The extreme subjectivity which characterizes the works of Peter Handke in the late sixties and mid-seventies is based upon an experience of alienation. Objective predetermined systems and explanations are no longer valid, and the subject is propelled into an inner world of question and doubt. The fear caused by alienation permeates Handke's earlier works, a disturbing, uneasy atmosphere of disquiet and displacement. More and more, however, this tone of subjective anxiety gives way to a quiet objectivity. Handke's more recent works are distinguished by still-lifes from nature, mythical dimensions, calmness reflected in both man and nature and founded in a feeling of harmony and oneness. Alienation is supplanted by orientation, and fear by happiness. The transition from subjective fear to objective happiness itself occupies a central position both thematically and structurally in two of Handke's works which will accordingly serve as the focal point for this examination: Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung (1975) and Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire (1980).¹ The earlier novel documents the shift from alienation to orientation as experienced by its protagonist. It is therefore a pivotal work within Handke's oeuvre providing firstly a clear portrayal of the two opposing conditions, and more importantly for the present investigation, insight into the connection between them. Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire offers a comprehensive picture of orientation as well as a commentary on the narrator-writer’s quest for its appropriate form. The narrative reflections trace and elucidate the change manifest in Handke's works.

For most commentators the shift from alienation to orientation represents a definitive turning point in Handke's literary development, a perhaps not completely unanticipated but nevertheless radical shift in direction. Scholars have noted the differences between the earlier and more recent works, and the new aspect of Handke's literature has singularly engrossed scholarly interest. The intent of this paper is to examine the movement from alienation to orientation developmentally, i.e., orientation will be discussed not only as a new literary demarcation in Handke's literature, but also as a natural outgrowth of alienation. The conditions of fear and happiness will be contrasted to discover differences and simultaneously to trace constancy and evolution. The key to understanding Handke's works as a continuum lies within the author’s own stated literary intent. In his now notorious essay of 1967 entitled “Ich bin ein Bewohner des Elfenbeinturms” Handke stated that his literature was an attempt to destroy all preconceived systems or concepts of reality in order to elicit in the subject, both author and reader, an acute awareness or consciousness of that reality. The goal remains constant, but the method to achieve it must vary from one work to another, for otherwise it too becomes a petrifying conceptual system.²

Alienation as understood here is a sudden and unexpected loss of context which destroys objective and stable categories of reality to plunge the protagonist into a subjectively defined void. He or she feels somehow disconnected as the world without warning loses all meaning: “an einem solchen, unbeschreiblichen Tag / geht auf der Straβe, / zwischen zwei Schritten, / plötzlich der Sinn verloren. …”³ Handke attempts to explain this personal feeling in an interview with Manfred Durzak: “Das Gefühl hatte ich als Kind immer, daβ man drauβen auf der Straβe spielt und plötzlich stellt sich heraus: das stimmt alles gar nicht. …”⁴ This is the experience of Josef Bloch in the novel Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter (1970), a classic study in alienation and the epitome of a condition common to many other early Handke protagonists.

A significant portion of Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung fits into the mold of Handke's previous works. The novel relates the story of a typical ordinary man, Gregor Keuschnig, Austrian press attaché in France, who unexpectedly falls out of the context of his everyday routine. Suddenly and against his will everything seems strange and alien to Keuschnig. Handke notes: “Dann habe ich gedacht, das muβ ein Mann sein, der ganz gewöhnlich ist, der nicht wie ein Schriftsteller, also wie ich, davon lebt, daβ er plötzlich das Gefühl hat, alles sei fremd, anders, widerlich, sondern der das wider Willen, gegen seinen Willen so erlebt.”⁵ This very normal man dreams one night that he murders an old woman, and this dream propels Gregor Keuschnig into the abnormal and frightening experience of alienation: “Auf einmal gehörte er nicht mehr dazu” (SE, 8). Handke's protagonist loses the system which previously rendered his actions automatic and natural; he loses his objectively determined chain of actions and reactions—his “Reihenfolge”: “Ich brauche auch eine Reihenfolge, dachte Keuschnig.—Aber für eine Reihenfolge brauchte er voraus ein System.—Aber es gab für ihn kein System mehr.—Aber wozu brauchte er dann eigentlich eine Reihenfolge?—Um zu vertuschen, daβ er kein System mehr hatte—” (SE, 65). The essence of Keuschnig’s experience of alienation lies in the invalidation of any encompassing system which could permit an unreflected pattern of behavior or perception.

Without a context Keuschnig experiences alienation from himself, the world of objects, and other people. He no longer fits the definition assigned to him by society, and he becomes painfully aware of his most everyday actions: “Was sich so vertraut ereignen sollte, vollführte er als zeremonielle Vorgänge, ängstlich bedacht, nicht aus der Rolle zu fallen: das-den-Korken-aus-der-Flasche-Ziehen, das-die-Serviette-auf-die-Knie-Legen” (SE, 28). Without a role he can take for granted Keuschnig is burdened with the weight of his own sense of self as his sole point of reference. He perceives of himself “als etwas zum SCHREIEN Fremdes” (SE, 99) which bursts grotesquely into his surroundings (SE, 13–14). The objects around Handke's protagonist have similarly lost their matter-of-factness and can no longer be taken for granted. The outer world has no independent existence and becomes a reflection of the inner state of the observer. This means that phenomena of reality are perceived as signs, warnings, and omens for the observer. As random and isolated events attain fleeting personal significance, the continuity between individual segments of reality is broken. Accordingly Keuschnig perceives reality not in whole pictures but in exaggerated and arbitrary fragments: “Er schaute nur noch zu Boden. Ein Pfirsichkern, gerade weggeworfen, lag feucht auf dem Gehsteig, und bei diesem Anblick erlebte er auf einmal, daβ Sommer war, und das wurde jetzt seltsam wichtig. Ein gutes Omen, dachte er und konnte langsamer gehen” (SE, 41–42). Alienation finally destroys the system of societal conventions which normally control interpersonal relationships: “Bei der Radikalität von Keuschnigs Zweifel an den Systemen, in denen er bisher gelebt hat, müssen auch die sozialen Werte zusammenbrechen.”⁶ On both a familial and a societal level the values which normally guide one’s behavior have been invalidated for Keuschnig, resulting in behavioral patterns throughout the novel which can be characterized as unexpected, inconsistent, and inappropriate. For example, Keuschnig suddenly and without reason feels apathetic or even aggressive toward his wife Stefanie and makes love at the office to an unknown woman (SE, 54–55).

