The Literary Criticism of Ludwig Klages and the Klages School: An Introduction to Biocentric Thought Author(s): Lydia Baer

Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Jan., 1941), pp. 91-138 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27704719 . Accessed: 04/07/2012 03:17
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THE LITERARY CRITICISM OF LUDWIG KLAGES AND THE KLAGES SCHOOL

An Introduction to Biocentric Thought

I. INTRODUCTION to a position of importance The elevation of Ludwig Klages in German literary criticism and the infusion of his polemics into the field of literature give rise to questions which urgently and psycholo invite discussion. Widely known as a graphologist his literary credo has been gist, and since 1929 as a philosopher, its main and less respected in the past. Yet little recognized of his psychology members often touchstones, indispensable for many years. It is pro have been accessible and philosophy, posed, in this paper, to give a short exposition of the philosophic premises which cannot be divorced from Klages' view of poetry and of poets and writers, to trace briefly the steps by which his literary criticism appears to have evolved, and to inquire into to show his standards, if standards there be. It will be necessary his outlook on life is to all and any how completely antagonistic he identifies himself with how unreservedly forms of humanism, and finally, how Klages and his followers German romanticism, in Germany. have influenced contemporary literary criticism It is not enough to dispose of Klages with a shrug of the shoulders or a paragraph, as has happened too often in the past.1 He is a formidable opponent who has waited thirty years for ramifications of his thought and the widespread recognition, His magnum deserve serious consideration. opus, Der Geist als der Seele,2, was introduced Widersacher by a comprehensive remarks3 concerning indiffer series of vituperative plagiarism, ence of the public, and the general stupidity of the "Bildungs
1 Among ism" PMLA American li, No. scholars 1, March, Martin 1936 a modern Human "Toward Sch?tze, refers briefly to Klages and calls his doc and thinks it is merely biological-mystical" calls "minus-rationalism."

trine "deliberately irrationalistic, of what Sch?tze another variant 2 1. und 2. Bd. 1. und 2. Teil (Leipzig, Barth, 1929); Dritter Band, (1932), referred to as GW. hereinafter 3 as for example are profusely such expressions I mean By "vituperative" of GW the introduction Dieb scattered (see xvi ff.): "geflissentliche through "ausbeuterische Niedertracht," "Rassentypisches," "geistige st?hle," Diebe," "Raubbau of the same an der Charakterkunde," character. "Patrone," "Unverfrorenheit," and more

91

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philister'' which appear to have lost a good deal of their validity in the ensuing years. Certainly between 1931 and 1936 Germany neither overlooked Klages, nor did it treat him as negligible, but on the contrary, he achieved a host of followers and friends in of venera high places, who honored him with those superlatives tion and respect which he had always maintained were accorded only to things trivial.4 In a bibliography to being which laid no claims whatever dated 1934,5 there were listed almost five hundred complete, own publications items dealing with Klages' and with those of to other philosophies, his followers, with his relationship to politics,
in short,

psychology,
to the

history,

medicine,

astrology,
the

and

the like:
sciences,

"Geisteswissenschaften,"

natural

to the field of literature. The last was and, as an afterthought, of these five hundred barely touched upon, but the enumeration items clearly demonstrated that Klages' theories had been widely applied in all kinds of contemporary criticism, and the author of the brochure included a short representative list of books of
"biocentric" color.

The biocentric method of research, as Klages understands it, and as he and his followers apply it to literature, is accordingly the general subject of this paper, which can only attempt a brief exposition of the main points of view which Klages represents. An exhaustive discussion would fill the pages of many books. It is Klages' proud boast that he is the most original thinker of modern all fruitful present-day times, and that practically phi etc., has derived from him, oc medicine, losophy, psychology, with but more casionally acknowledgment, by frequently theft: that he is, in short, the most plagiarized author of the con
temporary 4 5 Ibid., xxv. scene.6

Julius Deussen, Klages'' Kritik des Geistes (Leipzig, Hirzel, 1934), pp.l*-30* added to body of book). (bibliography 6 Autor der Gegenwart." GW, xvi :"ich bin der am meisten ausgepl?nderte of (a pupil of Klages) op. cit., p. 1*, affirms that Klages' Deussen, complaint is justified, giving as one of the reasons for the incompleteness of his plagiarism own bibliography the unacknowledged consideration of Klages* philosophy by A. E. Bergmann, P. H?berlin, H. Much, P. Wust O. Spengler, F. Werfel, B?umler, and others. A milder construction statement may possibly be placed on Deussen's that related in the works points of H. of view Bergson, and sometimes E. Dacqu?, may be found parallel investigations M. S. Freud, E. Friedell, L. Frobenius,

Literary Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 93

II. THE MEANING OF LIFE AND THE NATURE OF REALITY on The history of literary criticism abounds in speculations the body of creation. All other the function of reason within before the sweep anti-rational premises pale into insignificance His the indictment of intellect is condemnation by Klages. ing so comprehensive that in the end not a shred of what we are to regard as intellectual achievement remains. It is accustomed his contention moreover, that by gradually reason7 has usurped its place, has set up its and sway in the present age of mechanism to its of having brought humanity guilty
social inadequacy.

the soul, displacing as it holds kingdom and is soullessness, present impasse of

is no new thesis, certainly. But the originality of Klages' lies in the fact that, in taking over the old Greek meta discovery of a three-fold substance of man: body, soul physical assumption intuitive powers have vouchsafed the revela and spirit,8 Klages' tion to him that spirit, in some unexplained constitutes fashion, an intrusion into the life process, arresting and frequently de The the latter.9 dissonance thus metaphysical stroying ensuing the body-soul between unity on the one hand and the rational on the other lays the foundation for the elaborate functions This philosophical and psychological structure which, unlike other

E. M. v. Hornbostel, E. Jaensch, C. G. Jung, F. Kraus, Geiger, M. Heidegger, to Bergson and others. Brief references W. Pinder, R. Wilhelm, E. Meyerson, and Freud, whom Klages himself discusses, will be found in this paper. Specific as alleged by Klages* instances of plagiarism, (note followers, will also be given 156). call 7The "Geist" or the logos, GW, 6, what we would is the nous, the pneuma, I have, for the intellect, the reason, the spirit, the mind. to it as spirit when there is talk of its iniquities; it is non

in ordinary speech the most part, referred

physical, "Seele"

side of man, The and in general, the rational "ausserraumzeitlich." to the Greek psyche. It is the living principle, the vital spark corresponds 8 and 6. GW, xxin (GW, 70) and one with the body, soma. 9 does not explain clearly how this intrusion was able to take place. Klages It came from without itself into the body-soul (GW, 7), wedged unity, hence was

an action confers a stigma upon activism. (GW, p. 250, "Tat"), which already Cf. also Ludwig Klages, Vom Wesen des Bewusstseins, 3. Auflage, (Leipzig, Barth, und wie es geschah, dass innerhalb eines 1933) p. 42: (referred to as WB) Warum Volkes irgendwann vorgeschichtlichen in die Geist hineinzuwirken vermochte noch nicht zu l?sendes R?tsel. einmal zuerst der ausserraumzeitliche ist ein heute raumzeitliche Lebenszelle,

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in a profound terminates vitalistic conclusions,10 use the abused word "profound" (I deliberately, this pessimism.) justly, to emphasize

pessimism.11 and, I think

dissonance in literary The importance of this metaphysical criticism based on the Klages philosophy must not be forgotten. It is the chief instrument for the dissection of poets and writers who appear to have strong leanings, to say the least, toward the school reassembles its aid the Klages camp of humanism. With name to the and Goethe, Schiller,12 Keller, examples, outstanding re-appraises them, lauds the biocentric values and points out the
logocentric 10For errors.

whose attitude toward Progress, Morals, Ethics, example Bergson, critical but in no wise partakes is justifiably of of the fierceness Christianity wholesale condemnation. Hans Kinkel, "Geist und Seele, die Grund Klages* bei Ludwig Klages," Philos. der G?rresgesell Jahrbuch lagen der Anthropologie 16 ff., thinks that Klages from may have derived 1933, xlvi, schaft, Fulda, instead of vice versa. In GW, 50 f., 458, Klages and discusses Bergson, Bergson thinks he is not to be taken too seriously. 11 This has an important bearing on Klages' literary criticism. GW, p. 574: Noch sei erw?hnt, dass weitaus die meisten Lebenslehren einher "optimistisch" Man sieht aber ohne weiteres, wie leicht der fragliche Optimismus in . . .Welche Pessimismus h?llen k?nne. Schopenhauerischen umschlagen Aussicht vollends er?ffnet sich, wenn man bedenkt, dass alles und jedes m?ssige . . ohne dass ein Endzweck immer nur Mittel auch nur ge ist, niemals Zweck. einen dacht der dem entsetzlichen Aufwand doch eine Art von Sinn werden k?nnte, es sei denn die Vernichtung des ganzen Getriebes, das Wiedereingehen verliehe, in den Geist der Verruchtheit, der es erfunden und ausgeheckt!??berfl?ssig wenn moderne welche Zerrbilder auszumalen, grauenhaften herauskommen, um von solcher Lebensauffassung ihre Abh?ngigkeit auch nur um an den Mann zu bringen, was sie gleichwohl benutzen, . . . Gew?sch und Erotik! ?ber Sexualit?t liegt, ihr widriges schreiten.

ohne Hohlk?pfe, selber zu wissen, ihnen am Herzen Auch fasser wer nicht dieses

Buches

haben werde, ende noch vor dem Ende. This disposes of naturalis phischer Triebverleumdung excesses. Deussen, tic and psycho-analytic to the op. cit., p. 1*, calls attention of Klages' in the thought of the "Selbstm?rder-Philoso implications philosophy u. a.)". Ibid., p. (W. Cal?, W. Gr?ser, A. Seidel, M. Steiner, O. Weininger phen" 86 he discusses "Selbstmord und Ekstase." 12 of Klages' to Schiller in standards op. cit., cites the application Sch?tze, xx of the Goethe Jahrbuch: Volume "In Deubel's of Schiller's interpretation to Joy' enthusiasm becomes and the ex 'Hymn 'orgiasm,' 'joy,' 'ecstasy,' vision of a rapturous Olympian fervor is sensationalized into a Diony pansive sian fury." Sch?tze does not mention that this goes back to an authorization by Klages himself, as will be shown later. (Cf. notes 81, 82, 83.)

etwa neue "Morgenr?ten" aufsteigen s?he, sondern mit dem Ver der Meinung in K?rze w?re, dass die Menschheit ausgespielt d?rfte ohne Seherblick diese Art von lebensphiloso vorausk?nden,

Literary Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 95

like other present-day thinkers, throws Idealism and Klages, useless into the discard as outmoded philosophies, Materialism if not actually harmful in creative functioning. He finds no dif ference between them and thinks they are merely aspects of the same thing.13 He calls the English realist a secret Platonist; for the latter, properties float in empty space, or rather in Nirvana,
as independent essences.14

it. life to an absolute value. He hypostatizes Klages none There is no greater value than life, none that approaches it, to it. He shares with the German romanticists their subordinate as was to to it of devotion them, life passionate intensity living; is festive to him, and he believes in honoring the feast of life by celebration. But he has nothing to do with their uninterrupted or religion; monism alike and pantheism of systems philosophy are the objects of his scorn and derision. Their dualistic world of of the Many"15 that polarity is his world; his is a "metaphysic raises
makes no compromises.

Klages defines life as eternal flow, change, becoming, renewal, chaos. His chaotic world is actually that of the flux and flow of the indwelling Logos 16 and the panta rei, but without Heraclitus It is dynamic beyond the possibility of holding fast even one as we of poetry. shall see, through the medium reality, except,
13 the fiction they are both concerned with preserving GW, p. 161 f. Because He to Klages is "kleinleutehaft." order of the universe, which of an intelligent in Schiller's the same train of thought finds, for instance, precisely Einstweilen, bis den Bau der Welt

zusammenh?lt, Philosophie sie das Getriebe Erh?lt Durch and Darwin's instinctive Hunger und durch Liebe,

theories. Both the idealist and survival and adaptation of individual and species. lay stress upon the preservation has a very low opinion of English philosophy: GW, pp. 161 f.: Die von Philosophie verstehen sie jedenfalls vieles m?gen verstehen, Engl?nder and the Klages school. is the last word in "error" to Klages nichts. Platonism the materialist 14 Klages 151 have ticism, Cambridge, romanticism attacks and Roman this phrase from Irving Babbitt, Rousseau that he it is on just this score of the "many" 1928, because to Klages, who is the most It is very appropriate fiercely. of everything held most dear. that Babbitt borrowed seine Lehre zu verf?l entging nicht dem Schicksal, the term "ver eines ihr innewohnenden Logos. Note school operates freely.

antithesis 16 GW, p. 62, Heraklit schen durch die Annahme f?lschen," with which

the Klages

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Baer

connected with is unique, incomparable, Everything living else and never repeating itself alike. everything The world of events and the soul stand in polar relation to each other. The soul receives the content of experience (what Klages calls the "Bild"17 and I have translated as "image") from one upon the world, and in their close kinship and dependence the the the other: the soul upon world upon the soul, lies world, content is not of experience the meaning of experience. The and forces: soul their qualities, but vital content, life, things which appear within the stream of images. Our experience of the of the world is originally and immediately an experi phenomena ence of the appearance of living souls. The elemental resemblance of the receptive soul and of soulful reality is the necessary pre
requisite for all true experience.18

Primitive
pearances speech, blue."19 words, for We colors, are

peoples,
souls, instance impute degrees

Klages
but we we own

says, do not need proof

moderns speak of prove a "warm to spatial the it in red" colors.

that ap
every-day or a "cold In other sensual

when our

of heat

experiences or cold,

attributes,

or sensory modes are suitable only to the description of personali ties with souls, because (the colors, etc.) are they themselves living (beseelt). eyes, a world of images with souls, or is, in Klages' Reality which souls appear in the immediacy of the image.20 conversely, He arrives at a dynamic world where not only living beings but all nature and all things are alive and have meaning. The soul (meaning identity of the name,21 not of the person) is "eine ?ber Seele." Suddenly we have a poetic world. Organic organische and inorganic nature partake of the life of the images and of the life of the cosmos, in the sense of images which are to be lived ;plants live, as well as animals (I avoid the term "apprehended") and human
17The schauen, Spiegelung, translation

beings;
to GW

the rock, the cloud, water,

refers the reader, under

wind

and flame,
An

index

"Bilder,"

to "Abbild,

Eindruck,

almost It is clear from this that the "Bild" insuperable. authori is not optical, but qualitative. See also Deussen, op. cit., pp. ix, 50. My zation for Bild as "image" is GW, p. 783. 18 20 19 pp. 29-31; 34. Ibid., p. 36. GW, 1121. WB, 21 ist der Laut, der Geist ist nat?rlich GW, p. 1015: Der Leib eines Namens . . Was . der Begriff. Die Wortbedeutung. also ist denn die Seele des Namens?

