Trials and Tribunals in the Dramas of Heinrich von Kleist (review)

In her introduction Kim Fordham illustrates our long-lasting fascination with trials, from Oedipus Rex to current pop-culture TV trial dramas or actual trials, her most notable example in the 1990s being the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Fordham's subsequent discussion aligns law and literature, specifically the trial and the genre of drama, in light of their entertainment value, their didactic and cathartic functions, and their power to promote either a priority of order and balance or a priority of truth, justice, and equity. Kleist's dramas, according to Fordham, demonstrate precisely this tension and deep skepticism inherent in the search for justice, specifically when finding truth and serving justice would lead to disorder.

Fordham suggests that we tend to self-interestedly trade the pursuit of truth and justice for an affirmation of our beliefs and value systems. Adapting a model suggested by David Luban in his article "Some Greek Trials: Order and Justice in Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus and Plato" (Tennessee Law Review 54 [1987]: 278–325), Fordham analyzes how the competitive desires for natural order and the pursuit of truth and justice are resolved in Kleist's dramas. Luban demonstrates the concept of legal instrumentalism, that is, "the theory that order is upheld, not only as justice but also at the cost of justice" (20), from ancient Greek literary trials to the more contemporary Supreme Court decision on "Brown v. Board of Education." Fordham mobilizes this concept for her readings of Kleist's dramas, emphasizing Kleist's Aktualität in her own references to contemporary culture.

Seven chapters are devoted to Die Familie Schroffenstein, Der zerbrochne Krug and Oedipus the King, Amphitryon, Penthesilea, Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, Die Hermannsschlacht, and Prinz Friedrich von Homburg. Fordham's close readings of the trial scenes in each drama are convincing. Her detailed contextualization of each trial scene within the drama appeals to a reader's pedagogical impetus rather than inviting new critical perspectives. While we do not find a formal trial scene in Penthesilea, Fordham substitutes the high priestess's judgment and eventual condemnation of Penthesilea for the function of the legal process to create order out of chaos.

Fordham's references to Kleist's treatment of trial situations in his prose, as in Michael Kohlhaas, "Der Zweikampf," or "Die Marquise von O . . ." successfully complement her discussion of dramas, which leaves us wishing for a more sustained discussion of those important reflections of Kleist's concept of justice.

Fordham's conclusions revisit the Kleistian tropes of human fallibility and the incomprehensible, fragile nature of the world, and call attention to an enigmatic and limited sense of justice that often comes at a high price, specifically for Kleist's female figures. While Fordham concurs with Theodore Ziolkowski's claim in his 1997 volume The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal Crises (Princeton UP), that Kleist was driven by a longing, even a passion for order, she does not see what Ziolkowski calls "a renewed sense of justice and social order" (210) at the end of Kleist's dramas but rather the impossibility of justice.

Fordham cites Ziolkowski's study as the most recent publication on the topic of law and legal procedures in Kleist's work. Together with her claim that "there has been no examination of the function of the trial as it appears in each of his dramas" (22), this alerts readers to a ten-year hiatus in considering critical scholarship between Ziolkowski's work and the publication date of Fordham's study. Nevertheless, for its strength in close contextualized readings, its consistent focus on legal instrumentalism, and its convincing suggestions of trajectories from Kleist to our contemporary consuming of trials as entertainment, education, or even spectator sport, the volume will be valuable for teachers and scholars of Kleist and for those interested in representations of legal questions in literature.