SOURCE: "Ernst Cassirer's Contribution to Literary Criticism," in The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, edited by Paul Arthur Schlipp, The Library of Living Philosophers, Inc., 1949, pp. 663-88.

[In the following essay, Reichardt explores the implications of Cassirer's writings for literary criticism.]

In his Essay on Man, Cassirer—in the form of a paradox—defines the historian's aspiration as "objective anthropomorphism." Whereas the process of scientific thought shows a constant effort to eliminate "anthropological" elements, history appears not as a knowledge of external facts or events, but as a form of self-knowledge: man constantly returns to himself attempting to recollect and actualize the whole of his past experience. The historical self, however, aspires to objectivity and is not satisfied with egocentricity. In his discussion of the various methods of historical research Cassirer expresses greatest warmth when speaking of the work of Ranke, who once voiced the desire to extinguish his own self and to make himself the pure mirror of things. This wish, clearly recognized both by Ranke and Cassirer as the deepest problem of the historian, remains at the same time the historian's highest ideal. His feeling of responsibility and his ethical standing will determine the value of his results according to the definition of "objective anthropomorphism." Cassirer reveals Ranke's ethical conception and his universal sympathy for all ages and all nations as his principal merits and he contrasts Ranke's basic attitude with that of Treitschke's Prussian school.

According to Cassirer, history belongs not to the field of natural science, but to that of hermeneutics. Our historical knowledge is a branch of semantics, not of physics. Cassirer stands closer to Dilthey than to Taine. Submitting the "scientific," statistical and psychological methods of Taine, Buckle, and Lamprecht to criticism he maintains that history, not being an exact science, will always keep its place and its inherent nature in the organization of human knowledge, and the speeches in Thucydides' work will retain their historical value, because they are objective and possess ideal, if not empirical truth. Cassirer asks for greater susceptibility in exactly this sense: "In modern times we have become much more susceptible to the demands of empirical truth, but we are perhaps frequently in danger of losing sight of the ideal truth of things and personalities. The just balance between these two moments depends upon the individual tact of the historian…" In order to achieve the high task, the last and decisive act is "always an act of the productive imagination." "It is the keen sense for the empirical reality of things combined with the free gift of imagination upon which the true historical synthesis or synopsis depends."

In other words, the just balance in historical research postulated by Cassirer will depend upon two basic elements: on the historian's ethical conception of his duties and on the disciplined greatness of his productive imagination,—the full knowledge of the material being self-understood. Thus conceived, history becomes a sister of art. Art turns our empirical life into the dynamic of pure form; history molds the empirical reality of things and events into a new shape and gives it the ideality of recollection.

We could make psychological experiments or collect statistical facts. But in spite of this our picture of man would remain inert and colorless. We should only find the "average" man—the man of our daily practical and social intercourse. In the great works of history and art we begin to see, behind the mask of the conventional man, the features of the real, individual man. [Essay on Man]

In August 1943 I had the opportunity to read a—then unpublished—manuscript by Cassirer on Thomas Mann's Goethe novel Lotte in Weimar. I began to read the manuscript with a special kind of expectation. Knowing Cassirer's stern demand for the highest degree of objectivity in historical research, including literary criticism, and the complete absence of humor, irony, or any lighter tone in general in his writings, I was eager to see if Cassirer would make an exception in this case, which—as I thought—would tempt even the most serious and objective critic to some application of Thomas Mann's own and possibly most characteristic style element, his "loving irony." However, Cassirer had written his critical essay in the Cassirer mood: sympathetically and without one deviation from full seriousness. This consistency throughout all his publications shows how deeply his general demand for ethics and tact in historical research are rooted in his personality, and it also explains the almost complete absence of polemics in his contributions to the field of literature. Compared with many of his German contemporaries Cassirer distinguishes himself by the objective spirit of his work. He seems to be urged to write whenever he feels able to improve or to elucidate, and not because he would like to correct or to attack. Thus, his own discussions appear usually as an investigation of a point without an edge. "Man cannot live his life without constant efforts to express it," this would be Cassirer's general answer to a question about the value of literary documents in the past or present. Every document requires, from a historian, a sympathetic and expert reading, and the true historian will remain sympathetic, since every document will be a contribution to his "self-knowledge" and the knowledge of man. How he himself will express his own attitude and beliefs will be a matter of ethics and tact. It is highly revealing how gently and without a trace of irony or impatience Cassirer treats far-fetched theories in aesthetics or the immature statements on art by the young Schiller. They receive his serious attention as historically logical efforts of man to express the fact that he is living. And without sympathy significant interpretation is impossible.

Cassirer considered himself a philosopher, not a literary critic. With the exception of one article, all his publications in the field of literature appeared either in independent form or in strictly philosophical periodicals. The scope of his contributions is wide: the German enlightenment period and German classicism and romanticism stand in the foreground; however, there are many valuable chapters, passages, or remarks on Classical, French, English, Swedish, etc., literature in his work. They all deal with literary-philosophical questions and they are all directed toward an understanding of the relation between certain literary personalities and certain philosophers or systems of philosophy; however, Cassirer's ideal problem seems never to be merely that. His investigations always exceed the concrete question of influences or individual works of art, and his deepest interest seems to lie elsewhere. Although Cassirer, as far as I can see, nowhere makes a statement to this end, his publications concerned with literature are of greater interest for the aesthetician than for either the philosopher or for the literary critic in general. Whenever Cassirer writes about a writer X in relation to a philosopher Y, he seems to be—in spite of all his attention to X and Y—more interested in Z, and Z is the individual essential poetic element (dichterisches Wesenselement) of X.