Traum, are therefore

Erscheinung, Zeit." Vergegenw?rtigung, Entfremdung,

Scheinbild, Raum, Schauung, of one accurate The difficulties

Literary
as well as sunand

Criticism
the

of Ludwig Klages 97
desk, and even space and time.

star-dust,

The

together
continually enemy,

spirit-concept unity, with (not dual

causes ever making

static and not alive, inextricably bound to) the soul-body unity of the person,
It the is living the adversary, soul. the arch

disharmony.22 war upon

for the matter of which It is not matter which is constant, man is composed changes in the course of time. But the image continues to live as it wanders from body to body: the image of the beech, of the oak, of the human. This wandering image is a a in it rhythmical universe;23 changes by growth, changing image, flowering, age and death, by thousands of years of change in the genus, which is also subject to change and decay. We have a very as we read to the animism of the primitives, close approach Klages*
the

eloquent

expositions,

though he is at pains

to point

out

differences.24

to life as it world that awakens in a phenomenal Finally, makes contacts with the living soul, the poet takes his place as the medium through which we have some approach to a perma
nent reality.

By Klages' definition, the poet is one who preserves lost forms of life, lost long ages ago in the gradual estrangement and final from his cosmos. Genuine poetry testifies in divorce of man words, which are equivalent to meaning, symbol and recollection,
22Each has und der Eigenbewegung, bens"), der Geist Tr?ger its own sphere: GW, p. 1014: der Leib ist Tr?ger des Empfindens = ' des Schauens und Wirkens die Seele Tr?ger ( We

von Auffassungsakten und Willensakten. Dem lebendi der Welt oder, abstrakter sonach die K?rperlichkeit gen Geiste gefasst entspricht ihre Materialit?t, der Weltcharaktere, der eingek?rperten Seele die Erscheinung an seelischem wachsend Gehalt mit wachsender dem ver Seelenvorherrschaft; ?rtlichten Geist eine Welt mit sich identischer Gegenst?nde. The schaff' shade of Goethe's ich am sausenden universe is very much alive in this definition: "So "Erdgeist" Webstuhl der Zeit?Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges

Kleid." 23 Klages' des Rhythmus, "Besonderen Werkes mann

in nature. Cf. Ludwig Klages, is rhythmical Vom Wesen 1933. Deussen, auf Sylt op. cit., p. 1*: (Kampmann) bleibt auch der Zusammenhang des Klages'schen Bibliographien Kampen

mit dem Schrifttum der Rhythmuslehren (Tanz, R. v. Laban, M. Wig u.a.) vorbehalten." 24 ismainly with definitions of quarrel Klages' GW, pp. 121, 384, 499,1476. an animism which or associates souls with per inflicts "spirits" upon nature sons. He with Tylor's and quotes him is much more in sympathy presentation a number of times, despite an alleged "obsession" with the concept "animism." pp. 499,1147,1271,1283,1288, 1293 ff., 1476.

GW,

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to the character of the events which take place in the receptive soul. Klages asserts that it is a mark of genuine poetry to affect the emotions of the receptive listener by means of its pictures or
images.25

renews in the passive itself in every generation Poetry to soul. this In flagrant opposition "pathic" pathic soul of the stands for the will, with its desire poet action, an indispensable ingredient of the character of the doers of the world, whereby intellectual action is as pernicious as physical. The poet's pathic to the so-called aesthetic mode is equally antithetical disposition of perception, which tries to glean from the surface of the object and its properties. We have to "describe" by means of materials cannot in is but the that forms; propertyless image Klages' view, It can only live when we, or the poet, possibly be so hypostatized. point to it and interpret its character. The poets of all the ages constantly capture and recapture and with and moments of time it, reality, eternity.26 This, their for and renewal, sets them apart unique ability regeneration the conceptual isms that have been led astray by their names and faith in facts and phenomena. implicit Attaching assume to is these that every experience of a calling "reality" from
life is always one and the same; poetry makes no such assump

tions. In place of the rigid entities of philosophy and science, which can never renew themselves, poetry isolates the countless manifestations of the soul through the wonder of the word in in into the finite variety. The poet does not say "I," he is merged no concern the of the has with he ethical, his "It"; immensity feeling is cosmic.27 The stream of his poetry flows through the
26Cf. GW, pp. 1254 ff. If the soul of the poetry, hence its meaning, in the REALITY of the image which the poet or prophet successfully even of a toothache. it follows that this is true of every experience, bodily would appears evokes, In every or there

to Klages, in an image, pain the soul asserts itself, according be no experience of pain. Cf. also WB, says that p. 27, in which Klages the key to the whole philosophy lies in the fact that not objects have of vitalism

souls but their images when they appear, and ibid., p. 39: only souls can appear at all. The whole phenomenal world becomes alive. 26 des Sprachgebrauchs GW, p. 1194: Wir untersuchen nicht, welcher Weise des mit das Wunder der Aufl?sung des Zeitaugenblicks und der Verwirklichung am n?ch ihm unvergleichlichen Man kommt ihr gelinge. Ewigkeitsaugenblicks . . . nennt sten, wenn man sie . . . die vollendet dichterische 27These two distinctions unique dis claims, among others, as wholly Klages the romantic coveries, GW, xx f. He classes them with Goethe's "Urph?nomen,"

Literary Criticism
channels of ecstasy and

of Ludwig Klages 99

intoxication.28

To sum up, then, Klages' reality with which we are here con cerned is a poetic, artistic reality, a reality of the imagination. It has nothing whatever to do with the world of things or events,
any more than Klages'?and the poet's?Erleben and Erleiden

to do with sense experience in the every-day meaning of the term. By virtue of this distinction between the reality of immediacy, and the falsely-claimed reality of things and events, establishes which he names Life and critical touchstones29 Klages is sterile. Existence.30 is born; Existence Out of Life poetry have
Poet-artist equals equals soul-life-reality-vitality; Truth scientist-technician is incommensur spirit-existence-death-stagnation.

able with

reality and is no aspect of it. in his preface to "Lyrical Ballads" asserted that Wordsworth is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the "poetry on countenance of all which is the impassioned expression science,"

scorn of epistemology, but Klages, with a superlative of the in the interest of his science disputes validity entirely, absolute value, life. He says that science is the purest precipita tion of reflective consciousness; it it freezes reality and makes
Nietzsche's concept "polarity," and his use of "Ressentiment." gewisser Urbegriffe Findung V?lker und Zeiten eingeteilt vor mir wusste "niemand 28 has devoted Klages For definitions inspiration. "Dionysisches "Durch Gunst und Sokratisches" wurde as antitheses, auch mir die

des Schicksals

vor mir hat jemals Personen, teil, etc." "Niemand aus dem Gesichtspunkt des Gegensatzes, etc." um die Wesensgegens?tzlichkeit, etc." a whole book and detailed discussion to the subject of the poet's and of "ecstasy" source "intoxica of

tion" and their relation see Ludwig to Nietzsche's Klages, "Dionysisches" Vom Kosmogonischen 3. Auflage Eros, 1930), pp. 56-144. (Jena, Diederichs, Cf. also GW, 815: Nicht in seiner erleuchte wie noch Nietzsche das "Apollinische," ten "Geburt der Trag?die" meint, sondern, um in seiner Sprache zu reden, grade das Dionysische ist das bilderstr?mende im welches erwacht der Welt, Auge der K?rperlichkeit. aber Das Musterbild des geistigen Menschen Empfinden ent und durch die Denktat des begreifenden zeigt er uns selbst in der Gestalt seelenden Sokrates. taken the liberty of using Matthew Arnold's term, which happy is so well-known seem superfluous. by now that quotation marks 30 uses these terms so arbitrarily whose critical that even Deussen, Klages a is in order to from Klages one, is forced to depart study wholly sympathetic make himself in philosophic understood circles. For a brief discus generally sion of the term "Existenz" as it is employed Jaspers, Heideg by Kierkegaard, to Contemporary German Philosophy, ger, see Werner Brock, An Introduction 291 have

(Cambridge, 1935) pp. 82 ff.

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Baer

reality, science detracts and subtracts rigid, and, in falsifying from life. The reality of poetry and literature is summed up in Klages' accusations been called psychology. against what has hitherto He himself always uses the expression "Seelenkunde." What all marks of has the "science" (quotation by Klages) psychology one he than says, weighs accomplished, lighter psychological continues that one tries page of Goethe or of Jean Paul. Klages in vain nized
Die

to escape the bitter truth which Novalis into the statement: and compressed
Psychologie eingenommen haben,

already

recog
im

sogenannte

Heiligtum

auch zu den Larven, die Stelle welche geh?rt wo echte G?tterbilder stehen sollten.31

in general, and the language of poetry in particular, Language thus becomes a factor of extraordinary significance, a subject of in the Klages school. It assumes close scrutiny and of revaluation of reality. the importance of a measuring-stick III. THE GROWTH OF THE BIOCENTRIC METHOD In the period between 1893, when the momentous association of Klages with Stefan George and his circle began,32 and 1929, der Seele was when the first volume of Der Geist als Widersacher and emo of certain intellectual, aesthetic, published, highlights in the life of Klages are discernible. They de tional experience
serve particular emphasis, as having a large share in confirming

and supporting the thesis that the spirit is the adversary of the ever farther from the humanistic soul; they removed Klages his extraordinary and standpoint, they perpetuated feeling of of and thinkers German romanticism. with certain poets kinship Klages was a contributor of poetry and prose to the Bl?tter of the so-called f?r die Kunst;33 he was one of the three members "Kosmische
century he

Runde"
became aware

in Munich.
of Bachofen,

At

about
a secret

the
which

turn
was

of

the

known

31 Die Grundlagen 5. und 6. Auflage der Charakterkunde, Ludwig Klages, (Leipzig, Barth, 1928), p. 8 (referred to as Grundlagen). 32 to Friedrich Wolters, According Stefan George und die Bl?tter f?r die Kunst 1930), p. 65. (Berlin, Bondi, 33 in the Blatter and was reprinted in and prose by Klages Poetry appeared aus den Jahren the collections and excerpts: 1892-98 Eine Auslese (Berlin, Bondi, Bondi, 1899), 1904), 131-43. pp. pp. 97-108. Eine Auslese aus den Jahren, 1898-1904 (Berlin,

Literary only until

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 101

to this select circle,34 and which they guarded jealously it was disclosed to the public some twenty years later by the publication of a part of Gr?bersymbolik.35 A friendship with Friedrich Huch inspired Klages, in 1901, to an essay36 which tells us as much about Klages as it does about the novel Peter Michel, which the essay ostensibly discusses. In 1902 Klages published a book called Stefan George,*7 which is a clear and unequivocal statement of his literary credo, valid for biocentric appraisal to this very day. Of like magnitude with the brilliance of Bach ofen, the star of Carl Gustav Carus has guided Klages ever since 1910, when he first sighted it.38 These are the chief steps by which Klages' outlook on litera ture can be traced; they are definite enough in rejecting any humanistic If that had not been so, the Brief ?ber implications. which in 1918, was thoroughly en Ethik, published Klages in 192840 felt lightening; nevertheless, Klages again impelled to that in terms. unmistakable emphasize rejection
34 Wolters, op. cit., p. 241, credits "der bei den Studien und Vorarbeiten mus the actual discovery zu seiner Dissertation to Karl Wolfskehl, ?ber Androgynis

in Sage und Mythos auf 'das Mutterrecht, eine Untersuchung ?ber die der alten Welt nach ihrer religi?sen und rechtlichen Natur/ Gynaikratie gestossen war und Schuler und Klages alsbald von dem gewaltigen Eindruck Mitteilung den dieses Werk auf ihn aus?bte." machte, 35 It is believed that Klages Bachofen: unearthed usually Johann Jakob no date), Mutterrecht und Urreligion edited and Bachofen, (Leipzig, Kr?ner, introduced um die Jahrhundertwende wieder Klages Ludwig von einem kleinen Kreise dessen Bedeutung in M?nchen wie ein sel aufging, . . . tenes Geheimnis bis . . .Neuausgabe geh?tet wurde, (1923) die Schar dei unserer ist der Sinn Auswahl. Cf. and sprengte, Eingeweihten GW, pp. 908-11 many other references. 3"' "Friedrich Huch" in Der Lotse, il. Jahrgang, 16. Novem Ludwig Klages, ber 1901, pp. 206 ff. 37 1902. Klages this book, so far as it concerned Berlin, Bondi, repudiated in Zur Ausdruckslehre und Charakterkunde George, (Heidelberg, Kampmann, zuerst by Rudolf dessen Wert Marx (1926), p. XIX: Hinzuleiten zu diesem Kern seines

Werkes,

1927).

to Klages' introduction derichs, 1926), p. XVIII. 39 in the collection Now contained

38 According

to C. G. Mensch

Cams, Erde

Psyche (Jena,

(Jena, Die Diederichs,

und

1933), pp. 111-30. 40 . p. 3: . . Wahrnehmung, Ibid., Vorwort zur dritten Auflage, allzu nicht viele seiner Leser die Tiefe Kluft der zwischen scheint, des Verfassers merken und den Zielen JEDER Art von "Humanismus" vermochten.

dass, wie es dem Weltbild v?llig zu be

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note will not be amiss to explain how deeply A biographical are certain tendencies in Klages. He has, apparently, ingrained a natural inclination toward mystery, dreams and visions. He is a North German, to gloomy and pessimistic by temperament, whom the landscape of heather and heath offers all the mysteries that his soul requires; it is in his blood to believe in signs, sym of the faith that all nature is bols, runes, and to be possessed
alive. Ponderous and heavy by nature,41 he has always been an

a "Sonderling" or "Eigenbr?dler," as his associates individualist, have called him. In a spirited account of the Cosmic Circle, written by one of women the most sophisticated in Munich,42 Klages stands out as same and is the individual conspicuously, easily recognizable who thirty years later storms through Widersacher der Seele, filling pages with with sheer poetry, always challenging the intellect gishness, and stimulating
moments.

the pages of Der Geist als violent invective, others conventional mental slug even in his most abusive

Thus the personal comment made by the Gr?fin Franziska v. Reventlow almost forty years ago seems equally valid today,
in an Mein impersonal ist und sense: Am Ende doch nur ein Mensch mit eigentlich? (Klages) Ichsucht und einem wundervollen der uns alle Verstand, reisst er die Menschen?43 Gott, was Gr?ssenwahnsinn hingerissen 41 His unhumorous manner GW,

hat. Aber wohin

views but

of humor

are enlightening

in this

surcharged with traces of Nietzsche. He "In der Form der

irony, frequently the etymology Sentimentalit?t

is respect. His own writing of a bitter flavor, much in the of "humor," (Cf. concluding: sich n?mlich mit das sich noch selbst;

1469).

?ussert

verf?gbare

wohingegen das ja eigentlich

Ironie (ein Wort, Der Humor ist eine Art des Sichver bedeutet). Verstellung zu spotten, w?hrend man stellens: man im gibt sich den Anschein, ?berlegen ein Unverm?gen einen Mangel, grunde zugleich einen Verlust, beklagt; daher das 'durch Tr?nen l?cheln* des Humors." to this all lighter forms of humor Previous

zumal als unverh?lltes Mitleid Liebesverm?gen im Humor versucht wird, das zu verdecken durch

under this definition: ruled out from consideration (wobei summarily verbreitete tieferen Gehalt Scherz, Lustigkeitohne Witz, Nebenbedeutung: nat?rlich is said note in 112 about Hoffmann. bleibt.) Cf. what ausgeschlossen 42 zu Reventlow, Gr?fin Gesammelte Werke Albert (M?nchen, Franziska, zu Reventlow Albert Langen, 1925) ; and Briefe der Gr?fin Franziska (M?nchen, die the Werke, Langen, 1929), to supplement information. Klages is "Hallwig." 43 Reventlow, Werke, op. cit., p. 280. which is a compendium of first-hand

had been

Literary The

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 103

is to realize how as interesting fact about these comments has the little changed Klages general tenor or tone tonishingly is his beliefs. Klages' paganism of fully developed before 1900; the main theme of innumerable the Gr?fin reports conversations, no are is there "there that which repeats God; many gods"; her of "Erosdurchleuchtet," the terminology diary is filled with
"Sturm-Eros," "Eros der Fremde," and other varieties of Eros.

