The Monstrous World and its Shadow: the Grotesque Aesthetic and the Apocolyptic in Gerrnan Exprtssionist Drama and Film

Rebecca Virginia Harries

A thesis subrnitted in conforrnity with the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. Graduate Department of Drama University of Toronto

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in German Ex~ressionktDrama and Film. Ph.D., 2000. Rebecca Virginia Harries.

Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama, University of Toronto.

German Expressionist drama and film has inspired a considerable body of critical

literature, most of which concentrates on either the role Expressionist art played in the

evolution of the European avant-gwde or the ability of Expressionist film to embody

the anxieties of the historical subject. Although the spiritual basis for much of

Expressionist drama has been acknowledged, few criticai works concentrate on this

crucial aspect of the style in question. Yet a strain of expressionist drama and film

clearly shows evidence of an apocalyptic tradition of representation, which can properiy be terrned grotesque.

The grotesque is an aesthetic category that describes the contamination of culturally sacrosanct boundaries. As such, it has psychological, historical and, indeed, metaphysical ramifications. In this respect. it is the natural language of the millenarian sensibility, in its rejection of a rationally cornprehensible world. This apocaiyptic strain of the grotesque can be found in the works of hitherto under- represented playwrights, August Stramm, Oskar Kokoschka and Ernst Barlach, and in the fantastic films, The Student of Prame, The Cabinet of Dr. Calinari and Nosferatu.

The forma1 features of these setected te- that best reveal their membership within a grotesque and apocatyptic tradition include the rupture of linear time and finite, measurable space and the motif of psychic dissolution, the rejection of any psychological definition of personality. These works aiso show the apocaiyptic in their prescntation of violence and death as the necessary agents of change, in an understanding of the world as fallen, a place of corruption and decay, and in the presence of mysterious signs that only the elect few can inttrpret. In conclusion,

Monstrous World does not offer a rejection of existing criticism of Expressionist film and drama, but a revision of the traditions in which these works are typically located.

By understanding the expressions of t his heterodox spirituaiity, t hese 0thconfbsing works cari bc acknowledged for the grotesque power they share.

iii Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction

Introduction A Brief Histoy of the Grotesque The Context of Gennan Expressionism Principles of the Grotesque in Gennan Expressionism Endnotes

Chaptcr Two: August Strrimm

Selection of Dramas Stramm: the Enigmatic Btïrger Stramrn and the Alien Desire Apocalytic Time and Space in Awakening and .Forces The Uncertain Pronoun Awakening and the Annihilation of Self Forces and the Grotesque Woman Conclusion Endnotes

Chapter Th*: Oskir Kokoschka

Oskar Kokoschka's Spectacle of the Grotesque World Kokoschka: Influences and Critics On the Nature of Theatncal Vision(s) Murderer. Ho~eof Womankind: Criticism and Interpretation Sphinx and Strawman and Job: Cnticism and Interpretation Oroheus and Eurvdice: Criticism and Interpretation Conclusion Endnotes Cbaptcr Four: Ernst Barlach

Barlach's Drama: the God of Flame and Abyss B iography Synopsis of The Flood Synopsis of The Blue Bol1 The Depiction of God The Grotesque of the Four Elernents The Sacred Word Grotesque Rramaturgy in Barlach's Drama The Food of Sacrifice Conclusion Endnotes

Chapter Five: The Student of Pmrue

The Cinematic Grotesque and the 'Fantastic' Films of Early Gennan Cinema 155 The Uncanny Medium 161 The Student of Prame (191 3): Nature and the Double 168 Formal Problems in The Student of Prame 171 Two Attractions: Lydu schka and the Shadow 177 Endnotes 180

Chapter Six: The Cabinet of Dr. Calirari

Introduction The Cabinet of Dr. Cali~ari:Institution and Apparatus Critical Approaches to Calkari The Problern of the Frame Janowitz's Double, the Stone Bismark Conclusion Endnotts Chiptcr Sevee: Nodecitu: Svmohanv of Rorror

Nosf-: the Repressd Death and the Avenging Shadow The Persecuted Dead Formal Problems in Nosferatu Nina and Nosferatu: Femininity and the Undead Conclusion Endnotes

Chapter Eight: Conelusion

Bibliognpby Cbrpter One

introduction

The link between German Expressionism and the grotesque has been identifieci before,

tentatively. Sometimes, the adjective grotesque is applied casually to describe the elements

and eflects of Expressionism: one speaks of "grotesque dialogue" or "grotesque passions";

rare1y is anything as formal as a "grotesque aesthetic" spoken of. The common use of the

word grotesque is as a descriptive term for something that is distorted or exaggerated. The

psychological and subversive capacities of the grotesque are rarely elaborated in the literature

on Expressionism; although most critics would agree that there is something grotesque about

the Expressionist arts, they just do not explain precisely what.

Zn recent scholarship, interest in the grotesque has grown. The two works which provide

the foundation of much conternporary grotesque theory, Mikhaii Bakhtin's theory of the

carnival, Rabelais and His World, and Wol fgang Kayser's seminal study of grotesque theory,

The Grotesaue in Art and Literature have been applied to all media, but especially to film

and literature.' Grotesque theory is used in discussions of a vast divenity of phenomena:

fiom prehistonc uive paintings, Jacobean drama, the work of Aubrey Beardsley and James

Joyce and the Alien film series." It is ciear that not al1 of the aforementioned artistic

productions share the same grotesque, but it is also tme that there is a commonaiity between

al1 of them: it is within this wmmonality that 1 wish to situate the work of the German

Expressionists in both film and drama.

Before proceeding to a discussion of what 1 will cal1 the Expressionist grotesque, 1 wish to examine briefly a few examples of how the grotesque and Expressionism have been

previously linked. Then, I will briefly and in no way comprehensively, disais the evolution

1 of the word grotesque and its significance within the history of eesthetics. With this cunory

understanding of the object in question, the essay will move on to identi& the special nature

of the incarnation of the grotesque in German Expressionist film and drama.

In introducing the Expressionist grotesque, 1 wî Il identify severai kinds of grotesque

practice of particular importance to the Expressionist movemcnt. My definition of this aesthetic draws on two different approaches to the grotesque, which 1 will label, somewhat cmdely, the psychological and the sociological. Of course, the cross-pollination of these two fields in recent scholarship is one of the most significant developments in contemporary thought. 1 am indebted critically and spiritually to many writers on the grotesque and 1 will introduce them as the occasion arises.

In the literature on German Expressionism. there are a few speculations on the grotesque characteristics of the movement. J. M. Ritchie in his introduction to Seven Exbressionist

Plavs says that Expressionist theatre is "as deeply serious as it is grotesquely funny" (7).

Walter Sokel writes of Expressionist drama: "there are in these plays elernents of distortion, exaggeration, grotesqueness and implausibility that clearIy anticipate the alienating effects encountered in the avant-garde theatre of our own time" (1 xii). He tùrther characterises

Expressionist drama as "cheap banality standing next to grotesque powei' (xxxi). Ulrich

WeiBtein mentions the advantages of an application of Kayser's ideas:

Perhaps the expressionist distortions are more closely related to the grotesque which, in Wolfgang Kayser's opinion, reveals a rift between the nominal and the phenomenal world, and which shows man to be il1 at ease in the presence of events and situations eluding his grasp. just as Worringer daims primitive man to have been in the face of a temeing, anonymous and insautable nature. (23)

Some of the Expressionist mias recognised this kinship with the grotesque. Yvan Ooll's essay "DasÜber&ama", wrinen in 19 19 st the height of the Expressionist literary movement, argues that tme art should possess a grotesqumess that does no< cause Isughter:

"Art is meant to tum a person into a child again. The simplest way to achievc tks goal is

through the use of the grotesque, but only when it does not incite laughter" (E@ressioniswmsL

Mantfesie und Dokumente 7 12). Goll does not go into great detail about what he means by

grotesque methods. He -es that they should be capable of terriQing the "ordiniary man" and that they must include both enormity and abnormality in order to overcome the immense

stupidity and monotony of mankind.

Recently, there has been a growhg scholarly interest in employing grotesque theory to fbrther understand the Expressionist movement. Sandigls Deutsche Dramaturpie des

Gmtesken um die Jahrhrmdertwende begins with Kayser, works back through a brief history of the grotesque, looks at such "forerunners" as Lenz, Grabbe and--in pater detail-

Büchner, and concludes with discussions of early Expressionist or, in most cases, proto-

Expressionist drama. Significantly his discussion is focused on the work of two drarnatists who specialise in satire: Wedekind and Sternheim. The association of the grotesque with satire and black comedy is a close one. The playwright uses the grotesque weapons of distonion and exaggeration as a scalpel to reveal the social ills and absurdities. His aims are simi lar to those of nahiralism; the tools, however, are different. The satirJgrotesque connection is not a new one. Stemheim and Wedekind are the two writers most fiequently described as grotesque. Julius Bab, already in 19 17, wmte that Steniheim's plays are the expression of a sensibility "that perceives and presents the intellectual person merely as a ..- fantastic Puppet and that, therefore, always finds itself on the border of the grotesque.""'

The rnetaphysical or noumenal aspect of the grotesque, familiar to Romantic criticism and reinterpreted by Kayser, is less often discussed in connection with drama. H. R. Winfned

3 Pathé's 1990 study, Dar Gmteske in den Dmmen Emsi Barlochs touches on the reiigious

aspects of the grotesque it is stili, however, primaril y i nfluenced by the worlc of Sandig and

the grotesqu&l&k humour tradition. In dramatic criticism, the grotesque is oAm

synonymous with tragicomedy, a term applied to playwrights as different as Hugo and

~ürrenrnat.~"

Perhaps the rtason that thcre are not more explorations of the grotesque element in the

German Expressionist movement than there are is that great dificulties exist in defining both these fields. For critics of an and literature. Geman Expressionism is an elusive movement.

Its rightto exist as a usetiil term of classification has been challenged. Indiqxï, it is a difficult task to define a movement which sought strenuously to define and redefine itself, a movement that gluttonously cannibalised so many other movements and styles, both ancient and modem. Many studies have been devoted primarily to understanding what

~x~ressionismis and what is an Expressionist.

The Expressionists themselves were too occupied with the novelty of their revolt, its strangeness, to concem themselves much with its antecedents in art history. At most, they would daim allegiance with the an of supposedly "primitive" cultures. Individual artists wiii admit to their influences: Kokoschka acknowledges his debt to both Grünewald and Dürer,

Barlach praises the Gothic fonn. However, there is no theoretical discussion of the grotesque. The Expressionists lived in a time of multiple artistic revolutions, each staking its daim for greater artistic authenticity. Authenticity, to the Expressionists, impiied novelty, a clean break fiom the compt past. These arîists aspired to fiIl what they considered to be a cultural vacuum. Rudolf Kayser writes of the new style: The new drarna wuld begin oniy recently because the preceding century livd by conventions and routines and had neither the impulse nor the courage for creation. Without an intellectual tradition, it had no centre fiom which a style coufd have O rigi nated. (bressionismus. Manifeste und Dokumente, 46 1)

The saion style, which characteriseci nineteenth-century German art, seemed hopelessty staid

to the new generation of artists. Impressionism setmcd to be tao concemed with the material

world, too unspiritual. Expressionism did not want to be associated too closely with the

more popular artistic movernents of its tirne. The word "grotesque", commoniy used in the

romantic vocabulary, was perhaps not unf'amiliar enough to interest the Expressionists as

much as may be supposed by the appearance of grotesque motifs in much of their art.

It is understandable, perhaps, that in this scenario, the tantaiising theoretical potentials of

the grotesque are often overiooked. For the grotesque itself is also a subject of lively

academic debate. Why a work is perceived to be grotesque and whether such a chimerical

thing as a "grotesque aesthetic" can exist are both dinicult questions. These are the problems

inherent in attmpting to define an aesthetic that histoncally has been defined as marginal.

even blasphemous and heretical. The early discussions of the grotesque, therefore, are either

framed as a denunciation of an aberrant style, something insidiously evil or the analysis of a

mere curiosity, not to be takea seriousiy. This marginal status of the grotesque shows a

kinship to the German Expressionist movernent, which at its inception and notably a~erwas

called a decadent and a degenerate movement, its artists reviled as mad and perverted.'

Consequently, in approaching the history and theory of the grotesque, one is dealing with a

suppressed history without a well-formulated aesthetics. îhe problem is somewhat different in the case of Expressionism, a movement that probably produced more manifestos. jk year than any other artistic movement. The problem of examining the grotesque aesthetic in German Expressionist drama and film is compounded by the fact that most existing grotesque theory is primarily devoted to an and architecture. Theones of grotesque dmdo exist: fiom Victor Hugo's famous "Preface to Cromwell" to the self-styled grotesque drama of Pirandello and D'Annunzio; these theories. however, are less comprehensive than the work done on the visual arts. Does this fact signify that the grotesque is primarily a visual medium? This is a knotty problem and 1 believe the answer for the twentieth century is

"yes", if only because vision is the most codifieci of the senses, the one with which we are perhaps quicker to perceive an aberration or an oddity, a fault in the system. As early as

179 1, Joha~Fiorillo described the grotesque as the "response of the eye" (cited in Burwick

67). Langage, however, is also a rich source of the grotesque because it is, intrinsically, a highly structured system of meaning. There ais0 are "grotesque" musical pieces, ones that employ unexpected di stortion, dissonance, and debasement wit hin an othenuise "normal" stmcture.

My interest in analysing the grotesque in German Expressionist film and drama developed fkom the idea that the marginalized theory and the reviled art and literary movement together would alchemically create something whole. Mer several attempts, 1 diswvered that, by its very nature, the grotesque always operates in a cultural1y and ideologicall y speci fic manner.

Thus, a large part of the problem in elucidating a German Expressionist grotesque was the controveny and confusion over what Expressionism addresses ideologically and what its place is In the histones of culture and aesthetics. It is absolutely necessary to understand both the ability of the grotesque to incarnate itself in various ways and the commonality shared b; ail of the& historically specific permutations of the grotesque-what it means when one describes sornething is grotesque-before proceeding to discuu it in terms of German

Expressionism. - Although one can find examples of grotesque art in almost every period in the history of western a* certain penods came to be most closely identified with it.' Kayser identifies three of these penods: the transition tiom the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, the romantic period at the end of the eighteenth century, and the developrnent of modem m at the a beginning of the twentieth century. To this list, we cuuld add the first and second centuries of the Roman Empire.

A Britf History of the Grotesque

The word grotesque is generally acknowledged to have originated in Itaiy during the late fifieenth century. The terni grotesque was first coined as the result of a misconception. The discovery of Nero's enormous palace, the Domus Aurea, was one of the most exciting events of the 1480s. Artists rushed to see the barely uncovered, beautifMy preserved remnants of antiquity, risking their lives by descending into the earth to gaze by lamplight on the delicate fiescoes of the alleged pleasure dorne of the insane emperor. The Domus Aurea was assumed, erroneously, to have been an immense cavern under the earth rather than a fiee standing ~tnicture.~'- The terni grotesque is based on the Latin word for cave, "ptto." Grotesque art signifies, IiteraI l y, cave art. -So, the .word grotesque was coined to describe some of the marginal decorations of these misrecognised "~averns.~These decorations were of a very specific nature: they were gracefùl illustrations, occupying the margins of fiescoes; they were, however, so arresting as to overpower the more conventional rnyth~logial subjects in the central panel. These marginal decorations fieely wmbined architectural, vegetable, human and animal forms in a fice, highly styliseci manner. IInc combinations went against a11 Renaissance notions of harmony and nature.

Such combinations were not entirely unknown in the fifieenth century: medieval Europe

is rich in similarly fantastic gargoyies, manuscript illuminations and church carvings. What astonished the Renaissance sensibil ity, however, was the revelation that such stylistic

aberrations had existed in classical antiquity. The fifieenth-century view of antique art was one of harmony and beauty. The sculpture and arkhitecture of Greece and morc importantly,

Rome were upheld as ideals to emulate. There was no room for monsters, for grotesques in

.*- this view of antiquity; yet the monsters were there. albeit marginal and charming.""

The emergence of the grotesque in the Renaissance reopened an aesthetic conflict that had flared up periodically since antiquity. The conflict is irreconcilable because the grotesque presents a unique aesthetic problem: it is a defiant challenge for representational art but can never be contiised with abstract art. Like a walking spirit that cannot live in heaven or on earth, it lives in two worlds or no world. The appearance of the grotesque signais that there is something beyond or beneath the ordinary recognisable world. but, in order to Se miiy grotesque, art does not detach itself completely fiom the ordinary worId. The individual elements of the grotesques in the Domus Aurea are al1 taken hmnature o&om classicai architecture; however, they are put together in such a way that we are wamed that the laws of nature do not apply here. Thus, the omaments belong neither to the natural world nor to the supernatural world. This provisional transcendence of nature led the grotesque style to be sometirnes called the sogni dolpittori (the dreams of painters). ïhe grotesque also resists being confin.& to the category of pure omamentation, although in the Renaissance world it was constrained to this fùnction. It is art; but it is not quite m. Much has been made . historically of the sinister power of fascination that grotesque art exerts over its viewers.

Often, it was observed that a grotesque marginal illustration was so interesfing that it provideci competition for the central attraction. This observation upsets the belief thrt it is the beautiful and ideal alone that can command our attention. The grotesque is not ba@fiil; it can even be repeilent; it has, however, the powa to fascinate. This characteristic of the grotesque seemed to its detractors (and even to some of its adherents) to aUy it with the powers ofevil.' Renaissance critics of art and architecture, like Vasari, wcre fond of rcciting the early assailants of the grotesque such as Vitruvius who as eariy as 27 B. C. denound such unnatural decorations in De Architectura:"

On the stucco are moiisters rather than definite representations taken fkom definite things ... Candelabra uphold pictured shrines and above the summits of these, clusters of - thin stalks rise fiom their roots in tendrils with little figures seated upon-them at random. Again slender stalks with heads of men and animals attached to half the body. Such things neither are, nor can bel nor have been. On these lines the new fashions compel bad judges to condemn good crafrrmznship for dullness. For how can a reed actually sustain a roof or a candelabra the omaments of a gable, or a saft and slender stalk a seated statue, or how can flowers and half-statues rise alternatively fiom roots and stalks? Yet when people view these falsehoods they approve rather than condemn. (105)

Horace similarly chastises the grotesque in the famous opening image of the Ars Poetica.

"Suppose a painter wished to couple a horse's neck with a man's head and to lay feathers of every hue on limbs gathered here and there, or that a wornan, lovily above, foully ended in an ugly fish below; would you restrain your laughter my friends if admitted to a private view" (9)? The sedunive power of the grotesque is such that it is tempting to see Horace as more fascinated than disgusted with what he is denouncing. His beautifùlly expressed image makes an effective beginning for the Ars Poetica precisely because of the mysterious and stimulating character of the grotesque image. It prompts us to read hirther, to look deeper and resolve the mystev.

9 The Middle Ages developed their own strain of the grotesque independently fiom classical influences. The fantastic dngsand illuminations of the Middle Ages show a great artistic fiedom on the part of their creators. The monsters perhaps have their origins in the pre-Christian religions and folk traditions of northern Europe. They exist, more or less comfortably, alongside images of the sacred. Gargoyles present the same mystery as the monsters in the first paragraph of Horace. How does one explain their existence?

Sornetimes. the rnonsten are fiankly diabolic-depi&ons of Heil. the Day of Judgement, and the temptations of saints were obvious candidates for grotesque treatment-but often, the rnonsters are there without obvious reason. They might provide refieshment for the eye, tired of looking at sacred &d portentous subjects; they might contain some unknown allegorical significance; or they might be holdover pagan guardians who have found their place alongside the Madonnas. They rnight simply be the inspiration of craftsrnen not content to create a simple waterspout. There is no way of being sure. Certainly, their power of fascination is great. Bernard of Clairvaux echoes Vitruvius in his cornplaint about a certain style of ornament in the tweffih century:

But in the cloister, in the sight of the reading monks. what is the point of such ridiculous monstrosity, the strange kind of shapeiy shapelessness? why.these unsightly monkeys, why these fierce lions, why the monstrous centaurs, why semi-humans, why spotted tigers, why fighting soldiers, why tnrmpeting huntsrnen? You can see maqy bodies under one head, and then again one body with many heads, here you see a quadruped with a serpent's tail, here a fish with the head of a quadruped. Here is a beast which is a horse in front but drags half a goat behind, here a homed animal hm the hindquarters of a hom. In short there is such a variety and such a diversity of strange shapes everywhere.thatwe may prefer to read the marbles rather than the books. (Holt 20)

Like Horace, Bernard of Clairvaux unwittingly pays trihute to the power of the grotesque. its unparalleleci ability to fascinate the eye and the mind. It is easy to see how he linked such a power with other unwholesome moral influences, especially when one remembers the war against idolatry fought by early Christians. Bernard was not alone; othas took up the struggle against the monarous, ridiculous, and frequently obsçcne style."

None of the opposition to the grotesque, neither dunng the Middle Ages nor at the beginning of the first rnille~ium,met with much success. The grotesque had reached great popularity in both Horace's and Bernard's ages; similarly, the detractors of the rediscovered style achieved little success during the Renaissance. At this time and until the end of the eighteenth century, however. the grotesque was thought of exclusively as a marginal styie, - charming as an ornament, but not suitable as a central subject. The Domus Aurea fiescoes were upheld as the aesthetic model. Michelangelo. expetimenting with th; grotesque, - . surnrnarises the view that such fantasy is suitable oniy as an ornament:

One may rightly decorate better when one places in painting some monstrosity (for the diversion and relaxation of the sense and the attention of mortal eyes, which'at times desire to see what they have never seen before or what appears to them just cannot be) rather than the customary figures of men and animals however admirable these may be. (Harpham 33)

Later arguments would repeat this sentiment. Although sometimes the neo-classicisi would seem to be overly responsive to the seductions of harmiess monstrosities: like Goethe in his mist it led essay, VON Arabesken, effising o.ver Raphael's famous decorations of the papal

After a period of inactivity, interest in the grotesque reappears at the end of the eighteenth ... century."" The grotesque, between the Renaissance and this period, was primarily . understood as either an outrnoded ornamental style or as characteristic of satitic wmedy and caricature. Three essays were published between 1788 and 1790 that discussed the relative values of the grotesque as an ornamental style."" Flogel's "Geschichte &s Grotesk-

Komischen" and Moser's essay on Harlequin reinforad the prevailïng view of the grotesque as a special mode of comedy . There was, evidently, no shortage of interest in the topic, but the di~nissionstended to be exceedingly conservative. in rccordark with Vasari's nco- classical dictates.

The grotesque found a champion in Johann Dorninic Fionllo who began teaching at

Gottingen in 178 1 and numbered Ludwig Tieck and Wilhelm Wackenroder among his pupikm August Schlegel also attended his lectures; Friedrich Schlegel corresponded with

Fiorillo: clearly, he was at the centre of contemporary discussions in aesthetics. Fiorillo advanced his own thcory of the grotesque in 1797 with the publication of mer die Grotesk.

The grotesque, for Fiorillo, should not serve'a merely ornamental or comic finction: "For

Fiorillo, the grdesque derives from fantasi in defiance of niles" (Bunuick 64). Fiorillo advanced the theory that the grotesque was the most extreme expression of the 6ee play of the creative imagination, a concept that his pupils Tieck and Wackenroder would pay tnbute to in their collection of essays, Herzenser~~eBun~eneines kunstliebenderi KIosierbm&rs,

(Effisions of an Art-loving Friar). .

Friedrich Schlegel was certainly acquainted with Fiorillo's ideas on the grotesque. .

Schlegel expands the definition of the grotesque; it occupies a key position in his literary hermeneutics. Schlegel identifies the grotesque as "Bildemitz"(picturesQue wit.) He adopts

Fiorillo's sense of play for his definition, but he specifies that the grotesque is a deliberate play with the findamental incompatibility between form and content. Thus, the grotesque, for Schlegel, partakes of the universal for it "depends upon the capacity to perceive as well as express the incungmous images of man's inner and outer being" (88). In other words.

Schlegel identifies the grotesque as being a function of superior perception. This is an important distinction because it distinguisks the power of perceiving the grotesque from the

12 unconscious state of being grotesque. Something can be grotesque involuntarily, or the superior perception of an srtist such as Shakespeare can create, of his own volition, ik thai is grotesque. tn so doing, the artist calls attention to the Platonic division between the reaim of ideas and the world of matter. It is. therefore, the essential attnbute of genius to be able to recognise the grotesque; however. artistic genius is never in itself grotesque; in giving expression to the grotesque, genius transcends the degradation of the world. In contnrst to this exemplary state, acwrding to Schlegel, certain disci piines are rle fwto grotesque because they -are unable to recognise the grotesque: the law. mathematics, and theology.* The grotesque has &mahing of the nature of the tautological; the ability to recognise the grotesque is akin to the ability to transcend a closed systern.

For Schlegel everyone can iecognise themselves in the grotesque: "Ali humans are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque. simply because they are human, and anins Ge, in this respect, doubly human" (82). Histoncal epochs and events can ahbe grotesque: Schlegel recognises the French ~evolutionas the greatest of al1 grotesques. "The most tenible grotesque of the age, where the most deep-s&ted prejudices and their brutal expressions, combined into horrible chaos, are woven into a monstrous and surpassingly bizarre tragicomedy for mankind" (79). In faa, as Bunvick points out, for Schlegel "the revolutionary moment in history is always grotesque for the very conditions of upheavai and change invoive a fitting of old forms to new matters. and vice versa" (87).

This "tragicomic" aspect is echoed in Victor Hugo's "Preface to Cromwellw.For Hugo,

Shakespeare's plays were the most perfect exarnple of the grotesque because they freely mixed the cornic and the tragic, the beautifid aid the ugly. Hugo's "Preface". however, lacks the rigour of Schlegelts theory. For Hugo, the sublime and the grotesque may be juxtaposeci

13 but t hey are never fiised or mingled. There is no deformation or estrangement of the world.

There is no confùsion as to what is beautifhl and ugly. Hugo presentsm essentially stable structure of perception, rather than the more unsettling model of Schlegel where the grotesque is located in the insuperable division between form and content and the tmly beautifbl is not representable.-i

Schlegel, udike his predecessors. grobnds his ideas about the grotesque in the problem of perception. It is only by attaining a higher level of consciousness that we are able to perceive the grotesque in the world. The more grossly material we are, the more what is grotesque looks natural to us. This fine of argument approaches the Platonic idea that the divine is inherently non-representable except by travesty. Thus, a painting of a scene fiom a play which is an imitation of an action which is an imitation of a divine fonn is more degradeci than the play itself which, in turn, is more degriided than the action, and so on. So by this

Iine of argument, paradoxically. the closer one is to the spiritual tnith, the more grotesques one sees. This new view of the grotesque is consistent with the rornantics' interest in consciousness and perception and in the exceptional individual. Romantic heroes are cynics because they are operating on a higher level of consciousness and are able to perceive the grotesquerie of the world that is invisible to their unenlightened fellows. Thus, one could understand Jaques hmAs You Like It to be a grotesque character, although he is certainly a very different kind of grotesque frorn. say, Pantalone. From this kind of romantic argument, we can see that a stronger link between the problem of the grotesque and that of consciousness is being formed.

As a result of the belief in this kind of grotesque consciousness, a new interest in the presence of the grotesque in drama arises. The theme of the manger, the being who does not

14 fit into the worid of the community, is central to the romantic ethos. It is important to redise that there is nothing "wrong" with this chacter-quite the wntrary. He is out of place because there is something wong with the world. This is the cnicial difference between the romantic hero of the early nineteenth century and the Expressionist hero of the early twentieth. We see in Schlegel's theory of the grotesque, the beginning of the Expressionist condition. The individual is not reaily at conflict with the world (as it may appear), because the world an4 the individual have so contaminateci one another that the faults of each cannot be separated nom the otherMii

In the nineteenth century, Ruskin continued the interest in examining the grotesque as a psychological and social phenornenon. Whereas Schlegel was interested in the act of perception, Ruskin concemed himself with the social and psychological causes of the grotesque. In his immense study of Venetian Medieval and Renaissance art, The Stones of

Venice, he uses the chapter on the grotesque Renaissance to polemicise against the consequences of "insolent at heism. " In descri bing the grotesque elements, he declares that

"they are evidences of a delight in the contemplation of bestial vice. and the expression of low sarcasm, which is, 1 believe, the most hopeless state into which a human mind can fall"

(1 2 1). Nevertheless, Ruskin presents a cornplex taxonomy of the various types of grotesques. After determining that the grotesque always partakes of the ludicrous and the fearfùi, Ruskin divides the grotesque into categories according to the "two conditions of the mind which it seems to combine" (139). Ruskin's classifications are too lengthy to be dealt with fully here, but the basic division is between the "true grotesque" being the "expression of the repose or play of a senous mind" and the "faise grotesque... which is the result of the full exertion of a fiivolous one" (143). Both kinds of grotesque, however, arise fkom the

15 same source: "the mind plays with terror" (140). For Ruskin, this temr is the terror of death.

Msis why a noble nature will only play with the terrible in a staie of 'apathy." The terrible

wiii insinuate itself, inadvertently, into the work of art. The fiivofous nature plays with what

should inspire awe because it is twfnvoious and cynicai to know better- Thus, faIse

grotesque is lacking in the three qualities Ruskin calls "Homor" "Nature" and "Mercy"

because it doesn't unaerstand the true seriousness of what it is playing with. Ruskin reflects

the fascination of the nineteenth century with the psychology of the individual, esptcially

with the analysis of the pathological or depraved psyche. The nascent twentieth century

inherited this interest, bringing to it the new languages of Freud, Darwin and Nietzsche.

In current scholarly discussions of the grotesque, arguments tend to show allegiance to one

of two sides; although within these trends, there is a great deal of disagreement, contradiction

and interpenetration. On the one hand, there are the phenomenological explanations of the

grotesque, informeci principally by psychology and hermeneutics; on the other, there are the

"sociological" studies of the grotesque, which seek to situate the grotesque within a specific

socio-cultural and historical context.

As I have already suggested, Schlegel was the first to attempt a phenomenological analysis

of the grotesque. Ruskin introduced the idea of "playing with terror", recalling that the da grotesque had a sinister aspect as well as a paradoxical one. It is not surprising that Freud,

who used art and literature as the basis for many of his essays, addressed the problem of the grotesque in his provocative essay "Da.Unheimiiche." Freud, using a story by E. T. A.

Hoffmann, demonstrated that the feeling of "uncanniness" has its origins in the return of a primitive animistic consciousness and in infantile repression. The influence of both Schlegel and Freud is evideht in mon modem "phenornenologid" approaches to the grotesque. Kayser's cludc analysis, The Grotesaue in Art and Litcrature

(supported by the twin pi llars of Freudian t heoty-repression and the unconscious) fases on the ominous threat of insanity the grotesque presents to the conscious mind. Thus, an attraction or sensitivity to the grotesque can be seen as the oprotion of a defective consciousness. Perhaps this is why both Freud and Kayser feel the need to distance thernselves from and express a sort of distaste for their chosen nibja. Freud statcs that the sensation of the uncanny is an important and interesting phenornenon, but that he, personaily, is hardly ever prey to it. Kayser writes in his introdktion: "My prolongeci concern with the grotesque must not be taken as a sign of wholehearted enthusiasm for the subject" (10).

According to these psychological interpretations, the grotesque is the expenence of an rissault by the sinister forces of insanity upon the fortress of the consciousness. It is an attack that can be ptayfui and seductive or gruesome and terrible, but is always essentialty negative in character.

In the latta half of the twentieth century, the "insane" insights of the grotesque are viewed in a more positive light. Harpharn describes the grotesque as "the margin of consciousness. calling into question the adequacy of our ways of organising the world." Harpham is, of course, working with the benetit of post-structurali st insights. He recognises the crucial role of Ianguage in the construction of the human subject and notes that as an adjective the word

"grotesque" has no value and that as a noun it exists only as a collision of other nouns; it has no synonym."

The moa imponant example of the sociological approach to the grotesque is Bakhtin's extremely influential work, Rabelais and His World. Bakhtin situatu the grotesque as a

17 positive, cultudfy subversive (as opposai to psychologically destructive) phenomenon. The

grotesque, for Bakhtin, is carnival. a time for oveduowing official discourses, and a jubilant

celebration of the body's regenerative power: "Degradation digs a bodily grave for the new birth." and "It is the hitfirl earth and thé womb" (21). Bakhtin celebrates body's power to subven repressive dominant ideology. The culture and expression of carnival, he argues, grows in power during periods of revolution, times when established beiiefs are king challenged. Bakhtin is not interested in the psychological implications of the grotesque, he is interested in discussing a cultural phenomenon. The carnival is not dreadftl here, its laughter is heaithy, life-giving. It is the resurgence of al1 that is excluded in official life. No clearer evidence of the gulf between Kayser and Bakhtin can be found than in their attitudes towards

Rabelais. Whereas Kayser found something horrible and degrading in Rabelais' mockery,

Bakhtin saw in Rabelais the folk tradition of carnival and a renewal through the destruction of officiai discourse: "No dogrna, no authoritarianism. no namow-minded seriousness can coexist with Rabelaisian images" (3).

In her brilliant analysis of the grotesque in the work of Aubrey Beardsley, Salome and Judas in the Cave of Sex, Ewa Kuryluk extends the Bakhtinian way of looking at the grotesque.

Kuryluk asserts what' others have ignored or only implied-the comection of the grotesque, which is, aAer dl, the aesthetic of the grotto, the cave. to the ferninine, the carnal, the primitive and the non-Christian or ami-Christian. She makes the point that often another culture is perceived as grotesque simply because they do not meet our expectations of norrnality:

What might have been perceived fiom the European point of view as a distorting and fantastic effect need not have been considered upsetting or ndiculous in the culture of its origin. There it could have been the nom: a perfectly familiar way of seeing and expressing the world. (4)

In contemporary studies of the grotesque, like Kuryluk's. BuNvick's, and-to a lesser extent-

McElroyts, there has been an anempt to integate the insights of the psychologi& and the

socio-culairai. This development parallels the expansion of the use of psychoanaiytic studies

to e~chother di~ci~lines.~Still the split between the psychological and the social reasserts

itself, perhaps necessarily; most studies show more aHegiance to one side or the other.

It is interesting that within two such different approaches, there is a striking conimonality

of what is considered grotesque. The grotesque, in both cases, is considered sthe

resurgence, the intrusion of what is excluded. It is either the contamination of what is

normal, healthy and pure by what is abnomal, sick, and impure or the subversion of the official, the serious and intellectual by the life of the body, the ridiculous and unofficial. By this definition, the importance of the idea of the unconscious, of dreams, of chiidhood, and of psychotic experience is obvious. The traditional Freudian analysis could, under this definition partake of the grotesque. 'The psychological approach has the difficulty of making the grotesque into an ahistoric. awful. and unspedtable event. It situates the grotesque in the realm of absolute othemess. Thomas Mann writes that the grotesque is "properly something more than the tmth, something real in the extreme. not something arbitrary, false, absurd and contrary to reality." The grotesque, like the traditional view of the unconscious, is outside history. It is often linked to one of two earthly paradises: the repressed infantile experience and the mythic consciousness. Altematively. the grotesque is experienced, paranoically, as being a hostile other world. Burwick suggests the paranoid reaction to the grotesque when he mentions "Kayser's description of the grotesque world as alien and absurd, inexplicable in its

19 causation and malicious in its intents" (If). Leslie Fiedler also suggests the ambivalence

engendered by encounters with the grotesque in his insightful Freaks: Im-s Of the Se& wf. "The true Freak. ..stus both supematural temr and human empathy, since unlike the

fabuious monsters, he is one of us, the human child of human parents, however altered by

forces we do not quite understand into something mythic and mystenous as no cripple

ever is" (24).

Both approaches share o tendeky to reify the idea of a los prc-historicai pardise.

Bakhtin's vision of the mival is fkankly utop& he links it with sacred mother earth?

Harpharn introduces prehistonc cave art into his discussion of the grotesque (or grotto- esque.) He argues that such art could be evidence of an ur-mythic imagination, such as hng believed in. Harpharn adopts the anthropologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl's theory of the "Iaw of participation. " Harpham writes:

But the law of participation is one of those resilient ideas which having been superseded or discredited in its own field-even its own author tumed against it-continues to bc valuable to others. Reconceived as the law of infinite metaphor, by which everything is potentially identical with everything else, it illuminates al1 of mythic thought, and thus the sources of our response to the grotesque. Aristotelian logic proceeds according to classifications that seek in the object itself its essential nature: each tomato realizes the idea of Tomato, and no other idea. Such an approach is directly opposed to mythic thought.. .(52)

Harpham's construction of mythic thought, the "law of infinite metaphor" as opposed to the regime of logic, is another version of the grotesque as the lost language of an anti-rational

Eden, with Aristotle cast as the snake. Thus, we are once again confronted with the spectre of either a threatening alien world or a lost paradise. As sympathetic and as seducthe as these lost paradises may be, it is essential to remember that the grotesque is an mistic phenornenon, prominent at certain times and places. Using Bakhtin's example of Rabelais, we can hypothesise that the grotesque occurs in "between" times, namely, times when a

dominant ideology exists, but is not adequately in control (is emergent or fding) and

subsequently subject to aîtack from what is neeessarily excluded.- The specid nature of

the crisis in belief will detennine how the grotesque will manifest itself, as the use of the

grotesque in Gerrnan Expressionism demonstrates.

A Working Definition OC the Grotesque

The grotesque-is the event of experiencing the disruption of a previously safe or secure border or category. Furthemore. this category must be moraHy sanctioned: its existence

must be viewed as "good" or "proper" or "normal." If it is not, the transgression will not be grotesque; it will be experienced as revolutionary or liberating. For example, if one thinks of androgyny as a positive value, an androgynous being is not grotesque. If, on the other hand, one regards the division between male and female as "normal", "natural" and essenti-ally sacrosanct, an androgynous being becomes ridiculous, disgusting and threatening. The grotesque is always an event of desecration and contamination fiom the dominant viewpoint and an event of rebeilion fiom that of the oppressed. It is always a symptom of othemess. It opposes, therefore, the given, the common sense, the already enunciated. Typical imagery of the grotesque involves blurring the boundaries between male and female, the living and the dead, the extemal and the internal. and the possible and the impossible.

Despite its cultural speciticity, grotesque imagery throughout history shows a certain level of consistency. This is because ideologies operate by means of recognition and representation which takes place on a very deep level within the psyche, the preconscious state. Although structured symbolically, an ideology takes root on the level of what Lacan calls the irnaginary, the primary stage of narcissistic identification, which is based on the desire for representation, the means by which it can recognize itself in the world. ïhe

representation ofself is confinned and crystallised in the realm of language and the social, .

the Symbolic Order. lt is this complex web of signifiers that defines identiiy. Thaefore, a

disruption or tear in the web of signifiers composing the narcissistic selc the "Moi", is

experienced as an attack on the self Louis Althusser was the first Mancist theorist to

elucidate the political implications of Lacan's theory of subjectivity in his essay "Lacan and

Freud."

s Lacan's description of the self could be viewed as tragic and pessimistic because it seems

to make al1 change impossible; however, in Lacan's system, the "Moi"makes constant

adaptations and adjustments to the demands of both the Real and the Symbolic order. The

Lacanian subject is a dynamic complex of interactions between the worlds of fantasy and

representation, the more or less impenetrabfe world of the Real (extemal to the self), the

Imaginary (internal) and the Symbol ic 00th internal and external.) Lacan's theory of the

self, with its understanding of the roie culture plays in identity formation, forms a bridge

between psychological and sociological investigations of the grotesque.

The "Moi", left on its own, tends towards amis, towards its own etemal preservation, the

living death of the ego. This is why. in dreams, the self is often represented as a walled

fortress and, in times of personal stress, dreams of burning houses or invasion and robbery occur. Any external force that manages to penetrate the defences of the "Moi" suggests that something alien has invaded the very core of our being, Our fortress, the known, farniliar world. Kayser descnbes this phenornenon vividiy:

We are so strongly affected and terrified because it is our world which ceases to be reliable, and we fetl that we would be unable to live in this changed world. The grotesque instils feu of li fe rather than fear of death. Structurally, it presupposes that the categones which apply to our wodd view becorne inapplicable. We have obsQved the progressive dissolution which has occuned since the ornamental art of the Renaissance: the fusion of rcalms which we know to be sepuated, the abolition of the Iaw of statics, the loss of identity, the distonion of "natural" size and shape, the suspension of the category of objects the destruction of personality. and the fragmentation of historical order. (1 84-83)

Kayser is refuting Ruskin and his "fwof death" hypothesis in a highly suggestive way.

How can the world be rendered unbearable for us? It is because the grotesque opens up a world in which we no longer recognise ourselves and in which we are not recognised. All social interaction is based on mutual recognition and imitation: for René Girard this impuise towards mimesis irnplies that the foundation of al1 social interaction arises out of a profound feeling of inner emptiness, an idea sympathetic to the idea of the Lacanian subject, an identity founded on "lack".

There is, however, another side to the equation. If one accepts that there is a world extemal and fundamentalfy unknowable to the self, the activities of "Moi" preservation taken to the extreme can be extremely destructive. Anything that contradicts or falls outside the parameters of the self must be reforrned or destroyed, like Oedipus triumphing over the

Sphinx (herself a grotesque composite). The failure t~ acknowledge otherness can result in a son of psychic death, a death that Kayser might prefer over the life offered by a grotesque universe. The danger of death in the exclusive attachment to the "Moi"is encompassed in the legend of Narcissus, the story of a beautifid youth who fell victim to the most impossible and necessary of al1 loves, the Self-as-object. One can rad, as Lacan does, much of the history of metaphysics as the inscription of a dominant transcendental subject, an enforcement of the narcissistic Self at the centre of everything. In accordance with Lacan's theories, the history of Western thought shows how philosophy grounded in radical alterity is transformed into a philosophy contingent upon the containai identity of the ~elf?'. For example, the Platonic Eros, a desire founded in altcrity, wu appropriated into the service of narcissism by Plotinus who believed that when we love, we can oniy love the principle of beauty and goodness which is identical in ourseives and other persons. It follows that the love of others is a kind of ~el~love,but one that is morally justified by being the only kind of love possible, the love of God. It is a love fk of need, passion and suffering. There is no real movement towards what is extemal to us, no real opening. This hermeticaily sealed teleology is one version of paradise. If such an enclosed space describes the Absotute Good, the intrusion of what is externa: is necessarily evil.

Thus, the grotesque is ofien linked with diabolismi Kuryluk is the only thearetician to explicitly identify the grotesque tradition as one of anti-Christianity, but it is a link thaî is implied in writing on the grotesque as diverse as that of Bernard of Clairvaux and Wolfgnng

Kayser. The grotesque, however. can only be anti-Christian as long as Christianity is a dominant ideology, an ideology that 1 will argue came ta be replaced in much of the western world during the nineteenth century. It was this growing loss of faith that Ruskin moumed when he denounced decadent. godless styles in The Stones of Venice.

Conttxt of German Espressionism

The complex of triumphant ideologies in twentieth-century Germany was, in many ways, typical of those of the imperialist and industrial capitalist societies of Western Europe. The nineteenth-century bourgeois operated on a series of values, coalesced into tenns such as

"cultural progms, independence and ~haracter."~It is tme that bourgeois influence in

Germany was weak at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but legai reforrns, increased

24 educational opportunïties and new bureaucratie positions available after the demise of the

Holy Roman Empire allowed the development of a bourgeois class in Germany. The impact of two intense periods of industnal expansion (one in the textile, mining and oiher hervy industries in the 1860s and 70s and another in the more tee-~ological fields of electmnics and manufacturing around the tum of the century) created a rising class of businessmen and industrialists. This new and highly politically influentid clas cornbinexi with Germany's failure to deveiop a parliaunentary government contributcd tu the development of a highly consolidated power structure. Although the dominant class met with opposition from the proletanat and from the powerfùi Catholic par

The central beliefs of the rising class were in "hard work cornpetition, achievement, and the rewards and recognition that should flow from these; in rationality and the nile of law. in the taming of nature, and in the importance of living life by the nxles" (Evans 9). This ideology found validation in mainstream academic, scientific and, especialty, medical theories. The astounding ferocity with which late nineteenth century Europe ernbraced both nationalisrn and Social Darwinism testifies to the extraordinary ideological usefùlness of paradigms of individual and racial conflict as the basis for progress.DM Popular interpretations of Darwin, presenting an image of eternal stniggle, conquest and evolution, coincided nicely with the ferocious predations of industrial capitalism, which were described as both "natural" and "inevitable." The individual was invited to situate himself within the

Darwinian fiamework, and a host of scientists and para-scientists rushed in to make sure that the white male was sitting, naturally and scientifically on topam' 1 would argue that the sexism and racism of the nineteenth century are unparalleled by anything that carne before in

their systematic, "rational" application.

This said, it is useful to remember that hiaoncally specific anxiety tends to manifest itself

through a grotesque disruption. The art and literature of the Expressionists makes manifest

the anxiety and disruption caused by tension between the psychic resistance to the new

beliefs and a desire to embrace them whole-heartedly and to msh forward with the armed

ranks of progress to a glorious new dam. Gotttned Benn, medical student tunied pet, says

that, "Evolution is useless" (. . .) and tells with homor of the violation of beasts by the brain.

the almighty word. Witkiewicz. rebelling against his Nietzsche-quoting father, spews out a

doctrine of anti-progress:

We are a new Atlantis which is being inundated by a ferocious flood, dong with ali our theories with which we tried unsuccessfùlly to subdue life and to plumb its mysterious mechanism. (57)

Rubiner writes, "1know that evolution does not exist." "We are the scum, the offal, the

despised. " Continuing his manifesto against Darwinian positivisrn, he declares that "We are

intractable about progress; progress does not exist for us. ctxmiii Here we encounter the

familiar rhetoric of decadence that puts itself on the side of sickness as an alibi for alterity,

the literary text as the symptom of a diseased psyche. Wieland Herzfelde urges the new

generation to embrace the "Geisteskranken"("The Mentally Ill"):

The insane individual is certainly capable of being happier than is possible for the rest of us. He is propelled to action by emotion and not by logic. His action is powedbl and unmediated. 1 cal1 madness "the religion of the will" (Religion des WiIIenr); ody the will can educate emotion to a realization of its power. (299)

To be an Exp~ssionistwriter was to put oneself on the losing side of the evolutionary stmggle. The enmity between rnany Expressionist writers and the psychiatrie community- arose fkom their different ways of regarding the human psyche. The artist understands his

own estrangement fkom himself as giving him a special knowledge of the uiiiverse, a

knowledge that is ecstatic and Iocated in othemess. The early psychiatrie community

regarded this estrangement as a disease to be cured. On October 6, 19 19, Dr. Eugm Kahn, aided by his more famous colleague Emil Krapelin, published Psvchomtkn uk revoluti~eFiihrer in Zeitschrifi-Ei.die aesamte Neurolde und P#chiatntne,a scientific study of the insanity of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in Munich. Kahn describes Ernst Toller as "an hysterical personality-type":

... reads his own appeal to the German people; agitates strike in meetings. Taken into custody; soon released because of nerwus problems... intelligent; excitable, depressed, ciesperate, confiseci.. .tormented, theatrical, phrases. ..benefactor of mankind. ..many proclamations.. .against bloodshed, for negotiating.. .as a poetic talent tme, labelleci a stranger to the world. (Fidelis: "DeutschILUI(ISPsychiaw in ihrer Sfellung ru &n Revolutiomïren" Das Forum 4. Feb. 1920)

Expressionist artists spoke fiorn the margins of German society. Sometimes, artists intent ional 1y chose this position for political or aesthetic reasons; others had no choice because they were already marginalized as Jews, neurotics and homosexuals. Also, as artists, they were, de facto, unfit for the work of evolution, being unconcerned with the conquest of space, Lebensrmm or the survival of the species, at least never in any tangible way. Indeed, to be an artist was to be, in a sense, to be ferninised, a dire fate for the social Darwinist view of nature and man that oRen envisioned no role for women other than reproduction. The hatred of many of the Expressionists for women can be seen, in this light, as the result of an unwanted identification rather than as a horror of othemess.

With this understanding of the Expressionists' time, 1 would Iike to posit that what is grotesque in Expressionism are the monstrous progeny of this conflia and what is grotesque in Expressionism is alsa often what is fnghtcning and funny and touching in it. It is the

excluded, the ferninine, the disernpowered, the primeval, the mythic, the inational, and the

religious that corne creeping, screaming, hpwling, and crawling bock to contaminate and

dismpt the closed and, one might add, paranoiac system of industrial capitalist belief afkr the

tum of the century. To point out that what is non-realistic in Expressionist art is somehow-

indicative of or even responsible for the catastrophic events of twentieth century Germany

(as Kracauer and Lukaçs suggest) is to put the amibody kforc the disease.

Pnnciplcs of the Grotesque in German Expressionism

Expressionist dramas and films were created in an atmosphere of cultural anxiety bd

upheaval such as that identified by Schlegel and Bakhtin as being intrinsically grotesque and,

therefore, productive of grotesque art. Master narratives of both evolutionary progress and the triumph of the transcendental subject seemed inadequate to describe a world of increasing economic and political instability. Expressionist artists then were particularly sensitive to the possibility of personal and social catastrophe. The tension engendered by rupture, both on the real and the psychic plane, found expression in a historically and culturally specitic manifestation of the grotesque aesthetic. as, in essence, an ultimately apocalyptic one. As suggested in the comments of artists like Benn, Rubiner and Witkiewicz, Expressionist artists saw themselves as twentieth-century seers, who realised the true destiny of the wodd, not one of progress as understood by mainstream society, but one of cataclysm of vioient change.

They imagined a world in which the appwance of supernatural portents warned the wodd of its true destiny. In the tradition of mystical knowledge, the insight of these mi- was viewed as coming at great personal cost. Kriipelin and Kahn's evaluation of Expressionist artists as mentally deranged was unfortunately close to many playwrights' descriptions of

28 their pwn psychu. Stramm describes the process of writing as a kind of mysticd ecstasy.

Many have credited Kokoschka's art, both drama and painting, as possessing an arcane, mystical understanding. Barlach's art was transformeci by what cm only be called a spiritual awakening; even that most famous of al1 Expressionist film, nie Cabinet of Dr. Cali~tari~was inspired by a vivid and uncanny dream.

Johannes Tauler, a audent of Meister Ekhardt, describes the price of spiritual knowledge thus: "When our heavenly Father determines to grace a particular soül with spiritual gifis, and to transform it in a special way, He does not purge it gently. Instead, he plunges it into a sea of bittemess, and deals with it as he did with the prophet Jonah" (cited in Steiner 35).

