The Fissured Identity of Literature: The Birth of National Literary History out of International Cultural Transfers [Abstract]

Vladimir Biti

The Fissured Identity of Literature: The Birth of National Literary History out of International Cultural Transfers

(Abstract)

Full-length article in: JLT 7/1-2 (2013), 1–30.

The genre of national literary history was an invention of Friedrich Schlegel, who in his History of the Old and the New Literature, a series of lectures delivered in 1812 at the University of Vienna, presented the ethnolinguistic and historical singularity of German literature in the historical frame of other and older national literatures. It was born from a bitter political frustration ensuing from the recent collapse of the German Empire in 1806 and aimed to serve the consolidation of the shaken German national self. Offering resistance to Europe-wide cultural expansion of French culture throughout the eighteenth century and searching for international allies to strengthen that resistance, German »dominated nationalism« (Balibar) displayed a strong interlocking inclination. In the course of the international expansion and institutionalization of French »literary cosmopolitanism«, the hegemonic class universalism of the latter’s inaugurators was dismantled, which the leading German intellectuals attempted to counter precisely by introducing national literary history as a new basis for international solidarity. That is to say, even though it was national, it reclaimed cosmopolitanism in the form of a peaceful coexistence of autonomous nations, as opposed to the French republican universalism that sells national values at the same time as it denies its national determination. It affirmed the right to self-determination of all nations put under similar assimilatory pressure. Hence contrary to Casanova’s strong opposition of the bright-minded French cosmopolitan and the narrow-minded German national literature, her putative opposites are inextricably interrelated and captured in a mutually conditioned relationship.

Yet even if it offers a resource for effective collective action and mutual support among the less powerful, the advocacy of ethnic solidarity at the same time forges an instrument of the powerful exclusion or at least marginalization of others. While German national literary history, establishing a new ethnolinguistic basis, assimilates co-nationals diffused over foreign countries, it dissimilates non-national fellow-citizens at home. This equivocation forms the gist of its trauma narrative pattern (Alexander): Even if on the one hand it triggers significant repairs in the civil fabric, on the other hand it simultaneously instigates new rounds of social suffering. In becoming a multidirectionally connectable platform for collectivities established by traumatic experience that begin to support and enforce each other across social, cultural, and historical boundaries, the pattern of national literary history gradually develops huge symbolic power of its own. Invented by the »engineers« of social memory for the primary sake of reconciliation and consolidation its self-rescuing maneuver sets in motion horrific group conflicts. As a matter of fact, German Romanticists promoted German language as the platform of unification and consolidation of the homeless, »humiliated and insulted« individuals and nations at the beginning of the nineteenth century, trusting that it would become universal currency for all foreign spiritual wares and that Germans would concomitantly take over the command of the world partition of symbolic values. For a nation that pretends to set global terms for the huge diversity of other nations, limitless cosmopolitan adaptability to the changing international context is the most cherished property.

The pattern of national literary history thus paves the way for the gradual transformation of the German Volksgeist from the subservient local enabler into a self-propelling global agency in the relentless search for genuine distinction and comparative advantage in the international cultural space. To make Germany into the key agency of human history, German Romanticist intellectuals engaged in the huge mission of turning other nations into its enablers. The latter were, in the narrative pattern of national literary history, presented only as the continuous backdrop of the march of German emancipation into the future. German nationally oriented cosmopolitanism thus imperceptibly acquired the same profile that characterized its fierce opponent. Having accumulated national »symbolic capital« in an enormous acceleration of the opponent’s speed as demonstrated throughout the 18^th century, it raised an analogous claim for imperial domination. Inventing affinity between the German past and present as well as co-nationals at home and abroad, national literary history established an imaginary »community of fate« (Schicksalsgemeinschaft) urging all Germans to gain close acquaintance with its legacy. But some of them were unable to fulfill this task. This is how new schisms were introduced into a story written with a unifying intention, such as the division between the true and the false national spiritual tradition. The false tradition is, in Friedrich Schlegel’s interpretation, significantly represented by literary works unable to qualify for the leading principle of Germanness because they are devoid of the sacred national memory that is »the most excellent business of literature«. In lieu of being united around the allegedly merely reconstructed genuine national spirit, the Germany forcefully constructed through literature was finally divided into proper and improper Germans.

