Understanding Irony. Three Essays On Friedrich Schlegel

Understanding Irony: Three Essais on Friedrich Schlegel
Author(s): Georgia Albert

Source: MLN, Vol. 108, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1993), pp. 825-848
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Understanding Irony:
Three essais on Friedrich
Schlegel
Georgia
Albert
Irony
is unrelieved
vertige,
dizziness to the
point
of madness.
Paul de Man
[. Chaos and
Vertigo
In a note written around 1800
Schlegel
recorded his dissatisfaction
with Kant's conclusion that the
question
about the
infinity
of the
world is a
meaningless
and
empty
one for human reason: "The
Antinomies should not have moved Kant to
give up
the infinite
[das
Unendliche],
but the
principle
of
non-contradiction-."1
Schlegel's
aver-
sion to the
logical
axiom called the
principle
of
non-contradiction,
which states the
invalidity
of
any judgment
that makes two
opposite
predications
about the same
object,
is not without
precedent
in his
writings. Similarly transgressive
views
against
it are also
expressed
elsewhere in texts from this
period,
as for
example
in the note from
1797 which states:
"Every
sentence,
every
book that does not contra-
dict itself is
incomplete-"
(KFSA 18:83),
or in the Athendum
Frag-
ment 39:
Most
thoughts
are
only
the
profiles
of
thoughts. They
have to be turned
around and
synthesized
with their
antipodes.
This is how
many philo-
sophical
works
acquire
a considerable interest that
they
would otherwise
have lacked.
(KFSA 2:171;
Fragments,
23)
Most
often,
the name
Schlegel gives
to the situation in which the
principle
of non-contradiction is defied is
"irony."
In contrast to the
view
adopted by
rhetorical treatises at least since
Aristotle,
irony
is
MLN,
108
(1993):
825-848
? 1993
by
The
Johns Hopkins University
Press
826 GEORGIA ALBERT
not understood here as the rhetorical convention that allows the
speaker
to
express something by saying
its
opposite,
and the inter-
pretation
of the ironic discourse does not consist
simply
in
turning
the "literal" statement
upside
down to obtain the "intended" mean-
ing: irony
is the simultaneous
presence
of two
meanings
between
which it is not
possible
to decide.
Such,
for
example,
is the view
put
forth in the definition of
irony
as
"analysis
of thesis and antithesis"
(KFSA 16:154),
where
"analysis"
is
presumably
to be understood not
in Kant's but in Fichte's sense as "the
procedure by
which one looks
for the characteristic in which the
compared
entities are
opposed
[entgegengesetzt]
."2 A better known and more
extensively argued
con-
demnation of the
traditional,
one-sided view of
irony
is found in the
Lyceum Fragment
108:
[Socratic
irony]
is meant to deceive no one
except
those who consider it
a
deception
and who either take
pleasure
in the
delightful roguery
of
making
fools of the whole world or else become
angry
when
they get
an
inkling they
themselves
might
be included. In this sort of
irony, every-
thing
should be
playful
and
everything
should be
serious,
everything
guilelessly open
and
everything deeply
hidden.... It contains and
arouses a
feeling
of indissoluble
antagonism
between the absolute and
the
relative,
between the
impossibility
and the
necessity
of
complete
communication
(Fragments,
13,
translation
modified).3
To understand
irony according
to the classical definition is to un-
derstand it as
deception (Tduschung):
those who do this never
get
more than half the
message,
and in fact do not understand
irony
at
all. If "in
[it]
everything
should be
playful
[Scherz]
and
everything
should be serious
[Ernst],"
it is useless to
try
to
separate
what is
"meant" from what is "said": however
contradictory
the
relationship
of the two sides of the statement to each other
might
be,
both are
necessary
and have to be taken into account.4
The
rejection
of the
principle
of non-contradiction
expressed
in
the note about Kant
is, then,
nothing
new for
Schlegel:
similar,
if
less
explicit,
statements can be found in numerous other texts from
the same
period.
What is
particularly interesting
in this
fragment
is
the fact that the issue is taken
up
in connection with the
question
of
infinity. Schlegel's
reference in the note is to the section of the
Critique of
Pure Reason devoted to the "Antinomies of Pure Reason."
There,
Kant shows that it is
possible
to make
perfectly
coherent and
logically
correct
arguments
both to
prove
and to
disprove
the
spatial
and
temporal infinity
of the world.
Since, however,
this
possibility
is
logically unacceptable
(because
of its
incompatibility
with the
prin-
MLN 827
ciple
of
non-contradiction),
Kant is led to conclude that the two
opposed parties
are
"quarreling
about
nothing."5
The violation of
the
principle
of non-contradiction
by
the
possibility
of both an affir-
mative and a
negative
answer is taken to
prove
the
incongruity
of
the
question-the
fact that
infinity
can be no concern for reason.
Schlegel,
faced with the same
problem
of the mutual
exclusivity
of
the
question
of
infinity
and the
principle
of
non-contradiction,
re-
verses Kant's conclusion. It is not the case that the
principle
of non-
contradiction renders the
question
of
infinity
invalid; rather,
it is
infinity
that renders this
principle expendable.
The reason for this
lies in
Schlegel's understanding
of
infinity,
which is defined
precise-
ly
as the
possibility
that
opposed
and
mutually contradictory
ele-
ments
might
be
present
at the same time. The Athendum
Fragment
412,
for
example,
states:
Who has a sense for the infinite and knows what he wants to do with it
sees in it the result of
eternally separating
and
uniting powers
... and
utters,
when he
expresses
himself
decisively, nothing
but contradictions
(lauter
Widerspriiche)
(KFSA 2:243;
Fragnents,
83, TM).
"Who has a sense for the infinite ...
utters,
when he
expresses
himself
decisively, nothing
but contradictions." This connection be-
tween a
self-contradictory way
of
speaking
and what
Schlegel
calls
infinity
founds
many
of his best-known assertions
regarding irony.
Since
irony
is the
place
where
opposites
come into contact with each
other
(it
is "the form of
paradox":
Lyceum
Fragment
48,
KFSA
2:153;
Fragments,
6),
it also constitutes the
possibility
of
achieving
some sort
of link with
infinity.
It remains to ask in
what,
exactly,
this link
consists.
Perhaps
the most
explicit
reference to this
question
is found in
one of the
unpublished "Philosophical Fragments" Schlegel
wrote
in 1798 after the
publication
of the Athendum
fragments: "Irony
is so
to
speak
the
cEtiSEttii
of the
infinite,
of
universality,
of the sense for
the universe"
(KFSA 18:128).
The rhetorical term
"epideixis"
enters
Schlegel's vocabulary by way
of Aristotle's distinction
(in
Rhetoric
i.3)
between different
types
of
public speech.
Defined
by
contrast with
the
speech
in
council,
meant to convince or
dissuade,
and the
speech
in
court,
aimed at
proving
innocence or
guilt,
the
epideictic
speech
was
supposed
to
praise
or censure the actions of a
public
figure.6
The relevance of this
concept
to the
relationship
between
irony
and what
Schlegel
calls "the
infinite,"
"universality,"
and "the
sense for the
universe,"
though
not
immediately
obvious,
becomes
828 GEORGIA ALBERT
easier to see once one takes notice of the
slightly
different
meaning
the term
acquires
in
Schlegel's
use of it.
Schlegel's
own definition of
the
concept
is found in the introduction to his translation of the
Epitaph ofLysias:
the "goal" of the
"epideictic
kind
[of
speech]"
is,
he
says,
"to let the
ability
of the orator shine before an
assembly
of
listeners or readers"
(KFSA 1:141).
The
importance
of the
epideictic
speech
consists in the
proof
it delivers of the orator's skill. The
interest is less in the content of the
speech
than in the
speech
itself,
less in what is said than in how well it is said. While Aristotle makes
the distinction between the different
types
of
speech dependent
on
their
themes,
this
plays
a
secondary
role in
Schlegel's
definition.
The orator's
proof
of his
ability
is not based on an
argument
about
it: the
speech
itself shows it
simply by being
a
good speech.
That
is,
the real theme of the
speech
is not what it
discusses,
but what it
demonstrates or
stages.7
The
relationship
between
irony
and
infinity
is therefore defined
in this
fragment
as a
very particular type
of
reference,
one that is
based on the
possibility
of
making something
visible
by putting
it on
display
or
giving
it an
appearance (by "playing"
it)
rather than
by
talking
about it.
Irony
"means"
infinity by representing
it;
more
precisely,
and
anticipating
somewhat:
by reproducing
its structure.
This structure is that of the
paradox,
of constitutive and irreducible
self-contradiction,
of the simultaneous
co-presence
of
mutually
ex-
clusive elements. The other name for "the
infinite,"
"universality,"
and "the sense for the universe" is in fact another of
Schlegel's key
terms from this
period,
a word he uses in its
etymological
and there-
fore in a similar sense: chaos
(cf.
