KURTWAIS :A to the strengths of German and European CENTENARY APPRAISAL 1 academic tradition. What Kun Wais described as his "life's work", a monumental comparative study of Europe's Chetana Nagavajara2 early medieval epics, occupied him until his death, with only one volume published, while the remaining 9 volumes, though still Abstract in manuscript form, might provide intimations of Europe as a cohesive entity, Kurt Wais ( 1907- 1995) would be 100 predating the dreams of the architects of years old on 9 January 2007. He was the EU by almost a thousand years. Professor of Romance Philology and Comparative Literature at Tiibingen 1. Preamble: Outsiders' University until his retirement in 1975. His Perspective immense erudition spanning several literatures and epochs equipped him well for pioneering work in Comparative I do not intend to tum this essay into a Literature, of which he was the leading hagiography. But it is not easy for a authority in Germany. Drawing on his grateful pupil to write about an inspiring "Nachlass" (private papers) now teacher without voicing some enthusiasm. deposited with the renowned German Furthermore, I am writing this essay for a Literature Archive in Marbach/Neckar, the Thai academic journal, which, though author, a pupil of Kurt Wais, demonstrates published entirely in English and aspiring how the precocious scholar, who had won to communicate with an international international recognition at the age of 31 audience, does cater to its regular clientele with his authoritative book on Stephane of Thai readers. I cannot, therefore, Mallarme, developed into a versatile presume upon the readers' familiarity with researcher, a dedicated teacher and a German academia, especially that of the trustworthy colleague. But this is far from 1960s when I studied Comparative a merely personal success story, for the Literature with Kurt Wais at the University achievements of Kurt Wais bear testimony of Tlibingen.
Kurt Wais, who died at the age of 88 in 1 This article relies heavily on unpublished 1995, would be 100 years old on 9 January documents from the estate of Prof. Kurt Wais, 2007. Tiibingen University had a special now deposited with the Deutsche significance for him. A Swabian by birth Literaturarchiv in Marbach/Neckar. Special (and by conviction) and a native of Stuttgart, thanks are due to his wife, Dr. Karin Wais, for he took his doctorate in Tlibingen, and after permission to quote from Prof. Wais' letters. As for other unpublished letters, it has not the war came back there to teach. He was been possible to contact all copyright holders, appointed to the Chair of Romance and the author wishes to declare hereby that Philology and Comparative Literature in the references and quotations have been used 1954, from which he retired in 1975. He purely for the purpose of study and research. stayed on there until his death. By The translations are by the author. emphasizing his attachment to Tlibingen, I 2 Emeritus Professor of German, Silpakorn do not mean to suggest any implication of University, Thailand. insularity. Those who knew him could
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testify that in terms of general interests more attention to archival research, which and scholarship, Kurt Wais was a need not be linked to antiquated subjects universalist. I am tempted to liken him to but can also enhance and enrich our study the great Swabian poet and dramatist, of the contemporary age. Friedrich Schiller, who in actual life did not travel beyond the frontiers of I have elsewhere written that we Thai are Germany, but whose universal message deeply conscious of our indebtedness to remains uncontested. But that would be our teachers, and in the eyes of foreigners rather far-fetched, for Kurt Wais travelled we may appear to be reverential to our far and wide; he knew North America and teachers to the point of becoming uncritical Sm~th America fairly well, and came as far and submissive. We love to quote a famous East as Pakistan. The point I am making valedictory by the great poet Sripraj (living here is that great scholars in the old days towards the end of the 17th century), who did not move very much geographically before being executed for alleged and in terms of institutional attachment. misconduct by the Governor of the Southern (Think of those great Oxbridge scholars province of Nakorn Sri Tharnrnarat, and thinkers, for example.) A traditional defiantly declared : "/am a man schooled by university must have its definite physical a master./ If I have done wrong, I deserve identity, but as the European tradition the punishment./ If I am punished would have it, the university is described wrongfully, the executioner's sword will as a "universitas litterarum". Kurt Wais avenge me!" (And he was avenged by the represents this worthy tradition. King of Siam.) I myself may appear as an antiquated remnant of 17'h- century Siam This essay is primarily based on personal when I usually declare whose pupil I am. reminiscences, not only those from my But an incident in 1985 gave me some student days, but also from subsequent confidence that an affinity might still have visits. Now that his ''Nachlass" (private existed then between Europe and the old papers) has been deposited with the Siam. During the course of a conference in Deutsche Literaturarchiv in Marbach/Neckar German Studies in Strasbourg, I found (the birthplace of Schiller), I had occasion to myself one evening over dinner in the derive benefit from it, although my research company of elderly French-speaking stay there in May 2006 was only a short one. professors from France and Belgium. When In some ways the present essay is dictated asked where and with whom I had studied, I by the discoveries that I made from those simply replied: "In Ti.ibingen with Kurt invaluable piles of unpublished documents, Wais". The elderly colleagues knew him being letters to and from Kurt Wais, well and one of them remarked: "Vous evaluations, recommendations and drafts of avez eu une bonne formation." (You had a academic contributions, henceforth referred good education.) Mind you, he did not say: to as "the Marbach Papers". My exposure "Vous auriez dfi avoir une bonne formation." to those documents has helped me to (You must have had a good education.) I understand him better and reinforced what have over the years treasured that remark I had already known through personal and have tried my best to live up to the good contact and through his publications. It is reputation of the "School of Kurt Wais", here that I should make a plea to my Thai although German scholars, including some colleagues, many of whom are now so of his own pupils, might today contest enamoured with the latest theories, to pay whether such a "school" did exist! Be that
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as it may, he had a good reputation abroad, I do believe that Kurt Wais' achievements (although he told me that he resented as a scholar and university teacher have to being called a "Mallarme expert", for his be assessed both as his personal effort and scholarly interests ranged widely indeed.) as an illustration of the German academic Strange though it may seem, one of the tradition (before the advent of the post- first manuals of Comparative Literature in 1968 reform). Even after three years at a Thai, written by a Thai Orientalist trained British university, I came to TUbingen in in France, apodictically states the following: 1961 as a perplexed stranger, for the "Between the First World War and the German higher education system then was Second World War, the most flourishing in many respects different from the British cen(Je of Comparative Literature was one. I remember my first encounter with France, but it has since lost its preeminence. Kurt Wais in the autumn of 1961. When I First, the centre moved (sic) to Germany, presented myself to him, he did not headed by the scholar Kurt Wais. But it later hesitate to indicate to me the singularity of moved to the United States where the the German system. We spoke in French discipline is being promoted seriously, and he emphasized that "il n'y a pas de extensively and with much dedication.''3 I programme", that is to say, there existed suspect that the Thai authoress freely no fixed curriculum. For a novice like extrapolated from the standpoint represented myself who had gone through a stratified by Marius-Fran9ois Guyard in his little book British system, this kind of freedom was La Litterature comparee (1961 ).4 something very significant. A student had to structure his own course of studies, Such "placing" may be questioned today, choosing from the multifarious offerings and I am doubtful whether German (perhaps through a process of trial and colleagues share these foreign scholars' error), building up a body of knowledge of estimation of Kurt Wais' role in the his own design and making his own development of the discipline in Germany judgement as to when he should be ready and in the international academic community. to present himself for an examination. As But if Comparative Literature is a discipline a graduate student I welcomed this that by its very nature cuts across national arrangement, but I knew very well that those boundaries, I plead that the voice of students fresh from school did find it hard to foreigners should be heard! find their way. Many German students studied far too long, becoming a burden to the state (since German universities were fully subsidized by the state and the federal 2. The German Academic governments), and it is understandable Tradition why a more structured system has since been introduced.
Kurt Wais thrived very well in this 3 Sitha Pinichphuwadon. Comparative traditional system. Being a very industrious Literature. Bangkok: Ramkhamkaeng person with an inquisitive mind, he made it University Press, (Second Edition), 1979, p. a point not to repeat a course. During the 12. four years I spent in TUbingen, Kurt Wais 4 Marius-Fran9ois Guyard: La Litterature never once repeated the subject of his comparee. Paris: Presses Universitaires de course offerings. Like most professors at France, (Third Edition) 1961, p. II.
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that time, he taught three courses, one The German system at that time accorded proseminar, one upper seminar (called considerable (or some would say, absolute) "Oberseminar' in German) and a twice• power to the university professor. Absolute weekly lecture course. In the proseminar power corrupts absolutely? Kurt Wais tried Kurt Wais, a renowned scholar of to discharge his responsibility as best as he international stature, knew how to simplify could, but was not free from criticism. For difficult issues for students in their first example, the number of students admitted semester at university. The upper seminar to the upper seminar was limited to about took a different character: the professor was 20, and the professor had to select those acting more as what we today call a attendees through an interview process. "knpwledge manager", while the students Naturally unsuccessful candidates often engaged in a lively discussion based on a complained of arbitrariness. The system particular literary text assigned for the may have worked well with students of top weekly reading. Term papers were also quality, but those in the middle range or presented, and doctoral students sometimes below the middle range must have found it gave progress reports. The main lecture very difficult to survive. Subsequent demanded from the professor a skill that university reforms have tried to redress certainly could only be mastered with this imbalance by offering more classes at experience. No particular level was various levels. As we shall see in the determined, and the lecture hall was filled section on his teaching, Kurt Wais never with young students fresh out of school as took his responsibility lightly. The well as doctoral students. This practice was academic system had been designed to characteristic of the humanities, for it was respond to prewar conditions and was not assumed that anybody who had completed ready to cope with the increasing number high school should be in a position to grasp of students in the decades following the the message from the professor, who in tum Second World War. Whatever the had to adjust himself in such a way as make deficiencies of this rather undemocratic his every lecture a public lecture of some system, it must be admitted that once you kind. No wonder that there were among the entered into the inner circle of a scholar audience a number of free auditors, and teacher of the calibre of Kurt Wais, including pensioners who thirsted for you received a very good education knowledge. I found this system very indeed. Face-to-face contact and personal enriching. If people expect you to come up attention were the hallmarks of a system with something new every semester, then that served as a guarantee of quality. you have to prepare yourself well; in other words, you have to engage in some kind of The use (or overuse) today of the term research all the time. Kurt Wais excelled in "research university" or "research-oriented this. Within a framework that forces you to university" in Thai academic circles may speak to a "classless" audience in your have derived from the American model lecture, you have to try your utmost to be a without acknowledgement of its German good teacher and a good "public speaker". origin. The humanities too could operate Some of the professors did not quite succeed according to the research-oriented mode. in this. Kurt Wais, of course, had no problem The combination of teaching and research with such a demand. If he had to quote from propagated by Wilhelm von Humboldt in many foreign languages; he either translated the early nineteenth century was still very the quotations or sununarized them. much alive in the 1960s. We students went
