The Grotesque in Art and Literature; Tr
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WOLFGANG KAYSER Grotesque IN ART AND LITERATURE Translated by Ulrich Weis stein INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington This book was originally published under the title Das Groteske: seine Gestaltung in Malerei und Dichtung © 1957 by Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg (Oldb) und Ham¬ burg DEDICATED TO MAX RYCHNER WITH SINCERE APPRECIATION Copyright © 1963 by Indiana University Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress catalog card number: 63-9719 Trans lators Note Wolfgang Kayser’s untimely death deprived me of the possibility of consulting him while the translation was in progress. Although on the whole his German is clear and unexceptional, minor difficul¬ ties arose in connection with such pseudo-philosophical phrases as Offenheit fur ein Waltend.es; and occasionally I thought it best to add the original German word or phrase in parentheses. A special problem was posed by the inconsistency in the use of komisch on the part of the writers quoted by Kayser, whereas the rendering of the nouns Humor and Komik gave no trouble. The translations of literary and critical passages incorporated in the text are my own unless otherwise indicated. I am grateful to Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., for their permission to use an 5 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE excerpt from Bernard Guilbert Guemey’s translation of Gogol’s Dead Souls. The English equivalents of German titles, where ap¬ plicable, are those found in B. Q. Morgan’s invaluable Critical Bib¬ liography of German Literature in English Translation, 1481- 1935 (Stanford, 1938). I should also like to thank Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for allowing me to quote from H. T. Lowe-Porter’s English version of Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus. Mr. Mark Spilka has read an earlier version of several chapters of my translation. His comments have been greatly welcome. My wife has sacrificed part of a well-earned vacation to help me type the final draft of the manuscript. The notes are slightly abridged from the original edition. 6 Contents Preface 9 The Problem 13 I The Grotesque: The Word and its Meaning 19 1. che oggi chiamano grottesche” 19 2. “Ce discours est bien grotesque” 24 II The Extension of the Meaning of Grotesque 29 1. “The so-called Hell Bruegel” 29 2. The “Chimeric” World of the Commedia dell’Arte 37 3. The “Spirit of the Grotesque” in the Drama of the Sturm und Drang 40 III The Grotesque in the Age of Romanticism 48 1. The Theory 48 7 CONTENTS 2. Narrative Prose 59 3. The Drama 81 IV The Grotesque in the Nineteenth Century 100 1. Interpretation of the Grotesque in Esthetic Writings 100 2. The “Realistic” Grotesque (Keller, Vischer, Busch) 104 3. The Grotesque in “Realistic” Literature of Other Countries 121 V The Grotesque in the Twentieth Century 130 1. The Drama (Wedekind, Schnitzler, 11 teatro del grot- tesco) 130 2. The Authors of Tales of Terror QSchauerliteratur, Meyrink, Kafka) 139 3. Morgenstern and the Verbal Grotesque 150 4. Thomas Mann 157 5. “Modern” Poetry and Dream Narration 161 6. Surrealism in Painting (fpittura metafisica, Chirico, Tanguy, Dali, Max Ernst) 168 7. The Graphic Arts (Ensor, Kubin, Weber) 173 An Attempt to Define the Nature of the Gro¬ tesque 179 Notes 190 Index 211 Illustrations following'page 128 8 ace The present book—if it is unified enough to deserve that name— came very slowly into being. Fifteen years ago, during my first visit to the Prado, my curiosity was aroused, although I did not as yet foresee where my future explorations would lead me. The same confusing and irritating features appeared over and over again in the pictures of Velasquez and Goya as well as in those of Bosch and Bruegel, which were collected as early as the sixteenth century. The same features seemed to be contained in certain works of literature. With that mixed feeling in which the pleasure of seeing one’s own observations confirmed is mingled with regret caused by the realization that one’s discovery has been anticipated, I subse¬ quently came upon the passage in the Vorschule der Asthetik (Primer 9 PREFACE of Esthetics) in which Jean Paul, without using the word, ascribes a special gift for the grotesque to the Spaniards and the English. Sev¬ eral examples from German and non-German literature and paint¬ ing also recommended themselves; further material accrued in the attempt to trace systematically the etymology of the word “gro¬ tesque,” just as the gradually sharpened awareness of the phenome¬ non suggested additional examples. However, there was no chance of exhausting the subject. The present study, accordingly, does not aim at being a history of the grotesque. It is as impossible to write such a history as it is to com¬ pose one of the