Spätestens mit Carsten Curator setzt sich das novellistische Werk Theodor Storms mit Fragen der Vererbung und des familiären Verfalls auseinander, kulminierend in Der Schimmelreiter. Die Denkfiguren, die diese Novellen strukturieren, speisen sich, wie damals üblich, aus dem Darwinismus, vor allem aber aus der psychiatrischen Lehre von der Degeneration. Letztere verdankt, wie sie selbst freimütig zugibt, ihre zentrale Grundfigur, das Aussterben eines Geschlechts über drei oder mehr Generationen, der Androhung des Zorns Gottes bei Missachtung der Zehn Gebote (Exodus 20,3ff.). Während Carsten (...) Curator und Der Schimmelreiter psychiatrisch-biologische und (para-)theologische Denkfiguren (rund um den Zorn Gottes) in Form zweier analoger, keineswegs vollständig aufeinander abbildbarer Lesarten einander gegenüberstellen, geht es in Hans und Heinz Kirch darum, das hereditäre Verhältnis der Geschlechter und deren (möglichen) Verfall rein theologisch durchzuspielen. Die Novelle stellt jedoch nicht nur den Versuch dar, das alttestamentliche Modell des Zorns Gottes zu exemplifizieren. Vielmehr werden weitere biblische Gleichnisse und Denkfiguren aus dem Neuen Testament mit diesem Modell verknüpft. Insgesamt entsteht so eine literarische Theologie des familiären Untergangs, aber auch – und das ist eine Besonderheit des rein theologischen Modells und des damit verbundenen Rückgriffs auf das Neue Testament – die Möglichkeit, diesen aufzuhalten. Alles in allem handelt es sich um ein Strukturmodell, das allen späteren novellistischen Arbeiten Storms zumindest partiell zugrunde liegt, wenn auch nie wieder so explizit auserzählt wie hier. (shrink)

The emergence of public opinion is often (and especially since Habermas’ Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit [1962]) dated to the 18th century and thus interpreted as a phenomenon of the Enlightenment. Following more recent historical research, however, this article shows that there was already an awareness and aesthetic reflection of opinion and the public sphere in the 16th and 17th centuries. In a first step, the article reconstructs the historical semantics and sociological conditionality of opinion in the early modern period, while in (...) a second step it analyses the dramatic shaping of opinion in the works of Gryphius, Haugwitz and Gottsched. (shrink)

Following a controversially discussed postulate by Antonio Damasio, according to which consciousness of the self is based on feeling, a new proposal by Mark Solms questions conventional scientific assumptions all the more radically: long associated primarily with cortical processes, he locates a source of consistent subject consciousness in the midbrain; thus beyond procedures such as visual and linguistic schematization. The philosopher Manfred Frank, meanwhile, assumes that a concept of pre-reflective subjectivity can already be found in Novalis – a thesis, however, (...) that remains disputed in scholarly research. The article proposes a rereading of Novalis’ philosophy of subjectivity against the backdrop of Solms’ model of consciousness. According to its thesis, this provides insights that can contribute to the further understanding of the Romantic concept of the subject and to mediating its divergent interpretations. (shrink)

The article takes up the discursive omnipresence of the ›demon‹ metaphor and examines modern and contemporary demon appearances in literature and on the theatre stage. The term ›demon‹ evokes ancient and Christian traditions that see demons as intermediaries between the gods and humans, even though Christian theology has gone to considerable argumentative lengths to negate precisely this function of demons and, without doubting their existence, has denied their place in the plan of salvation. In a post-demonic perspective, which understands demons (...) as actors of an abstract category of the demonic after the end of the demonologies, it is shown how ancient and Christian concepts of demons are hybridized in the modern age and become media of communicative constellations that invoke problem complexes and at the same time keep them at a distance. Accordingly, the analysis focuses on the linguistic-rhetorical dimension of demonic communication. Modern demons are aware of their metaphorical nature and locate themselves decidedly in the process between sign and meaning by acting out performatively the space between them. Their effectiveness consists of a movement of transmission that can hardly be stopped. The article dissects family-historical, political, and poetological dimensions inherent in contemporary demonic representations. (shrink)