Constructive Destruction: Kafka's Aphorisms: Literary Tradition and Literary Transformation [Reprint 2010 ed.] 9783110920093, 9783484180918

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STUDIEN ZUR DEUTSCHEN LITERATUR

Herausgegeben von Wilfried Barner, Richard Brinkmann und Conrad Wiedemann

Band 9l

Richard T. Gray

Constructive Destruction Kafka's Aphorisms: Literary Tradition and Literary Transformation

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1987

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek Gray, Richard T.: Constructive destruction : Kafka's aphorisms : literary tradition and literary transformation / Richard T. Gray. - Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1987. (Studien zur deutschen Literatur ; Bd. 91) NE:GT ISBN 3-484-18091-9

ISSN 0081-7236

© Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1987 Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Ohne Genehmigung des Verlages ist es nicht gestattet, dieses Buch oder Teile daraus photomechanisch zu vervielfältigen. Printed in Germany. Satz und Druck: Laupp & Göbel, Tübingen Einband: Heinrich Koch, Tübingen

Table of Contents

Introduction CHAPTER ONE: History, Tradition, and Structure of the Aphorism I. II. III. IV. V.

The History of the Aphorism The German and French Models of Aphoristic Expression . . . . The Text-Internal Dialectic of the Aphorism Aphorism and Hermeneutics: The Text-External Dialectic Aphorism and Linguistic Scepticism

CHAPTER Two: Aphorism and Aphorists in Turn-of-the-Century Austria I. II.

Aphorism and Zeitgeist From Impression to Epiphany: The Aphorism in the Austrian Jahrhundertwende A) Ambivalence Toward the Form of the Aphorism B) The Aphorism of Impression C) The Aphorism of Epiphany

III. Aphorism and Sprachkrise in Turn-of-the-Century Austria . . . A) B) C) D) E) F)

Aphorism and Spracbkritik Mzudmer's Kritik der Sprache Hofmannsthal's Chandos Musil: Essayism and Aphoristics Karl Kraus: Aphorism and Critique of Sprachgebrauch Wittgenstein's Tractatus

1

21 24 36 46 52 60

64 65 85 87 90 93

98 99 101 103 109 112 116

CHAPTER THREE: Kafka: Aphoristic Text and Aphoristic Context

119

I. II.

121 124

Kafka and Turn-of-the-Century Austria Kafka's Inclination Toward Aphoristic Utterances

III. Kafka and "Aphoristics" A) B) C) D)

The Conflict of Individual and Universal Aphorism and the Fragmentary Dynamism and Perspectivism Kafka's Conceptual Patterns

134 135 149 154 159

IV. Kafka's Aphorisms and the Crisis of Communication

163

CHAPTER FOUR: Kafka and his Aphoristic Precursors

172

I.

Aphorism and Autobiography: Self-Observation and Self-Projection II. Pascal and Kierkegaard: Scepticism and Critical Method III. Aphorism and Polemics: Karl Kraus

190 203

CHAPTER FIVE: Kafka's Aphorisms: Intratext and Intertext

210

I. II.

Compositional History and Compositional Strategies of Kafka's Aphorisms Form and Structure of Kafka's Aphorisms A) B) C) D)

Lexical Features Metaphor Syntactic Elements Logical Structures

174

216 233 236 244 252 253

CHAPTER Six: Aphorism and Met-Aphorism: The Relationship of Aphorism and Parable in Kafka's (Euvre

264

BIBLIOGRAPHY

293

VI

"Sentenzen-Leser. - Die schlechtesten Leser von Sentenzen sind die Freunde ihres Urhebers, im Falle sie beflissen sind, aus dem Allgemeinen wieder auf das Besondere zurückzuraten, dem die Sentenz ihren Ursprung verdankt: denn durch diese Topfguckerei machen sie die ganze Mühe des Autors zunichte, so daß sie nun verdientermaßen anstatt einer philosophischen Stimmung und Belehrung besten- oder schlimmstenfalls nichts als die Befriedigung der gemeinen Neugierde zum Gewinn erhalten." Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches

Introduction Franz Kafka the aphorist has undergone a radically different critical reception than either Franz Kafka the novelist/storyteller or Franz Kafka the artistic personality. While Kafka's novels and stories have become the standard "acid-test" by which innovative interpretive methodologies must measure their efficacy, Kafka's aphorisms have been greatly ignored, or treated as mere adjuncts to his letters and diaries, and thus as reflexes indicative primarily of trends in his life, and only secondarily of transformations in his art and poetics.1 It is remarkable, in fact, that in spite of the geometrical progression with which secondary literature on Kafka's art and life has appeared, as recently as 1980 one critic could remark that Kafka's aphorisms have remained terra incognita.2 However, while the aphorisms have only infrequently been treated as texts meriting in and of themselves careful literarycritical analysis, even a cursory glance at most scholarly investigations of Kafka's work betrays the fundamental role these texts have played in the evolution and support of critical opinions on Kafka. Not uncommonly Kafka's aphoristic pronouncements become points of departure for the interpretation of his works as a whole; and almost without exception the aphorisms serve as interpretive instruments by means of which critics of diverse ideological and methodological persuasions demonstrate the "authenticity" of specific interpretations of any and all of Kafka's narratives. Ultimately, however, one wonders whether these aphoristic texts, which make up such a

1

2

See Hartmut Binder, Motiv und Gestaltung bei Frank , Abhandlungen zur Kunst-, Musik- und Literaturwissenschaft, Bd. 37 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1966), p. 85; henceforth-cited as MuG. Claude David, "Die Geschichte Abrahams: Zu Kafkas Auseinandersetzung mit Kierkegaard," Bild und Gedanke: Festschrift für Gerhan Baumann zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Günter Schnitzler, et al. (Munich: Fink, 1980), p. 80. l

small portion of Kafka's ceuvre, have not been accorded an interpretive weight incommensurate with their actual significance. This is the central problem which this study seeks to clarify. It attempts to define the position of Kafka's aphoristic writings in relation to his life and works, as well as in the context of the history of the aphorism as literary genre. Compared with the body of aphorisms produced by such writers as Lichtenberg, Nietzsche, or Karl Kraus, Kafka's aphoristic production appears exceedingly small: we possess only two aphoristic collections by Kafka, the so-called "Betrachtungen über Sünde, Leid, Hoffnung und den wahren Weg," and the group of reflections entitled "Er." Taken together these collections include only about 150 texts. It is possible, of course, to recognize and isolate aphoristic remarks in Kafka's letters, diaries, and - to a more limited extent - in his novels and stories. Still, even after these sources have been examined, Kafka's aphoristic production remains slight. Despite this scant quantity of aphorisms, Kafka is generally recognized as one of the significant aphorists in modern German literature, on occasion even acclaimed as one of the greatest German aphorists,3 and he is consistently represented in anthological collections of aphorisms.4 Certainly, Kafka is known as an author of outstanding quality, not as one of extensive quantity, and this is true for his aphorisms as well as for his narrative works. Upon initial reflection one is surprised to find that an author prized for such expansive narratives as Der Verschollene, Der Prozeß, and Das Schloß would be recognized simultaneously as a prominent aphorist. In fact, J. P. Stern alleges, with certain justification, that the impulse toward the creation of aphorisms stands in diametrical opposition to the drive toward narrative exposition.5 On the surface, at least, the apodictic force and welldefined structure of Kafka's aphorisms contrast markedly with the conscious, mysterious subjectivity and infinitely expandable structure of the novels; yet, as we shall see, even in this respect Kafka's aphorisms can ultimately be connected with his fragmentary narratives. Indeed, characteristic of Kafka's innovative narrative technique is an internal tension arising from the desire for conclusiveness and apodictic certainty on the one hand,

This is the opinion of Eudo C. Mason, "The Aphorism," The Romantic Period in Germany, ed. Siegbert Prawer (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), p. 229. Most recently aphorisms by Kafka appeared in the anthology Deutsche Aphorismen, ed. Gerhard Fieguth, Reclam Universalbibliothek, 9889 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1978); Kafka is also represented in the anthology Jüdische Aphorismen aus zwei Jahrtausenden, ed. Egon Zeitlin (Frankfurt: Ner-Tamid-Verlag, 1963), in which, surprisingly, Karl Kraus, the most prolific modern Jewish-German aphorist, is absent. J.P.Stern, Lichtenberg: A Doctrine of Scattered Occasions (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1959), pp. 192-3.

and, on the other, a labyrinthine openness and inconclusiveness which incessantly frustrates this drive for closure. Thus the commonly accepted contrast between a sterile, legalistic, or bureaucratic style of language and the fantastic, nightmarish, and often wildly imaginative narrated events can be ascribed to the creation of a linguistic structure, aphoristic in its precision and laconism, which is constantly ruptured by "realities" it cannot contain. Viewed in this manner, the spiraling process by which Kafka's narratives typically develop (without going anywhere) appears as the persistent interruption of structural attempts at "aphoristic" closure.6 As our discussion of the nature of aphoristic expression will elucidate, precisely this undermining of its own persuasive structure and logic is constitutive of the aphorism as genre. In German literary history the marriage of aphoristic and novelistic form has proven quite fruitful on different levels. Goethe, for example, included aphoristic collections in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre and in Die Wahlverwandtschaften. Moreover, aphoristic utterances are frequently integrated in an almost imperceptible way into the narrative discourse of the novel. Commonly, as for example in Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg, the characters of a novel carry on discussions studded with aphoristic statements. At the same time, characters often provide moralistic resumes of their situations in the form of aphoristic-didactic observations. In addition, the narrator of a tale is frequently in a position to supply aphoristic commentaries on the narrated events.7 Significantly, however, Kafka's narratives display none of these traditional patterns of integration between aphoristic and novelistic impulses. Hence one is tempted to view Kafka's narratives as distinctly nonaphoristic, since one of their fundamental characteristics is the technical impossibility of distanced commentaries on the narrated events by either characters or narrator.8 Whereas aphoristic reflections occur in traditional narratives in order to aid in the characterization of individuals or situations, in Kafka's narratives such observations are smothered in the morass of uncertain speculation which dominates the narrative. The unitary perspective common to Kafka's narratives banishes any reflective commentary on the The relationship of aphoristic and narrative tendencies in Kafka's literature will be dealt with in chapter six. The role of the "omniscient" narrator in much of the literature of realism is one of aphoristic commentator. Friedrich Beissner, Der Erzähler Franz Kafka: Ein Vortrag (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1952) and Martin Waiser, Beschreibung einer Form: Versuch über Franz Kafka, Ullstein Taschenbuch, Nr.2878 (1951; rpt. Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1972), esp. p. 35, provided the earliest analyses of Kafka's narrative style and its effects; see also Dietrich Krusche, Kafka und Kafka-Deutung: Die problematisierte Interaktion, Kritische Information, 5 (Munich: Fink, 1974), p. 29.

part of the narrator with regard to the narrated events; in addition, the subjective isolation of each of Kafka's characters prevents them from attaining distanced perspectives either on themselves or on the fictional events, effectively preventing them from voicing any but the most myopic commentaries. Yet on a structural level, Kafka's fiction displays traits analogous to those of aphoristic expression; and altered application of the possibilities of aphoristic expression in his novels is one symptom of Kafka's attempt to problematize the naive objectivity of traditional fictional patterns inhering both in the text itself and in the interactional structures with its readers.9 Any investigation of. Kafka's aphoristic texts must overcome a number of initial hurdles. The first and most debilitating of these is the absence of a reliable edition of these texts. While Max Brod's edition of Kafka's works, appropriately termed by one critic a "Werkausgabe mit Schlagseite,"10 has hampered the critical examination of all of Kafka's works, Brod's edition is even more deceptive where the aphoristic texts are concerned. The appearance of the historical-critical edition of Kafka's works should finally put some of these problems to rest, but at this writing the volume containing Kafka's aphorisms has not yet been published." The very nature of the aphoristic text is responsible for its sensitivity to minor alterations. Aphorisms are textual types which display an uncommon stylistic density and which depend heavily on subtle internal-referential potentials of language. In this sense aphoristic expression perhaps merely represents a concentrated model of all "literary" language, in which every individual element is functionally connected with the textual whole. Hence in the instance of miniature, compact texts such as aphorisms, variants in a single word, or even in punctuation, can radically alter the significance of the entire text. Franz Mautner, for example, writes of the extraordinary sensitivity of the aphoristic text: "Keine zweite Gattung ist so empfindlich gegen die Störung ihres inneren Gleichgewichts wie diese, deren Wesen beinahe die labile Teilhabe

On the interaction of text and reader see Wolfgang Iser, Der implizite Leser (Munich: Fink, 1972); on Kafka's innovative strategies for altering the reading patterns of his public, see Russell Berman, "Producing the Reader: Kafka and the Modernist Organization of Reception," Newsletter of the Kafka Society of America, 6, no. 1&2 (June & December, 1982), pp. 14-18. Dieter Hasselblatt, Zauber und Logik: Eine Kafka Studie (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1964), p. 9. While necessity demands that I cite from Brod's currently available edition of the aphorisms, I will describe in some detail the errors in his edition and the various changes that these texts went through in Kafka's own process of composition or revision. I an indebted to Professor Jürgen Born and to Hans-Gerd Koch for permitting me access to the Kafka manuscripts in the "Forschungsstelle für Prager Deutsche Literatur" at the Gesamthochschule Wuppertal.

an den Gebieten der Kunst und des Denkens ist."12 Moreover, aphorisms, traditionally gathered in collections, tend to carry on subtle dialogues with other texts within the same collection, as well as with the aphorisms of other writers, and impure textual renderings tend to obscure this subtle intertextual communication.13 This already complicated circumstance is further problematized by the significance which Max Brod attributed to Kafka's aphorisms. Brod's influence on the evolution of Kafka-scholarship has been as profound as it has been problematic. Nowhere, however, has his example been so dogmatic and unshakable as in the instance of Kafka's aphoristic texts. Although it has become commonplace for scholars to pillory Brod and the interpreters who, following him, view Kafka's texts as Dante-like allegories, Brod's conception of Kafka's aphoristic texts, which is just as misguided, has never been seriously challenged. The leitmotif that permeates all of Brod's writings on Kafka is Brod's "intuitive" sense that Kafka's personality contained a positive aspect which did not find adequate expression in Kafka's fiction. The emphasis Brod places on Kafka's sense of humor is but one manifestation of this desire to highlight his friend's more "optimistic" traits.14 However, Brod's primary defense against the labelling of Kafka as a pessimist and "decadent" evolves out of his interpretation of the aphorisms. Brod's error is one which pervades much of the criticism on Kafka: based on characteristics of the person Franz Kafka, with whom, to be sure, Brod was well acquainted, he draws conslusions about the artist Franz Kafka. Admittedly, there is perhaps no other writer for whom biography and literature are so intimately and fundamentally intertwined. But it is certainly a gross oversimplification to align immediately the role of author with the empirical person who assumes the authorial function, and thus to identify life and work. And even if we were to disregard this overriding theoretical objection, there would still be no reason to expect, as Brod does, that every characteristic in Kafka's personality will have a parallel characteristic in his work. Brod assumes, in other words, that the totality of the writer's person must find expression in that writer's works. Thus he implicitly attributes priority to Kafka's biography over critical interpretation of his literature, and

Franz Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," Der Aphorismus, ed. Gerhard Neumann, Wege der Forschung, Bd. 356 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976), p. 3 7. Elias Canetti, for example, writes: "Die großen Aphoristiker lesen sich so, als ob sie einander gut gekannt hätten." Quoted by Gerhan Baumann, "Zur Aphoristik," Entwürfe (Munich: Fink, 1976), p. 59. See, for example, Max Brod, Über Franz Kafka, Fischer Taschenbuch, 1496 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1974), pp. 51, 117, and 277; henceforth cited as FK.

this precedent characterizes much of the subsequent scholarship on Kafka. Wishing to portray Kafka as a "Lebensbeispiel" (FK, 299), Brod frantically attempts to distill exemplary attitudes out of Kafka's writing. Despite his own admission that Kafka's life and not his words bear testimony to a belief in higher truths (FK, 153), Brod undauntedly searches for evidence of this belief in Kafka's texts. Adhering to the dictum "seek and ye shall find," Brod "miraculously" discovers the evidence he desires in Kafka's aphorisms. Brod's thesis that Kafka's aphorisms, in contradistinction to his narratives, reflect an optimistic belief in higher "truths" leads to a strict separation of Kafka's aphorisms from his narrative works, implicity denying the "artistic" aspects of the former. Summing up his view, Brod writes: In den Erzählungen zeigt Kafka wie der Mensch verwirrt wird und seinen Weg verfehlt, in den Aphorismen wird dieser Weg selbst gezeigt und Entwirrung kündigt sich an. - Selbstverständlich soll und kann man diese beiden Weltsichten bei Kafka nicht mechanisch sondern. Auch in den Aphorismen steht viel, wobei einem vor Weh und Ratlosigkeit der Atem stehen bleibt; andererseits gibt es auch in den Romanen Durchblicke zur Hoffnung hin, nicht bloß Aspekte der Hoffnungslosigkeit. Immer ist Kafka der ganze Kafka; hat man aber dies gesagt und nochmals gesagt und bekräftigt, so bleibt einem letzten Endes doch nicht benommen, im 'Kafka der Aphorismen' stärker seine lehrende, helfende Qualität hervorleuchten, im Kafka der erzählenden Phantasie seine chaotischen Selbstbedrängungen und Krisen entrollen zu sehen. (FK, 214)

I cite this passage in its entirety in order to be fair to Brod, who, while insisting on the distinction, warns of the dangers inherent in delineating too strictly between the aphoristic and narrative tendencies in Kafka's works. Yet significantly, he never questions that two "Weltanschauungen" do exist, and this assumption itself is what makes Brod's view questionable. His own qualifications indicate that he himself is not wholly comfortable with the hypothesis he sets forth. Moreover, although he wants to group the aphorisms together as indicators of Kafka's "optimistic" side, Brod himself disqualifies the texts of the collection "Er," calling them a "Tiefpunkt, ein Erlahmen seiner [Kafka's] Glaubenskraft" (FK, 236). There remain, then, only the aphorisms of the collection "Betrachtungen über Sünde, Leid, Hoffnung und den wahren Weg," whose title, not surprisingly, comes from Brod himself. However, even if one were inclined to accept Brod's opinion where these texts are concerned, the temporal restriction of these texts, composed in a single six-month span of Kafka's life (the months immediately following the diagnosis of Kafka's tuberculosis), should suffice to debunk the notion that these aphorisms are symptomatic of Kafka's general world-view. Brod's portrayal of Kafka is colored by the desire to view his friend as a religious personality rather than as a creative writer. "Kafka ist als ein Erneuerer der altjüdischen Religiosität aufzufassen, die den ganzen Menschen, die sittliche Tat und Entscheidung des Einzelnen im Geheimsten seiner Seele

verlangt" (FK, 279). Brod takes the aphorisms, despite their temporal limitation, to be the quintessential expression of Kafka's belief (FK, 238) and as the creations of "der eigentliche, der kompromißlos glaubende und dem Glauben entsprechend aktiv werdende Kafka" (FK, 313, emphasis added). Are we to assume that the "true" Kafka only came to word during these six months? Just as mysterious, indeterminate narratives are endemic to Kafka the fiction writer, so Brod would have us believe, are definitive maxims on religion and belief characteristic of Kafka the religious aphorist. This religious Kafka "will nichts anderes geben als objektiv Gültiges, Leitlinien der Wahrheit für sich wie für alle" (FK, 313, emphasis added). Consequently, Brod represents the aphorisms as "Wahrheitssprüche" (FK, 303) of a didactic sort, created by a religious person for the purpose of teaching and communicating his faith. In other words, Brod perceives the "Kafka of the aphorisms" as a kind of religious proselyte. However, Brod's thesis regarding Kafka's aphorisms is doubly distorted: first, Brod bases his interpretation not on the texts themselves, but rather on his preconception of their creator; secondly, he misconstrues the nature and purpose of aphoristic expression itself, and thus he mistakenly conceives Kafka's aphorisms as "objective" and "truthful" statements of religious belief. Kafka's aphorisms, as I intend so show, are anything but the manifest expressive form lent to certain religious convictions. Brod's major error, then, lies in his denial of the literary character of Kafka's aphoristic texts. He assumes that the aphorisms manifest a simple and straightforward use of language, not complicated by the productively equivocal polysemia of "literary" expression, and that these texts can be taken as definitive "truths," recognized and cast into language by Kafka. Brod thus clamps austere limitations on the discourse of Kafka's aphorisms, limitations that most subsequent critics respect. Brod's conscious and willful misrepresentation of Kafka's aphorisms can be demonstrated clearly through the examination of one glaring example of distorted misreading. In defense of his position, Brod cites the following aphoristic text: Er ist der Meinung, man müsse nur einmal zum Guten übergehn und sei schon gerettet, ohne Rücksicht auf die Vergangenheit und sogar ohne Rücksicht auf die Zukunft.

Brod's interpretive commentary reads as follows: Die Autonomie und geradezu die Ewigkeit einer einzigen einmaligen guten Tat, ihr 'kairos', konnte, wie mir scheint, keine eindringlichere Formulierung finden als dieses Aphorisma Kafkas, den (all solchen Äußerungen zum Trotz) einen Dekadenten zu nennen, heute geradezu ein Gesellschaftsspiel geworden ist. (FK, 312)

Clearly, Brod's primary motive is to defend his friend against the curse of decadence. To do so, however, he is forced to perpetrate the willful distor-

tion of Kafka's words. First of all, Brod reads this text as though it were a sentence from a letter or diary beginning "Ich hin der Meinung ..." He ignores the stylistic objectivity inherent in the third-person pronoun, viewing this as a flimsy cover for the personal truth of the author. Moreover, Brod fails to indicate that he has extracted this "aphorism" out of a larger context: his misrepresentation of Kafka's words becomes obvious when this context is replaced. Er hat viele Richter, sie sind wie ein Heer von Vögeln, das in einem Baum sitzt. Ihre Stimmen gehen durcheinander, die Rang- und Zuständigkeitsfragen sind nicht zu entwirren, auch werden die Plätze fortwährend gewechselt. Einzelne erkennt man doch wieder heraus, zum Beispiel einen, welcher der Meinung ist, man müsse nur einmal zum Guten übergehn und sei schon gerettet ohne Rücksicht auf die Vergangenheit und sogar ohne Rücksicht auf die Zukunft. Eine Meinung, die offenbar zum Bösen verlocken muß, wenn nicht die Auslegung dieses Übergangs zum Guten sehr streng ist. Und das ist sie allerdings, dieser Richter hat noch nicht einen einzigen Fall als ihm zugehörig anerkannt. (H, 420)

This fragment, which has begun to undergo narrative development, breaks off after a few more lines. Clearly, the opinion which Brod attributes to Kafka is in fact the opinion of a fictional "judge" in a fragmentary story. Within this original context the "aphoristic" statement is anything but unequivocal; for although this judge subscribes to the belief that one good deed suffices for salvation, his strict definition of this transition from evil to good disallows all possible concrete examples. Hence the implications of the text go contrary to Brod's interpretation, for this judge's refusal to accept cases is tantamount to a de facto rejection of any possible transitions from evil to good. What Brod represents as an "aphorism" portraying Kafka's belief in absolute goodness proves in actuality to be a literary text depicting the tension, so typical of Kafka's works, between a theoretically recognized possibility and the simultaneous denial of its concrete realizability. Despite the erroneous assumptions and interpretive errors which inform Brod's analysis of Kafka's aphorisms, his appraisal has yet to be dislodged from its position of dominance. Thus, adhering to Brod's conception, most scholars who have attempted unified interpretations of Kafka's aphorisms place these texts into a religious-philosophical context.15 Werner Hoffmann's two book-length investigations, Kafkas Aphorismen and "Ansturm gegen die letzte irdische Grenze": Aphorismen und Spätwerk Kafkas, conceive the aphorisms in terms of Kafka's search for God, orienting them on the basis

See Felix Weltsclv" Kafkas Aphorismen," Neue deutsche Hefte, 4 (1954), 307-12; Günther Braun, "Franz'Kafkas Aphorismen: Humoristische Meditationen der Existenz," Der Deutschunterricht, 18 (1966), 107-18.

both of structure and content in the tradition of Jewish mysticism.16 Christa Deinert-Trotta employs a similar approach, with the difference that she finds in Kafka's aphorisms the expression of a non-sectarian religiosity. Neither her assumption about the nature of these texts, nor her methodological approach deviates from the example set by Brod. Arguing that Kafka's aphorisms express a religious sentiment that transcends all specific dogmas, she objects solely to Brod's attempt to cast the religiosity of these texts in a Zionist light.17 In a similar vein, Helen Milfull has maintained that Kafka constructs a "Heilsgeschichte" in his aphorisms, which, far from evincing the Zionism Brod wished to perceive in Kafka, approaches a theology reminiscent of Protestantism and Hassidism.18 Most recently, Walter Strolz has emphasized Kafka's theology of "das Unzerstörbare" as articulated in the aphorisms, and pointed to intertextual relationships between these texts and the Bible.19 These positions, it is clear, simply offer modified versions of the "party line" on Kafka's aphorisms as propagated by Max Brod. Other interpretive analyses of the aphorisms, while on the surface contradicting or altering these assessments, work from similar preconceptions. Much as early interpreters of Kafka's novels substituted one allegorical reading for another, critics of the aphorisms have tended simply to substitute various philosophical readings in which Kafka's reflections take on new meaning. Günther Braun, for example, perceives the aphorisms as humoristic meditations on existence, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, which spring from Kafka's awareness of a discrepancy between the seemingly hopeless existential situation of humanity and the necessary religious hope, lacking all certainty, which ultimately makes one's existential situation "humoristically" bearable.20 Much in the same fashion, Hans-Günther Pott, in an unpublished dissertation on Kafka's aphorisms, advocates that we understand these texts as Kafka's "Form der 'geistigen Existenzbehauptung'"; thus he replaces the religious interpretation of the aphorisms with one which grounds their content in the philosophy of existentialism.21 It is to Pott's credit, however, that 16

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Werner Hoffmann, Kafkas Aphorismen (Bern: Francke, 1975) and "Ansturm gegen die letzte irdische Grenze": Aphorismen und Spätwerk Kafkas (Bern: Francke, 1984). Christa Deinert-Trotta, "Der Umweg über die Welt zum Absoluten": Der religiöse Inhalt der Aphorismen Franz Kafkas (Reggio Calabria: Tip. M.DeFranco, 1975). Heien Milfull, "The Theological Position of Kafka's Aphorisms," Seminar, 18 (1982), 168-83. Walter Strolz, "Kafkas Vertrauen zum Unzerstörbaren im Menschen," Frankfurter Hefte, 38, no. 11 (1983), pp. 53-63. Günther Braun, "Franz Kafkas Aphorismen: Humoristische Meditationen der Existenz," esp. pp. 107-10. Hans-Günther Pott, "Die aphoristischen Texte Franz Kafkas. Stil und Gedankenwelt," Diss., Freiburg i. Br., 1958, esp. p. 7.

he is the first scholar seriously to take matters of structure and style into account when dealing with Kafka's aphorisms; however, he does so in order to relate Kafka's aphoristic discourse to modes of existential communication, and not to the tradition of the aphorism as a form of expression which participates in a philosophical as well as a literary tradition, these two frequently melding into one.22 Ritchie Robertson, in a recent article on Kafka's aphorisms, investigates the influence of Kierkegaard's thought and the importance of Jewish mysticism in these texts, focusing on Kafka's drive for integration into a coherent community as it is reflected in the aphoristic texts.23 These last described approaches to Kafka's aphorisms possess one common virtue which distinguishes them from other analyses in which the aphorisms are given perfunctory, methodologically unreflected treatment: they conceive the individual aphoristic texts as elements of a coherent group in which the individual text is involved in constant dialogue with the other member texts in the aphoristic collection. This group configuration, and the internal contradiction and correction of established positions which it not only allows, but invites, is a fundamental characteristic of aphoristic expression.24 Still, these attempts at a unified interpretation of Kafka's aphorisms suffer from common deficiencies. Most significantly, all of these scholars overlook completely the fruitfulness of the aphoristic tradition in German literature and philosophy as a context for the study of Kafka's aphorisms. Moreover, each of these interpretations works from the assumption that Kafka's aphorisms coalesce into a coherent ideological position, while traditionally the aphorism is a symptom of the express lack of, or protest against such a systematic ideology.25 If Brod's influence on evaluations of Kafka's aphorisms is manifest in the persistence with which religious-philosophical themes are extracted from 22 23

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Pott, "Die aphoristischen Texte Franz Kafkas," pp. 12-19. Ritchie Robertson, "Kafka's Ziirau Aphorisms," Oxford German Studies, 14 (1983), 73-91. Gerhart Neumann has emphasized this "collective" aspect of aphoristic expression in his monumental study of this genre, Ideenparadiese: Untersuchungen zur Aphoristik von Lichtenberg, Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel und Goethe (Munich: Fink, 1976), passim, esp. p. 277. Kafka's awareness of this tradition of the aphoristic collection is evidenced by the fact that he gathered from the Oktavhefte chosen aphorisms which he subsequently collected on numbered slips of paper. For information on the "manuscripts" of Kafka's aphorisms see Brod's description in the "Anmerkungen" to his edition, H, 437-8; see also Werner Hoffmann's account in the Kafka-Handbuch, ed. Hartmut Binder, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1979), II, 475. On the anti-systematic thrust of aphoristic expression, see Hans Margolius, "System und Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, pp. 280-292.

these texts, his segregation of the aphorisms from Kafka's narrative works has had far-reaching methodological implications as well. It has become a veritable leitmotif in Kafka-scholarship that the aphorisms take a place outside of the perplexing visions which inform Kafka's fiction. Even the facile distinction between the "optimistic" world of the aphorisms and the "pessimistic" one of the narratives has stubbornly persisted. Patrick Bridgwater, for example, writes of Kafka's "permanent and positive insights into life" which the aphorisms contain.26 Most recently this same segregation of Kafka's aphorisms from his "literary" works has been advocated by Bert Nagel.27 Malcolm Pasley, as well, distinguishes between Kafka's narrative and meditative works, claiming that in the case of the latter one can scarcely speak of creative inspiration as the driving force behind their production.28 By denying the inspirational source of the aphorisms, Pasley establishes them as somehow "non-artistic" meditations with incontrovertibly accessible meaning. More than just flying in the face of the subtle complexity and ambiguity of these texts, Pasley's appraisal is at cross-purposes with a central theory that relates the production of aphorisms to the experiencing of an inspired "epiphanic" insight.29 Thus, in this instance as well, failure to take account of the nature of aphoristic expression in general is responsible for the misjudging of Kafka's aphorisms. More often than not, this fundamental stance vis-a-vis Kafka's aphorisms is accepted without ever being specifically articulated. This becomes especially evident when one scrutinizes the role which the aphorisms have played in the evolution of critical interpretations of Kafka's works: these texts are cordoned off from Kafka's fiction simply in order that they may be reintegrated at a different interpretive level. In other words, as long as the aphorisms are handled as personal, "non-literary" meditations, i. e. as Kafka's metacommentary on his life, art, and aesthetic practice, they can be read as foundational principles in which Kafka's literature can be grounded. Rather than as further examples of Kafka's art, then, they are treated as exegetical

26

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Patrick Bridgwater, Kafka and Nietzsche, Studien zur Germanistik, Anglistik und Komparatistik, Bd. 23 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1974), p. 21. Bert Nagel, Kafka und die Weltliteratur: Zusammenhänge und Wechselwirkungen (Munich: Winkler, 1983), p.202. Malcolm Pasley, "Der Schreibakt und das Geschriebene: Zur Frage der Entstehung von Kafkas Texten," Franz Kafka: Themen und Probleme, ed. Claude David, Kleine Vandenhoeck-Reihe, 1451 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck 8t Ruprecht, 1980), p. 23. Franz Mautner has described the inspirational idea behind the aphorism as an "Einfall"; see "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," pp. 46-51; see also Eudo C. Mason, "The Aphorism," p. 205. The relation between aphorism and epiphany will be discussed below. 11

annotations to this art. This pervasive practice has recently been lent the status of encyclopaedic indubitability by Werner Hoffmann, who, in his discussion of Kafka's aphorisms in Binder's Kafka-Handbuch (the title of which claims a certain final validity for the positions it represents), writes that these texts "enthalten in kunstvoller Verdichtung die Weltanschauung Kafkas."30 Given the equivocality of Kafka's literature, it is not surprising that scholars seeking determinate meanings in these works would cling to the aphorisms, representing them as rare instances of unambiguous selfreflection on Kafka's part. To be sure, the apodictic style of Kafka's aphoristic remarks seems to lend this conception some credibility. However, an examination of the history of the aphorism indicates that this gesture of decisive determinacy embodied in the apodictic style of aphoristic expression serves to disguise a content whose meaning is malleable, unstable, and multiply - if not infinitely - interpretable. The misconceived notion of Kafka's aphorisms as texts which possess objective validity and express his ultimate "Weltanschauung" is predicated on a fallacious notion of the character of aphoristic expression itself. Aphorisms, much as any other literary genre, do not contain im-mediately accessible doctrinary pronouncements; their signification is not direct and unambiguous, lying on a "referential" surface; rather it is diffuse and diverse, embedded in the very essence of the text's language, and only mediately discernible through interpretive events. If the receptive history of Kafka's aphorisms has been singularly uni-dimensional and non-controversial, then this is because the texts themselves have been treated in a uni-dimensional and non-controversial manner. For the most part, hermeneutical complications in the comprehension of the aphorisms have been ignored or brushed aside. Consequently, the aphoristic texts figure prominently in every and all interpretations of Kafka's art, regardless of the conflicts among these interpretations themselves. This fact alone indicates that these texts, which each critic considers to be unequivocal, must indeed possess the same productive indeterminacy characteristic of Kafka's art in general. If, as has often been asserted, all writing is literature for Kafka, whether in the form of novels, stories, letters, or diaries,31 then there is no justification for suspending this principle when discussing Kafka's aphorisms. One further methodological problem is involved when critics apply Kafka's aphorisms as universally valid interpretive instruments: employing the 30 31

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Werner Hoffmann, Kaßa-Handbuch, II, 475. This argument has been most forcefully and convincingly represented by Walter H.Sokel, who writes: "[Kafka] hat sein Leben stilisiert gesehen. Selbst die intimsten Dokumente - Tagebücher und Briefe - sind bei ihm immer Literatur, Dichtung." See Sokel, Franz Kafka: Tragik und Ironie, Fischer Taschenbuch, 1790 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1976), p. 8.

aphorisms in this manner overlooks the temporal restrictions of these texts within Kafka's aeuvre, a mistake we have already mentioned in the context of Brod's interpretations of the aphorisms. Consequently, it is not uncommon for aphorisms from the years 1917-18 or 1920 to be invoked in support of interpretations of works from any and all periods of Kafka's life.32 The procedure of ascribing to specific aphoristic texts an interpretive authority relevant for the whole of Kafka's life and art is radically ahistorical. It assumes, among other things, that Kafka's poetics remained consistent throughout his entire creative life. In addition, this practice denies the aphorisms, as textual phenomena, any position of uniqueness in the configuration of literary forms appropriated by Kafka for his literary endeavor. Scholars hence often find themselves in the paradoxical situation of acknowledging the singularity of circumstances which produced Kafka's aphoristic texts, while simultaneously eradicating this singularity in the interpretive process by which the aphorisms are lent an abstract significance which transcends the impeti underlying their creation. Thus biographical limitations are conveniently forgotten in order to establish the aphorisms as universally valid expressions of Kafka's world-view.33 This is the underlying paradox of a biographical positivism which invokes the role of the "author" as a fundamental principle of unity, while simultaneously emphasizing particularity and individuality of life-experiences as they become manifest in the text. Hartmut Binder's conception of Kafka's aphorisms is indicative of this dominant trend in the critical reception of these texts. An examination of his position, then, will illuminate some of the problems inherent in this approach to the aphorisms. In Motiv und Gestaltung bei Franz Kafka, Binder presents one of the few significant attempts at integrating an interpretation of the aphorisms, taken as a coherent group, into an overarching analysis of Kafka's poetics. Binder's goal is a characterization of the creative process

This practice is so prevalent that almost any critical source could serve as an example. Two most recent instances will serve as illustrations. Susanne Kessler, Kafka - Poetik der sinnlichen Welt: Strukturen sprach kritischen Erzählens, Germanistische Abhandlungen, 53 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1983), analyzes quite competently Kafka's critique of language as documented in his aphorisms, but she assumes that the substance of this critique remained constant for Kafka throughout his life; thus she retrospectively applies these statements as theoretical commentaries on Kafka's poetics as represented in the novel Der Verschollene. Gerhard Kurz, TraumSchrecken: Kafkas literarische Existenzanalyse (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1980), takes a similar tack, identifying in Kafka's aphorisms specific patterns of thought which he defines as constitutive of Kafka's thought in general, and thus universally applicable to Kafka's fiction. Kurz overlooks the extent to which these structures are inherent in aphoristic expression in general, and not specific reflexes characteristic of Kafka. See especially Werner Hoffmann, Kafka-Handbuch, II, 474—97.

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informing the production of Kafka's works. Arguing that the distinctive feature of Kafka's creativity is a manner of metaphorical thought in which images supplant abstract concepts, Binder conceives Kafka's aphoristic pronouncements as manifestations of a transitional stage in this metaphorical process (MuG, 47).34 Binder argues that Kafka's art is rooted in personal experience, but that in the transition from life to literature the motivating experience is rendered unrecognizable by the radicality of its metaphorical transfiguration. Binder imputes special significance to Kafka's aphorisms insofar as he views them as texts in which the metamorphosis of "lived experience" into literature remains incomplete. Thus the aphorisms, as manifestations of intermediate creative stages between "Lebenszeugnis" and its literary representation, provide the critic with rare glimpses into the otherwise mysterious workings of Kafka's creative method. However, this assessment denigrates Kafka's aphorisms to the status of creative half-way houses. In order to throw into relief the difficulties in Binder's skilled and cogent argument, it is helpful to examine a less subtle application of the same approach. A. P. Foulkes follows a strategy similar to that of Binder, striving systematically to articulate the hierarchical development from "Lebenszeugnis" through intermediary aphoristic image, to narrative exposition for .each of Kafka's works.35 The obvious forcedness with which Foulkes, ignoring questions of chronology, correlates biographical fact, aphoristic metaphor, and literary exposition exposes the artificiality of this procedure. This artificiality characterizes Binder's method as well, with the important difference that Binder exploits a detailed chronology of Kafka's life and art in order to work toward an ultimate overthrowing of chronological considerations, these finally being "aufgehoben" in the mysterious unity that, for Binder, comprises Kafka's life and art. Binder's approach betrays especially well the fundamental contradiction between an insistence on the relevance of biographical data for the understanding of Kafka's literature, and the overcoming of chronology in order to arrive at a totalizing and unitary conception of Kafka's creative process. Positivistic, biographical criticism, bound as it is to historical data, becomes aberrant when applied in support of ahistorically generalized hypotheses. Especially Binder's conception of Kafka's aphorisms manifests this conflict between the individual impetus of lived experience as creative ground for Kafka's literature, and the universalizing understanding

34

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Ingeborg Henel has objected to Binder's definition of this process, arguing that Kafka's metaphors are the product of a secondary mental procedure in which abstract conception is translated into metaphorical form; "Kafka als Denker," Franz Kafka: The'men utid Probleme, pp. 48-65; esp. p. 49. A. P. Foulkes, The Reluctant Pessimist: A Study of Franz Kafka (The Hague: Mouton, 1967).

which eradicates all difference and arrives at a monolithic and extra-historical conception of these texts. Binder's interpretive analysis of the content of Kafka's aphorisms is calculated to corroborate his final thesis that developmental models are inappropriate for describing the diversity of Kafka's art. Since Kafka's literature is obviously not uniform, Binder can only reject the principle of development by postulating the simultaneous existence of various literary strategies in Kafka's creative warehouse (MuG, 395-6). Interpreting selected aphoristic texts, Binder seeks to establish Kafka's scepticism toward the traditional conception of developmental progress (MuG, 65-78). This once established, he employs it in defense of his argument against the existence of progressive development in Kafka's artistic practice (MuG, 65, 395). However, there is no reason to assume that any intellectual objections Kafka might have harbored with regard to the notion of personal development should have been systematically enforced in his own life; nor is there any reason to believe that Kafka was able consciously to control and stabilize his life and artistic creations from within, successfully fending off any powers of change that might affect him from without. Binder himself, in fact, admits that Kafka's attitudes on his art changed, but he continues to reject the possibility that these changes in attitude might have influenced Kafka's creative practice (MuG, 383-87). Any intellectual rejection of the concept of development which Kafka might have articulated is not necessarily tantamount to a consistent resistance to development where his poetic practice is concerned.36 Indeed, this would suggest a certain satisfaction on Kafka's part with his own artistic strategies, and it is common knowledge that just the opposite was the case. Moreover, in Binder's analysis it remains unclear precisely how Kafka's unitary creative process would yield such diverse narrative forms, and why certain forms should manifest themselves at one particular time and not another.37 But the credibility of Binder's thesis is not what is at issue here: important for the purpose of this investigation is simply recognition of the central role Binder - almost unwittingly - accords his interpretation of Kafka's aphorisms. Binder's approach is symptomatic in that it, like most other such treatments of the aphorisms, applies these texts as means to some greater interpretive end, and not as interpretive ends in themselves.38 This 36

37

38

Ritchie Robertson, contrary to Binder, argues that Kafka's aphorisms affirm the principle of development, "Kafka's Ziirau Aphorisms," p. 79. Walter Sokel's hypothesis that Kafka's narrative portrayal underwent a fundamental change between the years 1915-18 from the perspectivistic to the parabolic is much sounder; see Walter H. Sokel, "Das Verhältnis der Erzählperspektive zu Erzählgeschehen und Sinngehalt in 'Vor dem Gesetz', 'Schakale und Araber' und 'Der Prozeß', ZfdtPh, 86 (1967), 267-300. Despite its title, Binder's later book, Kafka in neuer Sicht: Mimik, Gestik und 15

situation is largely responsible for the various distortions of Kafka's aphorisms, since they are routinely exploited to serve some other critical purpose. Binder's failure to evaluate Kafka's aphorisms within the context of the history and tradition of this literary form leads to fundamental misconceptions, and in this sense his errors are symptomatic of the interpretive cul-desacs into which most critics have been led where Kafka's aphorisms are concerned. Only very few critics have managed to extricate themselves from such problems and approach the aphorisms as texts deserving of serious literary analysis. Gerhard Neumann has made an important contribution toward a characterization of the idiosyncrasies of Kafka's figure of paradox, basing his analysis on selected aphorisms.39 Likewise, Shimon Sandbank has offered insightful analyses of some of the techniques Kafka employs in his aphorisms, viewing them as calculated strategies which "surprise" the reader.40 Such analyses, however, have been the exception rather than the rule in scholarship on Kafka's aphorisms. Even these scholars, however, ignore the relationship of Kafka's texts to the tradition and history of the aphorism. Still, it is on the foundations laid in these studies that my investigation seeks to build. The aphorism has received relatively little attention from literary historians or theoreticans. The increasing compartmentalization of academic disciplines is partially responsible for this state of affairs, since the aphorism, falling between philosophy and literature, has often been ignored by literary critics because it was considered to belong to the intellectual territory of philosophers.41 Recently, in fact, one literary scholar has asserted that the

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Personengefüge als Darstellungsformen des Autobiographischen (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1976), offers no substantial revisions of his previous perspectives on Kafka, and this is especially true where the aphorisms are concerned. He continues to view the aphorisms as "Lebenszeugnisse," relating them closely to Kafka's diaries (pp. 85 & 87). Thus he contends that Kafka's aphorisms betray the transformation of biographical material "ins Philosophisch-Erkenntnistheoretische" (p. 98). However, in this study Binder attempts to assess more completely the significance of Kafka's turn to aphoristic expression at a given period of his life, claiming that the drive toward aphoristic formulation bespeaks Kafka's coming-to-terms with his life situation and his resignation to the limited horizons of his existence (p. 81). Such an assertion, however, fails to take cognizance of a central quality endemic to aphoristic expression: for the aphorism is a form of expression which traditionally signals the refusal to acquiesce in passive resignation to given conditions - witness the aphoristic writings of Nietzsche and Karl Kraus. Gerhard Neumann, "Umkehrung und Ablenkung: Franz Kafkas 'gleitendes Paradox'," DVjs, 42 (1968), 702-744. S.fhimon] Sandbank, "Surprise Techniques in Kafka's Aphorisms," Orbis Litterarum, 25 (1970), 261-74. This point has been argued by William Johnston, "The Vienna School of Aphorists

aphorism is not a literary form at all.42 The confusion dominating critical evaluations of Kafka's aphorisms is thus a manifestation of the greater confusion which surrounds assessments of the aphorism in general. Most scholars who concern themselves with definitions of the aphorism begin by pointing to the multiplicity of conceptions associated with this literary genre.43 Franz Mautner, one of the foremost theoreticians on the aphorism, attributes this confusion to the fact that the word "aphorism" has experienced a "Formgeschichte" which is wholly distinct from its "Wortgeschichte."44 Consequently, aphorisms are designated by a wealth of different names - "aphorism," "sentence," "maxim," "reflection" - all of which are used more or less interchangeably, the result being that the word "aphorism" comes to mean simply "jfede sonst nicht definierbare kürzere Prosaaufzeichnung." 45 This problem is further complicated by the existence of two distinct, if outwardly related aphoristic traditions, the one represented by the French maxim of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the other consisting in the relatively independent development of the German aphorism, beginning with Georg Christoph Lichtenberg in the late eighteenth century. 46 Furthermore, within the German tradition the terms "Aphorismus" and "aphoristisch" are equivocal, referring at once to a fragmentary, anti-systematic, non-expository mode of philosophical meditation (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein), and to a literary genre in which rules of structure, expression and form take precedence over philosophical content (Lichtenberg, the Romantics, Friedrich Hebbel, Karl Kraus).47 In some instances no clear line can be drawn between philosophical and literary aphorism. The Romantics, for example, were intent on annulling the delineation between these two intel1880-1915: Reflections on a Neglected Genre," Turn of the Century: German Literature and Art 1890-1915: The McMaster Colloquium on German Literature, ed. Gerald Chappie and Hans H. Schulte (Bonn: Bouvier, 1981), p. 277. R. H. Stephenson, "On the Widespread Use of an Inappropriate and Restrictive Model of the Literary Aphorism," MLR, 75 (1980), 1-17. See, for example, Hermann Asemissen, "Notizen über den Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, p. 159; Karl Hans Bühner, "Über den Aphorismus," Welt und Wort, 6 (1951), 267; Günther J.[oachim], "Warum soviel Aphorismen?," Neue Deutsche Hefte, 5 (1958-59), 739; Franz Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," Der Aphorismus, pp. 21-22; Gerhard Neumann, Ideenparadiese, p. 127. Franz Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," p.22. Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," p. 31. On the differentiation between the French and German aphoristic traditions see Walter Wehe, "Geist und Form des deutschen Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, p. 142. On the aphorism as philosophical form see Heinz Krüger, Studien über den Aphorismus als philosophische Form (Frankfurt: Nest Verlag, 1957); Hans Margolius, "Aphorismus und Ethik," Der Aphorismus, pp. 293-304; Hans Margolius, "System und Aphorismus, Der Aphorismus, pp. 280-292. 17

lectual pursuits, and the aphorism became for them a paradigm for this marriage of literature and philosophy. In the writings of Nietzsche, as well, literary and philosophical moments can not clearly be distinguished. Nietzsche's tremendous influence on subsequent writers is thus also responsible for the association of the aphorism with "philosophical" expression. Yet one must keep in mind that Nietzsche's mode of "philosophizing with a hammer," in this sense similar to the "symphilosophizing" of the Romantics, did not strive for systematic determinacy, but rather sought to undermine all determinate patterns of thought. In this "aesthetic" indeterminacy, philosophical and literary aphorism converge. The purpose of the present study is to attempt an orientation of Kafka's aphoristic writings in the tradition of the aphorism in Germany and Austria. Because, as the history of criticism on Kafka's aphorisms demonstrates, one can not presume common knowledge regarding this tradition among scholars, my investigation must begin by establishing briefly the history of the aphorism as genre. This is the focus of my first chapter. The second chapter, which also serves as a kind of introduction into the history and problematics of aphoristic expression, is concerned with the role of the aphorism in the Austrian Jahrhundertwende. Taking as my point of departure the proliferation of aphorisms in Austrian intellectual circles of this period, I attempt to explain through intellectual-historical analysis the impeti which led to this renaissance of the aphorism. In particular, I document the extent to which this widespread turn to aphoristic forms manifests a literary response to the problems of the Sprachkrise which plagued Austrian intellectuals at this time. The third chapter attempts to ground Kafka's aphoristic thought in the larger context outlined in the two chapters that precede it. Beginning with an intellectual-historical analysis of Kafka's evolving views on language, metaphor, and art, I bring the intellectual problematics with which Kafka was concerned into relation with the intellectual issues which traditionally motivated the application of aphoristic discourse. Kafka's intellectual crisis is associated with the Sprachkrise of his Austrian contemporaries, and his turn to aphoristic expression is analyzed as a calculated strategy for overcoming this crisis of communication.48 In the fourth chapter I turn to Kafka's "aphoristic precursors," investigating his acquaintance with authors and works which are indicative of the tradition of the literary aphorism, and analyzing his reception of their aphoristic works. This examination, while proceeding "biographically" and "positivistically," at least in its reliance on documentary evidence, is not a See Richard Gray, "Suggestive Metaphor: Kafka's Aphorisms and the Crisis of Communication*" DVjs, 59 (1984), 454-69.

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"source" study in the narrow sense; rather, its primary purpose is to document the diverse avenues by which Kafka was provided examples of the manifold structures and purposes of aphoristic expression. This serves both to anchor his aphoristic impulse in this tradition, and also to account for the diverstiy of his aphoristic forms. In addition, by examining in some detail Kafka's reception of these aphoristic writings we can form an idea about the purposes and goals of aphoristic expression as Kafka perceived them based on his readings and their effect. Kafka's reception of aphoristic writings indicates that he discovered in aphoristic expression a manner of textualizing the self in which the biographically "factual" and the literarily "fictional" enter into a productive interaction which simultaneously expresses and creates the "author." The fifth chapter provides a detailed history of Kafka's aphoristic texts, a description of his aphoristic manuscripts, and an analysis of the process by which the aphoristic texts were created. These examinations serve to supply a preliminary orientation of Kafka in the tradition of the aphorism based on a comparison of his methods and structures of thought with those of other aphorists. The chapter then continues this positioning of Kafka in the tradition of the aphorism through detailed analyses of his aphoristic texts, aligning them structurally and stylistically with the typical modes of aphoristic expression, and juxtaposing them to texts by representative German and Austrian aphorists. In this way I hope to evaluate the extent to which Kafka's texts manifest formal and structural characteristics inherent in aphoristic expression in general. Once Kafka's aphorisms have been analyzed and characterized, and his position in the historical development of the aphorism as literary genre has been established, the final chapter attempts to assess the significance of aphoristic expression in the overall development of Kafka's fiction. I argue that Kafka's turn to aphoristic expression occurs as a response to dissatisfaction with his previous narrative practice, and that his experiments with the aphorism help him to evolve certain techniques which exert a determining influence on the evolution of his parabolic style. The aphorisms, then, become keys to the understanding of structure and purpose of the Kafkan parable, and thus their integral role in Kafka's general artistic profile is elucidated. A word about the title of my study: "Constructive Destruction" ("aufbauende Zerstörung") is a phrase used by Kafka to describe the discursive method of Kierkegaard. I take this description to be generally appropriate to the method of the aphorist, as well as relevant to the practice Kafka employs in his aphoristic texts. Kafka applies the aphorism in an attempt to find a new literary-discursive method for coming to terms with the self in textual form. He comes to understand aphoristic discourse as a means of expression in 19

which self-critique and self-projection productively interrelate to produce a "constructive destruction" of the self, i. e. a dismantling and reconstruction of the self accomplished through a specific textual medium. The phrase "literary transformation" in my subtitle refers both to this process of transforming the self through its textualization, and to the process of transformation which the aphorism ultimately undergoes in Kafka's works as it is transmogrified into the narrative form of the Kafkan parable.

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CHAPTER ONE:

History, Tradition, and Structure of the Aphorism

The history and tradition of the aphorism as expressive form are fraught with contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies. The most immediate and influential of these is signalled by the necessity of preceding an investigation into Kafka's aphorisms with an overview of the historical evolution, intellectual problematics, and discursive structure of this genre. What investigator of Kafka's novels would need to follow a similar procedure? This general lack of critical awareness regarding the purpose and qualities of aphoristic discourse is attributable to the relegation of the aphorism to the status of a "minor" literary genre - if, indeed, it is regarded as a literary genre at all. Yet the aphorism has actually played quite a significant role in the history of German literature at least since the Romantic age. Indeed, the aphorism figured centrally in the poetic theories and practices of the early German Romantics, and their aphoristic model was to have far-reaching influence. However, the ail-too static periodization of literary "movements" has in this instance hindered the abstraction of this aphoristic model out of its literaryhistorical context. While one must be careful not to universalize uncritically such seemingly paradigmatic representations, treating them as an "Ur"-form to which all other manifestations can be reduced, there is no reason to artificially restrict the application of a model, especially if its employment promises to be productive. Nietzsche is a further example of a prominent and highly influential figure in German literature whose name is associated with the aphorism. Much as in the case of the Romantics, however, studies of Nietzsche's aphoristic method have tended to concentrate on the appropriateness of this form for his thought: his "salesmanship" as a propagator of this genre, while commonly recognized, is rarely examined in a critical and reflective manner.1 Again, many of the individual qualities which mark Nietzsche's 1

On the role of the aphorism in Nietzsche's works see Bernard Greiner, Friedrich Nietzsche: Versuch und Versuchung in seinen Aphorismen, Zur Erkenntnis der Dichtung, Bd. 11 (Munich: Fink, 1972); Hiltrud Häntzschel-Schlotke, "Der Aphorismus als Stilform bei Nietzsche," Diss. Heidelberg 1967; Heinz Krüger Studien über den Aphorismus als philosophische Form. 21

aphoristic style are abstractable and applicable to the aphorisms of other writers. In scholarly investigations of the aphorism two trends stand out: on the one hand, the attempt to arrive at a purely theoretical definition or characterization of the aphorism; on the other hand, the examination of the aphoristic style or aphoristic texts of a single author.2 In an important sense, then, the trends in scholarship on the aphorism manifest in exaggerated form the aberrations and failings of traditional literary history, concentrating on simple linear relationships to document "influence," and fleeing into synchronic analysis or theoretical abstraction where historical examination seems too facile. Hans Robert Jauss has described the complicated dialectic obtaining between creation, reception, and production of literary texts, envisioning analysis which takes cognizance of this dialectic as the contemporary challenge for literary historians and literary scholarship in general.3 The aphorism, perhaps more than any other literary form, has been the victim both of undeserved neglect and of the terror of methodologies. The nature of the aphorism itself is partially responsible for the general uncertainty of critics with regard to this genre. Even among those scholars who have devoted concerted research to the aphorism, there is disagreement as to whether the aphorism belongs to the realm of philosophy or to that of literature.4 In fact, it is one of the most intriguing characteristics of the aphorism that it consciously repudiates the distinctions between philosophy, literature, and criticism, emphasizing the commonality of a hermeneutical situation in which word becomes the medium in a dynamic process of understanding ("Verstehen"). One of the "Fragmente" of Friedrich Schlegel formulates this universally applicable dialectic of "word" and "reading": "Buchstaben als fixierter Geist. Lesen heißt, gebundenden Geist frei machen, also eine magische Handlung."5 As we shall see, both the Romantic "Frag2

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The major exception to this is Gerhard Neumann's seminal study Ideenparadiese, op. cit. Hans Robert Jauss, "Literaturgeschichte als Provokation der Literaturwissenschaft," Literaturgeschichte als Provokation (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970), pp. 144-207; esp. p. 172. On the aphorism as philosophical form, see Heinz Krüger, Studien über den Aphorismus als philosophische Form; Hans Margolius, "Aphorismus und Ethik," and "System und Aphorismus," both essays reprinted in the volume Der Aphorismus, pp. 293-304 and 280-292 respectively. Recently R. H. Stephenson has attempted to deny literary status to the aphorism, "On the Widespread Use of an Inappropriate and Restrictive Model of the Literary Aphorism," Modern Language Review, 75 (1980), 1-17. In the atmosphere of poststructuralism, of course, the very distinctions between philosophy, literature, and criticsm have been placed in question - indeed, all experience of reality has been described as the experience of "texts." Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Ausgabe seiner Schriften, ed. Ernst Behler (Munich:

ment" and the modern aphorism exemplify this "magical" relationship between letter and spirit. In his Genealogie der Moral, Nietzsche mentions the difficulty which aphoristic form presents to interpreters, and he locates this difficulty "darin, daß man diese Form heute nicht schwer genug nimmt."6 While Nietzsche's claim is still valid for literary scholars today, it would be unjust to attribute insufficient scholarly conceptions of the aphorism solely to the reticence of scholars to approach this genre, or to the hitherto common practices of literary scholarship itself. For indeed, the aphorism is an unusually problematical genre, and its modern practitioners tend to cultivate, for reasons appropriate to the individual case, precisely this problematical aspect of the aphorism. Thus Nietzsche, for one, calling aphorism and "sentence," in which he believes himself to be the German master, "die Formen der 'Ewigkeit'," describes his goal as one of creating "Dinge . . ., an denen umsonst die Zeit ihre Zähne versucht" (Werke, II, 1026). What the Romantics termed the "infinity" of the aphorism, and Nietzsche its "eternity," is nothing more - and nothing less - than the aphorism's hermeneutical challenge. In other words, the modern aphorist frequently relies on this form of expression in order to present his/her interpreters with an interpretive task of premier difficulty. Unfortunately, literary scholarship has too often succumbed in the face of such a challenge. In this sense, the aphorist's willed obscurity is partially responsible for the neglect or hermeneutical maltreatment this form has suffered at the hands of literary critics. Adequate critical assessments of the aphorism have been further retarded by the chameleon-like quality of this form, viewed from a historical perspective. The aphorism enjoys an exceedingly long and rich history; this history, however, far from displaying a linear or evolutionary development, is characterized by frequent radical shifts in the nature and applicative function of the aphorism. Misconceptions of the aphoristic production of particular authors are often attributable to ignorance of this multi-faceted history, or to the unreflected application of a historically limited model beyond its actual realm of relevance. This, as I have argued in my introduction, is almost universally the case in evaluations of Kafka's aphorisms. And if the existence of various aphoristic sub-species were not enough, this already complex situation has been complicated further by the host of appellations under which these diverse aphoristic forms have paraded.7 These are the conditions Schöningh, 1958 ff.), XVIII, 297; further references are indicated by the abbreviation KA, volume and page number. Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bänden, ed. Karl Schlechte (Munich: Hanser, 1966), II, 770; henceforth cited as Werke, with volume and page number. Franz Mautner refers to this as the independence of "Wortgeschichte" from "Formgeschichte," "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," pp. 21-22.

23

which require as a prerequisite to the analysis of Kafka's aphorisms an investigation into the historical manifestations, intellectual problematics, methodologies, and applicative functions which determine the historical countenances of the aphorism as literary form.

I. The History of the Aphorism Significant for the evolution of the aphorism is its origin in the natural sciences. The Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460-370 B.C.) used the word "aphorismos" to denote a concise summary of symptoms and treatments for common illnesses. The simple, laconic form of the utterance served a mnemonic-didactic function, enhancing one's ability to commit the established treatment to memory. Even in the Hippocratic aphorism, however, which was intended to serve a specific, practical purpose, one finds in the formulation a suggestive lack of specificity. For example, the observation "vita brevis, ars longa," attributed to Hippocrates, certainly is a pronouncement of philosophical depth; yet it has no medicinal application - except perhaps as a resigned conclusion to failed treatment. However, precisely this generality - and hence abstractability - of the Hippocratic aphorism has engendered its historical viability. Nothing prevented many of these statements from being applied to numerous realms and activities of human beings, which, by way of analogical extension, were related to the initial therapeutic purpose of these pronouncements. One relatively modern example documents this metaphorical transposition of a Hippocratic aphorism from the realm of medicine to that of politics. As an epigraph to his drama Die Räuber, Schiller chose the following Hippocratic text: Quae medicamenta non sanat, ferrum sanat quae ferrum non sanat, ignis sanat, quae vero ignis non sanat, insanabilia reputari oportet.8

Schiller, not coincidentally, suppressed the more resigned third line of this aphorism, which, for obvious reasons, is not appropriate for a "revolutionary" drama. This deletion implies that for the Sturm und Drang dramatist there were no conceivable political illnesses that either knife or fire could not "heal." The analogical transposition of the medicinal aphorism from its application to the health of individuals onto the political realm to describe the "health" of the political "organism" is not unique to Schiller. In fact, this transferral of the applicative sphere of the aphorism to politics had occurred Quoted in the Ciceronian translation as cited by Buchmann, Geflügelte Worte, 26th ed. (Berlin: Haude und Spenersche Buchhandlung, 1920), p.352. 24

in Spain, Italy, and France already in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.9 This political aphorism is exemplified in the maxims of political action established by such thinkers as Perez, Graciän, and Machiavelli. The development of the "maxim" and "sentence" of the French moralists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries represents a further transposition of the Hippocratic aphorism from the realm of medicine; in this case the transposition is effected onto the sphere of morality. In this sense the maxims of, for example, La Rouchefoucauld are not concerned either with the physical or political health of humans, but rather with their social well-being. Thus these aphoristic "rules" function as pronouncements intended to guide the actions of the individual with regard to the "health" and stability of the community. Last but not least, the aphorism also found application in the realm of religion and the human spirit, manifest most notably in the Pensees of Blaise Pascal. In this instance especially the aphorism becomes a form of introspective reflection through which one struggles to arrive at a proper "Christian" interaction with oneself and one's God. The common denominator of all these various applications of aphoristic expression is concern with the central aspects of human existence, be they physical, political, social, or spiritual. This involvement with "health" and the furthering of life-impulses remains a fundamental trait of the aphorism, and one which returns throughout its history. It is no coincidence, for example, that Schopenhauer should compose his "Lebensweisheit" in aphoristic form; just as it is no coincidence that a philosopher such as Nietzsche, centrally concerned with a return of humanity to an immediate, authentic relationship to life, should gravitate naturally to the form of the aphorism.10 Kafka's turn to aphoristic form in the crisis period after the diagnosis of tuberculosis, of course, takes on profound significance in this context. Respect for "life," then, and for its interests, however they may be defined, informs the use of the aphorism since its very inception. One final applicative sphere must be mentioned here, especially since it provides a pivotal connection to Kafka's aphoristic production: this is the realm of law. Here again the aphorism is concerned with the well-being of the individual and the community; yet particularly pronounced in the legal maxim is the relationship between aphoristic statement and applicative judg-

This process of transformation to the political sphere is best described by Jürgen von Stackelberg, "Zur Bedeutungsgeschichte des Wortes Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, pp. 209-225. On the importance of the aphorism as a form which is close to life, see Krüger, Studien über den Aphorismus als philosophische Form, p. 55; see also Hans Margolius, "System und Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, p. 289.

25

ment.11 This aspect brings the legal aphorism into close proximity with the "moral" maxims of the French. What stands out in both the ethical and legal applications of aphoristic expression is the evocation of what can be called, broadly speaking, a hermeneutical process. This function is most obvious in the realm of law where abstract "rule" is formulated on the basis of concrete "cases." Under ideal circumstances, a mutually determining dialectic obtains between "case" and "rule," such that each individual case stretches or alters slightly the application of the rule, while each rule subsumes under its aegis those cases to which it productively can be applied. This interchange between abstract law and specific case is fundamental to the aphorism in all of its manifestations, and it is one of the primary characteristics which brings the structure and purpose of the aphorism into relation with the activity of hermeneutics.12 Not insignificantly, for Hans-Georg Gadamer juridical hermeneutics becomes the paradigmatic model for the applicative function which Gadamer postulates for literary hermeneutics.13 This dialectic between particular and universal, quintessential to the aphorism, will be dealt with in more detail below. At this point, however, anticipating ideas yet to be presented, we must mention Kafka's nearly obsessive concern with problems of "judgment" - an issue with which his aphorisms will also deal - and the potential significance of his juristic education in shaping the characteristic reflections on the difficulties of an applicative hermeneutics, in broad terms, and for helping to determine his position with regard to history and function of the aphorism. While the aphorisms of Hippocrates are the "source" from which these other aphoristic traditions spring, a second fundamental source for the inception and evolution of the aphorism, again originating in the natural sciences, is found in Francis Bacon's valorization of the aphorism as a fitting expressive medium for the empirical scientist. As in the instances already discussed, Bacon's application of the aphorism is grounded in a desire to further a specific principle of „life." In this case, however, life is not conceived in terms of the merely human, but rather - corresponding to the interests of the empirical scientist - extends to the entire realm of the phenomenal world. Bacon strives for an honest and "truthful" rendering of the perceived phenomena of the world, and he sees the virtue of the aphorism in its lack of On the legal maxim, see Peter Stein, Regulae Juris: From Juristic Rules to Legal Maxims (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1966). Gerhard Neumann has emphasized the process of mediation between universal and particular which defines the nature of aphoristic expression; see his Ideenparadiese, pp. 74-5, 79, 745, and also his "Einleitung," Der Aphorismus, p. 5. Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Die exemplarische Bedeutung der juristischen Hermeneutik," Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: J.C.B.Mohr, 1965), pp.307-23.

26

dogmatic system and its subsequent flexibility: the aphorism allows for an isolated registering of "facts," without forcing these isolated facts into a rigid configuration from the outset. In Bacon's own words: "This delivering of knowledge in distinct and disjointed aphorisms doth leave the wit of man more free to turn and toss, and to make use of that which is delivered to more several purposes and applications."14 This flexibility in application is predicated on the combinatory freedom left to the human mind when "knowledge" is mediated in unconnected fragments. The aphorism, as fragmentary mode of expression, is more adequate to an honest, undogmatic search for truth. The implications of Bacon's defense of the aphoristic presentation of knowledge are profound and must be examined in detail - especially since the Baconian model exerted a formative influence on the German aphoristic tradition through the figure of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Clearly, the position of the empirical scientist in Bacon's conception is not one of a merely passive recorder of perceived facts and witnessed phenomena. The "wit" of the observer must function as the organizing power which orders data, lending them a comprehensive (and comprehensible) "sense." Bacon, then, emphasizes the factor of interpretation in the derivation of knowledge: the freely associating, combinatory capacity of the human mind must always be at work as the processor of data. Paul Requadt juxtaposes this attitude of the Baconian scientist to the drive for systematic thought: "die Geistesverfassung des empirischen Forschers, des Aphoristikers in Bacons Sinne, gründet sich in dem Verzicht auf absolutes Wissen, wie es die Systemphilosophen beanspruchen."15 Yet it would be an overstatement of the issue to claim that Bacon champions an antisystematic approach to science; more apt is Gerhard Neumann's assertion that Bacon strives for a synthesis of system and pure observation.16 This implies that observations must be made, and "facts" recorded, without prior intentions or prejudices influencing (and thus falsifying) their perception. In other words, system cannot exist prior to the establishing of facts, but must be constructed "after the fact," i. e. in accordance with perceived facts. Here we discover in Bacon's theory the same interplay between particulars and abstraction which characterized the hermeneutical interaction of legal maxim and individual case. Bacon, in short, does not attack systems per se, rather he opposes all forms of dogmatism, of

Francis Bacon, quoted by Brian Vickers, "The Aphorism," Francis Bacon and Renaissance Prose, p. 67; Vickers also notes the connection of Bacon's thoughts on the aphorism to the tradition of the legal aphorism, pp. 66-7. Paul Requadt, Lichtenberg, Sprache und Literatur, 13 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1964), p. 141. Neumann, Ideenparadiese, p. 72. 27

inflexible, "systematic" structuring in which the principle of organization takes precedence over individual facts - in which structure is forced upon the phenomena, rather than derived from them.17 Thus knowledge for Bacon is continually subject to change, involved in a process of "advancement," and inherently progressive. Rigidity is the enemy of truth, and the primary virtue of the aphorism is that it not only allows, but actually demands a flexible attitude with regard to the organization of individual facts and phenomena. The isolated aphoristic fragment, so to speak, represents the linguistic equivalent to the independent, autonomous, not yet systematized phenomenon. This scepticism toward systems and systematizers is characteristic of most aphorists. Nietzsche, for example, writes in Götzendämmerung: "ich mißtraue allen Systematikern und gehe ihnen aus dem Weg. Der Wille zum System ist ein Mangel an Rechtschaffenheit" (Werke, II, 946). In a similar vein, Wittgenstein complains about the artificiality of being forced to think in a serial, expository manner: Wenn ich für mich denke, ohne ein Buch schreiben zu wollen, so springe ich um das Thema herum; das ist die einzige mir natürliche Denkweise. In einer Reihe gezwungen, fortzudenken, ist mir eine Qual. Soll ich es nun überhaupt probieren? Ich verschwende unsägliche Mühe auf ein Anordnen der Gedanken, das vielleicht gar keinen Wert hat.18

Wittgenstein's remarks can stand for the sentiments of most aphorists. However, whereas he emphasizes the naturalness of autonomous thoughts, unconstrained by the ordering logic which brings them into a consistent system, Bacon's attitude is founded more on the experimental curiosity of the empirical scientist. In this sense the aphoristic method of Bacon corresponds to the experimental attitude, characterized by a subtle dialectical interchange between working hypothesis and derived facts. Inspired subjective thought, "wit," figures fundamentally in the advancement of knowledge.19 This "inventive," creative element accounts for growth in knowledge, and dogmatic adherence to a system suppresses this progressive factor. Brian Vickers has quite appropriately described Bacon's aphoristic model of organization as "cellular."20 This term fittingly characterizes the loose

17 18

19

20

28

On Bacon's fundamentally anti-dogmatic stance, see Vickers, p. 72. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen, (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1977), p. 60. One is tempted here to construe Bacon's view as one which anticipates in significant ways the "paradigm" theory of scientific revolution put forth by Thomas S. Kühn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970). Vickers, p. 82.

interconnection of the aphoristic grouping of thoughts and observations, as well as the autonomous status of each individual thought. Furthermore, this organic metaphor underscores the necessity of each element in the proper functioning of the whole. Yet what this aphoristic arrangement freely admits - indeed, emphasizes - is the existence of "gaps." For the aphorist in Bacon's sense, knowledge exists only in counterpoint to an admission of ignorance. Recognition of the "gaps" in one's understanding spurs the aphorist on to further investigation. This preference for doubt over certainty is expressed in the following way by the aphorist Ernst Freiherr von Feuchtersieben: "das Zweifelhafte scheint mir interessanter als das Ausgemachte."21 Much in this sceptical attitude, of course, is reminiscent of Socratic irony.22 Much in the same way that Socrates applied his pose of ignorance in order to further the quest for knowledge and truth, the aphorist employs "ignorance" in the form of incomplete relations to motivate the search for, and discovery of, truth. As we shall see, the aphorism also incorporates the dialogical process fundamental to the Socratic method. This aspect lends the aphorism its heuristic function. Bacon is the first influential modern thinker consciously to propound and defend an aphoristic method, distinguishing it from dogmatic systematization. In doing so he delineates two investigative methods, the methodus magistralis and the methodus initiativa, corresponding to the positions of proven, accepted, unquestioned knowledge, and of hypothetical proposition respectively. As defined by Bacon, "magistralis siquidem docet, initiativa intimat. Magistralis poscit, ut fides habitur us quae dicunter. Initiativa vero potius, et examen subeant."23 The "didactic" method states a conclusion which is to be unquestioningly accepted; the "initiative" method presents an idea or hypothesis which begs examination. The initiative method, which Bacon aligns with the aphoristic procedure, corresponds to the open attitude of discovery which Bacon demands from the empirical scientist. The aphoristic investigator initiates a search for truth, giving priority to this search itself, rather than to any prefigured conclusion. Three qualities of the Baconian aphoristic model, to sum up, were of seminal importance for the development of the German aphorism: 1) Bacon's emphasis on the freedom of human wit, and the role of creative subjectivity in the "advancement" of knowledge; 2) closely related to this, the priority afforded empirical, unprejudiced observation over abstract, a priori conception and systematization, thus emphasizing the individual experience 21

22 23

Ernst Freiherr von Feuchtersieben, Zur Dialektik der Seele, 36th ed. (Vienna: Carl Gerholds Sohn, 1873), pp. ix-x. Cf. Krüger, p. 122, who emphasizes the aphorist's pose of "Nichtwissen." Quoted by Requadt, Lichtenherg, p. 187. 29

of the investigator; 3) Bacon's attitude of productive scepticism, evident in the questioning of established truths, the dismantling of rigid systems, and the experimental curiosity of the scientist. These attributes characterize the aphoristic method of Lichtenberg, the founder of the aphoristic tradition in Germany.24 While Lichtenberg's Sudelbücher mark the inception of the characteristic form of the German aphorism, the word "aphorism" is itself never applied by Lichtenberg to his reflections. These notebooks, never prepared or sorted for publication, have the quality of diaries or sketchbooks: they contain the occasional notes, jottings, observations, and reflections of a perceptive and spry mind. Throughout these notebooks the simple recording of observations, conforming to the empirical scientist's receptivity to external phenomena, alternate with witty remarks, keen intellectual analysis, introspective meditation, scientific-mathematical notes, and creative flights of associative fancy. A few examples from the Sudelbücher will document both the rich variety of texts, and their reliance on principles which Bacon associated with the aphoristic method. In the following note Lichtenberg describes his undogmatic, aphoristicempirical method and its benefits: Durch das planlose Umherstreifen durch die planlosen Streifzüge der Phantasie wird nicht selten das Wild aufgejagt, das die planvolle Philosophie in ihrer wohlgeordneten Haushaltung gebrauchen kann. (J 1550)25

One is reminded here not only of the critique which aphorists typically direct at systematic philosophies, but also of the ascendancy Bacon attributed to fragmentary observation and creative subjective thought. In the metaphor of the hunt Lichtenberg describes the attitude of searching which informs his reflections; but he also indicates that it is a hunt which is guided by phantasy and chance, rather than by deliberation or cunning. This text also embodies one of the quintessential features of Lichtenberg's aphoristic style: the employment of metaphorical exposition.26 Metaphorical leaps, of course, are one manifestation of that subjective quality of "Witz" to which Lichtenberg,

24

25

26

30

See Requadt, pp. 141-45 on Bacon's significance for Lichtenberg's aphorisms; cf. also Neumann, Ideenparadiese, pp. 69-73. Lichtenberg's aphorisms will be cited by notebook and reflection number following the modernized edition of his Schriften und Briefe, ed. Wolfgang Promies (Munich: Hanser, 1966). On the role of metaphor in Lichtenberg's aphorisms, see Helmut Arntzen, "Aphorismus und Sprache: Lichtenberg und Karl Kraus," Literatur im Zeitalter der Information (Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1971), p. 330; Neumann, Ideenparadiese, pp. 238-46; Requadt, p. 19; J. P. Stern, "A Literary Definition of the Aphorism," Lichtenberg: A Doctrine of Scattered Occasions, p. 157.

like Bacon, assigned so much import.27 Lichtenberg describes the relationship between subjective wit and "objective" reason in another of his aphorisms. Der Witz ist der Finder und der Verstand der Beobachter. (J 1620)

Dis-covery, according to this reflection, occurs only through the creative application of wit. The "observational" capacity of reason, Lichtenberg implies, only becomes relevant after wit has made a discovery worthy of scrutiny. This thought is repeated in slightly different form in another aphorism. Man muß etwas Neues machen um etwas Neues zu sehen. (J 1770)

Ingenuity, inspiration, and creativity are the factors which contribute to the advancement of knowledge; reason is then applied a fortiori to these new insights in order to test their logical validity. Metaphor and associative analogy are frequently the principles based on which Lichtenberg "makes something new." Indeed, the aphoristic method in general lends itself well to such productive association of thoughts: first, because in the suppression of exposition (in its reliance on pure observation) the aphorism permits free interpretation of its statement; secondly, because the isolation of the individual aphorisms begs the free association among texts which display some similarity or mutual relevance. Matter-of-fact remarks often take on a mysterious, unexpressed meaning in Lichtenberg's notebooks, as in the following example. Die Eiszapfen sind am stärksten bei der Quellef,] die Ströme am Ende. (J 1526)

On the surface this aphorism simply records an observable fact. Based on their commonality of substance, Lichtenberg relates icicles to streams, and exploits this association in order to express the contrast: icicles, strongest at their source; and streams, weakest at their source. But Lichtenberg suppresses this internal logic, and in the process of supplying it, the reader is led to suggestive implications which far transcend the surface of the text itself: Does, for example, this imply, by analogy, that all things which are rigid systems, for one - are strong initially but tend to become weaker the further they move from their source, while things which are fluid - the initiative method of the aphorist comes to mind - appear weakest at the outset but grow ever stronger as they approach their "delta"? In the present context it is not significant that we be able to give a definitive answer to this question; important is the simple recognition of the manner in which such ostensibly

See Neumann, Ideenparadiese, p. 100. 31

facile texts can become pregnant with profound meanings through suggested analogical relationships. Lichtenberg views the tendency to assign overriding significance to otherwise insignificant details as a prominent trait in his personality. Einer der merkwürdigsten Züge in meinem Charakter ist gewiß der seltsame Aberglaube, womit ich aus jeder Sache eine Vorbedeutung ziehe und in einem Tage hundert Dinge zum Orakel mache . . . Jedes Kriechen eines Insekts dient mir zu Antworten über Fragen über mein Schicksal. Ist das nicht sonderbar von einem Professor der Physik? Ist es aber nicht in menschlicher Natur gegründet und nur bei mir monströs geworden, ausgedehnt über die Proportion natürlicher Mischung, wo es heilsam ist? (J 715)

Meaningless events are read as signs, i.e. imbued with a significance that transcends their own essence. In this example, of course, Lichtenberg describes how objective events or observations of fact become symbolic inscriptions of subjective, internal phenomena: "reading" the details of the phenomenal world becomes a manner for "reading" the self and divining its fate. Yet this principle applies on a more general level and informs Lichtenberg's drive to project symbolic meanings onto observations or events.28 We can better imagine, in this context, the association he might have had on the occasion of jotting down the reflection about icicles and streams quoted above. This same process is at work in the following aphorism. Die Sand-Uhren erinnern nicht bloß an die schnelle Flucht der Zeit, sondern auch zugleich an den Staub in welchen wir einst verfallen werden. (C 27)

Lichtenberg takes the hourglass not only for a symbol in which the passing of time is concretized, but also, through association of sand with the dust which one becomes after death, for a concretization of death itself. This drive toward the free attribution of significance - a veritable rage for interpretation - is not the only manifestation of creative "wit" in Lichtenberg's notebooks. The brooding quality manifest in this tendency is only one side of Lichtenberg's reflections; the other side is characterized by a humoristic playfulness evoked by mesalliance and metaphorical extension. Nichts als Knochen und Überrock. (E 217)

This laconic remark might be the response to an observation, but it is marked by the suppression of any occasion or subsidiary interpretation. It presents a perfect example of the productive isolation of remarks so fundamental to aphoristic expression. Lacking both subject and verb, the statement is constructed in conscious reference to the formulaic utterance "Nichts als Knochen und Haut." Substituting "Überrock" for "Haut," the aphorist

28

32

See Wilhelm Grenzmann, "Probleme des Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, p. 191.

gains the advantage of surprise. Out of the unanticipated diversion away from the reader's expectations, this text derives its humor. Moreover, this remark hints at the posture which the aphorist commonly takes vis-ä-vis formulaic, reified forms of language. Lichtenberg, in this sense the typical aphorist, takes great pleasure in the manipulation and "de-construction" of formulaic utterances. Two further aphorisms will serve to document the playfulness with which Lichtenberg transforms otherwise banal observations into clever, poignant aphorisms. Er kann sich einen ganzen Tag in einer warmen Vorstellung sonnen. (C 38) Experimental-Politik, die französische Revolution. (L 322) The second of these texts is formed by the joining in unexpressed analogy of two otherwise unconnected ideas. The first aphorism also functions on the basis of an analogy; this time by transferring the pleasure associated with sunning oneself to the enjoyment one experiences with the formulation of a comforting idea. The abstract conception "Vorstellung" is substituted for the concrete object "sun." Thus far we have concentrated on the manifestations of creative subjectivity in Lichtenberg's aphorisms. Again, it is important to recognize that for Lichtenberg, much as for Bacon, creative wit and objective observation interact productively in the formulation of "knowledge." To the extent that Lichtenberg's aphorisms fuse metaphorical fancy and empirical observation, we can witness in them that combination of science and poetry, aesthetics and logic, which for later thinkers will become the hallmark of the aphorism.29 Lichtenberg also displays the trait of progressive scepticism which Bacon regarded as central to the advancement of knowledge. Dinge zu bezweifeln, die ganz ohne weitere Untersuchung jetzt geglaubt werden, das ist die Hauptsache überall. Q 1276)3° Lichtenberg's doubt is not the product of nihilistic scepticism which doubts for the sake of doubt alone; rather it is a positive, progressive scepticism which questions accepted truths in order to test and re-test their validity. On the one hand, this bespeaks an attitude of independent self-reliance - only that is true which one has proven for oneself; on the other hand, this attitude betrays a reluctance to accept universally formulated or accepted principles without first demonstrating that they indeed have validity in individual and

29 30

This relationship, of course, was especially important for the Romantic aphorists, but it is still present in such thinkers as Wittgenstein. Cf. also J 1389. 33

particular cases. In other words, Lichtenberg, as aphoristic investigator, remains sceptical of all generalizations or universal principles until he has proven their feasibility for himself. This is the trait of the aphoristic thinker which Paul Requadt calls "Selbstdenken. "31 One must remain cognizant of both words which form the compound "Selbstdenken"; for self-reliance is just one aspect of this: the other is active thought. Thus "Selbstdenken" reflects the requirement of the aphorist that abstract law and particular instance never occur independent of one another, so that the progressive dialectic which informs their relationship might never be lost. There is yet one rather "modern" implication in this attitude of productive scepticism: the refusal to accept traditional truths without first re-testing them can be taken as an indication that truth itself has been recognized to be historically relative. Once all ideological claims to absolute, eternal validity have been debunked, such truths must continually be revalidated or discarded: every historical epoch must decide on the applicability of past truths for its own unique situation. Hence truth itself becomes a category which is subject to the relativizing, altering force of history. While Lichtenberg may only have had a vague inkling of this profound insight, precisely such awareness of all-encompassing relativity is fundamental to the attitude of the aphorists who follow him. If the attitudes of the empiricist and aphorist in Bacon's sense determined in primary fashion Lichtenberg's thought and the nature of his Sudelhucher, then this dimension was certainly intensified and given new direction by the profound influence of Lutheran pietism on Lichtenberg, the son of a Protestant preacher. On the one hand, the pietistic emphasis on the subjective and individual unquestionably reinforced his posture regarding the role of subjectivity in the discovery of truth. Even more significant, perhaps, is the tendency toward reflective, brooding ponderings which the pietistic emphasis on inwardness imparted to Lichtenberg. This helps to shape the searching introspection characteristic of many of Lichtenberg's reflections. We have witnessed this trait in the meditation which revealed to us Lichtenberg's obsession with the symbolic interpretation of objects and events. This same self-searching quality is evident in this text as well. Indem ich jetzt die Feder ansetze fühle ich mich so voll, meinem Gegenstand so gewachsen, sehe mein Buch in dem Keim so deutlich vor mir, daß ich es fast versuchen mögte mit einem einzigen Wort auszusprechen. (E 224)

This simple observation, as we know in retrospect, speaks volumes about Lichtenberg's inability to complete major projects and undertakings. We are tempted, in fact, to read his self-diagnosis as a succinct analysis of the curse 31

34

Requadt, pp. 151-54.

of all "fragmentises." Beyond this, however, Lichtenberg's reflection betrays a demeanor of distanced, objectifying - indeed, nearly alienated - observation of the self; Lichtenberg seems, in fact, to set the objectifying posture of the empirical scientist loose upon the self, turning this scrutinizing gaze inward. Paul Requadt has employed the word "Selbstbeobachtung" to designate this introspective aspect of Lichtenberg's notebooks, juxtaposing it to the externally directed gaze of the empirical scientist which Requadt terms "Menschenbeobachtung."32 This introspective tendency explains to a large part the diary-like quality of Lichtenberg's Sudelbücher. Yet regardless of which direction his reflections take, whether inward toward the self, or outward toward the phenomenal world of things or the social world of human beings, Lichtenberg's thought displays the intermingling of the subjective (creative) and the objective (scientific). If his scientific observations are guided by subjective wit, then his self-reflections are tempered by the distanced, objective stance of the empirical observer. I shall refer to the former instance as a subjectification of the objective, and the latter instance I will call the objectification of the subjective. These are two primary impulses which define Lichtenberg's aphoristic method, and which will subsequently be of assistance in assessing the aphoristic tendencies of other writers, especially those of Kafka. At this point it is requisite to ward off the possible impression that these two trends in Lichtenberg's thought and aphoristic practice are mutually exclusive and that they somehow alternate with one another. In fact, in the cases of some texts it is not clear which of these drives is at work. There exists, moreover, an entire class of aphoristic texts characteristic of the Sudelbücher which are defined by the very blurring of internal and external spheres: these are the aphoristic texts composed in the otherwise uncommon third-person "Er"-form. Er hatte seine Bibliothek verwachsen, so wie man eine Weste verwächst. Bibliotheken können überhaupt der Seele zu enge und zu weit werden. (B 112)

The third-person form appears to be a reflex of "Menschenbeobachtung," i. e. the recording of an observation about some other person. Yet this text can just as easily be read as a self-reflection in which the self is treated as an objectified "other." The point is not that we must decide between these two possibilities, but rather that both co-exist, without one necessarily taking precedence over the other. The second sentence of this aphorism, which expands the concrete observation into an abstract generalized statement, reinforces this multiplicity insofar as it implies applicability in numerous circumstances. We experience in the text itself, then, a movement from Requadt, pp. 20-81. 35

particularized "er" to a universal statement on the possible relationships between libraries and "souls." This movement toward abstraction is underscored both by the generalizing adverb "überhaupt," and by the expansion from concrete to abstract that is modelled in the metaphorical analogy "clothes are to bodies as libraries are to souls." Thus, while this reflection may indeed have been stimulated by either external observation or selfreflection, the occasional stimulus loses its significance in the very movement of the text away from the concrete toward the abstract. The intermingling of specific example and generalized formulation in this aphorism relies on the process of induction; the reader of the text not only follows this process, but eventually reverses it, moving deductively back from the general hypothesis to a particular instance in her or his own life, so that in the act of reception the objective is once again subjectivized, the universal particularized. The productive isolation or contextlessness of the aphoristic remark furthers this receptive process in which the reader is required to supply examples. "Menschenbeobachtung" and "Selbstbeobachtung," then, are united by their reliance on a similar dialectical tension between particular and general. In the text cited above these two processes are one, and it becomes irrelevant whether the impetus for the reflection is the self or some third person: in either case, what is at stake is the subsumption of the concrete under a universal hypothesis, and the further providing of specific examples that either corroborate or contradict the hypothesis.33

II. The German and French Models of Aphoristic Expression The tension between subjectivity and objectivity, logical reason and metaphorical fancy, describes the parameters of aphoristic expression as introduced by Lichtenberg. He himself possessed both enough self-objectivity to recognize the limits of such a method, and enough subjective faith to distill virtues out of these limitations. Wenn auch meine Philosophie nicht hinreicht, etwas Neues auszufinden, so hat sie doch Herz genug, das längst Geglaubte für unausgemacht zu halten. (K 49)

The undermining of established values was not yet an end in itself for Lichtenberg; but he viewed it as a satisfactory secondary result of his method. This critical, destructive posture takes on primary importance for later aphorists such as Nietzsche and Kraus - indeed, it becomes a central feature

We will return to this issue when we examine Kafka's aphorisms, for here as well the "Er"-form becomes a significant part of the repertory of aphoristic forms, and it functions for Kafka in a like manner. 36

of the aphorism in the German tradition. Thus the aphorism takes root in Germany not as an expressive form placed in the service of traditional values; nor does it undertake the dogmatic presentation of new values; rather it strives to imbue static, rigid values and truths with fluidity and flexibility, assigning to them the character of general hypotheses whose validity must continuously be tested through the application to particular instances. In the words of Gerhard Neumann, the aphorism, especially in the German tradition, insists "gerade auf dieser Darstellung des Konflikts zwischen dem Einzelnen, Beobachteten, Bemerkten, sinnlich Aufgenommenen einerseits und seiner Aufhebung im Allgemeinen, Merksatzhaften, Reflektierten, durch den Geist Abstrahierten andererseits."34 Out of the portrayal of this conflict, this dialectical interchange between hypothesis and experiment, between law and application, the German aphorism derives its progressive quality. The intellectual impeti that shape the aphorisms of Lichtenberg have been discussed here in some detail because they help form the basis for delineating the German aphorism from its counterpart in other national literatures. Most importantly, our remarks about Lichtenberg's aphoristic notebooks provide a number of departure points for segregating the German aphorism from the maxims of the French moralists. This is imperative simply because it is these latter texts which traditionally have served as the models for determining the nature and thrust of aphoristic expression. All too often scholars have viewed the German aphorism with eyes conditioned by perceptions of the "sentences" of the French moralists, without considering whether this is an appropriate model. Indeed, a great deal of the confusion that surrounds conceptions of the aphorism stems from this misapplication of an inappropriate paradigm onto a considerably different aphoristic type.3* W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, for example, seem to have the French maxim in mind when, in their "Foreword" to The Faber Book of Aphorisms, they claim that an aphorism "must convince every reader that it is either universally true or true of every member of the class to which it refers, irrespective of the reader's convictions."36 This definition could hardly contrast more sharply 34 35

36

Neumann, "Einleitung," Der Aphorismus, p.5; cf. also Ideenparadiese, pp. 760-1. Among those who refer to the general confusion surrounding assessments of the aphorism are Kurt Besser, Die Problematik der aphoristischen Form bei Lichtenberg, Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis und Nietzsche (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1935), pp. 9 & 15; Karl Hans Bühner, "Über den Aphorismus," Welt und Wort, 6 (1951), pp. 266-7; J. Günther, "Warum soviel Aphorismen?," Neue deutsche Hefte, 5 (1958-59), p. 739; Franz Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," pp. 21-2; Ulrich Horstmann, "Der englische Aphorismus: Expeditionseinladung zu einer apokryphen Gattung," Poetica, 15 (1983), p. 35. Auden and Kronenberger, "Foreword," The Faber Book of Aphorisms (London: Faber & Faber, 1962), p.vii. 37

with the undogmatic nature of the aphorism as descended from Bacon's empirical method. Similarly, Fritz Schalk, attempting to define the French "aphorism," as he calls it, writes: "der Aphorismus als eine spezifische Kunstgattung unterscheidet sich durch seine philosophische Absicht als eine apodiktische, verallgemeinernde Wahrheit von allen Allegorien, Gleichnissen, Apothegmen, die man auch bei den Aphoristikern oft findet."37 Those investigating the German tradition might invert Schalk's hierarchy, discovering the true aphoristic "finds" in what he also finds. At any rate, scholars concerned with the German tradition of the aphorism object almost Una voca to the definition of the aphorism as an apodictic, universal truth. Walter Wehe, for instance, claims: [Der Aphorismus] will nichts Objektives, Endgültiges, sondern räumt mit alten Geglaubtheiten auf, um neuen Spielraum zu gewinnen; er definiert und systematisiert nicht, sondern deutet zukunftsferne Möglichkeiten an; er ist seinem Wesen nach dynamisch.38

One is reminded of Bacon's distinction between dogmatic and initiative methods, the latter specifically associated by him with the form of the aphorism. Indeed, Bacon's terminology can be employed to segregate the "initiative" aphorism of the German tradition from the "dogmatic" aphorism of the French moralists. The "sentences" of such writers as La Rouchefoucauld and Chamfort tend toward the reformulation of accepted ideas in a striking and rhetorical manner.39 The brilliant form in which the thought is expressed takes precedence, in this instance, over originality of content.40 Darin also hat sich der deutsche vom französischen Aphorismus unabhängig gemacht, daß er nicht einer gesicherten oder für sicher gehaltenen Erkenntnis die abgeschlossene und abgewogene Form gibt, sondern eine neue absichtlich aufreizende Erkenntnis zur Diskussion stellt und dabei schon ihre Formulierung so kategorisch wählt, daß einer Auseinandersetzung nicht auszuweichen ist.41

Franz Mautner draws a similar distinction, claiming that the aphorisms of Lichtenberg, Novalis, and Friedrich Schlegel 37

38 39

40

41

38

Fritz Schalk, "Das Wesen des französischen Aphorismus," Die neueren Sprachen, 41 (1933), p. 99. Walter Wehe, "Geist und Form des deutschen Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, p. 135. See Albert Höft, "Das historische Werden des Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, p. 115. It would appear that scholars who argue the primacy of form over content for the aphorism are relying on the French model; see, for example, Karl Hans Buhner, "Über den Aphorismus," p. 267; Arthur-Hermann Fink, Maxime und Fragment: Grenzmöglichkeiten einer Kunst/arm: Zur Morphologie des Aphorismus, Wortkunst, Neue Folge, Bd. 9 (Munich: Hueber, 1934), p. 10. Wehe, "Geist und Form des deutschen Aphorismus," p. 142.

all have much in common which distinguishes them from the sentences of the French moralists: a stress on subjectivity, glorification of the freedom, mobility, and the intuitiveness of thought; the belief that truth may be found through experimentation with thought and language; a predilection for the ambiguity of language because it reflects the ambiguity of the world; and a concern for "openness," for stimulation of the reader.42

A number of hypotheses have been put forward to account for these startling differences in what is generally viewed as a unified, trans-national aphoristic tradition. One is somewhat reluctant to relate these differences to national character or culture. In fact, the final intermingling of these separate types or, perhaps more germane, the sublation of the dogmatic in the initiative aphorism - in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries goes against such cultural biases. Much more significant, of course, are temporal-historical considerations: the German aphorism evolves 150 years later than its French counterpart.43 Moreover, the aphorism develops in Germany in the backlash of the Kantian "revolution," and as Gerhard Neumann has argued, the resulting scepticism about the absolute value of theoretical knowledge contributed to the constitution of the German aphorism as a form which attempts to integrate theoretical and empirical perspectives.44 Based on this undermining of theoretical knowledge in what Neumann calls the "second Copernican revolution" and the prior subversion of reliable empirical knowledge in the initial Copernican revolution, Neumann interprets the aphorisms of Lichtenberg, Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, and Goethe as attempts to evolve an epistemological position which mediates between empirical and theoretical knowledge, fusing these two in an interactive and mutually corrective system.45 Neumann terms this the "transcendental moralism" of the German aphorism, and it becomes his basis for distinguishing the German aphorism from its French counterpart. Die Frage der traditionellen Moralistik nach dem Menschen und seiner Lebenssituation wird im deutschen Aphorismus um 1800 überstiegen und zur Frage nach der konfliktbestimmten Erkenntnissituztion des Menschen erweitert.46

In the transcendental-moralistic aphorism of the German tradition, the very possiblity of knowledge and of understanding is problematized, and this

42

43 44 45 46

Franz Mautner, "Maxim(e)s, Sentences, Fragmente, Aphorismen," Proceedings of the IVtb Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), p. 816. See Neumann, Ideenparadiese, p. 737. Neumann, Ideenparadiese, pp. 41-2; 69. Ideenparadiese, pp. 742, 820. Ideenparadiese, p. 826. 39

problematization is presented in terms of the incessant struggle between particular and general, body and spirit, logic and aesthetics.47 The French moralists and German aphorists can further be distinguished in terms of their positions and attitudes vis-ä-vis society. The "sentences" of the French were products of social interaction and specifically intended for this social setting; they grew out of the sociable interchange of the salon and were eventually presented to salon society for its approval.48 Thus the themes and forms of the maxims are partially determined by their participation in the salon atmosphere. It is not surprising, then, that these "sentences," formulated within a societal framework as well as created for this social context, would reiterate the traditional cultural and moral values coveted by this society. In contradistinction to this, the German aphorist is commonly conceived as an individual isolated from any concrete, influential social context.49 Lichtenberg's aphorisms, with their monologic, diary-like quality, archetypically represent the role of the aphoristic notebook as an ersatz for dialogue and social interchange.50 On the surface, the aphorisms of the Romantics would seem to be compatible with the French model, at least insofar as these "Fragmente" were explicitly conceived in dialogical relation to one another, in the spirit of Romantic "symphilosophieren." Even the designation "Fragment" seems to indicate the integration of the individual thought into a greater, communal whole. To be sure, the early Romantics did form a society, a community of their own; but this intellectual community cannot be associated with the ruling society of Germany at that time. In fact, the Romantics, like most German intellectuals of the period, were isolated as a group from the social and political centers of German society in a way which was not true for the French moralists. This alienation from the surrounding society has been viewed as paradigmatic for German intellectuals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

47 48 49

50

40

Neumann, Ideenparadiese, pp. 750-760. Wehe, pp.130; 132. See Besser, Die Problematik der aphoristischen Form, p. 131; Johannes Klein, "Wesen und Bau des deutschen Aphorismus," Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, 22 (1934), p. 359; Arthur-Hermann Fink, Maxime und Fragment, p. 100; Herbert Roch, "Über den Aphorismus," Deutsches Volkstum, 17 (1935), 515; Wehe, p. 132. Ralph-Rainer Wuthenow, "Literaturkritik, Essayistik und Aphoristik," Deutsche Literatur: Eine Sozialgeschichte, vol. 4, ed. Horst Albert Glaser, RoRoRo 6253, (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1980), p. 142. While Wuthenow emphasizes that Lichtenberg's aphorisms are produced by a "lonely" individual, he is incorrect in viewing them therefore as a "Sonderform." This factor, much to the contrary, makes them consistent with the general position of the German aphorism.

