Revisiting E. T. A. Hoffmann's Musical Hermeneutics Author(s): Abigail Chantler Source: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jun., 2002), pp. 3-30 Published by: Croatian Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4149784 . Accessed: 05/07/2011 08:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=croat. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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A. CHANTLER,REVISITINGE.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3-30

3

REVISITINGE. T. A. HOFFMANN'SMUSICALHERMENEUTICS

E.T.A. UDC:78.01HOFFMANN,

ABIGAILCHANTLER

OriginalScientificPaper

rad Izvorniznanstveni

TrinityCollege DUBLIN,Ireland E-mail:[email protected]

Received:January3, 2002 2002. Primljeno:3. sijeCnja Accepted:April 15,2002 Prihvadeno:15. travnja2002.

Abstract - Resume Whilst

The affinity between the world-view of FriedrichSchleiermacherand E.T.A. Hoffmann, whose cultural as prominent Friihromantiker

stemming from different traditions.

ism, underpinnedthe complexinterrelationship

century, Hoffmann's 'musical hermeneutics'

Schleiermacher's'general hermeneutics' was conceived in contradistinctionto the more specializedhermeneuticspractisedin theeighteenth

milieu was dominated by philosophical ideal-

stemmed from an aesthetic tradition inauguratedby thinkersof the SturmundDrangmove-

between the multi-faceted thought of each. It

was however the disparitybetween theirinterpretationsof organicismwhich was reflectedin the relationship

between

ment. This is illustrated by the contextualisation of Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' (1810) in relation to the aesthetic and

Schleiermacher's

hermeneutics and Hoffmann's 'musical

literarycriticismof Goetheand Herder.

hermeneutics', as interpretative methodologies

I The complex interrelationshipbetween the thought of E. T. A. Hoffmann and is a fertile source for an FriedrichSchleiermacher,as prominent Friihromantiker, Both men moved Berlin Isaiah the of ideas of in the perfected.' type history essay in the same literary circles in early-nineteenth-centuryBerlin, although there is evidence of nothing more than a fleeting social acquaintancebetween them.2 The ' See IsaiahBERLIN,TheRootsof Romanticism: TheA. W.MellonLecturesin theFineArts,1965,The NationalGalleryof Art, Washington, DC,Henry Hardy (ed.), (London:Chatto& Windus, 1999). 2 Hoffmann alludes to Schleiermacher in two letters dating from 1807. See SelectedLettersof E. T. A. Hoffmann, Johanna C. Sahlin (ed., trans.), (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 125-7.

4

E.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30 A. CHANTLER,REVISITING

interests of both were extremely diverse, and their respective achievements have proved to be of historicalsignificance. Whilst Hoffmann is probablybest-known as the authorof fantastictales (familiarto musicians throughOffenbach'sTheTales of Hoffmann(1881) amongst other works), he was also prolific as a music critic and composer, and active as a conductor, artist,and designer of stage scenery, in addition to pursuing a highly successful careeras a juristand civil servant.3 The significance of his contributionto romantic aesthetic and literary theory, and to music theory has been widely acknowledged and, in particular,his 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' (1810) heralded as 'an epoch-making account of a musical landmark, and an epoch-making statement of Romantic theory'.4 Schleiermacherwas an erudite Protestanttheologian,whose radicalconception of religion was informed by his engagement with the philosophy of thinkers like Kantand Fichte.s As a philosopher himself, his posthumous reputationhas rested primarily on his seminal contributionto hermeneutics,and arguably somewhat lesser contributionto aesthetics - aspects of his thought that have to be understood as complementary.6 The affinity between the world-view of Schleiermacherand Hoffmann, as members of a cultural milieudominated by philosophical idealism, was reflected in the kinship between Schleiermacher'sconception of religion and Hoffmann's conception of aesthetic experience as a form of spiritual experience.7 Just as Schleiermacherconceived religion as the 'intuitionof the infinite in the finite',8so Hoffmann conceived Beethoven'sFifthSymphony as an embodiment of the composer's 'infinite yearning' with which the recipient of the work engages.9 Their intellectual kinship was also manifest in the notion, they shared with many of 3 The most comprehensiveEnglish-languagebiographicalaccountof HoffmannremainsHarvey AuthoroftheTales(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1948). WatermanHEWETT-THAYER, Hoffmann: 4David Charlton(ed.), E.T.A. Hoffmann's MusicalWritings: ThePoetandtheComposer, Kreisleriana, MusicCriticism,MartynClarke(trans.),(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1989),236. This is the most comprehensiveEnglishtranslationof Hoffmann'smusicalwritings,to which I referthroughout this article. Schleiermacher: Lifeand 5 For a biographicalaccount of Schleiermachersee MartinREDEKER, Thought,John Wallhausser (trans.), (Philadelphia:Fortress Press, 1973);Stephen SYKES,Friedrich Schleiermacher (London:Lutterworth,1971). of Schleiermacher's lecturenoteson hermeneuticsto whichI referthrough6 TheEnglishtranslation Hermeneutics: TheHandwrittenManuscripts,Heinz out this article is FriedrichSCHLEIERMACHER, Kimmerle(ed.), James Duke and JackForstman(trans.),(Missoula,Montana:ScholarsPress, 1977). Themostrecenttranslationof Schleiermacher's noteson hermeneuticsis FriedrichSCHLEIERMACHER, and Criticismand OtherWritings,Andrew Bowie (ed., trans.),(Cambridge:Cambridge Hermeneutics UniversityPress, 1998). On Religion:SpeechestoIts CulturedDespisers(1799)was writtento dem7 SCHLEIERMACHER's onstrateto his friends in Berlin(who included HenrietteHerz, and Friedrichand DorotheaSchlegel) the kinship between his conceptionof religion and the philosophicalidealism which they embraced. However in the text he also expressedscepticismaboutthe feasibilityof a 'religionof art',as conceived such as W. H. Wackenroderand Hoffmann. by Friihromantiker 8 FriedrichSCHLEIERMACHER, On Religion:Speechesto Its CulturedDespisers,RichardCrouter (ed., trans.),(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1996),112. MusicalWritings,238. 9Hoffmann's

