SOURCE: Krispyn, Egbert. “The Pattern of Pathos.” In Style and Society in German Literary Expressionism, pp. 44-52. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1964.

[In the following excerpt, Krispyn examines the trait of pathos, or the desire to awaken an emotional response in the reader, as one of the main characteristics of Expressionist literature.]

The definition of the three main types of expressionist writing is inadequate for evaluating how closely work of other periods may be stylistically related to expressionism. A criterion must be sought which is independent of such themes and topics as hatred of Wilhelmian Germany or faith in a communist paradise. The negativistic, socio-political, and anarchic-humanistic subdivisions in the body of expressionist writing do, to be sure, represent abstractions from the multifarious ways in which the authors gave literary expression to their emotions and opinions concerning the human condition. Nevertheless, the literary categories thus obtained are still largely determined by the substance of the texts concerned, and are therefore still closely linked to the authors' ideas and intentions.

Now the purely structural elements in the definitions of the three variants of expressionism must be abstracted from those involving the substance, and a common denominator found. In the foregoing, the knowledge that the expressionists' world view conformed to one of three types helped to reduce the almost unlimited diversity of expressionist writing to three basic patterns. Similarly the socio-psychological facts serve to illuminate the question of the collective stylistic formula which combines the essential structural features of the three variants of expressionism. The different attitudes of mind of the expressionists were variants of one fundamental, Nietzsche-influenced reaction to their outsidership. They wanted to overcome their isolation, at the same time redeeming mankind by destroying the old order and establishing a better mode of life. They might conceive the objects of their hatred and hope in individual, social, or cosmic terms, but no matter in what particular embodiment or shape the social realities and ideals were perceived by the individual, he always rejected something and longed for something else.

Couched in these purposely vague terms, the basic mental outlook can be used to reconstruct the basic expressionist stylistic principle which unifies the three corresponding kinds of writing. This purely structural common denominator of all literature traditionally and unambiguously classed as expressionist is thus revealed to lie in its antithetic character. This antithesis, moreover, is not static, but dynamic, in the sense that the tension between the poles must inevitably lead to the destruction of one, while the other becomes absolute. The structure of expressionist writing thus indicates that the situation it deals with is not stable, but that a force is at work which will resolve the existing polarity. The given antithesis is, however, not going to disappear in a Hegelian synthesis of the opposing poles, but in the complete ascendancy of one pole over the other.

Apart from these characteristics, all expressionist literature, as has been pointed out, is further marked by a rhetorical attitude. Although the latter cannot be satisfactorily reduced to specific linguistic and stylistic usages, nevertheless it must in some way be evident in the structure of the works.

Herewith it becomes possible to identify three fundamental structural aspects, which together constitute a stylistic criterion of literary expressionism. The expressionist style is antithetic, dynamic, and rhetorical. For the purpose of placing expressionism in a wider perspective, it is of interest to determine whether the combination of the structural elements of antithesis, dynamism, and rhetoric can be translated into the traditional terminology of poetics. It seems opportune to approach this question by investigating the style of expressionism to see whether it corresponds to the stylistic concept of pathos. The word “pathos” played a very prominent part in the terminology of the expressionists themselves. Thus Rudolf Leonhard in 1916 published an essay Vom Pathos; Franz Werfel's first collection of poetry Der Weltfreund includes a poem entitled An mein Pathos; the Neue Club established in the year 1911 the Neopathetische Cabaret in which a new pathos was proclaimed; and in 1913 Paul Zech and others started publishing a periodical called Das Neue Pathos, for which Stefan Zweig wrote a declaration of editorial principles under the same title.

Subsequent commentators have also used this word without, however, defining it adequately. Still, its frequent occurrence in secondary sources does reveal a general, if imprecise, awareness of the movement's distinguishing stylistic traits. In this context Fritz Martini may be mentioned, for he explicitly ascribes an exalted pathos to all expressionistic writing.¹ Wolfgang Paulsen also writes about pathos and “eine Art neuer Pathetik” as characteristic elements of expressionist literature.² Wilhelmina Stuyver calls pathos the “Lebensgrundstimmung … der Ausdruckskünstler.”³ Of the individual authors, to give some examples, such dissimilar figures as Becher, Rubiner, Hasenclever, Heym, and Werfel are credited with pathos.⁴

In order to determine whether this frequently used term is really applicable to the common, unifying stylistic qualities of the writings usually classified as expressionistic, it is necessary—against the custom which has hitherto prevailed in secondary works on this subject—to define its meaning objectively.