Isolated from their uneducated fellow-townsmen, barred from the aristocracy, scattered over many sleepy little residences throughout a vast, disorganized realm, with no salons or coffeehouses in which to find their equals, the German intellectual had nothing to look to except himself and the vast unused knowledge of his mind.51

This turn inward toward the self, while already apparent in Lichtenberg's Sudelbücher, is nowhere so pronounced as in the Romantic "Fragment." As already mentioned, the subjectivity of Lichtenberg's meditations manifests itself in his brooding introspection and in the metaphorical fancy with which he imbues observed phenomena. Yet in Lichtenberg's aphorisms subjective and objective postures remain in constant interplay, and the objective stance of the empirical scientist is never absent. In contrast to this, the Romantic "Fragment" manifests a subjectivity unbridled by the constraints of objectivity. One prominent signal of this is the disappearance in the Romantic aphorism of anything but cognitive reality. It is no longer events, phenomena, or empirical observations which stimulate thought, but rather only thought itself. Even the reliance of the Romantic aphorism on pseudo-logical structures and formulae can be interpreted as an attempt to disguise the overblown subjectivity of these reflections behind a mask of reason and logic. The Romantic "Fragment," then, marks a shift from the concrete reality characteristic of Lichtenberg's aphorisms to an abstract mental realm in which thoughts commune with one another. This intensification of the subjective element of the aphorism is of primary consequence for the historical evolution of this form in Germany. Emphatic subjectivity is one characteristic which helps distinguish the German aphorism from the French "sentence."52 Historically speaking, there is no direct line of influence from Lichtenberg's Sudelhiicher to the aphorisms of Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis. Lichtenberg's notebooks were first published in 1805, a number of years after the concentrated production of aphorisms by the Romantics (Lyceumsfragmente, 1797; Athenäumsfragmente, 1798; Ideen, 1799; Blutenstaub, 1798). This lack of a direct influence, however, only helps to reinforce the speculation that the German aphorism of this period springs from a unified intellectual-historical source.53 Indeed, Friedrich Schlegel's fascination with aphoristic form was initiated by his brother's review of a German translation of Chamfort's Maximes et Pensees, indicating that the formal stimulus to the

51 52

53

Walter H.Sokel, The Writer in Extremis (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1959), p. 17f. On the subjectivity of the aphorism, see Besser, p. 101-2; Grenzmann, p. 195; Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung, p. 63; Wehe, p. 131. Neumann makes this argument, Ideenparadiese, p. 69. 41

Romantic "Fragment" came from the tradition of the French maxim. This is evident in the character of the Romantic "Fragment," which, in contrast to the aphorisms of Lichtenberg, reflects the conscious rhetoric, intricate structures, and formal poignancy of the French „sentence." Thus the Romantics appropriate the stylistic characteristics of the French aphorism, while adapting it to their distinct purpose. Their model is then of both formal and contentual significance for the further development of the aphorism in Germany. Lichtenberg's aphorisms, one must remember, were never sorted and honed for publication, and this accounts in part for the impression of diffuseness with which they leave the reader. Lichtenberg's reflections rarely have the rhetorical power and pithiness which are associated both with the French "sentence" and the Romantic "Fragment." It is the stunning conflict between "objective" linguistic form and subjectivity of contentual expression which the Romantic "Fragment" introduces into the tradition of the aphorism. This conflict will become the constitutive element of the German aphorism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.54 Lichtenberg's aphorisms, we recall, also display an intermingling of subjective and objective principles; but in this instance the ground of this conflict can be located in an intellectual stance, in the productive interplay of empirically objective observation and subjective "wit." In the case of the Romantic "Fragment" this conflict is "sublimated," so to speak, into one between a subjective intellectual posture and objective formulation of that position. Objectivity disappears on an intellectual level, only to resurface on the level of form and style. Put in other words: If Lichtenberg's aphorisms represent the conflict between objectivity and subjectivity in their statement-level, in the Romantic "Fragment" this objectivity is dialectically sublated and preserved in the external linguistic form of the aphorism. It is this trait, this rhetorically persuasive presentation of purely subjective ideas, that has led some critics of the aphorism to call it an authoritarian form of expression. According to this view, the aphorism is an inherently dangerous genre, for it is a type of deceptive pronouncement which persuades through the power of its own rhetorical presence, rather than through the logical viability and reasonableness of its arguments.55 This, in turn, has seduced some critics into associating aphoristic expression

54

55

42

On the conflict of content and form in the German aphorism, see Besser, p. 103; Siegfried Grosse, "Das syntaktische Feld des Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, p. 383; Krüger, p. 111; Wehe, p. 131. On this "dangerous" aspect of aphoristic expression, see Karlheinz Gehrmann, "Lesefrüchte und Aphorismen," Welt und Wort, 4 (1949), p. 11; Besser, p. 135; Krüger, p. 13; Emil Lucka, "Der Aphorismus," Das literarische Echo, 21 (1918-19), columns 17-20.

with the blinding, beguiling aspect of propaganda. Nietzsche, on the other hand, views precisely this tension between objective form and subjective content as the virtue of the aphorism, calling this conflict a "moral paradox." "Der Glaube in der Form, der Unglaube im Inhalt - das macht den Reiz der Sentenz aus - also eine moralische Paradoxie.56 Kurt Besser expands on this formulation, writing: "Objektivität in der Form - Subjektivität im Inhalt, das ist das Wesen des Aphorismus in immer stärkerem Maße von Lichtenberg bis Nietzsche."57 The frequent assertion that in the German aphorism content is secondary to form represents an incorrect formulation of this relationship.58 It would be false to attribute priority to either of these, for the effectiveness of the aphorism derives from the balanced conflict of these textual dimensions. Without this tension between subjective content and objective form the aphorism would lose both its typical provocativeness, as well as its "infinite," progressive quality. This interaction is responsible for the aphorism's ability, in the words of one scholar, "to express more than it says."59 In the Romantic and post-Romantic German aphorism imperative diction and rhetorical force lend a subjective content the guise of objectivity; reciprocally, the subjective content tempers the apodictic language of the text. "Aphorismen sagen etwas nicht Selbstverständliches, aber sie sagen es so, daß es sich scheinbar von selbst versteht."60 This tension between open content and closed form is the central feature which distinguishes the German aphorism from the maxim of the French moralists.61 The difference between these two forms can thus not be effectively reduced either to textual, or to more strictly speaking "structural" characteristics; rather it resides primarily in opposing intellectual positions with regard to the validity of inherited, traditional, "objective" values. These distinct stances are expressed in the interaction of content and form, not solely in one or the other of these. I will call these stances "integrative" in the instance of the maxim, and "antagonistic" in the case of the German aphorism. I employ the word "integration" not necessarily as a positive expletive, but rather, following representatives of the Frankfurt School of social theory, as a tendency toward the eradication of all opposition and difference. The inclination of the French maxim toward a smooth integration of content 54

Quoted by Besser, p. 103. Besser, p. 103. 58 On the primacy of form over content see, for example, Buhner, p. 267; Fink, p. 10. 59 Hermann Ulrich Asemissen, "Notizen über den Aphorismus," Der Aphorismus, p. 163. 40 Asemissen, "Notizen über den Aphorismus," p. 163. " See Franz Mautner, "Maxim(e)s, Sentences, Fragmente, Aphorismen," p. 816. 57

43

and form, expressing an accepted moral law in a morally persuasive tone and style, replicates the socially integrative function which the maxims performed. Their centripetal structural movement corresponds to the drive for reiteration and revitalization of established ethical and social positions. In its receptive aspect, then, the maxim functions in such a way as to draw its reader back into the moral circle of society. The centrifugal movement of the German aphorism, inherent in the antagonism of content and form, corresponds to its antagonistic position with regard to the established conventions of society: it seeks to draw its audience out of the circle - to the extent that such a circle even exists - challenging rigid ideologies with its non-integrative, non-integrable subjectivity.62 In short, the German aphorism is "eccentric," in the truest sense of this word. The oppositional posture of the German aphorism will be discussed more fully below. At this point it seems appropriate to caution once again that the adjectives "French" and "German," as applied in the delineation of the integrative and antagonistic aphorism respectively, refer to the historical origins of these forms, and not to characteristics necessarily inherent in either French or German culture. Thus it is the overriding literary program of Romanticism in Germany which determines the appropriateness of the "Fragment" for these writers. One need only recall Novalis's definition of "romanticizing" in order to become cognizant of the proximity of Romantic poetics to the specific form of the German aphorism. Indem ich dem Gemeinen einen hohen Sinn, dem Gewöhnlichen ein geheimnißvolles Ansehn, dem Bekannten die Würde des Unbekannten, dem Endlichen einen unendlichen Schein gebe so romantisiere ich es -. (Schriften, II, 545)63

The antagonistic aphorism, however, is by no means restricted to German authors. To be sure, the French aphorists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gravitate toward this aphoristic type.64 Conversely, the integrative aphorism is employed by some German writers - Goethe's Maximen und Reflexionen fall partially into this category, as do Hugo von HofmannsthaPs aphorisms in the Buch der Freundet 62

63

64 65

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A number of scholars have brought out the antagonistic relationship which the aphorist senses for his environment; see Asemissen, p. 165; Wilhelm Grenzmann, "Probleme des Aphorismus," pp.181 & 188; Krüger, p. 106; Neumann, "Einleitung," p. 3; György Nädor, "Über einen Aphorismustyp und seine antiken Vorläufer," Das Altertum, 8 (1962), p. 11; Herbert Roch, "Über den Aphorismus," p. 515. Novalis, Schriften, ed. Paul Kluckhohn and Richard Samuel, 4 vols. (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960); henceforth cited as Schriften with volume and page number. Neumann makes this point, Ideenparadiese, pp. 68 f. Rainer Noltenius coins the term "geselliger Aphorismus" to describe the aphorisms of Goethe and Hofmannsthal; see his Hofmannsthal - Schröder - Schnitzler·.

The division of the aphoristic genre into two distinct types, conclusive (dogmatic) and stimulative (initiative), runs like a leitmotif through the literature on this genre. Wittgenstein metaphorically summarizes the nature of these two aphoristic types when he comments: "Es gibt Bemerkungen, die säen, und Bemerkungen, die ernten."66 The image of "sowing" for the provocative aphoristic remark reminds one of such designations as Novalis's "Blutenstaub" and Carl Dallago's "Sämereien," both terms chosen to describe aphoristic collections.67 "Reaping," on the other hand, fittingly describes the conclusiveness and finality of the dogmatic aphorism in its capacity as succinct summarizer of traditional values. This partition of the genre of the aphorism into two distinct types is reflected as well in the definitions that scholars have attributed to the Greek verb aphorizein from which the word "aphorism" derives. Most commonly it is translated as "to delimit," "to mark off," or "to define"; however, it is alternatively taken to mean "to set beyond a horizon," or "to expand beyond its established context."68 It is quite possible, of course, that this second definition has been read back into the original meaning of the word "aphorizein," based on association with the qualities of the aphorism. Be that as it may, the distinction itself has been firmly established in scholarship on the aphorism, primarily due to the seminal work done by Franz Mautner in the area of aphorism studies. Mautner's differentiation between the aphorism of "Einfall" and that of "Klärung" overlaps to a large extent with what we have called the initiative (ec-centric) and the dogmatic (integrative) aphoristic types. Mautner describes "Einfall" in terms of the "Ausgangspunkt bewußten Denkens," or, more metaphorically, as "das Aufreißen einer Aussicht auf nebelverhülltes Gebiet."69 Thus "Einfall" refers to "inspired" thought, the sudden, unplanned, and unpredictable discovery of a unique insight. "Klärung," in contrast to this, is described as the "Endpunkt bewußten Denkens" and as "das Finden der Antwort auf angestrengtes Fragen."70 Mautner, then, emphasizes the conscious attitude of searching versus the

66 67

68

69 70

Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des modernen Aphorismus, Germanistische Abhandlungen, 30 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1969), pp. 5 f. Noltenius, of course, also includes the Romantic "Fragment" in this category, presumably because of the "communal" nature of these texts themselves; however, in its receptive aspect, the Romantic "Fragment" does not fit into this category. Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen, p. 148. Dallago's aphorisms appeared in the magazine Der Brenner, issues 1 (1910); 2 (1911-12); 3 (1912-13) and 5 (1915), commonly under the heading "kleine Sämereien." See Neumann, Ideenparadiese, pp. 26-7 for a discussion of these two interpretations of the Greek verb. Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als Literatur," p. 285. Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als Literatur," pp. 285 f.

45

unconscious event of inspiration in drawing his distinction. He attempts to relate these differing attitudes to distinct formal or textual elements, but these associations remain problematic.71 Finally, Mautner views "Einfall" as being paradigmatically at work in the Romantic "Fragment," while "Klärung" he sees as typical of the French maxim.72 All of these distinctions have contributed significantly to our understanding of the nature and function of these two common aphoristic types. However, these differentiations have their limitations, and they are no substitute for close analysis of these distinct aphoristic types with an eye for structural considerations as well as for receptive impact. The sections that follow will attempt to shed some light both on the internal structural workings of the aphorism, and on the dimension of reception. To this end I will discuss the aphorism in terms of what I call its text-internal dialectic and its text-external dialectic, seeking to differentiate the previously examined aphoristic types on these grounds.

III. The Text-Internal Dialectic of the Aphorism Hiltrud Häntzschel-Schlotke has pointed to an essential paradox between the pathological search for truth and simultaneous scepticism about the very possibility of truth that she believes to be characteristic of the thought of Nietzsche.73 This same paradox is typical of the thought of most German aphorists. The aphorism, even for such thinkers as Francis Bacon, is a mode of expression explicitly concerned with the accurate representation of facts; yet the aphorist commonly questions the very possibility of truthful representation, so that the aphoristic endeavor is conditioned by this fundamental conflict. Truth itself becomes problematic for the aphorist, for, at best, it is something recognized to be historically and culturally - i. e. contextually determined. The progressive, incessantly changing character of truth motivates the aphorist to evolve an expressive form which reflects this alterability in its own potential for multiple "sense." The antagonism inscribed within the structure of the aphorism, which stems from the conflict it presents between apodictically "closed" form and infinitely "open" content, reflects the conflict of truth which is characteristic of aphoristic thought. The aphorism is so effective in its portrayal of this conflict simply because it concentrates this tension into such confined textual space. This conflict itself has been variously construed by critics. Some, like Johannes Klein, view it sim71 72 73

46

"Der Aphorismus als Literatur," pp.287 & 293f. Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," Der Aphorismus, p. 57. Hiltrud Häntzschel-Schlotke, "Der Aphorismus als Stilform bei Nietzsche," Diss. Heidelberg 1967, p. 12.

ply as the paradigmatic tension between the extremely finite and the infinite: "Unendlichkeit und Kürze treffen sich im Aphorismus."74 Heinz Krüger attributes metaphysical significance to this tension, interpreting it as the conflict between being and becoming.75 The common denominator in all descriptions of the internal structure of the aphorism is the pattern of dualistic opposition in which two conflicting drives function in a reciprocal interchange. Numerous oppositional pairs can be - and have been - substituted into this structure by various theoreticians or aphorists. Friedrich Schlegel, writing in a letter to Novalis from December 2, 1798, asserted: Die Fragmente von mir . . . sind klassische Materialien und klassische Studien oder Experimente eines Schriftstellers, der die Schriftstellerei als Kunst und als Wissenschaft treibt oder zu treiben strebt.76

This conception of the aphorism as a textual form which merges the interests of art and science is often reiterated by scholars.77 Closely related to this is the conception of the aphorism as a fusion of logical and aesthetical principles,78 a view which perceives aphorists as thinkers suspended between the poles of rationality and mysticism.79 To these Gerhard Neumann adds the conflicts of "Denken" and "Darstellung," spirituality and sensuality, paradox and metaphor, among others.80 This multiplicity underscores the centrality of this dualistic oppositional model for aphoristic thought and expression. The struggle between antagonistic principles that the aphorism evidences in its "deep-structural" or thought level is also reflected in the rhetoricosyntactical elements which structure the textual surface. The aphorism demonstrates a penchant for the application of dualistically structured figures of speech such as antithesis, antimetabole, syntactical parallelism, syntactical inversion, and use of copula. A few exemplary aphorisms will help elucidate this. The first example is a text by Lichtenberg. Nicht jeder Original-Kopf führt eine Original-Feder, und nicht jede OriginalFeder wird von einem originellen Kopf regiert. (E 414)

74 75 76 77

78

79

80

Johannes Klein, "Wesen und Bau des deutschen Aphorismus," p. 361. Krüger, p. 105. Quoted by Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," p. 40. See, for example, Neumann, "Einleitung," p. 9; Wehe, p. 134; Wuthenow, ''Literaturkritik, Essayistik und Aphoristik," p. 146 f. Neumann, "Einleitung," p. 15; Ideenparadiese, pp. 75; 84; Wittgenstein's Tractatus incorporates this conception into its philosophical purpose. Grenzmann, p. 192; Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als Literatur," p. 299, "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," p. 73. Ideenparadiese, pp. 760, 773, 826; "Einleitung," p. 9.

47

This aphorism is structured around inversion in the form of antimetabole: the order of "Original-Kopf" and "Original-Feder" of the first clause is inverted to become "Original-Feder" and "originellen Kopf" in the second. This inversion contrasts with the parallelism of the two clauses, introduced by anaphora ("Nicht jeder," "nicht jede"). These clauses, moreover, joined by copula, follow identical syntactical patterns: negation, demonstrative article, verb, object. More interesting, and simultaneously more aphoristically characteristic, are the subtle ways in which this text diverts from either crass parallelism or simple inversion. This is accomplished, on the one hand, by the variation from "Original-Kopf" to "originellen Kopf," and in the transformation from active voice in the first clause to passive voice in the second. In addition, Lichtenberg plays on the semantic similarity of the verbs "führen" and "regieren." In the phrase "Feder führen," of course, the verb loses its common association with leadership; but the introduction of the synonym "regieren" in the second clause draws out this meaning. The association with "Feder führend" in the sense of "acting in the stead of" or "substituting for" is also evoked, so that the central tensions are constructed around issues of control or lack of control. We perceive in this example the depth of meaning which can be achieved with what appear to be shallow devices. Significant here is the manner in which Lichtenberg systematically deviates from pure opposition or identity, thus avoiding the impression of mere mechanical ordering which would detract from the power of the aphoristic statement. It has been maintained of Nietzsche's aphorisms that they function similarily, establishing oppositions in such a way "daß nicht von einer Sache ihr genaues logisches Gegenteil behauptet wird, sondern etwas, das neben der streng logischen contradictio liegt, um eine Nuance verschoben."81 Gerhard Neumann perceives this process of inversion and diversion as quintessential to the aphorism.82 Even more significant in the context of this study is Neumann's detailed analysis of just such a procedure in Kafka's aphorisms, a technique which Neumann refers to as Kafka's "gleitendes Paradox."83 Kafka's employment of this "standard" aphoristic technique helps to forge a bond between his aphoristic texts and the tradition of the German aphorism, which abounds with such texts as the one by Lichtenberg cited above. Our second example of an aphoristic text which paradigmatically displays aphoristic techniques and strategies comes from Novalis. Alles ist Samenkorn. (Schriften, II, 563) 81 82 83

48

Häntzschel-Schlotke, "Der Aphorismus als Stilform bei Nietzsche," p. 53. Ideenparadiese, p. 757. "Umkehrung und Ablenkung: Franz Kafkas 'gleitendes Paradox'," DVjs, 42 (1968), 702-744.

This text belongs to a sub-genre of the aphorism commonly called the "pseudo-definition." Especially noteworthy in this example is the extreme condensation of the text, as well as the mathematical objectivity of the simple equation "Alles" = "Samenkorn." This structural matter-of-factness contrasts with the universalizing tendency inherent in the "Alles" and in the metaphorical relationship established with the reference to "seed." The metaphorical association is made palatable by the simple and persuasive logic of the syntactical structure. Reformulated into the terminology Roman Jakobson employed in his celebrated essay "Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances,"84 linguistic contiguity is employed to underwrite and buttress the associative abandon of the similarity function. A similar, if more complex interplay between logic and metaphorical association, contiguity and similarity, can be identified in the following analogical aphorism by Friedrich Schlegel. Das Druckenlassen verhält sich zum Denken wie eine Wochenstube zum ersten Kuß. (KA, II, 174)

This text is structured around proportional analogy in the form "A is to B as C is to D." In order to elucidate the relationship between thought and its concrete expression in the written word, Schlegel compares it to the relationship between first kiss, i. e. the inception of physical love, and its culmination in the birth of a child. Of primary interest in our context is the manner in which logical necessity and creative association intermingle to produce a thought which is both unusual, yet easily acceptable. Schlegel establishes one logical relationship, then associatively applies it to a wholly distinct configuration, thereby transferring this logical relation from one configuration to the other. Contiguity and similarity function in complicity to bring about this novel insight into the relationship between conception and concretization of a text. Other elements in this aphorism contribute to the overall effect; the metonymic expression "Wochenstube" for pregnancy and birth, especially, encourages the reader to read its structurally parallel element, "Druckenlassen," as a metonymic cipher for the complex of ideas associated with the process of textual production. One can then easily imagine the text as a "child" born of its parents, but free to evolve according to its own historical experience and contacts. These examples have been intended to demonstrate the correspondence of conceptual oppositions and interactions on the expressive level of the aphorism with linguistic, i. e. semantic or syntactic, oppositions on its textu-

Roman Jakobson, "Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances," Fundamentals of Language (The Hague: Mouton, 1956), pp. 53-82, esp. pp. 76-82. 49

al level. This recurrence of oppositions on distinct textual levels, and the interactive possibilities which result from it, determines the peculiar density and effectiveness of the "German" aphorism. Ultimately, as will become clear, these text-internal tensions are further coupled to text-external phenomena established in the act of reception. Scholarship on the aphorism has been burdened with a proliferation of conceptual pairs introduced in order to define this complex set of dualities. It would be of great benefit if these oppositions could be subsumed under one pair of terms. I propose adoption of Roman Jakobson's distinction between the "metaphoric" and " metonymic" poles to describe the diverse oppositions discussed here.85 Jakobson's terminology has the advantage of having achieved general currency among scholars. In this sense, it is not a matter of introducing new terminology, but rather of simply adapting that common terminology to the specific case of the study of the aphorism. More significant yet is the breadth inherent in these terms themselves, since, as Jakobson himself emphasized, they are applicable both in the area of semantics and in the realm of syntax.86 The concomitant expressions "similarity" and "contiguity" prove especially effective in attempting to portray both the linguistic characteristics of the aphoristic text, and its expressive relationships on the level of thought. Metonymy, or contiguity function, adequately defines both syntactical and logical structures which function on the basis of serial combination; metaphor, or similarity function, refers both to the linguistic figure of speech and to the process of association which allows substitution based on perceived similarity. Freely applying this terminology, one can hazard a descriptive definition of the aphorism which is general enough to be encompassing, yet specific enough to be useful; in addition, this definition can allow for limited species variation within the generic category. Using Jakobson's phrases the aphorism can be defined as a prose genre in which, in a strictly compressed textual space, the metaphorical and metonymical drives of language and thought enter into an exaggerated dialectical interplay, at times waging a heated and concerted struggle against each other, while at other times mutually reinforcing one another. The aphorism, then, expresses in consciously exaggerated fashion the dialectical relationship between similarity and contiguity, metaphor and metonymy, creative association and logical order. In this

85

84

50

Jakobson, "The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles," Fundamentals of Language, pp. 76-82. Jakobson, p. 88. Hugh B redin has criticized the proliferation of Jakobson's terminology precisely because of its pliability; see his article "Roman Jakobson on Metaphor and Metonymy," Literature and Philosophy, 8, No. 1 (1984), pp. 89-103.

context one is still able to conceive of the aphorism, as does Neumann, as an expressive form that portrays and problematizes the " Erkenntnissituation" of human beings as spanned between art and science, depiction and abstract thought, empirical and theoretical knowledge.87 Jakobson's distinction is easily graftable onto the differentiation of aphoristic categories as proposed by Kurt Besser,88 allowing for a rudimentary subdivision of aphoristic types. Besser suggests that, delineating according to the thought processes ("Arten der Gedankenbildung") active in the production of aphoristic texts, one can differentiate three distinct aphoristic types. He cites association, analogy, and antithesis as these three fundamental principles of thought formation. Association he connects to the application of metaphor, and he conceives Lichtenberg's aphorisms as texts which demonstrate a dominance of metaphorical relationships. Analogy Besser relates to the application of mathematical or logical formulae, and he finds such principles to be dominant in the aphorisms of Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis. Finally, Besser associates antithesis with the propensity to contradict established values, i.e. the drive for the transvaluation of values; and not surprisingly he views Nietzsche's aphorisms as paradigmatic examples of texts which embody this reflex. Besser's categorization is quite useful and has the advantage that it relates individual types to the aphoristic production of exemplary authors. Nonetheless, some overhauling of his categorization is in order. The major pitfall one must avoid at all cost is to take these distinctions too absolutely: one can never speak of a thought process which is at work alone in the production of a particular aphoristic text; at best one can argue for the dominance of one of these principles over the others. That is to say that most aphoristic texts will manifest all of these principles to greater or lesser degrees, and in the final analysis it is the relative mixture of these that is significant. It is also requisite that one bracket off the category of antithesis from the other two; for while association and analogy are primarily textinternal principles, antithesis is text-external, i. e. its functioning depends on the establishing of a frame of reference that exists beyond the text itself. In other words, while association and analogy are constructed within the text and are therefore text-specific, antithesis can only be constructed in the act of reception and is thus reader-specific. Once this segregation has been accomplished, one can easily substitute the terms "metaphor" and "similarity" for Besser's associative principle, and the words "metonymy" and "contiguity" for what Besser calls analogy. This friendly amendment to Besser's proposed

87 88

Ideenparadiese, pp. 760, 773, 826. Besser, pp. 80-86.

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categorization allows us to speak of a "metaphoric" aphorism where similarity functions predominate, and a "metonymic" aphorism where contiguity principles rule. For Besser's third category I will apply the term "contradictory" aphorism, emphasizing the rejection of accepted "truths." It cannot be emphasized enough that these three principles are by no means mutually exclusive. Indeed, in the textual analyses accomplished thus far we have concentrated on the productive interaction of these distinct drives. The ultimate purpose of this categorization, then, is, on the one hand, to allow for coherent discussion and analysis of the aphoristic production of various authors, while applying consistent terminology throughout; on the other hand, this procedure will allow for an orientation of Kafka's aphorisms into this typology, and thus provide the basis for a relative assessment of the position of his aphoristic texts within the landscape of aphoristic types and possibilities.

IV. Aphorism and Hermeneutics: The Text-External Dialectic More than perhaps any other literary form, the aphorism is typified by its self-conscious awareness of the receptive act of reading. Critics have generally attributed considerable importance to the exaggerated emphasis that aphorists and aphorisms place on effect and effectiveness. Hermann Asemissen goes so far as to maintain that the distinguishing characteristic of the aphorism is its unique effect, and that the presence of this stimulation, commonly called the aphoristic pointe, can be made into the acid test for the discovery of genuine aphorisms. "So oft jener spezifische ästhetische Genuß sich einstellt, gibt sich ein echter Aphorismus zu entdecken."89 To be sure, while the aphorism is a literary genre which is conceived with explicit and emphatic appeal to its readers, this is not necessarily a trait which distinguishes it from other genres. First of all, one must consider the aphorism's effect as one characteristic among many which determine the nature of the genre. Secondly, one must closely examine the precise constitution of the interaction between text and reader in the case of the aphorism, as well as the textual strategies which guide it, in order to arrive at aspects of this interaction which are specific to aphoristic discourse. The aphorism's appeal to its reader is commonly conceived in terms of the demand expressed in the text that the reader complete, supply, or test the presented thought.90 This demand, of course, is related to the applicative 89 90

52

Asemissen, p. 161. On the reader's role in the reception of the aphorism, see Asemissen, p. 164; Albrecht Fabri, "Fragment, Aphorismus, Essai," Hochland, 36 (1939), p. 516; Krüger, p. 41; Neumann, "Einleitung," p. 5; Wuthenow, p. 145.

function of the aphorism as described by Bacon. Implicit in the "universalized" formulation of the aphoristic statement is the requirement that the reader work deductively from this generalization to specific incidents, returning back from the specific to the general through a process of induction. Nietzsche describes one strategy of fragmentary expression in an aphorism from Menschliches Allzumenschliches, and this program could be applied to the aphorist in general. Denker als Stilisten. - Die meisten Denker schreiben schlecht, weil sie uns nicht nur ihre Gedanken, sondern auch das Denken der Gedanken mitteilen. (Werke, I, 563)

The aphorist, then, is someone who supplies only a skeletal outline of thoughts, allowing the reader to "flesh out" this skeleton by supplying the "thinking"that leads to the "thoughts." The aphoristic method, accordingly, corresponds to the recording of conclusions without indicating the assumptions out of which they develop. Because of this suppression of the developmental process, the aphoristic thought appears to occur suspended without a context; the reader reacts by attempting to reconstruct the thought process for which the aphoristic remark serves as a conclusion. Goethe describes the aphorism in similar terms as a stimulant to re-constructive thought, claiming that such "kaum zusammenhängend[e] Sätze . . . uns aber nötigen, vermittelst eines umgekehrten Findens und Erfindens rückwärtszugehen und uns die Filiation solcher Gedanken von weit her, von unten herauf wo möglich zu vergegenwärtigen."91 Significantly, Goethe emphasizes precisely the reverse process by which the reader must proceed from conclusion, through conceptual development, to initial stimulus. In this manner the aphorism actually performs a profoundly didactic function: while it may not function as a dogmatic transmitter of knowledge or values, it does mediate a method of discovery, encouraging its reader to appropriate its conceptual apparatus. As Heinz Krüger has so pointedly phrased it, the "Selbstdenken" of the aphorist encourages "Selbstdenken" in the reader of aphorisms.92 This re-creative process which the aphorism animates has prompted some scholars to compare aphoristic texts to oracular statements or riddles.93 Like these, the aphorism displays an enigmatic quality which impels one to scrutinize its make-up and its content. Thus, although expressed in the form of an unequivocal assertion, the aphorism is in fact a question; for its persua91

92 93

Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, Goethes Werke, "Hamburger Ausgabe," 7th ed., 14 vols., ed. Erich Trunz, (Hamburg: Christian Wegener Verlag, 1967), VIII, 124-5. Krüger, p. 41. György Nador, "Über einen Aphorismustyp und seine antiken Vorläufer," pp. 9 & 12; Asemissen, p. 164; Requadt, p. 138. 53

sive, apodictic language represents a challenge to the audience, begging it to corroborate the stated opinion, or to differ with it. The reader is engaged in a thoughtful dialogue with the text.94 In its receptive dimension the aphorism paradigmatically induces the hermeneutical interaction of the text and reader in which a progressive dialogue ensues upon the questioning of the reader by the text.95 In other words, the formal provocation and thoughtful provocativeness of the aphorism invite the reader to enter into the hermeneutical process of "understanding." This function of the aphorism has been succinctly and aphoristically formulated by Kurt Hiller. Weil es unmöglich ist, das Gesamte in einem Satz auszusagen, ist das System nötig; der Aphorismus, damit es möglich wird, hineinzuspringen in das Gesamte mit einem Satz.96

Hiller's remark hints at a more subtle relationship between aphorism and systematic understanding than that of mere contrast. The aphorism, he proposes, makes entrance into the systematic whole possible - it catapults one into the very heart of the issues addressed. We only need to substitute "Zirkel" for "das Gesamte" in this reflection to recognize its proximity to Martin Heidegger's famous statement about the hermeneutic circle. Das Entscheidende ist nicht, aus dem Zirkel heraus -, sondern in ihn nach der rechten Weise hineinzukommen. Dieser Zirkel des Verstehens ist nicht ein Kreis, in dem sich eine beliebige Erkenntnisart bewegt, sondern er ist der Ausdruck der existenzialen Vor-struktur des Daseins selbst. Der Zirkel darf nicht zu einem vitiosum und sei es auch zu einem geduldeten herabgezogen werden. In ihm verbirgt sich eine positive Möglichkeit ursprünglichen Erkennens, die freilich in echter Weise nur dann ergriffen ist, wenn die Auslegung verstanden hat, daß ihre erste, ständige und letzte Aufgabe bleibt, sich jeweils Vorhabe, Vorsicht und Vorgriff nicht durch Einfalle und Volksbegriffe vergeben zu lassen, sondern in deren Ausarbeitung aus den Sachen selbst her das wissenschaftliche Thema zu sichern.97

The circular procedure of hermeneutical understanding recalls the applicative process demanded of the aphorism in which the interpreter constantly mediates between particular and universal, and vice versa. Heidegger's comment reminds us also that the hermeneutically productive aphorism can never be simple "Einfall," just as it cannot rely on "Volksbegriffe"; instead, it must be grounded in "Vorhabe," "Vorsicht," and "Vorgriff" that are evolved "aus 94 95

%

97

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Nädor has emphasized the dialogic character of the aphorism, pp. 8-12. This dialogic aspect of hermeneutics has been most avidly defended by HansGeorg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode; see esp. the chapter "Der hermeneutische Vorrang der Frage," pp.344-60, in particular pp.348 & 351. Hiller's aphorism is anthologized in the collection Jüdische Aphorismen aus zwei Jahrtausenden, ed. Egon Zeitlin (Frankfurt: Ner-Tamid-Verlag, 1963), p. 123. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 15th ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1979), paragraph 32, p. 153.

den Sachen selbst." This requirement does not ring all that different from the demand of the aphorist and empirical scientist Francis Bacon that any system of understanding remain in touch with the phenomena - indeed, be derived from the phenomena - which it attempts to explain. Viewed in the context of recent theories of hermeneutics, the aphorism as "fragment" serves as an entranceway into the circular relationship of part to whole, whole to part which hermeneutical theory describes. As self-conscious fragment - as the part which calls for contextualization in a whole the aphorism challenges the reader to project a contextual whole under which the part can sensibly be subsumed.98 Hermeneutics, as the interactive dialectic of part and whole, provides a productive horizon in which the progressive, dialectical structure of the aphorism can be comprehended. The text-internal dualities of the aphorism prefigure and pro-ject this text-external dialectic of interactive "Verstehen." Of utmost significance for the peculiarities of inception and development of the aphorism in the German tradition is its historically parallel evolution to the development of hermeneutical thought in the Romantic and postRomantic periods." The dynamism and thoughtful progressivity of the aphorism are fundamentally related to the dynamic circularity of hermeneutic understanding. Gadamer's portrayal of the "Polarität von Vertrautheit und Fremdheit, auf die sich die Aufgabe der Hermeneutik gründet,"100 evokes the tension between the known and the unknown, the common and the unique that characterizes aphoristic expression. Gadamer further designates the locus of hermeneutics as this space between the known and the unknown, asserting emphatically: "In diesem Zwischen ist der wahre Ort der Hermeneutik."101 Our previous analysis has sought to lay bare the dialectically interactive structure essential to the aphorism. On all of the levels examined the aphorism betrays its true locus as the "Zwischen," the "inbetween" of its oppositional poles. This locus is defined by a process of mediation, of reciprocal interaction: this is precisely the dynamics which Gadamer, following Kant and Schiller, refers to as "Spiel," and conceives as the principle movement of aesthetic portrayal.102 Gadamer's summation of this process rings strikingly similar to descriptions of the dynamics of aphoristic expression. "Immer ist das Hin und Her einer Bewegung gemeint,

98 99

100 101 102

On "Sinn" and "Entwerfen" see Gadamer, p. 251. This historical coincidence of hermeneutics and "aphoristics" in the German tradition has, to the best of my knowledge, never been remarked upon in detail by scholars. Gadamer, p. 279. Gadamer, p. 279. See Gadamer, pp. 97-105. 55

die an keinem Ziele festgemacht ist, an dem sie endet."103 The "infinity" of the aphorism, in this context, comes to be understood not as an infinity beyond, but as an infinity within, much as in geometry there exists an infinite number of further points between any two established points on a line. In the interaction of aphoristic text and reader, the to-and-fro between object and subject, between textually objectified subject and interpretive-receptive subject, the aphorism presents the "Spiel" of progressive, dialogic interpretation of the sort postulated by Gadamer. The rejection of Cartesian objectivity thus informs in essential ways both the development of modern hermeneutical theory in Germany,104 and the historically parallel evolution of German "aphoristics." Nietzsche was profoundly aware of this relationship between the form of the aphorism and the hermeneutical endeavor, as a passage from his "Vorrede" to Zur Genealogie der Moral demonstrates. Ein Aphorismus, rechtschaffen geprägt und ausgegossen, ist damit, daß er abgelesen ist, noch nicht "entziffert"; vielmehr hat nun erst dessen Auslegung zu beginnen, zu der es eine Kunst der Auslegung bedarf. (Werke, II, 770)

The primary virtue of the aphorism, then, is precisely that it cannot be read casually; it requires of its reader the learning and the applying of a "Kunst der Auslegung." The introduction and dissemination of this art of interpretation is the central purpose of the aphorism in the German tradition. A question remains as to the devices and techniques employed in aphoristic expression which would conform to the evocation of this hermeneutical provocation. I will refer to these devices as the aphorism's strategies of involvement, and categorize them according to three principles: conscious obscurity; cotextuality; and intertextuality. The "obscurantist" element of aphoristic expression is inherent in its character as "riddle" or oracle. This technique is marked by a conscious obfuscation of what is otherwise clear, or by a mystification of the commonplace. In this context it is worthwhile to recall once again Novalis's definition of the process of romanticization, for it emphasizes this estrangement of the familiar: Indem ich dem Gemeinen einen hohen Sinn, dem Gewöhnlichen ein geheimnißvolles Ansehn, dem Bekannten die Würde des Unbekannten, dem Endlichen einen unendlichen Schein gebe so romantisiere ich es -. (Schriften, II, 545)

The coincidence of this definition with the purpose and goal of the aphorism underscores the organic connection of this genre to the poetics of the early 103 104

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Gadamer, p. 99. On the rejection of Cartesian thought by hermeneutics, see David Couzens Hoy, The Critical Circle: Literature, History, and Philosophical Hermeneutics (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1978), p. 3.

Romantics.105 Nietzsche also addresses the issue of conscious obscurity, maintaining in paragraph 381 of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft: "Man will nicht nur verstanden werden, wenn man schreibt, sondern ebenso gewiß auch nicht verstanden werden" (Werke, II, 256). Nietzsche, however, as he himself goes on to describe, employs obscurity of expression as a means for selecting his readership. Unclarity serves to discourage those readers for whom the texts are not suitable, or who are not already cognizant of the problems the texts address. Nonetheless, this points just as directly at Nietzsche's awareness of the interpretive effort which the reception of these texts entails, and he implies that only those readers will "understand" his texts who are intelligent and ambitious enough to reconstruct their "sense" despite its obscurity. Certainly, Nietzsche also believed that certain assertions can simply not be made "up front," but must be hidden in subterfuge. Another aphqrist, Karl Kraus, refers to the programmatic complexity of his texts, locating the specific purpose of this complexity in the desire to prompt an interpretive commentary on the part of the reader. Zu meinen Glossen ist ein Kommentar notwendig. Sonst sind sie zu leicht verständlich. (BW, 287)106

In his early fragments on hermeneutics, Schleiermacher emphasized the role of contradiction and unclarity as the stimuli which initiate the "unendliche Aufgabe" of understanding. Zwei entgegengesetzte Maximen beim Verstehen, l.) Ich verstehe alles bis ich auf einen Widerspruch oder Nonsens stoße 2.) ich verstehe nichts was ich nicht als nothwendig einsehe und construiren kann. Das Verstehen nach der letzten Maxime ist eine unendliche Aufgabe.107

Schleiermacher's reflection indicates some of the points of intersection between the nature of the aphorism and the nascent theory of hermeneutics. The conflicting dualities inherent in aphoristic expression, its productive contradictions, its "openness," and its enigmatic obscurity are all related forms of "appeal" to the reader which initiate the obsession for entering in on the infinite task of understanding. All function by engaging reader and text in a hermeneutical event. One of the distinguishing characteristics of aphoristic expression is the group configuration - the aphoristic "collection" - in which these texts are 105

106

107

Fink, p. 95 associates the principle of unclarity with the Romantic "Fragment," and bases his distinction of the "Fragment" from the French maxim on this trait. Kraus's aphorisms will be cited from the edition Beim Wort genommen, ed. Heinrich Fischer (Munich: Kosel, 1955) and noted by the abbreviation BW and the page number. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik, ed. Heinz Kimmerle (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1959), p. 31.

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traditionally published. The centrality of this group configuration in the aphorism's depiction of humankind's problematical epistemological situation has been emphasized by Gerhard Neumann.108 Structuralist methodologies, however, have provided the most fruitful approach for the examination of this group configuration of the aphorism. Serge Meleuc points to the break between individual aphorisms as a "space" opened up in the surface of the greater aphoristic "text" - text understood here as the entire collection of aphorisms taken as a whole.109 The "gaps" between the sub-texts in the aphoristic collection take on the character of interpretive "spaces" which mark the need for the reader to supply interpretive connections. Put another way, the gaps between the aphoristic texts act as symbolic indicators of the absent "totality."110 Harald Fricke has drawn the consequences of this insight for an examination of the receptive dimension of aphoristic expression. Erst die Bruchstelle beim Übergang von einem Aphorismus zum nächsten verleiht also jedem einzelnen von ihnen den Charakter des Fragmentarischen und bewegt den Leser dazu, die fehlenden Teile des Bruchstücks durch eigene (und deshalb persönlich gefärbte) Denkanstrengung zu ergänzen."1

This brings Fricke to the fruitful conception of "co-textual deviance" as a fundamental factor in the characterization of aphoristic texts.112 While such a theory of "Leerstellen" and "Aussparungen" justifiably seems inadequate for a description of the receptive guidance system of the novel,113 its appropriateness for aphoristic expression can hardly be questioned. If the co-textuality of the aphoristic collection represents a structure of self-contextualization, the aphorism typically seeks to define itself in relation to textually external contexts as well.114 Many different techniques lend themselves to this end, from outright confrontation of ideologically or

108 IW

110

111

112 113

114

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"Einleitung," p. 9; Ideenparadiese, p. 277. Serge Meleuc, "Struktur der Maxime," Strukturalismus in der Literaturwissenschaft, ed. Heinz Blumensath (Cologne: Kiepenhauer & Witsch, 1972), pp. 296-7. The vitality of a theory of the aphorism for contemporary literary theory, including not only hermeneutics and reception theory, but also varieties of "post-structuralism," crystalizes around an examination of the aphoristic "text" as a collection or configuration. Harald Fricke, "Sprachabweichungen und Gattungsnormen: Zur Theorie literarischer Textsorten am Beispiel des Aphorismus," Textsorten und literarische Gattungen: Dokumentation der Germanistentage in Hamburg (Berlin: E.Schmidt, 1983), p. 270. Fricke, "Sprachabweichungen und Gattungsnormen," p. 275. I am referring, of course, to Wolfgang Iser's Der Akt des Lesens: Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung (Munich: Fink, 1976). Neumann, Ideenparadiese, p. 758 points to the dual contextuality of the aphorism.

ethically established mores, to the playful or critical parody of canonical texts. This contra-dictory drive of the aphorism expresses itself in its rhetorically aggressive tone, and in its intertextual appropriation and perversion of proverbial wisdom.115 This strategy of involvement functions by means of the evocation of specific culturally-determined conceptions or attitudes with which the reader can be expected to be familiar, followed by the conscious deflation of these notions through the application of parodistic techniques exaggeration, understatement, recontextualization, to name a few. Parodistic-satiric re-formulation of proverbial statements or canonical texts are among the favorite devices of such aggressive, critical aphorists as Nietzsche and Karl Kraus.116 An aphorism from Menschliches Allzumenschliches exemplifies this technique. Der Asket - Der Asket macht aus der Tugend eine Not. (Werke, I, 497)

In order to re-evaluate the notion of asceticism, Nietzsche applies a structural inversion of the proverbial statement "aus der Not eine Tugend machen." This inversion is structurally parallel to the inversion which Nietzsche wants to effect in the value attributed to asceticism. In addition, by playing on a linguistic pattern familiar to the reader, Nietzsche can lend his shocking redefinition the ring of the proverbial. Some of Karl Kraus's perversions of proverbs are even more wry and biting, penetrating through the glossy surface which covers over cultural and social degeneration. Die Deutschen - das Volk der Richter und Henker. (BW, 156)

By replacing two letters, Kraus prophetically transforms the nation of poets and thinkers into that of judges and executioners. As the central text of Western culture, the Bible, not surprisingly, provides an almost inexhaustible source of material for the contra-dictory aphorist. Kraus, for example, appears to want to turn Martin Luther into a citizen of turn-of-the-century Vienna when he allows him the following Freudian slip. . Wes das Herz leer ist, des gehet der Mund über. (BW, 156)

Kraus's critique of loquatiousness, of course, reads like a programmatic defense of the laconism of the aphorist. But this assertion would fall flat if it

115

116

On the contra-dictory aspect of aphoristic expression, see Grenzmann, p. 181; Ulrich Horstmann, "Der englische Aphorismus," p. 59; Serge Meleuc, p.314; Wuthenow, p. 145. On the use of quotation in Nietzsche's aphorisms, see Häntzschel-Schlotke, pp. 101 & 114; on the parodistic aphorism see Krüger, pp. 17 f.

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were not simultaneously able to display profundity in its own brevity, and Kraus at least gives the impression of having accomplished this due to his clever manipulation of Luther's saying. These are examples of just a few of the multiple techniques that serve the aphorist as a means to his parodistic end. The contra-dictory aphorist perpetrates a critique of ideology, whether this be conceived in cultural, socioeconomical, political, or ethical terms. Since ideological attitudes of all kinds are archetypically preserved in language, art, customs, traditions, and canonical texts, these become the prime targets of the aggressively contra-dictory aphorist. This is in keeping with Nietzsche's doctrine of the "Umwertung aller Werte," a doctrine which one hundred years later has itself assumed a tinge of the proverbial, rigidly ideological. Most recently such thinkers as Theodor Adorno, Hans Kudzus, and Hermann Schweppenhäuser have employed the aphorism as a weapon in their battle against the strongholds of ideology.117 All of the strategies discussed here function to instigate the participation of the reader in the derivation of textual meaning. The reader is thus encouraged to become a hermeneutical extension of the text and its author, much in the fashion described in a "Fragment" by Novalis. Der wahre Leser muß der erweiterte Autor seyn. Er ist die höhere Instanz, die die Sache von der niedern Instanz schon vorgearbeitet erhält. Das Gefühl, vermittelst dessen der Autor die Materialien seiner Schrift geschieden hat, scheidet beym Lesen wieder das Rohe und Gebildete des Buchs - (Schriften, II, 470)

Essential to the aphorism is this conscious engagement of the reader in a hermeneutical process on the basis of which the reader, in keeping with a fundamental hermeneutic doctrine, "understands" the author better (i.e. other) than the author understands herself/himself.

V. Aphorism and Linguistic Scepticism The fundamental question with which hermeneutics is concerned is the translatability of spirit into word and word back into spirit - the compatibility of "Geist" and "Buchstabe."118 Language, as the medium through which 117

118

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Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia, Gesammelte Schriften, vol.4, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980); Hans Kudzus, Jaworte, Neinworte (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970); Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Verbotene Frucht: Aphorismen und Fragmente (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966). Richard Palmer has analyzed the importance of the concept of translation for hermeneutics; see his Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1969), pp. 26-32.

the bridging of spirit and spirit is accomplished, becomes a phenomenon of primary concern for the hermeneuticist, as well as for the aphorist. Kurt Besser has argued that two influential intellectual-historical movements determine the intellectual impeti underpinning the evolution of aphoristic expression: the Babylonian confusion of tongues; and the Heraclitean notion of incessant flux.119 Both of these impinge upon the aphorist's conception of the inherent limitations of language. No doubt, the Babylonian confusion of tongues represents precisely that linguistic isolation and encapsulation which makes the existence of "Hermes" as messenger and translator necessary. The hermeneutical problem only arises with the breakdown of a belief in the mystical unity of humankind. Recognition of incessant flux and transcience, on the other hand, points ultimately to the problem of history and historical relativity. It is this problem of adequately comprehending textual material written in foreign languages and at historically foreign times which motivates the development of the science of hermeneutics. Insight into the fluidity of reality and the historical relativity of cultural values automatically calls forth a crisis of language; for language appears to be less fluid and less pliable than the reality it seeks to express. The typical aphorist is painfully aware of the rigidity of language, and thus attempts to explode culturally sedimented linguistic constructions. Just as the aphorist has been found to be in the paradoxical position of both loving truth and doubting its very existence, so too he/she worships language while doubting its ability adequately to convey perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. This has prompted Gerhart Baumann to speak of aphorists as "Sprachliebende und Sprachverleugner."12° The aphorism is conditioned by the aphorist's love-hate relationship with language, which culminates in the attempt to overcome language through language itself.121 The aphorist is aware of two inherent dangers in language: one is the fear that language devolves into nonsense whenever important, unique recognitions need to be expressed; the other is on the opposite extreme, namely the fear that language makes things ail-too sensible. In the latter case language falls into platitude, and instead of communicating fresh knowledge it satisfies itself with the corroboration of the commonplace, thus becoming an instrument in the tyranny of the banal. In the former extreme language becomes totally individual and hence fails to communicate its unique insight - it lapses into the non-sensical. It is not necessary to examine the relationship between aphorism and the crisis of language in any detail at this juncture, for it will concern us in the 119

Besser, p. 107.

120

Gerhart Baumann, "Zur Aphoristik," p. 67. Cf. Krüger, p. 18.

121

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next chapter.122 However, one final point about the aphorist's relationship to language belongs in this context. I have argued here, among other things, for the adoption of the terms "metaphor" and "metonymy" to describe the gamut of dualistic oppositions found in aphoristic expression. Metaphor, the associative principle of thought and language, can be identified with the inherent danger of language to lapse into nonsense. In exaggerated instances, metaphor no longer is predicated on substitution by similarity, but rather is indicative of unreconstructable free association. Metonymy, understood as the linguistic drive toward combination, relates to the danger of linguistic platitude insofar as the combinatory logic of language can take precedence over the function of substitution. In other words, the two linguistic disorders which Jakobson designates as similarity disorder (the suppression of similarity or metaphor) and contiguity disorder (the suppression of the logic of combination in favor of free association) are both anathema to the aphorist. The aphorist infuses new metaphorical relations into the frozen patterns of linguistic contiguity; likewise, metaphorical freedom is checked by the combinational structures of language. Not coincidentally, Lichtenberg, the initiator of the German aphoristic tradition, is an important precursor of the "Sprachkritiker" of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.123 His scepticism about the expressive capacities of language, expressed in the following meditation, anticipates the positions of future aphorists such as Kraus, Wittgenstein, and Kafka. Unsere falsche Philosophie ist der ganzen Sprache einverleibt; wir können so zu sagen nicht raisonnieren, ohne falsch zu raisonnieren. Man bedenkt nicht, daß Sprechen, ohne Rücksicht von was, eine Philosophie ist. . . . Unsere ganze Philosophie ist Berichtigung des Sprachgebrauchs, also, die Berichtigung einer Philosophie, und zwar der allgemeinsten. (H 146)

Nietzsche expresses a similar critique of language in his penetrating essay "Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn," and in more succinct form in an aphorism from Menschliches Allzumenschliches. Gefahr der Sprache für die geistige Freiheit. - Jedes Wort ist ein Vorurteil. (Werke, I, 903)

This critique of language is one of the firmest bonds connecting diverse aphorists in the entire historical tradition of the aphorism in Germany and Austria. In the atmosphere of cultural, social, and political demise which

122

123

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On the relationship of aphorism and language, see Helmut Arntzen, "Aphorismus und Sprache: Lichtenberg und Karl Kraus," Literatur im Zeitalter der Information (Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1971), pp. 323-38; Besser, pp. 101, 122, 131; Grenzmann, p. 197. Cf. Arntzen, "Aphorismus und Sprache," pp. 323-38.

enveloped the declining Habsburg monarchy at the turn of the century, "Sprachkritik" and the employment of the aphorism became organically connected. This atmosphere shaped the development of Franz Kafka and fundamentally influenced his turn to the form of the aphorism. It is to this cultural and intellectual context which we now turn in an attempt to understand the full import of Kafka's appropriation of the form of the aphorism.

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CHAPTER Two

Aphorism and Aphorists in Turn-of-the-Century Austria

As early as 1962 the literary historian Ivar Ivask pointed to an apparent penchant toward the form of the aphorism among Austrian intellectuals and cited the need for a thorough scholarly investigation of the significance of aphoristic expression in Austrian letters.1 No one has as yet responded to Ivask's challenge, and the absence of such a historical-critical survey of the aphorism in Austrian literature and philosophy complicates any attempt to orient Kafka's aphoristic production in the context of the aphoristic tradition in Austria. The ideas presented in this chapter are no substitute for the expansive history which Ivask envisioned. That is to say that the remarks made here are not conceived as ends in themselves; rather, they are presented ultimately as a kind of historical backdrop against which the aphorisms of Kafka will take on new significance and meanings. Consequently, the historical evolution of aphoristic expression among nineteenth century Austrian intellectuals will be almost totally ignored here. It would be impossible to pay attention to every Austrian aphorist who has contributed to the vitality and variety of this genre; thus the scope will be restricted to certain central aphorists who are approximate contemporaries of Kafka and who shared with him the particular cultural-political conditions endemic to the Austrian empire in its years of dissolution. There are specific questions to which this chapter hopes to provide some answers. What, for example, are the social, political, cultural, and intellectual conditions which give rise to the widespread interest by Austrians of this period in aphoristic modes of expression? Are there inherent connections between the intellectual-historical conditions that account for the development of the aphorism in the German-language tradition, as described in the preceding chapter, and the intellectual-cultural situation in which Austrian writers found themselves at the turn of the century? Do the strategies of aphoristic expression share any fundamental precepts with literary or philosophical movements prominent in Austria at 1

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Ivar Ivask, "Das große Erbe," Das große Erbe, Stiasny Bücherei, 100 (Vienna: Stiasny, 1962), pp. 5-59; see especially the sub-section of this essay with the title "Theologie als Grammatik: Der Aphorismus als die österreichische Form des Philosophierens, " pp. 38-46.

this time? To what ends did Austrians employ aphoristic expression, and are there definable parameters which condition the structure and applicative purpose of the aphorism? In addressing these issues it is hoped that we can thereby attain a more complete picture of the possible cultural-intellectual undercurrents that might have influenced Kafka's turn to the aphorism as expressive from. The present investigation will be divided into three sections. In the first, general cultural and social phenomena will be examined briefly for their relevance to the employment of fragmentary modes of expression. The second section attempts to outline the relevant extremes of aphoristic productivity in Austrian culture at the turn of the century. The final section develops the fundamental interrelationship between the problematic of the Sprachkrise which afflicted so many Austrians of this period and the intellectual issues underpinning employment of the aphorism as discursive form.

I. Aphorism and Zeitgeist It is no longer possible today to use the word "Zeitgeist" in a naive and unreflected manner to summarize the nebulous social, political, and cultural relations which give a certain historical epoch its specific character. Nonetheless, it is also impossible to argue that individuals develop in a historical vacuum, independent or ignorant of the cultural, social, and political phenomena going on around them. The conception of a "Zeitgeist" can still be useful when this term is stripped of its mystique. The influence of a historical epoch on the character of its artists, for example, can never be fully elucidated, just as one can never postulate a closed historical epoch in terms of a finite totality. One is constantly dealing with "trends" and "movements"; i.e. with highly flexible and constantly altering circumstances. Moreover, the individual cannot simply be viewed as a "product" of a certain intellectual or social climate, but rather simultaneously as a contributor to this climate. It is with these reservations that the word "Zeitgeist" is employed here. It is not, nor could it be, a matter of defining elements in Kafka's art which are mere reflexes of general historical circumstances. On the other hand, there is no reason why Kafka's aphorisms should be treated as though they were solely the products of a creative genius operating beyond time and space. These extremes, it seems to me, have been particularly prevalent in scholarship on Kafka. Too often Kafka is viewed as an artist creating out of isolation, recording the dreams of a tortured psyche, or, alternately, as a product of the "triple ghetto" of the German Jews living in Prague. While these directions should not unequivocally be declared invalid, neither should they be viewed as absolute. I intend the word "Zeitgeist" as 65

used here to mark out a space between these two extremes. Kafka was many things: an extraordinary artist, a Jew, a lawyer, a member of the professional class, an Austrian citizen, an active participant in literary-cultural activities. The intellectual-social climate of the declining Habsburg monarchy is relevant for Kafka's literature.2 Indeed, especially in the instance of Kafka's turn to the form of the aphorism it is clear that general cultural phenomena played a fundamental role. Austrian intellectuals of this period, among them Kafka, were especially drawn to the form of the aphorism. It is requisite for an understanding of the aphoristic production of these Austrian authors that we analyze the factors which impelled them to employ this mode of fragmentary expression. In the preceding chapter we found that certain intellectual phenomena are associated with the evolution and employment of aphoristic expression. These are, above all: a Heraclitean awareness of incessant flux; the problems of communication resulting from the Babylonian confusion of tongues; and the crisis of integrating idea and experience, this crisis called forth and underscored by the Copernican and Kantian revolutions. To be sure, these are all phenomena which touched the entire Western world in varying degrees. Yet there is a sense in which Austria-Hungary in its years of decline represented in concentrated microcosm these social, cultural, and intellectual crises. The "decline of the West," as prophesied by Oswald Spengler, seemed paradigmatically to be prefigured in the decline of the multi-national Habsburg state. In the "Abendblatt" of November 10, 1871, the liberal Austrian newspaper Die Neue Freie Presse described Austria-Hungary as "das Land der Unwahrscheinlichkeiten, der Unbegreiflichkeiten, der Absurditäten."3 One can scarcely imagine a more apt description of this political dinosaur. In this heir to the Holy Roman Empire, which itself was already an anachronism when put to rest by Napoleon in 1806, both imperial traditions and political cumbersomeness lived joyfully and blindly onward. How could life in this odd political concoction of disparate kingdoms and peoples be anything but "improbable, incomprehensible, and absurd" in the age of economic imperialism and the self-conscious nation-state? Only a political philosophy of "Fortwursteln," of making do and of procrastinating, allowed for the affairs On the significance of the Austrian environment for Kafka and his an see Julius M.Herz, "Franz Kafka and Austria: National Background and Ethnic Identity," MAL, 11, no.3/4 (1978), pp.301-18; Antal Mädl, "Kafka und Kafkanien," Acta Litterari Academiae Scientium Hungarii, 21 (1979), 401-07; Andrew Weeks, "Kafka und die Zeugnisse vom versunkenen Kakanien," Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 3 (1983), 320-37. Quoted by L. H. Bailey, "Ferdinand Kürnberger, Friedrich Schlögl and the Feuilleton in Gründerzeit Vienna," Forum for Modern Language Studies, 13 (1977), 161. 66

of state to transpire in halting fashion. Certainly, by 1900 this political entity had to appear.to the intelligent observer as a mottled harlequin whose existence in the age of industrialization had to become more "improbable" with each passing year. In a world in which scientific and technological knowledge was supplanting religious belief, and in which the fragmenting powers of nationalism were shattering faith in divine unity, this community of disparate peoples united by one emperor and one religion, the last centralEuropean dynastic state, had no place whatsoever. Illusion became a modus vivendi for those citizens of this state who wished to preserve the brittle grandeur of imperial stature. If, as has been claimed, this state was the research laboratory for world destruction, then this was because the strains of the modern, technological world were more severly felt in this anachronistic environment.4 Among the symptoms of the unmanageability of this state was the lack of a manageably pronounceable name by which one might refer to it. Robert Musil solved this problem by ironically dubbing this empire "Kakanien." Alas, his aid came too late, for by the time Musil could give it an appropriate name, " Kakanien" had ceased to exist. However, the most suitable picture of life in this empire is that drawn by Musil in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. To be sure, it is absolutely appropriate that this society which thrived so on aestheticism should find its most accurate historical description in a work of art. Certainly, no history book could be as effective at conjuring up the attitudes and circumstances of this collapsing political and cultural entity as is Musil's novel. Überhaupt, wie vieles Merkwürdige ließe sich über dieses versunkene Kakanien sagen! Es war zum Beispiel kaiserlich-königlich und war kaiserlich und königlich; eines der beiden Zeichen k. k. oder k. und k. trug dort jede Sache und Person, aber es bedurfte trotzdem einer Geheimwissenschaft, um immer sicher entscheiden zu können, welche Einrichtungen und Menschen k. k. und welche k. und k. zu rufen waren. Es nannte sich schriftlich Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie und ließ sich mündlich Österreich rufen; mit einem Namen also, den es mit feierlichem Staatsschwur abgelegt hatte, aber in allen Gefühlsangelegenheiten beibehielt, zum Zeichen, daß Gefühle ebenso wichtig sind wie Staatsrecht und Vorschriften nicht den wirklichen Lebensernst bedeuten. Es war nach seiner Verfassung liberal, aber es wurde klerikal regiert. Es wurde klerikal regiert, aber man lebte freisinnig. Vor dem Gesetz waren alle Bürger gleich, aber nicht alle waren eben Bürger. Man hatte ein Parlament, welches so gewaltigen Gebrauch von seiner Freiheit machte, daß man es gewöhnlich geschlossen hielt; aber man hatte auch einen Notstandsparagraphen, mit dessen Hilfe man ohne das Parlament auskam, und jedesmal, wenn alles sich schon über den Absolutismus freute, ordnete die Krone an, daß nun doch wieder parlamentarisch regiert werden müsse. Solcher Geschehnisse gab es viele in

See Frank Field, The Last Days of Mankind: Karl Kraus and His Vienna (London: MacMillan, 1967), p. 10. 67

diesem Staat, und zu ihnen gehörten auch jene nationalen Kämpfe, die mit Recht die Neugierde Europas auf sich zogen und heute ganz falsch dargestellt werden. Sie waren so heftig, daß ihretwegen die Staatsmaschine mehrmals im Jahr stockte und stillstand, aber in den Zwischenzeiten und Staatspausen kam man ausgezeichnet miteinander aus und tat, als ob nichts gewesen wäre. Und es war auch nichts Wirkliches gewesen. Es hatte sich bloß die Abneigung jedes Menschen gegen die Bestrebungen jedes anderen Menschen, in der wir heute alle einig sind, in diesem Staat schon früh, und man kann sagen, zu einem sublimierten Zeremoniell ausgebildet, das noch große Folgen hätte haben können, wenn seine Entwicklung nicht durch eine Katastrophe vor der Zeit unterbrochen worden wäre.5

The themes of Musil's novel are intricately intertwined with the historical conditions of Kakania's demise. Yet, as the cited passage indicates, Musil considered the crises of Kakania to be prefigurations of the modern crises of Western humankind. This is what Musil means when he calls Kakania "der fortgeschrittenste Staat" (MoE, 35): Kakania's progressiveness consisted in its being the state which sensed the intellectual, cultural, and social tremors of modernity earlier and with greater concentration than any other state. Musil's description brings out many of the central problems of the dual monarchy: its cumbersome, bureaucratic structure; its crippling fragmentation into nationalistic factions; the unpredictability of its parliamentary-absolutistic system of government; its characteristic "Protektion" and "Schlamperei," which meant that every rule had as many exceptions as there were people able to procure exceptional treatment. But especially in its atomistic fragmentation into mutually inimical groups Kakania was a microcosmic prefiguration of the industrial interest-group world. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche had formulated philosophies based on the metaphysics of the will, focusing on the principles of individuation and struggle; Darwin had proposed that mere biological survival was a function of an organism's ability to adapt and to overcome hostility; Marx and Engels had argued that human societies were structured around the existence of classes with conflicting interests. Kakania was the social-political embodiment of all these theories of conflict: in this state each of these theories could demonstrate its validity. Kakania was shaken so profoundly by these "revolutions" precisely because it had remained so stubbornly "conservative" over the course of its own evolution. It represented a realm still steeped in the world-view of the Counter-Reformationist Baroque, glorifying life as a physical manifestation of spiritual harmony. The de-mystification of life and spirit which accompanied industrialization could not help but be sensed most profoundly in this atmosphere. "Man hat Wirklichkeit gewonnen und Traum verloren," is 5

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Roben Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, ed. Adolf Frise (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1952), pp. 33-4. Further references will be cited with the abbreviation MoE and page number. ·

Musil's succinct assessment of this circumstance (MoE, 39). Mathematics was the new "god" of the age, but it was a god which infiltrated "wie ein Dämon in alle Anwendungen [des] Lebens" (MoE, 39 f.). Kakania, like its age, was atomistic, but unlike the atom it lacked a stable nucleus, and hence it was destined to dissolve into unelected disaffinities. In short, Kakania was, to use a metaphor germane to our investigation, a collection of aphorisms, an unstructured structure composed of numerous individual elements, each proclaiming its own independent validity, each one distinguishing itself from the others, often by means of direct confrontation or contradiction. The spiritual and political situation of Austria-Hungary, then, was considered by Musil to be representative of the modern age. He describes the confusion of the modern world in terms reminiscent of a description of the aphorism: "Es war das . . . die bekannte Zusammenhanglosigkeit der Einfalle und ihre Ausbreitung ohne Mittelpunkt, die für die Gegenwart kennzeichnend ist und deren merkwürdige Arithmetik ausmacht, die vom Hundertsten ins Tausendste kommt, ohne eine Einheit zu haben" (MoE, 20). What Musil describes here is simply the aphoristic age, a world in which change, relativity, and difference have supplanted constancy, absolutes, and the unified totality. Musil's Ulrich, the "man without qualities," is a representative of this new world whose fundamental principle is uncertainty. Er kann, wenn er seine Empfindungen überwacht, zu nichts ohne Vorbehalt ja sagen; er sucht die mögliche Geliebte, aber weiß nicht, ob es die richtige ist; er ist imstande zu töten, ohne sicher zu sein, daß er es tun muß. Der Wille seiner eigenen Natur, sich zu entwickeln, verbietet ihm, an das Vollendete zu glauben; aber alles, was ihm entgegentritt, tut so, als ob es vollendet wäre. Er ahnt: diese Ordnung ist nicht so fest, wie sie sich gibt; kein Ding, kein Ich, keine Form, kein Grundsatz sind sicher, alles ist in einer unsichtbaren, aber niemals ruhenden Wandlung begriffen, im Unfesten liegt mehr von der Zukunft als im Festen, und die Gegenwart ist nichts als eine Hypothese, über die man noch nicht hinausgekommen ist. (MoE, 249 f.)

The paradoxical result of Ulrich's realization that restrictive "must" has been supplanted by progressive and potential "can" is hesitation, uncertainty, inconsequence - absence of "qualities." Life in fin de siede Austria-Hungary was fraught with political strife. It was the fault of the liberal regime, which drew its support from the Germanspeaking middle class and the Jewish bourgeoisie of the cities, that it refused to address these political conflicts as real issues which demanded real solutions, but rather chose to ignore them in the hope they might disappear on their own.6 The imperial ideal was used by the ruling classes as a tool with Carl Schorske has investigated in detail the crisis of Austrian liberalism at the turn of the century; see his Fin de siede Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York:, Knopf, 1980), esp. pp. 4-10; 232-33; 259-60.

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which to stabilize the status quo - imperial glory and national pride, it was assumed, and not political concessions, would ultimately assuage the empire's struggling nationalities and fuse these national fragments into an imperial whole. Musil sums up the relationship between rulers and ruled in Austria-Hungary with consummate irony: "zum Schluß gab es in Kakanien nur noch unterdrückte Nationen und einen obersten Kreis von Personen, die die eigentlichen Unterdrücker waren und sich maßlos von den Unterdrückten gefoppt und geplagt fühlten" (MoE, 515). Musil's comment brings out the apparent incomprehension with which the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie viewed the rebelliousness of the empire's suppressed nationalities. When the Badeni language reforms were announced - reforms which placed the Czech language on an equal footing with German in Bohemia, where Czechs far outnumbered Germans - the bourgeoisie felt it had been hoaxed once too often: the streets of. Vienna and Linz filled with protesters demanding the retraction of the Badeni laws. When the reforms were indeed withdrawn, demonstrations broke out in Bohemia and the empire suddenly found itself aflame with near-revolutionary sentiments and activities. This incident paradigmatically portrays the manner in which the bureaucratic ruling class unwittingly unleashed the centrifugal forces that would ultimately destroy the empire. Their stubborn preservationist attitude could not help but evoke such drastic responses, since it snuffed out all attempts at just reform.7 Each victory, such as the successful repeal of the Badeni laws, was merely apparent, leading eventually to increased tensions and further political strain. In the three years that followed the retraction of these reforms, the nationalist groups in parliament practiced an unrelenting obstructionism which brought the political mechanism to a halt. In 1900 the " Beamtenministerium" was formed in order to circumvent the ineffectuality of parliament. This administration devised strategies for stilling national discontent: on the one hand, it attempted to introduce economic reforms that would improve conditions on that front and thus have an appeasing effect; on the other hand, it concentrated on the generation of new cultural programs that would provide rallying points for all the disparate citizens of this multi-national state. Through this Utopian policy - astonishingly lacking in the astuteness of Realpolitik - the administration sought to dissolve national interests and reinstate overarching mutual interests in their stead.8 As if it were not

7

8

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For a description of the revolts that resulted from the Badeni resolutions, see Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein's Vienna (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), pp.57f.; see also Egon Erwin Kisch, Marktplatz der Sensationen (Vienna: Globus, 1947), pp. 34 f. Carl Schorske describes the program of the "Beamtenministerium," Fin de siede Vienna, pp. 236-38.

enough that the rulers of Austria-Hungary were suspended in their own illusions and thus could not face modern political realities, they suffered under the further delusion that their political underlings would be swept into affirmation of the status quo through the illusion of a unified and glorious cultural identity.· The remodelling of Vienna during the "Ringstraße" period into a capital city of pseudo-historical grandeur represents the most "concrete" attempt to divert from political reality by emphasizing tradition, art, and culture. This officially sanctioned division between reality and illusion - or more precisely, this incessant glossing over of reality in favor of an illusory age of past glory - had deep historical-cultural roots in the Habsburg empire. After the defeat of the Turks in 1683, Austria turned to the task of rebuilding its ravished territory. -This reconstruction took place in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation and under the powerful influence of the Baroque. In the pictorial arts, of course, Baroque artists exploited the illusion of depth and three-dimensionality. The sensuality and illusory beauty of the Baroque evolved quite naturally as a compensatory response to the horrors and destruction of the Turkish invasion. The Baroque glorification of life, and the exaltation of such leaders as Prince Eugen who were responsible for subduing the Turks, reflects a new optimism built overtop of the despair of war. Certain artistic trends in turn-of-the-century Austria are reminiscent of this Baroque tradition, for example, the tendency of the "Jugendstil" artists toward ornamentation, the portrayal of sensuality, and flamboyance. In literature one thinks immediately of the revival of the "Schein"/eSein" problematic, for example in the dramas of Arthur Schnitzler (Der grüne Kakadu). One recalls as well the fascination of Hofmannsthal's fool Claudio (Der Tor und der Tod) with the objects which surround him. The Biedermeier obsession with artfully constructed but generally useless objects represents a transposition of this Baroque mentality into the sphere of the reigning bourgeoisie. Other examples of the historical tenacity of the Baroque in Austrian literature can be found in the return to the Christian mystery play and the "FestspieP by such authors as Hofmannsthal and Kralik von Meyrwalden, and even in the neo-Baroque prose style of Musil, ornamented with similies and employing such techniques as periphrasis. Almost without exception the artists of German-speaking Austria-Hungary rose out of the upper-middle class composed of professionals and Jewish bourgeoisie associated with the spirit of liberalism. This class began to gather considerable economic and political power in the last decades of the nineteenth century, and it developed aristocratic aspirations, without possessing the "heritage" which alone distinguishes true "aristocracy." There was only one realm in which this middle class could enact a sort of assimilation of aristocratic qualities - in the sphere of culture. Aristocratic preten71

sions, however, remain mere pretensions, and thus they must ultimately contribute to the generation of a world outlook which is characterized by disconcern for social reality and a fostering of one's private illusions. Aesthetics, in the diagnosis of such cultural critics as Kraus, Loos, Wittgenstein, and Broch, becomes independent of ethical imperatives and thus degenerates into ornament, pomp, lie, kitsch. Hermann Broch's devastating commentary on the aestheticism of this epoch is bitter, but to the point. Was Überdeckung von Armut durch Reichtum letztlich bedeutet, das wurde in Wien, wurde in seiner geisterhaften Blütezeit klarer denn irgendwo und irgendwann anders: ein Minimum an ethischen Werten sollte durch ein Maximum an ästhetischen, die keine mehr waren, überdeckt werden, und sie konnten keine mehr sein, weil der nicht auf ethischer Basis gewachsene ästhetische Wert sein Gegenteil ist, nämlich Kitsch. Und als Metropole des Kitsches wurde Wien auch die des Wert-Vakuums der Epoche.9

Political liberalism, in the hands of this aspiring middle class, became a conservative political-cultural force closely intertwined with the spirit of the Biedermeier.10 This class lived, then, in a world of political unreality, and those raised in the atmosphere of this confined, over-stylized, aestheticized bourgeois world would eventually experience profound shock when confronted with the social-political reality in which their dream was embedded. Hermann Bahr expresses in exemplary fashion the disillusionment that this confrontation of dream and reality provoked. Das war das gemeinsame Grunderlebnis jener Generation [born in the 1860's]: mit beschönigenden und vertuschenden Meinungen, denen die Welt für ein kleinbürgerliches Idyll galt, sah diese Jugend sich plötzlich der Wirklichkeit der großen Stadt ausgesetzt. Da zerfiel am ersten Tag alles, woran wir bisher geglaubt, worauf wir vertraut und unseren Fuß gesetzt hatten, unser Denken zerbrach und im Anblick der zügellosen Gier, mit der sich im großstädtischen Gedränge von Neid und Haß jeder über jeden stürzt, fanden wir uns verraten und betrogen."