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to the main lecture of a university professor well for tertiary education, since training with the expectation that, beyond the in writing essays was given a high priority. common run of basic knowledge in the Corning up to the university meant that field, the man on the rostrum would have you should be ready to undergo training as something original to impart to us, the fruits a "researcher", and naturally you should of his research. TUbingen in my day could be able to work independently. I could boast of a few world experts in certain notice that Kurt Wais was very patient disciplines, and I attended lectures given by with these "beginners", and with his one septuagenarian and one octogenarian assistants he was trying to help them to who were known to be Europe's greatest survive. autborities in Romance Philology and were spending their retirement in TUbingen The upper seminar was more of a "salon" (famous for its idyllic environment) doing in the European tradition, and Kurt Wais part-time teaching. Kurt Wais expressly acted, so to speak, as the host. We refused to be called an expert or a world discussed a set text in an informal manner. authority on any particular subject. The more formal part was taken up by Although regarded as one of the top papers presented by the students, whereby authorities on Stephane Mallarme, he never more demanding research topics were did once lecture or conduct a seminar on assigned than in the proseminar. A number this poet during the 4 years I studied with of topics were proposed by the professor, him, preferring to branch off into other and we students volunteered to address territories, as already mentioned above in those we individually found to be to our the Preamble. This meant that he had to liking. This was how the professor learned engage in fresh research all the time. In from his students. He may not have dug other words, teaching was based on deep into those subjects himself, but the research. But how could he come up students' papers would provide the regularly with something new? This is groundwork on which he could subsequently where the academic tradition proved to be follow up and which he could deepen. Some conducive to innovation. of the assignments took the form of book reviews; the professor may have flipped Unlike the British undergraduate who was through a new scholarly monograph, found required to write (short) weekly essays, even it to be interesting, and if the student could a newcomer to a German university perform reliable spadework, the professor attending a proserninar had to produce a would then be in a position to decide term paper that called for some kind of whether he himself should spend hours and "research". This practice had its strengths hours immersing himself in that particular and weaknesses. To have to produce 10 scholarly work. There was a kind of give• weekly essays in the British system allowed and-take relationship between the teacher you to improve yourself, whereas one single and his pupils, which in our more recent term paper written by a young student at a academic environment could lapse into German university could tum out to be a exploitation, with the teacher using his chef-d'oeuvre or a mediocre piece of work, students as unpaid research assistants. One and in the latter case the student had no particular aspect of Kurt Wais' working chance to redeem himself. The system was method could be observed in the course of based on the belief that German secondary the weekly seminar. His comments on the education should have equipped all students students' presentations confirmed that he
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had done considerable "homework" before What he said to me still rings in my ears. assigning those topics. At the same time, "Let us give ourselves six months to get to with his immense erudition, he knew how to know each other." Fair enough! After six link the fmdings of the students' "research" months he accepted me, and our teacher-pupil to a broader spectrum of research activities, relationship turned out to be an ideal one. past and present, thereby conjuring up a But looking back 40 years later, I cannot picture of the "state of the art" of that help asking myself what would have particular and related subjects and happened if he had not accepted me as a anchoring the students' work in a web of Ph.D. candidate. I might have had to return scholarly associations and interactions. For home without a graduate degree, or else budding "researchers", to be exposed to this wandered to another university, looking for kind of activity on a weekly basis proved to another supervisor. There were no fonnal be an education of incomparable value. It arrangements, no entrance examination, no was also heartening to realize that a small fixed regulations of any kind in accepting man like yourself had a place in this or not accepting a candidate. academic community. Only a professor of high calibre could perfonn such a feat of As a supervisor Kurt Wais operated on two what is now known as "knowledge levels. You could propose your own management" (KM). I think I already knew research topic to him and he would gauge then what a "research university" should its feasibility. He was not infallible, but he look like, not necessarily a richly endowed was always in a position to help you make institution whose members manage to up your mind, rationally. He dissuaded me publish in "peer-reviewed" journals with from embarking on a topic dealing with high "impact factors", but a community of Georg Buchner and France, as he knew that scholars whose daily life is propelled by a the subject had already been thoroughly thirst for knowledge under the guidance of explored in previous research. At another an erudite, perspicacious and dynamic level, he kept abreast of the latest research leader. and knew exactly where the gaps lay. These possible research topics more often than not One cannot, of course, generalize about emerged from the upper seminar. He would professorial authority. I have known a screen them and fonnulate them into professor who was so kind to a candidate research topics. Having known me better that he upgraded an M.A. thesis to that of after the six-month trial period, he proposed a Ph.D. by offering to lower grade A to to me a number of research topics, grade B, with the concurrence of that explaining the rationale for each and sent me particular candidate! Kurt Wais did not home to reflect on what would suit my misuse his power but rather used it wisely. interest. Having been fairly well grounded in I seek leave here to report from personal Romanticism, both French and Gennan, experience. I presented myself to him with during my undergraduate studies in Britain, I my degree certificate (from a distinguished opted for a topic on the German Romantic, British university) plus a recommendation August Wilhelm Schlegel, and his relations from my supervisor in Gennan literature to France. I thought that it would be with a wish to work on a Ph.D. thesis with interesting to address the critical and him. He did not even look at the documents, theoretical side of Romanticism rather than although he knew that university well and the usual poetic slant. The following three had guest-lectured there the year before. and a half years of research (with
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"fieldwork" in the Bibliotheque Nationale ... without the help of an in Paris) proved to be an enriching assistant, with 600 students experience for me. Kurt Wais could sense I. .. had, for example, in this that those relations must have run deep, semester 24 (oral) state but he had no concrete proof; hence examinations, with half of the thorough documentary research was candidates submitting their needed, and that was to be my job. theses, in addition to 200 term papers, together with several A German professor in the humanities had doctoral dissertations which one to supervise not only doctoral theses (the has to supervise continuously5 M.A. had not yet been introduced), but also theses produced by candidates Kurt Wais' situation was probably not much for the state examination (called the better (although he was fortunate to have "Staatsexamen" in German), designed for competent assistants), and in a letter to the people who wished to enter the teaching Office of the Rector (which had unwittingly profession. This was very hard work, for asked for exact statistics on the number of the number of state examination candidates for the state examination), Kurt candidates was very high in the 1960s. The Wais had to respond that he was overloaded Marbach Papers contain evaluations of with all kinds of responsibilities and did not these theses which more than substantiate have time to keep such records. He went on how broad the range of Kurt Wais' to describe how much time he expended on supervisory activities was, and the a daily basis on advising students, including individual evaluations (running into "consultations on the phone often until shortly hundreds) bore testimony to his before midnight."6 Having experienced life at conscientiousness. If this was the system that overcrowded university myself, I do not that a German professor had to accept think that Kurt Wais was exaggerating. It (however demanding it might have been), might be interesting for a chronicler of it was a framework that induced a real German higher education to come up with scholar to broaden and sharpen his something in the nature of "One Day in the academic and research capability. There is Life of a (Conscientious) German Professor"! much to be said for the academic tradition of old Germany! Teaching, then, meant only partially contact hours with students. As I mentioned in Section 2 on "The German Academic 3. University Teaching and What Tradition", Kurt Wais did enjoy teaching, It Entails and teaching literature for him was a dialogic activity propelled by a salon-like I have often, half-jokingly, told my Thai atmosphere associated with the upper colleagues that a German professor, if he seminar. The pre-1968 era was conducive to is a very conscientious person, could die the humanities, for teachers and pupils alike of physical and mental fatigue. Among the were steeped in the reading culture. Marbach Papers is a letter to Kurt Wais from a colleague at Cologne University, 5 which describes very well the plight of a Letter from Wolfgang Binder to Kurt Wais, German professor in the late 1950s. 01.02.1957. 6 Letter from Kurt Wais to the "Akademische Rektoramt" (n.d.).
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Naturally, Kurt Wais could sense a modem literary theory conducted by his significant change after 1968, which did own Assistant at Ttibingen, which was not prove favourable to literary studies. In "crammed full". 8 He himself did his a letter to a publisher who had invited him utmost to find a rightful place for the said to collaborate on a series of monographs course within the official framework of the on methodology and theory, Kurt Wais curricular offerings. University regulations wrote: "It (the series) corresponds stipulated that only "professors" were probably to the current trend, which we entitled to "lecture". Consequently, the have observed without much gratification young colleague's course had to be from our students, as many of them seem announced as a "practicum" ("Ubung" in to be hiding their laziness in the reading of German),9 although the number of attendees original texts under the pretext of fervent was probably as high as that of the main theorizing. Naturally I am ready to talk to lecture of a professor. you about this but shall probably have hardly anything new to offer on the subject I have already described the salon-like of methodological studies, which did not atmosphere of the upper seminar, but the interest me very much in the first place".7 leisurely mode of dialogic pleasure (based on concrete texts) was not devoid This is an important statement and it can of planning or structure. The "one-book-a• be misleading. Although Kurt Wais never week" approach was well planned, in the taught a course in theory or methodology, sense that the books selected for our his writings are certainly not devoid of weekly reading did cohere in some way, methodological and theoretical although they were drawn from various considerations, as I shall demonstrate in literatures (with a bias towards Romance Section 5 on "Mastery of the Short Form: languages), and the written assignments A Close Reading", but these methods and were meant to substantiate the main theme theories were implicit rather than explicit. for that particular semester or to enrich the They did not constitute an independent main reading list. One characteristic of discourse, so to speak. In any case, we Kurt Wais' teaching in the form of a should not forget that he lectured on seminar was that he made us feel that we 1 literary criticism of the 20 h century and were all going on a literary expedition could not possibly have avoided engaging together, but the journey, of course, could in some form of methodological and be demanding. I remember one particular theoretical debate, as we shall see in session devoted to the work of Charles Section 6 on "The Rise of Comparative Baudelaire: we were required to read about Literature". Perhaps this is exactly why half of the poems in Les Fleurs du Mal. some scholars today, not excluding his Fortunately, the whole book had been own pupils, are of the opinion that his compulsory reading during my scholarly works are "dated". But he did not prevent his younger colleagues from taking literary theory seriously. He spoke 8 Letter from Kurt Wais to Weber (first name enthusiastically about the course on not given), 24.06.1971. 9 Letter from Kurt Wais to Dieter Janik, 20.11.1969. Dieter Janik later became 7 Letter from Kurt Wais to Lothar Rotsch, Professor of Romance Philology at Mainz Lector at the Max Niemeyer Verlag, University. 20.04.1970.