A. CHANTLER,REVISITINGE.T.A.HOFFMANN,IRASM33 (2002) 1, 3--30

5

their contemporaries,of organic unity as seminal to the creation and interpretation of literatureand art.10 However it was the disparitybetween theirinterpretationsof organicismwhich was reflected in the relationship between Schleiermacher's hermeneutics and Hoffmann's 'musicalhermeneutics'.11The polaritybetween Schleiermacher'sconception of the organic unity of a text as the source of its definite meaning, and Hoffmann'sattributionto the organicunity of a musical composition a metaphysical meaning, problematizesIan Bent's coupling of them as 'hermeneuticists',and his suggestion that the 'musical hermeneutic'underpinning Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven'sFifthSymphony' can be understood as a 'sophisticatedapplication of the principlesof Schleiermacherto a piece of music'.12Schleiermacherconceived his 'general hermeneutics' in contradistinctionto the specialized hermeneutics practised in the eighteenth century to facilitatebiblical exegesis, Classical philology, and juridicialcriticism.13By contrastHoffmann'smusical hermeneuticshave to be understood as part of an aesthetictradition,inauguratedby the philosophers of the SturmundDrangmovement and developed by the Friihromantiker, to which the concept of organic unity, as a criterionfor the aesthetic evaluation of an art work, was central. II It was Schleiermacher'srecognitionof the semanticindeterminacyof language and of the multiple meanings of texts and verbalutteranceson which his formulation of a 'generalhermeneutics'was based. He criticizedthe 'specialhermeneutics' 10On the notion of organicismin eighteenth and early-nineteenth-centurythought see M. H. ABRAMS,TheMirrorand theLamp:RomanticTheoryand theCriticalTradition(Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1953),167-77,198-225;JamesBENZIGER,'OrganicUnity: Leibnizto Coleridge',PMLA66 Romanticism: (1951),24-48;Q. S. TONG,Reconstructing OrganicTheoryRevisited(Salzburg:Universityof Salzburg,1997). " lan Bent(ed.),MusicAnalysisin theNineteenthCentury,VolumeII:Hermeneutic (CamApproaches bridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994),19. Bent refersto Hoffmann's'musicalhermeneutics'to describethe method by which Hoffmanninterpretsmusicalcompositions. A Hermeneutics 12Ibid.,19. Bentsubsequentlydeveloped this thesis in detailin 'Plato-Beethoven: for Nineteenth-CenturyMusic?'in MusicTheoryin theAgeof Romanticism, Ian Bent (ed.), (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1996),105-24. Hermeneutics: TheHandwritten 95. This text contains notes 13 SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts, and outlines of lectureswrittenbetween 1805and 1833,and 'TheAcademy Addresses of 1829:On the Concept of Hermeneutics, with Reference to F. A. Wolf's Instructions and Ast's Textbook'. On Schleiermacher'shermeneuticssee ErnstBEHLER,GermanRomanticLiteraryTheory(Cambridge:CamHermeneutics: Hermeneutics as bridge University Press, 1993),260-82;Josef BLEICHER, Contemporary andCritique(London,Boston,and Henley:Routledge,1980);Bent(ed.),MusicAnalysis Method,Philosophy, in theNineteenthCentury,VolumeTwo:Hermeneutic 1-10;David E. KLEMM,Hermeneutical Approaches, Inquiry,VolumeOne:TheInterpretation of Texts(Atlanta,Georgia:ScholarsPress, 1986);KurtMuellerVollmer(ed.), TheHermeneutics Reader: Textsof theGermanTradition to thePresent fromtheEnlightenment andIts Discontents: TheCriticalLegacyof (Oxford:BasilBlackwell,1986);Azade SEYHAN,Representation GermanRomanticism (Berkeleyand Los Angeles:Universityof CaliforniaPress,1992),96-104.

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practised during the eighteenth century in the disciplines of theology, philology, and law because they were founded on the view that the interpretationof a text 'does not require art until it encounters something that does not make sense' that, for example, whilst the reader of Virgil's Aeneidwill have to confront the philological problems of interpretingancientGreek,thereafterunderstandingwill occur automatically.14In contradistinctionto this view, Schleiermacheradvocated 'a more rigorous practiceof the art of interpretationthat is based on the assumption that misunderstanding occurs as a matter of course, and so understanding must be willed and sought at every point' when reading or conversing.15This was in turn premised on his belief that there is no determinate link between a word and concept or object,other than that which develops through consistent linguistic usage, and that thereforelanguage is inherently ambiguous.'6 He stated that 'language is infinite because every element is determinablein a special way by the other elements' and 'every intuition of a person is itself infinite', from which he deduced that 'the task of hermeneuticsis endless'.'7 By insisting on the necessity for 'artful'interpretation,as that which 'presupposes that the speaker and hearerdiffer in their use of language', Schleiermacher endorsed the basic premise of the radical literary theory of his contemporaries: that language is autonomous and devoid of any definite meaning.'"This view was voiced by FriedrichSchlegel, who suggested that 'words often understand themselves better than do those who use them','9and it underpinned his conception of 'romanticpoetry', not as a specific literarygenre, but as an expression of spirituality which 'embraceseverything that is purely poetic' and the meaning of which 'should foreverbe becoming and never be perfected'.20It was throughthe creation of literaryforms and the employment of techniqueswhich problematizeinterpretation that the Friihromantiker gave expression to this conception of language and created 'romanticpoetry' as it was conceived by Schlegel. This was illustratedby the collections of literaryaphorisms,or 'fragments',they published, such as those which appeared in the Athenaeumand the 'ExtremelyRandom Thoughts' which Hoffmann included in Kreisleriana (1814-15);and by the frequent punctuation of TheHandwritten 67, 49. Hermeneutics: SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts, 1-Ibid.,110. 16 On Schleiermacher's 'Schematism philosophyof languagesee FriedrichSCHLEIERMACHER, andCriticism,Bowie (ed., trans.),269-80. and Language'in IDEM,Hermeneutics Hermeneutics: TheHandwritten 17SCHLEIERMACHER, Manuscripts,100,95. 18 Ibid.,110. On romanticliterarytheory see M. H. ABRAMS,TheMirrorand the Lamp;Behler, andtheFormsofRuin:Wordsworth, ThomasMcFARLAND,Romanticism GermanRomanticLiteraryTheory; andModalitiesof Fragmentation (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1981);Ren6WELLEK, Coleridge, A Historyof ModernCriticism1750-1950,VolumeOne:TheLaterEighteenthCentury(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1981);KathleenM. Wheeler(ed.), GermanAestheticandLiteraryCriticism:The RomanticIronistsandGoethe(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1984). 19FriedrichSCHLEGEL,'On Incomprehensibility',trans.in GermanAestheticand LiteraryCriticism:TheRomanticIronistsandGoethe,Wheeler(ed.), 32-41(33). 20 FriedrichSCHLEGE1, Philosophical Fragments,PeterFirchow(trans.),(Minneapolis:University of MinnesotaPress, 1991),31-2. 1