Violence is an integral part of many traditions of spiritual enlightenment. This tradition found renewed vitaiity at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although the 'prophets' of the new cataclysm were not religious in an orthodox sense, they certainly viewed their mission as sacred. Indeed, the visual vocabulary of certain Expressionist plays and films is strikingly similar to that of various heterodox religious writers. Although critics have paid significant attention, and rightly so, to the influence of Freud, Nietzsche, and even the notorious misogynist Weininger, t here is greater evidence that a number of Expressionist playwrights, including Stramm. Kokoschka and Barlach, were more infiuenced by the spiritual writers they revered. The names of Meister Ekhardt, Boehme, Swedenborg and

Comenius appear fiequently in both the personal and public statements of these Expressionist playwrights. Cntics have acknowledged the spiritual dimension of Expressionism, but have not adequately described the specific nature of this spintuality. In the shadow of the scientific, evolutionary Babylon, these playwrights perceived themselves as visionaries, privi ieged to receive my st icai know ledge, know ledge that defies rational systems of

identification and analysis.

To understand the specific nature of the grotesque aesthetic in German Expressionist film

and drama, it will be usehl to examine more closely its specific nature and how profoundly

an apocalyptic imagination infoms and defines the Expressionist practice of the grotesque. used fiom. Apocalypse is here in its original sense: "The word. 'apocalyptic' is derived the Greek noun ~k;aIypsis,meaning revelation" (Russell 3). The apocalyptic as a category already has much in common with the grotesque. Like the grotesque aesthetic, the - apocalyptic has been identified as one that appears in tirnes of crisis (5), and as the product of an "overheaîed" or unstable mind ( 1). Apocalyptic motifs that shape the Expressionist grotesque aesthetic in both drama and film inciude the fol lowing. Linear time is replaced with cataclysmic time. Rupture and transformation are envisioned spatialIy, meaning that this motif is realised not only on the level of content but also that of forrn. Stable identity is dismpted, signified through the appearance of a doppelganger, by the representation of physical disrnemberment and by conftsion and fear about gender roles. Violence and death are both essential to the envisioned transformation of the world. The sacred is depicted as alien, Other, radically estranged from the word; the true God implicit in the plays' and films' worlds is the "strangef' God. The aesthetic worlds are full of obscure signs, which only an elect few can successftlly interpret.

The ad-progress message evident in the selected Expressionist films and play can be clearl y seen in their departure fiom linear time. The idea of progress necessitates an orderly progression of time. ïhe destinies of species and culture evoIve, according to popuIar twentieth-century interpretations of science and history, in an essentially orderly fashion. Simple fonns becorne more complex and specialised. Society and culture aim towards

greater productivity. Thcre is no fixed limit to human ashieverneni and expansion. Oppod

to progressive time is the idea of cataclysmic time. Al1 earthly and human st~ctucsfail

before the end-time. As during carnival and as during Harpham's grotesque interval, al1

human earthly laws and boundaries are eradicated. Material wealth and social standing are

Then al1 the kings of the earth, the govemon adthe wllynanders, the nch people ad the man of influence, the whole population, slaves and citizens hid in cavems and among the rocks and the mountains. They said to the mountains and the rocks, "fa11 on us and hide us away from the One who sits on the throne and fiom the retribution of the Lamb. For the Great Day of his retribution has corne, and who can face it? (Revelations 6: 15- 1 7)

It is a time that obliterates al1 ordinary notions of history and human achievement. The apocalypse is not nihilistic, as it is fiequently and incorrectly described. It is rather a transmutation, a "becoming", as Barlach's Blue Bol1 would say, of terrible violence.

Harpham, following on the insights of Todorov. identifies the grotesque with the suspension of Iinear time. The suspension of time may be envisioned many ways. Time is suspendeâ in a dream and in certain forms of meditation. but for the Expressionists, the suspension of time was both saçred and violent in character. Cataclysmic time is Iess like the time of dream and meditation; by its nature, it is experienced as a violent mpture. The 'awakening' envision by

Stramm in his eponymous play is a brutal one. Indeed, al1 of the selected dramas and films share a suspension of linear time either through the direct suggestion of a cataclysm, as in

Barlach's The Flood, or through the depiction of psychic mpture and personal catastrophe as in Rye's The Student of Prame.- If the grotesque aesthetic evident in Gennan Expressionist works suspends time, it

certain1y unfoldr through space. -~ransfonn~ionis neva only suggested by the seiccted dramas and film, it is rather envisioned or staged. This is evident in the discontinuity between on and off stagdscreen space. Kokoschka's drarnaturgy presents the entire visible world on stage, the playwright's version of Comenius' Orbis Piciwis, the world of images.

The screen compositions of Nosferatu are characterised by a visual wall, inhibit ing the spectator's ability to view what lies beyond. These and similar visd techniques -te an off-screedstage space, which is unimaginably other, disconnected fiom the visual world.

This aesthetic concem with the visual and the spatial is allied to the grotesque. 'The meen and stage worlds depicted are familiar but, at the same tirne, radically estranged fiom our own. As the Expressionist grotesque aesthetic adopts cataclysmic time, so it envisions a transformed world. This tw is in keeping with an apocalyptic imagination as "(millenarian) rhetonc has less to do with time than place" in its confident expectation of the world's transfiguration (Schwartz 524).

The grotesque aesthetic of Expressionist film and drama is also rnarked by the dissolution of fixed identity. As previously argue, the grotesque is experienced as an attack on the very self, the cherished idea of identity Lacan described as the Moi. Grotesque imagery gives body to the fear and potential ecstasy of dissolution. Such psychic dissolution is afin to the mystical experience of revelation evident in the art of many Expressionists. Norman Cohn makes this connection persuasively in his oit-cited book, The Pursuit of Millennium. "From the standpoint of depth-psychology it couid be said that al1 myaics stan their psychic adventure with a profound introversion, in the wurse of which they l ive through as adults a reactivation of the distorting phantasies of infancy" (Cohn 185). Perhaps even more

32 compelling is the evidence provided by the rnystics themselves. The fourteenth century

Catholic mystic Suso's account of a spintual visitation is striking for its depiction of an

ambiguous and anarchic spirit.

He describes how on a bright Sunday, as he was sitting lost in meditation, an incorporeal image appedto his spirit. Suso addresses the image: 'Whence have you corne?' The - image answers: '1 corne fiom nowhere.' - 'Tell me, what are you?' - '1 am not.' - 'What do you wish?' - '1 do not wish.' - 'This is a miracle! Tell me, what is your name?' - '1 am called Nameless Wiidness.' 'Where does your insight lead to?' - 'ho untrammelled fieedom.' (Cited in Cohn 186)

The manifest spint body is by no means uniforrnly positive in mystical writing. Although,

in a sense, the less corpoteal self is closer to the divine, it may not exhibit hostility towards

the original self Interestingly, Moshe Edel, the great scholar of the Kabbalah equates the

astral body with the golem, that rnonstrous attempt to create an undying self (Bloom 152).

The mystical disintegration of self, which here is akin to the grotesque interval, is a

dangerous time, one that may be healing and life affirrning, but one which aiso has the potential to permanently destroy the self Cohn argues:

It can happen that a mystic emerges from his or her experience of introversion-like a patient corn a successfùl psychoanal ysis-as a more integrated personality with a widened range of sympathy and fieer fiom illusions about himself and his fellow human beings. But it can also happen that the mystic introjects the gigantic parental images in their omnipotent, most aggressive and wanton aspects and emerges as a nihilistic megalomaniac. (Cohn 185)

The negative aspects of the mystical experience are clearly suggested in the fkightening, potent supematural figures depicted in Expressionist film and drama?

The theme of the double, the doppelganger, is ividely accepteci as being one of the most important to the Expressionist movement. Three German film versions were made of

Student of Prame, a slight tale of a high-living student who sells his shadow. The somnambulist Cesare of The Cabinet of Dr. Caliais another example of a doppelgiinger figure. The theme of split identity, as elaborated in certain Expressionist works, is also rift with apocalyptic associations. In a materialistic woctd that does not recognisc the spinnul self, the spirit body, the double, rnay well be imagined as an earanged and avenging demon.

The doppeiganger theme, according to Burwick, inherently entails an act of schizophraiic projection (12). In Expressionist film and drama, however, this motif suggcsts on encounter of supernaturd origin, an enwunter that is beyond the redm of scientists to explain.

The dissolution of the self is also suggested by some Expressionists' depictions of dismemberment. Mutilation and physical dismemberment appear in both of Stramm's dramas, in Kokoschka's && and Orpheus and Eurydice, in Barlach's The Flood and in The

Blue Boll, in which a leg runs away fiom its owner. Dismemberment is also richly evident in

Expressionist dramas not included in this study: Moritz Stiefel arrives dead and suis head ai the end of S~rinaAwakening to give advice to his ffiend. In Hasenclever's Humanity, the protagonist Aiexander travels through the corrupt metropdis with his head in a bag.

Dismernberment, like the motif of the double, is the physical enactment of its psychic or rnythic counterpart. Shamanic initiation frequently involves mutilation, the ultimate extension of which is the total dismemberment of the body. Similarly the fiagmentation, as in the case of the double, is of more significance than a purefy randorn act of violence. The mpture of the self is connected to the neglected spirit world.

Confùsion over gender roles may seem a far cry hmthe brutal image of dismemberment and the &rie motif of the double, but the aesthetic treatment of gender in selected Gemian

Expressionist film and dramas serves a similar function. Gender identities, which in the natural 'scientifid world-view dominant in twentieth century Geman culture can be scientifically explained and categorised, sexve to define the safe boundaries ofthe self

34 through identification of a binary system of mutually exclusive terms. Transgression of

gender roles is, according to the neo-Darwinian model, a medical problem. In contrast to this

dim view of androgyny, the androgynous self, the grotesque body that is bath male and

female, heterodox religious experience often values the "androgynization" of the body, its

ability to trarisform Erom one gender to the other.

The negative side of this experience, one siniilar to the paranoiac expenence of the double, results in the dernoniaiion of one gender at the expense of the other. The destabilisation of gender identity in its trues sense is presented by Expressionist playwrights and filmmakers if not in a positive at least in an ambivalent light. Significantly "lt" rather than "She" is the more hopefbl character in Awakening. The virtuous heroine, Nina's affinity with the vampire brings about the salvation of the world in Murnau's Nosferatu. mis ambivalence to women as other can also be seen in the attempts of male Expressionist artists to embrace and understand what they constructed as ferninine experience. Kokoschka espoused Bachoven's theories about an original matriarchy; Rubiner stated that "al1 the women in the world shall be counted as his cornrades (cited in Sokel4). The gypsy Lyduschka in The Student of

Pra.we offers neglected redemption to Baldwin, the hero. The Expressionist view offers a striking vision of gender identities as a form of prison, and of androgyny as mankind's original, paradisial state. Again. one can posit that scientific, ' materialistic' man's ignorance has resulted in the appearance of the androgynous as an avenging demon-al1 of the supematural creatures in the selected films are, despite their ostensible masculinity, strikingly uninterested in sex. Cesare, Nosferatu and the student of Prague's double show no senul interest in the heroine; in this respect, the monsten are strikingly different f?om their counterpMs of conventional American cinerna.

33 Cataclysmic time, dislocation of space and psychic dissolution al1 suggest the third major

aspect of the Expressionist grotesque aesthetic, that violence and death arc welwmc as the

prelirninary and necessary conditions of the impending transfiguration. Those who ignore

the signsdo so out of ignorance and at their own peril. Death itself and the dead arc Iively,

still part of the world. The idea that the dead will be reawakened in this wodd is one

common to apocdyptic literature. The reappearance of al1 the dead on this earth is part of

most Christian apocalypses- "The sea gave up al1 the dtad who were in it; Death and Hades

were ernptied of the dead that were in them; and every one was judged as his deeds

deserved" mevelations 20: 12). "In those days, Shed will retum al1 the deposits which she

had received and hell will give back al1 that which it owes" (1 Enoch 5 1: 1 -2). The

reappearance of the dead then presages the transformation of the whole worid. Nowhere is

this more strikingly tme than in Nosferatu. As befits messengen fkom the other side, the

dead display an extraordinary vitality denied to the living. In Kokoschka's last Expressionist

drama, Omheus and Eurydice, Eurydice appears at her most vital and beautifid when she is

dead. Aithough the walking dead are traditionally women and men with unfinished business

on earth, in the selected films and dramas, their missions are not so readily discemible. The

liveliness, as opposed to merely the animation, of the dead is a message to the living. Human

society's attempt to exclude death through science and medicine, to banish it from the world, has succeeded only in creating humans.. that are half-alive. Death being after al1 the real that science cannot conquer and the dead having only a marginal place in the scientific world, the

living dead become the perfect symbol for the failure of master narratives of progress. The

ntpture of the boundary between the living and the dead is tmly grotesque in the grandest sense of the word." Essential to the apocalyptic nature of the Expressionist grotesque is the understanding of the world as a place of corruption and decay. Fu different ththe technologiul promises of progress and individual filfilment, the world of Expressionist film and drama is fiequtntly revealed as a Mien one. God is remote fiom the world which has falleninto a lamentable state. The institutions of church and state offer Iittle codon in a spintually bankmpt society. Al1 tmly apocalyptic bel iefs are anti-institutional (Cohn 3 1-32}. In this respect, the spirituai dimension of German Expressionkm suggests a heterodox and evcn heretical retigious faith. Although al1 of the selected Expressionist drarnatists display a keen interest in religious matters none of them were active members of a church. Both Kokoschka and

Barlach, however, created numerous works of art inspired by sacred subjects. In the spirituaily onented works of such Expressionists, there is no sense of the living incarnation of God; there is no sense of Godls imminent presence in the world; and there is certainly no sense of divine justice as a living force. Yet the divine is present in these works, but the implicit God is one radically removed fiom the world. The tnie God is the stranger God described in The Flood rather than the cruel demiurge of the same play who usurps the title, a god who demands flesh as sacrifice. If the tme God is absent fiom the world, it is this demiurgic figure whose mysterious power controls the imaginary events of stage and screen.

Such a god appears as a character in both of Barlach's plays. Divine, partly divine and supernatural figures of great power appear in al1 of the selected films, and in the plays of

Kokoschka. This god of earth is depicted as at best an ambivalent, flawed being and at worst a veritable antichrist figure as in Kokoschka's Murderer: Ho~eof Womankind or as the enigmatic Dr. Caligari, whose asylum encompasses the whole world. Given the wmpt state of the world, it is no wonder that only a cataclysm of terrible

proportions can bring about a renewed experience of the divine. Harold Bloom describes the

spintual causes of a depression in language strikingiy similar to that of many Expressionist

authors:

Jonas gives a catalog of effects that accornpany the Gnostic sense of having been thrown into this existence: forlonuiess, dread, homesickness, numbness, sleep, intoxication- The transcendent stranger God or alien God of Gnosticism, being beyond our cosmos, is no longer an effective force; God exists but is so hidden that he becomes a nihilistic conception in himself (E3loom 26)

The quest for fiilfilment cannot be found in rational answers, in the laws of earth. Yet it is

also impossible for the individual to directly apprehend God, because this act would

necessarily entai1 the end of any sort of rational existence. We can, therefore. as humans and

as possessors of material bodies, only know God in a sort of intermediate space, a space

between the material world and the divine one. Again, according to this formulation, one

recalls the visual vocabulary of rupture and the grotesque. Schlegel's perception of the

grotesque as the result of enlightened or spiritual consciousness is strikingly suggestive of the

idea of a fallen world, in the thrall of a demiurge. Because of the radical dualism of this

spiritual paradigm, and because the tnie God is removed from both the natural and civilised

worlds, only a drastic, an unnatural event caii bring the human subjm closer to God.

Expressionist plays are full of mysterious, seemingly random and chaotic events.

Traditional modes of interpretation are not successful when confionted with the grotesque

objects and events depicted in these films and dramas. Monsters, grotesque signs and temfying paradoxes are several of the principle features of apocalyptic literature. D. S.

Russell describes his first encwnter with apocalyptic literature in language vividly reminiscent of the baffled descriptions of the grotesque throughout history. "1 found myself

38 in a weird and wondehl world of fantasy and drearns-beasts with sproutïng homs, dragons

spouting fire, falling stars, rnysterious horsemen, mysticai mountains, sacred rivers,

devastating earthquakes, fearsorne giants, demon progeny, monstrous births, portents in

heaven, portents on earth" (Russell 1). The rnonsters of apocalyptic litefature, intended to be

interpreted in semet by the members of a persecuted religion, are typically grotesque

composite creatures, whose capacity to inspire terror far excteds their allegorical fiinction.

"Then 1 saw a beast emerge fiorn the sea: it had seven heads and tcn homs, with a coronet on

each of its ten homs, and its heads were marked with blasphemous titles. 1 saw that the beast

was like a leopard, with paws Iike a bear and a mouth like a lion" (Revelations 13: 1-2). In

the imaginary worlds of Expressionist film and drama, the ability to recognise the grotesque

and to understand it is the mark of spiritual enlightenment, rather than madness as some may argue. This ability is Iinked to the shattereâ rernnants of the sacred that exist in a decayed

world. Mysterious correspondences between the personal and metaphysical realms exist.

Both the grotesque and the apocalyptic share this discourse of secret signs. Apparentjy known objects are imbued with special meaning that can only be interpreted by the elect; these signs are invisible to the majonty of the population. All of the selected works share this motif, often within these dramas and films one or two individuals are contrasted with an oblivious mob or chorus. This is tme of Awakenina, Omheus and Eurydice, The Cabinet of

Dr. Caliaari and Nosferatu. This contrast points out the speciai destiny of the spiritually aware; such knowiedge, of course, always brings pain and terror, as the protagùnists reaiise the loneliness and despair of their positions. Like, however, the mystic's dark night of the soul, like the description of Bloom's depression, the pain is a potentially welcorne one, as it brings about the hope for spiritual transfiguration. The grotesque in Expressionist drama and

39 film brings about rupture and horror, but ultimately can initiate spiritual eniightenment. The experiencc of the grotesque shows the soul's ability to receive messages fiom the outside worid, the wodd excluded fiom the material and rational scientific realm. All of the sefccted- texts share the prevïously described aesthetic strategies, which combine the grotesque with the apodyptic. Cataclysmic time. the transfiguration of space, the dissolution of identity, the retum of the dead, the impiied presence of an alien God and the appearance of cryptic signs create imaginary worlds that express, on a profound level, the spiritual and social anxieties of the location and historical interval in which the Expressionist n

a iv This confûsion arises fiom romantic critics', including Hugo, Schlegel and Coleridge, discussion of the grotesque in connection with Shakespeare. In order to champion artistic fieedom over neoclassical conformity to the unities, these critics reinterpreted the grotesque as a chalIenge to the traditional genres of tragedy and comedy. v The Expressionist movement was widel y ridiculed at its inception and systematically reviled by the National Socialist govemment &er its death. Its artists were called "entartete", degenerate. The famous, and popular, exhibition of "entarteteKum" was designed in 1937 by the National Socialist govemment to promote the idea of Expressionism and related art movements as part of a sinister conspiracy to undermine the mords of the Gerrnan people. The artists, dong with the art dealers and curators who promoted them, were held up to ridicule as "insane", "racially inferior" and "sexually degenerate." The exhibition is MIy described in Denenerate Art: the Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germanv. vi Focillon (la Vie des Formes) breaks away fiom the binary descriptions of aesthetic history, the belief that dl aesthetic movements and periods can be ultimately classified as being either rornantic or classical. Focillon presents a mode1 where a continuous interpenetration of styles exists; however, basically artistic movements can be described in four stages: first, an original phase, a break fiom the previous movement characterised by the simplicity of its principles which are formed in contrast to the preceding style. Second, a classical phase in which these ideas come to their fiuition and gain relatively unchallenged acceptance. Third, a radiating "rayannant" phase where these idcas begin to take on more elaborate, self-reflexive forms. Founh, a baroque phase, a foliose, self-reflexive phase, ofh concerning mystical experience (what cannot be representtd) and novelistic foms of discourse (29). Mi Caves and caverns held great importance for Roman antiquity. They were ofh associated with secret or hereticat cults and religions including, at one time, Chnstianity. They were often seen as mystical places, dwellings for hcnnits and oracles, associated bath with danger and divinity. Kuryluk points out the importance that these early caves have for the image of the grotto (4). Harpham speculates on the origins of the grotesque in prehistoric cave art (59-60).

m.. m.. WII In fact, the Domus Aurea was, in no way, unique. The art of Rome at this time was characterized by decadence. Such marginal illuminations were both common and fashionable. ix A twentieth-century equivalent to this argument can be found in Siegfiid Kracauer's well-known study of German Expressionist film, From Calkari to Hitler; Kracauer draws the conclusion that a subconscious desire for submission to authority of the Gennan people expresses itself in films feaîuringautomata, somnambulists and golem. However, the desire to conclude that grotesque art is "unhealthy", "abnormal" etc. could be construed as a desire to abolish contradictions, a fùnction of the narcissistic ego that can be as destructive as any golem. x The fondness for grotesque ornamentation swept over the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Christian era. Possibly because of foreign influences, but also possibly because of the cultural turmoil experienced at that time, a condition favourable to the rreation of .grotesque art. xi See Anthony Weir's Images of Lust on the distribution of obscene and monstrous camings in French medieval cathedrals. The mamiage of unlike beings and categories has an intrinsically sexual character, pointed out by both Kuryluk and Harpham. xii The confusion between the grotesque, the arabesque and the moresque presents some difficulties in the study of the grotesque. Kayser provides a usefiil definition of the three terms: the term "moresque is used to designate a kind of two-dimensional ornament exclusively composed of n'gidly stylized leaves and tendrils painted over a uniform background which is preferably kept in black and white. The arabesque, on the other hand, involves the use of perspective; unlike the moresque. it is tectonic (that is. distinguishes behueen above and below); it is more profuse. so that the background is often completely hidden; and it avails itself of patterns composed of more realistic shoots, leaves and blossoms, to which animal fonns are occasionally added. In the grotesque the difference between anima1 and vegetable forms is eliminated and so are the laws of statics" (53-54).

S.. S.. xi11 The principal source of my information on grotesque theory in German romanticism is Frederick Burwick's The Haunted Eve: Perce~tionand the Grotesaue in EnnIish and Gerrnan Romanticism. xiv The thessays are described by Bunvick: And rers R. Riem, " &r die Arabeskew 1788 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "VonArabesknw 1789 and Christian Ludwig Stieglitz, - - - ppppp " Ber den Gebrauch &s Grofeskenund Arabesken" 1790. Riem argues thu because the grotesque has its origins in pagan rituals to the "&imonia of nature", it has no place in modem socicty. Goethe is ecstatic over Raphael's decontions of the Papd Loggia, but agrees with Riem (and Vasari) that the grotesque should be kept to the margiris. Stieglitz has, as Burwick describes it, an "antiquarian enthusiasm for the Gothic revival, but believes that the grotesque should follow the aesthetic principles of hcraldry" (49-50). xv Kayser States, mistakenl y. that Fiorillo was bom in Italy and never fùlly rnastered German. Fiorillo was, in fact, born in Germany, the son of an Italian father who apparently ran a commedia-style pantomime theatre, which may partly explain his great afktion for the potesque (Bwwick 59)- xvi Leibniq for Schlegel, is a grotesque philosopher (Schlegel49,68). Presumably this judgement is based on Leibniz' fondness for closed systems and logical/mathematical reasoning. xvii Kayser seems to me to interpret Hugo quite fieely to fit his own conception of the grotesque: "To recognize and reveal such a construct of opposites is somewhat diabolic; the order is destroyed and an abyss opened where we thought to rest on firm ground" (59). This is an extreme claim, as most traditionat forms of drama are based on conflict between opposing forces. xviii Critics have oAen bemoaned the weakness and in humanity of Expressionist heroes (Sokel and Kracauer, for example), interpreting the character flaws to be an unconscious slip on the part of a sirnilarly flawed writer, who attempts to create a romantic hero (a pure sou1 in a compt world) but fails. 1 believe this to be a misinterpretation of the rnajonty of Expressionist heroes. Often the protagonists are deeply implicated in the world that surrounds them: as in Kaiser's dramas, Barlach's The Blue Boll, Goll's Methuselam, Murnau's The Last Laugh. xix That al1 psychological approaches to the grotesque are "negative" should be somewhat qualified. Burwick, inspired by both Schlegel and Gestalt theory, criticises Kayser for "ignoring the phenomenological implications of the grotesque" (14). Harpham, whom McElroy accuses of "making a fetish out of indeterminacy," finds a Schlegel-like power in recognising the ambivalence of existence through the grotesque (1 2).

Harpham's discussion of the grotesque, particularly his description of the interval of uncenainty in which we experience the grotesque is indebted to Todorov's genre study, The Fantastic, the fantastic being a category that overlaps in several important ways with theories of the grotesque.

>ai Books such as Elliot's The Social Theorv and Psvchoanalvsis in the Critical Tradition chart the development of theories of subjectivity grounded in both psychoanalysis and sociaVeconomic theories, particularly the post-Lacanian Frankfbri school and its descendants. ------fi Rabelais and his Worlé could be called the most monologic of dlBakhtin's work. In tone it is rhapsodie, allowing for no dissenting voices, castigating al1 official discoufses. It is important to consider the work in the context of an extremely rcpressive Stalinist govement, which stgmuously promoted social ist realism in art. It is intcrtsting that Rabelais and his World (oflen taken out of context) is his most commody used text, especially for dramatic criticism.

d Ideology hcre, as elsewhere, is uxd to describe a concept approximate to the definition of Althusser given in his essay "Ideology and Idcological State Appar'atuses": an ideology is a system of representations endowed with a specific historicai context and knctioning within a given society. It is transrnitted on a pre-conscious level; thertfore, it is usually perceiveci as "natual"; therefore, neither is it repressed and synonymws with the unconscious nor is it intentionally propounded and conscious (62-86).

xxiv in hi s essay "I 'rmtance de la lettre ctans i 'inconscient', Lacan was especiai 1y cntical of the "cogiton of Descartes as an aggressive (and culturally sanctioned) fantasy of the "Moi." (Lacan 1 5 16-5 18)

xxv Sources for information on German culture and history of the nineteenth and twentieth century include The German Bour~eoisie:Essavs on the Social Historv of the Gerrnan Middle Class fiom the Late Ei~hteenthto the Earlv Twentieth Century, edited by David Blackbourn and Geoffkey Evans.

xxvi Accounts of the progress of Darwin's theories tend to adopt a Galileo-like narrative of the embattled scientist struggling to enlighten the ignorant and superstitious majority; in fact, the opposition was hardly overwhelrning. Most exponents of Christianity, for example, adapted to the change, or nsked derision as crackpots. Dissenting scientists, including Lamarck and his brilliant work on the evolution of species, which contradicteci natural selection, were simply ignored.

xxvii My views are based on my reading of the nineteenth century and on recent revision in the criticism of science and art, framed by the erosion of the theory of natural selection. Important among my sources are Bram Dykstra's Idols of Perversity, Carol Diethe's Distorted Sexual Attitudes in German Expressionist Drama and Geoffrey Eley's work'on German history and the Wilhelmine and First World War period. It is significant that, at this time, the views of such an obviously disturbed mirogynist and anti-Semitic individual as Otto Weininger were taken seriously by both Sigmund Freud and Charlotte Gilman, who advocated the emancipation of wornen.

&ii Al1 quotes are from Walter Sokel's translation of an excerpt fiom Ludwig Rubiner, "DerMenrch in der Mitte, " Antholonv of German Ex~ressionistDrama. Edited by Walter Sokel. Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Books: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963. 12-15. xxix Sigfned Kracauer, of course, is the most fàmous interpreter of the supematuraf tyrsnt figure in Expressionist liteniture. Although Kracauer brings this crucial figure into foais, he - - interprets the doubie outside the context of its mystical and supernaturd origins. In doing so, he reifies the phantom in am over-simplified way, not allowing for alternative interprctaîions of Gennan Expressionist films such as provided by ThomElsaesser. xxx The somnarnbulist is a version of the revenant. As sleep can be viewed as the death of the conscience mind, a son of rehearsal for the 'big sleep7-toevokc Raymond Chandler-so the somnambulist may be viewed as a species of walking dead. The somnambulist has arriveci fiom the worid of unconsciousness and dreams to remind the conscious of world of its true excluded origins. Thus, Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Cali& can be viewed as belonging to the category of the wakefiil dead. Chrpter Two

Sdection of Drrimas

The problem of which Expressionist drarnas to analyse was a dificult one- Many of the dramas contain a wealth of examples of the grotesque features outiined in the introduction.

In order to narrow down the field, 1 applied certain principles. First, 1 avoided dramas that 1 felt were essentially conventional in structure. By a conventional drama I mean one which has a narrative structure with an exposition, crisis, and resolution; a conventional protagonist supplied with a goal and a motivation; and persons or forccs attempting to block the protagonist's desire. In a conventional drama, events and dialogue are subordinated to and arranged around this central conflict; these events and dialogue proceed logically. Dramas such as Brucke's The Wolves and Kaiser's The Protagonist are chiefly included in the

Expressionist canon because of t heir s hocking subject rnatter. Stnicturall y, they obey al1 the laws of conventional drama and, as such. are excluded fiom this analysis. Content alone does not create a grotesque aesthetic. All of the selected dramatists shed a cornmitment to forma1 experimentation. Similar to this first principle, 1 avoided dramas that fell into the category of satire. German criticism of grotesque motifs in drama has, in particular, chosen to focus on its application to social satire. Although an artist like Kaiser obviously presents an imponant example of Expressionist grotesque practice, works like the Sgg trilogy and Fm

Mom to Midniaht are, on one level, sharply pointed satiric portraits of various social institutions. The essence of the grotesque is an ambivalence that cannot be resolved. Satire directs the readerlspectator towards an easily decodable interpretation; it invites moral judgements and intellectual evaluations. Although satiric images often closely resemble grotesque ones, they do not produce the fccling of metaphysid queaines proper to my definition of the grotesque.

It is obvious, nom the preceding qualifications, that my purpose in this anal ysis is not to offer an all-inclusive theory that pretends to expiain ail Expressionist drama; instead, this anaiysis proposes to focus on a particular, historical instance of grotesque practice. In doing so, I was surpriseci at how mnytimes 1 conflicted with the prevailing readings of these dramas. 1 was not surprie however, that 1 chose one dramatist. Stramm, who is arguably better esteemed as a poet and two others, Kokoschka and Barlach who were artists before they were dramatists and are better known as the former. NI th= writers approached the dramatic medium fiom a fiesh perspective. Stramm had the poet's and the philosopher's obsession with language; Barlach and Kokoschka created drama as image and living sculpture long before the age of Robert Wilson.

The three dramatists share more than their unorthodox approach to drama. There is a profound spirituality evident in the work of al1 three drarnatists, authenticated by al1 three dramatists' interest in mystical texts, and by what may be called their heterodox faiths.

Focusing on Expressionist dramas that are more closely connected to a religious, mystic tradition allowed me to focus on cenain key formal aspects of Expressionist grotesque practice outlined in the introductory chapter. The grotesque dismption of boundaries suggests in these plays the dissolution of the self and the veniginous confiontation with the

ûther. In Stramm, the vehicle for this confiontation is, in its most essential form, the word.

For Kokoschka, it is the vision. For Barlach, it is space itself, multi-dimensional and infinite.

The dissolution of the self is envisioned as both cataclysmic and ecstatic in the work of

Stramm, as a paradise lost through man's iniquity in Kokoschka's drama, and as a mystcry

47 that ultimately can coexist peacefùlly with the everyday business of human living in

Barlach's drama The Blue Boll.

Stramm, Tbt Eoigmrtic Bürger

August Stramm, bom in Westfalia in 1874, was almost forty years old before he experienced his literary awakening, writing at least nine plays and dozens of poems betwem

19 1 1 and 19 t 5. Chronologicail y, he belongs to the first generation of German Expressionists: the lyrical writers like. Trakl. Heym and Lasker-Schüler, who joumeyed to the ferra incogniîu of the inner psyche and returned with poems of weird, amesting beauty.

Spiritually, however, he belongs to the more extreme, more apocalyptic Expressionist writers, associated with the Sturm circle. Stramm's intense focus on inward experience, on the possibility of a mysticd transfiguration of both himself and the world, can be clearly seen in the startling originality of his poetry and drama. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, Stramm was neither writing such poetry nor participating in the vibrant cafë life of the early Expressionists nor hearing talk of the impending revolution of art and the human spirit. He was too busy developing his career as a postal inspecter (he received his doctoraîe in 1909) and pursuing his interest in transcendental philosophy.

Tn a cultural movement obsessed with youth, Strarnrn was superannuated when, at 1st. he found his mentor and publisher Herwarth Walden in the winter of 19 13- 19 14. Strarnm had been writing for a few years before this encounter, but al1 of his work had been rejected for pub1 ication; he must have been seriousl y questioning his own abilities by the time he finaily encountered Walden. Walden's importance in Stramm's life would be difficult to underestimate. Not only the editor of Sfumand Stramm's one and only publisher, he also

48 opened up Stnmm's artistic horizons, intrducing him to Marinetti and his controvmid

Technical Manifesta of Futurist Literature "which finally gave to him the missing elements

of his own style" (Bndgewater. 3 1). For Walden, Stramm was the artist he was looking for,

the first tme artist of Wortkumf:

For Walden, Stramrn's writing heraidtd the Birth of the ncw Wortku~).~t',hem was a writcr who translated the techniques of fùturist cubist and exprtssionist paintings haî wcrt being shown in Berlin and al1 of Germany since 1912 into language, who could blaze the trail for the new art in this medium. (hWerk 430).

This quote demonstrates the importance Stramm held for a new generation of

Expressionist artists. This generation, active during and directly after World War 1, was

characterised by both a violent experimentation with forrn and a renewed interen in drama.

Stramm's bold experimentation with language combineci with the extraordinarily

ovewrought emotional tone of his poetry and drarna are typical of much of the drarna

produced by the Sturm-theatre group, later led by Lothar Schreyer. Stramm, encouraged and

supported by Walden, became an exernplary writer for the Sturm-circle, a circle he remained

faithful to throughout his bnef writing career, apparently taking linle interest in any of the

other Expressionists active in Berlin at that time. J. D. Adler and J. J. White write in their

introduction to Aumist Stramm: Critical Essays, "Finally one speaks of Strarnm's influence

on the Sturm-writers" (xxii). It is significant that he was the first writer to be published as

part of Sturm's independent publishing effon. Already in his Iifetime. he became widely, and

oflen unfortunatel y, imitated. His novelty extended even to the layout of Sturm. Before

Stramm, poetry in Sturm was presented in a way that would save as rnuch space on the page as possible. In order to preserve the rhythm of Stramm's poetry and the emphasis on the solitary word. the poems require one or two words to be isolateci on a line.' It is evident that Striamm was very important to the Expressionist movement. Although he began writing plays wit hout much hope of their ever being produced, his plays found a number of champions within the theatre community, and were successfully nurtured.

Reinhardt was impressed with the homfic intensity of Forces, and Hindemith honoured the lyrical, sacrilegious Sancta Susanna by composing music for it, as he also did for some of

Stramm's war poems. If Stramm's contemporaries found these plays with their vivid and confùsing stage directions difficult to stage, there is no mention of it."

What is the nature of the aesthetic operating in Stramm's work? What was its intended reception? And why was it considered exempiary for many Expressionist artists in its time?

The answefs to these questions lie not in identitjring typically Expressionist motifs in the writer's work. Rather they may be discovered in an examination of how Stramm's writing

(here focusing specifically on Awakeninq and Forces, two of his most typically

"Expressionist" drarnas) displays the apocalyptic elements of the Expressionist grotesque aesthetic. in particular, Stramm's dramas depict the transfiguration of a closed environment, the dissolution of fixed identity and the presence of enigmatic signs. Before examining these questions in greater detail, it will be usehi to provide some background to Stramm's artistic and personal development. Strarnm' s interest in myst ical writings and his relationship with

Walden are especially important to an understanding of his drarna.

Stramm, a creature of his confùsed and violent time, encompasses a number of seemingly untenable contradictions. He appears to be a kind of hybrid: for as well as being a revolutionary artist, August Stramm was in many ways the mode1 of the perfect bourgeois, so despised by the Expressionists. He was an excellent husband and a conscientious father by al1 accounts, notably those of his daughter, Inge: "... There was never strife benvan my

50 parents, but always many happy domestic moments, sincc the strong bond between both hearts kept away any disasters" @us Werk 408).

It is well known that he was a highly ranked postal inspecter, moreover, it should be stressed that he rapidly advanced in this chosen profession and never specifically denouncd it as bourgeois in any of his extensive correspondence with Herwarth Walden. His doctoral thesis was on the pedestnan topic of the conditions necessary for the realisation of a global postal system. His home-life was unimpeachabie. He occasionally visited the dis,but seemed to prefer remaining at home with his wife and children, writing and indulging in his favourite hobby of painting watercolours. It is interesting that these paintings are notable mainly for their complete lack of Expressionist qualities. They are redistic, comptent watercalours of the surrounding landscapes and, once, less suuessfully, of his daughter Inge.

Inge describes her father at his favourite pastime in loving, bourgeois detail, including pipes and cornfortable fùrniture: "My father's favourite pastime was painting. Sunday momings he would stand at his easel in the study between the wrïting desk and plush sofa, his pipe always beside him" (Das Werk 409).

He was also an accomplished cellist and playcd with his family in small ensembles that might remind one of the musical family in Kaiser's From Morn to Midninht. Well before the

First World War, Strarnm was already a volunteer for military duty. When war starteci, he fûlfilled his duties and was promoted to officer (Captain) as quickly as he had risen in the post office. In July of 1915 he died in the service of his nation. He certaidy felt the dmdgery and senselessness of war, a fetling of futility that is well expressed in his series of war poems; however, it never occumd to him to run away or to regret his having voiunteered. Such a stalwart rnember of society would seem an unlikely candidate for the role of

iconoclastie poet and playwright. Stramm does not fit any of the typical profiles of the 9 German Expressionist writer. He is not the narcissist ic, sel f-obsessed bohemian living on1y

for an, a type that Wdter Sokei described at some length as characterising the first ..- generation of Expressionist writers."' Nor is he the wild-eyed revolutionary, fomenting the

destruction of restrictive social institutions in order to found the new brotherhood of

mankind, like Ernst Toller or Franz Pfemfert. Strarnrn remains nevertheless the most radical

exponent and practitioner of Worfkumttheorieof al l the Sturm-circle: a man inspired by such

revolutionary and controversial theorists as Marinetti, Mauthner and Hans Vaihinger (an

irrationalist who rejected the idea of causality, and a follo.wer of Nietzsche.) An exponent of

the irrational and the ecstatic, Stramm enjoieci, until his untirnely death, his well-ordered

existence, fke fiom al1 but artistic controversy.

In this bûrgerlich existence. where does such writing corne hm? Was Stramm just a

follower of fashion as some critics have claimed? Perhaps radical Expressionist writing was just another hobby like watermlour painting or long walks? Or is this the evidence of a deeply repressed need for rebellion? Stramm was never anything less than deeply serious about writing-it amounted to an obsession with him:

No, writing overtook Papa suddenly, like a fever, around the year 1912. A demon was awakened in him. We sensed it with fear. With destructive force, it came over him, like a storm over the blooming garden of his bourgeois life, a weather cloud that darkened our chi ldhood. (DaWerk 422)

There is no indication in this quotation, or indeed in any of the personal reminiscences about him or in his correspondence that would suggest a person who was interested in the lure of the bohemian or in achieving notoriety or fame. He was mher a thoughtfùl man who

52 enjoyed talung courses in contemporary philosophy for his own education. He shows the

influence of his education in his writing-he was well versed in the metaphysics of Kant and

Schopenhauer. Most cenainly, he had rad Nietzsche. He wu al- aquaintd with many of

the popular interpmen of Nietzsche, wch as the aforementioned Vaihinga, whose

Philosophie des AIS Ob ranked as one of his favourite books. Stmnm also revered R. W.

Trine, author of lm Harmonie mir der Unendlichkeif,the book that was with Stramm when he

died in battle. He is typical of many Expressionists in that he is influenced primady by non-

fictional literary traditions as influences."

Strarnm was a creature of his time. He was notable for adopting every current style of

dramatic writing; his work evinces many stylistic changes in a relatively short period of

tirne.' His first plays are clearl y influenced by naturalism, both in style and in subject matter.

Die Bmem is a dour, traditionally stnictured reinterpntation of Kleist's Mikei Kohib

that owes much more to Gerhard Hauptmann than it does to Marinetti. Die Unfiuchtbaren is

set in a naturalistically presented student ghetto. The action is the students' discovery that

their urban lives are unfulfill ing, whereupon they decide to move to the counuy, and renew

themselves in agrarian peace and dernocracy. This kind of fantasy of a rural utopia was

popular at the time, celebrated in a less esoteric way by that bucolic genre, the Heimat-

romm. The motif of the rural utopia predominates in Strarnrn's play, Die Haiukbraul, a

melodramatic tale of the Haidebrauf s, conflict between her love for her father and her love

for the outlaw vagabond. Law and order wins, a happy ending clearly for Stramm.

The conîradictory.identity of Stramm has provoked critical contmversy. He has been ranked as one of the great lyric poets of the early Expressionist era togaher with Traici,

Heym and Lasker-Schüler. Huder ranks' his one aaplay Rudimenttir as king, along with

53 Strindberg's MisJulie, one of the two greatest one act plays of its time." On the other side,

Strarnm's writing couid be classified by Sokel as the "datedu.less worthy part of

Expressionist writing, wasting its energy in compulsive fonnal experiments and hynericd

outpounngs, certainiy not paving the way for the det&hment of Beckm and Enter. Stnurni

could be criticised for having Meknowledge of the dramatic medium. He had no

experience in the theatre prior to his sudden adoption by Hcmarth Walden. Despite these

conflicts, there seems to be a movement toward a kind of cntical consensus lately as Huder

points out in his essay on the playwright (40). This consensus suggests that critical writing

about Stramm focuses on his l yric poems more often than on his dramas, although for

Stramm, drama was the most important genre and he recognised an inherently dramatic

quality in ail his writing: "Everything appears to me to be in sharp, drarnatic mnflict. So to portray this I used the sharp conflict within al 1 matter, its form and content" (Letter to H.

Walden, 22 March 1 9 14).

The critical consensus can be summarised thus: that Strarnm was a bold experimenter in form who, although not himself a great writer, helped to pave the way for many expenmental movements. "' Abstract poary, the Dada movement and concrete poetry are often mentioned in this context. He is important as a transitional figure, but in himself of limited importance.

One or two individual poems, perhaps one drama may be of lasting importance.

In many ways, this kind of evaluation is typical of the criticaf conclusions that are made for the whole Expressionist literary movement. Sokel calls the Expressionist literary movement a "prelude to the absurdu. assigning the movement an important place in his

1 iterary genealogy; however, he goes on to describe a paucity of "great writingn within the extant literature. In the 1980s and 1990s there has been a growing interest in Expressionist

texts and writers outside consideration of their influence on the literature of the fiiture.

Stnmrn and the Alien Duirt

lmagery of rupture is evident in al1 of Stramm's literary output. Stramm's drarnas are an

attempt to open the enclosed world of the human ego to the rdmsof the invisible. The

locations presented in Stramm's dramas are grotesque in that they elude utegorisation and

form. Similarl y, the characters of Stramm's plays embody a multiplicity of panid identities

in one body. Linguistically, Stramm's writing is structured around repetitions, eruptions and

irmptions. The entire effect of these dramas is one of a violent spiritual transfiguration, a

mystic fusion of self to other, a communion presented as both ecstatic and horrible.

Stramm's dramas are, in a sense, theatrical enactments of the consequences of a paranoiac attachment to the self, an attempt to assert a unified self. an illusory "Ubermemch" and a clear cut gender difference when faced with the contamination and dismemberment of reality. Trine, one of Stramrn' s favourite writers, presents a particular version of hell. "The word hell is fiom the old English hell, meaning to build a wall around, to separate; to be hefled was to be shut off" (Trine 2). Stramm's valorisation of psychic rupture wntrasts strikingly with the psychological constmction of the healthy mind.

Freud charted this terrain when he interested himself in the phenornenon of the uncanny in his essay entitled "DmUnheimliche." Freud, always interested in the problems of artistic creation and its relation to the pathology of the psyche. was not as interested in the sensations of beauty that a work of art produces, but in a different- son of aesthetic experience. In "Dus

Unheinzfiche",he set out to examine that quuisy feeling (ahhough he declared that he wasn't prone to it himself) that affécts sensitive people when they art exposed to sights that trigger

this sensation. ..* The word unheimllich is bea translated as "uncanny" in English."' The Gennan word,

however. has a co&licated rneaning that interests Freud a great deal.

What interests us most ... is to find that among its dinerent shades of meaning the word "heimiich" exhibits one which is identical with its opposite "unheimlich". What is heimlich thus cornes to be unheimlich.. .. In general we are reminded that the word "heirnlich" is not unambiguous. but belongs to two sets of ideas, which, without king contradictory, are yet very different: on the one hand it means what is familiar and agreeable, and on the other, what is concealed and kept out of sight. (Freud XMI 224- 225)

Literally unheimlich, of course. means "unhomel y", something unnatural. which is out of

place and makes the affected individual therefore feel out of place. Interestingly, Freud

describes this phenornenon by taking an exampie fiom literature that produces the feeling of

Unheimlichkeit. Fmm the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann, he chooses a well-known story to illustrate his argument. Most people agree, says Freud, that Hoffmann's "The Sandman'" is eerie. but they would not be able to say why. Jentsch says that phenornena such as automata, puppets etc. are eerie because they give the appearance of being alive without actually having life (the same couid be said for corpses or somnambulists). Freud disagrees with this interesting observation and insists that the rdhorror of the story rests in the bizarre figure of the sandman, first encountered in the children' tale as a terrifying monster who fdsthe eyes of naughty chitdren (boys) to his own owl-beaked youngsters.ix This figure is incarnated again and again in a succession of strange and menacing older men who thnaten the young man from his childhood on. Freud. of course, connects the threat of blindness with Oedipal fears of castration. The father imago is split aceording to Freud, in this tale into a good father, who is kil led by the sandman (reptesenting a wish for the death of the father), and an

56 evil father, the sandrnan, bent on the castration of his male offspring. I do not quibble with

Freud's interprctation of "The Sandman." 1 agree, liowevcq with Lacan, that the Oedipus cornpiex is Freud's own neurosis, and lures him away fiom other possible interpreâations of the undoubtedly grotesque character of this story: many people, like Jentsch, expetience mannequins, dolls, puppets and automata as uncanny, and not as merely delightnil as Freud suggests.

1 would like to modie the useh1 notion of "Das Wnkimfick"by tuniing to Lacan's reading of Freud and his theory of identity, especiall y the idea of the mirror stage and the formation of what Lacan calls the Moi. Lacan identifies a crisis/development in the identity formation of the infant that precedes the Oedipus cornplex: this he designates "the mimor stage". The mirror stage signifies the infant's first experience of his body as a unity.

Outwardly, it is evinced by the incredibly rapid development of the baby's motor co- ordination, the result of its newly found ability to imagine its body as a unity in space.

Psychically, the mirror stage generates the construction of what Lacan calls the Moi, the self as object, or, crudely, what we mean when we refer to ourselves or how we picture ourselves to ourselves and in our relationships with others. The Moi, according to Lacan, is the site of the western metaphysical subject; it demands to be afirmed, desired by others for its proper value. Evidently, the Moi is a fantasy; but it is a deeply necessary fantasy, for without a belief in the unity of the subject, the individual cannot funaion in the symbolic universe, which results in psychosis and criminal behaviour. It is cmcial to understand that the mirror stage is a fantasised overcoming of the dependence of the subject on the desire ofthe Other.

Yet, paradoxicall y the Moi is created out of the desire of the Other, for it is woven out of the letters or signifiers of alien desire. The primordial Otkr is, of course, clorly connecteci to7 but not synonymous with the mother, usually the rnost signifiant king in early life.

Without the Moi, it is impossible to reptesent oneself in Ianguage or in the symbolic social realm. Deleuze and Guattari misinterpreted Lacan in their exultation ofthe pre-Oedipal infant in Ca~italismand Schizo~hrenia.To do away with split-consciousntss is, according to

Lacan, to do away with sanity, with communication and certainly with the ability to write.

The pre-mirror stage world is the tenain of the body in picces, the fiagmented body that is represented in dreams, in certain violent psychotic acts, in art and in martyrdom as dismembement, exoscopy, the fùsion of the oral and cloaca1 orifices (Lacan is fond of citing

Bosch). Lacan describes the pre-imaginary world thus:

The hurnan moi is the other and at the beginning the subject is closer to the form of the other than to the surging forth of its own tendency. At the origin, it is a collection of incoherent Desires-that is the tme meaning of the expression corps morcelé [fiagmented body]-and the first synthesis of the ego is essentially alter ego; it is alienated. (Seminar 3 50)

The infant then overcomes this helpless state by recognising and identifying with a more powerftl being. It is in imitation of another that the infant achieves its own unity, the psychic equivalent to identiwing its own image in the mirror. This development is accompanied by a feeling of joy, the triumph of having mastered its body. Triumphant, the rnirror-stage also marks the beginning of alienation and prepares the psyche for socialisation.

This "self",however, is built on shaky ground, for it is threatened by its own origins. As

Elisabeth Ragland-Sullivan writes:

Since the infant identifies with the human form as a center of unity outside itself, hurnan awareness of "self" starts out based on a lie. The subsequent effects of this original disjunction or assymary range from the psychotic production of a double (as in the Doppelganger phenornenon) to the kind of bodil y disintegration depicted by Hieronymus Bosch. @cari and the Philoso~hvof Psvchoanalvsis 275-276) The uncanny then could well be the subject's confrontation with its own alien origins, The threat of castration envisioned by Freud as the source of the uncanny stands for the threat of psychic rupture. The ambivalence of the uncanny, the desire to look, attcsts to the promise of pleasure accompanying this rupture. Lacan's description of the subject's origins is reminiscent of Trine's brief gloss on the word hell. When overvalued, the bounded self becomes a prison, a hell, a living death; by this token rupture, however painfiil, is sornething to be wished for. Lacan's description relates to the grotesque aesthetic in Stramm's drama in a nurnber of important ways. The self is imagined as a space. In the case of the Moi, it is a bounded space, often pictured as a fortress or castle to the unconscious rnind. The idea of framed imaginary space with the human subject at its centre pomays the fantasy of human identity as unified and rd, capable of mastering the space it surveys. On the other hand, the pre-Mirror Stage self can be envisioned as a chaotic, threatening landscape, unmapped and unrecognisable, with no human subject at its centre. In Stramm's dramas, the destniction of the ego is imagined physically, spatially.

