The Gates of Brunswick: Some Aspects of Symbol, Structure and Theme in Karl Philipp Moritz's "Anton Reiser" Author(s):

Mark Boulby Reviewed work(s): Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Jan., 1973), pp. 105-114 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3726208 . Accessed: 24/10/2012 09:25
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THE GATES OF BRUNSWICK: SOME ASPECTS OF SYMBOL, STRUCTURE AND THEME IN KARL PHILIPP MORITZ'S 'ANTON REISER'
In the resurgence of interest in Karl Philipp Moritz which has developed over the past twenty years critics have tended to be concerned with his philosophical and aesthetic thought, or else with such matters as the typicality of his passion for the theatre.' Recently his all but totally forgotten fictional works, Andreas Hartknopf: Eine Allegorie(1786), Andreas Hartknopfs Predigerjahre (1790) and the short fragment Die Neue Cecilia (I794) have been rescued from oblivion and provided with illuminating commentaries.2 His one well-known production, however, Anton Reiser(I785-90), although it has been discussed in various contexts and from many points of view, has received curiously little detailed and sustained analysis, at least Reiser does present us with certain as a work of art in its own right.3 Of course, Anton since it is more often than not regarded as not being a novel perplexing ambiguities, at all but rather an autobiography, one of the two most interesting (the other being Goethe's own) which were written during the classical era of German literature.4 The issue thus posed is a complicated one, since it involves contentious matters of genre theory, and turns upon questions of historical veracity, fictionalization, and the function of the symbolizing process in both novel and autobiography. Moritz himself sowed confusion by calling the work 'ein psychologischer Roman' and then declaring, in the preface to Part Two, that it was 'im eigentlichsten Verstande Biographie' (p. I05).5 Saine, in his excellent monograph, has recently shed some
1 See for instance: Eckehard Catholy, Karl Philipp Moritz und die Urspriinge deutschen der Theater(Tiibingen, 1962); Eva J. Engel, Carl Philipp Moritz: A Studyof His Ethical and Aesthetic leidenschaft (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, I954); Egon Menz, Die Schrift Karl Concepts des Goppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 4 Nachahmung Schonen', Philipp Moritzens'Uber die bildende (G6ppingen, 1968); and Thomas P. Saine, Die AsthetischeTheodizee: Karl Philipp Moritz und die (Mfinchen, I97'). See also Hans Joachim Schrimpf's edition of the Philosophiedes r8. Jahrhunderts zur aesthetic writings: KarlPhilippMoritz: Schriften AsthetikundPoetik,Neudrucke deutscher Literaturwerke, Neue Folge 7, (Tiibingen, 1962). 2 Karl PhilippMoritz: Andreas aus Hartknopfs Predigerjahre. Fragmente demTagebuche Hartknopf:Andreas Nachwort von H. J. Schrimpf, Sammlung Metzler (Stuttgart, I968), and Die neue eines Geistersehers. Cecilia. Nachwort von H. J. Schrimpf, Sammlung Metzler (Stuttgart, I962). 3 An examination of the form of the novel is to be found in Fritz Briiggemann, Die Ironie als Moment(Jena, I909). Schrimpf's article: 'Anton Reiser. Wege zum psychoentwicklungsgeschichtliches logischen Roman' (in Der DeutscheRoman,edited by Benno v. Wiese (Diisseldorf, 1963), I, 95-131) offers several acute observations, but the novel makes a major contribution. Saine (Asthetische Theodizee) is not the centre of his concern. August Langen's investigation, 'Karl Philipp Moritz' Weg zur Philologie [cited below as ZDP] 8i (1962), I69-2i8 symbolischen Dichtung', Zeitschriftfiir deutsche and 402-40, studies the symbolic landscapes of the work intensively, but refrains from considering its overall structures. 4 Moritz's contemporaries disagreed as to whether the book was wholly historical or partly fiction. Some commentators (e.g. Schlichtegroll) stress its inaccuracies, errors of memory or slanted presentation of the facts; others (e.g. Iffland) are witnesses to its truth. Nineteenth-century critics (Geiger, Auerbach) tend to emphasize its importance as a biographical document, culminating in Hugo zur Eybisch's enormously conscientious and invaluable study: Anton Reiser: Untersuchungen LebensI4, (Probefahrten, edited by Albert geschichtevon K. Ph. Moritz und zur Kritik seiner Autobiographie Koster (Leipzig, I909) ). Some modern critics have taken the view that there is little or nothing to distinguish the Moritz of history from the Anton Reiser of the book. Both Saine and Langen in my view correctly - reject this position, although neither allows to AntonReiserthe full honour it surely deserves as a work of art. 5 All references to: AntonReiser: Ein Psychologischer Roman,Deutsche Litteraturdenkmale des I8. und I9. Jahrhunderts, 23 (Heilbronn, i886); (Kraus Reprint, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, i968).

