign (imaginary, abstraction). In each case of a number or other non-phonetic signs, the process of assignation hinges on this quasi meta-sign and determines the relation between the reader, writer, and reality. Eventually Schmidt’s literary realism shifts from object or acoustic reality to sign, from presentation to representation or a secondary manufactured description. It is this ambiguous role played by the dates, numbers, and locales that subvert the prevalent dichotomy of external and internal reality. Moreover, this shift then deconstructs the anteriority to signs that this reality is supposed to enjoy. What gives Schmidt’s concept of realism credence is a certain highly convincing illusion of 90 reality. If a reader, and, ironically for that matter, the literary critic, subscribes to Schmidt’s concept of realism, then the signs of the system, 91 names, and dates become autonomous. Schmidt’s concept of realism as a self-reflexive system of signs becomes then both the source of reality, describing what is real, and offers the means of viewing this reality as if it manifested some domain external and prior to itself. As my elaboration of the concept of realism shows, Schmidt destabilizes language as the fundamental correspondence between the signifier and signified. His play with typographical signs always alludes to the fact that language is not univocal. On the contrary, conventional writing, literary language in particular, always discloses a deficiency or the absence of presence. The grammatical structuring of language disables the possibility of exploiting or fully expressing all resources of language. In this sense, grammar assumes the role of determining the terms of thought and the rules for thought, and provides a foundation for all forms of 92 knowledge. The limits of knowledge provide an unquestionable foundation for the way in which we experience knowledge, and promise the 93 finitude and wholeness of our human existence. Schmidt sought to ridicule and to subvert this mode of thinking prevailing in postwar East and West German literary criticism. The dualism defined through a normative and mimetic conception of language, characterizes, for in-

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stance, on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, Georg Lukács and Emil Staiger, whose negative responses to avant-garde literature are strikingly 94 similar, given their seeming Cold War ideological opposition. Staiger, in his general attack on experimental literature, accuses expressionism of abandoning truth, values, community spirit, and ideals. Terming modern literature a degeneration of that will to a community that contributed to the downfall of Germany, Staiger confirms Schmidt’s polemical observation that “Auch ›uns‹ gilt — man sei doch ehrlich — 95 Barlach oder der Expressionismus längst wieder als ‹entartete› Kunst!” Whereas Staiger belongs to a rather extreme conservative and traditional group of literary scholars, their objections toward experimental art echo in the unending ideological confrontations among literary schools in both East and West Germany concerning the value of expressionism. Within the context of the Cold War, West German literary critics disqualified the concept of socialist realism as “the aesthetic expression of backward looking authoritarian ideologies (Fascism, Stalinism)” as Jost Hermand puts it, and presented a concept of modernism that valorized writers such as Joyce, Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), and 96 Gottfried Benn (1886–1956). Negating such concepts as the collective or pragmatic and positive values of social realism, postwar West German literary criticism stressed subjectivism, existentialism and apocalypticism. As Friedhelm Kröll observes, much of post-1945 German literary criticism, particularly at the universities, perceived itself as watchdog of the canon, the protector of Occidental eternal values, and as a special contributor to an ideal of education, defending against symptoms of sickness and decadence in the present, and validating a tradition that seeks to 97 install conformity and harmony. In contrast to West German literary criticism, East German literary criticism adopted a harsh opposition toward any form of literary experimentation. During the 1950s, Georg Lukács dominated the discussion surrounding the value of experimental literature. As early as the 1930s, in a debate on realism and modernism with Bertolt Brecht, Lukács char98 acterized the expressionists as precursors of German fascism. According to Lukács, their literary techniques, and their underlying extreme subjectivism, their depiction of a fragmented world, provoked the dissolution of real social relations. Their solipsism, advocacy of spirituality, and stance as members of an intellectual elite were easily transferable to fascism. The glorification of chaos and inhumanity in their writings only 99 demonstrates the already existing decay or barbarism of the times. In his essay “Wider den mißverstandenen realismus,” Lukács continued to attack experimental literature by deeming the writings of Joyce, Kafka,

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Beckett, and Koeppen as equally decadent. For Lukács, all great art presents a social reality in which the apparent contradiction between immediate experience and historical developments may be overcome. In response to the decadence of experimental literature, Lukács’s concept of realism stresses the ability of literary texts to surmount fragmentation and alienation. Lukács thus argues that literature must have a clear societal-humanistic vision of normalcy. Without such vision, literature 101 cannot place distortion in its right place. Through the reception of this totality, the reader experiences the reintegration of a seemingly frag102 mented, inhumane world. Schmidt’s criticism of the grammatical structuring of language shows a hostility toward the idea of any ultimate revelation of truth embedded in a notion of language that claims an authentic, original, or primary foundation. There is no divine principle of intelligibility or other means of explaining or determining the sequence or value of signifiers within language. Thus, when Schmidt maintains that our simplest sense perceptions, although not false from the start, can yet only constitute a sort of approach to reality, he argues in direct opposition to a metaphysical tradition of language that hinges upon binary oppositions: true and false, or real and apparent. Schmidt’s deployment of various writing styles, with his various games of irony, parody, and innuendo, dismisses this 103 “Ideal der Einknopfbedienung unserer Literatur.” In contrast to this idealization of language and literature, Schmidt’s text not only refuses to be systematized or formalized but also aims at least to question if not destroy a logical understanding of the world. His tirades against the Duden and Germanistik reveal his opposition to a metaphysical tradition 104 whose goal is always to establish absolute identities or causalities. Following Schmidt’s reasoning, the transformation of the restricted language code into the open character of the metaphorical economy liberates the whole field of signification from its traditional limitation. In lifting restrictions, for example, of privileged epistemological and metaphysical sets of valuations, or in eliminating particular grammatical rules, Schmidt seeks to activate a process of differentiation and signification. In removing any restrictions resulting from grammatical conventions, the reader participates in a double-layered process of deciphering. First the 105 reader undertakes a historical deconstruction of the terms involved. Second, by analyzing the grammatical categories, the reader confronts a pseudo-unified system of thought assured by the limitations of language. It is this alleged unity embedded in the concept of high art that Schmidt intends to unmask.

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Denouncing the grammatical habits that lock us into binary oppositions, Schmidt sought to lead language back from grammar to the naked 106 power of speech encountering the untamed being of words. Schmidt observes that the functional appropriation of language in the nineteenthcentury resulted in a literature that contested philology: “der große, entscheidende sprachliche Nachschub und Antrieb kommt, seit etwa 1850, (und völlig mit Recht) zu 95 Prozent aus Technik und Indus107 trie.” As much as Schmidt welcomes this development, he nonetheless points to its likely negative consequence: “‹Erstarrung› : das ist die 108 größte Gefahr aller Dichtung —: alles Lebens überhaupt.” The limitations imposed upon language by philologists and literary critics are precisely the objects of doubt in his essays of the 1950s. By accentuating the writing process as the reflection about writing, about form, about language itself, Schmidt asks the same question as Foucault asked about the nature of language in the nineteenth century: “What is language, how can we find a way round it in order to make it appear in itself, in all its 109 plenitude?”

Notes 1

Arno Schmidt, Bargfelder Ausgabe (Zurich: Haffmans, 1995), 3.4:236.

2

According to Foucault prior to the end of the sixteenth century our system of knowledge relied on a concept of natural organicity, that is, the totality of a historical a priori formulated by the self-contained discourse of the res publica litteraria in which all things were interconnected and referred back to each other. Within this understanding of epistemological configurations, signs referred to their referents and identity, itself whole and unified, reflected the unity of an organic system providing a universal principle of cognition. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage House, 1994), 310–11. 3

Schmidt, “Berechnungen I,” BA 3.3:161–68.

4

Schmidt, BA 3.3:164.

5

Schmidt, BA 3.4:164.

6

Epicycloid and hypocycloid describe a family of curves. According to Glenn James & Robert James, Mathematics Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1968), a hypocycloid is “[t]he plane locus of a point, P, fixed on a circle which rolls on the inside of a given fixed circle” (180). While the hypocycloid rolls within a circle, an epicycloid rolls on the outside of a fixed circle: “The plane locus of a point fixed on the circumference of a circle as the circle rolls on the outside of a fixed circle (remaining in the same plane as the fixed circle)” (130). The epicycloid curve is of special interest to astronomers, who find it in various coronas and was first conceived by the Dane Ole Roemer in 1674. The lemniscate is the inverse curve of the hyperbola with respect to its center. According to the dictionary, a

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lemniscate is defined as “[t]he plane locus of the point perpendicular from the origin to a variable tangent to the equilateral hyperbola . . .” (213). The Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli (16541705), one of the founders of calculus, first named this curve the lemniscus (Latin for “a pendant ribbon”). But the general properties of the leminiscate were discovered 1750 by Giulio Fagnano (1682–1766). 7

Bernhard Sorg, “Die frühen Erzählungen und Kurzromane,” in Arno Schmidt. Leben — Werk — Wirkung, ed. Michael Schardt and Hartmut Vollmer (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 1990), 109–120, here 112. 8 Schmidt, BA 3.3:279. 9

Schmidt, BA 3.3:279. An American reader might here be irreverently reminded of the writer and cartoonist James Thurber’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947). 10

Schmidt, BA 3.3:280. Johann Gottfried Schnabel (1692–1752) published his novel in four volumes in 1731, 1732, 1736, and 1752 under the title Wunderliche Fata einiger See-Fahrer, absonderlich Alberti Julii . . . entworffen Von dessen Bruders-Sohnes-Sohnes-Sohne, Monsd. Eberhard Julia. Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853) reedited and published the four volumes again in 1828 under the title Die Insel Felsenburg. 11

12

Michael Minden, Arno Schmidt: A Critical Study of his Prose (Cambridge: UP Cambridge, 1982), 96. 13

Responding to Charles Darwin’s observation of the division between poetry and natural sciences, E. T. A. Hoffmann, one of the figures in Schmidt’s “Dichtergespräche im Elysium,” pronounces: Siehst du denn nicht ein, daß hier in der Alchimie endlich einmal das Größte getan, daß hier die Synthesis von Dichtung und Wissenschaft vollzogen war: Das ist die Aufgabe!!!- Willst du nicht begreifen, wie erbärmlich es ist, wenn man nur Wissenschaftler oder Dichter sein will. (Schmidt, BA 1:4:295) 14

See Foucault’s discussion of the “Human Sciences” in The Order of Things, 344– 86. 15

Here Schmidt clearly echoes Novalis’s concept of science in Tagebücher und Briefe, vols. 1–2 of Werke, eds. Hans Joachim Mähl and Richard Samuel (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1978), 2:501, no. 146. 16 Schmidt, BA 3.3:279. 17

See also Novalis’s principle of approximation, Werke 2:530, no. 314.

18

Schmidt, BA 1:1:46.

19

See Hartwig Suhrbier, Zur Prosatheorie von Arno Schmidt (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1980), 14. 20

Martin Lowsky, “Zählen und Erzählen. Über Arno Schmidt mathematicus,” Zettelkasten 10 (1991): 246. See also Michael Minden who views the term “conformal representation” as a geometrical term with special application in cartography, that is, “the conserving of the size of all angles in the representation of one surface on another” (Arno Schmidt: A Critical Study of his Prose, 28). 21

Lowsky “Zählen und Erzählen,” 247. Moreover, Lowsky concludes that “[d]ie mathematischen Äußerungen in Schmidts Werk [. . .] gelegentlich in sich fragwürdig

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. . . [sind],” and that “Schmidt von der modernen Mathematik, von der Mathematik, die sich den Naturwissenschaften entfernt hat, nichts gewußt hat” (254). 22

Jürgen von Stenglin, “Der Schreibtisch als imaginierter Stammtisch. Zu Arno Schmidts Berechnungen,” in Arno Schmidt, das Frühwerk III, ed. Matthias Schardt (Aachen: Alano-Verlag, 1989), 234. 23

Schmidt, BA 3.3:356–69.

24

Schmidt, BA 3.3:254–58.

25

In this essay, Schmidt writes: Es handelt sich nämlich im letzten Grunde lediglich um die Verfahrensweisen zweier ‹Schulen›. Um die einen, die von der Intuition her kommen; und die anderen, die ihre Kunstwerke auf dem Wege der Konstruktion herstellen! Die einen ‹zaubern›; d.h. sie beginnen zu schreiben, ohne Plan, aus der Vision heraus . . . [d]ie ‹Anderen› : ‹montieren›; . . . die einen sind aufs artigste poetisch . . . die anderen beschreiben ‹Zustände› und sind nicht nur poetisch sondern auch noch ‹kulturgeschichtlich› wichtig. (BA 3.3:358–59)

26

Both aspects, as Peter Bürger points out in Theory of the Avant-garde (Minneapolis: UP of Minnesota, 1984), 56, explode the coherence and autonomy of the work of art, instituting the differentiation between the organic and the nonorganic work of art. Bürger suggests that in the organic work of art there is no mediation between the unity of the universal and the particular, whereas in the nonorganic (allegorical) work the unity is a mediated one. 27

Horst Thomé, Natur und Geschichte im Frühwerk Arno Schmidt (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1981), 123. 28

Robert Weninger, Framing a Novelist: Arno Schmidt Criticism 1970–1994 (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1995), 71.

29

Thomé, Natur und Geschichte, 104. Dieter Kuhn, for instance, upholds the argument that narrator and author’s convictions are identical. He maintains: “Dabei wird zwischen Äußerungen der fiktiven Ich-Erzähler bei Schmidt und solchen des Autors selbst nicht unterschieden, ein Verfahren, das angesichts der unbestrittenen sehr weitgehenden Ähnlichkeiten ihres Verfassers sicherlich zu rechtfertigen ist” (Dieter Kuhn, Das Mißverständnis: Polemische Überlegungen zum politischen Standort Arno Schmidts [Munich: edition text + kritik, 1982], 4–5).

30

See also Julia Schmidt, “Die Schule des Verdachts. Schwerpunkte und Hermeneutische Probleme der Arno Schmidt-Forschung,” Neophilologus 78 (1994): 119–29.

31

Lutz Prütting, “Die Wissensprobe. Hermeneutische Probleme im Umgang mit dem Werk Arno Schmidts,” in Gebirgslandschaft mit Arno Schmidt. Grazer Symposium 1980, ed. Jörg Drews (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1980), 135. 32 Schmidt, ZdL 4:357. 33

Schmidt, BA 3.3:163.

34

von Stenglin, “Der Schreibtisch als imaginierter Stammtisch,” 233.

35

Kurt Jausslin, “Baconberkelylockeandhume: wieso lesen wir eigentlich so? Zur Logik des Erzählens in einigen Prosaformen Arno Schmidts,” Zettelkasten 8 (1990): 49.

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36

Robert Weninger, Arno Schmidts Joyce-Rezeption 1957–1970 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982), 21. 37 Accordingly Herrmann-Trentepohl concludes that “das Werk der 60er Jahre (Zettels Traum ausgeschlossen) polyphone Elemente aufweist . . .” (Dialoge. Polyphonie und Karneval im Spätwerk Arno Schmidts [Munich: iudicum Verlag, 1998], 93). 38

Schmidt, ZdL 4:365. See also Jochen Meißner’s discussion of this quote. “Vor der Schrift zum Hypertext. Typographie in der Schule der Atheisten” in »Alles=gewendet!« Zu Arno Schmidts »Die Schule der Atheisten«, eds. Horst Denkler & Carsten Würmann. (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2000), 242. 39

Schmidt, ZdL 4:365. This quote is translated as: »Geradeaus, rechts.« : »Nicht doch : immer auf der Seite da! « : :» Zum Teufel, nein : hundert Meter, und dann rennen Sie mit der Nase drauf!!!« 40 It is this important aspect among several others that Rüdiger Zymner omits in his discussion of the typographic symbols (Manerismus. Zur Poetischen Artistik bei Johann Fischart. Jean Paul und Arno Schmidt [Paderborn: Schöningh, 1995]). It is not sufficient to argue that the use of typographic symbols solely functions as a poetic principle of style in order to represent acoustic reality (290). The inclusion of Schmidt’s tirades against the Duden and the phonetic writings system would have given his analysis more strength. 41

Aleida and Jan Assmann, “Schrift und Gedächtnis,” in Schrift und Gedächtnis. Archäologie der literarischen Kommunikation I, eds. Aleida Assmann et al. (Munich: Fink, 1983), 268. 42

Assmann, “Schrift und Gedächtnis,” 272.

43

Accordingly, Luhman argues that in contrast to the spoken or the reproduced meaning in the speech act, where one absorbs the activity of listening to the presentation, the written form literally asks us to judge it from a distance (Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik I [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1993], 47). 44

“Schrift und Gedächtnis,” 279.

45

In the essay “Gesegnete Majuskeln,” Schmidt renders the following reasoning: Seit Jahren [habe ich] das vergipste Gravitationszentrum des Gebrauchsdeutschen verlassen . . . und bewußt in den Randgebieten unserer Sprache und Bayous neue Wege [gesucht] . . . um die Fülle der [Wort] Erscheinungen linguistisch einzuholen, sie immer überlegener zu benennen . . . und Neues sichtbar zu machen. (BA 3:3.1:107)

46

Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik I, 52.

47

Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik I, 50.

48

See also Gregor Strick’s discussion of Schmidt’s language skepticism in reference to Nietzsche, von Hoffmannsthal and experimental literature at the turn of the century (An den Grenzen der Sprache: Poetik. Poetische Praxis und Psychoanalyse in “Zettels Traum,” Zu Arno Schmidts Freud-Rezeption [Munich: edition text + kritik, 1993], 61ff). 49 Johanna Drucker, The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909–1923 (Chicago: UP of Chicago, 1994), 49.

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50

Filippo T. Marinetti, Selected Writings, ed. R. W. Flint (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1971). 51 Drucker, The Visible Word, 117. 52

Marinetti is only one of many writers that can serve as example for a precursor to Schmidt’s theory of typography. There has been no detailed study on Schmidt delineating his affinities with or influences from the early avant-garde authors such as Apollinaire (1880–1918). Marinetti’s most famous collection, Calligrammes (1918) would serve as an excellent example to compare to Schmidt’s approach to typographic enunciation. 53

Richard Firmage, The ALPHABET ABECEDARIUM. Some Notes on Letters (Boston: Godine Publishers, 1993), 286.

54

According to Robert Bringhurst, guillemet means Little Willy, in honor of the sixteenth-century French typographer Guillaume Le Bé. Other names are chevrons, duck feet, and angle quotes (The Elements of Typographic Style (Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 1996), 179. 55

André Leroi-Gourhan, Gesture and Speech (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), 192.

56

Firmage, The ALPHABET, 6.

57

Leroi-Gourhan, Gesture and Speech, 207.

58

Leroi-Gourhan, Gesture and Speech, 205.

59

Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: UP Johns Hopkins, 1976), 85. Derrida, Of Grammatology, 85.

60 61

According to Firmage, following Bilderdijk, the question mark is “a combination of the first and last letters of the Latin word quaestio — ‘question’ — placed one over the other as was a quite common early practice in writing abbreviations” (The ALPHABET, 287). 62

Suhrbier suggests: “[d]ie Hauptfunktion von Schmidts zuweilen exzessiver Satzzeichenverwendung besteht darin, daß die gelockerte Textsstruktur sinngebend gegliedert wird” (Zur Prosatheorie Arno Schmidts, 35). 63 Olaf Werner, Wortwelten: zu Bedeutungstransport und Metaphorik bei Arno Schmidt (Hamburg: UNI PRESS Hochschulschriften, 1992), 92. 64

Doris Plöschberger, “›Zur Sprache nur dieses: Meine wäre »künstlich«?‹ Medienästhetische Überlegungen zu Arno Schmidts ›VerschreibKunst‹,” Bargfelder Bote no. 222–24 (1998): 16–36, here 16–17. 65

My reading at this juncture is informed by Derrida’s notion of the supplement. According to Derrida, “the concept of the supplement . . . harbors within itself two significations whose cohabitation is as strange as it is necessary. The supplement adds itself, it is a surplus, a plentitude enriching another plenitude, the fullest measure of presence. It cumulates and accumulates presence” (Of Grammatology, 114). 66

Firmage, quoting William Mason, observes that a ligature combines the letters of the Latin word et (“and”) and functions as abbreviated form of “and per se and . . . (that is, and by itself, which is and)” (The ALPHABET 284). Another meaning of the sign ampersand refers to the “Emperor’s hand, from having been first invested by some imperial personage” (284).

SCHMIDT’S CONCEPT OF LITERARY REALISM 67

Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, 78.

68

See also Werner, Wortwelten, 64–65; 91–93.

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69

The colon was inherited from the medieval European scribes. The word colon derives from the Greek language and in classical rhetoric it indicates a long clause. See Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, 274. 70

See Jonathan Culler’s discussion of the apostrophe in The Pursuit of Signs. Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction (Ithaca: UP Cornell, 1981), 135–54.

71

Friedrich Ott, “Typographie als Mimesis,” Zettelkasten 8 (1990): 109.

72

Strick correctly observes that experimental literature defines itself as an attempt “literarische Form und Sprache gegen konventionelle Regeln und gegen den Ratiozentrismus auszudifferenzieren und so die Grenzen der Sprachen zu erweitern” (An den Grenzen der Sprache, 64–65). 73

In European typography, the asterisk takes many forms and appears in the earliest Sumerian pictographic writing. See Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, 272. 74

I borrow this term from Roman Jakobson, On Language, ed. Linda Waugh and Monique Monville-Burston (Cambridge: UP Harvard, 1990), 126. 75

See also the examples given by Dieter Stündel, Zettels Traum (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982), 45–50. Stündel’s itemization of Schmidt’s various stylistic devices is indispensable. However, his work is just that, an inventory with no commentary, discussion, or context. 76

See also Hannelore Wolfram’s discussion of the “X” in “Strategies and Effects of Intertextuality in Contemporary French and German Fiction: Maurice Roche’s ‘Codex’ and Arno Schmidt’s Zettels Traum” (Ph.D. diss., U of Texas, 1989), 154–57. 77 Theodor Adorno, speaking of the literary experimentation of the 1920s’ avantgarde, calls this the testing of unknown and not unauthorized processes (Ästhetische Theorie [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973], 42). 78

Torsten Schmandt, “Das Kunstkonzept des frühen Schmidt im literarischen Diskurs der Nachkriegszeit,” Zettelkasten 14 (1995): 71. 79

Friedrich Kittler, Discourse Networks 1800/1900 (Stanford: UP Stanford, 1990), 182. 80

Kittler, Discourse Networks, 186.

81

According to Jochen Meißner, “ohne die Adler-Schreibmaschine mit dem überbreiten Wagen und den beschränkten Zeichensatz . . . sind Schmidts ‘MaschinenManuskripte’ ebensowenig denkbar wie ohne das ‘SchreiPapier.’” (“Vor der Schrift zum Hypertext. Typographie in der Schule der Atheisten,” 227). 82 83

Kittler, Discourse Networks, 194–95.

Meißner quoting Lenz Prüttig labels Schmidt as “ichblind” because he did not detect “den Schlüssel zum Verständnis seiner eigenen literarischen Technik” (“Vor der Schrift zum Hypertext. Typographie in der Schule der Atheisten,” 231). For Michael Minden, this “very lack of reflection, this very naivity” makes “the strength of Schmidt’s writing” because “Schmidt’s prose works can unfold themselves in a kind of non-reflective reflection . . .” (Arno Schmidt: A Critical Study of his Prose, 13).

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84

Paul Valéry, The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, ed. Jackson Mathews (New York: Pantheon Books, 1958), 65. If we accept Valéry’s argument, then Schmidt’s theory of typography would imply simply the reproduction of acoustic data by images, impulses, or reactions. Valéry captures the metaphoric character of language well when arguing, “Between Voice and Thought, between Thought and Voice, between Presence and Absence, oscillates the poetic pendulum” (Collected Works, 73–74). 85 Schmidt, BA 3: 3.3:107. 86

For an elaboration of this argument see Derrida, Of Grammatology, 89.

87

Brian Rotman (Signifying Nothing: The Semiotics of Zero [London: MacMillian Press, 1987]) traces this aspect of numbers as signs back to the thirteenth century where “the mathematical sign zero” was introduced into the Western consciousness “both in its own right within the writing of numbers and as the emblem of parallel movements in other sign systems” (1). See also Novalis’s argument that numbers are signs, Werke 2: 790, no. 241. 88 Schmidt, BA 1.1:76. 89

Schmidt, BA 1.3:268–69.

90

See also Rotman’s discussion of arithmetical signs in chapter 2 of Signifying Nothing, which informed my reading in this passage. 91 In this sense, I share Josef Huerkamp’s observation that Schmidt’s concept of literary realism is an attempt to express doubts about the “Realitätsadäquation der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung.” As Huerkamp further observes, even if we accept a mimetic concept of art, it always remains entangled in contradictions (Gekettet an Daten und Namen: 3 Studien zum authentischen Erzählen in der Prosa Arno Schmidts [Munich: edition text + kritik, 1981], 130). 92

This of course echoes Foucault’s argument that “the limits of knowledge provide a positive foundation for the possibility of knowing, though in an experience that is always limited, what life, labor, and languages are.” The Order of Things (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 317. 93

As Nietzsche has shown, the grammatical habit of our thinking permits the development of an axiomatic set — identity and causality — confining the composition and structure of experience to dualisms or binary oppositions. For this reason, Nietzsche interrogates the laws of grammar, since it is the unifying basis of Western intelligibility. See Werke in drei Bänden, ed. Karl Schlechta (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1966), 2:584. 94

Emil Staiger (1908–1987) taught at the Universität Zurich. His most influential books are Die Zeit als Einbildungskraft des Dichters (1939), Grundbegriffe der Poetik (1946), and Die Kunst der Interpretation (1955). Another example would be the Germanist Wilhelm Emrich (1909–1998) who taught at the Universität Köln. Emrich assigns to art the role of creating a free aesthetic condition, in which the poet’s fancy acts as a free play of the imagination, placing the individual into a state of purpose-free and interest-free existence, independent of all thought and space/time fixations. Such an understanding of art caters to the illusion of the self-sufficient mind in command of both itself and of reality. It is precisely this mechanism of reification in form of a liberated mind, embodied in the predominant ethical consciousness, that threatens to divide the world into binary oppositions. See Wilhelm

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Emrich, Polemik (Frankfurt: Athenäum Verlag, 1968), 19, and Geist und Widergeist (Frankfurt: Athenäum Verlag, 1965), 77. 95

Schmidt, BA 3.3:388. Emil Staiger, “Literatur und Öffentlichkeit,” Sprache im technischen Zeitalter 22 (1967): 91. 96 Jost Hermand, “Das Konzept Avantgarde,” in Faschismus und Avantgarde, ed. Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand (Königstein a. Ts.: Athenäum, 1980), 10. 97

Friedhelm Kröll, “Literatur und Sozialisation,” in Literatur in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bis 1967, ed. Ludwig Fischer and Rolf Grimminger (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1986), 174. 98

For a detailed discussion of the various debates see Eugene Lunn, Marxism & Modernism: An Historical Study of Lukács, Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno (Berkeley: UP California, 1984), and Susan Buck-Morss, The Origin of Negative Dialectics: Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and the Frankfurt Institute (New York: Free Press, 1979). 99 Georg Lukács, “»Größe und Verfall« des Expressionismus,” in Deutsche Literaturkritik. Vom Dritten Reich bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Hans Mayer (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1978), 4:69–124. 100

Georg Lukács, Wider den mißverstandenen realismus (Hamburg: Claasen, 1958).

101

Lukács, Wider den mißverstandenen realismus, 32.

102

Like Staiger, Lukács follows an argumentation, factored according to the operations of binary oppositions. Words like “decadent,” “chaos,” and “inhumanity” juxtaposed to “order” or “humanity” implicitly suggest a beginning, an origin, and a purpose. Such criticism reveals his regulative system of thought as governed by the axioms of identity and causality. This reduces his analysis of experimental literature to the affirmation of univocal meaning, discrete causes, and the principle of identity. 103 104

Schmidt, BA 3.3:212.

Postwar German literature was thus neither as conformist nor as apolitical or ahistorical as, for instance, Hermand argues, when he maintains that the literature and art movement of the 1950s adhered to what he calls a “konformistischen Nonkonformismus” (“Das Konzept Avantgarde” 10). This generalization about the 1950s lacks differentiation, and does not hold for various members of experimental literature, especially his description of the groups such as “Konkrete Poesie.” This assessment, however, well describes the literary criticism of the time. The pronounced political indifference of West German literary criticism of the 1950s, along with the establishment of an ahistorical canon of “classics of modern literature,” secured by the strict rejection of extraliterary factors, are well documented. See Bernhard Zimmermann “Literary Criticism from 1933 to the Present” in A History of German Literary Criticism, 1730–1980 (Lincoln: UP Nebraska, 1988), 359–438, and Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington: UP Indiana, 1986). According to Huyssen, the decade after the war created the myth of the “golden twenties” and the “conservative revolution” to help “block out and suppress the realities of the fascist past” (191). Seeking “a cultural legitimation for the Adenauer restoration,” literature of the 1950s symbolized a search for a cultural identity that excluded any rebellious and overtly political literature (188).

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In contrast to Hermand’s assertion, the examples of Ernst Jandl, Helmut Heißenbüttel, and others demonstrate the involvement of writers in political and social issues. On that account, Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s rather narrow-minded analysis of the avant-garde (Einzelheiten [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1962]) reveals a misguided polemic against experimental literature. As much as I subscribe to his argument that “die historische Avantgarde [. . .] an ihren Aporien zugrundegegangen [ist],” I nonetheless view his dismissal of experimental literature as regressive, anachronistic, shortsighted, and missing the point (315). It is not a question of whether the word “experimental” is “unsinnig und unbrauchbar,” a conclusion I don’t share, but rather what does a critical potential of art entail (310). To conclude that “jede heutige Avant-garde [. . .] Wiederholung, Betrug oder Selbstbetrug [ist]” makes evident his unwillingness to engage in the critical potential that inheres in experimental literature and proves self-defeating (314). Enzensberger contradicts himself when, on the one hand, he ridicules terms such as “experimental” and “avantgarde,” and thereby, on the other hand, as Heißenbüttel observes, follows the general prejudice against avant-garde art: “Aber er verkennt, daß er sich eben in dieser Terminologie zum Sprecher des allgemeinen Vorurteils macht und für die eintritt, die er anzugreifen meint” (132). Be that as it may, I follow Helmut Heißenbüttel’s suggestion (in Zur Tradition der Moderne. Aufsätze und Anmerkungen 1964–1971 [Berlin: Luchterhand, 1972]) to delineate the critical potential experimental literature has to offer since, “[d]as, was als bloß experimentell zugleich diffamiert und in eine Hinterstube der gewohnten Kunstübungen versteckt werden soll, garantiert allein noch den wahren Fortschritt” (italics mine). 105

Another example for this argument is the Austrian writer Ernst Jandl. As representative of experimental literature in postwar Germany, he reflects Schmidt’s critique of the linguistic norms, and voices his awareness of the inherently political nature of language when he expresses the need to purge oneself of an ideologically infested language that found its ultimate expression in the language politics of the Third Reich: damit alles nach gewissen Normen geschehen und funktionieren konnnte, die es nicht mehr gab, Funktionen, die es nicht mehr zu erfüllen gab, ist dieses genormte Alphabet nichts als eine Erinnerung an fremden Gesetzen, die von Machthabern stammten, deren man sich entledigt hatte. (die schöne kunst des Schreibens [Berlin: Luchterhand, 1976], 56) For an overview of postwar German experimental literature see Rainer Nägele, “Die Arbeit des Textes: Notizen zur experimentellen Literatur,” in Deutsche Literatur in der Bundesrepublik seit 1965, ed. Paul Michael Lützeler and Egon Schwarz (Königstein: Athenäum, 1980), 30–45 and Gerald Stieg, “Konkrete Poesie,” in Literatur nach 1945 II. Themen und Genres, eds. Jost Hermand et al. (Wiesbaden: Akademische Gesellschaft Athenaion, 1979), 22:43–68. 106

Here Schmidt follows Foucault’s argument of returning to the unrestricted use of language. See The Order of Things, 300.

107 108

Schmidt, BA 3.3:352.

Schmidt, BA 3.3:352. This echoes Foucault’s differentiation in The Order of Things between the classical order of language and the scientific objectification of language in the nineteenth century. Foucault outlines three moments: (1) language

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becomes the exact reflection of nonverbal knowledge; (2) critical values are bestowed upon language; and (3) the category of literature appears (300). 109

Foucault, The Order of Things, 306.

