SOURCE: Madland, Helga Stipa. “Lenz and the Question of Madness.” In Image and Text: J. M. R. Lenz, pp. 1-16. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 1994.

“Lenz lenzelt noch bei mir.”¹

Of all the events in Lenz's personal and literary life, it was his January 1778 mental breakdown that left the deepest imprint on literary history. All biographical accounts mention this unfortunate incident, and many report that Lenz was mentally ill during the remainder of his life. Yet the most influential document on which literary history has based its perception of Lenz's madness is neither a report by a contemporary observer of the sick Lenz, nor Lenz's own description of his illness, nor an assessment of it by medical authorities, but a nineteenth-century fictive text—Georg Büchner's novella “Lenz.” This famous fiction, justifiably one of the most admired and respected works of German literature, is considered by many to be a model representation of schizophrenia in general and a true description of Lenz's mental illness in particular.² Its authority resides in the presumed authenticity of Büchner's portrayal of mental illness through a narration recounted from the perspective of a sympathetic observer whose voice is intermingled with that of the doomed sufferer. The persuasive power of Büchner's language is unmistakable. From the innocuous opening sentence—“Den (20. Januar) ging Lenz durch's Gebirg,”³—the narrative moves rapidly and spectacularly toward its intention: the linguistic representation of a deteriorating mind. Büchner succeeds in transforming the psychic disarray of his protagonist into language. The effect of his text is dazzling. In piling up a series of short sentences connected largely by commas and semicolons rather than periods, the impression of breathlessness and confusion is created. The absence of subordinating clauses results in a paratactic structure denoting a disruption in the mind's capacity to order events hierarchically and to put them in their proper perspective:

… es wurde ihm entsetzlich einsam, er war allein, ganz allein, er wollte mit sich sprechen, aber er konnte nicht, er wagte kaum zu atmen, das Biegen seines Fußes tönte wie Donner unter ihm, er mußte sich niedersetzen; es faßte ihn eine namenlose Angst in diesem Nichts, er war im Leeren, er riß sich auf und flog den Abhang hinunter. Es war finster geworden, Himmel und Erde veschmolzen in Eins. Es war als ginge ihm was nach, und als müsse ihn was Entsetzliches erreichen, etwas das Menschen nicht ertragen können, als jage der Wahnsinn auf Rossen hinter ihm. Endlich hörte er Stimmen, er sah Lichter, es wurde ihm leichter, man sagte ihm, er hätte noch eine halbe Stunde nach Waldbach.

(Büchner, p. 70)

Note the sheer force of Büchner's prose. Yet nowhere does he inform the reader that on the 22nd of January, two days after the disoriented walk through the mountains, the historical Lenz wrote a letter to Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801) in which there is no evidence whatsoever of mental confusion.⁴ The novella overwhelms the reader through the power of Büchner's language, and the conclusion that insanity must be like this, or more specifically, the insanity of Lenz was like this, is the result of Büchner's artistry, not necessarily of his knowledge or observation of mental illness. The illusion that the realist Büchner has created is so complete that readers find it difficult to distance themselves from the text and respond to it as a work of art, rather than as the authentic representation of the mental illness of Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz.

In this introductory chapter, I do not intend to argue that Lenz was not mentally ill, nor do I want to claim that the novella “Lenz” does not contain a convincing representation of insanity. Instead, I want to review the evidence on which the conclusion that Lenz was a schizophrenic is based and make two related points: First, since Büchner's novella “Lenz” is above all a work of fiction, a reading of it for biographical purposes must be approached with caution.⁵ Lenz's image in literary history has been profoundly influenced by this novella, and the revision of his image, which is apparent in contemporary Lenz scholarship, must take account of his mental breakdown and its most famous fictional representation. Second, the sources on which assessments of Lenz's mental illness have been based are limited and need to be re-examined and re-evaluated within a context of the eighteenth-century discourse on insanity. The psychoanalytic Lenz biography called for by Rüdiger Scholz would be a useful beginning for such a project.⁶

I. BüCHNER'S NOVELLA

Since the critical image of Lenz has been profoundly determined by largely uncritical references to his madness, it is time for Lenz scholarship to begin considering recent studies on late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literary representations and social perceptions of insanity. The most distinguished work in this area is Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization. Foucault traces the changes in the perception of madness during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He makes the point that during the middle ages some madmen in Germany were confined in the so-called Narrtürmer [sic], while others found a peripatetic home in the Narrenschiffe which roamed from one part to another. Judging from the literary appropriation of madness in the form of the Narrenschiff motif and the fool as the speaker of truth, madness was not regarded to be a particular embarrassment to the community, but only an inconvenience inasmuch as the insane, like the indigent, required care. But already in the sixteenth century, increasingly in the seventeenth, and particularly in the eighteenth, the mad were cast in a different role. Foucault argues that the insane ultimately assumed the place lepers had previously held in society; that is, moral values attached to lepers, turning them into social outcasts and scapegoats, were transferred to the insane.