Idee
69,
KFSA
2:263).8
"Only
that
kind of confusion is a chaos"-defines
Schlegel-"out
of which a
world can arise"
(Idee
71,
KFSA
2:263).
How?
"Through
the under-
standing"
("Uber
die
Unverstandlichkeit,"
KFSA
2:370;
"On Incom-
prehensibility,"
Wheeler, 38, TM).
Chaos is the
original
indefinite-
ness,
what is there before the
understanding
sorts it out in
pairs
of
opposites; irony,
the
possibility
of
defying
the
understanding,
offers
a chance
infinitely
to
approach
this state.
How,
exactly,
is this
supposed
to function?
Schlegel's
assertion
about Socratic
irony
that "in it
everything
should be
playful
and
everything
should be serious"
(Lyceum
Fragment
108)
is once
again
a
helpful
hint. The
point
is not to discard the
"pretended" meaning
for the "intended" one: both sides of
irony
have to be
thought
together.
This
is, however,
precisely
what is
impossible.
The two
"sides" are unable to coexist
peacefully: Schlegel speaks,
in different
MLN 829
contexts,
of their evocation of an "indissoluble
antagonism" (Lyceum
Fragment
108)
and of the "continual
self-creating interchange
of
two
conflicting thoughts"
(Athendum
Fragment
121,
KFSA
2:184;
Fragments,
33).
The relation between the two "sides" of
irony
is
by
necessity
a warlike one:
they
can
only
exist at each other's
expense,
since each of them is the
negation
and thus the annihilation of the
other.
The reader of the ironic text is therefore confronted with a
pecu-
liarly
difficult task. He must
try
to understand the
text,
but that
means
trying
to
gain
control over it
precisely through
the "Satz des
Widerspruchs"-through
the
very
kind of
binary logic
that the text
brings
into
question.
Thus the
reading
of the ironic text becomes a
sequence
of
incomplete interpretations
in which first the
one,
then
the other "side" is
privileged,
and must
constantly attempt
to find a
way
to
bring
the dialectical back-and-forth oscillation to its final
goal,
to a
synthesis
of the two
poles
and
thereby
to rest. This final
synthesis,
however,
is
regarded by Schlegel
as unreachable: this is
shown
by
the
unambiguous
characterization of the
"antagonism"
irony
consists in as "indissoluble" as well as
by
the
surprising
and
strong wording
of its definition as
"analysis
of thesis and antithesis."
Two
aspects
of
irony
become
important
in this context. The first:
the two
poles
cannot be
brought together-except,
of
course,
in the
ironic text which contains
them,
and which starts the
process
of
reading
(in
the same
way
that chaos consists of the
original
matter
and has to be sorted out
by
the
understanding).
The second: the
process
itself is bound to
go
on forever. No
interpretation
can ex-
haust the
meaning
of the ironic text and
bring
it to rest: there will
always
be an
aspect
of it that none of the successive
readings,
no
matter how
comprehensive
or
sophisticated,
will be able to take into
account. In its refusal to be tied down to a
meaning
the text be-
comes
infinite,
"within its limits limitless and
inexhaustible,"
in
Schlegel's
formulation
(Athendum
Fragment
297,
KFSA
2:215;
Frag-
ments, 59, TM).
Irony,
then,
as a means to a
goal,
as a conscious
way
of
setting
something
in motion? This has become a
commonplace
of
Schlegel
criticism.9
Schlegel
himself, however,
seems to have taken his own
warning
that
"irony
is
something
one
simply
cannot
play games
with"
("Uber
die
Unverstindlichkeit,"
KFSA
2:370; Wheeler, 37)
more
seriously
than some of his
critics,
and to have been well aware of the
difficulties that the
attempt
to use
irony
for one's own
purposes
can
produce.
One
expression
of this
preoccupation
is the
unsettling
list
830 GEORGIA ALBERT
of "ironies of
irony"
in "On
Incomprehensibility,"
one of which
occurs when
"irony
turns into a mannerism and
becomes,
as it
were,
ironical about the author"
(KFSA 2:369; Wheeler, 37, TM).
What can
Schlegel
mean when he endows
irony
with the
ability
to
turn back
against
the ironist? In order to
approach
an answer to this
question,
it is
necessary
to return to
Schlegel's
most
explicit
and
sustained discussion of
irony,
the
Lyceum Fragment
108. The rele-
vant
parts
of this
long fragment
read:
[Die
sokratische
Ironie]
soil niemand
tauschen,
als
die,
welche sie fur
Tauschung
halten,
und entweder ihre Freude haben an der herrlichen
Schalkheit,
alle Welt zum besten zu
haben,
oder b6se
werden,
wenn sie
ahnden,
sie waren wohl auch mit
gemeint.
In ihr soil alles Scherz und
alles Ernst
sein,
alles
treuherzig
offen und alles tief versteckt.... Es ist
ein sehr
gutes
Zeichen,
wenn die harmonisch Platten
gar
nicht
wissen,
wie sie diese stete
Selbstparodie
zu nehmen
haben,
immer wieder von
neuem
glauben
und
miBglauben,
bis sie schwindlicht
werden,
den
Scherz
gerade
fur
Ernst,
und den Ernst fuir Scherz halten
(KFSA 2:160).
[ (Socratic irony)
is meant to deceive no one
except
those who consider it a
deception
and who either take
pleasure
in the
delightful roguery
of
making
fools of the whole world or else become
angry
when
they get
an
inkling they
themselves
may
be included. In this sort of
irony, everything
should be
playful
and
serious,
guilelessly open
and
deeply
hidden .... It is
a
very good sign
when the harmonious bores are at a loss about how
they
should react to this continuous
self-parody,
when
they
fluctuate
endlessly
between belief and disbelief until
they get dizzy
and take what is meant as a
joke seriously
and what is meant
seriously
as a
joke (Fragments,
13)].
To understand
irony
as
deception (Tduschung)
means to under-
stand it
according
to the classical definition: as the rhetorical con-
vention that allows the
speaker
to
express something by saying
its
opposite. According
to this traditional
view,
in order to understand
the real
meaning
of the ironic statement one
only
needs to know
that the
speaker
is
making
use of this rhetorical convention-that
he is
speaking ironically-and
to translate what he is
saying
into its
opposite.
The result of this model is the immediate differentiation
between the initiates and the victims of
irony.
The former will be
able to
identify irony
in the
speaker's
statement and will "take
plea-
sure in the
delightful roguery
of
making
fools of the whole world"
(read:
those who don't understand
irony).
The initiates do not have
the last
laugh,
however,
and it
may
well be that the
joke
is on them
after all: the mere
suspicion
that
"they
themselves
may
be included"
is
enough
for those who had "their
pleasure"
in the
game
to
get
MLN 831
angry
in their turn. The reason for this is that it is not so
easy
to
decide for or
against
the
presence
of
irony.
Those "in the know"
may
be themselves the
object
of the
speaker's irony
if,
for
example,
he
feigns irony
to deceive them but is in fact
perfectly
serious
(already
an
"irony
of
irony"
if one reads the
expression
as an
objective geni-
tive: a double
irony).
This, however,
does not mean that those who
had not seen
any
trace of
irony
in the first
place
have
gotten
it
right
and can feel in
control,
because there is
just
as little certitude for
this as for the other
possibility.
There is no
way
to
stop
this constant
back-and-forth other than a
purely arbitrary
choice,
but on the
way
to it all those who consider
irony "deception,"
whether
they thought
they
were on the
privileged
side or
not,
are in for an
unsettling
experience:
It is a
very good sign
when the harmonious bores
[die
harmonisch
Platten]
are at a loss about how
they
should react to this continuous
self-parody,
when
they
fluctuate
endlessly
between belief and disbelief
[immer
wieder
von neuem
glauben
und
mifiglauben]
until
they get dizzy
[bis
sie schwindlicht
werden]
and take what is meant as a
joke seriously
and what is meant
seriously
as a
joke
[den
Scherz
gerade fir
Ernst,
und den Ernst
fur
Scherz
halten].
The "harmonisch Platten" are not
simply
those who do not under-
stand
irony,
but those who insist on
equating irony
with
deception,
and on
preferring
one
interpretation-either
one-to the other.
Unable to make a final
decision,
they keep changing
their
minds,
oscillating
in an
endlessly repeated
movement between
believing
and
misbelieving,
between
reading
the text as a
joke
[Scherz]
and
reading
it as
straightforward
[Ernst], until,
having
been made
dizzy
[schwindlicht]
by
this
ever-accelerating
vortex,
they stop
the
process
by blindly settling
on whatever side
they
were last on.