3: The Etym Theory Unser Jahrhundert hat 2 Geister hervorgebracht : 1 analytischn: freud; 1 sündthétischn, JOYCE (ZT 585)

A

SMALL DETOUR IS NECESSARY to mark the developments Schmidt underwent before Zettel’s Traum. In the conclusion to “Berechnungen II,” he projects a new prose model based on the dream. The remark hints at Schmidt’s increasing interest in the dream as a literary means of representation and as a subjective demonstration of personal experiences. The small essay “Traumkunstwerke,” also written in 1956, documents 1 Schmidt’s fascination with the interrelation of literary texts and dreams. In his discussion of Fouqué, the English critic, poet, and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), and E. T. A. Hoffmann, Schmidt concludes that literature is filled with examples in which dreams had a stimulating effect on writing and speculates whether there are similar examples in contemporary literature. Schmidt’s interest in the interrelation between literary texts and dreams culminates in his discovery of Lewis Carroll, who, according to Schmidt, was the first to reflect upon the effects of language within the human psyche. The discovery results in a setback for Schmidt, because Carroll’s Sylvie & Bruno (1889) predates Schmidt’s new prose model, and thereby, in his eyes, robs it of its innovativeness, especially in the case of the Extended Mind Game. Schmidt, who just a few years prior to this essay had started to read Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, also refers to “JAMES JOYCE; der sein zweites bedeutendes Buch, ‹Finnegans Wake› genau nach FREUD’scher 2 Traumtheorie konstruierte.” Again, Schmidt had to realize that Finnegans Wake already represents his planned prose model IV, the dream, including such key elements as condensation, dream distortion, and displacement. Schmidt finds a parallel to his own disappointment in that of Joyce, whose alleged originality had been already anticipated and put into literary practice by Carroll. Not surprisingly, Carroll, therefore, marks the shift in modern literature that Schmidt characterizes by a fundamentally different understanding of the relationship between prose, 3 language, and reader. For Schmidt the nineteenth century marks the break from a sacrosanct idea of representation and language. Language becomes detached from representation and writing functions as the

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reflection about writing, about form, and about language itself. Schmidt differentiates writing prose from the concept of literature as the representation of ideas and breaks with attempts to classify literature in genres. In contrast to forms of literature that adopt a particular order of representation, writing for Schmidt turns into reflection about its own subjectivity, about its status as writing. It does this by focusing on the 5 “Wort=Ausläufer & =Stecklinge” and by treating the content as tertiary. For Schmidt writing becomes a manifestation of a language that has no other law but its own. Schmidt’s reading of Joyce and Carroll led to his revision of the prose models elaborated in “Berechnungen I–II.” Instead of writing a continuation of his literary theory, Schmidt shifts the focus of his literary enterprise, his particular conception of literary realism, to the unconscious, especially the dream. His realization that Carroll and Joyce had already formulated and put into practice his ideas for a new prose model, however, did not deter Schmidt from drawing the lines between their concept of writing and his own. Criticizing Joyce for the extreme difficulty he created for the reader in decoding Finnegans Wake, Schmidt, in contrast, advocates that one of the criteria of literary realism is that the reader be able to follow the text. A close reader of Schmidt might find this criterion of “readability” to be little more than a well-meaning gesture, since Schmidt also requires expertise to read his texts. For Schmidt, even Carroll’s description of reality and conscious thought lack any truth value due to Carroll’s intuitive writing style. But this criticism does not reduce Carroll’s influence on Schmidt’s own work. On the contrary, Carroll, Joyce, and Freud heighten Schmidt’s view of the relation of language and reality. This does not imply a new beginning. His discovery of the unconscious and his readings of Joyce and Carroll enable Schmidt to specify his rather incomplete theoretical ideas. The Extended Mind Game, the process of recollection, the emphasis on internal and external experiences, and the dream are already the precursors for the detailed description of the human psyche and the etym theory in Zettel’s Traum. Schmidt’s reading of Freud translates into a refinement of his literary realism, and a difference drawn between internal and external experi6 ences. Through the discoveries of Freud, Joyce, and Carroll, Schmidt advances and purifies his early prose models, arriving at the etym theory. The standard distinction in Schmidt criticism between early, middle, and late writings ignores his continuous efforts to rethink more precisely what he viewed as the impossibility of ideal representation. Schmidt’s thoughts about subconscious psychological processes and the functions they assume in the production and reception of literary texts find their

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clarifying voice in Freud. Schmidt’s play with language as the manifestation of the presence as absence enters a domain where representation remains in suspense. It is the mechanisms of the unconscious that Schmidt seeks to expose by playing upon the absence of presence in consciousness. While the multiple influences and differences of Joyce and Carroll on Schmidt would deserve a work unto itself, the focus of the present inquiry is the intention of Zettel’s Traum to write “»möglichst auf Traumbasis«” (ZT 35). In accordance with my discussion of “Berechnungen I– III,” Schmidt’s strategies of writing seek to identify the origin of consciousness in the unconscious, because the unconscious is structured like a language. Since Schmidt exposes the reader to a radical reflection about language, his reference to unconscious thought processes inevitably intensifies the question mark placed behind the possibility of ideal literary representation and gives rise to the question of what constitutes subjectivity. Again, I would like to stress the fact that Schmidt’s desire to subvert the discourse of objectivity begins with the essays “Berechnungen I–III,” and the etym theory is their extension. Dan Pagenstecher, the main narrator of Zettel’s Traum, introduces the reader to the etym theory by reluctantly positing his theoretical ideas about language: “Ich stelle nie Theorien auf : ich probiere Arbeitshypothesen, & wieweit dieselben tragen” (ZT 26). The etym theory is instead proposed as a “DenkModell” (ZT 1080) for reading literary texts, a constantly revised heuristic device. According to Dan, every individual has two languages at his or her disposal, one consisting of “Hoch=Worte” (ZT 24), ordinary words that are part of consciousness, and the other, of etyms, which comprise the language of the unconscious. These two languages differ significantly in their sound and usage. The “Hoch=Worte” adhere to a correspondence between word and meaning, following the strict typography and grammar of the Duden (ZT 289). The etyms of the unconscious, however, rely primarily on “Klang & Symbolsinn” (ZT 124). Relying on Freud’s topological model of consciousness, preconscious, and unconscious, Schmidt suggests that the etyms are morphemes or word roots unknown to conscious thought. The upper part of the unconscious refers to the preconscious, which, 7 according to Freud’s model, is still part of unconscious reality. Thus, the etyms, as Robert Weninger correctly notes, signify a process of osmosis taking place between the unconscious and the language of our con8 sciousness. The etym language is a “HalbTraumSprache” (ZT 861) emulating the psychic mechanisms of the unconscious, an artistic means to demonstrate the latter’s activities.

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Schmidt’s theory of the polyvalent word draws its influence from Carroll, whom Schmidt credits as being the precursor of modern literature. According to Schmidt, Carroll was the first to address the effects of language within the mental apparatus, and the self-reflexivity of lan9 guage. André Maury, Freud, and the British sexologist Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) further elaborated on the role of language in conscious and unconscious thought processes. The word plays of Carroll and of Joyce in Finnegans Wake affirm Schmidt’s belief that language is grounded in 10 a psychological mechanism. But Schmidt’s reading of Freud provides the main impulses for his attempts to create a new prose model. Schmidt incorporates Freud’s models of the mind, admittedly without examining their differences, as a source of rhetorical tropes, in order to create his new form of writing. To achieve this new form of writing, Schmidt uses the layers of the dream to demonstrate the referential character of language and the dynamics of the linguistic sign. As a consequence, Schmidt structures Zettel’s Traum according to the process of signification, or what he calls “lingua=logisch” (ZT 683), providing the reader with what Gregor Strick calls a model for a synthesis 11 of language analysis and experimental literature. The language of the etyms, the process of word associations, dominate Zettel’s Traum and 12 mark a sharp departure from traditional literature, as Strick observed. Reading Zettel’s Traum is a process for a “Zeichen-&Traumdeuter” (VzZT 8). Daniel Pagenstecher’s exegesis of Poe’s writings becomes the uncovering of etyms, the pictorial and syllabic images of the unconscious in language and, as Stefan Voigt notes, provides the reader with a self13 explicating text strategy. Dan reads Poe’s texts as a conglomerate of dreams (ZT 37) and explicates his writings as Freud had interpreted dreams. Like Joyce, Schmidt structures language according to the rhetorical devices of the unconscious, whose purpose is the “Beförderung=lingua-logischen Weiterschiebung der Nicht=Handlung” and the 14 “Anreicherung mit Doppel= Mehrfach= Bedeutungen.” As such Schmidt extends the program of “Berechnungen I” of developing a prose form corresponding to the various forms of conscious processes. Adapting Freud’s model of dream interpretation, Schmidt’s etymology attempts to decode the manifest codes of conventional language and to reveal the true messages of the language of the unconscious. Dan thus proposes the following method to expose the multiple layers of meanings and to secure the revelation of image sequences: Ich erlaub Mir, dem Herrn, an praktischn Beispieln, die Etym= Methode zu demonstrieren . . . (?) : nee : weder ‘raten’ noch ‘second sight’ ! Ein (allerdings kompliz’iertes) Verfahren der TextUntersu-

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chung; aufgebaut auf BuchstabmVerschreibbarkeiten einer=, auf statistischen Häufungen von starren Bilderfolgn andererseits . . .? (ZT 1064)

The etym method reduces the arbitrariness of association by examining the text through the “Feststellung der Umgebung eines 15 Wortes” (ZT 250). By focusing on syllables and other recurring “Wort=Assoziationen” (ZT 73), Schmidt’s analysis of Poe stresses the 16 “impossibility of ficksing the meaning of the words” (ZT 813). The word constructions challenge the myth of the efficacy of language, attesting to Dan’s observation about Poe, that “[d]er ja der geistlosen Stabilität der Worte auffällich=häufich Absagn erteilt hat” (ZT 610–11). For demonstrating the instability of language, Schmidt supplements the etym theory with Carroll’s “Wort=Stiegen& =Stieglein,” and Joyce’s 17 “Porte= Manteau=Worten.” As the lengthy quotation above suggests, written or printed language normally relies on a consistency of graphic aspects and sequence. However, insertions of misspelled words, invented word constructions, and the capitalization of individual letters in words have a disruptive effect since they part from the “proper” system of representation. Constructed words like “Gefühlereyen” (ZT 64), “schneckte” (ZT 94), or “gesorgsammelt” (ZT 87) produce new ways of signification, because “durch Veränderung der Schreibweise kann man schließlich die tollstn Wortgekröse herstelln, und ihn jeglichn=beliebijn Sinn unterschiebm” (ZT 18 798). Although none of the three words exist in the German language, they stimulate several points of association. In adding the prefix ge to the verb “fühlen” (to feel), the verb becomes a noun, and by replacing the i with y the word construction parallels “fühlen” with a mode of seeing (eye). In the case of “schneckte,” the noun “Schnecke” (snail) transforms into a verb through the addition of the lexeme, the simple past ending te meaning literally to snail or to move slowly. And “gesorgsammelt” consists of words like “gesammelt” (collected), “sorgsam” (careful), and “gesorgt” (provided). Similarly, the capitalization of individual letters in words like “POElarität” (ZT 27), “emPOErt” (ZT 265), or “GRIMMig” (ZT 526) form another layer of Schmidt’s stress on dynamic word constructions. While “POElarität” invokes the word polarity, the German word “Po” (the behind) and Edgar Allan Poe, “emPOErt” refers to the German word “empört” (to be outraged), “Po” (the butt), and Poe. The word “GRIMMig” brings to mind the adjective “grimmig” (grim, fierce) and the German folklorists, linguists, and medievalists Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm 19 (1786–1859).

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While these orthographic deformations change the reading experience, the use of constructed words likewise strike at a more profound issue that resurfaces in the context of Schmidt’s critique of Duden. Does not Schmidt’s play with graphic words invite the argument that his misspellings function as preempting any possible rule? This point emerges when Schmidt argues that spelling remains a matter of convention, because the linguistic norms of the Duden assume a prescriptive role in the way we write and speak. According to Schmidt, the Duden governs the rules of writing and 20 publishing. The restriction of artistic freedom reflects a conflict between the individuality of writing styles or forms and the social as well as cultural values of modern civilization. Could we thus not argue that any repudiation of a particular stylistic convention and practice is a reaction against “Verleger[. . .], Lektoren, Setzer[. . .], Leser[. . .],” in short, 21 “»Hüter deutschen Erbes«”? By complying with the German rules of writing, normative language assumes the role as a mechanism of ordering, inclusion, and exclusion. At the same time, publishers and philologists enforce their regime by censoring what is different, or counter to 22 the norm. Viewing this observation slightly differently, Schmidt’s criticism of the conventional system of signs suggests that languages following particular norms are always already arbitrary. Since Schmidt resists the effacement of his writing style by implementing a personal style of writing, he makes the role of conventional writing an issue per se. But the personal style of writing is not without contradictions, as Friedrich Forssman suggests, because Schmidt simply replaces one orthographic system with 23 another. Objecting to any form of mastery of the text, Schmidt seems to raise the question whether writing according to conventional language rules may be subject to a generalized arbitrariness. This question previously surfaced in his references to the Chinese writing system. On every single page Schmidt plays with this ambiguity by additionally inserting his handwriting, erasing sentences or changing the spelling of the text manually and in this arbitrary process alludes to the problem of primary presence. For Schmidt, it seems, writing has the power to unsettle, to unmask conventional writing as inherently arbitrary. This double logic of writing defies all normal reason and can act out its multiplicity only within textual inscriptions. These effects of the text alternately reveal and repress the capriciousness of all writing. This insight of a generalized arbitrariness of writing gains further justification when Schmidt argues that the psychoanalytical conceptualization of writing subverts any possibility of presence. Every word and

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sentence derives from the unconscious, which, as a system without a real center, is subject to the dispersing law of analogy. To illustrate the involvement of psychological processes in the speech act and the role of (psychic) censorship, Dan provides the reader with some examples to emphasize the patterns of similarity: “‘The Whole’ ! — ‘von unten’ flüstert’s zärtlich : ‘hole’ - -./“Das Loch?” (ZT 25). The word “pussynäß” (ZT 90) implies “business,” “pussy,” and the German word “naß,” wet. The word “Viehnässn” (ZT 245) implies “finesse,” “Vieh” or animal, and the verb “nässen,” to wet. In the dream work, the word combination “pussy” plus “näß” and “Vieh” plus “nässen” designates the latent dream thought. Acceptable words, such as “business” and “finesse,” substitute for those which are unacceptable to the psychic censor. The sexual connotations of “pussynäß” are displaced onto unacknowledged thoughts such as “pussy,” the female genitals, and “naß,” to wet or to urinate. The transparency of the words in combination with other words exposes the mechanism of the unconscious and the way we really think and speak. In view of Schmidt’s desire for a concordance between speech and script, the etym theory fulfills his objective to represent suggestive natural, primary, and immediate presence in the act of speaking and thinking. Schmidt’s verbal explorations and appropriations include elements from French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Middle High German, as well as many other languages. Dan’s play upon the possibilities of sound associations always demonstrates a mocking and questioning of the conscious construction of the German language. The fragile surface of the language of consciousness is particularly manifest in his transliterations of English into French — for example, “shrubberry a bush sind nich nur slang= offiziell ‘Schamhaar’; es enthält auch . . . das französische ‘bouche’ gleich Mäulchen’” (ZT 201) — or French into German: “1 Käfer” (bug) becomes “Que faire” (ZT 275). Analogous to the dream work, such word constructions suggest a textual analysis of Zettel’s Traum. The transference of elements from the dream thoughts to the manifest dream content always alludes to our neglected wishes and recesses of the unconscious. The Freudian model of the mind empowers Schmidt to pursue further his objective of presenting the fragmentariness of language and conformal representations. These few examples of Schmidt’s etym theory must suffice for the moment. At first glance, a reader might quickly ask how Schmidt succeeds in providing so many disturbing and at times downright absurd associations. For the critic Thomas Hansen, the etym theory has a confining and circular character whose application in Schmidt’s reading of

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Poe “remains as disturbing as it is fascinating” in that Zettel’s Traum 24 seems to reveal Schmidt’s self-referential ego. Indeed, Schmidt’s etym theory appears to be highly personal and idiosyncratic; as Siegbert Prawer maintains, it remains often unconvincing and “constitutes the most 25 serious flaw in the work.” To make matters worse, Schmidt’s expounding of the etym theory with the “embarrassingly profuse amount of sexual punning,” as Friedrich Ott comments, becomes “tiresome, unless taken in small doses” and “[t]o the psychoanalytically sophisticated American reader, Schmidt’s enthusiasm at his discovery of Freud may seem as naïve as Kurt Tucholsky’s country boy, who thought he had 26 invented masturbation and went into town to have it patented.” No doubt, Schmidt’s etym theory is not without problems or even internal contradictions, as Lutz Prütting has concluded when he alludes to the discrepancies between the writer Schmidt and the literary theoretician 27 Schmidt. Nonetheless, in contrast to Ott and other commentators, critics such as Stefan Gradmann and Gregor Strick arrive at a much more differentiated assessment regarding Schmidt’s adaptation of Freud’s linguistic 28 model. Although Gradmann concludes that Schmidt’s reading of Freud permits only limited insights into the actual usefulness of the latter’s analytical categories, he then interestingly proposes to read the etym theory within the context of the linguistic theories of Barthes and La29 can. In a similar vein, Strick concludes that Schmidt’s etym theory agrees less with Freud’s linguistic theory than with more contemporary 30 ones. Both critics delineate the relation of Schmidt’s linguistic model to German and European literature and criticism without getting caught in exhausting discussions of Schmidt’s deliberately distorted adaptation of Freud’s concepts. Both succeed in opening up Schmidt’s oeuvre to a much broader audience. At stake in Schmidt’s etym theory is not whether Schmidt’s dissection of Poe “reeks of ordure at the word level” or offers treasures of erotica, as Thomas Hansen writes, but rather whether Schmidt provides sufficient arguments for his claim to present 31 acoustic reality as unmediated presence. In other words: does his etym theory work effectively as an extended theory (and practice) of modernist mimesis? Wolfgang Albrecht best assesses the etym theory when he maintains that the reader must assume the main role in deciding what to 32 take as serious scientific conclusions and what to view as ironic poetry. After all, it is Daniel Pagenstecher, who repeatedly refers to himself in a self-deprecating manner as “ein hohlherzijer düstrer Pendant, der unsinnije Vorräte literarischer Thorheitn in sich aufgestaplt hat; (Meine Beredsamkeit in diesem Fach war Mir meist selbst unausstehlich)” (ZT 1105).

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If we return briefly to Schmidt’s claim made in “Berechnungen III” to present acoustic reality as unmediated presence, his reliance on an associative method of linguistic analysis causes some problems. First, if the primary practices are then embodied by means of the etyms, then they have to be understood as destabilizing the referential stability of language in general. If Schmidt can refer to acoustic reality by means of the etyms, then they are merely a subset of a normative language, insofar as they have a purely scientific function, which contradicts both his definition of them and his psychoanalytic presuppositions. Schmidt proposes the conscious achievement of a conformal representation of reality by means of linguistic elements he has defined as arbitrary. Considering to what extent Schmidt plays upon the arbitrariness of language, he always 33 remains caught in this paradox. Second, his glorification of the unconscious establishes a confrontation with the objectivity of language, and consequently of knowledge. The interiority of language, which first became an issue in Schmidt’s critique of the discordance between speech and script, evades the stability of knowledge. Unconscious thought processes and their semantic relation influence our thinking. In turn, these thought processes determine what kind of knowledge is rendered possible. This tension between certainty and uncertainty or finitude and endlessness, preconscious and unconscious, guides Schmidt’s concept of language. Language introduces this tension, and raises the issue of how the unconscious, precon34 scious, and consciousness relate within the process of signification. Following Freud, Schmidt presents the reader with a similar model of the signification processes of the mind: . . . das Bewußtsein, bedient sich der Worte; besteht auch, womöglich im halben Gefühl seiner mühsam ausbalancierten, prekären Verletzlichkeit, auf stricter Orthographie à la DUDEN. Der Persönlichkeitsanteil darunter — zur Hälfte durchaus bewußtseinsfähig; zur Hälfte im Un35 bewußten wuchernd—‹spricht Etyms›.

The preconscious assumes the double role of a mediator. First, the preconscious designates the “thing-representations” of the unconscious, namely the etyms. Second, the signifier functions at the level of the preconscious, and in turn determines repression. Consciousness receives the information but senses the ambiguity of the word choices. Not translated etyms stay within the unconscious. Seen from within a broader perspective, Schmidt elevates language to the role of determining what the human subject is able to think about itself and the world. The interplay between two signifying activities, unconscious and preconscious/

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conscious, shows that subjectivity is itself a product of the linguistic mechanisms of the psyche. Schmidt’s depiction of the linguistic structure of the mind gives priority to the unconscious/preconscious and ensures that these layers of the mind are accessible and/or definable. But it also stresses those elements of linguistic functioning (i.e., the etyms) which remain not fully accessible to consciousness. The word panorama, which Dan examines in Poe’s text, illustrates 36 the foregoing discussion: Panorama Pan: Pan=All / Pen, die Feder; das legitime Schriftstellerwerkzeug. / (Leider geht’s von hier sofort zum ‘Penis’) / Und die Einladung zu ‘puns’ iss ja wohl= auch unüberhörbar.) ano: anus; (was sonst?) ora: ist bei ihm immer mit ‘Öffnung, Loch’ verkuppelt ram: Widder & rammeln ma : ‘meine’ & ‘Mutter’: / Dann ebm noch die offizielle, aseptische Bedeutung selbst :Panorama: All=Rundschau.) /-): “Woraus sich nun natürlich die artigsten Wortzusammensetzungen puzzln ließen. . . .” (ZT 167)

The seemingly innocent word “panorama,” is, according to Dan, a derivative from “griechischen ‘Pan’ = all, ganz’ ; & ‘horan=sehen’ : also All=Umschau ungefähr” (ZT 149). This word contains a variety of word germs, which are the derivatives of Greek, Latin, English and French, and of German slang. Apart from these etymological connections, the word panorama reveals the manifest and latent layers of the dream, especially the sexual stimuli that guide the word. The voyeuristic connotation of the word panorama, to see, to observe, to penetrate, and to desire assures the invasion of “Wirtsworte” (ZT 25) like “angreifende Bakterien=Heere” (ZT 25). As an artistic device for ambiguity, polyvalent signification subverts rational control in the reading process and represents the systematic, prolonged play and production of meaning, resulting in the “Unter=Lesbarkeit der Texte” (ZT 250). This sort of reading between the letters works to undermine the rational order of thought by relentlessly subverting any privileged closure in the reading process. Dismantling the idea of certainty by elevating the thought processes of the unconsciousness to the center of reading practices, Schmidt proves that literary texts, in particular Zettel’s Traum, cannot be reduced to a stable order of meaning. It seems etyms are designed to disrupt the conceptual economy of language by showing how meaning can fail to coincide with itself. More importantly, this failure destroys the illusion

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of a natural bond between signifier and signified, a fact to which I return momentarily. It is therefore important to stress the social nature of the linguistic process of the mind. Again, why does Schmidt resort to the concept of the etym? The Duden’s norms enforce a specific logic that excludes any ambivalence in the differentiation of a word. This logic, couched in binary phonetic oppositions, focuses on the functional character of a particular system of signs. Norms and rules protect the conditions of the possibility of all knowledge. Schmidt’s critique of the existing phonetic writing system proves nevertheless that prohibitions and other aspects of our culture structure the preconscious and the unconscious. The preconscious, as the mediator between consciousness, and the unconscious both 37 function as the filters for the principles that govern our thinking. In contrast to these forces, the unconscious is the true discourse of the mind, what one really thinks. According to Schmidt, the etym language spurs the reader’s approach to literary texts by encouraging him/her to analyze texts based on word associations, or what Weninger describes as a material and visual 38 poetics of reading. I, on the other hand, maintain that Schmidt’s stressing of the unconscious establishes a permanent tension between what we can and cannot know. Hence, can Schmidt really speak of the referential character of the etym language? Are we as readers always in control, as Michael Minden seems to suggest when arguing that Schmidt’s reading of Freud tends to reinstate the subject as a controller or overseer of his productions in language regardless of unconscious 39 thought processes? A close examination of the definitions of etym provides some answers. In Schmidt’s essay on Joyce, “Das Buch Jedermann,” one of his narrators argues that etyms do not necessarily represent the etymological origins: “Und sind doch recht divergente Dinge; die weder ‹Homonym› 40 noch dem Begriff der filologischen ‹Wurzel› zu erfassen wären.” Consequently, an etym is neither a root, nor a word, nor a concept, whereas previously, following Schmidt, I had labeled etyms morphemes or word roots. Therefore, to read Zettel’s Traum would be, for instance, to trace historic developments of a linguistic form, a word, and its transmission from one language to another. In other words, Schmidt’s ideal reader should be one versed in historical linguistics, in the tradition going back to the brothers Grimm and their famous dictionary. The word “panorama” served as but one example. By identifying its cognates in other languages, the reader identifies component parts. The quotation above, however, brings in another element of Schmidt’s etym theory,

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which creates the tension I alluded to earlier. Speaker A confronts the reader with another quasi definition when he states that etyms are effects of linguistic signifying processes. A shift occurs; the etyms are no longer word roots or morphemes. The assemblage of a complex structure of weaving and interlacing words and syllables marks the linguistic processing. In turn, the complex structure allows multiple vectors of meaning to move in various directions. Thus, Zettel’s Traum as a web of vacillating meanings inevitably begs the question of its beginning, its point of origin. To answer the question, I would like to consider another description of the etym. The explanation of etyms as a “‹Etymologie›: die Lehre vom 41 Echten” points to their irreducibly polysemic character. Therefore, etyms constantly produce new interpretative contexts. Any original cause falls prey to this polysemy in which words refer simultaneously to a specific contextual meaning and to the entire configuration of that meaning. A network of other signifiers supports the etym. As a sign, the etym becomes provisional, since “Wir Etyms bespitzeln die Etyms, die’s den Etyms der Etyms besorgen” (ZT 258). In this sense, the sign takes on the character of deferred meaning. Etyms, as a sign, signify only through the detour of the etyms which are a “zunehmend=losere Ballung der catch=words - : ä=dieser ‘Etym-Conglomerate’ ” (ZT 243). Or, as Olaf Werner explains, the etym has no longer a signified; it already presents 42 the envisioned relation between signifier and signified. Indeed, the etyms corrupt the stability of a closed system of signification and force the reader to reexamine the process of meaning. Now Speaker A provides the following argument: “jedwedes Wort, das Wir äußern, [ist] mehrfach ‹überdeterminiert›; [hat] Drehscheiben=, Weichen=Charakter; sodaß die Verzweigungen unserer Gedankenfolgen, die oftmals putzig wirkenden, allein schon unter diesem Aspekt betrachtet, gar nicht so willkürhaft= 43 absurd sind.” Speaker A suggests that the content of the dream thoughts consists of several points of contact. A manifest dream thought relates to some latent one, and some latent dream thoughts reappear in the dream several times in various forms. Overdetermination, therefore, 44 characterizes the interaction between manifest and latent dream thought. Daniel Pagenstecher speaks of the points of signification as nodal points “KnotnBildungen” (ZT 1185) and specifies his understanding of the etyms by arguing that every element of the dream content turns out 45 to be over-determined. Each manifest signifier points to several latent signifiers. A selective processing subjects the whole amount of dream thoughts in the process of dream formation. A group of signifiers align with the messages and, as part of the manifest dream content, surface into consciousness. The process involves condensation and displacement.

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Condensation proceeds along lines of similarity and contiguity, and treats affinity as the basis for identifying word formations. Displacement follows the elements of the dream thoughts, and tries to fulfill a repressed desire through many images. On the level of the signifier, the nodal point unifies a given field of meanings, and, subsequently, constitutes its 46 identity. Considering that Schmidt’s etym language has a provisional status, signification and word formations are exclusively the effect of the signifier; as Ulrich Sonnenschein suggests for Schmidt, the signs move in an 47 infinite process of signification. Meaning emerges only through temporal or diachronic unfolding of the signifying matrix. The tension between what we do and do not know now appears. On the one hand, Schmidt’s etym theory denies the preexistence of meaning within any established linguistic unit. The meaning of an etym occurs as the effect of other signifiers. On the other hand, Schmidt posits the etyms as a methodological tool to reveal etymological origins of words and their transmission from one language to another. The question now is whether the process of signification forecloses determinacy or not. Following my observations so far, the etym language, like any other playful act of self-reference, has to preclude the absolute determination of meaning. This conclusion warrants some further deliberation. If the etyms are nodal points, effects of signification, then how are we to understand the conscious mind? Could we not argue that our existing conventional language is already a distortion in and of itself? Moreover, is the language of the preconscious, as a product of the linguistic mechanisms of the unconscious, nothing but a distortion of the distortion? Such a conclusion would undermine both Freud’s and Schmidt’s preformed structural character of the psychic apparatus. Only if we believe that consciousness is able to distinguish between the external and internal world, can the distinction between consciousness, preconscious, and unconsciousness function. My discussion of the etym language, however, suggests a collapse of this division. How do we determine conscious perception if we are not aware, except in a limited way, of what takes place in the unconscious? How do we distinguish between what are real, objective sense perceptions, and what is the product of the unconscious? A possible answer to these questions lies in the text itself. Dan Pagenstecher helps the reader to make sense of this apparent paradox. Etyms always infiltrate the language of consciousness; there are “überhaupt=keine etym=freien Zoonen” (ZT 387); etyms are ubiquitous. Since “[d]ie Etyms dagegen, vermögen die zwerchphällije Trennwand

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zwischen bw und ubw zu passieren” (ZT 122), the structures of the etym in the unconsciousness predetermine the language of consciousness. The language of the unconscious stands in dialectical relationship with consciousness. Despite censorship, the unconscious determines consciousness. Dan concludes that “die Sortierung=Lagerung der Worte im Gehirn, ebm auf Etym=Basis erfolgt” (ZT 124). The etyms are the “Wahrheits=Kern” (ZT 235) of language, the process that reveals the dream content and its concealment as form. Identified as a signifying system, the unconscious disrupts the mechanisms of consciousness, and, at the same time, permits “die Entzifferung des Individuums aus seiner Schreibe” (ZT 529). Predictably, the analogy between text and subject results in Dan’s argument that “‘Bücher’ sind halt auch nur zerfussltes Autoren=Lebm” (ZT 433). Zettel’s Traum as the construction of the unconscious performed by the scribe Schmidt continues to be susceptible 48 to modification geared toward an experimentation with the real.

Schmidt and the Linguistic Structure of the Unconscious Schmidt reads psychoanalysis through linguistics, and vice versa. For him the dialectic between the subject and language finds its constitutive medium in the language of the unconscious, “‘Denkn, bw & ubw, [ist] an die Sprache gebundn” (ZT 341). The language of the unconscious is like a rebus, as Dan explains to Wilma, a picture puzzle in need to be deciphered: “Du weißt ja Wilma, daß das ubw … in Bildern ‘denkt’; wodurch denn deren Äußerungen, (wie Träume oder Fehlhandlungen), entzifferbar werdn. Und das ist dann die Beschäftigung mit den Rebuss’n” (ZT 192). From this perspective, Zettel’s Traum reveals the linguistic mechanisms of the psyche, considering that the literary text such as Poe’s is a “ubw entwischte(n) Bilderrätsl=in=Wortn” (ZT 193). We are virtually implicated in symbols, in images that guide our existence. Dan reminds us that “Bilder=Weltlichkeiten” (ZT 296) structure our world. The literary text has to be literally decoded in view of the signifying matrix of the unconscious. Dan, expanding on the concept of rebus, explains: … Bilderrätsel. Meist schnurrige Bastarde aus heraldisch stilisierten Schema: Zeichnungen von Gegenständn; plus Worten=Wortstücken= Buchstabm auch Zahlen - die gleich oder ähnlich=klingende Wörter vertretn; so daß aus den Bildchen & ihren Kombinationen, am Ende ein 49 ganz sinnvolles Sätzchen herausgelesen werden kann. (ZT 192–93)

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Drawings, word particles, letters or similar sounding words structure our unconscious thought processes. It appears that for Schmidt the letter is the truth and not the spirit; the letter is, moreover, the law by which Zettel’s Traum offers itself to be read. In the reading of the letter, what Dan describes as “SilbmKünste & BuchstabmSchurkereien!” (ZT 810), the constant derailing or deferring suspends determinacy and creates a desire for recognition of familiarity, to determine meaning. Hence, the structure of language causes aphasia, the impairment of comprehension. The implication of this argument is that the language of conscious thought manifests itself through absence (metonymy) and presence (metaphor). Zettel’s Traum, as a concordance of script and speech, as a text emulating the psychic mechanism, emphatically thematizes this signifying structure of language. The functioning of language is a play between presence and absence. Etyms allows the reader “vermittelst Be abdomminabler Entbuchstabung” (ZT 824) to speak, to read, and think what remains underneath the surface of conscious thought, “the darkest & most evil of thoughts” (ZT 824). Reading a text like Zettel’s Traum parallels what reading Poe is for Dan: “Vermöge der Etyms siehsDu durch einen Text, wie durch ein leicht angelaufenes (oder eisblumijes) Fensterglas, in den Mann Poe & seine Meinungen hinein” (ZT 713). We uncover the multiple layers of meaning in literary texts and, most importantly, lay bare the underpinnings of signification, the “word=catchers, that live on syllables” (ZT 821), the codes or sign sys50 tems used in the production of meaning. But to disseminate the underpinnings of signification, to recognize the truth of the unconscious, interlocution is necessary. To experience a form of continuity, author, narrator, or subject depends on a continuity between himself and others (Paul, Wilma, Franziska, the reader). The fact is, the unconscious is part of the discourse of the subject, since Dan repeatedly argues, “Unsere gesamte ‘Außenwelt’, [wäre] projektiv= unterfüttert [. . .] mit Unserm innerstn=Innern … Wie’n Pann’O’Rahma gebaut” (ZT 188) and, therefore, narrator, author, subject do not have their own access to it. Only in the form of a dialogue, as elaborated in chapter 1, are we able to reestablish the discursive continuity of consciousness. Interlocutors, like the reader, the dialogue partners, Paul, Wilma, and Franziska, make possible this continuity between them. The truth of the subject appears through the recounting of the unconscious experience in language. In calling attention to the etyms, Schmidt seems to suggest that all 51 of language may in fact constitute a metaphorical structure. The Ex-

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tended Mind Game as the metaphor par excellence — “the proper domain of the metaphor” — provides the key to understanding the language of the author, narrator, and text, because “[d]as LG überbaut stets die gesamte Vita des Spielen-Dän” (ZT 718) and, subsequently, receives priority in the experience of reality which Dan, quoting Edward BulwerLytton, describes as “Das NACHBILD IST MEHR ALS DAS URBILD” (ZT 783–84). As a process of recollection, the Extended Mind Game relies on a figurative character of language. For the reader or Dan’s dialogue partner, the imperative of reading is to retrace the path of signification to its dynamics as a symptom. Analogous to the analyst’s task of deciphering the symptoms of the unconscious, Schmidt taps into Freud’s texts in order to understand speech and language (script). For him this 52 step manifests the only means of accessing the unconscious. Now Schmidt’s concept of speech or acoustic reality gains momentum. In Schmidt’s view, language defines subjectivity by referring to the 53 linguistic structure of the unconscious. Schmidt’s aim of concordance between speech and language (script) therefore reveals an immanent antinomy between the two. Because Schmidt objects to language as becoming increasingly functional, its appropriateness for speech diminishes. Conversely, because speech becomes increasingly particular to us, it ceases to function intersubjectively as language. Indeed, language as speech finds its specific characteristic only through the dialectic between consciousness and the unconscious. Thus, the images of the Extended Mind Game define the task of the reader and Dan’s dialogue partner, that is, to get access to the unconscious presence of thought processes in the ego. Schmidt demonstrates his science of letters on yet another level, supporting my observation of the role speech plays for the subject. Schmidt offers the following example to illustrate the problematic of representarach tion embedded in the theory of the sign: “Ur=Sp alt e” (ZT 859). Whereas in Saussure, the line between signifier and signified implies two different registers, Schmidt accentuates the bar to indicate that the signifier has no access to its signified. While in this case “Spalte,” in referring to the unconscious, assumes the role of the signifier left to slide in a field of signifiers, “Sprache” as the language of conscious thoughts assuming the literal form of speech, emerges as secondary effect through the dialectic between consciousness and the unconscious in form of interlocution. As such, the truth of language expresses itself as the “Ursprache” or “Ur54 spalte,” that is, the metonymic structure of the unconscious. Both words reveal an ironic twist, since the emphasis on “Ur” would suggest

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a kind of ontological or natural understanding of language. But the “Ur” appears only through Schmidt’s reference of speech as referring to the linguistic structure of the unconscious. Moreover, Schmidt’s “Spalte” might be taken to refer to the “Ichspaltung” that is constitutive of subjectivity for Freud. One might also see this “Ur-Spalte” in the tradition of German Idealism, as in the case of Friedrich Hölderlin’s philosophical essay “Urteil und Sein,” where Hölderlin laments the divisive effects of 55 linguistically imposed judgments on an original wholeness. Thus, the subject cannot know its own truth; rather, it is the identification of truth with speech itself without any other reference that characterizes the “Ursprache.” In sum, Schmidt’s assumptions about the production of signification do not appear to be self-evident; rather, speech seems to constitute the subject. Moreover, and in response to Saussure, Schmidt’s subversion of the structural unity of the sign dissolves the parallelism inscribed by the bar, and shifts the focus onto the autonomy of the signifier. Although his autonomy of the signifier is real, it is not, however, primordial. With these observations in mind, Schmidt’s theory of typography gains another dimension to be illustrated by Wilma’s wish to understand the effects of a “fonetischer Schreibweise”: Du betóntes doch, daß die Lagerung der Worte im Gehirn, hauptsächlich dá=nach erfolgte - :‘Hey dàs würd’ ein weites Feld, Freund ! : Homonyme 1., 2., 3. = Grades; Verwand= & Nachbarschaftn; Annominationen. :welche Sprachen wären aufzunehmen ? (ZT 1047).

