Copyright © 1997 The Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights reserved.

MLN 112.3 (1997) 470-485

Essay-Review

Büchner--Cult

Helmut Müller-Sievers

Jan-Christoph Hauschild, Georg Büchner. Stuttgart / Weimar: Metzler, 1993.

John Reddick, Georg Büchner. The Shattered Whole. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.

The case of Georg Büchner is particularly revealing in a discussion of the relation betweentextual and cultural studies. The brevity of his life (1813-1837) and the scarcity of his literaryoutput (three plays and one novella), on the one hand, the density of contemporary political andcultural upheavals (post-napoleonic repression, Juli-Revolution; the end of Goethe'sKunstperiode and the emergence of journalism) on the other, have prompted scholars to explain,illustrate, interpret the former through the latter. Such a pronounced cultural and politicalperspective is not unusual in the study of nineteenth-century authors who themselves lay claim torealism, but the exclusivity with which Büchner's œuvre is taken to have documentary ratherthan literary value is astonishing.

The austerity of this approach, and Büchner's exemplary status for post-war Germanistik, arethemselves the result of a complex historical and cultural constellation that keeps escapingcultural studies. There is, to begin with, Büchner's youth, the fact that he, like Novalis andperhaps Hölderlin, never betrayed himself: his life and his work does [End Page 470] not exhibitthe traces of doubt and withdrawal characteristic of his more long-lived colleagues. Büchnerwould thus be the champion of straight expression (Sagen) in contrast to the irritating revocations(Entsagung) of the late Goethe or even the late Heine. The latter theme was especially importantto a Germanistik profoundly compromised by its prostrations during Fascism (see, e.g., A.Henkel's Entsagung; eine Studie zu Goethes Altersroman, Tübingen 1954, and W. Emrich's DieSymbolik von Faust II, Bonn 1957). Attention to Büch-ner was thus a conscious decision of ayounger generation of scholars eager to escape the cultural and thematic strictures of its fathers, adecision that could be paralleled with Büchner's own rupture with the discourse of theGoethezeit.

Yet is was not only the metaphysics of youth and the oedipal and political drama of the 1960'sand 1970's that motivated the resurgence of Büchner-Studies in Germany. With his seeminglyrevolutionary pronouncements in his plays, his authorship of the Hessische Landbote, and aboveall his participation in the clandestine politics of sedition in his native Hessen, Büchner was theonly unrepentent revolutionary author in a canon of literature dominated by the modes of purelygestural rebellion, of political acquiescence, and of resignation. So indisputable seemed his

commitment to a political revolution (and so evident the goals of that revolution) that it requiredonly cultural documentation, not literary interpretation. When in 1979 the Germanist and futureParty Secretary of Revolutionary Büchner-Studies, T. M. Mayer, presented 15,000 pages ofhitherto unpublished papers documenting the police machinations and interrogations to which thesuspected authors of the Hessische Landbote were subjected in the 1830's, this was hailed as a"literaturwissenschaftliche Sensation" (P. v. Becker, "Die Trauerarbeit im Schönen," DantonsTod. Die Trauerarbeit im Schönen, ed. P. v. Becker, Frankfurt 1980, pp. 75-90, p. 76) althoughBüchner himself did not speak on a single page. The allure of the revolutionary Büchner wasintensified by the pathos of everything clandestine. It is hard to overestimate to what degree theideology of the public sphere had lost credibility in West Germany during the late 1960's, the1970's, and early 1980's when a large group of intellectuals and political activists were routinelysubjected to secret state surveillance and repressions on an unprecedented scale. To give just oneexample: the word Kassiber (secret message) which recurs in the description of communicationbetween those arrested in Büchner's circle (GBJb I [1981], p. 282) resonated, and still resonates,with all the suspicions and unsolved obscurities [End Page 471] surrounding the deaths ofmembers of the Red Army Faction in a German prison more than 140 years later.