Similar to Stramm's dramatisation of spatial rupture. Stramm's depiction of dramatic figures demonstrates the comforiable acceptance of stable identity to be a lie, founded on an illusion. The figures within Stramm's dramatic worlds cannot be tmly said to be people at dl. They are a colIection of masks, of provisional identities. As such, these characters are typically motivated by feelings of both dread and desire. The source of these emotions is dificult to determine. They seem like the natural extensions of the void felt in the seIf In a similar fashion, the construction of gender plays a key role in Stramm's dramatic depiction of a fragmentary identity. To be gendered, in Awakening and Forces, means to be starpped with an arbitrary pronoun; the chmersare not so much in possession of their gender identities

as they are the recipie&s of an dien language, constructing the worM along ubitruy lines.

Finally, the prescnce of myaenous and powerful portenu ailier Stramm's dnunu to the

apocalyptic grotesque of othet Expressionist plays. In Awakening and Fora, the chamcters

are beset with mysterious signs and correspondences. The mie powers of the world are

estranged fiom the physical worid. Trine once again provides a possible inspiration, ofking

evidence for the spint word. "We are living, so to speak, in a vast ocean of thought, and the

very aîmosphere around us is continually filled with the thought forces that are being

continually sent or that are continually going out in the forrn of thought waves" (Trine 18-

19). ri ne also diuzisses the connections between the worlds of spirit and matter in mystical

terms. "The law of correspondences between spirituai and matenal things is wonderfiilly

exact in its wording" (25).

Apocalyptic Time and Space in Awakening and FIrg

Both Awakeninq and Forces take place in a time that feels dislocated nom any sense of

history or of linear progression. Although the situations presented in both plays are

superficially modem and domestic. with a couple of startling references to contemporary

locations (Bumeljase),the dramatic action is never set in a panicular town. Similady, the central characters are never fiom any specific place, and they never plan to travel anywhere

specific. Stage directions, when they are specific, refer to the naîural world rather than the human one. For example, the star's appearance.in Awakening is an index of the natural world. Also, the indication that the events of Forces take place in autumn is clearly signifiant; the withered leaves and dying light are in harmony with the decay of human relationships in that play. Tirne, as presented in Stramm's dnma, is suspended. Night

60 doesn't fall; the sun doesn't rise. Textually, the imagery of light and darkness is mingled and

confùsed. It is as if the worid onstage is cut off fiom the natutal world, which, in tum, is

seen as alien and threatening. This suspension of time in Stramm's plays lends the play a

myaical qurlity, reinforcing the feeling of a trance-like nate in the spectator, a faling

echoed in the apparently irrational behaviour of the charactcrs onstage.

A similar, trance effect is created through Stramm 's dramatic trament of space. 'The motif

of mysterious intrusion of the outside world into a supposedly secure interior is common in

Stramm's plays. This motif is readily apparent in Awakeninq, as a giant rift opens in the wdl

of the hotel room, opening the play to both the night air and the promise of apocalypse. The

cracked bel1 referred to in the play reinforces this image of spatial rupture. Also, Stramm's

earlier wo* showed the playwright's developing concem with the acts of intrusion and rupture. In Sancta Susanna, Susanna and the rest of the nuns believe themselves to be secure within the chapel, but the forces of blossoms, singing birds and night wind conspire against thein. These forces are anthropomorphised by Stramm; they are listed as characters. In

Forces, the married pair's dwelling place, associated with "She", is bombarded with imperfectly overheard conversations fiorn the outside, feeding her psychotic jealousy. A stray leaf falls in her hair when she is examining herself in the minor, again, she is stricken with a feeling of inexpressible honor.

Stramm's use of space and time in both Forces and Awakeninq offers the audience the image of a normal, domestic location. In Awakeninq, the twin beds, the slippers and the familiar, apparently adulterous situation all create an initial appearance of nomality. This

'normal' enclosure is then bombarded with signs fiom an uncanny offstage space. Any space contiguous to the location is impossible to imagine; it is a space of unimaginable flux, of fie

6 1 (Awakeni ng) and nig ht breezes (Forces, Sancta Susanna). Simi larl y, time no longer operates in a cIear Iinear direction. The time is marked only by the transformation of the wodd we see onstage and of the characters who inhabit it. The sense of uncertainty and grotesque dread created by Stramrn's dramatic use of time and space is also evident in Strarnm's deeply unsettiing view of human identity and its connection to Ianguage.

The Uncertain Pronoua

It is evident that Stramm was highly interesteci in ianguage and systems of representation and values. He had great admiration for the linguistic theories of the philosopher Mauthner, who wrote at some length on the inadequacy of language to represent reality. Mauthner goes fûnher to point out that language shapes its own reality, one irrevocably separate tiom the living world. From this conclusion. Mauthner extrapolates that the poetic use of language is its highest goal because it best embodies the tme power of language, its world creation fbnction.

Stramrn, in his writing, is obsessed with the significance of the pronoun. The problematic of the pronoun is key to understanding why Stramm was so attracted to the dramatic medium.

~e was obsessed with the ambiguity of identity and its imminent dissolution. Two of his love poems "Liebeskampf' and " Wankelmut",end in "lch". Many, including "fihort",

Ver,we~eI~","Dammemnf and " Trieb" end in "Du!""Blute" ends in "Duuod [ch! Ich und

Du!/Du?!" (441." Ail of Stramm's erotic poetry is concerned with "lch" and "Du", and even occasionally with "Wir" in a tense, repetitive, obsessive way. Often attributed as a hopefûl indication of the salutary powers of love, fiom the grotesque point of view, the pronoun motif evident in Stramrn's poetry points consistently to an essential instability of identity? Furthemore, the pronoun problem presents itself in Strarnm's strikingly ardent correspondence to his mentor H. Walden:

1 feel one with you, Herwarth, with both of you. Somctimcs, it seems to me as if we are one substance. Distance is meaningless. Sometimes, 1 feel in this way that 1 encompass the earth. The whoie of everything. And 1 feel you the same way. (To Walden, Feb. 23, 1915)

Love! Who are you? Man or woman? 1 never find what 1 seek! 1 am man and wife! 1 have written the writing of one August Stramm. So! It lies before me. (To Walden, Feb. 12, 1915)

Knowledge is lies. You are the creator of creators! You are neither man nor woman. You muld never submit to reason. You are 1. Only 1. May our paths in life ever be so tightly knit. 1 am not I not self. 1 feel al1 is me! AIl! I know the unknowable! ...1 feel All! 1 feel me! ... (To Walden, Feb. 12, 1915)

The ecstatic disintegration of the subject into the cosmos is one of Stramm's obsessions. His favourite works of philosophy, notably those by Vaihinger and Trine. ali treat on this problem. He died canying a paie blue copy ofln ffmnmie mitdem UndedZichen. For

Stramm, the problem of identity is shown in his endless assertion of the first person pronoun, coupled with his refiisal to define the pronoun in any recognizable way. Sirnilarly, the problern of gender identity is expressed in the excerpted letters. The writer feels it necessvy to assume both genders collapsing one into the other. Words like "alln,or even man and woman are deliberately left hazy, open to interpretation.

The motif of gender, disintegrating and being reinstated, is notable in Stramrn's writing.

The central action in hl three of Stramm's tmly Expressionia dramas-Awakening, Forces and Happeninq-al1 focus on a central sexual conflict. The conflict is realiy a battle of the pronouns: He against She; and 1 in deadly conflict with You. Each of Stramm's dramas explores the constant nmggle between these arbitrarily opposite forces. The plays' emotion is rnainly the ecstasy and violence of fluctuating merger and separation. These conflicting categories, however, do not really signifjr anything except for their existence as conflicting

forces. Thus, Stnmm has isolated the words he uses in poetry and dmfiom their ordinary

social contacts. Stramm's words, high1y unnatural, do not merely express the drama of ths

mhor stage, they exhibit the alien origins of language and the self Stmis consistently given to grandiose assertions of self that are simultaneously homfying and ecstatic. His letters towards Walden certainly show joy and an overpowering sense of fiision with the entire world: a fiision made at the sacrifice of psychic unity.

Awrkening and the Annihilation of the Self

Awakening seems today with its stylised gestures, bold imagery, and enigmatic dialogue- al1 with some mysterïous authorial design seemingly at work-to have corne fiom the dramatic tradition of a parallel universe. at once strange and farniliar. In genre it resembles most closely an uneasy hybrid between a Iost woman melodrarna and a biblical apocalypse.

Ets star, cracked bell, storm, fire and flood paradoxically erupt inside a contemporary hotel room with twin beds, pyjamas. bedroom slippers and pistols. The mass too, ostensibly contemporary, could be a spitehl mob of pesants as Breughel might have painted them, crude, identified only by individual trade and simple vice, lust, greed, fear and envy.

Motivated by greed and lust and hatred of the alien, they seethe in a primordial fashion; yet, curiousl y, they are in some ways more differentiated than the hoch-Deursch speaking principles-He, She, and It. The only person on stage with a proper name is the biblically appalled Josef, the Smith, who accuses He of stealing his daughter.

The real bourgeois fallacy is not in the clinging to morality-Stramm in both the personal and the artistic sense was not concerneci with breaking moral and social conventions; it lies in the myth of a coherent identity. Ail of the crowd are sure of who they are, if only in the

64 medieval senr of belonging to a trade or caste within a presurnably divinely organjsed hierarchy.~ They are pennitted identity because they have not yet awakend to what lies within. This assurned lack of interïority of the mass is the most signi ficant feaain of the crowd in Awakening. They are not a faceless mask, but a mass without a privaîe space.

Their lack of interiority is aligned with their occupation of the outside space in Awakening; similarly, the hotel room signifies the barren inner space of the couple, a fiightening place where communication and identity becornes impossible. In the first part of the play, both He and She try, in vain, to establish a sort of coherent and traditional relationship. ïhey are thwarted by the presence of an enigmatic and fearfùl stain within the rmthat only the woman can see. Whether she is "mad" or not is inelevant in the world of the play. He, the man, protective and paternalistic tries to rassure her of the non-existence of the stain, but he too is given to f&l mood-swings. The "stain" seems to contaminate everything in the room. "Shen, as previousty noted, becomes increasingly anxious and ambivalent (emotions ofien engendered by the appearance of the grotesque) and becomes confiised by her own image in the mirror. There is no evidence to suggest that she feels guilty for Iaving a husband and family, an interpretation given to the play in Ritchie's introduction to Seven ... Expressionist Plavs that smacks of literalism."" To the contrary, she is homfied by any traditional displays of'affection on the part of the man, who calls her "childwand "wife" and

8 seems desirous of estabilishing a family type of relation with her.

The question of the wife category is, indeed, central to Awakening: when "He" coolly asserts that "She"is his wife, the crowd responds hotly that she is the wife of each and every one of them; every man lays claim to the identity of this woman in some way. It is by no means certain that the mysterious and mysteriously deccased "Lumpelazu &m Brmre&sse"

is, in fact, the husband of "She". "Shen certainly never admits to it:

PROFESSORS, LAWYERS, MERCHANTS, LABOURERS: (Shrieking wildly among themseives and pressing& closer) This is my wife. My wife! My wife! This is rny wife! My wife! ~evil!Devil! My wife! (the raiscd pistol pushes the surging horde back again repeatedly)

INNKEEPER (Making -ce by swingritg his arms about and shouting over the noise) e Quiet! Not mad! Dont run wild! Now just ben! Just listen! That is Lumpel's wife! The merchant Lumpel his wife! From the Bunzeljasse! I know well enough! Bunzei! Lumpel! Lumpel! Bunzel! @as Werk 195)

"S he's" final speech could easily be interpreted as a gestwe of defiance and self- * immolation. The two words. "Whore" and "Wife" are as much conflated as they are contrasted by her excited repetition of them. The effect of this repetition is similar to the motif of the repeated, emphasised pronoun. Her two speeches are possessed by an. ambiguous emotion, part terror and part rage. They express the culmination of the anxiety that "She" has been experiencing throughout Awakeninq:

SHE (Springs twisting up, the palms of her han& in gveat amiety againsr him.) You you ! You you! (Screams aloud, long) Ooooo !! ! @ce stonning. stmgggling) You ! you! The sky burns! You! You! The walls break! You!

SHE (in great anxiety). Whore whore whore! Wife Wife Wife! 1 will! 1 will! WiII I! Whore! Whore! Whore! Not your Wife! Never your Wife! Your Wife! not. (She rems lmse and throws the word out, ciimutng it out) Your Wieieieieiefe ! @as Werk 199-200)

More than a cry of guilt over her alleged adultery, this outburst seems to be the result of an inability to answer certain questions about her identity. Nothing can be definitely said to be tme of "She", neither her adultery, nor her status as "Wife" or "Whore", nor her feelings for

"He" or for herself The oniy thing that can be tmly ascertained is her resistance to the attempts at identification or colonisation by "He". "He", presumably in order to establish his own identity, attempts to subjm "She " to his will, to make hahis "Wife",just as the crowd tries to make her their "Whore". Dots this cycle begin again when "He" is confiontcd with

the supposai sister of "She", an untouched maiden, tmly an "It" ("It" is, of course, the

appropriate German pronoun for "DmMadchen"). If. as Ritchie says, "It" must be awakened

by "He" into a "She",does it stand to reason that "Shenis already awakened? if so, whaî

happens after the "awakening", the jouissance of breaking down the fortress of one's own

identity in order to fùse with and control the other? This cosmic breakthrough (A@mch)

can only be followed by chaos or the building of another city, another consciousness,

presumably one more secure against outside threats. Every possible city, however, is built

upon an unstable consciousness; its identity is grotesque. One is reminded that one of the

possible meanings of "unheimlich"is "hauntéd". The restless spirit of "She" haunts al1 of the

play's possible worlds, as every identity is dislocated, made grotesque by the contamination

of "othemess", a contamination that can never be eradicated. The couple's struggle to open

the window of the hotel rwm, thereby risking exposure signifies the temor and ecstasy of

being exposed to the gaze of the Ofher and the recognition of the origins of one's own

identity.

In the Lacanian reinterpretation of the superego, language plays a vital role in the stabilisation of identificatory, narcissistic and Moi inclinations. The purification of language,

the attempt to strip it of its cultural and social fhnctions, is the key to a process that is shown,

in Awakening, to destabilise the Moi. Stramm depicts this disruption of the process of identity as being at once desirable and temble. SimiIarly, the inability to provide any kind of stable gender identification, "She's" rejection of al1 the ferninine roles assigned to her, and the ambiguous triumph of "Its" transformation into another "She" point to a failure of language to represent reality. Language fails to produce crucial differences: between "1" and

67 ' "you", between "hemand "she", between subject and objcct. Awakenings radical trcatment

of language is echoed in much 1 will examine in the question of Stramm's treatment of

gender.

Forces and the Grotesque Womra

The play Forces, like Awakening, takes place in a setting that is at once farniliar and

estranged. It is easy to discern that the characters, again al1 nameless, are middleclass, or,

more accwately, leisure class. Nothing inmides on their activitics of drinking tea, riding, and

displays of psychotic jealousy. A very prosaic servant serves the tea. There is fùrniture too: an armchair, a sofa and a sofa table. It is a setting that, for Stramm, could be described as

"heinrlich",bourgeois, familiar. Yet, ffom the beginning, the tone, is beyond any sort of realism :

SHE (gurglng twitching. cienching). So (tumto the rmm) So! (moves to the mïrw stroking her hair and face, tums. stares heiplessiy, loneiessly repting) Beautifil, indescnbably charming.

LEAVES (ndingthrm~gh the window)

SHE (ragrng beside herse& stamps, shuciaers). Murder! (stotts, tuch a Zeuf into her hair, hits al the air. stamps her fmt, shrieks) @as Werk 207)

The wornan, "She" again, is clearly the centre of the drama and it is her disturbed consciousness that is the guiding force of the piay. Stramm is &en described as paying particular attention to the expressionist theme of the "New Man" (Amin); however, in

Forces, it is the character of "She" and her crisis of identity that centres the play. Many of the motifs of Awakening are evident in this drama as well: "She" turns to a minor for sojace; instead she discovers that her image is contarninated by the primordial identification with the

Other. In Forces, the Other is prkwily repnsented by the female fkiend and not by ha husband as may be expected. The words "beautifil, indescribably charrningware presurnably

what she overhears her husband saying to or about "The Friend". The whole mechanism of

her formidable jealousy hinges on this Iittle phrase, never heard by the audience except as

rernembered by "Shen. The cause of this jealousy is never confirmed or denied within the structure of the drama. "He" is certainly gallant to "The Friend"; however, al1 the audience hears at the beginning of Forces is suggestive laughter floating on the autumn air towards an already distraught woman. Every time htr jedousy abates, the wordsdeultifbl, indescribably charming- seem to inadvertently occur to her, rerninding her of the supposedly sùperior chmof her fiend. The superiority of "The Friend" is also echoed in the symbolism of night and day:

MALE VOICE: We will ride

FEMALE VOICE. Nobly

MALE VOICE. The autumn Sun

FEMALE VOICE. Now

SHE (holds her head between both fists, wanders languidly around). I... ride ... at Nght ... on a moonlit night. @as Werk 207)

Suamm avoids a rigid use of binaries, fùsing and mingling the images of light and darkness.

The "female voice" repeats the word "moonlight" as if she were echoing "She". lndeed "her fnend" could be said to be an emanation of "She". When the "Friend" cornes inside fiom riding in the park, she complains of the darkness; however, as soon as the Iamp is lit, she complains, laughing throughout, that she is now "really blind" . The use of light is clearly important to Strarnm. The contusion of light and darkness is characteristic of certain kinds of cinematic Expressionism, according to Deleuze. Although language is, in Forces as in al1 of Strmm's later work, dislocated and fiagmented, the little, seemingly banal phrase,

"beautifid, indescribabiy charming" creates a disturbance that reverbnates through the consciousness of "She" and through the world of the play. The little phrase seems to crac waves of increasingly violent emotion that eventualiy build up enough strength to break down a11 barriers of conventional civilisation ending in a scene of homfic violence, unprecedented in Stramrn's work for its graphic perversity. The final scene takes place in the same room; but with a "covered window" perhaps a final attempt by "Shento shut out the torturing outside. In a tembfe and erotically charged fienzy, "Shen cuts the lips off "her fiiend" with a knife. "She" repeats the phrase, with slight mutations, Iike a holy chant:

SHE:...( She clicks open the rbtijie andpoints it, bedng/fumingand wondering) O you are beautifil, inexpressibly charming, really, do you heu? And 1 am also am beautiful, he said it a hundred times (in a grievous cry) 1 never had what 1 possessed, 1 never possessed what 1 had and what 1 had, the other has always possessed (cries, goes over the face and hair ojthe sleeping one) no no, you shall live, really live (tmching, voluptuollsly) Skin, lips, oh (bends low and cuts) not kiss, never. never more (throws the eut [lipsj and knije out the opwinabw bending over htr) You are beautifid. O charming (wiping a handkerchief over her sweating forehead). (Des Werk 226)

In the passionate repetition of "beautifûl" and "charming", "She" seems to take on her husband's supposed passion for her friend. the desire to be the Other tuming quickly into the desire to annihilate the Other. She successfblly amihilates her husband in scene four, shooting him to death with a revolver, off-stage. T7ie relationship between the married couple is similar to the one presented in Awakening The man's attitude towards his wife altemates rapidly between one of tender and paternalistic concern and one of irritation and disappointment. Ail of his attempts to demonstrate physical affection towards her are repu lsed. This dramatic relationship is not, however, a Strindberg-like power stiuggle betwœn the sexes; Stramm presents a paranoiac fcar of the dissolution of gmdcr-diffcrence on the de side demonstrateci by the 'He' character's insistence on a wnventional, paternalistic mode of behaviour. Women, for Strarnm, represent the principle that resists anidunition; their power is more primordial, a symptom of the Imaginary domain. They are presented as a threat to the rational, more wherent identity of the male. The conflict within 'She' is heconcilable as it arises fiom the need to preserve an identity and the recognition that haidentity of

"beloved wife" is a lie, a hallucination. She is beautifid, she is loved; but she could be replaced by anyone. The laughter and withered leaves drift in fiom the outside; She is forced to recognisethat her self-image is built on insubstantial ground and that it is subject to invasion by mysterious, hostile forces. She begins to question the truth-value of al1 statements. "Lies, lies", she repeats inceswntly, acaising her husband and everyone else around her of falsehood. There can be neither confirmation nor denial of her suspicions. The foregrounding of the disturbed consciousness of 'She' and the ambiguous, frsgmentod nature of the language so typical of Stramm succeeds in destabilising the universe depicted in the drama. Al1 of the familiar, melodrarnatic clichés-the irrational, jealous wornan, the love triangle, even the banal action of spilling tea-fail to add up to a melodrama; they create instead a tense drama of confusion between identities and a revelation of a reality that is created out of the fabric of paranoia. The fantastic hounds that throng around the inside, drawn ostensibly by the fieshly shed blood, perhaps corne to finish the work of hgmentation and devouring, the resolution of an irreparably wounded narcissistic consciousness:

HOüNDS Wghting)

SHE (lough).The hounds fight [over the] lips (I@kug&zss) do you heu? Wait a while

7 1 (subsidng into though@I's) While (trembling ove? tk recIimng one, bedovw and listens) breaîh, breath, You @uts the glass away md wiIdypulLs ut krkir) You shail not Iie here, lie, 1 will meet him, rneet (slips into the park)

- Sm (retummad lrnrghing, dies her bands). Yes t hirsty/Iusty/mtting hounds (lakes the hami of tk &d si& and consiciers)

SHE (LaugIrr /ou4 &inht breaks the glas into pieces. suddeniy gnps his hand; owr hiin). You, Yourself, 1. (226)

The ending encspsulates the tensions of the play weil, ending in a manner typical of Stramm with an iteration of the "uncertain pronoun".

Conclusion

Both Awakeninq and Forces illustrate in different ways the central concerns of Stramm's writing. îhe characters in the drama engage in fantastical attempts to impose a structure on the universe that both surrounds and fills them: either by defensive means ('She's, and 'He's' dilemma about opening the window in Awakening and the use of the mirror by 'She' in both

Awakening and Forces), or by offensive means ('She' nrnning away from 'He' and 'He' threatening the townspeople and causing the deluge and cataclysm in Awakeninq). The intnision of the outside world, of the Other, and the attempt of the protagonists to maintain a coherent identity through the conquest of the Other cause the initiation of the "grotesque" feeling that pervades the dramas of Stramm. To "make sense" of these dramas by transposing their merrning into representational language is to ignore the essential fiinction of

Stramm's treatment of both gender and language.

The feeling is 'grotesque' because it is unheimlich in the sense of the word as has been previously described. The sense is unheimlich in its double action: first, by defamiliirising stnictures which are assumed to be natural, such as language, gender and identity; second, by reminding the reida/speaotor of his tnie origins and original helplessnerr. A fahg of ecstasy, of retunùng home, it is also one of vertiginous flight, a fiee fall into the world of the fragmented body. The dramatisation of the end of the known world, of al1 the cornforthg fictions of progress and identity, is characteristic of most apocaiyptic texts. In orda for the new to be created, the old must be violently washed away. In order to approach the sacreci, one mut reject the illusion of names. of sepuation and orda. In wartime, near the end of his

1i fe, Stramm describeci these sensations,

Battle and Need and Death and Nightingale al1 are one. One! And War and Sleep and Dream and Commerce al1 are one! There is no separation. Everything is in one and swims and shimmers as sun and darkness. Only to describe it nobly, to paint it. So we fight, hunger, die, sing. Al1 ! Soldier and Leader! Night and Day . Body and Blood. And over me a hand shines! I swim through dl! Am all! I! (To Walden, May 27, 19tS) i The imporuuice of layout in Strarnm's poetry is discussed in greater detail in John White's "Aspects of Topography and Layout in August Strarnm's Poetry" collected in Strarnm: Critical Essays. He summarizes his findings thus: "1. Pmsare printed in conventional black ink. II. A consistent typeface is retaind thmughout (even if there have been subscquent variations of actual face chosen fiom edition to eàition.) ïïI. The sdng preserves the traditional regular spacing between each word. W.In Der Sturm- the horizontal gap between words is liberal and almost exactly the same as the v-1 gap between Iines; this effects a vertical and horizontal isolation of each single word, a feature neglected by subsequent editors and printers. V. There is no departure fiom the tradition of horizontal printing. VI. Each poem is arranged with the lints beginning irnmediateiy below one another on a vertical axis" (1 83). ii Sancta Susanna was produced by the Sfumtheater in 1 9 18 under the direction of Lothar Schreyer to a mixed critical reaction. 1919 saw two productions of Stramm by Schreyer, Da Haidebrm and Krgre. Reinhardt produced Krafie with considerable su6cess in 192 1. iii Walter Sokel describes the feelings of inferiority of the artist in The Writer in Extremis: "The Expressionists livcd after Nietzsche's and Freud's unmasking of the artistic grnius. Nietzsche and Freud saw in the artist a congenitally inferior type whose grcatness lies in his ability to avenge himself for his shortcomings or to sublimate his unfillecl needs" (69). iv Many Expressionists were more interested in the wmiting of philosophen than they were in fictional writers. Nietzsche achieved a kind of cult status among many of them. He was depicted by Stefan George as a kind of Expressionist martyr in an age of philistines. Other dramatists were profoundly influenced by Schopenhauer. Music and the visual arts were also exceptionally influential for many Expressionist writers: for instance, Kokoschka, Barlach and Kandinsky al1 combined writing for the stage with painting and sculpture. v Stramm's dramas can be broken down into three distinct groupings, following Radrizanni's analysis in Dar Werk: first--the quasi-naturalistic plays-Die Bauen, Das @-fer and Der Gatie; second-the l yrical dramas written between 1912 and 19 1-ta Susanna, Rudimentar and Die Haidebraci; third-the Expressionist dramas written at the end of his life--Erwachert, KIafre and Geschehen. vi Rudmentiïr was first pefiormed by the Berliner Forum Theater in 1973. According to Wilhelm Emrich rAugust Stramms Rudimenta: mrur Konzepfion &s Forum ïkaterf),the play was successfùlly updated. Strarnm's original Berlin Dialect was transposed into High German.

W Mel Gordon in his introduction to Expressionist Texts calls for a new approach to the analysis of Expressionist drama that would examine these works as having importance outside their significance to a supposed Iiterary evolution. nii Possible English translations of unheimlich provi ded by Freud (6om the didonaries of Lucas, Bellows Flugel and Muret-Sanders.) "UnncomforrPble, uncasy, gloomy, dismal, uncanny, ghastly; (of a house) haunted; (of a man) a repulsive fellow" (Cornolete Wo* XVrI 221). ix Freud suggests that such doubles (dolls, automata etc.) are reassuring because they are like primitive fetishcs constructeci to support the life-force and identity of the individual.

It may seem thrit the fear of going blind is terrible enough to justify the fetling of homr "The Sandman" amuses, without resorting to the threat of castration. Freud, however, undcrstood the importance of the phdlic signifier in the creation of the human subject. 'WCmay try on rationalistic grounds to deny that fears about the eye are derived fiom the fear of castration, and rnay argue that it is very naturai that so precious an organ as the eye should bc guarded by a propprtionate dread. Indeed, we might go fùrther and say that the fear of castration itself contains no other significance and no deeper secret than a justifiable dread of this rational kind. But this view does not account adequately for the substitutive relation benveen the eye and the male organ which is seen to exist in dreams and myt hs and phantasies; nor can it dispel the impression that the threat of being castrateci in especial excites a peculiarly violent and obscure emotion, and that this emotion is what first gives the idea of losing other organs its intense colouring. Al1 tiirther doubts are rernoved when we lemthe details of the "castration complex" fiom the analysis of neurotic patients, and realize its immense importance in their mental life"' (Com~leteWorks XWi 23 1). x Al1 of Stramm's poetry cited in this chapter can be found in L)4S Werk. xi Geoffiey Perkins heavily romanticises Stramm's use of "Du" in "The concept of 'Du" in A Stramm's Dfiiebesgediclrte." Perkins writes: "Nothing cm be more simple than the ultimate divine concept of 'Du* represented in the poem 'Allmachr'. This poem is linle more than a simple hymnic exaltation of God and represents the ultimate divine power" (132). xii The nosalgia of same Expressionists, including a writer as sophisticated as Kaiser, for mal1 town or pastoral Iife is striking. The attitude of Expressionists towards primitive unseifconscious man is strongly marked with admiration and nostalgia, and tinged with - contempt. xiii Ritchie writes: "He sas the star while she remains tied to bourgeois concepts of marital fidelity and love of her children." Of the Expressionists, Stramm was one of the least interested in criticizing bourgeois institutions like marriage and family. Awakening shows the Nietzschean hero, "He", attempting to instate order on a fiagmented worid. The hotel room's tear lets in the outside world and gives him new hop, taking him out of the homr of cunfionting a desired other in an interior space at once strange and familiar. Cbrpter Thra

0sk.r Kokoschka's Spectadt of the Grotesque Worid

Oskar Kokoschka's creative output provoked mough conboversy in his Iifetime to the expectations of the most arnbitious avant-garde artist. The young artist became notorious early in his career for using shock tactics to jolt the cornplacent Viemese bourgeoisie out of their Strauss and Lehàr-induced lethargy. With his shaven head, dandi fied clothing and outrageous manners, Kokoschka succeedui not only in shocking his environment, but also in marketingfcreating an identity for himself as an artist of the "cutting edge." Tt was probably

Kokoschka himself who spread the mmours that he practised cannibalisrn- Certainly, he relishes reporting these rumours in his autobiography Mv Li fe. This fascinating book provides much insight into Kokoschka's tendency to mythologise the events in his Iife. This is not to say that the author dways presents a flattering self-portrait-a strain of self-hatred pervades his work. "Mythologise", however, is the best word to describe the process whereby-as with his paintings that portray the human subject as both surrounded by force fields of energy and inscribed with mystenous calligraphy-events of his life are depicted as evidence of a mysterious force of destiny. In any discussion of Kokoschka's work, it is therefore appropriate to identiw a heterodox spiritual basis for the playwright's art.

In order to foreground Kokoschka's use of grotesque and apocalyptic elements, it will be necessary ta sift through the considerable literature on the artist. The focus of this analysis will be on Kokoschka's first play for live actors, the controversial Murderet. Ho~eof

Womankind and on his later full length tour deforce, mheus and Eurydice, never to my knowledge translated into English. Kokoschka's theatncal organisation of space and time, his powerfully grotesque porttayal of gender. use of the motifs of violence and rupture and

76 suggestion of an alien god will form the basis for this study. 1, therefore, propose to read

Kokoschka with more attention than previously has been given to his identity as a theatre

artist. Critics tend to still refer to Kokoschka's ptays as a litcrary expression; but they were

clearly intended for performance and rely on mise-en-scène, on the special spatial, temporal

and kinetic attributes ofthe theatre to communicate. Kokoschka believed in the importance of visions, and believed that theatre could create an environmcnt for spectatan that would suspend al1 contradiction between the materiai and spirituai redms.

Kokoschka: Influences and Critics

Kokoschka's background was one of borderline poverty. Born in 1888, he saw the industrial revolution deprive his father, a highly skilled goldsmith who had received royal commissions in Prague, of a livelihood in Vienna. His father, Gustav. like many other ch immigrants had made the move to Vienna to look for new markets for his skills; but these aspirations faded quickly. Experiencing the family's hardships as a child contributeci to

Kokoshka's later hatred of technological progress.' There was no money for school and

Kokoschka was dependent on a schoiarship to attend the Realschule and later the

Kum~gewerbeschle(the prestigious academ y for commercial art). His mother, Romana, was a forester's daughter fiom Styria with little education, about twenty years younger than her husband. Apparently, she had the gift of second sight and her three children relate rnany stories that confirm this. Kokoschka had strong ties to his mother and the rest of his family- he lived at home at an age when rnost peopie would prefer otherwise; tris mother resented

Alma Mahler bitterly and apparently once stood outside her house with a gun. Kokoschka's older brother Gustav died when he was very srnaIl.. He had two younger siblings, Bohuslav and Bensa; he remainexi very protective of them throughout his life. AIl biographers anest to

77 his family loyalty. Sorne, including Kokoschka himselc speak of a psychic co~ection.

Certainly as soon as Kokoschka became a successfùl artist, the grtater part of his egnrings

went to the support of his family. even if this occasionally Icfi him in straightend

circumstances. He bought a house for his parents, who had never been able to aord a home

of their own and paid for his sistef s lavish wedding.

Kokoschka was not a particularly successfiil student. He did, however, becorne a

remarkably literate man, Iargely self-educated. In his autobiographicai writings, Kokoschka

writes with great facility about history and social issues, religion, and geology." His great

love of mythology and the classics-he had wished for a Gymmium education so that he

might leam Greek and Latin but his family did not have the money for it--informs al1 of his

writing. He places great importance on the writing of theologians and mystics; he mentions

Eckhardt, Swedenborg and Thomas Aquinas as inspirations. It is dinicult to discem how much the young Kokoschka, silent and gauche in more educated Company (the circle around

Karl Kraus), understood figures like Strindberg, Freud. Weininger or even Nietzsche, who are commonly assurned to have influenced him. Kokoschka usually denies any knowledge of .-- the aforementioned figure~.'~It is extremely doubtful whether any of the four had a direct impact on Kokoschka's art.

Mera pmod of early painting, which owes an obvious and acknowledged debt to Klimt,

Kokoschka seems to have discovered his style while painting portraits of Loos and his friends. He cites a particular portrait, one of an actor, Reinhold, as a tuming point in his career. Instead of creating a beautifid, richly dearateci surface, as in the tradition of Art

Nmeuu and Klimt, he sought to reveal the essence of the subject, painting only what was essential to his being, and omitting or sketching in the rest.

78 Kokoschka is ambivalent about his relation to the Exprtssionist movement. Schrey statcs

that he is supporting Kokoschka when he declares that such labels as Expressionist are

meaningless. Ritchie in a review of Kokoschka's work finds this opinion distastefiil, because it is not usefbl for critics to follow the wishes of authors too closely. Kokoschka hirnself goes back and forth on his self-definition: sometimes he poses as more of a cynic than moa

Expressionists, identifjhg the movement with the Sturm group. the progressive iddists surrounding Henuarth ald den." Artists are fiequently leay of putthg themsdves into categories and this kind of noncommit ment is a common stance. Kokoschka, like his mentor

Kraus, saw himself as a revolutionary, but as one without political conviction, a stance he maintained his whole life. He served with the Austrian army in the First World War, but more as a result of his failed romance with Alma Mahler than fiom any nationalist motivation. The war did turn him into quite an ardent pacifist. Anti-war allegories are a recurrent motif in his work.

Kokoschka was interested in the theatre early. He participated in the cabaret Fledennuus, started by the Wiener Werkstatte. creating a short original piece perforrned by elaborate puppets operaîed by the author. The Speckled Egg was, alas, not a success and the text is lost. The puppets themselves are quite beautifil, reminiscent of Indonesian shadow puppets.

Later, Kokoschka acted as theatre designer. creating sets and lighting for a production of me

Magic Flute, one of his favourite operas. Kokoschka's talent for writing also manifesteci itself at this tirne. Opinions of his ability Vary. Whitford writes that if he had never painted a thing, his fame as a writer would be assured; however, he was not a fkquently pdonned playwright in his own tirne, nor has he been rediscovercd to any great extent in rrcnit y-.

As for theatre infiuences. Kokoschka admired the plays of Stnmm; but appamtly had little

79 knowledge or interest in other Expressionist playwrights. Hc maintained that his most

important influences came tiom outside the theatre. As a young man, he was greatiy

impressed with Bachoven's theories of a pre-classical, matriarcha1 society. The ideas of

matriarchy, the eternity of the feminine principle as opposed ta the temporality of the

masculine pnnciple appears to have becorne one-of his most deeply chcrished ideas. Indeed,

Bachoven's hypothesis of an original matriarchy offers one possible code to interpret

Murderer. Ho~eof Womankind; Kokoschka himself suggtsts in his autobiogrsphy that this is the correct intcrpretation. Definitive statements about Kokoschka's influences are impossible to make. Even in his own writing. the artkt contradias himself

Kokoschka's two principal mentors are Adolf Loos, the Viennese architect who discovered him while he was stilï at school, and Paul Cassirer, the art dealer who discovered him while he was in Berlin. Cassirer, one of the first managers of modem artists, was responsible for a dramatic increase in the pnce of Kokoschka's paintings. Another determining event in

Kokoschka's life, and one which has received a great deal of critical attention, is his aff'air with Alma Mahler, the widow of Gustav. Their painfiil and difficult relationship, which ended in 19 Iî, is the inspiration for much of Kokoschka's anistic output, including his &Il- length drama, Omheus and Eurvdice. Diethe has argued that the afFair with Alma had a negative impact on the playwright's depiction of women. ïhere can be no doubt that after being wounded in the war and desmed by Alma who married the architect Walter Gropius,

Kokoschka's mental health suffered. The doll Kokoschka had built to resemble Alma and which was apparently later vioiently destroyed does not indicate a stable or heaithy state of mind. It was during these turbulent years that Kokoschka created most of his dramatic output, and developed his own version of a grotesque aesthetic.

80 Kokoschka must have been an extraordinarily chiarismatic man because he had loyal supporters throughout his Iife, attraaing the patronage and sometimes the devotion of poweriül and intelligent men and women. Because of this power of attraction, he is a difficult figure to study. His biographers tend to lose their analysis in admiration; this is especially true of Hodin and Hoffmann.' They cal1 on chiromancy. astrology, phrenology and the other parasciences to explain his phenomenal wokW He has ban called the grcatest painter of the twentieth century. His dramas stimulate similar outbursts:

Murderer Hom of Womankind is an apocalyptic, overwhelming experiënce, a massive premonitory event, that speaks directly to al1 those who enmunter it, whether in pictorial form or as drarna. (Knapp 179)

Kokoschka's treatment of sexuality, panicularly in his earlier, more obviously Expressionist dramas is profoundly disturbing. Critics sympathetic to Kokoschka cal1 them "dream plays" and explain the sexual violence as being mythic or ~~rnbolic."~Kokoschka himself refers ta his plays as extremely persona1 creations. Orpheus and Eurydice is, according to Kokoschka, a transcription of imaginary conversations between himself and Alma Mahler, while he was recovering fiom the senous injuries he sustained in the war.

In the immediate sense, the play ponrays a battle between the sexes; but some critics have suggested that symbolically it parallels a .protracted orgasm, and others, a reenactment of the stations of the Cross. (Knapp 18 1)

Kokoschka's experiences in the First World War were nightmarish; however, they seem to have barely altered his already pessimistic view of human nature."" An impeccably dressed young man, Kokoschka, encouraged by the perfidious Alma, managed to secure (despite his social class) a commission in the cavalry of the Austrian -y. AJthough he had never ridden a horse before, somehow Kokoschka impressed his officers with his resolution

(charisma again) adrose relatively quickly through the ranks. His awounts of battle and

81 especially of his near escape from death are extrernely well writtm.. The hdwwnd he received resulted in poor balance and other symptoms for the rrst of his Me. Kokoschka's 0 wmime arperience did have the effectof reconciling him with the Catholic Church, which he had left in hope of a civil ceremony with Alma Mahler.

Kokoschka was intent on preserving his status as the most original and important painter of his day. He was fiercely resenttiil of those who threatened this status, impomining his friends to publicly revi le artists who imitated him, 1ike Max Oppenheimer. Eise Lasker-

Schüler was, for one, happy to oblige Kokoschka. Lasker-Schüler tirelessl y promoted

Kokoschka, insisting on his occult powers of observation. The artist's psychic powers are one of the cornerstones of his identity. Numerous stories bearing witness to his own second sight or to the similar talents of various family members appear in his autobiography, and in the descriptions and accounts of his c~ntem~oraries.~~The unseen, the spirit world, WPP of great importance for Kokoschka, a wayward but eamest Catholic, appearing as both a source of awe and dread. The "visionary" is the basis of both Kokoschka's art and his writing on art.

His uncanny powers of perception. in particular his ability to recognise tkpast and the future in the present, are attested to by his conternporaries, especially Loos. In many accounts, Kokoschka's powers are presented as fact. His prescient seif-portraits, depicting himself with a head and chest wound. were later realised on his own flesh-a bayonet pierced one of his lungs and he was shot in the head during battle. These phenomena are so well atîested that more sceptical critics seek a psychological explanation for Kokoschka's a~%:

From 1909 to 19 1 1, Oskar Kokoschka produced perhaps the most extraordinary portraits made in this century. In what can only be understood as a tour de force of what the psychiatrist Daniel Stern calls affect attunement, Kokoschka was able to create visual equivalents to the complex moods of his subjects. (Artforum 122) On the Nature of Thutrical VUioa(s)

Claims to psychic insight and an interest in rnystical reading offer compclling evidence of

Kokoschka's use of the sacred and the mystical in his drama. A revaluation of the comparative importance of such spiritual influences over the more traditionaily cited ones of

Freud and Nietzsche is necessary to the understanding of Koko~chka'sdm and its comection to grotesque and apocalyptic traditions. Evidence of Kokoschka's cornmitment to such religious traditions can be seen in his autobiographical and theoretical writing, as well as in the accounts of his contemporaries.

The biographical information on Kokoschka is both enormousiy suggestive and maddeningl y ambiguous. Throughout al1 the literature both by Kokoschka and about

Kokoschkq there mns a continuous main. The tenn 'vision' and the action of seing are at the foundation of Kokoschka's art. The artist's famous 'x-ray eye' was his fust public hallmark. The eariy portraits show a human subject that is lurninous and layered. The portraits are luminous because black is otten used as a.backdrop not as a defining borda; consequently, the human figure appears etched out-using the thin, scratchy lines Kokoschka was known for at this time-in vibrant shades of red and yellow. The figures crackle as if eiectncally wued. The pomaits are designated as layered. not because of their plasticity/ability to suggest three dimensions, but because the human figure is reveded to simultaneously possess multiple dimensions of being. As with a real X-ray, one oui sa at once the skeleton, the suggestion of flesç and even the traces of newes and blood; any sources of pain or tension are revealed, even though they are hidden decp inside the body.

On the surface'of Kokoschka's figures cryptic lines are etched, as if an outside force hm chosen to write upon each person, using an unknown language. This X-ray vision is not a

83 denial of the body, not a 'seeing through' the body; it ernbodies the action of plumbing the body's mysteries. The X-ray eye is embodied, for Kokoschka, in the crucial concept of the

'vision', a concept that is the acknowledged basis for much of his theoretical writing.

"On the Nature ofVisions" and "On the Knowledge of Visions" (hSchn'fiiiche Werk

339-352) arc the only two extant writings which give any idea of what Kokoschka believed to be the conceptual fiamework for hi's artistic creations. Although firmly in the dmof mysticai, non-rationai experience, these two early lectures still pay tribute to the maicrial, sensual universe in a way that is similar to the theoretical musings of other Expressionist playwn'ghts such as Strarnm and Kayser. Unlike Stramm's clipped, nonsensical, ecstatic utterances and Kayser's balanced, bleakly satiric scenes, Kokoschka uses lush and accessible imagery to convey his beliefs:

1 will describe the knowledge of visions that is both a part of this life and a point where we çan see beyond, like a ship that both plunges down arnong the waves and rises up into the air. .. Consciousness is a sea nnged with visions. (D- S. W. 340)

According to Kokoschka, this consciousness of the visionary realm is akin to the mystery of love, particularly maternai love. The artist trusts it as a helpless infant would trust his mother. The obviously mystical nature of this experience is extended by Kokoschka's selection of role models:

The holy Chassidim. who descnbe the Elohirn: a holy Franciscan, who speaks with Stones and creahires as he would with his own self Echard who deified the entire earth, Swedenborg who made pleasure trips with the dead, who discovered the universe in his mind as an Arcana coelestica; the holy Theresa, who took Gdas her husband; more astonishing dl-Mary, fidl of grace, who became the mother of God! 0.S. W.342)

Kokoschka's hatred for the state arises out of a conviction that modem institutions interfiire with searches for ttanscendence. Critics difTer widely in their reactions to this lecture, given as

part of a popular Viennese series of lectures on art-there is no copy of the original text.

Regina Brandt attaches enormous importance to it; Whitford calls it incohercnt and

contradictory." Certainly, the lecture is not usefbl as a cogent analysis of Kokoschka's

artistic rnethod and style; but is inihe tradition of mystical writing. The attempt to evoke the

transcendent and revelatory is typical of Expressionist art. As an example of its type, it is

more evocative than most; certainiy, the lecture reveals Kokosc&a's awareness of his

mystical antecedents.

Kokoschka's concept of the 'vision' is revealed in both the early portraits and in the

structure of his dramas. The latter is usually interpreted by dramatic critics as an example of

the typical narrative mode1 of Expressionist drama in which a rebellious hero or sacrificial

victim transfigures the mechanised society around him. 1 would argue that this paradigm

does not successfiilly explain the relationship that a 'Kokoschkan' drama constnicts between

the spectator and the stage. Although the concept of 'vision', clearly rooted in the mystical

experience, cannot be actually explaineci, its parameters can perhaps be suggested using the

metaphor of the X-ray for Kokoschka's portraits and--for the Kokoschkan dramatic mise-en- scène-the metaphor of the baroque spec~a~tliummu&. The world revealed as pidures on a

stage greatly appealed to the artist, who revered Comenius' Orbis Picturis, repeatedly

mentioning it as one of his chief inspirations since childhood." The baroque concept of the

world as a kind of theatre positions the spectator as a privileged eye. Before the onlooker, the unive&e is unnirled; vision is unimpeded. As a result. such a spectator assumes virtuaily the natus of a passive god. How is such a 'vision' achieved drarnaturgically/sccnographidIy.

Closer analysis of Kokoschka's dramas out lines some possible answers.

85 The chanderistics of the 'Kokoschkan' theurical vision are markeàly diffaat fiom those

of the 'conventional' script-oriented dnma. As is the case with Stramrn, Kokosd*r's

dramas oppose the use of conventional dnmaturgy. The script-onaited dnma is defined by

four dominant characteristics- First, the characters are portrayed as having plausible,

psychological motivation. Second, the presence of an irnaginary history provides a contact

for the segment of time represented by the dramatic action. Third, the manipulation of

audience expectations and empathy results in surprise and suspense. Foean irmginary

space is created, of which the space represented by the stage is a contiguous portion-in effltct creating a coherent off-stage space. O

'Kokoschkan' dramatic figures do not show demonstrable rasons for their action. This is absolutely tme of those of both Murderer. Hope of Womankind and m. Although these characters firequently speak about themselves, the motivations for their actions remain obscure. In Murderer. it is obvious that. at one level. a primordial conflict between male and female is at stake, but there is no specific rePson why the man and the woman should wish to destroy each other. Orpheus and Eurydice. a later drarna, does show an emergent sense of character motivation in the case of its two lads; however, there is not enough evidence to classi9 them as psychological pomaits. Successfùl performance of any of Kokoschka's dramas would be difficult using Stanislavskian techniques. Without motivation, there is no necessity for the figures to be fùrther characterised as possessing an individual history.

Unlike the conventional script-oriented drama, which offers an ofien cornplex and interrelateci depiction of the preceding events that precipitated the drarnatic action (a standard embodied in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), the chvaaers of Kokoschka's dramas have no rd hiaory. Theu names are habitually borrowed fiom myth (Job, Psyche, Orpheus, Hades, and

86 Adam); however, this fact does not determine the events of theu life or their faîe, exccpt in the mat abstract way possible: Is Job really Job-like? Is Orpheus really Orpheus whm he

bothen to pick up a lyre only in the third act and, instead of enchanting his audience, his music makes them murderous? This lack of history and psychological motivation detennines that the spectator's involvement with the audience is not dependent on empathy and expectation. Consequently, suspense is not as significant a factor as it is in most dramas.

Finally, indexes of the world off-stage are few. Kokoschka bsno use for stage directions speciQing a general location such as 'a small town in Germany' or 'the Parthenon'.

Everything that can be understood about the location is revealed on the stage, visible to the spectator. ~ithoutthese four characteristics of the conventional script-oriented drama, the dramas of Kokoschka are tnily an "OrbisPicturis", a Spectacuiwn Mun& where the spectacle placed before the spectator's eyes encompasses the entüe.world without recourse to history or e~~lanation."'Everything that can be named can be shown-and is-on

Kokoschka's stage. What is off-stage is no longer imaginable. comprehensible; it belongs to the realm of mystical experience, to the force that writes on the men's bodies in Murderer and allows the dead to give life in Orpheus and Eurydice. Closer analysis of three of

Kokoschka's dramas shows how the drarnatic world is grotesque in the way that it condenses the materiaUphenomenal world ont0 a single stage. In so doing, it suggests a rnystic force beyond the stage, reminding one of Kokoschka's description of consciousness as a "sea ring4 with visions."'ii

Murâerer, Hope of Womankind: Criticism and Inttrpntation

Oskar Kokoschka is often cited as one of the frst Expnssionist playwights. '"Most of the critical literature has focused on his first attempt at dramatic experimentation, Murderer

87 HOQ~of Womankind. Kokoschka composeci this theatrical event when he was still a student

at Kull~lgewerbeschulein Vienna. Still shocking in its brutal and bizarre depiction of the

battle of the sexes, Murderer is one of the easiest of ail the Kokoschka piays to study for a

number of reasons. First, the sex and death content of the play is revolutionary in the most

obvious kind of way. Second, the play can readii y be interpreted using the new man theorern

beloved of Expressionist scholars. Third. the alleged "superman" theme of the play can be

reiated to the thmries of Nietzsche (whom Kokoschka denicd evcr having read). Following

these citena, Murderer can be read as a prototypical Expressionist drama, anticipating the

thematic content which has been so closely identified with the movement.

Along with its attractions as a critical object of study, Murderer presents certain difficulties.

The first of these is deciding on which Murderer to base analysis. There are four versions of this drama in existence, dated respectively 1907. 19 13, 1916 and 191 7. The first and second version are quite similar. as are the third and fo~nh.~In the tirst version, the triumph of the masculine over the ferninine is more obvious; the 19 1 7 version's conclusion is ambiguous.

The 19 13 Murderer portrays the woman as possessing a mystical, essentially positive connection to nature: "They say birds corne to her and let themsetves be caught" @.S.W.