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their texts with authorialinterpolations.21It was furtherillustratedin Hoffmann's musical writings by the florid metaphoricalprose style through which he evoked the metaphysicalmeaning of music, the lacunabetween words and their multiple meaningsenablinghim to expressthatbetween 'thenumericalproportionsof music' and 'the wonderful realm of the infinite' which they evoke in the works of a composer of genius.22 Schleiermacher'sengagement with the literarytheory of his contemporaries has been the focus of recentcriticalcommentarieson his hermeneutics,which have entailed a revision of the view, first expressed by Wilhelm Dilthey, of his hermeneutic methodology as a means to discover the thoughts of an author as inscribedin a text.23These commentarieshave focused on Schleiermacher'srecognition of the inherent ambiguity of language as the basis for postulating a kinship between his hermeneuticmethodology and criticaltheory, a kinship expressed in statementssuch as 'Schleiermacheranticipatescriticalpositions that parallelthose of structuralism and poststructuralism',24 and 'Schleiermacherconverges with Derrida'.25 Whilst such commentaries have helped to promote understanding of Schleiermacher's engagement with the radical literary theory of other and of the historical significance of aspects of his thought previFriihromantiker, ously ignored, they have tended to gloss over the underlying premise of his hermeneutic methodology: that inscribed in a text (or verbal utterance)is the intended meaning of the author(or speaker). This was reflectedin Schleiermacher's formulationsof the purpose of his hermeneutics,which he expressed variously as 'the art of finding the precise sense [Sinn] of a given statement';as a means 'to understand the text at first as well as and then even better than its author';and as 21 MusicalWritings,103-14;SCHLEGEL, Forexamplesof early-romanticfragmentssee Hoffmann's Philosophical Fragments. MusicalWritings,238,105. Thecontinuumin the historyof ideasbetween the thought 22Hoffmann's and that of writersof the SturmundDrangmovement,or Geniezeit,is illustrated of the Friihromantiker by the importancethe notion of the artist as a 'genius' assumed in the aesthetic theory of each. For backgroundto the history of the concept of genius see ABRAMS,TheMirrorand the Lamp,184-217; RobertCURRIE,Genius:An Ideologyin Literature (London:Chatto& Windus, 1974);John Hope MAAestheticsandtheReconSON, ThinkingAbout Geniusin the EighteenthCentury,in Eighteenth-Century structionofArt,PaulMattick,Jr.(ed.),(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1993);PenelopeMurray (ed.),Genius:TheHistoryofanIdea(Oxford:BasilBlackwell,1989);MiltonC. NAHM, GeniusandCreativity:An Essayin theHistoryof Ideas(New York:Harperand Row, 1965). HermannMulert(ed.),vol. 1 (Berlin:Vereinigung 23See WilhelmDILTHEY,LebenSchleiermachers, MartinRedeker(ed.), vol. 2 (Berlin: wissenschaftlicherVerlager,1922);IDEM,LebenSchleiermachers, Walterde Gruyter,1966). Dilthey's view of Schleiermacher'shermeneuticswas generallyvoiced by commentatorsup until the late 1980s. 24 SEYHAN,Representation andIts Discontents,100. FromKantto Nietzsche(Manchester:Manchester 25 Andrew BOWIE,Aestheticsand Subjectivity: to CriticalTheory:ThePhilosophy of GerUniversityPress, 1990),161. See also IDEM,FromRomanticism manLiteraryTheory(Londonand New York:Routledge,1997),104-37;TilottamaRAJAN,TheSupplein RomanticTheoryandPractice(Ithaca,New Yorkand London: mentofReading:Figuresof Understanding CornellUniversityPress, 1990).

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a means to 'grasp the thinking that underlies a given statement'.26It was formulations such as these which were the point of departure for the interpretationof Schleiermacher'shermeneutics presented by Dilthey and later commentators as the basis for 'the re-cognitionof the sponsoring spiritual source of the work, a recognition made possible by the presence of this same spiritualsource in the interpreter'.27 Notwithstanding the difficulty of reconcilingSchleiermacher'sformulations of the purpose of his hermeneuticswith his acknowledgment of the semantic ambiguity of language - a difficultyexacerbatedby his expressed belief that 'thereis no thought without words' - his hermeneuticmethodology can, as Dilthey suggested, be understood as the counterpartto Schelling'stheoryof unconscious creation.2 As Dilthey commented, both thinkersembraced'the procedureof German transcendentalphilosophy which reaches behind what is given in consciousness to the creative capacity which, working harmoniously and unconscious of itself, producesthe whole formof the world in us'." Thisis suggested by Schleiermacher's emphasis on the necessity to delve into the authoror speaker'spsyche to ascertain the origins of, or motivation for, their thoughts. He stated that 'in speaking something intensive is transformedinto something extensive'," and that: Sincewe haveno directknowledgeof whatwas in theauthor'smind,we musttryto becomeawareof manythingsof whichhehimselfmayhavebeenunconscious,except insofaras he reflectson his own workandbecomeshis own reader.31 As Bent demonstrates in his exposition of Schleiermacher'shermeneutics,it was Schleiermacher'sconception of its purpose, as a means 'to grasp the thinking that underlies a given statement',which was reflectedin the methodology he outlined.32In accordance with his belief in the desirability of empathizing with the author'sunconscious, Schleiermacherpresented 'psychological'interpretationas the complement of 'grammatical'interpretationin the practice of hermeneutics, stating that 'it is necessary to move back and forth between the grammaticaland psychological sides' of interpretationin order to understand a text, 'because lan* SCHLEIERMACHER, TheHandwritten 70, 112,97. Hermeneutics: Manuscripts, E. T. A. Hoffmannand RomanticHermeneutics:An Interpretationof 2 David E. WELLBERY, Hoffmann'sDon Juan,Studiesin Romanticism 19/4 (Winter1980),455-73(455). 28SCHLEIERMACHER, Hermeneutics: TheHandwritten Manuscripts,193. " WilhelmDILTHEY,W.Dilthey:SelectedWritings,Hans PeterRickman(ed., trans.),(Cambridge; CambridgeUniversity Press, 1976),256. On Schelling'saesthetic thought see BOWIE,Aestheticsand Subjectivity,80-114;FriedrichWilhelm Joseph SCHELLING,ThePhilosophyof Art, Douglas W. Stott (ed., trans.),(Minneapolisand London:Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1989);GeorgeJ.SEIDEL,Creativity in the Aesthetics of Schelling,IdealisticStudies4 (1974),170-80;WELLEK,A Historyof Modern Criticism1750-1950,VolumeTwo:TheRomanticAge(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1981),74-

82.

48. TheHandwritten Hermeneutics: Manuscripts, 30SCHLEIERMACHER, 31Ibid.,112. hermeneuticsis given in 'Plato-Beethoven'. 32Ibid.,97. Bent'sexpositionof Schleiermacher's

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guage can be learned only by understanding what is spoken, and because the inner make-up of a person [...] can only be understood from his speaking'.33 Likewise, he recommended that the 'comparative method', as a means of 'comparing the text with others, and considering it in and for itself', should be practised alongside the 'divinatory method', as that which 'enables us rightly to reconstruct the creative act that begins with the generation of thoughts which captivate the author'.3 The dialectical relationship Schleiermacher postulated between 'grammatical' and 'psychological' interpretation, and the 'comparative' and 'divinatory' methods was premised on his organic view of texts. This found expression through the principle, on which his methodology was based, of the hermeneutic circle: 'that just as the whole is understood from the part, so the parts can be understood only from the whole'.35 In accordance with this principle, Schleiermacher advised his readers to seek to ascertain the meaning of individual words and sentences from the broader context of the paragraphs and chapters in which they occur, and conversely to derive their understanding of an entire text from the interpretation of its constituent elements.36 Schleiermacher also emphasized the importance of the extension of the principle of the hermeneutic circle as a means to understand a text as a part of the author's whole ceuvreand within the broader socio-historical context of its production. As Bent comments: Schleiermachertook a broadly organic view of any text: at all levels of construction there is a whole, comprised of parts;and this relationapplies not only within the organic work itself, but also outside [...], to the work in relation to other works of its class, to that class in relation to some larger class, to some body of knowledge, to a given social context,and so forth.37 Accordingly, in his lecture notes, Schleiermacher emphasized that, in order to 'ascertain the thoughts of an author', 'one must know in which period an author writes', and 'try to become the immediate reader of a text in order to understand its allusions, its atmosphere, and its special field of images'.38 In so doing he expressed the view, held by a number of writers in the late-eighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries, that there is an organic relationship between a text and the cultural-historical milieu in which it was written.39 3Ibid.,100. 34Ibid.,167, 192. 35Ibid.,196. 36 In 'Plato-Beethoven',Bent illustratesSchleiermacher'sprinciple of the hermeneuticcircle in practiceby analyzing his introductionto the Sophist.See BENT,Plato-Beethoven,108-12. 37Ibid.,113. Hermeneutic: TheHandwritten 183,46, 43. Manuscripts, 38SCHLEIERMACHER, 39This view was voiced by Herder,who in 1796stated that 'manhas been the same in all ages;but he expressedhimself in each case accordingto the circumstancesin which he lived'. JohannGottfried HERDER,Comparisonof the Poetryof VariousAncient and ModernPeoples: Conclusions,trans.in