The generational shift and the political polarization in post-war Germanistik were cementedduring the 1980's and profoundly marked Büchner-Studies. With the formation of the GeorgBüchner Gesellschaft in 1979, the opening of the Forschungsstelle Georg Büchner. Literaturund Geschichte des Vormärz (insbesondere Hessen) at the University of Marburg in 1980, thepublication of the first Georg-Büchner-Jahrbuch (GBJb) 1981 and the series Büchner-Studien(all of them headed, or edited, by T. M. Mayer), the institutional resistance to Büchnerscholarship was obviously broken. A famous Text + Kritik Sonderband Georg Büchner I/II(edited by Heinz Ludwig Arnold, but written, with two short exceptions, by T. M. Mayer)sought to establish with overwhelming historical material the image of Büchner as a"Frühkommunist," as an uncompromising and accomplished rebel both in political and in sensualmatters. Interpretations not entirely based on historical material (such as R. St. Zons' GeorgBüchner. Dialektik der Grenze, Bonn 1976, or H. Anton's Büchner's Dramen. Topographiender Freiheit, Paderborn 1975) were annihilated mercilessly in footnotes and reviews that rivaledin aggression and philological positivism any journal of classical philology. The expulsion of"speculative" in favor of "historical" interpretations from the fold of the Büchner communitymade for such strange bedfellows as W. Wittkowski's Georg Büchner: Persönlickeit, Weltbild,Werk (Heidelberg: Winter 1978), in which Büchner appears as a deeply Christian thinker, and R.Grimm's (inanely titled) Love, Lust, and Rebellion (Madison 1985), where Büchner becomes thefigurehead of a polymorphous horniness called "sensuality." Efforts such as H. Krapp's DerDialog bei Georg Büchner (Darmstadt 1958), or P. Hasubek's "'Ruhe' und 'Bewegung.' Versucheiner Stilanalyse von Georg Büchner's 'Lenz'" (Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrift 19[1969], pp. 33-59), which pay concentrated, even if schematic, attention to Büchner's language,have not had any successors of note. Büchner, it was tacitly agreed, was Klartext, transparentwith regard to the author's intention, transparent with regard to the reality described. Citoyens,encore un effort. . . . and the promised land of full meaning will be reached!

The unrelenting historicism and philologism, and the monopolization of source material andaccess to the manuscripts, have not only established a tone that might best be described asphilological Leninism, they have moreover managed to desiccate and, ironically, drain the fieldof Büchner-scholarship of any new, or even revolutionary, [End Page 472] development. Atleast the splendid catalogue for the exhibition commemorating the 150th anniversary ofBüchner's death (Georg Büchner. Revolutionär, Dichter, Wissenschaftler 1813 bis 1837,Basel/Frankfurt a.M 1987) spread the contributions among scholars with varied interests andfields of expertise. The GBJb, however, persists in selecting its contributors mostly from its own

and dedicates most of its pages to some form of Quellenforschung, to the (admittedly difficult)elucidation of the manuscripts, to miscellaneous trouvailles, and to bibliographical matters.Within a decade and a half, a project touted as revolutionary and rebellious in method andcontent, spearhead of a new Germanistik, has ossified into your typical German Verein, completewith restriction of access, esprit de corps, and nothing much to show for itself. With only aslightly paranoid imagination one could even suspect that the Büchner Society's monopolizing ofresources is a clever scheme to keep the Büchner-business running. The facsimile-edition of allfirst editions and obituaries (Georg Büchner. Gesammelte Werke. Erstdrucke und Erstausgabenin Faksimiles, ed. T. M. Mayer, Frankfurt a.M. 1987) is elegant, as is H. Poschmann's livred'artiste of Woyzeck (Georg Büchner, Woyzeck. Nach den Handschriften neu hergestellt vonHenri Poschmann. Mit Bildern von A.Hrdlicka und Beiträgen von Hans Mayer, HenriPoschmann und Theodor Scheufele. München 1991). But in the absence of a critical edition(promised, but not delivered) they do not help advance Büchner scholarship. They only advancethe Büchner industry, as did the recent discovery of two letters Büchner wrote to his co-conspirators (Georg Büchner an "Hund" und "Kater". Unbekannte Briefe des Exils, eds. E.Gillmann, Th. M. Mayer, Reinhard Pabst and Dieter Wolf, Marburg 1993). The Spiegel carriedthe story prominently and gave Wolf Biermann the opportunity to apply its lesson to recentGerman history and claim Büchner for his country with a word-combination the prefix of whichhas become emblematic for the attempt to erase East German inferiority ("Weltgenie," DerSpiegel 36 [1993], p. 207).