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undergraduate studies in Britain and I was candidate, as already mentioned in Section 2 already familiar with these poems. Those on 'The German Academic Tradition", had students who came to Baudelaire for the to prepare a state examination thesis which first time must have had a tough time. In was no less demanding than an M.A. his lecture on literary criticism, he thesis of today. Every potential secondary analyzed the Anglo-American movement school teacher was then expected to of New Criticism sympathetically, but in possess research ability as well. When I his actual teaching practice, Wais was read Kurt Wais' evaluations of these more committed to literary history, and he theses, I could not help feeling that he was very rarely lingered on a great poem to on the whole even more severe in his savpur its literary quality. I heard him assessment of lhese state examination recite a poem in a deeply-felt manner only candidates lhan his own doctoral students once, and lhat was a medieval Latin poem, (whom he might have hand-picked and not Baudelaire, not Mallarme (on whose supervised more closely and work he was a specialist of international continuously.) The underlying standing!). I suspect that his immense philosophy was that quality at the secondary erudition was somehow responsible for level could guarantee the quality of higher occasional lapses into sheer positivism. He education. Kurt Wais himself took the state knew so much, he could connect all things, examination and served his term as he was overwhelmed by facts. A poem a trainee (known in German as became an arte-fact! "Refenrendarzeit') before coming back to the university for his Ph.D.. If quality Teaching automatically involved implies hard work, part of the onus naturally examination. The German academic falls upon the German professor! tradition put great emphasis on oral examinations, probably with the conviction The responsibility of a university teacher that a face-to-face encounter between the was not restricted to student affairs. Young examiner and the examinee was the most scholars intending to pursue a university reliable mode of gauging lhe candidate's career had to engage in post-doctoral capability. A German professor in those research leading to a higher qualification days had to administer oral examinations at known as the "Habilitation", which would various levels, including the intermediate qualify them for professorships. Again the examination, the state examination and the Marbach Papers prove to be helpful. Some doctoral examination. It was the state of these candidates were not his former examination that was probably most time• pupils; they came to him out of sheer faith consuming and at the same time most in his scholarly guidance. Exchanges of exhausting for a professor. This again may correspondence between Kurt Wais and be considered typically German. The these candidates testify to the seriousness candidates were those who intended to of both sides. Kurt Wais was also enter the teaching profession in grammar occasionally invited to act as an external schools, and they were to be examined with evaluator of candidates for the "Habilitation" utmost stringency under the supervision of a at other universities. The lengthy, thorough representative from the Ministry of and cogently argued evaluations that he Education (which in those days supervened wrote are remarkable examples of academic in the operation of a German university). criticism. Kurt Wais had a special gift for Besides lhe oral examination, every characterizing the strengths and weaknesses
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of these research works. These unpublished the storms in Berlin." 10 His own pupil did documents can tell us about more than just not get the job! It did not really matter. Kurt routine work. There were disagreements Wais had done his duty in a dignified among the evaluators, sometimes as a manner. He refused to indulge in cronyism. result of prejudice or personal animosity. If convinced that injustice was being done, Requests of this nature came regularly to Kurt Wais would not hesitate to intercede, Kurt Wais, mostly from Deans of the sometimes successfully, sometimes to no Faculties of Arts of various universities. avail. I have known one such candidate His responses were prompt and well• who survived the ordeal as a result of Kurt informed. It was a service that a university Wais' intercession and later grew into teacher had to perform as a member of an internationally renowned comparatist. the academic community. This service Even today he speaks of Kurt Wais as a extended sometimes beyond the national paragon of professionalism! frontiers in the form of requests from foreign institutions seeking candidates for, say, As I have pointed out in Section 2, the a post of German language lector. As a German academic tradition was extremely foreign language teacher, Kurt Wais attached loosely structured and operated on the great importance to language proficiency basis of the judgements of individual and familiarity with the culture of the professors. It presumed upon the respective countries, and his pupils who later professional integrity of these scholars and became professors in modem languages had could only thrive if the unwritten codes of all spent a number of years as lectors at professional ethics were observed. Fair• foreign institutions. If he recommended a mindedness distinguished Kurt Wais. He candidate (who might be his own pupil), knew that he had very able pupils who he was sure that he was proposing were well-qualified to fill professorial somebody with real ability and positions, as and when these became vacant. seriousness of purpose. The following Again the German tradition operated on passage is drawn from a letter in French to recommendations, and if the recommender the head of an institution in Turin. "In was known to be highly respected and order to promote the study of Italian reliable, the candidate would stand a good literature in Germany, it should be chance. Kurt Wais used his authority and possible, in my opinion, to reserve the prestige wisely. When asked to available positions for those among the recommend candidates for a professorial candidates who seriously envisage a chair at the Free University Berlin, he university career, rather than those who wrote on 27. 01. 1972 a 3-page review of the want to enjoy a pleasant stay in your 11 state of the art of the discipline "Romance beautiful country." It may have turned Philosophy", mentioning seven young out that some of his pupils got jobs in scholars of promise, including two of his more than one of these "beautiful pupils. He then shortlisted them to three countries", but they were young scholars candidates, including one of his pupils, of real promise who were later to pursue a giving his reason as follows: "(The three candidates) seem to me to be of the same calibre in their feeling of commitment to 10 Letter from Kurt Wais to Gerhard Goebel, what Romance Philosophy is and which, I 28.01.1972. 11 would hope, should be able to withstand Letter from Kurt Wais to Franco Simone, 30.01.1969.
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distingttished university career and produce colleagues (not only as a Mallame expert!). scholarly works of distinction on the culture On another occasion, a Belgian Professor of and literature of that particular foreign Comparative Literature asked Kurt Wais for country. The Marbach Papers document the help in a rather unpleasant situation. He early years of these eminent scholars, who suspected a doctoral candidate of plagiarism, were deservedly supported by their but could not identify the source. So he influential professor and who did not let him turned to Kurt Wais! 13 down! It is also a real pleasure to read Kurt Wais' letters to these pupils, which exude an We are dealing here with the pre-Internet unmistakably fatherly warmth. era. In our contemporary parlance, Kurt Wais could figure as a "search engine" in When Kurt Wais mentioned those late-night literary studies. But there was nothing telephone calls, as quoted above, it certainly mechanical about this "walking database" had to do with students or colleagues who was always ready to help. seeking (urgent) advice. (There were no answering machines then, and he had the It can be observed that during the almost courtesy of answering the calls.) The two decades prior to his retirement, Kurt advisory functions performed by a professor Wais did not produce a monograph of the could be multifaceted, and I shall elaborate size of his Mallarme book again, although further on this issue in Section 4 on research. he continuously published essays, articles But one particular function which deserves and short monographs. He resigned to be mentioned here could probably be himself to being a teacher, and as I have called the "encyclopedic function". It must tried to demonstrate, his contribution in have been the order of the day among that capacity was very significant indeed. literary scholars then that "if encyclopedias and reference works fail you, tum to Kurt 4. Research : Between Wais!" (His colleague, the Ttibingen Universalism and Specialization Germanist Richard Brinkmann, once described Kurt Wais to me as an A foreign scholar corning into contact with "encyclopedia"!) Again the Marbach Papers German academic circles for the first time can be illuminating. A distinguished French most probably would be surprised to be comparatist wrote to Kurt Wais, saying that asked the question: "Was ist Ihr he was preparing a course on "The Influence Forschungsgebiet?" ("What is your research of Rousseau on Literary Sensibility at the area?") instead of "What is your subject?" or End of the 18th Century" and sought the "What is your specialization?" This is in latter's help in recommending relevant 12 consonance with the German tradition of secondary literature. A French professor, linking teaching and research together, and preparing a course on a French author, the primary assumption is that research is seeking a German professor's part of one's daily life and that every bibliographical advice! There is no need to academic must be engaged in some form of emphasize that nationalitiy had no role to research all the time. As I have tried to play here and that Kurt Wais must have demonstrate in the foregoing sections, all been highly regarded by his foreign
12 Letter from Jacques Voisine to Kurt Wais 13 Letter from Armand Nivelle to Kurt Wais, (n.d.). 11.09.1965.
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academic activities are linked with school days, he loved to collect clippings research, and students at all levels are also from newspapers and magazines which he engaged in "research" of some description. arranged according to countries. (When I It is true that there are institutions outside visited him one year before his death, he the universities, including those in the was still busy with these clippings.) In the humanities, that devote themselves to early 1960s, he showed me two folders research, such as the Academies of Sciences containing clippings on Thailand. These (with their chapters in the humanities, social were his "database", so to speak, and sciences and fine arts) and some special according to his wife, when he decided to institutions like the Centre for Uterary embark on a particular area of interest, he Research Berlin. But in the humanities at did not have to start from scratch. One can least, the universities are still regarded as probably describe, in our contemporary places where significant research is being jargon, that his method of data collection conducted. The situation may not have was broadly cumulative rather than changed very much since Kurt Wais' specifically project-based. Family times. The kind of teaching that I have background was supportive of his described presupposes continuous research intellectual blossoming. His father, Gustav on the part of the university teachers, and Wais, a journalist and editor of a leading as we have seen, Kurt Wais deliberately newspaper in Stuttgart, lost his job during committed himself to a very broad base in World War ll because of his declared anti• terms of the subject matter of his courses, Nazi attitude. He was an amateur historian which means that his research activities, and art historian, specializing in Stuttgart which were intimately linked with his and Wi.irttemberg, and was reemployed after teaching, had to be broadly based too. In 1945 in the Bureau of Historic Monuments. other words, the academic system, and He was also an art collector, and Kurt especially the teaching system, conditioned Wais once showed us the Daumier Kurt Wais to be a universalist. In terms of drawings which he had inherited from his literary history, he ranged very widely, father. Kurt Wais' knowledge of the visual namely, from the Middle Ages to the latest in arts and architecture, which he had imbibed contemporary literature. And as the sole from his own family background, was holder of the Chair in Comparative considerable. A native of Stuttgart, he went Literature at Ti.ibingen he had to respond regularly to the theatre and opera, and he to the demands of that particular discipline, once told me that he knew a number of not only in teaching but also in other related Shakespeare's plays by heart (in German activities, including the supervision of theses translation, of course), and was very much and oral examinations in which candidates at home in opera. He also told me that as a could propose special topics that the prisoner of war, he whiled away his time professor had to accommodate. All in all, silently reciting Shakespeare and singing universalism, both horizontally and vertically, operatic arias to himself. constituted a basis for specialization. The family must have been very supportive We may have to ask how Kurt Wais settled of the young Kurt Wais in many ways, and for specific areas or topics of his research. according to his wife, trips to England, Biographical data might be of some use France and Italy to acquire skills in those here, and I would like to report from my languages were financed by the family. (I personal acquaintance with him. Since his experienced Kurt Wais arguing in fluent
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English with Cleanth Brooks, one of the I must admit that I am more inclined to founders of New Criticism, - although with regard Kurt Wais as a universalist than a an indelible Swabian accent - when the specialist, although he had his specializations. latter came to lecture in Tlibingen in 1964.) But anyone studying a "specialized" work of As for the Romance languages, since he his will realize soon enough that his was in decided to do his "Habilitation" in Romance no way a narrow specialization. To produce Philology and Comparative Literature, he a monograph or an essay that would had to master the three main languages communicate with his readers, he had to well, namely French, Italian and Spanish, make a deliberate effort to rein in his and having also spent some time in staggering erudition. As I shall demonstrate Rorpania as a young man, he must have in Section 5 on "Mastery of the Short learned Romanian as well. 14 It is interesting Form", his mature works were marked by to note that before switching to Romance laconic intensity, but the universalist Philology, he had done his Ph.D. with penchant was there: it did not manifest itself Hermann Schneider, one of Germany's explicitly, but was implicit in the text, foremost medievalists as well as an expert inviting us to make further connections in Nordic Studies. From medieval Nordic ourselves. In his younger days, he tended to Studies, he moved on to more modem be expansive. Let us consider one specific subjects, settled for Ibsen and embarked on "specialized" work, namely his Mallarme learning modem Norwegian in order to be book which he published in 1938 at the age able to read both primary and secondary of 31 (and revised in 1952) and which was literature in the original. His book Henrik regarded as a milestone in Mallarme Ibsen und das Problem des Vergangenen research at the international level. (Henrik Ibsen and the Problem of the Past) was published in 1931, followed by a I was pleasantly surprised, when recently logical follow-up Henrik lbsens Wirkung in surfing the Internet, to find out that French Spanien, Frankreich, Italien (Henrik Ibsen's scholars were still quoting him as an Influence in Spain, France and Italy) in authority on the subject. A website (most 1933. probably for the benefit of those preparing for the French "Agregation") openly posits I have indulged in this excursion into Kurt that it was Kurt Wais who first interpreted Wais' formative years in order to Mallarme's concept of poetry as an demonstrate what education in the broadest intermediary between prose and music. 15 sense of the word can contribute towards After more than 65 years, French scholars laying a foundation for a distinguished still acknowledge a German professor's professional career. Well-versed in the contribution to the understanding of a major languages, literature and culture of many French poet! Looking back over many nations and epochs, as well as in the various decades, one can not help wondering how a arts (culminating in a monograph on young foreign scholar could have known so Symbiose der Kiinste [Symbiosis of the Arts] much, read so much, and above all, come up of 1936), he was, so to speak, predisposed to with such fresh insights and succinct becoming a comparatist. interpretations of extremely difficult foreign
14 See Jacques Roos. "Kurt Wais". In: 15 "Une dentelle s'abolit. .. ". Yearbook of Comparative and General http://www.unice.fr/AGREGATrON/dentelle.h Literature, 8 (1959), p. 38. tml
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poetry. It would be worthwhile to examine that illuminated the biographical side of what characterizes this opus magnum. the presentation: they were also carriers of ideas, and the Mallarme book is in a sense Any reader will first be struck by its written in the German tradition of comprehensiveness (which is not to be "Geistesgeschichte" (which can be loosely confused with its length). It can easily be translated as "intellectual history"). The used as a reference work on Mallarme! subject of the book may be deceptively Naturally, it is very well documented, specific; its reading soon reveals that only containing up-to-date information at the time a universalist could have written it. of its writing (which the author updated and expanded in the second edition). A trip to Kurt Wais loved to relate, to connect. Let us France enabled him to gain access to some consider a specific example. At one point in important primary sources, such as the Mallarme book, 16 he was discussing the unpublished correspondence between Mallarme's interest in Hegel, introduced to Mallarme and Henri Cazalis, and in terms of the poet by Villiers de !'Isle-Adam, who factual data, his book had something new to with his other friend, Pontavice de Heussey, offer, even to French scholars. Some was looking for occult intimations from scholars of today might think that the German philosophers and experimenting "l'homme et !'oeuvre" (the author and his also with Buddhist meditations, as work) approach is already outmoded, but substantiated by a quote from Cazalis. From Kurt Wais could prove that the two are there a connection with Kierkegaard was intimately linked, even when he was established, soon to give way to Rimbaud, analyzing individual works. While the book who, instead of scaling the meditative gives a broad picture of Mallarme's heights of Buddhism like Mallarme, took to creativity as a whole, it at the same time drugs. And here it was only a natural performs the function of a manual, in which consequence that Thomas de Quincey and E. the individual works are summarized (in T.A. Hoffmann should be coopted, with German), analyzed and interpreted, and further references made to Theophile Gautier many of his interpretations diverge from and Charles Baudelaire. 17 Breathtaking those of previous scholars and critics writing scholarly writing, one could say! Erudite on Mallarme. But Kurt Wais did not espouse exhibitionism by a 31-year-old scholar? But the approach practised by his Anglo• he could substantiate all these connections. American contemporaries, the New Critics, or We may have to pass a temporary verdict even the method that later gained currency in that the dichotomy between universalism Germany, known as the "Werkimmaneni' and specialization posited in the title of this (concentration on the work itself). He was section might be an artificial one. Yet, I committed to literary history, and his mastery of detail served this particular approach. Mallarme was situated amidst a 16 The first and second editions of this book framework of literary and intellectual have different titles. The first edition, culture, peopled by all kinds of personalities published by H. C. Beck of Munich in 1938, and propped up by multifarious works of art bears the title Mallarme, ein Dichter der of various genres, past and present, not Jahrhundertwende. The second reviewed and necessarily literature, for music played an enlarged edition, also published by H.C. Beck, important role as wei!. People did not in 1952 has as its title Mallarme, Dichtung• constitute merely a web of relationships Wahrheit-Haltung. 17 See Second Edition, pp. 177-179.
