FREDERIK, The Self-Destruction of the Enlightenment Novel ... (2013)

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Samuel Frederick

Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, Volume 49, Number 2, May2013, pp. 148-170 (Article)

3XEOLVKHGE\8QLYHUVLW\RI7RURQWR3UHVVDOI: 10.1353/smr.2013.0021

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The Self-Destruction of the EnlightenmentNovel: Voice and the Problem of Narrationin Blanckenburgs Beytrge zurGeschichte deutschen Reichs unddeutscher Sitten

samuel frederick The Pennsylvania State University

Readers familiar with the rst book-length publication in German dedicated tothe theoretical study of the novel, Christian Friedrich von Blanckenburgs Ver-such ber den Roman (1774), might be forgiven for not knowing that the sameauthor also published a novel. In the reception of both Blanckenburg and theeighteenth-century German novel, the theorists only work of ction has been re-legated to footnotes, when not ignored completely. There are, however, goodreasons for this neglect. Not only is it a work of dubious literary quality, it isalso a book that displays a peculiar ambivalence with respect to its own genericstatus. Although it presents itself asand sometimes appears even to take theshape ofa novel, there are salient aspects of the book that persist in obstructingits ostensible narrative form. This tension is already present in its title, Beytrgezur Geschichte deutschen Reichs und deutscher Sitten, which gives little indica-tion that it is even intended to be a novel. For although Geschichte is a stan-dard designation for ctional narrative at this time (as in Blanckenburgs twofavourite novels, Geschichte des Agathon and The History of Tom Jones), theword has here been stripped of this potential generic connotation, rst by beingsubordinated to the term Beytrge, and second by not being tied to an individ-ual (so critical to Blanckenburgs normative conception of the novel), but insteadto the entire German people. In this context, Geschichte suggests that we aredealing here not with any ctional story, but with something much broaderthat concerns historical events. Indeed, the word Beytrge rather unambigu-ously announces that the book is to consist of scholarly contributions of a his-toriographical nature.

This genre designation is made to carry the most weight in the title not onlysemantically, as its rst word and dominant conceptual category, but also graphi-cally. If we look at the books title page (Figure 1), we can see how the textsgeneric status is maintained, even as it is confused, in a peculiar typographical

seminar 49:2 (May 2013)

organization of terms in which Beytrge, in the largest font, is prominentlycentred, but Geschichte pushed toward the margin. Complicating this hierar-chy further is the third, most unambiguous generic category, Ein Roman,which is nonetheless shrunk down in size and cordoned off, not for emphasis,but as if to keep it in check. Is this book a novel or a set of scholarly contribu-tions? Even before it properly begins, Blanckenburg announces and puts intotension these generic categories, with the latterthe non-ctional scholarly dis-courseseeming at rst to dominate, at least typographically, over the former.

Figure 1: Title page of Blanckenburgs novel.

The Self-Destruction of the Enlightenment Novel 149

This tension persists throughout the entire work, which Blanckenburg clearlywants to be a novel, but which he cannot help sabotaging at every step of theway with authorial intrusions that crowd out most of the material of narrativeinterest. The theorist-turned-novelist thus privileges the theoretical over the nar-rative, lling his new book with meta-discursive commentary in which it appearsthe author has decided to write his announced Beytrge after all, even at theexpense of its expected story, its Geschichte.

In this article I will analyze Blanckenburgs novel guided by three main mo-tivations, each tied to this generic hybridity. First, more broadly, the lack of criti-cal attention to the novel needs to be rectied. As the only work of ction by theauthor of Germanys rst theoretical monograph on the novel, a work that con-tinues to be relevant to discussions of the history and theory of the genre, theBeytrge deserves more than a cursory look. Coming only one year after thevoluminous Versuch ber den Roman, Blanckenburgs novel asks to be read asthe authors attempt to model that which he argues for in his theoretical work.The Beytrge, however, has received very little critical attention and is usuallydismissed, in passing, as a curiosity and a failure.1 Without entirely disagreeingwith this assessment, I believe a closer analysis of the novel will reveal importantconicts between Blanckenburgs theory and his attempted application of thistheory.2 In particularand this brings me to my second motivationBlancken-burgs injunction against authorial intrusions needs to be investigated carefullyin relation to his own blatant transgression of this rule. Why, in his theoreticalwork, does Blanckenburg insist on banishing the author from the text? What ex-ceptions does he make? And what purpose does his disregard for his own ruleserve within the narrative structure of his novel?

Attending to these questions will bring me to the theoretical crux of this arti-cle (my third main motivation), which concerns the role of voice in narrative.Narratological debates about the status and function of narrative voice do notaddress its importance in terms of a texts narrativity (i.e., how does the overtpresence of a narrator contribute to or negatively impact the degree to which weidentify a given text as narrative?). I wish ultimately to use Blanckenburgsnovel to conceptualize voice anew as the locus of conicting textual impulsesthat have critical consequences for a given works narrative status. The rst ofthese impulses is to tell or continue telling the story ostensibly under way; thesecond is to bring that telling to a halt in order to make way for a more urgent

1 With the exception of four contemporary reviews, there exists no scholarly work dedicatedmostlylet alone exclusivelyto this novel. The lengthiest discussions of the Beytrge inrecent scholarshipnone of which exceeds seven pagescan be found in Sangs Blanckenburgdissertation of 1967 (1069), Thoms dissertation on the novel and the natural sciences (25966), and most recently in books by Heinz (14244) and Fulda (1037).

2 In this way my reading differs from the two most recent discussions of the novel, by Heinz andby Fulda, each of whom argues that the Beytrge should be seen as conforming to the theory setout in the Versuch.

150 SAMUEL FREDERICK

desire to theorize or to instruct. One impulse is narrative, to write Geschichte;the other non-narrative, to write Beytrge. My theoretical intervention willdraw on Walter Benjamins Der Erzhler, an essay conspicuously absentfrom narratological discussions of voice, in order to explore how the textualmanifestation of voice (as the reections and interventions of the narratortheone who speaks or tells) might be seen as an alternative source of narrativity,though one that in Blanckenburgs hands ends up positioning the novel againstitself.

I should note that this articles tri-fold structure does not match these threemotivations exactly. I will use the rst part to provide an outline of Blancken-burgs theoretical position, more broadly, and his prescriptions and proscriptionsfor the use of authorial voice in the novel. The articles second part is dedicatedto an analysis of the Beytrge in relation to these theoretical convictions. In thethird and nal section I will discuss the narratological problem of voice in lightof Blanckenburgs texts before coming to my conclusion.

I. The Prescriptions and Proscriptions of the Versuch ber den RomanA central task for Blanckenburg in his lengthy theoretical work is to provide theguidelines and models whereby the novel of modernity might transcend the sta-tus of light entertainment to become a serious instrument for Bildung, thus as-suming the position the epic held in antiquity. To this end, Blanckenburg insistson the critical distinction between the narrative of bloes Erzehlen and that inwhich Wirkung und Ursache play an essential role. The former is a skeletalconcatenation of mere events without unifying purpose; the latter a causally mo-tivated unfolding of meaningfully connected occurrences.3 In the novel, the lat-tera unied, teleological trajectoryshould be dominant. Blanckenburgfamously advocates for the novels primary attention to das Innre over dasAeuere as the proper and most effective means of conveying this causally mo-tivated trajectory of events. The inner workings of characters, in particular, arewas wir in Handlung sehen wollen (58), since these affective motivations helpprovide Bewegung (265) toward an end by injecting a Wie into an otherwiselifeless procession of happenings (272).

