Feeling Differently at the Fin De Siècle: Representations Of
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FEELING DIFFERENTLY AT THE FIN DE SIÈCLE: REPRESENTATIONS OF EMOTION AND CULTURAL CHANGE IN GERMAN LITERATURE, 1890-1901 by Holly A. Yanacek B.A. in German, Heidelberg University, 2010 M.A. in German Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2012 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Holly A. Yanacek It was defended on March 23, 2016 and approved by John B. Lyon, PhD, Professor, Department of German Randall Halle, PhD, Klaus W. Jonas Professor, Department of German Clark Muenzer, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of German Jonathan Arac, PhD, Andrew W. Mellon Professor, Department of English Dissertation Director: John B. Lyon, PhD, Professor, Department of German ii Copyright © by Holly A. Yanacek 2016 iii FEELING DIFFERENTLY AT THE FIN DE SIÈCLE: REPRESENTATIONS OF EMOTION AND CULTURAL CHANGE IN GERMAN LITERATURE, 1890-1901 Holly A. Yanacek, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 This dissertation examines the representation of emotion in German literature of the fin de siècle, which I identify as a period of rapid cultural change when emotional codes and social mores were disputed. Compassion, honor, shame, love, pride, and pity were topics of contested public and intellectual debate around 1900, and I argue that the renegotiation of these emotional codes happened in part through literary works and other media. Building upon Bakhtinian discourse analysis and informed by current history of emotions research, my dissertation contributes the theoretical concept ‘heteropathia,’ which I define as the co-presence of differing ways of feeling represented in a single literary work or cultural object. I propose a methodology of reading for heteropathia that considers three aspects of a novel: the narrative situation, the depiction of emotional styles, and the reference to theoretical models of emotion. Chapter 2 analyzes compassion and honor as emotional antipodes associated with different moral systems in Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest (1895). Although the novel depicts honor as an emotional practice that has lost its relevance in late nineteenth-century society, it ultimately admits the need for both compassion and self-regulatory emotions. Chapter 3 examines the subversion of nineteenth- century gendered emotional imperatives of feminine shame and romantic love in Lou Andreas- iv Salomé’s Fenitschka (1898). Fenitschka champions self-realization and validates alternate ways of feeling and gender roles, albeit not without admitting the difficulty in challenging familiar cultural narratives. Chapter 4 reads Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901) as a critique of a range of emotions, from unreflective bourgeois pride to life-negating decadent sensibility, across four generations. Through its figure of the young writer Kai, who exemplifies both life-affirming pride and artistic sensibility, Buddenbrooks self-reflexively refers to its own mediation of emotions and thus highlights the role of literature in renegotiating emotions and social mores. I conclude that these three novels feature a heteropathic impulse that recalls the transitional status of the fin de siècle. These works acknowledge emotional alterity yet resist embracing any way of feeling uncritically. Instead, they mediate between diverse affective perspectives and create spaces for critical analysis and dialogue. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................... X 1.0 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 WHAT IS AN EMOTION? ........................................................................................ 4 1.2 EMOTIONS AND CULTURAL CHANGE AT THE FIN DE SIÈCLE ................... 9 1.3 HETEROPATHIA: CONCEPTUALIZING THE REPRESENTATION OF EMOTION IN NOVELISTIC PROSE .................................................................... 13 1.3.1 Narrative Situation ........................................................................................... 14 1.3.2 Differing Emotional Styles or Fühlweisen ...................................................... 17 1.3.3 Theoretical Models of Emotion ....................................................................... 20 1.4 CHAPTER OVERVIEW .......................................................................................... 23 2.0 “DAS BESTE, WAS WIR HABEN, IST MITLEID”?: NEGOTIATING BETWEEN HONOR AND COMPASSION IN FONTANE’S EFFI BRIEST (1895) ................... 