Thus the “Bemerknswerte AusSprache” (ZT 1034) produces the üc ie ei “verrenktestn Attitüdn” (ZT 1034) such as “Leibriez” (ZT 1032) or f “Kuckma diese” “Lu s tBallons” (ZT 1033). Schmidt’s play with the combination of changing vowels or graphemes evokes the more varied styles of psychic transfers. Analogous to musical polyphony, or reminiscent of the sounds of poetry, the changing of the letter from üc to en; from ie to ei; or from f to s allows Schmidt to posit the individual letter as an autonomous signifier opening up a vertical structure that cuts across the linearity of the signifying chain. Letters function as points of intersection on the linear and the vertical axis in language, simultaneously tacking down presence in metaphor. In the field of signification, the letter as signifier produces several references within the structure of the unconscious. Changes in individual letters bring to mind “verrücktestetn Attitüdn” (craziest characteristics) and “verrenktestn Attitüdn” (twisted characteristics), “Luftballons” (air balloons) and “Lustballons” (lust balloons here refer literally to a woman’s breasts), and “Liebreiz” (ami-

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cable stimulation) also can transform into “Leibreiz” (sexual stimulation or provocation). Expanding on Schmidt’s criticism of Duden, the letter as signifier liberates the reader from the constraints of our conventional language based on the hierarchical rapport of subject to predicate. Such dynamic constructions allow the reader to experience an expanded horizon of thought processes not entirely controlled by grammar. Trains of thoughts jump along looser knots of syntax that resist being unraveled into final sets of meaning. At last, this play of order and disorder instigates writing as a relentless will to detach itself from its sender and receiver. A montage of figures transcribes the sounds from the letter as a signifier into other sounds and meanings.

Language as Object of Scientific Investigation? From the point of literary analysis, Schmidt’s thoughts about language appear to offer a legitimate way of decoding the ideological configurations of literary texts and to draw a better picture of the human psyche. Nonetheless, Schmidt reveals some serious problems and contradictions in his conceptualization of the linguistic mechanisms determining our mental structure, which I would like to address briefly. Schmidt’s critique of the phonetic writing system and the metaphysical bearings of a canonized literary tradition relies on the premise that he can establish prose models that adequately describe subjective thought processes. His shift from the emphasis on the dream to the unconscious still maintains his goal of objectifying the psychic mechanisms of the human mind. He believes that language has attained the status of an object of scientific investigation. In contrast to prevailing practice, which separates scientific linguistic investigation from psychoanalysis, Schmidt proceeds on the assumption that the revelation of the linguistic mechanisms of the psyche enables them to understand the human condition. Schmidt suggests that representation does not take place in consciousness, but rather that signification is always secondary, and precedes the conscious system of thought. Consequently, the dialectic between the unconscious and preconsciousness/consciousness constitutes representation’s positive origin; the unconscious as a system is always in place before signification, because it is within the signifying mechanism of the unconscious that consciousness comes into being. The scientific character of language for Schmidt lies in the pair system and signification, guaranteeing the possibility of representation through language.

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Schmidt’s resistance to the imitative claims of mimesis or ideal representation led him to define representation as a form of writing that seeks to invent and create what is not present to consciousness. His scientific approach establishes the grounds on which the elements can be represented, but only in accordance with the systems of consciousness and the unconscious. In following these two systems, however, Schmidt reestablishes precisely the finite character of representation that he sought to unravel. We can better understand why this is so through reference to the logic of the signifier, which illuminates the tensions between certainty and uncertainty, and finitude and infinity. On the one hand, Schmidt rejects the finitude expressed through the linguistic sign. On the other hand, he puts forward a concept of signification that contradicts his desire for infinitude. Likewise, Schmidt adheres to the bipolarity of consciousness and unconscious and therewith ensures the validity of his scientific enterprise. Like the model of the human sciences, Schmidt’s inquiry seeks to dis56 cover what is already in place. Hence, Schmidt’s critique of the Duden remains within the realm of norms, laws, and rules, guaranteeing the validity of his enterprise. He assumes the same epistemological field of the very positivism he seeks to undermine. It is important to first examine the archaeological level of Schmidt’s epistemological enterprise. At stake in these examinations is Schmidt’s experience with the Duden and the phonetic writing system. The mechanism of exclusion and inclusion that marginalized him as a writer in postwar Germany also works within his contradictory method of inquiry. Schmidt’s proclamation that only readers endowed with the “4. Instanz” are in the position to recognize etyms for what they are reinstalls a mechanism he had himself criticized. In Zettel’s Traum, Dan Pagenstecher suggests that the fourth instance is a psychological condition affecting only aging and impotent geniuses, “ab 50 erleichtert=vereint mit einer souverän=geistreich=lächernDän 4.Instanz” (ZT 914). Only a few select readers are able to decode other people’s unconscious subtexts. This somewhat dubious (or playful?) proclamation of scientific inquiry reveals at times Schmidt’s rather limited perception of language as the representation of reality. Schmidt proposes psychoanalysis as a science that reveals and describes the mechanism of the unconscious. Does this descriptive analytic approach to the mechanism of the unconscious not entail that everything can be represented, as Gradmann, Stündel, and Hugo Müller have al57 ready argued? This possibility would from the outset establish itself as another mythology, creating another totality. But theory and praxis keep

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alive the tension between what is known and what is not known. Schmidt’s theoretical elaborations, and the actual reading of Zettel’s Traum, expose the fragility of such claims. Schmidt’s proclamations and 58 his texts do not necessarily coincide. He ought to have suspected this when arguing “Den DP’s gegenüber verhalten sich die etyms ausgesprochen unfügsam : Die werden von ihnen nach Hexenslust geprellt & beschabernackt” (ZT 26). His theory of the etyms refuses to establish a hierarchical opposition, and remains unpredictable even to its author, and thus debunks the myth of the author’s authority. Schmidt here set in motion a process over which he has no control. The reader’s associa59 tions do not necessarily correspond to the author’s intentions. The characteristic of the letter as signifying an indefinite deferral, however, does not simply imply irresolvable or equivocal meaning, but rather that signification is a metamorphosis, in which the reader extends and extrapolates upon the literary text. The following conclusion can be made. The etym language of Zettel’s Traum induces both critical and inventive approaches to reading literary texts. Dan summarizes his discussion of the etym theory by valorizing the classical dictum, delectare et docere: “‘Mein Credo’?: . . . zur Ergetzunc & gelindn=Belehrunc Meiner Zeitgenossn beitragn . . .” (ZT 1264). The didactic role maintained by him is to enlighten, to break with an ideologically saturated language that relies on rational efficacy grounded in the knowing subject. Moreover, the etym language dismantles the notion of the telos; we cannot know what is to come. The present represented by the literature of the past cannot serve as the model of any future. Schmidt’s novel notion of language highlights his awareness of nonclosure and stands in opposition to a linear concept of time as discussed in chapter 1. The etym language signifies an unending chain of affiliations of ideas, and, in turn, prevents referential closure. The affiliations and associations of the etym language are contiguous and unpredictable, denying absolute knowledge.

Notes 1 Arno Schmidt, “Traumkunstwerke,” Bargfelder Ausgabe (hereafter BA) (Zurich: Haffmans, 1995), 3.3:198–200. 2

Schmidt, BA 3.4: 253.

3

Schmidt writes: a) Man schreibt Prosa. Nur sie wird rhytmisch der Vielfalt der Weltabläufe annähernd gerecht; zumal wenn mit einer erfreulichen Tendenz zu größerer Genauigkeit & Offenheit gekoppelt.

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b) Man schreibt langsam Prosa : ein Romänche, binnen 1 Jahr (oder noch flinker) hingeschneuzt, muß unzulänglich sein. (JOYCE benötigte zum ‹Odysseus› 7, CARROLL zu ‹Sylvie & Bruno› 20 Jahre.) c) Die Moderne Literatur hat ein fundamental anderes Verhältnis zu Worten & deren Folgen im Leser, als die Jahre vor 1900. — Und schließlich d) Was das Gerüst anbelangt, (die Struktur eines Buches sowie die Anordnung seiner Prosaelemente), so sind die Möglichkeiten konformer Abbildungen mit nichten durch die bis 1900 praktizierten Formen erschöpft. (BA 3.4: 251) 4

See also the similarities to Michel Foucault’s distinction between Classicism and the Modern Age, in which the threshold between the two “had been definitively crossed when words ceased to intersect with representation and to provide a spontaneous grid for the knowledge of things” (The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences [New York: Vintage House, 1994], 304). 5

Schmidt, BA 3.4: 239.

6

Thus I do not share Barbara Malchow’s assessment that Joyce, Carroll, and Freud mark a major shift in Schmidt’s writings: Damit veränderte sich seine Auffassung von Sprache und Wirklichkeit grundlegend. Schmidt entdeckte den Einfluß des Unbewußten auf die Sprache und entwickelte auf dieser Basis seine Etym-Theorie, deren Grundlagen er schon in der sprachlichen Analyse der Werke Karl Mays in ‘Sitara und der Weg dorthin’ (1963) angedeutet und die er dann in den Aufsätzen über Sterne, Carroll und James Joyce ausgearbeitet hat. (Barbara Malchow, Schärfste Wortkonzentrate. Untersuchungen zum Sprachstil Arno Schmidts [Munich: Bargfelder Bote, 1980], 155) 7 In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud maintains, “Everything conscious has an unconscious preliminary stage” in which “[t]he unconscious is the true psychical reality” (The Interpretation of Dreams [pt. 2], in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (London: Hogarth Press, 1953), 5:612–13). 8

Robert Weninger, Framing A Novelist: Arno Schmidt Criticism 1970–1994 (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1995), 47.

9

For an excellent discussion of Lewis Carroll’s concept of language and his influence on modern literature see Helga Schwalm and Dietrich Schwanitz, “Lewis Carroll,” in Die Literarische Moderne in Europa, eds. Hans Joachim Piechotta et al. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994), 1: 171–84. 10

For this reason, Schmidt recounts one of Maury’s dreams in which the syllable “lo” is the connecting element between “Kilometerstein, “Kilogrammgewicht,” “Gigolo,” “Lobelien,” “Lopez,” and “Lotto”: Ki

lo

meterstein

Ki

lo

grammgewicht

Gigo

lo Lo Lo

be pe

Lo

tto

lien z

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The key to this word play lies in Schmidt’s argument that the “bloße ‹Lagerung der Worte beieinander› uns vielmehr stärker beeinflußt, als unerleuchtetere Säcula sich das - ja, eben nicht einmal ‹träumen ließn›” (BA 3.4: 253). Thus relations between words such as “Gigolo” and “Lopez” are the result of an abbreviated translation of the latent dream. Hence, the syllable “lo” invokes the similarity of sound and verbal ambiguity, and initiates visual images and word associations. The variety of Maury’s dream of “Lo” is traceable back to “‹lolo› der Busen, ‹Lolotte›, ein loses Mädchen” (BA 3.4: 253). The syllable offers several points of context with the greatest number of dream thoughts and reveals the manifest and latent layers of the dream (Freud, Interpretation of Dreams, [pt. 1], 4:284). See also Rüdiger Zymner’s discussion of this passage in Manerismus. Zur Poetischen Artistik bei Johann Fischart. Jean Paul und Arno Schmidt (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1995), 283–86. 11

Gregor Strick, An den Grenzen der Sprache: Poetik. Poetische Praxis und Psychoanalyse in “Zettels Traum.” Zu Arno Schmidts Freud-Rezeption (Munich: edition text kritik, 1993), 71. 12

Gregor Strick observes that “die kausale Logik raumzeitlicher Vorgänge, die Dynamik der Figur, Ort und Handlung, die lineare Bewegung erzählerischer Sukzession” dominate “Strukturen des Traumes in Zettel’s Traum,” Zettelkasten 10 (1993): 193. 13

Stefan Voigt, Manerismus. Zur Poetischen Artistik bei Johann Fischart. Jean Paul und Arno Schmidt (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1995), 37. 14

Schmidt, BA, 3.4: 253–54.

15

See also my discussion in chapter 1 on Schmidt’s insertion of fragments of visual reality. 16

Note Schmidt’s associative play with the word “ficksing” which insinuates to fuck, to inseminate, to sing, to name, and to fix.

17

Schmidt, BA 3.4: 254–55. Dieter Stündel’s book Zettels Traum (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982) provided me with some of these examples; see esp. 30–34. 18

19

See also Stündel, Zettels Traum, 36–39.

20

Schmidt, Das essayistische Werk zur deutschen Literatur in 4 Bänden. Zurich: Haffmans, 1988 4: 364. Henceforth abbreviated as ZdL.

21

Schmidt, ZdL 4:371. Michel Foucault calls them the “authorities of delimitation” (The Archaeology of Knowledge [New York: Pantheon, 1972], 220). 22

Inevitably such a closed system leads to the abandonment of any critical reflection and opens the door for the misuse of language as a political instrument, as has been argued by Helmut Heißenbüttel: [d]as System der Sprache selbst beginnt im Sinne der Konservatoren klassisch zu werden. Wo Konservatoren am Werk sind, muß eine Leiche zu erwarten sein. Alle Angriffe gegen das, was an Ungewohntem sich zeigt, bedienen sich der Argumente von Konservatoren. (Über Literatur. Texte und Dokumente zur Literatur [Freiburg: Walter Verlag, 1966], 86) The institutionalization of language strips language of its individuality, forcing speakers to submit themselves to the unquestioned validity of knowledge. The

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grammatical arrangement of language institutes a universal language that manifests a law whose purpose it is to affirm its own biased existence. 23

Friedrich Forssman, “«Warum dauert denn das so lange?» Zum Satz von «Zettel’s Traum »” in Des Dichters Aug’ in feinem Wahnwitz rollend. . . . Dokumente und Studien zu Zettels Traum, ed. Jörg Drews and Doris Plöschberger (Munich: edition text + kritik, 2001), 91. 24 Thomas Hansen, “Arno Schmidt’s Reception of Edgar Allan Poe: Or, The Domain of Arn(o)heim,” The Review of Contemporary Fiction 8 (1989): 178. 25

Siegbert Prawer, “Bless Thee, Bottom! Bless Thee! Thou Art Translated,” in Über Arno Schmidt. Rezensionen vom »Leviathan« bis zur »Julia«, ed. Hans Michael Bock (Zurich: Haffmans, 1984), 248.

26

Friedrich P. Ott, “Comments on the Occasion of the Publication of ‘Evening Edged in Gold’ by Arno Schmidt,” Bargfelder Bote no. 50 (1981): 14–15. 27

Lutz Prütting, “Die Wissensprobe. Hermeneutische Probleme im Umgang mit dem Werk Arno Schmidts.” Gebirgslandschaft mit Arno Schmidt. Grazer Symposium 1980, ed. Jörg Drews (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1980), 140. 28

For a detailed survey of criticism of Schmidt’s etym theory see Weninger, Framing A Novelist, 46–63.

29 Stefan Gradmann, Schmidts Ungetym: Mythos. Psychoanalyse u. Zeichensynthesis in Arno Schmidts Joyce Rezeption (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1986), 62. 30 Strick, An den Grenzen der Sprache, 84. See also Horst Thomé, who maintains that Schmidt dramatically simplified Freud’s theory (Natur und Geschichte im Frühwerk Arno Schmidt [Munich: edition text + kritik, 1981], 191, 215), neglecting, for instance, Freud’s later writings. 31

Hansen, “Arno Schmidt’s Reception of Edgar Allan Poe,” 178.

32

Wolfgang Albrecht, Arno Schmidt (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1998), 79. Weninger captures this paradox well when arguing, “we can always only speculate as to the quality and intensity of the machinations of the unconscious — otherwise they would hardly deserve their name!” (Framing a Novelist, 55). 33

34

Toward the end of The Interpretation of Dreams (5:602), Freud hints at some explanations of the mechanisms of the mind employed by the primary and secondary processes: “The primary process endeavors to bring about a discharge of excitation in order that, with the help of the amount of excitation thus accumulated, it may establish a ‘perceptual identity’. . . . the secondary process, however, has abandoned this intention and taken on another in its place — the establishment of a ‘thought identity.’” For Freud this procedure refers to the processes of the unconscious, the primary process. The primary process expresses itself through mnemic traces, visual and auditory memories. Moreover, the processes of the preconscious, the secondary process, seek an identity of thought. The preconscious thus contains some form of signifying register that allows conscious thought to express itself. A specification of these signifying strategies takes place in the essay “The Unconscious.” Here Freud specifically addresses the different signifying strategies of the primary and secondary processes, and situates the linguistic processing within preconscious and the unconscious (The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud

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[London: Hogarth Press, 1962], 14:201–2). Freud prioritizes the unconscious as the motivational force of signifying formations such as dream and parapraxes. The “thing-representation,” the mnemic traces, express the unconscious, whereas the preconscious takes on a double function: it assigns the “thing-presentations” and “word-presentations.” In addition, a “thing-presentation” that is not hypercathected or translated into words remains in the unconscious in a state of repression. 35

Schmidt, BA 2.3:249.

36

See also Voigt’s discussion of the concept of panorama in In der Auflösung begriffen, 107–114. 37

See Schmidt, BA 2.3:249.

38

Robert Weninger, “Von Kreisen, Zylindern und Spiralen. Der lange Tag von Zettels Traum als hermeneutisches Gleichnis,” in Des Dichters Aug’ in feinem Wahnwitz rollend. . . . Dokumente und Studien zu Zettels Traum, eds. Jörg Drews and Doris Plöschberger (Munich: edition text + kritik, 2001), 230. 39 Michael Minden, Arno Schmidt. A Critical Study of His Prose (Cambridge: UP Cambridge, 1982), 7. 40

Schmidt, BA 2.3:248.

41

Schmidt, BA 2.3:248. Olaf Werner, Wortwelten : zu Bedeutungstransport und Metaphorik bei Arno Schmidt (Hamburg: UNI PRESS Hochschulschriften, 1992), 162. 42

43

Schmidt, BA 2.3:248.

44

See also Norbert Nicolaus’s insightful explication of the etym-theory in Die literarische Vermittlung des Leseprozesses im Werk Arno Schmidts (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1980). He concludes that Schmidt’s etyms theory allows for a “Mehrstimmigkeit der Texte” (158), because of the nodal point and a “multi-linguales Sprachbewußtsein” (160). 45 ZT 123. See also Freud who conceives of nodal points as the point where several trains of thought converged (The Interpretation of Dreams, 4:283). 46

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia [Minneapolis: UP of Minnesota, 1988]) offer a similar explanation of the nodal point described in their terminology as “rhizome” that entails characteristics such as: (1) principles of connection and heterogeneity; (2) a principle of multiplicity; and (3) a principle of a signifying rupture, to name only a few. According to Deleuze/ Guattari, the “rhizome” is an “antigeneology” that “brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even nonsign states” (21). Made of “plateaus,” the rhizome designates “a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities whose development avoids any orientation toward a culmination point or external end” (22). 47

Ulrich Sonnenschein, Text-Welten : Subjektivität und Erzählhaltung im Werk Arno Schmidts (Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 1991), 14.

48

My conclusion stands in contrast to Strick, An den Grenzen der Sprache, who argues that for Schmidt, the unconscious is not a chain of signification as it is for Lacan. On the contrary, Schmidt follows Lacan precisely in this aspect. Strick contradicts himself when, on the one hand, he agrees with Lacan arguing that the symbolic order inaugurates the unconscious, and, on the other hand, dismisses the conse-

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quence that the unconscious does not communicate through linguistic signification (93). The conscious mind perceives things after they happen in the psyche. Thus, the apparent unity of the mind is arbitrary, and for that matter our writing system, resulting from a retroactive construction. This conclusion brings Schmidt’s etym theory close to Lacan’s psychoanalytic theories. 49

Weninger, discussing Schmidt’s praxis of writing in columns and how it influences the constitution of meaning, notes that Schmidt’s “suchte lediglich neue, ungewohnte, dem darzustellenden Sachverhalt aber angemessene Ausdrucksweisen; statt Sinnkonstruktion intentional thematisieren zu wollen, ist seine Absicht, auf einer Textseite unterschiedliche Sinnträger so zu gruppieren, daß die resultierende Struktur dem darzustellenden Wirklichkeitsaspekt . . . formal gerecht wird” (Arno Schmidts Joyce — Rezeption, 184).

50

In contrast to my conclusion, Stefan Gradmann maintains that for Schmidt, the notion that “die Sprache wie ein Unbewußtes strukturiert [ist]” remains not tenable, particularly when one reads Schmidt vis-à-vis Lacan: “dem ließe sich doch zumindest das Theorem Lacans entgegenhalten wie eine Sprache verfaßt sein soll, was allerdings die gesamte etymistische Reduktionsstrategie über den Haufen werfen würde” (Schmidt’s Ungetym: Mythos. Psychoanalyse u. Zeichensynthesis, 65). I hope to have demonstrated the opposite. Schmidt follows Lacan’s dictum and consequently this does not undermine the etym-theory. 51

Schmidt’s emphasis of the subject’s speech or acoustic reality seems to confirm Lacan’s reading of Freud’s concept of metaphors, which “lose their metaphorical dimension . . . because he is operating in the proper domain of the metaphor, which is simply the synonym for the symbolic displacement brought into play in the symptom” (Écrits [New York: Norton, 1977], 51). 52

Strick’s An den Grenzen der Sprache provides a long overdue examination of the affinities between Lacan and Schmidt, and correctly observes the correlation between Schmidt’s concept of language and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s. His subsequent conclusion that the unconscious and universal laws govern myth and culture (94) finds its confirmation in my discussion of the postwar literary critics. Nonetheless, his introductory reading remains within the realm of his objective and his comparative reading in his last chapter on the relationship between Lacan and Schmidt represents more an introduction than a full working out of the findings. 53

Lacan uses the phrase “the discourse of the Other” to refer to language as the constituting mechanism of subjectivity. 54 However, Schmidt’s diagram might also reminds the reader of Lacan’s metaphor-diagram, where signifiers “metaphorically” repress unconscious desires. 55

Friedrich Hölderlin, “Urteil und Sein,” in Werke und Briefe, ed. Friedrich Beissner and Jochen Schmidt (Frankfurt: Insel-Verlag, 1969), 2:591–92. 56

Foucault’s brilliant analysis of the human sciences pinpoints the problem: We shall say, therefore, that a “human science” exists, not wherever man is in question, but wherever there is analysis — within the dimension proper to the unconscious — of norms, rules, and signifying totalities which unveil to consciousness the conditions of its forms and contents (Order of Things, 364).

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57

See Stündel, Zettels Traum, 21, Gradmann, Schmidt’s Ungetym, 65, and Hugo Müller, “Arno Schmidts Etymtheorie,” Wirkendes Wort 25 (1975): 41. 58 Sonnenschein suggests, for instance, that “Schmidt, indem er Texte erstellt, die mehr auf sich selbst verweisen als andere . . . arbeitet aber seiner eigenen Intention entgegen” (Text-Welten, 26). See also Prütting, “Die Wissensprobe. Hermeneutische Probleme im Umgang mit dem Werk Arno Schmidts,” 140, and Gradmann, Schmidts Ungetym, 68. 59

Zettel’s Traum is beyond the control of its author, as are literary texts in general, as Ulrich Sonnenschein has shown in Text-Welten, 26.

4: Tropes of Subversion Jegliches umfangreichere KunstWerk? — liefere, deutlich, die AbBildung des psy= Apparates seines Schöpfers. (ZT 1185)

S

CHMIDT’S PLAY WITH non-phonetic signs and the etym theory illustrate his fragmentary style of writing and highlights his rejection of traditional logical chains of reasoning. Instead of presenting any dogmatic truths about language, Schmidt sought to animate the reader to create his or her language through self-conscious figuration. Although the etym language might suggest a rather confining way of reading and reflecting upon language and reality, the fact is that even Schmidt, as the self-proclaimed creator of such a mode of inquiry into oral and written language, remains inscribed in his own speaking and writing. It is the reader, who, after having been taught to be distrustful of any final conclusions and traditional beliefs, retains the role of the critic, the innovator, who creates new points of view. As the previous chapter argued, Schmidt’s concept of language is essentially metaphorical, and, as such, gains its value as a rhetorical device. Expanding on Schmidt’s use of tropes, I now seek to delineate the role of tropes, such as metaphor, allegory, metonymy, and wit, as the principle means of representing the absence of presence. Following the Socratic method of dialogic conflict between views about language, Schmidt presents the metaphoric character in the context of a debate between Wilma and Dan. The object of inquiry is the “flower” as a metaphor in literary texts. True to the dialogical principle, Dan engages Wilma in a discussion about Poe’s abundant use of “Blum’mphylle” typical of his texts (ZT 381). In them, he discovers “ ‘lily=fringed’ lakes, meadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths & tuberoses” (ZT 381). Translated into German, “‘meadow’ war ‘grass, turf, velvet’, ergo die Schaumhaare” or “‘violet’= violate + ‘geigen’ + viola d’amore” (ZT 381). In the evolving discussion, the participants come across “CRAWLEY’s ‘Mystic Rose’” and “a study of primitive marriage” (ZT 382), quote Coleridge’s “red as a rose is she” and suggest “mag ebmso geltn wie GOETHE’s ‘Haideröslein=Symbolik’” (ZT 382). They also decipher the saying “to pluck a rose” as “to take a virginity”

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(ZT 381) and identify “Rosnknöspchen” as a woman’s breasts (ZT 385). Apart from the rose symbols in various works, Dan, referring to the Muret-Saunders dictionary, adds to the meaning of rose the following observations: “Nu; laut MS, is’s noch die ‘Brause einer Gießcunne’ . . . ‘die Verzierung um ein Schlüsselloch’ . . . ‘das (runde) Schall=Loch, im Bauch einer Laute’ . . .” (ZT 382–83). Finally, the word rose, according to its Latin roots, “ros,” also signifies “der Tau” (ZT 383). All these references implicitly and explicitly make sexual references: rose symbolizes penis or vagina, or insinuates intercourse. Since the sexual connotations of the rose symbol prevail in many literary works, Dan feels compelled to argue about Poe: “Es wirkt só lange unbegreiflich, bis man einsieht, daß S sich bei allen ja um präsumtive Schau=Objekte für ihn handelte” (ZT 384). Viewing Poe’s writing as a voyeuristic act, Dan parallels the art of writing with “ubw=allegorisieren” (ZT 402) in which the poet’s superiority expresses itself through the art of concealment. “Flower” as metaphor, as a trope constituted on the repression of certain attributes of the signified flower, survives in displaced symbols. Therefore, their repetitive pattern has to be deciphered allegorically. Writers such as Shakespeare (ZT 397), Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853), Poe (ZT 402), August Lafontaine (ZT 382), and especially Novalis with his blue flower (ZT 390–91) display “overt & insinuated meanings” 2 (ZT 385). The key to reading their texts is not to view the content as solely the fantasy of the author but also as the symbolic displacement of 3 a signifier through the insistence of a signifying chain. If we adapt Schmidt’s theory on how to write, then the author of a literary text assumes the status of the analyst in disguise. Schmidt as the author of Zettel’s Traum conceals and deciphers literary texts. At the same time, he remains entangled in the effects of the unconscious and, like the reader, cannot escape the law of the signifier. Still, the average reader resists such a reading. Confined to the symbol rose as rose, she or he succumbs to being arrested in a particular symbolic structure because “Das eintlich=Traurije iss ja nur : wie die ernste S=Sinnigkeit von der Pseudo=Coischheit der Lésndn verbogn & vergewalticht wird” (ZT 391). For Dan, Wilma represents such a confined moralistic reader; her understanding of the metaphor flower exclusively refers to its object: “Eine Rose ist eine Rose ist eine Rose ist eine 4 Rose” (ZT 385). Without giving in to her stubbornness and without forcing her to acknowledge all the connotations of flowers, Dan continues to demonstrate the power of his etym theory by discussing Poe’s The Journal of Julius Rodman and his use of the flower symbol:

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RODMAN’S

Fanntasien von willtnüssigen BluomenBetten, sind S=Tropen, flohreich & Po=Moanich; orchi=ideeich & foll=Smellerei . . . Ississ nich=tüpisch : daß so=phile Mädchen=Namen, identisch mit den’n von ‘Blumen’ sind? - : ‘Flora; Rose=Marie; Violetta; Lily’? . . . Isst S Unsre . . . persönliche Verruchtheit, daß die Sprach’n, die Menstruation der Frauen mit ‘Flowers’ bezeichnen? Mittlhochdeutsch ‘bluome’ , Wilma; (was übrijens auch ‘Jungfernschaft’ bedeutn kann!). (ZT 387)

According to Dan, reading Rodman’s fantasies is not to read the hidden referential content, but to analyze the symbolic displacement of the signifier. Dan, making the analysis of the unconscious as exposed through rhetorical displacement the guideline of his reading, establishes alliances between signifiers. Flowers can implicitly be associated with femininity, delicacy, sensuality, and sexuality. In this case, Rodman’s sexual fantasies remind Dan of medieval literature where a lily symbolized purity and was associated with virginity, or where a rose alluded to sexual promise. The flowerbed signifies the place where the women lose virginity and subsequently bodily integrity. Simultaneously, Rodman represents the male view of the flower symbol, which reduces and distorts the image of woman to a sexual object. Similar to medieval literature, Poe’s women as flowers are passive and their sexuality is defined through the eyes of men; women want to be cultivated, gazed at, enjoyed, plucked, and cast away at the viewers’ pleasure. Simple metonymic connections manipulate established connections infinitely, and, in this instance, engage pure sexual desire. But, to extend the conclusions of chapter 3, reading for Schmidt involves not only discovering the meaning of the text but also the lack of meaning. It is not only the meaning of consciousness that is of significance but also its disruption by analyz5 ing the signifier through its effects. Dan’s explication of the “Wortplasma” with “S Muddyfickatzjon’n” (ZT 405) traces the history of the metaphor “flower,” the “Blumen=Sprache,” to the Orient, where “Rosmarin zB bedeutet ‘Weinen’; die Ringelblume ‘Kummer’, das Himmelschlüsselchen den Tod” (ZT 6 388). Based on these observations, Dan explains to Franziska that Diese ganzn ‘Verwandlungen’ . . . n’’normaler Vorgang wär, und, zumal bei Künstlern, speziell Dichtern, allgemein verbreitet [ist]: “‘Blumen’ & ‘Blumenvasen’ als Menschenersätze im Werk vorzuführn? ‚Der Leser‘ fängt ja überhaupt erst an, sich damit zu beschäftijen.” (ZT 388)

Confirming the poet’s art of concealment, Dan hints at the impossibility of divorcing reader and writer from the effects of the unconscious. According to this observation, literary texts like Zettel’s Traum and the

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reader mutually inform, and for that reason, displace each other. Poet and reader are therefore equally exposed to their delusions, errors or fantasies. In this double role of the reader and/or analyst, the reader happens to find him/herself inside the text. This entitles Dan to argue that literature is a “‘Zauber=Spiegel’ ; in dem Mann=Alles sehen kann” (ZT 392). Implicated in the linguistic effects of unconscious thought processes, which in turn present the actual mirror of our self, the readerwriter experiences unconsciously the ability to recognize “Die verschiednen Bedeutungsschichtn . . . besonders=leicht” (ZT 398). Literature presents poetic reflections between two mirrors, one representing the writer’s subjectivity, the other representing the world outside. Writing displays both poles but does not suggest an infinite regress. A superior poet, defined by Dan as a “wortvers(e)uchtes Individuum,” as the provider of concealed metaphors is able to disclose “zu guter Stunde . . . bedeutsamije Verbindungen . . . über die Unsre Schulweisheit nicht=gebietet” (ZT 393). To dwell on Dan’s word play with meaningful as “bedeutsamije,” the concealed metaphor “rose” literally germinates or renders seeds of signification rupturing conscious thought framed by our learned, that is, internalized understanding of language. For the reader, the letter of the poet provides “stéts die Initialzündung” (ZT 387) for “Symbolkettelungn; für ‘Fortpflanzeleien’ aller Art” (ZT 392). The figural character of language stresses the rhetorical structure of literary texts, exposing any literary code claiming to represent a general and exhaustive textual model as untenable. A rhetorician in disguise, Dan highlights the proliferating and disruptive power of figuration giving evidence of the etym theory as a means of rhetoric (ZT 393). Metaphorical truth becomes rhetorical truth whose effectiveness, hidden in disguise, emerges through its ambivalence. Ambiguity grants Dan the right to fathom chains of signification including “bisexuell däutbaren Buchstabm=Gebildn” (ZT 406). But despite these explanations, Wilma rejects Dan’s example as “alles vom Zaun gebroch’ne Bedäutungn” (ZT 393). Upset by the fact that Dan reads the metaphor “flower” wholly in sexual terms, she protests: “Was du Ein’n so vor Weib & Kind blammiersD . . . Wenn du von dir=aus ßponntân, auf derley HühPOEtésn verfielest? . . .’s’ss ja fast n Scheidungsgrund” (ZT 398). Wilma’s embarrassment and rejection of Dan’s word play as dirty and improper for a decent woman refers both to her individual role in Zettel’s Traum and to our own linguistic conventions. Notwithstanding her hesitancy to subscribe to Dan’s arguments, Wilma’s position within the Socratic understanding of dialogue remains crucial to Dan’s ability to explain the etym theory. Continuously warning

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Dan to be precise and clear in his elaborations of the etym theory, “Bitte : cerebral=bleibm Dän ! Nichts über ein vernümpfijen Diskurs” (ZT 244), she constantly draws Dan into explaining his thoughts. As Voigt has argued convincingly, Wilma becomes a champion for the reader by 7 challenging Dan’s at times obscure explanations. Her objections force Dan “aus, scheinbar desparat=isoliertn BruchStückn, ein con’sequentes unwiderlegbares Ganzes zu erbasteln” (ZT 1180). Knowing that Dan is a master of words, who tends to suffocate the discussants and the reader with endless theoretical discourses, Wilma repeatedly reminds him of his eccentricity: “Deine sündhafte Gewandtheit im Theorien=Drechseln, ist Mir nicht unbekannt” (ZT 150). Although she does not succeed in revealing the fragility of Dan’s claim, her doubts and her own analysis of the etym theory force Dan to reiterate and to clarify his arguments. Occasionally she assumes Dan’s role of the analyst by concluding that his 8 arguments are signs of “ConBienatorische Paranoia” (ZT 643). As a voice of reason, who remains in touch with reality — “Ich bin doch wirklich a woman, for whom the outside world exists” (ZT 4) — Wilma tests Dan to give him the chance to present his arguments in a lucid and understandable manner. Without Wilma’s different worldviews about metaphors and beliefs, Dan would be unable to expound his theories about language and the human psyche. Whereas Paul tends to be mostly affirmative and supportive of Dan, Wilma’s blunt remarks about the etym theory, such as “pornosophicul Philotheology” (ZT 930), add to the 9 reader’s sense of critical distance. She transforms the discussions into a process of explication or, as Ulrich Sonnenschein has suggested, an 10 intensive drive toward revelation. Expanding on Schmidt’s criticism of conventional language and modes of thinking, Dan’s word play with metaphors and metonymy inevitably exposes the disfiguring origin of metaphors. On the level of conscious thought the symbol “flower” refers solely to the unity between the representative and the semantic function of language. The symbol formulates a unity between the image of conscious thought, that which we see, and the image that the symbol suggests. Wilma’s skeptical response is synonymous with this mode of thinking: “Überbietet Euch nur immer in lüsternen Auslegungen, wie ihr wollt : Ich=jedenfalls könnt ne Wâse mit Blum’m jahrelang anschau’n, ohne dabei an Tüpm wie Euch denkn zu müssn” (ZT 394). For Wilma the word “flower” has a static meaning and, as such, does not invoke any other associations. But this is precisely the problem because, as Dan responds:

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(Du hasD, mit deinem unvergleichlichen Tact, genau den schwachen Punkt Deiner Argumentation hervorgehobm, Wilma) : “ ‘Denken’! Die DP’s bildern (& bildeln) ubw. Dein (übrijens geradezu klassisches) ‘an so was denk Ich gar nich’ , besagt nämlich, wenn Du Dir’s ma richtig überlegsD : ‘in Meinem bw ist dergleichen nicht vorhandn’, Punkt.” (ZT 394)

For Dan, Wilma’s response shows that meaning inheres in certain experiences emerging within our conscious thought processes. The object of perception is visible to me because I endow it with meaning. Dan explains to Wilma that meaning alters the perceived object into the objective, natural object: “Dú bist der congeniale Übersetzer Deiner eignen Projektionen” (ZT 158). The object “flower” in a literary text comes naturally to us; we know what it represents. On that account, symbols confer initial legibility on the text, and provide rules for the reader on how to read the text. According to Paul Ricoeur, symbols “provide the rules of meaning as a function of which this or that behavior can be interpreted” and Wilma has become the victim of her symbolic 11 reading of literary texts. If symbols function as a set of rules for description and interpretation in the reading process, then Wilma’s experience of the text transfers the idea of an immanent meaning into a regulated, 12 meaningful, “rule-governed behavior.” Accordingly, symbolic mediation transforms into a social regulation repressing the rhetorical structure of texts. Wilma cannot perceive any other meaning of the symbol “flower,” The normative idea of the symbol places a moral preference on her reading symbolized by her viewing of Dan’s explanations as “satânischn Conjecthuren” (ZT 399), as “die schmierijeren Erklärungen” (ZT 398), and as repugnant for a “saubere Frau” (ZT 398). Wilma’s inability to experience other word-associations attests to the function of symbols as norms and values immanent in a culture. By furnishing a context for particular actions, the symbol affirms its mimetic status. The logic of the idealized sign sets up a conscious mode of understanding “flower,” Wilma’s response suggests that language, for her, is foremost a mimetic process. For her, internalizing the classification of symbols has become a process of socialization. Considering Dan’s response, does Wilma really know what she is saying? Wilma’s idea of a symbol, shared by what Schmidt called the “poet-priests” Goethe, Schiller, and Stifter, is based on sensory experience. As the expression of an idea, the symbol as object is placed outside of the thinking subject representing the content of conscious thought. This figural transformation translates into a movement of idealization, as 13 discussed by Derrida. The idealization of the metaphor in turn pro-

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duces the dichotomy subject-object. Wilma’s understanding of metaphors presupposes that language already contains metaphors. The distinction between subject-object suggests that the signified word changes from a metaphorical to a literal expression, thereby erasing its origin. Wilma cannot distinguish between image and meaning. Her response “an so etwas denk Ich gar nich” testifies to this process. She will not find in the symbol “flower” anything but what she has been accustomed to. Following this explanation, the symbol “flower” represents the condition for truth. Wilma’s perception of resemblance or similarity is the condition for metaphor, securing the possibility of meaning and truth in discourse. Nevertheless, Wilma, not cognizant of this process, reads symbols as original and, as such, confirms her reading of literary texts according to a particular reading tradition. These observations must suffice to place Dan’s examination of Poe and his “cünstlerischn Blumencults & der Po(e)llutschionen” (ZT 393) within a broader context of Schmidt’s views on the metaphoric structure of language. Expanding on my discussion of the fragmentary nature of Zettel’s Traum, and Schmidt’s attempt to write an encyclopedia, I note that metaphors serve as a mechanism both to combine and to disintegrate, join and separate the various associative and polyhistorical strands of argument that run through the book. Schmidt thus realizes a number of structural possibilities inherent in the category of metaphor. In this sense Schmidt remains indebted to the Romantic conception of “progressive universal poetry” as expressed in the Athenäums-Fragment 14 116. Zettel’s Traum symbolizes the ultimate metaphor, crossing boundaries of genres, concepts, individual works, or of related discisymbols plines. Wilma’s cautious remark to Dan that “you must not find thimbols in everything you see!” (ZT 1153) and Dan’s dismissal of “POEtischen Metaphern” as “nichtsnutzigsten Vergleichn & Parallelen” (ZT 505) affirms my conclusions of the previous chapters, in that both allude to the symbolic character of our language. Metaphors as symbolic expression display their essence in being the transgression of borderlines or definitions. Their various forms of expressions merge and, although becoming one, still maintain their separate identity. For metaphors, by definition, defy any literal understanding. Metaphor, in my reading of Wilma’s concept of language, involves a double movement, which cements its figurative character. The traditional concept of metaphor encompasses two ideas for one: metaphors such as “flower” contain two related objects, giving it its double character. This duality implies the repetition of the same. However, this duality appears

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as both the same and different. Paul de Man explains the apparent paradox as follows: “It is no mere play of words that ‘translate’ is translated in German ‘übersetzen’ which itself translates the Greek meta phorein or metaphor. Metaphor gives itself the totality which it then claims to de15 fine, but it is in fact the tautology of its own position.” Any attempt to define a specific metaphor must contend with the inherent impossibility of unity in metaphor. Wilma’s description of Dan as a “Deutobold Symbolizetti Allegoriowitsch Mystifizinsky!” (ZT 1154) unintentionally verifies the figurative status Dan assigns to metaphors, because Dan exploits the idea that metaphors, translations, and comparisons are all transgressions. Metaphors confirm Schmidt’s idea of the dialectic interplay between consciousness and the unconscious. True to the idea of the etym language as “das eigntliche MOLY . . . gegn DP=Gepfusch & = Anmaßung” (ZT 1154), Zettel’s Traum read broadly as metaphor, challenges the boundaries created by “poet-priests” such as Goethe. The paradox of Zettel’s Traum as translation or transposition is best illustrated by its power to elicit numerous significations whereby the universal, Zettel’s Traum as such, succeeds in maintaining its identity. A brief detour is necessary to situate the differences between Wilma and Dan. The early Romantics opposed the homology of signs with truth by prioritizing the contingency of the sign. The reflecting consciousness was the site of the unity of the sign and nature, the relationship between subject and object. Representation first meant externalization and visualization, but Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel challenged the nature of natural representation when they argued that language is identical with 16 allegory. All representations are figurative and conditional, that is, they are an approximation of truth, but not truth itself. The idealization of the symbol forecloses the rhetorical nature of language. In contrast to the other Romantics, Schlegel focuses on the linguistic effects created by symbol and allegory. In Dialogue about Poetry, Ludovica declares that all beauty is allegory. The highest beauty can only be said allegorically since 17 it cannot be expressed. Allegory as indirect expression provides the constitutive principle of poetry so eloquently described by Walter Benja18 min as fixated image and fixating sign in one. The sublime, represented through allegory, affirms the impossibility of translating poetry, and 19 accentuates its intransitive character. Since the work of art expresses the inexpressible, its interpretation cannot be finite. Although Schlegel distinguishes between symbol and allegory, he accentuates their linguistic nature, their configuration as linguistic play in the approximation of poetic truth. The distinction between symbol and allegory, the former intransitive, seeking indirect signification, the latter

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transitive, seeking direct signification, does not certify the direct experience of sensory perception. Symbol and allegory are two types of signs and, as Novalis and Schlegel contend, do not refer to what Kant calls the 20 intuitive and sense-based manner of apprehension. The linguistic nature of the sign disqualifies direct representation. Kant’s understanding of symbols as intuitive presentation ignores the arbitrariness of the sign and the distinction between experience and the presentation of this experi21 ence. Instead, Kant conceives of words as mimetic signs. Goethe, following Kant, introduces the opposition between symbol and allegory, and considers the former as natural and the latter an arbitrary (conven22 tional) sign. The classical idea of the symbol, the unity between intuition and ideal beauty, prevails in literary history. Schmidt plays with the Romantic notion of allegory and symbol in the same way that rhetoric constructs metaphors. By evoking the Romantic notion of allegory and symbol as rhetorical ploy, Schmidt, according to Gregor Eisenhauer, literally constructs metaphors confirming 23 my discussion of his distinction between construction and intuition. Dan uses both as a rhetorical ploy to decode as many word-associations as possible: “Dank dir, Wilma. Wir wollen (zunächst) doch nichts anderes, als Uns 1, 2 Dutzend Seiner [Shakespeare — V. L.] allegorischen Gleichungen erarbeitn; von denen aus dann die Entzifferung der geschlossenen Stücke relativ leicht wird” (ZT 105). An allegorical reading of a literary text would seem to assert that its meanings are inexhaustible. As “HErrn über MillionenWorte” (ZT 722), Dan succumbs to the role of a “mit ProductionsZwang geschlagene Individuum” (ZT 1185) and breaks with the classical idea of allegory as one-to-one correspondence between signifier and signified. Treating allegories as indirect expression, he conceives of them as a constructive principle of literary texts, whose 24 interpretation is infinite. Nowhere does Schmidt’s semiotic theory appear so clearly as in the opposition between symbol and allegory — an opposition that strictly adheres to what Lacan called the logic of the 25 signifier and the language of the unconscious. The meaning of allegory consequently is never finite, that is, allegory is neither centered nor 26 steadfast. Metaphorical knowledge as indirect expression proves our inability to speak the truth, thus exposing writing and reading as inherently 27 mythological. Two issues, therefore, are at stake: First, the revelation of the mythological nature of language discards the possibility of a 28 transformation of history into nature. Second, Wilma’s reading of the metaphor “flower” shows that the reader “habitually forgets the mythological nature of language,” as Jochen Schulte-Sasse maintains for the

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early Romantics. Her intuitive response symbolizes the relation between subject and object striving for the delusive coincidence between the two. In terms of my earlier argument, her position would correspond to Benjamin’s passive “Erlebnis” and not to the reflective “Erfahrung.” Schmidt’s critique of intuition targets this myth of language and the coincidence of subject and object. Dan’s reference to the unconscious leads me to three general observations. First, the relationship between Wilma as the subject and the flower as object takes place entirely within her, the reading and seeing subject. Second, the endowment of metaphors with meaning ignores the arbitrariness of the signifier and the language of the unconscious. Third, the relationship between signs and their respective meanings has become secondary. The literal meaning, the erasing of the origin, confines the 30 sign to referring only to another sign that precedes it. The juxtaposition of a traditional understanding of language and the etym theory creates a tension between the former and the latter that demythologizes lan31 guage as the play between presence and absence.

Schmidt and the Language of the Poet-Priests Schmidt’s objections to our traditional understanding of language find another point of reference in his criticism of the “poet-priests” that I alluded to earlier. In response to Wilma’s question, “Was hasDu vorhin mit Deinem ‘DP’ gemeint?” Dan explains: . . . die Dichter, die sich einbilden, vom Priester herzukommen : D(ichter) = P(riester). Darfst auch an ‘DePp’ denken; oder ‘Displaced Persons’: Deplacierte Persönlichkeiten. Eine gut umschriebene ‘literarische Einheit; die De daran erkennst, daß se erstaunlich viel vom ‘Mythos’ halten & mit dem ‘Zweiten Gesicht’ kokettieren. (ZT 16)

Schmidt’s bitter irony here has a very specific historical index. “Displaced Persons” were the millions left homeless in the wake of the Second World War and its violent, arbitrary redrawing of national boundaries. The Displaced Person is thus one who has lost precisely that ideal “Heimat” or national linguistic rootedness which was embodied in the German idealization of “poets and thinkers.” If the Poet-Priest is the personal avatar of the metaphoric nature of culture, then the Displaced Person is the personification of metonymy. According to Dan, the literary texts of poet-priests such as Stifter, Goethe, and Schiller rely on intuition and vision (ZT 16). Steeped in myth and allegory, these writers perceive the artwork as an absolute value, as an idealization of reality that

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seeks to bring into individual appearance the universal. Ironically characterized as “displaced persons,” these same poets engage in elevated pathos presenting themselves as the vessels of divine will: they exemplify the artist as genius, whose experience illustrates the unity between poet 33 and God in the form of the literary unity. As slaves of their language, the poet-priests believe in their own symbolism without displaying any critical distance from their creative process: “Das Putzije iss ja bloß, daß diese DPs ihre Fata & Werke nich als klare autobiografähije Erinnerung ‘habm,’ sondern als litteraische Bildungn produzieren, ohne zu wissn, was se dabei so schreibm” (ZT 940). As displaced persons, the poetpriests separate their actual lives from the productivity of genius by celebrating a divinely inspired intuition. For Dan the artificial notion of unity in literary texts conforms to the idea of a utopian state, a place of higher being where aesthetic experience leads to a communal solidarity, moral sensibility, or, as in Stifter’s Nachsommer (1857), withdrawal into a restorative idyll. Speaker B in Schmidt’s essay “Der Sanfte Unmensch. Einhundert Jahre ‹Nachsommer›” thus comments: “Aber der ‹Nachsommer›? - Sein ‹Volk› ist grundsätzlich der ‹Untertan› à la Heinrich Mann : gutgeölte Knechte & Mägde, die lautlos funktionieren. Wälder von geradezu widerlicher 34 Treuherzigkeit.” A harmonious unity independent of wretched social conditions assures redemption within an aesthetic realm, which becomes the telos of human existence. The poet-priests separate the aesthetic domain or, as in Stifter’s case, that of nature, into an autonomous sphere, which they then contrast to modern civilization. The artist seeks to imitate a God-given world, nature, and functions as a model to be 35 emulated by the reader. Speaker A’s observations, however, reveal such aesthetic conditions to be bound up with the ideology of a bourgeois civil society. For him the poet-priests seek to lure the reader into identifying with the experiences of the artist or the hero of the text. In turn, the appealing illusion of being part of an imaginary group dissolves the reader’s resistance to the text. The vitalizing experience of nature in the reading process generates feelings, and gives readers general directions, or, as Miriam Hoffmeyer puts it, a feeling of personal continuity and 36 consistency. The experience of art enables the reader to live life ac37 cording to divine moral laws. Dan, however, ridicules the falsifying descriptions of nature as “poetisch=hochstilisiertes Magisches” (ZT 18) and states his main objection: “Mein Haupteinwand gegen sie wäre: daß sie, vor lauter mystischer Apartheed, nich mehr imstande sind, den einfachsten Gegenstand . . . als solchen zu schildern” (ZT 17). In response to the mystification of reality and to Stifter’s religious idealization of a

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better world, Dan contends that the moral laws destroy critical discourse: “diese Herren DP’s . . . würden doch am allerliebsten ‘Den Geist’ ganz aufgeben; und nur= noch ‘automatisch schreiben’!” (ZT 16). Religious intuition abandons reason and deforms the critical potential of literature. An uncritical glorification of religious beliefs turns subordination into a 38 moral law. This criticism is one of the reasons why Wilma labels Dan as an “eighteenth=century=mind” (ZT 157), situating him within the enlightenment tradition of secularization and critique. Likewise, the possible identification of the reader with role models sustains a false cult of subjectivity. Identification presupposes that the reader assumes a narrative position. The position permits him or her to maintain a certain distance toward the events described by the text. Another constellation is the identification with a specific position, namely, that of the hero of a narrative. Both processes of identification suspend the distance and dissolve the resistance of the reader to the text. The reader feels like the narrator or the hero of the story, or takes his or her point of view. In this instance, literature and social reality stand in opposition to each other. The “Flucht aus der Zivilisation” (ZT 16) corresponds to the conception of art as sacred refuge. God as a transcendent anchor empowers the individual to see the world as universal, independent of idiosyncratic social reality. It was precisely this aspect of art that played a preeminent role in the interpretation of the literary canon by postwar German critics. Witness Emil Staiger in his review of Stifter’s work: “He resembles the priest, who performs his service with his back toward his parishioners, solely devoted to the divine”; we, the readers, “acknowledge with love the 39 attempts of the poets . . . to advance to the spirit of a future.” Staiger’s goal is to describe, or rather prescribe, the mode of experience characteristic of the authorial consciousness of literary texts. The literary critic participates in the linguistic act of revelation initiated by the poet. According to Staiger, the critic’s role is to reveal, to uncover the linguistic dimensions, and to create an understanding of poetic language. The basic concepts of poetics attempt to free frequently used words from 40 their ambiguity and attain to the pure essence of language. Henceforth Staiger idealizes art as a refuge by attempting to reveal the author’s intention, introspection, and devotion to God. Such a descriptive reading experience conveys Staiger’s intentionally uncritical admiration, and reflects a common reading practice in postwar German literary criticism in which language functions as the representational mode of intuitive cognition. Speaker A in Schmidt’s dialogue “und dann die Herren Leutnants! Betrachtungen zu ‹Witiko› & Adalbert Stifter” responds critically

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to this cultivation of Stifter: “Folglich befindet sich auch die STIFTER= Forschung hoffnungslos in jener halb= kultischen Geistesverfassung, die dem Andersdenkenden nur die Wahl zwischen ‹Armer Blinder› und 41 ‹Bösewicht› lassen möchte.” The affirmative character of Stifter criticism, excluding any threatening ambiguities from their literary icon, finds its ultimate expression in the concept of language as symbolic mode of representation. The etym theory, however, exposes literary texts as pure fiction. This is the crucial point when Dan argues that all literary texts are products of the unconscious. Literary texts should be treated as dream works that need to be deciphered: daß die DP’s dem Publikum also Träumungen [work of art —V. L.] abliefern . . . und ergo gilt für all=ihre künstlerischen Gebilde, daß sie ‚überdeterminiert‘ sind . . . das heißt, für jeglichen ‚Einfall‘ wird es mehrere Begründungen geben. (ZT 30)

To read literary texts as overdetermined requires a continuous production of meaning rather than an internalization of a natural representation. The symbol, the one-to-one correspondence between word and thing implicitly guaranteed by God, turns into a constantly shifting signifier, opening up a system of differences that defines the word. Representational texts disregard the virtual character of language as an ongoing process, and grant reality full presence only by ignoring the implication of absence. It is this absence, displaced into the unconscious, that is the mainstay of a literary text: “man kommt ja allmählich da=hin, ein gewisses gerüttelt’ Maß an Ungewiß= & = bestimmtheit als unser Haupt =Kismet zu akzeptieren: Die Bejahung Der Vielsinnigkeit’” (ZT 35). Text and reader engage in an act of communication in which uncertainty is the driving force of reading. The “Kismet” is the ultimately unrealizable desire for certainty, for knowing the truth, that which always lingers in the space between absence and presence. Desire is the search for Freudian truth, as Lacan calls it, installed in and through the fragmented language of the unconscious. This permits Paul to read “die Bücher der DP’s nur als ‘halbe Kunstwerke’ & als Conglomerate von Träumungen” (ZT 37). Phrased differently, the ambiguous status of representation resides in this residue of knowing and not knowing, and it is precisely here that reason cannot penetrate the riddle of language. Fully aware of these mechanisms of identification and misreading, Dan’s assessment of the reading practices of East German literary criticism serves as poignant example:

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daß der ganze Ost=Block eifrig damit beschäftigt iss, die gesamte Literatur umzulesen, wäre an sich nur nützlich & begrüßnswert -. . . aber die Leute biegn ebm auch gleichzeitich dran=rum : aus dem Tatbestand, daß GOETHE ‘Bauern & Arbeiter’ verachtete, machn die (wenn’s ihnen in irgndn Jubiläum paßt), glatt n Bekenntnis zum Sozialismus. (ZT 358)

Although Dan appreciates and supports new readings of the literary canon, he simultaneously warns against the danger of rereading texts along the lines of ideological positions. In this example, Dan alludes to the reception of literary tradition, particularly the classical heritage of Goethe and Schiller. In East Germany, under the orthodox rule of Georg Lukács, the issue of high art was situated within the “Erbetheorie,” ironically addressed by Schmidt as the “Veruntreuung eines Erbes” (SIT 268). High art, notably the humanistic tradition exemplified by Goethe, served as an antifascist humanism. For Peter-Uwe Hohendahl, the role 42 of the Weimar icons was to cleanse the East of the fascist past. The prioritization of Goethe was justified through the concept of social realism: “From the perspective of a socialist society, in which art had to mirror reality, the Weimar classical literature appears as the legitimate 43 ‘Erbe’ for a socialist culture.” Both East and West German literary criticism engaged in an almost bizarre exchange of rereading the Weimar classics, which Jochen Schulte-Sasse pointedly describes as “ideological retooling.” As Schulte-Sasse says of Schiller criticism in the West, “the critical potential of the classical ideal of art was tied to historical legiti44 macy of the bourgeois notion of social harmony.” The postulate of aesthetic autonomy, dominant until the mid-1960s, stabilized a cultural 45 superstructure and maintained the political status quo. In view of the social and political references in Schmidt’s criticism of conventional language, it is fair to say that the etym theory, to quote Sigrid Weigel, albeit in a different context, is one way to deconstruct not only new knowledge but also to deconstruct processes of literary history 46 and counter their disciplining functions. Viewed differently, Schmidt reads with the etym theory against the grain, against assumptions about language as represented by the poet-priests and their role in the literary canon proffered by the postwar German literary establishment. Schmidt’s etym theory constitutes a strategy to derail the social and ideological utilization of thought, because, as Dan puts it, the “Kurpfuscherei der LiteraturProfessoren . . . [d]iese ganze PhiloLügner=Camarilla schirmt ihre Objekte bewußt=fälschend ab, und zeigt se Uns nur wie durch LattnRegale” (ZT 820). It is precisely for this reason that Dan voices his dissent with these principles of narratives in his discussion of Adalbert

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Stifter: “sein ÜI war durchaus vorschriftsmäßig gebildet; (dh entsprach dem vollbürgerlichn Ideal); . . . So daß sein bw, pausnlos mühsam, die allahschulrätlichsde Moral, steif=keuchend, von sich zu gebm pflegte” (ZT 806–7). The mimetic capacity of Stifter’s narratives lies in making sense of the world we live in via binary oppositions based on the epistemological premise of absolute knowledge. Metaphors furnish the medium through which the reader can represent and identify with the world. Reading according to the symbolic structuring of the text elicits the reader’s desire to achieve a masterful position. In this sense, metaphors are points of identification guiding the reader’s desire to achieve a unified identity that ought instead to be questioned. The universal character of Stifter’s moral narrative and that of postwar German critics is that of a bourgeois idealization of society at the expense of social reality: “Das Sekretieren und Unterdrücken unangenehmer Fakten, das Verkapseln und Verdrängen - oder, weniger höflich gesprochen : die Vogel=Strauß=Praktik!” signals the “geistloseste Stabi47 lität.” Seen within the context of postwar Germany, the reading practices of Stifter and other canonized authors lead to idolatry, as Speaker A puts it: “Mit Adalbert Stifter wird seit geraumer Zeit ein Götzendienst getrieben, der so weit geht, daß man kaum noch wagen darf, über seine 48 Werke eine eigene Meinung zu haben.” Speaker A, therefore, condemns Stifter’s language as “eine handgreifliche Bankerotterklärung der Bild=& Sprachkraft” since his dualistic conception of language ignores 49 the linguistic sign as an arbitrary human construct. What is more important, the reception of Stifter in postwar Germany follows the reading of his work by known scholars of Nazi Germany: “die 50 STIFTER=Forschung arbeitet noch heute lustig mit Kühn’s Buch. . . .” The reader, therefore, should instead follow Dan’s advice to decode literary texts, “die Texte werdn entzerrt” (ZT 399), and expose their assumed objectivity and ideological underpinnings. One might note here that this “ideology-critical” reading on Dan’s part must entail some fairly strong truth claims in and of itself. Again, he reminds the reader that literary texts only represent, “das subjektiefe Tun” of the poet-priests, which appears “dem DP gern im Gewande eines objektiv=Erlebten” (ZT 934). In contrast to the objectified experience of the poet-priests, Dan, however, perceives the truth of literary texts as always insidious and requires the perpetual production of fresh metaphors. Metaphors are only abstract images or illusionary constructs that emphasize appearance over reality. In contrast to the will to truth, the “as-it appears” of meta51 phor is complete and effective in itself. The canonized truth of metaphors covers the mythological nature of language at the expense of the

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unconscious, which symbolizes the “über wollü’minöse FarbmEimer verfügnde, Culissn-Maler” (ZT 1184). Their specific power defines itself through a repression of the consciousness. Hence, Dan’s summary of the world as a projection of images, “da die Welt ja unstreitig, bis zu ei’m gewissn Grade, Unsere, Vorstellung [ist]” (ZT 1182), is double-edged. On the one hand, the reader has to acknowledge that metaphor, as an always distorted form of our unconscious, determines the reading experience and consequently cannot refer to any objective reality. On the other hand, this acknowledgment leaves readers in a constant state of uncertainty and forces them to engage in a critical discourse in which meaning is relational and defined by differences.

Jokes — Puns and the Unconscious I had said that Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum with its wild punning and scatological humor is a very entertaining book to read. Throughout the text the reader encounters an array of humorous rhetorical devices, such as irony and wit, that constitute the pleasure in reading Zettel’s Traum. In the essay on Tieck, Schmidt’s Speaker A & B engage in a discussion of one of Tieck’s texts. Speaker B asks: “Und sie sehen in dieser possenhaften Szene also nicht nur tolle ‹romantische Ironie›? A (berichtigend): Die 52 ist lediglich die witzig=bittere Abbildung der Ironie des Daseins.” Although this dialogue does not provide a specific explanation of the two terms, irony and wit, Schmidt plays with the closeness of the two. Dan offers the following characteristic of Witz: Die Fähigkeit zur ‘Prüfung durch den Witz’, schützt ihren Inhaber vor dem geistig =Überfahrenwerdn, sei es durch Kirchen, durch Staaten, durch Reklamen . . . Du könntesD sogar behauptn : ein POEpanz, der sich der Betrachtung durch den Verstand, der Prüfung durch den Witz, entziehen möchte : Der weiß, warum. (ZT 325)

Irony questions the analytical character of predicative reason, disrupts its presented metaphors, and destabilizes the text. Irony thereby converges with the concept of criticism, by subverting intuition and the finite. Witz adheres to the Romantic idea of an infinite formation and destruction of the presumed totality of representation. Elusive in its mode of representation, Witz exposes the inadequacy of reason, and constantly refers to the inherent fragmentary character of any attempts to posit totality. As a site of productive play, Witz alludes to both the finite and infinite, and thus literally enacts its function as a liberator — “Der Witz als Erlöser” (ZT 796) — from predicative reason, “der, sich so=nennenden, seriösn Methoden” (ZT 796). In view of the uncertain status of the sign, Witz

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always searches for new figural forms hidden in the text, and as such takes on similar characteristics to Romantic allegory. Witz as the representation of the non-representable always points to another figuration in the text: “Weiter=hin ist seine ‘Zeigestock=Wirkung’ wesntlich=größer” (ZT 796). Resistant against integration, Witz implies allusion or a reference to something other. But it is the reader who steps in to unfold this creative potential. Giving meaning to suggested allusions, the reader creates his own metaphors thereby dissolving the mimetic function of 53 language. The interplay between metaphor and irony thus assumes the following characteristic: Metaphor, in particular allegory, attempts to synthesize continuously the images presented to us through the imagination, but never succeeds. Irony, in contrast, symbolizes the critical examination of the assumed images and symbols. Consequently, allegory and irony, as Paul de Man attests for the early Romantics, are both “linked in their common demystification of an organic world postulated in a symbolic mode of analogical correspondences or in a mimetic mode 54 of representation in which fiction and reality would coincide.” Irony and allegory strip the sign of its viability, exposing the ideology of the symbolic representation as natural and divinely sponsored instrument. Dan celebrates Witz as a legitimate tool of critical thought: “Das allgemeinsDe : daß ‘Der Witz’ nich nur diagnostisch=wichtich sein möchte; sondern überhaupt 1 legitimes Mittel aller Forschunc” (ZT 796). Assuming the role of philosophizing, or “wizzije[n] CunTemplationen” (ZT 1014), the humoristic devices, as Wolfgang Albrecht has argued, challenge the reader to re-examine individual, personal as well as societal 55 topics. Mistrusting any attempts to institutionalize the process of enlightenment, Schmidt generally opposed institutions such as church, individual societies, organizations, and universities, which he considered to symbolize the submission of reason to authority. Witz as critical thought engages, by contrast, in a “kultlose Kultur” (ZT 1281) without submitting to any superior or dominant cult or organization, such as religion, dismissed by Dan as “Fabrikantn der Ewichkeit” (ZT 1280). When Dan ridicules the church by suggesting that “n ‘Geistlicher’? : iss schonn vonn Berufswegn nich zum Skeptizismus geneigt; und wer leicht=gläubich iss, der iss auch unduldsam ; (d’is’s einer der sicherstn ErfahrungsSätze” (ZT 1283), he addresses the intolerance inevitable in subscribing to a particular belief system. Zymner adds to my observation by suggesting that Dan’s constant ridiculing leads to what he terms 56 “laughing isolation.” For him Dan’s playful commentaries, whether misogynist, racist, atheist, pornographic, or misanthropic, reveal that his antagonism toward conventions isolates him within the fictional world

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he describes. Isolating others and himself, Dan seeks refuge among a community who shares his laughter. For Schmidt, Jean Paul, both as reader and as writer, was the ultimate master of self-parody, self-criticism, and self-consciousness, as this quote demonstrates: “Wer sich=selbst parodiert, ist weit=weiser als Der, Der sich ständig=aufgeregt=ernstnimmt” (ZT 325). Pointing to Jean Paul’s view that the best reader of the best author should be able to laugh about a humorous lampoon on himself, Schmidt integrates Witz as a technique of disruption (Verfremdung): durch Anwendung der Witz=Technik, wird . . . nicht nur das Verständnis beim Leser beschleunicht; sondern vor allem auch, ein (begreifliches) Unlustgefühl, bei Erörterung solcher Matterien weitgehend aufgehobm - ja, ich bekenn! es: in steifer GelehrtnSprache sind Mir solche Themen stets ziemlich=unerträglich gewesn. (ZT 806)

The Witz of unconsciousness dissolves petrified meaning and enriches meaning through ironic distancing. Thus, Witz duplicates the work of critical reason itself. Witz also attacks the language of the poetpriests (“GelehrtnSprache”), which assumes the supremacy of the sign and projects objectivity: “die Kerle stellen sich ja auch nur viehsiologisch=kalt, und landen, verdientermaßen, in einer K’ars’tlandschaft absurdester ObjektivGetues!” (ZT 806). Dan’s Witz has a dissoluble, anarchic, and deconstructive relationship to metaphorical representation, and always emphasizes its antagonistic character. This relationship provides the reader with other forms of knowledge, and motivates the reader to experience the actual infinity of knowledge and, in turn, the essence of the fragment. However, there is a second characteristic we must consider: irony in relation to the unconscious. Dan, in a heated discussion with Wilma, proclaims: “Der Witz [ist] eine, aus dem ubw aufsteigede, ‘Denkweise’ . . . - weswegn schon GÖRRES . . . schon schimpfte, aller Witz sei dem 58 Dämonischen gesippt” (ZT 325). Irony brings out the fragmentary structure of consciousness by playfully illuminating the finite and the infinite. Hence, the Witz of conscious thought presents the absent presence. Both, finite and the infinite as well as the absence of presence, correlate to the Freudian distinction between sense and non-sense, consciousness and the unconscious. According to Freud, “we attach sense to a remark and know that logically it cannot have any. We discover truth in it, which nevertheless, according to the laws of experience or our 59 general habits of thought, we cannot find in it.” Schmidt’s use of Witz correlates to Freud’s assessment that Witz has to be seen vis-à-vis “Rea-

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son, critical judgment, suppression.” Witz points to the censorship of conscious thinking or predicative reason. The ambiguity of words vouches for unaltered non-sense, that which we cannot experience through the authority of the sign. In contrast to the ambiguity of words, absolute signification provides the only frame through which we experience the world as consistent and meaningful. Nonsense refers to the infinite, the possibility of expressing the multiple without a synthetic 61 center. The following example, taken from a conversation between Dan and Paul about East and West German radio news, illustrates the relation of the joke to the unconscious: “die Moskauer LOMONOSSOFF=Bibliothek, sei nunmehr die größte der Welt, mit ihren 15 Millionen Bändn! / - : “Walte GOtt, daß es lauter verschied’ne sind” (ZT 470). According to Freud, the success of a joke depends on three people. In our example, Dan plays the designated teller of the joke, Paul, the designated listener, and the reader acts as the “third person,” whose role is similar to the listener. Like Paul the reader enables the condition of possibility (and impossibility) of Dan’s jokes. Freud tells us that the joke functions only 62 through the “mediation of the interposed third person.” It is the reader who decides the fate of Dan’s jokes and his designated role as the teller of the joke. In this joke about the Soviet Union, Paul or the reader as the third person decide if the Moscow library becomes the object of laughter. Hence, the dyadic relationship implied in this construction gives the joke a peculiar twist perceived by Samuel Weber as defying “the consti63 tutive role of traditional logic, tertium non datur.” Paul, Dan, and the reader engage in a kind of complicity and displace their desires or aggressions onto the Other, the Soviet Union. Laughter, Freud suggests, is the result of lifting the inhibitions that block our desires. The desire to know (what is not known Freud calls non-sense (Un-sinn), the concealed sense, residing in the un-conscious (Un-bewußtsein), the concealed consciousness) breaks down the barriers of inhibition. In the example above, Dan insinuates that all books might be the same and, thus, the joke confirms our unconscious suspicion that the Soviet Union is a place of oppression, of conformism, and lack of educational freedom. Moreover, the Moscow library symbolizes the actual object of the joke, the Russian Communist Party. The joke caricatures and degrades authority. In so doing, the joke fulfills Freud’s analysis of the joke as a representation by 64 the opposite. Dan’s remark “Walte GOtt, daß es lauter verschied’ne sind” confirms the point. This standard understanding of the joke, nonetheless, misses the point. Ordinarily, Paul’s or the reader’s imagination reconstructs the

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joke, and guarantees its success. Still, this explanation of jokes does not pinpoint the essence of jokes in general, due to Dan’s technique of allusion and analogy. The peculiar logic of the joke defies this logic of laughter. We laugh about a joke when we understand the gesture and get the point. The laughter remains ambiguous. Paul’s laughter is only partially volitional, since he understands the point of the joke. But, according to Freud, laughter cannot be calculated or completely understood, because then it cannot be a joke any more. If the joke results from the language of the unconsciousness, then laughter defines itself through something we do not know. Freud helps us here by suggesting that the main characteristic of laughter is the representation of some form of non65 knowledge: “we scarcely ever know what we are laughing at in a joke.” Laughter as the representation of non-knowledge now turns into the constitutive element of Dan’s joke, another form of knowledge. The laughter, the knowing, locates itself outside of the control of consciousness; it is the id (Es) that laughs in Paul — it is the other language. Henceforth, Dan’s jokes and puns, which I will consider shortly, aim at discursive knowledge and at other forms of discovery whose driving force is desire. Again, we are reminded of “Kismet,” the desire to know the truth, that which lies in the space between absence and presence. The joke consequently plays with the desire of the listener (or the reader of Zettel’s Traum) to find a meaningful context. The reader seeks to unify or to synthesize what he or she reads or hears. Yet the reader will always be left unsatisfied due to this state of non-knowledge or the impossibility and necessity of a complete response. The effect of incompletion plays with what we do not know and, as such, with readers who are accustomed to the literary traditions and forms, such as the “SchmalspurProfeten; mit’n Mithodn der Gruppe 47” (ZT 838), to which Zettel’s Traum is a reaction. Like Romantic irony, the Freudian analysis of jokes vacillates between expanding and limiting our thinking, always hinting at the infinity of knowledge. Schmidt tames the explosive nature of Witz by putting it to work in written form. True to Schlegel’s dictum — that a Witz only be thought about in written form, like laws — Schmidt’s written jokes in Zettel’s Traum “constitute . . . the dialectical Aufhebung of the internal antinomy of Witz” as Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s remarks 66 on the Witz in the early Romantics. The written joke provides the key to the geniality of Schmidt’s fragment Zettel’s Traum. Witz as fragmentary geniality designates the relative absence of form and represents the power of putting-into-knowledge. In this respect, Schmidt implants the 67 doublet of Witz, which is Wissen, knowledge.