In the introductory part to his essay on Hilderlin Cassirer expresses the aim of his investigation most significantly. I translate the passage:

It [the investigation] will have to try to draw from Hölderlin's poetic essence, as it belongs to him originally and as it precedes all abstract reflection, the interpretative conclusion in regard also to those trends which manifest themselves more and more distinctly in the totality of his theoretical attitude toward the world and life. (Idee and Gestalt)

This means clearly that Cassirer considers it the first duty of his investigation to clarify the character of Hölderlin's "poetic essence" which he regards as Hölderlin's "original property," before any possible statement about the development of his theoretical attitude can be made. Cassirer's wording looks like a sanctification of deductive method; however, the essay itself gives clear proof of the opposite and his other publications on literature support it. An inductive analysis is always made—as far as such an analysis can go. The final evaluation of the material, however, is no longer a matter of scientific method.

Thus, Cassirer's task here and elsewhere is a two-sided one. He does not limit himself to the never quite satisfactory investigation of certain philosophical influences on certain elements or periods of an artist's work, but tries to find a concrete picture of the artist's essence qua artist before the question of the artist's reflective world is raised. As a matter of fact, Cassirer—without mentioning it—has the tendency to protect the artist both from literature and from philosophy as these fields are usually represented in criticism. Cassirer, the philosopher, shows his greatest sympathy for the world of creative art and its individual rights.

The essay on Hölderlin may serve as an example for Cassirer's general attitude and method in the realm of literary-philosophical problems. The ideal subject for this purpose would be Cassirer's intensive occupation with his master, Goethe. However, this latter would greatly exceed the scope of our contribution.

Before Cassirer wrote his Hölderlin essay, three modem and important works on Hölderlin had appeared,—Dilthey's famous essay, Zinkernagel's book, and Gundolf's deep analysis of Hölderlin's Archipelagus. The result of Cassirer's essay shows, besides important additions, intensification of Dilthey's views, agreement with Gundolf, and a sharp contrast to Zinkernagel's method.

One of the foremost questions in regard to Hölderlin had been the exact determination of his position within the philosophy of German idealism. That Hölderlin had been greatly and constructively influenced by Platonic reflections, Kantian criticism, and Spinoza's system was known. However, Hölderlin's relation to Fichte, Schelling, and particularly to Hegel had not been clarified. In this respect, Professor Zinkernagel had tried to reach results by an analysis of Hölderlin's foremost work Hyperion and had offered a very thorough appearing list of "influences" which seemed to make Hölderlin a receptive organon of all kinds of stimulations. A reader of Zinkernagel's book, in spite of all possible admiration for the author's knowledge and minute scholarship, would ask in vain why Hölderlin, as both poet and philosopher, shows such remarkable and generally acknowledged unity, and proved at the same time to be able to survive all these "influences" as an individual and to maintain his artistic personality to such an extent that today he is considered one of the most consistent and full grown lyric poets in world literature. It is in connection with Zinkernagel's book that Cassirer made his statement that Hölderlin's artistic personality was to be the res prior of his investigation and all other questions were to be regarded as res posteriores. The reciprocity between Hölderlin's imaginative and rational world was to be investigated.

Since Hölderlin's poetry as a whole is an expression of his personal conception—or philosophy—of nature, Cassirer chooses at first to characterize Hölderlin's peculiarity in contrast to Fichte and Schelling. Hölderlin, seeing in Kant's Critical philosophy a propaedeutic step towards a "system" and finding the ideal form of a system represented in Spinoza, tried—as did Fichte and Schelling—to establish an idealistic counterpart of Spinoza's construction. However he distinguished himself from Fichte and Schelling by regarding the One not as the supreme principle of deduction but as a εν διαΦερoμενoν εαντωσσ conceived in direct relation to his conception of nature. The study of Plato contributed greatly to Hölderlin's peculiar mythical imagination; however, myth never was and to Hölderlin never became a mere symbol or a poetic ornament; but it was a necessary organon to apprehend reality. Myth and mythical phenomena appear in all of Hölderlin's works, including his letters and philosophical fragments, as sensuous-spiritual realities in which he believed without any noticeable sense of dualism. Hölderlin's conception of nature manifests an intertwinement of the reflective and perceptive elements without any break or inconsistency, and what Schiller tried to evoke sentimentally (sentimentalisch) in his poem "Die Götter Griechenlands," Hölderlin achieved naively and faithfully: to him the gods of Greece were not welcome poetical elements, but realities and therefore means towards the cognition of truth. The contact with Fichte's writings stimulated the depth of Hölderlin's reflective thinking, however-—again—he reached his independent conclusion: nature, for him, was not matter but form.