Providing the reader access to characters inner lives, however, will not inand of itself be enough to avert bloes Erzehlen. The narrator himself must con-tribute to the transformation of mere story into affective plot.4 As Blanckenburgstresses, the narrator can preempt Die bloe Erzhlung der Begebenheit, but

3 This distinction may remind us of E.M. Forsters discussion of story versus plot, where storyrelies on nothing more than a sense of temporality, but plot depends on the logic of causality.

4 There is no question for Blanckenburg that the novelist (and his narrator) should be male. Infact, his entire theory presupposes a gendered conception of the genre and its readership, wherethe female reader is drawn to the weak form of the romance or adventure novel, but what is re-quired is a robust, male readership for a robust new novel, or at the very least one that can edu-cate its female readers appropriately. On this aspect of Blanckenburgs work, see Angelika


only, wenn er diese Erzhlung in Handlung zu verwandeln weis (494). Buthow, exactly, does he turn a plain sequence of external happenings into a teleo-logical unfolding of internally motivated events? The answer in large part in-volves a structural move similar to how the Russian Formalists conceived of theworkings of suzhet (usually translated plot) on the fabula (usually translatedstory): the author-as-narrator arranges or moulds the given material ofnature into an ordered, unied whole. In Blanckenburgs words, he avails him-self of Die Kunst, diesen Materialien allen Gestalt und Anordnung zu geben;sie, im rechten Maa, am rechten Ort, in der gehrigen Verbindung zu gebrau-chen. . . (248).

The task of Wahl und Anordnung (255), however, inevitably involvesmore than just silent arrangement. The narrator needs to make the causal connec-tions among events explicit, to make palpable (Blanckenburgs adjective ofchoice is anschauend) the motivations and complications behind each effect.More often than not this calls for a certain amount of intervention and explana-tion. The characters themselves, however, should not be used for this purpose.This was one of the failures of the epistolary novel, according to Blanckenburg(though he would reassess this form of the novel in his review of Werther laterthe same year), where characters serve as mechanical puppets, mere mouthpiecesof the author (28788). But if the narrator himself must make anschauend howthe inner life of his characters necessarily precipitates the novels unfolding ofoccurrences, how is he to carry out this task without drawing too much attentionto himself as narrator (who, for Blanckenburg, is the authors surrogate5)? Forjust as characters should not speak the intentions of the author, neither shouldthe narrator: Er mu sich nicht geradeswegs zum Lehrer aufwerfen; noch weni-ger mssen es seine Personen. Wir selbsts, ohne sein Vordociren, mssen an ihmlernen knnen (253). Most of the narrators Reexionen and Bemerkungenare for Blanckenburg not merely superuous (ppiger Auswuchs, der weg-geschnitten zu werden verdient [284]); they threaten to disrupt the necessarywhole that the novel must maintain, along with its illusion of self-sufciency.

Consider the limitation Blanckenburg imposes on the narrator in the follow-ing passage from the Versuch:

Wenn mein Begriff, meine Voraussetzung vom Ganzen richtig ist: so verstehtes sich von selbst, da der Romanendichter seine eigne Absichten, die er mitseinem Werk gehabt hat, so genau mit den, in seinem Werk gebrauchten Mittelnverbunden haben msse, da sie aus diesen erfolgen, ohne, da wir seine Hand

Schlimmer, Der Roman als Erziehungsanstalt fr Leser: Zur Afnitt von Gattung und Ge-schlecht in Friedrich von Blanckenburgs Versuch ber den Roman (1774).

5 Since Blanckenburg does not fully distinguish between author and narratoras was customaryat this timeI will continue to use the term narrator where Blanckenburg employs Dichter.For Blanckenburg, the overt presence of the narrator was only a reminder of the presence of theauthor (525).


weiter im Spiele sehen. Er mu vorher die Materialien, das heit, seine handeln-den Personen und ihre verschiedenen Eigenschaften, aussuchen, zurechtputzen,nach Maagabe ihrer entworfenen Einrichtung zusammen setzen, das Werkaufziehen, und nun es seinen Weg gehen lassen. Der Dichter selbst gehrtgar nicht mit ins Ganze seines Werks; er wre was auerordentliches, dasgleichsam in den Gang desselben hineingriffe. Der Knstler, der all Augen-blicke ber seiner [sic] Uhr stellen mu, hat wahrlich keine gute Uhr gemacht(33940)

This proscription against authorial commentary emerges in part from Blancken-burgs desire to adopt a revised conception of mimesis that is distinct from mereNachahmung. The ideal artist should not just render an image of nature, but cre-ate it anew. In doing so, however, he does not meddle with Gods handiwork.His task is to show how everything ts together in its divinely ordained order,not to redene that order. To this end, the novelist must assume a privileged,God-like position above his work so as to see the whole that will determine itsteleological shape. Only the author of ction can accomplish this; the historian,who also tells stories, cannot (Brenner 65). Since the historian is a part of theworld about which he tells, he is denied a vista from which to see the whole. Thenovelist, on the other hand, has created his world. He, like the Creator, can there-fore see eine, bis ins Unendliche fortgehende Reihe verbundener Ursachen undWirkungen, and is compelled to order his ctional world according to that pic-ture of nature: Wenn der so gepriesene Grundsatz der Nachahmung irgendeinen Sinn hat: so ists wohl kein andrer, als der: verfahret in der Verbindung, derAnordnung eurer Werke so, wie die Natur in der Hervorbringung der ihrigen ver-fhrt (313). It follows that to properly accomplish this mode of ctional creationthe novelist must refrain from making himself present in his work, and like theDeist God disappear behind it.

This conception of the narrators role has its roots in Plato, who in Book IIIof The Republic distinguishes between mimesis, the direct imitation of action(suitable for drama), and diegesis, the indirect telling or retelling of action (moresuitable for the epic). In the Poetics, Aristotle gives marked preference to themimetic mode, even in the epic: The poet himself should speak as little as pos-sible, since when he does so he is not engaging in mimesis (59). Blancken-burgs uneasiness with respect to authorial presence can be traced backthrough this tradition. The image he employs in the quotation above, however,has a more recent lineage. In guring narrative as a machine, specically an hor-ological device whose functioning should not require intervention on the part ofits creator, Blanckenburg seizes on a popular Enlightenment metaphor. Theimage of the watch functioning in the absence of its maker thus points to thetheological assumptions at the basis of Blanckenburgs aesthetic-formal pro-scriptions. If the novelistic work is to mirror nature, it too must be governed bythe same providential design (Frick 361). A maker who intervenes in his workwould betray that works imperfection, exposing a rift in the teleological unity of


his creation. Blanckenburg, however, wants to make sure that the novel does notend up merely conveying the mechanical succession of time. In this way, thehorological metaphor will turn out to be troublesome for him. For if the narratorof the novel makes himself invisible to ensure the proper functioning of hiswork, then he will be less able to intervene in the ways often necessary to distin-guish his novelistic edice from the chronicle or adventure novel, whose storyand characters, because they lack the connective tissue provided by a narrator,appear Maschinenmig (260; see Sang, 77).