She

refers at times to Klages' which "Niedergangstheorie," an when she has her. spent Sometimes, frightens evening in the we to hear that he of "meine company appeals Klages, mystische or she describes him as "der Swastika," Seite, die drehende der alles versteht und der fliegen kann," and his einzige Mensch, intellectual hold on her is so strong that he forces her, almost novel. But there are against her will, to write a confessional one concerns us here the which bitter accusations, too, only "gerade diese Seite von Eigensinn, being the characterization: die es immer so dreht, dass nur der andere eigensinnig ist." This was the Klages who disinterred the forgotten Bachofen,44 who furnished his disciple with latest of the late romanticists, an acceptable to the in the symbol key origin of the world, a to his own had monument Mater." Bachofen erected "Magna

the concept "matriarchy" for posterity; by perpetuating uses a of the the mother in of First symbol Klages place Principle. to the antique cults of the Great Mothers In close conformity the Magna Isis, Rhea, etc. etc.) Klages makes (Istar, Astarte, Mater the life-producing eternal womb, the root, the source, to masculinity; it is the nucleus, which in no wise corresponds not The world of is creation, but birth; the undeveloped. Klages is Mater and The unity of the all-destructive. Magna all-bearing mother to is that in which all take symbol regard polarities man the to Not but the child. Bachofen's place.45 her, belongs
44 Wolters op. cit., p. describes 255: "Weit the effect ?ber die bisherigen W?nsche die weibliche Seite of this on the life of the community romantischer und in detail, zeit

mother

wurde des Menschentums gen?ssischer Bewegungen ja des ganzen Kosmos zur h?chsten Wertung Die Zeugung pl?tzlich gesteigert. vor Empf?ngnisbereitschaft trat zur?ck die Tat und Schwangerschaft, und vor vor dem Puls und Wogung, der fordernde Wille triebhaften Handlung W?nschen." firms Cf. GW, 1325 ff. Wolters' account but GW con is not first-hand, it. 45 sich gegenw?rtig GW, 1329: "Nicht genug aber kann man eindringlich zur Mannheit in diesem Verst?nde dass Weibheit nicht das Gegenst?ck halten,

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dualism (the romantics used the term "polar is a well-balanced of and paternity; Klages ity") maternity lays all the emphasis on maternity. From it, with its symbol of the loving mother and the beloved child, he raises love to a supreme value. In the manner of this interpretation, retained the Klages dualisms of earth and sun, nature and spirit, woman Bachofen and man, paganism and Christianity, night and day, so that all the emphasis was shifted to darkness, mystery, night, paganism, earth. He enlarged on Bachofen, defined nature, full sensuality, numerous reason in of which the and ways, Spirit mechanizing the purposeful will were the lowest expressions, because he con sidered them the arch-enemies of all life, which destroyed it a This of is Reason, Volition, Teleology unmercifully.46 rejection
corner-stone of the biocentric method.

Klages transfigured the old romantic "Back to nature" slogan into the more vital wish: "Back to the ardor and beauty of the he condemned original soul." In making war upon Christianity, it as the way upward toward the light, a way which led to the static Logos and to the rigid symbol of the cross,47 while the pagan road downward led to primeval forces, the creative powers of darkness, and to the fruitful Magna Mater. Bachofen also provided Klages with the romantic Golden he that needed, in order to round out the picture of a past Age which should be remote enough to be shrouded in mystery, and a a to suitable of home yet perfect enough provide background,
bildet, m?glichen sondern ein noch unentfaltetes Diesseits so der Geschlechter wie aller nur

und ebenso stellt m?tterliches m?tterliche Gegens?tze; Dunkel, m?tterlicher m?tterliche nicht den Unten Raum, Ruhe, m?tterliches Nacht, oben sondern das ungeschiedene dar zu Helle, Gegensatz Tag, Bewegung, Diesseits Bewegung, 46 In "Man von Dunkel unten und Helle, Nacht und Tag, Raum und Zeit, Ruhe und und oben."

the book on George, p. 254: George indirectly. Wolters, criticizing in dieser Form eine v?llige Umkehrung dass der Gegensatz der weiss, ist und Klages daher eine Unterscheidung zwischen Herz- und Sicht Bachofens Er w?rdigte Bachofens vornehmen musste. den Geist, das Apol Kopfgedanken linische nur noch Licht, den zerlegenden resents Wolters zu einer Gegenmacht des Lebens oder mechanisierenden herab und verstand und unter ihm Verstand zwecksetzenden

the implied criticism of George, of course. Willen." 47 denke an den best?rzenden Formen Stefan George, op. cit., p. 68: Man . . . und wie alles dennoch wie . . . gothischer in der reichtum Fenster nirgends von unerbittlicher Erhabenheit Welt der Despotie eines Gesetzes dient, tausend Formenzierden umbl?hen h?llend ein Skelett: das starre Kreuz.

Literary Criticism the soul adequate of mankind, with

requirement.

of Ludwig Klages

105

to the biocentric thesis. The Pelasgian stage its "chthonic" primeval religion, fulfilled this

the It should be stated here that while Klages glorifies primitive and is an adherent of the "Noble Savage"48 faith, he those sharply between various stages of primitives: distinguishes their dev in whom spiritual forces have already accomplished them de astating work, inspiring them with fears and making The Pelasgian is the and the mythical Pelasgians. praved, the original poet, as it were :his vision is archetype of visionary, the medium of poetry it is wholly symbol and image. Through possible to recapture this lost state of abundant life.49 a nineteenth the century Darwinist, Strangely enough, Wilhelm almost singer of the Nibelungen, Jordan, forgotten as to how the furnished Klages with an acceptable hypothesis anew can home of his the soul, where a state find poet prehistoric some more on of exalted living had existed perfect star than this earth. Despite his materialistic outlook, Jordan had substituted the term for "instinct" of his day, so despised the "Erinnerung" a wrote didactic poem with the title long Jordan by Klages. considers which quite on a par with Klages "Erinnerung,"50 Lucretius. Two stanzas will illustrate the nature of this recol role in the biocentric school lection, which plays a considerable of thought:
Was Dem also wars, was einst in lauer Welle Stoff gewann die Form der ersten Zelle?

an fr?here Gestaltung Erinnerung zur ?hnlichen Und Wunscheskraft

Entfaltung.

Erinnerung In gleicher

an tausendmal Art vom ganzen

zuvor Ahnenchor

48Cf. Hoxie Neale The Noble Savage (New York, 1928) p. 2: Fairchild, of a Golden Age is to the ancient world as the Noble 4'The conception Savage a protest world. Each the evil inci idea is to the modern represents against to human progress; back from the corruptions dental each looks yearningly of civilization the Golden later. 501 have "Ged?chtnis." to an Age innocence." world imaginary primeval Klages' of Pelasgian life and two types of Noble Savage, 49 other passages. GW, 1259 f., 1403 f., and many translated this "Erinnerung" by "recollection" a renewal, not an instinctive It is a recognition, it has no connection with Platonic contains as will as both appear

to opposed remembrance. which

Cf. GW, p. 360. Of course is spiritual.

recollection,

106
Getanes Zu melken

Baer obwohl lehrt, geschickt, schon das neugeborne noch blind, Kind.51

The recollective powers of the poet are of the same kind,52 and we shall see the theory of "Erinnerung" to Stefan applied
George's poetry.

association with George and the the time of Klages' Bl?tter, he considered Friedrich Huch as the prose writer who, in the metaphysical Peter Michel,5* portrayed most significantly between "life" and the thinking capacity. Klages incompatibility attributed a high degree of poetic reality to the depiction of the "struggle of life with death," that is, of a rational existence which triumphed over the "real" dream world of the child. He said that all the sensible, rational people, as the representatives of death, combined to destroy the living child. His discussion is an indictment of the training and education by means of which the child, when it grows up, enters the realm of the "dead" world of just another Philistine utility and becomes exuding platitudes. to its non-intellectual Incidental valued character, Klages in Huch's book a style which was rich in soul content, while its of perception the simplest delicacy reproduced moods within the situations occur with the most sparing use of conversations; turns of phrase. intellectual to which Huch himself gave the In calling Peter Michel, komischer ironic sub-title "ein Roman" (and which is treated as one some of most such by the terrible tragedies of our critics), the biocentric method day, Klages applies liberally. He enlarges on the two antagonistic worlds. One is the world of Will and Deed, of the passions of the day, of the subtleties of science, of of cause and effect. The other is the world of the compulsion In
"real" substances, an earth world without spirit or sin, contain

ing fate and doom, but in no wise to be apprehended by reason. And in 1901 Klages came to the conclusion: Logic is organized is rhythmic light. darkness, mysticism interfere with Schools and professions, duties and dignities tear it out of its of the eternal child. They the preservation dreamy bed of reality, torture it into becoming a useful member
61 Taken 62 Mensch from GW, 361 and 362. und Erde, p. 169: Das Huch, Gesammelte

Dichterische Werke

ist

immerdar

Erneuerung i, 3-287.

eines Vergangenen. 63 See Friedrich

(Stuttgart,

DVA),

Literary

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 107

of a society which calls itself human.54 The soul feels that the "good" people are its enemies but can do nothing about it. Klages formulates the equation: existence is death. The counter part, that death is really life, is a way of escape for Friedrich drawn and sensitive Huch's characters, who, when delicately or when they are their souls are in danger of being destroyed, torn from their dream worlds of illusion, evade "existence" and die of their own volition. In the discussion of this book, we see the biocentric appraisal in its early stages. The spirit at odds, the cult ing, contempt of the are self-complacency, and on the unconscious cleft: the soul and the great metaphysical of the child,56 the war upon rational think and of his deadly dullness and Philistine all expressed. The emphasis is on dreams

life, both of them far removed from the of the dream and from the sub psychoanalytic interpretation to voices his antagonism conscious of psycho-analysis. Klages to Science, to cause and effect. The intellect the Will, to Action, is excoriated, the every-day world of daily duties pilloried, and the soul emerges as the vital factor. In his chief work Klages still cites Friedrich Huch as the
dreamer ones. of "real sleep dreams,"66 romantic, not psycho-analytic

felt ready, in of thought Klages With such a background in and conclusions 1902, to incorporate many of his discoveries as it seemed to him the little book which he called?mistakenly, later on?Stefan George. He thought he had found the perfect Stefan George seemed to be the symbol of (1) the equation. cosmic poet who was gifted beyond all others, the archetype endowed with (2) recollective powers, equipped with the magic to a corrupt civilization by the force ability to bring salvation of of his articulated visions. If we are to believe the statement contemporaries, Klages had never before come into contact with
54 the accusation that he has defended himself Klages against effectively advocates idleness: Vom Kosmogonischen Eros, op. cit., p. 204. 65 With Klages the state of unconsciousness, it takes the form of praising as such: Mensch be it the childhood und Erde, p. 95: of the race or childhood . . .weil das erste und entscheidender das uns mehr pr?gt Lebensjahrsiebent, als die nachfolgenden wesentlicher ein Jahrsiebent zusammen, zugleich siebenzig . . ist. Unbewusstheit 66 gut wieder gvon hervorragend GW, 1452 :Eine selten sch?ne Sammlun Tr?ume Friedrich echten Schlaf tr?umen bringt das B?chlein: Huch, gegebenen ... Werke der Gesammelten der IV. Band (Berlin, Fischer, 1904); ausserdem

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a real poet. His admiration had been centered upon such writers as Wilhelm re Jordan, as we have seen, and to this day Klages
tains a measure of his enthusiasm for Jordan.57

To Klages, then, George stood as the living incorporation of a soul which lived by poetry and whose body was visionary. (3) From this recollection upon which Jordan and Klages were agreed, in Klages' George, opinion, knew of the forces of the universe, and the language of poetry was a natural source of (4) religious in a miracle: that (5) intoxi expression to him. Klages believed cation of the blood, with not that signs and participation, restore the primeval reality a George who, in "Algabal," the slightest dilution of intellectual symbols and runes and magic could of imagery through the medium of had created the first visible evidence of "Algabal," guaranteeing in

of this regeneration. It was the pure paganism58

67 Illustrations Mensch

und Erde,

Bedeutung vaterl?ndischer P. die ihn den

as applied to Jordan, in Klages' of superlatives criticism, 133 f?. (written nie in seiner vollen 1919) :dem vielleicht der wie kein andrer mit den strahlenden Zinnen Manne, gew?rdigten pp. das Geb?ude einer ganzen Weltanschauung kr?nte. Begeisterung . . . gewann er eine Meisterschaft des Wortes, einer Naturanlage ersten Ranges Grossen aller Zeiten und V?lker sprachsch?pferischen wer ihn nicht unter ihn nach darf noch rechnet, des geschrie Pr?gekraft einem Goethe oder H?lderlin, Eckehart, Luther, . . .Erneuerer an die Seite zu stellen einer Epik, entdeckerischer oder des Beowulf . . . den er . . . nach wie kein Eddaskalde dem germanischen selbstgeschaffenem . . . vollkommener die f?hrenden Dichter

145: Kraft Auch

gesellt. keinen einem die

z?gern, Augenblick einem Dante, benen Wortes, G?rres oder Nietzsche

des Hildebrandsliedes seit den Tagen kam. Stabvers abhanden Sprachkreis mit einer Sicherheit handhabt Schein Der 149 : ahnungsbange

Gesetz P.

einer weltplanm?ssigen dessen Notwendigkeit, zur alles f?rbenden ist in Jordans Nibelunge keines der grosser Epen ermangelt, unsres Schrift P. 154: . . . kennen wir seit der Bl?tezeit geworden. Beleuchtung nur zwei Dichter, tums im 18. Jahrhundert welche die neuhochdeutsche Mundart dem standen: noch dreifach Mark urgermanischen in ihren gelungensten n?mlich in seinen misslungensten Leistungen zu erf?llen ver Plastik ausgemessener Gedichten Annette Droste und selbst

mit

all savor con Jordan! These judgments that Jordan Over and above all, Klages believes siderably of "Deutscht?melei." P. 161: .. . ?ber die shared his "Untergangsstimmung." Jordans Dichtung zu Wehmut einer nahezu unpers?nlichen liegt, die im Gegensatz Stimmung ewige Abschiednehmen to Jordan. also devoted in Mensch und Erde, p. Ozean der Menschheit

an das fast unabl?ssig seiner Fortschrittsgesinnung alles Lebens gemahnt. GW, pp. 360-63 and 447, 570 are 58The are set forth sources of Klages' paganism und neunziger 171 f.: ... in den achtziger Jahren den eine Grundwelle hob, vielleicht planetarisch bedingt zu der sich die zeitgen?ssischen Geschmackslosigkeiten

und

"Element," jedenfalls etwa wie Schiffstr?mmer

Literary

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages

109

human images clear as crystal the rebirth of a pre-Christian world that had been lost, which catered to one of the strongest that Christianity is responsible of Klages' predilections: for all the evils of civilization. of Christianity, and of Judaism, the repudiation With ob as of the basis had what Christianity, viously, Klages rejected of art under Christian he considered the rigidity domination. die in in Bl?tter the what he entitled "Aus Kunst, f?r Already, des K?nstlers,"59 he had demanded Seelenlehre that the beautiful distinctions between and the non be abandoned and that standards be built upon (6) the intuitive and formative powers of the artist. He believed that should be based on the conscious and uncon these standards scious choice of objects by the poet, as he shaped and treated the material of the soul. As the poet was able to produce more potent einer aesthetic beautiful values of soul and world, signs and symbols of the mysterious in like ratio could his worth be appraised. Thus, when George created such verse as
lass die arme still M?hle, da die haide ruhen will60