Yet the fierce resistance of German national literary history to the universalist model of the French Republic of Letters was not an exclusively German enterprise, nor a completely pioneering one, as it was pre-designed by the French dissident Rousseau a good half-century earlier. As Rousseau’s rebellion against the shortcomings of French »national cosmopolitanism« takes place within the French culture and not outside it, I take it as a welcome reminder that national cultures are never homogeneous and that an all-too-easy opposition between French and German concepts of the age has to be reintroduced into each of these alleged opposites. A continuous clash between the processes of Vergesellschaftung (the uniting diversification of society) and Vergemeinschaftung (the disuniting homogenization of its particular groups and communities), characteristic of all modern nations, inhered to both of them enabling alliances with remote and unknown foreigners along various axes. Contrary to its reclaimed consistency, French cosmopolitanism was torn apart by internal national antagonisms, not only between Rousseau and Voltaire but also between the two rebels Rousseau and Mme de Staël, as I try to demonstrate in some detail. Whatever its basis turns out to be – (inter)national, (inter)cultural or (inter)confessional – no cosmopolitan or national alliance is smooth, uncontroversial and permanent. Despite their systematically produced homogeneous appearance, all trauma narratives remain equivocal and conflict-ridden composures.

References

Albrecht, Andrea, Kosmopolitismus: Weltbürgerdiskurse in Literatur, Philosophie und Publizistik um 1800, Berlin/New York 2005.

Alexander, Jeffrey, Trauma: A Social Theory, Cambridge/Malden, MA 2012.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, New York/London 2006.

Assmann, Aleida, Zur Mediengeschichte des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, in: Astrid Erll/Ansgar Nünning (ed.), Medien des kollektiven Gedächtnisses: Konstruktivität, Historizität, Kulturspezifizität, Berlin/New York 2004, 45–60.

Balibar, Etienne, Politics and the Other Scene, London/New York 2002.

Barnard, Frederick M., Herder, Nationality, Humanity, and History, Montreal/London/Ithaca 2003.

Beiser, Frederick C., Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790–1800, Cambridge, MA/London 1992.

Benhabib, Seyla, Another Cosmopolitanism: Hospitality, Sovereignty and Democratic Iterations, Oxford/New York 2006.

Berlin, Isaiah, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas, ed. H. Hardy, Princeton/London 1990.

Brubaker, Rogers, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Cambridge, MA/London 1992.

Calhoun, Craig, Social solidarity as a problem for cosmopolitan democracy, in: Seyla Benhabib/Ian Shapiro/Danilo Petranović (ed.), Identities, Affiliations, and Allegiances, Cambridge, New York 2007, 285–302.

Casanova, Pascale, The World Republic of Letters, transl. M.B. Debevoise, Cambridge, MA/London 2004.

Collingwood, Robin G., The Idea of History, ed. T.M. Knox, Oxford 1961.

Dainotto, Roberto M., Europe (in Theory), Durham/London 2007.

Derrida, Jacques, Declarations of Independence, New Political Science 15 (1986), 7–15.

Dumont, Louis, German Ideology: From France to Germany and Back, Chicago/London 1994.

Echternkamp, Jörg, Der Aufstieg des deutschen Nationalismus (1770–1840), Frankfurt a. M./New York 1998.

Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process, transl. Edmund Jeffcot, New York 1978.

Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi, The Color of Reason: The Idea of ›Race‹ in Kant’s Anthropology, in: Katherina M. Faull (ed.), Anthropology and the German Enlightenment: Perspectives on Humanity, Lewisburg/London 1995, 200–241.

Fink, Gonthier-Louis, Kosmopolitismus – Patriotismus – Xenophobie: Eine französisch-deutsche Debatte im Revolutionsjahrzehnt 1789–1799, in: Ortrud Gutjahr/Wilhelm Kühlmann/Wolf Wucherpfennig (ed.), Gesellige Vernunft: Zur Kultur der literarischen Aufklärung, Würzburg 1993, 23–42.