This rule against authorial intrusion, furthermore, appears especially out ofplace when brought to bear on the works of the three novelists whom Blancken-burg praises above all others: Fielding, Sterne, and Wieland. These model nove-lists Betrachtungen und Moralen und Sentenzen (414) are for Blanckenburgnot at all disruptive, but serve the teleological whole by making causal connec-tions clearer. They are allowed, in particular, wenn in dem Gange des Werksdadurch eine Wirkung hervorgebracht wird, so, da das Ganze dadurch fortrckt,und seinem Ziele nher kommt, oder wenn dadurch ein Licht aufgeklret wird,das uns den Zusammenhang aufklret (405).6 Blanckenburg continues by prais-ing Wielands digressions (forms of authorial interruption); these observations,he writes, cannot be labelled mere Einschiebsel, but are in fact frs Ganze sonothwendig, als irgend ein andrer Theil. They consist of Dinge, die allenothwendig sind, unsre Vorstellungen vollstndig zu machen, und die doch man-cher Leser nicht aus sich selbsts herauszunden vermag (406). Authorial com-mentary, then, is not just sanctioned, but sometimes even necessary, since it isable to make up for the deciencies of the reader by going over and above theprescribed showing (288) of the affectively motivated interconnections amongevents and actually tellingprecisely and clearlywhat these connectionsare. Blanckenburg even uses the same metaphor of the clock he had evoked toproscribe authorial presence in prescribing exactly this kind of intervention: Er[der Dichter] kann uns die Rder zeigen und das Werk zerlegen, um uns zu leh-ren, warum der Zeiger dies vielmehr als jenes gewiesen hat (100).

Blanckenburgs theory, in effect, puts him in a bind: he both needs the narra-tors voice and wants to banish it. He needs it to make explicit how the machineis functioning, in part so that it doesnt just coldly and mechanically tick offevents; but he wants to banish it, also, in order to let it function: to keep it movingwithout interruption, so that it properly models the Enlightenment notion of self-sufcientand providentially orderednature.7 That Blanckenburg employs the

6 Blanckenburg also addresses the role of the comic narrator (who is allowed a certain amount ofLaune), but only very briey and as a kind of afterthought in the very nal pages of the book(52627). And even there he prefaces the discussion with a strong reminder of his position:Das grte Lob, das er [der Dichter] erhalten kann, ist, da wir ihn ganz ber seinem Werkevergessen haben (525).

7 Fulda explains that Blanckenburgs mechanistic worldview aligns him with the proponents ofpragmatism (107), which Fulda argues informs his entire theory and practice of the novel.


metaphor of the machine both as a positive (380) and a negative (260) model forthe novelin addition to using the horological metaphor both positively and neg-ativelyonly draws attention to his ambivalence with respect to the role of thenarrator in maintaining this machine. If, in an attempt to save the narrative, hetells the reader precisely how (das Wie [265]) a sequence of events is motivatedand causally linked, this act will only threaten to undo the narrative by interrupt-ing its necessary movement toward an endeffectively bringing the novel to ahalt. Does this mean that the proper novel is doomed by the very features thathave been mobilized for its success?8

II. The Mechanical Self-Destruction of the BeytrgeBlanckenburgs own attempt at the genre seems to suggest that it is. For whenBlanckenburg set out to write a novel himself he naturally took with him histheoretical system, including its self-defeating stance toward the role of the nar-rator. Only its rst reviewer, however, felt that the resulting book was a suc-cessful translation of theory into practice. Herr v. Blankenburg hat Wortgehalten, und seine Theorie der Romane durch sein eigen Beispiel besttigt(499), wrote an anonymous critic in the Frankfurter gelehrte Anzeigen.9 Hewas alone in this assessment. Even the otherwise glowing review in the Maga-zin der deutschen Critik pointed out the mismatch between Blanckenburgs the-oretical convictions and his venture into the genre, in particular with respect tothe role of authorial commentary (55). Indeed, the Beytrge is by no means ademonstration of the perfectly functioning machine as set out in the Versuch,but rather a kind of absurd display of gadgetry with too many bells and whis-tles, one whose actual function is lost in the noise of narrative embellishment.It is a novel run amok, a novel that effectively collapses under the strain of itsown absurd attempt to account for the causal relations among even the mosttrivial occurrences. As J.K.A. Musus wrote in a contemporary review, its nar-rator giebt eine so genaue Analyse der aus ihrem Charakter entspringendenHandlungen, Sitten und Meynungen, da dem Leser das warum des warumsaller Aeuerungen ihrer Thtigkeit aufgelt wird (508). In insisting on detail-ing the precise causal chain of so many insignicant actions the narrator doesnot so much clarify as confuse. What is supposed to offer insight into the

8 I have singled out a contradiction that one might argue is resolved by the simple application ofmoderation. The Versuch even gestures toward this balanced approach to authorial intervention(the narrator should only intervene under sehr, sehr wenigen Bedingungen [414]). Hahl alsoargues convincingly that Blanckenburg means for such interventions to be pragmatically inte-grated into the narrative (3643). The contradiction, however, is all the more salient and, Ibelieve, remains fascinatingly unresolved by virtue of its extreme manifestation in Blancken-burgs own foray into ction. I therefore stand by my reading of the Versuchs theoretical incon-sistency as in fact conrmed by its practical application in the Beytrge.

9 Both the Versuch and the Beytrge were published anonymously. This reviewers unambiguousidentication of Blanckenburg as the author of both shows to what degree his theory wasknown and discussed in intellectual circles at the time.


motivations or explain the precise origins of mostly trivial occurrences ends upobfuscating their purpose and frustrating the reader. As Horst Thom rightlynotes, Die Handlung ertrinkt in einer weitschweigen Anhufung von Banali-tten (265). Furthermore, in constantly interrupting his narrative to provideexplanatory commentary, the narrator only disrupts the very connections hemeans thereby to maintain. By thus delaying the progression of event to event,the asides to the reader that are intended to elucidate and thereby motivate thisprogression end up impeding it, weakening when not entirely dissolving itsnecessary direction and momentum. As any potential cohesiveness in thissequence of events is lost, so too is the reader within the sequence. For whenthe story nally does move forward we are not so much brought closer to anymeaningful end as we are taken on disorienting detours. As Musus writes, wend ourselves auf so viele Nebengnge that we inevitably ask, Wo sindwir? (508).

Despite this unnecessarily complicated approach to its telling, the situation ofthe novel is actually fairly simple. The Beytrge concerns a certain Freyherr vonBernklau and his wife, a fairly annoying, at times even repulsive, couple whosewords and actions only expose their basic ignorance and mean-spiritedness.The husband is obsessed with hunting; his wife wants a child. Neither caresmuch for what the other desires, so that they bicker and ght more often thannot. An uncle is brought in to make peace, which is successful enough that bythe middle of the book the wife nds herself pregnant. In the second half of thenovel the husband becomes despondent and the uncles younger sister comes tostay with the couple to help around the house, but only ends up becominganother source of petty domestic tension. The novel ends with a startling event(which I will discuss below), but notas it leads one to expectwith the birthof the child.