Klages asserted that George had departed from all tradition (for example, of the classic ideal)61 and had entered a realm where no human culture had left any records, yet the burial monuments of those wandering tribes on moor and gigantic stone bequests to had sufficient release visions been within the poet. and heath
George was on Klages' home ground: landscape, mood, and

und Konservenb?chsen Romantik

. . . substantiell zur D?nung des Meeres verhalten! der aber von ihr bis zur Verkennung n?chstverwandt, gesinnungsver im Zeichen einer Erneuerung des Heidentums und sonders schieden?samt . . . B?cklin . . . Bachofen . . .Nietzsche. . . . Burckhardt standen 60 59 in Bl?tter. Now pp. 136-42. 1892-1898, Werke. L p. 57. 61 : Starke Visionen, ff. die 7 des grossen Dichter p. (die George, Stefan

zu bannen vermochten, hielten sie ?usserer W?rdi Jahrhunderts) welche Verbesserung menschlicher und gaben Hinweise, gung bed?rftig Dinge . . Was . sie Edelstes blieb dem nachkommenden entst?nde daraus boten, achtzehnten fremd: Jahrhundert Frohndienst derischen die dieser ?rmlichsten "Fortschritt" Frist der Menschheit, die seelenm?r . . .Man kann die Klassik lesen, ohne . . . zu verlassen des Geistes Vorratsspeichern von Redensarten aufgestellt Jugend, Freiheit, hiess der N?chternen f?hlt sich erw?rmt und ge

Spannungen tagt?glichen sind unbescheidene ?hnlich Frauenliebe. schmeichelt. Der Kirchenverstand

110
expression were

Baer

to Klages' all designed to appeal innermost asserted that the characteris (7) sympathies. Thereupon Klages tics of sinister gloom and dark mystery stamped George's visions as genuine ones. The personal bias of Klages' literary criticism is nowhere more evident than in this phase of his elucidations. are his Somber coloring and irrational, mystic background
preference.62

In George's "Graue rosse muss ich schirren" Klages believed that the barriers of ordinary lyric expression had been broken even more impressively by the force of the inward urge which drove Algabal back to barbaric antiquity, and there is a sentence about "George's blood, which had signalled to him in terms of in these thunder out of the night of Uranos, as it reverberates screams of an iron and copper age."63 lines amid the intoxicated as time went on and he detected But Klages, the growing was a of that the original of felt there weakening clarity George, itself in the paganism soul substance which had manifested it picturesquely, of Algabal; expresses George had, as Klages the fructifying allowed the frosty light of reason to supersede darkness until, in the Teppich, "we actually stand on Christian churchliness."64 soil and under the cold sky of a transcendent to rational considerations had said permitted Klages, George,
62 Ibid., p. 44: Wir versagen und D?steren des Unheimlichen h?rt?unerweckt uns Aufschluss zum zu geben, warum der Charakter solcher Visionen ?chtheitszeichen ge

aber hat nur ein Mal Muse ist jene Vorwelt?Deutsche von jenen finsteren zu Reichen in Friedrich Hebbel ausgenommen) (weniges Stammeln und dieses eine Mal blieb es das sich nicht wissende k?nden gewusst . . . und Steinh?user der Annette Droste H?lshoff eines Kindes: (H?nengr?ber auf dem noch keine Kulturschicht sesshafter Menschheit abge Heide?Land, 63 op. cit., p. 252. Wolters, lagert.) 64 and the symbol of the cross 257. hatred of Christianity Ibid., p. Klages' man in Vom Kosmogonischen Eros, p. 214: Will wie das Symbol be eine Vorstellung machen, so suche man vermitteln schaffen war, das solches mit Blitzesschnelle konnte, von Holbeins Totentanz! Blatte sich die Vorlage dazu auf dem packendsten Re das die weltfeindliche eben dieses Symbol, Im ?brigen ist es ja imgrunde is also expressed characteristically auch noch sich schliesslich zu Jahren der Kreatur! in das ber?hmte des sich bem?ht: gestalten recht Wer sich davon Kreuzigungsbild zu Tode sinnlos des Tor

seit zweitausend ligion des Christentums der Sinn des Lebens als Selbstkreuzigung sich ?berzeugen will, vertiefe augenf?llig mittelalterlichen turierten Gehalt. Malers Gr?newald. des Lebens Die als Stimmung

Stimmung das ?berhaupt,

ist sein

tief pessimistischer

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Criticism

of Ludwig Klages

111

intuition which had once been expressed in replace cosmic were some still There evidences of sensory symbols. primeval life, but it was not of the forest and of the demons of the earth. It was the rich and heavy culture of an antiquity that contained a of charm the Germanic but past had vanished. magic Dionysos, The rift between Klages and George is primarily on the issue: spirit or soul. The remainder of their quarrel is on a far lower and mutual recriminations. It has plane of personal animosities no place in the present discussion.66 found a magnificent In 1910 Klages reinforcement of his Carl Gustav Carus, a thesis of the soul when he "rediscovered" to the forgotten late romanticist who also belonged legion, and ever since that time Klages has elaborated and extended Carus, or corrected him on the score of his idealistic and Christian
"errors."66 He accepts, of course, Carus' romantic definition of

with life, and adds to it the famous the soul, as synonymous locates the soul at the point of contact which Novalis quotation between the inner and the outer world. A gift for studying the for seeing its meaning says, rests on a capacity soul, Klages within the phenomenal world. But to see the meaning is to see Like Novalis, the phenomenon then links symbolically. Klages an ir the philosopher-poet that both follow functions, saying see and when resistible compulsion impulse they things sym and that in his symbolic vision the poet, in spite of bolically,
65 Wolters op. cit., pp. gives 266-70. a detailed Cf. Conrad account of it from Wandrey, "Ludwig ccxxx Preussische Jahrb?cher, (Heft protests against Wolters* presentation the George point of view, und seine Lebens Klages 3, Dezember 1932), 205 as though of Klages, the He ascribes this legend to

philosophie," 19. Wandrey

from George. latter had received all his inspiration cult of the George the disciple and master circle and its tendency to refer the to George. life of the period intellectual Of the latter Wandrey entirely says: . . . urn so starrer treten an seinem Antlitz die Z?ge eines ehernen, herrschs?ch einer ausgesprochenen Willens tigen und herrschm?chtigen hervor, geistigen Pers?nlichkeit Volksgemeinschaft, aus dem Urquell tences serve von imponierendem als Ausdruck out the very Ausmass. ?berstr?mender differences Nur als umfassende welthafter Stimme der als Sch?pfer F?lle, sen feiern wollen. These

des Lebens

darf man

ihn nicht mehr

between George and Klages. Both from Nietzsche, Klages rejects the glorifier of the will to power and of deriving the superman. He prefers Nietzsche's other face: the psychologist who strips the masks from the Ego's To Klages life is not will to power; self-deceptions. or even expression. life is soul, or meaning, 66 See especially GW, 571 f., 900 f., 1446.

to bring

112
enormous
savage.67

Baer

differences,

resembles

the spiritual

disposition

of the

to the discrepancy reference has already been made the cosmic fervor of the true poet and the ethical dis and to the distinction between the ES and the ICH, position, as sub-divisions two antitheses listed by Klages of his great Brief between primary separation of Spirit and Soul, and claimed by him as significantly unique discoveries. It would appear obvious that with this non-ethical, anti cannot be linked with any form of individual slant Klages In 1918 he elaborated his position still further when humanism. the Brief ?ber Ethik, which ought to have shown he published how incompatible this view of life and literature was with any humanistic
human Ich habe

endeavors.
darauf Blut,

The

Brief

"drips"

with

contempt

for

society: fr?her von hingewiesen, was ?brigens dass DIESE jeder weiss, und Gemeinheit trieft und Verrat, Niedertracht zu entsprechen ver auch nicht dem des Ethikers

Menschheit also wohl mag.68

Mord,

keinem Wunschbilde,

to the connection of the ethical "sich bessern" It calls attention and to the inconsistencies ideal with Christianity, of the dog matic Christian faith, and reviles once more the Mosaic myth of creation; the categorical is alleged to be the cate imperative gorical negation of vitality, with the conclusion:
Der Erzieher zur "Sittlichkeit" ist unbewu?t systematischer Lebensfrevler.69

side are listed "Wille, Tat, Logos, Nous, On the minus 'Idee,' ?tre absolutes Ich, Geist," 'Gott,' supr?me, reines Subjekt, while the plus side of the ledger enumerates definite values which or the nourishment of the Klages calls the means of subsistence, and soul: wonder, love, example (Vorbild). The soul, it is said in the Brief, may find wonder in landscape, in poetry, in beauty. The soul will find warmth in love, using love
in its widest 67Cf. GW, sense, 1258 f. The including reverence, admiration, adoration. three groups which are "Tr?ger eines noch pathischen are: (a) the poets of all ages and times, in Symbolen denkt," as they are receptacles of speech waves of the soul; personalities of the not too remote past ancestors ; (c) prehistoric (Indians) (b) wild peoples races. We of the European cultured their nature by means of idols, recognize das and a few historically proven are prehistoric in origin. 69 Ibid., p. 128. facts of Pro

Bewusstseins, not so much

cults, symbols, mysteries, myths, methean antiquity, which, actually, 63 und Erde, p. 113. Mensch

Literary The

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages

113

has thus been led is the The examples of the soul will blossom into beauty soul does not respond to these stimuli, its leader will depart, and then it may, concludes to a lecture listen unharmed Klages with an ironic anti-climax, on Ethics. In this necessarily incomplete account of certain milestones the name of the greatest teacher of them all in the life of Klages, has been omitted. There is no beginning and no end to the debt which Klages owes to Nietzsche.70 as they of the biocentric method, Surveying the touchstones have been thus far enumerated, we find: eternal symbol of the soul which loving mother with the beloved child. are gods, poets, and heroes. The soul when it can gaze upon heroes. If the (1) The poet must believe in the Cosmos, disregard the ethical, eschew teleology; must have recollective He powers to evoke the past; they (2)
are unconscious;

(3) His

soul must be poetry and his body vision; he has the ability to conjure signs and symbols of the interchange between soul and world; (4) He must be religious, recognizing many gods, ardent and in change and transformation of all adoring; he believes things; in ecstasy and intoxi (5) His poetry must have been conceived cation; his is the "pathic" surrender to the Cosmos; (6) He has intuitive and formative powers, hence his language will always be imagery, never conceptual; of his poetry will be irrational or mystic, (7) The background of somber preferably coloring, dark;
70 This necessarily the scope of the present to Nietzsche are found cavalier treatment of Nietzsche is unavoidable within

with its subject matter, references paper. In connection in Notes 12, 27, 28, 41, 57, 58, 65, 81, 82; and through out the text. His in the George influence is implicit circle. Cf. also Ludwig Die psychologischen 2. Auflage Nietzsches, Klages, (Leipzig, Errungenschaften so that "auf der has dissected Nietzsche Barth, 1930), 228 pp., in which Klages einen Seite . . . "daher Dienst eine selbst eine goldene auf der andern giftige, dem echten Forscher die Ehrfurcht als es mit H?lfte schwerlich darniedersinkt," einen besseren

erwiese,

deckungen discussion Klages

geschieht!" of Nietzsche 1933).

von seinen Ent seiner Irrt?mer der Abtrennung For a comprehensive (from the preface). philosophic see Heinrich and Klages, Nietzsche und Ellermann,

(Hamburg,

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(8) His standards are love, wonder, example. There is a condition of life, as Klages knows, in which reality has become continuous song, a plane of existence upon which of the poetic creation has become the the rapturous exaltation when he sees Rilke's name among the Who, only genuine reality. school does not think of biocentric poets listed by the Klages and who does not think of Rilke's Rilke's "Gesang ist Dasein," account
Er weist Gesang

of the final "dictation"

auf einen Lebenszustand oder dem doch

of the Elegies,

when

he reads:

geworden

zum w?hrenden hin, dem die Wirklichkeit erst der t?nende Ueberschwang des dichter

ischen Augenblickes den EINTRITT BEDEUTET71

IN DIE WAHRE WIRKLICHKEIT

IV. THE REVALUATION OF GOETHE, SCHILLER, AND KELLER IN BIOCENTRIC CRITICISM of the biocentric method we can In examining the application do no better than to observe how its founder takes the measure of Goethe,72 and then proceed to compare a brief sketch of the same procedure by a disciple of Klages.73 the inaugurator of the science of life; Goethe is, for Klages, Goethe is the great teacher who preceded Carus in searching the a thought of the Unconscious, soul; Goethe was the discoverer which Carus developed: Goethe's concept of Polarity is a corner stone of Klages' structure. But all of this breadth philosophic to Klages that Goethe was not of achievement proves only wholly a poet. but he divorces Goethe's humanism, Klages acknowledges it sharply from any connection with poetry. In the very act his refreshingly of introducing non-academic74 appreciation
71 Mensch 72 Mensch Goetheschen Barth, 1932). 73 Werner und Erde, p. 102. des ?ber die Schranken und Erde, pp. 93-110, "Bemerkungen Goethe als Seelenforscher Menschen." (Leipzig, Ludwig Klages,

Jahr eines neuen Weltbildes," "Goethe als Begr?nder Deubel, xvn buch der Goethe Gesellschaft, (1932). 74 not academic! und Erde, Cf. Mensch mind is certainly p. 108: Klages' . . .w?hrend von Goethegelehrten von Goetheb?nden und Tausende Dutzende gesch?ftig sind, unter Person Totengr?berarbeit der Larve zu an seinem Werk seiner und der Verehrung indem sie beide zum Gegenstand jenes eines grossen der uns jeden Waschzettel machen, und Sakrum aufbinden will! leisten,

G?tzendienstes widerw?rtigen Mannes f?r ein "Dokument"

Literary of Goethe,
Wer bracht Gedichte, Strophen und

Criticism restates his

of Ludwig Klages absolute

hat etwas Es

115 of poetry:

Klages
ist als Dichter

standard
Vollkommenes

ein wirkliches sondern und

Gedicht

hervorbringt, selber vollkommen. und einen die

nur wirkliche und

scheinbare es nicht

hervorge gibt nicht gute und schlechte echt dichterische und hinwieder sind. Sollen auf diesem Felde sie bedeuten, der und gerade dann