Fohrmann, Jürgen, Das Projekt der deutschen Literaturgeschichte. Entstehung und Scheitern einer nationalen Poesiegeschichtsschreibung zwischen Humanismus und deutschem Kaiserreich, Stuttgart 1989.

–, Geschichte der deutschen Literaturgeschichtsschreibung zwischen Aufklärung und Kaiserreich, in: J.F./Wilhelm Voßkamp (ed.), Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Germanistik im 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart/Weimar 1994, 576–604.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Schriften zur Weltliteratur, ed. Horst Günther, Frankfurt a. M. 1987.

Grosrichard, Alain, Structure du sérail: La fiction du despotisme asiatique dans l’Occident classique, Paris 1979.

Herder, Johann Gottfried, Werke in zehn Bänden, vol. 6: Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, ed. Martin Bollacher, Frankfurt a. M. 1989.

Koselleck, Reinhart, Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt, Frankfurt a. M. 1973.

–, Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten, Frankfurt a. M. 1989.

Kristeva, Julia, Strangers to Ourselves, transl. Leon S. Roudiez, London 1991.

–, Nations without Nationalism, transl. Leon S. Roudiez, New York 1993.

Leonard, Philip, Nationality between Poststructuralism and Postcolonial Theory: A New Cosmopolitanism, Houndmills/New York 2005.

Meyer-Kalkus, Reinhard, World literature beyond Goethe, in: Stephen Greenblatt et al., Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, Cambridge et al. 2010, 96–121.

Mignolo, Walter D., The Many Faces of Cosmo-Polis: Border Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitism, Public Culture 12:3 (2000), 721–748.

Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat de, The Spirit of the Laws, transl. and ed. Anne M. Cohler/Basia Carolyn Miller/Harold Samuel Stone, Cambridge et al. 1989.

Musil, Robert, Der Anschluss an Deutschland [1919], in: R.M., Gesammelte Werke in neun Bänden, vol. 8: Essays und Reden, ed. Adolf Frisé, Reinbek b.H. 1978, 1033–1042.

Neubauer, John, National operas in East-Central Europe, in: Marcel Cornis-Pope/J.N. (ed.), History of the literary cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries, vol. 1, Amsterdam/New York 2004, 514–524.

–, Introduction to Literary Histories: Itineraries of National Self-Images, in: Marcel Cornis-Pope/J.N. (ed.), History of the literary cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries, vol. 3, Amsterdam/New York 2007, 345–355.

Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), Die Christenheit oder Europa [1799], in: Schriften. Die Werke Friedrich von Hardenbergs, vol. 3: Das philosophische Werk II [1960], ed. Richard Samuel/Hans-Joachim Mähl/Gerhard Schulz, Stuttgart ³1983, 507–524.

Richardson, Ruth Drucilla, Staël on the Anthropology of the Enlightenment: ›A Game for Thee, but Death for Me‹, in: Katherine M. Faull (ed.), Anthropology and the German Enlightenment: Perspectives on Humanity, Lewisburg/London/Toronto 1995, 125–161.

Rothberg, Michael, Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation, Minneapolis/London 2000.

–, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization, Stanford, CA 2009.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Discours sur les sciences et les arts, in: Œuvres complètes, vol. 3: Du contrat social. Écrits politiques, ed. Bernard Gagnebin/Marcel Raymond, Paris 1964, 1–107 (Rousseau 1964a).

–, Discours sur l’économie politique, in: Œuvres complètes, vol. 3: Du contrat social. Écrits politiques, ed. Bernard Gagnebin/Marcel Raymond, Paris 1964, 241–278 (Rousseau 1964b).

–, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, transl. Ilse Barande, Paris 1965.

–, The Social Contract, transl. Maurice Cranston, Harmondsworth 1968 (Rousseau 1968a).

–, Politicsand the Arts: Letter to M. d’Alembert on the Theatre, ed. and transl. Allan Bloom, Ithaca 1968 (Rousseau 1968b).