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ForSchleiermacherit was the organicunity of texts, as products of their time, which ensured that,with 'artful'interpretation,the inherentambiguityof language could be overcome to reveal the author's intended meaning. Thus even though Schleiermacherhimself had contributed fragments to the Athenaeumin 1799, he condemned texts couched in fragmentaryform as wholly inadequate as the basis for communicating a coherent argument,stating that 'unity is the art of composition'.40This view of organic unity as a criterionfor the evaluation of a text was indicative of Schleiermacher'sambivalencetowards his contemporaries'employment of fragment form as a means of problematizinginterpretation. Indeed his conception of organic unity as an ideal was completely antitheticalto Schlegel's ideal of 'romantic poetry' which is always 'in the state of becoming' - an ideal realized in many of Hoffmann's writings.4' III Despite the unsuitabilityof Schleiermacher'shermeneuticsas a methodology for the interpretationof Hoffmann'stexts, aspects of Hoffmann'sinterpretationof musicalworks canbe understoodas an applicationof Schleiermacher'shermeneutic principlesto musicallanguage. As Benthas shown, this is illustratedin Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven's FifthSymphony' by Hoffmann'semployment of the principle of the hermeneuticcircleas the basis for evaluating the symphony in relation to those of Haydn and Mozart,and for examining its individual movements and 'the flow of the music from moment to moment' within the context of the entire work.42Evidence that Hoffmann's use of the principle was more extensive than this can be gleaned from a consideration,in accordancewith the spirit of the principle, of his review within the broadercontext of his musical aesthetics. Implicitin the view Hoffmann presented in 'Old and New ChurchMusic' (1814)of the evolution of musical language as a corollaryof the evolution of the human spirit, and of CenturyGermanCriticism,TimothyJ.Chamberlain(ed.), The GermanLibrary,vol. 11 (New Eighteenth York:Continuum, 1992), 164-9 (167). On the relationship between Herder and Schleiermacher's im 18. und ihreVorgeschichte Hermeneutik hermeneuticthought see Harold SCHNUR,Schleiermachers zu Hamann,HerderundF. Schlegel(Stuttgart:VerlagJ.B. Metzler, StudienzurBibelauslegung Jahrhundert: 1994). 58. In a letterof 16June1799, TheHandwritten Hermeneutics: Manuscripts, 40 SCHLEIERMACHER, Schleiermachercommented on his contributionto the fragmentspublished anonymously in the Athenaeum. He wrote: 'The two Schlegels are editing a periodicalcalled the Athenaeum.In the second a collectionof detachedthoughts[... ]. Among numberof this thereare,underthe heading>>Fragments,ThusFate knocks at the door!>chain of being< that stretchedfrom the lowest monad in existence to God himself'.55 The sense of teleology latent in Goethe's conception of Urtypenrendered his applicationof the results of his botanicalstudies to aestheticsa significantprecursor of Hoffmann's aestheticconcept of organicism. By contrastwith the centrality of the principle of the hermeneuticcircleto Schleiermacher'sorganicview of texts, expressed through the recurrenceof 'the metaphorof the shuttle [and] that of the circle'in his lecture notes,mGoethe's comparisonsof art works to organisms enabled him to explore the artist's creative process, as the means by which an entire work is developed out of one component part or structure. The Myth of Organicism:FromBad Science to GreatArt, Musical 3 David L. MONTGOMERY, Quarterly76/1 (Spring1992),17-36(18). 54Ibid.,18. Montgomeryalso acknowledgesthe influenceof the work of the Swedish botanistand taxonomer,Carlvon Linnaeus,on Goethe'stheories,and thatof the Swiss biologist,CharlesBonnet,on those of Robinet. Ibid.,20. 5 On the botanicalresearchof Goethe and his contemporaries,and its relationshipto their aesAestheticsand objectivityin the Study of Formin the Life thetic thought see Philip C. RITTERBUSH, Sciences,in OrganicForm:TheLifeofan Idea,Rousseau(ed.), 26-59. 56BENT,Plato-Beethoven,114.

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Whilst this is most clearly illustratedin Goethe's article,'StrasbourgMinster' (1812), the encomium of the Minster as an organically unified whole presented therein had already been expressed by Goethe in an earlier article 'On German Architecture'(1772),which he dedicated to the architectof the Minster,Erwinvon Steinbach. In this he used natural imagery to describe the building as 'whole, great, inherentlybeautiful to the last detail like God's trees',and as that which has 'thousands of branches and millions of twigs and as many leaves as sand by the sea'.57 He admired its 'vast, harmonious masses animated by countless components', and suggested that, 'as in the works of eternalnature,down to the smallest fiber, all is form, all serves the whole'.`5 Likewise in 'StrasbourgMinster'Goetheexpressed his view of the building as 'a work of art whose ensemble is conceived in large, simple, harmonious parts'.59 He admired the symmetry of the basic structureof the Minster,the faqadeof which he divided 'up into nine fields', four either side of 'the great centraldoorway', in which there are doors, windows, towers, and buttresses.6?Accordingly he observed that 'thereis [...] a beautiful relationshipbetween the height and the width of the whole mass' and 'an harmonious relationshipbetween these divisions'.61 Goethe conceived the unified structuralfeaturesof the building as the Urtypen of their decoration,as reflected in his statementthat 'we see each and every ornament appropriateto the partit decorates,subordinateto it and as if growing out of it'.62He suggested that the parts of the building, enumeratedin his descriptionof the faqade, 'have their particularcharacterderiving from their particularfunction', and that 'this characteris communicated step by step to the subordinate parts'.63By way of illustrating this organic relationship between the structural divisions of the building and their ornamentsGoethe described 'the artificialrose growing out of the circle of the window', and 'the way every rib, every boss has the form of a cluster of flowers or a spray of leaves or some other petrified natural object'.64 Moreover,Goethe conceived the unity of the faqadeas the Urtypeof that of its ornamentation. He suggested that since the structuralfeaturesof the Minster,as the 'harmonious parts' of its 'ensemble', are unified, and since 'each and every ornament' grows out of 'the part it decorates', it follows 'that the decoration is harmonious throughout'.65Thus he drew to the attentionof his readers 'the links 57JohannWolfgang von GOETHE,On GermanArchitecture,trans.in IDEM,Essayson Art and Literature, John Gearey (ed.), Ellen von Nardroffand ErnestH. von Nardroff (trans.),Goethe's Collected Works,vol. 3 (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1986),3-10 (3, 5). 5 Ibid.,6. JohannWolfgang von GOETHE,StrasbourgMinster,trans.in Goetheon Art, JohnGage (ed., trans.),(Berkeleyand Los Angeles:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1980),115-17(116). 60 61

Ibid.,115. Ibid., 116.