The Schwindel
(vertigo,
dizziness)
is the sense of not
being
able to
stand,
of
losing
one's balance. When one feels
dizzy,
one needs
something
to hold on to. This
is, however,
precisely
the
possibility
irony
does not
give:
if "in it
everything
should be
playful
[Scherz]
and
everything
should be serious
[Ernst],"
it is not
just
difficult but im-
possible
to make a choice. The mistake of the "harmonious bores"
would consist not in their
getting irony "right"
or
"wrong,"
but in
their
insisting
on
wanting
to know whether
they
are
getting
it
right
or
wrong.10
It is
perhaps surprising, though
not difficult to
see,
that the
phe-
nomenon that is here called
"getting dizzy"
and described as a sort
832 GEORGIA ALBERT
of
punishment
for the stubborn
stupidity
of the "harmonious bores"
is not
essentially
different from the
dynamics
created
by opposition
that should have
opened
the
way
to
infinity.
It is also
disturbing
that
the
final,
arbitrary
choice of the "harmonious bores" is described as
"[taking]
what is meant as a
joke seriously
and what is meant seri-
ously
as a
joke
[den
Scherz . . .
fur
Ernst und den Ernst ...
fur
Scherz
halten]": this formulation seems to
presuppose
the
possibility
of a
"right"
solution that would consist in
understanding
what is meant
as a
joke
as a
joke
and what is meant
seriously seriously-a possi-
bility
that is
consistently
denied
by
the rest of the
fragment
and
whose
assumption
would amount to
considering irony deception,
the attitude that is
supposed
to be condemned here.
Suddenly
it becomes difficult to see the difference between the
"harmonious bores"
(those
who consider
irony deception)
and the
voice of the
fragment,
which should
represent
the ironist since it
says confidently
and somewhat
scornfully:
"To a
person
who hasn't
got
it, [Socratic
irony]
will remain a riddle even after it is
openly
confessed"
(KFSA 2:160;
Fragments,
13).
Could it be that the
attempt
to correct the "harmonious bores"
only proves
the
general
ines-
capability
of "harmonious
boredom,"
that the
way
to
infinity
is less
serene than one
might expect,
and that the
experience
of
vertigo
and of
being
the
victim,
rather than the
user,
of
irony, belongs
to it?
It is worth
reading
once
again
the sentence that
assigns
the
posi-
tions in this
power game:
"[Socratic
irony]
is meant to deceive
[tdu-
schen]
no one
except
those who consider it a
deception
[Tdu-
schung]."
One should
perhaps
take this sentence at its word-and
recognize
that it
pulls
the ironist into the vortex that causes the
dizziness of the "harmonious bores." To
say
that
irony
should de-
ceive
only
those who understand it as
deception
is to understand it
as
deception.
The sentence
says:
there is a
right
and a
wrong way
to
read
irony:
the
wrong way
is to think that there is a
right
and a
wrong way.
But
by making
this
distinction,
it makes the
very
mistake
it warns
against;
more
importantly,
it
puts
itself into a double bind
from which it cannot be freed. It tries to determine the
right way
to
read
irony
(which
is to
recognize
that there is no
right
or
wrong
way),
but
precisely by doing
that it reads
irony
the
wrong way.
Even
the definition of
irony
as
something
whose
meaning
cannot be
pinned
down can itself not be
pinned
down: it
brings
itself into
question
and is drawn into the
very
same
process
the
fragment goes
on to describe. The
attempt
to observe
irony
from
outside,
either as
something
whose
meaning
can be determined or as
something pro-
MLN 833
ducing
an infinite series of
contradictory meanings,
is itself
subject
to
irony. Irony
seems to
escape
definition even as
something
that
escapes
definition. This would then be
irony's
own
irony,
the
irony
of
irony (subjective genitive)
as
Schlegel
describes it in "On Incom-
prehensibility."
If
irony,
as seems to be the case in this
fragment
and
as
Schlegel
considers
possible,
"becomes,
as it
were,
ironical about
the author"
(KFSA 2:369; Wheeler, 37),
then the ironist's control
over his
irony
and his
privileged position
outside the
process
he has
started is in
danger.
Like the
apprentice
sorcerer,
he
might
have
put
something
in motion which he is in no
way
able to
steer,
and which
affects his own
position
as
well,
causing vertigo
and the loss of a
stable
standpoint.11
In such a
situation,
it can
only
be a
question
of
time before someone finds cause for alarm in
irony's peculiar
inde-
pendence
from
authority
and,
attempting
to reinstate a
regime
of
subjective responsibility,
blames it on the
ironist,
accusing
him of
incomprehensibility.
II.
Schlegel's Incomprehensibility:
Wer
(ver)steht,
daB er nicht falle
The
essay
"Uber die Unverstandlichkeit"
("On
Incomprehen-
sibility") appeared
in 1800 in the last issue of the
Athendum,
the
short-lived
literary journal
the brothers
Schlegel
had founded
just
two
years
earlier.12 It constitutes
Schlegel's
answer to the accusa-
tions of
incomprehensibility
that had been levelled
against
the
jour-
nal in
general
and his
fragments
in
particular,
and whose cause he
identifies with the
irony
"that to a
greater
or lesser extent is to be
found
everywhere
in it"
(368; Wheeler, 36).13
A
polemical
introduc-
tion,
in which several
contemporaries
(the
popular philosopher
Garve,
the chemist Girtanner and the
proponents
of "common
sense")
are made
objects
of more or less
pointed
attacks,
serves to
pave
the
way
to the middle
part
of the
essay,
which is devoted to the
alleged incomprehensibility
of the texts of the Athendum.
There,
Schlegel
first
quotes
the controversial
fragment
about the "three
greatest
tendencies of the
age"
(Athendum
Fragment
216)
and ex-
plains
to what extent and
why
it has been
misunderstood;
then he
discusses,
also with the
help
of
self-quotations
(the
Lyceum Frag-
ments 48 and
108),
the nature and effects of
irony.
The last
part
of
the
essay
discusses
incomprehensibility
in
general,
asks whether it is
"so
unmitigatedly contemptible
and evil"
(370; Wheeler, 38),
and
834 GEORGIA ALBERT
ends with a
"gloss"
based on Goethe which mocks the
opponents
of
the Athendum and of the Romantic circle in
general.
The main
problem
that
presents
itself to the reader of the
essay
is
that of the reconciliation of its
polemical
with its theoretical
aspects.
The text asks at the same time a theoretical
question
about the
possibility
of communication in
general, namely
"whether
[the]
communication
[of ideas]
is at all
possible"
(363; Wheeler, 32, TM),
and a
practical
one about the
alleged incomprehensibility
of the
texts of the Athendum; but it soon becomes clear that the theoretical
question
about
incomprehensibility
and the
practical question
about the
incomprehensibility
of the Athendum do not
produce
quite
the same answer. On the one
hand,
the
argument
about in-
comprehensibility
in
general
is
brought
in connection with the
structural
incomprehensibility
of
irony
and in
particular
with the
discussion of "Socratic
irony"
in the
Lyceum Fragment
108,
which is
quoted
almost in its
entirety.
An ironic
text,
the
argument
runs,
cannot be understood because it
produces
two
equally legitimate
but
mutually
exclusive
meanings;
moreover,
incomprehensibility
is
necessary
and
good:
"man's most
precious possession
...
depends
in the last
analysis
... on some such
point
of
strength
that must be
left in the
dark,
but that nonetheless shores
up
and
supports
the
whole burden"
(370; Wheeler, 38).
On the other
hand,
the
essay
is a
vehement attack
against
the
contemporary
readers,
who are accused
of
being
themselves
responsible
for
finding
the Athendum
incompre-
hensible: "the basis of the
incomprehensible
[des Unverstdndlichen]
is to be found in
incomprehension
[im
Unverstand]"
(363; Wheeler,
32-33).
Incomprehensibility,
it is
said,
is "relative"
(364; Wheeler,
33),
and
depends
on the
incompetence
either of the writer
(e.g.,
Garve)
or of the reader. Readers
just
have to "learn how to read"
(365; Wheeler, 33;
cf. also
371),
and the
problem
will be solved.
The
peculiar superposition
of these two
registers
in the text has
been noticed before and
differently interpreted
either as a
symptom
of
Schlegel's getting
carried
away
and not
being
calm
enough
to act
on his own theories of
ironyl4
or as a
particularly sophisticated way
to increase the confusion of the reader and therefore
put
the "basic
thought
of this
essay"-"praise
and
deeper justification
of incom-
prehensibility"'5-into practice:
"The
problem
of
incomprehen-
sibility
needs and looks for an
'incomprehensible'
form of
expres-
sion".16 There
might,
however,
be other
ways
to read this
difficulty
than
simply
as rhetorical success or failure. It
might
well be that
there is a structural
problem
at the base of the
disorganized impres-
MLN 835
sion the
essay
makes,
of the
hesitations,
interruptions,
and shifts
that characterize it. To write on the
possibility
or
impossibility
of
communication
is,
in
fact,
not an
easy
matter,
especially
when the
disturbance of communication is identified with
irony. Schlegel
himself comments on this
difficulty:
in the
introduction,
where he
tells about the
plan
he has had for a
long
time to talk to his readers
about
incomprehensibility,
he
says:
I wanted to
prove
that all
incomprehensibility
[ Unverstdndlichkeit]
is rela-
tive . . . and so that the whole business shouldn't turn around in too
palpable
a circle I had made a firm resolve
really
to be
comprehensible
[verstindlich],
at least this time....