37). The man, on the other hand. is portrayed as essentially destmctive, leaving a trail of irrational bloodshed everywhere he goes: "birds that fly from us, must we blind, and stick the red fishes in the sand" (3 7). The lines in the 19 1 3 version that describe the man as a vampire are excised fiom later versions. In the first and second version, the man leaves "red behind him; in version the, he "hurries iike the moming"; in version four, the Man "humes off t hrough the path of fire" (4 1,s 1). The later versions emphasise archetypal conflia. The violence is less specific, less shocking, and more allegorical. For the Dresden production of

19 15, Kokoschka painted a backdrop showing the sun eclipsing the moon.

The performance history of Murderer is fascinating; but the fa& are also unreliable.

According to both Kokoschka and his biographers, a riot occurred at the 1907 Viema prerniere, involving Bosnian soldiers stationed nearby; the police were called in; Lesand

Kraus had to protect Kokoschka fiom being taken to jail for inciting a riot. The episode aIIegedly resulted in his immediate expulsion fion the Ku11i~tgewerbeschuIethe twenty-two year old artist had been attending. Whitford questions the reality of this thrilling story, pointing out that none of the reviews of Murderer or any of the newspapers mention riots, police or Bosnian soldiers. Moreover, although it is tme that Kokoschka left school that summer without cornpleting the term, there is no evidence of his expulsion and, indeed, his dep~rewas accompanied by a reward for outstanding achievement. Within three years, he was teaching classes there. It is certainly true that the Viennese press persecuted Kokoschka, but this persecution and his flamboyant behaviour also made him an important public figure at a very Young age. This is an excellent example of how the Kokoschka history/mythology has been ass6mbled over the years."

Due to the dificulty in assessing and evaluating both the different versions of the drama and their performance histories and to the suangeness of Murderer as a dramatic te* critics have reached widely different conclusions. There is considerable debate as to the significance of the therewrites of Murderer and to the interpretation and evaluation of Kokoschka's first drama. This is a play that did and still does produce great differences of opinion. The conternporary cntk Diebold denounced it as "screaming images." Komfeld raved, comparing Kokoschka favourably to Nietzsche. Nicholls calls it "this curiously ugly play."

89 Gombrich ails it 'pretîy crazy in al1 conscience." Joseph Sprengler passes it offa a dream,

"everything he has written so faf is a dream ...purely a drearn." Kokoschka himsclf says, "it was a weud play" (Hodin 70). Whitford interprets simply: &'themale, threatd by the woman's sexual desire, regains his strength by killing her" (Whitford 37). Kokoschka confuses matters by mentioning that Kleist's amazon tragedy Penthesilia was an inspiration.

A play called Murderer. Hope of Womankind provides an obvious target for aiticism of its construction of gender. Carol Diethe writes that the dîfferent versions of Murdercr reveal that the 'Woman' was made less powertùl, more pathetic and the play more archetypal as a consequence of Kokoschka's negative experience with Alma Mahler. Horst DenWer believes that, in the later versions of Murderer, Kokoschka was attempting to erase the early influence of Weininger-a tempting conclusion; however, there is no real evidence that Kokoschka was influenced by or even interested in Weininger.

It is my belief that. in the rewrites. the author sought to erase some of the ugliness of the play, and to create a more universal message by further allegorising the confiict. Such an aesthetic shift is reflected in his art, at this time moving away fiom the intense subjectivity of the ponraits into a period of pater abstraction- visual motifs include mask-like faces, thick blocks of colour, one plane composition. The earlier venions of Murderer are less clear in what they may be signiSing; but they possess vitality, a sense of cnielty that Artaud would envy. What is striking about the early versions is their adolescent awe of feminine othemess and the radical negativity of the male self image, which critics such as Ritchie and Sokel have insisted on interpreting as Kokoschka's version of the Wew Man". The early versions, the second enhanced by the illustrations Kokoschka did for Sturm. also clwly exhibit evidence of Kokoschka's obsession with death, a motif that is obscured in later versions.

90 The human figure is portrayed eitha as skeletal or as flsyui, the inside of their bodies

exposed to our gaze. A mysterious dog-like animal, not prcscnt in the dramatic tex&inhaôits

the i 1lustraîions for the play. ïs the dog guarding the gate to the underworid? Kokoschka says

of his so-called black portraits and his powen of prescience: "1 saw the death already. I

always sec the death:"

The first version of Murderer Hom of Womankind alrcady contionts the spectator with

Kokoschka's radical departure Corn the conventional script-onented dm.According to the first criterion, Murderer's dramatic figures can be best described as abstractions and not three-dimensional figures. Typical of Expressionist drama (mainly tme of Stromm), the characters are identified not as individuals but as represcntatives of categones: Man, Woman, and Choms. From this fact, it is apparently eswy to identie this drama as a sort of allegory of sexual confiict. In order to quaMy as allegory, Murderer must impart, through the use of symbolism, a stnictured vision or understanding of what constitutes the 'battle of the sexes'.

In the first version of Murderer, however, the dramatic figures are not clearl y allegonca1.

Their fom is more closely allied to that of the 'black' ponraits Kokoschka created at this time. They are, like the portraits, both layered and luminous, existing in many dimensions, outside of time. This is shown through Kokoschka's use of both dramatic speech and mise- en-scène .

The dominant types of dramatic speech in Murderer anbe divided into three&te8ories: question s-with wvoexceptions, unanswered; assertions of identity (nominations)--speech which fùnctions to identie or name someone or something; and descriptions of metaphysical chaos which fùnction rather as cornments about the weather would-they give an idea of the climate, but do not firther the action. The series of unanswered questions posed by Man,

91 Woman, and Chorus is indicative of the unccrtainty of al1 thc figures, both as to theV own identity and status in the world of the play and that of others. The Woman asks: "who is the stranger that has looked on me" (Antholoq la)? Later she asks the Man: "why do you bind me, man, with your gaze" (19)? The Man asks "Am 1 rd? What did the shadows say?" and, presumably to the Woman: "Did you look at me, did 1 look at yod (IS)? Nobody is sure of where the key to the tower can be found: "Have you got it?" the Chorus asks.

Significantly, the only two questions that receive answers are the Man and the Woman's request for information about each other's identity. The woman asks: "Who is the pallid man?'She receives three replies fiom her women. it is he who "strangles my little sister praying in the temple." It is he who "tortured animals to death, killed neighing mares with the pressure of his thighs." And it is he who "[blinded birds] that ran before us, stifled rd fishes in the sand" (Antholooy 18). Layer by layer, image by image, a temble figure is revealed in the person of the Man. The Man has no other purposes but destmction; he must conquer al1 available space at any cost. He has no fetlow feeling with other living creatures.

He is impewious to fire, as the men's chorus says, because, in him, there is no answering human wannth. The identity of the Woman is revealed by the only other answered question.

The Man asks: "Who is she that like an animal proudly gram amidst her kin?" He receives three answers. "She divines what none has understood." "She perceives what none has san or heard." "They say shy birds approach her and let themselves be seized (1 9). The

Woman, in contrast to the man, is portrayed as being in harmony with her fellow creatures.

She is characteriseci as possessing wisdom and perception not available to any of the other charact ers. As well as the question, the act of naming defines the core of Murderer's imaginary world

and figures. The man is called the "assai lant at locked fortresses", the "pale one" twice, the

"conqueror", the "pallid man". the "corpse", the "vampire" and, tinally, the "devil". The

Woman is named less often than is the Man. Sometimes, shc is called simply 'Woman'.

Once, the first maiden identifies her as "virgin". The stage directions emphasise the animal

quality of her movement. She moves stealthily, Ii ke a "panther", and later like "an adder".

When the man, her victim, is in prison, she clings to the bars "like a monkey." The motif of

naming is reinforced by the dramatic action of branding. When the man orders his followers

to brand the woman, he seeks to literally write upon her flesh. This act brings her

symbolically under the sway ofthe Man and his followers, who are described as being

covered with cryptic signs. The act of narning is the principal apparatus that is used to gain

power over others. The man's power grows as he is calleci, as the play progresses, by

in~reasinglyterrible names. Names reveal that, despite the play's ending with the man-

apparently the last living being in the world- striding forth at dawn as the cock crows for the

third tirne, the Man is of the Moon and not the Sun. The chorus of men names him: "the

m&n that rises in the east." His white face and drab clothing complete this association.

Only the kerchief on his head contains bright colour, presumably a rad stain resulting fiom his wound. If the man is lunar, the woman should logically be identified with the Sun. Near the play's beginning, one of her follower women describes her breath as making "the blond disc of the Sun flicker." This ambiguous image could mean that she threatens to eclipse the sun, but more likely suggests that the Sun is connested to her every breath. Certainly hared dress, long, unbound golden hair and animal vitality seem to indicate that she is o solar figure, radiating life. Mer al], it is the Man who is the "vampire", living off her strength and

93 wisdorn. This is a startling departure fiom the Zeirgeisf's more typicaf trope, chartcd by writers such as Brarn Dykstra, of the vampire-iike, sensual ferninine draining the blood of the more spirituai mole. What io, indeed, surprising about the fust ~urdercris not its

Strindbergian misugyny, as has been alleged, but its profoundly negative portraya1 of the archetypal male. The gender grotesque evoked here is more connecteci with demonising the masculine than with the occultation of the ferninine.-'

The conventional, script-onented drama aiways creatcs a history, an imaginary comcxt for the events portrayed on stage. What is revealed in Murderer is a world without history. From the flaming wheel of men to the "disc" of the sun, the nature of this imaginary world is rircular. Abstract and vague statements such as "O the singing of time, flowers never seen" and "Senseless craving fkom horror to horror. unappeasable rotation in the void" poxtray, albeit in an obscure way, the cl imate of Murderer's imaginary world. The stnicniring force of history and time do not exist here: the song of time is a flower never seen, but imagined; the world is a rotating void, without structure. The concept of a worfd without time, circular and continuous, is allied with the 'ferninine principie' in Murderer. The woman's special knowledge is possible because she exists outside of tirne and, therefore, outside of death.

The Sun itself is connected to her breath. Thus, the play does not simply portray the battle of the sexes; it stages an imaginary cataclysm, the entrance of time and death into the world. neman is portrayed as wounded. infected with time. He carries it like a disease and, therefore, in the play's action he kills others simply by his touch. He is not, as has ben suggested by Nicholls, a redeeming Christ figure, swing the world fiom death; he is more an

'Anti-Christ' figure, a 'devil', as his followen cal1 him. With this understanding, the rd significance of the crowing of the cocks becomes clear. They herald the victory of time.

94 There are only two factors that define an off-stage space. One of thcse is the sound of the

cocks, heard fàr in the distance. The other is the entrance of the men, who are not native to * the tower as the women, apparently its proper owners, are. The off-stage area is figwcd

solely as the place w here the agents of time and deat h originate. The absence of a cohercnt,

structureci imaginary history and space is characteristic of Kokoschka's playwriting and

stagecraft. As Murderer portrays a cataclysm, suspense-at least in any normal undetstanding

of the word-is impossible. The play is such a radid departwe from the conventional

drarnaturgy of its time, Murderer itself rnight be seen as a kind of cataclysm.

Much of the dramatic criticism of Murderer. Hove of Womankind has focused on the

dramatic depiction of gender. Kokoschka's innovative.dramaturgy does, indeed, allow the

spectator to fully appreciate Murderer's grotesque vision of gender identity, unhamperd by

questions of individual psychology. Kokoschka, an ardent if extremely unconventional

Catholic, was thoroughly familiar with the EveNirgin Mary dichotomy. The twin archetype was an obvious source of inspiration for both his painting and drama. In a perverse way, the image of Eve and the faIl from grace is at the heart of Murderer. If the eponymous

'Murderer' is, as the title implies, solely an apparition of the Wornan's (who represents al1 womankind) hope, then it is her own desire that determines her fate. In courtroom psychology, this is called blaming the victim; however in terms of a pIay where there is no individual psychology, one must resort to the archetypal for explanation. It is the 'Man' here who occupies the position of the feared and desired 'Other'. He, not she, is demonised by the title of "vampire" and "devil." And if 'He' is her hope, then he is also an extension, an object of the woman and not the other way around. For a conventional spectator, this reversal of the traditional econorny of desire and narrative may well be experienced as a

95 grotesque dismption. The first Murderer reveals a numinous, Iife-giving feminine and a destructive, demonic masculine. ïhe feminine is deified and, at the same timt, destroyed; the masculine is deified but survives. The drama construc& the achievement of male identity as one bought at a terrible price. The play's cataclysm is, on one levei, an origin myth of the birt h of patriarchy amid stnstless slaughter. If one imagines the author's psyche, the play's depiction of the masculine suggests a fkightening self-hatred. The play offers the spectator, not identification, but a position as awed and frightened witmss (as one before a divine revelation) and also one of moral arbiter. The play implies that the only way the world can be redeerned is through hamony with the feminine, or perhaps through the agency of a Vugin- iike feminine redeemer. Like the X-ray, Murderer's presentation of the visionary strives to look past the surface signs of time and history and reveal the origin of the disease. As the

origin myth inverts the values of conventional society with its faith in progress and masculine redeemers, its imaginary world strikes the eye either as a 'grotesque' inversion of profound values and beliefs or as the revelation of a long suppressed reality.

Spbinr and Stnwman/Job: Criticism and Interpretation

As he did with Murderer, Kokoschka revised this short play several times. The revisions show a simiiar trend as those of Murderer: meanings are clarified in the later versions; the tone of the play is more serious; and the play loses some of its vigour. S~hinxand Strawman was written in I 907 as a "comedy for Automata". In 1909, a second version was pub1ished in Wort in &r Zeil. In 1917, the same play revised, and retitled Job, was published with charcoal iIlustrations. The several dramatic versions of this idea represent the burlesque side of Kokoschka's angst about women-although lQd is more serious and written more

% senously. The changes follow the same trend towards abstraction ami allegory in

Kokoschka's art and writing already dexribed in the previous section. These plays are an

inversion of the ever-popular theme of dangerous women as much as they ut a

representation. The eponymous Sphinx, of course, is the well known wise but ddlyfemale

monster that throttles those who cannot guess her secret. Her considerably more foolish

human manifestation is Heartless Lill y, the wi fe of Hem Firdusi. S~hinxis a comedy of

misplaced desire. Herr Firdusi is looking for a mother for his so~a finga puppet called

Adam. He remarries Heartless Lilly because she tums his head. Later, Lilly cuckolds

Firdusi with the enigmatic Mr. Rubberman; although Lilly phiiosophically remarks that she prefers her dog's company to either of them (in the second version, she prefers to read). The first version ends when death enters in the company of a priest and Firdusi drops dead, apparently from tiight. In the second version. he shoots himself with an air pistol against a back-cloth showing a big cat fanging a mouse; in m. Anima lands on him "like a ripe apple", killing him. The turned head, the parrot, and the singing chambermaid are al1 references to the Viennese popular theatre, especially Kokoschka's favourite opera

Maaic Flute. Like Murderer, Nicholls and Diethe connect S~hinxand Strawman/Job with the philosophy of Otto Weininger because Anima says (venion#3): "a woman aquires a soul through sunial experience," whereas Firdusi carries his precious soul, represented by a floating pig's bladder with him. If inspired by Weininger, Kokoschka had not read him veiy carefully because Weininger believed that a woman could only gain a sou1 thtough semai renunciation. Diethe States that. "the distastefbl thing about this diatribe is that it probably reflects Kokoschka's own views" (1 54). That the second version of S~hinxpresents a chorus of men criticising women is cited as fùnher proof of her argument. Although certainly the

97 depiction of gender roles in these plays is bizarre, and ~~~~tedly stereotypicd, ha reading of the plays focuses entirely on the play's content and ignores its theatricality. It is unusual for an artist, even an Expressionist artist, to choose as an alter ego a man with a giant straw head. Furthemore, it is far fiom obvious that the audience will choose empathy with this character over laughter and amazement. Both male protagonists are self-pitying, hysterical .and unattractive; surel y many will sympathise when the femme fuJe mot understand al1 the firss and would rather read a good book In Job, Anima is a round and pleasant bourgeois angel, complete with wings. Eros is her child. If man cannot comprehend her divinity, it is surely not her fault. In performance, the burlesque and grotesque elements would be foregrounded: the girls in the garden, the exploding parrot, the pink smoke and giant props tell us as much about what kind of world we are witnessing as any lincs in the play - Although the tone of this play is lighthearted, Sghinx and Strawman represents ftrther development in Kokoschka's use of the grotesque. The devil in this play, M.Rubberrnan, is a comic figure, one that should be accepted into the worid. Firdusi's mistake is an elementary one, he is too attached to his own identity, hence the swollen head. He has ignored his comection with the physical world and with the sacred one. Unlike his diabolic foil. he has lost ail flexibility. He cannot return his head to its proper position, once it has been tumed. He speaks like a ndiculous version of the protagonin of many modern plays. the charaaer that hopes for man's progress and that blames anything he cannot understand.

Sphinx and Strawman offers a comic ponrait of the demonic male of Murderer. Unlike

Murderer, this play is essentially a happy one as the apparent protagonist is defeated.

Orphcus and Eu y dice: Cnticism and Interpretation

98 Orpheus and Eurvdice is frcquently considerd the acmc of Oskar Kokoschka's dramatic

achievement. WhSchumicher and Sprengler describe it as such. This may be pady owing

to this drama's greater reliance on conventional fonns. Although still ab- the drunatic

figures in Kokoschka's three-act Orpheus have a plastic qiulity and a mdimentary

psychology u>mpleteiy absent in Murderer. The difkent settings used in the drama dso

provide a more defintd off-stage spacc than Kokoschka presents in any of his other drarnas.

Unlike Murderer, it inciudes allusions to past events: Psyche lets the audience bwat the beginning of the second act what she has been up to since the end of the first; Orpheus has a simiiar speech in the third act. With the introduction of psychology and history, .suspense becomes possible. Could Orpheus and Eurydice then be a complete departure fiom the previously presented mode1 of the Spctacuium Mu&? Although closer to conventional drama, Orpheus stil l exhibits many of the features of 'Kokoschkan' drama evident in

Murderer. The figures are obviousiy archetypal in that they al1 bear the names of figures fiom mythology. The original revision of conventional story elements and dramatic space combine to expand the sense of the visionary typical of the earlier dramas. The tone of this play is di fficuit to describe. In a typically grotesque manner, it combines parody, lightheaned mes,psychological domèstic drama, and the horror and grandeur of a Greek tragedy. Kokoschka found a way to elaborate and expand the visual impact of Murderer into a complex Ml-length drama.

Kokoschka loosely interweaves two principal mythic aories in order to create the principal action of his drama: the two love stories-that of Orpheus and Eurydice and of Arnor and

Psyche-have strîking similarities. Euydice dies, bitten by a snake, and her bereaved husband seeks to win her back from Hades. Through his extmordinary musid power (in

99 both Virgil and Ovid, the Furies are calm for the first and only time) and the strength of his love, he almost succeeds in winning his beloved back fiom death. Unable to resist, however, he commits the forbidden action of looking back at his wife before they have left Mes, and so loses haagain to the world of the dead. Psyche wins the love of a supernaturai being, only to lose it as Orpheus does, by a forbidden look. This story ends with the rainion of the couple afker Psyche completes several impossible th.This contrasts sharply with

Orpheus' end. He is tom apart by maenads, angered that k does not renini theu love The fact that these two myths both centre on the loss of a loved one and on the danger of loolcing on what is forbidden made them attractive material to Kokoschka, although ht changed the events of both stories considerably. The motif of loss makes this, as a number of critics have argued, Kokoschka's most personal drama. It is the only one of his plays that he never revised.? Many of the situations in the play refer explicitl y to his relationship with Alma

Mahler. The rivalry with the dead man, Hades, relates to Kokoschka's jealousy of Alma's dead husband, Gustav Mahler. The inscription of the ring refers to an inscription that for

Kokoschka served as a magic talisman of his relationship with Alma-Allos Mrrkar. This phrase is an anagram for the Iovers' names, Alma and Oskar. It is also an ambiguous phrase that can be ttanslated as a happiness of the other or "happiness is otherwise". Kokoschka wrote thre poems with this phrase as a title. Also, Omheus and Eurydice, as Werner

Hofinann suggests, shows the impact of the First World War on the young Kokoschka with its soldiers, lynchings, fields of corpses and mined houses. It is impossible to know exactly what combination of life experiences produced Orpheus and Eurydice. The play, however, stands as ICoko&ka's most powemil vision of a chaotic and estranged world, of the mystic ferninine and the demonic masculine, and of the realm of death. A close examination will

100 show the way grphais -tes an estrangeci world out of hiliar myths ud idtu through

their combination and juxtaposition. This fuility for combining ideas recrcates the 'Iayned'

and resonant effêct of Kokoschka's dramatic figures and stage images.n

Orpheus and Eurydice begins in a garden (an important sctting for ~okoschka)." Eurydice

sits dressed in mefancholy, spiritual violet, O-ver-robedwith unbleached lamb's fleece, long

blonde ringlets unbound, gazing off to the mountains. Ha appearance is suggestive of the

Madonna figure that is so important to Kokoschka's drama. She seems to be in the middle of

knitting-quite a bourgeois occupation foc a mythological character. Stramm-like,

Kokoschka establishes a familiar setting that belies the myt hological title of the drama. In

the familiar setting, complete with children's toys and knitting needles, we can slready sense

the spectre of death hovering over the couple, whose love is symbolised by-the ring Eurydice

wears. The inscription in it describes the bond between her and Orpheus. "So ever one's

happiness is in another. That is how it was" @. S. W. 235)- In Kokoschka's drama, the

apparently banal contains the infinite. The departure of Orpheus in the morning becomes a

parable on the importance of the "inner world" versus the outer. It is the inner world that

contains the eternal. What death is to the life of the body, so forgetfùlness is to the life of the

soul: "You! How could I forget you" (236)? When Psyche enters sleepily, carrying a small

serpent in her anns, this bizarre domestic scene is complete. We leam that the couple is

childless, and that Psyche, although a kind of deity, is their surrogate child. Here, Kokoschka

introduces one of his favourite themes, the destructiveness of erotic love. The first scene quietly establishes the unusud tone ofthe droma The world on stage is both domestic idyll

(complete with the homey details of Eurydice knitting and Orpheus leaving by ox-cart for the day's work) and a supernaturd world where young girls have snakes for pets and may come

10 1 fiom heaven. The setting is not 'exotic' or 'classical' in any way. Orpheus and Ewydice seem to [ive in some strange European farm of no particular time pcnod. No mention is made of Orphais' fabled musiql ability. He is stripped of his haoic amibuta; he is mon characteriscd by a prescient, if morbid. conarn with the nature O£' love. Our concept of space and time is, therefore, disturûed, Jbeit in a more gentk way than in Murderer.

One of Kokoschka's greatest dramatic inventions is that of the monstrous antagonists in

Omheus. The Furies are a wondemil combination of the mily fnghtming and the merciy vulgar, the human and the inhuman. Their appearance alerts the audience to the apocalyptic mood of the drama. They arrive, invisible, betrayed only by a flickering torch and their voices, which speak sornetimes in unison, sometimes apart. They ask Psyche to open the door. She is tom between her duty to protect Eurydice and her anxiety that Arnor, the first reference to this character, should be fnghtened off by the Iight: "Psyche needs dark nights to weave her pleasure" (243). Again in this scene, different rdities combine and intersect: the

Furies speak in working class Viennese dialect, genuinely fnghtening, but also wmic. The first Fury lusts afier Amor. The third Fury, the nasty one, tries to swe Psyche by telhg hm that Arnor's real identity is monstrous: "a poisonous monder with bat wings by day. The nightmare! The man in the moon, ei, ei a dead man" (244). The first Fury again approaches

Psyche as a fkiend, saying she wili serve as her lady's maid and will also let her have a glimpse of Amor's true form, "So, when the poor moming sun drives me away, you can always dream of the sweet nocturnal image" (245). The second Fury is impatient with these proceedings. Eventuaily, Psyche becomes distracted by the Furies' threat to drive Amor away, and Psyche lets them slip through the door. When Amor amves, the third Fury maliciously throws light upon him and he cnimbles. The portrayai of the Furies enhances the

102 combination of the everyday and the supernaturd already estaMished in the first scene. It also enriches the theme suggested by Orpheus and Eurydice's conversation, love should not be analysed too closcly but it is almost impossible to reolin fkom doing m. Intcrestingly,

Eurydice's exit to Hades is a fiilly wnscious one. She even has time to pack. Only Orphais attempts stremuously to resist the power of Hades. His behaviour suggests an apparent paradox, as the more he heroicaily resists the dead, the more unpleasant hc seems as an individuai. The third sene, in which he says farmell to Eurydice, one can .g*n sec his suspicious, jedous side.

The second act begins in Hades. Psyche is looking for Eurydice among the shades of the underworld. Thyears have passai. Orpheus, led by Psyche, has corne to retrieve his dead wife. Hades is a huge, grotesque, painterly panorama:

Orpheus, obscured by drifling mist, sceks to locate Eurydice among the shadows, in which he moves fkom group to group. Some seek to lick his hand, while othen on hands and feet mg at his knees, maliciously trying to push him into a pit. Beggars with crutches sprinkle dust from their sacks, in order that lazy fat ones may eat fiom it. Bickering, Lunatics attempt to climb up wails only to slide down them again. Murderers with daggers leap upon their own shadows. Lovers creep on al1 fours, and when he cornes near, they hang on him like a swarm Some have the faces of animals, others tails and claws. Giggling, mumbling and laughing. 0-S. WW 256-257)

This scene owes less to the classicai undeworld with Ixion and Sisyphus than to the infemo of Dante and the hells of the Flemish painters. The world of the dead is much like the world of the living, except that characters reveal their inward conditions outwardly. This inverted world echoes Eurydice's earlier statement about the 'inner' world versus the 'outer.' Among this mob, Eurydice appean as a veiled angel. Psyche takes charge ofthe situation, ushering the confûsed, haif-conscious Eurydice towards her husband, coaching Orpheus on how to behave. As in the myth, he must not look at her: "Orpheus disturbed, but following Psyche's advice, looks away. Eurydice falls to her knas" (257). Uniike his mythicd counterpaa

Orpheus has appcared to be successfûl in his attempt to rescue his bride. It is the mamïage of

the living and the dcad that initiates the apparently apocalyptic transformation that takes -

place duhgthe rest of the play. On the way out of Hades, the fiozen landscape of Hel1 is

thawing. Through a rift in the fog, we can see the flight ofa bird, a dove, flying to the ocean.

As they approach the sea, th& spirits rise. Eurydice says "how Iight 1 fctl and without

sorrow!" Orpheus tzking no chances sayq "Hold my arm more tightly" (D. S- W. 259). For

the first time, Eurydice calls attention to the missing hg. It is obvious that despite her

protestations, she is not the same. She is still very weak, and stumbles, bravely making jokes

about it: "1 lurch Iike a great storm at sea" (260). At last, they see a sail in the distance--a

black sailing ship. At this point, Eurydice seems curiously unwilling to leave Hades: ''from

Hades' shores away?-t" (260)? She seems tom between the hope of resuming her Iife and the acceptance of her death.

The next scene takes place on board the black ship. The stage directions specifl that it is night, leaden and windless, constellations peeping down through heavy black clouds. The three Funes reappear, sitting before the cabin to spy on Orpheus and Eurydice. The moon is shining high, reflected in the deathly still sea. A feble-minded sailor is at the helm. The sailors sing to Amor, praying that Eros will send them a favourable wind: 'bring us whole ont0 the green land (263). The first Fury tells the second to pay attention to her spy work instead of tonnenting the "simple boy" who "tums on the spit" (263). This statement is a reference to the young man's discornfort on a stiflingly hot, windless Nght. The Furies, nom-like, are engaged in weaving a net, which thy cal1 "Eurydice's misfortune" (264). They wonder why Hades behaves so passively, why he let the 'tasty' Eurydice escape: "Why did

104 Hades let the little chicken, who was so scrumptious, take off with Orphars" (264). ïhe

"escape" is actuafly a trap, and the couple is riIl in the grip of the duk forces of thcir destiny . The Furies manipulate the Fm1 and the sailors into casting a net. When their net, the one the Furies were weaving, is brought up, a shll rolls out ont0 the deck circling the cabin. In one of the skull's teeth, there is a nugget of gold. The Fool remarks on the good fishing, a statement rich in irony. The more Orpheus, and the ship and its crnu try to escape death, the more sinister symbols of Hades power appw. The most important 3gn of al1 is

Eurydice's pregnancy; she is carrying the God of Death's child. As if in proof, when she admits this secret to Orpheus. the skull rolls into the cabin. The nugget of gold in the skull proves to be the missing ring; its inscription now reads: "happiness belongs to another"

(273)! Kokoschka imagines death with the power to create new life, a concept that is less strange than it may initially seem. Upon recognition of her mie allegiance, Eurydice retums to the undeworld. As mon as she laves, a stonn appears. The sailon rejoice and pnise

Amor, but this praise soon turns to fear: the ship is on fire. The ship abandoned, Orpheus is alone again. That which began as a domestic drama has transformeci into a world of fire and water.

The third act represents a complete shift in atmosp here. The picturesque and fantastic settings of Act Two are gone. The setting is the same as at the beginning of the play, but now their home is a crumbling min in an overgrown and dreary wasteland. A ragged, completely changed Orpheus enters with a shovel on his back and begins to dig a hole in the middle of the mined house, lamenting that his hide is of tm little worth to sel1 to the tanner.

His digging uncovers the hearth of a house and he recognises it as his old home:

"(screaming) 1 lived in this house?" He curses the beams that failed to kiI1 him and

105 "scrabblesin rhe &S. as a hgiooùing fur a bone, searchingJor buMd happim&' (282).

He finds a brokcn lyre in the rubble-the fht reference in the play to Orpheus' musical

identity. Pcasmts arrive fiom the fields. Crazed, Orpheus greets them, asking them to kill

him. He m't forget unless he's dead. They immediately decide that this strange man is * hostile and bad luck. His music makes them feel queasy. This reaction is, of course, a

significant departwe from mythic tradition, and perhaps a refmence to Kokoschka's own unsettling art and its effccts: "how unnaturaily this Lyre-player plays the strings, like sticking a thom into the flesh" (282)! It is evident that there has been a war during the character's absence; the landscape is devastated. Soldiers arrive and the congregation of peuple tums into a drunken brawl. A centaur appears among the horses, and the gathering of people tums into a wild bacchanalia. The chorus sings, "Dance! Among bites and kisses, maenads and fools!... Milk mixes with blood" (283)! At the height of their jubilation, they hang Orphats fiom what is leA of his own house. This scene shows the continuation of the apocalyptic tradition that began in Act Two. The earth has become a wasteland. The fantasy of happiness, which erotic love offered in the first Act, has crumbled, leaving only bittemess behind.

An enigmatic and IyricaJ scene follows. The remains of the riot can be seen faf in the distance. In the foreground, a tree grows upside-down with its rwts in the air, another stnking image of spatial distortion and an inverted world. Psyche and Amor in this setting glisten like spirits in a baroque opera: "Psyche glistening and shimmering many colours,

Arnor gold and spangled (285). Psyche removes the bandage fiom Amor's eyes and washes them, restoring his sight. She has now atoned for harlfishness. Arnor's enigmatic line: "1 thought 1 sawcoloured fields! Grey corpses?" confuses matters fbnher (286). ïhe nision of

lot5 opposites offiby this play is reminiscen! ofthe sirni1.r myniul &sion so nchly present

in Stramrn's dramaturgy.

The next scent is clearly the crucial one of the play, the finai confrontation betwan

Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus. niIl hanging from a beam. thinlu he sees something in the

distance. A colurnn of smoke appears hovering over the field of corpses. A woman's voice

speaks from the smoke: "you live" (288). Instantly, he springs down from his hanging place,

but rehes the cornfort that the femde voice offers. He now sounds like "the Man" in

Murderer. The woman's voice says "How unjust it is, to rebel against the mother who you life at hm own expense" (290). Orpheus answèrs, "for days, 1 have airdy been dead"

(291). He threatens the voice and it sinks into the earth with some parting words, "you cal1 something dead that Iives" (292). Orpheus now begins to dig his own grave. A calumn arises again, now pi&! The voice of Eurydice speaks fiom it. Orpheus is dancing. Eurydice, taking material form, sayq "Xt is terrible with you" (293). He is naturally bitter. 'What kind of a bond binds man and wife together. Our own imagination! Such fools as we are! When

1 thought of you, my heart stood still, my throat constricteci, 1 grew pale. Do the dead have then justice and injustice like the living" (295). She kneels before him, pleading him to live.

He desires her; she reacts with horror: "Don't you see how I've suffered! How cruel you are" (297)! Orpheus has now become li ke the Centaur, half man and half beast. Psyche's face appears in a small opening in the clouds; the lyre begins to play spntaneously; the dcad begin to dance; he reFuses to let Eurydice go. Dancing wit h her. he says: "1 hate you! My task is to overpower Hades and Death" (300)! He says that he will not let hadie and laughs crazily. Eurydice says death is the release from love. Eurydice strangles Orpheus, killing him. The lyre plays on. Sornething dark stirs in the twilight; there is the sound of a piacing

IO7 0 cry, one bud following another. Eurydice's sufferings are a! Iast ovcr. The play ends vnth a bimeafter-piece. Psyche, carrying the Lyre, discovers thu Amor is missing. She mwt flowers over the fields and climbs on board the black ship, bound to Hades. She must be gone before &y. A chorus of maidens sings, as she confldently expens ha ramion with

Amor.

The final four scmes, altemating between the two love stories, have been interprcted as a device to emphasise the contrat between the two fernale chamctmihe fvthlcss Eurydice and the faithf'i Psyche. Such an interpretation is in keeping with the prevailing mode of reading Kokoschka's drama as a continuous misogynist tract. ïhe tmth in this lies in

Kokoschka's persistent elaboration of the Eve4Madonna archetypes. There is, however, no definitive fallen woman in this play. Once again, critics prefer to focus on the depiction of ferninine sin and not masculine diabolism so richly evident in this play as in Kokoschka's others. Despite Kokoschka's ambivalent and complex feelings about women in general,

Eurydice is presented sympathetically. She pleads with Orpheus to set her fke fiom her undead statu$ but he vengefùlly prefers to see hasuffer, at the same time still desiring her sexually. All of the positive characters exhibit stoicism when confionted with death. The worid of the dead, first presented with ail Dantean ceremony as horrible, is only homble if its inhabitants are too anached to earthly desires. Desire is show as a negative force, withering the hm,and destroying kindness and compassion between people. Those who, like Psyche, embrace death, find peace, and perhaps a higher kind of love. She willingly climbs aboard the biack ship that will take her back to Hades. Hades is show to be a kind individual, who, unlike Orpheus, is originally willing to let the woman he loves b.Finalty, we can sec that

Eurydice chooses Hades will i ngl y, and that Orpheus tonnents her by preventing her fiom

108 resting in peace. Orpheus hirnself is tragically unable to die. Despite hangingr and fire. he is unable to lago of the world, bound to it by fierce desire. Eurydice's murda of her husband is an act of mercy. As the worlds of the living and dead mingle, the earth is devastateci, fird by the force of nature and then by war, the characters that do not cling to thcir earthly appetites are set fiee.

Conclusion

When exarnined in its entirety, Kokoschka's achievement as a playwright is difficult to define. As he did in his more illustrious career as a painter, Kokoschka went through drastic, periodic upheavals in both style and content. As a dramatist, the shadows and screams of

Murderer contrast with the whimsical and satiric style of S~hinxand Strawman (later transformed into the more intellectual JoJ). The ~urichgroup of Dadaist artists staged the first performance of this play. Kokoschka's tirst hll-length plays are more lyrical in tone.

O Hislast drama that may with any validity be called Expressionist is his highly personal version of Omheus and Eurydice. His last piay, Comenius, was a complete departwe fiom his experimental roots, dedicated to the ania whom he had admired in his youth who hd created the Orbis Picturis.

Differences in style aside, the plays share a fascinating and original use of theatrical elements. There was nothing in the serious theatre of Vienna at this time to predict the development of Kokoschka's vision. Searching for the determinants and influences for

Kokoschka's painting and drama, one finds the most intriguing connections in his reverence for certain baroque painters and in the less 'senous' popular theatre traditions of Viema.

Kokoschka, as a dramatist, was not interesteci in individual personalities and histories; he sought to put the entire phenomenal world on the stage, reinventing and revising old languages of syrnbolism, allcgory and myth. It is also fair to say that Kokoschka was a moralist. The plays demand a response. an evaluaûon of the actions on stage. The other comrnon ground that these plays share is an obsessive, and many would say morbid, conceni for the relations between the sexes. Each of his drarnas, with the notable exception of

Comenius, is centred on a pathological relationship between a man and a woman.

Biographers have pointed to the young Kokoschka's difimit relationship with Alma Mahler, an older and experienced woman; however, even before the relationship, Kokoschka showcd evidence of these inclinations. The 'war of the sexes' was in evidence in al1 facets of

Viennese culture at the time. It was the age of Otto Weininger, one of the most hystericaf misogynists and white supremacists (hideously ironic because he was half Jewish). As presented in Bram Dikjkstra's The ldok of Perversity, the age Kokoschka was born into was one of gender paranoia. Depictions of women as vampires, Jezebels, and dangerous brain- draining harpies abounded. The collapsing of women with the demonic was so pervasive that it even became clichéed. Hundreds of styl ised medusas and memiaids beckoned men to their death in fashionable salons. In facf what is shocking is how greatly the young artist departed fiom this view; in Kokoschka's plays, it is the masculine that is demonic. It is the feminine that controls the destiny of society for good or ill. Materna1 love, for Kokoschka, is virtuaily a supernaturai force, greater than al1 other foms of hurnan emotion and achievement. That contemporary society with its hated technology and lut for wnquest has desecrated and betrayed the feminine is clear fiom both Kokoschka's drama and his more theoretical writing. The exclusion of the matemal, life-giving force renders the imagin y world so boldly portrayed by Kokoschka's drama a strange, dwmed world whose only release is death. It is perbps beuuse Kokoschka is at the same time rcactionrry and revolutionary, that he, to my rnind, is so tiequently misunderstood by critics seeking to place him in the context of the prevailing rdemptive 'New Man' paradigm. That this paradigm-as well as that of the

'New Man's' cowiterpart, the 'Demonic Wornan'4id exist, 1wouid consider beyond dispute; however, Kokoschka's drama is more aeairately an inversion of this paradigm. This is not to say that the universe of Kokoschka's 4rama is unproblematic: anything so Rch in grotesque iconography could never be thai. Kokoschka's demonization of the 'masculine' principle could be viewed as hysterical self-hatred. In this case, however, the desire to dissolve into the 'ferninine' is more akin to mystic experience; as such, it can be vie4as a rejection of al1 structure. of both time and language, of social organisation and history.

Kokoschka was one of the few artists who were able suwssfully to translate the mystical into dramaturgy, by rejecting the laws of cunventional script-oriented dnma, while still creating an intelligible theatrical expenence through the use of mythic and cultural archetypes and effeas. One would have to look back to the Middle Ages and perhaps forward to certain kinds of performance art, io find a dramatic practice with similar effect and power. i Kokoschka's hatred for technology is most richl y apparent in his autobiography, My Life. Hodin, in his biography The Artist and His Timq, rders to Kokoschka's hatred of Darwin and Newton (1 3). ii Despite his hatred of technology, Kokoschka was avidly interestad in Chemistry. Amrding to his own testimony, (echoed by the faithfûl Hodin and Hoffinann) he had great intuition in discovering the location of fossil fiels and was even offered employment in this capacity. iii Kokoschka absolutely denies any knowledge of Freud. Gombrich quotes Kokoschka as being sick and tired of the critical assumption that he was Freud's disciple: " ' Again this Freud,' he shouted" (1 6). iv Kokoschka writes: "Expressionism was meant as a moral and political cornmitment." He goes on to compare it to the Children's Crusade; this cornparison constructs the Expressionist movement as a gathering of misguided youthîùl idealists, charging innocent ly towards their slaughter (MYLi fe 66). v The best atternpt at a critical biography is Frank Whitford's Oskar Kokoschka: -A -Li fe. Whitford checks up on Kokoschka's stories, uncriticall y recorded by Hoffmann and Hodin. Whitford benefits fiom having access to much of Kokoschka's correspondence (to Alma Mahler, to Loos, and to his family). Whitford wnciudes that Kokoschka often represents himself as being more persecuted and unappreciated then he actually was. vi For alternat ive/parascientifr c critical approaches see Bekemtnis ru Kokoschka; fiinenmgen undDeutun~en.Berlin. F. Kupferberg, 1963 (ed. J. P. Hodin) and Josef Paul Hodin's OsbKokoschka: Eine P~chogrciphie.Wien: Europa Verlag, 1971. vii ïhïs approach is exempiified by Regina Brandt's Fipurationen und Kommsitimen in den Dramen Oskm Kokoschkas. Verlag üNI: Munchen, 1968. viii Werner Hoffmann's article "Oslkar Kokoschkd' (Wort in der Zeir 2, IW6. 129- 139) discusses the impact of war on the artist (with particular reference to Whew and Eurydice) in pater detail. ix Stones attesting to Kokoschka's uncanny powen appear in almost dl biographid and retrospective material, including Mv Life, Hoffmann's Kokoschka: Life ad -Work, Hodin's Oskar Kokoschka: The Artist and his Tirne, Paul Westheim's Osh Kokoschka: Das Werk Kohschkas in 62 Ahbilhnpen, and the more scepticrl Whitford's Oskar Kokoschka: a Life. Nell Walden attcsts to Kokoschkrr's demonic power: "Hecaptureci my likeness by lifting off al1 the top laycr rcvding the face of a fairly desperate convict undemeath. And this was another example of the 'eye of God,' for he had no means of knowing that 1 had donc twenty months in prison some years before" (Quoted fkom Henry 1. Schvey. Oskar Kokoschka: The Painter ag P-. P-. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1982. 28).

x Brandt argues for the centraiity of this essay in PM 4 section 3, ''ih Wewn des Bewlljtein &r Gesichte ah & Simentmm der Dramen KoIkoscAkzs,."FipuratrMen urad Kommsitinen in akn Dramen OsbKokoschkas ( 18-22). Whit ford wrïtes: "the essay is extremely difficult to understand and most of those present at the 19 12 lecture thought it entirely incomprehensible and littîe more than a series of unconnecteci assertions" (84).

xi Among the many mentions of the Orbis Picturis as an inspiration for Kokoschka: Mv Life 1 1, 1 10,223; Whitford 9- 10, 161; and Oskar Kokoschka 38.

xii The resemblance between Kokoschka's dramaturgy and that of forrns of mcdieval drama is noteworthy and suggestive. There is not space enough here, however, to explore this parallel fùrther.

xiii Kokoschka writes: "Bew@ein isl cile Ursache aller Dinge, arch &r Yorsteilungen. Es ist ein Meer. &sen Horizonte Gesichre sind' (D.S. W. vol. 3, 12).

xiv Both J. M. Ritchie and Walter Sokel, in the introductions to their respective ~thologiesof German Expressionist drama, position Murderer Ho~eof Womankind as one of the first Expressionist plays. This interpretation emphasises the presence of certain stylistic features and motifs deemed characteristic of the movement. The apocalyptic nature of the material, the use of simple lines and primary colours in the set, the violence of the action, and the therne of apocalypse and the confiict of the sexes combine to mark the short play as an artistic breakthrough. This type of interpretation is not wrong, but it overlooks what is tmly revolutionary, and tmly grotesque, about Kokoschka's work. xv Translations of Murderer include Michael Hamburger's Murderer The Women' s Hone and a translation of the tirst Murderer. anthologised in Walter Sokel's &I Antholonv of German Ex~ressionistDrama: a Prelude to the Absurd. Walter Sokel's own translation of Murderer. Hooe of Womankind is in J. M. Ritchie's collection, German Ex~ressionistDrama. This is a translation of the fourth, Drcsden version. Henry Schvey translates the Sturm version-the text is inciuded in Oskar Kokoschka: The Painta as Playwright. Lkrr Schrzf/Iick Werke completes the confusion by anthologising the third Murderer. Hamburger's translation is citd because the first version is, in my mind, the moa interesting of the four, however, 1 prefer the title Murderer Hope of Womankind to the over-literal, Murderer The Women's Hopç. xvi Pdcr Nicholls article published in 199 1 dm allies Murderer with femininity and the pre-Oedipai, describing the drama's presentation of "a uhnimdeemablc negativity within sexuality itsel f" (1 62). Although well vcrsed in post-stnicturalism, he has obviously read neither Whitford nor Schvey because he states that Kokoschka was "almost certainly familiar" with Weininger, a co~ectionthat is far fiom certain. He also treats the riots as fact, thereby establishing the first performance's credentials as revolutionary theatre. xvii It is striking that many female critics have chosen to examine the plays of a supposedly rabid misogynist with such appreciation. Regina Brandt, Bettina Knapp, Edith Hohann and, with less appreciation, Carol Diethe al1 bring considerable ciitical insight to the representation of gender in Kokoschka's work mhii Actuaf ly, the tale of Amor and Psyche cannot properl y be called a myth; it is, more accurately, a sort of fairy tale orMtchen. Its author, Appuleius "appears to have starteci this story with the notion of making it an allegory ... But it would appear that he soon forgot his didactic purpose, and went on to tell the loveliest of fairy-tales for its own sake." H. J. Rose. A Handbook of Greek Mvtholonv: Includinn its Extension to Rome. Methuen, 1928. p. 287. The story of orpheus first ap&s in Virgil's Geornics; Ovid provides a more extended version in the "Metamorphoses." xix Whitford explains: "Omheus and Eurydice is obviously a response to his own escape fiom the jaws of death, but it was al- inspired by the wounding knowledge that he had lost Alma Mahler forever" (106). Kokoschka himself writes: '7 saw the woman fiom whom 1 had so painfiilly parted standing thebefore me. (. ..) The head wound had impaired my power of locomotion and my vision, but the words of my imaginary conversations with her phamom impressed themselves so vividly on my mind that without having to write anything down I could progressively expand them in my imagination to create whole scenes. My play Orpheus and Eurydice are out of the repeated hallucinations 1 experienced .. . " (MYt i fe 96). xx Quotations are translateci-without any pretension to artistry-from the Orwkus und Eurydice in Oskar Kokoschka. Das Schriftiiche Werk. mci Kokoschka's also used garden settings in Job and The Dreamina Youths. The latter is an illustrated poem, written in 1907. Al1 three of these locations seem to be a conscious reference to the bibtical garden and the expulsion of Adam and Eve. Cbrpter Four

Barlrcb's Dnmr: the Cod of Fbme and Abyss.

As already demonstrated with the anal ysis of Stramm and Kokoschka, Expressionist drama

presents considerable diffrculties for interpreters. The prevailing mode of interptetation,

especially in English language criticism, offers to explicaîe Expressionist dramas through the

identification of certain narrative motifs. The presence of these motifs in a significant

nurnber of dramas is takcn as evidence of the concerns of the authors, oficn on an

unconscious level. This method is often helpfbl in illuminating Expressionist drama;

however, its overriding concem with narrative content can mislead interpreters. Al

acknowledge the innovative formal properties of Expressionist drarna. Dramatic critics,

however, rarely consider these properties in any depth. Even studies as recent as Diethe's

Distorted Sexual Attitudes-mentioned in regard to Kokoschka-focus almost exclusively on

narrative content and ignore issues of theatrical presentation such as the drarnatic treatment of time and space, audience knowledge, and spoken laquage. Tm often, Expressionist style and. in particular, the grotesque aesthetic have been depicted as 'getting in the way' of what the writer is 'trying to say. ' An extreme example of this can be found in Werner's study of

Barlach. Alongside a sensitive and insightfiil analysis of Barlach's contribution to the visual arts, Werner describes Barlach's dramatic writing thus. "While they have plots of a sort, they are not developed with the strict logic to be found in the theatre of Schiller and Ibsen which is generally preferred by audiences" (Werner 60). The dramas, continues Werner, stimulate "...tao much thinking, and the result is discornfort and bewildennent" (63).

Statements such as "...the characters areu>ntrary to the author's assertion-not rdpeople, though the dialect they use is real enough..." are characteristic of the ambiguity of arguments

Il5 like Werner's. When is a dramatic character a "real" person? On what principles is this evaluation based? Without any explanation, the designation of Barlach's characten as lus

'real' than those of other dramatists relies upon common sensibility and a certain aversion to the gotesque.' One feels that Barlach's characters should not exist and, therefore, labels them as less 'rd' than more coherent, logical forms, rather as Bernard Clairvaux decrieci the grotesque monstrosities that il Iurninated medieval manuscripts. Barlach's plays are tw oftcn criticised for not making theu message clear. When they are appreciated, the dramas are explicated in a simplistic way. H. F. Garten writes:

Barlach stands as one of the pre-eminent exponents of what may be called the mystic or ' religious type of expressionist drama. His concerns were the timeless issues of human existence, the triumph of the spirit over the encroaching materialism of our age. (-e Modern Drama 67)

It is, to say the least, unclear how the encroaching materiaiism of our age can be a tirneless issue. Car1 Dietrich Carls' very early work on Barlach-titled sirnply Ernst Barlach- treats the drarnas with more reverence; his criticism, however, is considerably plagued by generalisations: "Man's fate... is the dominant theme in Emst Barlach's work" (7). Through reading the critical literature, one would expect Barlach's dramas to offer obscure meanings, abstraa characters, and limited interest for the audience. It is startling to encounter the dramas themselves with their pungent and bawdy humour, searing mysticism, and warm, human sympathy. The originality and power of the images created in Barlach's dnma is equaI to Kokoschka; Barlach's plays, however, exceed Kokoschka's in the coherence and architectural power of their construction. 70 expenence Barlach's drama is to be plunged into a landscape at once alien and familiar. Barlach's dramatic achievement, similar to

Kokoschka's, is the creation of a grotesque world on the stage. To explicate this, 1 will, ifter a more detailed discussion of the artist's life and career, focus on what are arguabfy Barlach's two greatest plays-The Flood and The Blue Boll.

~iogra~h~'

Barlach's development as a piaywight parallels both Stramm's and Kokoschka's in sevd important ways. Both were bom in srnall North German towns, Barlach in Wedel on tht lower Elbe. Like Kokoschka's, Barlach's early life was crossed by the spectres of death and insanity. Like Kokoschka, he blarned an insensitive and m~eriaiisticwodd for the misfortunes that befell his family. His father died of pneumonia when Ernst Barlach, his oldest son, was oniy thirteen. Barlach felt that selfish and materialistic colleagues had abandoned his father, hastening his death. Emst Barlach's mother suffered a breakdown when he was still a child and, throughout her later iife was in and out of institutions. Barlach remained very close to his mother, living with her for much of his adult life. As is the case with Stramm, artistic and literary recognition did not corne early. It took the young Bulach a long time to find himself as an artist; his first tacher nt the Kumtgewerbeschule in Hamburg told him that he was wasting his time and had no talent. At the time, nobody was sailpting in the style Barlach later developed. The academy tradition of working Corn stationary, nude models bord him and, although he became technically proficient in the art nouveau style, his writing reflects dissatisfaction with al1 his early work. He later wrote "1 can bid gd-bye to everything 1 did before the age of thirty-six with a light heart" (Carls 16). Writing seemed to appeal to him more in the early phase of career.

