Berlin and the Enlightenment
At least two texts foreshadow what German literature will become, but their specific features point to necessary future developments. For example, Hildebrand's Song, composed in the ninth century, does not strictly speaking have a linguistic unity, since it contains passages in High German and others in Low German, all mixed with external idioms. The Song of the Nibelungen, which dates from the 13th century, is a Germanic revival of a tale that had previously appeared in Scandinavia. Since then, two men are considered to have given German literature the foundations on which to build its greatness, the two keys that allow the soul of a nation to reveal itself through the letters: unity of language and originality of themes.
Martin Luther, by offering his personal translation of the Bible in a language understandable to the greatest number, opens the first door. Goethe, by making writing a vector of emotions and becoming a symbol of the German "Sturm und Drang" with one of his greatest texts, The Suffering of the Young Werther
(1774), opens the second. In spinning the metaphor, Berlin too will have to undergo metamorphoses before being able to access its plural and unique identity: reduced to ashes in the 14th century, losing in freedom what it gained in population in the 15th century, bereaved by the Thirty Years' War in the 17th century, the dawn of the 18th discovered it as the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia, while the 19th promoted it to the rank of capital of the German Empire.It was during this pivotal period that the Enlightenment, Aufklärung, emerged, of which Moses Mendelssohn was one of the most representative authors. Born in Dessau in 1729, he died in Berlin in 1786. Son of a rabbi, self-taught, the recognition of the fruit of his reflections is supported by his decisive meeting with Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781). The latter was a writer and critic, but above all he was the leader of Berlin intellectuals. Moreover, he, who otherwise asserted German identity, ignoring French influence, published a drama entitled Die Juden in 1749. He was thus particularly receptive to Mendelssohn's work at a time that was not necessarily very open to religious differences. Lessing edited, without even asking Mendelssohn's consent but preserving the latter's anonymity, Conversations philosophiques, a text that stands out. It is in this vein, by advocating tolerance and seeking to create links between Jewish thought and German philosophy, that Mendelssohn will continue, speaking in an epistolary manner with Emmanuel Kant whom he will influence, the philosopher paying homage to him in his famous Critique of Pure Reason
. As a reaction to the Enlightenment, but although in concrete terms the aim is the same - to question the possibility of man's access to freedom, whatever the means, even if it means opposing the ruling authorities - the movement known as "Sturm und Drang" (Storm and Drang) appears, literally Storm and Passion, whose name is borrowed from a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger. This movement, which wanted to break with tired conventions and knew how to be disputed, culminated in the work of Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller. The way for Romanticism to emerge is open, Berlin will become one of its centres of importance.From Romanticism to War
If the Portuguese have their saudade, the Germans experience their sehnsucht, a wave with a soul that embraces and swoons in almost gothic settings, dark forests or decaying castles. Romanticism no longer possesses the almost political will to educate the crowds that could be felt in the Sturm und Drang. Here the desire is born from the desire to harmonize opposites, to exacerbate the feeling, and sometimes takes on a mysterious patina that makes sense in the work of E. T. A. Hoffmann. Born in 1776 in Königsberg, he settled in Berlin in the summer of 1798 for a short stay. The man moved frequently, but he nevertheless remained an influential member of the literary circles that multiplied in Berlin at the beginning of the century, soon rivaling those that were the precursors of Jena, such as the Nordstern (North Star) or the Serapio Brothers' evenings organised in 1818 by Clemens Brentano, the author of Lore Lay. D'Hoffmann's music is still with us, of course, especially that of the opera Ondine , the libretto of which was written by his friend Friedrich de La Motte-Fouqué, author of the eponymous tale, but also some novels(Les Élixirs du Diable and Le Chat Murr resté inachevé) and especially his Contes fantastiques.
