FROM DYNAMIC TO DEFICIENT STILLNESS. PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTIONS OF RUHE IN SCHILLER, HOELDERLIN, AND BUECHNER (GERMANY)

For centuries the German word Ruhe has had almost magical associations. Religious thinkers considered repose a principal attribute of God; poets wrote odes to stillness; and heroes strove for a goal of tranquillity and composure. Through a study of Ruhe one can recognize the evolution of several distinct traditions in German intellectual history. Drawing upon a large number of primary texts and the few secondary works which address the topic, I differentiate in the dissertation four kinds of Ruhe. First, religious: In the mystic-pietistic tradition in Germany stillness is considered not only a characteristic of divinity but also a necessary precondition of man's oneness with God. Second, aesthetic: In the eighteenth century Winckelmann, who considered sculpture the highest of aesthetic forms, argued that stillness is a facet of all great art. Third, psychological-moral: From Stoic texts such as Seneca's De tranquillitate animi and later writings such as Spinoza's highly popular Ethics many a German sought to achieve the Gemutsruhe of a life in harmony with the laws of the cosmos. Fourth, political: At least since the Allgemeines Landrecht fur die preu(beta)ischen Staaten of 1794 Germans have associated political stabilization with Ruhe. According to this influential document the citizen is obliged to preserve "Ruhe and Ordnung"; the state in turn guarantees "Ruhe und Sicherheit.".;Besides analyzing Ruhe according to the spheres in which it functions, one can make a distinction, as Holderlin does, between a "lebendige" and a "leere Ruhe" or a dynamic and a deficient stillness. In the first part of the dissertation I analyze the synthetic concept of dynamic stillness, which reaches a climax in German Classicism; here I offer a new reading of the category "idyllic" in Schiller's essay (')Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung and a reinterpretation of narrative levels at the conclusion of Holderlin's novel, Hyperion. After the period of German Idealism Ruhe loses its validity as a synthetic term and an ideal. In a chapter on Buchner's Lenz I uncover an inversion of the traditionally positive associations of Ruhe in the spheres of religion, aesthetics, psychology, and morality.