1 busily continue my efforts as a writer, though the produas are relatively slirn.( ...) 1 have begun a collection of word sketches of the metropolis... To combine my own experiences in the form of short stories, to narrate my observations of people whom I've met hem is the urge that inspires me. (Quoted and trandated in Grove 13) He wrote odd, autobiographical prose, rathtt in the style of John Paul Richter. The most notable of these is the unfinished, autobiographical novcl, Seesxck, writtcn in 1913- 19 14.

The tuming point of Barlach's artistic life was, by his own admission, his 1906 trip to Russia.

At this point, both his career and personal life were in disarray. He was barely eking out a living; ab,he had a child by a woman he 'didn't feel he could marry' and was engageci in suing the mother for the right to raise the child-he won. Russia represented a ncw beginning; visuaf ly, its landscape and, above dl, its people were a revelation:

'Even while wc were driving through Warsaw to the other railroad station across the Vistula'. .. '1 was shaken by the happiness of the joyfbl awakening of one who had not forgotten the pain of slowly dying... 1 thought: look this is the same outside as inside, this is al1 immeasurably real.' (Cited and translated in Carls 44)

The art that he began to create immediately upon his return to Berlin was the expression of his Russian experiences. Barlach expressed his newly found aesthetic in language that is closely allied to the grotesque. He describes one of his statues, the "Russian Beggar Wornan with Cup": "1 have changed nothing of what 1 saw. 1 saw it like that because 1 saw simultaneously the vile, the cornic and-let me say it unabashedly-the divine" (Carls 48).

His artistic breakthrough caught the notice of the important art dealer Paul Cassirer, who, as we have seen, was also Kokoschka's dealer, and Barlach was, as a result, now able to live off his art. In 1910, he moved to the small town of Güstrow with his mother and his son. Like

many Expressionist artists, Barlach was initially enthusiastic about the First World War; he . enlisted in 19 16, only to be decommissioned mon afterwards. After the war, he settled down to work in Güarow, rarely leaving: a fiindeci trip to Italy was, besides the Russia trip, his only other major excursion. His ltalian experience seemed to have little impact on him as an artist. It was during his Güstrow years that he created ail of his dramas, including both 'J& Flood (1924) and The Blue Bol1 (1 926). The Flood receivcd the Kleist pnze for the best drama by a nmplaywright-Barlach wis then past fifty. Although many of his dramas were staged with cntical slaim, the notonody introverted artist only saw one performance of his work, The Truc Sedemunds in 1925. Ht walked out during the intermission, upset that his work had been incorrtdly interpreted. Barlach particulad y objccted to the expressionist, mechanised style of perfiormance. He felt that his charactcrs were real people and should be interpreted as aich-again one enmunters the troubiesome concept of a 'rd' fictional character. The same production was extolled by Thomas Mann for its "genuine folk poeûy"

(Werner 60). Barlach continued to sculpt and write to the end of his career. HÎs last, unfinished drama, The Count of Ratzeburq, is based on the story of a crusader- Barlach's last years were embattled ones. He was declared a 'degenerate' artist by the National Socialist party in 1933 and his sculptures were removed from museums and churches, including 'The

Ange1 ', which he had given as a gifk to the cathedra1 of Güstrow, later melted down for ammunition. Performances and publication of his work were banned. Barlach himself was advised by the Governor of Mecklenburg to emigrate but he stubbornly retiised to move.

Like Kokoschka. Barlach is better known as a scuiptor and graphic artist than he is as a playwright. This is especial l y true of English-language criticism. This is unfortunate because Barlach was a tnily 'double-gifle& artist and his dramatic writing, in particular, is extraordinary. The relative neglect of his plays could be a symptom of the greater readiness of critics to accept svuaurai innovation in the graphic and plastic aris than in drama. Less controversial and more technical rasons may include the diflcufty of tnuislating his highly idiosyncratic writing (he, like Stramm. frequently invented his own words) and the dificulty of placing these dramas within a cntical or historical tradition. The former is an ongoing

119 dificulty with much .ofman Expressionist writing. A gr- deal of the humour in -

Barlach's plays is generated through literary devices wch as alliteration and punning, and is,

consequently, usually lost in translation. The latter problem is one that is fiequently a

symptorn of grotesque art fonns. In the discussion of Kokoschka, 1 argueci that Kokoschka's

stagecraft radically departs 6iom the conventional, script-onented dma. This is also truc of

Barlach. By most traditional criteria used in analysing drama, Barlach's plays are not

sufftciently dramatic. Barlach's plays unfold spatially and metaphysicaily, not logicafly and

temporally. Barlach's sensibility is cioser to that ofa medieval dramatist. As such, it is

radically aiien to the modem spirit. It is no wonder that Barlach was something of an outsider, even smong Expressionists. He was allied with the medieval in the way he

configures dramatic space, and in the heightened moral sense of his dramas. This is not to say that his drama was a nostalgic copy of that of the Middle Ages; rather, it represented a cunous eniption and reinvention of this impulse in the modern age. Barlach was also allied with the medievai in the manner through which his plays address God-sensuously, mystically and humbly. Both The Flood and The Blue Bol1 feature God. In both plays, God actually appears as a dramatic figure; and in both plays, it is clear that this figure is a grotesque representation of the deity. God is figured both as a filthy beggar of unpleasant temperament and as the offsprîng of Satan's hind- leg. The true nature of deity, as presented in Barlach's drama, is one of occlusion and silence; and it is precisely due to this fact that the grotesque representation of God is the only appropriate one. Such deity defies definition and coherence. It is not the triumph of the spirit over the body that is suggested by Barlach's use of the grotesque; it is something infinitely more subtle. It is a God who is felt through the senses, and not through the intellect-through the pricking of the hain on the back of the nec4 through the sight of a shining, table beauty.

Synopsis of the Flood.

The play opens with a bizarre conversation set in the desert at evening. The Leper addresses his hump: "my dear hump" and his "beloveà leprosy." - Goâ (as the travellcr) cornes by with two angels (2 29). As the leper hides, the angels tdk to God. The deity is bitter; he says vioiently: "they are unlike me... 1 am sony I made them." This God wants samenes and hates anything that is an impenect image of his glory. We are introduced to one of the traits of apocalyptic art, the cmel demiurge. The opening of the play establishes the contrast between the apparently blasphemous Calan and the pious Nooh. Calan's god appears to be hirnself: "Sm talking to myxlf If that is prayer, then 1 pray." He gives thanks for the power he exerts over others and is informed that, as a consequena of his insolence, Calan is punished by God, his fïock scattered in the desert. AI1 of his servants desen him except for one, Chus, who stays out of love. Calan laughingly promises his cherished slave and lover,

Awah, to Noah, beloved of God, should he, by a miracle, get his property back.

We expect to encounter a contrasting image of piety in Noah's household, but this is not the case: When Noah prepares to sacrifice a kid, his sons are unenthusiastic. Shem and

Japheth want to get married. Noah insists on pious brides for them-a difficult task in these times. The view of humanity in the play is fùrther wmpromised with the &val of three neighbours, crude, furtive and spitting. They let Noah know that they have raided his flodcc and killed his servants. Noah offers them hospitality and still wants to procad with the sacrifice. Cowards. the men leave. Directly after this encounter, Calan and Noah meet again. Cdan has forcefully retrieved Noah's hads in thanks for God's IiAing of the aim.

He also givej up Awah, reluctantly. In retuni, Calan wants Noah ta worship him.

The beginning of the second act parailels the opening of the first one. The audience is again confronted with the Leper, sneaking away. This time God appears in the guise of a beggar. God discovers, to his anger, that men have become like beasts and decides to go pay a visit to Noah, his favourite. At the conclusion of the scene, he waves his crutch threateningly. Mer this repeated juxtaposition of leper and God, the action shifts back to the conflici of Calan and Noah, apparently one between piety and sensuality. Japheth, deformed and hideous, is dissatisfied with his pure wife, Awah, and wants "fat Zebid". Noah and Shem are both tempted by Calan's beautifûl gift but Awah seems to think only of God, who haunts her soul. When Noah ushers in the angels. Awah is delighted. Her attitude contrasis with the fear and religious awe that the ot her characters experience, Unafiaid, Awah washes their feet and dries them with her hair. The angels bless her so that she is able to recognise God. The news that God is approaching temfies Noah, who is frightened that the sight of God will burn up his eyes. As the angels approach, Japheth runs away in terror; Noah, however, seems to overcome his fear. Noah orders al1 of them out except for Awah and himself, whose faith has transcended their fear. Calan's entrance breaks the mood of genuine religious awe, reminding Noah's family of their plight on earth. Becaux of the drought, the cattle will die without min. Calan proposes sacrificing a beautifùl young shepherd. Noah is shocked by the cmelty of the suggestion. Calan still wants to be a greater Cod: if Gd is so powerfùl, let him stop the sacrifice. When Noah spits on th,CaIan castigates God and

Noah as hypocritical, passive observers.. ."and in the rnidst of su much trust and confidence, 1 becarne a butcher and a torturer." Chus catches the Beggar in a sack and retums: "God in a

122 straw sack." "Better for you to be food than eat it." Rccognising the Beggar as both God and his natural father, Noah falls at his feet. As the Beggar is bathed, the sounds of the shepkd screaming can be heard. Mer promising retribution for Calan, the Beggar orders Noah to leave the valley and build an ark in the rnountains. If the flood does not come to pas, Calan again asks Noah to worship him instead of God. Awah enters and recognises God, predicts the flood, ignores Cdan. Later she doesn't recognise God, and refers to the unfiilfilled angelic promise, that she would be able to recopise Gd. Again., questions as to the authenticity of the God figure in the play appear.

The third act opens, as the first two do. in the desert waste. It is a short, bleak scene, in which the wolf children surround the Beggar God. His angels corne to rescue him. The next scene is the first one to take place outside the desert. The stage directions cal1 for the sound of wind whistling and of axes. The scene opens with a conversation between Awah and

Shem. Awah is happy, thinking about the angels. Shem gets her to caress hirn by teiling her to "pretend I am God." Shem's theory is that: "God is not everywhere, and God is not everything, as Father Noah claims." Noah enters driving off the Leper and the maimed

Shepherd. Noah recognises the Shepherd as Calan's sacrifice, but seerns more unsympathetic than he did previously. The Shepherd has befriended the Leper and is going home over the mountains with his new pal. Noah feels guilty about the shepherd, but calls the mutilation an example of God's work. This prompts Awah to again tum away nom God.

"1 cannot love him, if these are his works." An alliance forms between Shem and Awah, and

Shem refises to build if he doesn't get Awah as wife. Japheth also renises if he doun't get

Zebid "who violates her younger brothers before their time" and dances before wooden idols. The convention of opening the act in the desert is maintained. This time God appern in the guise of a well-to-do traveller. Noah is passing through, looking for Calan (who must help

obtain Zebid.) The Travelier wams against Zebid who dams to thrive without God. Noah

blames her breeding. Interestingly, now Noah does not rtcognise God, and the two argue.

Noah becomes confiised by ail this mord ambiguity: "the wolf children have a right to growl." He immediately regrets it. The setting shifts to the mountain woodg with the ark visible in the background. The collection of the animals and building of the ark samto be progressing smoothly. There is a previously unfelt atmosphere of excitement with regard to the impending apocalypse: al1 the creeping things are coming out of the earth. Also, Awah is rejoicing at the storm, altemately raging and silent. Only Calan still does not believe in the flood. He threatens to bum Noah's house. His scepticism is interrupted when Chus stumbles in, dying of terror. The flood, a great carpet of carrion floating on the water has reversed its course. Al1 Calan's servants and herds are dead. He begs Calan to kill him. But Calan is the master, and commands him to live.

Now that the desert has been obliterated, the scene is murky. It is night; rain falls on Calan and Chus. The ark has been locked up, but Noah leaves food out for the pair, campai outside in the stonn. Chus has Ion all will to live and cal& finolly assists in his servant's suicide, later keeping watch until the body is cold. The Leper and the Shepherd approach, and the scrofiiIous pair sits down together. Calan wants help to dig a grave but the Shepherd has no hands; the Leper, cursing God. refuses to help. To the shepherd. God is incomprehensible, and he will not speak to him. Calan thinks this is a wise viewpoint.

Alone again after chasing off his visitors, Calan digs a grave and buries Chus. The flood

&es, and it has transformeci the worid and its inhabitants: Caian is now a beggar and Chus,

124 although dead, is now his child, not his servant. Noah arrives to offcr Calan more food, but

Noah rehses to let Calan in the ark, because Calan will subjugate tkm. Japheth cornes out

and ushers Calan into the ark, gratetli for Zebid. Noah's prediction, however, pmvts to be

correct. Swn, Shem and Ham are complaining about Calan's dominating presence in the

ark. They throw him out as the Leper retums. When he embraces Calan, Shem and Ham

seize this opporhinity to tie the two togethw. None of them will kill him; they are too afraid.

The two, tied together, will die a horrible, lingering death. The final scene prcscnts an

arnorphous vista of mist and grey light; everything is muddy. Noah cornes out to check on

Calan, who, bound together with the leper, has formed a shapeless mass. Calan's grucsome

fate brings hirn closer to what he recognises as the true God who resembles Shcm's: "only

flame and abyss in Godw,a God of transcendence and self-abnegation.

The Btue Boll: Synopsis

The play opens with a scene set in a town square with shops; in the background, the base of

a large church can be seen. Boll and his wife, Martha are conversing. Boll comrnents on the fog, which raises certain questions about existence. His wife, a seemingly typical bourgeois housewife is a bit shocked; she wants to shop for Aunt Emma's binhday, and is womed about dinner with the Pomprnasters. As Bol1 waits outside, Greendale and Wcmdfiesser appear. Greendale's problem is that his wife has run away, sickened by the carnality of mankind. The Mayor approaches and Greendale and Woodfiesser cornplain to him about a man who might be the devil, who, after ordering. a shoe for his right foot (which may have been a hoof), lefk his leg. The leg has galloped on, and a hunt must be organised. The mayor isn't really intaested and immediately tums his attention to Boll, a wealthy Iandowner. Bol1 and the Mayor have an ornate and inwmprehcnsible conversation about blamc and existence.

125 Bol1 feels he did not choose this Iife. Boll offers the mayor cigars ... brand 'Coffin-nail.'

"Boll is killing Boll," strangled by conventionality (183). Mrs. Bol1 is alarmeci by ha

husband' s weird behaviour, as Kurt admires the church in the fog. Virgin the watchmakcr

passes the couple, and enten the church door. His wife goes on with her shopping. As Bol1

examines the sky, he experiences dizziness, a sense of vertigo. Grcte, Grandale's wife,

appears in her Sunday best. As she passes, she looks at Boil, and Bol1 ratches for a cigar,

staring at Grcte. He follows her to "the doaor-" Just then, Greendale catches up with hn.

Boll defends her, Greendale, intimidated, leaves. Bol1 ushers her into the church tower and

then guides her dense husband in the wrong direction. He follows Grete to the tower.

The second scene follows the couple to a narrow room ha1 fbay up the tower, with stairs

leading down on left; up on right. Gme mutters about the flesh; Bo11 tries out a new

persona: he presents himself to her as a man of the spirit, at home in towers. She is not afiaid

of her husband but for her children; their souls. she believes, are wailing to be âee of the

flesh. Boll is afiaid of dying; but she longs for it. When he acts on his feelings, fdling towards Grete, she pushes him back, and he seems to expenence a sort of attack as a result.

He asks her to hold him. Virgin catches them in this compromising position, recognising

Boll. Virgin has a low opinion of Boll because Boll criticised an evangelical usembl y nin by the mysterious Baron Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw. subsequently, snubbed Boll at the horse show and lectures on man's becoming, not being. Everything looks small Rom up high.

Grete begs him to provide hirn with poison to "liberate" her children. He foolishly promises to do so in order to appeal to Grete. The action now returns to the Street shown st the beginning. Woodâesser is holding forth about the uncanny leg. Apparently the leg and

Grete are both as home where they belong. Mn. Bol1 is now looking for ha husband, who is

126 not at the tavem. On cue, he appears, rneditating on how he doesn't exist. The mayor appean wanting to talk to Boll, delaying dinner even more scriously. Grandde accosts Boll wanting to talk about his wife. Boll is musing on the day of judgement. The mayor finally notices that his fnend is acting strangely. Greendale wants to shift responsibility for Grete ont0 Boll. Boll's wife, Martha, concerneci, rernembers her husband calling her a wondehl woman. He has not been himself lately. The mayor muses that the new Boll may be the real one. "That would be ghastly, don't you think" (1 8S)? Weeping Martha Bol departs: "1am simply ngid with hunger."

The scene now is an ominous one. The stage directions specifj. a dark Street, and the sounds of bowling can be heard. From the house opposite comes plaintive singing. On a hopefùl note, the outline of the cathedra1 is visible in the background. Grete comes in, hides.

Boll appears. They share a fùnive conversation. He is soothed by the touch of her hand.

But he has corne empty-handed ... he couldn't find enough thealone. She is repelled by her desire. She feels watched. A door opens on the lefi. Elias leans out. He criticises the singing and brings out a table, chairs, glasses, setting up an outdoor extension to his cafi. A sort of street Party now ensues, as across the Street the evangelical assembly leaves. Elias attempts to entice guests into the devil's kitchen. Woodticsser appears with Gentleman and they sit down. As one of the Gentleman's legs is shoiter, he would seern to be the culprit with the runaway leg. The Gentleman is a philanthropist, at home in both the church and the tavem. Grete and Boll enter. Grde is bitter and mocks her benefactor for failing to keep his promise. Boll wonders what kind of place this is. Elias seems to know al1 about the poisoning. Elias announces himself as the devil. A devi l is not ahid of devils. Elias offers to heip Grete, offering her a rmm. He pushes her into the house, and reftses dmission to

127 Boll, whom he calls a halfperson. Virgin, the Gentleman and Woodfiesser appear. The

Gentleman is looking for a roorn. Woodfiesser identifies the Gentleman as God. Boll invites the Gentleman to the Golden Ball, although by now he is probably late for dinner.

Finally, the action shifts to the doomed dinner pany at the dining mmof the Golden Ball

Hotel. Otto Pompmaster is sitting with Mrs. Boll. Otto has already had more strong dnnk than advisable, and he explains marital relations and dnnks. The Pomprnasters are opposed to any change. Boll enters with his two guests. He introcluces W.The Gentiernan qualifies his remark to say that he is only a mere reflection of W. Otto brings up Grete much to Martha Boll's embarrassment. There is a comic debate over whether to order wffi or not. The gentleman tries to convince Otto to change and examine his condition. Otto decries him as a swindler. The Gentleman cites Bol1 as an example. Otto urges Kurt to hold ont0 marriage and renounce responsibility. He tries to get the gentleman to drink fiom the spittoon. Bol1 must go to Grete's aid, asks for his wife's understanding. She, sobbing, orders

Kurt to Grete.

The mysterious room in the inn is fairly innocuous looking with a bed, a table. and an easy chair. Grete is covering her ears. Elias enters with food. Wehdig, hungry, is invited in, and helps himself to the food. Grete confides that she can hwElias swearing at people. She un see through the cracks once the light is extinguished. Elias is carrying dishes. Wehdig wants her to sit on his lap. Grde watches the devil force people to put their fm on buming cods.

She sees a youthfùl Boll entering. Wehdig wants to drink. Grete sees her children in hell, dressed in rags and dirty. Elias takes off their boots and bnngs tubs of hot coais. Grete screams, worried that- Boll wiIl feed them poison by mistake. Eventually, Grete decides to drink the poison herseIf. Then she offers it to the corpses. The devil wornan, Doris, shows a

sympathetic side through this ordeal, a strange version of communion and sacrifice.

The action of the drarna conciudes in the interior of a church. Pillar, window, pews and a

carved apode are al1 visible, according to the stage directions. Morning sunlight illuminates

Grete asleep. Bol1 is nrolling about the church when Gnte wikcr up. AAer th& escape

6om Hel1 and death and a night spent in the belfry, one suspects some kind of romantic

interlude. However, nothing is confirrned. Now he has ordercd a carriage to take her back to

Parum. Martha appears with the information that Otto has had a stroke. The Gentleman

approaches fiom the rear, informing the other characters that Otto has died after his spiritual

awakening. Bo11 pushes the ladies off Otto's transfiguration in death prompts Boll to

consider the option of suicide; the Gentleman, however, steers hm ont0 a different path.

The Depiction of Cod

A mother who wishes to poison her own children, a leper bound to a man, unable to

avoid the rising flood, a leg that skips away fiorn its owner: Barlach's dramas immediately

stnke the reader (and in a successful performance the spectator) with grotesque imagery that

is both startling and familiar: startling because of the way the playwrïght juxtaposes genres,

moods, and speech patterns; familiar because of the use of folkloric and biblical motifs in

Barlach's writing. Although the playwright's philosophical concems appear to be very

similar to those of his conternporaries, there is something demonstrably archaic about the

expression of the grotesque in Barlach's plays. A shared belief in God, an al!-powerful and ail-knowing deity, provides the necessary background to these dramas. Without it, the

concomitant focus on the body becornes meaningless, loses its blasphemous power. In the

129 plastic arts, many of Barlach's creations were interided for display in a church. The spirituai

force of these sculptures has often been commented on. Barlach's satlpture seerningly

embodies what are traditionally considercd as exclusive categories: his angels arc airbomc; yet they are also massive, distinctly material."

God rnakes an appearance in both of the Barlach plays 1 have chosen to focus on.

Flood, Bariach's most overtly religious drama, presents us with the Old Testament God-a

God of justice, of rewards and punishments. In this drama, God appcars in two guises: that of the Traveller and that of the Beggar. As in the bi blical story, his one faithfiil follower is

Noah; and he decides to condemn the rest of the world to everlasting death: "They are not as they ought to be" (The Flood 29). It is also clear that Barlach's God is not interested in the independence, the individuality of his creations. "They think thoughts I do not think. They want what you do not want" (30). God wishes his followers to be the reflection of his own glory, obedient to al1 his wishes; in short, the deity desires slaves and not children, a distinction that the play thoughttirlly makes through its action. If God is a formidable master here, he is also a bad parent, demanding when He shouid be letting go, and silent when He should protect. God does not understand the mea~ngof the word compromise; he demands total obedience and acçeptance of his will. When Noah sets about to build an ark with the help of his sons, he is forced to make some compromises in order to kecp his family happy and obedient. Ail of the compromises involve women. The sons wish to make their own choice of bride. Japheth is besotted with "Fat Zebid" an incestuous heathen woman, who never sounds as wicked on stage as she is reputed to be. Obviously, Zebid is distinctly one of the compt, wonhipping many Gods and flaunting her "magnificent build." In no way is she a suitable mate for one of Noah's (the chosen one's) sons. Yet unless he is 'given" Zebid,

130 Japheth stubbody refuses to work. Without his labour, the Ark will never be finished on time. Noah is presented with a dilemma, and his God is not much help in solving it:

Noah: I have three sons but only two wives among them, bad prospects for decent, conduct at home, good sir. We have need of the country's godless daughters. They will perish if 1 dont huny. (He rises.) Goci can change their htarrs, if he so wishes, since he has made it impossible for rny sons to live without wives.

Traveller: Huny home, Noah, do not be obstinate. Your cyes see oniy the stony drought across the land, your ears know nothing of the drunken turrnoii in its cloven deptbs. You are parched with hot breath, but you do not feel the trembling and raging of oceans in the breaking breast of the earth-already the winds of heevcn have abated th& fiery blasts, are slackening into smouldering mouldenng sparks, expinng in terror of the roaring blackness that has been imposed over the world. Hurry home, Noah; give your thanks by obedience to God, and do not mingle with the godless. The tents of him who dwelts among the wicked bloat with evil like pregnant wombs. (64)

God's indifference to the pain of the innocent is demonstrated in a grisly incident. Calan decides to sacrifice a young shepherd, saying that his blood might appease God's anger and alleviate the drought. Calan's real purpose, however, seems to be to demonstrate to Noah his

God's indifference to human suffering: if the sacrifice is not pleasing to God, let him intervene. If there is no intervention, this means that either Noah's God is indifferent or that he is too weak to alter events. Calan is also testing the strength of Noah's moral convictions.

Will Noah stand passively aside and let him commit this horrible deed? Or will the old man take steps to hait it? Calan asserts that God's and Noah's passive acceptance of the mutilation is just as bad as the action itself Calan's motivation for this crime does not setm to be purely one of intellectual inquiry: he compares the sacrifice of the beautifil young shepherd's hands to Awah's forced mating to Japheth: "But you did take Awah and offered her up to Japheth. Evasions, Noah,--we must have a sacrifice" (48)! Despite possible persona1 motivations, however, Calan does raise some important questions with his challenges to God's authority, using Noah as an audience and the beautifil and spiritual Awah as a prize. Whae Noah is subrnissive and obedient, Cdan is mastemil and

dominating; whae Noah is proud of his obedience and worship, Calan gglries in his

independence and sfepticism. Does the play take sides with one against the other: Bariach

was dismayed how Christian audience's interpreted the play's ending as a punishment of

Calan. His own comments and the interpretation of many critics emphasise the strength and

essential spirituality of Calan's views. ChancteristiceofBarlach's work, the plrywright

refuses to offer simple solutions to cornpiex questions: bth central figures, in a sense, get the

ending they deserve; and, with reference to the question of deity, both figures end up

discovering the deity they deserve.

We have aiready sketched in Noah's God, the fierce OId Testament judge and executioner.

The cnielty of this God has already been demonstrated. What can be said of the glory of this

God? God inspires terror and awe:

Noah (terrified): He who gave me sight to judge cows and calves would cas< the powa of his etemal light on my eyes? Two mouse holes to harbour the image of the highest on high? They will crack open. burn up, they will be blinded.

Japheth (running): Sornething flew past me like hot wind-as if clothed in a liquid web of sunbeams-two talking giants with rushing and panting and swarrning and slipping of wings of air on their heels-over me, passing through me, they ground me between their words like millstones-Father, Father, how fnghtened 1 was. (46)

Noah's first encaunter with God is in His guise of beggar. Al-, God appears as Noah's long dead father-a poor man now who only asks for food and a little rest. Noah, sentimental as always, responds with tears of filial love and obedience. Only Awah seems to remgnise God in all his majesty, ignoring Calan's entreaties:

Awah: The world is less than nothing, and God is everything-I see nothing but God ... God is the enonnous silence. I hear God.. . Everything God everything God. (55) Awah goes on to predict the flood, but the context of her vision is show in a diffbnt light.

Awah asks if she will see God in the mountains-the angels promised she would be able to recognise God. But has not she already recognised God in his humble disguise ... perhaps.

As the hion of the play progresses, another God is reveafcd, a Ood infinitely mon mysterious in nature and action, a mystical God of paradox and nothingness. Awah intuitively addresses this God who speaks to her through silence and through absence. in the middle of the play, Pwt III, scene 2, Shem shares with Awah his secret knowledge of a different kind of God:

Shem: God is not everywhere, and God is not everything, as Father Noah claims. He hides behind everything, and everything has narrow chinks through which he shines, shines and flashes. Such thin. delicate chinks that you never find them again if you turn your head even once. 455)

It is Shem and Awah's shared spirituality that draws them together. For Awah espccially, her sensuality and her faith are intertwined. The way she worships God and the angels is distinctly carnal, and Shem satisfies himself by asking Awah to pretend that he is God so that he rnay feel her caress. This God is not a demiurge who createà the world and now governs it like a stem father; rather the God that appears through the chinks is one who is radically outside the world, unconcerned with the material world in any direct or causal way. In order to move towards this God. one must give up attachrnent to the world, and its rules and regulations. It is through Calan's homble end that he discovers God. Once he is ftguratively stripped of al1 property and titles and Iiteraliy stripped of bodily force and flesh-bound to a leper and gnawed ragged by wild beasts, he is finally able to see and understand Gda god

Noah: Oh, Calan, what do you sec--God is my shepherd, 1 shall not want. He will guide me through the flood and Save me fiom destruction. Calan: that is the God of floods and of flesh, that is the God who has it that the worid is less than nothing and God is al]. But I can see the other God who will have it thaî the world is big and god smaller than nothing, a point, a spuk and al1 things have their beginning in him and in their end. He has no form, no voice. (71)

Calan is transfigureci. Perhaps, secretly, his challenges and blasphemy were a cry to this greater God, a quest beyond form and regulation into an ecstatic experience of vertigo, abyss and flame. Noah, on the other hand, is safe within his ark, a bounded microcosm of al1 civilised humanity, compromised and compromising, but with flashes of kindness and charity. Nor is it only Noah on the ark: also the spiritual Shem and his visionary wife Awah, and the comipt, sensua1 Japheth with his dearly bought fat Zebid. The new world within the

Ark promises to be rnuch like the old.

Noah's God is the one who appears on the stage before us. His speech and actions do not convince us, any more than they do Calan, that he is a worthy object of worship. Both as beggar, and later (as he seems to grow in power) as the traveller, He seems, above ail, to be concemed with his own ego. God never dernonstrates any pity for those He punishes.

Moreover, this God, in his materiai guise, is not invulnerable to injury or defeat. In a shocking scene, the Leper beats up God. Also, Awah does not recognise God as divine on stage; she seems more reverent of his angels and their shining beauty. As a charactcr, God is cranky and fallible, and an unpleasant personality. Like Calan, he wants to have slaves and not children. The two dramatic figures, Calan and God, have more in common than either ever admits.

In Barlach's later play, The Blue Boll, God makes another appearance-and the devil too.

The presentation of God is even subtler than in The Flood. It is clear that the spirituai transfiguration of two individuals--Bol1 and Grete is at stake here. The Gentleman who

134 appears to help them rnay or may not be the Lord God; he zrecrns to be worlcing in

collaboration with oid EIias, the devil in the play and his formidable wife, Doris. Both are mysterious figures whose nature is never fiilly explained. There is no rule-giving God figure

as in The Flood. This demiurgic fbnction seems to have ban usurped by the intenial voices of the lead chafacters: the Boll wtio must be fat, lazy, and deprived of choice; the Grete who is so crazed by her hatred of the flesh and its impurity that she seeks to murder her own children. Both characters represent opposite polls of binary, restricted thinking: Boll as the typical bourgeois, living his life by routine; and Grete as the fanatic revolutionary, utterly rejecting human existence. As in The Flood, The Blue Boll is centred around the encounter and conflict between two opposing world views. Noah and Boll, wedded to convention and structure, have certain similarities; Calan and Grete resembie one another in their mutual rejection of society and the flesh. The Blue Boll's antagonists, however, are more flexible in their outlook Thus, it is the encounter between the two that lads to the spiritual enlightenment of both. They eventuaily manage to move past their restricted lives and they approach a boundless spirituality. but one that is more tempered by sympathy for humanity and a respect for the existence of flesh. Therefore, it is Bol1 himself who is the false God- his very name suggesting Baal, the fenility God, whose name also graces Brecht's first dramatic hero. The golden idols and false gods. rejected by official religion, may, in these dramas, hold the key to salvation. The salvation would seem to be one that lies, not in purity, but in plurality and transformation.

Ifthe Gentleman is God, he is a God who has one leg shorter than the other, and may be sporting Satan's hindquarter, as Woodfiesser accuses him. In fact, the Gex$ieman conlesses that he may have grown out of the runaway leg:

135 Gentleman: There irn't a spot you could spit on when something d&'t hovu wiiting to be thstinto existence, waiting to Ieave its cocoon. #y, look what became of that leg today-am 1 not tolerable company considenng 1 grew out of a Satan's hindquartef? Becoming-that's the watchword. (1 95)

Like the mystical God of The Flood, the Gentleman is a God who transgresses and dissolves boundaries instead of reinforcing them. He is not an immutable identity; he rcpresents a dynamic principle. Unlike the mystical God of The Floc& he is not utterly alien to the flesh; he is able to incarnate. In the scene set at the restaurant. the problem of the gentleman's identity arises again. Boll introduces his guest as God to a less than overwhelming reaction.

The entire paisage is significant, especially the disclaimer fiom the Gentleman himself as to his identity:

Boll: ...This gentleman is my guest; his name remains a mystery and a secret, but dont let that darm you. He is God himself, of course stnctly incognito-under cover, as it were. And here as witness and pledge to my words, also without name so far...

Gentleman (to Boll): If you want it so, Mr. Boll. 1 shall not lift the cloak of anonymity in which you have clothed me--but oniy a little in passing and in confidence between the ~YOof US: well, Mr. Boll, God, you said-just between you and me- tkeis something to that, but only as a faint and meek reflection out of the infinite do 1 accept the narne of the Lord, a wcak, hardl y discernible adumbration of ûod. Is not that the way you meant it?. ..

Otto: 1 dways pictured God differently. For my part, it didn't occur to me to question him about his profession, but you can imagine, Kurt, what's on my mind. 1 am a landowner, you are a landowner, that's enough for today and for a while to corne-what do we need with the Good Lord for company! (197-198)

The Gentleman, as an adumbration of God, is essemially invisible to those who cannot see.

Woodfresser is reverent; Boll is burnptious and friendly; Otto is unimpressed. The ending of the play also reveals a different aspect of God's nature. Unlike the mystical God of Calan and Shem, this is not one who is opposed to al1 forms of earthly existence; but one who presents a more benevolent aspect. The spiritual forces in the play guide Grete away f?om murder and Boll away fiom suicide. Even the Christian institution of marriage is upheld at the end of the play as both characters retum, presumably wiser, to their original spouscs.

Blue Boll as a play presents a more comic, and more cornplicateû spiritual world, different

fiom the stark alternatives shown in The Flood. The Blue Boll, also, suggests a pater Wth

in human ability to rcconcile supernaturai exuemes. The comic universe of the latta work is

more tolerant of human thilty; unlike God in The Flood, the Gentleman is bcnevolent,

combining both the saintly, the human, and perhaps even a touch of the diabolic."

As may be infened fiom the preceding section, Barlach's depiction of God is grotesque in

the highest sense of the word. The grotesque is the only suitable artistic vocabulary for the

spirituality of these plays because it suggests that which cannot be represented. Barlach

deliberately creates shocking images of conventional religious subjects to suggest the failure

of human understanding and logic. Few modem plays are as rigorously cruel as ihe Flood.

The play opens with the hunchbacked leper lovingly addressing his hump and his Ieprosy, his

two cornpanions throughout life. The Leper. who plays a pivota1 role in the drarna, vacillates

between mockery and rage. The primary target of his rage is, of course, God. Despite his

anger at his plight, he clings tenaciously to life: eating al1 the food raîher than sharing it with

his handless cornpanion; asking to be rolled on top of Calan when they are bound together so

that he might die last. The Leper embodies the filth of the world. Like his doomed ilk,

pagans and wolf-children, he is one of those who are cast out of God's regulated world. His blasphemy and his identity are synonyrnous; his very existence is blasphemy. His condition could be descibed as one of abjection or, as Kristeva defines it in Powers of Honor, as one of ontoiogical blasphemy when that which must not be nevertheless exists." The physical representation of this creature on the stage is one of the many theatrical problerns that this play presents: what style of performance would best embody this figure's grotesque reality .

137 In orda to experience the divine, Calan in The Flood mus litdly unite with the leprous

beggar, forming an indissoluble unity : a unity, fiirthermore, that is firsed wit h the rest of

scrofûlous creation; eating and being eaten.

First Figure: 1 was Calan, but the mi mals have chewed my tongue. 1 cannot speak in my former voice-give me to drink.

Noah (drawing back): Take what 1 leave hen for you-1 know you no longer.

First Figure: The beasts sucked out our eyes, peeled the flesh off our fingers-we cannot see, we cannot reach-give us, Noah, give us. (78)

Somehow, this confrontation with the abject enables Calan to understand God in a way

unavailable to him previously. Like the mystical experience, the cruelty of Calan's suffenng is able to rip away the boundarïes to body and mind. The chinks of which Shem spoke, have now become giant rifts through which the divine pours in: "When the rats tore my eyes from their socketq Noah, I began to see. 1 can bear the sight of God; 1 sec God" (84).

The Grotesque of the Four EIemtnts

The visual symbol of this myaical chaos, at once putreeing and purifying is, of fourse. the deluge itseif. Many artists before Barlach have been fascinated by the power of this biblical event, a forenimer of the final apocalypse, the day ofjudgement. Al! land and property, rnountains and fields, varied landscapes, hitful land and barren is dissolved by the will of God into its primordial liquid state. A11 distinctions are levelled in wch a world; it becornes impossible to get one's bearings, establish landmarks The sky is covered with clouds. The rain brings the sea and sky together, creating a vertiginous universe: there is only order within the ark.

The temr and magnitude of the deluge is powemilly conveyed by Barlach's descriptions.

First, by the wmings of God and of Awah:

138 Beggar: Out of the wells of the deep an ocean shall nsc for every drop of blood. From the gatts of heaven a flood shall pour down for tach fesrfirl btcath this lamenting man draws. (52)

Traveller: ...Your eyes sec only the stony drought across the land, your ears know nothing of the dninken turmoil in its cloven depths. You are parched with hot breath, but you do not feel the trembling and raging of oceans in the breaking brcast of the earth- already the winds of heaven have abated their fiery blasts, are slackening into srnouldering, mouidering sparks, expiring in temor of the roaring blackness that has ban imposed over the world. (64)

Later, a temfied observer describes the flood:

Chus: When you rode offat night, the river reversed its course. In the moming, as we awoke, the ground cracked nonhwards and severed the vailey up to the mountains. A wail of water rose fiom the depths and fell and broke, divided as if by a stroke of sword. 1 am dying, Master, not of toil. nor of wasted strength, 1 am dying of terror ...

Chus: Look! To the very edges of the sky, painless, soundless, lifeless, moving sluggish in the slimy flood, bloating carcasses, arching to the light, belly chished on paunch, dead human-kind is floating and dead beasts, camels, cows, sheep, bulls, and calves, a fleshly carpet of stinking corruption spanning the depths. (69-71)

Such abjm imagery is, as has been pointed out, the very spirit of the grotesque. The corruption and putrefaction caused by this act of God take on a kind of grandeur fiom the magnitude of the event. As in the Bible, the deluge is at once both unimaginable catastrophe and the sacred act of God, a miracle.

Water and earth, more specifically desert, are the two governing elements of The Flood;

The Blue Boll, however, is a play of air, and, to a lesser, extent of fire. The retuming image of this play is Boll's catch phrase: "The air takes it, the air retums it." It refers to the invisible mysteries that take place in and around the srnaIl Gennan town and its cast of local townsfolk who may also be, invisibly, mysteriously, devils, saints, witches and the Lord God-and perhaps al1 at the same time. Unlike The Flood, The Blue Boll's transfiguration is subtle-it has the charmer of a drearn or a vision. As mentioned earlier, the mnsequences of the play's central transformation are also intangible. On the surface, al1 returns to what it once was.

Inside, can there be any doubt that the central characters have greatly changeci, and for the better? m

Carried over from The Flood, however, are the grotesque forrns oflen takm by God and His works. As has akeady been pointed out, the play's God is one who works hand in hand with the devil and witches. Gmeis cured by being invited into hell, and being given poison to drink, the same poison that she wanted for her children. As part of hcr cxperiencc, she encounters corpses who are not fieed fiom their flesh as she imagines her children will be, but are rather imprisoned in their own mouldering flesh. Poison too, like the air, is something that works invisibly, curing or killing silently and without fanfare. Instead of poison, it is fire that cures Bol!, the flames fiom the footbath of hot coals that the devil uses to welcome his guest. However, the fire-al1 seen through Grete's eyes and not staged-seems to punfL Boll rather than hum him:

Grete: Yes, that's tme, 1 know it-the Blue Bo Il is sitting with his feet in Elias' cd bucket-ouch, ouch, Blue Boll! It draws up into your heart, the bubbles burst, the evil Company is blowing with rounded cheeks-that's how, Blue Boll, that's how it has to be, she says. But what of the young Boll? The young and slender one, who gave the children the golden bal1 to play with-must he also to the coals?

Grete: That must be Boll, but a youthftl Boll, slender and red ...(213)

It burns away the "Good old Kun" and allows a new Boll-red-faced, not blue-to emerge.

As in The Flood, there is no epiphany without pain; however, experiences that are ammoniy considered harmfùl have exactly the opposite effect in the topsy-turvy world of the play.

Another example of this phenornenon is the stroke that afflicts the convention-bound Otto Pomprnastcr afkhis enwunter with the Gentleman. This wcnt is shown to have an essentially bencvolent impact on his character:

Boll: But vay much changed? And his hand shaker? Jwt thihink. who would have thought that of Otto-no, I al= should never have believd it. 1 bet tht his change in this marner came easier to him than my hard trial with Gmte came

Barlach's conception of spiritual redemption is grotesque in a way that is aimont medieval?

Physicat decay and suffering, redemption and buuty are juxtaposai in a way thstill has the power to affect and shock the reader. It is important, however, to temember thot Bariach intended his work to be realised on the stage, and that this grotesque aesthetic is evinced on every level of the dramatic medium: in language; setting; drarnatic action and characterisation, and in the use of cultural references.

The Sacred Word

Barlach was at once fascinated and repelled by language. Like many Expressionist artists, including Stramm, he believed that words obscur4 true experience. No mere word can encapsulate a cornplex. ineffable reality; therefore, it is blasphemous and foolish to attach names to Goa tmth and mystery. This would suggest an absurdist approach to 1.ngu.ge on the pan of the writer or, better yet. a amplete theatrical departure fiom the use of any language at dl. Xf Barlach's interest in the word had ended there. his writing wouM have been much more typical of later experimental drarna; however, Barlach perceived anothcr side to language, a mystical one. Certain words posscssed, in his opinion, an almost unanny power to evoke a reaiity greater than the rnaterial world, to suggest a sublime prohndity beyond conventional signification. This faiing is created naby the mcaning of the wod,

but by a mystcrious tesonance between certain combinations of sounds:

[I am] convincd that the language and the means of representation accordeci me are testimony-if a somewhat halting one-af something tha! is not a&al! touched by word, wiil, understanding and rerpon. Perhaps.. .there lies in the vëw nature of artistic language inherent in it and communicated through it. the potmtiai for aipruuional qualities such as beauty, grruncss, majesty or shocking Mvidness, which emanates hmbeyonci word mathematics and cannot be intended, learned, won or causally understooâ, but is instcad pure grace. (Quoted in The Dual Nature of Genius 6 1)

For Barlach, this my~icaliùnction of language is alluded to at the beginning of the book of

Genesis and the gospel of John: "In the beginning was the word.. ." The anist seems to

interpret this much disputed passage in a curiousiy literal way. The word refers to the belief

that language existd before the material world, and. therefore, participata in a specid

relationship with God. Language, therefore, has the power to inspire in those who use it creativei y (i.e. artists) the memory of a purely spiritual existence that precedes our material one.

Barlach's understanding of Ianguage could be read as evidtnce of an artist who holds a traditional, P jatonic view of the mind/body split: the spirit is pure; the flesh is wcak; the viaory of the spirit is the viaory of the tnie life over the false one. The analysis of

Flood partly enforces this interpretation: is not Calan's God superior because he is les concerned with matter, with "floods and flesh" than Noah's God is? However, the drama presents its divine opponents with more complexity: the dramatic power of the Flood and the tenacity with which The Leper clings to life suggest a greater foie for the flesh. Indeeâ,

Noah's Ark is a rejection of the natural cataclysm, a man-made haven that locks out corruption-in psychoanalytic terms, we could cal1 it a floating repression mechanism. The denizens of the Ark are more pious. more iaw-abiding than the chafacters who remUn

142 behind. Neverthcles, thcy are capable of auelty and ignonncc to an tqd degrre. Wiut

has been gaincd in the viaory over comptïon and death execpt for a son of paiy powa

rnongaing? hd& the scaie in which Ham and ~aphcthimmobilise CJu, shows their

moral cowardice: they am too fnghtened to kill him. The scene echoes Norh's inaction in the

name of God when Calan tortures the young shepherd: he is unable to translate his sense of

moral superiority into one of physical action. A Wer rejcction of the simple spiritowr-

matter interpretation can k uncovend in The Blue Boll : Grete's f~iuichatred of the body

urges her to kill haown children. Only through the agency of the devil (and the

acquaintance of real "corpses") does she leam to pity human suffering and value the "hated

flesh." 1 would contend that the flesh is not de fado evil in The Blue Boil-it is only evil

when it is used to hide from life. when it becomes a prison or an obsession: Miartha's puthg

hy~tekalernphrisis on the word "dioner" in the first scene. If Barlach wae only interesteci in

the flesh and the material worid as an obstruction to mth, he would not be the grotesque

artist 1 believe him to be. His use of the grotesque expresses the compiex and dynamic

relationships benveen worlds; it is an ~n without solid boundaries.

Grotesque Dnmaturgy in Barlach's Dnmr

Barlach is one of the few playwrights, along with Kokoschka, writing beforc the Second

World War for whom the imaginary topography of the scaie determines the dramatic adon.

The importance of the "vision" and visionary expenence is evident in the care the Min talces to establish the geography and atmosphere of esch new &ng. It is within these smings, these theatrical environments, that we can uncover the dues to Barlach's often baffling dramas. The Flood is a drarna without interiors. It begins with the dw~and ends in mud and mist. In Barlach's personal writing, the importance of open iandscape is pamnount. The broad horizons and sense of sky and space that he received hmhis trip to Russia rcvolutioniscd his mit styie. Merthat trip, he developed the plastic simplicity and grandeur tht wae hcnceforth to be associatted with his artistic style. Afkthis trip, he wrote

The Flood, the fim of his plays to receivc wide literary recognition. The harshnas and melty of the desert landscape is matched by its dwcllers: Cdan and Noah's thieving neighbours. The ultimate desert dweller, however, is the leper, who wanders al1 alone in the desert, raiiing and cackling. îhe audience should sense fiom this harsh landscape, how its inhabitants mua dream of water. Scenes of benediction and grace involve water: Noah repeatedly offers water for his guests to drink, and even water to bath thcir fect. When the flood cornes, it is as if it is a cmel parody of this divine gram the precious substance med murderer. The desen also cames other associations. While the action takes place in the desert, boundaries are more easily determined. Not just boundaries of property, but boundaries between moralities and systems of belief are easily distinguished and evaluated.

At the beginning of the play, Calan appears more simply villainous, Noâh more clearly as the man of virtue. The relationship between Calan and Chus is obviously one of master and servant at the beginning of the play. When the famiiy moves up to the mountains and the rain begins to fall, the established boundaries blur. Awah was apparently right to speailate whether Noah's God existed in the mountains as well as in the desert. It is in the mountains, to the accompanying sound of axe blows, that Japheth forces Noah into Ietting him many

"Fat Zebid" and Shem arranges to marry Awah. Gd's conversation with Noah at the beginning of Part Four is more acrimonious than usual: even pious Noah cornes to doubt

144 kd's word. As the M< is king builf the audience neva ras the inside of it. Wemmin

outside with Calan, the Leper and the Shepherd. Mernbers of Noah's family occasionally

corne out, but they have by the end of the play become the outsiders. The audience vantage

point has shifted to join that of the excluded: we share Cilan's fate. AS the Ark rider amy to

become a looming bulk in the mist, the fiooding world tums to min and mud, substances thaî

extinguish al1 boundaxy and definition. The two bound figures ounipy a iiminal place,

without identity and banlife and death; they live in an tnvironmtnt that is neithcr land,

nor sea, nor sky.

The action of The Blue Boll occurs in both exterior and interior settings. Unlikc Noah,

Boll has a wnternporary setting--a small town in northern Germany; hawever, the fimiliar

place is given a fantastic twist-in this small tomDevil's legs may hop down the strcct, and

nobody thinks &ce. ïhe ability of the townspeople to take mirawlous/supematural events in their stnde is tmIy rernarkabte. Trie whimsical rather Wedekind-like names of the

&amatispersome set the tone for the entire drama. The combination of disparate eiements- fantasy and folklore with small-town realism-produces a piquant effect that is akin to the grotesque. The play opens in a city square. shops and municipal buildings to the lefl and right, and downstage, a church, its tower and upper raches wreathed in mist. The dng suggests the conflict latent within the dramatic figures: the lower stranim of recognisable buildings is the reaim of routine, of fixed identity; it is litenlly the only level of reality that the chafacters, and the audience. can see. The upper region of the stage picture, on the 0th hand, is obscure and ethereal, obviousl y suggesting the spiritual rdm. This level of rulity is visual l y obsaired fkom both the characters adthe audience. It is, however. tangible, a!

Ieast to Boll. It is that "somcthing"in the air that bewilders and enchants him. Of dl the

145 figures introduced in the tint act. he is the only one who is sensitive to this change in the

atmosphere. His wifc, the mayor, Greendale and the rest foais their attention on the ground

level, the horhntal axis. Boll, however, is drawn to the vertical.

The oniy other (mortal) chafacter who shares his sensitivity to the ineffable is Grne,

witch uid niruwiy wife. When he encounters Grete, his reaction to her is a connising

mixture of physical desire and spiritual kinship. No longer at home on the ground level, the

two first rdly encounter each other in the small church tower mmBOU has directed Gme

to. The simple chamber is a perfect correlative to the charaaer's situation. Bol1 has huffi

and puffed his way up the stairs to join Grete, who is poised at the bottom of a staircase

leading up, rcady to flee at the lest provocation. The two are suspended between floors as

they are betweem States of being. Their situation is emblematic of the process of "becorningn

so crucial to the play. Always aware of ascents and descents, Boll notes how far his ciimb

was, and also tiow precipitous the drop fiom the window to the street. The leap fiom life ta

death is considered throughout the play by both characters: Che, as mentioned before,

contemplates the termination of her children's lives to Save them fiom their hideous flesh;

Boil sees, for the fust time, how petty his existence is:

Boll: ...(He peers through the window.) God, this Sternberg, what a pile of nibbish, what a speck! There ta the nght is the way to Grotappel's; just below, so near one could spit on it, the roof of the Golden Bail-ah, and there: Monsieur Virgin! Look, child, something blackish pushing itself across the square, can't tell fiom here about that asthenic chest, but the bent back is recognisable ... (176).

