This dissertation examines the function and forms of catastrophe in several works of nineteenth-century German literature. In the context of literature, catastrophe is a narrative event that disrupts the status quo, generating time and space in which the heretofore unseen structures of society or even life can come into focus and be critiqued. This definition of catastrophe’s function remains stable throughout the nineteenth century, as evidenced by the texts examined here. Yet, catastrophe’s form changes. Variations in form derive from the particular political, social, economic, and intellectual currents of the time in which the texts are written, which means that a proper analysis of the narrative catastrophes can assist in the deeper understanding of nineteenth-century German society and its most prominent concerns. This work brings together scholarship from catastrophe studies, literary studies, eighteenth and nineteenth century studies, intellectual history, and German Studies to define literary catastrophe’s function and to trace the contours of their varying forms back to their possible historical causes and motivations.
The chapters are organized chronologically. Heinrich von Kleist’s Das Erdbeben in Chili establishes the paradigmatic function of catastrophe in literature through an earth-shattering quake that recalls the eighteenth-century discourse surrounding the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust offers a more reparative and qualified depiction of catastrophe as a cosmological event-that-must-be through which human life remains a tragedy but also attains meaning. Wilhelm Raabe’s Pfisters Mühle: Ein Sommerferienheft, through water pollution, offers a glimpse into industrial catastrophe and the modern world whose complexities have grown so immense that literature struggles to render it comprehensible. The dissertation then ends with the near-destruction of the dike in Theodor Storm’s Der Schimmelreiter to discuss how the specter of catastrophe haunts the literature of late nineteenth-century Germany and portends a change in the conceptual understanding of catastrophe in the twentieth century.
In the course of the dissertation’s analysis and in addition to the conclusions about catastrophe’s function and forms, one thing becomes abundantly clear: the nineteenth century is one in which life is increasingly uncertain. Political revolutions, economic upheavals, sudden advancements in technology—all such factors and more work in tandem to undermine any attempt to establish a uniform and enduring system by which to navigate change. Not stability but contingency becomes the byword of the era. Recognition of this fact should inform scholarly understandings of the period and also be a point of reflection for the unsettled world we are confronting today.