Given this situation, it is altogether admirable that J.-Chr. Hauschild even had the courage towrite a biography of Büchner. That he succeeded in this task constitutes the first real advance ofBüchner studies in many years. This book will supersede earlier accounts of Büchner's life(notably H. Mayer's Georg Büchner und seine Zeit, Wiesbaden 1946; K. Viëtor's GeorgBüchner. Politik, Dichtung, Wissenschaft, Bern: Francke 1949; and T. M. Mayer's "Büchner-Chronik," Text + Kritik Sonderband, pp. 357-425), and allow the reader to enjoy the undeniableprogress of historical research into Büchner's life and [End Page 473] times without having tobecome embroiled in its tedium and tendencies. So reliable and authoritative is Hauschild as aguide through the maze of facts and documents, of political factions and personal relations, ofinfluences and traces, that his book will become the point of reference not only for those readerswishing to casually inform themselves on Büchner's life, but for any serious Büchner scholar. Toanswer the demands of both of these constituencies is a rare feat in the art of biography. It wasnever in doubt that Hauschild would be qualified to satisfy the specialists--among his significantand judicious contributions to Büchner-Studies are his Georg Büchner. Studien und neueQuellen zu Leben, Werk und Wirkung (Frankfurt a.M. 1985) and his recent splendid edition ofBüchner's letters Georg Büchner, Briefwechsel (Kritische Studienausgabe, Basel/Frankfurt a.M.1994). But he has managed to bring his thorough familiarity with the historical period and withthe minutiae of Büchner's life to bear on an extremely readable, and, above all, dispassionatestory.

Büchner's genealogy and a reconstruction of the economic and social situation of Hessia and ofDarmstadt open the book; they immediately allow the reader to see that Büchner did notexaggerate much in satire (e.g., the provinciality of the Kingdom Popo in Leonce und Lena) or inthe Hessische Landbote. It is particularly interesting to see in the account of Büchner'sGymnasium-education how quickly the spirit and the writings of the Weimar poets and of idealistphilosophers (Fichte especially) had coagulated and formed, together with older forms ofinstruction (such as rhetorics), a cohesive and oppressive discipline for the formation of loyalcitizens. Hauschild gives a lively description of the scene in Straßbourg where Büchner beginshis scientific education. As a safe haven for many refugees from German countries, as atraditionally liberal and independent city still reverberating from the July-Revolution, not last as

the home of his fiancée Wilhemine Jaeglé, Straßbourg becomes the pivotal place in Büchner'slife. Forced to return to Gießen to complete his studies, Büchner is fully exposed to whatHauschild describes in the longest section of his book as "Die Deutsche Misere." Both thedepressive crisis in which Büchner tumbles and the decision to participate actively in theconspirational activities of Weidig's circle are represented without pathos, but with an impressiveamount of original sources. Hauschild thus shows (rather than urges us to believe) that Büchnerwas not the traitor or convert in which some interpreters need us to believe in order for theirconstruction of the [End Page 474] religious (Wittkowski), existentialist (M. Benn in hisremarkable The Drama of Revolt: A Critical Study of Georg Büchner, Cambridge 1976), orcompassionate (H.-J. Schings, Der mitleidigste Mensch ist der beste Mensch. Poetik des Mitleidsvon Lessing bis Büchner, München 1980) Büchner to hold. Yet it becomes also clear that theHessische Landbote was by no means the proto-communist pamphlet its famous opening sloganseems to suggest. Its chief interest lies in the conjunction of the two nowadays incomparablediscourses of statistics and biblical exegesis. The hope that their juxtaposition--the quotation ofearth and heaven--would by itself prove to be incendiary was obviously disappointed; but thetechnique of quotation and juxtaposition would remain characteristic for Büchner's work.

Hauschild is cautious and helpful when he tries to situate Büchner's plays and the novella in theirbiographical background. He makes full use of the sources established for these texts and refrainsfrom adducing yet more--a favourite game among Büchner scholars; but he does reconstruct aliterary background ("Der Autor als Leser" 423-31) that makes the rapid production of Büchner'sœuvre somewhat more plausible. Büchner's scientific work is presented with as muchbackground information as necessary, and his death at age 24 remains as inexplicable as before.The book is complemented by a time table of Büchner's life, a very helpful bibliography, and,rare for a German book, an expansive index.

This is it. This is all we need to know about Büchner's life (and the book should be translatedinto English as soon as possible). The biographical fixation, prompted by the shortness ofBüchner's life and the ensuing phantasy to know everything about it, has to give way to seriousattention to the questions raised by Büchner's texts. These are not questions a biographer issupposed to answer--and indeed Hauschild treats the literary texts as documents of the author'slife--but literary scholars have to stop treating Büchner as a holiday from their quotidian work, asan occasion to ride their historical and thematic hobby horses with impunity.