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Structure Themein Moritz's 'AntonReiser' and Symbol,

light upon this enigma by drawing attention to the fact that for Moritz these terms, 'Roman' and 'Biographie', far from being mutually exclusive, were in some measure Reiser complementary.1 In any case, in whatever way we choose to categorize Anton the task of its analysis may well not be greatly changed; an empirical approach to the text will still indicate very much the same problems, in particular an intricate and elusive relationship between the narrating and the 'narrated' self, and a structuring, telescoping and symbolic fusing of remembered moments. Any autobiography, and generally even the most mundane memoir, involves 'a shaping of the past. It imposes a pattern on a life, constructs out of it a coherent story.'2 Whether we regard AntonReiseras an autobiography in the purest sense, equating Moritz himself with both narrator and hero and holding that all the events related in it are true (a position, by the way, which cannot really be maintained, as will be shown below); whether we think of it as just another 'auktorialer Roman' of the type quite popular in the eighteenth century or - more likely - a disguised 'Ich-Roman',3 a confessional work very dependent upon Pietistic models but transcending these to become a piece of rationalistic pedagogy and therapy:4 in all these cases the structural elements in the book will remain the same, although our view of their relative importance might well change. The most significant such element, I will suggest, is the imposition of coherence on the biographical raw material by a particular shaping of past time. An elucidation of this process will do more than illuminate the structureof Anton for Reiser, it will also bring out a cardinal issue in the entire work of Moritz, and an aspect of the conflict between empiricism and holistic rationalism which is of importance for late eighteenth-century art and thought in general. In AntonReiserthis process takes the form of the translation of mere event into meaningful event, and of recollection into inner autobiography. For the purposes of my argument on these matters, I propose to leave problems of generic definition largely on one side, to call AntonReisera novel, and to begin by considering one or two aspects of the use of symbolization in this work. AntonReiseris not a novel in which imagery and metaphor abound. On the contrary, it is a rather bare, reiterative narrative, wandering, abrupt and uneven, constantly interrupted by reflections and digressions of various kinds, though nonetheless essentially coherent. Persistentrepetitions of word, phrase and sentence are the most striking characteristicsof a style which moves cumbersomely, and often gracelessly, with the trudge of a fearful treadmill, round and round certain recalled experiences, a 'zerqualten, zerfahrenen, in angstlichen Wiederholungen sich umwalzenden Stil'.5 Though the language is in no sense richly metaphorical, it is still highly individual, and the metaphors it does use are so insistent that we might be justified in calling them symbols for this reason alone.6 Two outstanding examples are the wall and the desert: trying to learn to think, Anton Reiser soon encounters an impenetrable wall in the mind, 'die undurchdringliche Scheidewand, welche das menschliche Denken von dem Denken h6herer Wesen verschieden
1
2

I965), p. 17. 4 As Schrimpf holds: 'AntonReiser.Wege zum psychologischen Roman', (pp. Io6-8). 4 Ruth Ghisler, und Gottesstaat:Studienzum 'AntonReiser' (Winterthur, 1955), p. I 3. Gesellschaft
6

3 For thesetermssee e.g. FrankK. Stanzel: Typische Formen Romans des (secondedition,Gottingen, Comparethe definitionof the symbol given by Austin Warren and Rend Wellek, Theory of

Saine, Die Asthetische Theodizee, 9I-2. pp. Roy Pascal: Design and Truthin Autobiography (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1960), p. 9.

Literature (3rd edition, New York, I956), p. I89.