Marie Herzfeld confirms the impact that this destruction of inherited ideals had on the fin de siede generation. "Wir sind umgeben von einer Welt absterbender Ideale, die wir von den Vätern ererbt haben und mit unserem besten Lieben geliebt, und es fehlt uns nun die Kraft des Aufschwunges, welcher neue, wertvolle Lebenslockungen schafft."12 Herzfeld implicitly ties 9

10

11 12

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Hermann Broch, Hofmannsthal und seine Zeit, Essays in der Piper-Bücherei, 194 (Munich: Piper, 1964), p. 87 f. The socialist critic Albert Fuchs gives a trenchant analysis of the conservative thrust of Austrian liberalism, Geistige Strömungen in Österreich 1867-1918 (Vienna: Globus, 1949), pp. 3-39; see also Schorske, pp. 4-10. Hermann Bahr, "Inventur der Zeit," Inventur (Berlin: Fischer, 1912), pp. 11 f. Marie Herzfeld, "Fin-de-Siecle," Die Wiener Moderne: Literatur, Kunst und Musik zwischen 1890 und 1910, ed. Gotthart Wunberg, Reclam Universalbibliothek, 7742 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981), p. 260.

the weariness of this generation and the fin de siede sense of pessimism to the demise and destruction of these Utopian ideals inherited from the previous generation. This discrepancy between the ideals this class was brought up to believe in and the social reality they eventually were given to face is a fundamental experience of the German-speaking artists and intellectuals of this generation. We have already discussed the extent to which the aphorism as expressive form develops and thrives in an intellectual climate which perceives a pressing need for mediation between the realms of idea and experience, between theoretical and empirical knowledge. The existence of such a dramatic gulf between these two spheres for the Austrian writers of this generation helps to account for their susceptibility to the form of the aphorism, since it traditionally sought to come to terms with this central problem with which they found themselves confronted. The example of the Badeni language resolutions sheds light on the object of our investigation for yet another reason; for it is certainly not insignificant that at issue in these resolutions, and in the uproar that followed, was the problem of language or languages. It has often been observed that one could not be an intellectual in turn-of-the-century Austria without possessing an acute awareness of language as social medium, political tool, and as deceptive mask. Fritz Mauthner, whose three-volume Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache is a central document for the Sprachkrise of the period, claimed that his critical reflections on language were sparked by the environment in which he grew up.13 Mauthner claims that the constant contact with no less than three languages (German, Czech, Yiddish) made him question the very possibility of truth in language. His case, of course, is perhaps the most celebrated, but Mauthner's situation is indicative for inhabitants of AustriaHungary. The problematization of language as communicative medium came quite naturally to these citizens of the modern-day Babylon. As we shall see in a following section, this widespread critical reflection on language was to be a significant factor responsible for the popularity of the aphorism at this time. Two figures deserve mention as thinkers of immeasurable prominence and influence for intellectuals of fin de siede Austria and whose work provided the theoretical basis as well as practical models for their aphoristic production: Friedrich Nietzsche and Ernst Mach. Our concern here will be not with the import of their thought per se, but rather with the relevance of their central concerns for the problematics of aphoristic expression. In the instance of Nietzsche the issues are exceedingly clear and need only be mentioned in passing. Nietzsche's role as intellectual mentor for this generation Fritz Mauthner, Prager Jugendjahre: Erinnerungen (1918; rpt. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1969), pp. 30 f., 197 f. 73

of artists has never been questioned.14 No doubt, not only the central concepts of Nietzsche's philosophy underwent popular dissemination at this time, but also the aphoristic form typical of his writings left its mark on this generation. More veiled, and perhaps more controversial, are the relationships between the work of Ernst Mach and the intellectual problematics of the aphorism. Mach, of course, has received wide recognition as the philosopher who supplied the theoretical underpinnings for the impressionist movement. Hermann Bahr discovered in Mach's sensualist philosophy the confirmation of ideas he had expressed a number of years earlier.15 In 1891, more than ten years before he discovered Mach, Bahr had formulated a sensualist theory of knowledge. Die Sensationen allein sind Wahrheit, zuverlässige und unwiderlegliche Wahrheit; das Ich ist immer schon Konstruktion, willkürliche Anordnung, Umdeutung und Zurichtung der Wahrheit, die jeden Augenblick anders gerät, wie es einem gefällt, eben nach der Willkür der jeweiligen Stimmungen, und man hat ebenso viel Berechtigung, sich selber gleich hundert Iche zu substituieren, nach Belieben, auf Vorrat, woher und wonach die Dekadence zu ihrer Ichlosigkeit gedrängt ward.16

Significant in Bahr's claim, and resonant in Mach's philosophy as well, is the application of the notion of flux in the spiritual realm, going beyond its relevance to material reality. Not merely the "objective" world is in a constant state of flux, but now even the ego, the receptive organ and organizer of perceptions, is considered subject to instability and incessant change. Truth, and thus, for Bahr, art as well, are reduced to a series of momentary sensations: nothing carries the features of permanence. Fragmentary art forms, such as the aphorism, it is clear, represent one appropriate response to this recognition. Mach's point of departure in his seminal work Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen lies in the belief that the limitations of man's knowledge are defined by the limitations of his senses - sensual qualities are taken to be an absolute threshold, and the "object" is considered to be a mere postulate based on a given set of sensations.17 Hence Mach concludes that objects are "Gedankensymbole für EmpOn the influence of Nietzsche in Austria, see William McGrath, Dionysian An and Populist Politics in Austria (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1974). Hermann Bahr, "Das unrettbare Ich" (1903), Zur Überwindung des Naturalismus: Theoretische Schriften 1887-1904, ed. Gotthart Wunberg, Sprache und Literatur, 46 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1968), pp. 183-92. Bahr, "Wahrheit, Wahrheit," Zur Überwindung des Naturalismus, p. 84. Ernst Mach, Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen, 2nd expanded edition (Jena: Verlag Gustav Fischer, 1900); henceforth cited as AE. 74

findungskomplexe" (AE, 20). He takes his philosophy to be "anti-metaphysical" because it rejects investigation of the projected object in favor of examination of the sensations themselves which give rise to this projection. In other words, Mach rejects all constructs which transcend the pure physicality of sensation, including the static object and the static ego.18 Neural stimuli become the center of the empirical world, for it is only here, in the realm of sensation, that the dichotomy between physical and psychical phenomena can be overcome (see AE, 14f.; 19f.; 37-42; 206). Subjectivity and objectivity are conjoined in the realm of sensations; for all phenomena are simultaneously physical, i. e. relating to the body, and psychical. The most significant result of this identification of subjective and objective, physical and psychical, is the obliteration of any distinction between fact and illusion. Since the qualities attributed to an object are dependent on the conditions of perception, there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as deception, rather there are only varying aspects of perception (AE, 5 f.). With the localization of "truth" in sensations, all means for establishing objective, absolute truths disappear. Mach's philosophy displays a number of significant points of overlap with the attitude of the aphorist as described in the preceding chapter. Mach's sensualist orientation betrays a fundamental relationship to empiricist views of knowledge, emphasizing the role of perception and observation. But it problematizes this empirical stance in a "Kantian" manner by denying any necessary, absolute (i.e. non-subjective) link between subjective perception and objective world. Analysis of the world is reduced to analysis of one's changing impressions and perceptions of the world. Ultimately, of course, the subjectivization of knowledge corresponds to a theory of perspectivism and relativity. "Objective" awareness can only be defined in terms of intersubjective agreement: a multiplicity of experimental propositions, hypotheses, or perceptions derived from varying perspectives or points of departure can lead to a movement toward „truth." One must imagine here the geometrical figure of hyperbola, a curve which approaches ever nearer the spacial axes by which it is confined, but which even in infinity never reaches these axes. The validity of propositions resides, for Mach as for the aphorist, in the relative ability of any hypothesis to advance this movement. The validity of the individual proposition, then, becomes irrelevant in itself; its validity is defined in terms of a greater purpose and is relative to this purpose. Hence even a blatantly false statement can be "valid" to the extent that it incites further investigation into the circumstances it claims to describe. "Kein Standpunkt," Mach writes, "hat absolute bleibende

Mach's introduction to his Analyse der Empfindungen, the "Anti-Metaphysische Vorbemerkung" points to the acutely anti-metaphysical thrust of his arguments. 75

Geltung; jeder ist nur wichtig für einen bestimmten Zweck" (AE, 27). Knowledge and error are granted an identical epistemological status, knowledge being segregated from error only on the basis of experimental "success." "Erkenntnis und Irrtum fließen aus denselben psychischen Quellen: nur der Erfolg vermag beide zu scheiden. Der klar erkannte Irrtum ist als Korrektiv ebenso erkenntnisfördernd wie die positive Erkenntnis."19 Mach's emphasis on the value of hypothetical propositions, regardless of their truth or falsehood, his stress on perspectivism and intersubjective relations, and his image of the scientist as searcher rather than as knower all relate his thought to the tradition of the aphorism as represented by such thinkers as Francis Bacon. Mach's scientific attitude replicates the primary attitude of the aphorist: this can be described as an uncommon intellectual honesty, a strict antidogmatism, and an emphatic recognition of the limitations of one's own endeavors. Mach went so far as to insist on the recognition of the necessary limitations to human knowledge as a prerequisite to scientific investigation. Es wird also am Zweckmässigsten sein, die Grenzen unseres Wissens, die sich überall zeigen, anzuerkennen und das Streben nach eindeutiger Bestimmtheit als ein Ideal anzusehen, das wir in unserem Denken, so weit als möglich, verwirklichen. (AE, 237)

Wittgenstein would echo this proposition a decade and a half later in the introduction to his Tractatus logico-philosophicus, insisting that the restrictions of our thought are determined by the restrictions of our language.20 Mach's "anti-metaphysics," then, was paradigmatic for the anti-metaphysical posture of the philosophers of the Vienna Circle. Indeed, this group of thinkers had initially called itself the "Ernst Mach Verein," in recognition of the formative influence of Mach's thought. It would be incorrect, however, to portray this anti-metaphysical attitude as one inimical to speculation; rather, it is a stance which insists simply on the a priori limitations placed upon every search for knowledge, and on a restriction of scientific and philosophical investigation to that space defined by these limits. One corollary of this conscious setting of limitations to the relevant sphere of knowledge is the belief that within this restricted space issues are eminently soluble. It was this belief, of course, that permitted Wittgenstein to claim in the Tractatus that he had essentially solved all the crucial problems of philosophy.21 If questions remain unanswered, according to this 19

20

21

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Ernst Mach, Erkenntnis und Irrtum: Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung (Leipzig: Verlag Johann Barth, 1905), p. 114. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, edition suhrkamp, 12 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1979), p. 7; henceforth cited as Tr by proposition number. See Wittgenstein's introduction to the Tractatus, p. 8.

view, then the fault lies with the nature or formulation of the question itself (cf. AE, 209). Here Mach takes an initial step in the transposition of the problems of knowledge into the sphere of language. This interrelationship between language and knowledge would be of central importance for the Viennese logical positivists, just as it had been crucial to most of the thinkers in the German aphoristic tradition. One final reflex of this concern with language and the expressibility of knowledge in Mach's philosophy is relevant to our theme: this is Mach's theory of "Denkökonomie." Mach proposes, simply put, that the least complex depiction of any circumstance or condition will always be closest to the actual state of affairs (AE, 37). " Denkökonomie," in other words, represents an application of the mathematical principle of reduction to the simplest possible form in the realm of thought and scientific-philosophical investigation. According to this view, all "proper" conclusions will occur in relatively simple formulations, freed of all extraneous terms and unencumbered by subordinate qualifications. The problem of truthful recognition is thus not merely reduced to a problem of precise formulation; it is further emphasized that such formulations must in their very essence be simple and compact one is tempted to say, aphoristic. If various cultural, social, and intellectual phenomena or circumstances in turn-of-the-century Austria tended to encourage cultivation of fragmentary, yet succinct formulations of the historical "state of affairs," then writers of this time were no less energetic in their valorization of fragmentary, "miniature" forms of expression. Indeed, in some instances their vindications ring with missionary zeal. Karl Kraus's brilliant laudations of the aphorism are the most stunning examples of this tendency.22In fact, there was an intense awareness among Austrian writers of the time that "reduced," compact, momentary expressive forms were the demand of the time. To some extent this reflects profound changes in the substance and pace of modern Western civilization: artistic forms which feigned stability, permanence, or "eternity" were considered out of character with the age. One need only recall the thrust of Marinetti's Manifeste du futurisms (1909) to assess the impact of the rapidly advancing technologization of society on conceptions of art and the artist. The valorization of the "kleine Form" was further buttressed in Austria-Hungary by the "absurd" state of social-political conditions, as well as by the intellectual trends discussed above. When in 1926 the Austrian journalist and writer Alfred Polgar published his second collection of prose miniatures in book form, Orchester von Oben,2* he found it necessary to defend the fragmentary prose pieces he had 22 23

See, for example, BW, 116; 117; 132; 161; 238. Alfred Polgar, Orchester von Oben (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1926).

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presented his public a year earlier in the volume An den Rand geschrieben.2* In the preface to Orchester von Oben, entitled "Die kleine Form (quasi ein Vorwort)," Polgar writes of his "konsequentes, mit mancher Qual verknüpftes schriftstellerisches Bemühen, aus hundert Seiten zehn zu machen."25 Polgar's "painful" task reflects one of the central drives of the aphorist: the desire to condense a maximum of meaning into a minimum of words. Polgar's formulation, in fact, is strikingly reminiscent of Nietzsche's claim that it was his goal "in zehn Sätzen zu sagen, was jeder andere in einem Buch sagt, was jeder andere in einem Buch nicht sagt."26 Karl Kraus, characteristically, turns the programmatic virtue of condensed, laconic expression into self-praise and implicit critique of his more "verbose" contemporaries. Es gibt Schriftsteller, die schon in zwanzig Seiten ausdrücken können, wozu ich manchmal sogar zwei Zeilen brauche. (BW, 116)

Both the substance and the medium of Polgar's justification of fragmentary forms are significant in our context: the substance because it is symptomatic of a general awareness among Austrian writers of the appropriateness of prose miniatures for the historical time and setting in which they write; the medium because the expository, prosaic style in which this defense is formulated testifies to a degeneration of the laconism, efficacy, and poignancy characteristic of the "kleine Form" which Polgar is at pains to defend. The fragment, in other words, is no longer applicable in the service of its own defense. By the time of Polgar's writing, the "golden age" of the literary fragment in Austria is on the wane. Yet it is partly Polgar's position as a latecomer which allows him to perceive so clearly the relationship between "kleine Form" and "Zeitgeist." For these reasons Polgar's introduction deserves to be cited at some length. Aber ich möchte für diese kleine Form, hätte ich nur hierzu das nötige Pathos, mit sehr großen Worten eintreten: denn ich glaube, daß sie der Spannung und dem Bedürfnis der Zeit gemäß ist, gemäßer jedenfalls, als, wie eine flache Analogie vermuten mag, geschriebene Wolkenkratzer es sind. Ich halte episodische Kürze für durchaus angemessen der Rolle, die heute der Schriftstellerei zukommt. Außer Debatte bleibt ja das Wunder des großen Werks, bleibt die Berechtigung der tausend Druckseiten für eine Vision, deren ideeles Riesenmaß in geringerem Raum nicht Erscheinung werden könnte. Aber wie wenige sind unter uns Schreibenden, die eine solche Genie-Portion an Raum beanspruchen dürften. Wer von den Erzählern und Betrachtern hat so Großes zu sagen, daß er sich unmöglich kürzer fassen könnte, als er tut? Wo ist der Geist, dem gemeine Welt, sich ihm verbindend, so Wichtig-Neues von ihrem Chemismus offenbarte, daß solche Offenbarung zu fixieren die knappste Form und Formel nicht genügte? . . . 24 25 26

78

Alfred Polgar, An den Rand geschrieben (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1925). Orchester von Oben, p. 10. Quoted by Grosse, "Das syntaktische Feld des Aphorismus," p. 384.

Das Leben ist zu kurz für lange Literatur, zu flüchtig für verweilendes Schildern und Betrachten, zu psychopathisch für Psychologie, zu romanhaft für Romane, zu rasch verfallen der Gärung und Zersetzung, als daß es sich in langen und breiten Büchern lang und breit bewahren ließe. Daß die Schriftsteller Zeit finden, weitläufig zu schreiben, kann ich zur Not verstehen: der Dämon treibt, Fülle drängt sie, der gewaltige Strom gräbt sich sein gewaltiges Bett. Da kann man nichts machen. Aber daß Menschen dieser tobenden, von nie erlittenen Wehen geschüttelten Epoche Ruhe und Zeit, innere Zeit, finden, weitläufig zu lesen, ist mir ein rechtes Mirakel. Ein großes Beben rüttelt die geistige Welt, wirft um, was steht, versenkt das sicher Gegründete, treibt neuen Erdgrund hoch: wie vermessen, auf solchem Boden schwer und massiv zu bauen! Ewigkeiten erweisen sich als zeitlich, die solidesten Götter als Götzen, alle Anker sind gelichtet, kein Mensch weiß, wohin die Reise geht, aber daß sie geht und wie [sjausend rasch sie geht, spüren wir am Schwindel: wer wollte da mit überflüssigem Gepäck beladen sein? Ballast ist auszuwerfen - und was alles entpuppt sich nicht als Ballast? - kürzeste Linie von Punkt zu Punkt heißt das Gebot der fliehenden Stunde. Auch das Ästhetische. Dick ist beschwerlich, dick ist häßlich; und "schöne Literatur" mit geschwollenem Wanst ein Widerspruch im Beiwon.27

Polgar's comments bear testimony to the persistence of attitudes associated with the fin de siede well into the third decade of the twentieth century. His assault is directed primarily at the age in which he lives, and only secondarily at the insufficiencies of those authors living in this age. Spiritual and material flux, instability, the disappearance of eternal values and absolute measures, fleetingness, upheaval: all of these characteristics of the modern age undermine the drive toward expansive literature. What is perhaps most telling in Polgar's remarks, however, is his essential admiration for the "great" literature which he deems impractical and impracticable in his day. Indeed, Polgar seems to mourn the very impossibility of such expansive literature, so that in his defense of the "kleine Form" he is merely making a virtue of necessity. His own insecurity as a writer is expressed in the doubt in his ability to summon the necessary "pathos" for a justification of "die kleine Form"; his analogies are by his own admission "flach"; he is sceptical about the ability of himself and his contemporaries to create works of genius. Polgar, in short, is a reluctant miniaturist. This was not the case for some of the Austrian writers who preceded Polgar. The "modesty" of the age, Polgar argues, demands "modest" forms of literature; but there was nothing "modest" about aphoristic, fragmentary modes of expression for the likes of a Karl Kraus. Even more inherently "modest" artists such as Peter Altenberg, touched as he was by intellectual circumstances and a cultural pessimism similar to that expressed by Polgar, were able to embrace fragmentary forms such as the aphorism with more conviction. Polgar's "defense," appropriate as his associations between "small form" and social-cultural conditions are, 27

Polgar, Orchester von Oben, pp. 11-13.

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remains oddly diffident, reflecting a growing uncertainty about the virtues of fragmentary writing, and perhaps indicative of a greater crisis of literature in general. By way of contrast, Altenberg's justification of his terse, succinct literary style exudes conviction and self-confidence. Ich möchte einen Menschen in einem Satze schildern, ein Erlebnis der Seele auf einer Seite, eine Landschaft in einem Worte! Lege an, Künstler, ziele, triff ins Schwarze! Basta.28

Yet it is not mere brevity which Altenberg strives for; a significant part of his literary program is the desire to intimate significance beyond what the words express. His personal impressions are intended to leave the audience with infinitely expandable impressions. Altenberg chooses a stunningly expressive metaphor to depict this interaction between text and reader: the literary work is spiritual bouillon that the readers must "dissolve" in order to "digest" its significance. Denn sind meine kleinen Sachen Dichtungen?! Keineswegs. Es sind Extrakte! Extrakte des Lebens. Das Leben der Seele und des zufälligen Tages, in 2-3 Seiten eingedampft, vom Überflüssigen befreit wie das Rind im Liebig-Tiegel! Dem Leser bleibe es überlassen, diese Extrakte aus eigenen Kräften wieder aufzulösen, in genießbare Bouillon zu verwandeln, aufkochen zu lassen im eigenen Geiste, mit einem Worte, sie dünnflüssig und verdaulich zu machen.29

Although Altenberg denies that his impressionistic sketches are "Dichtungen," his metaphor makes clear that they are precisely that: "compactions," in the literal sense of the word "Dichtungen." There are some obvious correspondences between literary impressionism and the essence of aphoristic form. Primary among these is the productive intermingling of subjective fantasy and objective observation: subjectification of the objective, or objectification of the subjective, to reiterate the terminology employed to describe the impulses evident in Lichtenberg's Sudelbiicher. "Reporter der Seele" is the suggestive title of one of Altenberg's collections, indicating the manner in which the feuilletonist objectifies his inner life for the edification and entertainment of others. But u\efeuilleton is just as likely to "report" on some social event, imbuing it with the subjective impressions of the one who is reporting. Literary impressionism of the Altenberg cast, then, is just as much soulful reporting as it is reporting on the state of the soul. Other qualities which conjoin aphorism and impressionism are the fleetingness of momentary experiences, the "episodic"

28

29

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Peter Altenberg, "Selbstbiographie," Ausgewählte Werke in zwei Bänden, ed. Dietrich Simon (Munich: Hanser, 1979), I, 82. Altenberg, "Selbstbiographie," Ausgewählte Werke in zwei Bänden, I, 81.

character of life, and the emphatic insistance on the interactive aspect of literature.30 Polgar and Altenberg have been employed here to document an awareness among Austrian literati of the appropriateness of fragmentary expressive forms such as the aphorism to the turn-of-the-century spirit. A similar awareness can be documented among some literary critics of the same period. In an article entitled "Essai und Aphorismus" (1907), Kurt Walter Goldschmidt refers to the sudden popularity that these forms have attained at the time, and he attributes this popularity to the fact that these smaller forms correspond more closely to the quickened tempo of modern life.31 In Goldschmidt's view, symptomatic of the evolution of modern humankind is a flagging of its capacity for systematization, accompanied by a corresponding increase in its analytical capabilities.32 Breadth of thought, Goldschmidt implies, is supplanted by analytical depth, and he considers the predilection for essay and aphorism to be a reflection of this shift.33 Goldschmidt goes on to claim that the aphorism as artistic form is especially suited to the modern "Künstler-Denker-Persönlichkeit."34 He thus indicates a move away from narration and representation toward philosophical-scientific reflection in the literature of the period. The encroachment of science into the realm of art, for which the Naturalist movement is the best example, appears to Goldschmidt to be indicative of literature at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the essay "Kleinform und Zeitgeist" (1929), Otto Maurer also attempts to come to terms with the popularity of aphoristic form and its appropriateness for the modern age.35 Maurer goes so far as to maintain that aphoristic thought is not only suitable, but that it is the natural form of thought,

30

31

32 33

34 35

These issues will be discussed below in detail in the excursus on the aphorism in Austria. Kurt Walter Goldschmidt, "Essai und Aphorismus," Das literarische Echo, 9 (1906-07), column 1715. Goldschmidt, col. 1715. The validity or falsehood of Goldschmidt's hypothesis is not at issue here. However, it is important to note that for many aphorists - Nietzsche and Adorno come to mind immediately - precisely the opposite of this thesis would obtain. The aphorism expresses, especially in the view of such socially critical thinkers as Adorno, a rebellion against the ominous trend toward systematization in the political-ideological sphere - a trend which tends to blunt and repulse analytical incursions into established ideological systems. The aphorism, thus understood, does not represent a response to a faltering capacity for systematization, but rather, much to the contrary, a rebellion against an overreliance on systematization. "Essai und Aphorismus," columns 1717, 1718. Otto Maurer, "Kleinform und Zeitgeist: Bemerkungen zu einigen neuen Aphoristikern," Eckart: Blätter für evangelische Geisteskultur, 5 (1929), 200-215. 81

systematic thought being, by implication, artificial. "Die natürliche Form des Denkens ist aphoristisch, denn Denken ist Leben, und nichts Richtigeres läßt sich über das Leben sagen, als daß es Rhythmus sei, Pulsschlag: Spannung und Entspannung, Ausdehnung und Zusammenziehung . . ,"36 Maurer's claim is significant because it bears testimony to the widespread acceptance and approval that the aphorism had attained in intellectual circles. His connection of aphoristic expression to the "natural" systolic and diastolic movement of life underscores the common association of the aphorism with progressive change, as well as its proximity to the philosophies of life popular at the time. Maurer further claims that the aphorism is an "Ausdruck der Weltzertrümmerung und der Sehnsucht nach dem Ganzwerden."37 Here he touches on a motif that recurs throughout the history of the aphorism: the postulate that use of the aphorism arises primarily during times of extreme cultural-political crisis and transformation.38 Not all contemporary critics assessed the aphorism in such a positive manner. Emil Lucka, for example, in his essay "Der Aphorismus" (1918), printed in the influential literary revue Das literarische Echo exactly one year after Kafka began to write his aphorisms in the third Oktavheft (October, 1917), criticizes the aphorism for precisely those qualities which the typical aphorist construes as its virtues: non-systematization, connectionlessness, incompletion, tendency toward the paradoxial.39 The aphorism, Lucka asserts, is neither art nor philosophy, but some of each, and this is its flaw. "Der Aphorismus ist ein Gebilde, das seinen Gehalt dem Kreis der Gedanken, seine Form dem Kunstwerk entlehnt, und so muß er, in zwei Bereichen stehend, immer etwas kentaurisch Halbes bleiben, nicht nur wenn er mangelhaft ist, sondern am meisten dort, wo er seine größte Vollendung erreicht hat."40 Lucka's negative assessment notwithstanding, it is clear that the impetus to his critique derives from an impression that the aphorism, this "impure" form, has been proliferating at what appears to him to be an alarming rate. One final analysis must be accomplished before concluding our investigation into the possible correspondence between the inclination of turn-of-the36 37 38

39

40

82

"Kleinform und Zeitgeist," p. 200. "Kleinform und Zeitgeist," p. 206. This view is represented, for example, by Wilhelm Grenzmann, "Probleme des Aphorismus," p. 181; Albert Höft, "Das historische Werden des Aphorismus," p. 112; Herbert Roch, "Über den Aphorismus," p. 515; Walter Wehe, "Geist und Form des deutschen Aphorismus," p. 137. Gerhard Neumann takes issue with this claim; see Ideenparadiese, p. 42. Emil Lucka, "Der Aphorismus," Das literarische Echo, 21 (1918-19), columns 17-20. Lucka, "Der Aphorismus," column 17.

century Austrian intellectuals toward employment of the aphorism and the historical, socio-political, and cultural phenomena indicative of this epoch. Here we must return more specifically to the history and development of the aphorism as expressive form. It is an odd quirk of the German-language tradition of the aphorism, as pointed out in the preceding chapter, that while the textual form itself is prominent in the works of major writers, the word "Aphorismus" itself is not commonly associated with this formal tradition. Instead one finds such appellations as "Fragment," "Sentenz," "Maximen und Reflexionen," and "Sudelbuch." However, around 1900, especially among Austrian writers, the word "Aphorismus" (sometimes occuring in the bastardized form "Aphorisma") consistently comes to be associated with the formal tradition of the aphorism. In other words, the split between "Wortgeschichte" and "Formgeschichte," which previous to this time was characteristic of the German aphoristic tradition, ends rather abruptly. It is difficult to discern exactly what events or incidents might account for this change, but one thing is certain: that the merger of form and name reflects the increased concern with this manner of expression. One is tempted to attribute the new-found currency of the word "Aphorismus" to the dissemination of Nietzsche's writings at the turn of the century. However, in his early works Nietzsche consistently used the term "Sentenz" to designate his fragmentary form of philosophizing. Only in the posthumously published notes Der Wille zur Macht do the words "Aphorismus" and "aphoristisch" occur consistently/1 The authoress Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, of course, published as early as 1880 a collection of reflections with the title Aphorismen, and included as an epigraph to this volume an original aphorism which reflects on the theory of aphoristic expression. Although her influence as an aphorist is slight, one cannot exclude the possibility that her collection contributed to the broader acceptance of the term "Aphorismus." This conjecture is lent some credibility by Hermann Bahr's assertion that Ebner-Eschenbach's writings exerted a powerful influence on the authors of "Young Austria."42 The strongest impetus to this turn-around may, however, actually derive from an ostensibly unlikely source: the aphorisms of Lichtenberg. In the sense that Lichtenberg is the precursor of all the Austrian aphorists of this generation, his influence on the form of the aphorism is anything but unlikely. However, Lichtenberg himself never uses the word "Aphorismus" to designate his "scribblings," and so the association of his jottings with this See Krüger, Der Aphorismus als philosophische Form, pp. 95-107 for an analysis of Nietzsche's use of the terminology "Sentenz" and "Aphorismus." Hermann Bahr, "Das junge Österreich," Zur Überwindung des Naturalismus, pp. 143 & 145. 83

appellation seems initially surprising. Lichtenberg's significance for turn-ofthe-century Austrian intellectuals can best be measured by the list of names of those who expressed admiration for him. Among scientists and philosophers, both Mach and Wittgenstein indicated that they were impressed by Lichtenberg's writings.43 The author Egon Friedell admired Lichtenberg's reflections enough to publish an edition of selected texts in 1910,44 and even Karl Kraus expressed admiration for the profundity of Lichtenberg's revelatory method.45 Hofmannsthal included no less than four aphorisms by Lichtenberg in his own aphoristic collection, Buch der Freunde.*6 The key to Lichtenberg's popularity lies in part in the frequency with which excerpts from his notebooks were published between 1870 and 1900.47 In none of these editions, however, does the word "Aphorismus" occur in the title. Yet Albert Leitzmann would ensure the association of Lichtenberg's name with the form of the aphorism shortly after 1900 by publishing the definitive and complete edition of Lichtenberg's notebooks under the title Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs Aphorismen!1* Leitzmann's connection of this term with Lichtenberg's reflections obviously takes hold. In 1913 Leitzmann himself edited a selection of these texts for the popular Insel-Bücherei series,49 and in 1919 no fewer than three editions of Lichtenberg's aphorisms appeared, all by different editors, yet all bearing the title "Aphorismen."50

43 44

45 46

47

48

49

50

84

See Janik and Toulmin, Wittgenstein's Vienna, pp. 134 & 176. Lichtenberg: Ein -verkleinertes Bild seines Gedankenlebens, ed. Egon Friedell (Stuttgart: Lutz, [1910]). See BW, 127, 336-38, and Janik and Toulmin, p. 90. Aphorisms from Hofmannsthal's Buch der Freunde will be cited from the volume Aufzeichnungen, Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben, ed. Herbert Steiner (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1959), henceforth cited as A; the aphorisms by Lichtenberg are found on A 15, 17, 18, & 36. The list of editions of Lichtenberg's writings includes: Lichtenberg: Gedanken und Maximen: Lichtstrahlen aus seinen Werken, ed. Eduard Griesebach (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1871); Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. Eugen Reichel, Reclam Universalbibliothek, 1286-1289 (Leipzig: Reclam, [1880]); Aus Lichtenbergs Nachlaß: Aufsätze, Briefe, Tagebuchblätter, Briefe, ed. Albert Leitzmann (Weimar: Böhlau, 1889); Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. Adolf Wilbrandt (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1893); Bemerkungen vermischten Inhalts (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, [ca. 1899]); in addition, almost 200 pages were dedicated to Lichtenberg's writings in volume 141 of the anthology Deutsche Nationalliteratur. Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs Aphorismen, ed. Albert Leitzmann (Berlin: B. Behr, 1902-1908). Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, ed. Albert Leitzmann, Insel-Bücherei, Nr. 33 (Leipzig: Insel, 1913). Aphorismen, ed. Dora Mitzky (Munich: Dreiländer, 1919); Aphorismen, ed. Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm (Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek, [1919], Aphorismen, Die kleinen Saturnbücher, Nr. 20 (Heidelberg: Meister, [1919]).

This list of titles and editions indicates not only the extreme popularity of Lichtenberg's writings at the turn of the century, but also the nascent prominence of the generic term "Aphorismus" after 1900, as well as the association of this term with Lichtenberg's reflections. In this first section our concern has been with establishing the veritable renaissance that the aphorism underwent in turn-of-the-century Austria, and associating the prominence of this form with intellectual, cultural, and sociopolitical circumstances in the declining Austro-Hungarian empire. In the next two sections these more general observations will give way to specific analyses of the application of the aphorism by Austrian thinkers of the period.

II. From Impression to Epiphany: The Aphorism in the Austrian Jahrhundertwende The aphorism as expressive medium experienced an unusual flowering among intellectuals in Vienna at the turn of the century.51 The list of writers who composed aphorisms and reflected on the nature of this genre at this time includes Altenberg, Hofmannsthal, Karl Kraus, Musil, Richard Schaukai, Moritz Schlick, Schnitzler, Otto Weininger, and Wittgenstein. No doubt, this proliferation of aphorisms represents the culmination of a tendency toward aphoristic-fragmentary modes of expression traditionally evidenced among Austrian intellectuals.52 Still, there are specific conditions and fundamental intellectual circumstances which caused this tradition to become especially fruitful at the turn of the century. The purpose of these remarks is to outline some of the characteristics which contributed to the near obsession of Viennese writers with aphoristic forms in the final years of the declining monarchy. Since my portrayal here cannot be complete, I shall instead describe two aphoristic types which delimit the range of aphoristic productivity in this period. I have chosen the terms "impression" and "epiphany" to describe these extremes. Each expression is intended to characterize a distinct aphoristic method in a two-fold manner: first, with regard to the creative impulse which calls forth the production of an aphorism; secondly, with regard to the response which the aphoristic text is programmed to evoke in its readers or listeners.

See William Johnston, "The Vienna School of Aphorists 1880-1930: Reflections on a Neglected Genre," Turn of the Century: German Literature and Art 1890-191 , ed. Gerald Chappie & Hans Schulte (Bonn: Bouvier, 1981), pp. 275-90. Ivar Ivask, "Das große Erbe," esp. pp. 38-46. 85

My terminology departs fundamentally from that traditionally associated with scholarship on the aphorism. In his seminal essays on this genre, Franz Mautner introduced the words " Einfall" and "Klärung" into the critical vocabulary to denote two essentially distinct aphoristic types.53 "Einfall" refers to the stimulating thought, the aper£u, which takes the thinker by surprise, occuring beyond all acts of willing and intending, and which becomes manifest in the insight the aphorism expresses. While this conception is peripherally related to what I call the aphorism of epiphany, one major difference exists: Mautner applies his term exclusively to the productive moment of aphoristic expression. Mautner's second term, "Klärung," describes the aphoristic thought as the long-sought solution to a dilemma. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach conceived her aphoristic texts along these lines, as the epigraph she composed for her collection of aphorisms demonstrates: "Ein Aphorismus ist der letzte Ring einer langen Gedankenkette."54 Mautner's distinction is useful insofar as it defines two different aphoristic impulses and their corresponding thought-processes. "Einfall" describes the position of the aphorist as one of passive mouthpiece for intellectual revelation; "Klärung" portrays the aphorist in the role of active quester after knowledge. Yet the differentiation between unconscious, inspired "Einfall" and consciously executed "Klärung" breaks down upon careful scrutiny. For one thing, these processes themselves are never clearly distinct; indeed, most aphorisms are informed by the interaction of these active and passive moments. More crucial, however, is that Mautner focuses only on the productive element, completely ignoring the receptive dimension. Aphorisms, perhaps even more so than other literary texts, are not only products of a creator, but also products for a receiving public. As we have noted, scholars concerned with the nature of the aphorism have continually emphasized the centrality of reception in determining the characteristics of this genre. In segregating "impressionistic" and "epiphanic" aphoristic types in the Austrian Jahrhundertwende, my purpose is to define these categories according both to creative and receptive impulses. As will become clear, in each aphoristic type a parallelism of creative and receptive moments can be discerned, so that the aphorism becomes an explicit medium for transferring a specific experience to its audience in accordance with a well-conceived strategy. In both cases, then, the aphorism is employed as the means to an end that is fulfilled in the moment of reception.

55

54

86

Mautner, "Der Aphorismus als Literatur," pp. 285-7; see also his "Der Aphorismus als literarische Gattung," pp. 46-51. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, "Aphorismen," Das Gemeindekind, Novellen, Aphorismen, Werke, vol. l, ed. Johannes Klein (Munich: Winkler, 1956), p. 865.

A) Ambivalence Toward the Form of the Aphorism One of the typical characteristics of aphorists is their inclination to reflect aphoristically on the form of the aphorism itself. This acute self-consciousness is one of the general traits which marks the aphorism as a "modern" genre and helps account for its general popularity in recent times.55 Among Austrians who wrote in, and wrote on aphorisms, one discovers an astonishing disparity of evaluations. The most disparaging comment is perhaps that of Arthur Schnitzler: Schüttle ein Aphorisma, so fällt eine Lüge heraus und eine Banalität bleibt übrig.56

Despite this devastating condemnation of the aphorism, Schnitzler placed considerable stock in this form of expression, as evidenced by the fact that he composed aphorisms during his entire creative life.57 His divided attitude toward this genre is nowhere so manifest as in the "Vorwort" to his Buch der Sprüche und Bedenken, first published in 1927.58 Schnitzler begins by excusing himself for the publication of remarks that contain both "Selbstverständlichkeiten" and statements "die nichts weiter sind als geistreich, also kaum mehr wahr." At the same time, he comes to the defense of these texts: "Trotzdem trete ich für jeden meiner Aussprüche ein, auch für solche, die ich heute vielleicht nicht völlig aufrecht halten oder nicht einmal niederschreiben wollte." He continues by justifying the publication of these texts as a means for clarifying and correcting the public's assessment of his "Verhältnis zu den sogenannten ewigen und zu manchen zeitlichen Fragen." Thus, while questioning the very merit and truth of such aphoristic remarks, Schnitzler is still prepared to publish them and even to justify their publication on the ground that these documents elucidate intellectual positions he once considered or represented. Schnitzler is not alone among Austrians of this period in his ambivalence toward the aphorism. Robert Musil also expressed doubts about the efficacy of this genre. Aphorismus: Nicht Fisch und nicht Fleisch. Nicht Epigramm und nicht Entdekkung. Es fehlt ihm anscheinend an der Ganzheit, Einprägsamkeit, Reduzierbarkeit odgl. Bloß Bewegung ohne Ergebnis, Knotenpunkt usw. Darum die Abneigung gegen ihn. Schlage es nicht in den Wind!59 55 56

57

58

59

See J. P. Stern, "A Literary Definition of the Aphorism," pp. 214-15. Arthur Schnitzler, Aphorismen und Betrachtungen, ed. Robert Weiss (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1967), p. 132. This is pointed out by Rainer Noltenius, Hofmannsthal - Schröder - Schnitzler: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des modernen Aphorismus, p. 142. The "Vorwort" to this collection is quoted from the edition Aphorismen und Betrachtungen; all cited passages are from p. 7. Robert Musil, Tagebücher, Aphorismen, Essays und Reden: Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben, ed. Adolf Frise (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1955), p. 423. 87

Clearly, Musil does not succumb to his scepticism about the aphorism, and despite serious second thoughts he tends later in life more and more toward the cultivation of aphoristic forms.60 Peter Altenberg also points to the conflicting opinions that this society held with regard to the function and purpose of the aphorism. "Aphorismen sind doch keine Aphorismen, um Gottes willen! Es ist doch nur, um euch im Leben rasch kurz zu helfend Altenberg objects to a common disapprobation of the aphorism, as, for instance, that expressed by Schnitzler. Mere aphorisms, Altenberg suggests, are perhaps nothing more than artful lies or trite commonplaces, but true aphorisms, far from being insignificant, contain profound truths that can influence our lives and our thought in substantial ways. Thinking perhaps of the origin of aphoristic expression in the medicinal formulae of Hippocrates, Altenberg views the aphorism as a social-spiritual tonic whose purpose is to help individuals live better. Karl Kraus, the much-disputed master among Austrian aphorists, summarizes these two evaluations in a poignant aphoristic text: Der Aphorismus deckt sich nie mit der Wahrheit; er ist entweder eine halbe Wahrheit oder anderthalb. (BW, 161)

Often smacking of the proverbial, aphorisms tend toward banal half-truth; yet, as this text itself so forcefully demonstrates, aphoristic expression is capable of fracturing banal commonplaces and transcending simple "truth." In these negative and positive evaluations reside the extremes of aphoristic expression which I refer to as "impression" and "epiphany." As Altenberg and Kraus both indicate, these extremes cannot be conceived in artificial isolation from one another; indeed, there is a fundamental interdependence between the aphorism of impression as literary-philosophical commonplace, and the epiphanic aphorism of "transcendental" truth. Typical of the literary Jahrhundertwende, according to one critic, is the accompanying of every significant idea, profound experience, or insightful recognition by an inherently similar yet trivialized variant.62 The aphorism

60

61 62

See Wolfgang Frese, "Robert Musil in Switzerland: Aphorism and Pragmatic Tradition," Exile: The Writer's Experience, ed. John Spalek and R. F. Bell, Univ. of North Carolina Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures, 99 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of N. Carolina Press, 1982), p. 217; Marie-Louise Roth, "Essay und Essayismus bei Robert Musil," Probleme der Moderne: Festschrift für Walter H.Sokel, ed. Benjamin Bennett (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1983), p. 124. Peter Altenberg, Ausgewählte Werke in zwei Bänden, II, 59; see also II, 121, 130. Wolfdietrich Rasch, "Aspekte der deutschen Literatur um 1900," Zur deutschen Literatur seit der Jahrhundertwende (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967), p. 35.

of the period archetypically reflects this parallelism of the profound and the trivial. To be sure, both the aphorism of impression and that of epiphany are rooted in the historical tradition of the aphorism, where this parallelism of trivial and profound applications is continually in evidence. The aphorism has alternately been associated with the proverb as the expression of a commonplace, and with a quasi-philosophical mode of expression which formulates daring new insights that contradict traditional knowledge and values. Nietzsche's aphorisms, through the very popularity which they enjoyed at the turn of the century, tended to reinforce this dichotomy. While they certainly displayed the caustic, critical attitude of one who philosophized with a hammer, in the process of popularization this quality often disappeared, so that only the brilliant form of Nietzsche's remarks was appropriated by dilettantes. In these popularized versions the aphorism devolves into hollow form, or into a vehicle for the clever formulation of banal "Lebenswahrheiten." This division between aphoristic platitude and aphoristically expressed critical insight is reflected in the applicative purpose of the aphorism: it can either serve the ends of propagandistic deception, beguiling its audience with a glamorous form that disguises its own, as well as its author's vacuity; or it can present ideological critique, demonstrating through its own dialectical reversals a method by which accepted truths are contravened, turned inside out to expose their shabby linings. Kraus conjures up this dual aspect of aphoristic expression in another of his aphorisms which reflects on the essence of this genre. Einen Aphorismus zu schreiben, wenn man es kann, ist oft schwer. Viel leichter ist es, einen Aphorismus zu schreiben, wenn man es nicht kann. (BW, 132)

On one level this text suggests that only those who have true ability to write profound aphorisms are aware of the difficulty involved in composing such texts; thus good aphorists find the creation of aphorisms difficult, while poor aphorists find it ail-too easy. Read on another level, this aphorism implies that it takes more than just rhetorical ability and desire to write profound aphorisms, for such texts derive ultimately from an inspiration beyond all ability and desire. Hence, true aphorisms "occur" to one when one least expects them. Regardless of which interpretive level one scrutinizes, this text leads ultimately to the same conclusion: namely, that there is a world of difference between the aphorism as mere well-wrought formulation, and the aphorism as brilliant insight, painstakingly formulated. The aphorist as dilettante is motivated by the mere technical desire to make, remaining insensitive to the creative subtleties of aphoristic form. The aphorist as inspired artist is motivated by an epiphanic insight and recognizes the labor involved in lending this insight a suitable linguistic form. 89

B) The Aphorism of Impression I have chosen the word "impression" to designate the less critically reflective of these two aphoristic types, in part because of the automatic association with "impressionism" which it evokes. As outlined above, a number of fundamental characteristics align aphoristic expression closely with the philosophy of impressionism. This proximity helps to explain the general flourishing of the aphorism at this time in Vienna, the center of literary impressionism. In the essay "Wahrheit, Wahrheit" (1891), Hermann Bahr gave paradigmatic expression to the crisis of truth as experienced by the Viennese impressionists. "Sensationen, nichts als Sensationen, unverbundene Augenblicksbilder der eiligen Ereignisse auf den Nerven - das charakterisiert diese letzte Phase, in welche die Wahrheit jetzt die Literatur getrieben hat."63 Obviously, the fragmentary, unsystematic form of the aphorism provided impressionists with a literary genre in which they could viably represent this philosophy of totally relativized, momentary truth. Where the world decomposes into a series of unrelated sensual perceptions, only fragmentary forms of expression such as the aphorism are commensurate with this disjointed reality. The aphorism becomes one of the literary counterparts of pointilism in pictorial art. Furthermore, it possesses numerous characteristics which relate it to the feuilleton, the acknowledged trademark of Viennese impressionistic literature. Both aphorism and feuilleton consciously strive to intermingle subjective and objective realms, ultimately questioning the very nature of such a distinction. Each calls attention to the occasionality of its stimulus, while simultaneously reducing this stimulus to a mere pretext for the unfolding of wholly personal, subjective, and often sentimental ponderings. Both forms rely heavily on that untranslatable quality of "Witz" to entertain or titillate their audience. Moreover, each tends to be a residual product of societal interaction. Finally, both forms tend to communicate indirectly more about their creator than they do directly about the object spoken or written of. One can easily imagine the importance aphoristic formulations must have had in the coffeehouse existence of Viennese intellectuals. The dialogic sketches of Altenberg and the dramatic dialogues of Schnitzler's plays bear testimony to the value this society placed on pointedly witty linguistic formulation. If in the Paris salons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the maxims of the French moralists both provided subject matter for conversation and displayed the linguistic and intellectual abilities of their creators, the aphorism functioned in Viennese coffeehouse society as the verbal trump-card in a game of social one-upmanship. 63

90

Hermann Bahr, "Wahrheit, Wahrheit," Zur Überwindung des Naturalismus, p. 84.

Role-playing comprised a fundamental aspect of Viennese life during the Jahrhundertwende. In much the same way that the Habsburg empire paraded an image of historical grandeur in the buildings of the Ringstraße, its citizens sought to project their own pretentious values in facades of dress and of language. More than a mere metaphor for life, the theater became identified with life itself. One imagines life in Vienna at this time as one neverending "Komödie," authored by Nestroy, in which the aphorism functions as a verbal tool by means of which one accomplishes both self-aggrandizement and the verbal subjugation of one's dialogic partners. This emphasis on the theatrical helps to define the paradox characteristic of Vienna's impressionistic generation: while seeking to relate to life with spontaneity and immediacy, these ostensible subscribers to life were only able to play at life. Thus their desire to live spontaneously was preempted by the very selfconsciousness with which they responded to this desire. The aphorism of impression can be identified with this paradox of impressionism insofar as it is indicative of an affected, deliberate, and detached attitude toward life. Indeed, the impressionistic aphorism manifests this paradox of "staged immediacy,'' this self-conscious consciouslessness associated with the figure of the dandy. Analyzing the fate of all literary decadence, Nietzsche wrote in Der Fall Wagner: Womit kennzeichnet sich jede literarische decadence") Damit, daß das Leben nicht mehr im Ganzen wohnt. Das Wort wird souverän und springt aus dem Satz hinaus, der Satz greift über und verdunkelt den Sinn der Seite, die Seite gewinnt Leben auf Unkosten des Ganzen - das Ganze ist kein Ganzes mehr . . . Das Ganze lebt überhaupt nicht mehr: es ist zusammengesetzt, gerechnet, künstlich, ein Artefakt. - (Werke, II, 917)

Subordination of the whole to the elemental and atomistic bespeaks an exaggerated emphasis on the fleeting and fragmentary. Ultimately, however, scepticism with regard to the whole gives way to the holism of the part. Fragments take on a microcosmic significance - they become "Gleichnisse" for the absent whole. For those who sacrifice their "selves" to a societal role, verbal showpieces such as the aphorism become the stand-ins for their absent self. In the words of Herbert Roch, the aphorism of this period "[wird] zur bloßen Paradoxie, zum formalen Spielzeug der Dekadenz und des Ästhetentums, zur Chrysantheme, die man im geistigen Knopfloch trägt."64 In this context the dual meaning of the designation "impression" for the aphorism of literary decadence comes to light. If, from the perspective of composition, the aphorism registers an impression made on the writer/speaker by some

Herben Roch, "Über den Aphorismus," Deutsches Volkstum, 17 (1935), 518. 91

external or internal event, from the perspective of audience reception the aphorism functions as a strategy for making an impression; that is, as a tool by means of which one impresses a self-conceived image of oneself upon one's social contacts. This second function of the aphorism of impression is paradigmatically portrayed in the sketch entitled "Agonie" from Schnitzler's Anatol. Max, Anatol's verbal sparring partner, is about to take leave of his troubled friend. At the door he suddenly stops and says to Anatol: "Ich kann unmöglich ohne Aphorisma abgehen!" After brushing aside Anatol's interruptions, Max recites the following aphorism: "Das Weib ist ein Rätsel: - So sagt man! Was für ein Rätsel wären wir erst für das Weib, wenn es vernünftig genug wäre, über uns nachzudenken?" Anatol responds to this recitation with shouts of bravo, to which Max bows in recognition and departs.65 Schnitzler's artistic control over his characters is demonstrated by the ironical commentary that, unbeknown to Max, his aphorism makes on the perverse interaction between the sexes which is characteristic of this dramatic world. Of course, Max's purpose in reciting this aphorism is purely theatrical. Anatol's bravos and Max's bow underscore the extent to which this performance is intended merely to leave Anatol with a calculated impression of Max's wit and sagacity. In addition, this aphorism performs a simple social function: it provides Max with artificial, formal closure for his departure, allowing him to leave on an emphatic - if not wholly appropriate - note. Max essentially employs aphoristic expression for the purpose of projecting the role with which he identifies. Thus he cleverly manipulates the impressionistic philosophy of the fragmentary to his own ends: in a world in which otherwise insignificant details take on overriding significance and symbolic value, one can control the impression one makes on others by presenting them with forceful, inflated details which give false testimony to one's character. The dandy calculates that others will make mountains out of his aphoristic molehills.66 Such superficial employment of the aphorism as an intellectual ornament is not without precedent in the tradition of this genre. English renaissance culture, for example, is noted for its memorization, hoarding, and timely "spending" of aphoristic remarks in an appropriate context.67 Not coincidentally, Francis Bacon's valorization of aphoristic expression as an appropriate methodological procedure for the scientist and philosopher evolved in this 65

66

67

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Arthur Schnitzler, Die dramatischen Werke, 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1962), I, 84-5. The significance of aphoristic pronouncements for the dandyistic type is well represented in Richard Schaukal's Leben und Meinungen des Herrn Andreas von Balthesser, eines Dilettanten und Dandy (Munich and Leipzig: Georg Müller, 1907). See Brian Vickers, "The Aphorism," p. 77.

context. Similarily, the widespread employment of such pretentious, inauthentic aphoristic turns of phrase in Viennese society could hardly help but evoke a critical response among those sensitive and sensible enough to penetrate this smokescreen. Responding to this proliferation of aphoristic pronouncements, Peter Altenberg - himself an aphorist by persuasion - diagnoses what he calls "'Aphorismen' spenden" as a symptom of "Größenwahn."68 In a similar vein, Musil recoils from the thought of someone who would constantly spout aphorisms, claiming: "Jemand, der auf einem Spaziergang zehn solcher Bemerkungen von sich gäbe, wäre unangenehm."69 The aphorism of "epiphany" evolves as one critical reaction against the deceitful and inauthentic use of language embodied in the aphorism of "impression." C) The Aphorism of Epiphany Numerous intellectuals of turn-of-the-century Vienna, among them Hofmannsthal and Musil, expressed a certain fascination for the epiphanic experience.70 Epiphany, we know, is a kind of mystical experience which occurs when some everyday object suddenly and unpredictably takes on an indescribable meaning, becoming in a momentary flash an indicator of transcendental significance. In the aphorism of epiphany everyday language functions as that commonplace object which is suddenly infused with a profound significance. Altenberg describes in the following way this epiphanic character inherent in the act of aphoristic creation: "Aphorismen sollen nicht 'ausgedachte' Wahrheiten sein, sondern momentane Erleuchtungen aus dem Unterbewußtsein."71 However, just as the aphorism of impression demonstrated its creative and receptive relevance, so too the designation "epiphany" refers both to the creative stimulus of the aphoristic text, and to the response which it evokes in its public. In its applicative function the epiphanic aphorism, in stark contrast to the aphorism of impression, becomes a critical tool. These aphorisms are structured in such a manner as to re-produce for the reader the epiphanic experience that led to their creation. Thus the aphoristic pointe, the startling turn so characteristic of the aphorism, seeks, in the aphorism of epiphany, to re-create for the reader this 68 69 70

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Altenberg, II, 161. Musil, Tagebücher, Aphorismen, Essays und Reden, . 542. On the role of epiphany in the literature of this period, see Theodore Ziolkowsky, "James Joyces Epiphanie und die Überwindung der empirischen Welt in der modernen deutschen Prosa," DVjs, 35 (1961), 594-616; Walter Hilsbecher, "Das Zeitalter des Fragments," Das Zeitalter des Fragments, ed. Horst Lehner (Herrenalb: Erdmann, 1964), p. 240. Altenberg, II, 232.

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momentary flash of insight. Hence one of the primary strategies of the epiphanic aphorism is to establish particular expectations in its reader, only to undercut them. In Vienna the ground for this aphorism of contra-diction was especially well prepared by the dissemination of the trivialized aphorism of impression. Thus, where the Viennese public might expect innocent humor or a game of stunning verbal acrobatics, the epiphanic aphorism served it a healthy dose of self-critique, laying bare its degenerate verbal pomp. In this manifestation the aphorism became the ideal medium for a critique of the "Sprachgebrauch" of this society, for it simultaneously could parody the shallowness of "theatrical" language - language used as an inauthentic guise - and demonstrate a more proper, profound, penetrating use of language. The aphorisms of Karl Kraus form a focal point for the consolidation and subsequent dissemination of this critically attuned aphorism of epiphany. While Nietzsche's model is certainly present in Kraus's employment of the aphorism as a polemical weapon in his crusade against shallowness and selfdeception, the playful satire of Lichtenberg's aphorisms also had a determining influence on the style and function of Kraus's aphoristic texts. Lichtenberg's aphoristic method exemplified for Kraus a kind of revelatory "digging," to use Kraus's metaphor, in which the audience is also encouraged to wield a shovel. Lichtenberg gräbt tiefer als irgendeiner, aber er kommt nicht wieder hinauf. Er redet unter der Erde. Nur wer selbst tief gräbt, hört ihn. (BW, 127)

In his literary archaeology, Lichtenberg refuses to unearth and openly display his finds; he requires, instead, that those wishing to share this treasure themselves become archaeologists. Kraus's comment, then, not only adequately describes Lichtenberg's method, it also highlights the demand that Lichtenberg and Kraus exact from their audiences. Kraus's readers are not asked merely to accept passively the "meaning" or insights of his aphorisms; rather they must actively participate in the discovery and production of this meaning. In the struggle to "understand" Kraus's aphoristic texts, the reader learns how to dig below the surface of language and uncover its hidden treasures. The conscious complexity of Kraus's texts serves to call forth this hermeneutical engagement of the reader. Kraus comments on his obscurity in the following text: Zu meinen Glossen ist ein Kommentar notwendig. Sonst sind sie zu leicht verständlich. (BW, 287)

By being cryptic, Kraus guarantees that those who wish to understand him will have to confront the complexity and subtlety of his language. In the act of deciphering the text that Kraus has enciphered, the reader produces an 94

interpretive commentary that evolves out of this interaction. Thus Kraus manipulates his readers, jockeying them into a position in which they must perform a hermeneutical task, insofar as they must "create" for themselves the meaning of his text. In this sense Kraus attempts to transfer to the reader his "epiphanic" insight into the profundity of language and the proper relationship to it; the reader, thus, undergoes an epiphanic experience in uncovering the meaning hidden deep within the text. Kraus goes so far as to define literary artistry in terms of this ability to conceal a "solution" behind the "riddle" of the text. Künstler ist nur einer, der aus der Lösung ein Rätsel machen kann. (#W, 338)

Kraus champions an interactive dialogue between creator and recipient in which the latter, through a process of hermeneutical reconstruction, rediscovers the insight which motivated the creator. The reader is subtly guided to an epiphanic experience in which the mystery of "meaning" is suddenly revealed. This revelation is accompanied by the pleasure of discovery as well as by pride in one's active role in distilling significance out of the text. The aphorism is a literary form perfectly suited to such a task because of its traditional association with such pronouncements as the oracular riddle. The role of the reader as "completer" of the aphoristic comment, as hermeneutical participant in the text's meaning, is constitutive of the genre.72 Of course, this characteristic corresponds to a conventional literary principle: the artistry of the unexpressed, or the sanctum silentium of literary aesthetics. Given the " Sprachmystik" of this generation, and the impact of Kierkegaard as mediated by the work of Theodor Haecker,73 the currency of this doctrine during the Jahrhundertwende is not surprising. Altenberg explicity subscribed to this method, writing in his "Selbstbiographie": "ich halte dafür: Was man 'weise verschweigt', ist künstlerischer, als was man 'geschwätzig ausspricht'. Nicht?!"74 The aphorism is one of Kraus's major weapons in his campaign for the critical enlightenment of his contemporaries. He describes this "pedagogical" endeavor in his essay "Die Sprache." "Abgründe don sehen zu lehren, wo Gemeinplätze sind - das wäre die pädagogische Aufgabe an einer in

On the relationship of the aphorism to oracular statements, see chapter one above and also György Nädor, "Über einen Aphorismustyp und seine antiken Vorläufer," pp. 8-12; on the reader's role as participant see Asemissen, p. 165; Grenzmann, p. 193. Theodor Haecker, Seren Kierkegaard und die Philosophie der Innerlichkeit (Munich: Brenner Verlag, 1913). Altenberg, I, 82.

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Sünden erwachsenen Nation."75 Armed with the rhetorical power of the aphorism, Kraus was equal to this task. The aphorism provided him with a form of expression in which he could hold the corrupt use of language up to the corrupters, while simultaneously engaging them in a process of reflection through which they themselves could discover the "abysses" lurking in their platitudes. One aphorism will serve to illustrate this technique. Der verfluchte Kerl, rief sie, hat mich in gesegnete Umstände gebracht! (BW, 42)

The gesture of quotation establishes a social context for this remark. Yet the isolation of the aphoristic utterance functions to extract the remark from any context, setting it apart and allowing it to be critically scrutinized. Thus the aphorism is neither divorced from the social situation in which its significance arises, nor is it submerged in this social context. The satirical effect of the text derives from the semantic tension arising from the contrastive interaction of the words "verflucht" and "gesegnet." Through this contrast, the thoughtless employment of the euphemistic phrase "in gesegnete Umstände bringen" is thrown into relief. The reader comes to understand how the words in this expression have lost their individual meaning and have frozen into cliche. While this technique is by no means restricted to Kraus's aphorisms, the contextlessness of the aphoristic remark highlights the internal contradictions in such unreflected "Sprachgebrauch.·1 This, in turn, contributes to the receptive effect of the aphorism and helps initiate that process of reflection on language which Kraus sees as his pedagogical task. Kraus applies the aphorism to an essentially didactic end, but one which is both subtle and profound. Instead of simply describing the perversions of language from which he recoils - the method a schoolteacher might use Kraus presents the perpetrators of such perversions with aphoristic texts in which these infractions are exposed in all their absurdity. Choosing an indirect method, Kraus allows his audience the pleasure of discovering the errors themselves - with the additional pedagogical reinforcement that accompanies this pleasure. Kraus's readers, then, re-enact the critical procedure which his aphoristic texts embody. This transferral of a critical method of reading is the central function of the aphorism of epiphany. If the aphorism of "impression" functions as a verbal ornament, hung out in public to bear witness to its creator's intellectual sagacity, the aphorism of "epiphany" exhibits a disposition toward the anti-ornamental, the purposive, the critical. In the latter instance, aphoristic language becomes a model for speech which is concisely reduced to its elemental components and which,

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Kraus, "Die Sprache," Die Sprache, ed. Heinrich Fischer (Munich: Kösel, 1954), p. 438.

transcending these confines, communicates a stunning insight. As Kraus himself admitted, his satirical artistry consisted in controlling the language of others, as he put it, while his own language might do with him what it wanted.76 Kraus's aphorisms represent one more satirical appropriation of the language of his Viennese contemporaries. Thus the epiphanic aphorism, as applied by Kraus, should be understood not as a simultaneous and coincidentally parallel form to the aphorism of impression, but rather as a calculated reaction against it. Kraus excelled at jumping on the linguistic proclivities of his fellow Viennese, transforming their vices into his virtues. His adoption of the aphorism is therefore not just a response to the inherent merits of this form of expression, but also a revolt against the hollow aphoristic pronouncements with which Viennese society masked its moral and intellectual shallowness. Kraus's influence on other Viennese intellectuals, especially on the early Wittgenstein, has been frequently noted and need not be examined in detail here.77 Central in this context is simply the recognition that Kraus's aphorisms, attempting to "show" what they cannot "say" - at least not with equivalent pedagogical force - prefigure in their literary practice the theory Wittgenstein was to evolve in the Tractatus. Significantly, however, Kraus not only influenced the substance of Wittgenstein's theory, but also the aphoristic form in which it was presented. Wittgenstein, moreover, assigns the same significance to the active interpretive participation of his reader as did Kraus. In the penultimate proposition of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein asserts: Meine Sätze erläutern dadurch, daß sie der, welcher mich versteht, am Ende als unsinnig erkennt, wenn er durch sie - auf ihnen - über sie hinausgestiegen ist. (Er muß sozusagen die Leiter wegwerfen, nachdem er auf ihr hinaufgestiegen ist.) Er muß diese Sätze überwinden, dann sieht er die Welt richtig. (6. 54)

The epiphanic aphorism is defined by this demand for participation, completion, and ultimate transcendence on the part of the reader. It attains this by prefiguring in its own structure the conditions through which the reader can re-create its initial insight. Kraus is the genius behind this method, and his model was imitated by many who followed. Aside from Wittgenstein, Egon Friedeil and Alfred Polgar deserve mention, although their aphorisms rarely manifest the skill and control evident in Kraus's aphoristic texts. 76

77

"Ich beherrsche nur die Sprache der ändern. Die meinige macht mit mir, was sie will." (BW, 326) See especially Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein's Vienna esp. pp. 81-90; and also Werner Kraft, "Ludwig Wittgenstein und Karl Kraus," Die neue deutsche Rundschau, 72 (1961), 812-44.

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I have attempted here to present some ideas which would help to explain the general prominence of aphoristic expression among turn-of-the-century Viennese writers. In defining the "impressionistic" and "epiphanic" aspects of aphoristic expression, I have sought to delineate the extremes in an extensive range of aphoristic types. While these polar extremes are not artificial constructs - indeed, they are concretely manifested in the aphoristic dialogues of Schnitzler's dramas on the one hand, and in the satirical-critical aphorisms of Karl Kraus on the other - it is nevertheless true that the aphoristic production of most Viennese writers of the time falls somewhere between these poles. Peter Altenberg's aphoristic production, for example, occupies the space midway between the extremes of the "impressionistic" and "epiphanic" aphorism. The "sociable" aphorisms of Hofmannsthal,78 to name just one other prominent example, reflect a productive appropriation and creative transfiguration of the purpose and function of the impressionistic aphorism. Nonetheless, only the concurrent existence and fruitful interpenetration of these opposing drives can explain the uncommon flourishing of the aphorism in the Austrian Jahrhundertwende. The following section is specifically concerned with the phenomenon of epiphany and the relevance of the aphorism as a means of expression through which Austrian intellectuals of the period sought to overcome the crisis of language.

III. Aphorism and Sprachkrise in Turn-of-the-Century Austria Acknowledgement of the formative role of the phenomenon commonly called "Sprachkrise" for the literature and philosophy of the Austrian Jahrhundertwende has become a literary-historical commonplace. As is the case with many overwhelmingly accepted notions, however, general agreement on the validity of this recognition has often forestalled investigation into the specific practices of writers and philosophers of this period which might be regarded as manifestations of this crisis of language. My intent in what follows is to investigate just such an instance in which the intellectual problematics of Sprachkrise and its concomitant Sprachkritik influenced particular methodological and formal practices informing specific works of authors touched by this phenomenon. My focal point will be the less established, if equally valid recognition that among Austrian intellectuals of this period, especially among those concerned with the crisis or critique of language, the

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The designation "sociable" ("gesellig") for the aphorisms of Hofmannsthal was introduced by Rainer Noltenius, Hofmannsthal - Schröder - Schnitzler: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des modernen Aphorismus, p. 5.

aphorism evolves into a significant genre in their repertory of literary or philosophical forms of expression.79 Among those Austrian writers affected by the Sprachkrise who also turned to the form of the aphorism at simultaneous or subsequent points in their creative lives one can count Kafka, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Musil, Kraus, and Wittgenstein, to name just a few. This section will examine the relationship of aphoristic form and Sprachkrise in works of the last four of these thinkers. In the instances of Hofmannsthal and Musil the object of analysis will not be their aphoristic texts, but rather narrative works which treat of the intellectual aporias indicative of the crisis of language and propose formal solutions reminiscent of those constitutive of the aphorism in their search to transcend the recognized limitations of linguistic expression. In the cases of Kraus and Wittgenstein the form of the aphorism is discussed as the fitting medium for their respective critiques of language. These analyses are preceded by a general introduction into the historical relationship obtaining between employment of the aphorism and the drive to experiment with and test the expressive possibilities of language, and by a summary of the fundamental intellectual issues of Sprachkritik as elucidated through the example of Fritz Mauthner's Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache. A) Aphorism and Sprachkritik Critics concerned with the nature of the aphorism have commonly associated production in this genre with a peculiar form of aphoristic thought whose salient characteristic is a polarity between rationality and mysticism. This conflict between logic and feeling, between the succinctly comprehensible and the unfathomable, crystalizes for many aphorists around questions about the limitations and potential of language as expressive medium.80 Aphorists are motivated by a desire to test the adequacies of language on two levels: structurally through the manipulation of syntactic and rhetorical mechanisms; semantically through such devices as word-play, metaphor, neologism, and pun. While in the first instance they sound out the potential inherent in the logic of language, in the second case they experiment with the illogical, metaphysical dimension of language. Yet the aphorist's experience

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80

See William Johnston, "The Vienna School of Aphorists 1880-1930: Reflections on a Neglected Genre," pp. 275-90. While Johnston correctly claims that the Vienna of this period was a "seedbed of aphorisms" (275), he does not investigate the intellectual, social, or political impeti behind the proliferation of this form of expression. See Helmut Arntzen, "Aphorismus und Sprache: Lichtenberg und Karl Kraus," pp. 323-38.

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of language as communicative medium remains ambivalent, reflecting fluctuation between faith and doubt with regard to the expressive capacities of language. While enjoying language's playfulness and richness of expression, aphorists simultaneously sense that such equivocality impedes precise, truthful expression; at the same time, they can laud language for its logical clarity, while suspecting that this lucidity merely falsifies the labyrinthine complexity of the world and of thought. The aphorism, with its quintessential tension between precise, apodictic, tightly-structured language and ambiguous, multi-layered statement, formalizes this discord. As Karl Kraus so aphoristically put it: "Der Aphorismus deckt sich nie mit der Wahrheit; er ist entweder eine halbe Wahrheit oder anderthalb" (BW, 161). Either way, one might claim, attempting to read between the lines of this text, an aphorism is structured around a half-truth, this being its direct, simple form which often smacks of the merely formulaic. However, while the trite aphorism never goes beyond this formulaic half-truth, the profound aphorism challenges it with a novel assertion. By fusing rhetorical "half-truth" with its own unique "whole-truth," the effective aphorism manages, according to another of Kraus's aphorisms, to wing beyond the stratified "truths" of society (BW, 117). As noted in the preceding chapter, aphorists are questers after truth; however, they do not understand truth to be given, unalterable, and transmitted by an infallible tradition. On the contrary, truth, like reality and thought, is considered to be in a constant process of dynamic change, and as such only approachable through incessant interrogation of that which has frozen into accepted "truth." This belief encourages aphorists to explode the temples of truth, exposing them as mere ideological deceptions; they attempt to infuse truth with a new dynamism that resists the temptation of precise definition, stagnation, reification. "Aufbauende Zerstörung" is the phrase which Franz Kafka used to describe this attitude, applying it to the essentially aphoristic method of Kierkegaard (cf. H, 125). Language, which neatly categorizes diverse thoughts and perceptions, ignoring difference and focusing on similarity, is largely responsible for the reification of truth. Consequently, this tendency must be fought in language itself. Thus the aphorism consciously fractures the conventionalized structures and concepts of language, while simultaneously exploiting this conventionality for its own ends. It portrays language as something that is complex in its simplicity, and simple in its complexity. By juxtaposing and intertwining ossified structures with subtle semantic nuances and paradoxes, the aphorism calls attention to the petrified half-truths of convention, while concurrently recombining the elements of language to reveal meanings that transcend established truths. We might say, then, waxing aphoristic for a moment, that aphorisms don't advance a truth, they advance truth. 100

B) Mauthner's Kritik der Sprache The proximity of the aphorist's "philosophy" of language to the problematics of the Austrian Sprachkrise is best elucidated by comparison with fundamental principles of Fritz Mauthner's Kritik der Sprache. As Walter Eschenbacher has argued, the importance of Mauthner's critique lies in the fact that it poignantly summarizes ideas that were widespread among Austrian intellectuals of the period.81 Thus Mauthner's contribution is not that of an original thinker advancing stimulating, seminal conceptions, but rather that of a popularizer of thoughts which had attained currency in intellectual circles. Hofmannsthal, therefore, plays down the influence of Mauthner's writings on his Ein Brief when responding to a query regarding the possible impact of the Kritik der Sprache on this text. While admitting his acquaintance with Mauthner's work, Hofmannsthal adds: "Meine Gedanken sind früh ähnliche Wege gegangen, vom Metaphorischen der Sprache manchmal mehr entzückt, manchmal mehr beängstigt."82 Hofmannsthals response is significant because it pinpoints the central issue of Mauthner's critique: language's metaphoricity. Expressing ideas strikingly similar to those in Nietzsche's essay "Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn," Mauthner conceives of language as a fundamentally metaphorical, and thus "mendacious," phenomenon. The very act in which language is created, the transformation of sense data into articulated sounds, is an act of metaphorization (KdS, II, 467-69).83 Due to this inherent metaphoricity, language cannot express "truth," which, for Mauthner, can only consist in the perfect identity of language with the objective reality it is intended to express. This inability to jettison the adequation theory of truth brings with it the linguistic scepticism characteristic of the Austrian Sprachkrise in its various manifestations.84 Mauthner concludes that language fails in what should be its primary task: the communication of knowledge (KdS, I, 86-90). He further emphasizes, in this context, the process of abstraction which makes language possible. Functioning only through the formation of types and categories, 81

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Walter Eschenbacher, Fritz Mauthner und die deutsche Literatur um 1900, Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe l, Bd. 163 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1977), pp. 122 & 124. Hofmannsthal's letter to Fritz Mauthner from November 3, 1902, Martin Stern, "Der Briefwechsel Hofmannsthal-Fritz Mauthner," Hofmannsthal-Blätter, 19-20 (1978), 33. Mauthner's Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache will be referred to with the abbreviation KdS, volume, and page number following the first edition (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1901-02). See Katherine Arens, "Linguistic Scepticism: Towards a Productive Definition," Monatshefte, 74 (1982), 150; Franz Deubzer, Methoden der Sprachkritik, Münchner germanistische Beiträge, Bd. 27 (Munich: Fink, 1980), p. 28. 101

language can never be adequate to a reality which knows only individuals and specific, distinct instances (KaS, I, 476). The conditio sine qua non of language and thought, so Mauthner, rests in the process of forgetting. Cognitive or linguistic classifications, concepts, are arrived at by the implacable ignoring of difference and the exclusive highlighting of similarity. Such concepts no longer accord with the phenomena of reality (Ac/5, I, 283). Sprachkritik as practiced by Austrians of the Jahrhundertwende was an essentially Janus-faced phenomenon. While the preceding comments relate the negative thrust, the characteristic "Sprachskepsis" of Mauthner and his contemporaries, this very scepticism commonly evoked an equal and opposite response, calling forth a "Sprachmystik" which affirmed the magical, metaphorical power of language.85 This leads, for Mauthner and for others, to a belief in the poetic, the aesthetic relevance of language. While metaphoricity inhibits language's capacity to communicate "truth," precisely this characteristic defines its appropriateness as a creative material, suited for poets, but not for scientists and philosophers (KdS, I, 97). Only this ultimate affirmation of metaphor could justify Mauthner's own predilection toward application of this figure of speech in his own writing. Indeed, Mauthner relies heavily on poignant metaphors, often expanded into conceits, for the exposition of his critique of language (Cf. KdS, I, 28, 81). Mauthner's equivocal evaluation of metaphor is indicative of the central paradox of all Sprachkritik: namely, that this criticism of language is necessarily dependent on the very medium it attacks. Hence Mauthner finds himself in the position of attempting to further "science" or philosophy while applying, quite consciously, an "artistic" medium. Use of language, despite logical scepticism in its efficacy, is legitimized by the mystical belief in language's metaphorical potency. Through this affirmative application of metaphor, language becomes, so to speak, its own metalanguage. Though himself employing systematic exposition, Mauthner praises forms of unsystematic, fragmentary expression as the only conceivable promoters of human knowledge (KdS, I, 645). He regards it as the "Gipfel der Skepsis . . ., dass es nämlich in der Geschichte des Menschengeistes immer nur sichere Beobachtungen, Aper$us gebe, nicht aber Gesetze, Urteile, Sätze" (KdS, I, 136). Mauthner continues, quoting Goethe from the eighth paragraph of the "Abhandlung über den Zwischenkieferknochen": 'Ein . . . , ein solches Gewahrwerden, Auffassen, Vorstellen, Begriff, Idee, wie man es nennen mag, behält immerfort, man gebärde sich wie man will, eine See Deubzer, Methoden der Sprachkritik, p. 28; C. A. M. Noble, Sprachskepsis: Über Dichtung der Moderne, Zusammenhänge der deutschen Literatur, Bd. l (Munich: edition text und kritik, 1978), p. 41. One is reminded as well of Nietzsche's characteristic re-affirmation of metaphor in the essay "Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn."

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esoterische Eigenschaft; im ganzen lässt sich's aussprechen, aber nicht beweisen, im einzelnen lässt sich's wohl vorzeigen, doch bringt man es nicht rund und fertig.' (KdS, I, 136).

The advancement of knowledge, then, does not occur through logical analysis and development, systematic progress, but rather through conceptual leaps, sudden insights of unknown origin, inspiration, meta-phor. The virtues of the aperfu, as described by Goethe and appropriated by Mauthner, ring similar to the characteristics of aphoristic expression. Especially this unnamable "esoteric quality," which cannot be rounded off or brought to a close, reminds one of the aphorism. Moreover, Goethe's emphasis on the non-provable which lets itself be shown ("vorzeigen") anticipates in rudimentary fashion Wittgenstein's celebrated distinction between showing ("zeigen") and saying in language. Subscribing to the characteristic world-view of this period, Mauthner conceives of reality as a chaos of non-related fragments (KdS, I, 351). Only fragmentary forms of thought and expression - the apercu, the aphorism are commensurate with such a reality. Not only do these fragments imitate the fragmentariness of reality, but they make no claim to permanence, to closure and finality; they resist being frozen into concepts. As we have seen, Mauthner's writing style in the Kritik der Sprache reflects only in the most superficial way his recognitions about the need for unsystematic formulation in order to approximate "truth." Mauthner's striking metaphors are intended to correspond to the brilliant "aperfus" defended by Goethe. It is certainly for this reason, and for his lack of scientific rigor, that Mauthner's style has been characterized as "aphoristisch-essayistisch."86 Indeed, Mauthner's metaphoric flights of fancy lend his treatise an air of the anecdotal, undermining its own serious intent. Thus his attempt to evolve a metaphoric "metalanguage" for the formulation of his critique of language is a questionable success. Nonetheless, it represents a halting first step in the progression which would culminate in Wittgenstein's application of aphoristic expression to accomplish this same end. C) Hofmannsthal's Chandos Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ein Brief is commonly regarded as the central literary document reflecting the crisis of language. Mauthner's belief that Hofmannsthal's text was written in response to his Kritik der Sprache underscores the extent to which the intellectual currents of this "letter" participate in the notions of Sprachkritik as represented by Mauthner. Indeed, the crisis

Eschenbacher, Fritz Mauthner und die deutsche Literatur um 1900, p. 126. 103

- or crises - described by the fictive Philip Lord Chandos bear striking resemblance to specific points of Mauthner's critique. Chandos' intial state of all-encompassing harmony is characterized by his being "mitten drinnen" in all of nature (PII, 10),87 a condition in which he senses his participation in, and control over the objects of the world (PII, 11). The first symptom of Chandos' crisis is the rupturing of this harmonic existence, which, in retrospect, Chandos terms "aufgeschwollene Anmaßung" (PII, 11). His new condition is signaled by a loss of control, an inability to combine the fragments of reality into a cohesive whole either in thought or in speech (PII, 11). At first Chandos is irritated by everyday abstractions, but this ultimately leads to a condition in which he can utter no judgment whatsoever, because, as he so artfully puts it, the words dissolve in his mouth "wie modrige Pilze" (PH, 12). The following passage from Mauthner's magnum opus underlines certain similarities in his and Hofmannsthal's conceptions. Attacking the overly abstract "Kultursprachen" used by poets and intellectuals, Mauthner writes: so hat der Dichter und der Denker unserer Zeit alle Wortfetische zweier Jahrtausende in seinem Gehirn beisammen und kann kein Urteil mehr fällen, kann kein Gefühl mehr ausdrücken, ohne dass die Worte wie ein gespenstischer Verwandlungskünstler auf dem Drahtseil ein Maskenkostüm nach dem anderen abstreifen und ihn auslachen und unter den Kleidern durch das Rasseln ihrer Knochen verraten, dass sie halbverweste Gerippe sind." (KdS, I, 215)

What stands out in this passage, aligning it closely with the Chandos-letter, is the degeneration of the ability to pass judgment, this being predicated on the insidious abstractions, "Wortfetische," in Mauthner's terminology, inherent in the cultivated languages. Moreover, Mauthner's specific rejection of the " Kultursprachen" relates directly to Chandos' abandoning of specific cultivated languages because they no longer serve to communicate what is important to him. Chandos, then, in his position as poet and thinker of the seventeenth century, recognizes the degenerate quality of the languages in which he is given to speak and write. However, more telling than even these resemblances is a common stylistic tendency shared by Mauthner and Chandos: their flight into metaphor at the crucial points of their exposition when words begin to fail them. While Hofmannsthal's metaphors are not as exaggerated and uncontrolled as Mauthner's, the fact remains that at those points when the expositional structure of the letter demands an emphatic and conclusive turn, Hofmannsthal/Chandos slips into metaphor or simile. Moreover, the images which Chandos chooses, far from placing a definitive Hofmannsthal's Chandos-letter is quoted from the edition Prosa H, ed. Herbert Steiner (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1951) and will henceforth be cited as PII with the page number. 104

stamp on his argument, often lead into unsettling equivocality, introducing that "esoteric quality" with which Goethe characterized the aper$u. Chandos' metaphors, like Mauthner's, represent his attempt to leap beyond the static abstractions and rhetorical logic of the cultivated languages, creating a freshness of expression that relates to the ever-freshness of a perpetually changing reality. Chandos' scepticism about the adequacy of language provides the basis for a uniquely mystical interaction with objects of the world. If in his original state of harmony Chandos experienced the entirety of the world as a subset of himself, viewing himself ns "swollen" macrocosm encompassing and controlling all reality, his mystical experiences consist in the subordination of the self to the world and its independent fragments. No longer manipulating, Chandos is manipulated, overwhelmed in certain unpredictable moments by various "Nichtigkeiten" which reveal to him the "Gegenwart des Unendlichen" (PH, 16). Chandos' macrocosmic subsumption of reality to his ego gives way to a microcosmic conception of the whole in which Chandos' ego is just one among infinite fragments reflecting the whole.88 In other words, the specific, the particular, becomes a kind of metaphorical encipherment of the whole, the vehicle through which the whole becomes accessible. One of Hofmannsthal's aphorisms from the Buch der Freunde expresses this relationship. "Nicht daß einer alles wisse, kann verlangt werden, sondern daß er, indem er um eins weiß, um alles wisse" (A, 35). This is the insight mediated to Chandos through the experience of his so-called epiphanies: discovering the whole in the elemental.89 "Denn es ist ja etwas völlig Unbenanntes und auch wohl kaum Benennbares," Chandos writes of his epiphanies, "das in solchen Augenblicken, irgendeine Erscheinung meiner alltäglichen Umgebung mit einer überschwellenden Flut höheren Lebens wie ein Gefäß erfüllend, mir sich ankündet" (PH, 14). Having lost his control over totalizing abstractions, Chandos despairs of his ability to express the essence of this "higher life." Thu* he repeatedly interjects comments about the futility of his attempt to describe these experiences in words (PII, 14, 15, 17). Comparing himself to Tantalus, Chandos explains how the "Geheimnisse des Glaubens" as well as "die irdischen Begriffe" recede from his longing grasp (PH, 11). In the same way, words merely "wrestle down" the "Cherubim" of his epiphanies (PII, 16), so that these mirages dissipate whenever Chandos approaches them with language. The

88

89

Cf. Hofmannsthal's retrospective analysis of just such a movement from macrocosmic to microcosmic in his own life (A, 234). Cf. Ziolkowski, "James Joyces Epiphanie und die Überwindung der empirischen Welt in der modernen deutschen Prosa," p. 599. 105

overriding paradox of Chandos' situation, as has frequently been noted,90 lies in his, according to most assessments, successful attempt at communicating that which he claims is ineffable. Linguistic limitation is overcome in specific practices adapted by Chandos in the composition of his letter, practices designed to recreate in language the epiphanic experiences to which Chandos is subjected. Chandos' transcending of language in language bears certain similarities to the notion of the aperfu as propounded by Mauthner, and to the general theory and practice of aphoristic expression. His epiphanies correspond closely to the flash of insight independent of rational argument that Mauthner associated with the term "apergu," itself closely aligned with the term "Einfall" as it is applied to describe the insight which motivates the formulation of an aphorism. Had Chandos or Mauthner searched for an established form of expression which would conform to the communication of their epiphanies or apergus, then the aphorism would certainly have offered itself as the appropriate form. In fact, the aphorism traditionally embodies what might be called a form of linguistic epiphany. Not only is the creation of the aphorism motivated by an epiphanic insight, it is also constructed in such a way as to program this insight into the reception of the text. In other words, the aphorism seeks to recreate through its characteristic pointe the epiphany that led to its own creation, communicating indirectly the individual experience which served as its motivating force. Hofmannsthal/Chandos, I wish to claim, succeeds in effecting the same type of indirect communication by employing techniques common to aphoristic expression. In doing so, his literary praxis moves well beyond Mauthner's rudimentary and overdone metaphorical re-enactment of his apersus.91 Before outlining this thesis, it is necessary to document Hofmannsthal's access to the intellectual considerations which give rise to aphoristic expression. This can be accomplished by re-investigating the significance of Francis Bacon, the addressee.of Chandos' letter, for the background of this text.92

90

91

92

See, for example, Erwin Kobel, Hugo von Hofmannsthal (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1970), p. 143; Karl Pestalozzi, Sprachskepsis und Sprachmagie im Werk des jungen Hofmannsthal (Zürich: Atlantis Verlag, 1958), p. 121; Martin Stern, "Briefwechsel Hofmannsthal - Fritz Mauthner," p. 30. Benjamin Bennett, "Chandos and His Neighbors," DVjs, 49 (1975), 330, interprets the irony of Hofmannsthal's text as the medium of its indirectly communicated message. On Hofmannsthal and Bacon see H.Stefan Schultz, "Hofmannsthal and Bacon: The Sources of the Chandos Letter," Comparative Literature, 13 (1961), 1-15; Gotthart Wunberg, "Rationale Epiphanie: Der Brief des Lord Chandos," Der frühe Hofmannsthal: Schizophrenie als dichterische Struktur, Sprache und Literatur, 25 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1965), pp. 106-17.

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In a letter of January 16, 1903 to his friend Andrian, Hofmannsthal indicates that his reading of Bacon's "essays" provided the stimulus for the composition of Ein Brief.93 H. Stefan Schultz and Gotthart Wunberg have documented the considerable influence of diverse texts by Bacon on the Chandos-letter, ranging from the Novum Organum to The Advancement of Learning and Bacon's collection of apophthegms.94 Especially Wunberg has elucidated the relationship between Bacon's critique of conceptual "idola" and Chandos' aversion to abstractions and simplifying generalizations. Indeed, in the initial propositions of Bacon's Novum Organum one finds a concise summary of the symptoms of Chandos' crises: from an attack on abstractions (aphs. 16 & 51); to a favoring of particular recognitions over generalizations (aph. 24), and the related conviction that we should abandon abstractions in favor of particular observations (aph. 36); to the description of words as "idols" which hinder rather than further understanding (aphs. 59-60).95 What is more, the form of Bacon's presentation is consciously and strictly adapted to his recognitions: he employs an aphoristic method, focusing on particulars while rejecting systematic connectedness and overriding abstractions. Bacon, we recall, recommended the aphoristic method for empirical investigation, and through Georg Christoph Lichtenberg his aphoristic model entered into the German literary tradition. The general impact of Bacon's thought on the content of HofmannsthaPs Chandos-letter, then, induces us to seek out manifestations of Bacon's influence in formal aspects of this text as well. Clearly, at least in this work, Hofmannsthal does not appropriate Bacon's aphoristic method. He does, however, apparently respond to a recommendation included in Bacon's Advancement of Learning. In Chapter XII, Book Two of this work, discussing the significance of citing the words of famous individuals when depicting the history of an epoch, Bacon writes: And not only the actions of mankind, but also their sayings, ought to be preserved, and may doubtless be sometimes inserted in history, so far as they decently serve to illustrate the narration of facts; but books of orations, epistles, and apophthegms, are the proper repositories of human discourse. The speeches of wise men upon matters of business, weighty causes, or difficult points, are of great use, not only for eloquence, but for the knowledge of things themselves. But the letters of

93

94

95

Hofmannsthal, letter to Andrian from January 16, 1903, Hofmannsthal - Andrian Briefwechsel, ed. Walter H.Perl (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1968), p. 160. Schultz, "Hofmannsthal and Bacon," pp. 6-7; Wunberg, "Rationale Epiphanie," pp. 108-10. Bacon's Novum Organum is cited by aphorism number from the edition Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum, ed James F. Creighton (London: The Colonial Press, 1900); References to the Advancement of Learning are cited by page number from this same volume. 107

wise men upon serious affairs are yet more serviceable in points of civil prudence, as of all human speech nothing is more solid or excellent than such epistles, (p. 61)

HofmannsthaPs letter appears as a response to numerous points made by Bacon in this passage. We recall, for instance, Chandos' plan to compose a collection of apophthegms along the lines described here (PII, 9-10). In addition, Chandos' insertion of the sayings of great men, especially the story of Crassus, serve, corresponding with Bacon's recommendation, "to illustrate the narration of facts." Finally, and most significant, is Hofmannsthal's choice of epistolary form, which Bacon praises as the highest manner of human speech, for the exposition of his ideas. It is in this sense, it seems to me, that we should understand Hofmannsthal's comment to Andrian that in writing the letter he sought to imitate the "Sprechton" of the seventeenth century.96 In other words, Hofmannsthal was striving to accomplish in his fictive epistle that "excellent" form of human speech of which, according to Bacon, "nothing is more solid." At the same time, of course, Hofmannsthal was motivated by personal considerations. In the same letter to Andrian he claims that the "Anreiz" to such a work would disappear if he were to express the personal content of the fictional letter in a direct, confessional manner. This consideration, then, could explain Hofmannsthal's avoidance of the more direct, personal form of the aphorism, since the voice of the author can be taken to be more perceptible behind such expression than it is behind the fictional epistolary form which Hofmannsthal eventually chose. Nonetheless, as we have seen, Bacon's influence is evidenced in this choice as well.97 When Hofmannsthal opts for the epistolary form in composing this text, the general purpose and structure of aphoristic expression are not wholly passed over. Chandos, as we have seen, repeatedly employs the metaphor of the overflowing vessel to communicate the fullness of his mystical epiphanies (PII, 14). Hofmannsthal, in an attempt textually to reproduce just such an experience, chooses the limiting vessels of epistolary form and the "Sprechton" of the seventeenth century. This he infuses with Chandos' "fieberisches Denken," his "Denken in einem Material, das unmittelbarer, flüssiger, glühender ist als Worte" (PH, 19). Typical of this letter, as well as of the form of the aphorism, is the introduction of a subjective content into what would otherwise be a purely sterile form. Hofmannsthal's text, viewed in this manner, represents a fusion of principles referred to, but individually rejected, by Chandos. Recalling his past literary plans, Chandos mocks his 96 97

Letter to Andrian, January 16,1903, Briefwechsel Hofmannsthal-Andrian, p. 160. Hofmannsthal's stated intention to create a series of such epistolary works (Briefwechsel Hofmannsthal - Andrian, p. 160) underscores the reliance on Bacon's conception of the value of such letters.