What are some of these questions? Some issue straight from Büchner's biography: how realisticis it to impute a coherent aesthetic, stylistic, and political will to a twenty three year old, one ofwhom we have, besides the literary works, but fifteen letters? Is there enough evidence tosuppose that Büchner ever regarded himself as an "author" and therefore pursued literary goals?A dispassionate look at his entire production and at his biographical decisions would [End Page475] rather suggest that he regarded himself as a scientist or rather, as a natural philosopher whohappened to have written a few "literary" texts.

Once the biographical ties between Büchner and his literary work have been severed or at leastput into question, more general problems arise, problems which the biographical and culturalstudy of his work have not managed to solve or even to address in a proper manner. The first andmost pressing one concerns the status of quotations in Büchner's oeuvre. The masters of GermanBüchner-Forschung have, somewhat against their hermeneutic intentions, established just howmuch of Büchner's words are not his. From these careful and properly interminable exercises of"Quellenfoschung" (for Dantons Tod see "Danton's Tod. Ein Drama," ed. T. M. Mayer, inGeorg Büchner, Dantons Tod. Die Trauerarbeit im Schönen, ed. P. v. Becker, Frankfurt 1980,pp. 7-74, and H. Wender, Georg Büchners Bild der Großen Revolution. Zu den Quellen von

Dantons Tod, Büchner-Studien Bd. 4, Frankfurt a.M. 1988; for Lenz see Georg Büchner: Lenz,ed. H. Gersch, Stuttgart 1984; for Woyzeck see Georg Büchner: Woyzeck, Frankfurt a.M. 1991;for Leonce und Lena see Georg Büchner, Leonce und Lena: Kritische Studienausgabe, Beiträgezu Text und Quellen, Büchner-Studien Bd. 3, Frankfurt a.M. 1987) it is apparent that Büchner'spractice of quotation goes far beyond the incorporation or rewriting of foreign texts into his own.Large sections of text are simply "taken" from elsewhere and even the determination of their"origin" does not help to dissolve them into meaning. Unfortunately, most scholars, drenched asthey are in classical hermeneutics even while vehemently lamenting the cultural and interpretativepolitics of the Kunstperiode, simply perform an Umkehrschluss: everything that is not taken fromelsewhere must represent Büchner's honest opinion. A particularly clamorous, but by no meansisolated, reading of this kind is G. Jancke's Georg Büchner. Genese und Aktualität seinesWerkes. Kronberg/Ts. 1975, in which the fact that St. Just's speech in Dantons Tod II,7 is not,like so many others, quoted from the histories of the French revolution Büchner was using,serves as legitimation to impute unquestioned Jacobine convictions to Büchner. Other instancesare the so-called "Kunstgespräch" in Lenz, where Lenz's rather unspectacular pronouncementsare taken to constitute Büchner's aesthetic credo even though they come from the mouth of aseriously damaged speaker, or many of Leonce's or even Woyzeck's statements which serve thesame function of vox authentica. Such interpretations support the insight and, at the same time,refuse to take into account that every text is [End Page 476] afflicted and threatened in itsindividuality by the iterability of its medium. The quotation is the parasitic other of "classical"authorial discourse; while its massive appearance in Büchner's writings might point to a culturalchange, it is itself not a cultural factor. Büchner scholarship has been exceptionally productive inexcavating Büchner's textual foundation and therefore remark the quotation, the mark ofcitationality, however, has not yet come to its attention.

The full range of movement of this gesture of interpretation--the movement, to put it briefly,between philology and hermeneutics--needs to be addressed, not only one or the other of itspoles. Otherwise straight "Quellenforschung"--a philological method which gained fullacceptance in Büchner's time--is complemented by an equally anachronistic aesthetics ofquotation or "montage." The resistance of Büchner's text to either explanation should ideallyprovoke a stance in which the entirety of the œuvre is considered as "the author quotinghimself." Such a stance would both uphold the obligation to historical and philological researchand unhinge the text from its authorial frame. The few more recent attempts to address theproblem of quotation ( interesting and liberating though they are in their own right) have feltcompelled to recapture the wayward quotation in the construct of an aesthetic program (A.Meier, Georg Büchners Ästhetik, München 1983), to read the emergence of quotations as afeature accountable in a Geschichtsphilosophie of language (R. Niehoff, Die Herrschaft desTextes, Tübingen 1991), or to straddle the fence between philology and hermeneutics in aKittlerian account of discourse implosions (A. Schmidt, Tropen der Kunst. Zur Bildlichkeit derPoetik bei Georg Büchner, Wien 1989).