In the history of German literature the word “pathos” occurs in several contexts. It may refer to the moral-ethical substance of a work. This is the view represented by Schiller, who stressed that pathos illuminates the spiritual freedom of mankind by demonstrating the superiority of reason (Vernunft) over nature. Man must, through his intellect, conquer the sorrows to which as a sentient creature he is subjected. The essence of Schillerian pathos is that the will successfully resists the emotions. “Das Sinnenwesen muss tief und heftig leiden; Pathos muss da sein, damit das Vernunftwesen seine Unabhängigkeit kundtun und sich handelnd darstellen könne.”⁵

It is clear that for most expressionists pathos in this sense does not play any role. In Heym's case, for instance, there is no question of humanity having any spiritual freedom: it is absolutely subjected to nature, and must defenselessly suffer everything fate inflicts on it. In the world of Heym's writings, man invariably suffers, but, lacking all will power or intellect, he has to endure passively, thereby manifesting his utter helplessness in the face of forces beyond his control.

This amounts to a complete reversal of Schiller's ideas. No other expressionist appears to conform to them either. In no case is there any suggestion that mankind could overcome its sufferings by voluntarily accepting them. The cause of its sorrow—usually specified as the social organization—has to be removed or eliminated before happiness can be found.

If pathos in Schiller's moral-ethical sense is thus irreconcilable with the expressionists' outlook on life, this may be at least partly due to their reaction to one specific aspect of their upbringing. It has been pointed out that the older generations exploited the educational process as a means of defending the status quo against the rebellious tendencies of their children. Since these conservative tendencies were not justifiable from any rational viewpoint, they were reinforced by hollow idealism. Besides the classical authors of antiquity, Schiller was most intensively misused to distort the world image of youth in the interest of the Establishment. The result was that these adolescents, insofar as they were aware of the falsity of the officially propounded views, grew up with a profound mistrust of everything idealistic. This skepticism extended, of course, to the typically idealistic concept of moral freedom and its main embodiment in the writings of Friedrich Schiller.⁶

In this way the inflation of spurious idealism in the education and the public moral codex of Wilhelmian Germany tended to devaluate also the worthwhile aspects of this attitude of mind. The younger intellectuals, from whom the expressionists were recruited, had therewith inevitably become impervious to the idealistic side of the moral-ethical pathos concept. It is symptomatic that Kurt Hiller in the opening address of the Neopathetische Cabaret attacked the “geschmähte Schillerische” pathos.⁷

There is, however, a different side to pathos, which in Schiller's theoretical writing on the subject fails to receive its due attention. Schiller's bias towards the moral-ethical facet of pathos was a consequence of his philosophical position. As a Kantian thinker—his differences with the Königsberg philosopher are not relevant in the present context—his central idea was the autonomy of the human mind. It was this preoccupation which inevitably caused him to interpret pathos in terms of mankind's capacity for overcoming the suffering imposed by nature through a morally positive, voluntary acceptance of it. The framework in which man's freedom as a rational being manifested itself was the existing discrepancy between reality and ideal, the static presentation of which thus formed an essential part of pathos in Schiller's sense.

His views in this respect are most clearly expressed when he classifies pathos as a variant of satire, and defines the latter as the style which has for a subject the representation of the disparity of actuality and ideal.⁸ Though this approach was entirely consistent with Schiller's philosophical tenets, it seems to be somewhat too narrow to do full justice to the historically evolved meaning of the term “pathos.” Ernst Elster therefore disagrees with Schiller and makes the point that in pathos the creative mind is not directed towards the incompatibility of reality and ideal, but towards the idea itself, in whose future realization or approximation the writer believes.⁹

Emil Staiger represents a similar view, which in his formulation reveals itself to be much less concerned with the substance of the literature concerned than Schiller's pathos-concept. “Es ist eine unmittelbare Bewegung, die sich selbst in ihrer Herkunft und Richtung nicht zu verstehen braucht. Im Unterschied zur lyrischen Bewegung aber hat sie beides, eine Herkunft und ein Ziel.”¹⁰ The definition of this style as a “direct movement” between two unspecified poles refers to the identical structural characteristics which in the foregoing pages, with reference to expressionism, were designated as antithesis and dynamism.