Zinkernagel's belief that Schelling's influence was telling for Hölderlin's repudiation of Fichte's doctrine is denied by Cassirer. Moreover, Cassirer is able to provide almost irrefutable proof for the opposite. Disregarding the fact that Schelling had been Fichte's follower until 1796,—the year in which the "influence" was supposed to have taken place,—we have (with Cassirer) to take into consideration that Schelling's later philosophy of nature reminds one of Hölderlin's earlier general attitude. A document made available in 1913 seems to correct all former interpretations of the Schelling-Hölderlin relation. In 1913, the Royal Library at Berlin acquired a folio-sheet which shows Hegel's hand and contains a brief outline of a philosophical system. The editor called it "the oldest systematic program of German idealism" and was able to prove that the manuscript is a Hegelian copy of a Schelling text. The text expresses a demand for a system of philosophy that would combine "the monotheism of reason" with "the polytheism of imagination," in order to develop a "mythology of reason." This is exactly what Hölderlin in his more imaginative rather than rational way of thinking had felt and fought for. Cassirer's conclusion seems good enough: the widely discussed meeting between Hölderlin and Schelling in 1795 had not brought about a Schelling influence on Hölderlin, but had given Schelling an opportunity to find stimulation from the side of Hölderlin and to formulate rationally what had already been in Hölderlin's mind.

The result is the historically significant fact that Hölderlin had been the responsible agent implanting the thoughts into the man who was to become the most Romantic representative of German idealism. Cassirer was able to supply the proof for this contention because of his correct basic presumption that Hölderlin's imaginative world was clearly outlined before any outside influences came upon his reflective world. What follows in the last part of Cassirer's essay is an intensively compressed description of Hölderlin's pantheism. After giving one of his masterly surveys of the dialectic method in Kantian and Romantic philosophy, Cassirer shows that Hölderlin, who used the categories and terms of philosophical idealism, transformed them gradually but consistently into a dialectic of feeling—the simultaneously consistent and antithetic essence of every lyric poet. Hölderlin did not try to solve the dialectical problem concerning the relation of the general and the particular; he only expressed the depth of the problem as an artist.

I do not find sufficient reason for divergence from Cassirer's interpretation and, in particular, from his discussion of Hölderlin's "artistic essence." Newer and fuller investigations, carried through with greater ambition in regard to completeness, have enlarged on the material; however, they have not improved our understanding in general. Yet, I should like to take up one specific statement in Cassirer's essay, a statement which makes me uneasy.

In the introduction to his brilliant last section Cassirer expresses himself rather apodictically about the general character of a lyric poet. According to him the peculiarity of a lyric poet is to be found in two elements: his individual conception of nature (Naturgejfihl), and his individual feeling for form and development (Ablauf) of spiritual occurrences (seelisches Geschehen). When these two elements meet and determine each other reciprocally, the peculiar lyric form of expression arises. In other words, the individual conception of nature and of the human soul is the basic condition for a meeting which—in the world of an artist—makes lyric art. The important attribute here seems to be "individual," since all art shows the interrelationship of nature (all manifestations of nature, from a flower to a slum dwelling) and man (the life of soul in all possible aspects). Therefore, what does "individual" mean? In the following passages Cassirer speaks lucidly of Hölderlin's tragic efforts to find objectivity, and he manages, very methodically, to leave the impression that Hölderlin as an individual was one of the unusual artistic phenomena who were both influencing and being influenced in regard to their philosophical or cognitive achievements. However, this did not make Hölderlin a lyric poet, and his individuality as such—if we accept Cassirer's two conditions—does not differ in principle from other artists who were not lyric poets, but, for instance, dramatists.

I do not believe that Cassirer, in his statement about the lyric poet, and speaking of his "individual" conceptions, was entangled in the still rather common belief that subjectivity is one of the foremost elements of lyrics. Many years after he wrote his Hölderlin essay Cassirer expressed himself clearly in this respect. After a discussion of Croce's aesthetic theories, he says:

It is of course true that the great lyrical poets are capable of the deepest emotions and that an artist who is not endowed with powerful feelings will never produce anything except shallow and frivolous art. But from this fact we cannot conclude that the function of lyrical poetry and of art in general can be adequately described as the artist's ability "to make a clean breast of his feelings." … The lyric poet is not just a man who indulges in displays of feeling.…An artist who is absorbed not in the contemplation and creation of forms but rather in his own pleasure or in his enjoyment of "the joy of grief" becomes a sentimentalist. Hence we can hardly ascribe to lyric art a more subjective character than to all the other forms of art. For it contains the same sort of embodiment, and the same process of objectification… It is written with images, sounds, and rhythms which, just as in the case of dramatic poetry and dramatic representation, coalesce into an indivisible whole. In every great lyrical poem we find this concrete and indivisible unity. [Essay on Man]

There is an interval of twenty-six years between the Hölderlin essay and the Essay on Man. Yet I cannot find any basic inconsistency between the quoted passages from the latter and Cassirer's general attitude in the former. However, the statement about the principal elements of a lyric poet still remains unexplained. Perhaps, Cassirer used a cliche—an unusual process in his writings—in order better to express the content of the directly following statement about the peculiarity of the German lyric poets in the period of Idealism, their desire to become conscious of their actions as creative artists, and their further desire to verify these actions philosophically. This is, to be sure, not a singular incident in the history of lyrics—the French symbolists and their successors show a more than general parallel—, but it is true.