Verse

solche,

Gr?ssenabmessungen eine sei ausschliesslich k?me Goethen

?berhaupt

Dichter, die fragliche Spitzenstellung

so w?rden Sinn haben, ein anderer sei es nur teilweise, nicht zu.76

of is in full accord with Emerson's classification Klages Goethe as the type of "writer" ;he agrees with Gall's (the physiog that Goethe had been born to be a public nomist's) declaration admits infinite understanding, he Goethe's wisdom, speaker; closeness to all human experience, his restraint in all his utter ances, so that we are fully conscious of how much has been left stores of pent-up unsaid; he admires the inexhaustible truths, which a lifetime can never fully explore; he pays tribute to Goethe's of from all the barriers and boundaries was con free from the Goethe faction; narrowing fines of profession, politics, and faith. In short, he acknowledges a humanism determined by the laws of its own growth and de a German of great distinction, and visible in whose velopment desire for inner equilibrium made itself felt throughout the cultured world. But while Klages feels that in Goethe all the conditions seemed to be perfect to produce a poet, and while there is no end detachment he sees how to the possibilities in him, he which may still be discovered avers that Goethe did not embody either the archetype of the nor even the If of the artist. he he poet had, archetype might have been consumed in his own flame. But he found his way back from the true reality of poetry to the world of man, to the human world. Sage and artist became fused in him, in womanly
personal fashion.76

It is his return to the human level, to his need of "otherness," his fellow-beings, and his stress on personality which, in Klages' the eyes, destroyed poet in Goethe. "Person und All sind feind liche Gegens?tze." Goethe, whose powers of decorum and whose
75Goethe 76 Mensch als Seelenforscher, p. 87. und Erde, p. 108: "in weiblich-pers?nlicher other Art." in his interest Klages' of characterizations for feminine

in the "Androgyn" is always demonstrated problem the poet. Cf. however, pp. 90, 223 and Grundlagen, and masculine traits.

passages

116

Baer

sense of the fitness of things had well-nigh reached that measure and golden mean which antiquity praised, was not the solitary being which every poet is in essence. There is no "golden mean" of life; there can be absolutely none for the inKlages' philosophy poet, he thinks. Goethe was a social being in a still existent insists that social man is century society. But Klages eighteenth unable to endure the fullness of cosmic life. He needs the society of "others"; hence the social being sinks to the level of artistry, instead of living so dangerously that he is inevitably destroyed soul. And that urge of his own adventurous by the unendurable is what Klages means by "die Schranken des Goetheschen Men
schen."

in Goethe the metaphysical cleft of the bio Klages detects centric thesis: the break between all sciences (natural and on the one hand, and the science of life which Goethe humanistic) on the other. Goethe's spirit (Geist) is said to be inaugurated continually struggling with life, which accounts for his behavior toward fiery enthusiasts like Kleist, Heine, and Grillparzer. The Klages in these footsteps and fre school,77 following to destroy the the master's words, proceeds quently repeating legends of "the greatest German poet" and the "harmonious Olympian," have noted discrepancies and then, for the benefit of those scholars who may in the apparent harmony, brands the
explanation as superficially shallow.

"two-souls-in-one-breast"

in which Goethe contradicts himself, By a series of quotations as nature of the dissonance the metaphysical is emphasized, to is has made share the "Unter Klages already done. Goethe so close to the heart of Klages. The biocentric gangsstimmung" Goethe holds irrational views of art, is non-moral, admires the
hero?and even the criminal?as a grand phenomenon of nature,

in the unconsciousness of genius (not in the sub of all the rationalists from Leibniz to Freud), believes that divine inspiration is in league with youth, is opposed to a to and old in renewed puberty, it age (except when, progress is still productive), is against morality and on the side of the The logocentric Goethe is best instincts, and is non-intellectual.
I speak of the Klages When school, I refer to the most In this paper the limitations of his critical theories. of space supporters to Deussen, restrict me Prinzhorn. Deubel, Ackerknecht, Kern, Kasdorff, 115. Klages often speaks of his "Sch?ler." Cf. also Note zealous 77 In this case Deubel.

believes conscious

Literary Criticism

of Ludwig Klages

117

of an al faith in the Divine Providence shown by Werther's after death of an mighty spirit, by his faith in the continuation immortal personality, by his belief in the value of progress, in a will that breaks down resistance and maintains the Ego, by himself Werther's turning to the spiritual self and persuading more that there is a spirit which builds unto itself a body,?and
of the same.

serves as a In the biocentric picture H?lderlin's Hyperion foil to Werther.1* Werther's Weltschmerz is termed logocentric, as while H?lderlin's surrender is called biocentric, dithyrambic is his acceptance of the blind omnipotence of fate and his belief in the timeless transformation of all material things. H?lderlin's is a soaring to the home of the flight to the stars, furthermore, had experienced for H?lderlin gods despite his Icarus plunge, in the overflow of the soul during glowing moments. perfection When Goethe played with a dagger out of disgust with his own remoteness from life, and then decided that he and exclusion would live after all, "wendet er dem All den R?cken, die F?lle die des Lebens wird eingetauscht gegen die stilisierte Haltung, but Kleist, der 'Pers?nlichkeit'," throwing Selbstbehauptung away his life with a grand gesture, was seized with an ecstasy to Goethe found it impossible before known. Because a to surrender himself completely sage, poetic reality, he became his disgust and enunciated renunciation, moralized, preached with life through the scepticism and stinging coldness of Me in his Goethe als Seelenforscher, phisto. Klages, (Incidentally, ever most that Goethe finds Mephisto character the perfect are to and "T?chtigkeit" be the "Schaffen" alleged created.) sources of all of Goethe's The logocentric logocentric activities. and to the Dionysian ardor of Goethe was deaf to H?lderlin of all romanticism he ignored the religious devotion Penthesilea; to life, and focused his attention on the literary-philosophic dis of Fichte, tortions concocted out of the superficial constructions
Schelling, and the early romantic and pseudo-romantic school.

never

One more quotation from the Klages done have with the Goethe criticism:
78For

following,

and we shall

the same after him. Deubel repeats Klages first, and for Deubel of has already things over and over that Klages said, using them in the manner a battle even to the identical turn of cry. Kasdorff employs a similar technique, 79P. 52. phrase.

118
Wir besitzen vom D?mon

Baer

von einer Stunde aber den Bericht in Goethes da er, wie Leben, des Logos selbst ergriffen, die alleinige und Wer oberste Gewalt feiert und, von Satz zu Satz gleichsam immer weiter von sich tigkeit des Geistes die Idole seiner ihm eigensten nicht anders als es wegverf?hrt, Bios-Religion, vordem Jacobi, zerrt, mit dem Geisteshochmuts in den Staub getan, logistischer Verachtung ihm sonst so widerw?rtigen transzendentalen die "grosse Mutter" die Wirklichkeit der lebendigen verleugnet, zum toten Stoff entw?rdigt und sich wie nur je ein Christ und oder Schiller Eifer des fremden ?bersinnlichen Jenseits bekennt.80 Kant

Erscheinungen zu einem Idealist

It is not difficult to guess how Schiller fares at the hands of criticism. Klages refers to him repeatedly, biocentric and not But the idealist Schiller, the master of always disparagingly. rhetoric, the ethical man, the "thinking" poet is of course logo centric. Once Klages, following Nietzsche's example,81 quotes Schillers "Hymn to Joy"82 as an example of Dionysian ecstasy; on the from the Klages camp there are pages of elaboration references to the "Vampyrbiss des theme,83 with characteristic to which Schiller succumbed, to "platonisches Logos," Gift," and assertions that Schiller "floh" "L?hmung durch die Moral," to his "Verderber Kant." The "dionysisch-orgiastischen Ele in the R?uber and in the "Hymn to Joy" were "vergiftet" mente" by Schiller's increasing ethical trend, so that even Goethe cannot halt his "logozentrische Verirrung."
These anti-idealistic, anti-Kantian, and anti-moral elabora

tions are accompanied claim that they by the presumptuous serve "den wahren Schiller aus der Verfallenheit an diese verder zu as blichen M?chte had the real Goethe befreien," just been rescued. Thus the Klages camp, in its most ex previously
treme representative.

Less pretentiously and noisily biocentric research incorpo rated among its discoveries the name of Gottfried recently
reference is to the conversation reported by F. v. M?ller, April 29, at Dornburg. Goethes Gespr?che, ed. Biedermann, Insel, D?nn (Leipzig, pp. 379 ff. druckausg.) 81 Geburt der Trag?die p. 51 f. (Leipzig, Kr?ner), 82Vom er dabei doch sogar Schillers p. 56. Zieht Eros, Kosmogonischen an die Freude heran, um es uns n?herzubringen, dass die jugendlichen Hymnus 1818, Welle bakhischer Begeisterung, has already of hundreds was sie entschr?nkt und l?st, auch ebendadurch verkn?pft. 83 One Deubel 80 The

instance

is the author

um die Trag?die, Erneuerung";

Umrisse "Gen?gt

been mentioned op. cit. Sch?tze, by Martin of articles, with such titles as "Schillers Kampf eines neuen Schillerbildes"; "Schiller und die deutsche zur deutschen Erneuerung?" and many others.

Idealismus

Literary Criticism Keller,84 who,

of Ludwig Klages

119

to Klages, unlike his own favorite according the of the nineteenth evaded "ideals" Jordan, successfully the and world murdered life.85 Klages that mechanized century as not Keller with reservations accepts wholly romantic,86 being uses the Gr?ne Heinrich to illustrate significant dreaming,87 but cannot forgive Keller for calling Jordan's Nibelunge a "modernen The Klages school contents itself with emphasizing the non out of democratic his that Keller, aspects "B?rger pointing lichkeit" was a deceptive fa?ade, and that he too was possessed of an Eros, as was Goethe, that guided his art away from outlets and into the channels of imagery. Great conceptual stress is laid upon what Keller himself called his "Frommsinn," that reverence for life that was a part of his being, and it is ap to politics, and finally summarized in plied to art, to education, a chapter called "Der Liebhaber des Lebens." Keller's unwaver

Wechselbalg."88

is said to be drawn into the "Kampf gegen den ing humanity der Seele." Untergang One is constrained to ask, with the book reviewer who does not feel that reverence for life is a monopoly of biocentric thought:
Denn wo deckte sich im Grunde diese Haltung nicht mit dem Dichterischen ?berhaupt?89

and to add a sentence Gottfried Keller:

Welche betont m?ge nicht Rolle nicht bei Keller zu werden

of Ricarda

Huch's

in her little volume

on

ganz also Aufhellen des Bewusstseins, Bildung, zu verscheuchen.90 sende Genialit?t

das bewusste Geistesleben spielte, verdient nachdr?cklich ver in einer Zeit, wo viele glauben, in der Kunst das H?chste des Menschen bewusster Geist, sondern es gehe aus einer ihm selbst und durch seines Innern hervor, durchdringlichen D?mmerung laufe man Gefahr, die im Dunkel hau

84Erwin Ackerknecht, Gottfried Keller. reihe biozentrischer Forschung. Herausgegeben v. (Berlin-Lichterfelde, Widukind-Verlag.)

Das

deutsche

Leben. Eggert

von Hans

Eine Schriften Schr?der. Band

von gleichzeitigen und Erde, ^Mensch p. 142: . . .w?hrend Sch?pfer auszu v?lkischen F?hlens geistern einige dank einem Kerne jenen "Idealen" . . . weichen vermochten ist Keller!) (das leuchtendste Beispiel 86 87 88 Mensch und Erde, p. 138. GW, 906. Ibid., 987. 89 Walter der Frankfurter Zeit Literaturblatt "Gottfried Schmiele, Keller," ung, 19. Juni 1938, 71. Jahrgang, No. 25, Seite 10. 80 Ricarda Huch, Gottfried Keller, Die Dichtung, ix, 31.

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Baer

V. THE ROMANTICISM OF KLAGES in Germany those who identify the Romantic Movement renascence a philosophic in the form of transcendentalism short of a true romantic. To Klages will appear as something are whose emotions stirred by the enduring others, constantly seem to he of will romantic have captured the very poetry, glory with
essence and meaning of romanticism. To a third group, who be

To

into the fields of psychology, romantic explorations were far in advance of their and the natural sciences medicine, to be he will is what he his admirers, a pioneer paving the time, a to another in the revival of still way angle of romanticism twentieth century. It is apparent from what has already been said that Klages to admit any real participation of the Christian declines violently or an of ethical in what the es he considers objective religion lieve that
sence This of leads German to some romanticism. curious The separations, same is true shall of see. teleology. Roman as we

ticism is never, to him, "was die Schriftgelehrten die romantische that we sense Schule nennen,"91 but it is that intense vitality when we read Jean Paul, H?lderlin, Tieck, Kleist, Novalis, and Eichendorff.92 They are the strongest Arnim, Hoffmann,
representatives of Klages' romanticism.

he does not When Klages speaks of "romantic philosophy," mean the idealism of Fichte, the transcendentalism of Schelling or any flirtations with pantheism or Schopenhauer, that are sometimes imputed to romanticism in Germany.93 He does mean, in addition to Carus, the speculations of such thinkers as Pas savant94 and Schubert,95 the one having a great deal to say about somnambulism and clairvoyance, the other about the entire der Natur" and about the soul. Or, he cites Hufe "Nachtseite land's96 distinctions between plant and animal, with their har to cosmic and telluric changes, taking care to monic relations discount nature of Hufeland's the "logocentric" separation into use utterances the of He of of lower. and makes stages higher Schindler,97 who assigns vision to the night end of the polar
91 GW, 901. 93Cf. Ricarda pp. 189,195. 95 GW, 96 GW, 92 GW, 233. Huch, Die Romantik (Leipzig, Haessel, 1931), 94 abhors pantheism. Klages GW, 586, 891. 587, 589 f., 813, 893, 899 f., 918. 97 813. GW, 892. Erster

Teil,

Literary relation night-day,

of

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages and G?rres,"

there are

121 their mystic

from and

to Baader98
cosmic events;

with

interpretations

quotations

an extensive appreciation of Oken's Lehrbuch der Naturphiloso turns back from conceptual In short, Klages thinking to phie to aid he and Novalis calls upon frequently symbolic thinking, It is such men as these whom Klages him in this enterprise. All romantic of romanticism. the real philosophers considers uses term in of the this extenso, and type "polarity" philosophy it is, I repeat, one of the most significant in Klages' interpreta tion of the universe. Klages belongs to the company of romantic and physicians like Kerner101 and Carus. All of his psychologists "Ausdruckslehre," including graphology, has a romantic base,102 as has everything that he calls real science. His whole conception of Novalis' is an application "das ?ussere ist of personality ein in Geheimniszustand erhobenes Innere," a sentence which Eros and repeats in he uses to introduce Vom Kosmogonischen to Klages, other books. There is no field of knowledge which,
German romanticism had not explored.103

It is obvious that Fichte does not belong into this company,104 to Carus' Psyche, it is but as Klages says, in his introduction to look for natural Schelling:
Wenn den heute von romantischer die Rede ist, so pflegt man an Naturphilosophie an M?nner Blender und allenfalls wie Oken, Schelling zu denken. Aber ebenso wie unter den sp?tromantischen

(weit ?bersch?tzten) Steffens Kieser, Ritter,

98 GW, 898. 99 798 f.; 812; 897 f.; 900; G?rres furnishes Klages with a great GW, 757-62; on Christian mysticism. material deal of psychological 100 GW, 895 f., 899, 1441-44. 101 no special point of Kerner's romanticism. Klages makes 102Cf. E. und Kritik der Char akter ol ogie von L. Klages, B?rlin, Darstellung des Ausdrucks. hat ein Grunderlebnis gehabt: 1929) p. 7: Klages (Giessen, Alles das von etwas. Er bleibt nicht nur bei Lebewesen ist Ausdruck stehen, sondern auch die sogenannte tote Welt, ist ein ungeheures Aus gesamte Kosmos, drucksfeld. Berlin's dissertation is sharply critical but objective. 103 888 f.: Es gab eine romantische Astronomie, Chemie, Physik, GW, Geologie, Pal?ontologie, Botanik, Zoologie, Osteologie, Physiologie, selbst eine romantische Mathematik. by anyone who read Ricarda Huch care

Mineralogie,

Medizin, Pharmazie, ja einigermassen A list which could have been compiled fully.