MARK BOULBY

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macht' (p. 223), a wall, the author observes later on, which separates men from that Otherness which is greater than 'all that is'. And then we may note how frequently, when Anton is at the end of his tether, he comes up against a wall outside the mind - a churchyard wall on which he stumbles in darkness when totally disoriented and 'vielleicht dem Wahnwitz nahe' (p. 329), or much later on an 'altes Gemauer' (p. 426) as he staggers about the countryside wet through and in despair, or the 'kahle Mauer' (p. 374) against which he mutely rests his head in the theatre at Gotha when it seems that all his hopes are for ever dashed. Perhaps even more obtrusive is the metaphor of the desert, appearing often merely as the persistent adjective '6de' (e.g. pp. 202, 242, 294) or in the recurring, rhythmic 'so tot, so 6de' (pp. 273, 284), but betokening at its strongest that frightening transformation which the landscape sometimes undergoes as Anton tramps through it in pursuit of one or another mirage; thus the 'einsamste Wiiste' (p. 244) which is the yellow heath in the rain, or the 'furchtbare Wiiste' (p. 388) as he struggles on, exhausted and near starvation, all the way back to Miihlhausen. Commentators have been quick to see in Anton Reiser a symbolic figure, Homo Viator et Peregrinator, in search of the City of God.' There is in fact reason to believe that Moritz himself sometimes saw his hero in this symbolic light too; but certainly not primarily; and it is probably wiser to be cautious in seeking extensive allegorical interpretations or topoi, at least as far as this novel is concerned. It is however indisputable that we are not dealing here with a simple, literal account of a life just as it was lived. Moritz's most distinguished predecessorin the new art of the psychological autobiography, Rousseau, had introduced from time to time 'quelque ornement indiff6rent' into his parade of ruthless truths;2 his excuse - the failure of his memory - was only a partial one. Perhaps he was little in need of excuses since it may even be an obligation of autobiography to 'tamper' with the so-called past.3 In Anton Reiser,at any rate, there are not only instances of errorsand failure of memory but also some of conscious fictionalization. The most grotesque of the former occurs at the very end of Part Three, in which Anton sets out from Hannover 'in der Mitte des Winters' (p. 334), only to be found the next day, at the beginning of Part Four, contending with 'die Hitze des Tages' (pp. 342 and 345) and then, in emulation of the Disciples, chewing ears of corn! The most important of the latter is perhaps the game indulged in with the name 'Anton Reiser', especially the account of the strange feeling the hero is said to have experienced in meeting with another boy at school with the same surname.4But what is far more important than all this: it is clear that the narrative is constructed upon a basis of certain symbolic moments in a way which goes beyond what is normal in simple autobiography, and that this in turn depends not merely upon Moritz's declared didactic purpose (cf. p. 339) but also upon a much deeper formative impulse, which in fact controls the whole work. In his discussion of symbolism in AntonReiserLangen fails to make a distinction which is surely central: this is the distinction between the symbolic transmutation
Compare Ghisler, Studium,p. 69. (Livre de Poche, Paris, I963), pp. 21-2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions Compare Pascal, Design and Truth, p. 75. 4 During the period in question, when Moritz was at school in Hannover, there was no other boy in the school called Moritz. Therefore the experience recounted is imaginary. Schlichtegroll is the first to draw attention to this - in his view - disgraceful example of poetic licence: see Friedrich Schlichtegroll, Nekrologauf das Jahr 1793 (Vierter Jahrgang, Gotha, 795), In, 261.
2
3

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Structure Theme Moritz's 'AntonReiser' in and Symbol,

of events in the mind of the hero of the novel as he moves through life, and this same process when it is a function of the narrative technique itself. In the first case, Anton Reiser appears as a character in what amounts to an 'Antibildungsroman',1 finding symbolic meanings in the world around him which frequently influence his actions and his conception of himself, but which then turn out, more often than not, to be delusory. A striking example occurs with the towers of Gotha, one of a whole series of references to, and descriptions of, towers to be found in the novel. As Anton plods wearily towards the town of Gotha, filled with uneasy reflections and doubts about his future, he notices the twin towers:
die beiden kleinen Tiirmchen von Gotha..., wovon ihm der Schuster sagte, daB der eine auf der Kirche und der andere auf dem Kom6dienhause stiinde. Dieser angenehme Kontrast und lebhafte sinnliche Eindruck machte, daB sein Gemuit sich allmahlich wieder erheiterte und er durch verdoppelte Schritte seinen Gefihrten wieder in Atem setzte. Denn das Turmchen bezeichnete ihm nun deutlich den Fleck, wo der unmittelbare laute Beifall eingeerntet und die Winsche des ruhmbegierigen Jiinglings gekront wiirden. Dieser Platz behauptete dort seine Rechte neben dem geweihten Tempel und war selbst ein Tempel der Kunst und den Musen geweiht... (p. 365)

