About the puppet theater

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About the Marionette Theater is the title of an essayistic story by Heinrich von Kleist , which was published for the first time in the “ Berliner Abendbl Blätter ” in four episodes from December 12th to 15th. December 1810 was published.

The question of what influence reflection and (self) awareness have on natural grace is discussed in conversation.

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The narrator repeats his conversation with a dancer admired for his grace , whom he has seen several times while visiting a puppet theater . The person addressed tells him how much he admires the “natural grace” of the dolls' movements and what lessons he draws from it: There is a natural grace that manifests itself in the complete absence of consciousness .

For his part, the narrator now gives an example: a boy he knew resembled the figure of the thorn extractor in a moment , but under the control of his mind he could no longer imitate the beauty of the movement. The sixteen-year-old boy tried in vain to rediscover this spontaneous grace in his mirror image, and through this endeavor had completely lost it. Then the dancer portrays a bear fencing shocks parried all without looking like a human Fencer on feints to respond.

In the conversation, based on these three examples, the thesis is put forward that either a complete absence of consciousness (like the “limb man” of the puppet theater) or an absolute, “infinite” consciousness (like a god) produces the desired “natural” behavior. Perfect grace and naturalness are therefore possessed by someone who either behaves completely uninhibited and unconscious like a child, or has attained this ideal consciousness in lifting the consequences of the fall of man:

“[…] So, when the knowledge has passed through an infinite, grace is found again; so that, at the same time, it appears most pure in that human body structure which either has no consciousness or an infinite consciousness, i.e. H. in the limb man, or in the god. "

The narrator draws the conclusion: "So [...] would we have to eat from the tree of knowledge again in order to fall back into the state of innocence?"

reception

Kleist's essay was also interpreted as a hidden satire on the Berlin theater under August Wilhelm Iffland .

The literary scholar Hanna Hellmann published the work Über das Marionettentheater as part of her studies of Kleist around 1910 , which proved to be groundbreaking for understanding Kleist's philosophy of life and art.

Eugen Victor Herrigel quotes the essay in his book "Zen in the Art of Archery" in order to present Western readers with a culturally more closely related perspective on Zen.

literature

Primary literature

  • Heinrich von Kleist: About the Marionette Theater , with a foreword by Wilfried Nold and a contribution by Wolfgang Kurock, Puppen & Masken, Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-935011-64-8 .
  • Heinrich von Kleist: About the Marionette Theater , with an afterword by Josef Kunz, Inselbücherei No. 481, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 978-3-458-08481-5 .
  • Gabriele Kapp (ed.): Heinrich von Kleist. About the puppet theater. Study edition. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2013. pp. 9-17.

Secondary literature

  • Reinhold Steig: Heinrich von Kleist's Berlin fights. Spemann, Berlin / Stuttgart 1901.
    • Reprint: Kleist Archive Sembdner, Heilbronn 2005.
  • Walter Müller-Seidel (Ed.): Kleist's essay on the puppet theater. Studies and Interpretations. Schmidt, Berlin 1967 (contains as a reprint Hanna Hellmann: Über das Marionettentheater. Pp. 17–31).
  • Ingeborg Scholz (Hrsg.): Heinrich von Kleist: About the puppet theater. Analyzes and reflections, vol. 33. Beyer, Hollfeld 2003, ISBN 3921202558 .
  • Franz-Josef Deiters : “Free of charge! he was unable to reproduce the same movement ”. The suspension of people from the stage in "About the Marionette Theater". In: Ders .: The de-worldization of the stage. On the mediology of the theater of the classical episteme . Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2015, pp. 189–198. ISBN 978-3-503-16517-9 .
  • Caroline Mannweiler: From Kleist's "About Marionette Theater" to Beckett's "Theater without Actors". In: Kleist's reception. Heilbronn, Neckar: Kleist-Archiv Sembdner 2012, pp. 80–94.
  • Wolfgang Palaver : God or mechanical link man? The religious problem in Kleist's essay "On the Marionette Theater", in: G. Crepaldi u. a. (Ed.): Kleist on violence. Transdisciplinary perspectives. Innsbruck University Press, Innsbruck 2011, pp. 45-62.
  • Gerhard Kurz: "God commands". Kleist's dialogue “About the Marionette Theater” and the myth of the fall of consciousness. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch 1981/82, pp. 264-277.
  • Rüdiger Bubner : Philosophy about puppets. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch 1980, pp. 73–85.
  • Gabriele Kapp (ed.): Heinrich von Kleist. About the puppet theater. Study edition. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2013. pp. 20ff

Source texts

Wikisource: About Puppet Theater  - Sources and Full Texts