Citation

Tang C. Orbis Litterarum 1998; 53(4): 105-116.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1600-0730.1998.tb00593.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

"Nature" counts among the favourite concepts deployed by discourse formations of modernity. This paper examines the two seemingly opposite conceptual paradigms in respect to the notion of nature: on the one hand, the conception of "nature" as oneness, that which resists mediation and on the other hand, the opposing conception of nature as that which has to be mediated, that which the subject has to challenge and keep at bay. These two conceptions of nature are exemplified respectively by Goethe's Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (1774) and Storm's Der Schimmelreiter (1888), the two probably most memorable literary texts about suicide in German literature. This reading of these two canonical texts in German literature seeks to analyse the intrinsic instability of both of the conceptual paradigms, demonstrate the inevitability of their implosion and indicate the urgency of re-orientation in our thinking about nature. Copyright © Munksgaard 1998.

Language: en