Premium
Betrayed Rebels in German Literature: Büchner, Toller, and Koestler
Author(s) -
Hoelzel Alfred
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1979.tb00542.x
Subject(s) - conscience , politics , german , humanism , philosophy , psychoanalysis , phrase , literature , law , theology , psychology , epistemology , political science , art , linguistics
Georg Büchner's Dantons Tod (1835), Ernst Toller's Masse‐Mensch (1920), and Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon (1941), works by political dissenters about revolution, portray a moderate rebel's victimization by extremist colleagues. Büchner's Danton, less politician than conscience‐ridden intellectual, suffers profound disillusionment from which he seeks escape in death. Toller's Woman too undergoes a crisis of conscience and doubt but emerges with her ideals intact and regards death as a private expiation of guilt. Koestler's Rubashov, plagued by conscience and incapable of self‐deception, discovers the “grammatical fiction,” i.e. his renascent ego, and also accepts death as penance. Their colleagues having subverted the humanistic aims of revolution, these rebels confront the “grässliche Fatalismus der Geschichte” (Büchner's phrase) to learn through awareness of personal guilt that paradox, contradictions, and agonizing alternatives pave the path of radical politics. Despite important differences in polemical thrust, all three works show that man's suffering transcends politics.