The problem of citationality pervades, even determines, the entirety of Büchner's text. Not onlyare the "literary" works composed of many identifiable source texts, the Hessische Landbote,too, seeks to hide its authorship behind a dense patchwork of biblical quotes and statistics.Beyond the biographical questions answered by Hauschild--whether he was indeed a proto-communist (no), whether he knew any of the Saint-Simonist or Blanquist propaganda floatingthrough Straßbourg in the early 1830's (maybe), whether he was committed to the conspirationalpolitics in Giessen and Butzbach (yes), there lies the question of Büchner's style in politics. Is theworld in such a state of corruption that the mere recital of its quantitative features would sufficeto incite the masses to action? Has the apocalypse, in other words, already taken place andpeople only need to be alerted to this fact? Such a position--which the analysis of the Hessische

Landbote [End Page 477] seems to support--would indeed reflect back on the plays: rather thanseeking parallels between political convictions expressed, say, in Danton's Death and theHessische Landbote, one should establish how both texts share the same sense of exhaustion:everything is already expressed--every possible revolution has already taken place, everypossible argument is already made, every experience already lived--and all that can be hoped foris (the abandonment of hope and) the energy that might result from the sheer juxtaposition offacts.

Before pursuing this line of interpretation any further, Büchner's scientific works have to bebrought into the picture; and a good way of doing so is to praise and criticize John Reddick'ssplendid book, The Shattered Whole. The virtues of this book are many. Reddick has alreadycontributed greatly to the knowledge of Büchner in the English speaking world with hiscompetent, even elegant, translation of the Complete Plays, 'Lenz' and Other Writings (London1993). This new book will replace H. Lindenberger's remarkable and remarkably early studyGeorg Büchner (Carbondale 1964), but it will do so not for its recent date of publication alone.

Reddick, removed from the bickering and infighting of German scholarship, yet thoroughlyfamiliar with its results, has been able to keep enough distance to his object to distinguishbetween relevant and irrelevant information. He reconstructs just enough of the historicalbackground to situate Büchner's in his time and his country's peculiar political situation, yet heclearly is of the opinion that the questions posed by Büchner's text can at most be framed by thisbackground. A very welcome feature of this book is the sovereignty of its own language; we aresuddenly released from the finger-pointing and finger-wiggling of most German scholarship andcatch a glimpse of what an independent, issue-driven interpretation might look like. Not only hasReddick found the right tone to speak about Büchner (which includes the odd mention of "cunt"and "fucking"), but also the right way to mix quotations (always in both languages) withparaphrases and summaries. He thus escapes the predicament of many Büchner books that,caught in the circle of repetition, patch together quotation after quotation in order to make theirpoint. Büchner's œuvre being as small as it is, the repetition of the same texts over and over again(the "Fatalismus-Brief"! the "Kunstgespräch"!! Marion's monologue!!!) soon induces a sense ofexhaustion; but Reddick has chosen his quotations well and his translations are always a delight.As much as Hauschild's biography deserves to be translated into English, Reddick's book shouldbe translated into German. It [End Page 478] would throw open the windows in the house ofGerman Büchner-scholarship and drive the stale air out.

Of course, he's got it all wrong. The superiority of Reddick's approach, however, lies in the factthat he is well aware of his failure and his book still retains its value. The path of its thematicinversion--starting from the hypothesis that Büchner's is a work of mourning over the shatteringof an organic whole and ending with the insight that what has been shattered is precisely thewholeness of this hypothesis--is productive, above all within the frame of an introductory bookthat lets the reader participate in that failure. What book within the German context couldconclude with the following statement:

Ten years on, despite having written many more words about the man than he wrotehimself, and translated and annotated almost his entire output, I find Büchner ifanything more haunting and elusive than ever. My central 'wholist' argumentseemed compelling when I started; it now seems merely plausible: whereas once itseemed to offer a key to the ark, in practice it has afforded only a perspective--arevealing one, I hope, but a perspective all the same. Nonetheless I feel no regrets,offer no apologies, and take nothing back. (371)