Handke's protagonist finds himself in a situation where his old system is no longer intact and no new one has replaced it. His previous mode of life has become impossible, and yet a new form is unimaginable: “Ab heute führe ich also ein Doppelleben, dachte er. Nein, gar kein Leben: weder das gewohnte, noch ein neues …” (SE, 13). The invalidation of all systems leaves him in a void, i.e., in a state of neither/nor, where nothing is safe, solid, or stable. Keuschnig’s lack of security or verifiable center results in an oscillation between construction and deconstruction of meaning. The protagonist, threatened by the loss of a role he can take for granted, seeks shelter within his previous habits only to perceive their invalidity (SE, 9). The change suffered by Keuschnig is expressed through numerous comparisons of his previous (“früher”) and normal (“gewöhnlich”) condition to the present: “Wenn Keuschnig früher etwas nicht aushielt, legte er sich gewöhnlich irgendwo abseits nieder und schlief ein. In dieser Nacht war es umgekehrt …” (SE, 8). At other times Keuschnig attempts to counter his insecurity with a new meaning or system, only to find that it is artificial and invalid (SE, 65). The vacillation apparent here also defines Keuschnig’s feelings toward the world. The same object will elicit contradictory emotional responses in the protagonist from one moment to the next: “Gerade dieses Austauschbare, daβ jeder Gegenstand in seinem emotionalen Wert plötzlich austauschbar ist, das erscheint mir [Handke] als das wirklich Neue und als das Radikale an der Geschichte: daβ eben nichts mehr gilt.”⁷ This vacillation is symptomatic for Keuschnig’s loss of context and the invalidation of all that was ordered, foreseeable, and systematic.

Handke's reader is burdened with the same feeling of displacement because of a form determined for the most part by the alienated consciousness of the protagonist. Just as Keuschnig’s life is radically altered by a dream, the reader is affected by a narration which does not flow logically from one event to the next but rather, like the sequentiality of a dream, is constantly disrupted by the unexpected. Because there no longer exists an uninterrupted sense of being (“kontinuierliches Lebensgefühl”) or context (“Zusammenhang”) for Keuschnig,⁸ the incidents he experiences are subject to a principle of discontinuity:“die Zerstörung des Zusammenhangs, die totale Diskontinuität ist auch organisierendes Prinzip dieses Buches. …”⁹ The loss of an explanatory system results in the negation of logical causality; there are no reasons or motivation for the events of the story. The progression from sentence to sentence, experience to experience, and paragraph to paragraph is therefore not smooth and predictable but broken, shocking, and usually sudden. “Auf einmal” and “plötzlich” are two of the most frequently found connectives in the entire novel. Similar in function but more directly indicative of the contradiction between the segments being linked are phrases such as “und doch” or “trotzdem.” The reader experiences a process of invalidation similar to Keuschnig’s as he is subjected to a rhythm of constant and sudden change in which his expectations are not fulfilled and his efforts to organize the events of the novel into a comprehensible whole are repeatedly thwarted.

Similarly the world is presented to the reader repeatedly only as a possibility, not as a stable and firm reality. The destruction of validity, i.e., of an objectively knowable reality, is reflected in a narrative perspective which strives for objectivity but is repeatedly undermined by the subjectivity of the protagonist. The work opens with distanced objectivity which imparts to the reader a sense of security. The main character is introduced, his profession, place of dwelling, and family situation; the frameworks of time and place are established, and harmless details are given in a calm and flowing style. Then Keuschnig’s sudden loss of orientation indicates that the security of the introduction is deceptive. The entire novel is characterized stylistically by capitalized words, parentheses, questions, fragmentation, and incompletion, each indicating subjective doubt and uncertainty. The frequent utilization of the subjunctive mood further heightens the hypothetical and contingent nature of the outer world. Subject merges with object and the contours of each become so indistinct that it is difficult to determine what is real and what merely imagined, what is valid and what merely appears to be so: “Mit welcher Scheinheiligkeit ich die Sachen hier geordnet habe! dachte er. Ich rede mir damit eine Sicherheit ein, die es gar nicht gibt. Als ob allein mit der Vorbereitung der Arbeitsgeräte alles den üblichen Gang nehmen würde, und es könnte mir nichts mehr zustoβen” (SE,52). The reader is not given a trustworthy independently existing picture of reality but rather a world as Keuschnig experiences it in all his dreamlike uncertainty and question.