Unfortunately this symbolization of forthcoming triumph, and the inflation of the

theatre by the analogy with a church (a parallel which is not isolated but central to the novel and which emerges early on when preacher and actor are compared) amounts to another surrender to those dreams which are Anton's constant undoing. Hence the narrator, a severe judge in such instances, expresses his disapproval in pointed, ironic words: 'Mit seinem einzigen Gulden in der Tasche fiihlte sich Reiser begliickt wie ein Konig, solange dieser Reichtum von Bildern ihm vorschwebte, die die Spitze des Tiirmchens von Gotha umgaukelten und Reisern einen sch6nen Traum in die Zukunft aufs neue vorspiegelten' (p. 366). The obsessive pursuit of symbolical or allegorical meanings in everyday things (a well-known practice in Pietistic circles) here strikes the narrator, quite evidently, as being subversive of rational judgement, a quality with which Anton is in any case none too richly endowed. The analysis of compensatory fantasies is of course a major theme in Anton Reiser. Early in the novel there is a detailed examination of the boy's association of Pastor Paulmann's phrase, 'die H6hen der Vernunft' (p. 82), with the lofty organ in the choir, and then with the clock-tower in Hannover, where each morning and evening the town musicians blow their instruments in the high gallery;2 the tower is a symbol to the boy (and somewhat differently to the youth later on) and with it is connected his dearest childhood aspiration, to inspect the great clock from close at hand, to see into 'das geheimnisvolle Triebwerk des wunderbaren Schalles' (p. 83); but the narrator dismisses all this objectively and derogatively as a mere 'Spiel seiner Phantasie' (p. 83). For Moritz, indeed, the intellectual traditions in which he had been educated, essentially Wolffian, made him inclined to view the imagination ('Einbildungskraft') as a lower faculty.3 At the same time, symbolization in this manner is not always
1 Schrimpf, 'Anton Reiser', p. I20. 2For a general discussion of tower symbols see Langen in ZDP, 81 (I962), 213-14. 3 A consideration of the extent of Moritz's debt to Wolffian thought and to the traditional der 'Vermogenstheorie' is impossible here. The matter is gone into by Max Dessoir, Geschichte neueren deutschen der Psychologie(second edition, vol. I, Berlin, I902) and by Robert Sommer, Grundziige und der Geschichte deutschen Psychologie Asthetik(Wfirzburg, 1892).

MARK BOULBY

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spurned as a dangerously subjective game. The narrator himself employs such techniques, making them not merely subordinate to his hero's limited or deluded vision. In fact, of course, such a process is common enough in Moritz's other works, in as we might expect. In the travel journals, ReiseneinesDeutschen England(1783) in and Reiseneines Deutschen Italien (I792-3) there is a good deal of metaphoric elaboration and the workings of a surely proto-Romantic fantasy (especially in the famous account of the visit to Castleton Hole, in the former). Andreas Hartknopf, novels Part One, is actually called an 'Allegorie', and indeed both the Hartknopf are packed with obscurely allegorical and parabolic material. These books were written, it is important to note, in parallel with AntonReiser,and not later; they offer an ideal figure (Hartknopf), who must be contrasted with the ironically depicted alazon,l Anton Reiser. The point is that Moritz's style did not evolve from he Reiserto Hartknopf, operated with at least two very different styles at the same time. But even in AntonReiserthere is one outstanding example of a positiveevaluation of the perilous act of symbolization. When Anton's friend in Erfurt, the unfortunate Dr Sauer, one day upon a country walk stops and stares gloomily down into a dark stream, there is created a 'picture' which for Anton and his narrator (who have here coalesced) is filled with symbolic force: in Armenbedeutungsvoll Das Bild, wie Sauermit blassenWangenund untergeschlagenen kam Reisernlebhaftwiedervor die Seele, als er diesen StygischenFluB herunterblickte, einige Jahre nachherdie Nachrichtvon seinem Tode vernahm Denn wenn irgendein Bild sich formte,wo Zeichenund Sacheeins wurden,so war es hier. (p. 414) bedeutendes This passage indicates something of Moritz's conception of the symbol, which he never clearly distinguished from allegory. He was especially interested in metonyms, which he discusses in relation to the sign-language of deaf mutes.2 'Zeichen' and 'Sache' are held stiffly apart in Wolffian thought, and Moritz usually treats their relationship in fairly conventional terms.3 In the passage describing Dr Sauer, however, the perfect identity of sign and thing actually occurs in life in such a way as to leave an indelible picture, a 'bedeutendes Bild', in the memory. is Reiser far more dependent than Moritz can have realized upon his own And Anton for imposing symbolic structuresof this kind upon his past life and thus stylizing gift it; which brings us to the heart of the discussion. On one occasion during Anton's miserable stay in Brunswick, as a sort of apprentice to the mystically-minded hatter Lobenstein, he arrives, on one of his Sunday strolls, at the city gates through which he had entered with his father a year and a half before. Looking back down the long straight road, lined with willows, along which they had come, strange feelings assail him. As he recalls his initial sight of the sentry pacing the wall, 'sein ganzes Leben von jener Zeit an ... stand jetzt auf einmal in seiner Erinnerung da' (p. 77). It is as though he awakes from a long dream, and 'alle die abwechselnden Szenen seines Lebens . . . dringten sich dicht ineinander, und die einzelnen Bilder schienen sich nach einem groBern MaBstabe, den seine Seele auf einmal erhielt, zu verkleinern' (p. 77). The immediate past takes sudden shape in Anton's mind, with the individual scenes
1 NorthropFrye'sterm for 'pretentious impostor'. 2 (edited by C. P. Moritz and C. F. Pockels, Berlin, I786-8), i, 198. Compare Denkwiirdigkeiten