Consequently
I had to think of some
popular
medium to bond
chemically
the
holy,
delicate,
fleeting, airy,
fragrant,
and,
as it
were,
imponderable thought.
Otherwise,
how
badly
might
it have been misunderstood
[miflverstanden],
since
only through
its
well-considered
[wohlverstandnen]
employment
was an end
finally
to be
made of all understandable
misunderstandings
[alien verstindlichen
Mifi-
verstindnissen]? (364; Wheeler, 33).
How is it
possible
to
speak comprehensibly
about
incomprehen-
sibility? Incomprehension
shows that there is a
problem,
and-in
the broadest terms-that the
problem
is connected with one's use
of
language.
An
argument tending
to the elimination of incom-
prehensibility,
since it makes use of
language just
like
any
other,
is
exposed
to the
very
same
problem
that it set out to eliminate.
Only
through
the
understanding
of the
argument
will
understanding
be
possible,
but this means that in order to understand the
argument
one has to have
already
understood it. A similar
problem
is
posed
for a text that
argues
about the
necessity
of
If
what it
says
is
true,
it has to be
incomprehensible;
but if it is incom-
prehensible
(in
Schlegel's
sense,
that is
by making
two
opposite
statements about its
topic,
in this case
incomprehensibility)
it will be
impossible
to tell what it is that it has to
say
about
incomprehensibility-whether
or not it
argues
for its
necessity.
The
form this
question
takes in "Uber die Unverstindlichkeit" is that of
the
difficulty
(or
impossibility)
of
interpreting irony.
On the one
hand,
the text is a discussion of the
problems posed by irony;
on the
other
hand,
it defines itself as an ironic text.17 Does it itself
pose
the
problems
it discusses? And in that
case,
is it able to
apply
its discus-
sion to itself?
One of the most
disturbing
moments in the text for the reader
who wants to find in it
"praise
and
deeper justification
of incom-
prehensibility"
is
Schlegel's explanation
of the so-called "Ten-
836 GEORGIA ALBERT
denzen"
fragment
(366-67; Wheeler, 34-35).
If the reason for the
incomprehensibility
of the Athendum is the
incompetence
of its
readers
(as
appears
to be
implied
at various
points
in the
essay),
then it should be
possible
to
explain away
the difficulties this text
has
posed.
And,
it
seems,
Schlegel
tries to do
just
that: he
quotes
the
fragment
and
explains,
with the full force of his
authority,
what he
had wanted to
say
with
it,
that
is,
how it should have been under-
stood. The "Tendenzen"
fragment, Schlegel argues,
is a
particularly
good example
of the
incompetence
of the readers of the
Athendum,
since the
way
in which it has been misunderstood follows a
precise
pattern:
the
misunderstanding
concerns the
parts
of the
fragment
that should have been
perfectly unambiguous,
while the
parts
of the
fragment
where the author had
consciously
inserted
ambiguities
have created no difficulties. The criterion for the
justification
of
difficulties in
interpretation
is,
once
again,
the
presence
or absence
of
irony.
The
part
of the
fragment that-according
to
Schlegel-
should not have been misunderstood is the
part
where
everything
was said "almost without
any irony
at
all,"
while the
part
that should
have been
incomprehensible
is where "the
irony begins"
("und
da
fangt
nun auch schon die Ironie
an," 366; Wheeler, 35).
The author
of the
fragment speaks
here with the full force of his
rights
and
lays
claim to
authority
over his own text. He can
say
with how much
irony
he has
spoken
("almost
without
any irony
at
all")
and above all
know with
certainty
where
irony begins:
"this is where the
irony
begins"
("da
. . .
fngt
die Ironie
an").
Precisely
at the
moment,
however,
when the author wants to exert his control over his own
text,
the text eludes this control and
says something
else. For the
irony
that
"begins"
at that
point
in the
explanation
is not
just
the
irony
that the author has
consciously
and on
purpose injected
into
the
fragment,
but
also,
and
perhaps
even
more,
another
irony-the
(tragic) irony,
no
longer
controlled
by
the
author,
of the fact that
the
fragment
has been read as ironical where it was meant
straight-
forwardly,
and taken
seriously
where there would have been reasons
to read
ironically.
The
attempt
to
anticipate
and steer the
expected incomprehen-
sion of the text
by providing
it on
purpose
with a measurable
amount of
ambiguity
is an
attempt
to
keep
control over the text.
Since one
expects
it to be
misunderstood,
one tries at least to influ-
ence the
way
in which the
misunderstanding
will take
place.
But the
misunderstanding
of the text cannot be
predicted
in advance and
cannot be controlled: one has to let it
happen.
This second
irony
MLN 837
that
"begins"
here
is, then,
already
the
"irony
of
irony"
of the end of
the
essay-the irony played by irony
at the
expense
of the ironist
who believes he is in
control,
the
irony
that "runs wild and can't be
controlled
any longer"
(369; Wheeler, 37).
In the
paragraph
about the
"irony
of
irony"
the text describes the
very
situation we have been
discussing
when it defines one version of
the
irony
of
irony
as "wenn man mit Ironie von einer Ironie
redet,
ohne zu
merken,
daB man sich zu eben der Zeit in einer viel auf-
fallenderen Ironie findet"-"when one
speaks
of
irony ironically
[literally:
with
irony]
without in the
process being
aware of
having
fallen into a far more noticeable
irony"
(369; Wheeler, 37, TM).
It is
possible
to read this as a
commentary
on the sentence "and this is
where the
irony begins."
We have the
irony of
which one
speaks
(the
irony
that
Schlegel
has
put
into his
fragment);
we have the "far
more noticeable
irony"
in which one finds oneself
(the
irony
of the
misunderstanding
of the
fragment);
and
finally,
we have the
irony
with which one
speaks, namely
the
irony
of the sentence "and this is
where the
irony begins,"
which on the one hand asserts the control
of the author over his text
(here
is where
irony
starts-and
you
didn't see
it)
and on the other hand denies it
by describing
the
situation in which the
irony
that the author had
put
into his text has
spread
out and infected other areas of the text that should have
been
"irony-free."
Not least affected
by
the
epidemic,
of
course,
is the sentence "und
da
fangt
nun auch schon die Ironie an"
("and
this is where
irony
begins"),
in which
nothing speaks against reading
the deictic "da"-
here/there-as
referring-also-to
itself. It is its own
irony
that the
sentence is
calling
attention to at least as much as the
irony
in/of
the "Tendenzen"
fragment,
and it is here that the movement be-
comes
dizzying
indeed. The
irony
"with which one
speaks,"
that
is,
the
irony produced
as well as named
by
the sentence "und da
fangt
nun auch schon die Ironie
an,"
can
hardly
be understood as inten-
tional. The text itself is now
producing
the effect of Socratic
irony-
the
ability
to make two
incompatible
statements. The two state-
ments
("I, author,
know what
happens
in
my
text" and
"my
text can
also mean
something
other than what I wanted it to
mean,
can also
be ironic
independently
of
my
will")
make
contradictory
claims
about the status of the author-and therefore of the
possibility
of
controlling
or
understanding irony.
The
explanation
of the "Tendenzen"
fragment
is where the
proof
for the
"relativity"
of
incomprehensibility
should be delivered. In-
838 GEORGIA ALBERT
comprehensibility
can
only
be "relative" if the author is
responsible
for his text: if he can show that and
why
it is
necessary
to read the
text in a
particular way.
But
precisely
at the moment where this
claim is
being
made,
the text
escapes
the control of the
author,
and
it is no
longer possible
to decide what it
says.
To
attempt
to
explain
irony
means to want to
prove
that it is
possible
to understand
it,
and
that to misunderstand it is not
necessary
but is due to
incompe-
tence. But the
argument
about the
comprehensibility
of
irony
is
made
by way
of a text that is ironic-and as a
consequence
incom-
prehensible.
The
irony
of the text contradicts what is said about
irony
in the text.
There is also an alternative
way
to read this
passage.
On the basis
of what can indeed be
recognized
as the "basic
thought"
of the
essay
("praise
and ...
justification
of
incomprehensibility,"
once
again
in
Strohschneider-Kohrs'
precise wording),
it would be
possible
to
argue-and
it has been done18-that the entire
explanation
of the
"Tendenzen"
fragment
is meant
ironically:
that it is
supposed
to
make fun of the "harmonious bores" who believe that it is
possible
to do such a
thing
as
explain irony
and who
keep complaining
about
incomprehensibility
without
understanding
its
necessity
and worth.
This
interpretation
would have the
advantage
of
being
able to recu-
perate
all the statements in the text about a
future,
better
genera-
tion of readers: these readers would not be "better" readers in the
sense that
they
would no
longer
misunderstand the texts of the
Athendum,
but rather in the sense that
they
would
accept
the incom-
prehensibility
of
irony
as
something necessary
and
good.
This would
confirm that the
unifying
concern of the text
is, indeed,
to
prove
that
irony
is
incomprehensible
and that there is a certain value to
it;
it would also clear
away
the
problem
created
by
the
attempted expla-
nation of the "Tendenzen"
fragment.
It would be
wrong,
however,
to assume that this solution makes the text come to rest on a unified
meaning,
on a unified definition of
irony.
In order to come to such
a unified
meaning,
it is
necessary
to read the
explanation
of the
"Tendenzen"
fragment
as
being
meant
ironically
and to understand
it
correctly by translating
it into its
opposite.
In other
words,
one has
to base one's
reading
on the
assumption
that the text
only pretends
to
explain irony,
while what it is
really saying
is that this is
impossi-
ble,
and what it is
really doing
is
making
fun of the
attempt.
But this
would mean that the statement that
irony
is
incomprehensible
is,
in
fact,
made
by way
of an ironical assertion of its
comprehensibility-
an ironical assertion that is
fully comprehensible:
the reader
hasjust
MLN 839
understood it
by simply translating
it into its
opposite.
This
solution,
therefore,
does
nothing
but
produce
a
parallel problem:
what is said
about
irony
in the text
(that
it is
incomprehensible)
is belied
by
the
irony
of the text
(which
is
comprehensible).
To summarize: we can read the text of the
explanation
as
being
meant
ironically
and translate it into its
opposite,
that
is,
read its
attempt
to
explain irony
as
actually meaning "irony
cannot be un-
derstood"; however,
since we have
obviously
understood the
irony
of
the
text,
what the text
says
about
irony
is contradicted
by
the com-
prehensibility
of its own
irony. Alternatively,
we can read the text as
attempting
to
prove irony
understandable,
but as
producing
an
ironic structure that is
precisely
not understandable since it makes
two
contradictory
statements
(about
the
understandability
of iro-
ny).
We have come back to the
problem
of the
beginning:
in what
way
is it
possible
to
prove
the
necessity
of
incomprehensibility?
In order
to
argue
for
it,
the text has to be
comprehensible-and
belie what it
says by being
able to
say
it.
Alternatively,
the text can be
incompre-
hensible
(make
two
opposite
statements about
incomprehen-
sibility),
but then it will not be
possible
to decide what it
says
about
The "education" of the reader consists in mak-
ing
him understand that it is not
possible
to
understand;l'
this
attempt,
however,
is
caught up
in its own
impossibility
and can do
nothing
but turn
permanently
on itself. The
irony
of the
essay
"Uber
die Unverstandlichkeit" is
already
an
"irony
of
irony,"
an
irony
to
the second
degree:
it consists in its
producing
two statements about
irony
which contradict not
only
each other but also themselves at
the same time. It is
irony's
own
irony
that the
attempt
to define and
therefore control it
(even
as what cannot be defined and
gets
out of
control)
can do
nothing
but
get
out of control.
Irony
turns back on
the ironist
by questioning
his
authority
over his
text,
his
ability
ever
to make it
say
what he would like it to
say,
and
finally
even the
possibility
of
speaking
about authorial intentions at all.20
Does this
mean, then,
that we have
finally
"understood" incom-
prehensibility,
and that we are the-somewhat
belated-competent
readers whose arrival on the scene is announced
by Schlegel
at the
end of the
essay?
About these readers he
says
that
they
will "be able
to savour the
fragments
with much
gratification
and
pleasure
in the
after-dinner hours"
(371; Wheeler, 38).
They
will "find ... A. W.
Schlegel's
didactic
Elegies
almost too
simple
and
transparent"
(371;
Wheeler, 38)-and
think that
they
have understood
everything.
But
840 GEORGIA ALBERT
precisely
for this reason
they
will not have understood.
They
will
have
forgotten
that "a classical text must never be
entirely compre-
hensible
[mufi
nie
ganz
verstanden werden konnen] ," as
Schlegel
warns,
unexpectedly, immediately
after his
praise
of the
competence
of
these future readers.
They
will have
forgotten
that it is
impossible
to
understand
everything
because the
meaning
of texts
deserving
of
this name
(those
which
Schlegel
considers, elsewhere,
"com-
plete"21)
does not let itself be totalized.
Precisely
when one believes
that one has understood
everything,
one has
forgotten
the
essential-namely,
that the text
says
also the
opposite
of what one
thinks one has understood.
Just
when one thinks one is
finally
out of
it,
one is
pulled
back into the vortex of the
sequence
of
readings just
as the author is
caught
in the double bind of his
attempt
to
produce
a
"complete"
text-in the
"unaufl6sliche[n]
Widerstreit... der
Unm6glichkeit
und
Notwendigkeit
einer
vollstandigen Mitteilung"
(Lyceum Fragment
108).
The back and forth of
necessity
and
impos-
sibility
of
complete
communication
(and
understanding)
is con-
demned to
go
on,
and the
feeling
of
"infinity"
which one is
sup-
posed
to
experience by way
of
irony
is not
something
that leaves the
subject
unaffected,
but is a movement one cannot stand outside
of,
a
vertiginous
vortex that makes one
"schwindlicht,"
dizzy.
And once
we are
again
aware of this
metaphor,
we should
perhaps
notice the
close connection between "verstehen"
(understanding)
and "steh-
en"
(standing)
and take the
very
last line of the
essay
as a
(serious?)
warning
to the reader: "Und wer
steht,
daB er nicht falle"-"And
who
stands,
that he
may
not fall."22
III. Permanent Parabasis
A further
aspect
of the
problem
of
irony
as
Schlegel
describes it can
be discussed on the basis of its
appearance
in association with a
vocabulary
borrowed from the world of the theater.
Thus,
for exam-
ple,
in the
Gesprdch
iiber die Poesie
(Dialogue
on
Poetry):
"Even in
quite
popular genres,
for
example
in
drama,
we
require irony:
we
require
that the
events,
the
people,
in short the whole
play [Spiel]
of life
should be taken and
represented
as
play [Spiel]"
(KFSA 2:323),23
or
in the much
quoted posthumous fragment
that defines:
"Irony
is a
permanent parabasis
[eine
permanente
Parekbase]
-"
(KFSA 18:85).
As
is well
known,
the
parabasis
is the
part
in Old Attic
comedy
in which
the chorus
temporarily steps
out of the linear
development
of the
plot
of the
play
and,
turning
around to face the
audience,
addresses
MLN 841
it
directly, making
reference to
contemporary public figures
and
events. In
Schlegel's
own
definition,
it is
a
speech
addressed to the
people
that the chorus delivered in the middle
of the
play
in the name of the
poet.
It was
really
a
complete interruption
and
breaking
off of the
play,
in
which,
as in the
play
itself,
reigned
the
greatest
lack of
restraint,
and the
chorus,
stepping
out all the
way
to the
edge
of the
proscenium
[das
bis an die Grenze des Proszeniums heraustretende
Chor],
would
say
the rudest
things
to the audience
(Geschichte
der euro-
pdischen
Literatur,
KFSA
11:88).
The
parabasis,
then,
is first of all an
interruption,
and the defini-
tion of
irony
as
"permanent parabasis,"
as continuous
interruption,
can be read as one more reference to
irony's ability
to
produce
two
lines of
meaning
that
constantly challenge
each other.24
However,
this
description
of
irony
and the one
given
in the
Gesprdch
iiber
die
Poesie
produce
a
slight
shift with
respect
to other ones. This shift is
due to their use of theatrical
vocabulary:
the two sides of
irony
are
not described as
simply denying
each
other,
but as
exposing
each
other as fictional. This becomes clear once one asks about the
signif-
icance of the
parabasis
inside a
play.
The
parabasis
is,
for the
play,
the
interruption
of the fictional illusion: more
precisely,
the
reality
that
opposes
itself to the fictional illusion. It
exposes
fiction
(Schle-
gel: "Spiel")
as fiction
by opening up
the closed world of the
stage
to
the "real" world of the
spectator
area. The coherence of the se-
quence
of events on the
stage
is
thereby disrupted,
and the
unity
and
meaning
of this
sequence
is shown to be fiction and therefore
arbitrary.
The
play
that is
interrupted by
a
parabasis
reflects on its
own
fictionality.
The
parabasis
connects
stage
and auditorium in an
unspoken agreement:
both audience and actors
recognize
the fic-
tion of the
play
as
fiction,
as
something
that can be
interrupted by
reality
at all times.
Reality always
reserves the
right
to unmask the
fiction,
and the consciousness of this
right
is what allows fiction to
go
on and to be tolerated as a world
separate
from
reality.
The
parabasis
is, however,
not
just
the
irruption
of
reality
in the
fiction:
by
the same
token,
it is the infiltration of fiction in
reality,
since the
interruption
of the fictional
illusion,
which shows the
play
to be fiction
by representing
itself as
reality,
is itself
exposed
as
fiction.