The natural outcome of this development was the extensive confinement of the insane during the eighteenth century. For the age of reason, madness and other social deviances in their utterly uninhibited display of “unreason” represented a threat to the existing ideology and therefore had to be hidden or excluded from the mainstream of society.⁷ Foucault points out that madness gradually became a moral issue. Changing economic conditions gave rise to a new work ethic according to which idleness came to be regarded as a social and moral evil resulting in the creation of the so-called work houses, in which “young men who disturbed their families' peace or squandered their goods, people without profession, and the insane” (Foucault, p. 45) were locked up together. In the classical age, “for the first time, madness was perceived through a condemnation of idleness” (Foucault, p. 58). By linking madness to idleness, the eighteenth century changed the perception of madness from the medical and moral issue it had been throughout antiquity and the middle ages to a uniquely ethical problem which could only be solved by punishment and confinement.

The connection between madness and idleness is particularly illuminating in Oberlin's evaluation of Lenz's behavior. This is significant for Büchner's novella because Oberlin's journal became the basis for Büchner's understanding of Lenz. He relied heavily on Oberlin's description and judgment of Lenz's conduct for the construction of his protagonist.

In a 1974 article with the thought-provoking title “Lenz Viewed Sane,” Janet K. King argues that Büchner wanted to portray society, not Lenz, as “insane;” that he “critiqued a Germany that stifled the voice of social criticism and creativity.”⁸ King notes that while “Oberlin's diary depicts a man deeply disturbed and emotionally unstable, the pastor's report does not use terms such as wahnsinnig or toll.”⁹ In the concluding sentence of his report, Oberlin refers to Lenz as “den bedauernswürdigen Patienten” (Büchner, commentary, p. 366), but it is noteworthy that he uses the word “vergnügt” many times throughout the report, either when describing Lenz's condition or the manner in which he spent his days. These many lighter moments seem to occur even more frequently than the serious episodes so well known from the novella, during which Lenz behaves irrationally and frightens everyone around him. They seem to indicate that Oberlin hesitated to associate Lenz with the insane who were confined to institutions and often chained and treated like animals. King points out that mystical experiences, not unlike those Lenz had and Oberlin reported, were not uncommon occurrences in the Steintal, where Oberlin was the pastor. Oberlin himself wrote a treatise entitled “Berichte eines Visionärs über den Zustand der Seelen nach dem Tod,” and his comment about Lenz's attempts to raise a young girl from the dead is simply “[es war] ihm aber fehlgeschlagen” (Büchner, commentary, p. 363). This, King argues, indicates that Oberlin was not particularly dismayed by Lenz's behavior. Oberlin was, however, critical of Lenz's way of life and admonished him to honor his mother and father if he wanted to find peace of mind.¹⁰ King notes that the social disapproval Lenz suffered during his lifetime did not end with his death. An “obituary in the Allgemeinen Literaturzeitung of May 1792 simply judges him a misfit in a manner reminiscent of Kaufmann's reproaches which Büchner introduced into the novella” (King, pp. 147-48). The newspaper believed “er starb, von wenigen betrauert, und von keinem vermißt. Dieser unglückliche Gelehrte … verlebte den besten Teil seines Lebens in nutzloser Geschäftigkeit, ohne eigentliche Bestimmung” (King, p. 148).

Kaufman's and Oberlin's evaluations of Lenz recapitulated by the obituary echo the criticism of Lenz's own father. Together, these judgmental evaluations of Lenz's life-style reflect the eighteenth century's fear of idleness, the mortal sin of bourgeois society described by Foucault. In an age which perceived madness “on the social horizon of poverty, of incapacity for work, of inability to integrate with the group” (Foucault, p. 64), it must have been difficult to separate one condition from the other in a man as complex as Lenz. His economically marginal existence was undoubtedly a contributing factor to the emotional instability which led to the aberrant behavior first noted by Kaufmann in November 1777,¹¹ and then by Oberlin in January 1788. Possibly because of his inability to find permanent employment—a condition which certainly was not his alone, as the crowded workhouses attest—Lenz had “alienate[d] himself outside the sacred limits of its [the bourgeoisie's] ethics” (Foucault, p. 58). If living on the margins of a society in opposition to its ethical and moral values means being “mad,” then some of Lenz's friends and associates could well have judged him to be so.