Following Reddick on his path to uncertainty is a rewarding journey all the more because he setsout with an assessment of Büchner's philosophical heritage. He thus takes into account theextensive notes on Descartes and Spinoza Büchner prepared for his (never delivered) lectures inphilosophy, as well as his inaugural lecture Ueber Schädelnerven and the philosophical part ofhis dissertation Mémoire sur le système nerveux du barbeau (the latter has recently beentranslated by O. Döhner (who has also written an unpublished dissertation on Georg BüchnersNaturauffassung, Marburg 1976) in vol. VIII (1990-94) of the GBJb, pp. 305-70). Büchner'spreoccupation with philosophy and natural philosophy is a realistic starting point because he wasplanning on making a career in these fields, and not as a poet or politician; but it is a trulyBüchnerian starting point because most of the texts consist of quotations. This is particularly trueof the notes on Descartes which afford virtually no insight into Büchner's assessment ofDescartes--apart, of course, from the fact that he treats the text skeptically and as a historicaldocument. It is also the case with his excerpts, translations, and comments on Spinoza whichalthough larger sections are deliberative, do not necessarily permit of inferences about Büchner'sopinions of the [End Page 479] philosopher. Certain aspects, however, appear to be significant.Both Descartes' and Spinoza's philosophy designate positions in the philosophy of nature.Descartes' physics and its strict reliance on mechanical forces became paradigmatic again in the1830's, for example, in the vehemently anti-romantic chemistry of Büchner's contemporaryJustus Liebig, who is supposed to be the model for the "Doctor" in Woyzeck. Spinoza, on theother hand, had become an emblem for the kind of speculative natural philosophy that originatedin Germany in the late 1790's and had considerable influence on the academic scene until thetime Büchner began his studies. As much as we can make out from his excerpts and writings, inboth philosophers Büchner is interested in the proof of God's existence. Yet--and this seems to beof decisive importance--the focus of his interest is not so much on the result of the proof but onthe mode of inference, on syllogisms. What does it mean that one statement "follows" fromanother? How can we conclude from one proposition to another? This problem of "schließen,"of "Schluß," provides the most interesting link between Büchner's philosophical studies and hisplays and the novella.

Before this link is pursued any further, however, the status of German Naturphilosophie itself hasto be put into question. In most accounts of cultural history, this peculiar mixture of speculativeinterpretation and hard science at the beginning of the nineteenth century is seen as a romanticrevolt against the reigning "dead," fragmentary science of a Newton or a Kant. Naturalphilosophy, it is said, stressed phenomena of wholeness and life, it brought into focus objects andareas neglected or repressed by "official" science, even if it went too far into speculative flightsof interpretation. In the last two decades, the subtext of this assessment was easily readable:natural philosophy represents an ecological opportunity missed in the development of modernscience. The tone of regret and the mourning over a lost opportunity also pervades Reddick'saccount or, rather, is imputed by him to Büchner and his philosophical and scientific position.

Is this really a tenable account? Does it not repeat uncritically the image natural philosophy hasmanaged to project of itself? It needs to be remembered that behind the charge of authors likeSchelling, Hegel, Oken, Steffens, and others against Newtonian science lies the conviction thatscientific "physical" laws are incapable of describing natural phenomena, not because they arelaws, but because they are not laws enough. The impetus behind this criticism is not to free [EndPage 480] certain phenomena from the shackles of harsh, mathematized laws, but to fill the gapsand areas these laws have professed themselves unable to govern: hence the interest in chemistry,magnetism, morphology, "biology," and so on. The goal of the natural philosophers is not adifferent science, but a complete, a closed, a totally determinable science, in which the gaps andthe ignorabimus of classical science are stopped in the name of the organic whole.

This claim to a lost totality which science, based on unified laws, should be able to reconstruct is,to say the least, problematic. Under the guise of a transcendental nostalgia it conceals theviolence of an unlimited will to interpretation. Rather than opening up new fields ofinvestigation, as it is commonly said to have done, natural philosophy sets out to close thehorizon of inquiry. Magnetism, to take just one example, gains such prominence in the discourseof natural philosophy not because it cannot be explained but because it explains, i.e. fills out, thegap between the inorganic and the organic: it shows that matter is always already organic. Thisattempt at closure is an attempt to finish with science, and since, as Hegel has seen most clearly,no single law will ever be able to complete and close science from within, science itself has to bethe movement of this closure. "Schluß mit der Wissenschaft" is a slogan that has to be read in allits ambivalence if one wants to understand the function of natural philosophy beyond its appealto wholeness and redemption.

There is also a slight margin of anarchism and paranoid delirium, of interpretation gone wild, inthe discourse of natural philosophy. Not insignificant for Büchner's case is the fact that the onlysteadfast representative of this faction is Lorenz Oken, a scientist and fearless politician whocould not even be silenced by Goethe's acts of censorship. Oken was the dean of natural sciencesat the University of Zürich when Büchner applied there, and most likely sat in the audienceduring Büchner's inaugural lecture.