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cannot help feeling that in the case of Kurt Kurt Wais regularly received requests of this Wais, universalism provided a solid nature and he could not always respond in underpinning for specialization. He did not the affmnative. One specific case deserves choose to become a comparatist: he could particular mention, being part of the project not be anything else! undertaken by the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA) under the title In writing a full-length monograph like the "Comparative History of Literatures in Mallarme book, Kurt Wais could afford to European Languages". The volume being be comprehensive. But we should not be prepared was called The Symbolist misled into thinking that he was not Movement in the Literature of European amenable to the article or the essay, as I Languages, edited by Anna Balakian of New shall try to point out in Section 5 on York University. Kurt Wais was at that time "Mastery of the Short Form: A Close (1972) extremely busy and recommended to Reading". Besides, he had even written a Madame Balakian two of his pupils, one theoretical-cum-historical piece on the with "a positivist tendency and interested essay under the title "Antwort auf eine more specifically in literary history" while Umfrage tiber den Essay" (Response to a the other "belongs rather to a purely Survey on the Essay). 18 A scholar had to be aesthetic tendency".19 I could not find the flexible in responding to demands and relevant document to support Kurt Wais' requests which could come in various final decision to accede to the request with forms. When Wolfgang Kayer was his own contribution in English under the entrusted with the task of preparing a new title "German Poets in the Proximity of edition of the popular reference work, Baudelaire and the Symbolists". Was this the Kleines literarisches Lexikon (Small result of the editor's fervent insistence or Literary Lexicon), he enlisted the help of was he attracted by a theme already within Kurt Wais for the section on French the parameters of his "specialization", or literature, which had to be revamped. The should we say, nearer to his heart, having correspondence between the two scholars, once devoted the best years of his life to now among the Marbach Papers, reveals Mallarme? His erudition could mislead some how accommodating Kurt Wais was, for he people into taking him for an insensitive went as far as offering to write fresh articles positivist. Let us listen to one of the French to fill in the gaps in the previous edition. It reviewers of his Mallarme book: ''The whole should not be forgotten that he was (enterprise) turns out a Mallarme more responsible for all periods of French humane than French criticism usually gives literature. (This happened to be the (us)"?0 His interests might be varied reference work that my generation of indeed, but they were marked by humane students used with much profit, and we engagement. were always struck by the brevity, precision and concision of the information given in the articles of the Lexicon.) 19 Letter from Kurt Wais to Anna Balakian, 23.03. 1972. 20 Jacques Scherer. Review of Kurt Wais' Mallarme, ein Dichter der Jahrhundertwende. 18 Kurt Wais. An den Gre~zen der In: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 54, No.3 Nationalliteraturen. Vergleichende Aufsiitze. (March 1939), p. 227. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1958, pp. 338-341.
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In other words, Kurt Wais loved his subject, been concretely proved that in the and the hard work associated with his preparation of the second edition of that multifaceted research could in most cases be book, he refused to sacrifice professionalism considered a labour of love. The Marbach to the dictates of the powers-that-be, and had Papers contain a collection of correspondence the courage to write a 13-page letter of with publishers, and to me as a foreigner, I protest to none other than Goebbels?1 So do find something of particular interest when we speak of Kurt Wais' research, we insofar as academic publishing in Germany cannot simply restrict ourselves to his own is concerned. The universities do not have to output as such, but must also address his role create their own university presses. There in what we may today call research exis,t publishing houses that specialize in management, a function that required more academic publishing and can survive on than scholarly prowess and at times involved them (in some ways, of course, through political astuteness which probably was not subventions). Research findings fmd their Kurt Wais' strength. outlet in the form of academic books or articles in journals published by these private Research constitutes part of the major concerns. The Marbach Papers testify to the activities of a community of scholars. This professional competence of most publishing means that one does not only pursue one's houses, which were either run by cultivated own preoccupation, but is expected to serve and learned directors themselves or else the academic community in various ways. employed well-read staff members with a As a scholar usually has to be up-to-date on Ph.D. degree to work for them. These developments in the field, he may also publishers contacted Kurt Wais with clear perform the useful duty of reviewing other concepts and were adept and adroit in people's work. Kurt Wais' list of book pointing out how the scholar would fit into reviews is very long and the range of subject their projects. The proposals were varied, matter is very broad indeed. According to including such functions as the editorship of those close to him, his professional a volume of essays, a learned journal, a forthrightness in the estimation of works by monograph series, a Festschrift, or just colleagues did not always endear him to contributions in the form of individual everybody, and in this the young Kurt Wais articles in an encyclopedia. I have noticed was sometimes taken to task by his teachers. that Kurt Wais did not accept all the offers, He must have mellowed over the years, for I and he probably rejected projects whose never heard him disparage other scholars' guidelines were too rigid. He might have work. On the contrary, he encouraged his acted less discriminatingly in his younger students to familiarize themselves with days, when he accepted the very demanding works by other scholars, and as I have task of editing the volume Die Gegenwarts• pointed out in Section 2, our reports Dichtung der europiiischen Volker presented in the upper seminar were a kind (Contemporary Literature of the European of book review. This activity could Peoples). His own chapter on French and certainly be considered research. Belgian literature, produced in 1939 during the height of the Nationalsocialist regime, contained some words and expressions 21 See Wolfgang Theile. "Deutsche Romanistik derived from the then current ideology that im 'Dritten Reich' . Zwei Fallstudien: F.-R. were to mar his acadeffiic career after the Hausmann und Kurt Wais". In: Romanistik in Second World War, although it has recently Geschichte und Gegenwart, 10, 2 (2004), p. 147.
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I am inclined to think that book reviews Committee had read Kurt Wais' proposal at and evaluations of students' theses all, they must surely have been inpressed, supplement each other, although the levels not by Kurt Wais, but by his characterization of sophistication of the works under of the literary merits of Saint-John Perse! consideration may differ. Kurt Wais' vast Let us not forget his French reviewer's experience in both activities sharpened his verdict on Kurt Wais' picture of Mallarme! ability to characterize academic work that Did Kurt Wais again make Saint-John Perse had a bearing on the professional career of more humane than the usual estimation students and colleagues. No wonder that made by the latter's compatriots? his recommendations helped so many candidates! On more auspicious occasions, I have not dwelled on the "humanizing" side he was asked to write laudations for of Kurt Wais' criticism and scholarship out distinguished laureates. There exists one of sheer hero worship. This was exactly laudation written by Kurt Wais among the where the strength of his teaching and Marbach Papers. It concerns the Belgian research lay. And to hear him (in spite of his literary critic and scholar Georges Poulet Swabian accent in whatever language he (1902-1991) who came to receive the was speaking) was to share with him his Montaigne Prize in TUbingen on 27 May grasp of the personality of poets and writers. 1970. Kurt Wais must have read a great deal Kurt Wais attached importance to "live" of Poulet's work (one of his "specializations" performances, and he often invited being 20th- century criticism), but I assume distinguished scholars and speakers to that extra research must have been done). At TUbingen. I heard the great French literary one point, Kurt Wais could not find the historian Antoine Adam discourse on the relevant information on Poulet's relationship passage from Baroque to Classicism in with "German intellectual life" and simply French literature, and I still have a vivid had to tum directly to the latter for help.22 memory of that special occasion. Research This kind of research does not require only results published in printed form are one breath and depth from the researcher, thing, but to hear a great scholar lecture on but also an extraordinary ability to a subject that he loves is an experience to characterize a personality as reflected in be treasured. Kurt Wais himself gladly his work. I have personally dealt with accepted invitations to lecture at other Poulet in my research, but this short piece institutions, both in Germany and abroad. of laudation by Kurt Wais makes me For example, he lectured in French on the appreciate him all the more. comparative subject of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Honore de Balzac at Cambridge Kurt Wais once told his students how much University in 1960.23 he appreciated Saint-John Perse and sent his proposal to the Nobel Committee. I am not so naive as to make a preposterous claim that the French poet was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on the strength of Kurt 23 Letter from Stanley Aston to Kurt Wais, Wais' recommendation. But I cannot help 02.02.1960; Letter from Jean-Bertrand Barrere thinking that if the members of the to Kurt Wais, 02.02.1960. (It was this particular lecture that attracted the attention of my supervisor who recommended that I should 22 Letter from Kurt Wais to Georges Poulet, further my graduate studies in Comparative Ol.l2.1969. Literature with Kurt Wais.)