Georg Büchner chose the theme of madness as one of his central concerns after its literary reception had passed from enlightenment exclusion, to romantic glorification, to nineteenth-century scientific reappraisal. Shakespeare and Cervantes had given madness a prominent place in literature, but by the middle of the seventeenth century it appeared only in satire; Gottsched's banishment of Hanswurst from the German stage is symptomatic of this development.¹² During Romanticism, a preoccupation with the pathological returned with greater force, and madness in literature acquired a new function: it was no longer perceived as entirely negative, but came to be associated with artistry and was, to a certain degree, idealized and glorified (Reuchlein, pp. 228, 230). By the time Büchner wrote “Lenz,” the Romantics' glorification of madness had been transformed by the sober positivistic appraisal of insanity as illness, a perception of madness which was reflected in literature by a demand for clinical descriptions. Responding to both romantic and realistic perceptions of insanity, Büchner combined the tradition of the Künstler-und Wahnsinnsroman with the treatment of madness as an illness. His protagonist, like Tasso or the artist figures in Romantic narratives, exists outside the bourgeois world, but his madness is not idealized, nor is it associated with his anti-bourgeois life-style. As Georg Reuchlein perceptively observes, Büchner's major innovation, a move which differentiates his text from those of Romanticism and the eighteenth century, is his focus on madness itself, rather than on its effects or causes:

Weitaus stärker als bis dahin üblich, steht im “Lenz” der Krankheitsprozeß als solcher und gleichsam für sich … im Zentrum des Erzählens. Demgegenüber verlieren über das Pathologische hinausweisende Momente transzendenter, genieästhetischer, erkenntnistheoretischer, zeitkritischer oder moralischer Natur etc., die die literarische Beschäftigung mit dem Wahnsinn im späten 18. wie im frühen 19. Jahrhundert eigentlich erst motiviert hatten, an Bedeutung und rücken in den Hintergrund. Insgesamt erreicht damit die, seit dem Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts in der Psychopathologie wie in der Dichtung beobachtbare, Tendenz zur Konzentration auf die Symptomatik der Seelenkrankheit und auf deren Dynamik bei Büchner literarisch einen Kulminationspunkt.

(Reuchlein, p. 389)

Reuchlein holds Büchner's innovation in the literary representation of madness responsible for psychologists' and literary scholars' interest in this work as a case study. These interpretations, which have become a common-place in Büchner scholarship (Hinderer, pp. 270-78), have also had their echo in Lenz scholarship. As one Lenz scholar writes: “… the temptation often arises to dismiss all his thoughts as the product of an unbalanced mind—which of course they were.”¹³ Yet it is understandable that critics would react to “Lenz” in this manner, for Büchner's complicated narrative perspective, which blends the narrator's and protagonist's voices and invites the reader's complete identification with the experience of the protagonist, gives the strong impression that his novella is just that—a case study. “Lenz” is, however, not an authentic medical report of mental illness in general, as many scholars have assumed, nor is it a true depiction of the mental illness of Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz.

II. OBSERVATIONS BY LENZ'S CONTEMPORARIES

Where, then, must we turn to inform ourselves about Lenz's madness? Other than the Oberlin journal, the known materials are scarce indeed. Lenz's biographer, Rosanow, is uncertain about the nature of Lenz's illness: “Welcher Art seine Krankheit war und wie sie sich äußerte, läßt sich nicht näher bestimmen” (Rosanow, p. 389). It is generally believed that serious symptoms first became visible during Lenz's stay with Kaufmann in Winterthur, in November 1777, although at least one scholar believes Goethe to be the first to have noticed that Lenz was sick. In her medical dissertation “Der Dichter Lenz. Beurteilung und Behandlung seiner Krankheit durch seine Zeitgenossen,” Johanna Beuthner cites Goethe's remark concerning Lenz's sojourn in Weimar, written on September 16, 1776 in a letter to Merck: “Lenz ist unter uns, wie ein krankes Kind, wir wiegen und tänzeln ihn, und geben und lassen ihm vom Spielzeug, was er will.”¹⁴ Goethe, of course, also described the entire Romantic movement as sick, and just what he intends to say when he uses the adjective to describe Lenz is difficult to determine. Interestingly, in his later autobiographical writings, Goethe refers to Lenz's conduct as “Halbnarrheit” and “geliebter Wahnsinn” (Beuthner, p. 21);¹⁵ however, when he responds to reports of Lenz's behavior in Sesenheim in December 1777 where, according to Röderer, Lenz attempted suicide, Goethe's view is that Lenz is unduly theatrical, but not insane: Lenz, he wrote, “[triebe] es bis zu den lächerlichsten Demonstrationen des Selbstmords, da man ihn denn für halbtoll erklären und nach der Stadt schaffen kann” (Beuthner, p. 41, citing Goethe, p. 230). Goethe may be suggesting that Lenz's situation had become so untenable that pretending to be mad might be one way out, inasmuch as someone would have to take care of him.