Against the backdrop of such an understanding of natural philosophy, Büchner's work should nolonger be interpreted as the mourning over a lost whole and a yearning for its recuperation. Evenhis scientific work, as Reddick knows well, is divided into two modes of presentation: on the onehand the sober anatomical dissections and the superb plates accompanying them, on the other theso-called "philosophical part" in which these findings are interpreted in a wider context. WhileBüchner's anatomical prowess and his familiarity with the anatomical literature cannot but remindone of his skill in dissecting texts, for an adequate understanding of the latter it [End Page 481]indispensable to inquire into the importance of osteological studies in the early nineteenth-century, in particular into the meaning of the vertebral theory of the skull. It is incidental butimportant to remember that Oken and Goethe were irreconcilable in their virulent disagreementsover the priority in the vertebral theory (and that Hegel, in the 1830 additions to the Enzyklopädie(§ 354) had taken Goethe's side and accused Oken of stealing the insight). When on November5, 1836 Büchner pronounced his inaugural lecture and his positive view of Goethean science,Oken had just declared that "everybody who says or intimates that I have derived my idea of themeaning of the vertebrae for the bones of the skull from Goethe [is] a vicious liar, and maligner"(Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung Nr. 282 [20. Juni 1836], p. 1128). That Oken nonethelessencouraged his son to take Büchner's seminar (on Zootomische Demonstrationen) is a furthertestimony to his extraordinary character.

Reddick supposes that Büchner, although skeptical about the methods of natural philosophy, stillshares in its basic assumptions of wholeness and recuperation. But if natural philosophy can bebrought under the slogan "Schluß mit der Wissenschaft," Büchner's dramatic and novellisticwritings can be said to execute the program "Schluß mit der Literatur." "Schließen," "Schluß":syllogisms are configurations of propositions that are already pronounced. They presuppose thattruth is not so much the result of originary expression but of the rule-guided configuration ofstatements--of quotation. The conclusion of a syllogism is already contained in the major andminor, nothing radically new will ever arise from the logic of closure (Schlußlogik), or, moreprecisely, nothing will never arise. Everything is already said (even if not necessarilypronounced): that is a literal translation of "fatalism," the term that troubles and divides Büchnerscholarship like no other. The hermetic closure of this world, announced in the presumptions ofnatural philosophy, is not only a formal determinant of Büchner's "poetic" work, it also is its

silent theme. The melancholia and the mental disorders of all protagonists are as much its resultas are their desperate searches for the "nothing" that would tear apart the fabric of syllogisms.This would have to be shown much more extensively than is possible here; only a few instancesfrom Dantons Tod will have to suffice.

One of the few historical circumstances consistently neglected by the cultural historians ofBüchner's texts is the fact that Dantons Tod is written after the Juli-Revolution of 1830. The fullimpact of this revolution is difficult to assess; but the initial enthusiastic responses [End Page482] like those of Heine and Börne, dictated no doubt by the dismal political situation in theGerman countries, soon gave way to a distanced, ironic stance, perfectly embodied also inBüchner's letters describing political events in Straßbourg. What 1830--with its initial pathos andsubsequent sell-out to the bankers--effected was the destruction of the concept of an originaryrevolution. 1789, and in particular the Terror which is the subject of Dantons Tod, wasdevaluated because it needed the repetition of 1830, which in turn was devaluated because itnow would need another revolution to rip power out of the hands of the bankers, and so forth.Revolution, rather than bringing about the violent birth of the new, is in fact the normal state ofthings that revolve endlessly around the empty center of history. This historical closure, or historyas closure, as "Schluß" and syllogism, is the background of Dantons Tod against which Danton'sdeath becomes thematic. It is evoked at crucial junctions and by all participants in the drama, aswhen the "Erster Bürger" argues: "Ihr habt Kollern im Leib und sie haben Magendrücken, ihrhabt Löcher in den Jacken und sie haben warme Röcke, ihr habt Schwielen in den Fäusten undsie haben Sammthände. Ergo ihr arbeitet und sie thun nichts, ergo ihr habt's erworben und siehaben's gestohlen; ergo, wenn ihr von eurem gestohlenen Eigenthum ein par Heller wiederhaben wollt, müßt ihr huren und betteln; ergo sind sie Spitzbuben und man muß sietodtschlagen" (I, 2). One can also recall Saint Just's declaration: "Es darf daher jeder Vorzügeund keiner Vorrechte haben, weder ein Einzelner, noch eine geringere oder größere Klasse vonIndividuen. Jedes Glied dieses in der Wirklichkeit angewandten Satzes hat seine Menschengetödtet. Der 14. Juli, der 10. August, der 31. May sind seine Interpunctionszeichen. Er hatte vierJahre Zeit nöthig um in der Körperwelt durchgeführt zu werden, und unter gewöhnlichenUmständen hätte er ein Jahrhundert dazu gebraucht und wäre mit Generationen interpunctirtworden [...] Wir werden unserem Satze noch einige Schlüsse hinzuzufügen haben, sollen einigeHundert Leichen uns verhindern sie zu machen?" (II, 7) And immediately following, in theimportant prison scene, Chaumette asks Payne: "Hören Sie Payne es könnte doch so seyn,vorhin überkam es mich so; ich habe heute Kopfweh, helfen Sie mir ein wenig mit IhrenSchlüssen, es ist mir ganz unheimlich zu Muth" (III, 1).

