Else Lasker-Schüler's Collaborative Avant Garde
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Else Lasker-Schüler’s Collaborative Avant Garde: Text & Image in Berlin c. 1910 By Jennifer Cashman Ingalls A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in German in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Elaine Tennant (chair) Professor Chenxi Tang Professor John Efron Spring 2017 Else Lasker-Schüler’s Collaborative Avant Garde: Text & Image in Berlin c.1910 ©2017 Jennifer Cashman Ingalls Abstract Else Lasker-Schüler’s Collaborative Avant Garde: Text & Image in Berlin c. 1910 by Jennifer Cashman Ingalls Doctor of Philosophy in German University of California, Berkeley Professor Elaine Tennant, Chair Between 1910-1914, the German poet Else Lasker-Schüler formed her infamous alter ego, Prinz Jussuf von Theben, in her frequent publications in the expressionist periodicals Der Sturm and Die Aktion. The publishing opportunities in these periodicals allowed Lasker- Schüler the space to explore genre conventions and to begin including her own graphic art. Central to Lasker-Schüler’s creation of Prinz Jussuf and her increasing incorporation of visual art, were her unsuccessful and successful collaborations with Oskar Kokoschka and Franz Marc. The texts published in the two periodicals ranged from short theater, book, and art gallery reviews to her poetry and two epistolary novels. In Der Sturm, Lasker-Schüler serially published Briefe nach Norwegen, a series of letters written to her husband and Der Sturm editor Herwarth Walden on his two-week trip to Scandinavia. The letters were published over nine months and chronicle life in bohemian circles in Berlin, merging Lasker-Schüler’s emerging fantasy world into her artistic practice. Later published as Mein Herz, the letters have previously only been analyzed within the context of this later novelization and never within their original context of a weekly periodical. By analyzing the texts within their original context, check by jowl with other texts, illustrations, and advertisements, Lasker- Schüler’s idiosyncratic engagement with contemporary life in Berlin is brought into high relief. Lasker-Schüler’s second epistolary novel was published in Der Sturm’s competitor, Die Aktion, after Lasker-Schüler’s divorce from Walden. Briefe und Bilder was addressed to Franz and Maria Marc, and corresponds to a rich private correspondence between Lasker-Schüler and the Marcs. In Briefe und Bilder, Lasker-Schüler incorporates her emerging Kingdom of Thebes, and regularly references her simultaneous private correspondence with Marc, confusing and blending the boundaries between public and private, as well as the real and the fantastic. Later published after Franz Marc’s 1916 death at Verdun in an expanded form as Der Malik, Lasker-Schüler’s text in its Briefe und Bilder form has been ignored in existing scholarship. Utilizing biography and historiography to responsibly read these texts, this dissertation approaches Lasker-Schüler’s frequent publications in weekly periodicals to understand how her identity as Prinz Jussuf von Theben was formed in the public sphere and how her multimedia practice emerged. 1 To Gma & Gpa i TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………...iii Introduction...……………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One: Else Lasker-Schüler & Der Sturm……….....……….……………7 Introduction…………………………………………………….……………….7 Lasker-Schüler & Portraiture in Der Sturm………………….……………………9 Der Sturm Nummer 1…………………………………………………………...10 Peter Baum…………………………………………………………………….13 Karl Kraus……………………………………………………………………..17 Oskar Kokoschka ……………………………………………………………...27 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..36 Chapter Two: Briefe nach Norwegen …………………………………………...37 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...37 Briefe nach Norwegen Debuts……………………………………………………..39 Critics & Future Plans………………………………………………………….41 November 4, 1911: Zeppelins & Event Calendars……………………………...43 December 2, 1911: Experiments with Form & Breaking the Fourth Wall ……...52 December 9, 1911: Criticism & Hearts on a String……………………………..60 January 27, 1912: An End? …………………………………………………….67 Conclusion: Looking for a Interlocutor.….…………………………………….72 Chapter Three: Changing Gears, Der Sturm to Die Aktion ………………...74 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...74 Versöhnung……………………………………………………………………75 Marc’s Versöhnung…………………………………………………………….78 The Beginning of a Friendship in Letters………………………………………79 From Der Sturm to Die Aktion ………………………………………………….84 Parallel Correspondences………………………………………………………97 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………...103 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………. 106 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………….. 