| This dissertation addresses dance as metaphor and rhetorical imagery in nine selected works of Heinrich Heine and Friedrich Nietzsche. Through the dancing characters in their works, these nineteenth-century writers fuse style and content to create unique forms of nonverbal communication. By focusing on the Sinnbild of the human figure, this study points up dance as an emblem for the two writers' Schreibweise; the synergistic interplay of semantic and syntactical meanings "shapes" their ideas into a complex choreography of classical and modern elements.;The second half of the dissertation examines the physical rhetoric of the dance in Nietzsche's Geburt der Tragodie (1872), Die frohliche Wissenschaft (1882), and Also sprach Zarathustra (1885). The thrust of Nietzsche's Schreibart is seen in a new light, as a gesture that seeks to overcome various metaphysical "languages" en route to the balanced style of his middle period and on into the more radical movement of his later thought.;Understanding Heine's and Nietzsche's respective aesthetic "programs" necessitates a thorough assessment of their performative style, a hermeneutical undertaking that underscores the subtle potential of dance as a literary language. Thus, the rhetoric of the dynamic figures suggests not only a graphic representation of the two writers' Dionysian convictions and the close association between writing and dance, it argues moreover for a fresh look at aesthetics beyond the limits of the Hegelian tradition.;The first half of the study depicts the evolution of Heine's dance metaphors. In his Elementargeister (1836) and Florentinische Nachte (1836) descriptions of Greek statuary that come to life in eerie nocturnal dancing scenes are revealed as a skillful strategem to outmaneuver the German censors who had banned the poet's Saint Simonian-flavored works. With Atta Troll (1842) and Lutezia (1840-44; 1854) the poet is seen sizing up his contemporaries on both sides of the political spectrum in "vielsprechenden" dance figures that slyly link clumsy movement with solid thinking. His last dance ventures, the ballet libretti Die Gottin Diana (1846) and Der Doktor Faust (1847), are understood as the culmination of Heine's faith in the body to express its own cause in an overly-spiritualized culture. |
