Abstract

This essay explores how Charles Darwin’s concept ›struggle for existence‹ was received in German philosophy and literature. It starts from the idea that the struggle for existence is a cause for dynamic change. According to Ernst Haeckel and others it propels progress. Exploring the various ways in which the struggle for existence is metaphorically used, the essay argues that the Darwinian formula can be separated from other concepts of struggle by a specific ambivalence. As the struggle for existence causes progress and defeat at the same time, observers and narrators of such a struggle can be repelled or fascinated, or both at the same time. Nietzsche’s early aesthetics and Max Kretzer’s naturalistic novel Meister Timpe are examples for such an ambivalently conceived struggle.