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The following passage summarizes the discussion of irony, wit, laughter, and representation. The quotation at the beginning of Zettel’s Traum is taken from the Schlegel-Tieck translation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Ich hab’ ein äußerst rares Gesicht gehabt ! Ich hatt’ nen Traum - s’ geht über Menschenwitz, zu sagen, was es für ein Traum war. Der Mensch ist nur ein Esel, wenn er sich einfallen läßt, diesen Traum auszulegen. Mir war, als wär ich, und mir war, als hätt ich - aber der Mensch ist nur ein lumpiger Hanswurst, wenn er sich unterfängt, zu sagen, was mir war, als hätt’ ich’s : des Menschen Auge hat’s nicht gehört, des Menschen Ohr hat’s nicht gesehen, des Menschen Hand kann’s nicht schmecken, seine Zunge kann’s nicht begreifen, und sein Herz nicht wieder sagen, was mein Traum war. (ZT 2)

Nick Bottom, the weaver, rendered as “Zettel” (literally “warp”) signifies the bottomless encodedness of Zettel’s Traum and of our psyche. The word “bottom” of Bottom’s Dream, means in colloquial German “Po,” and in German slang further “Arsch,” a word anagrammatically contained in the name of one of the characters “Timon d’Arsch” in Schule der Atheisten (SdA 139) as well as in the name Arno Schmidt. Timon d’Arsch would also suggest a reference to Shakespeare’s play The Life of Timon of Athens (1608). Zettel’s Traum is a joke, a great “Verarschung” of the reader who takes it seriously. Moreover “Zettel” suggests paragrammatically Jean Paul’s novel Des Quintus Fixlein Leben bis auf unsere Zeiten, in fuenfzehn Zettelkaesten (1796), and in its polysemy refers to notes. Schmidt, as Hannelore Wolfram writes, refers to Jean Paul frequently, who “happens 68 to be ‘notorious’ for his learned and ‘quasi-learned’ notes.” “Zettel” also denotes “piece of paper” and “pages” and surfaces as inscription in the name Pagenstecher. In addition, “Zettel” points to the genesis of the book, that is, Zettel’s Traum, and its montage consisting of note cards. From an etymological point of view, “Zettel” means to split (Greek “schizein”) and draws attention to the split columns in Zettel’s Traum. As Wolfram rightly comments, “Zettel’s Traum [is] multiply overdetermined, its path of associations indexes a complex of palimpsests in a clever interplay with paronymy and polysemy, with intra- and interlingual 69 punning.” Zettel’s Traum plays constantly with the reader’s mind by punning and highlighting what she or he does not know. Zettel’s Traum is the intellectual equivalent of woven tapestry. The indecipherable dream script, however, escapes complete explanation. The reader always remains surrounded by the knowledge that he or she cannot claim any certainty of meaning. The distinction “Zwischen ‘wahr’ und ‘wahrscheinlich’” (ZT 1154) finds its answer in the space between

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absence and presence, evading complete revelation. Still, we desire to decipher the dream, Zettel’s Traum. The reader has to realize that life, after all, is merely a mirroring of him- or herself through distorted consciousness predetermined by the language of the unconscious. Nevertheless, the language of the unconscious is a double-edged sword. The etym language protects us from a prefigured existence, a sense of being in the world that is full of masks, images, and metaphors, valorized by the poet-priests. The deconstruction of these images leaves the reader in a state of flux, a void that demands to be bridged. To respond to this lack, the reader develops a sense of the world characterized by a joyful relativity in the relationship to reality. The playfulness of the etym language counters the slow dissolution of our dogmatic boundaries, the rhetorical seriousness voiced through its rationality and the insistence on a singular meaning of word and world. In so doing, Schmidt’s humoristic play with linguistic ambiguities, as Erika Gietema correctly argues, acquires a 70 powerful political function. Zettel’s Traum has a parodying attitude towards all forms of ideological discourse, whether philosophical, moral, or scholarly. The etyms themselves seem to enact the transgression of all linguistic and social codes. The humorous destruction of syntactic structures unveils the presumptuousness of conventional language. The burlesque freedom of Dan to say it all, citing the tenet “Aussprechen was ist!” (ZT 409) by the political theorist and one of the first founders of the Democratic Socialist Party Ferdinand Lasalle (1825–1864), implodes our socially constructed inhibitions. The liberty, in turn, invokes Jean Paul’s concept of destructive humor (ZT 32) and leads to the abandonment of those socially constructed inhibitions with roaring laughter. The puns, another subversive ploy in Zettel’s Traum, produce precisely this roaring laughter. They are not a marginal form of wit but of language and mind. For Jonathan Culler, “[t]he pun is the foundation of letters, in that the exploitation of formal semblance to establish connections of meaning seems the basic activity of literature, but this foundation is a foundation of letters only, a foundation of marks whose significance depends on relations, whose own significative status is a function of practices of reading, forms of attention, and social conven71 tion.” Arno Schmidt certainly follows this understanding of the pun. However, in view of his diverse styles in punning, it would be difficult to frame Schmidt by any specific definition. For him, puns and laughter simply illustrate the play of language and show their power as a critical tool toward a master signifier such as “Nation.” Dan renders the idea of a German nation as “Nazional=Gefühl” (ZT 469) or “Nazional=

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Charakters” (ZT 467) insinuating, for example, an equation between Nazi Germany and the concept of nationhood still prevalent in the unconscious of postwar Germans. Tied to metonymy and metaphor through its contiguous, polysemic function, puns rely on the similarity of sounds. Yet if we take into account Schmidt’s ideas about acoustic reality, puns reveal a double hearing, a play upon words rooted in a homonymic contiguity. In this example, the pun is based on a nonidentity, which is initially mistaken for identity. “Nation” and “Nazional” equal, at first, only phonetic hearing. The pun on German nationhood thus plays against nonidentity, doubling itself deceptively. In the same vein, Dan ridicules the falsity of postwar German politics of East and West by connoting their lack of difference in political substance and the shallowness of the politicians: “Wenn KIESINGER und ULBRICHT zusammenstoßen, so gibt es 1 hohlen Klang, Du!” (ZT 468) and the East German idea of a classless society as an oppressive coopera72 tive: “Dresch=Flegel & Traktoristn=GMBH” (ZT 470). The sound of the German words “dräschen” (to harvest) and “Traktor” (tractor), Dan writes as “dreschen” (to beat) and “Traktoristn” (Traktor + Touristen + traktieren). In so doing, Dan alludes to the tyrannical character of the farmer’s cooperative (the German word traktieren means to harass) and concurrently derides the East German farmer as rude (Flegel) and lazy (toristn = Touristen). Similarly, when Dan describes the West German chancellor as “Wir, Dr. A-Z, von GOttes Verhängnis Kanzler der West(ntaschn Deutschn . . .)” (ZT 469), he mocks Adenauer’s Catholicism, the problematic relationship between state and church, and the political and geographical insignificance of West Germany (West(ntaschn 73 Deutschn . . . = Westentaschen Deutschen + West Deutschen). The unpredictability and excess deployed in the linguistic structure inevitably aids the reader in the creation of a new critical consciousness. Every pun defines itself through the omission of the train of thought leading to the allusion. Schmidt’s idea of decoding the linguistic structure or retracing the signified opens a variety of connotations that stress the paradoxical nature of consciousness. The following examples provided by Dan shows how language says what it knows, or how the unconscious shows itself in the play of language: “Endlich ma’n Paar=Deutsche, die nie was von GOETHE gehört habm” (ZT 763) or “Das Volck? ist der verläßliche Träger des Rückschritts” (ZT 763) or “najà: der Germanist ‘besteht die Geliepte; der D=theol. ‘erkennt’ sie; (ErkenntnisTéorie)” (ZT 1015). At the level of “common sense” we get the point: Goethe is our master signifier, the “Volck” cannot be taken seriously, because it represents backwardness,

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and the Germanist embraces metaphysics while the poet-priests formulate it. On the level of the unconscious, these puns emerge between the written words, between the lines, to which Freud, quoting Jean Paul, adds “Joking is the disguised priest who weds every couple,” and continues with the aesthetic philosopher Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807– 1887), “He likes best to wed couples whose unions their relatives frown 74 upon.” Dan’s jokes and puns allow him to disregard cultural norms and taboos, and place the reader in a position to read between the lines of that which is not there and needs to be recreated. The desire for meaning has as its prerequisite the defamation and belittling of the canonical status of any ideals, at which Wilma laments, “MußDu denn alle Ideale 75 attackieren?” (ZT 609). The joking and punning subsequently break the barrier of the reader’s conventional thinking. A representation of the unusual and abnormal psychic states implied through the paradoxical nature of consciousness destroys the myth of wholeness and origin. Schmidt’s notion of language shatters and disperses the equation of Being, World, and Truth guaranteed by metaphysics. The disqualification of any master narrative secured by language as a direct correspondence among sign, phenomenon, and object falls prey to the paradigmatic and syntactic web of linguistic signification situated within the dialectic of conscious thought and the unconscious.

Notes 1

Here Schmidt refers to the book Mystic Rose: A Study of Primitive Marriage and of Primitive Thought in its Bearings on Marriage (1902) by the British anthropologist Alfred Ernest Crawley (1869–1924).

2

Some of August Heinrich Julius Lafontaine’s (1758–1831) most popular writings are Plessis und Klairant. Eine Familiengeschichte französischer Emigrierten (1795) and Leben und Thaten des Freiherrn Quinctius Heymeran von Flaming (1795–96). Creating a sort of petty bourgeois utopia, Lafontaine envisioned a patriarchal society free from conflicts in which virtues like fidelity, obedience, and contentment received highest priority. Love and intrigue play a major role in Lafontaine, providing Schmidt with the argument that his books display implicit sexual references. 3

In the essay “The agency of the letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud,” Jacques Lacan (Écrits [New York: Norton, 1977], 146–78) first subverts the linguistic theory of the sign of Saussure. Instead he focuses on the separation of the signifier and the signified, the production of signification itself. For that purpose, Lacan S renders his theory of language through the algorithm s . This formalization emphasizes the separation of the signifier and the signified. The important difference between Lacan and Saussure is in the significance of the bar. The bar separates signifier from signified and resists signification. In contrast to Saussure, who highlights the

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reciprocity of signifier and signified, Lacan argues that the relation of the signifier to the signified is never self-evident. The signifier only slides in a field of signifiers along the bar in an indefinite deferral of meaning. This enables Lacan to argue that “only the correlations between signifier and signifier provide the standard for all research into signification” (153). Lacan identifies the process as a metonymical chain, or word toward signification, resulting in the dissolution of the Saussurean unity of the sign. The signification process takes place only within the field of signifiers which signify only their differential and reciprocal positions. 4

The proclamation “a rose is a rose is a rose” comes from Gertrude Stein. For Stein, the multiple listings of the word “rose” collapse the distinction between word and thing, between phrase and thing, metaphor and instigate automatic writing.

5

As a result, Dan’s reading of the metaphor “flower” relies on the images of the unconscious, presented as metaphor and metonymy, and responds to similarity and contiguity. Both tropes replace one signifying element with another, rupturing the text of conscious discourse. Metaphor and metonymy mediate between these elements and maintain a state of constant flux. As signifying formations of the unconscious, Freudian displacement becomes metonymy, the word-to-word chain of signifiers. In contrast, condensation becomes metaphor, the substitution of one word for another. What is more important, a reversal takes place: substitution becomes metaphor, and metonymy displacement. Their representational status disrupts closure and signifies the absence of an ultimate referent or idea. 6

Note Schmidt’s acoustic play with the word modification. In this case, the reader deciphers “mud,” “ficken” (to fuck), and “Katze” (cat). 7

See Stefan Voigt, In der Auflösung begriffen. Erkenntnismodelle in Arno Schmidts Spätwerk (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 1999), 51–53. 8

See Voigt, In der Auflösung begriffen, 87.

9

Note the pun on theology, which Wilma, in reference to Dan’s reading practice, unintentionally invokes by dismissing the etym theory as a philosophy of pornography. 10

Ulrich Sonnenschein, Text-Welten : Subjektivität und Erzählhaltung im Werk Arno Schmidts (Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 1991), 14.

11

Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988), 1: 58.

12

Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 1: 58.

13

My argumentation follows Jacques Derrida’s discussion of the movement of idealization. See his essay, “White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy,” in Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986), 207–72. 14

Friedrich Schlegel, “Studien des klassischen Altertums,” in Kritische FriedrichSchlegel-Ausgabe (hereafter KA), ed. Ernst Behler et al. (Munich & Paderborn: Schoening Verlag, 1958), 1.2: 183. 15 Paul de Man, “The Epistemology of Metaphor,” in On Metaphor, ed. Sheldon Sacks (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1978), 15. 16

Friedrich Schlegel, “Charakteristiken und Kritiken I (1796–1801),” KA 2.1: 348.

17

Schlegel, KA 2.1: 324. Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974), 1.1:1: 359.

18

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19

See also Jochen Hörisch, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft. Der Universalitätsanspruch von Dichtung in der frühromantischen Poetologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976), esp. chapter 6. 20

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. Werner Pluhar (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987), 227. 21

Kant, Critique of Judgment, 227.

22

For a discussion of allegory and symbol in Goethe see Tzvetan Todorov, Theories of the Symbol (Ithaca: UP Cornell, 1982), esp. 198–207. 23

See my discussion of Schmidt’s literary realism, and also Gregor Eisenhauer, »Die Rache Yorix« Arno Schmidts Poetik des gelehrten Witzes und der humoristischen Gerichtbarkeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992), 162. In contrast to Eisenhauer’s and my reading, Horst Thomé upholds the classical idea of symbol, “Die Symbole sind, wie es der Tradition entspricht, gleichsam natürlich. Sie enthalten scheinbar unmittelbar ihren Sinngehalt, nicht durch eine kühne symbolistische Kombination” (Thomé, Horst. Natur und Geschichte im Frühwerk Arno Schmidt [Munich: edition text + kritik, 1981], 158). 24

Similarly, Friedrich Schlegel renders ordinary language as incapable of reaching the multitude of indirect expressions. See Schlegel, “Philosophische Lehrjahre,” KA 18: 209, no. 148. 25

In “The agency of the letter in the unconscious or reason since Freud,” Lacan introduces the concepts of metaphor, explained by the formula “one word for another” (157), and metonymy, “word-to-word connexion” (156). The privileged instrument is metonymy, since it has the “power to circumvent the obstacles of social censorship” (158). The censored truth is inscribed in the “word-to-word” connection. But what is truth? Lacan’s response is that the metonymic structure installs the object of desire, the truth, “the metonymic structure . . . permits the elision in which the signifier installs the lack-of-being in the object relation” (164). Put differently, the omission of the signified designates the object of desire, the wish for recognition. Signification is the emergence of the subject and takes place in the metaphoric structure. Metaphor, the flash “between two signifiers one of which has taken the place of the other (157),” also relates to desire. The trope metaphor is the advent of signification, the crossing of the bar because of the desire of recognition installed by the lack-of-being. 26

Kurt Jausslin (“Über das Universum als Fortsetzung des Sinnensystems. Die Stage Allegorie in Zettels Traum,” Zettelkasten 12 [1993]: 141–83) argues similarly: “[d]ie Allegorie wird im Moment ihrer unendlichen Diversifikation erfaßt” (162) and lacks any referent, “[d]ie Allegorie ist nicht metaphorisch im engeren Sinn. Sie kennt nämlich keine Referenzinstanz” (146). Gregor Strick (“Einige Probleme des Lesens und Deutens von Arno Schmidts Caliban über Setebos,” Zettelkasten 14 [1995]: 245–60) draws a similar conclusion for all of Schmidt’s texts: “Die Vieldeutigkeit, die besondere Potentialität der Texte belastet alle Entzifferungs- und Deutungsversuche von Schmidts Werk, insbesondere des Spätwerks” (253). See also Olaf Werner, Wortwelten : zu Bedeutungstransport und Metaphorik bei Arno Schmidt (Hamburg: UNI PRESS Hochschulschriften, 1992), 155.

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27

According to Anselm Haverkamp “the technique of the linguistic transposition replaces the transposed ‘content’ within the image; the metaphor as term for transportation replaces the image as metaphor of the ‘Gestalt’ (‘figure’)” (“Einleitung,” in Theorie der Metapher, ed. Anselm Haverkamp [Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983], 2). For an overview of the differential function of metaphor see also Hans Joachim Piechotta, “Einleitung: Die Differenzfunktion der Metapher in der Literatur der Moderne,” in Die literarische Moderne in Europa, ed. Hans Joachim Piechotta et al. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994), 9–67. 28 For a critique of the mythology of language see Roland Barthes, “Myth Today,” in Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), 109–59. 29

Jochen Schulte-Sasse, “General Introduction: Romanticism’s Paradoxical Articulation of Desire,” in Theory as Practice: A Critical Anthology of Early German Romantic Writings, ed. Jochen Schulte-Sasse et al. (Minneapolis: UP of Minnesota, 1997), 41.

30

This is precisely the point of Foucault’s distinction between the Classical Age and the Modern Age. While in the former, “literature really was composed of a signifying element and a signified element,” organizing signs into a binary structure; in the latter, literature “began to bring language back to light once more in its own being . . . language was to grow with no point of departure” (The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences [New York: Vintage House, 1994], 44). 31

Jean-François Lyotard pinpoints the problem with a traditional understanding of language when speaking of two kinds of metanarratives: first, the traditional, mythical narratives legitimizing knowledge concerning primordial origins; second, the metanarratives characteristic of modernity, legitimizing knowledge about the future. Both metanarratives adhere to a universal finality, manifested in the mimetic conception of art and language (The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge [Minneapolis: UP Minnesota, 1984], esp. 18–31). 32

The notion of “poet priests” here finds its most concrete formulation in Novalis, who suggested that “Der ächte Dichter ist aber immer Priester,” and is the “Repräsentant des Genius der Menschheit” (Tagebücher und Briefe, in Werke, eds. Hans Joachim Mähl and Richard Samuel (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1978), 2: 260–61. 33

For excellent overview of the development of the concept of the “artist as genius” see Jochen Schmidt, Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens 1750–1945, 2 vols. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985).

34 35

Arno Schmidt, Bargfelder Ausgabe (hereafter BA) (Zurich: Haffmanns, 1990), 2.2: 72.

For Adalbert Stifter, art was a branch of religion, a positivistic orientation to the natura naturata (Gesammelte Werke in 14 Bänden [Stuttgart: Birkhäuser, 1965] 7: 145). Art imitates nature, and functions as the representation of the natural world. The few artists endowed with the ability to link the work of art and God (nature) Stifter calls poet-priests: “Dichter gibt es sehr wenige auf der Welt, sie sind die hohen Priester, sie sind die Wohltäter des menschlichen Geschlechts” (Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 8 vols. [Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1982], 2:9). Imitation resides in the artist, in the activity of the divine creator. The born artist, however, imitates nature inasmuch as he forms (bilden) and creates as nature does. Stifter’s idea of imitation suggests construction rather than imitation. The work can only imitate the products of nature, whereas the artists follow the productive principle. Mimesis here has to be

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understood in the sense of poiesis, residing in the artist’s imagination. The poet-priest equipped with a formative or productive faculty writes according to the higher laws of his divine intuition. Stifter exploits the analogy between God, the creator of the world, and the artist, the author of his work. The analogy permits Stifter to parallel nature and a work of art as a closed totality, a universe of its own. 36

Miriam Hoffmeyer, “Nich ma mich selber. Selbstbehauptung und Flucht: Identität in Kaff auch Mare Crisium,” Zettelkasten 13 (1994): 84. 37

Stifter, Gesammelte Werke, 14: 359.

38

For this reason, Timm Menke’s assessment that Stifter’s texts constitute a “negative Utopie . . . konstruiert als Konkretisierung einer traumhaft besseren Welt zur Abwehr einer als entwürdigend empfundenen Realität” feeds right into the Stifter criticism he accuses of being apolitical and ahistorical (“Der Unsanfte Mensch. Arno Schmidts Stifter-Aufsatz ‘Der sanfte Unmensch. Einhundert Jahre Nachsommer’ als Kritik am Literaturbetrieb der fünfziger Jahre,” Zettelkasten 9 [1991]: 169). 39

Emil Staiger, Adalbert Stifter Als Dichter der Ehrfurcht (Heidelberg: Lothar Stiehm, 1967), 9. 40 Emil Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics (University Park: UP Pennsylvania State, 1991), 180. 41

Schmidt, BA 2.3:148.

42

Peter Uwe Hohendahl and Patricia Herminghouse, Literatur der DDR in den siebziger Jahren (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1983), 17. 43

Hohendahl and Herminghouse, Literatur der DDR, 20.

44

Jochen Schulte-Sasse, “Autonomie als Wert. Zur historischen und rezeptionsästhetischen Kritik eines ideologisierten Begriffes,” in Literarische Wertung, ed. Norbert Mecklenburg (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1977), 166–67. 45

Although the mid-1960s are generally regarded as the shift from a traditional, classical literary canon to literary modernity and to some extent contemporary works, the generally conservative approach to and selection of literature maintained its privileged status. See, for instance, Ludwig Fischer, who locates the year 1967 as a shift in Germanistik: “Die Zeit von 1945 bis 1967 als Phase der Literatur- und Gesellschaftsentwicklung,” in Literatur in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bis 1967, ed. Ludwig Fischer (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1986), 29–96. University professors such as Benno von Wiese, Friedrich Sengle, Wilhelm Emrich, Wolfdietrich Rasch, and others determined what was taught at the universities. More importantly, change within the field of Germanistik was almost impossible, because, as Jost Hermand concluded, until 1966, there were hardly any changes in the number of professors (Geschichte der Germanistik [Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1993], 142–43). Despite the emergence of some new approaches to literature, such as the New Criticism or the intrinsic approach, reception continued to see no evil, hear no evil, or speak no evil: “here, there predominated a markedly elitist modernism devoid of a world-view which, as a result, of the commonly held suspicion of ideological predispositions, only acknowledged a poetry which appeared to consist of aesthetic formulas and lines” (142–43). The escape into the aesthetic world of poésie pure nonetheless was just another form of a “spreading of terms” such as “humanity, inwardness, and the occidental” as Alexander von Bormann maintains (“Der Kalte

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Krieg und seine literarischen Auswirkungen,” Literatur Nach 1945. Politische und regionale Aspekte, ed. Jost Hermand [Wiesbaden: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1979], 21.1:106) propagated by former Nazi professors that sought to compensate for the experience of the Third Reich by proclaiming the aforementioned objective values. 46 47

Sigrid Weigel, Die Stimme der Medusa (Dülmen: Tende, 1987), 13. Schmidt, BA 2.2:75.

48

Schmidt, BA 2.2:84.

49

Schmidt, BA 2.3:158.

50

Schmidt, BA 2.3:147. Dr. Otto Julius Kühn (1887–1970) was a pedagogue and poet. He published on Wilhelm Raabe and Adalbert Stifter. His best-known works are Stifter als Erzähler (1932) and Die Kunst Adalbert Stifters (1940). He lived in Bad Köstritz and Waltershausen/Thuringa. 51

Nietzsche had already reflected on the truth of metaphors by asking if language were the adequate expression of all reality. His famous conclusion that the truth is a mobile army of metaphors foreshadows Schmidt’s etym language. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bänden, ed. Karl Schlechta (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1966), 3: 311–14. 52

Schmidt, BA 2.2:306.

53

See also Sonnenschein’s discussion of Witz in Text-Welten, 181–95.

54

Paul de Man, “The Rhetoric of Temporality,” Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism (Minneapolis: UP of Minnesota, 1983), 222. 55

Wolfgang Albrecht, Arno Schmidt (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1998), 81.

56

Rüdiger Zymner, Manerismus. Zur Poetischen Artistik bei Johann Fischart. Jean Paul und Arno Schmidt (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1995), 318. 57

Albrecht correctly observes that in Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum “[tritt] schärfer denn je . . . eine unpopulistische und eurozentrische Kulturvorstellung diskriminierenden Wesens, auch Frauen gegenüber, hervor. Ihr ist nun freilich nicht mit vulgärmaterialistischen Kategorien beizukommen . . . sondern eher aus historisch kritischer Sicht” (Arno Schmidt, 82).

58

Freud distinguishes between irony and jokes. See Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (London: Hogarth Press, 1962), 8:173. Joseph von Görres, 1776–1848, German historian, journalist, and writer, lectured on philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. His main work was Germany and the Revolution (1819) and greatly influenced contemporary politics. He also was an editor of the Rheinische Merkur. In addition, Görres wrote books and essays on religious topics and many works on literature, history, and folklore. 59 60 61

Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 8. Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 137.

According to Freud, irony comes close to joking but it is not the same. Freud defines irony as a subspecies of humor, as in essence “saying the opposite of what one intends to convey to the other person, but in sparing him contradictions by making him understand” (Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 174). But Freud only

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combines irony and jokes with the production of “comic pleasure in the hearer”: “What is peculiar to jokes is their relation to the unconscious, and this may perhaps distinguish them from the comic as well” (174). It surprises the reader of Freud to see this distinction, inasmuch as irony is the rhetorical ploy par excellence for the paradoxical explanation of consciousness. Freud only briefly refers to irony, and does not specifically explain why irony does not relate to the unconscious whereas jokes do. 62

Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 158.

63

Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud (Minneapolis: UP of Minnesota, 1982), 103.

64

Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 70.

65

Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 154. Schlegel, “Philosophische Lehrjahre,” KA 18: 305, no. 1333; Schlegel, “Charakteristiken und Kritiken I (1796–1801),” KA 2: 239, no. 394; Philippe LacoueLabarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism (New York: State UP of New York, 1988), 54. 66

67

Gregor Eisenhauer’s study (»Die Rache Yorix« Arno Schmidts Poetik des gelehrten Witzes und der humoristischen Gerichtbarkeit) shares my conclusion about Witz as the production of knowledge. However his inquiry stands in sharp contrast to mine. Eisenhauer’s book, the first and only detailed inquiry into Schmidt’s humoristic jurisdiction, considers the influence of Jean Paul, Lawrence Sterne, Thomas Mann, Herman Broch, and James Joyce. Despite Eisenhauer’s thoroughness, his results are misguided by an antitheoretical rhetoric that puts his work in a dubious light. Eisenhauer, for instance, maintains that he does not subscribe to “die gängigen Assoziations-Montage- oder bricolage-Techniken” (254), and defends his traditional hermeneutic reading against what he calls “strukturalistische, marxistische, psychoanalytische, sozio-linguistische . . . Lehrsätze” (1). Yet he contradicts himself in his polemic against psychoanalysis and other forms of inquiries by positing that which he criticizes: “[a]ls fortwährender Maßstab . . . von theoretischer Vorüberlegung und interpretativer Nachprüfung bzw. Lektüreerfahrung . . . werden jene Werke fungieren, die als Inbegriff der humoristischen Erzähltradition gelten können” (12). Eisenhauer’s resistance to “theory” means that he remains confined within phenomenological aesthetics. His blatant omission of the early Romantics and Freud’s Jokes and the Relation to the Unconscious exerts violence on a corpus of texts, and institutes a closure of reading. By definition, hermeneutics is geared toward the determination of meaning, and Eisenhauer engages in a methodological mastery, turning a means into an end. 68

Hannelore Wolfram, “Strategies and Effects of Intertextuality in Contemporary French and German Fiction: Maurice Roche’s ‘Codex’ and Arno Schmidt’s Zettels Traum,” Ph.D. diss. (U of Texas, 1989), 176. See also her very insightful decoding of the title Zettel’s Traum 174–80. I am grateful to her for finding a tremendous number of references contained in Zettel’s Traum of which I was not aware. Dieter Stündel’s inventory of references contained in the name and person Daniel Pagenstecher and the Jacobis (Zettels Traum [Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982], 148–67) is also an excellent resource to get a glimpse of the magnitude of Schmidt’s superior creativity. 69

Wolfram, Strategies and Effects of Intertextuality, 174.

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70

Erika Gietema, “Narrenfreiheit oder Subversion? Versuch einer Funktionalisierung des Intertextualitätsbegriffs bei Arno Schmidt in Richtung auf die humoristische Subjektivität.” Neophilologus 72 (1988). 71

Jonathan Culler, ed., On Puns (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 4.

72

Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1904–1988) was former chancellor of the Federal Republic of West Germany. Walter Ulbricht (1893–1973) was former chief-of-state of the East German Socialist Party (SED). 73

Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967) was the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of West Germany.

74

Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 8: 11.

75

See also ZT 113, 600, 620, 665, 929.

5: Schmidt’s Reading of Freud’s Ego-Development MAGNUS HIRSCHFELD . . . die Transvestiten - :das sind Männer, die stark weiblich empfindn, Frauen, die Männer sein möchtn . . . (ZT 944)

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of conscious and unconscious thought processes remains insufficient without a more thorough investigation of Schmidt’s understanding of subjectivity. An inquiry into what constitutes subjectivity seems even more necessary since Schmidt alludes to the androgynous character of our being. Schmidt’s stress on the unconscious as the prime determinant of our conscious mode of processing information unveils the central role the unconscious assumes in any reflection on subjectivity. Throughout the previous chapters, however, I emphasized that reading entails a process of decipherment, which in turn always leads to a process of construction and reconstruction. Since for Schmidt language defines the subject and provides the medium in which the subject comes into being, any attempt to delineate subjectivity has to discern its enabling conditions. To discern this frame of the subject means to dismantle its traditional definition as articulated by the postwar German literary establishment. Apprehending the frame of subjectivity also requires an analysis of how the subject comes into being in the first place. Considering that Schmidt situates the absence of presence within the dialectic of conscious thought processes and the unconscious, his interest in the constitution of subjectivity inevitably requires the reader to return to Freud or, to be precise, to Schmidt’s reading of Freud. As previously shown, the extreme difficulty of Schmidt’s style of writing deliberately provokes limits of coherence, thus also of mastering the text; Zettel’s Traum denies the reader any conclusiveness. Similarly, Schmidt does not offer a precise, wellformulated, easy-to-comprehend theory of the human subject per se. Rather, in the context of Zettel’s Traum, any understanding of the human subject remains fragmentary. Since Schmidt’s practice in writing Zettel’s Traum derives its major stimuli from the mechanisms of the unconscious, his dispersed presentation of what constitutes the human subject

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resists any definitiveness. Like the radical heterogeneity of the unconscious, Schmidt’s writing about the subject always entails that which we do not know, an opacity to conscious intention or understanding. I would now like to draw the missing link between my previous findings about the relationship between language and the subject, and my repeated references to concepts of desire and identification. After providing the framework within which to read the human subject, I will show how Schmidt extensively thematizes the mechanisms of identity formation by addressing the effects of the materialities of communication as exemplified in news broadcasting in postwar Germany. The following questions guide my explication of Schmidt’s notion of subjectivity: What is the relation between the subject and his or her utterances? If the category of consciousness is fragmentary, and metaphors and symbols are means of indirect representation of the absence of presence, what are the implications for the constitution of subjectivity? How does the constitution of our subjectivity effect the relationship between the subject, language, and literary text? Thus far, I have concluded that for Schmidt language is the cause of the subject. Now, the kernel of subjectivity is about to reveal its paradoxical essence. Placed within the context of a dialogue, Dan, in a discussion with Wilma, invokes Freud when he announces that three instances mark our personality: “Ihr erinnert Euch, daß FREUD jede ‚Persönlichkeit‘ als aus dreierlei zusammengesetzt bezeichnete: aus ICH, ÜBER=ICH & UNBEWUßTEM” (ZT 187). Whereas I had previously focused on the model of unconscious, the preconscious, and conscious, Dan’s distinction between the ego, the superego, and the unconscious now changes the focus to Freud’s later writings. Dan treats the id with some skepticism, since “die Bezeichnung ‘Es’ ist eine einseitige Verunscharfung vom ubw” (ZT 187). As I pointed out with respect to Freud’s earlier model of the mind, Schmidt does not account for differences between Freud’s models; he simply uses both opportunistically. In this instance, Dan equates the id with the unconscious and forces the terms of the early dynamic model, unconscious and preconscious, to coexist in an undefined alliance with Freud’s later topical model. Despite the inclusion of the later model, Schmidt, however, in contrast to Freud, does not abandon the linguistic process of signification of the unconscious, and reads 1 the early formation of subjectivity accordingly. The Freudian model of the partitioned subject as outlined in “Ego and the Id” (1923) thus differs from what Schmidt presents in Zettel’s Traum. Here Schmidt’s notion of the subject is not an entity with an identity, but a being created in the fissure of a radical split unfolding in various stages.