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The Marbach Papers document his translations done by native speakers. This involvement in two international associations, was by design, and not by default. Though namely the Federation Internationale des not speaking about himself, he once Langues et Litteratures Modernes (FILLM), maintained that "a work of literary criticism" of which he served as Vice-President for a should be endowed with "linguistic nuances" number of years, and the International and would lose its "subtleties" in "every Comparative Literature Association (ICLA). translation, including the very best''? 5 Kurt He was, for example, given the honour of Wais could have written his Mallarme book delivering the first plenary lecture at the in French, for he mastered French to ICLA Congress in Fribourg, Switzerland, in perfection, (his correspondence in French 1964. In a letter dated 24 August 1964 to his being extremely elegant), but that would colleague Horst Rudiger, he expressed his not have satisfied him. I suspect there was uneasiness in having to act as a keynote more to this allegiance to the mother speaker, as it would "run counter to my tongue than the reasons outlined above. intention ... of choosing a special theme",24 We foreigners are well aware of the again a reservation typical of KU!t Wais vis• struggle on the part of German academia a-vis generalizing or theorizing, which was to establish German as the language of not in consonance with his notion of scholarship. They could not abandon Latin ''research". I know from first-hand experience in favour of German straightaway. From what his preferred mode of research and the 17th century onwards, French was the scholarship was. In 1964 the University of lingua franca of Europe. (The German Ttibingen celebrated the 400111 anniversary of philosopher Leibniz wrote in French, and Shakespeare's birth with a lecture series on Frederick the Great could hardly write in Shakespeare given by its own professors in German at all!) It was in the late 18th various disciplines who came out in full century that the great poets, thinkers and force to prove that they were the pride of this philosophers of Germany began to ancient institution. Kurt Wais' contribution bequeath their works to the Western world was on "Shakespeare und die neueren in German. Foreigners often complain of Erzahler: Von Bonaventura und Manzoni bis the very complex structure of Kant's and Laforgue und Joyce" (Shakespeare and the Hegel's German, but these philosophers Novelists : From Bonaventura and Manzoni can never be ignored : they have to be to Laforgue and Joyce). I was in the read, for their message enriches the audience and found the paper to be a stylistic intellectual heritage of mankind. The same masterpiece and at the same time an might apply to literary scholarship. In impressive feat of comparatistic research. He medieval studies and in historical was addressing a specific topic, but the linguistics, for example, foreign scholars scholarly base was very broad indeed. The had to learn German if they wanted to lecture transcended any dichotomy between pursue meaningful research at all. The universalism and specialization. French reviewer of Kurt Wais' Mallarme book became impatient with his German, With his mastery of many foreign languages, described as "uselessly complicated and why did he write only in German? His obscure, Germanic to excess", but had to publications in foreign languages were admit that "from now on one would not be
24 Letter from Kurt Wais to Horst Rudiger, 25 Letter from Kurt Wais to the Dean of the 24.08.1964. "Philosophische Fakultiit", 26.05.1972.
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able to study Mallarme without using the sense, a comparison and, in its important work which Monsieur Wais has fullest sense, a historiography, just devoted to him".26 based on a potent erudition that derived from original texts Things have changed over time. German in many languages, ranging universities in the age of globalization are from Greek, Gothic, Old offering courses in English, including Proven9al to English and some in the humanities as well. German Spanish, deficient only because linguists these days do not hesitate to there were limits to what a publish in English. It is not for a foreigner single human being could to j.udge who is right and who is wrong. master. His successful scholarly effort to appropriate Kurt Wais was fluent in several foreign the then still almost unexplored languages, but in the dissemination of his domain of Sanskrit Philology research, he remained committed to the brought with it a sacrifice on the mother tongue. Yet he was highly part of the aging Schlegel, recognized abroad. This is a puzzle that resulting in his having to shelve only his compatriots can solve. his comparatistic studies, a sacrifice which the protagonists of the contemporary did not 5. Mastery of the Short Form : A understand and which they used Close Reading to support their hasty judgement on Schlegel's fizzling out in his If we are chary about later years. 27 highfalutin and dubious terms like "world literature" and This paragraph, taken from his essay "literary scholarship", Schlegel's "Wilhelm Schlegel und die vergleichende achievement, in the framework Literaturwissenschaft", (Wilhelm Schlegel of comparative criticism, is, and Comparative Literature), is the nevertheless, still sufficiently introduction to my book, August Wilhelm clear. It consists of the fact that Schlegel in Frankreich: Sein Anteil an der he dared to offer a synthesis franzosischen Literaturkritik 1807-1835 between a sober, positivist, (August Wilhelm Schlegel in France: His transnational literary overview Contribution to French Literary Criticism on the one hand, and a free, 1807-1835) (1966). Although Kurt Wais ahistorical, comparative wrote voluminous scholarly monographs, he juxtaposition in the manner of was also master of the short form, namely Voltaire's "Essai sur la poesie the scholarly essay or the academic paper. In epique" on the other. We can describe this achievement as the foundation of a 27 Kurt Wais. "Wilhelm Schlegel und die comparative treatment ofliterary Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft" . In: history, a treatment which here Chetana Nagavajara. August Wilhelm Schlegel for the first time is, in its fullest in Frankreich. Sein Anteit und der franzosischen Literaturkritik 1807-1835. Ti.ibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1966, p. 26 Jacques Scherer, op.cit., p. 225. VIII.
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an age like ours dominated by the scientific be loosely translated as "literary scholarship"), and technological convention of again is too austere to reflect the type of apotheosizing the journal article as the scholarly culture represented by Schlegel absolute form of scholarly communication, and his "employer", Madame de Stael, an Kurt Wais would have been very successful amateur culture in the best sense of the indeed! His essays are distinguished by a word. So Kurt Wais settles for the concept of remarkable laconic quality, for he could pack "Kritik" ("criticism"), in which the Schlegel so much information into them. But we are brothers themselves felt quite at home. To be not dealing with the kind of "information" more precise, Wais adds the adjective usually known to our Information Age: "comparative" to make it more truthful to these essays must be read with extreme what was actually practised by Wilhelm concentration, for they set as precondition a Schlegel. In an unassuming way, Kurt Wais certain basic familiarity with the Western is entering into a theoretical debate of sorts, literary canon and critical/scholarly modes; which might require, for the twenty-first• their terms of reference are broad and they century readership, a more comprehensive bring in associations that set you thinking exposition, for to be unassuming here further. In some respects, they represent a presumes upon a solid base of cultural condensation of existing research findings history, and not merely a narrowly conceived (to use modem scholarly jargon), but in history of literary terms. To recapitulate, other respects, they also suggest future these three terms, namely, world literature, research topics. This is scholarship at its literary scholarship and comparative most dynamic. criticism, conjure up breathtaking vistas of European cultural and intellectual history Let us indulge in a close reading, by which that could fill voluminous monographs. I shall attempt to illustrate the points made above by fixing attention to the one Kurt Wais then moves on to another paragraph quoted above. theoretical debate which occupied many of his contemporaries in the twentieth century First, we are made to realize that there exists without resorting to the concepts which were a gap between Schlegel and our modem very much in currency then, namely the scholarly context, and it is necessary to place dichotomy between the "synchronic" and the Schlegel in a framework that is familiar to "diachronic". It can be seen that he does not the twentieth-century audience. (Kurt Wais' take sides in this debate, and perhaps this essay dates from 1966.) Goethe's concept of neutrality requires no extra effort at all, for "world literature" (Weltliteratur) has not lost he is simply describing the achievement of its currency, and tomes have been written on Schlegel in mastering and harmonizing an 28 its application through the ensuing ages , ahistorical treatment, as illustrated by but Kurt Wais seems to think that it does not Voltaire's Essai sur La poesie epique, with quite describe the true nature of Schlegel 's literary historiography. The reference to contribution (in spite of the fact that Goethe Voltaire echoes a comparatistic movement and Schlegel were contemporaries). Another launched by the great Czech scholar, Rene term very much used in German scholarly Wellek, who in his History of Modem circles, "Literaturwissenschaft" (which could Criticism (1955-1992) treats Voltaire and other 18th- century critics as the pioneers of "modem" criticism. Kurt Wais himself 28 See Debating World Literature. Edited by greatly admired Wellek and introduced the Christopher Prendergast. London: Verso, 2004.
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latter's work to his students in Tiibingen. represents a tacit vindication of the German How many scholars in those days looked at Romantics' universalism which spans Voltaire as a critic? All in all, the temporal as well as spatial divides. comparatistic side of Schlegel's work comes Schlegel's uncontested position as the very much to the fore. pioneer of Sanskrit Studies in Germany is highlighted here, an intellectual and The range of Schlegel's comparative scholarly preoccupation that had nothing criticism is, according to Wais, premised on to do with European imperialist ambitions, his command of several languages and as Edward Said in his Orienta/ism (1978) literatures. Perhaps Wais is unconsciously would have it. It is worth noting that Wais indulging in a kind of disguised speaks of Schlegel's "sacrifice", meaning autobiographical narrative, for he too his unwavering devotion to Sanskrit mastered several (Western) languages. (By a Studies in his later years at the expense of strange coincidence, when I introduced his wider comparatistic interests. That myself to him personally for the first time in Kurt Wais should come out in defense of the summer of 1961, he asked me in what Schlegel against the charge of declining language we should converse - we settled intellectual power deserves our particular for French! Schlegel, it was related by his attention. Wais spent his "Indian summer" contemporaries, also asked his foreign single-rnindedly on medieval studies, guests who visited him at the University of culminating in the 10-part study of the early Bonn what language they should speak!) epics of Western Europe, a monumental This multilingualism is the condition officially project that remained unfinished for reasons set for Wais' students of Comparative that I shall bring up for discussion in Literature who should master at least three Sections 6 and 7. foreign languages, and Kurt Wais himself did not set great store on the kind of general, Those familiar with the German Romantic theoretically based comparatism that later movement will be able to see the wider became popular in academic circles. An implications of their interest in medievalism, academic discipline should possess a certain as represented by Schlegel's Gothic and degree of specialization and Wais believed in Proven~al Studies, and their reaching out to linking comparatism with a particular Sanskrit Studies. That Kurt Wais should philology, in his own case, with Romance underscore Schlegel's contribution in these Philology, a practice still upheld in many fields is in consonance with the tone of my German universities, such as the biggest monograph on Schlegel in Frankreich which department of Comparative Literature in he was introducing. The monograph deals Germany at the Free University Berlin, also with Schlegel's polemic against French although the Berlin professorial chairs are Classicism, which according to him could not not explicitly called Comparative Literature be claimed as an heir to Classical Antiquity. and Romance I English I Germanic I Slavic Besides, Schlegel accuses the French Philology, but General and Comparative Classicists of ignoring the roots of European Literature. culture, equated with the Middle Ages, and consequently ignoring the great achievements Yet, specialization need not come into that arose out of this native European soil, conflict with wider iDterests. That Wais culminating in the works of Shakespeare and should single out Schlegel's mastery of the Spanish Golden Age. Intent on linking up classical, medieval and modern languages with Classical Antiquity and ending up with
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mere nrutation, the French are culturally the frontiers of traditional language an alien element on European soil! Their departments. It was the interview with Jauss cultural hegemony is therefore misguided. that is relevant to my purpose here. I told Nations could rise to great cultural heights him that I had attended the Congress of the without imitating others, and all this is no International Comparative Association European prerogative, as demonstrated by (LCLA) held in Innsbruck in 1979 and how the great Sanskrit literature. One laudable much I appreciated his chairmanship of one aspect of the German Romantics' "ideology" section in which his team and the veteran is that they were serious scholars, and their comparatist Rene Wellek clashed on the theory was grounded in serious study. Kurt subject of literary evaluation. When he heard Wais' empathetic admiration for Schlegel's the word "Comparative Literature", Jauss "sacrifice", consciously or unconsciously, can immediately said that he had gone to serve as a warning to literary scholars of our Innsbruck at the request of friends but age. "Do your homework properly before would not identity himself as a comparatist. embarking on theorizing or polemicizing!" As I was accompanied by a colleague from How much shoddy scholarship was generated the French Department of my university, by the controversy around "Orientalism" has we had to converse in French. I still recall recently been demonstrated by Robert Irwin what Jauss said: "Le comparatisme en in his book For Lust of Knowing. The Allemagne a ete fonde par Kurt Wais, qui Orientalists and their Enemies (2006)?9 a ecrit des choses epouvantables." (Comparative Literature in Germany was One paragraph by Kurt Wais can bring founded by Kurt Wais, who wrote terrrible forth very rich associations indeed! things.) Jauss must have meant the volume Die Gegenwarts-Dichtung der europaischen Volker of 1939, already mentioned in 6. The Rise of Comparative Section 4. He did not know that I had Literature studied with Kurt Wais, and the interview went on very smoothly?0 So in the eyes of Allow me to begin with an anecdote. In his colleagues, even those who were hostile 1981 I went on a study tour of Germany to him, Kurt Wais was the founder of the with a grant from the German Academic discipline in Germany. Exchange Service (usually known by its German acronym DAAD) and expressly This is not entirely correct. There had been sought interviews with two leading scholars a number of precursors, as thoroughly of the University of Konstanz, namely the investigated by Hugo Dyserinck in his Professor of English, Wolfgang Iser, and the book Komparatistik : Eine Einfiihrung Professor of Romance Philology, Hans (Comparative Literature: An Introduction) Robert Jauss, (known internationally as the of 1977, before Kurt Wais officially took pioneer of reception aesthetics). Konstanz at his "Habilitation" in the subject "Romance that time was highly regarded as the institution at which innovations in literary studies were being launched that cut across 30 See Chetana Nagavajara. "A Journey through the Land of Literary Studies" (1981- 82). Reprinted in: Chetana Nagavajara. As You 29 Robert Irwin. For Lusi of Knowing. The Like It- As I Like It: On Criticism and Orientalists and their Enemies. London: Allen Research. Bangkok: Khombang Press, 2005, Lane, 2006. pp. 155-165 (in Thai).