116. 62Ibid., 63Ibid.,116.

" Ibid.,116-17. 65Ibid.,116.

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between these ornaments,the bridge between one majormemberand another,the interweaving of details similar,yet highly varied in theirform,from saints to monsters, from leaves to scallops'.66By portrayingthe structuralfeaturesof the building as the Urtypenof their ornamentation,and the unity of those features as the Urtypeof that of the ornamentation,Goethe invoked the principle of 'unity in diversity' that was central to his neoclassical aesthetic, stating that 'such variety gives us great enjoymentin that it derives from what is appropriate,and hence at the same time arouses a feeling of unity'.67 As an application of his evolutionary theory to the discipline of aesthetics, Goethe's comparison of art works to organisms was a means of expressing his philosophical outlook, insofar as it formed the basis for a metaphysical aesthetic. Just as he conceived the Urpflanzas a tangible representationof God's intentions, the discovery of which would enable one to 'invent plants ad infinitum that will eventually come to be',68so he viewed art as 'anothernature, also mysterious like her' and as a manifestationof the infinite in the finite.69In 'StrasbourgMinster'he suggested that, in the facade of the building there is 'a union of the sublime and the merely pleasing', and, in so doing, alluded to the view expounded in 'On German Architecture'of the complexity of the Minster as sublime.70 In the earlier articlehe described how unexpectedemotionsseizedme whenI finallystoodbeforetheedifice!Mysoul was

suffused with a feeling of immense grandeurwhich, because it consisted of thousands of harmonizing details, I was able to savour and enjoy, but by no means understand and explain. They say it is thus with the joys of heaven, and how often I returnedto savor such joys on earth, to embracethe gigantic spirit expressed in the work of our brothers of yore! [...] It is hard for the mind of man when his brother'swork is so sublime that he can only bow his head and worship.71

Goethe's view of the organic unity of the Minster as sublime supported his

rallying cry 'to change the hitherto disparaging term >>Gothicstyle of building>GermanArchitectureo'.nHe refuted 'all 66Ibid.,117. 67Ibid.,116. On Goethe'sNeo-Classicalaestheticsee WalterHoraceBRUFORD,CultureandSoci1775-1806(London:CambridgeUniversityPress,1962);FrancisJohnLAMPORT, etyin ClassicalWeimar, GermanClassicalDrama:Theatre,Humanity,andNation,1750-1870(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990);TerenceJamesREED,TheClassicalCentre:Goetheand Weimar,1775-1832(London:Crook Helm, 1980). 6 The Mythof JohannWolfgangvon GOETHE,Letterof 17May 1787;trans.in MONTGOMERY, Organicism,21. 69 JohannWolfgang von GOETHE,Maxims and Reflections,trans. in Art in Theory1815-1900, Harrison,Wood, and Gaiger(eds.), 74-8 (75). Goethestated: 'Natureworks her effects in accordance with laws she gave herselfin harmoniousagreementwith the creator,art works her effects in accordance with rules she has agreed upon with the genius'. Ibid.,75. 7 GOETHE,StrasbourgMinster,115. I returnto discuss the aestheticcategory of the sublime laterin this article. 71GOETHE,On GermanArchitecture,6. 72n GOETHE,StrasbourgMinster,117.

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the synonymous misconceptions' of the term Gothic 'as indefinite, disorganized, unnatural,patched-together,tacked-on,overladen',misconceptionshe associated particularlywith the Frenchand Italians,and defended the aesthetic merit of the Minster, not merely by dint of the harmony of its ornamentationand its inner coherence,but by virtue of its transcendentalmeaning.73In 'StrasbourgMinster' he recalledhow, 'havinggrown up among the criticsof Gothicarchitecture,I nursed a distaste for its frequently overladen and confused ornament, whose arbitrary characterincreased the repugnance I felt for the gloomy religious aspect of the style'.74However he then described how he 'experienceda revelation', and discovered 'greatermerits' in the Minster,the 'smallest detail' of which proved to be 'as meaningful as it was rich'.7sGoethe's portrayalof his aesthetic appreciationof the Minster as a quasi-religious experience that is contingent upon 'revelation' was a reflectionof the metaphysicalmeaning he attributedto the organic unity of art. Like that of Goethe, Herder's conception of the organic unity of a work as a criterionfor its aesthetic evaluation was both an expression of his philosophical world-view and the basis for his vindicationof works of artpreviously denigrated. This is illustrated in his articleon 'Shakespeare'(1773),in which he expressed his admirationfor the dramatist'sability to combine 'the estates and the individuals, the different peoples and styles of speech, the kings and fools, [...] into a splendid poetic whole', and, like Goethe, suggested that the diversity of elements within a work emanate from a common origin.76Thus in his comments on KingLear,he used natural imagery to describe the unity of the play, of which 'the very first scene already bears within its seed the harvest of [Lear's]fate in the dark future', and in which 'all the incidental circumstances,motives, characters,and situations concentratedinto the poetic work' are 'all developing into a whole'.77 Herder's attributionto the organic unity of a work a metaphysical meaning can be understood in relation to his interest in the nature pantheism of Spinoza.78 He identified 'one main feeling prevailing in each drama,pulsing through it like a world soul', and suggested that: Theentireworldis butthebodyto [Shakespeare's] greatspirit.All thescenesof Naandstylesof thoughtarethe turearethe limbsof thebody,evenas all thecharacters featuresof this spirit- and the wholemightwell bearthe nameof Spinoza'sgiant god:Pan!Universum!79 3 GOETHE,On GermanArchitecture,5. 74GOETHE, StrasbourgMinster,117. 75Ibid.,117. 76 Johann Gottfried HERDER,Shakespeare,trans. in GermanAestheticand LiteraryCriticism: Winckelmann, Lessing,Hamann,Herder,Schiller,Goethe,H. B. Nisbet (ed.), (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1985),161-76(168). 77Ibid.,169. 78Herder's Spinozist sympathies,which he openly declaredin the 1780s,informedevery aspect of his thought,in particularhis view of religion,his organicconceptionof nationhood,and his aesthetic sharedhis enthusiasmfor Spinoza'spantheism. and literarycriticism. Many of the Friihromantiker 79HERDER,Shakespeare,172.