Boll. however, is not so distant from the needs of the flesh. that he is not appalled by Grcte's

plan. Also, he is swayed by hacharms. His reward for obtaining poison apparently will be

a passionate mcounter with Grete, who knowingl y uses her Kductiveness to get what she wants. Both figures arc, therefore, cleady still among the cd:much of the power of the scene lies in the combination of Grere's spirinial goals and the materid means she uses to obtain them, and in the mixture of Boll's semi-conscious spiritual yemings mixd up with sensual desire. 1s he sincerc when he tells Grete that he fals more at home in towen or is this a ploy in order to win her sympathy? The ans- to this question is leA for the performance ta decide; however, one thing is clear-his desire for Gretc is real and its natwe is cornplex:

Breathing hemQYIïy,Boif ftwks at kr. He tunts to the winclow CPdgGonces ou~sr~&. Thcn he appra~~~heshesitmtiy ond uncertain&, reaches into his breust pcket dpJhout a cigm case. But he phes it bock imtantiy. WiLh his ,ismins extemkd he appears to fi tmurd Grete. She presses hrr hdagainst his chest ami holds hm&ck

Boll: Don't choke me-now it's better. Something crushed me to the floor, whatever it was. 1 had to hold on to you for support. (He withdraws d lemagdm the waif.)

Grete: Shouldnlt I set help?

Boll waves a no and shuts his eyes.

Grete: You ought to be in bed.

Boll (suddeniy opening his eyes wide): 1 am standing! What else are these legs good for! 1 don't want to lie down, but hold me tight for a moment. (Grete wppo*s him.) It helps your touching me; 1 thought it would. That's why 1 strctched out rny hands for you when blackness fell before my eyes. (ln control agoin:) Canlt let go of this dear flesh. (1 72- 173)

The setting of this scene. halfkay up the church tower helps to induce the vertigo that the audience imagines the character might feei. Vertigo is a feeling of spatial dislocation, especial l y of height and depth. Boll's conventional subjectivity is here configureci spatially : low, well defin4 easily negotiated and public. The second half of the play is set in two restaurants and another part of the church. the lower section this time. Both of the restaurants are notable for being, in a sense. travesties of restaurants. A restaurant room is a quintessentially civilised space Purchasing a public meal filfils the twin functions of litd consumption and of consuma display. Although eating is an essential human &naion which in psychologiul importance prcdatcs the sawal, in the rituai of public dining, it has baom codified to such an extent that it becornes a principal rnarker of civilisation: no wonda that

Frau Bol1 intones the word "dinner" with such hysterical cmphasis. The restaurant mdis a cornplex ritd that extends fiom a quick slurp of coffcc in a déto an elabontte multi-course rneal. However. dl expaienw of shsred dining have this in comrnon: they sene to solidify social and penonai boundaries through the consumption of food which appears as if by magie, none of the diners having helped to prepare it. ïhe restaurant meat divorces the appearance of food, its signifier if you will, fiom the knowledge of its origin and preparation.

The dinner hour is sacrcd: as Boll points out, it would be unforgivable to destmy its sanctity with phone conversations. At one point, the suitability of coffte after dinner is debatcd- more testimony to the tabb's concern at obse~ngformai protod.

Tht Food of Sacrifice

The space of the restaurant raises the question of another important motif in Barlach's drama, the act of eating. The act of consumption defines many of the key transfommtions in the two dnmss under discussion. For example. ir is in this public restaurant that the Blue

Bo11 experiences his moral transfiguration. He redises that he is respnsible for Gretc ad that he must protect and save her. His wife, understandabl y, believes hi m to be in the grip of an adulterous infatuation, and her belief is shown to be substantidly correct. The next scaie also takes place in an inn, but this is the Devil's inn whue human flesh is broilcd on hot coals, and guests are served poison to drink. It is in this grotesque travesty of a restiunnt that Grete's spirimai transformation t?kes place. The broiling of human flesh is aiso a travesty of ûrete's own hatred and rejection of the body, cnielly expresscd in her desire to

148 poison haown children. Again the sacrifice is imagined through the act of ingestion. The

common ground between Grete' s murderous intention and the diabolic roasting is

underscortd by the double meaning of the word 'Ffeisclr',which suggests both meat for

consumption and human flesh, prey to carnal appetites. The diabolic inn confronts Greta with

the true nature of hamonstrous action. The moral blind spot is lifted from her eyes, and

when her children we threatened with physical suffering, she impulsively moves to prevent

it, in the process rcccpting the fact of their bodily existence. From wanting to kill them

herself, she now wishes to protect their lives. drinking the poison herself so that there is no

chance of the children drinking it accidentally. The devil's food is sanctified by her unselfish

action. Her choice unites the exalted and the diabolical. This extreme action recalls the

conclusion of The Flood. In earlier scenes, Noah insists on offering, despite his family's

straitened circumstarrces, the choicest part of the lamb to God. However, Noah's sacrifice is

little compared to the mystical transfiguration of Calm that ends the drama. Calm is released

&om the wonhip of his own wilV ego through being devoured by vermin raised by the flood.

The sacred meal is a1 ways one where the sacrificial victim gives their flesh, willingly or not,

that the consumers may too be blessed by, in a physical and spiritual sense, becoming one

with the victim. The sacrifice and, in particular, the sacrificial meal form the nexus of a

dramatic and sacred teleology in Barlach's plays.

Emphasis on the body's orifices and their functions is also, however, essential to the

arsenal of the grotque throughout history. One has only to look at Bosch's furion ofthe oral and clodregions or to look at the Rabelaisian obsession with eating and defeating, or

at Swift's fimous 'proposal', evoking cannibalism for satirical purposes.- Most religious traditions lay down decrees as to what the Uthftl can eat, defining food as dean and

149 unclean: Levitiars, for example, devotes considerable sprce towards identieing uncleui

food-locuts are acceptable; cornorants are not. Unclean food is typially related to the

seemingly hybrid nature of the animai: al1 seabirds are considd unclean as they beiong to

both the air and the watcr, whales and porpoises are similarly forbidden as belonging to both

the land (warm-blooded and viviparous) and the sea. Al1 scavenging animds must be

avoided, as well as camion itself, for they confound the 'naturial' order of the food chah

The consurnption of unclcan food is a blasphemous as much as a physically unwholesome

action. Through the action of eating, Barlach often ties the unclean. blasphemous action with

the sacred meai of sacrifice. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the two aforementioned

cruciaI actions in The Flood and The Blue Boll. These transgressive and 'unclean' actions-

lowly creatures nibble Calan's flesh and Grete swallows poison as Bollysold self is roasted

away-are also detply spiritual. The characters involved al1 gain insight from participating in

these grotesque meais. Looking back to the image of the restaurant, it becornes obvious that

this socially 'safe' place is also allied with Noah's sanctifieci, 'clean ' sacrifices; both contrast

with the grotesque meals. The fonner uphold society and stxucture; the latter disrupt the

social and religious structures, but in so doing, the act is able to touch the sacred and

ineffable.

Conclusion

The Flood and The Blue Boll demonstrate Barlach's cornmitment to a dramaturgy and

language both mystic and grotesque. If one examines the treatment of similar thematic matter and formai structures in both of these plays, one sees that the unu>mpromisingworld of The Flood with its alternatives of either desert or flood, of cithn a tyrannical God or an ineffable, mysticd one, eventuaily gives way to the small town of The Blue Boll. which an

150 accommod.tc both flesh and spirit. both god and devil without wwfh mxl contradiction.

The final scene of The Blue Boll is exemplary of this play's ability to unite reemingiy mutudly exclusive categories. At its conclusion, the action rctums to the church, this time to the ground floor, indicating a retum to earth and sanity. In Boil's case, it dso means a mtum to rnarriage. Merthe night's escapades and a romantic interlude wirn Grete, the blue-faced bourgeois retums to wife and polite society, presumably this time out of his own t'ra will rather than out of subliminal coercion: Boll should rathcr than Boll rnust. An cffigy of an apostle looks on, a sort of double for Boll's spiritual self, eternal and incorporeal. But Boll rejects .a of flying out of the body and into the ineffable. The gentleman dissuades him from his tnougbts of suicide which are appropriately enough visions of jumping off the church tower, and Boll too accepts Iife. body and ail. Although one of the strengths of the play is its refusal to provide simple answers, could this ending suggest a findamental conservative strategy in Barlach's drama? Finally, a Christian message is upheld, albeit a mystical and unorthodox one. The grotesqueness of this drama is specifically a Christian one mingling sanctity and blasphemy, always within the understanding of the existence of the divine. Barlach's writing, like that of many of his contempomies, is both powemilly nostalgie and utopian. Barlach's strength lies in his depiction of a utopia that is not founded on rejection of the body and its needs. But on what 1 would describe both as a kindliness towards the body, to its vulnerabilities and appetites, and as a r&rmation of the importance of the spirinial realm as humanity's ongin and ultimate destination. His expression of this visio~like that of Kokoschka, employs a powedul sense- of dramatic space. Even more th either Stramm or Kokoscm Barlach is aiso able to re-imagine traditionai CMaian iconography in such a way that it is powetnilly pnsent for the redsor speawr. Much of

151 the power of Barlach's dmmatic writing raides in his ability to dramatise the grates~ue- staging both the structures of human li fe and their disruption. 1 will conclude with Bufach's own words:

The plastic vinw of nature sees time and eternity simult~cwsly.It sees in the roi1 the skelaon of the earth rathm than the many tine hain sown across ifs skin that blur its claritr, it zcer in the Ur the br& of sprse. and only llta or pah.ps not at dl, the muiy whirlpools of thousands of coloun and tones; sees trea and bushes as individual shrpes, as childrtn of the soi1 rather than as a variety of things as seen through the camm. (Cart s 92) i The choice of word, "sensibility", is del iberatc, although inspird by an unlikel y source. Stephen Gould argues in his collection of essays, Dinosaur in a Haystack thaâ ammon sense is used inappropnately because 'sense' implies the application of teason; sommon sensibility is a more accurate tam because it suggtsts recourse to an instinctual prompting.

ü Barlach's own poaic autobiography, A Sdf-told Life, is an invaluable source of information. With the proviro that: although he is generally more rcliable thKokoschka Ath regard to rpecifics of time and place, Barlach chronicla only the portion of his life uidil his contract agreement with Cassirer. ûthn sources of information are Naorni Jackson Grove's Ernst Barlach: Life in Work, Car1 Dietrich Caris Ema Barlach (originally published in 193 1) and Altied Werner's Ernst Barlach. .. - ui Barlach's dramas arc more accessible in Engiish translation than those of Stramm or Kokoschka. These include The Blue Bol1 by J. M. Ritchie, The True Sedemunds in Me1 Gordon's Exbressionist Texts. The Flood, The Real Sedemund~and The Blue Bol1 ail appear in Engiish venions in Barlach: Three Pla~s.Translations of Barlach's plays are dso available in a series of editions, illustrated as they were first printed. Of these, 1 had access to The Stolen Moon and nie Flood. AI1 Barlach's drama and prose appears in German, collected in Prosa, volume 1 of The Collected Works. Mercif'Hy, Barlach was not as given to rewriting as Kokoschka. iv The National Socialists criticised Barlach's sculptures of Christian subject mana for their earth-bwnd quality. When one officiai cornplaineci that one of Barlach's aucifixes wu net suficiently divine, he allegedly replied: "1 have never xcn a M." v The dual nature of God, both human and divine, is one of the gnat mysteries of the Christian religion, one that has proved a source of passionate, theologicai codin. The definition of God incarnate as simultaneously etanal God and modman is central to the Christian ad.This bel idhas occasioned many schisms and altemate fictions within the church: eitkr disbelieving in the divinity of Christ or not auzpting His niII humanity. The question of whether this mystery lends it~lfto grotesque expression is interesting, but fàr tao cornplex to address here. vi In Powas of Homr, Kristeva focuses considerable andonon abjection as a psychoiogical conma revcaled in Céline's delusional thinking that congeais in the writa's identification of the Jew with the "desird and envied brother" (216). Also, Kristeva cornrnents on Céline's fascination with bodily fluids and recalls fiom biblicd law thdl bodily excrctions are considered impure (121). vii Ernst Bulach is surely one of the artists who most ni~~t~sfullyfùl fil Womnga's argument in qbptrocrion and Ern~athv,that Expressionist art is a reinvention of the 'nonhern', WCspirit. Womnger attributes the spirinulity of sich art foms as isruing from a culturd incompatibility with the life of the body ond a collective, rpMymng to fly upward into ahcrcal rdms. The dynunic and styliial art pdudby such spW stress Womnga tams Expresionist. Although Womngu's interprdon of the determinants of such arc forms is debatable, the recognition of a kinship bctween certain historiai periods is persuasive and endunng. viii The analysis of the motif of food and consumption is indebted to Powen of Homr by Julia Kristeva aixj i 'homme et le sucré by René Girard. Cbaptcr Five

The Cinematic Crotaquc and the 'Fantastic' Wmr of hrtyGtraan Cinema

Theatriully, the expression of the grotesque hrr a long and varied hinoricd tradition hm which to dnw inspùation. îhc medievil mystay play, for aumple, charniIl y combina sacred subject matter with blasphemous comedy. The fok traditions of the fMUvd, lovingly descnbed by Bakhtiq invert the sacred worid and the social himchy at the same tirne as it maintains these nniaurts; the livel y fantasy and satire of the popular pantomime dclights audiences at the same time as it mocks them. Simiiarly, elements of monstrosity and distortion in apocalyptic literanire contnbuted greatly to the development of an Expressionist aesthetic. As has been demonstrated, Expressionist playwights such as Kokoschka and

Barlach were able to draw inspiration corn such heterodox religious and folk traditions, re- interpreting them in the fonn of expressionist drarnas. A certain distrust of the life of the mind, of institutions and of languagc, of the iddogy of progmss provided a fertile environment both for the reinvention of these traditions, and for the creation of new ones.

The reinvention of an apocalyptic sacred informed and inspired the creation of such rwolutionary formq and was at the heart of the Expressionist project. The creation of grotesque Exprcssionist drama, therefore, is chiefly due to two detamining faaon: fin&, the reinvention of the apocaiyptîc tradition as opposed to the dominant belief in progres; second, a cornmitment to fonnal experimentation, which the Expressionist movement shed with many of the other revolutionary movements of the early twentieth cmtury. These determinants also shaped the Expressionist film movemcnt, giving rise to an i~odveand influential development in the history of the medium. Film was a new medium, dependent on reccntly developed technology. Mh~~ghwch

it had no grotesque tradition as theatre did, as a hybrid art fom film shores with thatre a

great facility in drawing fiom other traditions. Indeed, thae wumore intcrpenetration

betwetn the two movemcnts than may bc commonly supposai. Eariy German cinemq in

partinilar, often rnodelled itself closely on literary antecedents. The exact importance of the

theatre as an inspiration for the early cinema is a hotly debatcd issue. Fcw wouid dmy,

however, the impact of Expmsionist staging on certain Gamui films. Adors and dwon

of this time period, such as Werner hu,Cod Veidt and Paul Wegener, commonly

worked for both. Eisner cenainly makes a stmng case for Max Reinhardt's influence on

Weimar period cinema with regard to staging, espesially lighting and multi-planar staging:

From the incidentd ciramstances of war shortages Reinhardt evolved a new manner of grouping characters and giving thcm depth by means of light. Morwver, crowds wuid be made to appcar denser in the secrecy of shadows. (...) Lighting of this kind heightens atmosphcric tension, increases the pathos of tragedy, and even enhances the spicy burlesque of a comme& &Il 'me. So hanfilm-directors had no need to recall the produaion of 'The w'in order to use in their tum chiarosniro effects which had been familiar to them for years. (Eisner 1 51)

Expressionist playwrights and writers were intrigued by the possibilities of film to represent

the fantastic. Interestingly, avant-garde writen of the time, like Brecht and Goll, were more

inclined to praise the film as a model that the theatre mua follow, emphuising the

superiority of cinema over the traditional theatre and praising it as a populist art form. This appraisal of film as the people's medium neglects the fa* that Gennan films were ofiai aimed at a reiatively high -btow, rniddle class audience. The so-ulled 'fantastic' films shue obvious common concerns with the Expmsionist theatre, bonowing nom the rich tradition of the 'uncanny ' in Gennan theatre. Like their theatncal countaparts, the films revd a fascination with the spirimal realm. The supernatud films of manExprcssionism aiso

show a wodd in dwy, where linear time and tinite spacc are under thnq a worfd in which

myneriou signs qpeir udmonsters wdk and a world in which the familiar is made temibly

strange. Tht pr-nins of these films ignore the signs of impending transformation at thtir

own peril. Rdwidom is to be found only in the dead or in thox in a dathlike -ce. In

this sense, progr= md the scientific way of knowing are shown to be at best fùtile, and at

worst sinisttr Md dtStNdive falsehaods.

The second important factor that contributed to the emergence of grotesque clements in

the Geman Expressionin theatre wuthe dimate of mistic expenmentation of that time.

indeed, the adstic revolution that characterisecl the history of earfy twentieth century thesure

can also be interprrted as part of the grata and grcatly doatmented aesth&c struggie

be~eenmodemism and realisrn. The history of ut at the beginning of the twentieth fentury

is defined by a crisis in representation. It is tempting, in tuni. to this view as

exemplieing an 'evolutionary' way of analysing the history of artistic movements. Thus, the

history of artistic fonns would be seen as a conflict between conservative forces seeking to

preserve traditional fonns, and progressive forces challenging the old vocabulary and

creating new foms of anistic expression. According to this view, it is the prognssives who

'advance' the an fom. Mmy Expressionist artists. who saw themxlves as progmsive and

innovative artists, rebeiled against the artistic conventions of bourgeois reaiism. The

Expressionia movement and, more specifically, the movement of Expressionin theaue, seen

in the light of this sesthetic 'sunival of the fittest', assumes the role of one of many mumi- gmak protagonias in the ongoing wuagainst bourgeois realisrn. In the case of theatre, this means that the fourth wal1 that separates the perfonners fiom the audience is tom down,

157 psychological motivation is confounded. image and movement triumph ovaplot ud word,

and that the bourgeois (who are usually the only clwrepresented in the audience) are

shocked. niese signs can, and certainiy have ban. rd ui Oedipal dvewhere the

youthfiil art movement tums jealously upon its venerabk parent, overthtowing the old so that

the young can enta into adult life. this overthrow king seen to result in pmgress in the

Darwinian sense. Whatevcr the limitations of this Darwinian meta-narrative (and it has been

considembly compromised by deconstruction, histoncail revisionisrn, feminist criticism d a

host of othcrs), it has proved remarkably durable. Certainly, many Expressionist writers and

artists were consciously cornmitteci to this ideology.

Although the evolutionary meta-narrative has obvious significance to the history and study

of Expressionist theatre. it is inadequate as a strategy for the interpretation of early film,

including Expressionist films.' Film. as a new medium, hdno realist phase to react againa.

It is impossible to regard silent film as a primitive foremnner to an emergent modemisr art

form. Indeed, the trend of the German film industry during the Weimar paiod was towuds

pater reaiism and not the other way around. This indicates that it is impossible to describe

film as experiencing a 'modemist' rebellion. Certainly, film borrowed Expressionia

techniques; however, this only ocaimed fier the Exprcsionist movement was criticaily

accepted and most of its artists had either died or moved on to other styles.

By the mid-1920s, the sffongest manifestations of Expressionism in drama, in art, in music and in liteniture were already past. Aitists' styles changed: Kokoschka's writing modelled itself more closely on baroque and classical models (as in Qmhais and Eurydia); Stnmm was dead; Yvan GoII identifid himself more and more with the sumdist movement.

Certahly for many of the movernent's followas. thae wur feeling of disenchantment wïth

1% the promisa of Expressionism. The war endcd; a socidkt govanment wuin powa, for

a brief time, censorship was abolished; however, the hopd for utopia MfPiled to Mve.

The war had not provided the iddistic gcneration, many of which had looked forwud to it

as a potent agent for change, with the transcendent Au~mchthëy had mticiprted. The

conclusion of the Spartacus rebellion, the unstable economy and the negative image of

Germany abroad combined to create an atmosphere of fear and insecunty; it was not ân

environment conducive to change. Tne forma world had ben imparobly brokcn just u

many of the Expressionists had hoped; however. they were now no longer sure thaî they liked

the result.

In mntrast to the unemployment, inflation, and uncertain fuaires of moa secton of the

work force, the domestic film industry of Germany (feeble before the war) was booming.

Unable to impon films during wartime, the German government had placed considcroble

resources into the creation of a new, centraliscd film studio in Babelsberg, outside of Berlin.

The war had alened the government to the potentid of film as a twl for pmpaganda and

public relations and as a factor in popular morale. Mer the war ended, the Budsbank

assurned control of the new studios. consolidating them under the name of Universrrn-Film

Aktienge~efk~,UFA. UFA studios consciously swght to export mancinema in orda to improve Germany's public image abroad. Indeed. they could scarcely dmage it in view of Germany's dark image in the eyes of America and the rest of Europe."

The devclopment of an Exprcssionist cinema is cenrinly relaîed to the changing nature of both the Gennan film industry and the fiIm audience. A centralised industry with improved economic and technical resources attracted artists of high calibre and gave them the opportunity to sa their idcas realisd. An inaeasingly eduutcd and middle-clus audience

159 was eager to rdvemore ambitious tilms. The composition of the film-going audience

changed for a number of reasons. The early cinema had been an entertainment for the urban

Iabouring ciasses who flocked to see importeci Westerns and to laugh at the French and

American cornedies. The new cinema, howevcr, made a conscious effort to appeal to a

different sector of society. The prestige productions of UFA, large scale historical epics and

adaptations of well known literary works, were geared to a white-collar audience with ideas

of the inherent value of high culture. Partly because of this, the German cinema was one of

the most receptive of al1 film industries to the adoption of technical innovations and avant-

garde techniques into mainstream cinema. Out of this unique environment the Expressionist

cinema was bom. The ' Expressionist' films of the Weimar period are characteriseci by bold,

technical innovations.

Although film has neither a significant tradition of grotesque iwnogrsphy and practice nor

a chate of artistic revolution in which the use of the grotesque could play a prominent de, the supernatural films of the Weimar period could most definitely be called Expressionist. In large part this definition is dependent on the existence of grotesque motifs identical to the ones discussed in previous chapters. On a basic levei, the fiequent subject matter of these films, such as the presence of vampires and Doppelgangers. is characteristic of the grotesque.

Also, the use of chiaroscuro and harsh, angular foms is typical of much grotesque art, and these traits are evident in the Weimar tilms called Expressionist. 1s the presence of a vampire and some harsh shadows enough, however, to establish the presence of the grotesque? In this and the next two chapters, 1 hope to establish that the supernatunl films share an apodyptic grotesque with some of the most significant works of the expressionist theatre. The grotesque is always an aesthetic of disruption. The apocalyptic grotesque in partinilar is a

160 disruption of lineu earthly time, of the idea of self and, on a deeper lever, in the human

cornmitment to pmgress and to matenal reality. Refemng again to Lacan, the creaîion of

apocalyptic time and space is linked to psychic rupture, and to the abolition of nameable,

identifiable raiity. The pre-linguistic consciousness, which Lacan termed the 'Imaginary', is

the proper realm of the grotesque. How is it possible to suggest the destabilising force of the

imaginary through the medium of film? In theatfe. artists such as Stramm, Kokoschka, and

Bar lac h exploded language, dramatic space, gender, cultural archetypes, and the

'psychological ' i ndividual to create powertiill y grotesque experiences on the stage.

However, film, as an artistic medium, was not reall y old enough at the time of The Student of

Prame mye, 1913) to enjoy traditions so firmly established that the disruption of them

would seem like anything other than a technical mistake or a lapse of taste. Yet, although the

effect of this film is somewhat different fiom that of the dramas atready discussed, it

nevertheless has a strikingly haunted quality, a mysterious atmosphere that provokes fùrther

investigation.

The Uncanny Meâium

To elucidate the specitic quality of the cinematic grotesque, it is necessary to fira analyse

the properties of the photographie image. The mpture of dnunatic space and time

characteristic of the grotesque aesthetic finds an even more enicacious quivalent in the

medium of film. There is a certain uncanniness that is inherent to the science of

photography. This uneanniness. which has been the subject of much commentary, resides in

the dual nature of the image. The image possesses truth-value as an index of what was once rnaterially present; but the image is inadequate as it promises to replicate life, and fails to fulfil this impossible promise. This failure is, however, not total, because about the image

161 there remiins still an indicable whiff of prcscnce. The image is haunted by presence ad

m.- cannot be reduad to a purely mistic image.' One can observe how many will cringe before a camera as before an assault. People not used to the technology ofken rehse to be photographed for fear of the soul-stealing properties of the camera. The camera, that uncanny machine, rnay reveal what its subject does not wish to know. As well, it arouses the atavistic fear that the image may have stolen some portion of its subject. The apparatus of the film by its very nature breeds Doppelgiingers, two-dimensionai shadows who, in exchange for a sort of immortality, have abandoned their monal bodies. The silent film, in particular, evokes the existence of a shadowy, alternative world that both is and is not our own. Unli ke the more easily interpreted, more easiIy read movies created after the sound revolution, the silent film is "not fblly integrated into language" (Coates 19). The language of image, of gesture and physiognomy may still, of course, be analysed; however, it is both more ambiguous and more suggestive of matenal reality than the language of words. The image has traditionally been regarded as the tme language of film. Thus, the ideal of a film that cornmunicates without language hovers still before critics and filmmakers.'"

The exponents of the ontology of cinematic images tend to over-praise the innocence of the body and the visual in early, silent film as a vehicle of pure presence. This overlooks the development of a vocabulary of casting, staging and mimetic conventions, along with the emergent interest in continuity and dialectical editing where the shot is treated as a grammatical unit that signifies chiefly through its juxtaposition and combination with other shots. Siient films do not cease to use conventions (and frequently banal ones at that) and they do not case to signi@ because recordeci dialogue is not available. Despite these arguments, the enduring belief in the cinematic image as a son of pre-linguistic paradise

162 persists. The idea of a lost Eden of silent film remains a powerfÙ1 influence in film criticism.

One reason for the persisteme of this critical view may bc suggested by the crucial role

~la~ed'b~nostalgia in conternporary film criticism as a raponse to a conternporary culture

that seems to consist mainly of a vast collection of disconnected artefacts. Another

explanation and one more comected with the study of the grotesque, for the pcrsistence of

viewing silent film as a utopia may well be its genuine suitability for such a de. If the

cinerna is haunted by a presence that is, paradoxically, both iost and visible, the silent film is

doubly a lost art form-its intended spectators, cultural context and technical vocabulary can

only be irnagined now. Attempts to reconstmct the conditions and meanings that this art fom

had for its own time are fascinating, but doomed to failure. The presence of fwlings of

nostalgia as a symptom is, in a sense, a proof of this statement. Nostaigia is always predated

by loss; the reminiscence attempts to assuage this feeling, but its reassurance is always tinged

with sadness. Viewed today with nostalgic longing, the meaning of early silent film for the

audiences of its time, the manner in which it was seen, can oniy be guessed at. The renewed

critical interest in the formal qualities of veq early (pre-World War One) silent films

exempl i fies the fascination with both pre-linguistic paradises and dismantling the hegemony

of the later developed, 'classical' narrative film. '

In contrast to the themes of progress and the tnumphant subject, characteristic of much

classical narrative cinema, the tilrns of the Expressionist penod reveal the illusory nature of

our reality. Formal expenments take on greater implications when the spatial and temporal

distortion they create is expressive of the world's essentially monstrous nature. Like theù theatricd counterparts, Expressionist films depict worlds ripe for caüclysm. The thrat of plague hangs ovcr the small town of Wismar in Nosferatu; the world in Cali~ariis unda the

163 grip of its cruel, eponymous derniurge; Prague, with its ccmaery and winding streets, is as much the creator of the double as the shadowy Scapinelli is. As in the dramas, ominous portents of the impending catastrophe appear, but they are ignored by the ignorant multitude, blinded by their belief in science and money. In many of these films also, the dead quite literally rise again. As is the case in the dramas. the paîh to knowledge is a violent one, one that will cost, as Renfield in Nosferatu says, "a littie blood".

Extended studies of Weimar cinema have given a great dcal of attention to the question of the cinema's reiationship to its audience. Inded. the analyses of Weimar cinema are some of the first to have addressed issues of audience psychology in film studies. These analyses reveal the problems in determining the special place of German Expressionist film. Siegfnd

Kracauer, whose groundbreaking study From Calinari to Hitler will be discussed in pater detail later, is still one of the most influential sources on Weimar cinema, even if recently more to provoke disagreement than otherwise. Kracauer equates the themes and concems of

Weimar Cinema with a German failure of democracy rooted in a subconscious national failure to successfully resoive the Oedipus complex. Film reflects this failure by offering limited models and unwholesome models of subjectivity with which to identifia According to Kracauer, the Weimar penod consistently offers a mode1 of, on the one hand, tyrannical oppression and, on the other hand, helpless passivity. The cinema, for Kracauer is, at the same tirne, both the effect of the social conditions and national temperament and one of its causes. The circularity of this argument is one of its weakest aspects. More recent studies of

Weimar cinema, and in particular of the 'fantastic' films that characterise it, hwe continued and elaborated Kracauer's theory of the national unresolved Oedipal complex of Gerrnany 0 reflected in its cinema. Thomas Elsaesser, in essence, agrees with Kracauer that the fkgmentation of the German historical subject coincides with the fragmentation of the

subject of Weimar cinema. Kracauer argued that the themes of the Doppelgauiger, the golem,

and hypnosis al1 suggest an unstable identity. Elsaesser in "Film History and Visual

Pleasure: Weimar Cinema" plays Lacan to Kracauer's Freud and shows that this instability is

manifested on the formai levei of film as well as on the thematic. Ah,Elsaesser's attitude

towards this destabilisation of identity is diametrically opposed to Kracauer's. Instead of

positing the spcctator implicit in Expressionist film as eitha tyrannical oppressor or passive victim as Kfacauer does, Elsaesser proposes that Weimar cinema, and Expressionist film in particular, offers multiple possibilities of identification, both as an aesthetic space and historical interval, where many ideological alternatives are possible. Instead of Kracauer's vision of a Gennany unconsciously sleepwalking into disaster and under the shadow of totalitarianism, Elsaesser envisions a Germany tragically rejcçting the oppomnity for tieedom that Weimar represents. For Elsaesser that which he sornetimes calls the 'counter- cinema' of Weimar Germany can be best described as an eruption of the Lacanian

'Imaginary', shaking loose the foundations of language, culture and identity- Like many late twentieth-century scholars, Elsaesser valorises rather unproblernatically the energy of the

Imaginary over that of the Symbolic, of fantasy and the play of images over structure and language. Thus, he departs fiom the fear of the 'subconscious' and the faith in the conscious mind that is so richly evident in Kracauer, who is greatly influenced by Iike-minded contemporary interpretations of Freud, such as the work of Erich Fromm. Both arguments have considerable merit. However, cntics such as Patrice Petro have taken issue with both

Kracauer and Elsaesser for defining/describing Weimar Cinema as essentially a crisis in male subjectivity. He counteracts this prevailing picture by concentrating his attention on the

165 Weimar cinema's construction of femininity and of the female spectator. His argument is most persuasive in regard to the 'street ' film and the 'K~rmmerspiei'film/domcstic dnmr

The inscription of a female spectator is lesr persuasive in the case of the 'fantastic films'/Expressionist films." Aithough the treatment of gender in these films is cenUnly wonhy of mdy, it is diffitcult to support the theory that films such as The Student of Pw or, especially, The Cabinet of Doctor Cali& offer oppoctunities for the kind of ferninine identification proposeci by Petro.

AIthough both Kracauer and more particularly Elsaesser have proved to be infiuential to my work, 1 beIieve that both of them misconstrue the attack on the subject that Expressionist film represents. îhe best Expressionist films are deeply satisfying to the spectator, a plessure not associated with the dismantling of hurnan identity. Since Christian Metz's groundbreaki ng The Imaainary Signifier, much of recent film snidy/researchfanalysishas posed the questions: What pleasures does the film offer to the viewer? How is this pleasure created through the stmctured relationship between the cinematic text and its implicit spectator?

I will endeavour to answer this question and also to suggest the particular, apocaliptie nature of the cinematic grotesque through the close analysis of three German Expressionist films: The Student of Prame (Rye, 19 13). The Cabinet of Dr. Calinan (Wiene, 1919) and

Nosferatu (Murnau, 1923). Ail of these three fif ms share with one another thematic concerns and, to a lesser extent, formal ones. Also, I propose that the pleasure of these films--and it is demonstrably not a pleasure available to al1 spectators-is one of recognition. It is a pleasure that is mixed with fear; however, its essence is that of relief, of the restoration of somahing that has been lost, consciously forgotten but uncon*kiouslymissed, and now reclaimcd in a captivating medium. Ultimately, 1 will argue that the nasccnt consumer society of the early twentieth century is a world in which the human subject is re-imagined as consumer and, at the same time, produced as the ultimate object of consumption. From the mechaniseci labour of the industrial age (human as machine and tool) to the consumer who is at the same time the ultimate product of its society (human as possessing symbolic exchange value, not use value or, even more scandalous, intrinsic value), the transformation brought obqut by the age of information was, at the time of the Weimar Republic, not yet complete. Its genais, however, was implicit in the development of the 'classifal' narrative film, an imaginary product capable of being consumed repeatedly (as long as the celluloid held out) offering identification with an imaginary powerfùl subject." The identification of spectator with product turns the spectator itself into a sort of product, a fatasy to be bought and sold. In this perpetual economy of symbolic exchange (powerfùlly argued and developed by Jean * Baudrillard), dcath is necessarily excluded because it can not be signified and can never be completely colonised by the "empire of the signs". Aiso, the life of the material body must, by extension, be excluded fiom the new order. The materia1 body is very different fiom the imaginary body, the fantasy body that is bought and sold al1 the time. Ah, al1 ans outside of the economy that do not invofve a symbolic transaction or exchange become unimaginable. Acts of sacrifice (cnidely put, to give something for nothing) are unimaginable and scandalous. Early cinema is not yet perfectly reconciled to its role in consumer society. The 'uncanny' films are marked by the retum of the excluded, of death and the life of the body, of the act of sacrifice and the gifl. Although al1 three aforementioned films configure this exclusion and retum in very differem ways, a11 share a cornmon concem, which may be surnmarised as the violent depiction of the sacred and its

167 explosion within the social order. Adapting the vocabulary of similar grotesque motifs in

Expressionist theatre and of that of apocalyptic literature, the popular medium of film offi

a greater opportunity than ever before of transcending the power of materialisrn and

reinventing the med.

The Studcnt or Prague (1913): Nature and the Double

The Student of Prame- (1 9 13) produced by actor Paul Wegener, with the Danish dücctor

Stellan Rye and renowlied cameraman Guido Secber, is a tàscinating film that until very

recently has received little critical attention or respect. The earliest critical attitpde toward

this film was to position it as an antecedent to the great Expressionist films of the Weimar

period. It is true that the subject matter of The Student of Prame anticipates many of the

motifs explored by later films, in particular that of the Doppelganger. Also elements such as

the sinister scientist or magician of foreign origin (rnost often Italian thanks to the influence

of E.T.A. Hoffmann) and the unhappily resolved love triangle (with the addition of

supernatural intervention) are common to the 'fantastic' films of the 1920s. So, it is accurate,

in a sense, to describe this film as a foretumer. It also represents, however. the continuation

of a longstanding, chiefly literary, tradition of such stories. The story, chamters and

atmosphere of this film are directly indebted to a number of the works of E.T.A.Hofltinann.

In a few of Hoffmann's stories, characters sel1 their shadows to mysterious Italian doctors

usually in exchange for financial gain. The separation of the shadow, needless to say, results in the ultimate downfall of the protagonist. The film ingeniously straddles the real and supematural realms. Unlike the post-Caliaari 'fantastic' productions, it is not a studio-bound film. Scenes are shot on location (for the most pan) in a very real ~ra~ue.'"'The events of the film are not at al1 'interioriseci'. that is to say that, unlike Cali-&, they do not take place

168 in the mind of one of the charactem. The intertitles (the sept was by notd 'Expressionist' screenwtitcr Hanns Ewers) emphasise the film's connection with litmature, adopting a po«n

"The Shadow" by Alfred de Musset as a kind of exemplum for the film. The film, howevcr, does more than translate the theme of the Doppelganger to film, it suggests the way film can create a powerfùl sense of the grotesque through the disruption of the reality effect. It is one of the first films to explore film's unique ability to transfigure noms of time, space and identity. As such, it is one of the most successful cinematic evocations of the apocaîyptic aesthetic.

The production history of The Student of Prame is a bit murky.'" According to his own testimon y, Paul Wegener realised earl y on the potential of the cinema for portraying fantast ic subject matter. Because of the 'reality effect ' of the filmed image, the 'fantastic' film would be able to involve the spectator in the uncanny experience in a way impossible for both the theatre and the novel. Wegener seemed to be alert to many of the changes required by the medium. In a 1916 lecture, he spoke of how acting style should adapt to the cinema. Grand gestures and, obviousl y, vocal projection were no longer necessary ; subtlety and naturalism were key. His 19 13 performance as Baldwin, the protagonist of The Student of Prame, reveals that either he had not come to this realisation by 19 13 or that his idea of what constituted 'naturd ' was extremel y broad.

The plot of the film is relatively simple. Baldwin is a penniless student with drearns of the high life. He is bord with the carefiee student life of dancing and open-air taverns, and is umesponsive to the passionate feelings he haî awakened in Lyduschka, a gypsy dancer who, because she is not strictly necessary to the causal operation of the plot, is an interesting feature of the film. The feckless student with class ambitions fatefùlly encounters the young

169 Countess, flaunting her clss prerogatives and riding a mnaway horse. Much has been de in the limited critical literature of the fact that the Countess initially appears on horscback.

The fùsion of woman and animal is taken to signie sedautonomy and, therefore* threatening, female sexuality: she does not necd a man to dsfyher when shc has a perfectly good home." Independent though she may be, Baldwin encounters the Countess using the usual romantic convention of rescuing her fiom being thrown by her horse. Previous to this fortunate meeting, another, more sinister encounter has taken place. The mysterious

Scapineili, travelling by coach. has tried to get Baldwin to sel1 him his shadow for unknown purposes. After meeting the countess and promptly falling in love with her, Baldwin has a newIy powerfùl motive for making the exchange. He is pmed from his shadow, which turns out to resemble a more expressionless version of hirnself Baldwin's newly sold shadow provides him with the wealth he needs in order to meet his beloveâ on a more qudfooting.

Indeed, Baldwin immediately begins to indulgejn an orgy of consumer spending. His humble student rooms are now richly tùrnished. He dresses in flashy clothing and drives in a carriage. Incredibly, his ability to appear aristocraîic is sufficient to gain him admittance into the Countess' circles. Baldwin's only problem is that the mysterious shadow appears wherever Baldwin is. It never speaks and its motivations remain obscure. The tuming point of the film occurs with that standard. nineteenth-century plot device, the duel. Baldwin has been chalienged to a duel by his rival. the Baron, for the Countess' affections. The Countess' father has asked Baldwin to promise that he will not hurt the Baron-Baldwin apparcntly being a duellist of great reputaîion. Baldwin agrees to do the honourable thing; unfortunately, his shadow has no such scmples and arrives at the duel before him, lalling the

Baron. Now, Baldwin's chances for the fortunate marriage he had hoped for arc mineci.

170 indeed, everyone turned against him. Revenging himself on his own shadow, Baldwin stabs

his opponent. This action, however, only results in his death. The film ends with a shot of

the double sitting on Baldwin's grave. This simple plot belies the sense of mystay and

cosmic temot evoked by the film. The theme of the double is not only the centrai confiict of

the story, it is a device that structures the entire film, remdering Our sense of reality.

Formal Problcrnr in The Student of Pnnuc

The evidence for a grotesque and apocalyptic aesthetic can k found chiefly on the fod

level. The Student of Prame's form has recently captured scholarly attention. New interest

in early cinema has focused on the re-evaluation ofthe way early films relate material to the

spectator. Tom Gunning and André Gaudreault pioneereâ the changing attitude toivards

early films. According to Guming and Gaudreault, the lack of narrative coherence and

cutting for continuity in early tilms is not an index of their primitivism; the early films do not

create a self-contained fictional world for their spectators because they as yet feel no need to.

Early film offers an entirely different mode of presenting its matenal. Guming names the

two modes of representation the PMR (the primitive mode of representation) and the IMR

(the institutional mode of representation). PMR is characterised by what Gunning calls

"attractions", that is the film presents its subject matter self-consciously or exhibitio~stidiy

for the spectator." Staging is frontal; the performer will gaze directly at the camera (and by . implication the spectator). Also, shots tend to presewe spatial integrity: the shot 's duration

encompasses the entire action, not just the information that is necessary for the spectator to

follow the narrative. The IMR, on the other hand 'is the mode of 'classical' narrative- Al1 elernents of the fi1 m combine to give the impression of an imaginary, consistent world with a certain degree of autonomy fiom the spectator. Perfonners do not acknowledge the camera

171 and .aim to rnake their performances as lifelike as possible. Action is rarely arranged

fiontall y or symmetrically (an arrangement that looks stagy and presentational); scenes are

more likely to be arranged on diagonal axes and asymmetrical. Shot duration is gdly

shoner. The specuor does not have to scan the screen for information; however, their eye is

instantly drawn to the subject matter of the shot. From today's perspective, IMR seems

easier to watch.

FoIlowing Gunning and Gaudreault's method of analysing film forms or cinegenres,

Student of Prame can be positioned as a transitional form, combi~ngelements of both the

PMR and the IMR. Before we progress to a more detailed discussion ofsome of the film's

features, let us briefly define the term "narrative." Numerous definitions of the minimum

requirements of narrative exist. One of the best known, and one of the most usefiil in my

opinion, is that of Tzvetan Todorov. Narrative, according to Todorov, is a structure that

requires a certain duration of time and consists of three distinct phases: an initial phase of

equilibrium; followed by a phase of disequilibrium, and a final stage of equilibrium, typically but not invariably different fiom the first. The definition is both useful and hstrating for the same reason: it does not address the question of narrative agency and motivation."' For me

Student of Prame, the initial equil ibrium is one of three separate worlds: the giddy but impoverished world of the students in which the bord protsgonist Baldwin falstrapped, the world of the idle rich with which the Countess seems bored; the third world is the inhuman world--the world of nature and the dead. I will argue that, in The Student of Prague, it is the inhuman which is the liveliest of the three worlds presented by the film's diegesis. By the end of the film, this realrn has mysteriously triumphed over the other two. The magician

Scapinelli is the agent of the inhuman; however, he does not fblly partake of its nature. His

172 ambiguous nature is such that once he has initiated the discquilibnum phase of the narrative

(and there can be no more profound disequilibrium than the splitting of the protagonids

self), he drops out of the film entirely. Unlike the dominating presence of a tyrant like

Caligari, Sqinelli is a relatively minimal presence in the film. The new equilibrium

achieved at the end of the film reveals that Iittle has changai in the human world. The

sociaily ambitious Baldwin and the sociafly static Baron have both joined the realm of the

dead; the beautifil Countess is lefk with no known suitors; and the ardent Lyduschka's desue

remains mistrateci, as it was at the film's beginning.

The Student of Prame visually creates the separation of the worlds by several

techniques.""irst, by analogy and contrast of the different worlds, the film establishes

certain sets of characteristics for each. The students' world is the most kinetic, The

backgrounds of these shots are fifled with activity-bustling, drinking students. Also, the

shots of student life are visually the rnost cluttered. The second world is that of the

aristocracy. In contrast to the student world, its visual field is sparsely filled. Each character

enjoys considerable personal space. Also, the characters are less active. There is a stiff and

controlled quality to the movements of the Countess' father and the Baron. The final world

is that of the inhuman. It is associateci with, of course, the figure of the shadow. It is also,

however, suggested by the depiction of nature in the exterior shots. The long takes make us

conscience of the presence of forest and field beyond simply that of a background to the action. The exterior shots beautifid l y achieved by Guido Seeber, have a depth and vitality achieved nowhere else in the film. In fact, the characters (with the two important exceptions of Lyduschka and the Shadow) seem unnatural and out of place with this environment.

Emblematic of the film's treatment of nature is the daision to stage a meeting betwecn the

173 lovers in the old Jewish cemetery by transfemng the cemetery to the middle of a forest. pote: the filming team sought to use actud locations as much as possible; however, they were denied, for religious reasons, the right to film in the actual cemetery.] The huge gravestones leaning slightly with age and weight seem to coexist peacefiilly with the primeval lwking forest, whenas the living chaninen seem nervous and out of place.

Another way that the separate worlds are visuaily established is through The Student of

Prague's use of divided screen compositions. The first shot places the meiancholy Baldwin in the foreground, sitting at a table and drinking. In the background area, the eye is drawn to

Lyduschka dancing at the hub of a large, kinetic group of students. When Scapinelli enters, his carriage appearing fiom the dominant right side of the fiame, he crosses the screen to block completely both the audience and Baldwin's view of the thons of students. Such complex use of mise-en-scène has been accused by critics of over-theatricality. Recent scholarship, however, has focused on how more compiex forms of miseen-scène-multi- planar scene construction and divided screen staging-encourage a different type of look fiom the spectator. Cornplex use of mise- scène can create a space that the viewer must scan for content. It is not always desirable to present information in an easily digestible fonn."" The shot that introduces the aristocratie world presents a frontal view of a rnostly empty room with characten arranged symmetncally on either side of a door. When the door is opened, it reveals the exterior world, the world of nature. Tne foreground is artificial, symmetrical and shallow; the small ara of fiamed background has depth, naturalness. and subtle shading.

The meeting between Baldwin and the Countess, the collision of the two worlds, takes place in this natural environment. This event, almost as much as the later separaîion of the shadow, initiates the action. The collision of the three worlds has a destabilising effêct, like

174 the onset of a chernical reaction. By organising the film spatially as opposed ta temporally,

1inear timc sams suspended in Tlte Stuctent ofPrague. Instead of progressing logïcally

through time, the action of the film seems to unfold through space. Subtly, the film crcates

the sensation that the characters, and by extension, the audience are no longer in ordinary

tirne, no longer safe within the known world. Weare in end time, a time when sepktc

worids collide.

The coflision/contiision of diserent redms in the exterior scene is paraIlelcd by the

hgmentation of self in the interior. Back in Baldwin's drab student quarters, the desue for

the Countess changes Baldwin profoundly. The mirror is the most obvious physical symbol

for suggesting doubles and altemate realities. It does so here; it is the agent that produces the

shadow who walks out of the mirror. Visually, Baldwin and his shadow retain this mirnoring

effet throughout the film. They almost never exist in the same half of the screen. It is as if a diagonal barrier were drawn through the fil mic space, inevocabl y separating their two worlds. This diagonal line is echoed in one of the most striking scenic compositions of the film: a meeting takes place between Baldwin and the Countess on a parapet with great stone arches. The parapet's edge runs fiom the bottom lefi (foreground) to the top right

(background) of the screen. The sharp line and heavily shadowed arches charge the whole

scene with a sinister duality. Another maWfemaIe pair mirrors the couple. Fust, Lyduschka the gypsy can be seen spying on the couple, a reminder of the life that Baldwin has thrown off. Then the shadow unobtrusively enters the hune. As usual, the camera sees it before

Baldwin does. The film does not ever show events fiom Baldwin's point of view. This is most stdcing in the climactic moment of the film which is shot in such a way as to preserve the continuity of the space?' The scene includes what looks like a reaction shot: Baldwin recoils in homr ptesumably at the sight of some unknown temr. A slight horizontal movement of the carnera rcveals the wrpse of the Baron in the same f'rame as Baldwin; however, Baldwin has not seen the corpst yct. His look is directcd outside of the he.To what is this look directed? In a sense, it mesto share the anticipated reaction with the audience, to challenge and involve the spectator in the contcxt of the scene. Baldwin's look is in excess of its wntext. It does not signifi in terms of enhancing the linear nory line; however, it does contribute to the presentationai (PMR)axis of the story line. Such moments of visual excess cue the spectator to a certain reaction to the events. Instead of feeling empathy for Baldwin, along with a consciousness of superior knowledge, the spectator dreads what the camera might show us, a subtle but important difference fiom feeling suspense, anxiety over what will happen. The Doppelganger, whom we never witness performing a violent action, nceds only to uppeur to be temfling. It adS as a reminder of

Baldwin's false or artificial identity and as a reminder that this identity has been created by a costly denial. Baldwin's desires are almost entirely image-related. His love for the Countess is an extension of his desire to live the high Iife and she is both the emblem and the vehicle of this desire. In the film, he seems more self-infatuated than outwardly directed: he preens in his new clothes and revels in al1 the appurtenances of wealth and social status. The shadow terrifies hi m because its mere appearance reminds him that he is only a fiagrnent of himselfM Baldwin's attempt to rid himself of his shadow apparently kills him. Yet, in a sense, Baldwin has been dead throughout the film. His hoarding of wealth and social status attempts to gild over the melancholy knowledge that he was never truly alive at the beginning of the film. The presence of the shadow announces the violent end of al1 known, or more accurately perceived, value. The emissary fiom the inhuman world, the shadow's

1'16 mere presence kills. Its presence can kit1 because if the shadow can exist, then human

identity is a lie, the fortress of the ego paishes and, although the physid body may eUst, its

pnmary conml has vanished. This travesty of identity is one of the key featurcs of an

Expressionkt grotesque aesthetic.

Two 'Attractions': Lyduschkr and the Sbrdow

The other most criticall y discussed character in the film is the gypsy Lyduschka. vibrantly portrayed by the dancer Lyda Salrnanova. Alliances between the femininc and the rnonshous have received large amounts of cntical attention recently. Judith Mayne has argued thaî the double and Lyduschka filfil similar fùnctions in the narrative: they are both watchers, who follow the lead character. They both remain outside the narrative's economy of 'male, heterosexual' desire; both are characterised by their mysterious appearances in places they are not expected, such as the tenadmeeting place; both have been, in a sense, rejected by

Baldwin. Thus, there is an allegiance between woman and double; however, their effects on protagonist and spectator are exceedingly different- Lyduschka is both an object of fantasy and, potentially, of sympathy. She is, in her capacity as a well-known dancer, one of the

"attractions" of the film. Her relationship to the camera is a frankly exhibitionistic one. She is, clearly, showing off her skill for the benefit of camera and spectator. She is outside the

'economy of desire' of the tilm and, thus, represents a point of narrative e~cess.~"

However, The Student of Prame can not be successfiilly classified as a purely classical, narrative film. As stated before. it is a transitional film, one that deploys both PMR and

IMR. Lyduschka is outside of, in excess of the film's limited systern of linear narrative; however, she is not outside the system of 'attractions'. Also, Lyduschka's desire for Baidwin is purely emotionai and physical. The desire for financial gain brings disaster in the film; Lyduschka's innocent desires do not. Above all, Lyduschk. belongs to the student world and not to the world 'of nature. Despite the popular equation of women., and especially gypsy women, with the natural, Lyduschka is only seen in consuucted environments, usuaily in dosed fiame. The student's world is more Iike a child's secure world, secure only because nobody steps outside the boundaries. In Williams' model, women's desiring look is always transgressive. It fiequently initiates the destabilisation of the narrative; in horror movies, it invites monsters and thtensthe male protagonist with figurative castration. In The Snidenî of Prame, Lyduschka's desire is presented as natural and has no power over the pmtagonist.