3 An example is the discussion money, as a rare instancewhere 'sign' and 'thing' are indeed of almost identical. 'NirgendsflieBendie Begriffevon Zeichen und Sache mehr ineinanderals hier' einer (Versuch kleinen praktischen Kinderlogik (Berlin, I786), p. 66).

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and in Structure Theme Moritz's 'AntonReiser' Symbol,

printed out small so that this past may be surveyed at a glance and comprehended entire, according to the measure of a new insight. Consistent with his reiterative manner, the author returns a page or two later to a protracted discussion of this same experience. Up till now Anton had never succeeded in visualizing 'sein ganzes Leben in Braunschweig mit allen seinen mannigfaltigen Veranderungen in einem einzigen vollen Blick', and this moreover for a particular reason: 'Der Ort, wo er sich jedesmal befand, erinnerte ihn immer zu stark an irgendeinen einzelnen Teil desselben, als daB noch fur das Ganze in seiner Denkkraft Platz gewesen ware' (p. 79). The grip of the part precludes that freedom of vision which alone could embrace the whole. Significantly, the narrator has just discussed the power of place over the imagination, especially in children, and he now adds: 'Um von dem Ganzen seines hiesigen Lebens ein anschauliches Bild zu haben, war es n6tig, daB gleichsam alle die Faden abgeschnitten wirden, die seine Aufmerksamkeitimmer an das Momentane, Alltagliche und Zerstuckte desselben hefteten...' (p. 79). Moritz's right to be regarded as one of the most original minds among German men of letters of his day depends not upon the grand frameworkof his ideas, which is on the whole derivative, but upon a number of empirical observations such as this one. And in these passages we find emerging little less than a proto-naturalistic view of the power of circumstance, and this seen moreover with great precision and acuteness as an effectuponconsciousness, grip of the everyday moment of time, the endlessly repeated, upon the subordinate mind. Moritz was a Cartesian in his insistence that mind is distinguished from matter in having no extension in space, but he saw it, or rather experienced it, as existing fatally in time, for all thinking involves succession. Man, he declares in the Kinderlogik, must at all costs be able to extend his existence 'iiber den gegenwirtigen Moment aus, worin er sonst, mit alle dem, was ihn umgibt, verschlungen wurde'.1 Anton Reiser struggles to free himself from 'das Momentane, Alltagliche und Zerstiickte', and this last term (a favourite of the author's) is most clearly elucidated in the passage in the novel which describes the boy's attendance at an execution, where four criminals are to be erased from the ranks of the living, and 'zerstiickt', and where it occurs to him that the watching crowd and he himself are equally 'zerstiickbar', so that in the end everything may be reduced to 'tierische Zerstuckbarkeit' (p. 230). Thus the moment of time, generally linked with place, which is all that can exist for any consciousness, seems a force hostile to life itself, for it breaks it up into an infinite succession of instants of enslavement and prevents the formation of a whole and persistent self transcending such temporal succession. This is the process which is annulled at the gates of Brunswick. When it becomes possible to rise above the endless sequence of moments and to acquire 'ein anschauliches Bild' of past life, then coherence can be achieved and individual meaning born.2 'Anschaulich' indeed in this author's usage implies clarity and completeness of outline, as it does for Goethe. And this, of course, is absent at any one of the many low points in the novel, when Anton may cease to believe in the meaning, or sometimes even the reality, of his existence, since it appears to
2 A large number of passages from the Hartknopfnovels could be used to support this point. Physical objects, we are told, may act as a catalyst: 'Kurz es gibt einige k6rperliche Gegenstande, bei deren Anblick wir eine dunkle tbersicht unsers ganzen Lebens, und vielleicht unsers ganzen Daseins erhalten' (AndreasHartknopf,Metzler re-edition, p. 56).