Keuschnig’s and the reader’s experience of alienation negates and destroys systems; it places the subject in a vacuum of invalidity which becomes an extremely negative and destructive experience. However, for Handke it embodies a very positive potential for discovery of the world and of self. Loss of familiarity means loss of naturalness. Since neither the world nor the self can be taken for granted any longer, the individual can approach his world unprejudiced and as if for the first time. The individual who perceives the world around him through a different and alienated perspective (“mit fremden Augen”) can, in the freedom granted from conventions and preconceptions, experience this reality directly and personally.¹⁰ Handke calls this freedom from an inhibitory and predetermining context a poetic state. Poetic thought is the power to dissolve conceptual systems and thereby open a world sealed by preconceptions to new experience and a new beginning: “Ich bin überzeugt von der begriffsauflösenden und damit zukunftsmächtigen Kraft des poetischen Denkens.”¹¹ Alienation serves Handke as the literary means of realizing the intended poetic thought or state. It destroys the context which renders reality inaccessible to the subject; alienation “ist nichts andres als das hoffnungsbestimmte poetische Denken, das die Welt immer wieder neu anfangen läβt, wenn ich sie in meiner Verstocktheit schon für versiegelt hielt, und es ist auch der Grund des Selbstbewuβtseins, mit dem ich schreibe.”¹²

Herein lies the key to understanding the transition noted so frequently for Handke's works. Fear results in idyllic moments of happiness, because the subject, no longer hindered by prescribed patterns of perception, can directly experience the essence of the objects of reality. This state is called by Handke reasonable happiness (“das vernünftige Glück”) and it is a state of attentiveness toward the world and the self. Reasonable happiness fills the individual with sympathy for other forms of existence: “Ich habe noch nicht recht gelernt, im Glück vernünftig zu bleiben und aufmerksam für die andern zu sein. Sehr selten gelingt das vernünftige Glück, das von der Umwelt nicht abschlieβt, sondern für sie öffnet.”¹³ Although very difficult to learn and attain, the longed for attentiveness of reasonable bliss or happiness is approximated in the moment after the feeling of fear:

Was soll also daran augenöffnend sein? Nicht den Zustand der Angst meine ich, sondern den Zustand danach wenn die Angst vorbei ist. Da entsteht dann ein Gefühl, das jenem vernünftigen Glück nahekommt: das Gefühl für die Existenz und die Existenzbedingungen der anderen Menschen, ein starkes, mitteilbares, soziales Gefühl.¹⁴

Fear or alienation, which predominates in much of Handke's literary production, is replaced by hope and a type of utopian happiness in his later works. The author admits to an increasing concern with the question of happiness and its portrayal: “Das ist es, was mich seit diesen Jahren beschäftigt: Wie kann man das Glück darstellen? Wie kann man vor allem das Glück dauerhafter zu machen versuchen?”¹⁵ The first work in which moments of happiness play an important role is Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied (1972). The feelings of fear and alienation have gained a different and more positive meaning: “Die [Fremdheitsmomente] haben sich ein biβchen gewandelt im ‘Kurzen Brief zum langen Abschied.’ Es ist zwar Fremdheit, aber diese Fremdheit wird zum ersten Mal als ein wirklicher Glückszustand erfahren.”¹⁶ For the first time the fear of alienation results in the condition labelled reasonable happiness and defined as an acute awareness of others and of oneself. The ability to perceive oneself and others as individual entities, an ability which derives from the alienating and terrifying loss of context, functions for Handke as the key to attaining orientation. In these moments of fear-induced happiness the subject re-experiences self and the world as separate beings but senses the existential commonality between subject and object.

Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung is the first Handke text in which the change from fear to happiness is itself thematicized. The dream which initiates Keuschnig’s experience of alienation serves to shock the protagonist out of a life paralyzed by its routines. It is a warning meant to awaken Keuschnig from civilization’s slumber (SE, 46) to the world around him and to a new awareness of life:

Der Traum ist wahr gewesen. … Der Traum ist vielleicht mein erstes Lebenszeichen seit langem gewesen. Er hat mich warnen sollen. Er wollte mich umdrehen, wie jemanden, der lange auf der falschen Seite gestanden hat. Ich möchte die schlafwandlerischen Sicherheiten für den Wachzustand vergessen

(SE, 35).

Within contemporary society it is difficult if not impossible to experience personally one’s own existence, for instead of leading an individual life, the subject merely memorizes a role, memorizes “WIE MAN LEBEN VORTÄUSCHTE” (SE, 50). The inability to participate in life is linked to regulatory meanings, patterns, and systems. The alienated Keuschnig rejects these meanings: “Ausweichen, ihr Sinnreichen!” (SE, 58) and empties himself of artificial societal patterns of experience: “Das Abstoβen als der Widerwille vor all den Fremdbeatmungen: die international bewährten Erlebnisformen als bloβe Kurpfuscherei!” (SE, 66). Keuschnig knows that the infrequency of personal experience is due to preconceptions and predefinitions: “Vielleicht kommt es mir deswegen so vor, als hätte ich, jedenfalls bis zur letzten Nacht, seit langem kaum etwas erlebt, weil ich mir im voraus zurechtmachte, was ein Erlebnis ist” (SE, 84).

Keuschnig embarks upon a journey of rediscovery which climaxes first in a brief moment and then an hour of epiphany and happiness: “Hier also geschieht das Wunder der wiedergewonnenen Unmittelbarkeit, die zeitgenössische Pathologie wird überwunden, Handkes Protagonist fühlt sich in Harmonie mit sich selbst und der Welt—er ist glücklich.”¹⁷ Keuschnig undergoes a mystical experience upon noticing three objects lying at his feet in the sand: a chestnut leaf, a piece of mirror, and a child’s barrette. The objects become magical as they form a union among themselves and in this moment the world becomes discoverable: “‘Wer sagt denn, daβ die Welt schon entdeckt ist?’” (SE, 81). Fallen from context, Keuschnig experiences the three magical objects, which have also been stripped of their function and meaning for society, as entities for and by themselves. Alienation removes both subject and object from a context which predefines and predetermines, thereby allowing each simply to exist “für sich” (SE, 152). Handke describes this state as one of mystery which enables the individual to experience the world personally: “Indem ihm die Welt geheimnisvoll wurde, öffnete sie sich und konnte zurückerobert werden” (SE, 152). Handke's protagonist feels a helpless sympathy for the world and welcomes this attachment as a reasonable feeling: “Bei dem bestärkenden Anblick der drei wunderbaren Dinge im Sand erlebte er eine hilflose Zuneigung zu allen, aus der er sich aber auch nicht helfen lassen wollte, weil sie ihm jetzt als das Vernünftige erschien” (SE, 82). This is the state called by Handke reasonable happiness. It is that moment directly after the fear of alienation in which the individual is open and attentive to the other forms of existence in the world around him.

Reasonable happiness creates a new context for Keuschnig. The mystery which he experiences is not a personal one but rather one which he shares with all other beings: “Ich habe an ihnen [den Wunschdingen] kein persönliches Geheimnis für mich entdeckt, dachte er, sondern die IDEE eines Geheimnisses, die für alle da ist!” (SE, 82). The idea (“IDEE”) which he discovers is an existential one, for he has experienced the essence of simple existence. This idea, the mystery of mutual existence, creates an encompassing context and feeling of harmony between Keuschnig and the rest of the world:

Das Kastanienblatt, die Spiegelscherbe und die Zopfspange schienen noch enger zusammenzurücken—und mit ihnen rückte auch das andere zusammen … bis es nichts anderes mehr gab. Herbeigezauberte Nähe! “Ich kann mich ändern,” sagte er laut.—Er stampfte auf, aber es war kein Spuk. Er schaute sich um, aber er sah keinen Gegner mehr. … Er fühlte sich von neuem allmächtig, aber nicht mächtiger als irgend jemand andrer

(SE, 82–83).

Keuschnig loses his extreme subjectivity and becomes part of the world around him: “Er, der nicht mehr zählte, war in die andern gefahren. … Er lebte noch irgendwie—mit ihnen” (SE, 152). He has rediscovered an encompassing context which provides him orientation: “Weit auseinanderliegende Einzelheiten … vibrierten in einer Zusammengehörigkeit. … : ein Gefühl, daβ man von jedem Punkt aus zu Fuβ nach Hause gehen konnte” (SE, 152). The lost balance between subject and object is re-established. Keuschnig’s new sense of orientation is founded in a shared feeling of existence.

Alienation is the means employed by Handke to enable both his protagonist and his reader to attain a poetic perception of reality. The destruction of context for Keuschnig and, through a form mirroring this destruction, for the reader allows both to perceive of reality as separate and individual beings. Each of these fragments is labelled metaphorically by Handke a story (“Geschichte”) and the process of learning to approach reality poetically parallels the gradual realization within Keuschnig that he must learn to tell his own story, i.e., to invent his own world and life: “‘Ich werde zu arbeiten anfangen. Ich werde etwas erfinden. Ich brauche eine Arbeit, in der ich etwas erfinden kann!’” (SE, 139–40). Whereas Keuschnig originally feels like a character in a story concluded long ago (SE, 116), he ultimately experiences himself as the hero of an unknown and unprecedented story: “Bei dem Anblick des von der Tageshitze noch weichen Pflasters zu seinen Füβen erlebte er sich plötzlich als der Held einer unbekannten Geschichte …” (SE, 166). The conclusion of Handke's novel presents in actuality the beginning of a new life for Keuschnig as he steps into his own story. Here then he attains the poeticization of life. It will be a life not of boredom but of adventure, not of routines and roles but of rediscovery. Handke intends in this work to elicit and attain a state of attentiveness, openness, or reasonable happiness, and this intent is realized by means of alienation. The experiences of fear and happiness are dialectically and inextricably linked. Loss of context, whereby each fragment of reality is stripped of preconceptions, is necessary for the rediscovery of the world. The destruction of outer definitions and expectations for subject and object, i.e., their poeticization, leads to the re-experiencing of both as separate individual entities, which in turn leads to the recognition of and orientation within the mutuality of simple existence.

Handke's novel Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire appears initially to be radically different from Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung. Here one is struck by the “biblical quality,”¹⁸ the worshipping of nature, the quiet, and the sense of orientation and harmony which characterize his later works. Gone are the panic and terror of alienation; gone is the abrupt fragmentary style reflective of an alienated protagonist. Instead one finds peaceful security mirrored in long and many-layered hypotactic clauses which flow into and from each other.¹⁹ However, the transition evident here from alienation to orientation has not been a sudden one; it is a gradual development which can be traced from one work to the next. Handke's story Die linkshändige Frau (1976) is similar to its predecessor in that it too documents an alienating experience which ultimately leads to freedom and autonomy for its protagonist. The woman’s unexpected and unexplained “illumination” to separate from her husband means a loss of context for her as did Keuschnig’s dream for him, but Marianne does not fall victim to the subjective extremes experienced by her male counterpart and is portrayed with a distance indicative of the objectivity to come. The form of Handke's Das Gewicht der Welt (1977) bears witness again to the author’s attempt to free moments of experience from a predetermined system or context. Just as Keuschnig must learn to live his life as a story, each of the events narrated in the journal is intended as a story in itself, lacking all external purpose or plan. It is this type of peaceful being unto itself or mythical quality which increasingly imbues Handke's works: Marianne strives to attain it;²⁰ the journal presages it in many passages, for instance: “Immer wieder das Bedürfnis, als Schriftsteller Mythen zu erfinden, zu finden … als brauchte ich neue Mythen, unschuldige, aus meinem täglichen Leben gewonnene: mit denen ich mich neu anfangen kann” (181); Handke's story Langsame Heimkehr (1979), the first in the tetralogy which includes Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire, seems to have achieved it with its static descriptions of nature.