This child is the putative hero of the book, and we are to assume that in itssubsequent volume(s)the only one published is announced as a larger worksErster Theil (see Figure 1)he would take centre stage. The novel thus readslike an extended prelude to a chain of motivated occurrences that is never actu-ally set in motion. True to Blanckenburgs emphasis on cause and effect, thewhole book is one excessively detailed and protracted account of the causal ori-gins of the very gure whose story it apparently means to tell. The central prob-lem, however, is that on this macro-narrative level we are only ever provided anaccount of this causethe effect itself remains unnarrated. To compound thisproblem, the precise cause and its immediate consequences (the childs concep-tion and the wifes pregnancy) are treated with such euphemistic discretion thatthey could easily escape the readers attention entirely. Their narration is nearlylost in the jungle of the narrators prolixity.

Even the scene in which the wife tells her husband she is expecting achildwhich is also the point at which the reader rst learns (for certain) of thisfactonly appears on the page in an outpouring of dashes that partly cover overthis crucial information:


Dame: ich hoffe du wirst dich freuen, Mein Kind, wenn Ritter: Hm?Dame: Erben Wahrsagung der ZigeunerRitter: Erben? Hm? Lieb? Ja aber mglich?Dame: Mein Kind!

Die Unterhaltung ist geendigt. Unsre Dame htte vieleicht gerne fortgesetzt;aber ihr Gemahl fngt an, die Lehne des Stuhls mit seinem Rcken zu su-chen, den Tisch um sich weg zuschieben, sich auszudehnen; die Suppe hatzu gut geschmeckt: wir drfen nicht auf mehr Worte hoffen. (171)

In piling up these dashes the narrator does not simply elide what is critical to thisexchange. These blanks, rather, draw attention to what is missing. But in doingso, they also announce the insignicance of the event, as if the narrator werehereby aunting the peculiar near-disappearance of his storys origin in thebooks convoluted layering of discourse. (It goes without saying that the primalscene itself is left completely unnarrated, presumably occurring in the ellipsisbetween books I and II, or while the narrator chatters away during the last chap-ter of the rst book.10) Once the narrator curtly informs us that the conversationhas ended, we are invited to join the husband in his initial reaction, which is todoze off. Thus the important information to be gleaned from this dialogue is notonly hidden on the page; it is agged by the text as uninteresting, even sopori-cally boring.11 Nonetheless, the reader who can read in between the lines maynow rest assured that at least the novels main character exists in embryonicform.12 But this same reader would be mistaken in thinking that something like areal plotat least as Blanckenburg himself prescribes itwill now begin todevelop.

As the features of the Beytrge I have described so far make plain, this bookshares many of the ingredients also found in Tristram Shandy, including promi-nent narrative delays and authorial intrusionseven the liberal use of the m-

10 The confusion as to the books basic events is illustrated by Thoms summary, which suggeststhe conception occurs during the rst narrated night, not the second (264).

11 Later, the reader will have a chance to voice this boredom directly: Es ist ein langweilig Dingum diese Geschichte! (237). This is a common complaint among its readers. Even the other-wise positive reviewer of the novel in the Magazin der deutschen Critik writes that the novelsrst part was mehrmahlen langweilig, and that of the friends whom he convinced to read thebook, half of them threw it away after an hour, and the other half, even though they nished it,found it on the whole durchaus langweilig (43).

12 Michelsen writes: Durch das Prinzip der kausalpsychologischen Detailschilderung wird in die-sem ganzen, ber 200 Seiten starken Band [its actually over 300 pages], nicht viel mehr als dieZeugung des (nie auftretenden) Helden geschildert (93). In designating the conception the onlyevent of the novel, Michelsen at the same reduces its signicance as such an event by pointingout that it is really only a precondition for the appearance of a gure who would be capable ofmaking actual, narratively interesting events: the hero. Since this hero never appears, our forget-table cast of characters is only left to dawdle about.


dash. And of course both spend more time on the trivial circumstances surround-ing their protagonists conception than on his actual life. Indeed, the Beytrgehas been dismissed, not without justication, as a clumsy Sterne pastiche (Lm-mert, 575; Michelsen, 93). Reviewing the novel in the Teutscher Merkur, J.H.Merck is quick to point out these similarities: So sehr auch der V[erfasser] sichdagegen verwahrt, so ist doch die Nachahmung Tristram Shandys zu sichtbar,und jeder Leser wnscht vielleicht mit uns, da er nicht in Sternes, sondern inseiner eigenen Manier mchte gedichtet haben (270).13 Blackenburg himself ismindful of his novels Shandyism and attempts to preempt such attacks, writingin the books prologue that although he has read Tristram Shandy oft und viel,his novel has nicht das mindeste gemein mit ihm (n. pag.). Commenting in aletter on Mercks criticism, Blanckenburgs friend C.F. Weie couldnt helpagreeing, against his friends insistence, with the reviewer: Aber, fragen Siesich selbst einmal darin, warum so viel, so lange Einschiebsel? In der That hatSie Ihr Reichthum zur Verschwendung verfhret. Sie zerreien den Faden derGeschichte mit jedem Augenblicke, und lassen den Leser immer so lange harren,bis Sie wieder anknpfen um ihn gleich wieder zu zerreien, da er nichtwei, welches Ende er erhaschen soll, um ihn fest zu halten. Weie concludes,allein wer eine Geschichte liest, ist begierig auf den Fortgang, er liest sie nichtder Einschiebsel wegen (67). In the prologue, Blanckenburg defends his long-windedness, touching on the very problem that I highlighted above in my discus-sion of his theoretical convictions: Wenn ich diesen [his imagined sympatheticreaders] zu weitlug, zu berig, zu umstndlich scheine: so werden sie n-den, da die bloe, kahle Erzhlung kahler Vorflle einfltiger Geschpfe, nochkalter und langweiliger und fruchtloser ohne diese Umschweife und Entwicke-lungen gewesen seyn wrde (n. pag.). Even though he generally prohibits it,Blanckenburg here again concedes that authorial commentary is often necessaryto esh out the skeletal sequence of events so as to transform them into the mate-rial of a proper plot. The watch, as we will see even more strikingly below, re-quires its makers interventions. Still, Blanckenburgs self-assessment is not sosanguine. In using comparative adjectivesmore boring, etc.to describewhat the novel would be without his loquacious interventions, Blanckenburgonly admits that the nal product still is boring and frigid and unsuccessful,despite his efforts.

This comparison of the Beytrge with Tristram Shandy is instructive beyondtheir structural similarities. If in Shandy Sterne shows the contingency of action,event, and the causal structures that ground conventional narrative, as criticssuch as David Wellbery have convincingly shown, then in the Beytrge we cansee Blanckenburg going out of his way to show the necessity of action, howeverything is the way it is and how one thing leads to another, however trivial

13 Even the laudatory reviewer in the Magazin der deutschen Critik complains about the novelsexcessive digressivity, blaming it on Sterne: Fast mgt ich glauben, da Sterne hier der Ver-fhrer sey (55).


and unimportant it may be.14 But in its attempt to do this, his narrative ceases tobe about these occurrences and becomes a mechanical exercise in justication.The absurdity of following through with this tactic is especially apparent in ex-changes like this one, where the reader interrupts the narrators interruption toconfront him about the purpose of his repeated interruptions:

Sie sind mit Ihrem Moralisiren, und Ihren Einschiebseln, und Anreden, undFragen an den Leser ganz unausstehlich, lieber Freund!

Es ist meine Art nun einmal so!

Ihre Art? Was geht uns Ihre Art an? Sie mssen Rechenschaft von Ihrem Thunund Lassen, als Autor, zu geben wissen! (43)

Of course the reader is only perpetuating the problem in demanding Re-chenschaft. This exchange thus highlights the danger of the narrators strategy:were he to follow through with it consistently, it would lock him into an inniteloop of self-justication. The novel sometimes appears to be caught in such aspiral, only adding to its disorienting effects. After the laconically dismissiveEs ist meine Art nun einmal so! the narrator proceeds to defend his digressionsmore substantively, insisting, da ohn diese Einschiebsel, Anreden und Fragenauch nicht einer [der Leser] sich etwas bey der Gelegenheit, wo er sie fand, ge-dacht haben wrde (43). The narrator maintains here and throughout that his in-terruptions are also devices meant to force the reader to think about what he isreading so as to take from it a lesson about his own inner self: denken mchtich sie gern lehren. Ich wollte sie gern aufmerksam auf sich selbst, gern mehrmit sich selbst und mit ihrem Innern bekannter machen (44). So much is inaccord with his theory (e.g. Versuch 296), and yet sober reections like these dolittle to ameliorate the frustration triggered by all these justications. And any-way, Blanckenburg himself admits in the prologue that his excessive authorialintrusions in fact violate his own theoretical proscriptions: Manche Bemerkung,manche Ausschweifung steht ganz wider meine eigene Theorie da. (n. pag.).True to the absurd logic of the book, no matter how much he tries to justifythem, in doing so he will only create further need for justicationad innitum.

In this way, the machine that Blanckenburg has created, however much itcorresponds to the ideal presented in the Versuch, may function too well. AsJutta Heinz puts it, die Kausalitt scheint so weit getrieben, da man die Ver-knpfung der Ereignisse beinahe mittels einer Formel ausdrcken knnte (143).For Thom, the novels strict causal logic is analogous to the mechanistic

14 The following observation from Wellberys analysis of Sterne helps to foreground his imitatorsdifferences: Auf die schlichte Darstellung einer Kausalsequenz kommt es Sterne jedoch nichtan, sondern auf die Betonung der Diskrepanz, die das Verhltnis zwischen Ursache und Wir-kung kennzeichnet (24).


conception of late Enlightenment natural sciences mixed with a good dose oftheodicy (260). Blanckenburg seems to show his hand in this regard when he in-troduces into the novel a mechanical object as a central prop: a chiming repeaterwatch. This object is, of course, hardly arbitrary. It is the need to wind the chim-ing clock that (partly) interrupts the act of reproduction at the beginning of Tris-tram Shandy; and it is the watch that Blanckenburg uses as a metaphor for theperfectly functioning machinery of narrative in the quotation from the Versuch Idiscussed in the previous section. In the Beytrge, the watch functions narra-tively as an object of intervention: the uncle forces the husband to give it to hiswife as a way of making peace. Yet even while it stabilizes the couples relation-ship long enough for them to conceive a child, it just as soon precipitates therescission of that stability. For the chiming of the Repetiruhr drives the hus-band crazy, preventing him from sleeping. The very device that guarantees order(both generally, in terms of temporal sequencing, and more locally, in terms ofmarital relations) is the same device that keeps interrupting that order.

The watch becomes the medial analogue to Blanckenburgs narration,which is so excessively controlled by the gure of the narrator that it becomesoverbearing. As such, Blanckenburgs choice of repeater watch is especially tell-ing. The repeater, unlike the striking clock (such as the one that gures promi-nently at the beginning of Tristram Shandy), does not chime on its own. It canonly strike the number of hours (and in some cases quarter hours or even min-utes) when somebody presses a button. The watchmaker who constructs a repea-ter would be unable to wind it up and let it work on its own, because he wouldhave to intervene in order for it to chime the hour. Since the chime is the princi-pal way in which a repeater tells time, its very mechanism would be functionlesswithout this manual intervention. No longer does the watchmaker disappearbehind his handiwork; with the repeater, he becomes one with it. The repeater inthe Beytrge thus takes up Blanckenburgs ideal image of narrative as a watchfrom the Versuch and forces back its absent maker.

The horological analogue of the repeater watch ultimately exposes the insta-bility of the novels entire narrative structure. The authorial narrator of the Bey-trge so persistently keeps track of the causal connections and affectivemotivations that drive his story that he effectively prevents these from trulybecoming signicant narrative forces. In almost unceasingly commenting on hisown invention (repeatedly making his watch chime), even drawing the reader intodialogue about it, his remarks cease to be mere narratorial discourse or reectivecommentary, but functiononce removedas discourse on his own narratorialdiscourse. Weie points to this multiplication of discursive levels in his corre-spondence with the author: Ihr Roman sieht nun mehr einem Commentar bereinen Text hnlich, als da er selbst Text wre, ja Sie kommentieren nicht nurden Text, sondern den Commentar selbst (68). In persistently defending his tac-tic of describing seemingly trivial actions in agonizing detail as something use-ful and necessary, the narrator only begs the question. To what largerstructure, exactly, do these interruptions belong? What whole do they serve?


Lassen Sie mich doch! Sie werden schon sehen, da dies Bedenken und Besin-nen auch seinen Nutzen, und seine Nothwendigkeit frs Ganze haben wird,und da, weils nun einmal nicht anders kommen kann, es auch nicht anderskommen durfte. Es ist ja unsre Verabredung, da ich das, was der Natur undWahrheit gem erfolgt, zum nothwendigen Stck des Ganzen machen soll.Und hiemit, Gott befohlen! (34)

But we never do see the usefulness and necessity of all these Einschiebselin-cluding this one. It soon becomes clear that none of his interruptions and com-mentary is necessary to any whole, primarily because no such narrative whole isallowed to form. (Have we even entered the narrative proper yet? Arent we stillin the prologue to the actual novel, yet to be published?) The result is not somuch Blanckenburgs dreaded bloes Erzehlen, in which action follows actionin a series of kahle Vorflle. Instead, the narrator drags out each minute, trivialaction with explanatory and apologetic commentary, overcrowding the eventsthemselves with bavardage. The narrators garrulousness even infects his charac-ters, whose discourse becomes longer and longer, and less and less relevant tothe little that carries narrative weight in the novel.