The “pathetic” artist has to convey his own dynamic impulse to his public, if ever the antithesis is to be resolved—and those whose resistance cannot be turned into cooperation through rhetorical persuasion must be destroyed so as not to endanger progress. This is also recognized by Staiger: “Der Dichter tut [dem Publikum] Gewalt an; und er will ihm Gewalt antun. Damit ist bereits gesagt, dass die pathetische Rede, abermals im Gegensatz zur lyrischen Sprache, ein Gegenüber voraussetzt, ein Gegenüber aber, das sie nicht, wie die epische, anerkennt, sondern aufzuheben trachtet, sei es so, dass der Redner den Hörer gewinnt, oder so, dass der Hörer von der Gewalt der Rede vernichtet wird.”¹¹

Thus Emil Staiger's remarks confirm that pathos in the traditional sense is defined by the same three qualities of antithesis, dynamism, and rhetoric that were found in the preceding pages to constitute the common denominator of expressionist style. In other words, the stylistic criterion of expressionism can be designated as pathos.

With this conclusion, the aim of defining the structural pattern of expressionist literature in terms derived from the theory of poetics has been achieved.

.....

The complexity of the expressionist movement and the diversity of its literary manifestations prohibited the formulation of a definition which fixes technical or stylistic details. To find a unifying element of style it was necessary to resort to abstraction and generalization of the literary data. The lowest common denominator of the non-substantial characteristics of expressionist writing was found to pertain to the level of general structural patterns. Thus the criterion of expressionist style inevitably lacks more specific factors than those contained in the notions of antithesis, dynamism, and rhetoric, in the meaning of these terms developed in the preceding pages. This circumstance naturally affects the precision and exclusiveness of the definition which may, and does in fact, also apply to certain other works. The practical usefulness is not, however, affected by this, because it does not fit the literature of any period close enough in time to the expressionist era to cause any confusion. It may in this context be reiterated that the present study approaches the problem under discussion from a practical viewpoint. The stylistic definition of expressionism now arrived at is not intended to be “der Weisheit letzter Schluss” or a substitute for common sense. No matter how perfectly it may apply to a certain text, a work written by Goethe or one dating from the seventeenth century should not be regarded as expressionist.

But the broadness of the definition does not only leave its pragmatic value unimpaired; the broadness is actually an advantage. The reduction of expressionism to a general structural pattern, described in terms flexible enough to be applicable to works of other centuries dealing with different topics, opens up a historical perspective. The definition which, because of its abstract character, could be interpreted in terms of traditional poetic theory, therewith not only yields a convenient summarizing “label,” but also illuminates certain aspects of the relationship between expressionism and the German literary heritage. It can serve, for instance, to reduce to correct proportions the affiliation between expressionism and baroque, which has been over-emphasized by such commentators as Ferdinand Josef Schneider and Wolfgang Paulsen. The latter in particular continually equates the two movements and calls expressionism an “Aufleben der Barockkunst des 17. Jahrhunderts.”¹²

On the basis of the foregoing findings concerning the substance and structure of expressionism, both it and the baroque can be classified as temporally defined realizations of the abstract stylistic conception of pathos. What is denoted by the term “baroque” is the unique form, determined by a unique complex of political, sociological, psychological, and literary-historical factors, in which pathos was embodied during the seventeenth century. The baroque employs pathos to deal with the relationship between man and God. Expressionism, on the other hand, is a realization of the stylistic principle of pathos which, shaped by the conditions prevailing in Wilhelmian Germany, is concerned primarily with the relations between man and man.