In addition to Goethe, his brother Karl and Maximilian Klinger, two of Lenz's closer associates, commented on his condition, albeit approximately forty years after the event. Karl Lenz describes his brother as having been “in einem Zustande von Apathie und Erstarrung” (Beuthner, p. 57)¹⁶ when he picked him up in June 1779 to take him back to the Baltic. In spite of Karl Lenz's efforts, Lenz remained uncommunicative, and Karl reports that he had “den glücklichen Einfall, ihm eine Fußreise vorzuschlagen” (Beuthner, p. 57). Karl's comments on his brother's condition end here, and the remainder of the letter in which these remarks occur addresses other concerns. Klinger's assessment is more complicated: he writes that he visited Lenz during the time he was being cared for by Schlosser in Emmendingen, after the occurrences in the Steintal reported by Oberlin. He found Lenz bound to the bed and concluded, after listening to him for half an hour, that the cause of his sickness was “in der veranlaßten Abschwächung. Aber es war durchaus keine Verstellung von seiner Seite, er war wirklich rasend” (Beuthner, p. 50). The fact that Klinger, like Goethe, alludes to the possibility that Lenz may have been feigning his illness is notable, a coincidence which deserves attention. Does it mean that both Goethe and Klinger were insensitive to Lenz's suffering, or did Lenz consciously adopt the role of clown or Hofnarr, which he is said to have played at least some of the time (Scholz, p. 219)? Was Lenz, in fact, much more in control of himself than is generally assumed, so much so that some of his closest associates had to be convinced that he was really mentally ill and not just acting? Lenz, more than most writers, has been fictionalized and mythologized; he is the subject of so much literature, that it is difficult to separate the historical from the fictional Lenz. Indeed, the continuation of Klinger's account takes on a fictive turn when he describes the “cure” he administered. He narrates that he ordered Lenz's hair to be shorn at nightfall, the nude Lenz wrapped in his (Klinger's) riding cloak, and then immersed into a nearby river for ten minutes. Klinger's verdict: next morning “Lenz war völlig bei sich” (Beuthner, p. 50).¹⁷ But, one might ask, what about Klinger?

The Russian writer N. M. Karamzin, who for a time lived in the same house as Lenz in Moscow, provides us with another eyewitness report: “… Was soll ich Ihnen von Lenz sagen? Er befindet sich nicht wohl. Er ist immer verwirrt. Sie würden ihn gewiß nicht erkannt haben, wenn Sie ihn jetzt sähen. Er wohnt in Moskau, ohne zu wissen, warum …” (April 20, 1787, cited by Beuthner, p. 62). And in a letter of May 31, 1789, Karamzin writes the following about Lenz:

… In Dorpat lebt der Bruder des unglücklichen L. (Lenz, ein deutscher Schriftsteller, welcher einige Zeit mit mir in einem Hause wohnte. Eine tiefe Melancholie, die Folge vielen Unglücks, hatte seinen Geist zerrüttet, aber selbst in diesem Zustande setzte er uns alle in Erstaunen durch seine poetischen Ideen und rührte uns häufig durch seine Gutherzigkeit und Geduld).

(Beuthner, pp. 62-63)

As Rüdiger Scholz has pointed out, Karamzin's observation has been used by literary historians to dismiss Lenz's post-mental breakdown writings, particularly his correspondence, as “verwirrtes Geschwätz” when, in fact, the letter characterized in this fashion by Weinhold is no different than Lenz's other correspondence (Scholz, pp. 214-15).

Unfortunately, aside from Oberlin's report, comments by those who observed Lenz during the extremity of his mental illness are scarce. Böcker, writing in his dissertation on Lenz's schizophrenia, notes: “Die überlieferten Mitteilungen über Lenz' Leben aus den Jahren 1778 und 1779 sind sehr lückenhaft und können nur ein äußerst unvollständiges Bild seiner Krankheit vermitteln” (Böcker, p. 215). Pertinent information can be found primarily in letters by Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel (1736-1809) and Jakob Sarasin (1742-1802), who were aware of Lenz's first breakdown while he stayed with Christoph Kaufmann (1753-1795) in Winterthur during November 1777, and by Goethe's brother-in-law Johann Georg Schlosser (1739-1799), who cared for Lenz in Emmendingen after he left the Steintal¹⁸ in February 1778. On November 24, Pfeffel writes to Sarasin about an “accident” that befell Lenz:

Lenzens Unfall weiß ich seit Freitag von Mecheln. Gott wolle dem armen Menschen beistehen. Ich gestehe Dir, daß diese Begebenheit weder mich noch meine Lerse sonderlich überraschte. Ich hoffe aber doch, der gute Lenz werde wieder zurecht kommen und dann sollte man ihn nach Hause jagen oder ihm einen bleibenden Posten ausmachen.

(Beuthner, pp. 39-40)

Although Pfeffel indicates that he was not surprised by the incident, it is noteworthy that he uses the word “accident” to describe Lenz's affliction, a choice of terminology which could suggest that the incident was not really expected nor was Pfeffel willing to make a judgment about it. No detailed information on the nature of the attack Lenz suffered seems to be available. Surprisingly, the interest of everyone involved with Lenz in this experience focused on how to provide economic relief for their beleaguered friend, not on the illness itself. This response re-enforces the connection between economic need produced by idleness and mental disorder to which Foucault has called our attention. A letter by Sarasin dated December 6, 1777, to Lavater, in which he pities Lenz, concludes similarly that this is what happens if one neglects the imperative ora et labora, adding: “… so sollte der Kavalier einen Beruf wählen, dessen er warten müßte” (Beuthner, p. 40). And on February 8, 1778, after the events in the Steintal, Pfeffel writes to Sarasin: “Was Lenz thun wird, wollen wir sehen. Oberlin ist der Mann und vielleicht der einzige Mann, der ihm, wenn sein Kopf es erlaubt, Geschmack an einer anhaltenden und nützlichen Arbeit beibringen kann” (Waldmann, p. 79).

Both Sarasin and Pfeffel had intimate knowledge of Lenz's sickness, yet both suggested that above all he needed to find a position; this attitude suggests that they thought him capable of functioning in the world, something one would not expect of someone considered to be seriously mentally ill. As a whole, however, Lenz's friends were willing to relieve him at least temporarily of the burden of supporting himself. Kaufmann took an inventory of Lenz's possessions and discovered that he owned very little: “Auch ist nichts von einer Uhr, silbernen Schnallen, Degen oder Hirschfänger etc. vorhanden. Wer Lenz kennt, muß ihn lieben und wer das sieht, muß mit mir fühlen, daß es für ihn beständige Folter, nagender und zerstörender Gram ist, den er ohne stille Hilfe nicht heben kann” (Beuthner, p. 40). He distributed this list among his friends and acquaintances and pleaded: “Wer helfen will, der helfe bald mit edler Stille” (Beuthner, p. 41). In the same month, Lavater wrote to Sarasin: “Lenzen müssen wir nun Ruhe schaffen, es ist das einzige Mittel ihn zu retten, ihm alle Schulden abzunehmen und ihn zu kleiden” (Beuthner, p. 41). Although Pfeffel comments in a letter to Sarasin dated February 25, 1778 that things were not right in the head of poor Lenz, his observations, and those by Lenz's other friends, suggest that economic security, hardly effective in the treatment of schizophrenia, would bring about a cure.

Schlosser, who had more opportunity than anyone else to observe Lenz, provides the clearest description of his illness. On March 2, 1778, after Lenz had been in Emmendingen for only a short while, he writes to Oberlin that: “Lenz ist bei mir und drückt mich erstaunlich. Ich habe gefunden daß seine Krankheit eine wahre Hypochondrie ist. Er ist wie ein Kind, keines Entschlusses fähig, ungläubig gegen Gott und Menschen” (Beuthner, p. 46). Schlosser apparently consulted a physician, who visited Lenz several times. By the middle of March his condition had improved, only to degenerate again, prompting Schlosser to write to Herder on April 7: “Der arme Lenz ist nun ganz in eine Raserei gefallen, woraus ihn menschliche Hülfe nicht retten kann” (Rosanow, p. 393), and later to Röderer: “Sein Tod würde mir der größte Trost seyn” (Rosanow, p. 393). Schlosser considered placing Lenz in an asylum in Frankfurt, but did not do so. By June of that year, Lenz's condition seemed to have improved considerably; he worked for a while as an apprentice with a shoemaker in Emmendingen, and in August 1778 he was taken to a forester in Wiswyl, where he was to learn farming. After several months of improvement, Lenz's illness flared up again, and Lenz was placed with a physician near Basel, where his brother Karl met him in June 1779 to take him back to the Baltic.

Because he took Lenz into his house when his illness was most acute, Schlosser had the opportunity to observe him closely and was forced to contend with both the physical and psychological manifestations of his condition. Many of Schlosser's comments indicate that he did not judge Lenz, but thought of him as a friend who was sick and needed his help. Nevertheless, in a letter he wrote to Lenz's father on March 9, 1778, Schlosser's rhetoric resembles that of his friends and Lenz's father inasmuch as he expresses a moral judgment of Lenz's conduct:

Ihnen unbekannt war ich lange Ihr Freund, durch Ihren Herrn Sohn. Drey Jahre sinds, daß ich diesen kenne, und, ob gleich wir nur selten beysammen seyn konnten; so waren wir doch Freunde. Ich ehrte sein Herz u. seine Talente u. liebte ihn darum; aber ich übersah ihm seine Fehler nie, am wenigsten den, daß er sich so weit von Ihnen entfernte.

(Briefe, vol. 2, p. 126)

The letter contains a postscript by Lenz himself, in which he joins in the universal condemnation of his own conduct: “Vater! ich habe gesündigt im Himmel u. vor Dir u. bin fort nicht wert, daß ich Dein Kind heiße” (Briefe, p. 127). In assuming the role of the repentant prodigal son, Lenz's mea culpa colludes with his father's and friends' dismissal of his life-style as sinful. It seems that Lenz and his associates have fallen into the trap of the moral discourse of their time and so has literary historiography in its evaluation and description of Lenz and his œuvre.