Structurally,
this is clear since the
parabasis occupies
the
same
position
in the
play
that the
play occupies
in
reality
(as
inter-
ruption
of the normal course of
things
which
is, however,
inter-
rupted
in its turn
by
the latter's
resumption);
but it is also clear from
842 GEORGIA ALBERT
the fact that the
parabasis represents
itself as
reality
with
respect
to
the
play,
i.e.,
plays reality just
as much as the
play
does. Within the
boundaries of the
play,
the
parabasis
takes itself
just
as
seriously
as
"reality"
does outside the
play;
but once the
parabasis
is shown to be
in its turn
merely play
of
reality,
the borders between
reality
and
fiction are no
longer
so
clearly
drawn.
The
parabasis
makes visible the border between
stage
and
specta-
tor area
by stepping up
to,
stepping
on,
or
overstepping
it. In Athe-
nian
comedy
this is
symbolized by
the actions of the chorus
which,
as
Schlegel says, goes up
all the
way
to the
edge
of the
proscenium
to
address the
spectators.
But what
happens
in this act is not
only
that
the actors on the
stage interrupt
the
development
of the
plot
and
recognize
themselves as
actors,
but that the audience itself
plays
a
role. The actors in the chorus "are" no
longer frogs
or
birds,
but
actors in a
chorus-they play
their real
identity.
In this situation it
can become difficult to decide whether the
audience,
to which a
role has also been
assigned
(it
is
addressed),
consists of citizens of
Athens or of
people
who are
playing
this role
(their
everyday
real-
ity).
The
unmasking
of the
play
as fiction can
only happen
to the
extent that it also at the same time
points
to the fact that
reality
might possibly
also be fiction: in
Schlegel's
words,
that the
"Spiel
des
Lebens"
might
be
just
that,
"Spiel."
In Old Attic
comedy
this
questioning
is
rigidly
structured and its
duration has a set limit. As soon as the
parabasis
ends and the
play
resumes,
the
spectators
can sit back and
recognize
themselves
again
as
spectators,
that
is,
as
reality by
contrast with the fiction of the
characters on
stage. Something
more akin to
Schlegel's
idea of the
"permanent
parabasis" might
be,
on the other
hand,
the list of
characters of Tieck's
play
Der
gestiefelte
Kater
(Puss-in-Boots),
where
one
finds,
side
by
side with the characters of the
King,
of
Gottlieb,
and of the cat
Hinze,
also that of the
"public"
("Das
Publikum").25
Since the various
spectator
characters who
play
an active role in the
comedy
are listed
individually
in the character list
("Fischer, Mfiller,
Schlosser, B6tticher, Leutner, Wiesener,
His
neighbor")
and are
helpfully
identified as
"Zuschauer,"
spectators,
"das Publikum" can
mean
nothing
other than the "real" audience that is in the theater
to see the
play.
But
by way
of its
presence
in the list of characters of
the
play,
the audience is at the same time there to watch
Dergestiefelte
Kater and to
play
in it: it is on the one hand the
reality
outside the
play
and,
on the
other,
since it has a
part
in
it,
part
of its fiction. In
this case the border between the
stage
and the
spectator
area,
be-
MLN 843
tween fiction and
reality, begins
to lose the characteristics of a
straight
line and risks
spiralling
into
infinity.
The
spectators
who
talk in the
lobby
before and after the
play might
never be able to
know whether
they
are
any
less fictional than the numerous
epi-
sodes that
interrupt
the
play
understood in a narrow sense
(the
tale
of the
cat)
and that
point
to its
fictionality only
to the extent that
they play reality.26
The ironical
spectator
(or
the ironist in
general)
is the one who
realizes that he is
always already
a character in the
play. Although
he
is
obviously
free to react as he
wishes,
his reactions (as
reactions of a
spectator
who
belongs
to the
play) belong
in turn to the
play
and
are a
part
of his role. Even his
knowledge
that he is
part
of the
play
is
part
of the
play;
even his self-reflection does not
belong
to
him;
even
his
irony
is ironized.
University of California,
Irvine
NOTES
Kritische
Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe,
ed. Ernst Behler with
Jean-Jacques
Anstett and
Hans Eichner
(Munich:
Sch6ningh,
1958-;
henceforth
KFSA),
vol.
18,
410. All
quotations
from
Schlegel
are from this edition and will be identified
by
volume
and
page
number in the main text. Translations of the Athendum and
Lyceum
("Critical") fragments
are
by
Peter Firchow and are
quoted
from Friedrich
Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota
Press,
1991;
henceforth
Fragments).
The translation of "Uber die Unverstandlichkeit"
is also Firchow's and is
quoted
from Kathleen
Wheeler, ed.,
German Aesthetic and
Literary
Criticism: The Romantic Ironists and Goethe
(Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni-
versity
Press, 1984).
All other translations are mine unless otherwise
specified.
Thanks to the teachers and
colleagues,
too numerous to name
here,
who
offered
generous
criticism, advice,
and
encouragement
on this
paper.
2
Johann
Gottlieb
Fichte,
Grundlage
der
gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (Hamburg:
Fe-
lix Meiner
Verlag,
1988), 32;
cf. also 45. A more extensive treatment of the
relationship
between
Schlegel
and
Fichte,
such as the recent ones
by Riidiger
Bubner
("Zur
dialektischen
Bedeutung
romantischer
Ironie,"
in Ernst Behler
and
Jochen
H6risch, eds.,
Die Aktualitdt der
Friihromantik
[Paderborn:
Sch6n-
ingh,
1987], 85-95);
Paul de Man
("The
Concept
of
Irony,"
in Aesthetic
Ideology,
ed.
Andrzej
Warminski
[Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota
Press,
forthcom-
ing]);
and Werner Hamacher
("Der
Satz der
Gattung:
Friedrich
Schlegels poe-
tologische Umsetzung
von Fichtes
unbedingtem
Grundsatz,"
MLN 95
[1980]:
1155-80)
would take us far afield here.
However,
it should be clear that the word
"Analyse,"
taken in this
sense,
leaves little room for an
understanding
of
irony
as
a movement
tending
to unification:
immediately
after the definition
just given,
Fichte
goes
so far as to rename the
"analytic process"
"antithetical,"
partly
on
the
grounds
that this new name
(i.e.,
"antithetisches
Verfahren")
"indicates
more
clearly
that this
process
is the
opposite
of the
synthetic
one"
(33).
Inter-
pretations
of this
fragment usually
miss the
reference,
taking
the word
"Analyse"
844 GEORGIA ALBERT
in an
everyday
sense,
and tend to be rather
unconvincing
as a result. For exam-
ple,
D. C. Muecke comments:
"Schlegel's meaning
is that
irony
does not take
sides but
regards
both sides
critically."
The
Compass
of Irony
(London:
Methuen
& Co:
1969),
200.
Similarly,
Anne K. Mellor
attempts
to make even this radical
statement fit her
fundamentally domesticating understanding
of
Schlegel's
texts. She writes: "This
philosophical
dialectic
[between
the infinite and the
finite,
the free and the
conditioned]
. . .
begins
with a
skeptical negation,
with
a 'critical examination' and
rejection
of
existing
beliefs and errors. It thus frees
the
imagination
to create a new
conception
of the
self,
of
society,
of nature. But
this new
conception
must,
in
turn,
be
subjected
to the same
ironic,
critical
analysis,
an
analysis
that
recognizes
its limitations and
failings.
It is in this sense
that
Schlegel
insists that
'Irony
is
analysis
of thesis and antithesis.'"
English
Romantic
Irony (Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press, 1980),
11.
In more
general
terms,
formulations of this kind on
Schlegel's part
have
tended to
pose problems
not
only
on a local level but also for
comprehensive
interpretations
of his
philosophical project.
To take one
symptomatic
instance,
Steven Alford's
study
of
Schlegel's critique
of traditional
logic
and of its connec-
tions with Romantic
irony
is strewn with affirmations such as the
following:
"[T]he
idea of
opposites
and their
synthesis
dominates
Schlegel's thinking.
Indeed,
as we have
just
seen the aim of
Schlegel's logic
is to
unify opposites."
Steven E.
Alford,
Irony
and the
Logic of
the Romantic
Imagination
(New
York: Peter
Lang,
1984),
51.
3 A valuable recent
commentary
on this
fragment
in its relation to the
larger
context of German Romantic and
post-romantic
notions of "Socratic
irony"
can
be found in Uwe
Japp,
Theorie der Ironie
(Frankfurt
a. M.: Vittorio
Klostermann,
1983),
113-33.
4
Oddly enough,
even writers on
irony
who claim
Schlegel
as an influence seem to
ignore
his
critique
of the rhetorical handbook version of
irony.
Lillian R.
Furst,
for
example,
states:
"Irony
can . . . be
regarded
as a secret
language,
a channel
of communication between the initiates....
[B]eneath
the
apparent
discon-
nection,
there must also be a connection if
irony
is to be
caught.