The recognition of traditional pathos as the stylistic substratum of expressionist writing also throws some light on certain developments and differences within the movement. Since pathos aims at affecting the audience, it is a point of some interest in what way and through which human faculties this is to be achieved. In traditional pathos the answer to this question is quite clear: the audience is to be swayed or shattered via its emotional susceptibility. This appears from Willi Flemming's interpretation of a remark by Martin Opitz on the highly “pathetic” baroque tragedy. “Der barocke Tragiker will sein Publikum aufwühlen und überwältigen. Bezeichnend schreibt Opitz in der Trostschrift: ‘Ein grosses Betrübnis lässt sich von sanften Worten nicht abweisen: Es will mit Kräfften überwunden seyn / und ist wie eine Nessel / welche, wann man sie stark angreifft nachgiebt / hergegen wann man gelinde mit ihr umbgeht zu brennen pflegt.’ Wegen dieser seiner Kunsttendenz zielt der Dramatiker nicht auf die kühlen Bezirke des Hirns, sondern auf die warmen Ströme des Gefühles, ja der Leidenschaft, kurz: sein Drama ruht auf der Schicht des Emotionalen.”¹³

Flemming's opinion that the effect of pathos was the excitation of the passions and emotions rather than the stimulation of the intellect is confirmed by other commentators. Emil Staiger defines pathos as a mode of expression which “die Leidenschaften erregt.”¹⁴ Heinrich Wölfflin declares that the baroque “will packen mit der Gewalt des Affekts, unmittelbar, überwältigend. Was er gibt, ist nicht gleichmässige Belebung, sondern Aufregung, Ekstase, Berauschung.”¹⁵ Among the seventeenth century authorities on poetics the same insight into the nature of the baroque style prevailed; Augustus Buchner saw it as the task of the poet to induce in the reader a “beständige Bewegung durch Bewunderung.”¹⁶

Whereas rhetorical pathos in the traditional sense thus aims at affecting the public by stirring its passions, the expressionist movement in some of its manifestations deviated slightly from the tradition in this particular aspect of “pathetic” style. Expressionism underwent a development whose early phases are represented by the views on this subject prevailing in the Neue Club. These were expounded by Erwin Loewenson, on the occasion of the first performance of the Neopathetische Cabaret, in a manifesto which has remained unpublished; however, its substance can be deduced from later essays by its author.¹⁷

According to Loewenson, mankind should recognize the integral essence of the world behind the apparent chaos. This mystic aim could only be achieved if all spiritual forces were engaged harmoniously in the process of living. The decisive part in the propagation of this doctrine was assigned to the writers who, consciously or unconsciously, should express it in their works. Loewenson's ideas, which represented those of the majority of the Neue Club members, had been substantially influenced by the impression which the personality and physical appearance of Georg Heym had made on them. Even before Heym joined their society, around New Year, 1910, they had subscribed to a vitalistic-metaphysical conception of life and art. The intuitive force which they claimed to discern in Heym's personality as well as in his work seemed to confirm their ideas, and in this way caused them to attempt to expand their thoughts into a comprehensive philosophical system.

The president of the club, Kurt Hiller, and a few others had too cerebral an attitude to be able to endorse these views, and this difference of opinion contributed to the schism in the Neue Club in the spring of 1911. Yet Hiller was in substantial agreement with Erwin Loewenson about the point which in the present context is the most vital one. For him, too, pathos concerned the entire personality or the totality of the mental faculties. He succinctly defined it as “erhöhte psychische Temperatur.”¹⁸

This deviation in the Neue Club from the orthodox conception of pathos as an excitement of the passions only, was probably connected with the influence of the French symbolists. It is significant that Heym greatly admired Baudelaire, whom he felt akin to and whom he ranked first among his literary gods.¹⁹ It is particularly important to note that Baudelaire absorbed the poetic theories of Edgar Allan Poe and partly translated his essays into French. In this way the American's theses became known in Germany.²⁰ Poe maintained that the effect of a poem should be an “intensive and pure elevation of the soul and not of intellect or heart.” The satisfaction of the rational faculties and the appeal to the heart could, of course, also be introduced in a poem, but only in “proper subservience to the predominant aim” of elevating the soul.²¹ Poe's theory remains somewhat obscure because it is not entirely clear what he meant by an elevation of the soul. Hugo Friedrich interprets it as “eine umfassende Gestimmtheit.”²² This interpretation accentuates the similarity between the ideas of Poe which were transmitted by Beaudelaire and the attitude exemplified by Loewenson's philosophy.

