Language Unmoored
On Kleist's The Betrothal in St. Domingue
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9855287 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andreas Gailus (University of Michigan, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 85 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 20-43 |
| Publication date | 2010-01-29 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Germanic Review Literature Culture Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-8890 • E-ISSN: 1930-6962 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00168890903446633 |
| OpenAlex | W2018045706 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 15 |
Situating Kleist's novella in the context of contemporary philosophical responses to the French Revolution (Kant, Hegel), this article suggests that Kleist's text is unique in taking revolution not merely as its theme but also as its mode of presentation. At the core of revolution is the loss of referential stability and the realization that words are not anchored in an extra-linguistic world of facts and objects but are held in place by open-ended systems of association and regularity without further foundation or solidity. Kleist's writing is seen both to intensify linguistic instability and ambiguity and to articulate different political and psychological responses to the revolutionary unmooring of meaning. In this context, the promissory act of betrothal is read as a sign through which the text self-reflexively explores the possibility of social and linguistic connectedness in the absence of established meanings and conventions
Art · Context (archaeology · Linguistics · Literature · Novella · Sociology · Theme (computing · German Literature and Culture Studies · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · History · Philosophy · Philosophy and Historical Thought
The interpretation of dreams.
Kritik der reinen Vernunft
Critique of the Power of Judgment
How To Do Things With Words
The Claim to Community
Introduction
Phenomenology of Spirit
Passions of the Sign
"The Aesthetics of Blackness in Heinrich Von Kleist's "Die Verlobung in St. Domingo
The claim of reason
Declarations of Independence
Hegel and Haiti
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |