Heinrich von Kleist

Front matter

UNC STUDIES IN THE GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES 94

Studies in the Character and Meaning of his Writings

John M. Ellis

Contents

Preface Introduction I. Der Findling II. Die Marquise vonO...

III. Das Erdbeben in Chili IV. Der Zweikampf V. Michael Kohlhaas VI. Prinz Friedrich von Homburg VII. The Character of Kleist’s Literary Work VIII. The Character of Kleist Criticism

Notes Bibliography

Preface

This study was completed in 1975-76. During that time I held a National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Fellowship, which made it possible for me to take a leave of absence from my teaching duties at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I am grateful to the NEH for its support of my work. Some of the material included in this book has been published before. Chapter Three is a much revised version of my article “Kleist’s Das Erdbeben in Chili/’ which first appeared in Publications of the English Goethe Society, NS 33 (1963), 10-55, and later as part of my book Narration in the German Novelle: Theory and Interpretation (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1974). Chapter Four is a somewhat revised version of “‘Kleist’s ‘Der Zweikampf, ” Monatshefte, 65 (1973), 48-60. Chapter Six takes a view of the play based on that of my monograph Kleist’s “Prinz Friedrich von Homburg”: A Critical Study (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970). (The reader is referred to that source for a much more extensive and detailed study of the play than was possible within the confines of even this kind of consciously selective general account of Kleist.) In each case I have included some second thoughts, however, as well as some consideration of criticism that has appeared since the original dates of these three separate studies. My thanks are due to the English Goethe Society, the University of Wisconsin Press, and the University of California Press for kind permission to include this material in the present volume. I am very much indebted to the painstaking and shrewd scrutiny of my manuscript by the general editor of this series, Professor Siegfried Mews; his helpful suggestions concerning both substance and form of this book have much improved it. That one scholar should give so much of his time, skill, and energy to improving the work of another is an act of selfless generosity that is greatly to be admired.