Apart from him and his fellow members of the early and short-lived Neue Club, however, the expressionists, in agreement with the orthodox “pathetic” attitude on this point, chose to concentrate on stirring the passions of their public. This approach was explicitly represented by the periodical Das Neue Pathos which Paul Zech founded in 1913. In the second issue Stefan Zweig published a salient essay which left no doubt about the orthodoxy of the pathos promoted by this journal. “Wieder wie einst scheint heute der lyrische Dichter befähigt, wenn nicht der geistige Führer der Zeit, so doch der Bändiger und Erreger ihrer Leidenschaften zu werden, der Rhapsode, der Anrufende, Befeuernde, der Entfachende des heiligen Feuers: der Energie.”²³ Rudolf Leonhard expressed a similar traditional conception of pathos when he concisely defined it as the “leidenschaftliche Bewusstheit eines Zustands.”²⁴

Notes

1. Was war Expressionismus? p. 33.

2. Expressionismus und Aktivismus. Eine typologische Untersuchung (Bern, 1935).

3. Die deutsche expressionistische Dichtung im Lichte der Philosophie der Gegenwart (Amsterdam, 1939), p. 133.

4. See, respectively, Friedmann and Mann, pp. 183, 67, 96; Fritz Martini, Deutsche Literaturgeschichte, p. 515; Friedmann and Mann, p. 96.

5. Schiller, “Über das Pathetische,” Sämtliche Werke, V (München, 1959), 512.

6. Cf. Friedrich Kummer, Deutsche Literaturgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, 17-20th eds. (Dresden, 1924), I, 61: “Nicht zum wenigsten hat auch jahrzehntelang die deutsche Schule mit ihren entsetzlichen Erklärungen und Zergliederungen Schillerscher Balladen und Dramen die Jugend zum Widerspruch förmlich gezwungen.”

7. Die Weisheit der Langenweile, Vol. I, p. 238.

8. Cf. Ernst Elster, Prinzipien der Literaturwissenschaft, Vol. II: Stilistik (Halle a/S, 1911), p. 48.

9. Elster, pp. 48, 51.

10. Grundbegriffe der Poetik, 2nd ed. (Zürich, 1951), p. 155.

11. Ibid., p. 153.

12. Schneider, Der expressive Mensch, pp. 59-60; Paulsen, Expressionismus und Aktivismus, p. 132.

13. Flemming, Barockdrama, Deutsche Literatur in Entwicklungsreihen, Reihe Barock, Vol. I (Leipzig, 1930), p. 16.

14. Grundbegriffe der Poetik, p. 151.

15. Quoted in Friedmann and Mann, p. 21.

16. Quoted in De Boor and Newald, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, V (München, 1951), 21.

17. “Bemerkungen über das ‘Neopathos’” in Georg Heym, Gesammelte Gedichte, ed. Carl Seelig, pp. 243 ff; “Jakob van Hoddis. Erinnerungen mit Lebensdaten,” in Jakob van Hoddis, Weltende. Gesammelte Gedichte, ed. Paul Pörtner (Zürich, 1958), pp. 96 ff; Georg Heym oder vom Geist des Schicksals (Hamburg, München, 1962).

18. Die Weisheit der Langenweile, I, 237.

19. See his diary entry of 11.5.1910.

20. See Otto Pick's article on the German translation of Baudelaire's works, in Die Aktion, May 1, 1912.

21. Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition,” in The Complete Works, (New York, 1902), I, 292-93.

22. Die Struktur der modernen Lyrik (Hamburg, 1956), p. 26.

23. Quoted on p. 47 of Catalogue No. 7 Expressionismus. Literatur und Kunst 1910-1923 of the Schiller-Nationalmuseum, Marbach a.N.

24. Vom Pathos. Aus Aeonen des Fegefeuers (Berlin, 1916), quoted by Paul Pörtner, Literaturrevolution 1910-1925. Dokumente. Manifeste. Programme. Vol. I: Zur Aesthetik und Poetik, Vol. XIII in “die mainzer reihe” (Neuwied, 1960), p. 143.