The documented evidence we have is scarce; yet, the conclusion that Lenz was indeed schizophrenic can only be based on available documents. It has recently been argued by Timm Menke¹⁹ that new medical research on schizophrenia, which suggests its cause is a chemical imbalance rather than a combination of complex sociological and psychological factors, must be considered if we speak of Lenz as schizophrenic. According to Menke, this would be a major step in demythologizing Lenz and permitting a new reading of his texts. If, however, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that Lenz was schizophrenic, other answers must be sought. In Vögel die verkünden Land,²⁰ Sigrid Damm suggests that Lenz's illness may have been closer to a nervous breakdown brought about by his stressful circumstances. The idea is not without merit and deserves consideration. Nor should Goethe's suggestion that Lenz may have been unduly theatrical be dismissed without reconsideration. The peculiar behavior in the Steintal is not without literary and biblical models (Böcker, pp. 228-36), and Lenz's propensity to literariness and theatricality was already noted in the nineteenth century.²¹ Also, Janet King's observation that intense religious experiences, which in their hallucinatory aspects are not dissimilar from schizophrenia, were not unusual during the time and in the area in which Lenz's unusual behavior occurred, should be considered. Answers may also be sought in a consideration of Lacan's notions of schizophrenia linking the illness to language, and Fredric Jameson's application of it as a definition of the post-modern aesthetic which, in its emphasis on fragmentation, could also be applied to Lenz.²² A reconsideration of the claims which have been made about Lenz's madness would lead to a more satisfactory explanation of his illness and a clearer understanding of his writings and his place in literary history.

In the following chapters, I am concerned with Lenz's image and with a reading of his texts against his conventionally accepted image or images. Two views of Lenz dominated the nineteenth century and influenced twentieth century literary history. In one representation, Lenz is regarded as a failure, and his texts are dismissed as insignificant. While he had a few defenders—Johannes Froitzheim, for example—such influential literary historians as Hettner, Goedeke, and Gundolf pronounced him unsalvageable for German literature.²³ These scholars and critics reject Lenz in large part because of his failure to secure socially acceptable employment and become integrated within the larger social structure. Based on this assessment, his literary work is devalued and given no status at all. He is said to be morally culpable because he wasted his time; his literary productivity, which required an enormous investment of his time, is not considered, because it is neither profitable nor does it represent an acceptable bourgeois occupation. Lenz, of course, wrote at a time when the bourgeois writer had to find, in most cases, a means of support outside of his or her literary activities. Since he was not able to do so, and, in fact, was relatively indifferent toward the material side of life, Lenz was regarded as not only peculiar, but also as hopelessly incompetent. I call this view of Lenz the Biedermeier Image and shall refer to it by that term throughout the book.

The second image of Lenz, which emerged during Romanticism, reflects a different kind of interest. It represents the attitudes and beliefs of an epoch which had intensified the project of defining the individual's relationship to society. The misunderstood and excluded artistic genius is in the center of much Romantic literature, and the life of the writer Lenz provided an alluring model. The failed Biedermeier Lenz was transformed into the misunderstood and rejected Lenz cherished by the Romantics. Lenz became the poor, unhappy poet, which he continues to be in fiction and literary discourse today. Throughout the book, I shall refer to this view of Lenz as the Romantic Image.

I join a growing number of scholars who long ago rejected the Biedermeier Image and now, no longer content with the Romantic Image, have come to regard Lenz as a self-conscious and highly competent artist.²⁴ Contemporary scholars are re-examining the meaning of action in Lenz's œuvre; their research has resulted in findings which allow the Lenzian character's relationship to action to be seen in a different light.²⁵ Contemporary research is beginning to show how Lenz's texts can produce readings which contradict the conventional emphasis on failure, oppression, and victimization. The presence of a fragmented character or voice does not indicate an incompetent author, but an alternative view of the organization of the self, a view which dominates twentieth-century literature and literary theory, but was alien to the eighteenth century.²⁶

For a long time now, many of us have preferred a self-tortured Lenz, a writer who fits smoothly into the niche created for him; we have not considered whether this reading has had a negative impact on the reception of his œuvre. I believe it has. My contribution to contemporary criticism which favors revision of our image of Lenz is based on letters, periodicals, and literary histories; I also reread some of Lenz's prose, both fiction and non-fiction; and I discuss his reception during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I deconstruct conventional readings of Lenz as a failure or as a poor, mad, and unhappy poet, who wrote without thinking, to reconstruct him as a self-aware and competent artist.

Notes

1. Letter from Lavater to Sarasin, August 1777. Lenz in Briefen, ed. Friedrich Waldmann (Zürich: Stern, 1894), p. 73.

2. See Walter Hinderer, “Georg Büchner: ‘Lenz (1839),’” Romane und Erzählungen zwischen Romantik und Realismus, ed. Paul Michael Lützeler (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1983), p. 274.

3. Georg Büchner, Werke und Briefe, 5th ed. (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984), p. 69.

4. Briefe von und an J. M. R. Lenz, ed. Karl Freye and Wolfgang Stammler, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Wolff, 1918), vol. 2, pp. 124-25. Cited as Briefe.