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Addressing the first stage, Dan, invoking Freud, discusses the problem of sexual definition. In a long passage on androgyny (ZT 943–49), Dan speculates about the origin of human sexuality: “Wie schuf . . . Gott den Adam? . . . GOtt bildete in der Stunde, wo er den ersten Menschen erschuf, ihn als Androgynos . . . als GOtt Adam erschaffn hatte, war dieser ein Mann=Weib” (ZT 945). The human subject derives from an original whole — a combination of masculine and feminine — which was previously divided in half: “Wir sind, Allesammet, geSpaltene Wesn” (ZT 411). Consequently, the subject, driven by desire, strives to recover the other split half in order to regain wholeness. This point emerges in Dan’s reference to Plato’s Symposium about the birth of desire: “Ja, in PLATO’S ‘Symposion’ die (vielleicht absichtlich!) dem ARISTOPHANES in den EtymMund gelegte Téorie vom ‘zerspaltenen Ur=Androgynen’, dessn 2 tail’s einander nun wieder suchen müssn: Die Menschen nennen S Liebe” (ZT 945). The division of the subject is sexual in nature. Through the loss of sexual androgyny, the subject remains contained within its biological dimension, a “biologischn Verurteiltsein zum Fragmentarischn” (ZT 193). For Schmidt, it seems that this realization takes place after the separation from the mother at birth. The fragmentary condition creates a desire in relation to an Other. In that sense, desire is the projection of what is not available. The basis of desire provokes the subject’s 2 anxiety about the loss and, in turn causes desire to bridge this loss. Plato’s Symposium, a dialogue written around 385 B.C., is considered to be Western philosophy’s first important document concerning androgyny. In this dialogue, after listening to reports of earlier accounts of various ancients trying to explain the mystery of love, Alcibiades, using 3 Socrates as model, gives a final presentation. According to Aristophanes, there were three sexes at first. All three had a different origin: males descendent from the sun, females from the earth, and hermaphrodites from the moon, assumed to contain sun and earth. Their powerfulness and arrogance misled them to challenge the gods, who responded by splitting each sphere in two. As a divided being, each was forced to find its missing half. But, according to Aristophanes, Zeus stepped in and rescued them. He made reproduction through intercourse between the male and the female possible. His intentions were twofold: if male coupled with female, children might be begotten and the race thus perpetuated, but if male coupled with male, the desire for intercourse could at 4 any rate be satisfied. This tale, however, is not Plato’s serious explanation of the sexual existence of human beings. Plato’s tone, and Schmidt’s as well, are overtly ironic and playful. Nonetheless, Schmidt’s reference to Plato

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remains a testimony to the ubiquity of the myth of androgyny. Schmidt’s explanation of our gender alludes to the problematic incorporation over centuries of ancient myths in literature to explain happiness and fulfillment through love. Plato’s account of androgyny exerts a significant influence on German Romanticism and, as Dan conveys to the reader, is a common theme in literature. While he considers the Romantics’ play with the motif of androgyny as “die Geisteshaltung der Romantick” (ZT 208), Dan asking Paul to read from Poe’s Marginalia 119, emphasizes that the issue of “. . . gender was never precisely settled: SERVIUS (on 5 VIRGIL) mentions a Venus with a beard. In MACROBIUS too, Calvus 6 talks of her, as if she were a man . . .” (ZT 945). Along with Greek deities, the reader encounters the motif of androgyny in Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519), the writer Eduard Stucken (1865–1936), the Venetian adventurer and autobiographer Casanova (ZT 945), Rainer Maria Rilke (ZT 205), and the novelist Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (ZT 210). These examples manifest the difficulty of ignoring humans’ inherent bisexual characteristic. As Dan says to Paul: “von Unsrer bi=sexuellen Anlage her, können Wir nich=anders” (ZT 784) — that is, we cannot avoid experiencing “die Weibliche Con’Po’nente Deines WesenS” (ZT 7 784–85). Goethe’s Mignon in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–96) provides one of many examples: “Daß Mignon ein Androgyn sein könne, (ja müsse!) darauf hasDe nie geachtet?” (ZT 947). But during the postwar German era explicit descriptions of androgyny remain a taboo among literary historians and critics, since any sexual ambiguity in literature irrevocably leads to censorship, as Schmidt had to experience first hand: “(Freilich iss in den normaln ‘Gesamtausgabm’ alles überglättet, filolügnerisch gehoblt, angeglichn usw.); aber in der 1. (umfangreichn) Fassung des ‘Wilhelm Meister’ wird Mignon, andauernd= abwechselnd, bald mit männlichn, bald mit dem weiblichn Artikel bezeichnet” (ZT 947). It is no surprise, therefore, that the reduction to the biological dimension determines the social identity of the subject, and any other explanatory model of sexuality remains at the margins. Suffice it to say that Schmidt’s tracing of the social nature of the subject is provocative insofar as it defines the subject through the experience of lack. Expanding on the birth of desire in the story of Aristophanes, Dan suggests that either to overcome or to compensate for the fragmentary status of the condition, the subject has to live by its biological destiny and to reproduce within sexual unions, since “[es —V. L.] ohne anders8 geschlechtlichen Partner ‘nich=geht’” (ZT 784). The only way to bridge the lack of wholeness presents itself in form of a male-female union. But all such attempts at fulfillment remain insufficient, and leave the subject

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in a constant state of desiring the other. The sexual desire of the alienated subject cannot offer ultimate satisfaction and eventually serves as the enabling mechanism of neuroses and perversions. Citing Poe, Dan attests to that point: “Yet, I am not more sure, than my soul lives, that I am, that PERVERSENESS is 1 of the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties (or sentiments) which give direction to the character of Man” (ZT 771–72). Nowhere is Schmidt so eloquent in the defense of the ontological character of the primordial malfunctions of the human psyche, which find further explanation in the 9 birth of the child. The birth of the child, the second stage in the unfolding of subjectivity after the loss of original androgyny, which is the first stage, marks another partitioning of the subject, signaling a process of differentiation in which the child experiences its first process of socialization. Dan offers the following quote from Freud: To the child, in the earlier period its existence, first & foremost, is the human being around which everything revolves : the child at the breast knows nothing of the world; all it knows of it, is the breast which gives it milk. . . . Thus, the mother’s proximity, by degrees, develops in the child its first conception of the outside world. . . . Thus, to it, she is the first embodiment of that nature, by which it is surrounded. (ZT 225)

For Dan, as for psychoanalysis, the child experiences the first designated erotic sites of the female body, such as the breast and the mouth. As the first immediate encounter, the mother inscribes and organizes the socially determined sexual differentiation directing and defining the child’s first experiences of bodies. In this example, the breast functions as the object first loved by the child and takes up the role of a visual image the child internalizes. Within this first process of identification, the visual image thereby permits the ego to refashion itself after the image, 10 and, more importantly, signals the child’s loss of its libidinal flow. Dan portrays this first stage of ego-development also as “eine prä=verbale Phasel des ‘Schauens’” (ZT 163), suggesting that the child’s experience of lack occurs prior to the acquisition of language. In so doing, he hints at the ego as an agency of identification and narcissism (which I will be detailing shortly). While the mother engages in an act of social inscription, which represents the child’s first encounter, the child’s very early perception of the human form initiates a dialectic of identification. The early months of childhood give the child a sense of itself — through its desire and incipient ego — by identifying with the image of corporeal unity and various

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representations of its environment, as Dan maintains by quoting Freud again: “In den ersten 3 oder 4 Lebensjahren fixieren sich Eindrücke, und bahnen sich Reaktionsweisen gegen die Außenwelt an, die durch kein späteres Erleben mehr ihrer Bedeutung beraubt werden können” (ZT 41). For Dan, such identification provides a rudimentary sense of unified self or being. In identifying with the other’s image, the child learns to anticipate a corporeal unity which it has not yet mastered in bodily practice. By perceiving its body and its movements, either in the virtual mirror of another person, such as the mother, or in a literal mirror playfully acted out by Franziska who “frö(l)nte, ihrem Spiegel=Ich” (ZT 951), the child gains an indelible impression of the self. The impression of the first years lures the infant into a mirage of future integrity vis-à-vis 11 a wholeness not yet achieved. As a turning point, the first encounter manifests an organization and orientation of the self. Considering that the first identification depends on a division between inside and outside, the notion of the self invokes alienation and no point of origin. As a literal mirror, these early processes of identification are moments of the constitution of the self and always allude to the self as an imaginary construct: Dann erfährt dies Wesen 1 ganz=schweren Initial-Schock : Die GEBURT!!! : das muß furchtbar sein, Wilma! . . . Der Einbruch der AusßnWelt : das Reizgetrommel von Lichtern Schallen Gefühlen? . . . Von diesem Moment an, bildet sich langsam, (muß sich bildn), das, was Freud (irreführend) das ‘Ich’ genannt hat ; die=Instanz, die, künftich, vermittlnde Verbindung zur — Realität. (ZT 910)

Dan’s observation about the Freudian notion of self refers to the self as an anticipatory formation in the sense of construction. Consequently, the constructed self cannot be the infallible mediator of reality, since it comes into being through a mis-recognition of an imaginary experience. During this mirror stage, the self retroactively brings forth the fragmentary nature of our being. The initial reflection or projection preceding this mirror stage organizes a unified image. These initial anticipatory projections allow the child to experience that what it “für sein eigntliches Selbst hält” (ZT 910). But the imaginary experience, the belief in a projected image, is illusory, and not a real object. From this perspective, 12 Freud’s idea of the self as a whole is misleading. Through its internalization of the external other by identification, the subject becomes conscious of the self, but unconscious of its origins. Another component of Schmidt’s account of the ego formation with the subsequent experience of lack is the emergence of the superego. The

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superego becomes the organizing principle in the child’s development, inscribing the body in culturally determinant ways. Dan’s reading of Freud offers the following observation: So bleibt der Zustand des neuen Weselchens eine ganze Anzahl von Monatn lang . . . Obschon, sehr bald, die ‘Erziehung’ einsetzn muß:und damit ist die Bildung der (zeitlich) drittn=Instanz angebahnt:ebm des Über=Ich; dem also die Eltern zugrunde=liegn, die ihre Moral-Vorschriften weitergebm, dh hauen & predijen; die aber auch bewunderte=geliebte Vorbilder abgebm. (ZT 910–11)

Without detailing the role of the father, Dan argues that the identification with the parents revolves around the pattern of creating an egoideal that is impossible to reach. The parents serve as role models, as ideal objects, in which the ego sees itself as what it should be, but never can be. Instilling in the child a sense of lawfulness and submission to social customs, the parents represent law, order, and authority. However, the ego-ideal receives a crucial distinction prior to being the role-bearer of symbolic regulation. Dan speaks of the “ÖdipusKomplex” which he deems as “einer der ganz=wichtijn Schlüssel für so manche vertrackte Erscheinung in Unserm späteren Lebm” (ZT 912). The father’s intervention into the mother-child relation provokes the “Schock” of “des ‘Kastrations-Komplexes’” (ZT 912). Referring to the emergence of the super-ego through the specific identification with the father, Dan follows Freud in that he centers his discussion of the bisexuality he first detected in Plato’s Symposium around the complex process of identification between the male subject and the father. Within the confines of the family, the metaphoric relation between father and subject dictates the child’s ego-development by exercising a tremendous amount of unvorstellbarer Macht & Gewalt . . . sie habm also die Eigenschaftn von, (und werdn in den Religionen zu), Gott=&=Teufel gleichzeitich. Dies ÜI wird allmählich immer stärker [und —V. L.] . . . besteht . . . aus 3 Sektoren (die individuell verschiedene Größe habm) : der unaufhörlichn Selbstbeobachtung; den (negativn ‘Du sollst nicht! ’) GewissnsVorschriftn; und den (positivn : ‘dem strebe nach !’ Ich-Idealen. Mit andern Wortn : auch dies ÜI repräsentiert die ‘Vergangenheit’; allerdings mehr die ‘historische’ des Menschn. (ZT 911)

Following Dan’s argumentation, the psychic construction of the ego undergoes constant modification. By identifying with the authority invested in the father, the child internalizes the symbolic father’s authority, eventually leading to the formation of the superego. But, during this

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process of parting from his Oedipal attachment, the subject represses its desires, and, as the quote suggests, develops an ambiguous relation with the father. This means that the child either desires to be like this father, that is, emulate his characteristics of masculinity, or attempts to be unlike him. The visual, that is, imaginary father-figure acts as incarnation of the symbolic father, the latter referring to cultural values. If he is lacking in reality, the instance of the symbolic father requires that one identify with other symbolic authority figures, apart from the “Eltern,” such as “Lehrer,” “Lektüre=Heldn” (ZT 913), or “‘Staat Kirchen Götter Undsoweiter’” (ZT 914). During this process of forming, the subject concurrently undergoes a continuous distancing of the ego from itself. The more the ego engages in a process of refashioning itself after those ego-ideals, the more it experiences its sense of identity in the perception of the other’s image. While the Oedipus Complex instills the unconscious through this act of primary repression, the “Disziplinierung durch das ÜI” (ZT 238) creates an additional internal tension because “dies projektivistische Verfahren, befriedicht . . . das ÜI . . . insofern:als durch das (reciproke!) Ab= & HinausStrömen unbefriedichter . . . Wunschvorstellungen, das Unbehagn des Gewissns verschwindet? . . . zumindest aber beträchtlich schrumpft” (ZT 1182). According to Dan, the subject’s sense of identity refers to the perception of bodily unity in the other’s image, whereas the subject’s attainment of desire begins by perceiving that desire of itself in the other. As the quote suggests, this reciprocal relation between the ego and the ideal-I causes the experience of unfulfillment in which the sub13 ject for the first time recognizes its desire. The shifting between these contrary emotions traps the subject within this order and defines it through a binary opposition. Caught within this binary structure, the 14 subject experiences a growing sense of lack. Schmidt documents the significance of desire and identification in the motif of the voyeur. Situated within the context of the narcissistic ego, Dan proclaims the following thesis: “Die Tése, daß ‘Zauberspiegel & verwandte Geräte’, in letzter Instanz zu Voyeurismen hinführen, sei erwiesen, oder?” (ZT 1176). Paul, listening to his announcements responds: “Ähä.-: der KleinstSpiegl als Zubehör der V=Ausrüstung . . . zur mythisch=ganzhemmungslosn Schauereye:&, zur selbm Zeit, wieder n‚ Unsichtbarmachn‘” (ZT 1176). Although in this instance, both Paul and Dan talk about an actual mirror, the role of the mirror as a means of voyeurism accentuates the vision-centeredness of such experience which even Dan, as proclaimed “Nicht=Voyeur!” (ZT 516), cannot escape. As the wording infers, the subject’s identification involves an uninhibited

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mystification of the self. It sees an image of itself that is both accurate and simultaneously inaccurate. To be precise, the mirror image of the self proves to be the actual self since the subject experiences its inverted reflection as vision, as part of the self. But it is this vision of the eye that separates. As the look returned, the eye as perception is different from “Voyieren” (ZT 50), that is, the voyeuring eye ruptures the image. Why? The seeing of myself as image marks a point in which knowing and desiring come together. Merged in the vision only, the knowing and desiring of the self appear as objects. It is this point that escapes the conscious view. In contrast to the eye as vision of self, the voyeur, charged with desire for the Other, cuts vision from consciousness and instigates a process of creation and recreation. Thus, as the quote suggests, the eye makes invisible to consciousness what appears to be the true self, that is, the imaginary image. The narcissistic ego does not simply recognize the image, but it misrecognizes its image as the true self. Elaborating on his thesis of the narcissistic ego, Dan therefore provides the reader with the following analogy: “Die Verwendung des Spiegels id ErroTik, iss doch sowieso mannich=phallt — ma abgesehn vd ‘NarziSten’, die ihr eignes SpieglBild abküssn . . . AutoErotik” (ZT 1177). According to Dan, to see oneself in the mirror is to desire one’s multiple images or, in early childhood, to desire to be like the corporeal 15 unity presented by the father or mother. But as the wording “ErroTik” implies, the mirror image is a false image full of errors. The image of the self seen in the mirror designates the imaginary for the narcissistic ego. When the narcissistic ego, depicted as “Seh=Süchtijen” (ZT 507), looks at itself in its mirror image, the “other” that the image of the self in the mirror assumes to experience as an autonomous being is none other than the imaginary truth of the other of itself — that is, of its own mediation by visual projection. Considering that self-consciousness requires the act of reflection through the other — the image of the self — the “I” turns out to be the product of an imaginary experience. This movement involves two stages. First the subject “I,” reflected in itself, misapprehends its reflective opposite as itself. Second, the true subject is the image of 16 the self, the imaginary unity of one’s image. There is a further paradox, however, as the above citation indicates. On the one hand, the self as imaginary designates an experience in which the subject desires. On the other hand, the paradox reveals itself in the drive toward this goal. The drive’s actual purpose is not its full satisfaction but simply to reproduce itself as “AutoErotik,” creating the real source of enjoyment. To pose this paradox differently: if we gain complete satisfaction, then nothing is left to be desired anymore. Hence “‘to

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eye’=beäugeln” (ZT 516) designates desire as the driving force of our enjoyment. The desire for or fantasy about the Other, therefore, designates the subject’s impossible relation to the object of its desire. When speaking about desire and the mirror image, the subject’s desire is a constructed desire. It is a staged desire in which the subject becomes the slave of the other’s fantasy. When Dan notes that “the mirror is a rather extensively used means of increasing libido” (ZT 1157), he ultimately speaks of an imaginary desire, because “der Betreffnde [geilt] sich an seinem=eigenen Bilde auf” (ZT 958) and describes the paradox of desire 17 as a desire that posits its cause retroactively. This conclusion results in what Olaf Werner describes in Schmidt as the splitting between the 18 experience of the body and the experience of the self. The subject’s selfalienation creates a symbolic relation with the body, and not a certain, unmediated knowing; this is pointedly described by Dan as the “Entfremdung zwischen Körper und Geist” (ZT 520). This explanation of the absence of presence brings us back to Plato’s tale of androgyny. Schmidt stresses the mythical character of Plato’s explanation — the creation of desire by way of the mythical idealization — and thereby points to the fabricated notion of an original wholeness as a cultural dream. We construct our desire around signs and images injected with erotic connotations, as Dan infers when viewing “Die Augen als erogene Zone” (ZT 163) and as my discussion of the metaphor “flower” in chapter 4 already implied. It is the imaginary within the linguistic structure that is unreal. Still, it constantly eludes us, since we, equipped with an “Eroß des Intellekts” (ZT 1085), believe in and desire these images, as Dan’s reference to Freud confirms: “Das Auge stellt sich, wo auch immer sich bei ihm die Gelegenheit bietet, und zwar meist von selbst & ubw, auf lustbetonte Eindrücke ein” (ZT 112; italics mine). Although the eye seeks control through its ordering of its vision by being part of consciousness, the subject has to acknowledge that simultaneously the language of the unconscious (symbolic order) partially determines our perception. Thus, there is always an irreducible lack in the construction of our subjectivity. This lack of (or in) the subject finds its final determinant in the symbolic order, inaugurating another stage in the construction of subjectivity. Whereas the ideal-I discovered in the mirror stage can by its very perfection alienate the perceiving ego, the subject now suffers another form of alienation by way of learning a language. Dan considers language as another important aspect of subject formation in early childhood when highlighting the relation of sexuality and language: “wie S & Sprache fatidick aneinanderhängen. Dänn dreimal setzt das S im Menschnlebm

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notorisch an 1.) als Klein=Kind : da wird die Sprache erworbm!” (ZT 236). The entrance into language structures the child’s experience, but confines it to the realm of signification. Previously, I suggested that the signifier in the realm of the Other, which is the unconscious, determines the subject. As the language of unconscious thought, the etym-language plays an essential part in the constitution of our subjectivity. The subject’s entrance into language inaugurates the emergence of the unconscious and subsequently its confinement to the realm of signification. Hence, “wenn man das ubw zum Sprechen zwingt, beginnt es, bestenfalls, Etyms zu lallen” (ZT 122) and, as Dan observes in Poe, entails sexual differentiation within language, because of “bi=sexuell deutbare 19 Symbole & Etyms” (ZT 944). Now the other, which hitherto has been an alter ego, turns into the Other, that is, language acquired from the parents as the symbolic order since “[d]ie Etyms lebm symbiotisch mit ihren Fantasien zusamm” (ZT 1096). By the appropriation of language from the Other, the subject recognizes difference and learns to recognize the symbolic father representing culturally defined values. In contrast to the paternal images of the imaginary, the symbolic father symbolizes the 20 system of differences in culture, particularly in language. At the mirror stage the symbolic order situates and provides the patriarchal sexual and social order of a given society, “es iss die Régl, Du, daß das ÜI übersinnliche Tématta befiehlt -:ébm=weil ne andre Instanz (meist das ubw) so sinnlich ist” (ZT 853). The ideal-I as paternal signifier stands in for the organic reality and provides those values that the subject 21 is lacking and concurrently exercises control over the unconscious. In gaining access to language, the child unconsciously discovers that a sign has meaning only by its difference from other signs, particularly when speaking about sexual differentiation: “beim=Körper=Umbau zu Jungfrau=Jüngling : da tretn die Fremdsprachn hinzu; und der vorhandene Wortschatz wird nach S=Gesichtspunkten umsortiert” (ZT 236). For this reason, Dan, in reference to Freud, proposes the “Bi=S id Sprache zu untersuchen” (ZT 944) since such an analysis would reveal that language stands in as the absence of presence, as the metaphorical representation of the inadequacy of the subject. Our self-consciousness, therefore, consists in the identification of the true subject, which, as Dan remarks, is the other of oneself, as this quote implies: “identiviehzier’ Dich n büschn mit dem ER in DIR” (ZT 598). The true subject is the other of reflection. It is the imaginary selfidentification that occurs in the always already misapprehended self. The “I” is caught in a circle. As a reflection of an origining deficiency, the reflection is always the distorted mode of being. A desire to identify

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oneself with oneself consequently assumes a primal division of the subject as the condition of its possibility. Yet the subject creates and preserves itself in the symbolic order, “[w]eil . . . die . . . Structur Unsrer Persönlichkeit imwege steht; das UBW con’mann’deared : Find Ø schön!. - Das ÜI entgegnet steiff=darauf : ‘schön?’ : iss der Dräsdner Zwing’r! Und das arme=ICH steht eye’nge’clam’t, in der Mitte” (ZT 922). Just as in Freud’s metaphor of the ego as constitutional monarch, here Schmidt’s “poor ego” is trapped or “caught in the middle” between id and superego. Furthermore: for Schmidt, it seems, desire requires mediation. Characterized as intrinsically intersubjective, desire appears as an energy that is transpersonal and directed toward others. In return, the fulfillment of desire secures the ego’s self-certainty and self-knowledge. Thus Schmidt, according to Gregor Strick, establishes the priority of language in the psyche, and perceives the structure of the psyche as the logical continuation of linguistic structures. Schmidt assumes the determination of the 22 signifier — the etyms. The truth of the subject is what language says 23 about it, not what the subject intends to say: it is fictitious. It is this intersubjective character of subjectivity Schmidt seeks to unravel by exposing the interpellative forces of the imaginary and symbolic order. In view of Oedipalization, the metaphorical representation of the inadequacy of the subject ensures the production of a socially functional and sexually differentiated subject. Considering that the network of signifiers constitutes the matrix within which the subject resides, Schmidt’s rereading of Freud traces these mechanisms of ideological and cultural signification through our unconscious desires. This becomes evident when Dan speaks about the problems of the ideal-I as the symbolic representation of cultural signifiers: unter besagten Instnzn befindet sich 1, die der Pöbl das ‘Gewissn’; Freud . . . das ‘ÜBER=ICH’ nennt . . . (die Instanz) [gebärdet] sich ebm nicht nur ‘richterlich’ gebärdet; (präziser: staatsan(waltlich); . . . sondern weil sich die sogenannten ‘positiven Ideale’, die “Vorbilder’, alldort befinden : so Eltern, Lehrer, allerlei Angehimmeltes & Angelesenes. Mit anderen Worten : phil=viehl kondensierter Kristen= & Schweizer=Bluff. (ZT 113)

The law of culture makes available “positive Ideale” through “Vorbilder” that determine the child’s entire cultural existence. Through the identification with these identity-bearing words that Lacan called master signifiers, the subject finds its particular predetermined position within the hierarchical structure of society and its differences. For Dan, it seems the master signifiers stand in for the subject, and thus function as bearers of

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our identity and present the ultimate authority of meaning. They signify the ideals we choose to strive for and live by. For example, they embody the belief in God, the “Kristen=&Schweizer=Bluff,” meaning happiness in life, or a place to which one belongs. God, the master signifier, offers recognition by way of enticing subjects to assume a specific position, to have an identity which they can recognize as self and be recognized by others. In return, the symbolic relation with God positions the subject culturally, that is, provides an unquestioned sexual identity, as Dan insinuates in the following analogy with the Catholic Church: “Wie schreibt MAX WEBER ? : ‘Die Beziehungen der Religiösität zur S sind (teils bw teils ubw, tails direct teils inDiereckt)-ganz=außerordntlich= 24 inteam!” (ZT 357). These master signifiers enable the subject to cover his or her lack of nonbeing, giving him or her a feeling of wholeness and organic unity as male or female, and implementing a control mechanism — the “Gewissn” — thus subjecting the individual to a particular behavior or subject-position. Paul, surprised by Dan’s insights, responds by finishing Dan’s arguments: “das ‘Ich’ will ebm anfangn zu schwätzn, . . . aber sofort greift das ÜI ein, à la : da=von kann mann nich redn!” (ZT 1157). These master signifiers of the symbolic order consequently structure the social environment, particularly our social relations. Dan concludes that the ideal-I is a “verdammt hohlin Frazze” (ZT 114) distorting reality: “idealisiert? : Ich würde ein de=realisiert vorzieh’n Wilma, du wirsD ja wenichstns dàs zugebn, wie dem ÜI Einseitigkeit zu bescheinijn sei” (ZT 1183). The law of culture subjects the subject to a system of already interpreted signs and forces it to take up its cultural and social identification. This does not imply a total passivity of the subject, rather the pregiven signs frame the subject within a particular cultural setting. Consequently, the subject learns to desire within this symbolic order. Like its assumed identity, the 25 subject’s desire originates from the place of the Other. Thus, the subject’s desire is a learned desire. The law of culture co-opts the subject’s libidinal sources and directs and manipulates its site of production. My observation of the coexistence of what Lacan designated as the imaginary — roughly defined as a spectrum of visual images in the experience of the child — and symbolic order — here referring to the symbolic character of language — Dan captures pointedly in his summary 26 remarks on the role of the voyeur in Poe: Wenn Unsre Arbeitshypothese ‘POE sei V gewesn’ stimmen sollte; und man, weiterhin, Texte auch nach dem EtymVerstand zu lésn hätte ? -: dann müßte, beides=vereint, sich ein großer=innerer lebendijer Zusammenhang ergeben, in dem Etyms +Triebausrichtungen einander

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nicht bloß ergänzten; sondern auch 1 Etym das andere, 1 S= Abweichung die andere, trüge & stützte, sicherte und gewährleistete. (ZT 792)

Within Dan’s account both the imaginary and symbolic order, desire itself and with it sexual desire, exist only because of the subject’s alienation. Our desire as an effect of a primordial absence influenced by the language of the unconscious suggests that it is questionable to argue for a natural existence of sexual differentiation. Similarly, the sexual drive does not rely on any natural explanation or causal relationship between 27 the biological urge and its representative. Schmidt’s playful though arbitrary and fragmentary insertions or illusions of Freudian ideas on sexuality and drive clearly subvert any idea of a biologically based sexuality. Both Freud and Schmidt suggest the impossibility of a satisfactory experience of desire, as this quotation by Freud indicates: “We must reckon with the possibility that something in the nature of the sexual 28 instinct itself is unfavorable to the realization of complete satisfaction.” Any theory of a natural difference between the sexes, therefore, seems 29 questionable. On the basis of references in Zettel’s Traum and in view of my previous discussions of unconscious thought processes, I think it is justified to argue that Schmidt’s understanding of subjectivity alludes to the sexual difference because of a division. Yet, this observation remains incomplete, since Schmidt offers the reader only fragments of information. The subject’s dependence on the symbolic order deprives it of the immediacy of prelinguistic experiences. Every utterance in reality aligns with the universe of the sign. The message becomes the message from the other, albeit in inverted form, and as Schmidt maintains, manifests 30 speech as the most powerful instrument of domination. This aspect Schmidt conveys in “Berechnungen III” when he proposes the use of non-phonetic signs. The transparency of language provides the medium of recognition. A person addressed by a speaker recognizes him- or herself in that shared language and assumes a particular subject position. Our shared language system, therefore, splits the subject of enunciation from its utterances and parallels the emergence of the unconscious. The establishment of the self as imaginary thus fulfills the following function, and suggests at least two modes of imagination in the writings of Schmidt. First, within the context of the mirror stage, the imaginary identification gives the subject an initial experience of wholeness and unity and, as such, identifies subjectivity as an intrasubjective relation founded on intersubjectivity. Governed by the imaginary order, self and 31 other form a dual relation confined within a binary structure. Vacillat-

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ing between these two positions, both strive to fill the impossible lack in or of the Other. Second, the imaginary experience, even after the child’s entry into the symbolic register, retains its status within fantasy as the desire both for ideal representation and the desire to overcome this preexisting alienation from itself. But the symbolic register places the subject beyond the structure of binary oppositions, that is, within the matrix of cultural signification.

Watching TV with Arno Schmidt

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Schmidt provides many examples of how the mechanism of identification and master signifiers structure the subject. Dan and Wilma’s discussion of the news in the West German Tagesschau (Daily News) and the East 33 German aktuelle Kamera offers a prime example. Skimming the individual segments of the Tagesschau, Dan watches a political debate in the West German parliament concerning the student movement and its “sitins.” In the debate, the speaker of the SPD tries to distance himself and the party from this form of political opposition: “[d]er Sprecher der SPD . . . beteure, daß seine Partei . . . [wie stets seit 66] . . . nie etwas mit Intellektuelln gemeinsam gehabt habe, “‘und zwar von Ihrer Gründung=an!’” (ZT 1162). Instead of directly addressing the specific differences in their political views, the speaker characterizes the student movement as hippies, a “Haufe Student(in)en -(halb=nakkD; in zerrissenen Kleidern; betont= ungewaschn; die Herrn ‘Rennomisten’ mit gräßlichn BakknBärtn, . . . Typm, die man sich am bestnjn in mondlosn Nächtn nich=anschaut” (ZT 1162). The images of the German left’s extraparliamentarian opposition (APO) display them as good-for34 nothings, as oversexed, LSD-consuming hippies. Upset by the images, Wilma responds: “Wenn doch Unsre Obrichkeit endlich=mà ein Einsehen & Dreinschlagn hätte” (ZT 1162). Wilma’s reactionary wish is promptly fulfilled by the German minister of justice who announces: Was die noch übrijn . . . Intellektuelln anlange?, so sei zwar sein persönliches Credo: ‘better hang wrong fellow than no fellow at all . . . “was die Gammler betreffe, so werde man ihre Anzahl der nächstn Wochn . . . entscheidend reduzieren; vermittelst der gutn=altn §§ 182, 235, & 237 des Strafgesetzbuches.” (ZT 1162)

Wilma’s reaction reveals that her desire and the wish for identification focuses on the law and the minister of justice. Constituted by the symbolic order and epitomized in our notions of Justice, Truth, and Order, the law signals the ultimate authority and source of meaning.

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Through the identification with these identity-bearing words, or master signifiers, Wilma finds her particular predetermined position within the hierarchical structure of society and its differences. The master signifiers — Justice, Truth, and Order — stand in for Wilma and function as bearer of her identity. This is evident in her reaction when the APO apparently attempts to damage the master signifier. Wilma recognizes herself in and through the law and seeks to be recognized by others as 35 a law-abiding citizen. The result of this process of “interpellation” is the establishment of a cluster of master signifiers as the ego-ideal originating in the child’s attempt to be desired and loved. This desire eventually turns into the wish to be recognized by the Other. What is important is that assuming identity of this signifier endows Wilma with the continuity and coherence essential to identity. As a result, the master signifier integrates Wilma into a community of law-abiding citizens because she is able to communicate and reproduce these signifiers of law and order. Functioning both as the internal and external authority, the law regulates Wilma’s social reality. As the external authority, the law determines Wilma’s internal reasoning, since she believes in and identifies with the law, and, subsequently, she internalizes it. Wilma believes in the Justice and Truth of the law and obeys it not only because it is good or beneficial to her, but also because it is the law. Her habitual acceptance of the law provides the mythic basis of its authority. Anyone who at36 tempts to bring it back to its first principle destroys it. Projected images of the APO shown in contrast to the Law as symbol of Justice, Truth, and Order initiate Wilma’s reactionary desire. By recognizing its importance to her, she identifies with the law and the structural ordering of society. This recognition is a mis-recognition, an imaginary experience of the meaning of the Law. Any kind of opposition, therefore, is a threat to her belief and identity, that is, the internal authority. The passage of the emergency laws, the “NotstandsGesetz” (ZT 1162), accompanied by the images of the jubilant conservative faction of parliament, receives “donnernenden Beifall der Rechtn Seite des Hauses . . . die freilich schön über die Mitte & tief id linkn Flügl hinein=reichte” (ZT 1162). Reinforcing images create unity and stability and, in this instance, correspond to the tendency of the three-party system in postwar Germany to move toward 37 political consensus. The desire for stability and political consensus, continuity, and harmony creates an unquestioned tolerance for repression among the population in the interest of a successful fight against political extremism. Hence, an extreme dose of law and order (e.g., the emergency laws, opposed by the SPD in 1965 but supported in May

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1968), strengthens the already efficient law enforcement and belief 38 systems. The binary structure of representation of the news projects images of extremism to which the seemingly unified political factions respond with new laws. Any differentiation between the viewpoints of the various political factions is omitted. Images of an ugly, filthy, chaotic, and radical student movement create animosity within the viewers and set up a dichotomy between good and bad. Wilma’s response typifies this distinction. The collapse of the traditional opposition by the SPD to which Dan refers when he declares, “aber in DeutschLand diffamirt die ‘Linke’ immer sich=selbst” (ZT 1163), dispels the myth of German politics as a Streitkultur (culture of dispute), and exposes an opportunistic party that merely oscillates between different political positions. The Kiesinger/Brandt coalition of 1966–1969 provides ample evidence of such 39 desire for political consensus. Schmidt’s observation suggests that television news uses the subject’s reception of news by the constant repetition of these master signifiers. In Sitara und der Weg dahin, Schmidt refers to an American study that addresses the methods used by television to interpellate the viewer: auf dem scheinbar neutralen, grau=flirrenden Grund hinter dem Sprecher, wiederholt ein = & dasselbe suggestive Wort . . . und zwar jeweils 3/1000 Sekunden lang : das wird dann nicht mehr bewußt aufgenommen, wirkt in seiner rhythmisch=hämmernden Repitition jedoch ausge40 sprochen ‹unterschwellig›.