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Philology and Comparative Literature" in und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft" to 1934 at the age of 27 . But as fortune or "Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft und misfortune would have it, he was to be Romanistik", claiming that the subject of his appointed full professor in that combined "Habilitation" had been named thus and discipline at his beloved TUbingen as late as should remain unchanged. So Comparative 1954. With or without full professorial Literature was not to take precedence over regalia, Wais was always productive as a Romance Philology! In this matter he comparatist. (During the one year of remained consistent throughout his captivity as a prisoner of war, he was professional career. Shortly before his learning Russian from a fellow-prisoner!) retirement, he wrote to one of the candidates He, also organized an international for his Chair, who later turned out to be conference in 1950 in TUbingen, attended by successful (certainly not a breach of a number of highly distinguished scholars, professional ethics, as Kurt Wais was not a and the Proceedings that he edited are a member of the Selection Committee) that significant contribution to international he had enjoyed the freedom to operate in literary studies. Hugo Dyserinck was very both disciplines, and then came a very fair, when he maintained that although Kurt significant statement: "I have deliberately Wais did not succeed in institutionalizing refrained from applying for a Seminar in Comparative Literature as an independent Comparative Literature on its own".32 subject, "his work and his activity will in any case go down in the annals of this One may have to ask whether this was a discipline as something positive".31 matter of principle or blind loyalty to Romance Philology as such. The answer I am not sure that Kurt Wais himself wanted would probably be in favour of principle, or to develop Comparative Literature into an more precisely, of professional conviction. independent subject. I have in the previous The Marbach Papers include Kurt Wais' chapters tried to demonstrate that he was correspondence with Horst RUdiger, and it unsympathetic towards excessive is abundantly clear that Kurt Wais really generalization and theorizing, which to him believed that the study of Comparative could lapse into wishy-washy pseudo• Literature had to be anchored in at least scholarship. So a firm footing in a specific one specific philology and this should philology would be a good precondition, and apply to the creation of, or appointment to, Romance Philology with its main sub• a professorial chair as well. When Horst specialities of French, Italian and Spanish was RUdiger was moving from Mainz to take up already by its very nature "comparatistic". (In a new appointment in Bonn, Kurt Wais actual practice he was also ready to supervise strongly recommended that the chair students wishing to combine Comparative should be designated by a dual Literature with English Philology or German specialization, namely "Germanische Philology.) As late as 1973 he resisted the Philologie und (underlined in the original) suggestion from the Dean of the School of Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft'' (German Modem Languages at TUbingen University to Philology and Comparative Literature)?3 make a slight change in the name of the discipline from "Romanische Philologie 32 Letter from Kurt Wais to Wido Hempel, 18.03.1974. 31 Hugo Dyserinck. Komparatistik. Eine 33 Letter from Kurt Wais to Horst RUdiger, Einfiihrung. Bonn: Bouvier, 1977, p. 39. 05.11.1962.
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Although Kurt Wais' suggestion came too instability of the system himself during his late, Horst RUdiger subsequently saw to it last years of service before his retirement, that his Chair in Comparative Literature was when certain uncivilized elements crept into closely linked with the Gennan Seminar. As the idyllic TUbingen. Half a professorial RUdiger was at that time also Director of the chair for Comparative Literature, when Gennan Seminar, he could reorient it compared to, say, the ideal situation in somewhat in the direction of Comparative Berlin today, is child's play by present-day Literature; for example, the Seminar Library standards. The situation was compounded by had been expanded accordingly.34 the fact that Comparative Literature was then not recognized as a subject for the state The. Wais-Rtidiger model of Comparative examination, and job security could not be Literature has since been adopted by other guaranteed for those who opted for the Gennan institutions and seems to have discipline on purely academic grounds. That worked well. The most flourishing institute Kurt Wais, against all the odds, could, in a in Gennany today, namely that of the Free maverick-like manner, achieve so much University Berlin, has 5 professorial chairs, remains a marvel. each with a scholarly bias towards one specific philology or art fonn, but working Kurt Wais never set himself up as leader of collectively (needless to say, under a strong Gennan Comparative Literature. Recognition and benign leadership for a few decades).35 was not acquired through self-assertive Kurt Wais could not possibly have dreamt of efforts, but was earned on the strength of his such teamwork, for in his days the research, and much of this recognition carne professorial system was still very much from foreign colleagues and institutions. He conceived as being based on individual chair was from the outset outward-going, and he holders. There was at that time no built-in was aware that, by its very nature, mechanism to ensure cooperation and Comparative Literature could only thrive in collaboration. The academic tradition, as I an international context, not only have pointed out in Chapter 2, operated on substantively through teaching and research, the assumption of civilized collegiality, and but also socially through personal contacts. Kurt Wais must have experienced the The Marbach Papers testify to this outward• going practice. I have already mentioned his involvement in the ICLA and FILLM in 34 Letter from Horst RUdiger to Kurt Wais, Chapter 5, and the correspondence between 27. 12. 1966. Kurt Wais and Horst RUdiger shows how 35 I am referring to Eberhard Uimmert, who seriously the two Gennan scholars viewed also served one term as President of the Free their task. Not all international contacts University Berlin. He has been connected with proved to be fruitful. The FILLM Congress Marbach too, having held the position of in Islamabad, Pakistan, in September 1969, President of the Deutsche Schillergesellschaft for example, was a disappointment, for the (German Schiller Society) for 15 years. After the reunification, he helped to fo und the participants from the host country were not Zentrum flir Literaturforschung Berlin (Centre actively involved at all, and Wais' verdict for Literary Research Berlin). He has lectured based on his attendance at 8 previous in Thailand several times. In a private congresses was that they had gone there conversation, Professor Lammert said to me that the rise of Comparative Literature in Germany owed much to Kurt Wais.
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"one hundred years too soon"? 6 But on the Colleagues from abroad introduced whole, his relations with foreign colleagues themselves to Kurt Wais and offered to come and institutions must have been a source of to lecture in Ttibingen. John Fletcher of the much gratification for him. French University of Norwich, one of the very first colleagues held him in high esteem, (and it chair holders of Comparative Literature in must not be forgotten that Tiibingen was in the UK, made contact with Kurt Wais in the French-occupied zone after the war, and 1969. But the most interesting case is that of the French authorities cleared him of any the ZUrich comparatist, Fritz Ernst, who 7 charge of NS connections? ) Correspondence introduced himself to Kurt Wais and made a with French colleagues constitutes a trip to Ttibingen on 13 May 1954. The Swiss considerable part of the Marbach Papers. scholar must have been a serious person, for Naturally, his competence as a comparatist he had sent an agenda for that meeting was sought after, and the Secretary-General beforehand. It contained the following items: of the European chapter of the ICLA wrote "(1) Present status of Comparative Literature to Kurt Wais asking him to be part of the in Germany; (2) Possibility of (setting up) an delegation from Europe to attend the organ for this; and (3) Possibility of Congress in Chapel Hill. Moreover, Kurt cooperation".4° Kurt Wais must have been Wais' stature surpassed that of a professor of impressed by the sincerity and seriousness literature the "Association des of purpose on the part of Fritz Ernst They Universitaires d'Europe" (Association of subsequently decided to coedit a monograph European University Teachers) was series entitled "Forschungsprobleme der contemplating the creation of a "European vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte", (Research University" and was planning a small expert Topics in Comparative Literature).41 The meeting in Geneva in July 1958. A telegram premature death of Fritz Ernst in 1958 was sent to him stating quite categorically: robbed Kurt Wais of a true friend, and he "VOTRE PRESENCE INDISPENSABLE" was trying to look for Ernst's successor. For (Your presence indispensable).38 The the first time in my dealing with the questionnaire that followed contained Marbach Papers, I could sense that Kurt important issues of cultural policy. Another Wais was going out of his way to remedy a invitation came for a meeting in Munich in situation which really was not directly his November 1959, using almost the same responsibility: he turned to his long-time wording: "I certainly consider your friend Werner Paul Friederich, (who had participation as indispensable."39 This moved to the USA and who, with Fernand happened years before EU committees of Baldensperger, more or less helped to put this nature came into being. American cornparatism on the map, so to speak,) with a suggestion that it was about time Friederich should return home to Switzerland. Friederich's reply (in English) 36 Kurt Wais. "Bericht tiber die Teilnahme am was perhaps representative of the attitude ll. Kongress der FILLM, Islamabad, 13.-26. of many European emigres in American September 1969". 37 Wolfgang Theile, op.cit., p. 142. (See Note 21). 40 Letter from Fritz Ernst to Kurt Wais, 38 Telegram from Guy Michaud to Kurt Wais, 09.05.1954. 0 22.06.1958. 41 My book, Schlegel in Frankreich, mentioned 39 Letter from Guy Michaud to Kurt Wais, earlier, also appeared as Volume ill in this 14.10.1959. series.
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academia: "Sorry that I have to disappoint scholarly achievements in the discipline you, but I dearly love these USA which were incontestable. The two volumes of have been so good to me during the past collected essays, namely An den Grenzen thirty years and I naturally want to stay der Nationalliteraturen: Vergleichende with my child and with all the places Aufsiitze (On the Frontiers of National Molly knew so well."42 Literatures: Comparative Essays) of 1958 and Europiiische Literatur im Vergleich: Was Kurt Wais overstepping his role and Gesammelte Aufsiitze (Comparative acting like a self-appointed patriarch of European Literature: Collected Essays) of Comparative Literature? I am inclined to 1983 bear testimony to his strength as think that his concern for the discipline as a a researcher, namely thorough whole was genuine. The Marbach Papers documentation, analytical acuity, vast are studded with the German word coverage in terms of subject matter, and "Nachwuchs" (younger generation) which above all the ability to connect. Viewed comes up every so often. Both Kurt Wais from the vantage point of present-day and Horst RUdiger were intent on paving comparatism, one cannot help asking why the way for younger scholars to take their with his immense erudition Kurt Wais did place. Their correspondence echoes the not bother to offer a more audacious and voices of two elder statesmen who were assertive synthesis. If only he could have looking ahead to a brighter future for been a little more sensitive to the lure of Comparative Literature in Germany. Of theory! As I have pointed out in Section 3, course, Kurt Wais had already trained he was not interested in methodology or young comparatists of great promise who theory. It is not surprising that later could fill new chairs anytime. In a letter to scholars should be disappointed with him. Kurt Wais on 27 August 1964, Horst An English reviewer of his Europiiische Rudiger was reviewing the status of Literatur im Vergleich was quite explicit Comparative Literature in Germany, in this: "But his massively-researched mentioning names of young colleagues, answers remain expository, combining an including, of course, Wais' pupils. As for authoritarian command of 'knowledge' Kurt Wais he rejoiced that new chairs in with a disappointingly modest attitude to Comparative Literature were being created underlying issues".44 Pupils of Kurt Wais at various German universities.43 I am sure knew so well that what our teacher that at the time of his retirement, he realized demanded of us was text-based the limitations of the discipline at his own philological conscientiousness. The university and welcomed the new "underlying issues" did surface in the decentralized model for German upper seminar and we often continued to comparatism. discuss them after those late Monday night sessions in the old "Aula" on the bank of Although he did not quite manage to the river Neckar. "The Monday salon", as I create a distinctly identifiable "school" of would like to call it, was not conducted by Comparative Literature in Tti bingen, his a literary high priest who made definitive
42 Letter from Werner Paul Friederich to Kurt 44 Naomi Segal. Review of Kurt Wais' Wais, 29.12.1958. Europiiische Literatur im Vergleich. 43 Letter from Kurt Wais to Horst RUdiger, Gesammelte Aufsiitze. In: French Studies, 05 .1 1.1 962. 1985, XXXIX, p. 372.