1 Kinderlogik, 94. p.

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him as a mere chain of memories in a single plane, parts without a whole, disjecta membra having the illusion of wholeness only because of the tedious similarity of successive moments of time. This in fact is all that most men have, lacking as they do individuality, and therefore 'true existence': 'Die wahre Existenz schien ihm nur auf das eigentliche Individuum begrenzt zu sein - und auBer einem ewig unveranderlichen, alles mit einem Blick umfassenden Wesen konnte er sich kein wahres Individuum denken' (p. 36). The only 'genuine individual' would evidently be God who, like the human mind, has no existence in space but, unlike it, none in time either. And He would be (we can infer) the perfect biographer also, for He can see the whole of a life in its total coherence and all at once. Poor Anton in contrast is dragged down by incoherent moments of time, and his life slips between his fingers, 'ohne Zweck, abgerissen und zerstiickt' (p. 237). But the gates of Brunswickare not only the place at which Anton Reiser first sees his life, or a part of it, whole and entire. They are also the place in the novel at which Karl Philipp Moritz, his narrator, chooses to make him see it. Thus it is in a double sense that we have here a 'bedeutendes Bild'. The incident at the gates of Brunswick is symbolic, the gates themselves can be called a 'Zeichen', so unambiguous is their connotation that they are almost a metonym, as becomes quite clear when we note that this is only one of several very similar passages which punctuate the sprawling narrative. AntonReiseris a novel which, confined by and large in the first three parts to the labyrinthine streets and claustrophobic rooms and garrets of the poorer quarters of Brunswick and Hannover, opens out suddenly in the final part, 'der eigentliche Roman seines Lebens' (p. 207), on to the highways of the wide world. Then landscapes come and go, hills rise and fall, steeples appear and fade from sight, walls and gates materialize to confront this first of the German Romantic wanderers with hopes and, most often, with subsequent despair. In these peregrinations the gates themselves are 'das Sinnbild einer Grenze zwischen jenen beiden Bereichen, die fur Reisers Leben bestimmend sind',' that is, 'Stadt', and 'groBe weite Welt'. It is interesting to note that such a moment as that described above, at which a segment of the immediate past is integrated with the present and seen 'mit einem Blick', is frequently associated with the urge to break loose, and this is not merely for the obvious reason that it usually occurs near the city gates and almost always outside the city. The vision of wholeness in fact contains within itself the germ of freedom, and it is to freedom that the sign of the gates also points. Thus the two come together in Moritz's imagination and the symbol is born. When for instance the 'Primaner' Anton Reiser sets forth from Hannover to travel the considerable distance to the village where his parents live, exactly the same experience supervenes: 'ein ganzer Zeitraum seines verflossenen Lebens stand vor ihm da, sobald er die vier Tiirme von Hannover aus dem Gesicht verlor'. He is thrilled by his escape 'aus dem umschrankten Zirkel seines Daseins in die grosse weite Welt' (p. I60). This typically Romantic contrast is of course connected with the conflict between 'Einschrankung' and 'Ausdehnung' which has long been a commonplace of Moritz criticism.2 The word 'Zirkel' also has a special resonance here: it is in the city, now acquiring demonic qualities for the first time in German
1 Hans J. Skorna, Der Wanderer demRomander Goethezeit in (Unpublished dissertation, University of Koln, I961), p. 28. 2 See, e.g., Catholy, p. 29 ff.

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and Structure Themein Moritz's 'AntonReiser' Symbol,