–, Émile, transl. Barbara Foxley, New York 1977.

–, Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne, in: Discours sur l’économie politique, Projet de constitution pour la Corse, Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne, ed. Barbara de Negroni, Paris 1990.

Schlegel, August Wilhelm, Kritische Schriften und Briefe, vol. 3: Geschichte der klassischen Literatur, ed. Edgar Lohner, Stuttgart 1964.

–, Kritische Schriften und Briefe, vol. 4: Geschichte der romantischen Literatur, ed. Edgar Lohner, Stuttgart 1965.

Schlegel, Friedrich, Geschichte der europäischen Literatur [1803/1804], in: F.S., Kritische Ausgabe, vol. 11: Wissenschaft der europäischen Literatur, ed. Ernst Behler, Munich/Paderborn/Vienna 1958, 3–185.

–, Kritische Ausgabe, vol. 6: Geschichte der neuen und alten Literatur [1812], ed. Hans Eichner, Munich/Paderborn/Vienna 1961.

–, Kritische Ausgabe, vol. 18: Philosophische Lehrjahre I, 1796–1806, ed. Ernst Behler, Munich/Paderborn/Vienna 1963.

–, Versuch über den Begriff des Republikanismus [1796], in: F.S.,Kritische Ausgabe, vol. 7: Studien zur Geschichte und Politik, ed. Ernst Behler, Munich/Paderborn/Vienna 1966, 11–25.

–, Gedanken 1808/1809, in: F.S., Kritische Ausgabe, vol. 19: Philosophische Lehrjahre II, 1796–1806, ed. Ernst Behler, Munich/Paderborn/Vienna 1971, 263–293.

–, Über das Studium der Griechischen Poesie [1795–1797], in: F.S., Kritische Ausgabe, vol. 1: Studien des klassischen Altertums, ed. Ernst Behler, Munich/Paderborn/Vienna 1979, 217–367 (F. Schlegel 1979a).

–, Vom Wert des Studiums der Griechen und Römer [1796], in: F.S.,Kritische Ausgabe, vol. 1: Studien des klassischen Altertums, ed. Ernst Behler, Munich/Paderborn/Vienna 1979, 621–642 (F. Schlegel 1979b).

Schlereth, Thomas J., The Cosmopolitan Ideal in Enlightenment Thought: Its Form and Function in the Ideas of Franklin, Hume, and Voltaire 1694–1790, London 1977.

Schulz, Karlheinz, Kosmopolitismus und Nationalismus bei den Brüdern Schlegel, Recherche Germanique 19 (1989), 31–67.

Staël, Germaine de, Correspondance générale, vol. 2, ed. Beatrice W. Jasinski, Paris 1978.

Texte, Joseph, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les origins du cosmopolitisme littéraire, Paris 1895.

Tihanov, Galin, Cosmopolitanism in the Discursive Landscape of Modernity: Two Enlightenment Articulations, in: David Adams/G.T. (ed.), Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism, London 2011, 133–152.

Valadez, Jorge M., The continuing significance of ethnocultural identity, in: Seyla Benhabib/Ian Shapiro/Danilo Petranović (ed.), Identities, Affiliations, and Allegiances, Cambridge/New York 2007, 303–324.

Verdery, Katherine, What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next?, Princeton 1996.

White, Hayden, The Discourse of Europe and the Search for European Identity, in: Bo Stråth (ed.), Europe and the Other and Europe as the Other, Brussels 2000, 67–87.

Wolff, Larry, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford, CA 1994.

2014-02-25

JLTonline ISSN 1862-8990

Copyright© by the author. All rights reserved.
This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and JLTonline.
For other permission, please contact JLTonline.

How to cite this item:

Abstract of: Vladimir Biti, The Fissured Identity of Literature: The Birth of National Literary History out of International Cultural Transfers.

In: JLTonline (25.02.2014)

URL: http://www.jltonline.de/index.php/reviews/article/view/634/1477

A Persistent Identifier can be found in the PDF-Version of this article.