Ludwig Tieck’s Italian journey of 1805–6 is usually considered to be a turning point in the life and oeuvre of this author. The poetological and aesthetic differences between works he wrote before and after the time in Italy cannot be ignored. The lived experience of early romanticism turns into ‘remembered romanticism’ in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and in ‘Reisegedichte eines Kranken’ and ‘Rückkehr des Genesenden’, both of which were composed during the Italian journey, the ironic playfulness of ‘Universalpoesie’ seemingly makes way for a realistic view both of experiences gained in Italy and of the contingency of history. However, a closer look at the realism of the ‘Reisegedichte’ reveals traces of exactly that early romanticism from which the poems allegedly depart. The introductory poems, in particular, constitute a poetic and self-referential framework for the double cycle that connects the texts to Tieck’s earlier ideas on aesthetics. Tieck’s realism, this essay argues, is less the result of a complete reorientation in his aesthetics than it is a realignment of early romantic modes of thought.

Le but de notre étude était d'identifier des structures « analogues au mythe » dans des textes en prose du préromantisme allemand. La théorie sur laquelle nous nous appuyons est la théorie du « mythe formel » selon Clemens Lugowski. Notre hypothèse était qu'il y avait très souvent, dans les romans et contes du préromantisme allemand, des structures et qualités « mythiques » (au sens de mythe formel) qui sont liées de façon équivoque à des structures narratives modernes. Ces structures mythiques et prémodernes se manifestent particulièrement dans la motivation de l'action et dans l‘accumulation des motifs fatidiques et généalogiques. Notre étude a été réalisée en trois étapes. Dans un premier temps, nous avons analysé, discuté et adapté les théories de la motivation narrative et du mythe formel. Puis, nous avons élargi le sujet d’un point de vue de l’histoire culturelle, en expliquant le rôle du mythe, de la mythologie et du concept romantique de la « nouvelle mythologie » ainsi que l’idée de généalogie à la fin du 18ème siècle en Allemagne. Nous avons conclu la partie historico-culturelle par un chapitre sur la situation des éditions, des auteurs et de la littérature populaire vers 1800. Ensuite, nous avons concentré les analyses des textes sur des structures mythiques qui apparaissaient dans les motifs, dans la forme et dans les péritextes des contes et romans du préromantisme allemand. Notre corpus de textes se composa de romans et contes de Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Clemens Brentano, Dorothea Veit et Novalis. / The aim of our study was to identify "myth-like" structures in prose texts of German early Romanticism. The theory on which we rely is the theory of the "formal myth" according to Clemens Lugowski. Our hypothesis was that in the novels and tales of German early Romanticism there were very often "mythical" structures and qualities (in the sense of a formal myth) that are linked equivocally to modern narrative structures. These mythical and premodern structures are particularly evident in the motivation of action and in the accumulation of fateful and genealogical motives. Our study was carried out in three steps. In a first step, we analyzed, discussed and adapted the theories of narrative motivation and formal myth. Then we broadened the subject from a historico-cultural perspective, explaining the contemporary role of myth, mythology and the romantic concept of the "new mythology" as well as the idea of genealogy at the end of the 18th century in Germany. We concluded the historico-cultural part with a chapter about the situation of editions, authors and popular literature around 1800. We then concentrated the analyzes of the texts on mythical structures that appeared in the motifs, in the form and in the peritexts of the tales and novels of German early Romanticism. Our corpus of texts consisted of tales and novels by Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Clemens Brentano, Dorothea Veit and Novalis.

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Since its entry into the literary field in the late eighteenth century, the vampire has seen many permutations, ranging from the truly monstrous to the present-day seductive stranger. The creature’s mutability stems from its liminal placement, hovering as it does between life and death. In exploring the figure of the vampire within the Germanic tradition, two works separated not only by medium, but also by nearly a century of time, emerged as the focus of this thesis: Ludwig Tieck’s Romantic Kunstmärchen “Der Runenberg” and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Expressionist film Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens. Superficially, this link appears tenuous, but in analyzing Tieck’s fairy tale and Murnau’s neo-Romantic film several thematic connections emerge. Both works contain a complex and fluid depiction of gender, a narrative of infection, and a vampire that is an embodiment and corruption of nature. Using a syntagmatic approach, this thesis explores the similarities between the two works, as well as the differences, with a focus on the element of vampiric nature and the representations of gender. / Graduate

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This dissertation explores the intimate relationship between irony and romantic subjectivity, by drawing on feminist psychoanalytical theory, via an examination of the shiftings of irony, and humor, in the works of the Swedish romanticist P. D. A. Atterbom (1790–1855). It looks at the critical role played by irony in the formation of Romantic subjectivity, and explores irony’s potential to undermine dualistically gendered notions of subject-object relations. For Atterbom, irony is an aesthetic concept closely related to drama, informed not only by German Romantic-ironic theorists such as Friedrich Schlegel and Jean Paul, but also by the works of Shakespeare, Ludwig Tieck, and E. T. A. Hoffmann. The thesis follows the shiftings of Romantic irony in Atterbom’s major literary texts: the cycle of poems Blommorna [The Flowers] (1811), where the Ovidian transformations are used metafictively to play with the relation between poet, poem, and reader; and the literary satire Rimmarbandet [The Rhyme Band] (1810), which, inspired by Tieck’s Der Gestiefelte Kater (1797), uses the metafictive theatre-in-the-theatre motif, as well as carnivalesque and grotesque motifs to expose contrived theatricality and homosocial misogyny in the prevailing culture. The dynamic between the satirist’s subject and the attacked object is a polarized power struggle, where revolt is followed by submission. In this respect, Romantic satire is here conservative. In the fairy tale play Lycksalighetens ö [Island of Felicity] (1824–27), tragedy’s irony is a dialectic between the ideal and the real that strives to create both inner and outer renewal. The play reaches out metafictively to the reader and turns her/him into the poet of a new version of the fairy tale. The reading/writing process inscribed in the work thus becomes a form of renewal and liberation from grief, and old, patriarchal gender roles. Finally, the humorous, unfinished idyll Fågel Blå [Blue Bird] (1814, 1818, 1858) is a work in many pieces, a fragment, a sketch and a non finito that together stages a restorative creative process, where the reader is asked to take part in joining together the scattered parts of Blue Bird itself. To conclude, irony is a feature of Romanticism, which makes the Romantic, literary subject relational and dialogical, open to its Other, and herein lies a form of ethics and an escape from a conventional, patriarchal notion of the self. I discuss this with Julia Kristeva’s theories on how subjectivity changes when it becomes poetic and Jessica Benjamin’s Winnicott-influenced theory of how play can offer a way out from patriarchy’s strict gender roles. The shiftings of irony in Atterbom’s work show a development from the satirical subject, where an aggressive form of self-assertion conceals a lack of individuality – via tragedy’s painstaking efforts to integrate repressed aspects of the self – to the idyll’s more harmonious subject, who has the capacity to laugh at him/herself and see both the grotesque in the holy, and the holy in the grotesque.

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