But something remarkable does happen at the end of the book, andin acurious ironic inversionthis something is directly related to the novels ex-cesses of commentary and its lack of any interesting story. In effect, the veryproliferation of desultory discourse, which had up to then prevented story fromdeveloping, leads to the rst and only real event of narrative consequence in thenovel (discounting the rather uneventfuland of course unnarratedconcep-tion). But this event also brings the book to a close, as if it had expended itselfand could go no further (indeed, no further parts were ever published15). Thatnal event isttingly enoughthe death of a character.

The novels tentative protagonist, Freyherr von Bernklau, has been waxingphilosophical in an attempt to proclaim and also justifyin the face of all theevidence to the contraryhis own intellectual powers. His ramblings in effectcarry over from the narrators own ramblings (they are in fact formally insepara-ble from them since Bernklau is not directly quoted), and represent the same dis-cursive excess that swallows up the novels meaningful action. The repetitiveand completely empty discourse that lls pages upon pages suddenly comes toan end, however, when it becomes apparent that Bernklaus septuagenarian ser-vant, Christian, is dying. Bernklau had been so wrapped up in his self-justifyingbabbling (which appears to be mostly going on in his head, anyway), that he ne-glected to call a doctor for his sick servant, and the text at this point makes it

15 Lmmert notes that the second part of the novel was announced in the AllgemeineVerzeichni of the Frankfurter und Leipziger Ostermesse des Jahres 1777 under Fertig ge-wordene Schriften (584n2), though it has never been found. The forward to the correspondencewith Weie, published in 1806, contradicts this information, claiming that Blanckenburg did notwant to continue the novel (66).


clear that his ramblings essentially prevented him from coming to his loyal ser-vants rescue in time.

This ending serves as a damning commentary on Blanckenburgs experi-ment with this novel, whose larger structure and design, as per Blanckenburgsown theoretical convictions, remain stubbornly beholden to a conventional con-ception of the unifying plot. What leads up to this point in the book at once pre-cipitates an actual narrative occurrence, but also turns out to have violentconsequences, both for a character in the book and for the book itself. Seen inparallel, the endings narrative and meta-narrative levels reveal a symmetry thatindicts both Bernklau and the novels authorial commentary. Just as Bernklauobsesses at length over his own perceived wisdom all the while making it moreand more apparent that he is irredeemably ignorant, so too the narrator has beenobsessing at length over the perceived necessity of his commentary all the whilemaking it more and more apparent that nothing at all of what he has contributedwas actually necessary to his storys success. Instead of this commentary provid-ing narrative support to the normative plot system that the novel presupposes,the narrators ceaseless justications end up undermining that very system. Ineffect, just as Bernklaus babbling leads him to forget his servant, who dies, sotoo the narrators babbling leads him to forget his novel, which succumbs.

Curiously, what ultimately kills the novel is its own rst step toward some-thing resembling success, which only underscores Blanckenburgs deep ambiva-lence toward his own undertaking. Nonetheless, this destruction of the novel isthe only possible consequence of his nearly contradictory theory, in which narra-torial commentary is both necessary for and disruptive of the unied whole thenovel is supposed to maintain for its own success. In this respect, the endingserves as a taking account of what Blanckenburg has accomplishedand the re-sults are dire, so dire that he essentially lets his book die. No real ending is pro-vided; no subsequent volumes are published. The novel is aborted before it caneven be brought to life. Christians death thus also stands in for the death of theunborn, young Bernklau. He, too, is effectively aborted, since it is his story thatis supposed to be told, but never is.

The novel thus ends, and in ending fails to end. Blanckenburg ultimately de-nies us a telos that should, as per his own theory, give meaning to his novelsseemingly endless series of causes and effects: Ohne Vereinigung der verschie-denen einzeln Fden eines Werks in ein Ende, ohne Verknpfung ihrer in einKnoten, lt sich kein wahrhaftes Ganzes denken (Versuch 395). It is as if inconstantly seeking origins he had turned his back on any proper close to hisbook. He was obsessed with beginnings, not endings. So instead of granting anend, he kills off the novel with a dramatic gesture that doesnt bring closure atall, but violently and abruptly terminates.16

16 Even more revealing is that Blanckenburg insists the death of a character is a wholly inappropri-ate ending for the novel form: Der bessere Romanendichter hat andre und mu andre Absichten


III. Narrative Voice, Narrativity, and the End of the Enlightenment NovelIn persistently and destructively foregrounding the narrator, Blanckenburgsstrange novel offers an alternative way to think through the problem of narrativevoice (as the textual appearance of the narrating persona in address or commen-tary), which in recent theoretical discussions has mostly sidelined questions ofgenre and narrativity. These are two aspects of voice that Blanckenburgs theoryand its application in the Beytrge raise in compelling ways, thereby providing aunique perspective not only on the shifting possibilitiesand limitationsof thenovel form in the late Enlightenment, but also on the paradoxes of narrative dis-course itself.

In classical narratology, Grard Genette introduced the category of voice todistinguish questions concerning the narrator or narrating instance (whospeaks?) from those concerning point of view (who sees?). Since there is, ofcourse, no actual voice in a text, the term functions as a metaphor that helps toisolate the role of the speaker in a narrative (186), for instance in terms of his orher identity, authority, or frequency and conspicuousness of appearance. As such,the concept can be usefully deployed in addressing the ner differentiationsbetween and within categories of person (e.g. rst-person or homodiegetic narra-tion and third-person or heterodiegetic narration), which are ultimately alsotocome back to Genettes initial distinctionrelevant to problems involving narra-tive perspective (focalization). A story that is consistently focalized through itscharacters, for example, will leave little trace of a narrating instance, the job oftelling having been taken over by the gures in the narrated world. Some theoristshave even proposed degrees of narratorial audibility, ranging from the self-referential overt narrator to the nearly imperceptible covert narrator (Chatman196262). While postclassical narratologists have questioned this basic modelRichard Aczel suggests using Bakhtin to read the text as the site of multiple,often competing voices; Monika Fludernik sees voice as generated in an act ofmimetic illusionism constitutive of the reading processthe debates have mostlyinvolved the structural function or ontological status of the narrator.17 Only An-drew Gibson has questioned the viability of the concept altogether, seeing it as aresidue of idealism that ground[s] the technology of the text on reassuringlyontotheological foundations (And the Wind Wheezing 642). Gibson nds nar-ratologys nostalgia for voice illogical: it continually seeks to restore thesense of a human presence whose loss or distance is in fact its own founding con-dition (Commentary 711).

In Der Erzhler, Walter Benjamin makes a similar claim about our dis-tance from the presence of the actual, embodied narratorbut in doing so heshifts the stakes of a debate that had not even yet begun. What distinguishes

mit seinen Personen haben, als die bloe Bestimmung ihres uern Geschicks (395). On nal-ity and teleology in Blanckenburgs theory, see Frick (363-364).

17 See the special issue of New Literary History dedicated to voice (issue 32.2, summer 2001) fora more detailed discussion of these and other theorists positions.


Benjamins notion of voice and narrative rst and foremost from that of classi-cal and postclassical narratologists is the normative thrust of his analysis.Narratology aims to provide an accurate description of narrative functionality;Benjamin is mainly interested in exploring what constitutes narratives actualand proper essence. Benjamins deeply historical conception of narrativetreats formal features not as concrete elements of any text, but as modalities ina model of communication rooted in memory and experience. For Benjamin,the absence of human presence whose loss, to quote Gibson again, is a found-ing condition both of narrative and its theorization reminds us even more ur-gently that this gure of the storyteller is missing from the empty stories thatbombard us every day (43839). True storytelling should able to reclaim thatpresence.