Although Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung is written from the standpoint of alienation looking tentatively forward, whereas the narrator of Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire looks back upon the realization of the anticipated direction, i.e., of orientation, both works serve to document the transition from alienation to orientation, and it is of greater significance that in both novels Handke's intent remains constant, namely the provocation of attentiveness or reasonable happiness by means of poetic language. Both protagonists attain the aestheticization of life; this is what Keuschnig experiences in the moment or hour of true feeling, and this is what the mountain teaches the narrator. Each of the protagonists must learn to perceive of reality and himself in the freedom of poetic language in order to experience directly and to define existence autonomously. It is the methodology or nature of the language which has changed and which accounts for the apparently so extreme difference between these two works. Whereas Handke utilizes the fear of alienation to destruct the context surrounding both object and subject in Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung, the narrator-writer of Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire strives to construct a reality lacking the predetermining definitions of a context. He searches for a poetic language or structure which will allow segments of reality to exist independently of each other and of the perceiving subject and yet as part of the whole, and he finds colors, forms, and analogies.

The action in Handke's novel Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire consists of several walks around and on the Mont Sainte-Victoire in Provence, Southern France. Standing on the road leading to the mountain the narrator experiences a oneness with the objects before him, a unity between man and nature, a moment of eternity: “Naturwelt und Menschenwerk, eins durch das andere, bereiteten mir einen Beseligungsmoment, … der Nunc stans genannt worden ist: Augenblick der Ewigkeit” (LS-V, 9–10). The protagonist also has a place within this harmony, within the colors of the landscape he perceives: “Einmal bin ich dann in den Farben zu Hause gewesen” (LS-V, 9). This is the first lesson taught by the mountain and it constitutes the state of reasonable bliss or happiness (“vernünftige Freude”: LS-V, 24–25). Alienation is overcome by a feeling of shared existence. It is replaced with a sense of security and contextual orientation, with a feeling of being at home. The narrator-protagonist discovers an existential unity between himself as subject and the world as object, a commonality which transcends time and individuation.

The narrator has experienced similar moments of orientation and bliss within the dreamlike pictures of his previous literary efforts (LS-V, 9). These pictures were, however, threatening to the narrator. They were founded in his feelings of fear and terror which, although continuing to influence his literary production, no longer comprise his principal topic (LS-V, 21). The narrator reflects upon his past manner of writing, whereby he would dream himself into an object in order to comprehend its essence: “‘Sich einträumen in die Dinge’ war ja lange eine Maxime beim Schreiben gewesen: sich die zu erfassenden Gegenstände derart vorstellen, als ob ich sie im Traum sähe, in der Überzeugung, daβ sie dort erst in ihrem Wesen erscheinen” (LS-V, 26). In this manner the objects of his world became magical and provided him a place of safety and orientation (“Hain”). It is a simple matter to draw correlations between such narrative reflections and Handke's own literary production.²¹ Dreams and the subjunctive “als-ob” perspective typify the experience of alienation as discussed for the author’s earlier works, as do magical objects, which are everyday things made special and therefore discoverable by means of the “fremden Blick.” Here the narrator, again reflecting Handke's development, rejects this magical realm, for behind its dreamlike contours there always will lie the potential for total dissolution inherent in the destructive nature of alienation (LS-V, 26).

The narrator recounts the process of discovering reasonable pictures, which differ from the earlier magical ones in that their reasonableness derives from a quiet distance, not alienation, between subject and object. The picture which initially inspired and continues to justify the narrator’s present account expresses this distance: “Es war nicht in einem Traum, sondern an einem sonnenhellen Tag; auch kein Vergehen vor südlichen Zypressen, sondern ich hier, und mein Gegenstand dort” (LS-V, 27).²² The narrator reflects upon two different landscapes:

In einer Erzählung, die ich ein halbes Jahrzehnt davor geschrieben hatte, wölbte sich einmal eine Landschaft, obwohl sie eben war, so nah an den Helden heran, daβ sie ihn zu verdrängen schien. Die ganz andere, konkav geweitete, vom Druck entlastende und den Körper freidenkende Welt von 1974 steht jedoch immer noch vor mir …

(LS-V, 24).

The landscapes of alienation were too close for the hero to distinguish either himself or the objects of the landscape.²³ The ability to experience the essence of reality was dependent upon the destruction of context, a blurring of inner and outer boundaries which threatened to submerge the protagonist. The union between subject and object made it difficult to return to everyday life (LS-V, 26). In contrast the landscape which now determines the story allows both the individual and the phenomena of the world to exist separately and yet, as expressed in the picture’s concavity, connected and reflective of each other. The protagonist yearns for a place of safe secrecy (“Verborgenheit”),²⁴ and feels part of a general context (“‘Nähe,’” “Nähegefühl,” “Zusammenhalt”: LS-V, 76–77), but he does not disappear within the objects of the landscape (LS-V, 68). The subject can realize his own individual existence only by granting his vis-à-vis its independent being: “Nur auβen, bei den Tagesfarben, bin ich” (LS-V, 26).

Handke's narrator-protagonist compares his turn from magical to reasonable pictures to a similar development in the painter Cézanne. Cézanne, who at first painted terrifying and shocking pictures, devoted himself increasingly to the problem concerning the realization of the essence of an object by means of pure form. A perfect form ensures peaceful and eternal being:

Cézanne hat ja anfangs Schreckensbilder, wie die Versuchung des Heiligen Antonius, gemalt. Aber mit der Zeit wurde sein einziges Problem die Verwirklichung (“réalisation”) des reinen, schuldlosen Irdischen: des Apfels, des Felsens, eines menschlichen Gesichts. Das Wirkliche war dann die erreichte Form; die nicht das Vergehen in den Wechselfallen der Geschichte beklagt, sondern ein Sein im Frieden weitergibt

(LS-V, 21).

Cézanne’s later pictures, so close to this realization, celebrate the object with colors and forms: “Es waren die Arbeiten seines letzten Jahrzehnts, wo er dann so nah an dem erstrebten ‘Verwirklichen’ seines jeweiligen Gegenstands war, daβ die Farben und Formen diesen schon feiern können” (LS-V, 35). In giving up the dreamlike magical pictures connected to fear and alienation the narrator attempts to realize the essence of an object in Cézanne’s manner. Reasonable pictures through which the protagonist now perceives his world are those composed solely of color and form.