Through the constant repetition of master signifiers, the speedy representation of news disables the reception of information. If viewers want to keep up with the multiplicity of information, then they have to adjust their receptive apparatus to the mode of representation. What the viewer remembers are images and signs constituting the organizing principles of our viewing the world. Visual images with the corresponding commentaries continuously operate on the level of the unconscious. Thus, the primary function of each message is to refer to another message, and establish in the world a whole divisible system of interpretation. Whereas the above news segment about domestic politics addressed the master signifier, the Law evoked through the employment of the physical images — the APO is synonymous with dirt, chaos, and an excremental appearance, and provokes in the viewer a sense that democracy is under attack (democracy here equals proper dress code, orderly behavior, or personal maintenance) — the following segment of the Tagesschau plays on the narcissistic form of imaginary desire. The seg-

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ment shows the protests of the civil rights movement in the U.S. and protesters’ clashes with Cleveland police. Dan, now playing the devil’s advocate of the ordinary TV viewer, comments on the images: Die putzn ihre Nigger aber anständich weg!”. /Tcha, ‘Unruhen in Cleveland (oh hei oh!); jedoch wenije sec lang; (& vorsichtshalber meist ‘Nachtaufnahm’m’; da sah man nur die regnglänzndn Stahlhelme der NazionalGarde, sowie unzählige tollwütig=verdrehte AugnPaare. (ZT 1164)

According to Dan, the “NazionalGarde” signifies the superiority of the white race that secures law and order. As the word “NazionalGarde” implies, at stake in this scenario is the national interest. The symbolic Other, the “NazionalGarde,” leads Dan to actively identify with the signifiers given in the code constituting this Other. As the viewer, Dan attempts to embody these qualities or attributes valued by this symbolic Other. Again, the reader discovers qualities such as “being a good American,” “being a good citizen,” or “being patriotic.” Dan desires to embody not only the “NazionalGarde” but also other signifiers bearing a metonymic or metaphoric relation to the master signifier. The shining steel helmet (“regnglänzndn Stahlhelme”) is synonymous with masculinity, toughness, or “being a man.” With his narcissistic desire, Dan oscillates between all these positions or images that constitute his egoideal. Consequently, the identification with the “NazionalGarde” provokes the anticipated response: “Solln se=se doch Alle nach Afrika transportier’n:. . . (dieser ganze, unnötig dunkle Continent, muß sich sowieso erstma ausrevoluzzern” (ZT 1164). The message conveys that America belongs to the civilized white race in which peace and harmony reign, “Und die weißn=USA hättn ooch=Ruhe” (ZT 1164). In contrast, Africa is the site of revolution and torture. Thus, according to Ulrich Blumenbach, these images divide the world into an idyllic, civilized first world 41 and a third world. In analogy to the comparison “Africa-America” that parallels a binary structure of black-white or civilized and uncivilized, television establishes a hierarchical ordering of how to view the world. For a split second, only the strange-looking eyes (“tollwütig=verdrehte AugnPaare”) betray the black man’s (“Nigger”) presence in the dark, and project visions of animalistic behavior. Blackness becomes synonymous with uncontrolled, rabid wild animals that must be eradicated since their diseases cannot be cured and thus may spread. All of these threatening images reinforce the stereotype of black people as uncivilized, members of “Primitive Culturen” (ZT 1164), whose demonic behavior is inconsistent with behavioral expectations in America.

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Many others who watch the news are, like Wilma, similarly inscribed by these unconscious structures. Since these similar, formative experiences are attributable to a particular society or discourses, a collective identificatory potential of the unconscious emerges. To continue my example, Dan defends his blatant racism and call for apartheid, by referring to his experience in 1945 as a German refugee from the East: “[w]aren nicht Wír=aus=dem=Osten auch 12 Milljon’n” (ZT 1164). The justification through comparison exposes the racist overtones of the refugee debate that prevailed in 1965. The West German attitude towards Eastern Europe and its refugees underscores the inability of West Germans to overcome the lingering racism that found its apotheosis in Nazi Germany and its judicious legitimization in Article 116 of the German Grundgesetz, which defines the nation as an evolutionary com42 munity based on ethnic descent. Dan’s analogy of his Second World War experiences with the civil rights movement and the subsequent racist attitude towards refugees points to this transindividual quality of the unconscious. The collective identification through the unconscious gains its cohesive power through the common currency of cultural signifier as well as other discourses. Yet, as Dan’s analogy suggests, these cultural signifiers do not acknowledge national boundaries. The “Nachrichter in SchlagZeiln” (ZT 1163) inserted between the segment about the student movement and the civil rights movement further demonstrates the viewer’s reliance on images rather than on any reflective exchange. This segment narrates a multiplicity of events such as “Australiens MinisterPräsident hatte sich zu Tode geschnårchelt./ 31.000 Krankheitn gebe es bis jetz auf der Welt./Münchens letzde GasLaterne . . .” (ZT 1164). Schmidt’s text demonstrates how the overflow of information makes it impossible to follow the news content, and forces the viewer to rely on the visual images. However, the absurdity of this so-called news program points to the powerful arbitrariness involved in selecting which information to broadcast. Insertions of natural disasters and other tabloid trivia in the political sphere of news broadcasting function as an instrument of diffusion and distraction to which Dan in his analysis of the radio newscast responds accordingly: Und — sehr=geschickt natürlich ! — immer=abwechselnd Wichtijes und Unwichtijes; bis daß der Gemeine Mann (& und wer wäre dies nicht?) . . . überhaupt nich mehr zu unterscheidn wußte, was=nu Wichtich sei & was=nicht.) (ZT 467)

As an organizing principle of a calculated allotment of information, television and, in this instance, radio, structure the viewer’s mode of

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reception and relations by comprising a heterogeneous mass of signs and messages that seek to neutralize distinguishing features; all messages are equivalent and therefore newsworthy. As Blumenbach correctly notes, the aforementioned strategy of diffusion and distraction represents deliberate attempts to depoliticize the media, thereby enhancing its political 43 power. Irrelevant information distracts the viewer from receiving actual political events and portrays, for instance, the cause of death of the Australian prime minister as a significant event. The random nature by which information is selected for news broadcast suggests that the sequencing of news focuses on the symbolic production as the ordering discourse. The more rapid the segments, the greater the possibility of a nonhomogeneous experience. For Blumenbach, the changing speed of topics organizes the forgetting of the viewer, and controls how we conceptual44 ize information. Inevitably, the overflow of information suffocates its communicability. This paradox — the news providing information and the viewer not being able to remember — serves as the ideological means of structuring the individual experience of news events. We are in greater need of orientation for our common understanding, and thus seek anchoring points, visual images, with which we can identify. The Tagesschau provides these images, these symbolic structures that are constitutive of our relation to the world and, consequently, do not allow for the readability of the world. Instances of these symbolic structures might be the television’s focus on the individual “personality” of the anchorman, which gives a reassuringly personal frame of reference to the chaos of reported events, or the use of certain “human interest” topoi, such as a centering of stories on “individual experience,” which also reassure the viewer that events can still be ordered within the context of personal experience (Erfahrung). Stefan Voigt confirms my argument by maintaining that Schmidt’s discussion of German television and film inevitably alludes to the hegemonic role the medium television plays in the perception and knowledge of the world. According to him, in television the images of the world triumph over the world by providing the 45 viewer with a new form of reality experience. Experiences of the world are a structural illusion creating the impression that we have gained mas46 tery of the world in the form of meaningful comprehension. Watching TV allows only for one particular mode of comprehension, a certain type of discursiveness that neutralizes the multiple and fluctuating content of messages. Hence, the Tagesschau signifies the impossibility of interpretation and, as such, the imposition of rigid constraints of meaning. Before going into a more detailed discussion of the presentation of news information, I would like to turn to the East German aktuelle

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Kamera. The less structured and much shorter aktuelle Kamera consists of only one major block of views on the Vietnam war and other short clips discussing preparations for the celebration of the October revolution, which Dan mocks as “ein Komitee für’s OktoberFest” (ZT 1165), a traditional Bavarian drinking fest. In addition, we see “Ordensverleihungen” for “Verdiente Eisenbahner des Volkes” (ZT 1165) and events focusing on the rebuilding of the GDR. These pictures create images of the GDR as a collective and imply political unity, a successful state, and emphasize the feeling of pride at being a citizen of GDR society. Modalities of desire such as will and hope nourish the image of an ideal community and invite the viewer to be part of the collective experience of success and happiness. The viewer’s relation to the mode of production thus lies in the imaginary relation. The invasion of unconscious desires aims at social consensus as a matter of imaginary affirmation. The next image confirms the desire for such consensus by parodying the role of the literati in the East German society. The “AuThoren= Cullectief ?” notes what “der 1.Henkl Mann geäußert hatte. Oder der 2.Oder das ‘kollektiefe Ganze’” (ZT 1166). The “AuThoren=Cullectief,” referred to as a fools’ collective, as the representative of the cultural production of social realism, presents the image of proclaimed equality 47 between workers and writers within the GDR society. Commenting upon the East German writers’ collective, Dan equates it with the cultural production of West Germany as exemplified by the Karl-May festival in Bad Segeberg: “was Deutsche Ars & Cunt betrifft, so wird Ei’m auch hier ma wieder die Wahl schwer gemacht, was widerlicher sei, Ost oder West” (ZT 1166). Dan dismisses both news segments as affirmative, mass-mediated forms of culture imploding any critical values embedded in aesthetics. The aktuelle Kamera features a “Guitarristn=Trupp” with workers’ songs as an indirect response to the Tagesschau segment about the Spanish musician, Andrés Segovia thereby explicitly demonstrating the complementarity of East and West German news broadcasts (ZT 48 1165). Dan contemplates, “schier wie bestellt: um den Gegnsatz zu SEGOVIA=ebm so recht zu verdeutlichn” (ZT 1165), and exposes the structural similarity of East and West German news and their ideologically affirmative positions: Jacke wie Hose, ob O ob W: Unterdrückung wird ‘Aufrechterhaltung der Ordnung’ genannt - sprechsDe dagegn, heißde ‘mißvergnügt.’ Die Nachrichtn Maschin’n der Regierungn . . . im W ein Trauerspiel d Freiheit; im O SklâwnIdylle. (ZT 1165)

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The television medium thus functions as a cultural reproduction system of narrative configurations, which radically changes the form of knowledge formation in the present. Knowledge is reduced to a specific form of information distribution. Television presents itself as disconnected and to some extent irrelevant, against the horizon of experience of the viewer, who struggles to integrate the information into the totality of his world. In contrast to the reading of printed media, which can be interrupted and then resumed again indefinitely, the fast pace of reception of TV shows cannot be controlled. Our viewing habits and attention span adjust to the medium itself. The so-called facts presented are ephemeral and already disappear with their appearance. If the viewer wishes to keep up with the onslaught of information, he or she has to adjust his or her viewing of the representations. “Schneller Schauen” is the motto if one does not want to sacrifice knowledge because of one’s own lack of orientation. One of the narrators in Schmidt’s Schule der Atheisten describes this resignative position: “Ich geh’ in’s TV um mich 49 zu zerstreuen, nich um mir den Kopf vollzupakkn.” The degree of complexity in the reception of information channels our viewing and leads to a decreased analytical sharpness. Although I addressed only two aspects of this extremely stimulating conversation between Wilma and Dan, Schmidt brilliantly exposes the politics of news sequencing, whose focus is the rationality of symbolic production as the ordering discourse. News media such as the Tagesschau offer anchoring points and visual images with which the viewer may identify. In turn, the symbolic structuring of our subjectivity is constitutive of our relation to the world. The symbolic structure does not allow for the readability of the world. The viewer’s relation to the mode of production is ultimately an imaginary relation, in which social consensus is sarcastically described by Dan as “Bildung cullectiver Hölluzinationen” 50 (ZT 1171). To conclude my discussion of the representation of news media in Zettel’s Traum, and putting the issue of identification aside, I would like to emphasize the following point: the dispersal of world events into discontinuous, successive, and noncontradictory messages guarantees the misrecognition of the world and widens the gap between technical representation of information and the real world. Our television offers a representation of chaos and the world around us in a secured order of images. This order leaves the false impression that we are actually in control of the world. Claims for the representation of truth and objectivity by the Tagesschau and aktuelle Kamera function to neutralize the unique character of actual world events by replacing them with a multiple uni-

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verse — “Multiversum” (ZT 1264) — of mutually reinforcing and self-referential images. Our window to the world is our TV, which mocks our understanding of communication as an exchange, as a reciprocal space of speaking and responding. Communication by way of television is an intransitive and monolinear experience that Paul exposes as an attempt at ideological manipulation, “[W]olln ma sehn, ob Wir “n genau so schnell bekannegießern 51 könn” (ZT 1162). Recognizing that watching TV demands the passive consumption of images resulting in an inability to respond critically to the overflow of information, Paul pretends to engage in a dialogue with the news anchor’s greetings: “‘Gutn Abmd Meine Dan’ & Herrn’” (ZT 1161). Paul responds with an impertinent: “Grüß Dich” (P knapp;/)” (ZT 1161). This mockery symbolizes the hopeless desire to engage in a critical exchange and demonstrates monolinear communication ad absurdum. Our desire for clarity receives its fulfillment in a “Verzehnfachung der Berieselung” (ZT 471). We witness the disintegration of our communicative structures under the sign of passive consumption. In Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum, the newscasts of both East and West, with their systematic alternation of the news form, dictate a single form of reception, that of consumption. However, the primary function of each message is to refer to another message and establish in the world a whole divisible system of interpretation. For instance, arguments by Jean Baudrilliard that “the medium of TV circulates through its technical organisation the idea (or ideology) of a world visualisable and dividible at 52 will” find their confirmation in Dan’s experience of television. Aware of this mechanism, Dan responds, “Bloß gut, daß der Propaganda, wenichstens=teilweise, die Waage gehaltn wird, durch’s schlechtes Hinhör’n” (ZT 471). In other words, one best responds by being a bad listener or viewer. Schmidt’s description of East and West German television confines us to the role of viewers at the margins. Watching TV with Arno Schmidt inevitably leads to the reader’s (viewer’s) recognition of the problematic nature of the immaterialities of communication. Again Stefan Voigt fittingly captures Schmidt’s presentation of watching television in literary form. He concludes that images dictate and define our perception of the world by forcing the collapse of the difference between reality and fiction and by questioning the ontological priority given to 53 the world as reality. Wilma’s remark, “Dû=Dän? : hast keinen Anschluß mehr an die Realität” (ZT 811), aptly finishes the discussion about Schmidt’s literary representation of watching television.

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The Role of the Imagining Eye I had said that through its entry into language, the speaking subject belongs to the domain of the symbolic order. Self-apprehension, that is, the attainment of subjectivity, unfolds only through the intervention of signification. Thus far, I concluded that the establishment of the self as imaginary gives the subject an experience of wholeness and unity, while the symbolic order places the subject within the matrix of cultural signification. My argument centered on the observation that the ego-formation primarily receives its energy through a notion of desire that resulted from an experience of lack. In my discussion of the imaginary order, I stressed that Schmidt’s concept is informed by a vision-generated, vision-centered understanding of the self. Vision, that is, the eye, assumes a central role in ego-formation, and it is this aspect I would like to pursue further by arguing that the eye plays a central role in the representation of the “I” in Schmidt’s concept of subjectivity. My goal in this analysis is to delineate two modes of imagination. While the imaginary experience as visual sets in motion identificatory mechanisms to experience wholeness and unity, the visionary experience grants our perception of the self the possibility to experience the self as desire through the Extended Mind Game, or what the Romantics called creative imagination. Although my previous discussion of the subject might suggest that the subject becomes the dupe of linguistic discourse, it is precisely this desire of the Other that proves the contrary, because it also at the same time acts as a form of creative imagination. Thus desire appears as conscious desire between a logical order manifested in the linguistic structuring of our psyche and as the desire to break with this established order of thinking through the preexisting network of signification. The experience of the fragmentary nature of our Being and the subsequent desire to fill this gap by exposing the absent presence, and our wish to locate the mechanisms of condensation and displacement, requires a consciousness propelled through the desire of the Other and, thereby, inaugurates two modes of imagination and imaginary in Zettel’s Traum. Before continuing with Schmidt’s notion of subjectivity as a visionary experience, I want to briefly address the development of the concept of vision. In his study on the role of vision in the constitution of subjectivity, space, and time, David Levin observes that Descartes’s mode of vision inaugurates “the modern sciences and technology; and it could be argued that the Cartesian gaze is not a philosopher’s fiction — that it not 54 only exists, but actually, in today’s world, prevails.” Thus, Descartes 55 “vision became the source of our historical paradigm of knowledge.”

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Having assumed a theoretical and instrumental characteristic, the nature of the gaze was to stress the primacy of its “primordial ontological potential” over “its detached, dispassionate, theoretically disinterested power to survey, to compass, and calculate or categorize with one sweep of a 56 glance.” Following this development, the predominant tendency of Western metaphysics in our understanding of vision was to privilege notions such as permanence, constancy, substance, or totalization. In the seventeenth century, seeing was equated with fitting every event into a scientific plan of nature. The Cartesian gaze altered the history of the subject as visionary being and grounded a modern ego-subject whose vision was 57 “disembodied and essentially detached from feeling.” Establishing the primacy of the sight, whose superior status dates back to the sixteenth century, the modern subject, characterized through its body-mind split, becomes the incarnation of a fixed identity always in control, manifesting 58 the Cartesian ego as a cogito dissociated from its embodiment. Yet it is Heidegger, who, according to Levin, exposes the problematic of objectification of vision advanced by the metaphysical tradition as theoretical and instrumental. According to Heidegger, “theory entraps objects in order, for the sake of representation, to secure those objects and their coherence in the object-area of a particular science at a particu59 lar time. Tracing the root meaning of the word “theory” to the Greek theorein, Heidegger observes that theory refers to “the outward 60 look, the aspect, in which something shows itself.” To theorize originally also meant “to look at something attentively, to look it over, to 61 view it closely.” These findings allowed Heidegger to argue that “it follows that theorein is . . . to look attentively on the outward appearance wherein what presences become visible and, through such sight-seeing — 62 to linger with it.” In the transition of theoria to the Latin contemplatio, Heidegger notes a paradigm shift that he describes as follows: “there comes to the fore the impulse, already prepared in Greek thinking, of a 63 looking-at which sunders and compartmentalizes.” From there on, this “comes to the fore” degenerates into vision as a normative viewing or product and calculation. Contemplatio lost its mediative quality by becoming, as Heidegger calls it, enframed, that is, rationalized, of which the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Descartes are some of the first representatives. Undoubtedly, Schmidt combines vision with ego-formation. But, in Zettel’s Traum, he also provides evidence for the argument that vision not only must be seen in connection with notions such as desire and identification but also as a mode of reflection represented by the Extended Mind Game as a form of creative imagination. In view of my previous

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discussion, and Heidegger’s observation that vision as contemplatio lost its meditative quality, I now suggest to view Schmidt’s notion of vision as an attempt to reintegrate the notion of contemplatio as “Betrachtung,” as a viewing propelled by desire that subverts the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ocularcentrism that imposes the ontological order of presence. Schmidt challenges the possibility of representing identity as sameness and difference. Any attempt to reflect about the self has to consider the image of the other. Both modes of imagination and imaginary anchored in the visionary 64 experience of the self appear in Schmidt’s theory of subjectivity. As an act of seeing or observing, desire functions as an agency in the pursuit of the self and knowledge, considering that “[s]ome of the most profound knowledge — perhaps all very knowledge — has originated from a highly stimulated imagination” (ZT 1266–67; italics mine). The creative imagination as image-producing force is a means for the modern subject to construct itself objectively to itself, to become a subject by this very same 65 act. The subject is always already split, and constitutes itself only in a mirror relationship with itself: “BisDu eigentlich excentrisch, Dän. / (Gegnfrage): Zeig mir ma 1, der zentrisch wäre” (ZT 215). Central to subjectivity is the subject split into self and other. Any idealist notion of the unity or sameness of the subject remains an illusion of aestheticism as Dan insinuates: “Ja, wollt ihr Wahrheit; oder den schönen Schein?” (ZT 327). The self depends on the other as it posits itself through the imagination. Schmidt’s process of recollection as formulated in “Berechnungen I–II” transforms into the attempt to think the self through single images and as a form of memory. In generating a suggestive illusion of personal recollection, the creative imagination activates thinking about the paradoxes inherent in the construction of our subjectivity. The “I” can only imagine its identity as a momentary sign that necessarily expresses non-identity; it imagines its otherness. Creative imagination is the reflection upon the division of the “I” in which the subject is split into self and other. In the process of reflection, the imagination serves as the movement that reflects upon the differentiation and unity of the “I.” It is the paradoxical simultaneity of wholeness and division, and of sameness and otherness that Dan insinuates when quoting Whitman: “Was weiß Ich, was Ich — ein anderes ‘i-c-h’ — ma früher gesagt hab!? Widerspreche ich mir selbst?—: Ei, so wiederspreche Ich mir=selbst!” (ZT 66 78). The retroactive construction of the subject breaks down the opposition between the real I and the ideal-I and marks the imaginary experience as a precondition for the development of consciousness.

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Consciousness, and thus knowledge, occurs as the subject begins to reflect upon itself and with the recognition of its being split. Whence consciousness is the representative of the other as posited object within the self. The word “represent” here receives a different understanding. Now consciousness does not mean the depiction or portrayal of the subject but rather it is the subject’s representative or stand-in. Hence, the subject mirrors itself as an image of otherness: “Ihr rümpft? Ihr empfindet Euch nicht als ‘vorm Spiegel’?” (ZT 160). The “eye” places “die ICH=FORM, das i=förmije” (ZT 516), and sees the I as an image or stand67 in of otherness that is a specular image of the self. The recognition of this image of itself as separate from itself is the consciousness of the split into self and other. The relationship of reflection between subject and itself as an object is a visual one. As a visual conception of subjectivity, the fragmentary nature of Zettel’s Traum maintains the status of an “eye=opener” (ZT 514) and signals the reading process as a voyeuristic experience. It is the desire of the “anschein’d immer=mächtiger zunehmenden Schau=Lust” (ZT 158) to create a world of images reflecting images of the self to itself over and over again in a specular fashion. In Voigt’s reading, the connection between seeing, voyeurism, and psychopathology ultimately becomes for Dan Pagenstecher a model for the 68 world. The visualization of the imagination here suggests the construction of a visual fantasy world. At the same time, the viewing of the world through images manifests a source of increased differentiation since the images of the world are always tied to the linguistic representation, namely the etym-language, or, as Dan puts it, the “Bindung an das EI=Etym” signifies the spirit of language (ZT 516). If consciousness as reflection proceeds as an infinite process of making images in the mind, Schmidt’s notion of subjectivity is one of continuous motion. If imagination is the precondition for consciousness, then consciousness is neither fixed nor stable, but rather an endless series of images of otherness initiated through the dialectic of conscious thought and the unconscious. For Schmidt, therefore, narratives and identities produced by it, are unbounded and fluid. Claims of truth disappear as the imagination reveals the codes of finite knowledge, and causes the borders of our identities to fluctuate. For Schmidt it seems, the ideal reader engages in the representation of the visual process of self-reflection compelled by the reading of Zettel’s Traum. When we read Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum, our reading experience idealistically transforms into a desiring reflection on the formation of images in consciousness. Schmidt’s suggested reflection on a reflection disrupts the illusion of self-identity. Wilma calls this the evidence of one’s

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fundamental lack: “das ÜI ist jednfalls mit nichtn der Vertreter des beliebtn ‘Wahren Gutn Schönen’” (ZT 914). The formation of images of otherness in itself is an endless signifying activity that destabilizes at69 tempts to attain wholeness based on static images. Jhering, one of the narrators in Julia, oder die Gemälde, pinpoints Schmidt’s notion of subjectivity by citing Blake, “FOR ALL THINGS EXIST IN THE HUMAN 70 IMAGINATION!” Although we imagine ourselves as having access to the images we have, the fact remains that the symbolic order simultaneously determines our perception. We have to acknowledge “daß S sich um, für die ganze Menschheit verbindliche, Bilder=Weltlichkeiten handelt, [die] bereits von den Früh=Con= Strukteuren der Sprache eingebaut [sind]” (ZT 296). For Schmidt, every imaginary experience is always already overdetermined by the symbolic framework. Continuing to discuss in Poe the “Thema ‘Auge=eye’” (ZT 516), Dan maintains that the eye is “possessed with a passion to discover” (ZT 516). Following his lead, could we argue that the Extended Mind Game as creative imagination stimulates an infinite number of correlations of images of consciousness? These images, as it appears, distort our vision of reality. We perceive reality as a mirroring experience in which the creative imagination offers itself as a prism through which we see ourselves. If the imaginary experience posits the precondition for the development of consciousness then the creative imagination involves the representation of the absent present. The Extended Mind Game as creative imagination plays between the discourses of conscious thought and of the unconscious. Reality presents itself to consciousness in the form of imaginary experiences, creating a symbolic relation between the “I” and the world. The Extended Mind Game consequently permits the reader to see the world and the “I” as an infinite and varying reality. The reader has to accept that the power of unconscious figuration motivates the imagination of both reader and writer. The desire for the truth or primary presence remains inaccessible to our consciousness, leaving us with an original non-presence. On the basis of these observations, I can argue that the differential relationship constitutes reality, reality as a text, woven like a discourse. Hence, reading Zettel’s Traum means to perceive and contemplate the principle of individuality, with its potential for critique of the symbolic order. Equipped with the creative imagination, desire initiates the reevaluation of the norms and values located in the symbolic order and immanent in literary texts. The reader’s desire causes liberation from a predetermined order of things. Creative imagination unites with reason and assesses the experience of reality. “Sein

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Oszillieren zwischen reason & imagination,” argues Dan with regard to Poe, initiates Vorstellungsgruppen, die sich dem Träumer, abwechslnd & der Reihe nach, bald als aus gesprochene Erleuchtungen, bald als widersinnige Abgeschmacktheiten darstellen; je nachdem, wie die Seelenkräfte einander flackernd ablösen, die vernunftenden oder die bildererzeugenden. (ZT 100)

Imagination and fantasy are the constitutive components that break up the dichotomy between understanding (Verstand) and reason (Vernunft) and liberate reason as predominant faculty. The power of the imagination enables the subversion of standardized reading of literary texts. Reflection and fantasy allow for a productive relationship with reality, disrupting the notion of reality as a fixed universal. Reading is the “Auflehnung gegn die RealitätsZwänge” (ZT 807), a resistance to the systematic linguistic ordering of the world and the hierarchical thinking that envelops our seeing the world as a whole. As a necessary deconstructive force in the reading process, aesthetic reflection subverts purely cognitive activity. Therefore, human consciousness is not a homogenous and undifferentiated entity, but rather it is filled with chains of images and their linguistic representation. The desiring imagination unfolds in the Extended Mind Game relying on the infinity of correlations, not on the infinity of argumentation. Critical reading of a text is indifferent to content or plot as Dan asserts: “Der Künstler verzichtet weitgehend auf die, gängigerweise so genannte, 71 ‘Handlung’” (ZT 298). It does not read the text based on established configurations of metaphor and allegory. On the contrary, through the deciphering of the mythological nature of language and associations, the functional effect of reading Zettel’s Traum empowers self-(form)-ation, that is “Bildung,” echoing Novalis’s concept of art as the mediation of 72 free subjectivity. The Extended Mind Game constitutes individuality by dislodging the reader from the logic of a mythologized language, a move Dan calls the “Ent-Individualisierung” (ZT 540). Reading produces knowledge by deciphering the figural representation of a literary text. The imagination is the image-producing force, a playful image on and 73 within the reader’s mind. It embodies Novalis’s concept of the continuum of infinite reflection on our fragmentary existence: “Mein Leben?!: ist kein Kontinuum! (nicht bloß durch Tag und Nacht in weiß und schwarze Stücke zerbrochen! Denn auch am Tag ist bei mir der ein 74 Anderer der zur Bahn geht, im Amt sitzt. . . .” The split self of the mir and the Andere posits the impossibility of our life as a continuum, as the

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uninterrupted, linear development of consciousness. To imagine the unimaginable, to represent the unrepresentable, that is, the symbolic existence of our Being, threatens the borders of accepted forms of knowledge of the self and the prevalent conception of the unity of the self. Dan highlights the power of the imagination by referring to Bulwer75 Lytton: IMAGINATION . . . jene Macht, die den Vorsitz bei Träumen & Visionen führt . . . jene gewaltig herrschende Geisteskraft . . . durch jene Macht würdest Du dann sehen & fühlen & erkennen, und durch sie allein nur dein Dasein haben. (ZT 1077)

The desire of the other refers to the seeing, the experiencing and the recognition of the self as illusionary. Thus, the imagination functions as a deconstructive act that disrupts the unity of the self and constitutes itself as a self-reflexive activity. What in the last quote from Schmidt is termed “Dasein” in fact postulates the impossibility of being a unity. In view of Schmidt’s understanding of desire, identification, and subjectivity, I would like to conclude this chapter with the following observations: Zettel’s Traum as an open-ended text serves as a tactile extension of the visual conceptualization of the self and has to be read against the vision of modern reason. Zettel’s Traum connects narrative and desire. To read Zettel’s Traum is to experience the self, its constructed and fragmentary character in written form. If Freud’s theory of ego-formation is true, then the ego, the self as an ego, never comes into being except in a process of reading and writing, that is, in the attempt to frame and envision oneself in letters. Considering that Schmidt wrote Zettel’s Traum on the basis of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, a reader could conclude that the text at hand opens up reflections on the body (the subject) as a vision, as an organ of thought. Could we thus argue that Zettel’s Traum is the inscription of the body as a symbolic and imaginary order seeking unrestrained decipherment? Zettel’s Traum as a reading of the bodily inscriptions asserts itself as a primary site of power. To understand Zettel’s Traum, the subject and the body is to penetrate its “kernel.” Implicated in Zettel’s Traum, the reader’s vision, the seeing of the self, is a process of unfolding the psyche, that is, the unknown inscriptions of our subjectivity. Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum as a testament against the grammatical subject with its binary structure conveys a reading of our subjectivity in multiple directions without a particular telos. In reading Zettel’s Traum, the reader gradually develops a sense of the framing power of vision and subjectivity, the historically and metaphorically determined character of

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the self and the text. Zettel’s Traum as the mirror of our self engages the reader in its spellbinding power to be deciphered. As such, we begin to see, with critical distance, vision and truth as a process, in the Heideggerian sense of unconcealment (a-letheia/Ent-bergung), and not as a particular theory of truth. The absence of presence is this process of unconcealment. In the act of reading, consciousness always experiences what it does not know. The desire to know truths turns into the desire of breaking fixed boundaries and to accept the text’s and ego’s everchanging role as laying ground for the possible conscious comprehension of what I see and what I read. The desire of the text, as the desire of the reader, threatens the authority of metaphysics through its play as imagination and fantasy. The desire of the text, playing on the dialectic of reader and writer, engages in delights of ambiguities, uncertainties, shifting perspectives, and shades of meaning. In sum, Schmidt’s concept of subjectivity manifested in the illusion of self-consciousness stands in opposition to the stability and identity of modern instrumental reason. He resists the instrumentalization of reason by exposing the instability inscribed into modernity. Reflecting on the split subjectivity of modern individuals, Schmidt underscores the process of modernization within subjectivity and outlines a concept of subjectivity that may be characterized as the paradoxical desire of modern individuals both to overcome and to fortify the restrictive boundaries between their self and the Other.

Notes 1

In his later model, Freud treats the term ego ambiguously. First, Freud associates the ego with reason and common sense. Under the influence of the reality principle, the ego transforms into a “coherent organization of mental process” (“The Ego and the Id,” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud [hereafter SE], ed. and trans. James Stratchey [London: Hogarth Press, 1962], 19: 17). Now Freud locates the previous system of “perception” and “preconscious” within this coherent organization of mental processes. In contrast to the ego, the id obeys the pleasure principle, and designates the rudimentary parts of the psychic apparatus. Although the id is unconscious, repression only applies to some parts of it, in contrast to Freud’s idea of the unconscious in the Interpretation of Dreams. In that model, only repressed material characterizes the unconscious. In the new model, the unconscious receives a sketchy appearance and reappears only in the description of the id. Nonetheless, the unconscious is at once a topographical and a dynamic concept and finds its most theoretical accounts in “The Unconscious” (as discussed in my first chapter) and in the paper “On Repression” (SE 14: 161–215). Other important changes are the lack of signifying capacities of the unconscious and the association of the id with passions. Hence, Freud concludes that the ego is that part

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of the id which is modified by the external world through the structure of perception and consciousness (25). By differentiating the ego only from the repressed part of the id, Freud suggests, “[w]e have come upon something in the ego itself which is also unconscious, which becomes like the repressed” (7). The following description of the interplay between the ego and the id establishes their order: The functional importance of the ego is manifested in the fact that normally control over the approaches to motility devolves upon it. Thus in its relation to the id it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength while the ego uses borrowed forces. (“On Repression,” 25) This dialectical relationship finds its characteristic through the notion of facilitation (Bahnung) that describes the interplay between the primary and secondary process of Freud’s first model of the mind. 2

This is precisely Jacques Lacan’s point when he situates the birth of desire in the story of Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis (New York: Norton, 1981). He locates the appearance of sexuality in the subject’s experience of two lacks (196–97). One is introduced by the signifier and the other is to be situated at the advent of the living being, but that apart of himself qua living being, in reproducing himself through the way of sex. This lack is real because it relates to something real, namely, that the living being, by being subject to sex, has fallen under the blow of individual death. (205) 3

Plato, The Symposium, trans. W. Hamilton (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1951), 59. 4

Plato, The Symposium, 61–62.

5

Servius Sulpicius Galba (3 B.C.–A.D. 69) was a Roman emperor.

6

Ambrosius Macrobius was a Roman philosopher and writer of the fifth century. Poe’s Marginalia consist of commentaries and short paragraph essays on various subjects such as literary reviews. Published between 1844 and 1849 in publications such as the Democratic Review or The Southern Literary Messenger, the marginal notes essentially catered to the idea of being puns. 7

Casanova (1725–1798), Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788–1857). Schmidt’s punning term for “component” here combines the French con, a slang word meaning the female genitals, and Po, German slang for one’s backside.

8

See also ZT 945.