104 Cf. GW, 411: jeder "Subjektivismus" zur seelischen Gest?rtheit. auf dem Wege

der Weltbetrachtung

befindet

sich

122
Seelenforschern sp?tromantischen noch ein SCHUBERT Naturphilosophen

Baer seiner Auferstehung Carus.106 harrt, so unter den

in his later work this brief, uncomplimentary Klages elaborates that he does not con allusion to Schelling with the explanation one of the principal sider Schelling figures of the romantic
movement: wie er war, hat er zuerst und Fr?hreif, der Naturphilosophie'' wurf eines Systems grunde hatte, M?nner, l?nglich Beck, durch dass mit zwar im Alter 24 Jahren den ''Ent eines Systems, das im und vor allem den Erfolg die meisten Schelling hat der lebens Kant, Schil von

ver?ffentlicht,

imponierte schlagwortartige Pr?gungen in zahlreichen noch heute Philosophiegeschichten erw?hnt haben fremde seine?Sch?ler Gedanken heissen! viel Aufwand

die wir

umkomponiert

(Spinoza,

Fichte, Kielmeyer, Steffens, Galvani, sein Eigenes ler, sp?ter Baader und B?hme);

Oken, Goethe, Winckelmann, ist demgegen?ber gering.106

does belong to roman Klages goes on to say that Schopenhauer that romantic but ticism, polarity he presents a by renouncing monistic world, while his Will, nominally unconscious, actually is teleological.107 who is in complete accord with every romanticist Klages intuition, clairvoyance, through dream, magic, night, vision, to whom the world of reality in all its immediacy, experienced rational intelligence and considered judgment were dream and unreality. We hear echoes of Hamann and Herder when Klages tells us that in the prehistoric stage poets were illiterate; hun of the dreds of thousands partook of the elemental overflowing are now remnants her learned of into which the soul, pasted of folk poetry." Then he goes on to bariums called "collections ever having made a poem, say that one can be a poet without and that no poet ought
come one continuous

to call himself
song.108 It is

such until
in the

reality has be
romantic

German

still finds remnants of this original period that Klages in the unconsciousness of the dream: conceived
Gleichsam

poetry,

vom Brodem ein der Urpoesie schuf die deutsche Romantik umsp?lt des Traumbewusstseins, wie es in keinem Volk seinesgleichen findet, Schrifttum nicht Hoffmann eines Tieck, Eichendorff, und l?sst uns in den besten St?cken einmal mehr zwischendurch in das Wesen erwachen. echter Magie Durch letzteren insbesondere erhalten und Verzauberung, vergebens warb.109 um deren Deutung

wir Einblick die neuzeitliche 105

Suggestionsliteratur

(Tena, Diedrichs,

Attrappe Schelling." 108 und Erde, Mensch

f. On p. IX he speaks 1926) p. XIX 106 107Ibid. GW, 1444. 109 102. p. GW, 990.

of "die gl?nzende

Literary Criticism If we

of Ludwig Klages

123 of

of poet in the person looked in vain for the archetype we find him: that in it is here, Goethe, romanticism,
EICHENDORFF, gl?cklicherweise ihn "das Herz die der wie die meisten sch?nsten Novalis der Welt." sieht Romantiker auch ein solcher seiner Verse noch

war, ob er schon aufgezeichnet hat, nennt in ihm eine Form des "Magiers."110

And so in the German romantic disposition, Klages finds that state of true reality to which allusion has already been made: the condition of the absolute poet, to whom reality is poetry, and to whom no other plane of existence is real. It is then, in general, the irrational side of romanticism which as in Eichendorff, there is a Klages finds so palatable. When, or it. he minimizes ethical We remember strong tendency, ignores own literary criticism, a piece of sheer poetry, called: ?ber die ethische und relu is despite significantly neueren Poesie in Deutschland,111 der romantischen gi?se Bedeutung and that Eichendorff's of Hoffmann is based on criticism very ethical standards: that Eichendorff's its bias,
war daher weniger ein literarischer, als ein Sein Mangel dass die ganz unmoralische sogenannte keineswegs zuf?llig, reich ihn fast ausschliesslich als ihren deutschen Vorfechter ethischer, Romantik anerkennt. und es ist in Frank

But
was

that negative
a real poet.

criticism

only proves

to Klages

that Hoffmann

of the ages?and with Klages shares with all the romanticists Sehnsucht unutterable for a Hoffmann in particular?their blissful isle, a perfect state, a Golden Age. Few of Hoffmann's
critics, who focus their attention on the grotesque, are ac

or capable of experiencing the magic with of his quainted "Dschinnistan voller Herrlichkeit."112 Unlike M?rike's "Orplid" and Hoffmann's the Pelasgian Age of Klages, which "Atlantis," to them in being a realm of pure poetry, is allegedly corresponds
110 Mensch und Erde, p. 102. 111 von A. G. Liebeskind, 1847). This fine bit of writing (Leipzig, Verlag is frequently somewhat one-sided in its judg Catholicism defends staunchly, a high standard, in its debate, which consistent is held but it maintains ments, as a distinguished in the language of a poet. It deserves resurrection, piece of writing. 112 Cf. Another land of pure poetry, the well "Klein Zaches." containing un Brambilla." is to be found in "Prinzessin Hoffmann, spring of pure humor, as a component like Klages, "Witz und Scherz" part of his "Ironie." permits eines Theaterdirektors.") (Seltsame Leiden

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Baer

insofar as history can determine anything about primi historical, tive life.113 If, then, in the list of romantic figures whom Klages considers of consequence, we do not find the names of the metaphysicians, nor of the theorizing Schlegels, nor of the devout Wackenroder, with On his ethical theories of art, it is not particularly surprising. in the person of the other hand we do find a theorist,
in whose current resurrection Klages must have aided

Arndt,114

to a considerable
Daumer.116 The

extent,115
former is

and

another
as an

in that
exemplary

of G.
protago

Fr.

introduced

nist of three things: (1) a cult of nature (Rousseau); (2) romantic "chthonic" the of "emotional naturalism," exponent particularly as and active adds, in aspect; (3) Klages patriotic enthusiasm, this last activity has successfully protested against the dangerous faith in the so-called ideals of humanity.117 The obscure Daumer, we are told, is worthy of being called, on the grounds of cultural "Antichrist" research, the forerunner of Nietzsche's by his pioneer that is responsible work in attacking the spirit of Christianity of modern times.118 for all the fanaticism and abomination The range of Klages' interest in what he calls romanticism is thus a wide one; his eclecticism comprises, as has been shown, three groups: (a) those whom he considers the true poets; the all of the "Naturphilosophen," (b) practically frequently obscurer ones, to the extent that they represent his idea of (Creuzer symbolism and mythology, "Forschungsgesinnung," and the Grimms);119 all of the "Nachtseite der Natur";
113It is actually 115 Hans Kern, publications both historical E. M. and mythical. mGW,901-06;915;1444f. der ewige Deutsche (Jena 1930), and other Arndt, on attacks and stresses Arndt's Arndt. Kern welcomes

concerning has seen fit in and makes him more biocentric than he is. Klages Christianity to qualify his chief work, the enthusiasm of his followers on the subject of Arndt in den geisteskritischen haben Sch?ler des Verfassers (GW, 1444) :?bereifrige Arndts eine fertige Antizipation der Lehre von der Lebensfeind Bekundungen es sich so ver zu erblicken lichkeit des Geistes Es w?re sch?n, wenn gemeint. wie man hielte; aber davon kann keine Rede sein, und es ist kaum zu begreifen, nennen den mutigen fast einen Gottesstreiter den man Freiheitsk?mpfer, dermassen missverstehen konnte. 116 117 118 Ibid., 901 f.. 905. GW. 903. Ibid.. 902. 119Creuzer is merely mentioned, appear frequently. GW, 907. The Grimms are listed, Vom Kosmogonischen Creuzer and the Grimms Eros, p. 233, among the "Vorgeschichtler des Altertums, und Mythologen, Erkunder der Kulturen d?rfte, Ergr?nder der sprachlichen Zusammenh?nge, V?lkerforscher und iFolkloristen\"

Literary

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 125 or polemic writers (Arndt

(c) a few preponderantly

and Daumer).

political

Of those belonging to the second group, the Grimms deserve not only as supplying Germanic particular mention, legend, because of their but and pioneer outstanding fairy tale, myth, work seeks to emulate the in the field of philology. Klages revival of the study of Semantics. Grimms by a thorough-going It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of meaning two to the poet in Klages' his view; positions with regard to one is and it the other that it is inade that adequate language: are to and with his biocentric and consistent life, reality quate use the of words that theses. The poet's language, logocentric have been restored to their original meaning, more or less closely to the image, is reality; concepts, abstract terms, corresponding in words are unrealities, ideas incorporated because they do not coincide with the objects to which they are applied. Klages, following in the footsteps of Herder, adopts the view of that language is to be considered as a mode of development the spirit, which, however, found speech already present when it became incarnated in man. But, in Jean Paul's words, the activities of the mind turned the original symbolism of language into a "dictionary of faded metaphors,"120 until all elemental resemblance was lost in the static concept. In the wake of the searches for meaning Grimms, Klages assiduously, pleading for the restoration of the original use of words, and frequently using in the determination the re-established of psycho meanings to his contribution Semantics is Thus, logical interpretations.
considered a valuable one.121

In examining primitive forms of speech, suffused with imagery, of primitive forms of life. delves into the exploration Klages is his the mythical perfect primitive Pelasgian, he has a Though a certain to him who enables historical perpetuate primitive, of American romantic tradition the Indian. type by glorifying The scene is the United States of America; the hero is the red
man, and the villain is the "American." He does not, of course,

develop

the Rousseau

"natural

goodness"

theme,

because

he is

Der Deutsche Wortschatz nach Sachgruppen, p. 276, and speaks of his "feines Sprachgef?hl." Cf. also the quotes Klages extensively third chapter of Grundlagen. The instances in GW are too numerous to mention. or are new course of Whether all valuable is another story. they

120 GW, 379. 121 Franz Dornseiff,

126

Baer

in the fullness of living, unimpeded interested by goodness,122 but the inglorious history of the exploitation of America by the white race123 fans the flame of his scorching attack on all civiliza frantic blasts of attack on tion, and enables him to deliver "Amerikanismus" in particular, that word used in Germany since at least 1754, and from the second half of the nineteenth to signify materialism and century on as a term of opprobrium defense of the Noble soullessness.124 Klages' Savage passionate is combined with the realization that it is a lost cause; he feels to be one of the "last of the Mohicans" himself and utters a ours like might perish: despairing wish that "humanity"
so Grauenvolles Liebe des Lebens bewei alle, die wir aus leidenschaftlicher nen m?ssen, sind uletzte Mohikaner." (italics mine) Wer aber von solchen noch nur eines w?nschen: zu hegen wagt, musste W?nsche dass eine derart Verruchtes so damit wie m?glich Menschheit schnell vollbringende absinke, verar?e, verende, um ihre verwitternden und verfallenden Arsenale des Mordes noch ein Mal be Wir grabend, entmischend, und sich selber erneuernd der Rausch der W?lder brande.125

The
122 qw}

shortcomings

of

the biocentric

method126

and

of

the

von Gagern, are "die wahren, die un the Indians 1222, quoting Schlacht deren Gebeine still unter den eisenbes?eten schuldigen Kinder Gottes, ruhen feldern ihrer M?rder ..." 123 von Greueln; ist eine Kette 1210: Die Geschichte der Menschheit q\y? von den rund andert an Scheusslichkeit wohl ?bertroffen aber sie alle werden w?hrenden mit deren Hilfe dem werdenden halb Jahrhunderte Teufeleien, Erdteils eines gewaltigen Amerikaner die v?llige Vernichtung der Landschaft denen an Hel nahezu aller Indianerst?mme und die Niedermetzelung gelang, sich vergleicht. und Wildnissch?nheit seit ?ltesten Tagen weniges dentum 124Sch?naich uses fun at Bodmer: "Die ganze Seite it in 1754 to poke und eine Figur, die wir den Amerikanismus indem sie Amerika enth?lt nennen; zusammen vor der S?ndfluth noch Ladendorf, koppelt." Gog und Magog Historisches teenth it in the third decade of the nine (1906) places to Gutzkow) and frequently thereafter. Ricarda Huch, (according to the his growing unpopularity ascribed op. cit., II, 337, tells us that Creuzer same cause: "Ja, die Staatsr?te sorgen sollten, selbst, die f?r die Universit?ten Schlagw?rterbuch century Ideen vom relativen Wert zu: der Studien. und Wirklichkeit in seinen mytholo Klages, who no doubt

klagt er, h?tten ganz nordamerikanische sich alles mehr der Praxis Es wende

habe er gerade die wenigsten Zuh?rer." gischen Vorlesungen to me, flays this "Amerikanismus" knows these and many other uses not known 125 Cf. GW, 767,1210 unmercifully. ??., 1242,1454. GW, 768. 126 : zu die Cf. Wandrey, op. cit. Es geh?rt jenen Gef?hlswidersetzlichkeiten, am ehesten die Ver dass die Grenze dieser Lebensphilosophie sp?ren lassen, herrlichung schliesslich dianerbogen des darauf vorgeschichtlichen hinausl?uft, oder Federschmuck bei Klages Lebens und der Naturv?lker In ein Volkslied, einen sch?n geschwungenen und Kunst f?r ein wohlgef?lligeres Zeichen

Literary Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 127

sources of Klages' research are rather startlingly demonstrated in this phase of his romanticism. The suspicion that the method to triumph over can be used to allow polemic subject matter sound values is amply confirmed by extensive references to one Friedrich von Gagern, whose Grenzerbuch, with its sub-title "Von und Lederstr?mpfen"127 Pfadfindern, strengthens H?uptlingen to the of the catch-word "Amerikanismus" Klages' amplification point of hysteria. Von Gagern's book is a curious medley of American history of German and imperialistic jingoism. In style it is a hodgepodge in tone idiom, heroic imagery, crude humor, and "J?gerlatein"; the abusive it varies between scolding of a fishwife, and the of Sturm und Drang. The Indians furnish us "Kraftsprache" with "packende, Kerle; Helden, K?mpen, prachtexemplarische Streiter wie Achill, Odyss, Diomed; Recken wie Hagen, Dietrich, invective Hildebrand."128 There is no limit to the unrestrained in general and the pioneer in particular; against the American is pictured as Europe's colony of criminals; the early America is brutal, vulgar, wasteful, "American" lacking in taste, deceit is a spoiled doll, capricious, ful, barbaric; the American woman on Christianity?"der attacks verpestete low, lazy. Vicious a weisse Christ" is mild example?are relieved by the portrayal of the Indian, who had invested everything about him with a soul, as a happy being in his tribal life, surrounded by wild creatures and beautiful objects of his own making, who had a natural sense of justice within the setting of this blissful wilder
ness.129 werk vor dem Angesicht zu erachten als einen gotischen des Wirklichen eine Trag?die Brucknersche oder eine Shakespeares Symphonie. 127 von Gagern, Das Grenzerbuch, Friedrich 19. Auflage (Berlin, Paul Dom, Parey,

128 A curious analogy and the Indian. Fair is that of the ancient German a noble and virtuous race living in a state child, op. cit., p. 5: "Tacitus pictures of savage simplicity excellence of that and implies a contrast between the moral race and the vices which were sapping the strength of the more complex and pre was deliberately tentious Roman civilization." The Grenzerbuch, "geschrieben und gegeben in Sinn und Absicht chief Metacomet is a "Recke," einen anderen H?uptling, der germanischen 129 Other p. Urw?ldern illustrations der Taciteischen "Volksheld"; vor einigen P. 50, the Indian Germania!" da nicht an p. 51: "wer d?chte in den neunzehnhundert Jahren und gelitten?" gestritten Natur.