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naive faith in the power of rhetoric, citing its inability to penetrate "ins Innere der Dinge" (PH, 8); yet he unabashedly applies rhetoric in his own letter, as he himself admits (PII, 8).98 Likewise, writing of a planned history, Chandos enthusiastically details his "Erkenntnis der Form . . ., jener tiefen, wahren, inneren Form, die jenseits des Geheges der rhetorischen Kunststücke erst geahnt werden kann" and which "hebt [das Stoffliche] auf und schafft Dichtung und Wahrheit zugleich" (PII, 9). Again, while Chandos has ostensibly put aside the history which was to embody this recognition, the described method informs the composition of this very letter. What Chandos/Hofmannsthal achieves, in the spirit of the best aphorists, is an interpenetration of rhetorical structure and an "inner form" which transcends these rhetorical limits. Hofmannsthal/Chandos, while longing for a "new language" in which he will finally be able to express himself, actually effects in the formulation of these desires a restructuring, re-shaping, and re-applying of the "old language," forcing it to communicate beyond its admitted limitations. Hofmannsthal's response to this challenge reflects on a general level the response of the aphorist to the same challenge. Like the aphorist, he composes a text which is defined by strict structural and stylistic boundaries, while filling this insignificant "Gefäß" with equivocal metaphors and indefinable meanings that can only be sensed beyond these restrictions. Thus in its "inner form" this letter reproduces for the reader the epiphanic experiences described by its fictional character: language, of whose "Nichtigkeit" Chandos is complaining, takes on the ability of those other "Nichtigkeiten" which occasion Chandos' epiphanies, becoming a vessel filled out with inexpressible significance. D) Musil: Essayism and Aphoristics The importance of Hofmannsthal's Ein Brief for the interrelation of aphorism and Sprachkrise resides in the inscribing of the intellectual problematics of the crisis of language in a literary form which, reflecting structure and purpose of the aphorism, transcends these problems in the very act of describing them. The importance of Robert Musil's novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften for our topic rests in the theoretical description of the "Essay" as conceived in this novel and applied to its composition. While this novel does not constitute a radical transformation of the form of the historical novel per se, it does strive to adapt it to the conception of "essayistic" expression evolved by Musil's protagonist, Ulrich. The principles and characteristics of this "Essayismus" overlap almost exactly with those of aphoristic expression. 98

Cf. Bennett, "Chandos and His Neighbors," p. 329.

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Ulrich's world-view is informed by the same sense of fragmentation, relativity, flux, and instability that sparked Chandos' crisis. Ulrich senses, "kein Ding, kein Ich, keine Form, kein Grundsatz sind sicher, alles ist in einer unsichtbaren, aber niemals ruhenden Wandlung begriffen, im Unfesten liegt mehr von der Zukunft als im Festen, und die Gegenwart ist nichts als eine Hypothese, über die man noch nicht hinausgekommen ist" (MoE, 250). Ulrich's "qualitylessness" is an expression of his acceptance of, and adjustment to, this state of affairs; hence, in contrast to Chandos, he does not recoil in despair. Indeed, in his theory of the "Utopie des Essayismus" he tries to come to terms intellectually with this modern condition. Seeking a mode of expression which would circumvent the mendacity of the frozen concept, Ulrich, experiencing a kind of intellectual epiphany, formulates his theory of essayism. In Ulrich war später, bei gemehrtem geistigen Vermögen, daraus eine Vorstellung geworden, die er nun nicht mehr mit dem unsicheren Wort Hypothese, sondern aus bestimmten Gründen mit dem eigentümlichen Begriff eines Essays verband. Ungefähr wie ein Essay in der Folge seiner Abschnitte ein Ding von vielen Seiten nimmt, ohne es ganz zu erfassen, - denn ein ganz erfaßtes Ding verliert mit einem Male seinen Umfang und schmilzt zu einem Begriff ein - glaubte er, Welt und eigenes Leben am richtigsten ansehen und behandeln zu können. (MoE, 250)

Musil's novel, of course, employs this procedure in its own novelistic-essayistic structure, approaching the interrelation of the man without qualities with the world of "Kakania" from various sides." Ulrich ultimately arrives at a working definition of this mode of expression, claiming ein Essay ist die einmalige und unabänderliche Gestalt, die das innere Leben eines Menschen in einem entscheidenden Gedanken annimmt. Nichts ist dem fremder als die Unverantwortlichkeit und Halbfertigkeit der Einfalle, die man Subjektivität nennt, aber auch wahr und falsch, klug und unklug sind keine Begriffe, die sich auf solche Gedanken anwenden lassen, die dennoch Gesetzen unterstehn, die nicht weniger streng sind, als sie zart und unaussprechlich erscheinen. (MoE, 253)

Ulrich's notion of the essay as the form that the inner life of a person takes on in a decisive thought reminds us of Hofmannsthal's concern with the expression of personal content through the application of a particular form in the Chandos-letter. Musil, like Hofmannsthal, is careful to steer away from pure subjectivism. As he makes clear, the guiding principle of the essayist is not randomness, but rather a finely-tuned adaptability to ever-changing circumstances. Consequently, he can refer to the essay with the oxymoronic phrase "phantastische Genauigkeit" (MoE, 247), claiming, paradoxically, that it holds to the facts of a fluid reality, while so-called "pedantic exact99

On the essayistic character of MusiPs novel, see Marie-Louise Roth, "Essay und Essayismus bei Robert Musil," Probleme der Moderne, pp. 121-22.

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itude" (MoE, 247) clings to fantasy visions of a stable, unchanging world. The essay, then, is closely adapted to the flux and transience both of the material world and of the world of human values. Bound to the moment, it makes no claim to lasting truth, even welcoming contradiction or refutation. Speaking of the essayist, Ulrich defines him as a "paradoxe Verbindung von Genauigkeit und Unbestimmtheit" possessing "jene unbestechliche gewollte Kaltblütigkeit, die das Temperament der Exaktheit darstellt; über diese Eigenschaft hinaus ist aber alles andere unbestimmt" (MoE, 246-7). This description, of course, concisely defines the traditional attitude of the aphorist, whose "cold-blooded" drive toward exactitude is undercut by the equally strong desire for equivocality. Ulrich's essay, like the aphorism, traces a middle course between subjectivity and objectivity, truth and falsehood, science and literature.100 Hence Ulrich terms essayists "Meister des innerlich schwebenden Lebens," whose realm lies "zwischen Religion und Wissen, zwischen Beispiel und Lehre, zwischen amor intellectualis und Gedicht" (MoE, 253-4). Ulrich's theory of essayism directly addresses a dimension that Mauthner and Hofmannsthal merely hint at: namely, the sphere of the ethical.101 Ulrich's expressed goal in applying essayistic form is to find a manner of treating and viewing "Welt und eigenes Leben" in the most correct way (MoE, 250). This integration of the individual with society is the surpreme goal of all ethics. However, in a world infatuated with the notion of relativity, ethical propositions cannot take the form of unbending laws. They cannot be wholly objective, but neither can they be wholly subjective, for at these extremes violence is done either to the "law" or to the individual. Depicting the ambivalent situation of the essayist, Ulrich writes: "Ein Mann, der die Wahrheit will, wird Gelehrter; ein Mann, der seine Subjektivität spielen lassen will, wird vielleicht Schriftsteller; was aber soll ein Mann tun, der etwas will, das dazwischen liegt?" (MoE, 254). The implied answer to this rhetorical question is: Become an essayist! When Ulrich, expanding on this problem of the "dazwischen," gives examples of statements that fall into this nether realm, he specifically mentions ethical propositions. "Solche Beispiele, die 'dazwischen' liegen, liefert aber jeder moralische Satz, etwa gleich der bekannte und einfache: Du sollst nicht töten. Man sieht auf den ersten Blick, daß er weder eine Wahrheit ist noch eine Subjektivität" (MoE,

100

101

Cf. Musil, Tagebücher, Aphorismen, p. 1317; Marie-Louise Roth, "Essay und Essayismus bei Robert Musil," p. 124, also points out, without going into detailed analysis, that Musil's conception of the essay closely approaches the traditional idea of the aphorism. Benjamin Bennett notes the ethical element in the Chandos-letter, "Chandos and His Neighbors," pp.329 & 331. Ill

254). Ulrich's essay, then, like the aphorism, must function in the manner of the moral proposition, couching subjective reflection in apodictic, objective language. While the form of the proposition might imply an irresistible imperative, the substance must remain equivocal so that no clear-cut response appears appropriate. "Aesthetic" openness softens the moral imperative, allowing it space for fluctuation, infusing it with an adaptability that permits it to be construed ever anew according to changing circumstances. Writing on the form of the essay, Musil gave expression to the fusion of ethics and aesthetics that he associated with this genre: "Für mich knüpfen sich an das Wort Essay Ethik und Ästhetik."102 The final two Austrian thinkers to be discussed here, Karl Kraus and Ludwig Wittgenstein, also associated a combination of ethics and aesthetics with a particular form of expression. In their cases, however, this genre no longer parades under such appellations as "essay," something which is evolved in theory, but practiced only on a limited scale within the expository framework of a novel: the aphorism finally receives its just recognition as a suitable medium for the expression of a critique of language. E) Karl Kraus: Aphorism and Critique of Sprachgebrauch Karl Kraus's position with regard to Sprachkrise and Sprachkritik displays a markedly different complexion than that of Mauthner and Hofmannsthal. If for the latter Sprachkritik arose from a crisis predicated on scepticism about the sufficiency of language in general as a medium of communication, Kraus was never touched by such doubts. Securely believing in the communicative power of language and in his own ability to wield this power, Kraus directed his critiques at the misuse of language perpetrated by his contemporaries. Here one must follow the suggestion of Hans-Jürgen Heringer and distinguish, applying Saussurian terminology, among different objects of Sprachkritik: 1) critique of "langage," of the fundamental capacity of language in general; 2) critique of "langue," of the specific body of utterances possible within a given language; 3) critique of "parole," of specific utterances of individual speakers.103 To be sure, in practice the divisions between these three modes of Sprachkritik can be fluid, hence it is not always possible to achieve a clear-cut delineation. Still, generally speaking, Mauthner's and Hofmannsthal's objections to language tend to fall into the first category, 102

103

Musil, Tagebücher, Aphorismen, p. 1334. On the ethical import of aphoristic expression see Hans Margolius, "Aphorismen und Ethik," Der Aphorismus, pp. 293-304. Hans-Jürgen Heringer, "Karl Kraus als Sprachkritiker," Muttersprache, 77 (1967), 256.

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whereas Kraus's critiques generally belong to the third group, concentrating on the exposition of language's misuse in the "parole" of others.104 While retaining its distinctiveness, Kraus's brand of Sprachkritik demonstrates many similarities with that of his fellow Austrians. In particular the intellectual presuppositions upon which Kraus's "philosophy" of language is based adhere to principles coherent with the general background of the Sprachkrise. As we have repeatedly seen, at the heart of the language crisis lies a "truth" crisis: specifically, the problematization of the adaequatio theory of truth.105 While Mauthner and Hofmannsthal view the breach between language and reality as one embedded in the very essence of language ("Iangage"), Kraus locates this discrepancy in deviations from an ideal "Sprachgebrauch" in which word and reality are viewed as united. Thus, while Mauthner and Hofmannsthal's Chandos can do little more than long for this reinstatement of "truth," Kraus believes that it must be actively striven for. Correspondence between language and reality is not inherently given, it must be accomplished in every utterance.106 It would be grossly incorrect, however, to accuse Kraus of mere stylistic nit-picking. He lambasts discord between linguistic expression and the reality it intends to describe because such language is ultimately deceptive, consciously or unconsciously distorting reality. However, instead of resigning himself to the ubiquity of misleading, improper language, Kraus turns to active struggle. The aphorism becomes an important weapon in Kraus's linguistic arsenal. Aside from its adaptability to a polemical purpose, the aphorism inherently possesses many of the linguistic virtues Kraus champions. Among these is the merit of brevity, programmatically defended in this aphorism: "Schein hat mehr Buchstaben als Sein" (BW, 267). On the literal level this aphorism states a simple fact: that the word "Schein" contains more letters than the word "Sein." On a deeper level, however, it proposes that verbosity is indicative of "Schein," or obscurantist language, whereas brevity manifests a will to truth, or "Sein." Kraus's aphorism itself provides an example of just such laconic language which reveals a profound significance lurking behind its superficial simplicity. Clarity of expression, then, is merely the surface aspect which signals hidden complexity. Das Unverständliche in der Wortkunst.. . darf nicht den äußeren Sinn berühren. Der muß klarer sein, als was Hinz und Kunz einander zu sagen haben. Das Geheimnisvolle sei hinter der Klarheit. Kunst ist etwas, was so klar ist, daß es nie-

104 105 104

Heringer, "Karl Kraus als Sprachkritiker," p. 260. Deubzer, Methoden der Sprachkritik, p. 28. Heringer, p.262; Jay Bodine, "Karl Kraus's Conception of Language," MAL, 8 (1975), 306 & 308; J. Bodine, "Paradigms of Truthful Literary and Artistic Expressivity: Karl Kraus and Vienna at the Turn of the Century," GR, 56 (1981), 44.

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mand versteht. Daß über allen Gipfeln Ruh' ist, begreift jeder Deutsche und hat gleichwohl noch keiner erfaßt. (BW, 434)

Kraus exploits this complexity in simplicity in his application of aphoristic expression. No other literary form is so adequate to the task of presenting a universally comprehensible external sense while divulging a secretive, not wholly graspable significance behind this clarity. Kraus also made use of the aphorism as a means for revealing and combating superfluous abstraction in language. If for Mauthner and others the tendency toward abstraction was construed as an essential characteristic of language, responsible for its debilitation, Kraus again located this quality in the misuse of language and set out on a merciless campaign to unmask thoughtless abstractions, leading language back to concrete sense. This is the essence of Kraus's program of "taking thought by the word," as he called it (BW, 236). Kraus's penchant for plays on words, often constructed around the contrast between concrete and abstract meanings, is one manifestation of this battle against abstraction. Another is his debunking of formulaic utterances devoid of individual content. In a society which wore senseless phrases as a cover for its emptiness, Kraus indefatigably sought to fill out these hollow linguistic shells, exposing the banality they tried to mask. Consequently, Kraus turned against all forms of stagnant phrase, whether proverb, cliche, polite formula, or dictum. Not even the great sayings of famous poets and thinkers are spared his annihilating parodies, since these so often are programmatically applied as the crutches for a lame "culture." The aphorism offers itself as a perfect genre for the execution of such a program. Especially in the hands of Nietzsche the aphorism had proven its effectiveness as a parodistic device and as a weapon in the war against established values. Kraus brings this tradition of the parodistic aphorism to its zenith. Because of its inherent tendency to play off paradoxes, puns, equivocalities, etc. against the rigidity of formulaic, rhetorical structures, the aphorism lends itself well to Kraus's purpose. While betraying the inadequacy of reified expressions, the aphorism simultaneously demonstrates the capacity of language to achieve thoughtful profundity even within these confines. The ethical dimension of aphoristic expression is also a reflex of the essential duality outwardly manifest in its tension between content and form. In ethical terms, the aphorism thematizes the problematical relationship of general and specific, the former represented in its universalizing form, the latter in its individual content.107 Franz Deubzer has represented Kraus's Sprachkritik as a critique of the power of judgment, of the ability to trans107

This is the central position of Gerhard Neumann's theory of the German aphorism; see his Ideenparadiese, pp. 39, 69-75; and also his "Einleitung" to the volume Der Aphorismus, pp. 5-10.

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pose empirical observation into generalized abstraction and subsequently relate the latter back to the former.108 Musil, we remember, defined "essayism" as the art of statements which lie between these two poles. Kraus places the aphorism in the service of an analogous goal. Indeed, the dialectical interplay of general and specific, which defines the dynamics of aphoristic expression, makes it the ideal medium for such a task. Much more than this, however, the aphorism at once combines lesson with example. That is, the aphorism displays a didactic function insofar as it not only portrays the successful integration of universal and particular in a dynamic system of mutual interplay, it also involves its readers in this process, confronting them with the necessity of shifting from general to specific and vice versa in order to re-produce the "secret" in the text. In the operation of deciphering the aphorism's "hidden" message, then, the reader must enter the interplay in which instance and rule, concrete and abstract, universal and particular carry on a contrapuntal dialogue. The manner in which Kraus's aphorisms serve as a didactic model for the effective penetration of language can be elucidated through one example. Die Verzerrung der Realität im Bericht ist der wahrheitsgetreue Bericht über die Realität. (BW, 229)

We should first note the simple, almost mechanical structure of this text. Combining syntactic parallelism, the copula "sein," structural reversal, and semantic contrast, this aphorism arrives at the paradox that distortion is a symptom of truth. In newspaper reports, this text claims, distortion of reality is the ultimate statement on the condition of reality. Thus Kraus describes how a "truth" profounder than the ostensible truth depicted on the surface of language can be attained through critical reading. He demonstrates how language must be read against the grain, going beyond what it merely says to what it is a manifestation of. This critical process is modelled in the operation required of the reader in order to decipher Kraus's aphorisms. Consequently, Kraus justifies the obscurity of his writing, claiming that it forces the reader to compose a commentary, that is, actively work toward interpretation (cf. BW, 287). Each of Kraus's aphorisms, then, forces its reader to practice that act of deciphering and interpretation which Kraus believes should be at work whenever one is confronted with language. The demonstrative aspect of aphoristic expression lends it a meta-communicative function. The achievement of a "metalanguage" through which critical reflection on language might find an appropriate medium of expression was a priority for all the representatives of the Austrian Sprachkrise. What Mauthner attempted with his metaphorical fancies, Hofmannsthal 108

Deubzer, pp. 61-2. 115

with his personalization of historical fiction, and Musil with his essayistic novel, was traditionally manifest in the aphorism. Kraus productively appropriated this traditional mode of expression to accomplish his "metacritique" of language through language. The aphorism paradigmatically portrays Kraus's belief "daß Sprache nicht bloß das, was sprechbar ist, in sich begreift, sondern daß in ihr auch alles was nicht gesprochen wird erlebbar ist [sie]; daß es in ihr auf das Wort so sehr ankommt, daß noch wichtiger als das Wort das ist, was zwischen den Worten ist."109 The meaningfulness of the silence between and beyond words was to figure centrally in Wittgenstein's aphoristic treatise the Tractatus logico-philosophicus. F) Wittgenstein's Tractatus The impact of Kraus's Sprachkritik both on Wittgenstein's thoughts on language and on his choice of aphoristic form as the medium of these thoughts has often been commented upon and need not be dealt with here.110 My remarks will be restricted to an exposition of the integral role of aphoristic form in the Tractatus, relating this to the general crisis of language and the ethical thrust of Sprachkritik. Wittgenstein's "sagen'Vzeigen" distinction delineates the dual capacity of linguistic communication. "Was sich in der Sprache ausdrückt," Wittgenstein writes, "können wir nicht durch sie ausdrücken" (TV, 4. 121). He continues: "Was gezeigt werden kann, kann nicht gesagt werden" (Tr, 4. 1212). Wittgenstein indicates that there are definite limits to what one can consciously, i. e. intentionally utter through language; this, however, is distinct from that which is expressed in language itself. Thus he, like Kraus, situates this transcendental capacity in specific utterances, in "parole," and not in "langage." That is, for Wittgenstein, too, such transcendental significance is only manifest in proper use of language. Proper use, in this context, is defined as the application of language with full consciousness of, and in total accord with, its recognized restrictions. Only utterances restricted to saying the sayable, resisting the temptation to infringe on the proper sphere of silence, accomplish simultaneously a showing of the showable, with its ineffable "truth." In adhering to limitations, paradoxically, limitation is

109 110

Karl Kraus, "Bei den Tschechen und bei den Deutschen," Die Sprache, p. 343. On the influence of Kraus on Wittgenstein see Dagmar Barnouw, "Loos, Kraus, Wittgenstein and the Problem of Authenticity," Turn of the Century: German Literature and Art 1890-191 }, pp. 267-70; Gottfried Gabriel, "Logik als Literatur?: Zur Bedeutung des Literarischen bei Wittgenstein," Merkur, 32 (1978), 360-62; Werner Kraft, "Wittgenstein und Karl Kraus"; Janik and Toulmin, Wittgenstein's Vienna, pp. 199-207.

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overcome. This, on one level, is the ethical import of the Tractatus, teaching, as it does, transcendence through adherence. Wittgenstein's choice of aphoristic expression for communicating the ideas laid out in the Tractatus is no coincidence. His concern with the essential structure of language, and his identification of structure with the ethical dimension, demanded a mode of expression in which structure and ethical implication figure prominently. No form other than the aphorism so represents the unification of fundamental linguistic structures with a transcendental significance. Wittgenstein hints at the metaphyiscal significance of his own statemenis when he claims in his penultimate proposition that whoever understands his words will transcend them (Tr, 6. 54). The aphorism exemplifies a reduction of an utterance to its atomic elements and its elementary propositions, while showing that such laconic language is capable of hinting at an indefinable meaning, an unutterable essence. As Kraus put it: "Einen Aphorismus kann man in keine Schreibmaschine diktieren. Es würde zu lange dauern" (BW, 116). Among the multiple meanings of this aphorism is the idea that despite - or better, because of - its succinctness, the aphorism harbors a complex of meanings that defy mechanical expression. Wittgenstein employed the aphorism because it paradigmatically embodied these diverse yet interrelated functions of language. While working within a narrowly defined space of the utterable, the aphorism is yet able to portray aesthetically, to hint at transcendental significance. Wittgenstein's Tractatus represents a culmination of trends evident in Austrian Sprachkritik of this period. Like Kraus, Wittgenstein presents a solution to the aporia of the Sprachkrise, the achievement of a metalanguage whose capacities would transcend those of ordinary language, by turning the problem on its head. Radically blocking off the "beyond," Wittgenstein turns back into ordinary language itself. The solution lies not in going further beyond language, but rather in returning from beyond it, adjusting language usage to language's inherent limitations. Language's expressibility is increased not by expansion, ever-greater abstraction, but rather by reduction to elementary components and immanent meanings. The aphorism served as the model of just such reduced utterances. In his autobiography, Fritz Mauthner claimed of his Sprachkritik that it represented "ein verzweifelter, letzter Versuch, die Geistesbrücke zu schlagen zwischen dem notwendigen erkenntnistheoretischen Idealismus und dem ebenso notwendigen praktischen Lebensrealismus. " U1 Goethe expressed a similar recognition of the need for mediation between the realms of idea and experience in his essay "Bedenken und Ergeben," stating "daß

Fritz Mauthner, Prager Jugend jähre, p. 220 f. . 117

zwischen Idee und Erfahrung eine gewisse Kluft befestigt scheint, die zu überschreiten unsere ganze Kraft sich vergeblich bemüht."112 This attempt to bridge the spheres of abstract and concrete, of individual and general, subject and object; this desire, in other words, to establish a mode of expression which might communicate that practical wisdom which Aristotle termed phronesis,ni was, as Mauthner indicates, the driving force behind the crisis and critique of language in turn-of-the-century Austria. At the same time, as I have tried to show, this intellectual dilemma shaped the evolution of the aphorism in Germany and Austria, defining its characteristic ethical dimension, termed "transcendental moralism" by Gerhard Neumann.114 In both cases investigation of, and experimentation within, the space of this ethical dimension, especially regarding the problematical integration of universal and particular, was paradigmatically carried out in the realm of language. This coincidence of the intellectual impeti underlying the critique of language and the intellectual problems with which the aphorism is traditionally concerned led Austrian thinkers of this period to apply the aphorism as a medium through which to attempt a resolution of this crisis of language.

112 113

114

"Bedenken und Ergeben," Goethes Werke, "Hamburger Ausgabe," 14 vols., ed. Dorothea Kühn, et al. (Hamburg: Christian Wegner Verlag, 1955), XIII, 31. The relevance of the concept of phronesis for literary hermeneutics has been emphasized by Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, pp. 18 f. & 296-300. Neumann, Ideenparadiese, pp.58; 68f.; 79; "Einleitung," Der Aphorismus, pp. 8-10.

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CHAPTER THREE

Kafka: Aphoristic Text and Aphoristic Context

The initial two chapters of this study have concerned themselves with establishing two distinct yet complementary contexts with reference to which new understandings of Kafka's aphoristic texts, and the impulses that led to their creation, can be won. The present chapter aims at an initial juxtaposition of the issues which concerned Kafka in his life and art to those problems associated here with "aphoristics" and the intellectual crises of the fin de siede generation in Austria. It must be kept in mind that the contexts employed here are not necessarily absolute horizons against which one can understand the "phenomenon" of Kafka; rather they are applied with the relative and limiting purpose of defining Kafka's intellectual dilemmas in relation to those of his Austrian contemporaries; further, we hope to gain an understanding of Kafka's aphorisms and the impulse which motivated their creation within the context of the literary aphorism in Germany and Austria. A few words of methodological justification are in order. The procedure of contextualization has frequently been applied to Kafka and his literature, with varying degrees of success. One thinks immediately of the seemingly omnipresent attempts to define the nature of Kafka's life, language, and literature in terms of the multiple-ghetto experience of German-speaking Jews in Prague.1 On the deep-methodological level, at least, this approach is hardly different from those which contextualize Kafka and his works using Freudian psychology, existential philosophy, or variously defined literary, social, and intellectual movements. What makes Kafka somewhat unique is the manner in which his work appears to demonstrate its Darwinian surviva1

The "poverty" of the Prague-German dialect, once thought to have had a determining influence on Kafka's literary style, was first diagnosed by Fritz Mauthner; see his Prager Jugendjahre: Erinnerungen, p. 49; see also Peter Demetz, "Noch einmal Prager Deutsch," Literatur und Kritik, l (Sept., 1966), 58-59; Emil Skala, "Das Prager Deutsch," Weltfreunde, ed. Eduard Goldstücker (Prague: Academia, 1967), pp. 119-25; Pavel Trost, "Franz Kafka und das Prager Deutsch, Germanistica Pragensia, 3 (1964), 29-37; P.Trost, "Und wiederum Prager Deutsch," Literatur und Kritik, l (Dec., 1966), 107-8; Klaus Wagenbach, Franz Kafka in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Rowohlts Monographien, 91 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1964), p. 56.

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bility, showing itself able to "adapt" its characteristics according to the diverse environments into which it is placed.2 This fact alone indicates that such contextualizations can only offer conclusions relevant to the established contexts; the results of such investigations, in other words, are valid only within the confines of well-defined methodological purposes. Obviously, one must avoid selecting contexts which, for example, are anachronistic or otherwise far-fetched in order not to restrict or undermine the applicability of the results. At the same time, one must guard against the temptation of "totalization," of drawing too general and universalizing conclusions and thus transgressing one's own self-imposed limitations. This is the temptation to which allegorizing interpretations generally succumb, ignoring the difference of text and context and joining them into an integrated whole without breaks and fissures. This caveat must seem especially valid for investigations of Kafka's aphoristic texts, since it is constitutive of the aphoristic genre that it suppresses the totality in favor of the part, and problematizes the movement from text to foundational context.3 The contextualizing procedure employed here is applied with awareness of its restrictions. In this sense our method is in line with the "initiative" method described by the aphorist Francis Bacon: the contextualization of Kafka's thought and aphoristic works serves an experimental purpose, striving to offer new perspectives on Kafka's aphoristic production and the factors which motivated it - perspectives which then must be weighed and tested to determine their validity and usefulness beyond the contexts established here. At the same time, the contextualizing procedure can be justified in terms of hermeneutic theory; here again it is significant to emphasize the open, undogmatic confrontation of text with the pre-determined horizon of understanding, allowing for that interaction of text and context that is characteristic both of hermeneutics, and of the aphoristic method. The goal of the present chapter, these prefatory remarks having been made, is to demonstrate the profitability of embedding Kafka's intellectual crises and his turn to the form of the aphorism in the context of Austrian letters at the turn of the century. Thus this investigation begins by arguing against Prague, a too restrictive context, and for the broader orientation of Kafka in the fin de siede Austrian atmosphere. The next section documents aphoristic tendencies in Kafka's verbal and written style throughout various periods of his life, attempting to demonstrate that Kafka's concentration on

This is one manner of describing the so-called "multi-valency" of Kafka's texts, their seemingly infinite interpretability. This is the fundamental error of all those approaches to Kafka's aphorisms mentioned in the introduction which seek to discover in these texts a "Weltanschauung" or systematic philosophy. 120

the aphorism later in his life represents the exploitation of a deeper penchant for aphoristic expression. The major portion of the chapter will then be taken up by two intellectual-historical investigations: the first examines the intellectual crises of Kafka's life in terms of "aphoristics," i. e. those intellectual issues associated in the first two chapters with the development and use of the aphorism; this then leads directly into the second issue, an analysis of Kafka's aphoristic method, emphasizing the function of the aphorism for Kafka as an attempt to overcome his lifelong crisis of communication.

I. Kafka and Turn-of-the-Century Austria Franz Kafka was, among other things, an Austrian writer. While this appears to be an ail-too obvious assertion, it is nevertheless one which is ail-too often overlooked. The early obsession with Kafka's Prague, and with the mythology that evolved around this city and its artists, is largely responsible for the diversion of scholarly energy from the examination of other contexts that are equally as relevant for Kafka and his work. For many the "mystique" of Prague and the crises of the multiple ghetto were the direct correlates of the mystique and crises of Kafka's texts, so that Prague was imagined as the very incarnation of the "Kafkaesque."4 The irony of the myth of Prague, as Claudio Magris has pointed out, is that it was evoked, substantiated, and sustained by the Prague artists themselves.5 Magris claims that these artists responded to the contradictions preferred them by the Prague environment by conjuring up visions of Prague as a "verzaubertes Reich."6 However, it has rarely been asked whether the contradictions of Prague were really greater than those, say, of Vienna; or why "mythology" would be an appropriate response to Prague but not to Vienna. Indeed, while accusing others of succumbing too easily to the "myth" of Prague,7 Magris himself is guilty of abetting this mythology, assuming from the outset that Prague really is somehow "different," an environment which is so unique as to function formatively - to the exclusion of other factors - on the development of its "sensitive" artistic residents. Instead of banishing the myth of Prague, Magris focuses on its aetiology, investigating the factors that led to its creation. As an alternative to Magris' approach, one might condemn the Prague myth as a self-indulgent self-invention of a "province" struggling to keep up

4

5 6 7

See Claudio Magris, "Prag als Oxymoron," Neohelicon, 7 (1980), 12-15; cf. also the essays on Kafka and Prague cited in note 1 above. Claudio Magris, "Prag als Oxymoron," p.2. "Prag als Oxymoron," p. 12. "Prag als Oxymoron," p. 15. 121

with the artistic or literary reputation of the nearby capital city. It was the creators of this mythology themselves, in other words, who could expect to benefit most from its dissemination. Max Brod's institutionalization of the "Prager Kreis" is just one more such mythologization in which self-definition and self-interest are suspected as the motivating factors.8 Brod, of course, portrays Kafka as an integral member of this Prague circle, subsuming his art under this broader category. However, it seems more correct to say that the "Prager Kreis" was defined by Kafka's inclusion in it, and that without Kafka it would not have received the considerable literary-historical attention it has subsequently earned. This is also true to some extent of the Prague myth, which was certainly shaped by the reception of Kafka more than the reception of Kafka was determined by it. Ernst Fischer was one of the first scholars openly to challenge this narrow definition of Kafka as a "local" poet.9 Fischer argued that Prague was nothing more than a microcosmic representation of the Habsburg monarchy; indeed Prague was for him "die zur Stadt gewordene Problematik der Monarchie."10 Still, Fischer perhaps made too much of Kafka's occupation as "Beamter," consequently emphasizing the relationship between the unwieldy bureaucratic structures of the Habsburg empire and Kafka's portrayal of impenetrable, cumbersome bureaucracies. Andrew Weeks has sought to underpin this thesis by supplying documentary evidence in support of the notion that Kafka's portrayal of the problematical "Dienstverhältnis" was true to actual conditions in the empire.11 Apt as these observations are, they should not divert attention from some of the profounder connections between Kafka and the society and culture of fin de siede Austria. Certain aspects of Kafka's thought, above all his incessant critique of the expressive capacities of language, have often been viewed in relation to intellectual developments in Austria.12 Of special significance in the present context is Peter Cersowsky's orientation of Kafka's thought and works in the phenomenon of literary decadence.™ Cersowsky advocates, as I do as well, the freeing of Kafka and his works from the extreme literary-historical

Max Brod, Der Prager Kreis (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1966). Ernst Fischer, "Franz Kafka," Von Grillparzer zu Kafka (Vienna: Die Buchgemeinde, 1962), pp. 289-94. Fischer, "Franz Kafka," p. 289. Andrew Weeks, "Kafka und die Zeugnisse vom versunkenen Kakanien," Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 3 (1983), 320-27, esp. p. 327. See Kurz, Traum-Schrecken, p. 197; Susanne Kessler, Kafka - Poetik der sinnlichen Welt, pp. 5-23; Günter Heintz, Frank Kafka: Sprachreflexion als dichterische Einbildungskraft (Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann, 1983), pp. 23—6. Peter Cersowsky, "Mein ganzes Leben ist auf Literatur gerichtet": Franz Kafka im Kontext der literarischen Dekadenz (Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann, 1983).

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isolation to which they have commonly been subjected. Taking quite literally Kafka's frequent assertions about the centrality of literature for his life, Cersowsky argues that Kafka's documented familiarity with considerable amounts of literature, contemporary and otherwise, legitimates the reading of his works within broader literary-historical contexts.14 At any rate, it should be clear that literary Prague was not the island it has often been made out to be. If anything, the geographical and linguistic isolation of the Prague-German writers caused them to forge even stronger links with the centers of German cultural life, Vienna and Berlin. Indeed, the assumed "uniqueness" of Prague may be attributable to its intermediary position between expressionist Berlin and impressionist Vienna, combining into one contorted face the guises of the most important artistic movements of the period. Certainly publishers such as Kurt Wolff and Ernst Rowohlt had considerable influence in the German literary world, and they brought cohesion to the diverse writers and movements by rallying them under the banners of their publishing houses. In addition, one can scarcely overestimate the significance of such literary journals as Die Aktion, Der Brenner, Die Fackel, Der Kunstwart, Das literarische Echo, Die neue Rundschau, Der Sturm, and Die weißen Blätter for the widespread dissemination and circulation of ideas and literary practices. For his part, Kafka had access to these and other publications through the "Lese- und Redehalle der deutschen Studenten in Prag," of which he was a member while attending the university.15 Furthermore, one must consider the intellectual interaction fostered in such literary coffeehouses as the Cafe Arco, which Kafka is known to have frequented,16 and in such discussion groups as the Fanta circle, in which Kafka also participated for a time.17 Kafka's diaries and letters provide us with ample testimony to his on-going and pervasive interest in the literary "happenings" which were occuring around him. As one who was attentive to the Austrian literary scene, Kafka is certain to have taken notice of the incipient popularity of aphoristic expression among his contemporaries. At the very least, it is unlikely that he was not familiar with the aphorisms of Peter Altenberg, published regularly in the Prager Tagblatt,18 or with those of 11 15

16

17

18

Cersowsky, p. 7. See Gerhard Kurz, "Der junge Kafka im Kontext," Der junge Kafka, ed. G. Kurz, suhrkamp taschenbuch materialien, 2035 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984), p. 13. See G. Kurz, "Der junge Kafka im Kontext," p. 13; see also Kafka-Handbuch, I, 286-9. See especially Wagenbach, Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie seiner Jugend, pp. 111-5; Kafka-Handbuch, I, 186-9; and Peter Neesen's study of the influence of the thought of the Brentanists on Kafka, Vom Louvrezirkel zum Prozeß: Franz Kafka und die Psychologie Franz Brentanos, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, Nr. 81 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1972). Aphorisms by Altenberg were printed in the Prager Tagblatt on March 1, 1914; 123

Karl Kraus, whose writings held Kafka's interest throughout his life. An examination of these and other possible avenues through which Kafka may have become acquainted with the form of the aphorism is reserved for the following chapter. The evidence brought here does not pretend to be exhaustive, for the point is merely that there is sufficient justification to assume that Kafka, by no means isolated by the Prague environment, had access to the literary and cultural activities of fin de siede Austria, and that his turn to the form of the aphorism may have been influenced by an awareness of the renaissance this form was experiencing among his fellow Austrians.

II. Kafka's Inclination Toward Aphoristic Utterances Kafka's intensive occupation with the form of the aphorism is concentrated into two periods of his life: the months from October 1917 to February 1918, in which he composes the aphorisms in the third and fourth Oktavhefte; and the months of January and February 1920, in which the "Er" aphorisms are written. These apparent temporal limitations in Kafka's concentrated production of aphorisms should not lead one to conclude mechanically that the aphorism is therefore a temporary and transitional form in Kafka's aeuvre. Much to the contrary, although the aphorism dominates during these creative periods, it is never totally absent at other times. Indeed, there is evidence which indicates a continued awareness of, and creative interest in, aphoristic utterances over long stretches of Kafka's life. My thesis will be that the periods of intense occupation with the aphorism represent the breakthrough of a tendency that had been perennially present, if latent, in Kafka's creative personality, and that it would remain a creative undercurrent throughout his life. The testimony of Kafka's friends and acquaintances indicates that in discussions and in everyday acts of communication Kafka's pronouncements tended toward the aphoristic. In his memoirs Willy Haas has described Kafka as "ein feiner, delikater Jüngling, immer etwas schüchtern lächelnd, voll preziöser, merkwürdiger, aphoristischer Äußerungen." 19 This depiction of Kafka's verbal style is corroborated by Max Brod, who, in describing Kafka's manner of speech, emphasized the profundity and pointedness of his

April 12, 1914; June 7, 1914; November 25, 1915; April 23, 1916; May 21, 1916; May 31, 1916; June 22, 1916; June 25, 1916; July 9, 1916; July 14, 1916; August 6, 1916; August 13, 1916; August 20, 1916; November 9, 1916; November 12, 1916; and May 27, 1917. Willy Haas, Die literarische Welt, List-Bücher, 174-75 (Munich: List, 1960), p. 35.

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utterances. "Es war Kafka absolut unmöglich, etwas Unbedeutendes zu sagen. Ich habe nie ein untiefes Wort aus seinem Munde gehört" (FK, 190). While it is easy to imagine that Brod overstates the issue here, there is no reason to doubt the substance of his remark. A similar impression of Kafka's statements is recorded by Gustav Janouch. Frank [sic] Kafka konnte strittige Dinge mit einer einzigen Bemerkung blitzartig beleuchten. Dabei bemühte er sich nie, geistreich oder gar witzig zu erscheinen. Was immer er sagte, aus seinem Munde klang es einfach, selbstverständlich, natürlich.20

The fact that these Statements agree with one another lends them a high degree of credibility. Taken together they evoke an image of Kafka as a natural rhetorician, able to draw succinct, persuasive conclusions or express personal insights with simplicity and logical clarity. This is the general style of the utterances which are represented by Janouch in his "Conversations" as being Kafka's. In fact, as related by Eduard Goldstücker, it was precisely the aphoristic character of these "Gespräche" which convinced Max Brod of their authenticity.21 Brod further claimed that Dora Dymant, Kafka's companion in the last years of his life, "erkannte den unverwechselbaren Stil Kafkas und seine Denkweise" in Janouch's "Gespräche" (FK, 188). Goldstücker has justifiably questioned the authenticity of Janouch's book; indeed, he has exposed these conversations as aprocryphal. Still, Goldstucker's critique is levelled primarily at the substance of these reflections. Although he doubts the authenticity of their style as well, there are reasons for believing that the style itself approaches that style characteristic of Kafka. Beyond the fact that this is corroborated by Brod and Dora Dymant, it seems likely that if Janouch wished to pass his documents off as authentic, he would at least have to imitate the style he had come to recognize as Kafka's. I do not intend this as a defense of Janouch. On the other hand, while the statements he attributes to Kafka are highly suspect - and I will refrain throughout my investigation from citing their substance as evidence - their apocryphal nature could only hope to be masked by a close imitation of Kafka's style. It is only on this level that I find them to be of value, albeit of an extremely limited sort. Nonetheless, all of these sources indicate that Kafka's manner of speech, as well as this thought, tended toward the formulation of striking apergus. 20

21

Gustav Janouch, Gespräche mit Kafka, Fischer Bücherei, 417 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1961), p. 95. Eduard Goldstücker, "Kafkas Eckermann?: Zu Gustav Janouchs 'Gespräche mit Kafka'," Franz Kafka: Themen und Probleme, p. 253. 125

This image of Kafka as one whose speech was studded with pithy aphoristic utterances seems to run counter to the assessment one makes based on an acquaintance with the diaries and letters. Except for the Oktavhefte, which display a plethora of aphorisms, Kafka's written documents give sparse evidence of any inclination toward the matter-of-factness and rhetorical drive associated with aphoristic expression. While one can turn up aphoristic statements in the letters and diaries, the fact remains that their number is small. This fact alone does not refute the characterization of Kafka's verbal style presented above; it does, however, suggest that one must distinguish between Kafka's verbal and his written styles. Kafka's diffidence where his own writing is concerned is to some extent the reflex of an exaggerated emphasis on the authority and authenticity of written expression. This lack of faith in himself and in his ability to arrive at definitive formulations that might deserve to be cast (and fixed) in written form is, of course, a syndrome common to aphorists, and it finds its ultimate expression in the productive scepticism of the sort represented by Lichtenberg. However, when carried to an extreme, such diffidence can undermine all forms of assertiveness. This is a crucial conflict for all aphorists insofar as they are sceptics driven to assertions not out of conviction, but, paradoxically, out of the very need to doubt. Typically the aphorist works around this paradox by speaking through masks, assuming viewpoints and perspectives which are not necessarily identical with his/her own sentiments on any given issue.22 Such assertions are made in a spirit of experimentation, begging correction or contradiction. The more immediate dialogic situation of verbal communication lends itself especially well to such an attitude. The aphorism in Vienna thrived in the verbal exchanges indigenous to the theatrical, coffeehouse environment of its cultural life. Here the aphorism functioned as a linguistic mask which was appropriate to this atmosphere. At the same time, the critical appropriation of the "impressionistic" aphorism by such thinkers as Kraus and Wittgenstein turned this genre into a weapon directed against precisely such shallowness of expression. Integral to this critical appropriation is the shift from verbal communication - exemplified on the literary plane in the dramatic dialogues of Schnitzler's plays - to the aphorism as "scriptively" fixed expression. This same transition is central for an understanding of Kafka's turn to the composition of aphorisms in written form during the months in Ziirau; for one of the fundamental crises of this period is the dilemma of authentic expression, of distinguishing truth and lie in fixed utterances. Kafka's crisis of language, similar to that of his Austrian 22

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On the relationship of mask and perspectivism see Lothar Hönnighausen, "Maske und Perspektive: Weltanschauliche Voraussetzungen des perspektivischen Erzählens," CRM, 26 (1976), 287-307.

contemporaries, was at heart a crisis of truthful communication, and as such a crisis of the "fixing" of the dynamic. In his aphorisms Kafka was attempting in a specific way to resolve his own crisis of fixation and falsification in language. It is easy to see that verbal contact and written formulation were communicative processes of a different linguistic order for Kafka. One need think only of his penchant for the substitution of epistolary communication for immediate human contact.23 The documents which most intensively represent this substitution of written expression for immediate verbal communication and experience are the Briefe an Felice, and it is perhaps not coincidental that these letters are among the most "composed" and, incidentally, non-aphoristic, of all of Kafka's texts. This could betoken Kafka's desire to carry on this relationship, and indeed all other ones of primary significance, in a medium that seemed to him most authentic, i.e. where, paradoxically, it was most difficult for him to hide behind a linguistic mask. This privileging of written expression is permeated, as Kafka himself was certainly aware, by a supreme irony: namely, that life appeared to him to be most authentic and "immediate" when "mediated" through the distance of the written word. His veneration of written expression often expressed itself in negative terms as a fear of the fixed and unalterable. Written expression, Kafka seemed to believe, has a mysterious way of transfiguring reality, placing its own stamp upon the world. Thus, in a diary entry from 1911, Kafka defends his reluctance to write about his "Selbsterkenntnis" by pointing to the power of scriptive fixation. Ich habe vieles in diesen Tagen über mich nicht aufgeschrieben, teils aus Faulheit . . ., teils aber auch aus Angst, meine Selbsterkenntnis zu verraten. Diese Angst ist berechtigt, denn endgültig durch Aufschreiben fixiert dürfte eine Selbsterkenntnis nur dann werden, wenn dies in größter Vollständigkeit bis in alle nebensächlichen Konsequenzen hinein sowie mit gänzlicher Wahrhaftigkeit geschehen könnte. Denn geschieht dies nicht - und ich bin dessen jedenfalls nicht fähig -, dann ersetzt das Aufgeschriebene nach eigener Absicht und mit der Übermacht des Fixierten das bloß allgemein Gefühlte nur in der Weise, daß das richtige Gefühl schwindet, während die Wertlosigkeit des Notierten zu spät erkannt wird. (7, 37-8)

What in communion with the self is portrayed in a negative light as a falsification of one's self-knowledge, can take on a positive aspect in written interaction with others. Of course, recognition of the danger inherent in written fixation is one of the factors which motivates the aphorist to desecrate the shrines of language, to contradict and "deconstruct" traditional adages, wisdoms, and maxims that have been "fixed" in language. In the

See especially Elias Canetti, Der andere Prozeß: Kafkas Briefe an Felice, Reihe Hanser, 23 (Munich: Hanser, 1969), esp. p. 18. 127

passage cited, to be sure, Kafka is concerned not with the "fixations" inherent in one's cultural inheritance, but rather with the definitive recording of one's own self-observations. His essential insight into the "Übermacht des Fixierten" provides not only the basis for conceiving the fundamental falsification embodied in written expression, but also implies the knowledge that manipulation of written language also can entail manipulation, if not of reality itself, then at least of others' perception of reality, which for Kafka is probably one and the same thing. Written words have a way of freeing themselves from their cognitive, emotive, or empirical impulse, gaining independence and lives of their own, and thus ultimately undermining - or, alternatively, asserting - the value of the initial thought or experience. Kafka saw the recording of his self-observations in the most complete form possible as one way of avoiding the falsification of these insights.24 The aphoristic method he would apply some years later to accomplish a similar task, however, would make no pretense to completion, suggesting that at this point Kafka was more concerned with experimental written formulation, or even with the projecting of verbal masks for the self by means of written expression. This question will be addressed more fully in the following chapter. The critique of written expression cited above is not an isolated occurrence in Kafka's life-documents. Three years later, in a letter to Crete Bloch written in April 1914, Kafka reiterates this judgment, in this instance, however, in broader and more damning language. "Das Schreiben selbst verführt oft zu falschen Fixierungen. Es gibt eine Schwerkraft der Sätze, der man sich nicht entziehen kann" (BF, 555). Here the "seductive" force of "fixation" is diagnosed as residing internally in the very act of writing. In the process of written recording, language evolves a logic all its own and works itself free both from the writer wielding the pen, and from the impetus which initially motivated the act of writing itself. Written expression tends to obey its own laws of growth and development, straying from - or transcending - the intentions of the subject who is ostensibly in control. Yet the metaphor of seduction which Kafka employs here hints at an equivocal evaluation of this phenomenon: viewed from the fixed-point of morality, perhaps, seduction implies a fall from grace; however, from the perspective of the "pleasure principle," seduction promises perhaps unexpected joy and satisfaction. Both of these evaluations are relevant to the act of writing for Kafka: selfbetrayal and unanticipated passion. Kafka's approbation of the self-abandonment he experienced while composing "Das Urteil," the story which 24

The letters to Felice could be interpreted as one attempt on Kafka's part to achieve a degree of "completeness" in formulating his self-recognitions. Thus this correspondence could be interpreted as a kind of epistolary substitute for the diary.

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marked his "breakthrough," is rightfully famous. "Nur so kann geschrieben werden, nur in einem solchen Zusammenhang, mit solcher vollständigen Öffnung des Leibes und der Seele" (T, 294). Kafka valorizes the loss of control which occurs in the act of writing; indeed, the very value of written expression seems to be defined by this surrender of self-mastery to the power, the internal, independent "logic" of written expression. Kafka summarizes the distinction between verbal and written expression in a diary entry from July 1913: "Wenn ich etwas sage, verliert es sofort und endgültig die Wichtigkeit, wenn ich es aufschreibe, verliert es sie auch immer, gewinnt aber manchmal eine neue" ( , 308). This assertion appears to move radically away from the conception of writing as something which merely seduces one into false fixations. In fact, however, these conflicting evaluations are actually complementary, and they coexist side by side for Kafka throughout his life. For while scriptive "fixation" entails a surrender to the absolute, indubitable "presence" of the fixed formulation, and to this extent implies falsification of one's thoughts, observations, or sentiments, the very "presence" of the fixed form allows for the possibility that written expression will supplant reality - the possibility that the alteration of "truth" in the process of fixation will constitute a creative modification, not a falsification. These reflections can be of assistance in making plausible a picture of Kafka as one who spoke in aphoristic utterances, but whose writing tends for the most part to shun aphoristic apodiction. We must keep in mind that the aphorism itself exists and thrives in the equivocation described above regarding the danger of fixation in language on the one hand, and the creative power of language on the other. The spoken aphorism, because of the transitory nature of the medium of speech, more easily betrays its mask-like character, and there is little danger that what is a momentary and spontaneous product of dialogic interaction will be taken as an eternal insight or personal watchword. The written aphorism, more so than the spoken one, tends toward the "false fixation" of truth. While this is certainly a difference obtaining between written and spoken mediums per se, this difference is compounded by the imperative diction and rhetorical assertiveness of the aphorism as expressive form: its feigning of "truth" can easily be mistaken for conviction.25 By the same token, the overcoming of this fear of the

25

This equivocation on the part of authors who employ aphorisms is paradigmatically represented by Schnitzler, who, as we have already seen, insists in the introduction to his Buch der Sprüche und Bedenken that the mask-like aphorisms of his dramatic characters not be taken for his opinions; at the same time he is motivated to publish this collection of aphorisms in order to clarify his own views.

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scriptively "fixed" is seminal to the evolution of the aphorist. Thus, when the aphorism as written form takes a predominant position in Kafka's literary creativity, that faith in the power and independence of written expression - its ability to productively alter and shape subjective and objective reality through its overwhelming material presence - has, at least temporarily, come to the fore. This belief in the creative potential of language, its ability to create out of itself and yet to unearth an unsuspected truthfulness (not, however, in the sense of dogma), is central to the aphoristic production of such writers as Lichtenberg, Kraus, and Wittgenstein. Despite the relative paucity of aphoristic remarks in most of Kafka's written documents, it is possible to identify and isolate aphoristic statements in letters and diaries from diverse periods of his life. Some of Kafka's earliest letters reveal stunning aphorisms that could easily be lifted out of their contexts and made to stand on their own. One example occurs in a letter to Oskar Pollak from November 1903 when, after reporting on the authors he is currently reading, Kafka remarks: "Manches Buch wirkt wie ein Schlüssel zu fremden Sälen des eigenen Schlosses" (Br, 20). While one can certainly discern from this remark the personal significance which Kafka derived from texts that moved him, one must, of course, be careful not to generalize this remark too broadly beyond its contextual occurrence, even though the generality of the language itself encourages us to do so. Indeed, it is such generalizing tendencies, embodied here in the opening words "Manches Buch," which lend the statement its aphoristic character in the first place. Typical of the aphorism is also the shift into metaphor or simile as soon as the subject of the text has been named. This movement from concrete notion to metaphorical image replicates the movement from particular experience to abstracted, universalizing formulation which underlies the aphorism. The concision and simplicity of language also help lend this statement an aphoristic quality. Other similarly aphoristic remarks can be found throughout Kafka's letters. Further examples from the years 1903 and 1904 will be examined later in another context. My current goal is simply to document the occurrence of typically aphoristic diction in diverse periods of Kafka's life. An example from his final years can be found in a letter dated August 3, 1923. Complaining in characteristic fashion about his headaches and sleeplessness, Kafka speculates that these maladies are attributable to an inherent aversion to remaining for any length of time in one place. "Vielleicht darf ich nicht so lange an einem Ort bleiben; es gibt Menschen, die sich ein Heimatgefühl nur erwerben können, wenn sie reisen" (Br, 439). As in the previous example, here too Kafka generalizes from his personal circumstances, including himself in a fictive community of "Menschen" whose malady he shares. Instead of expanding into metaphor, however, this statement derives its pointedness 130

from the paradox that a sense of being at home evolves only when one is on the move. Numerous other examples of embedded aphorisms could be cited from Kafka's letters.26 The epistolary situation, of course, most closely replicates in written form the dialogic exchange of verbal communication, so that it is perhaps not unusual to find aphoristic utterances throughout Kafka's correspondence. The letters to Milena, written for the most part in a period when Kafka was actively involved with the creation of aphorisms, provide an especially fruitful source of such generalized, yet laconic and rhetorically pointed remarks.27 However, Kafka's diaries also provide numerous examples of aphoristic statements. On December 17, 1910, for example, Kafka records a note about Zeno's paradox of motion. "Zeno sagte auf eine dringliche Frage hin, ob denn nichts ruhe: Ja, der fliegende Pfeil ruht" ( , 29). The source of Kafka's knowledge about Zeno's paradox is unknown; significant here, however, is the recognition that, as Gerhard Neumann has shown, Kafka lends this already aphoristic material a further aphoristic bent.28 Immediately following this notation Kafka jots down the first independent aphoristic remark that can be found in his writings. Wenn die Franzosen ihrem Wesen nach Deutsche wären, wie würden sie dann erst von den Deutschen bewundert sein. ( , 29)

For Kafka this appears to be an atypically light-hearted aphorism. The if/ then structure is a common aphoristic device, which, in a play on syllogistic logic, allows for the experimental establishment of theoretical circumstances from which speculative results can be derived. Kafka implies in this aphorism, of course, that the Germans will never admire the French, for the assumed identity of French and German which the text postulates is unlikely, to say the least. By thus undercutting its own assumed point of departure, this aphoristic text offers an ironical comment on the unbridgeable gulf Kafka perceives to exist between these two nations. This playing-off of national rivalries, moreover, is a technique beloved by aphorists, who make sport of ridiculing allegiances of this sort.29 Seven years later, when Kafka began composing the aphorisms of the Oktavhefte, the playfulness of this text would be almost entirely supplanted by the brooding, questioning quality commonly associated with Kafka's aphoristic texts. See, for example, Br, 26, 40, 142, 260, 267, 400, 439, 473. For aphoristic statements in the letters to Milena, see, for example, BM, 11, 159, 261, 263, 302. Gerhard Neumann, "Umkehrung und Ablenkung," pp. 702-3. Kraus, by way of example, devotes an entire section, "Von zwei Städten," in Pro domo et mundo to the ironical contrast between the cities of Berlin and Vienna, as well as their inhabitants; see also Hofmannsthal's Buch der Freunde, A, 54 & 57. 131

Not only did Kafka consciously compose aphorisms in his diaries years before the writing of the texts in the Oktavhefte; the aphorism continued to be a mode of self-expression which he employed throughout the remainder of his life. A diary entry from 1922 formulated in aphoristic diction bears testimony to Kafka's continuing concern for the condensed, pointed expressive form characteristic of this genre. Ewige Jugend ist unmöglich; selbst wenn kein anderes Hindernis wäre, die Selbstbeobachtung machte sie unmöglich. (T, 579)

Characteristically aphoristic is the straight-forward, apodictic language of this remark; characteristically Kafkan is the "selbst wenn" construction and the accompanying elimination of interferring conditions only so that one overriding restriction might in the end hold sway. The theme of self-observation itself is one with which we are familiar from the work of other aphorists, among them Lichtenberg. A similar remark from the Tagebücher of Friedrich Hebbel gives some indication of the unconscious "intertextual" relations between Kafka's text and the work of other aphorists. Selbstbeobachtung wäre freilich sehr schön, aber man verändert sich, während man sich beobachtet.30

Not coincidentally, Kafka counted Hebbel's diaries among his favorite books.31 This is just one example which demonstrates how Kafka's aphoristic texts participate structurally and thematically in the "rites" of a particular genre. Subsequent analysis of Kafka's aphorisms will reveal the multitude of interconnections between these texts and those of other German aphorists. Further examples of aphorisms in Kafka's diaries reinforce the hypothesis that in composing these texts Kafka was at least unconsciously aware that he was working within the parameters of a particular genre; for repeatedly one discovers that his aphorisms conform to the tendencies and compositional structures - not to mention the themes - typical of aphoristic expression. A striking aphorism written in Kafka's diary in 1913, as one further example, demonstrates an inversion of perspective like that which can be found in the aphorisms of Lichtenberg or Nietzsche, to name just two. Die Entdeckungen haben sich dem Menschen aufgedrängt. (T, 340) In the world of the aphorist, discoveries are not sought out by humans, rather they are pressed upon them from outside as if by force. In this text 30

31

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Friedrich Hebbel, Tagebücher, ed. Richard Maria Werner, 4 vols. (Berlin: B.Behrs, 1903), entry no. 1991. See Brod, FK, 99, and Kafka's reception of these diaries recorded in a letter to Oskar Pollak, fir, 27-8. The possible influence of Hebbel's aphorisms on the character of Kafka's aphorisms will be taken up subsequently.

Kafka "re-values" the concept of "discovery" by implying that what appears as dis-covery is in fact reve(a)lation: what from the human perspective appears as an uncovering, proves to be emergence. One is reminded here of the significance of the "Einfall" or epiphanic insight for the aphorist. Kafka downplays the individual effort responsible for such insights and criticizes by implication the haughtiness with which humans often credit themselves or one another for stumbling across "discoveries." "Einfall," inspiration, and discovery must be stripped of any implication which suggests that the subject somehow actively wills, masters, or controls such an event: it is foisted upon one, so to speak, from without. I will cite one final example of an aphoristic utterance from Kafka's Tagebücher in order to give a fuller picture of the variety of aphoristic types which are to be found here.32 Die Lärmtrompeten des Nichts. (7", 523)

What is especially curious about this remark is that it occurs as an isolated entry, devoid of any discernible impulse. It remains unclear whether the text was composed in response to some empirical stimulus; whether it is the conclusion of abstract deliberations; or if it is merely recorded out of pure pleasure in the paradoxicality of the conception itself. This is a circumstance that marks many of the entries in Kafka's Oktavhefte. Conspicuous in the above aphorism is the structural reduction of the thought to a concise metaphor which conjoins concrete image ("Lärmtrompeten") and abstract designation ("Nichts") in a mutually stimulating tension. The paradoxical conception that the arrival of nothingness, the radically non-empirical, should be announced by something as emphatically "empirical" as "noise trumpets" is underscored by the very opposition in the word " Lärmtrompeten" itself: trumpets commonly announce with harmonious fanfares, not with discordant noise. Ultimately, then, this ostensibly simple remark calls forth a variety of questions about the character of a "nothingness" whose "presence" is announced by noise trumpets. The significance of the text, in fact, resides in this stimulation to further reflection, one of the foremost desires of the aphorist. Aside from such independent aphorisms composed as texts unto themselves, the diaries also display the presence of aphoristic formulations embedded within larger reflections. Die Furcht vor Narrheit. Narrheit in jedem geradeaus strebenden, alles andere vergessen machenden Gefühl sehn. Was ist dann die Nicht-Narrheit? Nicht-Narrheit ist, vor der Schwelle, zur Seite des Einganges bettlerhaft stehn, verwesen und umstürzen. (T, 338) 32

For further examples of aphorisms in the diaries, see 454, 480, 508, 531, 541, 575, 581.

275, 290, 349, 375, 443,

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This passage develops as a dialogue on the part of the self with the self. Kafka's reflections on foolishness lead him to ask about the essence of the non-foolish, and he answers his own question with an aphoristic utterance in the form of a pseudo-definition. The translation of an abstract concept into a concrete scenario tending toward the narrative is a trend characteristic of Kafka's thought in general, and it has certain consequences for the style of his aphorisms, as we shall see. The preceding observations attempt to demonstrate that Kafka's awareness of, and occupation with, aphoristic structures is much more pervasive than has generally been recognized. It will be left to later analysis to speculate on the possible avenues through which Kafka might have obtained this consciousness of the forms, structures, themes, and strategies commonly associated with the aphorism. Meanwhile, we will undertake an investigation of the central intellectual problems which concerned Kafka over his life, relating them to the intellectual issues which we have previously associated with the evanescence of aphoristic expression in Germany in general, and in Austria at the turn of the century in particular. The proximity of Kafka's intellectual dilemmas to those intellectual-historical issues associated with the rise of aphoristic expression will help us better to understand his turn to the aphorism within the context of his life and literature.

III. Kafka and "Aphoristics" The word "aphoristics" shall be taken here as a short-hand way of referring to those crises and aporias which have been discussed in the first two chapters as the central issues underlying the evolution and practice of aphoristic expression in Germany and Austria. These include: the rupture between idea and experience; the split between the abstracting, synthesizing, unifying procedures of mind and the manifold individuality of the empirically apperceived; the irrevocable sense that both physical and psychic reality are in no way stable and eternally definable, but rather characterized by incessant change; the abandonment of a single, "absolute" point of view in favor of a constantly fluctuating perspective; a valorization of the unsystematic over the systematic, and a concomitant suspicion of all systems; the parallel privileging of the fragmentary over the whole; and finally, the crisis of language as the concrete medium in which each of these diverse issues is manifest. If this list of intellectual issues reads like an inventory of the crises of modernism in general, then this is no coincidence; for the aphorism, more than any other literary-philosophical mode of expression, evolves in tandem to these crises of modernism, both as a response to them, and as an attempt 134

to devise a manner of expression which simultaneously takes account of and overcomes these issues. In this sense one could certainly make the argument that the aphorism is the ultimate expressive form of modernism, embodying as it does an ever-growing scepticism about the value of reason and of systematic thought. At the same time, this catalogue of problems can almost instinctively be associated with the crises that shaped Kafka's life and art. However, it is not our task here to relate Kafka's attitudes to those representative of literary modernism in general - this has already been attempted on numerous fronts;33 rather, our attention will be more narrowly focused on the interrelationship of these problems in Kafka's life and thought with the development of his own aphoristic impulse and the character of his aphoristic texts. The proximity of Kafka's intellectual crises to the dilemmas endemic to aphoristics not only helps to illuminate his gradual turn toward the form of the aphorism, but also presents the framework necessary for a critical re-evaluation of the nature and purpose of his aphoristic writings.

A) The Conflict of Individual and Universal The problematical mediation between particular and universal, individual and community, which informs the issues of aphoristics also helped shape the dilemmas characteristic of Kafka's life. This crisis appears in two distinct yet related guises, one epistemological, the other ethical. What in epistemological terms presents itself as the problematical interaction between particular recognitions and the unifying, totalizing, subsuming - and thus falsifying - character of abstraction, occurs in the sphere of ethics as the irresolvable conflict between the absolutely individual and the community which recognizes only the representative. For Kafka's Austrian contemporaries, language was perceived as the realm in which both the epistemological and ethical sides of this question made themselves paradigmatically evident, allowing critique of language to become the most prominent and generalized form in which attempts at portrayal or resolution of these crises were carried out. This will prove to be the case for Kafka as well, whose diverse crises of language continually divulge themselves to be reflexes that closely parallel epistemological or ethical issues. The fundamental conflicts of Kafka's life - bachelorhood versus marriage, individuality and See, for example, Cersowsky, "Mein ganzes Wesen ist auf Literatur gerichtet"; David Miles, '"Pleats, Pockets, Buckles, and Buttons': Kafka's New Literalism and the Poetics of the Fragment," Probleme der Moderne, pp. 331^42; Margot Norris, "Darwin, Nietzsche, Kafka, and the Problem of Mimesis," MLN, 95 (1980), 1232-53.

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the absence of community, be it national, religious, or cultural - can be understood within this context and related to Kafka's crisis of language.34 Characteristic especially of Kafka's early period is the tendency to lament about the absence of community or tradition in which he might ground his life and personal experience. In a letter to Oskar Pollak from 1903, Kafka portrays in general terms the conflict between the isolated existence of the hermit and life integrated into the community of others. [JJemand, der hinter dem Baum steht, sagt mir leise: "Du wirst nichts tun ohne andere", ich aber schreibe jetzt mit Bedeutung und zierlichem Satzbau: "Einsiedelei ist widerlich, man lege seine Eier ehrlich vor aller Welt, die Sonne wird sie ausbrüten; man beiße lieber ins Leben statt in seine Zunge; man ehre den Maulwurf und seine An, aber man mache ihn nicht zu seinem Heiligen." Da sagt mir jemand, der nicht mehr hinter dem Baume ist. "Ist das am Ende wahr und ein Wunderding des Sommers?" (Br, 17-18)

Only the context of these remarks lends them clarity and indicates their profound significance: they serve as an introduction to Kafka's request that Pollak read and judge the literary sketches he has produced up until this point in his life. This making-public of his literary creations is what Kafka refers to as "laying one's eggs before the eyes of the world." The dialogic situation, which projects onto another person the impetus to this act of laying himself bare, alludes to the reluctant self-overcoming which such an action entails for Kafka. The link between a community of others and those literary works created by the hermit is forged in the process of reception, i. e. when these works cease to be the "brooding" of the recluse at his desk and enter into a community of readers. Kafka's well-known reluctance to publish his works, more that just a symptom of his own insecurity and diffidence, is a reflex of this more general concern that the individual significance of his writing will be lost once it is subjected to reception by a community. His reluctance manifests itself subtly in the cited passage through the dichotomy between the "someone" who speaks ("jemand . . . sagt"), and the act of writing ("ich aber schreibe") with which Kafka responds to the admonition that he will accomplish nothing without others. His ambivalence is expressed in the avoidance of immediate, spoken communication with this "someone," and the resultant privileging of written language as a mediated form of communication. Of yet greater significance for the present context, however, is the character of the "ornamental sentence structure" which Kafka, according to his own assessment, employs in his written response; for what he composes is a series of aphorism-like generalities, separated from one another by

The decisive steps in this direction have been taken by Sokel in his articles "Kafka's Poetics of the Inner Self," MAL, 11, nos.3-4 (1978), pp. 37-58, and "Language and Truth in the Two Worlds of Franz Kafka, GQ, 52 (1979), 364-84.

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a semi-colon. The apodictic quality of these universalizing formulations, far from making them persuasive, tends instead - and in this they remain true to the essence of aphoristic expression - to problematize the identification of the individual, here Kafka, with these general pronouncements. This is clear to Kafka's dialogic partner in this somewhat fractured exchange; for, stepping out from behind the tree, he questions the truth of these general propositions. Hence two conclusions relevant to the present argument can be drawn from this passage: first of all, Kafka experienced the questionable mediation between individual and community in the literary sphere as a problematization of the dynamics obtaining between creative and receptive dimensions, the first being wholly individual, the second essentially communal; secondly, even at this very early stage in his literary productivity Kafka responds to this conflict with written, universalizing formulations of an aphoristic type. To be sure, at this point he shows apprehension about the ability of such statements to bridge the gap between creative individual and receptive community; yet it is nonetheless significant that he instinctively, as it were, turns to such "ornamental sentence structure" when confronted with this conflict. "Aphoristic" language presented itself to Kafka even at this juncture as a possible, if yet insufficient, mode of expressing the individual in terms of the universal, and thus as a conceivable way of fusing individual and universal in a single communicative act. The crisis of integration of the individual into some form of community was central especially during Kafka's Ziirau-period in which the major collection of aphorisms was composed in the Oktavhefte. Having given up, for the most part, on the practicability of marriage to Felice as an entrance into some form of communal life, Kafka turned to romanticized conceptions, dreaming of integration into a simple rural community, retreating from the city to the "Dorf" of Zürau, and busying himself with such endeavors as gardening. That he perhaps had actually found a manner of life reasonably appropriate to his being is reflected in the fact that even years later he considered this "Dorf-Jahr" to be one of the better years of his life (BM, 105). The centrality of this conflict between individual and community for this period is brought out by a letter to Max Brod from October 1917, written immediately prior to Kafka's departure for Zürau. Brod was adamantly against this trip, believing that it would interfere with Kafka's recovery.35 Responding to Brod's admonitions that it is his responsibility to get well, Kafka writes: Deine Begründung der Notwendigkeit, sich gesund zu machen, ist schön, aber utopisch. Das, was Du mir als Aufgabe gibst, hätte vielleicht ein Engel über dem

35

See Kafka's letters to Ottla in which Brod's opposition is described, BO, 45-6, letters no. 51 and 52. 137

Ehebett meiner Eltern ausführen können oder noch besser: über dem Ehebett meines Volkes, vorausgesetzt, daß ich eines habe. (Br, 182-3)

Kafka repudiates the task of working for his own healthy constitution, asserting that such would have to have been afforded him either at his conception, or at the conception of his "Volk." Presumably Kafka is referring here to his Judaism, but the qualification that he adds expresses his ultimate belief that he is not an integral part of any community whatsoever. His two-fold application of the metonymical image of the "Ehebett," moreover, has farreaching implications in this context, suggesting that Kafka has been impeded from the very moment of his birth, of the birth of his "Volk," from attaining a state of "health." In addition, the image of the "Ehebett" underscores the extent to which matrimony, the most intimate of relations, symbolizes the entrance into community for Kafka. The absence of an "angelic" act over the "Ehebett" of his parents and his "Volk" inhibits, so this excerpt implies, Kafka's own ability to inhabit an "Ehebett." One month later, writing to Brod from his retreat in Ziirau, Kafka summarizes his sense that he has been excluded from participation in any community. Ich habe in der Stadt, in der Familie, dem Beruf, der Gesellschaft, der Liebesbeziehung (setz sie, wenn Du willst, an die erste Stelle), der bestehenden oder zu erstrebenden Volksgemeinschaft, im dem allen habe ich mich nicht bewahrt und dies in solcher Weise, wie es - hier habe ich scharf beobachtet - niemandem rings um mich geschehen ist. (Br, 194-5)

Here Kafka places the responsibility for his failed integration upon himself, rather than reducing it to circumstances beyond his control. The retreat to Ziirau is in a sense identical with this recognition, for it represents for Kafka the ultimate cutting of all those communal ties he enumerates here and which he associated with his life in Prague. Thus it is significant that Kafka places his failure to live in the city at the head of this list; this, in turn, hints at the manner in which the "Dorf" Ziirau became representative for Kafka's attempt to turn his back on these failures and seek a form of integration in a new and untried sphere. The problem of integration remains preeminent during the Ziirau period. Of course, it was the appearance of tuberculosis which forced Kafka finally to confront this issue head-on. It would be untrue to Kafka's own perception of the matter to say that this confrontation was thrust upon him from without: he, after all, viewed the illness as a collaborative product of his lung and his brain (cf. Br, 161), i. e. as something internal to himself. Nonetheless, the illness forced him to confront this fundamental aporia of his life, and the results of this confrontation in the literary realm are the aphorisms and sketches of the Oktavhefte. This does not mean, however, that the aphoris138

tic meditations embody Kafka's resolution of this dilemma and signal his "surrender" to communality in the form of religiosity, as most scholars who have explicitly dealt with these texts assume. While Robertson, to take one example, is thoroughly justified in his claim that the Ziirau aphorisms revolve around questions about the problematical mediation between individual and community,36 it seems to me false to conclude that these texts evolve an "ethics" which pave Kafka's way to the community of his fellow human beings.37 Indeed, characteristic of the aphorism as expressive form is that it concerns itself with this very tension between individual and community, suspending any resolution and concentrating on a problematization of the conflict itself. Kafka's aphorisms of this period signal his attempt to approach this issue by means of a textual idiom which conventionally dealt with this conflict. Thus these texts simply reflect Kafka's concerted application of his energies to the investigation of this conflict between himself as individual, and integration into any community. I do not take this to imply resolution, but rather intensification of the dilemma itself. Moreover, one must keep in mind that in the above-cited list of communities from which Kafka felt himself excluded, a religious community is conspicuously absent. Indeed, one of the telling aspects of Kafka's own assessment of this problem is the fact that he views the conflict between individual and community to be the key to his lack of community on various levels. Each significant failure in his life is associated with one of these levels of non-integration; religious non-integration was apparently not of the same significance, or of the same order, as those crises of integration he mentions here. In the final analysis, Kafka's lament that he had never been given the chance to participate in Judaism, and his pervasive interest in the Yiddish theater as a manifestation of the culture of this lost "Volk," represent his desire to be a part of a secular community, a "Volksgemeinschaft," as he expressed it, and thus are not expressions of religious interests in any specific sense.38 Kafka's conflict between individuality and integration was perhaps the most pervasive of his life, and it did not miraculously recede after the Ziirau period - one of the surest signs that no resolution, and certainly no lasting one, was achieved. A reflection recorded in Kafka's diary in October 1921 indicates that this conflict between individual and community remained central to him well after the "Dorf-Jahr." In this reflection (see T, 547-8), Kafka takes his own conscious refusal to participate in the regularly occurring card-game played by his parents as indicative of his rejection of each and 36 37 38

Robertson, "Kafka's Ziirau Aphorisms," pp. 73-5. Robertson, p. 87. This argument has been made by Sokel; see his article "Between Gnosticism and Jehovah: The Dilemma in Kafka's Religious Attitude," South Atlantic Review, 50, no. 1 (Jan., 1985), pp. 3-22; esp. p. 6.

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every invitation to enter a communal, public life. He realizes that any lament to the effect that he had not been carried onward by the "Lebensstrom" was out of place, for he would simply have turned down any offer made to him (T, 547-8). A few days later Kafka takes up these deliberations again, this time after having attempted to take part in the family card-game. This participation, he is forced to admit, does not procure for him the desired sense of "Nähersein"; on the contrary, he merely senses this participation to be "überhäuft von Müdigkeit, Langeweile, Trauer über die verlorene Zeit" (T, 548). Clearly Kafka feels himself trapped between the extremes of loneliness, on the one hand, and an "unproductive" communality on the other. While recognizing that his rejection of .all forms of community is self-inflicted, he cannot help but view such communal activities as "verlorene Zeit," stolen from him at the expense of the literary activity carried out in the isolation of his room. Kafka's reflection continues with a description of this no-man's land between loneliness and community to which he believed himself to be condemned. Dieses Grenzland zwischen Einsamkeit und Gemeinschaft habe ich nur äußerst selten überschritten, ich habe mich darin sogar mehr angesiedelt als in der Einsamkeit selbst. Was für ein lebendiges schönes Land war im Vergleich hierzu Robinsons Insel. (T, 548)

Kafka perceived absolute loneliness as far preferable to the "Grenzland" between loneliness and community in which he found himself. The loneliness of Robinson would have provided conditions ideally suited to Kafka's creative spirit. As he claimed in a letter to Felice: "Ich brauche zu meinem Schreiben Abgeschiedenheit, nicht 'wie ein Einsiedler', das wäre nicht genug, sondern wie ein Toter" (BF, 412). Thus Kafka's assertion that he was doomed to be "zerrieben zwischen dem Bureau und dem Schreiben" (BF, 407) is just another way of expressing his sense of being trapped in this "Grenzland." The "office" was for him merely the most concrete and most painful representation of his sacrifice to the community, whereas writing never ceased to be an activity of loneliness. It is not an exaggeration to claim that this unresolved conflict, or, put more absolutely, the unresolvability of the conflict, "ground down" Kafka, and that it was this issue which he believed had manifest itself in his "Lungenwunde" (Br, 161).39 This overarching sense of inhabiting a problematical "Grenzland," of being banished or exiled to a realm of the in-between, is, as we have noted, fundamental to the situation of the aphorist in general.40 Musil, we recall, described the 39

40

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This unresolved conflict overlaps with what Sokel has termed the opposition between "naturalist" and "spiritualist" tendencies in Kafka's life and art; see Sokel, "Language and Truth in the Two Worlds of Franz Kafka." Neumann emphasizes die position of the aphorist as one of exile, Ideenparadiese, p. 750.

situation of the essayist/aphorist as one of being "dazwischen," between objectivity and subjectivity, truth and play, universal and individual (cf. MoE, 254). In the Ziirau period this conflict of the "dazwischen" arose for Kafka in its most exaggerated form, and accompanying the heightening of this conflict there occurred a shift to the aphoristic, or a prominent surfacing of aphoristic tendencies in Kafka's literary production. Thus far we have examined the "ethical" aspect of this problematical mediation between individual and community in Kafka's life. This crisis also takes the form of an epistemological dilemma for Kafka, as is especially evident in some of the deliberations written in the Zurau period. An oftencited reflection from the third Oktavheft succinctly summarizes the issues at stake here for Kafka. Ist es möglich, etwas Untröstliches zu denken? Oder vielmehr etwas Untröstliches ohne den Hauch des Trostes? Ein Ausweg läge darin, daß das Erkennen als solches Trost ist. Man könnte also wohl denken: Du mußt dich beseitigen, und könnte sich doch ohne Fälschung dieser Erkenntnis aufrecht erhalten, am Bewußtsein, es erkannt zu haben. Das heißt dann wirklich, an den eigenen Haaren sich aus dem Sumpf gezogen haben. Was in der körperlichen Welt lächerlich ist, ist in der geistigen möglich. Dort gilt kein Schwerkraftgesetz, (die Engel fliegen nicht, sie haben1 nicht irgendeine Schwerkraft aufgehoben, nur wir Beobachter der irdischen Welt wissen es nicht besser zu denken), was allerdings für uns nicht vorstellbar ist, oder erst auf einer hohen Stufe. Wie kläglich ist meine Selbsterkenntnis, verglichen etwa mit meiner Kenntnis meines Zimmers. (Abend.) Warum? Es gibt keine Beobachtung der innern Welt, so wie es eine der äußern gibt. Zumindest deskriptive Psychologie ist wahrscheinlich in der Gänze ein Anthropomorphismus, ein Ausragen der Grenzen. Die innere Welt läßt sich nur leben, nicht beschreiben. (H, 71-2)

I cite this passage at some length because it is quite instructive to pursue the kernel-thought through those various shifts and transitions so typical of Kafka's conceptual procedure. Beginning with a question about the consoling aspect of thought, Kafka postulates that abstract knowledge ("Erkennen") is in its very essence a form of consolation. If this were true, he concedes, then this represents nothing but an "Ausweg." In a move characteristic of his conceptual strategies, Kafka then proceeds to take the word "Ausweg" literally and to shift by means of this literalization from abstract reflection to concrete example. One can recognize the need to eliminate oneself, he claims, and yet continue to live by virtue of this mere recognition itself. Kafka then chooses a metaphor that describes this reflex: dragging oneself out of a bog by one's own hair, an apparent reference to the Miinchhausen tales. Out of this metaphor he then abstracts a proposition, the thrust of which is the unbridgeability of the dichotomy between physical and spiritual worlds. He explicates this postulate by taking as an example the law of gravity, asserting that this physical law is invalid in the realm of the spirit. The parenthetical comment which introduces the opposition between 141

"angels," as representatives of the spiritual world, and "we observers of the earthly world" is of fundamental significance because it points to the manner in which an essentially epistemological issue is ultimately cloaked in terms of traditional religious conceptions. Kafka projects this conflict between abstract and empirical knowledge into the Judeo-Christian dichotomy between spiritual and physical worlds. This is an impulse that is typical of Kafka in this period, and it accounts for the so-called "religious" tendency often attributed to the aphorisms produced at this time. However, Kafka's apparent obsession with the mythology of humankind's Fall from grace is merely a veiled concern with the problem of knowledge, which, after all, is the impetus behind humankind's Fall even in traditional religious conceptions. In other words, it is the tension between knowledge and existence, between "divine" recognition and ail-too human experience, which peers through Kafka's application of religious terminology in the aphorisms.41 Kafka, of course, was certainly cognizant of Kleist's association of this religious motif with the problem of knowledge and life in his essay "Über das Marionettentheater."42 Indeed, Kafka probably was aware of the use of this religious mythology to describe epistemological issues in German Idealism, as well as similar tendencies in such aphoristic writers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and even Friedrich Hebbel. Gerhard Neumann has demonstrated that the mythology of the "Fall" is traditionally applied by aphorists as a short-hand way of representing the split between idea and experience, thought and life.43 In their application of religious conceptions to serve a similar end, Kafka's aphorisms from the Ziirau period partake of this long-standing tradition. There is, to be sure, a Utopia implied in the use of these religious motifs; however, it is a Utopia of thought - an "Ideenparadies," to cite Neumann's felicitous designation - and not a Utopia of a religious type. Moreover, it is a Utopia which functions, as it were, ex negativo, a consciously idealized conception of a perfect union between knowledge and existence, idea and experience, with a view to which the imperfection of the earthly world comes into greater focus. This Utopian thrust has been most impressively articulated by Theodor Adorno in paragraph 53 of his Minima Moralia. 41

42

43

A number of critics have observed that Kafka's religious conceptions in the aphorisms represent epistemological issues: see Stanley Corngold, "Kafka's Double Helix," The Literary Review, 26 (1983), p. 526; Gerhard Kurz, Traum-Schrecken, p. 141; Sabina Kienlechner, Negativität der Erkenntnis im Werk Franz Kafkas, Studien zur dt. Literatur, Bd.66 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1981), pp.5 & 33; Ralf Nicolai, "Wahrheit und Lüge bei Kafka und Nietzsche," Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch, Neue Folge, 22 (1981), pp. 256f. & 263. Robertson draws the connection to Kleist's essay, p. 83, as does Kurz, TraumSchrecken, p. 196. Ideenparadiese, p. 826.

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Zum Ende. — Philosophie, wie sie im Angesicht der Verzweiflung einzig noch zu verantworten ist, wäre der Versuch, alle Dinge so zu betrachten, wie sie vom Standpunkt der Erlösung aus sich darstellen. Erkenntnis hat kein Licht, als das von der Erlösung her auf die Welt scheint: alles andere erschöpft sich in der Nachkonstruktion und bleibt ein Stück Technik. Perspektiven müssen hergestellt werden, in denen die Welt ähnlich sich versetzt, verfremdet, ihre Risse und Schrunde offenbart, wie sie einmal als bedürftig und entstellt im Messianischen Lichte daliegen wird. Ohne Willkür und Gewalt, ganz aus der Fühlung mit den Gegenständen heraus solche Perspektiven zu gewinnen, darauf allein kommt es dem Denken an.44

Adorno, of course, is describing his own method here; but his method, to be sure, has certain affinities with that of the aphorist: his portrayal, in fact, succinctly describes the aphoristic method which, without doing violence to the phenomena it considers, estranges and displaces them, opening up tears and cracks in the fabric of (ideologically) fixed conceptions of the world. This search for new perspectives from the standpoint of redemption characterizes the tenor of Kafka's aphoristic incursions into the sphere of "religion" - this word understood here in its broadest sense as the meta-physical or meta-actual.45 The aphorisms represent Kafka's struggle in what Sokel has called a "double-bind" between heavenly and earthly realms.46 This conflict, however, should be read as a mythological enciphering of the conflict between thought and life, possiblity and actuality, "Erkenntnis" and existence in the world. The reflection in the third Oktavheft which gave rise to this excursus is exemplary of the fluid transition between epistemological dilemma and religious-mythological portrayal frequently found in Kafka's aphorisms. If we return now to this meditation, we can follow it through two more significant transitions. Almost instinctively Kafka transforms the problem of knowledge into one of self-knowledge. Why, Kafka ponders, is one's knowledge of the external world so much more extensive than that of one's own inner world? He answers this by postulating a strict dichotomy between outer and inner worlds, claiming that the inner world cannot be observed. After having passed through various other phases, the duality between recognition and life which motivated Kafka's reflection is altered into one between external and internal realms. The transitional duality between the physical and the spiritual glides into this penultimate dichotomy in which, by association, external world is related to the physical, and internal world to

44

45 46

Adorno, Minima Moralia, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4 ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980), p. 281. Sokel has argued for a broader understanding of the notion of "religion" in Kafka, "Between Gnosticism and Jehovah," p. 11. Sokel, ibid., p. 12.

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the spiritual. This identification of the internal sphere with the realm of the spiritual, the meta-physical, or, more precisely, intra-physical, is, as I have argued elsewhere, characteristic of Kafka's thought during his aphoristic period.47 This internalization of the spiritual and transcendental - a displacement of the meta-physical to the internal realm of the individual - figures prominently in the evolution of Kafka's aphoristic method. Returning once again to Kafka's meditation, we can pursue one final variation of the dichotomy discussed thus far. After expressing doubt about the efficacy of descriptive psychology, Kafka arrives at the aphoristically expressed proposition: "Die innere Welt läßt sich nur leben, nicht beschreiben." In a final twist, the duality omnipresent in this meditation now becomes one between experience and its portrayal. We witness here the subtle manner in which for Kafka the crisis of knowledge almost imperceptible, yet automatically, becomes a crisis of expression - that is, a crisis of literature. Not satisfied with mere experience of the inner world, Kafka is driven to describe it. Such description, however, is by its very nature impossible. This entire series of dilemmas, then, culminates in the overriding dilemma of literature, and that means the dilemma of the portrayal of experience rather than the experiencing of it. The conciliatory moment with which Kafka's reflection began is absent in this conclusion. This ultimate conflict - that between inner life and its portrayal - has become absolute, allowing for no possibility of mediation. The problematical transmission of traditional material, its cryptic, often obscure significance, is one of the most prominent leitmotifs in Kafka's works. This holds for the Oktavhefte as well, where, in particular, Kafka picks up mythological material of various sorts, re-interpreting and reworking its significance. This is not only the case for such parables as "Das Schweigen der Sirenen" and "Prometheus," but is also true of Kafka's reshaping of Biblical material. In so doing, Kafka is carrying out an «r-hermeneutical act: interpreting the Bible, the originary interpretive object of hermeneutics, in a manner which lends it significance in a particular historical context. This means that traditional material, when applied by Kafka, undergoes critical appropriation and revision. A comment from the second Oktavheft makes clear the manner in which Kafka's understanding of passed-down material always was guided by an interaction in which the speculative faculty of the interpreter plays a determining role. Die geschriebene und überlieferte Weltgeschichte versagt oft vollständig, das menschliche Ahnungsvermögen aber führt zwar oft irre, führt aber, verläßt einen nicht. So ist zum Beispiel die Überlieferung von den sieben Weltwundern immer

Cf. R. Gray, "Suggestive Metaphor: Kafka's Aphorisms and the Crisis of Communication," DVjs, 58 (1984), 454-69, esp. pp. 460-2.

