Selected Prose of Heinrich Von Kleist by Heinrich von Kleist

Author:Heinrich von Kleist [Kleist, Heinrich von]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: German, Fiction, Literary, Literary Criticism, Short Stories, European
ISBN: 9780982624678
Publisher: Archipelago Books
Published: 2010-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

ON THE GRADUAL FORMULATION OF THOUGHTS WHILE SPEAKING

To R. v. L.*

· · ·

If you want to know something and can’t find it out through meditation, then I advise you, my dear, quick-witted friend, to talk it over with the next acquaintance you happen to meet. It doesn’t have to be a sharp-witted thinker, nor do I mean to imply that you should seek your interlocutor’s counsel: not at all! But rather, to begin with, just tell it to him. I see you’re looking puzzled, and promptly responding that you were taught in childhood not to speak of anything but matters you already fully grasp. But back then you probably directed your curiosity toward others; I want you to speak with the sensible purpose of enlightening yourself, and so, applied differently in different circumstances, both precepts may well be able to subsist side by side. The Frenchman says, l’appétit vient en mangeant,* and this experiential verity still applies if we parody it and say, l’idée vient en parlant.† Often I sit at my desk bent over my law books, and wracking my brain over some twisted disputation, attempt to find the optimal angle from which best to decide the matter. Then I generally stare directly into the light so as to try to illuminate at the brightest point possible the great effort with which my innermost being is gripped. Or else if faced with an algebra problem, I look, sometimes to no avail, for the first equation that expresses the given conditions, and whose subsequent solution can readily be established by simple calculation. But listen, my friend, if I speak of it with my sister, who is seated behind me and busy over her own business, I promptly find the solution that I might never have found in hours upon hours of brooding. It is not as if she literally spelled it out for me; for neither does she know the law books nor has she ever studied Euler or Kästner.‡ Nor is it as if she had led me with insightful questions to the salient point, although this may very well happen often enough. But because I do have some kind of an obscure inkling that harbors a distant relation to that which I am seeking, if only I utter a first bold beginning, as the words tumble out, the mind will, of necessity, strain to find a fitting ending, to prod that muddled inkling into absolute clarity, such that, to my surprise, before I know it the process of cognition is complete. I mix in unarticulated sounds, draw out the conjunctions, add an apposition, even though it may not be necessary, and make use of other speech-stretching rhetorical tricks to gain time enough to hammer out my idea in the workshop of reason. Nothing, meanwhile, is more helpful than a gesture from my sister, as though she wished to interrupt; for my, in any case, already strained mind will only be all the more roused by this external attempt

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.