It is Baldwin's desire that is excessive. creating the collision between the three worlds of the film. Lyduschka represents the innocent, bounded world of student life that Baldwin dares to leave. She is the safe world that the protagonist has scomed. It sounds strange to talk of dancing gypsies as safe; but it is nevenheless true in this case. If Baldwin wuld have been happy with her in the crowded, limited world of the tavem, he would have never realised his awfiil fate.

Like Lyduschkq the double also is a sort of "attraction." One of the attractions of the cinema was the display of the powers of the new technology. The exhibition of two identical men sharing the same scrwn, indeed duelling in the final scene, fiaunts the potential of the cinema to represent unusual scenes in a realistic manner impossible for the theatre. Although the appearance and resolution of the doubfe is the film's narrative, it also constitutes a powerfil display ofthe almost 'magical' powers ofthe new technology. This type of self- referential, cinematic attraction is. in tum, very different tiom the type of attraction represented by the dancing Lyduschka. The attraction of Lyduschka is that of the human perfonner, the solo act. The abilities of the camera are not emphasised; it is only important as

178 a recording vehicle to show us the splendid kpabilities of the damer. The attraction of the

double, however, is one that depends upon the new technobgy for its power. Its mion

has more resonance, howwer, than most camera tncks, for the motif of the double is

emblematic of the uncanny power of the apparatus itself The cinematic image, which Bazin

famously likened to a mummified corpse, is an attempt at immortality with an ambiguous

and uncanny result. The image cannot be classified as alive nor can it definitively be

described as dead. The image that cannot be resolved, that cannot be commodified is one

that is sent fiom the other world, outside of language and the economy of symbolic

exchange; at the same time, it may be a welcome one. The triumph of signification is not

complete; the indestructibility of the double is akin to the inevitability of death and the

tombstone on which it finally sits. The cinema, seemingly promising immortality and the

fulfilment of desire, replicates and cornmodifies the human image; yet it suggests, at the

same time, the terror of this replication's failure.

The Student of Prame is an extraordinary film because it reveals a truly cinematic

grotesque, one that reveals and exploits both the unique properties of the medium and the

conternporary conventions of cinematic representation and spectatorship. The apodyptic

nature of this grotesque is shared with Expressionist drama. The dismantling of linear time,

and with it any idea of human progress. combined with the premonitory appearance of

monsters, such as the shadow, points to the decay of the known world. The aesthetic of l%e

Student of Prague, like that of the dramas discussed earlier, is a chiliastic one. The known world and the self are violently lost; yet, in this loss, is the only hope for the salvation of the world, the hope that the ineffable deity, long lost to the human world, will retum. ' Paul Coata rnakes a similar point in The Gor~on'sGazg: "The received accounts of the development of the arts dunng the past 150 years speak of a movement fiom realism to modenrism, and thence to postmodcniism. This schema is often extrapolatcd to the history of cinema, which is said to replicate. in speeded-up, time-Iapse fom, the history of the othcr arts. The mode1 implies a history that prdsin dialectical fashion, with the inherent shortcornings of one form calling forth another to correct it and that a successor, and so on. Each stage constitutes an organic response to-an answer to the lack in-the preceding one. But what if this is not the case in cinema? What if one is dealing with a mechanism rather than an organism, with a history that has been dictated by violence rather than anything even vagqel y resembling necessity" (Coates, 18)?

" Sources for histofical information include From Cali~arito Hitler, 35-39; The Hauntd Screen, 326-335;and Miriam Hansen's" Early Cinema: Whose Public Sphere," Early Cinema: S~ace.Frame and Narrative, 22846. '" The nature of the photographie image has inspi red some of the most frrcinating and controversial achievements in cinema studies. Among these are André Bazin's essay, "The Ontology of the Photographie Image", Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida and Bela Balazs' Der sichtbare Menrch: Kririk undA14fSatze. In the latter work Balazs suggests that the image of the human face resists al1 attempts to fix its meaning into language.

" Definitions of the cinema frequently do not mention sound at dl. The names 'movie' and 'motion picture' refer only to film's appeal to the visual sense. Films that use language infiequently or not at dl are freguently described as more cinematic than dialogue-heavy ones. Images can haunt with their evocation of the real and their ambiguity (the ideal of Bazin) or lead the viewer, dialecticall y, to superior ideological awareness (the diametrical l y opposed ideal of Eisenstein). Both of these different theories of cinema, however, anest to the supreme power of the visual. Contemporary avant-garde filmmakers' work sometimes echoes the forms of silent cinema or the 'cinema of aîtractions.' Ulrika Ottinger is of particular interest in this respect because of her use of grotesque motifs. vi Petro correctly points out that the 'fantastic' genre of films has monopolised critical attention for the Weimar period. Paul Coates dso makes this observation. " Thomas Elsaeuer summarises: "The fact that film is a different kind of commodity in respect of use value and exchange value (as Benjamin would Say, a commodity produced direct1y for exhibition value) begins to explain its 'immatcrial material ity ', where no physical act of exchangc &es place in order for the commodity to rdirits exchange value" @ady Cinerna: S~ace-Frame-Narrative 156). John Ellis' fotmuia of "paying for the possibility of pleasure" atternpts to ftrther identie what exactly is being sold under the heading of cinema (1 62). "' Lotte Eisner describes the city of Prague as an especially advantageous site for the uncanny: "For Kubin, like Janowitz, came fiom Prague, a mysterious town whose ghetto, with its tortuous back alleys, was a survival fiom the Middle Ages" (The Haunted Scrm 18).

" Leon Hunt writes The Student of Prame "hw not been written about much" My Cinerna 389). Eisner writcs that it is dificult to establish the individual contributions of Wegener, Stellan Rye and Guido Seeber. She also mentions that only one surviving print of the film exists (Haunted Screen 42). " Both Leon Hunt and Patrice Petro cite Mary Ann Doane's unpublishbd paper, "The Student of Prague". This paper is an important source of the speculation as to the 'castration threat' narrative latent in the 1913 film. Doane suggests a comection between the double and the two women in the film, the Countess and Lydusctika.

Elsaesser describes the reasns for the ascendancy of the LMR: "The very fact that continuity editing made possible the concatenation of images or views, and the construction of an imaginary spadtime 'continuum', turned the cinema into a species of discourse, of which narrative became the privileged support." (Earlv Cinema, 303). "The carnera, as a recording device of the visible, abstracts the visible tiom al1 contexts, al1 causality, al1 agency. Narrative and narration become the textual forrns by which causality, agency and context are, as it were, reinserted into the representation" (304). Tom Gunning summarises the PMR or the 'cinema of attractions': "It is the direct address of the audience, in which an attraction is offered ta the spectator by a cinema showman, that defines this approach to film making. lheatrical display dominates over narrative absorption, emphasising the direct stimulation of shock or surprise at the expense of unfolding story or creating a diegetic universe" (58). "' All narrative theory, of course, owes a debt to Aristotle's Poetics. Todorov's theory is, in a sense, an elaboration of Aristotle's "a whole is what has a beginning, rniddle and endn (3 1). .-. "" The cntical literature on The Student of Prague is limited. My arguments are influenced by Leon Hunt's article "The Student of Prague: Division and Codification of Space." " Sources evaluating early tilm form include "Deep Staging in French Films lgOO-I914" by Ben Brewster, "From Lumière to Pathé: the Break-up of Perspectival Space" by Richard de Cordova and "Film Form 1900- l9O6" by Barry Salt. - André Bazin's comments on the superiority of presenting the supemahinl without editing stilt seem relevant to me. By preserving the integrity of space, the monster is not isolated in a special 'monster' shot, but appan, seemingly without ûickery in the phenomenal wodd. mi In this respect, The Student of Praaseems indebted ta its literary antedent, Eâgar Ailan Poe's "William Wilson." The narrator of the story explains his sppul, boasting, "Who, indeed, arnong my most abandond associates wodd not rather have disputed the clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspectexi of such courses, the gay, the fiank, the generous William Wilson-the noblest and most Iiberal commoner at Oxford-him whosc fotlies (said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy-whose errors but inimitable whims-whose darkest vice but a careless and dashing extravagance" (Poe 35O)?

-' Tania Modleski's analysis of Hitchcock, The Women Who Knew Tm Much: Hitchcock and Feminist theory is also important to the critical development of the connection betwecn the monstrous and the ferninine. miii Mary Ann Doane, cited by Petro, is also the chief exponent of the theory that Lyduschka is the double of Baldwin's shadow. Chrptcr Six

Introduction

The Cabinet of Dr. Cali~~is, with the possible exception of Metropdis, the most farnous

German Expressionist film. Its flamboyantly non-realistic visual style cornbined with its

famous, hednarrative deit an outstanding achievement in cinematic history. Adysis

of the film tends to focus on three elements: the set designs, the hmed narrative and the

character of Caligari himself. The idea of the grotesque provides an extremely useful tool in

uniting these three elements into a discussion of the film as a whole. A closer examination of

the narrative reveals grotesque features similar to the apocalyptic ones disassai previously.

The fiamec! narrative, with its unstable narrator, creates a curious suspension of time.

Similarly, space is not only distorted through the use of set, but, by reason of the thmeci

narrative and the prevailing metaphor of the cabinet, it is completely destabiliseci. Even more

stnkingly than in Wegener's film. the world of CaIim is in the grip of the eponymous demiurgic figure. The only escape suggested by the film is in a sublime act of sacrifice, such as embodied in the death of Cesare. Finally, the motif of the double also appears in this film.

As in The Student of Prague, the appearance of the double brings with it apparently unmotivated violent actions, a veritable plague of meaningless deaths.

The Cabinet of Dr. Calinari: Institution and Apparatus

In the climate of experimentation, inspired by the flourishing of the UFA studios, a rnainstream producer, Ench Pommer. took a chance on a bizarre script titled The Cabinet of

Dr. Caliaari (1919), penned by first time screenwriters Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz.

Apparently, he saw distinctly commercial possibilities in their arie story (Kracauer 61).

Therefore, instead of trying to minimise the bizarre qualities of the script, Pommer

183 encouraged the two authors to enhance the experimental nature of theù work (65). Mayer

and Janowitz wantd an Expressionist design to match their story, and Pommer readily

acceded to thcù wish. Jatnowitz's original thought was to use the great Czcch master of the

grotesque, Alficd Kubin. Instead of Kubin, Pommer chose a Berlinese designer, Hermann

Warm, loosely associated with Expressionist art movement. In order to extcutc the design

inexpensively, Warm and his two associates, Walter Rohrig and Walter Reimann created the

sets for the film aimost entireiy fiom painted cloth (Eisner 1 18- 19). As is not uncomrnon,

styl istic innovation apparently arose fiom material restrictions. The painted cloth had the

effect of flattening the appearance of the sets on screen. The Cabinet of Dr. Calid's

imagery is consequently characterised by a drastically diminished sense of depth of space

(Kurtz 66). As a result, the famous sets created for the film have received a mixed critical

reaction. Eisner believes that the two artists erreci on the side of abstraction. The abstraction

is alienating for the audience, according to Eisner (1 101). It prevents them fiom becoming

fùlly immersed in the horror of the nanative.

Caiiaan proved to be an immediate, if qualified, critical success. It was haited both in

Germany and Amerka as a landmark in the history of cinema; it was called "the first attempt

at the expression of a creative mind in the medium of cinematography" (Kurtz 1 8). Its

fantastic subject matter and its daringly abstract design combined to make a powerfil

impression on the wntemporary audience. What precisely was the nature of this impression?

What light does the reception of Calid shed on the transposition of the Expressionist aesthetic into the new medium of film? In endeavounng to answer these questions, I will both analyse pnvailing interpretations of çalinari and reinterpret the formol elements of the film.

184 Cntiul Approacbcr to Cdigari

Two of the first and still two of the most influential critics and historians of the Gcrman

Expressionist cincma are Siegfiid Kracauer and Lotte Eisnn. As mentiontd before,

Kracauer's famous book From Calieari to Hitler argues that Gennan films provide a window ont0 the national subconscious at that time in history- Film, according to Kracaueer, is uniquely appropnate as a medium for conveying the repressed desires of societies for two reasons. First, because a film is a collective, and not an individual creation, there is no one rational consciousness at work. a qualification that is tme for most of the performing arts.

Second, because films, for the most part, are designed to appeal to a mass audience, there is a powerful commercial incentive for the creators to respond to any fantasies and desires that are most common among the target audience. Kracauer summarises his thesis: "films reflect those deep layers of mentality which extend more or less below the dimension of consciousness" (Kracauer 6). He concludes his thesis by adding "Film tells the secm history involving the inner dispositions of the German people" (1 1).

The Cabinet of Dr. Cali~ariis one of the cornerstones of Kracauer's theory: it is not accidental that the name appears, linked with Hitler's, in the title of the book. Kracauer relates the fascinating process through which the two authors arrived at the story for the screenplay. According to their original conception, Janowitz and Mayer picturad Dr.

Caligari as an insane. evil scientist who was also the head of a mental institution as Francis, the hero, discovers to his horror. Caligari's evil power is based in his mastery of the science of hypnosis. He comrnits crimes through controlling the sornnambulist Cesare. Cdipri

183 seems to murder innocent people purely in order to display his power. As Ktacauer points out, the basic concept of Maya and Janowiu's screenplay displays a diam(with a distinct flavour of the paranoid) of institutions. It also, according to Kracauer, concludes* in its original version on a hopefil note. At the end of the story, the evit Caligari is defcated. He can no longer wield his sinister power of mesmerism. Thus, the original version implies tbü such tyrannical authority figures can be overthrown. Accotding to Kracauer, the original story demonstrates genuine revolutionary impulses through its motif of mmpt auihority that must be overthrown. In the screenplay, the positive action taken by the protagonist ends the dark film on a hopeful note. However, when the original story was altered for mass consumption, the director, Robert Wiene, decided to add a fiaming story in order to make the film more palatable to a projected middte-class audience. Janowitz and Mayer's story was changed to take place inside the mind of the protagonist, who is, in the adapted version, revealed to be an inmate of the asylum. Similady, Dr. Caligari, in the fiame, appears in his

'tme' persona as a kindly psychiatrist; his evil nature is only a madman's delusion. The last line of the film-"1 now know how to cure him"-apparently concludes the film on a hopeful note, absurdly exaggerated by at least one contemporary reviewer (Kracauer 71). According to Kracauer, the fiame has the effect of reversing the potentially revolutionary impact of the film. Instead of the oppression existing in the "real" world, as it is presented in the screenplay version, it now exists inside the "imaginary" world of the madman's brain. It is

Francis who is oppressing himself, not Caligari, and certainly not the institution of psychiatry. Kracauer States that the introversion of the film version, its radical subjectivity promotes the passive acquiescence to authonty that Kracauer describes as characteristic of the Gerrnan subconscious. We will return later to the analysis of Kracauer's interpretaîion.

186 Lotte Eisncr's enorrnously informed and influentid study of the Expressionist cine-

Haunted Scrcen, takes a completely differcnt approach. Eisner is Me interestcd in the

comection that film may have with popular consciousness. She provides information on the

creators of these films. Hef description and analysis of the formal elements of these films

presents a persuasive amunt of the brief renaissance of the German art film. She argues that the two most important influences on this era of filmmaking were, first, the Expressionist rnovement itself and, second, the innovations in dramatic vocabulary and mise-en-&ne

introduced by theatre director Max Reinhardt (Deutsches 7heater 1902- 19 19).' For Eisner,

Calinari is an important fiIm inasmuch as it helped to initiate the movement; however, it is a film that suffers, in her opinion, fiom inferior direction. Moreover, both the art direction and acting are troubled by certain inconsistencies: she cites the presence of real tirminire among the abstract sets and the lack ofany attempt at Expressionist acting by the cast with the notable exceptions of Werner Krauss (Caligari) and Conrad Veidt (Cesare). Another flaw in the film, according to Eisner, is the similarity between the visual presentation of the cinematic fiame and the supposedly more subjective story it surrounds. In accordance with

Kracauer, Eisner states that the fiaming story presents undesirable complications to the original story; in her view, the fiame adds linle to the film, and presents more difftculties in interpretation for the audience than it solves. She laments the fact that Alfied Kubin was not hired, as the writers wished, to create the sets. "Kubin's Calipari would certainly have been full of Goya-esque visions, and the German silent film would have had the gloomy hallucinatory atmosphere which is unmistakabl y i ts own without being sidetracked into the snares of abstraction" (1 8). The abstract paintings with their famous non-converging Iines although interestins she suggests. lack the requisite uncanniness, although certain sccnes are

187 singled out for praise. In summary, Eisner portrays Ca1iM7simportance as king primarily historical. Artistically, it is a film that does not live up to its promise.

Significantly, Cali@ appears dated now, much more so thsn the work of rcvddirectors such as Lang, Pabst and Murnau. Robert Wiene had little senx of how to pace a film. Thae is little creation of suspense during the film and few appreciable changes of dynamic tension.

For a film that was received as an international artistic breakthrough, it W remarkably few imitators. This, 1believe was due to Caligari's cunously affcctless quality. One of its detractors described it as something indigestible: "It has the odor of tainted food. It leaves a taste of cinders in the mouth." I believe this to be a perfèct description of the film and an interesting point of departure for analysis with the proviso that 1 wish to use it in a different sense than the author intended. It is precisely this quality ofindigestibility that is the great strength of the film. Its ability to resist stable interpretation and its presentation of a fiactured subject may indeed induce feelings of queasiness on the part of the spectator, it is precisely this feeling of queasiness that points to the actual significance of Cali~ari's achievement.

The Probltm of the Fmme

The problem of the narrative fiame and its meaning, its creation and its importance to the film's impact on the spectator is central to most interpretaîions of ïhe Cabinet of Dr.

~alipari." Both Eisner and Kracauer, the ftrst influential critics of Expressionist fi lm, react negatively to the addition of the fkame to the original screenplay. Narrative frrming devices, depending on how they are used, can either guide the rderlspectator to the adoption of a particular i nterpretation or destabil ise the very act of interpretation, leaving the spectator unresolved as to the rneaning of the narrative. and suspicious of its truth-value. h orda for a

188 frarne to stabilise a particular interpretation, as Kracauer implies the hmein Cali@ does, it

must possess a number of attributes to satisfL the audience: first, the point of view implied by

the fiame must be presented as a reliable and objective one; second, the fiame must offer a

satisfactory expianation of the events of the narrative, usuaily by providing additional

information not available to the protagonist; finally, the frime must be distinct from the

narrative it surrounds, so the audience can be secure in the fiame's status as a more reliable

source of information. Agreeing in principie with Kracauer, one could al- ddthat in orda

to really appeal to a specific audience, a fiame should accede to and reflect certain

subconscious desires, the traces of ideological appellation. If the fiame does not possess any

of these attributes, it has the opposite effect of destabilising the namtive. lnstead of helping

the audience seaire a coherent interpretation of events, the fiame further confùses matters by

introducing another Ievel of "reality" that does not Iùlly explain the first. As in the avant-

garde metadramas of this period such as Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author,

the second type of fiame opens up a fracture in the fiaional world. Although

correspondences exist between the two worlds, neither can be positively identified as

"reality". Instead of the film or drama acting as a mirror held up to nature, it is ~t~cttuedas

a mirror held up to another minor. Thnie effect on the audience is one of venigo, rnemorably

described by René Girard as bbmise-en-abyme",a drama staged in an abyss. This vertigo is

key to the creation of apocalyptic time and space so central to the Expressionist grotesque

aest hetic.

Even without its narrative fkame, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a complex and multi- layered aory. The frame was adapted by Wiene to reassure the audience, to ad as a stabilising agent; however, is this goal actually achieved? The film opais with a shot of a

189 middle-aged man telling a well-dressed, attractive youngcr man how he came to end up in

'this place'. An ethereal young woman in white passes thcm, moving towards the camera, seemingly in a somnambulistic trance. This prompts the young man to offer to tell his own story of how he ended up in this place. In this shot, the background is naturalistic, if sparse.

The frame tells us that what we are about to see is the story of one person, through whose understanding we will view the action. Because of the Company he keeps and the older man's talk of spirits, the audience may not be inclined to accqt OUT namator as dtogcther reliable; although there is no particular reason not to trust him as he has no known motive for lying. At any rate, the flm would seem to be Francis' story. There is little evidence, however, that the subsequent "inner" narrative that unfolds is fiom Francis' point of view. A significant portion of the first part of the film is devoted to the movements of Caligari, including an extended scene in a town office where the mesmerist is forced to wait for a license in order to ply his trade. This scene is peculiar in that it is the first in the film to involve a number of close-ups. The chief characteristic of these close-ups is that Caligari shares the secret of his malignant nature with the audience, often staring directly at the carnera. Pride, cunning, cruel amusement and anger flicker across the mobile feanires of the scientist, memorably portrayed by Werner Krauss. Another pmliar characteristic of this scene is that it provides a motive for Caligari's murder of the town clerk. The clerk pays for his mdeness with his life, a son of homicidal fantasy against the power of bureaucracy. It is strange that the filmmalcers carefûll y provide this murder with a personal, albeit petty, motivation; the other crimes wmmitted by Caligari and Cesare have no such motivation.

Why should Caligari want to kill Alan and Jane, except out of an unadulteratcd desire to express his supnmacy? The licence conflia is one of a number of incidents portrayed in the

190 film that Francis has no way of knowing about. Thus one surmise that the rcaies arc shown to the audience through some other agency: eithcr Francis filling in the gaps with his imagination or a shadow "omniscient" namator, revealing secfaly what is unknown to the protagonist. Visually, the latter idea that Francis is not in control of this story is reinforcd by the reniarkable number of times Caligari gazes at the camera with Iively and malignant intelligence. Simiiarly, the murder of Alan and the abduction of Jane are given fÙli cinematic treatrnent. Both times, the sornewhat clueless Francis is physically nowhere near the action.

As Jane is abducted, he waits by Caligari's "cabinet" for the pair to make a move; nevertheiess, the audience is treated to two fascinating cinematic treatments of crime. Alan is first throttled and then stabbed by a huge shadow, appearing much larger than Cesare's actual size. This is a widely used visual motif characteristic of Expressionisrn. The use of shadows places the murder on the plane of the archetypal. It is not a specific murder with a strong personal or social murder; it is an act of pure destruction. It is negation for its own sake; personalities have disappeared and become shadows. The abduction of Jane begins in much the same fashion; however, the scene follows a different course. In this scene, the camera allows us a ftll view ofthe somnambulist, who already frightened Jane when she visited the cabinet, looking for her father. Entering with a knife, Cesare's original intentions or instructions are clearly to kill Jane; however. he, perhaps moved by her beauty, changes his mind. The tension in the sornnambulist's body, at al! times acute, is extremely expressive in the movement where he reaches over to her. His posture is bent like a bow, at once bending toward her and straining away from her. When she wakes up, tarifieci, he tums into a tme monster with glaring eyes and bard teeth. Pursued by the servants, the sornnarnbulist flees. Fordto let Janc down, he runs away and dies. His death scene repcats the grac&l

191 arcing gesture, only this time he is reaching up and looking to the sky as he sinks to earth.

The somnambulist safely dead, Francis is now fiee to pursue his tnie nemesis, Caligsri. For an older man, Cali@ moves quickly for he has no difllculty in eluding Francis and disappearing into a plain building, which turns out to be the asylum hmthe beginning of the film. At the opening of this sequence, the first time spectator would still not be able to recognise the location because they previously have only sccn a small portion of the asylum, not the main courtyard. The courtyard is empty; but fnendly doctors soon appear who sœm al1 too willing to help Francis. They lead him down a bizarrely painted comdor to meet the director of the institution. Behind it. to the horror of Francis and presumably the spectator, we encounter once again the bespectacled and wicked gaze of Caligari, glaring into the camem Fortunately, Francis has gained the ear of the other doctors so while Caiigari is very soundly asleep, they sneak into his office and look through his papers for dues as to the real identity of the "director". Now, another tale of possession is introduced into the narrative.

Caligari himself is not redly Caligari. He found this identity in an ancient manuscript. While reading it, the director became fascinated with the story of Caligari, a wandering monk who rnurdered people through the agency of suggestions made to a oomnambulid. The film presents extensive flashbacks of Caligari's paQ history, showing his wicked glee at the amval of his somnambulist patient and dernonstrating his emerging mania in a shot where the evil Caligari imagines his name superimposed over the landscape. The latter incident is underscoreù by being the only special effect of its kind in the movie. The "inner" story ends with Caligari, uncovered at last. being forced into a straitjacket by the other doctors. îhis apparently happy ending dissipates when the action shifts back to the "fiame". The two gentlemen exchanging life stories leave their bench and rehim to theu home. The asylum

192 courtyard of the "inrie?' story reappears on the screen, only, in with the ciifkence that in the fiame, this space is populated by lunatics (it was empty in the 'inna' story). Whaî nedibility the 'inner ' story may have in the spectators' minds is furtfier undetmined as we are introduced to the inmates of the asylum. A refined looking female inmate plays an imaginary piano; 'Cesare' glides slowly and silently to the wall clutching a flower; and a venerable inmate with flowing white hair and beard declaims fiom the stairs. Finally, Jane is rcvealed to be su ffming nom delusions of grandeur, bel ieving herself to be of royal bldand, therefore, unable to form attachments with those, such as Francis, who are beneath her.

When Caligari makes his entrance, he seems kind and competent, utterly transformed. He gazes with benevolent wncern upon his patients. Recognising his nemesis, Francis urges the other inmates to defend themselves against this monster or they will be "killed at dawn."

Nobody pays any attention to him except the orderlies who confine him to a straitjacket. The film ends on a bizarre. apparently hopefbl note as the 'fiame' Caligari informs the other doctors and the orderlies that now that he understands Francis' problem, he can hope to cure him. Before he finishes his staternent, the doctor is show facing the carnera. .

On a superficial reading of Cali~an'snarrative. it appears that the 'i~er'story is that of a madman, sufiering fiom a paranoid delusion. If we accept this wnstruction of the fiIm, the story 's premise takes on a certain novelty-film character provided by the sensational ending.

The value of the film lies, according to such an interpretation, not in the 'inner story' with its mysteries and inconsistencies, but in the 'frame.' All inconsistencies can be expiained as arising fiom the fractured logic of the insane mind. The outcome of the inner story is no longer important. What is important is the gli mpse the film provides into the mind of the madman, where there are no parallel lines or perpendiailar angles. The abstract set

193 reinforces this intapraation. Thus, Calisari would be an ampleof a nuruive that is

reassuringly stabiliseci by its 'fiaming' effecf as Kraeauer argues. Howevcr, is this the ma

viable reading of the film? Does it explain the film's odour of 'tainted' f& its ability to

nauseate and disnih? These are reactions associateci with the disruption of boundaries not

their solidification. Looking at both the narrativddiegetic and reprcsentationaVmirnetic

levets of the fiim, a different construction of the film begins to emerge.

Severaf aspects of the film undermine the audience's faith in the apparent stability of the

'fiame'. For one, the asylum in the fiarne appears exactly the same as it does in the inner

story. Furthemore, its appearance, especially the hypnotic and disturbing black and white

circular floor, is not calculated to restore the Iight of reason to the distuhd inmates. The

fact that it is a cornmon eiement of both the 'fiame'-and the 'inner' story, could indicate that

we have never really left the asylum and that the asylum is closer to the oppressive rdmof

Caligan than it is to an 'ordinary' institution. Another aspect of the film that contradicts the

interpretation of the frame as a stabilising device is the film's treatment of its protagonist,

Francis. The protagonist. insane or not, has acted throughout the film as the audience's chef

agent of identification. Although rather colourless, Francis has pedormed no activities to

alienate the spectator's sympathies from him (unless you count his indifferent ability as an

actor). At the end of the film, he is forcibly bundled into a straitjacket while Caligari exclaims-that he knows how to 'cure' him. It would take an enonnous faith in the psychiatrie

institution and an indifferent attention to the previous action of the film to believe this to be a

reassuring ending. Caligari delights in hypnotising and duping innocent people throughout most of the film. The ending could signie his recognition of his moa dmgerous opponent in

Francis and the subsequent attempt to silence any opposition. The ending of the film's Giame

194 could be read (and 1 realise that this was not the directorial intention) as the incipient trïumph of evil. This view is reinforced by Caligari's direct look towards the camera. Previously, this look has been used to menace the audience, as a hostile gaze that challenges, and perhaps mesmerises, the camera. May not it still bc -the violence with whkh Francis is subdued belies the director's dmwords. Even if this interpretation is not wholly acceptable. it is obvious theauthorial and directorial intentions aside, the film is open to a multiplicity of readings and interpretaîions.

The two narrative loci in the tilm where destabilisation occurs are the eponymous 'cabinet' of Dr. Caligari and that other. more sinister, cabinet, the asylum. It is in these two places where mesmerization occurs and the spectator, perhaps also rnesmerised, becomes uncertain of tmth and agency. The scene in the fairground cabinet provokes more questions than it solves. How does the somnambulist know that he will kill Francis' fnend Alan? Das

Caligari decide at that moment? Does Cesare? If either case is true, then is there any motive for t his decision? How much independent agency does Cesare have? What eventually kills him in the 'inner' story? Is it love, fatigue, daylight, insomnia or some combination of all?

The action of the film becomes even more uncertain the moment Francis chases Caligari back to his lair in the asylurn. On a practical level, the action bemmes wholly irnplausible af'ter this point. Why are the other docton so easily convinced of Francis' suspicions? Also,

Caligari appears to be a very tnisting individual. especially for an evil scientist. He writes down al1 his evil plans and puts them in his unlocked desk drawer. The absurdities of the narrative follow the logic of dreams. While this is true of the entire film, it is nowhere more evident than during this section of the film. It is as if the asylum is the crucible for the entire film, generating its stories and characters. The crux of the film's interpretation becomes, if one accepts the previous statement, the question of the nature of this asylum. One answa is

certain, the asylum is the province. the real 'cabinet' of Dr. CaligPn vrho is its director in the

worlds of bath the 'fiame' and the 'inner' story. Caligari, whosc relationship with the

camera, and by extension the spectator, is wholly one of domination, is neva convincing as a

benevolent, cPring physician. The possibility that he has cntered Francis' mind (and dso the

spectator's if they identify with Francis) does not make him less sinister, but more so. It is

impossible to say with certainty which chamter, in the film, controls what the spectator sees.

The Cabinet of Dr. Cali& presents the spectator with a perfect example of a grotesque

world, one in which boundaries of space and tirne have become confùsed, in which we are

confionted with the idea that the world may be in the grip of an alien and destructive power.

The objects and laws so famil iar to us appear as distorted and menacing, as possible hahcinations, induced by a malignant and grotesque figure. This prompts investigation of another crucial destabil ising motif in the film-that of the Doppelganger.

Janowitz's Double, The Stone Bismarck

Janowitz's anecdote that inspired The Cabinet of Dr. Cali& is easily the match for the film's screenplay in its ability to inspire horror. This fascinating anecdote is the genesis for the theme of the double which is subtly present in the film. A close analysis of the elements of the anecdote will serve to illuminate the film's elaboration of the theme of the double.

The story is quoted in fil1 with dominant motifs emphasised by the typeface. Janowitz's original story describes a place where sensual pleasure (indicated by the underlined words), repressive authonty (indicated by the bold) coincide and conflict. The tale's subject refm to his own sense of uncertainty, emphasising the mystery of the ongin and nature ofthe events he relates. Words and phrases that heip to create this sense of mystery and ambivalence are italicised. The story is as follows:

One evening in October 1913 this young was strolling through a at Hamburg, trying to find a girl whose beauty and mariner had attractcd him. The tcnts of the fair covered the Reeperbahn known to any sailor as ont of the worid's chief ~lewresbots. Nearby, on the Holstenwall, Lederer' s gigantic Bis muck monument stood sentiad over the ships in the harbor. In search of the girl, Janowitz followed thefiagile trial of a laugh which he thought hers in the dim park bordering the Holstenwall. The laugh, wtiich cprparentî'y served to hre a young man, vmiedsomewhere in the shbbery. When, a short the lafer,the young man departed, mther shodow, hi&n until then in the bushes, suddenly emerged and moved dong- #un Ihc scenf of that Iaugh. Pashg this II- s&w, Janowitz mght a gfimpse of him: he looked like an average bourgeois. Darkness reabsored the man, and made fiirther pursuit impossible. The following day big headlines in the local press announced: "Homble sex crime on the Holstenwall ! Young Gertrude.. .. murdered." An obscure feeling that Gertrude nright hebeen the girl of the fair impelled Janowitz to attend the victim's funenl. During the ceremony he suciaenb M the sensation ofdiscowing the murderer, who had not yet been captureci. The man he mspected seemed to recognize hi m, too. It was the bourgeois-the shadow in the bushes. (Quoted fiom Kracauer 6 1. Typeface alterations are mine.)

On the surface, this story's ability ro unsettle and fiighten its reader is simple; the experience of unwittingly encountering and recognising a murderer is an understandably temfying one, particularly as the narrator has no way of proving his knowledge and thereby seeking retribution, However, although this circumstance is horriQing in its own right, it does not fully explain the story's uncanny power. Also. it does not address the woy in which the narrator arranges and presents the simple action of the story. On close inspection, the power of the story can be seen to lie in the arrangement of its elements. These present a narrative of guilt and repression in which a man encounters his double. Janowitz sets the stage by contrasting the world of the fair and the licentious pleauire of the Reeprbahn with the prohibitive figure of Bismark, a patemal figure who oversees. presumably disapprovingly, the scene before hirn. ïhe 'pet' attempts to follow a beautifid young girl. His motives are presented arnbiguously . The appellation of 'poet ' indicates a refined, romantic sensibility; however, pahaps intoxicated by the world of the fair and of the Reeperbahn, he is following a girl who he oniy assumes wishes to be followed. The girl "vanishes" into the bushes and after "a short time" the poet departs. What happens during this short time is never stated. Presumably, the young man looks amund after his quury and then gives up. However,. why he should give up so quickly when the object of his desire is hiding in the bushes is not clear.

Certainly, the namator osers no elucidaiion on this important point. As soon as he &ives up,

"another shadow" takes his place-the first shadow is never specified by the te* perhaps it is that of the poet, perhaps that of the girl. The shadow's caster is identified as an "average bourgeois". This description provides an obvious contrast to al1 that is implied by the word

"poet". Mysteriously, like the girl. the man becomes lost in the "darkness. making fùrther pursuit impossible." The action is out of the narrator's hands; but this is not due to any force or counteraction. Only darkness and obscurity prevent the "poet" fiom venturing ftrther.

The next day, he rads about a horrible sex murder of a young girl and has an "obscure feeling" that it might be the girl of the fair. The suggestion of the narrative is that it is the narratoi himself who wished to commit the crime; however, the repressiodprohibition of this desire is manifestai by the shadowy double. In order to distance the conscious mind from its violent impulse, the double is a reverse, minor image of the "poet", an iconic bourgeois.

Mer the night of the crime, the guilty conscience cannot rest. The impulse to go to the funeral expresses guilt for his (hopefûlly, as this is an autobiographica! anecdote) imaginary crime. That he felt "impelled" to go to the fiineral testifies to the strength of the author's desire for exposure and punishment. Again, he encounters his double, no longer shaâowy but a fiil1y material man. They exchange a look of recognition. Death has triumphcd,

198 transforming the beautifil young girl and the pleasures of the flah into an unavengcd corps.

The murderous impulse is that of Janowitz; but it is here presented as something this dicn to him, that has ben forced on him fiom outside. The ail-seing stony Bismark suggests that ail pleasure mu9 be paid for. The agent of Bismark's Germany. the average bourgeois secs that his wishes are ched out; but the bourgeois is a manifestation of the Pm;he is the forbidden Mer, the repressed and hated embodiment of a wish for punishment and death.

Much of the basic svuaure of Janowitz's anecdote pardlds the action of The Cabinet of

Dr. Cali@. One of the most obvious but overtooked explanations for Caliaari's narrative is that Cesare carries out actions that are in the best interests of Francis, the protagonist. Fi

Cesare dispatches Aian, Francis' rival for Jane 's affections. Later, Cesare abducts Jane herself fiom her prosperous home and protective father. This motive is reinforced by the relative indifference that Jane shows towards Francis. She actually pushes Francis away when he tells her of Alan's death. It is also signifiant that we never see Caligari give Cesare an order for murder. Most mysterious of all, Francis describes the murder to the police by twice repeating the downward stabbing motion that Cesare used in the murder, a murder that no one witnessed. The double "refationship" between Francis and Cesare is, however, repressed in the film, as it is in the original anecdote. One of the intertitles testifies to

Francis' goodwiil towards Alan: he suggests that they remain fiends no matter who Janc chooses. Also, the decisions to go to the fair and to view the attractions of the cabinet are both Alan's. Indeed, Francis seems to have a presentirnent of danger and seeks to rescrain his perpetudly smiling fnend. An obvious line of plot development, one that is used in

Doppelgtinger films such as The Student of Prague, is not used here: Francis is never suspecteci of the crimes of Cesare; although, as they say in crime shows, he has motive. The

199 double theme is latent; it manifests itself in Francis' obscure knowledge that Cesarc is the

killer, even der the "murderer" is caught. The repression of the shad interests of Cesue

and Francis dasnot weaken the double theme. Indeed, if anything, it becornes more sinistcr

as its recognition is obscured and prohibited.

Cesare, the somnambulist, is certain1y visual 1y distinct fiom the "average bourgeois"

double of Janowitz's story. He is a romantic figure, clad in black, with hcavy shadows under

his huge, expressive eyes, and a white curprtike face. His helpless dependence on Caligari

is that of a child on its parent or a pet on its owner. In one scene, Caligari is shown fecding

him porridge. In one of the flashbacks, the first meeting of Cesare and Caligari is shown.

Cesare sits, inert, in a wheelchair while Caligari prances around hirn, ecstatic at this addition

to his power, the evil doctor lavishes caresses on his victim. The scene borders on the

perverse and is clearly calculated to disconcert its audience. The news of Cesare's death

arouses intense demonstrations of grief from Caligari. He throws himself to the floor,

gesticulating wildly. The scenes involving the two men are the most passionate in the film.

Caligari's desire for controi is, in the 'inner' story, libidinal and ecstatic. Cesare's passivity

makes him the perfect vesse1 for the desires of his master. If he has his own identity le& it is

never authenticated by the narrative. Perhaps he dies because he seeks to escape the sphere

of Caligari and his undead status. Between the two natures, hovers Francis' identity.

Caligari never seeks to kill the protagonist; however, he gains control over everyone close to

Francis. Perhaps, he Iures him to the asylum intentionally. At the frame's end, Francis, in a

straitjacket, is at the mercy of Caligari who promises to cure him. Caligari no longer appears as the ecstatic, libidinal tyrant, cackling with every victory. In the 'fiame', he assumes his identity as the benevoient man of science. The institution has, as in the Janowitz anecdote,

200 triumphed over the fairground. All of the pets and dreamers, the prophets and piano players

are safeiy behind walls, trapped inside their heads. Dr. Caligari can take his leisure finding a

LLcure." The ability to recognise the grotesque is. in the wntext of the fdm, the key to

salvation. The ability to see Caligari correctly rnay well be the liberating action that couid

fiee the characters, and by extension the spectators, fiom the asyludprison of the film.

The Cabinet of Dr. Cali& is tmly grotesque in the sense that it shares certain important

traits with the other dramas and films discussed in this study. Any sense of a sanctifieci,

stable body or space is completely disrupted by the film's shilling narrative structure and

disturbing formal propenies. The film is stmaured Iike a hall of mirrors or like a labyrinth

without a centre. Cesare is the key. although one who is not ftlly realised, to the unsolved

mystery of the double, as hinted at in the Janowitz anecdote. The audience sees a wortd in

which humanity exists only in fragments, only as a dream, which can transcend the illusions,

the lies of actual existence. ïhe narrative encourages such speculation with regard to

subjectivity. In doing so, the film presents a world ripe for cataclysmic destruction. Eisner's

aforernentioned problem with the set, that they are not eene or threatening (as Kubin's work

may wefl have ben), is belied by the deranged logic of the film's visual style. Sharp,

oppressive angles seem to collude with Caligari and his controlling agenda. Lines often

converge above the head of people, trapping them and preventing their escape. Closed forms

dominate the film. Another recumng visuai motif is that of the circle. Circle-shapes fiame

many of the shots; Robert Wiene will habitually iris in or out of scenes, directing our attention to a small, specific amof the screen. The turning carousels and the organ-grinda and his monkey later tum into the black and white patterned courtyard of the asylum and the amoeba-li ke splotches on the walls of the asylum hall. Circles visually reinforce the id- of

20 1 recurrence. in fâct, al1 the visuals ultimately attest to the essential similarity of the different

levels of the narrative. Critics have singled this out as a flaw in the film, and, certainiy, it is

one if the director's intention is to indicate that the world of the fiame is the 'sane' one.

However, as has been demonstrated. this is an unsatisfactory way to rdthe film. The film

enters Caligari's world; however, to accept it as sane is to be mesmeriseci by Caligari.

Conclusion

Perhaps because of the challenge Cali& poses to cntics' love for tidy explanations, many

have attempted to provide a unified reaûing of such a maddeningly elusive film; The Cabinet

of Dr. Cali~ari,however, provides enough dues to its audience to prevent this stable

interpretation. Kracauer calls the promotional tagline "You must become Caligari"

inexplicable. 1 can think, however, of no phrase more suitable to the film's power. In both fiame and "imer" story, Caligari seeks to control, to absorb. What he cannot contml, he will destroy. Contrary to Robert Wiene's intention, the fiame has not stabilised the story. hstead, it has created another narrative level on which the war of consciousness is waged.

Like Francis, the consciousness wars with its forbidden impulses and seeks to locate them in a source outside of itself. The mystery leads to an unsuspected source: it is the respected institutions of society that spoif hurnan relations and seek to enslave humanity. Caligari, like the statue of Bismark in the anecdote, is successfbl because he is a mesmerist who se& to control on the deepest level, that of the unconscious mind. In the world of the film, there is no waking up fiorn this drearn. Its action describes the act of repression itself. one that tums oppression into kindness. The film is not, however, the endorsement of passivity, as

Kracauer suggests. Whatever the director Wiene wished, the actuai film challenges the w accepted boundaries of the self and the institution; it does not present submission to the

202 institution in a positive light. The film is not a paean to authority; it rather portrays an unsufcessfùl attempt on the part of its protagonist to evdc king psychicaily colonised by that authority. Francis' dilemma, Iike that of the protagonist of Janowitz's anecdote, is one of confrontation with the double. At the core of such confrontations is the problem of identification: 1s the enemy within or without? What are the origins and motivations of this enemy? Francis fails to resolve these questions in the film version of Cali~ari.In the original screenplay, he succeeds because he recognises the true nature of Caligari. In the fiim,

Francis fails because he never recognises his own complicity with the motives of Caligari and never recognises his own kinship with Cesare. He reacts with fear and hatred towards the somnambulist. If'he could recognise his kinship with Cesare, they might both be saved.

Remembering that other manmade monster, created by Frankenstein, who wanted nothing as much as he wanted companionship, one can argue that it is the impulse to flee the monstrous that creates the monster. As soon as Jane sees Cesare, she recoils in horror. Francis has previously experienced a similar reaction at the fakground. The importance of Cesare within the film's structure is demonstrated through the integrity of the somnambulist's identity.

Unlike Jane, her father, and Caligari himself, he appears as vimially the same entity in both

"fiame? and "inner story". The wakingkure of the somnambulist is a symbul for the waûing of al1 of Caligari's victims. The recognition of Cesare's true imponance is repressed, --. suggested only by his name."

Films do not reflect the popular consciousness in a clearly legibie fashion. Indeed, whether it is appropriate to speak at al1 of a popular consciousness is dubious in the extreme.

Cabinet of Dr. Cali~ariis, however, a fascinating exampl e of how a collaborative venture can exceeâ the sum total of its parts. A true "prclude to the absurd, Cali~ari'sworld is one of

203 the circus finhouse where the exit has not been clearly marked- The traces of Janowitz's guilt-ridden narrative of the double, Mayer's recorded hatrd of psychiatric institutions, the need to economise on the sets and Wiene's attempt to rcasswe the audience combine to create a film that succds in discrediting al1 atternpts at Mly explaining it. Possible constructions of its meaning collapse in on themselves; attmipts to fûlly discredit it fhil. The enemy, Cdigari, is, at the same time, both inside and outside of the spectator and the film, impossible to loute. Calinin's haunting power resides in its ability to portray a fhgmcntcd consciousness. It does not do so by placing the film's action entirely within Francis' mind; instead, it invites the spectator to enter Cdiaari's fùnhouse world of mimors. The unstable e narrative, the use of doubling, and the sense of shallowness and entrapment created by its sets, ait contribute to disorient and oppress the spectator's rationaf participation. It is no wonder that, althougb the film is considered to be one of the most important in cinema history, critical reaction to it is often negative. In The Cabinet of Dr. Caliaari' s world, characters appear as fragments of an alien and unidentifiable consciousness. As such, the film represents the apocalyptic grotesque a! its most pessimistic. There is no relief fiom this world, either fiom the intrusion of de& as is suggested by The Student of Prame or fiom an action of true sacrifice, fùlly reaiised in Murnau's Nosferatu. i Both Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt were actors in Reinhardt's company.

ü As Elsaesser huugud 'fi-aming' devices are one of the important characteristics of the Weimar cinema. Arguably, the frame is characteristically uscd in these films as a destabilising device. iii Cesare's name, meuiing Caesar, is suitable for an authority figure. This tanulising irony, like so much of the film, is never explained. Indeed, little information is provideci about any of the characters' personal histones. Cbapter Seven

Nosferatu: the Repressed Dcrith and the Avcaging Sbadow

Murnau's Nosferaîu. Sym~honvof Horror (1922) is ~tillhded as one of the grcatest, if not the greatesî, vampire films of al1 tirne. Popular critical consensus is that the saccharine central romance and once innovative spesial effects date the film. On the positive side, most concede that the vampire, as played by Max Schreck, retains his power to homfy; most praise the eerie beauty of the shot compositions. Although there is agreement on the film's importance, there is considerable divergence on the proper interpretation of Nosferatu. nie film has been variously interpreted as an allegory for a nation's passive aquiescence to a dangerous type of dictator (Kracauer), a story of the dangers of repressed oral eroticism

(Mayne), a syrnptom of Murnau's closeted homosexuality (Elsaesser) and a description of the consequences of the repression of social and individual death (Perez). Although al1 of the aforementioned articles have geat merit, Perez, to my rnind, presents the mon convincing interpretation. In my belief, Nosferatu represents the pinnacle of the grotesque aesthetic in

German Expressionist film. The apocalyptic features of this aesthetic, discussed in the preceding chapters, are synthesised to create a film of extraordinary power and continuing relevance. The destabilisation of linear time and ordinary space, the appearance of rnonsters and doubles, the presence of violence, sacrifice and mysterious signs and, tinally, the depiction of femininity are woven together to create an unforgettable vision of a worid coming to an end, approached by inhuman forces. This grotesque collision can be negotiated only by an extraordinary action, one that does not resemble any ordinary social and economic transaction. The screen history of the vampire genre could be described as one thaî traces the way that violent death and possession are imagined by the cinema and surrounding culture. The grotesque depiction of death in the German art that charactcrised the pcriod during and directly aAa the First World War can be regardcd as the clash of thnt confiicting ideas of mortality. Fust of these is the allegorical view of death that finds its expression in the memento mari, in which the depiction of the corpse can be rdas a sign for the perishble, transitory nature of al1 earthl y things. The second of these is the romantic desth. The romantic death is conceiveû as an individuai experience, at once violent and revelatory. It no longer participates in the social and the collective. Third is the positivist view of death.

Initiated in the nineteenth century, this view imagines death as a fiontier that can be conquered by science and technology.' The inevitable failure of this positivist version of death found concrete expression in the technologized horrors of the First World War. This third version of death, and the spectre of its failure, is reminiscent of Foucault's formula: because the norm has triumphed over the law as the guiding principle of human life, life is viewed as the norm and death as abnormal, an aberration. Technology, initially conceived as death's conqueror, becomes in modem warfare its factory; the mass produced de& is at once painfull y isolated and fearfùll y cornmon, death reduced to the level of the species.

The 1922 Nosferatu is still striking today because of the manner in which the movie

(ostensibly, a version of Bram Stoker's Dracula and the object of a famous lawsuit) avoids many of the now wom tmisms of the vampire genre. The vampire's powers and limits are popularly known: the vampire casts no shadow or refiection, has an aversion to garlic, holy wafers, crucifixes and Christianity in general, has a fondness for blwd, and converts others

(especially those it desires) into vampires. The vampire can also control rots, bats, and wolves; it sometimes has the power to assume gaseous form. It sletps during the daylight

hours in a conin filled with the earth of graveyards. It has great physical strength, uiuiahual

youth and vigour and often mixes weii in social circumptances. It can oniy be killed by 8

stake through its hean, followed by decapitation and sometimes immolation. Count

amrding to these criteria, an unconventional vampire. His reactions to garlic and Christian

iconography are not known. He casts both shadow and reflection. His relationship with rats

seerns more allegorical thon gubemorial in the film. He tums nobdy else into a vampire;

arguably, the film nevet shows him killing anyone. It is inconceivable that anyone would

mistake him for an ordinary human being. He is traditional in his sleeping habits, his thirst

for blood, his earth-filled cofins and his monstrous strength. Thus, Nosferatu might seem

iconoclastie to the vampire cognoscenti of today; yet the film suggests an earlier, little understood folkloric and historical tradition of vampirism.