The narrator pictures the beauty of nature by associating objects with colors: “‘Denk nicht immer Himmelsvergleiche bei der Schönheit—sondern sieh die Erde. Sprich von der Erde, oder bloβ von dem Fleck hier. Nenn ihn, mit seinen Farben’” (LS-V, 71). The principle of naming, exemplified in the following extract, is applied throughout the novel: “Da waren die Risse im Felsen. Da waren die Pinien und säumten einen Seitenweg; am Ende des Wegs groβ das Schwarzweiβ einer Elster” (LS-V, 42). The narrator names the objects of his surroundings without placing them in relationships or assigning them functions. This is achieved stylistically by means of the omission of verbs in favor of nouns and by the usage of “da waren” or in other passages of “da” alone: “Als er [Cézanne] im Louvre vor Courbets Bildern stand, rief er immer wieder nur die Namen der Dinge darauf aus: ‘Da, die Meute, die Blutlache, der Baum. Da, die Handschuhe, die Spitzen, die gebrochene Seide des Rocks’” (LS-V, 33). The effect of the objects in and of themselves is so strong that they can merely be named. The protagonist rejects the “plötzlich” of the magical pictures of alienation as previously discussed for the “da” of his reasonable and objective pictures (LS-V, 23). The protagonist names the objects by means of their colors. In the above passage the narrator does not see a magpie, which is black and white, but rather he sees the black-and-white of a magpie. The color becomes the object and is therefore capitalized, a trademark of Handke's entire work:

Knapp über mir, fast zum Angreifen, schwebte im Wind eine Rabenkrähe. Ich sah das wie ins Inbild eines Vogels gehörende Gelb der an den Körper gezogenen Krallen; das Goldbraun der von der Sonne schimmernden Flügel; das Blau des Himmels.—Zu dritt ergab das die Bahnen einer weiten luftigen Fläche, die ich im selben Augenblick als dreifarbige Fahne empfand. Es war eine Fahne ohne Anspruch, ein Ding rein aus Farben

(LS-V, 12).

The ability to perceive the world as compositions of color and shape allows the protagonist to experience phenomenal reality and is moreover the key to his sense of orientation and security. Describing an object with color alone denies it of all pretensions (“Anspruch”) such as meaning, symbolism, or function. These pretensions have further been disclaimed by the naming principle, which strips an object of any context or category, thereby reducing it to its essence, i.e., to a state of simple being, to Cézanne’s “Sein im Frieden” (LS-V, 21). A picture of pure form and color is silent and dark, unable to impart a message. Instead it elicits a subjective experience of reality, a reality of being so unspecified and so common that it can be shared by all participating imaginations (LS-V, 31). Again the narrator-protagonist uses the paintings of Cézanne to better portray his own experience. He finds that the painter’s later pictures, celebrations of color and form, are so completely silent that they provoke a communicative jump, whereby two onlookers—two sets of eyes—separated by time nevertheless unite in a common artistic experience.

das Schweigen der Bilder wirkte hier so vollkommen, weil die Dunkelbahnen einer Konstruktion einen Allgemein-Zug verstärkten, zu dem ich (Wort des Dichters) “hinüberdunkeln” konnte: Erlebnis des Sprungs, mit dem zwei Augenpaare, in der Zeit auseinander, auf einer Bildfläche zusammenkamen

(LS-V, 35–36).

Aesthetic communication expressed through the metaphor “das Augenpaar” becomes the yearned-for ideal with its promise of contextual unity and belonging: “Wohl also dem, den zu Hause ein Augenpaar erwartet!” (LS-V, 82); “Zu Hause das Augenpaar?” (LS-V, 139). Through a darkness left undefined and a silence which simply exists, the narrator experiences in a moment of creative imagination an existential mutuality which unites all forms of being.

The narrator-protagonist attains the awareness of reasonable happiness whereby the subject enjoys unmediated access to and universal experience of the essence of reality. These experiences are similar to Keuschnig’s moments of epiphany. Reasonable pictures, i.e., those reduced to pure form and color, enable the protagonist to perceive reality in a contextual void. This reduction or avoidance of context results in a poetic state. During an interview with June Schlueter in 1979 Handke stated that for him poetic language was a language not burdened with preagreed meaning or routine:

Die Sprache ist das Kostbarste, was es gibt. Die meisten Menschen haben überhaupt keine Sprache. Es geht ein Aufatmen durch die Massen, wenn irgend jemand da ist, der eine Sprache hat. Was ist diese Sprache? Ich glaube, diese Sprache ist nur die poetische Sprache. Das heiβt Sprache. Alle anderen Sprachen sind Übereinkünfte, sind Routinen. Im besten Fall ist es eine Lebensroutine, im besten Fall. Aber im Normalfall ist es etwas Tötendes und Abschlieβendes und etwas Aggressives, etwas Böses.²⁵

For Keuschnig alienation destroyed the predetermined messages and meaning which sealed the world, thereby enabling him to begin to tell his own life story. For the narrator of Handke's later story the darkness (“dunkelte”) and silence (“Schweigen”) of reasonable pictures, i.e., of pictures consisting of pure form and color without any pretensions, transport the protagonist into a similar aestheticized world as he is transformed into “der Schriftsteller” (LS-V, 72).