The overt
information is
accompanied by signals
that
negate
it,
and the
speaker
must
present
both codes in such a
way
that his interlocutor is able to
decipher
them
in their
contradictory conjunction."
Fictions
of
Romantic
Irony (Cambridge:
Har-
vard
University
Press, 1984),
15.
5 "There can therefore be no
way
of
settling
it once for all and to the satisfaction of
both
sides,
save
by
their
becoming
convinced,
since
they
are able so
admirably
to
refute one
another,
that
they
are
really quarreling
about
nothing,
and that a
certain transcendental illusion has mocked them with a
reality
where none is to
be found." Immanuel
Kant,
Kritik der reinen
Vernunft,
ed. Wilhelm
Weischedel,
vol. 2
(Frankfurt
a. M.:
Suhrkamp,
1968), 467;
Critique of
Pure
Reason,
trans.
Norman
Kemp
Smith
(New
York: St. Martin's
Press, 1965), 446,
TM.
A more modern version of this
attempt
to make
logical
contradiction harm-
less
by simply taking
a few
precautionary
measures can be found in W. V.
Quine's
classic
essay
"The
Ways
of Paradox."
There, Quine
classifies
paradoxes
as "veridical" and "falsidical"
paradoxes
and "antinomies." Since "veridical"
paradoxes
turn out to be
simply cleverly put
banalities
(someone
who was born
on
February
29 can be 21 after
only
5
birthdays)
and "falsidical" ones can be
proven
to be based on fallacies
(Quine's example
is the
proof
that 2 = 1 based
on a division
by 0),
the
only
"real"
paradoxes
turn out to be the
antinomies,
the
kinds of
paradoxes
that
produce
the conclusion that
something
is and is not.
Quine,
who as a
logician
is no less interested in the
preservation
of the
principle
of non-contradiction than Kant
is,
hastens to add that these
paradoxes,
too,
can
be solved
provided
one is
willing
to
give something up:
"An
antinomy produces
MLN 845
a self-contradiction
by accepted ways
of
reasoning.
It establishes that some tacit
and trusted
pattern
of
reasoning
must be made
explicit
and henceforward be
avoided or revised." "The
Ways
of
Paradox,"
in W. V.
Quine,
The
Ways of
Paradox
and Other
Essays (Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press, 1976),
5. One of the
problematic
habits to come under
scrutiny
is the use of the word "true."
For an
illuminating history
of the
controversy surrounding
the
potentially
disruptive
nature of a famous
antinomy,
see Richard
Klein,
"The Future of
Nuclear
Criticism,"
Yale French Studies 77
(1990):
76-100.
6
Aristotle,
Rhetorica. The Basic Works
of
Aristotle,
ed. Richard McKeon
(New
York:
Random
House, 1941),
1335-37.
7 Other
appearances
of the word in the notebooks confirm that it is
employed
consistently
in this sense. It functions as a
synonym
for "Demonstration" and
"Beweis" (in contrast to
"Darstellung"
as
linguistic representation)
in the con-
text of discussions of
philosophical writing (e.g.,
in KFSA
18:35)
and can be
found later in association with terms like "Mimos"
(KFSA 16:54)
and "Nach-
machen"
(KFSA 16:55).
8 "XA'OE...
chaos,
the first state of the universe.... 2.
space,
the
expanse of
air.... 2b.
infinite
time.... 3. the nether
abyss, infinite
darkness. ... 4.
any
vast
gulf
or chasm."
Henry George
Liddell and Robert
Scott,
A
Greek-English
Lexicon,
re-
vised
by
Sir H. S.
Jones
(Oxford:
Clarendon
Press, 1968).
9 See for
example Ingrid
Strohschneider-Kohrs,
"Der
Begriff
der Ironie in der
Konzeption
Friedrich
Schlegels,"
Die romantische Ironie in Theorie und
Gestaltung
(Tibingen:
Max
Niemeyer Verlag,
1960),
especially
39-41 and
70;
Franz Nor-
bert
Mennemeier,
"Fragment
und Ironie
beimjungen
Friedrich
Schlegel,"
Poet-
ica 2
(1968): 348-70,
especially
366;
Ernst
Behler,
"The
Theory
of
Irony
in
German
Romanticism,"
in Frederick
Garber, ed.,
Romantic
Irony (Budapest:
Akad6miai
Kiad6, 1988) 43-81,
especially
62 ff.
10 Eric Baker first
pointed
out to me that the "Schwindel"
implied by
the "schwind-
licht werden" can be understood not
only
in the more obvious sense of "dizzi-
ness,
giddiness"
but also in its second
meaning
as
lie, swindel,
or fraud. The
possibility
of this
wordplay
seems
especially significant
in a text that discusses
the
possibility
of
reading irony
as
Tduschung
or
deception. Corroborating
mate-
rial for this
reading
is
given by
a
passage
in Tieck's 1793
essay
on
"Shakespeares
Behandlung
des
Wunderbaren,"
referred to
by
Manfred Frank in his
Einfiihrung
in
diefriihromantische
Asthetik
(Frankfurt
a. M.:
Suhrkamp,
1989), 374,
where the
words Schwindel and
Tduschung
occur in the context of a discussion of the
ability
to deceive an audience into
believing
in an illusion. Tieck
compares
Shake-
speare's
treatment of the fantastic to the
dreamworld,
in which "our
ability
to
judge
is so confused that we
forget
the marks
by
which we
normally judge
the
real,
we find
nothing
on which to fix our
eyes;
our soul is sent into a sort of
dizziness
[in
eine Art von Schwindel
versetzt],
in which it
finally, by necessity,
abandons itelf to the illusion
[
Tduschung: deception],
since it has lost
sight
of all
the
markings
of truth and of error."
Ludwig
Tieck,
Kritische
Schriften,
vol. 1
(Leipzig:
Brockhaus, 1848),
57. If there is "swindel"
here, however,
it
might
turn
out that the swindler is not so
easy
to find.
11 Even recent commentaries on this
fragment
fail to note that the
gesture
it
performs
has much
farther-reaching consequences
than
simply
the
disabling
of
the
hierarchy
between initiates and outsiders. For
example, Joseph
A. Dane
observes: "Those who
enjoy
the
superiority
afforded
by irony
are not the elect
hearers who understand it: in
fact,
those who understand
irony
for what Schle-
gel says
it is
(deception)
are those who are most
thoroughly
deceived
by
it.
Rather,
those who can attain the
superior vantage
of the ironist are those who
have and
produce irony,
that
is,
other ironists."
Joseph
A.
Dane,
The Critical
Mythology of Irony
(Athens:
University
of
Georgia
Press, 1991),
112.
846 GEORGIA ALBERT
12 "Uber die
Unverstandlichkeit,"
KFSA 2:363-72. All
subsequent quotations
from
this
essay
will be identified in the text
by page
number
only.
13 For an exhaustive account of the
polemics surrounding
the
Athendum,
see Heinz
Hartl, "'Athenaum'-Polemiken,"
in Hans-Dietrich Dahnke and Bernd
Leistner,
eds.,
Debatten und Kontroversen. Literarische
Auseinandersetzungen
in Deutschland am
Ende des 18.
Jahrhunderts
(Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag,
1989),
246-357.
14 Strohschneider-Kohrs:
"[Schlegel]
is driven
by
the
fighting spirit
of the
polemic
and
by
his commitment to the
thought
he wants to
express....
The author of
the
essay
on
incomprehensibility
is not allowed into the
mystery
of the 'real
language,'
as he himself calls
it,
evidently
because he lacks the calm and confi-
dence to unfold the means and
principles
of the
expression
[des
Sagens]
itself
instead of
subordinating
them to what is
ex-pressed
[der
Aus-sage]"
(282).
15
Strohschneider-Kohrs,
275.
16 Ralf
Schnell,
Die verkehrte Welt: Literarische Ironie im 19.
Jahrhundert (Stuttgart:
Metzler, 1989),
18. See also
Ludwig
Rohner,
Der deutsche
Essay.
Materialien zur
Geschichte einer
Gattung
(Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1966),
152-66. In the same
line,
although speaking
more
generally,
Anne K. Mellor states that "romantic
irony
is a mode of consciousness or a
way
of
thinking
about the world that finds
a
corresponding literary
mode"
(Mellor, 24).
The
question
would be what that
"finding"
entails.
17
Repeatedly
in the course of the
essay
itself;
cf. also an allusion to the
essay
as a
"Fuge
von Ironie" in a letter from
Schlegel
to Schleiermacher
quoted
in Aus
Schleiermachers Leben. In
Briefen,
eds.
Ludwig Jonas
und Wilhelm
Dilthey,
vol. 3
(Berlin 1861),
191. An
analysis
that takes this dimension of the
essay
as its
starting point
is
Cathy
Comstock,
"'Transcendental
Buffoonery': Irony
as Pro-
cess in
Schlegel's
'Uber die
Unverstandlichkeit,'"
Studies in Romanticism 26
(1987):
445-64.
