Momentum dramaticum Festschrift für Eckehard Catholy edited by Linda Dietrick and David G. John University of Waterloo Press -- 1{/90 - Georg Büchner and Posteriti KATIIARINA MOMMSEN, Stanford University The sesquicentennial of Georg Büchner's death in February 1987 and of his 175th birthday in October 1988 were reminders of just how Iittle time was given to this genius, whose Iife is almost incomparable in its brevity, tempo and richness. Born in 1813 near Darmstadt as the son of a doctor, Büchner went to school in Darmstadt, and then, following a family tradition, studied medicine, first in Strasbourg (1831-33), and later in Giessen (1833-34). During his concluding studies in Giessen, he was drawn into revolutionary circles and secretly founded a "Gesell­ schaft für Menschenrechte." Along with a political comrade, he put out the pamphlet Der hessische Landbote, and afterwards lived in constant danger of being arrested for his seditious activities. In March 1835, Büchner escaped the threat of arrest by fleeing to Strasbourg. In the same year, his drama Dantons Tod appeared, which he had written in his father's laboratory just before his flight, hiding the manuscript under anatomical charts, while outside police patrols were keeping an eye on the house. As a political refugee in France with warrants out for his arrest, Büchner always had to worry about how to earn a living. Despite the jobs he had to take just to stay alive, such as translation work for a publisher, the nineteen months of his second stay in Strasbourg became the most productive period of his short life, with a multiplicity of activities that borders on the miraculous. In autumn of 1835 he wrote his study in psychopathology, Lenz, in which his own fears of persecution were reflected in the paranoia of the Storm and Stress genius Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. Büchner's ho pe for farne and his need to earn money led hirn in the early summer of 1836 to enter a contest to write the best German comedy. Though continually interrupted by other work and preparations for his professional career, his only comedy, Leonce und Lena, was completed - he had only been able to spend a couple of weeks writing it. But his hopes were shattered when it arrived at the publisher's two days late and was returned to hirn unopened. In keeping with the promise he had made to his parents, Büchner pursued his studies in medicine and the natural sciences, concentrating 402 KATI-lARINA MOMMSEN on comparative anatomy. His dissertation, written in French, on the nerve system of a certain species of fish aroused the attention of the . Strasbourg Society for the Natural Sciences. The young scholar was invited to present his thesis and was named a corresponding member of the society, wh ich also financed the publication of his treatise. This led to his being offered the chance for an academic career in Switzer­ land. Büchner was still deliberating as to whether he should become a zoologist, comparative anatomist or professor in philosophy, and even worked up lectures on Descartes and Spinoza. On his 23rd birthday Büchner went to Zürich. The next day he gave a lecture at the University of Zürich, "On the Nerves of the Skull," which so impressed the faculty that in November the young man was accredited as a lecturer and joined the teaching staff of the University. During the winter semester of 1836-37, he lectured as Privatdozent on comparative anatomy in fish and amphibians. At this time the drama Woyzeck was written and probably the lost cinquecento piece in honor of Pietro Aretino as well. In early February Büchner fell sick with typhus and died on Feb. 19, 1837. No more than twenty-three years and four months had been given to hirn. He had spent no more than one year in total working on his literary oeuvre of about 120 pages. That in such a short time Dantons Tod, Lenz, Leonce und Lena and Woyzeck could be created is almost unbelievable, plus the drama that was said to be his most daring and his best - Pietro Aretino. And a11 this along with his scientific and philosophical studies, the work he had to do just to earn a living, and the fateful political pamphlet, Der hessische Landbote, which forced hirn to flee abroad and cost his friend his freedom and his life. (Four days after Büchner's death, the co-author of Der hessische Landbote, Dr. Ludwig Weidig, slit his wrists and died after being imprisoned and tortured for almost two years.) "Wir sehen uns nie wieder," he prophesied as he took leave of his brother,2 two years before this sad premonition was realized. "Ich werde nicht alt werden," said the young man, who was still