109 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without one of those magical library experiences special to the American open stack system. When I was 19 and a sophomore at UC Berkeley, wandering the main stacks of the library, I stumbled across a collection of German poems from the 20th century, Hundert Gedichte des Jahrhunderts [One Hundred Poems of the Century], edited by the then literary pope, the late Marcel Reich-Ranicki. When I opened the volume, it opened to a poem by Else Lasker-Schüler, “Ein Liebeslied” [A Love Song], and it was love at first sight. My German was perhaps not good enough to understand everything, but the sounds and rhythms of Lasker-Schüler’s poetic voice took my breath away. I still read that poem and find myself transported by the languid language and possibility present in a mere eleven lines. As my love affair with the poetry of Lasker-Schüler expanded, I began to take on her prose and plays and visual artwork and found myself more and more fascinated with her entire oeuvre, and this dissertation is my exploration of a part of her art, written and visual, that I could never find a satisfying answer to. First, I am astonishingly thankful and grateful to my advisor, Elaine Tennant. This dissertation would not have happened had she not encouraged me to continue (and finish) working on what I love, and her sound advice and example have been my lodestar since I took Middle High German with her all those years ago (2007!). She has given me the encouragement and space I needed to write this dissertation and all too often provided the pep talk I needed when I stumbled. I know no finer speaker of the English language, am ever amazed by your turn of phrase, and constantly encouraged by your vitality and spirit. Thank you, Elaine. iii Many professors at Berkeley have contributed to and shaped this project. Thank you, John Efron, for your wonderful ability to traverse history and literature, German and Yiddish, and your unending support of this project and me. Thank you Chenxi Tang for always disagreeing with me in the kindest way possible, and for preparing me for the reading opposite to my own. Thank you Yael Chaver, my constant support, Yiddish colleague, and friend. Thank you Niklaus Largier for your generous intellectual spirit, Chana Kronfeld, for your skill, teaching, and feeling for translation, and David Frick, for your genuine intellectual curiosity and kindness. I am ever grateful to Maureen Miller for teaching me how to read like a historian, and to Frank Bezner for his wonderfully active and engaged mind and our conversations about modern German literature over too few beers. Thank you Niko Euba for teaching me to teach, and for your friendship and support; the beers are on me next time. To these and all my teachers, your teaching, support, and conversation have made Berkeley a warm and convivial academic environment, thank you. The staff in the German Department made the process of my graduate career all the more enjoyable. Thank you Cathy Jones, Myriam Cotton, Nadia Samadi, Elisabeth Lameroux, Veronica Lopez, and Andrea Rapport. My graduate student colleagues, in our conversations and collaborations, brought this project a great deal of intellectual rigor and spirit, it would never have happened without their support and encouragement. Robin Ellis, you were the first person to treat me like an Else Lasker-Schüler expert! Thank you for your empowerment and friendship over many years. Nick Baer, thank you for your wonderful kindness, genuine thoughtfulness, and shared enthusiasm for German Jewish culture. Tara Hottman, it was such a pleasure to be on this journey with you, thank you for your friendship and the many Prince dance parties. Rachel Friedman, this dissertation would be very different if not for our weekly lunches and conversations, thank you. Mandy Cohen, it is such a delight to have a friend and colleague as in love with Lasker-Schüler as I am, thank you for your encouragement and friendship. My dissertation sister, Melissa Winters, thank you for your companionship as we wrote many mornings away together. Erik Born—thank you for your enthusiasm, glee for knowledge, and unfailing encouragement. Ken Fockele—I couldn’t ask for a better colleague and friend, especially one who shares my undying love of literature for literature’s sake. Thank you for your countless hours proofreading and encouraging my progress. Beyond facilitating my initial stumble into Lasker-Schüler’s poetry, I am grateful to the UC Berkeley library and its interlibrary loan department for all the first editions and obscure books they found and occasionally purchased upon my request. My research would not have been possible without the astonishing advances in the digital humanities, ones that allowed me complete access to avant garde publications to download and search as easily as