Although he does not use the term voice, Benjamin is at pains to stressthe source of narrativity in oral storytelling, and repeatedly gures the audienceof narrative as listeners (44243). The essence of storytelling is for him inti-mately connected to this oral tradition and to the central role of the narrator him-self, and has little to do with any conventional story content that this narratormight convey.18 Benjamin ignores such elements of the story, providing speci-cally non-narrative examples of what comprises a narrative: practical advice, sci-entic instruction, proverbs and maxims (442). These examples are essentiallylinked to the narrator gure, who must cease telling his story in order to impartthis wisdom, such as in Gotthelf, whose narrators provide agricultural advice(441442) and theological guidance, or in Hebel, whose Schatzkstlein is inter-spersed with scientic excursions (442) and who, in this collections mostfamous story, Unverhofftes Wiedersehen, narrates the passing of time and theineluctability of death via a list of historical occurrences unrelated to the fate ofthe two main characters (450451).19 The voice of the narrator thus makes mani-fest that which is in excess of conventional narrative content; but this excess, asthe residue of the storytellers presence, represents what is fundamentally consti-tutive of narrative itself. For Benjamin, then, narrativity emerges not from plot orcharacters, but from the experience conveyed in and through the act of telling.Voice is what makes that experience palpable by conveying the texts repository

18 In this respect Benjamins analysis bears close resemblance to Boris Eichenbaums discussionof skaz narration in Leskov. Jurij Striedter has even suggested that Benjamin might have beendirectly inuenced by the Russian formalists work (56). Skaz is a narrative mode that attemptsto provide the illusion of oral storytelling by emphasizing the idiosyncrasies of speech and stylein a prominent narrator. Eichenbaum specically contrasts the device of skaz with plot, notingthat, The center of gravity is shifted from the plot (which is now reduced to a minimum) tothe techniques of verbal mimicry and verbal gesture (269).

19 In his review of Dblins Berlin Alexanderplatzin which parts of the Erzhler-essay are re-cycledBenjamin lists similar non-narrative features of the text as elemental to its epic charac-ter. These include, among other things, Bibelverse, Statistiken, Schlagertexte. Their montagein this high modernist text, however, is so dicht that they leave little room for the author (asnarrator) to be heard (233).


of wisdom, which is tied via an authority gure (the speaker or narrator) to amaterial context and thereby to history. In this way Benjamin redenes narrative,shifting its constitutive formal feature from plot to voice, from the stuff ofnarrative to the act of narrating, which grants advice (44243) by transmittingtrue, lived experience (Erfahrung). A texts voice is thus both fundamentallynarrativeas the instantiation of this transmissionand also, in terms of whatwe typically expect from a story, utterly non-narrative, since the key moments inwhich this voice becomes present typically coincide with the cessation or sidelin-ing of plots progression.20

The narrative and that which is a feature of the non-narrative (instruction,advice) are thus uniquely aligned in Benjamins essay, as they are in Blancken-burgs novel, where the authors impulses to tell Geschichte and provide com-mentary (as Beytrge) appear to be one and the same. As we have seen,however, Blanckenburg is unable to keep these impulses from tearing apart hiswork, whereas in Benjamin they are intimately interwoven. Voice in the Bey-trge is not just the locus of advice giving, but of the authors inability to letgo of theorizing (which is closer to Benjamins dreaded explanation), suchthat it ruptures the narrative even as it is attempting to give it meaning and pur-pose. The rift that it thereby opens up shows a nascent genre struggling to legiti-mize itself, all the while undermining its very effectiveness. Blanckenburgsexperiment in the genre in which he can claim theoretical expertise is importantprecisely because we can see this conict and its consequences. That he fails tokeep the Beytrge and the Geschichte of his work in productive tension, though,does more than just perform the novels breakdown. Wound up to the point ofsnapping open, the watch of his narrative spills its gears and springs, offering usa better look at its minute features in relation to their intended function withinthe (failed) mechanism. Furthermore, the Beytrge provides a glimpse, by wayof its theoretical foundations and historical context, into the shifting aesthetics ofthe novel itself.

If we were to follow through with Benjamins diagnosis, however, thenBlanckenburg would be on the losing side. For Benjamin the novel is a symp-tomatic manifestation of narratives decline (442), complicit with the news intransmitting information instead of advice (444). No event reaches us now,Benjamin laments, without being burdened by explanation (44445), somethingtrue narrative ought to banish: Es ist nmlich schon die halbe Kunst des Erzh-lens, eine Geschichte, indem man sie wiedergibt, von Erklrungen freizuhalten

20 My interpretation of Benjamin remains deeply informed by classical narratology. Another wayto express the paradox is by appealing to the story/discourse binary: story is the bare sequenceof events that discourse arranges and presents. Discourse, therefore, is all we can ever reallyspeak of in narrative; the originary story must be reconstructed on the basis of that discoursealone. Thus when discourse turns away from the storyto provide maxims, instruction, etc.we are really left with nothing but discourse (there is no story to reconstruct), which is the voiceof the narrator foregrounding himself and his desire to tell, but without any object to that telling.


(445).21 Blanckenburgs overt narrator, even though he tries to instruct (indeed,this is his primary impulse, the Endzweck of the genre [Versuch 249]), endsup only explaining and is in this way closer to how Benjamin characterizes thehistorian, who is the inverse of the true storyteller (451).22 Indeed, the voice ofthe narrator in the Beytrge sounds like the Benjaminian storyteller who has im-prisoned himself in the novel of his own making. The voice that might have beena source of a more creative, self-generating narrativity is trapped by the novelis-tic constraints its author has imposed on it.

If we ultimately rejectas I think we shouldBenjamins historical narra-tive (in which the rise of the novel coincides with true narratives devolution),while still holding on to his acute insights into narrative ontology, then Blanck-enburgs Beytrge represents not so much one salient example of the decline ofstorytelling as an experiment in the evolving form of a genre that, like the bookit imitates, Tristram Shandy, forces us to rethink the constitutive features ofthat genre. But unlike Sternes masterpiece, in which a failed narrative ispart of its parodic success, Blanckenburgs work is instructive as a truly failedworkone that must fail given the conditions the author has set up for its suc-cess. If Tristram Shandy points beyond its immediate historical context to thenovels ironic potential, then the Beytrge only points to the dead-end of itsown rather serious aesthetic presuppositions, to the limitations of its historicalcontext, which it is unable to overcome. Seen in this way, what causes Blanck-enburgs novel to self-destruct is the authors rm belief in the explanatory andjusticatory power of his surrogate voice, the narrator, and that this voice is inthe service of his conception of plot, and by extension the novel itself, as a uni-ed structure. This conviction of Blanckenburgs also illustrates why his nov-els self-destruction is important for insight into the German novel of thisperiod, because it highlights the contradictions inherent in the formal andgeneric rules that were about to be called into question by a series of new liter-ary revolutions. Blanckenburgs theory and his novel bear witness to theimpending sea change.