30 2.1 EMOTION AND SOCIAL CRITICISM IN FONTANE’S NOVELS .................... 35 2.2 “ARME EFFI”: FONTANE’S COMPASSIONATE NARRATOR ........................ 40 2.3 MASCULINE EHRE AND DUELING AT THE FIN DE SIÈCLE ........................ 45 2.4 A BRIEF HISTORY OF MITLEID .......................................................................... 48 2.5 ADAPTING SCHOPENHAUER’S MITLEIDSETHIK: THE THEORETICAL MODEL OF EMOTION IN EFFI BRIEST .............................................................. 52 vi 2.6 COMPETING EMOTIONAL STYLES: JOHANNA’S DEFENSE OF EHRE AND ROSWITHA’S MITLEID ......................................................................................... 54 2.7 SENSING THE DECLINE OF DUELING AND THE CULT OF EHRE .............. 66 2.8 ACKNOWLEDGING A NEED FOR COMPASSION AND SELF-REGULATORY EMOTIONS ............................................................................................................. 72 2.9 EMOTIONS AND THE NATURE-SOCIETY BINARY ....................................... 76 2.10 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 80 3.0 “DANN SIEGTE EIN ANDRES GEFÜHL”: SUBVERTING FEMININE SHAME AND LIBERATING LOVE IN ANDREAS-SALOMÉ’S FENITSCHKA (1898) ..... 83 3.1 EMANCIPATION OR SELF-REALIZATION? ANDREAS-SALOMÉ AND THE WOMAN QUESTION ............................................................................................. 87 3.2 FENITSCHKA THROUGH DIFFERENT LENSES: GENDER, FEMINIST, BAKHTINIAN, AND EMOTION STUDIES ......................................................... 91 3.3 THE HETEROPATHIC REPRESENTATION OF EMOTION IN FENITSCHKA 94 3.3.1 Max as Narrator of Fenitschka ........................................................................ 95 3.3.2 The Co-Presence of Differing Emotional Styles ............................................. 98 3.3.3 Max’s Bildung: From an Essentialist to a Performative Model of Emotion . 102 3.4 THE LIMITS OF MAX’S EMOTIONAL ESSENTIALISM ................................ 103 3.5 CREATING SPACE FOR DIFFERENT EMOTIONS ......................................... 111 3.6 CONFLICTING CULTURAL NARRATIVES OF LOVE ................................... 118 3.7 SUBVERTING THE MALE GAZE AND FEMININE SHAME ......................... 120 3.8 “SIE WOLLTE ES SO”: ACKNOWLEDGING FENIA’S AGENCY ................. 124 3.9 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 128 vii 4.0 “DAS WAREN GANZ BEHÄBIGE UND GLÜCKLICHE GENERATIONEN DAMALS…”: READING MANN’S BUDDENBROOKS (1901) AS A LITERARY GENEALOGY OF EMOTIONS ................................................................................. 130 4.1 BUDDENBROOKS—THE WORK OF A ‘KALTER KÜNSTLER’? .................. 135 4.2 THE HETEROPATHIC IMPULSE OF BUDDENBROOKS ................................ 140 4.2.1 Mann’s Empathetic-Ironic Narrator .............................................................. 140 4.2.2 ‘Bourgeois’ and ‘Unbourgeois’ Emotional Styles......................................... 146 4.2.3 The Genealogy-of-Emotions Structure of Buddenbrooks ............................. 147 4.3 EMOTIONAL CHANGE THROUGH FOUR GENERATIONS ......................... 153 4.4 MODERNIZATION AND THE NECESSITY OF ACCOMPANYING EMOTIONAL AND CULTURAL SHIFTS .......................................................... 158 4.5 NEGOTIATING BETWEEN ‘BOURGEOIS’ AND ‘UNBOURGEOIS’ EMOTIONS ........................................................................................................... 163 4.5.1 Tony Buddenbrook’s Bourgeois Pride .......................................................... 164 4.5.2 Hanno Buddenbrook’s Decadent Sensibility ................................................. 169 4.6 HETEROPATHIA AS EXPRESSION OF MANN’S ‘POETIC CRITICISM’ ..... 175 4.7 KAI GRAF MÖLLN: MODERN ARTIST AND STRUCTURAL METAPHOR FOR THE MEDIATION OF EMOTION IN BUDDENBROOKS ......................... 178 4.8 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 181 5.0 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................... 183 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 193 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Josef Benedikt Engl, “Ein Duell mit schwersten Bedingungen” (1896) ....................... 11 Figure 2. Caspar David Friedrich, Frau am Fenster (1822) ....................................................... 125 Figure 3. Gustave Caillebotte, Intérieur, femme à la fenêtre (1880) .......................................... 125 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of many people.