1927).

gelebt und geliebt, of von Gagern's style : 23: rohe Verschwendung ist nun einmal amerikanische

128

Baer

This is the book from which, admiringly, Klages quotes pages to prove the fallacy of civilization. The attacks on Christianity of savage and the extenuation this natural paradise, within
cruelties as merely a matter of dimensional differences,130 are

in line with the literary "noble savage" tradition.131 thoroughly of ploughing concede the admissibility One might through of this modern Cooper to extract a historic the extravagances
p. p. . . . und unbeholfene oft geschmacklose Volk dieses gef?hlsrohe, . . . zu als Teile Verbrecherkolonie alte Amerika gutem Europas jenes . . . entlaufene . . . verwilderte verfinsterte Puritaner Deutsche herzlose . . . Str?flinge mit ihren gl?cklichen 41 : ahnungslos Urwald, Ursteppe selige Wildnis, . . . und Tieren V?lkern 25: selbst 30: 52 :der rote Mann 85 :der allbeseelende 144: das allbeseelende 158: Nicht Welt in seinem Indianer nat?rlichen . . . . . . aus wurde Sch?rferes und das Abendland Urteil erkennt der alten in Ameri des Rechtsgef?hl . . .

p. p. p. p. p.

rote Volk

von Frankreich, und korrumpiert ersten

von Amerika revolutioniert.

ka den

Hochmut der grausame des Sklaven, bis heute haften geblieben. ist dem Amerikaner Empork?mmlings vor dem Gotte imMitgesch?pf kannten die Hin Ehrfurcht p. 224: Mitgef?hl, waren sie Christen. nicht?dazu terw?ldler freigelassenen p. 228: so ist dieser Deutsche aus blutiger R?cksichtslosigkeit, roher Schw?rmerei. kindisch p. 233 : Ihren Ladies Trottel. gegen?ber des Amerikaners: schon Typus kaltem Eigennutz, sind die Amerikaner zusammengesetzt Scheinheiligkeit Tr?pfe und und

Spartakistenstaat, oder entlaufenen

der barbarische

Geschmack

ja vollkommene

130 auf Borneo, Cf. Vom Kosmogonischen Dajaken Eros, p. 83: Wenn manche um das Beratungshaus in die Grube oder Brand zu sch?tzen, gegen Erdbeben eine lebende Sklavin brachten und sie vom niedersausenden f?r den Hauptposten Grausamkeit urv?lklicher Hessen, so mag die Vermutung von Berechtigung passen haben, wie wenig dazu auch die Tatsache von den vorz?glichsten Kennern als wahr Stamm will, dass uns der gleiche wird und als?wenigstens fr?her beschrieben heitsliebend, ehrlich, wohlwollend ... Da wir Br?uche von ?hn und Raub mit Diebstahl unbekannt ?g?nzlich in Menge Wilden bei s?mmtlichen licher Furchtbarkeit finden, wie Aussetzung . . .w?hrend usw. das Leben des Stammes sich im Zeichen Kinder ?berz?hliger und erstaun ?usserster Gerechtigkeitssinnes Friedfertigkeit, hochempfindlichen Balken den zerschmettern Schein licher Opferwilligkeit des Verschiedenheit des Einzelnen F?hlens gedr?ngt, kann. so werden wir zur Annahme einer abspielt, nur als Dimensionsver die zuletzt

schiedenheit gedacht werden 131 is any free and wild op. cit., p. 2: "To me, a Noble Savage Fairchild, from nature virtues which raise doubts as to the values being who draws directly of civilization."

Literary
nucleus (though some

Criticism
of von

of Ludwig Klages 129

Gagern's sources are a matter of

question),132 but only an unfit critic could extol von Gagern as a poet. He appears in a certain type of literary criticism as the red-blooded Austrian whom the critics have jealously ignored, in favor of the scribbler Bahr, the incomparably more bloodless or at best the aesthetic Hofmannsthal. We are told: Bartsch,
Dies von hohen in seinen besten B?chern Gagern als einen Dichter aber bezeugt im Grunde der oft seiner Phantasie best?rzende dass Reichtum geradezu Gnaden, nur das unersch?pfliche des Ewig-Einen ist, des Schauen, Sagen und Singen der Ge des Lebens und seiner nie auszutrinkenden Bilderf?lle Vielgestaltigen, zeiten, Farben, Ger?che, Kl?nge.133

brands himself with the partisan critic, however, stamp to laud the imperialistic, he continues anti-democratic, chauvinistic von Gagern134 as the great folk poet and nobleman, who is able to enlighten his people on the ruling forces of civiliza truths. tion, Jewry, and the clergy by telling them unpleasant With this conclusion we appear to have reached the reductio ad absurdum of biocentric criticism and to have left the realm of when poetic reality. a pre Both von Gagern and Klages make "Amerikanismus" text for diatribes on the American woman, glittering generalities vein, unsupported quite in the journalistic by any justifiable such undisciplined invective as criticism. Besides
die Amerikaner keine Puppen waren und Dirnen, damals noch vern?nftiger als heute, ihre Ladies noch

The

von Gagern
non-noble

makes
savage:

the rule of matriarchy

waren nichts als Waffen

responsible
in den H?nden

for the
der Matro

Die Krieger, die H?uptlinge nen. Man begreift den Ruf,

die Erfolge,

den Mut,

die Unbeliebtheit

der Irokesen.

132 sources: one of von Gagern's discusses Ibid., p. 97 ff., Fairchild Carver, is not now regarded as a personal narrative, from vari but as a compilation . . .The ous sources, with perhaps a judicious of pure imagination admixture "It book obviously to the Noble One idea ..." furnished much support Savage and Southey used the add that it is still doing so. P. 100: "Wordsworth might to their imaginings." to give substance 'Travels' (by Carver) 133 von Gagern," Werner und Friedrich "Das Neue Deutschland Deubel, Die Literatur, xxxvii ff. 73 (November 1934), 134 All of the characters fall easily into types. The Indians and certain back are like Germanic woodsmen the Jesuit fathers are all good and kind; heroes; are all bad; the the Quakers, the Puritans headed by "Papa Penn"; scum are The of the civilization. still and lower another category, "Americans," are among "Christians" the last two. so are

130
Meg?renverfassung, wiederspiegelt. die . .13B sich

Baer in manchen amerikanischen Verh?ltnissen treulich

and Klages feels impelled his chief work:

Das Wort dass Schwachsinn die teilweise

to define his position

at the outset

of

wenn man z.B. zu h?ren bekommt, ist Euphemismus, welche die moderne Ameri bemerkenswerten Existenzvorteile, dem Manne des Erdballs, dieser ^m?tterlichste gegen Frauentypus kanerin, Tiefsinns als Mimen des literarischen ?ber errungen hat, von nicht wenigen Mutterkulte Worten wirken und den Worten, den werden! Mit ausgelegt aus Finsternis, hinter der die sie eine Mauer entschwindet.136

Erneuerung?urzeitlicher armen misshandelten leuchtendste Wahrheit

verblasst

From this coign of vantage, we see why the women of the are completely German romantic movement ignored by Klages. statement about theKosmische Run de We must discount Wolters' der Romantik, that "die geschlechtlichen Freiheitsstrebungen des Liberalismus, und der eben damals der Frauenbewegung wurden weit ?berstiegen und vor einsetzenden Jugendbewegung allem das Vaterrecht der Ehe verworfen"137 and say that Klages has retained only the last item. With views like those just referred to, it is not to be expected of feminine that Klages would be interested in any manifestation that from the exercise would detract unimpeded individuality of "M?tterlichkeit," unless it were because of a great creative gift directed
As creative

into other channels,

artists, he has no

like that of Droste,

occasion to mention

for example.
Caroline or

of a Bettina, who have long stood as symbolic incorporations not could romanticism. Dorothea and in Rahel, Jewesses, living of and outlook racial philosophic partake Klages' anti-Jahwistic the essence of German romanticism. Klages' stormy friendship
with the ''unmarried mother" Franziska von Reventlow, whose

memoirs

claims for the "Kosmische lend vivid color to Wolters' is The termination of this friend Runde,"138 infinitely revealing. utterances the with ship, coupled quoted, give at least a clue to matters in and hence to the application these Klages' position
cruelties 135 op. cit, 71 f. After describing, Grenzerbuch, of the Iroquois, and adding again "Man ahnt to the last bloody die Meg?ren the detail, im Hinter

von Gagern a legendary Medusa of American grunde" adds, for good measure, freilich schreibt diese and then naively remarks: "Die Forschung mythology, von S?dnationen zu." der irokesischen Herkunft Scheusslichkeiten 136 137 op. cit., p. 264. Wolters, GW, xxiv. 138 42 and the entire chapter Cf. Note inWolters, 258 ff.

Literary Criticism of his principles with the theme

any means.

of Ludwig Klages 131

in so-called biocentric books that deal chiefly of motherhood,?not all of them romantic, by

so engrossing to German The problem of the "Androgyne," romanticism but referred by the romanticists largely to human view of the universe. of Klages' is the cornerstone personality, on Bacho It is, as has been said in the course of the discussion to speculate fen,139 another aspect of polarity and enables Klages on the extent cosmos to which is masculine the whole and feminine :
Die von Wachheit und Schlaf, Zweiheit wechselseitige Sonne und Erde, vielf?ltigster Gestalt die ganze Natur von Mann Das identisch mit der Zweiheit und Weib. daran als von und Nacht, wesens ist durchwaltend, jedesmal bipolare Ganze und was "androgyn" von neuem von Tag

?unzutreffend wir

als Organismus begriffen?ist demgem?ss der im Gamos immer lebendig erschauen erneuerter

Ausgleich unabl?ssig Denker vornehmlich schlechter kosmische betonen, Polarit?t,

vollzogene der Pole. Mag dabei der eine Lebensspannung den Gegensatz in sich bipolaren Ge der, wie sich versteht, der andre den von Sonne und Erde, bestimmend bleibt die die sonach im Eigenwesen als verbesondert erscheint.140

This
and

passage
G?rres.

is followed

by

illustrations

from Novalis,

Baader,

no concern with Klages has admittedly humane tendencies in German romanticism,

aspects, and needless to say, no interest

the progressive and none with its social

in its cosmo

whatever

character. These which exist international elements, politan, side by side with the revival of the past, the yearning for the Middle Ages, and the insistence that the strength of a people lies in its own traditions and legends, are to Klages just as far afield as he believed from the true nature of romanticism them to be alien to the real Goethe. Klages finally agrees that one may de plore, but avowedly that one cannot explain away the deeply Christian character of German romanticism. religious,

VI. BIOCENTRIC APPROPRIATION OF CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE AND THE CONTROVERSY WITH THOMAS MANN seems the biocentric criticism contemporary appraisal to to himself been have prose,141 though Klages applied chiefly In
139Cf. Note and Jens Peter Jacobsen, 76. In my paper: Rilke liv, PMLA, 140 904 and 906, I have applied Klages' terms. GW, 897. 141 H. Carossa {G?tter in Wolken), op. cit., p. 30* lists: W. Deubel Deussen, Raskolnikow {Der Arzt Gion), F. M. Dostojewskij {Die drei Br?der Karamasojf,

132
considers unwonted the novel

Baer

a lower form of literature, admitting, with that this is a purely personal slant.142 humility, books we find such divergent so-called biocentric Among the humanistic Carossa's Arzt prose as Ina Seidel's Wunschkind, Gion, and the religious and humane Ernst Wiechert's Magd des these three books are united J?rgen Doskozil.uz Thematically, a at all costs, the central thought: the will to motherhood by supremacy of the child, the serving function of women.144 In all three of them (1) the central figure is a woman; (2) each of the to bear a child at all costs; (3) no three women is determined of reason enter into this resolve; (4) no untoward considerations external factors can dissuade the woman from her high purpose (ill health, physical unfitness, poverty and crime) ; (5) the father of the child plays almost no role.145 All three women live on the so lauded by Klages.146 (Ina Seidel speaks of vegetative plane "traumhafte, pflanzliche Bereitschaft".)
u.a.), D. Eckart der Erde) R. M. M. Luserke Wunschkind), des J?rgen Magd separate A. Gide (Uns n?hrt die Erde), K. Hamsun (Lorenzaccio), (Segen Rilke (Die Frau, die davon ritt), (Gedichte), D. H. Lawrence (Die gemordete Seele u.a.) I. Seidel (Das (Legenden), G. Robakidse (Das Land ohne Schatten (Die u.a.), E. Wiechert J. M. Wehner

u.a. Leaving aside Rilke and D. H. Lawrence for a Doskozil) I have chosen to me for the three German books best known study, brief discussion. necessarily 142 ?ber Goethe als Seelenforscher, sogar, ob ein Roman p. 83: "Wir zweifeln und ob insbesondere dieser Roman den Titel der Dichtung verdiene" haupt (refers to Wahlverwandtschaften). 143Ina Seidel, Das Wunschkind (Stuttgart Die Magd Carossa, 1930). Hans des J?rgen Doskocil Der Arzt

Gion 1932).

