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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 I 75-26,603 JURASEK, Richard Thomas, 1946- A STUDY OF PAUL FLEMING'S POETIC RANGE. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1975 Literature, general Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 A STUDY OF PAUL FLEMING'S POETIC RANGE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Richard Thomas Jurasek, B.A.a M.A. ********** The Ohio State University 1975 Reading Committee; Approved By Prof. Hugo Bekker Q Prof. Wolfgang Wittkowski Prof. Giesela Vitt ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For whatever ways the following study is perceptive, I must acknowledge the inspiration, advice, and example provided by my teachers at The Ohio State University: Professor Oskar Seidlin, Professor Wolfgang Wittkowski, Professor Hugo Bekker, and Professor Gisela Vitt. ii VITA. December 7* 1946 . B o m - New Philadelphia, Ohio 1968 ..............B. A. (German) Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 1970-71 ..............Attended University of Heidelberg, Germany 1971 . ............Graduate Teaching Associate, German Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1 9 7 1 ................M. A. (German) The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1971-72 ..............Research Associate, German Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1972-7 4 ..............Graduate Teaching Associate, German Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio iii TABLE OP CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................... 11 VITA ........................................... Ill INTRODUCTION ................................... 1 Chapter I. FLEMING AND PANSOPHISM ACCORDING TO PARACELSUS.............................. 7 II. FLEMING'S POETRY OF THE MI N D ............... 8l III. FLEMING AND THE LUTHERAN TRADITION.......... 166 CONCLUSION..................................... 269 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................... 275 lv INTRODUCTION The determining factors in much German Baroque poetry are the adaptation and exploitation of stylistic, philo sophical and religious traditions. Critics also commonly grant that innovation and personal expression were not major factors in literature until the age of Klopstock. Hence, the seventeenth century is known for the "practice" of poetry, whereas the eighteenth is characterized by the "creation" of works of literature. These are meaningful generalizations for the literary historian, but such attempts to establish a logical and clear succession of "schools" of literature are often made at the expense of an appreciation of the subtle and continuous process of blending poetic attitudes. It is perhaps more helpful in understanding certain seventeenth century writers if the Baroque is characterized as a period of transition: poetry based on nonpersonal principles gradually evolves into the more modem individual and inventive lyric expressions of the following century. This is not to suggest that in the German Baroque there were numerous innovators who strained at the fetters of impersonal convention and literary de corum; it is rather the case that poets such as Fleming are better understood if the reader is aware of the poet*s 1 2 capability of limited invention as he subtly alters avail able materials. It is the intent of this study to examine a number of Fleming*s religious and secular poems to determine the manner and the measure in which Fleming developed the possibilities open to him, and exploited the inherited principles of the Baroque literary heritage. After this preliminary description of the aim of the chapters ahead, a discussion of methodology is necessary. Since external influences very much determine the shape and substance of Baroque poetry, it is appropriate to employ an "extrinsic" method^ in critically evaluating works of literature in this period. Indeed, literary criticism has generally utilized this method with success, and has isolated and profiled a number of the literary and intellectual conventions which are antecedent to the poetry of the seventeenth century. In the case of Fleming's writings we can discern various external influences. Extra-personal principles such as Petrarchism, Lutheranism, Pansophism and Christian- Stoicism are primary impulses in Fleming's technique and subject matter. The following chapters will demonstrate that considerable research has been undertaken to dis entangle the numerous isms which were formative in Fleming's work. 3 The "extrinsic" method seeks to describe external connections, and it often provides vital historical infor mation without which a close reading of older literature is nearly impossible. It is an approach akin to Geistes- geschichte and Formgeschichte. for it establishes the historical context of the Geist and Form of a given work of literature. Yet even as the "extrinsic" method of analysis can yield a great deal of understanding, it can also distort or even mask other meanings in a poem. When the historical nexus is overemphasized, the elements of a poem can be reduced to mere signposts pointing to refer ences outside the work. The resources of language become superficially significant, for words have only denotative potential, and poems are read as a record of the ferment of the times rather than as aesthetic totalities. We are left with unoriginal works which consist of propositions about borrowed ideas — these statements are the poem*s "truth". Fleming scholarship offers an example of the occa sional inefficacy of the "extrinsic" method in Pfeiffer's2 discussion of Fleming's sonnet An Sich. Pfeiffer's analysis yields only the relevance of the poem as a docu mentation of Christian-Stoicism. Fleming's language, according to Pfeiffer, is referential to a specific idea, and this critic reduces the poem to "a series of propo sitions reinforced by regular meter and r h y m e . These are the unfortunate results when a critical method is concerned only with the delineation of the external causes of literature. In contrast, Schilrk's^- excellent discussion of the same sonnet describes the external influence of Christian- Stoicism, but also examines the interaction of meter, rhyme, structure and connotative meaning in the text. Schiirk*s analysis is an explication de texte. and there fore also employs an "intrinsic" method which discovers the subtleties, intricacies, and tensions which render the poem more meaningful than Pfeiffer*s analysis does. Schtirk thus utilizes a combined method that recognizes the factual, historical truth in An Sich. yet also describes its unique poetic "truth". The poem is described as a configuration consisting of word, idea and the poet*s soul, which when recognized is the reader*s ultimate concern. With Schtlrk*s methodological model in mind, chapters I and III of this study will describe two extra-aesthetic systems, Pansophism and Lutheranism, in whatever ways they are normative in Fleming*s lyrics. These chapters will not only examine these "borrowings", but will also expli cate numerous texts as self-sufficient aesthetic entities. With this dual approach that combines "extrinsic" and "intrinsic11 methods the poems will thus be classified according to their antecedents even as they are examined as to their individual relevance. Chapter II of this study will not be so concerned with historical factors, but will emphasize certain love poems as independent and coherent units, and discuss what ever Fleming substitutes for traditional molds of poetry. In these works private, intellectual, and subjective ele ments are also primary to the poetic