at the height of his powers, to his mother and sister as they visited hirn in exile.3 Büchner's presentiment of an early death appears in many forms in his work - mostly in connection with a feeling of suffering that had the whole world as its object. "Meine Füße gingen lieber aus der Zeit," says the young and beautiful Rosetta in Leonce und Lena whose song, as she sadly leaves the stage, sounds like a disguised confession of the young poet hirns elf: o meine müden Füße, ihr müßt tanzen In bunten Schuhen, Und möchtet lieber tief, <tief> Georg Büchner and Posterity 403 Im Boden ruhen.4 "Für müde Füße ist jeder Weg zu lang,"S sighs the young hero of the comedy as weIl. His road must appear to be too long, to be endless, for he sees no direction, no rest, no end, no goal before hirn. In similar fashion all of Büchner's young heroes carry the seed of their "sickness unto death" within themselves, often in the form of ennui as their way of suffering in the world. Despite all youth and vitality they remain un­ young, permeated by an autumnal feeling, a ripeness for death that inevitably results in doom and destruction. At the time of Büchner's death, even his dosest relatives had no idea of his importance as a writer.6 His fiancee, Wilhelmine JaegJe, daughter of a Strasbourg minister and three years older than Büchner, had so little understanding of his work that she, before her death at the age of seventy in 1880, not only burned all of Büchner's letters to her, which she had every right to do, but also destroyed aU of the outlines and notes that had been entrusted to her along with Büchner's diary, which was said to be full of brilliant insights.' The complete disap­ pearance of the piece on the eroticist Aretino is also blamed on Wilhelmine Jaegle.8 She gave as official reason for her refusal to turn the manuscripts over to an editor that she did not wish "etwas Unfertiges von Büchner der Kritik auszusetzen."9 This concern was probably above aU directed at the atheistic and obscene passages. Whatever the case may be, Peter Hacks in 1963 established a poetic memorial for her act of destruction, dubbing her "dies hassenwerteste Weib der neuern Zeit."l0 Not just the fiancee, but Büchner's family as weIl had no sense of his literary importance. One of the brothers, Alexander, was even a professor of German literature at a French university.u Yet one will never find in any of his publications any mention of Georg BüchnerY Alexander Büchner died in 1904, just as people were beginning to discover and stage the works of his brother. His blindness is even more amazing in that a colleague of his, Julian Schmidt, had favorably referred to Büchner in 1855 in his Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im 19. JahrhundertY Nevertheless, until the end of the century Julian Schmidt was the only literary historian to make favorable mention of Büchner; other histories of literature of the nineteenth century do not even mention his name.14 Büchner's sister Luise had literary talent as weIl. She wrote a roman a clel with the title Ein Dichter, but the poet is not her brother Georg, who only appears among the minor characters of the story in an episode from his school days. From Luise Büchner come as weIl two poems in a volume titled Frauenherz, published in 1860: "Am Grabe des 404 KATIlARINA MOMMSEN Bruders" and "Die Zürcher Glocken," in which Georg became a "Lebensstern" in heaven to guide her down the "Bahn zur Wahrheit."ls Luise's verses are less important than the poem written by her brother Wilhelm under the title "Erinnerung an meinen Bruder Georg." The figure of Büchner appears in the lines: "Geziert mit roter Jakobiner­ Mütze, / Im Polen-Rock, schritt stolz er durch die Straßen / Der Residenz [... J."16 His political sentiments are thus given expression, but one discovers nothing about Georg Büchner the poet. Another brot her, Ludwig, published in 1896 in the periodical Zukunft an essay titled "Georg Büchner, der Sozialist." Here again Büchner's political convictions are attested to by a dose relative. How little idea this brother had of Georg Büchner the poet was catastrophically revealed in 1850, when he discharged his task of publishing Büchner's post­ humous writings in a most hasty and amateurish fashion. 17 The chief COncern of the twenty-five-year-old doctor was smoothing out the texts. He did not shy away from leaving out, patching up and rounding out. This brotherly meddling is only partially explained by fear of the censor; most of the changes indicate a complete ignorance of poetic expression and show above all a tendency accommodate accepted stylistic norms at all costs.