21 Such explanation, too, would require the foregrounding of the narrator, and thus the suspensionof the storyas weve seen in Blanckenburgs novel. Benjamin rejects explanation not for thisreason, but for its complicity with making the mechanism of plot transparent by means of einergenauen Verkettung von bestimmten Ereignissen (452). This precision should be avoided, andconnections among events, instead, be left tantalizingly ambiguous (his example here is Herodo-tus [445-446]). This importantly points up a deep rift between the two theorists. For Benjamin,true storytelling should forgo psychologizing (446) as the means for providing this baresequence with motivation.

22 Benjamins notion of the historian is essentially the opposite of Blanckenburgs. The latteraligns the writing of history with the bare sequence of events, lacking any proper motivatingconnections. The relation between historical and ctional writing in this period, however, is toocomplex to address here. See Fulda for a nuanced discussion of the theory and practice of histo-riography and ction in the eighteenth century (77ff), in particular in relation to Blanckenburg(102ff).


In order to read the Beytrge as providing a unique perspective on this shiftin the historical development of the German novel, I suggest we replace Benja-mins decline-of-storytelling narrative with a model proposed by Jacques Ran-cire, for whom the history of literature is marked by a tension between what hecalls the representational regime and the expressive (or aesthetic) regime. Theformer is guided by the principles of mimetic identity and organic coherence,in which one nds a totality of parts adjusted to one another to contribute to asingle end (53). The latter takes apart these hierarchies, setting out from theruin of the generic principle (50) to afrm a principle of literature as style (orwriting) itself. Although Rancire rejects a strict historical break between thesetwo regimes, we might say that they roughly correspond to Foucaults classicalage and modern era, respectively. The Beytrge in effect shows the hierarchicalconception of art that is at the core of the classical, representational endeavourhaving exhausted itself, unable to make the leap from the primacy of ction(Aristotelian representation of action) to the primacy of language (art no longergoverned by the mimetic principle [53]) (50). The hierarchical edice inwhich language must be subordinated to the ction, the genre to the subject, andthe style to the characters and situations represented (47) is in its death throes, avictim of its own aesthetic assumptions. Ironically, from this standpoint, whatdooms Blanckenburgs novel is not so much his narrators persistent interrup-tions as the belief in the proper plot that he wishes thereby to maintainor, asI put it above, the belief that his prominent narrator is in the service of this uni-ed narrative system. As the ending of the Beytrge reveals, the very ingredientsof a proper novel are ultimately what coincide with its premature termination.Only a quarter century later, with the Romantics and Jean Paul, would the role ofnarrative voicein the German context, at leastbe emancipated enough fromthe constraints of plot to achieve a new type of novelistic discourse. Sterne hadachieved this emancipation, but Blanckenburg does not seem to be ready to fol-low his predecessor and leave behind the dependence on a conventional, causallylinked sequence of events as the basis for narrativity.23 Ever the optimisticEnlightenment thinker, Blanckenburg still unwaveringly believes in the causallydetermined nature of the world and our ability to replicate this world in narrative.The novelistic means he chooses to convey these connections as reliable onlyshow updespite his intensionsthe absurdity of this Enlightenment belief.

Blanckenburg seems to be unaware of the parodic potential of this discrep-ancy, and he fails to seize on the power of narrative voice as a feasible vehiclefor narrativity in and of itself. Even though he holds in his hands the means for asend-up of the novel or for an ironic reection on the limits of the genre itself, hetreats them as the sober tools of the conventional novelist. As Fulda writes,Was bei Sterne die herkmmliche Romanform aust, will Blanckenburg also

23 Blanckenburgs Sterne is a rather tame novelist. See Fulda (11921) on Blanckenburgs naivereading of Sterne.


in ihren Dienst stellen (120). Sterne, the skeptic, questions the conventionalnovel form, expanding its generic and narrative potential. Blanckenburg, by con-trast, is the apologist, applying Enlightenment theodicy to a literary genre so asto justify the limits of its form, even as he repeatedly comes up against these lim-its.24 The Beytrge is thus in more ways than one an exemplary novel of an era,since it is also exemplary of the end of that era. It shows the presuppositions ofone aesthetic period (or, with Rancire, regime) brought into conict with theimpulses that would eventually transform these generic principles. And it therebyoffers us a glimpse of how that impasse would soon be overcomeor at leastchallenged anewas the Enlightenment was left behind and with it, ultimately,the eighteenth century, too.

In the process of providing unique insight into this historical shift, Blanck-enburgs attempt at writing a novel also exposes one of narratives peculiar para-doxes, one that, furthermore, is especially relevant to the changing role ofnarrative and voice in the eighteenth century: to tell a story is always to get inthe way of the story one means to tell. Not only does narrative discourse, ostensi-bly at the service of story, invariably distort that story by refracting it through aparticular lens. As we have seen, discourse also, manifest as a prominent narra-tive voice, suspends and therefore delays story, preventing it from moving for-ward. For Peter Brooks, this delay is constitutive of plots double-movement ofpostponement and discharge (101); but his psychosexual model of narrative tele-ology ultimately privileges that nal consummation over any movement towardit. The Beytrges self-destruction compels us to turn this model on its head. Ithus suggest we pick up Benjamins reections and locate the primary determi-nant of narrative not in plots drive for unity and closure, but in the act of telling,manifest in the text as voice, which aims to perpetuate itself in the face of plotsinevitable termination. Seen in this way, to tell is to prevent narratives consum-mation (and inevitable destruction) in an end, but not (pace Brooks) so as tomake that resolution more meaningful or pleasurable. Rather, the impulse to tellresists storys unfolding so as to perpetuate itself as the unimpeded energy ofnarrative in and of itself. Blanckenburg can be seen to tap into that energy in theBeytrge. His mistake was to assume, like Brooks, that he needed an end to giveit purpose and meaning. That his novel in fact lacks a proper end and thus anyactual teleological shape only compounds the mistake, since every element thatcomprises the novel, including its conspicuous voice, remains geared towardsupporting that larger, but ultimately absent, design. The Beytrges missingend, then, doesnt free the narratives voice to generate narrativity anew, butrather turns that voice against its own originary impulse, revealing that this

24 This analogy to theodicy might be extended to the ways in which Blanckenburg tries to justifythese very limits. The inappropriate interruptions are themselves the blemishes in an otherwiseideal and perfectly structured system. Blanckenburgs project is to show that this system remainsunied and therefore still perfect, despite these blemishes. That his justications constitute addi-tional interruptions that require further justication seems to have eluded him.


impulse only ever ourishes within the very model it seeks to resist. Though itremains a failed and often tedious novel, in forcefully staging these conicting im-pulses of narrativeto unleash the primacy of language in voice and to main-tain the system of plotthe Beytrge redeems itself as more than a mere curiosity.Indeed, that which frustrates readers and ultimately dooms the novel isttingly,given Blanckenburgs ambivalencethe very aspect that makes it theoreticallyvaluable.

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FREDERIK, The Self-Destruction of the Enlightenment Novel ... (2013)

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