literature, that 'sich alles so im Zirkel drehte ... Alles schien ihm da so dicht, so klein ineinander zu laufen' (p. 242), the chain of moments becoming here a vicious circle of petty futilities, repeating and repeating like the narrator's sentences themselves. The claustrophobia of the city, its horror as a place of psychic torment, 'als ob die Hauser aufihn fallen wollten' (p. 324) is, however, as the narrator wishes to indicate, an entirely subjective neurosis. The nature of this thematic material - the walled cities which become demonic as soon as they cease to be, or fail to be, the Civitas Dei, and the heaths between was no doubt itself a factor in the emergence of the peculiar structure of Anton Reiser, in which long accounts of apparently petty episodes and the expansive detailing ofjournies are punctuated by flashes of insight, freedom and resolve, in which the hero's life takes on form in his own vision whilst this at the same time gives overall form to the book. As far as the hero's vision is concerned, this form (and the concomitant meaning) commonly turn out to be delusory, so that Anton's decisions are often wrong and occasionally disastrous. But these episodes are not simply Anton's subjective vision; on the contrary they constitute the pattern which the novelist-autobiographer imposes on his material. And it is clear that in constantly associating the turning points in his protagonist's consciousness of self with the physical act of passing through the gates, or with the appearance or disappearance of towers or city walls, Moritz has brought together two terms, the concrete object or physical event, the 'Zeichen', and the inner experience or discovery of sense, the 'Sache', in a symmetry which can scarcely have always existed thus in reality. It is in fact a useful stylization,' and Anton's obscure searching, his groping for a shape for his life is merely continued by his narrator on another plane as the latter, now released and enlightened, imposes the form of his scientific understanding upon the collected memories of his past. Thus this autobiographical novel, by virtue of its organization of memories and the intimate, fluid tension between narrating and 'narrated' self, is itself a projection of the very pattern of life-experience its hero undergoes. Any deeper insight into AntonReiserdepends upon the recognition of these two levels, one of a subjective and often deluded, the other of an objective and, as far as Moritz was concerned, authenticated vision of wholeness and meaning. The presence of the superior level is not always obvious, except in the recurrence of the linking sign, gate, tower or wall. There is considerable variation in the detailed handling of the episodes themselves. Normally, departure through the gates is a time of hope and excited resolution, whereas the approach to the city from without arouses gloom and nervousness, 'ein angstliches Gefiihl' (p. 300); but this is often reversed, as on the occasion when Anton approaches Gotha, or when, on returning to Hannover, he is overjoyed to remember that the Ackermann troupe is in town (pp. 188-9). The experience of wholeness may even, though rarely, be negative, as on the occasion when, cursed by his father before the gates of Hannover, 'alles fuhr ihm auf einmal durch die Seele' (p. 226) - the entire coherence of his misery. As for the towers of Hannover, these become symbols of fear and depression; the clock tower, an object of wonder in childhood, is later on 'ein fiirchterlicher Anblick'
1 Compare Stemme's definition: 'Anton Reiserist die stilisierteLebensgeschichte von Karl Philipp Moritz in romanhafter Form'. F. Stemme, 'Karl Philipp Moritz und die Entwicklung von der pietistischen Autobiographie zur Romanliteratur der Erfahrungsseelenkunde' (Unpublished dissertation, University of Marburg, I950), p. 58.

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(p. 187), a Gothic horror where death sentences are proclaimed. The towers of Gotha, as has been shown, instigate an important act of immature symbolization. The towers of Erfurt are inevitably mentioned, but not dwelt upon. But at Eisenach, on the Wartburg, Anton Reiser actually ascends a tower, feeling suddenly, as he gazes out over the landscape, 'uibersein Schicksal erhaben' (p. 382). Such moments of symbolic elevation were soon to become cliches of Romantic writing, though - as Langen points out - they are not really typical for Moritz.1 But the motif of elevation is also used in connexion with city walls. Walking one night on the walls of Hannover, Anton looks down at the houses below, and 'die Eingeschrinktheit des einzelnen Menschen ward ihm anschaulich' 229) (my italics); (p. at the same time the lights give him an 'tberblick des Ganzen' and he imagines himself free of these limitations, emerging from the crowd as a specially gifted individual. The analogy with the pattern at the gates of Brunswickis fairly close we have the view of life as a whole and the urge to break loose into a more promising future. But it is much later, on the walls of Erfurt, that the most revealing instance of all occurs. Strolling there and listening to the church bells, Anton finally sees his entire existence as a connected and meaningful design, and his consciousness is suddenly no longer subordinate to the enslaving moment of present time:
der gegenwartige Moment beschrankte sein Dasein nicht - sondern er faBte alles das wieder mit, was schon entschwunden war. Und dies waren die glticklichsten Momente seines Lebens, wo sein eigenes Dasein erst anfing, ihn zu interessieren, weil er es in einem gewissen Zusammenhang, und nicht einzeln und zerstiickt betrachtete (pp. 399-400).