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von dem Gerücht umgeben gewesen, daß noch ein achtes Weltwunder bestanden habe und es wurden auch über dieses achte Wunder verschiedene einander vielleicht widersprechende Mitteilungen gemacht, deren Unsicherheit man durch das Dunkel der alten Zeiten erklärte. (H, 65)

Although admitting the possibility that speculation errs, Kafka emphasizes that it nonetheless leads somewhere: it has significance at least insofar as it has direction. Certainty of an "authentic" interpretation is abandoned for the act of interpretation itself, which, while it may lead to equivocal or even contradictory conclusions, still lends direction or directions to one's thought. Kafka's hermeneutical appropriations of Biblical material must be conceived in terms of this interplay between the hermeneutical "Ahnungsvermögen'' and the cryptic "darkness" of the object of interpretation. To read Kafka's reflections on traditional religious material as dogmatic expressions of religious belief denies the ultimate equivocality of the interpretive result of Kafka's confrontation with these themes. What he presents in his aphorisms are interpretive hypotheses and transitional, mutable viewpoints, not final conclusions - should Kafka even have believed that such were possible. Interpretive equivocality and lack of finality are qualities which link Kafka's aphorisms to the tradition of the German aphorism in general. Not the integration of the individual into the universalizing religious or ethical community is what is at issue, but rather the problematization of any such integrative act. Kafka takes interpretive uncertainty to be essential to the human condition in general. This "undecidability" constitutes the nature of "sin," sin conceived by Kafka as the oppositional space between two inimical absolutes, pure knowledge and pure life. Wir sind nicht nur deshalb sündig, weil wir vom Baum der Erkenntnis gegessen haben, sondern auch deshalb, weil wir vom Baum des Lebens noch nicht gegessen haben. Sündig ist der Stand, in dem wir uns befinden, unabhängig von Schuld, (aph. 83)

Kafka takes issue with traditional religious conceptions of sin on two counts: first of all, sin is not associated with human guilt; secondly, sin is not motivated by some action, but rather by the impossibility of a certain action, namely, eating from the tree of life. Sin, then, is merely a word which summarizes the human condition of being caught in the half-way house between knowledge and life. Kafka's reflections on paradise and humankind's Fall constantly revolve around the tension between these two poles, represented in the Biblical conceptions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. Thus, in an aphorism from the third Oktavheft closely related to the one just cited, Kafka asserts that humankind is separated from God on two sides: on one side because of the Fall and the eating from the tree of knowledge; on the other because of the inability to eat from the tree of life. 145

Wir sind von Gott beiderseitig getrennt: Der Sündenfall trennt uns von ihm, der Baum des Lebens trennt ihn von uns. (H, 101)

In a similar deliberation, Kafka portrays the condition of humanity in terms of the unfulfilled threats or promises made by the snake and by God. Instead of dying after eating from the tree of knowledge, as God had warned, humankind became mortal, i.e. it attained the "capacity" for death; instead of becoming equal to God as the snake promised, humankind attained the "capacity" for becoming god-like (cf. H, 101 f.). According to this text the fate of the human being appears to be that of restriction to mere potentialities: mortality, or the potential for death, and knowledge, or the potential for god-like understanding. As in the ethical side of this dilemma, where Kafka diagnosed his position on the border between loneliness and communality, in its epistemological aspect Kafka portrays the condemnation to "inbetweenness" as the crux of the matter. This "in-betweenness" is, however, not a "state" in the sense of being static, but rather a dynamic condition. Hence in one of the longer reflections on this subject, Kafka claims of the exile from paradise that it was "keine Tat, sondern ein Geschehen" (H, 106); i. e. humankind's Fall is a never-ending occurrence which repeats itself incessantly. This is corroborated by Kafka's assertion in aphorism 64/65 that the banishment from paradise is a process, a "Vorgang," that repeats itself eternally. One of Kafka's most famous aphorisms depicts this middle position of the human being in terms of a simultaneous chaining of humankind to the heavenly and earthly realms. Er ist ein freier und gesicherter Bürger der Erde, denn er ist an eine Kette gelegt, die lang genug ist, um ihm alle irdischen Räume frei zu geben, und doch nur so lang, daß nichts ihn über die Grenzen der Erde reißen kann. Gleichzeitig aber ist er auch ein freier und gesicherter Bürger des Himmels, denn er ist auch an eine ähnlich berechnete Himmelskette gelegt. Will er nun auf die Erde, erdrosselt ihn das Halsband des Himmels, will er in den Himmel, jenes der Erde. Und trotzdem hat er alle Möglichkeiten und fühlt es; ja, er weigert sich sogar, das Ganze auf einen Fehler bei der ersten Fesselung zurückzuführen, (aph. 66)

This entire meditation, of course, evolves out of the initial paradox that in each realm this "citizen" is free despite his chain. The ultimate compromise of his freedom, however, derives from the conflicts of the double chaining, so that all that remains is pure potentiality: "trotzdem hat er alle Möglichkeiten." Pure possibility, however, is itself paradoxical, for it excludes eo ipso one essential possibility: that of realization or actualization of any given potential. The situation Kafka describes here, then, denies humankind's capacity to transform reflection on the possible into concrete enactment in life: the split between abstract knowledge and the practical realm of lived experience is absolute. 146

Thus far we have examined how in Kafka's aphoristic texts of the Zürau period the fundamental dichotomy between thought and experience tends to be portrayed through critical appropriations of the religious mythology relating to humankind's Fall from grace. Humankind's restriction to the "Grenzland" between existence and knowledge correlates directly to the problematization of the mediative movement between theory and practice. The intertwining of these issues, characteristic of Kafka's aphorisms, is quintessentially demonstrated by one of the longer reflections from the third Oktavheft. Niemand kann sich mit der Erkenntnis allein begnügen, sondern muß sich bestreben, ihr gemäß zu handeln. Dazu aber ist ihm die Kraft nicht mitgegeben, er muß daher sich zerstören, selbst auf die Gefahr hin, sogar dadurch die notwendige Kraft nicht zu erhalten, aber es bleibt ihm nichts anderes übrig, als dieser letzte Versuch. (Das ist auch der Sinn der Todesdrohung beim Verbot des Essens vom Baume der Erkenntnis; vielleicht ist das auch der ursprüngliche Sinn des natürlichen Todes.) Vor diesem Versuch nun fürchtet er sich; lieber will er die Erkenntnis des Guten und Bösen rückgängig machen (die Bezeichnung "SündenfalP geht auf diese Angst zurück); aber das Geschehene kann nicht rückgängig gemacht, sondern nur getrübt werden. Zu diesem Zweck entstehen die Motivationen. Die ganze Welt ist ihrer voll, ja die ganze sichtbare Welt ist vielleicht nichts anderes als eine Motivation des einen Augenblick lang ruhenwollenden Menschen. Ein Versuch, die Tatsache der Erkenntnis zu fälschen, die Erkenntnis erst zum Ziel zu machen. (H, 102-3)

The impossibility of actions that accord with recognition, and the concomitant impossibility of satisfaction with knowledge alone, lead to attempts to revoke knowledge itself. From this derive what Kafka terms "die Motivationen," on which the entire human world subsists; and these, in turn, represent the attempt to deny the possession of knowledge, projecting it as a goal into the future. In other words, the impossibility of moving from abstract knowledge to practical action evokes the desire to nullify knowledge itself. A similar thought is expressed by another aphorism from the third Oktavheft: Erkenntnis haben wir. Wer sich besonders um sie bemüht, ist verdächtig, sich gegen sie zu bemühn. (H, 104)

In a paradoxical reversal, the search for knowledge is presented as an attempt to deny knowledge; i. e. to revoke the Fall from paradise, the representative symbol of humankind's acquisition of knowledge, and return humanity to a state of "grace." Grace implies simply liberation from the tortured position between knowledge and action, thought and life. Kafka's obsession with this tension between theoretical knowledge and its practical implementation is especially prominent during the Zürau period. While it is certainly true that Kafka's generalizations about the human condition are predicated on analyses of his own life and personal experience, 147

reduction of these texts to mere biographical facts simply reconstructs in reverse the process which Kafka set into motion. It is more significant to follow through the literary manifestations of the problems themselves in order to determine what consequences they have for Kafka's literary creativity. In the case of the aphorisms, at least, the centrality of precisely this issue of the problematical mediation between thought and experience, universal knowledge and particular implementation, may have suggested to Kafka the appropriateness of this expressive form for the dilemmas on which he focused in the Zürau period. The aphorisms mark an essential shift in the character of Kafka's literary production - this alone explains why scholars have so avidly striven to isolate the aphoristic writings from Kafka's other texts. Yet crucial to the understanding of Kafka's turn to the aphorism is an understanding of this genre itself, and of its suitability to the issues with which Kafka was concerned during the period at which he took up this form. My argument, simply stated, is that religious issues are by no means the lowest common denominator of Kafka's aphorisms in general, or of their treatment of the problem of humankind in particular. On the contrary, religious motifs serve as mytho-religious encipherings of the profounder epistemological crisis endemic to the situation of humanity as diagnosed by Kafka. The centrality of the dichotomy between knowledge and its implementation, theory and practice - in other words, of the insufferable middle-realm between knowledge and pure existence to which, in Kafka's view, humankind is condemned - is demonstrated by the frequency with which the structural essence of this problem manifests itself in various concretizations. The split between knowledge and life, as we have repeatedly seen, can alternately take the form of a dichotomy between theory and practice, external world and internal world, phenomenal and noumenal, experience and its portrayal, or even truth and lie. The following aphoristic texts present a cross-section of these diverse manifestations of an identical problem, which for the sake of brevity I will henceforth refer to as the structure of exclusion.48 Von außen wird man die Welt mit Theorien immer siegreich eindrücken und gleich mit in die Grube fallen, aber nur von innen sich und sie still und wahr erhalten. (H, 74) Nicht jeder kann die Wahrheit sehn, aber sein. (//, 94) Wirklich urteilen kann nur die Partei, als Partei aber kann sie nicht urteilen. Demnach gibt es in der Welt keine Urteilsmöglichkeit, sondern nur deren Schimmer. (H, 86) 48

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Manfred Frank and Gerhard Kurz have pointed out the significance of this structure in German Idealist conceptions of the problem of knowledge. They include in their investigation a section on Kafka; see their "Ordo inversus: Zu einer Reflexionsfigur bei Novalis, Hölderlin, Kleist und Kafka," Geist und Zeichen: Festschrift für Arthur Henkel, ed. H. Anton, et al. (Heidelberg: Winter, 1977), pp. 75-97.

Wahrheit ist unteilbar, kann sich also selbst nicht erkennen; wer sie erkennen will, muß Lüge sein. (aph. 80)

The multiplicity of contexts in which this structure occurs leads to the surmise that the individual manifestations are actually secondary to the presentation of the structure itself. In much the same sense, Biblical motifs in Kafka's aphorisms serve merely as vehicles for the depiction of this fundamental structure of exclusion which Kafka diagnosed as central to the conflicts of his life, and of humanity in general. In the instance of these texts, structure itself has become central. This, of course, is just one further reason why the aphorism was an appropriate form of expression for the endeavor Kafka was involved in at this time. Much like Wittgenstein's theory (and aphoristic demonstration) in the Tractatus of the dual expressivity of language, these texts by Kafka indirectly "show" an identical structure, while what they "say" is in each case quite different.49 In the structure of exclusion pervasive in his aphoristic texts, Kafka structurally presents the conflict of mediation that he diagnosed as the preeminent dilemma of his life, one from which all of his concrete conflicts derived. This mediative conflict is traditionally a central issue of aphoristics, and Kafka's awareness of this fact probably influenced his turn to aphoristic expression during the Ziirau period when he sought concertedly to come to terms with this issue. B) Aphorism and the Fragmentary Of the other conceptual issues which link Kafka's thought and literature to those of the aphorist, the problem of the fragment and the fragmentary comes immediately to mind. The aphorist, as one who recognizes the necessity of the fragmentary, yet who seeks to turn this necessity into a virtue, might be termed the fragmentist par excellence. That is to say that the aphorist, while desiring the whole, recognizes, in the words of Adorno, that the whole is the untruth ("Das Ganze ist das Unwahre").50 The Utopia of the whole finds expression in two elements of aphoristic expression: in the apodictic finality of its rhetorical discourse; and in the group configuration which through cotextual deviance emphasizes the gaps and ruptures between individual fragments, while simultaneously projecting an outline of the whole in the very counterpoint of textual presence and textual absence. Kafka's entire literary endeavor can certainly be called an art of the fragmentary: the word "fragment" is the designation which most aptly unifies his literary production, whether one considers the early sketches published

See my "Suggestive Metaphor," pp. 465-6. See Adorno, Minima Moralia, p. 55. 149

under the title Betrachtung, the fragmentary novels and stories, or, indeed, the aphoristic texts. My argument will be that in Kafka's case, as is true of the aphorist in general, the fragmentary results from an equivocal attitude toward the finality of conclusions, and that the strategies of his texts are governed by a desire to divert from finality. All of Kafka's literature, like the aphorism in general, is marked by this reluctant refusal of the whole.51 One of the paradoxes of Kafka's artistic sensibility is that, while possessing a keen sense of the requirement for artistic closure, most of his works remained fragmentary. To be sure, it was the uncompromising nature of this demand itself which inhibited Kafka's ability to conclude his texts. The danger Kafka sensed was the imposition, grounded in the drive for closure, of an artifical conclusion onto a story. In other words, the conclusion is forced, instead of evolving out of the text itself independent of the willing, mastering authorical subject. The satisfaction Kafka felt with the story "Das Urteil" derived in part from the natural evolution of the story out of itself. On the other hand, Kafka sharply criticized the story "In der Strafkolonie" in a letter to his editor, Kurt Wolff: "Zwei oder drei Seiten kurz vor [dem] Ende sind Machwerk, ihr Vorhandensein deutet auf einen tieferen Mangel, es ist da irgendwo ein Wurm, der selbst das Volle der Geschichte hohl macht" (Br, 159).52 The significance Kafka attributed to conclusions in general is indicated in his assertion that the single error near the end of this story - an error that even he cannot identify more closely - undermines the tale in its entirety. The artificial "Machwerk," rather than shoring up the story, actually hollows it out. But this self-critique of "Strafkolonie" reflects more than just Kafka's dissatisfaction with this one work; indeed, as an entry from his diary from 1911 demonstrates, Kafka reflected in general about the difficulty of endings. Die Schwierigkeiten der Beendigung, selbst eines kleinen Aufsatzes, liegen nicht darin, daß unser Gefühl für das Ende des Stückes ein Feuer verlangt, das der tatsächliche bisherige Inhalt aus sich selbst nicht hat erzeugen können, sie entstehen vielmehr dadurch, daß selbst der kleinste Aufsatz vom Verfasser eine Selbstzufriedenheit und eine Verlorenheit in sich selbst verlangt, aus der an die Luft des gewöhnlichen Tages zu treten, ohne starken Entschluß und äußern Ansporn schwierig ist, so daß man eher, als der Aufsatz rund geschlossen wird und man still abgleiten darf, vorher, von der Unruhe getrieben, ausreißt und dann der Schluß von außenher geradezu mit Händen beendigt werden muß, die nicht nur arbeiten, sondern sich auch festhalten müssen. (T, 218-9)53 51

52 53

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Peter Cersowsky discusses the problem of the fragmentary in Kafka's works in some detail, relating it to the tendency toward the fragmentary in literary decadence; "Mein ganzes Wesen ist auf Literatur gerichtet," pp. 85-6. See also Sokel, "Das Verhältnis von Erzählperspektive zum Erzählgeschehen," p. 721. For other reflections on the problem of closure, see T, 142, 542, 548; and Br, 120.

The difficulty of arriving at conclusions is not predicated on a lack of "fire" or inspiration, but rather due to what seems to be an uneasiness that arises precisely out of this self-absorption itself. The depth of Kafka's "Verlorenheit" in the successful act of creation can be fathomed in his descriptions of the writing of "Das Urteil" (cf. , 293-4; 296-7). The very profundity of this self-absorption seems to cause Kafka to pull himself prematurely out of the trance-like state of creativity, at which point the text has to be concluded from without, i. e. artificially. One might imagine such creative abandon as a submersion in water, from which after a certain prescribed time limit one must return to the air. If one can remain submerged until the work is concluded, so that the end evolves uninterruptedly out of what precedes it, then the text will be "rounded out," as Kafka describes it. Such rounding out does not necessarily imply for Kafka concluding with a forceful points or a rhetorical flourish, it simply implies pursuing the creative vision to its own selfimposed end. Given this austere creative demand, we can easily understand why Kafka gravitated toward shorter literary forms, and why the novels could not but remain fragmentary. Throughout his life Kafka complained of the lack of time he had for his writing, squeezing it in between office and a few hours of sleep, despising even the slightest interruption of his "free" time devoted to literature. According to the description cited above, one can understand not only why Kafka's works tended to remain fragmentary, but also even why those which were completed in a formal sense have an element of the fragmentary about them. This also helps shape the episodic character of the larger texts, especially the novels. The "paratactic" structure of Der Prozeß, in fact, is so prominent that the individual chapters stand on their own to the extent that even their logical order in the narrative remains in question. As Kafka himself depicted it, he could only arrive at conclusions, at a roundingout of the narrative, within a single creative session, so that longer works would naturally take on the appearance of paratactically combined episodes, each entire unto itself. Ironically, during the Ziirau period, one of the first extended spans of time free of the burden of the office that he ever enjoyed, Kafka concerns himself almost solely with the composition of prose miniatures. In recent years a great deal has been made about the influence that external conditions exerted upon Kafka's writing.54 While in general this thesis seems convincing, at times some of its manifestations border on the ludicrous. Such is the case, it seems to me, with Pasley's assertion that Kafka's desire to compose See, for example, Malcolm Pasley, "Der Schreibakt und das Geschriebene," and Wolf Kittler, "Brief oder Blick: Die Schreibsituation der frühen Texte Franz Kafkas," Der junge Kafka, pp. 40-67. 151

miniatures is reflected in the miniature format of the octavo notebooks in which they were composed.55 Aside from the fact that such an explanation says nothing whatsoever about possible initial motivations behind the decision to compose short works in the first place, it seems further to evince surrender to the Kafka mystique: a writer such as Kafka could never be swayed out of mundane reasons - lack of money, wartime paper shortages, unavailability of other notebook formats - to choose even the paper he writes on! Hartmut Binder has suggested a more convincing hypothesis, namely that Kafka chose the smaller format - assuming, of course, that it was a matter of choice at all - because he wanted the notebooks to fit into a pocket and thus be easily portable.56 Nonetheless, in the final analysis there is no reason to doubt that intellectual considerations played a formidable role in Kafka's turn to shorter textual forms in the Zürau period, regardless of whether the choice of the octavo format was predicated on a conscious decision. Throughout his life Kafka displayed a penchant for "die kleine Form," a penchant which can be explained on the basis of various intellectual-historical contexts. On the one hand, it is one of the aspects that links Kafka's work to that of his Austrian contemporaries whose predilection for "die kleine Form" has already been examined.57 One critic has chosen a somewhat broader context, aligning Kafka's tendency toward the literary fragment with the loss of totality characteristic of literary decadence in general. "Verlust der Ganzheit als Signum der Dekadenz: Dies bedeutet bei Kafka auch Formzerfall, Selbständigkeit von Einzelskizzen und Fragmentarisierung als maßgeblicher Stilzug in einer Persistenz, die sich keineswegs auf die frühen Schriften beschränkt."58 In a yet more extensive intellectual context, the autonomy of the part at the expense of the whole which marks Kafka's literature has been understood in terms of the celebration of the fragmentary as characteristic of modernism.59 Regardless of the context in which one wishes to embed it, Kafka's predilection for the fragmentary cannot be denied. What is significant, however, is that Kafka adhered to the modernist notion - and the traditional belief of the aphorist - that truth resides in individual details, not in the completely grasped whole. He expresses this thought in a letter to Brod from July 1916. Ich werde das Ganze nur beschreiben, mehr als das, was man sieht, kann ich nicht sagen. Man sieht aber nur allerkleinste Kleinigkeiten und das allerdings ist bezeich-

55 56 57 58 59

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Pasley, "Der Schreibakt und das Geschriebene," p. 12. Binder's hypothesis is transmitted by Pasley, p. 24. See Kurz, Traum-Schrecken, p. 9, and also Cersowsky, passim. Cersowsky, p. 85. David Miles, "'Pleats, Pockets, Buckles, and Buttons'," p. 342.

nend, meiner Meinung nach. Es spricht für Wahrhaftigkeit auch gegenüber dem Blödesten. Mehr als Kleinigkeiten kann man mit bloßem Auge dort, wo Wahrheit ist, nicht sehn. (Ar, 141-2)

On the basis of this passage, one can almost imagine Kafka as a disciple of Ernst Mach, whose sensualist theory of knowledge attained far-reaching currency in Austria at the time. Similar to Mach, Kafka both restricts "truth" to that which is empirically perceptible, and reduces the totality of an impression to a series of fragments. Kafka goes so far as to assert here that fragmentation is a certain sign of truth. Of course, he does not exclude the possibility that truth transcends this fragmentation perceived "mit bloßem Auge," but he restricts the perceptibility of truth to an awareness of the fragmentary. What goes beyond this is, in Machian terms, the meta-physical or meta-sensual. As I have already argued, the aphorism presented itself to Austrian intellectuals of the period as an appropriate form of expression, one which took account of this fragmentization of truth, and which problematized the interplay of empirical and cognitive spheres. Simultaneously, the aphorism appeared to some thinkers as an expressive form equal to the task of stretching the limits of a language restricted to the world of the senses. The proximity of Kafka's thoughts on language to this conception is brought out in his famous aphorism which asserts this very limitation of language to the sensual realm. Die Sprache kann für alles außerhalb der sinnlichen Welt nur andeutungsweise, aber niemals auch nur annähernd vergleichsweise gebraucht werden, da sie, entsprechend der sinnlichen Welt, nur vom Besitz und seinen Beziehungen handelt. (aph.57)

The goal of critical aphorists such as Kraus and Wittgenstein was to develop a mode of expression in which reference and implication, sensual and metasensual, were somehow bound together. This, as we shall see shortly, was the case for Kafka as well when he turned to the aphorism in the fall of 1917. For the moment it is important simply to realize that for Kafka, as for the aphorist in general, the fragmentary - and that means the merely sensual; "Besitz und sein[e] Beziehungen" - is rarely an end in itself, but rather an indicator of an absence, of a metaphysical (i. e. meta-sensual) truth which is absent in the physical world. This modernist concern is reflected in the predilection for aphoristic discourse, which, in the terminology of metaphysics, juxtaposes presence and absence, "Vergleich" and "Andeutung," "saying" and showing," or, in the terminology of linguistics, plays off reference and implication. The aphorism allows Kafka and his fellow aphorists to glorify the truth of the fragmentary, without, however, 153

abandoning in thought the Utopia of the whole and complete.60 The dialectical relationship obtaining between Kafka's compulsion for closure and his insistence on the fragmentary, as well as the dialectic manifest in the conflict between the rhetorical closure of aphoristic structure and the open, seemingly endless interpretability of its content, are inherently related. A similar contrast between formal closure and interpretive openness is characteristic of all of Kafka's literary texts, and his gravitation toward such a structure certainly helped shape his eventual turn to the aphorism, a form in which such a contrast is constitutive of the genre itself. C) Dynamism and Perspectivism Closely tied to Kafka's vision of the physical world as a realm of loosely connected fragments is his conception that reality and truth are caught up in an endless process of change. Subscription to this Heraclitean notion of flux in both the physical and intellectual realms is, as has been shown, one of the central precepts of aphoristics. Kafka describes his own sense of the dynamism of truth in a letter to Milena. "Es ist schwer, die Wahrheit zu sagen, denn es gibt zwar nur eine, aber sie ist lebendig und hat daher ein lebendig wechselndes Gesicht" (BM, 73). In a parenthetical remark written in Czech, Kafka adds that the face of truth is never beautiful; at best it is now and again pretty. Kafka's words here must be viewed with care, for it is significant that he does not question one's ability to perceive truth, but rather only the possibility of speaking it. Here we recognize once again Kafka's awareness of the danger that language falsely fixes what is in essence dynamic. Goethe had expressed this insight in the following manner: "Der Mensch, indem er spricht, muß für den Augenblick einseitig werden; es giebt keine Mittheilung, keine Lehre, ohne Sonderung."61 Speech inherently implies the assumption of a fixed perspective; truth, however, cannot be held down by the ballast of language. It is well known that Kafka understood the outbreak of tuberculosis in fall 1917 as the appearance of an internal, spiritual "wound" which had long festered within him; as such, the illness was conceived as "true" (in the sense of "integral") to his being. Yet he was still overwhelmed by the incom-

Jacques Derrick associates nostalgia for the lost origin or absent totality with "modernist" (as opposed to postmodernist) tendencies inherent especially, in his view, in structuralism; see his "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bates (Chicago: Univ. of Chigaco Press, 1978), p. 292. Goethe, Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit, ed. Siegfried Scheibe (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1970), p. 426. 154

prehensibility of this wound and of the internal circumstances which had evoked it. Writing to Brod from Ziirau, Kafka portrayed the incomprehensibility of this "wound" in terms of a lack of perspective when confronted with an ever-changing dynamic mass. Allerdings ist hier noch die Wunde, deren Sinnbild nur die Lungenwunde ist. Du mißverstehst es, Max, nach Deinen letzten Worten im Hausflur, aber ich mißverstehe es auch vielleicht und es gibt (so wird es auch bei Deinen innern Angelegenheiten sein) überhaupt kein Verständnis solchen Dingen gegenüber, weil es keinen Überblick gibt, so verwühlt und immer in Bewegung ist die riesige, im Wachstum nicht aufhörende Masse. (Br, 161)

Kafka's concern with this internal sphere of the self ("innere Angelegenheiten") remains constant throughout his life, but it takes on almost exaggerated proportions in the months directly following the physical appearance of the "wound" in his lung. The aphorisms of the Oktavhefte represent his preeminent attempt to find an expressive medium which could come to terms with his insight into the incomprehensibility of this internal realm, to evolve a discourse which takes into consideration the dynamic alterability of its object and which gives easy access to shifting perspectives. Faced with this "gigantic mass" of confusion when he directs his gaze inward, Kafka understands that there is no standpoint from which this confusion will coalesce into an easily graspable whole. There is, as Kafka emphasizes, no overview with regard to one's internal world, and this implies that it can be conceived - and expressed - only in fragments grounded in various perspectives: there is no totality. While after the fall of 1917 Kafka applied the problem of perspective almost exlusively to the issue of the understanding of one's innermost being, perspectivism was a doctrine which had long been present in Kafka's mind in more general terms, only to attain a certain specificity in the crisis months after the diagnosis of tuberculosis. A diary entry from 1913 bears testimony to Kafka's general belief that reality cannot be sorted out due to the fact that one lacks a perspective from which such an overriding analytic act might occur. Zwischen Freiheit und Sklaverei kreuzen sich die wirklichen schrecklichen Wege ohne Führung für die kommende Strecke und unter sofortigem Verlöschen der schon zurückgelegten. Solcher Wege gibt es unzählige oder nur einen, man kann das nicht feststellen, denn es gibt keine Übersicht. (T, 345)

This passage reads like a summary of the situation of Kafka's protagonists in general, who, bound to their own limited perspectives, lack insight not only into the motivations of others, but also into their own, and who thus can neither see whence they are coming or whither they are going. Lack of overview is, in Kafka's world, tantamount to lack of control, inability to be the master of one's own fate. The fragmentary, episodic nature of the narra155

tives is accounted for in part, then, by this absence of overview, which entails inability to draw overriding connections, to project a system, to make and follow a plan.62 Adherence to the principles of perspectivism also had certain ramifications in Kafka's own life and thought. To Felice he admitted his ability "to divide himself in thought" ("In Gedanken kann ich mich teilen," BF, 459). One of the primary manifestations of this was Kafka's capacity to place himself within the head of another person, even of an adversary such as his father, and bring out the arguments that belong to this perspective. Writing to Felice in 1913, Kafka admits about his relationship with his father: "Das Merkwürdigste in meinem Verhältnis zu ihm ist aber vielleicht, daß ich es bis aufs äußerste verstehe, nicht mit ihm, aber in ihm zu fühlen und zu leiden" (BF, 453). Kafka makes liberal use of this talent in the "Brief an den Vater," when, in his conclusion, he summarizes the arguments that the father would likely bring against the case he has made (cf. H, 221-3).63 Certainly, this was a strategy which was nurtured by Kafka's legal training; for the anticipation of arguments which the opposition might bring against one's own position is essential to the wary establishment of one's case, as well as to the preparation of a firm rebuttal. Kafka not only recognized that all knowledge is grounded in a particular perspective, he practiced in his own search for knowledge and truth that fluidity of perspective which could help one avoid dogmatism. Nietzsche, of course, was one of the first to express an awareness of the dependence of knowledge and truth on perspective. Es gibt nur ein perspektivisches Sehen, nur ein perspektivisches "Erkennen"; und je mehr Affekte wir über eine Sache zu Worte kommen lassen, je mehr Augen, verschiedene Augen wir uns für dieselbe Sache einzusetzen wissen, um so vollständiger wird unser "Begriff" dieser Sache, unsre "Objektivität" sein. (Werke, II, 86l)64

Nietzsche's aphoristic method represents one attempt at a realization of this approximation of objectivity through the establishing of differing perspectives on a given subject. Kafka's aphoristic texts also demonstrate the realization of this perspectivistic approach to knowledge, both on a formal and on a 62

63 64

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On the relationship of perspective and the fragmentary in Kafka's art, see Günter Heintz, Franz Kafka: Sprachreflexion als dichterische Einbildungskraft, p. 119; see also Kafka's interpretation of "Das Urteil" in which he points out the significance of perspective in this story, BF, 397. See fir, 58 for a further example of Kafka's absorption in the perspective of others. The connection of Kafka to the perspectivism of Nietzsche is made by Cersowsky, p. 43; cf. also Günter Heintz, Sprachreflexion als dichterische Einbildungskraft, p. 119, and Wiebrecht Ries, Transzendenz als Terror: Eine religionsphilosophische Studie über Franz Kafka, Phronesis, Bd 4 (Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Schneider, 1977), p. 72.

thematic level. The problem of perspectivism, for example, is thematized in the following aphoristic text. Es gibt im gleichen Menschen Erkenntnisse, die bei völliger Verschiedenheit doch das gleiche Objekt haben, so daß wieder nur auf verschiedene Subjekte im gleichen Menschen rückgeschlossen werden muß. (aph. 72)

We are reminded again of Ernst Mach's refutation of the constancy of a single ego, and of Hermann Bahr's suggestion that the self is composed of multiple subjects. One result of the application of such an insight in Kafka's aphoristic texts is that one must take care not to interpret any single aphoristic statement as Kafka's last word on a given subject. Indeed, true to the essence of aphoristic expression, Kafka often gives complementary or contradictory treatments of a single subject matter in diverse aphoristic texts. The interpreter of Kafka's aphorisms is therefore always confined to a relatively narrow interpretive space: withstanding the temptation to attribute absolute and final validity to any single aphoristic utterance, one must attempt to view thematically related texts in their essential mutual interaction. At the same time, one must be careful not to systematize these sub-groups too strictly, for that also would amount to an interpretive affront against the anti-systematic, undogmatic openness of the aphorisms. This is the fine line which I am attempting to follow in my investigation of these texts. The issue of perspectivism is treated thematically in numerous aphorisms by Kafka. In the following example this problem is depicted through the fabrication of a scenario in which differing perspectives are shown to be grounded in self-interest. Verschiedenheit der Anschauungen, die man etwa von einem Apfel haben kann: die Anschauung des kleinen Jungen, der den Hals strecken muß, um noch knapp den Apfel auf der Tischplatte zu sehn, und die Anschauung des Hausherrn, der den Apfel nimmt und frei dem Tischgenossen reicht, (aph. 11/12)

The question of perspective is transposed into a psychological dimension through the subtle conjoining of perspective and attitude on the object perceived. For the young boy who must strain his neck to glimpse the apple on the table, the apple becomes an object of desire; for the master of the house, by contrast, the apple is in unimpeded view, and this reflects on his ability to pick up this object and hand it to the boy. The text thus alludes to the fact that the limited perspective of the boy is a function of his subservience, his lack of control over the object and his own situation; while the "master" indeed "masters" the situation by virtue of his commanding perspective. Those whose perspective grants them dominance are, in turn, in a position to grant favors to the subservient, thus affirming their own mastery, as well as the servility of the others. 157

The significance of perspectivistic portrayal for Kafka's aphorisms is also evident on a purely structural level. The inversion of conventional wisdom or accepted points of view is one of the primary expressions of the aphorist's desire to highlight the flexibility of perspectives. With the inversion of perspective, as Nietzsche's aphorisms so often demonstrate, there follows an inversion of values. A very early aphorism recorded in Kafka's diary in 1913 provides a brilliant instance of such perspectival inversion. Die Entdeckungen haben sich dem Menschen aufgedrängt. ( , 340)

This re-interpretation of dis-covery as something that forces itself upon the "discoverer" has already been examined and need not be discussed further here. Let us look instead at a famous aphorism from the Ziirau period with an eye for its application of perspectival inversion as a textual strategy. Ein Käfig ging einen Vogel suchen, (aph. 16)65

Gerhard Neumann has explicated this aphorism in terms of what he calls Kafka's "gleitendes Paradox."66 As Neumann demonstrates, what initially appears to be a mere inversion proves on closer inspection to be much more complex: for a bird that seeks a cage is no more "logical" than a cage seeking a bird, since birds are by convention associated with freedom, not with the desire for captivity. The ostensible structural inversion, then, has been grafted onto an initial conceptual inversion of the symbolic value of "birdness." The resultant "gliding paradox," derived from the interaction of these two inversions, effects a process of incessant recursion in which no definite interpretive perspective can be conclusively held on to. Far from merely reversing a conventional perspective, Kafka's text employs a strategy that evokes various perspectival reversals through the fusion of two inversions that conflict with one another from distinct textual levels (one structural, the other conceptual or semantic). In this sense Kafka's aphorism goes even beyond Nietzsche's perspectivistic aphorisms; for it alludes, in a text that is linguistically otherwise quite simple, to the infinite perspectives, and hence infinite values or "meanings," that even such a superficially simple statement can call forth.67 The perspectivistic quality of Kafka's aphorisms is significant not merely because its presence helps connect his aphoristic texts to the principles of 65 66 67

See H, 104 for an aphorism that employs a similar technique. Neumann, "Umkehrung und Ablenkung," p. 706. See also Kurz, Traum-Schrecken, who is of the opinion that Kafka believed only inversion of the apparent could possibly reveal truth, and who thus asserts that one must read Kafka's texts as conscious inversions of their overt statements, pp. 37, 90, and passim; see also his section on Kafka in the article written in conjunction with Manfred Frank, "Ordo inversus," pp. 91-7.

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aphoristic expression in general, but also because of the non-dogmatic attitude that such a position - or non-position, to be more precise - implies. This, it seems to me, is one of the strongest arguments that can be brought against those who find philosophical or religious "doctrines" in these texts. If the aphorisms reveal a perspective of their own - as, indeed, they must, since all expression is rooted in some standpoint or set of standpoints - then this "perspective" must be conceived as a spectrum in which numerous points of view converge. The "statement" of this convergence is not one which can be discerned in the positions explicitly expressed in these texts; rather it can only be fathomed through consideration of the form that these remarks take - and form implies here aphoristic form. In other words, speaking with Wittgenstein, it is what Kafka's aphorisms - true to this genre - show, and not what they say, that is of fundamental significance. D) Kafka's Conceptual Patterns A few scholars have maintained that the aphorism is a mode of expression which is appropriate to Kafka's general conceptual patterns.68 While it is clearly impossible to draw strict correspondences between certain elements or structures of thought and the production of aphorisms - this sounds rather too deterministic - one can turn this statement around and maintain that aphorists tend to display certain patterns or proclivities in their thought that can be associated with a predilection for this mode of expression.69 Most of those inclinations associated with "aphoristic thought" are tendencies evident in Kafka's conceptual patterns. Perhaps the most prominent characteristic in Kafka's thought which aligns him with the manner of thinking typical of the aphorist is his predilection for the un-systematic or anti-systematic.70 Kafka himself described his thought as "nebelhaft," blaming this quality for the tremendous difficulty he had in carrying on cohesive discussions with others. Die für andere Menschen gewiß unglaublichen Schwierigkeiten, die ich beim Reden mit Menschen habe, haben darin ihren Grund, daß mein Denken oder besser mein Bewußtseinsinhalt ganz nebelhaft ist, daß ich darin, so weit es nur auf mich ankommt, ungestört und manchmal selbstzufrieden ruhe, daß aber ein menschliches Gespräch Zuspitzung, Festigung und dauernden Zusammenhang braucht, Dinge, die es in mir nicht gibt. (T, 460-1) 68 69

70

Kurz, Traum-Schrecken, p. 36; Patrick Bridgwater, Kafka and Nietzsche, p. 21. Paul Requadt has summarized these characteristics of "aphoristic" thought, "Das aphoristische Denken," Lichtenherg, pp. 133-165; esp. pp. 143-54; see also Gerhard Fieguth, "Nachwort," Deutsche Aphorismen, pp. 368-77. On the unsystematic in Kafka's thought, see Ernst Pawel, The Nightmare of Reason: A life of Franz Kafka (New York: Farar, Straus, Giroux, 1984), p. 69; Bert Nagel, Kaßa und die Weltliteratur, p. 307; Binder, Kafka in neuer Sicht, pp. 8-12.

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Among the qualities responsible for his self-diagnosed incompetence in conversation, Kafka cites lack of connection, absence of firmness or conviction, and an inability to reduce the manifold to manageable proportions. All of these point to Kafka's openness and lack of dogmatism, both in thought and in conversation, as well as to an inherent intellectual curiosity that forbids him to close himself off to new cognitive possibilities. In this sense Kafka's patterns of thought resemble those of the aphorist, for whom experimentation with new and always different hypotheses takes precedence over dogmatic reliance on a fixed theoretical position.71 The rage for qualification, retraction, or reassessment of previously stated assertions is one of the most prominent manifestations of the inherent instability of individual thoughts or statements in Kafka's conceptual process. Stanley Corngold has argued convincingly that in these constant "recursions" Kafka establishes a field in which oppositions remain unresolved.72 Kafka's interest is held by the tension of this unresolved play of oppositions, according to Corngold, not by the resolute poles of these opposing positions. This structural pattern of incessant recursions is precisely what we have examined in the conflicting inversions in Kafka's aphorism on the bird in search of a cage. Indeed, Neumann's "gleitendes Paradox" and Corngold's notion of "recursion" are nearly identical. Such recursions are the structural manifestation of the "undecidability" in Kafka's thought, his unwillingness to allow his conceptualizations or reflections to remain stagnant or stable. This fluidity and "undecidability" are central in Kafka's aphorisms. In the self-diagnosis examined above, Kafka also emphasized the "connectionlessness" of his thoughts. This quality, while characteristic of the aphorist, is also characteristic of the modern age - Musil describes this as „die bekannte Zusammenhanglosigkeit der Einfalle und ihre Ausbreitung ohne Mittelpunkt, die für die Gegenwart kennzeichnend ist" (MoE, 20). This connectionlessness of individual thoughts is responsible for the fragmentary, episodic quality of Kafka's works. Binder has designated this tendency in Kafka's thought as the "Absolutsetzung des Einzelphänomens."73 Applying the terminology of Jakobson, this phenomenon could be described as an imposition of contiguity onto the axis of substitution: Kafka's narratives evolve in the metaphonc plane as a metonymic expansion of the associative potential inherent in the initial image or situation. This thesis is consistent with hypotheses about the literalization of metaphor in Kafka's works,74 as Ingeborg Henel also points out the experimental aspect in Kafka's thought, "Kafka als Denker," Franz Kafka: Themen und Probleme, p. 52. Stanley Corngold, "Kafka's Double Helix," p. 528. Binder, Kafka in neuer Sicht, p. 15. This was first put forward by Günther Anders, Kafka: Pro und Contra (Munich: C. H.Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1951), pp. 39-42, and has since become a 160

well as with the assertion that Kafka's texts evolve out of their own linguistic elements which steer and direct from within, as it were, the course of the narrative.75 Moreover, the application of Jakobson's terminology allows an adjudication of this proposition with my earlier remarks on the aphorism as a textual type which attempts to project its internal tension through an exaggerated conflict between metaphorical and metonymical components of language. The struggle between similarity and contiguity, in fact, is common in Kafka's writing in general, and in this sense one might claim, as Bridgwater has, that all of Kafka's texts have something "aphoristic" about them.76 The unique texture of Kafka's narratives is woven not of simple metaphorical description, but from a contiguous, and that implies "realistic," evolution within the plane of the metaphorical itself.77 Thus what is commonly perceived as a confusion of the realistic and the fantastic in Kafka's writing is attributable to this intertwining of similarity and contiguity. For while Kafka's texts are indeed "fraught with background," to cite Erich Auerbach's phrase associated with the obscurity of Biblical narratives, they are simultaneously obsessed with surface, and to this extent "realistic" in Auerbach's sense as well.78 Auerbach's and Jakobson's terminology appear to me to be wholly compatible with one another in this respect. Contiguity relates to what Auerbach describes as the concentration on "foreground," similarity with what he refers to as "fraught with background." Kafka's texts in general are neither solely "foregrounded" (contiguous), nor solely "fraught with background" (metaphorical, similar); rather they are composed of a compressed interaction between these two principles, a phenomenon which accounts for the rational irrationalism of Kafka's narratives, as it does for the logical mysticism of his aphorisms. These deliberations have led us somewhat far afield of our investigation into the conceptual patterns in Kafka's thought. What they are intended to demonstrate is the proximity of Kafka's logical mysticism with that commonly associated with "aphoristic" thought. At the same time it is this undermining of reason, and the concomitant dismantling of the totality, which has encouraged some critics to place Kafka within a deconstructive

standard thesis of Kafka-scholarship. See also Corngold, The Commentator's Despair (Port Washington, N. Y.: Kennikat Press, 1973), pp. 1-38. Günter Heintz, pp. 9 & 55. Bridgwater, p. 21, who bases his claim on the observation that the reader of Kafka's texts is always referred back to the inner logic of the text itself. We recall that Jakobson associated contiguity with the literature of Realism, metaphor with that of Romanticism, "Two Aspects of Language," pp. 81-2. Erich Auerbach, "Odysseus' Scar," Mimesis, (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1953) pp. 3-23; see also David Miles, op. cit., p. 332, on Kafka's poetics as one of surface, not of either presence or absence.

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tradition.79 One might simply add to this that a deprivileging of reason and of the logical totality is integral to the aphorism as genre, a fact which makes it, so to speak, "deconstructive" in its very essence. Typical for the aphorist, as for the deconstructionist, is what Kafka terms "[d]as Grauenhafte des bloß Schematischen" ( , 375). This horror of the purely schematic, the artificially systematic, has its corollary in a valorization of the conceptual leap, the epiphanic element of thought.80 Kafka, in fact, considered the conceptual leap to be symptomatic of his own process of conceptualization. In a letter to Felice in which he addresses his faulty memory and the resultant inability to learn from prior experiences, Kafka asserts: Ich kann nicht denken, in meinem Denken stoße ich immerfort an Grenzen, im Sprung kann ich noch einzelweise manches erfassen, zusammenhängendes, entwicklungsmäßiges Denken ist mir ganz unmöglich. Ich kann auch nicht eigentlich erzählen, ja fast nicht einmal reden; . . . Das einzige, was ich habe, sind irgendwelche Kräfte, die sich in einer im normalen Zustand gar nicht erkennbaren Tiefe zur Literatur koncentrieren . . . (BF, 400)

Kafka again insists on the fragmentary, unsystematic nature of his thought, and on his incapacity for progressive, developmental reasoning. Only the conceptual "leap" permits him, according to his analysis, to grasp things "einzelweise." Most important, however, is Kafka's own assertion that this conceptual process determines his literature, which, by his own admission, is not actually "narration" in a strict sense, but a concentration of powers somewhere in the internal depths of his being. This description is consistent with previous passages examined in which Kafka depicts the way his texts evolve out of the creative activity itself. Kafka, of course, had once compared his creative moments to the "hellseherische Zustände" he had heard Rudolf Steiner describe. Mein Glück, meine Fähigkeiten und jede Möglichkeit, irgendwie zu nützen, liegen seit jeher im Literarischen. Und hier habe ich allerdings Zustände erlebt (nicht viele), die meiner Meinung nach den von Ihnen, Herr Doktor [Steiner], beschriebenen hellseherischen Zuständen sehr nahestehen, in welchen ich ganz und gar in jedem Einfall wohnte, aber jeden Einfall auch erfüllte und in welchen ich mich nicht nur an meinen Grenzen fühlte, sondern an den Grenzen des Menschlichen überhaupt. ( , 57)

Kafka's description of these states of mind has striking similarities to the epiphanic experiences portrayed by Hofmannsthal's Lord Chandos, in particular the flowing over of one's very being into the reflection, and the 79

80

See, for example, Margot Norris, "Darwin, Nietzsche, Kafka, and the Problem of Mimesis," p. 1251. See Reiner Stach, "Eine höhere Art der Beobachtung: Zum Verhältnis individueller und kollektiver Erfahrung im Werk Kafkas," Neue Rundschau, 95, no. 1/2 (1984), p. 220.

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sensation of running up against the limits of the humanly conceivable. The "filling up," as Kafka depicts it, of the epiphany by his very being is consistent with his descriptions of the manner in which he was consumed by his creative impulses. These consuming "Einfalle" provide the basis of his literature. This epiphanic element in Kafka's thought will later aid us in an orientation of his aphoristic production in the tension between epiphanic and impressionistic moments which characterize the extremes of aphoristic production among Kafka's Austrian contemporaries. Further aspects of Kafka's thought which align it with the thought characteristic of aphorists could be mentioned here: for example his tendency toward the contra-diction and reinterpretation of conventional conceptions and values. This analysis, however, is best reserved for the chapter dealing with typical forms and tendencies in Kafka's aphorisms themselves. The final task of the present chapter is the portrayal of an overview of Kafka's crisis of language, sketching its relevance for his aphoristic production, and its relationship to the "Sprachkritik'' of his Austrian contemporaries.

IV. Kafka's Aphorisms and the Crisis of Communication In an entry from the fourth Oktavheft dated February 7, 1918, Kafka develops a dramatic dialogue in which the self discusses with itself its own "internal command." The concluding remarks of this dialogue summarize concisely many of the issues addressed above, embedding them in an overriding crisis of communication.81 Warum vergleichst du das innere Gebot mit einem Traum? Scheint es wie dieser sinnlos, ohne Zusammenhang, unvermeidlich, einmalig, grundlos beglückend oder ängstigend, nicht zur Gänze mitteilbar und zur Mitteilung drängend? (H, 111)

Kafka then deals with each of these questions individually, affirming them without exception in the response that follows. Alles das; - sinnlos, denn nur wenn ich ihr nicht folge, kann ich hier bestehn; ohne Zusammenhang, ich weiß nicht, wer es gebietet und worauf er abzielt; unvermeidlich, es trifft mich unvorbereitet und mit der gleichen Überraschung wie das Träumen den Schlafenden, der doch, da er sich schlafen legte, auf Träume gefaßt sein mußte. Es ist einmalig oder scheint wenigstens so, denn ich kann es nicht befolgen, es vermischt sich nicht mit dem Wirklichen und behält dadurch seine

I have dealt in some detail with the relationship of Kafka's aphorisms to his crisis of communication in the previously cited article "Suggestive Metaphor: Kafka's Aphorisms and the Crisis of Communication." 163

unberührte Einmaligkeit; es beglückt und ängstigt grundlos, allerdings viel seltener das erste als das zweite; es ist nicht mitteilbar, weil es nicht faßbar ist und es drängt zur Mitteilung aus demselben Grunde. (H, 111-2)

Two elements in particular from this description hark back to problems already outlined: one of these is the fragmentary connectionlessness of the internal command, its autonomous existence in and of itself, without reference to some practical goal or contextual whole; the other is the fundamental paradox that informs the internal command, namely that it cannot be transposed into reality, acted out, followed in practice. No bridge exists that could link the internal realm from which this command issues with the external realm of sensual reality. This conflict between theory and practice is quite persistent in Kafka's later works, resurfacing repeatedly in different forms, one of the most prominent manifestations being in the parable "Von den Gleichnissen."82 Like the individual's "internal command," the words of the wiseman in this parable cannot be followed in reality: to adhere to his command "Gehe hinüber" would mean to leave the real, sensual world and enter into one where the self would be mere "Gleichnis," i.e. parable or metaphor.83 The irreconcilability of the "sagenhaftes Drüben" of parable with the here and now of reality is highlighted in the dialogue which follows the initial exposition. The first speaker insists that one need only follow the parables to become a parable oneself and hence be freed of one's daily toil. A second speaker retorts that this command is itself a parable, implying that it is thus not implementable, hence underscoring the split between parabolic and real worlds. The fact that this speaker can "win" only in reality further emphasizes the impossiblity of transcending reality and entering the "sagenhaftes Drüben." In this sense, the irreconcilability of the dialogic partners reflects the irreconcilability of the positions they represent. The reflection on the internal command of the individual from 1918 and the parable "Von den Gleichnissen" from 1922 are connected, in addition to the similarity of this central problem, by some common stylistic or formal features. Most prominent among these is the dialogic situation which structures each of these texts. This form has the· advantage that it presents on a For the text of this parable, which I shall not quote here, see BeK, 96. See Sokel, "Language and Truth in the Two Worlds of Franz Kafka," pp. 379-80; for other related interpretations of this parable, see Helmut Arntzen, "Franz Kafka, Von den Gleichnissen," Literatur im Zeitalter der Information, Athenäum Paperbacks Germanistik, 5 (Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1971), pp. 86-92; Beda Allemann, "Kafka, Von den Gleichnissen," ZfdtPh, 83 (1964), 106-12; I.StrohschneiderKohrs, "Erzähllogik und Verstehensprozeß in Kafkas Gleichnis Von den Gleichnissen," Probleme des Erzählens in der Weltliteratur: Festschrift für Kate Hamburger, ed. Fritz Martini (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971), pp. 303-29.

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structural level the conflict of communication which is the thematic thrust of both texts. Inability to communicate, then, is in the case of both these works related to the unbridgeable gap which separates external and internal realms, sensual world and internal command, "Gleichnis" and reality. This, moreover, is identical with the conflict between "epistemological idealism" and "practical realism" to which Fritz Mauthner attributed the impetus to his "Sprachkritik. "84 We have repeatedly observed that epistemological conflicts ultimately express themselves as conflicts of expression or communication for Kafka. This is true for the years prior to his aphoristic period, as it is for the years afterward as well. As with his Austrian contemporaries, crises of knowledge took the form of crises of communication for Kafka.85 Linguistic truth for Kafka, as for his fellow Austrians, consisted in "the perfect adaequatio between word and feeling, between linguistic sign and inner being."86 For Kafka and his Austrian contemporaries, identification of language with the realm of the sensual and empirical led to a problematization of the adaequatio theory of truth. This is the basis for Kafka's condemnation of language in this, one of his most famous aphorisms. Die Sprache kann für alles außerhalb der sinnlichen Welt nur andeutungsweise, aber niemals auch nur annähernd vergleichsweise gebraucht werden, da sie, entsprechend der sinnlichen Welt, nur vom Besitz und seinen Beziehungen handelt. (aph.57)

Despite what appears to be a scathing indictment of language because of its inherent limitations, Kafka recognizes one possible manner in which language might be applied to the non-sensual realm, to the "inner" world and the "inner command" of the individual. Such language would be applied not "vergleichsweise," but rather "andeutungsweise," suggestively. It is my hypothesis that Kafka's turn to the form of the aphorism in 1917-8 reflects his attempts to evolve a literary practice which would conform to the "suggestive" use of language for communication of the internally "transcendent." In this sense, Kafka's aphorisms correspond to new insights arrived at in the Ziirau period, and they manifest a marked shift in Kafka's attempts to evolve a literary practice sufficient to the incommunicable nature of his internal command.

84 85

86

Fritz Mauthner, Prager Jugendjahre, pp. 220 f; cf. chapter two above. On Kafka and the Sprachkrise, see Heintz, Spracbreflexion als dichterische Einbildungskraft, pp. 10 & 23-6; Susanne Kessler, Kafka - Poetik der sinnlichen Welt: Strukturen sprachkritischen Erzählens, pp. 5-10; Kurz, Traum-Schrecken, p. 197; and the articles by Sokel, "Language and Truth in the Two Worlds of Franz Kafka," and "Kafka's Poetics of the Inner Self." Sokel, "Kafka's Poetics of the Inner Self," p. 39. 165

We have already seen that for numerous authors of the Austrian Jahrhundertwende the struggle with language culminated in the paradoxical attempt to overcome language through language itself. What Hofmannsthal sought to accomplish through the "mask" of sixteenth-century rhetoric, and Mauthner through his metaphorical abandon, aphorists like Kraus and Wittgenstein attempted to achieve through the application of the aphorism as a critical "metalanguage" which communicated indirectly by means of its internal structure. During his aphoristic period Kafka too turned to the aphorism as a form of indirect communication, seeking to overcome the crisis of communication which had plagued him throughout his entire life. Insofar as he turns to the suggestive use of language, Kafka's solution resembles the method of indirect communication practiced by Kierkegaard, whose works Kafka read in the Ziirau period. At the same time, his appropriation of aphoristic form at this time betrays Kafka's insight into the potentials and possibilities of this means of expression. In order to elucidate the manner in which certain aphoristic texts embody an overcoming of this crisis of communication, and thus represent communication of the incommunicable, we must examine Kafka's deliberations on metaphor as trope. After all, aphorism 57 indicts the tendency of language to operate "vergleichsweise"; and the wiseman's words in "Von den Gleichnissen" are denounced for being mere "metaphor." As early as the novella "Beschreibung eines Kampfes" Kafka had objected to the substitution of "zufällige Namen," that is, of unusual metaphors, for the "wahrhaftige Namen der Dinge" (BeK, 43). Such substitution elicits "dieses Fieber, diese Seekrankheit auf festem Lande" (BeK, 43) which the protagonist experiences. The unavoidability of metaphor, of course, is indicated by the very application of this trope in its own condemnation. Yet the problem with such fortuitous names is not that they are not appropriate, but rather that they are incomprehensible. Thus instead of communicating the subjective impression of the speaker, they merely complete his isolation within his own subjectivity. In other words, metaphor might indeed be able to describe, but never communicate the subjective aspect of experience. Thus the supplicant in Kafka's story, in whom this crisis takes place, appears to be that type of "intuitive" individual, whose intuitions Nietzsche, in the essay "Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn," explicitly defined as incommunicable: "für sie [die Intuitionen] ist das Wort nicht gemacht, der Mensch verstummt, wenn er sie sieht, oder redet in lauter verbotenen Metaphern und unerhörten Begriffsfügungen" (Werke, III, 321). Such forbidden metaphors, such "zufällige Namen" which undermine the conventions by which the significance of signs is established, remain individual and incommunicable. The opposite extreme, or language employed strictly within the context 166

of social convention, is just as insufficient from Kafka's perspective (see BeK, 44). For while it permits communication, it does not allow for the communication of anything that is individual, of anything that would, so to speak, extend beyond what is allowable within the given conventions of communication. Thus at this extreme one falls into cliche, or into the reiteration of what has already been established and is mutually understood prior to the act of communication.87 In this early novella Kafka indicts two polar extremes of language, only one of which he identifies with metaphor. In the attack on metaphor expressed some years later, in December 1921, metaphor appears as the indication of linguistic insufficiency in both the spiritualist and naturalist poles of expression. Aus einem Brief: "Ich wärme mich daran in diesem traurigen Winter." Die Metaphern sind eines in dem vielen, was mich am Schreiben verzweifeln läßt. Die Unselbständigkeit des Schreibens, die Abhängigkeit vdn dem Dienstmädchen, das einheizt, von der Katze, die sich am Ofen wärmt, selbst vom armen alten Menschen, der sich wärmt. Alles dies sind selbständige, eigengesetzliche Verrichtungen, nur das Schreiben ist hilflos, wohnt nicht in sich selbst, ist Spaß und Verzweiflung. (T, 550-1)

If in "Beschreibung eines Kampfes" Kafka had criticized metaphor because of its tendency to free itself from conventionalized and accepted ways of describing reality, here he inverts this evaluation, attacking metaphor precisely for its overt dependence on the physical, sensual world of perception. Because of this lack of autonomy, metaphor, or the reference of the nonsensual to the world of the sensual, inherently implies a reduction of the internal and intuitive - the meta-physical - to the sphere of the physically experienceable. Kafka objects precisely to the mediative function of metaphor, its position between the internal individual and external reality. If we recall here Kafka's diagnosis of his own problematical situation as one defined by the crisis of the in-between, then we can begin to understand how the critique of metaphor - and, by explicit association, that of language and "writing" - relates to the crisis of individual and community portrayed above. Yet disguised within this critique there lie hidden the possibilities of a solution to the problem: for if metaphor as trope is guilty of demeaning the internal command of the individual by referring it to the realm of empirical experience, then one way out is presented by the conscious uprooting of metaphor from this referentiality. This process, of course, would be intimately related to the "absolutization" of metaphor which occurs throughout Sokel has identified these two linguistic extremes with what he terms the "spiritualist" and "naturalist" poles of Kafka's entire existence, "Language and Truth," p. 374. 167

Kafka's works. There is yet, however, a new dimension in this uprooted application of metaphor, described succinctly in aphorism 57 as the application of language "andeutungsweise," and not "vergleichsweise." The strategy of numerous aphoristic texts by Kafka from 1917 onward is exactly such a "suggestive" application of metaphorical language, employed in the search for a possible avenue out of the crisis of communication. Before examining examples of aphoristic texts which embody such suggestive metaphors, it is informative to compare Kafka's conclusions about metaphor with thoughts expressed by Nietzsche in "Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn." Nietzsche, an important precursor of the Austrian "Sprachkritiker" of the turn of the century, denies that there can be any adequate expression of an object in a subject. He terms such adequate expression "ein widerspruchsvolles Unding," adding: denn zwischen zwei absolut verschiedenen Sphären, wie zwischen Subjekt und Objekt, gibt es keine Kausalität, keine Richtigkeit, keinen Ausdruck, sondern höchstens ein ästhetisches Verhalten, ich meine eine andeutende Übertragung [emphasis added], eine nachstammelnde Übersetzung in eine ganz fremde Sprache: wozu es aber jedenfalls einer frei dichtenden und frei erfindenden Mittelsphäre und Mittelkraft bedarf. (Werke, III, 317)

Nietzsche, at least, seeks to distill certain virtues out of this creative "middlesphere" which for Kafka was the crux of his lament. For Nietzsche the rejection of adaequatio calls forth the highlighting of a peculiarly aesthetic attitude: a faltering trans-lation, a suggestive meta-phorization supplants the one-to-one correspondence of reference between subject and object. It remains for us to discuss the manner in which certain aphoristic texts by Kafka demonstrate a move toward creative appropriation of the "Mittelsphäre" and "Mittelkraft" which he diagnosed as the home of metaphor. We must keep in mind that Kafka's goal in his literature was the expression of the internal command of the individual, something which by nature seemed to him to be ineffable. He depicts the paradoxical drive toward the communication of this incommunicable essence in a letter to Milena: "ich suche nur immerfort etwas Nicht-Mitteilbares mitzuteilen, etwas Unerklärbares zu erklären, von etwas zu erzählen, was ich in den Knochen habe und was nur in diesen Knochen erlebt werden kann" (BM, 296). The ineffable that Kafka seeks to express resides "in his bones," i. e. in the internal sphere of his very being.88 An aphorism from Kafka's miscellaneous fragments depicts the interrelatedness of this issue with the problem of perspective. Was baust du? - Ich will einen Gang graben. Es muß ein Fortschritt geschehn. Zu hoch oben ist mein Standort. (H, 386-7) Kurz also emphasizes Kafka's drive for the expression of the essence of his own existence, Traum-Schrecken, pp. 194—200.

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In a typical aphoristic inversion, Kafka reverses the traditional notion that increased height and distance afford one a better perspective. The reflection immediately following this one in Kafka's notebooks points to the relationship of the requirement of an internal perspective with Kafka's crisis of communication. Wir graben den Schacht von Babel. (H, 387)

If the tower of Babel signifies humankind's striving for a heavenly, divine perspective on life, then the "pit" of Babel represents the desire for an internal perspective on existence. Simultaneously, the reference to "Babel" alludes to the fact that the digging of the pit of Babel will most certainly be frustrated by linguistic confusion. The insufficiency of language for such a task is implied in the very image Kafka chooses. If language is indeed not equal to the communication of one's internal perspective, why not just remain silent? While this was the option Chandos chose, Kafka emphasizes that one is driven to the attempt to communicate the ineffable. One alternative with which Kafka experimented in his aphoristic texts from the Oktavhefte was the uprooting of metaphor from strict referentiality and its employment suggestively to hint at the structural essence of this internal world of the individual. When applied this way the comparative function of metaphor reverts to indirect implication. The following texts are exemplary of what I designate here as suggestive metaphor. Kein Tropfen überfließt und für keinen Tropfen ist mehr Platz. (H, 99) Noch spielen die Jagdhunde im Hof, aber das Wild entgeht ihnen nicht, so sehr es jetzt schon durch die Wälder jagt. (aph. 43) Eine durch Schritte nicht tief ausgehöhlte Treppenstufe ist, von sich selber aus gesehen, nur etwas öde zusammengefügtes Hölzernes, (aph. 59) Leoparden brechen in den Tempel ein und saufen die Opferkrüge leer; das wiederholt sich immer wieder; schließlich kann man es vorausberechnen, und es wird ein Teil der Zeremonie, (aph. 20) Wie ein Weg im Herbst: Kaum ist er rein gekehrt, bedeckt er sich wieder mit den trockenen Blättern, (aph. 15)

Kafka's dilemma lay in the tension between the recognition that the internal world could only be lived, not described, and the conflicting drive to communicate precisely this internal world. The aphorisms cited above represent an attempt to overcome this problem insofar as they apply non-referential metaphors to show the essential structural patterns of his internal crises. In this sense Kafka's turn to the aphorism is related to Wittgenstein's motivation for employing aphoristic expression in the Tractates; for the aphorism paradigmatically represents a mode of expression which shows within its own structural patterns relationships about which it cannot directly speak. Aphorism 59, by way of example, "says" something about the uselessness of a wooden step that has not been hollowed out by wear. If, however, we 169

analyze the structural relationship inscribed within this "absolute" metaphor, we come to an understanding of this text as a metaphorical enciphering in particular guise of a general problem relating to the relationship of an individual to a community. Viewed from its own perspective, a step which is not a link between other steps, thus functioning as a bridge from one point to another, appears to be wholly useless. The particular "metaphor" manifests structurally this general problematic. One might be tempted to relate this metaphor to Kafka's "unused" Judaism or to the uselessness of a life in which intense individuality estranges one from any form of community. But the text itself gives no reasons why it should be restricted to these interpretations; indeed, to do so would be tantamount to limiting this text to the stifling referentiality which Kafka explicitly condemned in metaphor and so painstakingly sought to avoid. Wittgenstein's claim about the linguistic "image," then, is valid for this text, as it is for the other aphorisms which employ suggestive metaphor. "Das Bild kann jede Wirklichkeit abbilden, deren Form es hat" (7V, 2.171, emphasis added). In these metaphorical aphoristic texts Kafka, like Wittgenstein, turns to a Gestalt conception of structure in order to show the structure of his internal dilemmas, suggesting metaphorically what cannot be expressed in direct referential terms.89 Conforming to Kafka's conception of an ineffable internal transcendent, these texts seek to hint at the essence of this internal transcendent by manifesting its Gestalt structure in the structure of the text itself. The virtue of such suggestive metaphor is that it communicates, while compromising neither the individuality of the author's internal command, nor the individuality of the reader. In other words, it allows for individual associations with the structure of the internal individual both in the creative and receptive spheres. Kafka's programmatic statement expressed in September 1917, at the inception of his aphoristic period, describing the artistic goal he set for himself at this time should be understood in the context of the arguments made above. Zeitweilige Befriedigung kann ich von Arbeiten wie "Landarzt" noch haben, vorausgesetzt, daß mir etwas Derartiges noch gelingt (sehr unwahrscheinlich). Glück aber nur, falls ich die Welt ins Reine, Wahre, Unveränderliche heben kann. (T, 534)

If the goal of Wittgenstein and the logical positivists was to discover the pure, true, unchanging structures of logic as they operated in language and in 89

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Kafka was a student at Prague University when Christian von Ehrenfels, the founder and propagator of the theory of Gestalt in Austria, taught there. On the dissemination of the concept of Gestalt in Austrian letters, see William Johnston, The Austrian Mind, pp. 146 & 154; on Kafka's probable awareness of the concept of Gestalt, see Peter Neesen, Vom Loumezirkel zum Prozeß: Frank Kafka und die Psychologie Franz Brentanos, pp. 15 & 124-31.

the world, then Kafka sought in his aphoristic phase to communicate the pure, true, unchanging structures of his existence, employing suggestive metaphors to show their essence. The relevance of this literary practice for the evolution of Kafka's parabolic style will be taken up in the final chapter of this investigation. The next chapter is concerned with an examination of the various sources through which Kafka might have become aware of the applicability of aphoristic expression for his own artistic endeavors. This will help us explain and describe the proximity of Kafka's aphorisms, and of his "aphoristic" solution to the crisis of communication, to those of his contemporary Austrian aphorists, as well as to other representatives of the aphoristic tradition in Germany.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Kafka and his Aphoristic Precursors "Jeder Künstler ist von Ändern beeinflußt worden und zeigt die Spuren dieser Beeinflussung in seinen Werken; aber was er uns bedeutet, ist doch nur seine Persönlichkeit. Was vom Ändern stammt, können nur Eierschalen sein. Daß sie da sind, mögen wir mit Nachsicht behandeln, aber unsere geistige Nahrung werden sie nicht." Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen

The validity of analyses of "influence" and "source" studies has justifiably been called into question by contemporary literary theory. With the advent of conceptions of literary reception, however, the entire issue of influence has been reintroduced, albeit on a theoretically more substantial and sophisticated level. The positivistic conception of literary "sources" tended to view creative writers as the looters of cognitive store-fronts: ideas were made available in the texts of prior writers much as if they were consumer goods laid out for perusal in display windows; one needed only make off quietly with the treasured find. This smacks, if I may be permitted to remain within my somewhat irreverent conceit, of a Platonic idealism gone rowdy: ideas are objects that can be possessed, they are easily transferrable without alteration from one "owner" to another. Looking for a more positive metaphor, one might present "source" ideas as a kind of olympic torch, passed on from writer to writer as they carry on and reaffirm the traditions of the past. Regardless of which metaphor one chooses, the basic conception remains the same: ideas are somehow born eternal and unalterable, made available to be transported through history by means of literary (and other) texts. The ideas themselves remain ideologically "pure" and "true," never in need of critical revision, or indeed, of interpretation. To be sure, I have rhetorically overstated the issue here, but, it seems to me, with some justification: for what is constantly suppressed in positivistic analyses of "sources" is precisely the very basic act of interpretation inherent in the appropriation by one writer of "ideas" expressed by another. Those familiar with the course of Kafka-scholarship might be surprised by the persistence with which positivistic approaches have been able to assert themselves in this area. This is largely due to the intimate intertwining of literature and life in Kafka's works. Yet as much as reconstruction of Kafka's intellectual life - to the extent that any form of "authentic" reconstruction is possible at all - has contributed to scholarship on Kafka, it remains insignificant as long as problems of interpretation are bracketed out where this 172

process of transferral is concerned. German hermeneutical theory, and the aesthetics of reception which it spawned, reintroduce conscious acts of interpretation into the question of "influence" studies. Most importantly, these theoretical directions problematize the very moment of transferral in which one author is "influenced" by another: the moment of reception is determined, after all, as much by the interpretations of the receiver as by what is received. The hermeneutical dialectic of mutual interaction and interpretive "play" of horizons is fundamental to an adequate theory of influence as reception. In such a conception "influence" flows in two directions: from the text to the reader, as in traditional notions of influence; but also from the reader to the text, so that each reader confronts a different version of the text, one whose significance is altered, so to speak, in every act of reception. Only in the context of an aesthetics of reception can one discuss the potential "influences" on Kafka's conception of nature and purpose of aphoristic discourse and on his aphoristic style. In each instance where such "influence" is sought, one must remain cognizant of the fact that Kafka in turn "influences" each of those whose influence we seek on him. This implies that at the moment Kafka begins to be integrated into the tradition and history of aphoristic expression in Germany, as this study attempts to accomplish, the horizon of that tradition and history itself begins to change. In other words, Kafka is not merely the heir to this tradition, but simultaneously a reverse benefactor; for given the horizon of his aphoristic writings, the aphoristic texts of his predecessors take on new meanings. I have chosen the phrase "aphoristic precursors" to designate this intricate and delicate dialectical relationship obtaining between Kafka's aphoristic production and the history and tradition of the aphorism to which he had access. I thus apply the word "precursor" in the sense introduced by Jorge Luis Borges in his memorable essay "Kafka and his Precursors." In the critics' vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemics or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past as it will modify the future. 1

Borges, of course, is most concerned with the extent to which Kafka has altered our understanding of writers of the past. To the degree that this is true, all those who wrote prior to Kafka are his precursors. In other words, with regard to the interpretive horizon of the critic of Kafka, all literature

' Jorge Luis Borges, "Kafka and his Precursors," Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, ed. and trans. Donald A. Yates, et al., New Directions Paperbook, 186 (New York: New Directions, 1962), p. 201.

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takes on a new significance in relation to Kafka's texts. On another level, considering Kafka as the reader and critic of other writers, his readings are shaped by his own person and his own literature. These two interpretive planes justify a dual approach to the investigation of Kafka and his aphoristic precursors: on the one hand, the work of aphorists, for whom no evidence of reception on Kafka's part can be documented, can be examined with an eye for the dialectic of mutual creation and determination obtaining between Kafka's aphorisms and those of his aphoristic predecessors; on the other hand, one can investigate concretely Kafka's reception of aphoristic writings and writers in an attempt to understand the motivations and strategies behind his aphoristic impulse through interpretations of his acts of reception. In these two possibilities are outlined the two directions in which the analyses of the present chapter will proceed. Kafka's reception of the aphorisms and aphoristic methods of such writers as Kierkegaard, Pascal, Friedrich Hebbel, and Karl Kraus will be documented and examined. Parallel to this we will attempt to orient Kafka's aphoristic production in the history of the aphorism as form, referring to such aphorists as Lichtenberg and Nietzsche, for whom questions of reception on Kafka's part cannot be concretely demonstrated, and where, hence, questions of "influence" remain speculative, rather than strictly receptive.

I. Aphorism and Autobiography: Self-Observation and Self-Projection Kafka's predilection for autobiographical documents has frequently been remarked upon. However, it has commonly been overlooked that in significant instances the autobiographical works for which Kafka displayed the most interest tended toward the application of aphoristic discourse in their attempts at self-portrayal. Since its very inception in the Sudelbiicber of Lichtenberg, aphoristic expression in the German tradition has been associated with the tendency toward "Selbstbeobachtung," or objectification of the subjective. Kafka's aphoristic "sources" tended for the most part to reflect this predilection for self-observation, and this, not surprisingly, has significant consequences for his reception and ultimate application of aphoristic expression. While Kafka's reception of certain collections of aphorisms occurs quite early in his life - in 1904 - the dimension of selfportrayal which permeates these early "sources" finds profound expression in Kafka's aphorisms composed between 1917 and 1920. The Oktavhefte, of course, are intimately related to Kafka's diaries, and they demonstrate numerous traits which align them closely with autobiography in the form of 174

the diary.2 The pervasiveness of diary-like self-expression in Kafka's aphoristic notebooks provides us with an initial fixed point in our attempt to orient his aphoristic production in the tradition and history of aphoristic expression. However, instead of generalizing at this point about the relationships between aphorisms and "diary," we shall begin with a concrete examination of Kafka's responses to the earliest aphoristic works he read, all of which fall into the category of aphorism and autobiography. The earliest documentable contact that Kafka had with a collection of aphorisms is his reading of the "Sprüche" - this is the word Kafka uses to describe them - of Marcus Aurelius. In a letter to Oskar Pollak from January 1904, Kafka depicts the tremendous effect that these dicta had upon him. Ich schiebe den Marc Aurel zur Seite, ich schiebe ihn schwer zur Seite. Ich glaube, ich könnte jetzt ohne ihn nicht leben, denn schon zwei, drei Sprüche, im Marc Aurel gelesen, machen gefaßter und straffer, wenn auch das ganze Buch nur von einem erzählt, der mit klugem Wort und hartem Hammer und weitem Ausblick sich zu einem beherrschten, ehernen, aufrechten Menschen machen möchte. Aber man muß gegen einen Menschen ungläubig werden, wenn man immerfort hört, wie er zu sich redet: "Sei doch ruhig, sei doch gleichgültig, gib die Leidenschaften dem Wind, sei doch standfest, sei doch ein guter Kaiser!" Gut ist es, wenn man sich vor sich selbst mit Worten zuschütten kann, aber noch besser ist es, wenn man sich mit Worten ausschmücken und behängen kann, bis man ein Mensch wird, wie man es im Herzen wünscht, (ßr, 25-6)

Kafka describes in positive terms the effect that these "Sprüche" had on him, making him "gefaßter und straffer," that is, serving as a kind of spiritual sustenance. Yet while praising the impact of "zwei, drei Sprüche," he simultaneously has some reservations about the overall tenor of the book. Kafka objects to the self-control and apparent self-determination with which Aurelius mastered his own life through words: he is sceptical of this use of language ("sich vor sich selbst mit Worten zuschütten") as a defense against one's own self-detrimental impulses. Such language is self-dialogic, i. e. used by the self to communicate with the self, and employed as a form of restraint, as a defense against one's own weaknesses. Thus, as the examples Kafka supplies demonstrate, it is a language of imperatives directed at the self. On the other hand, Kafka recognizes a use of words that is quite different and even more valuable: one in which words are "worn" as jewels or as ornaments, functioning not merely to restrain the impulses of the self, but to actually transform the self. No longer a form of entrenchment against negative assaults by the self on the self, language now functions as a medium for shaping the self according to the desires of one's heart - language as a means 2

See Hartmut Binder, Kafka in neuer Sicht, p. 79; Binder relates the Oktavhefte to Kafka's diaries and he notes that these texts mark a new phase in the "Auseinandersetzung .. . mit sich selbst." 175

for self-transfiguration. While perceiving both of these possiblities in Aurelius' dicta, Kafka was most profoundly impressed by the option of selftransfiguration through language; and his portrayal of the effect of these dicta upon him implies that this transformational power seeps through to the reader of these texts in the act of reception. Kafka, after all, describes himself as one who is transformed, made "gefaßter und straffer," through this act of reading. In Kafka's reception of this, his initial source of access to the discourse of the aphorism, we discover his concrete response to, and appraisal of, modified versions of what I have designated as the aphorism of impression and that of epiphany. The first defines aphoristic expression in its ornamental aspect - the attempt to use language as a mask for projecting images or visions of oneself. The second describes the aphorism in its critical aspect language applied as a tool for critically dismantling impulses inherent in others or in the self. In Kafka's reception of Aurelius' dicta, both drives are perceived to have the self as object, one functioning as a means of selfprojection, the other as self-restraint. As Kafka's final statement with regard to Aurelius' dicta indicates, he held the second possibility to be "good," yet the first to be even "better." However, the most significant aspect of Kafka's concluding remark is the manner in which it is formulated. The generality of this statement, abstracted from this particular act of reception, and its rhetorical and apodictic power lend it an air of the aphoristic. Freed from the context in which it occurs, it could easily stand as an aphoristic utterance in its own right. Among the structural devices it applies, parallelism and intensification are typical of aphoristic expression, and in this instance they serve to highlight the contrastive conceptions of the uses of language which Kafka presents here. The reception of Aurelius' "Sprüche," then, extends well beyond the conceptual for Kafka and into the realm of the stylistic: in his own recorded reception of these texts his style betrays the subliminal influence of the rhetorical power and control of Aurelius' dicta. In other words, in his own receptive commentary on these aphoristic writings Kafka can be caught in the act of (unconsciously) imitating their aphoristic style. One scholar has made the claim that in general Kafka was affected more by the style of the things he read than he was by their content.3 In the above example this assertion seems to hold. But one must add that content is not insignificant to Kafka. Indeed, it would be more correct to say that he conceives content and style in essential interrelation to one another, and that - at least in instances where the writing is authentic, i. e. where style and content are mutually compatible and complementary - to reproduce the style Franz Kuna, "Rage for Verification: Kafka and Einstein," On Kafka: Semi-Centenary Perspectives, ed. F. Kuna (London: Paul Elek, 1976), p. 87. 176

of a writer is tantamount to reproducing the substance of his writing. This hypothesis, while perhaps not generally applicable to every individual act of reception carried out by Kafka, is certainly valid for his reception of texts of aphoristic character. The previous example, combined with the examples that are yet to follow, will clearly demonstrate that the assertion made by Malcolm Pasley, to the effect that one cannot speak of literary "sources" for Kafka's writing because he was influenced more by the physical conditions of the act of writing than by the conscious manipulation of literary models, cannot be upheld.4 At the very least one must admit that every act of reception has a conscious and unconscious component. While Pasley to some extent is justified in his assertion that Kafka's writing process was steered by unconscious drives, there is no reason to exclude factors of unconsciously accepted reception within this category. Indeed, Kafka's remarks about Aurelius' dicta provide a clear instance in which the conscious conceptual responses to the texts and their substance are complemented by an unconscious receptivity to the form and style in which they are composed. These unconscious, formal influences which derive from the receptive act are of special significance for Kafka, since, as he himself once indicated, he was particularly susceptible to the style of things he read: he tended to imitate their style, especially when writing in response to them. In a letter to Ottla from 1919 (BO, 66), Kafka made the exceedingly minor change of crossing out the word "allerdings" and substituting for it the word "aber."5 He makes the following parenthetical commentary in response to this change: "Nebenbei: dieses überschriebene 'aber' ist ganz interessant, es ist offenbar wie auch das Mit-Bleistift-schreiben eine Nachahmung Deiner Art . . . " (BÖ, 66). He continues by explaining that certain phrases which regularly occur in Ottla's letters strike him as being typical of her style; and despite the fact that they are "gutes Deutsch" (BO, 67), Kafka understands them as translations from the Czech. On the one hand this points to Kafka's hypersensitivity where matters of written style are concerned, a sensitivity that sees translations from the Czech in phrases that are nothing but "good German." This implies, in addition, Kafka's imaginative ability to project a conception of the writer into the texts that he reads, even when they are letters from his sister. Moreover, and most importantly, we witness how Kafka diagnoses his own unconscious temptation to imitate not only traits of Ottla's style, but also the physical properties of the act of writing itself (manifested in the desire to write in pencil rather than pen, a trait characteris-

Pasley, "Der Schreibakt und das Geschriebene," p. 15. See Hartmut Binder's commentary on this letter in his edition of Kafka's correspondence with Ottla, BO, 187. 177

tic of Ottla's letters).6 This process, which was probably present in each and every one of Kafka's acts of reception, is especially obvious in his reactions to the aphoristic texts he read. Unconsciously, as we will continue to see, he appropriates the discursive method of the aphorism as employed by some of his aphoristic precursors. By far the most transparent example of this is evident in Kafka's response to the diaries of Friedrich Hebbel. Alone Kafka's intense interest in these documents is of central importance for our investigation, for these diaries comprise one of the most voluminous collections of aphorisms by any writer of German since Lichtenberg. Kafka owned these texts in the four-volume critical edition put together by Richard Maria Werner.7 Moreover, as Max Brod reported (FK, 99), these diaries ranked among Kafka's most beloved books. Some of the reasons for this become transparent if we examine Kafka's commentary made upon his first complete reading of these texts. Like the reception of Aurelius' "Sprüche," Kafka's response to Hebbel's Tagebücher can be found in a letter to Oskar Pollak, again from the year 1904, and written a mere two weeks or so after the reading of Aurelius. Kafka's reactions to Hebbel's aphoristic diaries must be cited here at some length so that both his enthusiasm as well as the style and substantive tenor of his remarks come to the fore. [I]ch [habe] Hebbels Tagebücher (an 1800 Seiten) in einem Zuge gelesen, während ich früher immer nur kleine Stückchen herausgebissen hatte, die mir ganz geschmacklos vorkamen. Dennoch fing ich es im Zusammenhange an, ganz spielerisch anfangs, bis mir aber endlich so zu Mute wurde wie einem Höhlenmenschen, der zuerst im Scherz und in langer Weile einen Block vor den Eingang seiner Höhle wälzt, dann aber, als der Block die Höhle dunkel macht und von der Luft absperrt, dumpf erschrickt und mit merkwürdigem Eifer den Stein wegzuschieben sucht. Der aber ist jetzt zehnmal schwerer geworden und der Mensch muß in Angst alle Kräfte spannen, ehe wieder Licht und Luft kommt. Ich konnte eben keine Feder in die .Hand nehmen während dieser Tage, denn wenn man so ein Leben überblickt, das sich ohne Lücke wieder und wieder höher türmt, so hoch, daß man es kaum mit seinen Fernrohren erreicht, da kann das Gewissen nicht zur Ruhe kommen. Aber es tut gut, wenn das Gewissen breite Wunden bekommt, denn dadurch wird es empfindlicher für jeden Biß. Ich glaube, man sollte überhaupt nur solche Bücher lesen, die einen beißen und stechen. Wenn das Buch, das wir lesen, uns nicht mit einem Faustschlag auf den Schädel weckt, wozu lesen wir dann das Buch? . . . Wir brauchen aber die Bücher, die auf uns wirken wie ein Unglück, das uns sehr schmerzt, wie der Tod eines, den wir lieber hatten als uns, wie wenn wir in Wälder verstoßen würden, von allen Menschen weg, wie ein Selbstmord, ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. Das glaube ich. (Brt 27-8). 6

7

See Binder's remarks about this phenomenon in the "Editionsbericht" to this correspondence, BO, 221. See Klaus Wagenbach, "Kafkas Handbibliothek," Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie seiner Jugend, p. 257.

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As is typical of Kafka, it is the life he finds depicted in these documents which makes the greatest impression on him. The metaphor of the caveman who encloses himself in his cave suggests various things. On the one hand it might be interpreted as an indication that Kafka felt the proper response to these diaries would be to lock himself away and initiate similar reflections on himself and his life. This is implied as well in one of the later metaphors employed by Kafka - that feeling of being banished to a forest far away from all other human beings. The pangs of conscience of which Kafka writes, then, would spring from comparison of one's own life and activities with those described by Hebbel. The "prodding" and "biting" of these diaries consists for Kafka in the demands that they force him to place on himself; above all, this is the demand to create through writing a life that is so high as only to be perceptible by means of a telescope. The death of a dear friend and the suicide to which Kafka refers are actually one and the same: they suggest the metaphorical death of the former self and the subsequent establishment through language of a new, rejuvenated or transmogrified self. This metamorphosis would not, strictly speaking, entail a transformation of the empirical self, but rather its transfiguration into a literary self. Such transformation presented itself to Kafka in the dicta of Aurelius and in the aphoristic diaries of Hebbel. The ax that would free Kafka's "frozen sea" would also permit the inception of a creative literary flow in which the textualization, the making-literary of the self could occur.8 In this sense it is not so much Hebbel's life, but rather the textualization, i. e. the bringing into written text of his life that most impressed Kafka. One of the most prominent stylistic-formal features of Hebbel's selftextualization - self-stylization, if you will - is the use of aphoristic discourse. As we have seen, the aphorism came into some currency in the Austrian Jahrhundertwende in part out of the desire to stylize and mask the self; and we recall Kafka's remarks with regard to Aurelius' aphoristic "ornamentation" of the self. These earliest collections of aphorisms with which Kafka had contact seem to have reinforced in him a notion of the aphorism as an expressive form exploited for self-projection and self-textualization. Kafka's written response to Hebbel's diaries also includes its own aphoristic stylization: the intensity of Kafka's emotional response is demonstrated in the series of metaphors with which he attempts to give substance to his sentiments. But even more telling is the apodictic and paradigmatically aphoristic statement with which Kafka's description concludes: "ein Buch On the images of "frozen sea" and "flow" as metaphors for Kafka's creative energies, see Sokel, "Frozen Sea and River of Narration: the Poetics Behind Kafka's 'Breakthrough'," Newsletter of the Kafka Society of America, 7, no. 1 (June, 1983), pp. 71-9. 179

muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns." Once again, this remark could be lifted out of context and viewed as an independent aphorism. It continues the tendency toward expressive, descriptive metaphors endemic to this passage as a whole; yet here we discover a combination of concision, generalized formulation, and imperative diction which is characteristically aphoristic. We must keep in mind that in the response to Hebbel, as well as in the reaction to Aurelius, Kafka himself is perpetrating his own strategies of selfsty lization; for his responses are recorded not as meditations intended only for the self, but rather are contained in letters to his friend Pollak. Such stylization of the self is not necessarily restricted, of course, to those examples cited here. On the contrary, as Sokel has argued, all writing for Kafka, whether in letters, diaries, or specifically as literary text, was a response to the desire to stylize the self.9 What is significant in the cited letters to Pollak is thus not the general phenomenon of self-stylization, but rather Kafka's tendency, in imitation of the aphoristic self-textualizations that he was reading, to apply aphoristic diction in his own attempts at self-textualization. Kafka, of course, was struggling at this time to find his own literary voice - and thus to establish his "literary" self - so that his almost automatic imitation of models that impressed him is not too surprising.10 The restriction of this rather flamboyant epistolary style to the letters addressed to Pollak has led to the thesis that in them Kafka was making overtures to a respected friend.11 While I am inclined to subscribe to this hypothesis, I would add that Kafka's style was further influenced by the aphoristic aspects of the material he was reading at this time. In this early period Kafka, through the examples cited, came to associate the rhetorical power of aphoristic diction with attempts to stylize and textualize the self. Hebbel's Tagebücher remained significant documents for Kafka well beyond this initial reading in 1904. As an entry in Kafka's own diaries makes clear, he returned to these documents in 1910, the year in which, not coincidentally, Kafka himself began to keep a diary on a regular basis. On November 7 of that year Kafka heard a lecture on Hebbel given by Paul Wiegler (cf. T, 25). This event apparently stimulated Kafka to re-read the diaries that had impressed him so much six years earlier; and slightly over a

Sokel, Tragik und Ironie, p. 8. See Wagenbach, Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie seiner Jugend, p. 104; Wagenbach surmises that the style of Kafka's letters at this time reflects his imitation of the style of writing typical of the magazine Der Kunstwart. Binder denies the validity of this thesis, Kafka-Handbuch, I, 266-7, and I view the hypothesis I am developing in this section as an alternative to Wagenbach's claim. See Binder, Kafka-Handbuch, l, 266. 180

month later, on December 16, 1910, Kafka makes reference to one of the entries in Hebbel's Tagebücher: "Hebbel lobt Justinus Kerners 'Reiseschatten'. 'Und solch ein Werk existiert kaum, niemand kennt es'" (T, 28). Here Kafka cites entry no. 1651 from Hebbel's diaries; he was apparently seized by the substance of Hebbel's remark, as well as by the pointedness of its formulation. Kafka, as is clear from the passages quoted from the letters of 1904, placed supreme emphasis on the reception of literary works; he is moved and affirmed in this belief by Hebbel's claim that a literary work which is not known, i. e. not read, not "constituted" in an act of reception, might as well not exist. This remark, while extremely telling in the context of Kafka's later requests that his own manuscripts be destroyed, is peripheral in the present context. Much more relevant is the apparent influence that Hebbel's diaries had on Kafka during his re-reading of them in 1910. Indeed, as a remark recorded on the very same day as the reference to Hebbel indicates, his Tagebücher were of seminal importance in shoring up Kafka's resolve steadfastly to keep a diary of his own. Ich werde das Tagebuch nicht mehr verlassen. Hier muß ich mich festhalten, denn nur hier kann ich es. Gerne möchte ich das Glücksgefühl erklären, das ich von Zeit zu Zeit wie eben jetzt in mir habe. Es ist wirklich etwas Moussierendes, das mich mit leichtem angenehmen Zucken ganz und gar erfüllt und das mir Fähigkeiten einredet, von deren Nichtvorhandensein ich mich jeden Augenblick, auch jetzt, mit aller Sicherheit überzeugen kann. (T, 28)

Kafka lauds the beneficent effects of keeping a diary, claiming that it offers the opportunity for him to "hold himself fast" and to convince himself, despite his omnipresent self-doubts, of his literary capabilities. The image of taking hold of oneself through the act of writing is one which recurs often for Kafka in similar contexts. It alludes here to the possibility of self-definition and of struggle against one's own worst impulses, a tendency that we documented in Kafka's response to Aurelius' aphorisms. Hebbel's diaries certainly contributed to Kafka's confidence in the usefulness of the diary as a means for self-expression. Yet even more telling for our context is a more subtle reception of HebbePs diaries on Kafka's part which occurs at this time. For it is on the very next day, December 17, 1910, that Kafka composes the first independent aphorisms attributable to him. Zeno sagte auf eine dringliche Frage hin, ob denn nichts ruhe: Ja, der fliegende Pfeil ruht. (T, 29) Wenn die Franzosen ihrem Wesen nach Deutsche wären, wie würden sie dann erst von den Deutschen bewundert sein. (T, 29)

Since we have previously discussed these texts, there is no need to concern ourselves with detailed analyses here. My point in citing them again is to indicate the influence Hebbel's diaries, and in particular their aphoristic 181

character, had on Kafka once again in 1910. Especially the second text, with its playful reference to the French and German rivalry, could have been a product of HebbePs pen; and, in fact, this theme is by no means foreign to Hebbel.12 It thus seems indisputable that Hebbel's model was of formative influence both on Kafka's conception of the benefits and purposes of keeping a diary, as well as on purpose and style of his initial aphoristic impulse. If Hebbel's Tagebücher provided a primary source of access for Kafka to the traditional styles, forms, techniques, and themes of aphoristic expression, then characterization of these texts can provide us with a first halting orientation of Kafka's aphoristic impulse within the range of possibilities endemic to this genre. One could, in a sense, scarcely think of a better source for an introduction to the traits of aphoristic expression than Hebbel's diaries, for among the aphorisms included in this collection one can find all the various forms, devices, tropes, and themes which are commonly associated with the aphorism. Rudolf Bauer has provided detailed analyses of the aphoristic types that occur in these volumes, and his work need not be duplicated here.13 The most prominent trope employed in HebbePs aphorisms, according to the statistics worked out by Bauer, is metaphor or simile, evident in nearly half of these texts;14 but other rhetorical figures such as parallelism, antimetabole, and devices such as word-play and paradox are amply evident in HebbePs aphorisms as well. In other words, in Hebbel's diaries Kafka was treated to a potpourri of aphoristic forms, and it is probable that Hebbel's model had formative influence on form and structure of the aphoristic texts that Kafka composed throughout his life, including the aphorisms of the Oktavhefte and those in the collection "Er." I will attempt to underscore the potential relationships between Kafka's aphorisms and those of Hebbel by juxtaposing selected texts from each author. I must emphasize, however, that this juxtaposition is not intended to imply that particular texts by Kafka were somehow directly influenced by individual aphorisms in Hebbel's diaries. My point remains that HebbePs aphorisms served Kafka as a kind of general introduction into the traditional structures and applications of this genre. Indeed, it seems to me that such broad and generalized "influence" is ultimately of more significance than particularized influences of one text on the production of another. Furthermore, the following juxtaposition functions as an initial demonstration of the fact that Kafka's aphorisms do not occur in a literary-historical vacuum, as has commonly been assumed; rather, they participate in an unconscious See, for example, entries 188, 3153, 3171, and 4510 in Hebbel's Tagebücher. Rudolf Bauer, "Die Kunstform des Aphorismus in Hebbels Tagebuch," Diss. Vienna 1939; see esp. pp. 152-70. Bauer, p. 166.