5. Timm Menke has recently suggested that the novella belongs in Büchner scholarship and not in Lenz scholarship. “The Reception of Lenz in the Final Years of the German Democratic Republic: Christoph Hein's Adaptation of Der Neue Menoza,” in Space to Act: The Theater of J. M. R. Lenz, ed. Alan C. Leidner and Helga S. Madland (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993), p. 150.

6. See Rüdiger Scholz, “Eine längst fällige historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz,” Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft, 34 (1990), p. 212.

7. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York: Vintage, 1988), pp. 3-37, 199-220.

8. Reiterated by Janet (King) Swaffar in a personal letter dated December 30, 1993.

9. Janet K. King, “Lenz Viewed Sane,” The Germanic Review, 49 (1974), p. 148.

10. The author of a medical dissertation on Lenz's schizophrenia also notes that: “Für Oberlin besteht ein deutlicher Zusammenhang zwischen den Sünden, die Lenz begangen hat und seinem Wahnsinn, der ihm als Strafe auferlegt worden ist.” See Herwig Böcker, “Zerstörung der Persönlichkeit des Dichters J. M. R. Lenz durch die beginnende Schizophrenie,” Diss., Bonn, 1969, p. 217. Another medical study, which unfortunately has not been available to me, is by R. Weichbrodt, “Der Dichter Lenz, eine Pathographie,” Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankeit 62 (1920), pp. 153-87. Böcker summarizes Weichbrodt's study as follows: “Die ersten Anzeichen des Wahnsinns treten in Weimar auf, vorher besteht kein Hinweis auf Krankheitssymptome. Weichbrodts Diagnose: Katatonie, Remission mit Restzustand, 1786 neuer Schub, rasche Verblödung. In seinen letzten Jahren habe Lenz nur noch vegetiert und 1792 sei er an seiner Katatonie gestorben” (p. 12). In a brief chapter on Lenz, K. R. Eissler says little to further an understanding of Lenz. See Goethe, eine psychoanalytische Studie, trans. Peter Fischer (Basel and Frankfurt: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1983), pp. 57-73.

11. M. N. Rosanow, Jakob M. R. Lenz, der Dichter der Sturm- und Drangperiode: Sein Leben und seine Werke, trans. C. von Gütschow (Leipzig: Schulze, 1909), p. 389.

12. Georg Reuchlein, Bürgerliche Gesellschaft, Psychiatrie und Literatur. Zur Entwicklung der Wahnsinnsthematik in der deutschen Literatur des späten 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Fink, 1986), p. 50. Other studies of this topic are Jutta Osinski, Über Vernunft und Wahnsinn. Studien zur literarischen Aufklärung in der Gegenwart und im 18. Jhdt. (Bonn: Bouvier, 1983) and Anke Bennholdt-Thomsen and Alfredo Guzzoni, Der “Asoziale” in der Literatur um 1800 (Königstein/Ts.: Athenäum, 1979).

13. See Bruce Duncan, “A ‘Cool Medium’ as Social Corrective. Lenz's Concept of Comedy,” Colloquia Germanica, 8 (1975), p. 232.

14. Johanna Beuthner, “Der Dichter Lenz. Beurteilung und Behandlung seiner Krankheit durch seine Zeitgenossen,” Diss., Freiburg, 1968, p. 33. Citing Friedrich Waldmann, Lenz in Briefen (Zurich: Stern 1894), p. 61, from which Beuthner has taken references to letters by Karamzin, Pfeffel, Sarasin, Lavater, and Schlosser. Rather than citing Waldmann directly, in which I have examined these letters, I am citing Beuthner's dissertation.

15. Beuthner is citing “Aus meinem Leben. Fragmentarisches,” Goethes Werke (Weimar: Böhlau, 1893), vol. 36, pp. 229 ff.

16. Citing Johannes Froitzheim, Lenz, Goethe und Cleophe Fibich (Strasbourg: Heitz, 1888), p. 67.

17. Citing Otto Friedrich Gruppe, Reinhold Lenz, Leben und Werke (Berlin: Charisius, 1861), p. 127.

18. For a short while before going to Emmendingen, Lenz stayed with his friend Röderer in Strasbourg, Rosanow, p. 393.

19. Timm Menke, “Entmythologisierungsversuch: Zwei Thesen zur Rezeption und zur Krankheit von J. M. R. Lenz,” paper presented at the J. M. R. Lenz Internationale wissenschaftliche Konferenz aus Anlaß des 200. Todestages, June 9-13, 1992, held at the University of Hamburg.

20. Damm's work is considered to belong to the genre of documentary novels, like Christa Wolf's Kein Ort. Nirgends (or Büchner's “Lenz”) and exists, according to Fingerhut, “auf der Grenze zwischen wissenschaftlich-dokumentarischer Exaktheit und subjektiv-empathischer Anverwandlung,” p. 303. This must be taken in account when reading the text for biographical purposes. See Karlheinz Fingerhut, “War Lenz wahnsinnig? Tatsachenorientiertes Schreiben im Dienste historischer Selbstverständigung. Zu Sigrid Damms Vögel die verkünden Land,” Diskussion Deutsch, 107 (1989), pp. 301-13.