There are many relations between philosophy and literature which have been noticed surprisingly late or have not as yet found a satisfactory explanation. Those cases appear most puzzling in which there exists a deep similarity between a philosophical system and the expression of a poet without permitting the assumption of a "physical" influence. In the case of Hölderlin the existing material is such that his development simply could not be understood after eliminating the surrounding philosophical situation. In the case of Corneille, however, and his position in relation to the Cartesian system, the problem is much more involved. In consideration of the methodically different approach, Cassirer's attitude seems to be significant.

G. Lanson expressed the situation very well in a few words: "II y a non seulement analogie, mais identite d'esprit dans le Traitg des passions et dans la tragddie cornelienne." The curious facts are that Descartes and Corneille were contemporaries—Descartes' Discours de la Methode appeared in 1637, immediately after the first performance of the Cid at the Theatre du Marais in Paris—, that they represented a school of thought which was new and individual, and that yet a direct relation between them cannot be established. G. Krantz tried to show Descartes constructive influence on the aesthetic theories of French classicism, and Faguet made the attempt to establish reasons for a possible influence on Descartes by Corneille,—both in vain. Lanson, who is certainly right in not trusting either theory, explains the similarity between Descartes and Corneille's psychological and ethical aspects from their physical environment and tries to ascertain that the spiritual-moral reality in French seventeenth century life was reason enough to stimulate both the philosopher and the poet toward the same end; that the active-intellectual type of man, then representative in France, gave both of them an object of experience which contributed to the results in their respective attitudes.

In his book on Descartes, Cassirer devotes a chapter to the discussion of Descartes and Corneille.

Cassirer does not assume any direct influence. A Cartesian influence on Corneille is impossible chronologically, and a Corneillean influence on Descartes highly improbable because of Descartes' well-known attitude toward literature in general and modern literature in particular. Since Lanson's explanation does not appeal to Cassirer, he directs his efforts towards finding reasons which may have brought about something like a preestablished harmony between Descartes and Corneille. His method is geisteswissenschaftlich,—the essence in Descartes' reflective and in Corneille's poetic psychology and ethics is to be defined and explained in their connection with the historically preceding or simultaneous philosophical development.

According to Cassirer, both Descartes and Corneille were dealing with an object of thought which had been one of the foremost topics since the early Renaissance: the relation between Ego and World. They both express the "pathos of subjectivity," theoretically-ethically or poetically, and—a striking parallel—they have the same theory of freedom in contrast to their contemporaries.

Essential for both Descartes and Corneille was their occupation with the world of passions. Descartes tried to investigate his object as a physicist (en Physicien); only through cognition of the passions can we master them and use them to our ethical advantage. In Descartes' scale of values the highest ideal is represented by the combination of full energy of will and perfect judgment, although Descartes does not deny the existence of a relative ideal besides the absolute one, which ideal would consist of a combination of full energy of will and not perfect judgment. Corneille, in his plays, shows an exactly equivalent attitude and was attacked by his contemporary critics as immoral because of his opinion that the application of great will power, no matter whether the aim is good or not, has its own value.

Furthermore, Cassirer shows clearly that the Stoicism, as it appears both in Descartes' and in Corneille's work, experienced a significant transformation, losing its passive attitude (sustine et abstine!) and its moral characteristic as a doctrine for "bodiless beings." Descartes' psychophysical interpretation of the passions and Corneille's similar attitude distinguish them both from the classical and the Christian conception.

Cassirer succeeds very well in pointing out sharply the general parallels which, without any doubt, are essential. In addition to it, his literary discussion of Corneille's tragedies is of high value because of its historical objectivity. Corneille's dramatis personae will seem unreal or psychologically improbable to anyone who has not been initiated into the essence and the laws of the poet's individual world; yet they regain their ideal truth as soon as the doors to this world have been opened. Then, and then only, is it not a question of liking or immediate appreciation any more, but a case of following a creative poet on his excursions through his imaginative world.

All this granted, we are still waiting for an answer to the original question. There can be no doubt that certain lines of development can be traced down to Descartes and Corneille which will make them appear as historically "logical" personalities; yet their peculiar conformity in reaching the same conclusions in regard to such specific objects as human passions and the scale of values has not been explained by Cassirer. In his interpretation, Descartes and Corneille still remain lonesome giants, having many clear connections with the past and, at the same time, with modern views, yet lacking any significant connection with their own time. The clarification of their philosophical or poetic systems is helpful for our understanding of them; however not sufficient for the understanding of their positions in their time.

Lanson's idea that Descartes and Corneille were basically influenced by the peculiarity of their time is enticing in its methodical aspect. Cassirer finds the connection between them in the past; Lanson stresses their immediate relations as not resulting from any direct physical influence but from the source of life surrounding them. And Cassirer himself, in a different chapter of his Descartes book, offers new material which seems to give Lanson substantial support.

In the chapter about Descartes and Queen Christina of Sweden, Cassirer discusses the question whether Christina might have been acquainted with Corneille's writings.

