About the gradual creation of thoughts while speaking

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There is an essay by the writer Heinrich von Kleist about the gradual production of thoughts while speaking , which was probably written during his time in Königsberg (1805-06). The writing was probably intended either for the magazine Phöbus or for the Morgenblatt for educated classes , but was only published posthumously in the magazine of Paul Lindau (ed.) Nord und Süd , 1878, vol. 4, pp. 3-7. The autograph is lost, a copy with corrections by Kleist, which was available until 1938, has since been lost.

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In this letter to Otto August Rühle von Lilienstern , Heinrich von Kleist advises him to solve problems that he cannot solve through meditation by talking to others about them. It is not important that the other person is aware of the matter, but the decisive point is your own talking about the matter. This method is the best way to teach yourself: "The idea comes when you speak". Kleist himself had this idea when he got stuck brooding over an algebraic problem, but found a solution in conversation with his sister. The already existing “dark idea” is made more precise through the conversation, because by speaking you force yourself to add an end to the beginning (i.e. to structure the thoughts). Although you can present a fact to yourself, the other person is important insofar as it forces you to speak in a structured manner. In addition, it can be helpful if the interlocutor shows that he has "already understood a half-expressed thought [...]" - Kleist is therefore not concerned with the maeutics in the sense of Socrates. Kleist is convinced that other great speakers have also used this technique and did not yet know how the speech would end when they started speaking - he cites Mirabeau as an example in the French Revolution before the ball house oath :

“I remember that“ thunderbolt ”of Mirabeau with which he dispatched the master of ceremonies who, after the last monarchical meeting of the king on June 23, in which he had ordered the estates to separate, in the meeting room in which the Stand still lingered, returned, and asked whether they had heard the king's command? “Yes,” replied Mirabeau, “we have heard the king's orders” - I am certain that at this humane beginning he did not yet think of the bayonnets , with which he ended: “Yes, sir,” he repeated, “we have heard him. ”You can see that he still doesn't quite know what he wants. “But what entitles you” - he continued, and now suddenly a source of tremendous ideas dawns on him - “to imply orders to us here? We are the representatives of the nation. ”- That was what he needed:“ The nation gives orders and receives none, ”- in order to immediately reach the height of presumption. “And so that I can explain myself to you very clearly” - and only now does he find what expresses all the resistance to which his soul stands ready: “So tell your king that we do not have our places other than to the violence of the Bayonnete to be abandoned. "- Whereupon he sat down on a chair, complacent."

The present master of ceremonies acts, so to speak, as an electrical opposite pole, at which tension arises through friction. Only when the speaker has worked himself off - "discharged" - can he find his way back to a calm mind ("strange correspondence between the phenomena of the physical and moral world"). Another example is the fable “les animaux malades de la peste” (English: the plague among animals) by Jean de La Fontaine , where the fox, forced to give a defense speech, also uses the technique described - “such a speech is truly thinking aloud ”. It is completely different, however, if the thought already exists in the head - then it can be expressed confusedly, but therefore does not have to have been thought confused for a long time, because the excitement of having to say something may make the thought get lost . Therefore, the language must be "at hand" with ease in order to allow thinking and speaking to be correlated. Those who can translate their thinking into speeches faster are leading “more troops into the field” than their counterpart. For the best results (that is, to bring the best thoughts to light) one must suddenly and publicly confront a person with questions to which he has to respond spontaneously. As a result, he is forced to concretize his knowledge - whereby he does not “know” per se, but it is “a certain state of ours who knows”.

expenditure

  • Heinrich von Kleist: About the gradual creation of thoughts while speaking. A conflicting edition by Stefan Klamke-Eschenbach and Urs van der Leyn (designer), with a comment by Vera F. Birkenbihl , Dielmann, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 978-3-929232-55-4 .

literature

  • Stefanie Tieste: Heinrich von Kleist. His works. Kleist Archive Sembdner, Heilbronn 2009. (Heilbronner Kleist materials for school and teaching, Volume 2. Ed. Günther Emig ), ISBN 978-3-940494-15-3

Web links

Wikisource: About the gradual creation of thoughts while speaking  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Heinrich von Kleist - Works and Letters in Four Volumes , ed. by Siegfried Streller , notes by Peter Goldammer, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt 1986, Vol. 3, pp. 722–723.
  2. ^ After the first print in 1878, Nord und Süd , Vol. 4, pp. 4–5, see Wikisource