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dialogue across historical eras with the aphoristic texts of other writers, a phenomenon that is especially prevalent in this genre. Vogel und Käfig sind für einander. Aber der Mensch will keinen anderen Käfig, als diese Welt. (Hebbel, no. 330) Ein Käfig ging einen Vogel suchen. (Kafka, aph. 16) Das Komische ist die beständige Negation der Natur. (Hebbel, no. 99) Das Böse ist der Sternhimmel des Guten. (H, 90) Die Individualität ist nicht sowohl Ziel, als Weg, und nicht sowohl bester, als einziger. (Hebbel, no. 491) Es gibt ein Ziel, aber keinen Weg; was wir Weg nennen, ist Zögern, (aph. 26) Die Welt: die große Wunde Gottes. (Hebbel, no. 2663) Baum des Lebens - Herr der Lebens. (H, 101) Es gibt eine Bewegung, dem Abgrund zu, so schnell, daß man sie so wenig mehr bemerkt, wie die der Erde. (Hebbel, no. 5615) Einer staunte darüber, wie leicht er den Weg der Ewigkeit ging; er raste ihn nämlich abwärts, (aph. 38) "Die Sonne geht unter!" heißt es. Die Sprache hält sich gern an die Erscheinung. (Hebbel, no. 5716) Die Sprache kann für alles außerhalb der sinnlichen Welt nur andeutungsweise, aber niemals auch nur annähernd vergleichsweise gebraucht werden, da sie, entsprechend der sinnlichen Welt, nur vom Besitz und seinen Beziehungen handelt, (aph. 57)

The thematic similarities which come to light in this juxtaposition reflect the participation of both authors in a common aphoristic tradition: reflections on goal and path, freedom and confinement, good and evil are constants in the work of most aphorists. Moreover, such formal devices as the pseudodefinition and the implied analogy are standard and popular techniques in the tradition of aphoristic expression. Furthermore, the texts cited above display the presence of some shared intellectual attitudes, scepticism about the efficaciousness of language, and the sense of a polarity between appearance and essence. It is on a general level that Hebbel's Tagebücher help us to elucidate Kafka's aphoristic notebooks and aid in a specification of their character visa-vis the history of the aphorism as form. The most significant shared material between Hebbel's Tagebücher and Kafka's Oktavhefte is the combination of diary-like self-reflection, recorded impression, and poignant aphoristic utterance. This quality aligns the aphoristic production of both these authors closely with that of Lichtenberg, whose Sudelbücher display identical tendencies. In the case of Hebbel, at least, it is known that he prized Lichtenberg's reflections and that, in fact, it was his reading of Lichtenberg's notebooks that impelled him to keep his own diary.15 Although Kafka him-

Bauer, p. 108; cf. also entries 656 and 3805 in Hebbel's Tagebücher, where reference is made to Lichtenberg. 183

self most likely never read Lichtenberg's aphoristic notebooks - Kafka never mentions Lichtenberg - he remains an indirect "precursor" through the mediative vehicle of HebbePs Tagebücher. This preliminary orientation of Kafka's aphoristic production in the history and tradition of the aphorism, then, views Kafka's texts in relation to the self-analytical, diary-like application of aphoristic discourse in Lichtenberg and Hebbel. Kafka's aphorisms, like those of these "precursors," serve their author as vehicles to self-analysis in the form of "Selbstbeobachtung," i.e. objectification of the subjective. This includes, of course, the options of brooding self-critique and creative self-projection or self-definition alike. Simultaneously, Kafka's aphoristic notebooks, like those of Lichtenberg and Hebbel, serve as a space where observations about other persons and on the condition of humankind or society can also be recorded. This is markedly different from the polemic application of the aphorism by such authors as Nietzsche or Kraus. In Kraus's case, for instance, the aphorism tended to evolve as a subsidiary form within the context of his polemical essays, or they developed out of his "glosses" on current events. In both cases, Kraus employs the aphorism for its rhetorical impact and its pervasive irony. The introspective quality of the aphorisms of Lichtenberg, Hebbel, and Kafka distinguish them also the from "Fragmente" of the German Romantics. Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel do not turn their aphoristic gazes inward toward the self, but rather toward the examination of intellectual issues shared by a particular community of thinkers. Rather than self-analysis in the strict, individual sense, or empirical observations of the sort described with the term "Menschenbeobachtung," the Romantics were concerned only with a spiritual, i. e. intellectual reality. The "social" quality of this Romantic aphorism, with its emphasis on "symphilosophic" communication, is absent in the aphoristic texts of Lichtenberg, Hebbel, and Kafka. Kafka's closest contemporary whose aphorisms betray the social aspect reminiscent of the Romantic fragment is Hofmannsthal, who, in his Buch der Freunde, consciously presented his aphorisms in a contextual dialogue with the texts of other aphorists. The textual environment in which Kafka's aphorisms occur in the years 1917-18 is thus crucial not only for a characterization of the texts themselves, but also for an understanding of their place in Kafka's overall literary evolution. One of the primary faults of Brod's edition of the Oktavhefte is that it provides only a fragmentary picture of these notebooks and their function for Kafka; for many of the longer texts were removed and placed among Kafka's fragmentary stories in Brod's edition. This tends to obscure the nature of these notebooks insofar as it hinders our recognition that the Oktavhefte, more than diaries and introspective meditations, also contain numerous literary sketches. This is one more element that demonstrates the 184

proximity of these notebooks to those of Lichtenberg and Hebbel. In all of these "works," aphoristic remarks are interspersed with introspective meditations, astute observations, and literary fragments, giving these notebooks the character of sketchbooks. In Kafka's case we must keep in mind that he did not sort the aphorisms out of these notebooks until three years after their composition, and that this process of sorting and revision never actually culminated in a "polished," publishable collection of aphorisms. These texts, then, like the reflections of Hebbel and Lichtenberg, were never put into a "final" form; they thus tend to be sudden insights, momentary thoughts, experimental ponderings, or reflective meditations by the individual for himself; not objective, systematic, dogmatic philosophical guidelines, nor even the elements of a personal "Lebensphilosophie." While I have emphasized the close proximity of diary and aphorism for Kafka, I do not wish to leave the impression that the intermingling of diarylike self-reflection and aphoristic discourse in Kafka's Oktavhefte can be taken as evidence for the factually autobiographical or personal-philosophical character of the aphorisms. On the contrary, it is precisely the drive toward objectification of the subjective - and this implies self-projection, but not necessarily honest self-assessment - that is fundamental to these texts. What Kafka admired in Aurelius' "Sprüche" and in Hebbel's Tagebücher was above all the kind of portrayal of the self which they allowed. This implies a certain degree of self-control, of restraint applied to one's personal proclivities, as well as self-projection, self-ornamentation, and self-masking of the sort associated with the impressionistic aphorism. It was, above all, the discovery of a voice through which one could effectively write the self, through which Kafka could write Kafka, that impressed him in these works and in their aphoristic character. Self-recognition for Kafka was never divorced from this dimension of self-control, combining self-mastery with creation of a new self. Vollständiges Erkennen seiner selbst. Den Umfang seiner Fähigkeiten umfassen können wie einen kleinen Ball. Den größten Niedergang als etwas Bekanntes hinnehmen und so darin noch elastisch bleiben. (T, 275)

This diary entry describes the intertwining of self-recognition, self-control, and, moreover, self-defense. Self-recognition is portrayed - we have already noted the use of a similar image in a like context ( , 28) - as a coming-togrips with oneself in a concrete and literal sense: encompassing one's abilities in such a manner that, like a ball, they fit into one's hand. In this sense they cannot only be "grasped," but actually manipulated. In recognition and control of one's abilities there resides the potential for warding off defeat and for remaining "elastic" - again a quality of a ball. It is no coincidence that images of "grasping" and manipulating recur repeatedly in the context of 185

self-recognition: Kafka's form of self-manipulation also had to do with the hand and the act of grasping - I mean, of course, the grasping of a pen, not that of a ball, and the mastery of the self by means of mastering the pen. An element of such manipulation is evident in this very text; namely, in the application of the third-person pronoun where one expects the first-person, confessional form. Taking the text purely on the level of its linguistic characteristics, it is not possible to decide definitively whether Kafka is referring to himself or is making an observation about some other "third" person. This same tendency is evident in Kafka's "Er"-aphorisms, as well as in numerous texts from the Oktavhefte for which the following two are representative examples. Sein Ermatten ist das des Gladiators nach dem Kampf, seine Arbeit war das Weißtünchen eines Winkels in einer Beamtenstube, (aph. 34) Er läuft den Tatsachen nach wie ein Anfänger im Schlittschuhlaufen, der überdies irgendwo übt, wo es verboten ist. (aph. 67).

The tendency toward objectification of the subjective is manifest in the distanced objectivity of the third-person form. While such a technique is uncommon in the aphoristic tradition in general, such aphorisms do occur in the work of those writers whose reflections tend toward the intermingling of diary and aphoristic utterance. The best examples of such "er"-aphorisms can be found in Lichtenberg's Sudelbiicher, where they are not uncommon. Er urteilt nach dem jedesmaligen Aggregatzustand seiner Empfindungen. (J 482) Er pflegte seine obern [und] untern Seelenkräfte das Ober- und Unterhaus zu nennen, und sehr oft ließ das erstere eine Bill passieren, die das letztere verwarf. (B 67) Er hatte zu nichts Appetit und aß doch von allem. (B 3; cf. also J 5, J 158, J 170)

Both Kafka and Lichtenberg combine the ostensible objectivity of the thirdperson form with the freedom of metaphorical exposition. Through this combination these texts assume an almost parabolic generality which, through contrast with the particularizing thrust of the pronoun, evokes a tension between specific and universal. The use of this uncommon aphoristic type by both Kafka and Lichtenberg underscores those similarities in thrust and motivation in their aphoristic production that I outlined above.16 Consistent with the use of this aphoristic type is the potential for self-stylization which Kafka recognized as one of the central achievements of those aphorists with whose work he became familiar early in his creative life. There is yet one further documentable source through which Kafka came to associate aphoristic utterance with stylization of the self: these are the

Gerhard Kurz has also pointed to the fact that this particular aphoristic type aligns Kafka with Lichtenberg, Traum-Schrecken, p. 36. 186

"Aussprüche Napoleons" which Kafka read in the fall of 1911 ( , 105). Kafka owned a copy of this work,17 and it is among the collection of books from Kafka's personal library that recently turned up and are now held at the "Forschungsstelle für Prager Deutsche Literatur" in Wuppertal.18 Robert Rehlen's extensive introduction to this volume makes a great deal out of Napoleon's mastery over language, his ability to use language in order to accomplish concrete ends, and his capacity to seduce others into sharing his opinions on the basis of his rhetorical command of the word.19 Rehlen summarizes in glowing and emotional terms Napoleon's manipulation of language for the accomplishment of seemingly impossible ends: [U]m das Unmögliche zu erreichen, muß er mit glühenden Worten die Möglichkeiten so weit hinauspeitschen, daß eben im Jagen nach dem Phantom am Horizont von jedem Menschen, an den die Botschaft mit gerichtet ist, alles erreicht wird. (p. 14)

It is irrelevant whether these comments have any basis whatsoever in fact; significant here is merely that Kafka read and reacted to these remarks, as marginal marks in the text indicate.20 Kafka must certainly have been impressed by this depiction of Napoleon as one who could extend the realm of the possible by the mere use of words. Napoleon here is exemplary for those individuals who do not solely relate to the world through language, but who actually shape and create their reality by means of words.21 This attitude, as I have argued, is representative of those aphoristic texts with which Kafka came into intimate contact. It is my contention that a similar attitude of mastery over the self through language is relevant for the aphorisms of the Oktavhefte, as well as for Kafka's subsequent aphoristic production. The correlation of fragmentary forms of discourse and autobiographical investigation is suggested by Kafka himself in a fragment that was probably written in 1920, at the time of his return to the aphorisms of the Oktavhefte. Das Schreiben versagt sich mir. Daher Plan der selbstbiographischen Untersuchungen. Nicht Biographie, sondern Untersuchung und Auffindung möglichst

17

Wagenbach, "Kafkas Handbibliothek," p. 259; Wagenbach claims that Kafka owned the second edition of this work, published in 1916, but in fact Kafka possessed the first edition printed in 1906. 18 I am indebted to Jürgen Born and to Hans-Gerd Koch for their kindness in allowing me to examine Kafka's copy of Napoleon's Aussprüche while I was researching Kafka's manuscripts in Wuppertal. " Rehlen, "Einleitung," Berühmte Aussprüche und Worte Napoleons von Corsika bis St.Helena (Leipzig: Julius Zeitler, 1906), pp. 1-25; here esp. pp. 2; 13-4. 20 The text is marked both in pencil and in ink. The pencil marks were certainly made by Kafka, as one can easily conclude from the substance of the marked passages themselves, whose relevance to Kafka's life is obvious in each instance. 21 See also p. 15 of Rehlen's introduction. 187

kleiner Bestandteile. Daraus will ich mich dann aufbauen, so wie einer, dessen Haus unsicher ist, daneben ein sicheres aufbauen will, womöglich aus dem Material des alten . . . ( / / , 388)

Kafka's autobiographical "investigations" are called forth by an interruption in his capacity to write; they thus represent a kind of ersatz for his fiction. Kafka implies that these "investigations" will lead him back to "Das Schreiben," i.e. that they will allow him to reinitiate a period of literary productivity. These "investigations," he emphasizes, will not take on the expository, totalizing form of "biography"; rather they will concentrate on the isolation and discovery of small "elemental components." By means of an analytical dismantling of the self into such elementary fragments, Kafka hopes ultimately to be able to achieve a reconstruction of the self, but one in which the self is altered in the process of this reconstruction. It is precisely such self-analysis and self-reconstruction which Kafka was trying to accomplish in his aphoristic fragments, and the "plan" which he mentions in this passage may indeed refer to the aphoristic project Kafka was undertaking. As we will see in our discussion of Kafka's reception of Pascal and Kierkegaard, in their aphoristic methods Kafka discovered a procedure for critical dissection of the self; Kafka terms Kierkegaard's method "aufbauende Zerstörung" (//, 125), a phrase which points to the dialectic of analytical destruction and textual reconstruction as described by Kafka in the context of his autobiographical "investigation." "Constructive destruction" thus refers to a specific procedure for dealing with the self, one in which analytical dismantling of the self into constitutive fragments is prerequisite for a creative reconstitution of the self. These two movements, self-deconstruction and self-reconstruction, are thus individual moments of a dialectical process in which Kafka, through the fragmentary textual medium of aphoristic discourse, attempts a transfiguration, re-constitution, or textualization of the self. Two further texts from the Oktavhefte which allude to the manipulative "grasping" of the self support this hypothesis, and they demonstrate how images of grasping and manipulation occur in conjunction with the problematics of self-critique and self-transformation. So fest wie die Hand den Stein hält. Sie halt ihn aber fest, nur um ihn desto weiter zu verwerfen. Aber auch in jene Weite führt der Weg. (aph.21)

We have already commented on two other instances (7~, 28; T, 275) in which Kafka associated the image of grasping something in the hand with the notion of self-control and self-definition. If we read the related image in this aphorism in a similar way, then the text can be interpreted along the lines of the relationship of control over language as reflective of control over one's world. The paradox on which Kafka's text focuses is that the firmness of the 188

hand's grasp does not betoken attachment and possession, but rather the wish to throw the stone an even greater distance. In a sentence which does not seem to follow on the initial exposition, Kafka then identifies this distance with the "way." This "way" is not the religious path to salvation, but rather simply the direction of movement prescribed by the self in the act of throwing the stone. This toss is portrayed as random in all respects except for the fact that it is determined by the hand that carries it out. The "path" appears as a potential which evolves out of the act of grasping. As I have already argued, this act of grasping relates to the grasping and control of Kafka's pen; wielding the pen and throwing the stone are methods for projecting paths and potentials for the self. This self-projection through literary expression, implying control and stylization of the self, is an essential aspect of Kafka's aphoristic production in the Ziirau period and later. The association of self-grasping and self-exposition, the dialectic of autoanalysis and auto-projection, is in evidence in another text from the third Oktavheft in which the image of holding the self in one's hand is explicitly associated with self-control or "getting hold of oneself." Schwäche des Gedächtnisses für die Einzelheiten und den Gang der eigenen Welterfassung - ein sehr schlechtes Zeichen. Nur Bruchstücke eines Ganzen. Wie willst du an die größte Aufgabe auch nur rühren, wie willst du ihre Nähe nur wittern, ihr Dasein nur träumen, ihren Traum nur erbitten, die Buchstaben der Bitte zu lernen wagen, wenn du dich nicht so zusammenfassen kannst, daß du, wenn es zur Entscheidung kommt, dein Ganzes in einer Hand so zusammenhäist wie einen Stein zum Werfen, ein Messer zum Schlachten. Andrerseits: man muß nicht in die Hände spucken, ehe man sie faltet. (H, 71)

Two elements of this meditation are significant in terms of Kafka's aphorisms: the fragmentary nature of Kafka's "Welterfassung"; and the desire to grasp the self in a compact, "manipulable" form. In the first of these moments Kafka bemoans his inability to disclose the world in any but fragmentary form; in the second moment he hypothesizes that this deficiency is actually attributable to the inability to "gather" the self in a manageable form. As a stone for throwing, this compacted self relates to the drive for self-projection; as a knife for butchering it alludes to critical self-dissection. The aphorism as textual form is relevant to both of these impulses; moreover, it is "fragmentary," as are Kafka's fragments of the world, and it allows for "compaction" of the self into constituent parts. Self-mastery is taken as a prerequisite for any satisfactory comprehension of the world, as well as necessary for any attempt to pro-ject the self into a new direction. The intermeshing of self-recognition, self-control, and self-projection is expressed in a further entry from the third Oktavheft. Erkenne dich selbst, bedeutet nicht: Beobachte dich. Beobachte dich ist das Wort der Schlange. Es bedeutet: Mache dich zum Herrn deiner Handlungen. Nun bist 189

du es aber schon, bist Herr deiner Handlungen. Das Wort bedeutet also: Verkenne dich! Zerstöre dich! also etwas Böses - und nur wenn man sich sehr tief hinabbeugt, hört man auch sein Gutes, welches lautet: "Um dich zu dem zu machen, der du bist." (H, 80)

Kafka takes issue with the identification of self-recognition with self-observation, claiming instead that self-recognition entails mastery over one's own actions. This mastery includes self-destruction as well as self-creation; for self-creation, according to this text, takes place as part of a dialectic which requires self-destruction as its initial position. This text describes a circle which moves dialectically from self-recognition (self-mastery) to self-destruction and returns to a self-recognition that is dialectically sublated as the creation of the "self that you are"; i.e. of the self you cause yourself to be. The dialectical process described in this text presents a paradigm of the process by which Kafka, in the aphorisms of the Oktavhefte, was attempting to attain "self-recognition" of this creative, self-projective sort through literary activity. His appropriation of aphoristic expression in this endeavor was certainly motivated by recognition of a similar application of aphoristic expression in the aphoristic works which he had read early in his creative life. Through his reception of the aphoristic texts of Aurelius, Hebbel, and Napoleon, Kafka had access to documents through which he could become familiar with the structure, form, themes, and compositional strategies of the aphorism, on the one hand, and come to recognize the assertiveness and rhetorical power of this genre as one discursive possibility for the literary control and projection of the self. Long before he was introduced to the aphoristic methods of Pascal and Kierkegaard, Kafka had sufficient opportunity to assess and assimilate both the critical-analytical, and constructivetransformational potentials of aphoristic discourse. Pascal and Kierkegaard, of course, also helped shape Kafka's awareness of the expressive capacities of the aphorism; indeed, it was the reception of their texts which served as the temporally most immediate impulse for Kafka's employment of the aphorism in 1917. It is to Kafka's response to these two thinkers that we now must turn our attention.

II. Pascal and Kierkegaard: Scepticism and Critical Method Pascal's name appears in Kafka's diaries as early as January 1914 ( , 350), but the reference does not make clear whether Kafka was actually reading the Pensees at this time. However, on August 2, 1917, just a few weeks before the aphorisms begin to become a dominant form in the third Oktavheft, Kafka records in a diary entry his reaction to Pascal's meditations. 190

Pascal macht vor dem Auftreten Gottes große Ordnung, aber es muß eine tiefere ängstlichere Skepsis geben, als diese des [ein Wort unlesbar] Menschen, der sich mit wunderbaren Messern zwar, aber doch mit der Ruhe des Selchers zerschneidet. Woher die Ruhe? Die Sicherheit der Messerführung? Ist Gott ein theatralischer Triumphwagen, den man, alle Mühseligkeit und Verzweiflung der Arbeiter zugestanden, mit Stricken aus der Ferne auf die Bühne zieht? (T, 522)

This ambivalent reception of Pascal merits close attention. While expressing unrestrained admiration for Pascal's self-dissection, Kafka simultaneously questions the calm with which Pascal carries out this project. This calm, Kafka suggests, derives from the firmness of Pascal's belief, his unwavering faith in God. Kafka questions not only the security of this faith, but also the very nature of a God whose timely appearance for the act of salvation can be accepted and even predicted. Pascal's scepticism appears to Kafka to be neither profound nor fearful enough to count as true scepticism, since it is mollified by faith. Kafka derides this God as - quite literally - a deus ex machina, a God who is wheeled onto the stage at the crucial moment to bring resolution and salvation. A reflection from the fourth Oktavheft, written in early December of 1917, can be construed as a response to this conception of a "timely" arrival of God. Der Messias wird erst kommen, wenn er nicht mehr nötig sein wird, er wird erst einen Tag nach seiner Ankunft kommen, er wird nicht am letzten Tag kommen, sondern am allerletzten. (H, 90)

First one general comment about this text. It is characteristic of Kafka's aphorisms on "religious" subject matters that traditional conceptions are devalued or even perverted: this "deconstructive" act is, as has been pointed out, one of profound scepticism with regard to all beliefs. Thus Kafka's method in these texts evidences the deep scepticism which he expected of Pascal, but did not find. The above text is patterned around a structure of exclusion similar to those already seen in other aphorisms. Salvation is a conception which is necessarily bound up with the condition of living in a world that languishes in its "unsaved" state: once the messiah comes, salvation is no longer necessary; but, from the perspective of the world, it always comes too late.22 One might conceive this arrival of the messiah on the last possible day in terms of the bureaucratic complications so common in Kafka's works: the promised arrival will indeed occur, but at the very last moment, and only when it will no longer be of use. Kafka's scepticism, "deeper and more fearful" than that of Pascal, allows him to envision a God who cannot be pulled onto stage until the curtain has already fallen. The primary difference between Pascal and Kafka, then, is that whereas Pascal

Cf. the similar reflection from November 30, 1917, H, 88 f. 191

writes from within traditional religious conceptions, Kafka writes against them, following the contra-dictory, re-evaluative drive of the aphorist which is grounded in absolute scepticism. Kafka's praise of Pascal is directed neither at the substance of the latter's meditations, nor at his faith, but rather specifically at his method, his selfdissection "with wonderful knives." Pascal's method, needless to say, is itself quintessentially aphoristic and non-systematic, emphasizing the conflict of contradictions, interweaving and playing off against each other logic and faith, reason and intuition. Pascal is hence of great significance for Kafka's turn to aphoristic expression at this time, for Pascal's model, as Kafka himself admits, provided him insight into the exemplary critical manner in which the aphorism could be applied as a tool for self-analysis and introspection. Kafka constantly associated aphoristic expression with a rewriting of the self in which self-projection is dialectically interwoven with self-analysis. While the previous aphoristic texts which Kafka had read had especially impressed upon him the protective aspect of aphoristic expression, in Pascal Kafka recognized the incisive critical potential of the aphorism. Self-examination of the sort practiced by Pascal is a pre-requisite for the self-projection accomplished through the medium of language. Sceptical examination, in other words, is a parallel phenomenon to creative experimentation. Thus it is where Pascal himself ceases to be critical and falls into faith - where, indeed, he ceases to be an aphorist as sceptic, the role the aphorist typically assumes in the German tradition - that Kafka's admiration for him ends. Pascal is important for Kafka not as a religious thinker, but rather as a sceptical analyst, as one who employs aphoristic expression for the purpose of merciless self-examination. Pascal, subject to the paradox that informs much of aphoristic expression, found himself applying the principles of reason and logic in his argumentation, while arguing in fact that reason and logic are insufficient tools. His thought thus is located in that "Grenzland" between intuition and reason which is characteristic of the aphorist. Pascal, moreover, is also a critical aphorist in the sense of being one who questions and deconstructs accepted values: in his aphorisms he practices, in his own words, 'Tart de fronder, [de] bouleverser les Etats, et d'ebranler les coutumes etablies, en sondant jusque dans leur source, pour marquer leur defaut d'autorite et de justice."23 Yet Pascal simply did not carry this sceptical attitude far enough for Kafka; in his own aphorisms from the Oktavhefte Kafka attempts consistently to adhere to this sceptical attitude of the aphorist. 23

192

Pascal, Pensees, ed. Francis Kaplan (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1982), p. 164; further references are from this edition and will be cited in the body of the text with the abbreviation Pa.

The similarities between Pascal's Pensees and Kafka's aphoristic reflections go much deeper than simply the commonality of their aphoristic methods and the general attitude of critical scepticism. Still, I do not wish to postulate a mono-directional influence of Pascal's reflections on Kafka's aphorisms; rather, I would say that especially in this case, and in keeping with the notion of "precursors" presented above, the work of these two thinkers is mutually illuminating. Knowledge of Kafka's aphorisms throws into relief aspects of Pascal's meditations that otherwise might simply be passed over. Once again my purpose in bringing out relationships between the aphoristic writings of these two authors is to demonstrate on a broad level Kafka's general familiarity with the forms, themes, structures, and strategies of aphoristic expression, and to document the avenues through which Kafka had access to this tradition. In other words, if there are points of contact between Pascal's aphorisms and those of Kafka, then I would attribute this to their mutual participation in "aphoristics," in the method and purposes of aphoristic expression itself, rather than to "influence" in a narrow sense. Hence any discerned similarities do not imply an epigonal quality in Kafka's aphorisms; on the contrary, they are merely symptoms of the profound manner in which Kafka, from diverse sources, fathomed and appropriated the essential traits and tasks of aphoristic expression. This broad appropriation of the aphoristic method is what allows Kafka's aphorisms to "create" their own precursors. A number of central themes from Pascal's Pensees are evident in Kafka's aphorisms. Among these are the problem of human self-interest (a constant theme in the sentences of the French moralists), the dual condition of humankind, and the theme of human existence as diversion from authentic knowledge. We shall examine these last two motifs in some detail, since they provide us the opportunity to examine the epistemological aporia which is latent in Pascal's religious thought, thus permitting us to gain some insights on Kafka's couching of epistemological issues in the terminology of religious mythology. Pascal describes the human being as a "freak," and his condition in the world as "novel," "monstrous," "chaotic," "paradoxical," and "prodigious" (cf. Pa, 235). This is due to the essential duality of humankind, whose position in nature is described as "un milieu entre rien et Tout. Infiniment eloigne de comprendre les extremes" (Pa, 154). Human beings are condemned to "cet etat qui tient le milieu entre deux extremes" (Pa, 155). This fundamental duality defines the middle position of humankind, a position between faith and reason, scepticism and belief. Absolute truth lies thus beyond the reach of the human being, who nevertheless continually strives to reach the unattainable. Of course, what Pascal describes here in religious and existential terms is the epistemological situation of the aphorist in gener193

al: aware that humankind is trapped in the position of mediator between faith and reason, between individual and universal, experience and abstract thought, the aphorist accepts and problematizes this situation. Kafka, like Pascal, diagnosed the dual nature of humankind, portraying the human situation in terms of the chaining of the human being to the realms of heaven and earth, "free" in each, but at home in neither sphere. Kafka's aphorisms represent his own coming-to-terms with this middle ground between self and community, physical and spiritual worlds. The aphorism in the German tradition evolved precisely as a manner of expression suited to exploring what Pascal calls "life half-way" ("la vie entre deux"), and which he terms "la chose du monde la plus fragile" (Pa, 109). Pascal is the first aphorist with whose works Kafka had contact whose aphoristic method embodies this "transcendental moralism" in which the issues of integrative thought are problematized in the very act of initiating mediation between conflicting spheres.24 It is conceivable that Pascal's example was decisive in raising Kafka's awareness of aphoristic expression as an implicit methodology which rejects the extremes of reason and faith and focuses on the endless process of mediation between these extremes. This problematical position of "in-betweenness," as I have argued, was central to Kafka's life and helped condition his turn to the aphorism as a means of expression which takes account of, and reflects, this state of human "Dasein" between the "tree of knowledge" and the "tree of life." Many of the techniques peculiar to Kafka's aphorisms - his constant retractions, reversals, recursions, and diversions - manifest this will to remain in the tension of the in-between, refusing conclusion and dogma in favor of the ever-progressive "becoming" of thought. The theme of diversion as a human strategy for self-deception about the wretchedness of the human condition is likewise a motif that brings Pascal's and Kafka's aphorisms into close proximity. Kafka addresses the fundamental "evil" of diversion in general fashion in the following aphorism: Böse ist das, was ablenkt. (H, 84)

Pascal's reflections on the theme of diversion do not share this aphoristic succinctness. Yet the motif is fundamental to the Pensees: Pascal devotes one entire section of his ordered papers to this topic, and further references to it are scattered throughout his meditations. Pascal's thoughts on this theme are summarized adequately in the following deliberation.

Neumann sees Pascal as the only representative of the French "moralists" whose thought is related to the "transcendental moralism" he perceives as characteristic of the German tradition of the aphorism, Ideenparadiese, pp. 58-60. 194

Les hommes n'ayant pu guerir la mort, la misere, 1'ignorance, ils se sont avises, pour se rendre heureux, de n'y point penser. (Pa, 201)

All the activities of humankind, including the struggles of passion, war, and politics have the sole purpose of diverting the attention of the human being from thoughts of its own wretchedness, mortality, and insignificance (cf. Pa, 202). Diversion, however, does not provide human beings with true happiness, according to Pascal, because, coming from outside the self, it makes one dependent and leaves one open to the disappointment caused by uncontrollable and unforeseeable chance or accident (cf. Pa, 202). Pascal brings out this paradoxical aspect of human diversion in the following meditation on wretchedness. La seule chose qui nous console de nos miseres est le divertissement, et cependant c'est la plus grande de nos miseres. Car c'est cela qui nous empeche principalement de songer ä nous, et qui nous fait perdre insensiblement. Sans cela, nous serions dans l'ennui, et cet ennui nous pousserait a chercher un moyen plus solide d'en sortir. Mais le divertissement nous amuse, et nous fait arriver insensiblement a la mort. (Pa, 202)

One of Kafka's aphorisms, without specifically mentioning the problem of diversion, incorporates a similar paradox with reference to the issue of human suffering in the world. Du kannst dich zurückhalten von den Leiden der Welt, das ist dir freigestellt und entspricht deiner Natur, aber vielleicht ist gerade dieses Zurückhalten das einzige Leid, das du vermeiden könntest, (aph. 103)

According to this reflection, the attempt to avoid misery, like diversion in Pascal's meditation, proves to be a form of misery itself- ironically, the only form of misery that one can avoid. Yet Kafka's text, while sharing subject and method - paradox - with Pascal's reflection, remains much more speculative and less assertive than Pascal's. Kafka's hesitancy to state this proposition in any but a hypothetical manner is evidenced in the use of the subjunctive and by the word "vielleicht." This betokens Kafka's profounder scepticism and greater uneasiness when confronted with absolute assertions. His "deeper, more fearful" scepticism thus expresses itself in part in the formal tendency to mollify the rhetorical thrust of the aphoristic statement through such relativizing techniques. If we return now to Pascal's meditation, we find that in his conception the problem of diversion is intimately related to the issue of self-examination. Pascal implies here that the value and purpose of human existence resides in introspection and self-examination alone; the primary danger of diversions is that they distract one from this central task. Kafka's conception of the omnipresent "Motivationen" evolved by humankind to "revoke the knowledge of good and evil" (H, 103) is closely related to Pascal's notion of 195

diversion. Kafka, we recall, maintained that the Fall from paradise cannot be revoked, but only "obscured" ("getrübt"), and he continues: Zu diesem Zweck entstehen die Motivationen. Die ganze Welt ist ihrer voll, ja die ganze sichtbare Welt ist vielleicht nichts anderes als eine Motivation des einen Augenblick lang ruhenwollenden Menschen. Ein Versuch, die Tatsache der Erkenntnis zu fälschen, die Erkenntnis erst zum Ziel zu machen. (H, 103)

Significant here is the proximity of Kafka's idea of "Motivationen," whose purpose is the denial or falsification of the fact of human knowledge, to Pascal's belief thaj diversion is the process by which humankind avoids the necessary activity of self-reflection. In both instances it is a question of the evolution of strategies which might insulate humankind from the terror of knowledge. Both Pascal and Kafka move in their aphorisms toward a cognitive activity which accords with their parallel recognitions: Pascal initiates a procedure of merciless introspection, examining himself as an individual whose reflexes are somehow representative of humankind in general; Kafka concerns himself with the crises of human understanding as manifest concretely in his life and thought, and he investigates the problematical epistemological situation of humanity through the hypothetical and experimental medium of aphoristic expression. Kafka's response to Pascal can be summarized in a few sentences. Above all Kafka admired Pascal's method of self-dissection, an inherently aphoristic method, while simultaneously questioning the calm and control with which it was carried out: Pascal's self-butchery, as opposed to Kafka's, was justified and mollified by Pascal's faith in the Christian redeemer. Yet Kafka witnessed in Pascal's aphorisms the critical potentials of this form of expression, and he was confirmed in his sense that its methodology was appropriate to recognition and problematization of the "in-between" state of human existence. The aphorism became indelibly associated for Kafka with a critical quest for knowledge and self-knowledge, reinforcing the critical, self-analytical position in the dialectic of "constructive destruction" manifest in Kafka's aphoristic "autobiographical investigations."

Critics have found themselves encouraged in their desire to attribute religious significance to Kafka's aphorisms by the fact that his reception of two inherently religious thinkers who employ an essentially aphoristic method, Pascal and Kierkegaard, parallels temporally the creation of the aphorisms in the third and fourth Oktavhefte. It is clear, however, in the case of Pascal that Kafka specifically rejected the religious aspect of his thought. Kafka's reception of Kierkegaard moves in a similar direction. In one of the most penetrating self-analyses of the Oktavhefte, Kafka calls 196

himself a representative of the negative underside of his age, and in so doing he consciously distances himself from the two most prominent European communities of belief, from Christianity and Judaism, the former represented by Kierkegaard, the latter by the Zionists. Ich habe von den Erfordernissen des Lebens gar nichts mitgebracht, so viel ich weiß, sondern nur die allgemeine menschliche Schwäche. Mit dieser - in dieser Hinsicht ist es eine riesenhafte Kraft - habe ich das Negative meiner Zeit, die mir ja sehr nahe ist, die ich nie zu bekämpfen, sondern gewissermaßen zu vertreten das Recht habe, kräftig aufgenommen. An dem geringen Positiven sowie an dem äußersten, zum Positiven umkippenden Negativen, hatte ich keinen ererbten Anteil. Ich bin nicht von der allerdings schon schwer sinkenden Hand des Christentums ins Leben geführt worden wie Kierkegaard und habe nicht den letzten Zipfel des davonfliegenden jüdischen Gebetmantels noch gefangen wie die Zionisten. Ich bin Ende oder Anfang. (H, 120-1)

In this note, written on February 25, 1918, Kafka attempts to diagnose his own insufficiency for life, and, curiously enough, he remarks that possession of this quality makes him representative for the "negative" of his time. He interprets the absence of anything "inherited" from the positive of the age as that which distinguishes him from Kierkegaard and the Zionists. The word "ererbt" is crucial here, for it directs our attention at Kafka's lament that he participates in no community and has no heritage. The "negative" of his age, in which Kafka so profoundly shares, is precisely this rootlessness, this lack of either forebears or offspring. Kierkegaard and the Zionists participate, no matter how slightly, in the "positive" of the age - or, at the very least, in that negative which tends toward the positive - to the extent that they can integrate themselves into a "heritage" which lends them "hereditary" definition. The cryptic assertion with which Kafka concludes this meditation thus evokes this double isolation from any form of heritage: Kafka is "end" insofar as he is without physical or spiritual heirs; he is "inception" to the extent that he has no ancestors to turn to in order to search for precedents. He views himself, in other words, as without antecedents as well as without "post-cedents." Implied in the state of being "end" or "inception" is both absence of past and absence of future, lack of connection in either a backward or forward direction. The allusion here, then, is to something essentially individual and, perhaps, even individualistic. Yet at the same time Kafka has maintained that he lays some claim to being representative of his time, or at least of its negative underside. The thrust of Kafka's reflection thus moves in two mutually opposing directions, on the one hand bringing out his "representativeness," and on the other his lack of predecessors and followers. This conflict is resolved, of course, in the claim that Kafka is representative of a time that itself has no heritage, a time that is either inception or end, or inception and end at once. To be a representative, however, implies a community of sorts; here, however, this "community" is defined in terms of 197

negativity, i. e. in terms of lack or absence. This identification of himself as a "representative" of this negative community of outcasts - the community of the communityless, formulated in its most paradoxical - signals a new recognition on Kafka's part, one which, it seems to me, is intimately tied up with the problematics and crises with which Kafka was trying to come to grips in the Zürau period, and which expresses itself, among other ways, in the turn to aphoristic expression. Stanley Corngold has argued that a second "helix" occurs in Kafka's life late in 1917, and he characterizes this turn as one in which Kafka comes to understand himself and his suffering as "exemplary," i. e. as testimony to the realization of a common being.251 want to make two brief points about this before going on to follow up this problem in Kafka's reception of Kierkegaard. First, it is necessary to recognize that this shift to the notion of the exemplary has profound repercussions in Kafka's literature, manifesting itself in the move from perspectivistic to parabolic portrayal. This, in turn, hints at the fact that this turn to the exemplary is above all a turn in (self-) expression. In other words, this modulation to the exemplary bespeaks that move to projection and self-creation for which I have been arguing throughout. Secondly, and closely related to this, one cannot take this turn to the exemplary in Kafka to be simple and unproblematic; indeed, it is fraught with complexities. The reason for this is, I wish to argue, that for Kafka the question of the exemplary is paralleled by its very problematization: the mediation between individual and universal in the form of the "representative" is caught up in that process of recursion typical both of Kafka's thought, and of the conceptual patterns of the aphorist in general. Neither Kafka's aphorisms, nor his parables from the same period, can adequately be assessed without taking account of this problematization of the exemplary, a crisis which came to a head for Kafka in the months during which he composed the aphorisms in the Oktavhefte. Kafka's reception of Kierkegaard is persistently bound up with the issue of the exemplary on various levels. The most obvious of these, of course, is that on which Kafka took Kierkegaard's life to be exemplary for the problems he himself faced.26 Kafka was first introduced to the work of KierStanley Corngold, "Kafka's Double Helix," p. 523. Brian F. M. Edwards has emphasized that Kafka felt personally, but not necessarily philosophically close to Kierkegaard, "Kafka and Kierkegaard: A Reassessment," GLL, 20 (1966/67), 218-225; on the relationship between Kafka and Kierkegaard see further: Fritz Billeter, Das Dichterische bei Kafka und Kierkegaard: Ein typologischer Vergleich (Winterthur: Verlag Pascal G. Keller, 1965); on Kafka's reception of Kierkegaard see especially Claude David, "Die Geschichte Abrahams: Zu Kafkas Auseinandersetzung mit Kierkegaard," Bild und Gedanke: Festschrift für Gerhart Baumann zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Günter Schnitzler, et al. (Munich: Fink, 1980), pp. 79-90.

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kegaard in 1913, and on August 21 of that year he records the following note in his diary. Ich habe heute Kierkegaards "Buch des Richters" bekommen. Wie ich es ahnte, ist sein Fall trotz wesentlicher Unterschiede dem meinem [sie] sehr ähnlich, zumindest liegt er auf der gleichen Seite der Welt. Er bestätigt mich wie ein Freund. Ich entwerfe folgenden Brief an den Vater, den ich morgen, wenn ich die Kraft habe, wegschicken will. (T, 318)

The letter Kafka mentions is the one intended for Felice's father in which Kafka explains the virtual impossibility that he marry Felice, claiming that he is "nichts anderes . . . als Literatur und nichts anderes sein kann und will" ( , 318). Clearly, Kafka was not only drawing strength from Kierkegaard, but in a sense modelling himself on him as well. Thus even at this early date Kafka recognizes the similarity in their "cases," while yet being unable to affirm unreservedly this similarity. Still, Kierkegaard's example was effective enough at this juncture to lead Kafka to action, this action manifesting itself concretely in the letter to Felice's father. When Kafka concerns himself intensively with Kierkegaard four years later the similarity of their "cases" is no longer a dominant factor. Significantly, Kafka's concern with Kierkegaard runs temporally closely parallel to the composition of the aphorisms in the Oktavhefte. In October or November 1917 Kafka reports in a letter to Oskar Baum that he is familiar with Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (Br, 190); in January he writes that he is reading further works by Kierkegaard (Br, 201); and in the same month he indicates that he has also read Either/Or (Br, 224). In March 1918 he rereads Fear and Trembling and reads Repetition as well (Br, 235). Yet Kafka's attitude on the Danish philosopher has undergone a tremendous transformation by this time, as is clear from the following remarks recorded in a letter to Max Brod: "Die 'körperliche' Ähnlichkeit mit ihm [Kierkegaard], wie sie mir eben etwas nach jenem kleinen Buch 'Kierkegaards Verhältnis zu "ihr"' . . . erschien, ist jetzt ganz verschwunden, aus dem Zimmernachbar ist irgendein Stern geworden, sowohl was meine Bewunderung, als eine gewisse Kälte meines Mitgefühls betrifft" (Br, 235). As is commonly the case with Kafka's metaphors, the one he chooses to describe the distance he now feels toward Kierkegaard is quite significant: the person with whom Kafka once inhabited at least the same side of the world is now a "star" whose example appears far away and unreachable. Not coincidentally, Kafka used the very same image in a letter to Oskar Baum a few months earlier, calling Kierkegaard "ein Stern, aber über einer mir fast unzugänglichen Gegend" (Br, 190). This image brings out Kafka's ambivalence toward Kierkegaard, who is portrayed as a "guiding light," so to speak, but one whose guidance leads over territory that for the most part is inaccessible to Kafka. Expressed in this image, then, is Kafka's desire for exemplary guidance, and his simul199

taneous recognition that such guidance cannot be preferred him through Kierkegaard. It would lead us too far astray to examine in detail the reactions to Kierkegaard, especially to Fear and Trembling, recorded by Kafka in the fourth Oktavheft.27 While Kafka was certainly impressed by a number of issues manifest in Kierkegaard's thought - the problem of indirect communication and the issue of Abraham's condemnation to silence, the problematical mediation between individual and universal which comes to light in Kierkegaard's exposition of the parable of Abraham - I will restrict myself here to a discussion of issues relevant to the problem of the exemplary, and to Kafka's remarks on Kierkegaard's method. Kafka's objection to Kierkegaard's portrayal of Abraham bears some similarity to the objection that Kafka voiced against Kierkegaard himself. In the letter to Brod from March 1918 quoted above, Kafka criticizes Kierkegaard with these words: "den gewöhnlichen Menschen . . . sieht er nicht und malt den ungeheueren Abraham in die Wolken" (Br, 235-6). It is the "Positivitat" that Kierkegaard expresses in this work, a positivity that, like Abraham, "ins Ungeheuerliche [geht]" (Br, 235), which disturbs Kafka. The image of an "Abraham in the clouds," of course, parallels the metaphor of Kierkegaard as an unreachable star; thus Kierkegaard's representation of an unreal Abraham, whose model means nothing to the ordinary human being, evokes Kafka's representation of Kierkegaard as an example that cannot elucidate his own situation. In this sense Kierkegaard and his Abraham reinforced Kafka's impression of the absoluteness of the individual, its inaccessibility to generalization, its ineffability. The silence arising from the paradox to which Abraham was condemned must have reinforced Kafka's conviction that he was caught up in a paradoxical drive to express his inexpressible "inneres Gebot" (H, 111). At the same time, Kafka came to accept that his own individuality implied lack of heritage, condemnation to the state either of "inception" or "end." He thus was forced to admit that he had access to no prior examples or models which might be relevant to his past life, or imitable in the future. Kafka's characteristic penchant for biographical and autobiographical writings was predicated on his persistent search for models through which by comparison he could explain and justify - this latter above all - his own situation and condition. In August of 1916, however, he admonishes himself to give up this drive to compare himself with others. "Laß auch den unsinnigen Irrtum, daß du Vergleiche anstellst, etwa mit Flaubert, Kierkegaard,

27

See David, "Die Geschichte Abrahams," for a detailed analysis of Kafka's notes on Fear and Trembling.

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Grillparzer. Das ist durchaus Knabenart" (T, 511). This caveat is a first symptom of Kafka's problematization of the exemplary as it occurs in most poignant form in the aphorisms of the Oktavhefte. Kafka again found himself inhabiting a lonely realm of the in-between: in-between the growing sense of his own absolute individuality, his existence without heritage as either "end" or "inception," and the desire for identifiable examples, i. e. for precedents and for a legitimizing framework or community. This problem, of course, runs parallel to the crisis of communication from the same period, itself predicated on the conflict between individuality and its communication in the universalizing medium of language. The mediation between particular and universal, individual and any form of community whatsoever, remains a crisis of dynamic mediation, of recursion to, and reiteration of, the crisis itself, without resolution or conclusion. Kafka's problematization of the exemplary - and his turn to the exemplary, it seems to me, was never more than this - brings with it a problematization of all forms of imitatio. This comes especially to the fore in the instance of Kafka's reception of Kierkegaard, as a critique recorded in the fourth Oktavheft makes evident. Here Kafka writes of Kierkegaard: Er hat zu viel Geist, er fährt mit seinem Geist wie auf einem Zauberwagen über die Erde, auch dort, wo keine Wege sind. Und kann es von sich selbst nicht erfahren, daß dort keine Wege sind. Dadurch wird seine demütige Bitte um Nachfolge zur Tyrannei und sein ehrlicher Glaube, "auf dem Wege" zu sein, zum Hochmut. (H, 126)

Any demand which requires that one follow words or example of an exemplary individual, like the imperative "Gehe hinüber" of the wiseman in the parable "Von den Gleichnissen," is unfollowable: such an imperative represents an act of tyranny; the self-righteousness in which it is grounded is nothing but "Hochmut." The problem of the exemplary, thus, is one manifestation of the problematical or ruptured interaction between the individual and the universal which was Kafka's central concern during his aphoristic period. The demand for imitatio is made through the medium of language, and language becomes the ultimate realm in which the conflict between individual and universal is carried out and mediated. Kafka's rejection in these crisis years of personal models for himself and his life bespeaks a growing awareness of his own immediable - and thus also ineffable - individuality, his isolation from all community, all heritage, and from any relevant models or "examples." If Kierkegaard reinforced Kafka's problematization of the exemplary and the crisis of mediation between particular and universal (along with its communication), then he also affirmed Kafka's approach to these dilemmas on a methodological level, as did Pascal. In the case of the latter, of course, it was the critical self-dissection which Kafka admired, while rejecting the faith that 201

made it easy for Pascal to carry out. Kafka likewise rejects the "positivity" of Kierkegaard, but affirms his literary method. For what most interested Kafka in Kierkegaard was certainly the manner in which the Dane portrayed in his texts elements of his own life crises: Kierkegaard's objectification of the subjective, his projection of the self into philosophical-parabolic guises, comprises the ultimate literary significance of his texts for Kafka. Kafka, for example, praised the "Macht" of Kierkegaard's terminology and his haunting "Begriffsentdeckungen" (Br, 238), and even wrote of the "Richtigkeit von Kierkegaards Methode" (Br, 238). Kafka describes this method in the following way: "zu schrein, um nicht gehört zu werden, und falsch zu schrein, für den Fall, daß man doch gehört werden sollte" (Br, 238). I interpret this as Kafka's commentary on Kierkegaard's manner of speaking out on his individual crises through textual masks that obscure the personal nature of his pain. Kafka recognized the "compromising" aspect in Kierkegaard's writing, i.e. he realized that Kierkegaard's "Folterwerk" (Br, 238) was an instrument of self-torture, one which made Kierkegaard's personal dilemma a public matter. Kafka portrays Kierkegaard's texts as "screams" which are cloaked in a strategic obscurity which accounts for their essential equivocality. His most admiring description of Kierkegaard's method is found in a reflection from the fourth Oktavheft. Neben seiner Beweisführung geht eine Bezauberung mit. Einer Beweisführung kann man in die Zauberwelt ausweichen, einer Bezauberung in die Logik, aber beide gleichzeitig erdrücken, zumal sie etwas Drittes sind, lebender Zauber oder nicht zerstörende, sondern aufbauende Zerstörung der Welt. (H, 125)

Kafka's description applies not only to the method of Kierkegaard, but to that of the aphorist in general. The combination of logical proof and mysteriously illogical "enchantment" is the hallmark of the aphorism in the German tradition, reflected in its tension between lucidly logical structure and obscure, opaque, elusive significance. Kafka admired in Kierkegaard's method, despite its "oppressiveness," this combination of enchantment and logic, this "constructive destruction" so typical of the practices of the aphorist. Kierkegaard's impact on Kafka, then, like that of Pascal, is primarily methodological, reinforcing Kafka's appropriation of aphoristic expression for the "constructive destruction" of his own self. Kafka's reception of the works of Pascal and Kierkegaard is certainly decisive for his aphoristic production in the years 1917-18 and beyond. The significance of these Christian authors lies, however, not in their religious thought, nor in the model provided by their lives, but rather in the essentially aphoristic methods with which they accomplish self-analysis and literary objectification of the self. Through them Kafka came to realize the virtues of a method which dissected "with wonderful knives," which constructed 202

while destroying, which feigned conviction while spawning doubt, which was personal and intimate, yet ultimately objectified and equivocal. The writings of Kierkegaard, in addition, buttressed Kafka's sense of the problematical conflict between the individual and the universal, corroborating his conviction that this conflict ultimately manifests itself in a crisis of communication. The aphorism, with its characteristic problematization of the process of mediation between individual and universal principles, offered itself as an appropriate expressive form through which an attempt could be made by which Kafka could come to terms with the conflict of mediation between individual and community.

III. Aphorism and Polemics: Karl Kraus In the first two sections of this chapter we have investigated Kafka's reception of aphoristic writings which approach the character of the autobiographical, betraying overriding concern with the self, its analysis, and its portrayal. Within this broader context we have outlined the workings of a dialectic of self-examination (self-critique) and self-creation (textualization of the self), each of these representing expressive possibilities inherent in the aphoristic texts to which Kafka responded. The aphorism divulged itself to Kafka as a tool for introspective self-dissection, as well as for linguistic projection, ornamentation - or transformation of the self through words - of the general sort associated with the aphorism of impression. Both of these impulses can be subsumed under the general category of "Selbstbeobachtung," one of the primary tendencies of aphoristic expression. At the same time, this "Selbstbeobachtung" which is so prominent in Kafka's aphorisms should not be understood as "autobiographical" in the sense assumed by positivistic literary analysis: self-examination and self-analysis in aphoristic expression do not serve as simple "objective," impersonal, and honest selfassessments, but rather as incentives to transformation of the self through the aphoristic medium. We recall Kafka's commentary on the dicta of Marcus Aurelius: "Gut ist es, wenn man sich vor sich selbst mit Worten zuschütten kann, aber noch besser ist es, wenn man sich mit Worten ausschmücken kann, bis man ein Mensch wird, wie man es im Herzen wünscht" (Br, 26). One of Kafka's central concerns in the aphorisms, then, is the communication and projection of the self "wie man es im Herzen wünscht." I have already described the innovative strategy of "suggestive metaphor" evolved by Kafka in the aphorisms for the communication of the "internal" self. What we must keep in mind is that Kafka's aphoristic pronouncements are always tinged with the desire to re-create the self in textual form, i. e. to project this self into an objectively effable expressive medium. "Selbst203

Beobachtung," in Kafka's case, is never mere passive recording, but always creative re-writing of the self. While the tendency toward "Selbstbeobachtung" is most prominent in Kafka's aphorisms, the aspect of "Menschenbeobachtung" is not wholly absent. We must, however, understand "Menschenbeobachtung" both in the sense of observation of other individuals, and as observation on the condition of humanity in general. When directed away from the self and toward society or the human world, aphoristic expression tends toward the critical and the polemical, i. e. toward the critique of ideology and of human/social practice. Kafka was acquainted with the aphorism in this application at the very least through the texts of Nietzsche. One scholar has tried to show that Kafka's aphorisms echo some themes present in Nietzsche's aphoristic writings.28 However, there are no concrete documents which allow for an assessment of Kafka's direct reception of Nietzsche's texts, and thus the issue of impact, especially where the aphoristic method of Nietzsche is concerned, remains speculation. It is precisely the sym-philosophic, intellectual-communal quality of aphoristic expression which makes it difficult to localize possible avenues of "influence," since many characteristic traits of aphoristic discourse are mediated either by the genre itself, or by a multitude of its practitioners. The possible relationship between Kafka and Nietzsche will hence not be dealt with here, since we possess no reflections by Kafka dealing with the thought or works of Nietzsche which could serve as the basis for an analysis of Kafka's Nietzsche-reception.29 There is, however, some evidence which indicates reception on Kafka's part of the work of the most prominent contemporary aphorist of a critical, polemical bent, Karl Kraus. Indeed, Kraus perhaps outdid even Nietzsche in the cultivation of the culturally critical aphorism, yet the possible relevance of Kraus's aphorisms for Kafka's aphoristic production has never received scholarly attention.30 Two of Kraus's collections of aphorisms, Sprüche und Widersprüche and Pro domo et mundo, appeared before Kafka's earnest concern with the form of the aphorism in 1917; the third collection, Nachts, appeared in 1918. There is, however, no evidence which indicates that Kafka was familiar with any of these works. Yet this fact in itself is not significant, for the aphorism is 28 29

30

Patrick Bridgwater, Kafka ana Nietzsche, pp. 22-8. On Kafka and Nietzsche, aside from Bridgwater's book-length study, see also Ben Nagel, Kaßa und die Weltliteratur, pp. 299-327; Ralf Nicolai, "Wahrheit und Lüge bei Kafka und Nietzsche"; and Sokel, Tragik und Ironie, pp.75ff.; for a general summary of scholarly assessments of the influence of Nietzsche on Kafka see Binder's Kafka-Handbuch, I, 251-3. It is surprising - but perhaps indicative - that in Bert Nagel's ambitious study Kafka und die Weltliteratur the name of Karl Kraus is never mentioned.

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such a fundamental aspect of Kraus's critical discourse that it is omnipresent in all his writings: the aphorism is, so to speak, a constituent element of Kraus's entire literary-polemical endeavor. In this sense, all of Kraus's works are pointedly aphoristic, and familiarity with any of his texts necessarily implies familiarity with his aphoristic style. Kafka first mentions Kraus in a diary entry from the year 1911. On March 26 Kafka notes cryptically: "Früher Vortrag Loos und Kraus" ( , 52). The reference is to a lecture Kraus gave in Prague on the fifteenth of March, a lecture which Kafka apparently attended.31 Unfortunately, Kafka's remark is so laconic as to give no information whatsoever either about his reactions to Kraus's lecture, or about his impressions of the personality of the Viennese critic. One is at first tempted to interpret this as a sign that the lecture made no great impression on Kafka. Yet this would be especially surprising, given Kraus's renown as a moving and talented lecturer, and given Kafka's own receptivity to such dramatic performances. One might, for instance, take the fact that Kafka saw fit to mention this lecture at all - and over ten days after it had occurred, at that - as a signal that it had made a more indelible mark. Kafka may, in fact, have wished to record his impressions, but found that the lapse of time between the experience and his attempt to record it had dulled and thus inhibited his reaction. By the same token, Kafka's irresponsiveness may in part have been conditioned by the enmity which his close friend Max Brod felt for Kraus. Just a few months after this lecture, in July 1911, Brod published a critical attack on Kraus in retaliation for the latter's parodistic critique of Brod's novel Jüdinnen.32 Kraus, true to his nature, responded in kind to Brod's attack just a few days later.33 Prior to this time, however, Brod had been a great admirer of Kraus, whose influence among the Prague literati was quite extensive, as demonstrated by the frequency with which he lectured in Prague, and by his impact on such writers as Willy Haas und Franz Werfel.34 Among the essays that Kraus read at the lecture attended by Kafka, the polemical attack "Heine und die Folgen" is of special importance because of 31

32

33

34

On March 15, 1911 Kraus read at his Prague lecture "Der Traum ein Wiener Leben," "Heine und die Folgen," "Desperanto," the "Antoniusrede" from his "Forumszene," and "Das Ehrenkreuz." See Die Fackel, no. 319/20 (April 1, 1911), where the program of the lecture is given. Cf. Hartmut Binder, "Unvergebene Schlamperei: Ein unbekannter Brief Franz Kafkas, "Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft, 25 (1981), p. 136. Max Brod, "Ein mittelmäßiger Kopf," Die Aktion, no. 20/1 (July 3, 1911), col.622-25; Kraus's response appeared in Die Fackel, no.326-28 (July 8, 1911), pp. 35-6. Kafka, by the way, also composed a relatively extensive critique of Brod's novel on the same day he mentioned the Kraus lecture, see T, 52. On Kraus's impact on the writers of Prague, see Binder "Unvergebene Schlamperei," p. 135.

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the plethora of aphoristic formulations which it contains. Indeed, parts of this essay were published as individual aphorisms, extracted from this greater context.35 Consequently, an attentive listener - and Kraus apparently commanded only attentive listeners - would have become familiar with the rhetorical verve and clever playfulness characteristic of Kraus's aphoristic method simply on the basis of such a lecture. Despite the fact that ten years pass before Kafka again mentions the name of Kraus in his letters or diaries, there is no reason to assume that Kafka had no contact with Kraus's works over this span of time. Kraus, among other things, lectured in Prague somewhere on the average of twice a year; and his centrality in Austrian literary circles suggests that he was a figure whose works one simply could not ignore. Furthermore, the enthusiasm which Kafka expresses for Kraus's writings at later points in his life suggests that this affirmation was the result of familiarity with these texts over an extensive span of time. Kraus, in addition, was a leading figure in German-Jewish literary circles of the period, and Kafka himself alludes to this in a letter to Brod from 1921, in which he writes of Kraus: "In dieser kleinen Welt der deutsch-jüdischen Literatur herrscht er [Kraus] wirklich oder vielmehr das von ihm vertretene Prinzip, dem er sich so bewunderungswürdig untergeordnet hat, daß er sich sogar mit dem Prinzip verwechselt und andere diese Verwechslung mitmachen läßt" (Br, 336). At this time, at least, it is Kraus's representativeness for German-Jewish literature which is foremost in Kafka's mind. It was in reaction to his reading of Kraus's Literatur, oder man wird doch da sehn, found in this same letter to Brod, that Kafka formulated his insightful thoughts on the plight of the German-Jewish writer, a plight predicated on the absence of an authentic language. Kafka maintains that Kraus recognized, or made apparent, the dilemma of these authors, a dilemma which Kafka describes in terms of three impossibilities, to which he instinctively adds a fourth. Sie [the German-Jewish writers] lebten zwischen drei Unmöglichkeiten . . .: der Unmöglichkeit, nicht zu schreiben, der Unmöglichkeit, deutsch zu schreiben, der Unmöglichkeit, anders zu schreiben, fast könnte man eine vierte Unmöglichkeit hinzufügen, die Unmöglichkeit zu schreiben . . . (Ar, 337-8)

Kafka's immediate response to Kraus's text is composed of that mixture of admiration and critique which is characteristic of his reactions to Pascal and Kierkegaard as well. Writing of Kraus's "magical operette," Kafka remarks: Ich glaube, ich sondere ziemlich gut, das, was in dem Buch nur Witz ist, allerdings prachtvoller, dann was erbarmungswürdige Kläglichkeit ist, und schließlich was Wahrheit ist, zumindest so viel Wahrheit, als es meine schreibende Hand ist, auch

35

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See the aphorisms on Heine found in B W, 123.

so deutlich und beängstigend körperlich. Der Witz ist hauptsächlich das Mauscheln, so mauscheln wie Kraus kann niemand, trotzdem doch in dieser deutschjüdischen Welt kaum jemand etwas anderes als mauscheln kann . . . (Br, 336)

Here Kafka demonstrates his own critical sagacity. While moved by the extraordinary "physicality" of Kraus's truth, and appreciative of Kraus's "Witz" as well, Kafka nevertheless penetrates to the "pitiable wretchedness" of which Kraus the satirist is often guilty. In this sense Kafka's evaluation confirms the common critical opinion which applauds Kraus's cause and the truthful authenticity for which he campaigned, while objecting to the indiscriminate application of a satirical method which is "wretched" at least insofar as it maliciously attacks everything that enters its purview. More significant, however, is the fact that Kraus, his method, and his language are accepted as prototypical for the German-Jewish writer in general. In this sense Kraus personified for Kafka the existential crises of the EuropeanJewish intellectual prior to the rise of fascism. Kafka is most interested in Kraus as a representative of this generation of authors to which Kafka himself belonged. His interest in Kraus's literature, moreover, is predicated on the fact that it appears to be symptomatic of the literature of the GermanJews, and thus crucial for Kafka's writing as well. Kraus's polemics, his satirical wit, and his pointedly aphoristic style were integral elements of this "characteristic" literary situation. For the remainder of his life Kafka retained an outspokenly positive attitude toward Kraus and his work. In June of 1922 Kafka requests of his acquaintance Robert Klopstock that he send Kafka the next edition of the Fackel when it appears. "Dagegen würde ich Sie wohl bitten, wenn eine neue Fackel erscheinen sollte - sehr lange ist sie schon ausgeblieben - und sie nicht zu teuer ist, nach dem Durchlesen sie mir zu schicken, diese süße Speise aller guten und bösen Triebe will ich mir nicht versagen" (Br, 380). Kafka's words not only betray the enthusiasm with which he read Kraus's journal, they imply as well that Kafka read the Fackel on a regular basis, since he was aware that an issue had not appeared for some time. And Kafka's fascination for Kraus's journal never abated: as late as February 1924, just a few months before his death, Kafka wrote of "die . . . entnervenden Orgien" which reading the Fackel elicited in him (Br, 477).36 This positive reception of Kraus and his literature occurs, to be sure, at a time well beyond that during which Kafka was centrally concerned with the form of the aphorism. Yet it remains likely that Kafka's familiarity with Kraus and his works began much earlier and that this figure, who certainly made an indelible impression on the contemporary literary-cultural scene of

36

For further references to Kraus by Kafka, see Br, 459 and 446. 207

Austria, left an ineradicable mark on Kafka at a very early stage. Stylistic analysis will demonstrate that the polemical manner of Kraus's aphorisms is more or less foreign to Kafka's aphoristic texts; yet it is probable that Kafka at least became aware of the critical, rhetorical power of this mode of expression through the example of Kraus. Here, moreover, Kafka could witness the contra-dictory thrust of aphoristic expression, its destructive, de-constructive impulse carried out with the ultimate aim of re-construction.

The intent of this chapter has been to document the various avenues through which Kafka became acquainted with style, form, structure, and purpose of aphoristic discourse. By examining his reception of certain aphoristic texts and writers, we have been able to evaluate Kafka's responses to aphoristic discourse and assess concretely the functions he associated with it. While I have restricted myself here primarily to "sources" for which documentable evidence of reception is available, this should not lead to the conclusion that these were the only aphoristic writings with which Kafka was familiar. Indeed, Kafka is likely to have read some works of the French moralists, since editions of the maxims of Chamfort and Vauvenargues were among the books in his personal library.37 The main point here is that Kafka's access to the tradition of the aphorism came from various and diverse texts, and this helps to explain the diversity of his own aphoristic production. In order to summarize the phenomena and drives which Kafka came to associate with the aphorism on the basis of reception of aphoristic writings, I shall orient the ideas presented here around different interpretations of the notion of "Selbstdenken," a concept that Paul Requadt connected to the thought of the aphorist in his seminal work on Lichtenberg.38 Viewed within the context of "Menschenbeobachtung," self-thought implies an independence of thought which allows the aphorist to stand outside of the human community, criticizing and judging its actions and practices, its moral and political stances. In other words, "Selbstdenken" here connotes the ability to think for oneself, the capacity to make oneself autonomous of the structures of tradition and custom. At the same time, within the rubric of "Selbstbeobachtung," self-thought can be taken to imply the tendency to reflect upon the self, making the self the object of one's cognitive critique. Finally, "Selbstdenken" can be taken as a manner of creatively thinking or re-thinking the self, i. e. of projecting, transforming, and re-writing the self through 37 38

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Wagenbach, "Kafkas Handbibliothek," pp.253 & 261. On "Selbstdenken" see Requadt, Lichtenberg, pp. 151-61.

the textual form of the aphorism, productively exploiting its rhetorical force. All of these aspects of "Selbstdenken" are present in, and relevant to, Kafka's aphorisms, which display independent-critical thought, self-critique, and self-textualization. Kafka's aphoristic texts, then, represent his attempts at "Selbstdenken" in all these senses, as well as his striving for resolution of the crises of integration and communication, the latter of these defined essentially as a crisis of self-portrayal. In a letter to Ottla from 1919 Kafka defined "jedes selbstständige [sic] Denken" as the possession of enough courage to dare "den Sprung über Deinen Schatten" (BO, 63). His aphorisms from the period of 1917-18 and beyond are exemplary of just such "selbstständiges Denken," of autonomous thought which not only derives from the autonomy of the self as individual, but is concerned with the self qua individual and the self qua element or part of a greater communal whole. In the Ziirau period, fraught as it was with personal crisis, Kafka most needed to turn to a form of "self-thought" that would permit him to leap over his own shadow - a leap that would, ultimately, be a salto mortale. Kafka's aphorisms are thus individual in the significant sense that they are concerned with the individual; at the same time they participate in the tradition of aphoristic expression to the extent that they share profoundly in the themes, structures, forms, styles, and strategies characteristic of aphoristic discourse. As aphorist, Kafka participates in the intellectual community of aphorists; his aphoristic texts "create" their own precursors in the sense that they are defined by, and help to define, the heritage of aphoristic expression. The next chapter examines the participation of Kafka's aphorisms in this aphoristic "heritage" on a concrete, formal level.

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CHAPTER FIVE

Kafka's Aphorisms: Intratext and Intertext

"Das ganze erscheint zwar sinnlos, aber in seiner Art abgeschlossen." Kafka on "Odradek"(£, 155).

Kafka's aphoristic texts, because of their very aphoristic quality, have to be dealt with in such a way that a single text or sub-set of texts are not taken as representative of the "whole" of Kafka's aphoristic production. The interrelationship of aphoristic texts is not one in which the individual fragment represents the others, and thus forms a kind of microcosmic "whole"; rather, the dynamics of the aphoristic group configuration is one characterized by counterpoint, one in which texts supplement, correct, retract, and contradict one another. Moreover, one must be especially careful not to judge individual aphorisms as expressions of Kafka's "authentic" personal view of the world or of the self. The aphorisms, in their very essence, are texts which derive their vitality from the interaction and dialogue which they carry on among themselves and with other texts in an aphoristic "heritage." This interactive component must constantly be kept in mind. It obtains on two distinct levels: that of the aphoristic texts of the given author, here Kafka, taken as a group; and that level on which a trans-historical dialogue with the texts of other aphorists and with conventional wisdom (as verbal expression) is initiated. In what follows, I will refer to the first dialogic dimension as "intratextual," and to the second as "intertextual." Throughout these analyses it is important to keep in mind that one of the purposes of aphoristic expression is the explicit problematization of simple conceptions of "truth." In this sense one of the aphoristic texts from the Oktavhefte can serve'as a kind of methodological sign-post for the procedure to be followed here. Geständnis und Lüge ist das Gleiche. Um gestehen zu können, lügt man. Das, was man ist, kann man nicht ausdrücken, denn dieses ist man eben; mitteilen kann man nur das, was man nicht ist, also die Lüge. Erst im Chor mag eine gewisse Wahrheit liegen. (H, 343)

This text should not be treated as a programmatic statement, but rather as an indicator of the general direction, the general domain of issues, in which Kafka's aphorisms move. The text addresses, first of all, that problem of communication which we have identified as central to the concerns of 210

aphoristic expression. It further points to a more specific communicative concern in Kafka's aphoristic production; namely, to the iteration of the self, of one's authentic and essential being. Communication, "mit-teilen," however, presupposes a standard of difference (distance, a breach) between the communicator and the matter to be communicated. In view of this, selfcommunication becomes possible only through an alienation of the self; at this point, however, the self which is to be communicated is no longer immediate and essential. Self-communication and self-analysis thus become self-projection, a sketching of the self projected into the objectified (and reified) realm of text. Confession, i. e. communicative expression in which the self is both communicating subject and communicative object, is always already lie. Yet Kafka proposes one alternative - to be sure, one which is permeated with the reluctance of compromise - that he describes as "eine gewisse Wahrheit," namely the "truth" of consensus, of the counterpoint of various and diverse voices. The aphorisms embody better than any other texts by Kafka the "dispersal" of a univocal authorial voice into diverse voices which make a "chorus" only when taken together. One could speak metaphorically of a "diaspora" of narrative voice in the aphoristic texts. The role of the critic, in this instance, is to combine the aphoristic voices into a chorus - into many choruses: for indeed, the combinatory possibilities are, if not infinite, then certainly multiple. To those who are dissatisfied with this, so to speak, "creative" choral enactment of "truth," one can only reply with Kafka that this is all we have. But perhaps one should not take the tone of resignation in the cited aphorism too seriously; in fact, a peculiar ambiguity in the attributive adjective "gewisse" with which Kafka modifies this choral truth hints at the overthrow of this resignation. The phrase "eine gewisse Wahrheit" can be interpreted, on the one hand, to mean "a certain type of truth"; on the other hand, the adjective can be read more literally, in which case the phrase can be interpreted as "a certain truth," "certain" here understood in the sense of "secure" or "sure." If we, following the method alluded to by Kafka, attempt to bring these seemingly dissonant statements into choral counterpoint, then our critical rendition will sound something like this: we in fact only posses a certain measure of truth; but insofar as we accept this limitation placed upon our ability to recognize truth, we attain a certain certainty. Truth, to move to a spacial metaphor, is not something that one can locate by putting one's finger on it; rather it is a general domain whose borders can merely be circumscribed, and only to this extent can it be "defined." In order to adjudicate the foregoing interpretation with the interpretive practice it advocates, let us add some more voices to the chorus. The first belongs to the Kafka of the aphorisms, and thus the merging of these two textual voices occurs in the "intratextual" dimension. 211

Wahrheit ist unteilbar, kann sich also selbst nicht erkennen; wer sie erkennen will, muß Lüge sein. (aph. 80)

This text presents once again the crisis of truth as a crisis of self-recognition: the self-recognition of truth itself. Recognition, this text implies, to the extent that it must distance itself from the object recognized, also alienates itself from the very ground of truth, thereby becoming lie. This text and the first one cited above are both thematically and structurally consonant with one another: both treat slightly different aspects of the problem of truthful self-recognition, and both manifest in their presentation a congruous cognitive structure, that which we previously have designated as the structure of exclusion. This structure is one of the most common cognitive patterns in Kafka's aphoristic texts, and to the extent that texts have this structure in common, they can be said to "perform" a consonant truth on this structural level. Moving now to the intertextual context, we can bring these aphoristic texts by Kafka into relation with an aphorism from Wittgenstein's Vermischte Bemerkungen. Man kann nicht die Wahrheit sagen; wenn man sich noch nicht selbst bezwungen hat. Man kann sie nicht sagen; - aber nicht, weil man noch nicht gescheit genug ist. Nur der kann sie sagen, der schon in ihr ruht; nicht der, der noch in der Unwahrheit ruht, und nur einmal aus der Unwahrheit heraus nach ihr langt.1

A number of elements connect this text to Kafka's aphorisms relating to truth and lie. First, there is the absolutization of the duality between truth and untruth - one rests either in one or the other, not in both, and, above all, not in some third sphere that is neither truth nor untruth. Secondly, these texts are not concerned simply with questions about the recognition of truth, but rather with the problem of expressing it. Thirdly, this possessing/expressing of truth is presented as inevitably related to self-possession and selfcontrol. At this point, however, comes the parting of the ways, for while Kafka insists on the aporia that one cannot express truth except from outside of truth itself, and thus from the sphere of lie, Wittgenstein seems to allow for the possibility that one is able to express truth from within its very domain. Kafka's text makes such resolution appear impossible. Of course, our goal here is not to bring these texts into full accord; the purpose of these juxtapositions, rather, is to demonstrate the way in which Kafka's aphoristic texts participate in both intratextual and intertextual dialogues with "complementary" texts. This complementarity or dialogic interaction among aphoristic texts on both intratextual and intertextual levels can be highlighted through further 1

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Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen, p. 73.

sets of examples. Each of the following three texts from the aphorisms Kafka collected out of the Oktavhefte presents a contrast between concepts of possession and being. Es gibt kein Haben, nur ein Sein, nur ein nach letztem Atem, nach Ersticken verlangendes Sein. (aph. 35) Seine Antwort auf die Behauptung, er besitze vielleicht, sei aber nicht, war nur Zittern und Herzklopfen, (aph. 37) Das Wort "sein" bedeutet im Deutschen beides: Dasein und Ihmgehören. (aph. 46)

In Kafka's original version of aphorism 35 the word "Besitz" occurs in place of the word "Haben," underscoring further the fact that these texts form a conceptual "community." 2 Yet each text broaches the dichotomy between possession and being in a unique fashion. Aphorism 35 begins by denying the very subsistence of "possession," claiming that all is "being." It goes on, however, to describe this omnipresent "being" in paradoxical terms: it is a being which longs for non-being, a breathing that desires final breath and suffocation. Aphorism 37 takes a totally different approach to the juxtaposition of possession and being: here the text choreographs a dramatic scene in which we witness the response - trembling and a pounding heart - of an unnamed character who is confronted with the assertion that he "possesses" but "is" not. Now aphorism 35, we recall, had explicitly denied the possibility of any such possession that precludes being, maintaining, in fact, the opposite of this. In other words, this second aphorism depicts a situation, the possibility of whose occurrence the first text disavows. One could, of course, make various claims in an attempt to harmonize these two texts: for example, one could conjure up the terminology of existential philosophy and maintain that being is the authentic mode of existence, whereas possession is inauthentic. Viewed in these terms, the fear with which the fictional character of aphorism 37 responds when admonished that he possesses, but is not, is a reaction to the recognition that he is leading an existentially false or "inauthentic" existence. Yet this reconciliation can only be accomplished by an interpretive interpolation, the addition of terminology or fusion of Kafka's vocabulary with a conceptual horizon which extends well beyond the boundaries of the texts themselves. Aphorism 46 takes yet another tack on the problematical relationship of being and possession, and it presents a position that is consonant with those of the previous two texts. Here the opposition between being and possessing is sublated through reference to the equivocality of language: "sein" as a verb

The original version of aphorism 35 reads: "Es gibt keinen Besitz, nur ein Sein, nur ein nach dem letzten Atem, nach Ersticken strebendes Sein." 213

means "to be"; as a possessive adjective it means "his." This aphorism thus simply makes a factual, if not commonly recognized, assertion about the potential ambiguity of the word "sein." Its implications, however, remain suggestively and provocatively open, allowing for any number of interpretive commentaries. On the one hand, the coincidence of conflicting meanings in the word "sein" could be taken as an explanation for the confusion of these two modes of existence, the ambiguity of the word reflecting this conceptual confusion. Alternatively, we could take this ambiguity as indicative of an essential ambiguity in the states of possession and being themselves. Read in this manner, the sublation of the opposition between the concepts of being and possession in the word "sein" manifests an essential identity between these two modes. According to this interpretation, then, aphorism 46 overrides the distinction between being and possession that the first two texts presuppose. Taken together, these three texts present fundamentally distinct perspectives on, and approaches to, a single issue. If in one case the priority of being over possession is asserted, a second text dramatizes a concrete example in which the opposite holds, while in a third text these apparent oppositions are fused through an observation about the equivocality of the word "sein." Significant here is the recognition that individual aphoristic treatments of a single problem neither corroborate one another, nor supplant one another; rather, they tend toward a relationship of supplementarity in the sense that each adds a new perspective on the issue addressed, and together they approach that "perspectivistic" objectivity programmatically defended by Nietzsche (cf. Werke, II, 861). Both their experimental presentation of alternative viewpoints, and their exploration of alternative strategies of expression, are typical of the aphorist's method. Kafka, here a quintessential aphorist, investigates possible states of affairs by asserting hypothetical possibilities and recording independent observations. It is in this sense that these texts can be called "complementary" or "contrapuntal"; they do not explicitly conflict with one another, rather they, like individual voices in a choir, to come back to Kafka's image for this multi-perspectival "truth," can be overlaid, combined in a conceptual counterpoint that is not uni-vocal. This notion of "truth" as the concomitance of incommensurate, but not mutually exclusive positions supplants for Kafka, as for the aphorist in general, any dogmatic notion of "truth" in which all voices sing in (ideologically) coordinated unison. The method Kafka applies in aphorism 46, his turn to an examination of language in an attempt to reconcile conceptual extremes, allows for correlation to the method of other aphorists, thus permitting us to shift our analysis to the intertextual level. An aphorism from Hofmannsthal's Buch der Freunde provides an apt text for comparison. 214

Daß wir Deutschen das uns Umgebende als ein Wirkendes - die "Wirklichkeit" bezeichnen, die lateinischen Europäer als die "Dinglichkeit," zeigt die fundamentale Verschiedenheit des Geistes, und daß jene und wir in ganz verschiedener Weise auf dieser Welt zu Hause sind. (A, 75)

Regardless of the manner in which one interprets these two texts, we should be able to concur on the similarity of approaches. In both instances language is taken as symptomatic of profound and fundamental attitudes with which we engage the world and comprehend our existence in it. Analysis of language leads to analysis of the means by which we understand and deal with existence. It is irrelevant for such analyses whether language is taken as a determining force, a shaper of world-view, or simply as a reflection of it; the correlation between language and understanding - and that is what is at issue here - is asserted and upheld in both cases. We are reminded of Fritz Mauthner's critique of language, or even of Freud's textualization of the dream in order to provide the basis for an interpretive analysis which uncovers truths hidden deep within the unconscious. These associations, of course, place the above aphoristic texts into a broader context than that of the textual and conceptual strategies of aphoristic expression. These preliminary examinations are intended as a demonstration of the method I am suggesting for an examination of Kafka's aphorisms. I consider this interpretive procedure to be one both appropriate and adapted to the character of the aphorism, insofar as this method attempts to take cognizance of, and do justice to, the hypothetical, experimental character of aphoristic discourse, as well as to the interactional, dialogic dynamics so central to this genre. It would be inherently false to approach Kafka's aphoristic texts with designs of a totalizing interpretation. And while from certain literarytheoretical persepectives this assertion would be thought to hold for all forms of text, it seems to me to be most obviously relevant to the aphorism since, as textual form, it consciously and emphatically denies totality and finality. There are no final viewpoints for the aphorist; there are only various fragmentary observations, hypotheses, or ruminations which, when taken as a dynamic group, can perhaps approximate something like a coherent "objective" truth. But one can continue to add new "fragments" and new viewpoints ad infinitum, so that knowledge and understanding drop the mask of finality, becoming dynamic and open-ended interpretive incursions into the "world" and the "self." The interpretive strategy employed here seeks to conform with this "aphoristic" situation. With this preliminary "discourse on method" in mind, we shall now turn our attention to examinations and discussions of Kafka's aphoristic texts. Our result will not be a systematic philosophy; rather we will seek to demonstrate throughout this investigation that Kafka's aphoristic texts conform in structure and style to the qualities characteristic of this genre; and in 215

this sense we will emphasize the fragmentariness of these reflections. I begin with a discussion of Kafka's aphorisms in the context of the aphoristic notebooks in which they were composed, focusing primarily on the distortion which these texts underwent based on their mediation to us through Brod's edition. An examination of Kafka's compositional procedure, as it is evidenced in alterations and modifications that these texts underwent in the process of composition and revision, will support our view that in these aphorisms, true to the nature of the genre, Kafka was more concerned with stylistic density and discursive technique than with the formulation of particular conceptual/philosophical statements or ideas. The second section will treat Kafka's aphorisms with a view toward the textual strategies and stylistic or structural devices which they employ, relating them whenever possible to texts of other aphorists. Throughout, we will examine the interactive intratextual aspect of Kafka's aphoristic texts on the basis of analyses of a selected group of aphorisms which deal with an identical theme.

I. Compositional History and Compositional Strategies of Kafka's Aphorisms Kafka's most concentrated period of aphoristic production begins in October 1917 and lasts until February 1918, during which time he composes the more than 150 aphorisms that can be found in the third and fourth Oktavhefte? About two-thirds of these aphoristic texts are extracted out of the notebooks by Kafka in the fall of 1920, presumably between the months of August and November.4 At this time Kafka copied the aphorisms, which later became the so-called "Betrachtungen über Sünde, Leid, Hoffnung und den wahren Weg," onto numbered slips of paper. He then subsequently put these texts together in a typescript which may represent a preliminary stage for their publication. At this point it is necessary to insert a few observations, some of which are based on examination of the original notebooks, the numbered slips, and the typescript. It is my hypothesis that Kafka returned to the Oktavhefte in For the dating of the Oktavhefte see Malcolm Pasley and Klaus Wagenbach, "Datierung sämtlicher Texte Franz Kafkas," Kafka-Symposion, ed. Jürgen Born, et al. (Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, 1965), pp. 76-80; these notebooks contain numerous dated entries, so there is no question about the accuracy of this chronology. The notebooks which Brod calls the third and fourth are actually the final two, chronologically, in this series of eight notebooks. See Werner Hoffmann's brief history of the aphorisms from the Oktavhefte, Kafka-Handbuch, II, 475; see also Chris Bezzel, Kafka Chronik, Reihe Hanser, 178 (Munich: Hanser, 1975), p. 162, and Pasley/Wagenbach, "Datierung," p. 69.

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1920 with the express intention of gleaning texts from these notebooks that might be published in the form of a collection of aphorisms. There are a number of indicators which point to such an intent. First, large portions of these notebooks, sometimes even entire pages, are crossed out. However, the texts that ultimately were collected on the slips of paper and on the typescript were, for the most part, not crossed out in the Oktavhefte. It is clear that Kafka was not basing his selection merely on the characteristic of aphoristic diction, for many well-wrought aphorisms are struck through and subsequently left out of the numbered collection. It is impossible to discern exactly what principles Kafka employed in segregating some of the aphorisms from the others, since the "preferred" texts display neither contentualthematic nor strict formal unity. It is my speculation that Kafka intended to collect, and perhaps to publish, an artificially limited number of these texts: on the basis of certain evidence, some of which will only come to light in the course of this exposition, I assume that this number was the round figure of one hundred. This supposition is supported, for example, by the fact that the numbering of the aphorisms ceases with 109, and that in some instances very diverse texts are collected together under one single number - this has an explanation, as we will see shortly. Moreover, numerous aphorisms which were not taken over into the collection are nevertheless not struck through in the notebooks, implying that they may perhaps have been held in reserve to be added to the collection at a later time. In addition, some of the texts on the numbered slips and in the typescript were themselves crossed out, and would perhaps have been eliminated from the collection if Kafka had continued his editing process. At the time when he edited the notebooks and collected the individual aphorisms, Kafka made some revisions of these texts. In some instances words are changed, in others entire sentences are added.5 In addition, some larger reflections were reduced to relatively small aphoristic texts. In such instances the portion of the larger text which becomes a part of the collection is set off in brackets in the notebook, oftentimes with the surrounding passages crossed out. In contrast to this, the transposition of the texts from the numbered slips of paper to the typescript was purely mechanical. Each text which is crossed It is generally possible to discern beyond doubt whether revisions to texts were added at a later time, or whether they transpired during the process of composition itself. For the most part this is true because in the notebooks each text was originally separated from others by horizontal lines which defined the spacial limitations of the original texts. In the instance of aph. l ("Der wahre Weg . . ."), for example, the concluding sentence of the final text is a revision that is squeezed in between text and horizontal line, thus presumably added in 1920 during the primary editing procedure. 217

through on the slip of paper is marked with an K xx" in the margin of the typescript. That the copying of these texts onto the typescript was a wholly mechanical process is best demonstrated by the fact that obvious errors in the handwritten versions of some texts are taken over into the typed copy. This is unquestionably demonstrated by the following example. The handwritten text of aph. 39b reads like this: Der Weg ist unendlich, da ist nichts abzuziehen, nichts zuzugeben und doch hält doch [sie!] jeder noch seine eigene kindliche Elle daran . . .