There is no conclusive answer; yet Christina's interest in contemporary thought and art is established so well that her ignorance of the first great French dramatist would seem unbelievable. Cassirer goes farther; he not only shows that Christina in her reactions and actions resembles greatly the heroines in Corneille's plays, but also gives a highly interesting, concrete example which manifests a deep affinity between one historical reaction of the Queen of Sweden and a poetic one in Corneille's Pulcherie: Christina's decision to dissolve her engagement to Karl Gustaf and the parallel Pulcherie—Leon. Corneille wrote his play twenty-five years after Christina had made her famous decision. Therefore, no fantastic hypothesis about the influence of poetry on life can be offered in this case.

Queen Christina, after Cassirer's very valuable interpretation, appears as an addition to the list of seventeenth century personalities who, according to Lanson, showed Corneillean character in concrete. It is surprising that Cassirer, in spite of this, reacts so indifferently to Lanson's theory in his Descartes-Corneille chapter. Descartes and Corneille would become fully comprehensible, if not only their common roots in the past but also in their own time could be shown. Great philosophers and artists, I think, never stand apart from their own time, no matter whether they act as friends, enemies, or prophets. The sociological aspect of both philosophy and literature should never be forgotten, and in the case of Descartes' and Corneille's "strange" affinity it should be applied in full. Therefore, Lanson's treatment of the question, although deplorably incomplete, shows the way to future research. I am not at all in favor of giving the sociological method a prominent position in literary research; however, I think that the physician should know which medicine to use in each specific case.

A completely different problem appears in connection with the most controversial German romanticist, Heinrich von Kleist.

Kleist's relatively small artistic output stands in no quantitative relation to the amount of work dedicated to him in literary criticism. The Kleist-specialization in Germany has resulted in research conditions which have made every element in Kleist's life and work an object of passionate discussion. The phenomenon Kleist represents an in many respects interesting riddle which, in order to be solved, seems to require a co-operative effort on the part of rather broadminded literary critics, historians, and psychiatrists. The limitations of critics manifest themselves almost necessarily in regard to Kleist. To make things worse, Kleist has some national importance for his country, and we need hardly enlarge upon the almost inevitable results in criticism. The most significant example of misunderstandings in regard to Kleist, however, is in my eyes the Kätchen von Heilbronn interpretation in F. Gundolf's book on Kleist, in which this truly exceptional and far-sighted critic manifests a complete lack of hermeneutic ability in this particular respect. All the difficulties of interpretation in re Kleist arise from Kleist's own super-nervous and chaotic personality more than from his artistic work. He is one of the best examples both of the inability of the soul of man to master absolute ideal demands and also of a psychopathic condition together with a capacity for exceptionally creative and lucid artistry.

Kantian philosophy, as generally acknowledged, had a great influence on Kleist as a man and as a writer. Obvious records, among them his letters, give a solid basis for this contention; and his artistic works show Kleist's symbolical transformations of philosophical (and other) problems. However, the exact significance of Kant's philosophy for Kleist as an artist has not been clarified as yet, and certain gaps of understanding prevailed when Cassirer enlivened the Kleist research by his daring essay on Kleist and the Kantian philosophy. Among other contributions to the point, Cassirer advanced a new hypothesis which—if accepted—would, even though it would not change our general attitude toward Kleist, compel us to take new data into consideration.

In his letters to his sister Ulrike and his fiancee Wilhelmine von Zenge, young Kleist gave an intimate account of his state of mind and his general views. The letters are sometimes so expressive and self-interpreting that many a statement in them has been taken for granted without due regard to Kleist's general characteristic of being very inconsistent and versatile in his moods, predilections, and self-expression. In his plays and short stories Kleist offers a magnificent example of his creative ability to transform a moment into a life. However, his letters suffer from the dualism between his creative, and therefore practically not always reliable imagination, and the attempt of giving an empirically realistic account of his life. This is likely to be a rather general situation in an artist's letters. Yet in this case it is more prominent than in others, perhaps because of the constant efforts in the Kleist research to establish the empirical truth instead of pursuing the wiser way towards the ideal truth.

In a much discussed letter of March 22, 1801, Kleist, in utter despair, describes to his fiancee the annihilating effect of his occupation with the Kantian philosophy and gives a vivid picture of his total apathy after learning that "We cannot decide, whether what we call truth is really the truth or only appears to us as such." Kleist's world of ideals, for which he had lived and from which he had received his strength, seemed to be destroyed. This letter is a masterpiece of writing and could, without a change, fill the place of a monologue in any suitable tragedy.

At least three specific questions arise directly from this letter. First, Kleist gives the impression that he had begun his occupation with Kant's philosophy "a short time ago" ("vor kurzem'), although we know that he had already studied Kant in 1800. Secondly, speaking of Kant, Kleist uses the strange expression "the more recent so-called Kantian philosophy" (neuere sogenannte Kantische Philosophie). Thirdly, Kant's Critical method and philosophy seem to have been misunderstood by Kleist.

The discussion of these three points is the backbone of Cassirer's hypothesis in the first part of his essay: that Kleist in this letter had in his mind not Kant's transcendental idealism but Fichte's Bestimmung des Menschen.

The question is not of great importance outside the circle of the professional Kleist experts. However it has methodical significance. We know that in 1800 Kleist had occupied himself with Kant without experiencing any disastrous results. On the other hand, it is easy for Cassirer to show that Kant's Critical method did not imply the denial of the objectivity of man's cognitive efforts. These two facts, in connection with the strange formula "so-called Kantian philosophy," leads Cassirer to the possibility that Kleist, in 1801, had read Fichte's Bestimmung des Menschen, which had been published in 1800 in Berlin—where Kleist lived—under circumstances which made this book immediately one of the most widely discussed in Prussia's capital. Kleist must have known the book; and it contained ideas which would make his reaction very plausible.