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Accordingly Herder presented Shakespeare'sfidelity to the prevailing Zeitgeistas the source of the metaphysicalmeaning of his plays, insofaras Shakespeare created 'a dramaticoeuvre out of [the] raw material'of his age 'as naturally,impressively, and originally as the Greeks did from theirs'." Herder maintained that'when [Shakespeare]rolledhis greatworld events and humandestiniesthrough all the places and times - where they took place', he was 'true to Nature' and expressed his ideas with 'authenticity,truth, and historicalcreativity'.8l Herderconceived the organicunity of the plays themselves- in which Shakespeare 'embracesa hundred scenes of a world event in his arms, composes them with his glance, [and] breathes into them an all-animatingsoul' - and their organic relationship to 'the soil of the age', as the basis for his defence of Shakespeare's dramas against the criticismof the French.82He contrastedthem with the neoclassicaltragediesof writerssuch as Corneille,Racine,and Voltaire,who rather than striving to express the 'world soul' of the eighteenth century, merely 'ape ancient drama' by adhering to the Classicalprincipleof the three unities - 'unity of time, place, action' - to create a 'stuffed likeness of the Greek theatre'.83He rejectedthe idea, which he attributedto the French,of ancient Greek tragedy as the yardstick against which to evaluate all drama,and suggested that the organic unity of Shakespeare'splays, as the basis for his expression of the 'world soul', renders them of equal aesthetic merit. V The continuity in the history of ideas between Goethe and Herder's aesthetic conception of organicism and that of Hoffmann is suggested by its 'ideological resonance' in the writings of all three.84Goethe's view of the unity in diversity displayed in StrasbourgMinsteras sublime enabled him to justify his favourable evaluation of Gothic architectureas 'Germanarchitecture',despite its divergence from the 'generalnotions of good taste' of the Frenchand Italians,- and Herder's defence of Shakespeare'sdramasas organicallyunified works of art representeda riposteto those Frenchcriticswho compared them unfavourablyto 'the great classical tragedies of Sophocles, Euripides, Corneille, and Voltaire'.s6 Likewise Hoffmann's view of organic unity as an aesthetic ideal underpinned his justification of instrumental music, and specifically the genre of the symphony, as 'the Thisconstituteda rejoinderto the view, centralto learned most romanticof all arts'.87 80Ibid.,167. 81HERDER, Shakespeare, 172.

82Ibid.,169-70,167. Ibid.,167, 165. 8 Joseph KERMAN,How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out, CriticalInquiry7 (Winter 1980),311-31(315). "IGOETHE,On GermanArchitecture,8, 5. 86HERDER,Shakespeare,161. MusicalWritings,236. 7 Hoffmann's 8

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musical taste in the eighteenth century, of instrumental music as 'more an agreeable than a fine art' that lacks any definite meaning.m Hoffmann attributed aesthetic value to the organic unity of compositions because he interpreted the formal coherence of works such as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as a manifestation of the composer's 'rational awareness'.89 In accordance with his view of a genius, as an artist gifted with both 'divine inspiration' and 'rational awareness', Hoffmann stated, in what is possibly an intertextual reference to Herder's article, that: Justas our aestheticoverseers have often complained of a total lack of real unity and innercoherencein Shakespeare,when only profoundercontemplationshows the splendid tree, buds and leaves, blossom and fruitas springing from the same seed, so only the most penetratingstudy of Beethoven'smusic can reveal its high level of rational awareness, which is inseparablefrom true genius and nourishedby continuingstudy of the art.90 In comparing Beethoven's music to Shakespeare's dramas, Hoffmann followed Herder in presenting organic unity as a source of aesthetic merit, and, in conceiving such unity as a manifestation of the composer's 'rational awareness', defended Beethoven against those who 'regard his works merely as products of a genius who ignores form and discrimination of thought'.91 In so doing Hoffmann, like Schleiermacher, emphasized the necessity for 'artful' interpretation and, insofar as he conceived the music itself as an embodiment of the composer's 'rational awareness', advocated the practice of both 'grammatical' and 'psychological' interpretation simultaneously. However Hoffmann's suggestion that Beethoven's 'rational awareness' was manifest in 'the way works such as [his] Fifth Symphony seem to grow from a single theme as though from a Goethean Urpflanz', the development of which reveals the composer's creative process, represented a significant point of depar8 ImmanuelKANT,Critiqueof Judgment, WernerS. Pluhar(trans.),(Indianapolis:HackettPublishing, 1987), 203, ? 54. On musical taste in the eighteenth century see EnricoFUBINI,Music and Culturein Eighteenth-Century Europe:A SourceBook,BonnieJ. Blackburn(ed.), (Chicagoand London: (Cambridge: University of Chicago Press, 1994);BernardHARRISON,Haydn:The'Paris'Symphonies Musicin CambridgeUniversityPress,1998);BellamyHOSLER,ChangingAestheticViewsofInstrumental (AnnArbor:UniversityMicrofilmsInc.,1981);JohnNEUBAUER,TheEmanGermany Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics(New Haven: fromMimesisin Eighteenth-Century Departures cipationof MusicfromLanguage: Yale University Press, 1986);MarySue MORROW,GermanMusicCriticismin the LateEighteenthCenMusic (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1997);William tury:AestheticIssuesin Instrumental WEBER,Learnedand GeneralMusicalTaste in Eighteenth-CenturyFrance,Past and Present89 (November 1980), 58-85;William WEBER,The Contemporaneityof Eighteenth-CenturyMusical Taste, MusicalQuarterly70/2 (Spring1984),175-94. MusicalWritings,238. 89Hoffmann's 90Ibid.,238-9. The possibilitythatthis passagewas inspiredby Herder'sarticleis strengthenedby Hoffmann's use of natural imagery. For a detailed study of referencesto Shakespeare'sworks in Hoffmann'swritings see FrancisJ. NOCK,E. T. A. Hoffmannand Shakespeare,Journalof Englishand Germanic Philology53 (1954),369-82. 91 Hoffmann'sMusicalWritings,238.

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ture from Schleiermacher'sorganic view of texts.92Whilst, like Schleiermacher, Hoffmann was concerned to examine the 'dialecticalrelationbetween whole and parts' of the work, he followed Goethe in identifying one component part as the germ cell of the whole and in exploring creativityas a teleological process.93 This is clearly exemplified in Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony' by his presentation of the opening four-note motive as that 'on which Beethoven has based his entire Allegro'.94In a detailed analysis of the first movement, Hoffmann demonstrated'how [Beethoven]was able to relateall the secondary ideas and episodes by theirrhythmiccontent to this simple theme'.95He drew to the attention of his readersthe imitation of this theme between the violins and the violas throughout the first43 bars,during which 'the bass here and there adds a figure that also copies it', and to the 'tutti' in bar 44, 'the theme of which again follows the rhythmicpatternof the main idea and is closely relatedto it'.96He then went on to describehow, at the commencementof the second subjectin bar59, 'the horn again imitates the main idea' in the key of E flat major,and how from bar 65 onwards 'the cellos and basses interjectthe imitatingfigure previously referredto, so that the new theme is artfullywoven into the overall texture'.97He noted that 'the second half [of the first movement] begins with the main theme again, in its original form, but transposed up a third and played on clarinetsand horns', and that 'the various elements of the first half follow'.98 In this narrativeHoffmann aimed to show that the organic unity of the first movement can be attributedto Beethoven's development of the opening four-note motive, and that it can therefore be cited as evidence of 'the composer's rational genius'." Accordingly he stated that: 92KERMAN,How We Got into Analysis,316. 93BENT,Plato-Beethoven,113. MusicalWritings,244. 94Hoffmann's 95Ibid.,244. In an article linking Beethoven'suse of 'cell structures'to the music of 'primitive cultures',SmithBrindledescribesthis movement'asa vast proliferationof this single cell, like a widelyspreadingself-reproductiveliving organism'. He notes that:'Ofthe 502barsof this movement,thereis only a sparsescatteringof some fiftyor so in which the upbeatmotive is not eitherthe whole coreof the musical discourse or an underlying foundation'. ReginaldSmith BRINDLE,'Beethoven'sPrimitive Cell Structures',MusicalTimes139/1865 (Winter1998),18-24(18-19). MusicalWritings,241. Barnumbersreferto Ludwig van Beethoven,SymphonyNo. 5 96Hoffmann's in C Minor,ElliotForbes(ed.), NortonCriticalScore (London:Chappell,1971). 7 Hoffmann'sMusicalWritings,241. The organic relationshipbetween the first and second subjects of the first movement, to which Hoffmann refers, is based on intervallicexpansion. The two descending thirds of the first subject(G-Eflat and F-D) are transformedinto two descending perfect fifths in the second subject(Bflat-Eflat and F-Bflat),with two notes (E flatand F) common to both. In his analysis of the first movementof the symphony in DerTonwilleI (1921),Schenkersuggests that,in view of this organic relationshipbetween the first and second subjects,'the main motive of the first movement is not, as has been erroneouslyassumeduntil now, merelythe two pitchesof mm. 1 and 2 of the score,but ratherthe combinationof fourpitchesin mm. 1-5'. HeinrichSCHENKER, Analysis of the FirstMovement,in Beethoven,SymphonyNo. 5, Forbes(ed.), 164-82(164-5). " MusicalWritings,241. See bar 125. Hoffmann's 99Ibid., 251.