With the connections between logical form and physical being as tight as they are in these (andother) instances, escape and interruption become the chief concern for Danton. It is highlyquestionable [End Page 483] whether sexuality is indeed such a route of escape. Reddick hastried to neutralize the disturbing and less than enthusiastic portrayal of sexuality in Danton bysplitting the image into a "Vénus Noir," governing the obscene, cynical, animalistic coupling ofthe sexes, and a "Vénus Blanche" of redemptive sensuality and love whose embodiment is, ofcourse, Marion. While this distribution has undoubtedly its advantages over such phantasies as R.Grimm's Love, Lust, and Rebellion, it still does not confront squarely the possibility that forBüchner sexuality and love, precisely as interfaces between discursive and bodily practices, arepart of the syllogistic fabric veiling the world, and that therefore they do not afford anyredemption. Love does not solve the problem of Danton's Death, which is Danton's death (thefirst to make this observation, of course, was Paul Celan, in his Meridian-speech from 1960,another of those contributions to an understanding of Büchner pushed aside by the reigningcultural historians). In order to escape the endless revolutions of the Revolution, in order to breakthrough the totality of meaningfulness Danton has to be able to die his own, i.e. a meaningless,

death. Robespierre's and St. Just's crime against Danton is not that they condemn him to deathbut that by making him a necessary sacrifice in the process of the revolution, they deprive him ofa death of his own. The cutting action of the guillotine blade (just as the cutting action of thescalpel and the cuttings and liftings of the quoting author) does not cut Danton lose from thetexture of meaning since every Enthauptung serves the further Behauptung of the revolution--and of its enemies. Equally, as a natural event, death does not escape the logical alteration ofdecay and growth which natural philosophy has charted. "Da ist keine Hoffnung im Tod, er istnur eine einfachere, das Leben eine verwickeltere, organisirtere Fäulniß, das ist der ganzeUnterschied!" (III,7) As there is no hope in death, is there any hope in love? Everything dependson how lines likes these are read: "O Julie! Wenn ich allein ginge! Wenn sie mich einsam ließe!"(ibid.) Is it fear of loneliness that moves Danton to these words? Or is it the opposite, the desire tobe alone (as in: "Wenn sie mich doch nur allein, einsam ließe!")? How is "Ich kann nicht sterben,nein, ich kann nicht sterben" (ibid.) to be understood: as "they mustn't kill me," or as "they won'tlet me die?"

This line of interpretation, in which the form of Büchner's texts (the incessant quotation) nolonger clashes with the possibility of its content ("authentic" statements of Büchner the author,the philosopher, the politician) would have to be pursued further. Woyzeck, Leonce [End Page484] und Lena, and Lenz all exhibit similar instances where a shift in reading reveals the constantpreoccupation with closure and impossible escape (a most clamorous instance is the scene inwhich Woyzeck hears the voice commanding him to stab Marie [Vorläufige Reinschrift, scene12]: "Immer zu! Immer zu! [...] Soll ich? Muß ich? [...] Hör ich's immer, immer zu, stich todt,todt." Hearing voices and following their command is but an accentuated form of following theprecepts of syllogistic logic; and what does "immer zu, immer zu" mean? "Go on! Go on!," asReddick translates? Or "Always closed, always closed!" as another reading might suggest?)

The relevance of such readings for an understanding of Büchner's work as a cultural product ofhis time derives from linguistic and philosophical issues that are not themselves open to culturalstudies, at least not in the form practiced in literature departments on both sides of the Atlantic.Büchner deserves to be studied with as much patience and attention to his writing as hiscanonical predecessors. The era of historico-politico-cultural interpretation of his œuvre is over.Its capstone is Hauschild's masterful biography; the first step into the open is Reddick's finebook.

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