Cassirer's hypothesis may be correct. However, I think that it represents one of the very few instances in his writings on literature where he presses a point less from necessity than from his own status as a Kant expert. It is certainly strange to observe that Kleist, who in November 1800 had written his sister that he would like to go to France in order to spread there the new (i.e., Kantian) philosophy, would have had such a shocking experience on account of this same philosophy less than half a year later. The explanation that Kleist was shocked after reading the Critique of Pure Reason is not sufficient, since this work does not express an attitude that would have been basically different from Kant's earlier works. On the other hand, Fichte had become such a well-known personality in Germany, after his "atheism controversy" and his leaving Jena for Berlin, that it is hardly comprehensible that Kleist should have hidden Fichte's name in his letter, if it was Fichte and not Kant whom he had in mind. Cassirer sees that the acquaintance with Fichte's Bestimmung des Menschen would have been—without any misunderstanding—a sufficient cause for Kleist's despair; however, he does not sufficiently take into consideration a possible misunderstanding by Kleist as to the meaning of Kant's philosophy. Strong inconsistencies and quick impulsive reactions were characteristic of the violently emotional Kleist, and these two letters of 1800 and 1801 may be just other examples of this sort of conduct. If Fichte, a "Kantian" philosopher, misunderstood Kant, why should not Kleist, certainly not a professional philosopher, have made a similar mistake? And his desire to spread Kantian philosophy in France is no proof by itself that Kleist, in 1800, had an intimate knowledge of Kant's transcendental idealism.

To prove either opinion is, of course, impossible; and it was to be expected that critics of Cassirer's hypothesis were split into two camps. Oskar Walzel, one of the foremost experts in the field of German romanticism, remarked: "Among the numberous discussions of Kleist's 'Kant experience,' only … [Cassirer's essay] needs to be emphasized." Eugen Kühnemann, in his lecture on "Kleist und Kant," took the stand against Cassirer.

The discussion of Kleist's confusing letter is only a part of Cassirer's essay. Its second half deals with the significance of transcendental idealism for Kleist as a creative artist, and shows in an exemplary manner how Kleist's artistic work received a constructive impetus from Kantian thoughts. Kleist's personal tragedy, experienced by him consciously in continuous philosophic reflections, expressed itself in his art. Cassirer may be right in stating that Kleist is perhaps the only example of a great poet whose creative power had been awakened by a reflective experience (gedankliches Erlebnis); at least I do not find any striking parallels. In this connection Cassirer, after his adventure into the realm of empirical truth, is again searching for the ideal truth and is, consequently, at his best.

I do not want to leave the Kleist essay without calling attention to a brief passage in it which is very characteristic of Cassirer as a historian. In the history of German literature there is one of those rather common little events which, sub specie aeternitatis, would appear as mere trifles but which come up again and again and are discussed with much satisfaction: I am speaking of those numerous examples of apparent pettiness in great men. Our example concerns Goethe and his relation to Kleist and refers to the simple fact that Goethe had no understanding for the tragic genius of his younger colleague. We know some examples of Goethe's not exactly admirable reactions in similar cases; but we do not think their discussion particularly valuable. However, if a discussion were necessary, the only possibly fruitful method is that used by Cassirer in his essay. His brief analysis appears to me to be a perfect example of the ideal method of procedure. Showing Goethe's individual views and his certainly broad, but naturally limited, i.e., defined, personal requirements for what he would have considered great art, Cassirer puts Goethe's lack of understanding for Kleist in the light in which it needs to be seen. There are worlds of thought and of art where friendship is not possible, and that is all. Another sober interpretation of one of Goethe's peculiar reactions was given by Cassirer in his essay, "Goethe and the 18th Century." Goethe astonished Mr. Soret, Prince Karl Alexander's educator at Weimar, in August 1830, by his total indifference to the fact of the July revolution in Paris and at the same time by his very strong interest in the fact that his, Goethe's, synthetic method in scientific research had just been accepted by Geoffroy St. Hilaire. In this context Cassirer is able to give an objective and, to me, doubtlessly correct interpretation. Goethe believed in "representative moments" in history. To him the July revolution was less representative than the victory of his synthetic method. As we know today, Goethe was right.