18
See,
for
example,
Hartl, 288-89;
also
Alford,
93.
19 See the "AbschluB des
Lessing-Aufsatzes"
("Conclusion
of the
Lessing Essay"):
"I
will tell
you quite briefly
and
clearly,
and should
you
nonetheless
complain
about
incomprehensibility
[Unverstindlichkeit],
as
you
did
up
to
now,
I
hope
to
make clear at least that it does not
depend
on the
expression
but on the
thing
itself. For the
rest,
I remain in this case
only
with the
pious
wish that
you may,
at
some
point, begin
to understand
understanding
[das
Verstehen zu
verstehen];
then
you
would become aware that the mistake is not at all where
you
look for
it,
and
you
would no
longer
delude
yourselves
with such confused notions and
empty
phantoms."
(KFSA 2:412).
20 Once
again, Schlegel's
text seems to be aware of the
problems
it has to face.
"The
only
solution,"
it
says,
"would be to find an
irony
that
might
be able to
swallow
up
all these
big
and little ironies and leave no trace of them at all...
But even this would
only
be a short-term solution. I fear that ... soon a new
generation
of little ironies would arise ....
Irony
is
something
one
simply
can-
not
play games
with
[Mit
der Ironie ist durchaus nicht zu
scherzen]." (369-70;
Wheel-
er
37, TM).
On the
strength
of the
parallelism
with the first
paragraph
of the
essay,
it is
possible
to understand the
"big irony"
as
something
like the abstrac-
tion of the
particular
in the universal: as the
"concept"
of
irony,
in other words.
A definition of
irony
would establish some kind of control over
it;
it
is, however,
impossible.
A moment in "Uber die Unverstandlichkeit" that could be
fruitfully
read with
respect
to the
question
of authorial intention is the
passage
on
Shakespeare's
"intentions"
(370;
Wheeler
37-38).
21 As in the note
quoted
above:
"Every
sentence,
every
book that does not contra-
dict itself is
incomplete."
22
Perhaps
more
clearly,
in its
syntactical completeness: "Sorge
... wer steht daB
MLN 847
er nicht falle"-"Watch ... who stands that he
may
not fall"
(372: Wheeler, 40,
TM).
This last
line,
which concludes both the satirical
"gloss"
that closes the
essay
and
Goethe's-serious?-poem "Beherzigung,"
has
good
reasons to warn
us once
again
that we
might
not be able to
keep
our
balance,
since it
repro-
duces,
in a
wholly
new
way,
the
very
tension we have been
discussing.
It is not
simply
a
question
of
being
able to find the "boundaries between the enuncia-
tion said to be assumed
by
Goethe and its transformation
by Schlegel,"
as
Marike
Finlay argues
(The
Romantic
Irony of
Semiotics: Friedrich
Schlegel
and the
Crisis
of Representation
[New
York: De
Gruyter,
1988], 233),
but of
being
able to
attribute
authorship
and
authority
for the text as a whole. Within the context of
the
"gloss,"
the sentence is at the same time Goethe's and
Schlegel's,
and falls
under the
authority
of both and of neither of them. It
thematizes,
once
again,
the
problem
of the
essay-the
loss of control. For a
very
lucid discussion of the
related
problem
of the
"ghostly" play
of the letter in
Schlegel's
text,
see
Birgit
Baldwin,
"Irony,
that
'Little,
Invisible
Personage':
a
Reading
of
Kierkegaard's
Ghosts,"
MLN 104
(1989):
1124-41.
23 Anne K. Mellor
simplifies things
somewhat when faced with the word
"Spiel"
in
this statement: in her
view,
Schlegel
sees "this active
embracing
of chaos as an
enjoyable game"
(Mellor, 24).
There would
seem, however,
to be more at stake
in the remark: what would be the
necessity
of
"requiring" something
that causes
such fun?
For a discussion of
irony's relationship
to
"Spiel,"
see
Hans-Jost Frey,
Der
unendliche Text
(Frankfurt
a. M.:
Suhrkamp,
1990),
272-76.
24 It is in this sense that this
expression
has been most often read.
J.
Hillis
Miller,
for
example, glosses:
"A
parabasis momentarily suspends
the line of the action.
Irony
is a
permanent parabasis.
This means it
suspends
the line all
along
the
line." Fiction and
Repetition:
Seven
English
Novels
(Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press, 1982),
105. See also Paul de
Man,
"The Rhetoric of
Temporality,"
Blind-
ness and
Insight: Essays
in the Rhetoric
of Contemporary
Criticism,
2nd ed.
(Min-
neapolis: University
of Minnesota
Press, 1983), 218-22,
and "The
Concept
of
Irony."
More
recently,
Marike
Finlay
has
argued-in
Gerard Genette's
vocabulary-that
"in
permanent parabasis,
what is
supposed
to occur is a
per-
manent
cancelling
out of mimesis
by
the
diegetic
act"
(Finlay, 225),
and further
that
"[a]ll
that we have is
permanent
continuous
diegesis
in
permanent para-
basis,
since a
permanent
destruction of the illusion of
reality
in imitation means
no imitation at all"
(230).
But
clearly
if this were the case there would be no
need for
parabasis
to be
"permanent,"
since the illusion would be
destroyed
once and for all. The need for
permanence
is
given precisely by
the
impossibility
of
destroying
illusion once and for
all,
by
the
endlessly
acute tension
provoked
by
the
co-presence
of illusion and the destruction of illusion.
Perhaps
less
frequently
noted is the fact that once
again Schlegel's irony
turns
out to be articulated
precisely
around the intersection-and
interruption-
between an
example
or instance
(or
epideixis)
and a statement about that
example.
In this
case,
the
ability
of the
expression "permanent parabasis"
to
function as a definition of
irony
is at least
complicated by
the fact that it is
ironic-de Man calls
it,
in "The
Concept
of
Irony," "violently paradoxical"-in
its own turn. "Permanent" and
"parabasis"
are words that cannot
go together,
since
parabasis-interruption-is only possible against
the
background
of
something
that is
interrupted. Interruption
is
punctual
and acts on
something
linear; here,
interruption
itself becomes linear-an
impossible
transformation.
This is
presumably
one of the reasons
why
Kevin
Newmark,
in a recent
essay,
calls this
fragment
"the most
self-resisting
definition of
irony [Schlegel]
ever
gave"-self-resistance,
that
is,
permanent parabasis, being
the structure that
Newmark shows to be
constitutive,
as well as
disruptive,
of the Romantic
project
848 GEORGIA ALBERT
understood as
literary theory,
as the
attempted
unification of literature and
philosophy.
See Kevin
Newmark,"L'absolu
litteraire. Friedrich
Schlegel
and the
Myth
of
Irony,"
MLN 107
(1992):
905-30.
25
Ludwig
Tieck,
Dergestiefelte
Kater,
Schriften,
vol. 5
(Berlin:
G.
Keimer, 1828),
164.
The translation used is
Ludwig
Tieck,
Der
gestiefelte
Kater.
Puss-in-Boots,
ed. and
trans. Gerald
Gillespie
(Austin: University
of Texas
Press, 1974),
35.
26 This situation is of course
complicated by
its
reinscription
inside the
play-a
further instance of
vertiginous
violation of
borders,
of multidirectional and
crossed mise-en-abime. In a scene discussed
by
Manfred
Frank,
two of the char-
acters of the
play
within the
play
of Der
gestiefelte
Kater,
the
palace
tutor Leander
and
Hanswurst,
"Jackpudding,"
discuss a new
play
called Der
gestiefelte
Kater on
the
basis,
among
other
things,
of the
accuracy
of its
depiction
of the audience.
At this
point
Fischer,
one of the
spectator
characters of the
"larger" play,
inter-
rupts
the
exchange:
"Das Publikum? Es
kommtja
kein Publikum in dem Sticke
vor!"
("The
public? Why,
no
public appears
in the
play." Dergestiefelte
Kater, 252;
Puss-in-Boots, 109).
Frank
(349-50)
comments
by distinguishing
the audience in
the
play
from the "real" audience in the theater and
by pointing
to the fact that
the
depiction
of the
spectator
characters as
stupid (they
are "so narrow-minded
that
they
are
incapable
of
reflecting
on their own
implication
in the
plot")
also
applies
to the real audience since the discussion between the "fake"
spectators
in the
play
is about the
accuracy
of the
play's depiction
of the characters. If the
play's depiction
is
good,
as Leander
claims,
then the "real" audience shares with
the "fake" one its main characteristic-its
inability
to
recognize
itself as
part
of
the
plot.
The fact that this structure is
repeated
one more time in a
place
outside the boundaries of the
play
within the
play
as well as of the "frame"
play
Der
gestiefelte
Kater, however,
makes this
problem
into a much more
urgent
one
for the "real" audience. It is no
longer
a
question
of
being depicted,
but of not
knowing
whether one
might
be oneself the
depiction.

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Understanding Irony: Three Essais on Friedrich Schlegel

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