A study Of The Dramas And Stories of Heinrich von Kleist lends much support for the view that a profound skepticism about knowledge pervades Kleist’s worldview generally, as well as a specific sense of skepticism with respect to the claims of reason. At the same time it is not clear how Kleist could have derived such deep skepticism about reason and knowledge simply from reading Kant’s philosophy, especially as Kant’s moral philosophy ultimately seeks to offer a positive account of community and the role that reason plays in structuring it. While anti-rationalist philosophy was gaining influence in Kleist’s day — notably through the work of Friedrich Jacobi, a contemporary of Kant and opponent of Kant’s idealism—there is no record of its impact on Kleist’s own thinking. Jacobi is never mentioned in Kleist’s letters or essays, and there is no evidence that Kleist devoted time to appraising the differences between Kant’s and Jacobi’s philosophies, much less to considering the related claims about knowledge of the emerging skeptical tradition in thought. The question of the source of Kleist’s skepticism therefore remains open, or it leads back, in the last analysis, to the openly acknowledged influence of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant in Kleist’s letters written in the latter part of 1800 and in early 1801.

There is a remarkable consistency to this skepticism throughout his works. Where Kleist seems ready to concede happiness to his characters, such happiness is invariably hard-won. Happiness results for the characters only after they have undergone a thorough acquaintance with the “gebrechliche Einrichtung der Welt,” a programmatic term that underscores the persistent struggle between order and chaos in the world. This concession to happiness is of such a nature that commentators have wondered whether the happy outcomes described in these cases amount to true happiness at all. Of such a type is the happiness granted to the Marquise of O… and her Russian suitor, the Count F. in the story “Die Marquise von O… .” Here the price for the positive turn of events at the end of the story is a financial settlement under the terms of which the count must renounce all his fortune to the marquise and her child and give up all conjugal rights to his spouse for an unspecified period.