The superfluous second "doch" goes into the typescript, where it then eventually is crossed out. This indicates clearly that Kafka simply copied the texts word for word, without critical reflection, from the numbered slips of paper to the typescript. With these comments we begin to get a first inkling of the problems and, indeed, distortions inherent in Brod's rendition of the aphorisms and Oktavhefte as presented in the Hochzeitsvorbereitungen volume. There are, among other things, minor discrepancies in the actual wording of some texts between the numbered slips of paper/typescript (these two are consistent with one another throughout) and the wording given by Brod. In addition, some discrepancies arise between Brod's notation of texts crossed out in the manuscripts and those which actually are crossed out: in some instances Brod claims that texts were struck through, where they in fact are not, and in other instances he fails to note that a text has been crossed out. These discrepancies can easily be attributed merely to careless editing on Brod's pan. They are, to be sure, minor problems, although they do put in question the rigor with which Kafka's texts as a whole were edited by Brod. However, there are more shocking discrepancies which come to light when one examines Kafka's notebooks and manuscripts of the aphorisms in some detail. Brod's edition of the aphorisms and Oktavhefte distorts the character of the relationship between Oktavheft and aphoristic manuscript. This distortion results from a single editorial practice: the substitution of the revised typescript version of each segregated aphoristic text for the original version of the text as it appears in the notebooks. Since Brod went to the trouble to include both the aphoristic collection and the complete texts of the Oktavhefte in his edition, one wonders why he expended the considerable editorial effort of inserting the revised texts in their proper places in his edition of the notebooks. If he had spared himself this effort and remained faithful to the Oktavhefte, then scholars would be generally more aware of the considered attention Kafka gave to the revision of these texts. As it is, Brod's edition leaves the impression that the original texts from the Oktavhefte somehow occurred to Kafka in a final form, and that he took them 218

up without alteration when selecting them out of the notebooks for the planned collection. One further distortion slips into Brod's edition as a result of this questionable editorial practice: some texts which were specifically composed for the aphoristic collection at the time Kafka returned to the Oktavhefte in 1920 are falsely placed into the Oktavhefte in Brod's edition. It is a matter here of eight texts, in each case the second entry under a single number where two texts that are otherwise unrelated occur together. These are the second texts included in aphs. 26 ("Es gibt ein Ziel . . ."); 29 ("Das Tier entwindet. . ."); 39a ("Es wäre denkbar, daß Alexander der Große . . ."); 54 ("Mit stärkstem Licht . . ."); 76 ("Ein Umschwung . . ."); 99 ("Manche nehmen an . . ."); 106 ("Kannst du denn etwas anderes kennen . . ."); and 109 ("Es ist nicht notwendig . . .").6 These texts, then, were not composed in 1917-18 at all, as Brod's edition leads us to believe, but rather in the fall of 1920. This explains, among other things, why some of these texts also appear among the miscellaneous fragments in Brod's edition.7 These eight texts, then, were first composed in other notebooks and not in the Oktavhefte,9 This recognition is an important one not merely because it drastically alters the date of composition of these eight aphorisms; rather, it is significant as well because of what it indicates about Kafka's procedures in putting together the manuscript versions of the aphoristic texts. It is important to recognize that Kafka's involvement with the aphorisms from the Oktavhefte was so intensive during the process of selection and revision in 1920 that he was spurred on to create further texts in a similar style. In general, the intensity of Kafka's concern with the revision of the earlier texts has been overlooked. This, in turn, has prevented scholars from assessing the profound role which the aphorism played in Kafka's literary production during the middle period of his creativity, from 1917 to 1920. In the fall of 1920 Kafka was nothing less than obsessed with the aphoristic texts from the Oktavhefte. This is demonstrated, for example, by the time and energy that he invested in the task of editing the notebooks in the first place, making handwritten copies of aphorisms on individual slips of I will henceforth refer to these texts, in order to avoid confusion, as aphs. 26/2, 297 2, 39a/2, 54/2, 76/2, 99/2, 106/2, and 109/2, indicating that they are the second of two individual aphoristic texts included under their respective number in Kafka's collection. Compare, for example, H, 303 with aph. 26/2; H, 359 with aph. 29/2; H, 330 with aph. 54/2; H, 327 with aph. 76/2; H, 318 with aph. 99/2; and H, 318f. with aph. 106/2. The texts, with the exception of aph. 99/2, can be found in the manuscript notebooks designated as XLIII and XLVII by the present editors and holders of Kafka's "Nachlaß." 219

paper, editing these texts a second time, and, in some instances, creating and adding new aphorisms to the collection, numbering the slips of paper, and finally making a typescript of the texts. Further evidence of the manner in which these texts quite literally took possession of him and his thoughts at this time can be found in references which Kafka makes to some of these aphorisms in his correspondence with friends. The first example of this comes from a letter to Max Brod from August 1920. Kafka is responding to ideas Brod set forth in his book Heidentum, Christentum, Judentum. Am nächsten kommt man vielleicht Deiner Auffassung, wenn man sagt: Es gibt theoretisch eine vollkommene irdische Glücksmöglichkeit, nämlich an das entscheidend Göttliche glauben und nicht zu ihm streben. Diese Glücksmöglichkeit ist ebenso Blasphemie wie unerreichbar, aber die Griechen waren ihr vielleicht näher als viele andere. (Br, 279-80)

In this response Kafka quotes almost word for word the text of aphorism 69 of the "Betrachtungen . . . " Theoretisch gibt es eine vollkommene Glücksmöglichkeit: An das Unzerstörbare in sich glauben und nicht zu ihm streben.

Numerous conclusions can be drawn from this self-reference by Kafka.9 On the most superficial level, we can assume that Kafka had already begun to edit the aphorisms in the Oktavhefte by the time this letter was written in early August (the letter is postmarked August 7, 1920). More importantly, the fact that he cites it indicates the extent to which he himself was carried away by the rhetoric of the remark. I consciously emphasize the "rhetoric" of the statement rather than its content, for there are signs which suggest that Kafka was more concerned with the manner of formulation, than he was with the actual substance of the statement. The first of these is the fact that Kafka attributes this notion to Brod, rather than identifying it with his own thoughts. This implies that Kafka did not assign any personal significance to this idea, and thus he could freely associate it with the thoughts presented in Brod's book. Furthermore, Kafka undertakes some substitutions of terminology when citing this formulation in the letter to Brod: The "Glücksmöglichkeit'' is now modified by the adjective "irdische," and "das Unzerstörbare in sich" has been replaced by "das entscheidend Göttliche." Presumably Kafka is adapting the statement to the terminology used by Brod in his treatise. But it is precisely this ability to adapt the formulation to a new context which alludes to the fact that Kafka was more enmeshed in the structure of the formulation than he was attached to its content, to the

Binder also notes the echo of this aphorism in the letter to Brod, but interprets its significance in quite a different manner; see MuC, 89-90. 220

Statement itself. By attributing this thought to Brod, Kafka demonstrates his own distance from it. Yet he remained enthralled with the structure of the formulation, this structure presenting in paradigmatic fashion (i. e. as Gestalt) the problematical transition from theoretical recognition to practical implementation that was fundamental to Kafka's thought during the composition (and, one might add, his own reception three years later) of the aphorisms. In other words, the content of this aphoristic remark - and I take this to be representative of Kafka's aphorisms in general - was not a reflex of Kafka's personal "philosophy" or religious vision; its structure, however, at least at the time of his own reception of these texts in 1920, remained imprinted upon his mind. A second reference by Kafka to one of the aphorisms can be found in a letter to Milena from fall 1920, presumable written in November. Kafka is apparently responding to a statement on Milena's part that "Foltern" is of utmost significance to him and his literature. Ja, das Foltern ist mir äußerst wichtig, ich beschäftige mich mit nichts anderem als mit Gefoltertwerden und Foltern. Warum? Aus einem ähnlichen Grund wie Perkins und ähnlich unüberlegt, mechanisch und traditionsgemäß; nämlich um aus dem verdammten Mund das verdammte Wort zu erfahren. Die Dummheit die darin liegt (Erkenntnis der Dummheit hilft nichts) habe ich einmal so ausgedrückt: "Das Tier entwindet dem Herrn die Peitsche und peitscht sich selbst, um Herr zu werden, und weiß nicht, daß das nur eine Phantasie ist, erzeugt durch einen neuen Knoten im Peitschenriemen des Herrn." (BM, 290)

Here Kafka quotes aphorism 29/2, a text which, as we now know, was written in the fall of 1920 and added into the manuscript of the aphorisms gleaned from the Oktavhefte. Again, the main point is that Kafka's reference to this text in the letter to Milena indicates the extent to which the aphorisms were constantly present in Kafka's mind at this time; he was, so it seems, "enchanted" with their pithiness. To be sure, in this instance Kafka admits the centrality of the theme of torture for him and his life, and thus cites this aphorism as a text which is representative of his thoughts on this matter. Yet as opposed to the aphorism he cited in the letter to Brod, the text of aphorism 29/2 is not theoretical and abstract, but rather concrete, dramatic, and tending toward the parabolic. In this sense it reflects the "objectification of the subjective" that we have identified as a central thrust in Kafka's aphorisms. Moreover, the text functions as a metaphorical encipherment, as a "suggestive metaphor," to employ the terminology introduced here, to lend concrete manifestation to what is in essence a structural problem: the identity of torture and self-torture, or the paradox that self-mastery expresses itself as self-subjugation. Kafka's concern in this text, according to his own statement, is with a particular "Dummheit," namely that of using torture to force 221

someone to speak.10 In this aphoristic text, at least as he cites it in the context of this letter, his own obsession with torture is identified with a form of selftorture whose goal is a kind of self-expression through which he hoped to attain self-mastery. This interpretation, which corroborates the thesis that in the aphorisms Kafka is experimenting with a new form of self-expression and self-projection (i. e. self-control), is justified primarily by the context in which the aphorism is cited by Kafka; nothing in the text itself would prevent a different interpretation in a different context. This seemingly endless contextuability of such Gestalt metaphors defines their multiple interpretability. This, as I have argued, is predicated on a privileging of a structural configuration which is manifest in an "uprooted" metaphorical "vehicle." The above examples of auto-references by Kafka to certain aphorisms document the centrality of his concern with these texts in the fall of 1920. At the same time, the manner in which Kafka applies them in the individual contexts helps support the assertion that structural principles and rhetorical form take priority over statement or content. At this point it is necessary to draw some general conclusions about the history and evolution of Kafka's aphorisms based on his considerable preoccupation with these texts in 1920. First of all, it is clear that the return to the Oktavhefte in the fall of 1920 stimulated Kafka not only to consider publication of some of the aphorisms from these notebooks, but also to create further texts of the same type. In the context of this recognition one general remark is appropriate: namely, that in returning to his own aphorisms, reworking, and responding to them in further aphoristic texts, Kafka was participating in an activity which is common to the aphorist: the re-digestion of, and confrontation with, aphoristic propositions written at an earlier time. Karl Kraus, for example, returned at times to his own texts - as well as to the aphorisms of others, of course - in order critically to take issue with previous aphoristic hypotheses.11 This point, however, is secondary to the more general insight that the Oktavhefte were of formative significance for Kafka as late as the fall of 1920. In general, it seems to me, the seminal position of these notebooks in this middle period of Kafka's creative life has been overlooked. To be sure, the aphorisms have hitherto been accorded a central function in Kafka's creativity, but, as I am arguing, for the wrong reasons. If the aphorisms have commonly been considered to be Kafka's major attempt at self-portrayal in a non-literary (and hence "objective") form of expression - and I take Hartmut Binder's approach to these texts to be the most sophis10

11

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As an aside, it is not insignificant that Kafka touches here once again on the problem of transforming therory into practice when he emphasizes that the recognition of stupidity alone is of no use. Cf., for example, BW, 215 & 362.

ticated of such interpretations12 - I am attempting to emphasize, conversely, the extraordinarily literary nature of these texts, indicating that they evince a new set of textual strategies on Kafka's part for the stylization, textualization, and communication of the self, something that is omnipresent in his works. The texts of the Oktavhefte are paradigmatic for the new textual strategies Kafka is employing beginning approximately in 1917. As we shall see later, these strategies are present not only in the aphorisms of this period, but also in the parables composed at the same time. Zbigniew Swiatlowski is one of the only scholars who has correctly assessed the significance of Kafka's Oktavhefte for their author and the evolution of his literary art.13 According to Swiatlowski, the Oktavhefte mark a break in Kafka's productivity in the area of the epic and inaugurate a creative "Phase, in der das Fragmentarische und die mit ihm gepaarte Reflexion - freilich in einer stark von bildlichen Elementen durchsetzten Form das Epische zurück- und schließlich sogar verdrängen."14 To be sure, the tendency toward the fragment is present even in Kafka's "epic" works, so that Swiatlowski's dichotomy between the epic and the fragmentary can be accepted only with some reservations. Yet it is in fact the case that from the time in early 1917 when Kafka completed the stories that he eventually published in the Landarzt volume, until 1922 when he began to work on Das Schloß,^ no major "epic" works were produced. During the period from 1917 to 1920, perhaps even as late as 1922, the major texts composed by Kafka are the aphorisms and parables of the Oktavhefte, the aphorisms of the collection "Er," written in January and February of 1920, the parabolic stories and fragments from this period, and the aphorisms and sketches from the miscellaneous fragments. Swiatlowski is thus correct in his claim that the Oktavhefte mark the beginning of a new period in Kafka's creative productivity, a period that must be examined more or less independently of that period of creativity which precedes it.16 I would like to expand on Swiatlowski's observations and, emphasizing the impact of the third and fourth Oktavhefte on Kafka in the fall of 1920, define the period from September 1917 to approximately November of 1920 as the span of effectivity of the aphoristic texts initially composed in the third and fourth Oktavhefte. It does not seem to me to be far-fetched to designate this period as Kafka's See Binder, MuG, 81, where he claims that the new phase of Kafka's concern with the self marked by the aphorisms is explicitly non-literary. Zbigniew Swiatlowski, "Kafkas Oktavhefte' und ihre Bedeutung im Werk des Dichters," Germanica Wratislaviensia, 20 (1974), 97-116. Swiatlowski, p. 97. Chris Bezzel views some of the fragments from late fall 1920 as possible "Vorstudien" to Das Schloß; see his Kafka-Chronik, p. 163. Swiatlowski, p. 98. 223

"aphoristic" phase, for during this span of time the aphorism is one of the dominant forms in which Kafka creates. The other major form of this period is the parable, but, as we shall see, this form is inherently related to the aphorism. Furthermore, Kafka's aphorisms are produced, with only a few exceptions, almost exclusively during this period: the "Betrachtungen . . . " in 1917-18; the "Er"-aphorisms in early 1920; and the additional aphorisms for the first collection, along with further aphoristic texts, in the fall of 1920. Kafka's concern with the form of the aphorism thus takes on much greater dimensions than has previously been presumed, so that this middle period of his productivity can actually be defined in terms of the preoccupation with the aphorism and with aphoristic discourse. Viewed in the manner suggested here, Kafka's aphoristic production becomes an integrated and more or less unified phase in his literary production, occupying him primarily, and to the exclusion of epic texts, during the three-year period from fall 1917 to fall 1920. The faltering beginnings of Kafka's concentrated interest in aphoristic form can be traced in the early Oktavhefte (notebooks 1, 6, 2, 5, and 8, according to the chronology worked out by Pasley and Wagenbach17); the three periods of primary interest in, and production of, aphorisms - September 1917-February 1918; January-February 1920; August-November 1920 - are then the focal points of this more broadly defined integral period of preoccupation with this genre. This definition of an "aphoristic phase" in Kafka's literary creativity should not seduce us into assuming that the aphorisms therefore are absolutely distinct from the other types of literature which Kafka produced. Indeed, the opposite is true; for if the aphorism was one of Kafka's primary literary concerns in this middle period of his creativity, then the question which we have to ask ourselves is: To what extent did Kafka's occupation with the form of the aphorism shape the evolution of his literature from the early period of the perspectivistic stories to the late period of parabolic narration? It will be the concern of the final chapter of this investigation to supply some preliminary answers to this question. At present we need merely recall that Kafka possessed an inclination toward aphoristic expression throughout much of his life; during the period designated here as his "aphoristic phase" the tendency toward aphoristic creativity simply came to dominate Kafka's writing. Having attempted to outline the seminal position of the Oktavhefte in Kafka's aphoristic phase, I would now like to turn to an examination of the compositional procedure by which the aphoristic texts of these notebooks were produced. This will be accomplished by means of a close scrutiny of

17

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Pasley and Wagenbach, "Datierung," pp. 76-80.

the evolution of some of these aphorisms based on observations derived from examination of the manuscripts themselves. One objective of this undertaking is to dispel the notion evoked by Brod's published version of the Oktavhefte that the texts they contain somehow were instantaneously and flawlessly brought to paper. It is, of course, generally true that the manuscripts of Kafka's stories and novels evince relatively few corrections or alterations. This is explicitly not the case where the aphorisms are concerned. On the contrary, Kafka at times labored over these texts, struggling to find the most succinct, pointed - in a word, "aphoristic" - formulation. The deliberateness with which these texts were created should not, however, be interpreted merely as an indication that Kafka was working in a much more conscious fashion on these texts than was true for his stories, which seemed to spring up from deep within his psyche.18 One must still consider the aphorisms to be the product of epiphanic insights, of "Einfalle," as is often characteristic of such texts. On the other hand, the "Einfall" is just one side of the creative process which leads to the production of an aphorism, the other side being the deliberate and conscious concentration on condensed, rhetorical, pointed, often paradoxical formulation. The abundant and sometimes radical alterations which Kafka made while composing or revising the aphorisms in the Oktavhefte should thus be interpreted as an indication of the essential concern of their author - as aphorist - for the painstaking structuring of these thoughts, not for the precise communication of a given and unalterable content. In Brod's edition of the Oktavhefte Kafka's revisions of the aphorisms rarely show themselves. One example from the fourth Oktavheft, however, does survive in Brod's edition, and it is instructive insofar as the types of revisions Kafka undertook here are characteristic of the kinds of changes to which he subjected the aphorisms in general. Das Grausame des Todes liegt darin, daß er den wirklichen Schmerz des Endes bringt, aber nicht das Ende. (H, 122)

Kafka immediately re-works and re-writes this text so that it reads as follows: Das Grausamste des Todes: ein scheinbares Ende verursacht einen wirklichen Schmerz. (//, 122)

The revisions to which Kafka submits the initial text are marked by two general trends: one toward compaction and condensation; the other toward the intensification of contrast. The tendency toward extremes, almost toward exaggeration, which is typical of aphoristic discourse is signalled in the

See Pasley, "Der Schreibakt," p. 22. 225

shift from the positive to the superlative form of the adjectival noun ("Das Grausame" - "Das Grausamste"). The grammatically complex transition of the original text, which inhibits the potential contrastive tension, is eliminated in the revised text, to be replaced by a simple mark of punctuation (a colon). Finally, the first text must clumsily tack on the final clause "aber nicht das Ende" in order to establish the contrast between the actual pain of the end and the non-finality or non-actuality of the end itself. The revised text condenses this contrast into the semantic conflict between the adjectives "scheinbar" and "wirklich," thus allowing the tension to express itself more poignantly. The result of these transformations is a succinct and pointed aphoristic text which takes the common aphoristic form of the pseudodefinition. The effect of the aphorism derives for the most part from the tension arising from the intertwining of syntactic parallelism and semantic contrast. Moreover, the statement is condensed into a single, syntactically rather simple utterance that carries persuasive, apodictic power. The "thought" of the initial text is altered in an unsubstantial manner; its medium, however, has been sharpened to allow it greater penetration. One could hardly find an example of textual revisions which could demonstrate more transparently that in the compositon of the aphorisms Kafka was fundamentally concerned with the formulation of texts which were artfully structured, dense, and rhetorically pointed. The process which the preceding example allows us to witness occurs much more frequently in Kafka's aphorisms than Brod's edition indicates. In what follows we will analyze a series of examples which demonstrate the revisions some of Kafka's aphoristic texts underwent before they were brought into the form in which we know them. The first text we will look at here belongs to the group of texts, examined above, which deal with the duality between being and possessing. First the final version of the aphorism. Das Wort "sein" bedeutet im Deutschen beides: Dasein und Ihmgehören. (aph. 46)

The original version of this text in the third Oktavheft reads in the following way: Dasein und ihm-gehören haben im Deutschen die gleiche Bedeutung: ein Wort. sein.

Initially Kafka had written "bezeichnen" in place of the word "haben"; however he then crossed it out and continued the text in the manner indicated above. In this original form the point of the text is still clear, but it lacks the pithiness and concentrated focus of the final aphoristic text, the doublemeaning on the word "sein" stumbling out only at the conclusion. In his revised version Kafka introduces the double-entendre on the word "sein" at the outset, without, however, giving away the actual paradox of this double 226

meaning: this is then forcefully given at the conclusion of the text, the two contrasting meanings being bound together by simple copula, heightening the contrast and the effect of the text. Some revisions - the change from "bezeichnen" to "haben" - occurred during the initial composition of the text in the notebook. The major alterations were added a short time later, for Kafka re-worked the original text on the following page of the notebook. He then copied this revised text without further alterations onto a slip of paper when he began collecting the aphorisms in 1920. We see from this example, however, that Kafka's occupation with the texts of the Oktavhefte was intense enough in 1917 to demand the re-reading and re-working of texts shortly after their original composition. The famous "Ziel"-"Weg" aphorism is another text which did not escape revision. As we now know, this text does not appear in the Oktavhefte, rather it was first written in 1920. In its initial notation the text reads as follows: Es gibt nur Ziel, nicht Weg. Was wir Weg nennen, ist Zögern.

Kafka then proceeds to add the word "ein" above the line before the word "Ziel," and to cross out "nicht" and substitute "keinen." This revised version of the original text is given by Brod in the section of miscellaneous fragments. Es gibt nur ein Ziel, keinen Weg. Was wir Weg nennen, ist Zögern. (H, 303)

The final text as it appears in the aphoristic manuscript and the typescript displays ostensibly only minor changes. Es gibt ein Ziel, aber keinen Weg; was wir Weg nennen, ist Zögern, (aph. 26/2)

Aside from alterations in punctuation, the only correction is the supplanting of the word "nur" in the first clause of the initial version by "aber" in the second clause of the final text. This change, however miniscule it may seem, contributes significantly to the poignancy of the text; for in the initial text the "nur" anticipates the negation which is to come, thus reducing the antithetical tension between the possession of a goal, but the absence of any means for attaining it. This final emendation is made when the text ist entered onto the slip of paper which already held aphorism 26. This first entry is struck through twice, indicating perhaps that the new aphorism was intended to replace it in the collection.19 " Brod indicates in his edition that aph. 26/2 was crossed out by Kafka, however, this is not the case, neither in the manuscript nor in the typescript version of this collection. 227

Another example of Kafka's repeated emendation of the aphorisms is evident in the case of the first text of the collection. The entry in the third Oktavheft reads: Ich irre ab. Der wahre Weg geht über ein Dratseil [sie], das aber nicht in der Höhe gespannt ist, sondern knapp über dem Boden.

The "aber" of the initial text is subsequently crossed out. The text originally ended here, as is indicated by a horizontal line drawn across the page underneath it. At some later time Kafka then added in small script the sentence: "Es scheint eher zum Stolpern als zum Begehen bestimmt." This, in turn, is also crossed out and revised to read: "Es scheint eher bestimmt stolpern zu machen als begangen zu werden." The individual slip of paper on which this aphorism was eventually recorded has subsequently been lost. Brod, however, gives the typescript version in his rendition of the "Betrachtungen ,1

Der wahre Weg geht über ein Seil, das nicht in der Höhe gespannt ist, sondern knapp über dem Boden. Es scheint mehr bestimmt stolpern zu machen, als begangen zu werden, (aph. 1)

The personal assertion "Ich irre ab" which introduces - and presumably gives rise to - the original reflection is, of course, eliminated; for otherwise the generality or universal applicability requisite of aphoristic expression would be compromised. Still, we witness quite transparently in the case of this text the movement from subjective experience to objective formulation - objectification of the subjective, as I have designated it. Yet it is my contention that the personal reflexes which underlie the aphorisms are not themselves significant, or at best significant for one interested solely in Kafka's biography. For the literary scholar, it seems to me, it is much more important to come to terms with the procedure of objectification itself, which transpires through a process of textualization. The alterations and emendations of the aphoristic texts we are examining, then, are not primarily of interest in their own right, but rather because of what they indicate to us about the text-strategic methods and goals which Kafka pursued during the different stages in the evolution of these texts.20

20

The critical edition of the aphorisms, which is scheduled to appear shortly, will presumably answer many further questions about their nature. It must be emphasized that my remarks are in no way intended as supplements to, or substitutes for, the commentary of the editors putting together the new critical edition; rather, they serve the specific and more narrow end of demonstrating that Kafka was indeed concerned with the composition of "aphorisms" in a particular generictextual sense, and not simply involved with the formulation of a "philosophy" or a religious doctrine.

228

Aphorism 54 provides us with a good example of a text whose conception apparently underwent radical shifts at different points. Curiously enough, when originally composing the text Kafka wrote: "Es gibt nur eine sinnliche Welt . . ."; the word "sinnliche" was subsequently crossed out and "geistige" written above it. The entire text then read: Es gibt nur eine geistige Welt, was wir sinnliche nennen ist das Böse in der geistigen.

I assume that Kafka substitutued "geistige" for "sinnliche" while in the act of initial notation, for the remainder of the text can only logically follow once this change has been made. This suggests, then, that Kafka completely inverted his first conception for this text, which presumably would have maintained the opposite of what the final text states. In other words, instead of the sensual world being inscribed (as evil) in the spiritual world, the spiritual world would have been encompassed by the sensual. The radicality of such a shift points both to the "epiphanic" character of the initial aphoristic "Einfall," as well as to the spontaneity with which the original thought can be drastically altered in the process of putting it down on paper. This is indicative of the essential flexibility inherent in these conceptions themselves: it is more a matter of finding the most nonconventional conception and casting it m a succinct and challenging form, not a question of presenting beliefs or "truths." Now Kafka was still not satisfied with this aphorism as it stood. Here is the final version of the text as it occurs in the aphoristic manuscript and on the typescript. Es gibt nichts anderes als eine geistige Welt; was wir sinnliche Welt nennen, ist das Böse in der geistigen, und was wir böse nennen, ist nur eine Notwendigkeit eines Augenblicks unserer ewigen Entwicklung, (aph. 54)

The introductory statement is made more absolute by the substitution of "nichts anderes" for "nur"; the concluding statement diverts from this absoluteness by providing a qualifying definition of what in the first statement is meant by "evil." These absolutizing and relativizing (qualifying) movements work at cross-purposes to each other. None of these emendations, incidentally, are made in the Oktavheft itself; rather they appear for the first time on the individual manuscript slip of aphorism 54, and thus were probably written only in 1920 during the process of collecting these texts from the Oktavhefte. The revisions in this instance, especially the addition of the concluding clauses, are not very fortunate ones if we judge the text from the perspective of aphoristic form. The appended qualification of the concept of evil simply digresses from the original statement, and in this way it weakens its potential impact. Yet this urge to qualify, to divert - indeed, to subvert his own assertions is characteristic of Kafka and of his personal aphoristic style. In a sense this urge is completely in line with the diffidence and non229

dogmatism which is always subliminally present in the aphoristic impulse. The paradox of aphoristic expression is perhaps precisely that it is most effective when it suppresses this subliminal urge, or when it disguises it beneath a discursive structure calculated to be rhetorically emphatic. It thus can be claimed that while Kafka's aphorisms correspond to the underlying conceptual demands of aphoristic expression, they do not always stand up to the formal demands of the genre, although, as we have seen in some of the examples examined thus far, he was aware of the requirement of condensation and of exaggerated tension in the structural shaping of effective aphorisms. When revising the texts from the Oktavhefte Kafka often enough edited a longer meditation to make of it a more compact and effective aphoristic text. The derivation of aphorism 68, which in the notebooks occurs as a part of the following longer text, is an example for this. Was ist fröhlicher als der Glaube an einen Hausgott! Es ist ein Unten-durch unter der wahren Erkenntnis und ein kindlich-glückliches Aufstehn.

The second sentence, which obviously functioned as an elucidation of the first, is crossed out in the Oktavheft and not taken over into the aphoristic manuscript.21 The concluding statement ironizes the initial rhetorical question, making it clear that belief in a personal God represents mere naive escape from "true knowledge"; but it is precisely the clarity of this explication that makes the original form of the text "unaphoristic." The isolation of the rhetorical question, its freeing from the expletive context, leaves the answer to the question open so that it remains interpretively undecidable whether the text is to be taken as straight-forward and affirmative, or ironic and negative with regard to such personal belief. Both Kafka and Brod, it seems to me, were aware of this fact: Kafka removed the clarifying statement simply because it clarified, and thus narrowed too strictly the interpretability and openness of the text, compromising its aphoristic quality; Brod, on the other hand, probably separated the two remarks in his edition because taken together as originally composed the text presents too damning a commentary on the kind of belief that Brod would have liked to attribute to Kafka. Kafka follows a similar procedure in the instances of other aphorisms. This is best demonstrated on the example of a text which, while reproduced in aphoristic form, does not find its way into Kafka's eventual collection. The reflection in question is Kafka's well-known deliberation on the impossibility of describing the internal world, a passage which we earlier examined

Brod's edition of the Oktavhefte reproduces the second sentence, but gives it as a separate entry, so that the connection between it and the remark it follows is obscured. 230

in some detail. In his conclusion to these musings Kafka ruminates about the ineffectuality of psychology. Zumindest deskriptive Psychologie ist wahrscheinlich in der Gänze ein Anthropomorphismus, ein Ausragen der Grenzen. Die innere Welt läßt sich nur leben, nicht beschreiben. - Psychologie ist die Beschreibung der Spiegelung der irdischen Welt in der himmlischen Fläche oder richtiger: die Beschreibung einer Spiegelung, wie wir, Vollgesogene der Erde, sie uns denken, denn eine Spiegelung erfolgt gar nicht, nur wir sehen Erde, wohin wir uns auch wenden. (H, 72)

This notation occurs in the third Oktavheft, written on October 19, 1917. On February 25, 1918, four months later, Kafka was apparently re-reading the third Oktavheft, for on that date he re-works the metaphor of psychology as a reflection in a mirror, shaping the idea into this aphoristic text: Psychologie ist Lesen einer Spiegelschrift, also mühevoll, und was das immer stimmende Resultat betrifft, ergebnisreich, aber wirklich geschehn ist nichts. (H, 122)

The superfluous qualifying clauses are deleted as the metaphor is extracted out of its original context. The simple metaphor of mirroring is extended to one of the reading of a script reflected in a mirror, an image which communicates the difficulty of this act of reading. The text takes the typical form of the pseudo-definition, a technique frequently employed by Kafka. Kafka's criticism of the practices of psychology is well known; however, it is significant that these critiques crop up most often in his aphorisms, for a similar attack on psychology and psychoanalysis is a characteristic theme in the aphorisms of Kafka's Austrian contemporaries. Psychology and psychoanalysis were among the favorite targets of Karl Kraus's aphoristic satires, for which these two examples can stand for many. Psychologie ist so müßig wie eine Gebrauchsanweisung für Gift. (BW, 224) Psychoanalyse ist jene Geisteskrankheit, für deren Therapie sie sich hält. (BW, 35l)22

Kafka's aphorism, of course, has little of the destructive glee typical of Kraus's critiques. However, a reflection from Egon Friedell's collection of aphorisms, Steinbruch, is closer to Kafka's in approach, turning the process of interpretive inversion back onto the psychologist. DER PSYCHOLOG Wenn ich auf einem Berge stehe und von dort aus einen entlegenen Punkt fixiere, so sagen die Resultate meiner Beobachtung von diesem Punkt nicht übermäßig viel aus, wohl aber sehr viel von meiner Sehkraft, der Art meinens Standortes, der

22

For further aphorisms by Kraus dealing with this theme, see BW, 222; 348; 349; 350; 351; 352. 231

Atmosphäre, die mich umgibt. Mit anderen Worten: Psychologie ist die Wissenschaft von der Seele - dessen, der sie betreibt.23

One of the ironies of this predilection among aphorists for the scathing criticism of psychology and its methods is that the modern aphorism, since Nietzsche, has in fact commonly been associated with the very interpretive practices of psychology which aphorists enjoy lambasting. Indeed, this psychological, self-scrutinizing aspect of the aphorism is already inherent in the sentences of the French moralists. The proclivity of modern aphorists to criticize the methods of psychology and psychoanalysis can be taken as a kind of self-ironization of the aphoristic method on the part of the aphorist. Be that as it may, the satire of psychology is such a prominent theme among aphorists that aphorisms on this subject are a requisite part of the repertory of every aphorist, much like every comedian must have at least one joke that is structured around the "I have some good news and I have some bad news" formula. In this sense I think one should take these critiques - Kafka's included - cum grano salis. At any rate, Kafka's aphorisms on the theme of psychology, such as the one cited above and aphorism 93 ("Zum letztenmal Psychologie!") of the "Betrachtungen . . .," should be taken as further evidence of the participation of his aphorisms in the intertextual dialogue so central for this genre, a dialogue which tends to focus on themes that are associated by convention and by practice with aphoristic expression. The same must be said of the tendency toward misogyny evident in some of Kafka's aphorisms, especially aphorisms 7 and 8. This is a prominent motif in the aphoristic production of many aphorists - one need only think of Nietzsche and Kraus. But this proclivity was also reinforced in turn-ofthe-century Austria by the sexual theories of Otto Weininger - himself, not coincidentally, a writer of aphorisms. Aphoristic texts with a misogynous thrust can be found in the aphorisms of Schnitzler and Friedell as well. In fact, the misogyny typical of the aphorist was recognized as early as the 1880's, for Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach exploits this theme in some of her aphorisms, turing it back on those who perpetuate it.24 The immediately preceding deliberations have begun to lead us to the second part of the analyses to be pursued in this chapter, namely the examination of themes and structures of Kafka's aphorisms in light of those con-

Egon Friedell, Steinbruch: Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche (Vienna: Verlag der Wiener Graphischen Werkstätte, 1922), p. 35. The following aphorism by Ebner-Eschenbach is a forceful example of this: "Eine gescheite Frau hat Millionen geborene Feinde: - Alle dummen Männer." Cited from the text of the aphorisms in the edition of her Werke, vol. 1 Das Gemeindekind, Novellen, Aphorismen, ed. Johannes Klein (Munich: Winkler, 1956), p. 875. 232

ventionally manifest in the aphorism in general. Before we go on to this section, however, it is important, by way of preliminary conclusion, to sum up some of the arguments presented thus far. We could, to be sure, scrutinize any number of further examples of revisions and emendations which Kafka made in the texts from the Oktavhefte, alterations accomplished with the purpose of either transforming these reflections into aphoristic texts, or of reinforcing their aphoristic poignancy. The revisions generally tend toward an increase in textual density and the heightening of the internal tension. In our analyses of the final versions of Kafka's aphorisms we will find a plethora of examples which evince the centrality of these two characteristics. We note as well that Kafka upheld an almost continuous dialogue with the texts of the Oktavhefte, reading and re-reading them long after their initial compositon, revising them, and ultimately shaping them as a group into the rough outline of a numbered aphoristic collection. This obsession with revision is not otherwise characteristic of Kafka's writing process. This is an indication among many that the formal, structural, and technical elements of the aphoristic texts were foremost in his mind, both at the time of their composition, and when he revised and compiled them in 1920. In the examination of the revisions which these texts underwent, we have stolen a rare glance into the interior of the workshop of the aphorist. Kafka's creative procedure here can be taken as exemplary of the procedure of the aphorist in general. We shall now concentrate on an examination of the structures, forms, and techniques typical of his aphoristic production, relating them to the aphorisms of other writers when appropriate.

II. Form and Structure of Kafka's Aphorisms In the preceding section we have argued for the integrity of Kafka's aphoristic period in the years 1917 to 1920. In keeping with this conception, examples of Kafka's aphoristic texts will be drawn from all possible sources in this period, including the aphorisms of the "Betrachtungen . . .," and of the collection "Er," but also relying on Kafka's Tagebücher, the Oktavhefte in general (especially the third and fourth), the miscellaneous fragments, and the so-called Taralipomena zu der Reihe 'Er'." For the most part our concern will be with analyses of Kafka's "well-wrought" aphorisms. This is not meant to imply that all of Kafka's aphoristic texts are of this sort: indeed, this would be unusual for any aphorist, not just for Kafka. In fact, as was argued earlier, the very interspersing of finely-tuned aphoristic text with searching meditations, simple observations, and brooding self-reflections is one of the qualities that most clearly aligns Kafka's aphoristic notebooks with those of his "aphoristic precursors" in the German tradition. On the other hand, our 233

emphasis here is on the stylization that Kafka's thoughts underwent during this period, and the relationships between the methods and manners of stylization apparent here and those conventionally manifest in the aphorism. We must keep in mind that the aphorism is one of the most stylized of all literary forms, and this means that it is among the most conventional of genres, in the sense that it relies on concentrated application of a certain set of techniques and rhetorical figures. This demonstration of the profound participation of Kafka's aphorisms in the structural and stylistic conventions of this genre is intended simply to indicate that his aphoristic texts must be viewed within the context of this genre and its traditions; it does not seek to imply that Kafka's aphorisms are not original, creative, or inventive. Yet it must be kept in mind that a genre like the aphorism which depends so thoroughly on rhetorical conventions leaves a rather limited, if well-defined space for creative play. Finally, it is hoped that an investigation into the forms and techniques preferred by Kafka while composing his aphorisms will permit an assessment of general inclinations in the creative thrust behind these texts; using the categories of aphoristic types derived from their relationships to certain tendencies of thought (metaphorical, critical contra-dictory, analogic-mystical) as outlined in chapter one, Kafka's aphoristic production can then be oriented within this taxonomy. One further caveat seems appropriate at this point. Although the analyses which follow are certainly "structural" in a broad sense, they are not structural in the more limited literary-historical understanding of the word. For while we indeed will concern ourselves with such questions as "form" and "structure" of these texts, these "analyses" are not carried out with a solely descriptive purpose, implying that understanding resides in description. On the contrary, I have tried to emphasize throughout that the aphorism is a textual form which is explicitly self-conscious with regard to the act of reception. The structures and techniques applied by the aphorist, therefore, can never be divorced from the effect which they might evoke. We are reminded that Kafka required of literature that it function as an "ax for the frozen sea within us," and that he expressed this demand for the receptive efficacy of literature in response to his reading of Hebbel's aphoristic diaries. In this context it is instructive to look at one of the few aphorisms on art which can be found among Kafka's aphoristic texts, for it can be read as a statement on the importance of the act of reception in the dialectical interplay of creative and receptive moments. Unsere Kunst ist ein von der Wahrheit Geblendet-Sein: Das Licht auf dem zurückweichenden Fratzengesicht ist wahr, sonst nichts, (aph. 63)

Art is depicted here not as an incorporation of truth, i. e. its adequate expression in the creative work, but rather as a reaction to truth: art is not one with 234

truth, it is but a response to truth, a being blinded by the "light" of truth. Since art itself cannot reproduce truth, the best it can strive for is the reproduction of the effect of the experience of truth. The artist's reception of truth, then, produced in the work, is reproduced in the reception of the work by the reader/audience. This conception of art, indeed, is typical of that held by many of Kafka's contemporary Austrian aphorists: in the absence of a communicative strategy by which truth can be represented in language, the aphorist, confronting truth, attempts to communicate a response to this confrontation through the aphoristic text. I have previously described this procedure in terms of the reproduction of the epiphanic insight which motivates the aphorist in the reception of the aphoristic text by its audience. The act of reception was always central to Kafka's conception of art, and his aphorisms share with the traditional aphorism the implementation of textual strategies designed to evoke the greatest receptive effect. This investigation into the techniques applied by Kafka in his aphorisms will build in part on recognitions and arguments made by Shimon Sandbank in his article "Surprise Techniques in Kafka's Aphorisms."25 Sandbank distinguishes four types of "surprise techniques" which he groups under the categories of "lexical," "metaphorical," "syntactic," and "logical."26 He aligns the first three categories, arguing that all three function to explore the ambiguities of language, and he describes the fourth in terms of devices which function by deviating from the rules of logic. If all of this strikes us as somehow familiar, then that, at least, is no surprise technique. For what Sandbank outlines here for the specific case of Kafka's aphorisms is nothing but an inventory of techniques commonly employed by the aphorism in general. In his article Sandbank does not connect the occurrence of these devices in Kafka's aphorisms with traditional structures and techniques of aphoristic discourse, and this will be our primary focus. However, he correctly asserts that these techniques tend to serve an exploratory end, and he sketches some of the strategies by which these aphorisms uncover and exploit the equivocalities of language. I would like to appropriate Sandbank's categorization of Kafka's aphoristic techniques, making one slight change. Instead of grouping the first three together under the all-encompassing designation of techniques which explore the ambiguities of language (for, actually, this description fits category four as well), I want to suggest an association of "lexical" and "metaphoric" techniques, Sandbank's first two groupings, under the category of similarity

25

26

Shimon Sandbank, "Surprise Techniques in Kafka's Aphorisms," Orbis Litterarum, 25 (1970), 261-74. "Surprise Techniques," p. 262. 235

(metaphor) as employed by Jakobson and as applied to aphoristic expression in chapter one above. "Syntactic" and "logical" techniques, Sandbank's final two groupings, I would then associate with contiguity (metonymy), again employing the term in the sense introduced by Jakobson. The appropriateness of this re-categorization seems to me to be so self-evident as to make any justification superfluous. The relevance of the distinction for analysis of the aphorism has already been brought out. It is significant only to recall our broad definition of the aphorism as a text which emphasizes and exaggerates the confrontation of metaphoric and metonymic relations, concentrating and focusing them into a deliberately confined textual space. Each aphorism carries out this conflict in a different way or with a differing variation and admixture of the relational elements. If in our analyses of Kafka's aphorisms certain texts are taken to be representative manifestations of a particular technique, then this does not mean that the cited device occurs in isolation from other practices. Indeed, it is, as I hope I have made clear, precisely the interpenetration of such devices that ultimately lends these texts their aphoristic flavor.27

A) Lexical Features This examination of the manipulation of lexical features in Kafka's aphorisms will be carried out on the basis of the analysis of a group of texts, each of which shares a common lexical element. For this purpose I have decided upon texts which employ the word or concept of "Glaube" in any of its various manifestations, i. e. as noun, verb, adjective, etc. This choice, of course, is by no means fortuitous. For one, the concept of "Glaube" is among the most frequent motifs in Kafka's aphoristic texts, and it thus provides a plethora of examples suitable for study. Furthermore, the question of "belief" is commonly associated with Kafka's aphorisms in relatively traditional ways, and investigation of this concept thus allows for a disclosure of Kafka's own uncertainty and equivocality regarding "belief." Thus I hope simultaneously to illuminate the manner in which Kafka explores and exploits semantic nuances through an examination of his applications of this concept, while simultaneously pointing to the problematization of traditional concepts of belief in the aphorisms. I hope, then, to further support my thesis that Kafka's aphorisms represent his experiments in the application of a specific discursive method, and not the simple formulation of a narrowly definable set of "beliefs." Sandbank, p. 273, admits that the four types of techniques he has attempted to isolate commonly overlap in Kafka's aphorisms, and that any given text may combine techniques from any or all of the categories.

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The first text we shall look at in this context is aphorism 48 from the "Betrachtungen . . . " An Fortschritt glauben heißt nicht glauben, daß ein Fortschritt schon geschehen ist. Das wäre kein Glauben, (aph. 48)

This aphorism begins by establishing a pseudo-theme: it pretends to be making a statement on belief in progress. Thereby it initially diverts the reader's attention from the underlying central issue which concerns the text: an understanding of the notion of belief itself. Kafka makes "progress" the initial object of belief simply in order to place the traditional meaning of "belief" into question. It is precisely because progress can scarcely be denied that it is not a proper object for belief: one can only believe in what has not occurred, in what is not (yet). In other words, this text suggests that the concept of belief is not applicable to the actual, to what has already been achieved, but rather only to the possible, non-factual, or non-realized. Something that has been real-ized can no longer be an object of belief. Especially telling is the subtle way in which Kafka brings out this radicalizing specification in meaning for the verb "to believe." The word itself occurs three times in the text, each time with a different semantic nuance. The first time it appears, "glauben" means something like "conviction," "lending credence" to something that has been irrevocably proven. The second clause of the first sentence explicitly negates this conception of believing, itself using the word "glauben" in the looser sense meaning "to suppose" or "to think." In the final sentence, "glauben" undergoes a metamorphosis on two levels: first, and concretely, the verb is transformed into a noun - instead of using the more common noun "Glaube," Kafka employs the noun "Glauben," derived from the infinitive form of the verb; this transformation parallels the semantic shift in the word which Kafka is initiating. In its last, transmogrified occurrence, then, the word has been specified - one might say absolutized - in meaning: both previous meanings of "believing" are rejected, and a third semantic variation is proposed in which the word suggests something like "absolute faith." "To believe" in the sense of "to have faith" implies neither belief in past events, nor supposition; rather it means unflinching certitude in the face of the absolutely unknowable, unpredictable, and unactualizable. The foregoing analysis attempts to extend interpretively certain suggestions inherent in the underlying structures and nuances of Kafka's text. It would certainly be possible to relate the notion of belief implied in this text to the conception of faith put forward by Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling, a text which, as we know, Kafka read numerous times, and at least once during his aphoristic period. Relevant as such a connection might be, it ultimately has the effect of universalizing the conception presented in this 237

one aphoristic text, and thus of stripping it of the dynamism of meaning on which it, as aphorism, thrives. We will see over the course of this examination that the implications apparent in the above text are corroborated by similar allusions in other aphorisms. This still should not lead us to accept this meaning for the concept of "Glauben" as permanent insight on Kafka's part; rather we must confidently - if, in some cases, reluctantly - assert that even this insight is relative to the attitudes held by Kafka at this time, as well as to the perpetually relativizing move of aphoristic discourse. For the purposes outlined here it is enough to recognize that Kafka employs a subtle play on the semantic nuances of the word "glauben" to structure this aphoristic text. He is applying semantic play as a method of re-defining, or of "de-defining" and then re-defining, of destroying and re-constructing the conception of faith or belief. A variation of this technique is found in another of the aphorisms which address this issue. Es kann ein Wissen vom Teuflischen geben, aber keinen Glauben daran, denn mehr Teuflisches, als da ist, gibt es nicht, (aph. 100)

We are confronted with a text which first appears to have the definition of "the devilish" as its central theme, yet which has the ultimate effect of introducing a semantic specification of the concept of "belief." This aphorism is structured around the semantic contrast established between the words "Wissen" and "Glauben"; knowledge and belief are presented as semantic opposites, the former relevant to what is extant ("da ist"), the latter to what is non-existent ("gibt es nicht"). Thus our interpretation of aphorism 48 is corroborated, for here again the notion of "Glauben" is designated as a form of consciousness directed explicitly at the non-certain, the nonfactual, i. e. at that which is not (yet). "Glauben" comes to be identified with a kind of "Nicht-Wissen," with a Socratic approach to knowledge, or even with the "scepticism" of the aphorist, which is nothing other than doubt for the sake of belief, or doubt as a method, as it was for Socrates. Not-knowing, the uncertain, is implicitly set above dogmatic certainty, ideology, "belief" in the sense of conviction.28 Conviction, Kafka suggests, is not authentic belief; authentic belief, on the contrary, is precisely the lack of conviction, the absence of certain, factual evidence. We can better understand Kafka's This hypothesis is further confirmed in aph. 62, which employs a similar method as aph. 100, but which juxtaposes the concepts of "Hoffnung" and "Gewißheit" instead of "Glauben" and "Wissen." The text reads: Die Tatsache, daß es nichts anderes gibt als eine geistige Welt, nimmt uns die Hoffnung und gibt uns die Gewißheit, (aph. 62) I view the playing off of the words "Hoffnung" and "Gewißheit" as the central focus of the text. 238

criticism of Pascal's certitude, examined in the previous chapter, in the light of these reinterpretations of the concept of faith. As we recall, it was the very certainty of Pascal's faith that Kafka put into question, evoking, in doing so, "eine tiefere ängstlichere Skepsis" (T, 522). Numerous other aphoristic texts by Kafka circle around this conception of faith, approaching it from diverse sides and with various techniques. A text from the third Oktavheft attempts to broach the issue by employing a metaphorical-analogical method. Wer glaubt, kann keine Wunder erleben. Bei Tag sieht man keine Sterne. (H, 85)

If in the initial text we looked at in this context belief was juxtaposed to the notion of progress, and in the second text contrasted with certainty in knowledge, in this aphorism it is played off against the conception of "miracles." Kafka begins with a statement that contradicts all our assumptions about the essential connectedness of faith and the miraculous: faith does not allow miracles, rather it precludes them. Instead of defending this controversial assertion by means of logical argumentation, Kafka provides us with an empirical fact of nature, inviting us to analogically apply the relationship inscribed in it to that between faith and miracles, thereby persuading us by association of the "factuality" of the initial assertion. Faith is thus to be metaphorically connected by the reader to the "light" of day; in this "light" of faith, miracles would be stars in a bright sky, and thus invisible. In other words, to the truly "faithful" there are no miracles because, so too speak, all of creation, or the very fact of existence, is miraculous, and thus there is no basis on which to segregate the miraculous from the non-miraculous. Faith once more is portrayed as a kind of absolute state which "outshines," to play with the metaphor, all other attitudes. This, however, is not to claim that Kafka was possessed of such an all-radiant faith. Indeed, it is presented here as a mere conceptual possibility - as an actuality it would no longer merit the designation of "faith." At this point we shall briefly shift from the intratextual to the intertextual level and compare Kafka's last-cited aphorism with the following text by Alfred Polgar. Kommentar zur Dichtung? Geister werden nicht besser sichtbar, wenn man Licht macht.29

While the subject matter treated by each of these texts is quite distinct, the method of exposition is identical both with regard to the exploitation of metaphorical associations conventionally coupled with the phenomenon of 29

Alfred Polgar, Im Laufe der Zeit, RoRoRo Taschenbuch, 107 (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1954), p. 16. 239

light, and in terms of the inexplicit, "suggested" analogy by means of which the reader can "prove" for herself or himself the validity of the initial assertion or question. Returning now to the intratextual level, we can consider a couple of further examples of aphorisms by Kafka which deal with the issue of faith. Aphorism 87 is perhaps one of Kafka's most poignant texts on this subject matter. Ein Glaube wie ein Fallbeil, so schwer, so leicht, (aph. 87)

This text derives its shock-effect form the audacious comparison of belief to a guillotine, a comparison that offends or affronts conventional wisdom about the "glory" of belief. Significantly, whereas the previously cited aphorism associated faith with an all-engulfing radiance - certainly a more traditional and less controversial metaphor - this aphorism employs an image which is both radical, and emphatically concrete. The image, however, allows Kafka to exploit the semantic ambiguities in the words "schwer" and "leicht," and, playing on the equivocalities that derive from the concrete and abstract meanings of these words, to underwrite his heretical comparison. A guillotine blade is "schwer" in the concrete sense meaning "heavy," and because of its very heaviness it glides easily ("leicht"); a belief is "schwer" in the intangible sense of "difficult," but once this difficulty is overcome, all else is easy ("leicht"). Thus the relationship between "schwer" and "leicht" in the concrete instance of a falling guillotine blade is parallel to the relationship between "schwer" and "leicht" when applied abstractly to the concept of belief: in both instances "ease" is a direct function of "heaviness"/"difficulty." Word-play provides a means for justifying, and elaborating on, an association which at first glance is contradictory and irreverent. Moreover, one is left with the haunting question of whether faith and the guillotine blade don't h^ve a good more in common than the text explicitly states: Is faith somehow related to an instrument of execution? The text, of course, remains stimulatingly open with regard to this question and others that it evokes. We have concentrated here on texts which take advantage of semantic ambiguities to reinforce their persuasiveness and rhetorical effect; at the same time, all these examples have been drawn from one thematic sphere. Many of Kafka's aphorisms deal with the subject of "belief" in one way or another, without, however, employing such lexical devices. Since the strategies of such texts are not relevant in the present discussion of lexical techniques, they will not be analyzed here. I will, however, cite a few of them for the simple purpose of highlighting the claim that the subjects Kafka deals with in the aphorisms are approached from various perspectives and with differing textual strategies. We will find, for example, that the concept of belief is 240

inserted into a diverse variety of contexts; in this process its different shades of meaning, its ambiguities and equivocalities, become apparent. Wenn man einmal das Böse bei sich aufgenommen hat, verlangt es nicht mehr, daß man ihm glaube, (aph. 28) Früher begriff ich nicht, warum ich auf meine Frage keine Antwort bekam, heute begreife ich nicht, wie ich glauben konnte, fragen zu können. Aber ich glaubte ja gar nicht, ich fragte nur. (aph. 36) Der Mensch kann nicht leben ohne ein dauerndes Vertrauen zu etwas Unzerstörbarem in sich, wobei sowohl das Unzerstörbare als auch das Vertrauen ihm dauernd verborgen bleiben können. Eine der Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten dieses Verborgenbleibens ist der Glaube an einen persönlichen Gott. (aph. 50) Was ist fröhlicher als der Glaube an einen Hausgott! (aph. 68) "Daß es uns an Glauben fehle, kann man nicht sagen. Allein die einfache Tatsache unseres Lebens ist in ihrem Glaubenswert gar nicht auszuschöpfen." "Hier wäre ein Glaubenswert? Man kann doch nicht nichtleben." "Eben in diesem 'kann doch nicht' steckt die wahnsinnige Kraft des Glaubens; in dieser Verneinung bekommt sie Gestalt." (aph. 109)30

It is obvious from the richness and diversity of these aphorisms that Kafka's notion of "belief" was not simple and stable. Many of the texts, of course, seem to reinforce each other; some appear to be complementary; others, finally, appear to be contradictory. However, to attempt to extract some uni-directional, centered, or unified conception of "belief out of these very different texts is tantamount to suppressing the "chorus" in favor of a forced "unison." These texts must be taken together, allowing for their contrapuntal dialogue; they experiment, each in its own way, with one and the same subject matter, multiplying perspectives on a given issue. In much the same way as lexical techniques help the aphorist explore the hidden meanings of words, this cross-referential dialogue among aphoristic texts permits the exploration of the significance of concepts. The lexical techniques which Kafka employs in his aphorisms for an examination of semantic difference are not exhausted by the examples given thus far. Play with the possibilities - and impossibilities - of language is one of the favorite pastimes of the aphorist. Language, for the aphorist, is not a repository of meanings that are somehow generated elsewhere and inserted into signs, rather it itself is the source of meaning. Analysis of language thus functions as a kind of archaeology in which sedimented significances or associations can be discovered under the stratified layers of the "cultured" languages. We have already witnessed Kafka's application of this procedure in the aphorisms which explore the ambiguity of the word "sein." This tactic is related to the semantic "experiments" considered in the above group of

30

For further aphoristic texts which refer to the question of belief, see aphs. 13 and 75. 241

aphorisms. These examples demonstrate, among other things, the reliance of meaning on context, and in this sense they point out the dependence of individual linguistic elements on their horizontal configuration, or, in other words, how relationships of contiguity affect the semantic values of words. Kafka also employs other varieties of lexical techniques, for example the play on words of like or similar stem. Here it is not a process of contextualization which is initiated; rather words of similar or identical etymological origin, or words which are phonetically similar, but otherwise unrelated, are played off against one another. Der Lehrer hat die wahre, der Schüler die ionwährende Zweifellosigkeit. (H, 98 emphasis added)

The "true" doubtlessness of the teacher and the "continuous" doubtlessness of the student are subliminally conjoined through the similarity of word stems. This play on words helps to buttress the humorous barb directed at those who, with the haughtiness of the pupil, consider themselves to be more "certain" than their teachers. The experience and knowledge of the teacher, the aphorism suggests, cultivate a "true" doubtlessness, i.e. one which is not continuous, but which recognizes the limitations of certainty. The technique Kafka uses here is a common one among aphorists. Hofmannsthal applies it with relish in his aphorisms. Consider these two examples from his Buch der Freunde. Je mehr der Gelehrte oder Denker sich dem Künstler nähert, ohne ihn doch zu erreichen, ein desto bedenklicheres Phänomen ist er. (A, 44, emphasis added) Ein Ding ist eine unausdeutbare Deutbarkeit (A, 41)

Novalis employs a similar strategy in a fragment which Hofmannsthal includes in his Buch der Freunde. Wir suchen überall das Unbedingte und finden überall nur Dinge. (A, 77)31

Plays on words, of course, can be an interminable source of humor for those so inclined. Kafka's word-plays do not, as a rule, have the ironic, witty character of those, say, of Karl Kraus. The following aphorism, however, is perhaps the most significant exception to this rule. Verkehr mit Menschen verführt zur Selbstbeobachtung, (aph. 77)

At first glance this text appears to be just one more rendition on the theme of self-observation which is common to Kafka's aphorisms and is present in the work of other aphorists as well. The pivotal point of this text, however, is the repetition of the prefix "ver." The aphorism would make perfectly good

31

242

Cf. Novalis, Schriften, II, 412. Hofmannsthal slightly misquotes Novalis.

sense if this prefix were deleted in its second occurrence: the text would then simply state that intercourse with others leads to self-observation, instead of seducing one into it. Yet the linguistic perseveration which, like a slip of the tongue (or of the pen), dictates the recurrence of the prefix with the verb "führen" also infuses the text with a new and more poignant layer of significance. The word "verführen," with its sexual undertones, automatically reflects back on the noun "Verkehr," lending it sexual implications which are otherwise not immediately present. The effectiveness of the text, ostensibly just a straight-forward criticism of introspection, rests in the play of meanings evoked by the repetition of the prefix. Kraus applies a similar technique - if to a much less serious end - in the following aphorism. Vervielfältigung ist insofern ein Fortschritt, als sie die Verbreitung des Einfältigen ermöglicht. (BW, 76)

Kraus's subject matter itself is considerably "lighter" than Kafka's, but he adds to its humor by combining the play on prefixes with repetition of word stems. Before moving on to an examination of the use of metaphor in Kafka's aphorisms, I shall cite two more examples of aphorisms that apply wordplay of different sorts as lexical devices. These examples will help round out our picture of lexical elements employed in Kafka's aphoristic texts. Aussprache bedeutet nicht grundsätzlich eine Schwächung der Überzeugung darüber wäre auch nicht zu klagen -, aber eine Schwäche der Überzeugung. (H, 85) Daß noch der Konservativste die Radikalität des Sterbens aufbringt! (H, 334)

The first aphorism turns on the inherent similarity, yet significant difference, between the words "Schwäche," denoting a state of weakness, and "Schwächung," referring to a process of weakening. According to this text, there is nothing objectionable in the weakening of one's conviction through the act of expressing it; but the need to verbalize it is itself an indication that the conviction itself is a weak one. Thus the drive toward verbalization is portrayed, through the play on two words of a similar root, as a reflex denoting lack of conviction. Aphorists, at least, would tend to concur with the hypothesis that expression is by no means a sign of conviction. The technique applied in the second text is quite different. Instead of relying on the identity of linguistic elements, as in the last set of examples, or on semantic identity, as in the first set, it is based on semantic contrast. For Kafka's generation the phenomenon of radical conservatism was just beginning to take shape in the West, and thus the words "radical" and "conservative" could still be conceived as opposites. Kafka exploits this opposition, along with the broader meaning of "conservative" in the sense of "conservational," to expose the contradiction that someone who is fundamentally 243

"conservative" - Kafka uses the adjectival noun in its superlative form might display radicality with regard to death, death here becoming a part of the semantically contrastive pair conservation - death. This is an example of a text whose meaning seems quite arcane; however, by supplying contexts in our act of reception we are able to lend it significances relative to those receptive horizons. In this sense the text is obscure, yet perhaps quintessentially aphoristic. This survey of lexical techniques in Kafka's aphorisms is not intended to be a complete inventory; rather it serves simply as an outline in which the variety of such elements in Kafka's aphorisms can be documented, their use associated with the methods of other aphorists, and their text-strategic repercussions assessed in particular instances of interpretive application. B) Metaphor Questions regarding the metaphoricity of aphoristic expression are certainly the most complex; this is true partially because of the omnipresence of metaphor in aphoristic expression, and because of the manifold guises in which metaphor can occur. The problem is further complicated by the inherent metaphoricity of language itself, and by the fundamental difficulties which arise when one tries to segregate spontaneous use of metaphor from its more deliberate, considered, and "artistic" application. One quality which distinguishes the approach to metaphor characteristic of the aphorist from more traditional approaches is an awareness, a self-consciousness of both the dangers and potentials of metaphorical association. In keeping with the aphorist's desire to shatter the ideological stagnation of language, reified or encrusted metaphors are rent asunder, conventional metaphors are transmuted through their application in daring new contexts. It is this desire to "transvalue" the significations of signs which helps explain the reliance of the aphorist on conventionally established themes, ideas, or issues; this reflects, so to speak, the mechanism of historical self-correction that is built into the intertextual and intratextual dialogue of aphoristic discourse. In the realm of metaphor this is reflected in the recurrence of "favorite" metaphors or images which become a part of the common sphere of aphoristic expression. One of these is the metaphor of the tightrope. Let's compare Kafka's application of this image with its use in aphorisms by Kraus and Wittgenstein. Der wahre Weg geht über ein Seil, das nicht in der Höhe gespannt ist, sondern knapp über dem Boden. Es scheint mehr bestimmt stolpern zu machen, als begangen zu werden, (aph. 1) Die Kunst des Schreibenden läßt ihn auf dem Luftseil einer hochgespannten Periode nicht schwanken, aber sie macht ihm einen Punkt problematisch. Er mag sich des Ungewohnten vermessen; aber jede Regel löse sich ihm in ein Chaos von Zweifeln. (BW, 231) 244

Der ehrliche religiöse Denker ist wie ein Seiltänzer. Er geht, dem Anscheine nach, beinahe nur auf der Luft. Sein Boden ist der schmälste, der sich denken läßt. Und doch läßt sich auf ihm wirklich gehen.32

Kafka's aphorism is the most radical of the three in its treatment of the metaphor, and in other respects as well. Both Kraus and Wittgenstein use it in a fairly conventional descriptive fashion, associating it with different situations. Kafka, however, deflates the very metaphor itself, turning the tightrope, symbol of human grace and the heightened art of the upright gait, into a booby-trap intended to frustrate even the everyday act of walking. The astringency of the text is intensified by the coupling of this deflated metaphor with the conventional religious-ethical metaphor of "the true way." The true way is no longer portrayed as a path to salvation, but as one on which at every step one is in danger of being tripped up. While blatantly mocking such traditional religious conceptions, Kafka's aphorism emphasizes the incessant struggle faced by those who enter on the "true path." This same tendency is integral to Kafka's appropriation of religious terminology such as "evil," "sin," "the goal," "the good," and "the task." Without exception these ethico-religious "metaphors" are trans-valued or undercut in Kafka's aphoristic texts. In general, metaphorical association allows the aphorist to construct striking mesalliances between the levels of concrete and abstract, or to conjoin concepts or phenomena which otherwise would not be seen in relation to one another. This, in turn, often effects a radical re-evaluation of one or both of the elements involved. The following aphorism by Kafka is exemplary of such associative mesalliance that effects contradiction of accepted values. Der Mensch ist eine ungeheuere Sumpffläche. Ergreift ihn Begeisterung, so ist es im Gesamtbild so, wie wenn irgendwo in einem Winkel dieses Sumpfes ein kleiner Frosch in das grüne Wasser plumpst. (//, 359)

The comparison of the human being to the surface of a swamp represents a grotesque transfiguration of the common self-image of humankind, steeped in self-aggrandizement and virtual self-apotheosis. Kafka extends this deflating association into the absurd when he justifies this unusual analogy by comparing inspiration in the human being to the plumping of a frog into a swamp. The excruciatingly detailed descriptive elements with which Kafka fleshes out this image lend it a concreteness that throws the misalliance between metaphorical vehicle and tenor into greater relief. This technique of connecting the disparate and diverse is the cornerstone of one of the most characteristic aphoristic types, the so-called pseudo-

Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen, pp. 139-40. 245

definition. The strategy of such texts is commonly the definition of some abstract notion or idea through its combination, by means of copula, to some concrete image or situational configuration. In this sense it entails a fusion of rudimentary combination (contiguity) and metaphorical association. Unsere Kunst ist ein von der Wahrheit Geblendet-Sein: Das Licht auf dem zurückweichenden Fratzengesicht ist wahr, sonst nichts, (aph. 63) Die Menschengeschichte ist die Sekunde zwischen zwei Schritten eines Wanderers. (H, 74) Das Böse ist der Sternhimmel des Guten. (H, 90) Liebe ist, daß Du mir das Messer bist, mit dem ich in mir wühle. (BM, 263)

While possessing a quality of the direct and specific, these texts yet tend toward the unfathomable and "indefinable" - although they pretend to "define." It is the fundamental simplicity and matter-of-factness of the syntactical structure which lends these texts their conviction and ostensible indubitability. However, de-limitation and de-finition commonly revert to their opposites in these typical aphoristic formulations. A few examples of related texts by other aphorists demonstrate the commonality of method. The first example is by Fr. Schlegel, the second by Kraus, and the third by Hofmannsthal. Witzige Einfalle sind die Sprüchwörter der gebildeten Menschen. (KA, II, 170) Die Welt ist ein Gefängnis, in dem Einzelhaft vorzuziehen ist. (BW, 68) Die moderne Liebe ist schwache Melodie, überinstrumentiert. (A 26)

The methodological procedure which unifies all these very diverse texts needs no explicit elucidation beyond what has already been said. These are, we hardly need be reminded, aphoristic texts par excellence. Specifically characteristic of Kafka's aphorisms is a tendency to begin with a simple pseudo-definition, as in the "Mensch"-"Sumpf text, and then go on to explicate or describe the metaphorical association in more detail. This is a reflex of Kafka's natural predilection for narrative: a dramatic scene or narrative description frequently evolve automatically out of an initial metaphoricaphoristic statement. Kafka's love-hate relationship with metaphor as trope has already been discussed. However, it is necessary to investigate in some detail the role of metaphor in his aphorisms in order to come to a more specific and individual characterization of his aphoristic texts and his aphoristic method. One phenomenon that is essential to Kafka's literary technique in general is the inclination toward the absolutization of metaphor, the freeing of metaphoric vehicle from any particular and specifiable tenor. Metaphorical image has a way of becoming not only independent, but of actually steering the course which the text follows. I will restrict myself to citing one example of this. 246

Er fühlte es an der Schläfe, wie die Mauer die Spitze des Nagels fühlt, der in sie eingeschlagen werden soll. Er fühlte es also nicht. (H, 121)

This text begins with an assertion: "he" feels something at his temples. It then shifts to the metaphoric mode, giving a simile to describe the manner in which "he" feels "it." Yet the simile proves to be inappropriate; since walls are insensate, the wall cannot possibly feel the tip of the nail about to be pounded into it. The simile, however, is such a dominating force in the text that its inappropriateness to the original assertion effects a negation of the assertion itself, so that the text concludes with a statement that stands in direct contradiction to the proposition stated initially. The aphorism returns in negative, as it were, to its point of departure, the shift into the negative being induced by the simile: an element of the aphorism which apparently is employed for mere explication or elucidation turns out in fact to have a determining impact on the course of the text. While taking a position at the structural center of the aphorism, the simile simultaneously hollows it out, collapsing it upon itself. Other aphorisms might have served as examples of this technique;33 but the cited text best demonstrates what I will call the "metaphoric turn" in which an ostensibly secondary metaphor (or simile) takes on primary and formative character in a text. This phenomenon is a sub-stage of the absolutization of metaphor insofar as it evinces the preeminence of metaphorical vehicle over its tenor, or, indeed, manipulation of the tenor by the vehicle. It is not a major step from this procedure to the application of what I have called Gestalt or "suggestive" metaphors. Indeed, the aphoristic text which most clearly points out the divorce of metaphorical vehicle from any tenor is aphorism 15, which is structured solely around a kind of "ruptured" simile, one in which the tenor of the comparison is left unexpressed. Wie ein Weg im Herbst: Kaum ist er rein gekehrt, bedeckt er sich wieder mit den trockenen Blättern, (aph. 15)

While Kafka's "suggestive metaphors" are unique in the history of the aphorism, they do have some formal precedents in this tradition. Even the ruptured simile appears in the work of at least one other aphorist; namely that of Lichtenberg. Wie eine besoffene Fama. (F 1019)

This text occurs in isolation in Lichtenberg's Sudelbücher, without any apparent stimulus, and with no defined referent. In Lichtenberg's case, how-

For texts that employ a similar "metaphoric turn," see, for example, H, 99 and aph. 14. This procedure is also evident in some of Kafka's parables, "Der Kreisel," for instance. 247

ever, one imagines him simply being carried away by the joy of the simile itself, rendering its stimulus or concrete reference irrelevant. There is yet another aphoristic form peculiar, as far as I can see, to Lichtenberg's Sudelbücher and Kafka's aphoristic notebooks. Here again the tendency toward the absolutization of metaphor, or creative play with the very process of metaphorization, is manifest. Compare, for example, the following texts by Lichtenberg and Kafka. Ein Schluck von Vernunft. ( E 202) Eine ganze Milchstraße von Einfallen. (J 344) Ein Fisch der in der Luft ertrunken war. (J 469) Ein Sonnenstreifen Glückseligkeit. (H, 71) Die Lärmtrompeten des Nichts. (T, 523) Ein Käfig ging einen Vogel suchen, (aph. 16)

These aphorisms seem simply to celebrate the associative freedom of the mind in its capacity for unifying the concrete and the abstract. At the same time, they are divorced from any relational context which might lend them a particular significance, and they thus incessantly throw the reader back on their internal tension between literal and figurative. The ultimate challenge of such texts is that they prompt our participation in their own metaphorical play, allowing the reader to derive relevance or significance appropriate to herself/himself in each individual act of reception. The relationship of such aphoristic texts to Kafka's suggestive metaphors can best be brought out if we look at one further group of aphorisms which employ a more "conventional" associative technique. One of the typical aims of the aphorist,; we know, is to open up relational gaps which are left to the reader to fill. One such device which requires application of associative powers is the implicit analogical relation. This is a common aphoristic type. The following are some examples, the first two from Lichtenberg, the third from Kraus, and the final text from Hebbel's diaries. Die Religionf:] eine Sonntags-Affaire. (L 368) Leib und Seelef:] ein Pferd neben einen Ochsen gespannt. (D 656) Die neue Schauspielkunst: Dilettanten ohne Lampenfieber. (BW, 100) Die Welt: die große Wunde Gottes. (Entry no. 2663) Kafka employs an identical technique in the following aphoristic texts. Baum des Lebens - Herr des Lebens. (H, 101) Die Menschheitsentwicklung - ein Wachsen der Sterbenskraft. (H, 123) Meine Gefängniszelle - meine Festung. (H, 421)

These texts are most closely related to the form of the pseudo-definition, with the significant difference that the explicit function of comparing or relating the two elements, usually carried out by a word such as "ist" or

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"heißt" or "bedeutet," is suppressed and left for the reader to supply. The efficacity of such texts derives from the fact that while they indirectly imply or suggest analogy, the phenomena which they present for comparison do not seem to be obviously related. Especially in the last two Kafka texts cited, a radical re-evaluation of the first element in the analogy is effected through its association with the second term. There is one further "conventional" associative-analogical technique common to aphoristic expression which is relevant as a possible forerunner to Kafka's suggestive metaphors. This is a type of text which simply records an observation about some natural phenomenon, inviting the reader by means of the evocativeness of the phenomenon itself, and its curious textual isolation, to relate it analogically to some other event, object, or phenomenon. A mere natural "fact" thereby becomes pregnant with possible associative meanings. Of the following texts which exemplify this technique, the first is by Lichtenberg, the second by Kraus, the third from Hebbel's Tagebücher, and the final one by Kafka. Die Schnecke baut ihr Haus nicht, sondern es wächst ihr aus dem Leib. (A 31) Schein hat mehr Buchstaben als Sein. (BW, 267) Eben weil er fliegen kann, kann der Adler nicht gehen. (Entry no. 2631) Kein Tropfen überfließt und für keinen Tropfen ist mehr Platz. (H, 99)

In all of these aphorisms the explicit stating of what seems to be an obvious fact charges the remark with an indefinable meaning, spurring the reader on to search for analogies to which the described relationship might fittingly be applied. It is, more than anything else, the act of expression or textualization itself which lends these statements their significance, for they seem to be selfevident, and thus not requiring direct expression. The implications of this aphoristic technique are manifold: on the one hand, of course, an implicit power is attributed to the process of textualization; on the other hand, it is pointed out that the seemingly self-evident must constantly be re-examined, and that such re-examination will inevitably disclose hitherto unsuspected significances. My hypothesis is that Kafka's suggestive (Gestalt) metaphors can be construed as a fusion of possibilities inherent in the different types of associative analogies examined above. Suggestive metaphor displays, for example, an absolutization of image like that found in the final set of texts; in addition, it, like all the analogical texts examined above, expresses the demand for analogical connection - a demand placed on the reader - requiring her/him to supplement the text, or to turn up a tertium comparationis which will reconcile its disparate elements. While we have previously examined the manner in which Kafka's suggestive metaphors function, the analysis of two further 249

texts which manifest this technique will help to underscore the relationship between these innovative texts and the strategies of analogical association employed by the traditional aphorism. Er frißt den Abfall vom eigenen Tisch; dadurch wird er zwar ein Weilchen lang satter als alle, verlernt aber, oben vom Tisch zu essen; dadurch hört dann aber auch der Abfall auf. (aph. 73) Leoparden brechen in den Tempel ein und saufen die Opferkrüge leer; das wiederholt sich immer wieder; schließlich kann man es vorausberechnen, und es wird ein Teil der Zeremonie, (aph, 20)

There is one major difference between these texts and the aphorisms which present a simple factual phenomenon: in the case of Kafka's suggestive metaphors the events expressed are not based on empirical observation, rather they are products of the author's phantasy. We observe here the first moves of a transformation of the reflective-meditative form of the aphorism into fiction, i. e. into narrative. This, then, is the point at which a bridge is built between the essentially non-narrative form of the aphorism and Kafka's spontaneous narrative talent. An investigation of this connection will be the purpose of our final chapter. At this point of our analysis it will be helpful to relate the process of associative analogy considered here to the problem of self-projection and communication discussed in the foregoing chapters. I have argued that Kafka's art was always an art of self-expression, but that the drive toward self-expression was constantly undercut by a crisis of communication. Kafka's self-expression in the aphoristic texts cannot be viewed in terms of traditional autobiography; nor should it be understood as a form of confession, for as Kafka himself claimed, confession is necessarily lie. The central issue for Kafka was the discovery of a mode of communication of the self that would somehow bridge the gap between the individuality of his experiences and the communality of communication. In other words: How can the absolutely individual become generally communicable to other absolute individuals? How can the experience of one individual be related to the experience of other individuals without the danger of prevarication predicated on the universalizing, de-individualizing thrust of every act of communication? The answer to this, as I have already indicated, lies in the inscribing of the individual in a structural configuration which, by means of associative analogy, can, in the act of reception, be associatively applied to any experience of the receiving individual which has a similar structure. The immediacy of the individual experience is thus retained through its translation into a Gestalt with which the reader can individually identify. It is not a matter of hermeneutically reconstructing the original "meaning" of the structural configuration; rather it is a question of explicitly attributing to it a personal, individual "significance" in the act of reception - the text then 250

becoming an ax for the reader's frozen sea. Thus the suspension of the metaphorical tenor, an interruption of the process of "similarity" in the text itself, is supplemented by a metonymical relationship (a relationship of contiguity, a structural connection). This combination allows for the act of association to be postponed, so to speak, until the moment of reception. In other words, the suppression of similarity in the suggestive metaphor, coupled with the highlighting of patterns of contiguity, calls forth the postponed process of similarity in the moment of reception. In this sense it is appropriate to speak of these "suggestive metaphors" as metonymies;34 but one must keep in mind that it is the metonymical character of the texts, buttressed by the suppression of similarity in the moment of production, which serves to project the process of metaphorization into the act of reception. Thus the metaphorical function still has priority, it has merely been strategically displaced into the receptive end of the dialectic between production and reception. This was, we recall, also the strategy of those conventional types of aphoristic expression examined above. The centrality of metaphor and associative metaphorical functions for Kafka's art remains beyond dispute, despite his own protestations about the deficiencies of this trope. In his suggestive metaphors, developed during his aphoristic period, Kafka discovered a form of metaphor that seems to circumvent these difficulties: metaphor could break loose from a stifling referentiality, a dependence on the objects of reality, and attain some autonomy while still being communicative in a very particular sense. In the Gestalt metaphors Kafka employs patterns of contiguity in order to fortify the metaphorical function of the text, which then takes effect in the moment of reception. Kafka's reliance on associative techniques in his aphorisms aligns his aphoristic production with that of such associative aphorists as Lichtenberg and Hebbel. It is therefore not coincidence that the associative-analogical devices employed by Kafka are "prefigured" in the aphorisms of Lichtenberg, above all. This does not mean, however, that the function of similarity suppresses that of contiguity in Kafka's aphorisms; indeed, as the example of "suggestive metaphor" clearly demonstrates, it is more a matter of the productive interpenetration of these functions in a text-strategic (and, in the given case, at least, reception-strategic) interaction. This, however, is traditionally the goal of aphoristic expression, and Kafka's innovative Gestalt metaphors accomplish this in a manner unique to the genre.

See Roman Karst, "Kafka und die Metapher," Literatur und Kritik, 180 (1983), 474: "Das höchste Gesetz seiner [Kafka's] Prosa ist das Gesetz der Metonymie. Zwei prinzipielle Elemente dieses Tropus, Zugehörigkeit und Austauschbarkeit, prägen das Werk Kafkas."

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C) Syntactic Elements The aphorism typically employs certain structuring devices commonly associated with rhetorical figures such as parallelism, antithesis, or antimetabole. Kafka's aphorisms apply such structures in more or less traditional ways, combining them with other elements to create the tension characteristic of the aphorism. Parallelism, for example, is combined with semantic opposition in this aphorism. Müßigang ist aller Laster Anfang, aller Tugenden Krönung. (H, 89)

The subject of both clauses is identical, so that subject and verb can be deleted in the second clause. The parallelism is underscored by identical syntactic configurations in the conclusion of each phrase, with semantic contrast in the parallel nouns "Laster" and "Tugenden" working at crosspurposes to this congruity. Even the nouns "Anfang" and "Krönung," the latter understood in the sense of "ultimate conclusion," are marked by semantic contrast. We see here the extent to which parallelism and antithesis occur in aphoristic expression as different aspects of the same phenomenon, for they invariably appear together. It is significant to note that syntactical parallelism and semantic contrast are just two elements in this text among many. This aphorism could, for example, be viewed as a variant of pseudodefinition which is extended through syntactical parallelism. Moreover, the text is explicitly contra-dictory, taking up and re-defining a proverbial expression. Nietzsche exploits the same proverb in one of his aphorisms. Müßigang ist aller Psychologie Anfang. Wie? wäre Psychologie - ein Laster? (Werke, II, 943)

By inserting the word "psychology" for that of "vice" in the proverb, Nietzsche implicitly - and then explicitly - associates psychology with vice. Kafka takes a different tack, constructing a semantically parallel phrase which contradicts the statement of the proverb. The effectiveness of Kafka's text resides in the compression of so many devices into a radically limited textual space. The following aphorism by Kraus, like Kafka's text, demonstrates syntactic parallelism in combination with semantic contrast. Ansichten pflanzen sich durch Teilung, Gedanken durch Knospung fort. (BW, 111)

Antithesis occurs so commonly in tandem with structural parallelism that the two techniques can scarcely be segregated; the purpose of drawing such parallels, paradoxically, is usually the presentation of difference. One can, however, perhaps speak of antithesis in the instances of the following aphorisms, the first by Novalis, the second by Kafka. 252

Abstraction schwächt - Reflexion stärkt. (Schriften, II, 558)

Das Negative zu tun, ist uns noch auferlegt; das Positive ist uns schon gegeben. (aph. 27)

While syntactic parallelism is evident in these texts as well, it serves merely to throw antithesis into relief, highlighting the tension between each text's contrasting clauses. Antimetabole also is a form Kafka employs in his aphorisms, although it occurs infrequently. An aphorism from the collection "Er" displays this structure. Manche leugnen den Jammer durch Hinweis auf die Sonne, er leugnet die Sonne durch Hinweis auf den Jammer. (BeK, 280) Compare this text to the following one by Kraus, for example: Das Weib nimmt einen für alle, der Mann alle für eine. (BW, 305) The same type of structural changes are imposed upon each text in the process of moving from the first to the second clause: the subjects are replaced with new ones, and objects in the predicate of the clauses are inverted. Kraus effects an ironic commentary on the contrasting sexual "ethics" of woman and man and on the "double" sexual standard; Kafka uses the structure to invert the vision of theodicy, denying the "radiance" of the sun on the basis of the existence of misery. Such syntactical structures in Kafka's aphorisms obviously serve a secondary function, as they do, indeed, for most aphorisms. Their role is one which is expressly "supporting," underpinning other techniques or devices and contributing to the overall aphoristic effect or pointe. Nevertheless, the presence of such devices in Kafka's aphorisms helps to bring out the relationship between these texts and those of the aphoristic tradition. Kafka is much more original as an aphorist where logical structures, rather than purely rhetorico-syntactic ones, come into play.

D) Logical Structures The phrase "logical structures" is in a certain sense a misnomer when applied in conjunction with the aphorism, for in such texts it is oftentimes a manipulation or an undermining of strict logical structures which is at issue. We recall here Kafka's description of Kierkegaard's method as one characterized by the interpenetration of enchantment and logic. It is this rupturing or displacement of logical structures that has led to the general claim that paradox is one of the central features of aphoristic expression. This is true, of course, for Kafka's aphorisms as well. Yet, as we know, paradox in Kafka especially in the aphorisms - often arises in the recursive form which Ger-

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hard Neumann has called "gleitendes Paradox." We have already analyzed the manner in which such paradox operates in the example of one text. In this section we will attempt to distinguish sub-types of this Kafkan paradox. But before we begin this investigation, it is necessary to make some remarks about other, more conventional manipulations of, or deviations from, logical structure which are commonly exploited by the aphorist, or, at least, by certain aphorists. In the typology of aphoristic thought and methods, metaphor was connected to associative thought, and the predilection toward application of pseudo-logical structures was related to the mystical thought of the Romantics. Most scholars who have dealt with Kafka's aphorisms have tended to relate them to certain mystical traditions.35 Yet in terms of their typical structures and forms, Kafka's aphorisms do not display the inclinations found, for example, in the aphorisms of such "mystical" aphorists as Novalis and Otto Weininger. The fundamental drive of mystical thinkers is the unification of the diverse, the sublation of difference in underlying identity, the reduction of multiplicity to oppositional polarity. Many aphoristic forms, including the pseudo-definition, for example, display this tendency toward unification or identification of phenomena that are essentially different. Yet we have argued that such identification is commonly carried out in the realm of metaphor, and that, moreover, identification ultimately serves the end of breaking down accepted and unquestioned identifications. In other words, re-construction often works toward the end of de-construction. The mystical aphorist, on the other hand, employs aphoristic techniques in the search for overriding identities, identities that are considered to inhere in fact, and which are not merely the creative product of the associative-analogical fancy as is true for metaphorical aphorists such as Lichtenberg. Here metaphor functions, as for Kafka, as a kind of experiment, as a creative hypothesis, not as an uncovering of essential identities. A few examples will help to make this issue somewhat more transparent. We have already discovered that forms such as proportional analogy and techniques which employ syllogistic logic are popular among "mystical" aphorists. Otto Weininger, perhaps the best example of a mystical aphorist, employs the proportional analogy quite often, the following texts serving as examples that stand for many others.36 This is most true of the interpretations proffered by Werner Hoffmann; but the inclination of most scholars who view the aphorisms as manifestations of some religious tendency in Kafka is to emphasize their relationship to mystical thinking. See the section on this question in my introductory chapter. Weininger's aphorisms are cited from the volume Über die letzten Dinge (Vienna and Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1904); all references will be noted in the text with the abbreviation LD and the page number.

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Der Ekel verhält sich zur Furcht, wie die Lust zum Wert. (LD, 64)37 Wert: Licht = Licht: Feuer. (LD, 75)

In the second text Weininger goes so far as to substitute mathematical symbols for syntactic connectors. To be sure, the equal sign could stand as the symbol of Weininger's aphoristic procedure, with oppositions and distinctions occuring only in the form of binary pairs, so that the world appears to be divisible into two general principles, distinct from one another, but unifying all the elements they subsume. In keeping with this rage for equivalence, Weininger's pseudo-definitions remain within the realm of the abstract, rarely playing off concrete and abstract in their employment of metaphor. Idiotie ist das intellektuelle Äquivalent der Roheit. (LD, 55) Der Wirbel ist die Eitelkeit des Wassers; und sein Kreis-Egoismus. (LD, 176)

The search for symbols and equivalences in Weininger's aphorisms, as in his thought in general, is a reflex of an extreme idealism, fashioned after the philosophy of Schopenhauer, in which all objectivity is reducible to subjectivity. Weininger unmistakably expresses this in the following reflection. "Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung" - daß dies ewig wahr ist und nicht widerlegt werden kann, muß einen Grund haben. Alle diese Dinge, die ich sehe, sind nicht die volle Wahrheit, sie verhüllen das höchste Sein noch immer vor dem Blicke. Als ich ward, verlangte ich aber nach diesem Selbstbetrug und diesem Schein. Als ich auf diese Welt kommen wollte, verzichtete ich darauf, bloß die Wahrheit zu wollen. Alle Dinge sind nur Erscheinungen, d. h. sie spiegeln mir immer nur meine Subjektivität wieder. (LD, 56-7)

I have intentionally chosen the somewhat exaggerated model of Weininger here for the purpose of contrast. The sublation of the objective world in the subjectivity of the individual, of course, is nothing but one overriding structure of unification. One could scarcely imagine a thinker whose cognitive method is more contrary to Kafka's. I want to present two texts which I take as exemplary for the distinction between the method of Weininger as mystical aphorist, and that of Kafka as associative-experimental aphorist. The two texts are similar enough to throw this diversity of method into relief. Dankbarkeit und Rachsucht sind eines und dasselbe: es gehört zu beiden eine Empfindung des Einzelmomentes als real: dankbar wie rachsüchtig ist der Sadist, nicht der Masochist. (LD, 71) Der Verzückte und der Ertrinkende, beide heben die Arme. Der erste bezeugt Eintracht, der zweite Widerstreit mit den Elementen. (H, 87)

Weininger uncovers a tertium comparationis on the basis of which the oppositions between gratitude and desire for revenge can be fused. Kafka, on the other hand, takes one and the same symbolic gesture as the expression of two The entire aphorism is italicized in Weininger's text.