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pronouncements on all things. We were upper seminar.46 Another foreign scholar trained to be "amateurs" of literature in the whose works Kurt Wais introduced to us etymological sense of the word and was Sir Maurice Bowra, and we did not "modest" scholars who hesitated to make know him only as an expert in the heroic big claims unless we were able to poetry of many nations, but Kurt Wais told substantiate them philologically. Looking us of his visit to Oxford and that he found back over four decades I suspect that this the English scholar to be the most "modesty" can explain why a "Tiibingen "geistreich" (an untranslatable German word School of Comparative Literature" with its meaning witty, elegant and sophisticated at own distinct character did not emerge from the same time) person he had ever met in his that essentially fertile ground. life. These personal touches were not meant to be merely entertaining; we students were There was one area of Comparative not expected to imbibe only the message Literature which Kurt Wais did address from the printed words, but to conjure up in that came near to what we would today our minds distinct personalities (not to be call "literary theory", and that was literary confused with celebrities), and all this made criticism. Kurt Wais' twice-weekly lecture our reading of criticism and secondary on 20th_ century criticism (in Europe and literature more lively and more humane. North and South America) was probably a Comparative Literature begins as a science novelty in German universities in the of texts but is deep down a very humane 1960s, since Rene Wellek's History of science. We learned this from Kurt Wais, Modern Criticism had at that time not yet implicitly and tacitly. reached the 20th century. Kurt Wais was an admirer of Rene Wellek, and in terms of So people took him for an "expert" on methodology he adopted the Wellek model criticism. (He told me personally in all in dealing with cntiCism from the modesty when I visited him in 1981 that standpoint of "history of criticism".45 With he was nowhere near Wellek and did not no greater authority to rely upon, Kurt pursue this branch of studies for long.) The Wais must have done a great deal of Marbach Papers are a great help in his research himself as far as the 20th century respect. For example, the famous publisher was concerned. It was a joy to listen to him analyzing works of colleagues whom he knew personally. For example, when 46 Years later I took my cue from Rousset's and considering the rediscovery of Baroque other critics' revaluation of Baroque literature poetry by the Swiss scholar Jean Rousset, and tried to find a correlation between the Kurt Wais related how he and Rousset criticism of Baroque literature and the traveled through the US together and creativity of the Expressioni st movement. See Chetana Nagavajara. "Revaluation between learned much from each other first-hand. Past and Present: Case Studies from Early and We then took up Rousset's work in the Mid-Twentieth-Century Criticism". In :Across the Oceans. Studies from East to West in Honor of Richard K. Seymour. Honolulu: College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature, 45 As far as content was concerned, some of the University of Hawaii, 1995. Reprinted in works of individual critics which Kurt Wais Chetana Nagavajara. Fervently Mediating: introduced to his students were theoretically Criticism from a Thai Perspective. Collected oriented. So the "historical" approach did not Articles 1982-2004. Bangkok: Chomanad preclude an interest in theory as such. Press, 2004, pp. 309-324.
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Brockhaus wrote to him asking for his own works, including the theses he contribution to the encyclopedia, Der Grofle supervised, veered towards the French Brockhaus, in the form of a comprehensive school, but his method could certainly not article on "Criticism", the reason being that be simplified as the much-derided the article was to have an international scope "rapports de fait" (factual relations) and colleagues had recommended Kurt Wais attributed to this school, as it also attached as "the most prominent representative of great importance to intellectual history. Comparative Literature".47 Though not Kurt Wais' interest in criticism (which belonging officially to a German Department, inevitably implied that he did not ignore he must have been knowledgeable enough literary theory) would align him with the abQut contemporary German criticism to be American school. One point has to be invited by the "Societe des etudes made clear when we talk about literary germaniques" (Society for Germanic Studies) theory. Kurt Wais and his pupils considered to deliver a lecture in Paris. Kurt Wais themselves as literary historians, and more proposed to speak in French on the topic specifically, as historians of criticism: they "Critique litteraire en Allemagne dans les studied theories embedded in the critical demiers decades" (Literary Criticism in works of others, and were not theorizing on Germany in the Last Decades), which proved the basis of other critics' theories. By nature that he would prefer to address an audience a moderate person not prone to any radical consisting of non-Germanists as well, (a real positioning, Kurt Wais disapproved of Rene comparatistic predilection?). But the Etiemble' s hostility towards the American Secretary of the Society proposed that the school.49 lecture be in German, and the date was set for 25 February 1956. Unfortunately, an It is a truism that to get to know a scholar illness prevented him from going to Paris for well, one has to go back to his roots. Wido the purpose.48 The point to be emphasized Hempel, Kurt Wais' successor in the here is that he was regarded as a specialist in Tiibingen Chair, characterized his colleague the history of criticism in Germany as well in the obituary published in the journal as abroad. Romanische Forschungen in 1995 in the following terms: "and it can certainly be said Insofar as his comparattsttc orientation that Kurt Wais, the daring and experienced was concerned, Kurt Wais steered the discoverer of many literary seas, remained middle course between the French and the faithful to his Swabian homeland as well as American schools. Although he attended to his scholarly roots."50 Those scholarly the ICLA Congress in Chapel Hill, where roots were Medieval Studies initiated by his a controversy between the two Schools teacher Hermann Schneider in Tiibingen.51 came to the fore, there exists no evidence that Kurt Wais took sides. Some of his 49 Letter from Kurt Wais to Horst RUdiger, 24.08.1964. 47 Letter from the Verlag Eberhard Brockhaus 50 Wido Hempel. "Nachruf : Kurt Wais ( 1907- to Kurt Wais (n.d.). 1995)". In: Romanische Forschungen, 107:3/4 48 Letter from Claude David to Kurt Wais, ( 1995), p. 422. 04. 10.1955 ; Letter from Kurt Wais to Claude 51 According to his wife, Kurt Wais remained David, 11. 11 .1955; Letter· from Claude David very close to his teacher Hermann Schneider to Kurt Wais, 25.02. 1956. until the latter's death, visiting him regularly and taking him for a walk. He was also very
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In private conversations and correspondence Wais was not dealing with just the epics of during the years preceding his retirement, Western Europe anymore: the extra• Kurt Wais expressed his intention to European connections were too enticing to concentrate his research activities on his resist This was the reason why he had to Medieval Studies of which one volume had discipline himself in not accepting too many appeared in 1953 under the title Friihe Epik invitations and engagements. In a letter of Westeuropas und die Vorgeschichte des the same year he called this project his Nibelungenliedes (Early Epics of Western "life's work" and had "sworn an oath to Europe and the Prehistory of the Song of the decline even the most attractive invitation".54 Nibelungen). With his background in No wonder that he was so sympathetic Germanic Studies, Nordic Studies, Celtic towards August Wilhelm Schlegel's Studies and Romance Philology, he was "sacrifice", as we have seen in Section 5. better equipped than other medievalists to Being such a good teacher and a generous tackle such a challenging subject. Medieval colleague, he must have broken that oath a Studies is a composite discipline, in our number of times! With Volume 2 left contemporary jargon, a multi-discipline, that unfinished, he returned around 1972 to the a single scholar can hardly master. Kurt Wais early epics in Romance languages and once knew he was confronting a gigantic task but again imposed a "law upon myself not to remained undaunted. He once said that he accept any engagement until this plan is was conscious of his limitations as a completed".55 Naturally he must have medievalist : he knew no Arabic and lacked revoked that law himself. training in music history and musicology. Kurt Wais himself described what he was Knowing so much and still thirsting for doing as "mediavistische Komparatistik" more, seeing connections everywhere and (medieval comparatism),52 which surely is following the clues leading from one point to remote from the preoccupation of most another, this was comparatism scaling dizzy "comparatists", then and now. heights that could hardly be reached. When Volume 1 came out in 1953, his Tiibingen In 1969, Volume 2 was about to be finished, colleague, Wolfgang Mohr, in a review, but in the end it was not. I can only surmise could sense that Kurt Wais might deliver why he could not finish it. Its scope was something that could parallel the expanding beyond control. He mentioned in monumental work by Ernst Robert Curtius' a letter that Volume 2 would contain a Europaische Literatur und lateinisches chapter dealing with a theme on which he Mittelalter (European Literature and Latin had been working for a long time with an Middle Ages) of 1948.56 Kurt Wais was Egyptologist colleague in Tiibingen.53 Kurt perhaps trying to prove the thesis propounded by the German Romantics, especially the Schlegel brothers, that close to his other Tiibingen teacher, the Romance philologist, Gerhard Rohlfs. In his class, when he quoted them, he never failed to 54 Letter from Kurt Wais to J.C. Brandt• refer to them as "My teacher Hermann Castius, 24.03.1969. Schneider" and "My teacher Gerhard Rohlfs". 55 Letter from Kurt Wais to Frau Gerlinghoff 52 Letter from Kurt Wais to Henry H. H. (first name not given), 26.05.1972. Remak, 14.02.1975. · 56 Wolfgang Mohr: Review of Kurt Wais' 53 Letter from Kurt Wais to Gehrts (first name Fruhe Epik Westeuropas. In: Anzeigerfor die not given), 16.07.1970. Altertumswissenschaft 63 ( 1955-56), p. 19.