Berlin is also enlivened by the presence of Joseph von Eichendorff, whose reputation is immense in Germany although it has not really crossed borders. De la vie d'un vaurien: fantasie romanesque has however been translated by Les Belles Lettres in 2013. Let us also mention Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who died in Berlin in 1814 and who, following in Kant's footsteps, became one of the theorists of Romanticism, laying down the principles of German idealism. Many intellectuals have participated in this far-reaching and far-reaching movement. Thus while Achim von Arnim collected popular songs, Ludwig Tieck, a close friend of Novalis, used old legends to give life to new versions, his Booty Cat
remained in the annals of a town that saw the famous Grimm brothers die in 1859 and 1863.Another genre emerges during this ambitious century, and the expectation is old to believe Lessing who already in 1767 was sorry that the country has no theatre, no actors, no spectators. The production of Heinrich von Kleist, who committed suicide in 1811 at the age of 34 after a short life surrounded by periods of depression, will partly change the situation. His Broken Jug
- an ironic comedy - is programmed by Goethe in 1808 in Weimar. In Berlin, it was above all the creation of the Deutsches Theater in 1883 by Adolf L'Arronde that was decisive.Taking over from the Théâtre Royal, where conservatism had previously reigned, this new stage was very quickly directed by Otto Brahm, who did not hesitate to programme the premiere of Before the Sunrise (Vor Sonnenaufgang
) by a very young playwright, Gerhart Hauptmann, future Nobel Prize winner for literature (1912), whose naturalist outbursts which were part of the revolt of the oppressed classes did not please Emperor Wilhelm II. Otto Brahm also gave his chance to Max Goldmann who hid his Jewishness, at the time, under the pseudonym of Reinhardt. Born in 1873, Goldmann was destined to become one of those who would revolutionize stage direction, working at the Deutsches Theater, where he was director for a time. Before that, he initiated the founding of the satirical cabaret Schall und Rauch in 1901. His talent and modernist conception led him to conquer America, a second homeland where he found refuge when the Nazi forces gained strength. For the time being, it is the first world conflict which sees the end of a period which is nevertheless full of promise, if we are to believe the successes of Thomas Mann or Stefan Zweig, and although both will draw from the Great War material to nourish their talent and their pacifist convictions.After the defeat, however, Berlin experienced a new effervescence, and in the 1920s the Goldenen Zwanziger family marked it with the seal of European cultural capital. The year 1919 saw the publication of the anthology Menschheitsdämmerung by Kurt Pinthus, which brought together the poets of German Expressionism, a literary monument described as an avant-garde experiment that was burnt down during the Nazi-orchestrated autodafé on 10 May 1933. Berlin saw the rise of Bertolt Brecht, who made his mark at the Deutsches Theater, while the city itself became a stage for the famous novel by Alfred Döblin (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
(1929), which was also thrown into the flames.Finally, Berlin is a field of exploration for a young journalist, Philip Roth, whose Les Belles Lettres had the good idea of collecting the articles in À Berlin. A Blue Angel - an adaptation of Heinrich Mann's novel, Professor Unrat - received the final public ovations in 1930 before fascism finally fell on the world and forced many intellectuals into exile, even if some preferred suicide. Long before a wall was erected overnight and cut in half in 1963, Berlin was struggling to recover from a war that had left it bloodless. And if a new generation of authors decided in 1945 to launch a cultural magazine and then to meet within the Group 47, it is Munich that is witnessing this revival, and not Berlin, which nevertheless inspires novels and testimonies of scale, including of course Seul dans Berlin by Hans Fallada, which evokes the memory of a couple of resistance fighters, Elise and Otto Hampel, and Une Femme à Berlin
, an autobiographical tale that remained anonymous until the name of its author, Marta Hillers, was revealed in 2003. After the fall of the Wall, the reunified city became a place of all possibilities and aroused the interest of local and international authors, as confirmed by the many titles that evoke it. The Belgian Jean-Philippe Toussaint seized it in 2002 in La Télévision, Wilfried N'Sondé made it the backdrop for a great love in Berlinoise in 2015, and four years later the narrator of Samy Langeraert consoled himself with a break in Mon temps libre (Verdier). Above all, L'Herne translates Enfance berlinoise by Walter Benjamin, and the great Edgar Hilsenrath concludes his novel cycle with a very moving text, Terminus Berlin, available from Le Tripode editions. A literature of the turning-point, wendeliteratur, which has no doubt not finished surprising us if we are to believe the story of Helene Hegemann, which was praised before being banned for plagiarism, where she herself saw nothing but the creation of a new writing technique.