Here again, clearly, narrator and hero have almost completely coalesced. 'Ihn zu interessieren' is a phrase which points beyond the emotional fantasies of the unfortunate Anton to the critical understanding of the autobiographer. These two touch, as Anton sees the possibility of grasping the meaning of what has happened to him, and thus beginning to live in a new context. His disgust and despair, which arise whenever he experiences the 'Druck der Umstinde' (p. 400), give way to joy. Then the narrator, whose knowledge is of course still further advanced than his character's, and is broader and more scientific, comments upon the nature of conditioning, upon the circle in which people constantly turn, and upon the psychological importance of repetition, 'dies Immerwiederkehrende in den sinnlichen Eindriicken' (p. 400). Here, on the walls of Erfurt, to the sound of bells,2 the desperate craving for coherence and wholeness which has informed the wretched life of Anton Reiser from his earliest memories connects with the first flickerings of scientific interest in himself, as a case history. And thus all the moments an objective at the gates, on the towers and on the walls lead up to the possibility of an
accounting, and to the writing of this remarkable autobiography.
1 Compare Langen, ZDP, 8I (I962), 193. 2 In a quite different context, Moritz discusses the liberating effect of the sound of bells: 'So oft ich an einem entfernten Orte war, und iiber dem Anblick der Hauser, der Tiirme, des Steinpflasters alles Vergangene und Entfernte vergaB, und mich nur auf den gegenwartigen armen Fleck meiner Existenz eingeschrankt fiihlte, war es der Klang der Glocken, der mich zuruckrief, und mir Vergangenheit und Entfernung wieder lebhaft vor die Seele brachte' (Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde, Vol. 4, Part 2, p. 5). This is part of a complex discussion of the difference between place ('Nebeneinanderstellung') and time ('Succession'), or between vision and hearing, or between painting and music.
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in and Structure Theme Moritz's 'AntonReiser' Symbol,

Critics are agreed as to the importance of the concept of wholeness, of 'das In-sich-selbst-Vollendete" in Moritz's aesthetic thought. The sources of it, which are complex, lead back to Pietism, but equally to Baumgarten and Leibniz. Schrimpf observes in AntonReiser'die zunehmende Asthetisierung menschlichen Ganzheitsstrebens', in reaction against 'die entseelte Wirklichkeit'2- hence the significance of the discussions of poetry and art, especially in Part Four. It would certainly be facile to regard the impressive and often difficult aesthetic system des which Moritz expounded, principally in Uber die bildende Nachahmung Schinen ( 788), as a mere compensatory edifice. No doubt, however, such a psychological mechanism had its part to play, but it is balanced by other factors, just as the Reiserjustlyfamous as a work of psychology empirical analysis which has made Anton is balanced by the discernible structure, supported by symbol, which makes of it a great work of art. In writing his autobiography, Moritz found a way of imposing coherence upon a life which had so often seemed to be nothing but 'Zwecklosigkeit, abgerissene Fiden, Verwirrung, Nacht und Dunkelheit' (p. Io5). In this he followed the instinctive commitment of the psychologically oriented autobiographer the search for symbolic moments, but also more particularly he adhered to the general trend, as manifested in Rousseau, and in the Pietistic autobiography to which he owed so much. As Mahrholz says of Spener's autobiography, published in 1718: 'sie sucht eine Einheit des Menschenwesens, einen rationalen Ablauf seiner Erlebnisse, eine rationale Verkniipfung seiner Erfahrungen'.3 Pietistic autobiographers also sought a rational understanding of themselves, in the light of their faith in God. But what was for Spener and Francke first and foremost a question of justification in the eyes of God has become for Moritz a need for scientific intelligibility. However, science and 'Aufklarung' are still not all. One suspects that the search for coherence was always sustained from that deeper level of Moritz's experience where he had his confrontation with time. For, as one of the first true empiricists in the field of psychological science in Germany, Moritz was one of the earliest unhappy victims of the march of empiricism. AntonReiser,in its content, is Germany's first great novel of empirical psychology, in its structure and its symbolism it reaches out however for the eternal, striving to embrace and transcend the empirical moment and thus rescue a threatened higher reality. A man's life is infinitely fragmentary, is inexorably subject to succession, to time, but true individuality bursts through the present moment and thus escapes into eternity. This magic Moritz calls 'die das Zerstiickte in eins verwandelnde Kunst'.4 This had not only become, in the late eighteenth century, the essence of the autobiographer's art; it is also a statement of one of the central concerns of German
Classicism. VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA M K MARK BOULBY

Compare, e.g. Schrimpf 'Anton Reiser', p. I26. Schrimpf, 'Anton Reiser', p. 125. 3 Werner Mahrholz, DeutscheSelbstbekenntnisse (Berlin, I919), p. I50. 4 Kinderlogik, I3. p.
2