In the history of literary criticism Cassirer is one of the representatives of the field and methods of Geisteswissenschaft—the study of the development of ideas. Usually the work of the individual in this line of endeavor shows individual concentration, since what is investigated is not ideas par excellence but ideas in their relation to something else. Our survey of a few of Cassirer's contributions shows that his main concern is to be found in the investigation of the relation between the reflective and the imaginative world of the artist. Cassirer is most explicit and most eloquent when recreating the life of the artist's imaginative conceptions which manifest themselves as transformations of his reflective life. His most significant contribution seems to me to be in the neighborhood of this particular point. I find it in the gap which Cassirer leaves unexplained, because he does not want to make a pretentious statement without offering the scale of processes which would solidify it. In spite of everything, Cassirer's apparent interest in the clarification of historical items—Kleist and Fichte or Kant—, or in the truer understanding of a poet's philosophical contribution—Hölderlin and Schelling—, or a better psychological interpretation of a great individual's momentous reactions—Goethe and Soret—, he dedicates his greatest effort to re-telling the story of artistic imagination in those individual lives which caught his fancy. There is no doubt that Goethe is for Cassirer the most significant phenomenon since he is the broadest; a phenomenon which, in the rare combination of pure artistry, profound understanding of the sciences, and peculiarly unacademic philosophizing, represents an object of investigation beyond the usual scope. In his writings on Goethe Cassirer has the opportunity to apply his own wholly constructive, positive, and synthetic mind better than anywhere else. But here also a lacuna remains. Cassirer expresses with great penetration his conception of Goethe's artistic essence as he sees it, and the discipline of his knowledge and thought restrains him from overstepping the limits of the material at his disposal. However, here also a point appears again and again where I would ask for further objective penetration; Cassirer would probably reply that the remaining part is a matter of experience, tact, and taste. The demand for more becomes consequently so urgent that,—if the demand is followed by a new investigation,—Cassirer surely would have stimulated it. The investigation ought to be directed toward a more objective foundation of our conception of the artist's creative world.

To be sure, Cassirer has never published a statement referring to what I shall try to express. He knew, however, that such a demand is a logical consequence of his writings on literature; and in conversations he liked to dwell on this point. Fortunately, Cassirer has published a comprehensive chapter on "Art" and there has given a clear picture of his aesthetic views. There is no inconsistency between his general theoretical discussion and the method used in his more practical contributions.

We must mention a few of Cassirer's statements, in order to clear the ground.

Cassirer conceives art in general as a reality of the same value as, for example, science. "Rerum videreformas is a no less important and indispensable task than rerum cognoscere causes." Art has its own rationality, the rationality of form.

Art is not fettered to the rationality of things or events. It may infringe all those laws of probability which classical aestheticians declared to be the constitutional laws of art. It may give us the most bizarre and grotesque vision, and yet retain a rationality of its own—the rationality of form. [Essay on Man]

The artist who discovers the form of nature is philosophically equal to the scientist who discovers nature's laws. Moreover, "language and science are abbreviations of reality; art is intensification of reality. Language and science depend upon one and the same process of abstraction; art may be described as a continuous process of concretion." "Science gives us order in thoughts; morality gives us order in actions, and art gives us order in the apprehension of visible, tangible, and audible appearances." And—"We cannot speak of art as 'extrahuman' or 'superhuman' without overlooking one of its fundamental features, its constructive power in the framing of the human universe."

These incomplete quotations help us to summarize Cassirer's attitude. Cassirer believes in a creative world of art as a fundamentally independent world of human behavior, with its own conditions and laws. The essence of the artist's mind is different from the reflective mind of the scientist or philosopher. The scientist deals with phenomena and makes the intellectual attempt to bring order into them, renouncing to the highest possible extent an interference of anthropomorphic elements. The artist offers the principal human example of free creative action. The scientist's work comprises a reciprocity of the phenomenal and his intellectual world; his reflective activity has the form of conquest: he becomes master of the phenomena by fully conscious induction, trying (never quite successfully) to reduce the exciting but dangerous combination by means of an always threatening semi-conscious deduction. The artist, on the contrary, uses his intellect rather as a function than as a condition, in order to express the results of his creative imagination.

The transformation of the "real" world which takes place in every great work of art shows something else which may be called intensification or concretion, a something which otherwise does not make an unhindered appearance in the regions of human behavior. In art, and only in art, a decade can be made an hour, and a life made a mere moment.

The intellect's interference manifests itself most clearly in literature, because literature is a linguistic art. However, the total work of literary art does not always have any, and sometimes has very little, direct relation to the world of reflection. The main characteristic of art, in contrast to philosophy and science, is its inherent particularity not to be basically dependent upon the laws of scientific reflection. Since form is the only common rational factor of every art, and the form of each art manifests a specific order, the order and form of the arts are to be investigated, if we want to examine the artist's imagination at work and the architecture of the world of art.

This has certainly been done again and again; however from a different methodical point of view. Since, in this context, we are not interested in the biographical, psychological, or general historical implications of an artist, nor in a more or less casual or accidental investigation of certain elements in the work peculiar to a certain artist, our task should be a complete investigation of the artist's formative tendencies which result in the total of his artistic creation. Art's main element is not the content; it is the creation of a form which—in all its dimensions—offers us the cognition of a content. The formative tendencies may vary in one or in all artists.

When Cassirer speaks of poetic essence (dichterisches Wesenselement), he does not use simply a general term for an unclear conception, but thinks of the full essence of the artist's creative and created world. The method of finding it remains undiscussed. Aesthetic judgment, experience, taste, and tact combined in a mind of methodical strength and constructive imagination reach,—as we know and as Cassirer himself shows,—remarkable results. However, the stimulation to a "more" is given at the same time, since the road toward subjectivity is wide open and the question arises whether among the aesthetic opinions of several experts some may not approach the "ideal truth" more closely than others. As long as the object of investigation is not the function of pleasure but the formative conditions of a work of art, an objective method should, at least, be visualized. That such a method can never consist of the traditional formidable computations of, for instance, rhymes, influences, or new words, is obvious.