The Persecutcd Dead

Paul Barber, in his study Vampires. Burial and Death: Fiction and Resrlity describes an amazing social phenornenon that took place in Europe dunng the eighteenth century. At this time, overfapping with the end of the witch trials that were still taking place in both easteni and western Europe, a mania for the discovery and destruction of vampires erupted, flourished and died in eastem Europe. Vimially any sudden death, especially one of a young person, was Iikely to be thought the work of a vampire. Often one individual was suspected: someone who had died recently, usually someone who had died alone, unattended and unshriven. The candidates were then dug up fiom their graves. Ifthe corpse were not sufficiently well decayed, it was deduced that this creature was likely among the ranks of the undead. The swollen appearance of the daver, which is common to almost al1 corpses

208 during a phase of their decomposition, was proof that the dad person wugorged with blood. Sometimes wmmunities would even disinter al1 the cadavers in a given cemctery in their zeal for destroying the threat posed by the dead. The parallels between the vampire craze and the witch trials are obvious, but the persecution of the dead seems to present in sociologicai terrns an anomaly in the history of scapegoating. Scapegoating is gencrally considered to fùnction as an agent of social cleansing getting rid of unpopular or tainted persons who conveniently stand in for al1 the evils of society. Paradigrnatic instances include the aforementioned persecution of witches and that of the Jewish population by the National

Socialists. The vampire mania differed fiom these in that it was, in essence, the persecution of the already dead. What could such an action achieve? And how can a society rid itself of the dead?

In its naive way, this eighteenth-century pogrom against the dead prefigures a shifl in most of the western world's attitude towards death. The occIusion of death and the extradition of the dead from the social and psychic realms are arguably considered two of the most determinant factors of the contemporary age. As early as 1955, social theorist Edmund Gorer identified a disturbing shi ft in personal and communal patterns of mourning and burial.

Gorer called the new attitudes "the pomography of death" and argued that death had taken over the position that sex held for Victorian Europe: the term that must be repressed and strictly regulated, the 'other' that poses an omnipresent threat to the community. Gorer and other social theonsts have show that death has corne to be regarded as sex was formerly, as both something that must be hidden fiom children and something which provokes disgusting and disruptive passions which must be cancealed hmone's fellow community mernbers and even one's family Iovers and fiiends as something weak and shamehl. Gorer famously

209 compareci contemporary attitudes towards tears and the outward show of mouming to previous Victorian concems about masturbation. If one has to do it, have the decency to keep it out of sight and refrrin as much as possible, as the action indicates moral and physid decay. In Svrnbolic Exchanne and Death (I973), Jean Baudrillard claimed that the exclusion of the dead fiom the contemporary world was the key rupture on which the political econorny, what he would later term the society of the simulacra, is based. Baudrillard argued that the position given to libidinal repression and the Oedipus cornplex in modem theory is, at best, a misunderstanding and, at worst a sham. a diversion fkom the real culprit. "It is not the repression of unconscious pulsions libido or whatever other energy that is fundamental, and it is not anthropologicd; it is the repression of death in the sense that this is what facilitates the shift towards the repressive socialisation of life" (145). Baudrillard expands on this idea with custornary fervour:

Our whole culture is just one huge effort to dissociate life and death, to ward off the ambivalence of death in the interests of life as value. and time as the general equivaient. The elimination of death is our phantasm, and ramifies in every direction: for religion, the aflerlife and immortality; for science, tnith; and for economics, productivity and accumulation. (147)

Baudrillard argues that through the expulsion of death, apparently a histoncal moment which took place in Europe at the time ofthe so-called Enlightenment (presumably infecting the rest of the world afier that), the psychic apparatus of the explicitly western, implicitly male subject came into being, including the division between the conscious and unconscious minds. It follows that the unconscious becomes the place fiom whence we hear the cal1 of the banished dead. Because it is repressed, unconscious, the caH, in itself salutary, is experienced as violent and erotial l y charged. Baudrillard repeatedly compares the modem fascination with car accidents as a violent. u~atural.technological and. therefore, acceptable death with the contemporary horror of the inevitability of death "from old age'' which is pathologized and wnfined to a hospital. This social analysis is in line with the earlier analyses by Gorer, Kübler-Ross and others. Because death is repressed, it is logical for

Baudrillard that its psychic and supernaturd manifestations have become so vicious.

Baudil lard cites Nietzsche:

It is at this point that the primitive thought of the double comes to the fore as the subjea's discontinuity in death and madness... a vengehl and vampiric double... it is a murdcrous shadow, the image of al1 the rejected and forgotten dadwho, as is quite normal, never accept being nothing in the eyes of the living. (1 50)

This quotation provides a suitable image for re-exarnining the meaning of vampires, and then turning to the particuiar case of Murnau's Nosferatu and its three deaths.

A vampire is created, in a sense. when a burial fai 1s. As Barber points out, in order to understand the folkiore and history of the vampire. one must understand that the boundary between life and death was regarded as provisional, possessing many intermediate phases-

This transition coincided with the decay of the physical body. Living, fully fleshed body and resting, clean, white bones operate as the two stable poles of human life and death. Both are acceptable, heimlich fonns: one clearly living, the other just as unarguably dead. The emblem of the transition between these two states is the putrefying corpse, considered by most cultures rrnheimlich and dangerous to the living. Most burial rites either seek to preserve the body in an undecomposed state (cryogenics is the ultimate expression of this wish) or they seek to transfomi/purify it into "clean" bones or ashes as soon as possible.

Elizabeth Bronfen and Phillipe Ariès both cite the European tradition of a second buriai as evidence of the importance of successfully managing the transition period: the decomposed corpse is taken fiom its temporary grave after a suitable time (varying greatly depending on soi1 conditions) and the clean, pure bones are transferred to a charnel house. This proctss

demonstrates that most early societies considered the passage between death to be a grey

region rather than a definite boundary. The passage itself is a dangerous time, physically

associated with decomposition and emotionally with the extrcme rnouming of the survivors,

a tirne when the body clings to the earth before its inevitable departure and the moumer

ctings to the memory of the dead. The chief danger in traversing this passage is that, if

proper measures are not taken, the corpse will be neither propcrly alive nor propdy dead;

correspondingly, the danger to the living is that the body wiil be neither honoured and

mourned nor forgotten. The deniailrepression of Ioss and mourning resuits in rnelancholia, a

profound sense of interior absence that cannot be named or resoIved. In such a case, the one who denies is 'haunted', 'vampirized' by what Nietzsche called the vengefiil, unmoumed dead.

According to Barber, the vampire's undecayed corpse usually signified to the society that persecuted them a person who could not be accepted by the earth, one who rehsed to relinquish the body which, as a result, grew richer and fatter than it had been in life. This folkloric vampire was mddy, not pale. Rising fiom the grave it feasted on the living. To the eighteenth-century bel ievers, vampires were associated with unrepentant malappetites.

The greedy sensuality of the revenant was an idea which reached its literary fniition in the eighteenth and nineteenth century with popular epics li ke Varnev the Vam~ire,and more literary, later efforts such as LeFanu's "Carmilla", and Dracula. Twentieth-century interpretations of these vampire narratives have emphasised how the figure of the'vampire embodies the return of repressed, libidinal urges, pre-eminently oral and sadistic in nature

(Silver and Ursini, Mayne). The centrepiece of such erotic vampire narratives is the

212 seduction of a victim, usually female, by the vampire. The subsequent transformation of this

innocent young creature into a sensual, çometimes conscience-stricken prdator is also a

prominent f- of typicai vampire narratives (Draculr "Carmilia", Vam~ireC hroniclep).

The story ends usually. but by no means always, with the graphic death of the vampire. 'Ine

erotic vampire corresponds to what 1 earlier desmibed as romantic death. The vampire is a

powerful individual who chooses the role of the outsider (this status is enhanced usually by

the 'exotic' nationality of the vampire). This flouting of social and divine convention is

enormously seductive to the virtuous world. In many of these stories, notably in the

contemporq Anne Rice novels, the fact that the vampire is undead is incidental, the true

signiticance of vampire status is its sexy transgressiveness, its 'Iifestyle'. It follows logically

that the key event is one of seduction and conversion. A vampire without the power to

seduce others to its way of life is, in this context, not really a vampire at dl. For Donna

Harraway, a vampire is &in to a cyborg, a pene*ly adapted ponmodem species, complae

with liminal identity and a capacity for endless seductions, a son of vampire for the

consumer age. In order for the vampire to be truly grotesque, however, it must represent something more shattering to the known world than repressed sex.

Formal Problems in Nasfentu

Interpretations of Nosferatu that follow this conventional formulation of the vampire as an emb!em of individual transgression and of the vampire narrative as one of the seductive powers of evil pitted against the increasingl y feeble forces of human reason and femaie chastity completely fail, in my opinion, to address the uncanny power of this film. As

Gilberto Peru has pointad out, Nosferatu does not present a 'sexy' vampire. To p funher, 1 would argue that this vampire does not possess anything that can be commonly interpreted as

213 a personality/identity. Like the decaying corpot, the vampire does not "signjfj?'. It belongs and does not belong to both the worlds of the living and the dead. Nosfêraîu's appcaraoce suggests both the animal and the human: its long skeletd hands rwemble delicate sut anemones; its fiont teeth protnide Iike those of a rat; its eycs are huge, lambent and inhuman.

Although he is capable of movement, speech and thought, everything else about him suggests death. The parchment-like skin can not be confiised with fashionable pallor. Movement

(with a couple of notable exceptions to be discussed latcr) is stiff, deliberate and lincar as if he has forgotten that it was ever alive. This vampire, which has been called the most temfying of al1 cinematic vampires. is certainly deeply unsettling; but the reactionit provokes has less to do with the return of repressed erotic urges (although Elsaesser makes a gcmd case for this interpretation) than with the return of the denied dead. There is no film that better elaborates confliding approaches to death, none that better captures the atmosphere of dread and melancholy resulting fkom the denial of death, none that concludes as movingly with an act of pure sacrifice. This is achieved on both the represemtational and narrative leveis of the film.

Many of the shots in Nosferatu do not provide us with diegetic information per se. For example, the revelation of Nosferatu's castle provides us with what looks Iike at least three different castles. When the title card introduces "the land of the phantoms", an image of a clearl y derelict stone structure with one prominent tower appears, phall ic and menacing.

Som afterwards, Jonathon Harker looks up to see a wide, whitewashed tower of a clearly different style with bats fiying around it. The tower almost fills the fiame. It appears to be in good condition, concomitant with what we see of the intenor of the castle, which is clean and well kept, if starkly fiinrished. There is no hint, however, of the stone battlements we see

2 14 once Jonathon is actually inside the wunt's house. At the end of the film, a completely different ruin appears wit h no prominent towas; it is fiamcd si1houetted against the evcning sky, its windows look Iike lifeless eyes. The views of the castle which are shown ail seem

"real"; however, they contradict one another and do not provide the spectator with a consistent sense of "space". The tirst two are possibly show nom Jonathan's point of ne^ as he travels to his rendenous with the Count. The final shot is, however, not fiom any character's point of view. What tiinction do these conflicting castles sene? The fiu'lure to orient the spectator in space is deliberate. The vampire's space is an extension of its being; both are in limbo; both refbse to signify, to resolve into meaning.

Equally disturbing to the spectator is the presence of what 1 cal1 the "wall" in many of the shots fiom Nosferani. The wall is a compositional element that blocks most or ail of the œ spectator's vision. Usually, it extends beyond the limits of the frame fiom leA to right.

Sometimes it is an architectural, sometimes it is a natural, solid wall of mountains or forest, and sometimes it is a walf of misty darkness. When Renfield first shows lonathon the count's prospective new residence, the peaked houses with their "stubby" gables (Eisner praises rhem as naturally grotesque) present a bleak, impenetrable facade, crossing the screen with no interruption, their darkened windows betraying no secrets. One is reminded of the inimitable, malevolent power of inanimate objects, which characterises the grotesque.

Indeed, the film never reveals what the interior of these houses might look li ke. Only the same façade is shown. We do not even see the vampire enter or leave thfough an actual door; instead, it "fades" in or out of the building. When the tom is nnick with the plague, its citizens retreat into their high, narrow houses, shutting the windows tightly against the intruding death. The line of locked houses forms another type of wall; it proves to be an

2 15 ineffective barrier as the people kecp dying in ever-greatcr numbers. The wails that are supposed to protect the people of Bremen secm to trap thcm; the only child we sec in the film is gazing, smiling f?om a window. When plague is announced, the window is shut, the wall complete, The wdl motif occurs again w hen the vampire ship enten the harbour. The shot initial1y shows a sunlit harbour. As the dark ship docks, it enters the frame fiom the right until it gradudy fills the screen, obliterating the view of Bremen harbour. "Natufal" 41s are also associated with the mystery of death and the vampire. The wall phenornenon is notably absent 6rom the beginning of the film which introduccs the young couple, happy in their infantile paradise. In almost every fiame of this section. a window ont0 the garden is visible. When Jonathon Ieaves for the Carpathians, the significance of the joumey is revealed by a sustained panning shot of what Eisner &Ils a grisoillle of stony mountains, partially covered with snow. The most sinister of al1 the types of 'wall ' uscd in the film is the wall of darkness: blocking the spectator's vision as effectively as an architecturai impediment while rousing fears as to what the darkness may contain. When Jonathon becomes the Count's guest, the Count's mie nature is visible not only thmugh his tarifLing appearance and grotesque movement. but also through the way the vampire is shown emerging fiom impenetrable mist and darkness. The most mernorable of these instances occurs when the terrifieci Jonathon opens the door to his room, only to gaze upon the vampire emerging fiom the misty darkness. as if from the void. This scene has a tmly nightmarish quality. The darloiess later invades Bremen. NÏna looks out of her window and secs nothing but darkness divided by an empty windowpane and, against that background, the vampire's chalk white face and hands. Everything else, including Nosferahi's body, is obscurecl by darkness. Mer the undead atrrives. the darbiess seems to have triumphed. The camcra is

2 16 distant fiom the actuaI scene of blood draining. Nina's body forrns a horizontal line on the lower pan of the screen; the vampire's head on the left is white and still, the brightest spot in the fiame. The upper two thirds of the scrm are obscural in darkness. The profound melancholy of this scene is the antithesis to the sensuality of most neck-biting representations. The composition suggests Dürer's ''The Dad christ".' ïhe 'wdl' as a compositional element has two related functions: first, it is, when it is a wail created by living peopIe, the visual embodiment of the cititens of Bremen's fear and denial of death; second, it is, when associated with nature and darkness, an emblem of the mystery of death.

The extensive use of doors and windows as an important compositional element in

Nosferatu complements the network of meanings surrounding the 'wall' eiement. As befits a transitional creature, the vampire is ofien show hmed by either a door or a window, emphasising his status as not belonging to either world- Windows help to define the act of seeing in the film, the decisions the characters make whether to see or not have crucial importance in Nosferatu and the characters are largely defined by their ability to see death and recognise it. Although windows define the act of seting, they also visually suggest a barrier, a division between the seer and the seen. At the beginning of the film, Jonathon is fiee to look. From inside the house. he spies his wife in the garden. From the garden, he sees her sewing in the house. She seems unaware of his, and by implication the camera's and spectator's gaze. She appears to be a typical feminine object. He looks out hmwindows with al1 the fearlessness of the obtuse. At Renfield's office, he sees the old mansion that the vampire will live in. At the inn, he sas fiom his window the disturbed horses and the hyena.

Leaning out of the window of his coach, he sees the phantom landsape moving past with unnatural haste. Later, he opcns the door to his bedroom and sees the approaching vampire.

217 He quickly shuts it, but the door flies open. Now, he is cornpelled to look. Mer the fim recognition, as if under this compulsi~n,he seeks out the crypt and, sure enough, finds his host lying in a manfilled with earth. This homfjhg vision provides the final, traumatising instance. He is never able to look again. When Nina gesturts to the window, teiling him how the sight of the vampire haunts her every night, he throws himself down on the bai, hiding his face in his hands, unable to look. His refusal to look is a rejection of the knowledge of what Caîe htsthe town. At this moment of the film he is like the citkens of

Bremen who retreat back into their hours, and shut their windows. hoping to chat the plague. By isolating themselves fiom both each other and the cause of their misfortune, they seem only to bring death closer to them, abandoning the town to the vampire. Westenra and

Lucy, the bourgeois couple that doubles Harker and Nina, are typical in this respect. To protect they urge her to corne indoors and lie down: the first time occurs when she has her somnambulistic episode on the balcony; the second time, when she sits on the beach besides the tombstones. Jonathon seemed to be the only character who was able to look at the beginning of the film. although his look was underrnined by his inability to interpret what he saw. In the latter portion of the film, the only human character who has the strength to see is Nina, and she does not misinterpret what she sees. Again, the window has a crucial role to play in defining this look. At the beginning ofthe film, Nina is spied on through windows by

Jonathon. 'Ihroughout the next section of the film, during lonathon's trip to the Carpathianç her look transcends not only the limiting fiame of windows but dso the normal limitations of space. In her trance, she is able to see that Jonathon is in danger. Her psychic power both prevents Nosferatu fkom attacking Jonathon and alerts the vampire to her presence. After this incident, she 'cmbe seen' among the dunes, sitting stiii as a statue, waiting for 'his'

2 18 retum-the ddibaately ambiguous title could refer to either Jonathon or Nosferatu. Afta

Jonathon's rctwn, Nina is again confined indoors, her look rcstricted to the divided hcsof windows. Uniike hahusband, however, Nina is still able to look out. She sees Born her high window the line of men bearing coffins progressing slow1y towards her through the otheNvise empty town. It is this vision that seerns to fix her resolve to corne to the rescue of the town. She tries to get Jonathon to join her when she tells him that every night she sas the vampire through the window; however, hc is only able to hidc his head. The climactic event in the film is the opening of the window. Nina is able to overcome her fear of

Nosferatu who, as usual, appears across the Street. Her action of throwing open the window invites him into her home. Nosferatu accepts the invitation. The darkness having entered the house, no longer shut out or ignored, the window now lets in the brightening day. The window shows sunlight quickly falling on the housetops. When the delicate light strikes the vampire, he staggers, and then evaporates into the moming light. The window, both figuratively and literally, defines the characters according to their ability to face the tnith, in this case, the death that is stalking the tom. The window usually reveals dark, temeing realities in the film. Once the window is open, however, and the darkness is let inside, the window finally lets in Iight. Again, one sees how the division &om death, in this case the divided, often prison-like windowpane, helps to create the horror rather than alleviate it.

Shutting the windows, as is seen in the case of the townspeople, does not protect anyone fiom death; indeed, it makes death more powefii because it acts unseen and unacknowiedged. The use of space in Nosferatu is exemplary as it suggests both the impending dissolution of al1 known boundaries and the nitility of human attempts to prcvent this dissolution. Typically grotesque. the movie is organised spatiaily and not temporally.

219 The film's relative lack of suspense is evidence of this. Anxiety as to when something

dreadful will happen is replaceci by the fiof what we will sec when the door opay or

when the light shines in the dark areas.

Another striking motif in Nosferatu is the appearance and behaviour of its animals.

Animals are a vaditional part of the supernatural iconography. The fictionavcinematic

vampire usually has an attendant host of unusually disciplined bats, rats and wolves: 'The

creatures of the night, what music they mske' says the Count Dracula of popular imagination.

Although the use of animals is traditional. the manner in which Nosferatu presents them to us

is not. A title card, a quotation corn 'The Book of the Vampires', informs us that animais

are more sensitive than humans to the presence of the supematural; however, the film's

visual presentation seems to indicate that the horses are really running tiom the hyena,

supposedly a natural predator. (Alt hough the Carpathian Mountains are a highl y unnrturai

location for a hyena.) The suggestion is that the predatory hyena is somehow allied with the

supernahirai. The problem of the vampire's relationship to the natural world is also

mggested by the curious designation of the Venus flytrap and the carnivorous polyp by the

Professor as "natural" vampires. Why are these particular creatures so designated? 1s every

predator configureci as a son of vampire by the film? The flytrap and the polyp ore members

of species that we do not usually designate as king capable of predatory action. in this way,

they are a kind of "monstef'; they should not be able to prey on living creature (one is a

plant, one is a transparent creature) but they do. Therefore, the spectacle of their feeding produces an uncanny sensation not present when one watches, for exampie, a bear eating a salmon. The presentation of these creatures is in no way neeessuy to the story of the film; in this respect, it is Iike the wnflicting shots of the cade. The animals, although they play no

220 active role in the film's events. do contribute to an allegorical dimension. Obviously, the

polyp and flytrap, and possibly the hyena and the rats are intended to be read as an example of vampinsm; however, this association nises more questions than it solves. If the vampire is a nanid force like these animals, why should it be regarded with feu? Or if nature itself is varnpiric, impcnetnble and sinister, should aII natural phenornena be regarded with far?

The sense of the Professor's lecture is not clear. However, answers to this dilemma may be suggested by the confiicting attitudes to death outlined earlier. Hurnankind's radical dienation fiom nature and hmthe cycle of life and death, have forced the occultation and fear of nature. This in tum leads to the twin actions of domestication and denial. Either the alien force can be tumed into an explicable and usefùl object, like the horses that pull the carriage or it can be repressed and denied. Does the Professor impl y that the Polyp threatens the supremacy of humankind? 1s he waming his students? No firrn conclusions can be reached; however, the film undemines the professor's authority; he is cornpletely powerless .. . to identie the vampire. let only to fight it.'" In a similar fashion, the association bctwecn the vampire and the rats cannot be clearly deftned: Nosferatu cannot be seen definitely leading the rats. The rats play no explicit role in the action of the narrative; however, they do serve to extend the metaphor of what the vampire's powers are. Rats are well known carriers of plague; therefore, they can signie a "natural" death. albeit a horrible one. This seems initial1y to be opposed to the supematural threat that the vampire poses. The ship-loading scene in which one of the sailors is bitten on the foot by a rat provides an almost cornic effect-he hops around on one foot while the other sailors laugh at him. This bief joailar episode, however, could be seen in another. more sinister light. if these are, indeai, plaguc rats. This sccne is also significant because it is the only one in which non-domesticated

22 1 animais share the hewith human characters. Note the contrast with the shots of domestic

animals. These include the shot of Nina with kittens at the beginning of the film, and the

many shots of horse-driven carriages. In al1 other scenes, animals are kept discrete fiom

human life. Although, the reason for this may part1 y be the difficulty of shooting scenes

where actors share space wit h bats, hyenas, and carnivorous polyps, nevertheless, the

separation of the animal kingdom gives it a specid statu within the film's diegesis. The

hyena, the polyp, and the Venus flytrap are ail treated as a sort of "atuaciion", a spectacle.

Unnecessary to the story's progression, they act as a point of excess, not completely resolved

by either the Professor's scientific discourse or the moralising, historical narrative of the

film. In this manner, Nosferatu iterates the separation between the civilised and natural

world suggested earlier. 'the separation describes the alienation of the human world fiom the

natural one. The animals are not, in essence, strange or supematural; however, they appear

so because of their estrangement from the human world. "Almost a phantom" the Professor

deems the polyp; however, it is his own attitude that has transformed a creature as natural as

himself (if not more so) into a grotesque transgression. Al1 that can not be explained by

science or used by civilisation is banished to the realm of spectacle, of attraction and threat.

Nosferatu shows the natural world derealized at the hands, and in the eyes, of man. This

interpretation may shed new light on the role of the trick photography used in the film, which

some critics have found gratuitous and jarring. The choice of using the negative to show an inverted forest of white trar and black sky and the use of stop-motion photography demonstrate an inversion or disruption of the natural world; they prepare the viewer for the revelation of the ambiguous nature of the vampire's castle and of the vampire itself They may also suggest that the cinematic apparatus itxlf is allied with the forces of the monstrous,

as was argued with regard to The Student of Prame.

As Perez hapointcd out, the film provides no evidence for the assumption that the

vampire, and not the rats, is the agent of the plague. We ody see the vampire advance upon

those who are aware of it and temfied of it. Jonathon Harker, that scoffer at superstition (he

does not even recognise that there is something manifestly peculiar about his employer

Renfield), is convulsed with fm of his host. The young sailor, lying in his hammock is

already sick when the deathly vision of the vampire materialises. The ship's mate, trying to

confiont and kll his fear, ends up fleeing in terror from the apparition and leaping to his

death. The captain of the Derneter, determineci to finish his job in spite of the mysterious

deaths, dies tied to the helm, his expression fixed and ghastly. The vampire never appears to

more than one person at a time, as if obeying the axiom that everycrne must face death alone.

There are no discussions of the vampire; there is no co-operative effort to stop the vampire (a

feature of most vampire fictions). At Bremen, the vampire appears to Nina and to no one

else. Renfield is conscious of the ' master', although he never actuall y sees him. Nor does

Nosferatu ever use his follower: apparently, the vampire is uninterested in madmen. The

vampire, like his castle, is never entirely a 'real' entity within the film's diegesis. Unlikc the

natural world, which is derealized through denial and estrangement, through the perception

of the human world, the vampire, a supematural being who is impossibly both dead and alive, becomes real through the same process of denial. The Carpathian villagers fear the vampire; however, they are able to coexist with it in their midst. As ominous as the

Carpathian landscape is, while in this temtory, the vampire does not actually kill. While in this region, Jonathon, the great denier of the supematural, is the only chimcter who is

223 threatened, who seems powerless before the vampire's attack. Once out of this environment, the vampire kills invisibly and with extraordinary speed. The procession ofcoffins implies that the mysterîous plague associated with Nosferatu may wipe out the population of Brcrncn as it did that on board the ship. Seen in its relationship to the natural worid, the vampire can be understood as both its shadow and its revenge. As is typical of the apocalyptic grotesque, the natural world in Nosferatu is filled with strange portents. Creatures so sdlas to be invisible to the human eye are al1 cotlaborating in our destruction.

As with both The Student of Prame, and especially The Cabinet of Dr. Cali~ari,the narration of Nosferatu creates doubts in the minds of the spectator rather than resolving them.

The film's narrator Johannes Cavallius is ostensibly a historian of Bremen who is relating the extraordinary facts he has uncovered as to the ongin of the mysterious plague. This sort of narrative voice of reason is standard for horror stones. Rational and sceptical narrators give a semblance of pater credibility to fantastic events than sensitive or susceptible ones.

There is no possibility that, Caligari-like, the events cm be interpreted as happening inside the brain of a dernented individual, say Renfield. However, the historian's narration is wholly inadquate in its description of the tilm's events; it is demonstrably wrong when it describes Jonathon as hearing Nina's psychic waming. It is Nosferatu who Iifts his head at her cry; there is no change in Jonathon's behaviour. ûther narrative agents include the

Professor who explains "natural" vampires at the midpoint of the fiim; he is ineffectuai throughout the rest of the film and as stated previously, has a greatly diminished role than he played in Stoker:s novel. 'The Book of the Vampires' is the most reliable source of information; Jonathon ignores it at his own peril; Nina finds the key to the destruction of

Nosferatu within its pages. Interesti ngl y, the book represents forbidden information, as

224 Jonathon dasnot want his wife to know of the threat to the town lest she sacrifice herself

The book is a gift from the Carpathian villagen. The logbook of the Demeter is another source of writtm information that provides dues as to the supcmatural character of the plague; howeva, the Captain refirses to Iisten or accept the fears of his dorsand so the logbook f~lsto identifjrthe source of the plague. Among this plethon of sources for written titles, then is no prevailing narrative voice, despite the fictional 'hidorical' source of the film. The film's visual tevel both exceeds and occasionaliy conuadicts the titles. The film's intertitles, its scripted narration, is primarily on the side of reason, of the positivistic approach that believes that al1 phenornena can be explained by expert discourse. This approach is demonstrated by the film as being both inadequate and destructive. Inadequate in that it denies the essential mystery; destructive in that it either persecutes or ignores what it can't explain (like the townspeople who chase Renfield in an angry mob), and in so doing brings destruction down upon its own head. As is the case with the two other Expressionist films studied, the formal level of this film rejects any closed readings, and with them any notion of fixed reality and progress. The film is situated in an end-tirne, a time of rupture and renewal, when inhabitants ignore the approaching apocalypse at their own peril.

Nina and Nosferatu: Femiainity and the Undead

The figure of the vampire has received by far the most critical attention of al1 the aspects of the film. Analyses of Nosferatu oAen focus exclusively on the vampire: as the agent of death, as that of repressed sexuality and as that of a repressed wish for tyranny. This emphasis is understandable because the vampire is the catalyst for the grotesque: Nosferatu defamilarizes each world he enters. Lately, however, critical interest has expanded to include

225 the figure of Nina, and, in particular. her relationshi p with the vampire. At the beginning,

Nina represcnts almost a caricature of the sentimentalised ferninine: sensitive, intuitive, fainting, and thinking only of the welfme of others and not her own. As a wuple, Nina and

Jonathon uefPintly absurd, a caricature of Wilhelmine sexual repression. At the beginning of the film, the pair is assaciated with flowers and kittens. Jonathon, in particular, is portrayed as being extremely childlike in the way he bounces giddily laughing around the house, playing childish tricks on his more sombre wife. He is wilfully naive whcn confronted with his obviously sinister employer, who tells him that the next real estate deal will cost him :pain and a little blood." At the inn in the Carpathians he bangs his spoon on the table, loudly demanding dinner so he can reach the castle by night. He iaughs nidely at- what he believes to be-the superstitious beliefs of his hosts. In contrast to her husband, Nina is pensive and rarely smiles, never laughing. Her long pale face, huge eyes and androgynous, emaciated body suggest the traditional iconography of melancholy. Her body type, as

Elsaesser points out, also suggests that of the vampire, particularly when wmpared with the squat Renfield, the plump, robust figure of Jonathon, and the solidly built, square-fad townspeople. Moreover, Nina's affinity with the undead does not end with her appearance.

She shares with Nosferatu a heightened level of awareness. Before Jonathon Ieaves, she has premonitions of evil; one can read the sense of foreboding on her face. She and the vampire are able to sense one another across the gulf of space. As mentioned previously. it is clearly

Nosferatu who hurs her dl, not Jonathon. Like the vampire, she occupies a position of ontological ambivalence within the film. Her sleepwalking suggests this: it is an uncanny nate lesser than yet Pldn to being undead. Ha hybrid nature is also demonstrated by ha choice of settings, the seashore and the cemetery. She is show sitting, her back facing the

226 camera, gazing out to the pale sea, at home with the delicate, ieaning crosses. Like the

vampire, shc is characterised by stillness. For a signifiant portion of the film, shc is aslecp or in a trance; her psychic power is at its height white she is in this state. if Jonathon, the

Professor, the Narrator and the tom of Bremen al1 represent the positivist attitude towards death, and the Vampire signifies its terrieing consequence, Nina suggests the re-erncrgence of another possibility, a reconfiguration of the romantic death.

III Over Her Dead Bodv: Death Femininitv and the Aesthctic, Elizabeth Bronfen argues that the Romantic penod developed a trope of feminine death to suit its cultural agenda.

Death was no longer either the indifferent grim reaper, the great leveller of al1 social categories which it had been to the medieval world or the superlative moment of individual value, the summation and vanishing point of one life's accomplishments that it had been to the enlightenrnent. Although these attitudes, no doubt, persisted to a lesser degree, the ncw death was, specifically, the death of the woman. Here, the narrative at stake was the familiar dualism of tnumphant spirit and fiail, corrupt flesh. The immortal triumph of the

(masculine) spirit was dependent on the sacrifice of its ties to al1 that is associated with the body and its desires (represented by the feminine body). The romantic victory was achieved by the transformation of an actual female corpse into a purified text that would take its place-

-Bronfen7scentral thesis. The unruly desires of the flesh would be conveniently purified and satisfied at the same time and the threat of both death and femininity would be warded off in one feli stroke. In art and literature, feminine death was show both as a self-conscious sacrifice and as an example. Edgar Allan Poe wmte in "The Philosophy of Composition":

"the deat h of a beautifil woman is unquestionabi y the most poetical topic in the wodâ"

(1 76). Rousseau's Julie sacrifices herself to ensure that both the ties of kinship are continued

227 and so to achieve nunion with her lover in a manner that does not blemish ha Waie.

According to this trope, feminine sel~sacrificeis the ultimate-and perhaps the only-aeative action of which a woman is capable. Bronfen's thesis is a persuasive one and it addresses not only the obvious victimisation of the feminine inherent to this narrative, but also the ambiguous power conferreci by it. If syrnbolically femininity is coupied with death, it is logical that the female subject inhabits an impossible identity, akin to that of the undead.

Lacan associated the feminine, specifially the matemal, with the Imaginary, that is to say the unspeakable and abject outside the boundaries of masculine discourse. With this grotesque association, the feminine can not be definitely classified either as dead or dive.

Not being classified, however, can be a tremendous advantage as the female figure can transgress forbidden boundaries as the resuit of her dual nature. Unlike the other figures in the film, Nina is capable of action. The other citizens are incapacitated by their own denial.

The vampire is the shadow of the world's terror, incapable of true agency. Renfield tm is the grotesque double of the vampire, the perverted mirror of the professor's science with no more agency than a polyp. Only Nina is able to chwse her fate and change her environment.

The opening of the window is the only true action in the film.

Conclusion

Nina's action is a challenge to her society's denial of death. Her death is sacrificial and symbolic, a festive death. It is romantic in that it is an individual transfiguration; however, its aim is social. Hers is the kind of death nostalgically describeci by Baudrillard as tkt proper to "savages." It is both symbolic action and gift fieely given. Through her action,

Nina achieves a cessation fiom the splitting of life and death and a triumph over both the modem "reality" principle and the idea of achieving immonality, for the only immorulity the

228 tiim suggesu is one that is parasitic and violent." Nosferatu depicts a world in which dath and the dead by being cast out have infected the whole world. Nina's femininity and her rornantic knowledge and recognition of death enable her to triumph over this world. The temfjkg spectre dissipates into the moming air. The plague ends, according to the intertitle.

Nina's sacrifice cancels out the power of Nosferatu. Is the world of Bremen worthy of her sacrifice? There is no ending beyond the disappearance of the woman and the vampire. The extraordinary rupture of the enclosed and feartiil worid has ended, yet the world itself has not changed. The town may have lemed nothing fiom the mass death it has experienced. In this sense, the threat of the vampire evokes the mechanised, mass destruction of modern warfare, the pnce of a civilisation's estrangement fiom the value of life and death. Nosfttatu is an extraordinary cinematic articulation of conflicting visions of death. As the repression of death in society endures and even strengthens, its grotesque power is undiminished. - - i Elizabeth Bronfên writes in Over Her Dead Body: Death. Femininity and the Aestheti~about the tum of the century imperative to stabilise the mystery of death. The scientific discourse developed at this tirne posits the corpse as king the result of a specific, definable and potentially curable pathology. According to this view, death is a son of medical failure; its solution presents the ultimate challenge for science. ii As Eisner points out in her study on Murnau, the film director was educated as an art historian. Thus, such homuges are exceedingly probable. iii The presentation of science is one of the most stri king differences between Dracula and Murnau's film. In Dracula, the combined forces of science and shorthand repel the threat of the vampire. The patriarchal wisdom of Professor Van fielsing makes him the first character to identie and combat the threat. In Nosferatu, the Pmfessor does nothing to help the town. The psychiatnc institution is also unable to help or understand Renfield. The character of Renfield fundons in the film as a mockery of science. He escapes giggling and m~ingover rodops, pursued by a mob of angry townspeople who have no known justification for their rage. Ah, the guards of the asylum are portrayed in a two-shot as looking more imbecilic than the patient. iv Baudrillard argues that the idea of immortality is always in the service of the political economy and its segregation of the dead: "The concept of immortality grew afongside the segregation of the dead. For the reverse side of death, this eminent status which is the mark of the "soui" and "superior" spiritualities, is only a story that conceals the real extradition of the dead and the mpturing ofa symbolic exchange with them. When the dead are there, lifelike [vivants] but dinerent fkom the living [vivants] whom they pa

Conclusion

When 1 began to study Exprcssionist film and drama, 1 hopcd to study the cummodity between the evidence for grotesque pdcein both media. 1 had little doubt thai the simi larity between the two existed; 1 was more concernai wit h the precise form of the shared aesthetic of the German Expressionist movement . These prcconceived ambitions began to vanish when 1 moved fiom investigating Expressionist theatre to the 'fantastic' films of this period, which arguably should not even be labeiled Expressionist. This new realisation provoked fûrther questions: 1s the difference in the grotesque expression of the two media simply the inevitable result of the different formal and technical demands of theatre and film?

1s there a fiirther cultural significance to the change in grotesque practice as 'Expressionist' elements are reinvented in cinema? The first question inbites tniisms rcgarding the difference between theatre and film. ïheatre-lovers may argue that theatre is superior because it is evanescent live performance and, as such, provides its audience with an experience outside the conventional, wage-earner/consumer life of paid drudgery and private pleasures. By contrasa. film is a 'dead' medium, which does not provide its audience with a true communal experience. Film-lovers may argue that theatre is an elitist art form and that film, as a manifestation of popular culture, is closer to the desires of the people, untainted by the influence of stuffl, high culture. Theatre on the other hand is the ultimate example, of a moribund art forrn, shuffling, dinosaur-like to extinction. Both of these views are oversimplifications, albeit seductive ones, as they contain a kernel of truth. Mattmth these statements may hold for the modem age, however, do not hold for the historical pcrïod in

Germany associated with the Expressionist movement. Popular and political theam

23 1 organisations Iikc the 'Workcr's Theatre' in Berlin de@ the clitist charge against theatre;

UFA's film productions, such as Murnau's Faust and Tartuffe. cunsciously aimcd at an international, 'high-brow' market resist critical interpretation as popular culture artcfkts.

Thus, for this paniailar cultural instance, gendisations about theatre or film as a 'purer' ut form are out of the question.

It is tempting to leave out the question of cultural influence altogether, although it has played such a crucial role in the criticisrn of both Expressionist film and drama- Attempts to position either Expressionist theatre or film as a direct reflection of a historically spccific crisis in subjectivity, among the first and most influential being Sokel' s investigation of theatre and Kracauer's writing on film, are riddled with problems. These theones have recently, especially in the case of Kracauer, corne under much criticism. Reading artistic production as an unproblematic manifestation of cultural consciousness at once simplifies both the nature of astistic production and the definition of culture. Yeî, despite this qualification, cultural and psychological interpretations of this period in art remain by far the most influential in the critical literature. To understand why, one need only to look at the alternative, which is to look at the artistic productions of Expressionism in a timeless vacuum, excluding any evidence of cultural context as irrelevant. To ignore completely the comection of art with the culture that creates and receives it is a more dangerous oversimplification than that of overestimating this connection. This critical impasse is reminiscent of one discussed earlier, the division between what 1 cal led 'psychological ' and

'sociological' definitions of the grotesque. To resolve this impasse, 1 argued, using the work of Lacan, that the connedion between social and psychological is one made at the deepest level of the human psyche. From this connection, it follows that the grotesque is evidcnce of

232 a disruption that is both psychic and social, that whether it is perceived as positive or

negative depends wmpletely on the attitude of the one who perceives the grotesque towuds

the boundary thaî is king violated. Close atîention to the boundaries that are violated by

grotesque practice may then describe the sites of cultural anxiety. In this sense, 1 agrce with

the critically asJDiled Kracauer, although 1 disagree with him on his interpretation of this

connection, especially with regard to specific films. Dramaîists such as Sîramm, Kokoschka

and Barlach dmloped, before the Fira World War, a grotesque dnmaturgy that attanptd to

express mystical experience in the language of the stage. l'heu brand of 'Expressionist'

theatre had largely disappeared by the mid- 1920s. The Blue Boll and Orpheus and Euvdicç

are among the latest expressions of this aesthetic by their writers. Certainly the literary

rnovement designated 'Expressionist' was moribund in Germany by this tirne. The more

obviousl y politicall y engaged theatre of Brecht and Piscator--the NeuesuchichRkir ('New

Objectivity') movement-was gaining ascendancy. The use of grotesque effects wap still richly in evidence in the more recent movement; it was now, however, chiefly in the hamess of satire. As a result of this ascendance, German criticism, such as Sandig's, uses the word

'grotesque' chiefly to describe such satirical and 'black comedy' effects. By the time dramatists and writers were abandoning the Expressionist movement, Geman film was in the early stages of implementing the grotesque effects of the Expressionist movement into its cinema.

Despite al1 these differences and difficuIties. there was always something left over, a commonality between these Expressionist works. What had been missing fkorn previous criticisms of Expressionist film and drama was a specific analysis of how grotesque motifs intersecteci with saaed ones. By closely examining some of the key works, 1 came to the

233 conclusion that the sacred defined and shaptd the examples of Expressionist film and drama I

had selected. The religious and supernaturai themes present in these works were just one part of what muld be described as their entirely apocalyptic sensibility.

In the work of the Expressionist dramatists chosen by this study, the grotesque aesthetic is essentially both mystic and material. The humour and homr in these works does not mitigate theu high seriousness. Through these drarnas, one is reminded of Schlegel's formula: the more perceptive the consciousness, the more that one perceives to be grotesque-

The boundaries that are transgressed to produce the grotesque effects in these dramas are those of the tightly wrapped, narcissistic self, alienateâ fiom the life of the body and fiom nature. The important role of physical rupture, of devouring and dismemberment in the work of Stramm, Barlach, and Kokoschka is an expression of the need to destroy a false and deadening version of humanity and to return life to its fbll plenitude. mis ambition requires a dramatic fonn completely di fferent fiom t hat of the conventional, script-oriented drama.

Al1 three playwrights respond to this necessity: Stramm concentrating on language and the word, Kokoschka on the vision, and Barlach on the imaginary space. Ah, the three playwrights fearlessly suggest the divine, banished from the realist stage; in rny opinion, no contemporary playwright achieves this ambition as profoundly as does Ernst Barlach.

The films called Expressionist share these characteristics with their theatncal counterparts.

The supematural is a favourite element of both: monarous figures such as the vampire and the double haunt Expressionist films. Many of the visual motifs and performance techniques that the theatre helped to initiate are also present in the fi1 ms. such as the use of chirnosc~~ro and exaggerated performance styles. These anss of similarity. however, revd slight degrees of variation between the two media. The monstrous figures of the play are organic,

234 closer to the monstrous suggested in Bakhtin's carnival: the unseen, fleshdevouring hnds

in Stramm' s Forces, the earthy, dialect-speaking Furies in Kokoschka's Orpheus and

Eurvdice, the tenacious and vital teper and unseen, flesh-eat ing 'Wol f-c hi ldren ' in Barlach's

The Flood. In contrast, the monstrous beings in the films are, essentidly, incorporeal. In

Wegener/Rye7sThe Student of Prame, Baldwin's mysterious double can kill unseen; it is-as immune to physical damage as it is apparently to the woridly lures of wealth and romance.

Its appeafance is superficially human, although the double evinces no signs of emotion. In

Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Calinrari, both Caligari and Cesare are human, although possessed of uncanny powers. Although their appearance and movernent are somewhat unnatural, they do not present an organic threat as much as a psychic one, the deaths in the film being destabiliseci by the 'fiamed' structure of Caligari' s narrative. Cesare's movements and appearance are languid and often gracef'ûl; he looks like a modem dancer. The only rnonster associated with nature is the vampire in Murnau's Nosferatu. Even in this case, however, there is little of the chthonic about this vampire. Both Cesare and the Nosferatu appear largest and most menacing as a shadow cast over their victim. They are more temble when not actually seen.

Si mi lar gaps exist with regard to the transference of Expressionist performance styles and iconography fiom the stage to the screen. The trance-like acting of Schredc or Veidt was honed in their experience as stage actors. There is no doubt, from the manifestos of the

Expressionists cited wlier, that such stylised acting techniques were both prucd and praaised duhg the heyday of the Expressionist theatre. Theatre pnctitioners, however, did not wish the abstract fonn of acting to detract fiom the emotional impact of the theatre. Ernst

Barlach walked out on his own drama because he felt the characters were no< given sufficient

235 'life.' A tmly grotesque performance aesthetic would demand a combination of human and

inhuman elements: doubtless, a difficult achievement of balance. Certainly, none of the films

demonstrate a consistent application of this style of performance. Paul Wegener's acting is

still clearly within the tradition of melodromq as is that of al1 the male protagonists in these

films; only Conrad Veidt (Cesare), Max Schreck (Nosferatu) and Greta Schroder

achieve this balance. The Expressionist style identified by Eisner as the use of distorted

perspective, sharp angles and jamng contrasts between black and white is by no means

evident in the rnost successftl 'fantastic' films of this period. Only The Cabinet of Dr.

Calinari uses this style, which is alien to Lang, Pabst, and Murnau, the three most celebrated

directors associated with this movement. In fact, the application of Expressionist techniques

in film was, at bat, sporadic. A more accurate list of the common elements of the German

films labelled Expressionist of this period would include innovative use of the apparatus and

technology of film, multi-layered narratives with unreliable or indeterminate narrators and an

interest in shocking or mystijling the spectator as opposed to establishing empathy. nie

latter quality expressionist drama shares with expressionist film. Indeed, the grotesque's protest against the false gods of progress and the unitary subject can be clearly seen in the way al1 of the selected material disrupts linear time and space and dismantles narrative convention.

The dramas of Kokoschka, Barlach and Stramm reveai to the spectator, as a direct revelation, that the consequence of participating in a dehumanising and mechanised society is the end of humanity. Instead of truly living in body and spirit, the troubled figures in the dramatic worlds of the Expressionists choose an artificial identity. The dramaturgy of the

Expressionist disrupts, devoun and explodes this false identity. Rarely has a more powcrful

236 sense of artistic revolt existed on the stage. The cincma called Expressionist dso possesses a feeling of revolutionary danger, successfùfly creating feelings of contusion and queasiness in the spectator. AI1 of these works possess a sense of urgency, of nearing the end. Ail show the worid to be in the grip of hostile forces; divine help is far removed and only seen through the appemce of unlikely agents and mystcrious signs. In order to cleansc the world of its false gods-social authonty, progress and the laws of science-a cataclysm is necessary. On the deepest level, the Expressionist grotesque persuades us tbt we are not who wc thought we were, that dl our markers of social identification, such as gender, profession and class, wiiI be washed away. The more the ineffable is shut out, in these works, the more monstrous its retum.

Earlier, 1 argued, in agreement with most scholars of the grotesque, that this aesthetic appears at times of social and ideological instability. The much discussed historical period of

Germany that produccd Expressionist drama and the 'fantastic' film was a particularly volatile example of such a time, and its historical significance is much disputed. Although artistic expression cannot be read as absolute 'proof of the mentality of a culture, the existence of grotesque expression suggests the changing nature of the society that produced it. Cross-disciplinary investigations are plagued with hazards, but they are aiso intensely rewarding as they uncover significant similarities and differences between media. The contemporary fascination with the drama and especially the film of this penod is a testirnony to its enduring significance, and, more specifically, to its televance for our own time. Thomas and Michacl Stark, eds. Ex~ressionismus.Manifeste und Dokumente arr deutschen Literatur 19 10-20. Stuttgart: Metzler, 198 1.

Barlach, Ernst. Das Dichterische Werk in dei Bdmkn. Ed. Friedrich Dross. Miinchen: R Piper & Co. Veriag, 1968.

Gordon, Mel, ed. Ex~ressionistTexts. New York: PAJ Publications, 1986.

Kokoschka, Oskar. Drmnen undBiIùér. lnvoduction by Paul Stefan. Leipzig: Kurt Wolc 1913.

-. Mv Life. New York: MacMillan Co,, 1974.

-. Das Schrifiliche Werk, 4 vols. Ed. Hein Spiel mann. Hamburg: H. Christians, 1973- 1976.

--. Vier Dramen. Berlin: Paul Cassirer, tW9.

Otten., Kar 1, ed . Schrei und Bekennmis: Exuressionistisches 7kafer. Hermann Luchterhand Verlag, 1959.

Ritchie, James M., ed. Seven Ex~ressionistPlavs: Kokoschka to Barlach. London: Calder and Boyars, 1968.

Sokel, Walter, ed. Antholoav of German Expressionist Drarna: a Prelude to the Absurd Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1963.

.Strarnm, August. Das Werk. Edited by René Radrizanni. Wiesbaden, 1963.

--. Das idcheh weint- Ge~catlmefteGedichre. Edited and with commentary by Inge Stramrn. Wiesbaden, 1956.

Der Sturm. 1-21, 1910-1932. Berlin: Nadeln (Reprint4 by Kraus Reprint) 1970.

2. Filmography

The Cabinet of Dr. Calih(Das Kabinetf des Dr. Caligari),dir. Robert Wiene (Decla- Bioscop, 1919).

Basic Instinct, du. Paul Verhoeven (Guild/Carolco/CanaI, 1992). Fatal Attradion, du. Adrian Lyne @aramount/JaRe-Lansing 1987). Faust, dir. F. W. Mwnau (UFA, 1926).

Frealc Orlando, dir. Ulrike Ottinger (Filmproduktion Berlin/Pia Frankenberg Musik-und Filmproduktion/ZDF Mainz, 198 1).

The(Der Letzle Mann), dir. F. W. Murnau (UFA, 1924).

Nosferatu. the Vamoire (NbsJeratu-Elne S'phonie des Grmens), dir. F. W. Mu- (Prana, 1922).

The Student of Pm(Der Studenr wnhg), dir. Stellan Rye (Bioscop, 19 13).

S weetie, du. Jane Campion (EIectrdArena Film, 1989).

Tartuffe (Td-ô),dir. F. W. Murnau (UFA 1925).

3. Suondary Sources

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Allen, Roy F. German Exuressionist Poetry. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979.

Allen, Roy F. Literam Life in German Ex~ressionismand the Berlin Circles. Goppingen: A Kimmerle, 1974.

Aithusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosoph~and Other Essavs. Trms. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthfy Review Press, 1971.

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Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. W. Hamilton Fyfe. Edinburgh: R & R Clark, Ltd., n.d.

Arnheim, Rudolf Film as Art. Berkety: University of California Press, 1957.

Arnold, Armin. Die Literatur des Exolessionismus: S~rachiicheund thematxsche Oueiien. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1966.

Arnold, Robert F., ed. Dus Deutsche Draa. München: Beck, 1925.

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Balditin, Mikhail. Rabelais and his World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Balazs, Bela Th-- of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art. London: Demis Dobson Ltd., 1952.

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Barlach, Ernst. A Self-told Life. Trans. Naomi Jackson Groves. Walterloo, Ont.: Penumbra Press, 1990.

Barthes, Rold. Camcra Lucida. Tm.Richard Howard. New Yorlt: HiII and Wang, 1981.

Baudrillard, Jean. Svrnbolic Exchanae and Death. Tms. Iain Hamilton Grant. London: Sage publications, 1993 (1 976).

Bazin, André. What is Cinema? Ed. and trans. Hugh Gray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.

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