University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2021 The Inner Tragic of the Sturm und Drang and its Dramatic Trilogy: Lenz’s Die Soldaten, Schiller’s Die Räuber, and Goethe’s Faust I Charles Brown University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the German Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Brown, Charles, "The Inner Tragic of the Sturm und Drang and its Dramatic Trilogy: Lenz’s Die Soldaten, Schiller’s Die Räuber, and Goethe’s Faust I. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2021. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/6623 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Charles Brown entitled "The Inner Tragic of the Sturm und Drang and its Dramatic Trilogy: Lenz’s Die Soldaten, Schiller’s Die Räuber, and Goethe’s Faust I." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Modern Foreign Languages. Adrian Del Caro, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Maria Stehle, Sarah Eldridge, Allen R. Dunn Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) The Inner Tragic of the Sturm und Drang and its Dramatic Trilogy: Lenz’s Die Soldaten, Schiller’s Die Räuber, and Goethe’s Faust I A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Charles Joseph Brown May 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express sincere gratitude to my dissertation advisor Dr. Adrian Del Caro and to my committee members Dr. Sarah Eldridge, Dr. Maria Stehle, and Dr. Allen Dunn for accepting this mission and for supporting me at every stage of the process. I would also like to thank Dr. Ohnesorg, Dr. Huth, Dr. Hodges, and Dr. Magilow for their unwavering support throughout my tenure at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). The German program and the intellectual atmosphere at UTK is amazing and the professors acknowledged here embody the majesty that underlies the university’s commitment to fairness, integrity, and academic excellence. And to my family – thank you lil b, girl, and boy. ii ABSTRACT My research examines three German dramas – J. M. R. Lenz’s Die Soldaten (1776), Friedrich Schiller’s Die Räuber (1781), and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust: eine Tragödie (1808). The three plays exhibit with remarkable parallel a three-phase dramatic structure that serves as the inner framework for a tragic process. This shared inner tragic process is suggestive evidence of an enlightening intertextuality within the purview of the Sturm und Drang. Featuring prominently in this tragic trilogy of the Sturm und Drang is Lenz, the tragic innovator whose template for inner tragic not only influences works of literature in this sequence of plays, but also serves as the transition and point of departure from classical tragedy to the modern notion of the tragic within the philosophical framework of German Idealism. The inner arrangement of tragic elements, the Lenzian inner tragic structure, is composed of 1) a psychological exposition, 2) physical climax , and 3) emotional dénouement. The inner tragic structure captures the tragic process, a series of experiences and events that the protagonists suffer as they prepare for tragic action. The tragic phases of this process are captured respectively by each element of the inner structure as follows: 1) self-shattering, 2) tragic selfhood, and 3) death wish. The individuals experiencing the inner tragic are the literary protagonists who represent three profiles of Menschen in a continuum of ascendency, Mensch (Die Soldaten), Kraftmensch (Die Räuber), and Übermensch (Faust I), respectively. The literary figures who experience this tragic process embody several cultural threads within the greater context of the Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang and early Romanticism in the German-speaking world. My research uncovers an inner structure and an intertextual unity along tragic lines between the three plays in an era known for formlessness and divergence. Moreover, my findings reveal an exceptional Sturm und Drang manifestation of tragic that fills a void between a poetics of tragedy and a philosophy of modern tragic. Foreshadowing several other iii developments in the nineteenth century such as existentialism and depth psychology, the Sturm und Drang inner tragic process delivers timeless wisdom about self-transformation and the efficacy of reason. Keywords: tragic, German drama, Sturm und Drang, self iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………….