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alongside the Graeco-Roman heritage, international discipline. International scholars medieval Europe did produce a literary converge there to conduct their research, culture of comparable quality arising out of propped by a well-organized archive and a the native soil in the various vernaculars, as good library. Kurt Wais' "Nachlass" made a we have seen in Section 5 in connection with short journey from his home in Tiibingen to August Wilhelm Schlegel. Kurt Wais almost the Literature Archive in Marbach in 2000 did it. When he died at the age of 88, he left and now constitutes part of the immense a bulky manuscript containing Volumes 2 to manuscript collection of poets, writers, 10, parts of which had already been thinkers and scholars. Without access to completed and typed out. It is time that we these papers, I would not have been able to tum to what I propose to call "The Marbach write this essay in the way that I have done Legacy". and might have had to rely partly on guesswork. And a pupil of Kurt Wais cannot, in good conscience, operate on guesswork! 7. The Marbach Legacy : A Coda What I propose to call "The Marbach The little town of Marbach on the river Legacy" has yet to be organized properly Neckar recently made national news when according to archival principles, and that the President of the Federal Republic of will probably take many more years. But as Germany inaugurated on 6 June 2006 the it stands, it is workable, thanks to the new structure of a larger complex, called the arduous preliminary work done by his "Literaturrnuseum der Modeme" (Museum widow, Dr. Karin Wais, herself a scholar of of Modern Literature), designed by the stature whose works on Rilke and Schiller renowned British architect, David are much recognized.58 Though not yet Chipperfield, and in his speech made a very catalogued, the manuscripts are arranged significant statement: "If you are looking for into groups, namely: correspondence with something like a home for literature in colleagues; correspondence with publishers Germany, then you will fmd it here in and editors; correspondence with his family; Marbach./ Other countries would naturally letters of recommendations; manuscripts of have situated such an institution in their unfinished articles; evaluations of theses; capital. But culture in Germany has many and last but not least, manuscripts of the capitals. This unique diversity characterizes 57 remaining 9 volumes of the work Early the German cultural landscape." Epics of Western Europe. The documents Established some 120 years ago as a have been put into 25 boxes in total, of memorial to the great son of Marbach, Friedrich Schiller, and other Swabian poets, what had grown out of local patriotism has 58 After the death of his first wife, Kurt Wais become a national institution and a research married a young Ph.D. student, Karin centre of international dimensions, for the Bergeder, in 1960. Karin Wais completed her study of German literature has become an doctorate and continued to pursue her own research. Among her major publications, the following are worth mentioning: Studien zu Rilkes Valery-Ubertragungen. Tiibingen: Max 57 "Rede von Bundesprasident Horst Kohler Niemeyer, 1967; Die Schiller-Chronik unter zur Eroffnung des Literaturmuseums der Mitw. von Rose Unterberger. Frankfurt am Moderne am 6. Juni 2006.in Marbach ". Main: Insel- Verlag, 2005. Bundesregierung Bulletin Nr. 57- I vom 06.06.2006, p. I.
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which 20 alone contain the manuscripts of to transform this "heap of broken images" the monumental medieval study. I am not (to quote T. S. Eliot) into a new platform for saying that sheer volume means substantive transnational cooperation that would help weightiness. But anybody prepared even to them to survive and pave the way for the inspect just the table of contents of each younger generation, (hence the care for the volume will soon realize that these piles of "Nachwuchs" which I have mentioned in papers cannot be ignored. Section 6 on "The Rise of Comparative Literature"). Wolfgang Kayser too shared Based on my own experience, I shall try to Kurt Wais' concern, when he wrote in 1951 outline what we can learn from the Marbach that they should be thinking of helping the Papers. "Nachwuchs" to grow, for "you (Kurt Wais) are, if I am not mistaken, the only I asked myself first and foremost the very representative of the discipline in Germany".59 simple question that if I had not known Kurt All this speaks for the humane side of Wais personally, would a picture of the man academia in those days. There was no need have emerged from just reading these for these scholars to press their institutions documents? I would be inclined to answer in into signing "Memoranda of Understanding" the affirmative. Here was a man endowed (MOU) like today, for gentlemen's with a warmth of personality and a agreements seemed to work fairly remarkable degree of sociability and satisfactorily. collegiality,. who was always ready to help other people (and not necessarily only The scholars were ready to help each other. through answering phone calls till shortly A specific case might perhaps clarify my before midnight!). The letters can point. Even during the war, Kurt Wais substantiate this impression. Looking at the maintained contact with some of his French dates of the letters sent to him and the dates colleagues. The doyenne of German Studies of his responses, I soon found out how in France, Genevieve Bianquis, wrote to conscientious and friendly he was in dealing Kurt Wais from Dijon in 1944 in a rather with other people. He sometimes almost personal, even confessional tone, telling him answered by return of post, although there how she had managed to survive such a was no compulsion to do so. (He must have "terrible present" by devoting herself to enjoyed letter-writing, and I cannot imagine research in German literature.60 There was if he was still living today, how he would no sense of enmity here at all. After the war, deal with the unmanageable number of e• when the second edition of Kurt Wais' mails he might receive on a daily basis.) Mallarme book appeared, Madame Bianquis wrote again in January 1959 and did not Letters do not only illuminate personal hesitate to point out some minor relationships. We can almost reconstruct the mistranslations of Mallarme's poems.61 A scholarly networks of Kurt Wais' times by true friend indeed! way of these exchanges of correspondence (in many languages - which reveals how good his French was, and how quaint, his 59 Letter from Wolfgang Kayser to Kurt Wais, English!) I do not sense any rivalry. There 06.07.1951. must have been some in-fighting behind the 60 Letter from Genevieve Bianquis to Kurt scenes, but these scholars of the postwar era, Wais, 20.01.1944. 61 in their correspondence at least, were trying Letter from Genevieve Bianquis to Kurt Wais, 12.01.1959.
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Correspondence with and about his pupils bygone era when mutual trust was still the does throw light on teacher-pupil guiding principle. relationships. I cannot help feeling that in some cases he might have cared more I have so far tried to relate the man to his age about them than vice versa, judging from and to demonstrate how the intellectual the indifference that some of them showed environment and the academic tradition their former teacher in later years. If ever were favourable to the process of maturation they had a chance to spend a few hours in of a distinguished teacher and scholar like the Manuscript Department of the Kurt Wais. If a young man of 31 could Literaturarchiv in Marbach, they might produce a work of the stature of Mallarme, begin to repent, for they would soon ein Dichter der Jahrhundertwende realize that he had done his utmost to help (Mallarme, A Poet of the Tum of the them individually (without breaking the Century), the octogenarian, steeped in the unwritten codes of professional ethics, of reading of early medieval epics in several course), be it in securing prestigious languages, must have looked back to the appointments or even making inroads for work of the "Wunderkind" (child prodigy) them into the publishing world! with a smile. The youthful work was as good as it could have been - brilliant, Kurt Wais was a gifted letter-writer. The conscientious, erudite, but with no great Marbach Papers offer ample material for a "ideology" to underpin it The unfinished volume of selected letters to and from Kurt Early Epics of Western Europe was to be a Wais. I maintain that such a publication monumental synthesis, and I think that Kurt will not only do Kurt Wais the honour that Wais was trying to prove a point, which I he deserves, but will also give us a very have already mentioned in the previous humane image of the European academic section, namely to substantiate the Romantic community (in an age that, alas, might notion of Europe as a cohesive entity (but now be gone forever). with its doors open to other cultures), that predates the dreams of the architects of the I have dealt with the evaluations of theses EU by almost a thousand years! It was his and letters of recommendation in Section 3 penchant for erudition that accounted for his and shall only confirm here that these inability to "call it a day", so to speak, (not documents speak well fo r the German to mention failing health after the stroke he academic tradition. Nevertheless it must not suffered just before his 80th birthday). His be forgotten that the traditional professorial working method, in this case, was oligarchy, which was later to be subjected to centrifugal, and the absence of any reforms, carried with it immense centripetal pull meant that no synthesis was responsibility on the part of the individual in sight. professors, not only in terms of sheer workload but also from the standpoint of I am well aware that this coda is about ethics. The contemporary university has Marbach, and I must not overlook the switched over to a system borrowed from physical side of the manuscripts. We need the business sector, with a new top-down not be impressed with their volume alone, "management system" under the guidance but any closer scrutiny will reveal how much (or dictatorship?) of a Chief Executive love was expended on this study. Some of Officer (CEO). I enjoyed reading the the cleanly typed-out parts have not been left Marbach Papers which tell us about a untouched; they have been corrected,
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revised, with additions along the margins. own initiative anymore, whether Certain parts are hand-written; some are in jest or in seriousness, the very mere scribblings. I am of the opinion that the moment you enter a political whole manuscript should be examined by a organization; I have made the team of medievalists, or preferably by right decision not to do that in "medieval comparatists" (as Kurt Wais my whole life (in the Third himself would call them) in order to gauge Reich almost the only one of what is ready for publication, what needs my age-group within the editing prior to publication and what needs Faculty).63 to be discarded as unpublishable. But the answer that we uninitiated would like to Unless one had the impertinence to accuse have is very simple: what does the whole Kurt Wais of mendacity, this statement could thing tell us? It can not be just a heap of clear up a number of uncertainties about rubbish if a scholar of Kurt Wais' stature Kurt Wais and politics. Even some of his called it his "life's work". friends and pupils today are inclined to think that he was politically nai:ve. Is it really that There remains much in Kurt Wais' "Marbach simple? Legacy" that needs to be investigated. Archival studies may not be an area to which We are living in the computer age, and it is today's literary scholars would like to devote doubtful whether scholars of today would their time. It is more exiting to deal with the bequeath a "Nachlass" which can further latest theories! But when reliable answers to research like that of Kurt Wais. How many of certain issues are not forthcoming, Marbach those Internet messages will be preserved for is there to help you. Kurt Wais had, and still posterity? Marbach represents a reaffirmation has, his detractors, who point their fmger at of the written culture, and this essay is also his "sins of youth" that can be identified in meant to be an apologia for archival some of his early publications. But to accuse research. How many present-day messages him of being implicated in Nazi ideology are transmitted via the telephone? Yet the and activities is simply academic remnants of written culture are still with us. McCarthyism. Relying heavily on the When one opens the appropriate page for Marbach Papers, Wolfgang Theile of transmitting an e-mail, the address section Bamberg University has, in a very contains one line designated as "cc". How gentlemanly manner, dealt a blow to one of many people know that it means carbon these detractors.62 I do not propose to copy? (In the old days without copying rehearse the controversy any further, and machines, you saved one for yourself, sent the only wish to confmn Wolfgang Theile's other one to another addressee for position. My short visit to Marbach in May information.) How many young people have 2006 yielded a real surprise. A hand-written used carbon paper and made carbon copies on letter from Kurt Wais to his colleague Horst a typewriter? Kurt Wais kept carbon copies of RUdiger dated 24 August 1964 is quite a great number of his letters and other revelatory. I shall quote only a short passage. documents, and I have been able to read much into his life and work thanks to these You cannot, as far as research is thin sheets of paper. concerned, do. things on your
63 Letter from Kurt Wais to Horst RUdiger, 62 Wolfgang Theile, op. cit., (See Note 21 ). 24.08.1964.
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I was contemplating ending this long essay by quoting the poem "Literaturarchiv in M." (Literature Archive in M.) by Rainer Kunze, but its rich classical allusions, including the river Styx and such characters as Charon, Orpheus and Eurydice, might require too many footnotes! Only the last two lines are easily comprehensible.
It is a place of shadows ~ith the light from the world up there
I have had the good fortune of knowing the physical structure of the Literaturarchiv, have gone down to the "underworld" to inspect Kurt Wais' "Nachlass" and can thus appreciate Rainer Kunze's message. The spacious cellar that stores books and manuscripts (mostly of dead poets and scholars) can be described as a place of shadows lit up by the wisdom of the real world up there ("Oberwelt" in the original) where their works were created. My research on Kurt Wais has moved in the opposite direction : I have culled from the shadows down there some guiding li?]'t that should illuminate our world up here.
64 Friends and colleagues have been helpful to me in many ways. My special thanks go to Dr. Karin Wais who has read the first draft of the manuscript and given her valuable comments. I also wish to thank the following colleagues for their advice: Prof. Hugo Dyserinck (Lanaken), Mr. Winfried Feifel (Marbach), Mr. Gert Pfafferrodt (Miinchen) and Mr. Jan-Ulrich Rademaker (Nattheim). A Thai Ph.D. student at Freiburg University, Mr. Chaiyakorn Kiatpongsan, has helped to photocopy some journal articles and reviews. That I have had the courage to embark on this archival research at all is due to the pioneering work of Prof. Wolfgang Theile, also a pupil of Kurt Wais. Last but not least, I must mention with gratitude the help I received from the staff members of the Manuscnpt Department and the Library of the Deutsche Literaturarchiv, Marbach.
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