Zusammenfassung
Die Art, wie Lessing jeweils in seinen Tragödien den Bühnenraum zur Erhellung von scheinbar ähnlichen Konflikten strukturiert, zeigt die extreme Divergenz des Philotas von Miß Sara Sampson und Emilia Galotti. Die räumliche Metapher in Philotas demonstriert die determinierte Selbstisolierung des Protagonisten vom Sozialen und führt schließlich zum Verständnis der impliziten Verurteilung von Philotas’ radikaler Innerlichkeit.
Abstract
In exploring Lessing’s use of stage space for illumination of seemingly similar conflicts in his tragedies, the extreme divergence of Philotas from Miß Sara Sampson and Emilia Galotti becomes apparent. The spatial metaphor in Philotas reveals the protagonist’s determined isolation of himself from the social realm and ultimately leads to an understanding of Lessing’s implicit condemnation of Philotas’ radical interiority.
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Literature
Quoted from Julius W. Braun, Lessing im Urtheile seiner Zeitgenossen (1884; rpt. 1969), III, 18.
F.J. Lamport, Lessing and the Drama (1981), pp. 98 and 104.
Regarding Lessing’s attitude towards patriotism see also: Hinrich C. Seeba, Die Liebe zur Sache: Öffentliches und privates Interesse in Lessings Dramen (1973), pp. 58–59 and 63.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Werke, ed. Herbert G. Göpfert et al. (1971), II, 12. All further quotations from Lessing’s dramas will be documented in the text with page numbers from this volume. Quotations from other volumes of the edition will be documented with volume and page number.
For a discussion of Emilia’s “natural passion” and her “striving for fulfillment as a biological being” see: Heinrich Schneider, “Emilia Galotti’s Tragic Guilt,” MLN, 71 (1956), 354.
Dieter Hildebrandt, Lessing: Biographie einer Emanzipation (1979), p. 221.
Volker Nölle (Subjektivität und Wirklichkeit in Lessings dramatischem und theologischem Werk [1977]) makes the same point about the manner in which Philotas shuts himself off from outer reality (57), but throughout his discussion of the play he presents that outer reality as if it were the only possible or valid reality and thus does not allow Philotas’ “Vorstellungen” the status of “Wirklichkeit.”
Leonello Vincenti, “Lessings Philotas,” trans. Fritz Martin, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, ed. Gerhard and Sibylle Bauer, Wege der Forschung, Vol. 211 (1968), pp. 206–7.
Jean Paul, Werke, ed. Norbert Miller (1962), IV, 789.
Hellmuth Sudheimer, Der Geniebegriff des jungen Goethe, Germanische Studien, No. 167 (1935), p. 63.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Gedenkausgabe der Werke, Briefe und Gespräche, ed. Ernst Beutler (1950), IV, 444.
Johann Karl August Musäus, Volksmärchen der Deutschen, ed. Norbert Miller (1976), p. 174.
For a discussion of the connection of the “God-in-man” notion to that of the Genie see: Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler, Genius: Zur Wirkungsgeschichte antiker Mythologeme in der Goethezeit (1978), pp. 233–39.
Friedrich Schiller, Sämtliche Werke: Säkular-Ausgabe, ed. Eduard von der Hellen (1904), III, 155.
Peter H. Neumann (Der Preis der Mündigkeit: Über Lessings Dramen. Anhang: Über Fanny Hill [1977]) also sees an apparent contradiction, but proceeds to explain it away by contradicting Aridäus and claiming that it is the king, not Philotas, who is the true victor (p. 36).
See Lessing’s letters to Christian Friedrich Voss from December 1 and 24, 1771 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Paul Rilla [1968], IX, 461 and 472–74).
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Burgard, P.J. Lessing’s Tragic Topography: The Rejection of Society and its Spatial Metaphor in Philotas. Dtsch Vierteljahrsschr Literaturwiss Geistesgesch 61, 441–456 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03375891
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03375891