……………………………. 1 Preamble: Lenz’s Sturm und Drang Tragic Project………..……….………………………………... 1 The Lenzian Inner Tragic Structure……………………….………………………………………….. 3 The Three Phases of the Sturm und Drang Inner Tragic Process…………………………………...…9 Lenz and Aristotle: Liberties and Lineages………………………………..........................................14 The Menschheit Continuum: Mensch, Kraftmensch, and Übermensch……………………………... 22 CHAPTER ONE: THE UNDERPININGS OF THE LENZIAN TRAGIC PROJECT, 1700-1773.. 32 The Enlightenment and the Evaluation from Rousseau and Kant ....………………………………... 32 The Sturm und Drang and its Founding Figures, 1759-1772………………….…………………….. 37 The German Theory of Drama in the Eighteenth Century………………………………………..…. 46 Galotti and Götz: Models for Sturm und Drang Drama…...………………………………………….60 Freytag and the Significance of Structure…………………………………………………………….63 CHAPTER TWO: PHASE I OF THE INNER TRAGIC– THE SHATTERED SELF...………….. 69 A Psychological Exposition…………………………………………………………………………. 69 Die Soldaten: Tearing……………………………………………………………………………….. 70 Die Räuber: Trembling……………………………………………………………………………… 78 Faust I: Temptation and Tears.……………………………………………………………………… 90 Chapter Commentary for Phase I: Language, and Theory of Drama……………………………….. 97 CHAPTER THREE: PHASE II OF THE INNER TRAGIC – TRAGIC SELFHOOD ...………...104 A Physical Climax with Moral Implications………………………………………………………...104 Die Soldaten: Batman and Beggar...……...……………………………………………………….. 107 Die Räuber: Power, Freedom, And Worldly Woes………………………………………………….114 Faust I: Tragic Selfhood and the Supernatural...……………...…………………………………….121 Chapter Commentary for Phase II: Margarete’s Transformation...………………………………....127 CHAPTER FOUR: PHASE III OF THE INNER TRAGIC – DEATH WISH ..…………………..130 Combining Dénouement and Catastrophe for an Emotional Resolution……………………………130 Die Soldaten: Foregrounding the Tragic Resolution………………………………………………. 132 Die Räuber: Tragic Voices………………………………………………………………………… 136 Faust I: The Fallen Veil…………………………………………………………………………… 144 Inconsistencies: Tragic and Menschen......…………………………………………………….……145 CHAPTER FIVE: LENZ AS TRANSITION TO THE TRAGIC AND BEYOND……………….. 149 Interlude……………………………………………………………………………………………. 149 v Peter Szondi and The German Philosophie des Tragischen .….…………………………………... 152 August Wilhelm Bohtz’ Schattenseite……………………………………………………………... 156 German Idealism and Existentialism……………………………………………………………….. 157 Tiefenpsychologie……………………………………………………………………………………160 Traces of an Inner Tragic Process in Later Drama: Faust II, Woyzeck, and episches Theater…….. 162 EPILOGUE: THE MORAL OF THE INNER TRAGIC STORY…………………………………..166 The Transition: Shifting from Fiction to Non-Fiction…...…………………………………………. 166 Implications for Sturm und Drang Scholarship .…….………………………………………………166 The Origins of the Inner Tragic Process..……..……………………………………………………. 169 Concluding Statement: The Tragic Moral of the Sturm und Drang for Today…………………….. 170 WORKS CITED……………………………………………………………………………………….. 174 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 182 vi INTRODUCTION “Lassen Sie mich für die Ausführung dieses Projekts sorgen.” –J. M. R. Lenz, “Über Götz von Berlichingen” Preamble: Lenz’s Sturm und Drang Tragic Project In his speech1 “Über Götz von Berlichingen” (1776), J. M. R. Lenz answers the call made by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with Götz von Berlichingen (1773), a German drama that serves as a prototypical play of the early Sturm und Drang. Lenz refers to the Sturm und Drang (1759–1786)2 as a project and considers Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen as a “schönere Vorübung” (“Über Götz von Berlichingen”) and the standard bearer for achieving great drama for the movement known in English as the Storm and Stress. Götz von Berlichingen, Goethe’s “first major drama, [is] a historical play written in emulation of Shakespeare with demonstrative disregard of the classical rules, [that] took Germany by storm in 1773” (Chamberlain 196). Like many Germans taken by storm, Lenz appeared ready to carry Goethe’s momentum forward. A few years later, however, Lenz wrote Die Soldaten (1776), a play quite unlike Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen and indicative of a turn from the Sturm und Drang drama that Goethe tendered. Instead, Lenz had a project of his own in mind for the era of Sturm und Drang with Die Soldaten. This Lenzian project of the Sturm und Drang,