Idioms of Uncertainty: Goethe and the Essay (review)

Goethe Yearbook 261 ungskrieg), und ob sich diese Diskursänderungen auch bei Goethe nachweisen lassen? Ob sie zu Metaphern und Symbolformen in seinen Werken führen? Seit der Französischen Revolution entwickelt sich ein neuer Diskurs der Gewalt. Heinrich von Kleist ist ein Beispiel dafür. Wie steht es mit der literarischen Repräsentation von Gewalt in Goethes Werken? mit der Repräsentation des Krieges im dritten und vierten Akt von Faust II ("Krieg! ist das Losungswort," verkündet Euphorion)? Diese Fragen sind von Interesse für die Forschung, wobei realhistorische und autobiographische Aussagen deutlich von der Darstellung im Werk zu unterscheiden sind. Unter Punkt 4 leistet die vorliegende Monographie hier einen Beitrag, der von dem obigen Urteil auszunehmen ist: die Verwechslung von Schein und Wirklichkeit in der Campagne von Frankreich. Reinhart Koselleck hat 1993 in seinem Festvortrag bei der Tagung der Goethe-Gesellschaft in Weimar dieses Werk sehr treffend als Goethes Versuch einer Mentalitätsgeschichte des Ersten Koalitionskrieges bezeichnet. Demselben Phänomen kommt Larkin hier auf die Spur: die Perzeption des Krieges in der Mentalität der Zeitgenossen. Larkin hat mit diesem Kapitel der Forschung einen Dienst geleistet, der m. E. wichtiger ist als seine affirmative Themenzusammenstellung von Goethes Meinungen oder Einsichten zum Krieg. University of California, Los Angeles Ehrhard Bahr Burgard, Peter J., Idioms of Uncertainty: Goethe and the Essay. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. This provocative book examines Goethe's essays in light of modern literary theories. Burgard argues for a primarily Derridean reading of Goethe's essays and therefore concentrates on their self-contradicting and selfreflecting elements. From this perspective, the book focuses on several of Goethe's essays on art, especially "Einleitung in die Propyläen," "Der Sammler und die Seinigen," and "Über Laokoon." Burgard has two stated goals. The first is to contribute to our understanding of Goethe, and the second is to "supply a broader foundation for our understanding of the genre of the essay and perhaps even add a story or two" (23). In his attempt to link the two goals, Burgard turns to a great number of modern theorists in order not only to deconstruct Goethe's essays, but to argue that Goethe, like Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger after him, consciously chose an anti-systematic method of discourse to subvert the "explicit" meaning of his texts. In other words, although Goethe, in these and other essays and non-essayistic works, seems to argue for systems and closure and for the autonomy of works of art, a close reading of his texts will actually contradict the surface meaning and hence deny the possibility of systems as such. The strength of the book lies in Burgard's close reading of the texts. When he engages in close analysis of the essays and looks to how the "rhetoric," the "subtext" which is antagonistic to the surface meaning, con- 262 Book Reviews tributes to our reading of the work as a whole, he makes a strong case for reading Goethe's essays for dual, and often contradictory meanings. For example , in his analysis of "Der Sammler und die Seinigen," he focuses on the work's "play of irony" to show that although it presents a system for categorizing art, the presentation of that system calls its very possibility into question. Julie, the character who presents the system, does so unwillingly and even attempts to avoid doing so, but feels obligated and finally presents the system out of a "spirit of contradiction." Burgard writes: Her state of mind is incommensurable with what she will write. By informing the reader of her revised intention, she reveals her inability to identify with, to subscribe to that which will come out of her quill. Yet she is the one from whom we receive the system. Thus the text's attitude to the system it presents is an ironic attitude. Thus the context of presentation forces us to question what is presented. Thus the rhetoric of the text challenges the apparent meaning of the text. (60) Burgard employs textual analysis similarly when arguing for the "intertextuality" of "Über Laokoon." Here he traces the dialogue between Lessing's, Herder's, and Goethe's Laocoön texts to demonstrate how...