The Early Dramas of Reinhard Johannes Sorge: A Poet's Search for the Inner Light

THE EARLY DRAMAS OF REINHARD JOHANNES SORGE: A POET'S SEARCH FOR THE INNER LIGHT My innermost being is completely engulfed in flames. I must contain all within me, appear· quite placid externally, so that heat, rays, light and perception may increase until the appointed hour.1 WITH STRIKING IMAGERY IN THESE WORDS from a letter of May 1, 1912, a young German dramatist expresses his mystical experience upon reading the scriptures. This writer is Reinhard Johannes Sorge, an important figure of Expressionism, who in these lines employs the language of fire and flame to characterize the religious ecstasy which burns within him. This will grow in intensity until that moment when with fervor the poet proclaims his messianic message to the world. A month thereafter the awaited instant was realized upon the appearance of Sorge's The Beggar, which constituted what is often termed the first drama of this literary movement. This work marks the culmination of the author's literary career and provides a fervent statement of his religious belief. That the nature of Sorge's faith should be expressed here in the imagery of fire is not the result of coincidence nor an isolated instance illustrative of the poet's employment of a particularly vivid metaphor. Throughout the body of his early work such language is associated with the author's search for faith and occurs in such a way as to indicate a development in Sorge's attitudes which crystalized when in a moment of solitude he experienced metaphysical insight into the eye of God. Having abandoned formal education in his eighteenth year and feeling the need of a comprehensive way of looking at the world, the adolescent Sorge felt strongly inclined towards philosophic speculation . This bent as well as his inclination toward the drama as a literary form led him to compose works in which the stage is utilized as a 1 Susan Maria Sorge, Reinhard Johannes Sorge. Unser Weg. (Munchen, 1927), p. 35, cited in Sorge, Werke, edited by Hans Gerd Rotzer (Niirnberg, 1962£.), I, 38. All quotations from the play are based on this edition. All translations are by the author. 449 450 MODERN DRAMA February forum for figures which incorporate various ideas or principles.2 Among these is The Youth~ a short work of 1910 which constitutes the first fruits of Sorge's literary production and bears the. marks of Nietzsche's philosophy. This is a dramatic paean to the force of human will power which triumphantly molds the powers of the universe to its purpose; qualities associated with heat and light are attributed to anonymous, abstract figures which have their origin in primal forces of being and of nature. As the youth to whom the title of this work refers, Sorge attempts to work out his place within a conceptual framework of figures and ideas. Epitomizing adolescent resistance and defiance, the young man at the same moment is a human being of extraordinary dimensions who tames the chaos of the universe.. He aspires to willpower which places fire in thralldom. .Somewhere an untamed will roams unchecked. It guides stars and suns, it directs lights, shadows, and embers. That I want to imprison within me. (235) Endowed with the majesty of the sun in its fiery grandeur and symbolic of the established order stands the dramatic figure of the Elder in opposition. His presence causes the youth to shield his eyes for protection, and as twilight shadows lengthen, the Elder withdraws into his cave before the ranks of his disciples.· "They go within to scorch themselves:' the young man exclaims in despair. (227) The symbol of the flame which is employed by Sorge to signify the Youth's determination to resist the Elder and to subdue cosmic forces is also associated with the consequences of failure in these undertakings. The report of a pilgrim details the fate of a man isolated upon a lonely cliff "extended as a bronze flame" staring into the fiery eye of the heavens; his will was, however, unequal to the task. . • . he perished in longing for the gleaming fires, since he was completely aflame . . . so he collapsed of the heat and life· in himself, of the accumulated...