The quest which the narrator-writer must now undertake has as its goal a context or encompassing structure within which to unite the fleeting moments of reasonable happiness experienced thus far: “Aber was war das Gesetz meines Gegenstands seine selbstverständliche, verbindliche Form?” (LS-V, 98–99). The narrator-writer has learned to perceive and personally experience reality by means of a poetic language which freed phenomena of a prejudicing context to allow them to exist as separate and individual entities. But now the problem confronting him is one of reconnection. The narrator-writer seeks a poetic language or structure which will prevent reality from dissolving into ever more fragmented pieces, a form which will lend existence constancy, stability, and permanence, a form which Handke himself continually strives to attain: “Sprache heiβt. für mich Form und Form heiβt für mich Dauer, weil es sonst keine Dauer gibt in der menschlichen Existenz.”²⁶ There exists a contradiction here, for how does one interweave the many single moments of life into a whole? How does one render the individual, time-bound, and therefore fleeting appearances of phenomena endless and eternal? How can each moment of life or each object of reality exist in and by itself, but simultaneously within a context? The form must at one and the same time unite and separate. The narrator’s friend D. formulates the contradiction: “‘Der Übergang muβ für mich klar trennend und ineinander sein’” (LS-V, 119).

Just as the mountain first taught the narrator about the Nunc stans, it now offers him the structure appropriate for the communication of these moments of transcendence. The solution to the problem of form is experienced—is creatively imagined—upon observing the site of a fracture or rupture on the Mont Sainte-Victoire, which displays two different types of stone lying side by side as parts of the same slope (LS-V, 108–109; LS-V, 114–15). This rupture overcomes the contradiction between the one and the all by uniting two disparate entities under the same context. The connection is not established through synthesis or compromise of the two independent beings but rather with the help of the viewer’s ability to phantasize freely: “Und so kam wieder die Lust auf das Eine in Allem. Ich wuβte ja: Der Zusammenhang ist möglich. Jeder einzelne Augenblick meines Lebens geht mit jedem anderen zusammen—ohne Hilfsglieder. Es existiert eine unmittelbare Verbindung; ich muβ sie nur freiphantasieren” (LS-V, 100). The form found by the narrator-writer is composed of analogous moments which are bridged by means of the imagination: “sie [die Analogien] waren, Gegenteil von dem täglichen Durcheinander im Kopf, nach heiβen Erschütterungen die goldenen Früchte der Phantasie, standen da als die wahren Vergleiche, und bildeten so erst, nach dem Wort des Dichters, ‘des Werkes weithin strahlende Stirn’” (LS-V, 100).

Analogy is the form used to unite the numerous pictorial descriptions of pure existence; it is the form which lends the many individual instances of reasonable happiness a lasting and universal quality; it characterizes Handke's entire novel. Analogy pervades the scenes of nature surrounding the protagonist. The patterns which he encounters are repeated again and again on his walks: “Im Nachschauen wiederholte sich an der Bergwand, mit den in den Felsritzen wachsenden dunklen Büschen, das Muster der Zikadenflügel” (LS-V, 49). Often recurrences of natural phenomena transport the narrator back or even forward to a setting remote in time or place but provoking a comparable subjective reaction:

und der folgende Mondaufgang tritt jetzt, “im Bedenken des Gesehenen” (wie Cézanne einmal seine Arbeitsweise beschrieb), in Analogie mit einem zweiten Mond, den ich an einem ähnlich ruhigen Abend über einer nahen Horizontlinie als den gelbleuchtenden Torbogen einer Scheune erblickte. Ich saβ in dem Gesause, wie einst das Kind in dem Sausen einer bestimmten Fichte gesessen war (und wie ich später mitten in einem Stadtlärm im Rauschen des dortigen Flusses stehen konnte)

(LS-V, 22–23).

Above all, the shapes and colors of the mountain reappear in never-ending analogies: “Dafür kehrt der Berg aber in der Analogie von Farben und Formen fast alltäglich wieder” (LS-V, 85). The narrator-writer applies this form to his description of reasonable happiness, which is comprised of the many previous fleeting instances of it, each distinct in time and place, and yet similar in feeling. These analogous moments reach back into the narrator’s childhood. Reflecting upon places and objects of refuge the narrator asks: “Sollte es nicht seit je so sein, und gab es nicht schon in der Kindheit etwas, das für mich, wie später L’Estaque der Ort, das Ding der Verborgenheit war?” (LS-V, 68). Even more common than childhood memories are the narrator’s remembered reactions to paintings, especially those of Cézanne. As has already become evident, there are numerous references to and comparisons with the works and development of this painter throughout the text. The novel consists of individual but similar experiences arranged adjacently but lacking any causal or direct relationship except that which can be creatively imagined and existentially experienced. In this manner, i.e., through analogy, each moment remains unique, self-contained, and autonomous while part of an all-encompassing context.

The narrator-writer observes the forms and colors of nature, experiences these pictures, and attempts to translate his experience into words and a form free of concepts and explanations, a form which can in turn be experienced by the reader. The two verbs “weitergeben” and “bewirken” occur repeatedly within Handke's text.²⁷ The narrator-protagonist desires to communicate (“weitergeben”) his experience of harmony to the reader in such a manner as to provoke (“bewirken”) within this reader a similar experience. The key to communication is therefore experience, and the key to experience is the imagination. For Handke the truth contained in poetic language resides not within the merely preparatory stages of thought, planning, collection, or observation, but within the power to imagine: “Das, was dem Schreiben die Wahrheit gibt, muβ in der Phantasie erschaffen werden.”²⁸ Creative imagination is the sole means through which to escape all conceptual systems; it is the source of all poetic language; it is the power which creates the world anew again and again. The narrator-writer of Handke's novel describes nature with forms and colors, which impart to the reader a picture, not an explanation, of an object which must be imagined, not comprehended. The best example of this type of poetic language is afforded by the final chapter, “a word picture”²⁹ comprised of the forms and colors of nature. Similarly, to provoke in the reader the narrator’s experience of orientation it is necessary to engage the reader’s imagination, not his reason (LS-V, 99), for contextual unity can be told but not explained: “Ein Zusammenhang ist da, nicht erklärbar, doch zu erzählen” (LS-V, 69). Integration of single objects into a context is achieved by means of analogies, which permit the segments of reality to remain autonomous while simultaneously connecting them. In the freedom from conceptual systems, i.e., in a poeticized world, both the narrator-writer and through him the reader are able to imagine creatively or to re-experience first the essence of reality and second the existential harmony encompassing all and providing all orientation.

