Prophecies of Language: The Confusion of Tongues in German Romanticism by Kristina Mendicino (review)

In her recent monograph, Kristina Mendicino argues that G.W.F. Hegel, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Friedrich Schlegel, and Friedrich Hölderlin find the origin of human language in moments of disruption of a temporal and conceptual continuity: human speech is crystallized in the moment that self-articulation comes to a halt. The romantics’ philosophy of language is thus portrayed as antithetic to the view that human language emerges in a developmental process, a perception that the author attaches to the Enlightenment. Subsequently, Mendicino seeks to establish that prophecy—a trope which, as she cogently demonstrates, was central to romanticism— is emblematic of the caesura of articulation. Taking prophetic speech to function as a liminal act where the human and the divine cross ways, Mendicino argues that the romantics have constituted a new theological primal scene to represent language’s emergence. Prophecy has replaced the image of Adam naming objects in his surroundings, the scene which informed manifold inquiries into the origin of language in the previous generation.

Demonstrating the eminence of translation in the period both as a concept and as a practice, Mendicino highlights their engagement with ancient Greek motifs. She thus opts to stress “the structural similarities between translation and prophecy, which both imply speaking for, with, and in the place of another” (13). Similar to translation, prophetic speech seems instrumental for communication; yet, a closer look at both media reveals their role as a substitute, and disrupts the notion of successful articulation. This structural focus, Mendicino argues, adds a new perspective to the rich scholarship on prophecy and on translation around 1800.

The introduction proposes that romantic thought dismantles the allocation of a linguistic act to one national culture by featuring “an acute concern for the plurality of languages, for the disclosure of their unfinished aspects, and, thus, for the possibility of an unheard-of language to come” (3). Referencing Derrida’s notion of translation as a catalyst of linguistic and temporal disorientation, Mendicino attaches to prophecy an additional quality: prophetic speech transgresses the distinction between past, present, and future.

Chapter 1 describes Hegel’s philosophy as a reflective experimentation with language. Mendicino observes two interrelated innovations of his philosophy: the portrayal of translation as pertinent for one’s national identity and the anchoring of the divine presence in a revelatory experience of linguistic disorientation. Hegel appears to incorporate in his thought linguistic elements foreign to the vernacular that are expected to be learned by the hegemonic surroundings; his philosophical enterprise thus teaches the Germans to speak their future language. Mendicino then traces the role of translation in Alexander von Humboldt’s anthropological linguistics. According to Mendicino, Humboldt’s translation of Agamemnon informs a philosophy of language that seeks the blurring of the foreign and the familiar. Humboldt’s encounters with foreign languages question the ability of language to function as a complete system of signifiers.

Chapter 3 studies the mythical Cassandra as a key figure for romanticism. The chapter stresses Humboldt’s statement that “Cassandra’s prophecies ‘tie’ everything together ‘in the most sublime of ways’” (95). Mendicino depicts Cassandra’s prophecies as having ethical implications, which derive from the bleak possibility that her language may be heard by others. Cassandra’s sublime act lies in blurring the boundary between the familiar and the foreign: her speech holds a “shattering force” (100), as both her language and her position as a speaker appear agonistic to those of other protagonists. Mendicino describes Friedrich Schlegel’s poetics as representing the romantics’ occupation with the durability of their work. Aspiring to model any kind of poetry, Aurora is described as manifesting an apocalyptic tone: prophecy stands in the piece for that which is yet to come. This chapter traces the influence of Jacob Böhme and Schelling on Schlegel’s attempt to construe poetics that evade ontological differences: past, present, and future; existence and nonexistence; and true and false. The final chapter...