Heine, Heinrich (Vol. 147) | Gerhard Höhn (essay date 2002)
Gerhard Höhn (essay date 2002)
SOURCE: Höhn, Gerhard. “Eternal Return or Indiscernible Progress? Heine's Conception of History after 1848.” In A Companion to the Works of Heinrich Heine, edited by Roger F. Cook, pp. 169-200. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2002.
[In the following essay, Höhn traces Heine's changed worldview following the events of 1848 in Europe.]
“Werden die Angelegenheiten dieser Welt wirklich gelenkt von einem vernünftigen Gedanken, von der denkenden Vernunft? Oder regiert sie nur ein lachender Gamin, der Gott-Zufall?”1
(B 5: 214)
Heine posed this question in March of 1848 after witnessing a victorious revolution in Paris. For a good one and a half decades he had predicted that what had begun in 1789 and continued in 1830 would soon be brought to a close. All the more paradoxical then, that such a question should haunt one who had never tired of ascertaining...
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