tragic or comic elements in the arts. For such an un¬ dertaking would presuppose a knowledge of all literatures, as well as the plastic arts, produced by all peoples and ages, not to mention an art with which my book is not at all concerned, namely, that of music. I somewhat regret this omission, since compositions like Ravel’s “Grotesques,” Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck,” certain character¬ istic passages in the works of Richard Strauss, and Orff’s “Carmina Burana” repeatedly tempted me to study the nature of the grotesque in music. And how much material the movies could have furnished: Arsenic and Old Lace and Ladykillers are two of many speci¬ mens in which the grotesque is used without adulteration. What I have attempted to do is to give a more precise definition of the grotesque as such on the basis of the somewhat sketchy etymological history of the word. In this way, a definite limitation in time from the end of the fifteenth century to the present as well as a limitation in subject matter was made possible. This span of time, however, is not considered as a unit without regard to its historical sequence. I was also concerned with the individual expres¬ sions of the grotesque as well as its historical occurrences. If it turned out that these could be understood more positively and exactly with an insight into the timeless structure of the grotesque, then the present study would acquire a certain methodological significance. Its author, at any rate, was eager to apply the methods of modern structural analysis to a historical investigation. One begins to get tired of textual interpretations lined up like trees in a nursery and longs once more to enter the real woods. My prolonged concern with the grotesque must not he taken as a sign of wholehearted enthusiasm for the subject. I gladly admit that 10 PREFACE I, too, experienced the negative reaction likely to be provoked in the reader by certain chapters of my book or by a glance at its illustra¬ tions. What urged me to continue with my work was the novelty of the subject, the methodological challenge posed by the task of de¬ scribing the variations on an ageless theme, the fruitfulness of the synoptic study of literature and painting, the exploration of unfamil¬ iar territory, and, finally, the added knowledge to be brought to bear on familiar works, among them the dramas of the Sturm und Drang, certain Romantic novels and novellas, some of Keller’s stor¬ ies, Wilhelm Busch’s pictorial narratives and certain widely dis¬ cussed creations of the twentieth century. But other than merely subjective stimuli were also involved. Sere- nus Zeitblom, the narrator of Thomas Mann’s Doktor Eaustus, may turn away in disgust from the “grotesque” landscapes of an ambiguous nature and an inharmonious art in order to dwell solely in the noble realm of the humanities where one is “safe from such nightmares.” The historian, however, would be at fault if he averted his eyes from the wealth of works from the past which per¬ tains to that strange realm. And as a contemporary he is all the more obliged to eschew such an attitude. The art of our own day shows a greater affinity to the grotesque than that of any other epoch. I shall not now attempt to be specific. Our modern novels and novellas are replete with grotesque features, certain schools of painting openly subscribe to the grotesque in their programs, and as able a playwright as Friedrich Diirrenmatt regards the tragic comedy or tragicomedy, that is, the grotesque, as the only legitimate contem¬ porary genre. “Tragedy presupposes guilt, distress, measure, insight, responsibility. The confusion of our age, the sellout of the white race, leaves no room for guilt and responsibility. Nobody is to blame or can be charged with complicity. Things just happen. Everybody is carried away and gets stuck somewhere. We are too collectively guilty, too collectively steeped in the sins of our fathers and forefa¬ thers. We are only descendents. That is our misfortune, not our guilt. Guilt exists only in the form of a personal achievement or reli¬ gious deed. Comedy alone is suited for us. Our world led as inevitably to the grotesque as it did to the atom bomb, just as Hier¬ onymus Bosch’s apocalyptic paintings are grotesque in nature. The grotesque, however, is only a sensuous expression, a sensuous para- 11 PREFACE dox, the shape of a shapelessness, the face of a faceless world; and just as our thinking seems unable to do without the concept of para¬ dox, so is art, our world, which survives only because there is an atom bomb: in fear of it” (Blatter des Deutschen Scluiuspielhauses in Hamburg, 1956/57, Heft 5: Der Besuch der alten Dame [The Visit]). The study of the grotesque in previous ages and the con¬ ceptual mastery of the phenomenon as such may help to open new paths to the understanding of modern art and perhaps even of the modern age.