NEW DIRECTIONS IN GERMAN STUDIES IMPROVISATION AS ART Conceptual Challenges, Historical PerspectivesThe Continuum International Publishing Group 80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038 The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX www.continuumbooks.com Copyright © 2011 Edgar Landgraf All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the permission of the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Acatalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-4694-6 ‘Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand Printed and bound in the United States of AmericaContents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: On Conceptualizing Improvisation 1 1 Performance, Inventiveness and Improvisation: Theoretical Contentions 14 1.1 Derrida’s Inventiveness 19 1.2. Calculating Incalculability: The Neocybernetic Alternative 29 1.3 From Iteration to Improvisation 33 2 Indescribability, Perfection, Unpredictability: Improvisation and Aesthetic Autonomy 42 2.1 Instrumentalizing Improvisation? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 47 2.2 Improvisation and Aesthetic Autonomy 57 2.3 Improvisation and Aesthetic Perfection: Karl Philipp Moritz 59 2.4 Improvisation and the Artist-Genius 73 3. Staged Improvisation: The Generative Principles of Romantic Irony 84 3.1 Reframing the Space of the Theater 87 3.2 Staged Improvisation 1 3.3. Romantic Principles of Artistic Production %6 3.4. Social Bearings 102 4 Improvisation, Agency, Autonomy: Heinrich von Kleist and the Modern Predicament 109 41 Facilitating Prohibitions m1