In literary research we find some of the finest examples of hermeneutic ability. The changes and the continuous development of evaluation do not necessarily make the quality of the preceding or following critical opinions appear weak, because the liking of individuals, groups, and generations may differ. This will remain so forever. However, we are not dealing with a sociology of art or with a history of taste. We may not "like" a certain artistic creation. However we ought to find a method of discovering whether our dislike is simply a dislike or whether it is based on the fact that the work in question is not a work of art. We ought to have the methodical means of finding the characteristics of the numerous "essences" or "worlds" of art as objectively as possible. Acknowledging that form and order in art are a conditio sine qua non, we certainly should be able to reach a better understanding of all the forms and orders appearing in the history of art. This has been achieved quite admirably in one of the non-linguistic arts—painting.

An ideal work of art may be compared with a sphere, every external and internal point of which stands in a meaningful connection with every other point. To determine the connections and the necessity of their full reciprocity is the aim of an investigation in regard to the form of art. Obviously, such an ideal example may be found best in an artistic genre which by necessity lends itself to a relatively easy analytical approach, for example in music and also in painting. Linguistic art is far more complex. A lyric poem or a drama can be approached much more easily than for instance a novel, a widely changing and only superficially definable object which, because of the lack of formal limitation, appears as the most difficult possible problem in this respect.

The enervating element in literary research, as in all arts, is the difficulty of determining why an apparently good work of art is good. Here Cassirer says: "It is the task of the aesthetic judgment or of artistic taste to distinguish between a genuine work of art and those other spurious products which are indeed playthings, or at most 'the response to the demand of entertainment'." I believe that more concrete results can be reached. A novel may be good, because it manifests profound psychological insight in spite of bad style; and another novel may be bad, because it shows superficiality of content in spite of a very good style. But it is not psychology or style or content which make a novel good or bad; it is something else. We should try to find this "something else." We should find the conditions under which art manifests itself in literature. We should, in every work of real or presumed art, investigate and define those elements which make it art.

Experience shows that certain results can be achieved very quickly, for instance in the field of the novel. An initial two-sided attempt usually clarifies the ground. A novel combines, under normal circumstances, the description of man with the description of man's environment—nature in any kind of variation. A minute investigation of the formative elements pertaining to the representation of man is the foremost aim. What literary research has done so far is only a part of the whole task. In discussions of paintings we are accustomed to point out every detail of a depicted being's characteristics; in literary research we are usually satisfied with less. It is not a question of physical colors,—an artist's language transforms ideas and feelings into its own colors; "it is written with images, sounds, and rhythms … which coalesce into an indivisible whole." The character of a person in a novel as concerns his actions, feelings, and thoughts is the most obvious, although not the artistically most important part of it. A look at the formative tendencies of a novelist shows numerous, but not innumerable, peculiarities in making a person come, go, think, speak, impress, yawn, weep, live, and die. A thorough examination of these peculiarities will tell us something rather important about, not the mere technique, but the creative activity of the artist. A complete analysis of a novel will give us a fairly objective comprehension of his formative action. The literary critic should become a neighbor of the fine arts, since literature, in its greatest performances, manifests the same purity of form and order as does great painting. The reason why a complete analytical investigation of a novel or even of a short story has never yet been made lies in the apparent enormity of the task. The task is great. However, considering the immense amount of time spent on other—and sometimes hardly worthwhile—types of literary research, one may be permitted to think this and similar objects worthwhile.

Remaining with our subject, the novel, we may say that an investigation of nature as a formative element is much easier than is that of man. In literary criticism we are accustomed to find statements about the particular tendency or ability of certain artists to describe nature. Very little has been said of the various types of nature descriptions in prose works and still less about the part which descriptions of nature play as a constructive power, necessary for the understanding of the total essence of the work, or as a mere embellishment with no other reason than that of serving the pleasure of the reader. In the first, artistically significant, case there are various patterns or types of form, and in each individual example an objective picture of the artist's aim and creative ability can be found. The results may sometimes be surprising; here I am able to offer a small but concrete example, since a concrete analysis has been published.

In the history of the German novel, Theodor Fontane holds an eminent place. Fontane's descriptions of North German landscape, an inherent and distinct element in his best novels, were praised by critics as creative achievements of high quality. An analysis of these descriptions, however, showed that Fontane used a superficial pattern, introducing the descriptions without necessary inner connection, phrasing them rather monotonously, and using them as a kind of background music. Fontane was clever, but not a creative artist in his descriptions of nature. His quality in other respects has thus far not been investigated. In his technical dealing with nature he shows a tendency toward ornament or embellishment. In the history of human taste, in regard to literature, fine arts, and music—technical ornamentation has been one of the safest steps to popularity and has often been mistaken for true art.

"So long as we live in the world of sense impressions alone we merely touch the surface of reality. Awareness of the depth of things always requires an effort on the part of our active and constructive energies." The active and constructive energies have not yet been used sufficiently for our better understanding of the means which make it possible for a creative artist to show, in a symbol, a concretion of his poetic world. Better understanding does not mean destructive analysis or hair-splitting. I believe with Cassirer that creative art is the noblest activity of man. The investigation of the formative elements of poetic creation is a noble task.