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“Reality” in Early Twentieth-century German Literature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
Extract
Among the most striking aspects of modern literature—expecially of modern German literature—are its frequent references to a notion called ‘reality’. The philosophical question this raises, ‘What is reality?’, is to one side of this enquiry, and so is the question whether or not this is a sensible question: this essay is intended as a contribution not to philosophy but to its connections with literary history and criticism. My present purpose, which determines my procedure, is (I) to outline the various closely related meanings of the word ‘Wirklichkeit’ throughout its very long history; (2) to describe the polarization of meanings which occurred in the course of the nineteenth century, and Nietzsche's part in making the new polarity available to his literary heirs; (3) to illustrate the way German literature became involved in this process in the first decade of our century; and, finally, (4) to point to some of its political implications. My argument is part of a much larger topic, one that is not confined either to the German-speaking countries or indeed to literature. The topic, the ideologizing of ‘reality’, is relevant to all modern cultures. The present paper offers no more than a sketch of this development in one cultural area of our world.
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- Information
- Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 16: Philosophy and Literature , September 1983 , pp. 41 - 57
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1983
References
1 The word occurs in the opening of the second (prose) part of the ‘Wessobrunner Gebet’ (c. 800): ‘Cot almahtico, du himil enti erda gauuorahtos …’ (‘Almighty God, thou hast created heaven and earth …’) (Deutsche Dichtung des Mittelalters, Curschmann, I. M. and Glier, Ingeborg (eds.) (München, Wien, 1980), 24)Google Scholar. The word is cognate with the Greek ergon ( = work, action, effect) and ergasomai, ( = to work to be active, to pursue a craft). I am grateful to Fred Wagner and David McLintock for this etymological gloss; to the former I am also indebted for several other fruitful suggestions.
2 Quoted from Jacob, and Grimms, Wilhelm' Deutsches Wörterbuch, XIV/2 (compiled c. 1930) (Leipzig, 1960), column 582.Google Scholar
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11 Ibid.: ‘Den Schein und die Täuschung dieser schlechten, vergänglichen Welt nimmt die Kunst von jenem wahrhaften Gehalt der Erscheinungen fort und gibt ihnen eine höhere, geistgeborene Wirklichkeit.’
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18 Selected Poems of Thomas Hardy, Wright, David (ed.) (Harmondsworth, 1978), 231.Google Scholar
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23 T. S. Eliot refers to ‘the unreal City’ in The Waste Land, also written in 1922, in lines 60, 207, 376.
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29 Op. cit., 112, 128; translation 149, 171.
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31 Mahler-Werfel, Alma's remarkable autobiography, Mein Leben (Frankfurt/ M and Hamburg, 1963), 178, 198, 216fGoogle Scholar. gives details of the composition and reception of the novel, which was an immediate bestseller in the USA. The fact that it has to this day remained the main document around which Armenian resistance and terrorism have rallied points to the ambivalence of its nationalist diction.
32 Werfel, Franz, Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh (1933) (Frankfurt/M 1980), p. 31Google Scholar: ‘Blut und Volk! Ehrlich sein! Waren das nicht nur leere Begriffe?’; p. 341: ‘Die Wirklichkeit um ihn wurde so unwirklich, wie sie es in ihren wirklichsten Verdichtungen immer ist’.
33 Op. cit., 867f.
34 The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, II, trs. Adams, Francis (London, 1849), 771.Google Scholar
35 I am indebted for this simile to Chris Waller.