Der gescheiterte Lebensplan

Summary

The conventional view of Lenz as a person who failed in an exemplary way does only make sense if you measure his life and works not — as older literary criticism did — by the yardstick of Goethe’s classical succeeding, but by Lenz’ own demands. The analysis of his letters shows that he failed because of the for him insoluble conflict of detaching himself from his father. Externally, he tore himself away from his father’s authority by breaking off his divinity study at Königsberg in the spring of 1771 to become a freelance writer instead of a parson. On the other hand, however, internally he remained bound to the father who had been elevated to a god-imago. Thus, his secret plan for life was not the irrevocable break with his father, but the attempt to reconcile him quasi in retrospect through a successful career as an acknowledged and famous poet, thus vindicating the legitimacy of his own way of life. This double-bind is what caused Lenz’ failure, as the literary renown he craved did not materialise; it could not materialise anyway, however, because he turned his works into the medium for articulating the conflicts arising from his detachment, his works serving this purpose less through their action, more through their aporetic structure.