JEAN PAULS KONZEPT DER EMPFINDBILDER UND DER KOMET

This article examines the theoretical and literary works by Jean Paul in which he develops his conception of the ‘Empfindbild’ (emotive image), and it situates these works in the broad context of his reflections about body and mind, the conscious and the unconscious. ‘Empfindbilder’ are not after‐images determined by an archetype, and they differ from ‘Vorstellbilder’ (mental images), the latter being less lifelike and vivid. Dreams bear the closest relationship to ‘Empfindbilder’. These ideas are especially interesting to Jean Paul as a writer, because what ‘Empfindbilder’ can accomplish is exactly what poets want to achieve – yet ultimately cannot: ‘presenting’ events and persons in front of the inner eye. Various figures from the novel Der Komet – Raphael, Kain, Peter Worble, and the protagonist Nikolaus Marggraf himself – can be regarded as personifications of both the utopian and the problematic, indeed paradoxical aspects of the concept ‘Empfindbild’, as viewed from the perspective of the literary writer.