21. By Heinrich Düntzer, for example, who regarded this to be a negative characteristic and opposed it to Goethe's genuineness. Aus Goethes Freundeskreis: Darstellungen aus dem Leben des Dichters (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1868), pp. 87-131.

22. See Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society,” in The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture (Port Townsend, WA: Bay, 1983), pp. 111-25, especially 119-23. I thank Karin Wurst for this insight.

23. See Eva Maria Inbar, “Goethes Lenz Porträt,” Wirkendes Wort, 6 (1978), pp. 422-28. Hettner's negative assessment of Lenz is based on Goethe's. As an example of Goedeke's and Gundolf's critique, I make use of Inbar's quotes, as follows: “So wird es immer bei den Goethischen worten sein bewenden haben …” (Goedeke) and “Ihn zu retten gegen Goethes darstellung, gegen jenes porträt in Dichtung und Wahrheit, das beinahe Lenzens einziges verdienst um die deutsche literatur bedeutet, ist ein unmögliches und törichtes unterfangen” (Gundolf), pp. 422-23.

24. In 1972, Edward P. Harris concluded an article on Der Hofmeister with the sentence “Social criticism and plot action suffuse one another in a web of extremely complex, yet exact, formal calculations. Lenz's wild tour de force is … cool craftsmanship.” See “Structural Unity in J. M. R. Lenz's Hofmeister: A Revaluation,” Seminar, 8 (1972), p. 87.

25. See Thorsten Unger, “Contingent Spheres of Action: The Category of Action in J. M. R. Lenz's Anthropology and Theory of Drama,” pp. 77-90, and Martin Rector, “Seven Theses on the Problem of Action in J. M. R. Lenz,” Space to Act: The Theater of J. M. R. Lenz, pp. 60-76.

26. See Gert Vonhoff, Subjektkonstitution in der Lyrik von J. M. R. Lenz. Mit einer Auswahl neu herausgegebener Gedichte (Berne/New York/Paris/Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1990). Also see Karin A. Wurst, “A Shattered Mirror: J. M. R. Lenz's Concept of Mimesis,” Space to Act, pp. 106-120.

Bibliography

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Fingerhut, Karlheinz. “War Lenz wahnsinning? Tatsachenorientiertes Schreiben im Dienste historischer Selbstverständigung: Zu Sigrid Damms Vögel die verkünden Land.” Diskussion Deutsch, 107 (1989), 301-13.

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Menke, Timm Reiner. “Entmythologisierungsversuch: Zwei Thesen zur Rezeption und zur Krankheit von J. M. R. Lenz.” Paper presented at the J. M. R. Lenz Internationale wissenschaftliche Konferenz aus Anlaß des 200. Todestages, June 9-13, 1992, held at the University of Hamburg.

———. “The Reception of Lenz in the Final Years of the German Democratic Republic: Christoph Hein's Adaptation of Der neue Menoza.” In Space to Act: The Theater of J. M. R. Lenz. Ed. Alan C. Leidner and Helga S. Madland. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993, pp. 150-61.

Osinski, Jutta. Über Vernunft und Wahnsinn: Studien zur literarischen Aufklärung in der Gegenwart und im 18. Jhdt. Bonn: Bouvier, 1983.

Rector, Martin. “Seven Theses on the Problem of Action in Lenz.” In Space to Act: The Theater of J. M. R. Lenz. Ed. Alan C. Leidner and Helga S. Madland. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993, pp. 60-76.

Reuchlein, Georg. Bürgerliche Gesellschaft, Psychiatrie und Literatur: Zur Entwicklung der Wahnsinnsthematik in der deutschen Literatur des späten 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts. Munich: Fink, 1986.

Rosanow, M. N. Jakob M. R. Lenz, der Dichter der Sturm- und Drangperiode: Sein Leben und seine Werke. Tr. C. von Gütschow. Leipzig: Schulze, 1909.

Scholz, Rüdiger. “Eine längst fällige historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz.” Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft, 34 (1990), 195-229.

Unger, Thorsten. “Contingent Spheres of Action: The Category of Action in J. M. R. Lenz's Anthropology and Theory of Drama.” In Space to Act: The Theater of J. M. R. Lenz. Ed. Alan C. Leidner and Helga S. Madland. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993, pp. 77-90.

Vonhoff, Gert. Subjektkonstitution in der Lyrik von J. M. R. Lenz. Mit einer Auswahl neu herausgegebener Gedichte. Berne/New York/Paris/Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1990.

Wurst, Karin A. “A Shattered Mirror: Lenz's Concept of Mimesis.” In Space to Act: The Theater of J. M. R. Lenz. Ed. Alan C. Leidner and Helga S. Madland. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993, pp. 106-20.