Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• GRANNALL, DENISE MAUREEN

Titel

PERSPECTIVES OF THE MORAL WORLD ORDER IN THE WORKS OF HEINRICH VON KLEIST

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

1980

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This thesis examines central characters' perspectives of the moral world order with the aim of elucidating what the characters consider to be the guidelines for their actions. Most characters presume their actions to be justified by, or appropriate to, their situation. Their view of the moral world order often determines their course of action. A character's rational misperception may mislead him--a fact which has prompted an emphasis on innate feeling as a reliable guide to right action in much of the critical literature on Kleist's works. Yet it is here questioned whether instincts provide a proper guide for Kleist's characters, and suggested that, for all its attendant difficulties, moral principles may be seen to offer them more appropriate direction. The procedure followed in this thesis has been to discuss individually works considered of special relevance. These works have been grouped into four categories, each indicating a particular area of concern and together showing a development of the fundamental ideas. Reference has been made, where relevant, to probable, contemporary, philosophical influences on Kleist, so that the issues considered may be seen against the contemporary intellectual framework. Morality is seen as representing a higher point of human development than that which is characterised by instinctive responses. In discussing the role of morality, reference is made to the system of human progression posited in Kleist's essay of December, 1810, "Uber das Marionettentheater". There the distinction is drawn between natural grace and instinctive knowledge, seen as characteristic of man's original state of innocence, and the awkwardness and disharmony which marks man's state subsequent to the attainment of the knowledge of good and evil. This knowledge proves to be insufficient to an understanding of the order of man's world, and man's now rational decisions become subject to error and misapprehension. Such is the predicament of the characters in most of Kleist's works. The solution is not however, to attempt to regain lost innocence, but to seek out greater knowledge. The progression towards increased understanding suggested by this survey of the characters' perspectives is by no means an unerring development. For some, the development is slight: the final attitude of the surviving protagonists in Die Familie Schroffenstein is more indicative of stoic perseverance than of an especially insightful commitment to a particular, future mode of action. For others, the development is tinged with regret, as is Alkmene's progression away from blissful ignorance. Or, too, events may provoke the rejection of the validity of a moral outlook, as in the case of Piachi. Nonetheless from the point of recognition of weakness and misjudgement as intrinsic to mankind, a development may be traced. Morality is recognised as a necessary counterpart to wrong action. Past wrong action may even be redeemed by subsequent moral action. For some characters, there does emerge eventually a true commitment to morality, even in full awareness of the vagaries of the universe and, too, the indifferent morality of the general society. This attainment of a more profound insight is suggested in the final outlook of Don Fernando, but culminates in the final perspectives of Michael Kohlhaas and Prinze Friedrich von Homburg. Particularly in Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, where the symbolic overtones of the final scene seem stressed, the final perspective of the title character displays such profundity of insight that attainment of a supreme, moral, human state seems intimated. Humanity's wavering and hesitant development away from the sure instincts of innocence, through despair, error, faith, perseverance and insufficient knowledge, leads ultimately to a point where action is surely guided by supreme knowledge.