The Actuality of the Age of Goethe

I study German literature and culture from around 1800, the so-called Age of Goethe. Within this field, I have focused intensively on the works of the playwright Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811). The reason for this is that I was struck by the depictions of war and natural disasters in Kleist's works. However, when Kleist depicts death and destruction, he is simultaneously conscious of political and legal issues that remain important today, such as the following.

Although many people take the existence of the "state" and the "nation" for granted, it is impossible to grasp these entities empirically (that is, by seeing or touching them). The "entire state" or the "entire nation" can only exist as an image, which is why representational media such as symbols and metaphors are indispensable when thinking about such entities. The national flag or the king's body are examples of this, representing the entire state or nation that does not actually exist in a tangible sense. Only in this way can people who see these symbols imagine the existence of the state or the nation. However, these images are of no use in moments when survival is directly threatened by war or earthquakes. Only physical violence is useful then, and it seems that Kleist believed it is precisely in such moments that the state reveals its true nature.

If a group of people is collectively referred to by a name such as "nation" or "ethnic group," it is because they are thought to share some common characteristics. For example, in a racialist view of the state, those who share the same blood are considered compatriots, while others are excluded as enemies; it is only through this distinction that the idea of a racially pure state can be established. In fact, it can be argued that the state is unified precisely because the enemy is excluded, which would mean that the enemy is even constitutive of the state. It goes without saying that the problem of distinguishing between friend and enemy comes to the forefront in war.

Europe around 1800 was, so to speak, a transitional period, an era when the old order and ways of thinking were shifting to modern ones. Many concepts that came to be emphasized during this time continue to define our modern way of thinking, such as human rights. However, this concept, which has become self-evident in modern Japan, was completely new to the people of that time. They were therefore forced to think through things like freedom and rights from the ground up. Kleist was one of those people, as was Goethe. Therefore, reading the contemporary texts that record these considerations gives us, as modern people, an opportunity to thoroughly re-examine our own ways of thinking.