Figures of simplicity: sensation and thinking in Kleist and Melville

179 Pages·2011·1.28 MB·English

by  Kaiser, Birgit Mara, Melville, Herman, Kleist, Heinrich von

PHILOSOPHY / LITERATURE

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f Figures of Simplicity explores
i (cid:20)(cid:8)(cid:16)(cid:20)(cid:5)(cid:21)(cid:12)(cid:17)(cid:16)(cid:1)(cid:5)(cid:16)(cid:7)(cid:1)(cid:21)(cid:11)(cid:12)(cid:16)(cid:13)(cid:12)(cid:16)(cid:10)(cid:1)(cid:12)(cid:16)(cid:1)(cid:3)(cid:14)(cid:8)(cid:12)(cid:20)(cid:21)(cid:1)(cid:5)(cid:16)(cid:7)(cid:1)(cid:4)(cid:8)(cid:14)(cid:23)(cid:12)(cid:14)(cid:14)(cid:8)
g a unique constellation of figures from
u
r philosophy and literature—Heinrich von
e
s Kleist, Herman Melville, G. W. Leibniz, and

o
Alexander Baumgarten—in an attempt to
f

s recover alternative conceptions of aesthetics
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m
and dimensions of thinking lost in the
Birgit Mara Kaiser is Assistant
p
Professor of Comparative Literature at li disciplinary narration of aesthetics after Kant.
c This is done primarily by tracing a variety
Utrecht University in the Netherlands. i
t
y of “simpletons” that populate the writings

of Kleist and Melville. These figures are not

entirely ignorant, or stupid, but simple. Their
simplicity is a way of thinking, one that Birgit
Mara Kaiser suggests is affective thinking.
Kaiser avers that Kleist and Melville are
experimenting in their texts with an affective

mode of thinking, and thereby continue a key
line within eighteenth-century aesthetics:
B the relation of rationality and sensibility.
i
r Through her analyses, she offers an outline
g
i of what thinking can look like if we take
t

M affectivity into account.
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a

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A Volume in the SUNY series,
Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory
Rodolphe Gasché, editor State University of New York Press
www.sunypress.edu
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Figures of Simplicity
SUNY series, Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory
Rodolphe Gasché
Figures of Simplicity
Sensation and Thinking
in Kleist and Melville
Birgit Mara Kaiser
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2011 State University of New York
Cover illustration, photograph of “The Match” (2003, fabric and Styrofoam) by Frances
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kaiser, Birgit Mara.
Figures of simplicity : sensation and thinking in Kleist and Melville / Birgit Mara Kaiser.
p. cm. — (Suny series, intersections: philosophy and critical theory)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3229-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Melville, Herman, 1819–1891—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Kleist, Heinrich von,
1777–1811—Criticism and interpretation. 3. Thought and thinking in literature.
4. Senses and sensation in literature. 5. Literature, Comparative—American and German.
6. Literature, Comparative—German and American. I. Title.
PS2388.T53K35 2010
813'.3–dc22
2009054369
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Il y a deux manières de dépasser la fi guration (c’est-à-dire à la fois l’illustratif
et le narratif): ou bien vers la forme abstraite, ou bien vers la Figure.
Cette voie de la Figure, Cézanne lui donne un nom simple: la sensation.
La Figure, c’est la forme sensible rapportée à la sensation.
La sensation, c’est le contraire du facile et du tout fait, du cliché, mais aussi
du « sensationnel », du spontané, etc. La sensation a une face tournée vers
le sujet […] et une face tournée vers l’objet […]. Ou plutôt elle n’a pas de
faces du tout, elle est les deux choses indissolublement […].
Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon.
Logique de la Sensation
v

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction: On Subterranean Connections xiii
1. Aesthetics: Sensation and Thinking Reconsidered 1
The Copernican Turn 7
The Folds of Small Perceptions 11
Sensate Thinking 19
Figures of Simplicity 22
2. Sentimentalities 27
Befuddling the Senses (The Betrothal in St. Domingo) 31
Spectacularly Simple: Well-Willingly Seeing Nothing
(Benito Cereno) 41
Sentimentalizing Resentment 53
3 . Affectivity 56
Resolute Simplicity (Billy Budd, Sailor. An inside narrative) 62
Calculating Mindlessness (Michael Kohlhaas) 76
Baroque Heroes 85
4. Insistence 88
On Passive Resistance
(Bartleby, the Scrivener. A story of Wall-Street) 90
vii
Figures of Simplicity
Lingering before Consciousness
(Das Käthchen von Heilbronn oder Die Feuerprobe) 96
Supersensible Figures of the Fold 109
5 . Conclusion 113
Notes 120
Bibliography 139
Index 146
viii