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Quite apartfrom the fact that the contrapuntaltreatmentbetokens profound study of the art, the episodes and constant allusions to the main theme demonstratehow the whole movement with all its distinctive featureswas not merely conceived in the imagination but also clearly thought through.'00 Hoffmann went on to suggest that Beethoven's four-note motive did not merely serve as the germ cell of the first movement, but that it was pervasive throughout the entire symphony as an organic entity. Thus through the application of Schleiermacher's technique of comparing 'parallel passages' to the interpretation of music, Hoffmann postulated an affinity between the principal themes of the first and third movements. He attributed their kinship to the developmental potential of each, stating that: Justas simple and yet, when it is glimpsed behind laterpassages, just as potent as the theme of the opening Allegro is the idea of the minuet's first tutti.1'0 He also noted that, at the end of the development section of the final Allegro, 'the simple theme of the minuet now returns for fifty-four bars, in the last two of which the transition from the minuet to the Allegro is repeated in a condensed form';102 that in bar 363 of the recapitulation, 'the bass figure is the same as that in the twenty-eighth bar of the first movement Allegro, which vividly recalls the main theme [...] by virtue of its close rhythmic relationship to it';'03 and that the 'detached chords and rests' of the last thirteen bars of the final movement 'recall the separate strokes in the symphony's [first movement] Allegro'.'04 In so doing Hoffmann illustrated 'the close relationship of the individual themes to each other', and the pervasive presence of the opening four-note motive throughout the third and fourth movements.'05 Hoffmann's conception of organic unity as an analytical premise also served as the basis for his 'Review of Beethoven's Piano Trios, Op. 70 Nos. 1 and 2' (1813), in which he suggested that 'a simple but fruitful and lyrical theme, susceptible of the most varied contrapuntal treatments, abbreviations, etc., forms the basis of every movement' of the trios, and that 'all the secondary themes and figures are closely related to the main idea [...] so as to produce the utmost unity between all the instruments'.'" Accordingly in Hoffmann's analysis of the Piano Trio, Op. 70 No. 1, he aimed to show how, in the first movement, 'the genius of the music [...] 100 Ibid.,244.

Ibid.,248. Hoffmannrefersto the thirdmovementof the symphony,which Beethovenheaded o01 'Allegro',as the 'minuet'. For 'the idea of the minuet'sfirst tutti' see bar 27. 102Ibid.,249. See bars 153-206. '3 Ibid.,250. •o Ibid.,250. Charltonnotes that 'hereHoffmannappearsto recallthe first movement progresMusicalWritings,250. sion at bar 196'. Charlton(ed.), Hoffmann's 01, Hoffmann'sMusicalWritings,250. I returnsubsequentlyto consider how Hoffmannjustifies Beethoven'sinclusion of the second movementin the symphony as an organicallyunified art work. 06Ibid.,303.

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emerges in its very diversity of contrapuntaltreatmentsof a short,straightforward theme', which is presented in the first four bars of the work.'07Likewise he suggested that in the second movement, the first 'few harmonicallyfertile bars again contain the material from which the whole movement is fashioned', and that 'the closing movement [...] again has a short, original theme that appears in a constant alternation of various transformationsand ingenious allusions throughout the piece'.'08Similarly,Hoffmannstated that the firstmovement of Beethoven'sPiano Trio, Op. 70 No. 2 'evinces the master's boundless wealth of invention and his penetrationof the harmonicdepths', insofar as 'froma single idea a few bars long so many motives are generated, springing from it like the luxuriantblossom and fruit of a fertile tree'.'" Just as in Hoffmann's 'Review of Beethoven'sFifthSymphony' he employed naturalimagery to express the rhythmicand thematic unity of the work, so in his 'Review of Beethoven's Piano Trios,Op. 70' he invoked organic metaphors to express their harmonicand thematicunity. This calls into question Scott Burnham's suggestion that within Hoffmann'smusic criticism 'counterpointis treatedas the element of music most directly amenable to metaphoricalcomparisons with the organic growth of plant life'."0Clearlywhilst Hoffmannreferredto imitationas a source of the unity of the Fifth Symphony, and to 'the most varied contrapuntal treatments'of themes in Beethoven's Piano Trios, Op. 70, he conceived all of the constituent elements of music as sources of musical unity, and Beethoven's manipulation of these elements as evidence of his 'rationalawareness'."' VI The kinship between Goethe and Herder'saesthetic concept of organicunity and that of Hoffmann is derived not merely from its use in their writings as an analyticalpremise which facilitatesunderstandingof the artist'screative process, but also from their invocation of organicismas a criterionfor the aesthetic evaluation of art. Hoffmann viewed the organic unity of a work as the source of its metaphysicalmeaning, a view redolentof that expounded by Goethe and Herder, and contrastedby Schleiermacher'sorganicview of texts as loci of definite meanings. For Hoffmann, as for Goethe and Herder, the organic unity of an art work representeda tangible embodiment of the kinship between art and nature which was central to the philosophical world-view of all three writers. Hoffmann engaged with the view of nature,as a manifestationof the infinite in the finite, pre'7 Ibid.,308. 108 Ibid.,309-10. '09Ibid.., 315.

110Scott

MusicalWritings,Charlton(ed.), 19th-Century Music BURNHAM,review of Hoffmann's 14/3 (Spring1991),286-96(294). "' Hoffmann'sMusical Writings, 303.

