Heinrich von Kleist

Heinrich von Kleist's was an obsessionally tidy mind. He meticulously dotted his poetic i's and crossed his poetic t's. Yet also he has often dismissed us into silence; strangely eloquent silences, like that at the end of the essay Uber das Marionettentheater, or the one that flowers from Alkmene's Ach! or from Don Fernando's concluding words which leave a whole world swaying in the balance. And then, of course, there is the caressing silence that surrounds those sweet and near-idiotic exchanges (as they have been called) between Homburg and Stranz as the prince nears the place of his execution. But nowhere has the poet been more elusive than in that reputedly most blatant of his works: Die Hermannsschlacht. There, in the second act, just as the young Roman Ventidius makes ready to snip off one of Thusnelda's locks, Kleist has placed a lyric upon her lips. This is how it runs

Art · German Literature and Culture Studies · Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies · History · Philosophy

• Utopie in der Miniatur

  Andreas Lixl•The German Quarterly•1983

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