9

See also the long passage on ZT 121 where Schmidt cites Freud and Fließ in the explanation of perversion in childhood. 10

Lacan comments on the child’s encounter with the mother as follows: “The breast — as equivocal, as an element characteristic of the mammiferous organization . . . certainly represents that part of himself that the individual loses at birth, and which may serve to symbolize the most profound lost object” (Fundamentals, 198). 11

Lacan argues that this conflation of external images and internal sense of identity finds its best illustration in the interaction of children: “It is this captivation by the

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imago of the human form . . . which, between the ages of six months and two years, dominates the entire dialectic of the child’s behavior in the presence of his similars” (Écrits [New York: Norton, 1977], 19). 12

In his introduction to “The Ego and the Id,” James Strachey points out the ambiguous use of the terms self and ego. See xiii–xiv. 13

This observation parallels Lacan’s argument that the relation between the subject and its objects animates “the internal tension which determines the awakening of his desire for the object between his ego and the mirror” (Écrits, 170). Excluded from appearing within the psychic economy of the child, “[d]esire is produced in the beyond of the demand, in that, in articulating the life of the subject according to its conditions, demand cuts off the need from that life” (265). 14

Kaja Silverman in her discussion of Lacan (The Subject of Semiotics [New York: UP Oxford, 1983]) captures this binary structure well when she argues “the subject will itself be capable of identifying alternately with diametrically opposed positions (victim/victimizer, exhibitionist/voyeur, slave/master)” (158). 15

Note Schmidt’s play on the equation of male=I=phallus. The “phallus” symbol, a privileged reference in Zettel’s Traum, Schmidt designates as a symbol for those things lost during the various stages of ego-development. In Zettel’s Traum, Schmidt provokes this analogy by playing on the pen-etyms which produces “pen=Penis” (ZT 919), “pen=Schreibfeder” (ZT 249), as word constructions such as “PhallusGebilde” (ZT 1174), or as puns directed at particular philosophers, in this instance, Immanuel Kant, described as “a manual cunt” (ZT 60) or philosophy in general “phallusophy” (ZT 68). In the example given, the phallus signifies manhood, potency, strength, or beauty, assuring the desired image of unity of the self. 16

For a similar example demonstrating the constructedness of subjectivity see also Schmidt’s story “Das Steinerne Herz,” in which the narrator plays with the word construction of Je and moi (BA 1.2:19). 17

Lacan describes this paradox as the object petit a: the paradox is that desire posits its cause retroactively. This in turn suggests that the object desire per se does not exist in itself, but rather in the materialization of the subject’s very distortion. For a lucid explication of Lacan’s concept of the object petit a, see Slavoj äiåek, Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991). 18

Olaf Werner, Wortwelten : zu Bedeutungstransport und Metaphorik bei Arno Schmidt (Hamburg: UNI PRESS Hochschulschriften, 1992), 104. 19

Here Schmidt confirms Lacan’s argument that “the unconscious of the subject is the discourse of the Other” (Écrits, 55). 20 Lacan pinpoints the close affinity between the Oedipus complex and the role of language in the constitution of the unconscious, symbolic order and subjectivity (Écrits, 66–68). 21

According to Silverman, “the signifier is the mark of the subject’s radical alienation from the real — from its organic nature [and] finds its support in a network of signifiers, including ‘phallus,’ ‘law,’ ‘adequacy,’ and ‘mother,’ all of which are equally indifferent to the category of the real” (The Subject of Semiotics, 164).

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22

Gregor Strick, An den Grenzen der Sprache: Poetik. Poetische Praxis und Psychoanalyse in “Zettels Traum.” Zu Arno Schmidts Freud-Rezeption. (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1993), 93. 23

According to Lacan, the “law of méconnaissance” governs the truth of the subject. This law suggests that reality consists of a collection of symbols, which represents the subject’s perception of the “other.” To the subject, this “other” contains truth and meaning. But as we have learned, these perceptions are based on symbols identified by the subject and therefore do not exist as real or as the truth. For a detailed discussion of the truth of the subject see Lacan’s essay “The Freudian thing, or the meaning of the return to Freud in psychoanalysis,” in Écrits, 114–45. 24

Max Weber (1864–1920) was a German sociologist.

25

This resonates with Lacan’s famous dictum: “man’s desire is the desire of the Other” (Écrits, 264). 26

I borrow the term “symbolic order” from Lacan. Within the Lacanian vocabulary, the symbolic order refers to the linguistic (symbolic) character of language and other signifying and representational systems, such as images, gestures, and sounds. When a child acquires language, it automatically learns an already defined linguistic system that determines the child’s position within society. “Mother” and “Father,” for instance, represent terms within a system of signification and sustain their value and meaning through their relations to each other. Considering that Lacan’s writings are extremely difficult to understand, I recommend Silverman’s The Subject of Semiotics for a lucid discussion of the imaginary and symbolic order. Slavoj äiåek’s book The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989) serves as another source of reference, with many hands-on examples.

27

“An instinct can never become an object of consciousness — only the idea that represents the instinct can. Even in the unconscious, moreover, an instinct cannot be represented otherwise than by an idea. . . . When we nevertheless speak of unconscious instinctual impulse or of a repressed instinctual impulse . . . we can only mean an instinctual impulse the ideational representative of which is unconsciousness” (“The Unconscious,” SE 14: 177). 28

Freud, “The Unconscious,” SE 14:188–89.

29

See Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose for an introduction of Lacan’s concept of sexuality in Feminine Sexuality (New York: Norton, 1983), 1–57. 30

Arno Schmidt cited by Olaf Werner, Wortwelten, 49.

31

I borrow “binary structure” from Lacan.

32

In his essay on the limits of the storage of knowledge (“Das Werk auf den Schultern vergänglicher Riesen. Arno Schmidt an den Grenzen der Speicherbarkeit kulturellen Wissens,” Zettelkasten 14 [1995]: 187–218), Ulrich Blumenbach has argued that Schmidt brings to the forefront the problematic nature of the immaterialities of communication as exemplified in news broadcasting in postwar Germany. According to Blumenbach, the immateriality of communication signals the dissolution of the complex configuration of closed narratives and simultaneously replaces the traditional form of memory with images that orchestrate our forgetfulness and, as I will show, simultaneously offers sites of identification. Blumenbach’s findings inspired my reading of this sequence in Zettel’s Traum.

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33

In 1961 in his radio essay, “Heinrich Albrecht Opperman Hundert Jahre (Einem Mann zu Gedenken),” Schmidt already recognized that technological inventions such as television mark a shift in how we perceive and understand the flow of information. In this instance, the narrator complains about the transient nature of the immaterialities of information, “[i]ch bin ein Gegner von ‹Schall & Rauch & Rundfunk›!” (BA 2. 2:154). The narrator’s voiced opposition toward television and radio documents Schmidt’s concern for the growing impossibility of having any recourse to the information offered by radio and television. 34 ZT 1162. 35

The notion of “interpellation” refers to Louis Althusser, who argues that the modern individual becomes the subject as subject through the ideology of the text. For a detailed discussion of this term see “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” in his book Lenin and Philosophy (New York: Monthly Review, 1986), 127–88. 36

For a detailed discussion of the law see äiåek, The Sublime Object, 37.

37

This point has been made by Michael Mertens, “Germany’s Social and Political Culture: Change Through Consensus,” Dœdalus 12 (1995): 1–32. 38

For a history of the APO and the relationship with the SPD see Karl Otto Vom Ostermarsch zur APO. Geschichte der ausserparlamentarischen Opposition in der Bundesrepublik 1960–1970 (Frankfurt: Campus, 1977). 39

Willy Brandt (1913–1992) was chancellor of West Germany from 1969 to 1974 and Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1904–1988) from 1966 to 1969. 40

Arno Schmidt, Sitara und der Weg dahin (Zurich: Haffmans, 1993), BA 3.2:160. Schmidt addresses the interpellative force of the consumer industry already in “Berechnungen II” (BA 3.3:277).

41

Blumenbach, “Das Werk auf den Schultern . . .,” 209.

42

According to Article 116 of the German Basic Law, a German is a person who possesses German citizenship who has been admitted to the territory of the German Reich, as it existed on December 31, 1937, as a refugee or expellee of German stock or as the spouse or descendant of such person. Germany’s Article 116 is still governed by the Reichs-und-Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetz (Reichs and citizenship law) of June 1913. This law is based on the principle of ius sanguinis and implicitly caters to the notion that one is born German and cannot “become” German. After tumultuous debates and exchanges between the various political parties, the Bundesrat on May 1999 gave its assent to reform the nationality law, and partially enacted it on January 1, 2000. Whereas prior to the reform the principle of descent was the sole applicable criteria in the definition of what constitutes a German, now children born in Germany will automatically become Germans by birth if one parent has been permanently and legally resident in Germany for at least eight years at the time of the birth. Furthermore, children born in Germany have to have an entitlement to residence or an unrestricted residence permit for at least three years. 43 See Blumenbach’s discussion of this aspect in “Das Werk auf den Schultern vergänglicher Riesen . . .,” 210–12. 44

Blumenbach, “Das Werk auf den Schultern vergänglicher Riesen . . .,” 214.

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45

See Stefan Voigt’s very insightful discussion of the role television plays in Schmidt’s understanding of the world and reality (In der Auflösung begriffen. Erkenntnismodelle in Arno Schmidts Spätwerk [Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 1999], 306–8). 46

The difference between meaningful comprehension and mere experience may be referred back to my discussion of Walter Benjamin’s distinction between “Erfahrung” and “Erlebnis” in chapter 1. 47

For Siegbert Prawer the “AuThoren=Cullectief” suggests pain (Au) at such author’s folly (Thoren), their brown-nosing (Cullec . . .) and the depths to which they have sunk (tief)” (“Bless Thee, Bottom! Bless Thee! Thou Art Translated,” in Über Arno Schmidt. Rezensionen vom »Leviathan« bis zur »Julia«, ed. Hans Michael Bock [Zurich: Haffmans, 1984], 249). 48 49

See also Blumenbach, “Das Werk auf den Schultern vergänglicher Riesen . . .,” 204. Arno Schmidt, Schule der Atheisten (hereafter SdA), BA 4.2:190.

50

Note here the reference to hell (Höll), hallucinations (Hölluzinationen), collective (cullectiver).

51

In tracing the etymology of kannengieszern, Blumenbach notes in reference to Grimm’s Deutsche Wörterbuch that “unter the Eintrag kannengieszern ausschließlich politische Verwendungen des Begriffs mit der pejorativen Bedeutung von schwätzen auflistet. Interessant auch, daß die einzige aufgelistete transitive Verwendung als bekannegießern ebenso wie hier Pagenstecher den Aspekt der Geschwindigkeit des Diskutierens thematisiert” (“Das Werk auf den Schultern vergänglicher Riesen . . .,” 214). 52

Jean Baudrillard, Revenge of the Crystal: Selected Writings on the Modern Object and its Destiny, 1968–1983 (London: Pluto Press, 1990), 89.

53

Voigt, In der Auflösung begriffen, 312–13.

54

David Levin, The Opening of Vision: Nihilism and the Postmodern Situation (London: Routledge, 1988), 96. 55 Levin, The Opening of Vision, 97. 56

Levin, The Opening of Vision, 98.

57

Levin, The Opening of Vision, 125.

58

See also Donald Lowe, History of Bourgeois Perception (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982). 59

Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 179. 60

Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, 163.

61

Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, 163. Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, 163.

62 63

Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, 166.

64

Note that Schmidt labels the etym “theory” as a heuristic device. Derived from the Greek word heuriskein, the etyms would therefore imply reading as an act of seeing or discovery. 65

In this instance, Schmidt echoes Coleridge, whom he refers to in various passages in Zettel’s Traum and in “Dichtergespräche im Elysium.”

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66

In this quote, Schmidt refers to the American poet and journalist Walt Whitman (1819–1892). 67 See also Kurt Jausslin who addresses the specular image in the context of the “Stage” allegory in Zettel’s Traum. “Über das Universum als Fortsetzung des Sinnensystems.” 68

Voigt, In der Auflösung begriffen, 110.

69

Herbert Jhering (1888–1977), theater critic and essayist in the 1920s, lived as author in the former GDR. Known for his essay “Reinhardt, Jeßner, Piscator oder Klassikertod?” (1929) and exchanges with Brecht. 70

Arno Schmidt, Julia, oder die Gemälde. Scenen aus dem Novecento, BA 4.4:19. William Blake (1757–1827) was a British poet, painter, printer, and engraver. 71

ZT 299.

72

Novalis, Tagebücher und Briefe, in Werke, eds. Hans Joachim Mähl and Richard Samuel (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1978), 2: 72–73, no. 195–210, and 2:194, no. 633.

73

See also Strick, An den Grenzen der Sprache, 17.

74

Schmidt, BA 1.1:311; italics mine.

75

Edward Bullwer-Lytton, British novelist, 1803–1873.

Conclusion Am himmlischn Törnpeik — ‘the cristal bar of Eden’ (63) — lümmelt der Engel vom Dienst . . . vielleicht war’s n bisexueller Engel, mit überwiegend männlichem Einschlacks. (ZT 131–32)

I

to follow the scholarly custom of providing the reader of this text with a “conclusion,” as if to give some form of closure to the preceding inquiry. The previous chapters suggest that to summarize what I have been arguing would defeat the basic idea of this study and its object, that is, non-closure. Since my project has dealt with an author whose texts are notorious for being nonlinear or open-ended, I would instead like to provide the following observations. Considering that Arno Schmidt draws on a vast number of areas of knowledge, I have tried to explore how this attention paid to particular disciplines influenced his ideas of writing and reading. These borrowings from texts of historians, classicists, cosmologists, astrologists, mathematicians, and psychologists might have led Schmidt, or me, to call for an interdisciplinary definition of writing a text. Throughout this study, I have made use of words such as interdisciplinary, intersubjectivity, and intertextuality. These words might suggest that both Zettel’s Traum and this study draw on well-defined disciplines with their particular fields of knowledge. However, Schmidt’s vendettas against Germany’s literary establishment point to a very different characteristic of Zettel’s Traum. Zettel’s Traum, as my introductory remarks on its reception have shown, calls into question any classificatory logic that intends to stake out and authorize a particular understanding of reading and writing. To seek any conclusive or complete answers about Zettel’s Traum is to run contrary to the nature of the text. With its characteristic as encyclopedia, Zettel’s Traum disables any quick reading or any attempt to conclude what has been read and written. Thus I would like to point to some basic non-definitive observations about this project. As the title implies, Zettel’s Traum designates a network of writing drawn from many disciplines that served as an information network exploding a traditional, that is, essentialist and idealized notion of a literary text. Schmidt’s knowledge of areas other than literature merges in Zettel’s Traum to document the text as what Friedrich Kittler pointT WOULD SEEM IRONIC

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edly calls a “discourse network.” Instead of providing a text that has a beginning and an end, Schmidt defies the tradition by creating a text as 1 a node within a network of references. Read against the institutionalized view of literary texts, Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum permits the reader to uncover the limiting effects of a disciplinary understanding of writing and reading, exposing the text as fluid, unbound, and open to a variety of reading practices. Any questions of plot, character, setting, or a particular point of view are displaced by the question of organization. Schmidt’s Zettel’s Traum is nodal by way of its systems of interrelated passages (scenes, images, or topics), which defy the idea of a coherent and generalized narrative development. Various strands of information break through the narrative surface, allowing the reader to decipher nodes or clusters of signification. Structured around topics and contexts, Schmidt’s central impulses in Zettel’s Traum are autobiographies, language, sexuality, psychoanalysis, history, literature, and contemporary postwar German politics from 1964 to 1969. By incorporating ideas from Freud’s psychoanalytical writings, Schmidt subverts any confining reading practices. Whether we speak of language per se, subjectivity, or tropes like metaphors, allegory, or wit, the fact remains that Schmidt plays on the inherent instability of language and thereby on the incertitude of reading and writing. It is this aspect situated within the postwar German era that appears to be so provocative. His psychoanalytical reading of the German character, which he perceived as still longing for the glorious past, touches at the core of attempts made by postwar German literary criticism to proclaim an aesthetic world of poésie pure. Any form of literature that seeks to delineate the mechanisms of identity formations in conjunction with Nazi Germany and the postwar years had to expect resistance or censorship during this period. Via Zettel’s Traum’s distinctive characteristics, such as montage, intertextuality, hybridization, the carnevalesque, constructionism, and discontinuity, Schmidt seems to suggest that the concept of the self is always in need of reformulation. Schmidt denies a bound individual ego. Reader and text (writer) mutually inform each other due to the effects of the dialectic of conscious and unconscious thought processes. In analogy to the hybrid character of Zettel’s Traum, the self is open to endless reexamination which, inscribed in the text, reveals the mechanisms of the imaginary and symbolic order. Embedded in the alternative German literary tradition (that is, that of Schlegel and Jean Paul, though not of Goethe), Schmidt challenged

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the absurd and damaging classifications of the literary canon argued for by the literary establishment. In calling upon the hybrid nature of genuinely imaginative thinking, Schmidt, in contrast, nurtured the reader’s engagement by revealing the pitfalls of taking words and language or any classification for granted. Deploying devices such as psychoanalytical readings, the reader as extended writer subjects classic texts by Goethe or others to a critical reflection about language, genres, and other privileged criteria for classification. Renewed readings of the literary tradition are like creating fresh metaphors. In interconnecting and revitalizing old and tired forms of writing, Schmidt reestablished their relevance for contemporary thought. I proposed with this project to provide an introduction to Schmidt’s magnum opus, arguing that Zettel’s Traum presents a welcome addition to current criticism. I have established the links to current literary concerns, such as the question of nonclosure as articulated by the early Romantics, by the historical avant-garde, and by Lacan. Like the text at hand, my investigation is fragmentary, and relied on literally piecing together the textual evidence to prove my arguments. This in turn might be viewed as violence to the text Zettel’s Traum. But, as I suggested in my introduction, I do not equate author with text; the text at times speaks for itself and against its producer. I have followed Schmidt’s suggestion to play the role of the imaginative reader. Although I have given my arguments authoritative voice by quoting appropriate references or juxtaposing them to positions, when needed, the fact remains, that I, as the writer of the text, remain influenced and stimulated by other texts without necessarily being able to acknowledge them. Despite my efforts to introduce Schmidt and particularly Zettel’s Traum to an English-speaking audience, I am aware of the difficulty of the task. One of the primary reasons lies in the book itself. A translation would destroy many unique characteristics of the book. Written in High German, various German dialects and slangs, English, and other languages, a translation would regulate or destroy the nuances of Schmidt’s play with language, inevitably leading to closure. Its linguistic density most likely relegates Zettel’s Traum to a position where it always has been, at the margins of German literature. However, a reader of Zettel’s Traum will be rewarded with a wealth of information and insights. Reading Zettel’s Traum always makes the reader aware of what she or he does not know.

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Notes 1

This notion of node, of course, comes from Foucault, who argued: “The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut; beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network” (The Archaeology of Knowledge [New York: Pantheon, 1972], 23).

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Index acoustic reality, 68–69, 73, 79–81, 87 n, 101–2, 109, 118 n, 142 act of reading, 24, 31, 33–34, 181 Adenauer, Konrad, 2, 91 n, 142, 150 n Adler, Jeremy, 1 Adorno, Theodor W., 49 n, 54 n, 89 n aesthetic autonomy, 47, 133 Albrecht, Wolfgang, 4, 101, 136, 148 n allegory, 70, 120, 127–28, 136, 145 n, 179, 189 alphabet, 18, 72, 75, 80, 92 n Andersch, Alfred, 2 androgyny, 153–55, 160 applied language, 70, 80 arbitrariness of language, 102 Assmann, Aleida, 69–70 Assmann, Jan, 69–70 Augustine, 42 authorship, 26–27, 31, 38 avant-garde, 77, 79, 82, 88 n, 92 n, 190 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 9, 34–35, 55 n Barthes, Roland, 9, 25, 55 n, 101, 146 n Baudelaire, Charles, 24 Baudrillard, Jean, 173 Benjamin, Walter, 22, 24, 50 n, 54 n, 55 n, 58 n, 72, 127, 129, 186 Benn, Gottfried, 60, 82 Berman, Russell, 12 n Blake, William, 178 Blumenbach, Ulrich, 184 n, 186 n

Böll, Heinrich, 1 Bormann, Alexander von, 58 n, 147 n Brecht, Bertolt, 26–27, 60, 82 Briegleb, Klaus, 58 n Bringhurst, Robert, 88 n, 89 n Brockes, Barthold Heinrich, 32, 61 Büchner, Georg, 1, 26 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 3, 30 Burckhardt, Jacob, 57 n carnevalesque, the, 38, 189 Carroll, Lewis, 94–95 Casanova, 154 Cervantes, Miguel de, 34, 38, 64 Chinese writing system, 73, 99 classical tradition, 27, 30, 35 closure, 18, 21, 38, 43, 103, 113, 144 n, 149 n, 188, 190; and nonclosure, 7, 113 Coleridge, Samuel, Taylor, 94, 120, 186 n Collins, Wilkie, 3 commentary, 18–19, 29, 60–61, 70, 80 communication, 69–70, 73, 75, 77, 79, 132, 152, 173, 184 n conformal representation, 63, 66, 85 n, 100, 102 construction, 20, 25, 32, 34, 38, 44, 64–65, 74, 98, 100, 107, 111, 118 n, 128, 138, 146 n, 151, 156–57, 160, 176–77, 183 n conventional language, 70, 75, 77, 79, 97, 99, 106, 111, 124, 133, 141 Cooper, James Fenimore, 3, 28

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INDEX

Culler, Jonathan, 89 n, 141 cultural signifier, 162, 169 Curtius, Ernst Robert, 58 n Da Vinci, Leonardo, 154 De Gaulle, Charles, 37 De Man, Paul, 127, 136 deconstruction, 38, 83, 141 Deleuze, Gilles, 117 n Derrida, Jacques, 6, 8, 26, 73, 88 n, 125, 144 n Descartes, René, 174, 175 desire of the Other, 33, 174, 180, 184 n dialogue, 22, 29, 32–35, 38, 43, 68, 108–9, 123, 127, 131, 135, 152–53, 173 Dischner, Gisela, 20 Döblin, Alfred, 23, 26 Drucker, Johanna, 70, 71 Duden, 67, 72, 83, 87 n, 96, 99, 102, 104, 111–12 Durzak, Manfred, 26 Eichendorff, Joseph Freiherr von, 154 Eisenhauer, Gregor, 25, 128, 145 n, 149 n Eliot, T. S., 45 Ellis, Havelock, 97 Emrich, Wilhelm, 90 n, 147 n encyclopedia, 31, 44–45, 56 n, 126, 188 Enlightenment, 45, 131, 136 Enzensberger, Hans Magnus, 92 n etym theory, 15–16, 25, 67, 94– 106, 113, 117 n, 118 n, 120, 123–24, 129, 132–33, 186 n; and etym language, 96, 104, 106, 113, 120, 127, 141, 148 n, 161, 177 experimental literature, 77, 82– 83, 87 n, 89 n, 91–92 n, 97 expressionism, 82

Extended Mind Game, 16, 22, 39, 42–43, 45, 59, 61–62, 64, 94–95, 109, 174–75, 178–79; and process of recollection, 39, 42, 59, 60–62, 95, 109, 176 Faulkner, William, 3 Firmage, Richard, 88 n Fischer, Ludwig, 147 n Forssman, Friedrich, 99 Foucault, Michel, 7, 8, 59, 84, 84 n, 85 n, 90 n, 92 n, 93 n, 114 n, 115 n, 118 n, 146 n, 191 n Fouqué, Friedrich de la Motte, 3, 34, 94 Freud, Sigmund, 2, 5–7, 9, 15, 31, 36–37, 44, 59, 67, 94–97, 101–2, 104, 106, 109–10, 114 n, 115 n, 116 nn. 30, 34; 117 n, 118 n, 137–39, 143 n, 148 nn. 58, 61; 149 n, 151–53, 155–57, 160–62, 164, 180, 181–82 n, 189 Genette, Gérard, 10 German literature, 1, 3, 32, 48, 91 n, 190 Germanistik, 12 n, 46–48, 54 n, 57 n, 58 n, 83, 147 n; as a discipline, 18, 35, 43–48, 62, 64, 126, 188 Gietema, Erika, 25, 30, 38, 141 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 10, 36, 54 n, 58 n Gomringer, Eugen, 20 Gradmann, Stefan, 8, 11 n, 101–2, 112, 118 n Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Carl, 98 Grimm, Wilhelm Carl, 98 Guattari, Félix, 117 n Habe, Hans, 51 n Hansen, Thomas, 100–101 Haverkamp, Anselm, 146 n

INDEX

Hebbel, Christian Friedrich, 65 Heidegger, Martin, 175–76, 181 Hein, Christoph, 1 Heißenbüttel, Helmut, 92 n, 115 n Herburger, Günter, 2 Hermand, Jost, 82, 91–92 n, 147 n Hermann-Trentepohl, Henning, 25 Hesse, Hermann, 61 Hink, Wolfgang, 25, 53 n Hirte, Chris, 12 n historic events, 40, 42–45, 47, 57 n Hobbes, Thomas, 175 Hoffmann, E. T. A., 64, 85 n Hoffmeyer, Miriam, 130 Hohendahl, Peter Uwe, 133 Holberg, Ludvig, 28 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 7, 110 Holthusen, Hans Egon, 47 Holz, Arno, 26 Huerkamp, Josef, 21, 50 nn. 24, 25 humanistic tradition, 31, 133 Huyssen, Andreas, 91 n ideal representation, 63, 95, 112, 165 identification, 110, 131–32, 134, 152, 155–58, 161–66, 168–69, 172, 175, 180, 184 n imaginary order, 164, 174, 180 imagination, 10, 21, 41–43, 46, 61, 64, 66, 71–72, 78, 90 n, 136, 138, 147 n, 164, 174–81; and creative imagination, 21, 33, 35, 39, 174–76, 178 indirect representation, 40, 42, 66, 152 interdisciplinary, 48, 62, 188 intersubjectivity, 164, 188 intertextuality, 9, 25–26, 40, 38, 41, 46, 48, 52 n, 53 n, 188–89 intuition, 40–41, 64–65, 86 n, 128–31, 135, 147 n

E 209

irony, 7, 38, 83, 129, 135–37, 149, 140, 148 nn. 58, 61 James, Glenn, 84 n James, Robert, 84 n Jandl, Ernst, 92 n Jaspers, Karl, 58 n Jausslin, Kurt, 66, 145 n, 187 n Jean Paul, 3, 9, 137, 140, 141, 143, 189 Joyce, James, 2, 3, 11 n, 16, 20, 23, 26, 31, 45, 53 n, 59, 67, 82, 94–98, 104, 114 n Joyce, Stanislaus, 3 Kafka, Franz, 82 Kaiser, Gerhard, 47, 53 n, 58 n Kant, Immanuel, 8, 40, 128, 183 n Kiesinger, Kurt Georg, 142, 150 n, 167, 185 n Kittler, Friedrich, 78–79, 189 Klopstock, Friedrich, Gottlieb, 61 Kraus, Karl, 26 Kristeva, Julia, 25 Kröll, Friedhelm, 82 Kuhn, Dieter, 86 n Kühn, Otto Julius, 134, 148 n Kuzniar, Alice, 7 Lacan, Jacques, 7–9, 33, 101, 117–18 n, 118 nn. 50, 51, 52, 53, 54; 128, 132, 143–44 n, 145 n, 162–63, 182 nn. 2, 10, 11; 183 nn. 13, 14, 17, 19, 20; 184 nn. 23, 25, 26, 29, 31; 190 Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe, 45, 139 Lafontaine, August, 121, 143 n Lasalle, Ferdinand, 141 Lennon, Brian, 2 Leroi-Gourhan, André, 73 Levin, David, 174–75 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 9, 118 n Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph, 26 linguistic play, 2, 36, 74, 127

210 E

INDEX

literary canon, 3–4, 10, 26, 45, 54 n, 131, 133, 147 n, 190 literary criticism, 1, 8, 12 n, 18, 81–82, 91 n, 131–32, 133, 189 literary establishment, 4, 20, 23, 25, 34–35, 46, 58 n, 133, 151, 188, 190 literary history, 3, 20, 38, 128, 133 literary language, 7, 29, 67, 70– 71, 76, 79, 81 literary realism, 6, 8, 19, 21, 50 n, 59–67, 80–81, 90 n, 95 literary tradition, 5, 22, 25, 27–28, 31, 34, 46, 67, 69, 111, 133, 139, 189, 190 Locke, John, 175 Lowsky, Martin, 63–64, 85 n Luhmann, Niklas, 70 Lukács, Georg, 82–83, 91 n, 133 Lunn, Eugene, 50 n Lyotard, Jean Francois, 146 n Malchow, Barbara, 114 n Mallarmé, Stéphane, 71, 79 Manko, Michael, 10, 52 n Marinetti, Filippo, 71 master signifier, 141–42, 162–63, 165–66, 167–68 mathematics, 44, 60, 62–64, 77, 79, 84 n Maury, André, 97, 114–15 n Meißner, Jochen, 20, 87 n, 89 nn. 81, 84 memory, 22, 28–29, 40, 42–43, 60, 62–69, 70, 176, 184 n Menippean tradition, 35, 37 Menke, Timm, 147 metaphor, 7, 15, 64, 73, 108, 109– 10, 118 nn. 51, 54; 120–29, 134–37, 141–42, 144 n, 145 nn. 25, 26; 146 n, 148 n, 152, 160– 62, 168, 179, 189–90 metaphysical tradition, 20, 64, 83, 175

Meyer, Herman, 27, 53 n Minden, Michael, 8, 62, 85 n, 89 n, 104 mirror image, 159–60 modernism, 8, 82, 147 n modernity, 8, 71, 146 n, 147 n, 181 Mohler, Armin, 23 Mon, Franz, 26 montage, 21–23, 25, 111, 140, 149 n, 189 Moritz, Karl Philipp, 32 Müller, Hugo, 112 Musil, Robert, 3, 23, 60 Nicolaus, Norbert, 56 n, 117 n Nietzsche, Friedrich, 9, 90 n, 148 n nodal point, 29, 106, 117 n non-phonetic signs, 72, 74–77, 79–81, 120, 164 Novalis, 7, 21, 44, 54 n, 56 n, 85 n, 121, 127–28, 146 n, 179 Offenbach, Jacques, 10 originality, 1, 10, 26–28, 30–31, 35, 38, 53 n, 74, 94 Ott, Friedrich, 2, 76, 101 phonetic writing system, 6, 67– 70, 74, 79, 104, 111–12 Plato, 153, 154, 157, 160, 182 n Plöschberger, Doris, 6, 13 n, 51 n, 75 Poe, Edgar Allan, 2, 5, 11, 13 n, 15–16, 18, 20, 24, 29, 40–41, 44–46, 53 n, 55 n, 72–74, 77, 97–98, 101, 103, 107–8, 120– 22, 126, 154–55, 161, 163, 178–79, 182 n polyvalent, 15, 30, 97, 103 Postma, Heiko, 55 n 104 Prawer, Siegbert, 6, 24, 37, 101, 186 n Prütting, Lutz, 8, 65, 101

INDEX

psychoanalysis, 2, 7, 107, 111, 112, 149 n, 155, 189; and condensation, 29, 44, 94, 105– 6, 144 n, 174; and displacement, 35, 94, 105–6, 118 n, 121–22, 144 n, 174; and dream distortion, 94; and dream thoughts, 100, 105–6, 115 n; and ego-formation, 174–75, 180; and the ideal-I, 158, 160–63, 176; and the language of conscious thoughts, 109; and the language of the unconscious, 29, 96–97, 107, 128–29, 132, 139, 141, 160, 164; and the manifest dream, 100, 105; and the mechanism of the unconscious, 110, 111– 12; and the subconscious, 95; and the superego, 152, 156–57, 162; and the unconscious as structured like a language, 96; and unconscious thought processes, 96–97, 102, 104, 108, 123, 164, 189 puns, 16, 36, 135, 139, 141–43, 183 n pure language, 70, 80 reader, the, 4, 6, 8–11, 16–25, 28, 31–35, 38, 40–46, 54 n, 55 n, 60–61, 63, 65, 68–69, 71–72, 75–79, 81, 83, 95–97, 100– 102, 104–6, 108–9, 111, 113, 120–21, 123–25, 130, 131, 134–43, 151, 154, 159, 164, 168, 173, 178–81, 188–90 reading experience, the, 24, 35, 45, 72, 78, 99, 131, 135, 177 Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich. See Jean Paul Riha, Karl, 23 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 82, 154 Romanticism, 7–8, 154 Rotman, Brian, 90 n

E 211

Sartiliot, Claudette, 26 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 109, 110, 143–44 n Schiller, Friedrich, 3, 4, 125, 129, 133 Schlegel, Friedrich, 6, 7, 55 n, 56 nn. 137, 140; 57 nn. 141, 143; 127–28, 139, 140, 145 n, 189 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 8 Schlotter, Eberhard, 2 Schmandt, Torsten, 77 Schmidt, Jochen, 146 n Schmidt, Julia, 8, 25, 51 n, 65 Schmiedt, Helmut, 4 Schnabel, Johann Gottfried, 32, 61, 85 n Schneider, Michael, 8 Schulte-Sasse, Jochen, 50 n, 128, 133 Schwalm, Helga, 114 n Schwanitz, Dietrich, 114 n self-consciousness, 42, 137, 159, 161, 181 sexuality, 2, 122, 153–54, 157, 160, 164, 182 n, 189 Seyhan, Azade, 7, 56 n Shakespeare, William, 6, 10, 17, 121, 128, 140 sign system, 25, 90 n, 108 signifier, 7, 21, 69, 71, 75–76, 81, 83, 102, 104–6, 109–12, 118 n, 121–22, 128–29, 132, 141, 143 n, 144 n, 145 n, 161– 63, 165–69, 182 n, 183 n Silverman, Kaja, 183 nn. 14, 21; 184 n Sonnenschein, Ulrich, 8, 25, 31– 32, 106, 119 nn. 58, 59; 124, 160 Sorg, Bernhard, 60 Staiger, Emil, 54 n, 82, 90 n, 131 Stenglin, Jürgen von, 64, 66 Stifter, Adalbert, 28, 34, 65, 125, 129–32, 134, 146–47 n

212 E

INDEX

Strick, Gregor, 9, 10, 21, 33, 49 n, 54 n, 58 n, 87 n, 89 n, 97, 101, 115 n, 117 n, 118 n, 145 n, 162 Stucken, Eduard, 154 Stündel, Dieter, 89 n, 113, 149 n subjectivity, 5, 8, 23, 50 n, 62, 95–96, 103, 109–10, 118 n, 123, 131, 151–52, 155, 160– 62, 164, 172, 174, 176–81, 183 n, 189 Suhrbier, Hartwig, 26, 63, 74 symbol, 7, 15, 41, 45, 67–68, 71– 74, 107, 121–30, 132, 134–36, 138, 145 n, 152, 157, 161, 166, 183 n, 184 n symbolic order, 117 n, 160–65, 174, 178, 183 n, 184 n, 189 symbolic representation, 21, 64, 136, 162 television, 167–70, 172–73, 185 n, 186 n theory of citation, 26, 27, 33; and plagiarism, 26, 28–31, 38, 52 n, 53 n; and quotations, 5, 15, 22, 27–33, 37–38, 41, 43, 50 n, 53 n, 72 theory of typography, 59, 67, 70– 71, 78–79, 88 n, 90 n, 110; and typographic form, 71–72 Theweleit, Klaus, 1 Tieck, Ludwig, 61, 121, 135 Topia, André, 53 n Ueding, Gert, 23, 24 Valéry, Paul, 54 n, 78–79, 90 n Vischer, Friedrich Theodor, 143 Voigt, Stefan, 10, 20, 54 n, 97, 124 von Hardenberg, Friedrich. See Novalis voyeur, 158–59, 163 Weber, Samuel, 58 n, 138

Weigel, Helmut, 5 Weigel, Sigrid, 133 Werner, Olaf, 8, 75, 105, 160 Wezel, Johann Karl, 32 White, Hayden, 57 n Wieland, Christoph Martin, 3 Wiese, Benno von, 147 n Wintersberger, Astrid, 50 n Winthrop-Young, Geoffrey, 8 wit, 7, 120, 135, 140–41, 189; and Witz, 135–39, 149 n Wolf, Christa, 26 Wolfram, Hannelore, 140, 149 n word-associations, 125, 128 Wutz, Michael, 8 Zimmermann, Bernhard, 91 n äiåek, Slavoj, 183 n, 184 n