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sented by contemporarythinkerssuch as Schleiermacher,Hegel, and Schelling,112 and with the concomitantview of artas 'secondnature'presentedby Wackenroder, Novalis, and FriedrichSchlegel, amongst others.113This view of nature and art as 'two wonderful languages through which the Creatorhas permitted human beings to perceive and to comprehendheavenly things in their full force'was articulated by the FrUihromantiker through the aesthetic category of the sublime, and it was this which enabled Hoffmann to justify attributingto the organic unity of a work a metaphysical meaning.'14 In A Philosophical EnquiryintotheOriginof OurIdeasof theSublimeandtheBeautiful(1757),one of the principaleighteenth-centurytreatiseson the concept,Edmund Burkeconceived the sublime as a source of 'delight',which he defined as 'the sensation which accompaniesthe removal of pain or danger',as opposed to the 'positive pleasure' to which the experience of beauty gives rise."' Whilst he conceded that 'when danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible',he maintained that 'at certain distances, and with certainmodifications, they [...] are delightful, as we everyday experience'."6Accordingly he suggested that 'whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, [...] is a source of the sublime', because the rationalexperience of 'ideas of pain', as opposed to its physiological reality, enables one to engage vicariously with 'the passions which concern self-preservation'."7 Likewise in the CritiqueofJudgment(1790)ImmanuelKant,the other principal eighteenth-centurycommentatoron the sublime, suggested that it is 'a negative pleasure' which, by contrastwith the 'positive pleasure'which the beautiful gives rise to, 'is produced by the feeling of a momentary inhibition of the vital forces followed immediately by an outpouring of them that is all the stronger'."8 He conceived the sublime as 'the arousal in us of the feeling that we have within us a 12The independence of Schleiermacher'sorganic view of texts from his view of naturecan be understood as a reflectionof the irreconcilabilityof his aesthetic and hermeneuticthought and his conceptionof religion,discussion of which lies beyond the scope of this article. TheRomanticIronistsandGoethe, 13NOVALIS,On Goethe,GermanAestheticandLiteraryCriticism: Wheeler(ed.), 102-8(107). 114 Wilhelm andFantasies, HeinrichWackenroder's Confessions MaryHurstSchubert(ed., trans.),(University Parkand London:PennsylvaniaStateUniversityPress,1971),18. On the sublime see Andrew Ashfield and Peter De Bolla (eds.), TheSublime:A Readerin BritishEighteenth-Century AestheticTheory (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1996);PeterDe BOLLA,TheDiscourseoftheSublime:Readings in History,Aesthetics,and the Subject(Oxford:Basil Blackwell,1989);Carl DAHLHAUS,Ludwigvan tohisMusic,MaryWhittall(trans.),(Oxford:ClarendonPress,1989),67-76;David Beethoven: Approaches 26 (Summer1987),245-58. SIMPSON,Commentaryon the Sublime,Studiesin Romanticism 115EdmundBURKE,A Philosophical EnquiryintotheOriginof OurIdeasof theSublimeandtheBeautiful,Adam Phillips (ed.), (Oxfordand New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1990),34. "6 Ibid.,36-7. 117Ibid.,36. 118 98, 1 23. On Kant'sconceptionof the sublimesee PaulCROWTHER, KANT,Critique ofJudgment, TheKantianSublime:FromMoralityto Art (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1989);Eva SCHAPER,Taste,Subto Kant,Paul Guyer Companion limity, and Genius:The Aestheticsof Natureand Art, in TheCambridge (ed.), (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1992),367-93.

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supersensiblepower' and 'of our superiorityto nature',which enables us 'to judge nature without fear and to think of our vocation as being sublimely above nature'.119

Burke and Kant's conception of the sublime as an aesthetic category used to explain our experience of naturerepresenteda departurefrom its origins in Classical antiquity as a categoryof rhetoric.120Burkeidentified characteristicsof natural phenomena as loci of the sublime, such as 'vastness' and 'littleness', since 'as the great extreme of dimension is sublime, so the last extreme of littleness is in some measure sublime likewise';121 'magnificence', such as that of 'the starry heaven';122 'infinity and eternity',since 'thereis nothing of which we really understand so little';'23and 'obscurity',as exemplified by 'how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affectminds'.124 Burkedid concede the possibility of art as a manifestationof the sublime, but only insofaras it assumes the characteristics of the sublime in nature.'2 Thus he interpreted Milton's 'portraitof Satan' in ParadiseLostas a 'sublime description' by virtue of its complexity and attendantobscurity,arguing that 'the mind is hurriedout of itself, by a croud [sic] of great and confused images; which affect because they are crouded and confused'.126

Similarly,Kant focused on 'the sublime in naturalobjects (since the sublime in art is always confined to the conditions that [art]must meet to be in harmony with nature)',and, like Burke,identified naturalphenomena and theircharacteristics as sublime.127 He conceived aspects of nature 'in comparisonwith which everything else is small', such as 'the infinite',as 'mathematicallysublime','28and, in a famous passage in which he described aspects of nature which arouse awe and fear, evoked the 'dynamicallysublime': Considerbold,overhangingand,as it were,threatening rocks,thunderclouds piling volcaup in the sky and movingaboutaccompanied by lightningandthunderclaps, noes with all theirdestructivepower,hurricanes with all the devastationthey leave behind,theboundlessoceanheavedup, the highwaterfallof a mightyriver,and so on.'29 KANT,CritiqueofJudgment,106,? 25, 123,? 28. "119 120The sublimewas originallycodified in a first-centuryGreektreatise,purportedlyby Longinus. See ClassicalLiteraryCriticism:Aristotleon theArt of Poetry,Horaceon theArt of Poetry,Longinuson the Sublime,T. S. Dorsch (trans.),(London:Penguin, 1965). 121 BURKE, A Philosophical Enquiryinto theOriginof OurIdeasof theSublimeandtheBeautiful,66.

Ibid.,71. '122 123 Ibid.,57. 124 Ibid.,54.

artists,such as CasparDavid Friedrich(1774-1840)and J. M. '25Severalearly-nineteenth-century W. Turner(1775-1851),sought to evoke the sublime in theirpaintings. EnquiryintotheOriginof OurIdeasof theSublimeandtheBeautiful,57. '26BURKE,A Philosophical 127 KANT,CritiqueofJudgment, 98, ? 23. 128Ibid..,105,? 25, 111,? 26. '" Ibid.,120,? 28.

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However it was Kant'sdeparturefrom Burke's'empiricistaccountof the sublime', and from his own empirical Observationson the Feelingof the Beautifuland Sublime(1764), that rendered his exposition of the concept in the Critiqueof Judgmenta significant precursorof Hoffmann'sunderstandingof the sublime.'30Kant stated that, in contradistinctionto 'the beautiful in nature', for 'which we must seek a basis outside ourselves', 'truesublimity must be sought only in the mind of the judging person, not in the natural object the judging of which prompts this mental attunement',because 'what is sublime [...] cannot be contained in any sensible form but concernsonly ideas of reason [...]which can be exhibited in sensibility'.131 with the philosophicalidealismof thinkTheengagementof the Friihromantiker ers like Kant,and their endorsementof the view of the vastness and magnitude of natureas awe-inspiring, led them to appropriatethe aestheticcategory of the sublime to justify their view of art as a metaphysical medium which, like nature, facilitates spiritual experience. In particular,the sublime provided a basis for the aestheticjustificationof instrumentalmusic insofar as it legitimized 'the >indeterminacy< of symphonic expression as a sounding symbol of >endless longing< and >intimation of the absolute>mathematicalJupiter>organic