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opposing meanings: instead of working from the distinct to the identical, Kafka turns this around, working from the identical to the distinct, emphasizing that a single "sign" can, depending on the contextual situation, have opposite significations. Kafka, in other words, seeks antithesis in identity, whereas the mystical aphorist Weininger seeks identity in antithesis. Ingeborg Henel has also pointed to this non-mystical aspect of Kafka's thought, arguing that in Kafka unity is supplanted by an awareness of contrast, difference, and distance.38 The drive of the mystical aphorist toward the discovery of unity and the eradication of difference can be observed quite clearly in the texts of Novalis as well. The following two aphorisms address in a programmatic fashion this thirst for equating the disparate. Auf Vergleichen, Gleichen läßt sich wohl alles Erkennen, Wissen etc. zurückführen. (Schriften, II, 546) Den Satz des Widerspruchs zu vernichten ist vielleicht die höchste Aufgabe der höheren Logik. (Schriften, III, 570)

Novalis goes so far as to formulate the extirpation of contradiction as a supreme aim. His aphorisms, of course, practice this art of equation, of unification, of absolute identity. In contradistinction to this, Kafka's aphorisms mutliply contradictions, rather than smoothing them out into identities. Surely, one must avoid absolutizing this distinction between the rage for identification and that for difference, since the aphorisms of the writers discussed here are neither mechanical, nor unidimensional. Still, the overall tendency of Kafka's thought in the aphorisms is toward differentiation of the identical and complication of the simple. The point here is that this contrast of conceptual drives between Kafka and such mystical aphorists as Novalis and Weininger should help us set aside the connection of Kafka's aphorisms to a particular form of mystical thought. The fact is that all aphoristic thought is "mystical" in the sense that it presents a confrontation of the logical and the irrational. Kafka's rage for differentiation is nowhere better expressed than in the incessant retractions, recursions, negations, exclusions, and qualifications that have come to be taken as typical of his thought in general. These are manifest in the logical structure of his aphorisms as well, and here again Kafka's aphoristic texts display their independence from the aphoristic tradition, i. e. their ability to operate in unique ways within the definitions of this genre. In what follows I will attempt to identify, and provide examples for, three types of "logical" structure that are especially characteristic of Kafka's aphorisms. I call these structures "retraction," "exclusion," and "preclu38

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Henel, "Kafka als Denker," p. 63.

sion." The borders between these different categories are, to be sure, somewhat fluid; all are forms of self-negation that relate closely to one another and which tend to intermingle in Kafka's texts. However, such intermingling does not prohibit isolation of the individual structures for the purpose of analysis. By retraction I mean something quite similar to what Martin Walser, one of the first to study the logical structures of Kafka's texts, refers to with the term "Aufhebung." 39 Walser, however, sees this as an essentially narrative device according to which each action on the part of Kafka's protagonists is cancelled out by the environment in which they act. Walser, in other words, defines the tendency toward the negation of assertions in terms of a conflict between the individual and a hostile society. In the aphorisms this conflict is internalized into the logical structure of the texts, so that an initial assertion is subsequently negated or retracted ("aufgehoben") in the same text. Aphorism 103 will provide us with a first example of this structure. Du kannst dich zurückhalten von den Leiden der Welt, das ist dir freigestellt und entspricht deiner Natur, aber vielleicht ist gerade dieses Zurückhalten das einzige Leid, das du vermeiden könntest, (aph. 103)

The first two clauses of this aphorism express what seems to be a definitive assertion: one can by nature withdraw from the sufferings of the world. The word "aber," however, introduces a qualification of this assertion which, if accepted, negates the original statement: withdrawing from suffering is itself suffering; thus one cannot, in fact, withdraw from suffering, except perhaps by not withdrawing from suffering (for this is the only form of suffering which one might be able to avoid). The initial assertion of the text is thereby "retracted" by the subsequent exposition. Rather than providing some enlightenment on the dilemma of worldly suffering and its avoidance, the text presents only contradiction and irresolution. A second example of this structure, taken from the collection "Er," displays the interweaving of retraction with a more moderate form of qualification. Alles ist ihm erlaubt, nur das Sichvergessen nicht, womit allerdings wieder alles verboten ist, bis auf das eine, für das Ganze augenblicklich Notwendige. (BeK, 285)

It is a rather simple matter to chart the logical course by which this aphorism develops: absolute assertion is followed by a single qualification of this assertion; this qualification, however, has the effect of totally negating the original statement and evoking a proposition which states the contrary; this, in

39

Martin Walser, Beschreibung einer Form, pp. 60-71. 257

turn, is subjected to a single qualification which is so lacking in specificity ("bis auf das eine, für das Ganze augenblicklich Notwendige") that it by default becomes an absolute qualification. At this point the text appears to revert back to its beginning; but even this is only apparent, for one is continually led back through its circuitous logic. If in the traditional aphorism antithesis and contradiction serve to dislodge accepted, stratified "conclusions," then Kafka's figures of retraction and qualification go one step further; for they not only disavow conventional dogma, they disallow all final conclusions, throwing the reader continually back into the play between oppositions and revisions, never allowing stasis at one or the other position.40 At the same time, it seems clear that this process of assertion and retraction verges on the exploding of the (traditionally) quite strict demands for formal closure made upon the aphorism. The traditional aphorism, while conceptually subscribing to dynamism and incessant flux with regard to matter and meaning (i. e. in both the physical and intellectual realms), still presents a text-system which is formally, if artificially, closed. In many of Kafka's aphorisms, especially in those applying the structure of retraction and qualification, the dynamic system has become absolute, so that closure is only sketched, so to speak, by the limitations of pure opposition, by the pattern of assertion and negation and assertion, ad infinitum. The problem of dynamism can no longer be contained, but threatens to rupture the aphoristic form itself. In his examination of structures of paradox in Kafka, Shimon Sandbank has studied such patterns of affirmation and negation in Kafka's texts in general.41 Sandbank attempts to segregate three different patterns which he describes as "affirmation then negation," "affirmation and negation," and "affirmation therefore negation."42 The first category is identical to what I have called retraction, the second two seem to me to be insufficiently distinguishable from one another, and my tendency is to view them as one and the same structure, what I have throughout my investigation termed the structure of exclusion. Exclusion, we recall, is the logical structure which defines Kafka's epistemological dilemma as well as his crisis of communication. It is one of the most common structures in Kafka's aphoristic texts, and we have already scrutinized a number of examples. Exclusion is characterized by the parallel subsistence of two spheres which are by definition mutually exclusive. It is inherent in the conflict of internal-external and defines the inaccessibility of that which is "other" or outside of one's own strictly delimited 40 41

42

See Corngold, "Kafka's Double Helix," p. 528. Shimon Sandbank, "Structures of Paradox in Kafka," Modern Language Quarterly, 28 (1967), 462-72. Sandbank, "Structures of Paradox," p. 471.

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realm. If I have identified retraction as a structure which manifests the problem of dynamism which is fundamental to aphoristic expression, exclusion can be associated with the dis-integral, fragmentary conception of reality that is also formative for the "aphoristic" world-view. The structure of exclusion manifests the problematical mediation between distinct realms. I will demonstrate this on the example of two aphorisms by Kafka. The first is taken from the collection "Er." Er beweist nur sich selbst, sein einziger Beweis ist er selbst, alle Gegner besiegen ihn sofort, aber nicht dadurch, daß sie ihn widerlegen (er ist unwiderlegbar), sondern dadurch, daß sie sich beweisen. (BeK, 282)

This text reads like a summary description of the fate of each and every one of Kafka's protagonists: condemned to - and limited to - the reflex of selfassertion, one is ultimately defeated by the inimical self-assertions that occur around one. We have here, in aphoristic form, a description of a helium omnium contra omnes which is defined not by open aggression, but rather by the mutual assertiveness of entities which have no connection or relation to one another whatsoever. The individual is the "completely other" which cannot be mediated with other individuals. The world is pulverized into isolated fragments whose pure isolation determines the mutual conflict of their self-assertions. An aphorism from the third Oktavheft presents one of the most striking formulations of this dilemma, and one which hints at its relationship to the issue of fragmentation. Wirklich urteilen kann nur die Partei, als Partei aber kann sie nicht urteilen. Demnach gibt es in der Welt keine Urteilsmöglichkeit, sondern nur deren Schimmer. (H, 86)

Only the party involved, who knows the facts of the case inside-out, so to speak, is truly competent to pass judgment; judgment, however, must be passed objectively from without; yet those who are "without" no longer have the "inside" information which would make a judgment possible. The possibility of judgment thus dissolves into mere "Schimmer" because of the incommensurability of insider and outsider. The very impenetrability of such texts as this to definitive hermeneutical scrutiny is but one further manifestation of the mutual exclusivity of insider and outsider.43 Partiality, of course, is one of the primary issues with which aphoristics is concerned, and it traditionally concedes the influence of "partiality," or what Jürgen Habermas calls "knowledge interests," in the acquisition of knowledge. This is expressed, for example, in the emphasis that aphorists from the French 43

Frank Kermode has elucidated the problem of insider-outsider in connection with obscure narratives and the position of the interpreter; see his The Genesis of Secrecy: (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979), esp. pp.4ff.

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moralists to Nietzsche have placed on the problem of self-interest and selflove. The connection to the issue of fragmentation is made in Kafka's aphorism through the implications of the word "Partei." For a "party" is a part, i. e. a segment that has been divided, or parted, from a larger whole. Parties are by definition partial, and to be partial means to be responsible to the part rather than to a whole. In the aphorist's world there is only partiality in this sense: there are only conflicting interests of partial relevance; there are only mutually inimical parts or parties which defeat one another by asserting themselves. The aphoristic collection, then, can be interpreted as a kind of formal-textual representation of the interest-group world in which all subsuming unities have collapsed, be they of religious, political, or cultural nature. The final logical structure of negation common to Kafka's aphoristic texts is preclusion. This structure is closely related to that of retraction, with the difference that an assertion is not eliminated through us direct negation, but rather through removal of the prerequisites which make it possible. In other words, preclusion describes a preempting of the foundational possibilities on which an assertion is based, a pulling-the-rug-out-from-under its logical pre-conditions. The employment of this structure is not limited to Kafka's aphorisms, but its frequency in these texts gives an indication of its centrality for Kafka at this time. Let's begin, however, by looking at an example aphorism by Karl Kraus which displays this structure especially lucidly. Der Anspruch auf einen Platz an der Sonne ist bekannt. Weniger bekannt ist, daß sie untergeht, sobald er errungen ist. (BW, 389)

The proverbial "place in the sun" can be found, but in the act of discovering it the conditions which made it desirable are eliminated: accomplishment of a task automatically, and without bringing the promised reward, preempts the purpose for attempting to accomplish it in the first place. Kafka's wellknown aphorism about the Archimedean point has a structure identical to the one in Kraus's text. Er hat den archimedischen Punkt gefunden, hat ihn aber gegen sich ausgenützt, offenbar hat er ihn nur unter dieser Bedingung finden dürfen. (H, 418)

The conditions under which the Archimedean point can be found preclude the purpose which motivates the search for it: instead of being able to use it to move the earth out of its axis, it can only be employed against the discoverer. The structure of preclusion thus is closely related to the dilemma of theory and practice discussed earlier; what is possible in theory, proves itself not merely to be impossible in practice, but to be precluded by practice itself. Here we find a structural manifestation of the problematical mediation 260

between the realms of idea and experience, thought and reality, this also being one of the central concerns typically portrayed in aphoristic expression. Kafka's aphoristic rendition of the Atlas myth manifests this discrepancy between opinion (theory) and fact (praxis). Atlas konnte die Meinung haben, er dürfe, wenn er wolle, die Erde fallen lassen und sich wegschleichen; mehr als diese Meinung aber war ihm nicht erlaubt. (H, 107)44

The opinion permitted Atlas with regard to his possibilities for action has no relation to those possibilities as they might be realized in practice. Supposition and actuality are separated by an unbridgeable gulf, and Atlas is caught between conceptual possibility and actual impossibility, between thought and its realization, theory and practice. In this final section we have concentrated on an analysis of the logical structures typical of Kafka's aphorisms. While these structures tend to be innovative in terms of the conventional practices of aphorists, I have tried to emphasize the extent to which they must be seen as manifestations of the intellectual problematics which I have identified with "aphoristics," i. e. with those issues which motivate the structures, forms, and purposes of aphoristic expression. Thus I hope to have demonstrated that Kafka's aphorisms are not merely "traditional" in terms of their structures and forms, but that they, to express it rather pointedly, deal aphoristically with the aphorism itself, experimenting and exploring new possibilities of expression which extend, but do not yet explode, the confines of the genre. The task of the next and final chapter will be an examination of the transcending of aphoristic form by means of its narrativization in the Kafkan parable. Before moving on to this final investigation, however, it seems appropriate to make a few concluding remarks by way of summation of points made thus far. We have sought to approach Kafka's aphorisms with a variety of methods. I hope to have shown that intellectual-historical analysis of aphoristics and the fundamental problems of Kafka's thinking, scrutiny of Kafka's reception of aphoristic texts and the work of his "aphoristic precursors," and, finally, textual and structural examinations of his aphorisms all converge on the same plane: namely, the relevance of studying Kafka's aphoristic texts within the framework of the specific literary genre of the aphorism, a genre which conforms to certain conventions and is founded on particular intellectual problematics. Above all, I hope to have brought sufficient evidence to light which speaks against the identification of Kafka's aphoristic meditations with certain philosophical or religious positions contained in the "sub-

For further aphorisms which manifest the structure of preclusion, see aphs. 18 & 84, and H, 348.

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stance" of the texts. On the contrary, the aphorisms communicate indirectly through their structure and through their (poetic) manipulation of language. Thus, they should not be conceived as texts which somehow are less "literary" - and that means more authentic with regard to the views and beliefs of the person Franz Kafka - than any of Kafka's other written documents. The aphorisms, in other words, must also be subjected to careful interpretation, but the results of such interpretation can never be taken to be absolute. While the aphorisms are indeed related to the problem of self-expression or communication of the self, this is fundamental to all writing for Kafka. This means that self-communication can never be divorced from self-projection, from fictionalization and textualization of the self. One of the options for self-communication with which Kafka experimented in his aphorisms was the technique of suggestive metaphor through which structures of the internal experience of the individual are projected in Gestalt configurations which allow free reference to individual situations that evince the same structure. Kafka's aphorisms thus have equal shares in the extremes of "impression" and "epiphany" outlined in my discussion of the aphorism in the Austrian Jahrhundertwende: his concern is primarily with the self and with communication of the self, but, as we have seen, self-recognition is never extricable from a dialectical process, the other side of which is self-projection. Yet while for Kafka the aphorism is a kind of verbal "mask," this mask-like quality is accepted not as a conscious goal, but simply as a necessary consequence of the act of self-communication. The critical thrust of the epiphanic aphorism is turned toward the self, and the reproduction of the epiphanic insight in the act of reception effects insight into the receptive self, not into the creator. Thereby a form of indirect communication is established which can speak intermedially from individual to individual, without betraying the "internal command" of either. In addition to defining Kafka's reflections from the years 1917-1920 in terms of the literary genre of the aphorism, we have provided a basis for orienting his aphoristic method within sub-categories of aphoristic thought. Kafka's aphoristic texts are most closely related to those of Lichtenberg and Hebbel, both in the tendency toward self-observation and self-portrayal, as well as in the proclivity for metaphorical-associative patterns and forms. On the other hand, Kafka's aphorisms appear to be farthest removed from those of mystical aphorists such as Novalis and Weininger, whose reflections remain within the realm of intellectual abstraction, and for whom the establishing of relationships and identities takes priority over the assertion of difference. In the mystical aphorism, differentiation is merely a process which is subordinated to the search for identity; at most, difference extends into a dualistic conception which ultimately serves the ends of identity in terms of two opposing groups. Kafka's aphorisms, on the other hand, work 262

against conceptions of identity and unity, emphasizing the disintegration of the whole into self-enclosed parts which defy re-integration on any level. At the same time, the antithetical, contra-dictory drive of the critical aphorists such as Nietzsche and Kraus is not absent in Kafka's aphorisms. Although the tone of Kafka's texts is considerably less ironic, their barbs less pointed, the inclination toward destruction of established values is constantly present. This does not generally express itself in a parodistic tone in Kafka, however, as it does in the aphorisms of Kraus and Nietzsche.45 Finally, Kafka's participation in the intertextual dialogue typical of aphoristic expression provides him a manner in which he can, in the sphere of literature, strive toward an integration of his individuality with an intellectual-textual community: his aphoristic production becomes a fragment of a greater aphoristic dialogue, a single text in the fragmentary collection of aphoristic expression that has been carried out over centuries. We now want to look at the possible relevance of the aphoristic model for the structure and nature of Kafka's parabolic narratives, effecting on a formal-structural level the re-integration of Kafka's aphoristic period into the overall complexion of his literature.

One of Kafka's few "parodistic" aphorisms takes up and subverts a Biblical motif: Wer sucht, findet nicht, aber wer nicht sucht, wird gefunden. (H, 94)

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CHAPTER Six

Aphorism and Met-Aphorism: The Relation of Aphorism and Parable in Kafka's CEuvre

The quarantine of Kafka's aphoristic writings from his "literary" production, which runs like a unifying thread through the history of Kafka-criticism, represents an interpretive-strategic move which allows for the reintroduction of the aphoristic "statements" at a more elevated interpretive level on which they assume the character of Kafka's meta-commentary on his literary aims and practices. This re-integration of the aphoristic and narrative writings thus incessantly occurs on a thematic level: the "immediate," programmatic statements which could not be turned up in Kafka's narrative works are supplied in retrospect through recourse to the aphorisms. Werner Hoffmann's latest book on Kafka's aphorisms is paradigmatic for this procedure.1 Arguing that the Zürau aphorisms manifest Kafka's coming-to-grips with religious issues, and that they present his belief in an "indestructible" human essence, Hoffmann goes on to follow this theme through the narrative texts from the period after 1918.2 Hoffmann, at least, pays attention to chronological issues, restricting application of the aphorisms to Kafka's late works, whereas most other critics have simply ignored this problem, assuming, so it seems, that as meta-commentaries the aphorisms must also be meta-historical, and thus crystalizations of Kafka's true and unchanging attitudes. Not surprisingly, those scholars who emphasize the thematic or biographical elements in Kafka's works are also those who argue most avidly for the irrelevance of questions of development and evolution in Kafka's life and literature.3 While Binder is correct in his claim that the themes of Kafka's literature remain relatively constant throughout his life (MuG, 383), his 1

2

3

Werner Hoffmann, "Ansturm gegen die letzte irdische Grenze": Aphorismen und Spätwerk Kafkas (Bern: Francke, 1984). For a more detailed critique of Hoffmann's approach, see my review of his book, MAL, 19, No. 1 (March, 1986), pp. 118-20. I am thinking in particular of Binder's position, described in my introductory chapter; see MuG, 383-96. To Binder's credit, of course, one must concede that he at least is aware that chronological issues can come into play; but he addresses this problem by attempting to relativize or neutralize historical problems where Kafka's art is concerned.

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denial of formal change and development in Kafka's artistic practice is an untenable position. To be sure, Kafka's literary development is not linear - it occurs in historical disjunction and moves in fits and starts. Nonetheless, Kafka's text-strategic approaches to the stable themes of his writing are involved in almost incessant processes of change and creative experimentation. This phenomenon has been aptly described by Henry Sussman, who writes of Kafka's "almost systematic experiments into the nature of the literary image" and describes Kafka's "ongoing enterprise" as an "exploration into the nature, setting, and effects of fictive language, and its relation to such philosophical constructs as reality, existence, and truth." 4 The words "experiments" and "exploration" are of prime significance, since they imply a constant attitude of questioning and of testing on Kafka's part, a continuous search for an adequate literary practice which, however, like the Castle in Kafka's like-named novel, is never attained. The sophistication, innovation, and receptive potency of Kafka's texts have obscured in some ways the incessant literary strruggle in which he was involved, his interminable quest for perfection in his artistic practice. Kafka's aphorisms, while ostensibly "expository" texts which appear to be at home only on the margins of the literary, are indeed profoundly literary texts, and they represent one influential and consequential moment of Kafka's experiments into "fictive language." The aphorisms are, as I have tried to show, fictions of the self projected through the formal and rhetorical objectivity of aphoristic discourse; but in this sense they are scarcely different, except in textual form, from Kafka's other fictionalizations of the self in novel, short story, letter, and diary. In other words, the aphorisms employ distinct techniques and strategies to come to terms with the communication of the self, the omnipresent task of Kafka's literature. However, as it is the goal of this investigation to demonstrate, the textual strategies manifest in the aphorisms are also functional to a large extent in the Kafkan parable, a product of the same creative period. A note from the miscellaneous fragments, probably written in 1920 when Kafka returned with renewed vigor to the creation of aphorisms, both indicates Kafka's awareness that he is composing within the parameters of a specific textual form - which he terms "Spruch" - and expresses his association of the application of such "brief" or "fragmentary" discourse with the honest desire to approach "truth." Wäre nur einer imstande, ein Wort vor der Wahrheit zurückzubleiben, jeder (auch ich in diesem Spruch) überrennt sie mit Hunderten. (H, 360)

Henry Sussman, Franz Kafka: Geometrician of Metaphor (Madison: Coda Press, 1979), pp. 27-8.

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Kafka's parenthetical comment marks a stepping outside of the text in the very act of composition, with the result that the text (or its statement) is turned against itself. While expressing the wish that someone - anyone might be able to accomplish the feat of checking the articulation of truth at its threshold instead of overrunning it, Kafka adapts his own utterance to this requirement of brevity, and, simultaneously, undercuts even this modified practice by declaring it a failure. Even in this compact aphoristic text, in other words, Kafka senses that he has overrun truth. The implication of this critique, taken to its most extreme, is that enunciation of truth by definition entails overrunning truth; truth and expression are once again conceived as inherently incompatible. This returns us, of course, to the problematics of communication whose centrality for Kafka's aphorisms, as well as for the aphoristic impulse of his Austrian contemporaries, has already been examined. Still, Kafka's remark seems to embody a significant recognition: textual (or verbal) brevity is one possible strategy for an approximation of truth in communication, this being the best that one can ever expect to attain. We are reminded, of course, of Mach's notion of "Denkökonomie," the principle that truthful hypotheses occur in the most compact form possible. Kafka's valorization of laconism is also reminiscent of the demand made by Wittgenstein and the Viennese logical positivists that language, if it is to attain validity, must be reduced as much as possible to its bare logical structures. Now the tactic in Kafka's fragmentary novels is in many ways the opposite of such laconic expression: indeed, one might argue that they consciously portray the protagonist's constant overrunning of truth, and that the pattern of circularity and displacement which these texts describe represents a calculated textual move on Kafka's part for depicting such transgression of truth. In contrast to this, Kafka's aphorisms and short parables reflect an attempt one which Kafka, in his overriding diffidence, certainly saw as a failure - to rein in expression, to halt it, like the man from the country in the parable "Vor dem Gesetz," at the threshold of truth. Thus the sheer laconism of these texts, their lack of superfluous textual "baggage," is a significant common feature, one to which Kafka attributed text-strategic value vis-ä-vis the problem of adequate truthful communication. Compactness, of course, is merely the most obvious, and hence most superficial, formal (i. e. non-thematic) affinity between aphorism and parable. My aim in this chapter is to work out some of the profounder connections between these two textual types, and to explore their interrelationships in the specific instance of Kafka's writing. Various critics have suggested in oblique ways that aphorism and parable are related textual forms in Kafka's literature. Werner Hoffmann, for example, discussing the abundant use of metaphor in Kafka's aphorisms, writes: "Zuweilen sind seine [Kafka's] Aphorismen auf die Parabel hin angelegt, nur 266

daß ihre Entfaltung durch die zur Kürze drängende Form gehemmt wird."5 Hoffmann fails, however, to follow up on this observation; in fact, as his concluding remark makes clear, he assumes that the strictures of aphoristic expression make aphorism and parable essentially incompatible, and he thereby precludes any further investigation of the question. Kafka's suggestive-metaphoric aphorisms, however, prove this assumption false, for they show that aphoristic brevity and parabolic portrayal are wholly reconcilable. Ulrich Fülleborn, similarly, has noted that many of Kafka's aphorisms are "Gleichnisse" reminiscent of the Hebrew "mashal," the Biblical word conventionally translated as "parable."6 Scholars who concern themselves with the study of the parable, and the related form of the fable, often intimate that these narrative forms are closely related to the form of the aphorism. In his study of the modern German parable, Werner Brettschneider expresses the proximity of aphorism and parable in terms of the danger that in modern literature the parabolic narrative threatens to be reduced to the non-narrativity of the aphorism. "Immer entscheidender verengt sich die 'Geschichte', wird auf eine letzte Kurzform gebracht, bis sie in Gefahr gerät, das epische Gattungsgesetz zu verlassen und zur Metapher oder zum Aphorismus zu werden."7 In a similar vein, Reinhard Dithmar writes of the modern fable that it "steht vielfach in der Nähe des Aphorismus."8 In the specific case of Kafka, to be sure, it is the aphorism which is "in danger" of expanding into the narrative form of the parable, a tendency which is in keeping with Kafka's essential talent for narrative writing. Heinz Politzer, for example, specifically claims that the parable "Gib's auf" takes the form of an "aphorism extended into an anecdote."9 It is this process of extension by means of metaphor to which the title of this chapter, "Aphorism and Met-Aphorism," refers. The neologism "met-aphorism" is intended to suggest both that the Kafkan parable goes narratively "beyond" the form of the aphorism, and that it attains this narrative "beyond" through a metaphorical process of extension: the parable is a "met-aphorism" arrived at through "metaphorism."

5

6

7 8

9

Werner Hoffmann, Kafkas Aphorismen, p. 122; cf. also his similar remark in the Kafka-Handbuch, II, 480. Ulrich Fülleborn, "Zum Verhältnis von Perspektivismus und Parabolik in der Dichtung Kafkas," Wissenschaft als Dialog, ed. R. von Heydebrand & A. G. Just (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1969), p. 310. Werner Brettschneider, Die moderne deutsche Parabel (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1971), p. 71. Reinhard Dithmar, Die Fabel: Geschichte, Struktur, Didaktik. Uni-Taschenbücher, 73 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1971), p. 75. Heinz Politzer, Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox, 2nd ed. (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1966), p. 2. 267

As a first maneuver in our attempt to specify in detail points of structural and formal contact between Kafka's aphorisms and his parables, it is helpful to turn to matters of chronology. In the discussion of Kafka's aphoristic production I defined what I called his "aphoristic" phase, a period marked out on one end by the first halting aphoristic formulations in the early Oktavhefte, culminating in the concentrated composition of the aphorisms in the third and fourth notebooks during the fall and winter of 1917-18, and delimited on the other end by Kafka's return to the aphorisms of the Oktavhefte in fall of 1920 at the time he revised and compiled many of these texts for a collection. The composition of the aphorisms from the collection "Er" falls within this timespan, as does the creation, not coincidentally, of by far the majority of Kafka's parables. This temporal overlap of Kafka's production of aphorisms and parables, however, is further corroborated if one examines more closely Kafka's literary production at this time: the periods of most intensive occupation with the aphorism - the years 1917 and 1920 - are also the times during which Kafka writes most of his shorter parables. One critic has noted the significance of the year 1917 for the development of Kafka's late parabolic style,10 and it seems beyond doubt that the impulses which led Kafka to turn to this new form of narrative also motivated his experiments with aphoristic form. Although a tendency toward the abstraction and generality typical of the parable is evident in most of Kafka's narratives, from "Das Urteil" and "Die Verwandlung" to the novels Der Prozeß and Das Schloß, the short form of the parable makes its first pronounced appearance in the stories Kafka published in 1919 under the collective title Ein Landarzt. Many of these texts, including "Die Brücke," "Der neue Advokat," "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft," and "Ein altes Blatt" were first written down in the early Oktavhefte. All of the stories of the collection, with the exception of "Vor dem Gesetz," were composed in 1917. Numerous other parables were also first recorded in the Oktavhefte, and Kafka's production in this genre culminates with the composition of four of his best known parabolic stories which are interspersed among the aphorisms in the third Oktavheft. These are "Eine alltägliche Verwirrung," "Die Wahrheit über Sancho Pansa," "Das Schweigen der Sirenen," and "Prometheus." As we know, immediately after the period of productivity which manifests itself in the aphorisms and parables of the third and fourth Oktavhefte, Kafka experiences a prolonged lull in his creative powers. However, when he picks up his pen again in earnest in 1920, two principle forms dominate his creative production: aphorism and parable. All

10

Ulrich Fülleborn, "Zum Verhältnis von Perspektivismus und Parabolik in der Dichtung Kafkas," p. 309.

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of Kafka's remaining parabolic texts, except for "Der Aufbruch," "Gib's auf," and "Von den Gleichnissen," were composed in 1920 when Kafka was also occupied with the reworking of the aphoristic texts. It is in this period of renewed productivity that Kafka writes, among other things, the parables "Poseidon," "Die Prüfung," "Kleine Fabel," "Der Kreisel," and "Der Geier." While this brief summary indicates the precise chronological coincidence of aphorism and parable in Kafka's oeuvre, it is necessary to examine the temporal evolution of Kafka's parabolic texts as a function of their style in order to comprehend the full impact of Kafka's experiments with aphoristic discourse on the form of his parables. Ingeborg Henel has pointed out that Kafka's aphorisms evolve at exactly, that time when his fiction is undergoing the crucial shift from perspectivistic to parabolic narration.11 Fülleborn, we have seen, also recognized the importance of the year 1917 for the breakthrough of Kafka's parabolic style.12 Neither Fülleborn nor Henel, however, tries to draw out the consequences of these observations, and thus the pivotal position of the aphoristic writings in Kafka's overall literary development has never been adequately assessed. In fact, Kafka's preoccupation with the rhetorical, formally objective form of the aphorism marks a turning-point in his evolution as a narrative writer. This shift in emphasis from the conscious subjectivity of the perspectivistic narratives to the formal objectivity of the parable can be traced in some detail, as Walter Sokel has already shown.13 Kafka's explorations into the distanced objectivity of aphoristic discourse play a fundamental role in this development. The parable "Vor dem Gesetz," the first text that manifests the typical characteristics of Kafka's parables, is unusual among these texts because of its initial contextualization in the novel Der Prozeß.14 While this parable, like Kafka's other parabolic texts, is anything but unequivocal, it does acquire a specific relational significance to the narrative events of the novel through its position in this larger text. Its interpretability, thus, is initially restricted somewhat by its function as a "commentary" on the situation portrayed in the novel. In fact, of course, the parable does not present a coherent commentary at all; instead it merely reiterates, in microcosmic, condensed form,

11 12 13

14

Ingeborg Henel, "Kafka als Denker," Franz Kafka: Themen und Probleme, p. 58. See Fülleborn, p. 309. See Walter Sokel, "Das Verhältnis der Erzählperspektive zu Erzählgeschehen und Sinngehalt in 'Vor dem Gesetz', 'Schakale und Araber' und 'Der Prozeß': Ein Beitrag zur Unterscheidung von 'Parabel' und 'Geschichte' bei Kafka." ZfdtPh, 86 (1967), 267-300; my arguments are founded in part on ideas presented here. The only other parable that shares this feature is "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft," originally a part of the narrative "Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer." 269

the circumstances of the novel.15 In other words, the parabolic insert merely repeats and re-enacts the hermeneutical dilemma faced both by Josef K. in his attempts at coming to terms with the "Court," and the hermeneutical crisis which confronts the novel's commentators. In his explication of the parable, Josef K. comments on his own predicament, and to this extent he takes up the posture of an objective interpreter of his own dilemma. This distanced reflection, however, remains without consequences for Josef K., who does not become any wiser as a result of this interpretive activity. In this sense the parabolic insert functions as a metacommentary on the novel only insofar as it drives home the futility of all of Josef K.'s attempts to arrive at essential enlightenment. The relational parallelism between parabolic intertext and narrative framework lends "Vor dem Gesetz" a function similar to that of the Biblical parable, which, at least in the case of the parables of Jesus, operates as a sub-text embedded into the narrative about Christ's life and deeds. When the parable "Vor dem Gesetz" is freed from this subordinate function in the narrative framework of the novel, it is suddenly stripped of the relational background which grounds it. This has two significant and related effects: on the one hand, its former operability as a - to be sure, drastically limited - metacommentary is invalidated; on the other, it now is, as it were, surrounded by "vacant space" where the former relational background contextualized it, so that it now can freely be embedded into an infinite number of new relational contexts in which it, following the laws af analogy, can function as an explicative commentary. The parable is, in other words, impoverished by this isolation; yet, paradoxically, this impoverishment provides it with the possibility of an enormous richness of significance. One characteristic of Kafka's subsequent parables that distinguishes them from their traditional antecedents is their lack of a concrete relational context; each is surrounded by a "vacancy" which functions as a space for interpretive contextualization, encouraging each interpreter to "embrace" the text in a wholly individual way in each act of reception. In hermeneutical terms, the applicative significance of the parables remains open, to be supplied in the course of the interpretive event.16 At the same time, Kafka's

This is a common feature of many of Kafka's shorter works as well; the turning point or conclusion of the story often presents a condensed, usually metaphorical reiteration of the narrative circumstances. The best example of this is the aphoristic commentary with which "Ein Landarzt" concludes: "Einmal dem Fehlläuten der Nachtglocke gefolgt - es ist niemals gutzumachen" (£, 140). Far from "explaining" what transpires in the story, this remark simply summarizes it in a succinct and matter-of-fact manner: the inexplicable remains inexplicable. Cf. Wilhelm Emrich, Franz Kafka (Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1965), p. 77, who also sees the distinguishing mark of Kafka's parables as their "emptiness" of "background."

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parables retain many of the textual features typical of the parabolic, qualities which Heinz Hillmann summarizes as "eine gewisse vom Detail absehende Vereinfachung, Abstraktion, Allgemeinheit, Knappheit und Kürze." 17 These characteristics, however, do not necessarily serve to distinguish Kafka's parables from his other narratives, and the most pronounced points of contrast are ultimately the diminutive form of the parabolic stories and their formal objectivity, expressed, of course, in a narrative perspective which, in contrast to the perspectivistic narratives, is distanced from, and external to, the narrated circumstances. It is this shift from internal to external perspective which Sokel has analyzed in some detail, charting the gradual shift from subjectivity to objectivity that accompanies it.18 He demonstrates on the example of the stories from the Landarzt volume how these texts display a gradual increase in narrative objectivity when examined in the chronological order of their composition,19 and he suggests that Kafka's first-person narrative "Berichte" represent a transitional stage between perspectivistic narration and the third-person objective narratives of Kafka's later period.20 This development is significant in our context because a similar increase in the objectivity of narrative stance can be discerned in Kafka's parabolic texts composed in the Oktavhefte in 1917. With the exception of "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft," a parable which, like "Vor dem Gesetz," derives its third-person narrative objectivity from the fact that it is narrated within the framework of a larger tale, the parables from the earlier notebooks employ the first-person form. The more strictly objective and distanced narration of the third person occurs for the first time in the four parables written simultaneously with the aphorisms in the third Oktavheft ("Prometheus," "Das Schweigen der Sirenen," "Die Wahrheit über Sancho Pansa," "Eine alltägliche Verwirrung"). Three of these parables appropriate traditional or mythological motives which they, in the style of the contra-dictory aphorism, then radically subvert. The distanced objectivity of narrative stance evident in these texts is almost totally absent in Kafka's earlier works. However, this perspective reappears in many of the parables written in 1920 ("Das Stadtwappen," "Nachts," "Poseidon," "Der Kreisel," "Kleine Fabel"), so that this turn to formal objectivity appears to reflect the considerable influence of Kafka's explorations into the outwardly objective form of the aphorism. 17

18

19 20

Heinz Hillmann, Franz Kafka: Dichtungstheorie und Dichtungsgestalt, 2nd ed., Bonner Arbeiten zur deutschen Literatur, 9 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1973), p. 165. Sokel, "Das Verhältnis der Erzählperspektive zu Erzählgeschehen und Sinngehalt," pp. 267-300. Sokel, "Verhältnis," pp. 299-300. Sokel, "Verhältnis," p. 275; cf. also Hillmann, Dichtungstheorie und Dichtungsgestalt, p. 189. 271

Kafka's move to a strictly objective form of narration in the parables composed in those periods in which he was also occupied with the composition of aphorisms lends some support to the notion that his experiments with aphoristic discourse reflect explorations into discursive possibilities which will ultimately be applied in his fictional narratives. In fact, those aphoristic texts which I have termed Kafka's "suggestive metaphors" are the aphoristic counterparts of the objectified parabolic narratives. These texts, as I have already argued, mark the transition from aphoristic reflection to parabolic narrative. This brings us, finally, to an awareness of a central element of formal convergence between aphorism and parable: the fundamental definitional feature of the aphorism, its productive tension between the rhetorical objectivity of its discursive posture and the free subjectivity of its content, is also constitutive of Kafka's parabolic texts. Formal "closure" and contentual "openness," finality and infinity, intersect in both of these textual forms. Kafka's "open" parables, of course, are representative of the modern parable in general,21 a literary form which can be conceived as a narrative appropriation of the characteristics of aphoristic expression. Kafka was continually dogged, as we have seen, by the conflicting requirements of artistic closure and indeterminate significance: it was through his occupation with aphoristic discourse that he finally discovered a literary practice that would permit him to harmonize these distinctive aims. It is not until his later period, after the experiments with the aphorisms, that Kafka evolves a consistent strategy which permits him to adjudicate his demand for formal closure in his fiction with the requirement that the text remain undogmatically "open." Thus only after 1917 did Kafka, in the words of J. J. White, find "ways of successfully closing 'without finality'."22 Parable and aphorism both derive an "air" of finality from their formal allusions to the didactic forms of fable and proverb; they retain, so to speak, a formal rhetorical gesture of determinacy and closure, what F lleborn has called a "Sprachgestus der Belehrung."23 But indeterminacy of content contrasts with these formal indicators, so that the parables, like the open aphorism, avoid all dogmatic moralizing, while, at the same time, incorporating a linguistic gesture of dogmatism, of persuasive assertiveness, of didactic force. It is this tension between the promise of a definitive message and the withholding of the same which Frank Kermode has described as the simultaneous proclama-

21

22 23

For a good description of the nature of the modern "open" parable, see Richard M. Eastman, "The Open Parable: Demonstration and Definition," College English, 22 (1960-61), 15-18. J· J· White, "Endings and Non-endings in Kafka's Fiction," On Κάβα: SemiCentenary Perspectives, ed. Franz Kuna (London: Paul Elek, 1976), p. 159. F lleborn, p. 294.

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tion and concealment characteristic of the parable.24 In the present context it cannot be emphasized enough that this same double movement is fundamental to the open aphorism of the German tradition, so that it was one of the few established literary forms capable of transmitting to Kafka the effectiveness of this strategy. Surely Kafka recognized the appropriateness of this double-move for the issues central to his art. It is in this sense, then, that Kafka's experiments with the form of the aphorism can be construed as structural and formal etudes which were requisite for the maturation of his narrative art. At this point in the exposition of the argument it is felicitous to turn to some more general considerations about the relationships between aphorism and parable in modernist literature, without, however, losing sight of Kafka's literary practice as manifest in his aphoristic and parabolic texts. To be sure, definitions of the modern parable, at least, have been shaped more by analyses of Kafka's parabolic texts than vice versa, so that most of our observations on the character of the modern parable are relevant to Kafka's parabolic fiction. There has been considerable debate among scholars regarding the position of the modern parable vis-a-vis its traditional, principally Biblical ancestor. For the most part, the traditional parable has been classified under the rubric of didactic literature of the sort best exemplified in the Aesopian fable. Thus the traditional parable has been designated as a " Lehrparabel," and the modern parable, where all didactic intent is absent, has been called a "Vorgangsparabel."25 This differentiation corresponds closely to the formal distinction drawn above between "closed," definitive, contextually secured parable, and "open," indeterminate, infinitely interpretable parable. Some scholars, however, have been quick to point out that such distinctions cannot be drawn on a rigorously historical basis, since even traditional Biblical parables can be shown to exploit textual opacity and "openness." Frank Kermode, by way of example, views indeterminacy as one of the textual strategies exploited in the Biblical parable to effect a segregation of "insiders" from "outsiders"; narrative obscurity thus functions as a form of conscious censorship which restricts "understanding" to those who, because they are a part of the covenant, can bring the "correct" interpretive horizon to bear on the text. The insiders, then, have the information which allows them to pass from the manifest surface of the text to its latent, interior significance, while the outsiders can never pass beyond its manifest surface.26 Kermode employs 24

25 26

Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative. (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1979), p. 47. Norbert Miller, "Moderne Parabel?," Akzente, 6 (1959), 211. Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy, pp. 2-9. 273

terminology borrowed from Freud's analyses of the dream-text to describe the superficial and internal dimensions of hermeneutical understanding with regard to parabolic narratives. Klaus-Peter Philippi uses the phrases "Bildhälfte" and "Sachhälfte" to refer to these same levels of manifest and latent sense in parabolic discourse, emphasizing that the parable presents merely the "Bildhälfte," leaving the "Sachhälfte" to be divined in the act of interpretation.27 Whereas Kermode argues that membership in a covenant supplies the keys to the fathoming of latent sense, Philippi, following the position traditionally taken by Biblical hermeneutics, claims that the latent sense is comprehensible only within the historical context in which the parable was initially embedded. The modern parable can be distinguished from its traditional counterpart by the fact that it knows no "insiders" - it consciously and automatically refuses or relativizes all attempts to derive a latent sense from the manifest text. If for Philippi and Biblical hermeneutics history has merely eroded the latent sense that originally was an integral part of the parable in its historical context, the modern parable is born, so to speak, as a historical orphan, withstanding all attempts at definitive contextualization which would dissolve the manifest text into latent sense. In other words, lacking any universalizing or communalizing "covenant," every attempt at "translating" manifest text into latent sense ultimately throws the interpreter back onto the "Bildhälfte": the image, the text, refuses to disappear behind the interpretive commentary. In this sense the modern parable can be said either to reject any latent sense, or to embrace all serious efforts to uncover a (but not the) hidden meaning. The first of these options is effectively portrayed in Kafka's "Von den Gleichnissen" where the parabolic demand that one "cross over" from manifest to latent sense is shown to be inherently unfollowable. The option of unlimitied interpretability, which is the complement to this impenetrability, is depicted in the exegetical permutations of the parable "Vor dem Gesetz" profferred by Josef K. and the Chaplain. In both instances the parable takes on the character of an insoluble riddle, of an oracular statement whose meaning, which one is driven to divine, remains inscrutable. This oracle-like quality, we recall, has also been attributed to the aphorism, and it is assoicated with the Hebrew mashal as well, the traditional parabolic form most commonly viewed as the closest relative to the modern or Kafkan parable.28 Both mashal and open parable - and their relationship to the 27

28

Klaus-Peter Philippi, "Parabolisches Erzählen," DVjs, 43 (1969), 309; cf. also Brettschneider, Die moderne deutsche Parabel, p. 10. On the connections between parable and mashal, see Kermode, p. 23; Brettschneider, p. 53; on the mashal as the model for Kafka's parables, see Brettschneider, p. 52; Fülleborn, p. 310.

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initiative aphorism should be clear in this respect - are concerned with the presentation of possibilities rather than certainties, with the posing of questions rather than the supplying of answers. Wo Frage, Chancen, Möglichkeiten durch einen Vorgang versinnlicht werden, bleibt die Form offen. Beispiel und Deutung bleiben Wesenselemente, doch sie zielen auf Diskussion, Frage und Denkanstoß hin: statt Gewißheit Zweifel, statt Erkenntnis Agnostik, statt Predigt Konfession eines Suchenden, wofür Kafka das bewegendste Beispiel ist.29

Brettschneider's summary description of the open parable could also serve as a characterization of the initiative aphorism as it evolved out of Francis Bacon's theoretical model. Kafka's parables, as Brettschneider justifiably maintains, are paradigmatic examples of the modern "open" parable. This recognition has become a commonplace in Kafka-criticism. However, the parallel recognition - namely, that Kafka's aphorisms are paradigmatic examples of the initiative "open" aphorism - has up until now been successfully repressed by Kafka-scholarship. In what follows I will, for the sake of convenience, refer to the "modern" open, oracular, riddle-like form of the parable simply as "parable" (adhering to the practice applied throughout of designating the initiative aphorism simply as "aphorism" in those instances where further distinction was not necessary); the closed, didactic form of this genre will be termed the "dogmatic parable," a phrase I have chosen because of its parallelism to Bacon's distinction between initiative and dogmatic methods. Our investigation has thus far uncovered a number of significant points of contact between aphorism and parable. These are, above all, the provocative intent of parable and aphorism; the related demand for completion or hermeneutical application realized in the act of reception; the opposition to, contra-diction of, or operation outside of, traditional or ideological valuesystems or knowledge interests. To these traits constituted primarily in the interpretive event we can add certain textual or structural features such as the centrality of paradox, the insistence on metaphor, an exaggerated tension between closed form and open significance, and the conscious exploitation of the productive interplay of principles of linguistic contiguity and similarity. I will address each of these issues individually in order to arrive at a more detailed picture of the nature of the modern parable and its coincidence with the form of the aphorism. I will refer briefly to Kafka's parables throughout, and then close my investigation with a thorough structural analysis of the parable "Auf der Galerie" that will attempt to lend concrete substance to the theoretical arguments presented here.

Brettschneider, p. 68.

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Distinctions between the open and dogmatic parable have commonly relied either consciously or unconsciously on matters of textual reception, on the interaction between the text and its reader/audience. In my discussion of the nature of aphoristic discourse I termed this interaction the text-external dialectic of the aphorism, and I analyzed what I called the aphorism's strategies of involvement. This same dialectic, manifest in identical strategies of involvement, can be discerned in the discourse of the parable. Provocation of the reader into active participation in the process of constituting meaning is, of course, operational in the dogmatic parable as well. Here, however, the participation of the audience is enlisted for didactic ends: the "disciples" thrive on the illusion that they have created a meaning which, in fact, has actually been supplied for them. In this instance the audience merely discovers the latent sense that lies under the textual surface. Hence to formulate the participation which the modern parable requires of its reader simply in terms of completion, as, for example, Philippi does,30 does not really get to the heart of the matter. Similarly, to characterize the provocativeness of the open parable in terms of its tendency to pose questions instead of providing answers is not accurate enough to draw a clear distinction between open and dogmatic parabolic strategies. Even the dogmatic parable poses a question; the difference, however, is that in the final analysis its question turns out to be a rhetorical one, programmed to evoke a particular answer.31 It is more precise to conceive of the "questioning" aspect of the parable as a "puttinginto-question," i. e. as a provocation which, like that of the aphorism, demands a confrontation with the given and accepted, or requires that one challenge fundamental assumptions, destroying the stable ground on which one stands.32 Thus the parable, like the aphorism, provokes in such a way that it unsettles; it unbinds the secure, questions the obvious, and doubts the given. Its purpose is not persuasion, nor is it dissuasion perpetrated with some particular aim in mind; rather it seeks what we might term "a-suasion": the undermining and abandoning of any and all dogmatically fixed points, the ovethrowing of systems of secure beliefs and knowledge interests, destabilization of the static in the name of productive dynamism. Contradiction and critical, sceptical questioning, hence, are the functional 30 31

32

Philippi, p. 316. The "questioning" aspect of the modern parable is emphasized by Erwin Wäsche, Die verrätselte Welt: Ursprung der Parabel: Lessing - Dostojewski) - Kafka. Deutsche Studien, Bd. 28 (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1976), pp. 15 & 21. Cf. Brettschneider, p. 9; John D. Crossan, "Parable, Allegory, and Paradox," Semiology and Parables: An Exploration of the Possibilities offered by Structuralism for Exegesis, ed. Daniel Patte, Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series, No. 9 (Pittsburgh: The Pickwick Press, 1976), p. 260.

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principles behind the provocativeness of parable and aphorism. In literary or text-strategic terms this contradictory thrust expresses itself in the undermining of expectations, be these expectations predicated on general conventions of social or intellectual interaction, or expectations that have been programmed by patterns in the text itself.33 Kafka's mythological parables manifest in exemplary fashion the subversion of expectations conditioned by cultural tradition. His Poseidon, for example, in the parable of the same name, is no longer a glorified divinity who rules over the seas, but merely a frantic bureaucrat so swamped with work that he has never even seen the waters he ostensibly controls.34 Regarding expectations evoked by structures and patterns internal to the text itself, our analysis of "Auf der Galerie" will demonstrate how the textual composition of this parable is structured in such a way as to establish in the reader the expectation of certain patterns which the text, in a subtle set of reversals, calculatedly disappoints. At evidence in this parable, and in many other modern parables, is a form of textual reversal which does not merely invert, but which initiates a continuing "revolution" in textual sense; a kind of interpretive circularity of perpetual motion is introduced into what at first appears to be a static and architechtonic textual system. While contradiction of established values and the undermining of textually programmed expectations serve to unmoor standard referential contexts, opening up "vacant" space to be filled in the act of reception, it is crucial to keep in mind that in open aphorism and parable this dislodging of the stable does not occur for particular ideological ends. Aphorism and parable are notoriously and consistently contrary; they are sophistic insofar as they seek to argue for argument's sake. This problematization of any stable position indeed, of the very possibility of "positions" per se - clearly differentiates initiative aphorism and open parable from their dogmatic, didactic counterparts. This distinction can best be approached through an analysis of the applicative function as it operates in the interpretive event. It is precisely their didacticism which lends dogmatic parable and fable a pronounced ap-

33

34

On the importance of the disappointing of expectations for the parable, see Crossan, "Parable, Allegory, and Paradox," p. 253, and also his study The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story (Niles, Illinois: Argus Communications, 1975), p. 66. Much has been made of this contra-dictory stance in Kafka's parables, and it need not be taken up again here; see, for example, Theo Elm, "Problematisierte Hermeneutik: Zur Uneigentlichkeit in Kafkas kleiner Prosa," DVji, 50 (1976), 489 & 497; Dietrich Krusche, Kafka und Kafka-Deutung: Die prohlematisierte Interaktion, Kritische Information, 5 (Munich: Fink, 1974), pp. 20, 94, & 97-8; Dieter Hasselblatt, Zauber und Logik: Eine Kafka Studie (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1964), p. 128. 277

plicative function; after all, they seek either to reinforce or to alter the beliefs and actions of the individuals who enter into an interpretive interaction with the text, bringing them into line with some defined general standard. This is the sense in which dogmatic parable, like the integrative aphorism, tends toward moralization; and just as the movement from individual belief to universal standard is problematized in the initiative aphorism, the modern open parable also puts into question the very encompassing force of this integrative movement. The dogmatic parable and aphorism, then, when they are optimally effective, would evoke the same applicative response in each reader, eliminating individual difference. Initiative aphorism and open parable, in contradistinction to this, highlight and perpetuate individual difference by allowing - demanding - personal or individual reactions in each separate act of reception. There is no longer a stable, totalizing "meaning" which functions as the latent thread that ties together the diverse in a harmonious community; a singular "meaning" gives way to multiple, infinite applicative "significances," each constituted in a singular act of reception and interpretation. Each reader is encouraged to refer the text to that relational context which is applicable to her/his individual circumstances. The same reader, presumably, could draw varied significances from a single text in historically different readings. Stability and centeredness are supplanted by fluidity, flux, and difference; the text is ec-centric, it leads the reader out of the center and promotes the diffuse.35 W. H. Auden has described this individuality of interpretive response called forth by the parable, claiming that the interpreter can "only reveal himself . . . What he writes will be a description of what the parable has done to him; of what it may do to others he does not and cannot have any idea."36 Robert Funk also confirms that the "openness" of the parable refers to its applicative openness in the hermeneutical sense, emphasizing that a static, crystalized tradition produces closure of meaning and limitation of application, this ultimately bespeaking a loss of hermeneutical potential and productivity.37 Roy Pascal has expressed an identical view with regard to the Kafkan parable, maintaining that it "has innumerable applications and the reader tests its truth against other types of experience through which a familiar and understood world suddenly reveals

35

36

37

On the destabilizing aim of the open parable, see Eastman, "The Open Parable," p. 18 W. H. Auden, from The Dyer's Hand; quoted by William G. Doty, "The Parables of Jesus, Kafka, Borges and Others," Society of Biblical Literature: 1973 Seminar Papers, ed. George MacRae (Cambridge, Mass: Society of Biblical Literature, 1973), II, 121. Robert W. Funk, "The Parable as Metaphor," Language, Hermeneutic, and Word God (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), pp. 133-6.

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unexpected disorder and threats."38 Kafka's turn to the forms of the aphorism and the parable, then, represent different, yet intimately related, attempts to problematize traditional interpretive conceptions that rely on determinacy of meaning and commonality of significance.39 If the aporia of hermeneutical understanding, the impossibility of reconciliation between general stable "meaning" and individual fluid "significance," can be associated with any single outstanding textual strategy or logical structure endemic to both aphorism and parable, then this is certainly the form of paradox. We have already discussed the importance of paradox for Kafka's aphorisms and indicated the characteristic recursiveness of Kafka's "gliding" paradox which, by almost inconspicuously deviating from pure inversion, effects a perpetual motion which marks out an interpretive space between oppositional elements, refusing to rest at one or the other of the opposing poles. Kafka's parables, and the modern parable in general, are fundamentally concerned with the space of this recursive paradoxicality, this "gap" which, in the words of Heinz Politzer, they "perpetuate . . . in an insoluble dilemma."40 Politzer insists on the centrality of paradox for the modern parable, and especially for its Kafkan manifestation, and he suggests that the distinction between the modern, enigmatic parable and its traditional didactic counterpart is the supplanting of the latter's didactic message by paradox in the former.41 Alwin Baum likewise points to the intrinsic integrity of parable and paradox in Kafka's parables.42 Hence where the dogmatic parable presents mediation between individual and general, between concrete portrayal ("Bildhälfte") and abstract understanding ("Sachhälfte"), the modern initiative parable shrinks from such mediation. John Crossan distinguishes myth and parable on the basis of just this feature, asserting that myth mediates between seemingly irreconcilable opposites, establishing the possibility of reconciliation, whereas the parable creates irreconcilability where mediation seemed self-evident.43 He goes on to claim that it is essential to the parable that it challenge the principle of reconciliation itself.44 Now it is precisely such refusal of reconciliation which Gerhard Neumann posits as the definitional characteristic of the transcendental-moralistic German aphorism. In both parable and aphorism paradox is the textual feature or logical struc38

39 40 4! 42

43 44

Roy Pascal, Kafka's Narrators: A Study of his Stories and Sketches (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982), p. 161. Cf. Theo Elm, "Problematisierte Hermeneutik," pp.492 & 498. Heinz Politzer, Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox, p. 86. Politizer, p. 85. Alwin L. Baum, "Parable as Paradox in Kafka's Erzählungen," MLN, 91 (1976), 1332. Crossan, The Dark Interval, pp. 47-55. Crossan, The Dark Interval, p. 57.

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ture which points to and underscores this problem of incommensurability and irreconcilability. While the dogmatic parable is intent on equalizing and adjudicating, on "setting equal" as implied in the word "Gleichnis," the radicalized initiative parable insists on difference through the structures of paradox and deviation; it opens up and preserves a rift which interferes with the smooth transferral of meaning and disrupts simple acts of communication. While paradox is the logical feature most frequently associated with aphorism and parable, metaphor is the poetic trait most fundamental to its discourse. The phrase "Bildhälfte" in reference to the manifest text of the parable hints at the centrality of metaphorical image; in fact, the parable is typically viewed as an "extended metaphor" or, emphasizing the narrative aspect of the genre, "eine in Szene gesetzte Metapher."45 While both dogmatic and open forms of the parable rely heavily on the principle of metaphor, there remains a quintessential difference in the function and operation of their metaphoricity: whereas the didactic parable seeks to exploit the process of metaphorical transferral between vehicle and tenor, harnessing the energy of this process in order to effect transferral in the reader/disciple who then will correctly move from image to its doctrinarily sanctioned "meaning," the open parable seeks to thwart and disrupt this operation of transferral. It accomplishes this through what has come to be called an absolutization of metaphor: the metaphorical vehicle asserts its independence from any tenor or reference. Henry Sussman aptly characterizes this metamorphosis of the metaphorical function in Kafka's literature, and his remarks apply to the modern parable in general. "For Kafka, the metaphor does not transport significance from vehicle to tenor; it resides in the between-space linking yet separating the most incongruous parts."46 "Absolute" metaphor, paradoxically, actually functions as a neutralization of metaphor, i. e. as a refusal of metaphorical transferral and metaphorical trans-reference.47 Such aborted metaphor, as Sussman's remark makes clear, buttresses and re-enacts the repression of reconciliation and interruption of mediation which paradox effects in the logical structure of the parable. In this sense we discover that metaphor and paradox, the two central principles operational in parabolic texts, work in tandem to halt mediation, confining one to the "betweenspace," the no-person's land between concrete image and abstractable mean-

45

46 47

Alwin Baum, "Parable as Paradox," p. 1332, and Norbert Miller, "Moderne Parabel," p. 202, respectively. Sussman, p. 33. This quality has led to the assertion that Kafka's "absolute" metaphors are not metaphors at all, but rather "metonymies"; cf., for example, Roman Karst, "Kafka und die Metapher," Literatur und Kritik, 180 (1983), 472-80, esp. p. 474.

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ing. We recall at this point the crisis of the in-between which Kafka experienced in all its intensity in the year 1917, i.e. at the time when he began to work intensively with the forms of aphorism and parable. Kafka's response to his own crisis, then, is to experiment with two textual forms which insist on the neither-nor and both-and space of the in-between, problematizing reconciliation and mediation in their structural devices and textual strategies. This space-between is marked off by the intersection of paradox and metaphor in these texts, by the confluence of aborted logic and aborted metaphor. The preceding discussion has led us back to the concepts of contiguity and similarity, metonymy and metaphor, which, freely applying the dichotomy expounded by Roman Jakobson, we previously incorporated into our definition of the operation of aphoristic discourse. It was my contention that the aphorism can be designated as a textual type which presents in concentrated form the interplay of, or conflict between, metaphorical and metonymical principles. I would now like to extend this definition to include what I have termed Kafka's "suggestive" or Gestalt metaphors, as well as his parabolic texts. The interplay between principles of contiguity and similarity manifests itself in these texts in the interaction of "gliding paradox" and disrupted or disruptive metaphor. Applying Jakobson's terminology, we can describe this recursive paradox as a form of contiguity disorder, uprooted metaphor as a kind of similarity disorder. What is unique about Kafka's parables and many of his aphorisms is that these two "disorders" occur simultaneously, and it is their interaction which constitutes the effectiveness of these texts. I will now try to describe in more detail the nature of the hermeneutical effect of this conjunction of deformed contiguity and disrupted similarity. In his essay on the role of metaphor in the parable, Robert Funk maintains that metaphor plays a strategically disruptive role, subverting and thus modifying tradition, shattering "the conventions of prediction in the interests of a new union, one which grasps the 'thing' in relation to a new 'field,' and thus in relation to a fresh experience of reality."48 In this conception metaphor sets into motion a productive meditative dynamism in which the given, prosaic, and commonplace is newly contextualized and thus lent a sense of the uncommon and unknown. 49 By locating the effect of metaphor in the relating of "thing" to a new "field," Funk obviously is implying a relational function which comes into play in the moment of reception. Pro48 49

Robert Funk, "The Parable as Metaphor," p. 139. I am consciously alluding once again to Novalis's definition of the power of "romanticization" in order to evoke the interdependence of aphoristic-parabolic "provocation" and hermeneutical theory as evolved by the German Romantics. 281

gress in human knowledge, Funk believes, occurs only by means of deformation and destabilization of the traditionally (ideologically) accepted and given; metaphor is the primary instrument in this struggle against the static. But if metaphor, even in its traditional form, is "subversive" to the extent that it can freely establish new relations, then the disrupted, uprooted, or "absolute" metaphor common to modernist poetics is not merely subversive, but anarchical; this is because it unleashes an enormous interpretive potential, a potential which is unguided by the text, and which thus can be realized at different moments of reception in ever-different concrete ways. As Funk describes it, metaphor "endeavors to let the next one see what the previous one saw but to see it in his own way. As a result it opens onto a plurality of situations, a diversity of audiences, and the future. It does not foreclose but discloses the future."50 Funk, with good reason, is not willing to abandon that balance between creative and receptive "steering" of the interpretive act which is typical of hermeneutical theory and practice; hence he emphasizes the communicative nature of the parabolic-metaphoric endeavor. The issue of communication, of course, is central to Kafka, and it also figures prominently in the evolution of aphoristic expression, and its application. What Funk describes in terms of the transferral of a personal insight in such a way that it takes on personal significance for the reader in the act of reception, I have, in my discussion of the aphorism of epiphany, portrayed as the transferral of the epiphanic experience from the creator to the reader of the text. Kafka recognized throughout his life the danger of metaphor, this danger lying precisely in the potential "anarchism" of metaphorical abandon. Funk, likewise, in his characterization of the role of metaphor in parabolic discourse, is aware that "anarchistic" metaphor runs the risk of upsetting the delicate hermeneutical balance between textual production and textual reception which defines the limits of communication; thus he insists that the parable embodies an interplay between an effort to stabilize discourse in rational terms, and an equal and opposite effort to deform and destabilize it.51 Translating this conception of balance into the terminology employed here, we can summarize Funk's insight with the claim that in the modern parable metaphorical rupture is counterbalanced by structures of contiguity. Thus the productive interplay of "metonymic" and "metaphoric" principles is essential to the hermeneutical effect of the parable, as it is for the aphorism as well. This strategic struggle between contiguity and similarity has an explicit purpose which is realized in the moment of reception; it strives for a

50 51

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Funk, pp. 142-3; cf. also p. 151. Funk, pp. 141-2.

communicative transfer which remains totally undogmatic, allowing for an "understanding" which is both shared and personal, communal and individual. Scholars have typically remarked that the parable, aside from its reliance on metaphor, is equally dependent on strict and clearly discernible structures. This requirement accounts for the general sense that the parable avoids detailed, mimetic description - it is "fraught with background," to cite Auerbach's memorable phrase. This demand for reduction to simple structures or formulae is prominent in Brettschneider's summary of the "Sprachgesetze" of the modern parable: "Aussparen, Weglassen, den überquellenden Stoff auf Formeln und Gleichungen zurückführen, antinaturalistisch und verfremdend - Gesetze, deren Analogie zu denen der modernen Wissenschaft nicht zufällig ist."52 Henry Sussman has suggested a similar association of parabolic discourse with the methods of modern science or mathematics, characterizing Kafka's parabolic stories from the Landarzt volume onward as "sketches [that] have the elegance of precise geometrical proofs."53 And Sussman's provocative description of Kafka as a "geometrician of metaphor" summarizes succinctly the confluence of reduced structure and metaphorical extension that is typical of his parabolic texts and of aphorism and parable as genres. Yet we must keep in mind that the "logic" of Kafka's geometry is itself "flawed," avoiding such neat structures as pure opposition or pure paradox; just as his application of metaphor is "deviant" in its own way. The notion of "modelling" has often been applied to describe the manner in which patterns of contiguity function in the parable.54 The concept of the "model" allows for an analysis of the productive interplay between contiguity and similarity that is characteristic of the parable, as well as for an examination of the distribution of similarity and contiguity functions between creative and receptive moments of the hermeneutical endeavor. The confluence of horizontal structuring and vertical reference in the parabolic model can be illuminated by a consideration of the original meaning and function of the "symbolus."55 Originally a "symbolus" was an object or token divided up and distributed among the members of a sect, community, or other defined group. While possession of a fragment of the symbolus "represents" Brettschneider, p. 71. Sussman, p. 27; cf. also Wäsche, p. 50. See Doty, "The Parables of Jesus, Kafka, Borges and Others," p. 130; Karl-Werner Mahler, "Eigentliche und uneigentliche Darstellung in der modernen Epik: Der parabolische Stil Franz Kafkas," Diss. Marburg 1958, pp. 34-5, 46, 56; Hillmann, pp. 163-4. The relevance of this concept for the parable has been pointed out by Alwin Baum, p. 1332, who, however, draws different conclusions from this relevance than I do here.

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membership in the group, this membership is in fact proven only by the part-to-part or part-to-whole contiguity of the fragment to the other fragments that constitute the whole. In other words, the individual piece only signifies membership once a synechdochal or metonymic relationship demonstrates its role in the composition of the whole. Each fragment thus "signifies" only once it has been closed off in the structure of the whole. In much the same way the "fragments," i. e. the individual elements, of a parabolic text do not signify independent of their order within the textual whole. The metaphorical or significational function of the parable, hence, is subordinate to the pattern of structural modelling that is manifest in the text: as in Kafka's suggestive metaphors, coherent structural or Gestalt patterns are the prerequisite for the proper functioning of that process of analogical transferral which allows the communication of a structural essence that can be variously fleshed out in each act of reception or interpretation. Whereas allegory, to take a relevant counter-example, subordinates contiguity to the referential function so that each allegorical element carries its "meaning" in and of itself, in the parable signification of the individual elements is deferred in favor of configural definition, so that signification occurs only after the structure has been constituted. In other words, whereas in allegory vertical signification takes precedence over horizontal contiguity, in the parable this order is reversed, and this allows the parable to signifiy as a structure, i. e. as a Gestalt configuration: signification rests in the constituted structural whole, not in the individual part.56 This deferral of signification until the structure has been constituted allows for the. "multi-valency" of the parabolic text; the only requirement which new interpretive or applicative significances must fulfill in order to demonstrate their validity is that of commensurability of structure: the structure of the applicative context must be congruous with the structure exemplified in the textual model, just as the structure of the parable "Vor dem Gesetz" reiterates the structure of the novelistic context in which it initially occurs. Gestalt contiguity remains a constant throughout all appropriate interpretations. The individual elements which fill out the structure are mere place-holders or mathematical variables: the substitution of one variable in the place of another effects a change in "values" for all the other variables in the parabolic "equation." Parabolic "Gleichnis" takes on the character of a parabolic "Gleichung": and it is this structural equation, this Gestalt model, which allows for variability of application while at the same time assuring that interpretation is guided or steered, keeping at bay the threat of the anarchical and non-communicative.57 56

57

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The preeminence of horizontal over vertical relations in the operation of the parable has also been emphasized by Funk, p. 147, and Mahler, pp.34-5. Roy Pascal has pointed out the relevance of this process of structuration for Kaf-

Parabolic discourse, according to Erwin Wäsche, reflects a "Kompromiß zwischen dem Sprechenmüssen und dem Nicht-mehr-Sprechenkönnen,"58 and this comment illuminates the parallel positions of aphorism and parable with regard to the crisis of communication, a crisis which Kafka described in terms of the drive to express what was inherently inexpressible. I have already argued that Kafka's "suggestive" metaphors, as they occur in many of the aphoristic texts, evolve as an attempt at resolving this crisis of communication. In the period in which he concerned himself primarily with the textual forms of aphorism and parable, Kafka, to quote Ulrich Gaier, "found a language which [could] speak from essence to essence, reality to reality."59 This dialogue from individual to individual that is not compromised by the depersonalizing aspect of communication is accomplished by the exploitation of Gestalt patterns, of structural contiguity, for an essentially metaphorical end: the preeminence of contiguity over similarity in the constitution of the text evokes operations of similarity in the act of reception. In this instance, however, individual textual elements no longer signify independent of their relationships to the textual whole, and signification occurs through the process of structural analogy. The suggestive metaphors of Kafka's aphorisms clearly form the cross-over point between the reflective, meditative discourse of the aphorism and the narrative, fictional discourse of the parables. In general the Kafkan parable, as I hope I have demonstrated, retains structures, strategies, and intellectual presuppositions indicative of his turn to aphoristic expression. Indeed, the aphorism provided Kafka with a practical discursive model through which he could come to understand the relevance of the strategic textual interplay between contiguity and similarity, metonymy and metaphor, "logic" and "enchantment." His experiments with the form of the aphorism reached fruition in the adoption of its textual practices for application to the narrative discourse of the parable. The final task remaining for this investigation is to supplement with a practical example the foregoing theoretical exposition of the Kafkan parable and the relevance of the strategies of aphoristic discourse in its textual operations. It would take us too far beyond the confines of the present study to attempt a detailed investigation into the concrete overlaps between Kafka's aphoristic and parabolic texts. At best I can adumbrate in summary fashion a few points that seem particularly relevant in the context of our examination of Kafka's aphorisms. In my discussion of the logical structures typical of Kafka's aphoristic

58 59

ka's parables, claiming that Kafka's purpose in composing these texts "was to create a model for many situations" (p. 161). Wäsche, Die verrätselte Welt, p. 49. Ulrich Gaier, "Chorus of Lies: On Interpreting Kafka," GLL, 22 (1968-69), 295. 285

texts, I indicated the recurrence of three patterns - retraction, exclusion, and preclusion - which, while common to Kafka's aphorisms, are not characteristically found in the texts of other aphorists. These structural or logical patterns, not coincidentally, also figure prominently as structural models in Kafka's parabolic narratives. Exclusion, for example, is paradigmatically in evidence in Kafka's parable on parables, "Von den Gleichnissen," portrayed in the absolute incommensurability of the opposing positions of "parable" and "reality." The dialogue which concludes this text, far from mediating these positions and bringing resolution, serves rather to reinforce the irreconcilability of the two positions: the dialogic partners cannot talk to, but only past one another.60 The parable "Eine alltägliche Verwirrung" is structured primarily on this principle of exclusion and incommensurability, projected into the dimensions of time and space. The structure of retraction is exemplified in the parable "Das Schweigen der Sirenen"; for while this text explicitly purports to supply "Beweis . . ., daß auch unzulängliche, ja kindische Mittel zur Rettung dienen können" (H, 78), it concludes with an "appendix" which directly and consciously contradicts this "proof." Es wird übrigens noch ein Anhang hierzu überliefert. Odysseus, sagt man, war so listenreich, war ein solcher Fuchs, daß selbst die Schicksalsgöttin nicht in sein Innerstes dringen konnte. Vielleicht hat er, obwohl das mit Menschenverstand nicht mehr zu begreifen ist, wirklich gemerkt, daß die Sirenen schwiegen, und hat ihnen und den Göttern den obigen Scheinvorgang nur gewissermaßen als Schild entgegengehalten. (H, 79-80)

According to the appendix it is not naive faith in his "Mittelchen" (H, 78) that saves Odysseus, but rather his tactical insight and slyness. By shifting perspectives the appendix proposes a conclusion which, due to its contradiction of the supposed "lesson" of the text, forces a re-reading that admits of this new interpretation. Yet the two interpretations remain irreconcilable, and thus they indeed do overtax the synthesizing powers of "Menschenverstand." This refusal of synthesis, however, calls forth an interminable process of interpretation, an activity which then occurs in the space marked off by the opposing interpretations suggested by the text. Preclusion also occurs frequently in Kafka's parables, the best examples being perhaps "Kleine Fabel" and "Der Kreisel." In the former text, for instance, the solution to the mouse's dilemma (the ostensibly shrinking size of the world) is profferred in the same instant as it becomes irrelevant: the cat asserts "Du mußt nur die Laufrichtung ändern" (BeK, 121), and then promptly eats the mouse. Similarly, in the parable "Der Kreisel" (BeK, 120) 60

Dietrich Krusche believes that in Kafka's works dialogue is always a sign of such irreconcilability; see Kafka und Kafka-Deutung, p. 53.

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the philosopher is obsessed with the spinning top, desperate to discover the secret of its motion; as soon as the top begins to spin, however, he picks it up to examine it, dispelling its magic and turning it into a "stupid piece of wood." His own attempt to examine and understand the phenomenon of the spinning top precludes and nullifies the very possibility of such understanding. I have made brief reference to the parallel occurrence of these typical structures in Kafka's aphorisms and parables solely in order to point out some of the concrete moments of structural overlap. In order to indicate in more substantial detail some of the profounder coincidences between the textual strategies of Kafka's aphorisms and those of his parables, I will analyze one parabolic text, "Auf der Galerie," highlighting the operational interplay between structural, contiguous elements and principles of metaphor or similarity. Auf der Galerie Wenn irgendeine hinfällige, lungensüchtige Kunstreiterin in der Manege auf schwankendem Pferd vor einem unermüdlichen Publikum vom peitschenschwingenden erbarmungslosen Chef monatelang ohne Unterbrechung im Kreise rundum getrieben würde, auf dem Pferde schwirrend, Küsse werfend, in der Taille sich wiegend, und wenn dieses Spiel unter dem nichtaussetzenden Brausen des Orchesters und der Ventilatoren in die immerfort weiter sich öffnende graue Zukunft sich fortsetzte, begleitet vom vergehenden und neuanschwellenden Beifallsklatschen der Hände, die eigentlich Dampfhämmer sind - vielleicht eilte dann ein junger Galeriebesucher die lange Treppe durch alle Ränge hinab, stürzte in die Manege, riefe das: Halt! durch die Fanfaren des immer sich anpassenden Orchesters. Da es aber nicht so ist; eine schöne Dame, weiß und rot, hereinfliegt, zwischen den Vorhängen, welche die stolzen Livrierten vor ihr öffnen; der Direktor, hingebungsvoll ihre Augen suchend, in Tierhaltung ihr entgegenatmet; vorsorglich sie auf den Apfelschimmel hebt, als wäre sie seine über alles geliebte Enkelin, die sich auf gefährliche Fahrt begibt; sich nicht entschließen kann, das Peitschenzeichen zu geben; schließlich in Selbstüberwindung es knallend gibt; neben dem Pferde mit offenem Munde einherläuft; die Sprünge der Reiterin scharfen Blickes verfolgt; ihre Kunstfertigkeit kaum begreifen kann; mit englischen Ausrufen zu warnen versucht; die reifenhaltenden Reitknechte wütend zu peinlichster Achtsamkeit ermahnt; vor dem großen Saltomortale das Orchester mit aufgehobenen Händen beschwört, es möge schweigen; schließlich die Kleine vom zitternden Pferde hebt, auf beide Backen küßt und keine Huldigung des Publikums für genügend erachtet; während sie selbst, von ihm gestützt, hoch auf den Fußspitzen, vom Staub umweht, mit ausgebreiteten Armen, zurückgelehntem Köpfchen ihr Glück mit dem ganzen Zirkus teilen will - da dies so ist, legt der Galeriebesucher das Gesicht auf die Brüstung und, im Schlußmarsch wie in einem schweren Traum versinkend, weint er, ohne es zu wissen. (£, 140-1)

I have chosen this text as the object of analysis in part because its structural organization is so prominent. For this reason its reliance on patterns of contiguity, its organization according to rather strict structural parameters, 287

is easily "discernible. At the same time, the precise descriptive detail of the text demonstrates unmistakably that reduction to a structural configuration is not necessarily accompanied by a banishment of realistic-psychological detail, as has sometimes been maintained.61 In fact, the combination of realistic descriptive detail and pronounced configural contiguity tends to reinforce the hermeneutical complication of the text even further, since the interpreter is tempted to analyze this detail with an eye for possible subtle significances or "keys" to an understanding. In this sense mimetic portrayal, which Jakobson, as we know, associated with the contiguity function, both supports the linearity of the text, and threatens to rupture this linearity at the moment when individual details are assigned metaphorical or referential significances. This is the phenomenon that Eastman refers to as "instability of detail" in parabolic discourse, arguing further that this has the ultimate effect of blocking "final verification of any one hypothesis" because of the opacity and irreducibility of these details.62 In this parable by Kafka, then, simplicity or "neatness" of structure by no means bespeaks textual superficiality; on the contrary, the web of entanglements becomes all the more dense and impenetrable as the detailed, objective description increases. The parable thus displays on this level the contrast between formal, structural "elegance" and internal involution that is characteristic of aphoristic discourse: the interpreter, led to expect a structure with neat and orderly corridors, is gradually thrown into a hermeneutical maze of unfathomable complexity. I will highlight in my analysis this contrast between external structural clarity and internal opacity in order to underscore its commonality with the similar contrastive tension essential to aphoristic discourse. Kafka's parable evokes a sense of formal simplicity primarily by means of the linearity of its syntax. Both paragraphs evolve in almost perfect syntactical parallelism to one another, each consisting of a single sentence composed of a series of paratactically arranged clauses which leads up to a hyphen; at this juncture each paragraph introduces the "Galeriebesucher" and describes in a concluding remark his reactions to the narrated circumstances. This structural parallelism, however, is offset by a number of explicitly contrastive elements: the first paragraph is narrated in the subjunctive mood, the second in the indicative; the narrated events, while superficially identical in both paragraphs (the same circus event is the subject of each), have radically different emotional moods, the first appearing ugly and vicious, the second beautiful and uplifting. The contrast between subjunctive and indicative moods, of course, suggests that the primary opposition obtaining between these two narrative descriptions is that between dream and reality, fiction 61 62

288

Hillmann explicitly makes this claim, pp. 163-4; 170. Eastman, "The Open Parable," pp. 17 8c 18, respectively.

and fact. The "fictional" narration is marked by the total subordination of the rideress to both her untiring public and her merciless boss, her passivity underscored by the use of the passive voice ("getrieben würde"); the "factual" narration brings out the independence of the rideress and the fawning admiration of director and public alike. In the "fictional" account the woman is "hinfällig" and "lungensüchtig"; in the "factual" account she is "eine schöne Dame" whose superiority is without question. In "fiction" she is mastered and controlled by a "Chef"; in "fact" she is guided and protected by a "Direktor." The din of the orchestra, ventilators, and applause is omnipresent and unceasing in the "fictional" account; in the "factual" version there is an abrupt silence which accompanies the great finale of her act. Contrast within the realm of semantics and in "mood" of narration clashes with the parallelism of structure. The latter encourages us to seek similarities, the former, however, insists on differences. Eventually, however, difference seems to become a dominant force, and its subtle manifestations are discovered even in the otherwise similar linearity of structure: the narrated events and observations of the "fictional" account are separated simply by commas, so that they run together in a stylistic imitation of the oppressive regularity and interminability of the depicted situation; the individual events of the "factual" account are separated by semi-colons, so that the narration again stylistically parallels the circus event, pausing after each successfully completed task, breathless with awe. The second paragraph, as a result, has a much slower tempo than the first, despite seeming identity of structural and syntactical organization. Stylistic and structural features in Kafka's parable thus tend to fall into the general categories of parallelism and contrast, similarity and difference. These, we recall, are the two drives most representative of the oppositional tendencies of Kafka's aphorisms, and we were able to observe how Kafka's revisions of the aphoristic texts generally served to strengthen the tension between these opposing drives. The effect of this opposition is the total disorientation of the reader, despite the fact that the text seems to be establishing easily followable paradigms. "Auf der Galerie" disappoints and subverts all the expectations which it takes such care to establish. This conscious diversion from its own established patterns can best be witnessed in the reaction of the "Galeriebesucher" to the narrated events in the different paragraphs. In the first his response appears consistent with the horror of the scene: propriety demands that one actively put a stop to this insensitive exploitation which is as senseless as it is ceaseless. We are then led to expect the same kind of consistency in response to the "factual" events, but the reaction of the "Galeriebesucher" does not seem to follow logically: What reason is there for answering the beauty, artistry, and human concern which this narration portrays with despair and tears? This deviation from patterned 289

expectations suddenly throws the text off center, and from this point onward one is reduced to surmising about the possible motivations for this inexplicable response. One questions the psychological make-up of the "Galeriebesucher"; or one wonders about the implied "sociology" of the two scenes; ultimately one is tempted to overturn the distinction between the "fictional" and the "factual," speculating that the "beautiful" events must "in fact" be fictitious since only this can explain the reaction of the observer. These questions and speculations are encouraged by the text, and they can be extended ad infinit urn. Thus far I have concentrated primarily on elements of contiguity in this parable, emphasizing how contrast and parallelism interrelate in such a way as to simultaneously program and disappoint certain expectations in the reader. Deviation from established patterns serves to obscure the interpretive track that otherwise seems so clear and easy to follow. If we now examine the role of metaphor in this text, we will find that it also functions in such a manner as to establish and then deviate from particular patterns, opening up an ever-widening interpretive rift. There are only three explicit uses of figurative language in this parable: the comparison of the clapping hands to jackhammers in the first paragraph; the description in the second paragraph of the director's feelings for the rideress as those normally reserved for a much-loved relative; finally, the comparison of the psychic state of the "Galeriebesucher" to that of a "heavy dream." Now the first two metaphors have identical relative positions in their respective narrative contexts, yet they stand in striking opposition to one another: in the "fictional" narration the comparison occurs in the indicative mood, the concrete "reality" of the figurative comparison being highlighted by the use of the word "eigentlich"; in the "factual" narration the metaphorical reference is the only element given in the subjunctive mood as an "unreal" comparison. The "mood" of each metaphor, in other words, directly contrasts with the dominant "mood" of the passages in which it is embedded. This leads to the hypothesis that perhaps the interpreter is justified in undertaking a radical reversal of significations, one in which "figurative" language becomes an unmistakable indicator of an essential factuality hidden beneath the appearance of nonfigurative language. In other words, we are tempted to view these metaphors as "peep-holes" into the true underlying circumstances masked by the dominant narrative discourse: figurative becomes non-figurative, fictional becomes factual, factual becomes fictional. We experience once again here that radical overturning of the text and its interpretive possibilities that we discovered above; the more one scrutinizes the text, the farther away it takes one from determinate meaning - it becomes increasingly more "undecidable." The final simile "wie in einem schweren Traum versinkend" corrobo290

rates and underwrites the reversal of fact and fiction suggested by the other metaphors. The parallelism of syntax in the final statement of the text makes clear that "im Schlußmarsch" and "in einem schweren Traum versinkend" are the elements related by the comparative "wie." This means, however, that the final march of the purportedly "real" events is being compared to a heavy dream, suggesting once again a reversal in the values "factual" and "fictional" or "reality" and "dream." While one, as we see, can compile considerable evidence which would support arguments for such an interpretive reversal, this still does not bring determinate meaning into the text. Instead it merely presents us with a problematization of fact and fiction, truth and lie, reality and dream. The beauty and elegance of the text, like the beauty of the circus events, are quite deceptive, and the interpreter ends up trapped in an oppressive interpretive cycle like that of the circus equestrian, a process that only ceases when it is brought to a halt from without. The text combines strategies of anticipation, deceptive simplicity, diversion, and inversion to subvert the expectations it establishes, opening up an interpretive field in which every answer leads to new questions; an endless process of interpretive "play" is called forth in which the players are free to make their own hermeneutical moves within the limits prescribed by the structural configuration of the text.

It is especially difficult to form conclusions for a work that has argued for the productivity of the inconclusive. My investigation of Kafka's aphoristic texts, like the preceding examination of the parable "Auf der Galerie," tends to provide analyses rather than interpretations; in this sense its purpose has been to suggest possible approaches to, and manners of understanding, Kafka's aphoristic and parabolic texts which do justice to both their structural definition and their internal openness. Hence I have sought to avoid "conclusive" interpretations of these texts, while simultaneously trying to follow a coherent critical methodology. Kafka's aphorisms, I hope to have shown, are "partial" in the sense of being fragmentary: they do not fit together into a system of belief or a cogent "philosophy," rather they are "unified" solely by their discursive practice, and this links them with Kafka's parabolic narratives as well. With the aphorisms Kafka begins a series of experiments into textual strategies and literary practices in which, paradoxically, the fragmentary and "partial" (in both of its significances) is exploited for the ends of communication and impartiality. In the aphorisms Kafka learns, among other things, how formal closure can merge with openness and indeterminacy of meaning; he discovers a manner of objectified textual communication which neither betrays the creative individuality of the pro291

ducer, nor the interpretive individuality of the reader. While my own investigation into the function of the aphoristic in Kafka's writing has taken on anything but aphoristic form, its aim is decidedly aphoristic. I desire above all to have opened up some new horizons for the study and understanding of Kafka's aphorisms, while indicating the integral role they play in the overall profile of his literature. Ultimately, then, I hope that my text, like the aphorism, will find a formal close which merges into an openness of understanding.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Abbreviations and Editions of Kafka's Works Cited BeK BF BM BÖ Br E H T

= Beschreibung eines Kampfes: Novellen, Skizzen, Aphorismen aus dem Nachlaß. Ed. Max Brod. New York: Schocken Books, 1946. = Briefe an Felice. Ed. Erich Heller & Jürgen Born. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1967. = Briefe an Milena. Expanded edition. Ed. Jürgen Born. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1983. = Briefe an Ort/4 und die Familie. Ed. Hartmut Binder & Klaus Wagenbach. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1974. = Briefe 1902-1924. Ed. Max Brod. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1958. = Erzählungen und kleine Prosa. Ed. Max Brod. New York: Schocken Books, 1946. = Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande und andere Prosa aus dem Nachlaß. Ed. Max Brod. New York: Schocken Books, 1953. = Tagebücher 1910-1923. Ed. Max Brod. New York: Schocken Books, 1949.

II. General and Theoretical Works Cited Adorno, Theodor. Minima Moralia. Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 4. Ed. Rolf Tiedemann. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980. Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1953. Bredin, Hugh. "Roman Jakobson on Metaphor and Metonymy." Literature and Philosophy, 8, No. 1 (1984), pp. 89-103. Derrida, Jaques. Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen ' Hermeneutik. 2nd ed. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1965. Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit. 15th ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1979. Hoy, David Couzens. The Critical Circle: Literature, History, and Philosophical Hermeneutics. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1978. Iser, Wolfgang. Der Akt des Lesens: Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung. Munich: Fink, 1976. - Der implizite Leser. Munich: Fink, 1972. Jakobson, Roman. "Linguistics and Poetics." The Structuralists from Marx to LeviStrauss. Ed. Richard & Fernando de George. New York: Anchor Books, 1973, pp. 85-122. - "Two Types of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances." Fundamentals of Language. The Hague: Mouton, 1956, pp. 53-82. 293

Jauss, Hans Robert. "Literaturgeschichte als Provokation der Literaturwissenschaft." Literaturgeschichte als Provokation. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970, pp. 144-207. Kühn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970. Lodge, David. The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Literature. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1977. Palmer, Richard. Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1969. Schleiermacher, Friedrich. Hermeneutik. Ed. Heinz Kimmerle. Heidelberg: Winter, 1959.

III. Aphorism and Parable: Primary and Secondary Sources Altenberg, Peter. Ausgewählte Werke in zwei Bänden. Ed. Dietrich Simon. Munich: Hanser, 1979. Arntzen, Helmut. "Aphorismus und Sprache: Lichtenberg und Karl Kraus." Literatur im Zeitalter der Information. Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1971, pp. 323-38. - "Philosophie als Literatur: Kurze Prosa von Lichtenberg bis Bloch." Probleme der Moderne: Festschrift für Walter H. Sokel. Ed. Benjamin Bennett. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1983, pp. 51-66. Asemissen, Hermann Ulrich. "Notizen über den Aphorismus." Der Aphorismus. Ed. G. Neumann, pp. 159-76. Auden, W. H. and Louis Kronenberger. The Faber Book of Aphorisms. London: Faber & Faber, 1962. Bacon, Francis. Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum. Ed. James F. Creighton. London: The Colonial Press, 1900. Bauer, Rudolf. "Die Kunstform der Aphorismen in Hebbels Tagebuch." Diss. Vienna 1939. Baumann, Gerhart. Maxime und Reflexion als Stilform bei Goethe. Karlsruhe: G. Braun, 1947. - "Zur Aphoristik." Entwürfe. Munich: Fink, 1976, pp. 57-68. Besser, Kurt. Die Problematik der aphoristischen Form bei Lichtenberg, Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis und Nietzsche: Ein Beitrag zur Psychologie des geistigen Schaffens. Neue deutsche Forschungen, Bd. 52. Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1935. Blüher, Karl Alfred. "Gracians Aphorismen im Oraculo Manual und die Tradition der politischen Aphorismen in Spanien." Der Aphorismus. Ed. G. Neumann, pp. 413-26. Bourk, Alfred. "Geste und Parabel." Akzente, 6 (1959), 214-20. Brettschneider, Werner. Die moderne deutsche Parabel. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1971. Bühner, Karl Hans. "Über den Aphorismus." Welt und Wort, 6 (1951), 266-7. Canetti, Elias. Alle vergeudete Verehrung: Aufzeichnungen 1949—60. Reihe Hanser, 50. Munich: Hanser, 1970. - Aufzeichnungen 1942-48. Munich: Hanser, 1965. Crossan, John D. "Parable, Allegory, and Paradox." Semiology and Parables: An Exploration of the Possibilities offered by Structuralism for Exegesis. Ed. Daniel Patte. Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series, No. 9. Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1976, pp. 247-81. - The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story. Niles, Illinois: Argus Communications, 1975.

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