(Leipzig 144 Using

1936). Ernst

Wiechert,

(M?nchen has been German

treated

by Mimi

to Klages, the same authors, the topic, without reference "Attitude toward Woman in the Modern Jehle, Deutschen

Novel," Monatshefte f?r and by Elisabeth Darge, 1937 715 ff.) (xxxix, 145In Ina Seidel's died and been

March 1937 (xxxix, 109 ff.) Unterricht, "M?rchenbild und Mutter," Die Literatur, September in battle almost In Carossa's immediately. the child is born. by the mother long before but of the dignity of Wordsworth's dalesmen, inarticu slow of perception, goodness." He is taciturn,

book he is killed forgotten has nothing

he has Wiechert's he does

ferryman exhibit natural

late. The author the impression of that he is "despised and rejected conveys a hunted being like an animal, yet one of nature's noblemen, with natural men," affections that are deep and true. His movements and his actions are often com those of an animal. pared with 146 Cf. Wolters, einem Satze ?ber die op. cit., p. 255: Mit sprang Klages in die Zeit des Mutterrechts, m?nnlichen r?ckw?rts nein noch Jahrtausende

Literary Criticism

of Ludwig Klages

133

If the biocentric is contrary to asserts, outlook, as Klages then the literary criticism which calls these books humanism, "biozentrisch orientiert" must meet the issue squarely. It hap and humane. All of pens that all three of them are humanistic them seek to hold fast what each author believes to be eternal All of them are truths in the midst of flux, change, destruction. filled with a love for humanity, in its earth-bound origins and its restraint and ethical considera higher aspirations. Artistically, tions are everywhere visible in the making of these books. Both Carossa's confes essayistic thinking and Wiechert's of Goethe. Deeply sions are impregnated with the humanism on humanism, disturbed by the current attacks and thus on Goethe, Wiechert only recently reiterated his confession of faith in this broad humanity:
und Christentum, Heidentum und Duldung, Fleiss und Fr?mmigkeit Kunst und Geselliges, und Wissenschaft, Einsames H?he und Abgrund, M?he, Tr?nen und H?rte, und fremde Kulturen, Deutschtum Irrtum und Weisheit, Schuld. Da war die Summe alles menschlichen Lebens zusammengepresst in eine hatte das alles einzige, fast gesprengte ohnegleichen Form, aber eine Sittlichkeit und achtzig Jahre eines einzigen Lebens hinausgehoben als ein Beispiel geb?ndigt f?r ebensoviele Jahrhunderte. Das war es nun, was ich gesucht hatte f?r mein Leben, das Unersch?tterliche, von Hass und Dogma, der sittliche Mensch. Das Fernsein das Gehorsamsein der inneren Stimme des D?mons, und G?te Weitoffene, das de das aller Sch?nheit Sitzen zu den F?ssen Christi wie Mohammeds, des Sokrates wie des Hafis, m?tige die reine HUMANITAS, ohne Namen.147 die Gotteskindschaft Da war

Contrast

with

this the "biocentric"

nicht wie

call to arms:

Ein Goethebild, das man entt?uschten oder ratlos

in die Herzen einer skeptischen, ist heute ein Verrat ergrimmten Jugend werfen k?nnte, an der Jugend, an Deutschland und nicht zuletzt an Goethe selber. Den "geheilig ten L?gen" der Ideale, der alten Fahne Sch?nen" muss des "Guten, Wahren, eine Flamme verweigert werden,148

Ehrfurcht

and the distortions of "biocentric" implications become evident. The negative criticism is repre side of the indirect Klages sented by a portion of the attacks that have been launched in
Germany weiter against Thomas Mann. He is, according to a certain

. . . and GW: Die heidnische Welt des m?tterlichen ist die Sumpflebens des Nachtbewusstseins, teil hat am unsichtbar das pflanzenhaft magnetisch und der Zeit, aber str?menden Pflanzenschicksal. Es bedarf wohl des Raumes . . .with Ina Seidel's nicht des Lichtes Bereitschaft." "traumhafte, pflanzliche 147 Ernst Wiechert, f?r Buchdruck, Vom Trost der Welt (Werkstatt Mainz, 148 imApril 1938), pp. 17 f. op. cit. Deubel,

134

Baer

Kasdorff149 who ardently adopts the biocentric thesis, the buga calls him the Logos. Kasdorff the rational mind, boo typifying the advocate of Will, who tries to create by supreme effort but dead results of intellectual who produces only monstrosities,
manoeuvers. In short, Kasdorff brands Thomas Mann as the

wholly
"Dichter."

"logocentric"

writer,

one

unworthy

of

the name

of

and dis Kasdorff operates freely with arbitrary definitions tinctions, notably with the term "decadence," where he performs some precarious hair-splitting to prove that Eduard von Keyser are not decadent, while Thomas Mann ling and Friedrich Huch are applied to show terms "Life" and "Existence" is. Klages' what is death and what is not death. To illustrate: little Hanno, in Buddenbrooks, appears almost as a depraved character; he he had neither depth nor suffered from "Lebensschwindsucht," richness of inner life, and he "musste unter allen Umst?nden little Thomas, in Huch's Mao, dies zugrunde gehen," while an Lebenskraft," but "weil er als Kind so "nicht aus Mangel stark, reich und tief lebte." This of course follows ungew?hnlich on Friedrich Huch. lead Klages' To many of us it would seem that there is more than one artistic, dreamy point of similarity between Friedrich Huch's characters, who are totally unfit to cope with the world of facts to and Thomas Mann's Hanno Buddenbrook, and phenomena, release. is We Thomas blessed remember Mann's whom death of Friedrich Huch when, after the death of the fine appreciation belief that all poets were latter, he reiterated his oft-repeated on terms to with death.150 Decadence intimate accustomed being
and artistry, as we saw often enough among Thomas Mann's

including contemporaries, go hand in hand. A more interesting "biocentric" criticism comes from not academic like Kasdorff's, Lawrence,
149 For

his friend Friedrich

Huch,

frequently

himself
a masterpiece

quite

unaware

of Thomas Mann, the pen of D. H. that he was to be accorded

Kasdorff,

as authority, of prejudice, cf. Hans using Klages im Werke Thomas Manns Todesgedanke 1932). See my (Leipzig, No. 4, October 1935. review, JEGPh xxxiv, 160 to Huch's has been used as an introduction This essay by Thomas Mann Der Werke. See also Thomas Mann, Rede und Antwort (Berlin 1922),

Gesammelte pp.278ff.

Literary

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 135

this posthumous classification. Writing of Death in Venice in a that seemed to offend against 1913, and repelled by morbidity all that Lawrence most valued, he identified Gustav Aschenbach with his creator, Thomas Mann:
But Goethe, other artists, the more like Shakespeare and human, to life as well as to art. And themselves if they were their surplus they would ferment and become life, then with afraid, or despised rotten. Which is what ails Thomas Mann. He is physically ailing, no doubt. But then there the who must give is deeper: it is of the soul. are

his complaint

Lawrence, instinctively by a certain kinship of understanding sums his what criticism of Thomas up spirit Klages meant,
Mann: And even while he has a rhythm in style, yet his work has none of the rhythm of a living thing, the rise of a poppy, then the after uplift of the bud, the shedding of the calyx and the spreading wide of the petals, the falling of the flower and the is an unexpectedness in this such as does not come pride of the seedhead. There from their carefully plotted and arranged developments.161

Hans Prinzhorn, an able psychiatrist and physician, a fervent and in literature, and one disciple of Klages both in psychology of the leaders in what I have somewhat arbitrarily called the school, translated D. H. Lawrence's Woman who Rode Klages Away (among other things) as an illustration of biocentric writ became ing. It was Prinzhorn through whom Thomas Mann indirectly involved in a Klages quarrel. Over ten years ago, in an essay dealing with Freud,152 Thomas Mann mentioned Klages by name, made
obscurantism,

references
and used

to what he considered
Freud as a glowing

a deeply-rooted
The essay

contrast.

was

of fanning an already smouldering issue into a flame. By defending the very antithesis of psycho-analysis, "Seelenkunde,"153 by drawing the moral inference that Klages had distorted the very spirit of German romanticism by deflect on the anti-intellectual side, and ing it into an over-emphasis his contemporaries that the dark, anti finally by warning intellectual if applied to prove dangerous psychology might
161 Phoenix, 162 Thomas New York, 1936, pp. 309,313. Die Forderung des Tages Mann, in der modernen Freuds Geistesgeschichte,"

the means

Fischer, 1930), "Die pp. 196 ff. a discussion of psycho-analysis cf. Grundlagen, pp. 225 by Klages, on literary criticism, as witness 29. These views have a definite bearing the re marks pp. 221 ff. concerning Hebbel, (Berlin, Stellung 163 For

136

Baer

society and its institutions, Thomas Mann paved the way for a as well as an intellectual His political controversy. political speech in 1930, to which later he gave the sub-title "Ein Appell an die Vernunft,"154 described Klages' philosophy and linked it with the present political party in power. unmistakably took up the cudgels in defense of Klages. Prinzhorn promptly in the psychological He was an exponent of the latter's methods and medical fields, had achieved some fame in the treatment of mental diseases, and was a bitter opponent of psycho-analysis in practice or in literature. On all these scores he felt impelled for dragging politics into a purely to attack Thomas Mann a slanderer who literary discussion. He called Thomas Mann into the dust by had dragged the nobility of Klages' philosophy as to its application in the political field.155 deductions making a summary sweep, disposed of all of Klages' Prinzhorn, with Mann the "Relativisten, enemies. Thomas appears among :diese f?hlen sich durch Klages ent Formalisten Gleichmacher, larvt und bek?mpfen
154 Thomas 1M Hans schau, Mann, Prinzhorn,

ihn erbittert."156
Ansprache (Berlin, um Ludwig Kampf Fischer, Klages," 1930), pp. Deutsche 15 f?. Rund

Deutsche "Der

103-11. ccxxxv, 155 is an important because Prinzhorn substantiates article, Ibid., This and gives names. He deals first, in moderate of plagiarism accusations Klages' of serious controversy whom he considers with opponents worthy language, in the course of which his indignation then with the third group, (two groups), von einigem Ansehen wie to aver: ?ffentlichen "Zeitgenossen . . . geschwollene wie L. Marcuse wetteiferten kleine Journalisten and durch giftige Entstellungen, miteinander vage politische Andeutungen," etc. Finally we hear who Klages* to the level of "Ghetto-Gegeifer" descends inflames him Thomas Mann are: (a few excerpts will show the tone) Geltungss?chtige Aus "geistige Diebe" . . .mit fremden Federn und Brunnen Vergiftung beuter: folglich Geh?ssigkeit an der sie ihren die Stelle schm?hen, und nach altem Gaunertrick schm?cken von intellektuellem neuen Schmuck "entnommen" haben. (Stichwort: Mischung Piraten und Bildungs-Clown) :

. . . versuchte f?r seine Schule zweimal, Klages Keyserling (1) Graf Hermann hat sich seine Formeln der Weisheit auszunutzen, angeeignet. . . . Schulkamerad von Klages, der von dessen Jugend Lessing (2) Theodor Dimensionen in des Urbildern heute den ausgef?hrten visionen, gewaltigen in bei Klages lebt. Was seit Jahren literarisch Weltbildes" "biozentrischen zum Reifen hat der vielgewandte wurde, Ringen gebracht das Kleinm?nze rasch in marktg?ngige gegossen, Lessing j?dische Literat er und durch hat Sentimentalit?t eines tragischen Pathos Grundgef?hles geduldigem schnoddrige Flachheit zur Groteske verzerrt.

Literary

Criticism

of Ludwig Klages 137 Werner Prinzhorn's Deubel faith

death the indefatigable After Prinzhorn's took up the torch, seeking both to perpetuate
and Klages' theories.157

VIL CONCLUSION rests on the philosophic in literature criticism Biocentric established and psychological by Ludwig Klages. background It is proud to call itself romantic and it disdains every humanistic
premise. It enlists under its standards, however, poets and

writers tradition,
romantic

who

for stood preponderantly much in the fashion determining, have

the biocentric and the

the humanistic of the classic

logocentric traits.

controversy,

Very
centric however,

roughly
Klages

speaking,
to has

the alleged
the claim of extreme

antithesis
romantic-classic selective

biocentric-logo
care polarity; in formulat

corresponds

exercised

and all the values lie on that ing his definitions of romanticism, of his followers, which he himself depre side. The enthusiasm
cates as at times "over-zealous" in drawing hasty conclusions,

carries biocentric misinterpretation

(3) Scheler hat die Form (stiller letzten

criticism to the point of the founder.

Gegner

of excess and sometimes

den Gegensatz definieren

. . . hochbegabt . . . von Klages) aber substanzlos darum gerungen, wie er Jahre seines Lebens haupts?chlich von Klages in einer irgendwie Geist-Leben abweichenden k?nne.

der Erde am Geist eines der grossen seinem Buchtitel Untergang (4) Hat Lessing so stellt von Klages wirksam Leitmotive plakatiert, eine Verengerung dar . . . h?herem Niveau auf viel (5) Spenglers "Untergang" wobei so einfach liegen wie bei Keyser die geistigen Beziehungen keineswegs ... In "Der Mensch und die Technik" absurde Vergr? und Lessing ling von Sachverhalten, seit 1910 in tragischer Grossartig die Klages berung hat. keit . . . dichterisch und philosophisch dargestellt . . . hat f?r die Problemstellung von Klages kein Organ. 157Cf. Werner

Driesch

Revolution." und die deutsche "Hans Prinzhorn Deubel, war das in ccxxxvi ff. Es 107 grosse Ereignis (1933). Rundschau, "biozentrisches" Prinzhorns Denksystem aufgerichtet Leben, dass er ein ganzes . . . entscheidend. . . . . . .wurde fand. Die mit Klages Ludwig Begegnung Namen Wenn heute die einst so geflissentlich aufgelobten Spengler, Scheler, Deutsche Thomas u.v.a. ver ihren Klang Th. Lessing Graf Keyserling, Mann, Driesch, so ist dies vor allem Prinzhorns loren haben, gegen die unentwegtem Kampf . . . Man unter zu danken. t?uschenden Fassaden es, dass Prinzhorn begreift h?heren war, der das Wesen aufatmend begr?sst, Bewegung . . . vor Verf?lschungen zu h?ten versucht Aufs?tzen geistigen Menschen der Erste und verstanden der aber hat. national auch in

den

sozialistischen mahnenden

138
In its essence biocentric as carefully distinguished
necessarily optimistic in its

Baer

It glorifies Life, criticism is vitalistic. from mere Existence,158 but it is not

outlook.159 It is non-moral and non

its mysticism is thorough-going. ethical, its religion is paganism, is the completeness of soul content Its standard of perfection of in its birth of the work art, fire, flame, and intoxica (meaning) own reason for its thus tion, being. In judging it, the constituting critic demands that neither the author nor the work biocentric of reasoned reflection; neither must have been be a product a high degree dominated by volition or activism, nor manifest
of consciousness or personality. "Live dangerously" and "sur

of biocentric criti render yourself to the cosmos" are keynotes cism. The proof of value lies in successful symbolic thinking, that is, wealth of imagery. The great standards of Wonder, Love and are unceasingly in the infinite variety of symbolized Example in the constantly the Cosmos, recurring pattern of the Mother in the continued of and the Child, and finally re-appearance
poets, gods, and heroes.

to a biocentric quest leads to "Kulturpessimismus," a forms of and unconscious for Golden life, primitive Age, longing modes of living. Lydia Baer The Swarthmore College

158 im Dasein und in der Be Cf. Vom Kosmogonischen Eros, p. 71: Nicht sich das Leben, offenbart sondern allein in den Augen des Daseins hauptung des Leibes noch blicken F?lle, die selbst mit Zerst?rung jener ?berstr?menden nicht zu teuer erstanden w?re ! 159 an entire chapter, GW, 906 ff. to "Dithyrambiker des devotes Klages Untergangs."