This investigation has attempted to trace the transition apparent in Handke's oeuvre from alienation to orientation not only contrastively but more significantly from a developmental or evolutionary standpoint. Handke's novel Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung evinces the relationship between fear and happiness, whereby the former is a prerequisite for the latter because the moment after fear approximates the state of reasonable happiness. Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire portrays the attainment of orientation through aesthetic communication. The moments of happiness are no longer subject to the sudden change as before, and subjective alienation is overcome within a feeling of contextual belonging and existential mutuality. The development from fear to happiness represents changing literary methods, not diverging authorial purposes. Handke's literary intent remains constant: he attempts to awaken an attentiveness in himself and his reader; he strives to open the individual’s eyes to the self, the world, and others; he struggles to attain the essence of reality, an essence which cannot be comprehended by means of explanation, but must be subjectively experienced by means of poetic narration. The essence of reality is realized by means of a poetic language which frees phenomena from predetermined meanings or a seemingly natural context, thereby granting each and every moment of life existential autonomy. In Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung freedom is created through destruction. The form of the novel is characterized by disconnection, a subjectively limited perspective, acausality, and fragmentation. The form serves both as a reflection of the protagonist’s condition and as the means to infect the reader with this alienation. Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire employs another method or poetic language to free reality from context for both the narrator-protagonist and the reader. Nature appears and is then described with color and form alone, and in its autonomous silence its essence can be experienced. This experience is one which can be shared by all, thus creating a feeling of existential orientation. The form of analogy, which simultaneously expresses disconnection and consanguinity, transforms happiness into a lasting state.

Notes

1. Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1975); Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980). Hereafter cited in the text as (SE) and (LS-V) respectively.

2. “Ich bin ein Bewohner des Elfenbeinturms,” in Ich bin ein Bewohner des Elfenbeinturms (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972), pp. 19–28, especially pp. 20 and 26.

3. Peter Handke, Als das Wünschen noch geholfen hat (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974), p. 103.

4. Manfred Durzak, Gespräche über den Roman mit Joseph Breitbach, Elias Canetti, Heinrich Böll, Siegfried Lenz, Hermann Lenz, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Peter Handke, Hans Erich Nossack, Uwe Johnson, Walter Höllerer: Formbestimmungen und Analysen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976), p. 334.

5. Heinz Ludwig Arnold, “‘Nicht Literatur machen, sondern als Schriftsteller leben’: Gespräch mit Peter Handke,” in Als Schriftsteller leben: Gespräche mit Peter Handke, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Gerhard Zwerenz, Walter Jens, Peter Rühmkorf, Günter Grass (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1979), p. 21.

6. Irene Wellershoff, Innen und Auβen: Wahrnehmung und Vorstellung bei Alain Robbe-Grillet und Peter Handke (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1980), p. 33.

7. Arnold, pp. 22–23.

8. Arnold, p. 23.

9. Gustav Zürcher, “Leben ohne Poesie,” Text + Kritik, 24/24a (1976), ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold, 52.

10. Rolf Michaelis, “Die Katze vor dem Spiegel: Oder: Peter Handkes Traum von der ‘anderen Zeit,’” Theater heute, 14, No. 12 (1973), 5.

11. Handke, Wünschen, p. 76.

12. Ibid., p. 80.

13. Ibid., p. 101.

14. Ibid., p. 102.

15. Arnold, p. 26.

16. Durzak, p. 333.

17. William H. Rey, “Peter Handke—oder die Auferstehung der Tradition,” Literatur und Kritik, 12 (1977), 397.

18. Jerome Klinkowitz and James Knowlton, Peter Handke and the Postmodern Transformation: The Goalie’s Journey Home (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1983), p. 92.

19. Peter Pütz, “Peter Handke,” in Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold (München: edition text + kritik, 1978), p. 9.

20. Siegfried Schober, “‘Es soll mythisch sein, mythisch!’ Über Peter Handke bei der Verfilmung seiner ‘Linkshändigen Frau,’” Der Spiegel, 2 May 1977, pp. 177–82.

21. Manfred Durzak discusses how this text is Handke's commentary on his own literary production, but unfortunately limits his investigation to a thematic linkage between Falsche Bewegung and Langsame Heimkehr, in Peter Handke und die deutsche Gegenwartsliteratur: Narziβ auf Abwegen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1982), pp. 146–63.

22. For the narrator’s reference to the experience of cypress trees, see Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied, p. 95.

23. For the landscape which closes in upon the subject, see Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter, p. 47, and the poem “Leben ohne Poesie,” p. 16 in Als das Wünschen noch geholfen hat.

24. The feeling of “Verborgenheit” is acquired through reading the quiet, patient, and calm descriptive pictures in Hermann Lenz’ works. See Handke's essay about this writer entitled “Jemand anderer: Hermann Lenz,” Wünschen, pp. 80–100. See especially pp. 84 and 99. The ability of Lenz to quiet fear and provoke feelings of naturalness and happiness through his works undoubtedly played a significant role in Handke's decision to dedicate Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire to this author: “für Hermann Lenz und Hanne Lenz, zum Dank für den Januar 1979.”

25. June Schlueter, The Plays and Novels of Peter Handke (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981), p. 166.

26. Ibid., p. 166.

27. See pp. 21, 24, 26, and 99 for example.

28. Schlueter, p. 168.

29. Klinkowitz and Knowlton, p. 94.